E VOLUTION OF U.S. C OUNTERTERRORISM P OLICY
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E VOLUTION OF U.S. C OUNTERTERRORISM P OLICY
PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Board Cochairs Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (U.S.A.) Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews (U.K.) Members Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (U.S.A.) Th´er`ese Delpech, Director of Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission, and Senior Research Fellow, CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques), Paris (France) Sir Michael Howard, former Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regis Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University (U.K.) Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army (U.S.A.) Paul M. Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University (U.S.A.) Robert J. O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls College, Oxford University (Australia) Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland (U.S.A.) Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International (U.S.A.)
E VOLUTION OF U.S. C OUNTERTERRORISM P OLICY VOLUME 1
Edited by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft Foreword by Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evolution of U.S. counterterrorism policy / compiled by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-275-99529-4 (set : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-275-99531-7 (vol 1 : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-275-99533-1 (vol 2 : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-313-34692-7 (vol 3 : alk. paper) 1. Terrorism—United States—History. 2. Terrorism—Prevention— United States—History. 3. Terrorism—Prevention—Government policy— United States—History. 4. Civil defense—United States. 5. National security—United States. I. Title: Evolution of United States counterterrorism policy. II. Alexander, Yonah. III. Kraft, Michael, 1937– HV6432.E86 2008 363.3250 170973—dc22 2007028388 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. C 2008 by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft Copyright
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007028388 ISBN: 978-0-275-99529-4 (set) 978-0-275-99531-7 (vol. 1) 978-0-275-99533-1 (vol. 2) 978-0-313-34692-7 (vol. 3) First published in 2008 Praeger Security International, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Volume 1 Contents Foreword by Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Yonah Alexander 1.
Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Laws, Policies, and Programs Michael B. Kraft
xv xvii xix xxi 1
PART ONE: U.S. POLICY PRE–SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
45
2.
The White House
47
President Richard M. Nixon
47
President Richard M. Nixon, Memorandum Establishing a Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, September 25, 1972
47
President Richard M. Nixon, Statement About Action to Combat Terrorism, September 27, 1972
48
President James Earl Carter
49
President James Earl Carter, Remarks at the 13th Constitutional Convention of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, November 15, 1979
49
President James Earl Carter, State of the Union Address, 1980
52
President James Earl Carter, State of the Union Address to Congress, January 16, 1981
54
President Ronald Reagan
55
President Ronald Reagan, Statement on Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan, December 27, 1981
55
President Ronald Reagan, Transcripts of an Interview with US News & World Report, On Foreign Government-Sponsored Terrorism, December 15, 1983
56
vi
Contents Larry M. Speakes, Principal Deputy Press Secretary, ‘‘International Terrorism,’’ April 17, 1984
56
President Ronald Reagan, Message to the Congress, International Terrorism Legislation, April 26, 1984
57
President Ronald Reagan, ‘‘The Hijacking of TWA Flight 847: ‘America Will Never Make Concessions to Terrorists’,’’ June 18, 1985
61
President Ronald Reagan, ‘‘The ‘Terrorist Menace’,’’ Address Before the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985
62
President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Terrorism, May 31, 1986
67
President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy, November 13, 1986
68
President George H.W. Bush
71
President George H.W. Bush, Remarks to the United Nations Security Council, New York, New York, January 31, 1992
71
President George H.W. Bush, Remarks to the American Legion National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, August 25, 1992
72
President William Jefferson Clinton
74
President William Jefferson Clinton, Radio Address on Terrorism from G-7 Summit Meeting, June 29, 1996
74
President William Jefferson Clinton, ‘‘American Security in a Changing World,’’ Remarks at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., August 5, 1996
76
President William Jefferson Clinton, Address to the Nation on Military Action Against Terrorist Sites in Afghanistan and Sudan, August 20, 1998
79
President William Jefferson Clinton, Remarks to the Opening Session of the 53rd United Nations General Assembly United Nations, New York, New York, September 21, 1998
81
President William Jefferson Clinton, Remarks at the Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing 10th Anniversary Observance, Arlington, Virginia, December 21, 1998
84
President William Jefferson Clinton, ‘‘On Keeping America Secure for the 21st Century,’’ Remarks to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., January 22, 1999
86
President George W. Bush
89
President George W. Bush, Remarks to Troops and Personnel, Norfolk Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia, February 13, 2001
89
President George W. Bush, Remarks to Central Intelligence Employees, Langley, Virginia, March 20, 2001
90
Contents
3.
vii
President George W. Bush, Statement on Domestic Preparedness Against Weapons of Mass Destruction, May 8, 2001
90
President George W. Bush, Joint Press Conference with President Jose Maria Aznar, Moncloa Palace, Madrid, Spain, June 12, 2001
91
President George W. Bush, Remarks by the President and the Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon During a Photo Opportunity at the Oval Office, June 26, 2001
91
Department of State and Department of Defense
93
Secretary of State George P. Shultz
93
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, ‘‘Power and Diplomacy in the 1980s,’’ Statement Before the Trilateral Commission, Washington, D.C., April 3, 1984
93
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, ‘‘Terrorism: The Challenge to the Democracies,’’ United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, June 24, 1984
101
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Remarks at the Luncheon in Honor of The Gulf Cooperation Council, U.N. Plaza Hotel, New York, New York, October 1, 1985
104
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, ‘‘The Struggle Against Terrorism,’’ Before the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, On the Occasion of Receiving the Joseph Prize for Human Rights, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 1988
105
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger
113
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, ‘‘The Use of Military Power,’’ Remarks to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., November 1984
113
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Conference on Low-Intensity Warfare, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., January 14, 1986
120
Secretary of State James Baker
127
Secretary of State James Baker, Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., February 1, 1990
127
Secretary of State Warren Christopher
128
Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Address to the 50th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, New York, September 25, 1995
128
Secretary of State Warren Christopher, ‘‘Fighting Terrorism: Challenges for the Peacemakers,’’ Address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Annual Soref Symposium, May 21, 1996
130
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4.
Contents Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
133
Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright, Remarks on Designation of Terrorist Organizations, Washington, D.C., October 8, 1997
133
Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright, Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, Washington, D.C., February 4, 1999
134
Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright, Written Statement Submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs, Fiscal Year 2001 Budget Request for Foreign Operations, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2000
139
Undersecretary of State Timothy E. Wirth
140
Undersecretary of State Timothy E. Wirth, Counselor of the Department of State, Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations, and Human Rights, March 1, 1994
140
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
144
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony at the Budget Hearing Before the Senate Budget Committee, 2002 International Affairs Budget, Washington, D.C., March 14, 2001
144
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony on Counterterrorism Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., May 8, 2001
146
Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism
151
Ambassador Robert B. Oakley
151
Ambassador Robert B. Oakley, Director, Office for Counterterrorism and Emergency Planning, ‘‘International Terrorism: Current Trends and the U.S. Response,’’ Before the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and on the Judiciary, May 15, 1985
151
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III
164
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Practical Measures for Dealing with Terrorism,’’ Address Before the Discover Conference on Terrorism in a Technological World, Washington, D.C., January 22, 1987
164
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Terrorism and the Rule of Law,’’ Address Before the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, California, April 23, 1987
169
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Counterterrorism: Strategy and Tactics,’’ Address Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, Tampa, Florida, November 4, 1987
176
Contents
5.
ix
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Countering Terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s,’’ Address Before the George Washington University Conference on Terrorism, Washington, D.C., November 22, 1988
182
Ambassador Morris D. Busby
188
Ambassador Morris D. Busby, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Counter-Terrorism in the 1990s,’’ Address to the International Seminar on Maritime and Port Security, Miami, Florida, January 3, 1990
188
Ambassador Morris D. Busby, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to House Public Works and Transportation Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, April 18, 1991
195
Ambassador Thomas E. McNamara
199
Ambassador Thomas E. McNamara, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations, and Human Rights, Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 12, 1993
199
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr.
203
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to the House Committee on International Relations, June 29, 1995
203
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks Before the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, Denver, Colorado, September 12, 1996
207
Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan
211
Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., June 15, 2000
211
Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Drugs, Terrorism, and Crime,’’ Statement Before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, December 13, 2000
216
Attorney General Janet Reno
221
Attorney General Janet Reno, Department of Justice Press Briefing, Fiscal Year 1997 Budget, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1996
221
Attorney General Janet Reno, Statement at the Ministerial Meeting on Terrorism, Paris, France, July 30, 1996
222
Attorney General Janet Reno, Address to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Conference on ‘‘Shaping the Future,’’ Arlington, Virginia, June 12, 1998
223
Attorney General Janet Reno, Statement Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Concerning Justice Department Oversight, May 5, 1999
225
x
6.
Contents Attorney General Janet Reno, Statement Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, February 29, 2000
226
The Intelligence Community
229
Central Intelligence Agency
229
Director William Casey, Central Intelligence Agency, ‘‘The Practice of International Terrorism Has to be Resisted by All Legal Means,’’ Address Before the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 17, 1985
229
Director James Woolsey, Central Intelligence Agency, ‘‘Terrorism in America,’’ Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., April 21, 1993
233
Federal Bureau of Investigation
236
Director Louis J. Freeh, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prepared Statement Before the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, March 12, 1997
236
PART TWO: U.S. POLICY POST–SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
245
7.
President George W. Bush
247
President George W. Bush, Statement to the Nation, September 11, 2001
247
President George W. Bush, Remarks During Photo Opportunity with the National Security Team, The Cabinet Room, September 12, 2001
248
President George W. Bush, Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, The National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2001
249
President George W. Bush, ‘‘Islam Is Peace,’’ Remarks at Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C., September 17, 2001
250
President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, Washington, D.C., September 20, 2001
251
President George W. Bush, Q&A on Afghanistan During Photo Opportunity with King Abdullah of Jordan, The Oval Office, September 28, 2001
256
President George W. Bush, Meeting with Congressional Leaders, The Oval Office, October 2, 2001
257
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on Afghanistan, October 6, 2001
258
President George W. Bush, Address Announcing Military Strikes Against the Taliban, October 7, 2001
259
Contents
xi
President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia, November 8, 2001
260
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Washington, D.C., January 29, 2002
263
President George W. Bush, Graduation Speech at West Point, Remarks at 2002 Graduation at Exercise of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, June 1, 2002
266
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003
268
President George W. Bush, Address at the FBI on New Terrorist Threat Integration Center, February 14, 2003
273
President George W. Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended, Remarks from the USS Abraham Lincoln, At Sea Off the Coast of San Diego, California, May 1, 2003
275
President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on the War on Terror, The White House, Washington, D.C., September 7, 2003
278
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004
281
President George W. Bush Discusses America’s Leadership in the Global War on Terror, Remarks at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center, Roswell, New Mexico, January 22, 2004
283
President George W. Bush, Terrorism-Related Remarks from the 2004 Bush Administration Campaign Speech, St. Cloud, Minnesota, September 16, 2004
285
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives, The United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., February 2, 2005
287
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., March 8, 2005
289
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, James S. Brady Briefing Room, March 16, 2005
293
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at Fort Hood, Fort Hood, Texas, April 12, 2005
296
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at the Naval Academy Commencement, Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Annapolis, Maryland, May 27, 2005
298
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The Rose Garden, May 31, 2005 300 President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on Iraq and the War on Terror, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, June 28, 2005
301
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at the FBI Academy, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, July 11, 2005
304
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, Military Officers Association, Washington, D.C., September 5, 2006
307
xii
8.
Contents President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at the National Endowment for Democracy, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C., October 6, 2005
310
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, Chicago, Illinois, May 22, 2006
314
President George W. Bush, Commencement Address at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, May 27, 2006
317
President George W. Bush Meets with Supporters of the U.S. Military in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Roosevelt Room, June 26, 2006
319
President George W. Bush Discusses Foreign Policy During a Visit to the State Department, Washington, D.C., August 14, 2006
321
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, White House Conference Center Briefing Room, August 21, 2006
324
President George W. Bush Discusses Progress in the Global War on Terror, Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta, Georgia, September 7, 2006
328
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, Reserve Officers Association, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2006
333
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on the National Intelligence Estimate and Iraq, September 30, 2006
338
President George W. Bush, Meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, The White House, December 7, 2006
339
President George W. Bush, Interview, The Washington Post, December 20, 2006
345
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, Indian Treaty Room, December 20, 2006
349
Vice President Richard B. Cheney
357
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at the United States Naval Academy Commencement, Annapolis, Maryland, May 24, 2002
357
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention, Nashville, Tennessee, August 26, 2002
359
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks and Q&A at a Town Hall Meeting, John Q. Hammons Convention Center, Joplin, Missouri, August 11, 2004
364
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks and Q&A at a Town Hall Meeting, Radisson Quad City Plaza, Davenport, Iowa, August 24, 2004 367 Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks on Iraq and the War on Terrorism, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., November 22, 2005 369 Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks on Iraq and the War on Terror, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., January 4, 2006
373
Contents
xiii
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 2006 Policy Conference, Washington D.C., March 7, 2006
375
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at a Rally for Expeditionary Strike Group One, The USS Bonhomme Richard, San Diego, California, May 23, 2006
378
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Commencement Address at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, May 26, 2006
379
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks and Q&A at the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize Luncheon, The National Press Club, Washington, D.C., June 19, 2006
382
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by John King, CNN, The Vice President’s Residence, June 26, 2006
384
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention, Reno, Nevada, August 28, 2006
388
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Satellite Interview by WFLA-TV, 9th Congressional District Open Seat Candidate Gus Bilirakis, Tampa, Florida, October 19, 2006
389
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by Scott Hennen, WDAY, at Radio Day, The Vice President’s Office, The White House, October 24, 2006
391
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at the Federalist Society’s National Convention, The Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2006
392
9. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
397
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., March 6, 2002
397
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Report, Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, Washington, D.C., April 24, 2002
400
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Speech to the United Nations Security Council on Iraq WMD, New York, New York, February 5, 2003
408
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony Before the Senate Budget Committee, Washington, D.C., February 11, 2003
426
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., February 11, 2004
428
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Interview with Barry Schweid and George Gedda of the Associated Press, September 10, 2004
432
Foreword Counterterrorism is a discipline propelled by events that have not yet happened. It involves speculating on possible threats, undertaking measures to prevent them, fortifying our defenses, and bolstering our capability to respond to and recover from an attack. In short, counterterrorism practitioners try to predict the future and then attempt to change it. But to do so, looking back is just as important as looking forward. Particularly now, when counterterrorism efforts have been so greatly expanded and so frequently misguided, an evaluation of our own practices is crucial. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy, the exhaustive collection that follows, is an invaluable tool in crafting the most effective strategies for preventing future terrorist attacks and protecting Americans. Throughout my career in counterterrorism, I have always held that analyzing past terrorist attacks and plots is one of the most effective ways to assess future threats. Case studies of attacks by groups like al Qaeda reveal their modus operandi, methodology, and capability—vital indicators of what their future ambitions may be. And just as there is no greater lens into the intent of terrorists than their history, our own counterterrorism track record holds invaluable insights into what does and does not work. Only through a thorough selfassessment of our past efforts to stop terrorism can we divine the most effective policies going forward. This book lays the foundation for that assessment. The laws, policies, and speeches collected in Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy catalog the scope of American counterterrorism initiatives for the past three decades. These documents are raw history—the artifacts of our ongoing struggle against terrorism. For many Americans, it is a fight that began in September of 2001. But as these volumes show, the genesis came long before. Beginning in the early 1970s, we see the first real recognition of the terrorist threat by America’s national security establishment, then preoccupied by traditional interstate conflict and counterinsurgency. The growing frequency and urgency of the policies that follow in the next three decades reflect the increasing focus on terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s up to the post-9/11 era, when it became the driving force behind America’s national security policy. But it is not only our own history contained here. By telling the story of our historical fight against terrorism, our counterterrorism policies present a perspective on the evolution of terrorism itself. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy begins with a 1972 speech by President Nixon broadly addressing the terrorist threat and then proposes legislative prescriptions outlining
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Foreword
specific, even arcane, counterterrorism tools. The increasing complexity of the policies reveals an adaptation to an evolving and ever more dangerous enemy. Terrorism is both provoked and sustained by development, technological progress, and globalization. As the world becomes smaller, the ability of the terrorist to communicate, travel, raise and transfer money, and obtain or develop weaponry is enhanced. This has extended the global reach of terrorist groups and magnified their lethality. As terrorists became more cunning, more mobile, and more dangerous, the means used to fight them followed suit. The reader will discern obvious patterns in the intensity of U.S. counterterrorism initiatives. The documents presented here demonstrate only sporadic, reactive attention to terrorism before 9/11. Those of us who devoted our careers to counterterrorism watched in frustration as the institutional focus of the U.S. government locked onto terrorism in the weeks and months following an attack, but inevitably faded as time passed. In this sense, this collection also offers a view of the pre-9/11 world, during which time terrorism occasionally emerged as a foreign policy headache but would reliably return to the back burner, second to the more traditional challenges posed by the Soviet Union or China. This book also archives the work of those individuals within the federal government whose focus on counterterrorism never wavered. In doing so, these documents will answer questions on the minds of Americans who rightly wonder what their government was doing to protect them against terrorism in the pre-9/11 era. Though terrorism was never the national priority it should have been, there were dedicated public servants who did everything they could to prevent attacks. The policies contained in these pages are a testament to those who strove to stop terrorist groups despite bureaucratic hurdles and, when they failed, worked relentlessly to refine their policies to prevent future attacks. Terrorism is a conflict that will be with us for decades to come. If we are to fight terrorism effectively, we must engage in constant, rigorous analysis—not only of terrorist groups, but also of our own efforts to fight them. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy will be the cornerstone of that effort. In an age in which counterterrorism demands so much of our attention and resources, this book is especially important. Since 9/11, there has been an unprecedented expansion of counterterrorism initiatives, many of which have been a waste of valuable time and money. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy is a monumental first step toward righting those well-intended but ultimately ineffective policies. We will continue to struggle against terrorist groups, and they will succeed in attacking us again. I am confident, however, that this tremendous resource will go a long way toward ensuring that, over time, our counterterrorism efforts will become effective enough that they are no longer needed. Ambassador (Ret.) Michael A. Sheehan New York City October 2007 MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN served as coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department from 1998 to 2000, with the rank of ambassador. He later became assistant secretary for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations and served as deputy commissioner for counterterrorism in the New York City Police Department. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the New York University Center for Law and Security and has also taught at the U.S. Military Academy’s Center for Counterterrorism at West Point.
Preface The speeches, statements, and testimony contained in these three volumes provide an overview of publicly enunciated U.S. government counterterrorism policies, analysis, and programs. These selections contain many documents that have been collected over the years by the editors and are no longer readily available. They predate the Internet and postings on various Web sites and, as a result, were only slightly edited. Where URLs are available for documents, they are included at the end of the items. These documents were, at times, heavily excerpted to eliminate duplicative or irrelevant sections. In many cases, terrorism-related comments were only part of much broader speeches. In other instances, such as speeches, somewhat duplicative phrases were left in where their inclusion provide richer context or include slight changes in terminology. The links provided were those available at the time this manuscript went to press and it is possible that some URLs are no longer accessible. This compilation is by no means all inclusive—the massive volume of terrorism-related statements, especially since the transformative events of the September 11 attacks and the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, prohibits the inclusion of all available documents. Every effort was made, however, to include the most useful statements, speeches, and testimony for both the general reader and as a resource for researchers. The time period covered in the various chapters extends from the Nixon administration to the end of 2006. Because of space limitations, with a few exceptions, we did not include material from daily press briefings by the State Department and other agencies but instead focused on formal testimony and speeches, which usually were precleared and vetted through the Office of Management and Budget’s clearance process. For the same reason, the full texts of useful documents such as Executive Orders were not included; however, their titles and URLs are listed in the Key Documents (chapter 27). Our intent is to provide leads and references for readers who are interested in more detailed research. We note that because of the relationship between the subject matter in various chapters, it is useful to read these chapters together. For example, the chapters covering President George W. Bush (chapter 7) and Vice President
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Richard B. Cheney (chapter 8) include material related to the Iraq chapter (chapter 19). The Threats chapter (chapter 17) should be read alongside both the Intelligence chapter (chapter 18) and the statements by the various Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism (chapter 11). The Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Financial chapters (chapters 20–22) also are interrelated. We hope these documents will further the understanding of the development of U.S. counterterrorism policies and provide a context for understanding the crucial terrorism problems facing the United States and other countries.
Acknowledgments Work on these three volumes began in 1991 in recognition of the reality that many governments and writers have failed to appreciate the magnitude and implications of the contemporary terrorist threat. Some countries have regarded terrorism as a minor nuisance or irritant and therefore have not developed a strong commitment to dealing effectively with the challenge. However, the United States, beginning with the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, has understood the true vulnerability of modern society to current and future terrorist threats and has accordingly sought to develop credible responses and capabilities to reduce the dangers posed by both state and nonstate actors utilizing terrorist tactics. The editors, therefore, recognized a need to provide a resource that illustrates the evolution of official U.S. government policies and actions within this important field of growing public concern. The aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks only served to reinforce this pressing mission. Research on this project was initially conducted from 1991 through 2005 by Professor Yonah Alexander and several teams of assistants representing many universities and colleges located both within the United States and abroad. Additional significant research work was undertaken by Michael Kraft upon his retirement from the U.S. State Department’s Counterterrorism Office in 2004 and work at the National Defense University in 2005. The editors acknowledge the contributions of all those who participated in this project over the past 16 years with special emphasis given to those who were involved during the 2005–2007 period. Special gratitude goes to Jack Baber (Alumnus, Rhodes College) for his dedicated and extraordinary efforts in coordinating the massive, 10-month enterprise of preparing the manuscript for publication. Without his professionalism and perseverance throughout, this project could not have been completed in such a timely manner. Most recently, he was assisted by Brett Wallace (Alumnus, George Washington University), Steven Lockfield (Alumnus, London School of Economics and Political Science), Mark Graham (University of New Hampshire), and Michael Atkinson (Cabrini College). Research assistance was provided by the following individuals: Andrew Fulton (Alumnus, Hamilton College), Colin Costello (Georgetown University),
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Acknowledgments
Jack Mountjoy (Whitman College), Alexandra Wald (Vanderbilt University), Zachary Riskind (University of Virginia), Petr Krakora (Norfolk State University), Ian Mulderry-Hoffer (University of Connecticut), Nick Quon (Loyola Marymount University), Robert Daniels (Wake Forest University), Tobias Senzig (University of Trier), Gregory Kruczek (Pennsylvania State University), Ann Koppuzha (Georgetown University), Patricia Rueda (American University), Deandra Perruccio (Assumption College), Michelle Phillips (University of Iowa), and Lauren Kari (Tufts University). Several academic institutions and a number of individuals provided encouragement and support for this project over the years. We are most appreciative of the contributions of Michael S. Swetnam, chairman and chief executive officer of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and Professor Edgar Brenner, co-director of the Inter-University Center for Legal Studies at the International Law Institute. The Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies and George Washington University’s Terrorism Studies Program also assisted in the realization of this project. Finally, several foundation grants also provided support for this publication. We express our appreciation to the many dedicated public servants in the U.S. government, including the legal specialists in the Justice and State Departments, who have labored over the years to cope with the evolving terrorism threat. The editors also express their thanks to their wives, Miriam Alexander and Lisa Kraft, who provided their strong support during the countless hours of work on this endeavor.
Introduction Yonah Alexander The struggle for power—political, social, economic, and strategic—within and among nations has endured the boundaries of time and space. Recorded historical cycles underscore that nothing is static in world affairs. Indeed, as countries and empires rise, decline, and even vanish completely, others are taking their place. Napoleon once asserted that individuals are moved by only two levers–– self-interest and fear. Foreign policy, for instance, is motivated by national interests. Each distinct juridical entity, as well as various ideological and theological groups, determines the nature of what constitutes ‘‘interests.’’ Despite both fundamental or marginal differences regarding its meaning, historical lessons clearly indicate that national interests are essentially based on the popular notion that everybody is trying to ‘‘water their own tree,’’ and, as a result, the causes of peace, justice, and progress are not always served. An early glimpse of this stark reality was demonstrated by President George Washington in his ‘‘Farewell Address’’ on September 19, 1796, when he declared, ‘‘‘tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with a portion of the foreign world.’’ It was not, however, until the presidency of John F. Kennedy that contemporary American national interests were most clearly articulated. In his Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961, President Kennedy stated, ‘‘Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.’’ Another significant aspect to consider regarding power politics is the element of fear. ‘‘Nothing is to be feared but fear,’’ Francis Bacon has correctly asserted. Indeed, the most practiced projection of man’s inhumanity to man is
Note: This introduction consists of research work completed on September 30, 2007. The information presented is based on various published and unpublished studies prepared specifically for this project since 1991. Sources utilized are governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental. No classified information is incorporated. First, Yonah Alexander, ed., Terrorism: An International Resource File (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan 1986–91), 8 vols. Second, Yonah Alexander and Donald J. Musch, eds., Terrorism: Documents of International and Local Control (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1990–2002), vols. 16–35.
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the spread of fear through the employment of terror in violation of law. This strategy and tactic—constituting random and systematic intimidation, coercion, repression, or destruction of individuals, communities, and nations—has been utilized by both the strong and the weak from time immemorial. This tool of power, in all its manifold manifestations, has been utilized to achieve realistic or imaginary objectives, ranging from preserving internal oppression to defeating adversaries through propaganda and violence. It is no wonder that Tacitus asserted that ‘‘even the bravest are frightened by sudden terrors’’ and that Mao Tse-Tung, in his classic On Guerrilla Warfare (1973) contended that ‘‘political power emanates from the barrel of a gun.’’ Thus, throughout human history, fear and brute force employed in the name of ‘‘higher’’ rationalizations and justifications have traditionally been commonplace. Among the numerous precedents frequently highlighted are the assassinations by the Muslim radical Hashasheen of their co-religionists opponents and Christian ‘‘infidels’’ in the Middle East between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries; the Spanish Inquisition’s frequent resort to violence in its effort to ‘‘protect’’ Catholicism during the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the ‘‘Reign of Terror’’ of the French Revolution in the eighteenth century; the illegal underground operations of Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) in Czarist Russia in the nineteenth century; and the unprecedented tyranny and brutality of Soviet, Fascist, and Nazi regimes during the last century.1 Since terrorism is a cheap, attractive, and effective instrument of fear, it has been repeatedly employed by a variety of groups and even nations in the post– World War II era. Currently, it is becoming a permanent fixture of international life, threatening every nation, large and small, including the United States, the only remaining superpower, with its unmatched economic and military capabilities. Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have utilized tactics of propaganda and violence on an unprecedented scale, with serious implications for national, regional, and global security. Specifically, modern terrorism is characterized by an ideological and theological fanaticism, based on hatred toward one’s perceived enemy, which has been coupled with rapid technological advancements in communications (for example, the Internet), transportation (for example, modern international air travel), as well as conventional and unconventional weaponry to create a truly lethal threat. Indeed, this threat has become much more decentralized, as it now emanates not only from established terrorist organizations, but from individuals with the motives, means, and opportunity to visit harm upon civil society. As a result of these developments, modern terrorism presents a multitude of threats to the safety, welfare, and civil rights of ordinary people; the stability of the state system; the health of national and international economic systems; and the expansion of democracies. What is of particular concern is the likelihood that highly motivated terrorists would resort to employ weapons of mass death and destruction potential. Already in the 1970s, Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned of this development:
1
For some historical perspectives, see, for example, Walter Laqueur and Yonah Alexander, eds., The Terrorism Reader, Rev. Edition (New York: NAL Penguin Inc., 1987).
Indeed modern terrorism with sophisticated technological means at its disposal and the future possibility of access to nuclear weapons, presents a clear and present danger to the very existence of civilization itself.2
More recently, former Senator Sam Nunn, currently the co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, in discussing catastrophic terrorism asserted: In my view the threat of terrorism with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction present the gravest danger to our nation and the world. We know that al Qaeda is seeking nuclear weapons. We don’t know how many other groups also have similar ambitions. We know that nuclear material al Qaeda desires is housed in many poorly structured sites around the globe. We believe that if they get that material, they can build a nuclear weapon. We believe that if they build a nuclear weapon, they will use it.3
Senator Nunn further explained: I am not sure we fully grasp the devastating, world changing impact of a nuclear attack. If a 10 kiloton nuclear device goes off in mid-town Manhattan on a typical work week, it could kill more than half a million people. Ten kilotons, a plausible yield for a terrorist bomb, has the power of 10,000 tons of TNT. To haul that volume of explosives you would need a cargo train one hundred cars long. But if it were a nuclear bomb, it could fit into the back of a truck. Beyond the immediate deaths and the lives would be shortened by radioactive fallout—the casualty list would also include an erosion of civil liberties, privacy, and the world economy. So American citizens have every reason to ask, ‘‘Are we doing all we can to prevent a nuclear attack?’’ The simple answer is ‘‘no, we are not.’’4
And according to the latest annual report by Harvard University’s project on Managing the Atom and the Nuclear Threat Initiative titled ‘‘Securing the
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(2) disagreements regarding contributing factors that encourage terrorism such as political, social, and economic; (3) some state tolerance, appeasement, support, and even sponsorship of terrorism; and (4) the existence of a regional and global network and infrastructure of nonstate actors, providing, among other things, inspiration, financial support, training, weapons supplies, document forging, safe houses, and operational direction and coordination. It is amply evident that the major terrorist challenges that have faced nation-states in the post–World War II period consisted of three ‘‘long battles or wars.’’ The first was the four-decade Cold War, during which time the Soviet Union employed terrorism via proxy client and cooperative states, including Bulgaria, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, and North Korea. In turn, these states directly supported nations such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Iran that openly sponsored specific terrorist organizations with financing weapons, training, and operational assistance. Thus, the former Soviet Union was able to reap the geopolitical benefits of terrorist actions from a distance. Indeed, the Soviet Union, in pursuing its own global political and strategic objectives, deftly exploited the popular notions of ‘‘liberation struggle’’ and a ‘‘war of national liberation’’ to justify its direct and indirect support of both allies and like-minded states as well as numerous left-wing and revolutionary movements throughout the world. That ‘‘long war’’ ended when the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991.6 The second ‘‘long war,’’ which continues today, began on November 4, 1979, when Iranian militants, with the support Ayatollah Khomeini’s government, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking some 50 American diplomats hostage. After 444 days in captivity, the hostages were released in January 1981 immediately after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, succeeding the Carter administration.7 Later, in the early 1980s after Americans were taken hostage in Lebanon, Reagan’s top aides initiated the Iran-Contra ‘‘arms-for-hostages’’ deal, in which America sold arms to Tehran to persuade Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah (Party of God) terrorists to release the American hostages. These hostages were taken by Hezbollah in an effort to force the United States and other Western countries to pressure Kuwait to release two Lebanese militants who were among the 17 terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait for the December 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait City as well as the failed attacks on a Kuwaiti oil refinery facility and the Kuwait International Airport control tower. The attacks were conducted by the Iranian-backed Islamic Da’wa party as a result of Kuwait’s support of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.
6 For details see, for example, Ray S. Cline and Yonah Alexander, Terrorism: The Soviet Connection (New York: Crowe Russak, 1984). One of the most dramatic terrorist plots during the Cold War was the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981. Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman, accused Sergei Antonov, a representative in Rome of Bulgaria’s owned airline, as an accomplice working for his country’s secret service on behalf of the Kremlin. For recent articles on this case, see The Washington Post, August 2, 2007, and The New York Times, August 3, 2007. 7 For an excellent analysis, see for instance, Gary Sick, October Surprise: America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan (New York: Times Books, 1991).
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Many argue that the U.S. decision to effectively negotiate with Hezbollah via its state sponsor, Iran, in an effort to secure the release of American hostages, combined with the Reagan administration’s withdrawal of the Marine peacekeeping force within months of Lebanese Hezbollah’s 1983 suicide truck bomb attack on the Marine barracks, illustrated U.S. weakness in confronting terrorists. This perception led terrorist groups worldwide to conclude that asymmetrical warfare tactics could be effectively employed against the American superpower and therefore encouraged a global escalation of antiAmerican attacks in the following decades. Even now, some 28 years after the Tehran embassy takeover, Iran is still engaged in this ‘‘long war’’ against the United States.8 In the early 1980s, Iran supported Hezbollah, which attacked American embassies in Lebanon and Kuwait as well as well as the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, killing and wounding hundreds of civilian and military personnel. Iran was implicated in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American servicemen. During the summer of 2007, Iran was identified by U.S. officials as having directly and indirectly supported both Islamic and nationalist terrorist and insurgent groups operating in Iraq against American, Iraqi, and allied forces attempting to regain control amid a vicious insurgency. Tehran provides training and weapons, such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to include a deadly type of IED called an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) capable of disabling heavily armored U.S. military vehicles with deadly effect, as well as other assorted light arms. Indeed, in August 2007, a top U.S. commander asserted that Shiite militia groups that received weapons and training from Iran were responsible for 73 percent of U.S. military casualties in Baghdad in July of that year.9 More ominously, according to the U.S. intelligence community’s consensus, a hasty withdrawal of American troops from Iraq could result in an Iranian intervention in Iraq, either unilaterally or by invitation from Iraqi Shiite factions. In addition, Tehran is supporting terrorism in other regional hotspots. In Afghanistan, Iranian financial support and weapons have been provided to forces affiliated with the Taliban, which has been conducting guerrilla warfare against American and coalition troops present in the country since November 2001 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and the wider, U.S.-led Global War on Terrorism. Also, in Lebanon, Iran, in cooperation with Syria, has long funded and equipped Hezbollah with technologically sophisticated weapons,
8 For recent studies, see, for example, Yonah Alexander and Milton Hoenig, The New Iranian Leadership: Terrorism, Nuclear Ambition, and the Middle East Conflict (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007), and Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt, eds., Deterring the Ayatollahs: Complications in Applying Cold War Strategy to Iran, Policy Focus No. 72 (Washington, DC: Institute for Near East Policy, 2007). 9 Associated Press Baghdad article by Kim Gamel, quoting Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, second in command of U.S. forces, The Washington Times, August 6. 2007, 13, http:// www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID¼/20070806/FOREIGN/108060033/ 1003&template¼printart.
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which enabled the Shiite terrorist movement to launch and sustain a monthlong war against Israel in the summer of 2006. This conflict included the launching of thousands of unguided Katyusha rockets into Israeli territory, causing civilian casualties and temporarily shutting down activity in some northern Israeli towns and villages. Furthermore, Iran continues to support Hamas, a Sunni Islamic radical group now in control of Gaza, as well as other Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank, with financial assistance, weapons supplies, and training, to further its goal of undermining Israel and the Middle East peace process, which the United States and its allies in the region and elsewhere sought to revive in the summer of 2007. The most disturbing and challenging current threat to U.S. security interests—and, indeed, to the security of the Middle East region as a whole—is Tehran’s decision to actively pursue the development of nuclear materials with weaponized applications. Iran’s current activities have focused on the acquisition of fissile materials, such as enriched uranium—a core of any nuclear device. Despite public statements professing its peaceful intentions regarding the production of nuclear materials, the Iranian regime is widely believed to desire a weapons-grade nuclear program. This potentiality, when coupled with its traditional utilization of terrorism as a state instrument, engenders the truly nightmarish possibility (if not probability) that Iran could deploy the ultimate weapon via a terrorist proxy against Israel, a regional Middle Eastern opponent, the United States, or other perceived adversaries.10 A stark reminder of this scenario is highlighted in the recent address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 25, 2007, by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He asserted that his country will not submit to the pressure applied by ‘‘the arrogant powers,’’ led by the United States and other leading nations through the Security Council, attempting to force Tehran to abandon its quest for a nuclear program. Denouncing what Ahmadinejad called the ‘‘master-servant relationship of the Medieval Age,’’ he declared that ‘‘the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed.’’11 Despite Ahmadinejad’s defiance, three days later the U.N. Security Council agreed to consider in November 2007 tighter sanctions against Iran if it fails to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.12 A third form of the ‘‘long war’’ against the United States has already marked its sixteenth anniversary: the ongoing battle initiated by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda (the ‘‘Base’’) terrorist group.13 More specifically, this dangerous contemporary 10
See for instance, Ephraim Kam, ‘‘A Nuclear Iran: What Does It Mean, and What Can Be Done’’ (Tel Aviv, The Institute for National Security Studies, Memorandum No. 88, February 2007). 11 Cited in press reports from the United Nations. See, for example, The Washington Post and The New York Times, September 26, 2007. 12 See, for instance, The Washington Times, September 29, 2007. 13 For a study published prior to 9/11 see Yonah Alexander and Michael S. Swetnam, Usama bin Laden’s al Qaeda: Profile of a Terrorist Network (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, Inc., 2001). Numerous studies were published in the post–September 11 period. See, for example, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam’s War Against America (New York: Random House, 2003), and Laurent Muraweiec, Pandora’s Boxes: The Mind of Jihad, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, 2007).
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Sunni terrorist network and affiliated groups, composed of supporters, cells, and links in some 100 countries, is now responsible for the spread of a radical Salafist ideology of jihad (holy war) to all corners of the world, a development that has gravely affected many nations in addition to the United States.14 The ideology and objectives of al Qaeda are crystal clear. It opposes all nations and institutions governed in a manner inconsistent with bin Laden’s particular extremist interpretation of Islam, and specifically targets countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, to name a few. These militants support the violent overthrow of these countries’ governments because, according to their puritanical Salafist Islamic beliefs, these governments have been corrupted by Western, specifically American, influence and do not adhere to the concept of a ‘‘true’’ Islamic society. Ultimately, al Qaeda’s followers believe that all Muslim state boundaries will disappear, and that the broader umma, or Islamic community, will be united under the rule of the Caliphs governed by Sharia, or Islamic jurisprudence. The evolution of this brutal and costly ideological and physical conflict between al Qaeda and the United States has been shaped by a series of specific events that have particularly influenced American policymakers, both unilaterally and multilaterally, as they have developed new strategies to confront this continually evolving threat. Four specific benchmarks in this intellectual and physical struggle are worth noting: (1) in August 1996, bin Laden issued a Declaration of Jihad against the United States and the Saudi Arabian government; (2) in February 1998, al Qaeda’s founder, along with his senior associate Ayman al-Zawahiri, endorsed a fatwah (religious ruling) stating that Muslims should kill Americans, including civilians, anywhere in the world they can be found; (3) in May 1998, Mohammed Atef (bin Laden’s second in command) sent Khaled al Fawwaz (al Qaeda’s spokesmen) a letter endorsing a fatwah issued by bin Laden and including a declaration by the ‘‘Ulema Union of Afghanistan’’ calling for a Jihad against the United States and its allies; and (4) in late May 1998, bin Laden issued a statement entitled ‘‘The Nuclear Bomb of Islam,’’ in which he stated that it is the duty of Muslims to prepare as many forces as possible to attack the enemies of God. Additionally, a series of spectacular attacks by al Qaeda in both the United States and abroad underscored, more than ever before, America’s vulnerability and the urgent need to overhaul its counterterrorism policies to confront the threat. The first dramatic attack, which was the largest foreign terrorist operation on American soil at the time, occurred on February 26, 1993, when a large truck bomb exploded in the basement parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 8 people, injuring more than 1,000, and causing widespread damage and panic. The attack was perpetrated by a group of foreign terrorists from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and the Palestinian 14
al Qaeda is also known as the ‘‘International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders’’; ‘‘Islamic Salvation Foundation’’; ‘‘Group for the Preservation of the Holy Site’’; and ‘‘Islamic Army of the Liberation of the Holy Places’’. Moreover, al Qaeda is not only a network in the conventional sense, it is also considered to include loosely affiliated groups that may be inspired or supported by the movement leadership but not under the direct command as far as is known.
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Authority. Ramzi Yousef, an al Qaeda operative and Sheik Omar AbdelRahman, the spiritual leader of the Egyptian al-Gama’a al-Islamiya and al-Jihad, with links to bin-Laden, were convicted of carrying out this attack and sentenced to life imprisonment. On October 3–4 of that same year, 18 U.S. servicemen were killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, by local militia men. al Qaeda claimed credit for helping train them to effectively employ rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers against U.S. helicopters operating in the area. Other major al Qaeda–affiliated attacks include the November 13, 1995, car bomb explosion outside the American-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 5 Americans and 2 Indians; the June 25, 1996, car bombing attack with Iranian support at Khobar Towers, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 soldiers and wounding hundreds more; the two virtually simultaneous August 7, 1998, truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 234 people, 12 of them American, and wounding more than 5,0000 others; and the October 12, 2000, suicide bombing of the USS Cole during a refueling stop in Aden, Yemen harbor, which killed 17 and wounded 39 American sailors. It was not, however, until September 11, 2001, that the most heinous demonstration of America’s unprecedented vulnerability to contemporary terrorism occurred. Bin Laden’s ‘‘War in the Shadows’’ hit the American homeland in an attack that what was described by many as a second ‘‘Day of Infamy,’’ causing more casualties than the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Nineteen al Qaeda terrorists on a suicide mission hijacked four U.S. airliners, crashing two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and a third into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, headed toward Washington, D.C., and apparently destined for the U.S. Capitol building or the White House, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers, alerted by cell phone calls about the earlier New York strikes, attacked the hijackers, who then crashed the plane. The human cost of these attacks was 2,974 dead with thousands more injured. Even six years after this most devastating assault on the American homeland, the United States is still facing daily warnings and threats of terrorism from al Qaeda’s leadership. On September 11, 2007, for instance, al Qaeda’s bin Laden, in a new propaganda video, urged sympathizers to join the ‘‘caravan’’ of martyrs as he praised one of the 9/11 suicide attackers, reading his last will.15 The seriousness of this message lies in the growing realization within the U.S. intelligence community that the homeland continues to face a jihadist terrorist threat for many years to come. Clearly, these dangers did not originate on September 11, 2001, as terrorism has challenged the United States to some degree throughout its 231-year history. Terrorism will undoubtedly continue to represent a sporadic, yet relentless, form of fear and violence for at least the remainder of the twentyfirst century. More specifically, while it is expected that homegrown and foreign terrorists will continue to use a wide range of conventional arms (for example, small arms, bombs, and more sophisticated weapons), the arsenal of 15
Reported by NBC News, September 11, 2007.
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tomorrow’s terrorists will most probably include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cyber instruments capable of inflicting mass destruction and death. Terrorists, led by the al Qaeda movement, have shifted their modus operandi from more traditional attacks, such as those conducted by earlier secular groups directed at a relatively limited number of persons—often for specific goals such as releasing imprisoned comrades—to attacks on a massive scale intended to kill or maim as many people as possible. In other words, the technological advances in weaponry and other terrorist instruments, combined with their increasingly lethal intentions and methods, are turning all societies into potential victims of a new and deadly form of ‘‘superterrorism.’’ As such, past notions of perceived immunity from terrorist attack generated by an assumed ideological or geographic distance from the area of a particular terrorist group’s grievances no longer hold true. Indeed, in their eyes, all of civil society has become a legitimate target of terrorist violence. This globalization and brutalization of modern terrorism requires the United States to develop effective strategies to reduce this threat to manageable levels. As such, understanding the context and history of this national policymaking effort can be useful in the effort to counter the evolving terrorism threat. The foregoing overview of the challenges of contemporary terrorism to all societies provides a general context for the following sections dealing with some perspectives in the evolution of U.S. policies and actions. The first section details different terrorist threats to America, focusing on past experience, current challenges, and future prospects. It outlines some perceptions and definitional issues as well as domestic and foreign terrorist threats. The second section presents a survey of selected U.S. policies and actions during the pre– and post–September 11 periods.
TERRORIST CHALLENGES AND THE UNITED STATES: PAST EXPERIENCE, CURRENT THREATS, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS Definitional Considerations No historical period has been immune to the threat of terrorism. The Lasswellian formula, ‘‘who gets what, when and how,’’ often accompanied with the element of the unexpected or unthinkable strike, has characterized the nature of political and ideological violence for millennia. It is understandable, for instance, that Sun Tzu particularly stressed the advantage of a surprise attack against adversaries. He noted: The enemy must not know where I intend to give battle, he must prepare in many places … If he prepares to the front, his rear will be weak, and if to the rear, his front will be fragile. If he prepares to the left, his right will be vulnerable and if to the right, there will be a few on the left. And when he prepares everywhere he will be weak everywhere.
The utility of this strategy and tactic becomes evident both in ancient history and modern times. And yet, despite this record as a symbol, tool, method, or process, terrorism has evaded a universally accepted definition. What
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constitutes ‘‘terrorism’’ was highly controversial throughout the ages. Some have asserted that the validity of their cause, such as resistance to imperial domination or draconian totalitarian regimes, justified the resort to violence, viewing it as an acceptable alternative to the exercise of legitimate power. To others, the use of any form of terrorism, regardless of motivation, is perceived as negative and essentially criminal, outside the realm of what is tolerated, and punishable in accordance with relevant domestic and international law. Moreover, American public consciousness has never completely embraced the true meaning or impact of terrorism as Americans, by and large, have regarded the threat as an irritant that can be effectively managed by the administration in power. Additionally, there have been numerous official disagreements concerning the nature and extent of the threat and what can, and should, be done about it. For instance, before the 9/11 attacks, U.S. government officials did not consider ‘‘terrorism’’ to constitute a major strategic challenge to the survival of the Republic. In fact, semantic, moral, and legal confusion and differences over the precise meaning and implications of ‘‘terrorism’’ have hindered formulation of national coherent policies and actions aimed at preventing, deterring, and decreasing the effectiveness of terrorist acts, or punishing identified terrorists after they have struck. Indeed, the United States, as a pluralistic democracy, spoke with a variety of voices on the definition of ‘‘terrorism.’’ Both state and federal entities have used a range of definitions. More specifically, in the American federal system, each state determines what constitutes an offense under its criminal or penal code. States have therefore defined terrorism generically as a crime, thus sidestepping the need for the use of specific statutes covering selected criminal acts identified as terrorism. For instance, the Arkansas Criminal Code states that ‘‘a person commits the offense of terroristic threatening if with the purpose of terrorizing another person, he threatens to cause death or serious physical injury or substantial property damage to another person.’’16 In general, state laws concerning terrorism appear under nine separate headings, including civil defense (interstate compacts and state emergency management plans), antiterrorism provisions, destructive devices, terrorist threats, enhanced criminal penalties, victim compensation, street terrorism, ecological terrorism, and taxes. Regarding the first category, as an example, the authority of states to enter into interstate compacts of any kind is governed by Article I, Section IV, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires congressional authorization. Similarly, the Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, as amended, authorizes interstate compacts dealing with civil defense against various emergencies, including terrorist attacks. At the federal level, the executive branch, partly as a result of the very nature of its jurisdictional diversities and focus, has not developed a universal coordinated position on the meaning of the term. Since the 1980s, for instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), operating domestically as a law enforcement agency within the Department of Justice, has defined terrorism as ‘‘the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to 16
ARK. Code ANN. J-13-301 (Michie 1997). For a definition of ‘‘a crime that furthers terrorism’’ see, for example, Minn.Stat § 609.714 (2002).
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intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.’’17 Prior to 9/11, the FBI also made a distinction between ‘‘domestic terrorism’’ as perpetrated by a ‘‘group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction’’ and ‘‘international terrorism,’’ involving acts that ‘‘occur outside the United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which the perpetrators operate or seek asylum.’’ The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with jurisdiction over intelligence gathering and espionage activities abroad, asserted in 1980 that ‘‘international terrorism is terrorism conducted with the support of a foreign government or organization and/or directed against federal nationals, institutions, or governments.’’18 Additionally, the Department of Defense, when reporting on the 1983 suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 American marines, emphasized the ‘‘unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a revolutionary organization.’’ The Department of the Army, although adhering to the ‘‘violence’’ theme, added the following: ‘‘Terrorism involves a criminal act that is often symbolic in nature and intended to influence an audience beyond the immediate victims.’’19 It was not until a decade later that the Department of State formally adopted a definition, which is codified in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (d), stating that ‘‘the term ‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.’’ The term ‘‘noncombatant,’’ according to the Department of State, is interpreted to mean, ‘‘in addition to civilians, military personnel (whether on duty or not) who are not deployed in a war zone or a war-like setting.’’ Moreover, ‘‘the term ‘international terrorism’ means terrorism involving citizens of the territory of more than one country’’ and ‘‘the term ‘terrorist group’ means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.’’ These definitions originally were used for the State Department’s annual reports, then called ‘‘Patterns of Global Terrorism,’’ and were formally enacted via the 1998 law that formally mandated these annual reports to Congress.20 In short, American perceptions have gradually evolved from the traditional view of terrorism as a ‘‘crime’’ to a new disposition characterizing it as a new and unprecedented tactical and strategic form of warfare. Clearly, 9/11 provided the U.S. government, and particularly the president, with extensive
17 ‘‘Terrorism in the United States, 3–4’’ (U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC, 1998). 18 ‘‘Pattern of International Terrorism: 1980’’ (National Assessment Center, Washington DC, ii). 19 U.S. Army Regulation 190–52. 20 Section 140 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988/89 [P.L. 100– 204].
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wartime authority to protect the American people. However, in the aftermath of the sixth anniversary of this defining tragedy, the debate continues as to the meaning, legality, and the implications of the war against terrorism. Domestic Perspectives Although the focus of these volumes is the threats of international terrorism and American efforts to develop an effective counterterrorism strategy, it became brutally clear after 9/11 that homeland security cannot be separated from overseas security interest concerns. This section, therefore, provides a general overview of domestic perspectives regarding the nature of the challenge within America itself and some of the governmental responses. More specifically, throughout American history, sporadic outbreaks of terrorism in the homeland have been mounted by domestic and foreign groups. Among the early ‘‘homegrown’’ militants were, for example, the Molly Maguires, a band of militant Irish immigrants, who resorted to vengeance against the anti-Catholic, Scotch, Ulster, Welsh, and English Protestants in Pennsylvania during the 1870s. However, the most notable historical, radical movement employing terrorist tactics is the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Surviving its early beginnings during the post–Civil War period, the KKK has continued its modus operandi of intolerance, hatred, and violence well into contemporary times. Dramatic attacks by the KKK in the United States during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement included the abduction and murder of two white civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, along with their African American colleague, Mississippian James Chaney. Only in 2005, some 41 years later, was Klansman Edgar Ray Killen, the mastermind behind the murders, convicted and sentenced to three consecutive 20-year prison terms. Other historical domestic terrorist groups also failed in achieving their aims. It was not, however, until the turbulent 1960s that a proliferation of radical movements with violent tendencies emerged. The Weather Underground, the New World Liberation Front, the George Jackson Brigade, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Black Liberation Army, and the Black Panther Party were among the most active left-wing groups in the United States during the late 1960s and 1970s. During the same period, ethnic and nationalist groups (for example, the Jewish Defense League, Armenian movements, Puerto Rican Armed Forces of National Liberation, Omega 7-Cuban Nationalist Movement, and the Cuban National Liberation Front) operated within the United States and Puerto Rico. While these domestic U.S. terrorist groups were often less professional and successful than their international counterparts, they succeeded in attacking a variety of targets, including the police, the military, businesses, and others in more than 600 attacks during the 1970s. Additionally, foreign terrorist groups were actively targeting non-Americans victims in the United States during that decade. Some of these groups included the Croatian Group Otpar (Resistance), the Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Black September. During the 1980s, the number of terrorist activities in the United States, both indigenous and foreign, dropped to around 220, and a further decline
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was seen during the 1990s, when only 60 domestic attacks were recorded. These incidents included the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the Jewish Defense League, by El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian follower of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Additionally, individual Middle Eastern gunmen, some acting independently and others with broader terrorist connections, fired on foreign tourists at the Empire State Building in 1997 and at the El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport in 2002. A significant contributing factor in this three-decade long downward trend in attacks was the success of proactive operations by the FBI, which included effective cooperation with other law enforcement agencies in the United States and abroad followed by vigorous criminal prosecutions. The 1990s, however, registered a variety of new groups committed to ideological and political violence. These included reactionary right-wing movements advancing anti-Semitic and white supremacist causes as well as antigovernment and antitax beliefs (for example, the Aryan Nations). Additionally, radical environmentalist movements resorted to violent tactics in pursuit of their goals. Groups such as the Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International Conspiracy (EMETIC) sought to preserve ecological systems by sabotaging perceived despoilers of the environment, and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) has damaged laboratories that use animals in medical research and industry. Mention should be made of several foreign groups and agents who continued sporadic terrorism support activities within the United States during the 1980s, to include fundraising and weapons acquisitions for their colleagues abroad. Examples include activities by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Sikh militants, and Iranian agents. Additionally, other groups supporting Hamas and other Middle Eastern terrorist organizations became more active in the 1990s. Although fear of attacks was widespread during the 1991 Gulf War, no incidents occurred in the United States, perhaps because of the preventive security measures undertaken by the U.S. government and the private sector. These efforts included a reduction of Iraqi diplomatic staff, scrutiny of Iraqi and other nationals suspected of being linked to radical Arab causes, and upgrading security at government and military installations as well as airports and other commercial and industrial sites. Despite the foregoing effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism measures, two devastating attacks in the 1990s dramatically altered American perceptions of the nature of the threat to the homeland. The first spectacular event was the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center (discussed previously). The second attack, labeled the largest act of domestic terrorism in American history, took place on April 19, 1995, and destroyed the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This unprecedented attack, perpetrated by two American terrorists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, claimed 168 lives, including 19 children, and wounded 674 people. The bomb not only destroyed the federal building, but also severely damaged or destroyed more than 25 other structures. Another noteworthy incident unfolded on December 14, 1999, when Ahmed Ressam, a militant linked to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group
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(GIA), affiliated with al Qaeda, living in Montreal, Canada, was arrested as he attempted to cross into the United States at Port Angeles, Washington, with explosives in the trunk of his car. Ressam’s ‘‘millennium plot’’ to attack symbolic targets such as Los Angeles International Airport, as well as other attempted attacks thwarted by Jordanian authorities, triggered alarm bells throughout the U.S. government. In spite of these events, however, some U.S. officials failed to fully comprehend the nature of the threat from abroad, and despite a flurry of terrorism threat reports during the early summer of 2001, it was not until September 11, 2001, that the United States truly realized the full extent of the terrorist challenge to the homeland. Two additional aspects related to homeland security concerns are relevant. First, the threats recorded in the United States involved not only organized terrorist groups but also individuals acting on their own to achieve some sort of ideological and political goal. A case in point was the activities of Theodore John ‘‘Ted’’ Kaczynski, better known as the ‘‘Unabomber.’’ He became infamous in the late 1970s through the early 1990s for having engaged in a campaign of mail bombings to universities and airlines in an effort to ‘‘protect’’ the environment from destruction by technologically advanced modern societies.21 Second, in the post-9/11 period, the security concern in the United States has understandably shifted from domestic to foreign threats to the homeland. It is not surprising, therefore, that on July 17, 2007, a publicly released summary of the National Intelligence Estimate asserted that the United States will face ‘‘a persistent and evolving threat from renewed al Qaeda over the next three years.’’22 Consider, for instance, two recent incidents that underscore the nature of these dangers. On May 7, 2007, six individuals were arrested in New Jersey for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks against the military base at Fort Dix. Less than a month later, a spectacular plot to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City was averted by authorities.23 Threats to U.S. Security Abroad In contrast to the domestic threats the United States has confronted, which have remained relatively few, its citizens and interests abroad have borne the brunt of anti-American ideological and political violence. Indeed, during the past four decades, U.S. government and civilian interests have become major targets of acts of terrorism throughout the world. Many factors contribute to this situation, including the fact that the United States maintains an extensive cultural, political, economic, and military presence abroad and that a considerable number of foreign individuals, groups, and governments oppose American values, policies, and actions. By and large, about one-quarter of international terrorist attacks have been directed against U.S. citizens or interests, mostly during the 1970s 21 See, for example, The Crime Library, http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists-spies/terror ists/kaczynski/1.html. 22 Quoted in HS Today 4, no. 8 (September 2007), 28. 23 Various press reports covered these events. See, for instance, The New York Times, May 8 and June 3, 2007.
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and 1980s. American citizens, officials, diplomats, and military officers have been victimized by both state-sponsored terrorism (for example, Libya, Syria, and Iran) and substate groups, including Marxist-oriented (for example, Germany’s Red Army Faction [RAF]), Islamic radicals (for example, Hezbollah), Palestinian nationalist (for example, Abu Nidal Organization [ANO], and ideological (for example, Japanese Red Army [JRA]) organizations. The 1980s attacks by Hezbollah against the U.S. embassy and Marine base in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as the U.S. embassy in Kuwait City, Kuwait, have already been noted. In addition, there have been kidnappings, assassinations, and other attacks on Americans in Lebanon, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, West Germany, and the Philippines. Terrorists have hijacked both American and foreign airliners, killing and wounding many in the process. The most dramatic incident during this decade was the 1988 destruction of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, utilizing plastic explosives concealed in a radio by Libyan agents. A total of 271 people, mostly U.S. citizens, died on the aircraft and on the ground. It was not until 18 years later, in 2006, that the U.S. government rescinded Libya’s designation as a state-sponsor of terrorism and resumed full diplomatic relations with Tripoli after it agreed to financially compensate the victims’ families of the Lockerbie attack, relinquish its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, and give assurances it would not engage in future acts of international terrorism and cooperate with the United States in its international counterterrorism efforts. The 1990s also recorded numerous attacks against American targets abroad. As a result of Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in 1991, U.S. officials detected low-level targeting of U.S. citizens, including business people, diplomats, and military personnel throughout the world. An explosive device was discovered on the grounds of the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Jakarta, Indonesia, and two Iraqis were later apprehended when a bomb they were carrying detonated prematurely as they made their way to the U.S. Information Agency Library in Manila, Philippines. The overall number of attacks was apparently reduced because, in a little-known campaign, the U.S. State Department led an effort to encourage other governments to deport or otherwise thwart the activities of an estimated 200 Iraqi ‘‘diplomats’’ around the world. It was the emergence of al Qaeda, however, that dramatically affected American interests abroad. The October 12, 2000, suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, was the last major attack perpetrated by al Qaeda in the pre-9/11 period. Targeting Americans abroad has not ended since September 11. Indeed, two distinct categories of post-9/11 American victimization are discernable. The first category includes attacks against ‘‘private U.S. citizens,’’ meaning those individuals who are not acting in an official capacity on behalf of the U.S. government (for example, students, business people, tourists, and journalists). According to recent statistics, in 2006, the number of noncombatant Americans killed was 28, with 27 injured. The second category, U.S. military, diplomatic personnel, and other individuals operating in an official capacity, has been targeted particularly as a result of the military
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operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the end of July 2007, the total number of U.S. fatalities in the Iraq War reached more than 3,600.24
THE EVOLUTION OF U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM POLICIES AND ACTIONS: SOME PERSPECTIVES Because the historical record from America’s founding in 1776 until the end of World War II indicates only sporadic terrorist attacks at home and infrequent targeting abroad, U.S. policies and actions combating this form of ‘‘warfare-on-the-cheap’’ were rather limited in scope. In general, terrorism was not considered a major strategic challenge to American national interests, with some exceptions such as the Barbary threats in the nineteenth century. Domestic radical movements failed to achieve their objectives and adversaries in foreign countries—both state and nonstate actors—were unable to seriously threaten American political, economic, and strategic concerns. It was not, therefore, until the 1970s that the United States began to develop a basic counterterrorism strategy. More specifically, two developments can be attributed to the realization of the need to articulate relevant policies and actions in this area. First were the September 6, 1970, hijackings by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) of four international airline flights. Three of the flights, a TWA Boeing 707 en route from Frankfurt to New York, a Swissair flight en route from Zurich to New York, and a BOAC (British Overseas Airway Corporation) flight en route from Bahrain to London, were diverted to Dawson’s Field in Zarqa, Jordan, where they were blown up in front of an international television audience after the mostly American passengers and crews were released. It is against this unprecedented backdrop of international media coverage of terrorist incidents, which also included the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists during the summer Olympics in Germany, that President Richard M. Nixon established a cabinet-level committee to coordinate counterterrorism efforts. A smaller Interagency Group on Terrorism, led by the State Department, was established to deal with daily issues. Another body, the Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism, was also established at that time. Through successive presidential directives, the State Department was designated as the lead U.S. government body responsible for coordinating American counterterrorism efforts overseas. The FBI, before the Department of Homeland Security was established, was designated as the lead agency for dealing with terrorism domestically. The second contributing factor involved major racial riots that erupted in the United States in the 1970s, causing casualties and damage and seriously interfering with the normal functioning of diverse communities in some American cities. In the aftermath of these events, the U.S. government established a National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. In 1976, this body issued a ‘‘Report on the Task Force on Disorders
24
The Washington Post, July 31, 2007.
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and Terrorism’’ that recommended a variety of specific steps to ensure greater community stability. The 1970s also marked the beginning of enactments of antiterrorism laws by the U.S. Congress. For instance, section 303 of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976 called for cutting off American assistance to ‘‘any government which aids or abets terrorism, by providing sanctuary from prosecution, to any group or individual which has committed an act of international terrorism.’’ Another export control mechanism to control the sale of military or dual-use equipment was established by Congress in 1979 that consequently developed into a ‘‘black list’’ or ‘‘terrorism list’’ of countries that the Secretary of State designated as repeatedly supporting international terrorism. Governments so designated were not, therefore, allowed to benefit from American assistance, and tax legislation was enacted to discourage U.S. investment. The initial ‘‘terrorism list’’ included Libya, Iraq, Syria, and South Yemen. Over the years, other countries, including Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and the Sudan, have been added to the list. (South Yemen was dropped from the list when it merged with North Yemen. Iraq and Libya were later removed after the new Iraqi government took office and Libya compensated the families of the victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing and abandoned its nuclear program.) But it was not until the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut that the U.S. government, for the first time in its history, decided to seriously develop a more coherent and proactive strategy to confront terrorism. It immediately established two commissions to investigate the incidents and to offer appropriate recommendations to improve the security of American military and diplomatic personnel abroad. The first commission was set up within the Department of Defense and was chaired by retired Admiral L.J. Long. It recommended, among other things, a major shift in national policy from a reactive antiterrorism posture to a proactive counterterrorism strategy. The Long Commission’s report was significant in that it was the first to officially characterize terrorism as a form of warfare, therefore, elevating it to a top national security concern. The second commission, headed by former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman (Ret.), recommended a series of major security upgrades at U.S. diplomatic posts abroad, to include improved personnel protection, physical security measures, and enhanced building construction intended to ‘‘harden’’ them against potential terrorist attack. Subsequently, the head of the State Department’s small counterterrorism office was elevated to the position of ambassador-at-large with the purpose of coordinating all government efforts against international terrorism. Other units at the State Department became involved in counterterrorism activities. For instance, the 1984 Act to Combat International Terrorism (Public Law 98-533) established the Counterterrorism Rewards Program to be administered by the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The State Department Legal Advisor’s office also worked with the Justice Department to strengthen international cooperation and treaties to counter terrorism. Additionally, the State Department Intelligence and Research Bureau established a counterterrorism and narcotics subunit.
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In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed Vice President George H.W. Bush to chair a cabinet-level Task Force on Combating Terrorism. In its report, issued in December of that year, the Task Force recommended a broad range of actions, such as efforts to improve coordination among government agencies; creation of a full-time counterterrorism position on the National Security Council staff; and the establishment of a consolidated intelligence center on terrorism. In light of numerous kidnappings of American citizens in Lebanon by Hezbollah during the 1980s, the vice president’s Task Force public report of February 1986 also established a key American policy regarding this practice. It stated: The United States has a clear policy of no concessions to terrorists as the best way to protect the greatest number of people. However, the United States Government has always stated that it will talk to anyone and use every available resource to gain the release of Americans held hostage.
Another tool of the U.S. counterterrorism strategy that emerged during this period was the ‘‘long-arm statute’’ of the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986 that made it a federal crime for a terrorist to threaten, detain, seize, injure, or kill an American citizen abroad. This legislation provided American law enforcement agencies with the legal authority to conduct criminal investigation overseas. Ultimately, it resulted in the stationing of FBI Special Agent Legal Attach´es (called ‘‘Legats’’) in American embassies abroad. Of particular significance in the development of U.S. counterterrorism policies is the fact that America has, at times, selectively utilized military force against terrorist groups and those states believed to support them. President Reagan, for instance, launched bombing raids in April 1986 against Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for Libya’s attack on a Berlin disco nightclub that killed two American soldiers. President Bill Clinton deployed cruise missiles against Baghdad in 1993 in retaliation for its plot to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush during a visit to Kuwait earlier that year. Also, following the al Qaeda attack on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, President Clinton authorized the military to launch some 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan (that officials believed was also used to produce VX nerve agent) and at bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan. Bin Laden survived the missile attack, apparently having left the camps shortly before the attack. During the Clinton presidency, numerous other counterterrorism actions were undertaken, including Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 39 issued in June 1995 on ‘‘U.S. Policy on Terrorism,’’ which declared that the United Sates will pursue all efforts to ‘‘deter and preempt, apprehend and prosecute, or assist other governments to prosecute individuals who perpetuate or plan to perpetuate such attacks’’; Executive Order (E.O. 1015), establishing a Commission (led by Vice President Al Gore) on Aviation Safety and Security; the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, which authorized $1 billion for federal law enforcement efforts; and the January 1997 joint report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The FBI submitted a report to Congress that focused on capabilities and interagency roles in responding to WMD terrorist incidents. The Clinton administration also imposed the July
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1999 financial and commercial measures on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers because of their refusal to cooperate with American counterterrorism efforts, and established the National Commission on Terrorism, chaired by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, which issued a report in 2000 outlining the growing dangers of terrorism and recommending various response strategies to be considered by the president and Congress. Finally, two other efforts of Clinton’s administration are noteworthy. First is the establishment in 1999 of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. In its 2000 report, for example, it recommended that an Office for Combating Terrorism be created, along with improved training and response capabilities. And second, a bipartisan panel, the 21st Century Commission, was also formed in 1999. Co-chaired by former U.S. Senators Warner B. Rudman and Gary Hart, the Commission report in 2000 called for the establishment of a cabinet-level agency to assume responsibility to defend America. However, despite the warnings contained in the various reports, as well as numerous intelligence assessments advising of increased terrorist activity directed against the homeland during the winter and summer of 2001, terrorists were still able to execute the devastating September 11 attacks. Since that catastrophic day, which resulted in unprecedented human, political, social, economic, and strategic losses from a single terrorist attack, the United States found itself engaged in the most extensive counterterrorism undertaking in its history. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush declared war against al Qaeda, accusing it of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks. He then mobilized an international coalition of allied countries to prosecute this new war and, on October 6, 2001, the United States initiated Operation Enduring Freedom, a massive military operation against al Qaeda bases and the Taliban regime, which had been providing sanctuary to bin Laden’s terrorist infrastructure within Afghanistan. This military effort succeeded in largely destroying the existing terrorist infrastructure in the country, ultimately resulting in the overthrow of the Taliban regime and the establishment of a freely elected Afghan government in 2005 headed by President Hamid Karzai. And yet, terrorist operations are still a daily menace in the country and are, in fact, escalating. For instance, in 2006, the U.S. government’s annual report to Congress on international terrorism recorded a total of 749 terrorist incidents, an increase from 491 attacks during the previous year.25 Three Taliban operations in 2007 illustrate the nature of the challenges. First, on February 27 a suicide bomber attacked the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, killing 19 people and wounding 11. The attacker reportedly targeted Vice President Richard Cheney during his visit to the country. Second, on July 19, some 23 Korean missionaries on a humanitarian mission to Afghanistan were taken hostage. Several captives were executed and those who survived were ultimately freed after prolonged negotiations with the
25
Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 (U.S. Department of State Publication 11409, Office of the Coordinator, Washington, DC, April 2007).
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government of South Korea. Third, on September 29, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest next to a bus in Kabul killing some 30 Afghan soldiers, including 2 civilians, and wounding numerous others.26 Although these and many other incidents have failed to achieve any decisive strategic successes, the fact remains that currently, more than six years after the invasion of the country, the United States and its allies, including North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, are still fighting both surviving members of al Qaeda and resurgent Taliban forces in parts of southern Afghanistan as well as along the largely ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan’s Northwestern Frontier Province. It has become increasingly clear that this region is being used as a sanctuary for the reconstitution and continuation of al Qaeda’s activities as well as a base from which to plan attacks against American regional and global interests. In response to this assessment, the Bush administration signaled through official statements and press leaks its determination not only to pursue ‘‘actionable targets’’ in Afghanistan but also to consider unilaterally pursuing targets within Pakistan’s northern frontier, if necessary. Realizing, however, that the terrorist and insurgency challenges cannot be resolved militarily, President Karzai, has introduced a reconciliation process whereby several thousand Taliban members who gave up violence and recognized the government have been allowed to return to their homes with an amnesty. Moreover, in fall 2007, Karzai declared that he is willing to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban head, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the insurgent leader, on the condition that foreign troops remain in the country until a ‘‘better Afghan national army and national police’’ are formed.27 The most significant strategic decision made by the Bush administration was to undertake military action against Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein’s regime was developing links with al Qaeda and had continued its unilateral efforts to develop WMDs. The war against Iraq began in March 2003 and within a month, U.S.-led coalition forces ousted the defeated Saddam Hussein regime. Since the defeat of Saddam and his subsequent capture, trial, and execution, Iraq’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was formally rescinded in 2004, and the country began to move along the difficult road of political, social, and economic reconstruction under the guidance of American and coalition partners. Yet, despite the ongoing democratization process, as reflected by the December 15, 2005, legislative elections, and the presence of 160,000 American troops and some 100,000 contractors in Iraq, the security situation in the country has deteriorated precipitously over the past few years, characterized by an insurgency and classic terrorist acts undertaken by a wide range of actors, including former regime officials, local Islamists, foreign jihadist terrorists, tribal groups, and ordinary criminals. The unending violence in the country, marked dramatically first by terrorist and insurgent operations in fall 2003 and subsequently by attacks on coalition forces, the United Nations’ Baghdad Office, and Shiite and 26
See, for example, The Washington Post, September 30, 2007. See, for instance, The New York Times, September 30, 2007.
27
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Sunni religious sites and neighborhoods, already resulted in a high cost in terms of human lives, property damage, and negative political consequences. For example, 3,468 terrorist incidents were recorded in Iraq in 2005 and 6,630 attacks occurred in 2006. During the first half of 2007, some 1,160 terrorist operations were mounted. The total number of American casualties since the campaign’s inception through September 28, 2007, had reached 3,798 killed and 28,009 wounded.28 During the same period, coalition military fatalities reached 300 and more than 7,300 members of the new Iraqi military and police forces have been killed. Additionally, it is estimated that between 74,186 and 80,824 Iraqi civilians lost their lives since the invasion of the country in spring 2003, and that 2 million Iraqis have become refugees, mostly settling in Syria and Jordan.29 Clearly, this bloody record has contributed to the intensification of the debate in the policymaking community in the United States over the wisdom of continuing the war in Iraq. Among noteworthy other factors mention should be made of two assessments. First, the preliminary U.S. conclusion that only eight out of the eighteen benchmarks for political, economic, and security progress in Iraq have been reached. Second, according to the January 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, representing the consensus analysis of 16 intelligence agencies, several dangers are discernable: (1) a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian violence; (2) al Qaeda in Iraq attempts to use parts of the country to plan increased attacks both inside and outside Iraq; and (3) neighboring countries, such as Iran and Turkey, intervening openly in the conflict. Despite these assessments, President Bush continued to ‘‘stay the course,’’ and on January 10, 2007, announced his ‘‘surge’’ plan to send 20,000 more U.S. troops into Iraq to secure Baghdad and other troubled areas. On July 24 of that year, he warned that ‘‘those who justify withdrawing our troops from Iraq by denying the threat of al Qaeda in Iraq and its ties to Osama bin Laden ignore the clear consequences … if we were to follow their advice, it would be dangerous for the world and dangerous for America.’’30 As the president’s Iraq policy continues, it is challenged not only by the Democratic Party but also by an increasing number of Republican members in Congress. A recent example reflecting the deep division of policy approaches dealing with Iraq is the nonbinding Senate resolution passed on September 26, 2007, calling for the creation of Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish federal regions in the country. At this stage, it is unlikely that the Bush administration will alter its policy supporting a federal Iraq. Washington’s standing view is that the ultimate solution to the future of the country should be left to the Iraqis themselves. Indeed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki already asserted
28
It should be noted that the figure 3,798 U.S. military casualties includes 3,099 killed in hostile action and 699 in nonhostile action. Similarly, the figure 28,009 wounded includes 15,432 persons who returned to duty within 72 hours. It excludes, however, those injured or those who became sick outside combat. See The Washington Post, September 29, 2007. 29 See, for example, The New York Times, September 23, 2007. 30 See, The Washington Post, July 25, 2007.
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that the proposed religious and ethnic divisions of the country ‘‘could be a disaster not just for Iraq but also for the region.’’31 Reportedly, the Baghdad government would apparently seek a long-term U.S security pact beyond the extension of the mandate of the multinational force through the end of 2008. In the interim, the Bush administration plans to request Congress to increase its next-year financial requirements by almost $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, thus financing the war effort through 2008 with approximately $200 billion.32 Aside from the broad strategic military campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States in the post9/11 period has selectively projected power directed against tactical terrorist targets. For example, on January 7, 2007, a U.S. AC-130 gunship destroyed a convoy in Somalia that reportedly included one al Qaeda member who was involved in the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa. What has been, however, an unprecedented developing trend during the past six years is that the United States has initiated extensive domestic counterterrorism measures, both traditional and ‘‘outside-of-the-box.’’ These measures include emergency funding and other financial support; aviation security improvements; expanded emergency medical readiness; upgraded immigration regulations and border control requirements; an increase in the number of domestic law enforcement joint terrorism task forces; and revised military orders related to the detention, treatment, and trial of non-U.S. citizens detained on terrorism-related charges. Additionally, there were four critical elements to the evolution of U.S. counterterrorism policies concerning homeland security as well as the threat to Americans abroad. The first development was the enactment of the October 26, 2001, USA Patriot Act. The Act intended to better equip the U.S. government to identify, investigate, follow, detain, prosecute, and punish suspected terrorists. As today’s terrorists use increasingly sophisticated tools—advanced technology and international money transfers—the government’s capabilities must be able to adapt to these methods of operation. In essence, the USA Patriot Act sought to significantly improve the surveillance of terrorists and increase the speed with which terrorists are tracked and intercepted. The Patriot Act, almost from its inception, has been criticized both within and outside the U.S. government. Among the major criticisms of the Act and its implementation was that the legislation allows the government to conduct surveillance of activities protected under the First Amendment; that it would radically diminish personal privacy by removing checks on government power; and that it would increase government secrecy while limiting public accountability. The second major development was the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security on July 16, 2003. It involved an extraordinary governmental reorganization on a scale similar to that initiated with the establishment of the Department of Defense. This new 180,000-employee department, which integrated 22 previously separate agencies, consists of four core divisions: Border and Transportation Security; Emergency Preparedness 31
See, The New York Times, September 29, 2007. Ibid., September 30, 2007
32
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and Response; Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Countermeasures; and Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. It intended to provide for effective intergovernmental cooperation on national, state, and local levels and consequently ensures that homeland security is a shared responsibility, although this too has been criticized for an inability to resolve numerous bureaucratic organizational problems inherent in merging so many disparate agencies. A third significant step undertaken by the George W. Bush administration and Congress was the establishment of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, better known as the 9/11 Commission (Public Law 107-306, November 27, 2002). In its public report, released on July 22, 2004, the Commission offered some 41 recommendations covering a broad range of topics, such as strategic policies, communications, physical security, intelligence, operational structures, WMDs, education, and public offices. While many of these recommendations were implemented, several outstanding recommendations, including airport and seaport security measures, were finally included in a bill passed by both the House and the Senate in late July 2007. This legislation, introduced as HR1, became Public Law 110-53 when President Bush signed it on August 3. The major provisions of the law require that DHS screen all cargo on passenger airplanes within three years as well as scan containers on board ships leaving foreign ports for nuclear devices within five years. Another aspect of the act provides a formula for awarding homeland security grants to states and cities by placing a greater emphasis on terrorist risk assessments of those jurisdictions. A more controversial legislation was signed by President Bush on August 5, 2007. The Protect America Act (Public Law 110-055) broadened the executive’s authority to eavesdrop without warrant on international telephone calls and e-mail communication of American citizens who are suspected or known to have contacted terrorists outside the country. This new legal framework permits targeted surveillance without warrants by the National Security Agency (NSA) and outside the confines of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. The final significant step was demonstrated by the legislative action of the development of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, constituting the most extensive reform of the Intelligence Community since 1947. The Act brought together some 16 intelligence agencies under a cabinet-level Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Another important structural change was the establishment of the National Counterterrorism Center. In light of these developments, it seems that the reconstituted intelligence community, under the directorship of John Negroponte, and currently Michael McConnell, operates more efficiently than ever before. A recent demonstration of the emerging new ‘‘culture of realism’’ is the August 2007 Department of Defense policy directive for U.S. military intelligence. This directive mandates information sharing with domestic agencies and foreign partners as well as recognizes the leadership role of Lieutenant General Michael Hayden. For all practical purposes, this directive replaces the previous ‘‘need-to-know’’ approach with the requirement that the military intelligence has to be coordinated with, and to some extent subordinate to, the
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directorship of national intelligence.33 It is premature, however, to conclude that these evolving changes in the intelligence organization will advance the goals of the National Security Strategy of the United States, among other things, ‘‘to defend the peace by fighting terrorism and tyrants.’’ After all, the administration’s position on related intelligence matters, including interrogations, detentions, renditions, and information classification, are increasingly becoming subject to congressional and public scrutiny as well as judicial review. It is sufficient to mention, for example, disagreements between the administration and the judiciary over the issue of terrorist suspects. On September 28, 2006, Congress passed the Military Commission Act establishing military commissions to try ‘‘enemy combatant’’ detainees, which President Bush signed into law on October 17. On April 2, 2007, the U.S. Supreme court declined to rule on the constitutionality of the Military Commission Act, but on June 29 of that year, it reversed its earlier decision and agreed to hear appeals by Guantanamo Bay detainees.34 Another example of public concern relates to the claim by some segments of the population such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that charged the U.S. government of ‘‘spying’’ on private citizens as part of the war on terrorism. The ACLU, in its September 2007 report, asserted that during the past several years, the USA Patriot Act, Real ID, the proliferation of identity checks, health privacy legislation, and the NSA ‘‘terrorism surveillance program’’ have been approved by Congress. It concluded that the ‘‘surveillance clock,’’ patterned after the ‘‘Doomsday Clock’’ created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 to warn against a nuclear holocaust, is now set at six minutes before midnight.35 While counterterrorism overreaction and expansive tactics could lead to repression and the ultimate weakening of the very democratic institutions we seek to protect, the reality is that there are no simplistic or complete solutions to the threat of terrorism. All we can do is to strike a balance between security concerns and civil liberties. Furthermore, we must learn from the historical experience of what works and what does not. Otherwise, as George Santayana rightly concluded, ‘‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’’36 The Purpose of This Collection While the preceding examination has presented a general overview of contemporary terrorism, the challenges confronting the United States, and selected responses by different governmental bodies, the purpose of these volumes is to provide the public in general with documentation on the evolution of American counterterrorism policies and actions, with resources extending from the presidency of Richard M. Nixon to midway through the second term of President George W. Bush. 33
See, The Washington Post, September 28, 2007. See, The New York Times, June 30, 2007. 35 ACLU, ‘‘Even Bigger, Even Weaker: The Emerging Surveillance Society: Where Are We Now?’’ (an update to the ACLU report ‘‘Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains,’’ published in January, 2003; September 2007). 36 George Santayana, The Life of Reason (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998). 34
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With the aid of a team of research assistants, I began to search for relevant materials in 1991, before speeches and testimony were available on the Internet and had to be obtained directly from the White House, State Department, or other government offices. The goal of this academic effort was to identify, collect, and select from an extensive variety of policy statements by American officials those documents most appropriate in illustrating the development of U.S. counterterrorism approaches within the executive branch, as well as relevant legislative developments in Congress. Michael Kraft, who worked for many years at the State Department’s counterterrorism office, provided extraordinary professional guidance to this project. Once he retired from government service in 2005, we decided to join together in organizing the documents for publication with the research cutoff date of December 31, 2006. Our intent is to provide the public dimension of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism policy, both its shifts in emphasis as well as its remarkable continuity in many aspects. This primarily reference work pays particular attention to those difficult-to-access unclassified documents that predate Web sites or digital technology and are buried in achieves or filing cabinets. The compilation includes excerpts from important speeches, testimony, and documents that are scattered across many Web sites on the Internet. In most cases, the documents have been pared down, eliminating introductory remarks or discussions of other subjects, to highlight the most important passages that illustrate official views at the time. Where available, Web addresses are provided for those who wish to view the full documents online. This monumental undertaking became even more critical during the post-9/ 11 period when an unprecedented outpouring of material on official American policies and undertakings resulted in confusion and misunderstanding regarding the official U.S. counterterrorism strategies, both domestically and abroad. As such, in an effort to clarify these misperceptions, we felt it important to illustrate the historical context and articulation of U.S. counterterrorism policies. For clarity and efficiency, we have organized these documents into three volumes. The first volume consists of pre–September 11 material divided into sources originating from the White House dating back to the Nixon administration, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Attorney General, and other officials including the Department of State’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism. The second volume includes documents from the post-9/11 period, again providing statements by President George W. Bush, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The third volume is organized by counterterrorism topics ranging from legislation to intelligence to international cooperation. As editors of this research undertaking, we fully recognize that our efforts represent only the beginning of scholarship in this critical field of U.S. security concerns. After all, Karl Von Clausewitz’s diction that ‘‘the art of war in its highest point of view is policy’’ reminds us that in this long war against terrorism, response strategies are never static and therefore will require continual reevaluation and adjustment to most effectively confront and defeat the ever-evolving dangers of terrorism directed against the United States of America and the entire world.
1 Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Laws, Policies, and Programs Michael B. Kraft INTRODUCTION In this age of television sound bites and mini-reports without much historical context, it is easy to forget that the United States has been fighting a war against terrorism for more than three decades. As the terrorism threat has evolved, so too has the United States government’s policies, programs, and laws—the main focus of this chapter. Countering terrorism has increasingly become a national priority, although the U.S. government’s implementation of policy and provision of resources toward that effort has often fallen short. This chapter will outline the evolution of the U.S. government’s efforts to counter the emerging and ever-evolving terrorism threat, beginning with a description of the efforts in Washington to coordinate and develop policies. Primarily, this chapter will describe the evolution of U.S. counterterrorism laws, from their initial focus on countries that support terrorism to efforts in combating groups that operate without state backing. It will examine the task of securing national borders, the use of civil suits by terrorism victims, and challenges in implementing counterterrorism laws and programs. The chapter is best understood when read in conjunction with the testimony and speeches in the chapters of this book on specific subjects, particularly those on legislation and law enforcement, as well as the chapters containing speeches from Justice Department officials and the State Department Coordinators for Counterterrorism. Many aspects of the development of legislation take place in meetings, drafting, or negotiations, often with a handful of congressional members, professional staff, and executive branch officials. While these behind-the-scenes working meetings were not secret, only key participants were invited and seldom did anyone take time to prepare a written record other than the legislation itself or perhaps a committee report explaining the bill before it went to the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives. To provide some insights and flavor of what really goes on, descriptions are included of some of the meetings that I attended over the years, and that I thought were relevant to several key pieces of legislation that emerged.
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THE BACKGROUND The battle against international terrorism did not start on September 11, 2001. Nor did it begin with the simultaneous attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 or the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland in December 1988. The U.S. employment of military force against terrorism, more spectacular than using economic and diplomatic pressures, also is not an invention of the early twenty-first century. The military operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq followed a wellworn path of U.S. policy The use or potential use of military force as appropriate to fight terrorism has always been an option under U.S. policy. The Reagan administration launched air strikes against Libya in 1986 because of Libya’s involvement in the terrorist bombing of a Berlin disco club in April 1986 that killed two American soldiers and a Turkish woman. The Clinton administration launched cruise missiles against Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in 1993 after Baghdad’s failed plot to kill former President Bush during a visit to Kuwait. It also fired cruise missiles against al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan after al Qaeda terrorists bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. Many counterterrorism specialists date the modern era of terrorism to the 1968 hijacking of an Israeli El Al jet in Rome by three Palestinian terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).1 The plane was later flown to Algiers. After 40 days of negotiations, the passengers were freed and the Algerians allowed the terrorists to escape. These events led to the U.S. government starting to keep statistics in 1968 on international terrorism. The era of ‘‘spectacular’’ television terrorism began with the simultaneous hijacking and blowing up of three passenger airliners at a former British Air Force base in Jordan. This 1970 attack by Palestinian terrorists capitalized on the emergence of television as a communications media capable of reaching a worldwide audience. Four years later, terrorists staged another made-for-TV attack with the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. This attack prompted President Nixon to establish a cabinet-level committee to coordinate U.S. government efforts to counter terrorism. The committee met only once. Such a high-level committee was not suitable for day-to-day activities. It set into motion, however, efforts to confront the terrorism threat in a more systemic fashion and a small policy coordinating office was soon established within the State Department. That office has grown since then from half a dozen officers in the late 1970s to more than 80 full-time officers, specialists detailed from other agencies, and contract personnel in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The office has become a center for the development of U.S. counterterrorism policy and programs over the years. The office, in effect a mini-bureau, 1
See http://www.terrorism-research.com/history/recent.php.
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is headed by an official with the rank of ambassador, who, as established in legislation,2 reports to the secretary of state and is equivalent to an assistant secretary of state. Meanwhile, interagency coordinating groups at the assistant secretary level were established. They have gone through several evolutions and name changes. Currently known as the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG), the high-level interagency group brings together the senior officials of each agency involved with terrorism, such as the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, and assistant secretary–level officials from the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Defense Department, and Homeland Security. They meet regularly, sometimes weekly, and major decisions can be escalated to the principals’ meeting of cabinet members. Reporting to the CSG are a number of specialized working groups that deal with such subjects as training, research and development, and countering terrorism financing. Under a series of presidential directives,3 the White House designated the Department of State as the lead U.S. agency for coordinating U.S. counterterrorism efforts overseas. The Justice Department, until the formation of the Department of Homeland Security in early 2003, had been the lead agency for dealing with terrorism inside the United States. Working together over the past several decades, the various agencies have developed and honed a number of tools to improve both American and friendly countries’ abilities to engage in counterterrorism. Especially since the simultaneous bombings in the summer of 1998 of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, more personnel, programs, and financial resources than ever are being dedicated to implement the U.S. government policies and strategies for countering the terrorism threat. (Whether enough resources are being allocated is another matter, and is discussed later in this chapter.)
U.S. GOVERNMENT POLICY STATEMENTS The collection of statements, speeches, and Congressional testimony contained in this three-volume series are intended to provide a reference source for the public face of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism policies. Of course, much of the effort to counter international terrorism is cloaked in secrecy, in part to facilitate cooperation and information sharing with other countries as well as to avoid tipping off the terrorists to sensitive countermeasures. In some cases, the government’s own policies were violated; most notably during the Lebanon hostage situation in the 1980s when Reagan 2 22 USC Chapter 39 section 2651(e) at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/usc_ sec_22_00002651—a000-.html. Congress passed the measure after House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman objected in 1993 to the State Department’s plans to combine the counterterrorism office with the Bureau of Narcotics and International Law. See http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1995_cr/s950105-terror.htm. 3 For example, PDD 39 in 1995, which reaffirmed earlier Presidential Decision Directives outlining agency responsibilities. See http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm.
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administration officials secretly attempted to exchange TOW (tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided) antitank missiles for the release of American hostages. Nevertheless, in the public enunciation of counterterrorism policies, the basic principles and many of the approaches date back two decades, to the 1980s, although there were shifts in emphasis over the years. In brief, a primary change, especially in the legislative arena, has been from the focus on countering state sponsors of terrorism to measures designed to counter nonstate actors—groups such as al Qaeda who have developed their own financial resources and support networks. Four basic, enduring policy principles have guided U.S. counterterrorism efforts since the 1980s. As enunciated in detail in the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism Report for 2001,4 the first annual report to Congress published after the 9/11 attacks, these principles are as follows: ¥ Make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals; ¥ Bring terrorists to justice for their crimes; ¥ Isolate and apply pressure to states that support terrorism to force them to change their behavior; and ¥ Bolster the counterterrorism capabilities of those countries that work with the United States and require assistance.
One year later, in The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, released in February 2003,5 President Bush stated: We are using all elements of our national power and international influence to attack terror networks; reduce their ability to communicate and coordinate their plans; isolate them from potential allies and from and each other, and identify and disrupt their plots before they attack.
Additionally, the international aspects of countering terrorism were summarized in the State Department’s 2004 annual terrorism report to Congress.6 The report said: International cooperation is an integral and growing aspect of the overall U.S. ‘‘National Strategy for Combating Terrorism’’ which calls for: ¥ Defeating terrorist organizations by eliminating their sanctuaries, leadership, finances, and command, control and communications capabilities; ¥ Denying further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating with other states to take action against those who provide support; ¥ Diminishing the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus our mutual efforts and resources on
4 The State Department 2001 Annual Patterns of Global Terrorism Report to Congress, released May 21, 2002 (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2001/html/10220.htm). 5 See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030214-7.html. 6 The State Department Annual Countries Report on Terrorism for 2004, released April 2005 (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/45321.htm).
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addressing legitimate political and social needs and by reducing security vulnerabilities in the countries most at risk; and ¥ Defending the United States, its citizens, and interests at home and abroad.
The goals further evolved in the revised National Strategy for Countering Terrorism issued in September 2006.7 This document reflected the Bush administration’s views of the Iraq situation, specifically mentioning the development of democracies as part of the War on Terrorism: ¥ Advance effective democracies as the long-term antidote to the ideology of terrorism; ¥ Prevent attacks by terrorist networks; ¥ Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states; ¥ Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror; and ¥ Lay the foundations and build the institutions and structures we need to carry the fight forward against terror and help ensure our ultimate success.
International Cooperation One constant theme over the years is that international cooperation is essential to fighting international terrorism. American diplomatic efforts to build closer ties and working relationships with various countries cover many issues. They include fostering regional stability through foreign assistance, military and law enforcement cooperation and training, and economic ties. Countering terrorism has become part of this fabric. Closer diplomatic ties help to improve information sharing on intelligence and counterterrorism techniques, joint actions, and preventive measures. At their most basic level, these diplomatic efforts take place in four areas: Bilateral: Bilateral working relationships are perhaps the oldest and most important. The United States has strong bilateral ties and counterterrorism working relationships with various countries. U.S. officials have been meeting regularly for more than a decade with some nations, such as Canada and Britain. More recently, U.S. counterterrorism officials have been holding regular bilateral meetings with countries in other parts of the world, such as Australia, Russia, Israel, Jordan, India, Pakistan, and Russia. The United States also has close working relationships and holds meetings with various countries in diplomatic and intelligence channels. Multilateral: The United States works in the multilateral area with the United Nations and other organizations. Enactment and enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1373,8 requiring member states to take steps to curb terrorism fundraising, is but one example. The United States also works with smaller international groups such as the G-8 countries and specialized agencies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization. 7 See excerpts in chapter 28, Key Documents. For full text, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/ nsc/nsct/2006/. 8 For text of UNSCRES 1373, see http://www.state.gov/s/ct/index.cfm?docid=5108. Background on the United Nation’s Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) that was established to help enforce UNSCR 1373 can be found at http://www.un.org/sc/ctc/.
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Regional: In a more recent development, the United States has begun working more frequently on a regional basis with groups such as the Organization of American States and the African Union as well as through regional conferences. The State Department’s first major regional terrorism conference was held with central Asian states in Washington, D.C., in June 1999. It has been followed by regional conferences with the nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Henry Crumpton, the former State Department counterterrorism coordinator who served from August 2005 to January 2007, placed a great deal of emphasis on regional cooperation to encourage neighboring countries to work closely with each other. 9 Practical: The development of improved practical operational measures with overseas partners facilitates counterterrorism cooperation. For example, since the 1970s a number of steps have been taken to improve physical security of buildings and airlines. The United States and other countries have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop improved screening devices at airports around the world and additional equipment to protect buildings and embassies. The techniques and technology have been shared with friendly countries. The Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) Program10 is essential to the U.S. government’s overseas cooperative efforts. The ATA Program was first authorized by Congress in 1983 to help other friendly countries improve the professional skills of their security officials tasked with confronting terrorism threats. Since its inception, the ATA Program focused on such hands-on skills as detecting bombs and training hostage negotiators. In recognition of the evolving nature of the terrorism threat, after the 1998 East African bombings, courses were developed in countering the financial underpinnings of terrorist groups, crisis management, and specialized medical responses. The State Department Counterterrorism Office, in concert with the Justice Department, sponsored seminars in Washington through the ATA Program to provide advice and suggestions to other countries seeking to strengthen their counterterrorism laws in a range of areas. The seminars included presentations by British, Australian, U.S. and other allied legal specialists. Seminars also have been held in Africa. Meanwhile, more specific and intensive assistance to counterterrorist fundraising has been provided by interagency State Department, Treasury Department, and Justice Department experts. Small teams were dispatched overseas to help other countries draft legislation to strengthen their laws, regulations, and investigative abilities in an effort to curb terrorism fundraising and money transfers. In some countries, the Justice Department’s legal attach´es have provided assistance to the host countries in evaluating and/or helping draft new legislation. In the mid-1980s, the United States developed the interagency Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) to coordinate the actions of dozens of U.S. government agencies involved in developing improved equipment to deter and counter terrorist attacks. The TSWG has been conducting joint projects for a decade with Britain, Canada, and Israel. Australia and Singapore recently 9
August 10, 2006, interview with the authors. For more information see the State Department Counterterrorism Office Web site at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/about/c16885.htm. 10
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became partners. Some of the equipment developed under the auspices of the TSWG is being used by American specialists and first responders and is also being made available to countries that receive training from the U.S. government. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) became involved in counterterrorism research and development soon after its inception. This initially led to coordination and duplication problems with the TSWG, especially when DHS began trying to develop its own international programs, but the two organizations have begun to cooperate more closely.11 The terrorism information rewards program is another important tool that dates back to the mid-1980s. Now called the Rewards for Justice (RFJ) Program, it hosts its own Web site12 and uses inventive advertising methods, such as matchbook covers and posters, to publicize offers of rewards for credible information resulting in the successful prevention or resolution of an act of international terrorism directed against the United States. Rewards of up to $25 million have been authorized for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden and other key al Qaeda leaders. Since its inception in 1984,13 RFJ has paid more than $72 million to more than 50 people who provided credible information. In 2007, rewards totaling $10 million were approved for the successful resolution of terrorist cases in the Philippines. Rewards are approved by an interagency committee that includes representatives of the State Department, Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence community. The procedures protect the confidentiality of the reward payment and identity of the recipient. Congress even approved a special ‘‘S’’ visa category to expedite the relocation of the informant to the United States, and his or her immediate family, if necessary for their relocation. These various programs to help other countries counter terrorism were conceived before 9/11. After 9/11, they were given more priority with increased, though not always sufficient, funding and staffing to take the offensive against terrorists by actively curtailing their financial support. Terrorists Are Criminals During the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. government made increasing efforts to deglamorize terrorists and drive home the point that their attacks were criminal and should be punished regardless of their professed ‘‘cause.’’ Statements and testimony from the period, including those during the Reagan administration, stressed that terrorists are criminals and that hijacking aircraft and ships and attacks on airports and public places are criminal acts, which should be punished as such, regardless of underlying motivation.14 The 11
For more details on the U.S. government’s counterterrorism research and development program, see the author’s chapter in Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century, James J.F. Forest, ed., volume I, chapter 8 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007). Also see background paper at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2001/d20011129tswg.pdf. 12 See http://www.rewardsforjustice.net. 13 Enacted by the 1984 Act to Combat International Terrorism, (P.L. 98-533) 22 U.S. Code Sec 2708. for text of the statute, see http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode22/usc_ sec_22_00002708——000-.html. 14 For example, President Reagan’s Radio address to the nation, May 31, 1986 (http:// www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/53186a.htm).
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U.S. government emphasized this theme not only because it was intrinsically correct, but also to counteract the sympathy that some terrorist groups seemed to garner in certain segments of the media and academia, especially in Europe and the Middle East, that tended to romanticize terrorists or excuse their terrorist actions on the grounds that they were ‘‘freedom fighters.’’ Thus, what has sometimes been criticized since 9/11 as an overemphasis on law enforcement in the past had its origins not only in the effort to capture and punish terrorists, but also as part of a broader effort to delegitimize terrorists. After the 1983 bombings of both the U.S. embassy buildings and the Marine barracks in Beirut, Secretary of State George Shultz and other senior officials launched an interagency public diplomacy campaign as part of the fight against terrorism. The State Department, the U.S. Information Agency, and the Defense Department were the lead agencies. One of the goals was to stress to foreign audiences that terrorism was a threat and that its criminal actions should not be condoned. These efforts included the drafting and distribution of unclassified ‘‘white papers’’ and other material describing the activities of Libya and other supporters of terrorism. The interagency program faded away, however, and finally collapsed for lack of support and staff after James Baker became secretary of state in George H.W. Bush’s presidential administration. One official in the State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau confided that colleagues in his office had reached the conclusion that Baker simply did not believe in public diplomacy. If this assessment is true, it puts an ironic spin on a decision by George W. Bush’s administration to appoint as the head of the Public Diplomacy Program a former top aide to Secretary Baker, Margaret Tutwiler. She had served as his assistant secretary of state for public affairs and later became an ambassador to Morocco. She left the public diplomacy job and returned to the private sector after only six and a half months. Karen Hughes, a long-time top aide to President George W. Bush who had returned to Texas in 2002, was recalled to Washington to head the Public Diplomacy Program. She got off to a rocky start during her trips to the Middle East. By almost all accounts and public opinion polls overseas, this public diplomacy effort in the counterterrorism campaign has been ineffective so far.
LEGISLATION Strengthening U.S. counterterrorism laws and encouraging other countries to bolster their own laws is an important part of the campaign against international terrorism. Law enforcement, the rule of law, strong domestic legislation, international conventions, and international legal cooperation are essential tools of international counterterrorism efforts. American counterterrorism law and the focus on the law as an instrument against terrorism have continued to evolve since the 1970s to meet the ever-changing terrorist threat. Key elements include the development of international treaties and conventions, the expansion of extraterritorial jurisdiction, the development of sanctions against terrorist-supporting states, and efforts to cut off funds and other material support for terrorists that are self-supporting. More recent years saw
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the use of civil suits against terrorist groups and even banking institutions that transferred their funds and laws designed to strengthen border security. The following is an overview of American legislation and efforts in the domestic and international legal arena. This section is not intended to provide a complete listing of U.S. counterterrorism laws,15 but rather to highlight key developments and illustrate how American counterterrorism law has evolved to bolster U.S. counterterrorism policies and programs to meet the changing threats.16 International Conventions Beginning in the early 1970s, in the wake of repeated airliner hijackings and other acts of terrorism, two separate streams of U.S. legal approaches began to emerge. One focused on specific acts, such as attacks on civilian airplanes, and gave the United States explicit authority to prosecute terrorist crimes that occurred overseas. The second stream took the form of sanctions designed to pressure governments that supported such terrorist attacks to change their behavior.17 Working with like-minded governments such as Britain, Canada, and Australia, the United States sought to broaden the web of international treaties and conventions against terrorism. These treaties generally required signatory nations to either ‘‘prosecute or extradite’’ the terrorist suspects. The signatory nations were obliged to either prosecute in their own courts terrorists who committed specific crimes under the treaties (such as attacking civilian aircraft or diplomats) or turn them over to a country with appropriate jurisdiction (that is, to the country whose aircraft was hijacked or whose diplomats were killed). Until these international conventions were developed and the U.S. government enacted implementing legislation, the United States generally did not have explicit authority to prosecute terrorist attacks that took place overseas.18
15 For a fuller list of U.S. statures related to counterterrorism see the Web site Counter-Terrorism: Training and Resources for Law Enforcement, established under the auspices of the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice (http://www.counterterrorismtraining.gov/leg/index.html). 16 Much of the legislative history has not been formally recorded in Congressional floor debates or Committee discussions. Indeed many of the decisions and negotiations took place in informal meetings with members of Congress and their staff. Some of the descriptions are based on my participation in the drafting of legislation or meetings with members of Congress, their staff, and executive branch officials during my 19 years in the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism or earlier when I served as a Congressional foreign policy staff specialist. 17 For an earlier description of some of the terrorism laws enacted before 2005, also see chapter 21, ‘‘Legal Issues,’’ which the author contributed to the McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook, Kaiman, David, ed. (New York, 2005), 325–345. 18 For this and other background for this publication and over the years of working together, I’m indebted to James Reynolds, a senior Justice Department official and former head of the Justice Department’s Terrorism and Violent Crimes section and other career lawyers in that section. This group of dedicated government officials is the unseen core of the U.S. government’s development of more useful laws to counter the terrorism threat while showing sensitivity to civil liberties.
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Early examples of these conventions include the 1970 Hague Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, and the 1971 Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation. In response to several kidnappings and killings of diplomats, the international community developed the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents and the 1979 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages. Dramatic attacks in the 1980s stimulated additional conventions, such as the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, which was prompted by the 1985 hijacking in the eastern Mediterranean of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro. The incident demonstrated to international lawyers that there was a loophole in existing antipiracy agreements, which primarily covered attacks by one ship upon another, not hijackings by passengers. Another convention, the Convention for the Suppression of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, resulted from the 1985 attacks by the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) against the Rome, Vienna, and Karachi airports. Broader conventions have emerged in the last decade, and include the 1997 Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing and the 1999 Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.19 These early international conventions and treaties did not specifically define terrorism as such. This was primarily to avoid prolonged disputes with Arab and other developing countries that often chose to portray violent actions conducted by ‘‘revolutionaries’’ or ‘‘freedom fighters’’ as legitimate political options. Over the years, Syria and its Middle East and other allies largely have been successful in maintaining references in United Nations resolutions to past resolutions that exempt ‘‘legitimate liberation’’ or anticolonialist movements from being considered terrorist groups, a thinly veiled effort to protect groups that have committed terrorist attacks against Israelis. Indeed, scholars throughout the world have proffered over 110 separate definitions of terrorism.20 Because of the early difficulties in reaching consensus on a definition of terrorism, international conventions focused on the criminal acts themselves, 19 A list of international conventions and their status can be found in the State Department 2006 Annual Terrorism Report appendix (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/83238. htm). 20 The definition of terrorism used in the State Department Annual report is specified in Section 2656f(d) of Title 22 of the United States Code:
(1) the term ‘‘international terrorism’’ means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country; (2) the term ‘‘terrorism’’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents; and (3) The term ‘‘terrorist group’’ means any group practicing, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism. The Department says the term ‘‘non-combatant,’’ which is referred to but not defined in 22 USC 2656f(d)(2), ‘‘is interpreted to mean, in addition to civilians, military personnel (whether or not armed or on duty) who are not deployed in a war zone or a warlike setting.’’ See Chapter 7, U.S. State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, released April 30, 2007 (http://www/state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/ 2006/827726htm).
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calling for prosecution or extradition for specific crimes, such as aircraft hijacking or attacks on diplomats, regardless of the underlying motive. The first exception was the 1999 Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism,21 aimed at curbing terrorism financing, which gained support in the wake of the al Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks that killed and wounded far more Africans than Americans. As the number and scope of international conventions and protocols concerning terrorism expanded, the U.S. government began working with other governments to update a number of bilateral extradition treaties to ensure that terrorists’ violent acts could not be treated as nonextraditable ‘‘political offenses.’’ Mutual legal assistance treaties are being strengthened to enhance the effectiveness and speed of bilateral and international cooperation in criminal cases. The Long-Arm Statute In addition to the treaties, another important law enforcement development to strengthen extraterritorial jurisdiction was enacted as the so-called long-arm statue of the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 1986.22 The measure was drafted by the Justice Department after a series of aircraft hijackings in 1985 and the brutal killing that year of a wheelchairbound American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer.23 He was tossed overboard by Palestinian terrorists after they hijacked the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship. Justice Department lawyers felt that the international conventions and U.S. laws on the books at the time did not clearly give the U.S. jurisdiction over the murder of Americans overseas in all cases of terrorist attacks. The long-arm statute makes the terrorist murder of an American citizen overseas a crime punishable in U.S. courts. To limit the extraterritorial reach to terrorist acts, instead of ordinary criminal cases in other countries, the attorney general has to make a determination that the event was terrorist related—defined as acts intended to coerce, intimidate, or retaliate against a government or civilian population. The legislation was sponsored in the Senate by Senator Arlen Spector, a Pennsylvania Republican serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former prosecutor. Looking for a vehicle bill in the House, Justice Department officials and I promoted the legislation with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which incorporated it into the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1986.24
21
Section(2)(a) of the Convention refers to ‘‘Any (other) act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act’’ (http://untreaty.un.org/English/Terrorism/Conv12.pdf). 22 18 USC 2332. 23 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Klinghoffer. 24 Section 1202 of the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-399 and later modified and codified as 18 USC 2332 (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/ foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00012.htm).
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The new statute provided a legal basis for the FBI to conduct overseas criminal investigations of terrorist attacks against Americans. The provision also greatly increased number of legal attach´es assigned overseas to U.S. embassies. The ‘‘Legats,’’ as they are called, not only facilitate U.S. investigations, but also can assist host countries in their own investigations or help improve existing laws. The investigations have helped develop a forensic database that has been useful in tracing weapons used in attacks in one country to a source in another nation, sometimes a state sponsor. Currently, there are 60 Legat offices around the world.25 Sharpening Sanctions Against State Sponsors of Terrorism At the same time that the international community was negotiating and ratifying more counterterrorism conventions, the United States unilaterally began focusing on governments that supported terrorism. This effort represented the first major step to use legislation against states that funded and otherwise supported international terrorism. These laws stemmed partly from the U.S. government’s widespread provision of military and economic foreign assistance to other countries, including Syria. Congress decided that America should not give financial or other kinds of assistance to countries that sponsor or assist terrorists. One of the first antiterrorism laws enacted in this arena was a 1976 provision cutting off foreign assistance to ‘‘any government which aids or abets, by providing sanctuary from prosecution, to any group or individual which has committed an act of international terrorism.’’26 As international terrorism continued in the 1970s, Congress began looking for additional ways to put more pressure on these regimes. This eventually led to the development of what become known as the ‘‘terrorism list.’’ One indirect precipitating event, all but forgotten, was the August 11, 1976, attempt by a combined group of PFLP and Japanese Red Army terrorists to hijack an Israeli El Al passenger plane at Istanbul airport. They killed four civilians and wounded 20 others. One of the murdered passengers was Hal Rosenthal, a 29-year-old Senate foreign policy legislative aide to Senator Jacob Javits of New York, a senior Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A memorial service was held in the Senate for Mr. Rosenthal, attended by a standing-room only crowd. Senator Walter Mondale, a Minnesota Democrat who previously had employed Mr. Rosenthal, delivered an eloquent eulogy urging some of the attending senators and staffers to ‘‘do something’’ about terrorism. A small bipartisan group helped develop a strong counterterrorism bill, and their drafts became part of the Omnibus Antiterrorism Act cosponsored by Senators Javits and Abraham Ribicoff, a Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee. 25
See http://www.fbi.gov/contact/legat/legat.htm. Section 303 of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which created Sec. 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act (since modified in 2002, P.L. 107-115: Stat. 3147, 2153. 2155). 26
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Among other features, the bill mandated sanctions against countries that aided and abetted terrorism and would have barred airline baggage from those countries from coming into the United States unless inspected in a third country. The bill was introduced in 1978 and passed Senator Ribicoff’s Government Operations Committee. It became bogged down, however. The Carter administration opposed the bill because it would have mandated sanctions against countries that supported terrorists. These were expected to be primarily Arab states. Consequently, according to one account, the Carter administration tried to tangle the bill in disputes over definitions of terrorism.27 This maneuvering may well have been the case, but key senators and their foreign policy aides did not need any outside help to disagree. At one contentious meeting28 to discuss the legislation, aides to Senator Dick Clark, a liberal Iowa Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, opposed draft language that they feared might result in the terrorist designation being applied to the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and African opposition groups opposed to the white government in present-day Zimbabwe. Firing back, senior aides to Senator Javits argued that although the liberal Republican senator strongly opposed the apartheid regime in South Africa and the Ian Smith minority government in what was then known as Rhodesia, he believed that the attacks on isolated white farmhouses were acts of terrorism. This disagreement between two groups of basically centralist American senators and staffers, one slightly left of center and the other slightly right, who generally agreed on most foreign policy issues, is an example of the difficulties in reaching a consensus on the definition of terrorism—one that I have often cited during seminars and other discussions of the definition issue. Some of the concepts contained in the Omnibus Antiterrorism Bill survived its demise and reemerged in 1978, thanks indirectly to State Department and Commerce Department officials who lacked political or foreign policy antenna. New legislation was touched off by Congressional reactions to mid-level Commerce Department and State Department officials who had approved export licenses for U.S.-made equipment to Libya and Syria that could be used for military purposes. In Libya’s case, the sale involved 400 heavy-duty off-road trucks that could be used to carry tanks long distances for possible attacks against Libya’s neighbors, primarily Egypt. The large trucks, allegedly sought for hauling oil rigs, were identical to the heavy-duty type used by the American and Canadian armies to transport tanks to the battlefront. In Syria’s case, a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Near East Bureau approved the export of six so-called civilian versions of the Lockheed C-130 transport plane. Shortly after the license was approved, Syria stepped up the shelling of the Christian suburbs of East Beirut. A Lockheed Washington office 27 Timothy Naftali, Blind Spot; The Secret History of American Counterterrorism (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 105–106, 111–113. The book provides a good description of the behind the scenes aspects of the U.S. counterterrorism efforts. 28 I took part in the meeting as the foreign policy assistance to Senator Clifford Case, a liberal New Jersey Republican, who sided with Senator Javits.
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representative later told me that, although the licenses had been issued, Damascus never went ahead with the purchase. He said he thought the Syrians were just testing the United States. Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs felt that exports of such dual-use equipment had important foreign policy implications, and should be approved only by high-level officials in consultation with Congress, not by low-level licensing clerks and mid-level State Department regional officials (who often were suspected of clientitis, especially in the Near East Bureau). Otherwise, the members felt, the purchasing countries might conclude that they could engage in terrorism and still do business as usual, even obtaining equipment that could support military or terrorist activity. The leading member on the issues was the late Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick, an outspoken liberal Republican from New Jersey and new member of the committee. Representative Fenwick, a tall, pipe-smoking woman of a ‘‘certain age’’ was considered to be the model for the Doonesbury character Lacy Davenport. She often expressed indignation about the lack of common sense among government officials. At that time, I was Representative Fenwick’s national security legislative assistant, and a State Department official expressed concern to us about the possible impact of the tank transporter sale on Egypt in view of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s mischief-making policies. Meanwhile, Lebanese-American constituents of Congressman Ed Derwinski, a Republican from Illinois, aroused his concern about the Syrian licenses. Working with Representative Jonathan Bingham, a Democrat from New York and chairman of the relevant House Foreign Affairs subcommittee dealing with export controls, and his staff, Representative Fenwick and I drafted a counterterrorism provision of the Export Control Act legislation. The act was intended to provide tighter scrutiny and controls over such potential exports of dual-use equipment. Thus, contrary to the usual perception that counterterrorism measures were aimed at Arab countries, this major legislation was actually prompted by concerns for two Arab countries, Egypt and Lebanon.
THE TERRORISM LIST The Fenwick amendment required that Congress be notified 30 days before export licenses were issued for goods or services valued at more than $7 million dollars that would significantly enhance the military capability or the ability to support acts of international terrorism. The amendment applied to the government of any country that the secretary of state determined had repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism. This concept of publicly listing countries that support international terrorism and then imposing sanctions was influenced by the original Senate omnibus counterterrorism bill and an earlier exchange of letters between Senator Javits and the State Department, in which the State Department noted countries that gave support to international terrorists. The primary intent of the Fenwick provision was to provide a mechanism for scrutinizing potentially sensitive exports at a high level. Requiring
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Congressional prenotification was intended to ensure that licensing decisions concerning dual-use equipment for state sponsors of international terrorism were reviewed and approved at the top levels of the State Department and reviewed for consistency with overall American foreign policy goals, rather than primarily for commercial considerations. The prenotification procedure also would give Congress time to weigh in and protest, if it wished. The Fenwick provision passed the House, was accepted by the Senate, and was signed into law by President Ford in October 1979 as Section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act of 1979.29 (The measure was later tightened up and the ‘‘would enhance’’ threshold was changed in 1989 to ‘‘could enhance.’’ The dollar threshold also was dropped, making the provision more stringent.30) What was intended as an export control mechanism quickly became known as the ‘‘terrorism list’’ or ‘‘state sponsors list’’ and developed into a major tool in the U.S. counterterrorism effort. In the years following enactment of the terrorism list amendment, Congress passed a series of ‘‘piggy back’’ amendments that, by reference, imposed additional economic sanctions on countries designated under the Export Administration Act’s Section 6(j). For example, the Internal Revenue Code,31 as amended, prohibits U.S. corporations or individuals from claiming foreign tax credits on income earned in 6(j) countries. This measure is intended to discourage American investment that might help shore up these governments. Other provisions deny economic and military assistance and financial transactions; the latter is a provision intended to discourage tourist travel or business dealings and to require that the United States oppose international banking institution loans to these countries. The terrorist list countries initially designated in 1979 were Libya, Iraq, Syria, and South Yemen. Since then, Cuba, North Korea, and the Sudan have been designated. South Yemen was dropped after it merged with North Yemen in 1990. The State Department removed Iraq in 1982, but redesignated it after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Iraq was taken off the list again in 2004 after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled and a new government was formed. Libya was removed in 2006 after lengthy negotiations over the Pan Am 103 bombing. The current list includes Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria The Fenwick amendment did have an impact. After its enactment, the State Department consulted with key Congressional members and staff while considering at least some export licenses. There have been decisions, at least in the past, not to proceed with licenses and notification to Congress, because Congress was expected to object and potentially raise foreign policy problems. An unusual and unexpected consequence of the Export Administration Act of 1979 provision came to light only a dozen years later. One of the first 29 P.L. 96-72. As amended. Section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act of 1979, as amended (P.L. 96-72; 50 USC app. 2405(j)). 30 Section 4 of the Anti-Terrorism and Export Control Act of 1989, P.L. 101-222, enacted in the wake of the Iran-Contra Affair (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c101:1:./temp/ ~c101oiyO1J). 31 26 USC section 901(j). For text, see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl? title=26&sec=901.
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potential exports caught in the new export control was the sale of eight General Electric gas turbine engines for use in four heavily armed Luppo-class missile frigates that Italy was building for the Iraqi navy. Iraq at that time, like neighboring countries, had only small missile boats. The frigates would have helped Iraq dominate the small naval forces of the Gulf countries and control the oil shipping lanes to the Strait of Harmuz. In early 1980, only a month or two after Iraq was designated as a state supporter of terrorism, a White House official who opposed the sales to Iraq told me that that sale of the engines had been approved by the Commerce Department. Two engines already had been shipped. Mrs. Fenwick and some of her colleagues in the House and Senate protested and were able to block the shipment of the remaining six engines. Italy was then forced to redesign the hulls to accommodate the larger dimensions of British-made engines. As a result of the delay and later changes in Italian government attitudes toward providing the ships to Iraq, the frigates were still in an Italian shipyard when the 1991 Gulf War broke out. Thus, fortuitously, there were four fewer sophisticated military threats that would have diverted the resources of the Coalition’s naval and air forces. A decade after the terrorism list legislation was enacted in 1979, it underwent major modifications. Aside from making the terrorist list provision more stringent by changing the ‘‘would’’ enhance to ‘‘could’’ enhance language mentioned earlier, the Anti-Terrorism and Arms Export Control Act of 198932 laid out specific criteria and advance notification procedures that had to be followed before a country could be taken off the terrorism list. This provision was a Congressional reaction to the State Department’s removal of Iraq from the terrorism list in 1982 without consulting with or informing Congress—a move intended by the Reagan administration to tilt toward Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war on the theory that the Saddam Hussein regime was the lesser of two evils, even though he initiated the conflict. The legislation was sponsored by Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat, and Representative Lee Hamilton, then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and later co-chairman of the 9-11 Commission. Passage of the bill followed hearings into the Reagan White House’s contra arms deals. This scheme developed by National Security Council (NSC) staff member Oliver North involved selling TOW antitank missiles to Iran, a terrorist list country, in exchange for the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon by Shiite groups supported by Tehran. The plan then used the proceeds from the missile sales to go around Congress and illegally fund the anti-Marxist Contras in Nicaragua. This scheme was a violation of U.S. laws and a major departure of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism policy against rewarding hostage takers or other terrorists. Aside from tweaking the laws regulating arms exports, the 1989 legislation laid out specific procedures for removing a country from the terrorism list. They require that, before the designation is rescinded, the president must
32 P.L. 101-222. For text, see http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c101:1:./temp/ ~c101oiyO1J.
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make a determination and notify Congress 45 days in advance that the government of the country in question has not supported terrorism for the previous six months and has given assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future. The six-month time period was the result of a compromise worked out between Representative Berman and Richard Murphy, then the assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.33 The 45-day notification requirement was intended to give time to object or otherwise react to a resolution, for example, through legislation, or to informally protest. The formal lifting of Iraq’s designation had to await the formation of a new Iraqi government that could formally provide the required assurances. Libya was removed under these procedures after it agreed to pay compensation for families of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing and Qadhafi renounced efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
COUNTERING TERRORISM FUNDING In the mid-1990s, another major evolution in U.S. counterterrorism law began to develop. This was a shift in focus to terrorist groups that were not dependant on support from rogue states. Government counterterrorism officials became aware that secular terrorist groups, such as the ANO, increasingly were using front companies and organizations to raise and transfer money instead of depending upon state sponsors. Some of the state sponsors, perhaps responding to pressure from U.S. sanctions, had begun reducing their direct financial or other support to terrorist groups. These groups, in turn, began reducing their dependency on their state supporters State Department and Justice Department officials began looking for countermeasures after a partially declassified intelligence community paper on the ANO terrorist organization described some of the ANO’s front company activities in Eastern Europe. The study was turned into an unclassified State Department ‘‘white paper’’ or fact sheet.34 Meanwhile, fundamentalist and more independent groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas were emerging. These radical militant fundamentalist terrorist groups were raising large sums of money through so-called charities, which were used as front organizations, as well as through business fronts and criminal enterprises. In response, the Justice Department and State Department in the early 1990s began to develop legislation aimed at individuals (rather than counties) 33
In practice, the State Department’s Counterterrorism Office used a much longer time period to gauge whether a country was engaging in terrorism and took into account indirect forms of support, such as providing sanctuary or headquarters for terrorist groups even though its own agents may not have been detected to be involved in operations. 34 United States Department of State Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism, Abu Nidal Organization (Washington, D.C.: The Office, 1989). Terrorism—International Offenses—IsraelArab Relations, 1949– / Terrorists—Abu Nidal, 1937–2002—Abu Nidal (Organization). OCLC 21233325.
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who provided funding, weapons, safe houses, or other forms of material support for specific terrorist attacks. The proposed provision made it a crime for U.S. citizens, residents, or organizations to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support, such as weapons, safe houses, and training, for a specific act of terrorism, regardless of whether it was committed by a terrorist organization or individual. During the final drafting stage, Justice Department officials inserted the provision of financial services as one of the material support offenses to be covered by the new legislation. This modification was a result of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation, chaired by Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, which disclosed the ANO’s use of the British-based BCCI bank as a financial conduit. The concept for penalizing individuals who provide material support actually went back a decade earlier. In response to the discovery that a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, acting on his own and for compensation, had provided training and other assistance to Libya, the Reagan administration proposed legislation that would make it illegal for an American to act in concert with the armed forces or any intelligence agency of any foreign government or international terrorist group designated as a national security threat by the Secretary of State. This legislation was called the Prohibition Against the Training or Support of Terrorist Organizations Act of 1984.35 However, the Senate and companion House measures died after running into strong opposition by members who were concerned the bill could affect free speech and the provision of food. They also objected to giving the secretary of state the authority to designate terrorist organizations.36 This abortive effort, however, influenced the drafting of an amendment to the definitions in Section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which required the denial of visas to aliens who had engaged in terrorist activity. The amendment, incorporated into the Immigration Act of 1990, said terrorist activity was defined as providing material support to include not only weapons and explosives but also financial help, safe houses, transportation, communications, false documents, and training.37 The Justice Department then picked up this material support language and incorporated it into what became the Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act of 1994.38 Unfortunately, from a law enforcement perspective, the provision was watered down during a late night, backroom drafting deal between then FBI Director Louis Freeh and Congressman Don Edwards, a liberal California Democrat. Freeh agreed to Edwards’s addition of a 35
S. 2626 and HR in the 98th Congress, 1984. For more details on this early history of the material support provisions and other aspects of terrorism support laws, including various cases, see Robert M. Chesney, Assistant Professor of Law, Wake Forest University, ‘‘The Sleeper Scenario: Terrorism-Support Laws and the Demands of Prevention’’ 42 Harv. J. Legis. 1 (2005) (http://ssrn.com/abstract¼587442). 37 For current version of Section 212, as revised, see 8 USC section 1182(a)(3)(B)(iv)(VI) (supp. I12001) (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/8/chapters/12/subchapters/ ii/parts/ii/sections/section_1182.html). 38 Section 12005a of P.L. 103-322, enacted November 13, 1994. The legislation was better known for controls on assault weapons. 36
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subsection that made it virtually impossible to start an investigation unless the authorities already had facts that the crime already had taken place or was about to take place. Some lower-level FBI and Justice officials were privately furious, because the change significantly impeded the initiation of an investigation.39 This was finally corrected two years later in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, described in more detail below.40 Meanwhile in 1994, as the administration’s omnibus crime bill was winding its way through Congress and preoccupying members of the Judiciary Committees, administration officials began working on more comprehensive counterterrorism legislation. They were prompted by two sets of events. The first was the February 25, 1994, shooting of 29 Palestinians at a Hebron mosque by Baruch Goldstein, an American who immigrated to Israel and had been involved in the extremist far-right Kahane movement. That group was launched by Rabbi Meir Kahane, the hard-line founder of the Jewish Defense League in New York who later emigrated to Israel with a group of supporters. He was assassinated in 1990 by an Egyptian gunman at a speaking engagement in a New York City hotel. The second series of events was a string of six Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis in late 1994, including three bus bombings that killed 53 people and wounded dozens of others. These events prompted the formation of two interagency working groups of legislative specialists from the State, Justice, and Treasury Departments. One working group began examining existing laws to see whether they could be used quickly against terrorist groups. Meanwhile a parallel group, involving some of the same officials, began looking at ways to strengthen U.S. laws to counter terrorist organizations. Two Front Steps Against Terrorism Financing These working groups, in retrospect, marked a new emphasis in U.S. counterterrorism efforts—going after the money and targeting terrorist organizations that did not depend on state sponsors for their funds or other forms of support such as weapons. Their efforts resulted in two major actions. The task force focusing on using existing laws came with the first move. On January 23, 1995, the Clinton administration issued Executive Order Number 12947,41 freezing the assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction of 12 groups whose support of violence were determined to be threatening the Middle East peace process. The so-called dirty dozen included 10 Arab groups and 2 Israeli groups affiliated with the Kahane movement. This action was taken under the existing authority of the International Emergency Economics Powers Act (IEEPA),42 a statute that gives the president broad authority, including the freezing of assets upon the declaration of a national emergency. 39
Conversations at the time with FBI and Department of Justice officials. P.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 41 See http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/eo/12947.pdf. 42 The International Emergencies Economic Powers Act (http://www.treas.gov/offices/ enforcement/ofac/legal/statutes/ieepa.pdf). 40
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Meanwhile on the legislative front, the second working group completed new draft legislation that the interagency group had started drafting in 1994. Officials from the Department of Justice—led by lawyers from the Office of Terrorism and Violent Crime—the FBI, the State Department’s Legal Advisor’s Office, and the Counterterrorism office were the main participants. After numerous meetings and drafting sessions, we developed a score of provisions to strengthen existing U.S. counterterrorism law. The draft legislation was polished over the November 1994 Armistice Day weekend by Jim Reynolds, the veteran head of the Justice Department’s Terrorism and Violent Crime section.43 The draft bill was then cleared by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) through the various government agencies and introduced in February 2005 by key Democratic members of the judiciary committees: Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware and, on the House side, Representative Charles Schumer of New York. Senate Republicans later introduced an alternative bill containing material support provisions but also proposed habeas corpus reform restrictions.44 The key provisions, aimed at curbing the flow of money and other resources to terrorist groups, would make it a criminal offense for American citizens, residents, or organizations to knowingly provide funds and other material support to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the secretary of state. This legislation was intended to curb support by individuals or organizations for terrorist groups, just as nearly two decades earlier Congress began enacting legislation aimed against governments that supported international terrorism. Before the bill was actually introduced, representatives of the Arab-American community were briefed at my suggestion by Ambassador Philip Wilcox, the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism the Justice Department’s Jim Reynolds, and FBI officials. The Arab-American community representatives opposed the bill and denounced it publicly, even before they read the text. The denunciations may have had the unintended effect of making at least some donors more cautious and slowing down contributions to legitimate as well as dubious charities even before the bill was enacted. The original administration bill contained a licensing provision allowing donors to contribute to specific charitable activities such as medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance provided that the organizations provided documentation that the contribution actually was being used for those purposes. This attempt to accommodate legitimate humanitarian concerns ultimately was dropped however as a result of opposition in Congress. During discussions between State and Justice Department officials and the Senate
43 As Mr. Reynolds, now a senior Justice Department official, noted in a May 2007 interview, the administration legislation was drafted on a nonpartisan basis by little-known career professionals. They included Steve Weglian, in his office; Mike Lindemann, an expert in the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation; and Sam Witten, a State Department Legal Advisor’s Office attorney specializing in terrorism issues. I was the Counterterrorism Office’s representative and drafter. Some of the core ideas, as noted earlier, predated the Clinton administration. 44 The Senate bill was S.735.
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Judiciary Committee staff, one key staffer who worked for Republican Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan, a state with a large Arab-American population rejected the provision. She said that the recipient ‘‘charity’’ organizations would not stand for opening their books to inspection.45 In any event, the licensing proposal would have been difficult to administer effectively. The Senate version of the bill generally had been weakened, largely through the efforts by staff for Senator Abrahams and other Republican members. Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, a conservative Utah Republican, generally deferred to those who felt the most strongly about the bill. One Senate draft version even would have prohibited prosecutions unless the U.S. government could prove that the leaders of the recipient organization knew that the contributions were funds designated for specific acts of terrorism—as if these highly secret organizations were willing to provide transparent and accurate organizational charts. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican, and the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee, chaired by Representative Bill McCollum, a Florida Republican, and Representative Schumer, the senior Democrat on the crime subcommittee, held lengthy hearings and mark-up sessions. They had to work out a balance between liberal Democrats, such as Barney Frank of Massachusetts, and conservative Republicans, such as Bob Barr from Georgia, who were dubbed by some staffers working on the bill as the ‘‘Unholy Unlikely Alliance.’’ After a lengthy conference committee to work out final versions of the bill, in which the House’s stronger features generally prevailed, the bill ultimately was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton into law on April 24, 1996, as part of the landmark AEDPA of 1996,46 which became a key element in the efforts to counter terrorism fundraising. The Congressional attitude toward funding for terrorist groups was expressed in the ‘‘FINDINGS and PURPOSE’’ Sec. 301 (7) of the Act.47 This section stated that ‘‘foreign organizations that engage in terrorist activity are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contributions to such an organization facilitate that conduct.’’ In effect, Congress was reinforcing the view that the money is fungible and, even if the money is intended for legitimate charitable purposes, it frees up funds that could be used to support terrorist activities. Some terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah and those in Egypt use funds for weapons and to provide schools and medical clinics that attract supporters and potential operatives.
45 This took place during negotiating discussions between Senate Judiciary Committee staff members and Justice Department and State Department officials, including the author. This is a good example of the way legislation is sometimes shaped in behind-the-scenes discussions that are not necessarily reflected in the formal legislative history of committee reports and floor debate. 46 P.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 47 For the entire ‘‘Findings and Purpose Section, 301, see http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/ infousa/laws/majorlaw/s735.htm#t3.
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Designating Foreign Terrorist Organizations There are three main components of the 1996 AEDPA legislation’s efforts to counter terrorist fundraising and further restrict the entry into the United States of aliens associated with terrorist organizations First, the legislation authorizes the secretary of state, in consultation with the attorney general and secretary of the treasury, to designate groups involved in international terrorism as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). The statute blocks FTOs’ assets in the possession or control of U.S. financial institutions, subject to regulation by the secretary of the treasury. Some members of the House Judiciary Committee, both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, initially opposed the designation process as too sweeping and were concerned that once an organization was named it could never get off the list. The issue was resolved during a negotiating session with Congressional staff when a Justice Department official suggested the compromise in which the designations expired after two years unless renewed. The Republican-controlled Congress added provisions allowing FTO designations to be challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia. The designations and redesignations require lengthy administrative records that contain detailed descriptions of the organization, chronologies of attacks and other activities, and other information. Classified as well as unclassified information can be used. The first designations were made in October 1997, when Secretary of State Madeline Albright, in consultation with the attorney general and secretary of treasury as required by law, designated 30 groups.48 The year-and-a-half delay in making the first designations was the result of the provision of ADEPA that required designation decisions to be based on an administrative record and that mandated court challenges and defenses be based solely on that administrative record. Justice Department attorneys told the State Department that the administrative records therefore had to be the equivalent of court briefs. The State Department Foreign Service regional specialists in the Counterterrorism Office generally had no experience in this type of procedure and thus there were lengthy discussions and rewriting sessions with their Justice Department colleagues. Meanwhile, the officers had to deal with their regular counterterrorism duties. Furthermore, at that time in 1996 and 1997, State Department offices had only limited access to the unclassified Internet to aid their search of public sources—indeed there was only one such computer in the Counterterrorism Office. It was so slow and outdated that some of us who worked on preparing administrative records used our more up-to-date personal computers at home to conduct unclassified Internet research on the organizations. Some members of Congress publicly complained about the delays in letters to the secretary of state and a press release. In actuality, these delays were primarily the result of cutbacks in the State Department’s budget by Congress
48
See http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2001/10/fr100501.html.
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and resulting curbs on staffing and computer equipment, not any reluctance to implement the law that originated with the State Department. Two years later the process was repeated. During the October 1999 redesignations cycle required by the sunset provision, several groups that were no longer in business were dropped and al Qaeda was added. More groups were added in later years. The redesignations in 1999, 2001, and 2003 required an inordinate amount of paperwork, because complete new administration records had to be drafted for every group. This was required even though the groups may have had openly engaged in terrorist activities during the previous two years. The task consumed thousands of staff hours in the intelligence community, State Department, Justice, and Treasury. Thus, in 2003, at the request of my colleagues, I drafted for the Counterterrorism Office an amendment to extend the time period to four years. A modified version cleared the OMB interagency vetting process and the House of Representatives approved a modified version. The amendment, however, became bogged in the Senate when the vehicle bill, the State Department Authorization Bill, was pulled off the floor calendar because of filibuster threats against other proposed amendments. The next year, in June 2004, the House passed a slightly revised version, spearheaded by Representative Elton Gallegly, a Republican from California and chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, as part of the Intelligence Authorization Bill. That measure passed by the Senate and was signed into law on December 23, 2004.49 This provision allows a designated group to appeal the designation every two years and provides for a review by the State Department every five years. The current listing, from October 2005, designates 42 groups.50 Only a handful of the designated groups have challenged the designations as allowed under the law in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the District of Colombia. The court has consistently upheld the secretary of state.51
MATERIAL SUPPORT The second key component of AEDPA makes it a criminal offense for Americans to knowingly provide material support or resources to a terrorist 49
Section 7119 Intelligence Authorization Act of 2005, P.L. 108-458 Also see 8 USC Chapter 12, Section 1184 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode08/usc_sec_08_00001189—— 000-.html. 50 See http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm. 51 The most aggressive group in challenging the designations is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an anti-Iranian government group that, among other things, has fired mortar shells at Iranian court houses. The group, which carries on a lobbying campaign in Congress, has claimed that it originally was designated in 1997 as a gesture to the Iranian government, citing an unnamed NSC official to that effect. However, the designations process is a ‘‘bottoms up’’ approach. The initial list is compiled by State Department counterterrorism officers, in consultation with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Only much later in the process is the list forwarded to the NSC and White House before the final designations. The only change in the original 1997 process came when the NSC removed the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from the original list because the British and Irish governments were in a delicate stage of negotiations with the IRA.
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group formally designated as an FTO by the secretary of state under the procedures described above. The material support provisions have been an important legal tool against those people who help provide funds, weapons, training, financial services, and other forms of support for terrorist activities, even though they may not be the bombers or shooters. Along with the use of IEEPA-related executive orders used to freeze terrorist assets and related steps to block transactions, the material support laws are a major component of the U.S. government’s efforts to choke off the financial flows to terrorists. The Justice Department, in a lengthy ‘‘Counterterrorism White Paper’’ issued on June 22, 2006, said— The material support statutes have been a cornerstone of our success in terrorism financing cases as well as in a wide range of other cases addressing all types of support to terrorism. Our effective use of these statutes has allowed us to intervene at the early stages of terrorist planning, before a terrorist act occurs. We also have effectively used other terrorism and weapons of mass destruction statutes, and have drawn on more general statutes, such as immigration fraud and false statement offenses, where they apply in terrorism investigations.52
There are actually two material support provisions. One section, 18 USC 2339A, is a refinement of the measure watered down several years earlier in the Freeh-Edwards deal mentioned above. It dropped the restrictive language that Representative Edwards inserted that made it difficult to launch an investigation. The modified 18 USC 2339A provision made it illegal to knowingly provide material support for specific acts of terrorism, whether or not they are carried out by a known organization.53 The law does not define terrorism directly, but instead cites as predicate offenses a series of U.S. laws that criminalize certain specific acts, such as attacking aircraft, taking hostages, or attacking the president, cabinet officers, and members of Congress. Many of these previously enacted laws cited in 18 USC 2339A are the implementing legislation for the various international terrorism conventions. The second and broader material support provision, Section 18 USC 2339B, made it a criminal offense to knowingly provide material support to a designated FTO, whether or not the funds or other support can be directly linked to a terrorist attack.54 This measure was intended to curb the flow of funds or forms of material support without the prosecutors having to prove that each contribution or provision of material support was linked to a specific terrorist attack. As of July 31, 2007, according to Justice Department officials, 190 people have been charged with violations under one or both of the material support provisions, of whom 16 have been convicted and 31 have pled guilty. 52 For full text of the June 22, 2006, Justice White paper, which describes its law enforcement efforts against terrorism, including some of the specific cases, see http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/ terrorism/169/include/terrorism.whitepaper.pdf. 53 See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/113b/sections/ section_2339a.html. 54 See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/113b/sections/ section_2339b.html.
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By contrast, as of July 2004, 39 people had been charged under the two material support provisions and 14 had been convicted or pled guilty to these or other criminal charges.55 Also, though it is hard to measure, the provisions making it a criminal offense to knowingly provide funding to terrorist organizations may have some deterrent effect on possible donors to questionable groups. To those who complained that they had a strong desire or even religious duty to contribute to charities that operate overseas, officials have said, as during the previously mentioned January 1995 meeting with Arab-American organization representatives, that a number of reputable charities, such as the Red Crescent, assist local populations without also supporting terrorist activities. A third important provision of AEDPA amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize the secretary of state, in consultation with the attorney general, to designate foreign terrorist groups on the so-called Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL).56 Such a designation precludes the issuance of U.S. visas for members of such designated groups as well as officers and other leaders, as previously was the case. The year and a half it took Congress to pass AEDPA is an illustration of how the process of enacting legislation is not always a perfect process and sometimes has been compared to making sausage. In some instances, there is a last-minute rush to reconcile the differences between the Senate version and the House version of a bill in the joint Senate-House conference committee. The resulting bill that emerges from the conference committee and goes to the White House for the president’s signature can contain hurriedly drafted provisions. The Congressional debate over the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act was one of the first times that the terrorism issue became openly partisan—with the Clinton administration and the Republican-controlled Congress pointing fingers at each other over various provisions or for allegedly dragging their feet, especially after the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombings. Although the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured more than 800 resulted in more attention for the bill, it was nearly a year later before both the Senate and House passed their versions. The joint Senate-House conference committee then rushed through the drafting of a final bill that was signed into law on April 24, 1996, just after the one-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombings.57 Sometimes, in the process, small but useful provisions are overlooked. For example, in the State and Justice Department, draft legislation for ADEPA broadened the existing immigration law’s description of terrorist acts to include terrorist attacks using knives and other bladed weapons in addition to guns and explosives. Many of the terrorists conducting attacks in Algeria and Egypt had used hatchets, knives, and swords to kill their victims. In the final rush, the Congressional conference committee that worked out a compromise 55
Statistics from Justice Department provided at the author’s request. See http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2002/15222.htm. 57 For a Congressional Research Service Summary, see Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist, Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996: A Summary by American Law Division, June 3, 1996 (http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/96-499.htm). 56
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version of the 1996 act omitted the administration’s proposed changes on this subject. A corrective provision was finally enacted as part of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001.58 The 2001 USA PATRIOT Act also modified the FTO designations, originally enacted in the 1996 AEDPA, to deal with an issue previously discussed with Congress: terrorist groups that do not conduct actual attacks for two or more years but are still capable. The USA PATRIOT Act allowed for the redesignations of a terrorist group even if terrorist activities have not been detected during the previous two years, but the group retains the ‘‘capability and intent’’ to engage in terrorist activities. This change takes account of the fact that terrorist groups sometime ‘‘lie low’’ and do not conduct an actual attack for a considerable time period. They may be operating in effective secrecy, however, with their money raising and planning activities too well hidden to detect. Another example was the definition of training under the material support sections of AEDPA. The provision of training is one of the forms of prohibited material support. From my observations, executive branch officials and Congressional staffers did not even discuss the training prohibition. It was drawn from earlier legislation and everyone seemed to assume that training meant training people for terrorism activities. However, a December 3, 2003, decision by the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California barred prosecution for training support, saying that the law did not sufficiently define training and providing of personnel.59 Subsequently, the Justice Department obtained clarifying amendments in Section 2006 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.60 Additional refinements were included, including those expanding the definitions to include people who volunteered to join FTOs—such as an American who joined the Taliban in Afghanistan.61 The USA PATRIOT Act Five and a half years after the enactment of the AEDPA and 45 days after 9/ 11, Congress enacted the next major counterterrorism legislation. This was the USA PATRIOT Act, which was enacted on October 26, 2001. (The full name is the rather ungainly ‘‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intersect and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.’’62) 58
Section 411 (B)(ii) of the PATRIOT Act, 115 State. 346. The case involved a group of supporters of the Tamil Tigers against the Justice Department and Secretary of State Powell (http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/044DE357B D726D7288256DF10063BDE4/$file/0255082.pdf). 60 P.L. 108-458 (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/108-796/titlevi_terrorism_ prevention.pdf). 61 For additional background, see Congressional Research Brief, Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist, American Law Division, Material Support for Material Support of Terrorists and Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Sunset Amendments in Brief, March 17, 2006 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/ crs/terror/RS22222.pdf). 62 P.L. 107-56. For text of the PATRIOT Act, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ getdoc.cgi?dbname¼107_cong_public_laws&docid¼f:publ056.107. 59
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The fears of more terrorist attacks in the wake of 9/11 were reflected in the shape of the legislation and the speed with which it was rushed through. Title I was named ‘‘Enhancing Domestic Security against Terrorism.’’ Many of the provisions in other titles also related to protecting homeland security by, for example, facilitating investigations and surveillance. The legislation had been criticized for being hastily put together and rushed through Congress before most members had a chance to really examine it. Actually, some of the provisions had been drafted much earlier, during the Clinton administration by career officials in the Justice Department and other agencies. However, the provisions had been rebuffed by Congress before 9/11 or otherwise fell by the wayside. A prime example is a ‘‘roving wiretap provision’’ that allows federal officials to get a wiretapping order that allows the tapping of any phone used by a suspect, including cell phones. Previously, a wiretap order that allowed monitoring had to be applied to a specific phone number. The roving wiretaps already were permitted in ordinary criminal cases. Justice Department and FBI officials had been trying to change the law for years, but until 9/11, Congress had not been willing to go along. Breaking Down ‘‘The Wall’’ A major feature of the USA PATRIOT Act also permits the sharing of foreign intelligence information with federal law enforcement, protective, immigration, national defense, and national security officials for the performance of official duties. This includes information relating to protection against international terrorism or foreign attack, or concerning foreign activity and the conduct of foreign affairs. The removal of this legal barrier is considered by administration officials and some other observers to be a major benefit of the PATRIOT Act. For intelligence analysts, the removal has made it easier to ‘‘connect the dots.’’ The sharing of intelligence information has enhanced the ability to investigate and prosecute cases because useful information often is obtained from intelligence sources overseas where the recipients of the material support are located. Some observers, however, suggest that the barriers were more the result of attorney general guidelines, perceived restrictions, and operating practices within the CIA and FBI, rather than a matter of law. Whether or not that indeed was the case, the passage of the provision in the PATRIOT Act has opened the door to increased information sharing that Justice Department officials say has enhanced the ability to investigate and prosecute cases, especially under the material support laws. The PATRIOT Act also addresses the issue of terrorism funding, containing new provisions on money laundering that give the United States jurisdiction over foreign people who maintain a bank account in the United States. The new law requires U.S. financial institutions to terminate their correspondent relationships with foreign banks that ignore U.S. subpoenas for records.
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In addition, the PATRIOT Act makes terrorism an offense under the Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO),63 which originally was used against ordinary crime. The modification allows for forfeiture of all the assets of a person or entity that takes part in or plans an act of domestic or international terrorism. The provision includes a procedure for the owner of the confiscated assets to contest the seizure. Elements of the USA PATRIOT Act were controversial partly because some members and civil liberties organizations objected to the way the voluminous bill was rushed through Congress in the aftermath of 9/11 without enough time to read and study it. In the wake of the strong emotions following 9/11, members were reluctant to be painted as obstructionists or weak on terrorism. Librarians and civil libertarians, however, feared that a provision allowing the FBI to obtain access to the records of books checked out by terrorist suspects and Web sites they visited was an invasion of privacy. The original intent of the provisions was to assist investigators to determine if a suspect was looking at books on making explosives or other publications useful for terrorist activities. The issue became somewhat of a cause c´e l e` bre. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others charged that provisions of the Act violated the Constitution by allowing investigators in a ‘‘sneak-and-peak’’ procedure to obtain search warrants and not disclose that fact to the person subject to search. Critics even mounted an effort to get local city councils to vote for repeal of the law. The reaction against the Act was at least partially fueled by distrust of then Attorney General Ashcroft’s leadership of the Justice Department. As a result of the uneasiness over some of the provisions, Congress wrote a ‘‘sunset’’ clause into the 2001 Act that requires the legislation to expire in four years unless renewed. Reauthorizing and Improving the PATRIOT Act The Justice Department drafted a reauthorization bill that became a focus point of criticism and numerous administration speeches in its support.64 Various changes were made before it was eventually enacted as the USA
63
Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 USC § 1961 through 18 USC § 1968. RICO, as well as the material support provisions, were used to prosecute several persons arrested in 2001 for smuggling cigarettes from North Carolina, where the taxes were low, and reselling them in Michigan, where they could make a profit selling them in that high–cigarette tax state. The proceeds were then funneled to Hezbollah, one of the original groups designated as a foreign terrorist organization. (As a side note, during a series of seminars that the State Department and Justice Department conducted for other countries in 2002 to provide suggestions and pointers for strengthening their own legislation, officials from several countries were quite taken by the asset forfeiture concept. They saw it as a deterrent to terrorist supporters and an incentive for the investigative agencies that could use the proceeds from the sale of the assets to bolster their budgets.) 64 See chapter 21, Legislation.
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PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.65 The road to passage was bumpy, with one version failing to get through the Senate in December 2006, when the Senate Republican leaders were unable to round up the 60 votes needed to shut off debate. This was partly a reaction to a New York Times report shortly before the vote that President Bush had signed a secret executive order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to monitor the e-mail, phone calls, and other communications of U.S. citizens in the United States without a court order. The final version of the bill made permanent 14 provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 that were due to expire at the end of 2006. It extended the sunset procedures, until 2009, for three provisions, including those relating to roving wiretaps, access to business records, and the ‘‘lone wolf’’ provision from the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act. This provision permits surveillance of a non-U.S. person suspected of engaging in international terrorism or activities in preparation for international terrorism, even if the individual is not linked to a specific terrorist group. It also included about two dozen provisions designed to protect civil liberties. For example, it raised the threshold for the FBI to obtain access to certain business records under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court66 procedures. The new law requires that applications to the court for access to library or medical records have to be personally approved by one of three top-level FBI officials, the director, deputy director, or the FBI official in charge of the Intelligence Division. Applications must include a statement of facts demonstrating that the records sought are ‘‘relevant’’ to an authorized investigation to obtain terrorism or foreign intelligence information. The new law imposed additional reporting requirements on the use of roving wiretaps and any Justice Department development or use of data mining programs. These are just a sampling of the efforts to modify the original 2001 PATRIOT Act after that measure was rushed through during the heated atmosphere following the 9/11 attacks. The debate and the changes reflect the continuing efforts to find the right balance between laws intended to prevent terrorism, or prosecute them after the fact, and civil liberties concerns. The consensus shifts from time to time. Sometimes, it is affected by major attacks or increased threats. The consensus is also affected by perceptions among the public and lobby groups as to 65 There were actually two bills involved, the USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-177 stat 192 (2006) and the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-178, 120 Stat. 278 (2006). For Summary and Status, see http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.03199; for text, see http:// frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ177. 109. For CRS Summary, see Brian T. Yeh and Charles Doyle, USA United State Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), updated December 21, 2006 (http://fpc.state.gov/documents/ organization/78416.pdf). For President Bush’s speech on signing the legislation into law on March 9, 2006, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060309-4.html. For the President’s official signing statement, which contains executive branch interpretations, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060309-8.html. 66 For background, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_ Surveillance_Court.
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whether the measures intended to increase security for the society as a whole are applied with fairness to innocent suspects and privacy concerns. If there is a major terrorist attack on American soil again or more individuals or groups of people living in the United States are stopped on the verge of launching major attacks, the pendulum could well swing again. Focusing on Border Security Homeland and border security issues have come to the fore in the past several years, fueled partly by fears that more terrorists such as the 9/11 hijackers might sneak into the United States. The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security67 also reflected the post-9/11 fears that the United States was no longer safe behind its oceans and friendly borders with Canada and Mexico. The legislation described in this section reflects this continuing evolution of U.S. legislation, this time toward domestic terrorism concerns. There are many layers to this evolution. The border security issue has become wrapped into broader concerns, especially in the southwest states, because of the large number of illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico. Actually, to date, more terrorists have been found north of the border in Canada or trying to cross southward. To some extent, this border issue reflects more than worries about terrorists sneaking into the United States. It is a reaction to large numbers of poorly educated Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants who are perceived to be creating a subculture of people who are slow to learn English and a perception that they are changing the social composition of American society. Congress passed the ‘‘Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Act of 2002,68 which among other components, authorized 400 additional inspectors, investigators, and other staff on the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) over the next five years. It required every foreign visitor desiring entrance into the United States to carry a travel document containing biometric identification—that would be fingerprints or facial recognition. It strengthens the requirements that all commercial passenger ships and airplanes entering the United States provide a list of passengers and crew before arrival. The implementing procedures were still being negotiated with foreign countries as of early 2007. Twenty seven months later, Congress enacted and the president signed the Secure Fence Act,69 which among other things, authorized construction of a 700-mile-long fence along the border with Mexico. President Bush wanted to include immigration reform procedures that would allow illegal aliens who had been living in the United States for a period of time to eventually obtain 67
See chapter 24, Homeland Security. For text of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 establishing the Department of Homeland Security, see P.L. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135. Also see http:// frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname¼107_cong_public_laws&docid¼f:publ296.1 07.pdf. 68 P.L. 101-173. For text, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname= 107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ173.107. 69 P.L. 109-367, 120 State. 2638. For text, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ367.109.
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U.S. citizenship. The Republican-controlled Congress, however, declined to go along. It was one of the first major splits with President Bush and the president’s statement when he signed the bill reflected this.70 The heated debates of the issue in early 2007 reflected unhappiness from both sides of the issue about the proposed compromise legislation that was brought to the Senate floor in May. Other border issues were included in previous legislation, for example, the PATRIOT Act. One issue allows the secretary of state, based on reciprocity, to share with foreign governments information in the Department’s visa lookout system for the purpose of countering terrorism and other crimes. The United States already has such a working relationship with Canada and one was established with Australia before the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In addition, the PATRIOT Act broadens Immigration Act provisions, permitting the denial of visas for people who use their position of prominence to endorse terrorist activities, such as raising funds for terrorist groups. Dealing with the physical and cargo aspects of border security, Congress enacted the Maritime Security Act of 200271 and then stronger measures in the SAFE Port Act of 2006.72 The measures are intended to improve the checking of the hundreds of thousands of cargo containers that arrive in the United States each year. The legislation gave a boost to the purchase and use of scanning and detection equipment. For example, it requires radiation detection technology at 22 of the busiest American ports by the end of 2007. These measures reflect concerns that only about 5 percent of the cargo containers entering the United States are inspected and that they may be used to smuggle in nuclear devices or other weapons of mass destruction. The SAFE Port Act provides legislative authority for key elements of our port security strategy. The bill codifies into law the Container Security Initiative, launched in 2002, in which American inspectors have been assigned to dozens of foreign ports to screen cargo before it leaves for the United States.73 Alien Terrorist Removal Court An interesting earlier approach to the border security and immigration issues emerged in the 1990s when the Justice Department developed a procedure under which alien terrorist suspects could be deported while protecting the classified information. Section 50374of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 established a special court of judges trained to evaluate classified information, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC). 70
See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026.html. For the White House Fact Sheet, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026-1.html 71 P.L. 107-295. 116 Stat. 2064. For text, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ getdoc.cgi?dbname¼107_cong_public_laws&docid¼f:publ295.107. 72 P.L. 109-347, formally called the Security And Accountability For Every Port Act Of 2006 (page 120 STAT. 1884). For text, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-. 73 See President Bush’s speech upon signing the legislation, October 13, 2006 (http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061013-2.html). 74 See http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&sid¼cp104s8xQ8&refer¼&r_n¼hr518.104 &db_id¼104&item¼&sel¼TOC_153662&.
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Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act75 to allow the Justice Department to use classified information without disclosure in deportation cases in a special federal court involving alien terrorist suspects. The attorney general, however, would have to make a determination that conventional immigration proceedings in administrative courts would pose a threat to U.S. national security. In general, the ATRC process requires that the alien be provided an unclassified summary of the classified information. A judge of the court examines the information ex parte and in camera to determine whether it is adequate to enable the alien to prepare a defense. The ATRC statute, however, permits a case to go forward without such a summary if both the alien and disclosure of the classified information would pose grave risks. The judges of the ATRC would have to examine the unclassified version of the information made available to the defendant and the attorneys and verify whether it was an accurate representation of the classified material. The Chief Justice of the United States has appointed five judges to the court, but so far the court has not been used. Justice Department officials have said that other substantive changes that Congress brought to immigration provisions, beginning in 1996 and continuing through the USA PATRIOT Act and Real ID Act,76 have enabled more cases to proceed conventionally and obviated the need for the attorney general’s ATRC certification. There also appear to be other issues, including definitions of suspects who can be tried and whether the criminal charges or investigative priorities are more important. Nevertheless, even though the special court procedure has not been used, this mechanism for protecting classified evidence while using specially trained judges to verify the accuracy of the unclassified summary could provide a useful model for future consideration or for other countries to consider. The ATRC concept originated in the Justice Department, with support from the State Department, to help the United States avoid the dilemma of either allowing alien terrorists to remain in the United States, on the one hand, or endangering national security by disclosing classified evidence in their removal proceedings, on the other. This was a problem before the creation of the ATRC. Justice department officials believe that without the ATRC the government is likely to once again face this dilemma in at least a small number of cases, and ‘‘thus the ATRC remains a potentially critical tool.’’77 75
See INA sections 502-504, 8 USC §§ 1532-1534. The Real ID Act of 2005 is intended to establish national standards for the issuance of drivers’ licenses, the most commonly used form of identification, by state governments. It was enacted as Title II of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, P.L. 109-13. For text, see http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:6:./temp/c109JYrU6H. 77 The description of this complex legislation is based on 1996 discussions with Justice Department officials, May 2007 e-mail exchanges with Michael Lindemann, a veteran career attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration who helped draft the court legislation, and excerpts from an April 12, 2002, Department of Justice letter to the Senate and House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. For more background on the court provision, see a Washington Legal Foundation paper by Steve Valentine, February 22, 2002 (http://www.wlf.org/upload/222-02valentine.pdf). 76
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CIVIL SUITS Meanwhile, in another evolving dimension of using legislation against terrorism, families of American victims of international terrorism began filing civil suits against terrorist groups and or their supporters. One of the first cases was filed by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the elderly American who was thrown overboard in his wheelchair when Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in October 1985. An Italian court had convicted in absentia Abu Abbas, the PFLP leader who masterminded the hijacking. He first took refuge in Yugoslavia for about 10 days and then moved to Iraq. A U.S. warrant was dropped two years after the hijacking when a Justice Department review concluded that the nature of the evidence (largely believed to have been intercepts) could not be used under U.S. legal procedures. The Klinghoffer family filed suit in 1990 against the PLO, which had property in the United States, because Abu Abbas was a member of the Fatah ruling council. The case, brought under the Death on the High Seas Act, dating back to the 1920s78 was later settled out of court in 1996. The terms were never publicly disclosed. Several changes79 in U.S. law made it easier for victims of terrorism (or their families) to file civil suits against terrorists and their alleged supporters. The Antiterrorism Act of 1991,80 enacted with the strong backing of the Klinghoffer family and the families of Pan Am 103 victims and supported by the State Department, allowed U.S. nationals or their survivors injured by acts of international terrorism to file civil suits to seize assets of terrorists. The measure contained provisions to address Justice Department concerns about protecting evidence that might be used for criminal prosecution. Initially, the law was not really tested and it excluded suits against foreign states and their agents, in accordance with the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA),81 which was part of the international agreements under which nations did not sue each other in court. However, this changed in 1996. Families of terrorist victims lobbied to open the door to sue state sponsors of terrorism, such as Libya. Congress enacted Section 221 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,82 amending the FSIA to allow U.S. nationals to bring civil actions against terrorist states. Families of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing filed suit against Libya for its complicity in the attack, winning large settlements. American hostages held captive in Lebanon during the 1980s by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah also brought suits against the government of Iran. 78
46 USC Sec 761 46 USC, Appendix Section 761. For more details, see Congressional Research Service Report, Jennifer K. Elsea, American Law Division, Lawsuits Against State Supporters of Terrorism: An Overview, May 27, 2005 (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:VZwTuTvRctUJ:opencrs.cdt.org/getfile.php%3Frid% 3D49925+crs+suite). 80 18 USC Sec. 2333. 81 P.L. 94-583, 90 Stat. 289l, 28 USC Sec. l330, l332(a), l39l(f) and l60l-l6ll. For a State Department Fact sheet, see http://travel.state.gov/law/info/judicial/judicial_693.html#. 82 P.L. 104-132, (28 USC 1602 Seq). 79
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So, too, have families of some of the American citizens killed by Palestinian terrorists groups that receive support from Iran. The collection of favorable judgments is problematic, however, because in some cases the terrorist-supporting countries did not have available assets in the United States or previously frozen assets were bound up with earlier claims and agreements. The State Department has had difficulty persuading the families and the public to accept its concerns that paying out the frozen assets to private individuals reduces the U.S. bargaining leverage and pressures against the terrorist-supporting states or that other countries might use the terrorist exemptions in the American foreign sovereign immunity law as a precedent to justify the seizure of U.S. assets. To meet the concerns of the families (and their lawyers) about the difficulty in collecting damages, Congress enacted several measures. One, in 1999,83 allowed victims who obtained judgments against terrorist states to receive compensations from assets that the foreign country or entity holds in the United States. Because President Clinton exercised a national security interest waiver, Congress passed Section 2002 of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000,84 which permitted the judgments against foreign countries to be paid out of U.S. funds. In effect, the U.S. Treasury was authorized to pay damages awarded in suits against foreign governments. As a Congressional Research issue brief noted, [T]he payment of the ten judgments against Iran out of U.S. funds seemed to some observers to contradict one of the major justifications for enacting the terrorist state exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) in the first place, namely to force terrorist states to pay a price for their actions and to deter them from engaging in such acts in the future.85
This rationale for making exceptions to the FSIA was the reason the State Department Counterterrorism Office supported the 1991 civil suit legislation in the first place, despite the reluctance of some State Department lawyers. About two dozen cases involving scores of plaintiffs have been filed in this relatively new use of civil suits against terrorists and their facilitators. 86 Examples of the variety of cases include the following: ¥ In July, 2004, a judgment in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island ruled that the Palestinian Authority and PLO did not enjoy sovereign immunity because 83
Section 117 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (P.L. 105-277). See http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=105_ cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ277.105. 84 P.L. 106-386 page 114 stat 1542. See http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ386.106. 85 See the Congressional Research Service Report, Jennifer K. Elsea, American Law Division, Lawsuits Against State Supporters of Terrorism: An Overview, May 27, 2005, page 5. 86 For a more detailed list, see Appendix I, Congressional Research Service Report, Jennifer K. Elsea, American Law Division, Lawsuits Against State Supporters of Terrorism: An Overview, May 27, 2005 (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:w6Adu2oXVosJ:opencrs.net/getfile.php%3Frid%3D40100+crs+suites+against+terrorist+states&hl=en&ct=clnk&&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a).
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¥
¥
¥
¥
87
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‘‘Palestine’’ does not constitute a state under U.S. law. The judge awarded $116 million in damages to the family of Yaron Ungar who was shot and killed by Palestinian gunmen in 1996. Three years later, however, in April 2007, a New York Court ruled that the PLO funds should be unfrozen. Lawyers for the family said they would take additional steps in the case.87 In another dimension to the use of U.S. legislation against terrorists approach, the material support statutes are being used in civil suits against financial institutions accused of facilitating the transfer of funds to support terrorist operations. A major law suit brought in 2002 by families of the victims of 9/11 seeks a trillion dollars in damages against banking institutions, including Saudi banks, charities, and others, that they contend helped support al Qaeda operations. The defendants are charged, among other things, with providing material support in the form of financial services to the al Qaeda terrorist group. The case is under appeal.88 In September, 2004, Cantor Fitzgerald LP, a major bond broker that lost about 60 percent of its New York employees in the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks, filed a $7 billion lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda, and more than 50 Middle Eastern banks and foundations. The suit alleges racketeering and conspiracy by Saudi Arabia, foreign charities, banks, and relief organizations in lending ‘‘financial and other material support and substantial assistance’’’ to al Qaeda, which is blamed for the attacks.89 A civil case was filed in July 2004 against the Arab Bank of Jordan on charges that it was providing material support to terrorist by serving as a conduit for funds from Saudi contributors to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Several American families joined in the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. They included the widow of John Linde, one of three U.S. civilian contractors killed by a roadside bomb serving on protective detail for U.S. diplomats who were visiting the West Bank to interview Palestinian candidates for Fulbright scholarships.90 The court denied the Bank’s motions to dismiss the case and as of early 2007 it was in the discovery stage. Meanwhile, in August 2005, without admitting or denying the facts of the case, the Bank suspended its operations in the United States under a consent order with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for failing to properly monitor and report suspicious transactions. The Bank paid $24 million to the U.S. government. In a case that stemmed from an attack two decades ago, in April 2006, lawyers representing the surviving passengers, estates, and family members of the 1985 hijacking of Pan Am 73 in Karachi Pakistan that killed 20 people, filed a civil suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit seeks $10 billion in compensatory damages, plus unspecified punitive damages, from Libya, Colonel Qadhafi, and the five convicted hijackers. The lawsuit alleges Libya provided the ANO with material support and also ordered the attack as part of a Libyansponsored terrorist campaign against American, European, and Israeli interests. The Libyan government sought to dismiss the charges and the case is still pending.91
See the Reuters article at http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN072066322 0070408?feedType=RSS. 88 See http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/15/attacks.suit/. 89 See the Bloomberg Press account at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_ us&refer=top_world_news&sid=a7GTOzeI_jDY. 90 The Associated Press article is available on http://www.swtriallaw.com/case-arab-bank/ suit-accuses-arab-bank-of-aiding-terror.html. 91 For more background, see http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=167908.
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Richard D. Heideman, a prominent Washington attorney in the Linde and several other cases, including those against the Libyan, Syrian, and Iranian governments, summed up the civil suit efforts this way: I believe that the use of the American judicial system by victims and families to seek recovery for the maiming and murder of Americans is an essential tool for countering terrorism. It was the right thing for Congress to do, to allow victims to seek redress. States and others involved in terrorism must be held fully accountable for their heinous conduct.92
IMPLEMENTING THE LAWS Enacting and updating strong counterterrorism laws and even effective investigation and enforcement is not enough to effectively counter the evolving terrorism threat. Good intelligence, persistence, strong programs, and international cooperation—and even luck—are important. Sometimes it takes years to bring terrorists to justice. Successes do not come overnight. Abu Abbas, who was convicted in absentia in an Italian court for the 1985 Achille Lauro atrocity after the Italians let him go, was apprehended in Iraq only after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. American military officials said he died of illness in March 2004 of natural causes while in custody. Abu Nidal, whose ANO had been one of the most dangerous international terrorist groups in the 1980s, died of multiple gunshot wounds in Iraq in 2002, before the invasion. He had been enjoying Saddam Hussein’s ‘‘hospitality,’’ but widespread reports suggest that he was murdered. Other terrorists have been tracked for years before being caught and brought to trial or in some cases killed. In one early and noteworthy case of international cooperation in bringing a terrorist to justice, the United States tracked down in Africa and convicted Omar Mohammed Ali Rezak for the murder of an American woman passenger on Egyptian Airline flight 645, which was hijacked to Malta in November 1985. The Maltese had quietly released Rezak after serving only 8 years of a 25-year sentence. American officials located him after he traveled to Africa, and by arrangement with Nigerian authorities, he was rendered to the United States when he landed in Lagos after being detained and then released in an arrangement with another African country. Rezak was convicted in U.S. courts in 1996, 11 years after the hijacking, to a life sentence for the murder.93 Justice Department lawyers, and even the State Department Counterterrorism Office, which happened to have a foreign service officer who was also a lawyer with experience in Africa, spent many days in Africa negotiating the arrangements. This case underscores the importance of patience and resources in tracking down and convicting terrorists. Since 9/11, not only the United States but also many other countries have strengthened their counterterrorism laws. Strong laws and good policies are 92
Interview with the author, May 2007. See http://www.cnn.com/US/9610/07/terrorist.sentenced/index.html.
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not sufficient in fighting terrorism. It is also necessary to enforce and implement the laws and to back up counterterrorism programs and investigators with sufficient personnel and financial resources. Yet, when it comes to actually funding programs that strengthen our ability to combat international terrorism overseas, the White House and Congress often fail to back up their strong rhetoric with the necessary money. For example, the 9/11 Commission report94 noted that Attorney General John Ashcroft testified at a May 9, 2001, Senate Appropriations Congressional hearing that ‘‘one of the nation’s most fundamental responsibilities is to protect its citizens … from terrorist attacks.’’ The very next day, however, his Justice Department issued internal guidance for preparing the fiscal year (FY) 2003 budget request to Congress and it listed fighting gun violence and illegal drugs as a priority, but not terrorism. As related in the Commission report, the head of the FBI counterterrorism unit, Dale Watson, ‘‘told us that he almost fell out of his chair when he saw the memo, because it made no mention of counterterrorism.’’95 The Commission’s report also said that when the Justice Department’s draft budget request was completed, it did not increase the FBI’s counterterrorism funding above the FY 2002 level still pending in Congress. FBI Director Thomas Pickard ‘‘appealed for more counterterrorism enhancements, an appeal the Attorney General denied,’’ the report said. The FBI’s requested $588 million increase included proposed funds for 54 additional translators and 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff. However, the budget request that Attorney General Ashcroft forwarded to the White House on September 10 did not include any increase, according to budget documents obtained by the Washington Post and reported in a March 22, 2004, story.96 After 9/11, the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts, but the White House OMB cut the request by nearly a third, according to the Washington Post account. During the summer of 2001 when U.S. officials were on high alert for possible terrorist attacks, NSC, CIA, and State Department officials proposed a covert action program against al Qaeda. But it was caught up in a budget shortage problem. The 9/11 Commission said the proposals would have needed more funds than already budgeted in that fiscal year. This budget issue was not resolved before 9/11. Even after 9/11, and the terrorist attacks in the wake of the Iraq war, the White House and its OMB failed to provide sufficient resources needed for important programs that help stop terrorists before they can strike against American allies and at the American presence overseas. Compounding the problem, the Republican-controlled Congress sliced even deeper into the 94 For link to the full, see Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf. For a booked-marked version, see http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/08/b133128.html 95 Ibid., 209. 96 See Dana Milbank, ‘‘FBI Budget Squeezed After 9/11: Request for New Counterterrorism Funds Cut by Two-Thirds,’’ The Washington Post, March 22, 2004, A06. For text, see http:// www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13541-2004Mar21?language¼printer.
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administration’s already pared-down requests for practical measures against the terrorist threat. The attitudes that led to these cuts were long standing. As the 9/11 Commission report noted, the State Department ‘‘came into the 1990s overmatched by the resources of other departments and with little support for its budget either in the Congress or the President’s Office of Management and Budget.’’97 The problem is compounded by the inclination of some members of Congress or their election opponents in some districts to grandstand against the foreign assistance program as a ‘‘foreign giveaway’’—even as they slipped in amendments for their favorite causes. This type of sloganeering inevitably led to reluctance by some members to support higher foreign aid appropriations. Cutting the foreign aid budget cuts not only traditional economic assistance but also counterterrorism and other security-related programs that help our allies become more capable in fighting terrorism or drug trafficking (often a money source for some terrorist groups). An example is the State Department’s ATA Program, which helps strengthen the counterterrorism capabilities of foreign law enforcement personnel. Courses range from training personnel in detecting explosives and rending them safe, to hostage negotiations, VIP protection, crisis management, and airport security. The program provides foreign law enforcement officials with crucial counterterrorism skills they cannot get on their own. This not only strengthens international working relationships, but also helps other countries to counter terrorists while they are still overseas, far from our borders, and to protect their own citizens and American visitors and residents. The program’s importance was underscored when Jordan, a major ATA participant, disrupted major attacks planned against American tourists during the December 1999 millennium threat. The widespread terrorist attacks in Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, Morocco, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries during the past several years demonstrate the need to strengthen counterterrorism capabilities throughout the world. Accordingly, the ATA Program planners mapped out an expanded training program. In a September 7, 2003, address to the nation on Iraq, President Bush said, Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places.… This will take time and require sacrifice. Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure.’’ (emphasis added)98
In a July 12, 2004, speech at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, President Bush said of the fight against terrorists, ‘‘we will confront them overseas so that we do not have to confront them at home.’’
97
The 9/11 Commission Report, 94–95. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030907-1.html.
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Despite these and similar statements, the Bush White House’s OMB cut the State Department budget requests for the ATA Program and related counterterrorism programs an average of a fifth for the regular budget cycle years after 9/11—FY 2003, FY 2004, and FY 2005. The same week of the Oak Ridge speech and despite the administration’s warnings of possible terrorist attacks during the election campaign, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a foreign assistance appropriations bill that cut the ATA Program funding by 13.5 percent, to $111 million. The Appropriations Committee report on the bill gave no explanation for the cut in the administration’s requests, except to portray it merely as an increase over the previous year’s appropriation. Cuts also were made in later years. The administration had requested $135.6 million for the ATA Program for FY 2007. Congress approved $122 million. A continuing resolution passed after the 2006 elections carried the funding level over for another year—in effect no increase and actually a cut when inflation is taken into account. The funding problems have affected the interagency effort to curb the flow of money going to terrorists. OMB and Treasury had cut the Internal Revenue Service’s request for additional financial investigators to unravel complex terrorist money trails. Treasury’s new Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence—which has been given an elevated status in the bureaucracy and an ambitious mission to develop and target financial intelligence, coordinate law enforcement, sanctions, and regulatory enforcement, and maintain an international coalition against terrorist financing—initially operated on a shoestring budget and extremely limited travel funds. The State Department’s component of the interagency teams that help other countries strengthen their ability to counter terrorism funding also was strapped for staff and travel funds and lost several key experts. Another section of Treasury, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which among other things, deals with assets of terrorist groups and terrorism-supporting countries, had been kept for years at the same level of funding while the work load has increased. Only recently has the situation improved. The State Department’s contribution to the successful interagency counterterrorism research and development program the TSWG also has been shortchanged. As a result of State’s leadership, five foreign partners take part in this program, contributing financial and technical resources. While the Defense Department and other agencies now fund the bulk of the program, which runs at about $70 million a year, the budget officials at State and OMB have kept the State Department’s contribution to the same $1.8 million for the past six years. This makes it increasingly difficult for the State Department to keep the program running on an even keel, not tilting toward one agency or another, and to enhance the partnership relations with other countries. In addition to budgetary constraints, an important weakness of the counterterrorism effort is a lack of strong laws and enforcement capability in many developing countries. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, passed after 9/11, requires member nations to take steps against the financing of terrorists. As part of this effort, the United States and other industrial
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countries such as Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have worked with emerging nations, but there is still much work to be done. The State Department and Justice Department used ATA funding to hold six seminars for 36 countries in 2002 to provide suggestions for assessing and strengthening counterterrorist laws and regulations. Additional seminars were held in Southern Africa. Seminars involving half a dozen countries or more, however, are not by themselves the way to give detailed assistance to help individual countries improve their specific legislation. As a follow-up to the seminars, small teams that specialize in drafting legislation were supposed to be sent to countries that requested their assistance. A third stage of assistance was to provide training for investigators and prosecutors. However, these follow-up stages, which would cost only an estimated $800,000 a year for about six countries annually, were stalled because of budget and staff issues in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Office and funding issues between the ATA Program and the Justice Department. At the same time, there is at least an awareness of policy makers, if not the budget offices, of the need to help other countries strengthen their legal systems. The 2006 National Strategy paper for Countering Terrorism99 noted the following: Some legal systems lack adequate procedural, substantive, and international assistance laws that enable effective investigation, prosecution, and extradition of terrorists. Such gaps offer a haven in which terrorists and their organizations can operate free from fear of prosecution. In the United States we have developed a domestic legal system that supports effective investigation and prosecution of terrorist activities while preserving individual privacy, the First Amendment rights of association, religious freedom, free speech, and other civil rights. We will continue to work with foreign partners to build their legal capacity to investigate, prosecute, and assist in the foreign prosecution of the full range of terrorist activities—from provision of material support to conspiracy to operational planning to a completed act of terrorism.
There must be sufficient financial resources and human resources— investigators, prosecutors, trainers, and security officials. At the level of the White House and the NSC, priority should be given to implementing counterterrorist programs and pushing the bureaucracy and Congress to provide these necessary resources. Dealing with the Congressional Appropriations Committees is difficult at best for the State Department. Because of competing priorities and the desire to focus lobbying efforts on ‘‘the big picture,’’ the State Department Congressional Relations and Management Bureau officials who deal with the overall budget try to restrict and control contacts between individual State Department bureaus and the appropriations committee key staff. Committee staffs have a great deal of power and are not always shy about showing it. One example burst out after a relatively rare meeting several years ago that Counterterrorism Office officials were able to arrange with several House Appropriations Committee members. A junior State Department 99
For full text, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct/2006/sectionV.html#longterm.
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official handed out talking points that included the Department’s arguments for restoring the cuts made earlier by the foreign operations subcommittee in the ATA Program. When a senior Republican subcommittee staffer saw the talking points, she scolded a State Department official saying, ‘‘How dare you challenge the chairman’s mark!’’ referring to the figures approved by the subcommittee for which she was the staff director. Another illustrative example of the relatively low priority the House Appropriations committee attached to funding counterterrorist programs was illustrated in a press release issued by the House Appropriations Committee after the committee acted on the foreign assistance appropriations bill in 2003. The press release neglected to mention the funding levels for the counterterrorism programs. This was despite the fact that other programs approved at lower appropriations levels were listed in the press release. When I could not reach a foreign operations subcommittee staffer involved in working on the bill, I called the committee press aide to see whether he had the counterterrorism figures. He said no. I politely suggested that terrorism funding might be of some interest and worth listing in the press release the next time. The young-sounding staffer responded ‘‘Are you trying to tell me how to write my press release?’’ and slammed down the phone. The following year, the House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and the full Committee did refer to some counterterrorism programs in its press releases, although not the ATA Program. I cite these examples not to point fingers at individual staffers who often work under pressure but to illustrate the real world of personalities and sometimes even arrogance that can affect the Congressional and the executive branch process in funding the counterterrorism effort. To some extent, there is a problem of mind-set. OMB and Congressional budget specialists tend to look at the previous year’s budget as the baseline for the new fiscal year. Thus, when they work out appropriations levels for the coming year, they usually look back at the previous year’s budget and add or subtract a certain percentage, instead of focusing on the actual projected needs of a program. They may then describe an appropriation as an increase of X percent over last year’s budget instead of noting that it is, say, only 75 percent of the program’s projected requirement. The White House has a major role in these budget issues. The OMB evaluates budget proposals from the various agencies and decides the amounts to request from Congress. If an issue is a priority, the White House and the NSC can and should make this clear to the OMB ‘‘green eye shades’’ who work out the numbers. Second, if an issue is a priority, the White House should make this clear to the Congress, especially if cuts were made by one House and there is a chance to obtain the administration’s original request in the Senate-House conference committee that works out the final figures. This, however, takes leadership and commitment to fight for unglamorous but important nuts-and-bolts programs. In my observations, the commitments were all too lacking despite 9/11. Congress, in addition to cutting appropriations requests, also has, if inadvertently, hindered the counterterrorism effort in other ways. For example, in its desire to sell foodstuffs to Cuba and other countries on the terrorism list,
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the Congressional agricultural block pushed through legislation that loosened controls over the exports of agricultural and medical products to countries on the terrorism list. The Trade Enhancement Act of 2000,100 sponsored by Representative George R. Nethercutt, Jr., a Republican from the appleexporting region of Washington State, greatly increased the burden of evaluating export licenses by the Commerce and State Departments and in some cases the Defense Department. The problem was not with food products, which were approved quickly, but the need to scrutinize medical equipment exports to Iran. Some of the export license applications for such items as scanning equipment raised suspicions that they might be used for nonmedical purposes. The scrutiny of the licenses for possible dual use or improper end-users chewed up thousands of staff hours in several bureaus of the State Department and Commerce Department, diverting State Department officials from their other counterterrorism tasks. Even then, it is difficult to ensure that the dozens of scanners that companies want to sell to Iran are going to legitimate medical facilities to treat Iranians and will not being diverted to treat people who fought against American troops in neighboring Iraq or to examine components for the missile and nuclear program. Congress also diverted scarce staffing resources by too often demanding that State Department officials testify at public hearings on short notice. At times, these hearings appear to help members get press publicity rather than a better understanding of the issues. In a typical scenario, a terrorism-related incident gets headlines in the press and a Congressional member or committee staffer or member says, ‘‘Let’s have a hearing.’’ During the aftermath of the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988, Congress held at least 16 hearings or briefings, with more than half a dozen subcommittees claiming jurisdiction. At one point in March 2004, Ambassador Cofer Black, then the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, had three hearings in two days. One subcommittee went ahead and scheduled a hearing without checking to find out that another subcommittee already had scheduled Ambassador Black as a witness for the same day. A day earlier, Ambassador Black had to pull out early from an important bilateral meeting with the Russians because then-Senator George Allen of Virginia, the chairman of a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee involved, was—according to his staff—‘‘just dying to hold a public hearing’’ after the terrorist bombing of the Madrid railway station. These ‘‘show business’’ hearing often chew up a great deal of valuable time and effort for no real legislative or oversight benefit gain. However, the State Department’s Bureau of Congressional Relations, whose main job of course is to improve relations with Congress, usually is reluctant to turn down a request for a hearing. It is more inclined to pressure a bureau to comply with a request rather than persuade the subcommittee to back off. Congress is certainly entitled to and should play its oversight role, but this can often be accomplished better by closed-door briefings where officials can talk more candidly. Formal hearings too often divert understaffed State Department offices from fighting terrorism to preparing testimony and 100
P.L. 106-385 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:H.R.4461).
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briefing books. All too often, these hearings appear to help members get a television sound bite or play to their constituents than actually obtain information or shape legislation. Other agencies are affected as well. DHS high-level officials reportedly were called up to the Hill 142 times in one year and that most of the meetings were defined as ‘‘more PR stunt than real oversight.’’ Again, I cite these examples not to castigate Congress (as a former staffer I am sympathetic to their role) but to illustrate how the real world operates. It is our hope that the above description of the practical and political problems, along with the documents contained in this book, will help further the understanding of some of the problems in implementing U.S. counterterrorism policies, laws, and programs.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ¥ The broad outlines of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism policy have remained remarkably consistent for the past three decades, with increased emphasis on international cooperation, applying economic and political pressures against terrorist-supporting states, and supporting the principle of not making deals that reward terrorists. ¥ There have been departures from this policy, most notably the missiles for hostage deals by Reagan administration officials during the Lebanon hostage situation. ¥ The United States has used military options against terrorists and the use of military assets—as appropriate—and this remains a policy option. But it is not always a viable option, especially in confronting shadowy cells operating in urban areas. Thus legal, economic, political, and diplomatic tools and international cooperation will continue to be of primary importance in countering terrorism. ¥ Efforts to denigrate legal tools as a weak substitute for taking military actions are more rhetoric than realistic. Increasingly, terrorists are hiding in urban areas, including Western cities and there is no ready address. ¥ The U.S. government’s counterterrorism laws have evolved over the years, from an initial focus on sanctions against state sponsors of terrorism to the development of measures to curb the flow of money and other material resources to nonstate actors. ¥ Meanwhile, new branches of counterterrorism law have emerged, such as specific measures intended to enhance border security and the use of civil suits against terrorists by victims and families of victims. But while the evolution may continue, better enforcement of existing laws is paramount. ¥ Laws can be drafted and improved over the years, evolving to meet new conditions. The 9/11 Commission said we are not safe. But without enough welltrained people and programs to implement the laws, the counterterrorism policy and legal tools cannot fully play their role in helping the United States and its allies counter the ever-changing terrorist threats. ¥ The counterterrorism laws of the United States and some of its allies, such as Britain and Australia are quite strong, but there are weaknesses in the legal systems of many of the developing counties. The international community, including U.N. agencies such as the Counter-Terrorism Committee need to make a more vigorous effort to help these countries draft, enact, and implement stronger laws to counter terrorism funding and the flow of terrorists across international boundaries.
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Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy ¥ Implementing counterterrorism programs and helping other countries improve their law enforcement capabilities have been hampered by a lack of high-level attention and financial resources. The White House’s OMB and Congress have not matched their counterterrorism rhetoric with money for low-profile programs that are not conducive to media sound bites.
The executive branch and Congress need to pay more attention to implementing unglamorous but important programs, such as training investigators, prosecutors, analysts, and law enforcement personnel here and overseas. Funding flows cannot just be turned up or down depending on the threats or attacks that may be on television in a given week. The terrorist threat will continue to evolve. Our countermeasures should not just evolve in a reactive way, but rather should try to get one step ahead. For this to be achieved, greater attention to the details, priorities, and coordination will be needed in the White House, the NSC staff, and Congress than has been shown so far. A great deal has been done since 9/11. Nevertheless, we may not be able to thwart all major terrorism attacks. But policy makers and budget gurus should be able to face themselves in the mirror afterward and be able to say they did all they could. The evolution of U.S. policy, legislation, and programs still needs to continue. EDITOR’S NOTE: The views expressed here are solely the author’s and do not reflect the views of the State Department, from which he retired in 2004.
Pa r t One U.S. P OLICY P RE –S EPTEMBER 11, 2001 Chapter 2, covering pre-9/11 policy, begins with the U.S. government’s efforts to cope in a coordinated way with the emerging terrorism threat. A key document, and the first in this chapter, is President Nixon’s September 25, 1972, memorandum establishing a cabinet-level committee to combat terrorism. The committee was created following the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympic games. The high-level committee was not suitable for day-to-day coordination, however, and the State Department soon set up a separate counterterrorism office. Many of these documents predated the Internet and are not available online but rather were collected by the editors during the past two decades. The statements span key periods during the tumultuous period of spectacular terrorist attacks during the 1980s such as the bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the hijackings of TWA Flight 847 and the Achille Lauro cruise liner in 1985, during which Palestinian terrorists threw overboard an elderly, wheelchair-bound American, Leon Klinghoffer. During that time period, President Reagan delivered his June 18, 1985, speech ‘‘America Will Never Make Concessions to Terrorists.’’ The previous year, President Reagan had ordered the withdrawal of the U.S. peacekeeping units after the Marine barracks bombing. And later, National Security Council staff officers Rear Admiral John Poindexter and Marine Colonel Oliver North became involved in deals to trade American antitank missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of Americans taken hostage by Lebanese terrorists. Chapter 3 contains the texts of the major controversial 1984 speeches in which Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger publicly aired their differences over whether it was appropriate to use military force against terrorists before all facts were verified linking them to specific terrorist attacks. Secretary Shultz was more forward leaning than Secretary Weinberger. After terrorists linked to Libya killed two American solders and a Turkish woman at a Berlin disco in 1985, the Reagan administration carried out bombing attacks against the Libyan capital. A later discussion of the appropriate use
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of military power is included in President George H.W. Bush’s speech in August 25, 1992, in which he justified his decision not to occupy Baghdad by saying, ‘‘If we’d continued, hundreds of thousands of American troops would be on the ground in Iraq today attempting to pull warring factions together or bogged down in some guerrilla warfare.’’ Chapter 4 contains selected key speeches or testimony by the Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism, beginning with Ambassador Robert Oakley’s May 15, 1985, testimony that laid out some of the basic precepts of the evolving U.S. policy. It ends with a note expressed by almost every counterterrorism official: that is, even after 9/11, the counterterrorism programs are not allocated sufficient funding. Chapter 5 contains former Attorney General Janet Reno’s speeches made during the 1990s, which reflect her concerns, held long before 9/11, about the need to improve coordination and information exchanges with local and state officials in countering terrorism.
2 The White House PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON President Richard M. Nixon, Memorandum Establishing a Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, September 25, 1972 Memorandum for the Secretary of State: Subject: Action to Combat Terrorism Your report to me on the measures that are being taken to combat terrorism indicates that we are moving effectively against the problem of thwarting acts of terrorism both here and abroad. The two committees you have set up to cope with this major problem are making commendable progress toward this end. Because of the great importance and urgency I attach to dealing with the worldwide problem of terrorism, which encompasses diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement functions, I am hereby establishing a Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism. The Cabinet Committee will be chaired by the Secretary of State and will comprise The Secretary of State The Secretary of the Treasury The Secretary of Defense The Attorney General The Secretary of Transportation The United States Ambassador to the United Nations The Director of Central Intelligence The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs The Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs The Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and such others as the Chairman may consider necessary.
The Cabinet Committee will be supported by a Working Group comprised of personally designated senior representatives of the Committee, chaired by the designee of the Secretary of State.
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The Committee will consider the most effective means by which to prevent terrorism here and abroad, and it will also take the lead in establishing procedures to ensure that our government can take appropriate action in response to acts of terrorism swiftly and effectively. The Secretary of State will be in touch with other governments and international organizations toward this goal. Federal officers and Federal departments and agencies are to cooperate fully with the Cabinet Committee in carrying out its functions under this directive, and they shall comply with the policies, guidelines, standards, and procedures prescribed by the Cabinet Committee. More specifically, the Cabinet Committee shall: (1) Coordinate, among the government agencies, ongoing activity for the prevention of terrorism. This will include such activities as the collection of intelligence worldwide and the physical protection of U.S. personnel and installations abroad and foreign diplomats, and diplomatic installations in the United States. (2) Evaluate all such programs and activities and where necessary recommend methods for their effective implementation. (3) Devise procedures for reacting swiftly and effectively to acts of terrorism that occur. (4) Make recommendations to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget concerning proposed funding of such programs; and (5) Report to the President, from time to time, concerning the foregoing.
Richard Nixon SOURCE: http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1972_pdf_files/1972_ 0319.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: The memorandum was made available to the press. On the same day, the White House released an announcement of the establishment of the Cabinet Committee. These actions were prompted by the Terrorist Actions at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Subsequently, the State Department established a small counterterrorism office to coordinate policy on a day-to-day basis.
President Richard M. Nixon, Statement About Action to Combat Terrorism, September 27, 1972 Monday, here in New York, Secretary of State Rogers urged prompt action by the United Nations on three measured to combat the inhuman wave of terrorism that has been loosed on the world. I am gratified that the United Nations has agreed to take up the urgent matter of terrorism, and—in the strongest possible terms—I endorse the plea which the Secretary made on behalf of the United States and of human decency. Also Monday in Washington, I directed the establishment of a Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism—to be chaired by Secretary Rogers—aimed at bringing the full resources of all appropriate United States agencies to bear effectively on the task of eliminating terrorism wherever it occurs. I have charged it to move vigorously and immediately toward this end.
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The use of terror is indefensible. It eliminates in one stroke those safeguards of civilization which mankind has painstakingly erected over the centuries. But terror threatens more than the lives of the innocent. It threatens the very principles upon which nations are founded. In this sense, every nation in the United Nations, whatever its ideological assumptions, whoever its adversaries, whatever its sympathies, is united with every other nation by the common danger to the sovereignty of each. If the world cannot unite in opposition to terror, if we cannot establish some simple ground rules to hold back the perimeters of lawlessness, if, in short, we cannot act to defend the basic principles of national sovereignty in our own individual interests, then upon what foundations can we hope to establish international comity? There are those who would tell us that terror is the last resort of the weak and oppressed, a product of despair in an age of indifference, and that it seeks only political justice. This is nonsense. The way to seek justice is through negotiation. We have sought in our own relations to turn from confrontation to negotiation. We believe that this is the only way for grievances to be resolved in a way that will contribute to peace and stability. In recent months we have seen nations moving to achieve accommodation and the resolution of differences, and we have seen terrorists acting to destroy those efforts. The time has come for civilized people to act in concert to remove the threat of terrorism from the world. The world is reaching out for peace. The way may be hard and treacherous, but men of reason and decency are determined today, as perhaps never before, to make the effort. Let us not be disrupted or turned away by those who would loose anarchy upon the world; let us seek no accommodations with savagery, but rather act to eliminate it. SOURCE: http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/1972_pdf_files/1972_ 0324.pdf
PRESIDENT JAMES EARL CARTER President James Earl Carter, Remarks at the 13th Constitutional Convention of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, November 15, 1979 This is the 12th day that more than a hundred innocent human beings, some 60 of whom are members of the United States diplomatic mission, have been held hostage in our Embassy in Iran. For a rare time in human history, a host government has condoned and even encouraged this kind of illegal action against a sovereign territory and official diplomatic relations of another nation. This is an act of terrorism-totally outside the bounds of international law and diplomatic tradition. In this time of trial, our deep concern is for the lives of these brave hostages, our Nation’s loyal citizens and faithful representatives. Every American feels anger and outrage at what is happening to them, just as every American
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feels concern for their safety and pride in their great courage. This crisis calls for firmness, and it calls for restraint. And I’m proud that this situation has brought forth calm leadership by officials and private citizens throughout this country. Firmness does require patience, and it requires perseverance. Firmness also means measured action, deliberate actions that clarify the real issues, reduce the likelihood of violence, protect our interests, and ensure justice. The United States has done nothing and will do nothing that could be used to justify violent or imprudent action by anyone. While we are pursuing all avenues of diplomatic resolution, we’re also acting unilaterally as appropriate—with restraint, yes, but without hesitation. First, in order to discourage violence and possible bloodshed here, which when televised and transmitted back to Iran might threaten the safety of the hostages, I’ve discouraged the issuing of permits for demonstrations on Federal properties here in Washington. Consistent with our laws and pursuant to my own powers and responsibilities, I have also encouraged local and State officials to take similar legal action. Second, I’ve directed our immigration authorities to review the visas of some 50,000 Iranian students, who are guests here in our country. Our Nation is fully committed to the enhancement of human rights, the protection of legal rights, and the enhancement of civil justice. All provisions of the United States Constitution will be honored. All foreign nationals who are here lawfully may continue here with their work or their studies. But those who are here illegally will be processed promptly and lawfully for deportation back to their own country. Third, I want to remove any question that our principles might be compromised by our supposed need for Iranian oil. Early this week, therefore, I ordered an immediate halt to any purchases or shipments of Iranian oil to the United States of America. I’m determined to make clear that we will never allow any foreign country to dictate any American policy. Fourth, in order to protect our economic interests and to ensure that claims on Iran by the United States or by United States citizens are settled in an orderly manner, we’ve legally frozen official Iranian property and financial assets. The order does not affect any accounts other than those of the Government of Iran, the Central Bank of Iran, or other government-controlled entities. Yesterday I further instructed Secretary of State Vance and Ambassador McHenry to oppose any discussion of Iran’s problems in the United Nations Security Council as long as American hostages are being held. Only after the hostages are released will we be willing to address Iran’s concerns and, then, under the provisions of international law and under the charter of the United Nations. The members of the United Nations Security Council, I am pleased to announce to you, have agreed unanimously with our own proposal. It’s important for all of us to remember that we will not compromise our fundamental principles of justice no matter how grave the provocation nor how righteous our indignation. At the same time, we will continue to use our influence around the world to obtain the same kinds of human rights for people everywhere.
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In this instance, we are upholding an important principle on behalf of the entire world community. It’s a clear tenet of international law and diplomatic tradition that the host government is fully responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the property and the legal representatives of another country. Less than a year ago—and this is a fact not generally known or recognized—less than a year ago, 70,000 American citizens were in Iran. As you know, thousands of people were killed during the upheavals there, but almost miraculously and because of the good work of Cyrus Vance and others, our people were brought home safely. I thank God for it. Despite the turmoil, each succeeding Iranian Government—and they were being changed, as you know, quite rapidly—protected the citizens of other countries. Foreign visitors are often vulnerable to abuse. An embassy is not a fortress. There are no embassies anywhere in the world that can long withstand the attack of a mob if the mob has the support of the host government itself. We had received repeated assurances of protection from the highest officials in the Iranian Government, even a day or two before the mob was incited to attack and before that protection was withdrawn at the last minute. The principle of inviolability of embassies is understood and accepted by nations everywhere, and it’s particularly important to smaller nations which have no recourse to economic or military power. This is why the United Nations Security Council has also unanimously supported our demand for the release of the American hostages. In accordance with this principle, as recognized and observed by all civilized countries, the Iranian Government and its leaders are fully responsible for the safety and well-being of our representatives in Iran, in Tehran, and they will be held accountable for that responsibility. It is unthinkable that any responsible government in today’s modern world could regard the seizure and the holding of the diplomatic officials of another nation as a realistic means to advance any cause whatsoever. Terrorism is not an acceptable means to resolve disputes between individuals or between nations. No act has so galvanized the American public toward unity in the last decade as has the holding of our people as hostages in Tehran. We stand today as one people. We are dedicated to the principles and the honor of our Nation. We’ve taken no action which would justify concern among the people or among the Government of Iran. We have done nothing for which any American need apologize. The actions of Iranian leaders and the radicals who invaded our Embassy were completely unjustified. They and all others must know that the United States of America will not yield to international terrorism or to blackmail. These difficult days have reminded us of basic facts and principles which are fundamental to the existence of us as a people. We will honor all constitutional protections and international law and custom, and we will not let our freedom and our security be jeopardized. The developments in Iran have made it starkly clear to all of us that our excessive dependence on foreign oil is a direct, physical threat to our freedom and security as Americans. That’s why we must all join together in the battle for an energy-secure America. This struggle demands the deliberate and the conscientious participation of every single citizen. Unfortunately, our
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dependence on foreign oil has been growing for the last 5 or 6 years, especially, when it should have been diminishing. As a nation we have become dependent on the undependable and addicted to the unaffordable. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼31691&st¼&st1¼
President James Earl Carter, State of the Union Address, 1980 EXCERPTED This last few months has not been an easy time for any of us. As we meet tonight, it has never been more clear that the state of our Union depends on the state of the world. And tonight, as throughout our own generation, freedom and peace in the world depend on the state of our Union. The 1980’s have been born in turmoil, strife, and change. This is a time of challenge to our interests and our values and it’s a time that tests our wisdom and our skills. At this time in Iran, 50 Americans are still held captive, innocent victims of terrorism and anarchy. Also at this moment, massive Soviet troops are attempting to subjugate the fiercely independent and deeply religious people of Afghanistan. These two acts—one of international terrorism and one of military aggression—present a serious challenge to the United States of America and indeed to all the nations of the world. Together, we will meet these threats to peace. I’m determined that the United States will remain the strongest of all nations, but our power will never be used to initiate a threat to the security of any nation or to the rights of any human being. We seek to be and to remain secure—a nation at peace in a stable world. But to be secure we must face the world as it is. Three basic developments have helped to shape our challenges: the steady growth and increased projection of Soviet military power beyond its own borders; the overwhelming dependence of the Western democracies on oil supplies from the Middle East; and the press of social and religious and economic and political change in the many nations of the developing world, exemplified by the revolution in Iran. Each of these factors is important in its own right. Each interacts with the others. All must be faced together, squarely and courageously. We will face these challenges, and we will meet them with the best that is in us. And we will not fail. In response to the abhorrent act in Iran, our Nation has never been aroused and unified so greatly in peacetime. Our position is clear. The United States will not yield to blackmail. We continue to pursue these specific goals: first, to protect the present and long-range interests of the United States; secondly, to preserve the lives of the American hostages and to secure, as quickly as possible, their safe release, if possible, to avoid bloodshed which might further endanger the lives of our fellow citizens; to enlist the help of other nations in condemning this act of violence, which is shocking and violates the moral and the legal standards of a
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civilized world; and also to convince and to persuade the Iranian leaders that the real danger to their nation lies in the north, in the Soviet Union and from the Soviet troops now in Afghanistan, and that the unwarranted Iranian quarrel with the United States hampers their response to this far greater danger to them. If the American hostages are harmed, a severe price will be paid. We will never rest until every one of the American hostages are released. … But now we face a broader and more fundamental challenge in this region because of the recent military action of the Soviet Union. … the Soviet Union has taken a radical and an aggressive new step. It’s using its great military power against a relatively defenseless nation. The implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could pose the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War. The vast majority of nations on Earth have condemned this latest Soviet attempt to extend its colonial domination of others and have demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Moslem world is especially and justifiably outraged by this aggression against an Islamic people. No action of a world power has ever been so quickly and so overwhelmingly condemned. But verbal condemnation is not enough. The Soviet Union must pay a concrete price for their aggression. While this invasion continues, we and the other nations of the world cannot conduct business as usual with the Soviet Union. That’s why the United States has imposed stiff economic penalties on the Soviet Union. I will not issue any permits for Soviet ships to fish in the coastal waters of the United States. I’ve cut Soviet access to high-technology equipment and to agricultural products. I’ve limited other commerce with the Soviet Union, and I’ve asked our allies and friends to join with us in restraining their own trade with the Soviets and not to replace our own embargoed items. And I have notified the Olympic Committee that with Soviet invading forces in Afghanistan, neither the American people nor I will support sending an Olympic team to Moscow. The Soviet Union is going to have to answer some basic questions: Will it help promote a more stable international environment in which its own legitimate, peaceful concerns can be pursued? Or will it continue to expand its military power far beyond its genuine security needs, and use that power for colonial conquest? The Soviet Union must realize that its decision to use military force in Afghanistan will be costly to every political and economic relationship it values. The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world’s exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world’s oil must flow. The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil. This situation demands careful thought, steady nerves, and resolute action, not only for this year but for many years to come. It demands collective efforts to meet this new threat to security in the Persian Gulf and in Southwest Asia. It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the
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Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability. And it demands consultation and close cooperation with countries in the area which might be threatened. Meeting this challenge will take national will, diplomatic and political wisdom, economic sacrifice, and, of course, military capability. We must call on the best that is in us to preserve the security of this crucial region. Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. SOURCE: http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/su80jec.phtml
President James Earl Carter, State of the Union Address to Congress, January 16, 1981 EXCERPTED … [W]e face some of the most serious challenges in the history of this nation. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is a threat to global peace, to East-West relations, and to regional stability and to the flow of oil.… the Soviet invasion as a threat to their independence and security. Turmoil within the region adjacent to the Persian Gulf poses risks for the security and prosperity of every oil importing nation and thus for the entire global economy. The continuing holding of American hostages in Iran is both an affront to civilized people everywhere, and a serious impediment to meeting the self-evident threat to widely shared common interests—including those of Iran. One very immediate and pressing objective that is uppermost on our minds and those of the American people is the release of our hostages in Iran. We have no basic quarrel with the nation, the revolution or the people of Iran. The threat to them comes not from American policy but from Soviet actions in the region. We are prepared to work with the Government of Iran to develop a new and mutually beneficial relationship. But that will not be possible so long as Iran continues to hold Americans hostages, in defiance of the world community and civilized behavior. They must be released unharmed. We have thus far pursued a measured program of peaceful diplomatic and economic steps in an attempt to resolve this issue without resorting to other remedies available to us under international law. This reflects the deep respect of our nation for the rule of law and for the safety of our people being held, and our belief that a great power bears a responsibility to use its strength in a measured and judicious manner. But our patience is not unlimited and our concern for the well-being of our fellow citizens grows each day. SOURCE: http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/su81jec.phtml
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PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN President Ronald Reagan, Statement on Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan, December 27, 1981 Our current concern regarding Poland should not cause us to forget that 2 years ago today, massive Soviet military forces invaded the sovereign country of Afghanistan and began an attempt to subjugate one of the most fiercely independent peoples of the world. Despite the presence of 90,000 Soviet combat troops, a recent increase of some 5,000, the courageous people of Afghanistan have fought back. Today they effectively deny Soviet forces control of most of Afghanistan. Efforts by the Soviets to establish a puppet government in the Soviet image, which could govern a conquered land, have failed. Soviet control extends little beyond the major cities, and even there the Afghan freedom fighters often hold sway by night and sometimes even by day. The battle for Afghan independence continues. But the gallant efforts of the people of Afghanistan to regain their independence have come at great cost. Almost 3 million Afghan refugees, a fifth of the pre-invasion population of Afghanistan, have fled their homes and have taken refuge across the border, largely in Pakistan. Those who have remained at home have become the unfortunate victims not only of the dislocations of war but also of indiscriminate Soviet attacks on civilians. So, while we express our admiration for those who fight for the freedom we all cherish, we must also express our deep sympathy for those innocent victims of Soviet imperialism who, because of the love of freedom of their countrymen, have been forced to flee for their lives. On three separate occasions, most recently on November 18, 1981, the United Nations General Assembly passed by overwhelming margins resolutions aimed at Soviet aggression in Afghanistan. The U.S. Government and the American people join in the broad international condemnation of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Just as in Poland we see the use of intimidation and indirect use of power to subjugate a neighboring people, in Afghanistan we see direct aggression in violation of the United Nations Charter and other principles governing the conduct among nations. While extending our admiration and sympathy to the people of Afghanistan, we also call upon the Soviet Union to avail itself of proposals set forth by the community of nations for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan so that an independent and nonaligned nation can be reestablished with a government responsive to the desires of the people, so that the millions of Afghans who have sought refuge in other countries can return with honor to their homes. As long as the Soviet Union occupies Afghanistan in defiance of the international community, the heroic Afghan resistance will continue, and the United States will support the cause of a free Afghanistan. SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1981/122781a.htm
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President Ronald Reagan, Transcripts of an Interview with US News & World Report, On Foreign Government-Sponsored Terrorism, December 15, 1983 EXCERPTED Q. … with the prospect of continuing widespread terrorist attacks, how can the United States retaliate, especially when such attacks are inspired or sponsored by governments? THE PRESIDENT. One of the hardest things, of course, is to prove that the terrorist attacks are sponsored by a government. For example, these groups that are taking credit for the recent suicide attacks are believed to have an Iranian connection. There is a faction of Iranians that believe in a holy war. We do have the evidence that Khomeini has spoken a number of times about advocating a holy war in the Moslem world to promote his type of fundamentalism. So it’s hard not to believe that he must, in some way, instigate or at least egg on those that are doing these things. But the important thing about terrorism is not to be turned back by it. It is a worldwide threat, as we know. The threat is right here in our own country. It’s every place in the world. Q. What can be done to counter the terrorist threat? THE PRESIDENT. I believe that if terrorists are claiming triumphs when they do these terrible deeds, acknowledging what their goal is and that they have a connection with some country—then I think it’s up to the government of that country to try to curb and control such groups. If some of our own terrorist groups commit these outrages—such as the groups that just bombed a naval recruiting station in New York—it’s our responsibility to corral them, find out who and what they are, and bring them to justice. But the same is true for all the other countries. But the one thing we can’t do is what so many people, even here in our own country, are advocating in the face of the terrorist attacks against our forces in Lebanon. That is to bring home the Marines from Lebanon. If terrorism can succeed in its goal, then the world is going to find itself under the control of the terrorists. You have to stand against that and not let it succeed. Q. What do you do if a government is actually responsible, as you say, for instigating terrorism? Can you really ask that kind of a government to assume responsibility for controlling these terrorists? THE PRESIDENT. In those cases, I think that the civilized world has to get together and see what action can be taken. This does not necessarily mean warlike action, but pressures that can be put on a government—pressures such as saying to that government, ‘‘You start taking some steps to control this, or you’ll be outlawed in the rest of the world.’’ SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/121583d.htm
Larry M. Speakes, Principal Deputy Press Secretary, ‘‘International Terrorism,’’ April 17, 1984 Acts of terrorism continue to plague us and our friends and allies. The toll of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings bears terrible witness to the
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indiscriminate attacks and lawlessness that rules the behavior of terrorist groups. It is also apparent that several states have adopted these lawless acts as instruments of state policy. While we diligently seek the means to control this scourge, we must also take the steps that are necessary to protect our citizens, our institutions and our friends and allies. We have, in the course of a detailed review, reached some conclusions on what we must do to protect ourselves, and to assist others in protecting themselves, from this growing threat. Our actions will be guided by the following principles: First, no nation can condone international terrorism. Second, it is the right of every legitimate government to resist the use of terrorism against its people, institutions or property for all nations, and this Government will work as closely as possible with other governments—particularly other similarly threatened democracies—to deal with it. While we have cause for deep concern about the states that now practice or support terrorism, our policies are directed against all forms of international terrorism. The states that practice terrorism or actively support it cannot be allowed to do so without consequence. As a first step in dealing with these states, every channel of communication that is available to us will be used to dissuade them from the practice or support of terrorism. We will increase our efforts with other governments to obtain and exchange the information needed about states and groups involved in terrorist activities in order to prevent attacks, warn our people, our friends and allies, and reduce the risk. We will also do everything we can to see that acts of state-supported terrorism are publicized and condemned in every appropriate forum. When these efforts fail, however, it must be understood that when we are victimized by acts of terrorism we have the right to defend ourselves—and the right to help others to the same. Finally, it should be noted that our paramount interest is in improving our ability to prevent terrorist attacks on our citizens, installations and those foreign persons and facilities in the U.S. we are obligated to protect. We believe we can best achieve these results through a combination of improved information and better security and protection. This does not present any change in U.S. policy—rather, a refocused emphasis. SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1984/41784d.htm
President Ronald Reagan, Message to the Congress, International Terrorism Legislation, April 26, 1984 To the Congress of the United States: I am sending to the Congress today four separate bills to attack the pressing and urgent problem of international terrorism. In 1983 more than 250 Americans citizens were killed in terrorist attacks, the largest number in any year of record. In the wake of the tragic deaths of our diplomats and Marines as well as French and Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, in light of the cynical murder of four South Korean cabinet officers and many others by North Korean terrorists in Burma, and as a result of the attack on our embassy in Kuwait, it is essential that we act immediately to cope with this menace and to increase cooperation with other governments in dealing with this growing threat to our way of life.
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In the past fifteen years, terrorism has become a frightening challenge to the tranquility and political stability of our friends and allies. During the past decade alone, there have been almost 6,500 terrorist incidents. Over 3,500 people have been killed in these incidents, and more than 7,600 people have been wounded. American citizens have been the victims of more than 2,500 terrorist incidents. Of special concern to me has been the toll inflicted on our diplomats and members of the Armed Forces. I am also deeply concerned, however, about attacks against other American citizens, who have been victims of forty percent of the terrorist incidents over the past decade. In recent years, a very worrisome and alarming new kinds of terrorism has developed: the direct use of instruments of terror by foreign states. This ‘‘state terrorism,’’ starkly manifest in the recent dreadful spectacles of violence in Beirut, Rangoon, and Kuwait, accounts for the great majority of terrorist murders and assassinations. Also disturbing is state-provided training, financing, and logistical support to terrorists and terrorist groups. These activities are an extremely serious and growing source of danger to us, our friends and our allies, and are a severe challenge to America’s foreign policy. The protection of our citizens, our official personnel, and our facilities abroad requires the close cooperation and support of other governments. We depend on other governments to provide security protection to more than 250 United States diplomatic and consular posts abroad. We look to other governments to maintain the normal protections of law in their countries for our citizens living and traveling abroad and for our business representatives and our business properties. In 1983, this Administration sent to the Congress legislation to enable us to provide adequate protection for foreign officials in the United States. Not only is their protection essential to meet the obligations of the United States under international treaties, it is equally important to demonstrate to officials of other governments that they can count on full protection while they are in the United States. I also asked the Congress to provide legislative authority for anti-terrorism training, and in some cases equipment, to foreign governments in order to enhance cooperation with governments on whom we must depend for protection abroad. In my view, the more effective and knowledgeable local law enforcement officials and officers are, the greater will be their ability to provide the kind of security both they and we need. I commend the Congress for providing a two-year authorization for this program and an appropriation of $2.5 million for 1984. I am determined that my Administration will do whatever is necessary to reduce the incidence of terrorism against us anywhere in the world and to see the perpetrators of terrorist acts are brought to justice. I believe it is essential, however, that the Executive branch, the Congress and the public clearly understand that combating terrorism effectively requires concerted action on many different fronts. With trained personnel, effective laws, close international cooperation, and diligence, we can reduce the risks of terrorism to our people and increase the deterrent to future acts of terrorism. Dealing with the immediate effect of terrorist violence is only part of the challenge, however. We must also assure that the states now practicing or
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supporting terrorism do not prosper in the designs they pursue. We must assure that international forums, such as the United Nations, take a balanced and practical view of who is practicing terrorism and what must be done about it. We must assure that governments that are currently passive—or inactive— respecting this scourge understand the threat that terrorism poses for all mankind and that they cooperate in stopping it. We must work to assure that there is no role in civilized society for indiscriminate threatening, intimidation, detention, or murder of innocent people. We must make it clear to any country that is tempted to use violence to undermine democratic governments, destabilize our friends, thwart efforts to promote democratic governments, or disrupt our lives that it has nothing to gains, and much to lose. The legislation I am sending to the Congress is an important step in our war against terrorism. It will send a strong and vigorous message to friend and foe alike that the United States will not tolerate terrorist activity against its citizens or within its borders. Our legislative package consists of four separate bills, each of which is outlined below. Act for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Hostage-Taking In September 1981, I signed the instrument ratifying the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, which was adopted by the United Nations on December 17, 1979.1 The convention has not been implemented domestically through enabling legislation, however. This legislation would implement the 1979 convention. It would amend the Federal kidnapping statute to provide for Federal jurisdiction over any kidnapping in which a threat is made to kill, injure, or continue to detain a victim in order to compel a third party to do or to abstain from doing something. This is a common ploy of terrorists.… Aircraft Sabotage Act The United States became a party to the Tokyo Convention, which covers certain offenses or acts committed aboard aircraft, in 1969 and the Hague Convention concerning the suppression of unlawful seizure of aircraft, in 1971. The Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation was adopted at Montreal in 1971 and ratified by the United States in November 1972.2 The Montreal Convention requires all states party to it to establish jurisdiction over certain offenses affecting the safety of civil aviation.
1 For text of the treaty, which entered into force for the United States on January 6, 1985, see International Legal Materials, Vol. 28, No. 6 (November 1979), 1457–1463. 2 For text of the Convention on Offenses and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, signed at Tokyo on September 14, 1963, and entered into force December 4, 1969, see 20 UST 2941. For text of the Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft (Hijacking), signed at The Hague on December 16, 1970, and entered into force on October 14, 1971, see 22 UST 1641. For text of the Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation (Sabotage) signed in Montreal on September 23, 1971, and entered into force on January 26, 1973, see 24 UST 565.
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The Congress has approved enabling legislation for the first two of these conventions but not for the Montreal Convention. This means that certain criminal acts related to aircraft sabotage or hijacking are not adequately covered by United States law.… Action by the Congress now would provide the basis for long-overdue implementation of this convention. Act for Rewards for Information Concerning Terrorist Acts Current law authorizes the payment of rewards for information concerning domestic crimes but is outdated. Maximum rewards are inadequate, and terrorism is not specifically included as a basis for paying a rewards. Moreover, there is no authority for the payment of rewards for information on acts of terrorism abroad. The proposed legislation, which is modeled on an existing statute that allows payment of rewards for information concerning the unauthorized manufacture of atomic weapons, recognizes that payment of a reward in connection with acts of domestic terrorism raises a matter of law enforcement that is properly within the jurisdiction of the Attorney General, but that the payment of a reward in connection with an act of terrorism abroad poses a political and foreign relations problem within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State. By increasing the amounts of fines that may be paid, and by authorizing rewards for information concerning terrorist acts committed abroad, this Act would markedly improve the ability of the Departments of Justice and State to obtain information leading to the freeing of hostages or the capture of the perpetrators of acts of terrorism. Prohibition Against the Training or Support of Terrorist Organizations Act of 1984 The training and support of terrorist groups and activities by a number of countries has reached alarming proportions. In addition, the number of states now using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy is both increasing and highly disturbing. The provision of assistance to countries that support terrorism and use terrorism as a foreign policy tool has thus become a matter of grave concern to national security. This Act, together with revised and strengthened regulations that the Department of State intends to issue shortly, would enhance the ability of the Department of Justice to prosecute persons involved in the support of terrorist activities and of states using terrorism. Enactment of this legislation would be a strong contribution to the effort to combat terrorism. We must recognize that terrorism is symptomatic of larger problems. We must dedicate ourselves to fostering modernization, development, and beneficial change in the depressed areas of the world. We must renew our commitment to promoting and assisting representative and participatory governments. We must attack the problem of terrorism as a crime against the international community whenever and wherever possible, but we must strive to eradicate the sources of frustration and despair that are the spawning places and nutrients of terrorism. SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1984/42684a.htm
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President Ronald Reagan, ‘‘The Hijacking of TWA Flight 847: ‘America Will Never Make Concessions to Terrorists’,’’ June 18, 1985 THE PRESIDENT. … One hour ago the body of a young American hero Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was returned to his native soil in a coffin after being beaten and shot at pointblank range. His murder and the fate of the other American hostages still being held in Beirut underscore an inescapable fact: The United States is tonight a nation being attacked by international terrorists who wantonly kill and who seize our innocent citizens as their prisoners. In response to this situation, I am directing that the following steps be taken. I have directed the Secretary of Transportation, in cooperation with the Secretary of State, to explore immediately an expansion of our armed sky marshal program aboard international flights of U.S. air carriers for better protection of passengers. I have directed the Secretary of State to issue an immediate travel advisory for U.S. citizens traveling through the Athens International Airport warning them of dangers. This warning shall remain in effect until the Greek Government has improved the security situation there and until it has demonstrated a willingness to comply with the security provisions of the U.S.-Greek civil aviation agreement and the Tokyo, Montreal, and Hague conventions regarding prosecution and punishment of air pirates. I’ve asked for a full explanation of the events surrounding the takeover of the aircraft in Athens. I have appealed the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration for all U.S. air carriers to review the wisdom of continuing any flights into Athens until the security situation there improves. And further, I have asked the Secretaries Shultz and Dole to report to me on whether we should terminate the service of foreign air carriers whose governments do not honor appropriate international conventions or provide adequate security at their airports. I’m calling upon all allied and friendly governments to redouble their efforts to improve airport security and take other measures to prevent the hijacking of aircraft. I will also be asking them to take steps to prevent travel to places where lawlessness is rampant and innocent passengers are unprotected. And I’m urging that no American enter any Middle Eastern country that does not publicly condemn and disassociate itself from this atrocity and call for the immediate safe release of our citizens. Let me further make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices, wherever they may be, that America will never make any concessions to terrorists—to do so would only invite more terrorism—nor will we ask nor pressure any other government to do so. Once we head down that path there would be no end to it, no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody ransom all civilized nations must pay.
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This act of terrorism is a stain on Lebanon and particularly on those Lebanese in whose name it has been done. Those in Lebanon who commit these acts damage their country and their cause, and we hold them accountable. I call upon those holding our people to release them without condition. I call upon the leaders of Lebanon, political and religious, to meet their responsibilities and to do all that is necessary to end this crime now in the name of the God they worship. And I call on other governments to speak out and use their influence as well. This attack is an attack on all citizens of the world who seek to live free from the fear and scourge of terrorism. My thoughts and prayers are, as those of all Americans, with the prisoners now being held in Lebanon and with their families. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=38789
President Ronald Reagan, ‘‘The ‘Terrorist Menace’ ,’’ Address Before the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985 EXCERPTED Now, I want to be very candid with you this morning and tell you I’d been planning to come here today to speak on a number of legal issues—the problems of our courts, our administration’s enforcement of antitrust and civil rights laws, as well as our ongoing attack on the drug trade and organized crime in general. But I’m afraid this discussion will now have to wait for another occasion, for it’s been overtaken by events of an international nature, events that I feel compelled as President to comment on today. And yet I think these matters will be of interest to you, not only because you’re Americans, but because, as lawyers, you are also concerned with the rule of law and the danger posed to it by criminals of both a domestic and international variety. The reason we haven’t had time to discuss the issues that I’d originally hoped to address this morning has to do with our hostages and what all of America has been through during recent weeks. Yet my purpose today goes even beyond our concern over the recent outrages in Beirut, El Salvador or the Air India tragedy, the Narita bombing or the Jordanian Airlines hijacking. We must look beyond these events because I feel it is vital not to allow them—as terrible as they are—to obscure an even larger and darker terrorist menace. There is a temptation to see the terrorist act as simply the erratic work of a small group of fanatics. We make this mistake at great peril, for the attacks on America, her citizens, her allies, and other democratic nations in recent years do form a pattern of terrorism that has strategic implications and political goals. And only by moving our focus from the tactical to the strategic perspective, only by identifying the pattern of terror and those behind it, can we hope to put into force a strategy to deal with it.
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So, let us go to the facts; here is what we know: In recent years, there’s been a steady and escalating pattern of terrorist acts against the United States and our allies and Third World nations friendly toward our interests. The number of terrorist acts rose from about 500 in 1983 to over 600 in 1984. There were 305 bombings alone last year—that works out to an average of almost one a day. And some of the most vicious attacks were directed at Americans or United States property and installations. And this pattern has continued throughout 1985, and in most cases innocent civilians are the victims of the violence. At the current rate, as many as 1,000 acts of terrorism will occur in 1985. Now, that’s what we face unless civilized nations act together to end this assault on humanity. In recent years, the Mideast has been one principal point of focus for these attacks—attacks directed at the United States, Israel, France, Jordan, and the United Kingdom. Beginning in the summer of 1984 and culminating in January and February of this year, there was also a series of apparently coordinated attacks and assassinations by leftwing terrorist groups in Belgium, West Germany, and France—attacks directed against American and NATO installations or military and industrial officials of those nations. Now, what do we know about the sources of those attacks and the whole pattern of terrorist assaults in recent years? Well, in 1983 alone, the Central Intelligence Agency either confirmed or found strong evidence of Iranian involvement in 57 terrorist attacks. While most of these attacks occurred in Lebanon, an increase in activity by terrorists sympathetic to Iran was seen throughout Europe. Spain and France have seen such incidents, and in Italy seven pro-Iranian Lebanese students were arrested for plotting an attack on the US embassy, and this violence continues. It will not surprise any of you to know that, in addition to Iran, we have identified another nation, Libya, as deeply involved in terrorism. We have evidence which links Libyan agents or surrogates to at least 25 incidents last year. Colonel Qadhafi’s outrages against civilized conducts are, of course, as infamous as those of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The gunning down last year—from inside the Libyan Embassy—of a British policewoman is only one of many examples. Since September 1984, Iranian-backed terrorist groups have been responsible for almost 30 attacks, and, most recently, the Egyptian government aborted a Libyan-backed plot to bomb our Embassy in Cairo. It was this pattern of state-approved assassination and terrorism by Libya that led the United States a few years ago to expel Libyan diplomats and has forced other nations to take similar steps since then. But let us, in acknowledging his commitment to terrorism, at least give Colonel Qadhafi his due. The man is candid. He said recently that Libya was—and I quote—‘‘capable of exporting terrorism to the heart of America. We are also capable of physical liquidation and destruction of arson inside America.’’ … recognition of this deep and on-going involvement of Iran and Libya in international terrorism is hardly confined to our own government. Most police forces in Europe now take this involvement for granted … the Jordanian leadership has publicly noted that Libyan actions caused the destruction of the Jordanian Embassy in Tripoli.
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Now, three other governments, along with Iran and Libya, are actively supporting a campaign of international terrorism against the United States, her allies, and moderate Third World states. First, North Korea. The extent and crudity of North Korean violence against the United States and our ally, South Korea, are a matter of record. Our aircraft have been shot down; our servicemen have been murdered in border incidents; and 2 years ago, four members of the South Korean cabinet were blown up in Burma by North Korean terrorists—a failed attempt to assassinate President Chun. This incident was just one more of an unending series of attacks directed against the Republic of Korea by North Korea. Now, what is not readily known or understood is North Korea’s wider links to the international terrorist network. There isn’t time today to recount all of North Korea’s efforts to foster separatism, violence, and subversion in other lands well beyond its immediate borders. But to cite one example, North Korea’s efforts to spread separatism and terrorism in the free and prosperous nation of Sri Lanka are a deep and continuing source of tension in South Asia. And then there is Cuba, a nation whose government has, since the 1960’s, openly armed, trained, and directed terrorists operating on at least three continents. This has occurred in Latin America. The OAS has repeatedly passed sanctions against Castro for sponsoring terrorism in places and countries too numerous to mention. This has also occurred in Africa. President Carter openly accused the Castro government of supporting and training Katangan terrorists from Angola in their attacks on Zaire. And even in the Middle East, Castro himself has acknowledged that he actively assisted the Sandinistas in the early seventies when they were training in the Middle East with terrorist factions of the PLO. And finally there is the latest partner of Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Cuba in a campaign of international terror—the Communist regime in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas not only sponsor terror in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Honduras—terror that led recently to the murder of four US marines, two civilians, and seven Latin Americans—they provide one of the world’s principle refuges for international terrorists. … [W]e have evidence that in addition to Italy’s Red Brigades other elements of the world’s most vicious terrorist groups—West Germany’s BaaderMeinhoff gang, the ETA, the PLO, the Tupamaros, and the IRA—have found a haven in Nicaragua and support from that country’s Communist dictatorship. In fact, the Communist regime in Nicaragua has made itself a focal point for the terrorist network and a case study in the extent of its scope. … We see the Nicaraguans tied to Cuba, Libya, and North Korea. And that leaves only Iran. What about ties to Iran? Well, yes, only recently the Prime Minister of Iran visited Nicaragua bearing expressions of solidarity from the Ayatollah for the Sandinista Communists. … Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua—continents away, tens of thousands of miles apart, but the same goals and objectives. I submit to you that the growth in terrorism in recent years results from the increasing
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involvement of these states in terrorism in every region of the world. This is terrorism that is a part of a pattern, the work of a confederation of terrorist states. Most of the terrorists who are kidnapping and murdering American citizens and attacking American installations are being trained, financed, and directly or indirectly controlled by a core group of radical and totalitarian governments—a new, international version of Murder, Incorporated. And all of these states are united by one, simple, criminal phenomenon—their fanatical hatred of the United States, our people, our way of life, our international stature. And the strategic purpose behind the terrorism sponsored by these outlaw states is clear: to disorient the United States, to disrupt or alter our foreign policy, to sow discord between ourselves and our allies, to frighten friendly Third World nations working with us for peaceful settlements of regional conflicts, and, finally, to remove American influence from those areas of the world where we’re working to bring stable and democratic government. In short, to cause us to retreat, retrench, to become Fortress America. Yes, their real goal is to expel America from the world. And that is the reason these terrorist nations are arming, training, and supporting attacks against this nation. And that is why we can be clear on one point: these terrorists are now engaged in acts of war against the Government and people of the United States. And under international law, any state which is the victim of acts of war has the right to defend itself. Now, for the benefit of these outlaw governments, who are sponsoring international terrorism against our nation, I’m prepared to offer a brief lesson in American history. A number of times in America’s past, foreign tyrants, warlords, and totalitarian dictators have misinterpreted the well-known likeability, patience, and generosity of the American people as signs of weakness or even decadence. Well, it’s true; we are an easygoing people, slow to wrath, hesitant to see danger looming over every horizon. But it’s also true that when the emotions of the American people are aroused, when their patriotism and their anger are triggered, there are no limits to their national valor nor their consuming passion to protect this nation’s cherished tradition of freedom. Teddy Roosevelt once put it this way: ‘‘The American people are slow to wrath, but when the wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame.’’ And it was another leader, this time a foreign adversary, Admiral Yamamoto, who warned his own nation after its attack on Pearl Harbor that he feared ‘‘we have only awakened a sleeping giant and his reaction will be terrible.’’ So, let me today speak for a united people. Let me say simply: We’re Americans. We love this country. We love what she stands for, and we will always defend her. Thank you very much. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you and God bless you. We live for freedom—our own, our children’s—and we will always stand ready to sacrifice for that freedom. So, the American people are not—I repeat, not—going to tolerate intimidation, terror, and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. And we’re especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, loony tunes, and squalid criminals—since the advent of the Third Reich. Do not for a moment, however, think that this discussion has been all inclusive. First of all, though their strength does not match that of the groups
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supported by the terrorist network I’ve already mentioned, there are some terrorist organizations that are indigenous to certain localities or countries which are not necessarily tied to this international network. And second, the countries I have mentioned today are not necessarily the only ones that support terrorism against the United States and its allies. Those which I’ve described are simply the ones that can be most directly implicated. Now, the question of the Soviet Union’s close relationship with almost all of the terrorist states that I have mentioned and the implications of these Soviet ties on bilateral relations with the United States and other democratic nations must be recognized. So, too, Secretary of State Shultz in his speech of June 24 of last year openly raised the question of Soviet support for terrorist organizations, as did Secretary Haig before him. With regard to the Soviet Union, there is one matter that I cannot let go unaddressed today. During the recent hostage crises in Beirut—39 Americans were brutally kidnapped; an American sailor was viciously beaten; another American sailor stomped and shot to death; the families and loved ones of these hostages undergo indescribable suffering and a sense of distress, anger, and outrage spreading through our nation like a prairie fire—the Soviet Union made some official comments through its government controlled press. The Soviet Government suggested that the United States was not sincerely concerned about this crisis, but that we were, instead, in the grip of—and I use the Soviets’ word here—‘‘hysteria.’’ The Soviet Union also charged that the United States was only looking for a—and, again, I use their word—‘‘pretext’’ for a military—and again, I use their word—‘‘invasion.’’ Well now, ladies and gentlemen of the American Bar, there is a non-Soviet word for that kind of talk. It’s an extremely useful, time-tested original American word, one with deep roots in our rich agricultural and farming tradition. Now, much needs to be done by all of us in the community of civilized nations. We must act against the criminal menace of terrorism with the full weight of the law, both domestic and international. We will act to indict, apprehend, and prosecute those who commit the kind of atrocities the world has witnessed in recent weeks. We can act together as free peoples who wish not to see our citizens kidnapped or shot or blown out of the skies … There can be no place on Earth left where it is safe for these monsters to rest or train or practice their cruel and deadly skills. We must act together, or unilaterally if necessary, to ensure that terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere. Vice President Bush returned from Europe last week after intense consultations with our allies on practical steps to combat terrorism. He’ll be heading up a government wide task force to review and recommend improvements in our efforts to halt terrorism. For those countries which sponsor such acts or fail to take action against terrorist criminals, the civilized world needs to ensure that their nonfeasance and malfeasance are answered with actions that demonstrate our unified resolve that this kind of activity must cease. For example, I’ve informed our allies and others that the Beirut International Airport, through which have passed 15 percent of the world’s hijackings since 1970, must be made safe. And until that time, the airport should be closed.
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Finally, I want you to accept a challenge to become part of the solution to the problem of terrorism. You have a fundamental concern for the law, and it’s upon the law that terrorists trample. You need to address this problem in conferences and conventions that will lead us to a better domestic and international legal framework for dealing with terrorism. You must help this government and others to deal with lawlessness. Where legislation must be crafted to allow appropriate authorities to act, you should help to craft or change it. In the past lawyers have helped when civilization was threatened by lawbreakers, and now is the time to do so again. … [T]here’s another point that needs to be made here, the point I made at the start of this discussion. That in taking a strategic, not just a tactical view of terrorism, we must understand that the greatest hope the terrorists and their supporters harbor, the very reason for their cruelty and viciousness of their tactics is to disorient the American people, to cause disunity, to disrupt or alter our foreign policy, to keep us from the steady pursuit of our strategic interests, to distract us from our very real hope that someday the nightmare of totalitarian rule will end and self-government and personal freedom will become the birthright of every people on Earth. And here, my fellow Americans, is where we find real motive behind the rabid and increasing anti-Americanism of the international terrorist network. I’ve been saying for some years now that the cause of totalitarian ideology is on the wane; that all across the world there is an uprising of mind and will, a tidal wave of longing for freedom and self-rule. Well, no one senses this better than those who now stand atop totalitarian states, especially those nations on the outer periphery of the totalitarian world like Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Their rulers are frightened; they know that freedom is on the march and when it triumphs their time in power is over. … You see, it’s true that totalitarian governments are very powerful and, over the short term, may be better organized than the democracies. But it’s also true—and no one knows this better than the totalitarian rulers themselves—that these regimes are weak in a way that no democracy can ever be weak. For the fragility of totalitarian government is the fragility of any regime whose hold on its people is limited to the instruments of police-state repression. That’s why the stakes are so high and why we must persevere. Freedom itself is the issue—our own and the entire world’s. Yes, America is still a symbol to a few, a symbol that is feared and hated, but to more, many millions more, a symbol that is loved, a country that remains a shining city on a hill. SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1985/70885a.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See chapter 3, Department of State and Department of Defense.
President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Terrorism, May 31, 1986 History is likely to record that 1986 was the year when the world, at long last, came to grips with the plague of terrorism. For too long, the world was
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paralyzed by the argument that terrorism could not be stopped until the grievances of terrorists were addressed. The complicated and heartrending issues that perplex mankind are no excuse for violent, inhumane attacks, nor do they excuse not taking aggressive action against those who deliberately slaughter innocent people. In our world there are innumerable groups and organizations with grievances, some justified, some not. Only a tiny fraction has been ruthless enough to try to achieve their ends though vicious and cowardly acts of violence upon unarmed victims. Perversely, it is often the terrorists themselves who prevent peacefully negotiated solutions. So, perhaps the first step in solving some of these fundamental challenges in getting to the root cause of conflict is to declare that terrorism is not an acceptable alternative and will not be tolerated. Effective antiterrorist action has also been thwarted by the claim that—as the quip goes—‘‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’’ That’s a catchy phrase, but also misleading. Freedom fighters do not need to terrorize a population into submission. Freedom fighters target the military forces and the organized instruments of repression keeping dictatorial regimes in power. Freedom fighters struggle to liberate their citizens from oppression and to establish a form of government that reflects the will of the people. Now, this is not to say that those who are fighting for freedom are perfect or that we should ignore problems arising from passion and conflict. Nevertheless, one has to be blind, ignorant, or simply unwilling to see the truth if he or she is unable to distinguish between those I just described and terrorists. Terrorists intentionally kill or maim unarmed civilians, often women and children, often third parties who are not in any way part of a dictatorial regime. Terrorists are always the enemies of democracies. Luckily the world is shaking free from its lethargy and moving forward to stop the bloodshed. SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/53186a.htm
President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy, November 13, 1986 I wanted this time to talk with you about an extremely sensitive and profoundly important matter of foreign policy. For 18 months now we have had underway a secret diplomatic initiative to Iran. That initiative was undertaken for the simplest and best of reasons: to renew a relationship with the nation of Iran, to bring an honorable end to the bloody 6-year war between Iran and Iraq, to eliminate state-sponsored terrorism and subversion, and to effect the safe return of all hostages. Without Iran’s cooperation, we cannot bring an end to the Persian Gulf war; without Iran’s concurrence, there can be no enduring peace in the Middle East. For 10 days now, the American and world press have been full of reports and rumors about this initiative and these objectives. Now, my fellow Americans, there’s an old saying that nothing spreads so quickly as a rumor. So, I thought it was time to speak with you directly, to tell you firsthand about our dealings with Iran. As Will Rogers once said, ‘‘Rumor travels faster, but it don’t stay put as long as truth.’’ So, let’s get to the facts.
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The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, that the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false. The United States has not made concessions to those who hold our people captive in Lebanon. And we will not. The United States has not swapped boatloads or planeloads of American weapons for the return of American hostages. And we will not. Other reports have surfaced alleging U.S. involvement: reports of a sealift to Iran using Danish ships to carry American arms; of vessels in Spanish ports being employed in secret U.S. arms shipments; of Italian ports being used; of the U.S. sending spare parts and weapons for combat aircraft. All these reports are quite exciting, but as far as we’re concerned, not one of them is true. During the course of our secret discussions, I authorized the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts for defensive systems to Iran. My purpose was to convince Tehran that our negotiators were acting with my authority, to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between us with a new relationship. These modest deliveries, taken together, could easily fit into a single cargo plane. They could not, taken together, affect the outcome of the 6-year war between Iran and Iraq nor could they affect in any way the military balance between the two countries. Those with whom we were in contact took considerable risks and needed a signal of our serious intent if they were to carry on and broaden the dialog. At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there. Some progress has already been made. Since U.S. Government contact began with Iran, there’s been no evidence of Iranian Government complicity in acts of terrorism against the United States. Hostages have come home, and we welcome the efforts that the Government of Iran has taken in the past and is currently undertaking. But why, you might ask, is any relationship with Iran important to the United States? Iran encompasses some of the most critical geography in the world. It lies between the Soviet Union and access to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Geography explains why the Soviet Union has sent an army into Afghanistan to dominate that country and, if they could, Iran and Pakistan. Iran’s geography gives it a critical position from which adversaries could interfere with oil flows from the Arab States that border the Persian Gulf. Apart from geography, Iran’s oil deposits are important to the long-term health of the world economy. For these reasons, it is in our national interest to watch for changes within Iran that might offer hope for an improved relationship. Until last year there was little to justify that hope. Indeed, we have bitter and enduring disagreements that persist today. At the heart of our quarrel has been Iran’s past sponsorship of international terrorism. Iranian policy has been devoted to expelling all Western influence from the Middle East. We cannot abide that
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because our interests in the Middle East are vital. At the same time, we seek no territory or special position in Iran. The Iranian revolution is a fact of history, but between American and Iranian basic national interests there need be no permanent conflict. Since 1983 various countries have made overtures to stimulate direct contact between the United States and Iran; European, Near East, and Far East countries have attempted to serve as intermediaries. Despite a U.S. willingness to proceed, none of these overtures bore fruit. With this history in mind, we were receptive last year when we were alerted to the possibility of establishing a direct dialog with Iranian officials. Now, let me repeat: America’s longstanding goals in the region have been to help preserve Iran’s independence from Soviet domination; to bring an honorable end to the bloody Iran-Iraq war; to halt the export of subversion and terrorism in the region. A major impediment to those goals has been an absence of dialog, a cutoff in communication between us. It’s because of Iran’s strategic importance and its influence in the Islamic world that we chose to probe for a better relationship between our countries. Our discussions continued into the spring of this year. Based upon the progress we felt we had made, we sought to raise the diplomatic level of contacts. A meeting was arranged in Tehran. I then asked my former national security adviser, Robert McFarlane, to undertake a secret mission and gave him explicit instructions. I asked him to go to Iran to open a dialog, making stark and clear our basic objectives and disagreements. The 4 days of talks were conducted in a civil fashion, and American personnel were not mistreated. Since then, the dialog has continued and step-by-step progress continues to be made. Let me repeat: Our interests are clearly served by opening a dialog with Iran and thereby helping to end the Iran-Iraq war. That war has dragged on for more than 6 years, with no prospect of a negotiated settlement. The slaughter on both sides has been enormous, and the adverse economic and political consequences for that vital region of the world have been growing. We sought to establish communication with both sides in that senseless struggle, so that we could assist in bringing about a cease-fire and, eventually, a settlement. We have sought to be evenhanded by working with both sides and with other interested nations to prevent a widening of the war. This sensitive undertaking has entailed great risk for those involved. There is no question but that we could never have begun or continued this dialog had the initiative been disclosed earlier. Due to the publicity of the past week, the entire initiative is very much at risk today. Since the welcome return of former hostage David Jacobsen, there has been unprecedented speculation and countless reports that have not only been wrong but have been potentially dangerous to the hostages and destructive of the opportunity before us. The efforts of courageous people like Terry Waite have been jeopardized. So extensive have been the false rumors and erroneous reports that the risks of remaining silent now exceed the risks of speaking out. And that’s why I decided to address you tonight. It’s been widely reported, for example, that the Congress, as well as top executive branch officials, were circumvented. Although the efforts we undertook were highly sensitive and involvement of government officials was limited to those with a strict need to
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know, all appropriate Cabinet officers were fully consulted. The actions I authorized were, and continue to be, in full compliance with Federal law. And the relevant committees of Congress are being, and will be, fully informed. Another charge is that we have tilted toward Iran in the Gulf war. This, too, is unfounded. We have consistently condemned the violence on both sides. We have consistently sought a negotiated settlement that preserves the territorial integrity of both nations. The overtures we’ve made to the Government of Iran have not been a shift to supporting one side over the other, rather, it has been a diplomatic initiative to gain some degree of access and influence within Iran—as well as Iraq—and to bring about an honorable end to that bloody conflict. It is in the interests of all parties in the Gulf region to end that war as soon as possible. To summarize: Our government has a firm policy not to capitulate to terrorist demands. That no concessions policy remains in force, in spite of the wildly speculative and false stories about arms for hostages and alleged ransom payments. We did not—repeat—did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we. Those who think that we have gone soft on terrorism should take up the question with Colonel Qadhafi. We have not, nor will we, capitulate to terrorists. We will, however, get on with advancing the vital interests of our great nation—in spite of terrorists and radicals who seek to sabotage our efforts and immobilize the United States. Our goals have been, and remain, to restore a relationship with Iran; to bring an honorable end to the war in the Gulf; to bring a halt to state-supported terror in the Middle East; and finally, to effect the safe return of all hostages from Lebanon. As President, I’ve always operated on the belief that, given the facts, the American people will make the right decision. I believe that to be true now. I cannot guarantee the outcome. But as in the past, I ask for your support because I believe you share the hope for peace in the Middle East, for freedom for all hostages, and for a world free of terrorism. Certainly there are risks in this pursuit, but there are greater risks if we do not persevere. It will take patience and understanding; it will take continued resistance to those who commit terrorist acts; and it will take cooperation with all who seek to rid the world of this scourge. SOURCE: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/111386c.htm
PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH President George H.W. Bush, Remarks to the United Nations Security Council, New York, New York, January 31, 1992 EXCERPTED It was just one year ago that the world saw this new, invigorated United Nations in action as this Council stood fast against aggression and stood for the sacred principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter. And now it’s time to step forward again, make the internal reforms, accelerate the revitalization, accept the responsibilities necessary for a vigorous and effective United Nations.
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I want to assure the members of this Council and the Secretary-General, the United Nations can count on our full support in this task. Our changed world is a more hopeful world, indeed, but it is not absent those who would turn back the clock to the darker days of threats and bullying. And our world is still a dangerous world, rife with far too many terrible weapons. The danger of proliferation remains. And again, let me single out the earlier remarks by the President of the French Republic, President Mitterrand, on this subject, the clarion call to do something about it. We must act together so that from this time forward, people involved in sophisticated weapons programs can redirect their energies to peaceful endeavors. We’ll do more in cooperation with our allies to ensure that dangerous materials and technology don’t fall into the hands of terrorists or others. And we will continue to work with these new States to ensure a strong commitment in word and deed to all global nonproliferation standards. Our triumph in the Gulf is testament to the U.N.’s mission. Its security is a shared responsibility. Today, this institution spearheads a quarantine against the outlaw regime of Saddam Hussein. It is the strong belief of my country that we must keep sanctions in place and take the following steps to preserve our common security: We must continue to focus on Iraq’s capability to build or maintain weapons of mass destruction. And we must make clear to the world and, most important, to the people of Iraq that no normalization is possible so long as Saddam Hussein remains there, remains in power. As on all of the urgent issues I’ve mentioned today, progress comes from acting in concert, and we must deal resolutely with these renegade regimes, if necessary, by sanctions or stronger measures, to compel them to observe international standards of behavior. We will not be blind to the dangers we still face. Terrorists and their state sponsors must know there will be serious consequences if they violate international law. Two weeks ago, this Council, in unity, sent a very strong message to Libya. And let me repeat today Resolution 731, passed unanimously by this body, by the Security Council, calls on Libya to comply fully with the requests of three states on this Council. And I would just like to use this meeting today to call on Libya to heed the call of the Security Council of the United Nations. Last year in the Gulf, in concert, we responded to an attack on the sovereignty of one nation as an assault on the security of all. So, let us make it our mission to give this principle the greatest practical meaning in the conduct of nations. SOURCE: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1992/92013100.html
President George H.W. Bush, Remarks to the American Legion National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, August 25, 1992 Foreign policy is not a footnote, a loose end that we wrap up and then safely forget. It requires steady, experienced leadership. Think back not too long ago to the time of gas lines and grain embargoes. In Teheran, Americans were held hostage. In Moscow, America was seen as weak and uncertain. This is a
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lesson we ignore at our own peril. Now those days are gone, but our strength in the future, like any great nation, rests on our eternal vigilance. We need to speak up for the military muscle that gives meaning to America’s moral leadership. We need to say even now that the cold war is over: America is safe as long as America stays strong. You see, the world is still a dangerous place, and if America does not lead, who will? Take Iraq as a test case for the most difficult security challenges we are likely to face in the future. We tried peaceful means to bring Iraq into the family of nations. Given the dangerous neighbors, given the vital interests at stake, it was right to try. Had we not made those efforts, had we not exhausted every peaceful means, we would never have been able to build the unprecedented United Nations coalition that stopped a tyrant in his tracks and rolled him back to Baghdad. Now, let’s also get straight what was at stake: A madman with missiles and chemical weapons stood on the brink of a choke-hold on much of the world’s energy supplies, threatening to overrun our allies. We destroyed that threat, liberated Kuwait, and locked up a tyrant in the prison of his own country. We know now Saddam Hussein was developing the weapons to destroy Israel. Tens of millions of deaths of Arabs or Israelis would not matter to this killer. The Middle East could well have become a nuclear apocalypse. That is what was at stake. Now, some who were faint-hearted and stood in the way of crushing Saddam’s aggression now have the gall to say, ‘‘You stopped the war too soon.’’ Some also say that General Norman Schwarzkopf wanted to march into Baghdad and ‘‘get’’ Saddam. False! I’ll never forget—this is a true story and history has it recorded on film—sitting in the Oval Office on February 27, 1991, our troops having performed so magnificently in the field. And with me in the room was General Scowcroft and the Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. They recommended to me, as President who has the responsibility for this, that we stop the slaughter; our mission was accomplished. I asked, are you sure that our field commanders feel this way? They both said yes. But to double-check, Colin Powell got up from the couch in our office—you all have seen pictures of it— walked over to the desk that you see pictures of, reached into the front righthand corner of the desk, and there was a secure telephone; picked up that secure phone and got General Schwarzkopf on the line in my presence. And General Powell looked up at me after he had talked to Schwarzkopf, and he said, ‘‘Mission accomplished. Stop the killing.’’ And it was right. We are not in the slaughter business. We were in the business of crushing aggression. And we did it. And I don’t like this historical revision. We did the right thing; we did the compassionate thing in the end as well. If we’d continued, hundreds of thousands of American troops would be on the ground in Iraq today attempting to pull warring factions together or bogged down in some guerrilla warfare. Whether in Korea or in Lebanon, history shows us the danger of losing sight of our objectives. Liberators can easily become occupiers. A Commander in Chief has to know not only when his objectives have been reached but when to consolidate his gains.
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And one other thing let me say right here. I feel on me the obligation to every family of every single man or woman serving in the Armed Forces. And I am not going to commit our ground forces to a war until I know what the mission is, how that mission will be achieved, and how those forces will come out, their honor intact, victory in hand. We’ve seen too many combat situations where we asked those kids to fight with one hand behind their back. Not as long as I am Commander in Chief. Instead of playing the world’s policeman, we worked with the United Nations to destroy Iraq’s remaining weapons of mass destruction, to keep Iraq under control. Through an embargo, through tight control over oil exports and U.N. inspections, we are putting the lid on Saddam. And believe me, he is going to live up to each and every one of those U.N. resolutions. I am determined to see that, and I will. As you know, today a whole new world of hope is dawning in the Middle East. This very week, as Arab and Israeli sit down together in Washington, DC, we are winning the peace. And that was made possible by the sacrifice of those involved in Desert Storm. There will be other regional conflicts. There will be other Saddam Husseins. Look around the world. Look at the threats we face: terrorism, the terrible drug cartels, regional conflicts as the breakup of empire gives vent to ancient hatreds, the spread of nuclear and chemical weapons. From Qadhafi in Libya to Kim Il-song in North Korea, the threats on our horizon could look a lot like the threat we turned back in Iraq. … banning chemical weapons has been a priority since the day 8 years ago when I went to Geneva on instructions from President Reagan to present our draft convention. In the next few days, we expect the completed convention to be presented in Geneva. And it is my hope, it is my aim that before this year is out, the nations of the world will unite to ban chemical weapons, to banish this scourge from the face of the Earth. Now, our work in the world did not end with our victory in the cold war. Our task is to guard against the crises that haven’t yet even caught fire, the wars that are waiting to happen, the threats that will come upon us with little or no warning. SOURCE: http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1992/92082500.html
PRESIDENT WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON President William Jefferson Clinton, Radio Address on Terrorism from G-7 Summit Meeting, June 29, 1996 Good morning. I’m speaking to you today from Lyons, France, where the leaders of the world’s industrialized democracies have gathered for our annual summit. We’re meeting at a time of peace and prosperity but in the shadow of terrorism. The cowardly, brutal attack on American military personnel in Saudi Arabia is on everyone’s mind. This weekend, all Americans will join me
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in mourning the 19 Americans who lost their lives, in sending prayers to their loved ones. I’ve made it clear that I’ll do everything in my power to discover who’s responsible, to pursue them, and to punish them. I am pleased that our summit partners here agreed with me to direct our agenda to the work we can do together to fight terrorism and international crime. This is especially important now. While the international perils of the 20th century, fascism and communism, have been defeated, new dangers are rising up to take their place as we enter the 21st. New technologies and the rapid movement of information, money, and people across borders bring us closer together and enrich our lives. But they also make us all more vulnerable to rogue states, crime, drugs, and terrorism. Unlike the previous great struggles of this century, we must confront these threats along a moving front, from the Tokyo subway to the streets of London, from a bus in Paris to the World Trade Center in New York and the heartland in Oklahoma City and, of course, in Saudi Arabia. But just as no enemy could drive us from the fight to meet our challenges and protect our values during World War II and the cold war, we will not be driven from the frontiers of our fight against terrorism today. Working with our partners around the world, we will take on the forces of terror. As a result of United States leadership, here in Lyons we have adopted specific recommendations to combat crime and terrorism, practical steps that all governments can take and should take. They fall into four key areas. First, we need to make sure that criminals and terrorists have nowhere to hide. So we will strengthen our efforts to prosecute and extradite major criminals and terrorists, to share information, and to develop joint witness protection programs. Second, we must deny criminals and terrorists the resources they need to do violence to our citizens. So we will work to seize their assets, to gather more information on their financial transactions, and to shut down money laundering. Third, we have to strengthen the defense of our national borders so that criminals and terrorists cannot violate them. So we will crack down on weapons trafficking, alien smuggling. We’ll do a better job in safeguarding travel documents from fraud and abuse. And we will track forged or stolen documents together. Finally, we must stop criminals and terrorists from misusing the high-tech communications we all rely on for commerce and cooperation, so we will take the fight to those who would abuse government and financial institutional data bases. There’s more we can do together, so we directed our senior officials to come together as soon as possible to discuss additional steps to intensify the worldwide fight against terrorism. All these steps against terrorism, international crime, drug trafficking, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction are part of a campaign America has been leading for 3 years now. Without our leadership, the job will not get done. SOURCE: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2889/is_n27_v32/ai_18709997
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President William Jefferson Clinton, ‘‘American Security in a Changing World,’’ Remarks at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., August 5, 1996 … America remains the indispensable nation. There are times when America, and only America, can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression, between hope and fear. Of course, we can’t take on all the world’s burden. We cannot become its policemen. But where our interests and values demand it and where we can make a difference, America must act and lead. Nowhere is that responsibility more clear or more urgent than in the struggle against terrorism. No one is immune, whether you’re riding a subway in Tokyo or a bus in Tel Aviv, whether you’re window shopping in London or walking the streets in Moscow, whether you’re doing your duty in Saudi Arabia or going to work in Oklahoma City. Terrorism has become an equal opportunity destroyer, with no respect for borders. Whether we like it or not, in ways both good and bad, we are living in an interdependent world. That is why we must break down the walls in our mind between foreign and domestic policy … The reality is that our personal, community, and national prosperity depend upon our policies on economics in trade at home and abroad … [O]ur personal, community, and national security depend upon our policies on terrorism at home and abroad. We cannot advance the common good at home without also advancing the common good around the world. We cannot reduce the threats to our people without reducing threats to the world beyond our borders. That’s why the fight against terrorism must be both a national priority and a national security priority. We have pursued a concerted national and international strategy against terrorism on three fronts: First, beyond our borders, by working more closely than ever with our friends and allies; Second, here at home, by giving law enforcement the most powerful counterterrorism tools available; and, Third, in our airports and airplanes by increasing aviation security. This will be a long, hard struggle. There will be setbacks along the way. But just as no enemy could drive us from the fight to meet our challenges and protect our values in World War II and the Cold War, we will not be driven from the tough fight against terrorism today. Terrorism is the enemy of our generation, and we must prevail. First, on the international front, stopping the spread of terrorism clearly requires common action. The United States has a special responsibility to lead in this effort. Over the past four years, our intelligence services have been sharing more information than ever with other nations. We’ve opened up a law enforcement academy in Budapest which is training people from 23 nations, an FBI office in Moscow, and just last Friday, Congress gave us the funding for FBI offices in Cairo, Islamabad, Tel Aviv, and Beijing. We have requested more money for intelligence in 1997. This focus is making a difference. As the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in its 1996
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report on the Intelligence Authorization bill, the work of U.S. intelligence agencies against terrorism has been an example of effective coordination and information sharing. I’ve also worked to rally other nations to the fight against terrorism—last year at the UN General Assembly; this spring at the historic Summit of Peacemakers at Sharm el-Sheikh, where 29 nations, including 13 Arab nations, for the first time condemned terrorism in Israel and anywhere else it occurs in the Middle East and throughout the world; at the G-7 Summit in Lyon and the recently held follow-on conference we called for in Paris, where we were represented ably by the Attorney General. … More countries are taking the ‘‘no sanctuary’’ pledge and living up to their extradition laws so that terrorists have no place to run or hide. More countries are helping us to shut down the gray markets that outfit terrorists with weapons and false documents. Last week in Paris, the G-7 nations and Russia agreed to pursue a sweeping set of measures to prevent terrorists from acting, and to catch them if they do. And we set timetables with specific dates by which progress must be made. We are also working with Saudi Arabia to improve the security of our forces stationed there, so that we can continue to deter aggression by rogue states and stand against terrorism in the Middle East. After Khobar Towers I immediately ordered investigation by the FBI and a commission headed by Gen. Wayne Downing … And we are working with the Saudi government to move almost all our troops to other bases to better protect them from terrorist attacks. Even though we’re working more closely with our allies than ever, and there is more agreement on what needs to be done than ever, we do not always agree. Where we don’t agree, the United States cannot and will not refuse to do what we believe is right. That is why we have maintained or strengthened sanctions against states that sponsor terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan. You cannot do business with countries that practice commerce with you by day while funding or protecting the terrorists who kill you and your innocent civilians by night. That is wrong. I hope, and expect, that before long our allies will come around to accepting this fundamental truth. This morning I signed into law the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. It builds on what we have already done to isolate those regimes by imposing tough penalties on foreign companies that go forward with new investments in key sectors. The act will help to deny them the money they need to finance international terrorism or to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It will increase the pressure on Libya to extradite the suspects in the bombing of Pan Am 103. The second part of our strategy is to give American law enforcement officials the most powerful tools available to fight terrorism without undermining our civil liberties. In the wake of Oklahoma City, I strengthened the terrorism bill I had previously sent to Congress, but which had not then been passed. Despite the vow of Congress to act quickly, it took a year before that bill came to my desk to be signed. The bill had some very good points. It made terrorism a federal offense, expanded the role of the FBI, and imposed the death penalty for terrorism.
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But as strong as it was, it did not give our law enforcement officials other tools they needed and that they had asked for, including increased wiretap authority for terrorists to parallel that which we have for people involved in organized crime now, and chemical markers for the most common explosives so that we can more easily track down bomb makers. … Next month I will submit to Congress the international crime control act that our Justice, State, and Treasury Departments drafted at my request, because more and more, terrorism, international organized crime, and drug trafficking are going hand-in-hand. This bill expands our fight against money laundering, so criminals and terrorists will have a tougher time financing their activities. It strengthens our extradition powers and border controls to keep more criminals and terrorists out of America. It increases the ability of American law enforcement to prosecute those who commit violent crimes against Americans abroad. Congress should pass it. Once again, I urge the Senate to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention, so that we can eliminate chemical weapons stockpiles and give our law enforcement new powers to investigate and prosecute people planning attacks with such weapons … Finally, the third front of our struggle against terrorism is at the airports and on the airplanes that bring us all closer together. Air travel remains the safest form of transportation. Our airlines have the best safety record and security record in the business. But that’s a small consolation when a single attack can take so many lives. Last year, we began field testing new high-tech explosive detection machines in Atlanta and San Francisco. We significantly increased security at our airports, and the FAA created a new government and industry panel to review airline security. After the TWA crash, I ordered new measures to increase the security of air travel. As any of you who have flown in recent days will have noticed, we are doing more hand searches and machine screening of luggage. We are requiring preflight inspections for every plane flying to or from the United States— every plane, every cabin, every cargo hold, every time. The Vice President is leading a commission on aviation security that is to report back to me within 45 days with an action plan to deploy machines that can detect the most sophisticated explosives and other needed changes. So, greater international cooperation, stronger American law enforcement, safer air travel—these are the fronts of our concerted strategy against terrorism. Much of this work by law enforcement, intelligence, and military professionals goes unheralded, but we are getting results. For example, we prevented attacks on the United Nations and the Holland Tunnel in New York. We thwarted an attempt to bomb American passenger planes from the skies over the Pacific. We convicted those responsible for the World Trade Center bombing and arrested suspects in the Oklahoma City and Unabomber cases. We have tracked down terrorists around the world and extradited more terrorists in four years than in the previous 12. But I want to make it clear to the American people that while we can defeat terrorists, it will be a long time before we defeat terrorism. America will remain a target because we are uniquely present in the world, because we act
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to advance peace and democracy, because we have taken a tougher stand against terrorism, and because we are the most open society on earth. But to change any of that, to pull our troops from the world’s trouble spots, to turn our backs on those taking risks for peace, to weaken our opposition against terrorism, or to curtail the freedom that is our birth right would be to give terrorism a victory it must not and will not have. In this fight, as in so many other challenges around the world, American leadership is indispensable. In assuming our leadership in the struggle against terrorism, we must be neither reluctant nor arrogant, but realistic, determined, and confident. And we must understand that in this battle we must deploy more than police and military resources … Our greatest strength is our confidence. And that is the target of the terrorists. Make no mistake about it: The bombs that kill and maim innocent people are not really aimed at them, but at the spirit of our whole country and the spirit of freedom. Therefore, the struggle against terrorism involves more than the new security measures I have ordered and the others I am seeking. Ultimately, it requires the confident will of the American people to retain our convictions for freedom and peace and to remain the indispensable force in creating a better world at the dawn of a new century. SOURCE: http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/briefing/dispatch/1996/html/Dispatchv 7no32.html
President William Jefferson Clinton, Address to the Nation on Military Action Against Terrorist Sites in Afghanistan and Sudan, August 20, 1998 Good afternoon. Today I ordered our Armed Forces to strike at terroristrelated facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan because of the imminent threat they presented to our national security. I want to speak with you about the objective of this action and why it was necessary. Our target was terror; our mission was clear: to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with and funded by Usama bin Ladin, perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today. The groups associated with him come from diverse places but share a hatred for democracy, a fanatical glorification of violence, and a horrible distortion of their religion to justify the murder of innocents. They have made the United States their adversary precisely because of what we stand for and what we stand against. A few months ago, and again this week, bin Ladin publicly vowed to wage a terrorist war against America, saying, and I quote, ‘‘We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They’re all targets.’’ Their mission is murder and their history is bloody. In recent years, they killed American, Belgian, and Pakistani peacekeepers in Somalia. They plotted to assassinate the President of Egypt and the Pope. They planned to bomb six United States 747’s over the Pacific. They bombed the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan. They gunned down German tourists in Egypt.
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The most recent terrorist events are fresh in our memory. Two weeks ago, 12 Americans and nearly 300 Kenyans and Tanzanians lost their lives, and another 5,000 were wounded, when our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were bombed. There is convincing information from our intelligence community that the bin Ladin terrorist network was responsible for these bombings. Based on this information, we have high confidence that these bombings were planned, financed, and carried out by the organization bin Ladin leads. America has battled terrorism for many years. Where possible, we’ve used law enforcement and diplomatic tools to wage the fight. The long arm of American law has reached out around the world and brought to trial those guilty of attacks in New York and Virginia and in the Pacific. We have quietly disrupted terrorist groups and foiled their plots. We have isolated countries that practice terrorism. We’ve worked to build an international coalition against terror. But there have been and will be times when law enforcement and diplomatic tools are simply not enough, when our very national security is challenged, and when we must take extraordinary steps to protect the safety of our citizens. With compelling evidence that the bin Ladin network of terrorist groups was planning to mount further attacks against Americans and other freedomloving people, I decided America must act. And so this morning, based on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, I ordered our Armed Forces to take action to counter an immediate threat from the bin Ladin network. Earlier today the United States carried out simultaneous strikes against terrorist facilities and infrastructure in Afghanistan. Our forces targeted one of the most active terrorist bases in the world. It contained key elements of the bin Ladin network’s infrastructure and has served as a training camp for literally thousands of terrorists from around the globe. We have reason to believe that a gathering of key terrorist leaders was to take place there today, thus underscoring the urgency of our actions. Our forces also attacked a factory in Sudan associated with the bin Ladin network. The factory was involved in the production of materials for chemical weapons. The United States does not take this action lightly. Afghanistan and Sudan have been warned for years to stop harboring and supporting these terrorist groups. But countries that persistently host terrorists have no right to be safe havens. I want you to understand, I want the world to understand that our actions today were not aimed against Islam, the faith of hundreds of millions of good, peace-loving people all around the world, including the United States. No religion condones the murder of innocent men, women, and children. But our actions were aimed at fanatics and killers who wrap murder in the cloak of righteousness and in so doing profane the great religion in whose name they claim to act. … [O]f this I am also sure: The risks from inaction, to America and the world, would be far greater than action, for that would embolden our enemies, leaving their ability and their willingness to strike us intact. In this case,
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we knew before our attack that these groups already had planned further actions against us and others. I want to reiterate: The United States wants peace, not conflict. We want to lift lives around the world, not take them. We have worked for peace in Bosnia, in Northern Ireland, in Haiti, in the Middle East, and elsewhere. But in this day, no campaign for peace can succeed without a determination to fight terrorism. Let our actions today send this message loud and clear: There are no expendable American targets; there will be no sanctuary for terrorists; we will defend our people, our interests, and our values; we will help people of all faiths, in all parts of the world, who want to live free of fear and violence. We will persist, and we will prevail. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid¼54799
President William Jefferson Clinton, Remarks to the Opening Session of the 53rd United Nations General Assembly United Nations, New York, New York, September 21, 1998 EXCERPTED Today, I would like to talk to you about why all nations must put the fight against terrorism at the top of our agenda. Obviously this is a matter of profound concern to us. In the last 15 years our citizens have been targeted over and over again—in Beirut, over Lockerbie, in Saudi Arabia, at home in Oklahoma City by one of our own citizens, and even here in New York in one of our most public buildings, and most recently on August 7th in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, where Americans who devoted their lives to building bridges between nations, people very much like all of you, died in a campaign of hatred against the United States. Because we are blessed to be a wealthy nation with a powerful military and a worldwide presence active in promoting peace and security, we are often a target. We love our country for its dedication to political and religious freedom, to economic opportunity, to respect for the rights of the individual. But we know many people see us as a symbol of a system and values they reject, and often they find it expedient to blame us for problems with deep roots elsewhere. But we are no threat to any peaceful nation, and we believe the best way to disprove these claims is to continue our work for peace and prosperity around the world. For us to pull back from the world’s trouble spots, to turn our backs on those taking risks for peace, to weaken our own opposition to terrorism, would hand the enemies of peace a victory they must never have. Still, it is a grave misconception to see terrorism as only, or even mostly, an American problem. Indeed, it is a clear and present danger to tolerant and open societies and innocent people everywhere. No one in this room, nor the people you represent, are immune. Certainly not the people of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. For every American killed there, roughly 20 Africans were murdered and 500 more injured—innocent
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people going about their business on a busy morning. Not the people of Omagh in Northern Ireland, where the wounded and killed were Catholics and Protestants alike, mostly children and women, and two of them pregnant, people out shopping together, when their future was snuffed out by a fringe group clinging to the past. Not the people of Japan who were poisoned by sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. Not the people of Argentina who died when a car bomb decimated a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Not the people of Kashmir and Sri Lanka killed by ancient animosities that cry out for resolution. Not the Palestinians and Israelis who still die year after year for all the progress toward peace. Not the people of Algeria enduring the nightmare of unfathomable terror with still no end in sight. Not the people of Egypt, who nearly lost a second President to assassination. Not the people of Turkey, Colombia, Albania, Russia, Iran, Indonesia, and countless other nations where innocent people have been victimized by terror. … Some argue, of course, that the problem is overblown, saying that the number of deaths from terrorism is comparatively small, sometimes less than the number of people killed by lightning in a single year. I believe that misses the point in several ways. First, terrorism has a new face in the 1990s. Today terrorists take advantage of greater openness and the explosion of information and weapons technology. The new technologies of terror and their increasing availability, along with the increasing mobility of terrorists, raise chilling prospects of vulnerability to chemical, biological, and other kinds of attacks, bringing each of us into the category of possible victim. This is a threat to all humankind. Beyond the physical damage of each attack, there is an even greater residue of psychological damage—hard to measure, but slow to heal. Every bomb, every bomb threat has an insidious effect on free and open institutions, the kinds of institutions all of you in this body are working so hard to build. Each time an innocent man or woman or child is killed, it makes the future more hazardous for the rest of us. For each violent act saps the confidence that is so crucial to peace and prosperity. In every corner of the world, with the active support of U.N. agencies, people are struggling to build better futures, based on bonds of trust connecting them to their fellow citizens and with partners and investors from around the world. The glimpse of growing prosperity in Northern Ireland was a crucial factor in the Good Friday Agreement. But that took confidence—confidence that cannot be bought in times of violence. We can measure each attack and the grisly statistics of dead and wounded, but what are the wounds we cannot measure? In the Middle East, in Asia, in South America, how many agreements have been thwarted after bombs blew up? How many businesses will never be created in places crying out for investments of time and money? How many talented young people in countries represented here have turned their backs on public service? The question is not only how many lives have been lost in each attack, but how many futures were lost in their aftermath. There is no justification for
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killing innocents. Ideology, religion, and politics, even deprivation and righteous grievance do not justify it. We must seek to understand the roiled waters in which terror occurs; of course we must. Often, in my own experience, I have seen where peace is making progress, terror is a desperate act to turn back the tide of history. The Omagh bombing came as peace was succeeding in Northern Ireland. In the Middle East, whenever we get close to another step toward peace, its enemies respond with terror. We must not let this stall our momentum. The bridging of ancient hatreds is, after all, a leap of faith, a break with the past, and thus a frightening threat to those who cannot let go of their own hatred. Because they fear the future, in these cases terrorists seek to blow the peacemakers back into the past. We must also acknowledge that there are economic sources of this rage as well. Poverty, inequality, masses of disenfranchised young people are fertile fields for the siren call of the terrorists and their claims of advancing social justice. But depravation cannot justify destruction, nor can inequity ever atone for murder. The killing of innocents is not a social program. Nevertheless, our resolute opposition to terrorism does not mean we can ever be indifferent to the conditions that foster it. The most recent U.N. human development report suggests the gulf is widening between the world’s haves and have-nots. We must work harder to treat the sources of despair before they turn into the poison of hatred … Some people believe that terrorism’s principal fault line centers on what they see as an inevitable clash of civilizations. It is an issue that deserves a lot of debate in this great hall. Specifically, many believe there is an inevitable clash between Western civilization and Western values, and Islamic civilizations and values. I believe this view is terribly wrong. False prophets may use and abuse any religion to justify whatever political objectives they have—even coldblooded murder. Some may have the world believe that almighty God himself, the merciful, grants a license to kill. But that is not our understanding of Islam. A quarter of the world’s population is Muslim—from Africa to Middle East to Asia and to the United States, where Islam is one of our fastest growing faiths. There are over 1,200 mosques and Islamic centers in the United States, and the number is rapidly increasing. The 6 million Americans who worship there will tell you there is no inherent clash between Islam and America. Americans respect and honor Islam. As I talked to Muslim leaders in my country and around the world, I see again that we share the same hopes and aspirations: to live in peace and security, to provide for our children, to follow the faith of our choosing, to build a better life than our parents knew and pass on brighter possibilities to our own children. Of course, we are not identical. There are important differences that cross race and culture and religion which demand understanding and deserve respect. When it comes to terrorism there should be no dividing line between Muslims and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, Serbs and Albanians, developed societies and emerging countries. The only dividing line is between those who practice, support, or tolerate terror, and those who understand that it is murder, plain and simple.
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If terrorism is at the top of the American agenda—and should be at the top of the world’s agenda—what, then, are the concrete steps we can take together to protect our common destiny. What are our common obligations? At least, I believe they are these: to give terrorists no support, no sanctuary, no financial assistance; to bring pressure on states that do; to act together to step up extradition and prosecution; to sign the Global Anti-Terror Conventions; to strengthen the Biological Weapons and Chemical Convention; to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention; to promote stronger domestic laws and control the manufacture and export of explosives; to raise international standards for airport security; to combat the conditions that spread violence and despair. We are working to do our part. Our intelligence and law enforcement communities are tracking terrorist networks in cooperation with other governments. Some of those we believe responsible for the recent bombing of our embassies have been brought to justice. Early this week I will ask our Congress to provide emergency funding to repair our embassies, to improve security, to expand the worldwide fight against terrorism, to help our friends in Kenya and Tanzania with the wounds they have suffered. But no matter how much each of us does alone, our progress will be limited without our common efforts. We also will do our part to address the sources of despair and alienation through the Agency for International Development in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe, in Haiti and elsewhere. We will continue our strong support for the U.N. Development Program, the U.N. High Commissioners for Human Rights and Refugees, UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Food Program. In closing, let me urge all of us to think in new terms on terrorism, to see it not as a clash of cultures or political action by other means, or a divine calling, but a clash between the forces of the past and the forces of the future, between those who tear down and those who build up, between hope and fear, chaos and community. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼54944&st¼openingþ sessionþofþthe&st1¼
President William Jefferson Clinton, Remarks at the Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing 10th Anniversary Observance, Arlington, Virginia, December 21, 1998 Even though it is painful today to remember what happened 10 years ago, it is necessary, necessary to remember that the people on that plane were students coming home for the holidays, tourists going on vacation in America, families looking forward to a long-awaited reunion, business people on a routine flight. Their average age was just 27. Last week in the annual report on the condition of the health of the American people, the average life expectancy of Americans has now exceeded 76; their average age was 27. Beneath them, the people of Lockerbie were sitting down to supper on a quiet winter evening. And of course, we have already heard the names; those of you who loved them have relived their lives in that awful moment.
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Now, for 10 years, you have cherished your memories, and you have lived with the thought, I’m sure, of what might have been. You have also, for 10 years, been steadfast in your determination to stand against terrorism and to demand justice. And people all around the world have stood with you, shared your outrage, admired your fellowship with one another, and watched with awed respect your determined campaign for justice. Although 10 years or 20 or 30 or 50 may never be long enough for the sorrow to fade, we pray it will not be too long now before the wait for justice and resolution is over. I know I speak for every American citizen when I say a simple, humble, heartfelt thank-you for all you have done to keep the memory and spirit of your loved ones alive by the memorials you have built, the scholarships you have funded, the charities you have supported. We thank you for reaching out to one another, to the people of Lockerbie, to all others who have been victims of terrorism. We thank you for helping to strengthen the resolve of nations to defeat terror, to deny safe haven to terrorists, to isolate those who sponsor them. We thank you for working to improve security for air travelers and for all the lives your work has saved. We thank you for your determination to see that things that are good and meaningful and lasting come out of your overpowering tragedy. And we thank you for not letting the world forget that it is necessary and right to pursue the perpetrators of this crime, no matter how long it takes. I thank you for what you have done to drive me to work harder on your behalf, not just the imperative of fighting terror but the passion and commitment and conviction of the families who have spoken to me and to the members of my administration, who all remind us this cannot be considered a mere misfortune; this was deliberate murder. And while all of us have to strive for reconciliation in our hearts, we must also pursue justice and accountability. … [N]one of us want to live in a world where such violence goes unpunished and people can kill with impunity. And none of us will be safe as long as there is a single place on our planet where terrorists can find sanctuary. That is why our Nation has never given up the search for justice. For 10 years we have ensured that Libya cannot be a member of the international community until it turns over suspects in this case. That is why, in late August, after speaking with many of you, we put forward the initiative which has already been referred to: try the two suspects before a Scottish court sitting in The Netherlands. Since then the Libyan leader, Mr. Qadhafi, has given us mixed signals. We believe there is still some possibility he will accept our offer. That would be the best outcome, for it would mean that finally there would be a trial. But let me be absolutely clear to all of you: Our policy is not to trust Mr. Qadhafi’s claims; it is to test them. This is a take-it-or-leave-it offer. We will not negotiate its terms. If the suspects are convicted, they will serve their time in Scotland. And if the suspects are not turned over by the time of the next sanctions review, we will work at the United Nations with our allies and friends to seek yet stronger measures against Libya. In doing so, we will count on the support of all nations that counseled us to make this proposal in the first place. If
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the proposal fails, all should make clear that the responsibility falls on Mr. Qadhafi alone. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼55439&st¼panþamþ flight&st1¼
President William Jefferson Clinton, ‘‘On Keeping America Secure for the 21st Century,’’ Remarks to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., January 22, 1999 In the struggle to defend our people and values and to advance them wherever possible, we confront threats both old and new—open borders and revolutions in technology have spread the message and the gifts of freedom but have also given new opportunities to freedom’s enemies. Scientific advances have opened the possibility of longer, better lives. They have also given the enemies of freedom new opportunities. The United States has mounted an aggressive response to terrorism—tightening security for our diplomats, our troops, our air travelers, improving our ability to track terrorist activity, enhancing cooperation with other countries, strengthening sanctions on nations that support terrorists. Since 1993, we have tripled funding for FBI anti-terrorist efforts. Our agents and prosecutors, with excellent support from our intelligence agencies, have done extraordinary work in tracking down perpetrators of terrorist acts and bringing them to justice. And as our air strikes against Afghanistan—or against the terrorist camps in Afghanistan—last summer showed, we are prepared to use military force against terrorists who harm our citizens. But all of you know the fight against terrorism is far from over. And now, terrorists seek new tools of destruction. Last May, at the Naval Academy commencement,3 I said terrorist and outlaw states are extending the world’s fields of battle, from physical space to cyberspace, from our earth’s vast bodies of water to the complex workings of our own human bodies. The enemies of peace realize they cannot defeat us with traditional military means. So they are working on two new forms of assault, which you’ve heard about today: cyber attacks on our critical computer systems, and attacks with weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, potentially even nuclear weapons. We must be ready—ready if our adversaries try to use computers to disable power grids, banking, communications and transportation networks, police, fire and health services—or military assets. More and more, these critical systems are driven by, and linked together with, computers, making them more vulnerable to disruption. Last spring, we saw the enormous impact of a single failed electronic link, when a satellite malfunctioned—disabled pagers, ATMs, credit card systems and television networks all around the world. And we already are seeing the first wave of deliberate cyber attacks—hackers break into government and business computers, 3
See http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼56012&st¼navalþ academy&st1¼.
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stealing and destroying information, raiding bank accounts, running up credit card charges, extorting money by threats to unleash computer viruses. The potential for harm is clear.… We have to be ready for adversaries to launch attacks that could paralyze utilities and services across entire regions. We must be ready if adversaries seek to attack with weapons of mass destruction, as well. Armed with these weapons, which can be compact and inexpensive, a small band of terrorists could inflict tremendous harm. Four years ago, though, the world received a wake-up call when a group unleashed a deadly chemical weapon, nerve gas, in the Tokyo subway. We have to be ready for the possibility that such a group will obtain biological weapons. We have to be ready to detect and address a biological attack promptly, before the disease spreads. If we prepare to defend against these emerging threats we will show terrorists that assaults on America will accomplish nothing but their own downfall. Let me say first what we have done so far to meet this challenge. We’ve been working to create and strengthen the agreement to keep nations from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, because this can help keep these weapons away from terrorists, as well. We’re working to ensure the effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention; to obtain an accord that will strengthen compliance with the biological weapons convention; to end production of nuclear weapons material. We must ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to end nuclear tests once and for all. As I proposed Tuesday in the State of the Union Address,4 we should substantially increase our efforts to help Russia and other former Soviet nations prevent weapons material and knowledge from falling into the hands of terrorists and outlaw states. But we cannot rely solely on our efforts to keep weapons from spreading. We have to be ready to act if they do spread. Last year, I obtained from Congress a 39 percent budget increase for chemical and biological weapons preparedness. This is helping to accelerate our ongoing effort to train and equip fire, police and public health personnel all across our country to deal with chemical and biological emergencies. It is helping us to ready armed forces and National Guard units in every region to meet this challenge; and to improve our capacity to detect an outbreak of disease and save lives; to create the first ever civilian stockpile of medicines to treat people exposed to biological and chemical hazards; to increase research and development on new medicines and vaccines to deal with new threats. … [O]ur commitment on the cyber front has been strong, as well. We’ve created special offices within the FBI and the Commerce Department to protect critical systems against cyber attack. We’re building partnerships with the private sector to find and reduce vulnerabilities; to improve warning systems; to rapidly recover if attacks occur … Today, I want to announce the new initiatives we will take, to take us to the next level in preparing for these emerging threats. In my budget, I will ask Congress for $10 billion to address terrorism and terrorist-emerging tools. This will include nearly $1.4 billion to protect citizens against chemical and 4
See http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/01/19/sotu.transcript/.
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biological terror—more than double what we spent on such programs only two years ago. We will speed and broaden our efforts, creating new local emergency medical teams, employing in the field portable detection units the size of a shoe box to rapidly identify hazards; tying regional laboratories together for prompt analysis of biological threats. We will greatly accelerate research and development, centered in the Department of Health and Human Services, for new vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools. I should say here that I know everybody in this crowd understands this, but everyone in America must understand this: the government has got to fund this. There is no market for the kinds of things we need to develop; and if we are successful, there never will be a market for them. But we have got to do our best to develop them. These cutting-edge efforts will address not only the threat of weapons of mass destruction, but also the equally serious danger of emerging infectious diseases. So we will benefit even if we are successful in avoiding these attacks. The budget proposal will also include $1.46 billion to protect critical systems from cyber and other attacks. That’s 40 percent more than we were spending two years ago. Among other things, it will help to fund four new initiatives. First, an intensive research effort to detect intruders trying to break into critical computer systems. Second, detection networks, first for our Defense Department, and later for other key agencies so when one critical computer system is invaded, others will be alerted instantly. And we will urge the private sector to create similar structures. Third, the creation of information centers in the private sector so that our industries can work together and with government to address cyber threats. Finally, we’ll ask for funding to bolster the government’s ranks of highly skilled computer experts—people capable of preventing and responding to computer crises. In all our battles, we will be aggressive. At the same time I want you to know that we will remain committed to uphold privacy rights and other constitutional protections, as well as the proprietary rights of American businesses. It is essential that we do not undermine liberty in the name of liberty … I have tried as hard as I can to create the right frame of mind in America for dealing with this. For too long the problem has been that not enough has been done to recognize the threat and deal with it. And we in government, frankly, weren’t as well organized as we should have been for too long. I do not want the pendulum to swing the other way now, and for people to believe that every incident they read about in a novel or every incident they see in a thrilling movie is about to happen to them within the next 24 hours. What we are seeing here, as any military person in the audience can tell you, is nothing more than a repetition of weapons systems that goes back to the beginning of time. An offensive weapons system is developed, and it takes time to develop the defense. And then another offensive weapon is developed that overcomes that defense, and then another defense is built up—as surely as castles and moats held off people with spears and bows and arrows and riding horses, and the catapult was developed to overcome the castle and the moat.
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But because of the speed with which change is occurring in our society— in computing technology, and particularly in the biological sciences—we have got to do everything we can to make sure that we close the gap between offense and defense to nothing, if possible. That is the challenge here. We are doing everything we can, in ways that I can and in ways that I cannot discuss, to try to stop people who would misuse chemical and biological capacity from getting that capacity. This is not a cause for panic—it is a cause for serious, deliberate, disciplined, long-term concern. And I am absolutely convinced that if we maintain our clear purpose and our strength of will, we will prevail here … But we must be deliberate, and we must be aggressive. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼57688&st¼&st1¼ EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see President Clinton’s Remarks at the Opening of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Summit in Istanbul, November 18, 1999 (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56952&st=&st1¼).
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH President George W. Bush, Remarks to Troops and Personnel, Norfolk Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia, February 13, 2001 EXCERPTED Because America, NATO and our allies have made the world more secure, we have an opportunity today given to few nations in history, to prepare for the future, to think anew. Eleven years after the Cold War, we are in a time of transition and testing, when it will be decided what dangers draw near or pass away, what tragedies are invited or averted. We must use this time well. We must seize this moment. First, we must prepare our nations against the dangers of a new era. The grave threat from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons has not gone away with the Cold War. It has evolved into many separate threats, some of them harder to see and harder to answer. And the adversaries seeking these tools of terror are less predictable, more diverse. With advance technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile. With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats that come in a shipping container or in a suitcase. We have no higher priority than the defense of our people against terrorist attack. To succeed, America knows we must work with our allies. We did not prevail together in the Cold War only to go our separate ways, pursuing separate plans with separate technologies. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼45992&st¼norfolk& st1¼
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President George W. Bush, Remarks to Central Intelligence Employees, Langley, Virginia, March 20, 2001 EXCERPTED I was also struck by the contrast between today’s world and the world as it looked 25 years ago, when my dad was the DCI. To say that a lot has changed is an understatement. Back then, America faced an over-arching threat and everything we did, from strategy to resource allocation, was oriented to defending against that threat. Today, that single threat has been replaced by new and different threats, sometimes hard to define and defend against; threats such as terrorism, information warfare, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. Back then, freedom was in peril. Today, freedom is taking root in more and more lands around the world. In retrospect, the world of 1976 looks staid and static compared to the revolutions of change that characterize our times. But what hasn’t changed, what isn’t different is the fact that sound intelligence is still critically important to America’s national security. The challenges are new, but we still need your work to help us meet them. The opportunities are new, but we need your help to take advantage of them. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼45788&st¼Centralþ Intelligence&st1¼
President George W. Bush, Statement on Domestic Preparedness Against Weapons of Mass Destruction, May 8, 2001 Protecting America’s homeland and citizens from the threat of weapons of mass destruction is one of our Nation’s important national security challenges. Today, more nations possess chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons than ever before. Still others seek to join them. Most troubling of all, the list of these countries includes some of the world’s least-responsible states—states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life. Some non-state terrorist groups have also demonstrated an interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Against this backdrop, it is clear that the threat of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons being used against the United States—while not immediate—is very real. That is why our Nation actively seeks to deny chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to those seeking to acquire them. That is why, together with our allies, we seek to deter anyone who would contemplate their use. And that is also why we must ensure that our Nation is prepared to defend against the harm they can inflict. Should our efforts to reduce the threat to our country from weapons of mass destruction be less than fully successful, prudence dictates that the United States be fully prepared to deal effectively with the consequences of such a weapon being used here on our soil. Today, numerous Federal departments and agencies have programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of a chemical, biological, radiological,
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or nuclear weapon in the United States. Many of these Federal programs offer training, planning, and assistance to state and local governments. But to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be seamlessly integrated, harmonious, and comprehensive. Therefore, I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm. I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to create an Office of National Preparedness. This Office will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management. Specifically it will coordinate all Federal programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction consequence management within the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies. The Office of National Preparedness will work closely with state and local governments to ensure their planning, training, and equipment needs are addressed. FEMA will also work closely with the Department of Justice, in its lead role for crisis management, to ensure that all facets of our response to the threat from weapons of mass destruction are coordinated and cohesive. I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼45592&st¼weaponsþ ofþmassþdestruction&st1¼
President George W. Bush, Joint Press Conference with President Jose Maria Aznar, Moncloa Palace, Madrid, Spain, June 12, 2001 I look forward to making my case, as I did today over lunch, about missile defense. It starts with explaining to Russia and our European friends and allies that Russia is not the enemy of the United States; that the attitude of mutually-assured destruction is a relic of the Cold War, and that we must address the new threats of the 21st century if we’re to have a peaceful continent and a peaceful world. Those new threats are terrorism, based upon the capacity of some countries to develop weapons of mass destruction, and therefore, hold the United States and our friends hostage. It is so important we think differently in order to address those threats. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼45848&st¼&st1¼
President George W. Bush, Remarks by the President and the Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon During Photo Opportunity at the Oval Office, June 26, 2001 Q. Mr. President, you said that we should be realistic. Don’t you think it’s a price for terrorists, for terrorism, if right now the United States will force
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Israel to begin the cooling-off period? We see that in the field the hostilities continue. The President: Any terror is too much terror. Any death is too much death. We recognize that. And we recognize the pressure that the Prime Minister is under. And we condemn terror. We condemn violence. We condemn death. We also believe progress is being made. If you look at—yes, there’s violence; yes, there’s terror, but it’s being isolated, it’s beginning to—contained. Can the parties do more? Absolutely. And that’s what the Secretary of State is going to do, is to urge Mr. Arafat to do more, to take better control of his security forces. We’re going to talk to the Prime Minister about his attitudes. We’re friends, and I believe that what’s important from this perspective is not to let the progress that’s been made so far to break apart. We cannot let violence take hold. And so that’s why I’ve said I admire the Prime Minister’s restraint and his patience. I understand the difficulties and the pressures. As he just said, five Israeli lives lost is [the] equivalent of 250—five is too many. But nevertheless, progress is being made. And it’s essential that we continue the process and continue the progress that’s being made. We’re gaining by inches, I recognize. Progress is in inches, not in miles. But, nevertheless, an inch is better than nothing. And so, therefore, this administration is committed to working with the parties. We urge people in the region … to stop the violence. And that’s first and foremost. You know, it’s—either you’re an optimist in life, or not. And I’m optimistic that we can get—start the process of Mitchell at some point in time. Q. But, Mr. Prime Minister— Prime Minister Sharon: … Yesterday we had 16 terror attacks, and that included multi-fire, it included side bombs, it included shooting and sniping. We had 10 wounded. So all together, generally speaking, maybe there are less, but still terror is going on. And by now, though I would like very much to hear that Chairman Arafat instructed to re-arrest those terrorists which are planning and sending and mobilizing those suiciders, he has not done it yet. He has not instructed to arrest them and they were not arrested. And beside that, he has not instructed yet to stop incitement. And that, of course, he could do—I would say he could have done it immediately … SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid¼45848&st¼&st1¼
3 Department of State and Department of Defense SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE P. SHULTZ Secretary of State George P. Shultz, ‘‘Power and Diplomacy in the 1980s,’’ Statement Before the Trilateral Commission, Washington, D.C., April 3, 1984 Over 20 years ago, President John Kennedy pledged that the United States would ‘‘pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.’’ We know now that the scope of that commitment is too broad—though the selfconfidence and courage in those words were typically American and most admirable. More recently, another administration took the view that our fear of communism was ‘‘inordinate’’ and that there were very complicated social, economic, religious, and other factors at work in the world that we had little ability to affect. This, in my view, is a counsel of helplessness that substantially underestimates the United States and its ability to influence events. Somewhere between these two poles lies the natural and sensible scope of American foreign policy. We know that we are not omnipotent and that we must set priorities. We cannot pay any price or bear any burden. We must discriminate; we must be prudent and careful; we must respond in ways appropriate to the challenge and engage our power only when very important strategic stakes are involved. Not every situation can be salvaged by American exertion even when important values or interests are at stake. At the same time, we know from history that courage and vision and determination can change reality. We can affect events, and we all know it. The American people expect this of their leaders. And the future of the free world depends on it. Americans, being moral people, want their foreign policy to reflect the values we espouse as a nation. But Americans, being practical people, also want their foreign policy to be effective. If we truly care about our values, we must be prepared to defend them and advance them. Thus we as a nation are perpetually asking ourselves how to reconcile our morality and our practical sense,
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how to pursue noble goals in a complex and imperfect world, how to relate our strength to our purposes—in sum, how to relate power and diplomacy. We meet this evening amid the excitement of America’s quadrennial exercise of self-renewal, in which we as a country reexamine ourselves and our international objectives. It is an unending process—almost as unending as the presidential campaign season. But there are some constants in our policy, such as our alliance with the industrial democracies, as embodied in this distinguished gathering. This partnership—the cornerstone of our foreign policy for 35 years—itself reflects our ability to combine our moral commitment to democracy and our practical awareness of the crucial importance of maintaining the global balance of power. So I consider this an appropriate forum at which to share some thoughts on the relationship between power and diplomacy in the last two decades of the 20th century. The World We Face By the accident of history, the role of the world leadership fell to the United States just at the moment when the old international order had been destroyed by two world wars but no new stable system had developed to replace it. A century ago, the international system was centered on Europe and consisted of only a few major players. Today in terms of military strength, the dominant countries are two major powers that had been, in one sense or another, on the edge or outside European diplomacy. But economic power is now widely dispersed. Asia is taking on increasing significance. The former colonial empires have been dismantled, and there are now more than 160 independent nations on the world scene. Much of the developing world itself is torn by a continuing struggle between the forces of moderation and the forces of radicalism. Most of the major international conflicts since 1945 have taken place there—from Korea to Vietnam to the Middle East to Central America. Moreover, the Soviet Union continues to exploit nuclear fear as a political weapon and to exploit instabilities wherever they have the opportunity to do so. On a planet grown smaller because of global communications, grown more turbulent because of the diffusion of power—all the while overshadowed by nuclear weapons—the task of achieving stability, security, and progress is a profound challenge for mankind. In an age menaced by nuclear proliferation and state-sponsored terrorism, tendencies toward anarchy are bound to be a source of real dangers. It is absurd to think that America can walk away from these problems. This a world of great potential instability and great potential danger. There is no safety in isolation. We have a major, direct stake in the health of the world economy; our prosperity, our security, and our alliances can be affected by threats to security in many parts of the world; and the fate of our fellow human beings will always impinge on moral consciousness. Certainly the United States is not the world’s policeman. But we are the world’s strongest free nation, and therefore, the preservation of our values, our principles, and our hopes for a better world rests in great measure, inevitably, on our shoulders.
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Power and Diplomacy In this environment, our principle goal is what President Reagan has called ‘‘the most basic duty that any President and any people share—the duty to protect and strengthen peace.’’ History teaches, however, that peace is not achieved merely by wishing for it. Noble aspirations are not self-fulfilling. Our aim must always be to shape events and not be the victims of events. In the fast moving and turbulent world, to sit in a reactive posture is to risk being overwhelmed or to allow others, who may not wish us well, to decide the world’s future. The Great Seal of the United States, as you know shows the American eagle, clutching arrows in one claw and olive branches in the other. Some of you may have seen the Great Seal on some of the china or other antique objects in the White House or in the ceremonial rooms on the eighth floor of the State Department. On some of the older items, the eagle looks toward the arrows, on others, toward the olive branches. It was President Truman who set it straight; he saw to it that the eagle always looked toward the olive branches—showing that America sought peace. But the eagle still holds onto those arrows. This is the way of saying that our forefathers understood quite [well] that power and diplomacy always go together. It is even clearer today that a world of peace and security will not come about without exertion or without facing up to some tough choices. Certainly power must always be guided by purpose, but the hard reality is that diplomacy not backed by strength is ineffectual. That is why, for example, the United States has succeeded many times in its mediation when many other well-intentioned mediators have failed. Leverage, as well as good will, is required. Americans have sometimes tended to think that power and diplomacy are two distinct alternatives. To take a very recent example, the Long commission report on the bombing of our Marine barracks in Beirut urged that we work harder to pursue what is spoken of as ‘‘diplomatic alternatives,’’ as opposed to ‘‘military operations.’’ This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding—not only of our intensive diplomatic efforts throughout the period but of the relationship between power and diplomacy. Sometimes, regrettable as it may be, political conflict degenerates into a test of strength. It was precisely our military role in Lebanon that was problematical, not our diplomatic exertion. Our military role was hamstrung by legislative and other inhibitions; the Syrians were not interested in diplomatic compromise so long as the prospect of hegemony was not foreclosed. They could judge from our domestic debate that our staying power was limited. In arms control, also, successful negotiation depends on the perception of a military balance. Only if the Soviet leaders see the West as determined to modernize its own forces will they see an incentive to negotiate agreements establishing equal, verifiable, and lower levels of armaments. The lesson is that power and diplomacy are not alternatives. They must go together, or we will accomplish very little in this world. The relationship between them is a complex one, and it presents us with both practical and moral issues. Let me address a few of those issues. One is
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the variety of the challenges we face. A second is the moral complexity of our response. A third is a problem managing the process in a democracy. The Range of Challenges Perhaps because [of] our long isolation from the turmoil of world politics, Americans have tended to believe that war and peace, too, were two totally distinct phenomena: we were in a blissful state of peace or else (as in World Wars I and II) we embarked on an all-out quest for total victory, after which we wanted to retreat back into inward-looking innocence, avoiding ‘‘power politics’’ and all it represented. During World War II, while single-mindedly seeking the unconditional surrender of our enemies, we paid too little heed to the emerging postwar balance of power. Similarly, since 1945 we have experienced what we saw as a period of clearcut cold war, relived by a period of seeming d´etente, which raised exaggerated expectations in some quarters. Today we must see the East-West relationship as more complex, with the two sides engaging in trade and pursuing arms control even as they pursue incompatible aims. It is not as crisis prone or starkly confrontational as the old cold war; but neither is it normal relationship of peace or comfortable coexistence. Thus in the 1980s and beyond, most likely we will never see a state of total war or a state of total peace. We face instead a spectrum of often ambiguous challenges to our interests. We are relatively well prepared to deter an all-out war or a Soviet attack on our Western European and Japanese allies; that’s why these are the least likely contingencies. But, day in and day out, we will continue to see a wide range of conflicts that fall in a gray area between major war and millennial peace. The coming can be counted upon to generate their share of crises and local outbreaks of violence. Some of them—not all of them—will affect our interests. Terrorism—particularly state-sponsored terrorism—is already a contemporary weapon directed at America’s interests, America’s values, and America’s allies. We must be sure we are as well prepared and organized for this intermediate range of challenges. If we are to protect our interests, values, and allies, we must be engaged. And our power must be engaged. It is often said that the lesson of Vietnam is that the United States should not engage in military conflict without a clear and precise military mission, solid public backing, and enough resources to finish the job. This is undeniably true. But does it mean there are no situations where a discrete assertion of power is needed or appropriate for limited purposes? Unlikely. Whether it is crisis management or power projection or a show force or peacekeeping or a localized military action, there will always be instances that fall short of an all-out national commitment on the scale of World War II. The need to avoid no-win situations cannot mean that [we] turn automatically away from hardto-win situations that call for prudent involvement. These will always involve risks; we will not always have the luxury of being able to choose the most advantageous circumstances. And our adversaries can be expected to play rough. The Soviets are students of Clasusewitz, who taught that war is a continuation of politics by other means. It is highly unlikely that we can respond to
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gray-area challenges without adapting power to political circumstances or on the psychologically satisfying, all-or-nothing basis. This is just not the kind of reality we are likely to be facing in the 1980s, or 1990s, or beyond. Few cases will be as clear or as quick as Grenada. On the contrary, most other cases will be a lot tougher. We have no choice, moreover, but to address ourselves boldly to the challenge of terrorism. State-sponsored terrorism is really a form of warfare. Motivated by ideology and political hostility, it is a weapon of unconventional war against democratic societies, taking advantage of the openness of these societies. How do we combat this challenge? Certainly we must take security precautions to protect our people and our facilities; certainly we must strengthen our intelligence capabilities to alter ourselves to the threats. But it is increasingly doubtful that a purely passive strategy can even begin to cope with the problem. This raises a host of questions for a free society: in what circumstances—and how should we respond? When—and how—should we take preventive and preemptive action against known terrorist groups? What evidence do we insist upon before taking such steps? As the threat mounts—and as the involvement of such countries as Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea has become more and more evident—then it is more and more appropriate that the nations of the West face up to the need for active defense against terrorism. Once it becomes established that terrorism works—that it achieves its political objectives—its practitioners will be bolder, and the threat to us will be all the greater. The Moral Issues Of course, any use of force involves moral issues. American military power should be resorted to only if the stakes justify it, if other means are not available, and then only in a manner appropriate to the objective. But we cannot opt out of every contest. If we do, the world’s future will be determined by others—most likely by those who are the most brutal, the most unscrupulous, and the most hostile to our deeply held principles. The New Republic stated it well a few ago: [T]he American people know that the force and the threat of force are central to the foreign policy or our adversaries and they expect their President to be able to deter and defeat such tactics.
As we hear now in the debate over military aid to Central America, those who shrink from engagement can always find an alibi for inactions. Often is takes the form of close scrutiny of any moral defects in the friend or ally who we are proposing to assist. Or it is argued that the conflict has deep social and economic origins which we really have to address first before we have a right to do anything else. But rather than remain engaged in order to tackle these problems—as we are trying to do—some people turn these concerns into formulas for abdication, formulas that would allows the enemies of freedom to decide the outcome. To me, it is highly immoral to let friends who depend on us be subjugated by brute force if we have the capacity to prevent it.
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There is, in addition, another ugly residue of our Vietnam debate: the notion, in some quarters, that America is the guilty party, that the use of our power is a source of evil and, therefore, the main task in foreign policy is to restrain America’s freedom to act. It is inconceivable to me that the American people believe any of this. It is certainly not President Reagan’s philosophy. Without being boastful or arrogant, the American people know that their country has been a powerful force for good in the world. We helped Europe and Asia—including defeated enemies—rebuild after the war and we helped provide a security shield behind which they could build democracy and freedom as well as prosperity. Americans have often died and sacrificed for the freedom of others. We have provided around $165 billion in economic assistance for the developing world. We have played a vital facilitating role in the Middle East peace process, in the unfolding diplomacy of southern Africa, as well as in many other diplomatic efforts around the globe. We have used our power for good and worthy ends. In Grenada, we helped restore self-determination to the people of Grenada, so that they could choose their own future. Some have tried to compare what we did in Grenada to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. We welcome such comparison. Contrast, for example, the prospects for free elections in the two countries. In Grenada, they will be held this year; in Afghanistan, when? Contrast the number of American combat troops now in Grenada 5 months after the operation with the number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan 55 months after their invasion. The number in Grenada is 0: the number in Afghanistan is over 100,000. More often, the issue is not the direct use of American military power but the military assistance to friends to help defend themselves. Around the world, security support for friends is a way to prevent crises; it bolsters our friends so they can deter challenges. And it is a way of avoiding the involvement of American forces, because it is only when our friends’ efforts in their own defense are being overwhelmed that we are faced with the agonizing decision whether to involve ourselves more directly. Security assistance is thus an essential tool of foreign policy. It is an instrument for deterring those who would impose their will by force and for making political solutions possible. It gets far less support in this country than it deserves. Central America is a good example. The real moral question in Central America is not do we believe in military solutions, but do we believe in ourselves? Do we believe that our security and the security of our neighbors has moral validity? Do we have faith in our democratic values? Do we believe that Marxist-Leninist solutions are antidemocratic and that we have a moral right to try to stop those who are trying to impose them by force? Sure, economic and social problems underlie many of these conflicts. But in El Salvador, the communists guerrillas are waging war directly against the economy, blowing up bridges and power stations, deliberately trying to wreck the country’s economy. The conflict in Central America is not a debate between social theorists; it is one of those situations I mentioned where the outcome of political competition will depend in large measure on the balance of military strength. In El Salvador, the United States is supporting moderates who believe in democracy and who are resisting the enemies of democracy on both the extreme right
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and the extreme left. If we withdrew our support, the moderates, caught in the crossfire, would be the first victims—as would be the cause of human rights and the prospects for economic development. Anyone who believes that military support for our friends isn’t crucial to a just outcome is living in a dream world. And anyone who believes that military support can be effective when it’s given an uncertain installment plan is not facing reality. Accountability Without Paralysis The third issue I want to mention is the question of how this country, as a democracy, conducts itself in the face of such challenges. Over the last 35 years, the evolution of the international system was bound to erode the predominant position the United States enjoyed immediately after World War II. But it seems to me that in this disorderly and dangerous new world, the loss of American predominance puts an event greater premium on consistency, determination, and coherence in the conduct of our foreign policy. We have less margin for error than we used to have. This change is our external circumstances, however, coincides historically with a kind of cultural revolution at home that has made it harder us to achieve the consistency, determination and coherence that we need. The last fifteen years left a legacy of contention between the executive and legislative branches and a web of restrictions on executive action embedded permanently in our laws. At the same time, the diffusion of power within the Congress means that a president has a hard time when he wants to negotiate with the Congress, because congressional leaders have lost their dominance of the process and often cannot produce a consensus or sometimes even a decision. The net result, as you well know, is an enormous problem for American foreign policy—a loss of coherence and recurring uncertainty in the minds of friend and foe about the aims and constancy of the United States. Particularly in the war powers field, where direct use of our power is at issue, the stakes are high. Yet the war powers resolution sets arbitrary 60-day deadlines that practically invite an adversary to wait us out. Our Commander in Chief is locked in battles at home at the same time he is trying to act effectively abroad. Under the resolution, even inaction by the Congress can force the president to remove American forces from an area of challenge, which, as former President Ford has put it, undermines the president even when the Congress can’t get up the courage to take a position. Such constraints on timely action may only invite greater challenges down the road. In Lebanon our adversaries’ perception that we lacked staying power undercut the prospects for successful negotiation. As the distinguished Majority Leader, Senator Howard Baker, said on the floor of the Senate 4 weeks ago: [W]e cannot continue to begin each military involvement abroad with a prolonged, tedious and divisive negotiations between the executive and the legislative branches of Government. The world and its many challenges to our interests simply do not allow us that luxury.
I do not propose changes in our constitutional system. But some legislative changes may be called for. And I propose, at a minimum, that all of us in both
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Congress and the executive branch exercise our prerogatives with a due regard to the national need for an effective foreign policy. Congress has the right, indeed the duty, to debate and criticize, to authorize and appropriate funds and share in setting the broad lines of policy. But micromanagement by a committee of 535 independent-minded individuals is a grossly inefficient and ineffective way to run any important enterprise. The fact is that depriving the President of flexibility weakens our country. Yet a host of restrictions on the President’s ability to act are not built into our laws and our procedures. Surely there is a better way for the President and the Congress to exercise their prerogatives without hobbling this country in the face of assaults on free-world interests abroad. Surely there can be accountability without paralysis. The sad truth is that many of our difficulties over the last 15 years have been selfimposed. The issue is fundamental. If the purpose of our power is to prevent war, or injustice, then ideally we can’t discourage such occurrences rather than have to use our power in a physical sense. But this can happen only if there is assurance that our power be used if necessary. A reputation for reliability becomes then, a major asset—giving friends a sense of security and adversaries a sense of caution. A reputation for living up to our commitments can, in fact, make it less likely that pledges of support will have to be carried out. Crisis management is most successful when a favorable outcome is attained without firing a shot. Credibility is an intangible, but is not less real. The same is true of a loss of credibility. A failure to support a friend always involves a price. Credibility, once lost, has to be re-earned. Facing the Future The dilemmas and the hard choices will not go away, no matter who is president. They are not partisan problems. Anyone who claims to have a simple answer is talking nonsense. The United States faces a time of challenge ahead as great as any in recent memory. We have a diplomacy that has moved toward peace through negotiations. We have rebuilt our strength so that we can defend our interests and dissuade others from violence. We have allies whom we value and respect. Our need is to recognize both our challenge and our potential. Americans are not timid people. A foreign policy worthy of America must not be a policy of isolationism or guilt but a commitment to active engagement. We can be proud of this country, of what it stands for, and what is has accomplished. Our morality should be a source of courage when we make hard decisions, not a set of excuses for self-paralysis. President Reagan declared to the British Parliament nearly 2 years ago: ‘‘We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and the universal right of all humans beings.’’ As long as Americans hold to this belief, we will be actively engaged in the world. We will use our power and our diplomatic skill in the service of peace and our ideals. We have our work cut out for us. But we will not shrink from our responsibility.
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Secretary of State George P. Shultz, ‘‘Terrorism: The Challenge to the Democracies,’’ United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, June 24, 1984 Five years have passed since the Jonathan Institute held its first conference on terrorism, and in that time the world has seen two major developments: one a cause for great distress; the other a reason for hope. The distressing fact is that over these past five years terrorism has increased. More people were killed or injured by international terrorists last year than any year since governments began keeping records. In 1983 there were more than 500 such attacks, of which more than 200 were against the United States. For Americans the worst tragedies were the destruction of our Embassy and then the Marine barracks in Beirut. But around the world many of our close friends and allies were also victims. The bombing of Harrods in London, the Bombing at Orly Airport in Paris, the destruction of a Gulf Air flight in the United Arab Emirates, and the Rangoon bombing of South Korean officials are just a few examples—not to mention the brutal attack on a West Jerusalem shopping mall this past April. Even more alarming has been the rise of state-sponsored terrorism. In the past five years more states have joined the ranks of what we might call the ‘‘League of Terror,’’ as full-fledge sponsors and supporters of indiscriminate— and not so indiscriminate—murder. Terrorists attacks supported by what Qadhafi calls the ‘‘holy alliance’’ of Libya, Syria and Iran, and attacks sponsored by North Korea and others, have taken a heavy toll of innocent lives. Seventy or more such attacks in 1983 probably involved significant state support or participation. As a result, more of the world’s people must today live in fear of sudden and unprovoked violence at the hands of terrorists. After five years, the epidemic is spreading and the civilized world is still groping for remedies. Nevertheless, these past five years have also given us cause for hope. Thanks in large measure to the efforts of concerned governments, citizens, and groups like the Jonathan Institute, the peoples of the free world have finally begun to grapple with the problem of terrorism in intellectual and in practical terms. I say intellectual because the first step toward a solution to any problem is to understand that there is a problem and then to understand its nature. In recent years we have learned a great deal about terrorism, though our education has been painful and costly. We know what kind of threat international terrorism poses to our free society. We have learned much about the terrorists themselves, their supporters, their targets, their diverse methods, their underlying motives, and their eventual goals. Armed with this knowledge we can focus our energies on the practical means for reducing and eventually eliminating the threat. We can all share the hope that, when the next conference of this institute is convened, we will look back and say that 1984 was the turning point in our struggle against terrorism, that having come to grips with the problem we are able to deal with it effectively and responsibly.
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The Anatomy of Terrorism Let me speak briefly about the anatomy of terrorism. What we have learned about terrorism, first of all, is that it is not random, undirected, purposeless violence. It is not, like an earthquake or a hurricane, an act of nature before which we are helpless. Terrorists and those who support them have definite goals; terrorist violence is the means of attaining those goals. Our response must be twofold: we must deny them the means but above all we must deny them their goals. But what are the goals of terrorism? We know that the phenomenon of terrorism is actually a matrix that covers a diverse array of methods, resources, instruments, and immediate aims. It appears in many shapes and sizes—from the lone individual who plants a homemade explosive in a shopping center, to the small clandestine group that plans kidnappings and assassinations of public figures, to the well-equipped and well-financed organization that uses force to terrorize an entire population. Its stated objectives may range from separatist causes to revenge for ethnic grievances to social and political revolution. International drug smugglers use terrorism to blackmail and intimidate government officials. It is clear that our responses will have to fit the precise character and circumstances of the specific threats. But we must understand that the overarching goal of all terrorists is the same: with rare exceptions, they are attempting to impose their will by force—a special kind of force designed to create an atmosphere of fear. And their efforts are directed at destroying what all of us here are seeking to build. They’re a threat to democracy. The Threat to the Democracies The United States and its democratic allies are morally committed to certain ideals and to a humane vision of the future. In our foreign policies, we try to foster the kind of world that promotes peaceful settlement of disputes, one that welcomes change without violent conflict. We seek a world in which human rights are respected by all government, a world based on the rule of law. We know that in a world community where all nations share these blessings, our own democracy will flourish, our own nation will prosper, and our own people will continue to enjoy freedom. Nor has ours been a fruitless search. In our lifetime, we have seen the world progress, though perhaps too slowly, toward this goal. Civilized norms of conduct have evolved, even governing relations between adversaries. Conflict persists; but, with some notorious exceptions, even wars have been conducted with certain restraints—indiscriminate slaughter of innocents is widely condemned; the use of certain kinds of weapons has been proscribed; and most, but not all, nations have heeded those proscriptions. We all know that the world as it exists is still far from our ideal vision. But today, even the progress that mankind has already made is endangered by those who do not share that vision—who, indeed, violently oppose it. For we must understand, above all, that terrorism is a form of political violence. Wherever it takes place, it is directed in an important sense against us, the democracies—against our most basic values and often our fundamental
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strategic interests. The values upon which democracy is based—individual rights, equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, and freedom of religion—all stand in the way of those who seek to impose their will, their ideologies, or their religious beliefs by force. A terrorist has no patience and no respect for the orderly processes of democratic society, and, therefore, he considers himself its enemy. And it is an unfortunate irony that the very qualities that make democracies so hateful to the terrorists also make them so vulnerable. Precisely because we maintain the most open societies, terrorists have unparalleled opportunity to strike against us. Terrorists and Freedom Fighters The antagonism between democracy and terrorism seems so basic that it is hard to understand why so much intellectual confusion still exists on the subject. We have all heard the insidious claim that ‘‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’’ Let me read to you the powerful rebuttal that was stated before your 1979 conference by a great American, Senator Henry Jackson, who, Mr. Chairman, as you observed, is very much with us. The idea that one person’s ‘‘terrorist’’ is another’s ‘‘freedom fighter’’ cannot be sanctioned. Freedom fighters or revolutionaries don’t blow up buses containing non-combatants; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don’t set out to capture and slaughter school children; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don’t assassinate innocent businessmen, or hijack and hold hostage innocent men, women, and children; terrorist murderers do. It is a disgrace that democracies would allow the treasured word ‘‘freedom’’ to be associated with acts of terrorists.
Where democracy is struggling to take root, the terrorist is, again, its enemy. He seeks to spread chaos and disorder, to paralyze a society. In doing so he wins no converts to his cause; his deeds inspire hatred and fear, not allegiance. The terrorist seeks to undermine institutions, to destroy popular faith in moderate government, and to shake the people’s belief in the very idea of democracy. in Lebanon, for example, state-sponsored terrorism has exploited existing tensions and attempted to prevent that nation from rebuilding its democratic institutions. Where the terrorist cannot bring about anarchy, he may try to force the government to overreact, or impose tyrannical measures of control, and hence lose the allegiance of the people. Turkey faced such a challenge but succeeded in overcoming it. Martial law was imposed; the terrorist threat was drastically reduced; and today we see democracy returning to that country. In Argentina, the widely and properly deplored ‘‘disappearances’’ of the 1970s were, in fact, part of a response—a deliberately provoked response—to a massive campaign of terrorism. We are pleased that Argentina, too, has returned to the path of democracy. Other countries around the world face similar challenges, and they, too, must steer their course carefully between anarchy and tyranny. The lesson for civilized nations is that we must respond to the terrorist threat with the rule of law, lest we become unwitting accomplices in the terrorist’s scheme to undermine civilized society.
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Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Remarks at the Luncheon in Honor of The Gulf Cooperation Council, U.N. Plaza Hotel, New York, New York, October 1, 1985 I have some prepared comments which I would like to read, which touch on the problem of escalating violence in the Middle East. But let me make a comment, first of all, about the Israeli raid in Tunisia. What I know about it at this point is really what I have learned as of about 9:00 o’clock this morning. I’ve been pretty much out of touch in various meetings, as you have, since then, so I don’t know what the facts are, and you hear many different reports. But we certainly deplore acts of violence in the region, including this act of violence. I fear that what we see always is, in a sense, a contest between the people who want to move toward peace and the people who are afraid of it. We all know there are people in all camps who don’t want to see a successful resolution, just as I believe most do want to see one. And so one act of violence touches off another, and there’s a pattern of escalation that goes on. And I think, myself, that we need to do two things: First of all, we need to be clear in our opposition to the acts of violence from whatever quarter they come, and without respect to what is the presumed rationale for them. And, second, we have to be clear in our minds that we will do everything we can to prevent violence from stopping efforts towards peace. Now, we know that most poignantly with King Hussein, who has taken some steps, and Prime Minister Peres who has responded in a similar way. But Jordan has been subjected to threats and actions which can only be attributed to the fact that King Hussein has taken some steps. We recognize that. And it is with that in mind that the President last week went ahead with the proposed arms transfer to Jordan because we feel it is in the—the King needs it, and we feel it is in the U.S. interests to support him. So I just want to be clear with everybody our attitude toward violence in the region, including this action, the dimensions of which are not known to me at this point, and I don’t want to comment on it until I know more. Obviously, from the Israeli standpoint, they conceive of it as a defensive move against the terrorist actions that they see taking place in Israel. But, as I say, I don’t want to make further comment until I know more precisely what has happened. Let me tell you what I had on my mind before this action took place, and you can see that it bears some resemblance. The recent weeks have seen an upswing in tension in the Gulf. Iraq has stepped up its attacks on Kharg Island, and they’ve been more effective. And Iranian naval forces are intensifying their so-called ‘‘visit, search and seizure’’ actions against third-country shipping. We hope that these developments do not threaten the security and stability of the countries in the area. Remarking on these incidents, the President, in his September 21 radio address, reiterated our determination to preserve the free shipment of oil through the Persian Gulf. The United States stands by its commitment to the right of international access to the Gulf and free transit passage of neutral shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. We take seriously any infringement on these rights and are ready to work with the GCC in areas such as joint contingency planning.
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The United States is willing to assist the GCC militarily, should its member states publicly request such aid and provide access to suitably facilities. As we have for the past five years, we urge both Iran and Iraq to seek an early, negotiated end to the conflict which has generated these understandable fears in the Gulf. And we feel at this point that it is Iran which does not seem to want to bring the war to an end, and for that reason we have undertaken quite comprehensive and reasonably successful efforts to try to stop arms sales to Iran. Despite our best efforts, terrorism continues to plague the international community. The tragic bombings in Kuwait against the Emir and innocent Kuwaitis enjoying a weekend outing, hijackings of Saudi and Kuwaiti aircraft, and attacks against GCC diplomats reinforce our desire to work with you to help eradicate terrorism. We value our exchanges on this issue and look forward to receiving key GCC personnel to study our training methods. Rest assured, however, that these multilateral efforts will not overshadow consultations between our individual governments on this important issue. I’m pleased that the United States and the GCC will soon begin informal exploratory talks on economic matters of mutual concern. Obviously, it’s too early to determine where such talks may eventually lead. However, we look upon these exchanges as an opportunity to develop a means for possible periodic consultations on a wide range of economic issues. We look forward to expanding the areas of cooperation that have long existed between us, and identifying new ones for our mutual benefit. Today the GCC represents a key force for progress and stability in the Gulf. As the GCC develops, it will naturally assume even greater responsibilities in regional affairs. Your friendship and our mutual beneficial relations are very important to us. We value them highly and my Government and I personally will work to preserve and enhance them. We look forward to dealing even more closely with the GCC as we do so. As you are well aware, this is the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. At this historic time I hope that we can redouble our efforts to work together to solve the pressing issues which will come before the Assembly. It is a pleasure to be with you again, and I hope God will bless our efforts to achieve a more secure and peaceful future. I thank you very much.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, ‘‘The Struggle Against Terrorism,’’ Before the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, On the Occasion of Receiving the Joseph Prize for Human Rights, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 1988 From time to time, people—especially our friends abroad—have asked me what does human rights have to do with American foreign policy? Well, the answer is straightforward. Human rights are at the heart of our foreign policy because human rights are at the heart of our constitution as a nation. Last year, celebrating the Constitution’s bicentennial, President Reagan called our national charter a ‘‘covenant with all mankind.’’ America holds at the center of its values the worth and dignity of the individual. We are a great
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nation because we have never forgotten our faith in the unique value of every human being. And our public policy—if we are to be true to our selves—must always reflect that faith and commitment. Our advocacy of human rights is, therefore, a natural part of our foreign policy. The denial of those rights, whether through unjust laws or unjust action, arouses our anger and offends our sense of justice. Of course, as the times change, so does the challenge to human rights. Two centuries ago, it meant revolution, spelling out fundamental principles in our constitution. Today, we continue to observe those fundamental principles. Two decades ago, it meant civil rights and opening America’s promise to all our citizens. Ten years ago, it meant an international code at Helsinki, politically binding on all the participants—including the Soviet Union. Today, we continue our commitment to that ideal. And when I meet Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze in Moscow later this moth, human rights, including the plight of Soviet Jewry, including the plight of those who are divided from their husbands or wives, will be at the very top of my agenda. In this decade, an important part of the struggle for human rights has also meant the struggle against terrorism. This is because the terrorists use innocent human beings the way a smoker uses matches. People become throwaways. They are stripped of their humanity; used, then abandoned. Nothing could be more repugnant to America’s commitment to the rights and dignity of the individual. Fortunately, we are not alone in the fight against terrorism. Among our allies, Israel, in particular, has shown us a great example. Courage, skill, and public support are the watchwords of the Israeli efforts against terrorism. We have been proud to work with Israel on this problem, and we will continue to do so. When the story is written of how the democracies beat the terrorists, let our names appear together. Today I want to update you on our struggle against terrorism. I want to tell you, as clearly as I can, that the right policies are in place. Not only are they in place, they are working. It’s been a tough fight, and we have had our share of bitter experiences. But it is paying off. To succeed against terrorism, we have to understand the terrorists’ aims and strategy and how terrorism affects us. That comes first. Second, we need timely and accurate intelligence. That often means pooling resources with other concerned governments. Third, we must strengthen security measures to protect American citizens from terrorist attack at home and abroad. And forth, very important, defense is not enough. We have to go on the offense to disrupt terrorist operations, destroy their networks, and bring them to justice. Understanding Terrorist Aims and Strategy So, first, we must understand terrorist aims and strategy. The facts show that most acts of terrorism are committed against the citizens of democracies. That is not just because they oppose our polices. Terrorists are drawn to attack democracies because they believe they can turn our regard for human rights into vulnerability. They try to play our compassion for the innocent against our instinct for self-defense. The terrorists say to us, ‘‘Look, it’s very
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simple. Change your policy, and no more planes are hijacked. Figure out a way to give us what we want, and no more children will be killed. We’ll release your hostages if you free our brothers or pay us ransom. After all, injustice has made us this desperate.’’ That’s the con job they try to put over on you. Our first response to this challenge must be clear thinking. Terrorism naturally arouses our emotions, our anger; our compassion. I have felt it, and you have felt it. I am saying, however, that hard as it may be, the best approach to counter terrorists is to act with cool reason and cold calculation. Let me take, for example, what is sometimes called the Stockholm syndrome. Psychologists have noticed that individuals held hostages often begin to sympathize with the cause of their captors. Nations, not just individuals, are vulnerable to this syndrome. After all, if men are so desperate that they commit indiscriminate violence, should we not reexamine their grievances? So there are those who conclude that terrorism is an inevitable response to unresolved political and social problems. Cool reason, however, leads us to a different conclusion. If we think clearly about terrorism, we see the fatal fallacy in the slogan ‘‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’’ As Scoop Jackson often reminds us, no cause justifies attacking the innocent. Freedom fighters do not hijack or blow up civilian airplanes. Freedom fighters do not shoot people in wheelchairs and toss them into the sea. Freedom fighters do not take teachers and journalist’s hostage. Terrorists do. While innocent civilians are the pawns, the real object of the game—if there is any beyond money and a perverse sense of power—is to get governments to change their polices. Much international terrorism originates in the Middle East, we know. I can tell you the policy that they do not like. It’s our support for Israel. It’s our support for a peace process, for negotiated and compromise solutions to the regions problems. It’s our support for those Arabs who want peace and who want to negotiate. That is why vigorous efforts to defeat terrorism are an essential element in our strategy to advance the diplomatic solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Elsewhere in the world, the pattern is similar. The closer an issues comes to peaceful resolution, the harder terrorists try to thwart these efforts. In Spain, the ETA claims that its terrorists are a response to repression by the central government. Yet, the vast majority of the more than 700 deaths resulting from Basque terrorism have occurred since 1979, when the Spanish government granted significant autonomy to the Basque region. In Peru, terrorists claim to act on behalf of poor peasants. Yet who are the victims? The overwhelming majority of more than 10,000 innocent people murdered by these terrorists have been rural poor. Hostage-holding is another illustration of the terrorists’ total contempt for humanity. Terrorists employ this tactic precisely because they known that civilized societies, and particularly democracies, place a high value on human life and the rule of law. The choices faced by democratic governments in hostage situations are, therefore, agonizingly difficult. There is one thing we and other countries have learned from bitter—very bitter—experience. If we pay ransom, if we release prisoners, if we change our policies—or if we encourage other governments to do so—then we will simply
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encourage more terrorism. Our government has repeatedly made clear that we will talk to anyone, to any group, to any government about the well being and release of the Americans still held hostage in Lebanon. Thus far, those holding the hostages have been unwilling to discuss with us the issue or its resolution, either directly or indirectly. In fact, their only communications are impersonal and one way—through press releases and video recordings. We will continue to pursue actively whatever contacts we can. At the same time, our policy is firm—we will not make concessions to terrorists or compromise our fundamental principles. And what are the demands of these terrorists? They want us to force another country to release their brothers in crime. Just think about that. They kidnap innocent people to try to force us to free other terrorists who have been caught and convicted of murder. Well, we are not going to do it. I don’t know how anyone can call that moral. I don’t know of any religion that justifies it. I am confident that the American people understand and support the logic of our policy toward hostage taking. While our deepest sympathies go out to the families of those held captive—for they, too, are victims of the terrorists scourge—we also must protect the national interest. We have to protect our citizens in the future even as we seek to help the victims of the present. As we move into this election year, I am equally confident that any effort by the hostage-holders to exploit our democratic electoral process will be met with ringing and cold rejection. Eventually, we hope that the hostage-takers will realize that there is no point in holding innocent Americans. I can only tell you that we have not given up at home. Circumstances change in the Middle East, sometimes very rapidly. To sum up our position, we believe that behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Terrorism must not pay. It is a very difficult rule to follow in practice. We know that. But follow it we must if we are ever to turn the tables on terrorists. Obtaining Reliable Intelligence The second element of our four-part Counterterrorism effort is to obtain reliable intelligence. Who are the terrorists? Clearly, some are small groups of fanatics. Others are well-organized groups operating across national borders. Some support themselves through crime. In some cases, an unholy alliance has been formed between drug peddlers and terrorists. The peddlers provide the money and the terrorists provide the muscle. Other terrorists draw support directly from governments. I think you would agree with me that the increase of state-sponsored terrorism is one of the most disturbing developments of late on the international scene. Solid intelligence on terrorism is not easy to develop. Technical means of collection, through satellite or electronic intercepts, are good, but to do better we need people on the post. And penetrating terrorist organizations is a difficult and dangerous job. Nevertheless, in spite of what the leaders of these groups like to think, we are finding ways to reach less-than-loyal subordinates. We know more about them than they think we do. I would like to salute the unsung hero’s of the struggle against terrorism. These heroes are the intelligence analysts. Often they have little to go
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on: a photograph, a fragment of an overheard conversation, the text of a communiqu´e, the summary of a meeting, a used airline ticket. Sometimes, it is like piecing together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, but it’s a puzzle that can save lives. We are always ready to hear from other nations who have experience with this problem. We are ready to pool our efforts. I am encouraged by the willingness of our close allies and friends to work together on these problems. And we are getting good results. Most recently, for example, international cooperation among a half-dozen countries led to the arrest of the North Korean agents who destroyed the civilian airliner last November. The resources devoted to improved intelligence collection, analysis, and sharing are paying off. In the past three years, we have averted more than 200 terrorists attacks through intelligence efforts. No one wrote about it. Not many know about it. But we can take great satisfaction from the fact that people are alive and well today who never even suspected they were in danger. Improving Security Measures The third critical element of our policy against terrorism is to improve our security measures. Let me give you two examples: ¥ Our efforts to improve security at U.S. embassies; and ¥ International efforts to improve airline safety
The people who represent the United States abroad serve in the front lines of America’s interests. Our diplomats often work in areas, which can only be described as combat zones. I am reminded of this every time I enter the state department and see two plaques on the wall commemorating members of the Foreign Service who died in the line of duty. The older plaque took 187 years to fill up. Most of the people listed there lost their lives to accident or disease. The more recent plaque, however, took only 20 years to fill up. And most people on it were murdered by terrorists. So, don’t let anyone tell you that diplomacy is a tea party or pushing cookies. We have developed tough new standards about how our diplomatic installations are to be defended, and we have improved coordination with hostcountry security officials. The State Department has also taken the lead in training over 6,000 civilian law enforcement officials from 45 countries in the techniques of Counterterrorism. All of this has been done without changing the essentials of our representation abroad. The terrorists cannot be allowed to run us out of town. The progress has not been cheap. Over the past four years we have spent over a billion dollars to provide a better defense for America’s diplomatic facilities overseas. Now look at the results. As protective devices have been installed and our diplomatic establishments have become harder to hit, attacks and casualties have declined. Let me give you some examples. ¥ In Baghdad, a missile detonated near a plate-glass window in the home of the deputy chief of mission. Had shatter-resistant film not been placed on that window, his daughter would have suffered serious injury or death.
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¥ On June 25, 1983, the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador was strafed by machine guns for several minutes. After the attack, it was found that the wall around the embassy and the armor plated windows had prevented several bullets from penetrating offices.
Other attacks have been thwarted. We regularly received reports that terrorist groups have given up trying to attack an American establishment because they found it too well defended. Experience tells us that the myth of the terrorists willing to die for a cause is largely that—a myth. Terrorists are not dumb, and they are not courageous. Most of them do not go on suicide missions. That is not their purpose. In the field of airline safety as well, tremendous strides have been made in the past few years. A decade or two ago, it was not unusual to have 15 or even 18 hijackings a year. In 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked three airlines in one day. Since then, we and the international community have developed near-universal screening of airline passengers for weapons and explosives. As a result, terrorist air piracy has declined to its lowest level since we began keeping records over 20 years ago. In 1986, there were only two terrorists hijackings of aircraft, and only one in 1987. Some have criticized the cost and effectiveness of defense measures. I remember when we first started at this, I was Director of the Budget, and along came this program, and you know how the Director of the Budget reacts to something that’s going to cost a lot of money. You try to poke holes in it. But, of course, I had to go along. And then I remember people complaining: ‘‘why do I have to stand in line in the airport, because I have to go through this thing?’’ Nowadays, I suspect, that any of you who go to an airport, and you don’t have to go through a security measure, you don’t like that. You want this to go on. I agree that it is costly. But I would rather see us spend the money than spend the lives. This is slow work, it’s not exciting, but better security equipment and procedures do make a difference. Let me add here that our policy is not simply government people protecting themselves. Our ambassadors are sensitive to security threats to any Americans abroad, whatever their status, and we have established an Overseas Security Advisory Council designed specifically to help U.S. businessmen abroad. And our embassy security officers are always available to talk about safety measures. Taking the Offensive While I have told you about strategy, intelligence, and defense, this describes only part of the policy. The terrorists are waging war against us. And we have every right under international law to defend ourselves. Part of that defense is to take the offensive. The first goal of our action program is to pressure states which sponsor terrorism. An ugly fact of international life today is that some states provide terrorists with important resources—weapons, financing, passports, safe houses, training areas. In return, the terrorists commit violence that serves a government’s interests but which can be denied by that government. We must expose the link between terrorists and their state sponsors and then break it.
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The first state to feel the pressure of an American offensive against terrorism was Libya. You all know the story. For 5 years we tried to reason with Qadhafi. We used political, economic, and diplomatic pressures. But they were not enough. When the President had convincing evidence of Libyan involvement in the attack on the La Belle disco in Berlin—and a dozen other planned attacks on American diplomatic establishments abroad—he did what he had to do. The American bombing raid on Libya opened a new chapter in the international fight against terrorism. It brought home to Qadhafi and other terrorists that the United States was not going to take it anymore. We would use military action against terrorism if necessary. The European allies, initially a little reluctant, very quickly followed with political, diplomatic, and economic measures against Libya. In this regard, the work of the Tevi Group of European ministers has been invaluable. I look forward to the day—unfortunately not here yet—when Libya is out of that business altogether. Libya is not the only state supporting terrorism. In late 1986, courts in London and Berlin found Syrian complicity in the terrorist attacks in those cities. The United States joined with Great Britain in an international campaign to convince Syria to reduce its connections with terrorists groups. These measures also produced results. In June of last year, Syria finally expelled the notorious Abu Nidal group from Syrian territory. Even so, because of its relationship to other terrorist organizations, Syria remains on our list of terrorsupporting states. Iran, too, is a key supporter of terrorism. Terrorism has been a hallmark of its policy ever since Ayatollah Khomeini came to power nine years ago. Iran has been responsible for attacks on U.S. targets, on French and British interests, and on moderate Arabs. Our government has imposed a series of tight sanctions on Iran and encourages other governments to do the same. Following North Korea’s clear culpability in the bombing of South Korean airliner number 858, last month the United States officially designated North Korea a terrorist-supporting state. Realistically, the United has little leverage it can use directly against North Korea. But other governments have more leverage. We have indicated that we want their help in persuading North Korea that such tactics will not succeed. I am never reluctant to raise the issue of terrorism with governments who may be involved and who want better relations with us. Recently, we were able to wage a diplomatic campaign that seriously disrupted the commercial network supporting the Abu Nidal terrorists in Eastern Europe. A second goal of our program to take the offensive is to streamline international legal procedures and promote closer cooperation among law enforcement agencies. We are making headway here. The State Department has worked successfully to change extradition treaties with Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, Canada, and Spain. Terrorists should not be able to escape justice by availing themselves of loyal protection intended for refugees seeking political asylum. At long last, thanks to good police work and including international cooperation, we are bringing the terrorists to justice.
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¥ In Britain, Nezar Hindawi is serving a life sentence for his attempt to destroy an El Al airliner. ¥ In France, George Ibrahim Abdallah is serving a life sentence for his part in the assassination of an American military attach´e and an Israeli diplomat and the attempted assassination of the American charge d’affaires. ¥ In Italy, the Achille Lauro hijackers have been tried and convicted. ¥ In the United States, Fawaz Younis faces trial on charges that he held American citizens hostage as he led the hijacking of a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight in Beirut. ¥ In the Federal Republic of Germany, one Hamadi brother is on trial for kidnapping a German businessman and the other is expected to go on trial shortly for the hijacking of TWA 847.
This is just a sampling. Over the past 2 years, another 40 significant terrorists were arrested or convicted. Many of these cases are important for another reason. The prosecutions have been undertaken by countries whose interests were not the primarily targets of the terrorists. In every case, the prosecuting government has faced real or potential reprisal attacks from supporters of the terrorists. Yet, despite these threats, governments have gone forward with the rule of law. It saddens me to report that the war against terrorism is still producing casualties. Just a few weeks ago, the Columbia Attorney General was struck down. He was murdered for doing his job, for trying to lift the curse of the drug cartels from his country and, for that matter, from our own. In their search for allies to overthrow Columbia’s democracy, the political terrorists and the drug terrorists have made common cause. Every free institution has been attacked. Two newspaper editors, 21 judges, and a minister of justice are among the dead in this struggle. We are going to redouble our efforts to help our fellow democracy, Columbia, in this hour of crisis and pain. And we are going to win. A Successful Strategy Against Terrorism Some 4 years ago, I delivered another speech on terrorism. At that time, I expressed my fear that moral confusion and our instinct for finding fault with ourselves would paralyze us in the face of this insidious threat. Since then, much has happened. But I believe that we have all emerged from our experiences with a firm set of convictions about terrorism. We are clearer today, both about the danger and about ourselves. Above all, the American people understand more clearly the risks, especially the risks of dealing with hostage situations. The policy I have described is the result of those experiences, the good ones and the bad ones. It builds upon the enduring foundations of a successful strategy against terrorism: a strategy that applies cool reason to the problem; a strategy that finds the hard facts; a strategy that combines defense and offense to raise the costs and reduce the rewards to terrorists; finally, a strategy that does not flinch from pressuring governments that support terrorists. What we know about terrorists and terrorism indicates that there are no instant remedies or easy ways out. We face a long and hard struggle against this modern barbarism. It will take our skill and our strength, our will and
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our wisdom, our patience and our perseverance to prevail. But prevail we must. I am convinced that if the American people and our allies support our policy, we will succeed. Terrorism will ebb. And humanity will be served. SOURCE: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2133_v88/ai_6761419
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CASPAR W. WEINBERGER Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, ‘‘The Uses of Military Power,’’ Remarks to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., November 1984 Thank you for inviting me to be here today with the members of the National Press Club, a group most important to our national security. I say that because a major point I intend to make in my remarks today is that the single most critical element of a successful democracy is a strong consensus of support and agreement for our basic purposes. Policies formed without a clear understanding of what we hope to achieve will never work. And you help to build that understanding among our citizens. Of all the many policies our citizens deserve—and need—to understand, none is so important as those related to our topic today—the uses of military power. Deterrence will work only if the Soviets understand our firm commitment to keeping the peace … and only from a well-informed public can we expect to have that national will and commitment. So today, I want to discuss with you perhaps that most important question concerning keeping the peace. Under what circumstances, and by what means, does a great democracy such as ours reach that painful decision that the use of military force is necessary to protect our interests or to carry out our national policy? National power has many components, some tangible—like economic wealth, technical pre-eminence. Other components are intangible—such as moral force, or strong national will. Military forces, when they are strong, and ready and modern, are a credible—and tangible—addition to a nation’s power. When both the intangible national will and those forces are forced into one instrument, national power becomes effective. In today’s world, the line between peace and war is less clearly drawn than at any time in our history. When George Washington, in his farewell address, warned us, as a new democracy, to avoid foreign entanglements, Europe then Lay 2-3 months by sea over the horizon. The United States was protected by the width of the oceans. Now in this nuclear age, we measure time in minutes rather than months. Aware of the consequences of any misstep, yet convinced of the precious worth of the freedom we enjoy, we seek to avoid conflict, while maintaining strong defenses. Our policy has always been to work hard for peace, but to be prepared if war comes. Yet, so blurred have the lines become between open conflict and half-hidden hostile acts that we cannot confidently predict where, or when, or how, or from what direction aggression may arrive. We must be prepared, at any moment, to meet threats ranging in intensity from isolated terrorist acts, to guerrilla action, to full-scale military confrontation.
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Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, said that ‘‘It is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them.’’ If it was true then, how much more true it is today, when we must remain ready to consider the means to meet such serious indirect challenges to the peace as proxy wars and individual terrorist action. And how much more important is it now, considering the consequences of failing to deter conflict at the lowest level possible. While the use of military force to defend territory has never been questioned when a democracy has been attacked and its very survival threatened, most democracies have rejected the unilateral aggressive use of force to invade, conquer or subjugate other nations. The extent to which the use of force is acceptable remains unresolved for the host of other situations which fall between these extremes of defensive and aggressive use of force. We find ourselves, then, face to face with a modern paradox: The most likely challenge to the peace—the gray area conflicts—are precisely the most difficult challenges to which a democracy must respond. Yet, while the source and nature of today’s challenges are uncertain, our response must be clear and understandable. Unless we are certain that force is essential, we run the risk of inadequate national will to apply the resources needed. Because we face a spectrum of threats—from covert aggression, terrorism, and subversion, to overt intimidation, to [the] use of brute force—choosing the appropriate level of our response is difficult. Flexible response does not mean just any response is appropriate. But once a decision to employ some degree of force has been made, and the purpose clarified, our government must have the clear mandate to carry out, and continue to carry out, that decision until the purpose has been achieved. That, too, has been difficult to accomplish. The issue of which branch of government has authority to define that mandate and make decisions on using force is now being strongly contended. Beginning in the 1970s Congress demanded, and assumed, a far more active role in the making of foreign policy and in the decision making process for the employment of military forces abroad than had been thought appropriate and practical before. As a result, the centrality of decision-making authority in the executive branch has been compromised by the legislative branch to an extent that actively interferes with that process. At the same time, there has not been a corresponding acceptance of responsibility by Congress for the outcome of decisions concerning the employment of military forces. Yet the outcome of decisions on whether—and when—and to what degrees—to use combat forces abroad has never been more important than it is today. While we do not seek to deter or settle all the world’s conflicts, we must recognize that, as a major power, our responsibilities and interests are now of such scope that there are few troubled areas we can afford to ignore. So we must be prepared to deal with a range of possibilities, a spectrum of crises, from local insurgency to global conflict. We prefer, of course, to limit any conflict in its early stages, to contain and control it—but to do that our military forces must be deployed in a timely manner, and be fully supported and prepared before they are engaged, because many of those difficult decisions must be made extremely quickly.
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Some on the national scene think they can always avoid making tough decisions. Some reject entirely the question of whether any force can ever be used abroad. They want to avoid grappling with a complex issue because, despite clever rhetoric disguising their purpose, these people are in fact advocating a return to post-World War I isolationism. While they may maintain in principle that military force has a role in foreign policy, they are never willing to name the circumstance or the place where it would apply. On the other side, some theorists argue that military force can be brought to bear in any crisis. Some of these proponents of force are eager to advocate its use even in limited amounts simply because they believe that if there are American forces of any size present they will somehow solve the problem. Neither of these two extremes offers us any lasting or satisfactory solutions. The first—undue reserve—would lead us ultimately to withdraw from international events that require free nations to defend their interests from the aggressive use of force. We would be abdicating our responsibilities as the leader of the free world—responsibilities more or less thrust upon us in the aftermath of World War II—a war incidentally that isolationism did nothing to deter. These are responsibilities we must fulfill unless we desire the Soviet Union to keep expanding its influence unchecked throughout the world. In an international system based on mutual interdependence among nations, and alliances between friends, stark isolationism quickly would lead to a far more dangerous situation for the United States: we would be without allies and faced by many hostile or indifferent nations. The second alternative—employing our forces almost indiscriminately and as a regular and customary part of our diplomatic efforts—would surely plunge us head-long into the sort of domestic turmoil we experienced during the Vietnam war, without accomplishing the goal for which we committed our forces. Such policies might very well tear at the fabric of our society, endangering the single most critical element of a successful democracy: a strong consensus of support and agreement for our basic purposes. Policies formed without a clear understanding of what we hope to achieve would also earn us the scorn of our troops, who would have an understandable opposition to being used—in every sense of the word—casually and without intent to support them fully. Ultimately this course would reduce their morale and their effectiveness for engagements we must win. And if the military were to distrust its civilian leadership, recruitment would fall off and I fear an end to the all-volunteer system would be upon us, requiring a return to a draft, sowing the seeds of riot and discontent that so wracked the country in the ’60s. We have now restored high morale and pride in the uniform throughout the services. The all-volunteer system is working spectacularly well. Are we willing to forfeit what we have fought so hard to regain? In maintaining our progress in strengthening America’s military deterrent, we face difficult challenges. For we have entered an era where the dividing lines between peace and war are less clearly drawn, the identity of the foe is much less clear. In World Wars I and II, we not only knew who our enemies were, but we shared a clear sense of why the principles espoused by our enemies were unworthy.
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Since these two wars threatened our very survival as a free nation and the survival of our allies, they were total wars, involving every aspect of our society. All our means of production, all our resources were devoted to winning. Our policies had the unqualified support of the great majority of our people. Indeed, World Wars I and II ended with the unconditional surrender of our enemies … the only acceptable ending when the alternative was the loss of our freedom. But in the aftermath of the Second World War, we encountered a more subtle form of warfare—warfare in which, more often than not, the face of the enemy was masked. Territorial expansionism could be carried out indirectly by proxy powers, using surrogate forces aided and advised from afar. Some conflicts occurred under the name of ‘‘national liberation,’’ but far more frequently ideology or religion provided the spark to the tinder. Our adversaries can also take advantage of our open society, and our freedom of speech and opinion to use alarming rhetoric and disinformation to divide and disrupt our unity of purpose. While they would never dare to allow such freedoms to their own people, they are quick to exploit ours by conducting simultaneous military and propaganda campaigns to achieve their ends. They realize that if they can divide our national will at home, it will not be necessary to defeat our forces abroad. So by presenting issues in bellicose terms, they aim to intimidate western leaders and citizens, encouraging us to adopt conciliatory positions to their advantage. Meanwhile they remain sheltered from the force of public opinion in their countries, because public opinion there is simply prohibited and does not exist. Our freedom presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It is true that until democratic nations have the support of the people, they are inevitably at a disadvantage in a conflict. But when they do have that support they cannot be defeated. For democracies have the power to send a compelling message to friend and fore alike by the vote of their citizens. And the American people have sent such a signal by re-electing a strong chief executive. They know that President Reagan is willing to accept the responsibility for his actions and is able to lead us through these complex times by insisting that we regain both our military and our economic strength. In today’s world where minutes count, such decisive leadership is more important than ever before. Regardless of whether conflicts are limited, or threats are ill-defined, we must be capable of quickly determining that the threats and conflicts either do or do not affect the vital interests of the United States and our allies … and then responding appropriately. Those threats may not entail an immediate, direct attack on our territory, and our response may not necessarily require the immediate or direct defense of our homeland. But when our vital national interests and those of our allies are at stake, we cannot ignore our safety, or forsake our allies. At the same time, recent history has proven that we cannot assume unilaterally the role of the world’s defender. We have learned that there are limits to how much of our spirit and blood and treasure we can afford to forfeit in meeting our responsibility to keep peace and freedom. So while we may and should offer substantial amounts of economic and military assistance to our allies in their time of need, and help them maintain forces to deter attacks against them—usually we cannot substitute our troops or our will for theirs.
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We should only engage our troops if we must do so as a matter of our own vital national interest. We cannot assume for other sovereign nations the responsibility to defend their territory—without their strong invitation—when our own freedom is not threatened. On the other hand, there have been recent cases where the United States has seen the need to join forces with other nations to try to preserve the peace by helping with negotiations, and by separating warring parties, and thus enabling those warring nations to withdraw from hostilities safely. In the Middle East, which has been torn by conflict for millennia, we have sent our troops in recent years both to the Sinai and to Lebanon, for just such a peacekeeping mission. But we did not configure or equip those forces for combat—they were armed only for their self-defense. Their mission required them to be— and to be recognized as—peacekeepers. We knew that if conditions deteriorated so they were in danger, or if because of the actions of the warring nations, their peace keeping mission could not be realized, then it would be necessary either to add sufficiently to the number and arms of our troops—in short to equip them for combat, or to withdraw them. And so in Lebanon, when we faced just such a choice, because the warring nations did not enter into withdrawal or peace agreements, the President properly withdrew forces equipped only for peacekeeping. In those cases where our national interests require us to commit combat forces, we must never let there be doubt of our resolution. When it is necessary for our troops to be committed to combat, we must commit them, in sufficient numbers and we must support them, as effectively and resolutely as our strength permits. When we commit our troops to combat we must do so with the sole object of winning. Once it is clear our troops are required, because our vital interests are at stake, then we must have the firm national resolve to commit every ounce of strength necessary to win the fight to achieve our objectives. In Grenada we did just that. Just as clearly, there are other situations where United States combat forces should not be used. I believe the postwar period has taught us several lessons, and from them I have developed six major tests to be applied when we are weighing the use of U.S. combat forces abroad. Let me now share them with you: (1) First, the United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies. That emphatically does not mean that we should declare beforehand, as we did with Korea in 1950, that a particular area is outside our strategic perimeter. (2) Second, if we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. Of course if the particular situation requires only limited force to win our objectives, then we should not hesitate to commit forces sized accordingly. When Hitler broke treaties and remilitarized the Rhineland, small combat forces then could perhaps have prevented the Holocaust of World War II.
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(3) Third, if we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. As Clausewitz wrote, ‘‘no one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it.’’ War may be different than in Clausewitz’s time, but the need for well-defined objectives and a consistent strategy is still essential. If we determine that a combat mission has become necessary for our vital national interests, then we must send forces capable to do the job—and not assign a combat mission to a force configured for peacekeeping. (4) Fourth, the relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed—their size, composition and disposition—must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then so must our combat requirements. We must continuously keep as a beacon light before us the basic questions: ‘‘Is this conflict in our national interest?’’ ‘‘Does our national interest require us to fight, to use force of arms?’’ If the answers are ‘‘Yes,’’ then we must win. If the answers are ‘‘No,’’ then we should not be in combat. (5) Fifth, before the U.S. commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected Representatives in Congress. This support cannot be achieved unless we are candid in making clear the threats we face: The support cannot be sustained without continuing and close consultation. We cannot fight a battle with the Congress at home while asking our troops to win a war overseas or, as in the case of Vietnam, in effect asking our troops not to win, but just to be there. (6) Finally, the commitment of U.S. Forces to combat should be a last resort. I believe that these tests can be helpful in deciding whether or not we should commit our troops to combat in the months and years ahead. The point we must all keep uppermost in our minds is that if we ever decide to commit forces to combat, we must support those forces to the fullest extent of our national will for as long as it takes to win. So we must have in mind objectives that are clearly defined and understood and supported by the widest possible number of our citizens. And those objectives must be vital to our survival as a free nation and to the fulfillment of our responsibilities as a world power. We must also be farsighted enough to sense when immediate and strong reactions to apparently small events can prevent lion-like responses that may be required later. We must never forget those isolationists in Europe who shrugged that ‘‘Danzig is not worth a war,’’ and ‘‘Why should we fight to keep the Rhineland demilitarized?’’ These tests I have just mentioned have been phrased negatively for a purpose—they are intended to sound a note of caution—caution that we must observe prior to committing forces to combat overseas. When we ask our military forces to risk their very lives in such situations, a note of caution is not only prudent, it is morally required. In many situations we may apply
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these tests and conclude that a combatant role is not appropriate. Yet no one should interpret what I am saying here today as an abdication of America’s responsibilities—either to its own citizens or to its allies. Nor should these remarks be misread as a signal that this country, or this administration, is unwilling to commit forces to combat overseas. We have demonstrated in the past that, when our vital interests or those of our allies are threatened, we are ready to use force, and use it decisively, to protect those interests. Let no one entertain any illusions—if our vital interests are involved, we are prepared to fight. And we are resolved that if we must fight, we must win. So, while these tests are drawn from lessons we have learned from the past, they also can—and should—be applied to the future. For example, the problems confronting us in Central America today are difficult. The possibility of more extensive Soviet and Soviet-proxy penetration into this hemisphere in months ahead is something we should recognize. If this happens we will clearly need more economic and military assistance and training to help those who want democracy. The President will not allow our military forces to creep—or be drawn gradually—into a combat role in Central America or any other place in the world. And indeed our policy is designed to prevent the need for direct American involvement. This means we will need sustained congressional support to back and give confidence to our friends in the region. I believe that the tests I have enunciated here today can, if applied carefully, avoid the danger of this gradualist incremental approach which almost always means the use of insufficient force. These tests can help us to avoid being drawn inexorably into an endless morass, where it is not vital to our national interest to fight. But policies and principles such as these require decisive leadership in both the executive and legislative branches of government—and they also require strong and sustained public support. Most of all, these policies require national unity of purpose. I believe the United States now possesses the policies and leadership to gain that public support and unity. And I believe that the future will show we have the strength of character to protect peace with freedom. In summary, we should all remember these are the policies—indeed the only policies—that can preserve for ourselves, our friends, and our posterity, peace with freedom. I believe we can continue to deter the Soviet Union and other potential adversaries from pursuing their designs around the world. We can enable our friends in Central America to defeat aggression and gain the breathing room to nurture democratic reforms. We can meet the challenge posed by the unfolding complexity of the 1980’s. We will then be poised to begin the last decade of this century amid a peace tempered by realism, and secured by firmness and strength. And it will be a peace that will enable all of us—ourselves at home, and our friends abroad— to achieve a quality of life, both spiritually and materially, far higher than man has even dared to dream. SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs/840000-cap.htm
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Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Conference on Low-Intensity Warfare, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., January 14, 1986 Tonight, one out of every four countries around the globe is at war. In virtually every case, there is a mask on the face of war. In virtually ever case, behind the mask is the Soviet Union and those who do its bidding. Much has been written about low-intensity warfare, but it remains an open question how much is understood. Of greater certainty is the fact that little of what is understood has been applied effectively in the effort to contain the slow erosion of human liberty and self-determination around the globe. We may see to the protean nature of this phenomenon in the welter of descriptions attached to it: low-intensity warfare, low-intensity conflict, insurgency, guerrilla war, and others. What we can agree on, I think, is that the least accurate term is the one popularized by the Soviet Union, and that is ‘‘war of national liberation.’’ We in this land take special exception to so Orwellian a corruption of language, for we are ourselves the children of revolution, and we well know what liberty means. It has nothing to do with guns and searchlights and barbed wire and censorship and labor camps. In fact the object of their activities is not liberation at all, but subjugation. If we are to deal with it, we must understand it, and understand the circumstances which gave rise to it. When the Second World War was ended, those of us who served in it and the families of those who were lost believed, and had a right to do, that we had seen the last of the great wars of conquest, and that our children might live in a better world, at peace. We were not complacent that such a hope would consummate itself through some mystical mutation driven by the numbers sacrificed, the pain suffered, or the hardships endured. Rather, we were prepared, even anxious, to work to assure that what had been achieved should be nourished and sustained. To former adversaries and erstwhile allies alike we offered assistance through the Marshall Plan. History should not wonder that a melting pot nation, representing so many of the world’s people, should have approached the aftermath of a world war as we once approached the close of a civil war: no vanquished, really, and no victors; only people needing help, and people having help to give. We had it, and we gave it, without ulterior motives. The results would later be recorded in a series of so-called ‘‘economic miracles.’’ Yet even as compassion and faith and common sense worked to keep the better world we fought to build, another power sought to go another way. As the lights went on again in the Pacific and Western Europe, they flickered out, one by one, in Eastern Europe. As old colonies became new nations, old nations—Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania, and half of Germany—became new colonies. We were witnessing, though we did not know it, a new kind of warfare. At length we called it the cold war, but it was hotter than we knew, and insidious.
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In the pre-industrial age, the object of those at war was to destroy the opponent’s army. In the industrial age, it was to destroy not only armies but that economic infrastructure by which armies were fed, armed, transported, and supplied. And this we called to total war, so brutal in its exigencies that we believed the art and science of war could not go further, but must impress itself and its dangers so profoundly upon the minds of men that they would turn away from it, and seek some other means to resolve their differences. The opportunity was there. The mechanisms were there. God knows the need was there. Yet in the face of it all, we were presented with a further step in the evolution of a phenomenon we prayed had run its course. Where once it was the goal of aggression to destroy armies, and later to destroy the fruits of men’s labors, now we saw a form of warfare directed at the destruction of hope itself. As the Soviet Union, unhindered, was consolidating its hold over it neighbors, the emergence of new nations in the aftermath of colonialism created a new international political phenomenon, which we came to call the Third World. And as it emerged, so too did the opportunity for the extension of a strategy proven in the takeover of Russia herself, and refined in the enslavement of Eastern Europe. It was as strategy which benefited from the confluence of a number of new circumstances and old realities. On one hand, the expectations of communist dogma for the collapse of capitalism and the automatic ‘‘economicallydetermined’’ spread of communism had itself long since collapsed. Thus, the justification of the very existence of the ruling party of the Soviet Union had no force. Against this backdrop, there could certainly be no pretense that communism would expand though some inevitable, dialectical process. If it were to expand, it must expand by aggression. On the other hand, the advent of nuclear power, and the means to deliver it, gravely increased the risks of open aggression. While the West monopolized that power, it presented no threat to world peace, and certainly no threat to legitimate Soviet interests. It did, however, present a threat to Soviet expansionism. Thus if the Soviets were to expand, they would have to do so below thresholds that would trigger a Free World response. Not to expand meant for them to sit in a global backwater, among the dust and ashes of a governing theory without political dynamism or historical validity. Added to these considerations were two others of significance. One was the simple fact that the Soviet economic system itself led to the perpetual impoverishment of the nation. The Soviets had also to conjure with enormous losses in manpower from the Second World War, the need to hold manpower both for their regular military forces, and for those security forces required to control their own population, and those of their satellites. The other consideration was the reluctance of the industrialized democracies, particularly the United States, to go to war. Historically, the American people had wished to be left in peace, and could be moved to war only through the most egregious and galvanizing impact on their sensibilities. Further to the point, U.S. military doctrine, reflecting the larger traditions out of which it grew, aimed at the rapid resolution of conflict through the rapid application of overwhelming power. And the American nation was and
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remains culturally disposed to quick conclusions—not least in the prosecution of so ugly at work as war. Taken whole, the situation offered constraints and opportunities. Poor and ill-prepared peoples were reaching for nationhood. Within them, men and women avid for power, and willing to pursue it with violence and keep it by force, could be co-opted at bargain basement prices. And the process could be represented to the industrialized democracies as the liberation of nations—a process not merely of no threat to us, but one congruent with our values. So we saw the exploitation by brute force of the efforts of others to free themselves from oppression. It is not necessary here to recount each event. A cruel consistency links the betrayal of the Russian Revolution and the betrayal of the Nicaraguan Revolution. Nowhere have communist governments acquired and maintained power through the freely expressed will of the governed. The world today is at war. It is not global war, though it goes on around the globe. It is not war between fully mobilized armies, though it is no less destructive for all that. It is not war by the laws of war and, indeed, law itself, as an instrument of civilization, is a target of this peculiar variety of aggression. It benefits from the pernicious sophistries of those who wish to construe these wars as efforts of sovereign people to pursue their own destinies and, as such, no business of our own. Yet, in a world as small as our own, the destruction of human liberty anywhere resonates everywhere, and affects all of us. So it matters that we understand the means by which such destruction comes, and that we trouble ourselves to discover not merely how to end the destruction of liberty, but how to reverse it, and to recover and restore what has been destroyed. Because if it is proper and just that we should help those who wish to remain free, then we can hardly turn our backs on those who have lost their freedom and want it back. It is certain that we cannot co-exist with the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine—an impudent diktat that argues like a bullying child cheating at marbles: ‘‘Whatever I can get, I get to keep.’’ Nothing is brought to life with bullets and bombs, least of all an absurd doctrine dead before the dictator who proclaimed it, and buried by the brave people of Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, Kampuchea and others who look to us to look to our heritage. We cannot ignore their aspirations without betraying our own. For twenty-five years we have considered how to prevent the voices of freedom from being stilled. We cannot abandon that obligation. But neither can we turn away from the obligation to help now-smothered voices of freedom to be heard again. This is the work in which we are now engaged, and the purpose that brings us to this occasion. It is no small task. From Augustine to Aquinas to Grotius, and coming forward to successive efforts of various conventions at Geneva and elsewhere, men have labored to contain war, to limit its ferocity, to hold harmless the innocent, to mitigate destruction, to infuse mercy. We share in, and are instructed by, these civilizing impulses. Every American officer, soldier sailor, airman and marine is indoctrinated in the principles flowing from them, and is held accountable for the most rigid adherence to them. The conflict we face today violates, by design, these principles.
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In those depredations known as wars of national liberation, any effort to improve the lot of peoples is a target. A nation’s stability is a bar to its capture; its stability is a product of its prosperity and the means of broadening access to its prosperity; as is the educating of its people, and their health, and their conveniences, their progress and their hope. Therefore, in these obscenely misnamed ‘‘wars of national liberation,’’ it is not a nation’s military forces that are attacked. Instead, agricultural assistance teams are murdered, as are medical assistance teams, teachers, judges, union leaders, editors, and priests. It is not a nation’s military structures that are targeted, but its clinics and classrooms, its power and transportation systems, its livelihood, its possibilities, its hopes for a better future … The social and economic dimensions of these conflicts are of paramount importance. For the sake of their own lives, people are intimidated into a mute tolerance of subversion in their midst. Among the means to this end are disinformation and propaganda—including what is euphemistically known as ‘‘propaganda of the deed.’’ Such deeds may include assembling an entire village to watch the village headman disemboweled, proving thereby that the established government cannot assure anyone’s physical safety, and that the better part of wisdom consists of resignation to the will of the insurgents, be they ever so small in number, brutal in behavior, or unrepresentative in their goals. The object is to instill fear, to institutionalize anxiety, to rob men of their manhood, and make of craven survival the ultimate value. On the economic front, people are coerced into paying taxes to support their alleged liberation; crops are burned, marketing systems destroyed, and people living on the economic margin are further impoverished. So the burden on the established government grows, the presumption that it cannot provide for the security of its people grows; people move into the urban areas for greater security or better economic circumstances, the land is abandoned and the cities become more and more crowded, with more pressure on the urban infrastructure, and withal, the creation of better targets for urban attacks. In its early stages, much of this activity is like nothing so much as gardenvariety crime—vandalism, arson, kidnapping, extortion, murder: thuggery flying under the specious legitimacy of ‘‘political liberation.’’ Against such actions, well-integrated societies interpose police forces. But targeted nations are not well-integrated societies, and their police are rarely equal to the threat. We should be able to assist in improving the police capabilities of threatened nations, but we are now prohibited by law from doing so. And so long as this prohibition stands, the threats to others will be permitted to grow unimpeded until the violence is sufficiently great and sufficiently well organized that the use of overt military assistance finally can be justified. This gives to aggression an advantage we should not give it, and virtually assures a more protracted violence and greater bloodshed. What is the role of the U.S. military in all this? The question has existed and propounded itself in varying configurations, most especially during the Vietnam war and since. It has given rise to disagreements ranging from the philosophical to the visceral, and has generated criticism of our military, and its willingness and capacity to confront the conflict before us.
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Let me say, on behalf of the most selfless segment of America’s public servants that, contrary to what some have said, it is not pre-eminently the role or the object of our military to preserve hallowed doctrine, nor to preserve honored traditions, nor to preserve budgets. It is to preserve freedom. And they need no instruction as to that obligation. They do need, and the constitution mandates it, to be told what is wanted of them. They do need, and have a right to expect, the support of any American government which commits them, and the support of the people from which they come, in the efforts to which they are asked to risk their lives for us all. On another occasion, I expressed my thoughts on the general question of those criteria which ought to govern the use of military force. Some have questioned whether the assurance of support is a reasonable criterion. But the assurance of support is a function of the national will in the area of lowintensity conflict, far more than it is the capacity of our adversaries to prevail in that arena. And the strength of the national will depends, as it always has, on how far our cause is just, and seen to be; on how vital it is to our interests for us to be engaged, and, on how far our efforts in such endeavors are conducted in accordance with our national values. It will readily be seen, in the framework of a conflict which is prosecuted in such a way as to erode and destroy the values of civilization itself, that we have a special obligation to act so as to uphold those values. The strategy of lowintensity conflict is such as to make a liability of that obligation. Yet we dare not, for the sake of expediency, abandon it. For example, to pursue terrorism we cannot commit acts of blind revenge that may kill innocent people who had nothing to do with the terrorism. This necessity complicates our task, as it is intended to do. So we must think carefully, and in certain respects rethink entirely, what are the imperatives and exigencies of this war, as it how reveals itself to us. It is among the highest skills of the medical profession to be able to diagnose an illness in its earliest stages, and then to act to cure it before it becomes dangerous. Low-intensity conflict presents a similar challenge to our skills at diagnosing political and geo-strategic ills at their incipient stages. Such troubles do not begin in advanced, educated, stable, and prosperous nations which are well-led and which, even if badly led, have the means, peacefully, to change their leadership. Nor do they begin in nations of little or no geostrategic significance. You may be certain that no dictatorial excess, no violation of human rights, however outrageous, will attract the solicitous ministrations of the Soviet Union or its surrogates to a nation having to resource, a nation contiguous to no other nation of strategic interest, or a nation not situated upon some global chokepoint. The Soviet Union will not go to the aid of anyone for what we call humanitarian reasons. Analyzing the situation at even so elementary a level, we will have little difficulty determining prospective targets for communist subversion through low-intensity conflict. Superimpose over this matrix other indicators: weapons thefts, assassinations of police and other officials, attacks on critical infrastructural nodes, and further, more refined, conclusions may be drawn. It is at the critical point at which these conclusions can be drawn that some basic
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decisions must be made, and not years later when whole populations are polarized, and countrysides set aflame. We must decide if our interests justify intervention. We must decide if the leadership of the country threatened is capable of using our assistance to the proper effect, which is to say for the security and well-being of the nation, rather than merely to sustain itself in power, and to reinforce those abuses which may have contributed to the nation’s difficulties from the beginning. We must decide whether an existing leadership is better or worse for its people and our interest than any possible alternatives. We cannot permit out disdain for some imperfect regimes to bring forth far worse alternatives. We must decide what form intervention should take, if we are to intervene, and by what means, and through which agencies it should come. If our involvement is warranted, we must be prepared to act alone. We have had at times an unfortunate tendency to believe it is essential to multilateralize every exertion on behalf of freedom in the international arena, as though our judgment must be validated by others before we could trust it ourselves. Yet it remains a fact that for the most part, where freedom is in jeopardy, it is to us that the world looks for leadership. We are belabored in some quarters with being to ‘‘interventionist.’’ And yet we remember, and those who belabor us remember too, other times and other places in which our earlier intervention must have saved the world from monstrous crimes and profligate destruction and bloodshed. Finally, as a pacific people, we cling fiercely to the hope that solutions to international aggression may be found short of the use of power, and by this tendency delay in the recognition of aggression for what it is, and of our duties for what they are. There is a place for power in responding to low-intensity conflict. What is important is to understand the role of military force, and the role of other responses, and how these fit together. Those particular skills and supporting capabilities which the military offers to the prosecution of low-intensity conflict are chiefly to be found in our Special Operations Forces. Each of the services contribute to these capabilities, some more than others, according to the mission and the level of conflict involved. At the low-intensity end of the spectrum, which concerns us here, Army Special Forces bear a very large share of the burden. They are trained to instruct others in providing for their own defense. In this mission, their knowledge of foreign languages, as well as their specialized foreign area orientation, are essential elements of their capabilities. They are familiar with the full range of weapons to be found in other nations and can provide training in the use of those weapons and other ordnance, as well as instructing in small unit tactics, reconnaissance, communications, field medicine, escape and evasion, and equipment maintenance. As one looks at the strategy of low-intensity conflict, however, in all its multiple dimensions, it is clear that defending the nation is only one part of the required response, and a highly problematical part at that. For this conflict strategy is one of destruction, and it is always easier to destroy than to build up, and easier too, to destroy than to defend against destruction. So we must assist in the business of building and, by doing so, of providing the nation’s
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people with a stake in their future—a stake they themselves will choose to protect in the face of all efforts at destruction. Our Special Operations Forces play a role here as well, through civic action: the construction and restoration of infrastructure, the assisting of others in the improvement of their own lives, whether by restoring land, building roads, digging wells, or helping to provide medical and educational services. In the past, such work was not thought to be the work of the military. This is popular wisdom, at any rate. But here popular wisdom fails, for it divorces us from our own history—from the memory of the Minuteman, standing by his plow, with his musket in his hand; and the pioneer defending what he built even as he built it. There is, in short, no gainsaying the argument that we know something about nation-building, having built one ourselves. Nor is it deniable that the larger conflict—or, the competition for those who prefer it—has everything to do with those political and economic constructs which form the skeletons of nations. The question then is what forms of government, what kinds of economic systems, are most in accord with human realities to conduce to the betterment of mankind? On our own terms, we can compete with shovels and win. Our adversaries require guns. It is an instructive difference. The greater share of our assistance to the lesser developed nations is in economic aid and, of our security assistance, in non-lethal aid. The Soviets offer relatively little in foreign economic assistance; virtually all of their subventions go to the provision of weapons. So our military can help with the contemporary equivalent of the use of plows and muskets. But that help must be designed into a strategy which involves diplomacy, and economic leverage, and the proper management of our technological riches, and the proper, unashamed and unremitting willingness to make our case at the bar of public opinion abroad and at home. Absent such a strategy, the use of military assets alone will be feckless, wasteful, and unfair. The private sector that is the wellspring of our power and prosperity must see the greater long-term economic advantage of access to marketing opportunities in a broad and stable world market, rather than in the short-term benefits to be derived from those whose aim it is to prevent the emergence of a broad and stable world market. The self-serving notion of tempering Soviet aggressiveness through trade is the most fraudulent excuse for making a quick dollar that can be imagined; Lenin himself recognized that that proclivity would help the Soviets survive the ravages of their own self-imposed economic incapacity. He said that The capitalists will supply us with the materials and technology which we lack and will restore our military industry which we need for our future victorious attacks upon our suppliers. In other words, they will work hard in order to prepare their own suicides.
We must not gratify that expectation, or fulfill that prediction. Similarly, we must see the foolishness in subsidizing governments, produced by communist insurgencies, in their effort to consolidate a totalitarian hold over their nations. We should not be so mesmerized by our self-imposed obligations to international organizations dedicated to the peaceful development of nations, that we acquiesce in the shoring up of hostile government through various international financial institutions and agencies of the United
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Nations. Our stature and credibility as a peace-loving and generous nation will surely survive our effective objection to such contradictory and self-defeating actions. And if we are unwilling to make such objection, and make it effective as only we can, then we must surely not ask our own military to go in the way of guns indirectly paid for through our own financial assistance. Those who mold public opinion in America, and who should refresh our convictions and thus save us from a smug complacency and the slow unwitting betrayal of our founding values, must see the failing in a fatuous objectivity which affects to judge the ambitions of the wolf and the lamb by an equal measure. There is still the obligation to distinguish right from wrong, and as we have no reluctance to judge ourselves by standards we set for ourselves, we should not, out of a misplaced sense of fairness, refuse to judge others merely because they have no standards. We know what are criminal means to the acquisition of power, and we know, with burke, that ‘‘criminal means, once tolerated, are soon preferred.’’ To be tolerant for the sake of an intellectual fastidiousness is to be an accessory to the behavior at issue. The servants of public opinion and founding conviction, by which we are admirably governed for more than two centuries, must see the fragility of our freedom, and that national longevity is not divinely assigned but is a product of alertness and selflessness, which selflessness must extend even to the sacrifice of political advantage from time to time. ‘‘It wonders me,’’ as the Old Pennsylvania Dutchman said, when I hear the defense budget attacked on the basis of what the attackers are pleased to call a ‘‘fairness doctrine,’’ as though our security is merely one of a competing set of national priorities. When nations place their comfort before their security, they end with neither. These are some of the concerns we must take into account and the adjustments and sacrifices we must be prepared to make, as we consider the role to the military in the very real conflict we face today. What is important is that we never lose sight of the fact that the military is an instrument of the national will, and not a substitute for it.
SECRETARY OF STATE JAMES BAKER Secretary of State James Baker, Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., February 1, 1990 EXCERPTED Terrorism. The Administration is committed to combating the terrorist threat. Our policy of pressuring state sponsors of terrorism, putting terrorists on trial, and refusing to negotiate with them is central to our long-term success in this struggle. In my confirmation testimony before the Committee last year, I spoke of the need to develop policies of collective action against terrorism. We are working with other countries—including our European partners and the Soviet Union—to coordinate and strengthen counter-terrorism efforts worldwide. To enhance aviation safety, we are now negotiating a multilateral treaty to tag plastic explosives.
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We will continue to seek ways to improve our counter-terrorism efforts and protect our citizens abroad, just as we improve our procedures at home.
SECRETARY OF STATE WARREN CHRISTOPHER Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Address to the 50th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, New York, September 25, 1995 EXCERPTED One region where UN forces and the international community have played a critical role is the Middle East. Another historic milestone will be marked this Thursday in Washington when Israel and the Palestinians sign their agreement to implement phase two of the Declaration of Principles. That agreement will bring to life a goal first set in the Camp David accords—that is, to protect Israel’s security and to give Palestinians throughout the West Bank control over their daily lives. The international community and the UN must continue to support this process politically and economically. The framers of the UN Charter created this institution to meet threats to peace and security posed by aggression and armed conflict. These threats are still very much with us. But the world also faces a set of new security challenges, including proliferation, terrorism, international crime and narcotics, as well as the far-reaching consequences of damage to the environment. These have assumed a new and dangerous scope in a more interdependent world.… While new technologies have brought us closer together, they have also made it easier for terrorists, drug dealers, and other international criminals to acquire weapons of mass destruction, to set up cocaine cartels, and to hide their ill-gotten gains. The collapse of communism has shattered dictatorships. But it has also left the political and legal institutions of newly liberated nations even more vulnerable to those who seek to subvert them. Although these threats are sometimes sponsored by states, they increasingly follow no flag. Each of us must vigorously fight these enemies on our own. But we will never be truly secure until we effectively fight them together. That is the new security challenge for the global community. It must be the new security mission of the UN. There is no area where the UN can make a more significant contribution than in nonproliferation. Fifty years ago, the United States was the only country capable of making a nuclear bomb. Today, many countries have the technology that would enable them to turn a fist-sized chunk of plutonium into a bomb as small as a suitcase. That is one reason why more than 170 countries agreed to extend for all time the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty last May, at the conference chaired here by Ambassador Dhanapala. We must build on that achievement. The UN is also playing an invaluable role in focusing attention on pressing regional proliferation problems. In Iraq, UNSCOM and its chairman Rolf Ekeus continue to uncover horrific details about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
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Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq developed a deadly biological weapons capacity hidden from view. It was conducting research to turn some of the most toxic substances known to man into weapons of war. We know Saddam succeeded in putting anthrax and botulism in bombs and missile warheads. In December 1990, he deployed these with every intent of using them against the international coalition and innocent civilians. He was dissuaded only by the steadfast determination of the United States and the international community. In light of what Ambassador Ekeus has uncovered, we can only conclude that for the last four and a half years Saddam Hussein has lied about the full scope of Iraq’s weapons programs. There should be no easing of the sanctions regime until the Iraqi government complies with all the demands of the Security Council and demonstrates that it has changed its ways. The proliferation of weapons has added a disturbing dimension to another threat we all face: international terrorism. Indeed, this year’s sarin gas attack in Tokyo is a grim warning of what can happen when terrorists acquire weapons of mass destruction. More nations are joining the fight against those individuals and groups who attack civilians for political ends. The United Nations has supported this effort in important ways. The UN Security Council recognized the importance of countering state-sponsored terrorism by imposing sanctions against Libya for the bombing of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772. Terrorists should be treated as criminals and there must be no place where they can hide from the consequences of their acts. States that sponsor terrorists should feel the full weight of sanctions that can be imposed by the international community. Let us not deceive ourselves: Every dollar that goes into the government coffers of a state sponsor of terrorism such as Iran helps pay for a terrorist’s bullets or bombs. Iran’s role as the foremost state sponsor of terrorism makes its secret quest for weapons of mass destruction even more alarming. We must stand together to prevent Iran from acquiring such threatening capabilities. The United States has taken a leading role in meeting the international terrorist threat. We have intensified our sanctions against Iran. Last January, President Clinton also issued an Executive Order prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist groups and individuals who threaten the Middle East peace process. We are urging our Congress to tighten our immigration and criminal laws to keep terrorists on the run or put them behind bars. The United States strongly supports the counter-terrorism measures the G7 and Russia announced at the Halifax Summit, and we expect the P-8 Ministerial Meeting on Terrorism in Ottawa to produce a concrete action plan to implement these measures. Just as the UN’s founders devised a new framework to deter aggression and armed conflict, the United Nations, in particular the Security Council, must now assign the same priority to combating the threat posed by proliferation, terrorism, international crime, narcotics, and environmental pollution. SOURCE: http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/briefing/dossec/1995/9509/950925dossec. html
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Secretary of State Warren Christopher, ‘‘Fighting Terrorism: Challenges for the Peacemakers,’’ Address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Annual Soref Symposium, May 21, 1996 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY I last spoke at the Institute in October 1993, soon after Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn and forever changed the course of Middle East history. Since then, much has happened. Israel and Jordan are at peace. Palestinians defied the Hamas call to boycott elections and in doing so gave their clear mandate for peace. Today, they govern themselves in Gaza and most cities in the West Bank. The Palestinian National Council voted overwhelmingly to make good on its commitment to cancel the egregious provision of its charter. Economic summits have been held in Casablanca and Amman. Eight members of the Arab League have made official visits to Israel and—with the exception of Libya, Iraq, and Sudan—every Arab League member has participated in some aspect of the peace process. Had I predicted these events in 1993, you probably would have said that I needed a long rest. The scope and pace of change has truly been breathtaking. It has come so fast that what was previously unthinkable is now routine. In the face of difficult challenges, it is easy to forget how dramatically the peace process has already transformed the landscape of the Middle East. As we move forward, we must remember the enormous progress we have made. None of the challenges we now face is more pressing than the fight against terrorism. Terrorism destroys innocent lives. It undermines a society’s sense of security—and with it the very foundation upon which a lasting peace must be built. As such, terrorism is a threat to our national interests—not simply in the Middle East, but around the world. President Clinton has rightly identified terrorism as one of the most important security challenges we face in the wake of the Cold War. As he said in his address to the United Nations last October, terrorism today is a world-wide phenomenon. No one is immune. Certainly not Israel. But also not Egypt. Or Japan. Or France, Britain, or Germany. Or Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, or Algeria. And, unfortunately not America, where terrorists have struck from lower Manhattan to Oklahoma City. As if the threat is not already severe enough, we now face an even more alarming danger: the terrorist armed with weapons of mass destruction. Last year’s nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system was a grim omen. It was also a wakeup call for the world. The threat is real. We must act now to meet it. The United States is leading the way. Last month, the President signed into law landmark anti-terrorism legislation. This bill provides law enforcement with new tools to stop terrorists before they strike and to bring them to justice when they do. It strengthens our ability to prevent international terrorists from raising funds in the United States. And while ensuring legal safeguards, it allows us quickly to expel foreigners who provide support for terrorist activities. The United States has also spearheaded efforts to combat terrorism on a global level. We have imposed strong sanctions against states that sponsor or
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harbor terrorists. We have intensified our counter-terrorism cooperation with other countries, allowing us to apprehend key figures in attacks like the World Trade Center bombing. Last December, with our partners in the G-7 and Russia, we convened a ministerial meeting in Ottawa to develop common strategies for fighting terror. And in April, President Clinton joined President Yeltsin and other leaders in Moscow, where they agreed on new steps to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands. Nowhere in the world has America’s leadership in the fight against terror been more evident than in the Middle East. We have maintained UN sanctions against Libya for its role in the bombing of Pan Am 103. And we are working to increase pressure on Sudan for its support of last June’s assassination attempt against Egypt’s President Mubarak. America’s most critical role, however—and the one I want to focus on today—is defending the Middle East peace process and the peacemakers against the vicious attacks of their enemies. Terrorists and their supporters are now engaged in a systematic assault on Israel and the peace process. Their goal is clear: They seek to kill the very possibility of peace by destroying every Israeli’s sense of personal security. The enemies of peace are escalating their attacks for a very clear reason: the peace process is succeeding. With every step toward peace that Israel and her neighbors take, the enemies of peace grow more desperate and more determined to lash out. They must promote fear because they know that hope is their undoing. The United States is determined to ensure that the enemies of peace do not succeed. We will never give in to their terror. We refuse to allow terrorists to undermine our resolve or divert us from our goal of real, secure, and lasting peace for Israel and for all the peoples of the Middle East. When Israel was terrorized by a wave of suicide bombings in February and March, President Clinton responded by organizing the Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Literally overnight, leaders from around the world answered his call to join Israel—not to celebrate another breakthrough in the peace process, but to defend the peace process at a moment of crisis. It was an unprecedented event that sent an unmistakable message: The enemies of peace are doomed. Their terror will only strengthen our resolve to complete the circle of peace and put them out of business for good. Sharm el Sheikh launched a process to expand joint efforts against terrorism throughout the region. Most recently, President Clinton and Prime Minister Peres signed a new anti-terrorism accord that will strengthen cooperation between our two governments. In addition, the United States is providing Israel with more than $100 million in anti-terrorism equipment and training. We have also begun to bolster the counter-terrorism capabilities of the Palestinian Authority. With our support, Israel and Palestinian security services are now cooperating in a joint campaign to root out the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian forces have intercepted many suicide bombers. They have uncovered explosives and arms caches. They have arrested, tried, and imprisoned perpetrators or terrorist acts and continue to hunt down others. Chairman Arafat today clearly understands that he must give a 100 percent effort in the war on terror—and not just because his agreements with Israel
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require it. He is doing it because he knows that the bombs of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are trying to destroy Palestinian aspirations as much as they are Israeli lives. The United States will continue to insist that this increased Palestinian effort is sustained. Like Hamas before it, Hizbollah’s purpose in last month’s attacks in Lebanon was also to kill the peace process. As hostilities escalated, America’s responsibility and interests were clear: To use our influence to stop the suffering of innocent civilians, to end the crisis, and to create a new framework to limit the chances of it happening again. The agreement that resulted from my shuttle mission achieved those objectives. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have been able to return to their homes. New, written understandings have been reached to contain the dangers of any hostilities. An international effort will be mounted to assist in Lebanon’s reconstruction. And we are organizing a Monitoring Group in which Israel, Lebanon, and Syria are being brought together for the first time to help prevent another crisis. This recent campaign of violence has again shone the spotlight on a disturbing reality: When it comes to terrorism against the peace process, Iran is playing a leading role. Iran’s leaders regularly use rhetoric that incites terrorism. President Rafsanjani called Prime Minister Rabin’s assassination ‘‘divine vengeance.’’ And just prior to the Hamas bombing spree, Iran’s Supreme Leaders, Khameini, preached that ‘‘The power of Islam will ultimately bring about the end of the rootless Zionist regime … which must be destroyed.’’ Iran has not stopped at rhetoric. It frequently meets with all the major terrorist groups—including Hizbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFL-PGC. It actively encourages these groups to use terror to destroy the peace process. It provides them with money—up to several million dollars a year in the case of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others; and up to $100 million a year for Hizbollah. Iran also supplies them with arms and material support, training, and—in some cases—operational guidance. The evidence has grown in recent months. In advance of Israel’s elections, Iranian-trained terrorists have been sent to infiltrate Israel and the Palestinian territories. Some have been intercepted. Others narrowly failed in carrying out their deadly activities. Still others have succeeded in their murderous missions. We believe that an Iranian-backed group was responsible for last week’s driveby shooting of an Israeli-American yeshiva student in the West Bank. In another case, Belgium intercepted a shipment containing a mortar, which came from Iran and was probably intended for an attack on a Jewish target in Europe. There should no longer be any debate about Iran’s involvement in terrorism against the peace process. German Foreign Minster Kinkel left no doubt about that in remarks he made here in Washington just two weeks ago. He said that Germany is ‘‘fully aware of the evil things that Iran has been doing and is still doing.’’ He went on to say that ‘‘[t]he Americans and Germans agree as to the general assessment of what Iran means by way of terrorism … support of Hizbollah, Hamas, and Jihad.’’ While we and our allies now share a similar analysis of the facts, we differ when it comes to how best to deal with Iran. The United States believes that Iran will only change its behavior when the world makes it pay a sufficiently
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high political and economic price. We must deny Iran’s leaders the resources to finance their dangerous policies. That is why the President decided last year to impose a comprehensive embargo on U.S. trade with Iran. And that is why we have been working with Congress on legislation to further tighten economic restrictions on Iran. In contrast, some European nations continue to engage Iran in what they call a critical dialogue, while maintaining normal trade. The Europeans themselves acknowledge that their policy has produced no significant change in Iranian behavior. We remain convinced that no amount of dialogue will alter Iran’s policies, unless it is coupled with real economic pressure. Let me stress one point: We do not oppose the EU policy because we oppose the principle of speaking with Iran. The United States has long said that we are ready to conduct an open dialogue with authoritative representatives of the Iranian government, in which we could fully air our two major concerns: First, Iran’s support for terrorism, especially against the peace process. And second, its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Iran, however, has never taken up this offer. Our determination to contain Iran and to defeat the enemies of peace is clear. But so is our commitment to press peace. Anything less would hand the terrorist the very victory they seek. To close the circle of peace, agreements between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon are essential. Syria presents us with a unique challenge. On the one hand, we continue to have serious problems in our bilateral relationship with Syria. Syria remains on our narcotics list as well as our terrorism list. Both President Clinton and I have consistently pressed our concerns with President Assad and other senior Syrian officials. We will continue to do so, and to make clear that these concerns must be met before the United States can build a mutually beneficial relationship with Syria. Yet we recognize that Syria is different from Iran. Iran rejects the very notion of peace and has dedicated itself to Israel’s destruction. By contrast, Syria has been negotiating directly with Israel to end their conflict. I have no illusions. Translating that willingness to negotiate into a peace agreement will be difficult. But the talks thus far have provided a solid foundation for progress when negotiations resume. SOURCE: dossec.html
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/briefing/dossec/1996/9605/960521
SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Remarks on Designation of Terrorist Organizations, Washington, D.C., October 8, 1997 SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Good afternoon. Today the United States is demonstrating once again its leadership and determination in the struggle against international terror.
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Under a provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, I’m designating 30 groups as foreign terrorist organizations. These designations have three main consequences. First, as of today, it is a crime to provide funds, weapons or other types of tangible support to any of the designated organizations. Second, members and representatives of these organizations are hereby ineligible for visas to enter the United States, and are subject to exclusion from the United States. And third, any funds that these organizations have in our country will be blocked. The Anti-Terrorism Act was designed to put a stop to fundraising in the United States by and on behalf of organizations that engage in or sponsor terrorist acts. President Clinton has rightly identified terrorism as one of the most important security challenges we face in the wake of the Cold War. As the designations made today suggest, terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon. No nation is immune; certainly not the United States—where terrorists have struck from lower Manhattan to Oklahoma City. The United States is responding to that threat with every available tool. We are seeking the help and cooperation of all our citizens, and we seek the help and cooperation of peoples from around the world. This requires a recognition that terrorism is not a self-sustaining enterprise. It needs money and supplies to succeed. Our goal is to make the United States fully a no-support-for-terrorism zone. Our message to anyone who comes into our country intending to raise money for a terrorist organization is, you risk going to jail. And our message to anyone who is part of a terrorist organization and who wants to enter the United States is, you are not welcome here. We are aware that some of the designations made today may be challenged in court. Due process under the law affords this opportunity. But we’re also confident that the designations are fully justified, and I would note that they have the concurrence of both the Attorney General and the Secretary of Treasury. I want to emphasize, as well, that our review of organizations under the anti-terrorism law is ongoing. Other groups may be designated at any time. The steps we are taking today of cracking down on fundraising for terror and of banning terrorists from our shores are steps we urge other countries to take within their jurisdiction. By steadily reducing the habitat in which terrorism thrives, we can hope to make terrorists first an endangered species, and ultimately, an extinct one. SOURCE: http://secretary.state.gov/www/statements/971008.html
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, Washington, D.C., February 4, 1999 … I welcome this opportunity to testify concerning U.S. efforts to counter the forces of international terror. As you know, the President has designated
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the Department of State as the lead agency for coordination of our counterterrorism policy and operations abroad, while the FBI is the lead agency for countering terrorism in the United States. So I am delighted to be here with my colleagues, Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh. Their presence reflects the fact that the battle against terror requires effective coordination within our own government and between our government and law-abiding nations around the globe. It also requires a partnership between the Executive and Legislative branches of the United States … I look forward to the opportunity today to build on our partnership and to explore with you the many dimensions to our strategy. In my statement, I will provide an overview of the international threat and discuss our diplomatic actions, policies, plans, and resource needs. The Attorney General and the Director will then bring you up to date on the wide range of law enforcement, technology, crisis management and other initiatives that are underway. We will each discuss the Five-Year Interagency Counter-terrorism and Technology Crime Plan. This Plan serves as a baseline strategy for coordinating our response to terrorism in the United States and against American targets overseas. The Subcommittee has received copies of the Plan, which was crafted under the leadership of the Attorney General. The Threat … If you look at the statistics, you will see that the number of terrorist incidents worldwide is declining. This reflects the diplomatic and law enforcement progress we have made in discrediting terrorist groups and making it harder for them to operate. It reflects, as well, the improved political climate that has diminished terrorist activity in places such as Northern Ireland and Central America. But you would not be conducting this hearing, Mr. Chairman, if the dangers posed by international terrorism had declined. Tragically, they have not. Last August, I had the sad honor of bringing back to U.S. soil the bodies of Americans who perished in the embassy bombing in Kenya. Like the members of our armed forces who died in foreign conflicts, these Americans went in harm’s way for our country. But there is a difference—for they were not combatants in a war as we have long understood that term. They were casualties, instead, of a new kind of confrontation that looms as a new century is about to begin. In this struggle, our adversaries are likely to avoid traditional battlefield situations because there, American dominance is well established. They may resort, instead, to weapons of mass destruction and the cowardly instruments of sabotage and hidden bombs. As we know from explosions over the past decade in Africa, the Khobar apartment complex, the World Trade Center and Pan Am 103, these unconventional threats endanger both Americans and others around the world. Accordingly, we must be vigilant in protecting against the terrorist triple threat posed, first, by the handful of countries that actively sponsor terrorism; second, by long-active terrorist organizations; and third, by loosely affiliated
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extremists such as, among others, Osama bin Laden, who has urged his followers to kill Americans when and wherever they can. Our strategy must be long-term. The Five-Year Plan is only the beginning. Certainly, no single arrest or shutdown of a terrorist operation will be sufficient. The advance of technology has given us new means to counter terrorists. But it has also enabled terrorists to develop more powerful weapons and to travel, communicate, recruit, and raise funds on a global basis. It is essential, therefore, that we work closely with others. The perpetrators of terror include persons from a wide variety of creeds, cultures and countries. And their criminality has claimed victims almost everywhere, from Jerusalem to Japan, Tanzania to Turkey, and Oklahoma City to Sri Lanka. To counter this plague, law-abiding peoples everywhere must close ranks to detect, deter, prevent and punish terrorist acts. It is not enough for Americans to be concerned only about attacks against Americans. We must reach out to all those victimized or threatened by terror. The victims of the attacks orchestrated in Africa by Osama bin Laden, after all, were predominately African, including many practitioners of Islam. Terrorism is a highly indiscriminate form of violence. It must be opposed not simply as a matter of national interest, but as a fundamental question of right and wrong. Fighting Back Following the embassy attacks last August, President Clinton ordered military strikes to disrupt terrorist operations and deter new bombings. The message he conveyed is that, in this battle, we will not simply sit back and wait. We will take the offensive. We will do all we can to limit terrorist movements, block terrorist funds and prevent terrorist acts. As the President’s decision demonstrated, we will not hesitate, where necessary, to use force to respond to or defend against acts of terrorism. But force is only one element in our strategy. Every day, in every part of the world, we use a full array of foreign policy tools in our zero tolerance campaign against international terror. For example, we place the highest priority on measures to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands. This imperative is on our agenda with virtually every nation and figures in almost every major meeting I have. We constantly exchange information with friendly governments concerning terrorist activities and movements, thereby preventing attacks and facilitating arrests. We work with other agencies and other countries to strengthen screening procedures and increase intelligence sharing on visa applications. We are expanding our Anti-terrorism Training Assistance Program, which has already instructed more than 20,000 law enforcement officers from more than 90 countries, in subjects such as airport security, bomb detection, maritime security, VIP protection, hostage rescue and crisis management. We are engaged, through the State Department-chaired Technical Support Working Group, in a vigorous research and development program to improve our ability to detect explosives, counter weapons of mass destruction, protect
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against cyber sabotage and provide physical security. In the technological race with terror, we are determined to gain and maintain a decisive strategic edge. We are making use of the Terrorism Information Rewards program to encourage persons to come forward with information to prevent acts of terrorism and apprehend those who commit them. We impose economic sanctions against state sponsors of terror. Currently, the seven governments on this list are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. And both domestically and internationally, we are working to strengthen the rule of law. The Rule of Law At home, we have changed our statutes to block the financial assets of terrorist groups, prevent them from raising funds in the United States, and allow us to bar foreigners who support such groups. Around the world, we couple law enforcement with diplomacy in order to bring suspected terrorists before the bar of justice. As the Subcommittee knows, we have done this successfully in the World Trade Center case, the CIA killings and to a very considerable extent, in the Africa embassy bombings—which triggered a worldwide manhunt for bin Laden and his associates in murder. I cannot leave the subject of bringing terrorists to justice without highlighting the tragic case of justice delayed with respect to the bombing more than a decade ago of Pan Am flight 103. As Senators know, we have challenged the Government of Libya to meet its pledge to deliver the two suspects in that case for trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law. This approach has been approved by the Security Council and is supported by Arab and African regional organizations. It is an approach that is reasonable and fair and that has been on the table now for more than six months. I would like to take this opportunity once again to urge Libya to deliver the suspects for trial and thereby gain suspension of the UN sanctions. If this does not occur by the time those sanctions come up for Security Council review later this month, we will seek additional measures against the Qaddafi regime. Our effort to strengthen the rule of law against terrorism is global. At its heart is the message that every nation has a responsibility to arrest or expel terrorists, shut down their finances and deny them safe haven. As we stressed in the aftermath of the murders in Kenya and Tanzania, terror is not a legitimate form of political expression and it is certainly not a manifestation of religious faith. It is homicide, plain and simple. It is right for nations to bring terrorists to justice and those who do so should be recognized and rewarded appropriately. It is wrong to finance terrorist groups, whether or not specific contributions are for terrorist purposes. It is cowardly to give terrorist groups money in return for not being targeted. It is irresponsible simply to look the other way when terrorists come within one’s jurisdiction. And it fools no one to pretend that terrorist groups are something they are not. Consider the words of Hezbollah’s Sheik Hassan Nasrallah shortly after the Wye accords were signed: ‘‘I call on any Palestinian who has a knife, a hand grenade, a gun, a machine gun or a small bomb to go out during these few
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weeks and kill the Israelis and the Accord.’’ He also called for the assassination of Chairman Arafat. Some say Hezbollah is not terrorist, because it has a political agenda. But that is sophistry. As long as it advocates indiscriminate violence and assassination, it is terrorist. The same is true of other groups, such as Hamas, the PKK, and Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers. For each, the decision to use terror was a choice it did not have to make. Law-abiding nations must unite in helping them realize that the choice they have made is wrong. In this connection, I was very disappointed that Germany failed to make good on the recent opportunity to prosecute Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the terrorist PKK; and that Italy and Turkey were unable to find an alternative way to ensure he was brought to justice. Instead of determination, this opportunity was greeted with hand wringing and vacillation. Ocalan has left Italy and his current whereabouts are unknown. We call upon any nation into whose jurisdiction Ocalan comes to cooperate in ensuring that he stands trial for his alleged crimes. Diplomatic Force Protection The measures we take to provide physical protection for our diplomatic personnel overseas play a major role in our strategy for countering terror. In the aftermath of the embassy bombings last August, I established Accountability Review Boards, chaired by Admiral William Crowe, to investigate and recommend improved security systems and procedures. I received their report last month and will be submitting a formal response this spring. As you probably know, Mr. Chairman, the Boards found that the security systems and procedures followed by the two embassies involved were in accord with State Department policy. In both cases, the terrorists were prevented from penetrating the perimeter of the post. In neither case, did U.S. employees or members of the military breach their duty. The Boards did, however, identify what they termed ‘‘a collective failure’’ by the Executive and Legislative branches of our government over the past decade ‘‘to provide adequate resources to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. diplomatic missions.’’ According to the report, ‘‘We must undertake a comprehensive and longterm strategy … including sustained funding for enhanced security measures, for long-term costs for increased security personnel and for a capital building program based on an assessment of requirements to meet the new range of global terrorist threats.’’ I feel strongly that in order to have a viable security construction program, we need a long-term commitment of resources. The President’s request proposes that this be done by advanced appropriations. We have been able to work together on such arrangements in the past and I hope very much that we will able to do so in this case. Conclusion Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me say a word about coordination. This Subcommittee has stressed the need for U.S. agencies to work together in
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responding to the terrorist threat, and you are absolutely right. The Five-Year Plan will help. So has the President’s designation of a National Coordinator for Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism. And I have the highest confidence in the State Department’s own new coordinator for counterterrorism, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Mike Sheehan. Personally, I am in frequent contact with my colleagues here at the table, Attorney General Reno and FBI Director Freeh, and with the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence and other key officials regarding the full range of anti-terrorism issues. I think we work together well and are getting better at it every day. One reason is that the President has made it clear through both his policies and statements that this issue is the Administration’s highest priority—internationally and domestically. That is true for a host of compelling substantive reasons. But I suspect it is true for another reason as well. Over the past six years, on too many occasions, the President has had the job of comforting the loved ones of those murdered and maimed by terrorists. I know from my own experience—it is an impossible task. After the last hand has been held, and the last words of condolence offered, all you can really do is vow that everything within your power will be done to prevent similar tragedies. That is the vow of this Administration this morning. And I suspect it is fully embraced by the members of this Subcommittee and by the American people. SOURCE: http://secretary.state.gov/www/statements/1999/990204b.html
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Written Statement Submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs, Fiscal Year 2001 Budget Request for Foreign Operations, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2000 EXCERPTED My message is straightforward. I ask you to fully fund the foreign operations portion of the President’s national security budget request … events overseas have an impact on our citizens here at home, on our security, our jobs, our environment, even the safety of our streets and schools. The President’s Fiscal Year 2001 request for Foreign Operations is $15.09 billion, as part of a total international affairs budget of roughly $22.75 billion. This includes a broad array of programs and initiatives administered by four cabinet departments and more than a dozen agencies. It covers everything from supporting peace in the Middle East to interdicting drugs; from curbing the spread of nuclear weapons to the Peace Corps; and from promoting U.S. exports to responding to humanitarian disasters.… Our International Programs Help Make Americans More Secure The Cold War is over and our nation is strong, but our citizens continue to face grave dangers. These include terrorists who target Americans, possible
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conflicts in key regions, drug traffickers, and the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles that can deliver them. … The military deterrent provided by our armed forces and the technological edge they enjoy are indispensable. But we will sleep better and be safer if our deterrent never has to be used. The job for our diplomats, then, is to create a political environment in which serious military threats to our country are less likely to arise. Another area where resources are required to protect our interests is in responding to the threat posed by international terror. Because of our military strength, potential enemies may try to attack us by unconventional means, including terrorist strikes and the possible use of chemical or biological weapons. Although the number of terrorist strikes has declined in recent years, the severity of such strikes has increased. In countering these threats, we must be prepared at home and overseas. That is why we are taking strong security measures and—at President Clinton’s direction—improving our planning for emergency response. Through our diplomacy and training programs, we help friendly governments to improve border security and share information about those suspected of being affiliated with terrorist networks. We gather information to advise and warn Americans. We strive to forge international agreements and cooperation that will leave terrorists with no place to run, hide, operate or stash their assets. We do all we can to bring suspects before the bar of justice, as we have in several major cases, including the sabotage of Pan Am 103, and the tragic 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa. This year, we are proposing in the President’s budget the creation of a dedicated Center for Antiterrorism and Security Training. This Center will help us to improve the skills of foreign security personnel who are on the front line of defense at airports, diplomatic missions and other facilities frequented by Americans overseas. We believe this Center should be located in the Washington, D.C. area, in order to foster interaction between the foreign security officials we train and our own security and law enforcement personnel. This will also enable us to consolidate our training programs, thereby streamlining management and improving the environment for training. SOURCE: http://secretary.state.gov/www/statements/2000/000413-wr.html
UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE TIMOTHY E. WIRTH Undersecretary of State Timothy E. Wirth, Counselor of the Department of State, Testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations, and Human Rights, March 1, 1994 Thank you for the opportunity to testify today as part of your review of the terrorism situation a year after the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. That attack, Mr. Chairman, brought home the threat that international terrorism poses to American citizens and interests. It also reminds us that
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terrorism insidiously undermines America’s goals for the expansion of democracy, free and open trade and sustainable development throughout the world. These are vital interests in a world relieved of the twin burdens of totalitarianism and state-run economies. Unhappily, even positive change can brings devastating dislocations. They, in turn, can bring frustration and resentment. Civil and ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia are dramatic examples. Our goal, and that of our friends and allies, is to shorten this period of turmoil. For terrorists, however, these dislocations are a godsend: poor and frustrated people are more easily seduced by radical ideologies; fledgling democracies are more vulnerable to manipulation. These dislocations give terrorists opportunities to achieve their goals: to overthrow governments, both democratic and otherwise, and to destabilize economies. In Egypt, tourism is a profitable target; terrorist attacks magnified by instant international media coverage are undermining a major source of Egypt’s foreign exchange. The PKK has now expanded its target list in Turkey to tourist facilities. The Provisional IRA regularly sets off bombs that bring the city of London to a standstill. In Algeria, terrorists have added a gruesome new dimension—slitting the throats of innocent foreigners in order to drive away foreign investment. The World Trade Center attack brought these tactics to our shores. The threat to Americans’ freedom to travel or to work abroad is even greater. It is a threat to our economy as well as to the security of our citizens. In short, terrorism remains a threat and, in some areas, poses a brand new threat to the United States and the world community. Congress should know that the Clinton administration will fight terrorism on every front, both at home and abroad. During the past year, as in the past two decades, we have focused our efforts on the role of state sponsorship of terrorism. Perhaps the most encouraging consequence of the iron curtain’s collapse has been the loss of assistance to terrorist organizations from countries of the former Warsaw Pact. International terrorism would not have flourished as it did during the past 20 years if it had not been for the funding, training, safehaven, and logistical support provided to terrorists by sovereign states. For this reason, working closely with our allies, we seek to increase the pressure on states which continue to support or sponsor terrorism and to make them pay the cost if they persist. Our principal tool for doing so remains the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. We recently completed a review of that list and decided to maintain it as revised when we added Sudan last August. State Sponsors Briefly, Iran remains the most dangerous sponsor and the greatest source of concern. A number of murders in Germany, Turkey, Switzerland and Italy can be laid at its door. Iran’s surrogate, Hizballah, was responsible for the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in early 1992. Iran opposes the Middle East peace process and it arms and funds rejectionist groups who espouse violence.…
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We conduct an active dialogue with our principal allies seeking to raise the cost to Tehran of its support for terrorism and to ensure that Iran hears the same message from all of us. A long-term objective is to harmonize export policies to Iran. A great deal more work needs to be done. We are concerned at Germany’s invitation to Iran’s Minister of Intelligence for bilateral talks and over France’s release of two Iranians sought for murder in Switzerland. Last year, we added Sudan to the terrorism list because it knowingly gives safe haven to a number of international terrorist groups, including the notorious Abu Nidal organization. Although we have no conclusive evidence that Sudan has itself participated in or sponsored terrorist actions, we believe that Sudan-based organizations have perpetrated acts of terrorism in Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. International sanctions have hampered—but have not eliminated—Iraq’s ability to conduct international terrorism. An Iraqi scientist was murdered in Amman and Iraqi agents have sabotaged trucks carrying relief supplies to the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, killing innocent aid workers. Despite new international sanctions, Libya has not complied with UN security council demands that it surrender the suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and cooperate with the French in investigating the bombing of UTA Flight 772. The past year has seen continued maneuvering by Libya to avoid compliance but our message is constant; there is no compromise on the issue of justice.… Syria continues to support groups which carry out terrorist attacks against its neighbors, Israel and Turkey. President Clinton raised the subject of terrorism with President Assad at their January meeting in Geneva. We will continue to press Damascus for satisfaction on this issue. Cuba and North Korea have not been tied directly to acts of international terrorism for some time. In Cuba’s case, that appears to be more a factor of its disastrous economic situation and loss of soviet support. Nevertheless, Castro has never disavowed his ideological defense of terrorism as a legitimate political tool. Although our current bilateral problems with North Korea are dominated by its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, Pyongyang has demonstrated both a capability and willingness to engage in large scale terrorism whenever it chooses. Future Trends The World Trade Center bombing highlighted a new development that can complicate the fight against terrorism. The attack, in which six Americans died and more than one thousand were wounded, was carried out by a small group of individuals with limited technical skills and without apparent connections to a foreign state or organized terrorist group. Another recent development is the appearance of Afghan mujahedin fighting in a number of unrelated conflicts. The mujahedin are a potential body of recruits for groups advocating a violent, radical, agenda. We continue to monitor closely any terrorist spill-over from the wars in Bosnia or the former Soviet Union as well as the ongoing terror in Northern Ireland and South Africa. I would like to highlight the point that we do not, I repeat, do not regard resurgent Islam as the next ‘‘ism’’ confronting the west or world peace. The
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administration believes that such thinking is dangerously wrong and rejects the drawing of lines of confrontation between the West and the Islamic world. Our concern is with the religious extremists who resort to violence no differently than the secular terrorists of the last two decades. The horrible attack in Hebron on February 25 underscores the danger from religious extremists. As Secretary Christopher said Friday, we condemn in the strongest terms this abhorrent act of terrorism. The parties to the peace process must not permit this violent act—or the violent response to it—to deter them from the path of peace. Just as Friday’s massacre in a Hebron mosque was aimed at the peace process, the recent church bombing in Lebanon seems clearly aimed at Lebanon’s reconciliation process. The extremists have a common purpose—to promote division, strife and war. They must not and will not be allowed to succeed. U.S. Policy Mr. Chairman, we believe the basic U.S. policy of no concessions, pressure on state sponsors and application of the rule of law is a sound one. In regard to the last point, I want to emphasize that regardless of the political claims of terrorists, their actions are in violation of domestic and international law and should be treated as criminal by the world community. Last July we demonstrated the validity of this concept. The hijacker of an EgyptAir flight to Malta, an attack which caused the death of 60 people including an American woman, now faces trial here in Washington. Muhammad Ali Rezaq was released from a Maltese prison before completing his jail term. We tracked him through Africa and, in a textbook model of interagency and intergovernmental cooperation, secured his rendition to U.S. authorities. International cooperation has been excellent in vigorous enforcement of the new UN Security Council sanctions on Libya, achieved in concert with France and the UK. But, we will not rest until the actual perpetrators are turned over for trial in the U.S. or Scotland. The families and friends of those who died in this heinous attack deserve no less. UN Security Council Resolution 883 broke important new ground by freezing selected Libyan assets and banning the sale of many categories of oil industry equipment. However, if Libya continues to defy the United Nations, we will seek new sanctions. Looking to the future, we seek new mechanisms to cooperate on terrorism with the European Union and its law-enforcement arm, Europol. As the Europeans develop their own information sharing capabilities, we will participate in the exchange of information on terrorism, as well as organized crime and drug trafficking. We will cooperate in monitoring and preventing fund raising efforts for terrorists, money laundering schemes, and the expansion of front companies. This complements the existing intensive program of bilateral exchanges on the terrorist threat with the major European nations. Unilateral U.S. Steps While international cooperation is essential, the U.S. government also takes unilateral steps to combat terrorism and protect its citizens. We have worked with other federal agencies on a fully coordinated presidential decision directive outlining the national program for combating terrorism. This PDD will
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build on ten years’ experience in fighting terrorism. All agencies have agreed on this PDD. We hope it will go to the president for final approval shortly. We will continue to seek congressional support for important programs such as anti-terrorism assistance training and counterterrorism research and development. I believe that the anti-terrorism training offered to our friends who face a terrorist threat abroad has made a significant contribution to the decline in the lethality and number of terrorist incidents world-wide. Training provided by the ATA program has revolutionized airport security arrangements. The quality of our training program is well recognized and in high demand worldwide. We are asking for $15.2 million for the ATA program in FY 1995. I urge your support for this program, which has trained literally thousands of civilian police forces in almost a hundred countries, many of whom also protect Americans abroad. I also believe that the Department’s Terrorism Information Rewards Program, which can pay a reward of up to $2 million for information that helps in the fight against terrorism, has prevented terrorist attacks and has thus saved lives.… In addition, the State Department manages a national counterterrorism research and development program which is jointly funded by the Departments of State and Defense. Three million dollars is earmarked for international projects involving NATO and major non-NATO allies. Research funded through this program identified a chemical agent to help detect plastic explosives. This led, in turn, to Senate ratification in November of the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection. This Convention requires manufacturing nations to include in their plastic explosives a chemical agent that helps the detection of the plastic explosives by machines or trained dogs.
SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony at the Budget Hearing Before the Senate Budget Committee, 2002 International Affairs Budget, Washington, D.C., March 14, 2001 EXCERPTED I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before you to present the President’s submission for 2002 for the International Affairs budget. In January, at my confirmation hearing, I told the Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that President Bush would be a leader who faithfully represents to the world the ideas of freedom and justice and open markets. The President has many ways he can do this, many different methods with which he can show the world the values of America, and the prosperity and peace those values can generate. For example, the President meets with other heads of state here in Washington and he travels to summit meetings in the course of the year, and as you know, he has a Secretary of State who travels for him as well. I returned
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two weeks ago from visits to Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the West Bank and Brussels, all in one four-day period of time. Such trips by the Secretary of State, such actions by the President, show our engagement in the world. But the most important method by which the President shows America to the world, the most important method by far, is through the thousands of people who labor away at such representation every day of the week, in almost every country in the world. I am, of course, speaking of our frontline troops in the State Department, as well as those here in America who support them. I’m talking about the Foreign Service Officers, the Civil Service employees and the Foreign Service Nationals who make up the Department of State. Theirs is the daily grind of foreign policy, punctuated by the thrill and excitement of diplomatic success, ranging from the minor to the sublime, from the courteous handling of a visa application to the inking of a treaty curtailing nuclear weapons. Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee, I want to say to you that there are no finer people chipping away at tyranny, loosening the bonds of poverty, pushing the cause of peace and freedom, on the US Government payroll. We should be very proud of what those fellow Americans of ours are doing for the cause of freedom. And in my few weeks in the Department, both during the transition period and now as Secretary of State, it has become something of a mystery to me, a mystery that we’re going to clear up, as to how they have been able to do such a good job with such scarce resources over the years. As you noted, Mr. Chairman, it really is less than one percent of the overall budget. If you would ask the average group of Americans, they would think that what we spend on foreign affairs, international affairs and for the State Department is 10, 15 percent. But it isn’t. It’s only one percent. And I submit to you and to the Members of this committee that we get a pretty good return on that investment, but it is an investment that should grow if we want to see peace and freedom and wealth creation throughout the world grow in this 21st century. My hope is that in this first year of the Bush Administration the Congress will work with us to continue the progress that we have seen in the last year on improving the resource situation of the State Department. We have so much more to do. And in the budget that I am presenting to you this morning on behalf of President Bush, I think I can demonstrate that we are making improvements that are needed, improvements that will benefit the American people and will benefit the cause of peace and freedom throughout the world. The increases that we are showing in this budget—and what I would like to do, Mr. Chairman, is just touch on some of these major increases and then let you see the full text for the record, and you can examine it at your leisure. But in the interest of time, let me just touch on the highlights. With respect to the foreign operations of the Department, you’ll see a major increase for international narcotics and law enforcement, one of the great problems of our time. And of the $948 million total in this account, $217 million go for the base programs, 162 of that for global counternarcotics programs, and 55 million for transnational anti-crime efforts, including trafficking, $731 million for the Andean regional initiative.
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You recall that we had Plan Colombia. That is now being expanded into an Andean regional initiative, so we take into account some of the spillover that could occur from Plan Colombia, and to show that we are investing in all the countries of the Andean region so that the spillover doesn’t move the drug growing, the coca growing, from one nation to another nation. We have to make sure we have a regional approach, and this investment will do that. Secondly, military assistance to provide defense articles and training for Israel or the Europe Partnership for Peace countries, which allow these nations that used to be behind the Iron Curtain to become more integrated with Western ideas and Western thought. There is $1.3 billion in our overall blueprint with respect to enhanced security of our embassies, of our facilities, perimeter security, to make sure that the wonderful men and women we send overseas to work have assurance that the facilities that we are placing them in to work are secure. And not just the embassy itself, but other facilities within the capital of the country that we’re in, and also a special effort to make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect families as well. Overseas infrastructure increases are also within this increase for the Commerce-State-Justice appropriation. I think you will get a remarkable return on your investment. I think we are in a new age where the Department of State performs a responsibility for national security that is equal to that of the Defense Department—different in many ways, but the cutting edge of our national security activities really is represented by what our men and women of the Department of State do around the world, and we should be proud of how well they do it. SOURCE: https://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/1247.htm
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony on Counterterrorism Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., May 8, 2001 AS DELIVERED Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a very great pleasure to be here, and I thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning. And, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman—all—and the most distinguished panel you have put together, Senator Gregg, and I do appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Chairman, members of the group, the committee, I am pleased to testify before you on the subject of terrorism and I applaud this initiative to continue the dialogue on how America can improve its response to terrorism. At the Department of State, we welcome your interest and your past work in this area, including creating the concept of the Administration’s Five-YearPlan—an action to which we have contributed. Let me begin my testimony by talking about the United States’ response to international terrorism and the State Department’s role as lead federal agency in this effort. Our embassies, run by our ambassadors who are the President’s personal representatives, constitute our first line of defense against terrorism. They
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provide a critical early warning system alerting us to threats against our interests. Moreover, our diplomats deliver a consistent message on terrorism to foreign governments, reinforce that message with practical support to the willing, and we mobilize the international community to isolate, through political and economic pressure, those who support or use terrorism. In international fora, as well as in our bilateral relations, we work to create an environment intolerant of terrorism, and to isolate those who threaten us, our friends, our allies, and who terrorize innocent people and threaten innocent people everywhere in the world. The State Department also serves as the focal point for informing American citizens abroad about potential dangers and threats, and warning them when appropriate. We are constantly watching the trends and watching the intelligence to judge when such public announcements and travel warnings are necessary. In addition to these efforts, the Department is a leading member of the Counterterrorism Security Group, which regularly tracks threats and develops coordinated tactics to combat international terrorism. This interagency body serves as an excellent means of keeping open the lines of interagency communication. Members and their staffs meet often, train together, exchange information, and work together to ensure that their various responsibilities and programs are closely coordinated and act as force multipliers. We work closely with other agencies on a number of other programs that are important to our counterterrorism efforts: First, the Terrorist Interdiction Program, led by the State Department, is an important interagency effort to increase host nation capacity to prohibit terrorists from traveling through those host countries. The Department’s Anti-terrorism Assistance program draws on the expertise of many agencies in training foreign nations in better anti-terrorism techniques. The Technical Support Working Group, chaired by State, is an outstanding example of interagency coordination. This group’s goal is to improve the technical capabilities available to combat terrorism. We share the results of the group’s research with domestic first responders. For example, the explosive disrupter developed within this program is now a standard part of the equipment package of many American police bomb squads. In going after terrorist fund raising, we work closely with the intelligence community and the Justice and Treasury Departments to identify and designate foreign terrorist organizations and to take measures to discourage contributions to illicit charities and front companies. Our Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism now includes officers detailed from the FBI and the CIA to ensure better interagency coordination—both day-to-day, as well as in an emergency situation. In addition to our prevention efforts, we must also enhance our actual defenses against terrorism as well as our response capabilities. To protect our installations overseas, our first line of effort is again our ambassadors and their country teams. As we have seen in Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Sanaa, Quito, and Manila—to name only a few posts—our Chiefs of Mission, our Ambassadors, are responsible
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for coordinating the actions of the agencies that work within our embassies to defend against and, when defense fails, to respond to terrorist acts. With the exception of those people directly under the authority of a regional military CINC, Commander in Chief, our Chiefs of Mission are responsible for all official Americans working on behalf of the American people, whether they are Legal or Defense Attach´es, Intelligence Officers, or Foreign Service Officers or Civil Service Officers. The State Department also leads the Foreign Emergency Support Team, FEST team, which is deployed to serve as an ambassador’s consultative and support unit in response to a terrorist attack or sometimes in anticipation of a potential threat. In the past year, this team has been deployed to such far reaches as Manila, Aden, and Quito. With respect to an actual terrorist incident, this interagency team, led by experienced State Department professionals, plays a crucial role in our response. It helps us ensure that those first days, weeks, and often months after the incident are focused on accomplishing the daunting tasks of securing American lives and assets, taking good care of the people involved, working intimately with the host government to ensure that justice is served, and keeping Washington informed on critical developments. The State Department also provides excellent physical security for our missions around the world, and we are trying to do an even better job, as I have testified before this committee previously. Our Diplomatic Security corps is watching threats around the clock to ensure that American officials based or traveling abroad are secure. And as you may recall from my budget testimony, we are going to hire more of these professionals with the money that is now in the President’s budget request for 2002. Also from my budget testimony, you know the pace at which we are approaching embassy construction and refurbishment and that this is an additional element of our defense against terrorism. So America’s international defense and response capabilities are clearly defined, coordinated, and functioning well. We are working closely with our government interagency partners here and abroad. We are constantly reviewing and exercising our response capabilities to ensure they continue to address changing needs. We have already taken steps to strengthen coordination with domestic efforts. Most recently we did this by participating in TOPOFF, an exercise in which senior government officials trained to respond to a weapons of mass destruction terrorist event. Although the international response was a limited portion of this domestically-focused scenario, we were ready to respond and gear up the State Department activities in such a case. TOPOFF participation also helped us to identify the international issues associated with a domestic terrorist weapon of mass destruction incident. We are continuing to work with the Department of Justice on future exercises. We also serve on Joint Terrorism Task Forces in several domestic locations, such as Los Angeles and New York. This effort, strongly supported by the Congress—and I thank the Congress for that support—strives to maximize communication among enforcement and intelligence agencies.
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And I know that this larger matter of interagency coordination is of particular interest to you, Mr. Chairman, and to other members of this committee; so let me take a moment and highlight some other additional efforts that we are taking to improve cooperation and effectiveness: The leaders of our Foreign Emergency Support Teams head interagency exercises at least twice a year to ensure that our teams are ready for different and changing types of emergency response needs, ranging from airplane hijackings to nuclear blackmail. The composition of the team depends on the incident and includes specialists such as FBI hostage negotiators and forensic experts, or WMD consequence management planners. State Department officials, both in Washington and abroad, regularly train for emergency response in an interagency environment. We strive to maintain a high level of readiness in our Washington-based taskforces and international emergency action response capabilities. Our Diplomatic Security people constantly review their extensive programs with other law enforcement agencies and activities to ensure that they develop and maintain the best possible capability to protect our official people and facilities overseas and to ensure that we are adequately protecting Americans abroad. Before I wrap up and take your questions, let me touch briefly on two other important aspects of our counterterrorist efforts. First, at the State Department we believe that affording the best possible protection to American citizens is our duty, wherever those citizens may work or travel overseas. But we cannot succeed in this effort without the support and cooperation of foreign governments. These governments bear the primary responsibility within their borders for preventing terrorism, protecting our citizens, responding to terrorist attacks, and investigating attacks against Americans. It is also through the cooperation of foreign governments that we have extradited and rendered to American justice thirteen wanted terrorists since 1993. This is another compelling element of proof of why our diplomatic corps is so crucial to the fight against terrorism. And secondly, the State Department needs resources to continue its leadership role overseas and to provide for the safety of American citizens and assets abroad. Whether we are training foreign officials who will serve as protection around our embassies, or training ourselves to respond to, say, a biological attack, or getting our message out through active public diplomacy, it takes money. We need the dollars to do so effectively. We remain the front line of prevention, defense, and response, but cannot perform effectively if we do not have adequate financial support. Since I have already given you my budget testimony, I will leave it at that. Mr. Chairman, America’s international counterterrorism capability is strong. At all levels of government, we meet regularly, train together, share information, and use our resources as force multipliers. At the same time, we are working to build a stronger bridge between our international and domestic counterterrorism efforts. As the lead federal agency in dealing with terrorism overseas, the State Department stands ready to accomplish the mission. Does that mean we are
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going to thwart or successfully defend against every terrorist act? Of course not. That is not possible. But it does mean that we are doing all that is humanly possible to prevent and defend against terrorist acts directed at our citizens, workers, and facilities and, those efforts failing, to pursue the terrorists until they appear in court to answer for their criminal acts. And there is another important point to make here, Mr. Chairman. Americans do not want to hunker down in their embassies and their consulates and await the next attack, as inevitable as that next attack may in fact be. That outlook is against all that we stand for. It is against the very spirit of our people. Terrorism is a part of the dark side of globalization. However sadly, it is a part of doing business in the world—business we as Americans are not going to stop doing. Indeed, if we adopted a hunkered down attitude, behind our concrete and our barbed wire, the terrorists would have achieved a kind of victory. We don’t want to avoid controversial causes, nor shrink from our fullest responsibilities overseas, nor slow or cut back on our overseas travel or the flow of our citizens throughout the wider world. After all, our citizens are our best ambassadors. At the end of the day, what America is to the world is not only what we say or do, it is who we are. And we are not helmeted giants huddling in our bunkers awaiting the enemy. We are entrepreneurs, artists, businesspeople, and diplomats, as outgoing, as extroverted a people as any the world has ever seen. And we must remember that in combating terrorists we are dealing with criminals. But that does not mean—it does not mean—that we let them have their way. We need to keep these things in mind as we craft our counterterrorism efforts and the public diplomacy associated with them. We will continue to strengthen our cooperation with those fighting terrorism domestically. We know also that we can improve further our interagency integration and cooperation so that we have the most effective government team possible, whether operating in a preventive or defensive mode or responding to another terrorist act. And we are working diligently, Mr. Chairman, to improve that interagency integration and cooperation. This program has the President’s highest priority and it has my highest priority and my personal support. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/2780.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony at the Budget Hearing Before the Senate Budget Committee, 2002 International Affairs Budget, Washington, D.C., March 14, 2001 (https://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/ 2001/1247.htm).
4 Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism AMBASSADOR ROBERT B. OAKLEY Ambassador Robert B. Oakley, Director, Office for Counterterrorism and Emergency Planning, ‘‘International Terrorism: Current Trends and the U.S. Response,’’ Before the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and on the Judiciary, May 15, 1985 … In order to be responsive to all the concerns raised in your letter of invitation and provide as complete a picture as possible, this presentation is divided into four general topics, stated as the following questions. ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
What are the current trends in terrorism? How is the U.S. Government organized to deal with the threat? What unilateral actions can we realistically consider? What have we been doing to increase international cooperation in this fight?
Current Trends Rather than recite statistics in great detail, I believe it would be more useful to review the trends as we see them developing over the next few years. First, terrorism is likely to be a prominent factor on the international political landscape for the rest of this century. Despite the intensified efforts we and other governments are undertaking, I believe that terrorism will not easily disappear. It will increasingly be a part of our daily lives for many reasons. ¥ A worldwide system of competitive arms sales makes weapons available more easily to terrorist groups. ¥ Mass communications assure instantaneous publicity for terrorist acts. ¥ Travel is becoming increasingly easier between different countries. ¥ Border controls are diminishing, particularly in Europe.
In addition, we should recognize that weapons of mass destruction as well as increasingly lethal conventional armaments have made regular warfare
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potentially too costly, and terrorism is, therefore, viewed by several countries as a cheap way to strike a blow at their enemies. Second, the problem for the United States is likely to continue to be external to the United States, not internal; and the threat against U.S. interests abroad is likely to increase proportionately to the increase of total incidents. Incidents within the United States, especially externally inspired terrorism, have been decreasing—together representing less than 1% of the world total— because of the effective work of the FBI, generally tighter control at U.S. points of entry, and aversion by the American people to foreign-inspired violence. The potential threat inside the United States is real, but our current efforts appear likely to keep it to a minimum. At the same time, U.S. citizens and U.S. interests have been consistently the target of 30%–35% of worldwide terrorist attacks, although the percentage appears to have dropped in 1984, when there was a record number of incidents. Most other countries with a terrorist problem must deal largely with an internal threat—the PIRA [Provisional Irish Republican Army] in the United Kingdom, M-19 in Columbia, or the Red Army Faction in the Federal Republic of Germany. Only a limited number of other countries—France, Turkey, Israel, and Jordan—must consider serious internal and external threats. Third, terrorist attacks are likely to be increasingly violent. The number of casualties and fatalities has generally grown with the number of incidents. During both 1983 and 1984, approximately one-third of the number of casualties were fatalities. If one looks over the tactical trends over the past ten years—seizing of Embassies and suicidal car bombs, actions which were previously unknown—we must recognize that there are likely to be further grotesque developments in the future. Fourth, a broader spectrum of citizens will be the victims of terrorist attacks. Prominent public figures will remain the focus, but there are more victims from nonofficial circles. Comparing the victims of terrorist attacks in 1984 with those in 1983, one can see that diplomats and military personnel are a declining share of the total, while businessmen, journalists, and even clergymen are increasingly the targets of attacks. Fifth, there is a wide range of groups with separate interests involved in terrorist activities. Today, we are dealing with groups such as the Red Army Faction in Germany, the radical Shiites in the Middle East, Shining Path in Peru, and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA). Some groups such as the Shia have arrived on the scene recently, while others—such as the Palestinians, ASALA, and some of the leftists, separatists, and anarchists in Europe—have been around for a considerable period of time. Looking back to the scene in the United States 15 years ago, we talked about violence by the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, and the Symbionese Liberation Army. Just as these groups have disappeared from the terrorist scene, and, in fact, the nature of the threat in the United States has changed, we must recognize that the groups and nations involved today in international terrorism could change in the coming years as a result of effective actions against them, new social conditions, and changes in leadership. We must remain vigilant and take strong steps but must also be careful to
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avoid overacting and creating new generations of terrorists in response to perceptions of our actions. Sixth, open societies will remain the principal targets of terrorists, but no societies are immune. Open, and particularly democratic societies, are vulnerable to terrorism, on the one hand, because the terrorists might succeed more easily in bringing the democratic state to its knees, on the other, because overreactions by the democratic state to the threat could destroy the open nature of the society. We should recognize, however, that the means which are increasingly available to the opponents of democratic states are also available to the opponents of dictatorships. An example of this threat has emerged recently in Bulgaria, where there were several attacks during recent months, probably committed by the minority Turkish population. During 1984, the Soviet Union ranked seventh on the terrorist victim list. We must work to ensure that all states, regardless of their political systems, are aware that terrorism is a threat to all forms of organized society. Seventh, responses from governments to terrorist attacks will tend to ebb and flow with events. Shortly after the Beirut bombing of our Embassy, there was a great outcry for action in the United States which fostered the passage of the 1984 Act to Combat International Terrorism and other important provisions aimed at combating terrorism. In London, following the shooting of the British policewoman from the window of the Libyan Embassy, there was a cry of outrage against Libyan terrorism. Similarly, in Europe, after the discovery of collaboration among leftist terrorist groups and assassinations of prominent figures in France and Germany, there was a rash of cooperative measures among the European states. A few months later, when we have tried to talk with the British about stronger joint actions against the Libyans or with the Europeans about strengthening cooperation, the normal bureaucratic reasons for inaction have again dominated the dialogues. The Current International Terrorist Scene. Let’s look in more detail at the international terrorist scene. The Middle East has become the primary source of international terrorism, accounting for about 35% of all incidents. But international travel has permitted the export of Middle Eastern terrorism elsewhere. There are two main categories of Middle Eastern terrorists: First, fanatical Palestinians who have split off from the mainline PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] led by Arafat and often have direct support of Libya and Syria; and Second, Shia zealots residing in many Arab countries, especially Lebanon, who are inspired, trained and often armed, financed, and, to varying degrees, guided by Iran. The targets of Middle East terrorism fall principally into four groups: ¥ Israel; ¥ Western governments and citizens, particularly France and the United States ¥ Moderate Arab governments and officials, including the mainline PLO as well as Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia; and ¥ Critics of radical regimes, particularly Libyans, who are targeted by their own governments.
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While the Middle East might be the source of most terrorism, Europe is the location of the largest number of incidents, ranging from 36% to 53% of the total during each of the past 5 years. Nearly 25% of these incidents, however, are of Middle Eastern origin. Indigenous European terrorists consist of: ¥ Elements of ethnic groups, such as Corsicans, Basques, Croatians, and Armenians, which have been fighting for autonomy or to redress reputed grievances; in particular, the Armenian groups which have waged a deadly and relentless campaign both here in the United States and in Europe against Turkish interests in an effort to establish an Armenian state. ¥ Leftist groups such as the Red Brigades in Italy, Direct Action in France, Red Army Faction in Germany, the CCC [French acronym for the Fighting Communist Cells] in Belgium, Grapo in Spain, and November 17 in Greece; and ¥ Of special note, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the PIRA, which is both ethnic and leftist. It is the most deadly of all European groups, having killed some 50 people in 1984. This group should be distinguished from the IRA [Irish Republican Army] of earlier days.
For many years, these groups pursued their separate targets independent of each other, but a new phenomenon developed during late 1984 among some of the European leftist groups. Aside from an apparent increase in mutual logistical and propaganda support, groups in Germany Belgium and France all attacked NATO-related targets over a period of several months. This resurgence accounted for most of the increase in the total number of incidents in Europe during the past year. There was a lull at the end of the hunger strike by jailed terrorist in Germany, followed by a rash of incidents preceding the annual summit meeting in Bonn. Experts expect that we will see similar outbreaks in future months. Latin America is the third great center of terrorist incidents, accounting for approximately 20% of the events worldwide. Social, economic, and political turmoil have served to prolong existing patterns of insurgency which have assumed terrorist dimensions in some countries, particularly Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. While there is little spillover into Latin America from terrorism in the Middle East, and Europe, Cuba and Nicaragua have continued to terrorist activities in other countries with insurgency operations. In addition, Italian and possibly other leftist terrorists have found refuge in Nicaragua. A new threat, narco-terrorism, has grown in Latin America during the past year. It is potentially dangerous because it combines drug criminals with political terrorists and guerrillas. In response to intense U.S. pressure against drug bosses, traffickers have struck against U.S. officials, U.S. businessmen, and cooperating officials of their own countries. This problem has been most serious in Columbia. A separate word should be added about state sponsorship of terrorist activities. Certain countries—most importantly Iran, Syria, Libya, and Cuba—are increasingly important factors in global terrorism. Iran has become the major culprit, aiming to further its goals of establishing fundamentalist Shiite regimes patterned after its own elsewhere in the Muslim world and reducing, at the same time, U.S. influence. In 1983 there were about 50 attacks which could be tied to Iran; in 1984, about 60 attacks. France and the United States
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are the main Iranian targets. Evidence of increasing Iranian terrorism includes active recruiting and training of Muslims from the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Asia and the apprehension of operatives recently in Spain, France and Italy. The Libyans appear to have been involved in about 25 incidents last year, up from the previous years. Most Libyan terrorism is directed at Libyan residents in other countries who are opponents of President Qadhafi. Other incidents include the mining of the Red Sea and plots against President Mubarak of Egypt and the leaders of Jordan, Sudan, and Tunisia. Several terrorist attacks against Jordanian targets in Jordan and Europe during the past year are undoubtedly the responses of the Syrian Government to the diplomatic moves of King Hussein, particularly in relation to the PLO. Damascus seems to use surrogate radical Palestinian groups to carry out these attacks. U.S. Policy This background makes it clear that a tremendous effort is required merely to hold one’s own, much less put an end to international terrorism, and that this effort must be international, not merely by our government. No matter what our commitment and capability may be, we cannot succeed alone when the threat originates abroad and strikes abroad where other governments necessarily have a major responsibility. U.S. policy is direct. We will make no concessions to terrorists. We pay no ransoms, nor do we permit releases of prisoners or agree to other acts which might encourage additional terrorism. We make no changes in U.S. policy because of terrorists’ threats or acts. If U.S. personnel are taken hostage or endangered, we are prepared to consider a broad range of actions appropriate to the threat. We encourage other governments to take similar strong stands against terrorism. Finally, we are determined to act in a strong manner against terrorists without surrendering our basic freedoms or endangering our democratic principles. Organization of the U.S. Government to Counter Terrorism. In our country, the leadership of President Reagan and Secretary of State Shultz and the strong support of Congress are providing both the means and the political will to combat terrorism. This leadership and congressional support need to be continued, with no diminution of will, priority, or resources by either the executive or legislative branches. Even with such a sustained U.S. Government commitment, unless and until other governments are willing and able to make the same commitment, the unfavorable trend experienced last year cannot be reversed. Without this international cooperative effort, the terrorists and those behind them will continue to be successful, which will encourage others to utilize terrorism to achieve their own political and ideological goals. In National Security Decision Directive 30 the President designated the Department of State with the lead interagency role in combating terrorism outside the United States. The Inter-departmental Group on Terrorism (IG/T), chaired by State, provides the forum for the major departments and agencies involved in combating terrorism to meet regularly and share ideas, draw conclusions, and make recommendations on policy and programs. The permanent
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members include the Vice President’s office, the National Security Council (NSC), the Department of Justice (which has interagency responsibility for domestic terrorism), the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Energy, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Other agencies are invited when there is an agenda item of direct interest to them. The IG/T provides a single point where the various departments and agencies can address questions and make proposals. The conclusions and recommendations of the IG/T which cannot be implemented at the level of the IG/T participants are forwarded to the NSC for further action. There are four officially established working groups of the IG/T: Technical Support (and R&D [research and development]), Exercises, Training Assistance, and Public Diplomacy. ¥ The Technical Support Group, co-chaired by the Departments of Defense and Energy and including representatives of all agencies doing R&D work in counterterrorism, provides a forum for the exchange of information and the establishment of priorities through specialized subgroups. ¥ The Exercise Committee focuses on crisis management exercises which involve interagency coordination as well as cooperation with other governments. ¥ The Training Assistance Group has members from the State, DOD, CIA and DEA as appropriate. Its role is to ensure that there is no duplication of effort in the U.S. Government training programs in participating countries. ¥ The Public Diplomacy Group, with representatives from State, United States Information Agency, the FBI, and DOD, is a new effort to coordinate, systematize, and improve on-going efforts by several agencies to increase public understanding of the threat of terrorism and the importance of intense efforts to resist the threat.
We have strong leadership at the State Department in the struggle to oppose terrorism and improve security preparedness abroad. The Secretary of State has this subject very much on his mind and makes clear in his daily meetings on security that it must also be on the minds of everyone else at State. He does the same for our ambassadors and diplomatic personnel abroad. He is leading a government wide effort to promote international awareness and cooperation to address the common threat and convince other governments to work closely with us to counter, deter, and eventually end terrorism. Under Secretary for Management, Ron Spiers oversees and coordinates all this activity for the Secretary of State. Organizationally, the chain of command is clear. Reporting to the Under Secretary are: the Office of Security—which is primarily responsible for the physical security of our people and facilities overseas—and the Office for Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning— which is primarily responsible for designing measures to fight terrorism and promoting cooperation with other countries against terrorism. The Office for Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning, known in the bureaucracy as M/CTP, deals with the problems of international terrorism from two levels: first, in its coordinating role within the Department of State
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and, second, in its similar role as head of the Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism. The M/CTP [rule] as spelled out to the Inman commission [headed by retired Admiral Bobby Inman] in October 1984 include[s] ¥ To develop and recommend policies to deal with terrorism and to represent the Department of State in interdepartmental considerations on this subject; ¥ To conduct liaison with other governments on international terrorism policy; ¥ To receive and review all intelligence materials from the intelligence agencies pertaining to terrorist threats and to take action as appropriate; ¥ To work with the Director of INR [Bureau of Intelligence and Research] to ensure improved collection, coordination of assessments, and full utilization of intelligence community resources; ¥ To ensure that terrorism alerts are provided on a timely basis to overseas posts, to approve all such alerts, and to monitor Embassy responses to such alerts; ¥ To work with the Assistant Secretary for Administration and the Deputy for Security in setting physical security policies and practices relevant to terrorist threats, including coordination with other government agencies; and ¥ To ensure the adequacy of Embassy emergency action plans.
Coordination Within the U.S. Government. The IG/T and its working groups provide a formal framework for coordination within the U.S. Government. There are other actions we have taken recently to augment coordination in other areas. We have promoted closer collaboration between U.S. military and civilian authorities overseas. We have opened channels of communication about threats or incidents between Embassies and military posts overseas and initiated steps to increase coordination of the emergency planning functions between the Embassies and the U.S. military command units with local responsibility. Most importantly, we have also improved intelligence coordination on terrorist subjects. Within the United States, several members of the intelligence community have established 24-hour watches on international terrorism. State’s watch center includes the latest communications equipment for sharing information with the other watch centers. We are computerizing the information on terrorists for easier access. We have created a special caption on State Department telegraphic messages to speed up distribution of all traffic to all interested offices in the U.S. Government. Finally, we have established a coordinate interagency system for the preparation and transmission of threats alerts to posts overseas. A sound structure exists within the State department and through its role as head of the IG/T to ensure effective coordination of our activities to combat terrorism outside the United States. The IG/T offers not only a formal mechanism for coordination through its periodic meetings and the activities of its working groups but also the important informal ties which permit easy communications at the time of a crisis. The IG/T, however, is a policy body, not a structure for crisis management. Each member has separate interests and responsibilities and becomes involved in a crisis depending upon the circumstances.… Generally, for terrorist incidents which occur outside the United States, State, Defense, NSC, and the CIA are the principal participants.
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Operation of Coordinating Mechanisms. Let us examine in more detail what happens when a terrorist incident occurs overseas and how the coordinating mechanisms operate. When a serious incident occurs, such as a bombing, a hijacking, or an armed attack, the 24-hour watch centers of the interested agencies alert the interested offices within their agencies. If the incident occurs at night, the watch would alert the duty officers for these offices, who would make additional alerts within their offices. If the incident seemed sufficiently serious, the heads of separate offices in the State Department, in consultation with each other, might request the establishment of a task force within State’s Operations Center to monitor developments, establish contact with other agencies and posts overseas, and coordinate all State Department actions. Such task forces were set up recently with the September 20 bombing of our Embassy in Beirut, the hijacking of the Kuwait Airline flight to Iran, and the escape of Jeremy Levin from his captors in Lebanon. The position as head of task forces is generally shared by the M/CTP and the responsible bureau in the Department. Such task forces can be set up quickly and be operational as soon as the fist participants show up in the Operations Center. The other agencies might constitute their own working groups, as appropriate, during the early hours of a crisis. The working groups or task forces of the separate agencies continue their internal coordinated watches for the duration of the crisis. The first interagency contact might occur shortly after the incident has broken. It is generally in the form of a phone conversation between members of the IG/T, who would assess the situation and note the actions that their departments are considering. Each department has its separate responsibilities and its separate assets which contingency planners automatically begin considering at the outset of an incident. The Defense Department might look at the U.S. units in the area and our capability for a military response, while the State Department considers host government efforts to deal with the crisis, the threat to Americans in the area, the liaison with families of the victims and the press. For most incidents, coordination can be handled through regular phone conversations between IG/T members from State, Defense, and the other involved agencies. Questions about the deployment of force to resolve a crisis might be discussed informally, at first, among the IG/T members and followed up at meetings organized through the National Security Council, but approval for any action comes from the highest levels of each agency and the White House. U.S. Actions Against Terrorism Any discussion of actions against terrorists brings to mind Secretary Shultz’s statement of October 25, 1984, when he said that ‘‘… our responses should go beyond passive defense to consider means of active prevention, preemption, and retaliation. Our goal must be to prevent and deter future terrorist attacks …’’ We should not look upon these words as a definition of how we might respond to each future terrorist incident but, rather, as opening further the range of actions for consideration in the fight against terrorism. Unlike the FBI in its role as the lead agency for domestic terrorism, we do not have the same jurisdiction to take action overseas. While the use of force
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presents one variation of additional activities, we should recognize that there are other active measures, covert and overt, which should be included as options. The statement serves as a warning to terrorists and their supports that we have the will and ability to act. As in all conflict situations, there are a wide range of actions, short of all-out warfare, which might resolve problems. I would like to turn to an exploration of these possible actions, dividing them into two categories: actions we might take unilaterally and actions we might take along with other countries. Unilateral Actions. There are a number of actions the United States has taken and has been considering on a basis to deal with the international terrorist threat. They range from strictly defensive protective measures to our military capabilities. ¥ First, improving physical security at our Embassies and missions around the world has the highest priority. Using existing resources plus those additional resources plus those made available already, as well as those additional resources being requested by the security supplemental of FY [fiscal year] 1985, the Department has acted to reinforce the buildings, upgrade security equipment, and augment guard forces at the most highly threatened posts around the world. ¥ Second, we are upgrading the emergency planning capabilities at every Embassy. Each post is required to prepare an ‘‘emergency action plan’’ for any threats or emergencies it might face. These plans are updated every two years. Each Embassy has an Emergency Action Committee which is responsible for managing terrorist incidents and coordinating security precautions among separate U.S. Government agencies within the country. Just as the military tests its capacity to respond to a crisis through a series of exercises, we have begun a similar program to test the ability of our Embassies. Using a compressed time series and a program designed for the problems of the post, a visiting team simulates a hijacking, a bombing, or an assault on the Embassy. This program, which began in 1983, will test the capabilities of about two dozen of our Embassies in high-threat areas during 1985. ¥ Third, we are sensitizing employees to the dangers posed by international terrorism. As noted previously, the Secretary had demonstrated a personal interest in changing the mentality of Foreign Service regarding terrorism. This is demonstrated by daily meetings on terrorism and security issues when he is in Washington and his inspection of posts overseas upon arrival in a foreign country. We offer seminars on countering terrorism to all U.S. Government employees going overseas and require all State Department employees to participate in these seminars. ¥ Fourth, we are seeking to increase cooperation with American businesses operating overseas. The Threat Analysis Group of the Office of Security in Washington and the regional security officers at posts overseas encourage contact with the private sector on security issues. The Secretary announced in February the formation of the Overseas Security Advisory Council, where public sector officials will meet to exchange information on security issues and make recommendations for closer operational cooperation. ¥ Fifth, we have promoted legislation within our country, which strengthens our defenses, implements, our international obligations under antiterrorism conventions, and provided stricter punishment for perpetrators of terrorist acts. During the 1984 session, Congress passed the security supplemental, which appropriated additional funds for enhanced security programs, from our exercise program, and for a new program to pay money as rewards for information on terrorists. The
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Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 included provisions against murderfor-hire and other areas, which have assisted in the antiterrorist fight. Other legislation implemented in the Montreal convention against aircraft sabotage and the UN convention against taking hostages. We examined the possibilities for major new legislation initiatives for the 1985 session and concluded that no such initiatives were called for at this time. We recognize the importance of close cooperation with legislative branch and will be looking continuously for new areas for collaboration. Sixth, we are controlling trade with states which are supporters of terrorism. Pursuant to its authority to control the export of defense articles and defense services under Section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department, as matter of policy, does not permit such exports to any of the five countries—Cuba, Libya, Syria, Iran, and South Yemen—designated as states which support terrorism under Section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act. The Export Administration Act aims at restricting the export of goods or technology which would make a significant contribution to the military potential or would enhance the terrorist support capabilities of the designated states. Other trade controls against terrorist states are difficult to establish because exporters would oppose them, viewing the controls as a form of harassment which would cost them sales and encourage countries to turn to other suppliers. Seventh, we seek to exercise controls over the travel to the United States by suspected terrorists and the movement of diplomats from states which support terrorists. We are able to prevent the issuance of a visa or the admittance at the port of US entry of suspected terrorists through the worldwide visa lookout system, which contains an applicant’s name with a special indicator code noting what further action, is necessary. For government employees and certain other categories of citizens from Libya, Iran, and Cuba who seek to enter the United States, a request for an advisory opinion is forwarded to Washington, which results in a complex series of name checks and, eventually, an instruction to the post of inquiry. Time and geographic restrictions on travel within the United States can be written into the visa for officials of such countries who must travel to the United States, for example, for business at the United Nations. Eighth, better intelligence is clearly one of the most important keys to a more effective counter-terrorism strategy. But terrorism poses a special kind of challenge in terms of both collection and analysis. To be useful, it must be acted upon. Thus, there is often a hard choice to make between concealing our sources and taking advantage of our knowledge. We have put more emphasis on collecting intelligence of terrorism by all agencies operating overseas. Good intelligence will give us the advance warning of pending attacks, information about movements of suspected terrorists, and the ability to preempt an attack by such means as obstructing the route of the attackers or moving the target to another location. Ninth, we are prepared to provide supplementary personnel for Embassy staff at the time of an incident. For an ongoing incident, we have the ability to dispatch an additional security officer, intelligence officer, or specialist on the psychology of terrorists or hijackings. We also can dispatch teams composed of intelligence and military experts to the site of an incident to support our Embassy or efforts of a local government to deal with a problem. Tenth, we have the capability to act militarily at the time of a severe crisis when it is determined that important US national interests are at stake. Under Secretary [of Defense for Policy Fred] Ikle has provided some information about our capabilities in this area, but I am sure the committee understands that much of this information is very sensitive.
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These steps represent a wide range of areas for action, which we have taken or are capable of taking. In consideration of the more active options, there is an inherent dilemma for a superpower in responding to terrorist threats and attacks through force. On the one hand, we must be willing to consider the whole range of options and be perceived by terrorists and their supporters as an effective opponent if we are ever to deal successfully with the problem; but, on the other hand, we must weigh carefully the consequences of our actions. Effective action requires good intelligence about the terrorists and where they might be. We must consider the likelihood of success of our action and balance it against the costs of failure, the threat to innocent victims, and the possible public outcry against our actions. We must examine the moral implications of our actions as well as relevant domestic and international legal considerations. If we do not have the support of the host government for our military actions, we must weigh the likely reaction of our allies—whose bases we might have used for the operation—and any response from our adversaries in terms of additional advantages they might seize on a global level or in the state where we have acted. Selecting the appropriate response to each terrorist act raises many questions. We should not consider it a sign of weakness that a terrorist act might occur without a U.S. military response. We must remember that we are a superpower with global interests and responsibilities, and we must recognize that, in many cases, the disadvantages of military action from the global perspective might outweigh the advantages. This does not mean that we are either unable or unwilling to act forcefully but, rather, that in most circumstances other sorts of actions might be more appropriate than a military response. Israel is frequently cited as a nation which knows how to deal effectively with terrorists, but even key Israeli ant-terrorist experts have acknowledged publicly that the use of force cannot, by itself, solve the terrorist problem. The U.S. policy and practice is to consider as broad range of measures as possible and not to rely too heavily on any single one. In considering this range of actions, we must look beyond what we might be prepared to do unilaterally to deal with the threat, to what we might do in concert with other states. Increasing International Cooperation Multilateral vs. Bilateral Actions. Common action against terrorism should be considered in both the multilateral and the bilateral context. Looking first at the possibilities for multilateral actions, there are two types: universal actions, generally under the auspices of the United Nations, and those actions by small groups of like-minded states working together. There are several examples of global treaties covering terrorist issues. The Hague convention on aircraft hijacking mandates severe penalties for the seizure or attempted seizure of an aircraft in flight and requires extradition of the hijacker or submission of the case for prosecution. The Montreal convention on aircraft sabotage creates similar obligations regarding acts which endanger the safety of an aircraft in flight. There are also separate UN conventions covering murder, kidnapping, and other attacks against diplomats and the taking of hostages. The obligations under these conventions are, again,
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generally similar to those of the Hague convention. The existing international conventions are important because of the moral force they offer, but their effectiveness is, at present, severely limited by the lack of viable enforcement mechanisms. One can recognize instantly that these conventions have not halted hijackings, crimes against diplomats, or hostage taking. Some nations have not acceded to the conventions, others may have done so only with reservations, and still others refrain from honoring the agreements they ratified. The present international environment creates special difficulties for international agreement on any subject. International discussions such as those at the United Nations and its specialized agencies have frequently become bogged down in peripheral issues and special interests, such as the participation of certain states and groups in the meeting. Despite possible problems, we must recognize the moral force of these conventions, work toward their effective implementation, and be on the lookout for new areas for international cooperation. Agreements among smaller numbers of like-minded states generally present great opportunities for cooperation, at present, than international conventions. During recent years, the United States has looked to the summit seven1 industrial states for closer cooperative measures against terrorism. Terrorism has been a topic of discussion among the summit seven leaders, the foreign ministers, and the experts’ group specially established to consider counter terrorism initiatives. Following the summit sessions, there have frequently been communiqu´es condemning terrorism and providing direction for further areas of cooperation. Special attention has been given at the summits to aircraft hijacking, specifically through the Bonn declaration of 1978, which provides for concerted sanctions against states that fail to take appropriate legal action against hijackers. The Bonn declaration led to sanctions against Ariana Afghan Airlines in 1982. During 1985, one of the summit topics was the tie between narcotics traffickers and terrorists. Developing effective cooperative measures, even among like-minded states such as the summit seven, presents numerous difficulties. Some states are unwilling to share information in a multilateral forum that they might be willing to share bilaterally. Each state faces a different sort of terrorist problem and naturally thinks in terms of its own interest when dealing with others. There is, however, a general consensus among the seven to seek systematized bilateral cooperation in such a way as to have the practical effects similar to those of a collective approach but avoiding the major obstacles faced by global initiatives. The United States will continue to pursue closer cooperation in the framework of the summit seven, look for other possible initiatives among other like-minded groups of states, and consider new UN-related initiatives, but we will believe that the best possibilities at present for cooperation lie with closer bilateral ties. Advantages of Bilateral Cooperation. Bilateral cooperation overcomes many of the problems inherent in multilateral efforts. Dealing with single countries and specific areas of cooperation, we have been able to work out 1 Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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understandings that we have not been able to reach when a broader number of countries have sought to work together. We are pursuing such bilateral initiatives with the goal of eventually building them into a framework of multistate bilateral cooperation. As could be expected, we are able to work most closely with counties which are our closest allies. We have been pursuing closer bilateral cooperation through a number of channels. Collaboration to combat terrorism is regularly an agenda item for discussion with high-level visitors to the United States and for senior American officials traveling abroad. Interagency delegations of experts have visited foreign capitals for in-depth bilateral talks with their counterparts on the many aspects of the antiterrorist struggle, ranging from better intelligence and better to physical security, to more effective anti-hijacking measures and how to close legal loopholes. One delegation, composed of public and private sector representatives, has visited key Middle Eastern and South Asian air centers to discuss better security. Each Embassy has been instructed to follow up on these visits and pursue other measures which will lead to closer cooperation. Better intelligence is a key to more effective action against terrorism. We must be prepared to consider sharing information and analyses with other governments, since the biggest threat to our interests occur outside the United States where we must look to others as the first line of action. Intelligence can be shared more candidly and usefully on a bilateral basis than through any multilateral forum. Specific areas for intelligence cooperation in dealing with terrorism include: ¥ Agreeing to a higher priority on terrorism between the services; ¥ Sharing data on incidents, suspected, suspected terrorists, and the movement of terrorist groups; and ¥ Conducting immediate consultations at the time of an incident.
The Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program has provided the U.S. Government with a vehicle to train and exchange experiences with friendly foreign governments on the practical aspects of counter terrorism. The legislation establishing the program has enabled the State Department to provide this important assistance to the same civilian forces which must carry the brunt of the fight against terrorists and the protection of our business, diplomatic, and military installations and personnel. Since the program began in April 1984, we have established active exchange and training programs with 20 foreign governments in all areas of the world. By the end of 1985, we expect at least seven additional governments beyond those already participating. There will be a total of perhaps 1,000 foreign officials who will have participated in the program by the end of the year from countries as diverse as Italy, Egypt, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, and Columbia. There are other areas for bilateral and possibly multilateral cooperation currently under consideration. We are looking at mutual ways in which ways in which we might penalize and deter states which are sponsors of terrorism. Before proceeding in this area, there must be an agreement about which states support terrorism and a plan to convince local economic interests of the importance of possible trade restrictions. We are talking about measures to
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counter the misuse of diplomatic privileges, but we must recognize that any steps which we take to monitor diplomatic shipments more intrusively, could work against our interests because acts we take could be reciprocated by others. We are discussing joint measures to provide better protection for diplomatic missions. In this area, we generally receive more support from foreign governments in protecting our missions than we can provide because of the separate policing responsibilities in various American cities. Conclusion To recapitulate, the terrorist threat will be with us for the foreseeable future. The main threat to Americans will come overseas, particularly in the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe. The U.S. government is wellorganized and coordinated to meet this threat, and we have clear policy guidelines. We appreciate the strong support of the Congress in this area. To counter the threat, we have available to us a broad spectrum of action, ranging from defensive measures to deterrents and punishment. But the possible cost of superpower action in this arena must be carefully weighed against the potential benefits. Each case must be considered on its merits, and failure to act or react should not be considered a sign of weakness. We are working closely with international organizations, our summit seven allies, and bilaterally to tighten our defenses and deter terrorism. But, despite our best efforts, we will not always succeed and, given the nature of the problem, you will be far more aware of our failures than our successes.
AMBASSADOR L. PAUL BREMER, III Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Practical Measures for Dealing with Terrorism,’’ Address Before the Discover Conference on Terrorism in a Technological World, Washington, D.C., January 22, 1987 Today I would like to discuss how our government is working to suppress terrorism. The problem is global, but it presents a special problem for those of us who live in democratic countries. We face this special problem because terrorism’s most significant characteristic is that it despises and seeks to destroy the fundamentals of Western democracy—respect for individual life and the rule of law Terrorism is very real, the numbers are sobering. ¥ Last year there were almost 800 incidents of international terrorism. ¥ The citizens and property of over 80 countries were the victims or targets of international terrorist attacks. ¥ International terrorist activity in 1986 caused almost 2,000 casualties.
For me terrorism has a personal side. There are memorial plaques in the State Department lobby listing the names of American diplomats who died in
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the line of duty since 1776. When I joined the Foreign Service 20 years ago, there were 81 names on those plaques. All but four died from earthquakes, plagues, and other nonpurposeful causes. But in the last 20 years, 73 additional names have been added to these plaques—Americans serving in U.S. diplomatic missions. In other words, for the first 172 years of our nation’s existence, we in the Foreign Service lost a member to violent, purposeful death about every 40 years. Since I joined, we have averaged one such loss about every 90 days. These facts, listed on plaques not 50 yards from my office, are a constant reminder of the rise of terrorism in the past two decades. But this rise is not uncontested. The U.S. Government, working on its own and in coordination with friendly states, actively pursues coordinated strategies to suppress terrorism at home and abroad. Our strategy stresses practical measures to identify, track, apprehend, prosecute, and punish terrorists. Additionally, we are working to impose diplomatic, economic, and—where all else fails—military burdens on states supporting terrorism. Practical Measures Against Terrorists Let me say a word first about these practical measures. Identification of terrorists is the first and perhaps most difficult step. If we are to prevent terrorist attacks, if we are to apprehend those responsible, we must know several things: ¥ Which groups are we dealing with? What are their immediate and longer term operational plans? Their political goals? How violence prone are they? Do they carry out their threats? Where are their bases of operation? ¥ Who are the members? How and why were they recruited? What are their nationalities, ages, motivations? Are they prone to suicide attacks? How well armed and trained are they?
Putting this information together is slow, expensive, frustrating, and difficult. Groups secretive by nature change their names, rearrange their internal loyalties and groupings, and change bases with frustrating frequency. This makes terrorist groups extremely difficult to penetrate. The information which comes to us is almost invariably fragmentary. In bits and pieces we pick up the gist of a meeting, a name, a pseudonym, a photograph, a sample of a bomb. Intelligence analysts, the unsung heroes of counterterrorism, work with these fragments to convert them into information we need. Today we are gathering and sharing more data on terrorists with allies and other friendly countries. We and our allies have developed a number of practical measures in this field. For example, our government has drawn up lists of known and suspected terrorists and circulated these lookout lists among friendly governments. Every day I read dozens of cables indicating that intelligence about terrorists has been passed to us, that we are passing information to other countries, and that our friends are sharing with each other. While we can never know enough, the effects of these measures are gratifying. Frequently, the understanding which emerges from pooled intelligence is
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greater than the sum of its parts. This synergistic effect makes the world safer for all of us. Second, once identified, a terrorist must be located and tracked. At international borders terrorists may be required to produce identification and subject themselves and their baggage to search. Border crosses are thus a weak spot for terrorists and an opportunity for us. Just last week, Mohammed Hamadei, who is suspected of involvement in the TWA Flight 847 hijacking, was arrested as he attempted to enter West Germany through Frankfurt airport. At almost the same time, another man was captured by Italian authorities while attempting to smuggle explosives into Milan. To exploit this terrorist vulnerability, we must also combat the fraudulent use of travel documents by terrorists. The passports of many countries are often easy for a sophisticated forger to supplicate or alter. The terrorists who attacked the Rome and Vienna airports in 1985 used passports Libya confiscated from Tunisian guest workers. The problem becomes even more difficult when governments issue authentic travel documents to terrorists, as Syrian authorities did in the case of Nizar Hindawi, the man convicted of trying to bomb an El Al 747 in London last year. The U.S. Government is working now to make the travel documents we issue more secure, and we are cooperating with other countries to share information about false travel documents. Third, we and our allies must resolve to act forcefully on the information we have obtained by apprehending terrorists. Apprehending terrorists is inherently more dangerous than capturing common criminals. Terrorists are frequently better armed and usually more prepared to shoot than either common criminals or civilian police. The infamous terrorist Carlos managed to kill two French policemen because they thought they were dealing with a common criminal. Capturing terrorists, therefore, requires not only well-coordinated intelligence but policemen armed more like soldiers—or soldiers fulfilling functions more like those of police. Crisis management experts and specially equipped and trained forces are needed. Here, too, we have developed practical means of cooperation. Our government provides training and equipment to nations which are trying to deal with terrorism. Since 1984, more than 4,000 people from over 40 countries have participated in our counterterrorism assistance programs. This training pays off. On one recent occasion airport personnel in an Asian country became suspicious of some travelers because of their age, nationality, itinerary, and spending habits. When the suspicions were brought to our attention, we moved quickly to work with the airline and the security forces of three foreign countries to monitor this group’s movements throughout their travels. The fourth practical measure is prosecution of captured terrorists, a seemingly obvious step too often not taken. Prosecuting terrorists in the face of terrorist threats tests political will. Recently, we have been encouraged by the actions many countries have taken to prosecute terrorists in spite of these threats. In prosecution, too, we have a program for cooperating with friendly countries. The United States provides forensic and other technical experts to assist
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other countries in their pretrial investigations. Through mutual assistance legal treaties, we make witnesses or other evidence available. At the same time, we are working with other countries to strengthen our extradition treaties. Even so, problems remain. We still see too many tacit agreements whereby terrorists are permitted free transit of or residence in a country in return for not attacking the host country’s interests. Bringing terrorist to justice—punishing them—is the final step in the process of fighting terrorists. Merely thwarting them is not enough, for if the guilty can know no fear, then the innocent can know no rest. Happily, the rule of law is asserting itself more and more. We see fewer terrorists released without trial. The Italians last year tried and convicted the Achille Lauro hijackers. In October and November, the British and West German Governments tried and convicted terrorist for the attempted El Al bombing and the actual bombing of the German-Arab Friendship Society in Berlin. Other important terrorists’ trials are coming up in Madrid, Ankara, Paris, Rome, and Vienna. These prosecutions must continue. There is nothing, no case study, no example, to suggest that there is any permanent advantage in treating terrorists as other than criminals. We may be seeing the results of these measures. Our preliminary figures show that international terrorist incidents in 1986 were at about the same level as 1985—a considerable change from previous years which saw annual increases of 30%–40%. Moreover, terrorist incidents of Middle Eastern origin in Europe dropped almost 70% last year. State Support of Terrorism While our activities with allies to identify, track, and apprehend, prosecute, and punish terrorists show progress, the progress is more difficult and slower against one particular class of terrorist: those enjoying the support of a sovereign nation. With the help of a friendly state, a terrorist has capacities he lacks if he has to act on his own, especially as a fugitive. ¥ When a terrorist obtains travel and identification documents from a country, it becomes harder to identify and track him. When Nizer Hindawi went to London to blow up the El Al flight, he carried an authentic Syrian service passport issued to him. ¥ A terrorist who enjoys the patronage of a state has a ready source of weapons and a means to transport them. Diplomatic pouches are exempt from search by international convention, and the baggage handlers at state-owned airlines don’t interfere when told not to examine a particular parcel. Nizer Hindawi’s bomb was brought into England by Syria’s official airline. ¥ Countries like Libya, Syria, and Iran make a terrorist’s work easier by providing a place to train. It is not easy for a terrorist operation alone, especially if he is a fugitive, to find an isolated location where he can learn to fire automatic weapons, assemble and detonate explosives. ¥ Financial support from state sponsors allows terrorists to spend more time on operations because they need not rob banks or traffic in drugs to raise money. ¥ States can provide terrorists with refuge, an important support. Safe houses allow terrorist a rest from extraordinary strains of life underground. Being able to live
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The state giving these benefits to terrorists receives value in return. ¥ A group of state-supported terrorists costs less per year than a company of regular soldiers. But the terrorists can do much more to intimidate another state. ¥ Using surrogates makes it easier for the sponsoring state to deny responsibility for actions which, if undertaken overtly, could lead to war. ¥ Through terrorism a small state or leader can attract the attention, if not the respect, of the world. We know Qadhafi’s name not because of the ‘‘wisdom’’ in his ‘‘Green Book,’’ but because of his support for terrorism.
Fighting Terrorism Together It is important that we complement our practical measure against terrorists with actions against the states which sponsor them. We must work with friendly states to make it clear that we will not conduct business as usual with states supporting terrorism. Simply put, the community of nations must increase the political, economic, and, yes, perhaps even the military costs of helping terrorists until the sponsoring states cannot afford to pay them any longer. Here, too, we are beginning to see progress. Over the past year, there has been a growing political consensus among European governments that more has to be done. The Europeans have made nearly a dozen major statements or agreements concerning measures against countries supporting terrorism. These include reducing the size of the diplomatic missions from countries supporting terrorism and declarations that terrorists’ attacks can never be justified and are a disservice to any political cause. Specifically, in the last 60 days, Britain broke diplomatic relations with Syria, the United Sates withdrew its ambassador to Damascus, and the Federal Republic of Germany announced that it would stop its development aid to Syria. Additionally, the European Community announced a series of economic, political, diplomatic, and security-related measures against Syria. Why? Clear sponsorship of terrorists, proven in open court. We have also seen increasing cooperation in our efforts to drive home this message to Colonel Qadhafi. Last summer West European governments expelled more than 100 so-called Libyan diplomats and businessmen. This heavy blow to Libya’s terrorist infrastructure in Europe, combined with the tightened security measures at airports and elsewhere, undoubtedly placed a role in sharply reducing Libyan-related terrorist incidents after May. Indeed, preliminary figures for 1986 show a substantial decline in the number of terrorist incidents which we can identify as being conducted on behalf of a state. Conclusion Looking to the future, I cannot assure you a world free of terrorism any more than I can offer a world free of crime or poverty. I can assure you that your government is working internally, bilaterally, and multilaterally to reduce
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terrorism to the absolute minimum. There is reason to be optimistic. If the terrorists have not gone away, neither have we left the field to them. ¥ Cooperation with friendly governments on practical measures to combat terrorism is growing. ¥ There have been significant displays of coordinated multilateral actions against states sponsoring terrorism in recent months. ¥ The rule of law is at work. In London and Berlin, public trials have resulted in stiff sentences for terrorists. And more trials are coming up.
Suppressing terrorism will be neither quick nor easy. But I know our strategies of coordination on the police, intelligence, and diplomatic levels are working and showing results. We will face setbacks. But I am convinced that we, the people of the world’s democracies, will prevail over those who would, through terror, take from us the fruits of two centuries of political progress.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Terrorism and the Rule of Law,’’ Address Before the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, California, April 23, 1987 … I would like to discuss our strategy to combat terrorism and, particularly, our efforts to bring the rule of law to bear against terrorists. Terrorism has continued to plague governments and peoples all over the world. Last year, there were almost 800 incidents of international terrorism, affecting citizens and property of over 80 countries. In 1986, terrorists caused almost 2,000 casualties. America’s Counterterrorism Strategy In the face of these grim statistics, though, let me stress that we are not sitting still. We have an active strategy to combat terrorism and one which we believe is beginning to show results. Our strategy rests on three pillars. ¥ The first is that we will not make concessions to terrorists. ¥ The second is to bring pressure on states supporting terrorism. ¥ The third is developing practical measures designed to identify, track, apprehend, prosecute, and punish terrorists.
Our government believes that a policy of no concessions is the best way to discourage terrorist acts. For if terrorists can gain their objectives through terror one time, they will be encouraged to repeat terror in the future. President Reagan has stated that sending arms to Iran was a mistake and will not be done again. It is clear that a policy of firmness has the overwhelming support of the American people. It has been long-standing U.S. Government policy that we will talk to anyone who might be able to effect the safe release of Americans held hostage. That remains true. Speaking with hostage holders does not mean, however,
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that we will make concessions which would only further encourage terrorists to undertake such acts in the future. The second aspect of our counter-terrorism strategy is to put pressure on states which support terrorism. State support of terrorism represents a special danger. In accordance with the law, the Secretary of State has identified five countries as states which support terrorism—Syria, Libya, Iran, Cuba, and South Yemen. Our aim is to raise the economic, diplomatic, and—if necessary—the military costs to such states to a level which they are unwilling to pay. Over the past year, there has been important progress in developing these pressures—not only by America but also by our allies. In April, after our attack on Libyan terrorist sites, the Europeans took strong steps against Libya, including dramatically reducing the size of Libyan diplomatic establishments. And, in the fall, we and the Europeans invoked limited sanctions on Syria after British and German courts proved Syrian complicity in terrorist attacks. The third pillar, seeking practical measures to combat terrorism, is one of the most effective elements of our strategy. In attempting to identify terrorists, we work with a number of governments to facilitate intelligence sharing and the circulation of ‘‘lookout’’ lists. As terrorists are identified, we can begin to track them, especially as they attempt to cross international borders. Even the most democratic states can require detailed identification and conduct very thorough searches at border points. This is a terrorist vulnerability we are trying to exploit. For example, a Lebanese terrorist and principal suspect in the TWA 847 hijacking, Mohammed Hamadei, was arrested as he attempted to smuggle explosives into Germany in January. Finally, we work with friendly governments to assure that once apprehended, terrorists are brought to justice through prosecution and punishment. Over the past year, the role of the rule of law in combating terrorism has expanded. It is this particular element of our policy that I would like to address today. Terrorists Are Criminals Perhaps the most important development in the fight against terrorism in the past year has been the renewed determination on the part of the world’s democracies to get tough with terrorists and to apply the rule of law to terrorism. Time and again over the past months, terrorists have been arrested, brought to trial, and received long sentences for the crimes they have committed. In October, a British court sentenced Nizar Hindawi to 45 years in jail for his attempt to blow up an El Al flight. In November, West Germany found Ahmad Hasi and Farouk Salameh guilty of bombing the German-Arab Friendship Society, which injured nine people. They were sentenced to 14 and 13 years imprisonment, respectively. And just two months ago, French courts convicted Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction, to life imprisonment for his role in the assassinations of U.S. and Israeli diplomats. For Western democracies, the firm hand of the law is the best defense against terrorism. Democratic nations must treat terrorists as criminals, for to do otherwise legitimizes terrorists not only in their own eyes but in the eyes of others.
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Let me deal briefly with the problem of defining terrorism. There are as many definitions around as there are definers. Some people argue that no matter how heinous the crime, if the cause is justified, the act cannot be terrorism. This attitude, though only serves to confound the fight against terrorism. As Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation puts it: If cause is the criterion, only to the extent that everyone in the world can agree on the justice of a particular cause is there likely to be agreement that an action does or does not constitute terrorism.
Instead of focusing on the cause, therefore, our government focuses on the terrorist act itself, for it is the act which ultimately distinguishes the criminal. Our government believes that terrorist acts have certain characteristics. They are premeditated and politically motivated. They are conducted against noncombatant targets and usually have as their goal trying to intimidate or influence a government’s policy. It is by their acts that terrorists indict themselves as criminals. All nations have criminal statutes to deal with criminals, and it only makes sense that all states should apply their existing statutes to terrorists. Terrorist Threats to the Rule of Law Terrorists despise democracy because democracy cherishes that which terrorists seek to destroy: the sanctity of the individual and the rule of law. There are two main categories of terrorist threat to our legal systems. First, there are indigenous, or domestic, terrorists who seek to provoke governments into extralegal excesses and, hence, to undermine political support for democratically elected regimes. Precisely because the rule of law is so fundamental to safeguarding a free citizen’s basic rights, terrorists frequently attack the rule of law in general and legal institutions specifically. There are many cases of this kind of threat: ¥ In November 1985, guerrillas belonging to the M-19 movement seized the Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia, and held it for more than 27 hours. The targets of this attack were the judges who were rendering verdicts for extradition of drug traffickers. By the time the incident was over, 90 people were dead, including 12 Supreme Court judges. ¥ Last September, when jurors in France were threatened with terrorist retaliation and refused to show up at criminal hearings, a jury of magistrates had to be established in order that terrorist prosecutions would not be thwarted. ¥ In Spain, ETA [Basque Fatherland and Freedom] terrorists have attacked Spanish magistrates. And in Portugal, terrorists have made threats against jurors in the trial of Portuguese terrorists. In Italy, judges have been a favorite target of the Red Brigades.
The second major category of threat comes from transnational terrorists, those who travel from one country to another to commit terrorist acts. Often their objective is to coerce foreign governments into compromising their legal ethics. The events surrounding the Abdallah arrest and trial in France are a good example of this phenomenon. Shortly after French security services imprisoned
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Abdallah in Paris, his colleagues initiated a bloody series of bombings in downtown Paris. Bombs exploded in crowded stores, at cafes, on the sidewalks during rush hour traffic. Many innocent people died or were wounded as a result. The intent was to force the French Government into releasing Abdallah, thereby thwarting French efforts to bring this terrorist to justice. Fortunately, the tactic did not work. It was a victory for the French legal system and the rule of law. Today the German Government is facing a similar attempt at blackmail at the hands of other Middle East terrorists. In January, the Germans arrested the terrorist Hamadei, accused of being one of the hijackers of TWA 847 and the brutal murderer of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. Shortly after his arrest in Germany, two Germans were snatched off the streets of Beirut, apparently by associates of Hamadei. They are holding them hostage there, demanding the release of Hamadei. We have formally requested the Federal Republic of Germany to extradite Hamadei to the United States for trial on murder and hijacking charges. We hope the German legal system will prove as invulnerable to terrorist blackmail as France’s was last fall. We must preserve the integrity of our judiciaries in dealing with terrorism. We must treat terrorists as we would other criminals. We acknowledge that it may be difficult not to capitulate to terrorists’ demands. But to give in only encourages additional terrorist acts—once terrorists see that they can get away with their crimes, they will commit more. Strengthening Domestic Legislation Against Terrorism In the face of rising terrorism over the past two decades, democratic nations have not stood still. The United States and our allies abroad have strengthened our legal systems to deal with terrorism, both through improved domestic procedures and through international agreements. In the United States, we have strengthened statutes covering crimes most typically committed by terrorists. The anticrime bill of 1984 makes certain acts of overseas terrorism, such as hostage taking and aircraft sabotage committed anywhere in the world, crimes punishable in U.S. Federal courts. The Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act of 1986 provides the U.S. Government with several important legal tools for combating terrorism. ¥ It provided U.S. jurisdiction over terrorist crimes committed against Americans overseas. This landmark provision gives us the legal right to prosecute in the United States terrorists who murder or violently attack Americans abroad. ¥ The act also established a counter-terrorism witness protection fund, so that the United States may reimburse other governments for costs related to security for those who come forward to provide testimony or evidence in terrorist cases. ¥ It increased funding for the protection of our diplomats and embassies overseas from terrorist attack. ¥ The act further enhanced support for the State Department’s rewards program, initially created in 1984, whereby the Department offers substantial cash awards to anyone who provides information leading to the arrest and prosecution of terrorists. To date, we have established rewards totaling $1.1 million for five major terrorist incidents.
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Other countries have also strengthened their domestic judicial systems against terrorism. Almost all our allies have adopted laws which improve their ability to prosecute terrorists for crimes related to aircraft hijacking and sabotage, attacks on diplomats, hostage taking, and theft of nuclear materials … Strengthening International Conventions on Terrorism Improving the domestic legal framework for combating terrorism is an important step in bringing the law to bear on this problem. Just as important are efforts of the international community to expand the international legal regime for combating terrorism. The United States and many of our allies are parties to a number of international conventions covering terrorist acts, including the Hague Convention on the Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, the Montreal Convention on Civil Aviation Safety, the Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, the Convention on Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, and the Convention on the Protection of Nuclear Materials. These conventions and the laws implementing them provide important legal authority to prosecute international terrorists. They form the basis of our charges pending against Mohammad Hamadei. And the Hague Convention obligates the Germans either to extradite or prosecute him. There has been encouraging progress in specialized international organizations to combat terrorism. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has undertaken a number of measures in the wake of the Achille Lauro hijacking and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer. In September 1986, the IMO adopted new security guidelines to prevent unlawful acts against passengers and crews onboard ships. In November, the IMO Council began consideration of a joint Austrian-Egyptian-Italian draft international convention to outlaw various acts like hijacking a ship and to obligate states to prosecute or extradite offenders. In the air security area, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is working on a Canadian proposal to expand the language of existing international conventions to include broader protection for airports. Furthermore, the ICAO meets regularly to consider improvements to its security regulations for aviation and airports. In another legal arena, the United States is renegotiating our bilateral extradition treaties to strengthen our ability to seek the extradition of terrorists. Many of these existing treaties contain a so-called political exception clause which could protect terrorists and other criminals from extradition if the host government determines that the crime was of a political nature. We have been working hard to limit this clause by revising our extradition treaties. Our supplementary extradition treaty with Great Britain was ratified last year. We have since concluded agreements with Germany and Belgium. All of this work is beginning to pay off. Democratic nations are exercising the rule of law, and with encouraging frequency. For example: ¥ Early this year, a Canadian court sentenced to life imprisonment two Sikh terrorists who conspired to blow up a New York-to-London Air India flight in 1986.
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¥ Last month in Italy, a Lebanese terrorist, Bashir al-Khodir, was sentenced to 13 years in prison following his arrest at a Milan airport for carrying explosives and detonators hidden in Easter eggs and pictures frames. ¥ In March, the Japanese Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for two terrorists convicted in a 1971–75 series of bombings that killed eight and injured 187. The court also upheld earlier rulings for two others convicted in the bombings: one received life imprisonment and the other an 8-year prison term.
More terrorists will be brought to justice in 1987, as important trials are scheduled to take place in Austria, Italy, Malta, Pakistan, Spain, and Turkey. The recent steps taken by the world community to improve the legal framework to fight terrorism are having a measurable effect. Some previous efforts became bogged down in some of the near-metaphysical discussions which terrorism provokes. For example, I am not surprised that the 1972 UN document entitled ‘‘Measures To Prevent International Terrorism Which Endangers or Takes Innocent Human Lives or Jeopardizes Fundamental Freedoms, and Study of the Underlying Causes of Those Forms of Terrorism, and Acts of Violence Which Lie in Misery, Frustration, Grievances and Despair and Which Cause Some People to Sacrifice Human Lives, Including Their Own, in an Attempt To Effect Radical Changes’’ seemed to have little effect in stemming the rise of terrorism. Are Terrorists Warriors? So the rule of law, which treats terrorist acts as criminal acts and terrorists as criminals, is beginning to work. But precisely because they fear the rule of law, terrorists have often tried to slip away from being called criminals by claiming to be warriors instead. Terrorists, and often their sympathizers invoke the banal phrase that ‘‘terrorism is the poor man’s war.’’ By this argument, terrorists are presented as merely soldiers, forced by circumstances into an unconventional mode of conventional war but, nonetheless, entitled to the same privileges extended to ‘‘lawful combatants.’’ But even the internationally accepted rules of war provide no hiding place for terrorists. The Geneva conventions on rules of war outlaw nearly every act of terrorism. For example: ¥ The rules of war define combatants and grant civilians who do not take a part in hostilities immunity from deliberate attack. A terrorist who attacks innocent civilians at an airport clearly violates this rule. ¥ The rules of war prohibit taking hostages. Terrorists in Lebanon holding Americans and other hostage clearly violate this rule of war. ¥ The rules of war prohibit violence against those held captive. Freed American hostages have told of repeated beatings by their captors. ¥ The rules of war require combatants to wear uniforms or insignia identifying their status. Terrorists identify themselves only after they have committed their crimes and, in fact, almost always conceal their true identities during their criminal acts.
Do terrorists adhere to the rules of war? Consider their actions during the attempted hijacking of a Pan American plane in Karachi last fall. The terrorists stormed the airplane full of civilians. They killed two of them at the outset in
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cold blood. They held the rest hostage. They beat some passengers. At the end of the incident, the terrorists tried to conceal their identity and escape by mixing in with their victims. In short, this incident, typical of other terrorist incidents, shows that terrorists do not act like warriors; they behave like criminals. In the chaos of war, soldiers may violate laws. Our own forces have been guilty of crimes, and we have punished them for it. The key point is that there are legal norms applicable even in war. So even if we were to dignify terrorists with the term ‘‘warriors,’’ it would not excuse in any way their criminal acts. Indeed, one possible definition of a terrorist act is an act committed in peacetime which, if committed in wartime, would be considered a violation of the rules of war. Using the Law Against States Supporting Terrorism One of the more dangerous developments in terrorism in the past few years has been the emergence of state support. Several states—notably Libya, Syria, and Iran—have funded, trained, and provided logistical support for terrorists to further their foreign policy goals. This kind of support greatly complicates the job of fighting terrorism. States can provide easy money, weapons, and explosives to terrorists. We have found that some states have used their embassies, diplomats, and official airlines to pass money, weapons, instructions, maps, and official passports to terrorists. When the United States has identified a particular state engaged in supporting terrorism, we have tried to impose a series of measures to make the leaders of that country realize that their support for terrorism carries a high cost. Take the case of Libya. We decided years ago that Colonel Qadhafi was engaged in supporting terrorists. We suspended diplomatic relations. We imposed economic sanctions by reducing the amount of oil and other products that we imported from that country. Ultimately, after years of economic and political sanctions and in the face of clear evidence of Libyan involvement in terrorist acts, we had to resort to military action. Many people, including some of our allies, questioned the legality of our action. But the law amply justified our action. Under customary international law, a state is responsible for acts of force, whether they are carried out by the state’s own armed forces or other agents. That state is also responsible if the act of force is conducted from its own territory by terrorists or others whose activities the host state should have prevented. In other words, every state has a duty to every other state to take appropriate steps to ensure that its territory is not used for such purposes. But if a state like Libya does not exercise this fundamental international obligation, then the state which has been injured has the right to use a reasonable and proportionate amount of force in times of peace to eliminate the breach. This right is established by Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
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When a state like Libya trains or assists terrorists, allows them to use its territory, or fails to prevent them from operating against other states from its territory, then the state is liable to the states that have been attacked. Conclusion Today I’ve given you an outline of how we should look at the problem of terrorism, its threat to our legal system, and how we are trying to deal with that threat. We are beginning to see a shift on the part of the world’s democracies: we are witnessing a shift from the ‘‘year of the terrorist’’ to the ‘‘year of the terrorist trials.’’ The rule of law is beginning to take hold. And that is the point I would like to leave you with. We must treat terrorists as criminals. To do other wise is to afford them a political exception they do not deserve. Even in the face of direct attacks against our legal systems, we must persevere, as the French have recently done and as we hope the Germans will soon do. Most importantly, though, we must continue to use the law. We must continue arresting terrorists, prosecuting them, and punishing them. President Reagan has warned terrorists: ‘‘You can run, but you can’t hide.’’ We have the legal authority to back up his warning, and we must make good on it.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Counterterrorism: Strategy and Tactics,’’ Address Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, Tampa, Florida, November 4, 1987 A recent Roper poll asked Americans to name topics on which they wished the government to take action. Terrorism was named more often than nuclear arms reductions or Middle East peace. It has become the number one foreign policy issue for many Americans. Clearly, the people are demanding action. And in the finest American tradition, they want action right now. Today I want to describe how our government is responding to the terrorist threat. Dealing With Terrorism Is a Long-Term Problem In spite of the impression that many of us have, terrorism is not something new. Yes, within the past 20 years we have experienced many different kinds of terrorism, and we have seen terrorism live and in color in our living rooms. But terrorism has been around for centuries. The group whose name gives us our word for assassin arose in Persia about 900 years ago and later flourished in Syria. The Assassins recognized that a tiny group of men prepared to die during their attack could paralyze a larger foe and that the fear of such attacks could give them power beyond their size. During the Napoleonic wars, partisan forces pushed carts laden with explosives into the ranks of soldiers, causing significant damage. By the late 19th century, the telegraph, newspapers, and rising literacy led Russian anarchists to recognize the shock value of violence. They referred to their terrorist attacks as ‘‘propaganda by the deed.’’
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Given the persistence of terrorism over centuries, it is unreasonable to think we can eliminate it. But we can, and must, take vigorous action to limit terrorism. And the signs are that, after an initial period of uncertainty, the West is finally getting its antiterrorist act together. 1970s: On the Defensive When modern terrorism burst on the scene 20 years ago, the international community, especially in the United Nations, reacted in a befuddled fashion. The West lacked a strategy and was on the defensive against both domestic and international terrorism. There are a number of reasons for this passivity: ¥ Many of the world’s nations had recently emerged from colonialism; in some cases, they considered terrorists as fellow revolutionaries who would soon join them in the community of nations. ¥ The Vietnam War increased anti-American sentiment around the world and led to an intellectual environment in which anti-U.S. activism was easier to justify. ¥ In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the prevailing political and intellectual climate in many Western countries promoted an extraordinary tolerance of violent political action. This allowed terrorists to demand and receive public attention not just for their acts but for their ‘‘causes.’’ Terrorist acts—including kidnapping, kneecapping, and murder—acquired an aura of romance and adventure. ¥ In the Middle East, Israel’s stunning success in a preemptive strike in response to threats of war by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan altered the perception of Israel as a microstate struggling against the odds. It also shattered the hopes, nourished by some Palestinians, that the front-line Arab states would destroy Israel and, by military force, create a Palestinian state. ¥ Finally, the tremendous growth in air travel and television in the 1960s gave terrorists increased mobility, more vulnerable targets, and a ready-made worldwide audience for the acts.
The West Develops a Counterterrorist Strategy By the end of the 1970s, the outrage at terrorist acts slowly began to turn the tide of opinion in the West. Increasingly, people realized that nothing justified what they were seeing. Perhaps more than anything, the ever-expanding circle of targets for terrorist attack brought about change. People and governments began to realize that terrorists could and would attack anyone, including erstwhile sympathizers. Here in America, the taking of our Tehran embassy catalyzed public opinion and led to demands for effective government action. As a result of these changes, the West began to develop a clear, overall strategy to deal with terrorism and the supporting tactics necessary to implement that strategy. Action on two levels was needed: the development of political will to counter terrorism and the allocation of more resources to the fight. Political Vision and Political Will We must avoid the temptation of taking the total elimination of terrorism as our goal. We can no more to eradicate terrorism than we can eradicate crime.
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The West’s strategic objective must be to reduce terrorism to a level at which it no longer dominates world policy. We can achieve this objective with a firm, concerted counterterrorism effort sustained over 5–7 years. How? By making the general political, economic, and psychological climate in which terrorists operate more hostile. The targets of any counterterrorist measure, therefore, are not particular terrorists or groups but the community of nations and the overall political environment. The key element in developing a counterterrorist strategy is the development of political vision and the political will to carry out the fight. And to nurture the development of political will, the West had to change the whole dynamic of the international discussion of terrorism. We had to get away from the defensive, muddled reaction to terrorist violence of the early 1970s and reassert, clearly and decisively, democracy’s willingness to fight terrorism. We had to shift the public debate on terrorism from understanding ‘‘root causes’’ to condemning the crimes terrorists commit. Specific Measures The West has adopted a number of specific measures to pursue our strategic objective. For example, until recently, the international political environment made it relatively easy for terror-supporting states like Libya, Syria, and Iran to operate against the West. A major element of our counterterrorism policy, therefore, is to put pressure on states that support terrorism. If the West can make it clear that supporting terrorists is unacceptable international behavior, then terrorists will be denied important financial, military, and other support from state supporters. Another important measure we have developed in our overall strategy is applying the rule of law to terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. They commit criminal actions like murder, kidnapping, and arson, and countries have laws to punish criminals. So a major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are—criminals—and to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law, against them. A third measure is expanded international discussion of terrorism. The United States has made terrorism an important issue in our overall bilateral relations, including with the Soviet Union, and in multilateral forums like the United Nations. By repeatedly pressing the issue with non-Western nations, we seek a truly global front against terrorism. Counterterrorist Measures Succeeding These counterterrorist measures are beginning to succeed. In a major show of collective political will last year, the nations of Western Europe took a series of concerted actions to close down Libya’s terrorist infrastructure of embassies, ‘‘businessman,’’ and ‘‘students.’’ These actions, combined with the U.S. military strike against terrorist facilities in Libya, led to a decline in Libyansupported terrorism. Indeed, we have detected Libyan involvement in only five terrorist incidents in 1987. Qadhafi no longer openly brags about his use of terrorism. Most important, the political environment was shifted. The Europeans at long last had taken decisive action against a terrorist state. That was a major breakthrough in the development of a Western counterterrorist strategy.
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In a similar way, last November, we and the European Community (EC) imposed sanctions on Syria after Syrian officials were proven to have supported specific terrorist operations. These steps were possible only because the countries of Europe had set the pattern of responding to state terrorism with their earlier measures against Libya. Again, the political environment had shifted. Again, we had success. Syria in June expelled Abu Nidal, a notorious Palestinian terrorist. As a result of concerted Western pressures, terrorists are finding it harder to get refuge and overt support. The Abu Nidal Organization was expelled from Iraq in 1983 and from Syria in 1987. In Eastern Europe, efforts have been made to disrupt a network of enterprises of the Abu Nidal Organization. Newspaper stories about the terrorist links of a Syrian family named Qassar, notorious for arms trafficking with terrorists, have led to action against them by several European countries in 1987, notably in Spain where they maintained a political headquarters in Marbella. Moreover, during the past decade, the West has elaborated an international legal structure grounded in bilateral and multilateral agreements to extradite or prosecute terrorists for their crimes. The first steps in an international legal framework were taken in the early 1970s with the Hague convention on airline hijacking. Since then, further agreements have been reached in Montreal and at summit meetings of the seven leading industrialized nations in Tokyo, Bonn, and Venice. In spite of Lenin’s insistence that the revolutionary must never abandon terrorism, the Soviet Union now says that is opposes ‘‘all terrorism.’’ While the Soviet definition of terrorism can be convoluted from our point of view, they have specifically condemned some recent acts of terrorism, including the Pan American Flight 073 takeover in Karachi and a grenade attack last year on Israeli soldiers near the Western Wall in Jerusalem. And the Soviets have played a helpful role in drafting new counterterrorist conventions on maritime and airport safety. Finally, where earlier attempts to cope with terrorism in the United Nations deteriorated into endless apologies for terrorists, in 1985 and 1986 the United Nations passed important resolutions condemning terrorism and hostage-taking. So we have made a real start this decade in changing the overall environment in which the terrorists must act. Responsible countries have joined a new consensus against terror and have taken concrete steps. No one of these measures by itself will solve the problem or reduce terrorism to a tolerable level. However, these and other measures, relentlessly pursued over time, will achieve our strategic objective. Development of Tactics: More Resources Just as the West had to fortify its collective political will before it could develop a coherent counterterrorist strategy, so it had to dedicate greatly increased resources to antiterrorism before our tactics could succeed. The strategy demands will; the tactics demand money. Our tactical objective is to confound and thwart terrorists—to reduce their options and make their operations more complicated and perilous.
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For the most part, antiterrorist tactics are measures that better protect the most likely targets from terrorist attacks. How do they work? In much the same way as you protect your home from burglars. Putting heavy dead-bolt locks on your doors, a bar on sliding glass doors, and keeping a dog or installing a burglar alarm will not stop a truly professional thief willing to run substantial risks. But each of them reduces the likelihood of a break-in at your home. Taken together, they can achieve your purpose—protecting your property, lowering your insurance rates, and increasing your peace of mind. In contrast to counterterrorist measures, antiterrorist steps are largely defensive in nature and can be unilateral or taken in concert with others. The difference, if I may extend my analogy, is between stronger locks and an aggressive policy of pursuing and jailing burglars. More Resources Contribute to Success One of the most important developments in the 1980s has been the public outrage throughout the world with terrorist violence. This strong public reaction has pressured politicians to make money more available to the antiterrorist fight here and abroad. These new resources form the hard core of our revitalized antiterrorist tactics. Not surprisingly, the police and intelligence agencies first dedicated these new resources to the fight against domestic terrorists. So not surprisingly, the first successes of antiterrorist measures were seen at home. In Italy, anger at the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro led to actions which shattered the old Red Brigades. In Germany, the Baader-Meinhof gang was broken through aggressive intelligence collection and vigorous law enforcement. The same happened in French efforts to counter Action Directe and in Belgium with the Fighting Communist Cells. Just 2 weeks ago, Spanish and French officials, acting together, dealt an important blow to the Spanish terrorist group ETA [Basque Fatherland and Freedom]. As nations developed better tactics for dealing with their homegrown terrorists, they have recently turned their attention to international cooperation. For example, the countries of the European Community have established the so-called Trevi Group made up of ministers of justice and interior. The Trevi Group has considerably expanded police and intelligence cooperation among the 12 EC members. For example, the ministers now regularly produce an agreed assessment of the terrorist threat facing the EC countries. And they have specific information on the movements and operating methods of terrorists. INTERPOL [International Criminal Police Organization], which has resisted dealing with terrorism because of its political overtones, finally began coordinating information on terrorism in 1985 at U.S. request. Our FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], for instance, can now notify the INTERPOL secretariat of arrest warrants we have out on terrorists. INTERPOL then sends the names by alert to all of its member countries. Specific antiterrorist measures developed by the West include: ¥ Near universal screening of all airline passengers for metallic objects, so that terrorists can no longer stroll aboard a flight with a pistol or bomb in their pockets;
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¥ Tighter security at diplomatic installations so that an attack on an embassy is likely to require the attackers to absorb casualties, thereby making an attack less likely; ¥ ‘‘Watch lists’’ of terrorists for border police to stop terrorists entering countries; and ¥ Measures to sow dissension within terrorist groups through black and gray covert operations.
Tactical Measures Succeeding As we have had success in developing and implementing a counterterrorist strategy, now our tactical measures are showing signs of working. Take, for example, the question of air travel. Over the past 15 years, the international community has developed an extensive set of antiterrorist, defensive measures to protect air travelers. Before these steps, there were 18–20 hijackings each year, with substantial casualties and damage. Last year, there were only two hijackings—the fewest since we started recording figures 20 years ago. Similarly, there has been a significant decline in terrorist attacks on our diplomatic establishments. The ‘‘watch lists’’ we have developed are in the hands of border police in many countries. Border police are becoming much more attentive to suspicious travelers, too. As a result, terrorists run considerable risks crossing international borders. In January, two Lebanese terrorists were arrested on successive days trying to smuggle explosives into Italy and Germany. Finally, because of increased attention to antiterrorism by Western governments, terrorist groups can no longer be sure they have not been penetrated by Western intelligence agencies. And as countries dedicate more resources to the fight against terrorism, they are catching and prosecuting increasing numbers of international terrorists. ¥ In London, Nezar Hindawi received a life sentence for his attempt to blow up an El Al plane. ¥ In Paris, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah received a life sentence for his role in the murders of a U.S. Army attach´e and an Israeli diplomat. ¥ In Germany, a Lebanese terrorist named Hamadei faces air piracy and murder charges for his role in the TWA 847 hijacking. ¥ In New York City, Mohammed Atta, an Abu Nidal terrorist, awaits extradition to Israel to face murder charges arising from fire bombing and machine-gunning of a bus. ¥ In Washington, D.C., a Lebanese terrorist named Fawaz Younis awaits trial on the hostage-taking charges arising from the hijacking of Jordanian Airlines Flight 401 in June 1985. ¥ Just 2 weeks ago in Madrid, a Palestinian terrorist was sentenced to 47 years in prison for directing the June 1986 bombing attempt against an El Al airliner.
As with the strategic steps mentioned earlier, no single tactical measure, or even group of measures, will solve the problem. But the cumulative effect of the measures helps achieve our strategic purpose. Conclusion Terrorism has by no means disappeared from the world scene. It is an ancient problem that will be with us for the foreseeable future as terrorists constantly revise and adapt their methods of attack.
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However, newspaper headlines about spectacular terrorist attacks are gradually being replaced by brief press reports on terrorist trials. This is attributable to the important gains the West has made in recent years. We have developed a coherent strategy to reduce terrorism. With a fortified political will, we are changing the overall political environment, making it less benign to terrorism. We have succeeded in pressuring states that sponsor it, and we have strengthened the legal framework for punishing terrorists. We have also developed effective tactical measures to supplement our overall strategy, such as tightening security at obvious targets. Our counterterrorism policy is showing signs of success. If it is pursued over time, I am confident we can usher in an era when international terrorism is no longer a dominant subject on the international agenda.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Countering Terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s,’’ Address Before the George Washington University Conference on Terrorism, Washington, D.C., November 22, 1988 Today I would like to talk to you about U.S. counterterrorism policy in the 1980s and 1990s. Reasonable observers have questioned, continue to question, and will likely go on questioning the effectiveness of our government’s counterterrorism effort. It is not hard to see why. After all, the Iran-contra affair dealt a blow to our credibility. Nine Americans are still held hostage in Lebanon. And according to the State Department’s own statistics, 1987 was the bloodiest year for terrorist incidents since we began compiling such figures. This year, attacks on U.S. targets are running 31% above their 1987 levels; while incidents for 1988 are running about 4% above 1987. So it is certainly fair to question the effectiveness of our country’s counterterrorism policy. Let me suggest to you, however, that these data do not reflect a failed policy. Rather, they are evidence that terrorism is now and will be a persistent international problem. We cannot expect completely to eradicate terrorism. But we can aim to reduce significantly terrorism’s status on the international agenda. And I believe our policy is moving toward that goal. U.S. Counterterrorism Policy American counterterrorist policy stands on three solid pillars. First, we will not accede to terrorist demands. We will not pay ransom, pardon convicted terrorists, or pressure other countries to give in to terrorist demands. In other words, we will make no deals. But we will talk to anyone authoritative, anywhere, anytime about the welfare and unconditional release of our hostages. Second, we have taken the lead in pressuring states which support terrorist groups and use terrorism as part of their foreign policy. We have shown these states that they will be penalized for support terrorism. The United States will not tolerate their aiding and abetting terrorist groups by
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supplying them with weapons, money, passports, training bases, and safehouses. Third, we are imposing the rule of law on terrorists for their criminal actions. Good police work is catching terrorists, and they are being brought to trial. The United States now has on the books a law which enables our law enforcement agencies to better combat terrorism. Popularly called a ‘‘long arm’’ statute, the law makes it a federal crime to kill, injure, threaten, detain, or seize an American citizen anywhere in the world in order to compel a third person or government to accede to a terrorist’s demands. U.S. Policy: How Is It Working? So we have a clear and comprehensive counterterrorist policy. How is it working? Let us look first at the ‘‘no concessions’’ element of our policy. Obviously, this element of our policy was damaged by the Iran-contra affair. However, for the past 2 years, the President has made it crystal clear to Iran and others our government’s steadfast commitment to the no deals principle. No country, no group should believe there is gain in trying to blackmail the United States. Based on my own meetings with counterterrorism officials and experts from other countries and in this country, we have largely recovered the credibility lost by the Iran-contra affair. The international counterterrorism community understands our position, and there is strong bipartisan support here for our policy of firmness in dealing with terrorists. We have enjoyed an important measure of success on the second ingredient of our policy—pressuring states supporting terrorism. Some of the more notorious state supporters have attempted—publicly at least—to distance themselves from terrorism. Our 1986 airstrike on Libya’s terrorist camps was the watershed event in the world’s fight against terrorist supporting states. European nations followed our lead against Libya by imposing political, economic, and security measures against the Qadhafi regime. European Community members expelled more than 100 Libyan ‘‘diplomats’’ and restricted the movements of other Libyan ‘‘diplomatic’’ and ‘‘consular’’ personnel. These moves severely damaged Libya’s European network dedicated to supporting international terrorism. Qadhafi learned that his support for international terrorism would not be cost free. And he changed his behavior, which, after all, was the objective of our attack. Libya’s involvement in terrorism declined from 19 incidents in 1986 to 6 in 1987. Syria, another long-time supporter of terrorism, felt the pressure of our counterterrorism strategy also. In late 1986, British and West German courts established Syrian complicity in terrorist attacks in London and West Berlin. Together with Great Britain, the United States joined an international campaign employing diplomatic sanctions to convince Syria to reduce its links to terrorist groups. These efforts worked. In 1985, Syria was implicated in 34 terrorist incidents but in 1986 only 6. In 1987, a year after our pressures, we detected Syria’s hand in only one incident. Moreover, Syria expelled the violent Abu Nidal organization in June 1987—a major victory for our counterterrorist policies.
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This pillar of U.S. Government policy may not force these nations to cease entirely their support for terrorist groups. Indeed, both Libya, and Syria continue to provide such support. But a concerted, vigorous Western strategy does make them move more cautiously and become more circumspect. The third and final element of our tripartite program—using the rule of law against terrorist and encouraging others to do the same—is maturing into a potent weapon for two basic reasons. First, there has been a sea change in international attitudes toward terrorists. Second, governments have decided to provide law enforcement agencies the resources necessary to deter terrorism. Not long ago, many usually responsible countries granted terrorists dispensation for their crimes. Ironically, terrorists were perceived as victims of those vague forces called ‘‘oppression’’ and ‘‘imperialism’’—victims, or worse, romantic adventurers whose behavior should be indulged. No longer is this true. Terrorists began to lose this international indulgence as they widened their circle of targets in the late 1970s. In some instances, they even attacked sympathizers and supporters. The shock of such actions turned indulgence to revulsion. And as popular disgust mounted, politicians finally insisted on action to counter the terrorists. Law enforcement agencies were given the resources to do their jobs. National police departments now have the surveillance gear, the communications equipment, and the money for overtime to gather intelligence and to track and arrest terrorists. As a result, more and more terrorists are being brought to trial and convicted. ¥ Two weeks ago, a Maltese court sentenced the sole surviving terrorist in the November 1985 hijacking of an Egyptian airliner to 25 years imprisonment—the maximum sentence under Maltese law. The surviving hijacker belonged to the Abu Nidal organization. ¥ Last month, a Sudanese court passed the death sentence on five Palestinian terrorists for their attack this year on Khartoum’s Acropole Hotel and the Sudan Club. These five were also members of the Abu Nidal organization. ¥ Also last month, a French court convicted in absentia the notorious Fatah terrorist Colonel Hawari to 10 years, the maximum allowed under French law, for complicity to transport arms, ammunition, and explosives and for criminal associations. ¥ A West German court is currently trying Muhammad Hamedei, a Lebanese terrorist implicated in the 1985 TWA hijacking which resulted in the murder of an innocent American seaman. ¥ In Greece, authorities will soon decide on Muhammad Rashid’s extradition to this country where he is wanted for planting a bomb in 1982 on a Pan Am airliner. His extradition to the United States would be an important indication of Greece’s adherence to its states policy of combating terrorism. ¥ And here in Washington, D.C., Fawaz Younis, a Lebanese terrorist, will go on trial next year for holding American citizens hostage when he led the 1985 hijacking of a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight.
So, the United States has a policy in place and it works. But we cannot become complacent.
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The Threat Remains Terrorists still have the means to outrage us, to force our attention to them, and to strike almost anywhere in the world. As we look at the threat environment today, we identify three particular threats in the period just ahead. And as we look into the next decade, we have some additional concerns. Let me address both sets of issues. Radical Palestinian Groups. Our first immediate concern is the likely increase in radical Palestinian terrorism. This May, terrorists from the radical Palestinian group, the Abu Nidal organization, used machine guns and grenades to attack a Sudanese hotel and club frequented by foreign visitors. Two months later, Abu Nidal terrorists struck again attacking the Greek passenger ship City of Poros with grenades and machine guns. Just last month, West German police arrested members of another radical Palestinian group. The PFLPGC [Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine-General Council], before they could carry out a terrorist attack. And recently, other violent fanatical Palestinian groups, including Abu Musa and the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, publicly proclaimed their intention to step up their terrorist effort against Israel. Combining a deep, visceral hostility toward the West with cold-blooded terror, these radical Palestinian groups receive financial, logistical, and weapons support from Syria and Libya. They are responsible for some of the most vicious terrorists operations on record. Although Israel is their main target, Israel is not their only target. These groups represent an ongoing international danger. Libya. Libya’s continued—even growing—involvement in terrorist is our second concern. After 2 years of relative quiet. Qadhafi is becoming more active. Instead of using Libyan citizens, he is increasingly using surrogates to implement his terrorist attacks. We have indications that Libya is augmenting its assistance to and enhancing its relationship with such terrorist groups and the Abu Nidal organization, the Japanese Red Army, and the Provisional IRA [Irish Republican Army]. In the last 3 years, the relationship between Tripoli and the vicious Abu Nidal organization has intensified. Abu Nidal is now based in Tripoli, and Libya provides most of its funding. One of the Abu Nidal organization terrorists who attacked the City of Poros carried a Libyan passport. The weapons used in that attack were from Libya’s military inventory. The April 14 attack on the USO club in Naples, in which one American and four Italians were killed, was conducted by the Japanese Red Army. It took place on the anniversary of the U.S. attack on Libya, and the attackers proclaimed their solidarity with Libya. Qadhafi has obviously calculated that if he can hide his hand well enough, the West will not respond. He may be right. At the exact moment we detect increased Libyan activity, a number of European countries are responding to a ‘‘charm offensive’’ launched by Qadhafi by improving relations with him. We may inadvertently be sending Qadhafi the message that it is not acceptable to directly commit terrorism, but that there is no price for using surrogates. Terrorism in the Andes. The final item on our short list of immediate concerns is terrorism in the Andean countries—Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and
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Bolivia—and the increasing danger posed by the narcoterrorists. We do not read or hear much about terrorism in these countries, but terrorist acts against American facilities and personnel are becoming more disturbing. Because of economic and political influence in Latin America, the United States is an obvious target for groups like the National Liberation Army in Columbia, Sendero Luminoso in Peru, Alfaro Vive Carajo (AVC) in Ecuador, and far-left groups in Bolivia—groups aiming to undermine foreign investment so as to create economic chaos in their own countries. So far this year, Colombian terrorist groups have carried out more than 70 anti-U.S. attacks—almost half of all terrorist attacks against U.S. targets worldwide. Almost all of these attacks were against U.S. oil company facilities. And all four major Colombian terrorists groups have received arms and training from Cuba and reportedly aid from Libya. Looking at Peru, a modest decline in violent anti-U.S. activity does not truly reflect the considerable level of violence there. Since 1980, when the Sendero Luminoso launched its terror campaign, more than 12,000 people have been killed, and more than $10 billion in material losses has been registered. Sendero began targeting foreign interests about a year ago. Several recent attacks have been made on U.S. interests. In Ecuador, the small but deadly Alfaro Vive group has been contained by the Ecuadorian Government. Although weakened, these urban terrorists are still capable of violent and coordinated action, especially when they receive help, as they have in the past, from the better organized Colombian terrorist groups. Bolivia, until recently, had largely avoided the terrorist problems plaguing its neighbors. Now some elements of the far left are preparing and carrying out terrorists activities. Examples of the growing threat level in this Andean country include the recent bombing attempt on Secretary Shultz’s motorcade. But the predominant threat in Bolivia comes from drug traffickers. Narcoterrorism is on the rise throughout the Andes. Drug traffickers have always used terrorist tactics to suit their purpose, but now they are frequently working together with terrorist groups. Bit-time narcotics dealers offer Latin American terrorist groups financial backing in exchange for the terrorists attacking the drug traffickers’ enemies. And the U.S. Government is at the top of the drug dealers’ enemies list. Terrorism in the 1990s These three issues—radical Palestinian terrorist groups, Libya, and Andean terrorism—will certainly demand our attention for the rest of the 1980s. But what of the next decade? Should we anticipate changes in strategy or tactics by terrorists? Are there any trends we should be alert to? You have all read or heard apocalyptic stories of terrorists building their own nuclear weapons. Yet, most experts agree that nuclear terrorism presents less potential danger than terrorist resorting to less dramatic, but no less potent, means of mass destruction—such as chemical weapons or by exploiting more sophisticated technologies. Terrorists have noted the use of chemical weapons by the Soviets in Afghanistan and during the Iran-Iraq war provoked little public outrage. They have seen increased deterrent measures around their traditional
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targets—airports, embassies, and government buildings. These favored terrorist targets are no longer easy marks. And equally important, the international media have been relatively restrained lately in reporting on terrorist outrages. Some terrorist groups might decide, therefore, to welcome the new decade by upping the ante—by using chemical weapons to gain attention. A number of states which support terrorism have chemical weapons in their arsenals. Recently, Libya acquired a very substantial capacity to make chemical weapons. We also believe terrorists will make greater use of high technology in their attacks. To take on example, the Provisional IRA, which has contact with Middle Eastern groups and Libya, has become expert in building bombs with long-delay timing devices; bombs which can be set to explode in days rather than hours. The IRA placed such a bomb in their 1985 attempt on [British] Prime Minister Thatcher. We also expect that terrorists will make more use of modern plastic explosives. These are much more powerful than traditional explosives like dynamite and TNT. And they are much more difficult to detect with current technology. Libya has already shipped several tons of a Czech plastic explosive called SEMTEX used in devastating attacks in Northern Ireland. Priorities for the New Administration What are the lessons from the 1980s for the new Administration? ¥ Firmness and persistence must continue as the hallmarks of this country’s counterterrorism effort. Only a sustained, relentless effort will suppress terrorism. So we must maintain the patience of discipline to allow our current policy to work for the next period. ¥ We should be confident enough not to cut deals with hostage-takers. ¥ States supporting terrorism must be exposed to the sunlight. When necessary, international sanctions, including military force, should be imposed on these states to make them behave as responsible members of the world community. ¥ To further international cooperation against terrorist-supporting states, we should expand our cooperation with Latin American, East Asian, and African countries. Terrorism is not limited to the Middle East or Europe. ¥ Let us buttress the rule of law as a tool by having Congress pass the ‘‘Terrorist Alien Removal Act.’’ The proposed legislation, drafted by the Justice Department, would expedite procedures for deporting alien terrorists found in the United States. To further reinforce our law enforcement tactics, we and our allies should agree to share as much information on terrorists as possible. Complementing this effort, U.S. Government agencies need to work more closely in permitting access to data bases on terrorism. Ideally, within the U.S. Government and with our allies, we should all be working from a central data base. By enhancing the flow of data among and between ourselves and our allies, we can make it easier to track and eventually apprehend terrorists. ¥ On a less visible level, there will continue to be a place in the fight against terrorists for covert action. Terrorist groups draw strength from their small size and secrecy. This inherent strength is also a weakness which we can exploit by making them doubt their cadre’s loyalty and making them worry about Western infiltration. ¥ We need to combat terrorists’ use of high technology. This means being willing to expend time and money for research and development (R&D) activities. For
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most of our agencies, counterterrorism R&D projects simply do not cross above the budgetary cut line. ¥ To deal with this problem, we have created a national counterterrorism R&D program for which the State Department annually seeks funds. Unfortunately, the amount of funds appropriated by Congress of the national counterterrorism R&D program is shrinking at an alarming rate. I hope the new Administration and the new Congress will restore this vital program to a high priority.
We, too, can put new technologies to work. Progress in miniaturization has permitted the development of more accurate sensors better able to detect explosives and hazardous gases. Research into DNA technology is providing forensic scientists with the biological tools to determine whether a specimen comes from a specific individual. Refinements in computer software are enhancing our ability to gather and analyze information. Conclusion No one can promise a world free of terrorism. But, through hard-earned experience, our country has developed a policy which is showing signs of success against the terrorists. They know we are serious. States which in the past routinely supported terrorists are now more cautious in their actions. Terrorists once caught are being put on trial and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. No longer are they being allowed to slip quietly away. Our successes should encourage confidence that the tide is turning our way—that we are on the right path. We must understand, however, that suppressing terrorism will not be easy. We still have a long and difficult struggle before us. With heightened vigilance, clear thinking, and steady discipline, I am confident that we can prevail. SOURCE: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2143_v89/ai_7465113
AMBASSADOR MORRIS D. BUSBY Ambassador Morris D. Busby, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Counter-Terrorism in the 1990s,’’ Address to the International Seminar on Maritime and Port Security, Miami, Florida, January 3, 1990 Today I would like to discuss U.S. counter-terrorism policy and our priorities for the 1990s. Terrorism is still very much with us. In just over 1 year we have seen the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 killing 230 people, 170 people were killed in the bombing of UTA [Union des Transports Aeriens] Flight 772 and 110 more in the recent bombing of a Colombian Avianca flight, Lt. Col. William Higgins was lost under grotesque circumstances in Lebanon, eight Americans are still held hostage in Lebanon, and five other Americans fell to assassins’ bullets in the Philippines and Bolivia. U.S. Counter-Terrorism Policy We cannot expect to completely eradicate terrorism. It is now, and will remain, a persistent international problem. But we can, through our policies,
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reduce significantly the impact terrorism has on international life. We can make the terrorist’s vicious work more difficult, and we can make it more costly for those states that continue to support terrorism. Our counterterrorism policy was initially developed during the 1970s. The basic principles remain as valid today as when first articulated. First, we will not accede to terrorist demands. We will not pay ransom, release convicted terrorists, or pressure other countries to give in to terrorist demands; in other words, ‘‘no deals.’’ Obviously, this aspect of our policy was damaged by the Iran-contra affair. That was a mistake, but for the past 3 years we have made crystal clear our steadfast commitment to the ‘‘no deals’’ principle. No country, no group, should believe there is gain in trying to blackmail the United States. Let me add an important, but little understood point—‘‘no deals’’ doesn’t mean ‘‘no talking.’’ As we have consistently said, we will talk to anyone authoritative any time about the welfare and unconditional release of our hostages in Lebanon. But we will not reward the hostage takers and place others at risk by ‘‘buying’’ their freedom. Second, we will continue to pressure states that support terrorist groups and use terrorism as a tool of their foreign policy. We want to convince such states that support for terrorists leads only to economic and political isolation, whereas turning away from these illegal and immoral practices will enable them to reenter the community of nations. Terrorist groups can’t operate effectively without weapons, money, passports, training bases, and safehouses. And all too often, these essential items come from governments. We will not turn a blind eye to these activities. Where we have evidence, we will penalize these states with all means at our disposal and urge others to do the same. At the same time, as President Bush said in his inaugural speech—referring to Iran’s influence over those who hold Americans hostage—‘‘Assistance can be shown here and will be long remembered. Good will begets good will. Good faith can be a spiral that endlessly moves on.’’ There are signs that our policies are working. Some of the more notorious state supporters of terrorism have recently—publicly at least—attempted to distance themselves from terrorism. Our 1986 airstrike on Libya’s terrorist camps was a watershed event. European nations followed our lead by imposing political, economic, and security measures against the Qadhafi regime. They expelled more than 100 Libyan operatives and restricted the movements of others. Qadhafi learned that support for international terrorism is not cost-free and now professes to have changed his behavior, which after all is the objective of our policy. He has recently renounced terrorism and claims to no longer be supporting terrorism. We welcome this changed rhetoric and have called on him now to dismantle his terrorist apparatus, expel Abu Nidal and other terrorists to whom he has given sanctuary, close the training camps in Libya, and end funding for terrorist groups. This will be a true test of his intention. Syria, another long-time supporter of terrorism, may also be rethinking its support for terrorism. In late 1986, British and West German courts established Syrian complicity in terrorist attacks in London and West Berlin. Together with Great Britain, the United States joined an international campaign
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employing diplomatic, political, and economic sanctions to convince Syria to reduce its links to terrorist groups. These efforts have produced results. In 1985, Syria was implicated in 34 terrorist incidents, in 1986 only six. In 1987, we detected Syria’s hand in only one incident and none during the past 2 years. Syria also expelled the violent Abu Nidal Organization in June 1987. Yet Syria continues to harbor terrorists. The PFLP-GC [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command] is headquartered in Damascus. The Japanese Red Army and other terrorist groups operate freely in Syrian-dominated Lebanon, openly provided with arms and supplies through Syria. There is no question that Syria, like Libya, bears responsibility for the activities of the groups it harbors. They should shut them down if they expect us to believe their antiterrorist rhetoric. Looking at Iran, this country continues to support terrorism from the Middle East to Europe. And there is every indication that this is state policy. President Bush has clearly opened the door to better relations, but until Iran acts to abandon its policy of supporting terrorism and hostage taking, there will be no possibility of an improvement in the U.S.-Iranian relationship. It would be an exaggeration to claim that U.S. Government policy has caused these terrorism-supporting nations to cease their support for international terrorist groups entirely. We believe they continue to provide such support. But we are modifying their behavior, and concerted, vigorous Western action does make them move more cautiously. The third element of our policy is imposing the rule of law on terrorists. Terrorists are neither freedom fighters nor romantic warriors; they are criminals. We have on the books laws which give our law enforcement agencies powerful tools to combat terrorism. Popularly called the ‘‘long arm’’ statutes, these laws make terrorist acts committed overseas against Americans federal crimes. Without infringing on the sovereignty of others, it gives us the ability to act against terrorists in our own courts when we can. This element of our program is maturing into a potent weapon for two basic reasons. There has been a sea change in international attitudes toward terrorists. Not long ago, many usually responsible countries granted terrorists dispensation for their crimes. Terrorists were considered victims of ‘‘oppression’’ and ‘‘imperialism’’—victims or, worse, romantic adventurers whose behavior should be indulged. Fortunately, no longer is this true. As terrorists widened their circle of targets in the late 1970s, they lost this international indulgence. In some instances, they even attacked their sympathizers and supporters. The shock of their brutal actions turned indulgence to revulsion. As popular disgust mounted, governments took strong action to counter the terrorists. Today, more and more terrorists are being brought to trial and convicted. ¥ One year ago a Maltese court sentenced the sole surviving terrorist in the November 1985 hijacking of an Egyptian airliner to 25 years imprisonment—the maximum sentence under Maltese law. ¥ In late 1988, a French court convicted in absentia the notorious Fatah [the military arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization] terrorist Colonel Hawari to 10 years in prison for complicity to transport arms, ammunition, and explosives
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and for criminal association. Hawari’s sentence was the maximum allowed under the French law. Last February a court in Switzerland sentenced a Lebanese terrorist to life imprisonment for hijacking an Air Afrique flight the previous year. Last May a West German court sentenced Lebanese terrorist Muhammad Hamadei to life imprisonment for hijacking, hostage taking, and the murder of an innocent American seaman. Last March in Washington, D.C., a court sentenced Lebanese terrorist Fawaz Younis to 30 years for hijacking a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight in 1985 and for taking hostages, including American citizens. Just last month, terrorist trials took place in Paris and in Stockholm. In Paris an operative of the May 15 Middle Eastern terrorist group was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and other charges for his involvement in a series of bombings in that city and in London during 1983–85. In Stockholm four members of the Palestine Popular Struggle Front were sentenced to terms up to life imprisonment for their bombing campaign in 1985–86 in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.
So our policies are sound, and, step by step, we are having success. But terrorists still have the means to strike at us, outrage us, and force our attention on them. As we look to the 1990s, let me outline three areas of immediate concern. Areas of Concern In Latin America the use of terrorist tactics by narcotics traffickers and insurgent groups in this region is disturbing and on the rise throughout the Andes. In the past these groups have used terrorist tactics from time to time to suit their purposes. But now we see big-time narcotics dealers turning to terrorism to further their criminal enterprises. And we see classic insurgent or terrorist groups turning to drug trafficking to finance their activities. In Colombia the drug cartels have unleashed an unprecedented wave of assassinations and bombings in a ‘‘war’’ against Colombia’s democracy. Almost daily, drug cartel murder squads bomb newspaper offices, kill journalists, and assassinate judges. Last year Colombian narcotics traffickers and insurgent groups carried out more than 70 attacks aimed at American interests. In recent months we have seen a civilian aircraft bombed with all aboard killed and the destruction of the headquarters building of the security police leaving over 60 dead in that beleaguered country. President Barco and the Colombian Government have responded strongly. Colombia and its people have the full support of our government and all Americans. We are giving significant assistance to the Colombians and will continue to do so. In Peru the terrorist activities of the Sendero Luminoso are a serious threat. Sendero Luminoso waged a brutal but unsuccessful effort to sabotage the municipal elections last November. Because of the Sendero terror, over 400 municipal officials have resigned during the last 2 years. Since 1980, when the Sendero Luminoso launched its terror campaign, more than 15,000 people have been killed. In Ecuador the small but deadly Alfaro Vive group has been contained by the Ecuadorean Government. Although weakened, these urban terrorists are still
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capable of violent and coordinated action, especially when they receive help—as they have in the past—from the better organized Colombian terrorist groups. Bolivia until recently had largely avoided the terrorist problems plaguing its neighbors. Now some groups are preparing and carrying out terrorist activities. There was a bombing attempt on Secretary [of State] Shultz’s motorcade in August 1988, last May two American Mormon missionaries were assassinated in La Paz, and the U.S. Embassy was recently bombed. And in El Salvador, the insurgent Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) apparently miscalculated its own strength in launching its November offensive in San Salvador, losing many of its members. The FMLN has frequently resorted to terrorism against its own people. The FMLN has also targeted Americans. Four U.S. Marine Embassy guards and two American businessmen were among the dead in 1985 when FMLN gunmen machinegunned patrons at an outdoor caf´e. The FMLN was also responsible for killing a U.S. Navy military adviser in 1983. In another area of the world, the Philippines, we face another perilous challenge. The communist party’s New People’s Army (NPA) has frequently employed terrorism throughout its 20-year insurgency. In 1989, the NPA resumed targeting official Americans for assassination. Three Americans have been killed in the past year. In April, Vietnam War hero and former prisoner of war Col. James ‘‘Nick’’ Rowe was fatally ambushed while driving to work in Manila, and in September, during Vice President Quayle’s official visit to the country, two Department of Defense civilian contractors were similarly killed near Clark Air Base. The NPA views the United States as its enemy and seeks to drive the U.S. military presence from the country. We fear its attacks on unarmed personnel will continue. And, finally, radical Palestinian groups still represent an ongoing international danger. Combining a deep, visceral hostility toward the West with coldblooded terrorism, these groups are responsible for some of the most vicious terrorist acts on record. We should expect these groups to remain active. These issues—narcoterrorism in Latin America, terrorism in the Philippines, and Middle East terrorism—will certainly command our attention for the next few years. But there are other concerns. You have all read or heard apocalyptic stories of terrorists stealing or building their own nuclear weapons. This is the stuff of paperback thrillers. Most experts would agree that nuclear terrorism presents less of a potential danger than use of less dramatic, but no less potent means of mass destruction, such as chemical weapons or by exploiting more sophisticated technologies. Terrorists have undoubtedly noted that the use of chemical weapons by the Soviets in Afghanistan and during the Iran-Iraq war seemed to provoke little public outrage. With increased security around their traditional targets— airports, embassies, government buildings—these favored terrorist targets are no longer easy marks. And, equally important, the international media have been relatively restrained lately in reporting on terrorist outrages, thus denying them the public stage they wish. Some terrorist groups might decide that these factors call for a new, more terrible approach, perhaps even the use of chemical weapons. A number of states that support terrorism have such weapons in their arsenals, and the technology is not difficult to acquire or develop.
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We also anticipate that terrorists will make greater use of high technology in their attacks. To take one example, the Provisional IRA [Irish Republican Army], which has contact with Middle Eastern groups and Libya, has become expert in building bombs with long-delay timing devices, bombs which can be set to explode in days rather than hours. The IRA placed such a bomb in their 1985 attempt on [British] Prime Minister Thatcher at a seaside hotel during a party conference. And the recent assassination in Germany of Alfred Herrhausen used a particularly sophisticated device. Terrorists have been and will continue to make use of modern plastic explosives. These are much more powerful than traditional explosives like dynamite and TNT. And they are much more difficult to detect with current technology. Libya has already shipped several tons of a Czech plastic called Semtex to the Provisional IRA in recent years. And the IRA has used Semtex to devastating effect in Northern Ireland. The December 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 and last year’s downing of UTA 772 may signal another change in terrorist tactics: A move away from the hijackings of the 1980s toward a more deadly strategy of simply killing large numbers of people by bombing commercial aircraft. Response to Challenges How should we respond to these challenges? Firmness and persistence must continue as the hallmarks of our country’s counter-terrorism effort. Only a sustained, relentless effort carried out over a period of years will suppress terrorism. We must maintain the patience and discipline to allow our current policy to work through the next decade. And we must be confident enough not to cut deals with hostage takers or other terrorists. States supporting terrorism must be exposed to the sunlight. When necessary, international sanctions, including military force, should be imposed on these states to convince them that support for terrorism has a high cost and induce them to behave as responsible members of the world community. To further international cooperation against terrorist supporting states, we must expand our cooperation with Latin American, East Asian, and African countries. Terrorism is not limited to the Middle East or Europe. During the past year, we have discussed terrorism with the Soviet Union as one of the transnational issues that we raise whenever the two sides meet. The Soviets have taken a more constructive approach recently and have condemned specific terrorist acts, but there is still much room for improvement. We will continue to press the Soviets to take concrete steps to make it more difficult for international terrorists to operate. To further reinforce our law enforcement tactics, we and our friends must expand our sharing of information on terrorists as much as possible. To do so, we need closer cooperation, both on the policy and technical level. We already work very closely with our allies. As more countries join in the fight to eradicate terrorism, we must broaden our group until the terrorists and their supporters have no place to hide. On a less visible level, there will continue to be a place in the fight against terrorists for military and covert action. There are legitimate tools which we should use with discretion, but no one should doubt that we will employ these means to combat the terrorist threat.
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We need to combat the terrorists’ use of high technology. This means being willing to expend the time and money for research and development (R&D) activities. In the United States, counter-terrorism R&D projects simply do not cross above the budgetary cut line for many of our government agencies. This must be remedied. To deal with this problem, we have created a national counter-terrorism R&D program for which the State Department annually seeks funds. Unfortunately, the amount of funds appropriated by Congress for this purpose is never enough. We are working to increase funds for this vital program and make it a high priority. We, too, can put new technologies to work. Progress in miniaturization has permitted the development of more accurate sensors better able to detect explosives and hazardous gases. Improved devices will make it easier to detect plastic explosives such as those used in recent airline bombings. Research into DNA technology is providing forensic scientists with significant biological tools. Refinements in computer software are enhancing our ability to gather and analyze information. Terrorism, as we all know far too well, is an almost endless series of shifting tactics and differing targets. We have been largely successful in dealing with the threat posed by hijacking, for example, but now our efforts must address midair sabotage, which appears to be the current tactic of choice for terrorists. The U.S. and other governments are working on a number of initiatives to help improve the security of air and sea travel. Our initiatives include: ¥ The development of sophisticated equipment to detect plastic explosives. ¥ Many of the nations represented at this conference are cooperating in a multination effort to develop an international agreement that will require the introduction of ‘‘taggants’’ into all plastic explosives which will make them easier to detect. ¥ The United States has supported the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) efforts to encourage worldwide implementation of its recommendations aimed at preventing unlawful acts against passengers and crews. These measures were a U.S. initiative developed in a response to the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking. The IMO, with U.S. Government support, is currently sponsoring regional seminars to encourage implementation of these measures. ¥ Effective training is also a crucial ingredient in improving security against terrorism. The United States offers training to many nations each year in antiterrorism skills, including aviation and maritime security.
No one can promise a world free of terrorism. But through hard-earned experience our country has developed a policy which is showing signs of success against the terrorists. They know we are serious. States which in the past routinely supported terrorists are now more cautious in their actions. Terrorists, once caught, are being put on trial and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. No longer are they being allowed to slip quietly away. Our successes should encourage confidence that the tide is turning our way—that we are on the right path. We must understand, however, that suppressing terrorism will not be easy. We still have a long and difficult struggle before us. With heightened vigilance, clear thinking, and steady discipline, I am confident that we can prevail.
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Ambassador Morris D. Busby, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to House Public Works and Transportation Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, April 18, 1991 Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to describe our efforts to deal with the threat of international terrorism, especially the threats directed against civil aviation. The Department of State is responsible for leading the U.S. government’s efforts to counter terrorism overseas. This is accomplished largely through the policy coordinating committee on counter-terrorism (PCC/CT). We chair this group, which includes representatives from 11 different agencies and departments having terrorism-related responsibilities. This process served us well during the recent crisis as we worked to counter the threat posed by Iraqi-sponsored terrorism. Mr. Chairman, there has been some commentary recently that the terrorist threat during the Gulf crisis was overblown. The fact is that Iraq and its terrorist allies did attempt terrorist actions against the U.S. and the other coalition states. And perhaps I could address the subject you raised in your letter of invitation in that context, with a particular emphasis on aviation security. In some cases the terrorists were successful. But, by and large, we countered their operations. One of our primary concerns from August 2 onward was that Iraq or terrorists working on Iraq’s behalf would attempt a terrorist ‘‘spectacular’’ such as an act of aviation sabotage. In response we stepped up our contingency planning, implemented countermeasures, and issued advisories to Americans living or traveling abroad. Regarding the travel advisory program, U.S. government policy requires the dissemination of information to the general public regarding specific and credible overseas terrorist threats which cannot be countered. I would like to emphasize that there is no ‘‘double standard’’ between information available to government officials and the general public when the threat applies to both private citizens and government officials. We do not issue ‘‘government only’’ advisories. We advised the public repeatedly, based on the information we had, of the threat of terrorist actions by Iraq beginning in August and continuing through the war. We provide advice to travelers on destinations to avoid and other proscriptive measures that they could take to help minimize the risk. We attempted to build—both domestically and overseas—a partnership between the government and the public to confront and counter the threat. Our initial objective was to deter Iraq from actually undertaking any such attacks. We publicly emphasized that we would hold Saddam Hussein ‘‘personally responsible’’ for acts of terrorism directed against the U.S. or other coalition states. On another front, shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. government began to implement comprehensive additional security measures to counter the threat posed by Iraqi-sponsored terrorism. Government installations considered at risk were ‘‘hardened’’ and in some cases temporarily closed. We also drew down the numbers of personnel we had posted to some areas.
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Aviation Security Our initiatives also included a number of steps in order to minimize the risk of an act of aviation sabotage or hijacking. As the risk of hostilities continued to increase in the fall of 1990 we began a program of aviation security improvements, many of which reflected the new authorities granted by the aviation security improvement act of 1990 (ASIA). Effective international coordination and maintenance of strict security standards is needed to counter the threat posed to civil aviation by international terrorists. Strong security is required in many nations if civil aviation is to be safe. Otherwise terrorists will try to exploit weak links. The ASIA assigned the person in my position responsibility for the coordination of all international aviation security activities within the Department of State. Working through the PCC/CT process, we tested and refined our existing crisis management procedures for civil aviation. We looked at our communications capabilities, security procedures, and response mechanisms. We worked with a number of agencies on this program, but our partnership with the FAA was of greatest importance. Early on, the FAA developed a comprehensive set of aviation security contingency plans for both domestic and international aviation. We in turn made arrangements with the embassies and host government authorities in many areas of the world to support the emergency assignment of FAA security personnel who were dispatched once hostilities began. Beginning in the autumn, we began an extensive exchange of information with our major aviation partners on the security countermeasures the FAA planned to impose in the event of hostilities. As hostilities loomed close, in the first week of January I led a team to the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. During this trip, General Steele and I had comprehensive discussions with these governments which resulted in agreement in every country on the measures we would take if war broke out. I am convinced that our contingency planning helped insure that security countermeasures were implemented quickly, effectively and comprehensively. The program worked very well. Not only the five nations we visited, but all of the coalition nations, participated in a major strengthening of civil aviation security procedures which countered effectively the threat presented by Iraqisponsored or directed terrorism. During the entire Gulf War, there were nearly 200 terrorist incidents directed against coalition interests, a rate three to four times the ‘‘average.’’ Turkish terrorists killed one American in Turkey during Operation Desert Storm and killed another and seriously injured a third after the ground war ended. However, there was not a single act of aviation sabotage or hijacking. Virtually all of the major security countermeasures remain in effect. The coalition states recognize that the threat of terrorism continues, even if there is now a cease-fire. Countering the threat of Iraqi-sponsored terrorism also required many other steps beyond developing aviation security plans. Among these were: — The expulsion of Iraqi diplomats, intelligence operatives and others believed involved in terrorism. The United States and many other nations cooperated in an effort which resulted in the expulsion of more than 200 Iraqi diplomats or intelligence operatives before or during the war.
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— Another 500 suspicious persons were ordered out of various nations or put Under close scrutiny. — Our military strategy involved a concerted effort to disrupt the command and control systems of Iraq. Not only were the military channels disrupted, but the diplomatic systems were neutralized. This severely limited Iraq’s ability to authorize, coordinate or plan terrorist operations. — We reduced our vulnerabilities, particularly at isolated diplomatic posts, by bolstering security and reducing staff and dependents. We limited our staffs in many embassies only to those personnel essential to U.S. efforts to prosecute the war or to provide essential consular support to Americans. — Security countermeasures—not just for civil aviation—were raised to extraordinary levels. — Years of work to improve police and intelligence exchanges among governments, and to build an international consensus against terrorism, proved successful. — Crisis management preparations, including table top exercises developed by my office and a comprehensive approach to managing acts of terrorism within the context of an ongoing war, improved our capabilities to respond effectively when fighting began.
Post War Period Even though there is a cease-fire in place and Iraq has been required to renounce terrorism as a condition of the UN-imposed cease-fire, we cannot and will not let our guard down. We will continue our efforts to strengthen aviation security. A key feature in this effort is an initiative to improve international security through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Working with the other members of the Summit 7, we have agreed to press together for major changes to international aviation security standards. Another initiative is the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, recently negotiated in ICAO. I had the honor of signing this convention on March 1 in Montreal. When in force, it will require that manufacturers of plastic explosives include a chemical marker which will make the detection of such explosives easier, using existing technologies. This conventional will, as it becomes effective, improve our ability to detect concealed bombs of the type used to blow up Pan Am flight 103. We would also like to take this opportunity to note that the administration submitted to Congress last month proposed legislation to implement the 1988 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Aviation and the 1988 International Maritime Organization Treaty for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. The implementing legislation included in the anti-terrorism sections of the proposed Comprehensive Violent Crime Control Act of 1991. We urge congressional action this year. Bilaterals Mr. Chairman, you asked about the progress in negotiating bilateral security articles. This is another element in our continuing effort to insure effective civil aviation security. In 1986, the Department launched an initiative to include strong security articles in bilateral agreements with our aviation partners.
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We have reached agreement on bilateral aviation security articles with 57 countries, including practically all our major aviation partners. Countries that have agreed to security articles in the past 12 months include Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece and Costa Rica. We are actively negotiating on bilateral aviation security articles with 14 other nations. (The next one is to be signed is with Bulgaria on April 24.) We think this is an effective program and we will continue to pursue it. R&D The State Department also coordinates the national CT R&D program which was begun in FY 1986 to fill the gaps in existing research, and to prevent duplication of efforts. We bring together scientists and managers from the government agencies that have a role in CT R&D, through the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG). The TSWG today functions as one of the subcommittees of the PCC/CT which I mentioned earlier. Participation in the TSWG is broad, with more than 20 agencies or offices represented. The national CT R&D program funds research on projects that are judged critical to U.S. counter-terrorism efforts but that are not being funded by an individual agency as part of their mission. The program gives priority to projects which would be useful to more than one government agency. The Office of Technological Assessment recently praised the CT R&D program, especially for taking the lead in funding research projects to counter chemical and biological threats. We also have funded research on developing better equipment for detecting explosives and developing safer, more reliable, and more sophisticated equipment for use by our military and civilian counter-terrorist forces in resolving hijackings or other terrorist incidents. For fiscal year 1992, the State Department is requesting $3 million for the program. And for the first time as part of our efforts to meet the funding needs for the program, the Department of Defense has agreed to request $7 million as part of its FY 1992 budget. I’d like to also mention two other State Department programs which have a bearing on aviation security. Our Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) Program helps the security forces of friendly nations improve their capabilities for preventing and coping with terrorism. Aviation security is a major focus of the program. Aviation security is a major focus of the program. The Aviation Security Improvement Act passed last year allows us to provide training at the recipient country’s own airport instead of bringing their officials to the U.S. This will help improve the effectiveness of such training. For FY 1992, we are requesting $15 million for ATA. The administration also has a rewards program which allows us to pay up to $2 million for information leading to the prevention or resolution of an act of international terrorism directed against U.S. interests overseas or the prosecution of persons who committed such an offense. The U.S. airline industry and the Airlines Pilots Association have offered to match the U.S. government’s rewards in the case of aviation related incidents, thus raising the potential maximum reward to $4 million in such cases. To replenish the
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administration’s fund, the State Department is requesting a $1 million appropriation for FY 1992. Mr. Chairman, I believe this gives an indication of the broad scope of our efforts to counter the menace of international terrorism. In fighting terrorism, every day without a major incident is considered a good day. But in this business we always have to worry about tomorrow. We recognize that there is not time for complacency.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS E. MCNAMARA Ambassador Thomas E. McNamara, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations, and Human Rights, Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 12, 1993 Thank you for providing me this opportunity to share with you the Department of State’s views on trends in international terrorism. 1992 in Review 1992 saw one of the largest one-year decreases in the number of international terrorist incidents since the U.S. began keeping such statistics in 1968. International terrorist attacks declined during 1992 to 362, the lowest level in 17 years. This is 40 percent fewer than the 557 incidents recorded in 1991, a figure that was inflated by a spate of low-level incidents at the time of the Persian Gulf War. More importantly, the number of incidents in 1992 was far below the range of 650–700 incidents per year during the mid-1980s. Despite the decline in the number of overall incidents, however, U.S. citizens and property remain the principle targets of terrorists throughout the world. Nearly 40 percent of last year’s incidents were directed at U.S. targets. Fortunately, U.S. casualties were the lowest ever. Two Americans were killed, and one was wounded during 1992, as opposed to seven dead and 16 wounded the previous year. The deadliest international terrorist attack during the year occurred on March 17 when a powerful truck bomb destroyed the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The blast leveled the embassy and severely damaged a nearby church, school, and retirement home. Twenty-nine persons were killed and 242 wounded. Islamic Jihad, a cover name for the Iranian-sponsored group Hizballah, subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack, and authenticated its claim by releasing a videotape of the embassy taken during surveillance prior to the bombing. This is another in an all-too-long list of criminal involvement by Iran; whether directly or through surrogates, in terrorism. As during the preceding three years, Latin America saw more international terrorism in 1992 than any other region. Anti-foreign attacks in that region were predominantly against American targets, although more Israelis and Argentines died as a result of the embassy bombing. Leftwing terrorism, particularly in Europe, is in decline. Ethnic and separatist groups in Europe, Latin
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America, South Asia, and the Middle East were active last year, however, and are a continuing concern. The Future The massive changes in the last several years in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are among the most important in this century. As it is often the case, however, change—no matter how positive on balance—often has some undesired consequences. Such is the case in this instance. Violence and long-suppressed ethnic conflicts have risen in a number of areas of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, causing massive human suffering. Unfortunately, terrorism is often a by-product of such conflicts. We need to monitor them carefully in the future to be prepared to deal with any terrorist consequences. In this regard, I can report that we are working with the several governments in the region to counter the threat potentially posed by terrorism. In a number of nations, laws and domestic security services have been democratized. Many of them are cooperating with Western governments, including the United States, to improve their antiterrorism capabilities. Another area of great concern is North Africa and the Middle East. There has been a disturbing, recent emergence of new, radical groups that engage in terror to enhance their political agenda. Such groups present new challenges to both national governments and the international community. Many have adopted extremist Islamic ideologies. Let me state what should be obvious to all: Our problem is not with Islam. It is with those who use violence and terror to advance their political objectives. While terrorist incidents are fewer than several years ago, the threat continues to be significant. We cannot drop our guard. Just as we are facing the contemporary threat, we must continue to be vigilant to detect and counter emerging threats before they pose a major risk to U.S. national interests. U.S. Policy I believe strongly that the main reason for this steady decline has been the growth of international cooperation in recent years. States are more and more willing to cooperate, and less tempted to make separate deals with terrorist organizations. The U.S. has been the leader in urging such cooperation, and in fighting separate deals. We have succeeded in focusing attention on those aspects of the issue that are critical to success: the ending of state sponsorship, the strengthening of the rule of law, the refusal to reward terrorists through concessions, and the strengthening of measures to thwart terrorist acts. The central pillar of our policy is pressuring state sponsors of terrorism to end their support. State sponsorship of terrorism occurs when a government provides weapons, training and training sites, intelligence support, funding, travel documents, safe havens from prosecution, and similar assistance. This enhances the threat and lethality of international terrorist groups. In the end, without a territory to operate from, and the facilities that only a state can provide, terrorists are vulnerable to effective law enforcement.
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We have been successful in putting greater pressure on these states—most notably on Iraq and Libya. We have also benefited from the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Recent revelations from the files of those regimes demonstrate what we suspected for many years: Some of these states were sponsoring terrorism against the West. In our recently completed review of state sponsorship we determined that six nations—Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria—continue to qualify as state sponsors. Two other nations—Pakistan and Sudan—remain under review as possible additions to the list of state sponsors. None of those state sponsors has completely abandoned the terrorist option, nor severed ties to terrorist surrogates. The Iranian regime has practiced state terrorism since it took power in 1979; it is currently the deadliest state sponsor and has achieved a worldwide reach. Syria retains close ties to several groups that have engaged in international terrorism, and allows them to train in territory it controls and have offices in Damascus. Saddam has exercised the terrorism option against regime opponents and U.N. officials and Western relief workers in Iraq. Libya continues to allow terrorist groups to operate in its territory, and Cuba and North Korea have not yet cut all links to terrorists. Increasingly, governments have been willing to stand up and be counted as opponents of terrorism and, importantly, to assist in countering terrorism. We saw this clearly during Operation Desert Storm when Iraq’s terrorist infrastructure was disrupted by aggressive actions by many nations. The United Nations Security Council condemnation of Libya for the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 bombings, and the passage of landmark U.N. Security Council resolutions 731 and 748, are the latest and most significant indication of this changed attitude. UNSC Resolution 748 imposed sanctions which include a complete cut-off of air service to and from Libya, an embargo on the provision of aviation spare parts and a similar provision concerning military equipment, spare parts and services to Libya, and a requirement that nations reduce the number of Libyan diplomats serving at overseas missions. These sanctions are effective in almost all cases and potential violations are acted upon quickly by the U.S. Until Libya complies fully with the requirements imposed by the Security Council, these sanctions will remain in place. We are considering with our allies, Britain and France, for the current sanctions can best be strengthened to force Libyan compliance. The efforts of the United States and other nations to strengthen the rule of law and to apply the law to terrorists are another key element of our policy. Increasingly, terrorist have been identified, tracked, apprehended, prosecuted, and punished for their crimes. The United States, for example, cooperated successfully with Greece in the trial of Mohammed Rashid, who was accused of the 1982 bombing of a Pan Am aircraft. Ten years after this bombing, Rashid was convicted and sentenced to a lengthy jail term in Athens, Greece. We also strengthen the rule of law by helping improve the judicial and law enforcement capabilities of other nations that may be victims of terrorist acts. Through training provided under the Department of State’s antiterrorism assistance program, we have improved the ability of other governments to
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preempt, to investigate, and to prosecute terrorists. In 1992, more than 1,125 senior officials from 25 countries received such training, bringing the total number of persons trained in the program to about 14,000 from 75 nations. World Trade Center Before discussing the State Department’s role in the investigation of the World Trade Center bombing, I want to express my condolences to the families of the victims, and assure them of the commitment of all of us at the Department of State to bring those guilty to justice. Even though our role in domestic terrorist incidents is limited, I will comment briefly on what we do in such cases to assist the investigators. All embassies have been tasked to report aggressively any information they may acquire concerning the bombing so the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York can have the benefit of whatever information or ideas may be available overseas. The Department is also responding to specific tasking from the Task Force concerning investigative leads that require action overseas. The Department has experience in investigating car bombings and we are sharing that knowledge with the on-scene investigators in New York. Representatives of the Department are participating in the investigation, and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has provided the Task Force specialized vapor detection equipment that can help identify explosive compounds. In addition, the Intelligence Community is undertaking an intensive, retrospective review of U.S. intelligence to find any information that is potentially useful to the investigation. Mr. Chairman, the investigation is still in its early stages and is centering on the collection of forensic evidence. Furthermore, lead responsibility for this investigation rests with the FBI and the New York Police Department, working through their Joint Terrorism Task Force. As this is an on-going criminal investigation, I cannot comment further on it, or speculate as to whether this bombing may represent an act of international terrorism. The same is true regarding the possible role of various international terrorists. Mr. Chairman, at the same time, let me be clear: If a foreign terrorist group or state is determined to have been involved in any fashion in the World Trade Center bombing, we will not rest or be satisfied until those responsible are brought to justice. There is no higher obligation of government than the protection of its citizens. I can assure you that this is the view of the President, the Secretary, and all of us in the Department. Next Steps Before ending my testimony; however, I would like to discuss steps for which we seek Congressional support. After the December 1988 destruction of Pan Am 103 by a plastic explosive bomb, the U.S. and key European nations agreed to identify chemical marking agents which could be incorporated into plastic explosives during the manufacturing stage in order to make these explosives detectable. Our aim was to develop an international agreement which would help deter terrorists
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and help prevent bombings using plastic explosives. Emerging from this effort is the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for Purposes of Detection, which was completed in Montreal in 1991, and which has been signed by the U.S. and 45 other nations. The U.S. Army has completed technical testing, much of which was initially funded by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Research and Development Fund, to ensure that the required changes to U.S. plastic explosives will have no adverse environmental, occupational health or national security implications. Based on these tests, the Army is prepared to begin producing plastic explosives incorporating the marking chemical as of January 1994. The Executive Branch will be submitting the Convention for Senate ratification in the near future. We will also be seeking Congressional approval for related implementing legislation. We hope that we can work closely with you and the Committee for expedited approval of implementing legislation. In addition, the Department will again seek Congressional passage of implementing legislation for two important counterterrorism treaties: The 1998 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Aviation and the 1998 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Attacks Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. These treaties extended the ‘‘prosecute or extradite’’ principle to attacks on airports or maritime targets to help prevent repetitions of incidents such as the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks and the 1986 hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger liner. The Senate gave its advice and consent to the treaties in 1989, but approval of the implementing legislation was delayed since it was incorporated into the Omnibus Crime Bill.… Mr. Chairman, despite progress and successes, the threat of terrorism, particularly state-sponsored terrorism, is still serious. Our response must and will be to maintain our vigilance, increase our capabilities, and further develop cooperation to help ensure the safety of Americans and American interests throughout the world.
AMBASSADOR PHILIP C. WILCOX, JR. Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to the House Committee on International Relations, June 29, 1995 Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the current trends in international terrorism and to describe the efforts of the Clinton Administration to deal with this threat. The Oklahoma City bombing on April 19 and the killing of two U.S. officials in Karachi on March 8 reminded all Americans that our country is still threatened by both domestic and international terrorism. First, let me review current trends in international terrorism and update information in our publication, ‘‘Patterns of Global Terrorism’’ for 1994, which was published in April.
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On the positive side of the ledger, there has been a pattern of decline in the number of acts of international terrorism. We counted 321 such incidents in 1994, compared to 431 in 1993 and 665 in 1987, the peak year for international terrorism. In the first three months of 1995, we have recorded 160 such attacks, but nearly 100 were relatively minor incidents in Europe attributed to the PKK, a Kurdish group. Let me suggest some reasons for the decline in the incidence of international terrorism. — First, terrorists have been deterred by the strengthening over the years of U.S. and allied counterterrorism efforts. International cooperation against terrorism has grown. — Second, the fall of the old Soviet Union has weakened many traditional, radical, revolutionary terrorist groups. — Third, the Arab-Israeli peace process, notwithstanding a vicious rear-guard action by some terrorist elements to undermine it, has largely ended or reduced the level of support for terrorism against Israel by all but a few Middle Eastern states.
While these are positive trends, there are negative developments that make the overall threat of international terrorism very serious. Indeed statistics by themselves are not a reliable index of the terrorism threat, as one or two major attacks can have a greater impact than a large number of non-fatal attacks. — Notwithstanding the decline in the number of acts of international terrorism overseas, casualties are trending upward. Major attacks such as the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings, the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, and the gas attack on the Tokyo subways, suggest a tendency by terrorists to inflict higher casualties and to attack less protected civilian targets. — The Tokyo subway attacks highlight two additional dangers: ¥ They demonstrate that terrorist attacks involving materials of mass destruction have become a reality. ¥ The Tokyo attacks also vividly demonstrate the potential of terrorism by deviant cults or psychotic elements, who are more difficult to detect and deter in advance than previously known groups with more conventional political agendas. — International terrorists today are increasingly mobile, sophisticated, and technologically proficient in explosives and weaponry. Using computers, cellular telephones, and encryption systems, they are a more elusive target for law enforcement and intelligence efforts. And they pose an increasing danger, not only to innocent human beings, but to the fragile information, financial, and transportation systems on which modern society depends. — Although Israel, the Palestinians, and many Arab states are moving toward peace in the Middle East, Islamic extremist groups, including HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hizballah, are using terror to undermine this process. Although they have not succeeded and until last week there had been a relative lull for several months, these groups remain a potent threat. — Islamic extremist groups are also waging a campaign of violence and terror in the Middle East and elsewhere, creating turmoil in Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan.
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The attempted assassination of President Mubarak of Egypt while visiting Ethiopia Monday showed the determination of these groups. — Other Islamic extremist elements, such as associates of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef who was involved in the World Trade Center bombing and plots to blow up U.S. airliners over the Pacific, and who are apparently not backed by any State, are still a menace. These elements, which claim to act on behalf of Islam, are in fact a deviant minority. Rejected by mainstream Islamic communities and governments, they betray the tenets of Islam, which, like the other great world faiths, preaches peace and opposes violence. — Finally, although State sponsorship of terrorism has declined in recent years due to U.S. and international pressure, more needs to be done to restrain those states which give aid and comfort to terrorists.
Iran, the most active state sponsor of terrorism today, continues to provide direction and support to terrorist groups, including Hizballah in Lebanon. Iran also provides support to terrorist groups which oppose Israel and the peace process. Iran continues to assassinate dissidents abroad, and it has not withdrawn the Fatwah against the novelist Salman Rushdie. President Clinton’s decision to halt all U.S. trade with Iran and to bar U.S. companies from any involvement in the Iranian oil sector is an example of the pressure which we think is needed to persuade Iran to change its policies. We hope other nations will follow suit and do more themselves. As President Clinton said Monday in his San Francisco speech marking the 50th anniversary of the United Nations: ‘‘If nations and groups are not willing to move away from the delivery of death, we should put aside short-term profits for the people in our countries to stop their conduct.’’ Iraq’s ability to instigate terror has been curbed by U.S. and U.N. sanctions, however Saddam Hussein’s regime has continued to murder dissidents and attack foreign relief personnel in Northern Iraq. Terrorism by Libya has been sharply reduced by UN sanctions imposed after the bombings of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772. Libya still defies its obligation to hand over the indicted perpetrators of these crimes, but we will not rest until they are brought to justice. Sudan, North Korea, Cuba and Syria are the other nations we have named as state sponsors. We have no evidence of Syrian Government direct involvement in acts of international terrorism since 1986. Following Secretary Christopher’s recent visit to the region, there is new reason for optimism that the Syrian-Israeli talks will advance. In the meantime, we continue to urge Syria to banish terrorist groups which still maintain a presence in Syrian-controlled territory. Until this problem is resolved, Syria will stay on our list. Mr. Chairman, I would like to mention some other elements of the Administration’s counterterrorism policy which we are energetically pursuing. First, we believe in strengthening the rule of law as a prime weapon against terrorism. The counterterrorism legislation pending in Congress is part of this effort. Meanwhile, State, Justice and the FBI are working together on a daily basis with foreign counterparts to forge strong law enforcement cooperation against terrorists.
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Today, in contrast to a decade ago, more and more nations are following our example of treating terrorism as a crime, for which there can be no political justification. More governments have also adopted our policy of no deals with terrorist to buy them off. And more governments are arresting and prosecuting terrorists, or extraditing them. The recent extradition to the United States of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef by Pakistan, and the rendition of Abdul Hakim Murad by the Philippines are examples of effective law enforcement cooperation. There is also a growing body of international law against terrorism. In 1986, there were five international treaties and conventions pledging governments to act against various kinds of international terrorism. Today there are eleven. The State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program is also an effective tool for improving counterterrorism capabilities of other governments. We are grateful, Mr. Chairman, for your Committee’s active interest and support for the ATA program. We also appreciate the Congress’s continued support for our counterterrorism research and development program, which is adapting science and technology to the fight against terrorism. As terrorists become more sophisticated and innovative, this program, including the cooperative R&D arrangements we have with the UK, Israel, and Canada, becomes increasingly important. Our overseas counterterrorism effort, coordinated by my office, is a well integrated, dedicated effort in which all agencies pull together in a vital common task. Besides the FBI, Justice, CIA and the Department of Transportation, our superbly trained U.S. military counterterrorism elements, whom we rely on in emergency situations, are also a key member of our counterterrorism team. On June 22, the President signed a Presidential Decision Directive, PDD 39, which reaffirms and strengthens our already successful interagency coordination process. Mr. Chairman. In closing, I want to stress that our counterterrorism effort abroad depends, not only on the activities I have described, but on a vigorous, engaged U.N foreign policy across the board, and adequate supporting resources. — Terrorism is often a product of festering political, and ethnic conflicts. Without active U.S. efforts to help resolve these conflicts, terrorism is likely to increase. — The hopelessness and despair of chronic poverty and economic failure in poor societies also provides a fertile climate for terrorism. This is another reason why an active, well-funded U.S. development assistance program must continue. — In short, a successful U.S. and international campaign against terrorism demands continued U.S. engagement, in every area of international affairs. It also needs U.S. resources to sustain the broader relationships with foreign governments that are vital to cooperation against terrorism. Only with such a continued commitment can we maintain the fight against terrorism. SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: For text, see http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm and related information in chapter 27, Key Documents.
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Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks Before the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, Denver, Colorado, September 12, 1996 The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not, alas, bring forth the ‘‘End of History’’ or a new dawn of world peace and harmony. Instead, this change brought into sharper focus serious global problems and threats. You’ve heard the list before: ethnic conflict, weapons proliferation, environmental degradation, untenable population growth, international crime, and terrorism. All these global issues directly affect our well being and security. They therefore have high priority in the foreign policy agenda of the Clinton Administration, in addition to the more traditional threats. Perhaps none of these issues has caused Americans more anxiety than terrorism. Terrorism, which we define as politically motivated violence against noncombatants, is an ancient evil, and American interests have been targeted by terrorists abroad for years. But now, the threat seems to loom larger, perhaps because the threat of conventional war against the U.S. has declined, and because we’ve recently been struck by two major terrorist acts at home—the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings. Two recent bombings of our forces in Saudi Arabia, the TWA 800 disaster— although we don’t yet know its cause—and the pipe bomb at the Atlanta Olympics. It is a paradox that although terrorism kills relatively few people, compared to other forms of violence, and although the statistical probability of any of us being killed by terrorists is minuscule, we are preoccupied by terrorism, and our government and others pay extraordinary attention to combating it. Let me suggest some reasons why. First, terrorism provokes deep fear and insecurity—more than other forms of violence. Terrorists strike innocent civilians, often randomly, and without warning. We think we can protect ourselves against other forms of violence, but we feel defenseless against terrorists. Terrorists know this, and they seek to use intimidation to impose their political or other agendas. Killing is only a means to that end. By creating fear and panic, terrorists try to extort concessions or to weaken and discredit governments by showing they are unable to protect their citizens. Terrorism is also used as low cost strategic warfare, sometimes by rogue states using surrogates, and sometimes by groups motivated by ideology, religion or ethnicity, to overthrow governments and change the course of history. Terrorists also use violence in a less focused way to express protest and rage, to advance messianic and fanatic religious agendas, and for even more obscure pathological reasons. One can argue that terrorism has failed historically, as a strategic weapon. But that’s no cause for comfort. There is no doubt that it has caused great damage to American interests and those of our friends around the world. For example, terrorism has prolonged the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the North Ireland conflict for decades. Real progress toward peace making in
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these struggles has come only when terrorism has been renounced and its practitioners marginalized. Terrorism also has a high economic cost. The U.S. government alone spends about $5 billion a year to guard against terrorism, at home and abroad, and these costs will doubtless rise.… Terrorism can also cripple entire economies. For example, in Egypt two years ago by targeting a few tourists, terrorists almost shut down the vitally important tourist industry for many months. Technology has also added to the terrorist threat. In 1605, the terrorist Guy Fawkes planted 29 barrels of explosives in a plot to blow up King James and the British Parliament. Today, a small explosive device in a purse could achieve the same effect. And bomb making recipes are readily available on the internet. Terrorists use computers, cellular phones, and encryption software to evade detection, and they have sophisticated means for forging passports and documents. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and his gang, who were recently convicted for a plot to blow up twelve U.S. airliners over the Pacific, used all these tools. Even more dangerous is the specter that terrorists will turn to materials of mass destruction, chemical, biological or nuclear, to multiply casualties far beyond traditional levels. The sarin gas attack by Aum Shinrikyo, the apocalyptic Japanese sect, in the Tokyo subway last year showed that the threat of chemical terrorism is now a reality. And the willingness of some fanatic or crazed terrorists to commit suicide while carrying out attacks makes terrorism using weapons of mass destruction an even more sinister threat. Finally, terrorism today is far more devastating than in the past because of the mass media. No story plays better, or longer, than a terrorist attack. Today’s media, especially television, multiply the fear effect of terrorism. By vividly conveying its horror. And this greatly increases our collective sense of vulnerability. The terrorists, of course, know this. And they seek to exploit media coverage to put us and our governments on the psychological defensive. Now let’s look at the current trend in terrorism, who are today’s terrorists? And what is the U.S. Government doing to combat them, and put them on the defensive, where they belong. I’ll focus on international terrorism, for which the State Department is the lead agency, whereas the FBI takes the lead on domestic terrorism. First, the trend. There is good news and bad. The actual number of international terrorist incidents has declined in recent years, from a high of 665 in 1987 to an average between three and four hundred in recent years. There are various reasons for this positive trend: — The Soviet Union and almost all of the many revolutionary terrorist groups it supported are now history; — After fifty years of war and terrorism, Arabs and Palestinians are struggling for peace. The PLO has renounced terrorism, and most Arab states have also condemned it unequivocally; — Only a few rogue states continue to sponsor or support terrorism.
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— There is a growing international consensus today that killing innocents for political reasons is absolutely unacceptable, whatever the motivation or cause; and — There is a corresponding willingness by the majority of states to crack down on terrorists by all means available, especially by using the law to combat terrorism.
But there is also a negative side of the ledger. Notwithstanding the commitment of the Palestinian and Arab mainstream to peace in the Middle East, groups like HAMAS and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad last year carried out a vicious rear guard campaign of bombings in Israel in an effort to defeat the peace process. — And an Israeli terrorist assassinated Prime Minister Rabin for the same purpose. — Iran, notwithstanding U.S. efforts to contain it through sanctions, continues to use terrorism as a weapon of foreign policy to kill dissidents and disrupt the peace process. — And Libya, although UN sanctions have curtailed its terrorism abroad, still defies the UN’s mandate to deliver two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie to a British or U.S. court for trail. — Exploitation of religion by terrorists may also be on the upsurge. In previous decades, most terrorist groups were secular, but more and more terrorist today claim to act on behalf of religion, especially Islam. Some are part of organized groups such as HAMAS, the Lebanese Hizballah, and the Egyptian Gamaat. Others are ad hoc Islamic elements, such as Ramzi Ahmed Yousef’s gang, many of whom received training in Afghanistan. — Exploitation of religion for political purposes, and violence, is an age old phenomenon. It is important to remember that all religions have produced deviant and dangerous fringe groups, and Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, preaches peace and non-violence. Terrorists who claim to speak for Islam are abusing their faith, and they are increasingly condemned throughout the Islamic world.
Finally, let me say a few words about what the United States is doing to combat terrorism. I’m happy to confirm that we are doing a lot. — First, our policy is to seek out relentlessly and punish terrorists wherever they may be, using the combined assets of U.S. law enforcement, diplomacy, and intelligence. Our ability to bring to justice the World Trade Center terrorists, the conspirators, including Sheikh Abdul Rahman, who planned to blow up the Holland tunnel, the UN and federal buildings in New York, and the gang who plotted to blow up U.S. airliners over the Pacific, are major success stories. — Second, we make no concessions to terrorists. We refuse to bow to demands for political concessions or ransom. — Third, we designate states that sponsor terrorism, impose economic sanctions, and ask our friends to do likewise. In a recent speech in Stuttgart, directed to our European allies, Secretary Christopher said ‘‘working together against State Sponsors or terrorism is an imperative, not an option … Our principled commitment to free trade simply does not oblige us to do business with aggressive tyrannies like Iran and Libya. We must join forces on effective multilateral measures to deny thee rogue regimes the resources they crave.’’2
2
See http://www.fas.org/man/nato/offdocs/us_96/dos960906.htm.
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— Fourth, we stress the rule of law in dealing with terrorists, and insist that terrorism is an unmitigated crime, whatever its motives or causes. By strengthening U.S. laws against terrorism, as President Clinton has done, and aggressively promoting international treaties and conventions against terror, of which there are now ten, we have led a worldwide trend to use the law as our most effective tool against terrorists. — Fifth, we have superb military assets for use, when in rare cases the situation demands. — Sixth, since terrorists operate in the dark, we are investing heavily in collection and analysis of intelligence. — Seventh, the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security has trained over 18,000 foreign government officials from over 80 countries in counterterrorism techniques and aviation security through our Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program. — Eighth, we also have a strong program of research and development in counterterrorism technology, especially in explosives detection. — Ninth, this week the President proposed a $1 billion package of additional counterterrorism measures that will enhance aviation security, increase the number of law enforcement agents, and improve their forensic capabilities. — Tenth, and finally, cooperation with other states is indispensable to stop terrorists, as terrorism becomes increasingly transnational. For this reason, President Clinton and Secretary Christopher have given high priority to counterterrorism in our diplomatic agenda. We consult with dozens of governments annually, and we promote multilateral action, such as the Sharm el-Sheikh Peacemaking Summit and follow-up counterterrorism meetings in Washington, and the recent G-7 ministerial conference on terrorism in Paris.…
We can be proud of the successes we’ve achieved, using these policies and tools. But we can’t be complacent, since terrorism is a dynamic, moving target. Also, and perhaps most important, we can’t rely just on tough, focused counterterrorism efforts if we are to reduce the threat of terrorism. We need a larger, comprehensive effort to maintain U.S. foreign policy leadership and engagement, across the board—and this I emphasize—we also need the resources needed to sustain it. Terrorism often emerges from the breeding grounds of political, economic and ideological conflict. And it is often a product of poverty and despair. In the past half-century, the United States has led the way in addressing these problems around the world. But our leadership, and our ability to mobilize international support to resolve conflicts, reduce threats of all kinds, and build confident relationships, has required resources. Today, I’m sorry to say, the resources we commit to for our international affairs are in sharp decline.… We rank 21st among the wealthiest countries in the world in the percentage of our wealth we give to foreign aid. By trying to pursue our foreign affairs on the cheap, we are risking U.S. leadership and compromising our interests. I fear we are living off capital, and if this trend continues, U.S. interests, including our ability to reduce the threat of violence and terrorism, are bound to suffer. America’s overall security interests require, therefore, not just the policies and activities we have in place to put terrorists out of business and behind
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bars, and not just the superb military forces we have, but adequate resources to support a vigorous, engaged foreign policy leadership role, across the board. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/960912.html
AMBASSADOR MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN Ambassador A. Michael Sheehan, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., June 15, 2000 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY Thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee to discuss the National Commission on Terrorism Report, Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism.3 This is an important report and addresses very serious issues. We welcome the report, produced by a very distinguished commission, as a thoughtful contribution to our ongoing mission, which is to seek more effective means of countering international terrorism and protecting our citizens and interests around the world. I believe our exchange of views with you today will also contribute to this mission. Let me say at the outset that I completely support the core objective of the Commission Report: to improve the tools we have to combat terrorism, and to ensure that we use these tools as effectively as possible. As Coordinator for Counterterrorism, I have felt acutely responsible for strengthening our capabilities by making our tools more dynamic and effective. In this effort, I find myself in strong sympathy with the thrust of many of the Commission’s recommendations … Indeed, we are moving forward already in some of the areas discussed in the Commission report. Let me address some of the key issues and recommendations that relate directly to the work we are doing at State. Foreign Terrorist Organizations: The Commission observes that it is necessary to sustain credibility and dynamism in the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) process, and I am committed to doing just that—not only with regard to FTOs, but with all of our counterterrorism policy tools. Congress has given us a very effective tool in the Secretary’s authority to designate FTOs. Designations under the 1996 law criminalize financial support to a FTO, require U.S. financial institutions to block funds of FTOs and their agents, and render representatives and certain members of the FTO ineligible for visas and admission to the United States. State leads this work in consultation with the Departments of Justice and Treasury and with the intelligence community. In 1997, we designated 30 organizations as FTOs, allowing us to deter terrorist fundraising more effectively. As important, the FTO list has
3
See http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html.
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proved invaluable as a diplomatic tool to stigmatize and punish terrorist groups and their supporters around the world. In 1999, we re-designated 27 FTOs (designations expire after 2 years unless renewed), dropped three groups, and added Usama Bin Ladin’s alQaida organization. Dropping three FTOs (the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Khmer Rouge, and the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front of Chile) from the list sent an important signal that if you are out of the terrorism business by the standards of U.S. law, you will be dropped from the list. EDITOR’S NOTE: See 1999 FTO List http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rpt/fto/ 2682.htm#designation.
Because of the significance of FTO designations and because they can be challenged in court, the designation process is painstaking and we are very careful about assembling the evidence that goes into making the case. A single designation consumes hundreds of hours of work carried out by my staff as well as by lawyers and analysts from Justice, Treasury, and the intelligence community. Because of the quality of this effort, we have won all court challenges (for example from the MEK and LTTE) to our designations, thereby further bolstering the credibility of the FTO process. But sustaining credibility and dynamism in the FTO process is an ongoing challenge, constrained mainly by limited personnel resources. We constantly review and assess various potential groups for addition to the list of FTOs— this can be done at anytime, not just every two years. I have directed my staff to review some 10 to 12 new groups before the year is out.… State Sponsors/‘‘Terrorism List’’: I made a special effort in my introduction to this year’s Patterns of Global Terrorism report to highlight the importance of injecting dynamism into another of our policy tools: the process of designating state sponsors. The Commission’s fundamental observations on sharpening diplomatic tools such as the ‘‘Terrorism List’’ are on the mark, and this is part of my strategy. We need to take into account all relevant considerations in connection with moving states onto or off of the list, and we also need to explore whether it would be appropriate in any cases to identify states as ‘‘not fully cooperating’’ rather than as state sponsors of terrorism if doing so was warranted by the facts and would advance U.S. counterterrorism objectives. On March 30, the Secretary decided to keep the seven state sponsors on the list, including, of course, Iran and Syria. But we pointedly noted in Patterns that designation of states is not permanent. A primary goal of our counterterrorism policy is to get states out of the terrorism business and move them off that list. We do this by engaging them on what they need to do to end support for terrorism and pressing them to take those steps. Our talks with North Korea and Sudan are a case in point. We are, at the same time, committed to maintaining sanctions on Iran and Syria—and all other state sponsors—until they have moved out of the terrorism business. The Commission’s report offers recommendations that could be useful in making our work more effective. I have been considering what intermediate steps could be taken to give state sponsors a clearer look at how they might
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‘‘graduate’’ off the list. It may be possible that in appropriate cases state sponsors could step off the state sponsor list and be left only on the ‘‘not fully cooperating’’ list, with an eye toward stepping off of that list when they fully cooperate with U.S. antiterrorism efforts. There are many technical legal issues of how the laws on state sponsorship and ‘‘not fully cooperating’’ are structured, but I agree that we should be able to use these tools more effectively … Pakistan and Greece: The Commission suggests that the Administration consider Greece and Pakistan as candidates for the ‘‘not cooperating fully’’ designation, under the 1996 law.… Pakistan … has not been designated under this law. However, it continues to be under serious and constant review—as it must be for our process to be truly dynamic and effective. As the Commission’s report notes, and as we have noted in Patterns, Pakistan’s record on terrorism remains mixed. I have no illusions about what is negative in the record, and I emphasized this in Patterns when describing the shift in the locus of terrorism to South Asia. Despite significant and material cooperation in some areas—particularly arrests and extraditions—Pakistan also has tolerated terrorists living and moving freely within its territory. But the areas of cooperation are real, and we are still in the game to make more progress. Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism and understands that this threat undermines its own security. It is in our interest that they move in the right direction, and we want to use the right tools to help them to keep the pressure on terrorists. We are looking hard at current developments and continue to be intensively engaged with Pakistan on improving cooperation, most recently with the President’s and Under Secretary Pickering’s travel to Pakistan to reinforce tough messages on terrorism and other key concerns. We have a lot more to do, but we see that our engagement is beginning to yield progress. If that changes, we of course would respond using the tool most appropriate to the situation. But at the moment we do not believe that designating Pakistan as ‘‘not cooperating fully’’ is appropriate. On Greece, Secretary Albright has made it clear that we are not considering sanctions against the Greek Government. The situation of Greece is difficult, and we have offered our perspective in Patterns in sharp detail. The Commission’s report concludes that Greece—a friend and NATO ally—must do better in the fight against terrorism. Our embassy in Athens is working closely and cooperatively with the Greek Government to bring to justice the killers of five U.S. Mission employees since 1975. I visited Athens last summer for extended discussions on terrorism with a number of Greek officials. Since that time, they have taken several initiatives, including reorganizing their counterterrorism unit with more money and resources, and initiating a public dialogue on the problem of terrorism. We have also signed a mutual legal assistance treaty, which the Greeks have already ratified … The murder of British Military Attach´e Stephen Saunders in Athens on June 8 is one more sad entry on a long list of unsolved acts of terrorism. This tragic event demonstrates that much work remains to be done if Greece is going to achieve success against the deadly ‘‘17 November’’ group and other terrorists.
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In addition, a safe and secure Olympics in Greece is a goal we and the Greek Government share.… The Commission has also addressed a key issue regarding the ‘‘not cooperating fully’’ designation: whether the additional sanctions that are imposed by this designation—banning arms sales—make sense or would be effective. In fact, this raises the larger, most important question: whether the tools we have, in the context of ongoing engagement, are adequate or appropriate for the task of improving our position in the global effort against terrorism. One could argue that we currently have limited options at our disposal when we seek to pressure nations to address terrorist threats within and across their borders. The National Commission’s report recognizes this, as illustrated by its recommendation to ban countries ‘‘not cooperating fully’’ with the U.S. from participation in the Visa Waiver Pilot Program. At the moment it is not clear to us that the Visa Waiver Pilot Program is an appropriate vehicle for pursuing our counterterrorism objectives; it may not be a sufficiently flexible or welltargeted tool. The Commission’s idea is useful in that it provokes discussion on how Congress and the Administration could work together in developing more flexible, calibrated counterterrorist policy tools—tools that give us more options than we have now. All nations are not alike, and thus the mix of diplomatic tools used need not be alike. There are a number of other sanctions that could be useful in exerting pressure on various nations to counter terrorist threats more effectively. A preferred approach is to authorize the President to choose from a menu of sanctions, such as denial of Export-Import bank assistance or U.S. Government procurement opportunities. Whether or not these types of sanctions would be effective in countering terrorism is unclear. But the point is that this is a discussion we should be having, and the Commission’s report is a good start.… Disruption of Financing: State concurs with the Commission’s assessment that one of the most important ways to combat terrorism is to disrupt the financing of terrorist groups and activities. We have already made this a priority and are working hard through various means to disrupt the financing of terrorism. I have already outlined for you how we actively employ the legal tool of designating Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Another step the Administration has taken to disrupt the financing of terrorists is to levy sanctions through executive action. In 1995 the President issued Executive Order 12947, which blocked not just financial but also material assets of twelve Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, as well as senior officials of these groups.… last year the President issued Executive Order 13129, imposing sanctions on the Afghan Taliban. This action deepened the international isolation of the Taliban and limited its ability to support terrorist groups and activities. We are also disrupting the financing of terrorism through bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. I held numerous bilateral consultations last year, especially in the Gulf states, to address the threat posed by Usama Bin Laden and other terrorists.… We will continue to encourage countries to examine their own laws and counterterrorist tools to ensure that they are doing all they can. We have also urged nations to be more aware of the possibility that terrorists are
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using NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) as ways to conceal their fundraising and other activities. … [L]ast year the U.S. worked with the G-8 and UN member states to achieve consensus in the General Assembly on the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. This landmark convention provides for extensive international cooperation on disrupting the financing of terrorists.… We will continue to move forward on these fronts. As part of our AntiTerrorism Assistance (ATA) program, we have developed a training program for foreign financial and banking officials.… Furthermore, we are working with the G-8 on developing practical ways to implement the new UN convention drawing upon relevant experience in countering money laundering. Resources: Let me close by saying a few words about resources, and more specifically the need for full funding of all of our counterterrorist programs. For example, the Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program, which helps friendly governments acquire counterterrorist skills, is a pillar of our counterterrorism efforts. Obtaining full funding, however, is always a struggle. The Administration requested $38 million for the ATA program in FY 2001. However, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s markup of the Foreign Operations bill recommends only $30 million. That’s a cut of 22%. It is even $3 million below the amount Congress appropriated in FY 2000, which also was a ‘‘tight’’ year. We cannot counter the terrorist threat alone—it depends on cooperation with other nations, and ATA is a vital tool that gives us access and improves these countries’ capacity. Also troubling is the difficulty in securing funding for a Center for Antiterrorism and Security Training (CAST). The Administration has requested funding for such a center in order to consolidate ATA and other security training at a location near Washington, where foreign officials could work more effectively with U.S. Government officials and security specialists. As most training recipients are foreign officials taking part in the ATA program, we requested funding in the ATA part of Foreign Operations. But the Senate’s Foreign Operations bill does not include the funding. Moreover, the accompanying report says that because the money goes for bricks and mortar, it should be funded in the Commerce, Justice, and State (CJS) bill. Not surprisingly, the House CJS Appropriations Subcommittee did not include any funding for CAST in its markup last week.… I have spoken to many Members and staffers about CAST and have found broad support.… I understand the difficulties and concerns involved, but the bottom line is that CAST should be funded. It is critical to future counterterrorism cooperation with other countries. International cooperation, antiterrorism training, action to counter terrorist fundraising, designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations—these and other counterterrorism initiatives … are crucial to the safety and security of our country’s citizens and assets. … [W]henever there is a major terrorist incident, everyone demands that we ‘‘do something.’’ But when the images and fear fade away, it becomes frustratingly difficult in the next year to get the funding for programs that protect our citizens in tangible ways.
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The bottom line is that, to fight terrorism effectively, the State Department needs the resources to do so. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/www/policy_remarks/2000/000615_sheehan_terr orism.html.
Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Drugs, Terrorism, and Crime,’’ Statement Before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, December 13, 2000 Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the threat posed by the convergence of drugs, terrorism and organized crime. Terrorism is a Crime Mr. Chairman, in looking at the broad picture of narcotics, terrorism and international crime, we should start with the basic fact that terrorism itself is a crime, not a political statement. Hijacking aircraft, kidnapping innocent people, and bombing busses, buildings or ships are all forms of a crime, which must be viewed separately from the so-called ‘‘cause’’ that prompts some people to commit this crime. This is a long-standing U.S. policy, one that is shared by the international community and demonstrated in a dozen international conventions and treaties. Bad Neighborhoods Attract Bad People Terrorists tend to live, operate, and derive support from the lawless corners of the world, including the jungles of Colombia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, and the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, to name a few. Narcotraffickers and drug producers, like international criminals, also seek out those corners of the world where their behavior will not be subject to government control or punishment. So it is not surprising that there is often an overlap between those that engage in terrorism and those engaged in other internationally unacceptable behavior. Funding—Diversified Funding Sources Many terrorist organizations have engaged in low-level local crime to finance their activities. Some groups, such as the IRA and now defunct German Red Army Faction raised money ‘‘the old fashioned way,’’ such as robbing banks. The Kurdish terrorist group (PKK) engaged in extortion against Turkish Kurdish workers and businessmen. And groups throughout the world … have taken hostages to obtain ransom money from the victims’ families or employers. Historically, many terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East, looked to state sponsors of terrorism for funding. This source of funding has decreased significantly in the last couple of decades. With the exception of Iran—which continues to actively support groups that seek to undermine the Middle East peace process—terrorist states provide very limited funding to terrorist groups or individuals. Hizballah, the major international terrorist group operating in
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Lebanon, receives most of its financing from Iran. CIA Director George Tenant has testified before Congress that Iran remains the most active state sponsor of terrorism. Given the overall decrease of state financial support, and in some cases because of the nature of their organization, terrorists have looked to alternative sources of funding, which have included narcotics production and trafficking. Some terrorists have developed loose mutually beneficial relationships with drug traffickers to support both the terrorists and drug traffickers’ interests. That said, I would caution against thinking that international terrorism generally is dependent upon funds from drug trafficking or international crime. There have been reports that some individuals involved in Middle East terrorism have profited from the drug trade through Lebanon. But most terrorist groups or their supporters are not dependent on drug revenues … They usually have a ‘‘diversified portfolios’’ of fundraising. Sources include their ideological supporters, money siphoned off of legitimate and illegitimate charities, legitimate companies that are used to generate profits and transfer funds for terrorist groups, and ordinary crime, such as extortion and robbery. Let me turn now to two cases in which drug trafficking does significantly impact terrorism, Colombia and Afghanistan. In both cases, there is a convergence of terrorists, drug producers and traffickers, and other criminal activity. Most importantly, there also is a lack of governmental control. This lack of control and rule of law is what allows these criminals to converge, and sometimes cooperate, in certain corners of the world. Colombia—Convergence of Terrorism and Narco-Trafficking Colombia is the strongest example of what is meant by the phrase ‘‘narco terrorism,’’ and where the drug trade is a major factor. In the guerrilla and paramilitary controlled areas of Colombia, a cycle of terrorism and narcotrafficking has spiraled into a mutually dependent relationship. The terrorists and paramilitaries gain funding from the drug-traffickers who, in turn, look to these illegal armed groups for ‘‘protection.’’ Major actors include the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations and the Colombia self defense forces, or AUC. The FARC recently sought to establish a monopoly over the commercialization of the cocaine base across Colombia. We have seen evidence that the FARC is now involved in the export of cocaine. In a November 29 statement, the Department’s press spokesman, Richard Boucher, noted that since late 1999, Mexican and Colombian officials have exposed a major link between the Mexican drug cartel and the FARC. Evidence shows FARC guerrillas supplied cocaine to the cartel in exchange for cash and possibly weapons. Meanwhile, the Colombian paramilitary groups are not only funding themselves, but trying to hit the FARC where it hurts by aggressively attempting to establish control over the prime coca and heroin-growing areas currently controlled by guerrillas. Paramilitary leader, Carlos Castano, frankly acknowledges that the narcotics trade provides the bulk of the paramilitaries’ financing.
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During a recent trip to Colombia, I was taken aback by the ‘‘kidnapping industry’’ that has developed. Kidnapping has increased every year since 1990 to its current level of more than 3,000 persons a year—half the world total. Since the early 1980’s, the FARC has been responsible for kidnapping 30 Americans. Thirteen were either killed or remain unaccounted for, representing a 43% mortality rate.… The kidnapping problem has become so severe that local criminals are even now kidnapping people and transferring them to the FARC, which in turn extorts money—and a profit for themselves—from families and businesses. These criminal activities help finance their attacks against the country’s electric grid and oil pipeline, affecting local as well as American commercial interests. The paramilitaries have not only targeted Americans or American businesses; they also routinely kill scores of civilian non-combatants suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers. Afghanistan Let me now turn to Afghanistan, a country that has been at the heart of our counterterrorism efforts throughout my tenure as Coordinator for Counterterrorism. The Taliban’s control over most of Afghanistan has resulted in a haven of lawlessness, in which terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals live with impunity. The Taliban naturally benefits from the resources brought in by these sources, and thus has little incentive to change their own or their ‘‘guests’’ behavior. Afghanistan is different from Colombia in that it harbors terrorists with an international reach, including Usama bin Ladin, indicted for masterminding the attack on our embassies in East Africa in 1998. While we do not have full information on who planned and carried out the attack on the USS Cole, we do know that numerous people immediately left Yemen for Afghanistan, the safe haven where they could hide out with little fear of Taliban intervention. At the same time, in recent years, Afghanistan under the Taliban has become the world’s largest producer of illicit opium, which is refined into heroin. The narcotics production and trafficking victimize the population of Afghanistan and attack the political stability of the entire region. The Wider Impact Terrorists and drug traffickers rely heavily on a wide international network to keep them in business. This is why the impact of the threat of terrorism— like the scourge of drugs—is impacting a wider area, including the neighboring Central Asian Republics. Our Efforts We are pursuing a number of initiatives to counter the international terrorist threats I discussed. In Afghanistan, we will continue to put political, diplomatic, and economic pressure on the Taliban to make them realize that they will not be an accepted
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member of the international community until they comply with internationally accepted norms on terrorism. The U.S. is encouraging the international community to help Afghanistan’s neighbors build their national capacities to fight terrorism and the drug trade and its corrosive effects. In dealing with the Colombia problem, the Department supports Plan Colombia, a balanced strategy the Administration designed to deal with the country’s multiple problems. This large scale program includes economic assistance and the aerial eradication of drugs. On the counterterrorism side, my office and our antiterrorism assistance (ATA) program are looking specifically at breaking the kidnapping industry through increased training and logistical support to Colombian police and judiciary. We will also renew other ATA training to Colombia. Implementing the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act provisions against terrorist fund raising, the State Department, after a careful review of the records, has currently designated or redesignated 29 Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Designations require extensive Administrative records and my office has been looking at additional groups for possible designation. We worked with other nations in drafting the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism, which the President recently submitted to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent.… In a related initiative, the Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program is working with the Justice Department, FBI and Treasury, to develop training courses for foreign officials in detecting and curbing terrorist fund raising activities and money flows.… We are working with individual countries and through the UN to improve regional cooperation against drugs, organized crime and terrorism. My office, working with the Department’s ATA program has held two regional conferences since June 1999 focused on South Asia and Central Asia terrorism. We also helped conduct an OAS conference to encourage regional cooperation and also helped support security efforts for the Sydney Olympics. We hope to expand the ATA program in the future and develop and expand policy-related and training programs to foster cooperation on a regional basis to counter conventional threats and weapons of mass destruction. The Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) oversees an extensive worldwide program to counter narcotics trafficking and transnational crime. INL led the Department’s contribution to developing the President’s International Crime Strategy, which includes expanding the membership of the Financial Action Task Force and taking other steps to strengthen international efforts against money laundering. INL also helps train foreign officials in the latest law enforcement techniques as well as respect for human rights. No Magic Solutions Mr. Chairman, in these efforts to counter terrorist fund raising, whether from narcotics, criminal activities or contributions, there are no magic solutions, easy legislative remedies, or other quick fixes.
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We have to keep up the diplomatic and political pressure, bolster our allies’ will and capability to help, and maintain strong diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement and training components. The key to this is strong political will and commitment of resources. We appreciate Congress’ continued support for these counterterrorism efforts. SOURCE: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2000_h/001213sheehan.htm.
5 Attorney General Janet Reno Attorney General Janet Reno, Department of Justice Press Briefing, Fiscal Year 1997 Budget, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1996 ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: This budget is about building on progress, and fighting drugs, and fighting crime, and fighting terrorism, and in fighting illegal immigration. We are asking Congress today for $18.6 billion in Fiscal Year 1997, a 13.7 percent increase over last year’s budget. This increase underscores President Clinton’s commitment to fighting crime, even as he submits a plan to balance the budget in seven years. At home and abroad, we face the terrorist threat. This budget pledges new resources to help prevent terrorist acts, and to make terrorists pay for what they do. The budget funds 108 new FBI agents to maintain our aggressive counterterrorism initiatives at home and abroad. We have also requested $9.7 million for the counterterrorism fund established in response to the Oklahoma City bombing. The fund is used to reimburse other agencies for the cost of countering, investigating and prosecuting domestic and/or international terrorism, and to finance reward payments. The money can also be used to restore offices destroyed or damaged in the Oklahoma City bombing, or other domestic or international acts of terrorism. Finally, we have made historic progress in securing our borders, and upholding our immigration laws, after years of neglect. We are seeing real results, but again, we must build on the progress we have made. This budget provides a 16 percent increase for INS, and continues our commitment to a firm and equitable immigration policy that enforces the rule of law at our borders and in the American work place. That’s a more than 100 percent increase since 1993, when we began to implement President Clinton’s comprehensive immigration strategy. On the border we will be able to hire 700 more border patrol agents, 150 new immigration inspectors, and purchase more equipment such as border
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sensors and infrared scopes, to continue to build on successful programs like Operation Hold-the-Line, Operation Safeguard, and Operation Gatekeeper. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1996/0319.sp EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General Janet Reno’s Statement Before the House of Representatives Committee Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, March 11, 1999 (http://www. usdoj.gov/archive/ag/testimony/1999/aghouse031199.htm).
Attorney General Janet Reno, Statement at the Ministerial Meeting on Terrorism, Paris, France, July 30, 1996 President Clinton sent me to Paris today to meet with my fellow ministers to press forward aggressively against terrorism in concert with the Group of Eight. Recent tragedies throughout the world show how much these steps are needed and I want to express our deepest sympathy to the families and friends of all those from France and other nations represented here today who have lost their lives in these events. We will vigorously pursue every lead and every fact and we will leave no stone unturned until we determine the cause of the TWA tragedy. To avoid distraction from the general action plan we have adopted today, and to avoid jeopardizing ongoing investigations, I will not comment further at this time on such investigations. We value the cooperation we have found among the nations who share our concerns. I’d like to thank the government and people of France for hosting this important and productive meeting. Today’s meeting follows last month’s Summit in Lyon. There President Clinton called upon the leaders of the [Group of] Eight to come up with an aggressive plan to combat terrorism. At today’s meeting, the United States proposed—and the other seven nations agreed with—a number of steps to strengthen the ability of the international community to stop terrorism before it happens—and to respond more effectively when it does. Those steps will make a difference. First, we agreed on new measures to protect mass transportation from terrorism: ¥ We have asked the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to implement tough international standards for bomb detection and tighter security procedures at international and domestic airports. ¥ To provide stronger investigative tools for tracking down and catching terrorists, the Eight agreed to develop standards for more complete and accurate passenger and cargo manifests, ‘‘terrorist-proof’’ vehicle identification numbers, and new methods for marking and tracing explosives to help investigators. We are already developing explosives-tracing technology and we pledge to share our research and regulations. ¥ At our urging, transportation safety experts from the Eight will meet in Washington soon to follow up on meeting these goals.
Second, in view of the growing threat, we called for development of a new international convention on terrorist bombings, and the Eight agreed. While current international agreements outlaw attacks on air transportation, airports,
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and maritime navigation, incredibly, no similar agreement outlaws other terrorist bomb attacks, such as attacks on ground transportation. The Eight nations agreed with the U.S. proposal that legal experts meet this fall to begin drafting a terrorist bombing treaty. At these meetings, we will urge that the treaty require states to make such bombings crimes wherever they occur and agree to either put those responsible on trial or turn them over to other countries to be tried there. Third, we obtained the agreement of the Eight to develop means of lawful government access to and decoding of scrambled or coded communications transmitted by terrorists. The U.S. has called on the OECD, which is currently working on the problem, to finish by February. Fourth, the Eight adopted the U.S. proposal to call on all parties to the biological weapons convention to make it a crime for individuals to use or possess biological weapons. We urged all nations to act on this issue as soon as possible. Fifth, we agreed to speed up and share research and development regarding explosives detection methods, and to strengthen domestic controls over the manufacture and sale of explosives. We also agreed on other recommendations of critical importance, such as measures to prevent terrorist fund-raising; to promote cooperation in controlling borders and returning fugitives; to urge nations to impose severe and certain sentences and prevent abuse of political asylum by terrorists. I have asked the FBI to study the creation of a terrorism forensic science database. We will report the results of this study, which will be finished in 90 days, to the other member nations’ police agencies. After consultation with those nations, we will consider how to move forward. This database will be a clearinghouse for forensic evidence, such as fingerprints, related to terrorist incidents. This conference has shown us that terrorism must be every nation’s concern—and that we stand united in our desire to defeat it. We have committed to seek out and stop terrorists who move silently across borders, applying their trade on innocent people. Terrorism is designed to send a loud message from a small voice—to drive proud nations to alter their course in tribute to invisible tyranny. Today we have stood together, resolute in our determination to refuse to let this happen. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/reno.html
Attorney General Janet Reno, Address to the America-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Conference on ‘‘Shaping the Future,’’ Arlington, Virginia, June 12, 1998 ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: … About two months ago, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting Assistant Attorney General, Bill Lann Lee sat down with members of the Arab American Muslim communities to talk about issues of mutual concern. That meeting was extremely helpful for the Justice Department, for we need to talk honestly about problems, about differences in our perspective
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between the government and your community, and about solutions we can pursue together. We may have disagreements from time to time, but we share so much common ground in the importance of community and family, equal treatment under the law, and firm but fair law enforcement. The Justice Department is staunchly committed to ensuring that all Americans are treated in a fair and just manner. I hope that you will agree that after this meeting that we have entered a new era of dialogue between the Department and the Arab and Muslim communities. I am personally committed to this effort. Together, we need to build a lasting relationship with trust and understanding as the hallmark of that relationship, with an ability to communicate together and say what is on our minds. One area where we can work together is on fostering a greater understanding of the importance of diversity in this country, of the importance of eliminating racial bigotry and stereotypes … We must redouble our efforts to ensure that equal justice under the law means the same thing in minority communities as it does in the larger community. The keystone to justice is the belief that the legal system treats all fairly. And when people have the feeling that they are not being treated fairly, they call to question the rule of law. Now, there will be issues about which we have disagreement. Use of confidential evidence in INS proceedings is one. But disagreement should not rise to the level of fear or distrust of the government. We are reviewing our work every month to ensure that we apply procedures fairly and appropriately. And we want to be able to dialogue with you and communicate with you to obtain any evidence, to follow any leads that indicate that we are not adhering to these precepts. It is going to be important in obtaining this dialogue. I recognize that the Arab-American community feels that there are examples of stereotyping. There is a direct link between false perceptions of the Arab-American community and acts of harassment. And I think we should acknowledge that and look at what we can do. The FBI has recently been designated the point of contact for—has recently designated a point of contact within each regional office to create a relationship with community groups including the Arab and Muslim community. And we hope that you will join and ensure that this contact, this liaison is not just a matter of greeting each other over a cup of coffee at a community meeting, but that it is real, actual dialogue that can improve the working relationship. Finally, I would like to address an additional concern that has often been raised to me. And that is passenger screening for airline flights. At the request of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security and the Department of Transportation, the Department of Justice conducted a pre-implementation civil rights review of the computerized passenger screening system known as CAPS that the FAA has begun to implement. We were guided by recommendations by a civil liberties panel to ensure that the criteria used in the system were not based on constitutionally suspect categories, such as race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.
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We were concerned, as you were, about allegations that Arab-American passengers were targeted for additional security measures and treated in a discriminatory and disrespectful manner. We needed to ensure a more objective system. The CAPS system is presently being implemented, and the Civil Rights Division will conduct a first implementation review. The Division has recently reached out to the Department of Transportation regarding the review and to solicit any complaints that they may have. I urge you to utilize the Department of Transportation’s complaint process. It is a real process, and the department is committed to it. Those complaints and how they are handled will be part of our post-implementation review. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/0612ag.htm
Attorney General Janet Reno, Statement Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Concerning Justice Department Oversight, May 5, 1999 Targeting Domestic Terrorism The Department of Justice has taken steps to prevent and prepare for the threat of terrorism in the United States, and to prosecute those who commit such heinous acts. Under its role as the designated lead agency for domestic terrorism, the FBI and the Department are taking steps to ensure that state and local communities are prepared in the event of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD). We convened a meeting last August to get input and expertise from our federal agency partners in this effort, the Departments of Energy, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and FEMA, as well as from state and local first responders. We have proposed the establishment of the National Domestic Preparedness Office (NDPO) to coordinate federal domestic preparedness activities and to serve as a clearinghouse for information to state and local first responders. Working in conjunction with other federal agencies, the NDPO will act as a single point of contact for first responders to access information about and receive assistance from the multitude of federal domestic preparedness programs. We have also looked to the state and local responder community to provide us valuable input throughout our planning efforts. In the proposed NDPO effort, an advisory committee of state and local authorities will be the bridge between the federal planning team and the states and local emergency response and health care community. We also established a Center for Domestic Preparedness in Fort McClellan, Alabama, to train state and local emergency personnel. To date, we have helped train 500 emergency personnel at this new facility, and we have provided $12 million to metropolitan areas for emergency equipment needed to respond to terrorist incidents. Additionally, at the direction of the Congress, we have prepared a Five-Year Counter Terrorism and Technology Crime Plan (Five-Year Plan) which was
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submitted on December 30, 1998. The Five-Year Plan serves as a baseline strategy to combat terrorism in the United States and against Americans abroad. I am committed to working with Congress and with other federal agencies to continue to develop this plan. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/testimony/1999/agjudic050599.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General Janet Reno’s Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, February 4, 1999 (http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/testimo ny/1999/agappro020499.htm).
Attorney General Janet Reno, Statement Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, February 29, 2000 Since 1993, funding for Department of Justice programs has grown by 92 percent, including a $3 billion increase for grants to state and local criminal justice agencies. The overall increase in funding has paid for additional federal agents and prosecutors, put cops on the beat in our neighborhoods, expanded prison capacity, provided new crime-solving tools, improved technology, funded innovative approaches to fighting crime, worked to secure our Nation’s borders, and helped to train and equip first responders to address the threat of terrorism. The President’s FY 2001 budget request includes $23.4 billion for the Department—an increase $1.8 billion above FY 2000—to combat gun violence, enhance community law enforcement, curb the cycle of drugs and crime, battle cyber crime, respond to the threat of terrorism, secure our borders, and fund new prisons. Counterterrorism and Foreign Counterintelligence Preventing terrorism and thwarting foreign espionage are among the most serious challenges facing our Nation today. The Department of Justice is the lead federal agency in the fight against terrorism. Your Subcommittee has worked with us to provide the necessary tools to address this threat and to ensure that the Department is able to carry cut this very important responsibility. In FY 2000, with your support, we established the National Domestic Preparedness office (NDPO). You also provided significant guidance in the development of a blueprint laying out NDPO’s role as a central coordinating office and information clearinghouse for federal assistance programs to state and local communities with the goal of integrating and streamlining government assistance. Our blueprint represents a deliberate, conservative effort that people will understand and support. You also helped us to establish the Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support, within the Office of Justice Programs, and to develop a process for equipping and training state and local first responders to prepare them to handle a terrorist incident.
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The FY 2001 budget request builds on the infrastructure that is now in place in the Department to address terrorism and includes a $119.6 million increase to fight terrorism and combat hostile intelligence activities. We are requesting an increase of $15 million for the Counterterrorism Fund, established in response to the Oklahoma City bombing, bringing the total 2001 request for the Fund to $25 million. This funding is used to address unforeseen expenses incurred in countering, investigating or prosecuting terrorism; to finance reward payments; and to restore the operational capacities of offices damaged by terrorist acts. Our FY 2001 request includes funding for some of the most important activities that the FBI will undertake in the future. Included are increases of $35.3 million for the counterterrorism/counterintelligence activities of the FBI. Specifically, we are asking for $19.1 million and 138 positions to enhance the FBI’s ability to conduct national security investigations and thwart hostile intelligence services operating in the United States; $3.1 million and 55 intelligence analysts to engage in strategic intelligence analyses; $5 million to continue counterterrorism research and development related to explosives detection and forensic science; $3.5 million for Weapons of Mass Destruction preparedness activities, including $2.9 million for a chem/bio helpline and hotline; $2.9 million to support state and local bomb technician training at the Hazardous Devices School at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; $1.1 million to plan and provide security for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games to he held in Salt Lake City … Identifying threats to our national security is a unique federal responsibility, and one which the FBI must be equipped to meet. With your help, I am hopeful that we can come out of this appropriations process leaving the FBI well equipped to meet the challenges terrorism presents. Assuring that we are able to respond to threats of terrorism whenever and wherever they occur must include providing the FBI with adequate prosecutor expertise in the Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorneys’ offices. Balance is critically important in the criminal justice system. The very best agent or investigator will find his efforts thwarted if unable to request and receive specialized legal support in times of crisis. I cannot stress too strongly how important it is that increased resources for law enforcement agencies be accompanied by resources for our important litigation responsibilities as well. Without sufficient litigation support, the system will break down. Securing Our Borders The Immigration and Naturalization Service is charged with enforcing immigration laws by securing our Nation’s borders from illegal immigration and expediting the legal flow of commerce and people into the United States. The FY 2001 budget request for INS supports the immigration goals and strategies of improving customer service, facilitating legal immigration while deterring illegal immigration, and removing criminal and other illegal aliens from the United States. The FY 2001 budget request seeks a total of $4.8 billion for immigration-related activities. For the Border Patrol, we are requesting an increase of $52 million to add 430 new Border Patrol agents. These new agents will bring Border Patrol
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staffing to more than 9,800 agents by the end of the fiscal year, representing an increase of about 147 percent over the 1993 staffing level of 3,965 agents. The 2001 request recognizes the difficulties INS encountered in recruiting agents in a tight labor market and seeks an additional $69.9 million for a Border Patrol and Immigration Inspector Pay Reform package. Our Border Management request includes an increase of $20 million to support force-multiplying technology efforts by expanding the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System. This technology provides agents with the ability to monitor the border from remote sites, thus increasing the efficiency and safety of our agents. In addition, $22.3 million is requested for 269 Immigration Inspectors to staff 3 new ports of entry in Texas, to handle increased workload associated with the expedited removal process at land ports of entry, and to provide additional staff at international airports. For Border Patrol construction, we are seeking an additional $51.3 million to construct and maintain Border Patrol stations and sector headquarters to accommodate the growth that has occurred in the Border Patrol. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/testimony/2000/reno22900.htm
6 The Intelligence Community CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY Director William Casey, Central Intelligence Agency, ‘‘The Practice of International Terrorism Has to be Resisted by All Legal Means,’’ Address Before the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 17, 1985 We must not become confused about the difference between insurgency and terrorism. An insurgency openly uses armed conflict as a means for seeking concessions from a dictatorial or totalitarian government that denies peaceful forms of change. This can readily be distinguished from a group that attacks a democratic society, a legitimate government, by hostage-taking, and by suitcases filled with explosives on board airlines full of innocent people. And we must make that distinction clear in our minds. It is vital when dealing with the whole process of subversion of existing governments to recognize that state-supported terrorism is intended to destabilize and undermine other governments. Now let me talk for a few moments on this question. How do we cope with these small bands of highly-trained people? Most of them are fanatics, ready to give up life itself to do their evil work, and increasingly sophisticated as they move around the world crossing borders with officially and professionally prepared papers. As they travel they know they will have no trouble getting weapons, explosives, and whatever else they need near the site of their intended attack. They know, too, that they will be able to find protection and sanctuary prearranged for them. We can combat this only with the highest professionalism, dedication, diligence, and commitment. We need to know and understand the various terrorist groups—their style and operating methods, their support structures, their training camps which sprout up around the world. This is a task of continuing collection and analysis of intelligence in which the civilized nations of the world need to cooperate closely. We need to provide security and protection for our people and facilities. We need to provide the most advanced security and police methods. But against a threat which can move so quickly, widely, and quietly none of us can do it alone.
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With increasing tempo and effectiveness we are developing a worldwide counter-terrorist network. It is made up of the intelligence, security, and police organizations of certain nations. They exchange intelligence and share data banks. They work together operationally, provide training and technical capabilities to the less advanced of their number, undertake surveillance and other intelligence assignments for each other, report their findings, transmit alerts and warnings, and join in responding and defending against terrorist threats. That is really where it has to be done. No one nation is going to be able to do it by itself. It has to be done in a broadly collaborative way, close day-to-day collaboration and cooperation between the intelligence services, security service, and police services of nations around the world. Now, terrorist groups are very tough nuts for intelligence to crack. That is almost self-evident. They are small, not easily penetrated, and their operations are closely held and compartmented. Only a few people in the organization are privy to specific operations, they move quickly, and place a very high premium on secrecy and surprise. Yet prompt reporting and follow-up action does frequently forestall terrorist incidents. The most common example is forewarning to U.S. and foreign embassies or other institutions of actual threats, or strong indications of planning, for attacks on institutions and individuals. The usual response to this kind of knowledge is heightened alert, increase in protective measures, or change in plans and schedules which frequently disrupts the terrorist’ plan and results in a failure or a decision not to make the attempt. Recently, for example, intelligence on a threatened hijacking of a foreign commercial airliner combined with police work resulted in a change of travel plans which prevented the intended hijacking. In other instances, in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, U.S. officials and businessmen directly targeted by terrorists have been temporarily removed from their posts. On several occasions, warning and detailed intelligence has directly assisted foreign authorities in capturing terrorists and thwarting their evil programs. Sharing of intelligence on terrorist plans and the whereabouts of known or suspected terrorists is another way these services can assist each other. So this process of cooperation does work and is productive. On the other hand, it does produce many false alarms. The volume of threat reporting has almost invariably escalated dramatically in the wake of a headline-making terrorist incident. At such a time, some individuals seek to market information that they know has become saleable. At the same time, our own intelligence collectors are energized by major terrorist events to ferret out any information—even seemingly marginal details—concerning possible planning for attacks that could threaten U.S. lives and property. The flip side of that is that when such threat reporting rises, more reports of dubious credibility tend to make it through the system that normally would filter them out. And this can also produce false confirmations so it’s a very delicate process of handling and sifting out these reports. We’ve made rather good progress, I believe, in developing a system for very rapid communication within and between governments, to gather assessments, have reports tested by intelligence experts throughout our government and others, and pass conclusions and assessments along quickly to the point of threat.
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Now, let me turn briefly to the question of policy. What is our policy in dealing with terrorism? Well, the practice of international terrorism has to be resisted by all legal means. State-sponsored terrorist acts or threats or hostile acts and their perpetrators or sponsors must be held accountable. Whenever we obtain evidence that an act of terrorism is about to be mounted against our interests or our friends, we will take measures to warn and protect our citizens, property and interests, and our friends and allies as well. Terrorism is a common problem for all democratic nations and we must work intensely with other countries to eliminate this threat to our free and open society. This is the fundamental long-term challenge and commitment. We will use every possible diplomatic and political avenue to persuade those now practicing and supporting terrorism, or who assist in acts of state-sponsored and organized terrorism, that they will be appropriately exposed and condemned in every available forum. That’s the sort of broad perspective and attitude toward this phenomenon. Our own government is now engaged in large-scale efforts to improve the physical security of our diplomatic missions and overseas facilities. Training programs are now mandatory for sensitizing our diplomatic-military personnel to the nature of the terrorist threat. And steps that every individual can take to improve personal protection from terrorist attack are being drilled into people. We are working closely with many other governments to improve the quality and quantity of security that is provided to our personnel abroad. We work with local governments to improve their capabilities whenever possible. And we are expanding our own capability to provide additional protection to foreign diplomats and dignitaries who visit us here in our own country. That is at the security level, protective level. Now on the response level, the United States does not use force indiscriminately. But we must be free to consider an armed strike against terrorists and those who support them, where elimination or moderation of the threat does not appear to be feasible by any other means. We face very difficult and sensitive problems in choosing appropriate instruments and responses in each case. Yet we cannot allow this to freeze us into paralysis. That’s exactly what the terrorists now expect and would like us to do. Just as we will not bargain—and that, as you know, has been for some years our declared policy—we will respond when the circumstances are appropriate and we have the necessary information. We cannot and will not abstain from forcible action to prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist acts where the conditions justify—the knowledge justifies— the use of force. Many countries, including the United States, have the specific force and capability we need to carry out operations against terrorist groups. If we do not use the capability where its use is clearly justified, we lose both the direct benefits of action and the deterrent value of having the capability to retaliate. And we need that deterrent. We cannot permit terrorist groups or their sponsors to feel they can make free and unopposed use of violence against us. We must demonstrate our will to meet a terrorist’s challenge with measured force, applied quickly, whenever the evidence warrants. We cannot permit terrorists and their sponsoring states to feel that we are inhibited from responding or that our response is going to be so bogged down in interminable consultations or debates that we, in fact, do not really have a deterrent.
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International terrorism is the ultimate abuse of human rights. We should be prepared to direct a proportional military response against bona fide military targets of those states which direct terrorist actions against us. And we need not insist on absolute evidence that the targets were used solely to support terrorism. Nor should we need to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that a particular element or individual in that state is responsible for specific terrorist acts. There is today, for example, sufficient evidence that radical Shia terrorists are responsive to Iranian guidance, and receive Iranian support on a constant basis, for us to hold Tehran responsible for their attacks against U.S. citizens, properties, and interests. Now the legitimacy of using force against terrorism depends on our also making strong efforts to deal with this threat by means short of force. Physical security, training, diplomatic efforts, the improvement of institutions for sharing our resources and knowledge with other countries, the force of law, all these measures must also be applied in integrated fashion and they must be applied as rigorously as possible. We must continue to improve our ability to wield all the elements of national power—political economic, diplomatic, military, informational—against the scourge of terrorism. In my view, Western nations have, on the whole, been weak in applying economic, political, and diplomatic sanctions and measures to check state terrorism. Sanctions, when exercised in concert with other nations, can help to isolate, weaken, or punish states that sponsor terrorism. Too often, countries are inhibited by fear of losing commercial opportunities or fear of provoking further terrorism. Economic sanctions and other forms of countervailing pressure impose costs and risks on nations that apply them, but some sacrifices will be necessary if we are not to suffer even greater costs down the road. Examples of how the international community can move in concert are the 1973 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation—a concerted measure taken to deal with the hijackings of the early 1970’s, [known as] the Montreal Convention, and the 1979 International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages.1 The international community needs to put teeth in existing agreements of this sort by severely punishing violations—and many nations have been slow on this. And today there are still additional initiatives that might be taken bilaterally and multilaterally if we are to deal with this problem effectively. For example, we should review international treaties and agreements that define diplomatic privilege to identify standards of diplomatic practice and behavior which need to be and which should be vigorously enforced. We may need new international measures to counter misuse of diplomatic privileges for states sponsoring terrorist activities. Although the issue of extradition is dealt with bilaterally under normal circumstances, terrorism violates all civilized norms and we should think about 1 For text of the Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation (Sabotage), done at Montreal on September 23, 1971, see 24 UST 565. For text of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, done at New York on December 17, 1979, and entered into force January 6, 1985, see International Legal Materials, Vol. 18, No. 6 (November 1979), 1457–1463.
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developing international treaties whereby persons who commit terrorist acts against citizens of signatory states could be routinely extradited. Moreover, individuals who use false passports and other documentation and have crossed international boundaries should be detained and an investigation begun to determine the purpose of the travel. Rules also should exist whereby individuals known to be involved in terrorism can be prevented from entering any signatory state. And there are other such measures that can be taken to tighten up on the scrutiny, the investigation, and the protection against this activity. It would be an important signal to those nations who have signed existing counter-terrorism conventions and agreements if other nations which have not yet signed proceeded to ratify them. Five European nations, for example, have yet to ratify the Strasbourg Convention on the suppression of terrorism.2 The reality, the bottom line, is that terrorism aims at the very heart of civilization. We have no realistic choice but to meet it, and that means head on. Nothing else will work. And the aim of the terrorist and the ultimate objective for those who sponsor, train, and supply terrorists is to undermine our values, to shatter our self-confidence, and to thwart our response. In the absence of a national will to fight terrorism at its roots, we must be content only to cope with terrorism’s effects—not its cause. And that will not be enough. But a strong beginning has been made. Parliaments have begun to authorize funds, and governments to establish effective counter-terrorism units. They’re increasingly working closely together, and intelligence and security services are developing new capabilities and improving their methods and performance. A conference such as this goes far to air the very tough and difficult issues … In dealing with terrorism, strong public attention will be needed to focus meaningful action by our government and others in response to this threat.…
Director James Woolsey, Central Intelligence Agency, ‘‘Terrorism in America,’’ Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., April 21, 1993 … I appear today to describe one of the most significant current threats to the United States and its allies—international terrorism. The World Trade Center Bombing brought home to Americans the horror of terrorist violence, a horror that has long been an almost every day occurrence in many areas of the world. In 1992, there were 362 international terrorist attacks around the globe, and although this number represents the lowest annual total since 1975, the attacks killed 93 people and wounded 636 others. And these figures do not even include casualties arising out of the terrorist— out of terrorist acts with no international dimension. The United States remains the single-most important target for international terrorists, and we are of course concerned that the recent World Trade
2 For text of European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, done at Strasbourg on January 27, 1977, see ibid., Vol. 15, No. 6 (November 1976), 1272–1276.
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Center bombing may lead terrorists to conclude that operations on US soil are not as difficult as they once thought. Today I’ll focus most of my remarks on state-sponsored terrorism. I’ll then briefly address two other issues—the growing potential for terrorism triggered by ethnic conflict and for terrorism inspired by violent religious extremism. I begin with state-sponsored terrorism because it is the most important component of the international terrorism problem. The reasons for this are obvious—money and power. Nation-states make terrorists more lethal and more ambitious. There are six countries on the State Department’s list of state sponsors—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea—and while statesponsored terrorism has decreased in recent years, none of the countries on this list has forsworn terrorism as a foreign policy tool. Each can readily conduct or sponsor international attacks, and each maintains ties to violent groups. Let me give you a country-by-country assessment of where we stand. Iran is by far the most active and dangerous state sponsor. Indeed, despite the overall decline in state-sponsored terrorist attacks, Iranian-backed attacks have become more common. While some in the media frequently depict a moderate or a pragmatic post-Khomeini Iran, Tehran and its surrogates have carried out more than 35 terrorist acts since Rafsanjani was elected president in July 1989. At least 20 of these occurred in 1992. For example, Tehran continues to call for the murder of British author Salman Rushdie, claiming that Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious decree, demanding Rushdie’s death cannot be rescinded. Indeed, in late 1992, Iran increased the bounty for killing Rushdie. Iran’s agents also stalk and murder Iranian oppositionists abroad. We’re confident, for example, that Tehran arranged for the murders of a leading opposition politician gunned down in Rome this year; an anti-regime Iranian poet, struck down in Bonn in 1992; and four members of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, killed in a Berlin restaurant in 1992. In fact, an Iranian national is among those now under arrest for the latter four murders. Further, under President Rafsanjani, Tehran has strengthened ties to radical Palestinian terrorists who share Iran’s long-term goal of destroying Israel. Iran, for example, provides substantial support to several factions of the Palestine Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general command, and the increasingly militant Palestinian fundamentalist group, Hamas. The Iranian leadership also has publicly endorsed violence by religious extremists in North Africa. In July of ‘92, for example, Tehran applauded the assassination of Algerian President Boudiaf. Tehran supports Lebanese Hezbollah, both financially and militarily. In large part, because of this support over the past decade, Hezbollah now poses a greater threat to US and Western interests than any other Middle Eastern terrorist group. Since its founding in 1983, Hezbollah has been responsible for attacks that have killed 262 Americans, including those who died in the suicide car bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. In 1982, Hezbollah destroyed Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and wounding 242. After Iran, Iraq is the next most active state patron of terrorism. Baghdad currently focuses its efforts on northern Iraq, where it directs attacks against individuals and facilities supporting international relief efforts. In addition,
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Baghdad and its surrogates are attacking Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Shias who oppose Saddam Hussein’s regime. Since the Gulf War, Iraq has largely refrained from terrorism outside its borders. Multinational counterterrorist efforts before and during the war weakened Baghdad’s terrorist infrastructure and it has not been entirely rebuilt. Still, Iraq is able to attack outside its homeland, and we continue to assess carefully reports of Iraqi involvement in such attacks. We believe Baghdad’s security services, for example, murdered an emigr´ ´ e Iraqi scientist in Jordan last December. In addition, Baghdad still sponsors in varying degrees three well-known terrorist groups—the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, Abu Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Front, and the Arab Liberation Front. As for Libya, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea, they are not now directly involved in international terrorist attacks. None, however, has irrevocably abandoned the terrorist option. Libya has reduced its terrorist profile to stem pressure from the UN sanctions imposed as a result of Tripoli’s involvement in the bombing of Pan Am 103. Colonel Qadhafi has razed or partially dismantled some terrorist training facilities in Libya, he has expelled some terrorists from the country, and he has pledged to abolish government institutions involved in terrorism. But these steps, so far, are cosmetic. Libya’s international terrorist infrastructure remains intact, and Qadhafi can resume terrorist operations at his whim. Turning to Syria, we have not linked Damascus to any international terrorist act since 1986. The country does, however, grant safe haven in Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon to several terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine general command. Cuba and North Korea also have abstained from direct involvement in international terrorist attacks for several years, but Havana still provides limited training and assistance to several South American groups that use terrorism, and Pyong Yang gives sanctuary to members of the Japanese Red Army and seeks to expand contacts with radical Palestinians. Sudan and Pakistan, while not yet on the State Department’s list of state sponsors, are on the brink. Last January the US warned each of these countries that it could soon be listed. Since 1989, Sudan has welcomed a growing number of well-known terrorist and violent religious extremist groups, groups like Lebanese Hezbollah, the Abu Nidal organization, Hamas, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad. The Khartoum regime is also hosting religious extremists from Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt, and this pro-terrorist atmosphere in Sudan is underscored by Iran’s decision to send as its ambassador to Khartoum a man who participated in the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and who helped nurture the growth of Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early 1980s. As for Pakistan, it has supported the Kashmiri and Sikh groups, which have been waging long-running insurgencies against India’s central government. The Kashmiris and Sikhs have found safe haven and other support in Pakistan while forcefully redressing grievances against New Delhi. Let me turn briefly to another potential source of terrorism: terrorism arising out of the brutal regional and ethnic conflicts that have become so prominent in the first years after the Cold War.
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The many new conflicts around the globe are fertile ground for extremists willing to attack innocent people to advance their goals. Recent events in the former Yugoslavia graphically illustrate the type of conflict that can breed terrorism. In this region, there are, as you know, historic cultural and religious tensions among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The attacks of the Bosnian Muslims have aroused strong emotions and elicited material support, reportedly including funding and ordnance from others in the Mideast. We also see ethnic and religious conflict in Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, and the Caucasus. And although most of these conflicts have not yet spawned international terrorist acts, their savagery suggests that some of the combatants might out of desperation use any means available to stave off final defeat. Finally, I must point out the increasing use of violence by religious extremist groups in the Mideast, a trend that also worries us. While most such groups have not yet directly targeted US interests, several have attacked governments friendly to the United States such as those of Algeria and Egypt, and senior Iranian officials and Tehran’s media organizations are funneling propaganda to the rest of the Islamic world that the United States is a great Satan whose policy is to oppress Muslims. Unfortunately, terrorism conducted by both states and groups remains a serious and largely unpredictable threat to US citizens and US interests. I can certainly not assure you that we can prevent all acts of international terrorism. I can assure you, however, that we will continue vigorously to monitor and combat the terrorist threat.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Director Louis J. Freeh, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Prepared Statement Before the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, March 12, 1997 … I welcome this opportunity to discuss the policy of the administration on counterterrorism, to describe the threat of terrorism in the United States, and to bring you up-to-date on how the FBI is using the counterterrorism resources Congress has provided over the pastes several years to address this problem. The protection of our nation and its people against the threat of terrorism, by individuals and groups operating from home and abroad, is one of the highest priorities of the administration. As a nation, we must stand firm in our resolve against terrorism. We must not allow those who would resort to acts of terrorism to succeed in influencing the policies and actions of our government by tearing apart the very fabric of American society. United States Policy on Terrorism The government’s policy to fight terrorism is articulated in Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-39, ‘‘U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism.’’ This policy, signed by President Clinton on June 21, 1995, makes it clear that the national
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policy of the United States is to regard acts of terrorism as both a threat to national security and a criminal act, and to respond vigorously to all such acts on our territory or against our citizens wherever they occur. EDITOR’S NOTE: The policy is available at http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39. htm.
The United States is also committed to strengthening the ability of the international community to prevent acts of terrorism before they occur and to respond more effectively to acts of terrorism when they do occur. There are four major cornerstones through which the government’s policy on terrorism is to be implemented. These are: ¥ To reduce the vulnerabilities of the United States to terrorism; ¥ To deter terrorist acts before that occur; ¥ To respond to terrorist acts that do occur, including apprehension and punishment of terrorists and management of the consequences of terrorist acts; and ¥ To develop effective capabilities that address the threat posed by nuclear, chemical, or biological materials or weapons.
Within the scope of these four cornerstones, PPD-39 sets out the roles and responsibilities of the many agencies involved in the government’s counterterrorism effort. Interagency coordination and cooperation are key factors underlying the principles upon which PDD-39 is built and are the path to its success. Nature of the Terrorist Threat Based upon this policy of treating terrorists as criminals and applying the rule of law, the United States is one of the most visible and effective forces in identifying, locating, and apprehending terrorists here and overseas. At the same time, this policy invites the possibility of reprisals. To help put this into perspective, I would like to discuss the nature of the terrorist threat—both international and domestic—that our nation faces today. International Terrorist Threat International terrorism against the United States is that which is foreign based and/or directed by countries or groups outside the United States, or whose activities transcend national boundaries. The threat posed specifically by foreign terrorists has increased in the past thee years and will continue for the foreseeable future. The current international terrorist threat to the United States government, its people, and its interests can be divided into three major categories: (1) state sponsors of international terrorism, (2) formalized terrorist groups, and (3) loosely-affiliated international Islamic extremists. State-Sponsored Terrorism The first major threat to Americans comes from state sponsors of international terrorism. State sponsors include Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea. In recent years, terrorist activities by Cuba and North
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Korea appear to have declined, due primarily to the deteriorating economic situations in both countries. However, the activities of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Libya have continued. These state sponsors continue to view terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. Past activities included direct terrorist support and operations by official state agents. Following successful investigations which have identified the activities of state agents involved in terrorism, state sponsors now generally seek to conceal their support of terrorism by relying on surrogates to conduct actual operations. State sponsors, however, continue to remain engaged in anti-western terrorist activities by funding, organizing, networking, and providing other support and instruction to many extremists. A classic example of state sponsored terrorism was the attack on Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, which killed 270 people. Two Libyan intelligence operatives, Lamen Fhimah and Abdel al-Megrahi, were indicted for their role in the attack. Formalized Extremist Groups The second major international terrorist threat to the United States is posed by formalized extremist groups. These autonomous organizations have their own infrastructures, personnel, financial arrangements, and training facilities. They are able to plan and mount terrorist campaigns overseas, and support terrorist operations inside the United States. Extremist groups such as Lebanese Hizballah, the Egyptian al-Gamat alIslamiyya, and the Palestinian Hamas have placed supporters inside the United States who could be used to support an act of terrorism here. Hizballah is one of the most dangerous of these groups. Hizballah has staged numerous anti-United States terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck-bombing of the United States embassy and the United States Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and the United States embassy annex in Lebanon in 1984. Elements of the group were also responsible for the kidnapping and detention of United States hostages in Lebanon. International Radical Fundamentalists The final major international terrorist threat to the United States stems from loosely-affiliated Islamic terrorists, such as the World Trade Center bombers and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef. These extremists are neither surrogates of, nor strongly influenced by, any one nation. They have the ability to tap into a variety of official and private resource bases in order to facilitate terrorist acts against unite states interests. Loosely-affiliated extremists may pose the most urgent international terrorist threat to the United States at this time since they are relatively unknown to law enforcement. They have the ability to travel freely, obtain a variety of identities, and recruit like-minded sympathizers from various countries and/or factions. Some of these extremists in the United States are developing or experimenting with advanced communications, electronic mail, and the internet. For example, supporters of Shayke Omar Abdel Rahman solicited monies for
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his defense through the internet during his trial for the planned multiple attacks against New York City landmarks and United States government facilities. Revolutionary and Insurgent Groups Revolutionary and insurgent groups continue to operate in South and Central America and other locations. These groups have been responsible for kidnappings of American business representatives, religious missionaries, and tourists, as well as other crimes. However, at this time, it does not appear that these groups represent a major terrorist threat to the United States government or its interests. Domestic Terrorism Threat Domestic terrorist groups are those which are based and which operate entirely within the United States, or its territories, and whose activities are directed at elements of the United States government or its civilian population. The threat posed by domestic terrorist groups has remained significant over the past several years. Domestic terrorist groups represent interests spanning the full political spectrum, as well as social issues and concerns. FBI investigations of domestic terrorist groups are not predicated upon social or political beliefs; rather, they are based upon planned or actual criminal activity. The current domestic terrorist threat primarily comes from right-wing extremist groups, militia groups, Puerto Rican terrorist groups, and special interest groups. Right-Wing Extremist Groups A basic philosophical tenet of many right-wing extremist groups is a belief in the superiority of the white race and that blacks, Jews, and other ethnic minorities are inferior racially, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Much of their philosophy flows from a racist, anti-Semitic religion known as ‘‘Christian Identity.’’ Christian Identity teaches that white non-Jews are God’s chosen race and that Jews are the offspring of Satan. Many right-wing extremist groups also espouse anti-government sentiments. These groups refer to the federal government as the Zionist occupation government and claim that it is controlled by Jewish interests. A number of right-wing groups also believe that the federal government is bent on stripping constitutional rights from individual citizens of the United States. In an attempt to live apart from ‘‘inferior people,’’ some right-wing groups advocate creating a separate nation from the five states comprising the northwest region of the United States—Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Right-wing extremist groups believe that either an economic and/or social collapse which will bring about the biblical Armageddon is imminent. Therefore, they routinely engage in survivalist and/or paramilitary training to ensure the survival of the white race and/or United States. Among the right-wing extremist groups operating in the united states are: the Army of Israel, the Aryan Nations, the Texas Aryan Brotherhood, the
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California Militia, the Viper Militia, the Mountaineer Militia, the Republic of Texas, Our One Supreme Court, the Texas Constitutional Militia, the Utah Free Militia, the North Idaho Militia Group, and the Freemen. Militia Groups Since 1992, the United States has experienced an exponential growth of militia groups. While the majority of militia members are law-abiding citizens, there is a small percentage of members within militia groups who advocate and conspire to commit violent criminal acts. Of particular concern to the FBI is the potential for militias to be infiltrated by extremists who seek to exploit militias and their members in order to further their own terrorist agendas. While militia groups are often multi-racial, they are predominately white. They generally view themselves as ‘‘sovereign’’ citizens who are exempt from the laws and regulations of the United States government. Militia members often subscribe to the theory that the federal government is in a conspiracy with the United Nations that would result in the creation of a one-nation world government, or new world order. This one-world government would use foreign troops in the United States to seize all privately owned weapons and imprison and execute patriotic militia members. Many militia groups advocate stockpiling weapons and explosives and conducting paramilitary training as part of their preparation for what they believe will be an inevitable armed conflict with the government. Some militia groups openly advocate the overthrow of the federal government. Militia members and cells are engaged in a wide variety of criminal activity, such as the illegal sale and purchase of automatic weapons, issuing threats against federal and elected officials, the illegal transportation of explosives, bombings, destruction of government property. And the filing of spurious lawsuits designed to harass law enforcement, elected officials, and others, as well as to disrupt the courts. Some militia members engage in fraudulent financial schemes to raise funds. Others have committed armed robberies of banks and armored cars. I want to emphasize, again, that FBI investigations of militia groups are predicated upon violations of federal law and are not based upon members’ lawful exercise of their first or second amendment rights. Puerto Rican Terrorist Groups Although the last terrorist incident involving Puerto Rican terrorist groups was a bombing in Chicago in December 1992, these groups continue to be of concern. Between 1982 and 1994, approximately 44 percent of the terrorist incidents committed in the United States and its territories were attributed to Puerto Rican terrorist groups. Efforts are continuing to locate fugitives still at large from these incidents. Further, several incarcerated members of Puerto Rican terrorist groups are due to be released from prison in 1998. Puerto Rican terrorist groups believe the liberation of Puerto Rico from the United States justifies the use of violence to obtain that objective. These groups characterize their terrorism activities as ‘‘acts of war’’ against invading forces and, when arrested, they consider themselves to be ‘‘prisoners of war’’
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who must be treated as such according to the Geneva Convention. Clandestine behavior and security are of utmost importance in these group’s activities. … Among the acts committed by these groups are murders, armed robberies of banks and armored carriers, thefts of weapons, bombings of United States government buildings, and bombings of United States military facilities. These groups also target federal and local government officials. The EPB-Macheteros has been the most active and violent of the Puerto Rico-based terrorist groups since it emerged in 1978. The FALN (armed forces for Puerto Rican national liberation) is a clandestine terrorist group based in Chicago which emerged in the 1970’s. The MLN (Movement of National Liberation) is the ‘‘above ground’’ support group and political arm of the FALN. The MLN is the major fundraiser for the FALN. Among the business ventures are a bakery and a newspaper. Special Interest Terrorist Groups Special interest terrorist groups engage in criminal activity to bring about specific, narrowly-focused social or political changes. They differ from more traditional domestic terrorist groups which seek more wide- ranging political changes. It is the willingness to commit criminal acts that separates special interest terrorist groups from other law-abiding groups that often support the same popular issues. By committing criminal acts, these terrorists believe that they can force various segments of society to change attitudes about issues considered important to them. The existence of these types of groups often does not come to law enforcement attention until after an act is committed and the individual or group leaves a claim of responsibility. Membership in a group may be limited to a very small number of co-conspirators or associates. Consequently, acts committed by special interest terrorists present unique challenges to the FBI and other law enforcement. Unfortunately, these types of terrorist acts are growing more prevalent. An example of special interest terrorist activity is the February 2, 1992, arson of the mink research facility at Michigan State University. Rodney Coronado, a member of the Animal Liberation Front, pled guilty to arson charges on July 3, 1995. The Animal Liberation Front is a militant animal rights group founded in England in 1976. Assessing the capabilities of international and domestic terrorist groups to inflict harm on American citizens and the United States government is critical to developing the capabilities and strategies needed to implement the four cornerstones that are embodied by PDD-39. FBI Roles and Responsibilities … PDD-39 establishes the roles and responsibilities for the many government agencies that are involved in the government’s counterterrorism response. PDD-39 defines these roles and responsibilities within the context of the four cornerstones through which the government’s policy on terrorism is to be implemented. In many instances, PDD-39 reaffirmed roles and responsibilities set out in earlier executive orders and by federal statutes.
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PDD-39 also established new roles and responsibilities based on the assessment of the current terrorism threat to the United States, especially in light of the dramatic changes resulting from the dissolution of the former Soviet Union and the communist bloc. It is within this framework that I would like to talk about the FBI’s counterterrorism roles and responsibilities. Reducing Our Vulnerabilities In general, PDD-39 confers upon the heads of all Executive Branch Departments and Agencies the responsibility of ensuring that their personnel and facilities, and the people and facilities within their jurisdiction, are fully protected against terrorism. PDD-39 further directs the Attorney General, in her role as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer, to chair a Cabinet Committee to review the vulnerability to terrorism of government facilities in the United States and the nation’s critical infrastructure. She was also directed to make recommendations to the President and the appropriate cabinet member or agency head regarding the findings of the Committee. … [I]n response to this tasking, the Attorney General established the Critical Infrastructure Working Group which included representatives from the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. In July 1996, the President issued an Executive Order on critical infrastructure protection that established an Interim Infrastructure Protection Task Force. The purpose of the task force is to identify and improve coordination of existing infrastructure protection efforts throughout the government until the completion or development of a comprehensive national policy and strategy for critical infrastructure protection. The FBI was selected to chair the task force. The department has submitted a notification to the committee that advised of the FBI’s intent to use prior year counterterrorism funding to support the infrastructure protection task force. Additionally, PDD-39 confers upon the FBI the responsibility for reducing vulnerabilities by an expanded counterterrorism program. Deterring Terrorism The United States government seeks to deter terrorism through public diplomacy, by reducing terrorist capabilities at home and abroad, and by seeking the return of indicted terrorists to the United States for prosecution. Responding to Terrorism To develop and coordinate the government’s response to international and domestic terrorism, the president has established lead agency responsibilities among the various departments of the executive branch. The president reaffirmed the Department of Justice as the overall lead agency domestically. In addition to being responsible for the prosecution of terrorists that violate United States law, the department is responsible for the development and implementation of policies addressing domestic terrorism. For foreign incidents, the Department of State is the lead agency.
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The President reaffirmed the FBI as the lead agency for investigating terrorist acts planned or carried out by foreign or domestic terrorist groups in the United States or which are directed at United States citizens or institutions abroad. Effective response and coordination obviously requires good interagency support and coordination. The PDD directed the establishment of rapidly deployable interagency emergency support teams to respond to terrorist incidents. The: Department of State is given responsibility for leading and managing the Foreign Emergency Support Team in foreign incidents. The FBI is designated as being responsible for the Domestic Emergency Support Team in domestic incidents. Both teams are to include modules for specific types of incidents, such as nuclear, biological, or chemical threats. Other responsibilities of the FBI, consistent its existing authorities, are to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence on terrorist groups and activities, and to disseminate internal threat warnings. Finally, to facilitate in Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement cooperation, the FBI has been directed to establish a Domestic Counterterrorism Center. Weapons of Mass Destruction The acquisition, proliferation threatened or actual and use of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist group or individuals constitutes one of the gravest threats to the United States. The government’s policy recognizes that there is no higher priority than preventing the acquisition of this capability or removing this capability from terrorist groups potentially opposed to the United States. The FBI is working closely with the Department of Defense to carry out other authorized weapons of mass destruction programs, such as Nunn-Luger. We are actively undertaking initiatives to employ all necessary measures, assets, and resources to achieve these objectives. During the past year, the FBI has implemented several new initiatives to meet this challenge. These initiatives are not conducted in a unilateral manner, but with the FBI working with many other United States government agencies and state and local agencies to coordinate crisis and consequence management. These initiatives involve the FBI’s role in the interagency community to assist in the training of law enforcement and emergency responders throughout the United States; to issue and update contingency plans for FBI field offices and other crisis and consequence management agencies; to participate in interagency exercise, to create the Domestic Emergency Support Team; and to implement the Joint Department of Defense/FBI International Training Initiative in the former Soviet Union. Special Events Management The FBI plays a major role in the intelligence and security planning for many special events occurring within the United States, such as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and Presidential Inaugurations.
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These events routinely receive a high degree of visibility both domestically and internationally. As such, these events represent potential targets for acts of terrorism in which the resulting consequences could cause significant harm to either United States national interests or international political stability. Counterterrorism Resources PDD-39, as well as other Executive Orders and Federal Statutes, has served as the blueprint for developing the various counterterrorism initiatives and funding proposals that have been generously supported by the committee. In developing these initiatives, I have sought to address not only counterterrorism investigative requirements, but also certain critical infrastructure capabilities of the FBI that allow our investigators and analysts to perform their jobs. Establishing and maintaining an effective counterterrorism capability within the FBI requires a careful balance between investigative resources and related information, technology, and forensic support services. SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_hr/ss970513f.htm
P a r t Tw o U.S. P OLICY P OST –S EPTEMBER 11, 2001 President Bush’s statements and speeches range from the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when his speeches attempted to reassure the nation, to his statements at the end of 2006, when the Global War on Terrorism became increasingly intertwined with the growing controversy over the continued presence of American troops in Iraq. From his very first speech to the nation on the night of 9/11, the president sounded a theme he has continued to use with variations since then, that ‘‘America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.’’ Chapter 7 includes President Bush’s speech to Congress a few days later, September 20, 2001, during which he began laying the groundwork for military operations to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan unless they turned over Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda fellow terrorists. ‘‘They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate,’’ the President said. He also sounded a warning that would become an administration theme, that ‘‘nations must choose. They are with us, or they’re with the terrorists.’’ His October 7 address to the nation formally announced that military strikes had been launched against the Taliban regime. In his first post-9/11 State of the Union Address to Congress, on January 29, 2002, President Bush emphasized that Iraq supports terror and has plotted to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. During his June 1, 2002, graduation speech to West Point, the President outlined reasons for taking action against Saddam Hussein. In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address, he used his now famous ‘‘axis of evil’’ phrase, saying that Iran, North Korea, and Iraq ‘‘constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.’’ Chapter 9, containing former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speeches, includes the February 5, 2003, speech to the United Nations during which Powell described the administration’s evidence that Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons. Some of the specific intelligence information used by Secretary Powell was later discredited. Another key document is President Bush’s May 1, 2003, ‘‘Mission Accomplished’’ speech, which he delivered after the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces,
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when he flew to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to declare that ‘‘major combat operations in Iraq have ended.’’ As the Iraqi insurgency developed, and terrorist attacks took place elsewhere in the world, the president’s September 7, 2003, address to the nation declared that ‘‘we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure.’’ A general theme, as expressed in a September 16, 2004, campaign speech in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was ‘‘We’re staying on the offensive. We’re striking terrorists abroad, so we do not have to face them here at home.’’ In an October 6, 2005, speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush said of the struggle against terrorists: ‘‘[W]e will never back down, never give in, and never accept anything less than complete victory.’’ A year later, in a September 29, 2006, speech as support for the war in Iraq lagged, he stressed that America had to deal vigorously with the challenge of fighting terrorism, saying, ‘‘This is the call of a generation, to stand against the extremists and support moderate leaders across the broader Middle East, to help us all secure a future of peace.’’ Vice President Cheney’s November 22, 2005, speech to the American Enterprise Institute laid out the Bush administration’s thesis that terrorists were emboldened by President Reagan’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon after the U.S. Marine barracks was hit by a truck bomb in 1983, killing 241 marines; by the Clinton administration’s withdrawal from Somalia 10 years later when a Black Hawk helicopter was downed and 19 soldiers died; and by later attacks against American targets when the U.S. took little or minimum military action. In a June 26, 2006, CNN interview, Vice President Cheney reiterated that ‘‘we have to stay the course.’’ Chapter 7 includes the president’s December 20, 2006, address, which he opened with a prepared statement on Iraq that included the statement ‘‘we’ll change our strategy and tactics to meet the realities on the ground.’’ In chapter 10, Secretary of State Rice’s December 5, 2005, departure remarks before flying to Europe defended U.S. policy against European complaints that the United States was engaged in improper renditions of terrorist suspects captured overseas. In chapter 12, former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld addressed the role of the media in the terrorism conflict in a February 17, 2006, speech to the Council of Foreign Relations. In chapter 13, Attorney General Ashcroft’s speeches begin with his October 18, 2001, testimony that advocated the enactment of what was later called the USA PATRIOT Act, which provided more legal tools against terrorists. Also on the domestic front, chapter 16 contains the April 13, 2005, testimony by Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff on the use of risk management to set priorities for strategy and allocation of resources. EDITOR’S NOTE: The speeches and statements containing material on Iraq, legal issues, and other subjects should be read in conjunction with the documents in Part Three, which is organized by specific topics.
7 President George W. Bush President George W. Bush, Statement to the Nation, September 11, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded with the best of America—with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could. Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government’s emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it’s prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, D.C. to help with local rescue efforts. Our first priority is to get help to those who have been injured, and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks. The functions of our government continue without interruption. Federal agencies in Washington which had to be evacuated today are reopening for
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essential personnel tonight, and will be open for business tomorrow. Our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business, as well. The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. I appreciate so very much the members of Congress who have joined me in strongly condemning these attacks. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the many world leaders who have called to offer their condolences and assistance. America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win the war against terrorism. Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: ‘‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.’’ This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. Thank you. Good night, and God bless America. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html
President George W. Bush, Remarks During Photo Opportunity with the National Security Team, The Cabinet Room, September 12, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: I have just completed a meeting with my national security team, and we have received the latest intelligence updates. The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war. This will require our country to unite in steadfast determination and resolve. Freedom and democracy are under attack. The American people need to know that we’re facing a different enemy than we have ever faced. This enemy hides in shadows, and has no regard for human life. This is an enemy who preys on innocent and unsuspecting people, then runs for cover. But it won’t be able to run for cover forever. This is an enemy that tries to hide. But it won’t be able to hide forever. This is an enemy that thinks its harbors are safe. But they won’t be safe forever. This enemy attacked not just our people, but all freedom-loving people everywhere in the world. The United States of America will use all our resources to conquer this enemy. We will rally the world. We will be patient, we will be focused, and we will be steadfast in our determination.
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This battle will take time and resolve. But make no mistake about it: we will win. The federal government and all our agencies are conducting business. But it is not business as usual. We are operating on a heightened security alert. America is going forward, and as we do so, we must remain keenly aware of the threats to our country. Those in authority should take appropriate precautions to protect our citizens. But we will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms. This morning, I am sending to Congress a request for emergency funding authority, so that we are prepared to spend whatever it takes to rescue victims, to help the citizens of New York City and Washington, D.C. respond to this tragedy, and to protect our national security. I want to thank the members of Congress for their unity and support. America is united. The freedom-loving nations of the world stand by our side. This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil. But good will prevail. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010912-4.html
President George W. Bush, Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, The National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation’s sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who love them. On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes, and bent steel. Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning to read. They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life. They are the names of people who faced death, and in their last moments called home to say, be brave, and I love you. They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers, and prevented the murder of others on the ground. They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States, and died at their posts. They are the names of rescuers, the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others. We will read all these names. We will linger over them, and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep. To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone. Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on
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the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing. Our purpose as a nation is firm. Yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed, and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there is a searching, and an honesty. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Tuesday, a woman said, ‘‘I prayed to God to give us a sign that He is still here.’’ Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing. God’s signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that his purposes are not always our own. Yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in this great cathedral, are known and heard, and understood. There are prayers that help us last through the day, or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the journey. And there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than our own. It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded, and the world has seen, that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave. We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion; in long lines of blood donors; in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible. And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight floors to safety. A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burn victims. Our unity is a kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.1 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010914-2.html
President George W. Bush, ‘‘Islam Is Peace,’’ Remarks at Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C., September 17, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: … We’ve just had a—wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday’s attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that. 1 Also see Radio Address to the Nation, September 15, 2001 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2001/09/20010915.html.
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The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself: In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule. The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race—out of every race. America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect. Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior. This is a great country. It’s a great country because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth. And it is my honor to be meeting with leaders who feel just the same way I do. They’re outraged, they’re sad. They love America just as much as I do.… SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html
President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, Washington, D.C., September 20, 2001 EXCERPTED … In the normal course of events, Presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people. We have seen it in the courage of passengers, who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground—passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me to welcome his wife, Lisa Beamer, here tonight. We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We have seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers—in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of our Union—and it is strong. Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.
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And on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support. America will never forget the sounds of our National Anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris, and at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. We will not forget South Korean children gathering to pray outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of sympathy offered at a mosque in Cairo, … or moments of silence and days of mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin America. Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250 citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens. America has no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause—so honored the British Prime Minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity of purpose with America. Thank you for coming, friend. On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars—but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war—but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks—but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day—and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack. Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world—and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere. The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics—a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists’ directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children. This group and its leader—a person named Osama bin Laden—are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries. They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction. The leadership of al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan, we see al Qaeda’s vision for the world. Afghanistan’s people have been brutalized—many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for
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owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough. The United States respects the people of Afghanistan—after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid—but we condemn the Taliban regime. It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating. These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate. I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government. Their leaders are selfappointed. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa. These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way. We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions—by abandoning every value except the will to power—they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.
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Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war—to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network. This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat. Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. Our nation has been put on notice: We are not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect Americans. Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security. These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight I announce the creation of a Cabinet-level position reporting directly to me—the Office of Homeland Security. And tonight I also announce a distinguished American to lead this effort, to strengthen American security: a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot, a trusted friend—Pennsylvania’s Tom Ridge. He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism, and respond to any attacks that may come. These measures are essential. But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows. Many will be involved in this effort, from FBI agents to intelligence operatives to the reservists we have called to active duty. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers. And tonight, a few miles from the damaged Pentagon, I have a message for our military: Be ready. I’ve called the Armed Forces to alert, and there is a reason. The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud. This is not, however, just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. We ask every nation to join us. We will ask, and we will need, the help of police forces, intelligence services, and banking systems around the world. The United States is grateful that many nations and many international organizations have already responded —with sympathy and with support. Nations from Latin America, to Asia, to Africa, to Europe, to the Islamic world. Perhaps the NATO Charter reflects best the attitude of the world: An attack on one is an attack on all.
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The civilized world is rallying to America’s side. They understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next. Terror, unanswered, can not only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments. And you know what—we’re not going to allow it. Americans are asking: What is expected of us? I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat. I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith. I ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions. Those who want to give can go to a central source of information, libertyunites.org, to find the names of groups providing direct help in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The thousands of FBI agents who are now at work in this investigation may need your cooperation, and I ask you to give it. Tonight, we face new and sudden national challenges. We will come together to improve air safety, to dramatically expand the number of air marshals on domestic flights, and take new measures to prevent hijacking. We will come together to promote stability and keep our airlines flying, with direct assistance during this emergency. We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home. We will come together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act, and find them before they strike. We will come together to take active steps that strengthen America’s economy, and put our people back to work. After all that has just passed—all the lives taken, and all the possibilities and hopes that died with them—it is natural to wonder if America’s future is one of fear. Some speak of an age of terror. I know there are struggles ahead, and dangers to face. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world. Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom—the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time—now depends on us. Our nation— this generation—will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return almost to normal. We’ll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass … I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.
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The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them. Fellow citizens, we’ll meet violence with patient justice—assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident of the victories to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/print/2010920-8.html
President George W. Bush, Q&A on Afghanistan During Photo Opportunity with King Abdullah of Jordan, The Oval Office, September 28, 2001 Q. Mr. President: Have you had any chance to study the long and difficult conflict that the Russians had in Afghanistan? And if so, what, if anything, did you learn that might be helpful in the conflict you have coming ahead? PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, one of the things we will do is enforce the doctrine, part of the doctrine that says, if you harbor a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as a terrorist. And in my speech to the nation I laid out the conditions that we expect the current government of Afghanistan to follow. I am fully aware of the difficulties the Russians had in Afghanistan. Our intelligence people and our State Department people are also fully aware. It is very hard to fight a conventional war—a guerrilla war with conventional forces. And we understand that. That’s why I have explained to the American people that the new war on terror is going to be a different war. It will be fought on a variety of fronts. It will be fought on a financial front; it will require the best of intelligence and the sharing of intelligence. There may or may not be a conventional component to it. … [S]ometimes people will be able to see what we do on the television screens. Other times the American people won’t be able to see what we’re doing. But make no mistake about it; we’re in hot pursuit. We’re going to enforce the doctrine. We’re going to be diligent and patient and determined to bring people to justice and to rout out terrorist activity around the world. And so there have been lessons learned in the past, and our government is very aware of those lessons. Q. Mr. President, what’s your reaction to word today that the Taliban says it has now located Osama bin Laden and has delivered an invitation to him to leave the country? PRESIDENT BUSH: … First, there is no negotiations with the Taliban. They heard what I said. And now they can act. And it’s not just Mr. bin Laden that we expect to see and brought to justice; it’s everybody associated with his organization that’s in Afghanistan. And not only those directly associated with Mr. bin Laden, any terrorist that is housed and fed in Afghanistan needs to be handed over. And finally, we expect there to be complete destruction of terrorist camps.
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That’s what I told them; that’s what I mean. And we expect them—we expect them to not only hear what I say, but to do something about it. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010928-4.html
President George W. Bush, Meeting with Congressional Leaders, The Oval Office, October 2, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank the leaders of the Congress for coming down for breakfast this morning. We had a really good discussion, starting with the progress we’re making on the war against terrorism. I briefed the members about the fact that we’re beginning to make progress in freezing assets … of the al Qaeda organization. I also talked about that the net we’re casting is wide and strong, that we’ve put together an international coalition that is impressive and that the members of that coalition are staying steady. It is my desire to make sure that, as this war unfolds, that the leaders of both the Senate and the House are fully informed of what the government is doing. I can’t think of a better way to conduct foreign policy than to consult regularly with the leadership. Q. Mr. President, is the time running out on the Taliban regime? Are you prepared, sir, to recognize the Palestinian state as a part of a broader Middle East peace process, itself? THE PRESIDENT: The idea of a Palestinian state has always been part of a vision, so long as the right to Israel to exist is respected. But first things first, when it comes to the Middle East, we’ve got to get to … the Mitchell Accord. Senator Mitchell put together a viable blueprint that most of the world agrees with is a necessary path to ultimately solving the problems of the Middle East. And we are working diligently with both sides to encourage the reduction of violence so that meaningful discussions can take place. Secondly, there is no time table for the Taliban, just like there are no negotiations. I have said that the Taliban must turn over al Qaeda organization living within Afghanistan, and must destroy the terrorist camps. And they must do so, otherwise there will be a consequence. There are no negotiations, there’s no calendar. We’ll act on our time, and we’ll do it in a manner that not only secures the United States as best as possible, but makes the freedom in the world more likely to exist in the future. Q. Out of this terror on September 11th comes fear. Many Americans are still gripped with this fear, and they’re buying gas masks in exuberant numbers. And they’re also looking to—for anthrax vaccinations. What do you say to those people? Is their fear warranted? THE PRESIDENT: I say that America ought to be on alert, but we need to get back to business. That’s why I’m opening up Reagan Airport. That’s why we had Cabinet members get on commercial airlines over the weekend. The good news is, is that some of the load factors on American airlines looked like they increased over the weekend. Americans know their government is doing everything they can to disrupt any terrorist activity that may occur. We’re
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following every lead, we’re interrogating every possible suspect. We’re on full alert in America. But the good news is, Americans also realize that in order to fight terrorism, they’re going to go about their lives in a normal way. And Americans are. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011002-1.html
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on Afghanistan, October 6, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Today I want to update Americans on our global campaign against terror. The United States is presenting a clear choice to every nation: Stand with the civilized world, or stand with the terrorists. And for those nations that stand with the terrorists, there will be a heavy price. America is determined to oppose the state sponsors of terror. Yet we are equally determined to respect and help the men and women those regimes oppress. Our enemy is not the Arab world. Many friendly Arab governments are, themselves, the targets of extremist terror. Our enemy is not Islam, a good and peace-loving faith, that brings direction and comfort to over one billion people, including millions of Americans. And our enemy is not the people of any nation, even when their leaders harbor terrorists. Our enemy is the terrorists themselves, and the regimes that shelter and sustain them. Afghanistan is a case in point. Its Taliban regime has made that nation into a sanctuary and training ground for international terrorists—terrorists who have killed innocent citizens of many nations, including our own. The Taliban promotes terror abroad, and practices terror against its people, oppressing women and persecuting all who dissent. The Taliban has been given the opportunity to surrender all the terrorists in Afghanistan and to close down their camps and operations. Full warning has been given, and time is running out. The Afghan people, however, are the victims of oppression, famine and misrule. Many refugees from that unfortunate nation are on the move, and sadly, many Afghans are on the verge of starvation. America respects the Afghan people, their long tradition and their proud independence. And we will help them in this time of confusion and crisis in their country. America has long been the largest source of food and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. This week I announced an additional $320 million in aid to the Afghan people, to those within Afghanistan and those who have fled across borders. Despite efforts by the Taliban to disrupt these critical aid shipments, we will deliver food and seeds, vaccines and medicines by truck, and even by draft animals. Conditions permitting, we will bring help directly to the people of Afghanistan by air drops. In the struggle ahead, we will act in accordance with American ideals. We’re offering help and friendship to the Afghan people. It is their Taliban rulers, and the terrorists they harbor, who have much to fear. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011006.html
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President George W. Bush, Address Announcing Military Strikes Against the Taliban, October 7, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: … On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. We are joined in this operation by our staunch friend, Great Britain. Other close friends, including Canada, Australia, Germany and France, have pledged forces as the operation unfolds. More than 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and across Asia have granted air transit or landing rights. Many more have shared intelligence. We are supported by the collective will of the world. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps; hand over leaders of the al Qaeda network; and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay a price. By destroying camps and disrupting communications, we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places. Our military action is also designed to clear the way for sustained, comprehensive and relentless operations to drive them out and bring them to justice. At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we’ll also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people, and we are the friends of almost a billion worldwide who practice the Islamic faith. The United States of America is an enemy of those who aid terrorists and of the barbaric criminals who profane a great religion by committing murder in its name. This military action is a part of our campaign against terrorism, another front in a war that has already been joined through diplomacy, intelligence, the freezing of financial assets and the arrests of known terrorists by law enforcement agents in 38 countries … Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers, themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril. … We’re a peaceful nation. Yet, as we have learned, so suddenly and so tragically, there can be no peace in a world of sudden terror. In the face of today’s new threat, the only way to pursue peace is to pursue those who threaten it.
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We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it. The name of today’s military operation is Enduring Freedom. We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear. I know many Americans feel fear today. And our government is taking strong precautions. All law enforcement and intelligence agencies are working aggressively around America, around the world and around the clock. At my request, many governors have activated the National Guard to strengthen airport security. We have called up Reserves to reinforce our military capability and strengthen the protection of our homeland. In the months ahead, our patience will be one of our strengths—patience with the long waits that will result from tighter security; patience and understanding that it will take time to achieve our goals; patience in all the sacrifices that may come. Today, those sacrifices are being made by members of our Armed Forces who now defend us so far from home, and by their proud and worried families. A Commander-in-Chief sends America’s sons and daughters into a battle in a foreign land only after the greatest care and a lot of prayer. We ask a lot of those who wear our uniform. We ask them to leave their loved ones, to travel great distances, to risk injury, even to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives. They are dedicated, they are honorable; they represent the best of our country. And we are grateful. To all the men and women in our military—every sailor, every soldier, every airman, every coastguardsman, every Marine—I say this: Your mission is defined; your objectives are clear; your goal is just. You have my full confidence, and you will have every tool you need to carry out your duty. The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011007-8.html
President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia, November 8, 2001 EXCERPTED THE PRESIDENT: … We meet tonight after two of the most difficult—and most inspiring —months in our nation’s history. We have endured the shock of watching so many innocent lives ended in acts of unimaginable horror. We have endured the sadness of so many funerals. We have faced unprecedented bioterrorist attack delivered in our mail. Our nation faces a threat to our freedoms, and the stakes could not be higher. We are the target of enemies who boast they want to kill—kill all Americans, kill all Jews, and kill all Christians. We’ve seen that type of hate before—and the only possible response is to confront it, and to defeat it.
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This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views. We value life; the terrorists ruthlessly destroy it. We value education; the terrorists do not believe women should be educated or should have health care, or should leave their homes. We value the right to speak our minds; for the terrorists, free expression can be grounds for execution. We respect people of all faiths and welcome the free practice of religion; our enemy wants to dictate how to think and how to worship even to their fellow Muslims. This enemy tries to hide behind a peaceful faith. But those who celebrate the murder of innocent men, women, and children have no religion, have no conscience, and have no mercy. We wage a war to save civilization, itself. We did not seek it, but we must fight it—and we will prevail. This is a different war from any our nation has ever faced, a war on many fronts, against terrorists who operate in more than 60 different countries. And this is a war that must be fought not only overseas, but also here at home. We’ve added a new era, and this new era requires new responsibilities, both for the government and for our people. The government has a responsibility to protect our citizens—and that starts with homeland security. The first attack against America came by plane, and we are now making our airports and airplanes safer. We have posted the National Guard in America’s airports and placed undercover air marshals on many flights. I call on Congress to quickly send me legislation that makes cockpits more secure, baggage screening more thorough, and puts the federal government in charge of all airport screening and security. The second attack against America came in the mail. We do not know whether this attack came from the same terrorists; we don’t know the origin of the anthrax—but whoever did this unprecedented and uncivilized act is a terrorist. To coordinate our efforts we’ve created the new Office of Homeland Security. Its director, my good friend and former Governor, Tom Ridge, reports directly to me—and works with all our federal agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector on a national strategy to strengthen our homeland protections. For example, the Coast Guard has taken on expanded duties to protect our shores and our ports. The National Guard has increased—an increased role in surveillance at our border. We’re imposing new licensing requirements for safer transportation of hazardous material. We’ve passed a new antiterrorism law which gives our law enforcement officers the necessary tools to track terrorists before they harm Americans. A new terrorism task force is tightening immigration controls to make sure no one enters or stays in our country who would harm us. We are a welcoming country, we will always value freedom—yet we will not allow those who plot against our country to abuse our freedoms and our protections. Our enemies have threatened other acts of terror. We take each threat seriously. And when we have evidence of credible threats, we will issue appropriate alerts. A terrorism alert is not a signal to stop your life. It is a call to be vigilant— to know that your government is on high alert, and to add your eyes and ears to our efforts to find and stop those who want to do us harm.
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… [I]n the long run, the best way to defend our homeland—the best way to make sure our children can live in peace—is to take the battle to the enemy and to stop them. I have called our military into action to hunt down the members of the al Qaeda organization who murdered innocent Americans. I gave fair warning to the government that harbors them in Afghanistan. The Taliban made a choice to continue hiding terrorists, and now they are paying a price. I’m so proud of our military. Our military is pursuing its mission. We are destroying training camps, disrupting communications, and dismantling air defenses. We are now bombing Taliban front lines. We are deliberately and systematically hunting down these murderers, and we will bring them to justice. We are at the beginning of our efforts in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan is only the beginning of our efforts in the world. No group or nation should mistake Americans’ intentions: Where terrorist group exist of global reach, the United States and our friends and allies will seek it out and we will destroy it. After September the 11th, our government assumed new responsibilities to strengthen security at home and track down our enemies abroad. And the American people are accepting new responsibilities, as well. … In the face of this great tragedy, Americans are refusing to give terrorists the power. Our people have responded with courage and compassion, calm and reason, resolve and fierce determination. We have refused to live in a state of panic—or a state of denial. There is a difference between being alert and being intimidated—and this great nation will never be intimidated. … Since September the 11th, many Americans, especially young Americans, are rethinking their career choices. They’re being drawn to careers of service, as police or firemen, emergency health workers, teachers, counselors, or in the military. And this is good for America. Many ask, what can I do to help in our fight. The answer is simple. All of us can become a September the 11th volunteer by making a commitment to service in our own communities. So you can serve your country by tutoring or mentoring a child, comforting the afflicted, housing those in need of shelter and a home. You can participate in your Neighborhood Watch or Crime Stoppers. You can become a volunteer in a hospital, emergency medical, fire or rescue unit. You can support our troops in the field and, just as importantly, support their families here at home, by becoming active in the USO or groups and communities near our military installations. We also will encourage service to country by creating new opportunities within the AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs for public safety and public health efforts. We’ll ask state and local officials to create a new modern civil defense service similar to local volunteer fire departments, to respond to local emergencies when the manpower of governments is stretched thin. We will find ways to train and mobilize more volunteers to help when rescue and health emergencies arise. Americans have a lot to offer, so I’ve created a task force to develop additional ways people can get directly involved in this war effort, by making our homes and neighborhoods and schools and workplaces safer. And I call on all Americans to serve by bettering our communities and, thereby, defy and defeat the terrorists.
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Our citizens have new responsibilities. We must be vigilant. Obviously, we must inspect our mail, and stay informed on public health matters. We will not give in to exaggerated fears or passing rumors. We will rely on good judgment and good, old common sense. We will care for those who have lost loved ones, and comfort those who might at times feel afraid. We will not judge fellow Americans by appearance, ethnic background, or religious faith. We will defend the values of our country, and we will live by them. We will persevere in this struggle, no matter how long it takes to prevail. Above all, we will live in a spirit of courage and optimism. We’ve defeated freedom’s enemies before, and we will defeat them again. We cannot know every turn this battle will take. Yet we know our cause is just and our ultimate victory is assured. We will, no doubt, face new challenges. But we have our marching orders: My fellow Americans, let’s roll. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2001/5998.htm
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Washington, D.C., January 29, 2002 EXCERPTED As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our Union has never been stronger. We last met in an hour of shock and suffering. In four short months, our nation has comforted the victims, begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon, rallied a great coalition, captured, arrested, and rid the world of thousands of terrorists, destroyed Afghanistan’s terrorist training camps, saved a people from starvation, and freed a country from brutal oppression. The American flag flies again over our embassy in Kabul. Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay. And terrorist leaders who urged followers to sacrifice their lives are running for their own. Our cause is just, and it continues. Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears, and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. We have seen the depth of our enemies’ hatred in videos, where they laugh about the loss of innocent life. And the depth of their hatred is equaled by the madness of the destruction they design. We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, surveillance maps of American cities, and thorough descriptions of landmarks in America and throughout the world. What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning. Most of the 19 men who hijacked planes on September the 11th were trained in Afghanistan’s camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning.
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Thanks to the work of our law enforcement officials and coalition partners, hundreds of terrorists have been arrested. Yet, tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large. These enemies view the entire world as a battlefield, and we must pursue them wherever they are. So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk. And America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it. Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. A terrorist underworld— including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-i-Mohammed— operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities. While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is acting elsewhere. We now have troops in the Philippines, helping to train that country’s armed forces to go after terrorist cells that have executed an American, and still hold hostages. Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy. Our Navy is patrolling the coast of Africa to block the shipment of weapons and the establishment of terrorist camps in Somalia. My hope is that all nations will heed our call, and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own. Many nations are acting forcefully. Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf. But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will. Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections—then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
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We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security. We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons. Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch—yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch. We can’t stop short. If we stop now—leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked—our sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom’s fight. Our first priority must always be the security of our nation, and that will be reflected in the budget I send to Congress. My budget supports three great goals for America: We will win this war; we’ll protect our homeland; and we will revive our economy. It costs a lot to fight this war. We have spent more than a billion dollars a month—over $30 million a day—and we must be prepared for future operations. Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile, to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely. Our men and women in uniform deserve the best weapons, the best equipment, the best training—and they also deserve another pay raise. My budget includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades—because while the price of freedom and security is high, it is never too high. Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay. The next priority of my budget is to do everything possible to protect our citizens and strengthen our nation against the ongoing threat of another attack. Time and distance from the events of September the 11th will not make us safer unless we act on its lessons. America is no longer protected by vast oceans. We are protected from attack only by vigorous action abroad, and increased vigilance at home. My budget nearly doubles funding for a sustained strategy of homeland security, focused on four key areas: bioterrorism, emergency response, airport and border security, and improved intelligence. We will develop vaccines to fight anthrax and other deadly diseases. We’ll increase funding to help states and communities train and equip our heroic police and firefighters. We will improve intelligence collection and sharing, expand patrols at our borders, strengthen the security of air travel, and use technology to track the arrivals and departures of visitors to the United States. Homeland security will make America not only stronger, but, in many ways, better. Knowledge gained from bioterrorism research will improve
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public health. Stronger police and fire departments will mean safer neighborhoods. Stricter border enforcement will help combat illegal drugs. And as government works to better secure our homeland, America will continue to depend on the eyes and ears of alert citizens. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/print/2002012911.html
President George W. Bush, Graduation Speech at West Point, Remarks at 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, June 1, 2002 EXCERPTED In defending the peace, we face a threat with no precedent. Enemies in the past needed great armies and great industrial capabilities to endanger the American people and our nation. The attacks of September the 11th required a few hundred thousand dollars in the hands of a few dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and suffering they caused came at much less than the cost of a single tank. The dangers have not passed. This government and the American people are on watch, we are ready, because we know the terrorists have more money and more men and more plans. The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of radicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology—when that occurs, even weak states and small groups could attain a catastrophic power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared this very intention, and have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want the capability to blackmail us, or to harm us, or to harm our friends—and we will oppose them with all our power. For much of the last century, America’s defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence—the promise of massive retaliation against nations—means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies. We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation treaties, and then systemically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. … the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act. Our security will require the best intelligence, to reveal threats hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require modernizing domestic agencies such as the FBI, so they’re prepared to act, and act quickly,
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against danger. Our security will require transforming the military you will lead—a military that must be ready to strike at a moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world. And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives. The work ahead is difficult. The choices we will face are complex. We must uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries, using every tool of finance, intelligence and law enforcement. Along with our friends and allies, we must oppose proliferation and confront regimes that sponsor terror, as each case requires. Some nations need military training to fight terror, and we’ll provide it. Other nations oppose terror, but tolerate the hatred that leads to terror— and that must change. We will send diplomats where they are needed, and we will send you, our soldiers, where you’re needed. All nations that decide for aggression and terror will pay a price. We will not leave the safety of America and the peace of the planet at the mercy of a few mad terrorists and tyrants. We will lift this dark threat from our country and from the world. Because the war on terror will require resolve and patience, it will also require firm moral purpose … Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong. I disagree. Different circumstances require different methods, but not different moralities. Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in every place. Targeting innocent civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong. Brutality against women is always and everywhere wrong. There can be no neutrality between justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it. As we defend the peace, we also have an historic opportunity to preserve the peace. We have our best chance since the rise of the nation state in the 17th century to build a world where the great powers compete in peace instead of prepare for war … Competition between great nations is inevitable, but armed conflict in our world is not. More and more, civilized nations find ourselves on the same side—united by common dangers of terrorist violence and chaos. America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge—thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace. Generations of West Point officers planned and practiced for battles with Soviet Russia. I’ve just returned from a new Russia, now a country reaching toward democracy, and our partner in the war against terror. Even in China, leaders are discovering that economic freedom is the only lasting source of national wealth. In time, they will find that social and political freedom is the only true source of national greatness. When the great powers share common values, we are better able to confront serious regional conflicts together, better able to cooperate in preventing the spread of violence or economic chaos. In the past, great power rivals took
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sides in difficult regional problems, making divisions deeper and more complicated. Today, from the Middle East to South Asia, we are gathering broad international coalitions to increase the pressure for peace. We must build strong and great power relations when times are good; to help manage crisis when times are bad. America needs partners to preserve the peace, and we will work with every nation that shares this noble goal. When it comes to the common rights and needs of men and women, there is no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully to Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world. The peoples of the Islamic nations want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation. And their governments should listen to their hopes. A truly strong nation will permit legal avenues of dissent for all groups that pursue their aspirations without violence. An advancing nation will pursue economic reform, to unleash the great entrepreneurial energy of its people. A thriving nation will respect the rights of women, because no society can prosper while denying opportunity to half its citizens. Mothers and fathers and children across the Islamic world, and all the world, share the same fears and aspirations. In poverty, they struggle. In tyranny, they suffer. And as we saw in Afghanistan, in liberation they celebrate. America has a greater objective than controlling threats and containing resentment. We will work for a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003 EXCERPTED There are days when our fellow citizens do not hear news about the war on terror. There’s never a day when I do not learn of another threat, or receive reports of operations in progress, or give an order in this global war against a scattered network of killers. The war goes on, and we are winning. To date, we’ve arrested or otherwise dealt with many key commanders of al Qaeda. They include a man who directed logistics and funding for the September the 11th attacks; the chief of al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf, who planned the bombings of our embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole; an al Qaeda operations chief from Southeast Asia; a former director of al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan; a key al Qaeda operative in Europe; a major al Qaeda leader in Yemen. All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way—they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. We are working closely with other nations to prevent further attacks. America and coalition countries have uncovered and stopped terrorist conspiracies targeting the American embassy in Yemen, the American embassy in
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Singapore, a Saudi military base, ships in the Straits of Hormuz and the Straits the Gibraltar. We’ve broken al Qaeda cells in Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, London, Paris, as well as, Buffalo, New York. We have the terrorists on the run. We’re keeping them on the run. One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice. As we fight this war, we will remember where it began—here, in our own country. This government is taking unprecedented measures to protect our people and defend our homeland. We’ve intensified security at the borders and ports of entry, posted more than 50,000 newly-trained federal screeners in airports, begun inoculating troops and first responders against smallpox, and are deploying the nation’s first early warning network of sensors to detect biological attack. And this year, for the first time, we are beginning to field a defense to protect this nation against ballistic missiles. I thank the Congress for supporting these measures. I ask you tonight to add to our future security with a major research and production effort to guard our people against bioterrorism, called Project Bioshield. The budget I send you will propose almost $6 billion to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola, and plague. We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons, and we must act before the dangers are upon us. Since September the 11th, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt the terrorists. The FBI is improving its ability to analyze intelligence, and is transforming itself to meet new threats. Tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect all our citizens. Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power … Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation. America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers. We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm. We’re strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world. We’re working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction. In all these efforts, however, America’s purpose is more than to follow a process—it is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world. All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attacks. And we’re asking them to join us, and many are doing so. Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others. [Applause.]
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Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people. Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction, and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government and determine their own destiny—and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. On the Korean Peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that that regime was deceiving the world, and developing those weapons all along. And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed. America is working with the countries of the region—South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia—to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions. Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States. Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons—not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct—were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq’s regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened. The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax—enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it. The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin—enough to
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subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it. Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He’s not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them. U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them—despite Iraq’s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them. From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide. The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses. Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. Intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families. Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack. With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.
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Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans—this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. The dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages—leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained—by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country—your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi’s legal— Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups. We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means—sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military—and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies—and freedom.2 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
2 See White House Fact Sheet released with the speech ‘‘Protecting Americans from the Threat of Bio-Terrorism: A Key Initiative in the President’s 2003 State of the Union Message’’ at http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/protecting.html.
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President George W. Bush, Address at the FBI on New Terrorist Threat Integration Center, February 14, 2003 EXCERPTED THE PRESIDENT: … Across the world we are tracking and confronting and defeating international terror. Within our own country, we’re taking unprecedented measures to protect the American people against a serious and continuing danger. There is no such thing as perfect security against a hidden network of coldblooded killers. Yet, abroad and at home, we’re not going to wait until the worst dangers are upon us. We continue to be in a state of war. But we’re making progress. And today I want to talk about the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which will help us meet the challenges of war; will help us do everything we can to say clearly to the American people, we’re working overtime to protect you; we’re doing everything in power to make sure the homeland is secure. We’ve got agencies at every level meeting threats. We’ve got people standing watch 24 hours a day. Perseverance is power in this war. Determination is essential in this war. We will persevere. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes. See, that’s the nature of the country that we live in. We owe it to our citizens to protect us within the Constitution that we’re all sworn to uphold, and we will do that. We’re not only doing everything here at home, but we’re doing everything we can abroad. Let me first tell you this: we’re winning the war on terror. We’ve hauled in thousands of terrorists. They’re captured. They’re off the street. They’re not a problem. Like number were not as lucky.… We’re dismantling al Qaeda one person at time. There used to be a kind of a brain trust of these people. And slowly, but surely, we’re bringing them to justice. We’re at war in a different kind of war. It’s a war that requires us to be on an international manhunt. We’re on the hunt. It’s a war that causes us to need to get the enemy on the run. We got them on the run. And it’s just a matter of time before we bring them to justice. This war requires us to understand that terror is broader than one international network, that these terrorist networks have got connections—in some cases, to countries run by outlaw dictators. And that’s the issue with Iraq. When I speak about the war on terror, I not only talk about al Qaeda, I talk about Iraq—because, after all, Saddam Hussein has got weapons of mass destruction and he’s used them. Saddam Hussein is used to deceiving the world and he continues to do so. Saddam Hussein has got ties to terrorist networks. Saddam Hussein is a danger, and that’s why he will be disarmed—one way or the other. All our successes in the war on terror depend on the ability of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to work in common purpose. In order to better protect our homeland, our intelligence agencies must coexist like they never have before. In order to hunt the terrorists down one by one, our intelligence agencies must cooperate fully with agencies overseas. Under the leadership of Directors Tenet and Mueller, the CIA and the FBI have improved
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their communications and cooperation. These agencies are now quicker to share intelligence with each other. And we’ve enhanced an overseas coordination, as well. When you read in the newspapers that a European country has hauled in parts of a poison network, it’s important to understand that the reason they were able to do so is because we shared intelligence, that we’re cooperating, that this vast network of freedom-loving countries is intact and real and the message is either you’re with us or the terrorists—and it still stands. The increased cooperation of the CIA and FBI counterterrorism operations has proven to be one of the greatest advantages in this war on terror. Under the leadership of Bob Mueller, the FBI has been transforming itself since September the 11th. It has no greater priority than preventing terrorist attacks against America. The Bureau has assigned more than 1,800 agents to counterterrorism. That’s a 40 percent increase than prior to September the 11th. In other words, this agency now understands that we’re at war and the first responsibility of an incredibly important agency, the FBI, is to prevent the enemy from hitting us and hurting us … We’re also strengthening the counterterrorism efforts by forming partnerships across all levels of the government. It’s important for our fellow citizens to know that there is great cooperation between the federal government and the state government and the local governments. We form what’s called joint terrorism task forces throughout our country, which bring together dedicated officials at all levels of government. Not only is the cooperation better between the CIA and the FBI, not only is the cooperation better between intelligence-gathering services all around the world, but our cooperation at the federal, state and local level is unprecedented. And it needs to be—because we fight a ruthless enemy. The FBI is expanding the terrorist identification system so that 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies will be better able to identify known or suspected terrorists in near real-time. Local police officers will be able to access federal terrorism information from their squad cars. We will continue to work with Congress to make sure that the budgets reflect the new reality of the 21st century. That’s why I requested $500 million of additional money for training preparedness equipment, technical assistance for state and local law enforcement. The Terrorist Threat Integration Center marks another crucial advance in meeting the threats of this time. This joint effort across many departments of our government will integrate and analyze all terrorist threat information, collected domestically and abroad in a single location. And that’s an important advance. The goal is to develop a comprehensive picture of terrorist activity. When the center is fully operational, it will fully house a database of known and suspected terrorists that officials across the country will be able to access and act upon. I’m pleased that … George Tenet and Bob Mueller will take the next important steps in assembling their counterterrorism resources, both operational and analytical, and locate them in a single facility with the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. The new Department of Homeland Security will be a full partner in this center. The department will act to identify and reduce our vulnerabilities to terrorism, and coordinate with the FBI to ensure the
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threat information is quickly disseminated. All of these efforts will formalize a new spirit of cooperation that began 15 months ago. The American people need to know that we’re collecting a lot of information and we’re going to share it in a way that enables us to do our jobs that you expect us to do; that we’re going to use the best information technologies available to not only make sure information flows freely at the federal level, but flows from this data bank of information to local law enforcement officials. It will enable us to make sure that we do everything we can to win the war on terror at home. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030214-5.html
President George W. Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended, Remarks from the USS Abraham Lincoln, At Sea Off the Coast of San Diego, California, May 1, 2003 THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment— yet, it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other, made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free. Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces. This nation thanks all the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done. The character of our military through history—the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies—is fully present in this generation. When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our servicemen and women, they saw strength and kindness and goodwill. When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country, and I’m honored to be your Commander-in-Chief.
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In the images of falling statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent. In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices; and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear. We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq. The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 —and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men—the shock troops of a hateful ideology—gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the ‘‘beginning of the end of America.’’ By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed. In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals, and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a Special Operations task force, led by the 82nd Airborne, is on the trail of the terrorists and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we have begun. From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al Qaeda killers. Nineteen months ago, I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight, nearly one-half of al Qaeda’s senior operatives have been captured or killed.
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The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th—the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got. Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice. Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes. Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world—and will be confronted. And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America. Our commitment to liberty is America’s tradition—declared at our founding; affirmed in Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms; asserted in the Truman Doctrine and in Ronald Reagan’s challenge to an evil empire. We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in a peaceful Palestine. The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful pursuit of a better life. American values and American interests lead in the same direction: We stand for human liberty. The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many ways—with all the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and finance. We’re working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the threat and our shared responsibility to meet it. The use of force has been— and remains—our last resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend the peace. Our mission continues. Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend the homeland. And we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike. The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.
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Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. And that is your direction tonight. After service in the Afghan— and Iraqi theaters of war—after 100,000 miles, on the longest carrier deployment in recent history, you are homeward bound. Some of you will see new family members for the first time—150 babies were born while their fathers were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you. We are mindful, as well, that some good men and women are not making the journey home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five days before his death. Jason’s father said, ‘‘He called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag, but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier.’’ Every name, every life is a loss to our military, to our nation, and to the loved ones who grieve. There’s no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray, in God’s time, their reunion will come. Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this Earth was to fight a great evil and bring liberty to others. All of you—all in this generation of our military—have taken up the highest calling of history. You’re defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope—a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘‘To the captives, ‘come out,’—and to those in darkness, ‘be free.’’’ Thank you for serving our country and our cause. May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html
President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on the War on Terror, The White House, Washington, D.C., September 7, 2003 EXCERPTED Nearly two years ago, following deadly attacks on our country, we began a systematic campaign against terrorism. These months have been a time of new responsibilities, and sacrifice, and national resolve and great progress. America and a broad coalition acted first in Afghanistan, by destroying the training camps of terror, and removing the regime that harbored al Qaeda. In a series of raids and actions around the world, nearly two-thirds of al Qaeda’s known leaders have been captured or killed, and we continue on al Qaeda’s trail. We have exposed terrorist front groups, seized terrorist accounts, taken new measures to protect our homeland, and uncovered sleeper cells inside the United States. And we acted in Iraq, where the former regime sponsored terror, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction, and for 12 years defied the clear demands of the United Nations Security Council. Our coalition enforced these international demands in one of the swiftest and most humane military campaigns in history. For a generation leading up to September the 11th, 2001, terrorists and their radical allies attacked innocent people in the Middle East and beyond,
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without facing a sustained and serious response. The terrorists became convinced that free nations were decadent and weak. And they grew bolder, believing that history was on their side. Since America put out the fires of September the 11th, and mourned our dead, and went to war, history has taken a different turn. We have carried the fight to the enemy. We are rolling back the terrorist threat to civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of its power. This work continues. In Iraq, we are helping the long suffering people of that country to build a decent and democratic society at the center of the Middle East. Together we are transforming a place of torture chambers and mass graves into a nation of laws and free institutions. This undertaking is difficult and costly—yet worthy of our country, and critical to our security. The Middle East will either become a place of progress and peace, or it will be an exporter of violence and terror that takes more lives in America and in other free nations. The triumph of democracy and tolerance in Iraq, in Afghanistan and beyond would be a grave setback for international terrorism. The terrorists thrive on the support of tyrants and the resentments of oppressed peoples. When tyrants fall, and resentment gives way to hope, men and women in every culture reject the ideologies of terror, and turn to the pursuits of peace. Everywhere that freedom takes hold, terror will retreat. Our enemies understand this. They know that a free Iraq will be free of them—free of assassins, and torturers, and secret police. They know that as democracy rises in Iraq, all of their hateful ambitions will fall like the statues of the former dictator. And that is why, five months after we liberated Iraq, a collection of killers is desperately trying to undermine Iraq’s progress and throw the country into chaos. Some of the attackers are members of the old Saddam regime, who fled the battlefield and now fight in the shadows. Some of the attackers are foreign terrorists, who have come to Iraq to pursue their war on America and other free nations. We cannot be certain to what extent these groups work together. We do know they have a common goal—reclaiming Iraq for tyranny. Though their attacks are localized, the terrorists and Saddam loyalists have done great harm. They have ambushed American and British service members—who stand for freedom and order. They have killed civilian aid workers of the United Nations—who represent the compassion and generosity of the world. They have bombed the Jordanian embassy—the symbol of a peaceful Arab country. And last week they murdered a respected cleric and over a hundred Muslims at prayer—bombing a holy shrine and a symbol of Islam’s peaceful teachings. This violence is directed not only against our coalition, but against anyone in Iraq who stands for decency, and freedom and progress. There is more at work in these attacks than blind rage. The terrorists have a strategic goal. They want us to leave Iraq before our work is done. They want to shake the will of the civilized world. In the past, the terrorists have cited the examples of Beirut and Somalia, claiming that if you inflict harm on Americans, we will run from a challenge. In this, they are mistaken.
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Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there—and there they must be defeated. This will take time and require sacrifice. Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure. Our strategy in Iraq has three objectives: destroying the terrorists, enlisting the support of other nations for a free Iraq and helping Iraqis assume responsibility for their own defense and their own future. First, we are taking direct action against the terrorists in the Iraqi theater, which is the surest way to prevent future attacks on coalition forces and the Iraqi people. We are staying on the offensive, with a series of precise strikes against enemy targets increasingly guided by intelligence given to us by Iraqi citizens. Since the end of major combat operations, we have conducted raids seizing many caches of enemy weapons and massive amounts of ammunition, and we have captured or killed hundreds of Saddam loyalists and terrorists. So far, of the 55 most wanted former Iraqi leaders, 42 are dead or in custody. We are sending a clear message: anyone who seeks to harm our soldiers can know that our soldiers are hunting for them. Second, we are committed to expanding international cooperation in the reconstruction and security of Iraq, just as we are in Afghanistan. Our military commanders in Iraq advise me that the current number of American troops— nearly 130,000—is appropriate to their mission. They are joined by over 20,000 service members from 29 other countries. Two multinational divisions, led by the British and the Poles, are serving alongside our forces—and in order to share the burden more broadly, our commanders have requested a third multinational division to serve in Iraq. Third, we are encouraging the orderly transfer of sovereignty and authority to the Iraqi people. Our coalition came to Iraq as liberators and we will depart as liberators. Right now Iraq has its own Governing Council, comprised of 25 leaders representing Iraq’s diverse people. The Governing Council recently appointed cabinet ministers to run government departments. Already more than 90 percent of towns and cities have functioning local governments, which are restoring basic services. We’re helping to train civil defense forces to keep order, and an Iraqi police service to enforce the law, a facilities protection service, Iraqi border guards to help secure the borders, and a new Iraqi army. In all these roles, there are now some 60,000 Iraqi citizens under arms, defending the security of their own country, and we are accelerating the training of more. Iraq is ready to take the next steps toward self-government. The Security Council resolution we introduce will encourage Iraq’s Governing Council to submit a plan and a timetable for the drafting of a constitution and for free elections. From the outset, I have expressed confidence in the ability of the Iraqi people to govern themselves. Now they must rise to the responsibilities of a free people and secure the blessings of their own liberty. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/23897.htm
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President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004 EXCERPTED THE PRESIDENT … As we gather tonight, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure. We’ve not come all this way—through tragedy, and trial and war—only to falter and leave our work unfinished. Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same from us. In their efforts, their enterprise, and their character, the American people are showing that the state of our union is confident and strong. Each day, law enforcement personnel and intelligence officers are tracking terrorist threats; analysts are examining airline passenger lists; the men and women of our new Homeland Security Department are patrolling our coasts and borders. And their vigilance is protecting America. … Our greatest responsibility is the active defense of the American people. Twenty-eight months have passed since September 11th, 2001—over two years without an attack on American soil. And it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting—and false. The killing has continued in Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Mombasa, Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Baghdad. The terrorists continue to plot against America and the civilized world. And by our will and courage, this danger will be defeated. Inside the United States, where the war began, we must continue to give our homeland security and law enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend us. And one of those essential tools is the Patriot Act, which allows federal law enforcement to better share information, to track terrorists, to disrupt their cells, and to seize their assets. For years, we have used similar provisions to catch embezzlers and drug traffickers. If these methods are good for hunting criminals, they are even more important for hunting terrorists. Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year. The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule. Our law enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our citizens. You need to renew the Patriot Act. As part of the offensive against terror, we are also confronting the regimes that harbor and support terrorists, and could supply them with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. The United States and our allies are determined: We refuse to live in the shadow of this ultimate danger. The first to see our determination were the Taliban, who made Afghanistan the primary training base of al Qaeda killers. As of this month, that country has a new constitution, guaranteeing free elections and full participation by women. Businesses are opening, health care centers are being established, and the boys and girls of Afghanistan are back in school. With the help from the new Afghan army, our coalition is leading aggressive raids against the surviving members of the Taliban and al Qaeda …
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Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Poland and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein, and the people of Iraq are free. Having broken the Baathist regime, we face a remnant of violent Saddam supporters. Men who ran away from our troops in battle are now dispersed and attack from the shadows. These killers, joined by foreign terrorists, are a serious, continuing danger. Yet we’re making progress against them. The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell. Of the top 55 officials of the former regime, we have captured or killed 45. Our forces are on the offensive, leading over 1,600 patrols a day and conducting an average of 180 raids a week. We are dealing with these thugs in Iraq, just as surely as we dealt with Saddam Hussein’s evil regime. … Last January, Iraq’s only law was the whim of one brutal man. Today our coalition is working with the Iraqi Governing Council to draft a basic law, with a bill of rights. We’re working with Iraqis and the United Nations to prepare for a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty by the end of June. As democracy takes hold in Iraq, the enemies of freedom will do all in their power to spread violence and fear. They are trying to shake the will of our country and our friends, but the United States of America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins. The killers will fail, and the Iraqi people will live in freedom.… Because of American leadership and resolve, the world is changing for the better. Last month, the leader of Libya voluntarily pledged to disclose and dismantle all of his regime’s weapons of mass destruction programs, including a uranium enrichment project for nuclear weapons. Colonel Qadhafi correctly judged that his country would be better off and far more secure without weapons of mass murder. Some in this chamber, and in our country, did not support the liberation of Iraq. Objections to war often come from principled motives. But let us be candid about the consequences of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We’re seeking all the facts. Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictator’s weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day. Had we failed to act, Security Council resolutions on Iraq would have been revealed as empty threats, weakening the United Nations and encouraging defiance by dictators around the world. Iraq’s torture chambers would still be filled with victims, terrified and innocent. The killing fields of Iraq—where hundreds of thousands of men and women and children vanished into the sands—would still be known only to the killers. For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place. Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq. As we debate at home, we must never ignore the vital contributions of our international partners, or dismiss their sacrifices.
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From the beginning, America has sought international support for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country. We also hear doubts that democracy is a realistic goal for the greater Middle East, where freedom is rare. Yet it is mistaken, and condescending, to assume that whole cultures and great religions are incompatible with liberty and self-government. I believe that God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again. As long as the Middle East remains a place of tyranny and despair and anger, it will continue to produce men and movements that threaten the safety of America and our friends. So America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle East. We will challenge the enemies of reform, confront the allies of terror, and expect a higher standard from our friend. To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of America and other broadcast services are expanding their programming in Arabic and Persian—and soon, a new television service will begin providing reliable news and information across the region. I will send you a proposal to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, and to focus its new work on the development of free elections, and free markets, free press, and free labor unions in the Middle East … Our aim is a democratic peace—a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will lead the cause of freedom. In the last three years, adversity has also revealed the fundamental strengths of the American economy. We have come through recession, and terrorist attack, and corporate scandals, and the uncertainties of war. And because you acted to stimulate our economy with tax relief, this economy is strong, and growing stronger. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040120-7.html
President George W. Bush Discusses America’s Leadership in the Global War on Terror, Remarks at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center, Roswell, New Mexico, January 22, 2004 EXCERPTED [M]ake no mistake about it, the enemy attack affected America. It affected the way I think about foreign policy because we can no longer take gathering threats for granted. If we see a threat gathering overseas, the lesson of September the 11th says, we must pay attention to it. We just can’t—and if it gets so bad, we’ve got to do something about it. We cannot assume that oceans protect us anymore. It affected our psychology in America. It also affected the economy. And things were beginning to get okay, and all of a sudden, the
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attack came and it hurt us. It hurt us bad. But we recovered because America’s strong. We recovered because the American people are strong. I remember talking to the country after September the 11th, and reminding people that this would be a different kind of war we faced. Sometimes you’d see action, and sometimes you wouldn’t; that we’d be on a manhunt to find the terrorists who destroyed us. It would require a different kind of attitude about chasing these people down. I also knew that time would pass and people would take the comfortable position of saying the dangers had passed, as well. That’s just not reality. I wish it was reality, but it’s not reality. My job as your President is to be realistic, be open-eyed, to understand the lessons of September the 11th, 2001; to understand there’s terrorists who still plot against us. By our will, by our steadfast determination, by our courage, we will prevail in the war—first war of the 21st century. In the United States, where the war begun, we will continue our vital work to protecting American people, by protecting our ports and borders and safeguarding infrastructure, preparing for the worst … I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the coordination now between the federal government, the state government, and local governments for preparing our homeland. I’m going to submit a budget to Congress next month, which will include spending of $30 billion for homeland security. That’s—more than $30 billion— almost three times the amount that we were spending prior to September the 11th, 2001. I think it’s very important for the country to understand the Patriot Act … An important part of fighting the war on terror. It’s essential that the FBI and the CIA be able to share information if you want to whip the terrorists. See, it’s a different kind of war. We’re in a different era. We need to view law differently. We’ll always protect our Constitution and safeguard individual rights, but our law enforcement, those who collect information and share information and [are] expected to act on information, must be able to talk together. Many of the tools in the Patriot Act have been used by law enforcement to chase down embezzlers and criminals. It is essential that those same tools be used in fighting against terrorists. We’re in a different era. The Patriot Act is going to expire. The Congress needs to renew it, for the sake of fighting the war on terror. We’ll protect the homeland. The best way to protect America, however, is to go on the offensive, stay on the offensive, and bring the terrorists to justice. I laid down a doctrine early on and said, if you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, if you hide a terrorist—you’re just as guilty as the terrorist. One of the lessons that people can pick up in this part of the world is when you say something, you better mean it. That’s particularly true in diplomacy. If you say something you better mean it; I meant it. And the Taliban found out what we meant. Afghanistan was the primary training base for al Qaeda. That’s where the killers were learning the skills necessary to destroy innocent life. And we gave the Taliban a chance and then they, of course, rejected—rejected the ultimatum I laid out. And so they no longer exist, thanks to the United States military and our friends and allies.
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I made a tough decision, with the Congress’ support, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. And we did. And the world is safer. America is more secure and the world is more free, because we got rid of Saddam Hussein. This brutal dictator attacked his neighbors, used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, plotted, was devious. He tortured Iraqis. We discovered mass graves of thousands of men and women and children. He had torture rooms for somebody who spoke out against him. Saddam Hussein was found in a hole, hiding. Saddam Hussein, the once all-powerful tyrant who used his brutal dictatorship to intimidate and destroy lives, will no longer be able to do so in Iraq. He sits in a prison cell. And the Iraqi people are free. Fifty-five of the top officials, former officials in that regime—of the 55, 45 have been captured or killed. The other 10 have got to be nervous. They’re out there—they’re out there trying to shake our will. See, these people are murderers. They’ll take innocent life to try to convince others that freedom isn’t worth it. They will kill indiscriminately—they don’t care who—to try to shake our confidence, to try to get in the heads of the American people. They don’t understand America. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040122-6.html
President George W. Bush, Terrorism-Related Remarks from the 2004 Bush Administration Campaign Speech, St. Cloud, Minnesota, September 16, 2004 EXCERPTED This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism. Since the terrible morning of September the 11th, 2001, we fought the terrorists across the Earth—not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake. Our strategy is clear—we’re defending the homeland, we’re transforming our military, we’re strengthening the intelligence services. We’re staying on the offensive. We’re striking the terrorists abroad, so we do not have to face them here at home. We’ll work to advance liberty around the world, in the broader Middle East and elsewhere, and we’ll prevail. We will prevail. Our strategy is succeeding, it’s succeeding. Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of al Qaeda, Pakistan was a transit point for terrorists, Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for fund-raising for the terrorists, Libya was pursuing—secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat, al Qaeda was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks. Because we acted, because we led, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders, Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs, the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al Qaeda’s key leaders and associates have been brought to justice. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer.
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This progress involved careful diplomacy, clear moral purpose, and some tough decisions. And the toughest came on Iraq. We knew Saddam Hussein’s record of aggression, and his support for terror. We knew his long history of pursuing and even using weapons of mass destruction. We knew he was the sworn enemy of America, and we knew that after September the 11th our country must think differently. We must take threats seriously, before they fully materialize. In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat. I went to the United States Congress. They looked at the same intelligence I looked at. They remembered the same history I remembered. And they came to the conclusion that I came to: Saddam Hussein was a threat. And they voted to authorize the use of force. My opponent looked at the same intelligence. And when they said, show of hands for the authorization of force, he said, yes. Before the Commander-inChief commits troops into harm’s way, we must try all options. I was hoping diplomacy would work. I went to the United Nations. The United Nations looked at the same intelligence I looked at. They concluded Saddam Hussein was a threat. They voted by 15 to nothing in the U.N. Security Council for Saddam Hussein to disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. I believe when bodies say something, they better mean it. I believe when a President speaks, he better mean what he says. Saddam Hussein ignored the demands of the free world again. As he had for over a decade, he wasn’t interested in what the free world had to say. As a matter of fact, he systematically deceived inspectors that were sent into his country. So I have a choice to make at this point in time, diplomacy isn’t working. Do I forget the lessons of September the 11th and trust a madman, or do I take action to defend this country? Given that choice, I will defend America every time. Because we acted to defend ourselves, because we acted in our self interest, more than 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan are now free.… You know, it wasn’t all that long ago in Afghanistan where young girls won’t allowed to go to school because the Taliban was so backward and so barbaric that they wouldn’t allow for education for young kids; that their mothers were taken to the public square and whipped sometimes in sports stadiums and killed, because they wouldn’t toe their line. Today, over 10 million citizens—three short years after the Taliban has been removed—10 million citizens, 41 percent of whom are women, have registered to vote in the upcoming presidential elections. It’s unbelievable. In Iraq, there’s ongoing acts of violence. This country is headed toward democracy. There’s a strong Prime Minister in place. They have a national council. And national elections are scheduled for January. It wasn’t all that long ago that Saddam Hussein was in power with his torture chambers and mass graves. And today, this country is headed towards elections. Freedom is on the march. And that helps us in America because free societies don’t export terror. Free societies are hopeful societies, which leads to peace. Free societies will join us in fighting the terrorists, instead of harboring them. No, we’re standing with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq—it’s not only in our self-interest to do so, but when America gives its word, America will keep its word under my administration.
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Our mission is clear in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ll help these new leaders to train their armies so citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq can do the hard work of protecting their people against a few who would try to destroy the hopes of the many. We’ll help them get their elections. We’ll get them on the path of stability and democracy as quickly as possible, and then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040916-6.html
President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives, The United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., February 2, 2005 EXCERPTED In the three and a half years since September the 11th, 2001, we have taken unprecedented actions to protect Americans. We’ve created a new department of government to defend our homeland, focused the FBI on preventing terrorism, begun to reform our intelligence agencies, broken up terror cells across the country, expanded research on defenses against biological and chemical attack, improved border security, and trained more than a halfmillion first responders. Police and firefighters, air marshals, researchers, and so many others are working every day to make our homeland safer, and we thank them all. Our nation, working with allies and friends, has also confronted the enemy abroad, with measures that are determined, successful, and continuing. The al Qaeda terror network that attacked our country still has leaders—but many of its top commanders have been removed. There are still governments that sponsor and harbor terrorists—but their number has declined. There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction—but no longer without attention and without consequence. Our country is still the target of terrorists who want to kill many, and intimidate us all—and we will stay on the offensive against them, until the fight is won. Pursuing our enemies is a vital commitment of the war on terror—and I thank the Congress for providing our servicemen and women with the resources they have needed. During this time of war, we must continue to support our military and give them the tools for victory. Other nations around the globe have stood with us. In Afghanistan, an international force is helping provide security. In Iraq, 28 countries have troops on the ground, the United Nations and the European Union provided technical assistance for the elections, and NATO is leading a mission to help train Iraqi officers. We’re cooperating with 60 governments in the Proliferation Security Initiative, to detect and stop the transit of dangerous materials. We’re working closely with the governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and nine other countries have captured or detained al Qaeda terrorists. In the next four years, my administration will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time.
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In the long-term, the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America and other free nations for decades. The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom. Our enemies know this, and that is why the terrorist Zarqawi recently declared war on what he called the ‘‘evil principle’’ of democracy. And we’ve declared our own intention: America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace. That advance has great momentum in our time—shown by women voting in Afghanistan, and Palestinians choosing a new direction, and the people of Ukraine asserting their democratic rights and electing a president. We are witnessing landmark events in the history of liberty. And in the coming years, we will add to that story. The beginnings of reform and democracy in the Palestinian territories are now showing the power of freedom to break old patterns of violence and failure. Tomorrow morning, Secretary of State Rice departs on a trip that will take her to Israel and the West Bank for meetings with Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas. She will discuss with them how we and our friends can help the Palestinian people end terror and build the institutions of a peaceful, independent, democratic state. To promote this democracy, I will ask Congress for $350 million to support Palestinian political, economic, and security reforms. The goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace, is within reach—and America will help them achieve that goal To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. Hopeful reform is already taking hold in an arc from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act—and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. Today, Iran
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remains the world’s primary state sponsor of terror—pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you. Our generational commitment to the advance of freedom, especially in the Middle East, is now being tested and honored in Iraq. That country is a vital front in the war on terror, which is why the terrorists have chosen to make a stand there. Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home. And the victory of freedom in Iraq will strengthen a new ally in the war on terror, inspire democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran, bring more hope and progress to a troubled region, and thereby lift a terrible threat from the lives of our children and grandchildren. We will succeed because the Iraqi people value their own liberty—as they showed the world last Sunday. The terrorists and insurgents are violently opposed to democracy, and will continue to attack it. Yet, the terrorists’ most powerful myth is being destroyed. The whole world is seeing that the car bombers and assassins are not only fighting coalition forces, they are trying to destroy the hopes of Iraqis, expressed in free elections. And the whole world now knows that a small group of extremists will not overturn the will of the Iraqi people. At the recommendation of our commanders on the ground, and in consultation with the Iraqi government, we will increasingly focus our efforts on helping prepare more capable Iraqi security forces—forces with skilled officers and an effective command structure. As those forces become more self-reliant and take on greater security responsibilities, America and its coalition partners will increasingly be in a supporting role. In the end, Iraqis must be able to defend their own country—and we will help that proud, new nation secure its liberty. … We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq, because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out. We are in Iraq to achieve a result: A country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself. And when that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honor they have earned. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050202-11.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., March 8, 2005 Twice in six decades, a sudden attack on the United States launched our country into a global conflict, and began a period of serious reflection on America’s place in the world. The bombing of Pearl Harbor taught America that unopposed tyranny, even on far-away continents, could draw our country
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into a struggle for our own survival. And our reflection on that lesson led us to help build peaceful democracies in the ruins of tyranny, to unite free nations in the NATO Alliance, and to establish a firm commitment to peace in the Pacific that continues to this day. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001 also revealed the outlines of a new world. In one way, that assault was the culmination of decades of escalating violence—from the killing of U.S. Marines in Beirut, to the bombing at the World Trade Center, to the attacks on American embassies in Africa, to the attacks on the USS Cole. In another way, September the 11th provided a warning of future dangers—of terror networks aided by outlaw regimes, and ideologies that incite the murder of the innocent, and biological and chemical and nuclear weapons that multiply destructive power. Like an earlier generation, America is answering new dangers with firm resolve. No matter how long it takes, no matter how difficult the task, we will fight the enemy, and lift the shadow of fear, and lead free nations to victory. Like an earlier generation, America is pursuing a clear strategy with our allies to achieve victory. Our immediate strategy is to eliminate terrorist threats abroad, so we do not have to face them here at home. The theory here is straightforward: terrorists are less likely to endanger our security if they are worried about their own security. When terrorists spend their days struggling to avoid death or capture, they are less capable of arming and training to commit new attacks. We will keep the terrorists on the run, until they have nowhere left to hide. In three and a half years, the United States and our allies have waged a campaign of global scale—from the mountains of Afghanistan, to the border regions of Pakistan, to the Horn of Africa, to the islands of the Philippines, to the plains of North Central Iraq. The al Qaeda terror network that attacked our country still has leaders, but many of its top commanders have been removed. There are still governments that sponsor and harbor terrorists, but their number has declined. There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction—but no longer without attention and without consequence. Our country is still the target of terrorists who want to kill many, and intimidate us all. We will stay on the offensive against them, until the fight is won. In this war on terror, America is not alone. Many governments have awakened to the dangers we share and have begun to take serious action. Global terror requires a global response, and America is more secure today because dozens of other countries have stepped up to the fight. We’re more secure because Pakistani forces captured more than one hundred extremists across the country last year, including operatives who were plotting attacks against the United States. We’re more secure because Britain arrested an al Qaeda operative who had provided detailed casing reports on American targets to senior al Qaeda leaders. We’re more secure because German authorities arrested extremists who were planning attacks against U.S. and coalition targets in Iraq. We’re more secure because the Philippines’ new Anti-Terrorism Task Force has helped capture more than a dozen terrorist suspects—including seven members of al Qaeda and affiliated networks. We’re more secure because Poland is leading a 15-nation multi-national division in Iraq, and forces from 23 countries have given their lives in the struggle against terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Our strategy to keep the peace in the longer term is to help change the conditions that give rise to extremism and terror, especially in the broader Middle East. Parts of that region have been caught for generations in a cycle of tyranny and despair and radicalism. When a dictatorship controls the political life of a country, responsible opposition cannot develop, and dissent is driven underground and toward the extreme. And to draw attention away from their social and economic failures, dictators place blame on other countries and other races, and stir the hatred that leads to violence. This status quo of despotism and anger cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or bought off, because we have witnessed how the violence in that region can reach easily across borders and oceans. The entire world has an urgent interest in the progress, and hope, and freedom in the broader Middle East. The advance of hope in the Middle East requires new thinking in the region. By now it should be clear that authoritarian rule is not the wave of the future; it is the last gasp of a discredited past. It should be clear that free nations escape stagnation, and grow stronger with time, because they encourage the creativity and enterprise of their people. It should be clear that economic progress requires political modernization, including honest representative government and the rule of law. And it should be clear that no society can advance with only half of its talent and energy—and that demands the full participation of women. The advance of hope in the Middle East also requires new thinking in the capitals of great democracies—including Washington, D.C. By now it should be clear that decades of excusing and accommodating tyranny, in the pursuit of stability, have only led to injustice and instability and tragedy. It should be clear that the advance of democracy leads to peace, because governments that respect the rights of their people also respect the rights of their neighbors. It should be clear that the best antidote to radicalism and terror is the tolerance and hope kindled in free societies. And our duty is now clear: For the sake of our long-term security, all free nations must stand with the forces of democracy and justice that have begun to transform the Middle East. Encouraging democracy in that region is a generational commitment. It’s also a difficult commitment, demanding patience and resolve—when the headlines are good and when the headlines aren’t so good. Freedom has determined enemies, who show no mercy for the innocent, and no respect for the rules of warfare. Many societies in the region struggle with poverty and illiteracy, many rulers in the region have longstanding habits of control; many people in the region have deeply ingrained habits of fear. For all these reasons, the chances of democratic progress in the broader Middle East have seemed frozen in place for decades. Yet at last, clearly and suddenly, the thaw has begun. The people of Afghanistan have embraced free government, after suffering under one of the most backward tyrannies on earth. The voters in Iraq defied threats of murder, and have set their country on a path to full democracy. The people of the Palestinian Territories cast their ballots against violence and corruption of the past. And any who doubt the appeal of freedom in the Middle East can look to Lebanon, where the Lebanese people are demanding a free and independent nation. In the words of one Lebanese observer, ‘‘Democracy is knocking at the door of this country
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and, if it’s successful in Lebanon, it is going to ring the doors of every Arab regime.’’ Across the Middle East, a critical mass of events is taking that region in a hopeful new direction. Historic changes have many causes, yet these changes have one factor in common. A businessman in Beirut recently said, ‘‘We have removed the mask of fear. We’re not afraid anymore.’’ Pervasive fear is the foundation of every dictatorial regime—the prop that holds up all power not based on consent. And when the regime of fear is broken, and the people find their courage and find their voice, democracy is their goal, and tyrants, themselves, have reason to fear. History is moving quickly, and leaders in the Middle East have important choices to make. The world community, including Russia and Germany and France and Saudi Arabia and the United States, has presented the Syrian government with one of those choices—to end its nearly 30-year occupation of Lebanon, or become even more isolated from the world. The Lebanese people have heard the speech by the Syrian president. They’ve seen these delaying tactics and half-measures before. The time has come for Syria to fully implement Security Council Resolution 1559. All Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw before the Lebanese elections, for those elections to be free and fair. America and other nations are also aware that the recent terrorist attack in Tel Aviv was conducted by a radical Palestinian group headquartered in Damascus. Syria, as well as Iran, has a long history of supporting terrorist groups determined to sow division and chaos in the Middle East, and there is every possibility they will try this strategy again. The time has come for Syria and Iran to stop using murder as a tool of policy, and to end all support for terrorism. In spite of attacks by extremists, the world is seeing hopeful progress in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. There is only one outcome that will end the tyranny, danger, violence and hopelessness, and meet the aspirations of all people in the region: We seek two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living sideby-side in peace and security. And that goal is within reach, if all the parties meet their responsibilities and if terrorism is brought to an end. Arab states must end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, stop their support for extremist education, and establish normal relations with Israel. Israel must freeze settlement activity, help the Palestinians build a thriving economy, and ensure that a new Palestinian state is truly viable, with contiguous territory on the West Bank. Palestinian leaders must fight corruption, encourage free enterprise, rest true authority with the people, and actively confront terrorist groups. The bombing in Tel Aviv is a reminder that the fight against terrorists is critical to the search for peace and for Palestinian statehood. In an interview last week, Palestinian President Abbas strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, declaring, ‘‘Ending violence and security chaos is first and foremost a Palestinian interest.’’ He went on to say, ‘‘We cannot build the foundations of a state without the rule of law and public order.’’ President Abbas is correct. And so the United States will help the Palestinian Authority build the security services that current peace and future
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statehood require: security forces which are effective, responsive to civilian control, and dedicated to fighting terror and upholding the rule of law. We will coordinate with the government of Israel, with neighbors such as Egypt and Jordan, and with other donors to ensure that Palestinians get the training and equipment they need. The United States is determined to help the parties remove obstacles to progress and move forward in practical ways, so we can seize this moment for peace in the Holy Land. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050308-3.html
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, James S. Brady Briefing Room, March 16, 2005 Q. Mr. President, the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq once had 38 countries contributing troops. And now that number has fallen to 24. And yesterday, Italy said that it was going to start pulling out some forces in September. How can you keep the coalition from crumbling? And is it time to think about a timetable for pulling out some U.S. troops, given that the Iraqi parliament was seated today, and you’re making progress in training some forces? THE PRESIDENT: Well, actually I called Silvio Berlusconi on another matter … but he brought up the issue of Italian troops in Iraq and said, first of all, he wanted me to know that there was no change in his policy, that, in fact, any withdrawals would be done in consultation with allies and would be done depending upon the ability of Iraqis to defend themselves. And I said, are you sure I can say this to the press corps that will be wanting to know what took place in our conversation? He said, absolutely. So I think what you’re going to find is that countries will be willing— anxious to get out when Iraqis have got the capacity to defend themselves. And that’s the position of the United States. Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself. And that’s generally what I find to be the case when I’ve talked to other allies on this issue. And we’re making progress. I’ve talked to General Casey quite frequently. And he keeps us abreast of the progress being made. One of the things— one of the issues in terms of Iraqi troops being able to defend their country is the ability to stand up chains of command. I think I’ve shared this with you before, and it’s still an issue that they’re working on. There’s officer training schools, plus the ability for a command to go from a civilian government to a military chain of command, down to the lower ranks of troops. And there’s positive signs that have taken place in the development of the Iraqi security forces, and there’s still work to be done. Our allies understand that. But I say ‘‘anxious to come home,’’ every—nobody—people want their troops home, but they don’t want their troops home if it affects the mission. We’ve gone—we’ve made a lot of progress. It’s amazing how much progress has been made, thanks in large part to the courage of the Iraqi people. And when I talk to people, most understand we need to complete the mission. And completing the mission means making sure the Iraqis can defend themselves.
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Q. So you don’t think it’s crumbling, the coalition? THE PRESIDENT: No, quite—quite to the contrary, I think the coalition is— has been buoyed by the courage of the Iraqi people. I think they’ve been pleased and heartened by the fact that the Iraqis went to the polls and voted and they’re now putting together a government, and they see progress is being made. And I share that sense of enthusiasm about what’s taking place in Iraq. Q. Mr. President, can you explain why you’ve approved of and expanded the practice of what’s called rendition, of transferring individuals out of U.S. custody to countries where human rights groups and your own State Department say torture is common for people under custody? THE PRESIDENT: The post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack. That was the charge we have been given. And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won’t be tortured. That’s the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture. We do believe in protecting ourselves. We don’t believe in torture.… Q. As Commander-in-Chief, what is it that Uzbekistan can do in interrogating an individual that the United States can’t? THE PRESIDENT: We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home. Q. Mr. President, are you trying to send a message to the IRA by not inviting Gerry Adams and the other Northern Ireland politicians tomorrow? THE PRESIDENT: I talked to Bertie Ahern about this and—at the EU, and he just asked who was coming to the events, which—I said, you are, for certain. And we wanted to make sure that we honored those in civil society in Ireland who are contributing positively to the peace process. And that’s what we’ll be doing on this particular trip. It’s very important that people understand that the parties must renounce violence. There’s a—the Good Friday Agreement laid out the way forward for peace in Northern Ireland, and this administration and our government strongly supports those steps. But tomorrow’s message will be, we want to thank those in civil society who are working hard to achieve a peaceful resolution. Q. By inviting the widow—the sisters, rather, of this man who was killed … THE PRESIDENT: That’s part of the statement—a very strong part of the statement. And I’m looking forward to meeting these very brave souls. They’ve committed themselves to a peaceful solution. And hopefully, their loved one will not have died in vain. I mean, out of the—hopefully, some good will come out of the evil perpetuated on this family. Q. Mr. President, yesterday you said that Hezbollah could prove it is not a terrorist organization by laying down arms and supporting peace. How willing and flexible, and under what conditions are you able to, as you promote democracy in the Middle East, encourage parties like Hezbollah to discontinue the use of terrorism as a tactic? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think—let me make sure that you put my answer into full context. I first said that Hezbollah is on the terrorist list for a reason:
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because they have killed Americans in the past, and they—they’re a violent organization. And the question was about Lebanon, and let me take a step back, if I might, on this question, because it’s important for the American people to understand our policy. Our policy is this: We want there to be a thriving democracy in Lebanon. We believe that there will be a thriving democracy, but only if—but only if— Syria withdraws not only her troops completely out of Lebanon, but also her secret service organizations, intelligence organizations—not secret service, intelligence organizations. I am concerned, and the world should be concerned that the intelligence organizations are embedded in a lot of government functions in Lebanon, and there needs to be a complete withdrawal of those services in order for there to be a free election. And we will—this government will work with a—elected leaders of a free, truly free Lebanon, and [we are] looking forward to it. Q. Mr. President, you faced a lot of skepticism in the run-up to the Iraq war, and a lot of criticism for miscalculating some of the challenges of postwar Iraq. Now that the Iraq elections seem to be triggering signs of democratization throughout the broader Middle East, do you feel any sense of vindication? THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I fully understand that as long as I’m the President I will face criticism. It’s like part of the job. Frankly, you wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t occasionally lay out the gentle criticism. I welcome constructive ideas as to how we might do our job better. So that doesn’t bother me. And, therefore, since it doesn’t bother me and I expect it, I don’t then seek vindication. … People are constantly evaluating somebody’s standing in history, a President’s standing in history, based upon events that took place during the presidency, based upon things that happened after the presidency, based upon—like in my case, hopefully, the march of freedom continues way after my presidency. And so I just don’t worry about vindication or standing. The other thing, it turns out, in this job you’ve got a lot on your plate on a regular basis, you don’t have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, how do you think my standing will be? I’ve got a lot to do. And I like to make decisions, and I make a lot of them. But, you know, look, the people who deserve the credit in Iraq are the Iraqi citizens that defied the terrorists. Imagine what it would be like to try to go vote thinking that there could be a suicide bomber standing next to you in line, or somebody would lob a shell or a mortar at you. The courage of the Iraqi citizens was just overwhelming, I thought. It’s easy for us to vote. The question is, what it would be like to vote if you were fearful for your life.… Now, there’s a lot of work to be done, and I’m sure there will be some opinions about what takes place during the next nine months, as the constitution is written, and whether or not the elections move forward as smoothly as some think they should … It’s important for people in that region to see what is possible in a free society. And I firmly believe that the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan—I believe there will be a Palestinian state; I believe we’ll be able to convince Syria to fully withdraw, or else she’ll be isolated—fully withdraw from Lebanon, or else she’ll be isolated—I believe those examples will serve as
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examples for others over time. And that will lead to more peace. And that’s what we want. Q. Mr. President, do you also think it will lead to America’s reputation being restored? Earlier this week you brought Karen Hughes back at ambassador rank to address the question of antipathy to America around the world … particularly the Muslim world. What does that entail? THE PRESIDENT: Well, it entails a couple of things.… It entails people understanding why we do things we do. You know, for example, there was—I think we had the image of wanting to fight Muslims—the United States stood squarely against a religion, as opposed to a society which welcomes all religions. And, in fact, we’re fighting a handful of people relative to the Muslim population that wanted to—I used to say—hijack the religion. People need to understand we’re a compassionate nation and we care deeply about suffering, regardless of where people live. And the—you know, President Clinton and President Bush 41 did a fine job of helping the world see the great compassion of America when they went on the—went on their trips in the areas ravaged by the tsunamis. It is very important for us to have a message that counteracts some of the messages coming out of some of the Arab media—some of it coming out, partly, because of our strong and unwavering friendship with Israel. You know, Israel is an easy target for some of the media in the Middle East, and if you’re a friend of Israel, you become a target. And since we’re not going to abandon our alliance with Israel, there’s a—there was some churning in the press, and there was some unhelpful things being said. And so part of that is to make sure people understand the truth. And that is, in this particular issue, you bet we’re going to stand by Israel. But we also believe the Palestinians have the capability of self-governance in a truly democratic state that will live side-byside with the Israelis in peace. And so Karen is going … I applaud Secretary Rice’s decision to include Karen in the process. I thought that was very wise of her to call upon Karen’s talents. And Dina Powell, from my office, an Egyptian American, is also going over, leaving the White House compound to work with Karen, because she believes deeply in the American experience, in American values, and wants to share those values with people around the world. And, you know, I think when people also see, Carl, that we do what we say we’re going to do—for example, that we helped feed the hungry and that we believe all folks should be free and that women should have an equal say in society. I think when people see we actually mean that, and then when it comes to fruition, it will help people around the world better understand our good hearts and good nature. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050316-3.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at Fort Hood, Fort Hood, Texas, April 12, 2005 … This weekend we marked the two-year anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad. Coalition forces crossed more than 350 miles of desert to get there,
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pushing through dust storms and death squads. They reached the Iraqi capital in 21 days, and that achievement will be studied for generations as the fastest armored advance in military history. The coalition assault was rapid, and it wasn’t easy. The enemy hid in schools and hospitals. They used civilians as human shields. Yet our troops persevered. We protected civilian lives while destroying the Republican Guard’s Medina Division, pushing through the Karbala Gap, capturing Saddam International Airport, and, on April 9th, we liberated the Iraqi capital. The terrorists have made Iraq a central front in the war on terror. Because of your service, because of your sacrifice, we are defeating them there where they live, so we do not have to face them where we live. Because of you, the people of Iraq no longer live in fear of being executed and left in mass graves. Because of you, freedom is taking root in Iraq. Our success in Iraq will make America safer, for us and for future generations. In my liberation message to the Iraqi people, I made them a solemn promise: ‘‘The government of Iraq, and the future of your country, will soon belong to you.’’ I went on to say: ‘‘We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave.’’ From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence—by helping the Iraqi people establish a free country that can sustain itself, rule itself, and defend itself. And in the last two years, Iraqis have made enormous progress toward that goal. Iraqis have laid the foundations of a free society, with hundreds of independent newspapers and dozens of political parties and associations, and schools that teach Iraqi children how to read and write, instead of the propaganda of Saddam Hussein. Iraqis have laid the foundation of a free economy, with a new currency and independent central bank, new laws to encourage foreign investment, and thousands of small businesses established since liberation. The troops from Fort Hood have done their part. In Baghdad, soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division launched Operation Adam Smith, and the new generation of Iraqi entrepreneurs you helped nurture will create jobs and opportunities for millions of their fellow citizens.… An Iraqi special tribunal has been established that will try senior leadership, including Saddam Hussein. He will get the trial that he did not afford his fellow citizens when he was in power. Slowly but surely, the land that gave civilization the first written code of law is now restoring the rule of law, and setting the example for people across the Middle East. Iraqis have laid a solid foundation for democratic self-government. The world watched in awe as the Iraqi people defied the car bombers and assassins to cast their votes in the country’s first free and democratic election in decades.… There’s a lot of hard work ahead. The Iraqi people face brutal and determined enemies. But Iraqis are also determined, and they have the will to defeat the insurgency. The soldiers and police of a free Iraq learned on election day they can face down the insurgents, and they learned they can prevail. The Iraqi people now have confidence that the soldiers and police of a free
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Iraq have the courage and resolve to defend them. The Iraqi security forces are fighting bravely for the future of their country, and in the last six months alone, more than 800 have given their lives in the struggle. As Iraq’s new government assumes increasing responsibility for the stability of their country, security operations are entering a new phase. Iraq security forces are becoming more self-reliant and taking on greater responsibilities. And that means that America and its coalition partners are increasingly playing more of a supporting role. Today, more than 150,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped, and for the first time, the Iraqi army, police and security forces now outnumber U.S. forces in Iraq. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended and led by their own countrymen. We will help them achieve this objective so Iraqis can secure their own nation. And then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050412.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at the Naval Academy Commencement, Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Annapolis, Maryland, May 27, 2005 Today, I’m going to talk about our strategy for victory in this war, what we’ve accomplished to make our nation more secure, your crucial role in this struggle, and why we need you to fight the war on terror and transform our military at the same time. In the 21st century, America will be prepared to answer any challenge, and defeat any adversary. Our nation is pursuing a clear strategy for the war on terror: We’re using every available tool to disrupt terrorists and their organizations. We are taking the fight to the enemy abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. We’re denying the terrorists sanctuary, and making clear that America will not tolerate outlaw regimes that provide safe haven and support to terrorists. We’re using all elements of national power to deny terrorists the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they seek. We will not allow mass murderers to gain access to the tools of mass destruction. And we’re stopping terrorists from achieving their ideological victories they seek, by working to spread the hope of freedom and reform across the broader Middle East. We understand that free nations do not support terrorists or invade their neighbors. We understand to make the world more peaceful and our country more secure, we will advance the cause of liberty. Thanks to the men and women of the United States military, our strategy is working—we are winning the war on terror. Since September 11, 2001, we’ve removed brutal regimes in Kabul and Baghdad that supported and harbored terrorists. We helped launch Afghanistan and Iraq on the path to lasting freedom by liberating over 50 million people. Both these nations have now chosen their leaders in free elections, and their courage is inspiring democratic reformers across the broader Middle East to rise up and claim their liberty. To stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, we broke up the world’s most dangerous nuclear trading network. We convinced Libya’s leader
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to give up his country’s chemical and nuclear weapons programs, as well as his long-range ballistic missiles. Two years ago, we launched the Proliferation Security Initiative, an effort supported by 60 nations to stop shipments of weapons of mass destruction … We have gone after al Qaeda and other terrorists with relentless determination, disrupting their communications, planning, training, and financing. We have put the enemy on the run, and now they spend their days avoiding capture … And we will stay on their trail. The best way to protect our citizens is to stay on the offensive. In the last few weeks, we’ve dealt the enemy a series of powerful blows. In Afghanistan, we brought to justice scores of terrorists and insurgents. In Pakistan, one of Osama bin Laden’s senior terrorist leaders, a man named al-Libbi, was brought to justice. In Iraq, we captured two senior operatives of the terrorist Zarqawi. And in recent days, our forces have killed or captured hundreds of terrorists and insurgents in Baghdad and Western Iraq and near the Syrian border. Difficult and dangerous work remains. Suicide bombers in Iraq are targeting innocent men, women and children, hoping to intimidate Iraq’s new leaders, and shake the will of the Iraqi people. They will fail. Iraqis are determined, and our strategy is clear: We will train Iraqi forces so they can take the fight to the enemy and defend their own country, and then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned. In this time of unprecedented dangers, we need you to take on two difficult missions at once: We need you to defeat the terrorists who want to destroy what we stand for and how we live. And at the same time, we need you to transform our military for the 21st century, so we can deter and defeat the new adversaries who may threaten our people in the decades ahead. The lesson of September 11th is clear: new dangers can arrive on our shores without warning. In this era of surprise, we cannot know for certain who might attack us, or where, or when. But we can anticipate how we might be attacked, and we can transform our capabilities to defend our citizens and deliver justice to our enemies. To meet the threats of the 21st century, we are developing new technologies that will make our forces faster, lighter, more agile, and more lethal. In our time, terrible dangers can arise on a short moment anywhere in the world, and we must be prepared to oppose these dangers everywhere in the world. Since taking office, my administration has invested $16 billion to build transformational military capabilities. We’ve requested an additional $78 billion for these efforts over the next four years. We’ve invested $240 billion in research and development, so we can build even more advanced capabilities in the decades ahead. We requested $275 billion for these efforts over the next four years. These investments will help us keep the peace by redefining war on our terms. And so long as I am your President, you will have the very best equipment and the resources you need to get the job done. We’re also harnessing advances in information technology, such as undersea surveillance systems, to provide our forces with near total battle space awareness.… technological advances will put unprecedented agility, speed, precision, and power in your hands, and you will use them to protect the American people in the dangerous decades ahead.
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Technology changes the balance of war in another important way: We can now strike our enemies with greater effectiveness, at greater range, with fewer civilian casualties. In this new era of warfare, we can target a regime, not a nation, and that means terrorists and tyrants can no longer feel safe hiding behind innocent life. In the 21st century, we can target the guilty and protect the innocent, and that makes it easier to keep the peace. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050527.html
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The Rose Garden, May 31, 2005 EXCERPTED Q. Mr. President, since Iraq’s new government was announced on April 28th, more than 60 Americans and 760 Iraqis have been killed in attacks. Do you think that the insurgency is gaining strength and becoming more lethal? And do you think that Iraq’s government is up to the job of defeating the— defeating the insurgents and guaranteeing security? THE PRESIDENT: I think the Iraq government will be up to the task of defeating the insurgents. I think they dealt the insurgents—I think the Iraqi people dealt the insurgents a serious blow when they—when we had the elections. In other words, what the insurgents fear is democracy, because democracy is the opposite of their vision. Their vision is one where a few make the decision for many, and if you don’t toe the line, there’s serious consequences. … I believe the Iraqi government is going to be plenty capable of dealing with them, and our job is to help train them so that they can. I was heartened to see the Iraqi government announce 40,000 Iraqi troops are well-trained enough to help secure Baghdad. That was a very positive sign. It’s a sign that they—they, the Iraqi leaders, understand they are responsible for their security, ultimately, and that our job is to help them take on that responsibility. So I’m pleased with the progress. I am pleased that in less than a year’s time, there’s a democratically elected government in Iraq; there are thousands of Iraqi soldiers trained and better equipped to fight for their own country; that our strategy is very clear in that we will work to get them ready to fight, and when they’re ready, we’ll come home. And I hope that’s sooner, rather than later. But, nevertheless, it’s very important that we complete this mission, because a free Iraq is in our nation’s long-term interests. A democracy in the heart of the Middle East is an essential part of securing our country and promoting peace for the long run. And it is very important for our country to understand that. A free Iraq will set such a powerful example in a neighborhood that is desperate for freedom. And, therefore, we will complete the mission and support this elected government. Q. Thank you, sir. Mr. President, recently, Amnesty International said you have established ‘‘a new gulag’’ of prisons around the world, beyond the reach of the law and decency. I’d like your reaction to that, and also your assessment of how it came to this, that that is a view not just held by
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extremists and anti-Americans, but by groups that have allied themselves with the United States government in the past—and what the strategic impact is that in many places of the world, the United States these days, under your leadership, is no longer seen as the good guy. THE PRESIDENT: I’m aware of the Amnesty International report, and it’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is—promotes freedom around the world. When there’s accusations made about certain actions by our people, they’re fully investigated in a transparent way. It’s just an absurd allegation. In terms of the detainees, we’ve had thousands of people detained. We’ve investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of—and the allegations—by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people who had been trained in some instances to disassemble—that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know—yes, sir. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050531.html
President George W. Bush, Address to Nation on Iraq and the War on Terror, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, June 28, 2005 Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others. They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents, and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime who want to restore the old order. They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty, as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits, and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world. Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: ‘‘This Third World War is raging’’ in Iraq. ‘‘The whole world is watching this war.’’ He says it will end in ‘‘victory and glory, or misery and humiliation.’’ The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened, or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one outside a mosque, … sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who behead civilian hostages and broadcast their atrocities for the world to see. … The only way the terrorists can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi, and if
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we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden. For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch. … Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard, and rebuilding while at war is even harder. Our progress has been uneven, but progress is being made. We’re improving roads and schools and health clinics. We’re working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity, and water. And together with our allies, we’ll help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens. In the past year, the international community has stepped forward with vital assistance. Some 30 nations have troops in Iraq, and many others are contributing non-military assistance. The United Nations is in Iraq to help Iraqis write a constitution and conduct their next elections. Thus far, some 40 countries and three international organizations have pledged about $34 billion in assistance for Iraqi reconstruction. More than 80 countries and international organizations recently came together in Brussels to coordinate their efforts to help Iraqis provide for their security and rebuild their country. And next month, donor countries will meet in Jordan to support Iraqi reconstruction. Whatever our differences in the past, the world understands that success in Iraq is critical to the security of our nations. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schr[€ o]der said at the White House yesterday, ‘‘There can be no question a stable and democratic Iraq is in the vested interest of not just Germany, but also Europe.’’ … Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi security forces. We made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions. Iraqi forces have fought bravely, helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf and Samarra, Fallujah and Mosul. And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning, which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents. Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen, and we are helping Iraqis assume those duties. The progress in the past year has been significant.… To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. To complete the mission, we will prevent al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends. And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track. The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists, and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. We’ve made progress, but we have a lot of—a lot more work to do. Today Iraqi security forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the terrorists and insurgents by themselves. A large number can plan
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and execute anti-terrorist operations with coalition support. The rest are forming and not yet ready to participate fully in security operations. Our task is to make the Iraqi units fully capable and independent. We’re building up Iraqi security forces as quickly as possible, so they can assume the lead in defeating the terrorists and insurgents. Our coalition is devoting considerable resources and manpower to this critical task. Thousands of coalition troops are involved in the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. NATO is establishing a military academy near Baghdad to train the next generation of Iraqi military leaders, and 17 nations are contributing troops to the NATO training mission.… To further prepare Iraqi forces to fight the enemy on their own, we are taking three new steps: First, we are partnering coalition units with Iraqi units. These coalitionIraqi teams are conducting operations together in the field. These combined operations are giving Iraqis a chance to experience how the most professional armed forces in the world operate in combat. Second, we are embedding coalition ‘‘transition teams’’ inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of coalition officers and non-commissioned officers who live, work, and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. Between battles, they are assisting the Iraqis with important skills, such as urban combat, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques. Third, we’re working with the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense to improve their capabilities to coordinate anti-terrorist operations. We’re helping them develop command and control structures. We’re also providing them with civilian and military leadership training, so Iraq’s new leaders can effectively manage their forces in the fight against terror. The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day. More than 2,000 members of Iraqi security forces have given their lives in the line of duty. Thousands more have stepped forward, and are now training to serve their nation. With each engagement, Iraqi soldiers grow more battlehardened, and their officers grow more experienced. We’ve learned that Iraqis are courageous and that they need additional skills. And that is why a major part of our mission is to train them so they can do the fighting, and then our troops can come home. I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible. So do I. Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong message to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out. We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed, and not a day longer. Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need
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more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders. The other critical element of our strategy is to help ensure that the hopes Iraqis expressed at the polls in January are translated into a secure democracy. The Iraqi people are emerging from decades of tyranny and oppression.… The challenge facing Iraqis today is to put this past behind them, and come together to build a new Iraq that includes all of its people. … As Iraqis grow confident that the democratic progress they are making is real and permanent, more will join the political process. And as Iraqis see that their military can protect them, more will step forward with vital intelligence to help defeat the enemies of a free Iraq. The combination of political and military reform will lay a solid foundation for a free and stable Iraq. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050628-7.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at the FBI Academy, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, July 11, 2005 In London last Thursday terrorists killed dozens of commuters and wounded hundreds more. Americans know what it’s like to be attacked on our own soil. Our hearts go out to the many innocent people in London who suffered terrible injuries, and we pray for the families mourning the loss of loved ones. In this difficult hour, the people of Great Britain can know the American people stand with you. I was with the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the G8 summit in Scotland when the terrorists struck his homeland. The contrast could not have been more vivid. We were there to discuss ways to make the world a better and more compassionate place; and in the London, the terrorists were killing innocent men and women in cold blood. These attacks were barbaric, and they provide a clear window into the evil we face. These kind of people who blow up subways and buses are not people you can negotiate with, or reason with, or appease. In the face of such adversaries there is only one course of action: We will continue to take the fight to the enemy, and we will fight until this enemy is defeated. The terrorists … believe that the world’s democracies are weak, and that by killing innocent civilians they can break our will. They’re mistaken. America will not retreat in the face of terrorists and murderers. And neither will the free world. As Prime Minister Blair said after the attacks in London, ‘‘Our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people.’’ The attack in London was an attack on the civilized world. And the civilized world is united in its resolve: We will not yield. We will defend our freedom.
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Our nation has no greater mission than stopping the terrorists from launching new and more deadly attacks.… To accomplish this vital mission, we have a comprehensive strategy in place. We’re working to protect the homeland. We’re working to improve our intelligence so we can uncover terrorist plots before they unfold. And we’re staying on the offensive. We’re fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and across the world so we do not have to face them here at home. To protect the American people, we continue to take extraordinary measures to defend the homeland. We created a new Department of Homeland Security. We’re posting Homeland Security personnel at foreign ports and strengthening airport and seaport security. We’re instituting better visa screening for those entering the United States. We’re working to prevent potential terrorists from coming across our borders and violating our immigration laws. We’re protecting our nation’s critical infrastructure—our bridges and tunnels, our transportation systems, our nuclear power plants and water treatment facilities, and the cyber networks that keep our government and our economy running. We’ve provided more than $14 billion over the last four years to train and equip local first responders. In all, we’ve more than tripled funding for homeland security since 2001. We’re working tirelessly to protect the American people and to prevent new terrorists attacks … … Staying a step ahead of this enemy and disrupting their plans is an unprecedented challenge for our intelligence community. We’re reforming our intelligence agencies to meet the new threats. We’ve established a new National Counterterrorism Center where we are bringing together all the available intelligence on terrorist threats. We’re sharing intelligence across all levels of government—the federal level, the state level, and the local level. We’re working with our allies to share information, and to prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Thanks to the hard work of hundreds in our intelligence community, we have stopped a number of grave threats to the American people. Together with our allies, we uncovered and dismantled Libya’s nuclear program. We worked with Pakistan and other nations to shut down the world’s most dangerous nuclear trading network. And since September the 11th, our coalition has disrupted a number of al Qaeda terrorist plots, arrested al Qaeda operatives here to case specific U.S. targets, and caught others trying to sneak into our country. Our enemy is constantly studying our defenses and adapting its own tactics, so we must constantly strengthen our capabilities. And that’s why I appointed a bipartisan commission, led by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Senator Chuck Robb. I asked them to give me an unvarnished look at our intelligence capabilities and our intelligence successes, as well as analyze our intelligence failures. Two weeks ago, after careful review, I approved 70 of the commission’s recommendations for implementation. One of the new steps we’re taking is the creation of the National Security Service within the FBI, to more completely integrate the Bureau’s work with the intelligence community. The purpose of this change is to strengthen the FBI, so it not only investigates terrorist crimes after they happen, but the FBI can be more capable to stop the terrorist acts before they happen … The FBI
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has deployed its personnel across the world, in Iraq and Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror. FBI agents are questioning captured terrorists and uncovering information that will help prevent new attacks on our homeland. Here in America, the FBI has helped break up terrorist cells and financing networks in California, in Oregon, Illinois, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida and other states. And one of the important tools federal agents have used to protect America is the Patriot Act. I call on Congress to reauthorize the 16 critical provisions of this act that are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. The terrorist threats against us will not expire at the end of this year, and neither should the protections of the Patriot Act. In the war on terror, Iraq is now a central front. The terrorists fight in Iraq because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty, as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy and prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors. They’ll lose their recruits. They will lose their hopes for turning that region into a base of attacks against America and our allies. The stakes in Iraq are high, and no one knows the stakes better than our troops. An American battalion commander in Iraq put it this way in an email: ‘‘I know that most of you are probably asking if our presence here and loss of human life are worth it. We’re here for a purpose. And if not now, when will we stand up to the terrorists that are sick enough to do these things in God’s name?’’ Our troops see the progress the Iraqi security forces have made. Captain Glenn Colby of the Rhode Island National Guard says that when he arrived in Iraq over a year ago, the Iraqi police were afraid to go outside their building. Recently, he says, the soldiers were on patrol when the Iraqi police charged past them in hot pursuit of insurgents. He says of the Iraqi police, ‘‘Now you see them everywhere. You see them at checkpoints on the streets; you see them on patrol; you see them stand and fight.’’ … The leaders of the new Iraqi military see the progress. The Iraqi general in charge of his country’s elite special forces puts it this way: Before, ‘‘the Americans were taking the lead and we were following.’’ Now, he said proudly that his forces were taking the lead. We are working for the day when the entire Iraqi army can say the same thing. Our coalition will help Iraqis so they can fight the enemy on their own. And then American forces can come home to a proud and grateful nation. We know that the terrorists will not be defeated by force of arms alone. Iraqis need a strong military to engage the enemy. But just as important is a strong and secure democracy that will provide an alternative to the terrorists’ ideology of hate. So Iraqis are hard at work building the institutions of a free society. The heart of our strategy is this: Free societies are peaceful societies. So in the long run, the only way to defeat the ideologies of hatred and fear, the only way to make sure our country is secure in the long run, is to advance the cause of freedom. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050711-1.html
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President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, Military Officers Association, Washington, D.C., September 5, 2006 The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience—but they’re not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil, but not insane. These al Qaeda terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists. They’re driven by a radical and perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power. They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a ‘‘Caliphate’’—where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks—in his words—‘‘a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous … [Caliphate].’’ This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because al Qaeda has told us. About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri—he’s al Qaeda’s second in command—declared that al Qaeda intends to impose its rule in ‘‘every land that was a home for Islam, from [Spain] to Iraq. He went on to say, ‘‘The whole world is an open field for us.’’ These radicals have declared their uncompromising hostility to freedom. It is foolish to think that you can negotiate with them. We see the uncompromising nature of the enemy in many captured terrorist documents. Here are just two examples: After the liberation of Afghanistan, coalition forces searching through a terrorist safe house in that country found a copy of the al Qaeda charter. This charter states that ‘‘there will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in Allah. We will not meet [the enemy] halfway. There will be no room for dialogue with them.’’ Another document was found in 2000 by British police during an anti-terrorist raid in London—a grisly al Qaeda manual that includes chapters with titles such as ‘‘Guidelines for Beating and Killing Hostages.’’ This manual declares that their vision of Islam ‘‘does not … make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it.’’ The confrontation … calls for … the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun.’’ Still other captured documents show al Qaeda’s strategy for infiltrating Muslim nations, establishing terrorist enclaves, overthrowing governments, and building their totalitarian empire.… bin Laden and his allies are absolutely convinced they can succeed in forcing America to retreat and causing our economic collapse. They believe our nation is weak and decadent, and lacking in patience and resolve. And they’re wrong. Osama bin Laden has written that the ‘‘defeat of … American forces in Beirut’’ in 1983 is proof America does not have the stomach to stay in the fight. He’s declared that ‘‘in Somalia … the United States [pulled] out, trailing disappointment, defeat, and failure behind it.’’ And last year, the terrorist
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Zawahiri declared that Americans ‘‘know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet.’’ bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We’re taking the words of the enemy seriously. We’re on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed. Imagine a world in which they were able to control governments, a world awash with oil and they would use oil resources to punish industrialized nations. And they would use those resources to fuel their radical agenda, and pursue and purchase weapons of mass murder. And armed with nuclear weapons, they would blackmail the free world, and spread their ideologies of hate, and raise a mortal threat to the American people. If we allow them to do this, if we retreat from Iraq, if we don’t uphold our duty to support those who are desirous to live in liberty, 50 years from now history will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity, and demand to know why we did not act. I’m not going to allow this to happen—and no future American President can allow it either. America did not seek this global struggle, but we’re answering history’s call with confidence and a clear strategy. Today we’re releasing a document called the ‘‘National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.’’ This is an unclassified version of the strategy we’ve been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001. This strategy was first released in February 2003; it’s been updated to take into account the changing nature of this enemy. This strategy document is posted on the White House website— whitehouse.gov. EDITOR’S NOTE: The strategy document is available at http://www.whitehouse. gov/nsc/nsct/2006/ and also listed in chapter 27, Key Documents).
Our strategy for combating terrorism has five basic elements: First, we’re determined to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur. So we’re taking the fight to the enemy. The best way to protect America is to stay on the offense. Since 9/11, our coalition has captured or killed al Qaeda managers and operatives, and scores of other terrorists across the world. The enemy is living under constant pressure, and we intend to keep it that way— and this adds to our security. When terrorists spend their days working to avoid death or capture, it’s harder for them to plan and execute new attacks. We’re also fighting the enemy here at home. We’ve given our law enforcement and intelligence professionals the tools they need to stop the terrorists in our midst. We passed the Patriot Act to break down the wall that prevented law enforcement and intelligence from sharing vital information. We created the Terrorist Surveillance Program to monitor the communications between al Qaeda commanders abroad and terrorist operatives within our borders. If al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, we need to know why, in order to stop attacks. … over the last five years, federal, state, and local law enforcement have used those tools to break up terrorist cells, and to prosecute terrorist operatives and supporters in New York, and Oregon, and Virginia, and Texas, and
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New Jersey, and Illinois, Ohio, and other states. By taking the battle to the terrorists and their supporters on our own soil and across the world, we’ve stopped a number of al Qaeda plots. Second, we’re determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes and terrorists who would use them without hesitation. Working with Great Britain and Pakistan and other nations, the United States shut down the world’s most dangerous nuclear trading cartel, the AQ Khan network. This network had supplied Iran and Libya and North Korea with equipment and know-how that advanced their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. And we launched the Proliferation Security Initiative … the greatest threat this world faces is the danger of extremists and terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.… Third, we’re determined to deny terrorists the support of outlaw regimes. After September the 11th, I laid out a clear doctrine: America makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror, and those that harbor and support them, because they’re equally guilty of murder. Thanks to our efforts, there are now three fewer state sponsors of terror in the world than there were on September the 11th, 2001. Afghanistan and Iraq have been transformed from terrorist states into allies in the war on terror. And the nation of Libya has renounced terrorism, and given up its weapons of mass destruction programs, and its nuclear materials and equipment. Over the past five years, we’ve acted to disrupt the flow of weapons and support from terrorist states to terrorist networks. And we have made clear that any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization. Fourth, we’re determined to deny terrorist networks control of any nation, or territory within a nation. So, along with our coalition and the Iraqi government, we’ll stop the terrorists from taking control of Iraq, and establishing a new safe haven from which to attack America and the free world. And we’re working with friends and allies to deny the terrorists the enclaves they seek to establish in ungoverned areas across the world. By helping governments reclaim full sovereign control over their territory, we make ourselves more secure. Fifth, we’re working to deny terrorists new recruits, by defeating their hateful ideology and spreading the hope of freedom—by spreading the hope of freedom across the Middle East. For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by pursuing stability at the expense of liberty. The lack of freedom in that region helped create conditions where anger and resentment grew, and radicalism thrived, and terrorists found willing recruits … The experience of September the 11th made clear, in the long run, the only way to secure our nation is to change the course of the Middle East. So America has committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom and liberty and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. We’re taking the side of democratic leaders and moderates and reformers across the Middle East. We strongly support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We’re standing with Afghanistan’s elected government against al Qaeda and the Taliban remnants that are trying to restore tyranny in that country. We’re standing with Lebanon’s young democracy against the foreign forces that are seeking to undermine the country’s sovereignty and independence. And we’re standing with the leaders of Iraq’s unity
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government as they work to defeat the enemies of freedom, and chart a more hopeful course for their people. This is why victory is so important in Iraq. By helping freedom succeed in Iraq, we will help America, and the Middle East, and the world become more secure. During the last five years we’ve learned a lot about this enemy. We’ve learned that they’re cunning and sophisticated. We’ve witnessed their ability to change their methods and their tactics with deadly speed—even as their murderous obsessions remain unchanging. We’ve seen that it’s the terrorists who have declared war on Muslims, slaughtering huge numbers of innocent Muslim men and women around the world. We know what the terrorists believe, we know what they have done, and we know what they intend to do.… this time we’re not waiting for our enemies to gather in strength. This time, we’re confronting them before they gain the capacity to inflict unspeakable damage on the world, and we’re confronting their hateful ideology before it fully takes root. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060905-4.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the War on Terror at the National Endowment for Democracy, Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, D.C., October 6, 2005 EXCERPTED The images and experience of September the 11th are unique for Americans. Yet the evil of that morning has reappeared on other days, in other places—in Mombasa, and Casablanca, and Riyadh, and Jakarta, and Istanbul, and Madrid, and Beslan, and Taba, and Netanya, and Baghdad, and elsewhere. In the past few months, we’ve seen a new terror offensive with attacks on London, and Sharm el-Sheikh, and a deadly bombing in Bali once again. All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random and isolated acts of madness; innocent men and women and children have died simply because they boarded the wrong train, or worked in the wrong building, or checked into the wrong hotel. Yet while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus—and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics. Many militants are part of global, borderless terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like September the 11th. Other militants are found in regional groups, often
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associated with al Qaeda—paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, and the Philippines, and Pakistan, and Chechnya, and Kashmir, and Algeria. Still others spring up in local cells, inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world. We know the vision of the radicals because they’ve openly stated it—in videos, and audiotapes, and letters, and declarations, and websites. First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions. Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, quote, their ‘‘resources, sons and money to driving the infidels out of their lands.’’ Their tactic to meet this goal has been consistent for a quarter-century: They hit us, and expect us to run. They want us to repeat the sad history of Beirut in 1983, and Mogadishu in 1993—only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences. Second, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments. Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and Jordan for potential takeover. They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan. Now they’ve set their sights on Iraq … The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror. Third, the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. With greater economic and military and political power, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation. Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. Well, they are fanatical and extreme—and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed, ‘‘We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life.’’ And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously—and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply. Defeating the militant network is difficult, because it thrives, like a parasite, on the suffering and frustration of others. The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization, in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution. They exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, recruiting them through radical mosques as the pawns of terror. And they exploit modern technology to multiply their destructive power. Instead of attending faraway training camps, recruits can now
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access online training libraries to learn how to build a roadside bomb, or fire a rocket-propelled grenade—and this further spreads the threat of violence, even within peaceful democratic societies. The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers. They have been sheltered by authoritarian regimes, allies of convenience like Syria and Iran, that share the goal of hurting America and moderate Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West and America, and on the Jews. These radicals depend on front operations, such as corrupted charities, which direct money to terrorist activity. They’re strengthened by those who aggressively fund the spread of radical, intolerant versions of Islam in unstable parts of the world. The militants are aided, as well, by elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and antiSemitism, that feed conspiracy theories and speak of a so-called American ‘‘war on Islam’’—with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims in Afghanistan, and Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Iraq. Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001—and al Qaeda attacked us anyway. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan. Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence— the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we’re not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We’re facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of the killers—and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder. On the contrary: They target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, never give in, and never accept anything less than complete victory. Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life. We’ve seen it in the murders of Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, and Margaret Hassan, and many others. In a courtroom in the Netherlands, the killer of Theo Van Gogh turned to the victim’s grieving mother and said, ‘‘I do not feel your pain—because I believe you are an infidel.’’ And in spite of this veneer of religious rhetoric, most of the victims claimed by the militants are fellow Muslims. When 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing, or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school, or hospital workers are killed caring for the wounded, this is murder, pure and simple—the total rejection of justice and honor and morality and religion. These militants are not just the enemies of America, or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and the enemies of
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humanity. We have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, and the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields. Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent. Zarqawi has said that Americans are, quote, ‘‘the most cowardly of God’s creatures.’’ But let’s be clear: It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque. It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people. It is courage that keeps an untiring vigil against the enemies of a rising democracy. And it is courage in the cause of freedom that once again will destroy the enemies of freedom. Iraq Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It is not justified. With every random bombing and with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters—they are murderers at war with the Iraqi people, themselves. In contrast, the elected leaders of Iraq are proving to be strong and steadfast. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress—from tyranny, to liberation, to national elections, to the writing of a constitution, in the space of two-and-a-half years. With our help, the Iraqi military is gaining new capabilities and new confidence with every passing month. At the time of our Fallujah operations 11 months ago, there were only a few Iraqi army battalions in combat. Today there are more than 80 Iraqi army battalions fighting the insurgency alongside our forces. Progress isn’t easy, but it is steady. And no fair-minded person should ignore, deny, or dismiss the achievements of the Iraqi people. Some observers question the durability of democracy in Iraq. They underestimate the power and appeal of freedom. We’ve heard it suggested that Iraq’s democracy must be on shaky ground because Iraqis are arguing with each other. But that’s the essence of democracy: making your case, debating with those who you disagree—who disagree, building consensus by persuasion, and answering to the will of the people. We’ve heard it said that the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds of Iraq are too divided to form a lasting democracy. In fact, democratic federalism is the best hope for unifying a diverse population, because a federal constitutional system respects the rights and religious traditions of all citizens, while giving all minorities, including the Sunnis, a stake and a voice in the future of their country. It is true that the seeds of freedom have only recently been planted in Iraq—but democracy, when it grows, is not a fragile flower; it is a healthy, sturdy tree. Some observers also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and leaving Iraq now. This is a dangerous illusion, refuted with a simple question: Would the United States and other free nations be more safe, or less safe, with Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people, and its resources? Having removed a dictator who hated free peoples, we will not stand by as a new set of killers, dedicated to the destruction of our own country, seizes control of Iraq by violence.
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There’s always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world, and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder. This would be a pleasant world, but it’s not the world we live in. The enemy is never tired, never sated, never content with yesterday’s brutality. This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve and we will win that victory. … We’re encouraging our friends in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to take the path of reform, to strengthen their own societies in the fight against terror by respecting the rights and choices of their own people. We’re standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow. We’re making our case through public diplomacy, stating clearly and confidently our belief in self-determination, and the rule of law, and religious freedom, and equal rights for women, beliefs that are right and true in every land, and in every culture. As we do our part to confront radicalism, we know that the most vital work will be done within the Islamic world, itself. And this work has begun. Many Muslim scholars have already publicly condemned terrorism, often citing Chapter 5, Verse 32 of the Koran, which states that killing an innocent human being is like killing all humanity, and saving the life of one person is like saving all of humanity. After the attacks in London on July the 7th, an imam in the United Arab Emirates declared, ‘‘Whoever does such a thing is not a Muslim, nor a religious person.’’ The time has come for all responsible Islamic leaders to join in denouncing an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends, and defiles a noble faith. Many people of the Muslim faith are proving their commitment at great personal risk. Everywhere we have engaged the fight against extremism, Muslim allies have stood up and joined the fight, becoming partners in a vital cause. Afghan troops are in combat against Taliban remnants. Iraqi soldiers are sacrificing to defeat al Qaeda in their own country.… SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/print/200510063.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, Chicago, Illinois, May 22, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: … This Saturday in Baghdad, the new Prime Minister of Iraq announced a national unity government. This is a free government under a democratic constitution, and its formation marks a victory for the cause of freedom in the Middle East. In three elections last year, millions of Iraqis cast their ballot in defiance of the terrorists. And now they have a government of their own choosing under a constitution that they drafted and they approved. As this new unity government takes office, it carries with it the hopes of the Iraqi nation, and the aspirations of freedom-loving people across a troubled region.
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The unity government has strong leaders that will represent all of the Iraqi people. I called them this weekend to congratulate them. I thanked them for being courageous and strong and standing for the belief that liberty will help transform their troubled nation. The new government is led by Prime Minister Maliki. He’s a Shia. He’s an Iraqi patriot who for years was part of the resistance to Saddam Hussein. He’s shown courage and wisdom by surrounding himself with strong leaders who are committed to serving all the people … The Iraqi people are blessed to have a leader like Prime Minister Maliki, and I’m proud to call him, ally and friend. The government is still a work in progress, and overcoming longstanding divisions will take time. Iraq’s new leaders know they have a great deal of work ahead to broaden the base of their government and to unite the people. They also understand that representing all Iraqis and not just narrow sectarian interests, they will be able to make a decisive break with the past and make a future of progress and opportunity for all their people a reality. The unity government must now seize its moment and pursue a common agenda for the future. This weekend, Prime Minister Maliki laid out his plan for a new Iraq. He promised to work for a sovereign Iraq that will assume responsibility for the security of its people. He committed himself to a free Iraq that will uphold international standards of human rights and respect the role of women in Iraqi society. He pledged to work for a prosperous Iraq that welcomes foreign investments and accelerates reconstruction and lays the foundations for economic growth and opportunity. He declared he would lead a transparent Iraq, where government is open and accountable, and corruption is not tolerated. And he vowed to work for a peaceful Iraq that is the enemy of terror, a friend to its neighbors, and a reliable partner in the community of nations. The unity government opens a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and Iraq. The new Iraqi government does not change America’s objectives or our commitment, but it will change how we achieve those objectives and how we honor our commitment. And the new Iraqi government—as the new Iraqi government grows in confidence and capability, America will play an increasingly supporting role. To take advantage of this moment of opportunity, the United States and our coalition partners will work with the new Iraqi government to adjust our methods and strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve victory over our common enemies. … Iraqis are determined to chart their own future. And now they have the leadership to do it. And this unity government deserves American support, and they will have it. Our nation has been through three difficult years in Iraq. And the way forward will bring more days of challenge and loss. The progress we’ve made has been hard-fought, and it’s been incremental. There have been setbacks and missteps—like Abu Ghraib—that were felt immediately and have been difficult to overcome. Yet we have now reached a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror. The terrorists did not lay down their arms after three elections in Iraq, and they will continue to fight this new government. And we can expect the
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violence to continue, but something fundamental changed this weekend. The terrorists are now fighting a free and constitutional government. They’re at war with the people of Iraq. And the Iraqi people are determined to defeat this enemy, and so are Iraq’s new leaders, and so is the United States of America. For most Iraqis, a free, democratic and constitutional government will be a new experience. And for the people across the broader Middle East, a free Iraq will be an inspiration. Iraqis have done more than form a government; they have proved that the desire for liberty in the heart of the Middle East is for real. They’ve shown diverse people can come together and work out their differences and find a way forward. And they’ve demonstrated that democracy is the hope of the Middle East and the destiny of all mankind. Q. Good morning, Mr. President. My name is Robert Carter from Toronto, Canada, and my question is regarding border restrictions between our two countries. Given the impact on tourism, do you feel that it’s necessary to continue increasing border restrictions between Canada and the U.S.? THE PRESIDENT: What he’s referring to is, right after 9/11, the Congress passed legislation that said there will be a new—a border—an identification card between—travel between our countries. And you can understand why our nation reacted the way—I hope you can understand the way our nation reacted the way we did after 9/11. I mean, we were—we analyzed all aspects of our security. We were—we said we were going to do everything we can within the law to protect ourselves. And Congress passed some new laws to make sure that we knew who was coming in the country and who was leaving the country. And I supported those laws. And now we’re working with your government to make sure that the identification cards that will be used between our two borders are compatible not only with our needs, but your needs. I spoke to Prime Minister Harper about this subject. He’s very aware and worried about a identification card that would be difficult to get into the hands of Canadians and it would make it difficult for Canada to continue to attract conventions. And so to answer your question, yes, we ought to have a system that is compatible with both our countries’ needs. Q. If we were to be attacked by a biological weapon, or if there was an outbreak of the avian flu, would we be prepared? THE PRESIDENT: Good question. We are working to be prepared … … [The] first step is to recognize that it’s a possibility and start preparing, which we’re doing at the federal level. Yes, we’ve got a good strategy—now, whether or not it would work to perfection, you hope you never have to find out. One of the classic cases—one of the classic dilemmas we’re trying to resolve is that most—it’s against the law to put federal troops in to enforce the law. It’s posse comitatus, you know? I’m not a lawyer, but nevertheless, that’s what the lawyers tell me. However, states can use their Guard to do law enforcement activities. And the fundamental question is, if there’s an event big enough, should the federal government be able to prevent state authority—should there be an automatic declaration of a state of emergency that will enable me to rally federal troops to keep the law? We haven’t resolved that issue yet, but that’s one of the dilemmas on a catastrophic event that ends up exceeding the boundaries of—that would make it
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not a local event. But we’re working hard on it. We’ve spent a lot of time on pandemic flu, which, by the way, has got the same—a biological attack would have the same applications as to how you—how do you isolate the incident, how do you isolate the spread of disease, how do you rally local authorities to make the right decisions about public facilities.… SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060522-1.html
President George W. Bush, Commencement Address at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, May 27, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: … This is the first class to arrive at West Point after the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. Each of you came here in a time of war, knowing all the risks and dangers that come with wearing our nation’s uniform. And I want to thank you for your patriotism, your devotion to duty, your courageous decision to serve. America is grateful and proud of the men and women of West Point. West Point has adapted to prepare you for the war you’re about to enter. Since the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, this Academy has established a new Combating Terrorism Center, a new minor in Terrorism Studies, with new courses in counter-insurgency operations, intelligence, and homeland security, and winning the peace. West Point has expanded Arabic language training, has hired new faculty with expertise in Islamic law and culture, brought in members of the 101st and 82nd Airborne to train you and share their experiences on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. And each of you endured grueling Saturday training events where you practiced identifying IEDs, conducting convoy operations and running checkpoints. By changing to meet the new threats, West Point has given you the skills you will need in Afghanistan and Iraq—and for the long war with Islamic radicalism that will be the focus of much of your military careers. This Academy went through a similar period of change six decades ago, at the end of World War II. Some of West Point’s greatest graduates—men like Eisenhower and Bradley, Patton and MacArthur—had just brought our nation victory in Europe and Japan. Yet, almost immediately, a new threat appeared on the horizon—the threat of Imperial Communism. And West Point, like America, had to prepare for a long struggle with a new adversary, one that would require the determination of generations of Americans. In the early years of that struggle, freedom’s victory was not obvious or assured. In 1947, communist forces were threatening Greece and Turkey, the reconstruction of Germany was faltering, mass starvation was setting in across Europe. In 1948, Czechoslovakia fell to communism; France and Italy appeared to be headed for the same fate, and Berlin was blockaded … In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon … and weeks later, communist forces won their revolution in China … And in the summer of 1950, seven North Korean divisions poured across the border into South Korea.… Fortunately, we had a President named Harry Truman, who recognized the threat, took bold action to confront it, and laid the foundation for freedom’s victory in the Cold War.
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President Truman set a clear doctrine. In a speech to Congress, he called for military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey, and announced a new doctrine that would guide American policy throughout the Cold War. He told the Congress: ‘‘It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.’’ With this new doctrine, and with the aid to back it up, Greece and Turkey were saved from communism, and the Soviet expansion into Southern Europe and the Middle East was stopped. President Truman acted boldly to confront new adversaries. When Stalin tested America’s resolve with a blockade of Berlin, President Truman launched the Berlin Airlift … … In Asia, his administration led the effort to help Japan change from a nation that had launched a surprise attack on America into a thriving democracy and a steadfast ally. In Europe, he launched the Marshall Plan … By the actions he took, the institutions he built, the alliances he forged and the doctrines he set down, President Truman laid the foundations for America’s victory in the Cold War.… Today, at the start of a new century, we are again engaged in a war unlike any our nation has fought before—and like Americans in Truman’s day, we are laying the foundations for victory. The enemies we face today are different in many ways from the enemy we faced in the Cold War. In the Cold War, we deterred Soviet aggression through a policy of mutually assured destruction. Unlike the Soviet Union, the terrorist enemies we face today hide in caves and shadows—and emerge to attack free nations from within. The terrorists have no borders to protect, or capital to defend. They cannot be deterred—but they will be defeated. America will fight the terrorists on every battlefront, and we will not rest until this threat to our country has been removed. While there are real differences between today’s war and the Cold War, there are also many important similarities. Like the Cold War, we are fighting the followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom, crushes all dissent, has territorial ambitions, and pursues totalitarian aims. Like the Cold War, our enemies are dismissive of free peoples, claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and lack the resolve to defend our way of life. Like the Cold War, our enemies believe that the innocent can be murdered to serve a political vision. And like the Cold War, they’re seeking weapons of mass murder that would allow them to deliver catastrophic destruction to our country. If our enemies succeed in acquiring such weapons, they will not hesitate to use them, which means they would pose a threat to America as great as the Soviet Union. Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory. In this new war, we have forged new alliances, and transformed old ones, for the challenges of a new century. After our nation was attacked, we formed the largest coalition in history to fight the war on terror. More than 90 nations are cooperating in a global campaign to dry up terrorist financing, to hunt down terrorist operatives, and bring terrorist leaders to justice. Nations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that once turned a blind eye to terror are now
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helping lead the fight against it. And since September the 11th, 2001, our coalition has captured or killed al Qaeda managers and operatives in over two dozen countries, and disrupted a number of serious al Qaeda terrorist plots, including plots to attack targets inside the United States. Our nation is more secure because we have rallied the world to confront this threat to civilization. The greatest threat we face is the danger of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. To confront this danger, we launched the Proliferation Security Initiative, a coalition of more than 70 nations that are working together to stop shipments of weapons of mass destruction … from falling into terrorist hands. And building on the legacy of Harry Truman, we launched the most dramatic transformation of the NATO Alliance since its founding in 1949. Working with allies, we created a new ‘‘NATO Response Force’’ that will allow NATO to deploy rapid reaction forces on short notice anywhere in the world. And together we transformed NATO from a defensive alliance focused on protecting Europe from Soviet tank invasion into a dynamic alliance that is now operating across the world in the support of democracy and peace. In this new war, we’ve undertaken the most sweeping reorganization of the federal government since the start of the Cold War. We created a new Department of Homeland Security … the new Director of National Intelligence … transformed the FBI into an agency whose primary focus is stopping terrorism, and reorganized the Department of Justice to help us meet this new threat. We passed the Patriot Act, which broke down barriers that prevented law enforcement and intelligence agencies from sharing vital information on terrorist threats. At the Department of Defense, we created a new Northern Command responsible for homeland defense, a new Strategic Command responsible for defending America against long-range attacks. We transformed the Special Operations Command, more than doubling its budget, adding thousands of new troops, and making it the lead command in the global war on terror. And we’re undertaking the largest transformation of the Army in more than a hundred years. Since the turn of the last century, the Army has been organized around the division structure designed by Napoleon. Today, we’re replacing that division structure with a 21st century Army built around ‘‘modular’’ brigade combat teams that will be interchangeable and available to work for any division commander. These brigades will make our Army faster and lighter, and more agile and more lethal—and it will make you more effective in the defense of freedom. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060527-1.html
President George W. Bush Meets with Supporters of the U.S. Military in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Roosevelt Room, June 26, 2006 EXCERPTED There’s an organization called America Supports You. I would hope my fellow citizens would like on the webpage, AmericaSupportsYou.mil, to determine how you can help support our troops if you so desire. I would urge Americans
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to do that, and around the table are leaders of the different organizations that make up this umbrella group. We’ve heard from people that are helping families of the wounded. We’re talking to people who are using their position in different fields, like the entertainment field, to go over and provide hope for our troops. We’re talking to moms and wives of those who have volunteered to serve our country. … I told the folks here that the politics in Washington can be rough. But make no mistake about it, I am determined to succeed. And we will implement a plan to achieve victory, which is necessary, and that they need to tell the troops that no matter how tough it looks here in the nation’s capital, that I know we’re doing the right thing, and I know we will win. Q. Mr. President, General Casey saw you on Friday, and it’s been reported that he’s talked about withdrawing two brigades from Iraq by this year. Can you tell us what he recommended to you? THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I did meet with General Casey, and I met with him because it’s very important for me, as well as Secretary Rumsfeld, to meet with our commander on the ground. I’ve told the American people our commanders will be making the decisions as to how to achieve victory, and General Casey, of course, is the lead person. So we had a good visit with him. And we talked about a lot of things. The first thing we talked about was the joint operations with the Iraqi forces to secure Baghdad and how that’s going. We talked about the actions we’re taking in Ramadi … [W]e’re trying to make sure Ramadi does not become a safe haven for al Qaeda. And so he explained to me the tactics on the ground, what we’re doing to secure that city and to run the al Qaeda-types out. We talked about the Iraqi training mission. And as you well know, our standards are, as Iraqis stand up, the coalition will be able to stand down. We talked about that kind of progress. But in terms of our troop presence there, that decision will be made by General Casey, as well as the sovereign government of Iraq, based upon conditions on the ground. And one of the things that General Casey assured me of is that, whatever recommendation he makes, it will be aimed toward achieving victory. And that’s what we want. And victory means a free government that is able to sustain itself, defend itself; it’s a government that will be an ally in the war on terror. It’s a government that will be able to fight off al Qaeda and its desires to have a safe haven. And so I did visit with General Casey, and I came away once again with my trust in that man. I’ve told the people here around the table that the decisions that I will make will be based upon the recommendations of people like General George Casey. Q. Sir, several news organizations have reported about a program that allows the administration to look into the bank records of certain suspected terrorists. My questions are twofold: One, why have you not gone to Congress to ask for authorization for this program, five years after it started? And two, with respect, if neither the courts, nor the legislature is allowed to know about these programs, how can you feel confident the checks and balances system works? THE PRESIDENT: Congress was briefed. And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at
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war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America. What we were doing was the right thing. Congress was aware of it, and we were within the law to do so. The American people expect this government to protect our constitutional liberties and, at the same time, make sure we understand what the terrorists are trying to do. The 9/11 Commission recommended that the government be robust in tracing money. If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060626-2.html
President George W. Bush Discusses Foreign Policy During a Visit to the State Department, Washington, D.C., August 14, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: Today I met with members of my national security team, both here at the State Department and at the Pentagon.… During those discussions we talked about the need to transform our military to meet the threats of the 21st century. We discussed the global war on terror. We discussed the situation on the ground in three fronts of the global war on terror—in Lebanon, and Iraq, and Afghanistan. Friday’s U.N. Security Council resolution on Lebanon is an important step forward that will help bring an end to the violence. The resolution calls for a robust international force to deploy to the southern part of the country to help Lebanon’s legitimate armed forces restore the sovereignty of its democratic government over all Lebanese territory. As well, the resolution is intended to stop Hezbollah from acting as a state within the state. We’re now working with our international partners to turn the words of this resolution into action. We must help people in both Lebanon and Israel return to their homes and begin rebuilding their lives without fear of renewed violence and terror. America recognizes that civilians in Lebanon and Israel have suffered from the current violence, and we recognize that responsibility for this suffering lies with Hezbollah. It was an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah on Israel that started this conflict. Hezbollah terrorists targeted Israeli civilians with daily rocket attacks. Hezbollah terrorists used Lebanese civilians as human shields, sacrificing the innocent in an effort to protect themselves from Israeli response. Responsibility for the suffering of the Lebanese people also lies with Hezbollah’s state sponsors, Iran and Syria. The regime in Iran provides Hezbollah with financial support, weapons, and training. Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks. Syria is another state sponsor of Hezbollah. Syria allows Iranian weapons to pass through its territory into Lebanon. Syria permits Hezbollah’s leaders to operate out of Damascus and gives political support to Hezbollah’s cause.
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Syria supports Hezbollah because it wants to undermine Lebanon’s democratic government and regain its position of dominance in the country. That would be a great tragedy for the Lebanese people and for the cause of peace in the Middle East. Hezbollah and its foreign sponsors also seek to undermine the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Hezbollah terrorists kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, Hamas kidnapped another Israeli soldier for a reason. Hezbollah and Hamas reject the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security. Both groups want to disrupt the progress being made toward that vision by Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas and others in the region. We must not allow terrorists to prevent elected leaders from working together toward a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East. The conflict in Lebanon is part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region. For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by promoting stability in the Middle East. Yet the lack of freedom in the region meant anger and resentment grew, radicalism thrived and terrorists found willing recruits. We saw the consequences on September the 11th, 2001, when terrorists brought death and destruction to our country, killing nearly 3,000 of our citizens. Some say that America caused the current instability in the Middle East by pursuing a forward strategy of freedom, yet history shows otherwise. We didn’t talk much about freedom or the freedom agenda in the Middle East before September the 11th, 2001; or before al Qaeda first attacked the World Trade Center and blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in the 1990s; or before Hezbollah killed hundreds of Americans in Beirut and Islamic radicals held American hostages in Iran in the 1980s. History is clear: The freedom agenda did not create the terrorists or their ideology. But the freedom agenda will help defeat them both. Some say that the violence and instability we see today means that the people of this troubled region are not ready for democracy. I disagree. Over the past five years, people across the Middle East have bravely defied the car bombers and assassins to show the world that they want to live in liberty. We see the universal desire for liberty in the 12 million Iraqis who faced down the terrorists to cast their ballots, and elected a free government under a democratic constitution. We see the universal desire for liberty in 8 million Afghans who lined up to vote for the first democratic government in the long history of their country. We see the universal desire for liberty in the Lebanese people who took to the streets to demand their freedom and helped drive Syrian forces out of their country. The problem in the Middle East today is not that people lack the desire for freedom. The problem is that young democracies that they have established are still vulnerable to terrorists and their sponsors. One vulnerability is that many of the new democratic governments in the region have not yet established effective control over all their territory. In both Lebanon and Iraq, elected governments are contending with rogue armed groups that are seeking to undermine and destabilize them. In Lebanon, Hezbollah declared war on Lebanon’s neighbor, Israel, without the
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knowledge of the elected government in Beirut. In Iraq, al Qaeda and death squads engage in brutal violence to undermine the unity government. And in both these countries, Iran is backing armed groups in the hope of stopping democracy from taking hold. The message of this administration is clear: America will stay on the offense against al Qaeda. Iran must stop its support for terror. And the leaders of these armed groups must make a choice: If they want to participate in the political life of their countries, they must disarm. Elected leaders cannot have one foot in the camp of democracy and one foot in the camp of terror. … we’ll continue to support reformers inside and outside governments who are working to build the institutions of liberty. We’ll continue to confront terrorist organizations and their sponsors who destroy innocent lives. We’ll continue to work for the day when a democratic Israel and a democratic Palestine are neighbors in a peaceful and secure Middle East. Q. Despite what you’ve just said, there is a perception, a global perception, certainly in the Arab media and in many Western media, as well, that Hezbollah is really a winner here because they have proven that they could, as a guerrilla force, withstand the Israeli army. They have been the sole source of humanitarian aid to many of the Lebanese people in the south. So they’ve improved their position politically within Lebanon, and militarily, and globally. They’ve gotten an aura of being able to stand up for so long against Israel. How do you combat that, and the perception that we settled for less than we originally wanted in the U.N. resolution, a less robust force? And what actions can the United States or this international force take if Iran, for instance, tries to rearm Hezbollah? THE PRESIDENT: Yes. First of all, if I were Hezbollah I’d be claiming victory, too. But the people around the region and the world need to take a step back and recognize that Hezbollah’s action created a very strong reaction that, unfortunately, caused some people to lose their life, innocent people to lose their life. But on the other hand, it was Hezbollah that caused the destruction. People have got to understand—and it will take time … for people to see the truth—that Hezbollah hides behind innocent civilians as they attack. What’s really interesting is a mind-set—is the mind-sets of this crisis. Israel, when they aimed at a target and killed innocent citizens, were upset. Their society was aggrieved. When Hezbollah’s rockets killed innocent Israelis they celebrated. I think when people really take a look at the type of mentality that celebrates the loss of innocent life, they’ll reject that type of mentality. And so, Hezbollah, of course, has got a fantastic propaganda machine and they’re claiming victories and—but how can you claim victory when at one time you were a state within a state, safe within southern Lebanon, and now you’re going to be replaced by a Lebanese army and an international force? And that’s what we’re now working on, is to get the international force in southern Lebanon. None of this would have happened, by the way, had we—had 1559, Resolution 1559 been fully implemented. Now is the time to get it implemented.… SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060814-3.html
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President George W. Bush, Press Conference, White House Conference Center Briefing Room, August 21, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: … America is making a long-term commitment to help the people of Lebanon because we believe every person deserves to live in a free, open society that respects the rights of all. We reject the killing of innocents to achieve a radical and violent agenda. The terrorists and their state sponsors, Iran and Syria, have a much darker vision. They’re working to thwart the efforts of the Lebanese people to break free from foreign domination and build their own democratic future. The terrorists and their sponsors are not going to succeed. The Lebanese people have made it clear they want to live in freedom. And now it’s up to their friends and allies to help them do so. Q. More than 3,500 Iraqis were killed last month, the highest civilian monthly toll since the war began. Are you disappointed with the lack of progress by Iraq’s unity government in bringing together the sectarian and ethnic groups? THE PRESIDENT: No, I am aware that extremists and terrorists are doing everything they can to prevent Iraq’s democracy from growing stronger. That’s what I’m aware of. And, therefore, we have a plan to help them— ‘‘them,’’ the Iraqis—achieve their objectives. Part of the plan is political; that is the help the Maliki government work on reconciliation and to work on rehabilitating the community. The other part is, of course, security. And I have given our commanders all the flexibility they need to adjust tactics to be able to help the Iraqi government defeat those who want to thwart the ambitions of the people. And that includes a very robust security plan for Baghdad. … I hear a lot of talk about civil war. I’m concerned about that, of course, and I’ve talked to a lot of people about it. And what I’ve found from my talks are that the Iraqis want a unified country, and that the Iraqi leadership is determined to thwart the efforts of the extremists and the radicals and al Qaeda, and that the security forces remain united behind the government. And one thing is clear: The Iraqi people are showing incredible courage. There’s a lot of people—good, decent people, saying, withdraw now. They’re absolutely wrong. It would be a huge mistake for this country. If you think problems are tough now, imagine what it would be like if the United States leaves before this government has a chance to defend herself, govern herself, and listen to the—and answer to the will of the people. Q. Iran has indicated that it will defy the U.N. on nuclear enrichment. It’s been holding military exercises, sending weapons and money to Hezbollah. Is Tehran’s influence in the region growing, despite your efforts to curb it? THE PRESIDENT: … Iran is obviously part of the—part of the problem. They sponsor Hezbollah. They encourage a radical brand of Islam. Imagine how difficult this issue would be if Iran had a nuclear weapon. And so, therefore, it’s up to the international community, including the United States, to work in concert to—for effective diplomacy. And that begins at the United Nations Security Council. Q. … You’ve continually cited the elections, the new government, its progress in Iraq, and yet the violence has gotten worse in certain areas. You’ve
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had to go to Baghdad again. Is it not time for a new strategy? And if not, why not? THE PRESIDENT: … the Pentagon is constantly adjusting tactics because they have the flexibility from the White House to do so. Q. I’m talking about strategy— THE PRESIDENT: The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That’s the strategy. The tactics—now, either you say, yes, its important we stay there and get it done, or we leave. We’re not leaving, so long as I’m the President. That would be a huge mistake. It would send an unbelievably terrible signal to reformers across the region. It would say we’ve abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror. It would give the terrorists a safe haven from which to launch attacks. It would embolden Iran. It would embolden extremists. No, we’re not leaving. The strategic objective is to help this government succeed. That’s the strategic—and not only to help the government—the reformers in Iraq succeed, but to help the reformers across the region succeed to fight off the elements of extremism. The tactics are which change. Now, if you say, are you going to change your strategic objective, it means you’re leaving before the mission is complete. And we’re not going to leave before the mission is complete. I agree with General Abizaid: We leave before the mission is done, the terrorists will follow us here. And so we have changed tactics. Our commanders have got the flexibility necessary to change tactics on the ground, starting with Plan Baghdad. And that’s when we moved troops from Mosul into Baghdad and replaced them with the Stryker Brigade, so we increased troops during this time of instability. Q. You keep—you keep saying that you don’t want to leave. But is your strategy to win working? Even if you don’t want to leave? You’ve gone into Baghdad before, these things have happened before. THE PRESIDENT: If I didn’t think it would work, I would change—our commanders would recommend changing the strategy. They believe it will work. It takes time to defeat these people. The Maliki government has been in power for less than six months.… Obviously, I wish the violence would go down, but not as much as the Iraqi citizens would wish the violence would go down. But, incredibly enough, they show great courage, and they want our help. And any sign that says we’re going to leave before the job is done simply emboldens terrorists and creates a certain amount of doubt for people so they won’t take the risk necessary to help a civil society evolve in the country. This is a campaign—I’m sure they’re watching the campaign carefully. There are a lot of good, decent people saying, get out now; vote for me, I will do everything I can to, I guess, cut off money is what they’ll try to do to get our troops out. It’s a big mistake. It would be wrong, in my judgment, for us to leave before the mission is complete in Iraq. Q. When you talked today about the violence in Baghdad, first you mentioned extremists, radicals, and then al Qaeda. It seems that al Qaeda and foreign fighters are much less of a problem there, and that it really is Iraqi versus Iraqi. And when we heard about your meeting the other day with experts and so forth, some of the reporting out of that said you were frustrated, you were
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surprised. And your spokesman said, no, you’re determined. But frustration seems like a very real emotion. Why wouldn’t you be frustrated, sir, about what’s happening? THE PRESIDENT: I’m not—I do remember the meeting; I don’t remember being surprised. I’m not sure what they meant by that. Q. About the lack of gratitude among the Iraqi people. THE PRESIDENT: Oh. No, I think—first of all, to the first part of your question, if you look back at the words of Zarqawi before he was brought to justice, he made it clear that the intent of their tactics in Iraq was to create civil strife. In other words, look at what he said. He said, let’s kill Shia to get Shia to seek revenge, and therefore, to create this kind of—hopefully, a cycle of violence. Secondly, it’s pretty clear that at least the evidence indicates that the bombing of the shrine was an al Qaeda plot, all intending to create sectarian violence. No, al Qaeda is still very active in Iraq. As a matter of fact some of the more—I would guess, I would surmise that some of the more spectacular bombings are done by al Qaeda suiciders. No question there’s sectarian violence, as well. And the challenge is to provide a security plan such that a political process can go forward.… Look, eventually Iraq will succeed because the Iraqis will see to it that they succeed. And our job is to help them succeed. That’s our job. Our job is to help their forces be better equipped, to help their police be able to deal with these extremists, and to help their government succeed. Q. But are you frustrated, sir? THE PRESIDENT: Frustrated? Sometimes I’m frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I’m happy. This is—but war is not a time of joy. These aren’t joyous times. These are challenging times, and they’re difficult times, and they’re straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists. And our question is, do we have the capacity and the desire to spread peace by confronting these terrorists, and supporting those who want to live in liberty? That’s the question. And my answer to that question is, we must. We owe it to future generations to do so. Q. Mr. President, as you have reminded us a number of times, it was Hezbollah that started the confrontation between Israel and Lebanon. But you were supportive of the holding off of any kind of cease-fire until Israel had a chance to clear out the Hezbollah weapons. By all accounts, they did not exactly succeed in doing that. And by all accounts, the Lebanese army, as it moved into southern Lebanon, had a wink-and-a-nod arrangement with Hezbollah not to disturb anything, to just leave things as they are, a situation not unknown in the Middle East. Do you demand that the peacekeeping force, if and when it gets up and running, disarm Hezbollah? THE PRESIDENT: The truth of the matter is, if 1559, that’s the United Nations Security Council resolution number, had been fully implemented, we wouldn’t be in the situation we were in to begin with. There will be another resolution coming out of the United Nations giving further instructions to the international force. First things first, is to get the rules of engagement clear, so that the force will be robust to help the Lebanese.
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One thing is for certain—is that when this force goes into help Lebanon, Hezbollah won’t have that safe haven, or that kind of freedom to run in Lebanon’s southern border. In other words, there’s an opportunity to create a cushion, a security cushion. Hopefully, over time, Hezbollah will disarm. You can’t have a democracy with an armed political party willing to bomb its neighbor without the consent of its government, or deciding, well, let’s create enough chaos and discord by lobbing rockets. And so the reality is, in order for Lebanon to succeed—and we want Lebanon’s democracy to succeed—the process is going to—the Lebanese government is eventually going to have to deal with Hezbollah. Q. But it’s the status quo if there’s no disarming. THE PRESIDENT: Not really. I mean, yes, eventually, you’re right. But in the meantime, there will be a—there’s a security zone, something to—where the Lebanese army and the UNIFIL force are more robust, [the] UNIFIL force can create a security zone between Lebanon and Israel. That would be helpful. But, ultimately, you’re right. Your question is, shouldn’t Hezbollah disarm, and ultimately, they should. And it’s necessary, for the Lebanese government to succeed. … [W]e want the Siniora government to succeed. Part of our aid package is going to be help strengthen the army of Lebanon. Q. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out (of Iraq) seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn’t gone in. How do you square all of that? THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would—who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East. Now, look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was—the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn’t, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. But I also talked about the human suffering in Iraq, and I also talked the need to advance a freedom agenda. And so my question—my answer to your question is, is that, imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens. You know, I’ve heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of ‘‘we’re going to stir up the hornet’s nest’’ theory. It just doesn’t hold water, as far as I’m concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. Q. What did Iraq have to do with that? THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what? Q. The attack on the World Trade Center? THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it’s part of—and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq
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was a—the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case. And one way to defeat that—defeat resentment is with hope. And the best way to do hope is through a form of government. Now, I said going into Iraq that we’ve got to take these threats seriously before they fully materialize. I saw a threat. I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and I fully believe the world is better off without him. Now, the question is how do we succeed in Iraq? And you don’t succeed by leaving before the mission is complete, like some in this political process are suggesting. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060821.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see President Bush’s Address to the American Legion National Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah, August 31, 2006 (http://www.whitehouse. gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060831-1.html)
President George W. Bush Discusses Progress in the Global War on Terror, Cobb Galleria Centre, Atlanta, Georgia, September 7, 2006 I have come here to Atlanta to continue a series of speeches marking the fifth anniversary of the September the 11th, 2001 attacks … Today I’ll deliver a progress report on the steps we have taken since 9/11 to protect the American people, steps we’ve taken to go on the offense against the enemy, and steps we are taking to win this war on terror. In Atlanta, you know the pain of terrorism firsthand. This summer, you marked the 10th anniversary of the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park. That was the act of one madman. Next Monday is the fifth anniversary of an attack on our nation, and on that day, we awoke to a new kind of terrorism. Instead of a localized strike, we faced multiple attacks by a network of sophisticated and suicidal terrorists. In the years since, we’ve come to learn more about our enemies—we learned more about their dark and distorted vision of Islam. We learned about their plan to build a radical Islamic empire stretching from Spain to Indonesia. We learned about their dream to kill more Americans on an even more devastating scale.… Over the past five years, we have waged an unprecedented campaign against terror at home and abroad, and that campaign has succeeded in protecting the homeland. At the same time, we’ve seen our enemies strike in Britain, Spain, India, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia, Jordan, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. We’ve seen that the extremists have not given up on their dreams to strike our nation. Just last month, police and intelligence officers from Great Britain, with the help of the United States and other allies … foiled a suicide plot to blow up passenger planes on their way to the United States. Many Americans look at these events and ask the same question: Five years after 9/11, are we safer? The answer is, yes, America is safer. We are safer
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because we’ve taken action to protect the homeland. We are safer because we are on the offense against our enemies overseas. We’re safer because of the skill and sacrifice of the brave Americans who defend our people. Yet five years after 9/11, America still faces determined enemies, and we will not be safe until those enemies are finally defeated. One way to assess whether we’re safer is to look at what we have done to fix the problems that the 9/11 attacks revealed. And so today I’ll deliver a progress report. The information about the attacks in this report is largely drawn from the work of the 9/11 Commission and other investigations of the terrorist attacks. I’ll begin by looking back at four key stages of the 9/11 plot, the gaps in our defenses that each stage exposed, and the ways we’ve addressed those gaps to make this country safer. In the first key stage of the 9/11 plot, al Qaeda conceived and planned the attacks from abroad. In the summer of 1996, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa from Afghanistan … [a]nd declared war on the United States. A month later, the Taliban seized control of Kabul, and formed an alliance with al Qaeda. The Taliban permitted bin Laden to operate a system of training camps in the country, which ultimately instructed more than 10,000 in terrorist tactics … With his fellow al Qaeda leaders, Osama bin Laden used his safe haven to prepare a series of attacks on America and on the civilized world. In August 1998, they carried out their first big strike—the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, which killed more than 200 people and wounded thousands. Shortly after the embassy bombings, bin Laden approved another attack. This one was called ‘‘the planes operation.’’ Our intelligence agencies believe it was suggested by a fellow terrorist named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—or KSM. KSM’s plan was to hijack commercial airliners and to crash them into buildings in the United States.… The ‘‘planes operation’’ would become the 9/11 plot—and by the middle of 1999, KSM was at work recruiting suicide operatives to hijack the airplanes. The first stage of the 9/11 plot exposed serious flaws in America’s approach to terrorism. Most important, it showed that by allowing states to give safe haven to terrorist networks that we made a grave mistake. So after 9/11, I set forth a new doctrine: Nations that harbor or support terrorists are equally guilty as the terrorists, and will be held to account. And the Taliban found out what we meant. With Afghan allies, we removed the Taliban from power, and we closed down the al Qaeda training camps. Five years later, Taliban and al Qaeda remnants are desperately trying to retake control of that country. They will fail. They will fail because the Afghan people have tasted freedom. They will fail because their vision is no match for a democracy … because they are no match for the military forces of a free Afghanistan, a NATO Alliance, and the United States of America. Our offensive against the terrorists includes far more than military might. We use financial tools to make it harder for them to raise money. We’re using diplomatic pressure, and our intelligence operations are used to disrupt the day-to-day functions of al Qaeda. Because we’re on the offense, it is more difficult for al Qaeda to transfer money through the international banking system. Because we’re on the offense, al Qaeda can no longer communicate
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openly without fear of destruction. And because we’re on the offense, al Qaeda can no longer move widely without fearing for their lives. I learned a lot of lessons on 9/11, and one lesson is this: In order to protect this country, we will keep steady pressure, unrelenting pressure on al Qaeda and its associates. We will deny them safe haven; we will find them and we will bring them to justice. In the second key stage of the 9/11 plot, KSM and bin Laden identified, trained, and deployed operatives to the United States. According to the 9/11 Commission, two of the first suicide hijackers to join the plot were men named Hazmi and Mihdhar. KSM’s plan was to send these two men to infiltrate the United States and train as pilots, so they could fly the hijacked planes into buildings. Both operatives attended a special training camp in Afghanistan, and then traveled to Malaysia and Thailand to prepare for their trip to America.… And from Thailand, the two men flew to Los Angeles in January 2000. There they began carrying out the plot from inside our nation. They made phone calls to planners of the attack overseas, and they awaited the arrival of the other killers. Our intelligence community picked up some of this information. CIA analysts saw links between Mihdhar and al Qaeda, and officers tracked Mihdhar to Malaysia.… Yet, at the time, there was no consolidated terrorist watchlist available to all federal agencies, and state and local governments. So, even though intelligence officers suspected that both men were dangerous, the information was not readily accessible to American law enforcement—and the operatives slipped into our country. Since 9/11, we’ve addressed the gaps in our defenses that these operatives exploited. We’ve upgraded technology; we’ve added layers of security to correct weaknesses in our immigration and visa systems. Today, visa applicants like Hazmi or Mihdhar would have to appear for face-to-face for interviews. They would be fingerprinted and screened against an extensive database of known or suspected terrorists. And when they arrived on American soil, they would be checked again to make sure their fingerprints matched the fingerprints on their visas. Those procedures did not exist before 9/11. With these steps we made it harder for these—people like these guys to infiltrate our country. Nine-Eleven also revealed the need for a coordinated approach to terrorist watchlists. So we established common criteria for posting terrorists on a consolidated terrorist watchlist that is now widely available across federal, state, and local jurisdictions.… By putting terrorists’ names on a consolidated watchlist, we’ve improved our ability to monitor and to track and detain operatives before they can strike. Another top priority after 9/11 was improving our ability to monitor terrorist communications.… At my direction, the National Security Agency created the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Before 9/11, our intelligence professionals found it difficult to monitor international communications such as those between the al Qaeda operatives secretly in the United States and planners of the 9/11 attacks. The Terrorist Surveillance Program helps protect Americans by allowing us to track terrorist communications, so we can learn about threats like the 9/11 plot before it is too late.
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Last year, details of the Terrorist Surveillance Program were leaked to the news media, and the program was then challenged in court. That challenge was recently upheld by a federal district judge in Michigan. My administration strongly disagrees with the ruling. We are appealing it, and we believe our appeal will be successful. Yet a series of protracted legal challenges would put a heavy burden on this critical and vital program. The surest way to keep the program is to get explicit approval from the United States Congress. So today I’m calling on the Congress to promptly pass legislation providing additional authority for the Terrorist Surveillance Program, along with broader reforms in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. When FISA was passed in 1978, there was no widely accessible Internet, and almost all calls were made on fixed landlines. Since then, the nature of communications has changed, quite dramatically.… In the third key stage of the 9/11 plot, the rest of the 19 al Qaeda operatives arrived in the United States.… During this stage, law enforcement and intelligence authorities failed to share the insights they were learning about the 9/11 plot. For example, an FBI intelligence analyst working at the CIA came across information that raised her suspicions about Hazmi and Mihdhar. But she did not relay her concerns to FBI criminal investigators because of a wall—or ‘‘the wall’’ that had developed over the years between law enforcement and intelligence. … [T]hroughout the government, there was an assumption that law enforcement and intelligence were legally prohibited from sharing vital information. At one point, key officials from the CIA, the intelligence branch of the FBI, the criminal branch of the FBI were all sitting around the same table in New York, but they believed that ‘‘the wall’’ prohibited them from telling each other what they knew about Hazmi and Mihdhar, and so they never put the pieces together. By the summer of 2001, intelligence about a possible terrorist attack was increasing. In July, an FBI agent in Phoenix noted that a large number of suspicious men were attending flight schools in Arizona. He speculated that this activity might be part of a bin Laden plan to attack inside the United States. The following month, the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis began an investigation into Moussaoui. He was soon arrested on immigration charges, and Minneapolis agents sought a FISA warrant to search his computer. FBI Headquarters turned them down, saying that the case did not justify a FISA request because there was not enough intelligence tying Moussaoui to a foreign power. The FBI later learned that Moussaoui had attended an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan—but the information didn’t arrive until September the 13th. It is clear, after 9/11, something needed to be done to the system, something needed to be changed to protect the American people. And it is clear to me that this started with transforming the FBI to ensure that it would effectively and quickly respond to potential terrorists’ attacks. And so now the top priority of the FBI, since 9/11—the culture of that important agency, full of decent people, has changed. The top priority is to protect the American people from terrorist attack. The Bureau has hired large numbers of counterterrorism agents and analysts. They’re focusing resources on what they need to
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do to protect America. They created a unified National Security Branch to coordinate terrorist investigations. They expanded the number of Joint Terrorism Task Forces. And the Bureau is submitting more FISA requests in terrorist cases. In other words, they understand the challenge. And the FBI is changing to meet those challenges.… At every level, America’s law enforcement officers now have a clear goal—to identify, locate, and stop terrorists before they can kill people. Since the attacks, we’ve also worked with Congress to do something about that wall that prevented intelligence and criminal investigators from talking to each other. The wall made no sense. It reflected an old way of thinking. And so I called upon Congress to pass … legislation that would tear down the wall … called the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act has increased the flow of information within our government and it has helped break up terrorist cells in the United States of America.… We created the National Counterterrorism Center, where law enforcement and intelligence personnel work side-by-side in the same headquarters. This center hosts secure video teleconferences every day that allow for seamless communication among the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies … We created the position of the Director of National Intelligence to operate the intelligence community as a single unified enterprise. We set up the Terrorist Screening Center, which maintains the government’s master list of suspected terrorists, and helps get this information in the hands of state and local law enforcement. Today, a police officer who stops a driver for a routine traffic violation can access terrorist watchlists and be automatically directed to the Terrorist Screening Center if there’s a match. We’ve learned the lessons of September the 11th. We’re changing how people can work together. We’re modernizing the system. We’re working to connect the dots to stop the terrorists from hurting America again. The fourth and final stage of the 9/11 plot came on the morning of the attack. Starting around 6:45 A.M., the 19 hijackers, including Hazmi and Mihdhar, checked in, cleared security, and boarded commercial jets bound for the West Coast. Some of the hijackers were flagged by the passenger prescreening system. But because the security rules at the time focused on preventing bombs on airplanes, the only precaution required was to hold the operatives’ checked baggage until they boarded the airplane. Several hijackers were also carrying small knives or box cutters, and when they reached the security checkpoints, they set off metal detectors. The screeners wanded them, but let them board their planes without verifying what had set off the alarms. When the flights took off, the men hijacked each plane in a similar way—they stabbed or subdued the pilots and crew, they seized control of the cockpit and they started flying the airplane.… We have taken many steps to address the security gaps that the hijackers exploited that morning. We created the Transportation Security Administration to ensure that every passenger and every bag is screened. We increased the number of federal air marshals on domestic and international flights. We trained and authorized thousands of pilots to carry firearms. We hardened cockpit doors to prevent terrorists from gaining access to the controls. We merged 22 government agencies into a single Department of Homeland
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Security, and tripled spending for homeland security on our airlines, on our ports, and our borders and other critical areas. We will continue to provide the resources necessary to secure this homeland. Even if all the steps I’ve outlined this morning had been taken before 9/11, no one can say for sure that we would have prevented the attack. We can say that if America had these reforms in place in 2001, the terrorists would have found it harder to plan and finance their operations, harder to slip into the country undetected, and harder to board the airplanes and take control of the cockpits, and succeed in striking their targets. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060907-2.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, Reserve Officers Association, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2006 I want to speak to you today about the struggle between moderation and extremism that is unfolding across the broader Middle East. At this moment, terrorists and extremists are fighting to overthrow moderate governments in the region, so they can take control of countries and use them as bases from which to attack America and from which to impose their hateful ideology. This is the challenge of our time. This is the call of a generation, to stand against the extremists and support moderate leaders across the broader Middle East, to help us all secure a future of peace. This week in Washington, I met with two courageous leaders who are working for peace—President Karzai of Afghanistan, and President Musharraf of Pakistan. These leaders understand the stakes in the struggle—in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. They understand the stakes from a personal perspective, as well, since the extremists have tried to assassinate them. They are courageous people. They have seen the destruction that terrorists have caused in their own country, and they know this, that the only way to stop them is to work together and to stay on the offense. By standing with brave leaders like these, we are defending civilization itself, and we’re building a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren. Five years ago, Afghanistan was ruled by the brutal Taliban regime. Under the Taliban and al Qaeda, Afghanistan was a land where women were imprisoned in their own homes, where men were beaten for missing prayer meetings, where girls couldn’t even go to school.… Under al Qaeda and the Taliban, Afghanistan was a terrorist safe haven and a launching pad for the horrific attacks … on September the 11th, 2001. After 9/11, America gave the leaders of the Taliban a choice. We told them that they must turn over all the leaders of al Qaeda hiding in their land. We told them they must close every terrorist training camp and hand over every terrorist to appropriate authorities. We told them they must give the United States full access to the terrorist training camps, so they could make sure they were no longer operating. We told them these demands were not up for negotiation, and that if they did not comply immediately and hand over the terrorists, they would share in the same fate as the terrorists.
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I felt these were reasonable demands. The Taliban regime chose unwisely— so within weeks after the 9/11 attacks, our coalition launched Operation Enduring Freedom. By December 2001, the Taliban regime had been removed from power, hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters had been captured or killed, and the terrorist camps where the enemy had planned the 9/11 attacks were shut down. We did what we said we were going to do. We made our intentions clear. We gave the Taliban a chance to make the right decision. They made the wrong decision, and we liberated Afghanistan. … It’s in our interests that we help this young democracy survive and grow strong. We helped them build security forces they need to defend their democratic gains. In the past five years, our coalition has trained and equipped more than 30,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army—and at this moment, several thousand more are in training at a Kabul Military Training Center.… Our coalition has also trained about 46,000 members of the Afghan National Police. The training of the Afghan police has not gone as smoothly as that of the army. The police have faced problems with corruption and substandard leadership. And we’ve made our concerns known to our friends in the Afghan government. When we see a problem, we adjust, we change. And so this year, President Karzai’s government announced a new team to lead the National Police. As the police become more capable, and better led, and more disciplined, they will gain legitimacy and they will earn the respect of the Afghan people. The army and police are good fighters. At this moment, more than 21,000 American troops and more than 20,000 personnel from 40 countries are deployed in Afghanistan. In the summer of 2003, NATO took over the International Security Assistance Force—it’s called ISAF, in Afghanistan—NATO’s first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area. Other nations besides the United States understand the importance of helping this young democracy survive and thrive and grow. Since then, NATO has expanded ISAF from a small force that was operating only in Kabul into a robust force that has taken responsibility for security in nearly 60 percent of the country. And this week, NATO announced that it would take over security operations in all of Afghanistan in the coming weeks. Under the plan, the U.S. will transfer 12,000 of our troops that are now serving in the country to the NATO force, while the rest will remain under coalition command and continue anti-terrorist operations across the country. We saw the effectiveness of NATO forces this summer, when NATO took responsibility from the United States for security operations in Southern Afghanistan. The Taliban saw the transfer of the region from the United States to NATO control as a window of opportunity. They saw it as an opportunity to test the will of nations under than the United States.… So the Taliban massed an estimated 800 to 900 fighters near Kandahar to face the NATO force head on. And that was a mistake. Earlier this month, NATO launched Operation Medusa. Together with the Afghan National Army, troops from Canada, and Denmark, and the Netherlands, and Britain, and the United States engaged the enemy—with operational support from Romanian, and Portuguese, and Estonian Forces. According to NATO
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Commanders, NATO forces killed hundreds of Taliban fighters. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General Jones, a United States Marine, says this about the NATO operation in Southern Afghanistan: ‘‘The Taliban decided to make a test case of this region. And they paid a very heavy price for it.… [The operation sent a] signal to the insurgents [that] NATO forces would not back down.’’ The operation also sent a clear message to the Afghan people: that NATO is standing with you … The people from NATO must understand that they’re helping a young democracy defend itself and protect its people. And in so doing, they’re helping to lay the foundation of peace in the ideological struggle of the 21st century The NATO deployment has begun to bring security and reconstruction to a region that had previously had little, and has allowed the United States and Afghan forces to stay on the offense. And so we launched another major offensive in the East called Operation Mountain Fury. The operation is … aimed at clearing out enemy safe havens in five Afghan provinces—including three provinces bordering Pakistan. The operation is being led by about 4,000 Afghan forces, and supported by about 3,000 of our finest. As Afghan and coalition forces clear out the enemy, then we will follow up with reconstruction assistance—so we can improve the quality of life for local Afghans, and help extend the authority of the central government to distant areas of the country. … [T]he enemy understands what we’re doing, and they don’t like it. That’s why they’re reacting the way they’re reacting. They understand that the arrival of Afghan and coalition forces in the region means that the government is beginning to win the hearts of the people. In many of these regions, the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, and drug traffickers, and criminal elements have enjoyed free reign. There hasn’t been any countervailing force to their presence. … [T]hey do more than just fight our forces. They destroy schools and they destroy clinics; they do everything in their power to intimidate local folks. The enemies of a free Afghanistan are brutal and they’re determined—and we’re not going to let them succeed. NATO, and coalition, and Afghan forces will continue to fight the enemy. We will stay on the offense, and we’re going to help this government of President Karzai bring a better life to his people. To bring a better life to the Afghan people, our coalition and NATO forces have deployed 23 Provincial Reconstruction Teams across Afghanistan. These teams are important because we’re talking about a country that has been torn apart because of war over the years. The teams are led by Sweden, and Norway, and Germany, and Hungary, and Italy, and Spain, and Lithuania, and Canada, and Britain, and the Netherlands, and the United States. And these teams are bringing security and reconstruction assistance to distant regions of the country. And to link the distant regions to the capital, we’ve got a strategy —it’s called building roads. This is a country that is in dire need for transportation. And since the liberation of Afghanistan, we’ve provided more than $4.5 billion for reconstruction throughout the country. We’re helping with electricity, and irrigation, and water, and sanitation, and other necessities. Our coalition is working with President Karzai to strengthen the institutions of … Afghanistan’s young democracy. We understand that the institutions
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must be strengthened and reformed for democracy to survive. And one of the areas most in need of reform is the nation’s legal system. Recently, President Karzai took important steps to strengthen the rule of law, when he appointed a new Attorney General and judges to serve on Afghanistan’s Supreme Court. Our coalition is helping his government institutionalize these changes. Italy, for example, is helping to train Afghan judges, and prosecutors, and public defenders, and court administrators so all Afghans can receive equal justice under the law. And from the beginning, our actions in Afghanistan have had a clear purpose—in other words, our goals are clear for people to understand—and that is to rid that country of the Taliban and the terrorists, and build a lasting free society that will be an ally in the war on terror. And from the beginning, the American people have heard the critics say we’re failing—but their reasons keep changing. In the first days of Operation Enduring Freedom, the critics warned that we were heading toward a ‘‘quagmire.’’ And then when the Taliban fell, and operations began in Iraq, the critics held up the multinational coalition in Afghanistan as a model, and said it showed that everything we were doing in Iraq was wrong. And now some of the critics who praised the multinational coalition we built in Afghanistan claim that the country is in danger of failing because we don’t have enough American troops there. Five years ago, another country that faced a choice was Pakistan. At the time of 9/11, Pakistan was only one of three nations that recognized the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda had a large presence in Pakistan. There was a strong radical Islamic movement in that country. Some of the 9/11 hijackers were housed and trained in Pakistan. Pakistan’s future was in doubt—and President Musharraf understood that he had to make a fundamental choice for his people. He could turn a blind eye and leave the people hostage to the extremists, or he could join the free world in fighting the extremists and the terrorists. President Musharraf made the choice to fight for freedom, and the United States of America is grateful for his leadership. Within two days of the September the 11th attacks, the Pakistani government committed itself to stop al Qaeda operatives at its border, to share intelligence on terrorist activities and movements, and to break off all ties with the Taliban government if it refused to hand over Bin Laden and the al Qaeda. President Musharraf’s decision to fight the terrorists was made at great personal risk. They have tried to kill him as a result of his decision … President Musharraf’s courageous choice to join the struggle against extremism has saved American lives. His government has helped capture or kill many senior terrorist leaders. For example, Pakistani forces helped capture Abu Zubaydah—a man we believe to be a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. Pakistani forces helped capture another individual believed to be one of the key plotters of the 9/11 attacks—Ramzi bin al Shibh. Pakistani forces helped capture the man our intelligence community believes masterminded the 9/11 attacks—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Once captured, these men were taken into custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The questioning of these and other suspected terrorists provided information that helped us protect the American people. They helped
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us break up a cell of Southeast Asian terrorist operatives that had been groomed for attacks inside the United States. They helped us disrupt an al Qaeda operation to develop anthrax for terrorist attacks. They helped us stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, and to prevent a planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger planes and to fly them into Heathrow Airport and London’s Canary Wharf. Were it not for the information gained from the terrorists captured with the help of Pakistan, our intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. Our close cooperation with the government of Pakistan has saved American lives—and America is grateful to have a strong and steadfast ally in the war against these terrorists. President Musharraf understands that the terrorists hide in remote regions and travel back and forth across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And so we’re helping his government establish stronger control over these border areas. We are helping him to equip the nation’s paramilitary Frontier Corps that is policing the border regions. The United States is funding the construction of more than 100 border outposts, which will provide Pakistani forces with better access to remote areas of the country’s western border. We’re providing high-tech equipment to help Pakistani forces better locate terrorists attempting to cross the border. We are funding an air wing with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft … And as we work with President Musharraf to bring security to his country, we’re also supporting him as he takes steps to build a modern and moderate nation, that will hold free and fair elections next year. In an address to his fellow citizens earlier this year, President Musharraf declared this: ‘‘We have to eliminate extremism in our society. It will eat us up from within. So it is my appeal to all of you to shun extremism. Adopt the path of moderation … we will eliminate this extremism in our society and then Pakistan will be considered a moderate, developed country.’’ President Musharraf has a clear vision for his country as a nation growing in freedom and prosperity and peace. And as he stands against the terrorists and for the free future of his country, the United States of America will stand with him. In both Pakistan and Afghanistan, America has strong allies who are committed to rooting out the terrorists in their midst … On Wednesday night, I had dinner with Presidents Musharraf and Karzai at the White House. We had a long and we had a frank conversation about the challenges we face in defeating the extremists and the terrorists in their countries, and providing the people of these two nations an alternative to the dark ideology of the enemy. We discussed the best ways to improve intelligence sharing so that we can target and eliminate the leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban. We resolved to strengthen the institutions of civil society in both countries. We agreed on the need to support tribal leaders on both sides of the border. By helping these local leaders build schools, and roads, and health clinics, we will help them build a better life for their communities, and strengthen their hand against—to fight against the extremists. It was clear from our
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conversation that our three nations share the same goals: We will defeat the Taliban, we will defeat al Qaeda, and the only way to do it is by working together. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060929-3.html
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on the National Intelligence Estimate and Iraq, September 30, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: Today I want to talk to you about a matter of national security that has been in the news—the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism. The NIE is a classified document that analyzes the threat we face from terrorists and extremists. Parts of this classified document were recently leaked to the press. That has created a heated debate in our Nation’s capital, and a lot of misimpressions about the document’s conclusions. I believe the American people should read the document themselves and come to their own conclusions, so I declassified its key judgments. The National Intelligence Estimate confirms that we are up against a determined and capable enemy. The NIE lists four underlying factors that are fueling the extremist movement: first, long-standing grievances such as corruption, injustice, and a fear of Western domination; second, the jihad in Iraq; third, the slow pace of reform in Muslim nations; and fourth, pervasive anti-Americanism. It concludes that terrorists are exploiting all these factors to further their movement. Some in Washington have selectively quoted from this document to make the case that by fighting the terrorists in Iraq, we are making our people less secure here at home. This argument buys into the enemy’s propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we are provoking them. Here is what Prime Minister Tony Blair said this week about that argument: ‘‘This terrorism isn’t our fault. We didn’t cause it. It’s not the consequence of foreign policy.’’ Prime Minister Blair is right. We do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism. The terrorists are at war against us because they hate everything America stands for, and because they know we stand in the way of their ambitions to take over the Middle East. We are fighting to stop them from taking over Iraq and turning that country into a safe haven that would be even more valuable than the one they lost in Afghanistan. Iraq is not the reason the terrorists are at war against us. Our troops were not in Iraq when terrorists first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, or when terrorists blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, or when they bombed the USS Cole, or when they killed nearly 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001. Five years after the 9/11 attacks, some people in Washington still do not understand the nature of the enemy. The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world. When terrorists spend their days working to avoid capture, they are less able to plot, plan, and execute new attacks on our people. So we will remain on the offense until the terrorists are defeated and this fight is won. In my recent speeches, I’ve said we are in the early hours of a long struggle for civilization, and that our safety depends on the outcome of the battle in Iraq. The National Intelligence Estimate declares ‘‘perceived jihadist
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success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.’’ It also says that ‘‘Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.’’ Withdrawing from Iraq before the enemy is defeated would embolden the terrorists. It would help them find new recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks on our Nation, and it would give the terrorists a new sanctuary in the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions. America must not allow this to happen. We are a Nation that keeps its commitments to those who long for liberty and want to live in peace. We will stand with the nearly 12 million Iraqis who voted for their freedom, and we will help them fight and defeat the terrorists there, so we do not have to face them here at home. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060930.html
President George W. Bush, Meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, The White House, December 7, 2006 PRESIDENT BUSH: … I just had a good visit with Prime Minister Tony Blair.… I appreciate your clear view that we are confronted with a struggle between moderation and extremism. And this is particularly evident in the broader Middle East. I talked about my recent trip to Jordan, where I talked to Prime Minister Maliki. I briefed the Prime Minister on my visit with His Eminence, Mr. Hakim, one of the major political players in Iraq. We discussed the report I received yesterday from the Iraq Study Group, a report chaired by Secretary of State—former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. I told the Prime Minister I thought this was a very constructive report. I appreciated the fact that they laid out a series of recommendations, and they’re worthy of serious study. I also updated the Prime Minister on the reviews that are being conducted by the Pentagon and the State Department and our National Security Council. I talked to him about the consultations I’m having with the United States Congress. We agree that victory in Iraq is important; it’s important for the Iraqi people, it’s important for the security of the United States and Great Britain, and it’s important for the civilized world. We agree that an Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself as an ally on the war on terror is a noble goal. The Prime Minister and I seek a wide range of opinions about how to go forward in Iraq, and I appreciate your opinions and your advice. The increase in sectarian attacks we’re seeing in and around Baghdad are unsettling. It has led to much debate in both our countries about the nature of the war that is taking place in Iraq. And it is true that Sunni and Shia extremists are targeting each other’s innocent civilians and engaging in brutal reprisals. It’s also true that forces beyond Iraq’s borders contribute to this violence. And the Prime Minister put it this way, he said, ‘‘The violence is not an accident or a result of faulty planning. It is a deliberate strategy. It is the direct result of outside extremists teaming up with internal extremists—al Qaeda
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with the Sunni insurgents, and Iran with the Shia militia—to foment hatred and to throttle, at birth, the possibility of a non-sectarian democracy.’’ … The primary victims of the sectarian violence are the moderate majority of Iraqis—Sunni and Shia alike—who want a future of peace. The primary beneficiaries are Sunni and Shia extremists, inside and outside of Iraq, who want chaos in that country so they can take control and further their ambitions to dominate the region. These Sunni and Shia extremists have important differences, yet they agree on one thing: the rise of free and democratic societies in the Middle East where people can practice their faith, choose their leaders, and live together in peace would be a decisive blow to their cause. And so they’re supporting extremists across the region who are working to undermine young democracies.… In Iraq, they support terrorists and death squads who are fomenting sectarian violence in an effort to bring down the elected government of Prime Minister Maliki. In Lebanon, they’re supporting Hezbollah, which recently declared its intention to force the collapse of Prime Minister Siniora’s democratically-elected parliament and government. In Afghanistan, they’re supporting remnants of the Taliban that are seeking to destabilize President Karzai’s government and regain power. In the Palestinian Territories, they are working to stop moderate leaders like President Abbas from making progress toward the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. In each of these places, radicals and extremists are using terror to stop the spread of freedom. And they do so because they want to spread their ideologies—their ideologies of hate—and impose their rule on this vital part of the world. And should they succeed, history will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity and demand to know, what happened? How come free nations did not act to preserve the peace? Prime Minister Blair and I understand that we have a responsibility to lead and to support moderates and reformers who work for change across the broader Middle East. We also recognize that meeting this responsibility requires action. We will take concerted efforts to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. Prime Minister Blair informed me that he will be heading to the Middle East soon to talk to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. And I support that mission. I support the mission because it’s important for us to advance the cause of two states living side by side in peace, and helping both parties eliminate the obstacles that prevent an agreement from being reached. And your strong leadership on this issue matters a lot. We’ll support the democratic government of Prime Minister Maliki as he makes difficult decisions and confronts the forces of terror and extremism that are working hard to tear his country apart. Britain and America are old allies, and the Prime Minister and I are strong friends. But Britain and America aren’t standing together in this war because of friendship. We’re standing together because our two nations face an unprecedented threat to civilization. We’re standing together to prevent terrorists and extremists from dominating the Middle East. We stand together to prevent extremists from regaining the safe haven they lost in Afghanistan, a safe haven from which they launched attacks that killed thousands …
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We stand together because we understand the only way to secure a lasting peace for our children and grandchildren is to defeat the extremist ideologies and help the ideology of hope, democracy, prevail. We know the only way to secure peace for ourselves is to help millions of moms and dads across the Middle East build what our citizens already have: societies based on liberty that will allow their children to grow up in peace and opportunity. It’s a tough time. And it’s a difficult moment for America and Great Britain. And the task before us is daunting. Yet our nations have stood before in difficult moments. Sixty-five years ago this day, America was jolted out of our isolationism and plunged into a global war that Britain had been fighting for two years. In that war, our nation stood firm. And there were difficult moments during that war, yet the leaders of our two nations never lost faith in the capacity to prevail. We will stand firm again in this first war of the 21st century. We will defeat the extremists and the radicals. We will help a young democracy prevail in Iraq. And in so doing, we will secure freedom and peace for millions, including our own citizens. PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: … Thank you also for the clarity of your vision about the mission that we’re engaged in at the moment, which is a struggle between freedom and democracy on the one hand, and terrorism and sectarianism on the other. And it’s a noble mission, and it’s the right mission, and it’s important for our world that it succeeds. And so the question is, how do we make sure that it does, indeed, succeed? And in respect of Iraq, I, like you, welcome the Baker-Hamilton study group. It offers a strong way forward. I think it is important now we concentrate on the elements that are necessary to make sure that we succeed, because the consequences of failure are severe. And I believe this is a mission we have to succeed in and we can succeed in. Q. Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister, neither of you has shown much doubt about your Iraq policies. Do you acknowledge that your approach has failed, as Baker-Hamilton suggests? And are you willing to engage directly with Syria and Iran and pull out most combat forces by early 2008, unless there’s unexpected circumstances? PRESIDENT BUSH: The thing I liked about the Baker-Hamilton report is it discussed the way forward in Iraq. And I believe we need a new approach. And that’s why I’ve tasked the Pentagon to analyze the way forward. That’s why Prime Minister Blair is here to talk about the way forward, so we can achieve the objective, which is an Iraq which can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror. And the Baker-Hamilton report did some very interesting things. First, it shows that Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve—to come up with a strategy to achieve an objective, something the American people don’t think is possible to happen. In other words, they’ve seen elections, and they saw all the bitterness and finger-pointing and name-calling and wonder whether or not we can work together on this important cause. And I believe we can.… And so that’s why I’m sitting down with the members of Congress to say to both Republicans and Democrats, this is an important cause. It’s important
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for our security; it’s important to help lay the foundations for peace, and I want to hear your ideas. And I thought the report did a good job of showing what is possible. Congress isn’t going to accept every recommendation in the report, and neither will the administration. But there’s a lot of very important things in the report that we ought to seriously consider. … [T]he idea of having an international group is an interesting idea. We’ve already got the compact, and I think the Baker-Hamilton report suggests that we broaden the compact beyond just economic measures. But one thing is for certain, when people—if people come to the table to discuss Iraq, they need to come understanding their responsibilities to not fund terrorists, to help this young democracy survive, to help with the economics of the country. And if people are not committed, if Syria and Iran is not committed to that concept, then they shouldn’t bother to show up. Thirdly, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is important to have—is important to be solved. I’m committed to a two state solution. I believe it is in Israel’s interest and the Palestinian people’s interest to have two states living side by side for peace.… And there are two notable obstacles. One, one is the prisoner; and secondly, is for there to be a unity government that recognizes the principles of the Quartet, with which Israel can negotiate. And we want to help. And so I view this as a very important way forward, important concepts. And the American people expect us to come up with a new strategy to achieve the objective which I’ve been talking about and which is laid out in the Baker-Hamilton report. Q. Mr. President, the Iraq Study Group described the situation in Iraq as grave and deteriorating. You said that the increase in attacks is unsettling. That won’t convince many people that you’re still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq, and question your sincerity about changing course. PRESIDENT BUSH: It’s bad in Iraq. Does that help? Q. Why did it take others to say it before you’ve been willing to acknowledge for the world— PRESIDENT BUSH: In all due respect, I’ve been saying it a lot. I understand how tough it is. And I’ve been telling the American people how tough it is. And they know how tough it is. And the fundamental question is, do we have a plan to achieve our objective? Are we willing to change as the enemy has changed? And what the Baker-Hamilton study has done is it shows good ideas as to how to go forward. What our Pentagon is doing is figuring out ways to go forward, all aiming to achieve our objective. Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die. I understand there’s sectarian violence. I also understand that we’re hunting down al Qaeda on a regular basis and we’re bringing them to justice. I understand how hard our troops are working. I know how brave the men and women who wear the uniform are, and therefore, they’ll have the full support of this government. I understand what long deployments mean to wives and husbands, and mothers and fathers, particularly as we come into a holiday season. I understand. And I have made it abundantly clear how tough it is. I also believe we’re going to succeed. I believe we’ll prevail. Not only do I know how important it is to prevail, I believe we will prevail. I understand
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how hard it is to prevail. But I also want the American people to understand that if we were to fail—and one way to assure failure is just to quit, is not to adjust, and say it’s just not worth it—if we were to fail, that failed policy will come to hurt generations of Americans in the future. And as I said in my opening statement, I believe we’re in an ideological struggle between forces that are reasonable and want to live in peace, and radicals and extremists. And when you throw into the mix radical Shia and radical Sunni trying to gain power and topple moderate governments, with energy which they could use to blackmail Great Britain or America, or anybody else who doesn’t kowtow to them, and a nuclear weapon in the hands of a government that is—would be using that nuclear weapon to blackmail to achieve political objectives—historians will look back and say, how come Bush and Blair couldn’t see the threat? That’s what they’ll be asking. And I want to tell you, I see the threat and I believe it is up to our governments to help lead the forces of moderation to prevail. It’s in our interests. Q. You mentioned Iran and Syria as part of this regional effort. Are you willing to engage with them directly as the report—as the report recommends? And back to the issue of the troops, is it possible to get them out of Iraq by early 2008, as the report talks about? And when do you hope to have this report? PRESIDENT BUSH: You mean, when—when do I hope to announce the strategy, is that what you’re talking about? After I get the reports. And BakerHamilton is a really important part of our considerations. But we want to make sure the military gets their point of view in. After all, a lot of what we’re doing is a military operation. I want to make sure the State Department is able to help us analyze the strategy to make sure that we’ve got the right political emphasis, not only inside Iraq but outside Iraq. … [L]et me talk about engaging Iran. We have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a possible change in U.S. policy, a policy that’s been in place for 27 years, and that is that if they would like to engage the United States, that they’ve got to verifiably suspend their enrichment program. We’ve made our choice. Iran now has an opportunity to make its choice. I would hope they would make the choice that most of the free world wants them to make, which is there is no need to have a weapons program; there is no need to isolate your people; there’s no need to continue this obstinance when it comes to your stated desires to have a nuclear weapon. It’s not in your interest to do so. And should they agree to verifiably suspend their enrichment, the United States will be at the table with our partners. It’s really interesting to talk about conversations with countries—which is fine; I can understand why people speculate about it—but there should be no mistake in anybody’s mind, these countries understand our position. They know what’s expected of them. There is—if we were to have a conversation, it would be this one, to Syria: Stop destabilizing the Siniora government. We believe that the Siniora government should be supported, not weakened. Stop allowing money and arms to cross your border into Iraq. Don’t provide safe haven for terrorist groups. We’ve made that position very clear.
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And the truth of the matter is, is that these countries have now got the choice to make. If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it’s easy—just make some decisions that will lead to peace, not to conflict. Q. Combat troops out by early 2008, is that— PRESIDENT BUSH: One of the things the report did mention, and I think you’ve said it in your comment, if conditions so allow. And we want our combat troops out as quick as possible. We want the Iraqis taking the fight. But it’s very important to be—as we design programs, to be flexible and realistic. And as the report said—I don’t—got the exact words, but it was along the lines of depending upon conditions, I believe is what the qualifier was. And I thought that made a lot of sense. I’ve always said we’d like our troops out as fast as possible. I think that’s an important goal. On the other hand, our commanders will be making recommendations based upon whether or not we’re achieving our stated objective. And the objective, I repeat, is a government which can sustain, govern, and defend itself—free government of Iraq that can do that—and will be an ally in this movement—against this movement that is threatening peace and stability. And it’s real. Q. Mr. President, you have said that you have the Baker-Hamilton report, you also have the—you’re waiting to hear from the Pentagon, you’re waiting to hear from the State Department. This report was prepared by a bipartisan group, the only one you’ll get. Secretary Baker has a special relationship with the family. Should this report not get extra consideration? Does it not carry more weight than any of the others? PRESIDENT BUSH: That’s an interesting question. It’s certainly an important part of our deliberations, and it was certainly an important part of our discussions this morning. Some reports are issued and just gather dust. And truth of the matter is, a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody. To show you how important this one is, I read it, and our guest read it. The Prime Minister read—read a report prepared by a commission. And this is important. And there are some—I don’t think Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton expect us to accept every recommendation. I expect them—I think—I know they expect us to consider every recommendation, Jim. We ought to pay close attention to what they advise. And I told them yesterday at our meeting that we would pay close attention, and would seriously consider every recommendation. We’ve discussed some of their recommendations here at this press conference. And we are—we will spend a lot of time on it. And I—and so you ask its relative importance. I’d call it a very important report, and a very important part of our working to a new approach, a new way forward in Iraq. Q. Mr. President, the Iraq Study Group said that leaders must be candid and forthright with people. So let me test that. Are you capable of admitting your failures in the past, and perhaps much more importantly, are you capable of changing course, perhaps in the next few weeks? PRESIDENT BUSH: … I do know that we have not succeeded as fast as we wanted to succeed. I do understand that progress is not as rapid as I had hoped. And therefore, it makes sense to analyze the situation and to devise a set of tactics and strategies to achieve the objective that I have stated.
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And so if the present situation needs to be changed, it follows that we’ll change it if we want to succeed. What’s really interesting is the battle has changed in Iraq from the rejectionists and former Baathists and definitely foreign fighters who have entered the country that were trying to destabilize the new government to one that Mr. Zarqawi stated clearly—he said, look, let’s kill Shia in order to create enough chaos and confusion and doubt of the government, and set off a sectarian battle. And he succeeded in that extent. He didn’t succeed at avoiding us, but he did succeed at starting off sectarian strife. And now the fundamental question is, what strategy is necessary to deal with this type of violence? We’ll continue after al Qaeda. Al Qaeda will not have safe haven in Iraq. And that’s important for the American people to know. We’ve got special operators, we’ve got better intelligence. And al Qaeda is effective at these spectacular bombings, and we’ll chase them down, and we are, along with the Iraqis. The strategy now is how to make sure that we’ve got the security situation in place such that the Iraqi government is capable of dealing with the sectarian violence, as well as the political and economic strategies, as well. So, yes, I think you’ll see something differently, because it’s a practical answer to a situation on the ground that’s not the way we like it. You wanted frankness—I thought we would succeed quicker than we did, and I am disappointed by the pace of success. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061207-1.html
President George W. Bush, Interview, The Washington Post, December 20, 2006 This 25-minute interview was conducted yesterday in the Oval Office by Washington Post staff writers Peter Baker, Michael A. Fletcher, and Michael Abramowitz. EXCERPTED PRESIDENT BUSH: Listen, a couple of things before we get going. Obviously, I’ve been thinking about—and talking to a lot of people about—the way forward in Iraq and the way forward in this ideological struggle. I want to share one thought I had with you, and I’m inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops, the Army, the Marines. And I talked about this to [Defense] Secretary [Robert M.] Gates, and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea. I want to give him a little time to get his feet on the ground. And so I’ll be addressing this after consultations with him. I just want to share that with you before we get going. You’re talking about troops in Iraq, not— No, I’m talking about overall size. —overall size of the Army. Do you have a rough idea how much— I’m going to wait for Secretary Gates. As I say, I’m inclined to believe it’s important and necessary to do so. The reason why is, it is an accurate reflection that this ideological war we’re in is going to last for a while, and that
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we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and to help us achieve peace. So you’ve not made a decision about Iraq, per se, about what to do— I have not, Mike, I have not. And we’ll spend some more time—Secretary Gates, as he indicated, is going to head to the region at some point in time. I need to talk to him when he gets back. I’ve got more consultations to do with the national security team, which will be consulting with other folks. And I’m going to take my time to make sure that the policy, when it comes out, the American people will see that we are—have got a new way forward to achieve an important objective, which is a country that can govern, sustain and defend itself. And one thing that will be clear is that I want the American people to know that—and the Iraqi people to know that—we expect the Iraqi people to continue making hard choices and doing hard work necessary to succeed, and our job is to help them do so. Are we winning in Iraq, in your estimation? You know, I think an interesting construct that General [Peter] Pace uses is, ‘‘We’re not winning, we’re not losing.’’ There’s been some very positive developments. And you take a step back and look at progress in Iraq, you say, well, it’s amazing—constitutional democracy in the heart of the Middle East, which is a remarkable development in itself. I think one of the—obviously, the real problem we face is the sectarian violence that needs to be dealt with. So part of my policy review is how do we deal with that in a way that then enables the Iraqi people to live in a more secure society so that the government can prove its worth to the people—saying, we can help you. And one of the main functions of government is to provide security for its people. Our job is to help the Iraqis provide that security. And I’ll come forward with a plan that will enable us to achieve that objective. There’s other threats, by the way. It’s a multiple-front war, if you really think about it. You got Shia discord in the south; you’ve got Sunni attacks, much of that—many of them are caused by al-Qaeda. A lot of them, former Baathists and regimists who are angry that Saddam is no longer in power, and they are a source of conflict in al-Anbar province. And we’ve got a very robust effort—I said the other day something that, I guess, people didn’t pay that much attention to—but for October and November and the first week of December, our actions on the ground have—as a result of action on the ground, we killed or captured nearly 5,900 people. My point in making that point is our troops and coalition troops are on the offense in a lot of areas. And then the third area of conflict, the one that gets a lot of attention, as it should, is the sectarian violence taking place in Baghdad. And I fully understand that we’ve got to help the Iraqis deal with that. So my thinking is—and a lot of our strategy sessions revolve around how best to deal with this problem, and how best to help the Iraqis deal with it. And I’ve got some more work to do, and I’ll come forth at the appropriate time and explain the way forward to the country. Given the election results, is increasing the troop level in Iraq even a viable possibility or option?
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Yes, Mike, all options are viable. —given the political will out there? Well, all options are viable. I think what the people want is—they want a couple of things. They want to see Democrats and Republicans work together to achieve a common objective, and they want us to win in Iraq. A lot of people understand that if we leave Iraq, there will be dire consequences—in other words, if we leave before the job is done. There are some, a fair number of people, who say, ‘‘Get out now.’’ So I view the election results as people are not satisfied with the progress being made in Iraq and expect to see a different strategy to achieve an important objective. But the election results seemed [to indicate that] people wanted to bring the venture in Iraq to closure. That seemed to be the strong lesson. And what indications are there that you’re actually listening to that sentiment? Oh, Mike, look, I want to achieve the objective. I think the American people—I know the American people are very worried about an external threat and that they recognize that failure in Iraq would embolden that external threat, and they expect this administration to listen with people, to work with Democrats, to work with the military, to work with the Iraqis to put a plan in place that achieves the objective. There’s not a lot of people saying, ‘‘Get out now.’’ Most Americans are saying, ‘‘We want to achieve the objective.’’ But there are a lot of people who are saying, ‘‘Let’s get out with a phased deployment over a certain period of time.’’ If they felt—if that leads to victory, it needs to be seriously considered. And I’m considering all options and listening very carefully to a lot of good people who have got different opinions about how to proceed. Can we come back to General Pace’s formulation about winning, not losing? You said October 24th, ‘‘Absolutely, we’re winning.’’ And I wanted to— Yes, that was an indication of my belief we’re going to win. Look, I’ve got four constituencies I speak to on a regular basis; one is the American people, who are justifiably frustrated at the progress in Iraq. And they expect the commander in chief and the people in Washington to support our troops. Supporting our troops not only means good equipment, good [pay], good housing—it also means a plan that helps achieve the objective. The second constituency is the enemy.… The enemy wants to know whether or not the United States has the will to stay engaged in this ideological struggle. They don’t believe we do. That’s what they say. And I believe that’s what they believe. The third group of people I speak to are the Iraqis. They wonder whether the United States has got the will to help them achieve their objectives. That’s what they wonder. The leaders I have talked to wonder whether or not—what the elections mean, or what the Baker-Hamilton commission means, or what changing [former defense] secretary [Donald H.] Rumsfeld means—that’s what they wonder. But in the back of their mind, they’re saying, ‘‘Are they going to leave us again?’’ And that’s an important question for them to have answered, because in order to make difficult choices and to take risk for peace, they’re going to have to be assured that they’ll get support. This is a group of people that have had their hopes dashed in the past.
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And the fourth group is the military. Our troops wonder whether or not our country supports them, and they do. They wonder whether or not the mission and the sacrifice and the toil that they’re making is worth it. And they need to know from the commander in chief: Not only is it worth it, but I strongly support them and believe that their work will lead to victory. That’s what I believe. Some of the supporters of the war and you from the beginning have begun to ask the question publicly: Was it, in fact, the idea that turned out not so great, or the execution that turned out not so great? The idea of? The idea of the war in the first place, and the— I’ve never really asked that question. I believe it’s justifiable and necessary. Obviously, the war has not—the results on the ground haven’t happened as quickly as I hoped, and part of this review process is to develop new strategies and tactics so that we can expedite success. Look, I of all people would like to see the troops come home. But I don’t want them to come home without achieving our objective, because I understand what happens if there’s failure. And I’m going to keep repeating this over and over again, that I believe we’re in an ideological struggle that is—that our country will be dealing with for a long time. Can I ask you a question about history? Yes. President Lincoln fired a number of his generals in the Civil War until he found Grant … Why haven’t you fired any generals? And does the fact that you haven’t fired generals suggest that you are satisfied with the military strategy that they have pursued? We’re reviewing the strategy, because it has—the results aren’t—we haven’t achieved the results as quickly as we wanted—precisely what the secretary of defense said, by the way. And the chain-of-command issues are issues that percolate up through the Pentagon. And there is a clear chain of command that I adhere to, and I think it’s important for the commander in chief to do just that. I’ve often talked about how it’s important to trust the judgment of the military when they’re making military plans as the key advisers to the president, as opposed to the president determining the tactics on the ground, which has happened in previous wars. And so I’m a strict adherer to the command structure. But isn’t there a point in which you say, ‘‘We screwed up the amount of troops we need there, we screwed up the WMD, someone ought to pay a penalty for that’’? There is a constant review of the commanders, and I support that constant review. And to the extent that people think they can do—somebody can do a better job, those recommendations will come forward. I’d like to come back to your first statement, because I’d like to expand a little bit. You talked about the size of the military. Colin Powell said on a Sunday show that the Army was nearly broken. Do you believe that’s true? And, if so, do you feel responsible for that? Do you— I heard—we have been transforming our Army to make it lighter, more lethal and easier to move, and that transformation has been very important.
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Secondly, we have been changing our force posture around the world to reflect the threats of the 21st century, and that has been a very important reform. I also believe that the suggestions I’ve heard from outside our government, plus people inside the government—particularly, the Pentagon—that we need to think about increasing our force structure makes sense, and I will work with Secretary Gates to do so. He’s going to come back and report— So is our Army nearly broken, or not? The people that would know best are those in the Pentagon. I haven’t heard the word ‘‘broken,’’ but I’ve heard the word ‘‘stressed.’’ I know that we need to—and my budgetary requests will reflect what a lot of people in Congress have been saying and in the Pentagon, and that is we need to reset our military. There’s no question the military has been used a lot. And the fundamental question is, will Republicans and Democrats be able to work with the administration to assure our military and the American people that we will position our military so that it is ready and able to stay engaged in a long war, and this ideological struggle? SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/ AR2006121900886_pf.html
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, Indian Treaty Room, December 20, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: This week I went to the Pentagon for the swearing-in of our nation’s new Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates. Secretary Gates is going to bring a fresh perspective to the Pentagon, and America is fortunate that he has agreed to serve our country once again. I’m looking forward to working with him. Secretary Gates is going to be an important voice in the Iraq strategy review that’s underway. As you know, I’ve been consulting closely with our commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the strategy in Iraq, and on the broader war on terror. One of my top priorities during this war is to ensure that our men and women wearing the uniform have everything they need to do their job. We have an obligation to ensure our military is capable of sustaining this war over the long haul, and in performing the many tasks that we ask of them. I’m inclined to believe that we need an increase in the permanent size of both the United States Army and the United States Marines. I’ve asked Secretary Gates to determine how such an increase could take place and report back to me as quickly as possible. Two thousand and six was a difficult year for our troops and the Iraqi people. We began the year with optimism after watching nearly 12 million Iraqis go to the polls to vote for a unity government and a free future. The enemies of liberty responded fiercely to this advance of freedom. They carried out a deliberate strategy to foment sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shia. And over the course of the year, they had success. Their success hurt our efforts to help the Iraqis rebuild their country. It set back reconciliation; it kept Iraq’s
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unity government and our coalition from establishing security and stability throughout the country. We enter this new year clear-eyed about the challenges in Iraq, and equally clear about our purpose. Our goal remains a free and democratic Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself, and is an ally in this war on terror. I’m not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like in Iraq, except that it’s going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices, because the enemy is merciless and violent. I’m going to make you this promise: My administration will work with Republicans and Democrats to fashion a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq. We’ll listen to ideas from every quarter; we’ll change our strategy and tactics to meet the realities on the ground. We’ll never lose sight that on the receiving end of the decisions I make is a private, a sergeant, a young lieutenant or a diplomat who risks his or her life to help the Iraqis realize a dream of a stable country that can defend, govern and sustain itself. The advance of liberty has never been easy, and Iraq is proving how tough it can be. Yet, the safety and security of our citizens requires that we do not let up. We can be smarter about how we deploy our manpower and resources; we can ask more of our Iraqi partners, and we will—one thing we cannot do is give up on the hundreds of millions of ordinary moms and dads across the Middle East who want the hope and opportunity for their children that the terrorists and extremists seek to deny them, and that’s a peaceful existence. Q. Mr. President, less than two months ago at the end of one of the bloodiest months in the war, you said, ‘‘Absolutely we’re winning.’’ Yesterday you said, ‘‘We’re not winning, we’re not losing.’’ Why did you drop your confident assertion about winning? THE PRESIDENT: My comments—the first comment was done in this spirit: I believe that we’re going to win; I believe that—and by the way, if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have our troops there. That’s what you got to know. We’re going to succeed. My comments yesterday reflected the fact that we’re not succeeding nearly as fast as I wanted when I said it at the time, and that conditions are tough in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad. And so we’re conducting a review to make sure that our strategy helps us achieve that which I’m pretty confident we can do, and that is have a country which can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. You know, I—when I speak, like right now, for example—I’m speaking to the American people, of course, and I want them to know that I know how tough it is, but I also want them to know that I’m going to work with the military and the political leaders to develop a plan that will help us achieve the objective. I also want our troops to understand that—that we support them; that I believe that tough mission I’ve asked them to do is going to be accomplished, and that they’re doing good work and necessary work. I want the Iraqis to understand that we believe that if they stand up, step up and lead, and with our help we can accomplish the objective. And I want the enemy to understand that this is a tough task, but they can’t run us out of the Middle East, that they can’t intimidate America. They think they can.
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They think it’s just a matter of time before America grows weary and leaves, abandons the people of Iraq, for example. And that’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is we’re going to develop a strategy that helps the Iraqis achieve the objective that the 12 million people want them to achieve, which is a government that can—a country that can sustain itself, govern itself, defend itself, a free country that will serve as an ally in this war against extremists and radicals. Q. If you conclude that a surge in troop levels in Iraq is needed, would you overrule your military commanders if they felt it was not a good idea? THE PRESIDENT: That’s a dangerous hypothetical question. I’m not condemning you, you’re allowed to ask anything you want. Let me wait and gather all the recommendations from Bob Gates, from our military, from diplomats on the ground; I’m interested in the Iraqis’ point of view; and then I’ll report back to you as to whether or not I support a surge or not … Q. Would you overrule your commanders— THE PRESIDENT: The opinion of my commanders is very important. They are bright, capable, smart people whose opinion matters to me a lot. Q. You have reached out to both Sunni and Shia political leaders in recent weeks, and now there’s word that the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani is supporting a moderate coalition in Iraq. Has the U.S. reached out to him? How important is he in the equation moving forward? And what do you say to people who say more troops in Iraq would increase the sectarian split and not calm things down? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven’t made up my mind yet about more troops. I’m listening to our commanders; I’m listening to the Joint Chiefs, of course; I’m listening to people in and out of government; I’m listening to the folks on the Baker-Hamilton commission about coming up with a strategy that helps us achieve our objective. And so … hypothetical questions, I’m not going to answer them today. I’m not going to speculate out loud about what I’m going to tell the nation, when I’m prepared to do so, about the way forward. I will tell you we’re looking at all options. And one of those options, of course, is increasing more troops. But in order to do so, there must be a specific mission that can be accomplished with more troops. And that’s precisely what our commanders have said, as well as people who know a lot about military operations. And I agree with them that there’s got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before I agree on that strategy. Secondly, whatever we do is going to help the Iraqis step up. It’s their responsibility to govern their country. It’s their responsibility to do the hard work necessary to secure Baghdad. And we want to help them. Thirdly, I appreciate the fact that the Prime Minister and members of the government are forming what you have called a moderate coalition, because it’s becoming very apparent to the people of Iraq that there are extremists and radicals who are anxious to stop the advance of a free society. And therefore, a moderate coalition signals to the vast majority of the people of Iraq that we have a unity government, that we’re willing to reconcile our differences and work together, and in so doing, will marginalize those who use violence to achieve political objectives.
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And so we support the formation of the unity government and the moderate coalition. And it’s important for the leader Sistani to understand that’s our position. He is a—he lives a secluded life, but he knows that we’re interested in defeating extremism, and we’re interested in helping advance a unity government. Q. In the latest CBS News poll, 50 percent of Americans say they favor a beginning of an end to U.S. military involvement in Iraq; 43 percent said, keep fighting, but change tactics. By this and many other measures, there is no clear mandate to continue being in Iraq in a military form. I guess my question is, are you still willing to follow a path that seems to be in opposition to the will of the American people? THE PRESIDENT: I am willing to follow a path that leads to victory, and that’s exactly why we’re conducting the review we are. Victory in Iraq is achievable. It hasn’t happened nearly as quickly as I hoped it would have. I know it’s—the fact that there is still unspeakable sectarian violence in Iraq, I know that’s troubling to the American people. But I also don’t believe most Americans want us just to get out now. A lot of Americans understand the consequences of retreat. Retreat would embolden radicals. It would hurt the credibility of the United States. Retreat from Iraq would dash the hopes of millions who want to be free. Retreat from Iraq would enable the extremists and radicals to more likely be able to have safe haven from which to plot and plan further attacks. And so it’s been a tough period for the American people. They want to see success. And our objective is to put a plan in place that achieves that success. I’m often asked about public opinion. Of course, I want public opinion to support the efforts. I understand that. But I also understand the consequences of failure. And, therefore, I’m going to work with the Iraqis and our military and politicians from both political parties to achieve success. I thought the election said they want to see more bipartisan cooperation; they want to see us working together to achieve common objectives. And I’m going to continue to reach out to Democrats to do just that. Q. … Mr. President, Lyndon Johnson famously didn’t sleep during the Vietnam War, questioning his own decisions. You have always seemed very confident of your decisions, but I can’t help but wonder if this has been a time of painful realization for you as you, yourself, have acknowledged that some of the policies you hoped would succeed have not. And I wonder if you can talk to us about that. Has it been a painful time? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, thanks. The most painful aspect of my presidency has been knowing that good men and women have died in combat. I read about it every night. My heart breaks for a mother or father, or husband or wife, or son and daughter; it just does. And so when you ask about pain, that’s pain. I reach out to a lot of the families, I spend time with them. I am always inspired by their spirit. Most people have asked me to do one thing, and that is to make sure that their child didn’t die in vain—and I agree with that—that the sacrifice has been worth it. We’ll accomplish our objective; we’ve got to constantly adjust our tactics to do so. We’ve got to insist that the Iraqis take more responsibility more quickly in order to do so. But I—look, my heart breaks for them, it just does, on a regular basis.
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Q. But beyond that, sir, do you question your own decisions? THE PRESIDENT: No, I haven’t questioned whether or not it was right to take Saddam Hussein out, nor have I questioned the necessity for the American people—I mean, I’ve questioned it; I’ve come to the conclusion it’s the right decision. But I also know it’s the right decision for America to stay engaged, and to take the lead, and to deal with these radicals and extremists, and to help support young democracies. It’s the calling of our time. And I firmly believe it is necessary. And I believe the next President, whoever the person is, will have the same charge, the same obligations to deal with terrorists so they don’t hurt us, and to help young democracies survive the threats of radicalism and extremism. It’s in our nation’s interest to do so. But the most painful aspect of the presidency is the fact that I know my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives. Q. A question about the Iraq Study Group Report. One of the things that it recommends is greater dialogue, direct talks with Syria and Iran. James Baker himself, Secretary of State under your father, says that it’s a lot like it was during the Cold War when we talked to the Soviet Union. He says it’s important to talk to your adversaries. Is he wrong? THE PRESIDENT: Let me start with Iran. We made it perfectly clear to them what it takes to come to the table, and that is a suspension of their enrichment program. If they verifiably suspend—that they’ve stopped enrichment, we will come to the table with our EU3 partners and Russia, and discuss a way forward for them. Don, it should be evident to the Iranians, if this is what they want to do. … I read the Foreign Minister said the other day that, yes, we’ll sit down with America, after they leave Iraq. If they want to sit down with us, for the good of the Iranian people, they ought to verifiably suspend their program. We’ve made that clear to them. It is obvious to them how to move forward. The Iranian people can do better than becoming—than be an isolated nation. This is a proud nation with a fantastic history and tradition. And yet they’ve got a leader who constantly sends messages to the world that Iran is out of step with the majority of thinkers, that Iran is willing to become isolated—to the detriment of the people. I mean, I was amazed that, once again, there was this conference about the Holocaust that heralded a really backward view of the history of the world. And all that said to me was, is that the leader in Iran is willing to say things that really hurts his country and further isolates the Iranian people. My message to the Iranian people is you can do better than to have somebody try to rewrite history. You can do better than somebody who hasn’t strengthened your economy. And you can do better than having somebody who’s trying to develop a nuclear weapon that the world believes you shouldn’t have. There’s a better way forward. Syria—the message is the same. We have met with Syria since I have been the President of the United States. We have talked to them about what is necessary for them to have a better relationship with the United States. And they’re not unreasonable requests. We’ve suggested to them that they no longer allow Saddamists to send money and arms across their border into Iraq to
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fuel the violence—some of the violence that we see. We’ve talked to them about—they’ve got to leave the democrat Lebanon alone. Q. Part of the process of looking at the way forward could reasonably include considering how we got to where we are. Has that been part of your process? And what lessons—after five years now of war, what lessons will you take into the final two years of your presidency? THE PRESIDENT: Look, absolutely, Jim, that it is important for us to be successful going forward is to analyze that which went wrong. And clearly one aspect of this war that has not gone right is the sectarian violence inside Baghdad—a violent reaction by both Sunni and Shia to each other that has caused a lot of loss of life, as well as some movements in neighborhoods inside of Baghdad. It is a troubling, very troubling, aspect of trying to help this Iraqi government succeed. And therefore, a major consideration of our planners is how to deal with that, and how to help—more importantly, how to help the Iraqis deal with sectarian violence. There are a couple of theaters inside of Iraq, war theaters. One, of course, is Baghdad, itself, where the sectarian violence is brutal. And we’ve got to help them—we’ve got to help the Maliki government stop it and crack it and prevent it from spreading, in order to be successful. … Secondly, is the battle against the Sunnis—Sunni extremists—some of them Saddamists, some of there are al Qaeda, but all of them aiming to try to drive the United States out of Iraq before the job is done. And we’re making good progress against them. It’s hard fighting, it’s been hard work, but our special ops teams, along with Iraqis, are on the hunt and bringing people to justice. There’s issues in the south of Iraq, mainly Shia-on-Shia tensions. But primarily, the toughest fight for this new government is inside of Baghdad. Most of the deaths, most of the violence is within a 30-mile radius of Baghdad, as well as in Anbar Province. In other words, a lot of the country is moving along positively. But it’s this part of the fight that is getting our attention. And, frankly, we have—it has been that aspect of the battle, toward a government which can defend and govern itself and be an ally in the war on terror, where we have not made as much progress as we’d have hoped to have made. Success in Iraq will be success—there will be a combination of military success, political success and reconstruction. And they’ve got to go hand-in-hand. That’s why I think it’s important that the moderate coalition is standing up. In other words, it’s the beginning of a political process that I hope will marginalize the radicals and extremists who are trying to stop the advance of a free Iraq. That’s why the oil law is going to be a very important piece of legislation. In other words, when this government begins to send messages that we will put laws in place that help unify the country, it’s going to make the security situation easier to deal with. On the other hand, without better, stronger security measures, it’s going to be hard to get the political process to move forward. And so it’s—we’ve got a parallel strategy. So when you hear me talking about the military—I know there’s a lot of discussion about troops, and there should be. But we’ve got to keep in mind we’ve also got to make sure we have a parallel political process and a reconstruction process going together concurrently with a new military strategy.
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I thought it was an interesting statement that Prime Minister Maliki made the other day about generals, former generals in the Saddam army, that they could come back in, or receive a pension. In other words, he’s beginning to reach out in terms of a reconciliation plan that I think is going to be important. I had interesting discussions the other day with provincial reconstruction team members in Iraq. These are really brave souls who work for the State Department that are in these different provinces helping these provincial governments rebuild and to see a political way forward. And one of the things that—most of these people were in the Sunni territory, that I had talked to, and most of them were very anxious for me to help them and help the Iraqi government put reconciliation plans in place. There’s a lot of people trying to make a choice as to whether or not they want to support a government, or whether or not their interest may lay in extremism. And they understand that a political process that is positive, that sends a signal, we want to be a unified country, will help these folks make a rational choice. And so it’s a multifaceted plan. And absolutely, we’re looking at where things went wrong, where expectations were dashed, and where things hadn’t gone the way we wanted them to have gone. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061220-1.html
8 Vice President Richard B. Cheney Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at the United States Naval Academy Commencement, Annapolis, Maryland, May 24, 2002 … The United States has entered a struggle of years—a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy. The terrorists who struck America are ruthless, they are resourceful, and they hide in many countries. They came into our country to murder thousands of innocent, unsuspecting men, women, and children—including 14 graduates of this Academy. There is no doubting they wish to strike again, and are working to acquire the deadliest of all weapons. Against such enemies, America and the civilized world have only one option: Wherever terrorists operate, we must find them where they dwell stop them in their planning and one by one bring them to justice. In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime and al-Qaida terrorists have met the fate they chose for themselves. And they got their first look at the new methods and capabilities of the American military—of military power that cannot and will not be evaded. When the campaign began in October, there were warnings that the obstacles would be extreme—and they were. Here, after all, was a landlocked country with a forbidding, mountainous terrain, and winter setting in. The enemy force was widely scattered, but well armed, protected by deep caves, and skilled in guerilla tactics. Added to that was the sheer mileage between our forces and the objective. We responded to these obstacles with a combination of tactics and technology that marked a turning point in modern warfare. The success of our coalition forces has shined very brightly in our Naval task forces, with unprecedented cooperation and integration from the operational to tactical levels. Operation Enduring Freedom assembled the largest naval task force since World War Two. Tomahawk missiles, precision-guided munitions, and tons of ordnance fell upon our enemies and their assets all day, all night, in all weather, around the clock. Our unmanned Predator aircraft gave commanders
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a clear and immediate picture of conditions on the ground, allowing for swift and timely strikes. Overwhelming air power, much of it off our carriers, removed the need for large stationary forces on land. Within three weeks after the campaign began, Special Ops were on the ground—going to the far corners of Afghanistan meeting with tribal leaders forming them into military units and leading them into combat. Small teams of Navy SEALS scoured the countryside, engaging enemy holdouts, designating targets by laser, and calling in precision air strikes from hundreds of miles away. All of this represents a dramatic advance in our ability to engage and defeat an adversary. The Persian Gulf War showed the tremendous effect of precision-guided munitions. Yet that technology was the exception, making up only a small percentage of munitions fired. In Afghanistan, the majority of our munitions were precision-guided—making our strikes far deadlier for the enemy, and far less so for innocent civilians. In the Gulf War, air tasking orders with targeting assignments were written at headquarters in Saudi Arabia, then flown out to carriers and given to the pilots. This time, targeting assignments were transmitted directly to pilots by special forces near the targets themselves. In the Gulf War, naval expeditionary forces were part of a feint and the supporting attack. In Afghanistan, naval expeditionary forces opened the conventional ground war by establishing a forward-operating base 450 miles inland—more than twice the distance that previous military doctrine considered supportable. The combination of advantages already seen in this conflict—precision power from the air, real-time intelligence, special forces, the long reach of Naval task forces, and close coordination with local forces—will only become more vital in future campaigns. The war on terror has accelerated changes in thinking and strategy that were already in the making. President Bush has often spoken of how America can keep the peace by redefining war on our terms. That means that our armed services must have every tool to answer any threat that forms against us. It means that any enemy conspiring to harm America or our friends must face a swift and certain and devastating response. As we transform our military to meet the challenges of the new century, sea power will remain central to American strategy. Able to move freely around the world’s oceans, our naval forces can project great power from over the horizon against targets both at sea and far inland. Our carrier groups allow the commander in chief to commit forces while retaining flexibility. With ships and submarines, often already in place around the globe, we can dispatch precision air strikes, launch sea-based rockets and missiles, deploy SEALS and Marine Air-Ground Task Forces by day or night, from close by or from a distance. The Navy and Marine team can do all of this, while fighting alongside the Army and Air Force to deliver the full measure of U.S. military capability. And we have found new ways to use our sea power. The carrier USS Kitty Hawk deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom, without most of her air wing, to serve as a staging platform for British and American special forces—thus creating a base invulnerable to the asymmetric threats posed
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by terrorists or by terror regimes. At the same time, sea power allows us to protect our interests overseas to provide a stabilizing presence and on short notice to deliver humanitarian relief. In your careers, Naval operations will be every bit as important, if not more so, than they were in the last century. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020524-25.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars 103rd National Convention, Nashville, Tennessee, August 26, 2002 The danger to America requires action on many fronts all at once. We are reorganizing the federal government to protect the nation against further attack. The new Department of Homeland Security will gather under one roof the capability to identify threats, to check them against our vulnerabilities, and to move swiftly to protect the nation. At the same time, we realize that wars are never won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy. We will take every step necessary to make sure our country is secure, and we will prevail. Much has happened since the attacks of 9/11. But as Secretary Rumsfeld has put it, we are still closer to the beginning of this war than we are to its end. The United States has entered a struggle of years—a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy. The terrorists who struck America are ruthless, they are resourceful, and they hide in many countries. They came into our country to murder thousands of innocent men, women, and children. There is no doubt they wish to strike again, and that they are working to acquire the deadliest of all weapons. Against such enemies, America and the civilized world have only one option: wherever terrorists operate, we must find them where they dwell, stop them in their planning, and one by one bring them to justice. The combination of advantages already seen in this conflict—precision power from the air, real-time intelligence, special forces, the long reach of Naval task forces, and close coordination with local forces represents a dramatic advance in our ability to engage and defeat the enemy. These advantages will only become more vital in future campaigns. President Bush has often spoken of how America can keep the peace by redefining war on our terms. That means that our armed services must have every tool to answer any threat that forms against us. It means that any enemy conspiring to harm America or our friends must face a swift, a certain and a devastating response. … The President has asked Congress for a one-year increase of more than $48 billion for national defense, the largest since Ronald Reagan lived in the White House. And for the good of the nation’s military families, he has also asked Congress to provide every person in uniform a raise in pay. We think they’ve earned it. In this war we’ve assembled a broad coalition of civilized nations that recognize the danger and are working with us on all fronts. The President has made very clear that there is no neutral ground in the fight against terror.
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Those who harbor terrorists share guilt for the acts they commit. Under the Bush Doctrine, a regime that harbors or supports terrorists will be regarded as hostile to the United States. The Taliban has already learned that lesson, but Afghanistan was only the beginning of a lengthy campaign. Were we to stop now, any sense of security we might have would be false and temporary. There is a terrorist underworld out there, spread among more than 60 countries. The job we have will require every tool at our means of diplomacy, of finance, of intelligence, of law enforcement, and of military power. But we will, over time, find and defeat the enemies of the United States. In the case of Osama bin Laden—as President Bush said recently—‘‘If he’s alive, we’ll get him. If he’s not alive—we already got him.’’ But the challenges to our country involve more than just tracking down a single person or one small group. Nine-eleven and its aftermath awakened this nation to danger, to the true ambitions of the global terror network, and to the reality that weapons of mass destruction are being sought by determined enemies who would not hesitate to use them against us. It is a certainty that the al Qaeda network is pursuing such weapons, and has succeeded in acquiring at least a crude capability to use them. We found evidence of their efforts in the ruins of al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan. And we’ve seen in recent days additional confirmation in videos recently shown on CNN—pictures of al Qaeda members training to commit acts of terror, and testing chemical weapons on dogs. Those terrorists who remain at large are determined to use these capabilities against the United States and our friends and allies around the world. As we face this prospect, old doctrines of security do not apply. In the days of the Cold War, we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it’s a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend. And containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction, and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States. The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts. After his defeat in the Gulf War in 1991, Saddam agreed under to U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 to cease all development of weapons of mass destruction. He agreed to end his nuclear weapons program. He agreed to destroy his chemical and his biological weapons. He further agreed to admit U.N. inspection teams into his country to ensure that he was in fact complying with these terms. In the past decade, Saddam has systematically broken each of these agreements. The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents. And they continue to pursue the nuclear program they began so many years ago. These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq; these are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses, in his own region or beyond. On the nuclear question, many of you will recall that Saddam’s nuclear ambitions suffered a severe setback in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor. They suffered another major blow in Desert Storm and its aftermath.
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But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we’ve gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors—including Saddam’s own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam’s direction. Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances. This is especially the case when you are dealing with a totalitarian regime that has made a science out of deceiving the international community. Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Prior to the Gulf War, America’s top intelligence analysts would come to my office in the Defense Department and tell me that Saddam Hussein was at least five or perhaps even 10 years away from having a nuclear weapon. After the war we learned that he had been much closer than that, perhaps within a year of acquiring such a weapon. Saddam also devised an elaborate program to conceal his active efforts to build chemical and biological weapons. And one must keep in mind the history of U.N. inspection teams in Iraq. Even as they were conducting the most intrusive system of arms control in history, the inspectors missed a great deal. Before being barred from the country, the inspectors found and destroyed thousands of chemical weapons, and hundreds of tons of mustard gas and other nerve agents. Yet Saddam Hussein had sought to frustrate and deceive them at every turn, and was often successful in doing so. I’ll cite one instance. During the spring of 1995, the inspectors were actually on the verge of declaring that Saddam’s programs to develop chemical weapons and longer-range ballistic missiles had been fully accounted for and shut down. Then Saddam’s son-inlaw suddenly defected and began sharing information. Within days the inspectors were led to an Iraqi chicken farm. Hidden there were boxes of documents and lots of evidence regarding Iraq’s most secret weapons programs. That should serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself. To the dismay of the inspectors, they in time discovered that Saddam had kept them largely in the dark about the extent of his program to mass produce VX, one of the deadliest chemicals known to man. And far from having shut down Iraq’s prohibited missile programs, the inspectors found that Saddam had continued to test such missiles, almost literally under the noses of the U.N. inspectors. Against that background, a person would be right to question any suggestion that we should just get inspectors back into Iraq, and then our worries will be over. Saddam has perfected the game of cheat and retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and deception. A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow ‘‘back in his box.’’ Meanwhile, he would continue to plot. Nothing in the last dozen years has stopped him—not his agreements; not the discoveries of the inspectors; not the revelations by defectors; not criticism or ostracism by the international community; and not four days of bombings by the U.S. in 1998. What he
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wants is time and more time to husband his resources, to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs, and to gain possession of nuclear arms. Should all his ambitions be realized, the implications would be enormous for the Middle East, for the United States, and for the peace of the world. The whole range of weapons of mass destruction then would rest in the hands of a dictator who has already shown his willingness to use such weapons, and has done so, both in his war with Iran and against his own people. Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world’s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies, directly threaten America’s friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors—confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth. … There is no basis in Saddam Hussein’s conduct or history to discount any of the concerns that I am raising this morning. We are, after all, dealing with the same dictator who shoots at American and British pilots in the no-fly zone, on a regular basis, the same dictator who dispatched a team of assassins to murder former President Bush as he traveled abroad, the same dictator who invaded Iran and Kuwait, and has fired ballistic missiles at Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, the same dictator who has been on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism for the better part of two decades. In the face of such a threat, we must proceed with care, deliberation, and consultation with our allies. I know our president very well. I’ve worked beside him as he directed our response to the events of 9/11. I know that he will proceed cautiously and deliberately to consider all possible options to deal with the threat that an Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein represents. And I am confident that he will, as he has said he would, consult widely with the Congress and with our friends and allies before deciding upon a course of action. He welcomes the debate that has now been joined here at home, and he has made it clear to his national security team that he wants us to participate fully in the hearings that will be held in Congress next month on this vitally important issue. We will profit as well from a review of our own history. There are a lot of World War II veterans in the hall today. For the United States, that war began on December 7, 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the near-total destruction of our Pacific Fleet. Only then did we recognize the magnitude of the danger to our country. Only then did the Axis powers fully declare their intentions against us. By that point, many countries had fallen. Many millions had died. And our nation was plunged into a two-front war resulting in more than a million American casualties. To this day, historians continue to analyze that war, speculating on how we might have prevented Pearl Harbor, and asking what actions might have averted the tragedies that rate among the worst in human history.
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America in the year 2002 must ask careful questions, not merely about our past, but also about our future. The elected leaders of this country have a responsibility to consider all of the available options. And we are doing so. What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness. We will not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future administration to resolve. As President Bush has said, time is not on our side. Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network, or a murderous dictator, or the two working together, constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action. Now and in the future, the United States will work closely with the global coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And the entire world must know that we will take whatever action is necessary to defend our freedom and our security. As former Secretary of State Kissinger recently stated: ‘‘The imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system, and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for preemptive action.’’ If the United States could have preempted 9/11, we would have, no question. Should we be able to prevent another, much more devastating attack, we will, no question. This nation will not live at the mercy of terrorists or terror regimes. I am familiar with the arguments against taking action in the case of Saddam Hussein. Some concede that Saddam is evil, power-hungry, and a menace—but that, until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons, we should rule out any preemptive action. That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed. The argument comes down to this: yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is, we just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it. Yet if we did wait until that moment, Saddam would simply be emboldened, and it would become even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him. As one of those who worked to assemble the Gulf War coalition, I can tell you that our job then would have been infinitely more difficult in the face of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein. And many of those who now argue that we should act only if he gets a nuclear weapon, would then turn around and say that we cannot act because he has a nuclear weapon. At bottom, that argument counsels a course of inaction that itself could have devastating consequences for many countries, including our own. Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab ‘‘street,’’ the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are ‘‘sure to erupt in joy in the
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same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.’’ Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. The reality is that these times bring not only dangers but also opportunities. In the Middle East, where so many have known only poverty and oppression, terror and tyranny, we look to the day when people can live in freedom and dignity and the young can grow up free of the conditions that breed despair, hatred, and violence. In other times the world saw how the United States defeated fierce enemies, then helped rebuild their countries, forming strong bonds between our peoples and our governments. Today in Afghanistan, the world is seeing that America acts not to conquer but to liberate, and remains in friendship to help the people build a future of stability, self-determination, and peace. We would act in that same spirit after a regime change in Iraq. With our help, a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again. Iraq is rich in natural resources and human talent, and has unlimited potential for a peaceful, prosperous future. Our goal would be an Iraq that has territorial integrity, a government that is democratic and pluralistic, a nation where the human rights of every ethnic and religious group are recognized and protected. In that troubled land all who seek justice, and dignity, and the chance to live their own lives, can know they have a friend and ally in the United States of America. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks and Q&A at a Town Hall Meeting, John Q. Hammons Convention Center, Joplin, Missouri, August 11, 2004 If you reflect back on January 20th, of 2001, when we were sworn in that day, the planning for the attack of 9/11 was already well underway. Most of the terrorists had already been recruited. Many of them had been through the training camps in Afghanistan, where they trained to kill Americans. Some of them were already in the United States. They’d raised the money. They’d been planning that attack since 1996, five years before. It took them that long to get all the pieces put together. But they’re very patient. They’re absolutely lethal, and once they put their mind on a target like that, they operated according to their timetable, not ours or anybody else’s. But all the planning for 9/11 was well underway. We also had a situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban had taken over, and had turned Afghanistan into a training camp for terrorists, into a safe haven for terrorists—specifically for the al Qaeda organization. So there were thousands of them there, including Osama bin Laden, the leader. And they had turned out sometime in the late ’90s, between 1997 and about 2000, they’d trained—20,000 terrorists had gone through those camps, and then spread back out around the world to some 60 different countries, including here in the United States, where they set up terror cells.
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In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power. He’d started two wars. He had provided safe haven and sanctuary for terrorists for many, many years. He was paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. He provided a home for al Qaeda, and for Abu Nidal … he’d also obviously developed and used weapons of mass destruction in the past, both against the Iraqis and the Iranians. And we had a couple of other developments in that part of the world that were not public at the time that were very important. The A.Q. Khan network was in business. Mr. Khan was a Pakistani, a man who had acquired and then developed the technology to develop nuclear weapons. He knew how to acquire the uranium feedstock, to design the centrifuges to enrich the uranium, and he had a weapons design. And he had, in fact, been the father of the Pakistan nuclear program. And once he completed that task, he had diverted this whole network to his own purposes. And he was selling nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, to Iran, and to Libya. Moammar Ghadafi in Libya was spending millions of dollars to acquire this capability and was well on his way. Once that whole process had been completed, he would have been in possession then of nuclear weapons. He wasn’t there yet, but he was working on it. We also had a situation in the fact that the terrorists had learned two unfortunate lessons, if you will, at our expense in the prior period of time before we were sworn in. They’d learned, first of all, that they could strike at the United States with relative impunity—because they had, repeatedly. And the best response we usually came up with was to treat each attack as some kind of criminal enterprise. We’d go after the individuals who’d launched the attack. Sometimes we’d catch them, put them in prison. But we never really reached behind the individuals to look at the networks that had undertaken these attacks. Of course, we’d been hit in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, when we lost 241 Marines, when they blew up the barracks; 1993, first attack on the World Trade Center; 1996, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; 1998, the East Africa Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; 2000, the USS Cole—a whole sequence of attacks, most of which had gone unanswered, or the answer had been a law enforcement response. Once we fired off a few cruise missiles at a training camp in Afghanistan. But from the standpoint of the terrorists, they could strike us, and there was no real penalty to be paid. And the second lesson they’d learned was that if they hit us hard enough, they could change our policy—because they had. After we got hit in Lebanon in 1983, in relatively short order we pulled out of Lebanon completely. In 1993, in Mogadishu—there, they killed 19 of our soldiers, and within a matter of weeks, we’d withdrawn all of our forces from Somalia. And so those two lessons—if you hit the U.S., and you won’t be struck in return; and if you hit the U.S., and you can change U.S. policy if you do it—and that was sort of the set of circumstances that were out there when we were sworn in. And then the attack of 9/11 came, and, of course, it changed everything. I think everybody came to realize at that moment that we were, in fact, at war—that we’d been at war for some time. Our enemies knew it; we didn’t. We hadn’t really as a nation come to grips with that basic fundamental proposition.
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But 9/11 changed everything in the sense that it forced us to think anew about our enemies, about who our enemies were, about the kind of threat we faced as a nation, about what kind of strategy we needed to pursue to be able to safeguard our nation from those attacks. The President made a very basic, fundamental decision that very first night after the attacks. And that was that henceforth, we would hold accountable those—not only the terrorists, but also those who supported terror. If a state or a government provided safe harbor or sanctuary, or financing, or training or weapons to a terrorist organization, they would be deemed just as guilty of the terrorist act as the terrorists themselves. They [the terrorists] are also prepared to use weapons of mass destruction if they can ever get their hands on them. And the worst proposition we face today by way of a threat is the possibility of an al Qaeda cell in the middle of one of our own cities with a biological agent, like smallpox, maybe, or a nuclear weapon of some kind that they would be prepared to detonate. And there’s nothing to restrain them. There’s no reason why they wouldn’t use that kind of capability once they get their hands on it. Our old strategies from the Cold War worked great against the Soviets, but the whole concept of deterrence means nothing when you’re talking about an al Qaeda terrorist who is prepared to die for Allah, and whose purpose here is to take as many people with him as he possibly can—primarily Americans. That’s the kind of adversary we’re faced with here for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t take large numbers of them. Nineteen hijackers, we saw what they could do on 9/11 when they killed 3,000 of our people in a couple of hours on a beautiful September morning without any provocation whatsoever. Part of the debate that we’ll be dealing with this years is over this question of when is it appropriate to use U.S. military force, when are we justified in moving aggressively against a sponsor of terror, or a group of terrorists, or of taking military action, if that’s what is called for, in order to defend the United States. There are those who believe we should never be preemptive, that we should never take that first step. But when you consider the threat, when you consider the consequences of failing to deal with the threat might, in fact, be the destruction of one of our own cities, then I think it begins to put things in perspective—that it’s absolutely essential to do exactly what the President has done, which is to say that United States will not wait for the next attack. We’re not going to stand by and let somebody take a shot at us before we respond. We’ve put them on notice now that if you have aspirations to hit the U.S., you will be struck … Q. … How can America be expected to defeat terrorism when we have to fight based on a set of rules and the terrorists don’t? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, a set of rules—maybe you can clarify that. Q. From hiding in mosques—we can’t really attacks mosques, to even from door-to-door, things we do over here with the ACLU and that kind of thing on civil rights? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s an interesting question because we do want to take whatever steps are necessary to be able to defeat the terrorists. We’ve done such things, for example, as enact the Patriot Act, which allows us
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to do a more effective job of going after, investigating, and prosecuting terrorists. But basically, what we did there wasn’t to invent new legal tools, so much as take ones that were already being used, for example, against drug traffickers, and apply those over in the terrorism field. And we need to take extraordinary steps to do everything we can to defend the country. I think we’ve done that to a large extent in creating the Department of Homeland Security. So we’ve done a lot of that. The cautionary note is there’s a line out there someplace that it’s hard to define, but it is a line you don’t want to cross over that would, in effect, where the government would become so onerous, so heavy handed, would intrude so deeply in the lives of all of us, that the terrorists would win without ever firing a shot. You don’t want that to happen either. So it calls for real judgment and balance. I think it’s important for us as we fight terror also to do as the oath of office the President and I took when we were sworn in, support and defend the Constitution of the United States. So you got to find your way forward here to marshal the resources and defend the nation to take those steps necessary to defeat the terrorists, but at the same time not sort of lock down the country so tight that we fundamentally change our way of life, which is, after all, one of the objectives of the terrorists. We don’t want that to happen either. And I think we can do it. I’m an optimist about it. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be tough days ahead. I think there will be. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more attacks on the United States. We know they’re out there trying to get at us. It doesn’t mean we won’t have to be committed with troops overseas, or that we won’t take casualties … SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040812.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see speech Vice President Cheney’s Remarks at a Kobach Breakfast, Overland Park, Kansas, August 24, 2004 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2004/08/20040824-3.html).
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks and Q&A at a Town Hall Meeting, Radisson Quad City Plaza, Davenport, Iowa, August 24, 2004 … What we found, obviously, as of 9/11, when we were struck that morning and lost some 3,000 Americans, the deadliest attack that ever occurred on American soil, we obviously discovered that we were in a situation that was dramatically different from what had gone before. It forced us to think in new ways about national security strategy. We had gone through the period of the Cold War, for example, based on a strategy of deterrence that we could persuade the Soviets never to attack the United States by holding at risk those things that the Soviets valued, in terms of their basic real estate and their national security. Those concepts have no meaning when you talk about al Qaeda. There’s nothing you can hold at risk to keep al Qaeda from launching attacks against the United States. We were faced with a whole new set of concerns, and that strategy that had worked so well during the Cold War simply
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didn’t have much bearing when it came time to protect the United States against the new threat. What we’ve done since then, obviously, is we’ve spent a lot of time and effort at strengthening our defenses here at home, and creating the Department of Homeland Security, at passing the Patriot Act that gave our law enforcement people more tools to use in prosecuting terrorists, recently set up Project BioShield. This will give us better defenses against a potential attack with biological weapons, a number of steps to strengthen our defenses, but what the President recognized, which was an absolutely crucial decision, was that there’s no such thing as a perfect defense, that we can have a defense that is successful 99.9 percent of the time, but that the terrorists potentially armed with deadlier weapons than any we’ve ever had used on us before, potentially armed with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons—because we know they’re trying to acquire that kind of capability—those terrorists could, in fact, do devastating harm to the United States if they’re successful only one-tenth of 1 percent of the time. And it was that basic, fundamental decision—some people have come to refer to as the Bush doctrine—that was vital, I believe, in terms of having a successful strategy. I don’t think we can defend the United States going forward from this point on if we’re prepared only to use military force after we’re attacked. We’ve already been attacked. In Iraq, of course, not only is Saddam Hussein no longer in power today, he’s in jail, which is where he ought to be. I don’t want to underestimate the difficulty of the task in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve got a lot of tough days ahead of us. There will be good days and bad days. But we’re making significant progress. We’re moving in the right direction. And if we can establish free governments, democratically elected governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can begin to fundamentally change the dynamics in that part of the world that have generated the dynamic, or the forces, if you will, that have produced the terrorists that have launched attacks not only against New York and Washington, but also Casablanca, and Madrid, and Mombassa, and Bali, and Jakarta, and Istanbul, and Riyadh, and so many other cities around the world since 9/11. That’s what we’re all about. Not only did we succeed there, of course, but when Colonel Ghadafi in Libya saw us succeed against Saddam Hussein, five days after we arrested Saddam, Colonel Ghadafi went public and said he was going to give up his aspirations to have nuclear weapons. And all of that material now, the weapons design, the uranium feedstocks, the centrifuges to enrich the uranium, it’s all under lock and key down at Oak Ridge, in Tennessee. And, of course, the network that Mr. A.Q. Khan had established is now out of business. Mr. Khan is under house arrest in Pakistan. And his suppliers are no longer in the business of supplying nuclear weapons technology to outlaw regimes around the world—a very significant set of accomplishments. And we’ve now managed for nearly three years to avoid another attack. But we should not underestimate the dedication and determination of our enemy. They’re still out there. They’re doing what they can to find ways to launch attacks against the United States. There’s reason to believe they’d like to try to do here what they’ve done so many other places around
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the world, and try to influence, if you will, the outcome of the political process … SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040824-4.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Remarks by Vice President Cheney at a Victory 2004 Rally, Kettering High School, Waterford, Michigan, August 24, 2004 (http://www. whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040824-7.html).
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks on Iraq and the War on Terrorism, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., November 22, 2005 My remarks today concern national security, in particular the war on terror and the Iraq front in that war. Several days ago, I commented briefly on some recent statements that have been made by some members of Congress about Iraq. Within hours of my speech, a report went out on the wires under the headline, quote, ‘‘Cheney says War Critics Dishonest, Reprehensible,’’ end quote. One thing I’ve learned in the last five years is that when you’re vice president you’re lucky if your speeches get any attention at all. But I have a quarrel with that headline, and it’s important to make this point at the outset. I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof. Disagreement, argument and debate are the essence of democracy … On the question of national security, feelings run especially strong. And there are deeply held differences of opinion on how to best protect the United States and our friends against the dangers of our time. Recently my friend and former colleague Jack Murtha called for a complete withdrawal of American forces now serving in Iraq, with a drawdown to begin at once. I disagree with Jack and believe his proposal would not serve the best interest of this nation. But he’s a good man, a Marine, a patriot, and he’s taking a clear stand in an entirely legitimate discussion. Nor is there any problem with debating whether the United States and our allies should have liberated Iraq in the first place. Here, as well, the differing views are very passionately and forcefully stated. But nobody is saying we should not be having this discussion or that you cannot reexamine a decision made by the president and the Congress some years ago. To the contrary, I believe it is critical that we continue to remind ourselves why this nation took action and why Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and why we have a duty to persevere. What is not legitimate and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence. Some of the most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein.
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Available intelligence indicated that the dictator of Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and this judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of many other nations, according to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission. All of us understood, as well, that for more than a decade, the U.N. Security Council had demanded that Saddam Hussein make a full accounting of his weapons programs. The burden of proof was entirely on the dictator of Iraq, not on the U.N. or the United States or anyone else. And he repeatedly refused to comply throughout the course of the decade. Permit me to burden you with a bit more history. In August of 1998, the U.S. passed a resolution urging President Clinton to take appropriate action to compel Saddam to come into compliance with his obligations to the Security Council. Not a single senator voted no. Two months later in October of ’98, again without a single dissenting vote in the United States Senate, the Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act. It explicitly adopted as American policy supporting efforts to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime from power and promoting an Iraqi democracy in its place. And just two months after signing the Iraq Liberation Law, President Clinton ordered that Iraq be bombed in an effort to destroy facilities that he believed were connected to Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programs. By the time Congress voted to authorize force in late 2002, there was broadbased, bipartisan agreement that the time had come to enforce the legitimate demands of the international community. And our thinking was informed by what had happened to our country on the morning of September 11th, 2001. As the prime target of terrorists who have shown an ability to hit America and who wish to do so in spectacular fashion, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to keep terrible weapons out of the hands of these enemies. And we must hold to account regimes that could supply those weapons to terrorists in defiance of the civilized world. As the president has said, terrorists and terror states do not reveal threats with fair notice, in formal declarations. And responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. In a post-9/11 world, the president and Congress of the United States declined to trust the word of a dictator who had a history of weapons of mass destruction programs, who actually used weapons of mass destruction against innocent civilians in his own country, who tried to assassinate a former president of the United States, who was routinely shooting at allied pilots trying to enforce no-fly zones, who had excluded weapons inspectors, who had defied the demands of the international community, whose regime had been designated an official state sponsor of terror and who had committed mass murder. Those are the facts. Although our coalition has not found WMD stockpiles in Iraq, I repeat that we never had the burden of proof; Saddam Hussein did. We operated on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years and within a totalitarian society ruled by fear and secret police. We also had the experience of first Gulf War, when the intelligence community had seriously underestimated the extent and progress Saddam had made toward developing nuclear weapons.
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Finally, according to the Duelfer report, Saddam Hussein wanted to preserve the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted. And we now know that the sanctions regime had lost its effectiveness and been totally undermined by Saddam Hussein’s successful effort to corrupt the oil-for-food program. The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight. But any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false. In the war on terror we face a loose network of committed fanatics found in many countries, operating under different commanders. Yet the branches of this network share the same basic ideology and the same dark vision for the world. The terrorists want to end American and Western influence in the Middle East. Their goal in that region is to gain control of a country so they have a base from which to launch attacks and to wage war against governments that do not meet their demands. For a time, the terrorists had such a base in Afghanistan under the backward and violent rule of the Taliban. And the terrorists hope to overturn Iraq’s democratic government and return that country to the rule of tyrants. The terrorists believe that by controlling an entire country, they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region and to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain across North Africa through the Middle East and South Asia all the way to Indonesia. They have made clear as well their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death in the United States. Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway. The reality is the terrorists were at war with our country long before the liberation of Iraq and long before the attacks of 9/11. And for many years, they were the ones on the offensive. They grew bolder in the belief that if they killed Americans, they could change American policy. In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 of our servicemen. Thereafter, the United States withdrew from Beirut. In Mogadishu in 1993, terrorists killed 19 American soldiers. Thereafter, the U.S. withdrew its forces from Somalia. Over time the terrorists concluded that they could strike America without paying a price, because they did repeatedly: the bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993, the murders at the Saudi National Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in 1996, the simultaneous bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and, of course, the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Believing they could strike us with impunity and that they could change U.S. policy, they attacked us on 9/11 here in the homeland, killing 3,000 people. Now they’re making a stand in Iraq, testing our resolve, trying to intimidate the United States into abandoning our friends and permitting the overthrow of this new Middle Eastern democracy.
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Recently, we obtained a message from the number two man in Al Qaida, Mr. Zawahiri, that he sent to his chief deputy in Iraq, the terrorist Zarqawi. The letter makes clear that Iraq is part of a larger plan of imposing Islamic radicalism across the broader Middle East, making Iraq a terrorist haven and a staging ground for attacks against other nations. Zawahiri also expresses the view that America can be made to run again. In light of the commitments our country has made, and given the stated intentions of the enemy, those who advocate a sudden withdraw from Iraq should answer a few simple questions: Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with Zarqawi, bin Laden and Zawahiri in control of Iraq? Would we be safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent on the destruction of our country? It is a dangerous illusion to suppose that another retreat by the civilized world would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone. In fact, such a retreat would convince the terrorists that free nations will change our policies, forsake our friends, abandon our interests whenever we are confronted with murder and blackmail. A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an invitation to further violence against free nations and a terrible blow to the future security of the United States of America. So much self-defeating pessimism about Iraq comes at a time of real progress in that country. Coalition forces are making decisive strikes against terrorist strongholds and more and more they are doing so with the Iraqi forces at their side. There are more than 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists along with our forces. On the political side, every benchmark has been met successfully, starting with the turnover of sovereignty more than a year ago, the national elections last January, the drafting of the constitution and its ratification by voters this last month and, a few weeks from now, the election of a new government under that new constitution. The political leaders of Iraq are steady and courageous, and the citizens, police and soldiers of that country have proudly stepped forward as active participants and guardians in a new democracy: running for office and speaking out, voting and sacrificing for their country. Iraqi citizens are doing all of this despite threats from terrorists who offer no political agenda for Iraq’s future and wage a campaign of mass slaughter against the Iraqi people themselves, the vast majority of whom are fellow Arabs and fellow Muslims. Day after day, Iraqis are proving their determination to live in freedom, to chart their own destiny and to defend their own country. And they can know that the United States will keep our commitment to them. We will continue the work of reconstruction. Our forces will keep going after the terrorists and continue training the Iraqi military so that Iraqis can eventually take the lead in their country’s security, and our men and women can come home. The United States of America is a good country, a decent country, and we are making the world a better place by defending the innocent, confronting the violent and bringing freedom to the oppressed.
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We understand the continuing dangers to civilization. And we have the resources, the strength and the moral courage to overcome those dangers and lay the foundations for a better world. SOURCE: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-11_22_05_Cheney. html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks on Iraq and the War on Terror, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., January 4, 2006 Our coalition has also put tremendous effort into standing up the Iraqi security forces, and we’ve come a great distance over the past year. More and more, coalition forces have Iraqis at their side, helping to clear out terrorists, and then staying in the area to maintain the peace. We’re helping build an Iraqi force that is sharp and well equipped, and this was vital to the success of last month’s elections. There are over 100 Iraqi combat battalions fighting the terrorists, along with our forces today. More than a dozen military bases our coalition used to occupy have been turned back to the Iraqis. Gradually, Iraqi forces are taking control of more and more territory, and as they undertake further missions on their own, confidence is growing within the country and more intelligence tips are coming in from the Iraqi people themselves. As the Iraqi army gains strength and experience, and as the political process advances, we’ll be able to decrease troop levels without losing our capacity to defeat the terrorists. We will stand firmly with Iraq’s leaders as they establish the institutions of a unified and a lasting democracy. On the political track, every benchmark has been met successfully—starting with the turnover of sovereignty a year and a half ago, national elections last January, the drafting of the constitution last summer, and the ratification of that constitution by voters in October, and, of course, most recently, the election of a new government under that constitution in December. The political leaders of Iraq are steady. They’re courageous, and the citizens, police and soldiers of that country have proudly stepped forward as active participants and guardians in a new democracy—running for office, speaking out, voting and sacrificing for their country. When I met with Prime Minister Jaafari in Baghdad, he pointed the voter turnout figures for the national elections, three of them in 2005—around 59 percent in January, some 63 percent in October, and approximately 70 percent turnout in December. Iraqi citizens have done all of this despite threats from terrorists who offer no political agenda for Iraq’s future, and wage a campaign of mass slaughter against the Iraqi people themselves, the vast majority of whom are fellow Muslims. Day after day, month after month, Iraqis have proven their determination to live in freedom, to chart their own destiny, and to defend their country. And they can know that the United States will keep our commitment to them. We will continue the work of reconstruction. Our forces will keep going after the terrorists, and continue training the Iraqi military, so that Iraqis can eventually take the lead in their country’s security and our men and women can
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come home. We will succeed in this mission, and when it is concluded, we will be a safer country here in the United States, as well. The President and I believe that the victory of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq will be an inspiration to democratic reformers in other lands. In the broader Middle East and beyond, America will continue to encourage free institutions, individual liberty, and tolerance because these are the ideas and the aspirations that overcome ideologies of terror and violence and can turn societies to the pursuit of peace … Wartime conditions are, in every case, a test of military skill and national resolve. But this is especially true in the war on terror. Four years ago, President Bush told Congress and the country that the path ahead would be difficult, that we were heading into a long struggle, unlike any we have ever known. All this has come to pass. We have faced, and are facing today, enemies who hate us, who hate our country, and who hate the liberties for which we stand. They dwell in the shadows, wear no uniform, and have no regard for the laws of warfare, and feel unconstrained by any standard of morality. We’ve never had a fight like this—and those of us in positions of responsibility have a duty to wage a broad-scale effort for the sake of the nation’s freedom and our security. That effort includes a home front, with a great deal of urgent and difficult work and needed to persevere. In his speech to Congress after 9/11, President Bush said that the United States would, and I quote, ‘‘direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war—to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.’’ The Congress of the United States backed him up in full, authorizing the President to defeat an enemy that had already slipped into our country and waged a horrific attack that killed 3,000 innocent, unsuspecting men, women, and children on 9/11. The President also signed the Patriot Act, which removed the artificial barrier that used to exist between law enforcement and intelligence, and gave federal officials the ability to pursue terrorists with the tools they already use against drug traffickers and other kinds of criminals. That law has helped us to disrupt terrorist activity, to break up terror cells within the United States, and to protect the lives of Americans. We look forward to a renewal of the Patriot Act in 2006, because that law has done exactly what it was intended to do, and this country cannot afford to be without its protections. Another vital step the President took in the days following 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If we’d been able to do this before 9/11, we might have been able to pick up on two hijackers who subsequently flew a jet into the Pentagon. They were in the United States, communicating with al Qaeda associates overseas. But we did not know they were here plotting until it was too late. If you recall, the report of the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on our inability to cover links between terrorists at home and terrorists abroad. The
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authorization the President made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional responsibilities and legal authority of the President and with the civil liberties of the American people. The activities conducted under this authorization have helped to detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people. As such, this program is critical to the national security of the United States. … SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060104-2.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 2006 Policy Conference, Washington, D.C., March 7, 2006 To prevail in this fight, we must understand the nature of the enemy. As Israelis have seen so many times, and as America experienced on September 11th, 2001, the terrorist enemy is brutal and heartless. This enemy wears no uniform, has no regard for the rules of warfare, and is unconstrained by any standard of decency or morality. We are dealing with enemies who plot and plan in secret, then attempt to slip into a country, blend in among the innocent, and kill without mercy. This enemy has a set of beliefs—and we saw the expression of those beliefs in the rule of the Taliban. They seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to a narrow, hateful ideology. This ideology rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. Such beliefs can be imposed only through force and intimidation, so those who refuse to bow to the tyrants will be brutalized or killed—and no person or group is exempt. The terrorists have targeted people of every nationality and every religious faith, including Muslims who disagree with them. The war on terror is a fight against evil; victory in this war will be a victory for peaceful men and women of every religious faith. This enemy also has a set of clear objectives. The terrorists want to end all American and Western influence in the Middle East. Their goal in that region is to seize control of a country, so they have a base from which to launch attacks and wage war against governments that do not meet their demands. The terrorists believe that by controlling one country, they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and ultimately to establish a totalitarian empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way around to Indonesia. They have made clear, as well, their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons; to destroy Israel; to intimidate all Western countries; and to cause mass death here in the United States. Some might look at these ambitions and wave them off as extreme and mad. Well, these ambitions are, indeed, extreme and they are mad. They are
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also real, and we must not wave them off. We must take them seriously. We must oppose them. And we must defeat them. Over the last several decades, Americans have seen how the terrorists pursue their objectives. Simply stated, they would hit us, but we would not hit back hard enough. In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 Americans, and afterward U.S. forces withdrew from Beirut. In 1993 we had the killing of American soldiers in Mogadishu, and the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. Then came the attack on the Saudi National Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995; the killings at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and, of course, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. With each attack, the terrorists grew more confident in believing they could strike America without paying a price—and indeed, believing that if they killed enough Americans, they could change American policy. So they continued to wage those attacks—making the world less safe and eventually striking the United States in our homeland on September 11th. And we’ve seen the work of terrorists in many attacks since 9/11—in Jerusalem, Riyadh, Casablanca, Istanbul, Karachi, Mombassa, Bali, Jakarta, Najaf, Baghdad, London and Madrid. The terrorists have declared war on the civilized world. And America will lead the civilized world to victory. We have a strategy of our own in this fight. First, we are absolutely determined to prevent attacks before they occur, and so we are on the offensive against the terror networks. At home and with coalition partners abroad, we’ve broken up terror cells, tracked down terrorist operatives, and put heavy pressure on their ability to organize and plan attacks. Second, we are determined to deny safe haven to the terrorists. Since the day our country was attacked, we have applied the Bush Doctrine: Any person or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and will be held to account. Third, we are working to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and to keep those weapons out of the hands of killers. In the post-9/11 world, the United States and our allies are determined: we will not live at the mercy of terrorists or regimes that could arm them with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. This requires that we deal with threats before they fully materialize. Fourth, we are determined to deny the terrorists the control of any nation, which they would use as a home base and a staging ground for terrorist attacks against others. That is why we continue to fight Taliban remnants and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. That’s why we are working with President Musharraf to oppose and isolate the terrorist element in Pakistan. And that is why we are fighting the Saddam remnants and terrorists in Iraq. Our strategy in Iraq is clear, our tactics will remain flexible, and we’ll keep at the work until we finish the job. For that reason, our strategy for victory in the war on terror has a fifth and crucial element: Across the broader Middle East, we will work to replace hatred and resentment with democracy and hope. Supporting political freedom and peaceful change in a troubled part of the world is a long-term commitment. And we already know that the work will be
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difficult. Yet there is no alternative. On 9/11, the United States learned that problems boiling in a far-off region of the world could lead directly to a sudden and murderous attack right here on our own soil. For decades in the Middle East, millions of people have known nothing but dictatorship and heavy-handed rule—resulting in misery, bitterness, and the ideologies of violence. If we simply accept the status quo, that region will be a source of conflict and mounting violence for this generation and beyond. As Americans, we have faith in democracy, but no illusions. We know that it takes time and effort and patience for democratic values and free institutions to take hold, and the greater Middle East has a long way to go. The promise of democracy rests ultimately on free elections and the ability of free peoples to hold accountable those who govern them —but that is only the beginning. A functioning democracy requires institutions that endure beyond a single vote. Democracy requires the protection of minority rights, religious liberty, equality before the law, freedom of expression, and an inclusive society in which every person belongs. And those who win elections have a duty to nurture institutions and laws that serve the peaceful aspirations of their people. Such duties now belong to the newly elected government in the Palestinian territories. I recognize that the outcome of last month’s election has caused some to question whether democracy is truly the way toward peace in the Middle East. They argue that, by promoting democratic change, we are actually destabilizing the region and undermining hopes for peace. I believe that’s a faulty argument. For one thing, it’s hard to claim that you get lasting stability and peace by denying people a voice in their own government. In fact, the denial of legitimate means of expressing dissent is one of the causes of extremism in the Middle East. For decades, many thought it was worth tolerating oppression for the sake of stability in that region. But we were only buying time as problems multiplied, and demagogues stirred resentment, and the ideologies of violence took hold. We must make a clean break with that history of failed policy. By helping the peoples of that region gain the freedom to express their views, to have open debate, and to choose their own leaders, we have a better chance of defeating the radicalism that threatens us all. An alternative to democratic rule is command and control by a tiny elite. That’s unfortunately what we have seen for much of the past decade in the Palestinian territories—and we’re still living with the legacy of corruption, broken promises, abject poverty, the collapse of the rule of law and, ultimately, the outbreak of a terrorist campaign on Israel’s doorstep. The Hamas candidates pledged to fight corruption and to improve social services, and they’ll be held to that standard by the Palestinian people. If the leaders of Hamas desire the help of America and the international community to build an independent, prosperous Palestinian state, then the way forward is very clear. The Palestinian government must recognize Israel’s right to exist. And Hamas must renounce terror and dismantle the infrastructure of terror. One thing is certain: The United States will not be a party to the establishment of a Palestinian state that sponsors terror and violence.
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Nearly four years ago President Bush committed himself to the vision of two states, living side by side in peace and security. At the same time, he made it clear: There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. … Over the past four years, other free nations have risen in the broader Middle East. America will remain on the side of democratic reformers, and the reformers are on the side of history. Across that region, the political dialogue has been transformed—and politicians, scholars, students, and men and women from every walk of life are talking about freedom, equal rights, and accountable institutions of government. One leader in Lebanon said: ‘‘When I saw the Iraqi people voting, it was the start of a new Arab world … The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.’’ SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060307-1.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at a Rally for Expeditionary Strike Group One, The USS Bonhomme Richard, San Diego, California, May 23, 2006 … the greatest danger to civilization is the prospect of a terror network, on its own or with the help of an outlaw regime, acquiring weapons of mass destruction—and thereby gaining the power to kill hundreds of thousands, and to blackmail entire nations. In the face of such enemies, we have to consider a few basic questions: First, whether to confront them on our terms, or on their terms; second, whether to face them on their territory, or our territory; and third, whether to wage this war on offense or defense. America and the civilized world have made our decision: Wherever terrorists operate, we will find them where they dwell, stop them in their planning, and bring them to justice. We will stay on offense and stay in the fight until the fight is won. It’s a large effort, because the terror network has cells in countries all over the world. Yet bit by bit, by diplomacy, through intelligence cooperation, police work, and the spread of democratic institutions, we are acting to shrink the area in which the terrorists can operate freely. We have also enforced a doctrine that is understood by all: Governments that support or harbor terrorists are complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes. We gave ultimatums to the brutal regimes led by the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. And when those regimes defied the demands of the civilized world, we acted to remove them from power and to liberate their people. The nature of the terrorist enemy—hidden, diffuse, secret in their movements, asymmetrical in their tactics—creates a different kind of security environment. And a military that was designed for the mid-to-late 20th century must now become a force that is more adaptable, more agile, and more lethal in action. As we transform the military we’re going to build upon traditional advantages such as our technological superiority, our ability to project force across great distances, and our precision strike capabilities.
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We’re going to stress rapid reaction and reward new thinking, breaking down old information stovepipes, and placing greater emphasis on jointness of operations. At the same time, we’re keeping our eye on the fundamentals, and one of those is sea power. Naval operations are every bit as important, if not more so, than they were in the last century. Nothing takes the place of a naval task force, able to enter any ocean, project great force from over the horizon, and keep terrorists from disrupting the sea lanes or using the ocean to transport operatives or weapons. Sea power allows the Commander-in-Chief to commit forces while retaining flexibility. With ships in place, we can fire precision strikes, launch sea-based rockets and missiles, deploy SEALS and Marine Air-Ground Task Forces by night or day, from close by or from a distance. Expeditionary Strike Groups are essential in this new security environment, because they are so highly mobile and so adaptable. With ESGs, we have great offensive capability, expanded operational reach, a maritime interdiction force without equal, and an even better intelligence-gathering network. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060523-6.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see a similar speech by Vice President Cheney at a rally for Expeditionary Strike Group 8, Norfolk, Virginia, Naval Base, July 2006 (http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060707-7.html).
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Commencement Address at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, May 26, 2006 You are the first class to enter the Academy following the attacks of 9/11. And I’m guessing that more than a few of you were inspired to military service by that attack on our country. In these four years, the war on terror has influenced the course of study at our service academies, and it will define much of your career leading American sailors and Marines. To prevail in this fight, we must understand the nature of the enemy that threatens America and the civilized world. It is as brutal and heartless as any we have ever faced. This enemy … is unconstrained by any standard of decency or morality. They … target the defenseless, and rejoice at the death of innocent, unsuspecting human beings. This enemy has a set of beliefs—and we saw the expression of those beliefs in the rule of the Taliban … Such beliefs can be imposed only through force and intimidation, so those who refuse to bow to the tyrants will be brutalized or killed—and no person or group is exempt. This enemy also has a clear set of objectives. The terrorists want to end all American and Western influence in the Middle East. Their goal in that region is to seize control of a country, so they have a base from which to launch attacks and wage war against governments that do not meet their demands. The terrorists believe that by controlling one country, they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, ultimately to establish a totalitarian empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa,
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through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia. They have made clear, as well, their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons; to destroy Israel; to intimidate all Western countries; and to cause mass death here in the United States. Some might look at these ambitions and wave them off as extreme and mad. Well, these ambitions are extreme and mad. They are also real, and we must not wave them off. We must take them seriously. We must oppose them. And we must defeat them. Over the last several decades, Americans have seen how the terrorists pursue their objectives. To put it in very basic terms, they would hit us, and we would not hit back hard enough. For many years prior to 9/11, we treated terror attacks against Americans as isolated incidents, and answered—if at all—on an ad hoc basis, and never in a systematic way.… With each attack, the terrorists grew more confident in believing they could strike America without paying a price and believing that if they killed enough Americans, they could change our policy. So they continued to wage those attacks—making the world less safe and eventually striking us here in the homeland on September 11th and killing 3,000 of our fellow citizens. Because our coalition has stood by our commitment to the Afghan and Iraqi peoples, some 50 million men, women, and children who lived under dictators now live in freedom. Afghanistan is a rising democracy, with the first fully elected government in its 5,000-year history. Iraq has the most progressive constitution and the strongest democratic mandate in the Arab world.… We will help them on this journey because we are a nation that keeps its word. And we know that when men and women are given the power to determine their own destiny, the ideologies of violence and resentment will lose their appeal, and nations will turn their energies to the pursuit of peace. In an enterprise as vast as the war on terror, victory requires that we use every element of our national power. The terrorists view the entire world as a battlefield. And those of us in positions of responsibility must do everything we can to figure out the intentions of an enemy that likely has combatants inside the United States today. We live in a free and open society, and the terrorists want to use those very advantages against us. And so we have an urgent duty to learn who they are, what they are doing, and to stop them before they act. For this reason, in the aftermath of 9/11 President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. The purpose is very simple to state: If people inside the United States are communicating with al Qaeda, they are talking to the enemy—and we need to know about it. The Terrorist Surveillance Program is highly classified and carefully limited. The program was improperly revealed to the news media, some of which now describe it as domestic surveillance. That is not the case. We are talking about international communications, one end of which we have reason to believe is related to al Qaeda or to terrorist networks. It’s hard to think of any category of information that could be more important to the safety of the United States. The Terrorist Surveillance Program is fully consistent with the constitutional responsibilities and the legal authorities of the President. And the
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program is conducted in a manner that fully protects the civil liberties of the American people. The President has made clear … from the outset, both publicly and privately, that our duty to uphold the law of the land admits no exceptions in wartime. As he has said, ‘‘We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.’’ In addition, the entire program is reconsidered and reauthorized by the President himself every 45 days. He has reauthorized it more than 30 times since September 11th because our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related organizations. Key members of Congress, from both political parties, have received more than a dozen briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The reason I know this is that I’m the one who presided over most of those briefings. Above all, I can tell you that the Terrorist Surveillance Program is absolutely essential to the security of the United States. If you’ll recall, the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on the nation’s inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists overseas. The term that’s used is ‘‘connecting the dots’’—and the fact is that one small piece of data might very well make it possible to save thousands of lives. And the very important question today is whether or not we’ve learned all the lessons of September 11th. In the decade prior to 9/11, this country spent more than $2 trillion dollars on national security. Yet we lost nearly 3,000 Americans at the hands of 19 men with box cutters and plane tickets. In the case of al Qaeda we are not dealing with large armies we can track, or uniforms we can see, or men with territory of their own to defend. Their preferred tactic, which they boldly proclaim, is to slip into this country, blend in among the innocent, kill without mercy and without restraint. They have intelligence and counterintelligence operations of their own. They take their orders from overseas. They are using the most sophisticated communications technology they can get their hands on. Since 9/11 they have successfully carried out attacks in Casablanca, Jakarta, Mombassa, Bali, Riyadh, Baghdad, Istanbul, Madrid, London, Sharm al-Sheikh and elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we have not had another 9/11. But while the enemies that struck us may be weakened and fractured, they are still lethal and still desperately trying to hit us again. They hate us, they hate our country, and they hate the liberties for which we stand. They have contempt for our values. They doubt our strength. And they believe that America will lose our nerve and let down our guard. We’re all grateful that this nation has not had another day like September 11th. Obviously, no one can guarantee that we won’t be hit again. But the relative safety of these years did not come about by accident. We’ve been protected by sensible policy decisions, by decisive action at home and abroad, and by round-the-clock efforts on the part of people in the armed services, law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security. Every day the President of the United States makes decisions based on the intelligence briefing he received that morning. The information in that briefing is critical to assessing risks, and to allocating security assets inside the homeland and far beyond. Throughout our military, intelligence has a daily, indeed hourly, influence on the movement of ships and subs, fighter and bomber missions, and orders given to those commands at the tip of the spear.
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Gathering the best information, and getting it into the hands of the war fighter, means that your work is more effective, your maneuvers are more safe, and the nation you serve is more secure. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060526-4.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks and Q&A at the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize Luncheon, The National Press Club, Washington, D.C., June 19, 2006 Q. Are we winning the war on terror? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I believe we are. I think we’ve made significant progress if you look back over the last nearly five years now. 9/11, obviously, was a watershed event for us. After 9/11, we adopted a very aggressive strategy that involved a range of activities, but most especially going after the terrorists wherever we could find them on their ground, going after states that sponsored terror, given the fact that the biggest threat now is the possibility of an al Qaeda cell armed with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent in the middle of one of our own cities, the WMD issue. And it has been very important. Going after the financial networks, where I think we’ve made significant progress, cooperation with intelligence agencies of other nations, as well, too. I look at the broad sweep of events over that period of time and several things stand out. First of all, the fact—I define this as sort of a key ingredient of getting the locals into the fight, that is to say the United States cannot all by itself succeed everyplace unless we’ve got friends and allies willing to participate in the venture. Certainly, we did that in Afghanistan when we went in and toppled the Taliban government in short order with the help of Afghans who participate in that conflict. We’ve done it in places like Pakistan, where the government of Pakistan signed on. It has been a good ally. We’ve captured and killed more al Qaeda in Pakistan than just about any place else in the world. It has happened in Saudi Arabia and is happening now in Iraq where we’ve gone in, taken down regimes that were safe havens for terrorists, or that we had reason to believe were an integral part of the problem, and, of course, moved aggressively then in Afghanistan and Iraq to stand up new democracies to train their own forces. And that process goes forward. The other point I’d make in connection with the global war on terror is the fact that it has been nearly five years now and we haven’t been hit again. Nobody can promise that we won’t be hit. We know that organizations are still out there, that in addition to al Qaeda, there are al Qaeda wannabees. There have been attacks around the world since 9/11 in places like London and Madrid and Istanbul and Casablanca and Mombasa and Tunisia and Jakarta and Bali and many, many other places. But the fact of the matter is, we’ve been safe and secure here at home. That’s not an accident. It didn’t happen just because we got lucky. I think there’s a great temptation on the part of some people to believe that 9/11 was a one-off affair and it will never happen again, but that’s not the case.
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One of the reasons—several reasons I think why we have been successful up until now is that we’ve gotten extremely aggressive at taking the battle to the enemy overseas, but secondly also because we’ve taken some measures here at home that have been instrumental in collecting the intelligence we need to be able to disrupt attacks against the United States and to protect the lives of Americans. And there I would point to such things as the Patriot Act and the terrorist surveillance program. Obviously, there’s been some controversy in connection with those, but the terrorist surveillance program has been very important. We’ve engaged in a debate about the wisdom of the program and whether or not it’s legal, but it clearly is legal, we believe. It is consistent with the Constitution. It is a program that is reviewed personally by the President every 45 days. He renews it only after he’s been assured by our lead intelligence officials, by the Defense Department, and assured by the Attorney General of the United States that it fully complies with the laws of the land—then and only then does he renew that act. But I think that combination of things—very aggressive campaigns overseas in key areas, as well as the extraordinary measures we’ve taken to defend the nation here at home are in no small part responsible for the fact that we have not been hit again since 9/11. Again, let me emphasize, nobody can promise that we won’t be hit again, but I think we’ve had significant success primarily because of decisions that the President, coupled with the enormous and tremendously courageous performance of our military, our intelligence people and a lot of others involved in the effort. Q. Do you think that you underestimated the insurgency’s strength? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think so. I guess if I look back on it now, I don’t think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we’ve encountered. I guess the other area that I look at, in terms of an area where I think we were faced with difficulties we didn’t anticipate was the devastation that 30 years of Saddam’s rule had wrought, if you will, on the psychology of the Iraqi people. Very, very hard to go from the way they were forced to live for a long period of time to a situation in which they have the opportunity for self-government, for setting up and operating their own free and democratically-elected society. That’s a huge transition to make. And if I look back on something that I underestimated, it would be the extent to which that society had been damaged by that series of events that had occurred over 30 years during Saddam’s rule, up to and including the 1991 uprising where so many Iraqis rose up against the regime, and then were slaughtered by Saddam Hussein’s forces. Q. This comes as no surprise, this being a press club, I do have several press questions for you. The Bush administration worries that disclosures of classified information may have damaged national security. Can you cite a time in U.S. history when a press disclosure has genuinely damaged national security? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I do believe that there need to be secrets. I think there are things that the federal government does in the national security arena that need to be off limits. And I think the fact of the matter is that there have been stories written that are damaging, if you will, from the standpoint of national security. I would—obviously, I can’t get into any operational
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details. One of the frustrations that exist with this debate is that you cannot go out and talk about current operations with the press in order to try to explain to everybody why that particular piece of information needs to say secret. Let me just say that there have been examples that I am aware of where we’ve had discussions of ways in which al Qaeda communicates, for example, and because of those conversations they no longer communicate that way, and we’ve lost the ability in some cases to be able to intercept important communications. I can think of one situation recently that had to do with a story that appeared in one of our major newspapers. It dealt with certain technical countermeasures that we were considering with respect to how we would deal with a certain type of a problem. And within five days of the publication of that story, there were posted ways to deal with that and to neutralize our activities on one of the jihadist websites. That was about five days from publication in a major U.S. news outlet until it was on a jihadist website—advice, in effect, on how to counter what our military wanted to do in a particular area. Now that strikes me as a pretty straightforward, direct example of why it is important that there be secrets. I think oftentimes in the past, there’s no question, the executive branch has probably overdone it with respect to classification. On the other hand, the assumption on the part of some of the press that it doesn’t matter if it’s classified, they have every right to print absolutely anything they want, and they are the final judges, I think that’s a mistake. I think if somebody is asked by the—say, the President of the United States or a senior administration official who is in a position of authority and has some knowledge in the area to withhold on a particular story, they need to give that serious thought. And I think that … one of the problems we have is that oftentimes as a government we’re perceived by other governments overseas, people we have to work with, intelligence services who need to have confidence in our ability to keep a secret, find it difficult to work with us because the United States has oftentimes demonstrated an inability to maintain the security of classified information. So it’s the problem. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060619-10.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by John King, CNN, The Vice President’s Residence, June 26, 2006 Q. The Democrats will put on the floor of the Senate today a proposal—they don’t have the votes—but they say this administration’s policy in Iraq has failed. And the leading Democratic proposal would say, let’s have a partial withdrawal—they call it a redeployment—and then require the administration to put forward a plan. Now, they say this is not cut and run, it’s not retreat, but they say three years and three months later, it is time for the administration to tell the Iraqi government you cannot have this indefinite American security blanket. You need to do a better job of preparing your own people to take over security, what’s wrong with that?
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THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s wrong in many respects, John. First of all, they’re wrong. We are making significant progress. We’ve had major success on the political front in terms of three national elections last year by the Iraqis. They’ve stood up a brand new government under a new constitution for the first time ever. We’ve got a quarter of a million Iraqis now in uniform, equipped, trained, in the fight. So there has been significant progress made with respect to what’s going on in Iraq. What the Democrats are suggesting basically you can call it withdrawal, you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it, basically it’s—in effect, validates the terrorist strategy. You got to remember that the Osama bin Laden types, the al Qaeda types, the Zarqawi types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States’ will. There’s no way they can defeat us militarily. But their whole strategy—if you look at what bin Laden has been saying for 10 years—is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we’ll get tired of the fight, that we don’t have the stomach for a long, tough battle, and that we’ll pack it in and go home. If we were to do that, it would be devastating from the standpoint of the global war on terror. It would affect what happens in Afghanistan. It would make it difficult for us to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations for nuclear weapons. It would threaten the stability of regimes like Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudis in Saudi Arabia. It is—absolutely the worst possible thing we could do at this point would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do, which is to leave. Q. … You say validating and encouraging the terrorists, the Democrats say they’re tired of validating what they view as a failed policy. And as you know some Democrats want to go even further. Senator Kerry wants to have a complete withdrawal within a year or so. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right. Q. Jack Murtha, an old friend of yours, with whom you have sparred recently in the House, he says, look, when President Reagan realized the policy in Beirut was failing, he withdrew the troops. Call it cut and run if you will. When President Clinton realized the policy in Somalia was failing, he withdrew the troops. Again, some might say cut and run. He says this war is costing $8 billion a month, $300 million a day, there’s no end in sight. And forgive me, but he says, you don’t have a plan, so let’s not have more kids killed. THE VICE PRESIDENT: He’s wrong. I like Jack Murtha. He’s a friend. We did a lot of business together in the past when I was Secretary of Defense and he was chairman of defense appropriations sub-committee. But the instances he cites, Beirut in ’83, Somalia in ’93 is what bin Laden cited back in 1997 and ’98. He made speeches where he, in effect, argued that the Americans didn’t have the stomach for a fight, that ultimately the terrorists would win, al Qaeda would win. And he’s cited as evidence of that, what happened in Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. That’s my point. The fact of the matter is that we are in a global conflict. It’s not just about Iraq. It’s—we’ve seen attacks around the world from New York and Washington, all the way around to Jakarta and Indonesia over the course of the last
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five years. Our strategy that we adopted after 9/11 of progressively going after the terrorists, going after states that sponsor terror, taking the fight to the enemy has been crucial in terms of our being able to defend the United States. I think one of the reasons we have not been struck again in five years—and nobody can promise we won’t—but it’s because we’ve taken the fight to them. And if Jack Murtha is successful in persuading the country that somehow we should withdraw now from Iraq, then you have to ask what happens to all of those people who’ve signed up with the United States, who are on our side in this fight against the radical extremist Islamic types of bin Laden and al Qaeda. What happens to the 12 million Iraqis who went to the polls last December and voted in spite of the assassins and the car bombers? What happens to the quarter of a million Iraqis who’ve gotten into the fight to take on the terrorists? The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting. And no matter how you carve it, you can call it anything you want, but basically it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight. Q. Well, you disagree with the Democrats’ plan, but they are stepping into a political environment in which the American people—clearly, some have anger, some have dissatisfaction, some have doubts about this war and the administration’s plan for this war. Fifty-four percent of the American people say it’s a mistake; 55 percent say things are going badly in Iraq; 53 percent in our polling say the American people actually support a timetable. Why is it that the administration has failed to articulate to the American people then? The American people don’t think you have a plan, sir. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re wrong. We do have a plan. It’s there for anybody who wants to take a look at it. The Democrats have repeatedly made this charge. It’s simply not the case. There is a good plan in place. We are making significant progress, but this is a long-term fight. I think there are a lot of people out there— Q. Let me—let me jump in. One other point here, is it wrong—you say it’s wrong to publicly set a timetable. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q. And I understand the argument for that. You’d cue off—tee the terrorists off to what you’re going to do. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. Q. Has the Iraqi government been told privately you need to meet certain bench marks, training your troops, improving security by a date certain because the American people are not going to pay for this forever? THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think they know full well that we are expecting them to take on more and more responsibility. It’s one of the reasons the President went to Baghdad recently. In all of our conversations with them, they know what we’re trying to do, and they’ve stepped up to that task and that responsibility. The fact of the matter is, obviously, we’ve lost a lot of people, which you wish you hadn’t lost anybody. But the heavy casualties are being taken by the Iraqis. There are a lot more Iraqis being—becoming casualties in this conflict at present because they are now in the fight. Again, I
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come back to the basic proposition: What happens in the global war on terror if the United States bails out in Iraq? And that’s exactly what withdrawal is. You’re going to take your troops out before the conflict is over with. You’re not going to complete the mission—if we follow the Democrats’ advice. And in fact, we will have set up a situation in which the al Qaeda types can win. They have a plan to establish a caliphate that stretches from Spain all the way around to Indonesia, to kick the Americans out of the Middle East, to destroy Israel, to take down most of those regimes in that part of the world. And they will do anything they can to achieve that objective. But ultimately what they’re betting on is that we don’t have the stomach for the fight, and we cannot afford to validate that strategy. We can win. We are winning, but we’ve got to stay at it. Q. In the political debate over the war, even your friends say that you have given the Democrats a couple of doozies by saying early on ‘‘we would be greeted as liberators,’’ by saying about a year ago, ‘‘the insurgency was in its lasts throes.’’ I know factually you have said you stand by those statements based on the circumstances at the time. You’re not new to this game. You’ve been in national politics for 30 something years. In the political environment, do you wish you could take those words back? THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think that, in fact, we are making very significant progress. There’s no doubt in my mind but we’re going to win. We will prevail in Iraq. We will prevail in Afghanistan. And I think the evidence is there for anybody who wants to look at it. With respect to the overall course of the campaign, I think it’s been very successful. With respect to this question of liberation, we have, indeed, liberated 50 million people—25 million in Afghanistan from the rule of the Taliban; 25 million in Iraq from the rule of Saddam Hussein, two of the worst regimes in modern times, a very, very significant achievement. But we have to stay the course. It does not make any sense for people to think that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans, leave the Middle East, walk away from Iraq, and we’ll be safe and secure here at home. 9/11 put the lie to that. … If we pull out, they’ll follow us. It doesn’t matter where we go. This is a global conflict. We’ve seen them attack in London and Madrid and Casablanca and Istanbul and Mombassa and East Africa. They’ve been on a global basis involved in this conflict, and it will continue whether we complete the job or not in Iraq. Only it’ll get worse. Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists. They’ll use it in order to launch attacks against our friends and allies in that part of the world. Q. You acknowledged this past week that the administration and you personally underestimated the strength of the insurgency. Q. As you know even friends of the administration, supporters of this war have criticized the administration saying not enough troops were sent in at the beginning. You have a unique perspective on it. You were the Defense Secretary in the first Gulf War. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q. You’re the Vice President now. In the first Gulf War, it was the Powell Doctrine: If you’re going to put U.S. troops at risk, do so in overwhelming
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numbers with overwhelming force so that there is no doubt. Secretary Rumsfeld prefers the leaner force, a more mobile force. As history looks at this, is one early lesson that the Powell Doctrine trumps the Rumsfeld Doctrine? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. I think you’ve got to look at each individual circumstance and figure out what makes sense in terms of the kinds of forces you need to bring to bear, what your enemy is capable of, what your goals and objectives are. I think you have to be very careful about generalizing from one conflict to the next. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060622-8.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention, Reno, Nevada, August 28, 2006 I know some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway. As President Bush has said, the hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The terrorists regard the entire world as their battlefield. That is why al Qaeda has operatives in Iraq today. And they believe they can frighten and intimidate America into a policy of retreat. I realize, as well, that some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone. But the exact opposite is true. Time and again over the last generation, the terrorists have targeted nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. In fact such a retreat would convince the terrorists, once again, that free nations will change our policies, forsake our friends, and abandon our interests whenever we are confronted with violence and blackmail. They would simply draw up another set of demands, and instruct Americans to act as they direct or to face other murders. A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an invitation to further violence against free nations, and a ruinous blow to the future security of the United States. In our own country, we take democratic values seriously—and so we always have a vigorous debate on the issues. That’s part of the greatness of America, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. But there is a difference between healthy debate and self-defeating pessimism. We have only two options in Iraq—victory or defeat. And this nation will not pursue a policy of retreat. We will complete the mission, we will get it done right, and then we will return with honor. Before we took down Saddam Hussein’s regime, President Bush said the United States would not permit another dictatorship to rise on the ruins of the old one. And today, Iraq has the most progressive constitution and the strongest democratic mandate in the entire Arab world. Iraq’s political leaders are steady and courageous, and the citizens, police, and soldiers have stepped forward as active participants and guardians of the new democracy—running
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for office, speaking out, voting by the millions, and sacrificing for the future of their country. Iraqi citizens are doing all of this despite threats from terrorists who offer no political agenda for Iraq’s future and wage a campaign of mass slaughter against the Iraqi people themselves—the vast majority of whom are fellow Arabs and fellow Muslims. As Prime Minister Maliki said on his recent visit to Washington, his country has gone ‘‘from a one-party state, ruled by a small elite, to a multi-party system where politics is the domain of every citizen and parties compete at all levels.’’ And Iraqis have firmly chosen ‘‘hope over fear; liberty over oppression; dignity over submission; democracy over dictatorship.’’ America is helping Iraq on this journey, because we are a nation that keeps its word. And we know that when men and women are given the power to determine their own destiny, the ideologies of violence and resentment will lose their appeal, and nations will turn their energies to the pursuit of peace. By standing with our friends, we are making a better day possible in the broader Middle East. By supporting democracy, we serve both the ideals and the security of our nation. And the brave Americans on duty in this war can be proud of their service for the rest of their lives. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060828-4.html EDITOR’S NOTE: The deleted section contains virtually identical language on the terrorism surveillance program contained in Vice President Cheney’s May 26, 2006, commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Satellite Interview by WFLA-TV, 9th Congressional District Open Seat Candidate Gus Bilirakis, Tampa, Florida, October 19, 2006 Q. … The plan to have put more troops into Baghdad to suppress the violence there seems to have backfired in that it seems to only be providing more targets for the terrorists. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the fact is that we’ve had more troops engaged in Baghdad because that’s where the biggest threat is. Most of the country is in relatively good shape at this stage. The vast majority of provinces, things are fairly normal. The main struggle has, in fact, been in Baghdad in recent weeks. And there is a significant troop presence there. And that’s why I think you see most of the conflict generated there. But this is a very important mission. And it’s very important that we complete the task. We’ve made significant progress in Iraq. We’ve had three elections now, a new constitution written. This government has only been in power about five months. They’ve still got a lot of work to do, and we don’t want to stay a day longer than necessary, but we do want to make sure we get the job done. And it’s very important that we complete the transition that we’ve started in Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s regime to a new democratically elected government, that we get enough Iraqis trained and equipped so they can provide for their
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own security and they’re capable of taking care of their own needs and requirements. And the world will be much safer for it. Q. Yes, sir, but having stationed so many additional troops in the city has just—as far as our perception, the American people’s perception, along with the statistics—has simply provided the terrorists an opportunity to kill more Americans, and the violence has escalated, not decreased as a result of our additional presence there. THE VICE PRESIDENT: But I think one of the things you got to look at here is what’s the enemy up to. They can’t beat us in a stand-up fight. They’ve never been able to. What they’re betting on is that they can break our will, that is to say they based on prior experience, based on Beirut in 1983, when we lost 241 Marines and then withdrew after that suicide attack; or Mogadishu in 1993, where we lost 19 men in a battle there and shortly thereafter withdrew our forces; looking at those lessons and the lessons of the ’90s, the terrorists have concluded that if they kill enough Americans, they can change U.S. policy. And I think they’ve worked very directly to try to influence public opinion here at home. You can look at their websites and see that that’s exactly what they’re all about. And the level of conflict we’re seeing there now I believe is very much based upon that proposition that they’re trying to break the will of the American people. Q. Yes, sir. But the purpose of putting additional troops there was to reduce the violence, and instead it has gone up. Therefore, it would seem that our tactic to increase our force in Baghdad has not worked. In fact, it seems to be failing. THE VICE PRESIDENT: You can’t defeat the enemy by withdrawing from them. You can only defeat them by taking them on, and that’s exactly what our troops are doing. Q. Well, taking them on—my sources in Kabul in Afghanistan have told me that a lot of our troops are being kept inside the wire, so to speak, so that they will not come under attack. If, in fact, my sources are correct, how can we hope to defeat the Taliban, the increasing—the resurgence of the Taliban there, if our people are staying inside the base? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I’d disagree with that assessment. What we’ve got in Afghanistan is a situation in which NATO has now moved in a major way. NATO has taken on major responsibility. We’ve got U.S. forces as part of that NATO force, but we’ve got representatives there, troops there from virtually every country in NATO, under NATO command. And they are doing a superb job. And they are, in fact, engaged in continuing conflict with the Taliban. And it will take a while to finish the conflict there, as well, too. But look at all we’ve accomplished. We have, in fact, had the first national elections under a new constitution in the 5,000-year history of Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai now is the President, a good man, doing very well. They’ve got a newly elected parliament in place. We’ve got some 70,000 troops now that have been trained that are actively in the field, Afghan forces that are actively participating in the struggle. And eventually, they’ll be able to take on responsibility for that themselves. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061019-11.html
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Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by Scott Hennen, WDAY, at Radio Day, The Vice President’s Office, The White House, October 24, 2006 Q. … As I reflect on our previous conversations, much of the focus has been on the enemies we face in this war on terror. And in the five years since 9/11, I’d like you to reflect for a moment and rate the performance of the administration. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the basic proposition is, of course, that we’ve gone more than five years now without another attack inside the homeland. On the day after that attack back in ’01, if somebody had put that proposition to you, I don’t think anybody would have been willing to bet we could go five years without an attack. There have been attacks around the world since then from Madrid to Jakarta, in Indonesia. There have been several attempts, obviously, to try and launch attacks here in the United States. The ones launched against us have all been intercepted, disrupted. They’ve all failed. And that’s not an accident. It’s because the President made some sound decisions, and we put in place some very important programs that let us collect intelligence against the enemy, to find out what they’re up to, and then use that intelligence to defend the nation, so it has been—I think that piece of it has been a great success. Q. So with those accomplishments, why is there a debate as we head two weeks into an election about whether or not we’re safer? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the—a lot of folks, obviously, don’t want to focus on the threat. To spend all your days worrying about that next attack is something that’s difficult for people to adjust to. And I think there are some folks out there who say, well, it was just a one-off affair. It will never happen again. Those of us who bear some responsibility for the security of the nation, on the other hand, look at it and say, next time, they could, in fact, have far deadlier weapons that they did last time, that the ultimate threat is a group of terrorists in one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, and that would cause more casualties that we lost in all the wars we’ve fought in the 230-year history of the Republic. So it is a huge problem, and periodically, I think people are reminded of it. But as long as things are going along swimmingly, and there hasn’t been another attack, it’s hard, I suppose, for us to get credit for what hasn’t happened in a sense. Q. Are the terrorists trying to influence our election in your view? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think they’re very much aware of our political calendar here, I really do. And when you see the kinds of things that happened this year, for example, when the Democratic Party in Connecticut purged Joe Lieberman, in effect, drummed him out of the party on the grounds that he had supported the President in the global war on terror, that sends a message to the terrorists overseas that their basic strategy of trying to break the will of the American people may, in fact, work.
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Osama bin Laden has talked about it. He believes firmly that we don’t have the stomach for the fight long-term, that if you kill enough Americans you can change American policy … Q. I’ve heard from a lot of listeners … and I’ve talked to as many who want an increased military presence in Iraq as want us out, which seems to be the larger debate, at least coming from the left—cut and run, get out of there. One fax said, when you talk to the Vice President, ask him when shock and awe is coming back to Iraq. Let’s finish the job once and for all. And terrorist interrogations and that debate is another example. And I’ve had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we’re all for it, if it saves American lives. Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do agree. And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that’s been a very important tool that we’ve had to be able to secure the nation. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided us with enormously valuable information about how many there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth, we’ve learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that. Q. Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives? THE VICE PRESIDENT: It’s a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President ‘‘for torture.’’ We don’t torture. That’s not what we’re involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we’re party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that … Q. There’s a firestorm going on right now in the media. Our callers today are very upset about it. CNN elected to air a video they received from an insurgent group in Iraq, and it is essentially a propaganda piece where they have followed around a sniper who ultimately ends up killing a member of our U.S. armed forces. Should CNN have aired that video? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. I think all it does is encourage them to do more. The media has an obligation I think to conduct themselves in a way that doesn’t make the situation worse, obviously. Now, we have a free press, and that’s an important value in our society, and we care very deeply about it. And I don’t want to suggest anything other than a free press. But there’s a question of responsibility, too, if in fact, they allow themselves to be manipulated, as I think in this particular case, it would look as though a terrorist organization did, in fact, try to manipulate CNN. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061024-7.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at the Federalist Society’s National Convention, The Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2006 From the morning of 9/11, we have assumed, correctly, that more strikes would be attempted against us. So we have made a tremendous number of
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changes to harden the target and to better prepare the nation to face this kind of emergency. We established the Department of Homeland Security to give us a comprehensive approach, instead of a patchwork effort among diffuse and duplicative agencies. We created the position of Director of National Intelligence, to better coordinate the government’s 16 different intelligence components. We’ve reformed the FBI to make fighting terrorism its primary mission. We’ve made unprecedented improvements in port security, and major public health investments to ensure early warning and rapid response to any attack with biological agents. To guard against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we’ve created a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, and worked with other governments in the most intensive counter-proliferation effort the world has ever known. And we’ve already seen results. Some years ago, the A.Q. Khan network was operating internationally to disperse weapons parts, uranium feed stocks, centrifuges for enrichment, weapons designs and nuclear technology. We tracked and exposed the activities of that network, and it has now been shut down. These years have also been a period of reform at the Pentagon. We have a new Northern Command to guard the American people, a new Strategic Command to counter long-range strikes, and a Special Operations Command redesigned to wage a new kind of war. At the same time, we’ve kept at the work of military transformation begun the day we arrived here—retooling the entire military to make it faster, more agile, more lethal in action. And all this vital work has been carried out under the steady hand of one of the great public servants of the age, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Shortly after 9/11, by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, Congress also passed the Patriot Act. This law removed an unnecessary wall between law enforcement and intelligence personnel. They can now talk with one another, share information that could well prevent future attacks inside the country. The Patriot Act also gives federal agents investigating terrorism the same tools they use in fighting street crime and fraud. The Patriot Act was written, and it is enforced, with careful regard for the civil liberties of the American people. The President signed a renewal of the act that contains no fewer than 30 additional protections of civil liberties. He created, by executive order, the President’s Board on Safeguarding Americans’ Civil Liberties. And working with Congress, he has created the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, of which Ted Olson is now a member. The President has made very clear that as we fight for our principles, our first responsibility is to live by them. And no country in the world takes civil liberties more seriously than the United States of America. We take with equal seriousness the requirements of justice and due process. And even before 9/11, federal agents and prosecutors were acting aggressively to hold terrorists to account. The record, built up over more than a decade, is exemplary. Superb public servants have marshaled the evidence to convict the men who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and the shoe bomber Richard Reid, and the 9/11 co-conspirator Moussaoui, and groups of terror suspects from Buffalo, New York and all the way to Portland, Oregon. … On the morning of September 11th, we saw that the terrorists need to get only one break, need to be right only once, to carry out an attack. We have to
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be right every time to stop them. So to adopt a purely defensive posture, to simply brace for attacks and react to them, is to play against lengthening odds, and to leave the nation permanently vulnerable. To protect America, we must understand that the fight against terror is not, primarily, a law enforcement operation. It is a war. Wars have winners and they have losers. And this is a war the United States is determined to win. We’ll win this war by staying on the offensive—carrying the fight to the enemy, going after them one by one if necessary, going after those who could equip them with even more dangerous technologies. In these five years we have broken up terror cells, tracked down terrorist operatives, and put heavy pressure on their ability to organize and to plan attacks. We have applied the Bush Doctrine—that any person or government supporting, protecting, or harboring terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and will be held to account … … Defeating the terrorists in Iraq is essential to overcoming the advance of extremism in the broader Middle East. As we help Iraq’s unity government to defeat common enemies, we build the peace and stability that will help make our own country more secure. There’s still tough work ahead, and as the enemy switches tactics we will do the same. As General Pace has put it, ‘‘From a military standpoint, every day is reassessment day.’’ We will be flexible. We’ll do all we can to adapt to conditions on the ground. We’ll make every change needed to do the job. The key is to get Iraqis into the fight, and we’ll continue training local forces so they can take the lead in defending their own country. America is going to complete our mission; we’re going to get it done right; and then we’ll bring our troops home with victory. As we persevere in the central front in the war on terror, Americans need to know that our government is bringing the same focus to every other front of the war. And there is, of course, a special urgency to our efforts to figure out the intentions of the enemy. We live in a free and open society, and the terrorists want to use those very qualities against us. So we must act in dead earnest to learn who they are and what they are doing, and stop them before they can act. To this end, in the days following 9/11, the President authorized the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. On occasion you will hear this called a domestic surveillance program. That is more than a misnomer; it’s a flat-out falsehood. We are talking about international communications, one end of which we have reason to believe is related to al Qaeda and to terrorist networks. And in a post-9/11 world, it’s hard to think of any category of information that could be more important to the safety of the United States. … A federal district court in the state of Michigan … ruled three months ago that the NSA program violated the Constitution and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The court found, among other factors, that warrantless surveillance of terrorist-related communications would cause irreparable injury to the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs. As a remedy, the district court granted a permanent injunction—in other words, ordered the President of the United States to cease all activities under the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed that injunction, and the government is now waging a forceful appeal on the merits. President Bush and I have complete confidence that the district court’s ruling will be reversed. We’re confident because the Terrorist Surveillance Program rests on firm legal ground. The Joint Authorization to Use Military Force, passed by Congress after 9/11, provides more than enough latitude for these activities. Therefore the warrant requirements of the FISA law do not apply to this wartime measure. And the program falls squarely within the constitutional powers of the President. Every appellate court to rule on this issue has recognized inherent presidential authority to conduct warrantless surveillance to counter threats directed at the country from abroad. The district court’s opinion— which The New York Times called ‘‘careful and thoroughly grounded’’—did not distinguish any of those prior federal decisions. Nor, indeed, did the district court even cite those decisions. The district court also held that the Terrorist Surveillance Program violates the doctrine of separation of powers. We, of course, disagree and expect to prevail on that issue as well. But since we’re on the subject of separation of powers, one conclusion is hard to escape: the Michigan district court’s decision is an indefensible act of judicial overreaching. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061117-11.html
9 Secretary of State Colin L. Powell Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., March 6, 2002 EXCERPTED SECRETARY POWELL: … I am pleased to appear before you to testify in support of President Bush’s budget request for FY 2003. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, before I go into the specifics of the budget request for the State Department and Related Agencies, that President Bush has two overriding objectives that our foreign policy must serve before all else. These two objectives are to win the war on terrorism and to protect Americans at home and abroad. This Administration will not be deterred from accomplishing these objectives. I have no doubt that this subcommittee and the Congress feel the same way.… A sizeable part is related to accomplishing these two objectives. As many of you will recall, at my first budget testimony to this committee last April, I told you that what we were requesting for FY 2002 represented a significant increase in the Department’s resources for that fiscal year. I told you also that such an increase was a good start, that it was the first fiscal step in our efforts to align both the organization for and the conduct of America’s foreign policy with the dictates of the 21st Century. And you heard my testimony and you responded, and we are grateful. Because of your understanding and generosity, we have made significant progress. We will make even more in FY 2003. The President’s discretionary request for the Department of State and Related Agencies for FY 2003 International Affairs is $8.1 billion. These dollars will allow us to: ¥ Continue initiatives to recruit, hire, train, and deploy the right work force. The budget request includes $100 million for the next step in the hiring process we began last year. With these dollars, we will be able to bring on board
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Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy 399 more foreign affairs professionals and be well on our way to repairing the large gap created in our personnel structure and, thus, the strain put on our people by almost a decade of too few hires, an inability to train properly, and hundreds of unfilled positions. By FY 2004, we hope to have completed our multi-year hiring effort with respect to overseas staffing—to include establishing the training pool I described to you last year that is so important if we are to allow our people to complete the training we feel is needed for them to do their jobs. Continue to upgrade and enhance our worldwide security readiness—even more important in light of our success in disrupting and damaging the al-Qaida terrorist network. The budget request includes $553 million that builds on the funding provided from the Emergency Response Fund for the increased hiring of security agents and for counterterrorism programs. Continue to upgrade the security of our overseas facilities. The budget request includes over $1.3 billion to improve physical security, correct serious deficiencies that still exist, and provide for security-driven construction of new facilities at high-risk posts around the world. Mr. Chairman, we are right-sizing, shaping up and bringing smarter management practices to our overseas buildings program, as I told you we would do last year. The first change we made was to put retired General Chuck Williams in charge and give him assistant secretary equivalent rank. Now, his Overseas Building Operations (OBO) has developed the Department’s first long-range plan, which projects our major facility requirements over a five-year period. … General Williams is making all of our facilities, overseas and stateside, more secure. By the end of FY 2002, over two-thirds of our overseas posts should reach minimal security standards, meaning secure doors, windows, and perimeters. We are also making progress in efforts to provide new facilities that are fully secure, with 13 major capital projects in design or construction, another eight expected to begin this fiscal year, and nine more in FY 2003. Continue to meet our obligations to international organizations—also important as we pursue the war on terrorism to its end. The budget request includes $891.4 million to fund U.S. assessments to 43 international organizations, active membership of which furthers U.S. economic, political, security, social, and cultural interests. Continue to meet our obligations to international peacekeeping activities. The budget request includes $726 million to pay our projected United Nations peacekeeping assessments … Continue and also enhance an aggressive effort to eliminate support for terrorists and thus deny them safe haven through our ongoing public diplomacy activities, our educational and cultural exchange programs, and international broadcasting. The budget request includes $287 million for public diplomacy, including information and cultural programs carried out by overseas missions and supported by public diplomacy personnel in our regional and functional bureaus. These resources help to educate the international public on the war against terrorism and America’s commitment to peace and prosperity for all nations. The budget request also includes $247 million for educational and cultural exchange programs that build mutual understanding and develop friendly relations between America and the peoples of the world. These activities help build the trust, confidence, and international cooperation necessary to sustain and advance the full range of our interests. Such activities have gained a new sense of urgency and importance since the brutal attacks of September. We need to teach more about
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America to the world. We need to show people who we are and what we stand for, and these programs do just that. Moreover, the budget request includes almost $518 million for International Broadcasting, of which $60 million is for the war on terrorism to continue increased media broadcasts to Afghanistan and the surrounding countries and throughout the Middle East. These international broadcasts help inform local public opinion about the true nature of al-Qaida and the purposes of the war on terrorism, building support for the coalition’s global campaign.
Mr. Chairman, on the subject of public diplomacy let me expand my remarks. The terrorist attacks of September 11 underscored the urgency of implementing an effective public diplomacy campaign. Those who abet terror by spreading distortion and hate and inciting others, take full advantage of the global news cycle. We must also use that cycle. Since September 11, there have been over 2,000 media appearances by State Department officials. Our continuous presence in Arabic and regional media by officials with language and media skills, has been unprecedented. Our international information website on terror is now online in seven languages. Internet search engines show it is the hottest page on the topic. Our 25-page color publication, ‘‘The Network of Terrorism,’’ is now available in 30 languages with many different adaptations, including a full insert in the Arabic edition of Newsweek. ‘‘Right content, right format, right audience, right now’’ describes our strategic aim in seeing that U.S. policies are explained and placed in the proper context in the minds of foreign audiences. I also serve, ex officio, as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency that oversees the efforts of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to broadcast our message into South Central Asia and the Middle East. With the support of the Congress, our broadcasting has increased dramatically since September 11. We have almost doubled the number of broadcast hours to areas that have been the breeding grounds of terrorists. The dollars we have requested for international broadcasting will help sustain these key efforts through the next fiscal year. Mr. Chairman, all of these State Department and Related Agencies programs and initiatives are critical to the conduct of America’s foreign policy. Some of you know my feelings about the importance to the success of any enterprise of having the right people in the right places. If I had to put one of these priorities at the pinnacle of our efforts, it would be our hiring efforts. We must sustain the strong recruiting program we began last year—with your support and the support of the Congress as a whole. … We doubled the number of candidates for the Foreign Service Written Examination—and this year we will give the exam twice instead of just once.… … We must also focus on taking care of those Americans who conduct it, as well as the many thousands of Foreign Service Nationals who help us across the globe. These are an extraordinary group of people, Mr. Chairman. For example, our sixty Afghan employees in Kabul worked diligently to maintain and
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protect our facilities throughout the 13 years the Embassy was closed. They worked at considerable personal risk and often went months without getting paid. They even repaired the chancery roof when it was damaged by a rocket attack. This is the sort of diligence and loyalty that is typical of our outstanding Foreign Service Nationals. Our whole team at State is vital to mission accomplishment—Foreign Service, Civil Service, and Foreign Service Nationals. The dollars you helped to provide us last year allowed us to make our team more cohesive and more effective. We want to continue that process. Mr. Chairman, one message that the tragic events of September 11th and the days that followed have made very clear is that American leadership in international affairs is critical. Out on the front lines of diplomacy, we want a first-class offense for America. As a soldier, I can tell you that quality people with high morale, combined with superb training and adequate resources, are the key to a first-class offense. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2002/8655.htm
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Report, Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, Washington, D.C., April 24, 2002 EXCERPTED … We have had remarkable success over the past seven months in the war on terrorism, especially in Afghanistan, and we are beginning to see some success in the Philippines, in Yemen, and elsewhere. And behind the courageous men and women of our armed forces, behind the stepped up law enforcement efforts, and behind the increased scrutiny of and action against terrorist financial networks, has been the quiet, steady course of diplomacy. As a result, we have reshaped a good part of South Asia—a new U.S.Pakistan relationship, a reinvigorated U.S.-India relationship, a new Interim Authority in Kabul, and the Taliban and the terrorists dead, in jail, or on the run. We are also forming important new relationships with the nations of Central Asia and helping friends and allies fight the scourge of terrorism from the marble-floored banks of Europe to the forested-gorges of Georgia. … Over the past year, Mr. Chairman, I believe the broader tapestry of our foreign policy has become clear: to encourage the spread of democracy and market economies, to lift up countries that want to be part of that expansion, and to bring more governments to the understanding that the power of the individual is the power that counts. And when evil appears to threaten this progress, America will confront that evil and defeat it—as we are doing in the war on terrorism. In weaving this tapestry, we have achieved several successes: With regard to Russia, President Bush has defied some of our critics and structured a very strong relationship …
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The way that Russia responded to the events of September 11 was reflective of this positive relationship. Russia has been a key member of the antiterrorist coalition. It has played a crucial role in our success in Afghanistan, by providing intelligence, bolstering the Northern Alliance, and assisting our entry into Central Asia. As a result, we have seriously eroded the capabilities of a terrorist network that posed a direct threat to both of our countries. The job is not complete yet—as our continuing operations in Afghanistan and our justbeginning Train and Equip operations in Georgia clearly demonstrate—but we are making headway. There are certain shared interests that we have with China and we have emphasized those interests. They are regional and global interests, such as China’s accession to WTO, stability on the Korean Peninsula, and combating the scourge of HIV/AIDS. On such issues we can talk and we can work out ways to cooperate. There are other interests where we decidedly do not see eye-to-eye, such as arms sales to Taiwan, human rights, religious freedom, and non-proliferation. On such issues we can have a dialogue and try to make measurable progress. But we do not want the interests where we differ to constrain us from pursuing those where we share common goals. And that is the basis upon which our relations are going rather smoothly at present. That, and counterterrorism. … China has helped in the war against terrorism. Beijing has also helped in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and we hope will help even more in the future. As we improved our relationship with China, Mr. Chairman, we also reinvigorated our bilateral alliances with Japan, The Republic of Korea, and Australia. Nowhere has this been more visible than in the war on terrorism— where cooperation has been solid and helpful. Prime Minister Koizumi immediately offered Japan’s strong support, within the confines of its constitution. And he is working to enhance Japan’s capability to contribute to such global and regional actions in the future.… … [O]ur alliance with the Republic of Korea (ROK) has also been strengthened by Korea’s strong response to the war on terrorism and by our careful analysis of and consultations on where we needed to take the dialogue with the North. President Bush has made it very clear that we are dissatisfied with the actions of North Korea; in particular that the North continues to develop and sell missiles that could carry weapons of mass destruction.… Further south, the Australians have been exceptional in their efforts to support the war on terrorism. Heavily committed in East Timor already, Australia nonetheless offered its help immediately and we have been grateful for that help, including the great Australian soldiers who have helped us on the ground in Afghanistan. The people of Australia are indeed some of America’s truest friends. Another foreign policy success is the improvement we have achieved in our relations with Europe. In waging war together on terrorism, our cooperation has grown stronger. NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time ever on September 12. Since then, the European Union has moved swiftly to round up terrorists, close down terrorist financing networks, and improve law enforcement and aviation security cooperation.
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I also believe we have been successful in bringing the Europeans to a calmer level of concern with respect to what was being labeled by many in Europe ‘‘unbridled U.S. unilateralism.’’ Notwithstanding the recent reaction in parts of Europe to President Bush’s State of the Union Address, to U.S. actions on steel imports, and to undocumented and even at times egregiously wrong press reports about imminent U.S. military action against Iraq, I still believe this to be true. There was significant concern among the Europeans earlier last year that because we took some unilateral positions of principle for us that somehow the U.S. was going off on its own without a care for the rest of the world. Early in the Administration, this was particularly true with respect to the Kyoto Protocol. So we set out immediately to correct this misperception. Beginning with President Bush’s speech in Warsaw, his participation in the G-8 meetings and the European Union summit, our extensive consultations with respect to the new strategic framework with Russia, and culminating in the brilliant way in which the President pulled together the coalition against terrorism, I believe that we demonstrated to the world that we can be decisively cooperative when it serves our interests and the interests of the world. But we have also demonstrated that when it is a matter of principle, we will stand on that principle. In his first year in office President Bush has shown the international community who he is and what his Administration is all about. That is an important accomplishment—and one that is appreciated now everywhere I go. People know where America is coming from and do not have to doubt our resolve or our purpose. They may not always agree with us, but they have no doubt about our policy or our position. We want to ensure that this policy clarity and this firmness of purpose continue to characterize our foreign policy. … [W]e are using a comprehensive approach, along with our friends and allies, to tackle WMD elsewhere, an approach that includes export controls, non-proliferation, arms control, missile defenses, and counter-proliferation. There are terrorists in the world who would like nothing better than to get their hands on and use nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological weapons. So there is a definite link between terrorism and WMD. Not to recognize that link would be foolhardy to the extreme. In fact, terrorism, Mr. Chairman, is another example of this Administration’s principled approach. Anyone who adopts for political purposes the intentional killing of innocent men, women, and children as they try to go about their everyday lives is going to be opposed by America. That is that. There should be no doubt about this commitment or in the understanding of this commitment. All people of every faith and every nation should stand unalterably opposed to such killing. … To be sure, there are some dark clouds moving in over Latin America, and one of the darkest looms over Colombia where a combination of narcoterrorism and festering insurgency threatens to derail the progress the Colombians have made in solidifying their democracy. But, Mr. Chairman, our counterdrug and development efforts in Colombia are not enough. It has become increasingly clear that our goal with respect to Colombia must be to help that democratic nation preserve and strengthen its
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democracy while ensuring greater respect for basic human rights. An end to the present conflict—peace—is essential to our accomplishing that goal. We must work with the Colombians to create the conditions where peace is possible. To that end, we are seeking the necessary authorities to provide enhanced intelligence sharing, additional training, and more equipment—all geared toward a security mission that is broader than the current counterdrug focus … We have made it clear and will continue to make it clear that the Government of Colombia must also fully commit to this task. No amount of additional U.S. assistance will be sufficient to turn the tide unless Colombia dedicates more of its own resources to this task and commits decisively to a policy of establishing state authority and effective security for its people. I also want to emphasize that we work with the Colombians to ensure respect for human rights. There is no trade off between our work with Colombians on human rights and elimination of the terrorist threat … I have just returned from the Middle East. I met with key leaders in Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia—and of course I met with Prime Minister Sharon and Chairman Arafat. … Recent events have taken an enormous toll in lives lost, families shattered, economic activity frozen and mounting humanitarian distress. An additional cause of tension is the ongoing threat posed by attacks by Hezbollah and others across the United Nations’ recognized Blue Line. It was for that reason I traveled to Beirut and Damascus to underscore the President’s strong message to all parties to exercise restraint. In my consultations with our international partners during the ten days of my travel, and with our Arab friends and Israelis and Palestinians … I found broad support for a comprehensive strategy as a way forward. Confronting and ending terrorism are indispensable steps on the road to peace. In my meetings with Chairman Arafat I made it clear that he and the Palestinian Authority could no longer equivocate. They must decide as the rest of the world has decided that terrorism must end. Chairman Arafat must take that message to his people. He must follow through with instructions to his security forces. He must act to arrest and prosecute terrorists, disrupt terrorist financing, dismantle terrorist infrastructure and stop incitement. Mr. Chairman, for the Palestinian people and leaders of the Palestinian Authority, the question is whether violence and terrorism can be renounced forever and whether their sights can be set squarely on peace through negotiations. For the people and leaders of Israel, the question is whether the time has come for a strong, vibrant State of Israel to look beyond the destructive impact of settlements and occupation, both of which must end, consistent with the clear positions taken by President Bush in his April 4th speech. Israelis should look ahead to the promise held out by the region and the world of a comprehensive, lasting peace. For the Arab peoples and their leaders, the question is whether the promise and vision of Crown Prince Abdullah’s initiative can be transformed into a living reality. It is important that artificial barriers between states fall away, and
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distorted and racist images disappear from the media and from public discourse. For the people and leaders of the international community, the question is how we can help both sides solve the deep problems they face. Mr. Chairman, with regard to other challenges in this region, Iraq comes next on our list. That country remains a significant threat to the region’s stability. We are working at the UN and elsewhere to strengthen international controls on Iraq. In the last year, we successfully stopped the free fall of sanctions and began to rebuild United Nations Security Council consensus on Iraq. The UNSC unanimously adopted resolution 1382 in November, committing itself to implement the central element of ‘‘smart sanctions’’ by the end of next month—and I believe we are going to make it. This central element, or Goods Review List (GRL), identifies materials UNSC members must approve for export to Iraq and ensures continued supervision and control over dual-use goods. Its implementation will effectively lift economic sanctions on purely civilian trade and focus controls on arms, especially WMD. This will further strengthen support for UN controls by showing the international community that Saddam Hussein, not the UN and not the U.S., is responsible for the humanitarian plight of the Iraqi people. We have achieved agreement with the Russians on the substance of the GRL and are now finalizing processes for implementing the list and working on a UNSC Resolution for adopting it. At the end of the day, we have not ruled out other options with respect to Iraq. We still believe strongly in regime change in Iraq and we look forward to the day when a democratic, representative government at peace with its neighbors leads Iraq to rejoin the family of nations. With regard to other challenges, we have a long-standing list of grievances with Iran, from concerns about proliferation, to that country’s continued sponsorship of terrorism, to Iranian meddling in Afghanistan in a way unhelpful to the Interim Authority in Kabul. Of late, we have been very clear in communicating to Teheran that its support for terrorism must stop and that what is needed in Afghanistan is help, not meddling. If Iran renounced terrorism, if it supported the Interim Authority, I am convinced that we would be able to talk to Iran, that we would be able to have a reasonable conversation with Iranian leaders. With respect to the situation in Afghanistan, for example, I believe we can demonstrate to them that it is not in their interest to destabilize the government that they helped to create in Bonn. The other issues will be more difficult; but I do believe constructive talks with Iran on Afghanistan are possible. Mr. Chairman, let me now turn to Afghanistan and the war on terrorism. In January, I was in Tokyo to join the European Union, Saudi Arabia, and Japan in hosting the Afghan Donor Conference. The conference helped to ensure that a wide range of countries will help the Afghans rebuild their country. The United States pledged almost $297 million at the conference and others pitched in accordingly. The total pledged at this point is around $4.5 billion with more than $1.8 billion for the first year. But the heavy lifting with respect to Afghanistan is only just beginning. We have helped the Afghans remove the oppressive Taliban regime from their
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country. We have destroyed the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan, with American, British, and other troops fighting the remnants as we speak. We have made possible the delivery of humanitarian aid, including massive amounts of food. We have avoided the wholesale starvation that many predicted. Moreover, we have helped the people of Afghanistan establish a multi-ethnic Interim Authority in Kabul, led by Chairman Karzai. One of its ultimate goals is to oversee an agreed process, now begun with district selections of representatives who will help determine the composition of the Loya Jirgas that will lead to a broad-based Afghan government—one that represents all the people of the country, people of every background and region, women as well as men. In June the Emergency Loya Jirga will complete the process of creating a transitional administration, the next step toward our ultimate goal of a fully democratic Afghanistan. Many of our key allies and partners are contributing to the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to help ensure a secure environment for Mr. Karzai to build a new Afghanistan. We want to do everything possible to prevent the rise of any alternative power to the Interim Authority and Transitional Administration, until a permanent government can be established and begin to take care of this challenge on its own. A budget for the Interim Authority has been established and funded. The Authority is beginning to meet payrolls. Police and other Afghan officials are being paid. Schools are opened. Reconstruction has begun, to include the beginning of a new national police and military. Roads are being opened … Much remains to be done and admittedly a lot of what remains will be difficult to accomplish. But we believe that at long last Afghanistan is on a positive track. Mr. Chairman, I know that you are aware of the nature of the challenge we confront in Afghanistan. You understand what is needed to reconstruct this country and that foremost of all what is needed is a long-term commitment by the international community. If we can ensure such a commitment, and if we can achieve proper accountability in the use of the donor funds, then I believe there is a good chance of making significant progress in bringing a new future to Afghanistan—and ending the days of warlordism and political chaos that bred the Taliban and made a fertile ground for terrorists. And as reconstruction begins in Afghanistan, the war against terrorism continues. As President Bush said in his State of the Union Address, ‘‘What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning.’’ The administration is working together in new ways never before envisioned. And that’s what this effort is going to require. FBI, CIA, INS, Treasury, State, the Attorney General and Justice Department, and others, are all coming together. This campaign is transnational, cross-border, even global in a way we have never contemplated. We are operating in several areas right now. For example, in Yemen we are working with President Ali Abdallah Salih to uproot the al-Qaida network there. In the Philippines, we are working with President Arroyo to assist that country in combating its terrorists, the Abu Sayyaf—who as you know hold two American citizens as hostages. We are also deploying a small force to Georgia to assist President Shevardnadze in getting a handle on a tough area in his country—an area that has
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spawned and harbored terrorists in the past. These troops will help train and equip Georgian forces in counterterrorism techniques and methods. With respect to any new major use of military force in the war on terrorism, we have not made any recommendation to the President and the President has made no decision as yet with respect to such use of force. But there are many other actions that are taking place—actions of a law enforcement, political, diplomatic, financial, and intelligence-sharing nature. Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier a sizable portion of the President’s budget request is dedicated to these counterterrorism efforts, as you will see as I turn to the specific priorities of our budget request for Foreign Operations. The President’s FY 2003 request for Foreign Operations is a little over $16.1 billion. These dollars will support the continuing war on terrorism, the work we are doing in Colombia and the Andean region at large, our efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, essential development programs in Africa, the important work of the Peace Corps and the scaling up of that work, and our plan to clear arrearages at the Multilateral Development Banks, including the Global Environment Facility. War on Terrorism To fight terrorism as well as alleviate the conditions that fuel violent extremism, we are requesting an estimated $5 billion. In addition to the initiatives outlined in our budget request for the State Department and Related Agencies, this funding includes: ¥ Foreign assistance—$3.6 billion for economic and security assistance, military equipment, and training for front-line states and our other partners in the war on terrorism. This includes— ¥ $3.4 billion from Foreign Operations accounts such as the Economic Support Fund, International Military Education and Training, Foreign Military Financing, and Freedom Support Act. ¥ $88 million for programs in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union to reduce the availability to terrorists of weapons of mass destruction. Ongoing programs engage former weapons scientists in peaceful research and help prevent the spread of the materials expertise required to build such weapons. ¥ $50 million to support the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in activities designed to counter nuclear terrorism and implement strengthened safeguards; and $15 million to allow us to respond quickly and effectively to unanticipated or unusually difficult non-proliferation projects or opportunities. ¥ $69 million for counterterrorism engagement programs, training, and equipment to help other countries fight global terror, thereby strengthening our own national security. ¥ $4 million for the Treasury Department’s Office of Technical Assistance to provide training and other necessary expertise to foreign finance offices to halt terrorist financing.
… In the FY 2003 budget request there is approximately $140 million available for Afghanistan, including repatriation of refugees, food aid, demining, and transition assistance. I know that President Bush, the Congress, and the American people recognize that re-building that war-torn country will
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require additional resources and that our support must be and will be a multiyear effort. Moreover, as I said earlier, we do not plan to support reconstruction alone and we will seek to ensure that other international donors continue to do their fair share. At the Virginia Military Institute last week, President Bush made very clear what he wants to do for Afghanistan.… The President said that ‘‘by helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall.’’1 Mr. Chairman, in addition to what I have given you with respect to the President’s budget request for FY 2003, I want to give you the main priorities for our supplemental request for FY 2002. But first let me tell you how grateful we are at the Department for the efforts of this subcommittee and the House subcommittee to get us the $1.5 billion in crucial Emergency Response Fund foreign operations funding to address the immediate post-September 11 needs. That was just the start though. We are asking for $1.6 billion supplemental funding for FY 2002. This amount includes $322 million for the Department. These dollars will address emergent building and operating requirements that have arisen as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks, including reopening our mission in Kabul, Afghanistan; reestablishing an official presence in Dushanbe, Tajikistan; and increasing security and personnel protection at home and abroad. That leaves about $1.3 billion for foreign operations. These funds—added to the request we have made for FY 2003 for the Front Line States (FLS)— are primarily to: ¥ Deter and prevent acts of international terrorism ¥ Provide vitally needed military equipment, training and economic assistance to our friends and allies ¥ Expand respect for human rights and judicial reform in the FLS ¥ Provide a significant and immediate impact on displaced persons in the FLS ¥ Support civilian reintegration of former combatants and reestablish law enforcement and criminal justice systems ¥ Provide economic and democracy assistance, including help with political development, health care, irrigation and water management, media development, community building and infrastructure improvements, and economic and civil society reform.
In sum, Mr. Chairman, these supplemental dollars for foreign operations in FY 2002 will be directed at draining the swamp in which terrorists thrive and at insuring the long-term success of Operation Enduring Freedom. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2002/9685.htm
1 See ‘‘President Outlines War Effort,’’ Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, April 17, 2002, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020417-1.html.
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Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Speech to the United Nations Security Council on Iraq WMD, New York, New York, February 5, 2003 EXCERPTED SECRETARY POWELL: … This is an important day for us all as we review the situation with respect to Iraq and its disarmament obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Last November 8, this Council passed Resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote. The purpose of that resolution was to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had already been found guilty of material breach of its obligations stretching back over 16 previous resolutions and 12 years. Resolution 1441 was not dealing with an innocent party, but a regime this Council has repeatedly convicted over the years. Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences. No Council member present and voting on that day had any illusions about the nature and intent of the resolution or what serious consequences meant if Iraq did not comply. And to assist in its disarmament, we called on Iraq to cooperate with returning inspectors from UNMOVIC and IAEA. We laid down tough standards for Iraq to meet to allow the inspectors to do their job. This Council placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm, and not on the inspectors to find that which Iraq has gone out of its way to conceal for so long. Inspectors are inspectors; they are not detectives. I asked for this session today for two purposes. First, to support the core assessments made by Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. As Dr. Blix reported to this Council on January 27, ‘‘Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it.’’ And as Dr. ElBaradei reported, Iraq’s declaration of December 7 ‘‘did not provide any new information relevant to certain questions that have been outstanding since 1998.’’ My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions. I might add at this point that we are providing all relevant information we can to the inspection teams for them to do their work. The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources and some are those of other countries. Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to. I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling. What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts and Iraqis’ behavior, Iraq’s behavior, demonstrate that
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Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort, no effort, to disarm, as required by the international community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq’s behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. Let me begin by playing a tape for you. What you’re about to hear is a conversation that my government monitored. It takes place on November 26th of last year, on the day before United Nations teams resumed inspections in Iraq. The conversation involves two senior officers, a colonel and a brigadier general from Iraq’s elite military unit, the Republican Guard. [The tape is played.] AUDIO SECRETARY POWELL: Let me pause and review some of the key elements of this conversation that you just heard between these two officers. First, they acknowledge that our colleague, Mohammed ElBaradei is coming, and they know what he’s coming for and they know he’s coming the next day. He’s coming to look for things that are prohibited. He is expecting these gentlemen to cooperate with him and not hide things. But they’re worried. We have this modified vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it? What is their concern? Their concern is that it’s something they should not have, something that should not be seen. The general was incredulous: ‘‘You didn’t get it modified. You don’t have one of those, do you?’’ ‘‘I have one.’’ ‘‘Which? From where?’’ ‘‘From the workshop. From the Al-Kindi Company.’’ ‘‘What?’’ ‘‘From Al-Kindi.’’ ‘‘I’ll come to see you in the morning. I’m worried you all have something left.’’ ‘‘We evacuated everything. We don’t have anything left.’’ Note what he says: ‘‘We evacuated everything.’’ We didn’t destroy it. We didn’t line it up for inspection. We didn’t turn it into the inspectors. We evacuated it to make sure it was not around when the inspectors showed up. ‘‘I will come to you tomorrow.’’ The Al-Kindi Company. This is a company that is well known to have been involved in prohibited weapons systems activity. Let me play another tape for you. As you will recall, the inspectors found 12 empty chemical warheads on January 16th. On January 20th, four days later, Iraq promised the inspectors it would search for more. You will now hear an officer from Republican Guard headquarters issuing an instruction to an officer in the field. Their conversation took place just last week, on January 30. [The tape was played.] AUDIO SECRETARY POWELL: Let me pause again and review the elements of this message. ‘‘They are inspecting the ammunition you have, yes?’’ ‘‘Yes. For the possibility there are forbidden ammo.’’ ‘‘For the possibility there is, by chance, forbidden ammo?’’
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‘‘Yes.’’ ‘‘And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there. Remember the first message: evacuate it.’’ This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the way and making sure they have left nothing behind. You go a little further into this message and you see the specific instructions from headquarters: ‘‘After you have carried out what is contained in this message, destroy the message because I don’t want anyone to see this message.’’ ‘‘Okay.’’ ‘‘Okay.’’ Why? Why? This message would have verified to the inspectors that they have been trying to turn over things. They were looking for things, but they don’t want that message seen because they were trying to clean up the area, to leave no evidence behind of the presence of weapons of mass destruction. And they can claim that nothing was there and the inspectors can look all they want and they will find nothing. This effort to hide things from the inspectors is not one or two isolated events. Quite the contrary, this is part and parcel of a policy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years, a policy set at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime. We know that Saddam Hussein has what is called ‘‘a Higher Committee for Monitoring the Inspection Teams.’’ Think about that. Iraq has a highlevel committee to monitor the inspectors who were sent in to monitor Iraq’s disarmament—not to cooperate with them, not to assist them, but to spy on them and keep them from doing their jobs. The committee reports directly to Saddam Hussein. It is headed by Iraq’s Vice President, Taha Yasin Ramadan. Its members include Saddam Hussein’s son, Qusay. This committee also includes Lieutenant General Amir al-Sa’di, an advisor to Saddam. In case that name isn’t immediately familiar to you, General Sa’di has been the Iraqi regime’s primary point of contact for Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. It was General Sa’di who last fall publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to cooperate unconditionally with inspectors. Quite the contrary, Sa’di’s job is not to cooperate; it is to deceive, not to disarm, but to undermine the inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they learn nothing. We have learned a lot about the work of this special committee. We learned that just prior to the return of inspectors last November, the regime had decided to resume what we heard called ‘‘the old game of cat-and-mouse.’’ For example, let me focus on the now famous declaration that Iraq submitted to this Council on December 7th. Iraq never had any intention of complying with this Council’s mandate. Instead, Iraq planned to use the declaration to overwhelm us and to overwhelm the inspectors with useless information about Iraq’s permitted weapons so that we would not have time to pursue Iraq’s prohibited weapons. Iraq’s goal was to give us in this room, to give those of us on this Council, the false impression that the inspection process was working.
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You saw the result. Dr. Blix pronounced the 12,200-page declaration ‘‘rich in volume’’ but ‘‘poor in information and practically devoid of new evidence.’’ Could any member of this Council honestly rise in defense of this false declaration? Everything we have seen and heard indicates that instead of cooperating actively with the inspectors to ensure the success of their mission, Saddam Hussein and his regime are busy doing all they possibly can to ensure that inspectors succeed in finding absolutely nothing. My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources. Orders were issued to Iraq’s security organizations, as well as to Saddam Hussein’s own office, to hide all correspondence with the Organization of Military Industrialization. This is the organization that oversees Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction activities. Make sure there are no documents left which would connect you to the OMI. We know that Saddam’s son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all prohibited weapons from Saddam’s numerous palace complexes. We know that Iraqi government officials, members of the ruling Ba’ath Party and scientists have hidden prohibited items in their homes. Other key files from military and scientific establishments have been placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi intelligence agents to avoid detection. Thanks to intelligence they were provided, the inspectors recently found dramatic confirmation of these reports. When they searched the homes of an Iraqi nuclear scientist, they uncovered roughly 2,000 pages of documents. You see them here being brought out of the home and placed in UN hands. Some of the material is classified and related to Iraq’s nuclear program. Tell me, answer me: Are the inspectors to search the house of every government official, every Ba’ath Party member and every scientist in the country to find the truth, to get the information they need to satisfy the demands of our Council? Our sources tell us that in some cases the hard drives of computers at Iraqi weapons facilities were replaced. Who took the hard drives? Where did they go? What is being hidden? Why? There is only one answer to the why: to deceive, to hide, to keep from the inspectors. Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction, to keep them from being found by inspectors. While we were here in this Council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads had been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection. We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities.
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Let me say a word about satellite images before I show a couple. The photos that I am about to show you are sometimes hard for the average person to interpret, hard for me. The painstaking work of photo analysis takes experts with years and years of experience, poring for hours and hours over light tables. But as I show you these images, I will try to capture and explain what they mean, what they indicate, to our imagery specialists. Let’s look at one. This one is about a weapons munitions facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji. This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapons shells. Here you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers. Now look at the picture on the right. You are now looking at two of those sanitized bunkers. The signature vehicles are gone, the tents are gone. It’s been cleaned up. And it was done on the 22nd of December as the UN inspection team is arriving, and you can see the inspection vehicles arriving in the lower portion of the picture on the right. The bunkers are clean when the inspectors get there. They found nothing. This sequence of events raises the worrisome suspicion that Iraq had been tipped off to the forthcoming inspections at Taji. As it did throughout the 1990s, we know that Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide its illicit activities. From our sources, we know that inspectors are under constant surveillance by an army of Iraqi intelligence operatives. Iraq is relentlessly attempting to tap all of their communications, both voice and electronics. I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities. In this next example, you will see the type of concealment activity Iraq has undertaken in response to the resumption of inspections. Indeed, in November of 2002, just when the inspections were about to resume, this type of activity spiked. Here are three examples. At this ballistic missile site on November 10th, we saw a cargo truck preparing to move ballistic missile components. At this biological weapons-related facility on November 25th, just two days before inspections resumed, this truck caravan appeared—something we almost never see at this facility and we monitor it carefully and regularly. At this ballistic missile facility, again, two days before inspections began, five large cargo trucks appeared, along with a truck-mounted crane, to move missiles. We saw this kind of housecleaning at close to 30 sites. Days after this activity, the vehicles and the equipment that I’ve just highlighted disappear and the site returns to patterns of normalcy. We don’t know precisely what Iraq was moving, but the inspectors already knew about these sites so Iraq knew that they would be coming. We must ask ourselves: Why would Iraq suddenly move equipment of this nature before inspections if they were anxious to demonstrate what they had or did not have?
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Remember the first intercept in which two Iraqis talked about the need to hide a modified vehicle from the inspectors. Where did Iraq take all of this equipment? Why wasn’t it presented to the inspectors? Iraq also has refused to permit any U-2 reconnaissance flights that would give the inspectors a better sense of what’s being moved before, during and after inspections. This refusal to allow this kind of reconnaissance is in direct, specific violation of operative paragraph seven of our Resolution 1441. Saddam Hussein and his regime are not just trying to conceal weapons; they are also trying to hide people. You know the basic facts. Iraq has not complied with its obligation to allow immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted and private access to all officials and other persons, as required by Resolution 1441. The regime only allows interviews with inspectors in the presence of an Iraqi official, a minder. The official Iraqi organization charged with facilitating inspections announced publicly and announced ominously, that, ‘‘Nobody is ready’’ to leave Iraq to be interviewed. Iraqi Vice President Ramadan accused the inspectors of conducting espionage, a veiled threat that anyone cooperating with UN inspectors was committing treason. Iraq did not meet its obligations under 1441 to provide a comprehensive list of scientists associated with its weapons of mass destruction programs. Iraq’s list was out of date and contained only about 500 names despite the fact that UNSCOM had earlier put together a list of about 3,500 names. Let me just tell you what a number of human sources have told us. Saddam Hussein has directly participated in the effort to prevent interviews. In early December, Saddam Hussein had all Iraqi scientists warned of the serious consequences that they and their families would face if they revealed any sensitive information to the inspectors. They were forced to sign documents acknowledging that divulging information is punishable by death. Saddam Hussein also said that scientists should be told not to agree to leave Iraq; anyone who agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq would be treated as a spy. This violates 1441. In mid-November, just before the inspectors returned, Iraqi experts were ordered to report to the headquarters of the Special Security Organization to receive counter-intelligence training. The training focused on evasion methods, interrogation resistance techniques, and how to mislead inspectors. Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries. For example, in mid-December, weapons experts at one facility were replaced by Iraqi intelligence agents who were to deceive inspectors about the work that was being done there. On orders from Saddam Hussein, Iraqi officials issued a false death certificate for one scientist and he was sent into hiding. In the middle of January, experts at one facility that was related to weapons of mass destruction, those experts had been ordered to stay home from work to avoid the inspectors. Workers from other Iraqi military facilities not engaged in illicit weapons projects were to replace the workers who had been sent home. A dozen experts have been placed under house arrest—not in their own houses, but as a group at one of Saddam Hussein’s guest houses.
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It goes on and on and on. As the examples I have just presented show, the information and intelligence we have gathered point to an active and systematic effort on the part of the Iraqi regime to keep key materials and people from the inspectors, in direct violation of Resolution 1441. The pattern is not just one of reluctant cooperation, nor is it merely a lack of cooperation. What we see is a deliberate campaign to prevent any meaningful inspection work. My colleagues, Operative Paragraph 4 of UN Resolution 1441, which we lingered over so long last fall, clearly states that false statements and omissions in the declaration and a failure by Iraq at any time to comply with and cooperate fully in the implementation of this resolution shall constitute—the facts speak for themselves—shall constitute a further material breach of its obligation. We wrote it this way to give Iraq an early test, to give Iraq an early test. Would they give an honest declaration and would they, early on, indicate a willingness to cooperate with the inspectors? It was designed to be an early test. They failed that test. By this standard, the standard of this Operative Paragraph, I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable. Iraq has now placed itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in UN Resolution 1441. And this body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately. This issue before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction. But how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq’s non-compliance before we, as a Council, we as the United Nations say, ‘‘Enough. Enough.’’ The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world. Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the world. First, biological weapons. We have talked frequently here about biological weapons. By way of introduction and history, I think there are just three quick points I need to make. First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and frustrating years to pry, to pry an admission out of Iraq that it had biological weapons. Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit—about this amount. This is just about the amount of a teaspoon. Less than a teaspoonful of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount, just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope. Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax. But UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this deadly material. And that is my third point. And
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it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had. They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as their R-400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well documented. Dr. Blix told this Council that Iraq has provided little evidence to verify anthrax production and no convincing evidence of its destruction. It should come as no shock then that since Saddam Hussein forced out the last inspectors in 1998, we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons. One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq’s biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents. Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War. Although Iraq’s mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, UN inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000. The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. 12 technicians died from exposure to biological agents. He reported that when UNSCOM was in country and inspecting, the biological weapons agent production always began on Thursdays at midnight, because Iraq thought UNSCOM would not inspect on the Muslim holy day, Thursday night through Friday. A second source. An Iraqi civil engineer in a position to know the details of the program confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving on trailers. A third source, also in a position to know, reported in summer, 2002, that Iraq had manufactured mobile production systems mounted on road-trailer units and on rail cars. Finally, a fourth source. An Iraqi major who defected confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological research laboratories in addition to the production facilities I mentioned earlier. We have diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile facilities. Here you see both truck and rail-car mounted mobile factories. The description our sources gave us of the technical features required by such facilities is highly detailed and extremely accurate. As these drawings, based on their description show, we know what the fermentors look like. We know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We know how they fit together, we know how they work, and we know a great deal about the platforms on which they are mounted.
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As shown in this diagram, these factories can be concealed easily—either by moving ordinary looking trucks and rail-cars along Iraq’s thousands of miles of highway or track or by parking them in a garage or a warehouse or somewhere in Iraq’s extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers. We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile, biological agent factories. The truck-mounted ones have at least two or three trucks each. That means that the mobile production facilities are very few—perhaps 18 trucks that we know of. There may be more. But perhaps 18 that we know of. Just imagine trying to find 18 trucks among the thousands and thousands of trucks that travel the roads of Iraq every single day. It took the inspectors four years to find out that Iraq was making biological agents. How long do you think it will take the inspectors to find even one of these 18 trucks without Iraq coming forward as they are supposed to with the information about these kinds of capabilities. Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulinum toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry, biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. A dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human beings. By 1998, UN experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected drying techniques for their biological weapons programs. Now Iraq has incorporated this drying expertise into these mobile production facilities. We know from Iraq’s past admissions that it has successfully weaponized not only anthrax, but also other biological agents including botulinum toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. But Iraq’s research efforts did not stop there. Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox, and hemorrhagic fever. And he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox. The Iraqi regime has also developed ways to disperse lethal biological agents widely, indiscriminately into the water supply, into the air. For example, Iraq had a program to modify aerial fuel tanks for Mirage jets.… In 1995, an Iraqi military officer, Mujahid Saleh Abdul Latif told inspectors that Iraq intended the spray tanks to be mounted onto a MiG-21 that had been converted into an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV. UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons. Iraq admitted to producing four spray tanks, but to this day, it has provided no credible evidence that they were destroyed, evidence that was required by the international community. There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling. UNMOVIC already laid out much of this and it is documented for all of us to read in UNSCOM’s 1999 report on the subject. Let me set the stage with three key points that all of us need to keep in mind. First, Saddam Hussein has used these horrific weapons on another country and on his own people. In fact, in the history of chemical warfare, no country
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has had more battlefield experience with chemical weapons since World War I than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Second, as with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry, 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq War, UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be on the order of a thousand tons. These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for. Dr. Blix has quipped that, ‘‘Mustard gas is not marmalade. You are supposed to know what you did with it.’’ We believe Saddam Hussein knows what he did with it and he has not come clean with the international community. We have evidence these weapons existed. What we don’t have is evidence from Iraq that they have been destroyed or where they are. That is what we are still waiting for. Third point, Iraq’s record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons. The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein’s late son-in-law. UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq had produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery, yet to this day Iraq denies it had ever weaponized VX. And on January 27, UNMOVIC told this Council that it has information that conflicts with the Iraqi account of its VX program. We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. To all outward appearances, even to experts, the infrastructure looks like an ordinary civilian operation. Illicit and legitimate production can go on simultaneously or on a dime. This dual-use infrastructure can turn from clandestine to commercial and then back again. These inspections would be unlikely, any inspections at such facilities, would be unlikely to turn up anything prohibited, especially if there is any warning that the inspections are coming. Call it ingenious or evil genius, but the Iraqis deliberately designed their chemical weapons programs to be inspected. It is infrastructure with a built in alibi. Under the guise of dual-use infrastructure, Iraq has undertaken an effort to reconstitute facilities that were closely associated with its past program to develop and produce chemical weapons. For example, Iraq has rebuilt key portions of the Tareq State Establishment. Tareq includes facilities designed specifically for Iraq’s chemical weapons program and employs key figures from past programs. That’s the production end of Saddam’s chemical weapons business. What about the delivery end? I’m going to show you a small part of a chemical complex called ‘‘Al Musayyib,’’ a site that Iraq has used for at least three years to transship chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field. In May 2002, our satellites photographed the unusual activity in this picture.
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Here we see cargo vehicles are again at this transshipment point, and we can see that they are accompanied by a decontamination vehicle associated with biological or chemical weapons activity. What makes this picture significant is that we have a human source who has corroborated that movement of chemical weapons occurred at this site at that time. So it’s not just the photo and it’s not an individual seeing the photo. It’s the photo and then the knowledge of an individual being brought together to make the case. This photograph of the site taken two months later, in July, shows not only the previous site which is the figure in the middle at the top with the bulldozer sign near it, it shows that this previous site, as well as all of the other sites around the site have been fully bulldozed and graded. The topsoil has been removed. The Iraqis literally removed the crust of the earth from large portions of this site in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity. To support its deadly biological and chemical weapons programs, Iraq procures needed items from around the world using an extensive clandestine network. What we know comes largely from intercepted communications and human sources who are in a position to know the facts. Iraq’s procurement efforts include: equipment that can filter and separate microorganisms and toxins involved in biological weapons; equipment that can be used to concentrate the agent; growth media that can be used to continue producing anthrax and botulinum toxin; sterilization equipment for laboratories; glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle corrosive chemical weapons agents and precursors; large amounts of thionyl chloride, a precursor for nerve and blister agents; and other chemicals such as sodium sulfide, an important mustard agent precursor. Now, of course, Iraq will argue that these items can also be used for legitimate purposes. But if that is true, why do we have to learn about them by intercepting communications and risking the lives of human agents? With Iraq’s well-documented history on biological and chemical weapons, why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don’t. And I don’t think you will either after you hear this next intercept. Just a few weeks ago we intercepted communications between two commanders in Iraq’s Second Republican Guard Corps. One commander is going to be giving an instruction to the other. You will hear as this unfolds that what he wants to communicate to the other guy, he wants to make sure the other guy hears clearly to the point of repeating it so that it gets written down and completely understood. Listen. (Transmission.) AUDIO SECRETARY POWELL: Let’s review a few selected items of this conversation. Two officers talking to each other on the radio want to make sure that nothing is misunderstood. ‘‘Remove.’’ ‘‘Remove.’’ ‘‘The expression.’’ ‘‘The expression.’’ ‘‘The expression. I got it.’’ ‘‘Nerve agents.’’ ‘‘Nerve agents.’’ ‘‘Wherever it comes up.’’ ‘‘Got it, wherever it comes up.’’ ‘‘In the wireless instructions.’’ ‘‘In the instructions.’’ ‘‘Correction, no, in the wireless instructions.’’ ‘‘Wireless, I got it.’’ Why does he repeat it that way? Why is he so forceful in making sure this is understood? And why did he focus on wireless instructions? Because the
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senior officer is concerned that somebody might be listening. Well, somebody was. ‘‘Nerve agents.’’ ‘‘Stop talking about it.’’ ‘‘They are listening to us’’ ‘‘Don’t give any evidence that we have these horrible agents.’’ But we know that they do and this kind of conversation confirms it. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan. Let me remind you that—of the 122 mm chemical warheads that the UN inspectors found recently—this discovery could very well be, as has been noted, the tip of a submerged iceberg. The question before us all, my friends, is when will we see the rest of the submerged iceberg? (VIDEO) SECRETARY POWELL: Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again—against his neighbors and against his own people. And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them. He wouldn’t be passing out the orders if he didn’t have the weapons or the intent to use them. We also have sources who tell us that since the 1980s, Saddam’s regime has been experimenting on human beings to perfect its biological or chemical weapons. A source said that 1,600 death-row prisoners were transferred in 1995 to a special unit for such experiments. An eyewitness saw prisoners tied down to beds, experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around the victims’ mouths, and autopsies performed to confirm the effects on the prisoners. Saddam Hussein’s humanity—inhumanity has no limits. Let me turn now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons. To fully appreciate the challenge that we face today, remember that in 1991 the inspectors searched Iraq’s primary nuclear weapons facilities for the first time, and they found nothing to conclude that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. But, based on defector information, in May of 1991, Saddam Hussein’s lie was exposed. In truth, Saddam Hussein had a massive clandestine nuclear weapons program that covered several different techniques to enrich uranium, including electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge and gas diffusion. We estimate that this illicit program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars. Nonetheless, Iraq continued to tell the IAEA that it had no nuclear weapons program. If Saddam had not been stopped, Iraq could have produced a nuclear bomb by 1993, years earlier than most worst case assessments that had been made before the war. In 1995, as a result of another defector, we find out that, after his invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein had initiated a crash program to build a crude
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nuclear weapon, in violation of Iraq’s UN obligations. Saddam Hussein already possesses two out of the three key components needed to build a nuclear bomb. He has a cadre of nuclear scientists with the expertise and he has a bomb design. Since 1998, his efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program have been focused on acquiring the third and last component: sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to enrich uranium. Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed. These tubes are controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group precisely because they can be used as centrifuges for enriching uranium. By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for. Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher. Let me tell you what is not controversial about these tubes. First, all the experts who have analyzed the tubes in our possession agree that they can be adapted for centrifuge use. Second, Iraq had no business buying them for any purpose. They are banned for Iraq. I am no expert on centrifuge tubes, but this is an old army trooper. I can tell you a couple things. First, it strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don’t think so. Second, we actually have examined tubes from several different batches that were seized clandestinely before they reached Baghdad. What we notice in these different batches is a progression to higher and higher levels of specification, including in the latest batch an anodized coating on extremely smooth inner and outer surfaces. Why would they continue refining the specifications? Why would they continuing refining the specification, go to all that trouble for something that, if it was a rocket, would soon be blown into shrapnel when it went off? The high-tolerance aluminum tubes are only part of the story. We also have intelligence from multiple sources that Iraq is attempting to acquire magnets and high-speed balancing machines. Both items can be used in a gas centrifuge program to enrich uranium. In 1999 and 2000, Iraqi officials negotiated with firms in Romania, India, Russia and Slovenia for the purchase of a magnet production plant. Iraq wanted the plant to produce magnets weighing 20 to 30 grams. That’s the same weight as the magnets used in Iraq’s gas centrifuge program before the Gulf War.
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This incident, linked with the tubes, is another indicator of Iraq’s attempt to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. Intercepted communications from mid-2000 through last summer showed that Iraq front companies sought to buy machines that can be used to balance gas centrifuge rotors. One of these companies also had been involved in a failed effort in 2001 to smuggle aluminum tubes into Iraq. People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind. These illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material. He also has been busy trying to maintain the other key parts of his nuclear program, particularly his cadre of key nuclear scientists. It is noteworthy that over the last 18 months Saddam Hussein has paid increasing personal attention to Iraq’s top nuclear scientists, a group that the government-controlled press calls openly his ‘‘nuclear mujaheddin.’’ He regularly exhorts them and praises their progress. Progress toward what end? Long ago, the Security Council, this Council, required Iraq to halt all nuclear activities of any kind. Let me talk now about the systems Iraq is developing to deliver weapons of mass destruction, in particular Iraq’s ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs. First, missiles. We all remember that before the Gulf War Saddam Hussein’s goal was missiles that flew not just hundreds, but thousands, of kilometers. He wanted to strike not only his neighbors, but also nations far beyond his borders. While inspectors destroyed most of the prohibited ballistic missiles, numerous intelligence reports over the past decade from sources inside Iraq indicate that Saddam Hussein retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud-variant ballistic missiles. These are missiles with a range of 650 to 900 kilometers. We know from intelligence and Iraq’s own admissions that Iraq’s alleged permitted ballistic missiles, the al-Samoud II and the Al-Fatah, violate the 150-kilometer limit established by this Council in Resolution 687. These are prohibited systems. UNMOVIC has also reported that Iraq has illegally imported 380 SA-2 rocket engines. These are likely for use in the al-Samoud II. Their import was illegal on three counts: Resolution 687 prohibited all military shipments into Iraq; UNSCOM specifically prohibited use of these engines in surface-to-surface missiles; and finally, as we have just noted, they are for a system that exceeds the 150-kilometer range limit. Worst of all, some of these engines were acquired as late as December, after this Council passed Resolution 1441. What I want you to know today is that Iraq has programs that are intended to produce ballistic missiles that fly over 1,000 kilometers. One program is pursuing a liquid fuel missile that would be able to fly more than 1,200 kilometers. And you can see from this map, as well as I can, who will be in danger of these missiles. As part of this effort, another little piece of evidence, Iraq has built an engine test stand that is larger than anything it has ever had. Notice the dramatic difference in size between the test stand on the left, the old one, and
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the new one on the right. Note the large exhaust vent. This is where the flame from the engine comes out. The exhaust vent on the right test stand is five times longer than the one on the left. The one of the left is used for shortrange missiles. The one on the right is clearly intended for long-range missiles that can fly 1,200 kilometers. Now, unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs. Iraq has been working on a variety of UAVs for more than a decade. This is just illustrative of what a UAV would look like. This effort has included attempts to modify for unmanned flight the MiG-21 and, with greater success, an aircraft called the L-29. However, Iraq is now concentrating not on these airplanes but on developing and testing smaller UAVs such as this. UAVs are well suited for dispensing chemical and biological weapons. There is ample evidence that Iraq has dedicated much effort to developing and testing spray devices that could be adapted for UAVs. And in the little that Saddam Hussein told us about UAVs, he has not told the truth. One of these lies is graphically and indisputably demonstrated by intelligence we collected on June 27th last year. According to Iraq’s December 7th declaration, its UAVs have a range of only 80 kilometers. But we detected one of Iraq’s newest UAVs in a test flight that went 500 kilometers nonstop on autopilot in the racetrack pattern depicted here. Not only is this test well in excess of the 150 kilometers that the United Nations permits, the test was left out of Iraq’s December 7th declaration. The UAV was flown around and around and around in this circle and so that its 80-kilometer limit really was 500 kilometers, unrefueled and on autopilot— violative of all of its obligations under 1441. The linkages over the past ten years between Iraq’s UAV program and biological and chemical warfare agents are of deep concern to us. Iraq could use these small UAVs which have a wingspan of only a few meters to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States. My friends, the information I have presented to you about these terrible weapons and about Iraq’s continued flaunting of its obligations under Security Council Resolution 1441 links to a subject I now want to spend a little bit of time on, and that has to do with terrorism. Our concern is not just about these illicit weapons; it’s the way that these illicit weapons can be connected to terrorists and terrorist organizations that have no compunction about using such devices against innocent people around the world. Iraq and terrorism go back decades. Baghdad trains Palestine Liberation Front members in small arms and explosives. Saddam uses the Arab Liberation Front to funnel money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to prolong the Intifadah. And it’s no secret that Saddam’s own intelligence service was involved in dozens of attacks or attempted assassinations in the 1990s. But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder.
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Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants. Zarqawi, Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties, and one of the specialties of this camp, is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this camp. The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch—imagine a pinch of salt—less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock, followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote. There is no cure. It is fatal. Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein’s controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today. Zarqawi’s activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During his stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they have now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months. Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible. Last year, an al-Qaida associate bragged that the situation in Iraq was ‘‘good,’’ that Baghdad could be transited quickly. We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain, even today, in regular contact with his direct subordinates, include the poison cell plotters. And they are involved in moving more than money and material. Last year, two suspected al-Qaida operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. They were linked to associates of the Baghdad cell and one of them received training in Afghanistan on how to use cyanide. From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct his network in the Middle East and beyond. We in the United States, all of us, the State Department and the Agency for International Development, we all lost a dear friend with the cold-blooded murder of Mr. Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan, last October. A despicable act was committed that day, the assassination of an individual whose sole mission was to assist the people of Jordan. The captured assassin says his cell received money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder. After the attack, an associate of the assassin left Jordan to go to Iraq to obtain weapons and explosives for further operations. Iraqi officials protest that they are not aware of the whereabouts of Zarqawi or of any of his
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associates. Again, these protests are not credible. We know of Zarqawi’s activities in Baghdad. I described them earlier. Now let me add one other fact. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice and we passed details that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still remains at large, to come and go. As my colleagues around this table and as the citizens they represent in Europe know, Zarqawi’s terrorism is not confined to the Middle East. Zarqawi and his network have plotted terrorist actions against countries including France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia. According to detainees Abu Atiya, who graduated from Zarqawi’s terrorist camp in Afghanistan, tasked at least nine North African extremists in 2001 to travel to Europe to conduct poison and explosive attacks. Since last year, members of this network have been apprehended in France, Britain, Spain and Italy. By our last count, 116 operatives connected to this global web have been arrested.… We know about this European network and we know about its links to Zarqawi because the detainees who provided the information about the targets also provided the names of members of the network. Three of those he identified by name were arrested in France last December. In the apartments of the terrorists, authorities found circuits for explosive devices and a list of ingredients to make toxins. The detainee who helped piece this together says the plot also targeted Britain. Later evidence again proved him right. When the British unearthed the cell there just last month, one British police officer was murdered during the destruction of the cell. We also know that Zarqawi’s colleagues have been active in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, and in Chechnya, Russia. The plotting to which they are linked is not mere chatter. Members of Zarqawi’s network say their goal was to kill Russians with toxins. We are not surprised that Iraq is harboring Zarqawi and his subordinates. This understanding builds on decades-long experience with respect to ties between Iraq and al-Qaida. Going back to the early and mid-1990s when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an al-Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that al-Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early al-Qaida ties were forged by secret high-level intelligence service contacts with al-Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al-Qaida. We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service. Saddam became more interested as he saw al-Qaida’s appalling attacks. A detained al-Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist alQaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by al-Qaida’s attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.
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Iraqis continue to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam’s former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to al-Qaida members on document forgery. From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the al-Qaida organization. Some believe, some claim, these contacts do not amount to much. They say Saddam Hussein’s secular tyranny and al-Qaida’s religious tyranny do not mix. I am not comforted by this thought. Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al-Qaida together, enough so al-Qaida could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs and learn how to forge documents, and enough so that al-Qaida could turn to Iraq for help in acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction. And the record of Saddam Hussein’s cooperation with other Islamist terrorist organizations is clear. Hamas, for example, opened an office in Baghdad in 1999 and Iraq has hosted conferences attended by Palestine Islamic Jihad. These groups are at the forefront of sponsoring suicide attacks against Israel. Al-Qaida continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida. Fortunately, this operative is now detained and he has told his story. I will relate it to you now as he, himself, described it. This senior al-Qaida terrorist was responsible for one of al-Qaida’s training camps in Afghanistan. His information comes firsthand from his personal involvement at senior levels of al-Qaida. He says bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan, deceased al-Qaida leader Muhammad Atif, did not believe that al-Qaida labs in Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq. The support that this detainee describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abdallah al-Iraqi had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gasses. Abdallah alIraqi characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. As I said at the outset, none of this should come as a surprise to any of us. Terrorism has been a tool used by Saddam for decades. Saddam was a supporter of terrorism long before these terrorist networks had a name, and this support continues. The nexus of poisons and terror is new. The nexus of Iraq and terror is old. The combination is lethal. With this track record, Iraqi denials of supporting terrorism take their place alongside the other Iraqi denials of weapons of mass destruction. It is all a web of lies. When we confront a regime that harbors ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass destruction, and provides haven and active support for terrorists, we are not confronting the past; we are confronting the present. And unless we act, we are confronting an even more frightening future.
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… For more than 20 years, by word and by deed, Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows: intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world’s most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he must hold to fulfill his ambition. We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein’s history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations, and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not someday use these weapons at a time and a place and in a manner of his choosing, at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond? The United States will not and cannot run that risk for the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world. My colleagues, over three months ago, this Council recognized that Iraq continued to pose a threat to international peace and security, and that Iraq had been and remained in material breach of its disarmament obligations. Today, Iraq still poses a threat and Iraq still remains in material breach. Indeed, by its failure to seize on its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm, Iraq has put itself in deeper material breach and closer to the day when it will face serious consequences for its continue defiance of this Council. My colleagues, we have an obligation to our citizens. We have an obligation to this body to see that our resolutions are complied with. We wrote 1441 not in order to go to war. We wrote 1441 to try to preserve the peace. We wrote 1441 to give Iraq one last chance. Iraq is not, so far, taking that one last chance. We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our responsibility to the citizens of the countries that are represented by this body. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony Before the Senate Budget Committee, Washington, D.C., February 11, 2003 EXCERPTED FROM PREPARED TESTIMONY Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am pleased to appear before you to testify in support of the President’s International Affairs Budget for Fiscal Year 2004. Funding requested for FY 2004 for the Department of State, USAID, and other foreign affairs agencies is $28.5 billion. The President’s Budget will allow the United States to: ¥ Target security and economic assistance to sustain key countries supporting us in the war on terrorism and helping us to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
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¥ Launch the Millennium Challenge Account—a new partnership generating support to countries that rule justly, invest in their people, and encourage economic freedom; ¥ Strengthen the U.S. and global commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS and alleviating humanitarian hardships; ¥ Combat illegal drugs in the Andean Region of South America, as well as bolster democracy in one of that region’s most important countries, Colombia; and ¥ Reinforce America’s world-class diplomatic force, focusing on the people, places, and tools needed to promote our foreign policies around the world.
The CEO Responsibilities: State Department and Related Agencies The President’s FY 2004 discretionary request for the Department of State and Related Agencies is $8.497 billion. The requested funding will allow us to: ¥ Continue initiatives to recruit, hire, train, and deploy the right work force. The budget request includes $97 million to complete the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative by hiring 399 additional foreign affairs professionals. Foreign policy is carried out through our people, and rebuilding America’s diplomatic readiness in staffing will ensure that the Department can respond to crises and emerging foreign policy priorities. This is the third year of funding for this initiative, which will provide a total of 1,158 new staff for the Department of State. ¥ Continue to upgrade and enhance our security worldwide. The budget request includes $646.7 million for programs to enhance the security of our diplomatic facilities and personnel serving abroad and for hiring 85 additional security and support professionals to sustain the Department’s Worldwide Security Upgrades program. ¥ Continue to upgrade the security of our overseas facilities. The budget request includes $1.514 billion to fund major security-related construction projects and address the major physical security and rehabilitation needs of embassies and consulates around the world. The request includes $761.4 million for construction of secure embassy compounds in seven countries and $128.3 million for construction of a new embassy building in Germany. ¥ Meet our obligations to international organizations. Fulfilling U.S. commitments is vital to building coalitions and gaining support for U.S. interests and policies in the war against terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The budget request includes $1 billion to fund U.S. assessments to 44 international organizations, including $71.4 million to support renewed U.S. membership in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). ¥ Continue to eliminate support for terrorists and thus deny them safe haven through our ongoing public diplomacy activities, our educational and cultural exchange programs, and international broadcasting. The budget request includes $296.9 million for public diplomacy, including information and cultural programs carried out by overseas missions and supported by public diplomacy personnel in our regional and functional bureaus. These resources are used to engage, inform, and influence foreign publics and broaden dialogue between American citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad.
The U.S. is successfully prosecuting the global war on terrorism on a number of fronts. We are providing extensive assistance to states on the front lines of the anti-terror struggle. Working with our international partners bilaterally and through multilateral organizations, we have frozen more than $110 million
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in terrorist assets, launched new initiatives to secure global networks of commerce and communication, and significantly increased the cooperation of our law enforcement and intelligence communities. Afghanistan is no longer a haven for al-Qaeda. We are now working with the Afghan Authority, other governments, international organizations, and NGOs to rebuild Afghanistan. Around the world we are combating the unholy alliance of drug traffickers and terrorists who threaten the internal stability of countries. We are leading the international effort to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of those who would do harm to us and others. At the same time, we are rejuvenating and expanding our public diplomacy efforts worldwide. The FY 2004 International Affairs budget provides approximately $4.7 billion in assistance to the Frontline States, which have joined with us in the war on terrorism. This funding will provide crucial assistance to enable these countries to strengthen their economies, internal counter-terrorism capabilities and border controls. Of this amount, the President’s Budget provides $657 million for Afghanistan, $460 million for Jordan, $395 million for Pakistan, $255 million for Turkey, $136 million for Indonesia, and $87 million for the Philippines. In Afghanistan, the funding will be used to fulfill our commitment to rebuild Afghanistan’s road network; establish security through a national military and national police force, including counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics components; establish broad-based and accountable governance through democratic institutions and an active civil society; ensure a peace dividend for the Afghan people through economic reconstruction; and provide humanitarian assistance to sustain returning refugees and displaced persons. United States assistance will continue to be coordinated with the Afghan government, the United Nations, and other international donors. The State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program will continue to provide frontline states a full complement of training courses, such as a course on how to conduct a post-terrorist attack investigation or how to respond to a WMD event. The budget will also fund additional equipment grants to sustain the skills and capabilities acquired in the ATA courses. It will support as well in-country training programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17620.htm
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., February 11, 2004 EXCERPTED The President’s FY2005 International Affairs Budget for the Department of State, USAID, and other foreign affairs agencies totals $31.5 billion, broken down as follows: ¥ Foreign Operations—$21.3 billion ¥ State Operations—$8.4 billion
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¥ P.L. 480 Food Aid—$1.2 billion ¥ International Broadcasting—$569 million ¥ U.S. Institute of Peace—$22 million
Mr. Chairman, the President’s top foreign policy priority is winning the war on terrorism. Forty-eight percent of the President’s budget for foreign affairs directly supports that priority by assisting our allies and strengthening the United States’ diplomatic posture. For example: $1.2 billion supports Afghanistan reconstruction, security and democracy building, and more than $5.7 billion is provided for assistance to countries around the world that have joined us in the war on terrorism, and $3.5 billion indirectly supports the war on terrorism by strengthening our ability to respond to emergencies and conflict situations. Moreover, $190 million is aimed at expanding democracy in the Greater Middle East, in part to help alleviate the conditions that spawn terrorists. In addition, $5.3 billion is targeted for the President’s bold initiatives to fight HIV/AIDS and create the Millennium Challenge Corporation, both of which will support stability and improve the quality of life for the world’s poor—and, again, help to relieve conditions that cause resentment and despair.… Winning the War on Terrorism Winning on the battlefield with our superb military forces is just one step in defeating terrorism. To eradicate terrorism, the United States must help create stable governments in nations that once supported terrorism, go after terrorist support mechanisms as well as the terrorists themselves, and help alleviate conditions in the world that enable terrorists to bring in new recruits. To this end, in FY2005 the State Department and USAID will continue to focus on the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, support our coalition partners to further our counterterrorism, law enforcement and intelligence cooperation, and expand democracy and help generate prosperity, especially in the Middle East. Support for Our Coalition Partners As part of the war on terrorism, President Bush established a clear policy to work with other nations to meet the challenges of defeating terror networks with global reach. This commitment extends to the front-line states that have joined us in the war on terrorism and to those nations that are key to successful transitions to democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our assistance enables countries cooperating closely with the United States to prevent future attacks, improve counter-terrorism capabilities and tighten border controls. As I indicated earlier, the FY2005 Budget for International Affairs provides more than $5.7 billion for assistance to countries around the world that have joined us in the war on terrorism, including Turkey, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines. U.S. assistance has also resulted in unparalleled law enforcement and intelligence cooperation that has destroyed terrorist cells, disrupted terrorist
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operations and prevented attacks. There are many counterterrorism successes in cooperating countries and international organizations. For example: ¥ Pakistan has apprehended more than 500 al Qaeda terrorists and members of the Taliban through the leadership of President Musharraf, stronger border security measures and law enforcement cooperation throughout the country. ¥ Jordan continues its strong counterterrorism efforts, including arresting two individuals with links to al Qaeda who admitted responsibility for the October 2002 murder of USAID Foreign Service officer Lawrence Foley in Amman. ¥ The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has endorsed an ambitious transformation agenda designed to enhance its capabilities by increasing deployment speed and agility to address new threats of terrorism. ¥ Colombia has developed a democratic security strategy as a blueprint for waging a unified, aggressive counterterror-counternarcotics campaign against designated foreign terrorist organizations and other illegal, armed groups.
The U.S. and its Southeast Asian allies and friends have made significant advances against the regional terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah which was responsible for the Bali attack in 2002 that killed more than 200 people. In early August 2003, an Indonesian court convicted and sentenced to death a key figure in that bombing. Since September 11, 2001, 173 countries have issued orders to freeze the assets of terrorists. As a result, terror networks have lost access to nearly $200 million in more than 1,400 terrorist-related accounts around the world. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other multilateral development banks have also played an important role in this fight by strengthening international defenses against terrorist finance. While progress has been made attacking terrorist organizations both globally and regionally, much work remains to be done. The FY2005 President’s Budget strengthens our financial commitment to our coalition partners to wage the global war on terror. Highlights of the President’s request include $700 million for Pakistan to help advance security and economic opportunity for Pakistan’s citizens, including a multi-year educational support program; $461 million for Jordan to increase economic opportunities for Jordanian communities and strengthen Jordan’s ability to secure its borders; and $577 million for Colombia to support President Uribe’s unified campaign against drugs and terrorism. New public diplomacy efforts including the Partnerships for Learning (P4L) and Youth Exchange and Study (YES) initiatives have been created to reach a younger and more diverse audience through academic and professional exchange programs. In FY2005, the P4L and the YES programs, funded at $61 million, will focus more on youth of the Muslim world, specifically targeting non-traditional, non-elite, often female and non-English speaking youth. U.S. broadcasting initiatives in the Middle East encourage the development of a free press in the American tradition and provide Middle Eastern viewers and listeners access to a variety of ideas. The U.S. revamped its Arabic radio broadcasts in 2002 with the introduction of Radio Sawa, which broadcasts to the region twenty-four hours a day. As a result, audience size for our Arabic broadcasting increased from under 2 percent in 2001 to over 30 percent in
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2003. Based on this successful model, the U.S. introduced Radio Farda to broadcast to Iran around the clock. Building on this success, the FY2005 President’s Budget Request provides over $70 million for Arabic and Persian radio and television broadcasts to the Middle East. In early 2004, the United States will launch the Middle East Television Network, an Arabic language satellite network that will have the capability of reaching millions of viewers and will provide a means for Middle Easterners to better understand democracy and free market policies, as well as the U.S. and its people. Border Security Prior to September 11, 2001, the State Department’s consular officers focused primarily on screening applicants based on whether they intended to work or reside legally in the United States. In deciding who should receive a visa, consular officers relied on State Department information systems as the primary basis for identifying potential terrorists. The State Department gave overseas consular officers the discretion to determine the level of scrutiny that should be applied to visa applications and encouraged the streamlining of procedures. Today, Consular Affairs at the State Department, working with both Customs and Border Protection and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Department of Homeland Security, are cooperating to achieve our goals more effectively by sharing information and integrating information systems. The Department of State has invested substantial time, money, and effort in revamping its visa and passport process as well as its provision of American Citizen Services. The Department has more than doubled its database holdings on individuals who should not be issued visas, increased training for all consular officers, established special programs to vet applications more comprehensively, increased the number of skilled, American staff working in consular sections overseas, and improved data-sharing among agencies. The State Department, along with the Department of Homeland Security, is currently developing biometrics, such as fingerprints, digital photographs or iris scans, for both visas and passports in order to fulfill requirements of the Patriot and Border Security Acts and the International Civil Aviation Organization. As a part of the State Department’s efforts to screen visa applicants more effectively, and in particular to ensure that a suspected terrorist does not receive a visa to enter the United States, we will be an active partner in the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC). The TSC, established in December 2003, will maintain a single, consolidated watchlist of terrorist suspects to be shared with Federal, state, local and private entities in accordance with applicable law. The Department of State will also participate in the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), a joint-effort aimed at reducing the potential of intelligence gaps domestically and abroad. To achieve our goal of secure borders and open doors, in FY2005 the State Department plans to expand the use of biometrics to improve security in the visa and passport processes; more effectively fill gaps worldwide by hiring people with specific skills including language expertise; improve and maintain all consular systems; and more broadly expand data sharing with all agencies with border control or immigration related responsibilities. The budget in FY2005
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includes $175 million for biometric projects including photographs and fingerprints to comply with Border Security and Patriot Acts. The Border Security program underwent a PART analysis in the development of the FY2004 and FY2005 budgets and this budget request reflects the results of those analyses. The Department is moving ahead on program management improvements that clearly link to the Department of Homeland Security goals related to visa policy. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/29253.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see President Bush’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2005, and Secretary of State Powell’s Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 12, 2004 (http://appropriations.senate.gov/hearmarkups/record. cfm?id=220374).
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Interview with Barry Schweid and George Gedda of the Associated Press, September 10, 2004 MR. SCHWEID: 9/11, an anniversary at hand again. Is America safer now, do you think, than it has been? SECRETARY POWELL: 9/11 was a great tragedy for our nation. It was a great tragedy for the world. I am pleased to say that we have not seen another incident, anything like 9/11. We’ve not been struck by terrorists since 9/11, so certainly the last three years have been an indication that we are safer. But we are still in a threatening environment. There are still people who want to strike the United States. As a result of the President’s effort and his leadership, we have put in place a Homeland Security Department, we have tightened up our borders, we have a better idea who’s coming into the country. We know how to use the information that we get to raise alert levels and take other precautions that protect our nation. And so, in that regard, we are safer, I believe. We are also safer in that we have eliminated the Taliban as a functioning group in Afghanistan. We have a government that is getting ready for presidential elections in Afghanistan coming up on the 9th of October. And al-Qaida no longer finds safe haven in that part of the world. Iraq has seen a dictator removed and it is no longer a source of that kind of activity, even though we still have challenges there. So, in that sense, I think we are safer. At the same time, the world has to continue to fight terrorism. We see terrorism in places like Beslan in Russia. We see what happened in Jakarta the other day, a bomb against the Australian Embassy. So while I think the nation clearly is safer, we have to remain vigilant and we have to realize that there are people out there who mean us ill, and they have to be fought and they have to be defeated. MR. SCHWEID: It’s obviously a worldwide problem, but is—many, many years ago, and she was virtually laughed at by think-tankers, Claire Sterling wrote many, many years ago about the notion of a network of terrorists, that it really is—that they’re interlocked, they’re interlaced. Do you—
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SECRETARY POWELL: Some clearly are interlocked. I mean, al-Qaida is a worldwide organization and JI is active in Asia and other parts of the world. What we want to make sure is that they don’t become any more interlocked than they might be now. And that’s why we focus not only just on military action and police action, but law enforcement, financial activities, getting into their information networks, their financial network, computer networks. Any means by which they might connect with one another, we are after to make sure that it doesn’t become that kind of worldwide network. MR. SCHWEID: What are they after, besides chaos and hurting people? SECRETARY POWELL: They are after, first and foremost, making a statement through the destruction and killing of innocent people. And they have abandoned civilized means of making your opinion known. They reject democracy, they reject openness and they resort to the killing of innocent people. There can be no justification for what happened in Russia the other day, last week, where young students on their first day of school, showing up with flowers and pencil boxes to learn, suddenly are put at risk and then are killed by the hundreds. There’s no excuse for that. There can be no political justification. There is no religious justification. This is evil and terror staring us right in the face and it’s the kind of evil and terror that we saw perpetrated against us three years ago on 9/11. And it must be fought. It must be resisted. There can be no compromise in this battle. MR. GEDDA: Bin Laden’s face has not been seen on television since 2001. I don’t know whether you would attach any significance to that. You have no inkling as to why almost three years have passed since he has appeared? SECRETARY POWELL: No, I don’t know why. I don’t know where he is and I don’t know his state of health. I don’t know. We believe he is still alive. I can’t prove that. But he clearly is hiding as best he can. He is on the run. He is not popping up on television and he is not showing himself in a way that he could be captured. The whole world is after him for being a criminal and for being a terrorist and for being a murderer, so he is doing everything he can to stay hidden. MR. GEDDA: How much of a difference would his death or capture make? SECRETARY POWELL: I don’t know. We have done a great deal of damage to the al-Qaida network. A large percentage of the senior leadership of al-Qaida has been killed or captured. But it does have the capacity to regenerate itself at lower levels, but they are not as accomplished and experienced as those who have been taken out. If he were to be taken out, would that destroy al-Qaida? I think it would be a very, very serious blow against al-Qaida. I cannot tell you, though, that there would not be others who would try to take his place. But the top leadership of al-Qaida has been very badly damaged through capture and death over the last three years. MR. GEDDA: You were enthusiastic about the Future of Iraq project two years ago. Almost nothing has been heard about it since then, and—but you praised it at the time, you thought it was a good idea for the postwar reconstruction. I hear it’s gathering dust, the outcome of this. Are you disappointed in that it never seemed to be acted upon after the war? SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the Future of Iraq study was a one-year effort led by the State Department, but it was an interagency effort. And we also
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brought in outsiders from think tanks, from universities and elsewhere, and it was a very good piece of work. It was made available to the Coalition Provisional Authority. It was made available to Mr. Jay Garner, General Jay Garner, before that. Parts of it have been used and that body of information is here. We’re using it. As you know, we have an office within our Near Eastern Bureau that is working closely with Ambassador Negroponte and many of the people in that office worked on the Future of Iraq study. So it still gives us insight as to things that have to be done with respect to reconstruction, with respect to the political process, and materials are available, both to the office here as well as to Ambassador Negroponte. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/36076.htm
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PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Board Cochairs Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (U.S.A.) Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews (U.K.) Members Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (U.S.A.) Th´er`ese Delpech, Director of Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission, and Senior Research Fellow, CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques), Paris (France) Sir Michael Howard, former Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regis Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University (U.K.) Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army (U.S.A.) Paul M. Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University (U.S.A.) Robert J. O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls College, Oxford University (Australia) Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland (U.S.A.) Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International (U.S.A.)
E VOLUTION OF U.S. C OUNTERTERRORISM P OLICY VOLUME 2
Edited by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft Foreword by Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evolution of U.S. counterterrorism policy / compiled by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-275-99529-4 (set : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-275-99531-7 (vol 1 : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-275-99533-1 (vol 2 : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-313-34692-7 (vol 3 : alk. paper) 1. Terrorism—United States—History. 2. Terrorism—Prevention— United States—History. 3. Terrorism—Prevention—Government policy— United States—History. 4. Civil defense—United States. 5. National security—United States. I. Title: Evolution of United States counterterrorism policy. II. Alexander, Yonah. III. Kraft, Michael, 1937– HV6432.E86 2008 363.3250 170973—dc22 2007028388 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. C 2008 by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft Copyright
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007028388 ISBN: 978-0-275-99529-4 (set) 978-0-275-99531-7 (vol. 1) 978-0-275-99533-1 (vol. 2) 978-0-313-34692-7 (vol. 3) First published in 2008 Praeger Security International, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Volume 2 Contents Foreword by Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan Preface
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PART TWO: U.S. POLICY POST–SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 (Continued from Volume 1) 10. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks at American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Symposium, Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C., November 9, 2005
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview with Barbara Slavin and Ray Locker of USA Today, Washington, D.C., November 28, 2005
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks Upon Her Departure for Europe, Andrews Air Force Base, December 5, 2005
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ‘‘The Promise of Democratic Peace,’’ Op-Ed in The Washington Post, December 11, 2005
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CNN Interview with Wolf Blitzer, Washington, D.C., December 19, 2005
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ‘‘Realizing the Goals of Transformational Diplomacy,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., February 15, 2006 448 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit After Meeting, Cairo, Egypt, February 21, 2006 451 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks to Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program Participants, Loy Henderson Auditorium, Washington, D.C., April 21, 2006
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview with the New York Times Editorial Board, New York, New York, September 25, 2006
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Washington, D.C., September 10, 2006
469
11. Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism
475
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor
475
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Terrorist Threats Against America,’’ Testimony to the Committee on International Relations, Washington, D.C., September 25, 2001
475
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Global War Against Terrorism: A Way Ahead,’’ Address to the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., October 23, 2002
479
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, ‘‘International Terrorism: The War Continues,’’ Remarks at the 20th Anniversary Conference of the International Security Management Association, Boston, Massachusetts, June 9, 2003
484
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director, Office of Foreign Missions, ‘‘Diplomacy: The Key to Success in the Global War on Terror,’’ Remarks to the Pacific Council of International Policy’s Annual Conference, Los Angeles, California, November 13, 2004
487
Ambassador J. Cofer Black
490
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The International Terrorism Threat,’’ Remarks to the House Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, March 26, 2003
490
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Combating Global Terrorism,’’ Remarks to the Eighth Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of Prosecutors, Renaissance Washington Hotel, Washington, D.C., August 11, 2003
498
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 Commission Recommendations,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., August 19, 2004
501
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks to the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 30, 2004
506
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton
507
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy Update,’’ Testimony Before the House
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vii
International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, October 27, 2005
507
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Remarks at the Royal United Services Institute, Conference on Transnational Terrorism, London, England, January 16, 2006
512
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Washington, D.C., February 14, 2006
515
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, ‘‘Government-Private Partnership Key to Defeating Terrorism,’’ Speech at the 2006 International Counterterrorism Conference: Public and Private Partnerships, Washington, D.C., April 20, 2006
522
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, ‘‘The Changing Face of Terror: A Post 9/11 Assessment,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., June 13, 2006
526
12. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
533
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘A New Kind of War,’’ Published in the New York Times, September 27, 2001
533
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘Beyond Nation Building,’’ Remarks at the 11th Annual Salute to Freedom, Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, New York, New York, February 14, 2003
534
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Testimony Prepared for Delivery to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Washington, D.C., March 23, 2004
537
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Remarks to the Newspaper Association of America/American Society of Newspaper Editors, J.W. Marriott Hotel, Washington, D.C., April 22, 2004
543
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Remarks at the United States Military Academy Commencement, Michie Stadium, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, May 29, 2004
545
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘Using Media to Fight Terror,’’ Council on Foreign Relations, New York, New York, February 17, 2006
546
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Admiral Giambastiani, ‘‘U.S. Must Go ‘All the Way’ to Counter Terrorism,’’ Department of Defense News Briefing, The Pentagon, March 23, 2006
551
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Remarks at the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, November 9, 2006
554
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Farewell Parade, The Pentagon, December 15, 2006
556
13. Attorney General John Ashcroft Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference with FBI Director Mueller, October 16, 2001
559 559
viii
Contents Attorney General John Ashcroft, Press Conference on Arrests, October 18, 2001
561
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks for the U.S. Mayors Conference, October 25, 2001
563
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Request, Remarks Before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, February 26, 2002
566
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference, National Security Coordination Council, Department of Justice Conference Center, March 5, 2002
568
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference—SEVIS, Department of Justice Conference Center, May 10, 2002
569
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the National Security Entry–Exit Registration System, June 6, 2002
571
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks to the Department of Defense Regarding the Transfer of Abdullah Al Muhajir (Born Jose Padilla) as an Enemy Combatant, June 10, 2002
573
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the U.S. Attorneys Conference, New York, New York, October 1, 2002
574
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, Department of Justice, February 10, 2003
577
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘The War Against Terrorism: Working Together to Protect America,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, March 4, 2003
579
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Preserving Life and Liberty,’’ American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., August 19, 2003
583
Attorney General John Ashcroft, End of the Year Address to the Department of Justice, December 10, 2004
586
14. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
587
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Statement Before the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Science and the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies, March 1, 2005
587
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Wartime Executive Power and the NSA’s Surveillance Authority, February 6, 2006
589
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, England, March 7, 2006
596
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Opening Remarks at the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
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ix
on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Washington, D.C., April 5, 2006
602
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks at the Justice Department Oversight Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., July 18, 2006
602
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks at the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh on Stopping Terrorists Before They Strike: The Justice Department’s Power of Prevention, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 16, 2006
604
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks at the JAG Corps Leadership Summit, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, October 23, 2006
607
15. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
611
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Remarks at the Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Counterterrorism Task Force Symposium, Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania, September 21, 2004
611
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Terrorist Threat Integration Center Director John Brennan, Transcript of Press Conference on Media Availability, Washington, D.C., October 30, 2004
612
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Remarks at the Cargo Security Summit, Washington, D.C., December 16, 2004
615
16. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
619
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Remarks at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
619
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Testimony Before the House Homeland Security Committee, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005
623
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Second Stage Review Remarks, Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C., July 13, 2005
632
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Remarks at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 75th Anniversary Celebration, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, October 1, 2005
640
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, G-8 Summit and Related Issues, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., June 9, 2006
643
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Remarks at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, October 16, 2006
647
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Contents
PART THREE: COUNTERTERRORISM BY TOPICS AND ISSUES
651
17. Threats
653
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Current and Projected National Security Threats, February 2, 1999
654
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security, February 2, 2000
656
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on the Worldwide Threat 2001: National Security in a Changing World, February 7, 2001 659 Paul R. Pillar, National Intelligence Council Officer for South Asia, ‘‘Fighting International Terrorism: Beyond September 11,’’ Address at the College for William and Mary, November 28, 2001
661
Carl W. Ford, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, Department of State, ‘‘Current and Projected Threats to the National Security of the United States,’’ Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 6, 2002
667
Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson, U.S. Navy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 6, 2002
671
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘The Worldwide Threat 2003: Evolving Dangers in a Complex World,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 11, 2003
677
Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, U.S. Navy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, ‘‘Global Threats 2003,’’ Statement for the Record: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Armed Services Committee, February 12, 2003
684
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘The Worldwide Threat 2004: Challenges in a Changing Global Context,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., February 24, 2004
687
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘Worldwide Threat: Converging Dangers in a Post-9/11 World,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 19, 2002
694
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘al Qaeda: The Threat to the United States and Its Allies,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Washington, D.C., April 1, 2004
700
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Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 Commission Report Recommendation: Denying Sanctuary to Terrorists,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Los Angeles, California, August 6, 2004
706
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, ‘‘Global Intelligence Challenges 2005: Meeting Long-Term Challenges with a Long-Term Strategy,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 16, 2005
712
Robert G. Joseph, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, ‘‘The Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: A Comprehensive Approach to Today’s Most Serious National Security Threat,’’ Prepared Remarks to the Capitol Hill Club, Washington, D.C., July 18, 2006
716
General Michael V. Hayden, Director of Central Intelligence, ‘‘The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,’’ Statement for the Record Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, November 15, 2006
721
18. Intelligence
727
Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, U.S. Air Force, Director of the National Security Agency, Opening Remarks at the Partnerships for Combating Terrorism Forum, March 4, 2002
728
Jim Pavitt, CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Address to Duke University Law School Conference, April 11, 2002
730
CIA Spokesman Bill Harlow, Statement on the CIA’s Counterterrorism Efforts, September 19, 2002
733
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee, Washington, D.C., October 1, 2002
734
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Written Statement Before the Joint Inquiry Committee, October 17, 2002
738
Lieutenant General James R. Clapper, Jr., U.S. Air Force (Retired), Director NIMA, Statement Before the Joint Inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 17, 2002
754
Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, U.S. Air Force, Director, National Security Agency, Central Security Service, Statement Before the Joint Inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 17, 2002
755
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Contents Winston P. Wiley, Chair, Senior Steering Group, Terrorist Threat Integration Center, and Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Homeland Security, Testimony Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, February 28, 2003
760
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan Event, May 14, 2004
761
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘Tomorrow’s FBI: Changing to Meet New Challenges,’’ Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, June 22, 2004
762
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 Commission Recommendation: Counterterrorism Analysis and Collection,’’ Testimony Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., August 4, 2004
765
John E. McLaughlin, Acting Director of Central Intelligence, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 9/11 Commission Findings, August 17, 2004
766
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on Intelligence Legislation, December 4, 2004
768
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 17, 2005
768
Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence, Statement on the WMD Commission Report, March 31, 2005
770
President George W. Bush Discusses the WMD Commission Report, Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, March 31, 2005
771
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Remarks to CIA Employees, September 22, 2005
772
Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Announcement Establishing the National Clandestine Service, October 13, 2005
775
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Op-ed ‘‘Loose Lips Sink Spies,’’ New York Times, February 10, 2006
776
Director of Intelligence John A. Kringen, Op-ed ‘‘How We’ve Improved Intelligence Minimizing the Risk of ‘Groupthink’,’’ Washington Post, April 3, 2006
777
John Scott Redd, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Retired), Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Statement for the Record Before the House Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006
778
President George W. Bush Discusses the NSA Surveillance Program, Diplomatic Reception Room, May 11, 2006
781
General Michael V. Hayden, Director of Central Intelligence, ‘‘The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,’’ Statement for the Record Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, November 15, 2006
782
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xiii
19. Iraq
787
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘The Global Fight Against Terrorism: Status and Perspectives,’’ Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, February 8, 2003
788
President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, The Oval Office, March 19, 2003
791
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Success and Strategies in the Effort to Liberate Iraq,’’ Prepared Remarks, April 17, 2003
792
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Leadership in the Cause of Liberty,’’ Robert H. Krieble Lecture, Heritage Foundation, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 24, 2003
793
President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi, Press Conference, The Rose Garden, The White House, September 23, 2004
794
President George W. Bush, Radio Address, November 13, 2004
800
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, January 26, 2005
801
President George W. Bush Congratulates Iraqis on the Election, January 30, 2005
802
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview on Al-Iraqiya with Karim Hamadi, Baghdad, Iraq, November 11, 2005
803
President George W. Bush Outlines Strategy for Victory in Iraq, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, November 30, 2005
804
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, An Overview of International Support for Iraqi Democracy on the Eve of the December 15, 2005, Elections, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., December 13, 2005
809
President George W. Bush, U.S. Strategy in Iraq, Kentucky International Convention Center, Louisville, Kentucky, January 11, 2006
813
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at a Rally for the Troops at Charleston Air Force Base, Charleston, South Carolina, March 17, 2006
816
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by Bob Schieffer, CBS News Face the Nation, CBS News Washington, Washington, D.C., March 19, 2006
818
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C., April 10, 2006
820
President George W. Bush Discusses Recent Visit to Iraq by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Rose Garden, May 1, 2006
821
President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Joint Press Conference, The East Room of the White House, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2006
822
xiv
Contents President George W. Bush, Statement on the Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Rose Garden, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2006
829
President George W. Bush, Surprise Visit to Iraq, Meets with Prime Minister Maliki in Baghdad, Videoconference with Camp David Participants, June 13, 2006
830
President George W. Bush, Saturday Radio Address on Iraq, June 17, 2006
831
President George W. Bush, Press Conference at 2006 U.S.-EU Summit, Zeremoniensaal Hall, Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria, June 21, 2006
832
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by John King, CNN, The Vice President’s Residence, June 22, 2006
833
President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, Press Conference, The East Room, The White House, July 25, 2006
836
President George W. Bush, Radio Address, October 21, 2006
840
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, October 25, 2006
842
Ambassador David Satterfield, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and Coordinator for Iraq, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., October 26, 2006
853
President George W. Bush, Statement on the Saddam Hussein Verdict, TSTC Airport, Waco, Texas, November 5, 2006
857
20. Legislation
859
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Testimony Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Concerning Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, April 11, 1995
860
FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, Opening Statement Before the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., May 3, 1995
868
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Statement Before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Concerning the Clinton Administration Counterterrorism Initiative, May 3, 1995
871
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State, Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, May 4, 1995
874
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Remarks at the Anti-Defamation League’s National Leadership Conference, Washington, D.C., April 23, 1996
876
President William J. Clinton, Statement on Signing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, April 24, 1996
880
Summary of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, S.735 Public Law No: 104-132, April 24, 1996
882
Contents
xv
Kenneth R. McKune, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State, Statement Before the Senate Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, February 24, 1998
883
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at Press Briefing with FBI Director Mueller, FBI Headquarters, September 27, 2001
886
President George W. Bush, Remarks by the Signing of the PATRIOT Act, Antiterrorism Legislation, October 26, 2001
887
Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.S. House of Representatives, Testimony Before the Committee on the Judiciary, June 5, 2003
888
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 20, 2004
890
President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing H.R. 4567, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2005, October 18, 2004
893
President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, Washington, D.C., December 17, 2004
893
Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Address to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference, Washington, D.C., March 7, 2005
895
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on Legislation, September 16, 2006
897
President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing the SAFE Port Act, Eisenhower Executive Office Building, October 13, 2006
898
President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, The East Room, The White House, October 17, 2006
900
John B. Bellinger III, State Department Legal Advisor, The Military Commission Act of 2006, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., October 19, 2006
901
Foreword Counterterrorism is a discipline propelled by events that have not yet happened. It involves speculating on possible threats, undertaking measures to prevent them, fortifying our defenses, and bolstering our capability to respond to and recover from an attack. In short, counterterrorism practitioners try to predict the future and then attempt to change it. But to do so, looking back is just as important as looking forward. Particularly now, when counterterrorism efforts have been so greatly expanded and so frequently misguided, an evaluation of our own practices is crucial. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy, the exhaustive collection that follows, is an invaluable tool in crafting the most effective strategies for preventing future terrorist attacks and protecting Americans. Throughout my career in counterterrorism, I have always held that analyzing past terrorist attacks and plots is one of the most effective ways to assess future threats. Case studies of attacks by groups like al Qaeda reveal their modus operandi, methodology, and capability—vital indicators of what their future ambitions may be. And just as there is no greater lens into the intent of terrorists than their history, our own counterterrorism track record holds invaluable insights into what does and does not work. Only through a thorough selfassessment of our past efforts to stop terrorism can we divine the most effective policies going forward. This book lays the foundation for that assessment. The laws, policies, and speeches collected in Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy catalog the scope of American counterterrorism initiatives for the past three decades. These documents are raw history—the artifacts of our ongoing struggle against terrorism. For many Americans, it is a fight that began in September of 2001. But as these volumes show, the genesis came long before. Beginning in the early 1970s, we see the first real recognition of the terrorist threat by America’s national security establishment, then preoccupied by traditional interstate conflict and counterinsurgency. The growing frequency and urgency of the policies that follow in the next three decades reflect the increasing focus on terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s up to the post-9/11 era, when it became the driving force behind America’s national security policy. But it is not only our own history contained here. By telling the story of our historical fight against terrorism, our counterterrorism policies present a perspective on the evolution of terrorism itself. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy begins with a 1972 speech by President Nixon broadly addressing the terrorist threat and then proposes legislative prescriptions outlining
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Foreword
specific, even arcane, counterterrorism tools. The increasing complexity of the policies reveals an adaptation to an evolving and ever more dangerous enemy. Terrorism is both provoked and sustained by development, technological progress, and globalization. As the world becomes smaller, the ability of the terrorist to communicate, travel, raise and transfer money, and obtain or develop weaponry is enhanced. This has extended the global reach of terrorist groups and magnified their lethality. As terrorists became more cunning, more mobile, and more dangerous, the means used to fight them followed suit. The reader will discern obvious patterns in the intensity of U.S. counterterrorism initiatives. The documents presented here demonstrate only sporadic, reactive attention to terrorism before 9/11. Those of us who devoted our careers to counterterrorism watched in frustration as the institutional focus of the U.S. government locked onto terrorism in the weeks and months following an attack, but inevitably faded as time passed. In this sense, this collection also offers a view of the pre-9/11 world, during which time terrorism occasionally emerged as a foreign policy headache but would reliably return to the back burner, second to the more traditional challenges posed by the Soviet Union or China. This book also archives the work of those individuals within the federal government whose focus on counterterrorism never wavered. In doing so, these documents will answer questions on the minds of Americans who rightly wonder what their government was doing to protect them against terrorism in the pre-9/11 era. Though terrorism was never the national priority it should have been, there were dedicated public servants who did everything they could to prevent attacks. The policies contained in these pages are a testament to those who strove to stop terrorist groups despite bureaucratic hurdles and, when they failed, worked relentlessly to refine their policies to prevent future attacks. Terrorism is a conflict that will be with us for decades to come. If we are to fight terrorism effectively, we must engage in constant, rigorous analysis—not only of terrorist groups, but also of our own efforts to fight them. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy will be the cornerstone of that effort. In an age in which counterterrorism demands so much of our attention and resources, this book is especially important. Since 9/11, there has been an unprecedented expansion of counterterrorism initiatives, many of which have been a waste of valuable time and money. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy is a monumental first step toward righting those well-intended but ultimately ineffective policies. We will continue to struggle against terrorist groups, and they will succeed in attacking us again. I am confident, however, that this tremendous resource will go a long way toward ensuring that, over time, our counterterrorism efforts will become effective enough that they are no longer needed. Ambassador (Ret.) Michael A. Sheehan New York City October 2007 MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN served as coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department from 1998 to 2000, with the rank of ambassador. He later became assistant secretary for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations and served as deputy commissioner for counterterrorism in the New York City Police Department. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the New York University Center for Law and Security and has also taught at the U.S. Military Academy’s Center for Counterterrorism at West Point.
Preface The speeches, statements, and testimony contained in these three volumes provide an overview of publicly enunciated U.S. government counterterrorism policies, analysis, and programs. These selections contain many documents that have been collected over the years by the editors and are no longer readily available. They predate the Internet and postings on various Web sites and, as a result, were only slightly edited. Where URLs are available for documents, they are included at the end of the items. These documents were, at times, heavily excerpted to eliminate duplicative or irrelevant sections. In many cases, terrorism-related comments were only part of much broader speeches. In other instances, such as speeches, somewhat duplicative phrases were left in where their inclusion provide richer context or include slight changes in terminology. The links provided were those available at the time this manuscript went to press and it is possible that some URLs are no longer accessible. This compilation is by no means all inclusive—the massive volume of terrorism-related statements, especially since the transformative events of the September 11 attacks and the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, prohibits the inclusion of all available documents. Every effort was made, however, to include the most useful statements, speeches, and testimony for both the general reader and as a resource for researchers. The time period covered in the various chapters extends from the Nixon administration to the end of 2006. Because of space limitations, with a few exceptions, we did not include material from daily press briefings by the State Department and other agencies but instead focused on formal testimony and speeches, which usually were precleared and vetted through the Office of Management and Budget’s clearance process. For the same reason, the full texts of useful documents such as Executive Orders were not included; however, their titles and URLs are listed in the Key Documents (chapter 27). Our intent is to provide leads and references for readers who are interested in more detailed research. We note that because of the relationship between the subject matter in various chapters, it is useful to read these chapters together. For example, the chapters covering President George W. Bush (chapter 7) and Vice President
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Richard B. Cheney (chapter 8) include material related to the Iraq chapter (chapter 19). The Threats chapter (chapter 17) should be read alongside both the Intelligence chapter (chapter 18) and the statements by the various Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism (chapter 11). The Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Financial chapters (chapters 20–22) also are interrelated. We hope these documents will further the understanding of the development of U.S. counterterrorism policies and provide a context for understanding the crucial terrorism problems facing the United States and other countries.
10 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, The President’s Fiscal Year 2006 International Affairs Budget, Statement Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, May 12, 2005 EXCERPTED FROM PREPARED TESTIMONY The President’s FY 2006 International Affairs Budget for the Department of State, USAID and other foreign affairs agencies totals $33.6 billion. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Members of this Committee for their support and leadership in the passing the FY 2005 Emergency Supplemental.… The supplemental international affairs funding of $5.8 billion will ensure that we are able to respond speedily and effectively to the needs of our steadfast coalition partners in the War on Terror, to newly elected governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Ukraine who need our stabilizing assistance to move forward with reforms, to those seeking democracy assistance in Belarus and Lebanon, and to the men, women and children uprooted by war, as in Sudan, or swept up in natural disasters, such as the recent East Asia tsunami. The supplemental funds will also cover the extraordinary security and support costs of operating our current embassy in Baghdad, and the construction of a secure new embassy compound for our mission, as well as $60 million for the security and operations of our embassy in Kabul. … I will begin my testimony on the FY 2006 Budget Request with an overview of President Bush’s foreign policy mission, which we seek this Committee’s support to advance. In the long term, as President Bush said, ‘‘The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom.’’ Through diplomacy, the United States can create new possibilities for freedom and fresh hope across the globe. We must deal with the world as it is, but we do not accept it as it is. In places like
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Afghanistan and Ukraine, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Georgia, people’s desire for freedom and a better future is redefining what many thought possible in these societies. President Bush has charged the men and women of the Department of State with helping to create a balance of power in the world that favors human liberty, and that is exactly what we are doing. Together with our democratic partners around the world, we are advancing a forward strategy of freedom. Our cooperation with international partners is dramatically evident in Afghanistan, where last month I saw first-hand the progress that country has made towards stability, reconstruction, and democracy. The Presidential election last year was an inspiration to the world. Next September, Afghanistan’s citizens, men and women alike, will again go to the polls, this time to elect a parliament. Afghanistan still faces many challenges, including the narcotics trade that could undermine its strides on so many fronts. We are committed to a comprehensive counter-narcotics strategy and a long-term reconstruction strategy because we believe in the future of a new, democratic Afghanistan— an Afghanistan that is no longer a haven for terrorists and tyrants, but a partner in security and freedom. To build on the positive momentum in Afghanistan, President Bush has requested nearly $1.1 billion in total U.S. funding, including $956 million in foreign assistance support. This money will be used to invest in security, health, education, clean water and free market infrastructure, which together create conditions for sustained growth, opportunity, and to continue the fight against drugs. This is also a very important year for Iraq, as the Iraqis write their constitution and hold national elections in December. When President Bush traveled to Europe in February, he and his counterparts not only turned the page on Iraq, they wrote a new chapter. All 26 NATO allies are now contributing to the NATO Training Mission in Iraq. The European Union announced its willingness to co-host an international conference with the United States to encourage and coordinate international support for Iraq. We have followed up on this initiative with the European Commission, the European Parliament, EU Member States, other countries around the world, and the Iraqi Government. Today, in the midst of a tough security situation, Iraqis at all levels— from the town council in Fallujah to the President of the country—are engaging in the democratic process and they need and deserve our support. For Iraq, President Bush has requested $457 million of support for FY 2006, including $360 million to continue work already begun under the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. These monies would be targeted towards helping the new Iraqi leadership create a functioning democracy and a justice system governed by the rule of law. This funding also will help the Iraqi government deliver basic services to its people, collect revenues, generate jobs and develop a free market system capable of joining the global economy. We and our democratic allies are putting the power of our partnership to work not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but all across the Broader Middle East and North Africa. Efforts to encourage democratization, economic reform, the growth of civil society and opportunity for all through education are critical to shaping a stable and prosperous future for this strategically important
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region. Recognizing this, through the G-8 we have established the Forum for the Future—a new partnership between the democratic world and nations of this vast region, and we are committed to ensuring that the Forum plays a central role in advancing indigenous reform efforts in this vast region extending from Morocco to Pakistan. In early March in London, I participated in an important conference of major donors, including regional states, to help the Palestinian people advance their political, security and economic reforms and build infrastructure for selfgovernment. The World Economic Forum in Jordan is expected to give further impetus to political and economic reform in the region. The path of reform in the Broader Middle East will be difficult and uneven. Freedom’s work is the work of generations. But it is also urgent work that cannot be deferred. Of course, the process of reform in the broader Middle East is not detached from what must happen between the Israelis and Palestinians toward realizing President Bush’s vision of an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with the State of Israel. The Palestinian elections, and the Israeli withdrawal plan for Gaza and parts of the West Bank, have created a unique opportunity for peace. In fact, when I met with both Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas they had the same opening line: This is an opportunity for peace we must not miss. President Bush has announced an additional $350 million to help the Palestinians build infrastructure and sustain the reform process over the next two years, including the $150 million in the FY 2006 budget. I’d like to thank the Congress for supporting the President’s efforts by providing the $200 million included in the FY 2005 Supplemental. This is an important show of support for President Abbas. Our FY 2006 budget request also contains $2.5 billion in assistance to Israel, which continues our longstanding strategic partnership and supports regional democracy and security. Even as we work with allies and friends to meet the great challenge of advancing freedom and peace in the broader Middle East and North Africa, we will seize other important opportunities to build a world of peace and hope. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46137.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks at American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Symposium, Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C., November 9, 2005 Today, the greatest challenges that we face emerge more from within states than between them—from states that are either unable or unwilling to apply the rule of law within their borders. In a world where threats pass even through the most fortified boundaries, weak and poorly governed states enable disease to spread undetected and corruption to multiply unchecked and hateful ideologies to grow more violent and more vengeful. As the fate of nations grows ever more connected, our challenges are unprecedented, but our purposes are clear: Where weaker governments possess the will but the lack of means to enforce the rule of law, we must empower
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them with the strength of our partnership. And where autocrats still rule by coercion of the state rather than by the consent of the governed, we must support the rights of their oppressed citizens, wherever they raise their voice for equal justice and lawful government. Where the rule of law is undermined by government corruption, we are offering incentives for honest and transparent behavior. Anti-corruption is one of the key standards of our Millennium Challenge Account initiative, an initiative that rewards good governance and the fight against corruption. And in just the past year, the Millennium Challenge Corporation has signed new development compacts with five countries that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars to those countries, each of which involves significant political and legal reforms. Where the rule of law is flouted by immoral rulers and war criminals, we are helping citizens to operate international tribunals and special courts of justice. The United States helped to launch such efforts in Rwanda and Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia. And we continue to support all people who seek justice for their nations by lawfully trying the criminals who ravaged them. Finally, where the rule of law is emerging from decades of tyranny, the United States is helping newly democratic peoples to liberate themselves. In Afghanistan, we have dedicated more than $62 million since the fall of the Taliban to build new courthouses, to train new judges and to reform the nation’s regulatory system. To help the Afghan people enforce the rule of law themselves, we have also trained 32,000 new police officers who are now patrolling the streets of that country as well as its highways and its borders. And in Iraq, we have committed approximately $1 billion to train and equip the men and women of Iraq’s new national police force to better protect and serve their fellow citizens. We have spent nearly $400 million to strengthen the rule of law across all of Iraq, helping the Iraqi people to reform their system of legal education, to secure their country’s many courtrooms and to frame their new democratic constitution. These judicial reforms are enabling the Iraqi High Tribunal to begin holding fair trials for the leaders of the Baathist regime, including Saddam Hussein himself. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/56708.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview with Barbara Slavin and Ray Locker of USA Today, Washington, D.C., November 28, 2005 MR. LOCKER: I’d like to ask you about the EU developments today. There was one of—an EU minister saying there may be sanctions on some of the member nations for hosting what they call the secret CIA prisons there. How has this situation in the last couple weeks complicated your job in dealing with some of the European countries? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I’ve been very clear, as have other members of the Administration, that we are fighting a war on terror, that there are demands of that that we have to meet, that we have to meet in order to protect not just ourselves but to protect others. Unfortunately, Europe has had its share now of terrorist incidents, in Spain and in Great Britain. And so we are all working
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together through law enforcement cooperation, intelligence cooperation, to try and produce the very best outcome to protect innocent citizens. And I think that is what we have to keep our eye on. MS. SLAVIN: Let me ask you a couple other questions about Iraq and alQaida and so on. As a result of the war and occupation, Iraq now has become a base for al-Qaida, and Iran has also been strengthened in some ways. How does the United States draw down forces and extricate itself from Iraq without further strengthening al-Qaida and Iran? SECRETARY RICE: Well, Barbara, I don’t actually agree with the premise, so let me go back to the premise of the question. First of all, on Iran, Iran is a state with whom we—with which we have numerous problems: terrorism, democracy in Iran, a nuclear program that everybody’s concerned about. But I am not at all certain that the geo-strategic circumstances of Iran have improved with a democratizing, pro-Western Afghanistan on one border and a democratizing, non-theocratic but Shia-majority Iraq on another border. So I question the premise that somehow Iran has been strengthened. Secondly— MS. SLAVIN: Well, al-Qaida certainly is doing a booming business lately. SECRETARY RICE: Well, al-Qaida was doing a booming business since the mid-1990s and finally al-Qaida is actually being challenged. And al-Qaida is being challenged and of course they are recruiting and coming out and fighting, but they are at least now being challenged. And if you want to talk about how you deal with a specific al-Qaida cell on Monday of next week, that’s one thing; but if you want to talk about how you eliminate the ideology of hatred that produced al-Qaida and will produce more al-Qaidas unless you eliminate it—how you get, in other words, to a permanent peace—then you have to have a different kind of Middle East than the one that produced the ideology of hatred that made those people fly airplanes into buildings. So an Iraq that is a fundamental pillar of a different kind of Middle East may indeed go through a period of time in which al-Qaida is a presence in Iraq. But if you read Zawahiri, if you read Zarqawi, they know that the political process that is underway in Iraq is, in fact, their worst nightmare. That’s why they threatened Iraqi citizens and then 8.5 million of them went out and voted in January. That’s why they threatened Iraqi citizens and 10 million went out and voted for the referendum. And that’s why they’re still threatening Iraqi citizens. Because they know that the political process is ultimately going to be the death knell for their activities there. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/57414.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks Upon Her Departure for Europe, Andrews Air Force Base, December 5, 2005 Good morning. We have received inquiries from the European Union, the Council of Europe, and from several individual countries about media reports concerning U.S. conduct in the war on terror. I am going to respond now to those inquiries, as I depart today for Europe. And this will also essentially
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form the text of the letter that I will send to Secretary Straw, who wrote on behalf of the European Union as the European Union President. The United States and many other countries are waging a war against terrorism. For our country this war often takes the form of conventional military operations in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Sometimes this is a political struggle, a war of ideas. It is a struggle waged also by our law enforcement agencies. Often we engage the enemy through the cooperation of our intelligence services with their foreign counterparts. We must track down terrorists who seek refuge in areas where governments cannot take effective action, including where the terrorists cannot in practice be reached by the ordinary processes of law. In such places terrorists have planned the killings of thousands of innocents—in New York City or Nairobi, in Bali or London, in Madrid or Beslan, in Casablanca or Istanbul. Just two weeks ago I also visited a hotel ballroom in Amman, viewing the silent, shattered aftermath of one of those attacks. The United States, and those countries that share the commitment to defend their citizens, will use every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists. Protecting citizens is the first and oldest duty of any government. Sometimes these efforts are misunderstood. I want to help all of you understand the hard choices involved, and some of the responsibilities that go with them. One of the difficult issues in this new kind of conflict is what to do with captured individuals who we know or believe to be terrorists. The individuals come from many countries and are often captured far from their original homes. Among them are those who are effectively stateless, owing allegiance only to the extremist cause of transnational terrorism. Many are extremely dangerous. And some have information that may save lives, perhaps even thousands of lives. The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have to adapt. Other governments are now also facing this challenge. We consider the captured members of al-Qaida and its affiliates to be unlawful combatants who may be held, in accordance with the law of war, to keep them from killing innocents. We must treat them in accordance with our laws, which reflect the values of the American people. We must question them to gather potentially significant, life-saving, intelligence. We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible. For decades, the United States and other countries have used ‘‘renditions’’ to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were captured to their home country or to other countries where they can be questioned, held, or brought to justice. In some situations a terrorist suspect can be extradited according to traditional judicial procedures. But there have long been many other cases where, for some reason, the local government cannot detain or prosecute a suspect, and traditional extradition is not a good option. In those cases the local government can make the sovereign choice to cooperate in a rendition. Such renditions are permissible under international law and are consistent with the responsibilities of those governments to protect their citizens.
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Rendition is a vital tool in combating transnational terrorism. Its use is not unique to the United States, or to the current administration. Last year, then Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet recalled that our earlier counterterrorism successes included ‘‘the rendition of many dozens of terrorists prior to September 11, 2001.’’ — Ramzi Youssef masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and plotted to blow up airlines over the Pacific Ocean, killing a Japanese airline passenger in a test of one of his bombs. Once tracked down, a rendition brought him to the United States, where he now serves a life sentence. — One of history’s most infamous terrorists, best known as ‘‘Carlos the Jackal,’’ had participated in murders in Europe and the Middle East. He was finally captured in Sudan in 1994. A rendition by the French government brought him to justice in France, where he is now imprisoned. Indeed, the European Commission of Human Rights rejected Carlos’ claim that his rendition from Sudan was unlawful.
Renditions take terrorists out of action, and save lives. In conducting such renditions, it is the policy of the United States, and I presume of any other democracies who use this procedure, to comply with its laws and comply with its treaty obligations, including those under the Convention Against Torture. Torture is a term that is defined by law. We rely on our law to govern our operations. The United States does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture under any circumstances. Moreover, in accordance with the policy of this administration: — The United States has respected—and will continue to respect—the sovereignty of other countries. — The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture. — The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured. — The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured.
International law allows a state to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities. Detainees may only be held for an extended period if the intelligence or other evidence against them has been carefully evaluated and supports a determination that detention is lawful. The U.S. does not seek to hold anyone for a period beyond what is necessary to evaluate the intelligence or other evidence against them, prevent further acts of terrorism, or hold them for legal proceedings. With respect to detainees, the United States Government complies with its Constitution, its laws, and its treaty obligations. Acts of physical or mental torture are expressly prohibited. The United States Government does not authorize or condone torture of detainees. Torture, and conspiracy to commit torture, are crimes under U.S. law, wherever they may occur in the world.
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Violations of these and other detention standards have been investigated and punished. There have been cases of unlawful treatment of detainees, such as the abuse of a detainee by an intelligence agency contractor in Afghanistan or the horrible mistreatment of some prisoners at Abu Ghraib that sickened us all and which arose under the different legal framework that applies to armed conflict in Iraq. In such cases the United States has vigorously investigated, and where appropriate, prosecuted and punished those responsible. Some individuals have already been sentenced to lengthy terms in prison; others have been demoted or reprimanded. As CIA Director Goss recently stated, our intelligence agencies have handled the gathering of intelligence from a very small number of extremely dangerous detainees, including the individuals who planned the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and many other murders and attempted murders. It is the policy of the United States that this questioning is to be conducted within U.S. law and treaty obligations, without using torture. It is also U.S. policy that authorized interrogation will be consistent with U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture, which prohibit cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The intelligence so gathered has stopped terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives—in Europe as well as in the United States and other countries. The United States has fully respected the sovereignty of other countries that cooperate in these matters. Because this war on terrorism challenges traditional norms and precedents of previous conflicts, our citizens have been discussing and debating the proper legal standards that should apply. President Bush is working with the U.S. Congress to come up with good solutions. I want to emphasize a few key points. — The United States is a country of laws. My colleagues and I have sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We believe in the rule of law. — The United States Government must protect its citizens. We and our friends around the world have the responsibility to work together in finding practical ways to defend ourselves against ruthless enemies. And these terrorists are some of the most ruthless enemies we face. — We cannot discuss information that would compromise the success of intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations. We expect that other nations share this view.
Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States in intelligence, law enforcement, or military matters. That cooperation is a two-way street. We share intelligence that has helped protect European countries from attack, helping save European lives. It is up to those governments and their citizens to decide if they wish to work with us to prevent terrorist attacks against their own country or other countries, and decide how much sensitive information they can make public. They have a sovereign right to make that choice. Debate in and among democracies is natural and healthy. I hope that that debate also includes a healthy regard for the responsibilities of governments to protect their citizens.
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Four years after September 11, most of our populations are asking us if we are doing all that we can to protect them. I know what it is like to face an inquiry into whether everything was done that could have been done. So now, before the next attack, we should all consider the hard choices that democratic governments must face. And we can all best meet this danger if we work together. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/57602.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ‘‘The Promise of Democratic Peace,’’ Op-Ed in The Washington Post, December 11, 2005 Soon after arriving at the State Department earlier this year, I hung a portrait of Dean Acheson in my office. Over half a century ago, as America sought to create the world anew in the aftermath of World War II, Acheson sat in the office that I now occupy. And I hung his picture where I did for a reason. Like Acheson and his contemporaries, we live in an extraordinary time— one in which the terrain of international politics is shifting beneath our feet and the pace of historical change outstrips even the most vivid imagination. My predecessor’s portrait is a reminder that in times of unprecedented change, the traditional diplomacy of crisis management is insufficient. Instead, we must transcend the doctrines and debates of the past and transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests. What is needed is a realistic statecraft for a transformed world. President Bush outlined the vision for it in his second inaugural address: ‘‘It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.’’ This is admittedly a bold course of action, but it is consistent with the proud tradition of American foreign policy, especially such recent presidents as Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. Most important: Like the ambitious policies of Truman and Reagan, our statecraft will succeed not simply because it is optimistic and idealistic but also because it is premised on sound strategic logic and a proper understanding of the new realities we face. Our statecraft today recognizes that centuries of international practice and precedent have been overturned in the past 15 years. Consider one example: For the first time since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the prospect of violent conflict between great powers is becoming ever more unthinkable. Major states are increasingly competing in peace, not preparing for war. To advance this remarkable trend, the United States is transforming our partnerships with nations such as Japan and Russia, with the European Union, and especially with China and India. Together we are building a more lasting and durable form of global stability: a balance of power that favors freedom. This unprecedented change has supported others. Since its creation more than 350 years ago, the modern state system has always rested on the concept of sovereignty. It was assumed that states were the primary international actors and that every state was able and willing to address the threats emerging from its territory. Today, however, we have seen that these assumptions no longer hold, and as a result the greatest threats to our security are defined more by
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the dynamics within weak and failing states than by the borders between strong and aggressive ones. The phenomenon of weak and failing states is not new, but the danger they now pose is unparalleled. When people, goods and information traverse the globe as fast as they do today, transnational threats such as disease or terrorism can inflict damage comparable to the standing armies of nation-states. Absent responsible state authority, threats that would and should be contained within a country’s borders can now melt into the world and wreak untold havoc. Weak and failing states serve as global pathways that facilitate the spread of pandemics, the movement of criminals and terrorists, and the proliferation of the world’s most dangerous weapons. Our experience of this new world leads us to conclude that the fundamental character of regimes matters more today than the international distribution of power. Insisting otherwise is imprudent and impractical. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. Attempting to draw neat, clean lines between our security interests and our democratic ideals does not reflect the reality of today’s world. Supporting the growth of democratic institutions in all nations is not some moralistic flight of fancy; it is the only realistic response to our present challenges. In one region of the world, however, the problems emerging from the character of regimes are more urgent than in any other. The ‘‘freedom deficit’’ in the broader Middle East provides fertile ground for the growth of an ideology of hatred so vicious and virulent that it leads people to strap suicide bombs to their bodies and fly airplanes into buildings. When the citizens of this region cannot advance their interests and redress their grievances through an open political process, they retreat hopelessly into the shadows to be preyed upon by evil men with violent designs. In these societies, it is illusory to encourage economic reform by itself and hope that the freedom deficit will work itself out over time. Though the broader Middle East has no history of democracy, this is not an excuse for doing nothing. If every action required a precedent, there would be no firsts. We are confident that democracy will succeed in this region not simply because we have faith in our principles but because the basic human longing for liberty and democratic rights has transformed our world. Dogmatic cynics and cultural determinists were once certain that ‘‘Asian values,’’ or Latin culture, or Slavic despotism, or African tribalism would each render democracy impossible. But they were wrong, and our statecraft must now be guided by the undeniable truth that democracy is the only assurance of lasting peace and security between states, because it is the only guarantee of freedom and justice within states. Implicit within the goals of our statecraft are the limits of our power and the reasons for our humility. Unlike tyranny, democracy by its very nature is never imposed. Citizens of conviction must choose it—and not just in one election. The work of democracy is a daily process to build the institutions of democracy: the rule of law, an independent judiciary, free media and property rights, among others. The United States cannot manufacture these outcomes, but we can and must create opportunities for individuals to assume ownership of their own lives and nations. Our power gains its greatest legitimacy when
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we support the natural right of all people, even those who disagree with us, to govern themselves in liberty. The statecraft that America is called to practice in today’s world is ambitious, even revolutionary, but it is not imprudent. A conservative temperament will rightly be skeptical of any policy that embraces change and rejects the status quo, but that is not an argument against the merits of such a policy. As Truman once said, ‘‘The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred.’’ In times of extraordinary change such as ours, when the costs of inaction outweigh the risks of action, doing nothing is not an option. If the school of thought called ‘‘realism’’ is to be truly realistic, it must recognize that stability without democracy will prove to be false stability, and that fear of change is not a positive prescription for policy. After all, who truly believes, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that the status quo in the Middle East was stable, beneficial and worth defending? How could it have been prudent to preserve the state of affairs in a region that was incubating and exporting terrorism; where the proliferation of deadly weapons was getting worse, not better; where authoritarian regimes were projecting their failures onto innocent nations and peoples; where Lebanon suffered under the boot heel of Syrian occupation; where a corrupt Palestinian Authority cared more for its own preservation than for its people’s aspirations; and where a tyrant such as Saddam Hussein was free to slaughter his citizens, destabilize his neighbors and undermine the hope of peace between Israelis and Palestinians? It is sheer fantasy to assume that the Middle East was just peachy before America disrupted its alleged stability. Had we believed this, and had we done nothing, consider all that we would have missed in just the past year: A Lebanon that is free of foreign occupation and advancing democratic reform. A Palestinian Authority run by an elected leader who openly calls for peace with Israel. An Egypt that has amended its constitution to hold multiparty elections. A Kuwait where women are now full citizens. And, of course, an Iraq that in the face of a horrific insurgency has held historic elections, drafted and ratified a new national charter, and will go to the polls again in coming days to elect a new constitutional government. At this time last year, such unprecedented progress seemed impossible. One day it will all seem to have been inevitable. This is the nature of extraordinary times, which Acheson understood well and described perfectly in his memoirs. ‘‘The significance of events,’’ he wrote, ‘‘was shrouded in ambiguity. We groped after interpretations of them, sometimes reversed lines of action based on earlier views, and hesitated long before grasping what now seems obvious.’’ SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/57888.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CNN Interview Wolf Blitzer, Washington, D.C., December 19, 2005 Q. You were the National Security Advisor right after 9/11 when the President authorized this extraordinary decision to go ahead with surveillance, eavesdropping on Americans and others making international phone calls and faxes or e-mails without getting court orders. How did that decision come about?
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SECRETARY RICE: The President … authorized the National Security Agency to collect information on a limited number of people with ties to al-Qaida in order to be able to close the gap, the seam, between the domestic territory of the United States and foreign territory. One of the clear findings of the 9/11 Commission was that our intelligence agencies were looking outward, our law enforcement agencies were looking inward, and a gap had developed; we didn’t know the connection between what people with terrorist ties inside the United States were doing to what people who were terrorists or might be planning terrorist operations, outside the country were doing. And so the President made that decision and he did it on the basis of his constitutional authority under Article II and other statutory authorities. I think the Attorney General spoke to those legal issues earlier. And he did it to protect the country because these days, after September 11th, we recognized and he recognized, as the one with real responsibility for protecting the country, that if you let people commit the crime then thousands of people die. So you have to detect it before it happens. Q. But there was a mechanism—still is a mechanism—that’s been in place since 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA court, to go ahead and get this kind of authority with a court warrant. Why not use that? SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, the FISA act, as you said—1978, very different circumstances imagined at the time. FISA has been principally for longer term monitoring. It has been capable of helping us when we have been principally concerned with the activities of people who might be acting on behalf of a foreign government. You can imagine that those are often longerterm matters. But the kind of agility that is needed in order to detect rather than to monitor, as the President talked about today, the President needed to draw on these other authorities, and he has. Q. But even within the FISA act there are extraordinary circumstances that would allow the wiretap, the surveillance, to begin, and then within 72 hours you could still go and get the warrant. SECRETARY RICE: Well, let’s just say that these people, these networks, these shadowy networks which are not associated with countries, they are stateless, not stable targets, are pretty agile themselves. And so in order to give our intelligence agencies the kind of agility that they need in order to detect—and I want to say once again the President has a constitutional responsibility to protect the country. That means physically. It also means to protect the civil liberties of Americans under the Constitution. And he, of course, has both responsibilities and takes both very seriously, and so that’s why this was done with thorough levels of review. It has to be reauthorized every 45 days. It was briefed to Congress numerous times, or to relevant congressional officials numerous times. And so the President and his advisors felt this was the best way to give him the ability as—under his responsibilities as Commander-inChief to defend the country. Q. Because you know history. You’re a student of history. You know the history of the abuses of this kind of domestic spying going back to the ’60s and ’70s. I mean, the Supreme Court made a decision—it was a 9 to nothing—1972, United States v. U.S. District Court. Lewis Powell, the Justice, wrote this: ‘‘Security surveillances are especially sensitive because of the
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inherent vagueness of the domestic security concept, the necessarily broad and continuing nature of intelligence gathering and the temptation to utilize such surveillances to oversee political dissent.’’ You remember the spying on Dr. Martin Luther King and other Americans who were opposed to the war in Vietnam, and national security considerations were then justified for that kind of surveillance. And then Powell went on to say that the Fourth Amendment protects Americans—and let me read specifically from what he wrote—9 to nothing decision—‘‘From unreasonable searches and seizures and that free— and freedom cannot be’’—and then he said, ‘‘and that freedom cannot be properly guaranteed if domestic security surveillances are conducted solely at the discretion of the Executive Branch.’’ SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, the President is more than aware of the civil liberties concerns and that is why this has been structured in such a very limited and controlled way with multiple layers of oversight, with lawyers of Justice and of the National Security Agency overseeing briefings to Congress. It is also why, as the Attorney General spoke to earlier, the President is drawing on existing authorities under the Constitutional statute. We also have to note, Wolf, that it is limited in scope, limited to people who are associated with or with ties to al-Qaida. Q. How do you know these people are associated with al-Qaida? SECRETARY RICE: Wolf, I’m not going to get into the program. But let’s just remember that in 2001 we experienced what it meant to not know what conversations were going on inside the country that were connecting to terrorists plotting outside the country. We learned what that produced. And it produced the kind of devastation that we had on September the 11th. And so the President has an obligation to try and close that seam and that is what he’s done with this program. Q. Let’s talk a little bit about Iraq. The war that’s ongoing right now—the aftermath of the elections, which by all accounts were smooth, last week, some 10 million Iraqis voted. How concerned are you, though, that the Shiites, the Kurds, the Sunnis, that at some point down the road this country could simply break apart into civil war? SECRETARY RICE: Well, there are all kinds of difficulties in a change in this historic circumstance, but everything that I see with the Iraqis is that they are going to the polls and voting to try and have a unified country in which all of their interests can be realized. Now clearly, Wolf, Iraq was drawn along the fault lines between Sunni and Shia Islam, the Kurds thrown into the mix and you have Turkomen and other groups as well, and so it’s a complex political environment with many different interests. But they now have in the constitution, a constitution which will likely and should be amended, a vehicle by which people can have their interests represented through politics and compromise rather than through violence. And this is a very important change for a country that’s always done it through repression and violence. It’s not going to be easy. But every indication is that the only people who really are talking about civil war are people like Zarqawi. You don’t hear Iraqi leaders talking about civil war or threatening civil war. You hear them talking about how you work across sectarian lines. And while no one should underestimate the difficulty,
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everyone should at least give them a chance and a sense of confidence that they know that a future in which they work together is going to be one better than one in which they break apart. Q. The President last night said the U.S. and its coalition partners, friends in Iraq, were winning. Would you say at this point that the insurgency is in its last throes? SECRETARY RICE: I would say that the insurgency has been dealt several blows, most especially when almost 70 percent of the people go out and vote and say that they intend to determine their future in that course rather than through violence. That is a blow to the insurgency because an insurgency cannot exist, cannot thrive, without the basis of popular support. And that popular support is now moving to the political arena and not to the insurgency. That Sunnis voted in the numbers that they did is extraordinary. And I think we learned something else very important. While it is true that Sunni leaders told people to boycott the elections in January, and they did, therefore dealing themselves out of the political process, they came back in huge numbers. But we also learned that there may have been some intimidation and fear associated with the desire—the decision of some Sunnis not to participate even in January. So I think there’s a real chance now for the Iraqis to take this opportunity to build a unified and democratic state. Q. How worried should Israel be about threats from Iran and its new President? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think everybody ought to be worried about an Iranian President who says these outrageous things and then expects the world to somehow trust Iran with nuclear technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon. That really says it all. I think that Ahmadi-Nejad has somehow crystallized the issue with these statements that he’s made. The EU-3 will continue their work to try to find a diplomatic solution. I have to say I haven’t seen anything that suggests that the Iranians want a solution that would be satisfactory to the rest of the world. But it is important also not just to speak about the nuclear program but about Iranian support for terrorism, support for terrorism that undermines Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians, that undermines the Lebanese people—as Syria has left, but Iran continues to support the violent activities of the Hezbollah—and the kind of activity in which Iran has engaged against its neighbor in Iraq. And so we need to take a hard look at the external behavior of Iran and also at a state that is going in the wrong direction in terms of political pluralism and participation of its people. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/58285.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ‘‘Realizing the Goals of Transformational Diplomacy,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., February 15, 2006 EXCERPTED FROM PREPARED TESTIMONY The President’s FY 2007 International Affairs Budget for the Department of State, USAID, and other foreign affairs agencies totals $35.1 billion.
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President Bush also plans to request supplemental funding to support emergency, one-time programs that are essential to the success of some of our highest foreign policy priorities. This money will do more than support our diplomacy; it will strengthen our national security. America today is a nation at war. We are engaged in a long conflict against terrorists and violent extremists. Across the world, the members of our Foreign Service, Civil Service, and our Foreign Service Nationals are advancing America’s diplomatic mission, often working in dangerous places far away from their friends and loved ones. Our nation’s men and women in uniform are also shouldering great risks and responsibilities. They are performing with courage and heroism, and many have made the ultimate sacrifice to secure our way of life. Today, I want to recognize these courageous public servants and their families, who endure long periods of service abroad and painful separation with fortitude. America’s enemies remain eager to strike us again, but our actions in the past four years have weakened their capability. Our diplomacy plays a vital role in defeating this threat. Mr. Chairman, I would now like to offer an overview of the current mission of the men and women of the State Department—a mission that we have called transformational diplomacy. A New Diplomacy for a Transformed World In his Second Inaugural Address, President Bush laid out the vision that leads America into the world: ‘‘It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.’’ The President’s vision stems from the recognition that we are living in an extraordinary time, one in which centuries of international precedent are being overturned. The prospect of violent conflict among great powers is more remote than ever. States are increasingly competing and cooperating in peace, not preparing for war. Peoples in China, India, South Africa, Indonesia, and Brazil are lifting their countries and regions to new prominence. Democratic reform has begun in the Middle East. And the United States is working with our democratic partners in every region of the world, especially our hemispheric neighbors and our historic treaty allies in Europe and Asia, to build a true form of global stability: a balance of power that favors freedom. … The greatest threats today emerge more within states than between them, and the fundamental character of regimes matters more than the international distribution of power. It is impossible to draw neat, clear lines between our security interests, our development goals, and our democratic ideals in today’s world. Our diplomacy must integrate and advance all of these goals together. So I would define the objective of transformational diplomacy this way: To work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is a strategy rooted in partnership, not paternalism—in doing things with other people,
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not for them. We will use America’s diplomatic power and our foreign assistance to help foreign citizens better their own lives, build their own nations, transform their own futures, and work with us to combat threats to our common security, including the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Practicing Transformational Diplomacy Faced with such extraordinary challenges, we must transform old diplomatic institutions to serve new diplomatic purposes, and we must empower our people to practice transformational diplomacy.… In the past year, we have begun making changes to our organization and our operations that will enable us to advance transformational diplomacy. We are forward-deploying our people to the cities, countries, and regions where they are needed most. We are starting to move hundreds of diplomats from Europe and Washington to strategic countries like China, India, South Africa, and Indonesia. We are giving more of our people new training and language skills to engage more effectively with foreign peoples. We are enabling our diplomats to work more jointly with America’s servicemen and women. And I have announced that I am creating a new position of Director of Foreign Assistance. This reform will transform our capability to use foreign assistance more efficiently and more effectively to further our foreign policy goals, to bolster our national security, to reduce poverty, and to improve people’s lives around the world. Public Diplomacy We have heard the legitimate criticisms that have been made of our public diplomacy, and we are rethinking how we do business. I have stressed that public diplomacy is the responsibility of every single member of our diplomatic corps, not just our public diplomacy specialists. One idea we are beginning to implement is the creation of forward-deployed, regional public diplomacy centers. These centers, or media hubs, will be small, lean operations that work out of our embassies or other existing facilities, enabling us to respond quickly to negative propaganda, to correct misinformation, and to explain America’s policies and our principles. The $351 million that we seek will be essential for us to continue revitalizing our public diplomacy. To complement our public diplomacy, we must ensure that America remains a welcoming place for all tourists, students, and businesspeople, while at the same time protecting our homeland from terrorists and criminals who would exploit our open society to do us harm. The State Department, in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, has taken new steps in the past year to realize the President’s vision of secure borders and open doors through information technology. Our request of $1.1 billion will fund the Border Security Program and enable us to hire 135 new consular officers and passport staff to meet the growing demand of foreign citizens seeking to travel to America, while maintaining our fundamental commitment to serve every American citizen when they go abroad.… we are seeking $474 million to support our educational and cultural exchanges, which increase mutual understanding between our citizens and the peoples of the world.
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Defeating Terror and Advancing Liberty We are requesting $6.2 billion to strengthen the coalition partners … in the fight against terrorism. Our assistance empowers our partners to practice more effective law enforcement, police their borders, gather and share essential intelligence, and wage more successful counterterrorism operations. In many states, our assistance will also help to bolster thriving democratic and economic institutions reducing the societal schisms that terrorists exploit for their own ideological purposes. Our FY 2007 request includes, among others, $739 million for Pakistan, $560 million for Colombia, $154 million for Indonesia, $457 million for Jordan, and $335 million for Kenya. Essential to winning the war on terrorism is denying our enemies the weapons of mass destruction.… Our diplomacy cannot focus on non-proliferation alone; we must also develop new tools and new policies of counter-proliferation: actively confronting and rolling up the global networks involving rogue states, outlaw scientists, and black market middlemen who make proliferation possible. We are building on the achievements of the Proliferation Security Initiative, the G-8 Global Partnership, and UN Security Council Resolution 1540. We are working to stop Iran and North Korea from succeeding in their quest for weapons of mass destruction, and we continue to do everything in our power to deny terrorists access to the world’s most dangerous weapons, including threatening conventional weapons like MANPADS. The FY 2007 budget proposes to increase funding for our State Department’s efforts to help countries fight the proliferation of dangerous weapons and materials. These requirements are essential and immediate, but our vision must look beyond present horizons.… Building State Capacity. We must do all we can to anticipate and prevent the emergence of failed states that lead to humanitarian crises, serious regional instability, and havens for terror and oppression that threaten our security. On September 11, we were attacked by terrorists who had plotted and trained in a failed state, Afghanistan. Since then, we have spent billions of dollars and sacrificed precious lives to eliminate the threat and liberate the brutally repressed people of Afghanistan. We must use all the tools and resources available not only to prevent future failed states, but to help nations emerging from conflict and war to become responsible, democratic states. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/61209.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit After Meeting, Cairo, Egypt, February 21, 2006 FOREIGN MINISTER GHEIT: (In Arabic. Via interpreter) … I have met with Dr. Rice for about maybe an hour. During this last hour, we covered a wide range of issues, regional issues as well as the last results of the Palestinian elections as well as the situation both in Iraq and Lebanon as well as we discussed the issue of Syria. So we basically covered a wide range of regional issue. In addition to that, we also covered range of issues on the bilateral Egyptian-U.S. relations.…
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SECRETARY RICE: … And we did talk about Iran and about the need indeed for the international community to remain united in insisting that Iran take a reasonable course in terms of the development of civil nuclear power. We did talk about the Palestinian territories and I want to thank Egypt for its leadership in having discussions with the people who will now—Hamas, who will be the new Palestinian government, to make clear that the international community expects that any Palestinian government will have to meet certain requirements of governing, which means a dedication to peace, a dedication to the agreements that the Palestinians have signed onto before. Obviously, you can’t have peace if you don’t recognize the other partner, and therefore the recognition of Israel’s right to exist. And the need to renounce terror, because Egypt has been a leader in this region for peace, a leader in this region for cooperation among all states of the region, including with Israel, and Egypt is therefore an important voice at this time of choice and change for the Palestinian people. Eight months ago, I came here to Egypt to speak in Cairo about reform and about democracy in the Middle East. I said at that time that Egypt, which has so often led this region in times of decision, needed to be an important voice in leading this region again as it faces questions of democracy and reform. Egypt is a great country and I believe fundamentally that Egypt has a great future. It has a young population that I think will insist and demand economic and political change in this country. … There have been disappointments and setbacks as well, and we have talked candidly about those because the United States comes to discuss these issues as a friend, not as a judge. We can’t judge Egypt. We can’t tell Egypt what its course can be or should be. But as a friend, we want to see an Egypt that is fully developing politically and along the lines of reform as well. And so we’ve discussed the future of reform. We will continue to discuss the future of reform. We will continue to discuss candidly problems and progress in that reform. But this is a country of greatness and this region needs this country to be at the center of positive change. Q. Mr. Minister, regarding Hamas, do you think that Arab states should refrain from giving aid directly to any Hamas-led government? And Madame Secretary, if different tactics emerge, particularly perhaps over giving aid, how will you maintain a united front in the international community to stick to the principles that you’ve laid out in the Quartet? SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, I think that there is remarkable agreement in the international community on a certain practical set of requirements for governing in the Palestinian territories. If the … new Palestinian government lead by Hamas is going to be able to meet the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a peaceful life, for a better life, for a life in which there is economic development, it goes without saying that you cannot have one foot in the camp of terror and the other foot in the camp of politics. You have to renounce violence. You have to be willing to live up to the obligations that Palestinians have taken over the last more than a decade for a cooperative relationship with Israel, and for a commitment to peace. We are all committed to the roadmap and we expect any Palestinian government to be committed to the roadmap. I think we have very solid
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agreement on that. We also agree that it is going to be important to try and meet the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people. It’s very easy to talk about the governments and the diplomats and all of the things that we’re doing, but there are Palestinian people whose lives, in a sense, are in the balance here and we want to be responsive to their humanitarian needs. And finally, we are going to support the interim government of Mahmoud Abbas until there is a government named and we expect to—we, I think, agree with Egypt that that must be done. Q. (Inaudible.) SECRETARY RICE: Well, we all hope that there’s going to be a Middle East one day in which the security situation is such that no one has to worry about weapons of mass destruction. The issue right now is that Iran needs to live up to the expectations of the international community. I want to just make one other point. This is not about civil nuclear power for Iran. Iran would like to make this a debate about their right to civil nuclear power. We’re not questioning civil nuclear power. They can have it. They just can’t have enrichment and reprocessing capability because no one trusts them with that very important technology which could lead to a bomb. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/61811.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: For additional comments on Middle East situation, also see Secretary Condoleezza Rice Remarks with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faysal bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 22, 2006 (http://www.state. gov/secretary/rm/2006/61910.htm).
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks to Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program Participants, Loy Henderson Auditorium, Washington, D.C., April 21, 2006 UNDER SECRETARY HUGHES: Good afternoon to all of you. I am Karen Hughes, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. My office oversees all of our exchange programs, such as the one that you’ve been participating in. And I happen to believe that our exchange programs have been America’s single most effective public diplomacy tool over the last 50 years because people get to come here and see for themselves … In putting together this program, we decided to save the very best for last. We wanted to offer you an opportunity to hear directly from and to ask questions of our country’s leading foreign policy official. So it’s now my privilege to introduce and welcome our Secretary of State and my friend, Condoleezza Rice. SECRETARY RICE: … I mostly want to answer questions, so I just want to say a few words about why we think this is such an important program. We have long thought that if the United States could engage people to people, whether it is journalists to journalists or university student to university student or business person to business person, that that was really a very firm
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foundation for friendship among peoples and also a very firm foundation for American support for democracy around the world. And I just want to say that democracy takes many different forms around the world. It takes different forms that are consistent with religious and cultural traditions. American democracy is not like Japanese democracy. Japanese democracy is not like Brazilian democracy. And none of those will be like the democracies that will rise up in the Middle East. But the important point is that in all of those democracies, the essential fact is that those who are governed have the right to choose those who govern them and those who are governed have the right to hold those accountable who govern them. And there is no more important institution in making certain that citizens can hold their leaders responsible and accountable than a free press. And that is why it is so important that you are here. Q. (Via interpreter.) I am asking a question on behalf of the Middle East and North Africa. Why did the United States and the Administration went back in their commitment to democratic reform and prefer to continue to support oppressive regimes? Are you convinced that the Arab people are not prepared for democracy and don’t you think that this policy in the Middle East could backfire, such as what happened to Hamas, which is elected democratically, according to the observers and American observers themselves? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would say that the United States under President Bush has been completely for democratic regimes and has actually told both our friends—told our friends as well that we expect them to move toward more democratic governance. There have been some positive developments in this regard; for instance, in Lebanon, where the United States has been very actively engaged with France and with others in getting Syria out so that Lebanon can move on its democratic path. We have encouraged and supported the reforms in Morocco, in Jordan, in places where there is progress toward a more pluralistic, more democratic system. We have urged the Egyptians to keep going. Now, we’ve had disappointments in Egypt because after declaring the need for a presidential multiparty—or multi-candidate presidential elections and then multiparty parliament elections, there is no doubt that the elections on the parliamentary side were disappointing, particularly the third round. And we’ve been outspoken about that. In Saudi Arabia, we have—we know that not every country begins in the same place, but I myself have stood next to the Saudi Foreign Minister and said that I think women in Saudi Arabia should have the right to vote. And so the United States has been quite outspoken. Now, as to the Palestinians, it was the President who has talked about a Palestinian state and we said after the elections that the elections in Palestinian territories had been free and fair and we accept that. The only thing that the world is asking of Hamas is that it now govern in a way that is indeed in accordance with the aspirations of its people. And the aspirations of its people for a better life can only be met through peace. It is not possible, and Arab states like Egypt are telling Hamas exactly this, that it is not possible to have a peace process in which you refuse to recognize the right of the other party to exist, in which you will not renounce violence and in which you will not
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accept the roadmap, which is the internationally accepted way to a peaceful resolution. For 60 years, the United States did not speak out for democratic development in the Middle East. But President Bush has spoken out for democratic development in the Middle East. We are continuing to speak out on it and we are telling our friends and our foes alike that we think people ought to have the right to express themselves, and once they’ve expressed themselves, those governments then need to govern democratically. Q. (Via interpreter.) I’m from Oman and I have two questions on behalf of the Arab group and the Gulf. The first question is: You have talked about the spreading of democracy in the Middle East but doesn’t the United States believe that there are dictatorships in the Middle East and therefore they are preventing the American project of spreading democracy in this very vital and volatile region? The second question: How does the United States look at the major financial support that is coming Hamas’s way from the Arab and Islamic world at a time when the United States and Western Europe refuse to support any financial aid to Hamas, which is considered by the United States and Europe as a terrorist organization? In addition to the American vision, looking at Hezbollah and classifying it as a terrorist organization at a time when Hezbollah is trying to defend and liberate to occupy Lebanese territories? The last point: Does the United States intend to strike at Iran to stop its nuclear program? Thank you. SECRETARY RICE: … Let me start with yes, there are still dictatorships in the Middle East; yes, there are still authoritarian governments in the Middle East; and it’s our view that they have to change, that the only way that you can govern in the modern—in modern times and fully be respectful of your people and get the creativity of your people is to govern democratically. And we’ve said that time and again. We fully understand that it’s not going to happen overnight in every country. And we fully understand because of our own experience in the United States that democracy is not easy. But if you look at the places where the United States has had a more direct impact, we have supported elections and democratic processes in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories, and we respect the choices of those people. We then want their governments to govern democratically and in a way that recognizes that you can’t have one foot in violence and one foot in politics. As to Hamas, well, yes, they’ve gotten some pledges. But I would just note that the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority is not a very good one and the—Hamas is going to need to govern in a way that it can have a cooperative relationship with Israel. The fact is that those economies are too intertwined to do otherwise. If it’s the $50 million from Iran, I think the Palestinian budget is about $190 million a month. Just to give you a scale. I do think Hamas is going to have to find a way to make its peace with the international community. Now, we cannot fund and will not fund a Palestinian government that does not recognize the Quartet principles: recognition of Israel’s right to exist and so forth. We are funding, however, very extensively humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people because we do not have an argument with the
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Palestinian people. So we are continuing to fund aid to refugees. We’re continuing to fund food assistance. We’re continuing to fund democracy assistance in the Palestinian territories. We’re funding some health and education assistance. So it’s our view very strongly that we should continue to fund the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people, but Hamas has got to make a choice. If it is going to govern, it is going to have to govern on internationally acceptable standards and that means that you renounce violence and terrorism. You don’t, after innocent people have been killed, say, ‘‘Well, that was legitimate.’’ That isn’t, simply, the way that the world works. Finally, the President’s been very clear that there’s been a lot of wild speculation, as he called it, about Iran. We are on a diplomatic course. We believe that if the world is really united in its response to Iran, that we will get Iran to change its ways. And I just want to make one point. We, again, have no argument with the Iranian people. We also have no argument that if Iran wants civil nuclear power, Iran should have civil nuclear power. But Iran has to have that civil nuclear power without having access to the technologies that can allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, because the world does not trust Iran with that technology, given the 18 years of covering up what they were doing at Natanz, the facility for reprocessing and enriching. But I want to be very clear; we have no desire to isolate the Iranian people. Iran is a great culture. The Iranian people are a great people. We want more Iranian students, more Iranian athletes, more Iranian musicians to come to the United States, to come to Europe. This is a problem that the Iranian regime has with the international system, not the Iranian people. Q. Hi. I’m representing the East Asia and the Pacific group. It’s made up of 14 very different countries so we’ve tried to pose a question that will be pertinent to most of the countries in that group. There’s a feeling that since the Bush Administration came to power that it has created more conflict and that it doesn’t understand the local context of many different countries in our region. What specifically will the U.S. Government do to show there are mutual benefits in U.S. foreign policy to countries in our part of the world? SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you. Let me first comment on the issue that the view is that we’ve created more conflict. There is no doubt that there was a threat that had been growing for some time, the terrorist extremist threat that had been growing for some time, that had been launching attacks here and there, that suddenly exploded on September 11th in a way that mobilized the United States to try and literally fight the war on terror with all of our national means. That is absolutely true, that before 2001 we were not—we did not ignore the terrorist threat after our embassy was bombed in Kenya and Tanzania or after the Cole was bombed or after—or blown up. But we didn’t mobilize ourselves to deal with that threat. As we have mobilized to deal with that threat, it is true that we are confronting a threat. And in confronting that threat, in a sense, they are fighting back. And so the sense that there is more conflict in the world, I think is more that we are finally actually taking on this threat which was underneath and hidden and bombing innocents here and bombing innocents there.
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But let’s remember what that threat looks like. This is an extremist force that blows up a nightclub in Bali, killing many Indonesians and Australians; that blows up a Palestinian wedding party in Jordan; that takes hostage a school in Beslan and kills hundreds of Russian children; that blows up a subway in London and therefore kills innocent people just trying to get to work, or a subway in Madrid, just innocent people trying to get to work; or that flies airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on a fine September day. That’s the threat. These are not people who are doing this and cause collateral damage. These are people who are actually intending to kill civilians—a wedding party, a nightclub, a metro stop, the World Trade Building—intending to kill innocent civilians. And so they have to be fought. Now, the conditions may vary and that’s why we have local partners in the fight on terrorism. So when we are trying to help with what has happened in Indonesia, it is through cooperation, intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation with Indonesia or cooperation in—counterterrorism cooperation with Singapore. It’s not as if the United States comes in to Indonesia or into London or into Afghanistan and says we’ll do it our way. We have local partners who really do guide the way that we fight the counterterrorism fight. But we are all in this together and the reason that I gave you this long list of places around the world—and I could keep going—where the terrorists have struck is that they’re not just striking at the interests of the United States. So if we’ve stirred up conflict, they didn’t just go after us; they’re going after each and every one of you as well. … [W]e do have local partners who fully understand their local circumstances and we provide training and intelligence and sometimes equipment so that the front lines are really being manned by police forces and intelligence forces and in some cases military by those countries. Q. … I am representing the Turkish-speaking community and U.S. was committing to support Turkey in terms of PKK terrorism, especially in northern Iraq. But Turkey repeatedly asked to support in terms of terrorism, fighting against terrorism, and about a military—possible, probable military action against PKK, which U.S. didn’t do so far, at least for Turkey’s [inaudible]. And in the recent times Turkey has invited Hamas leaders and it was quite controversial for U.S. So if we should really expect anything in terms of fighting against terrorism in terms of PKK terror in the near future? And what message will you convey to Ankara during your visit in coming weeks? Thank you. SECRETARY RICE: … Turkey is a country that’s undergoing a lot of change.… we’ve been very clear that PKK is a terrorist organization. We’ve also been very clear that we do not want the territory of northern Iraq to be used for PKK or other terrorist operations against Turkey. We have engaged Iraqis in this effort, as well as we have a trilateral mechanism, security mechanism between the United States, Turkey, and Iraq to try and deal with the terrorist threat there. It’s true that Iraq is still a place in which there is considerable instability and it’s difficult to deal with all of the threats simultaneously, but we remain committed to the pledge that Iraq’s territory should not be used as a platform
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for terrorism. We share information and intelligence and try to help, to the degree we can, with the PKK. As to the broader relationship with Turkey, though, and what Turkey does in terms of its policies, Turkey is a sovereign country. We asked only one thing, that when Turkey met with Hamas, that there be a strong message to Hamas that they need to accept the conditions, the requirements of the Quartet, of the international community, and I believe that that message was indeed delivered. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/64969.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Remarks at the 88th Annual American Legion Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah, August 29, 2006 Because we’ve gone on the offense, America is safer, but we are not yet safe, as we’ve seen just recently with the foiled terror plot in London. We know that every day, each and every day, violent extremists are plotting new ways to do us harm. And we know that now and for many years to come, America and our allies will be engaged in a long war, a war that we can and must win. Today, five years after the attack on our nation, people still differ about what September 11th called us to do. On the one hand, if you focus only on the attacks themselves and believe that they were caused by 19 hijackers supported by a network called al-Qaida, operating from a failed state, Afghanistan, then the response can be limited. But if you believe, as I do, and as President Bush does, that the root cause of September 11th was the violent expression of a global extremist ideology, an ideology that thrives on the oppression and despair of the Middle East, then we must seek to remove this source of terror by helping the people of that troubled region to transform their countries and to transform their lives. We must be very clear about this broader struggle: Yes, it is a war, but a war of completely new and different dimensions. It is a struggle between the vast majority of moderate Muslims, who desire peace and freedom from oppression, and a small minority of violent extremists that will do whatever it takes to further their ideology of hatred and injustice. … [A]s we learned on that fateful day, America’s stake in this struggle is very clear: The security of our citizens is inextricably linked to the success of freedom and moderation and, yes, democracy in the Middle East.… Five years ago, who could have imagined that a vibrant debate about democratic reform and economic reform and social reform would be raging in every country of the Broader Middle East, a debate not about whether to proceed with reform, but how to proceed? Who could have imagined the positive changes we have already witnessed in places as different as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait and Morocco, and Jordan? Sure, there have been many setbacks and step backs in each of these cases, but the steps forward are also taking place. Advancing the work of democracy, the daily effort to build effective institutions through which all of a country’s citizens can experience justice and exercise power equally, this is a longer and far harder process. And it is made even
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more difficult because the moderate citizens of the Middle East face violent enemies who are determined to reverse the gains of democracy. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is terrorizing the Afghan people and trying to stop their democratic progress. But we and our NATO allies are helping the Afghan people, their government, and their army fight them and beat them back. In Lebanon, the radical leaders of Hezbollah launched a war against Israel to undermine the moderate Lebanese Government and to put at risk the lives of the Lebanese people. But now, we and the international community are helping this young democracy to strengthen and to expand its sovereign authority. In the Palestinian territories, radical elements of Hamas are holding an Israeli soldier hostage, as well as the aspirations of the Palestinian people and their leaders. And of course, in Iraq, we see the same struggle being played out daily, as terrorists and sectarian militias seek to strangle the promise of peace and unity and democracy. … We’ve all seen stories about Iraq, some positive and inspiring; others, indeed many, that are disheartening and frustrating to hear. I know that Americans are concerned about the course and the future of Iraq. On the one hand, Americans want desperately to succeed in Iraq. They want to do whatever it takes to achieve victory. But on the other hand, there are unsettling questions. Is success possible? Is it really worth the effort? Do the Iraqi people really want to live together in peace and freedom, the peace and freedom for which our troops have sacrificed so much. Or do they desire a darker path, somehow, of violence? Ladies and Gentlemen: I am here today to tell you that I am confident that Iraq, Iraqis, and America will succeed. When you speak with our fellow citizens who are serving in Iraq and when you ask them why they fight, why they are optimistic and inspired to conduct their mission, I am sure that most of them give you the same answer that I hear from troops when I speak to them, and from members of our diplomatic corps, and other civilians who are there risking their lives in Iraq. Most of these men and women say that what motivates them to do their job every day is the overwhelming hope that they witness in the Iraqi people and the tremendous sacrifices that Iraqis themselves are bearing to realize that hope. Most Iraqis want what all people want. They want freedom from coercion and oppression, safety from violence and injustice, opportunities for a better life for themselves and for their children. They what a future of peace and moderation for their country, as do the leaders they freely elected in December, who are now serving at great personal risk in Iraq’s national unity government. To a small number of extremists in Iraq, however, this vision of a moderate, democratic future is an existential threat, because it is one in which their ideology of sectarian hatred will find no support. So these terrorists and these militias resort to unthinkable acts of brutality to drag the country into civil strife and to destroy the hopes of their fellow Iraqis. They target innocent civilians making a religious pilgrimage. They murder people with a certain first name, because it signifies a sectarian difference. And they lay bombs on soccer fields to murder young children, because games like soccer are deemed ‘‘idolatrous.’’
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Though the risks to their lives are clear and present, though, Iraqis of every sect and every ethnicity, carried forward in their hope—and they are pulling together to make a new Iraq succeed. Despite rocket attacks and campaigns of terror, they are building water treatment facilities and laying new roads, and preparing to open classrooms for the start of a new school year. And of course, despite intimidation and assassination and the murder of their friends and loved ones, Iraqis volunteer by the tens of thousands for the new Iraqi Army. And when they find themselves in a fight against terrorists and militias, I am told by our military people that they do not cower and run; they join the battle and they fight until that battle is won. Now in Iraq, we are helping them with a strategy of ‘‘clear, hold, and build.’’ It means that with Iraqi forces in the lead and with our strong support, areas are cleared from terrorists and militia control. And this difficult, yet promising work that you are witnessing in Baghdad right now is a part of that effort. Second, we are helping the Iraqi government to hold the areas we have cleared together; most importantly, by supporting Prime Minister Al-Maliki’s plan for national reconciliation. That plan got a significant boost over the weekend when 100 of Iraq’s tribal leaders signed a ‘‘pact of honor,’’ declaring that they would do what they could to stop the sectarian killings that have plagued Iraq. Finally, we are helping the government and the people of Iraq to rebuild their country. The keystone of this effort is a compact which will rally new international support for Iraqi reconstruction as the Iraqi government proceeds with democratic and political reform. Ladies and gentlemen, this strategy can succeed and it will succeed, but if we quit before the job is done, the cost of failure will be severe; indeed, immeasurable. If we abandon the Iraqi people, before their government is strong enough to secure the country, then we will show reformers across the region that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We will embolden extremist enemies of moderation and of democratic reform. We will leave the makings of a failed state in Iraq, like that one in Afghanistan in the 1990s, which became the base for al-Qaida and the launching pad for the September 11th hijackers. And we should not assume for one minute that those terrorists will not continue to come after the American homeland. That is why President Bush calls Iraq a central front in the war on terror. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/71636.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview with the New York Times Editorial Board, New York, New York, September 25, 2006 SECRETARY RICE: I think we can go right to questions. I might just make one point, which is that I think that this summer in the Middle East with the events in Lebanon actually sharpened, in some ways, what really is going on in the Middle East, the kind of sharpening between extremist forces and moderate forces. And what will be interesting and important is how that plays out over the next, now, probably several years. But on the one side, clearly, the
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moderate Arab states, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, the weak but democratizing moderates in Iraq, Lebanon—and by that, I mean Maliki, Siniora, Abu Mazen in the Palestinian Territories; and then on the other side, Hezbollah, Hamas, and really supported by Iranian influence and sort of Syrian transit. I think it really did lead to a kind of sharpening of this contradiction, if you will, between the extremist forces and the moderate forces and I think that’s going to play out in very interesting ways over the next several years. But I just wanted to make that point. Q. How does that translate into a policy in terms … of the understanding that the forces are—how they’re aligned. SECRETARY RICE: … I hope that it means that you’re going to see much stronger support for some of these moderate, young, relatively still weak democratic forces. I thought that the meeting that we had on the Iraqi Compact was a sort of sign of that, the fact that the Saudis put up a billion-and-a-half dollars in no time for the Lebanese Government, I think, to counter Iranian influence. I think that if the Palestinians can find a way to arrange their internal affairs, you might have the kind of international support, particularly from the region that really has been lacking for them, and I mean political support, economic support. That could be quite important because for the first time, I think that you see these moderate forces seeing their own interests threatened in very important ways. It explains, of course, why Saudi, with Jordan and Egypt, said what they did when Hezbollah made the attack, despite the fact that it was difficult for them to sustain that position. So it’s just an interjectory comment to say that, as very often happens out of something as dramatic as the events in Lebanon, forces start rearranging themselves in international politics and I think one of the things that will be incumbent on us is to try and strengthen those forces and transport moderation with a coalition of states that might be—might have great interest in doing that. Q. At the risk of sounding like Tim Russert or something, I have to ask about the April NIE, which, as you know, concluded that on balance, the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism worse rather than ameliorated it. And two things; first of all, do you think that that is true? And second of all, if it’s not true, what’s wrong with the NIE? SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, I think both John Negroponte and the White House make clear that this is a bigger and broader NIE than the selective quotation from it would suggest. There are other things in the NIE too which give a somewhat more complex picture of what’s going on in the war on terror. Let me put it that way. And the unfortunate thing about dealing with leaks of classified information is that you’re confronted with either deciding that you’re going to try and declassify everything from which something is selectively leaked, in which case, you’ll have nothing that’s classified, or trying to simply deal with the argument. So let me, instead of talking about what is or is not in the NIE, talk about the argument, which is not the first time that this argument has been heard. It’s not an argument that is unique to this specific leak from the NIE. We’ve heard this argument from any number of experts and scholars and so forth.
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The first point … is that it should be no surprise to anyone that as you choose to confront terrorists in a pretty aggressive and offensive way, that they will do everything that they can to fight back, including finding new sources and new excuses for recruitment. That should surprise no one. So at one point, the excuse for recruitment was our forces in Saudi Arabia. You need to know that of course, al-Qaida makes no distinction between the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq in their recruiting. They have even tried to latch on to what may be attitudes about Sudan. So there are plenty of excuses and plenty of arguments as to why people ought to go and fight these so-called Western forces. They didn’t need Iraq to do that. They attacked us on September 11th before anybody had even thought of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. And they have attacked in places where the countries were involved in Afghanistan, they’ve attacked in places where the countries aren’t involved anywhere. They’ve attacked without regard to what your policies happen to be. Now let me speak to the Iraq issue specifically. It is also true that Zarqawi, when he reemerged in Iraq, and let me say reemerged because he was there before the war, had a strategy of trying to make Iraq a focal point for al-Qaida and a focal point for a new Jihad in Iraq. There’s no doubt about that. In fact, we’ve revealed all kinds of things about his communications between—the communications between him and the al-Qaida leadership, things that were found on his computer about trying to recruit Iraqis to his al-Qaida fold. His second plan was to create tension, indeed, conflict between Sunnis and Shia and to, in effect, unleash sectarian violence. So to a certain extent, he had some success with both of those strategies. But the first of those, that is, trying to bring Iraq into the al-Qaida struggle and make it a central focal point, because after all, Iraq is a great center of civilization and therefore, symbolic as well as an actual haven—would be symbolic as well as an actual haven from his point of view; it’s produced a backlash. It’s produced a serious backlash among Sunnis, among Sunni tribes. That’s one reason we’ve been able to fight effectively in places like Fallujah. Zarqawi didn’t walk in one day and give himself up. People helped us get him, which was part of this backlash. And so to the degree that there was an effort to make Iraq a central part of this, I think it has produced a backlash. Now the final point; yes, you’re confronting them and they will recruit and they will do everything that they can to bring new people to the cause. And it may well be that in the short term, more people will come to the cause; not because of Iraq, but because of the broadening of the war on terror and the kind of very aggressive way in which we’re fighting it. But the question I would have is, then what’s the alternative? Do you not do things that you think will help you in the war on terror because it may recruit a few more people to a Jihad that has already plenty of people to begin with? I don’t see the argument that Iraq, in and of itself, is the reason that you have a radicalization of some places. There are many arguments for that. And what you have to have is policies which fight that radicalization, so that’s a longwinded way of saying that I think this is a very complex set of arguments and a kind of bumper sticker, ‘‘Iraq has made it harder to fight the war on terror,’’ I think is simply not true.
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Q. Well, then how do you think the democratization of Iraq is going? I mean, without the sort of—I think all of us know the litany of the number of elections they’ve had and how many people have got to vote and that’s not a small thing.… But also I think everybody, several people here have been there within the last six months or so and I don’t think any of us who have came away with a great uplifting sense of optimism about the situation on the ground. SECRETARY RICE: Well, look. It’s very difficult because this very new political system, which by the way, is something of a miracle in itself that they actually have this political system in place, a constitution, a legislature that functions, a presidency that functions, a government that functions. But this very young system is under a lot of pressure, particularly from terrorists and from sectarian violence. There’s no doubt about that. But I think that they have a way forward that, if they follow it and if they accelerate it and do it more quickly, will allow that political system to actually begin to overcome those challenges. What do they have to do? They really do have to follow this national reconciliation plan and get moving on it. They have some very key issues like federalism, like debaathification, like how oil revenues are going to be shared, that are at the political root of the disagreement. And when they come to the bargain, their grand bargain about how the various interests of the various parties are going to be represented on those big issues, I think they’ll have the political framework, then, from which to separate those who are engaged in sectarianism purely for the purpose of sectarianism. Secondly, I think they do have to continue to increase their security force strength and they are currently looking at enhancing the strength of the army, vis-`a-vis the police, because the army is accepted as a national institution. And that’s one of those adjustments that I think is going to actually turn out to be very important. And third, they do have to do something about the militias and the death squads and by all reports, the interior ministry is a much better and stronger and more integrous interior ministry, but it needs stronger political support from the factions, which goes back to the first point. I think when the factions are satisfied with the political bargain, you’re going to see more support for doing the kinds of things that they need to do. So yeah, it’s very, very tough going, but I think in time, you will see the political system which is, in place, able to absorb some of those challenges. They’re going to have violence for a long time, but the question is, is it violence that threatens the stability of the government or not? And I think they’re going to be able to move to a place where they continue to have violence, but it doesn’t threaten the stability of the government. Q. Just to follow up on that, you know, from what our reporting on the ground sees, there have been two sets of issues. You’re talking about national reconciliation in terms of Sunni and Shia, but yet the Shia internal division also appears to be a huge block to actually cracking down the militia. So we hear that Maliki doesn’t mean—you know, half of the community isn’t on block to take politically difficult and potentially damaging measures because the Shia are our big—you know, thumb in the militia and the security forces. It just feels like it’s a kind of weak and divided government. And while we all understand that the institutions are new, we’re not seeing those hopeful
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signs that—that’s coming down in a way that would allow admittedly difficult measures. SECRETARY RICE: You know, I—no, I don’t disagree that the divisions among the Shia are problematic in this regard, but in some ways, it’s preferable to such a strong Shia block that you have a Shia-Kurd, Shia-Sunni, SunniKurd problem. So it is, in a strange way, showing itself to be a little bit self-regulating, though, so that when you get this big push by the—it’s scary for the federalization and people aren’t quite ready for it, it gets pulled back, they get an agreement on how to move forward on constitutional reform over an extended period of time. The Kurdish flag incident ends up making— having the Kurds pull back; there is some kind of self-regulating mechanism between these parties that is operating. The Iraqis believe and our people on the ground believe that one of the answers to getting to the place that the Prime Minister can take some of these more difficult decisions is that he can’t be in a position of, on the one hand, having divisions in the Sunni—Shia community and on the other hand, not having figured out what the bargain is going to be with the others. That’s why he’s putting so much time into trying to resolve these big problems. If you think about it, when you resolve something like the oil question, a lot of the questions about federalism become less salient. And with that becomes less salient the need to be able to ‘‘defend,’’ by force of arms, certain political positions. And so I recognize that it’s not a panacea, but I think one thing at a time for them and the first thing is to do something about this political bargain. They are having some success in Baghdad with the Baghdad security program. There’s no doubt about that. And the great bulk of the country is actually operating pretty well. I think everybody was very concerned that Baghdad could not be a place of great violence and couldn’t become the center of a kind of violent political struggle because it’s the capital and there’s so much at stake there. And so changing the environment in Baghdad is extremely important. It’s why we put so much effort into this Baghdad Security Plan with them. Q. I’m having trouble making the link between the Shiite militias—you know, the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army and any kind of—I mean, it dignifies them to say that they’re fighting over the terms of federalism or— you know, they seem to be conducting—a pattern of—thugs. SECRETARY RICE: No, there are a lot of thugs. There are a lot of thugs. Q. And yet, they are directly linked to the two largest parties in the Shiite block. And so what is the mechanism by which the Shiite block can marginalize them? SECRETARY RICE: But there are—by the way, there are also a lot of thugs who are being taken down. I mean, there’s a heavy criminal element as well that’s being taken down in a lot of these security operations. They’re the kind of militias that belong to the parties, including Badr’s militia. And the reason that the political bargain is important and that all of these issues get—need to get resolved and put into a package is that it’s on that basis that you’re also going to have to have agreement that you’re going to have to begin to really disarm some of these militias.
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So it’s part—that issue is, I think, a part of this political bargain. It’s not separate from it. It’s a part of the political bargain. But as long as people have not come to agreement on, kind of, what the central political deal looks like, you’re going to continue to have lots of reasons, some of it just making excuses, some of it real, for the impulse to be to separate into well-guarded, well-defended political corners. And you’ve got to bring people out of those political corners into a center and I think that’s what Maliki has understood and why he’s putting so much effort in that direction. Q. You spoke about the Lebanon War as a kind of clarifying moment and I was wondering if you also thought it was some kind of a miscalculation on the part of Israel, in the sense that it didn’t go as well as had hoped, it seems to be endangering Olmert’s government, it seems to be endangering Siniora’s government. And while on some level, I think you’re right, that it sort of forces you to look at the world in a particular way, it also created circumstances which are not all that favorable to what we’re trying to do. Am I wrong? SECRETARY RICE: I’ll tell you something. Lebanon had come to a standstill politically well before the Hezbollah attack. I think you could make an argument that after the war, things had begun to move, some of them sideways, some of them forward, but they have begun to move. Q. To move backwards? SECRETARY RICE: I’m not sure that anything has begun to move backwards. I’ll give you just an example. Lebanon had to have—the Lebanese Government had to have two votes about UNIFIL forces and so forth. The first time Amal had split from Hezbollah, if you remember six months ago when the Shia ministers walked out and they couldn’t even hold a meeting, this is a fairly remarkable thing, that you actually now have a split in that Shia block, which I think may allow for a new governing consensus, which is why I think you see Nasrallah out in the streets first saying, ‘‘Well, if I had known, I wouldn’t have done what I did and if I had known there were going to be one percent, I wouldn’t have’’—and then saying, ‘‘No, no, I would have done it,’’ and then trying to get people into the streets. I actually think they’re a little bit off balance as to what the new political configuration is going to do. It is very fragile and one thing that we really have to keep an eye on is intimidation and possibly even attempts at assassination of figures associated with March 14th and the moderate consensus.… The other thing is despite ups and downs and fits and starts, the fact that the Lebanese Government is—and the Lebanese army is extended throughout the country is a major achievement. The state within a state is not of the same character. Now I would be the first to say that—you know, Hezbollah is by no means disabled in the south, but their circumstances are different in the south than they were prior to this war. Q. … what was your reaction to Colin Powell’s criticism of the interrogation and detention policies and such? Did you think what he said was disloyal for a former Secretary of State? SECRETARY RICE: No. He’s a private citizen. I think he can—I think he felt strongly about it. He’s a private citizen. I don’t happen to agree with him and—you know, I am the one who’s out defending the United States at this point in time. And I can tell you I just spent a whole lot of time with
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Europeans. I think we spent about half a minute on this issue. You know, so I think you can overstate—oh yeah, about—well, maybe a minute-and-a-half at the meeting with the Europeans. I think they understand several things. The first is that you have got to have—that information is the long pole in the tent in the war on terror. Whatever you want to say about prior to September 11th, we were totally in the dark as to what was happening in this country and the connections between people outside this country and inside this country, in the dark. And so nobody is going to want to be in that position again. It’s why surveillance is important. It’s why interrogation within our treaty obligations and within our laws, but against hardened criminals who have been—hardened terrorists who have been trained to withstand interrogation techniques. It’s why you need to use legal treaty compliance, but tough methods to get information. Because if you don’t, you are inviting another attack. Now I believe very strongly that that can all be done in a way that people understand that the United States is both a rule of law country and following those laws. And in this case, I thought it got rather misrepresented. Nobody was trying to rewrite the Geneva Conventions. The point was Common Article 3 is extremely vague, extremely vague. And when you have a vague statute, you need to be able to interpret it through something. And it is not unusual that countries, particularly the United States, choose to interpret their international obligations through their own laws. So that was the point of this. If you’re going to have a statute, then how do you interpret it? You interpret it through U.S. law. Q. But it’s been interpreted through U.S. law for 50 years. SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, and the problem is that not until now have we encountered the specific kinds of problems that we have with enemy noncombatants that are trained to withstand interrogation techniques and who have real time, immediate information that will result in the deaths of thousands of innocents if you don’t get that information. And so the professionals who run these programs asked only one thing. Don’t tell us you’ll give us a get-out-of-jail free card if we do something illegal. That’s not how we want to operate. We want to know what is legal and— Q. There have been a couple of reports about Usama bin Laden in the last few days. One is that he died of natural causes. The other was—Karzai was on CBS yesterday saying that he’s in Pakistan. I wonder if you think he’s alive and if he’s in Pakistan and what do you know about that. SECRETARY RICE: Well, I have no reason to believe he’s not alive. Let me put it that way. I don’t know where he is. I do know that there are people who spend every waking hour worrying about where he is and trying to track and trying to follow the intelligence. And it’s the kind of thing—you saw it with Zarqawi. You know, all of a sudden it comes together and it happens. And I think you just—until then close isn’t good enough. You just have to keep pursuing it. But it brings me to a larger point and a little bit goes back to where we started. You know, there are two ways to look at what happened or what our strategy had to be after September 11th. And I think what is at the root of what is the relationship of Iraq to the war on terror is that debate is at the core of it.
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On the one hand, I think there is—everybody agrees that you have to take al-Qaida down as an organization—the people who did 9/11. And while Usama bin Laden is very important and we’re pursuing it, taking down their field generals is awfully important. I mean, the Khaled Sheikh Mohammeds, the Ramzi bin Al-Shibs. And you see that by taking down the operational field generals you actually stop attacks. And you have to keep doing that because they regenerate, but they regenerate with less experience and less, you know, battle-worn veterans with each generation that you take down. Secondly, you obviously have to deal with their safe haven and so overthrowing the Taliban and stabilizing Afghanistan I think there’s a general understanding that that’s very important to the war on terror. The third question though is: Is that all that you need to do to win the war on terror? And some people—I should add of course homeland security issues and what you can do to protect yourself on the defense, which is where the intelligence is important and the information and surveillance and so forth. All of that is an important part of the war on terror, but is that enough? And for me, I think I know for the President and others, it’s not. Because there will be future al-Qaidas and there will be future jihadist movements unless you go and begin to change the very nature of the place from which they came, what spawned them to begin with. And that’s where the strategy on the broader Middle East and democratization and in fact Iraq as the kind of linchpin of that different Middle East, because nobody can imagine a different Middle East with Saddam Hussein in it. Whatever you think about the war, I doubt you’d find very many people who say, oh yeah, you can have a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein still sitting there firing at your airplanes and threatening Kuwait and making weapons of mass destruction as we thought because you don’t have transparency into what he’s doing. That Middle East is always going to be one that is malignant and difficult as long as Saddam is there. Now, for us, a Middle East in which Iraq transforms and becomes an example of a national unity government in which Shia are not oppressed but in fact even though they are the majority are able to live in harmony with others in their region is also a very important model for how Sunni and Shia deal with each other in the Middle East. So it comes to whether or not you think you really have to go at the basic character of the Middle East. And I happen to think that that’s right. And so even if there’s a short-term effect of Iraq as mobilizing, as it did for Zarqawi, people to fight the jihad there, I think there’s a reason that they mobilized to fight it there. They get it. They understand that an Iraq that is transformed is the end of their particular ideology in the Middle East, in the center of the Middle East, and that the Middle East is going to go in a quite different direction. If I could just say one thing kind of historically because—and please, I don’t mean to try to make an exact analogy here. But Europe fought for more than a hundred years in wars from the Napoleonic wars all the way through to World War I, drew us into their balance of power war. We left. They rearranged the deck chairs in their balance of power war, and 30 years later we were back fighting again.
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At the end of World War II though, they didn’t rearrange the deck chairs in a balance of power. What they did was to change the basic structure and you got a democratic Germany, you got NATO, Germany and France never fought again and Europe was at peace, and we haven’t been back to war in Europe—the Balkans notwithstanding—since. In a sense, I think that’s how you have to think about the Middle East. You’ve got to now change the structure there so that you create an environment in which you’re not going to have these extremist forces, these jihadist forces, the financing of terrorism, the madrasas that are running wild, the authoritarian governments that don’t permit political space for moderate forces so that all of the politics takes place in the radical mosques. Unless you deal with that problem, you’re going to continue to have a very formidable jihadist movement, whether it calls itself al-Qaida or something else. And it will take time to transform that, but you’d better get about doing it. And I think that’s really the debate that we’re seeing. Q. And Iraq was the center—epicenter of that, in your view? SECRETARY RICE: Iraq— Q. None of what you said really had anything to do with Iraq. SECRETARY RICE: No, it has a great deal to do with Iraq. Q. But you could say—you said—I mean, you described Saddam. You could use that same description to describe half a dozen Middle Eastern— Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran— SECRETARY RICE: No, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran have not—did not draw the United States into two wars in the Gulf within a period of 12 years. Saddam Hussein had ambitions for the region, married to a lot of wealth, married to a penchant for the development of weapons of mass destruction which he once used, and a willingness to use his power to annex his neighbors, which you would not associate with either Syria or Saudi Arabia, and not even with Iran. You know, but memories are short but there’s a reason that we went to war in 1991 against Saddam Hussein. It was his ambitions in the region starting with Kuwait and moving forward. The other—so you overthrow this particular threat in the region and you create space for a different kind of Iraq, much like you overthrew Germany’s Hitler and created space for a different kind of Germany. That’s the point. Q. … If changing the basic character of the Middle East is the sort of bedrock rationale for getting rid of Saddam and for the war, looking back, do you wish that that case had been made more publicly in real time? Do you think the American people would have been for a war waged on that rationale? And do you have any, you know, second thoughts or regrets that Saddam’s WMD issue was sold so heavily rather than this more measured explanation that you put forward today? SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, let me not confuse the sequence and I probably have in the way I’ve just talked about this. We went to war against Saddam Hussein because of the threat that he posed to the region, the repeated refusal to deal with the Security Council resolutions and the threat that he was developing with his great wealth of WMD that he could then use in support of his ambitions. So that was the reason. That was the rationale. That was the rationale that we gave to the American people.
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By the way, it was never just WMD. I can remember saying to people, you know, the Russians have 25,000 times more WMD than Saddam Hussein, but I’m a lot more worried about a rudimentary nuclear weapon with Saddam Hussein than all the SS-18s that the Russians can— So it was a combination of his ambitions and his volatility with his WMD. So it was the threat of Saddam Hussein. Now, you have to look beyond, though, once you’ve removed that threat. What do you intend to champion in its place. And, there were those who said to us, ‘‘just replace a strong man with a strong man.’’ Just a strong man without Saddam’s ambitions. A strong man who’ll agree, ‘‘I’ll never build weapons of mass destructions, and I won’t invade Kuwait, and I’ll take the star off my flag that says Kuwait is part of Iraq,’’ and be satisfied with that. But we took a different course, which was that from the very beginning, to insist that once the United States and the coalition won the war that we would work for democratic national unity government in Iraq and lay in place a process to do that. That’s the core of the argument about what a changed Iraq could mean to a changed Middle East. … Do I wish that we had had a better and broader articulation of the supporting rationale, yes, in retrospect, absolutely. Because, I think it was sort of the nature of the UN process, where we were going for the Hans Blix updates every day and everybody was focused on where was the VX gas and where was the mustard gas and why wouldn’t he answer the questions and what was on his declaration that the WMD issue got separated from the broader issue of who was Saddam Hussein and what did he mean to the region and what would his continued presence in the region refusing to deal with all of these obligations that he had undertaken in 1991, what would that mean to the region. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/73105.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Washington, D.C., September 10, 2006 Q. On this fifth anniversary of 9/11, there’s a story on the front page of The Washington Post that says that the hunt for Usama bin Laden, quoting one U.S. source, has gone ‘‘stone cold.’’ ‘‘The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Usama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world— no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image—has led them anywhere near the al-Qaida leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.’’ Is that true? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I can’t speak to the specifics of that, Wolf. I can tell you that the United States and its Pakistani allies, its Afghan allies, are on the hunt for him and will continue to be on the hunt for him. But in part it is because he is in apparently very remote areas. He doesn’t communicate apparently very much and it is not easy to track someone who is determined to hide in very remote areas.
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But al-Qaida is not just Usama bin Laden and so despite the fact that we will continue to press for his capture to bring him to justice, the bringing down of al-Qaida’s field generals like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, this has been critical to the fact that we’ve been able to prevent attacks on the American homeland. And of course that’s the most important issue here. Q. This new videotape, old video actually, that was released the other day on Al Jazeera showing Usama bin Laden with some of the al-Qaida hijackers, what do you make? What’s your interpretation of this videotape? SECRETARY RICE: Well, it’s a little hard to interpret. I do know that one of the people the President mentioned, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, was there apparently either after the fact talking about 9/11 or prior to 9/11, filling Usama bin Laden in on the details. It just shows that these lieutenants who were very important to the plotting and planning of September 11th are being brought to justice. But I can’t speak to al-Qaida’s motivation for releasing a five-yearold tape at this point in time. Q. Let me read to you from the Senate Intelligence Committee report that came out this week, which I’m sure you’ve looked through. Among other things it says this: ‘‘Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted unsuccessfully to locate and capture Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.’’ The report goes on to say: ‘‘According to debriefs of multiple detainees, including Saddam Hussein and former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and captured documents, Saddam did not trust al-Qaida or any other radical Islamist group and did not want to cooperate with them.’’ This is in stark contrast to some of your statements and presidential statements in recent weeks, months and years. SECRETARY RICE: You started out with a very important modifier: postwar intelligence says. Do we have better access now to understand what Saddam Hussein may have been doing so we can question Saddam Hussein, question Tareq Aziz, question his intelligence officers? Of course. But did we have the ability to get that kind of information before he was brought down? The fact is, nonetheless, before he was brought down, Iraq had been designated a state sponsor of terror going back into the ’90s. The Abu Nidal organization operated out of there. We know that Zarqawi ran a poisons network in Iraq. We know too that he ordered the killing of an American diplomat from Iraq. And we know that in testimony of the Director of Central Intelligence at the time, and as a matter of fact even in the 9/11 report, that contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq had been going on going back for more than a decade. So was Iraq involved with terror? Absolutely Iraq was involved with terror. Were they a danger to make alliances with people who wanted to hurt us? Absolutely. We are learning more about the nature of those terrorist ties now that we have access to people who we couldn’t have possibly had access to before the invasion of Iraq. Q. Because specifically on the connection between Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by U.S. forces earlier in the summer, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, I want to play what you told Larry King on
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February 5th, 2003 and more recently what the President himself said only last month. Listen to these two clips: ‘‘There is no question in my mind about the al-Qaida connection. It is a connection that has unfolded, that we’re learning more about as we are able to take the testimony of detainees, people who were high up in the al-Qaida organization.’’ ‘‘There is evidence of a connection to al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida.’’ That was what the President said in 2004. I want to play more recently what he said on August 21st, only a couple of weeks ago at his news conference. Listen to this: ‘‘I square it because imagine a world in which you had a Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who is paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would—who had relations with Zarqawi.’’ All right, now that’s the sensitive point. The Senate Intelligence Committee report says flatly he had no relations with Zarqawi; in fact, he saw Zarqawi as an enemy of the Iraqi regime. SECRETARY RICE: The information on which—about what the President is talking, about which the President is talking, is that Iraq was a state sponsor of terror, that we know; that Zarqawi operated a poisons network in Iraq, that we know; that he ordered the killing of an American diplomat from Iraq and indeed had money come to him in order to do that, that we know. We get in— Q. But Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein were in a battle. SECRETARY RICE: I don’t think—first of all, let’s take for a grain of salt the notion—with a grain of salt the notion that somehow Zarqawi and Saddam were in some kind of pitched battle. Q. That’s what the report says. SECRETARY RICE: No, what the report concludes is that some have testified that Saddam Hussein did not trust Zarqawi and that he was trying to find him. As I said, we are learning more as we have access to these people. But the fact is that Iraq was a state sponsor of terror and what the President is talking about and what we’ve all been concerned about, were all concerned about, was this nexus between one of the most dangerous figures in the Middle East, Saddam Hussein, who had taken that region to war twice in a very short period of time, causing more than a million lives in the Iran-Iraq War and putting 300,000 of his own people in mass graves. That link, his love of weapons of mass destruction, someone who had actually used them against his own people, the link between Saddam Hussein, a dangerous figure, terrorists who he clearly harbored like Abu Nidal and his animosity for the United States [inaudible] in a post-September 11th world, letting that nexus remain in the middle of the world’s most volatile region was not in the U.S. interest and the world is better off without him. Q. There are several other countries on the State Department list of state sponsors of terror, including Syria and Cuba and Iran, North Korea, and the United States has not gone to war and to depose their leaders. SECRETARY RICE: Well, but Saddam Hussein was special in this case. This is somebody against whom we went to war in 1991. Q. But wasn’t he contained, with hindsight? SECRETARY RICE: No, I simply don’t buy this argument, no.
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Q. Contained in that box? SECRETARY RICE: Absolutely not. This is somebody who was with high prices of oil, by the way not as high as they are now, was continuing to build his arsenal, somebody against whom the sanctions regime had clearly broken down. You can’t read the reports of the Oil-for-Food scandal and think that the Oil-for-Food sanctions were somehow constraining Saddam Hussein, somebody who continued to fly—continued to shoot at our pilots as they tried to fly no-fly zones to keep him from attacking his own people or attacking his neighbors, someone who was paying money to suicide bombers to launch attacks on Israel. This is a dangerous man and it was time to get rid of him. Q. So looking back with hindsight—obviously all of us are smarter with hindsight—no weapons of mass destruction, absolutely no connection to the 9/11 plot from Saddam Hussein; is that right? SECRETARY RICE: Well, it depends on how you think about 9/11. I think we’ve all said Saddam Hussein, as far as we know, had no knowledge of, no role in, the 9/11 plot itself. But if you think that 9/11 was just about alQaida and the hijackers, then there is no connection to Iraq. But if you believe, as the President does and as I believe, that the problem is this ideology of hatred that has taken root, extremist ideology that has taken root in the Middle East, and that you have to go to the source and do something about the politics of that region, it is unimaginable that you could do something about the Middle East with Saddam Hussein sitting in the center of it threatening his neighbors, threatening our allies, tying down American forces in Saudi Arabia. We are in much better shape to build a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein gone. Q. So you have no regrets about going to war against Saddam Hussein? SECRETARY RICE: Oh no, absolutely not. I think it is one of the most important historical decisions that an American President has taken in decades and it is the right decision because when there are threats like that in a volatile region you should take care of them and give yourself a chance for a better future. Q. The same Senate Intelligence Committee report says that the intelligence that you were getting, your Administration, the U.S. Government, from Ahmed Chalabi, one of the Iraqi exile leaders, and his Iraqi National Congress, much of that was fabricated and phony involving the weapons of mass destruction. SECRETARY RICE: Well, the same intelligence report says that it seems to have had, whatever fabricated evidence there was, seems to have had relatively little effect on the Central Intelligence documents that the President was relying on, the National Intelligence Estimate, the work that he got from the Director of Central Intelligence. Let’s remember. You know, people have short memories. There were very tough sanctions on Saddam Hussein. Why? Because the entire world worried about his weapons of mass destruction, because he continued to lie to weapons inspectors, because he created conditions in which they had to leave in 1998. President Clinton ordered in 1998 strikes against Iran because—or Iraq because of these— Q. But we now know, and correct me if I’m wrong, that he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.
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SECRETARY RICE: Well, what we do know also from other reports is that he was retaining certain kinds of capabilities, that he never lost his intention to build these weapons of mass destruction. And I think this will unfold over time, but when you ask, given what we knew at the time, was it right to take him down? Absolutely. Given what we know now, was it right to take him down? Absolutely. Q. So you’re still saying that. I want you to listen to what Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat from West Virginia, said in releasing this Senate report on Friday: ‘‘The Administration, in its zeal to promote public opinion in the United States for toppling Saddam Hussein, pursued a deceptive strategy prior to the war of using intelligence reporting that the community—intelligence community warned was uncorroborated, unreliable, and in critical instances fabricated.’’ SECRETARY RICE: It’s simply untrue. I have a lot of respect for Senator Rockefeller, but let’s just review where we were before this war. We had in 1998 a vote by the United States Senate, I believe unanimously, that Saddam Hussein’s regime was so dangerous that we needed to change the regime. It was called the Iraq Liberation Act. We had at the time of the war a vote in which speeches were given on the floor about how the intelligence was unequivocal that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The entire world through Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And whatever information turns out to have been in error was simply an error. The Administration was going on the basis of intelligence reports from the entire intelligence community that, for instance, said that he had reconstituted his biological and chemical programs and unchecked would build a nuclear weapon again. When you have that kind of information, you have a dangerous dictator in the world’s most volatile region who has gone to war twice and used weapons of mass destruction, it would indeed be shirking the responsibility of the President not to take him out. Q. But that information about reconstituting biological, that was wrong? SECRETARY RICE: Well, Wolf, again, prewar intelligence and postwar intelligence, once you’re in Iraq you can learn things that you could not possibly know before you were in Iraq. But the fact is that the intelligence committee itself, many of the people who had the same access that the Administration had, believed that he had weapons of mass destruction. It was on that basis and his danger to the region and to American interests that in a post-September 11th world it was time to take Saddam Hussein down. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/72000.htm
11 Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism AMBASSADOR FRANCIS X. TAYLOR Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Terrorist Threats Against America,’’ Testimony to the Committee on International Relations, Washington, D.C., September 25, 2001 DELIVERED TESTIMONY Before we begin, I want to express my condolence to the families of the thousands of Americans and citizens from more than 80 other nations who were killed, injured, or terrorized by these horrific acts against humanity. I also want to thank the thousands of police officers, firefighters, emergency service and medical personnel and many others who responded so magnificently and have worked tirelessly to save lives and avert greater tragedy. Their efforts in these extraordinary circumstances demonstrate the indomitable American spirit. We are proud of them all and what they represent. The events in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 were not just an attack on America and Americans. The World Trade Center bombing claimed victims from some 80 nations—from our close neighbors Canada and Mexico to countries as far away as Australia and Zimbabwe, and large numbers from Britain, India, and Pakistan. For many countries, including ours, this attack claimed the lives of the largest numbers of their citizens in a terrorist incident. These terrorist attacks may have been conceived as a blow against America but in reality they were attacks against all civilized people. There is no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for these acts of mass murder against innocent people. Those who try to excuse, condone and support groups involved in this activity are no better than the terrorists as their support encourages even more horrific acts like these. Our campaign will go after terrorist groups and their supporters and eliminate them as a threat to civilization.
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President Bush said bluntly in his address to Congress last Thursday: ‘‘Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’’ This Administration is mobilizing an international coalition against the terrorists and those who support them. From around the world, countries have come forward, both individually and through their multilateral associations, to condemn these acts and to offer support for our campaign. While the ability of countries to contribute may vary, each recognizes that the attack against the World Trade Center is an attack against all nations, and future attacks must be deterred. Trends Mr. Chairman, a brief understanding of history and context are important in mobilizing for this effort. In your letter of invitation to testify today, you asked me to comment on what this new terrorist trend means. To summarize, in some ways the September 11 attacks do not reflect a brand new trend as much as a quantitative increase in the terrorists’ sophistication, planning and willingness to cause large scale destruction and loss of life. During much of the 1970’s, most of the terrorism directed against the U.S. and our allies was supported and funded by State sponsors—such as Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq. In the early 1990’s, we saw the emergence of radical fundamentalist terrorist groups that relied not on state sponsors but primarily on funds raised independently through front companies and so-called charitable contributions. Unlike their predecessors of the 70’s and 80’s, these groups were distinguished by the fact that they were loosely knit international networks. Some had ties stemming from their involvement in the successful effort by the Afghan people to throw out the occupying forces of the former Soviet Union. It was from this group that Islamic extremist ‘‘Afghan Alumni’’ formed the group al-Qaida, which means ‘‘The Base’’ in Arabic. Al-Qaida is essentially a holding company comprised of many terrorist groups and independent cells. The President and CEO of this holding company is Usama Bin Laden, the 17th son of a wealthy Saudi businessman and veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Bin Ladin’s goal is to remove the American presence from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic Nations and to create an Islamic utopia in what is now the Islamic world. He sees the United States as the major impediment to his goal and has vowed to attack America and Americans to undermine our influence on the world stage. While some attacks associated with al-Qaida were aimed against specific U.S. military targets, such as USS Cole in Yemen, others were aimed at civilians, such as the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed over 200 Africans, as well as 12 Americans. Other major plots to kill large numbers of people were foiled, such as an attempt at the end of 1999 to attack a hotel and a Christian religious site in Jordan, a plot to blow up civilian airliners in the Philippines, and a plan to attack Los Angeles airport.
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One result of the terrorists’ stark ‘‘us’’ vs. ‘‘them’’ attitude is their willingness to kill large numbers of innocent people in suicide attacks without claiming responsibility or stating a measurable demand. In the past, when terrorists hijacked aircraft or took over a building, they did so in pursuit of specific and quantifiable political goals, such as forcing governments to release previously captured colleagues or the media to publish manifestos. The September 11 attacks were a continuation of the trend to inflict maximum casualties, without regard to loss of life or likelihood of achieving specific demands. The planners used a ghastly scenario of the kind that could be imagined only by people so full of hatred that they are beyond the civilized pale. Challenges The challenges in meeting this threat are immense. The September 11 terrorists apparently had enough money to make their preparations many months if not years in advance. They developed a network of cells; it will be a real effort to root out those that remain. These groups and perhaps others do not operate in a traditional top-down structure but are loosely knit. We will meet the challenges. As President Bush told Congress last Thursday night, ‘‘We will direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war—to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.’’ Our efforts include encouraging the gathering and increased sharing of good intelligence, rooting out terrorist cells, identifying and disrupting terrorist money flows, and assisting countries to tighten their border security, law enforcement, and intelligence capability. The global coalition I mentioned earlier in my testimony is a key element. We are urging other countries to work with us. We are willing to exert diplomatic and economic pressures against countries that do not cooperate in counterterrorism efforts. International cooperation is essential at all levels and for the long term. Terrorist Funding There are a number of areas in which we are seeking international cooperation; I would like to highlight one in particular. We are encouraging other countries to join in our efforts to clamp down on terrorist fund raising and money transfers. Funding is a critical element in these large-scale terrorist operations and in the recruiting of supporters. We need to choke it off. The Executive Order signed by the President yesterday is part of that effort. Another important tool in countering terrorism fundraising is the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996 … it makes it a criminal offense for persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to knowingly contribute funds or other material support to groups that the Secretary of State has designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. U.S. law also allows freezing of
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the designated group’s assets and denial of visas for members as well as leaders of terrorist organizations. Currently, 31 groups are designated, including alQaida. Mr. Chairman, an important section in the AEDPA is worth repeating for the world at large. I refer to the finding in section 301: ‘‘Foreign terrorist organizations that engage in terrorist activity are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such an organization facilitates that conduct.’’ This is a key point. Before they make a contribution to groups supporting terrorists, people around the world need to understand that by doing so they are assisting criminal conduct. Using this and other legislation as a potential model, we have encouraged and will continue to encourage other countries to tighten up their own laws and regulations in order to curb terrorist fund raising and money transfers. Britain already has done so, and other countries, such as Greece, have new counterterrorism laws or proposed legislation in various stages of consideration. We have met with officials of some of these countries them to discuss AEDPA and other laws, and to exchange ideas and suggestions. In particular, we are working with our G-8 partners to encourage international cooperation in countering money flows to terrorists. The State Department already developed a training course in our Antiterrorism Training Assistance program to help other countries improve their ability to identify and curb terrorist fund raising and transfers. We encourage other countries with expertise to make similar efforts. In addition, the Administration is making ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism a top priority.… The Administration last week began discussing with Congress a major counterterrorism bill, the ‘‘Anti-terrorism Act of 2001.’’ Although most of the public attention has centered on criminal code provisions that the Justice Department put forward, the State Department also offered contributions for the combined bill.… Programs Mr. Chairman, there are a number of tools that we have been using to counter terrorism, and we are sharpening and improving them in this new struggle. Some of the basic elements are not new. Just as old-fashioned, painstaking work is important in fighting ordinary crimes, so fighting terrorism requires a number of unglamorous but proven measures. On the program front, we are utilizing training-related programs to help combat terrorism overseas and thus also help protect Americans living and traveling abroad. The State Department’s Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA) program in which we train foreign security and law enforcement officials is a pillar of this effort. The program provides not only training but also helps promote our policies and improve our contacts with foreign officials to achieve our counterterrorism goals.
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Even before the September 11 attacks, we were providing policy and working level seminars and training to assist countries in preparing for or responding to weapons of mass destruction terrorism. We also have developed a Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP) which utilizes sophisticated computer data base systems and improved communications to help identify potential terrorists who try to cross international borders. The Department’s contribution to the interagency counterterrorism research and development program, the Technical Support Working Group, also helps advance in explosives detection and other areas and bolster our cooperative R&D efforts with Britain, Canada and Israel. We have proposed increasing our terrorism information reward program, including authority to offer larger rewards. The current maximum reward is $5 million. We propose allowing the Secretary to authorize payment of a higher reward if he determines that doing so would be important to the national interests of the United States. The international coalition and our bilateral programs I mentioned are just some of the measures we are taking to meet this new challenge. Our response to the horrific events of September 11 will be broad-based and will not be completed in a short time. We are committed to a long term strategic campaign, in concert with the nations of the world that abhor terrorism, to root out and bring to justice those that use terrorism. We are in for a long haul. As President Bush told the world last week, this will be a lengthy campaign. There are no easy or quick fixes in fighting this danger posed by international terrorism. We must be persistent, and determined. And we will. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2001/5215.htm
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism,1 ‘‘The Global War Against Terrorism: A Way Ahead,’’ Address to the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., October 23, 2002 The recent spate of terrorist attacks, including the horrific bombing of a nightclub on the island of Bali that killed nearly 200 persons, are painful reminders that the threat of terrorism is worldwide, persistent, and lethal. There will be other such reminders as we continue to wage the global war on terrorism and as al-Qaida attempts to show that it is still a viable terrorist organization. But we cannot let these events deflect our attention from the progress we have achieved nor the major challenges we face before final victory. To date, our campaign has truly produced unprecedented inroads against the terrorist threat, and I would like to discuss that with you today as well as what must be done to ensure eventual victory. 1 Ambassador Taylor was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director of the Office of Foreign Mission on November 18, 2002. His appointment ended on March 4, 2005. Previously, he served as the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, from July 13, 2001, until his appointment as Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security.
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First, it is important to understand that the threat we face today is equally unprecedented. It is more dangerous than ever before for two primary reasons: globalization and weapons of mass destruction. ‘‘Globalization’’ refers to the web of connections—including commercial, communications, or cultural—that bind our world together. Since the end of the Cold War, the spread of open societies and new technologies has greatly accelerated the pace of globalization. As Tom Friedman reminds us in The Lexis and the Olive Tree, the Internet did not even exist as we know it before 1990. In 1990, there were 800 elemental computer systems linked on the Internet. Today, Google.com searches more than two billion websites in a matter of seconds to find information on nearly anything you can imagine. Globalization has had other positive results—speedy long-distance travel, satellite TV, goods from around the world conveniently delivered to our doorsteps. But terrorists like al-Qaida have twisted the benefits of our increasingly open, integrated, globalized world to give themselves new power and reach. In this environment, small cells of terrorists have become true transnational threats—thriving around the world without any single state sponsor or home base. For instance, al-Qaida operates in more than 90 countries— including our own. They can support themselves through global networks of crime, complex fundraising operations, and licit and illicit charitable and business operations. As September 11 taught us all too well, we live in a world where events in a land-locked country in Central Asia can have literally life and death implications for us here in America. Globalization means that we cannot isolate ourselves even if we want to. This leads to the second major factor that distinguishes today’s terrorism from its predecessors: weapons of mass destruction. Terrorist groups today not only have global reach, but they are actively seeking to acquire and use chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons in their campaign. The attacks of last September 11 serve as warning of even worse to come if we do not act decisively now to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction by theft, purchase, gift, or their own design and construction. In order to face the challenge, the United States has assembled one of the greatest coalitions in history. Most nations of the world have at a bare minimum offered political support for the global campaign against terror; 122 countries offered military forces. Our military efforts in Afghanistan have been breathtaking in their effectiveness.… But military force alone will not suffice; indeed, for many phases of this long conflict, military power alone will not be the most important element of our campaign. We must also fight terror with every economic, law enforcement, diplomatic, and intelligence weapon we have in our arsenal. We are using all these weapons in a coordinated, comprehensive campaign against the terrorist menace. Success will not come in one dramatic strike. Instead, it will come through the patient accumulation of many operations around the world whose effect will be cumulative until we break the back of terrorist organizations like al-Qaida. We have enjoyed resounding diplomatic success in various multilateral forums, including NATO and the OAS, both of which invoked collective
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self-defense clauses in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Other forums like the EU, G-8, ASEAN, and the OAU have adopted helpful resolutions in support of the coalition and taken substantive steps to enhance information-sharing and tighten border security. Law enforcement and intelligence exchanges among nations have grown exponentially in the past year. As a result, we now count approximately 2,700 al-Qaida suspects who have been detained in over 90 countries. That is an impressive global dragnet. Information provided by many of these detainees has yielded a wealth of useful and actionable intelligence that has allowed the United States and our allies to interdict cells, prevent additional attacks, and save lives. Entire al-Qaida cells have been wrapped up in nations such as Singapore and Italy, among others. In all these cells, deadly attacks on U.S. interests or our allies were being planned. Here in the United States, we have also disrupted al-Qaida cells. Earlier this month, Attorney General Ashcroft called October 4 ‘‘a defining day in America’s war against terrorism.’’ On that day, the United States: neutralized a suspected al-Qaida terrorist cell in Portland, Oregon; convicted would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid; and sentenced American Taliban John Walker Lindh. Another al-Qaida cell was uncovered and its members arrested in Lackawanna, New York this past summer. The war being waged on the financial front is also showing impressive results. So far, over 160 countries have joined us in blocking $116 million in terrorist assets. More than 215 terrorist groups and entities have been designated under the president’s executive order that freezes U.S.-based assets. Countries around the world have submitted reports to the United Nations on the actions they have taken to block terrorist finances, as required under UNSCR 1373, which calls on all nations to keep their financial systems free of terrorist funds. The Financial Action Task Force—a 29-nation group promoting policies to combat money-laundering—adopted strict new standards to deny terrorists access to the world financial system. The European Union has worked closely with the United States to ensure that nearly every terrorist individual or group designated by our government is also designated by the EU. The Netherlands recently took effective action to seize the financial assets of the New People’s Army terrorist group in the Philippines. In August, Italy joined the United States in submitting to the UN the names of 25 individuals and companies linked to al-Qaida so that their assets could be frozen worldwide. The G-8 nations have committed themselves to a range of measures aimed at seizing terrorist assets. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group— APEC—has adopted an ambitious anti-terrorist finance action plan. The United States recently joined with Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and China in including the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement on the UN’s list of organizations affiliated with al-Qaida. As a result of all these efforts, it is much harder today for terrorists to raise and move money. Many who formerly provided financial support for terrorism seem to have backed away. Some facilitators have been captured and arrested. The international banking system is no longer a system that terrorists can safely use.
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It is important to bear in mind, however, that we didn’t assemble this coalition for its own sake, but as a means to identify, disrupt, and destroy international terrorist organizations that can harm the United States, its friends, and its interests. ¥ Every day that terrorists are not able to mount an attack is a victory for our side. ¥ Terrorists must be forced to look over their shoulder, wondering whether it’s safe to move, raise funds, plan and conduct operations. ¥ We must raise the cost to terrorists and those who support them. ¥ As we demonstrated in Afghanistan, the United States is prepared to use military force against regimes that support terror. ¥ Powerful object lesson for states that sponsor terror. ¥ Since 9/11, states such as Sudan, Syria have worked to get on the right side of the ledger. ¥ The ‘‘tectonic plates’’ of international politics are shifting-countries such as Russia have found common ground with the United States in ways unthinkable before 9/11/01.
I have focused on our many accomplishments—diplomatic, military, law enforcement, and economic. As significant as those have been, however, it is important not to think that victory is on the horizon. Far from it. Indeed the success of this campaign will hinge on two factors: sustained international political will and effective capacity building. First, we’ve got to sustain and enhance the political will of states to fight terrorism. The secret of maintaining a coalition is demonstrating daily to its members that the fight is not over and that sustained effort is clearly in their long-term interests. My meetings with government officials in every region of the world have convinced me that we have made tremendous progress on that score. Second, we have got to bolster the capacity of all states to fight terrorism. Despite our unmatched power, we recognize that the United States will not be able to win without the help of others. This is a global fight that requires a global system to defeat it. Simply put, the United States cannot investigate every lead, arrest every suspect, gather and analyze all the intelligence, effectively sanction every sponsor of terrorism, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or find and fight every terrorist cell. President Bush has stressed from the beginning, ‘‘The defeat of terror requires an international coalition of unprecedented scope and cooperation.’’ So our effort must also be truly international. Although many states have moved forward, some are still hampered ¥ by weak or corrupt law enforcement and intelligence agencies; ¥ by a lack effective legal instruments for prosecuting terrorists; ¥ by porous borders readily exploited by terrorists, drug traffickers, and other illicit actors; ¥ and by governments that are poorly organized for combating terrorism.
Our goal is to assist governments to become full and self-sustaining partners in the fight against terrorism. Around the world, we are working to build
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up other nations’ forces so that they can take the fight to the terrorists from the streets of Sanaa in Yemen to Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, from the island of Basilan in the Philippines to the jungles of Colombia. A number of powerful tools are at the disposal of governments that want to improve their CT capabilities. Some of these are available through the USG; others are a product of the international community. These include: ¥ The 12 international CT conventions, which can serve as the basis for counterterrorism efforts grounded in the rule of law, a key component of our policy; ¥ Best practices (e.g., the G-8 and hostage taking)—no need to reinvent the wheel; 30 years of CT experience have given us an understanding of what needs to be done to be effective in a terrorist crisis; ¥ The State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program, which trains foreign police and security forces in critical skills, such as airport security, postblast investigation, and leadership protection; ¥ Senior Policy Workshops, which build bilateral CT relationships while promoting interagency CT cooperation within friendly governments; ¥ Regional cooperation—working together to strengthen border security, improve legislation, a share law enforcement information—is essential. Regional conferences (e.g., Southeast Asia, Central Asia) arranged by the counterterrorism office help promote such cooperation by bringing security officials together to share ideas and experiences and develop common approaches to preempting, disrupting, and defeating international terrorists.
The President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense together have been direct with the American people regarding the duration of the war against terror. Five words: ‘‘as long as it takes.’’ Years, perhaps decades. But the seriousness of the threat to America, our friends and interests demands nothing less. This is a war of many fronts and many different types of successes—some seen, some unseen. This is a war where tracking complex financial transactions can have more impact on our enemy than an artillery barrage. This is a war where effective diplomacy and police work can thwart terrorist attacks more effectively and at less cost than a precision air strike. This is a war where diligent collection and sharing of intelligence will produce results as far-reaching as a major military operation. With so many activities going on around the world—so many news stories from so many different countries—it is easy to lose track of the bigger picture. But stepping back from the details of every separate development, you’ll see that our strategy will focus our energies on four global fronts simultaneously: We will defeat terrorist groups. We will identify and target the terrorists, disrupt their operations, dismember their organizations, put their members on the run, and then, as President Bush has said, bring them to justice—or justice to them. We will deny terrorists the support, safe haven, and sponsorship they need to survive and thrive. We will forge coalitions among other countries that are both willing and able to join in this fight. We will work together to ensure that our actions are coordinated and share the burdens appropriately. When governments are weak but willing—where they need assistance in combating
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terrorism within their own borders—we stand ready to help build their own capabilities to defeat the terrorist scourge. Our assistance covers the gamut from seminars in how to write, implement, and enforce anti-money laundering laws to specialized counterterrorism training programs. And when we confront countries that continue to actively sponsor terrorism, we will isolate them and take steps to compel them to stop their support. We will diminish the underlying conditions that allow terrorism to take root and flourish. Poverty and oppression are not the causes of terrorism. Nor are ethnic strife and disputes between countries. But poverty, oppression, ethnic strife, and regional instability all breed the sorts of grievances that extremists can then exploit for their nefarious ends. We will, therefore, continue our diplomatic efforts and target foreign assistance to address these underlying conditions and thereby deny terrorists the fertile soil they need to plant their poisonous seeds. Our enemies are smart. Terrorists have learned from our successes and are changing their tactics accordingly. It is unlikely, for instance, that our efforts to freeze assets will continue to yield the sort of results that we have achieved to date. Too often in the past, with the fading of memories of a terrible terrorist attack, the focus on permanent improvements in cooperation has faded as well. We cannot let that happen again. But we are now entering a phase where a lot of unglamorous and unpublicized work needs to be done to build the basic institutions needed to lock in and expand the sort of international cooperation we have seen since September 11. We will face the terrorist challenge for the foreseeable future. But we cannot shut ourselves off from the world. America has always been a free, open, welcoming, and dynamic society—and that has helped make us such a powerful force for good in the world. The ultimate challenge, therefore, is for us to confront the terrorist threat without undermining the basic principles that have made our country unique and great. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/14570.htm
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security,2 ‘‘International Terrorism: The War Continues,’’ Remarks at the 20th Anniversary Conference of the International Security Management Association, Boston, Massachusetts, June 9, 2003 The military has clearly played a key role in the war on terrorism, but it is important to note that it is not the most important element of our campaign. We will also fight terrorism with every diplomatic, economic, law enforcement, and intelligence weapon we have in our arsenal. We continue to implement all of these weapons in a coordinated, comprehensive campaign. There will not be a dramatic end to terrorism. Our 2
See note 1 on p. 479.
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victory in this war will come through the cumulative success of numerous operations. Diplomacy continues to be the backbone of our campaign, and our success in this war would not have been possible without it. We will continue to forge coalitions among other countries that are both willing and able to join this fight. When governments are weak but willing, where they need assistance in combating terrorism within their own borders, we stand ready to help build their own capabilities to defeat the terrorist scourge. We have achieved significant results in the war on terrorism in areas other than diplomacy. Law enforcement and intelligence sharing among nations has grown exponentially since September 11th. As a result, more than 3,000 AlQaida suspects have been detained in more than 100 countries. This global dragnet has not only disrupted the Al-Qaida network, but yielded a plethora of valuable information and actionable intelligence that has allowed the United States and other nations to interdict cells, prevent additional terrorist attacks, and most importantly, save innocent lives. Our efforts to block the funds that finance acts of terrorism are also bearing impressive results. So far, over 160 countries have joined us in freezing $124 million in terrorist assets. More than 250 terrorist groups and entities have been designated under the President’s executive order that freezes U.S.-based assets. Countries around the world have submitted reports to the United Nations on the actions they have taken to block terrorist finances, as required under UNSCR 1373, which calls on all nations to keep their financial systems free of terrorist funds. The 31-nation Financial Action Task Force—the world’s leading setter of standards on anti-money laundering and antiterrorist financing—adopted strict new standards to deny terrorists access to the world financial system. More than 80 countries and jurisdictions have adopted, or in the process of adopting, new legislation, regulations and procedures to strengthen their ability to prevent terrorists from using their financial systems. The G-8 nations have committed themselves to a range of measures aimed at seizing terrorist assets. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group has adopted an ambitious antiterrorist finance action plan. As a result, it’s much harder for terrorists to raise and move money. Many who have formerly provided financial support for terrorism seem to have backed away. Some facilitators have been captured or arrested. The international banking system is no longer a system that terrorists can safely use. Terrorists must now look over their shoulders, wondering if it is safe to move, raise funds, plan and conduct operations. As a direct result of our efforts, terrorist attacks are declining. That’s right—DECLINING. We saw a 44% drop in global terrorist attacks in 2002. Attacks against American interests abroad fell even further—65%—from 2001. These numbers are impressive, and clearly show that our strategy to defeat the terrorist scourge is working. However, despite our success, it’s important to note that total victory in the war on terrorism is not near—far from it. In fact, the terrorist threat remains very real. Although we have severely weakened the Al-Qaida terrorist network, it is still a lethal enemy, capable of
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planning and carrying out terrorist attacks globally. Just a little over a week ago, our friends in Pakistan, a key ally in this coalition, disrupted a potentially pestilent Al-Qaida scheme directed at our Consulate in Karachi. Over the past two years, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security has tracked well over 1,000 terrorist threats directed against U.S. interests overseas. Terrorists continue to threaten our embassies, consulates, and employees. The threats that we face and investigate on a daily basis range from a drive by shooting of a residence to the horrific possibility of a CBRN-type attack. We continue to receive, with varying degrees of credibility and specificity, information that highlights the fact that terrorists may attack what we call ‘‘soft’’ targets. For example, terrorists continue to target and threaten U.S. businesses, public areas of congregation that have been deemed ‘‘Western’’— for example, a restaurant that is identifiable with America, and even churches and religious gathering centers. Indeed, let us not forget the June 2002 church bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan and the bombing in Bali, Indonesia. In addition, individual businessmen could be targeted for assassination or kidnapping. In the immediate aftermath of the war with Iraq, Anti-American sentiment in the region, currently at an all-time high, continues to rise. The possibility that terrorist elements throughout the world may be further motivated to plan and carry out attacks against American interests remains high. Despite the obvious challenges that lie ahead, I assure you that both Secretary Powell and I are firmly committed to the safety and security of American business interests abroad—it is a top priority. Your people, your facilities, and your company are the cornerstones for continued economic growth and stability in the United States. A strong and vigorous private sector that is able to conduct business abroad is essential to our national prosperity and economic interests. For U.S. companies to be successful abroad, it is imperative that you have the critical information you need to conduct business safely overseas. Through our Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), one of the preeminent public-private partnerships in the United States, the State Department and the private sector have worked successfully on overseas security issues. Thanks to our strong working relationship and open lines of communication with companies such as ISMA, OSAC has helped create safer environments for employees, families, travelers, facilities, and proprietary information. During times of crisis, it is imperative that we continue to work together through our OSAC relationship to keep our communication lines open. I will personally see to it that you receive the important information you need to ensure the security of your people and interests overseas quickly and efficiently. Our Overseas Security Advisory Council here in Washington, and our regional security officers overseas, are valuable resources with a wealth of information that are available to provide security guidance and assistance to the entire American business community in their overseas endeavors. In addition, in a number of cities around the world, OSAC has created ‘‘Country Councils’’—mini-OSACs designed to enhance the exchange of security-related information abroad. These councils encourage security managers
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of American private sector enterprises to organize themselves and cope with their security problems by pooling their resources. These council members and our post regional security officers work together to create an exchange of information through which pertinent security information is exchanged in a timely manner. American companies must have the best possible information to make sound business decisions, especially given the current overseas environment. The economic prosperity of our great nation depends on it. If a decision is made without using the best information, it is not a decision, it is a guess. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/m/ds/rls/rm/21367.htm
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director, Office of Foreign Missions, ‘‘Diplomacy: The Key to Success in the Global War on Terror,’’ Remarks to the Pacific Council of International Policy’s Annual Conference, Los Angeles, California, November 13, 2004 I was in the room with Deputy Secretary Armitage when he spoke to the head of Pakistan’s ISI right after 9/11, inviting Pakistan to join our efforts in the war on terror. Within 72 hours, Pakistan went from a supporter of the Taliban to an enemy of the Taliban. President Musharraf came forward with an offer to support our military efforts in Afghanistan. We, in turn, provided financial, military, and technical assistance to raise their capabilities to the point where they contributed significantly to the fight against terrorism in Pakistan. Today, Pakistan is one of our most important allies in the war on terrorism. Such international partnerships fueled our success in the global war on terrorism. We have formed a global dragnet that has tightened around Al-Qaida. More than 75 percent of Al-Qaida’s senior leadership and more than 3,400 lower-level Al-Qaida operatives or associates have been killed or captured. This is a direct result of cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Terrorist cells have been eliminated from Singapore to Italy to Saudi Arabia, as well as here in the United States. Money is oxygen to terrorists. We have waged a vigorous attack to suffocate Al-Qaida’s finances. Working with our international partners, we have seized or frozen more than $210 million in terrorism-related assets in 173 countries worldwide since September 11. Over 80 countries have introduced new terrorist-related legislation, and 94 have established Financial Intelligence Units to block money laundering and the misuse of charities in support of terrorists. We have also worked with the international community to raise global law enforcement and security standards, and have provided many countries with the training and assistance necessary to support and expand their own counterterrorism efforts. We have made steady progress in the global war on terrorism, and despite the October 29 videotape message from Usama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, as we
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knew it pre-9/11, no longer exists. Let me be clear—Al-Qaida has cells around the world, has many allies, and poses a continuing threat to our national security, but it is not the same formidable organization it once was. … In my view, the threat today has grown beyond Al-Qaida. Over the past 24 months, I have seen three critical shifts in this war I believe will challenge the United States and our international allies for years to come. In my opinion, the first change, and the real threat that America faces today, comes from the phenomenon of Islamic extremism—the nihilistic view that one has to impose a 14th century political structure over the people of the Islamic world to defend them against the people of the West. This philosophy is being spread in mosques, Islamic schools, and madrases around the world. Just after 9/11, CNN filmed a documentary in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan. In that piece, CNN interviewed an 8-year-old boy who spent almost 3 years in a madras studying the Koran and other religious subjects. My blood ran cold when I heard the boy, who had never been out of the northwest frontier province and had never met an American, say that he wanted to grow up and do jihad against Americans. He had been taught this hate, and that it was his personal responsibility to defend his faith by harming Americans. This is happening in hundreds of places around the world. Our success against Al-Qaida has brought on a new group of people that I believe will take years to eradicate. This philosophy is almost like communism or fascism or totalitarianism in that it becomes its own kind of body politic that we have to address in ways other than through military force. The second change in the war on terror is the shift to soft targets, and America’s challenge to protect them. As we have hardened our embassies, military bases and our borders, terrorists have turned to symbolic, economic, or capitalist targets that represent America or the West—targets that are guaranteed to bring many fatalities and intimidate the population. The Bali nightclub bombing heralded this new targeting mindset. The attacks on J.W. Marriott in Jakarta, the HSB Bank and British consulate in Istanbul, the trains in Madrid, and the Hilton Hotel in Taba, clearly illustrate that the United States cannot defend the entire world, and must rely on our friends and allies for assistance. The third change that we have seen is the phenomenon of global linkages through technology. Fax machines, the Internet, cell phones, and modern technology have enhanced our ability to communicate globally. Terrorists are using this same technology to plan and coordinate their attacks effectively. The 9/11 hijackers used technology to pinpoint the exact coordinates of the World Trade Center … Technology is allowing Al-Qaida to proselytize its message far and wide across the Internet, to reach people who have never been to Afghanistan or Iraq. Technology and the information age are creating global linkages, allowing Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists to connect with other terrorist organizations such as the Jemaah Islamya (JI) in Southeast Asia, the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) in Spain, and the Unification and Jihad Group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and franchise their ideas.
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These changes are clearly significant and will clearly challenge us for years to come. The key to our future success in the global war on terrorism ultimately depends on sustaining and enhancing the political will of our global partners to fight terrorism. The secret of maintaining this coalition is demonstrating each and every day to its members that the fight is not over, and that sustained effort is clearly in their long-term interests.… We must also bolster the capacity of all states to fight terrorism. Despite our unmatched power, we recognize that the United States cannot win the war on terrorism alone. This is a global fight that requires a global system to defeat it. The United States cannot investigate every lead, arrest every suspect, gather and analyze all the intelligence, effectively sanction every sponsor of terrorism, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or find and fight every terrorist cell.… We also must continue to use every available public diplomacy avenue to aggressively counter distorted views of the United States overseas, to emphasize that the war on terrorism is not a war against Islam, and to underscore that terrorists are not martyrs but cowards and criminals. Through media such as Radio Sawa, a U.S. International Broadcasting network publicly funded by Congress, we can send our message effectively to Arabic youth throughout the Middle East by providing accurate and timely news about the region, the world, and the United States. By educating this generation early through a medium that they can understand and relate to, we significantly increase the chances of bringing peace and stability to this troubled region, and perhaps eliminate a future generation of terrorists as well. But perhaps most importantly, the United States will continue its humanitarian assistance to those nations that are weak, but willing, to diminish the underlying conditions that allow terrorism to take root and flourish. Poverty and oppression are not causes of terrorism. Nor are ethnic strife and disputes between countries. But poverty, oppression, ethnic strife and regional instability all breed the kinds of grievances that extremists can exploit for their nefarious ends. We are committed to attacking these problems wherever we find them. We will work with these nations to remove the causes of terrorism, to remove the hopelessness and the poverty and the despair in the lives of these individuals who might be inclined, without hope, without promise, to move in this direction. Over the past 4 years, the President has doubled the amount of money available to USAID for development assistance around the world. We have created the Millennium Challenge Account, one of the most innovative programs for development and poverty alleviation since the Marshall Plan. The Congress gave us a billion dollars to start, and we have asked for an additional $2.5 billion this fiscal year, and then another $5 billion a year beginning in 2006. The United States has concluded 12 free trade agreements with nations around the world, and 10 more are on the way. We are also working on regional free trade agreements, as well as with the World Trade Organization to liberalize trade. Why? Trade brings wealth to nations in need of development.
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The United States is pursuing a broad strategy to advance human rights and democracy globally. Regimes that violate the human rights of their own citizens are more likely to disrupt peace and security in their region and to create a reservoir of ill will on which extremists and terrorists thrive. The best guarantor of security and prosperity at home and abroad is respect for individual liberty and protection of human rights through good governance and the rule of law. In my view, all of these elements—fighting poverty, encouraging trade, promoting democracy, human rights, and religious freedom, public diplomacy, dealing with enemies as we find them—are critical to the creation of a national security policy that is relevant to today’s world. The global war on terrorism has many fronts and many different types of success. This is a war where tracking complex financial transactions can have more impact on our enemy than an artillery barrage. This is a war where effective diplomacy and police work could thwart terrorist attacks more effectively and at less cost than a precision air strike. This is a war where diligent collection and sharing of intelligence can produce results as far-reaching as a major military operation. Diplomacy will continue to serve as the backbone of our counterterrorism efforts. Through bilateral relations, alliances, and multilateral institutions, we will continue to multiply the strength of free and democratic nations against this threat. Diplomacy makes it possible for us to use all the other instruments—military power, law enforcement, intelligence, and economic— effectively. Our success in the global war on terrorism has been impressive, and there is no question that America is safer than we were 3 years ago. However, we are years from declaring total victory.… SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/m/ds/rls/rm/38182.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also See Ambassador Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks to the Council on Foreign Affairs, ‘‘How U.S. Diplomacy Supports the Campaign Against International Terrorism,’’ Baltimore, Maryland, October 30, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/26961.htm).
AMBASSADOR J. COFER BLACK Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The International Terrorism Threat,’’ Remarks to the House Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, March 26, 2003 … At your request, I will first provide an overview of the ‘‘hotspots’’ in the global war against terrorism. Second, I will describe the groups, threats and trends we consider to be the most significant. Third, I’ll provide a brief
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regional overview and finally, I will outline our policies and programs designed to counter the international terrorism threat. Overview: Mr. Chairman, we always have been concerned about several sources of attacks: not only those by Al-Qaida and related groups but also by terrorists operating at the behest of Iraq or in sympathy to Iraq. These attacks could come against US and Coalition targets from groups or individuals who have no ties with Iraq or al-Qaida and are acting without central direction but feel strongly enough against the U.S., the West in general or the war to strike now. During the 1991 conflict with Iraq, there were about 200 such incidents, most of them minor. With several major exceptions, they were conducted primarily by groups or individuals with no known connections to Iraq. Currently, the Iraqi regime itself poses a threat. We have strong indications that Iraqi intelligence officials are assuming stronger authority over Iraqi diplomatic missions overseas. This activity is of particular concern, especially in light of additional indications that Baghdad may instruct its representatives overseas to take actions against Western interests. We have been urging other countries to expel Iraqi diplomats in order to minimize this threat. Meanwhile, in the current situation, we would expect al-Qaida to launch attacks against US interests and assert that they were defending Muslims and the people of Iraq. Small-scale and possibly large-scale attacks in various parts of the world are likely. There have been reports in recent months of suspicious activities around military facilities, ports, and other facilities such as bridges and power plants that have economic as well as symbolic significance. Al-Qaida also has shown an interest in chemical, biological, chemical and improvised radiological dispersal devices. Terrorist Groups: Looking briefly at the evolving terrorism situation, historically, the major threats came from secular groups, such as the Abu Nidal Organization and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)—groups that enjoyed the backing of such state sponsors of terrorism as Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The groups have largely been supplanted in recent years. And Abu Nidal himself was killed recently in Iraq. If you believe Iraqi authorities, Abu Nidal committed suicide by shooting himself several times. However, since the early 1990’s, the terrorist threat has evolved, and the most dangerous attacks against the United States and our friends have come from radical fundamentalist groups, such as al-Qaida. Most of them are selfsupporting, in that the bulk of their funding has been raised through supporters, diversion of legitimate charitable giving, criminal activities, and front companies. The 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and the September 11 attacks burned into the world’s consciousness the broad reach and vicious mentality of al-Qaida. One of Bin Ladin’s original motivations was his hatred of the U.S. military
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presence on Saudi soil—a presence that was largely prompted by Iraq’s threat to the Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait, and in the other countries of the Gulf. In recent years he has cloaked himself in other ‘‘causes’’ such as the Palestinians’ aspiration for a state and Saddam Hussein’s conflict with the U.S. and its allies, but we think this is primarily an effort to attract more support for his initial goal of establishing fundamentalist Islamic extremist regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere. Bin Laden and his al-Qaida group enjoyed sanctuary, first in Sudan and then in Afghanistan. Now that its Taliban protectors have been defeated by the American-led coalition, al-Qaida has been disbursed and its capabilities degraded. It is not the organization that it was previously. It is under stress and its leaders worry more about capture than initiating multiple large scale attacks. Indeed, many members have been caught or killed. The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan earlier this month was another major setback for alQaida. We have been making good progress in undermining the group. But we cannot relax. Al-Qaida is still dangerous and vicious. I believe the terrorists would not hesitate to use chemical, biological or even radioactive weapons if they could, for they seem to glory in killing and maiming as many people as possible. Their victims need not all be Americans, other westerners—citizens of more than 90 countries were murdered in the World Trade Center bombing. Africans were the primary victims of three major attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. Australians and Indonesians were the major victims in the Indonesian bombing. Al-Qaida and its related groups were loosely knit to begin with, and this trend could continue. This can create a challenge in detecting and deterring future attacks. Since 9/11, al-Qaida affiliated groups have been able to conduct attacks in far flung corners of the world, such as the one against a French tanker off the Yemen coast, and against a synagogue in Tunisia, where a dozen German tourists were killed. And the attack in Indonesia last October that killed over 200 people, primarily Australian tourists but also seven Americans, shows the devastation that can be caused by terrorists using relatively low-tech explosives. The unsuccessful attempt involving a shoulder-launched missile to shoot down an Israeli passenger plane at Mombassa, Kenya during a simultaneous attack on an Israeli-owned hotel also shows the continued vulnerability of countries in the developing world. We have programs, especially our antiterrorism training assistance (ATA) to help these countries. The terrorists, however, have the luxury of picking their targets at a time and place of their choice. It is not possible to protect everything everywhere, whether at home or overseas. Al-Qaida is probably the terrorist group with the broadest international reach but there are regional-based groups that continue to pose a threat to American lives and American friends. Regional Overview: I would like to now provide a brief regional overview. In Latin America, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), is the most dangerous terrorist group. The 9,000 to 12,000 armed members
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of the FARC engage in bombings, assassinations, indiscriminate mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military, and economic targets. Since 1992, the FARC has murdered at least 10 US citizens and currently holds three United States Government civilian contractors hostage. The FARC has well documented ties to narcotics traffickers and is engaged in every aspect of the narcotics trade from taxation to protection to cultivation and marketing. Colombia’s three terrorist organizations—the FARC, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)—were responsible for some 3,500 murders in 2002. While groups like the FARC in Colombia still are a major threat, we have to also look at the terrorist threat in this hemisphere in the context of the threats emanating primarily from other parts of the world. International terrorist groups have not hesitated to operate in Latin America to advance their causes elsewhere, such as the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Argentine-Jewish Cultural Center (AMIA) in 1994. Just recently, the Government of Argentina moved forward on indictments in the AMIA case against four Iranian officials, and the Israeli government has implicated the Iranian regime in the bombing of its embassy. At this time, we have no confirmed, credible information of an al-Qaida presence in Latin America. However, terrorist fundraising continues to be a concern throughout the region. Suspected activities of Hizballah and HAMAS financiers in the Triborder area (Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina) led those three countries to take determined and cooperative action during 2002 to investigate and disrupt illicit financial activities. Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina also invited the U.S. to join a new ‘‘Three Plus One’’ counterterrorism cooperation mechanism to analyze and combat any terrorist-related threats in the Triborder region.… In the Middle East, Iran has continued to foment terrorism by providing fund and weapons to Palestinian rejectionist groups such as the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hizballah, which is a Lebanese organization. Although Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, Hizballah continues sporadic antitank guided missile and mortar attacks against Israeli positions in the small Shab’a Farms area of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hizballah claims the Shab’a Farms is Lebanese and not Syrian territory, and is, therefore, a legitimate scene for military operations. The Iranian supply flights come into Damascus International Airport and are transferred overland through Syrian controlled areas of Lebanon to Hizballah forces. (Hizballah conducted the terrorist attacks against the U.S. Marine barracks and embassy in Lebanon that claimed more U.S. lives than any other group prior to al-Qaida’s attacks.) HAMAS, the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, continued their suicide attacks against Israeli targets, including attacks in which at least ten American citizens were killed in a variety of bombings last year. These groups all strive to perpetuate violence against Israel and thwart a peace agreement between the parties … Iraq has provided payments to families of suicide bombers in order to encourage their attacks and reassure them that their families will be provided for if they become ‘‘martyrs.’’
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Europe is also a hot spot. In addition to the persistence of domestic terrorist threats in a number of countries, large immigrant populations provide numerous opportunities for terrorists to blend in. Just last week, French authorities found in a Paris railway station luggage storage area small flasks with traces of ricin, a deadly poison that could be used for terrorist attacks. This past January, British police discovered traces of the same poison during a raid on a London apartment. These discoveries increased our concern that extremists are planning to follow through with long standing threats of conducting poison plots against Western targets. Italian forces last year disrupted suspected terrorist cells and captured al-Qaida suspects in Milan and elsewhere who were providing support to terrorist operations and planning attacks. An Italian court last year sentenced members of the Tunisian Combatant Group to prison terms, marking the first conviction of al-Qaida associates in Europe since September 11, 2001. Our recent designation of three Chechen terrorist groups under Executive Order 13224 underscored our condemnation of terrorism in that conflict and reiterated our support for a political settlement between Russian and Chechen groups. All five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany and Spain, joined in submitting the names of those three groups for inclusion on the UN’s consolidated terrorist list. This is the first time all five members have joined in a submission to this list. Coming in the weeks just before the beginning of this war, this show of unanimity among the P-5 was remarkable. Spain detained a significant number of terrorist suspects, including two individuals believed to be financiers for the al-Qaida network. Germany also placed several high-profile terrorists on trial, including a member of the Hamburg cell involved in the September 11 attacks, and four North Africans accused of plotting to attack the Strasbourg Christmas market in 2000. Turkey arrested a number of individuals with ties to al-Qaida. France, Belgium, the UK, and others were involved in investigations of British ‘‘shoe bomber’’ Richard Reid. In South Asia, remaining al-Qaida and Taliban cells and sympathetic groups continued to present a danger throughout Afghanistan. Pakistan has become a favored destination for fleeing terrorists, but Pakistan support in going after them has been excellent. This was demonstrated by the arrest of al-Qaida’s operational planner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Ramsi bin al Shibh, a September 11 planner. Extremist violence in Pakistan continues to claim more Pakistani lives than the Westerners on whom it is targeted. Meanwhile, extremist violence in Kashmir, fueled by infiltration from Pakistan across the Line of Control, threatens to become a flash point for a wider India-Pakistan conflict. … the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka have entered peace negotiations with the government. The Maoist insurgents in Nepal have also declared a cease-fire in their ongoing campaign to overthrow the government there, but we are watching carefully for signs that they might choose a return to violence. In South East Asia, the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya (JI), is considered to be responsible for the October bombing of the nightclub in Bali that killed more than 200 persons. This was the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11.
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Indonesia arrested Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual leader of JI, on several charges, including attempting to assassinate the President of Indonesia and charges related to a string of bombings around Christmas 2000. There have been arrests in several countries of operatives associated with JI, and the Bali bomb blast investigation has proceeded quickly and professionally. But concerns about future possible attacks remain. In the Philippines, insurgent groups appear to have launched new offensives. There has been an increase in violence by the Communist People’s Party and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, and by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is of particular concern. ASG has kidnapped several hundred Filipinos and foreigners in the last several years. It has been responsible for the deaths of three Americans, including a US soldier. It appears that ASG is no longer interested only in kidnap-forransom but also in bombings and other traditional terrorist-type activities. The USG is concerned at the growing evidence of links between the ASG and terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and JI. Similarly, our two governments also are concerned there could be a link between ASG and Iraq. In Africa, the coordinated attacks against a commercial airliner and a hotel in Mombassa, Kenya in November that killed 12 Kenyans and three Israeli tourists demonstrated that Africa is still vulnerable to terrorism from both indigenous insurgent groups that use terrorist tactics and to international terrorist groups. We believe al-Qaida was responsible for the Mombassa attacks, as well as the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. In Angola, last May there was a grenade attack on a convoy of US oil workers in Cabinda. Although no one claimed responsibility, the attackers were likely Cabindan separatists. The Government has cooperated in increasing security for private oil companies in Cabinda. Countering the Threat: Mr. Chairman, let me now describe how we try to counter the international terrorism threat. The world is fighting terrorism on five fronts: diplomatic, financial, intelligence, law enforcement, and military. Terrorists and their organizations cannot be defeated through force of arms alone. Diplomacy constitutes this nation’s first line of defense and is one of our most potent offensive weapons in the war on terrorism. Diplomacy is the instrument of power that builds political will and strengthens international cooperation. Through diplomatic exchanges we promote counterterrorism cooperation with friendly nations that serves our mutual interests. We build capacity that bolsters the capabilities of our allies. Diplomacy helps us take the war to the terrorists, to cut off the resources they need and depend upon to survive. The Departments of Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security, Defense, CIA and many other federal agencies have critical missions in this regard. However, as the lead foreign affairs agency, the Department of State—through my office—serves as the coordinator and overall clearinghouse for counterterrorism activities conducted overseas by the United States Government.
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Since 9/11, we have methodically taken the battle against terrorism to the international front lines. Strong embassies and active diplomacy are an important part of the effort. Our ambassadors and the staff members of our embassies and consulates, drawn not just from State but also from other federal agencies, are serving us well … they are the backbone to our overseas counterterrorism efforts. It is this ‘‘diplomatic readiness,’’ to use Secretary Powell’s phrase, that is vital to our ability to fight terrorism. Our embassies are our direct voices to the governments of other nations. They facilitate our efforts to disrupt terrorist networks and to apprehend terrorist individuals. Ambassadors, their Deputies, and other members of country teams, including representatives from other agencies, are all instrumental in developing and maintaining good working relations with the host country and pursuing our counterterrorism objectives. Financial: The Department of State is at the forefront of the financial war on terrorism. The Secretary has designated 36 Foreign Terrorist Organizations, freezing their assets, blocking travel by their members and supporters, and criminalizing material support for them. He has designated 60 entities and individuals under Executive Order 13224, freezing their assets and banning U.S. persons from having any transactions with them. He has designated 48 groups under the USA PATRIOT Act—the ‘‘Terrorist Exclusion List’’— excluding their members and supporters from the U.S. And both directly and through our embassies, we are working with governments around the world to attack the mechanisms by which terrorists raise, move, and use money. The Administration is reviewing the requirement in current law regarding designations of terrorist organizations and individuals every two years. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the designation of a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) automatically expires after two years unless renewed. This year, 29 groups are up for redesignation. The task of drafting new administrative records every two years to support a determination to redesignate FTO’s is labor intensive and unnecessary in most cases. The resources could be better used for other important counterterrorism duties, including monitoring and designating new groups as appropriate. We are preparing draft legislation to amend the FTO statute and want to work with the Congress to make this process less administratively onerous. We also help other countries improve their ability to counter terrorism financing. For example, earlier this month, my staff joined an interagency team in Manila to successfully assist the Government of the Philippines with enacting financial controls vital to denying terrorists access to funding and in so doing brought the Philippines into compliance with international anti-money laundering and terrorist financing standards. My staff and Washington-based interagency teams, joining our embassy country teams, are helping many other front-line states to evaluate their financial systems, identify vulnerabilities, and develop counterterrorism finance training programs.…
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Intelligence, Law Enforcement: The gathering of intelligence about al-Qaida’s infrastructure in Afghanistan helps enable us to dismantle or scatter much of its membership and organization. Information gained from captured enemy combatants and imprisoned terrorists is being exploited effectively around the world. Last month’s arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the third ranking al-Qaida official, represents a major part of our intelligence efforts. Military: The military actions to disarm Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq and liberate his people from his brutal hand is a major attempt to alleviate the threat that weapons of mass destruction will be put to terrorist purposes. We are concerned particularly about the potential use of biological, chemical and radiological dispersion type devices in terrorist operations … The ultimate success of this global counterterrorism campaign will hinge in large part on two factors: sustained international political will and effective capacity building. First, we must sustain and enhance the political will of states to fight terrorism. The secret of maintaining a coalition is demonstrating daily to its members that the fight is not over and that sustained effort is clearly in their long-term interests. My meetings with government officials in every region of the world have convinced me that we have made tremendous progress on that score. Second, we need to enhance the capacity of all states to fight terrorism. The United States cannot alone investigate every lead, arrest every suspect, gather and analyze all the intelligence, effectively sanction every sponsor of terrorism, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or find and fight every terrorist cell. We have various programs to bolster the capacity of those willing to join us in the fight against international terrorism. Mr. Chairman, to sum up: To defeat the threat of terrorism we must make use of every tool in our arsenal—military power, improved homeland defense, law enforcement, intelligence, vigorous efforts to cut off terrorist financing, and diplomacy, the first among equals enabling tool that makes it possible for us to effectively use all the other instruments. The war against terrorists of global reach is a global enterprise of uncertain duration. America will help nations that need our assistance in combating terror. America will hold to account nations that sponsor the use of terror and/or harbor its perpetrators. We will cooperate with other nations to detect, deter and destroy terrorist organizations at every turn. The gravest danger our Nation faces is a result of the combination of radicalism and technology. Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass murder, and evidence indicates that they are doing so.… Simply, America will act against such threats before they are fully formed. We are mindful that no nation can build a safer world alone. Alliances and
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multilateral institutions can multiply the strength of freedom loving nations. Building the will to strengthen and effectively use international alliances and institutions to overcome the scourge of terrorism is what we do at the Department of State. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/19136.htm
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Combating Global Terrorism,’’ Remarks to the Eighth Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of Prosecutors, Renaissance Washington Hotel, Washington, D.C., August 11, 2003 … The agenda of your annual conference this year is clear proof of your commitment to finding the most effective ways to combat global terrorism. Your presence here tonight is proof of something more: many of you have traveled across the globe so that you could be here and participate in the conference this week.… your meeting here is evidence of the fact that terrorism affects all reaches of the world, and that we must be united, as a world, in fighting it. Over the past several years, I have watched this country awaken—and helped it respond—to the growing threat of international terrorism. In August 2001, just weeks before September 11th, I gave a speech to the Secretary of Defense’s Annual Convention on Counterterrorism and concluded with the words, ‘‘[We are] going to be struck soon. Many Americans are going to die, and it could very well be in the United States.’’ And even though the wounds from September 11th have yet to heal, we remain vigilant, knowing that terrorists residing in this country and your own countries, are plotting as we speak to do us great harm. We Americans must never forget what much of the world already knows: that terrorism did not begin on 9/11, and that nearly every continent of the globe has suffered from this scourge. And we must also never forget that ultimately, we will prevail. Although it has been nearly two years since that tragic Tuesday morning, we in the United States are still grappling with how best to adapt our skills— and the machinery of our government—to the new challenges that lie ahead. After September 11th, President Bush set this country in a clear direction and set forth clear goals for us to achieve: First, to defeat terrorists and their organizations; Second, to deny them sponsorship, support, and sanctuary; Third, to diminish the underlying conditions which terrorists exploit and in which they thrive; and Fourth, to defend American citizens and interests at home and abroad. Our strategy is designed to take direct and constant action, so that we initially disrupt, degrade, and ultimately destroy terrorist networks and terrorist organizations. The more frequent and relentless our strikes, the more effective and successful we will be.
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And we have made progress—both here at home and around the world. Under President Bush’s leadership, we have undertaken sweeping changes to our federal government—an effort larger than anything seen in 50 years. We have reformed, improved, and expanded our ability to collect intelligence, identify threats, and prevent attacks. We have increased security in key areas, from transportation to ports, borders, and other elements of critical infrastructure. And with laws like the Patriot Act, we have grown more flexible in our ability to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. There has also been significant progress on the international front. Secretary of State Colin Powell has worked hard to forge new friendships and strengthen existing ones. Since 9/11, we have built new relationships on counterterrorism with countries like China, Russia, and Pakistan—and many others hold promise for deepened engagement in the future. Through partnerships with nations from Singapore to Jordan and Kenya, we are seeing results by saving lives. Indeed, our progress is measurable: ¥ Since 9/11, the United States and its partners and allies have detained more than 3,000 terrorists in over 100 countries. Entire cells have been disbanded across the globe—just as they were planning more attacks. And I am able to report to you that more than one-half of al-Qa’ida’s top leadership has been killed or captured, including some of those who conspired to attack New York and Washington, and others who helped attack the USS Cole and our Embassies in East Africa. In short, we have degraded and sown confusion into the uppermost ranks of al-Qa’ida. ¥ Since 9/11, over 170 countries and jurisdictions have issued orders to freeze terrorists’ assets—and so far, we have frozen more than $144 million and designated more than 250 terrorist groups and entities. Although any misguided fanatic with a fifty-cent knife can try to hijack an aircraft—training and maintaining terrorist networks is expensive—and we have made it much harder for them to move funds and orchestrate attacks. ¥ Since 9/11, more than 30 nations have signed onto all 12 of the international antiterrorism conventions and protocols, and many more have become parties to them. I understand that a key goal of this conference is to learn and share ideas about how countries can best meet international standards for combating terrorism—and I applaud you on that important task. ¥ Since 9/11, we have established both bilateral and multilateral Task Forces, Working Groups, and dialogues, all directed toward the same goal: to create barriers and obstacles that make it more difficult for terrorists to operate.
In the fight against terrorism, triumph will not come solely, or even primarily, through military might. Rather, it will come through using every instrument of national power. We must fight on five fronts, using effective diplomacy, military power, better homeland defenses, intelligence, and vigorous efforts to cut off terrorist financing. And within this group of five fronts, diplomacy is first among equals. Indeed, diplomacy is the backbone of our campaign—for one simple reason: international partnerships help us to act more effectively. In fact, the very success of our efforts often rests with those nations in the Near East, Africa, and Asia, who are working tirelessly with us to find and defeat terrorism.
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Although we will not shrink from acting alone, if necessary, to assert our right of self-defense, we prefer strongly the support of the international community in fighting an enemy that is common to us all. We work together on the challenges that lie ahead. We continue to work closely with regional and global organizations—from NATO, the G-7, and the United Nations, to ASEAN, the OAS, and the OSCE. And we are working with them to develop common approaches and common goals in the global campaign against terrorism. Because, in the final analysis, the chief aim of any coalition is a shared vision of the future and agreement about how to get there. This cooperation and sharing of ideas is especially important on matters of law. Whether extraditing terrorists or controlling their money flow, identifying them before they act or punishing them afterwards—on each of these critical issues, the law is front and center. Over the past few years, there has been an upsurge in the number of laws—both domestic and international—that deal with terrorism-related issues. There are now more laws limiting terrorists’ actions in more countries than ever before, and more governments are willing to enforce those laws. My own country remains committed to helping other nations draft terrorism legislation and then, enforce it. Global efforts to make terrorist acts illegal should send a powerful warning to terrorists everywhere, that we will never rest until we capture them, try them, and pronounce their just punishment. And yet, there is still too wide a gulf between the anti-terrorism laws of different countries. Often, the laws in our countries are based on varying—and sometimes, conflicting—views of how far a government should go to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks. On the one hand, this can be helpful and represents the diversity of legal, social, and political traditions that exist in the world today. But on the other hand, these contrasts too often create obstacles that hinder our efforts to combat terrorism. If we are to be successful in our global campaign, it is essential that we rise above these differences and reach common understanding about what is required to meet the new security challenges of the 21st century. What constitutes a terrorist act? That is a question that, for all its importance, the United Nations has not been able to answer. To be sure, we have come a long way in codifying certain terrorist acts as illegal. We can now agree, for example, that sabotaging international aircraft and kidnapping diplomats are criminal offenses. And thanks to UN Security Council Resolution 1373, we now have specific criteria by which to measure national progress in blocking terrorist fundraising. And we are working hard to develop international standards and best practices, whether through the Security Council’s Counterterrorism Committee or through the Financial Action Task Force. But much more remains to be done. We have only just begun to answer the broader, fundamental questions about the growing tension between strategic necessity and civil liberties. We have only just begun to see that we must re-envision the role of law to address our new security realities. And the larger challenge by far, will be doing all this in a way that is consistent with both national and international norms and needs. The cloud of rubble and debris that obscured our vision on 9/11 has long since lifted, but only now do we see fully the extent of the threat that looms
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before us. We see in all its deadly detail a global network of affiliated terrorists— terrorists with sweeping political agendas and twisted interpretations of Islamic law. We see in all its deadly detail the emerging danger of nonconventional attacks using biological, chemical, and radiological weapons. But we also see more clearly than ever what is required to combat terrorism and make all our lives safer. I would also like to add another observation. While on a long delayed vacation recently in Italy, I began reflecting on the fact that there is a basic difference in perspective between those countries that have suffered from terrorist attacks and those that have not. I do not wish terrorist attacks on anyone, but I fear that for us to fully understand the impact of an attack—and a country’s response to it—we must suffer a loss. We hope your countries do not have to go through this—and in our efforts to fight terrorism and strengthen cooperation around the world, we spend as much time defending the citizens of your countries as we do defending our own. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/23256.htm
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 Commission Recommendations,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., August 19, 2004 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY … Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Today’s hearing contributes to the ongoing and essential national debate on how we might improve the sustained, steadfast, and systematic application of all key elements of national power—diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, intelligence, and military—to the most important challenge of our time: the task of defending our country against future acts of terrorism. I welcome the opportunity to speak to several of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. I would like briefly to address our actions: ¥ To deny terrorists sanctuary around the world; ¥ To develop a comprehensive coalition strategy against terrorism through multilateral mechanisms; ¥ To prevent the proliferation and terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction; and ¥ To develop a common approach toward the detention and humane treatment of captured terrorists.
Multilateral Counterterrorism Strategy As implied in Chapter 12 of the 9/11 Commission’s report, ‘‘What to Do? A Global Strategy,’’ and as President Bush has stressed on numerous occasions, the global threat requires a global strategy and a global response—and this is exactly what we have been providing, both bilaterally with our partners,
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and by aggressively mobilizing the United Nations and other international organizations to fight terrorism in every corner of the globe. Multilateral counterterrorism (CT) efforts start at the United Nations. UN Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted with strong U.S. leadership shortly after 9/11, places binding obligations on all UN member states to: ¥ Prevent and suppress terrorist financing by criminalizing financing, planning, preparing or perpetrating terrorist acts; ¥ Prohibit nationals from making funds or economic resources available to terrorists; ¥ Freeze funds and financial assets of terrorists and related entities; ¥ Refrain from supporting terrorist entities, take necessary steps to prevent commission of terrorist acts, and prevent use of territory for terrorist acts; ¥ Deny safe haven and prevent movement of terrorists across borders; ¥ Exchange operational information and enter into agreements to prevent and suppress terrorism, including ratifying the 12 CT conventions; ¥ Ensure refugee/asylum laws prevent abuse by terrorists; and ¥ Prohibit active and passive assistance to terrorists.
UNSCR 1373 also created the Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) to monitor implementation of its obligations, and to maintain countries’ will to continue the struggle. CTC has received universal support, with all 191 UN members reporting on steps taken to implement UNSCR 1373. With our support, CTC is moving beyond receiving self-assessments of compliance to conducting on-the-ground assessments where appropriate. Such visits can help stimulate compliance by pinpointing assistance needs in states with capacity requirements. Regional and functional organizations are also critical to building a seamless global CT web. Functional organizations like the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) can set international CT standards and best practices. Regional groups such as Organization of American States’ Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s CT Task Force can encourage their member states to adopt these standards and best practices, and help in their implementation. An example of how the United States is working with such organizations to improve CT efforts involves four different multilateral groups, each doing what it does best: ¥ The G-8 developed a set of standards and best practices as part of the Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI) to improve the security of travel documents, including the use of biometrics. ¥ ICAO reviewed these standards and best practices and agreed to adopt them as international standards. ¥ The Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed in a Ministerial decision last December to a U.S.-initiated proposal for all 55 OSCE member states to adopt and implement the ICAO standards and best practices. ¥ The G-8 Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG) focused part of its last meeting on bringing donor attention to document security assistance needs in the OSCE region and beyond.
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Since 9/11, we have been working with our close partners in the European Union (EU) to combat the threat of terrorism. At the recent U.S.-EU Summit, we renewed our commitment to further develop our cooperation against terrorism and agreed to work together: to deepen the international consensus and enhance international efforts to combat terrorism; to prevent access by terrorists to financial and other economic resources; to develop measures to maximize our capacities to detect, investigate and prosecute terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks; to protect the security of international transport and ensure effective systems of border control; to develop further our capabilities to deal with the consequences of a terrorist attack; to diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists can seize to recruit and exploit to their advantage; and to target our external relations actions towards priority developing countries where CT capacity or commitment to combating terrorism needs to be enhanced. This is the type of multilateral CT effort and cooperation that the United States seeks to promote, a goal clearly shared by our G-8 partners. During the U.S. G-8 Presidency, our primary CT focus has been to improve the security of travel. At the June G-8 Summit, the President and his G-8 counterparts adopted the Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI), which includes 28 forward-leaning projects in multiple areas of travel security: ¥ Enhancing travel document security and interoperability: We have done much in this area, but SAFTI seeks added improvement. ¥ Information exchange: Information flow between nations is crucial to stopping terrorists before they can act. We will improve the exchange of travel document validation data, visa watch list data, advanced passenger information, and lost and stolen passport data. ¥ Security cooperation: We will work together to build our shared capacity to: analyze the security risk of passengers, crew, and cargo in advance of travel; ensure that all states have proper airline and airport inspections and enforcement regimes; and implement air, ground, and port countermeasures, including the training and use of air marshals. ¥ MANPADS threat reduction: We are tackling the threat of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) on two fronts: by stopping the proliferation of such weapons and by helping security forces to defeat the threat where nonproliferation efforts fail.
G-8 actions in these areas will serve as a first step in further bolstering the security of travel. As with G-8 document security standards, the next steps will be to export completed standards and practices to other organizations for broader adoption, and then to help those lacking the means to implement them. Helping states meet their CT obligations has been CTAG’s raison d’etre since it was set up in 2003 to serve as a forum for donors of CT assistance. Through CTAG we are acting around the world: ¥ To enhance the USG’s $100 million East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative, the USG asked other CTAG donors to contribute and coordinate assistance to maximize its impact.
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¥ In Southeast Asia, CTAG is working with the Thai government to crack down on document fraud, a major problem that has enabled terrorists to seek sanctuary in the region using false documents, and with the Philippines and Indonesia to provide effective means to eliminate entrenched terrorists. ¥ CTAG has worked with Financial Action Task Force to bring anti-terrorist financing assistance to priority countries based on specific needs assessments. ¥ In concert with APEC and the IMO, CTAG is working to improve port and maritime security in critical Southeast Asian shipping lanes.
CTAG will continue to address specific regional issues in the future, especially when they represent a significant security risk, but will focus more attention for now on global implementation of standards and practices, such as those associated with SAFTI. To facilitate the exchange of information with our partners, we have— through the G-8—established a mechanism for providing real-time information on lost and stolen passports through Interpol. The G-8 also agreed to develop, where possible, mechanisms for real-time data exchange for validation of travel documents, visa watch lists and advance passenger screening. While such international arrangements require complex negotiations, discussions now under way with Australia on a proposed Regional Movement Alert List provide a potential model for progress. With sustained will and commitment, we will work with and through multilateral organizations to fight terrorism around the world. If we can replicate the model of the G-8, ICAO, OSCE, and CTAG efforts on document security in other areas and in other groups, we will go a long way toward creating the seamless global CT web we want and need. Denying Terrorists Sanctuary The 9/11 Commission identified six regions of concern as current or future terrorist safe havens. I will briefly address our actions in these and other regions to deny terrorists refuge, time, and opportunity to plan further attacks. To supplement fixed border screening measures, the Department of State has joined other Federal agencies in taking a proactive approach to tracking and intercepting terrorists as they cross international borders. Our Terrorist Interdiction Program curbs terrorists’ freedom of movement by providing recipient nations with computerized border control systems for their ports of entry. State has assigned Special Agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security to assist host country law enforcement authorities in their investigations of suspect travel facilitators—alien smuggling rings, document forgers and corrupt travel agencies.… Preventing Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction to Terrorists The Commission Report addresses the nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. We strongly support the
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Commission’s recommendations to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD, their delivery systems, and related materials. The Commission Report highlights two key nonproliferation efforts, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program. The Administration is actively working on both efforts in ways that respond to the Commission’s recommendations. The PSI has established a global web of counter proliferation partnerships; more than 60 countries worldwide support PSI and are becoming involved in PSI activities. We are continuing to broaden support for PSI and to expand its work … through enhanced cooperation of law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies of PSI partners around the world. CTR is also making great strides in reducing prospects that terrorists will acquire WMD or related materials.… We are moving to lock up nuclear and radioactive material and improve export and border controls worldwide and also to ensure that smugglers of WMD-related materials are prosecuted. Agencies are collaborating to eliminate WMD programs and to redirect scientists in Libya and Iraq. At the G8 Summit in Sea Island, we welcomed seven new countries into the G8 Global Partnership, for a total of 21 countries plus the EU. We are working together to ensure WMD-related materials are not available to terrorists or those that sponsor or supply them. The Partnership has made substantial progress on its goal of funding up to $20 billion in nonproliferation projects by 2012. Common Approach Toward the Detention and Humane Treatment of Captured Terrorists Immediately following the attacks on 9/11, the international community recognized that we were in an armed conflict and we were justified in responding militarily. The Security Council recognized our inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, and members of NATO, the Rio Treaty and ANZUS invoked treaty clauses regarding collective self-defense. We strive for this same unity of purpose and international commitment when it comes to the detention of enemy combatants during the course of this armed conflict. Clearly the capture and detention of enemy combatants is inherent in any armed conflict and justified for the duration of hostilities. There remains, however, significant international disagreement that the legal framework for the continued detention of al-Qaeda detainees as enemy combatants should be the law of war, apart from the law enforcement framework that may also be utilized. Most governments will not, for example, accept transfer of detainees for continued detention under the laws of war and have thus far only been willing to accept responsibility for detention for purposes of criminal investigation and prosecution.… we are studying with interest the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission that ‘‘the United States should engage its friends to develop a common coalition approach toward the detention and humane treatment of captured terrorists.’’ SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/35684.htm
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Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks to the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 30, 2004 In addition to the tragic loss of life on 9/11 which we all mourn, there are also economic costs for your Council to consider. The September 2004 Homeland Security magazine states that … ‘‘The economic consequences of a major terrorist attack are sobering. The Milken Institute estimates that metropolitan areas in the United States suffered an estimated $191 billion economic loss from the Sep 11 attacks.…. The insurance industry will pay out roughly $32.5 billion in claims.…’’ The U.S. National Strategy for Combating Terrorism creates the policy framework for coordinated actions to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, its interests, and its friends around the world and, ultimately, to create an international environment inhospitable to terrorists and all those who support them. Threat to Financial Markets Al-Qaida has sought to hit targets of both symbolic significance and concrete importance. It is clear that terrorists have an interest in damaging or disrupting the U.S. economy to the greatest extent possible; as was reported in the press, information obtained from the recent series of arrests around the world strongly suggests that al-Qaida has considered targeting financial institutions. As I indicated at the start of my presentation, the costs of 9/11 to the U.S. were considerable, particularly in light of how little it seems to have cost the terrorist to mount the attacks. So what can you do to address the threat? Therefore, the first thing that can and must be done is to increase security and awareness of the threat. One of the sad truths about al-Qaida is that it can be professional—they case their targets, look for weaknesses and strike against those objectives against which they feel they have the greatest chance of success.… with respect to security for your facilities and personnel—the more secure you are, the more your employees are aware of and responding to the possible threat, the more likely it is that the terrorists will search elsewhere for a less-protected, softer target—we have concrete evidence of this having happened in the past. The more we frustrate their targeting efforts the more time we buy for ourselves to catch them. The best way to anticipate and thereby, to the extent possible, deflect terrorist threats is by developing accurate and timely information about such threats and sharing that information as broadly as possible. As more and better information about threats is disseminated, people in the private sector who own and operate business and our financial infrastructure can better estimate the risks they bear and can more effectively reduce the probability of a disruption. In general, the key for individual businesses in a time of terrorism is to manage those risks and not allow yourselves or your businesses to be managed by them. Take intelligent common sense steps to reduce your exposure—be
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proactive. Expect the unexpected and be ready to respond to crisis by having a variety of crisis plans in place. To push out your security perimeter, take steps to control access to your facilities. Consider the utility of dispersing your people and other assets, rather than concentrating them at a single location. Be aware of and consider using new technologies that advance security and safety: Fingerprint identification, retinal scanners and other technology can help avert unnecessary risks. Most importantly, continually reevaluate security at your facilities both within and outside the U.S. Terrorists are deterred by what they see. Visible evidence of physical protection measures like cameras, patrolling guards, and personnel access technology when combined with stand off perimeters will continue to deter terrorists. Despite the thought of suicide attacks, they still aim to execute a successful attack. We need to take away any confidence that success is probable. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/38036.htm
AMBASSADOR HENRY A. CRUMPTON Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy Update,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, October 27, 2005 … In this modern era we face a rapidly evolving global battlefield and a transformative enemy that embraces terrorism in new ways, and thus poses unique challenges. Certainly, globalization, modernization, and the development of democracy and free markets afford us many wonderful opportunities for peace and prosperity. Yet, this globalization dynamic imposes political and cultural stress, and reactionary forces exploit this stress and employ terrorism as a means and, sometimes, as an end. Hizballah uses terrorism to achieve political goals, such as boosting their power and prestige to win seats in Lebanon’s parliament. Iran and Syria export terrorism to serve their narrow, selfish national interests. The FARC in Colombia, in concert with narco-traffickers, terrorizes for political and economic gain. So, terrorism not only has various adherents and forms, it may serve various ends. We must understand these differences, to formulate and implement more effective and enduring strategies. To further complicate this challenge, note the shifting terrain upon which this war is waged. Our foes exploit the explosive growth of media and the internet, as well as the ease of travel and communication around the world. These advancements have made possible the rapid movement of operatives, expertise, money, and explosives. Terrorists no longer depend on personal contact to plan, organize and conduct their attacks: they use the media and the internet to advance key messages, rally support, share experiences, recruit, train, and spread fear. With the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge, terrorists acquire new tactics and new weapons, such as multiple shaped charges detonated along
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our convoy routes in Iraq. Suicide bombers trigger explosive-laden backpacks in soft target sites, in London and Bali. Enemy operatives seek to develop expertise in biological and chemical weapons, as revealed in anthrax labs and training manuals seized in Afghanistan in 2001-2002. The enemy is also learning to deploy in smaller numbers, in teams or individuals or even remotely—with increased lethality. From an operational perspective, these enemy forces are developing into micro targets with macro impact. This trend is challenging our notion of warfare, operationally, legally, politically, and even philosophically. The enemy learns and adapts, and takes advantage of our modern, progressive, and global society. We must learn and adapt, also. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks four years ago, we and our allies have waged an unremitting war against al-Qaida, its associates and its supporters. We have been on the offensive, and taken the fight to the enemy in a campaign of direct and continuous action that has degraded the ranks of al-Qaida’s leaders and operatives; constricted the space that terrorists operate in and transit through; and choked the enemy’s lifeblood by cutting off key funding channels and sources. These offensive measures continue to bolster the security of the United States and its citizens and interests abroad. As the President noted in his 6 October speech, in the last four years, we have stopped ten major al-Qaida attacks, three aimed at our homeland. While we and our international partners have made great strides, we must do more. In the case of al-Qaida and affiliates, we confront a loose confederation of extremist networks targeting the United States, its allies and interests, and the broader international system. According to Australian strategist David Kilcullen, this confederation has many of the characteristics of a globalized insurgency. Its aim is to overthrow the existing international system and replace it with a radical, totalitarian pan-Islamic ‘‘Caliphate.’’ Its methods include intelligence collection, analysis, counterintelligence, deception, denial, propaganda, subversion, terrorism, insurgency and open warfare. So, while we speak of ‘‘terrorists’’ we must focus not only on ‘‘terrorism,’’ but rather on all the methods they employ. We must also focus on their strategy, and attack that as well. Al-Qaida gains strategic strength from making local conflicts their own, from aggregating these conflicts, from deploying operatives on a global scale. We must, therefore, cut the links, material and ideological, from al-Qaida and its affiliates and prevent al-Qaida from recruiting more allies. We must cut these links and isolate the enemy. These links include ideology, finances, intelligence, communication, cultural affiliation, training, and other support infrastructure. Toward that end, we must cut these ties while we simultaneously attack three strategic objectives: ¥ Enemy leadership; ¥ Enemy safe havens, which include ¥ Geographic space, such as state sponsors of terrorism, failing states, ungoverned areas where terrorists can train and organize; ¥ Cyberspace, which provides internet-based means for communication, planning, resource transfer and intelligence collection; and
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¥ Ideological space, which includes belief systems and cultural norms that enhance the enemy’s freedom of action; ¥ The conditions the enemy exploits to advance their cause—local groups, grievances, communal conflicts and societal structures that may provide fertile soil in which extremism flourishes.
As the President stressed in the 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, we must engage these strategic targets with all instruments of statecraft, to include diplomacy, military power, the rule of law, economic power, and intelligence/covert action. We must orchestrate these instruments, in harmony for each particular environment, for each specific target. This requires intensive intelligence collection and analysis, followed by sharp and quick action. More than ever, the intelligence sensor must be linked to policy conduct, at all levels. This is yet another challenge in this global war, the challenge of multiple level operations. We must simultaneously work at four levels: global, regional, national, and local. This is where we can break the links that al-Qaida seeks to forge. Breaking these links helps eradicate or diminish enemy safe haven, usually in border areas which confounds operations based exclusively on national level operations. This is also how to attend to the local conditions that the terrorist seek to exploit; deny them disenfranchised and angry young men as recruits, and deny them the operatives for terrorist attacks. This is not just an academic outline, but a viable operational method that has worked. In Afghanistan in 2001-2002, the United States placed an emphasis on local, national, regional, and global conditions, on fracturing enemy forces, on employing all instruments of statecraft, and on providing hope and opportunity for the dispossessed. In Southeast Asia, from where I have just returned, the rapid US response to the tsunami in Sumatra helped accelerate a peace accord in Aceh. The strong regional leadership of the Malaysian government may forge a peace accord between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, perhaps helping to deny safe haven in Mindanao for JI operatives that threaten Indonesia and the region. And, in southern Thailand, a local conflict must be addressed, before al-Qaida and affiliates can exploit to their own ends. There is another example where al-Qaida seeks to claim a local conflict as their own: Iraq. Al-Qaida and its allied foreign fighters seek to hijack, transform, and direct local, Sunni, Baathist insurgents in Iraq. They view Iraq as a training ground and indoctrination center for Islamic extremists from around the world. They not only want to defeat the US and our Iraqi allies, but also the notion of democracy in the Middle East. The enemy is recruiting, especially from countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Networks endeavoring to funnel would-be combatants to Iraq have been disrupted in several European countries. In the near future, some of these battle-hardened fighters from Iraq could return to their home countries or our own, exacerbating domestic conflicts or providing new skills and experience to existing extremist networks in the communities to which they return. Iraq, therefore, presents local, national, regional, and global consequences and opportunities, for the enemy and for us.
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How we define the various enemy forces, cut their links, and isolate them, in partnership with our local allied forces, will be the key to breaking the insurgency. In addition, as Secretary Rice said when she testified before your counterparts in the Senate on October 19,3 we and the Iraqi government will succeed when we: ¥ Keep Iraq from becoming a safe haven from which Islamic extremists can terrorize the region or the world. ¥ Demonstrate positive potential for democratic change and free expression in the Arab and Muslim world, even under the most difficult conditions. ¥ Turn the corner financially and economically, so there is a sense of hope and a visible path toward self-reliance.
Success in Iraq and all counterterrorism conflicts depends upon the success of our partnerships. The State Department, with the cooperation and support of other Federal agencies, works to build the political will and practical capacity of other governments and non-state actors, such as international organizations, to combat terrorism. We have intensified old relationships and built new ones with foreign militaries, intelligence services, law enforcement authorities, foreign ministries, and banking officials to advance our common counterterrorism goals. We are working with foreign civic groups, provincial officials, tribal authorities, business leaders, educators, and a growing array of private sector partners who have vested interests in political stability, liberal institutions such as free markets, and democracy. We have sought to focus the resources and abilities of a wide variety of multilateral organizations to build a seamless global counterterrorism web. Immediately after 9/11 we pressed the UN to set new, higher international standards for combating terrorism. We have worked to encourage all countries to ratify and implement the existing international conventions and protocols on counterterrorism. President Bush signed the UN Nuclear Terrorism Convention on September 14, the first day it was open for signature. We are working closely with our allies to secure final agreement on a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism which will close additional gaps in international law. We are coordinating with allies who have the ability to provide assistance—such as the EU and the G-8—to build will and capacity to combat terrorism around the globe. We ask, encourage, and when necessary pressure other governments to counter existing threats within their borders or to prevent a terrorist problem from taking hold. If these foreign governments do not have the means, we coordinate the resources of the State Department, the Intelligence Community, DOD, the Justice Department, the FBI, Treasury, Homeland Security, and other agencies to provide the tools and training required. Because of the US government’s collective efforts, our foreign partners have successfully identified and interdicted terrorist groups, passed legislation to criminalize terrorism and terrorist finance that meets international standards, and improved their ability to enforce those laws and prosecute those 3
See http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/55303.htm.
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who violate them. And, our partners are teaching us about the nature of the enemy, about the conditions they exploit, and about the benefits of such partnerships. As we seek to defend our homeland and to attack the terrorist enemy, we must also find a way to counter the appeal of violent ideologies. Similar to the Cold War, we must understand the social and political conditions that terrorists exploit, and address these conditions while we simultaneously engage the enemy directly. We and our allies must convince these exploited populations that alternatives of prosperity, freedom, and hope are possible. Ultimately, we will beat al-Qaida’s hateful intentions and twisted ideology by deploying our most powerful weapon: the ideals and values upon which this great country was founded. These ideals and values, however, should not be imposed, but rather we must create the political space for others to establish their own brand of liberal institutions and democracies, to suit their needs. We are working to develop a comprehensive strategy to de-legitimize terrorism and to encourage efforts by the majority of Muslims who reject violent extremism. As the President noted in his 6 October speech,4 ‘‘the most vital work will be done within the Islamic world, itself.’’ In his excellent book No God but God, Reza Aslan notes that it will take many years to defeat those ‘‘who have replaced Muhammad’s original version of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord.’’ But, he adds, that ‘‘the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here.’’ So we must listen to Muslim reformers and support their efforts to bring forth Islamic democracy, as in Iraq. We are not only broadening our partnerships in the Islamic world, but refining our pubic diplomacy, becoming more effective in countering extremist propaganda, and advancing our broader strategy in concrete ways. Specifically, ¥ The President has launched a new effort to promote freedom and democracy. In a September 19 address to the United States Institute of Peace, the President’s Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Frances Townsend underscored the President’s freedom agenda and its importance in our counterterrorism strategy.5 ¥ The US will further encourage economic prosperity based on free market and free trade principles. ¥ The US will support international educational reform that demands intellectual integrity and tolerance, and prepares young people to compete in an international economy, as an alternative to systems that promote ignorance, fear, and paranoia. ¥ The US will advocate women’s rights. One half of the world’s population needs not only a voice, but a leadership role in all countries. ¥ The US will work bilaterally and multilaterally to address local and regional conflicts that global terrorists seek to exploit.
So, we must provide a more effective policy context, at all levels, to enable those operators and implementers to orchestrate the instruments of statecraft. 4
See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051006-3.html. See http://www.usip.org/events/2005/townsend.pdf.
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We must engage the enemy, especially its leadership, with unrelenting vigor. We must deny the enemy safe haven. We must address the broader conditions that terrorists exploit, providing viable, attractive alternatives to the disaffected. Toward that end, we must continue to build international partnerships. All of this will take time; all of this will require the kind of sustained, determined, focused effort that will last as long as required. We must steel ourselves for a long, hard, and complex war. But we’ve done this before, and we have won. We will do so again. The American people expect no less. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/55745.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Hearing: Evolving Counterterrorism Strategy, September 29, 2005 (http:// commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa23695.000/hfa23695_0f.htm).
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Remarks at the Royal United Services Institute, Conference on Transnational Terrorism, London, England, January 16, 2006 I’m going to structure my remarks under three headings. First, the strategic context. Secondly, a U.S. approach. And, finally, the collective, interdependent challenge of the future. Strategic Context Globalization and the related spread of free market economies, liberal values and institutions, and a developing global cultural network has provided unprecedented advancements in so many areas. This global interdependence, in the long run, will make us all more secure. Already, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s ‘‘Project 2020’’ study, the chance of major nation state conflict has reached a low level. Our global-linked economies continue to grow. Advances in international science are racing forward. Yet, this growing interdependence, inexorably linked to technology, poses risks because our infrastructure is increasingly more fragile. Our global interdependence makes us stronger, but also in some aspects, more vulnerable. There is also a backlash from those who view globalization as a threat to traditional culture and their vested interests. Some discontented, illiberal non-state actors perceive themselves under attack and, therefore, resort to offensive action. This is the case with Al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Yet, these enemies face a strategic environment featuring nation states with an overwhelming dominance in conventional military forces. This includes but is not limited to the U.S. It’s no surprise, then, that our actual and potential enemies have taken note of our conventional superiority and acted to dislocate it. State actors, such as North Korea and Iran, seek irregular means to engage their foes. Iran uses proxies such as Hizballah. Non-state actors like Al Qaeda have also developed asymmetric approaches that allow them to sidestep conventional military power. They embrace terror as a tactic, but on such a level as to provide them strategic impact. Toward that end, they seek to
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acquire capabilities that can pose catastrophic threats, such as WMD, disruptive technologies, or a combination of these measures. Perhaps the most fundamental shift rests in the enemy’s downsizing. We will not see large Al Qaeda armies. Rather, we will increasingly face enemy forces in small teams or even individuals. From an operational perspective, these are ‘‘micro-targets with macro-impact’’ operating in the global exchange of people, data, and ideas. The enemy, their tradecraft, their tactics, their weapons, and their battlefield, our battlefield—all evolve at the pace of globalization itself. We are facing the future of war today. The ongoing debate, sometimes disagreement, among allies reflects this new reality, this new way of war. How do we most effectively engage this type of enemy? A U.S. Perspective In general terms, we believe that Al Qaeda and affiliated forces exhibit many of the characteristics of a globalized insurgency. This insurgency aims to overthrow the existing world order and replace it with a neo-fundamentalist, reactionary, authoritarian, transnational state. They collect intelligence, engage in denial and deception, use subversion, launch propaganda campaigns, engage in sabotage, and, of course, embrace terror as a defining tactic. Terror, of course, not only serves as a means of destruction, but also garners them visibility and provides them identity. Deny Al Qaeda the tactic of terrorism, what is left? This threat will be sustained over a period of decades, not years, and will require stamina, and a global response. We are in a long war, a global war. We see the enemy as a ‘‘threat complex’’ comprising three elements: leaders, safe havens and underlying conditions. Leaders are global actors who provide vision, inspiration, resources and guidance to networks around the world. Safe havens are often regional, and provide a secure base for extremist action, and include: Physical safe haven—failed or failing states, under-governed areas and state sponsors who provide physical safe areas for terrorists to train and organize. Cyber-safe havens—electro-magnetic and Internet-based means for enemy communication, recruitment, training, planning, resource transfer and intelligence collection, and Ideological safe havens—belief systems, ideas and cultural norms that enhance the enemy’s freedom of action. Underlying conditions are local groups, grievances, communal conflicts and societal structures that provide fertile soil in which extremism flourishes. They represent the conditions that terrorists exploit. To counter this multi-layered threat, our strategy is to apply all elements of national power in conjunction with partners, allies and like-minded non-state actors. We seek to target the three key strategic elements—leaders, safe havens, and underlying conditions—by building trusted networks that undermine, marginalize and isolate the enemy, and empower legitimate alternatives to extremism. We’re determined to prevent attacks before they occur. Toward that end, we have reorganized our government to give the U.S. a broad and coordinated homeland defense.
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Second, we’re determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes and to their terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation. Third, we’re determined to deny radical groups the support and save haven of outlaw regimes. Fourth, we’re determined to deny the militants control of any nation, which they would use as a home base and a launching pad for terror. The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. We seek to act globally, over an extended time-frame, to isolate the threat, defeat the isolated threat, and prevent its re-emergence. To execute this strategy, we are taking unified action against key strategic targets using diplomacy, economic power, military power, the rule of law, and cooperation with non-state actors. Our effort is structured at four levels—a global campaign to counter Al Qaeda and associated networks, a series of regional campaigns to target and eliminate terrorist safe havens, and numerous national security and development assistance operations, designed to build liberal institutions, support the rule of law and enhance our partners’ capacity to resist the threat—all focused on unique local conditions. The underlying principle is unified statecraft, working by, with or through partners at every level (both bilaterally and multilaterally), whenever possible. Over time, our global and regional operations will reduce the enemy’s capacity to harm us and our partners, while local security and development assistance will build our partners’ capacity. Once partner capacity exceeds threat capacity, the need for close U.S. engagement and support will diminish, terrorist movements will fracture and implode, and the threat will be reduced to proportions that our partners can manage for themselves over the long term. The Way Forward Let me leave you with some observations on what this implies for the future: The first implication is the need for us to build trusted networks of allies and partners—state, non-state, and multilateral—who support the rule of law and oppose the use of terrorism to resolve grievances. All human beings belong to networks of trust, based on family, societal, religious, cultural and economic links. So just attempting to destroy terrorist networks is ultimately pointless unless we can replace them with trusted networks, a web of liberal institutions throughout the world. This implies that our most important task in the war on terrorism is actually not the ‘‘destructive’’ task of eradicating enemy networks, but the ‘‘constructive’’ task of building legitimacy, good governance, trust and the rule of law. This creates friendly networks that can wean populations away from terrorism—and means that our focus must also be on the constructive dimension of the war, knowing that this will flush the terrorists into the open where they can be destroyed. In turn, this implies that our operations in the war need to be partner-led wherever possible—initiatives need to be developed in close conjunction with
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local partners, to meet their needs and address the real conditions on the ground, rather than address conditions only as they are perceived to be in Washington, London, or Paris. Ultimately our role is to enable, support, and facilitate—to stand ready for help, rather than to spearhead the effort. A second implication is that multilateral regional cooperation is critically important. Most of the terrorists’ safe havens sit astride national borders.… Denying these safe havens demands a region-wide response as a matter of priority. Further, safe havens in cyber-space and the ability to transfer funds, materiel and people depend on existing regional underground networks—such as those that exist for purposes of narcotics trafficking, piracy or people smuggling. Closing these safe havens, again, demands concerted action at the global and regional levels: we must work together. A final implication is the need for inter-agency operations. The major wars of the 20th century taught armed forces the need for joint operations rather than ‘‘stove-piped’’ army, navy, or air operations. Our military dominance largely derives from our mastery of such joint, highly integrated multi-dimensional operations on the conventional battlefield. But insurgencies and terrorist activity over the same period taught us an equally critical lesson—the need for inter-agency operations that unify all elements of national power into a coherent whole. The need for inter-agency operations goes way beyond mere coordination or cooperation. It demands that we plan, conduct and structure operations— from the very outset—as part of an intimately connected whole-of-government approach. We are certainly not there yet, but we have made progress in meeting this goal. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/59987.htm
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Washington, D.C., February 14, 2006 Q. We want to talk about counter-terrorism this evening. Joining me is Ambassador Henry Crumpton. He is the State Department’s new coordinator for counter-terrorism. He comes to that position after 24 years of service at the CIA. He also led the CIA’s Afghan campaign in 2001 and 2002. I am pleased to have him here to talk about his mission and how he sees the efforts so far. Welcome … Tell me what—tell me what you think our single best asset is in fighting terrorism? HENRY CRUMPTON: Our partnerships around the world, with nations, with non-state actors. You look at the success we’ve had in counter-terrorism, invariably it’s because of the success of our partnerships, whether in Afghanistan or whether in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia, and I think that will continue to be the case. Q. And some of the best—some of the best highest-ranking al Qaeda people have been captured in Pakistan … which I assume came from some cooperation with the Pakistani government.
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HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s correct. Q. Any exceptions to that, where there’s no cooperation or not enough? HENRY CRUMPTON: Well, the most obvious exceptions are those state sponsors of terrorism … Iran and Syria—those two primarily. Q. Anyone else? HENRY CRUMPTON: Well, you still have Sudan on the list, North Korea and Libya, although I must note Libya has made a lot of progress in the last year. We’re encouraged by what we’ve seen in that regard. Other countries participate or cooperate to varying degrees, but ultimately I think it will be in all of their interest and our collective interest to work more closely with us. Q. My impression is that right after 2001, Syria was cooperating. Wrong? HENRY CRUMPTON: They looked at issues in a different light, given their own concerns about Sunni extremists, but more recently they have clearly made a decision to ally themselves with Iran and their support to Palestinian rejectionist groups, supports to Hezbollah. Clearly that places them on the wrong side. Q. And what are they doing other than allowing jihadists to come through Syria and through Damascus and go into Iraq? HENRY CRUMPTON: We see them offering political and logistical support to terrorist groups. You look at Hezbollah in particular. They rely heavily on Syria as a transit point and also as a political partner. Q. And financing come—coming from Iran. HENRY CRUMPTON: Correct. Q. What are the three biggest obstacles you have? HENRY CRUMPTON: I think some aspects of globalization, although an overwhelmingly positive force, I think, in terms of economic growth and—and bringing us closer together, but there are aspects of that that have created a global battlefield. And that gives us challenges we never really faced before. And the enemy uses this battlefield, this global interchange, in which to hide, in which to move money, in which to move personnel, arms, and how we deal with this on a global scale is a major challenge. A third area might be the asymmetric aspects of this conflict. Al Qaeda and affiliates, they’re sidestepping our conventional power, and they’re coming at us in different ways, perhaps most obvious simply in terms of their size. You have very small teams, even individuals that are packing a lot of punch. And they’re coming at us from the soft side, using our underbelly. And I think that’s a big challenge for us in how we collect intelligence, how we wage war. Q. What do you think is the connection between whatever terrorist activities that are taking place today and some kind of communication with bin Laden and al-Zawahiri? I mean, are they sending out instructions and are they sitting in Afghanistan and Pakistan creating plans and creating attack strategies? HENRY CRUMPTON: They’re planning to the extent that they can. They are under enormous pressure. And we do think they’re in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.… And on the run and under increasing pressure. I think they’re more concerned about their own survival than planning attacks, although there is an element that’s focused on this. They clearly want to have command and control of a global network. But because of our measures,
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because of the activities of our partners, they’re having trouble. Probably the best example is the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi … in Iraq. In which he, Zawahiri, is complaining about an inability to control and criticizing Zarqawi and asking him for money. That’s probably the best example of the strain which they’re under. Q. … the Saudi ambassador, who formerly headed up intelligence in Saudi Arabia, as you well know; Turki al-Faisal … said that there’s a real evidence now of a split between those nationalist insurgents, those former Baathists who are opposed to the United States being there, and the jihadists. Do you see that in your own counter-terrorism efforts? HENRY CRUMPTON: Certainly, I [do]. Q. Is it on the—is it on the rise? HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes. In December, I was in Iraq. And the Iraqi defense minister invited me to join him and meet with the tribal chiefs from Al Anbar province … we had a long discussion, and I learned in that meeting that they want to govern. They want to take care of their own constituents. They want to be part of the Iraqi nation-state. And the defense minister communicated to them that if indeed that was the case, they’re going to have to play a role in this. And I think that these tribal leaders in Al Anbar and elsewhere, they don’t want foreign fighters on their turf. And I think you’re beginning to see them engage them, and—and eventually this will be one of the key elements in victory there. Q. And they will in fact take it on to themselves to expel them? HENRY CRUMPTON: They’re already working toward that. Q. How would—how are they doing that? Simply engaging them in battle and cutting off their access to Iraq? HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes, I’ll give you an example. In fact, the New York Times covered this. Al Qaeda in Iraq killed a Shia leader who was married into a powerful Sunni clan. And that clan responded with lethal force. And al Qaeda is suffering. And that’s one example of many that you see in Al Anbar and elsewhere in the western part of Iraq. … [O]one of the great vulnerabilities in al Qaeda and affiliated organizations is their absolute view of the world. They offer no room for political discourse or for debate, even with erstwhile allies like indigenous Iraqi insurgents. You see this elsewhere. Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia … and other parts of the world. Q. And do you see that around the world where there are cells of al Qaeda or affiliated organizations that are—that are on the run in your judgment? HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes. And I think not only do you have much weaker command-and-control, in some cases no command-and-control from al Qaeda central to these regional actors, but increasingly they’re isolated and they’re under pressure, because local governments and nation states are taking more of an active role with our support and our encouragement. Q. The funding—where is it coming from? HENRY CRUMPTON: A lot of it is self-generated. You look at an act of terrorism. In many cases, it doesn’t take much money. And cells can generate some of this on their own through work, through illegal activity. Other money flows from donors. Other money flows from extortion. One point that’s especially
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disconcerting is the ransoms that we see being paid in Iraq. We think this is generating funds for terrorist groups, both Iraqi insurgents but also al Qaeda. Q. And in fact, I mean I’ve read that they will pay people, local people in Iraq to go bring somebody to them, and then they will make a larger demand for ransom from outside groups. HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s correct. Q. Yes. How about from Saudi Arabia? HENRY CRUMPTON: We still have concerns about funds flowing from individual Saudis. We’ve raised this with the Saudi government. We’re working with them. And there’s been some progress, but we need to see more, frankly. Q. What’s your judgment of what they’re doing? HENRY CRUMPTON: I think inside their borders after May of ’03, when they were attacked, they have responded with vigor, with a degree of precision and determination that frankly is very encouraging. Outside of their borders, they’ve taken some steps, but we believe more needs to be done. We’ve— we’ve communicated this to them. And indeed, in terms of working with us on tracking terrorist financing, they are helpful. And they’re increasingly a good partner. But we think more needs to be done. Q. Yes, and they’re more aware today than they were, say, right after 2001 with the infliction of terrorist acts within Saudi Arabia, within their own borders that brought home the … horror of it all. HENRY CRUMPTON: Clearly … After May of ’03 for them that—that was a turning point for them.… I think when it hits close to home like that, yes, there is a greater realization … of the threat. And frankly, it wasn’t until 9/11 that I believe the U.S. as a society understood how serious this threat is. Q. And immediately everybody said take the gloves off. HENRY CRUMPTON: Um-huh. Q. Take the gloves off, from the CIA director to your predecessor, to everybody else. Has the learning curve taught you to change strategies? Over the intervening years to say, look, this is what we have learned and this is what we have to do. HENRY CRUMPTON: I think that we are changing strategies. And I think we will continue, because the battlefield is evolving. The enemy’s strategy and tactics are evolving. The nature of war I think is evolving at a rapid pace, perhaps at the pace of globalization itself. And therefore our strategy has to keep up. Q. When you say the nature of war, you mean the nature of a conflict between nation states and groups that … don’t have a nation state? HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes. Still, we’ll have to deal with foreign armies, I think, as potential threats. But more and more our adversaries, they’re going to sidestep our conventional power. They will come at us using asymmetrical means, and how we engage them is going to be a challenge, in terms of our intelligence collection, in terms of how we respond, in terms of our policy, our law, our philosophy of conflict. I think this is a fundamental shift in how we wage war. Q. When … you sit down with your colleagues in Europe or in Asia, is there a debate about strategy and what’s it about? I mean, what is the great debate among smart people about counter-terrorism?
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HENRY CRUMPTON: It’s increasingly—it’s increasingly broad, I think. And not just intelligence collection, not just law enforcement response, not just a military response, but ideology—the rule of law, economic development, hope. How do we engage civil society to provide an enduring answer to this problem? We can capture and kill terrorists day after day. And in fact, I think we’re doing a very good job of that. But there’s much more to this. And I think these are some of the enduring questions. Q. But how do you get at sort of the root causes of terrorism … in terms of rage, in terms of indoctrination, in terms of education, and—help me. HENRY CRUMPTON: Right. I think that if you look to Secretary Rice’s recent speech at Georgetown University,6 she outlined how you can’t separate national security issues, counter-terrorism, from democracy, from economic development. All this is interwoven. And I think we have to look at it in its totality and use the whole of government and the whole of our partnerships to direct this. Q. The president put one of his closest colleagues, Karen Hughes, in charge of sort of public diplomacy. HENRY CRUMPTON: Right. Q. … to sell America in part. Tell me how more difficult it is today to do your job because of whatever reaction there is against the United States, because it’s powerful and global, because of the Iraq war, because of perceived notions of American alliances, whatever they may be. How—what is it you have to overcome? HENRY CRUMPTON: I think there are a range of perceptions and misperceptions and some degree, honest ignorance. And this is critical to us, because the best way to forge partnerships is through trust and interdependence. And it makes our job more difficult in every respect. Paradoxically, you see some of the most enduring bonds of trust and cooperation among intelligence services, among military forces, among law enforcement. It’s in the public arena that we have more work to do. Q. I mean, is the image issue a serious impediment to getting things done? HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes, because to the degree it constrains our foreign partners, that it constrains our operations? Q. They say we can’t do this because … HENRY CRUMPTON: Of domestic political pressure. Q. Yeah, the pressure on us. HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes. Q. It’s the Pakistani issue. HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s a piece of it, yes. Q. What’s your nightmare? HENRY CRUMPTON: Bio-weapons. Q. Give me an example. Give me a scenario. HENRY CRUMPTON: As horrible as a nuclear weapon would be, it would be contained. You look at a bio-weapon, worst-case scenario, how do you—how do you contain it? Q. But what—give me an example of bio-weapon, so that we know. 6
See http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/59306.htms.
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HENRY CRUMPTON: You look at a weapon, a pathogen that has been genetically engineered, in which there is no antidote, in which it is self-replicating, how do you stop it? Q. How would it be delivered? HENRY CRUMPTON: Well, I’m certainly no scientist, no expert on this … The delivery system would be person to person.… It can be a variety of ways. … It can be very simple. It could be put into the air conditioning system of a building, released on an aircraft, and people might not even know they’re affected—infected. You might not see any symptoms for two or three days. We might not even know—in fact, we probably won’t know—if it is a bioattack or if it’s naturally occurring. And how long will that take to determine? And how do you trace the attack back to the point of origin? Who is responsible? That’s the challenge we face in this anthrax investigation … in the Washington D.C. area. Q. We have yet to discover who did it. HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s correct. That’s correct. Q. Because we couldn’t trace it back. HENRY CRUMPTON: Right. That’s the worst scenario—worst-case scenario in my view. Q. Have we had some narrow escapes on that dimension? HENRY CRUMPTON: Clearly you see the enemy’s intent. Al Qaeda. Specifically, but there are other groups that are exploring this. In Afghanistan, late ’01 and ’02, the anthrax laboratories that we uncovered … in their … training camps … Camp Darunta was a place where they were testing biological and chemical weapons. They were taking animals, and they would kill animals to see the effects of the weapons and the dispersal agents. They recruited a man who has a degree in biology from the University of California. His—his mission was bio-attacks against American targets. Malaysian government with our help has captured him. He’s currently incarcerated there. But that was his role. And I have no reason to believe al Qaeda has abandoned that. Q. Are you surprised they haven’t used it? … Q. … [Y]ou know, we all talk about how surprising it is there has been no suicide bomber attack in New York City. And that may be because of good police work, it may be because of a whole lot of things that you would know and I wouldn’t … But at the same time I’m surprised, based on what you’ve said, and I suspect you are too, that somewhere in the world where there may be less security it would have happened. HENRY CRUMPTON: I think there are several reasons for this, but I should note that I think at some point in time, it will happen. We will be attacked again here in the homeland. We can only be successful for so long. And the success to date is a combination of factors. Q. Are we talking about a war 25 years? HENRY CRUMPTON: Maybe longer. Q. And how will we know when victory comes? HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s hard, because I know we won’t have a V.E. Day.… But like the Cold War, at some point we will win, but how do we mark it? … I’m not sure. Q. You’re not even sure how to keep score, are you?
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HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s tough also, because it’s not just about killing and capturing the enemy. It’s about those enduring conditions that we must address, in terms of advancing democracy, in terms of economic opportunities, in terms of building interdependent partnerships. That ultimately will be the answer. Q. Well, you come back to that all the time. I mean, you really—I mean if nothing—if nothing is clear to me today in this conversation, one is—is the nightmare is biological and, two, the strategy is global and interdependent. HENRY CRUMPTON: That’s right. Q. We cannot win this alone. HENRY CRUMPTON: Mr. Rose, it must be global. It must be regional, national and also at a local and global level. We’ve got to engage on all four levels simultaneously … in every way … we must use all the instruments of statecraft. And that means everybody from our Special Operations warriors to people in USAID, to multinational companies, to investors, to NGOs, foreign partners. They’ve all got to be a part of this. Q. Tell me what you think [Iran is] up to, and what kind of issue they pose for the United States in this battle and in the future? HENRY CRUMPTON: I think the Iranian leadership is intent on acquiring nuclear weapons through their actions. When they talk about … wiping Israel off the map. I think that is their intent. And I think we need to take those threats seriously. I think in terms of their support to terrorist organizations, specifically Hezbollah, they have complete command-and-control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyah works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem, I believe. Q. They report to not elected officials but those people that—that are— that are part of the mullahs. HENRY CRUMPTON: Right, the IRGC. Q. Right. HENRY CRUMPTON: … and the intelligence services. And they really are proxies of Iran. I know they have—Hezbollah hasn’t any members in parliament, but the Islamic Jihad, the operational element of Hezbollah, they—they work for the Iranian government for most—and—and they are global. They’re not just in Lebanon. Hezbollah cells are scattered throughout the world. Q. And what do they do? HENRY CRUMPTON: They are raising money. They are training. They’re engaged in supporting Hamas and other terrorist organizations. And as Prime Minister Blair noted, you’ve seen technology being used in IEDs in southern Iraq against coalition forces that’s coming from Iran and Hezbollah. Q. And what’s their connection, if any, to al Qaeda? They’re just a parallel organization, not a … HENRY CRUMPTON: You don’t see an alliance between al Qaeda and Hezbollah. But you certainly see … Q. Is there—is there a hostility, an animosity, a competition? HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes, in some cases. You see Zarqawi killing Shia in Iraq. Iran, Hezbollah they’re not happy with this, of course, but you also see areas where they could collude. I would not exclude that. As an example, the
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Iranians are holding, they claim, under house arrest some al Qaeda leaders that fled Afghanistan. We don’t have visibility into what role this al Qaeda leadership might be playing. Are they able to communicate outside of Iran? We don’t know that. Q. They won’t even acknowledge that they’re holding them, will they? I mean, I’ve asked the foreign minister and even the president about that on interviews here.… They don’t acknowledge that they have them. HENRY CRUMPTON: Right. They do. They are. Q. They have them but they don’t acknowledge it.… Including pretty high up … former al Qaeda. HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes. Q. And—and you can’t find out whether those officials are contacting with al Qaeda operatives in the field. HENRY CRUMPTON: We think they’re trying to, to some degree, but what control the Iranians have on them, we’re not—we’re not sure of. Q. And what was the relationship between—and the Iranians are very strong about—they hated the Taliban. HENRY CRUMPTON: Yes. Q. Are the Taliban in a resurgence in Afghanistan? HENRY CRUMPTON: The Taliban, because they have safe haven in parts of Pakistan. Q. Right. HENRY CRUMPTON: … and because they are able to generate some income, perhaps from increased poppy production, they are coming back into Afghanistan in certain areas. And you’ve had some pretty major conflict in—in some parts of Afghanistan just in the last few weeks. I think that in the long run, they will be defeated, but you can’t just do it from one side of the border. You’ve got to have help from the Pakistanis also. Q. I mean, it seems to me you’re saying that there’s no more significant foreign policy issue for America than Iran. HENRY CRUMPTON: In terms of a particular nation state, I think they pose unique challenges because of their sponsorship … of terrorist groups … and their intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/63766.htm
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, ‘‘GovernmentPrivate Partnership Key to Defeating Terrorism,’’ Speech at the 2006 International Counterterrorism Conference: Public and Private Partnerships, Washington, D.C., April 20, 2006 Thank you for the opportunity to address this conference, a forum where public and private partners can learn from each other, learn how together we can win this Global War on Terrorism. What does this Global War on Terrorism mean? Are we wining? If so, how? What are the roles for the private sector in this unprecedented, strange, global
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conflict? A conflict where battle lines are unknown, where enemy forces are often undefined, where our military power is unmatched, yet where nonmilitary power is more important. War has crossed a threshold. We have entered a stage that experts have been predicting: Fourth Generation Warfare. The elements are many and complex, so I will only stress three main trends ¥ Micro actors with macro impact; ¥ The global battlefield; and ¥ The growing role of non-state actors.
The terrorist threat is constantly evolving, but in general terms we know that it arises from a loose confederation of extremist groups, that is targeting the international system of nation states and specifically focusing on the United States, our allies and interests. The enemy—al-Qaida and its affiliates—gains strength from making local conflicts their own, from aggregating conflicts, and from deploying operatives on a global scale. The enemy exhibits many of the characteristics of a global insurgency. They engage in intelligence collection, subversion, denial and deception, sabotage, terrorism, and even open warfare. We must, therefore, respond with a global counterinsurgency campaign with an extreme focus on three strategic targets: enemy leadership, enemy safe havens, and the politicaleconomic-social conditions that the enemy exploits. We must employ all the instruments of statecraft, orchestrate them against these three strategic targets, and demonstrate the same degree of stamina and determination manifest during the Cold War. In today’s increasingly interconnected world, we cannot draw neat, clear lines between security interests, development efforts, and our support for democracy. American statecraft must integrate and advance all of these goals together. In order to address the conditions terrorists exploit, the United States must work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. We can no longer assume that every state can control and direct threats emerging from its territory nor can we assume that weak and poorly governed states are merely a burden to their people or simply an international humanitarian concern. Technology is eliminating the distance that once clearly separated us across land and sea. Safe havens in cyberspace and the ability to transfer funds, materiel and people depend on existing regional underground networks (such as those that exist for narcotics trafficking, piracy or people smuggling). We must, therefore, cut the links, material and ideological, from al-Qaida and its affiliates and prevent al-Qaida from recruiting more allies. The links that we must cut include ideology, finances, intelligence, communication, cultural affiliation, training, and other support infrastructure. To counter this multi-layered threat, we must apply all elements of national power in conjunction with partners, allies and like-minded non-state actors. Our effort is structured at three levels—a global campaign to counter al-Qaida
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and associated networks, a series of regional campaigns to target and eliminate terrorist safe havens, and numerous local security and development assistance operations worldwide, designed to build liberal institutions, support the rule of law, and enhance our partners’ capacity to resist the threat. The underlying principle is unified statecraft, working by, with or through partners at every level—including the private sector—whenever and wherever possible. The private sector offers enormous potential, such as economic might and efficiencies reflected in fast and flexible responses to market and security conditions. We need to find better ways to harness this power, to aim this energy at the enemy. The private sector, of course, has a vested interest … given that increasingly the terrorist enemy will target the private sector, for exploitation or destruction. As you know, the Bush administration believes strongly in the need for public-private partnerships in the counterterrorism effort. There are some good examples. The Overseas Security Advisory Council, OSAC, is a Federal Advisory Committee to promote security cooperation between American business and private sector interests worldwide and the U.S. Department of State. OSAC currently encompasses the 34 member core Council, an Executive Office, over 100 Country Councils, and more than 3,500 constituent members organizations. OSAC serves as a trusted, dynamic, global network where information, warnings, and recommendations flow. Only yesterday I heard a Regional Security Officer urge senior foreign government officials to provide better information in a timely manner, so he could post this information on the OSAC web. He explained that investor confidence depended on this. I am sure many of you are participating members in OSAC, and I thank you. The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) is one. Over 5,800 U.S. businesses, including most major U.S. importers, participate in this program. Under the initiative, private-sector leaders such as General Motors, Ford, Target, Motorola and others are working with U.S. Customs to assume greater responsibility for the promotion of homeland security. They are improving baseline security standards for supply chain and container security, and focusing on high-risk containers. About 90 percent of the world’s trade is transported in such cargo containers; more than nine million cargo containers arrive by sea and are offloaded at U.S. seaports each year. Another example. On January 30, 2006 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Hamid Karzai launched an initiative, to highlight the importance of the private sector in the reconstruction of Afghanistan: ‘‘Businesses Building Bridges.’’ Recognizing that one of the keys to success in Afghanistan is a robust Afghan private sector, the BBB initiative, a public-private partnership with U.S. business leaders, will help forge relationships between the U.S. and Afghanistan private sectors. BBB will help train Afghan entrepreneurs, mentor the local business community, improve the investment climate, and increase confidence within the marketplace. Remember, denying enemy safe haven is only the first step. We must replace the enemy’s political power with trusted networks of liberal institutions, which include the rule of law and the power of free markets. The U.S. also strongly supports an initiative by the Russian Federation, as part of its yearlong Presidency of the Group of Eight, to foster an on-going
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dialogue between the public and private sectors on fighting terrorism. This will culminate in a high-level meeting in Moscow in November of leaders from governments, business, and civil society to maximize our effectiveness in fighting terrorism. Recently the State Department brought together university presidents for their first ever summit in Washington and is working with them and the Commerce Department to better market American higher education to students around the world. We started the Fortune Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, which brings women business leaders from around the world to America to work with women at Fortune 500 companies. Microsoft and the International Institute for Education are training 1,000 women in the United Arab Emirates in information technology. Major corporations including Pfizer, Citicorp, Xerox, GE, UPS, Pepsico, John Deere, American Electric Power, and Asset Management Advisors raised more than $100 million to help victims of Pakistan’s earthquake and flooding in Central America. The Aspen Institute has partnered with us on journalism schools to bring international journalists here for work-study programs. All of these partnerships are helping to advance our goals and we look forward to further discussion, collaboration and development. These partnerships also build trusted networks of allies and partners—state, non-state, and multilateral—who support the rule of law and oppose the use of terrorism to resolve grievances. All human beings belong to networks of trust, based on family, societal, religious, cultural and economic links. Attempting to destroy terrorist networks is ultimately meaningless unless we can replace them with something better. We must replace an ideology of hatred with an ideology of hope. Practically, our most important task in the war on terrorism is not the temporary ‘‘destructive’’ task of eradicating enemy networks, but the enduring ‘‘constructive’’ task of building legitimacy, good governance, trust and the rule of law. Systems that are characterized by an absence of political choice, transparent governance, economic opportunities and personal freedoms can create incubators for extremism. Ignoring human development problems is no longer an option. Jumpstarting agriculture in areas of post conflict or areas that are considered safe havens offer alternatives to employment in terrorist movements and offer decommissioned soldiers and irregulars routes to returning to civilian life. Development projects are not only good for the world’s poor but also good for our national security. When the United States carries out successful development projects and helps local populations with jobs and an economic future in known terrorist safe havens, we make it more difficult for the enemy to operate. As an example, in Columbia, right-wing paramilitary terrorist groups, the AUC, have reached an accord with the government. There are now 28,000 demobilized, former combatants, average age 20 with 8 years of combat experience and minimal education, seeking employment. The Columbia government has a window of opportunity, but needs private sector assistance. Development projects in certain contexts, like in Columbia, bring a national security dividend. I ask you as Americans, as company
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managers, NGO leaders, or philanthropists to consider partnering with the United States on development projects in frontline states. USAID has the ‘‘Global Development Alliance,’’ an outstanding public-private partnership for transformational development. Since 2002, USAID used this program to invest 1.4 billion USD across nearly 400 alliances in every region and sector, leveraging over 4.6 billion USD in partner resources. This is all about development, free markets, profit, and in the long-term, counterterrorism. We must find ways to encourage and nurture democracy in societies where a lack of freedom destroys hope and leaves some feeling that individuals have no choice but to lash out in rage and frustration at those they have been led to believe are responsible for their plight. President Bush declared, ‘‘when the entire region sees the promise of freedom in its midst, the terrorist ideology will become more and more irrelevant, until that day when it is viewed with contempt or ignored altogether.’’ I hope that the corridors of this conference are filled with brainstorming, so private-public ideas can help in the counter terrorism fight, so we can foster emerging economies, civic institutions, and democracy. The government needs the private sector. We all need each other, to build trusted, enduring, global networks. SOURCE: http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2006/Apr/21-342779.html
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, ‘‘The Changing Face of Terror: A Post 9/11 Assessment,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., June 13, 2006 Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the important topic of ‘‘The Changing Face of Terror: A Post 9/11 Assessment.’’ I will summarize my formal written statement and ask that you include my full testimony in the record. We have achieved some success in the War on Terror. A significant portion of al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has been caught or killed, and we have degraded the group’s global network. Most recently, we learned of the successful effort to kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which dealt a severe blow to al-Qaeda. We have also worked to successfully disrupt terrorist plots. While recognizing these successes, we also recognize that significant challenges remain. The terrorist threat is constantly evolving, while radicalization has spread. Usama bin Ladin and the core al-Qaeda leadership group seeks to expand their influence, as does al-Qaeda in Iraq, which includes foreign fighters from the region and Europe. Self-radicalized and self-organized groups and cells pose a growing threat. We have seen the results in Madrid, London, and Egypt. The perpetrators of these attacks do not necessarily depend on operational support or guidance from centralized al-Qaeda command structures, but what they share with the core al-Qaeda group is a violent ideology, a belief in existential war. The enemy gains strength from exploiting local grievances and conflicts, building alliances with regional groups such as the Jemaah Islamiya terrorist
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organization in Southeast Asia, and engaging in intelligence collection, deception, sabotage and even open warfare, as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trends and Developments In addition to increased radicalization, the State Department’s Congressionally mandated Country Reports on Terrorism outlines other important trends and developments. For example, in response to our operational success, enemy operational elements are becoming smaller in size and less tightly organized. We see more threats emerging from small cells and even individuals, some with greater autonomy. This makes them more difficult to detect and engage. These looser terrorist networks are less capable but also less predictable and in some ways more dangerous. We may face a larger number of smaller attacks, less meticulously planned, and local rather than transnational in scope. EDITOR’S NOTE: See chapter 27, Key Documents, for a list of Country Reports on Terrorism by year and accompanying links.
Terrorist groups are becoming more sophisticated in their use of technology, particularly the Internet, to improve their global reach, intelligence collection, and operational capacity. Technological sophistication has been matched by a growing sophistication in terrorist propaganda, information operations and increasingly diffuse organizational structures. Terrorists continue to seek access to sophisticated weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological and radiological technology—making efforts to counter WMD proliferation a fundamental part of the fight against terrorism. Another trend is the increasing overlap of terrorist and criminal enterprises. In some cases, terrorists use the same networks as transnational criminal groups, exploiting the overlap between these networks to improve mobility, build support for their terrorist agenda, and avoid detection. Hizballah operatives, for example, are involved in a wide range of criminal activities, ranging from trafficking in counterfeit or pirated goods to sophisticated money laundering. They are also involved in a variety of financial crimes, including credit card and insurance fraud. Iraq must also be included in a discussion of trends. We are determined to deny Iraq to terrorists who seek to undermine its new government. Al-Qaeda and its associated foreign fighters seek to hijack, transform, and direct local Sunni insurgents in Iraq. They view Iraq as a training ground and indoctrination center for Islamic extremists from around the world, particularly from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. They not only want to defeat the U.S., the coalition, the international community and our Iraqi allies, but also the notion of democracy in the Middle East. Networks that support the flow of foreign terrorists to Iraq have been uncovered in several parts of the world. Although Zarqawi is now dead, the terrorist organizations still pose a threat as their members will try to terrorize the Iraqi people and destabilize the government as it moves toward stability and prosperity.
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Structure of International Terrorism Al-Qaeda Today. Al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups remain the primary terrorist threat to the international community. Our collective international efforts have harmed al-Qaeda. The capture of Hambali reduced the linkages between al-Qaeda and affiliated groups in Southeast Asia. The capture of Abu Faraj-al-Libi diminished contacts in the Middle East and North Africa. The death of Ayman-al-Zawahiri’s lieutenants in January 2006, in Pakistan, further isolated al-Qaeda leadership. The death of Zarqawi in Iraq last week disrupts the al-Qaeda leadership network. In this respect they are weaker and pose less of a direct threat. Al-Qaeda’s core leadership no longer has effective global command and control of its networks. The few enemy leaders that have avoided death or capture find themselves isolated and on the run. Thus, al-Qaeda increasingly emphasizes its ideological and propaganda activity to help its cause. By remaining at large, and intermittently vocal, bin Ladin and Zawahiri seek to symbolize resistance to the international community, retain the capability to influence events, and through the use of the media and internet, aim to incite actual and potential terrorists. They seek to claim local and regional conflicts as their own. This was evident in the recent bin Ladin audiotape where alQaeda aimed to appropriate the humanitarian crisis in Darfur as part of its ‘‘cause.’’ There is evidence that core leaders including bin Ladin and Zawahiri are frustrated by their lack of direct control, as demonstrated by the 2005 Zawahiri-Zarqawi correspondence. With its Afghan safe haven gone, with Pakistan reducing its safe haven along the border, and with global international cooperation constraining terrorist mobility, al-Qaeda and its affiliates are desperate to claim Iraq as a success. This is why, even until his last breath, Zarqawi feared a viable Iraqi nation and continued efforts to foment terrorist attacks and sectarian violence against Iraqis. We must retain unrelenting pressure against alQaeda. We must work together to ensure al-Qaeda will never regain its tight, pre-9/11 command and control structure. Safe Havens. Like enemy leadership, enemy safe havens have great strategic importance. Safe haven allows the enemy to recruit, organize, plan, train, coalesce, rest, and claim turf as a symbol of legitimacy. This is why al-Qaeda and its affiliates place so much emphasis on safe haven. We must focus on both the physical space and cyberspace that the enemy uses to recruit, fundraise, plan and train. We must also focus on ideological safe havens where belief systems, ideas and cultural norms provide space within which terrorists can operate. We must also bring an end to state sponsorship of terrorism, with Iran and Syria being the most prominent examples, in light of their ongoing support to Hizballah and a wide array of Palestinian terrorist groups. Physical safe havens usually straddle national borders or exist in regions where ineffective governance allows their presence. Examples include the Trans-Sahara, Somalia, the Sulawesi and Sulu Sea littoral, and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Because of the importance of safe havens, much of our present strategy in the War on Terror is focused toward their elimination. Denying terrorists safe haven therefore demands a regional response as a
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matter of priority. For this reason, building regional partnerships is one foundation of our counterterrorism strategy. We are helping partner countries fight terror. We are joining with key regional countries, working together to not only take the fight to the enemy, but also to combat the ideology of hatred that uses terror as a weapon. We must work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. There are some examples of success against enemy safe haven. Colombia now boasts police forces in all 1,098 municipalities throughout the country, and is trying to work with bordering countries to combat the FARC. With U.S. Government assistance, the Philippine Government now has increasing control of the island of Basilan and is beginning to create stability on the island of Jolo, both areas of operation for Jemaah Islamiya and the Abu Sayyaf Group. Algerian forces have reduced the GSPC strongholds in Algeria to small, isolated pockets. Starting in 2004, Pakistan has continued its effort to wrestle the Federally Administered Tribal Areas from al-Qaeda influence, but this will be a difficult task. Enemy safe havens also include cyberspace. Terrorists often respond to our collective success in closing physical safe havens by fleeing to cyberspace where they seek a new type of safe haven. Harnessing the Internet’s potential for speed, security, and global linkage, terrorists increase their ability to conduct some of the activities that once required physical safe haven. They not only use cyberspace to communicate, but also to collect intelligence, disseminate propaganda, recruit operatives, build organizations, fundraise, plan, and even train. There are several thousand radical or extremist websites worldwide, many of which disseminate a mixture of fact and propaganda. Countering the messages that terrorists propagate cannot be done quickly or easily. It must become part of a long-term strategy that will demand concerted action at all levels. Current CT Initiatives Our strategy to defeat terrorists is structured at multiple levels—a global campaign to counter violent extremism; a series of regional collaborative efforts to deny terrorists safe haven; and numerous bilateral security and development assistance programs designed to build partner CT capabilities, as well as liberal institutions that support the rule of law, and address political and economic injustice. This strategy is aimed to enhance our partners’ capacity to counter the terrorist threat and address conditions that terrorists exploit. We work with or through partners at every level (both bilaterally and multilaterally), whenever possible. To implement this strategy, U.S. Ambassadors, as the President’s personal representatives abroad, lead interagency Country Teams that recommend strategies using all instruments of U.S. statecraft to help host nations understand the threat, and strengthen their political will and capacity to counter it.
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Our strategy is aimed over the long-term. Over time, our global and regional operations will reduce the enemy’s capacity to harm us and our partners, while local security and development assistance will build our partners’ capacity. Once partner capacity exceeds threat, the need for close U.S. engagement and support will diminish, terrorist movements will fracture and implode, and the threat will be reduced to proportions that our partners can manage for themselves over the long term. Examples of such strategies include the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI), the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), and the Regional Strategic Initiative (RSI). The TSCTI is a multi-faceted, multi-year strategy aimed at defeating terrorist organizations by strengthening regional counterterrorism capabilities, enhancing and institutionalizing cooperation among that region’s security forces, promoting democratic governance, discrediting terrorist ideology, and reinforcing bilateral military ties with the United States. The MEPI is a presidential initiative that was launched in 2002 so that democracy can spread, education can thrive, economies can grow, and women can be empowered in the Middle East. The Initiative is a partnership that works closely with academic institutions, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations in the Arab world with the goal of building a vibrant civil society so reform can flourish. As such, both the TSCTI and MEPI are examples of ‘‘home-grown, partner-led’’ initiatives. The third example of one of our long-term, interagency CT strategies is the RSI. My office has worked to develop this program which is designed to establish flexible regional networks of interconnected Country Teams. We are working with Ambassadors and interagency representatives in key terrorist theaters of operation to assess the threat and devise collaborative strategies, actionable initiatives and policy recommendations. The RSI is a key tool in promoting cooperation between our partners in the War on Terror—between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, for example, as they deal with terrorist transit across the Sulawesi Sea; or among Iraq’s neighbors working to cut off the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq. To date, several RSI strategy sessions have been held. These include strategy sessions in Southeast Asia, among Iraq’s neighbors, and most recently in the Horn of Africa. More are scheduled in the coming months. These sessions are chaired by Ambassadors, with Washington interagency representatives in attendance. The sessions focus on developing a common, shared diagnosis of the strategic situation in a region … Effectiveness of USG CT Approach The War on Terror is an enormous effort across varied geographical regions and a multiplicity of programs, with numerous partners. In measuring its effectiveness, we must focus on how our efforts affect the enemy rather than focusing solely on the scale and efficiency of our inputs. These inputs have improved dramatically in efficiency and coordination across the whole of government since the war began—but success demands that we translate this improved performance into an improved effect on the enemy.
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At the global level, al-Qaeda leaders are less and less able to offer practical support and leadership to their affiliated networks, because of the need to remain constantly on the run and in hiding. They increasingly focus on propaganda efforts to inspire their followers. But bin Ladin’s statement directly admitting responsibility for the 9/11 attacks shook many potential supporters, who had been convinced by conspiracy theories and the lies of terrorist supporters that they had been unjustly framed for the attacks. Bin Ladin’s own words have undermined him. We see some progress in Iraq, where a new, sovereign government is taking shape. Here, terrorists have suffered significant damage. The most recent example is the death of Zarqawi. Zarqawi was the most important al-Qaeda terrorist in Iraq, responsible for a gruesome campaign of hate, violence, and intolerance that included beheadings, bombing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Jordan and for targeting Americans and members of the international community. But most importantly, he was a key promoter of sectarian conflict and communal violence between Iraqis of the Sunni and Shia communities. Many challenges remain in Iraq, but his death may afford us and our Iraqi partners more time and space to address the social-political-economic conditions that the enemies of Iraq seek to exploit. In the Horn of Africa, terrorists continue to exploit poor governance, lack of basic societal infrastructure, and the failed state of Somalia. The fight against terrorism is inseparable from the need to address the underlying conditions, as well as targeting terrorists themselves. We continue to work with partners across the region to help local people build a better future for themselves, improve governance and rid themselves of the terrorists who prey on them. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, terrorist-affiliated insurgents such as the Taliban are seeking to spread their influence into settled districts and undermine government efforts to improve administration and meet people’s basic needs. They seek to exploit the changeover of forces in Afghanistan and draw on local grievances to build alliances between terrorists and insurgents. But our partner governments remain committed to the struggle, and we must help them. Closer to home, Canada has proven a key partner in the war against terror, recently disrupting a major extremist plot. Like the U.S. and other open, democratic societies, Canada faces challenges from those who seek to exploit its freedoms. While the emergence of the extremists behind this plot is worrisome, Canada’s security forces detected and disrupted this plot with world-class professionalism. We continue to work closely with Canada in an enormous range of counter-terrorism programs. Role of Regional and Multilateral Partnerships. Our work with regional and multilateral partnerships is important to achieve U.S. Government counterterrorism goals. The United States finds strength in numbers and cannot accomplish these goals alone. Further, by working through international partners we can provide CT assistance in certain parts of the globe that is politically more palatable than if we provided it bilaterally. Examples of progress with regional partnerships include the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE) and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) …
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Likewise, we have had success in working with multilateral organizations. In 2005, we adopted two resolutions in the UN Security Council aimed at counterterrorism. The first, resolution 1617, strengthened the current sanctions regime against the Taliban, bin Ladin and al-Qaeda and their associates, and endorsed the Financial Action Task Force standards for combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The second, resolution 1624, addressed incitement to terrorism and related matters. In addition, we continued to work through the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee to impose binding financial, travel, and arms/munitions sanctions on entities and individuals associated with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and bin Ladin. We also worked within the UN General Assembly to ensure the Outcome Document, issued at the end of the high-level plenary meeting of the 60th General Assembly, contained a clear and unqualified condemnation of terrorism ‘‘in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever, and for whatever purposes,’’ and set objectives for UN actions to counter terrorism. Conclusion As I survey the changing face of terror, I draw three conclusions. First, we must maintain flexibility in our approach as the enemy continues to evolve. In doing so, we must measure counterterrorism success in the broadest perspective. Tactical and operational counterterrorism battles will be won and lost, but we wage these battles in a global war within a strategic context. We must fight the enemy with precise, calibrated efforts that will deny the enemy its leadership, its safe havens, and its financial and criminal networks of support. Second, we must replace an ideology of hatred with an ideology of hope. Over the long term, our most important task in the War on Terror is not the ‘‘destructive’’ task of eradicating enemy networks, but the ‘‘constructive’’ task of building legitimacy, good governance, trust, prosperity, tolerance, and the rule of law. Social and governmental systems that are characterized by choices, transparent governance, economic opportunities and personal freedoms are keys to victory. Ignoring human development is not an option. It is imperative that we encourage and nurture democratization. When a lack of freedom destroys hope, individuals sometimes feel they are justified to lash out in rage and frustration at those they believe responsible for their plight. In fact, no cause, no grievance can justify the murder of innocent people. Public diplomacy programs that encourage exchanges of ideas and seek to develop regional and local programming to reject violence and hate, and instead encourage tolerance and moderation are critical. Third, the United States cannot fight counterterrorism alone. We must use all tools of statecraft in cooperation with our growing network of partners, to construct enduring solutions that transcend violence. Because of our collective efforts and our interdependent strength, we will win this fight. Our citizens and global partners expect no less. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/68608.htm
12 Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘A New Kind of War,’’ Published in the New York Times, September 27, 2001 WASHINGTON—President Bush is rallying the nation for a war against terrorism’s attack on our way of life. Some believe the first casualty of any war is the truth. But in this war, the first victory must be to tell the truth. And the truth is, this will be a war like none other our nation has faced. Indeed, it is easier to describe what lies ahead by talking about what it is not rather than what it is. This war will not be waged by a grand alliance united for the single purpose of defeating an axis of hostile powers. Instead, it will involve floating coalitions of countries, which may change and evolve. Countries will have different roles and contribute in different ways. Some will provide diplomatic support, others financial, still others logistical or military. Some will help us publicly, while others, because of their circumstances, may help us privately and secretly. In this war, the mission will define the coalition—not the other way around. We understand that countries we consider our friends may help with certain efforts or be silent on others, while other actions we take may depend on the involvement of countries we have considered less than friendly. In this context, the decision by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia—friends of the United States—to break ties with the Taliban is an important early success of this campaign, but should not suggest they will be a part of every action we may contemplate. This war will not necessarily be one in which we pore over military targets and mass forces to seize those targets. Instead, military force will likely be one of many tools we use to stop individuals, groups and countries that engage in terrorism. Our response may include firing cruise missiles into military targets somewhere in the world; we are just as likely to engage in electronic combat to track and stop investments moving through offshore banking centers. The uniforms of this conflict will be bankers’ pinstripes and programmers’ grunge just as assuredly as desert camouflage.
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This is not a war against an individual, a group, a religion or a country. Rather, our opponent is a global network of terrorist organizations and their state sponsors, committed to denying free people the opportunity to live as they choose. While we may engage militarily against foreign governments that sponsor terrorism, we may also seek to make allies of the people those governments suppress. Even the vocabulary of this war will be different. When we ‘‘invade the enemy’s territory,’’ we may well be invading his cyberspace. There may not be as many beachheads stormed as opportunities denied. Forget about ‘‘exit strategies’’; we’re looking at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines. We have no fixed rules about how to deploy our troops; we’ll instead establish guidelines to determine whether military force is the best way to achieve a given objective. The public may see some dramatic military engagements that produce no apparent victory, or may be unaware of other actions that lead to major victories. ‘‘Battles’’ will be fought by customs officers stopping suspicious persons at our borders and diplomats securing cooperation against money laundering. But if this is a different kind of war, one thing is unchanged: America remains indomitable. Our victory will come with Americans living their lives day by day, going to work, raising their children and building their dreams as they always have—a free and great people. SOURCE: http://www.dod.gov/speeches/2001/s20010927-secdef.html
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘Beyond Nation Building,’’ Remarks at the 11th Annual Salute to Freedom, Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, New York, New York, February 14, 2003 … after the September 11th attacks we fought back in Afghanistan. We also made clear that America was not interested in conquest or colonization. Today we’re helping the Afghan people rebuild from the rubble of war, establish institutions of government. That indeed is the American way. In a way it’s ironic that the terrorists really attacked us of who we are, a free people, yet the result of their attacks was the liberation of the Afghan people. Before September 11th Afghans lived in fear. The freedoms we enjoy were for them but a distant dream. Today the Afghan people are free. Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for terrorists. It has a transitional government with a popular mandate. Girls and boys are back in school. And well over one million refugees have returned to their homes. They’re voting with their feet and making a conscious decision and judgment that what’s taking place in that country is going to work. This is a remarkable transformation. Tonight as we gather on this ship to celebrate the progress of human freedom—let me speak about how that transformation came about. The folks that made progress possible in Afghanistan and why it’s so important not just for the future of warfare but for the future of international efforts to help struggling nations recover and more, regain self reliance.
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From the outset of the war our guiding principle has been that Afghanistan belongs to the Afghans. The United States does not aspire to own it or run it. This shaped how we approached the military campaign. General Franks would not send a massive invasion and occupation force as the Russians had. Instead he—The Soviets had. Instead he keeps the coalition footprint modest. He adapted a strategy of teaming with local Afghan forces that opposed the Taliban. And the careful use of precision-guided weapons helped ensure that there were fewer civilian casualties in this war than perhaps in any war in modern history. As a result we did not alienate the Afghan people. Not only did we make ever effort to avoid civilian deaths, we worked hard to save civilian lives. Coalition aircrews dropped more than 2.4 million humanitarian daily rations to Afghan villages, reinforcing the message that we were coming not as a force of occupation but as a force of liberation. These principles which brought success in war are now guiding our efforts to shape the peace. Afghanistan belongs to the Afghans. The objective is not to engage in what some call nation building. Rather it’s to try to help the Afghans so that they can build their own nation. This is an important distinction. In some nation building exercises well-intentioned foreigners arrive on the scene, look at the problems and say let’s fix it. This is well motivated to be sure, but it can really be a disservice in some instances because when foreigners come in with international solutions to local problems, if not very careful they can create a dependency. A long-term foreign presence in a country can be unnatural. This has happened in several places with large foreign presence. The economies remained unreformed and distorted to some extent. Educated young people can make more money as drivers for foreign workers than as doctors and civil servants. Despite good intentions and the fine work of humanitarian workers individually, there can be unintended adverse side effects. For example in East Timor, which is one of the poorest countries in Asia, the average income is about a dollar a day yet the capital of East Timor is now one of the most expensive cities in Asia. Local restaurants are out of reach for most of the people. They cater to international workers who have salaries that are some 200 times the average local wage. In the city’s main supermarkets prices are reportedly on a part with London and New York. Our goal in Afghanistan is to try and not create a culture of dependence but rather to promote [inaudible]. Long-term stability comes not from the presence of foreign forces but from the development of functioning local institutions. That’s why in the area of security we have been helping to train for example the Afghan National Army. Our coalition partners have been training the police. And the goal is so that Afghans over time can take full responsibility for their own security and stability rather than having to depend on foreign forces versus for a sustained period. Our challenge in the period ahead is to put similar principles to work and guide our efforts to aid Afghan reconstruction. The United States, interestingly, has already provided some $850 million for that task with another $3.3 billion authorized over the next several years.
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It’s a sizeable investment and we need more help from the international community. This year we are embarked on a major international effort to bolster a new Afghan government. Our goal is to begin moving toward an end state in which the Afghan government is sufficiently established so they can provide security and stability for the country. Some ask what lessons our experience in Afghanistan might offer for the possibility of a post-Saddam Iraq. It has a nice ring, doesn’t it? A post-Saddam Iraq. As you know, the President has not made any decision with respect to the use of force in Iraq, but if he were to do so that principle would hold true. Iraq belongs to the Iraqis and we do not aspire to own it or run it. We hope to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and to help liberate the Iraqi people from oppression. If the United States were to lead an international coalition in Iraq—and let there be no doubt it would be a very large one—it would be guided by two commitments. Stay as long as necessary, and to leave as soon as possible. We would work with our partners as we are doing in Afghanistan to help the Iraqi people establish a new government that would govern a single country, that would not have weapons of mass destruction, that would not be a threat to its neighbors. And that would respect the rights of its diverse populations and the aspirations of all the Iraqi people to live in freedom and to have a voice in their government. The goal would not be to impose an American style template on Iraq, but rather to create conditions where Iraqis can form a government in their own unique way just as the Afghans did with the Loya Jurga which produced a representative government that is uniquely Afghan. This is not to underestimate the challenge that the coalition would face. Iraq has several advantages over Afghanistan. One is time. The effort in Afghanistan had to be planned and executed in a matter of weeks after September 11th. With Iraq, by contrast, there has been time to prepare. We have set up a Post War Planning Office to think through problems and coordinate the efforts of coalition countries and U.S. government agencies. General Franks in an interagency process has been working hard on this for many months. A second advantage is resources. Afghanistan is a poor country that’s been brutalized by continuous war—civil war and occupation. Iraq has a solid infrastructure with working networks of roads and [resources] and it has oil to help give free Iraq the means to get on its feet. But let me be clear, whatever happens elsewhere in the world we will not abandon Afghanistan. Afghanistan remains an important ally, not just in the war against terrorism but in that larger struggle for freedom and moderation in the Muslim world. If we succeed, Afghans will take hold of their country, develop their institutions of self governance, reclaim their place as a responsible member of the international community. Such a transformation we believe is possible because of the courage and sacrifice of many brave Americans who have served in Afghanistan and who serve there today. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=337
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Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Testimony Prepared for Delivery to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Washington, D.C., March 23, 2004 … [T]his Commission has an important opportunity. Those in government are, of necessity, focused on dozens of issues. Commissions, however, can step back and focus on one thing, get it right, and provide insights that can be of great value. You have been asked to connect the dots—after the fact—to examine events leading up to September 11th, and consider whether events of that day might have been prevented—and, what lessons, if any, might be taken from that experience to prevent future dangers. It isn’t easy, even after the fact. Going through those documents and briefings, and conducting all those interviews and hearings, and trying to piece it all together and connect the dots, is difficult. Yet the challenge facing our country before September 11th and still today is vastly more difficult: our task was then and is today to connect the dots—not after the fact, but before the fact—to try to stop an attack before it happens. And that task must be done without the benefit of hindsight, hearings, briefings, interviews, or testimony. Another attack against our people will be attempted. We do not know where, or when, or by what technique. It could be in weeks, months, or years—but it will happen. That reality drives those of us in positions of responsibility in government to ask the tough question: when that attack is attempted, what will we wish we had done—today and everyday—before an attack—to prepare for, to mitigate, or if humanly possible, to prevent it? The Commission might ask a similar question: when that next attack is attempted, what will you wish you had advised? What will you wish you had recommended our nation do to prepare for, and, if possible, to prevent an attack? What have you learned that can inform our efforts, and help us to better understand surprise, to anticipate threats, and get better arranged to deal with them? The unfamiliar challenges of the global war on terror are particularly tough for several reasons: First, it is tough because Western armed forces have been organized, trained and equipped to fight competing armies, navies and air forces—not to conduct man-hunts for terrorists. It is tough because safeguarding the privacy of individuals makes it hard to satisfy the requirement to know who or what is coming across our borders or moving money through financial networks. It is tough because globalization has created easy access to dual-use technology, fiber optics, and the knowledge and materials to build increasingly lethal weapons. Your Commission can help by offering your considered opinions on a number of critical questions: How to strike the right balance between privacy and security?
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How to adjust thinking about dealing with terrorism as a problem of national security vs. law enforcement? How to address peacetime constraints in a way to reflect that we are a nation at war—albeit a new and different war. I spent time, once the crisis passed, asking the questions posed to this Commission: What, if anything, could have been done to prevent it? And, if something like this were to happen again, have we—today—done everything possible to prevent it? First, I must say, I know of no intelligence during the roughly six plus months leading up to September 11th that indicated terrorists intended to hijack commercial airliners and fly them into the Pentagon or the World Trade Towers. If we had had such information, we could have acted on it—as we did during the spike in intelligence chatter during the summer of 2001, when we had information that led us to move ships out of harbors in the Gulf region. Further, I believe that the actions taken since September 11th in the global war on terror, and the international coalition assembled to fight that war, would have been impossible to achieve before the September 11th attacks. Think about it: after September 11th, the President made the decision not simply to launch cruise missile strikes as the U.S. had previously tried. Rather, he decided to deal decisively with the terrorist network responsible for the attack—and to hold not only the perpetrators to account, but also the regime that had harbored, aided, and supported them as they trained, planned, and executed their attacks. The President rallied the world, and formed what is today a 90-nation coalition to wage the global war on terrorist networks. He sent U.S. and Coalition forces—air, sea, and ground—to attack Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban regime, and destroy that al-Qaeda stronghold. These were bold steps—and today, in light of September 11th, no one questions those actions. Today, I suspect most would support a pre-emptive action to deal with such a threat, if it had been possible to see it coming. Today, our remarkable military success in Afghanistan is largely taken for granted, as is the achievement in bringing together countries like Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, and Oman into a 90-nation coalition. But imagine for a moment that we were back before September 11, 2001. Imagine that a U.S. President had looked at the information then available, and gone before the Congress and the world, and said: ‘‘We need to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist network,’’ based on what little was known before September 11th. How many countries would have joined in a coalition? Many? Any? Not likely. We likely would have heard objections to ‘‘pre-emption’’ similar to those voiced before the Coalition launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. We would have been asked: Where is the ‘‘smoking gun?’’ How can we attack Afghanistan when it was al-Qaeda that attacked us? Aren’t North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or Libya more immediate threats than Afghanistan?
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Wouldn’t U.S. intervention enrage the Muslim world and increase support for the terrorists? Wouldn’t the U.S. get bogged down in an expensive, dangerous long-term military occupation? Wouldn’t we open ourselves to the risk that other rogue regimes might take advantage of the fact that the U.S. is tied up in Afghanistan to invade neighbors or cause other mischief? Won’t launching a pre-emptive strike simply provoke more terrorist attacks against the U.S.? Those are essentially objections that were raised against military action in Iraq. And they were voiced after September 11th, in a nation that already had experienced the loss of 3,000 innocent men, women and children to a surprise attack. Imagine the outcry any U.S. President would have faced had he proposed what would have been labeled a pre-emptive war in Afghanistan before the experience of September 11th. Unfortunately, history shows that it can take a tragedy like September 11th to awaken the world to new threats—and to the need for action—and even then there are different views. II. Preparing for an Era of Surprise: January 20, 2001 – September 10, 2001 President Bush came to office with instructions to his Administration to prepare for the new threats of the 21st century. The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole on October 12, 2000 was seen both as evidence of the al-Qaeda threat and the need to adjust U.S. policy. There had been no response to the Cole bombing. I have had an interest in terrorism since my experience in Lebanon in the 1980s, during my service as Middle East Envoy for President Reagan. The more one studies terrorism, the more one becomes convinced that the approach to fighting it that had evolved over several decades wasn’t working. That strategy was essentially to treat terrorism as a matter of domestic security; to combat it through national and international law enforcement techniques; and to try to take defensive measures against terrorist attacks. From the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, to the first World Trade Center attack, to the Embassy bombings in East Africa, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole—that was the pattern. Reasonable people have to conclude that the value of that approach had diminished over the years. It had become increasingly clear that we could no longer afford to treat terrorism as a manageable evil—that we needed an approach that treated terrorism more like fascism—as an evil that needed to be not contained, but fought and eliminated. When this Administration came into office, the President asked the NSC to begin preparing a new counter-terrorism strategy. His instructions were to develop a strategy not simply to contain terrorism, but to deal with it more aggressively—not to reduce the threat posed by al-Qaeda, but to eliminate the al-Qaeda terrorist network. A more comprehensive approach required a review not only of U.S. counter-terrorism policy, but also U.S. policies with regard to other countries,
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some of which had not previously been at the center of U.S. policy. It was a big task. Dr. Rice has stated she asked the National Security Council staff in her first week in office for a new Presidential initiative on al-Qaeda. The staff conducted an overall review of al-Qaeda policy. In early March, the staff was directed to craft a more aggressive strategy aimed at eliminating the al-Qaeda threat. The first draft of that new strategy, in the form of a Presidential directive, was circulated by the NSC staff on June 7, 2001 and I am told some five more meetings were held that summer at the Deputy Secretary level to address the policy questions involved, such as relating an aggressive strategy against the Taliban to U.S.-Pakistan relations. By the first week of September, this process had arrived at a strategy that was presented to Principals and later became National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD)-9. The objectives of the new strategy were: ¥ To eliminate the al-Qaeda network; ¥ To use all elements of national power to do so—diplomatic, military, economic, intelligence, information and law enforcement; ¥ To eliminate sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and related terrorist networks—and if diplomatic efforts to do so failed, to consider additional measures.
The essence of this strategy was contained in NSPD-9. It was the first major substantive national security decision directive issued by this Administration. It was presented for decision by principals on September 4, 2001— 7 days before September 11th. The directive was signed by the President, with minor changes, and a preamble to reflect the events of 9/11, on October 25, 2001. While this review of counter-terrorism policy was taking place, the Department of Defense was developing a review of U.S. defense strategy. When President Bush took office, he asked us to transform the Defense Department, and arrange the U.S. Armed Forces for the new threats of the 21st century, which he knew would be notably different from 20th century threats that were familiar, but unlikely. … It was therefore likely that potential adversaries would: ‘‘Look for so-called asymmetrical responses … [everything] from terrorism through cyber attacks, to information warfare, to cruise missiles, to shortrange ballistic missiles, to longer range ballistic missiles, and weapons of mass destruction.’’ The problem we faced was that, for most of the 20th century, the U.S. Armed Forces had been organized, trained and equipped to fight opposing armies, navies and air forces. While we need to maintain the capability to fight traditional wars, we also knew that the likely threats in the 21st century would require us to conduct much different kinds of military operations. Even traditional adversaries would be likely to threaten us in unconventional or asymmetric ways. Moreover, we knew we would increasingly face threats from non-traditional adversaries, such as terrorist networks, and that we needed to re-arrange ourselves to be able to deter and dissuade such attacks—and to defeat such adversaries if they did attack. At the same time, the challenges facing the intelligence community were growing more complex. During my confirmation hearings, I was asked what
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one thing would keep me awake at night? I answered, without hesitation: ‘‘intelligence.’’ The ability of the intelligence community to monitor the rapidly growing volume of data, sort it, analyze it, and then alert policymakers to threats to the U.S. and its interests, is growing more difficult by the year. Their challenge is compounded by the fact that the ability of the intelligence community to learn the secrets of those who wish us harm, and to convey those secrets to policy-makers in confidence, continues to be compromised by frequent leaks and unauthorized disclosures. Hardly a day goes by when the media doesn’t carry a story that reveals classified information. This aids our enemies in significant ways. As part of our complicated world, adversaries of the U.S. have chosen terrorism as the preferred instrument to force free nations to submit to their agendas by inflicting death on their innocent citizens. The Congressionally required Quadrennial Defense Review, completed just days before the 9/11 attacks, laid out the transformation objectives of the Department of Defense. In it, we identified as our first priority, the defense of the territory and people of the United States against a broad range of asymmetric threats—homeland defense. And we made the important decision to move the Department from a ‘‘threat-based’’ to a ‘‘capabilities-based’’ approach to defense planning—an approach that focuses not simply on who might threaten us, or where, or when, but more on how we might be threatened, and what portfolio of capabilities we will need to deter and defend against those new threats. … We directed the Department to accelerate work on precision strike weapons, and various intelligence capabilities designed to help us deny enemies sanctuary. … I found that many of the U.S. war plans were more than two years old. In some cases the assumptions on which they had been built had not been adjusted for three or four years. In May of 2001, we began the process of modernizing the way the Department prepares its war plans—reducing the time to develop plans, increasing the frequency with which they would be updated, and structuring the plans to be more flexible and adaptable to the continuing changes in the security environment. IV. What Steps Have Been Taken Since 9/11 In the aftermath of 9/11, the Department of Defense has pursued two tracks simultaneously: We have prosecuted the global war on terror in concert with other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government; and We have continued and, where possible, accelerated, the effort to transform the Department to be able to meet and defeat the threats of the 21st century. We are having success on both fronts. Our efforts have been driven by the tough question: If another attack were to occur 6 months from today, what would we wish we had done from today and each of the coming days to deter, defeat, or to prepare for it? We have done a great deal. We have revised the Unified Command Plan twice since 9/11 and are preparing a third revision. Among other things, we have established:
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The Northern Command—an entirely new command dedicated to defending the homeland; Working with Congress, the Department of Homeland Security was established, and arrangements for cooperation between it and the Defense Department were established in the event of a new terrorist attack. After receiving authority from Congress, we established a new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, with responsibility for interaction with the new Department of Homeland Security; We also established an Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to help ensure that the Department manages intelligence assets in a manner that best supports the global war on terror and the responsibilities of the Director of Central Intelligence; The intelligence community has established a new Terrorist Threat Intelligence Center (or TTIC)—a multi-agency joint venture designed to help the intelligence, law enforcement, and defense communities better integrate terrorist threat-related information and analysis; And government has improved relationships between and among our intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies around the world. That cooperation is delivering results, including: The The The The
uncovering of the A.Q. Kahn nuclear trading network; exposure and dismantling of Libya’s WMD programs; rooting out of rings that finance terrorism; and prevention of planned terrorist attacks.
We have strengthened existing defense intelligence counter-terrorism capabilities by establishing the new Joint Integrated Task Force—Counter-Terrorism (JITF-CT) under the Defense Intelligence Agency—an intelligence fusion center to support the global war on terror focused on providing strategic and tactical warning, exposing and exploiting terrorist vulnerabilities, and preventing terrorists and their sponsors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction; With our NATO Allies, we have created a new NATO Response Force to give the Alliance the kind of rapid reaction capability that, had it existed on September 11th, could have enabled NATO to contribute to combat operations in Afghanistan in a timely manner; The demands presented by the global war on terror have led to our establishing new strategic relationships that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago—including the nations of Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Horn of Africa, as well as South Asia; and In addition, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom have sent a clear message to the world’s terrorist states: harboring terrorists and the pursuit of weapons of mass murder carries with it unpleasant costs. By contrast, leaders who abandon the support of terrorism and the pursuit of those weapons can find an open path to better relations with the world’s free nations. Not long ago, we marked the 20th anniversary of another terrorist attack: the suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut—a blast that killed more than 240 Americans. Soon after that attack, President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz asked me to serve as Presidential Envoy for the Middle East. That experience taught me lessons about the
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nature of terrorism that are relevant today as we prosecute the global war on terror. After the attack, one seemingly logical response was to put cement barricades around buildings to prevent more truck bombings. But the terrorists quickly figured out how to get around those barricades: they began lobbing rocket-propelled grenades over the cement barriers. The reaction was to hunker down even more. We started seeing buildings along the Corniche, the boardwalk that runs along the sea in Beirut, Lebanon, draped with a metal mesh, so that when rocket-propelled grenades hit the mesh, they would bounce off, doing little damage. It worked, only briefly. And the terrorists again adapted. They watched the comings and goings of embassy personnel and began hitting soft targets—killing people on their way to and from work. So for every defense that was put up, first barricades, then wire mesh over buildings, the terrorists moved to another avenue of attack. Not long after that experience—in 1984—I spoke to the Association of the United States Army, the text of which I have submitted with my testimony today. I noted that terrorists had learned important lessons. They had learned that terrorism: ‘‘is a great equalizer, a force multiplier. It is cheap, deniable, yields substantial results, is low risk, and … [often] without penalty.’’ They had learned that ‘‘[a] single attack … by influencing public opinion and morale, can alter the behavior of great nations …’’ Moreover, I said, free people had learned lessons as well—that terrorists have a sizable advantage: ‘‘Terrorist attacks can take place at any time, [in] any place, using any technique,’’ and ‘‘regrettably, it is not possible to defend every potential target, in every place, at all times, against every form of attack.’’ I said that: ‘‘Terrorism is a form of warfare, and must be treated as such. As with other forms of conflict, weakness invites aggression. Simply standing in a defensive position, absorbing blows, is not enough. Terrorism must be deterred.’’ That was 20 years ago. But the lessons apply to our circumstance today. When our nation was attacked on September 11th, the President recognized that what had happened was an act of war and must be treated as such—not as a law enforcement matter. He knew that weakness would only invite aggression; and that the only way to defeat the terrorists was to take the war to them—to go after them where they live and plan and hide, and to make clear to states that sponsor and harbor them that such actions will have consequences. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=331
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Remarks to the Newspaper Association of America/American Society of Newspaper Editors, J.W. Marriott Hotel, Washington, D.C., April 22, 2004 EXCERPTED Q. You have done an admirable job in changing our Army to fit present-day needs and circumstances. My question: How are you satisfied or not satisfied with the progress in the current war on terrorism and the needs to come?
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SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, the Army is making significant progress, there is no question about it. It, over a period of years, has been attempting to look forward and transform itself and move from an army that was basically oriented towards static defense in the Cold War period to one that is more agile and quicker on its feet, lighter, and more readily deployable. In terms of being satisfied, I guess I’m almost genetically impatient. I always like things to go faster. And we’ve got a terrific team of people working on these problems. They are moving mountains literally; they’re doing so many different things at once. Q. Mr. Secretary. I’d like to ask you about the future of training of our armed forces under the battles we now find themselves fighting. It appears to me that we did a great job of training to use modern weapons, and that was the reason why we conquered Iraq so quickly despite all the predictions of the other side. Now we’re in a different type of situation, where we’re really fighting guerrilla warfare in a modern age. What kind of training is necessary to get our armed forces ready for that type of war? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: When I talk to the combatant commanders, they believe that this is a terribly tough type of conflict, this low-intensity conflict with spikes of a variety of techniques, whether it might be rocket-propelled grenades, it could be improvised explosive devices, it can be ambushes and the like, terrorist attacks, car bombs, that’s a tough set of problems to cope with. They feel, however, that they are trained. Now, not everyone is trained for everything in the military, but the combatant commanders that I talk to believe that—for example, you take the Marines. They have been trained, they believe, for urban warfare and for the kind of problems that they’re facing. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be able to live through that in a perfect way without people being killed or without people being wounded, and the tragedy of the reality we live in is that that’s happening.… But I don’t think that it’s possible to train—A, number one, to train everyone to do everything; nor do I think that the world is static. What we’re seeing is that terrorists are going to school on us, just as we’re going to school on terrorists.… So no matter what is done, a terrorist can always adjust their attack point and look for a vulnerability, look for a seam, which is—which brings me back to what I mentioned earlier. The only way to deal with this problem is to find the terrorists, to find the terrorist networks, to deal with the countries that are harboring terrorists. Because—think of what you do every day. Everything you do is based on trust. It’s based on your employees and your relationships. And you walk outside and you know you’re not going to get shot, for the most part—occasionally it happens in our country. But you have a lot of confidence in your ability to contract with other people. All of—our whole amazingly productive system we have is based on trust. That makes us the most productive country on the face of the earth. It also makes us the most vulnerable. Because what is terrorism? Terrorism’s purpose is to terrorize, it is to make you fearful to the point that you alter your behavior. And to the extent we think we can defend completely, I think we’re wrong. To the extent we think that we can engage in a separate peace with terrorists, I think we’re wrong.
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It is going to require that we develop the skills to stop their financing, to make it difficult for them to raise money; to make it difficult for them to recruit, to find ways to persuade people that are being brought in this intake and trained to become terrorists and go out and kill innocent men, women and children, that we reduce the number of people going in that intake, that we find other ways for them to study something other than killing people—language, mathematics, whatever; some way to provide for their families and make a living. But it is—it is a problem that is the 21st century problem. It is a problem that’s not going to go away fast. It is a problem that we do not want to adjust to by giving up the thing that makes our country so special; that is to say the trust that we have in each other and in our society, and the freedoms we have. So we have to learn to live with this problem and develop the kinds of skills so that we can manage to find and deal with folks that are determined to terrorize us. SOURCE: http://www.dod.gov/speeches/2004/sp20040422-secdef0441.html
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Remarks at the United States Military Academy Commencement, Michie Stadium, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, May 29, 2004 EXCERPTED It is impossible to defend against attacks in every place, at every time, against every conceivable technique. So the only way to prevail in this struggle is to root out the terrorists before they develop still more powerful means to inflict damage on still greater numbers of innocent people. To confront this new challenge, our nation and its military have had to adapt. Since the Cold War ended, we’ve been about the task of refocusing our military to meet the new challenges of this 21st Century. Now that effort has taken on added urgency. Your Army has been doing a truly outstanding job under the leadership of Les Brownlee and Pete Schoomaker. It’s adapting to deal with asymmetrical threats, counter-terrorism, peacemaking, peacekeeping, postwar reconstruction and stability operations, and new special operations assignments. The mindset is expeditionary, emphasizing a return to that ‘‘Warrior Ethos’’—mission first, never accepting defeat, and never leaving a fallen comrade. After the Cold War, U.S. forces remained essentially where they were, in a static defense posture, arranged to defend against a Soviet Empire that no longer exists. Today, dangers come from enemies that are unpredictable, who can strike around the globe with little or no warning. So we’ve fashioned a set of concepts to help guide America’s responsibilities in this new world, working in close consultation with our allies and with the Congress. You’ll be hearing more about this in the coming months. But let me set out some priorities: ¥ Foremost is strengthening our partnerships with our existing allies and working with new ones; ¥ Developing greater flexibility to deal with the unexpected;
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¥ Focusing on more rapidly deployable capabilities, rather than simply presence or mass; ¥ And working within and across regions. ¥ And I would add, having our forces where they are wanted. SOURCE: http://www.dod.gov/speeches/2004/sp20040529-secdef0962.html
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘Using Media to Fight Terror,’’ Council on Foreign Relations, New York, New York, February 17, 2006 AS DELIVERED We are meeting today in what is the beginning of the sixth year in which our nation has been engaged in what promises to be a long struggle against an enemy that in many ways is unlike any our country has ever faced. And in this war, some of the most critical battles may not be fought in the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq, but in the newsrooms in places like New York and London and Cairo and elsewhere. Consider this statement, quote: ‘‘More than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of Muslims.’’ The speaker was not some modern-day image consultant in a public relations firm here in New York City. It was Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri. I mention this because I want to talk today about something that at first might seem obvious—but really isn’t obvious. Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but for the most part we—our country—our government, has not adapted. Consider that the violent extremists have established ‘‘media relations committees’’—these are terrorists and they have media relations committees that meet and talk about strategy, not with bullets but with words. They’ve proven to be highly successful at manipulating the opinion elites of the world. They plan and design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communication to intimidate and break the collective will of free people. They know that communications transcend borders—and that a single news story, handled skillfully, can be as damaging to our cause and helpful to theirs, as any other method of military attack. And they’re doing it. They’re able to act quickly. They have relatively few people. They have modest resources compared to the vast—and expensive—bureaucracies of western governments. Our federal government is really only beginning to adapt our operations to the 21st Century. For the most part, the U.S. Government still functions as a ‘‘five and dime’’ store in an E-Bay world. Today we’re engaged in the first war in history—unconventional and irregular as it may be—in an era of: ¥ E-mails; ¥ Blogs,
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Cell phones, Blackberrys, Instant Messaging, Digital cameras, A global Internet with no inhibitions, Hand-held video cameras, Talk radio, 24-hour news broadcasts, Satellite television.
There’s never been a war fought in this environment before. I just came back from Tunisia and Algeria and Morocco. In Tunis the largest newspaper, I’m told, has a circulation of about 50,000. It’s a country of 10 million people. But even in the poorest neighborhoods are satellite dishes on building after building after building. A few years ago in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi could have his tongue cut out if he was found in possession of a satellite dish or used the Internet without government approval. Today, satellite dishes are ubiquitous in that country as well. Regrettably, many of the news channels being watched through these dishes are extremely hostile to the West. The growing number of media outlets in many parts of the world still have relatively immature standards and practices that too often serve to inflame and distort—rather than to explain and inform. And while al Qaeda and extremist movements have utilized this forum for many years, and have successfully further poisoned the Muslim’s public view of the West, we in the government have barely begun to compete in reaching their audiences. In this environment, the old adage that ‘‘A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on’’ becomes doubly true with today’s technologies. We saw this with the false allegations of the desecration of the Koran last year. Once it was published in a weekly news magazine, it was posted on websites, sent in e-mails, repeated on satellite television, radio stations for days, before the facts could be discovered. And, in those first days, the false story incited anti-American riots in Pakistan and elsewhere. Human beings were killed in the those riots. Once aware of the story, the U.S. military, appropriately and of necessity, took the time needed to try to ensure that they had the facts before responding—having to conduct interviews, pored over countless documents, investigations and log books, and finally determined that the charge was not correct. But in the meantime, some lives had been lost and damage had been done to our country. What complicates the ability to respond quickly is that, unlike our enemies, which propagate lies with impunity—with no penalty whatsoever—our government does not have the luxury of relying on other sources for information—anonymous or otherwise. Our government has to be the source, and we tell the truth. These new realities have placed unprecedented challenges on the members of the press as well. Today’s correspondents are under constant pressure in a
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hypercompetitive media environment to produce exclusives and breaking stories. Daily or weekly deadlines have turned into updates by the hour, even by the minute—to feed a constant news crawl that now appears on most cable channels. And the fact is that the federal government—at the speed at which it operates—doesn’t always make their job much easier. The standard U.S. government public affairs operation was designed primarily to respond to individual requests for information. It tends to be reactive, not proactive—and it still operates for the most part on an eight hour, five- or sixday-a-week basis, while the world events, and our enemies, are operating 24-7, across every time zone. That’s an unacceptable dangerous deficiency. The government is, however, beginning to adapt. In Iraq, for example, the U.S. military command, working closely with the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy, has sought nontraditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of aggressive campaign of disinformation. Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate— for example, the allegations of someone in the military hiring a contractor, and the contractor allegedly paying someone to print a story—a true story— but paying to print a story. For example, the resulting explosion of critical press stories then causes everything, all activity, all initiative, to stop, just frozen. Even worse, it leads to a ‘‘chilling effect’’ for those who are asked to serve in the military public affairs field. The conclusion to be drawn, logically, for anyone in the military who is asked to do something involving public affairs is that there is no tolerance for innovation, much less for human error that could conceivably be seized upon by a press that seems to demand perfection from the government, but does not apply the same standard to the enemy or even sometimes to themselves. Consider for a moment the vast quantity of column inches and hours of television devoted to the allegations of unauthorized detainee mistreatment. Some additional photographs have come out just this week. This, of course, was an event where the policy of the president and the policy of the government was for humane treatment and was against torture.… But weigh the numbers of column inches and hours of television involving that event, for example, against the discovery of Saddam Hussein’s mass graves, which were filled with literally hundreds of thousands of human beings, innocent Iraqis who were killed. That’s the reality of the world in which we must operate, and in which our forces are fighting. The terrorists are trained—we’ve seen the so-called Manchester manual—they’re trained to lie. They’re trained to allege that they’ve been tortured. They’re trained to put out misinformation, and they’re very good at it. Looking ahead, a number of changes are under consideration. First, government at all levels will need to make communications planning a central component of every aspect of this struggle, what will be a long struggle and a difficult one. Despite best efforts, for example, it took many months to put in place an effective communications operation in the post-major-conflict Afghanistan and in Iraq.
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In some cases, military public affairs officials have had little communications training and little, if any, grounding in the importance of timing, and rapid response, and the realities of digital and broadcast media. We’ve become somewhat more adept in these areas, but progress is slow. And importantly, public affairs posts have not proven to be career enhancing in the military. Quite the contrary. Anyone who looks at those careers and recognizes the near-instantaneously public penalty that is imposed on someone in the military who is involved in anything that the media judges instantaneously to be imperfect or improper and that then requires a long time to figure out what actually took place, people are—you know, military people are intelligent, they’ll move away from those careers. We need to get better at: ¥ Engaging experts from both within and outside of government to help communicate; ¥ To rapidly deploying the best military communications capabilities to new theaters of operation; ¥ Developing and executing multifaceted media campaigns—print, radio, television and Internet.
But let there be no doubt—the longer it takes to put a strategic communication framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy and by news informers that most assuredly will not paint an accurate picture of what is actually taking place. There are some signs of modest progress. Within the past year and a half, the U.S. military’s Joint Forces Command has developed a rapidly deployable communication team. They are organized and focused on specific geographical areas of the world. For example, soon after the devastating earthquakes in Pakistan, I had occasion to fly over the areas where entire sides of mountains had collapsed because of the quake, and entire cities and villages were gone and just rubble.… One of these newly fashioned military teams went along with our very sizable military forces into the disaster area. And operating in conjunction with other federal agencies and the U.S. Embassy, they worked directly with the commander who was in charge of the humanitarian effort, there to help focus the attention on the U.S. government’s truly extraordinary commitment to helping the Pakistani people. Public opinion surveys taken by private groups in Pakistan, before and after the earthquake, suggest that public attitudes in that country regarding the United States changed dramatically because of the new awareness by the Pakistani public. Indeed, it was not long before the favorite toy in Pakistan was a small replica of a Chinook helicopter, they were just everywhere in that country—because of the many lives that our helicopters saved, and the mountain of relief supplies that they delivered. The communications team was attached to it and rapidly deployable and needed because, frankly, we were concerned about our troops’ safety. Given the number of people in that country that do not favor the West and the potential difficulties that occurred, we were uncertain as to what the reception would be. The reception over time was terrific.
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Second, government public affairs and public diplomacy efforts are slowly beginning to reorient staffing and schedules and culture to engage the full range of media that are having such an impact today. Our U.S. Central Command, for example, has launched an online communications effort that includes electronic news updates and a links campaign that has resulted in several hundred blogs receiving and publishing CENTCOM content. The U.S. government will have to develop an institutional capability to anticipate and act within the same news cycle. That will require instituting 24-hour press operation centers, elevating Internet operations and other channels of communication to the equal status with the traditional 20th Century press relations. It will result in much less reliance on the traditional print press, just as the publics of the U.S. and the world are relying less on newspapers as their principal source of information. And it will require attracting more experts in these areas from the private sector to government service. This also will likely mean embracing new institutions to engage people across the world. During the Cold War, institutions such as the U.S. Information Agency and Radio Free Europe—just to mention a couple of examples— proved to be valuable instruments for the United States. We need to consider the possibility of new organizations and programs that can serve a similar valuable role in the war on terror in this new century. … I do think we ought to ask ourselves the question: What should a U.S. Information Agency or a Radio Free Europe for the 21st century look like? These are tough questions, and I suggest that some humility is in order. There’s no guidebook for this, there’s no roadmap that says here’s what you ought to do when you get up in the morning, if you’re in the government of the United States. These are tough questions and it’s tough to find the answers for them and to do it right so that we can tell our hard-working folks what to do to meet these challenges. We’re trying to figure it out as we go along—the country is trying to figure it out. … I’ve been commenting on the challenges facing our country—not just our government—but our country—in fighting a war in this new media age. And while the enemy is increasingly skillful at manipulating the media and using the tools of communications to their advantage, it should be noted that we have an advantage as well: and that is, quite simply, that the truth is on our side and ultimately, in my view, truth wins out. I believe with every bone in my body that free people, exposed to sufficient information, will, over time, find their way to right decisions. Throughout the world, advances in technology are forcing a massive information flow that dictators and extremists ultimately will not be able to control. Blogs are rapidly appearing even in countries where the press is still government-controlled. We are fighting a battle where the survival of our free way of life is at stake. And the center of gravity of that struggle is not simply on the battlefields overseas. It’s a test of wills, and it will be won or lost with our publics and with the publics of other nations. We’ll need to do all we can to attract
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supporters to our efforts, and to correct the lies that are being told which so damage our country, and which are repeated and repeated and repeated. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=27
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Admiral Giambastiani, ‘‘U.S. Must Go ‘All the Way’ to Counter Terrorism,’’ Department of Defense News Briefing, The Pentagon, March 23, 2006 … In the years since September 11th, no part of the world has been spared the brutality of the terrorists: London, Madrid, Casablanca, to name a few. Consider some of their acts. In Russia, extremists killed 186 schoolchildren, some as young as 20 months old. In Israel, terrorists hid a grenade under a baby. And in Iraq, according to the mayor of Tall Afar, terrorists placed explosives inside the corpse [sic] of children to kill grieving parents coming to retrieve their bodies. Imagine what the beheaders and the hostage-takers would do, were they to accomplish their goal of establishing a safe haven in Iraq, how a victory for them would aid their cause, their efforts to raise money and their recruiting efforts. It seems to be comforting to some to hope that there might be some way to placate this enemy, that somehow if we acted differently, the violence, the conflict ahead might just go away. But this enemy seeks no armistice with free people. They’ve called America an enemy of God. They have said of Americans and Europeans, quote, ‘‘Their wives will be widowed and their children will be orphaned,’’ unquote, and that, quote, ‘‘jihad against the United States does not stop with its withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula,’’ unquote. The question of our time is whether we face this enemy on their terms or on our terms, on their territory or on our territory, where they are on offense or where they are on defense.… In our 200-plus years, America has learned some important lessons. One is that weakness is provocative—it tempts aggressors; that appeasement is dangerous; and that military strategists and warfighters need to always be prepared for the unforeseen and the unexpected. And surely we can relate to what President Roosevelt said two days after Pearl Harbor. He said, quote, ‘‘We are now in this war. We are all in it all the way. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories, the changing fortunes of war.’’ Today as well, we can prevail only if we are in it all the way. We can, we must, and we will see it through to completion, the mission for which these young Americans and their families have sacrificed, carrying with us the memory of those who have lost their lives in the battle, in the twin towers of the World Trade Center, here in this building where we sit today, or in a quiet field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. ADMIRAL GIAMBASTIANI: I’d like to briefly mention the department’s release tomorrow of the Iraqi perspective project report. This project was conducted by the United States Joint Forces Command Lessons Learned Team. The
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report focuses on the perspective of the senior Iraqi civilian and military leadership of military operations conducted from March through May of 2003. These perspectives were gathered through a series of interviews, as well as extensive review of captured documents. The goal of this effort was to determine how our own coalition operations were viewed and understood by the opposing side, and what insights such analysis offers for future operations. This report provides insights into the nature of Saddam’s regime, the regime’s strategic calculus, operational planning, military effectiveness and execution of the Iraqi defense. This perspective project is assisting the department in developing Operation Iraqi Freedom lessons learned from what we would call a balanced, holistic view of a battlefield cause and effect. Q. Mr. Secretary, I’d like to ask a question about the current situation in Iraq. To what extent do you think the failure of the Iraqi leaders thus far to form a government is adding fuel to the sectarian tensions and perhaps emboldening the insurgents? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, I think I’d reverse it. I think the fact that the government has not yet been formed and the leadership has not quite yet found the arrangements that they’re—that they can comfortably agree to means that the favorable effect that should come from a establishment of a government is being delayed. And the inevitable effect of that is that some of the violence and incidents that are occurring might have ended earlier had they been able to fashion a government at an earlier time. Who knows? Until it’s done, it’s not done. We talk to the folks out there, of course, every day, and they feel that progress is being made, but it hasn’t yet happened. It’s unhelpful. Q. It’s not worsening. It’s not contributing to the violence in any way? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, if one believes, as I do, that a good government, a competent government, a government that’s seen as inclusive and seen as governing from the center, that gets about the task and—of serving the Iraqi people—the 8- or 10- or 12- or whatever million people it was that went out and vote—risked their lives and went out and voted, and started representing the people that went out and voted, and serving the people that went out and voted—I believe that that would be a good thing for the country and would reduce the level of violence. So to the extent that isn’t happening, obviously, the level of violence continues, and people are being killed. And that’s unfortunate. Q. Mr. Secretary, President Bush this week indicated that he expected U.S. troops to be in Iraq through at least the beginning of 2009.… Are you planning for that contingency? And what strain, if any, do you think will be placed on the military by maintaining troop rotations to Iraq for that extended period of time? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I think the stress on our military, interestingly, is being eased by the way the force is being managed. We have moved thousands of military people out of civilian positions and back into military positions, where they belong. We—the Army—has been aggressively modularizing their force and increasing the number of combat brigades that are available. We’ve been successful in reducing the extent to which the Guard and the Reserve
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are being called upon. From something in excess of 40 percent of the deployed force, today it’s down around 20 percent of the deployed force. … [G]ood progress is being made. So I would anticipate, as we’ve said, that as the Afghan and Iraqi security forces continue to take over more and more responsibility, we’ll continue to reduce down our forces, and that any stress on the force would be eased rather than increased. Q. Mr. Secretary, given the performance of the Iraqi security forces, as the admiral just talked about, are you still confident that the size of the U.S. force in Iraq can be brought down significantly this year? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I don’t know how many times I have to answer this. The level of the forces—we’ll try it one more time. All together: The level of the forces in Iraq will depend on the conditions on the ground and the recommendations of the commander. And if you can predict precisely what the conditions on the ground will be and what the recommendations of the commander will be, I can tell you precisely what the trajectory, up or down or level, might be of those troops. We anticipate that they’ll go down. And the reason we anticipate they’ll go down is because we think the government will be formed and it will meet with reasonable acceptance and that the Iraqi security forces will continue to be performing well and that we will continue to pass over battle space, bases and responsibility to the Iraqi security forces. Q. Sir, in your opening statement, you say this war will only be won, quote, ‘‘only if we’re in it all the way.’’ I think that statement’s going to be parsed because there are a lot of people who’ve been complaining from the start that the country has never been in this war all the way, that the force that was sent over was smaller, that taxes have been cut rather than raised to pay a $300 billion war bill. I wonder if you can talk about if you think the nation is in it all the way, and if not, what more ought to be done to assure victory. SECRETARY RUMSFELD: It’s a good question. The—unlike some of the others we’ve had today. World War II had characteristics that were so notably different than this. But that’s been true of most of the wars, that they’ve been different. And I’ve been alive for a number of them. Clearly, it is a different thing for people to internalize this thing called the global war on terror or the struggle that’s taking place in the world between violent extremists and people who don’t believe in their view of the world. I think that the American people do feel an anxiety about the problem of terrorism. They understand the fact that so many cities have been hit, and they recognize that 3,000 people were killed here in this country, but that it is a more distant thing and a less immediate conflict or struggle than some previous wars. I think that I was quoting, as I recall, Franklin Roosevelt, and I would say that our society is in this struggle and that they are attentive to it and that they are concerned. I sense an awareness of the danger. I would also say that any time you have terrorist networks that are able to do what they did on September 11th and do what they did in Bali and London and Madrid and many, many other locations, and we know that they—that there are people in our world that are developing and proliferating very, very powerful weapons that
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can impose damage on our people of considerable magnitude, that one has to be concerned about it. Q. Can I ask you to clarify something in your opening remark on the war on terrorism? You mentioned—when you were defining the U.S. enemies in the war on terror, I thought it was interesting—you specifically mentioned the Beslan school massacre in Russia, you mentioned the situation in Israel. Is this sort of broadening of what the Bush administration perceives the terrorist threat to be to the American people to these other areas? And do you now consider Iran part of the long war on terror, defining that long war as the war against al Qaeda and its affiliated movements? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I don’t know about the preface to the question on Iran. I think I was trying to characterize the nature of people who terrorize and behead people and kill children and plant bombs in corpses, and pointing out that that is a problem in the world, that there are people like that. They are doing it in lots of places on the globe, and the point I was making, I think, was in that context. With respect to Iran, we know that Iran is the major sponsor of Hezbollah, and—an active terrorist organization and a very well-known one, and that that has been their path and one of the instruments that they’ve used consistently. Q. Is Iran part of the U.S. long war on terror? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Terrorism is. Q. Is Iran? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I think I’m going to leave Iran to the Department of State and the president, except with respect to what they’re doing in Iraq or Afghanistan. And I feel comfortable commenting on that, but I’m not going to get into—the president’s spoken very clearly on what he thinks of Iran. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2006/tr20060323-12695.html
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Remarks at the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, November 9, 2006 Our military was organized, trained and equipped largely for conventional warfare, not asymmetric or irregular warfare. In fact, for much of the past century, the U.S. armed forces operated essentially as separate and sometimes even competing branches of service. In 1986, Congress passed legislation to restructure the military into a more joint force. Since then, our military has been learning to fight and learning well how to fight in a single, coordinated force. That reform of the military has been one of their most impressive achievements. But to win this global struggle against violent extremists, all elements of national power, all agencies of government, as well as a broad coalition of nations, will have to be brought to bear more effectively. To the extent possible we can no longer afford to have Defense and State Departments, CIA and Homeland Security, Treasury and Justice, Agriculture and Commerce each waging their own campaign with their own rules, their own restrictions, each overseen by separate congressional committees and subcommittees. Defense,
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diplomacy and development cannot fit neatly into separate compartments today. Success requires that security, governance and development programs progress together. Our military cannot lose a battle in Afghanistan or Iraq, but our military cannot win all alone. They need the help of the other departments and agencies. They need the help of a broad coalition, and that is a vastly more complex task. In Afghanistan, for example, provisional reconstruction teams need to draw on the forces and expertise from a range of specialties. These teams have achieved a good deal, because their success has been limited because their activities are too often thought to remain almost exclusively the responsibility of the Department of Defense. Our military cannot lose, as I say; to win will require much more than military force alone. Governance and development, as I say, must proceed apace. Second, we need to recognize that this struggle against extremism cannot and will not be won by any single country, even the United States of America. It will be won, over time, by the hundreds of millions of Muslims—Iraqis, Afghans, Egyptians, Indonesians, as well as European and American Muslims—who will ultimately be responsible for winning the struggle against violent extremists. The Defense Department has asked for increases in funding and authority to help to build the capacity and the capabilities of partner nations. This will be a difficult shift in approach for our country. Change is hard, and it’s not easy for Americans to teach and assist while others act and do. Ours is a nation and a military with a hands-on, can-do spirit. But today’s war against a global enemy requires first and foremost that we enable our friends and allies, especially those in the Muslim world, to confront and defeat the extremists within their own borders and on their own airwaves. The shift towards building our partners’ capabilities requires, for example, some of the best military personnel to become trainers and advisers and embedded with foreign security forces so that they can improve their capacities and their capabilities.… we have a number of those folks here today who are currently training at Fort Riley as part of military transition teams. These teams will be undertaking a critical task when they deploy, to train and stand up and mentor Afghan, Iraqi security forces, and those of other nations. There’s perhaps, as we move into this new period, no more important mission.… In the past, U.S. efforts to train foreign security forces have been burdened by outdated restrictions. In Afghanistan, for example, building up the Afghan army was harmfully delayed because there was no such category in the U.S. federal budget at the time, and we lacked the authorities and the resources to do so for a period. Other painful delays in training the Afghan and Iraqi police forces were the result of the fact that it was the responsibility of others and not the Department of Defense, and we were prohibited from participating in training police in the early period. Further, the realities on the ground in the rest of the world do not correspond to the U.S. yearly budget process. When you think about it, we live in a fast-moving world, and it takes, in the Department of Defense, a year to
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develop a budget, it takes a year of the Congress to pass it, and then it takes a year to implement that budget. That’s a three-year cycle that results in a situation where, during execution, you’re basically dealing with stale facts, stale assumptions—assumptions that were fashioned two-and-a-half, three years before. And we don’t have yet the speed and agility that we need. The department is currently drawing upon proposals—drawing up proposals to reform existing regulations and authorities. Some of these in response—regulations and rules and laws date back to the 1960s and, unfortunately, hamper effective U.S. action. History will judge whether this generation did all we could to defeat a vicious, extremist enemy that threatens our security, our freedom and our very way of life, or if we left it to the next generation to try to fight an enemy then strengthened by our weakness and emboldened by a lack of resolve. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1060
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Farewell Parade, The Pentagon, December 15, 2006 AS DELIVERED … Last weekend, I was in Iraq. I wanted to personally express my heartfelt appreciation to the troops for their service and for their sacrifice. I wanted to leave them a sense of what they have given me—pride in mission, and an abiding confidence in our country. It has been the highest honor of my life to serve with them—these makers of history. Mr. President, over the past six years, at your request, as you pointed out, this department has been determined to create a new framework to better defend against the irregular threats of this new era. These folks have had to depart from the conventional, and, the familiar, to wrestle with the new and the unfamiliar. And they do it with no guidebook, no roadmap—and they do it in full view of the Congress, and the press and the world—with generous scrutiny from all sides. Today, I’ll break with convention one more time, and, instead of the traditional farewell remarks on past achievements, I will focus squarely on the future. I say this with the perspective of one, as the President indicated, who has had the opportunity to lead this department in two different eras, in two different world conflicts, for two different presidents, and, yes it’s true, in two different centuries. When I last departed this post in 1977, I left cautioning that ‘‘weakness is provocative.’’ That weakness inevitably entices aggressors into acts they otherwise would avoid. Then, our country was engaged in a ‘‘long struggle,’’ a struggle of uncertain duration, against what seemed, at the time, as an ascendant ideology and clearly an expanding empire. Few would have believed that, 15 years later, the Soviet Union would cease to exist. Or that the dissidents then trapped behind an Iron Curtain would
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lead people out of the dustbin of history and into the family of free nations. Which they did. That history did not happen by accident. And it most assuredly was not made by people sitting safely on the sidelines. It occurred only because America and our allies withstood the tough times, the bitter disagreements, and they stayed at the task with conviction that our security was linked to the defense and the advance of human freedom. This is what history asks of us today. And as I leave the Pentagon for the second, and, I suspect, the odds are the last time, I do feel a sense of urgency about the very real challenges ahead. As the President noted seven years ago, he said, we are living in an era of ‘‘barbarism emboldened by technology.’’ We live at a time when our enemies mix an extremist ideology with modern weaponry and have the ability to kill thousands—indeed even hundreds of thousands—of our people in a single, swift, deadly stroke. We forget that at our peril. A number of us here came in 2001, with that mission and mandate: to prepare this defense establishment, to protect the American people, from the unconventional, and the irregular threats. That mission was given powerful impetus that bright September morning, when that mighty building, just a few yards away—shook, burned, and smoked. And 125 members of our Pentagon team did not come home. The attacks of September 11th awakened Americans to the global extremist movement—a movement with networks in nations all around the world. Even our own. A movement with tens of thousands of adherents who believe it is their calling to kill Americans and other free people. Ours is a world of unstable dictators, weapons proliferators and rogue regimes. And each of these enemies seeks out our vulnerabilities. And as free people, we have vulnerabilities. Ours is also a world of many friends and allies, but sadly, realistically, friends and allies with declining defense investment and declining capabilities, and, I would add, as a result, with increasing vulnerabilities. All of which requires that the United States of America invest more. Today it should be clear that not only is weakness provocative, but the perception of weakness on our part can be provocative as well. A conclusion by our enemies that the United States lacks the will or the resolve to carry out missions that demand sacrifice and demand patience is every bit as dangerous as an imbalance of conventional military power. This is a time of great consequence. Our task is to make the right decisions today, so that future generations will not have to make much harder decisions tomorrow. It may well be comforting to some to consider graceful exits from the agonies and indeed the ugliness of combat. But the enemy thinks differently. Under the President’s leadership, this country made a decision to confront the extremist ideology of hatred that spawned a worldwide movement, and to take the fight to the enemy. The alternative was inaction and defense—a pattern that history has shown only emboldens the enemy. Our country has taken on a bracing and difficult task—but let there be no doubt, it is neither hopeless nor without purpose. Leadership is not about doing what is easy. It is about doing what is right, even when it’s hard—especially when it’s hard.
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President Lincoln once said, ‘‘determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way’’—to do it. That remains true today. We’re in what will be a long struggle. It’s new, it’s complex and, even after five years, it’s still somewhat unfamiliar. That we have been successful—I would add—fortunate to have suffered not one single attack here at home, since September 11th, 2001, has contributed to a misperception in some quarters that the threat is gone. It is not! As I leave, I do feel urgency, but I also feel optimism. I know that the American people can summon that same grit that helped our founders forge from a wilderness, a new frontier. I know it because I have seen it over my own lifetime. It’s the same steel that sent our fathers and grandfathers across oceans to defend free nations from tyrants. That same grit that gave Americans the will to endure 40 years of the Cold War under the specter of nuclear annihilation. So it is with confidence that I say that America’s enemies should not confuse the American people’s distaste of war—which is real and which is understandable—with a reluctance to defend our way of life. Enemy after enemy in our history have made that mistake—to their regret. To those in uniform—here and abroad—who proudly serve, always remember that America’s example is a message of hope for hundreds of millions of people all across the globe. America is not what’s wrong with this world. Ours is a message that was heard and fought for in places like Berlin, Prague, Riga, Tokyo, Seoul, San Salvador, Vilnius, and Warsaw. And that message is even now being whispered in the coffee houses and streets of Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang. The great sweep of human history is for freedom—and America is on freedom’s side. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1073
13 Attorney General John Ashcroft Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference with FBI Director Mueller, October 16, 2001 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: In the weeks since the September 11th attacks, the American people have been asked to balance a difficult set of realities. We’ve asked Americans to go about their lives with a new sense of awareness of the danger that terrorism brings to us, a danger which continues to darken America. We have encouraged Americans to be active, but vigilant; calm, but alert. We’re extremely gratified with the response that we’ve seen from the people. Overwhelmingly, Americans have responded to the reality of terrorism with both understanding and responsibility. A few isolated individuals, however, have seen fit to compound the concerns of America and of Americans by perpetrating false threats of anthrax attacks. These acts are serious violations of the law and grotesque transgressions of the public trust. False terrorist threats tax the resources of an already overburdened enforcement system and the public health system. They create illegitimate alarm in a time of legitimate concern. Terrorism hoaxes are not victimless crimes, but are the destructive acts of cowards. The Department of Justice will prosecute and punish with the full force of our laws, those who issue false anthrax threats or any other form of terrorist threat. Yesterday, the United States attorney for the District of Connecticut charged Joseph Faryniarz, of Coventry, Connecticut, with intentionally making false statements to a federal agent in connection with an anthrax hoax. On October the 11th, an employee of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection found a powdery substance on a sheet of paper with the misspelled word anthrax next to his work station. The complaint charges that Faryniarz knew the incident was a hoax, but reportedly stood by silent as 800 employees were evacuated and 12 employees were forced to disrobe and be washed down with a decontamination solution. The complaint further charges that Faryniarz lied to FBI agents repeatedly, and attempted falsely to implicate two of his coworkers before confessing to knowledge of the hoax.
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As this case demonstrates, false threats of anthrax and other terrorist attacks carry high costs for consumers and taxpayers. Officials of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection report that the two-day evacuation of their facilities necessitated by this hoax may cost taxpayers up to a million and a half dollars. The government has not yet calculated the expense involved in the response by state, local and law enforcement officers. Now, if Faryniarz is convicted for the crimes for which and with which he has been charged, he could face a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison and fine of up to twice the gross loss to the victims, in this case potentially up to $3 million. We are currently working with state and local officials in other parts of the country to prosecute additional anthrax hoax cases. It should be painfully obvious to every American today that the threat of bioterrorism is no joking matter. For the victims and emergency personnel who are called on to respond, every threat of terrorism is real. The perpetrators of terrorist hoaxes should know that the penalties for their crimes are real as well. Like the American people, the Department of Justice takes these offenses seriously. We will find the perpetrators of anthrax hoaxes. We will prosecute the offenders, and we will punish the guilty for their crimes. MR. MUELLER: … This afternoon I want to spend a few moments at the outset talking about the anthrax issue. As most of you know, the FBI is investigating anthrax exposures and suspected anthrax exposures in Florida, in New York, here in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere around the country where such exposures have been reported. Every threat is taken seriously. Every threat receives a full response. We have no choice but to assume that each reported instance is an actual biothreat. And while organized terrorism has not been ruled out, so far we have found no direct link to organized terrorism. There are, however, certain similarities between letters sent to NBC in New York and to Senator Daschle’s office here in Washington. And we are now testing, analyzing and comparing powders from these letters to each other and to what we know from Florida. And I should point out that the tests are being done under the auspices of the Center for Disease Control, CDC. Since October 1, the FBI has received more than 2,300 incidents or suspected incidents involving anthrax or other dangerous agents; and as all of you know, an overwhelming majority of these incidents have been false alarms or practical jokes. Nonetheless, the FBI will devote whatever resources are necessary to investigate each of these situations. However, I want to reiterate the comments of the attorney general: Hoaxes, pranks and threats involving chemical or biological agents are serious crimes and warrant a serious response. They will be investigated thoroughly and vigorously by special agents of the FBI, by the postal authorities, by local authorities and by other law enforcement. Q. … when you say so far we haven’t found any link to organized terror, what you’re saying is so far you haven’t found any link to the believed perpetrators of the September 11th attacks. ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I think—let me see if I can clarify at least my understanding here. Any time someone sends anthrax through the mail, it’s
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an act of terror. It’s terrorism. And we treat it as an act of terror and terrorism. But while we have not ruled out linkage to the terrorist attack of September 11th or the perpetrators of that attack, we do not have conclusive evidence that would provide a basis for a conclusion that it is a part of that terrorist endeavor. But make no mistake about it: When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and to invoke terror, it’s a terrorist act. … Q. General Ashcroft, you’re meeting later today with Arab-American leaders. Can you tell us along those lines how you plan to address and answer concerns about treatment of some of the 700 who are in custody, about access to lawyers, about adequate facilities, and time for prayer, concerns that have now come up in the last few days? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well, we have, first of all, detained only individuals who are in violation of the law, are illegally in the country, or are being detained as a result of a court-ordered material witness warrant. Secondly, each person detained has been accorded a right to counsel, so that those who have been detained are being given rights, and those rights are accorded. Thirdly, I would be happy to hear from individuals if there are any alleged abuses of individuals, because that is not the way we do business. We are aggressive in detaining those who have violated the law and those who are illegally in this country and are associated with or have been involved with terrorist groups, or are sympathetic to terrorist groups. But we will respect the constitutional rights and we will respect the dignity of individuals. I might just add that I am pleased to meet with the group of both Sikh Americans and Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, and to assure them that it is the policy of the Justice Department to enforce laws that would guarantee that Americans, regardless of their national origin, are to be respected and their rights are to be safeguarded. … [W]e are in the process of working on about 170 cases where there has been discrimination alleged, in one way or another, that relates to members of these communities. We are pursuing these cases aggressively, as we have indicated in other opportunities we’ve had to speak with you and discuss these cases. And I will be pleased to have their suggestions for other ways in which we can help provide a basis for the public’s understanding that all Americans are to be respected and accorded the kind of dignity and integrity of their persons, and that any who infringe that undermine and erode a clear policy of this administration. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2001/October/536ag.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Press Conference on Arrests, October 18, 2001 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: This afternoon I have several announcements on the steps the Justice Department has taken and on the assistance we continue to need from Congress in the war against terrorism. In the war against terrorism, America won a battle today. A Manhattan federal court sentenced four terrorists to life in prison without the possibility of
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parole for their participation in the August 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, Mohamed Rashed Doud Al- Owhali and Kalfen Khamis Mohamed each received life sentences for the terrorist attacks in which hundreds of Kenyan, Tanzanian and American citizens were murdered. Odeh, Al-Owhali and Mohamed also received additional life sentences for their participation in several conspiracies to murder United States nationals and U.S. government employees, as well as conspiracies to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States property and against United States persons. An additional terrorist, Wadih El Hage, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his conviction for participating in conspiracies to murder U.S. nationals and to destroy government property, as well as a conviction for perjury before a grand jury investigating the embassy bombings. To date, the total number of persons charged in connection with the U.S. embassy bombings is 22, six of whom are in custody in the United States, three of whom are in custody in the United Kingdom. There is a reward of up to $5 million each for information leading to the apprehension, prosecution and conviction of any of the remaining 13 fugitives, which include Osama bin Laden, all of whom have been named to the 22 most-wanted-terrorist list. While the fight against terrorism demands that American justice focus on the prevention of future terrorist acts in addition to the prosecution of past acts, today’s sentence sends a message. The United States will hunt terrorists down and will make them pay the price for their evil acts of terrorism. The second issue that I would like to cover is the anti-terrorism legislation requested by this administration that is currently working its way through the United States Congress. I’m extremely gratified by the expeditious, bipartisan, bicameral attention that this anti-terrorism legislation has received. Over the last month, the administration and Congress have worked together to update and strengthen our laws to combat terrorism. By overwhelming bipartisan majorities, both the House and the Senate have acted to make terrorism the priority in our laws that it must now be, and they have acted to update our antiquated statutes to take into account the new technologies that terrorists today employ. Yesterday the leadership of the House and Senate, in addition to the Judiciary Committee chairmen and ranking members, came to a final agreement on the anti-terrorism legislation. And I am gratified that I can state unequivocally that this legislation, once passed and signed into law, will immediately increase our capacity to detect, to disrupt and to prevent acts of terrorism. Let me identify just a few of the specific tools for intelligence-gathering that we requested and that Congress has agreed to: First, better anti-terrorism coordination. The legislation will allow Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wiretaps, a crucial investigative technique in terrorism cases, when the gathering of foreign intelligence is a significant purpose of the investigation rather than permitting them only when gathering foreign intelligence is the primary purpose. This makes the utilization of wiretaps against terrorists much more workable and will facilitate greater coordination between law enforcement and the
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intelligence side of our investigative resources. Such coordination is at the heart of our ability to prevent future attacks. Second, airtight surveillance of terrorists. The legislation permits multi-point wiretaps in FISA cases—that’s the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act cases—as we currently have in criminal cases. This allows … the wiretap of any [phones] which the suspect may use when it is shown that the suspect is changing phones to thwart surveillance efforts. This authority will allow us to be more effective in surveilling terrorists and their associates and will increase our chance of learning ahead of time about plans. Third, better intelligence about terrorist activities. The legislation also permits foreign intelligence information obtained through a federal grand jury to be shared with other federal law enforcement or intelligence agencies and with national defense and national security officials. This will allow, for the first time, information that might be relevant to preventing a terrorist attack to be shared with those officials in a position to take the prevention action or the action designed to curtail the activity. Tearing down the wall between intelligence and criminal information is one of the most important steps we will make or we will be able to take. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_18.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks for the U.S. Mayors Conference, October 25, 2001 For more than two hundred years, Attorneys General have called on the men and women of justice to be faithful stewards of the law. Rarely in history has an Attorney General asked America’s prosecutors and law enforcement officers to do what they are asked to do today: to be both defenders of justice and defenders of the people; to devote their talents and energies to the urgent task of saving lives ahead of losing cases. … The fight against terrorism is now the first and overriding priority of the Department of Justice. But our war against terrorism is not merely or primarily a criminal justice endeavor—our battle is the defense of our nation and its citizens. The men and women of justice and law enforcement are called on to combat a terrorist threat that is both immediate and vast; a threat that resides here, at home, but whose supporters, patrons and sympathizers form a multinational network of evil. The attacks of September 11 were acts of terrorism against America orchestrated and carried out by individuals living within our borders. Today’s terrorists enjoy the benefits of our free society even as they commit themselves to our destruction. They live in our communities—plotting, planning and waiting to kill Americans again. They have crossed the Rubicon of terror with the use of biological agents. We cannot explicitly link the recent terrorist attacks to the September 11 hijackers. Yet, terrorists—people who were either involved with, associated with or are seeking to take advantage of the September 11 attacks—are now poisoning our communities with Anthrax.
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Forty years ago, another Attorney General was confronted with a different enemy within our borders. Robert F. Kennedy came to the Department of Justice at a time when organized crime was threatening the very foundations of the republic. Mobsters controlled one of the nation’s largest labor unions. Racketeers murdered, bribed and extorted with impunity in many of the nation’s largest cities. Then, as now, the enemy that America faced was described bluntly—and correctly—as a conspiracy of evil. Then, as now, the enemy was well-financed, expertly organized and international in scope. Then, as now, its operations were hidden under a code of deadly silence. As Attorney General, Robert Kennedy launched an extraordinary campaign against organized crime. Under his leadership, the mission and momentum of the Department of Justice were directed toward one overarching goal: to identify, disrupt and dismantle the organized-crime enemy within. A new spirit of cooperation was forged, both among federal agencies and between state and federal law enforcement. Prosecutors were action oriented—pursuing cases rather than waiting for the cases to come to them. Investigators focused on function, not form—they focused on doing what was necessary to get the job done rather than what was dictated by the organizational chart. Attorney General Kennedy made no apologies for using all of the available resources in the law to disrupt and dismantle organized crime networks. Very often, prosecutors were aggressive, using obscure statutes to arrest and detain suspected mobsters. One racketeer and his father were indicted for lying on a federal home loan application. A former gunman for the Capone mob was brought to court on a violation of the Migratory Bird Act. Agents found 563 game birds in his freezer—a mere 539 birds over the limit. There are obvious differences, of course, between the network of organized crime America faced in 1961 and the network of terror we face today. Today, many more innocent lives have been lost. Many more innocent lives continue to be threatened. But these differences serve only to call us more urgently to action. The American people face a serious, immediate and ongoing threat from terrorism. At this moment, American service men and women are risking their lives to battle the enemy overseas. It falls to the men and women of justice and law enforcement to engage terrorism at home. History’s judgment will be harsh—and the people’s judgment will be sure—if we fail to use every available resource to prevent future terrorist attacks. Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department, it is said, would arrest mobsters for ‘‘spitting on the sidewalk’’ if it would help in the battle against organized crime. It has been and will be the policy of this Department of Justice to use the same aggressive arrest and detention tactics in the war on terror. Let the terrorists among us be warned: If you overstay your visa—even by one day—we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, you will be put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible. We will use every available statute. We will seek every prosecutorial advantage. We will use all our weapons within the law and under the Constitution to protect life and enhance security for America.
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In the war on terror, this Department of Justice will arrest and detain any suspected terrorist who has violated the law. Our single objective is to prevent terrorist attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street. If suspects are found not to have links to terrorism or not to have violated the law, they are released. But terrorists who are in violation of the law will be convicted, in some cases deported, and in all cases prevented from doing further harm to Americans. Within days of the September 11 attacks, we launched this anti-terrorism offensive to prevent new attacks on our homeland. To date, our anti-terrorism offensive has arrested or detained nearly 1,000 individuals as part of the September 11 terrorism investigation. Those who violated the law remain in custody. Taking suspected terrorists in violation of the law off the streets and keeping them locked up is our clear strategy to prevent terrorism within our borders. Today, the Department of Justice is positioned to launch a new offensive against terrorism. Due to extraordinary bi-partisan and bi-cameral cooperation in the Congress, law enforcement will have new weapons in the war on terrorism. Yesterday, by an overwhelming margin, the House passed the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001. Hours from now, the Senate is poised to follow suit. The legislation embodies two over-arching principles: The first principle is airtight surveillance of terrorists. Upon the president’s signature, I will direct investigators and prosecutors to begin immediately seeking court orders to intercept communications related to an expanded list of crimes under the legislation. Communications regarding terrorist offenses such as the use of biological or chemical agents, financing acts of terrorism or materially supporting terrorism will be subject to interception by law enforcement. Agents will be directed to take advantage of new, technologically neutral standards for intelligence gathering. So-called ‘‘roving’’ wiretaps, that allow taps of multiple phones a suspect may use, are being added as important as an important weapon in our war against terror. Investigators will be directed to pursue aggressively terrorists on the internet. New authority in the legislation permits the use of devices that capture senders and receivers addresses associated with communications on the internet. Law enforcement will begin immediately to seek search warrants to obtain unopened voice-mail stored on a computer—just as they traditionally have used search warrants to obtain unopened email. They will also begin to use new subpoena power to obtain payment information such as credit card or bank account numbers of suspected terrorists on the internet. The second principle enshrined in the legislation is speed in tracking down and intercepting terrorists. As soon as possible, law enforcement will begin to employ new tools that ease administrative burdens and delays in apprehending terrorists. Investigators are now able to use a single court order to trace a communication even when it travels outside the judicial district in which the order was issued. The scope of search warrants for unopened e-mail and other evidence is now also nationwide.
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The new tools for law enforcement in the war against terrorism are the products of hundreds of hours of consultation and careful consideration by the administration, members of Congress, and state and local officials. They are careful, balanced, and long overdue improvements in our capacity to prevent terrorism. The law enforcement campaign that will commence in earnest when the legislation is signed into law will be many years in duration. Some will ask whether a civilized nation—a nation of law and not of men—can use the law to defend itself from barbarians and remain civilized. Our answer, unequivocally, is ‘‘yes.’’ Yes, we will defend civilization. And yes, we will preserve the rule of law because it makes us civilized. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_25.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Request, Remarks Before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State, February 26, 2002 … The first and overriding priority of this budget, and of the Department of Justice, is to protect America against acts of terrorism and to bring terrorists to justice. … September 11 alerted us to a danger that a number of you on this subcommittee have labored long and hard to mitigate and to prevent. To the degree that we find ourselves in a position to respond effectively to the challenges posed by terrorism, it is because of your foresight. … Your direction to develop an inter-agency counterterrorism plan, conduct preparedness exercises, train and equip the nation’s first responders, and maintain a counterterrorism fund for emergency circumstances has made this a safer nation. The fiscal year 2003 budget request that I present to you today builds upon your support and seeks to enhance further the Department’s ability to prevent and combat terrorism. And even as the men and women of the Department of Justice go about the urgent task of protecting America from terrorism, we do so within a framework of justice that upholds other goals as well. Indeed, our dedication to identifying, disrupting and dismantling terrorist networks will help ensure the fair and vigorous enforcement of the law in other areas. We remain committed to reducing the demand and supply of illegal drugs, enforcing gun laws, and protecting civil rights. We recognize, however, the need to prioritize our commitments and husband our resources.… For the fiscal year 2003, the President’s budget requests $30.2 billion for the Department of Justice—$23.1 billion in discretionary funding and $7.1 billion for the Department’s mandatory and fee-funded accounts. Federal law enforcement programs increase by 13% over the funding enacted in the FY02 Department of Justice Appropriations Act. The Department’s FY 2003 budget seeks $2 billion for program improvements and for ongoing activities funded in the FY 2002 Counterterrorism Supplemental. …
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To help secure our nation’s borders, we are proposing program improvements totaling $856 million, including $51.9 million from fee funding, for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Of this amount, $734 million is dedicated to improving border security: ¥ We are requesting $362 million to begin a multi-year effort to provide a comprehensive land, sea, and air entry/exit system for the United States; and ¥ $372 million to hire 570 new Border Patrol agents and additional immigration inspectors to improve air, sea and land ports-of-entry inspections.
As a result of the attacks of September 11, the FBI, with the cooperation of other federal, state, local and international law enforcement, is conducting the largest criminal investigation in the history of the United States. In the 2002 Counterterrorism Supplemental, this Subcommittee led Congress in providing much needed assistance to the FBI in responding to and investigating the terrorist attacks, and we are deeply grateful for your leadership. Our 2003 budget builds on this assistance with a request of $411.6 million, including: ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
funding for 263 new FBI special agents; $223 million for increased intelligence, surveillance and response capabilities; $109 million for information technology projects; and $78 million for enhanced personnel and information security.
The establishment of the Joint Terrorism Task Force program has enhanced the FBI’s ability to promote coordinated terrorism investigations among FBI field offices and their respective counterparts in Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Our budget seeks $15.7 million to support a total of 56 Joint Terrorism Task Forces throughout the country, one for each FBI field office. … To support the heightened security required by the United States Marshals Service at federal courthouses, our budget seeks $34.7 million to close security gaps at courthouse facilities with the greatest physical security deficiencies; … Another critical element in our battle against the terrorist threat is working to develop and enhance interoperable databases and telecommunications systems for the Department’s law enforcement activities. Our budget seeks $60 million to continue narrowband investment in radio infrastructure for key areas such as New York and along the northern and southwestern borders. … Defending our nation and its citizens against terrorist attacks is our top priority. To fulfill this mission, we are devoting all resources necessary to eliminate terrorist networks, prevent terrorist attacks, and bring to justice all those who kill Americans in the name of murderous ideologies. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/022602preparedtesti monyfy03appropscmte.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See 9/11 Commission Report on FBI complaints about cutbacks in budget request at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf.
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Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference, National Security Coordination Council, Department of Justice Conference Center, March 5, 2002 The president has charged us with a critical mission: to protect our nation and its citizens from serious, immediate, ongoing threats. To fulfill this mission, the Department of Justice has launched the most comprehensive criminal investigation in world history. We’ve embarked on a wartime reorganization of the Department of Justice, putting the prevention of terrorist attacks at the center of our law enforcement mission. Outside Washington, we have forged new relationships of cooperation with state and local law enforcement. We have organized federal, state and local law enforcement into regional anti-terrorism teams. Hundreds of thousands of leads, many from concerned and responsible citizens, have been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over 100 individuals have been charged. Among the most important lessons we have learned is the lesson that countering a threat as vast and as complex as international terrorism requires unprecedented cooperation and coordination. No single individual, agency, department or government can succeed alone. We have instead sought to weave a seamless web of prevention, involving not just government but businesses and communities, state and local governmental operations, citizens in a united effort to identify, disrupt and dismantle terrorist networks. Within the Department of Justice, we recognize the concomitant need to marshal our formidable resources to fight terrorism in the most effective manner possible. Accordingly, today I am announcing the creation of the National Security Coordination Council of the Department of Justice. The principle mission of the National Security Coordination Council will be ensure a more seamless coordination of all functions of the department relating to national security, particularly our efforts to combat terrorism. The National Security Coordination Council will complement and build on the Department of Justice efforts to protect the nation from terrorism and other national security threats. It will also be the department’s voice on these issues to other federal agencies. Chairing the National Security Coordination Council will be an undertaking that requires leadership, principled commitment to justice, and an expert understanding of the threats facing our nation, and the large tools at our disposal to defeat those threats. I can think of no better nor more qualified public servant than Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson to fill this role. Since September the 11th, he has worked tirelessly both within the Department of Justice and in cooperation with other government agencies to pursue every avenue within the law to identify and prevent terrorist attacks on Americans. He is and has been a courageous leader in the Department of Justice. He is a very valuable, faithful servant to the president of the United States and a dogged advocate of justice. The first priority of the Department of Justice, bar none, is combating the threat of terrorist attacks. The attorney general’s creation of the National Security Coordination Council adds a significant weapon to our arsenal in that
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battle. The council dedicates the leadership of the department to ensure the participation of all elements within and outside the department that can enhance our counter-terrorism efforts. The council will assemble knowledge, intelligence, and expertise from every corner of the department. We will better coordinate policy, planning and operations, and more efficiently allocate resources in our paramount mission to prevent, defeat and disrupt terrorist attacks before they occur. The council will frame national security issues for resolution by the attorney general or me, ensuring that we make decisions with the benefit of the wealth and breadth of counter-terrorism experience in the department and throughout government. Joining me on the council will be the director of the FBI with the participation of the executive assistant director for counter-terrorism and counterintelligence; the commissioner of the INS; the chief of staff of the attorney general; the assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division, with appropriate participation of the Terrorism and Violent Crimes Section and the Office of International Affairs, as well as other components of that division; the assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice programs; and the counsel of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review. Other department officials as well as representatives from other agencies, such as the CIA and Department of Defense, will be invited to attend council meetings and participate in council deliberations and discussions as necessary and appropriate. For example, the interconnection of the war on terrorism and our anti-drug efforts may occasionally require the participation of DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson. The council will convene at least biweekly and more frequently as events dictate. This new structure will help us marshal our wide ranging resources to develop, direct and execute our counter-terrorism strategy to eliminate terrorist threats before they develop into terrorist acts. While counter-terrorism coordination and emphasis have been a way of life for us since September 11th, today’s creation of this council marks a significant advance, in my opinion, in the department’s fight against terrorism. No other enforcement priority of the department has garnered this intensity of focus. No other enforcement priority of the department has ensured this degree of seamless leadership coordination. And no other enforcement priority of the department has combined this breadth of multi-disciplinary participation, reflecting our … comprehensive and united counter-terrorism effort. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/030502newsconference nationalsecuritycoordinationcouncil.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference——SEVIS, Department of Justice Conference Center, May 10, 2002 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Good afternoon. The United States of America is unique among the nations of the world for the welcome that we extend.
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We accommodate generously those who wish to work here, to study here, those who wish someday to become citizens. And we place only limited conditions on our welcome, that those who come to America to share in our desire to breath freely, to live peacefully, to respect the rights and the dignity of their neighbors, respect their fellow Americans—these are the conditions we ask. It is the responsibility of the Justice Department to guard zealously this welcome, to ensure that the United States remains a beacon of freedom and a hallmark of opportunity to the world. Part of this responsibility is to protect the nation and its citizens from those who seek to enter our country under false pretenses. The United States of America will not allow our welcome to be abused by those who disguise themselves and their intentions. We will ensure that visitors observe time limits, that students study peaceably, and that our immigration laws are accorded the same respect that we strive to extend to our guests who come to visit this country. Today, I’m announcing a new system for tracking the more than 1 million foreign individuals who are in the United States attending our colleges, universities and trade schools. For too long, our student visa system has been a slow, antiquated, paperdriven reporting system incapable of ensuring that those who enter the United States as students are in fact attending our educational institutions. Today, we begin the process of bringing our student visa system into the 21st century. We are taking advantage of the latest in technology to link colleges and universities to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in a centralized, rapid-access reporting system. Schools will be accountable for confirming the status of student visa holders. The Immigration and Naturalization Service will be accountable for enforcing violations of that status. And the American people will gain a measure of assurance that students visiting our country are who they purport to be. On April the 12th, we published a rule that prevents those who enter the United States on visitors visas from becoming students until the INS approves their change in immigration status. Today, I am submitting for public comment a new regulation that will implement the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System, or SEVIS—S-E-V-I-S. This system has been under development by the INS for several years pursuant to a law passed in Congress in the mid-’90s. Schools are currently required to submit information to the INS to ensure that foreign students are indeed students. This information includes whether a student has enrolled; whether the student may have dropped out; or whether the student was expelled from the institution. SEVIS will make this information available centrally to the INS in a database. And perhaps most importantly, it will allow schools to transmit the information electronically via the Internet. Rapid access to current complete information on foreign students will improve dramatically the INS’s capability to enforce immigration laws and keep track of this group of non-citizens in the United States. We developed this rule in consultation with representatives of our colleges and universities, and we appreciate their valuable contribution and cooperation. SEVIS makes the schools our partners in preserving the integrity of our student visa system and the safety of the American people.
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There are three basic problems that SEVIS will correct dramatically. First, we do not currently have a system that efficiently verifies if a student is in fact studying at an educational institution. Under the SEVIS regulations, schools will be notified when a student arrives at a port of entry and will be required to report to the INS if the student fails to appear for enrollment. Second, under the current paper-based system, a significant time lag exists between an event taking place, such as a student dropping out of school, and the INS receiving the information. Third, SEVIS will also help to reduce visa fraud in the international student program. Under the current system, student visa forms are subject to theft and are often sold and used to support fraudulent visa applications. SEVIS will solve this problem by canceling the unused forms and taking them out of circulation. Allowing foreign students to study here is one of the ways we convey our valuable—values and our principles to those who will return to lead their countries. In making these reforms, we protect our commitment to welcoming and accommodating those who come to America to study in our institutions. SOURCE: http://mediaguidetoislam.sfsu.edu/intheus/pdfs/D_IMM_FNS_transcript.pdf
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the National Security Entry–Exit Registration System, June 6, 2002 The vulnerabilities of our immigration system became starkly clear on September 11. About a quarter century ago, the United States stopped asking international visitors to register periodically with immigration authorities, and stopped keeping track of our visitors’ activities and whereabouts. This is in contrast to the practice of European nations, most of which have rigorous registration systems. Consequently, we have been unable to determine if foreign visitors follow their stated plans while guests in our country or even if they overstay the legal limit of their visas. Accordingly, today I am announcing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. This system will expand substantially America’s scrutiny of those foreign visitors who may pose a national security concern and enter our country. And it will provide a vital line of defense in the war against terrorism. The responsibility to establish the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System is already contained in U.S. law. Some of the provisions date to the 1950s; others were added by Congress in the 1990s. Congress has mandated that, by 2005, the Department of Justice build an entry-exit system that tracks virtually all of the 35 million foreign visitors who come to the United States annually. This entry-exit registration system is the crucial first phase in that endeavor and will track approximately 100,000 visitors in the first year. There are three components to this initiative: first—fingerprinting and photographing at the border; second—periodic registration of aliens who stay in the United States thirty days or more; and third—exit controls that will help
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the Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove those aliens who overstay their visas. We will evaluate individual visitors for the risk of involvement in terrorist activity and impose these requirements on visitors who fall into categories of elevated national security concern. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department will work together to identify these individuals at or prior to entry. The criteria that are used to identify such visitors will be continually updated to reflect our evolving intelligence on terrorist threats. The first component of the system is fingerprinting and photographing at the border. It is critically important that we stop known or suspected terrorists from entering the country. Fingerprints are essential to that enterprise. Terrorists and wanted criminals often attempt to enter the country using assumed names and false passports. But fingerprints do not lie. With new technologies, we are able to perform a quick fingerprint check at the border that takes only three minutes to complete … Under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, we will run the fingerprints of entering aliens against a database of thousands of known terrorists. The operations of the U.S. military in Afghanistan have allowed us to expand that database considerably. By running the fingerprints of entering aliens against these prints, we will be able to stop terrorists from entering the country. In addition, we will run the fingerprints of incoming visitors against a database of wanted criminals. And finally, we will be able to stop terrorists from entering the United States a second time under a different name using forged documents. We have the technological capacity to do this, and now we have a sizable database of fingerprints of known terrorists. We need to deploy this technology as soon as possible to protect American lives. The second component of the system is periodic registration. This will only apply to those individuals of elevated national security concern who stay in the country for more than thirty days. They will have to register at an INS office and simply verify that they are doing what they said they came to America to do and living where they said they would live. Such registration will be required at the 30-day point, and every 12 months after the date of entry. Aliens already in the United States who fall into categories of elevated national security concern will be asked to come in and register as well. Our European allies have been using such registration systems for decades. … This is a well-established way of making sure that visitors do not try to disappear into society, and that they stick to their stated plans while in the country. The third component of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System is establishing a system of exit controls, so that we know who leaves on time and who does not. This is a critical part of the system. Which brings me to a critical aspect of the system: arresting those individuals who attempt to evade the registration requirements or who attempt to stay in the country beyond their permitted time. When aliens violate these rules, we will place their photographs, fingerprints, and information in the National Crime Information Center (or NCIC) system. The nation’s 650,000 police officers check this system regularly in the course of traffic stops and routine encounters.
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The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that this narrow, limited mission that we are asking state and local police to undertake voluntarily—arresting aliens who have violated criminal provisions of Immigration and Nationality Act or civil provisions that render an alien deportable, and who are listed on the NCIC—is within the inherent authority of the states. The Department of Justice has no plans to seek additional support from state and local law enforcement in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, beyond our narrow anti-terrorism mission. We are an open country that welcomes the people of the world to visit our blessed land. We will continue to greet our international neighbors with good will. Asking some visitors to verify their activities while they are here is fully consistent with that outlook. To meet our responsibility to protect American lives in the future, we take the steps that I have outlined today. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/051002newsconferencesevistranscript.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks to the Department of Defense Regarding the Transfer of Abdullah Al Muhajir (Born Jose Padilla) as an Enemy Combatant, June 10, 2002 TRANSCRIPT AS PREPARED I am pleased to announce today a significant step forward in the War on Terrorism. We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or ‘‘dirty bomb,’’ in the United States. I commend the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Department, and the other federal agencies whose cooperation made this possible. Yesterday, after consultation with the Acting Secretary of Defense and other senior officials, both the Acting Secretary of Defense and I recommended that the President of the United States, in his capacity as commander in chief, determine that Abdullah Al Muhajir, born Jose Padilla, is an enemy combatant who poses a serious and continuing threat to the American people and our national security. After the determination, Abdullah Al Muhajir was transferred from the custody of the Justice Department to the custody of the Defense Department. Following serving in prison in the United States in the early 1990s, Jose Padilla referred to himself as Abdullah Al Muhajir. Subsequent to his release from prison, he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan. On several occasions in 2001, he met with senior Al Qaeda officials. While in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al Muhajir trained with the enemy, including studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices. Al Qaeda officials knew that as a citizen of the United States, as a citizen of the United States holding a valid U.S. passport, Al Muhajir would be able to travel freely in the U.S. without drawing attention to himself. The United States government was tracking Abdullah Al Muhajir when, on May the 8th, 2002, this year, he flew from Pakistan into Chicago O’Hare
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International Airport, where he was placed in the custody of federal law enforcement authorities. In apprehending Al Muhajir as he sought entry into the United States, we have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive ‘‘dirty bomb.’’ Now, a radioactive ‘‘dirty bomb’’ involves exploding a conventional bomb that not only kills victims in the immediate vicinity, but also spreads radioactive material that is highly toxic to humans and can cause mass death and injury. From information available to the United States government, we know that Abdullah Al Muhajir is an Al Qaeda operative and was exploring a plan to build and explode a radioactive ‘‘dirty bomb.’’ Let me be clear: We know from multiple independent and corroborating sources that Abdullah Al Muhajir was closely associated with Al Qaeda and that as an Al Qaeda operative he was involved in planning future terrorist attacks on innocent American civilians in the United States. The safety of all Americans and the national security interests of the United States require that Abdullah Al Muhajir be detained by the Defense Department as an enemy combatant. In determining that Al Muhajir is an enemy combatant who legally can be detained by the United States military, we have acted with legal authority both under the laws of war and clear Supreme Court precedent, which establish that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/061002agtranscripts.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the U.S. Attorneys Conference, New York, New York, October 1, 2002 Under the leadership of President Bush, the Department of Justice has not been complacent—nor has it been content to maintain the legislative and administrative restrictions that hampered our ability to prevent September 11. And out of the ashes of that day, we have rededicated ourselves to thinking anew and acting anew in defense of the American people. We have fought for and won law enforcement tools together with the Congress. We have restructured the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We have provided new guidance to investigators, and new mechanisms of cooperation between federal, state and local officials. Where a culture of inhibition once reigned, we have built a new ethos of justice, one rooted in cooperation, nurtured by coordination, and focused on a single, overarching goal: the prevention of terrorist attacks. We always have done this framed by the guarantor of American freedom, the Constitution of these United States. It now falls to you, our United States Attorneys, to seize this moment in history—to grasp the tools that are now available, that have been provided and that will make our calling to prevent terrorism a reality.
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Our responsibility—and our privilege—is unique. In prosecuting terrorism we occupy a difficult intersection between national security and traditional law enforcement. We must do our jobs with the utmost attention to the quality of the investigations we conduct and the cases we prepare. We must use all lawful means to prevent terrorism. And we must act with excellence. There are no second chances in the campaign to prevent another September 11. If we fail in our responsibility to secure justice, we invite more than the risk of additional criminality. Failure risks the security of our nation and the survival of freedom. Our prevention strategy is working. Today our law enforcement offensive against terrorism is making America safer. So when you return to your responsibilities across America, do not return to the old days and old ways of law enforcement. Use the tools for prevention that Congress and the Administration provided and the tactics for protecting Americans that we are defending. Reject the dusty old notion that it can’t happen in my backyard. It can. And you and I are accountable for the defense of our neighbors. In this, the calling of our time, let us be unrelenting. After a year of this war, I want to burn three lessons in your conscientiousness about our new strategy for prevention. ¥ First, information is the best friend of prevention. As prosecutors, use every weapon in the criminal justice arsenal to acquire information about the terrorist conspiracy. I expect you to use the leverage of the full weight of the federal justice system with its substantial criminal penalties and benefits to promote cooperation to develop sources of information. Secure the full cooperation or obtain the toughest conviction. And coordinate with the Department’s leadership; we will help you use new tools and tactics to acquire and protect sensitive information. Information—the best friend of prevention. ¥ The second lesson is this: neutralize potential terrorist threats by getting violators off the street by any lawful means possible, as quickly as possible. Detain individuals who pose a national security risk for any violations of criminal or immigration laws. Delay only if there’s a valid national security reason. Use the full weight of the law to neutralize the threat and to develop information. ¥ Third, law enforcement and intelligence must cooperate. I expect you to know the FBI’s intelligence cases in your area. When you return home, I request that you sit down with your FBI Special Agent in Charge and develop a plan, following the Department’s July guidance, for your office to stay on top of all of the terrorism investigations. And where appropriate, it is your responsibility to develop options to bring the full weight of the criminal justice system against violators who pose the threat of terrorism to America and our freedom.
We have conducted the largest investigation in history; disrupting and punishing possible terrorist related activity throughout the United States. It’s working. Let me note just a few instances: ¥ Zacarias Moussaoui—six counts of conspiracy connected with September 11 attacks. ¥ John Walker Lindh—guilty of aiding the Taliban.
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¥ Richard Reid—alleged ‘‘shoe bomber’’—charged as a trained terrorist who attempted to destroy American Airlines Flight 63. ¥ Detroit: Four indicted—charged with conspiracy to engage in fraud, misuse of visas and identification documents, material support to terrorists. ¥ Denver and Seattle: Earnest James Ujaama charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. ¥ Maryland: Rasmi Subhi Saleh Al Shannaq, former roommate of two of September 11 hijackers, arrested by INS and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents. This apprehension led to 40 arrests in a visa fraud scheme. ¥ Virginia: Luis Martinez-Flores and Herbert Villalobos pled guilty to fraud for helping hijackers obtain identification documents. ¥ Washington, DC: Maher Jarad indicted for alleged smuggling of Middle Eastern aliens. ¥ Buffalo: Six men, allegedly trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, charged— material support to terrorists. ¥ Charlotte: 67 undocumented aliens indicted for identification document fraud. ¥ Dulles and Reagan National Airports: 94 workers arrested and charged with falsifying Social Security applications and immigration violations. ¥ At close to a dozen other airports—cracking down on fraudulent document scams that allow access to secure areas.
At our borders: INS agents tightened security. Over 500 aliens arrested. 431 deported. Overall criminal charges: 131 individuals charged. 94 already found guilty. You have been working—and working well. We have designated 39 entities as terrorist organizations. Frozen the financial assets of 62 organizations that support terrorism. We’ve investigated and disrupted the finances of terrorist connected groups and individuals through the Terrorism Financing Task Force. Despite these successes, law enforcement’s new anti-terrorism tools are sometimes scorned and actively undermined. Those who believe Americans— and American liberties—had adequate protection on September 11, 2001 are seeking to roll back our defenses of the past year. We cannot risk damaging the security of the United States by publicizing the names of those detained in our investigation, or by allowing the potential release of individuals the President, pursuant to his war powers, has designated as enemy combatants, or by re-erecting the barriers blocking law enforcement and intelligence community cooperation. These actions may be advocated in the name of American liberty; but they do not, in my judgment, advance the cause of liberty. For liberty is not Abraham Lincoln’s feared ‘‘inherent weakness’’ for which we must die, on the contrary, liberty is the eternal strength for which we must fight and for which we must prevail. And fight to secure liberty we will. In Congress, in the courts and in the media, we must defend our ability to prevent terrorism, to preserve freedom, and to protect the American people. … SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/100102agremarkstous attorneysconference.htm
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Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, Department of Justice, February 10, 2003 AS PREPARED Over the past year and a half, I have had the opportunity to meet with dozens of foreign leaders to discuss ways to enhance our joint law enforcement capabilities, and have seen firsthand the strong partnerships we have forged with freedom-loving nations throughout the world. Today alone I will meet with officials from two of the world’s great powers, China and Great Britain. Some critics, however, misinterpret or mischaracterize our relationships with our allies, believing them to be strained, damaged, or even nonexistent. To paraphrase Mark Twain, another native Missourian, the reports of the demise of international cooperation in the war on terror have been exaggerated greatly. Today, nearly 17 months after the attacks of September 11, our relationships with our foreign allies are stronger, not weaker. The bonds of sympathy and support hold firm. Indeed, what began as expressions of compassion have been transformed into commitments to action. Law enforcement agencies across Europe have joined with the United States to form partnerships that have enhanced the security of all our nations. Let me cite a few examples: — The United States has forged deep ties of cooperation with Switzerland, including a special ‘‘working arrangement’’ with the Federal Department of Police and the Swiss Antiterrorism Task Force. — Since September 11, we have worked side by side with officials in Germany to track down terrorists. Just last month, German authorities arrested two suspects in Frankfurt as part of an ongoing investigation coordinated by the FBI and German law enforcement. — Scores of formal U.S. requests for evidence needed in a wide variety of terrorism investigations—from bank records to witness interviews—have been granted promptly by rule-of-law respecting countries across Europe. — We have reached landmark information sharing agreements with EUROPOL. — We have established points of contact among American law enforcement agencies and EUROPOL and EUROJUST. — The United States has welcomed EUROPOL officers who have been assigned to Washington, and we in turn have assigned U.S. prosecutors to serve as liaisons with EUROJUST. — We have collaborated on terrorism threat assessments and identified several European-based terrorists and terrorist organizations. — We have cooperated closely to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and financiers in an effort to cut off terrorists’ ability to fund terrorism. — We are also in the process of negotiating an unprecedented judicial cooperation agreement between the United States and the European Union.
Our partners in the war on terrorism extend far beyond Europe. We are working hand in hand with law enforcement officials from Pakistan to Colombia, and from Canada to China.
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— Under the leadership of the former Solicitor General of Canada, Lawrence MacAulay, and current Solicitor General Wayne Easter, Canadian law enforcement has been an indispensable and strong partner with the United States. Long before the attacks of September 11, Canada provided consistent and invaluable assistance to law enforcement officials in the United States. And since the attacks, our nations have collaborated more closely than ever to secure our borders and protect our citizens from the threat of terrorism. — In December 2001, the United States and the People’s Republic of China established a Counter-Terrorism Working Group. As a direct result of the Working Group’s efforts, the FBI now has its first office ever in China. And the Department of Justice now has an Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing as a Resident Legal Advisor. — We have cooperated closely with law enforcement officials in Colombia and other South American nations to bring charges against key members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), two guerilla groups designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. These indictments strike at the heart of the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.
Our worldwide coalition has achieved unparalleled police-to-police cooperation among different national law enforcement agencies. Here in America, we have made great strides toward improving the integrity in our governmental systems that secure freedoms, while remaining true to the rule of law. — We are reforming immigration systems by using biometrics, including fingerprinting, to ensure the integrity of the free movement of people in our free countries; — We are updating and adapting continuously our counter-terrorism and intelligence systems, as well as participating in law enforcement exchanges, to allow for information to be exchanged in real-time; — And we are improving and securing trade systems to ensure the integrity of the free flow of goods through cargo inspections and container security.
In the past, our focus has been on traditional law enforcement—prosecution. Prosecution is retrospective; it re-creates a past event. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with the benefit of the picture on the box top. Our new, international goal of terrorism prevention, on the other hand, involves anticipation and imagination about emerging scenarios, the puzzle pieces of which have yet to come into alignment. Together, our nations are finding new ways to anticipate these dangerous scenarios and to identify, intercept and disrupt them before they become tragic terrorist realities. We are working together as never before to overcome obstacles we confront along the way. [Justice Department (Note as Prepared): The Attorney General Often Deviates From Prepared Remarks.] SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/021003agcouncilon foreignrelation.htm
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Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘The War Against Terrorism: Working Together to Protect America,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, March 4, 2003 EXCERPTED Since September 11, 2001, the Department of Justice’s overriding priority has been to lead the federal government’s fight against terrorism here in America. This fight has required us to transform the Department, updating our tools and shifting our focus from the investigation and prosecution of already completed criminal acts to the prevention of further acts of terrorism. Together with the intelligence community, we have remade ourselves into our nation’s ‘‘first preventers,’’ if you will, committed to detecting, disrupting, and dismantling terrorist networks before they strike. God willing, our prevention efforts will save us the horrible burden of ever having to respond again to the kind of carnage we witnessed on September 11. I want to assure the Committee that, as was the case with the Congress and the USA-Patriot Act, we have carefully crafted our post-September 11 policies to foster prevention while protecting the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. As I have often said, we at the Department must think outside the box, but inside the Constitution. I take seriously the concerns of civil libertarians, for I, too, believe that protecting America does not require the sacrifice of those very freedoms that make us Americans. Yet, we must remember that our nation is an experiment in what Edmund Burke termed ‘‘ordered liberty.’’ Ordered liberty means neither license nor Big Brother. Rather, the concept embraces liberty and security as complementary, mutually reinforcing values. Without security, there is no liberty; without liberty, no security. Put another way, the concept of ordered liberty acknowledges that for liberty to thrive in America, America must be secure. Almost without exception the courts have endorsed the Justice Department’s view of ordered liberty. For instance, appellate courts have upheld the Executive Branch’s authority to detain enemy combatants, close sensitive immigration hearings, and coordinate our law enforcement and intelligence activities. We have been careful in our approach, ever mindful of constitutional liberties, and we are confident that we are striking the appropriate balance. Mr. Chairman, the Justice Department’s efforts have paid enormous dividends over the past seventeen months. The September 11 investigation, the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history, moves ceaselessly forward. I assure the Committee that we will not rest until we track down and bring justice to every person involved in the September 11 attacks. Thousands of FBI Agents have participated in the investigation. They have covered more than 337,400 leads, and produced more than 165,000 FBI 302 reports of investigation. Nearly 300 Agents and 85 Support employees have been detailed to more than 30 Legal Attach´e offices overseas to assist in pursuing leads and coordinating the investigation with our international colleagues. The FBI Laboratory has received more than 585 submissions of evidence from the crash sites and related searches, representing approximately 6,332 items of
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potential evidence. In addition to the pending Zacarias Moussaoui prosecution, to date the 9/11 investigation has resulted in criminal charges against 211 individuals, 108 convictions, and the deportation of 478 individuals. In addition to the PENTTBOM investigation, our prosecutors and agents have used every tool at our disposal, including those provided in the USA-Patriot Act, to pursue other terrorism-related activity. Our efforts have resulted in numerous arrests, indictments, and convictions. For example, John Walker Lindh, the ‘‘American Taliban,’’ pled guilty to providing services to the Taliban and to carrying an explosive while engaged in the commission of a felony. Lindh was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. And Richard Reid, the al-Qaeda ‘‘shoe bomber’’ who attempted to destroy American Airlines Flight 63, pled guilty to all pending charges and was sentenced to life imprisonment on January 30, 2003. We have also disrupted [alleged] terrorist cells throughout the country. ¥ Six men were charged in Buffalo, New York, for providing material support to alQaeda. In the early summer of 2001, these men [allegedly] had participated in weapons training at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan known to be used by al-Qaeda. While they were at the camp, Osama Bin Laden visited and delivered a speech to the trainees about anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment and general al-Qaeda doctrine. One of the defendants has pleaded guilty and is now cooperating in the investigation. ¥ Four individuals indicted in Detroit, Michigan, were charged with conspiracy to engage in fraud, misuse of visas and identification documents, and providing material support to terrorists. The indictment alleges that these individuals sought to obtain false identifying information to help terrorists enter the United States, attempted to find security breaches at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and tried to obtain firearms for terrorists to use … ¥ Six individuals in Portland, Oregon, were charged with engaging in a conspiracy to join al-Qaeda and Taliban forces fighting against United States and allied soldiers in Afghanistan. Five of these individuals left the United States to travel to Afghanistan in October 2001—after the 9/11 attacks—to join the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces battling American soldiers. ¥ And Earnest James Ujaama was charged in Seattle, Washington, with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. Mr. Ujaama allegedly designed web sites advocating violence against American interests and sought to establish a terrorist training camp at a farm in Bly, Oregon.
The Justice Department makes no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance organizations. We continue to pursue financiers of terrorist barbarism as aggressively as those that actually perpetrate such horrible crimes. To date: ¥ The United States has designated 263 groups and individuals as terrorists or terrorist supporters. ¥ With our allies worldwide, we have frozen over $124 million in assets and over 600 accounts from around the world. ¥ We are pursuing more than 70 terrorist financing investigations, with 23 convictions to date. ¥ In Detroit, we recently obtained an indictment charging 11 people with racketeering and cigarette tax evasion charges, including allegations that a portion of
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the illegal proceeds was intended for Hizbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization. ¥ In North Carolina, a jury convicted brothers Mohamad Hammoud and Chawki Hammoud of, among other charges, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The Hammouds smuggled millions of dollars worth of cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan and funneled proceeds from such sales to the Middle East to help finance Hezbollah’s terrorism. ¥ A federal jury in Boston convicted Mohammed Hussein on charges of running an unlicensed foreign money transmittal business—Barakaat North America, Inc.— in violation of section 373 of the Patriot Act. The al-Barakaat network was affiliated with and received financial backing from al-Qaeda. ¥ And recently in Chicago, Enaam Arnaout, the head of Benevolence International Foundation, pleaded guilty and admitted that he fraudulently obtained charitable donations and funneled the money to individuals engaged in violence and terrorism.
Mr. Chairman, we have also built upon close working relationships with international allies to leverage our antiterrorism efforts throughout the world. For example, in Germany recently, Mounir el Motassadeq was convicted for helping a key al-Qaeda cell behind the September 11 terrorist attacks against our nation. In response to Germany’s request for assistance, the Justice Department provided information, including documents, a witness, and access to an individual in U.S. custody convicted of terrorism offenses. Mr. Chairman, perhaps the most effective provisions of the USA Patriot Act are those that altered outdated statutory restrictions so that intelligence and law enforcement agencies have greater freedom to coordinate their efforts and to share information gathered about terrorists. One important development, with which the Act’s provisions amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) were consistent, was dismantlement of the false ‘‘wall’’ that had been built between intelligence and law enforcement. That wall was finally cleared away on November 18, 2002, when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review issued a decision endorsing the Justice Department’s March 6, 2002 Intelligence Sharing Procedures. These procedures had been devised to give full effect to the USA Patriot Act. As the Committee is aware, the Justice Department uses its FISA tools to collect intelligence information to protect our country from foreign threats, including terrorism. Of course, specific details regarding our use of FISA are appropriately classified, and I am limited in what I can say in public about these matters.… We strive to use FISA as efficiently and effectively as possible, and endeavor to present applications to the Court—each one of which the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, or Acting Attorney General must sign—in a highly professional manner. We only present applications to the court that we conclude are fully vetted and are justified by the facts and the law with due regard to our obligation to protect the privacy of Americans from unwarranted intrusions. Since 9/11, we have used FISA aggressively to obtain the information we need to protect the national security, but we have done so in accordance with the law and our ethical obligations. For example, in calendar year 2002, we
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presented more than 1,000 applications to the FISA court targeting terrorists, spies and foreign powers who threaten our security. In addition, we have made full use of statutory provisions that allow the Attorney General to approve FISA surveillances and searches on an emergency basis. Since 9/11, more than 170 Attorney General emergency FISAs have been authorized. By way of comparison, in the preceding twenty years, only 47 Attorney General emergency FISAs were authorized. The Act requires us to present applications to the court soon after an emergency approval, and the number of emergency FISAs increased so substantially after 9/11 that we had to seek an amendment from the Congress to give us more time to prepare the required pleadings.… The benefit of this new FISA regime cannot be overstated. Today, our intelligence and law enforcement communities can coordinate intelligence and law enforcement efforts to protect the country from terrorists and foreign spies. Such coordination is vital to keeping the country safe, and several significant law enforcement actions have resulted directly from the new FISA regime. For instance, I announced just recently the arrest of Professor Sami Al-Arian and other members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated foreign terrorist organization, following the return of a 50-count indictment by a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida … Mr. Chairman, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the need for an increased protective presence on and beyond our nation’s borders has also become clear. In recognition of this need, the Justice Department quickly implemented the Patriot Act’s new immigration-related tools and developed new initiatives to secure our borders and keep track of those who would come to our nation bent on doing harm. Many of these tools have just been turned over to the new Homeland Security Department … ¥ Prior to its incorporation on March 1, 2003, into the Department of Homeland Security, the INS had already begun implementing the National Security EntryExit Registration System that Congress authorized in 1996. NSEERS requires that foreign visitors who are identified as presenting elevated national security concerns be fingerprinted using state-of-the-art digital technology. Those fingerprints are run against a database of known terrorists, wanted criminals, and convicted felons … EDITOR’S NOTE: See Attorney General Ashcroft’s Prepared Remarks on the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, June 6, 2002 (http://www. usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/051002newsconference-sevistranscript.htm). ¥ The NSEERS program has already yielded impressive success in the war against terrorism and in the enforcement of our immigration laws. Thus far, NSEERS has allowed immigration officials to track the entry, exit, location, and activities of more than 81,000 foreign visitors from 149 different countries. To date, NSEERS has led to the apprehension of 8 suspected terrorists and over 500 other aliens at the border who presented law enforcement threats. This includes aliens who have committed serious felonies in the United States in the past and are inadmissible, aliens with fraudulent documents, and individuals who had previously been deported. ¥ The FBI for a long time had been sharing information in its NCIC files with immigration officials and the State Department so that those agencies can determine whether a visa applicant has a criminal history record. Consistent with the Patriot Act, the FBI is now providing such information to the agencies in extract form,
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which immigration officials and the State Department can download into their databases, … the NCIC database [will include] the names, photographs, and other identifying data of all known or suspected terrorists. ¥ Pursuant to section 416 of the Patriot Act, we have implemented and expanded the foreign student visa monitoring program known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. SEVIS enables schools to electronically transmit student data to immigration offices and the State Department so that immigration officials will be able to take appropriate action when a student visa holder falls out of active student status. EDITOR’S NOTE: See Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Transcript of News Conference—SEVIS, Department of Justice Conference Center, May 10, 2002 http://mediaguidetoislam.sfsu.edu/intheus/pdfs/D_IMM_FNS_transcript.pdf. ¥ Finally, immigration officials have given effect to the Patriot Act’s mandate by quickly working to install the Integrated Intelligence Surveillance System at 55 northern border sites. When this computer-aided detection system is completed ISIS will provide 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week, border coverage through groundbased sensors, fixed cameras, and other technology.
Recognizing that many terrorists use false immigration and identification documents, the Justice Department has cracked down on document fraud across the nation. In Maryland, for example, Rasmi Subhi Saleh Al Shannaq, former roommate of two of the September 11 hijackers, was arrested by INS and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents. This apprehension led to 45 arrests in a visa fraud scheme. In Virginia, Luis Martinez-Flores and Herbert Villalobos pled guilty to fraud for helping hijackers obtain identification documents. And approximately 1200 airport workers have been charged with falsifying documents and violating immigration laws as the result of investigations conducted at more than 45 airports nationwide. Mr. Chairman, as you can see, the Justice Department has taken every possible step, used every tool at its disposal, and employed every authority under the law to prevent acts of terrorism and to protect innocent American lives … SOURCE: http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=612&wit_id=42
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Preserving Life and Liberty,’’ American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., August 19, 2003 AS PREPARED This morning, terrorists struck the United Nations mission in Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and seriously injuring at least 120 others. The victims were innocent people who traveled to Iraq on a mission of peace and human dignity. Let me express sympathy to the victims and their loved ones. This morning’s attack again confirms that the worldwide terrorist threat is real and imminent. Our enemies continue to pursue ways to murder the innocent and the peaceful. They seek to kill us abroad and at home. But we will not be deterred from our responsibility to preserve American life and liberty, nor our duty to build a safer, more secure world.
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Two years separate us from the day when our nation’s stock of consecrated ground grew tragically larger. That day, a familiar list of monuments to American freedom—places like Bunker Hill, Antietam, the Argonne, Iwo Jima, and Normandy Beach—grew longer by three: — 16 acres in lower Manhattan. — The Pentagon. — A field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
… But our final tribute to the dead of September 11th must be to fulfill our responsibility to defend the living. Our greatest memorial to those who have passed must be to protect the lives and liberties of those yet to come. … [W]hile our job is not finished, we have used the tools provided in the Patriot Act to … prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction on our soil. We have used these tools to save innocent American lives. We have used these tools to provide the security that ensures liberty. Today, almost two years from the day of the attack, we know more than ever before about our capacity to defend ourselves from terrorists. We know now that there were fatal flaws in our national defenses prior to September 11. We know now that al-Qaeda understood these flaws. And we know now that al-Qaeda exploited the flaws in our defenses to murderous effect. Two years later, the evidence is clear: If we knew then what we know now, we would have passed the Patriot Act six months before September 11th rather than six weeks after the attacks. Congress recently completed an 18-month study of the causes of September 11th. Congress’s conclusions—that there was a need for better communication, a need for better cooperation, a need for prevention—read like a preamble to the Patriot Act written two years after the hard lessons of history. First, the report found that prior to September 11th intelligence agencies and law enforcement failed to communicate with each other about terrorist hijackers—even those identified as suspects. This lack of communications had its roots deep in the culture of government. The walls between those who gather intelligence and those who enforce the laws prevented action that could save lives. Fortunately, in the Patriot Act, Congress began to tear down the walls that cut off communication between intelligence and law enforcement officials. The Patriot Act gave agencies like the FBI and the CIA the ability to integrate their capabilities. It gave government the ability to ‘‘connect the dots,’’ revealing the shadowy terrorist network in our midst. In Portland, Oregon, we have indicted several persons for allegedly conspiring to travel to Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks in an effort to fight against American forces. In an example of excellent information sharing between local, state, and federal authorities, the investigation began when a local sheriff in another state shared with the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force information one of his deputies had developed from a traffic stop. Because the investigation involved both intelligence techniques and law enforcement tools, the Patriot Act’s elimination of the ‘‘wall’’ was critical in allowing all of the dots to be connected and the criminal charges to be fully
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developed. Recently one of the defendants, Maher Hawash, pled guilty to illegally providing support to the Taliban and agreed to cooperate with the government. He faces a sentence of seven-to-10 years in prison. Second, the congressional report on September 11th found that U.S. law enforcement had long been forced to rely on outdated and insufficient technology in its efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. Fortunately, in the Patriot Act, Congress gave law enforcement improved tools to prevent terrorism in the age of high technology. For example, where before investigators were forced to get a different wiretap order every time a suspect changed cell phones, now investigators can get a single wiretap that applies to the suspect and various phones he uses. Thanks to the Patriot Act, we may deploy technology to track and develop cases against alleged terrorist operatives. Uzir Paracha was a Pakistani national living in New York, who allegedly met an al-Qaeda operative overseas. Paracha allegedly agreed to help procure United States immigration documents, deposit money in a U.S. bank account, and use a post office box, all to allegedly facilitate the al-Qaeda operative’s clandestine arrival in this country. Paracha was charged on August 8 with conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Third, the congressional report on September 11th determined that there was not enough cooperation among federal, state, and local law enforcement to combat a terrorist threat that found safe haven in the most nondescript of communities. Fortunately, the Patriot Act expanded the capabilities of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which combine federal, state and local law enforcement officers into a seamless anti-terror team with international law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Hemant Lakhani is an alleged arms dealer in Great Britain, who is charged with attempting to sell shoulder-fired missiles to terrorists for use against American targets. After a long undercover investigation in several countries, Lakhani traveled to Newark, New Jersey, last week, and was arrested, along with two alleged financial facilitators, as he allegedly prepared to finalize the sale of the first missile. The Lakhani investigation would not have been possible had American, Russian and other foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies not been able to coordinate and communicate the intelligence they had gained from various investigative tools. To address all of the issues surrounding the Patriot Act would require more time than we have here. It is critical, however, for everyone to understand what the Patriot Act means for our success in the war against terrorism. I would encourage Americans to take a few minutes and log on to a new web site, www. lifeandliberty.gov (http://www.lifeandliberty.gov). There, you can read about the Patriot Act, read what members of Congress and others have said about the Patriot Act, and find out how it is keeping our nation safe and secure. Armed with the tools provided by the Patriot Act, the men and women of justice and law enforcement have dedicated themselves to the unfinished work of those who resisted, those who assisted, and those who sacrificed on September 11th.
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We have neutralized alleged terrorist cells in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle and Portland. To date, we have brought 255 criminal charges. One hundred thirty two individuals have been convicted or pled guilty. All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many more have met a different fate. We have worked hard, but we have not labored alone: — Our efforts have been supported by Republicans and Democrats in Congress. — Our efforts have been ratified by the courts in legal challenge after legal challenge. — Our efforts have been rewarded by the trust of the American people. A two-toone majority of Americans believe the Patriot Act is a necessary and effective tool that protects liberty, because it targets terrorists. Ninety-one percent of Americans understand that the Patriot Act has not affected their civil rights or the civil rights of their families.
The painful lessons of September 11th remain touchstones, reminding us of government’s responsibility to its people. Those lessons have directed us down a path that preserves life and liberty. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/081903remarksataeifi nal.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, End of the Year Address to the Department of Justice, December 10, 2004 Critics said the Department of Justice could not successfully fight crime and terrorism. But here we are, three years later, safer, not having experienced an additional terrorist attack, and benefiting from a record low in violent crime. Most importantly, for three years and 100 days, Americans have heard that another terrorist attack on our country was inevitable … that the FBI and the Justice Department, and state and local law enforcement’s finest and bravest, could not and would not prevent it. And yet we gather this morning in a nation that has not been attacked. The reason why is not a mystery. Al Qaeda has not lost its thirst for American blood. It has not declared an amnesty on infidels. Terrorists will strike when and if they can. For three years, terrorists have not struck at America because you, and people like you, have not let them. ¥ We have taken al Qaeda operatives such as the Lackawanna Six, Iyman Faris and Mohammed Babar, off America’s streets and into our custody. ¥ We have dismantled terrorist operations from New York to Oregon, from Florida to Ohio, from Virginia to California. ¥ We have brought criminal charges against 375 individuals and secured convictions or guilty pleas from 195 individuals. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2004/121004endofyearadd ress.htm
14 Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Statement Before the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Science and the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies, March 1, 2005 … It is my pleasure to appear before you for the first time to present the President’s FY 2006 budget for the Department of Justice. I assumed this office knowing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is fully committed to protecting the lives and the liberties of our citizens. As such, the budget proposal I bring before you today requests resources to continue protecting Americans and keeping our streets safe. For FY 2006, the President’s budget requests $19.1 billion for the Department of Justice, including $535.2 million in new investments for preventing and combating terrorism, including counterintelligence. The Department’s FY 2006 budget requests $3.1 billion to strengthen the nation’s counterterrorism investigative capabilities to identify, track and prevent terrorist cells from operating in the U.S. and enhance the Nation’s counterintelligence analysis capabilities. This request also provides necessary resources to continue our efforts to deter, investigate and prosecute federal crimes, including gun, drug and civil rights violations; incarcerate offenders; partner with state, local, community and faith-based groups to prevent crime, including crimes against children; and provide leadership and assistance in meeting the needs of crime victims. Preventing and Combating Terrorism, Including Counterintelligence Over the past three years, the Department has steadfastly allocated resources to counterterrorism and has undergone a transformation in our priorities, as well as our organization. Within DOJ, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in the process of standing up a comprehensive Intelligence Program to prevent terrorist attacks, an effort that has been accelerated by the passage of the
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Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The FY 2006 budget includes funding to strengthen the FBI’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Programs, such as additional resources to hire an additional 499 Intelligence analysts and 288 agents for the Counterterrorism Program. Tremendous strides in the war on terrorism were made under the leadership of Attorney General John Ashcroft. In the past year alone, the Department of Justice has arrested 379 individuals on counterterrorism-related charges and prosecuted and obtained convictions in 200 terrorism-related cases. Under my leadership, we in the Department will continue to be resolute in our quest to address terrorism and other threats to our nation with integrity and devotion to our highest ideals.… Enhancing Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Capabilities Since September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) counterterrorism workload has more than tripled, from 9,340 cases pending and received in the field to over 33,000 in FY 2004. This budget request includes resources for the FBI to provide critical counterterrorism investigation capabilities. This funding will allow the FBI to strengthen its effort to identify, track, and prevent terrorist cells from operating in the United States. Principal increases would provide funding to: double the size of the Hostage Response Team, hire 499 additional intelligence analysts, enhance the foreign language translation program by $26 million, and expand the Legal Attach´e program. This budget also includes funding for two Presidential initiatives, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC). The NCTC, established in May 2003 as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, is a multi-agency effort that merges and analyzes intelligence information to provide a comprehensive threat analysis to the intelligence and law enforcement communities. The Terrorist Screening Center, which was established by Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-6 on September 16, 2003, and became operational on December 1, 2003, consolidates terrorist watch lists. Several initiatives require additional resources in this area, including: continuing education of state and local law enforcement; more stringent screening at U.S. borders; and screening all passengers on domestic and international flights without unduly delaying commerce or travel.… This budget includes an additional 61 positions and $75 million for TSC, bringing total TSC funding up to $104 million. Additionally, successful counterterrorism requires the cohesive intelligence, investigative, and prosecutorial efforts of many government agencies, including the federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies participating in the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). A key to the success of the JTTF concept remains the melding of personnel from various law enforcement agencies into a single focused unit … The U.S. Attorneys and the Department’s Criminal Division have utilized the full cadre of anti-terrorism statutes to prosecute terrorist activities, including disrupting terrorist financing. Our budget seeks an
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additional $13.2 million and 91 positions to enhance these efforts, including funds to support the investigation of terrorism, primarily through the application of warrants under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Departmentwide continuity of operations investments. Additional Enhancements to Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence Infrastructure A key element in our efforts to prevent future acts of terrorism is our ability to effectively share information about terrorists, criminal activity and threats to public safety within DOJ and with other federal, tribal, state and local law enforcement partners. To support this effort, this budget requests an additional $63.9 million and 5 positions for the Justice Information Sharing Technology (JIST) Program.… JIST will also ensure that all DOJ components are able to operate in an interoperable environment, particularly with respect to preventing terrorist attacks on the United States. This request also continues efforts to partner with state and local governments to maximize resources targeted to homeland security efforts. The FY 2006 budget maintains this commitment and includes $90.3 million in directed investment grants for counterterrorism/counterintelligence efforts.… SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/testimony/2005/022805fy06aghousetestimony final.htm
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzalez, Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Wartime Executive Power and the NSA’s Surveillance Authority, February 6, 2006 Less than three weeks ago, we heard Osama bin Laden warn that the United States could not prevent attacks on the homeland. He continued: The proof of that is the explosions you have seen in the capitals of European nations … The delay in similar operations happening in America has not been because of failure to break through your security measures. The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your homes the minute they are through (with preparations), with God’s permission. Quoted at http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/19/D8F7SMRH5.html (January 19, 2006). Al Qaeda poses as much of a threat as a traditional nation state, and in many ways, a greater threat. Indeed, in the time since September 11th, al Qaeda and its allies have staged several large-scale attacks around the world, including in Indonesia, Madrid, and London, killing hundreds of innocent people. Al Qaeda’s leaders have repeatedly made good on their threats, and al Qaeda has demonstrated its ability to insert foreign agents into the United States to execute attacks. In confronting this new and deadly enemy, President Bush promised that ‘‘[w]e will direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every tool of law enforcement, every financial
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influence, and every weapon of war—to the disruption of and to the defeat of the global terror network.’’ (President Bush Address to a Joint Session of Congress, September 20, 2001.) The terrorist surveillance program described by the President is one such tool and one indispensable aspect of this defense of our Nation. The terrorist surveillance program targets communications where one party to the communication is outside the U.S. and the government has ‘‘reasonable grounds to believe’’ that at least one party to the communication is a member or agent of al Qaeda, or an affiliated terrorist organization. This program is reviewed and reauthorized by the President approximately every 45 days. The Congressional leadership, including the leaders of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress, has been briefed about this program more than a dozen times since 2001. The program provides the United States with the early warning system we so desperately needed on September 10th. The terrorist surveillance program remains highly classified, as it should be. We must protect this tool, which has proven so important to protecting America. An open discussion of the operational details of this program would put the lives of Americans at risk. The need to protect national security also means that I must confine my discussion of the legal analysis to those activities confirmed publicly by the President; I cannot and will not address operational aspects of the program or other purported activities described in press reports. These press accounts are in almost every case, in one way or another, misinformed, confused, or wrong. Congress and the American people are interested in two fundamental questions: is this program necessary and is it lawful. The answer to both questions is yes. The question of necessity rightly falls to our Nation’s military leaders, because the terrorist surveillance program is an essential element of our military campaign against al Qaeda. I therefore address it only briefly. The attacks of September 11th placed the Nation in a state of armed conflict. In this armed conflict, our military employs a wide variety of tools and weapons to defeat the enemy. General Michael Hayden, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former Director of the NSA, recently explained why a terrorist surveillance program that allows us quickly to collect important information about our enemy is so vital and necessary to the War on Terror. The conflict against al Qaeda is, in fundamental respects, a war of information.… As the bipartisan 9/11 and WMD Commissions have urged, we must understand better who the enemy is and what he is doing. We have to collect the right dots before we can ‘‘connect the dots.’’ The terrorist surveillance program allows us to collect more information regarding al Qaeda’s plans, and, critically, it allows us to locate al Qaeda operatives, especially those already in the United States and poised to attack. We cannot defend the Nation without such information, as we painfully learned on September 11th. As Attorney General, I am primarily concerned with the legal basis for these necessary military activities. The Attorney General of the United States is the chief legal adviser for the President and the Executive Branch. Accordingly, the Department of Justice has thoroughly examined this program and
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concluded that the President is acting within his power in authorizing it. The Department of Justice is not alone in concluding that the program is lawful. Career lawyers at NSA and its Inspector General office have been intimately involved in the oversight of the program. The lawyers have found the program to be lawful and reviewed its conduct. The Inspector Genera’s office has exercised vigorous reviews of the program to provide assurance that it is carried out within the terms of the President’s authorization. The terrorist surveillance program is firmly grounded in the President’s constitutional authorities. The Constitution charges the President with the primary responsibility for protecting the safety of all Americans, and the Constitution gives the President the authority necessary to fulfill this solemn duty. See, e.g., The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. (2 Black) 635, 668 (1863). It has long been recognized that the President’s constitutional powers include the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance aimed at detecting and preventing armed attacks on the United States. Presidents have repeatedly relied on their inherent power to gather foreign intelligence for reasons both diplomatic and military, and the federal courts have consistently upheld this longstanding practice. See In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717, 742 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. of Rev. 2002). If this authority is available in ordinary times, it is even more vital in the present circumstances of our armed conflict with al Qaeda. The President authorized the terrorist surveillance program in response to the deadliest foreign attack on American soil, and it is designed solely to prevent the next al Qaeda attack. After all, the goal of our enemy is to blend in with our civilian population in order to plan and carry out future attacks within America. We cannot forget that the September 11th hijackers were in our country, living in our communities. The President’s authority to take military action—including the use of communications intelligence targeted at the enemy—does not come merely from his constitutional powers. It comes directly from Congress as well. Just a few days after the attacks of September 11th, Congress enacted a joint resolution to support and authorize the military response to the attacks on American soil. Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (September 18, 2001) (AUMF). In the AUMF, Congress did two important things. First, it expressly recognized the President’s ‘‘authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States.’’ Second, it supplemented that authority by authorizing the President to ‘‘use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks’’ in order to prevent further attacks on the United States. Accordingly, the President’s authority to use military force against those terrorist groups is at its maximum because he is acting with the express authorization of Congress. Thus, under the three-part framework of Justice Jackson’s concurring opinion in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635-38 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring), the President’s authority falls within Category I, and is at its highest. He is acting ‘‘pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress,’’ and the President’s
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authority ‘‘includes all that he possesses in his own right [under the Constitution] plus all that Congress can’’ confer on him. In 2004, the Supreme Court considered the scope of the AUMF in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). There, the question was whether the President had the authority to detain an American citizen as an enemy combatant for the duration of the hostilities. The Supreme Court confirmed that the expansive language of the AUMF—‘‘all necessary and appropriate force’’— ensures that the congressional authorization extends to traditional incidents of waging war. See also Curtis A. Bradley & Jack L. Goldsmith, Congressional Authorization and the War on Terrorism, 118 Harv. L. Rev. 2048, 2092 (2005). And, just like the detention of enemy combatants approved in Hamdi, the use of communications intelligence to prevent enemy attacks is a fundamental and accepted incident of military force. This fact is amply borne out by history. This Nation has a long tradition of wartime enemy surveillance—a tradition that can be traced to George Washington, who made frequent and effective use of secret intelligence. One source of Washington’s intelligence was intercepted British mail. And for as long as electronic communications have existed, the United States has intercepted those communications during wartime, and done so, not surprisingly, without judicial warrants. In the Civil War, for example, telegraph wiretapping was common and provided important intelligence for both sides. In World War I, President Wilson authorized the military to intercept all telegraph, telephone, and cable communications into and out of the United States; he inferred the authority to do so from the Constitution and from a general congressional authorization to use military force that did not mention anything about such surveillance. See Exec. Order No. 2604 (Apr. 28, 1917). So too in World War II; the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt authorized the interception of all communications traffic into and out of the United States. The terrorist surveillance program, of course, is far more focused, since it involves the interception only of international communications that are linked to al Qaeda. Some have suggested that the AUMF did not authorize intelligence collection inside the United States. That contention cannot be squared with the reality of the September 11th attacks on our soil, launched from within the country, and carried out by sleeper agents who had lived amongst us. Given this background, Congress certainly intended to support the President’s use of force to repel an unfolding attack within the United States. Congress also must be understood to have authorized the traditional means by which the military detects and responds to such attacks. Nor can this contention be squared with the language of the AUMF itself, which calls on the President to protect Americans both ‘‘at home and abroad,’’ to take action to prevent further terrorist attacks ‘‘against the United States,’’ and directs him to determine who was responsible for the attacks. Such a contention is also contrary to the long history of wartime surveillance, which has often involved the interception of enemy communications into and out of the United States. Against this backdrop, the NSA’s focused terrorist surveillance program falls squarely within the broad authorization of the AUMF even though, as some have argued, the AUMF does not expressly mention surveillance. The
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AUMF also does not mention detention of enemy combatants. But we know from the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdi that such detention is authorized even for U.S. citizens. Justice O’Connor reasoned: ‘‘Because detention to prevent a combatant’s return to the battlefield is a fundamental incident of waging war, in permitting the use of ‘necessary and appropriate force,’ Congress has clearly and unmistakably authorized detention in the narrow circumstances considered here.’’ 542 U.S. at 519 (plurality opinion). As Justice O’Connor recognized, ‘‘it is of no moment that the AUMF does not use specific language of detention’’ or even refer to the detention of U.S. citizens as enemy combatants at all. Id. Nor does it matter that individual Members of Congress may not have specifically intended to authorize such detention. The same is true of electronic surveillance. It is a traditional incident of war, and, thus, as Justice O’Connor said, it is ‘‘of no moment’’ that the AUMF does not explicitly mention this activity. Congress has ‘‘clearly and unmistakably authorized’’ it. These omissions are not at all surprising. In enacting the AUMF, Congress made no attempt to catalog every aspect of the use of force it was authorizing. Instead, following the model of past military force authorizations, Congress— in general, but broad, terms—confirmed the President’s authority to use traditional and accepted incidents of military force to identify and defeat the enemy. In doing so, Congress must be understood to have endorsed the use of so fundamental an aspect of the use of military force as electronic surveillance. Some contend that even if the President has constitutional authority to engage in the surveillance of our enemy during an armed conflict, that authority has been constrained by Congress with the passage in 1978 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Generally, FISA requires the Government to obtain an order from a special FISA court before conducting ‘‘electronic surveillance.’’ 50 U.S.C. xx 1803-1805 (2000 and Supp. II 2002). FISA defines ‘‘electronic surveillance’’ carefully and precisely. Id. x 1801(f) … Because I cannot discuss operational details, for purposes of this discussion, I will assume that intercepts of international al Qaeda communications under the terrorist surveillance program fall within the definition of ‘‘electronic surveillance’’ in FISA. FISA allows Congress to respond to new threats through separate legislation. FISA prohibits persons from intentionally ‘‘engag[ing] … in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute.’’ 50 U.S.C. x 1809(a)(1) (2000) (emphasis added). For the reasons I have already discussed, the AUMF provides the relevant statutory authorization for the terrorist surveillance program. Hamdi makes clear that the broad language in the AUMF can satisfy a requirement for specific statutory authorization set forth in another law. Hamdi involved a statutory prohibition on all detention of U.S. citizens except as authorized ‘‘pursuant to an Act of Congress.’’ 18 U.S.C. x 4001(a) (2000). Even though the detention of a U.S. citizen involves a deprivation of liberty, and even though the AUMF says nothing on its face about detention of U.S. citizens, a majority of the members of the Supreme Court nevertheless concluded that the AUMF satisfied the statutory requirement. See Hamdi,
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542 U.S. at 519 (plurality opinion); id. at 587 (Thomas, J., dissenting). The same is true for the prohibition on warrantless electronic surveillance in FISA. FISA also expressly allows the President to conduct warrantless surveillance for 15 days following a congressional declaration of war. 50 U.S.C. x 1811 (2000). That provision shows that Congress understood that warrantless surveillance would be essential in wartime. But no one could reasonably suggest that all such critical military surveillance in a time of war would end after only 15 days. Instead, the legislative history of this provision makes clear that Congress elected not to decide how surveillance might need to be conducted in the event of a particular armed conflict. Congress expected that it would revisit the issue in light of events and likely would enact a special authorization during that 15-day period. H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-1720, at 34. That is exactly what happened three days after the attacks of September 11th, when Congress passed the AUMF, authorizing the President to employ ‘‘all necessary and appropriate’’ incidents of military force—including the use of communications intelligence activities targeted at the enemy. Many people ask why the President elected not to use FISA’s procedures for securing court orders for the terrorist surveillance program. We have to remember that what is at issue is a wartime intelligence program designed to protect our Nation from another attack in the middle of an armed conflict. It is an ‘‘early warning system’’ with only one purpose: to detect and prevent the next attack on the United States from foreign agents hiding in our midst. It is imperative for national security that we can detect reliably, immediately, and without delay whenever communications associated with al Qaeda enter or leave the United States. That may be the only way to alert us to the presence of an al Qaeda agent in our country and to the existence of an unfolding plot. The optimal way to achieve the speed and agility necessary to this military intelligence program during the present armed conflict with al Qaeda is to leave the decisions about particular intercepts to the judgment of professional intelligence officers, based on the best available intelligence information. These officers are best situated to make decisions quickly and accurately. If, however, those same intelligence officers had to navigate through the FISA process for each of these intercepts, that would necessarily introduce a significant factor of delay, and there would be critical holes in our early warning system. Importantly, as explained below, these intelligence officers apply a probable cause standard. The critical advantage offered by the terrorist surveillance program compared to FISA is who makes the probable cause determination and how many layers of review must occur before surveillance begins. Some have pointed to the provision in FISA that allows for so-called ‘‘emergency authorizations’’ of surveillance for 72 hours without a court order. There is a serious misconception about these emergency authorizations. We do not and cannot approve emergency surveillance under FISA without knowing that we meet FISA’s normal requirements. In order to authorize emergency surveillance under FISA, the Attorney General must personally ‘‘determine[] that … the factual basis for issuance of an order under [FISA] to approve such surveillance exists.’’ 50 U.S.C. x 1805(f). FISA requires the Attorney General to
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determine in advance that this condition is satisfied. That review process can, of necessity, take precious time. And that same process takes the decision away from the officers best situated to make it during an armed conflict. Thus, to initiate surveillance under a FISA emergency authorization, it is not enough to rely on the best judgment of our intelligence officers. Those intelligence officers would have to get the sign-off of lawyers at the NSA, and then lawyers in the Department of Justice would have to be satisfied that the statutory requirements for emergency authorization are met, and finally as Attorney General, I would have to be satisfied that the proposed surveillance meets the requirements of FISA. Finally, the emergency application must be filed ‘‘as soon as practicable,’’ but within 72 hours. A typical FISA application involves a substantial process in its own right: The work of several lawyers; the preparation of an application and related legal papers; the approval of a designated Cabinet-level officer; a certification from a designated Senate-confirmed officer; and, finally, of course, the approval of an Article III judge who sits on the FISA Court. See 50 U.S.C. x 1804. Needless to say, even under the very best of circumstances, this process consumes valuable resources and results in significant delay. We all agree that there should be appropriate checks and balances on the Branches of our Government. The FISA process makes perfect sense in almost all cases of foreign intelligence monitoring in the United States. Although technology has changed dramatically since FISA was enacted, FISA remains a vital tool in the War on Terror, and one that we are using to its fullest and will continue to use against al Qaeda and other foreign threats. But as the President has explained, the terrorist surveillance program operated by the NSA requires the maximum in speed and agility, since even a very short delay may make the difference between success and failure in preventing the next attack. And we cannot afford to fail. Finally, the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program fully complies with the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment has never been understood to require warrants in all circumstances. The Supreme Court has upheld warrantless searches at the border and has allowed warrantless sobriety checkpoints … The terrorist surveillance program fits within this ‘‘special needs’’ category. This conclusion is by no means novel. During the Clinton Administration, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before Congress in 1994 that the President has inherent authority under the Constitution to conduct foreign intelligence searches of the private homes of U.S. citizens in the United States without a warrant, and that such warrantless searches are permissible under the Fourth Amendment. See Amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Hearings Before the House Permanent Select Comm. on Intelligence, 103d Cong. 2d Sess. 61, 64 (1994) (statement of Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick). See also In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d at 745-46. The key question under the Fourth Amendment is not whether there was a warrant, but whether the search was reasonable. Determining the reasonableness of a search for Fourth Amendment purposes requires balancing privacy interests with the Government’s interests and ensuring that we maintain appropriate safeguards. United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118-19
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(2001). Although the terrorist surveillance program may implicate substantial privacy interests, the Government’s interest in protecting our Nation is compelling. Because the need for the program is reevaluated every 45 days and because of the safeguards and oversight, the al Qaeda intercepts are reasonable. No one takes lightly the concerns that have been raised about the interception of domestic communications inside the United States. But this terrorist surveillance program involves intercepting the international communications of persons reasonably believed to be members or agents of al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist organizations. This surveillance is narrowly focused and fully consistent with the traditional forms of enemy surveillance found to be necessary in all previous armed conflicts. The need for the program is reviewed at the highest levels of government approximately every 45 days to ensure that the al Qaeda threat to the national security of this Nation continues to exist. Moreover, although the Fourth Amendment does not require application of a probable cause standard in this context, the ‘‘reasonable grounds to believe’’ standard employed in this program is the traditional Fourth Amendment probable cause standard. As the Supreme Court has stated, ‘‘The substance of all the definitions of probable cause is a reasonable ground for belief of guilt.’’ Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 371 (2003) (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). This Administration has chosen to act now to prevent the next attack with every lawful tool at its disposal, rather than wait until it is too late. It is hard to imagine a President who would not elect to use these tools in defense of the American people—in fact, it would be irresponsible to do otherwise. The terrorist surveillance program is both necessary and lawful. Accordingly, as the President has explained, he intends to continue to exercise this authority as long as al Qaeda poses such a grave threat to the national security. If we conduct this reasonable surveillance—while taking special care to preserve civil liberties as we have—we can all continue to enjoy our rights and freedoms for generations to come … SOURCE: http://149.101.1.32/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_060206.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Remarks at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, England, March 7, 2006 … I appreciate the opportunity to exchange views about our shared struggle to keep our citizens safe in the face of the continuing threat of global terrorism. As democratic societies anchored on civil liberties and the rule of law, America and Europe face enormous challenges in responding effectively to the terrorist threat. And let us be frank: the United States and some of its closest democratic allies have disagreed on how to approach certain aspects of the struggle against terrorism. The war in Iraq and issues relating to the detention of terrorists and foreign fighters are extremely difficult and have caused
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particular concern. But I want to begin by underscoring that we are committed to working together with our Allies and partners, in full respect of our respective national sovereignties, and we wish to remain engaged in an open and constructive dialogue on these challenging issues. That is precisely what brings me here today. Although these issues are complex we must not let the consensus between the United States and Europe in fighting terrorism be weakened over differences in how we approach the fight. Prevailing in this global struggle is essential to us all—and only through a strong continued partnership between the United States and Europe will we be able to disrupt militant conspiracies, destroy their ability to commit terrorist acts, and give millions in a troubled region a hopeful alternative to the terrorists’ ideology of hatred, fear, and repression. Freedom, after all, is not for Americans and Europeans alone, but is the enduring hope of all humanity. A close and united partnership between Europe and the United States remains vital to the security and prosperity of all our countries and, indeed, the whole world. I. Successes I think it’s important to take a moment at the outset to reflect on what we have achieved working together over the last few years in the criminal justice arena. It is all too easy to focus on the challenges facing the trans-Atlantic relationship without fully appreciating the massive amount of work—and the profound successes—we have achieved. Together we are confronting the reality of terrorism with a steadfast resolve—and we are doing so with remarkable effect in many areas. In the last few years, we have reached out to one another and secured unprecedented new levels of cooperation between our respective criminal justice systems. We are coordinating closely with the U.K. in support of its investigations into the July 2005 London attacks. In 2004, thanks to coordinated efforts by antiterrorism units on both sides of the Atlantic, we were able together to disrupt and prosecute plots to commit attacks in both the United States and the U.K. Another recent example involves the sentencing last September of British arms dealer Hemant Lakhani to 47 years in prison for attempting to arrange the sale of shoulder-fired missiles in New Jersey. New Scotland Yard and the Russian Federal Security Service were critical to the success of this investigation, and representatives of both services testified at trial. You will also recall the case of Richard Reid, the so-called ‘‘shoe bomber’’ who sought to blow up a transatlantic commercial flight. His plot was foiled by an astute flight attendant who saw him trying to light a match and ignite a fuse protruding from his shoe. After a fight, Reid was subdued and he was eventually prosecuted and sentenced to life in prison in the United States. What has received perhaps less attention is that Reid had a co-conspirator here in the U.K., Saajid Badat, who was uncovered thanks to the cooperation between our two countries. U.K. authorities arrested and convicted Badat after finding in his possession bomb components virtually identical to those Reid attempted to use. After his arrest, Badat admitted to police that, like Reid, he’d been asked to act as a shoe bomber.
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These are just a few examples of the string of antiterrorism successes we’ve achieved through criminal justice cooperation in recent years thanks to far greater coordination between our law enforcement agencies. There are many more like them. Our efforts at working together to uncover and foil terror plots through the criminal justice system has taken many forms and occurred at every level of our respective governments. We have posted to our Embassy here FBI attach´es and a liaison federal prosecutor from the Department of Justice to aid in terrorism investigations and prosecutions. The UK, in turn, has posted similar liaison officers to Washington … We have also signed many important agreements, foremost of which is a new extradition treaty … We have also concluded new extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties between the European Union and the United States—the first ever treaties between the US and the EU. These treaties and others like them now being negotiated and implemented in the terrorism arena will ensure even greater coordination in combating the terror threat we all face. II. Challenges While our recent advances in the fight against terrorism have been profound and all-too-often unsung, I am not here to deny that some points of tension have also arisen in our trans-Atlantic relationship. But, while we may take somewhat different approaches in the struggle against terrorism, we should not overlook the fact that we share a common objective and a common threat. The truth is that our enemy rejects as immaterial and even corrosive some of the most basic values both you and we hold dear. Values like the freedom of expression. The freedom of worship. The belief in the equality and inviolability of all human beings—regardless of gender, or race, or creed. This enemy’s war is not just with America, or the United Kingdom. All freedom-loving people have a stake in this struggle. We should not permit our own healthy debate over approaches to this conflict to divert us from our shared objectives, or to disrupt our vital alliance in pursuing them. Just weeks ago, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman alZawahiri, emerged from hiding to describe new threats against both Europe and America, promising that attacks are being planned … Certainly the recent bombings here in London, as well as those in Bali, Spain, Jordan and elsewhere, belie any notion that we can dismiss such threats as empty rhetoric or write off terrorism as the problem of America or the U.K. alone. The convictions of the Yarkas group in Spain, the Beghal convictions in France, and the Badat prosecution here in the U.K. also underscore that the threat remains very real and worldwide … We should remember that al Qaeda patiently waited eight years between its attacks on the World Trade Center … Citizens from more than 90 countries died on September 11, including some 67 Britons. Whether you accept that we are actually at war with terrorists worldwide, I hope you can appreciate our view that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda—and that we are going to continue to use all available tools, including the traditional instruments of waging war, to defeat this enemy.
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I understand that our characterization of a ‘‘global war against terrorism’’ has raised some questions here in Europe: for example, does the United States really believe it is engaged in a state of war against all terrorists in all places? To these questions, I should explain what we mean when we use this phrase. On a political level, we believe that all countries must exercise the utmost resolve in defeating the global threat posed by transnational terrorism. On a legal level, we believe that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda. They have attacked our embassies, our military vessels and military bases, our capital city, and our financial center. On September 11th, they killed nearly three thousand people and the UN and NATO quickly passed resolutions acknowledging the right of the United States to self defense. It is appropriate and lawful to use all available tools, including our military forces, to defeat this brutal enemy. Some say that in pursuing the war on terror America has failed to respect human rights and the rule of law. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dealing with captured terrorists is a difficult challenge in this very different kind of war and we are constantly working to improve our detainee policies and procedures. But the United States, together with our European allies, has always been, and remains, a great defender of human rights; and the rule of law is an essential element of all of our democracies. We recognize that our military base at Guantanamo Bay has been a matter of particular concern in the UK and Europe. But not all of the facts about Guantanamo seem to be widely known. There are currently about 500 detainees there, including highly dangerous people—terrorist trainers, bomb makers, terrorist financiers, bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, and potential suicide bombers. The U.S. military has designed specific processes to ensure that we continue to detain only those who are dangerous enemy combatants. Indeed, the military screened more than 10,000 people in Afghanistan alone and determined only a very small fraction merited detention at Guantanamo. Even so, the United States Congress and the President have recognized the unusual nature of this conflict and, the wartime context notwithstanding, have provided additional and unprecedented legal protections to Guantanamo detainees—protections that seem to have received scant attention abroad. First, each detainee is provided not just the traditional assessment of his status by commanders in the field. He is also afforded a subsequent formal hearing before a separate, three member military tribunal to determine whether he is properly being detained as an enemy combatant. Then, if the detainee objects to the tribunal’s conclusion, he may appeal to a civilian federal Court of Appeals and thereafter to the United States Supreme Court. In addition, every detainee is afforded an annual administrative review to determine whether he should be released—a process very much like a prison parole hearing. We are aware of no other nation in history that has afforded procedural protections like these to enemy combatants—including allowing access to civilian courts for those captured on the battlefield. In point of fact, more than 265 detainees have already been transferred out of Guantanamo Bay. Unfortunately, despite assurances from those released, the Department of Defense reports that at least 15 have returned to the fight and been recaptured or killed on the battlefield.
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As to conditions at Guantanamo Bay, detainees are permitted access to state-of-the-art medical care, healthy meals consistent with their cultural and religious requirements, and opportunities to observe their religious beliefs. Now, I am familiar with many allegations of torture, or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment by US officials, both at Guantanamo and elsewhere. But on this point, let me be absolutely clear: The United States abhors torture and categorically rejects its use, as a matter of policy, as a matter of international obligations, and as a matter of US law. Likewise, US law forbids cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees as defined by U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture, whether in the United States or abroad, whether at the hands of military or civilian personnel. When violations do occur, as they have, we investigate any credible allegation—and those found to have committed infractions are disciplined. Unlike our enemies who torture and decapitate innocent human beings to make their point, we are committed to rooting out and denouncing the mistreatment of human beings—even when it is committed by our soldiers against enemy combatants. The virtue of the rule of law is not that it eliminates all human flaws; rather, laws expose flaws, and address them justly. Our Congress recently passed and the President signed the Detainee Treatment Act, which included the well-known McCain Amendment. Contrary to press accounts, however, the McCain Amendment did not prohibit torture. Our federal criminal laws have long done that. Instead, the McCain Amendment codified in U.S. law the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment contained in the Convention Against Torture, making clear that the prohibition applies to the treatment of all detainees under U.S. control anywhere in the world. In the context of renditions—another matter that has raised particular concern in the UK and Europe—US policy is also clear. We do not transport anyone to a country if we believe it more likely than not that the individual will be tortured; and we seek assurances, where appropriate, that transferred persons will not be tortured. We do not use the airports or air space of any country in Europe or anywhere in the world for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he will be tortured. III. Opportunities As I emphasized at the start of my presentation, I recognize that these issues are complex and challenging. The United States remains committed, though, to engaging in an open dialogue with our European partners about these issues and to work together to achieve our vital objectives. Indeed, there remains much we must do together if we are to succeed in our struggle against terrorism. I am convinced, for instance, that we can learn a great deal from one another by comparing how our different legal systems and cultures approach similar terror-related issues. At the same time, of course, we must recognize that our societies, while both firmly committed to the rule of law, will never be identical. Under European legal systems, you have tools at your disposal for combating terrorism that are not available in our criminal justice system; and, of course, the contrary is sometimes true as well.
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Take, for example, the issue of electronic surveillance, which has come to the fore in the current debate over the U.S.’s terrorist surveillance program. Critics have expressed concern about civil liberties and privacy interests. As I have stated many times, the program is both fully constitutional and fully protective of civil liberties. And while such issues must be resolved under our own Constitution and laws, it is noteworthy that the practice of obtaining electronic surveillance without a judicial warrant has long been accepted in Europe as something that can be accomplished with proper respect for liberty and privacy interests. France, for example, allows public prosecutors to order wiretapping without judicial warrant if they believe doing so would be useful for determining whether a terrorist offense has occurred. Here in the UK, the Home Secretary has the same power, subject to careful checks. In a different vein, European countries have adopted an array of different preventive detention regimes not available in the United States. A French investigative judge may, for example, order an individual to be detained for as long as four years prior to trial if the judge has serious reason to believe the suspect participated in a major terrorist offense … prosecutors in the United States are far more constrained in this area—they may, for example, hold even those suspected of imminent deadly attacks only for hours or perhaps over a weekend (if a magistrate is not available) before charges must be brought or the suspect released. Now, to be clear, I am not advocating that America adopt a European model or vice versa. Instead, I seek merely to point out that we are all engaged in a difficult and ongoing dialogue over how to balance the civil liberties we all cherish with the need to protect against a secretive and unconventional enemy operating within our own societies. How to manage all this consistent with our unique cultures and legal norms is a difficult but necessary dialogue for us all. One area in which we clearly must do more to learn from each other involves the sharing of data regarding terror suspects. A central challenge faced by all our countries is how to ensure that data is gathered and shared in ways that maximize the safety of our citizens without endangering their legitimate privacy interests. In Europe, the EU Commission has advanced the ‘‘principle of availability’’ to encourage data sharing among EU countries for criminal justice purposes. Significantly, this principle would permit the sharing not only of traditional criminal justice information, but also fingerprint, DNA, and border control data. But there is a danger to be avoided here. Some contemplate erecting barriers against sharing data with partners outside the EU if their privacy systems do not precisely match the EU’s. Yet some of these privacy systems, while not identical to the EU’s, aim at very much the same result. The U.S., for instance, recognizes a right of privacy. While we implement that right in a different fashion than the EU, the core principles and protections remain the same. It is for this reason that we have been able to partner in data sharing arrangements with Europol and to work with the EU to fashion data protection provisions for the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention. It would be a great loss to both the US and Europe if we were not able to do the same
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thing in the terrorism context. Neither side can afford to erect new walls that preclude us from sharing critical information about terror suspects. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_060307.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Opening Remarks at the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Washington, D.C., April 5, 2006 Today I present the President’s FY 2007 Budget for the Department of Justice. Mr. Chairman, in an Administration that is committed to controlling overall government spending, this budget prioritizes our top public safety needs. This is a budget that builds on our expertise, launches new programs, and eliminates or cuts programs that have not met our high standards. It focuses State and local assistance on priorities established by the Administration and Congress. Included in this $19.5 billion dollar budget are the Department’s six major priorities for the coming year. Our highest priority is to stop the terrorists who seek to destroy the American promise of liberty and prosperity. Waging the war on terror has been among the most difficult challenges that the Justice Department and the government has ever undertaken. But we have made great progress, as evidenced by the hundreds of convictions we have obtained in terrorism-related investigations, and by the terror cells we have located and broken up from coast to coast. Still, we all know al-Qaeda remains a threat. I thank Congress for reauthorizing the Patriot Act and providing resources in the War on Terror. I look forward to your support of our effort to stand-up the new National Security Division, which will enable us to house our counterterrorism and counterintelligence prosecutors side-by-side, making it faster and easier to connect the dots. The threat of terrorism is not going away, and neither is our commitment to do everything we can to stop it. And so we are requesting over $330 million for new and directed counterterrorism and intelligence programs to protect our Nation from this continuing threat … SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_060405.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks at the Justice Department Oversight Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, D.C., July 18, 2006 Since the Revolutionary War, the United States has employed military commissions in times of armed conflict to bring unlawful combatants to justice. The process of convening military commissions traditionally has been left to the President. Thus, following the precedent established by prior Administrations, the President established fair and thoughtful commission procedures. Of course, the Supreme Court has now spoken. Under the Court’s reasoning in the Hamdan case, the most obvious and feasible way to ensure that
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military commissions remain available as a tool to protect America and bring terrorists to justice is for Congress to establish the commissions’ procedures, and so we now look forward to working with Congress on this issue. As we work together to establish a statutory basis and new procedures for military commissions, I’d like to offer a few specific concepts for you to consider. First, the military commission procedures devised by the Department of Defense, as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, are useful resources to consider DoD’s current procedures carefully address in a balanced fashion specific concerns. For example, no one can expect members of our military to read Miranda warnings to terrorists captured on the battlefield … or provide terrorists on the battlefield immediate access to counsel … or maintain a strict chain of custody for evidence. Nor should terrorist trials compromise sources and methods for gathering intelligence, or prohibit the admission of probative hearsay evidence. The current DoD military commissions take into account these situational difficulties, and thus provide a useful basis for Congress’ consideration of modified procedures. The procedures Congress adopts must be fair, but also must reflect that we are still at war and that our men and women on the front lines operate in a war zone, not in the controlled environment of an FBI forensics lab. Second, we must eliminate the hundreds of lawsuits from Guantanamo detainees that are clogging our court system. In many instances, military commissions, not our civilian courts, are the appropriate place to try terrorists. In the Detainee Treatment Act, Congress recognized the need for balance in this area … I ask Congress to confirm that it intended these provisions for limited and appropriate judicial review to apply to all of the existing Guantanamo detainee lawsuits. Third, the application of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions must be defined. In Hamdan, the Supreme Court held that because the war with al Qaeda is not of an international character, common Article 3 applies to our conflict with al Qaeda—notwithstanding the fact that al Qaeda is not a signatory to Geneva and does not abide by its strictures. Because common Article 3 applies to our conflict with al Qaeda, it is imperative that we—as a Nation—are clear about exactly what that requires of our men and women on the front lines. After all, a proven violation of common Article 3 could serve as the basis for a potential prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act. Article 3 uses terms like, quote, ‘‘outrages upon personal dignity,’’ that are susceptible to different interpretations. Making matters more unpredictable still, the Supreme Court has stated in other contexts that American courts, when interpreting a treaty, should give consideration to the way foreign courts have interpreted that treaty. That degree of uncertainty is unfair to our men and women on the front lines, and I encourage you to clarify the law in this area. Now let me say a few words on another subject related to the war on terror. Recently the media has published details of classified intelligence programs that are vital to our national security. It is wrong that someone would reveal intelligence activities that are helping to prevent another terrorist attack on America. American lives are potentially endangered by such conduct.
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The programs that have been disclosed are vital. Imagine, for example, what a program like the President’s Terrorist Surveillance Program might have accomplished before 9-11. Terrorists were clustered throughout the United States preparing their assault, communicating with their superiors abroad. What might our world look like today if we had intercepted a communication revealing their plans? Or tracked the flow of money among the plotters? General Hayden has testified that the Terrorist Surveillance Program has helped us detect and prevent terror plots in the United States and abroad. And Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey has testified that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program has helped to identify, track, and pursue suspected foreign terrorists—including members of al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_060718.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks at the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh on Stopping Terrorists Before They Strike: The Justice Department’s Power of Prevention, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 16, 2006 Last Thursday, we had a vivid example of the prevention of terrorism with the disruption of what would have been a major terrorist attack with massive casualties. Thanks to the vigilance of the British authorities, a terrorist plot to kill more innocent men, women and children was disrupted. It was an international success for intelligence and law enforcement, with over 200 FBI agents working with their British counterparts to investigate every possible lead here in America, to make sure that plotting was not taking place on this side of the Atlantic as well. The concept of prevention, while always in the picture of law enforcement, took on a particular meaning and urgency after September 11th. Prevention is the goal of all goals when it comes to terrorism because we simply cannot and will not wait for these particular crimes to occur before taking action. Investigating and prosecuting terrorists after they have killed our countrymen would be an unworthy goal. Preventing terrorism is a meaningful and daily triumph. At the Department of Justice, our strategy of prevention is built on four primary pillars of activity: First, aggressive criminal and intelligence investigations. Second, utilization of partnerships, information-gathering and collaboration at every level: international, national, state and local. Third, prosecution and incarceration of terrorists. And, finally, containment of the radicalization that leads to homegrown, al Qaeda-inspired terrorists. Let me address briefly each in turn. Investigation The aggressive national security investigations (the combination of criminal and terrorist investigations), where we use every lawful tool to prevent terrorism, forms the first pillar of our strategy.
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Winning the war on terror requires us to win the war of getting information. Like tiny but important pieces of a complicated puzzle, we can now take the most innocuous, seemingly unrelated pieces of information and connect the dots of a complex terrorist plot. The reasons are many. The Patriot Act closed law-enforcement and intelligence gaps so that a local cop can check a national terrorist list when he arrests a thief or drug dealer and the FBI can check with the CIA when investigating a ring of art thieves. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—commonly referred to as FISA—has been available since 1978 to gather foreign intelligence through electronic surveillance. It, too, is a valuable tool in investigations. Senator Arlen Specter is currently sponsoring legislation that would update FISA in light of today’s new technologies. I applaud his effort to ensure that this important anti-terror tool is kept current and urge the Congress to support this important piece of legislation. To enhance our abilities to conduct aggressive national security investigations we reformed the FBI, establishing a Directorate of Intelligence to oversee all FBI intelligence activities. And the FBI has enhanced its workforce, doubling the number of intelligence analysts, hiring additional linguists and implementing new training. There are now intelligence groups in every single FBI field office where analysts, linguists and surveillance specialists work as teams. These Field Intelligence Groups play a major role in making sure that the FBI gathers the intelligence we need and then shares that intelligence with counterparts in law enforcement and the intelligence community. Cooperation The second pillar of our strategy is cooperation. ‘‘It takes a network to defeat a network.’’ This is a central truth of the campaign to prevent terrorist attacks and illustrates our widespread use of partnerships and cooperation at every level of government. Last week’s disruption of the UK bomb plot highlights the success of international cooperation. Our prosecutors train one another, share information and one another’s sensitive intelligence. The level of cooperation between the United States and our foreign counterparts is outstanding and is truly the untold story of the war on terror. At home, we have dramatically improved collaboration among federal agencies. Indeed, we have applied a new mentality of constant sharing and communicating with our partners—and this includes our state and local partners as well. We are standing up intelligence fusion centers across the country because we realize that partnerships increase our abilities exponentially. The FBI is a relatively small organization of 12,000 agents when compared to the 800,000 state and local law enforcement officers across the country. Our combined abilities are so much greater, so united we will stand. … At every level, the people of this country are partners in this effort to prevent terrorism. Tips are welcomed by federal, state and local intelligence
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and law enforcement officials. We must remember that with the vigilance of both the people and the government, our network can dwarf that of the terrorists. Prosecution Third, aggressive investigations, facilitated by cooperation with our partners, leads to arrests and prosecutions—and this is where prevention is most visible. Putting a would-be terrorist behind bars is a tangible example of protecting the American people. Central to these efforts, of course, is the question of when to arrest and begin prosecution. Simply put, we need to gather enough information and evidence during our investigations to ensure a successful prosecution, but we absolutely cannot wait too long, allowing a plot to develop to its deadly fruition. Let me be clear, preventing the loss of life is our paramount objective. Securing a successful prosecution is not worth the cost of one innocent life. Determining when to arrest would-be terrorists depends on countless factors like the dangerousness of the possible attack, the parties involved, and the imminence of the plot becoming operational. No two cases are the same and decisions about arrest are difficult ones that must be made on a case-by-case basis by career professionals using their best judgment—keeping in mind that we need to protect sensitive intelligence sources and methods and sometimes rely upon foreign evidence in making a case. Although every situation is different, and flexibility is critical, there is one thing that does fit every case: adherence to civil liberties and the rule of law. Those concerned with civil liberties should be reassured, and all Americans should find satisfaction in knowing that we are fighting terrorists according to our constitution. Radicalization Finally, our last pillar is countering radicalization. I am often asked whether we are safe. We are safer than we were on September 11th, but we are not yet safe. We have new tools, new laws and we have re-organized our government. We now have a Department of Homeland Security, focused totally on security, and we are much better at sharing information. The fact is that while we have had significant success on some fronts, new fronts on this war have developed. We’ve taken away the ‘home base’ for al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We’ve destroyed training camps, cut off funding channels, and disrupted means of communication. We have captured or killed many of al Qaeda’s key leaders. This has weakened and fractured al Qaeda. It has also driven al Qaeda to the Internet, where their ideology has inspired and radicalized others. There are between 5,000 and 6,000 extremist websites on the Internet, each one encouraging extremists to cultivate relationships with like-minded people. These are the home-grown terrorists that you have heard about. This radicalization is happening online and can therefore develop anywhere, in virtually any neighborhood, and in any country. Academic settings, mosques and community centers can ferment radicalization as well. Anywhere that
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the disaffected can gather can become a home-base for the development of radicalism. Radicalization is also occurring in prisons. The FBI’s National Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Prisons are working to stem the growth of these intentions behind bars. We are also working with academic leaders to identify potential recruiting venues. But we must also identify the recruiters themselves, the leaders of these homegrown cells. The threat of homegrown terrorist cells—radicalized online, in prisons and in other groups of socially isolated souls—may be as dangerous as groups like al Qaeda, if not more so. They certainly present new challenges to detection. It is therefore essential that we continue to develop the tools we need to investigate their actions and intentions with the help of our partners, and prosecute those who travel down the road of radicalization. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_060816.html
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks at the JAG Corps Leadership Summit, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, October 23, 2006 The theme of this conference, Teams Within Teams, is a fitting one for the work we do, and the way in which we do it. The Department of Justice and the Department of Defense are, of course, key players on the President’s team in our global War on Terror. And in smaller teams every day we support and rely on each other. There are many other ways in which the Department of Justice directly supports the Department of Defense. Our new National Security Division works closely with DOD on counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations and prosecutions including those held at Guantanamo and subject to military commissions. Our civil litigators are defending more than 200 cases pending in federal courts related to detainees, including habeas petitions, FOIA lawsuits, and tort claims. The Solicitor General’s office represents DOD in a wide range of matters before the Supreme Court. The Office of Legal Counsel helps interpret statutes and Executive Orders for DOD. The FBI is helping to investigate and disrupt potential attacks on military personnel around the world, and to make use of valuable intelligence the military collects on the battlefield. These are but a few examples. I have also had the opportunity as Attorney General to travel around the world to see Justice, Defense, and other U.S. Government personnel in action. In August I was able to travel to Doha, Qatar, and see firsthand at Al Udeid Air Base the invaluable support the JAG Corps is providing to our men and women on the battlefield. I spoke with the CENTAF Commander, Lieutenant General North, and he told me, ‘‘My lawyers are indispensable. They help us fight and win wars.’’ I was particularly impressed by the role the JAGs played in the Combined Air Operations Center. There I witnessed real-world examples of how JAGs
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are involved in the targeting process; providing advice to the commander on the legality of planned operations under the law of armed conflict and the applicable rules of engagement. I saw how lawyers work with aviators and weaponeers to identify and analyze potential targets, assess potential collateral damage, and recommend courses of action in a time-sensitive, high-stakes environment. … Also in August I had an opportunity to visit Baghdad for the second time. I saw how Department of Justice and DOD personnel are working with Iraqi officials to rebuild the country’s legal and law enforcement infrastructure. I visited the courthouse of the Iraqi High Tribunal and learned more about how we are working together to help the Iraqis prosecute Saddam Hussein and others who have committed atrocities against Iraqi citizens. The President has made clear that our mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is nothing less than the establishment of the rule of law. The stakes are the highest, and your role is vital. But the atrocities of September 11th made clear that we must use every instrument of national power to wage the War on Terror. The tools of law enforcement are often critical in protecting our citizens. But any thought that al Qaeda’s campaign of global terrorism presented merely a law enforcement dilemma was laid to rest five years ago. … Because we are at war, we must govern our conduct by the law of war. And we must acknowledge that some of the limitations of the civilian justice system simply do not hold. In order to defend the security of our citizens, we must have the ability ¥ To detain terrorists and remove them from the battlefield; ¥ To collect from them the vital intelligence that enables us to capture their associates and break-up future plots; ¥ And to create effective and fair procedures that will allow us to prosecute and punish captured terrorists for their war crimes.
The legal doctrines directed at achieving these ends are not the same as those we would employ during peacetime. The Supreme Court has recognized this in several of its decisions, including its recent Hamdan decision. And Congress has endorsed this view with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which the President signed into law last week. The successful implementation of this Act is one of the most important challenges we will face together going forward. As you know, the military commissions created by this legislation have been the subject of extensive debate, inside and outside the Administration. I personally met with the service Judge Advocate Generals twice on this topic to get the benefit of their input and expertise. Members of my Department also consulted with the JAG Corps on many occasions. The input of the JAGs was important in creating an effective system of justice for terrorists, and much of what I heard was incorporated into the final product, such as the decision to use the Uniform Code of Military Justice as a model for the military commissions.
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This new law provides for full and fair military trials of captured terrorists; reinforces and clarifies our obligations under the Geneva Conventions; and buttresses our ability to gather vital intelligence to disrupt future terrorist attacks. For hundreds of years, the United States and other nations have used military commissions—not civilian courts and not courts-martial—to try unlawful enemy combatants. Military necessity does not permit the strict application of all court-martial procedures, and of course, there are important differences between the procedures appropriate for trying our service members and those appropriate for trying the terrorists they fight against. For instance, courts-martial, like the civilian justice system, provide for strict rules governing the use of hearsay and the collection of evidence. But many witnesses before the commissions are likely to be foreign nationals not amenable to process, and others may be unavailable because of military necessity, injury, or death. And the United States military cannot be expected to leave the battlefield to gather evidence like police officers in the course of fighting the enemy. Military commissions are both necessary and appropriate in prosecuting unlawful enemy combatants. Let me emphasize, however, that they are also venues in which the accused will receive a full and fair trial. The procedures for these commissions, like those of international war crimes tribunals, are adapted to wartime circumstances. But they contain all of the procedural protections that we regard as fundamental: ¥ trial before an impartial military judge ¥ with a defense counsel drawn from the JAG Corps ¥ and the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty by competent evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Military Commissions Act entrusts the JAG Corps with serving as the principal prosecution and defense counsel in these critically important trials. And, as your partner, the Department of Justice will continue to rely upon your professionalism and expertise in these terror trials. Though our enemy shows nothing but contempt for the law of war, and the standards of civilized nations, we provide him with these protections because they are consistent with the values of the United States. These values are among the many hallmarks of civilization that separate us from them. While it is rooted in the traditions of the law of war, the Military Commissions Act gives individuals detained as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay greater legal rights than are provided to lawful prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The new law, consistent with history, makes clear that alien enemy combatants may not file habeas corpus petitions in the civilian courts. Yet the United States provides every detainee at Guantanamo Bay the opportunity to challenge his detention not merely before a military tribunal, but also with an unprecedented appeal to our own domestic courts. The Act also contains important provisions to reinforce our compliance with the Geneva Conventions, and to clarify for U.S. personnel their international obligations. For instance, interrogations of prisoners have proven to be
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among the most vital sources of intelligence in the War on Terror, and they have saved the lives of innocent civilians in the United States and around the world. These interrogations employ tough techniques, but the techniques are safe, consistent with our values, and have been carefully reviewed to ensure compliance with the law. The Act buttresses the President’s authority under our Constitution to interpret the meaning and applicability of the Geneva Conventions for the United States. It empowers the President to provide our personnel, and particularly our interrogators, with clear and authoritative guidelines for what they must do to comply with the Geneva Conventions. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_061023.html EDITOR’S NOTE: See Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Prepared Remarks on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 at German Marshall Fund, Berlin, Germany, October 25, 2006 (http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_061025. html).
15 Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Remarks at the Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Counterterrorism Task Force Symposium, Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania, September 21, 2004 REMARKS AS PREPARED One of the things we discovered immediately after 9-11 was that some first responders from different jurisdictions could not communicate with each other because they were on different frequencies. Some fire hoses did not fit into hydrants without special adapters. We also learned that federal agencies were not sharing intelligence with each other, let alone with state and local law enforcement partners. We knew we had to change the way we thought about defeating terrorism, about protecting the homeland … and so we did. We established equipment standards to ensure compatibility. We worked with many states and localities to help them establish immediate solutions as well as develop long-term solutions to interoperable communications. And tools like our Homeland Security Information Network and the Patriot Act have allowed us to share information between federal agencies and among state and local and private sector partners like never before. The Northeast Regional Counter Terrorism Task Force is doing similar things—creating partnerships to build regional prevention and response capabilities, ensuring that equipment is compatible and that all partners can communicate together, and using the subcommittee structure to plan and consider how to spend homeland security funds based on the goals, objectives, principles, and priorities defined in Pennsylvania’s state strategy. You are spending the funds wisely. Our job in the federal government is to get you the resources you need as quickly as we can in order for you to purchase tools and provide training to fight terrorism. Your job is: to plan, to be informed, to be involved, so that you will be prepared to use those resources well.
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But the tools are only as good as the people using them. The structure in place for regional cooperation is only as good as the people implementing it. And the monthly and quarterly meetings established to increase communication are only as good as the people attending and participating in them. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0210.shtm
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Terrorist Threat Integration Center Director John Brennan, Transcript of Press Conference on Media Availability, Washington, D.C., October 30, 2004 SECRETARY RIDGE: During the past couple of days … Americans have seen two videotapes, Azzam the American and bin Laden tapes. And what is really new are the tapes, not the threat. I mean, America has been dealing with the general threat to our homeland now since September 11th. And John Brennan, as you know, the Director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, and I thought it would be appropriate to come out and put those videotapes in a little bit more substantive context in terms of what America has been doing during the past several months and for John to give a little insight, in terms from an analytical point of view about the tape. First of all, I think America should be reassured that during the past year, particularly in the post-Madrid environment, there has been a nationwide effort initiated within the federal government and across the federal government, but on down to our partners at the state and local level to significantly increase the levels of the security and preventive measures we have in place. They are permanent, they are sustainable and they will last far beyond the election, and as I said before, most of them are permanent. So there have been many, many permanent security enhancements over the past several months. Every single day, we look for ways to integrate people and technology to make our country safer. We have been able to do that and we will continue to do that in the days and months and the years ahead, so I think that’s important to note. Clearly, we are safer today than we were six months ago, and it is because of the collaborative effort, not just administration-wide within the federal government, but down to the state and local level because we have engaged our partners in those jurisdictions as well. I think it’s important to also note that we’re not here this afternoon to tell you we’re going to raise the threat level. Again, we have significantly enhanced the protective measures that we’ve taken. Clearly, if the information warranted, we reserve the right. Again, we remind everyone that the analysis of intelligence and information is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week proposition, and we’re not here to raise it to Orange. But we don’t have to go to Orange to take action in response either to these tapes or just general action to improve security around the country. For example, last night, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security sent out an information bulletin to the state and local—our state and local law
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enforcement partners. That’s something we have done probably 150 times over the past year or so with bulletins and advisories, so we’re connected quite well with them. The FBI is going to take excerpts from the Azzam the American tape, put it on its website, and we’re going to ask Americans to take a look at the website. If there’s any information that you have that could help identify the individual on the tape, the FBI would like to hear about it. Earlier today, I had an extraordinary conference call with about 350 individuals around the country: Homeland Security advisors from the states and major cities, chiefs of police, again, bringing them up to date as to what we have done, what we can continue to do together.… in the hours and the days ahead, we’ll increase our Coast Guard patrolling of the harbors, we’ll change some of the inspection protocols at our land, our Ports of Entry and our airports. And we will work with our cities to reroute, as we’ve done from time to time in the past, hazard material, be it in truck or railroads around some of our major urban areas. We’ve already been in contact with the advisory groups we’ve set up with the private sector. So what we’re telling everyone is that we understand the tapes are new, the threat is not … DIRECTOR BRENNAN: Obviously, the intelligence community is treating both of the videotapes that have been released over the past week very seriously, and we are carefully looking at both the videotape that was broadcast from Osama bin Laden, as well as Azzam the American. We’re looking very carefully at them to see, in fact, whether there’s a correlation and to look at the themes that come out from it, the content. And clearly, it’s repetition of many of the themes we’ve heard before from al Qaeda, in terms of the criticism of U.S. policy and their intent to carry out additional attacks like they did on 9/11. I think it’s important, though, to put these tapes, these two tapes, into the broader context, into the broader body of strategic intelligence that we have about al Qaeda’s plans to carry out attacks and its attempts to carry out attacks here in the homeland. And so what we’re trying to do is to look at these tapes in the context of the other intelligence that we have, and I don’t think the intelligence community needed a videotape from bin Laden to tell us, in fact, that he is determined to carry out attacks here. I don’t think the American public needed that, either. But what we’re trying to do would be from the intelligence perspective is to analyze these tapes and make sure that we understand what they mean, what their significance is in the broader context of the intelligence that we have, and then ensure that we are able to provide that information to the Department of Homeland Security, to the FBI and to others, so that they can act upon that intelligence. Q. Mr. Secretary, here we are just days away from the election. First of all, are you asking for any particular precautions or advising any particular precautions around election day? And second, did the politics of the presidential election have anything to do with how your Department is handling this latest tape?
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SECRETARY RIDGE: … through the good work of the National Governor’s Association and the National Association of Secretaries of State and other state and local organizations, they’ve had their eye on protecting—taking care of the polling places on election day for quite some time now. With regard to what Homeland Security is doing, it’s just the juxtaposition of the two tapes that gives us reason to come out and have this discussion, the public discussion with you in the context of the analysis from the intelligence community to remind Americans that every single day the Department of Homeland Security, with its federal partners—and those are agencies across the administration, as well as with our state and local partners, as well as with the private sector, look to increase security. We’ve done that with a certain intensity over the past six months. Most of these are permanent, they are sustainable, and they’ll go and exist long, long beyond election day. Q. But were you reluctant to raise the threat level because the election is only days away? SECRETARY RIDGE: We will raise the—first of all, we reserve the right to raise it. Secondly, we don’t have to raise it to enhance security in certain areas. And we will always be dictated by the specific intelligence and its credibility. And, as I said before, today as we speak, we are at Yellow. Depending on, again, the process that is ongoing over the next day or two or week or two, we certainly reserve the right to go up if the information warrants us going to Orange.… It’s driven by the intelligence, it’s driven by the information. Q. Gentlemen, do you have an initial assessment of what you think the goal of Osama bin Laden was in issuing this particular tape and using these particular words to address the American people? DIRECTOR BRENNAN: Well, I think it’s clearly directed to the American people. He says that up front. And what he’s trying to do is to explain his actions over the past number of years, pointing out U.S. policies that he objects to. And also I think he’s trying to say that even though he has not been able to carry an attack, he has been successful in certain areas. There’s no specific threat information in there. This could be part of a campaign in terms of trying to get out a message to the American people, following on the heels of the Azzam tape. So what we’re trying to do is to really understand its significance, its meaning, and then put it into that context. Q. Director Brennan, as an experienced intelligence analyst, I’m wondering if you can answer this question. I know there have been schools of thought inside the intelligence community that have said tapes are followed within [a] 50, 60 day window by an attack. And then there’s another school that says there are so many tapes, there are so many attacks, you can almost always find a correlation. I’m wondering what you, yourself, as the Director TTIC, think about that correlation between messages like this and potential attacks? DIRECTOR BRENNAN: Well, I think if you look back, and the facts tend to speak for themselves, there have been a number of broadcasts from al Qaeda—video tapes, audio tapes—from bin Laden, from Zawahiri, that have not been followed by such attacks. And so what we try to do is to put it, again, into this context of what could be significant, what is its meaning, what’s the relevance of the timing, why was it broadcast now, what are they trying to accomplish by it? And the fact that it is coming several days before
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the election and directed to the American people, it seems like it’s a message to the American people. Now, are there other aspects of it that we have to better understand? That’s what we’re trying to do right now. But, again, looking at over the past several years, there have been a lot of broadcasts that have used old footage of bin Laden, but have included, in fact, new audio messages from him that have not, in fact, been accompanied or followed by those types of attacks. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0220.shtm
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Remarks at the Cargo Security Summit, Washington, D.C., December 16, 2004 … We decided several weeks ago, as we planned this (Cargo Security) Summit, that … we have to look down the road a little bit. What is the overall strategy? What is the ultimate—what’s the outcome that we want to achieve? What do we want to look like three or five years from now? And how do we get there as it relates to securing cargo? Obviously, it’s a risk management proposition. There are national and international dimensions to it. We need to set standards, we need to identify best practices, and we need to call upon the companies and the individuals responsible for cargo security to help us develop that strategy, then in the years to come, we’re going to ask you to help go out and implement it. So we thank you for being here and making such a significant contribution. As owners and operators within the cargo and shipping industry we’re looking to you to play a very direct and active role as we work to ramp up the security of this vital economic sector. DHS has put together a draft strategy to serve as a jumping off point for discussion. I mean, we have an internal perspective on this. This strategy lays out the nuts and bolts of the issue as we see it, and what the task of securing our cargo encompasses. It’s a starting point. It’s our perspective. We share that perspective with you and ask you to modify it and refine it and do whatever you need to make it—turn it into a workable plan. From coast to coast and international ports all over the world, thousands of tons of cargo make their way into this country, with more than 20,000 containers coming through on a daily basis. Based on sheer volume alone, cargo security is a difficult job. But we must also factor the challenge of cargo responsibility changing hands as it moves from the manufacturer to the importer. And how about the supply chain that gets it ultimately to the finished product, and then into the importer and then into the distribution system internationally. It’s a very complex operation that we’ve asked you to … see what we can do in addition to what we have done in order to improve the security of the supply chain and distribution chain. As well as the intricacies that overlap jurisdictions of authority pose on shipments, we also know that they pass through international waters and foreign ports, another complication. We need foreign allies, foreign countries, foreign companies to participate in the process with us. And once you add all
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that up, it’s obvious that this is a job beyond the scope of one federal department. Getting this right will take the input and the effort of a wide range of partners: the private sector, the international community and local governments as well. And that’s why we’re here today, because we need your help to make sure that it happens. Cargo security is a linchpin issue, not only for the security of our homeland, but also for our economic security as well. The protection of this supply chain is vital.… Over the past two years, much has been done to bolster our container and cargo security. And as a result of the cooperation and the hard work of our partners at the international level and within the private sector, new programs and technologies have been deployed and they have been put to use. We’ve added layer upon layer of security to tighten and close any gaps terrorists might seek to exploit. These new defenses begin thousands of miles away before a container is even loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for our shores, from the 24-hour rule that provides advance cargo manifests for all U.S.-bound containers to the Container Security Initiative that has U.S. Customs and Border inspectors stationed in 32 international ports. These programs enable us to target and screen cargo and pinpoint any high-risk shipments before a ship ever leaves port. We have also worked to take advantage of the technological tools that are at our disposal … Advanced x-ray and radiation screening equipment. The Department has also worked closely with industry to create high-security seals and sensors that can help guard against container tampering. We’ve made a lot of progress in a very short period of time, but I don’t think there’s any of you in the audience that think we’re done yet … Now, with every step we take to enhance security throughout the cargo shipping process, we are mindful that security measures must not stifle the free flow of commerce and goods that drive the economies of the world. I can remember one of the first conversations I had with the President shortly after 9/11 and shortly after I was sworn in on October 8th to work as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security. He was well aware of what happened to the flow of goods and people, the economic flow of goods and services and people across our northern and southern borders with our friends in Canada and Mexico right after 9/11. We had ramped-up security, but at a considerable economic cost. And his directive to me and to our team was to go back and take a look at the border agreements with our friends to the north and south and make sure that we develop and design a 21st century border that not only enhanced security, but at the same time, facilitated the flow of goods and commerce across those borders, understanding intuitively, as a former border governor along the Mexican border, that economic security and personal security of the security of a country go hand-in-hand. You cannot secure your freedoms and you cannot sustain this way of life without economic security as well, and that has been the linchpin of our approach with our friends in Canada and Mexico. That’s why programs such as our Customs and Trade Partnership against Terrorism have been put in place to reward companies that meet more
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stringent security procedures with benefits such as expedited processing times.… Now, moving forward to reach that higher platform of security demands the active participation and engagement from the business community and across the broad spectrum of cargo security stakeholders. As I’ve said before, we can not secure the homeland from Washington, D.C. alone … We have to integrate the entire country, taking advantage of the capacity and the resources available to us throughout the country in order to maximize our ability to secure our freedoms and to provide economic security.… More than anything else, homeland security in the 21st century is about the integration of an entire nation, as well as, depending on the circumstances, the integration of nations themselves. It’s a philosophy of shared responsibility, shared leadership and shared accountability. And the private sector has a critically important role to play in this all-hands effort. We need partners in the private sector that will stand up and be counted as any regular citizen, partners that take an active forward-leaning view of security at all times. So just as critical as the fight to preserve our freedoms is the fight to protect our economy, for it is the state of our economy on a more practical dayto-day level that determines our current strength as a nation. Our enemy, our enemy Al-Qaeda understands this quite well. That is why one of the expressed goals—I might add a reiterated goal—when you read or listen to any of their rantings about the United States, is to undermine the economy. They see that as the best way to undermine the freedoms and the quality of life that we enjoy in this country. That is why we must bring the same zeal to protecting and defending the economy as we do to preserving and upholding our freedoms.… SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0235.shtm
16 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Remarks at the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005 REMARKS AS PREPARED When the President offered me the position of Secretary of Homeland Security, I recognized it to be the challenge—the privilege—of my professional career. For my father, World War II was the calling of his generation. Now, winning this war against terror is the great calling of our generation. In ways large and small, we have enlisted in a cause larger than ourselves—the cause of responding against a dangerous and merciless evil with courage and determination and an unyielding defense of the values to which this nation has long subscribed. I come to this responsibility therefore with the conviction that, as a nation, we have every reason to be resolute about our fight against terror; every reason to be optimistic about our ability to enhance our security while preserving our liberties; and every reason to act urgently in doing both. Of course, as with the Cold War, we know that this struggle will not be won for many years to come. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Accordingly, we must lay out a vision of homeland security that is sustainable over the long run—a vision that balances durable and comprehensive security with the American way of life and the values we cherish. What does that involve? It means that we must calibrate an approach to security that incorporates prevention and protection into our lives in a way that respects our liberty and our privacy, and fosters our prosperity. One large element will be giving people options: If people want the shorter line at the airport or expedited processing at our borders they can achieve it by agreeing to provide some limited personal information that assures us of their good faith. That trade-off will be their choice. Another element is trust. We will earn public trust when we demonstrate that the information we do
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collect and the measures we implement are tailored to the goals of preserving security and do not creep beyond that mission. Our ultimate goal is a time when security measures are a comfortable, convenient part of our routine; a time when people go about their daily lives mindful of risks but not encumbered by fear, unwavering in their resolve and full participants in their own protection. How do we get there? First, we must acknowledge that homeland security is one piece of a broader strategy the President has deployed to protect this nation. That strategy first involves bringing the battle to the enemy. And that is what we have been doing. To be blunt, we have forced terrorists to spend more time worrying about how to defend themselves against death and capture, leaving them less time to plot how to get by our own defenses. That strategy pays enormous dividends in terms of diminishing the threat. First, the intelligence we gain is a major tool in disrupting threat. Second, by taking the fight to our enemies, we keep them on the run—limit their abilities to plan, train and act. But while one key to defense is offense, it is not the entirety of our security picture. For we also need a ‘‘defense in depth’’ as part of the strategic whole. That means even as we pursue terrorists overseas, we work at home to prevent infiltration by terrorists and their weapons; to protect our people and places if infiltration occurs; and to respond and recover if an attack is carried out. This is embodied in our strategy of building multiple barriers to terrorist attacks. What defensive action does not and cannot mean is that we shut down, board up, wall in or become a fortress. Because what we are trying to protect—and at the same time, preserve—is not only our lives, but also our way of life. A nation as vital and thriving as ours cannot become hermetically sealed. Even less can we afford to be overwhelmed by fear or paralyzed by the existence of threats. That’s why we need to adopt a risk-based approach in both our operations and our philosophy. Risk management is fundamental to managing the threat, while retaining our quality of life and living in freedom. Risk management must guide our decision-making as we examine how we can best organize to prevent, respond and recover from an attack. For that reason, the Department of Homeland Security is working with State, local, and private sector partners on a National Preparedness Plan to target resources where the risk is greatest. We all live with a certain amount of risk. That means that we tolerate that something bad can happen; we adjust our lives based on probability; and we take reasonable precautions. Let me give you a simple example. The perfect way to avoid the risk of a car accident is never to leave your house. But very few people pursue this kind of perfect security because we understand that it is self-defeating. We all have to live with a certain amount of risk if we don’t want to become prisoners in our own homes. When we get into our cars, we take reasonable precautions, but we also go about our lives: We go to work; we drive our children to school; we visit friends. We are managing risk.
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We must manage risk at the homeland security level. That means developing plans and allocating resources in a way that balances security and freedom when calculating risks and implementing protections. The most effective way, I believe, to apply this risk-based approach is by using the trio of threat, vulnerability and consequence as a general model for assessing risk and deciding on the protective measures we undertake. Here I inject a note of caution because the media and the public often focus principally on threats. Threats are important, but they should not be automatic instigators of action. A terrorist attack on the two-lane bridge down the street from my house is bad but has a relatively low consequence compared to an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. At the other end of the spectrum, even a remote threat to detonate a nuclear bomb is a high-level priority because of the catastrophic effect. Each threat must be weighed, therefore, along with consequence and vulnerabilities. As consequence increases, we respond according to the nature and credibility of the threat and any existing state of vulnerabilities. Our strategy is, in essence, to manage risk in terms of these three variables—threat, vulnerability, consequence. We seek to prioritize according to these variables, to fashion a series of preventive and protective steps that increase security at multiple levels. When I say multiple levels, I’m speaking, of course, of layered security. Many of you have seen a layered system of protective measures at land borders, seaports and as you make your way across the skies overhead. Layering is a strong force multiplier. Taken together, a ‘‘system of systems’’ cannot deliver perfect security, but it can increase the effectiveness of our efforts. Let’s look at how we work to keep dangerous people from hijacking airplanes. As we vividly recall, on September 11th, nineteen terrorists, many traveling to the United States with expired visas, used phony identification, boarded aircraft and then turned them into missiles. Since then, we have erected several layers of defense against such attacks. In less than one year, the President and Congress initiated US-VISIT. That is one defense layer that allows us to weigh threat, vulnerability and consequence. US-VISIT uses biometrics—fingerscans and digital photographs—to identify and cross-check those wishing to enter the United States. It spans more than 130 high-volume airports and seaports and the 50 busiest land ports-of-entry. And since its inception, US-VISIT has processed more than 21 million passengers and stopped nearly 500 criminals and visa violators in their tracks. It is impossible to monitor every single person who enters the country, but, with this system, we can pull the welcome mat from those who come packed with evil intentions. US-VISIT can add a powerful layer to what we want to be a holistic system of security. But there are other layers of defense against terrorists: Enhanced screening for air passengers, federal standards for identification, air marshals on our aircraft and hardening of our cockpit doors. This layered approach is designed to assure that if a threat is missed at one layer, it will be caught at
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the next. At the same time, each layer must be efficient and flexible in order to allow the free and convenient flow of innocent citizens and visitors. Of course, airline security is one obvious place where consequence, vulnerability and threat drive us to a layered strategy of managing risk. What about other areas where we need to respond not only to past events but also prepare for future dangers? How do we avoid becoming beguiled by the risks we have already experienced, and distracted from those that our enemy might be planning in the future? The first thing we have to do is examine the mission and work of all elements of DHS through the template of consequence, vulnerability and threat. Have we fully defined our missions? How far have we gone in carrying them out? What more needs to be done? To answer these and other questions, I have initiated a comprehensive review of the organization, operations and policies of the Department as a whole. Over the course of the next 60–90 days, this comprehensive review will examine what we need to do and what we are doing without regard to component structures and programmatic categories. Old categories, old jurisdictions, old turf will not define our objectives or the measure of our achievements. Because bureaucratic structures and categories exist to serve our mission, not to drive it. What should drive our policies and operations and the way we are organized is this strategic matrix of threat, vulnerability and consequence. And so, we’ll be looking at everything through that prism and adjusting structure, operations and policies to execute this strategy. Now, as we begin looking at ways to integrate our strengths at the federal level, we need to rely on our partners in government and the public in working to their strengths as well. Let me emphasize this: Homeland security does not simply rest upon federal action; it requires collective national action. … For two years now, it has been the responsibility of Homeland Security to lead the unified national effort to daily and consistently improve our security and preparedness measures. The federal government has unique access to intelligence, powerful investigative tools, strong resources. But the federal government cannot fund or address all of the risks involved with terrorism on its own. To complete our mission, we must and do count heavily on partnerships with our state and local governments and the private sector. The kind of true partnership that protecting the homeland requires means that we not only share information but also responsibility. It means that we not only exchange expertise but also expect accountability. It means that our partners must bear a part of the security burden as well as become part of the security solution. For example, the federal government dispatches radiation detection portal monitors to scan high-risk cargo. At the same time, we are looking to the companies that ship this high-risk cargo to put into place their own security measures—their own tracking systems, inspection processes—in other words, their own layered system of security. The same can be said of chemical plants, oil and gas refineries, nuclear power plants.…
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Partnership occurs not only here at home. We also want to look more closely at how we can align with our international allies to build common security plans. It’s in our mutual interest to strengthen relationships with other countries so that together we continue to find common ground in areas such as security, intelligence sharing and other issues of shared concern. Finally, the individual citizen has to be a significant part of our overall security approach. Managing risk requires managing expectations. That means we must engage the public in a thoughtful and serious national discussion. We cannot pretend that nothing bad can ever happen and that perfect safety is within reach. The American people understand this; we must respect that understanding. The plain truth is that there is no 100-percent solution. We cannot protect every person in every place at every moment. We cannot look in every container and every box. What we can do is use intelligent risk-based analysis, advanced technology and enhanced resources to manage risk. Again, we along with people all over the world live with risk every day; it’s part of human existence. We win the war against terrorism by rejecting terror as a tool of intimidation. We triumph when we take account of real threats and risks but do not become hyper-sensitive or overly responsive to them. We want to live mindfully but not fearfully. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0245.shtm
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Testimony Before the House Homeland Security Committee, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005 EXCERPTED REPRESENTATIVE COX: … Today the committee will examine the Department of Homeland Security’s use of the principle of risk to prioritize America’s counterterrorism strategy. Using risk management involves, first, intelligence. We’ve got to examine and rely upon the information that we put together—terrorist capabilities and intentions. We’ve got to conduct threat assessments to evaluate the likelihood that a given asset will be subject to a terrorist attack. We’ve got to conduct vulnerability assessments to identify specific weaknesses in given assets that might be exploited by terrorists. And we’ve got to assess as well potential consequences, such as economic impact and loss of life, to determine the level of significance of an asset, how much protection that asset should receive in comparison to others. This kind of risk assessment, both within a particular programmatic area and across Department of Homeland Security responsibilities, is a vital management tool. It’s one that’s new to the United States since September 11th. As a result of the newness of this challenge, it is not yet possible for the secretary or this Congress to evaluate as well as we would like the degree to which
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we are appropriately aligning our resources to match our nation’s greatest risks. One example of the work that we have yet to do is the billions of dollars that Congress and the department allocate each year to states and local governments to enhance the terrorism preparedness of first responders. Instead of applying specific risks and allocating funds to address them, the system that we presently use sometimes does nearly the opposite. Congress and the department allocate tens of even hundreds of millions of dollars to each state and to certain local governments across the country without the prerequisite analysis of risk. These authorities, then, occasionally find themselves looking for ways to spend the money. The abuses such an approach invites have been well publicized, and if not corrected ultimately, will undermine our legitimate efforts to prepare our first responders for acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, the lack of risk-based rigor affects even those DHS grant programs that are not formula driven and that are by intention based on competition among applicants. For example, DHS inspector general recently found that $67 million in port security grants had been spent on projects of, quote, ‘‘marginal’’ homeland security benefit and that awards had been made to private sector projects that, quote, ‘‘appeared to be for a purpose other than security against an act of terrorism.’’ The 9/11 commission rightly recognized the inherent dangers of this type of spending, recommending that, quote: ‘‘Homeland security assistance should be based strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities. Federal homeland security assistance should not remain a program for general revenue sharing.’’ … SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … The Department of Homeland Security was created a little bit over two years ago … to do more than simply erect a big tent under which a lot of different organizations would be collected. It was created to put together a dynamic organization that would identify a set of missions in furtherance of homeland security, that would execute those missions in a integrated and comprehensive manner and that would take a reasonable and sensible philosophy to dealing with the matter of homeland security. And two years into the department, coming on as the new secretary, I have the opportunity to engage in what we call a second stage review of where we are headed, where we’ve come and what course corrections if any we need to make. And I, we undertake this process of the second stage review with a very keen appreciation for the fine work done by my predecessor, Governor Ridge and, and his deputies, Gordon England and Jim Lloyd. They put this together in the first instance. They launched the first stage and that’s gotten us on the mission but we have to again ask ourselves what adjustments we need to make. … Broadly speaking, they fall in three categories. First of all, we need to make sure that all of our activities are not focused on the process of the component that is performing the function but on the mission that we are trying to achieve. We need to be outcome oriented. And the best example I can give to people about what I mean by this is if I have a problem in my, in my house, my appliances aren’t working and I call an electrician, I call the plumber, I call the contractor, and they work for a day and they come to me and they say
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well, we’ve all done exactly what we’re supposed to do; we followed all of our protocols, but the stuff still doesn’t work. I don’t consider that a job well done. I consider a job well done to be when the appliances work. And that’s called being outcome or mission oriented. We want the thing to work the way it’s supposed to work, and we don’t care about how many of the processes are checked off along the way. So the second stage review is designed to take a look at our missions, evaluate how far we’ve come, how far we need to go, and then talk about how we accomplish the rest of our objectives, without regard to the existing structures, but with regard to what it is we need to get accomplished. Now the second piece of what I want to briefly mention is how we organize ourselves to carry out missions. And this obviously is going to be a function of our study of the mission and where we are and where we need to be. But I can tell you at this point again in general terms, it seems to me there are three aspects in which we need to be operating as a coordinated, comprehensive department. First of all, intelligence. Intelligence is the driver of everything we do. And we need to operate under a common picture of the threats we’re facing. There are two dimensions for that. First of all, we are collectors of intelligence, meaning that we have a lot of different organizations that interact with the outside world and collect information. We need to make sure that we are capturing all of that, we are pulling it together and we are fusing it at the top of our organization. And so some of what we’re going to be looking at in this review is how to make that happen and to improve our collection, capture, infusing of intelligence. The second piece of intelligence is operating within a larger intelligence community, as contributors, as disseminators, and as customers. Obviously we have a new DNI coming on. That’s going to create an opportunity for us to work with the community as a whole, to make sure we are contributing the way we should be contributing, that we have the access that we need to have to do our job, and that we are in a position to disseminate what needs to be getting to our federal, state and local partners. We need to also have a comprehensive approach to policy … We need to have a vision that looks beyond the components through the department. And so elevating and standing up a policy organization that is capable of strategic planning and dealing with policy issues is a second matter we are paying close attention to. And finally, the issue of operations. We have proud organizations that are part of the Department of Homeland Security that have very strong senses of their own missions. But the purpose of the department was to create an organization that could operate jointly, and therefore we need to make sure we have an operational element, an operations coordinator that … is able to … coordinate across the board so that when we take an item of intelligence and we try to translate that into action, we do it in terms of prevention, we do it in terms of protection, we do it in terms of response. And standing up … a comprehensive and robust operations function is a third piece of what we have to do in this effort to look at the way we are structured and operating. Finally, let me touch on philosophy. As the Chairman mentioned, … a few weeks ago I spoke at George Washington University and
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talked about risk management as the template for how we do our work. And that means that in our handling of grants, in our deployment of resources, in our policy making, we have to be driven by a disciplined, analytical approach that looks to the issue of measuring consequence, measuring vulnerability and measuring threat. And obviously, you know, there are a lot of subtleties involved in applying this general template, the kinds of individual issues that we face. But if we are at least clear about what our overall philosophy is … We cannot protect everybody in every place at every time, we have to prioritize and I think we are launching a process through this review of making ourselves better at doing that.… REPRESENTATIVE COX: … What are the big picture approaches that you’re going to take to head in that direction? And then what in terms of specific resources that you might need to accomplish this task do you want assistance from Congress on in order to help move us in that direction? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … First of all, we are going to undertake the process of looking at our objectives in terms of these three issues: consequence, vulnerability and threat. For example, take the issue of cargo. Cargo … security is an issue that falls within the responsibility of a number of components of the department. But what I’m interested in seeing is—if we look across the board at how we deal with the issue of cargo security and efficient movement of cargo, which are two important goals, I want to look at it across the board and I want to look at it without thinking about what the components have responsibility for. I want to see it in terms of the outcome of a secure but efficient cargo-transmission system … And we’re going to apply that template across the board to things like how do we keep bad people out of the country? How do we better service people who want to come into the country and become productive members of America by getting citizenship? How do we deal with the issue of airline security in a way that properly focuses on the priority risks in a way that allows people to enjoy air travel without having it become so cumbersome and difficult that they actually choose other forms of transportation? So this is the approach we want to take across the board in terms of what we’re doing. In terms of how we actually analytically start to measure these things, one of the questions I’ve asked is, how do other parts of the government—what kind of analytical tools do they use in measuring risk? What does the private sector use in measuring risk? People do this all the time … Each of us does this in our own life when we decide whether we want to get in the car and go to the movies, and we trade off the risk of getting into an accident against the benefit of the movie. But actually government and private industry do this all the time, too, and they have a variety of tools for doing so. So as we are developing and defining our analytical tools, I’m asking people to be looking at other departments and get expertise from their experience … One example of this is—the preparedness goals which were issued, I think, in the last couple of weeks, are an effort to start to really identify capabilities that responders need in a variety of different scenarios so that we can then start to be quite specific about, you know, what kind of equipment should they be looking for, what kind of training should they be needing. And that
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would be the kind of tool one could use, again, bearing in mind potential consequences and vulnerabilities and threats, so that when we advise people about what to do, when we talk to government entities about the kinds of steps they ought to take, we can do it with a very specific and disciplined approach. REPRESENTATIVE ROB SIMMONS (R-CONNECTICUT): … the greatest investment that we can make is in intelligence so that we can detect, deter, defend, disrupt or mitigate any such attacks. And that while we must prepare, as we have in the TOPOFF exercise, for a failure of that system, that it’s most important to put our money upfront and put it into intelligence. … To what extent are your requirements being given priority in the intelligence cycle by the intelligence community? And finally, do you feel that the Department of Homeland Security is sitting at the table? In other words, do you have a representative, for example, on the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board or other similar boards at this point in time? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … I think you put your finger on something very important when you talk about open-source intelligence. My observation has been often times people think of intelligence as by definition, something that is only done with spies or super-secret satellites. And, in fact, intelligence is often the accumulation of a lot of individual facts which may be wide out in the open. One of the things I’m doing internally at the department, and we’ve talked to the intelligence people about, is recognizing the importance of the thousands of interactions that occur at the border, on airplanes, through ICE investigations, every day that yield important information. If in fact, hypothetically, we find that people with a particular connection to a terrorist group that turn up in our watch lists are seeking to cross the border in a lot of different places at the same time, an individual officer might not necessarily see the significance of a single interaction. But if we can collect all that and we can bring it up, that’s going to tell us something very important. So, we are going to work very hard, and this is one of my priorities, to strengthen our—first of all, internally, our collection system to develop a system … of making sure we are getting good reporting from the field that we can then bring up and fuse together in order to maximize what we do internally, through what is either open-source or just kind of, you know, fairly routine intelligence collection. Second, we need to be able to contribute that to the intelligence community because that is a piece of sitting at the table. I think generally my experience with organizations is your value as a partner is directly proportional to your contribution as a partner. So we need to complete this function so we can contribute. But at the same time, as you point out, we need to be full partners at the table because we have a need for intelligence and a use for intelligence that no other department of the government has because we have to take it and apply it directly to Homeland Security functions: how we handle our border, how we adjust our internal investigations with respect to people who are coming in illegally, how we structure ourselves in terms of what we prioritize for protection purposes. … I certainly have made an effort in my two months here to make it very clear that our requirements ought to be treated significantly in terms of
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gathering information and, so far—again, in the brief time I’ve been here, I’ve seen a positive response from the intelligence community—but it is certainly something that I will be paying a good deal of attention to and will be insistent upon because we need it to do our job. REPRESENTATIVE CHARLIE DENT (R-PENNSYLVANIA): … You were talking about threat vulnerability and consequence or criticality. How do you in the department go about determining the relative importance of these critical infrastructures when you’re looking at a nuclear plant versus a bridge or some kind of telecommunications infrastructure? How do you go about that? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: You know, that’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. We have used a variety of different analytical tools to look at the question of consequence. You obviously look at possible direct loss of human life. You look at economic consequences. You know, what would blowing out a particular power grid do to the economy? You might look at other kinds of consequences that are indirect consequences in terms of illness or things of that sort. To some degree, at some level, you do have to—there is an element of kind of art rather than science in making the judgments. But I do think they’re at least reasonable and I think analytically sound judgments that we make. And again, you know, because we’re not just looking at consequences, we’re also looking at vulnerability and threat, no one issue where there might be a disagreement is going to be necessarily dispositive. I mean, it’s going to be a factor, but there will be a number of factors, so that I think although someone could disagree at the margins, I think in general, broadly speaking, it’s a pretty sensible way of making a determination. REPRESENTATIVE DENT: More specifically: You know, if you have something that might be considered not very vulnerable but of high consequence— maybe like a nuclear plant—how do you make those determinations, I mean, when you have—the vulnerability is low, the consequence is high, how do you— SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … There are actually formulas that you can apply to that—and without getting into things, again, which I think are, you know, somewhat classified, what I will say is I think it’s intuitively obvious. Consequence is really a big driver in the sense that, you know, a cataclysmic consequence is one which you pay a lot of attention to, even if there was, you know, comparatively low vulnerability; whereas something, on the contrary, with very little consequence, you don’t care about. Like the footbridge down the road from my house, I’m not going to waste any time on, even if it’s very vulnerable. So consequence is a big part of that. REPRESENTATIVE CURT WELDON (R-PENNSYLVANIA): … Mr. Secretary, if there’s some pessimism coming out of this hearing today, you’ll have to understand the mind-set that comes from the members on the committee. I agree with you totally on the intelligence aspect of preparing for protection of our homeland, but it was the Congress back as far as the summer of 1999 that proposed creating a national collaborative center—we call it the NOA, National Operations Analysis hub—which would have brought together all 33 classified systems managed by 15 agencies. In November of ’99, the FBI and the CIA said we don’t need that. It took us until January of 2003, in the State
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of the Union speech, for the president to announce the TTIC. The TTIC’s exactly what the Congress proposed four years earlier. The Congress has tried since 1995 to deal with what … is interoperable communications. That’s when the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee came out and said we have to set aside 20 megahertz for public safety. This is 2005. We still haven’t done that. And all across the country when you meet with first responders …, their number one problem is they can’t talk to each other.… And we’ve talked to Secretary Ridge about this repeatedly. The issue of technology transfer: I happen to serve as vice chairman of both this committee and the Armed Services Committee. And it’s frustrating to me to see us spend billions of dollars on technology a first responder ought to have, but for some reason we can’t get it to them.… … The Loma Prieta earthquake, walking the freeway with the fire chiefs of Oakland and San Francisco, they were looking for people in the freeway with dogs. I said, why aren’t you using thermal imagers? They said, what are thermal imagers? That was 12 years ago. The Navy had produced that technology five or 10 years before that. We don’t use the technology well. SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … I know with respect to intelligence sharing which has been a long time coming, the president is very committed to making sure that we are sharing and we’re operating off the same page. There is no mistake about that. And he welcomed the most recent report by Judge Silberman and Senator Robb’s commission. And we have a new DNI coming in. So I think we really have—the table is set for completing this process of integration. However, I agree. I think that we need to work more closely with the Department of Defense on getting the benefit of some of those technologies. Although I would put in a plug for the dogs. When all is said and done, the dogs are actually very good at a lot of the stuff that they do, including the bomb detection and USAR (ph) teams. REPRESENTATIVE DEFAZIO: Mr. Secretary … We have airports lined up who want to go to the inline system, waiting for federal grants that aren’t available, which is in part a failure of the Congress, but also the administration. We have not deployed technology that exists for what I consider to be the highest threat, which is bombs. I mean the Russian incident is pretty clear of the last maybe wake up call before something happens. SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … I think that there is no question that a key part of the issue of dealing with aviation security is technology. The issue of explosives is obviously of great concern. Now that’s a little different than the 9/11 issue which involved people turning aircraft into weapons. But it’s of course in itself a serious issue. And there are technologies out there that we have to start taking a serious look at in terms of whether they can be deployed, and how they would operate, and that includes a back scatter, it includes puffing. And some of these things, people have arguments about whether they are intrusive or not. And we have to think about ways to deal with those arguments in ways that take account of legitimate concerns about privacy. But you are quite right that ultimately our best tool, and our advantage in this kind of asymmetrical warfare with terrorists, is technology. And I think
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we need to make some decisions about getting new generations of technology. REPRESENTATIVE SHAYS (R-CONNECTICUT): … There were three commissions, the Bremer Commission, the Hart-Rudman Commission, the Gilmore Commission. They all said we need an assessment of the terrorist threat before 2001. We needed a strategy to combat that. We need an assessment threat, a strategy to deal with the threat, and we needed to reorganize our government to implement the strategy. And all three basically concurred on that, except the Hart Rudman Commission went the furthest and said we needed a Department of Homeland Security, and that’s what we have. We established the Department of Homeland Security, frankly, before we really established the strategy. And really had an assessment of the threat. If I were to ask you now what is our strategy, what would it be? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: I’d say the first part of the strategy is not part of what we do in this department, but what the president has done in taking the war to the enemy. … The first layer of defense is a good offense, and that means as we eliminate camps, we eliminate labs that the enemy has, we kill or capture them, we put them in a position where they spend a lot of time worrying about their own safety rather than training and recruiting, that is the first piece of a major strategy. A second piece of the strategy is working closely with our allies all over the world in making the world inhospitable to terrorists. And that again is a second piece. And then of course there is a piece that begins at our own borders, which is complementary and part of the layering approach. And that involves having increased capabilities both at our ports of entry and between our ports of entry to protect ourselves from bad people and bad stuff getting into the country; a capability inside the country to protect our transportation and our infrastructure; our special effort that we’re undertaking now with respect to nuclear detection capability, which I think is an area where need almost a mini-Manhattan Project in terms of technology as well as deployment. I think these are all parts of a comprehensive strategy … we are going to do our level best at every level to put them on the defensive, … take them off the boards, prevent them from coming in, prevent them from shipping their stuff in, protecting our infrastructure and transportation if they do get in, and then if worse comes to worst, we have to prepare for this too, being able to respond the mitigate the harm. REPRESENTATIVE LINDER (R-GEORGIA): I think the biggest threat that I’m worried about is biological. How much of a component in your intelligence community that you have is (exports of?) biothreats? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, I mean, we deal with biological threats in a number of different ways. In terms of intelligence, of course, we get not only whatever intelligence we have within our department, we get what the intelligence community generates. But there’s a separate piece of this which has to do with preparation, preparedness and response. We have in our science and
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technology directorate scientists and medical people who have expertise. We largely also, though, draw on the expertise of HHS and the Centers for Disease Control in terms of understanding the different kinds of biological agents … We have a Biowatch program in a large number of cities in which we have very sensitive sensing devices that do monitor for various kinds of biological agents. And … we focus on having a clear set of plans for what to do in case of a biological incident, and that requires us to understand the way the agent works, to have access to the appropriate antidote and a plan for deploying that antidote, and a sense of how to do it in a way that is most efficient in terms of getting it out and preventing the spread of the agent. REPRESENTATIVE LINDER: Just one last question, Mr. Secretary. How did the plan work when the Pentagon withheld information for five days on their anthrax threat? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … We have done I guess what you call an after-action report. I think the state and locals have, too. We have talked to all the agencies involved. The Defense Department has changed its protocols. Thankfully, that was not really anthrax, but it was for me actually a very useful lesson in terms of seeing where we had a deficiency in our response capability and where we could correct it. REPRESENTATIVE BILL PASCRELL, JR. (D-NEW JERSEY): … You say take the war to the enemy. The problem is, we don’t know who the enemy is. We are fighting non-state terror. If it’s a state, we know it’s easier to get your hands around. We are not fighting Islam, we are fighting extreme fundamentalist Islamic radical terrorists. That’s who we’re fighting. We have not made that distinction in our policy or in our philosophy. And that is why some members of this body support increasing the profiling—and you know exactly what I’m talking about—in getting at the enemy. Now, I believe we are at war. I believe that from the bottom of my heart, and that we are at war with terrorists. But we need to preserve the freedoms, and you, more than anyone else, knows that, and you’ve struck that balance in your entire life.… … What is your reaction and response to the issue of profiling, keeping in mind Chapter 12 of the 9/11 report about who we should be reaching out to? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: I agree with you, Congressman, that we have to be very careful about who we’re fighting. We are fighting radical jihadists. The vast majority of people who follow the religion of Islam are peaceful. Members of this community in this country are, you know, every bit as good Americans as everybody else. And we make a grave mistake if we allow the actions of jihadists to spill over into everybody who is practicing Islam, any more than we would do so if we were to identify the acts of Timothy McVeigh with people who, you know, are Christian or, you know, pick someone Jewish who does something wrong. So we have to distinguish between them. I am dead set against religious profiling, for the following at least two reasons, maybe three reasons. First of all, it is counterproductive. It is counterproductive because we do need to reach out to—we cannot—this—we will not do well if the world
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walks away with the impression that we are fighting a war against a religion, because we will do very poorly in the world, and we’ll be very—do very poorly with the hearts and minds we need to win. Second, I can guarantee you that if we telegraph that we’re going to look at a particular type of person when they come into the country, that al Qaeda will find someone who does not look like that person to come in and carry a bomb. So we would be making a big mistake if we were so obvious and so kind of unsophisticated in what we do. And third, obviously, it strikes the fabric of our own country and what we believe in our—in terms of our Constitution and our civil liberties to single out people based upon their religion. People who have consciously adopted an ideology of hate and war we should be remorseless with, we should pursue without quarter. But those who are peaceful—you know, religion should not enter into it. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE ROGERS (R-ALABAMA): … I want to talk about first responders. I’m of the opinion that currently our organization for training first responders does not meet our nation’s needs. And I’d like to specifically reference the Gilmore commission report from December of 2003, which recommended the Department of Homeland Security develop a comprehensive process for establishing training and exercise standards for first responders, and I agree with that statement. What I’d like to know is your thoughts on the current organization of training within DHS and your plans for maybe improving the organization and provision of those training programs. SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … We need to have first responders capable of doing, not necessarily every community to do everything, but every community to have—be covered, geographically, by some capabilities that can perform those functions. And the idea is to get—you know, use regional support networks to make sure we’re not simply giving everybody the same thing over and over again. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/testimony/testimony_0034.shtm
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Second Stage Review Remarks, Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C., July 13, 2005 REMARKS AS PREPARED SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … [What] exactly are the next steps at DHS as we continue to make the homeland more secure? To help answer that question, shortly after taking office at Homeland Security, I launched the Second Stage Review—a systematic evaluation of the Department’s operations, policies and structures. We finished that review last month, I’ve spoken to the President and Members of the Congress about our conclusions, and today I will explain our review and outline the path ahead for Department of Homeland Security.
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Our review was conducted with several core principles in mind. First, as I’ve said before, DHS must base its work on priorities that are driven by risk. Our goal is to maximize our security, but not security ‘‘at any price.’’ Our security strategy must promote Americans’ freedom, privacy, prosperity, mobility. Second, our Department must drive improvement with a sense of urgency. Our enemy constantly changes and adapts, so we as a Department must be nimble and decisive. Third, DHS must be an effective steward of public resources. Our stewardship will demand many attributes—the willingness to set priorities; disciplined execution of those priorities; sound financial management; and a commitment to measure performance and share results. Perhaps most of all, DHS must foster innovation. Finally, our work must be guided by the understanding that effective security is built upon a network of systems that span all levels of government and the private sector. DHS does not own or control all these systems. But we must set a clear national strategy, and design an architecture in which separate roles and responsibilities for security are fully integrated among public and private stakeholders. We must draw on the strength of our considerable network of assets, functioning as seamlessly as possible with state and local leadership, law enforcement, emergency management personnel, firefighters, the private sector, our international partners, and most certainly, the general public. Building effective partnerships must be core to every mission of DHS. This Second Stage Review utilized 18 action teams—involving more than 250 members of the DHS staff—to evaluate specific operational and policy issues. We asked each team to answer a couple of simple questions. First, freed from the constraints of existing policies and structures—writing on a clean slate—how would you solve a particular problem? And then, how would you take the best solutions and implement them aggressively? We actively sought opinions from hundreds of public and private partners at the federal, state, local, tribal and international levels. Finally, we examined the DHS organizational structure, to make sure that our organization is best aligned to support our mission. This work, along with the experience of the last two years in the Department’s existence, will now play a critical role in setting our agenda moving forward. In the weeks and months to come, the Department will launch specific policy initiatives in a number of key areas. Here, then, are six of the key imperatives that will drive the near-term agenda for DHS. We must increase preparedness with particular focus on catastrophic events; strengthen border security and interior enforcement and reform immigration processes; harden transportation security without sacrificing mobility; enhance information sharing with our partners, particularly with state, local and tribal governments and with the private sector; improve DHS stewardship, particularly with stronger financial, human resource, procurement, and information technology management; and realign the DHS organization to maximize mission performance. Now, we will put more muscle on the bones of these six areas and others with additional actions and policy proposals in the weeks and months ahead.
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But today, let me give you a broad overview of our agenda for the future of the Department. First, preparedness. In the broadest sense, preparedness addresses the full range of our capabilities to prevent, protect against, and respond to acts of terror or other disasters. And, of course, America’s critical infrastructure is not a government asset; roughly 85 percent is privately owned or operated. At the outset, we must acknowledge this: Although we have substantial resources to provide security, these resources are not unlimited. Therefore, as a nation, we must make tough choices about how to invest finite human and financial capital to attain the optimal state of preparedness. To do this we will focus preparedness on objective measures of risk and performance. Our risk analysis is based on these three variables: threat, vulnerability, and consequences. These variables are not equal. For example, some infrastructure is quite vulnerable, but the consequences of an attack are relatively small; other infrastructure may be much less vulnerable, but the consequences of a successful attack are very high, even catastrophic. DHS will concentrate first and foremost, most relentlessly, on addressing threats that pose catastrophic consequences. Some of the tools needed to prevent, respond or recover from such awful scenarios are already in place, but others do need significant improvement. The first step in enhancing our national preparedness is establishing a preparedness baseline that measures the effectiveness of our planning for preventing, protecting against, and responding to terrorist acts or disasters. One Second Stage Review team has, therefore, constructed the model for an analytic matrix that will set that baseline. The matrix will allow us to match possible threats against possible targets, and will map the current state of prevention, protection and response planning with respect to each. This matrix will be a critical tool enabling us to identify and remedy current gaps in our preparedness. Bringing greater planning discipline to each of these risk scenarios is another dimension of our preparedness mission, and simple common sense counsels that we begin by concentrating on events with the greatest potential consequences. That’s why the Department’s recently released National Preparedness Goals—and additional, risk-based planning—will form our standard in allocating future DHS grants to our state and local partners so that we build the right capabilities in the right places at the right level. Federal money should be distributed using the risk-based approach that we will apply to all preparedness activities. And DHS needs the discretion to award infrastructure protection grants in a more flexible and disciplined manner, as provided by the administration’s proposed Targeted Infrastructure Protection Plan. Of course, federal funds are not the only resources available to strengthen the protection of our valued infrastructure. Three years ago, Congress passed the SAFETY Act to enable our private sector partners to develop innovative technology to protect the homeland without the fear of unduly high transaction costs imposed by the possibility of frivolous lawsuits. There is more opportunity, much more opportunity, to take advantage of this important law, and we are going to do that.
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Finally, of all the catastrophic threats that we face, a nuclear attack on our soil would be uniquely threatening to our society. The President’s budget asks Congress to establish and fund a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office to develop and deploy the next generation of systems that will allow us to intercept a nuclear threat. We have already begun to take the steps to make this office a reality. The DNDO will report directly to me under our new structure, and I have asked Congress to support this critical resource. A second imperative is the need to strengthen border security and interior enforcement, as well as improve our immigration system. We cannot have one approach without the other. As to the first, we must gain full control of our borders to prevent illegal immigration and security breaches … We are developing a new approach to controlling the border, one that includes an integrated mix of additional staff, new technology and enhanced infrastructure investment. But control of the border will also require reducing the demand for illegal border migration by channeling migrants into regulated legal channels to seek work. I look forward to working with Congress, therefore, this year to improve border security significantly through the President’s Temporary Worker Program. But immigration policy is about more than keeping illegal migrants out. Our heritage and our national character inspire us to create a more welcoming society for those who lawfully come to our shores to work, learn and visit. Secretary Rice and I will, in the near term, announce a detailed agenda of work and innovation that the Department of State and DHS have already begun, to work together to ease the path for those who wish to visit, study, and conduct business in the United States. … Part of the problem is that the current business model fosters a long delay between application and final adjudication of applicants for residence and citizenship, during which many applicants stay here as temporary residents. But this system puts some of the most important security screening at the end of a lengthy process rather than at the beginning, and leads to an unnecessarily high rate of rejection late in the process. As a result, too often, this system leaves a negative first impression of our nation with our new fellow countrymen. Worse yet, it causes unnecessary security risks because people enjoy temporary residence while we are completing the screening process. Restructuring this process to enhance security and improve customer service will be an important part of our upcoming agenda. Now, creating better systems to move people and goods more securely and efficiently into the country and around the country was a core objective in founding the Department of Homeland Security. It remains so today. The tragic events in London last week serve as a reminder of the terrorist threat against innocent civilians in our mass transit systems. Following last year’s Madrid train bombings, DHS took important action not only by increasing funding for rail security, but by conducting over 2,600 individual consequence assessments. Since 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Transit Administration have worked together extensively with the transit industry and with first responders to strengthen the overall security capabilities of our transit systems, with a special emphasis on the largest systems.…
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But we are also working to develop next-generation explosive detection equipment specifically for use in mass transit systems. We will continue to apply enhanced resources to this groundbreaking work. And at the same time, we must also prepare for terror attacks of even greater consequence—attacking transit systems with biological, radiological or chemical agents. We now have in place a network of bio-sensors, but we will accelerate the development and deployment of the next generation technology in bio-sensors to more quickly detect biological, radiological, and chemical attacks. Aviation security. After 9/11, TSA was created to deny terrorists the opportunity to use aircraft as weapons and to defend our vital national infrastructure. Extraordinary progress has been made, but more remains to do. In aviation, our security and our convenience and efficiency can be strengthened by better use of technology, both existing and next generation technology. Let me observe that Congress intended TSA to be almost entirely supported by user fees, but it is not. The administration has proposed a modest increase, a few dollars, in user fees to fund the infrastructure necessary to do this job right.… Passenger identity screening. Too often, security screening for passengers at airports is frustrating. We are still dependent upon a pre-9/11 technology system to conduct the most elementary form of terrorist screening—matching names against watch lists. Our job is to identify people at airports whom we already know and believe to pose a risk to aviation. Our existing watch list does do this, it does identify threatening people, but it is not fully automated for aviation screening and it yields an unacceptably high number of false positive identifications, which drains our security resources and imposes a burden and inconvenience on passengers. Now, getting this right is urgent. The short-term solution lies in enhancing our ability to screen individuals more precisely against named terror suspects. We can do that by utilizing more precise identifying information such as the date of birth. That kind of system, a more precise identifying system, is being developed through our Secure Flight program, and it will limit cases where low-risk travelers are selected for additional pull-aside security screening. It will dramatically reduce the number of cases where travelers are delayed for questioning simply because they might have the same name as somebody who appears on the watch list. But even this approach may not be complete, because it still remains focused only on identifying the high-risk travelers. Putting aside the known risks, the more comprehensive and efficient passenger screening system that DHS must develop will give us the ability to automatically clear low-risk travelers. By clearing these low-risk travelers, TSA can reasonably focus on a smaller and more distinct pool of passengers that might really pose a threat to aviation. The result of this will be less frustration, faster service and better security … TSA’s Registered Traveler and Secure Flight programs are keys to increasing the precision, reliability, and speed of identity screening for domestic air travelers. Equally important are improved protocols to screen inbound international airline passengers and expanded deployment of U.S.-VISIT for overseas visitors. All of these screening programs, taken together, should be integrated so that screening is consistent and interoperable.
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Supply chain security management. After September 11th, this country put in place vital measures intended to protect the global movement of marine cargo that touches our shores before it moves into the interior of the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is screening all inbound containers and inspecting those that merit further scrutiny. And increasingly, this screening and inspection is taking place at the port of departure overseas, before cargo arrives in the United States. But we should not rest where we stand. I believe that we can gather, fuse and assess more complete data from the global supply chain to develop a more accurate profile of the history of cargo in any given container. Data about what cargo is moving from the initial point of shipping to the final destination will allow us to target risk better. With more informed targeting, we can more efficiently conduct inspections of cargo that is either high risk or unverified. This ‘‘Secure Freight’’ initiative will allow us to expedite large portions of our inbound trade … and let us focus with more precision on the unknown. … We must enhance and speed inspections that we need to perform so that we minimize freight delays and increase our total inspection capacity. To this end, we will complete our deployment of radiation portal detectors at ports, while advancing research on more sophisticated non-intrusive detection protocols and equipment. … The ability to share information with our state and local partners and with the private sector, law enforcement and first responders is absolutely critical to our success. Otherwise, we are effectively tying the hands of those who are on the ground and charged with the responsibility of protecting their community, their neighbors and their family. … We recognize the need for better and more inclusive information sharing, and information sharing, by the way, is a two-way street. Therefore, we will work with the White House Homeland Security Council and our federal colleagues not only to help forge a common federal set of tools for information sharing, but also work with state and local officials—and private sector infrastructure owners—to fuse and share a richer intelligence base. In short, we will promote greater situational awareness. Now, with all this, I have concluded that some structural changes are needed at DHS to improve mission performance. Modest but essential course corrections regarding organization will give us big dividends. Most of these can be accomplished administratively; a few will require congressional action. … Today I am announcing organizational changes that will include four important areas of focus. These include: (1) formation of a new, departmentwide policy office; (2) significant improvements in how DHS manages its intelligence and information sharing responsibilities; (3) formation of a new operations coordination office and other measures to ensure operational accountability among our 22 different components; and (4) an important consolidation effort that integrates the Department’s critical mission of preparedness. Let me turn to policy first. I have proposed creation of a central policy office led by an under secretary for policy. This office will bring together our international affairs staff, a significant and new strategic planning capability, DHS-wide policy development assets, a senior policy advisor focused on
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refugee asylum policies, and enhanced private sector liaison resources. Collectively, this policy directorate will strengthen the Department’s ability to develop and plan vital policies. … Creation of a DHS policy shop has been suggested by Members of Congress, Secretary Ridge himself, and numerous outside experts. Now is the time to make it a reality. Intelligence. The fact is that systematic intelligence lies at the heart of everything that we do. Understanding the enemy’s intent and capabilities affects how we operate at our borders, how we assess risk in protecting infrastructure, how we discern the kind of threats for which we must be prepared to respond. Right now, there are more than 10 separate components or offices of the Department of Homeland Security, which are intelligence generators, and all of us in the Department are consumers and users of intelligence information. We need to have a common picture across this Department, of the intelligence that we generate and the intelligence that we require. We need to fuse that information and combine it with information from other members of the intelligence community, as well as information from our state and local and international partners. Today, I am announcing that the Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis will be designated as the Chief Intelligence Officer for the Department of Homeland Security. The Chief Intelligence Officer will head a strengthened Intelligence and Analysis division that will report directly to me. This office will ensure that intelligence is coordinated, fused and analyzed within the Department so that we have a common operational picture of what’s going on. It will also provide a primary connection between DHS and the intelligence community as a whole, and a primary source of information for state, local and private sector partners. Now, intelligence and policy don’t mean very much if it’s not translated into action. Under our plan, all seven primary operational components of this Department will have a direct line to the Secretary, but, to improve our ability to coordinate and carry out operations, we will establish a new director of operations coordination. The director of operations coordination will work with component leadership and other federal partners to translate intelligence and policy into actions, and to ensure that those actions are joint, well-coordinated and executed in a timely fashion. The operations coordination director will manage DHS’s hub for crisis management. Now, this integrating office will not disrupt our operators in the field, and it’s not going to interfere with the component chains-of-command, because we do not aim to fix what already works. It’s simply going to make it easier and more efficient for us to make everybody work together. Finally, let me turn to the critical area of preparedness. The Department of Homeland Security has sometimes been viewed as a terrorist-fighting entity, but of course, we’re an all-hazards Department. Our responsibilities certainly include not only fighting the forces of terrorism, but also fighting the forces of natural disasters.… But to ensure that our preparedness efforts do have a focused direction, we intend to consolidate all the Department’s existing preparedness efforts—
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including planning, training, exercising and funding—into a single directorate led by an under secretary for preparedness. Going forward, FEMA will be a direct report to the Secretary, and it will focus on its historic and vital mission of response and recovery—a mission that it performs superbly. The importance of this latter capacity was illustrated powerfully as Hurricane Dennis made landfall this past week. And the preparedness directorate will support FEMA with training resources and will continue to rely on FEMA’s subject matter expertise, as well as the expertise of other components in promoting preparedness. It will include our Infrastructure Protection division, as well as the U.S. Fire Administration, which is currently affiliated with FEMA, which will strengthen our linkages and our preparation with the fire service. Further, as part of our consolidated preparedness team, I will appoint a chief medical officer within the preparedness directorate. This position will be filled by an outstanding physician who will be my principal advisor on medical preparedness and a high-level DHS representative to coordinate with our partners at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture and state governments. We also keenly appreciate the efficiencies and vulnerabilities of our modern technology upon which so much of society depends. To centralize the coordination of the efforts to protect our technological infrastructure, we will also create the new position of assistant secretary for cyber and telecommunications security within the preparedness directorate. The six areas of focus I’ve just described are all areas that will be priorities, among others, for the Department moving forward in the near term, and they offer at least an initial road map of large categories of our activity for the months ahead. … We will evaluate our decision making, strengthening security where it’s needed, and eliminating unnecessary burden when it’s possible to do that. And in that spirit today, I’m going to announce two decisions that illustrate this balanced approach. In the category of strengthening security, after extensive consultation with the Department of State and the Department of Justice, DHS has decided to strengthen our U.S.-VISIT program. In the future, first-time visitors to the United States will be enrolled in the program by submitting ten fingerprints. Subsequent entries will continue to require only a 2-print scan for verification. This enhanced use of U.S.-VISIT will dramatically improve our ability to detect and thwart terrorists trying to enter the United States, with no significant increase in inconvenience. In the category of lightening burden, TSA will suspend the post-9/11 requirement that commercial airline passengers departing or entering Reagan National Airport in Washington must remain seated for 30 minutes after departure and before arrival. Now, this 30-minute seating rule was a sensible measure when it was first applied. But now, almost four years later, significantly enhanced layers of security, ranging from hardened cockpit doors to air marshals, make it reasonable to eliminate this requirement. So our work in protecting the homeland will always seek reasonable balance. Over time, as intelligence warrants and as progress allows, DHS will be
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open to change. We will be straightforward. If something goes wrong, we will not only acknowledge it, but we will correct the error. But we will also stand up and let people know when we’ve done things the right way, or when we see a better way ahead. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0255.shtm EDITOR’S NOTE: See Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff’s Testimony Before the House Homeland Security Committee, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C., July 14, 2005 (http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/testimony/testimony_ 0038.shtm).
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Remarks at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 75th Anniversary Celebration, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, October 1, 2005 REMARKS AS DELIVERED If we are going to arrive at a day when terrorism no longer casts a dark cloud over the civilized world, we have to be prepared to advance international cooperation to hitherto unseen heights. And that’s because of course terrorism is also spreading its ideology of hatred and intolerance around the world, and we have to match it in geographic location point by point. The strategy has to be somewhat different than our traditional war-making strategy.… The fact is that terrorists plan, and raise funds, and recruit operatives using a 21st century network style of organization that relies on many of the same systems and structures which drive our global commerce. They’re basically using our own positive tools as weapons against us. So these communications networks, financial services networks, transportation systems, and global supply chains become the very battlegrounds of the war against terror, because these are the critical nodes that bind us together and create our own positive networks. And therefore we have to look at those networks, assess their vulnerabilities, see where terrorists are trying to exploit them, and respond with an international partnership in-kind. We need therefore to cut off the terrorists’ communications, we need to isolate their financial resources, and we need to eliminate their transportation capabilities—and we need to do it in a way that does not interfere with or disrupt the positive benefits we continue to get from a globalized economy and the exchange of ideas, people and services all around the world. So what is the Department of Homeland Security doing in this new kind of struggle against an ideology of intolerance? Well over the past two years the Department has been working very closely with international partners to pinpoint vulnerabilities in our common international network, plug the gaps in the network, and we’re doing it in every area of intercourse around the world, whether it be container security to biometrics that can be used to assess who’s coming into the country and who’s leaving the country, to secure travel
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documents, to making sure that our maritime and air domains remain free of terrorist activity. One example, through US-VISIT, which is our system that gives us the capability to biometrically confirm the identity of all visitors at our ports of entry. Using a simple fingerprint, we can now check people who are comingin, in real time have their fingerprint electronically matched against a database, see if their identity is in fact what the passport says, and let the vast majority in the country with little more than a moment or two of hesitation at the border. At the same time, US-VISIT has proved again and again that we can use it to capture people whether they are murderers, which happened a couple of weeks ago, or terrorists, as has happened previously, who are coming-in under a false identity, who pose a threat to our country, and who therefore we want to make sure are not allowed to enter and move freely. Similarly, in the maritime sector, we now have the Container Security Initiative that actually allows our inspectors to work with our foreign counterparts to check cargo at the 20 busiest international ports overseas, at the port of embarkation, before that cargo ever loads on a ship and enters an American port. We’ve established new data sharing agreements with the European Union that allow us to electronically screen passengers on international flights even before they arrive in the United States. So that is putting our ability to screen and protect out ever further before people come in and place us at risk. And of course we want to do this reciprocally. We want to afford our international partners the same ability to use our information to protect themselves as we ask them to provide us so we can protect ourselves.… One of the advantages of this, by the way, would be eliminating or drastically reducing the need for those flight diversions … when the plane is turned around because someone’s gotten on the plane who is actually on the no-fly list or a potential terrorist suspect. All of these endeavors that DHS is undertaking recognize that we are a part of a global network and that in order for that network to function, people and goods have to be able to move across borders rapidly, efficiently, and safely, but without sacrificing either security or personal privacy. The fact of the matter is if you stand back, fundamentally we share the same belief as other nations do all around the world in the importance of personal privacy and civil liberties. To be sure, sometimes we differ a little bit in the precise way we apply those values in the individual context in which we live. I’ll give you one example. In many countries in Europe it’s considered unremarkable that you are required to carry a personal identification card, that the police can stop you, and if you don’t have the card you can be brought to the police station. In other countries, such as in England where they’re debating the possibility of doing this, it’s causing a considerable amount of controversy. On the other hand, there are things we routinely do or the British routinely do in terms of access to phone records and telephone dialing records that are considered to be very, very controversial in continental Europe. The point is not that one society values privacy more than the other. We all, I think, value it a great deal. It is simply that our history and our culture tends to, in the application of this set of values, sometimes differ. That of
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course creates a challenge within which we need to work. We have to find a way to align our particular cultural and historical preferences so that we can work together efficiently and still at the same time all continue to commit ourselves to the fundamental values of liberty and privacy, which all free societies hold very dear. One way to do this is the use of technology and information screening. If we can screen effectively for information we can actually be less intrusive in terms of what we do. And effective screening requires us to have two very important capabilities First, we need to have the right kind of technology to screen dangerous people or dangerous things, while protecting sensitive information and minimizing delays and inconvenience. And second, we need to have the right kind of information and intelligence so we can quickly and accurately identify specific security risks. Both of these requirements necessitate that we and our partners overseas have sophisticated information gathering and information sharing capabilities, and sophisticated tracking capabilities. And I’ll give you a specific example. We worry a lot about containers coming into this country, and there are millions coming in. If one were to inspect every single container, you would basically destroy global maritime trade because the time it would take to move goods and services would make it utterly impractical. At the same time, we need to make sure something really bad doesn’t come in. So the key is an intelligent use of screening in terms of information and data about what is in containers, greater visibility into the constituent pieces that wind up being put into a container before it’s sealed, and with that kind of intelligence we know where to target specifically the kinds of containers we do need to look into, either using technology that allows us to do a non-intrusive inspection or even by opening the containers and looking personally. So that’s the kind of marriage of intelligent information gathering and screening technology that we need to use as we move forward internationally. Of course it’s obvious that when we build these systems we cannot do so in isolation. We need information and vital technology from our international partners. Most important, we need to make sure we’re building compatible systems and not creating additional vulnerabilities or inconveniences or security gaps because we’re each pursuing separate kinds of systems.… As we talk about systems to screen passengers, biometric passports, we need to make sure we have interoperable technology. We want to make it easier and more convenient, and this requires a degree and intensity of international cooperation, which is frankly far greater than I think what we’ve experienced in previous decades … As we talk of course about international interdependence and cooperation, we should pay special attention to our own neighborhood here in North America, because nowhere is this more critical than with our neighbors to the north and to the south—Canada and Mexico. That’s one of the reasons the President launched an initiative with the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico called the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The purpose of this partnership is to recognize that we need to continue to endorse and encourage a vital trading partnership with Canada and Mexico
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and at the same time we have to have a common playbook for managing security at our land borders, sharing intelligence, improving shared infrastructure, and all doing so without any cost to cross-border trade. … We have a new tri-lateral trusted traveler program that will allow traveling between our countries to be yet easier and more secure for frequent border-crossers. And we are doing the same thing with respect to cargo and trade as well—lanes that allow reliable shippers to pass their cargo much more rapidly between countries so we can get the benefit of NAFTA and our other trading alliances. But I also would be remiss in talking about our neighbors if I didn’t spend a moment taking about the particular challenge of illegal migration across the border, which I think is an issue of great sensitivity now in this country and in other countries as well. We have to acknowledge the fact that vast numbers of illegal migrants entering this country pose three challenges. There is a challenge to security. Some fraction of the people coming across are actually criminals or could be intending to do harm. There is a challenge to sovereignty. It seems to me one of the basic prerequisites of having a country and a national government is some ability to control one’s own borders. Finally, let me talk about one other issue. We, of course, want to be friends to the world … and … attract the best and the brightest from all over the world, not only to share what they have to contribute, but so that we can share our values and create goodwill all over the world for the people returning home. In the wake of 9/11, I think we are acutely aware that both the reality and maybe to some larger extent the image of America as an unwelcoming country began to spread in some parts of the world. I’ve spoken with Secretary Rice, … and … the President about it. We’re all committed to making sure the world views us as a welcome place for those who want to visit, who want to study, and ultimately for those who want to migrate and become American citizens. So that as we continue to make sure our security is being attended to, we need to be more streamlined and more effective in welcoming people. We’ve done this in the area of student visas and we’re more user-friendly on-line, and we want to continue to be moving in the direction of simplifying and lowering the burdens for those who want to come into this country, in a way that doesn’t sacrifice security, but in a way that both in reality and in our image tells the world please come to the United States, we want to welcome you as our ancestors were welcomed in this country in the generations past. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/speech_0260.shtm
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, G-8 Summit and Related Issues, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., June 9, 2006 SECRETARY CHERTOFF: … I’m going to be leaving for Europe next week as part of the G-8 Justice and Home Affairs ministerial conference, which is a
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prelude to the ultimate G-8 summit later in the summer. And our focus is going to be obviously on issues of mutual security and prosperity. Among the things I anticipate we will be able to talk about among the countries are the issues of preparedness, including avian flu preparedness, combating human trafficking, adopting new technology for better explosive detection during aircraft boarding, enhancing security on other forms of transportation like subways and railroads, working to mitigate radicalization and recruitment, promoting cybersecurity, combating electronic financial crimes and crimes on the Internet, more effectively frustrating terrorist financing operations and working more closely on critical infrastructure protection and consequence management. Now, a lot of people say, ‘‘Well, you’re Secretary of Homeland Security. You should be focused on the homeland. Why are you going overseas?’’ But the fact of the matter is that some people say charity begins at home; well, security begins overseas. We are more secure as Americans when we are working to elevate the general level of security around the world. And many of the activities we pursue here at DHS do involve interacting with foreign partners. That includes everything from strengthening corridor security to stopping human trafficking to preventing counterfeiting and, of course, ensuring the safety of all international travel. Terrorism itself, of course, is global. It knows no boundaries, and therefore our security network has to match it in terms of its scope and reach. The network of relationships we establish with our partners, both public and private, become a critical element in defending the security of the world against terrorists. At the same time, we want to make it clear that the world is a place that should welcome those who want to play, work and study in peace. And that’s why Secretary Rice and I announced in January that we were going to work to encourage those who wish to visit the U.S. for purposes of enjoying themselves or studying or working, we want to encourage them to come to the country. We don’t want our security measures to impede legitimate travel and legitimate tourism. So we’re working to expedite the visa process, retool and make our airports more welcoming, and develop smarter screening that raises security but also increases efficiency. One of the tools that we have embraced is US-VISIT, which has allowed us to use biometrics—fingerprints—to facilitate travel while promoting security. It’s now operational in all of our permanent ports of entry, 115 airports, 15 seaports and 154 land-based ports of entry in the United States, and we are working on pilots in a number of these ports of entry for people who want to exit. Another issue, … is passenger name records. I think you know that we do use passenger name records, which is information that is affiliated with the name of a traveler, as part of our multilayered level of security. The fact of the matter is PNR data is created by aircraft operators or their travel agents for each journey booked on behalf of a passenger. It’s basically used for commercial operational purposes and contains such information as date of ticket reservation, date and place of ticket issue, payment details, contact details and travel itinerary.
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The fact of the matter is this kind of information, while not particularly private, is critical for law enforcement authorities and immigration authorities to detect people who should not be allowed to enter the country or who pose a risk to others.… Now, last week the European Court of Justice ruled that the existing agreement through which we exchange PNR data with the European Union was legally flawed based on a question of the EU’s own adaptation of legal authority. It’s a complicated case. I’m licensed to practice law in the United States but not in Europe, so I’m not going to interpret the case for you. We are studying the decision, obviously, and we want to work with our European counterparts on the way forward. One thing that’s clear about the ruling is that it ensures that there will be no lowering of data protection standards and no effect on passengers, no disruption of transatlantic air traffic and that a high security is maintained throughout the period until September 30th, 2006. So things are going to continue to operate during this period as before while we work to develop the appropriate response to this particular court ruling. Q. … U.S. citizens are allowed to travel to all 25 European Union countries without a visa, and the EU countries are demanding that you give the same privilege to all EU nations. And then the EU countries are asking for a specific timeline. You’re not able or willing to offer a specific timeline when you finally let in all European EU citizens here? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, the timeline, first of all, is driven by performance. I mean, there are certain standards that have to be met. By way of example, we had an issue last year concerning our legal requirements for certain kinds of passports, for the reporting of lost and stolen passport data. Those criteria are clear. We can’t give a timeline because they have to be met in order to satisfy the visa waiver requirements. What we can do is lay out the standards that have to be met. I know in particular, the issue of the percentage of visa application rejections tends to be one area that’s a little difficult. We’re certainly willing to look at that and see if there’s some other criteria we can substitute in part, perhaps, for that criterion. It’s a matter we have to study, but again, this is not an issue of setting a deadline, because whether the standards are met is really a function of the performance having been accomplished. Q. A couple of questions about the slash in the anti-terror funding. New York has suffered a 40 percent cut in the budget. A few questions. First of all, you’ve been soundly criticized by many quarters—you’ve been accused of playing politics with New Yorkers’ lives and you’ve been accused of being penny-pinching feds. Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg have continued to criticize you. So first of all, how do you justify the cut of 40 percent? How is it that New York has been cut in comparison, according to some of the critics, to states like Wyoming? And how can New York expect to battle anti-terror with that kind of cut in funding? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, here’s how I’m going to respond. I’m going to actually respond by talking about facts. So here is a fact, in terms of whether
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there is a cut for New York. If you look at the percentage of the total money that went to New York this year, it is roughly the same as the average amount that went in the three prior years, roughly 18 percent. So in other words, the—although one year was high and one year was low, when you look at the average over the prior three years, it is virtually identical to the percentage of the funds that went there this year. That’s number one. Number two, let’s look at all of the funds that were available to be distributed to cities this year. It’s a little over several hundred million dollars. Approximately one half of that total amount of money went to five cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Northern New Jersey. I forget what the fifth one was. So right away, we’ve taken half the money and put it in five cities where the threat seen is seen as the greatest, although that’s not to say there aren’t threats anywhere. … If you actually look at New York and Northern New Jersey together, they got a total of almost $160 million, which is almost 25 percent of all the money.… You have to look at the threat to the New York metropolitan area as a combined threat. And so the combined amount of money is almost onequarter of the total amount of money. So when I put those facts on the table, it strikes me as very hard to argue this is a cut. Now, it may be that some people think that all the money ought to go to three or four cities and that the other 41 cities who are sharing the remaining 50 percent of the money shouldn’t get it and I think that’s a debate we ought to have. My short answer to that is two words: Oklahoma City. For those who think that terrorism only occurred in New York, I suggest you visit where the Murrah Building stood and you’ll see the consequences of terrorism in Oklahoma City. I understand that from everybody’s personal standpoint, they tend to see their own risk as the only risk. But I have to tell you I think that for us to take the position that all the money ought to go to one or two or three cities and every other city is left without a penny to help in terms of federal money for anti-terror, is to take a significant risk with respect to the very large number of people who live in those cities who also can be the subject of a threat as well. It’s difficult to balance these things out. But I think that what we have done is used a process that is the very opposite of political, because it has relied upon experts from communities all over the country to do the evaluation of the various kinds of proposals that are coming from the various cities. Q. … [Y]ou’re saying at this time there is no credible intelligence that suggest a specific or imminent threat to the homeland. As you know, al-Qaida threatened yesterday to avenge the death of Zarqawi. We heard from Mullah Omar of the Taliban. Do you dismiss these threats as rhetoric or do you think that al-Qaida is more likely to attack American interest abroad? Or what makes you sure that there is—nothing’s going to happen here, or at least as you said, not now? SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, let me be clear about what I’ve said. We try to be precise in our language. We talk about whether there’s a specific credible threat. In other words, do we believe there is intelligence, that there is a focused threat that is believable on a particular place or to a particular type of thing?
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I absolutely take seriously the fact that al-Qaida has, since well before 2001, been completely dedicated to killing as many innocent people in this country and around the world as possible. That threat has not diminished. That is why we are all at an elevated level of security. We don’t drop our guard. The question is whether, in light of this particular success in the war against terror, we are somehow going to raise the level of security because we’re anticipating some kind of specific response. And obviously we monitor this issue literally 24/7. We always are alert to the possibility of something, but this was a specific response to the question whether, based on this success, we’re anticipating some particular response. But this much I want to be completely clear about: We are never complacent. And if, in fact, credible evidence emerges about a specific threat, we react immediately to prevent that threat and to protect against that threat. We never have any doubt about the fact that the terrorists are determined to carry out threats against us. What has limited them is not their intent, because their intent is always there and it’s always bad. What has limited them is their capability and our ability to frustrate their capacity to carry out their threats, which we do by conducting intelligence gathering, conducting disruption activities, by raising the level of security at the border.… SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/67759.htm
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Remarks at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, October 16, 2006 There’s no question that as I look on the challenge of the Department of Homeland Security, and the challenge of homeland security in general, that our principal partner in dealing with the threat of terror is state and local law enforcement. You are a network and a skill set that is indispensable in our protecting the homeland against the possibility of another attack such as that which we experienced on September 11th. Years and years of accumulated experience and expertise that you bring to defending this country against crime benefit us very directly at the Department of Homeland Security. And your partnership and trust is something we depend upon and take very seriously. So today I’d like to talk about some steps we are now going to take to strengthen and deepen our partnership in a couple of hours. That includes increased, more robust and quicker sharing of information, and increased sharing of situational awareness, so that we can address threats as soon as they appear on the horizon, and so that we can manage major, multi-jurisdictional incidents if and when they occur. Let me start by talking a little bit about what we are most concerned about at the Department of Homeland Security in terms of the emerging picture of threats to the homeland from terrorism. And I want to break it down into three categories. The first, of course, is the possibility of a weapon of mass destruction being introduced into one of
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our cities or towns here in the United States. We’re talking about a radiological weapon, chemical weapon, a biological weapon, even a nuclear weapon. Such a weapon would have a dramatic, transformative effect on our society in terms of loss of life and in terms of economic impact. And, obviously, the consequences of such an attack are so great, we have to do everything in our power to prevent this from happening. And that’s why we are spending a considerable amount of effort and resources developing the technology and deploying the technology that will detect that kind of an attack at the earliest possible stage. Some of that is going to affect you very directly, because one of our initiatives is our Securing the Cities Initiative, which is going to begin with New York and two other cities not yet selected, to begin to plan and deploy radiation detection equipment in the areas that are the major pathways into the cities, so that we will ultimately be able to detect a possible nuclear threat, even arising within the U.S., before that bomb or that nuclear weapon or that radiological bomb gets into a city where it could do the maximum amount of damage. And you’re going to have to be our partners in that effort. Likewise, we are deploying and will soon be deploying the next generation of biological detectors in dozens of major cities around the country, again, the purpose of which is to give you and us the earliest possible warning of a biological incident, so we can respond effectively to protect our communities against that kind of weapon of mass destruction. The second major threat we’re concerned about is a high-consequence international terrorist plot … as the events of August 10th of this year made vivid, … that was focused on flights from the United Kingdom to the United States is to work internationally, police to police, to detect and respond before these plots, quite literally, get off the ground. But the third area I want to focus on, and I think this is the one which will concern most of you here, is the increasing threat of homegrown plots—that is to say plots arising in local communities, involving local people, American citizens, who may become radicalized over the Internet or because of a recruiter and train themselves, again—with networks, small groups—and then would carry out the kinds of attacks that we saw, for example, in London last year on July 2nd, an attack that could target our transportation systems, possibly our schools, possibly our commercial establishments.… The best tool in dealing with homegrown terrorists is intelligence—collection, analysis and sharing. That is our early warning system. The sooner we detect a plot or a threat, the better our chances of dismantling it before it becomes operational. And we know that we cannot wait until the last moment to stop that kind of plot from being carried out. Recognizing that particularly with respect to homegrown plots, it is you— the police chiefs of America—who are most likely to be in a position to give us that early warning. I met with a number of major city chiefs this past August to talk about what we can do to accelerate and streamline how you share information with each other. And I’m talking here not just about our sending information down to you; I’m also talking about your sending information up to us. This is a twoway street. And as with all partnerships, both sides have to give and receive.
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… [H]ere are the steps we have agreed to take with the major city chiefs beginning immediately to start to move our relationship and our sharing to the next level. First of all, we are going to build upon some of our early initial efforts to establish fusion centers by creating a national network of intelligence fusion centers to support state and local decision-makers, chiefs of police, and state and local intelligence officials. We’re going to build new information systems to further facilitate collaboration and sharing of classified and unclassified information, and to allow real-time working collaboration between state and local and federal law enforcement officials, including the ready transmission of classified information over secure communication facilities. We are going to expedite the classified, secret level clearance process so that we get clearances out to the field more quickly and more generally than we’ve been able to do in the past.… Furthermore, we’re going to be assigning experienced intelligence personnel from the federal intelligence community, as well as subject matter experts into these fusion centers that we are now developing. And at the same time, we are going to ask and invite police departments to be sending their intelligence analysts and maybe their operators into our intelligence center and into our operations center so that we can become more deeply embedded in one another’s day-to-day intelligence analysis and operational activity. We also want to continue to make sure we are giving you useful analysis that helps you gain a deeper understanding of the challenge of terrorism. Among other things, for example, our Office of Bomb Prevention is working with the Department of Defense to gain better access and understanding of cuttingedge developments in creation of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and all over the world. We’re translating this information into real-time training tools and other education material that you can use to make sure that your bomb squads and bomb protection officials know what to look for as the enemy continues to develop its capabilities in these kinds of destructive devices. Also, as we talk about these fusion centers, it’s important to recognize that these are going to be critical pathways for the sharing of information and expertise across the whole spectrum of concerns we have in dealing with the possibility of terrorism. We already have intelligence personnel working in five major fusion centers … But our plan is to go further than that, to have personnel in 20 fusion centers by the end of this fiscal year, and up to 35 centers by the end of the next fiscal year. These intelligence analysts will help—two-way street—convey our analytical capabilities and our information to state and local officials, but also giving us a real sense about what you as customers need and want, so that we can make sure we are giving you the service that you deserve. Furthermore, these deployed intelligence and analysis personnel will facilitate the connection with our databases, including our new Homeland Secure Data Network that is a much more robust portal for the transmission of classified information, voice and data, which will make that much more accessible to those who need it to work in these fusion centers.
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… [F]inally, I want to talk about the issue of grants. Obviously a very important way in which we support state and local law enforcement is through our Homeland Security Grant Program, including a law enforcement, terrorism prevention program in which we’ve awarded hundreds of millions of dollars based on risk and need. We’ve also invested roughly $380 million in state-run fusion centers. I want to tackle one issue very directly. When I came to the Department I was convinced that it was very important to make sure we had a balanced approach to grants. That means an approach that looks at prevention, protection and response as part of a continuum of what we need to be prepared to do in order to address the issue of terrorism. And certainly, I was well aware of the importance of making sure that our grant programs are very focused on the needs of the law enforcement community—those who have the fiscal obligation to detect and prevent terrorist attacks which are the best way to resolve this kind of threat to the homeland. Now, Congress has acted in the last couple of months to do some restructuring at DHS of our Grants and Training Office by transitioning it to be housed within FEMA. But I want to make a personal pledge to you: that transfer of—our Grants and Training Office—will not cause one iota of decrease in the commitment that we have to continue to fund the very important prevention programs which we have supported in the past in this law enforcement community and with our state and local police. Wherever the boxes are in the organizational chart, this is the kind of program that will get top-level attention from me personally and from the leadership of the Department. In the end, the lesson of the last five years since 9/11 has been that we face a threat that continues to evolve. Obviously, a large part of this threat will always be international terrorism, and there the federal government will play a principle role in collecting the intelligence and disseminating the information, and supporting our efforts here at home to defend the homeland. But more and more, it will also be the case that we will have to be concerned about the kind of threat that we’ve seen in western Europe, a threat that may be borne over the Internet, maybe as collected only in a very small group of operatives, that could pose a serious potential of harm to our communities all across the country. We’re going to have to adapt ourselves at all levels for this emerging threat. For our part, what I will tell you is we will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you. We will share information, we will share training, we will share tools, and we will work as a team to make sure that whether terrorism comes in the airplanes, from across the ocean, or whether it’s borne in apartment buildings in our cities and towns, we will detect it, we will prevent it, and we will respond to it effectively in the interest of protecting our families, our friends, our loved ones, and our fellow citizens. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/speeches/sp_1161184338115.shtm
Pa r t Th re e C OUNTERTERRORISM BY T OPICS AND I SSUES
17 Threats This chapter contains testimony and statements that discuss the threats to America before and after the 9/11 attacks, highlighting the evolution of the terrorist threat over the years. Testimony before 9/11 outlined growing concern over the emergence of transnational and increasingly complex terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda. CIA Director George Tenet, in his February 2, 1999, testimony, expressed concern that one or more bin Laden attacks could occur at any time. In his testimony a year later, February 2, 2000, the intelligence community also noted the trend toward terrorists operations designed to kill thousands of persons. In later testimony after 9/11 and the March 2003 U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan that ousted Osama bin Laden’s Taliban protectors and destroyed al Qaeda bases, officials described how al Qaeda had evolved into a less centralized movement. In a speech on November 28, 2001, National Intelligence Council Officer for South Asia Paul R. Pillar details the decentralized nature of international terrorism, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson’s February 6, 2002, statements describe how al Qaeda could ‘‘splinter into a number of loosely affiliated groups, united by a common cause and sharing common operatives.’’ Other statements reiterate this theme, including Tenet’s March 19, 2002, testimony, which warns of al Qaeda’s multiple attack plans involving conventional, biological, and chemical weapons. His February 24, 2004, statement declared that while the United States has been successful in fighting al Qaeda around the globe, it is still a powerful ‘‘learning organization that remains committed to attacking the United States, its friends and allies.’’ Ambassador Cofer Black’s testimony on April 1, 2004, provides further details on the al Qaeda threat. Testimony in this chapter also covers assessments of the Iraq situation. Pre9/11 testimony focuses on the concerns about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In February 2, 2000, testimony, Tenet covers Saddam Hussein’s disregard for sanctions and attempts to renew his WMD
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capabilities, saying he continually makes sanction ‘‘violations a routine occurrence for which he pays no penalty.’’ Other statements delivered before the March 2003 military action outline the concerns about Iraq, including Tenet’s March 19, 2002, hearing describing Saddam Hussein’s ‘‘political and diplomatic charm offensive’’ intended to keep the United Nations at bay, while cultivating neighbor states and continuing support of terrorists. Tenet’s February 11, 2003, testimony and Vice Admiral Jacoby’s February 12, 2003, testimony discussed warnings of feigned Iraqi cooperation and continued aggressive practices. Statements discussing operations and conditions after the toppling of the Hussein regime in 2003 include an overview of progress, successes, and continued threats by Tenet on February 24, 2004. The new CIA Director Porter Goss’s comments on February 16, 2005, discuss the importance of capable Iraqi security forces for the self-determination of the Iraqi people and for the success of the rebuilding strategy. Many of the statements in this chapter also deal with Iran, including Tenet’s March 19, 2002, testimony detailing Iran’s support for groups like Hezbollah, its failure to move against al Qaeda members, a dangerous slowdown of movement toward reform, and increased movement toward nuclear proliferation. Vice Admiral Jacoby’s February 12, 2003, testimony discusses in some detail Iran’s military capabilities. The chapter concludes with the July 18, 2006, statements by Under Secretary Robert G. Joseph who discussed the danger posed by a nuclear-capable state sponsor of terrorism, saying ‘‘[t]he coming together of these trends—on the one hand, the increasingly lethal goals of today’s terrorists and on the other, the illicit trafficking in nuclear material and technology—makes nuclear terrorism both the most serious international security challenge of our time, and the most urgent.’’
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Current and Projected National Security Threats, February 2, 1999 Introductory Remarks … In this last annual threat assessment of the 20th century, I must tell you that US citizens and interests are threatened in many arenas and across a wide spectrum of issues. What is noteworthy is the manner in which so many issues are now intertwined and so many dangers mutually reinforcing. Why is this so? To some degree it involves historic legacies fueled by the continued crumbling of Cold War constraints. We see this in the ongoing turmoil of the Balkans, the increasing violence in Africa, and the renewed volatility of the Subcontinent. But in today’s world, these problems fester amidst new dangers—dangers that flow from new factors, such as the increasing availability of sophisticated technology and the ease and speed with which it can be applied by those hostile to the United States. In a very real sense, we live
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at a moment when the past and the future are colliding. In other words, today we must still deal with terrorists, insurgents, and others who have hundreds of years of history fueling their causes—but chances are they will be using laptop computers, sophisticated encryption, and weaponry their predecessors could not even have imagined. The Threat of Terrorism On terrorism, Mr. Chairman, I must be frank in saying that Americans increasingly are the favored targets. US citizens and facilities suffered more than 35 percent of the total number of international terrorist attacks in 1998. This is up from 30 percent in 1997, and 25 percent in 1996. Looking out over the next year, Mr. Chairman, let me mention two specific concerns. First, there is not the slightest doubt that Usama Bin Ladin, his worldwide allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against us. Despite progress against his networks, Bin Ladin’s organization has contacts virtually worldwide, including in the United States—and he has stated unequivocally, Mr. Chairman, that all Americans are targets. Bin Ladin’s overarching aim is to get the United States out of the Persian Gulf, but he will strike wherever in the world he thinks we are vulnerable. We are anticipating bombing attempts with conventional explosives, but his operatives are also capable of kidnappings and assassinations. We have noted recent activity similar to what occurred prior to the African embassy bombings, Mr. Chairman, and I must tell you we are concerned that one or more of Bin Ladin’s attacks could occur at any time. One of my greatest concerns is the serious prospect that Bin Ladin or another terrorist might use chemical or biological weapons. Bin Ladin’s organization is just one of about a dozen terrorist groups that have expressed an interest in or have sought chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents. Bin Ladin, for example, has called the acquisition of these weapons a ‘‘religious duty’’ and noted that ‘‘how we use them is up to us.’’ Earlier I referred to state sponsorship of terrorism, so let me take this opportunity to say, with respect to Iran, that we have yet to see any significant reduction in Iran’s support for terrorism. President Khatami took office in August 1997, but hard-liners, such as Supreme leader Khamenei, continue to view terrorism as a legitimate tool of Iranian policy and they still control the institutions that can implement it. The Threat from Iran But Iran has had a tumultuous year, and my sense is that it is more likely to face serious unrest in 1999 that at any time since the revolution 20 years ago. The situation is very fluid, and the more moderate elements represented by Iran’s President Khatami are on the defensive to a greater degree than ever before in their struggle with the country’s conservatives. Some of President Khatami’s domestic reforms have come under intense attack by conservatives. And the current jump in political violence, including the recent murders of several dissidents, suggests that some conservative elements have decided to revert to force to impose their will.
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Several troublesome developments involving Iran could unfold this year. First, Mr. Chairman, we need to bear soberly in mind that reformists and conservatives agree on at least one thing: weapons of mass destruction are a necessary component of defense and a high priority. Thus, as I stated earlier, we need to be vigilant against the possibility of proliferation surprise. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/1999/ps020299.html
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security, February 2, 2000 As I reflect this year … on the threats to American security, what strikes me most forcefully is the accelerating pace of change in so many arenas that affect our nation’s interests. Numerous examples come to mind: new communications technology that enables the efforts of terrorists and narcotraffickers as surely as it aids law enforcement and intelligence, rapid global population growth that will create new strains in parts of the world least able to cope, the weakening internal bonds in a number of states whose cohesion can no longer be taken for granted, the breaking down of old barriers to change in places like the Koreas and Iran, the accelerating growth in missile capabilities in so many parts of the world—to name just a few. Never in my experience … has American intelligence had to deal with such a dynamic set of concerns affecting such a broad range of US interests. Never have we had to deal with such a high quotient of uncertainty. With so many things on our plate, it is important always to establish priorities. For me, the highest priority must invariably be on those things that threaten the lives of Americans or the physical security of the United States. With that in mind, let me turn first to the challenges posed by international terrorism. Transnational Issues We have made considerable progress on terrorism against US interests and facilities … but it persists. The most dramatic and recent evidence, of course, is the loss of 17 of our men and women on the USS Cole at the hands of terrorists. The threat from terrorism is real, it is immediate, and it is evolving. State sponsored terrorism appears to have declined over the past five years, but transnational groups—with decentralized leadership that makes them harder to identify and disrupt—are emerging. We are seeing fewer centrally controlled operations, and more acts initiated and executed at lower levels. Terrorists are also becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated in order to defeat counterterrorism measures. For example, as we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out ‘‘softer’’ targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties. Employing increasingly advanced devices and using strategies such as simultaneous attacks, the number of people killed or injured in international terrorist
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attacks rose dramatically in the 1990s, despite a general decline in the number of incidents. Approximately one-third of these incidents involved US interests. Usama bin Ladin and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat. Since 1998, Bin Ladin has declared all US citizens legitimate targets of attack. As shown by the bombing of our Embassies in Africa in 1998 and his Millennium plots last year, he is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning. His organization is continuing to place emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection, blame, and retaliation. As a result it is often difficult to attribute terrorist incidents to his group, Al Qa’ida. Beyond Bin Ladin, the terrorist threat to Israel and to participants in the Middle East peace negotiations has increased in the midst of continuing Palestinian-Israeli violence. Palestinian rejectionists—including HAMAS and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—have stepped up violent attacks against Israeli interests since October. The terrorist threat to US interests, because of our friendship with Israel has also increased. At the same time, Islamic militancy is expanding, and the worldwide pool of potential recruits for terrorist networks is growing. In central Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia, Islamic terrorist organizations are trying to attract new recruits, including under the banner of anti-Americanism. International terrorist networks have used the explosion in information technology to advance their capabilities. The same technologies that allow individual consumers in the United States to search out and buy books in Australia or India also enable terrorists to raise money, spread their dogma, find recruits, and plan operations far afield. Some groups are acquiring rudimentary cyberattack tools. Terrorist groups are actively searching the internet to acquire information and capabilities for chemical, biological, radiological, and even nuclear attacks. Many of the 29 officially designated terrorist organizations have an interest in unconventional weapons, and Usama bin Ladin in 1998 even declared their acquisition a ‘‘religious duty.’’ Nevertheless, we and our Allies have scored some important successes against terrorist groups and their plans, which I would like to discuss with you in closed session later today. Here, in an open session, let me assure you that the Intelligence Community has designed a robust counterterrorism program that has preempted, disrupted, and defeated international terrorists and their activities. In most instances, we have kept terrorists off-balance, forcing them to worry about their own security and degrading their ability to plan and conduct operations. Iraq … In Iraq Saddam Hussein has grown more confident in his ability to hold on to his power. He maintains a tight handle on internal unrest, despite the erosion of his overall military capabilities. Saddam’s confidence has been buoyed by his success in quieting the Shia insurgency in the south, which last year had reached a level unprecedented since the domestic uprising in 1991. Through brutal suppression, Saddam’s multilayered security apparatus has
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continued to enforce his authority and cultivate a domestic image of invincibility. High oil prices and Saddam’s use of the oil-for-food program have helped him manage domestic pressure. The program has helped meet the basic food and medicine needs of the population. High oil prices buttressed by substantial illicit oil revenues have helped Saddam ensure the loyalty of the regime’s security apparatus operating and the few thousand politically important tribal and family groups loyal. There are still constraints on Saddam’s power. His economic infrastructure is in long-term decline, and his ability to project power outside Iraq’s borders is severely limited, largely because of the effectiveness and enforcement of the No-Fly Zones. His military is roughly half the size it was during the Gulf War and remains under a tight arms embargo. He has trouble efficiently moving forces and supplies—a direct result of sanctions.… Despite these problems, we are likely to see greater assertiveness—largely on the diplomatic front—over the next year. Saddam already senses improved prospects for better relations with other Arab states. One of his key goals is to sidestep the 10-year-old economic sanctions regime by making violations a routine occurrence for which he pays no penalty. Saddam has had some success in ending Iraq’s international isolation. Since August, nearly 40 aircraft have flown to Baghdad without obtaining UN approval, further widening fissures in the UN air embargo. Moreover, several countries have begun to upgrade their diplomatic relations with Iraq. The number of Iraqi diplomatic missions abroad are approaching pre-Gulf War levels, and among the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, only Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have not reestablished ties. Our most serious concern with Saddam Hussein must be the likelihood that he will seek a renewed WMD capability both for credibility and because every other strong regime in the region either has it or is pursuing it. For example, the Iraqis have rebuilt key portions of their chemical production infrastructure for industrial and commercial use. The plants he is rebuilding were used to make chemical weapons precursors before the Gulf War and their capacity exceeds Iraq’s needs to satisfy its civilian requirements. We have similar concerns about other dual-use research, development, and production in the biological weapons and ballistic missile fields; indeed, Saddam has rebuilt several critical missile production complexes. Iran Despite Iran’s uncertain domestic prospects … it is clear that Khatami’s appeal and promise of reform thus far, as well as the changing world economy, have contributed to a run of successes for Iran in the foreign arena over the past year. Some Western ambassadors have returned to Tehran, and Iranian relations with EU countries and Saudi Arabia are at their highest point since the revolution in 1979. Higher oil prices, meanwhile, have temporarily eased the government’s need to address difficult and politically controversial economic problems. They have also taken more of the sting out of US sanctions.
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Iran’s desire to end its isolation has not resulted in a decline in its willingness to use terrorism to pursue strategic foreign policy agendas—Tehran, in fact, has increased its support to terrorist groups opposed to the peace process over the past two years. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2000/dci_speech_020200. html
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on the Worldwide Threat 2001: National Security in a Changing World, February 7, 2001 Terrorism Since July 1998, working with foreign governments worldwide, we have helped to render more than two dozen terrorists to justice. More than half were associates of Usama Bin Ladin’s Al-Qa’ida organization. These renditions have shattered terrorist cells and networks, thwarted terrorist plans, and in some cases even prevented attacks from occurring. Although 1999 did not witness the dramatic terrorist attacks that punctuated 1998, our profile in the world and thus our attraction as a terrorist target will not diminish any time soon. We are learning more about the perpetrators every day … and I can tell you that they are a diverse lot motivated by many causes. Usama Bin Ladin is still foremost among these terrorists, because of the immediacy and seriousness of the threat he poses. Everything we have learned recently confirms our conviction that he wants to strike further blows against America. Despite some well-publicized disruptions, we believe he could still strike without additional warning. Indeed, Usama Bin Ladin’s organization and other terrorist groups are placing increased emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection. For example, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) is linked closely to Bin Ladin’s organization and has operatives located around the world—including in Europe, Yemen, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. And, there is now an intricate web of alliances among Sunni extremists worldwide, including North Africans, radical Palestinians, Pakistanis, and Central Asians. Some of these terrorists are actively sponsored by national governments that harbor great antipathy toward the United States. Iran, for one, remains the most active state sponsor. Although we have seen some moderating trends in Iranian domestic policy and even some public criticism of the security apparatus, the fact remains that the use of terrorism as a political tool by official Iranian organs has not changed since President Khatami took office in August 1997. … [W]e remain concerned that terrorist groups worldwide continue to explore how rapidly evolving and spreading technologies might enhance the lethality of their operations. Although terrorists we’ve preempted still appear
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to be relying on conventional weapons, we know that a number of these groups are seeking chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) agents. We are aware of several instances in which terrorists have contemplated using these materials. Among them is Bin Ladin, who has shown a strong interest in chemical weapons. His operatives have trained to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals or biological toxins. HAMAS is also pursuing a capability to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals. Terrorists also are embracing the opportunities offered by recent leaps in information technology. To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hizballah, HAMAS, the Abu Nidal organization, and Bin Ladin’s al Qa’ida organization are using computerized files, e-mail, and encryption to support their operations. … We have had our share of successes, but I must be frank in saying that this has only succeeded in buying time against an increasingly dangerous threat. The difficulty in destroying this threat lies in the fact that our efforts will not be enough to overcome the fundamental causes of the phenomenon—poverty, alienation, disaffection, and ethnic hatreds deeply rooted in history. In the meantime, constant vigilance and timely intelligence are our best weapons. Iraq With regard to Iraq, Saddam faced a difficult start in 1999—including the most serious Shia unrest since 1991 and significant economic difficulties. The Shia unrest was not confined to the south but also affected some areas of Baghdad itself, presenting Saddam’s regime with a major security problem. On the economic side, to rein in inflation, stabilize the dinar, and reduce the budget deficit, Saddam was forced to raise taxes, ease foreign exchange controls, and cut nonwage public spending. Saddam has, however, shown himself to be politically agile enough to weather these challenges. He brutally suppressed the Shia uprisings of last spring and early summer. The regime is still gaining some revenue from illegal oil sales. Increased access to food and medical supplies through the oil for food program has improved living conditions in Baghdad. A major worry is that Iraqi reconstruction of WMD-capable facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and continued work on delivery systems shows the priority Saddam continues to attach to preserving a WMD infrastructure. And Iraq’s conventional military remains one of the largest in the Middle East, even though it is now less than half the size during the Gulf War. He can still hurt coalition forces, but his military options are sharply limited. His continuing challenge to the no-fly-zone enforcement remains his only sustainable means of engaging US and UK forces. In sum, to the extent that Saddam has had any successes in the last year, they have been largely tactical. In a strategic sense, he is still on a downward path. His economic infrastructure continues to deteriorate, the Kurdishinhabited northern tier remains outside the grip of his army, and although
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many governments are sympathetic to the plight of the Iraqi people, few if any are willing to call Saddam an ally. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2001/UNCLASWWT_ 02072001.html
Paul R. Pillar, National Intelligence Council Officer for South Asia, ‘‘Fighting International Terrorism: Beyond September 11,’’ Address at the College for William and Mary, November 28, 2001 Much public rhetoric over the past two and a half months has been devoted to the theme of how much our world changed on September 11th. The phrases have acquired a familiar rhythm: ‘‘new era,’’ ‘‘extraordinary times,’’ ‘‘our lives will never be the same.’’ This ‘‘new era’’ outlook is an understandable and reasonable reaction to the sheer magnitude of what the hijackers of September 11th accomplished, thanks in part to the secondary effect of two skyscrapers collapsing. The quantitative difference in what they accomplished is great enough to justify some qualitative differences in how we deal with terrorism. The approximately 3,000 people killed in the attacks far surpasses—by a factor of nearly ten—any attack that any terrorists had previously perpetrated, in any country, in pursuit of any cause. But I’m not going to talk primarily about the new and the different. Instead, I want to focus on what has not changed in international terrorism … The attacks were a continuation and manifestation of several patterns that have been evident over the past several years. The aspects of the event that should not have surprised us outnumber those that should have. … [T]his was not an instance of our having to ask ourselves, ‘‘Where did these people come from, and who put them up to this?’’ Al-Qa’ida has been at the top of terrorist concerns for the US for over three years, since the bombings of the embassies in Africa. Usama Bin Ladin in particular has been an object of special attention and concern for twice as long as that. That the United States should have been the target of the deadliest terrorist attack in history was also part of a well-established pattern. US interests get hit by terrorists more than those of any other nation—an increasingly marked tendency over the past couple of decades. And Bin Ladin could not have been more open about his intention to hit us as hard as he could. In his manifestos and fatwas and videotapes he has repeatedly declared his aim to punish America and Americans, and has said that American civilians are just as much his enemy as those who wear a uniform, and just as deserving of dying. That a terrorist operation should have been designed to kill thousands is part of another larger trend—one toward greater lethality in international terrorism, in which we see fewer major terrorist operations conducted in a measured way for bargaining purposes, with the intended outcome being some specific concession by a government such as release of prisoners, and more operations intended simply to punish a perceived adversary.
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That a foreign terrorist organization should reach thousands of miles away from its base to conduct a successful attack within the United States reflected a larger extension of the geographic reach of terrorist groups—a globalization of terrorism, if you will—that has been going on for the past decade and has taken the form of the growth of transnational terrorist infrastructures and of individual terrorist operatives becoming more peripatetic. It has made possible, for example, successful terrorist attacks by Lebanese Hizballah against Jewish and Israeli-connected targets in Argentina. And in the United States, it made possible the first attack against the World Trade Center: the truck bombing there eight years ago. (Note, by the way, how that attack was a precedent even for one of the specific targets hit on September 11th. The terrorists who conducted the bombing in 1993 were, just like the hijackers this year, attempting to topple the Trade Center’s twin towers.) The sophistication and degree of coordination required for the multiple attacks on September 11th, while impressive, were not orders of magnitude beyond what groups had accomplished before. A large number of simultaneous bombings were carried out by anti-Indian terrorists in Bombay in 1993, for example, and in a less lethal way by the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in offensives against Turkish targets in Europe in the early 1990s. Al-Qa’ida itself accomplished simultaneous attacks in two different countries with its bombings of US embassies in 1998. The number of people involved in planning, supporting, and executing the September 11th attacks was probably more, but not much more, than the number involved in the embassy bombings. Even the particular method that the terrorists of September used did not come out of the blue, figuratively speaking. Hijacking of commercial aircraft has, of course, been a time-honored method of international terrorism, and was one of the most prominent modus operandi during the first couple of decades of the modern era of international terrorism. It’s true that the September 11th operation was the first time that terrorists succeeded in crashing commandeered airliners into well-chosen targets to cause significant casualties on the ground. But even that particular twist is something that earlier terrorists had planned and hoped to do—Algerian extremists who hijacked a French airliner in 1994 intended to do just that in Paris, before French authorities stormed the plane on the ground to end the incident. So if this much should have been unsurprising, why … could we not have anticipated and prevented what happened in September? As an issue of intelligence, the answer is the same one that has applied to many earlier major terrorist incidents: that although we had good strategic intelligence about the groups that threatened us, their objectives and capabilities, and the sorts of methods they might use, we seldom obtain the sort of tactical intelligence— about the date, time, and place of attack—that is specific enough to roll up a plot and prevent a planned attack from occurring. We seldom obtain it because of the inherent difficulty of penetrating or otherwise learning the plans of terrorist groups—that is, the operational cells of groups which actually carry out terrorist attacks, which are small, secretive, suspicious toward outsiders, ruthless toward anyone suspected of betraying them, and highly conscious of operational security. Good strategic intelligence and a lack of tactical intelligence: that was a conclusion of the commission led by General
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Downing that studied the bombing of Khubar Towers in 1996; it was a conclusion of the panel chaired by Admiral Crowe that looked at the embassy bombings in 1998; and it will be a conclusion of whatever commission or panel examines the events of September 11th. In one sense, every terrorist attack represents an intelligence failure, since conceivably one could have obtained specific information about the plot, and if one had, one would have foiled the plot. But by that definition, a world without intelligence failures would be a world without terrorism, which would be extraordinary, and historically unprecedented. Using a more sensible definition of intelligence failure—meaning there was information that reasonably could have been collected but wasn’t, or that was collected but was misanalyzed or misused—and reflecting on what we know today about September 11th operation, I cannot think of any particular thing that the Intelligence Community should have picked up on but didn’t. The hijackers did the simple but effective things needed to keep their plot under wraps, which for the most part meant doing their planning and plotting behind closed doors, and not saying anything to anyone who could not be trusted, or through any means that could be intercepted. Going beyond issues of intelligence, there were, to be sure, some pieces of information that raise questions about steps that might have been taken to try to prevent something like this from happening. How was it, for example, that at least a couple of the hijackers had terrorist connections (known through previous reporting) but could nonetheless buy a ticket and board a commercial flight in the United States in true name? But the only way to have done something about that would be to move to a system of aviation security in which none of us can buy a seat without in effect undergoing a background check—and that raises all sorts of issues about privacy and civil liberties, not to mention resources. We need to bear those issues in mind as debate proceeds about creation of databases, sharing of data across agency and jurisdictional lines for security purposes, and other measures that … would mean moving in the direction of what police states do.… I’m not saying don’t take some of those steps; I’m just saying that the broader issues and trade-offs are legitimate questions for public debate. Our shock and surprise over September 11th was not so much a matter of information gaps but rather of broader patterns of how we’ve been thinking about, and discussing, terrorism. One of those patterns … is the tendency to fall into complacency about terrorism after a passage of time without a major terrorist incident, or complacency about a particular method of attack, if time has gone by without that method being used. Up until September, security against hijacking of commercial aircraft had been a success story here in the United States. Long gone were the days when it seemed like every month someone was diverting a plane to Havana. The system of metal detectors and X-ray machines did seem to work. And we did get complacent, leading to a situation in which security became the responsibility of low-bid contractors and in which it was no big deal to carry a knife on board. Another harmful tendency has been the preoccupation over the last several years with the more exotic means with which terrorists might attack— particularly chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear means, or CBRN …
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at the expense of attention given to less exotic means of terrorism. This preoccupation has reflected not just the legitimate reasons for attention to this subject, but the quality of being exotic. It’s nifty; it’s sexy; it makes for good plots for fiction, and it sells books and articles. An effect of this preoccupation has been a tendency to equate the terrorist threat against the United States, and particularly the US homeland, with CBRN threats, and to further equate CBRN terrorism with mass casualty terrorism. And so, Americans were surprised that a terrorist operation was conducted in the United States, inflicting casualties that anyone would agree were ‘‘mass,’’ by terrorists who used nothing more exotic than box cutters and some flight training. So what is the terrorist threat the United States faces in the years ahead? Everything I’ve mentioned about September 11th continuing certain patterns from the past implies a continuation into the future. But let me be more specific, starting with the overall magnitude of international terrorist threats against the United States. A comparison of American priorities and attention to counterterrorism prior to September 11th, and after September 11th, would suggest that the terrorist threat to the United States had suddenly, and markedly, become more severe. As a matter of emotion and psychology the response has been understandable, and many of the steps taken in the name of counterterrorism since then are wise and much needed. But has the threat itself actually gone up so far and so fast? … The actual terrorist threat we face is never as high as a recent major incident makes it seem, or as low as an absence of major incidents over a period of time makes it seem. The threat facing the United States was probably greater before September 11th than most Americans thought, and may be less since September 11th than many Americans seem to fear now. The occurrence of a terrorist attack should cause us to revise our estimate of the threat upward only for one or more of the following reasons. One is if the attack tells us something we did not previously know about the capabilities or intentions of a terrorist adversary. But as I already suggested, the enmity of Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida (and others like them) toward us were already clear, and their geographic reach was well known. Another possible reason is that other terrorists, unconnected with the perpetrators of the initial event, may seize the moment to mount their own attacks, taking advantage of a climate of heightened fear, and perhaps of the possibility that their own attacks would be blamed on someone else. Whoever did the anthrax letters was probably seizing a moment in this sense. But now, two and a half months after September 11th, we have already passed the principal period of this kind of danger. A third reason is that a prominent attack may demonstrate possibilities to other terrorists, regarding what can be accomplished regarding certain methods, certain types of targets, or certain places. The September 11th attacks may have some demonstration effect, although as far as major attacks in the US homeland are concerned, the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center, as well as the bombing in Oklahoma City, had already shown the way. The September 11th hijackers demonstrated, of course, a major vulnerability in aviation security and the successful use of commandeered airliners as cruise missiles—and that may put some ideas into other terrorists’ heads—but the
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new high awareness of that particular vulnerability, and the countermeasures being taken to lessen it, will make it harder to use the same technique again. A fourth reason is that terrorists may stage additional attacks in reprisal for our own actions in responding to the original attack. With our own actions in this case including a major military offensive, which has stirred opposition and resentment in much of the Muslim world, this is a genuine danger. So far, we have not seen major attacks that appear to be this kind of reprisal. But it is still early as far as this kind of danger is concerned. The level of risk will depend heavily on the future course of US military operations, and in particular on whether the use of US armed forces in the name of counterterrorism were to extend beyond Afghanistan. Which brings us to how the war in Afghanistan fits into the overall US counterterrorist effort. What the US military is doing there goes far beyond any previous US use of military force in a counterterrorist mode. It consists not just of retaliatory strikes or limited attempts to inflict some damage and send a message, but rather the cleaning out of the world’s prime terrorist safe haven and the toppling of the regime that has been in a closer partnership with terrorist groups than has any other. If that effort succeeds, it will make a significant dent in international terrorism. Success will depend not only on sweeping the Taliban off the battlefield but also on assisting the Afghans to erect a stable alternative, a process that will consist of nothing less than … nation-building. There is no other place like Afghanistan, where military force can be applied so directly toward a counterterrorist end. For the most part, terrorism does not present good militarily attackable targets. Most of the terrorist preparations that matter occur not in camps in the countryside of some place like Afghanistan but in apartments in places like Beirut or Hamburg or New Jersey or Florida. Military force satisfies a need to strike back against terrorism in a demonstrative and emotionally gratifying way, and some in this country are anxious to use it in the name of the ‘‘war on terrorism’’ to hit other adversaries, in pursuit of what would really be other objectives. But we must be forever mindful of its limitations—and its risks—as a counterterrorist tool. The current focus on Afghanistan must also not keep us from remembering just how diverse, geographically and organizationally, international terrorism is. Start with al-Qa’ida alone. Crushing the part of the organization that is inside Afghanistan, including Bin Ladin, would still leave the large part of it, in terms of operatives, resources, and operational plans, that is outside Afghanistan. What we know about the lead time and preparations for the September 11th attacks necessitates the assumption that there are other plans for other attacks against the United States, in the hands of operatives willing to carry them out even if Bin Ladin and all of his senior leadership were removed from the scene. And the network—or really, the network of networks—of radical Islamists willing to do the United States grievous harm goes beyond the organization we know as al-Qa’ida. It includes other groups, as well as cells and individuals, many of whom forged ties in the camps of Afghanistan but have continued to benefit from their networking there long afterward. Beyond this mostly Sunni set of networks are the Shia extremists, including the likes of Lebanese
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Hizballah. And beyond the Islamists are many others of diverse persuasion, including those who have done Americans direct harm, such as leftists in Europe or Latin America, and others who have not thus far targeted the United States but have been a significant part of international terrorism, such as separatist Tamils or Kurds. Our terrorist enemies are not just readily identifiable groups, like al-Qa’ida or Hizballah, or prominent leaders like Bin Ladin. Terrorism is decentralized, even though the networks provide contacts and support. The initiative for terrorist attacks against us can come from the cell level, and from terrorist organizers who may not become known to us until they accomplish their evil deeds. We need look no farther than the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center to see what I’m talking about. That wasn’t an al-Qa’ida operation, or the operation of any named group on our screen. It was the work of several likeminded extremists in the New York area who were mobilized by a clever man named Ramzi Yousef. From what has been revealed so far about the preparation for the September 11th attacks, it may have been one of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, who did most of the planning and organizing. Clearly he had significant help from outside his immediate circle of conspirators—evidently al-Qa’ida help— in the form principally of money, and possibly of recruitment of some of the Saudi men who provided muscle for the operation.… There will be more Ramzi Yousefs, and more Mohammed Attas, and much of what we do in counterterrorism will need to be directed at the threat that they pose. Meeting that threat will require the well-coordinated use of all the relevant tools and techniques we have. Those techniques include, first of all, ones that don’t bear the counterterrorist label at all but do bear on the conditions that tend to breed terrorists and support for terrorist groups, including aspects of our foreign policy that deal with long-festering international conflicts that drive aggrieved people to desperate acts, and with social and economic conditions that can make those people even more desperate. There will be always be Bin Ladins and some other terrorists regardless of conditions and grievances, but the conditions do affect the number of people who join them, or support them, or sympathize with them. The tools also include defenses—security countermeasures surrounding potential terrorist targets. And here the main mistake we need to avoid is preparing for the last terrorist attack rather than the next one. As we shore up aviation security to reduce the chance of another September 11th, we should bear in mind that terrorists vary their tactics and targets to keep the defenders off balance. Al-Qa’ida alone has used truck bombs, maritime attacks, and hijackings, among other techniques. As far as terrorist tactics are concerned, we should not be surprised to be surprised. Because of this—and because terrorists can attack anything, anywhere, anytime, but we can cannot protect everything, everywhere, all the time—we need to place heavy emphasis on offensive counterterrorism: taking the fight to the terrorists to reduce their capabilities. This requires a variety of tools, not just military force but intelligence, covert action, interdiction of finances, criminal law investigations, and diplomacy. Most of all, it involves the painstaking cell-by-cell disruption, in cooperation with our foreign partners, of
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terrorist infrastructures worldwide. Some of the biggest successes in the war on terrorism will be scored on this front, even though the great majority of them must remain secret and you will not be able to follow them like a battle map of Afghanistan in the newspaper. We have been using all of these techniques, for quite some time. There is much continuity, from pre- to post-September 11th, not only in the terrorist threat but in the counterterrorist response to it. Three years ago, following the attacks on the embassies in Africa, we were already talking about being in a ‘‘war on terrorism.’’ That’s important to bear in mind, lest we forget lessons already learned, re-invent wheels, or spin our wheels trying to go up roads we’ve tried before but didn’t take us anywhere. So if this much is unchanged, what hope is there that we can do any better in the future than we have in the past? That has to do with what really did change, suddenly and markedly, on September 11th, and that is the degree of commitment that the American government and people are giving to counterterrorism. Although there are some solutions to this problem that no amount of popular support and determination can buy, strength of commitment does matter, and not just in the sense of determining where dollars in the federal budget go. It matters in determining the tolerance of the American for various costs and inconveniences that we have to endure for the sake of security. And it matters when the United States calls on other governments to take action, sometimes at risk to themselves, against terrorists in their countries, and those governments must assess how important the request is to us before they decide to act. … If history is a guide, even the current enthusiasm for counterterrorism, great though it is because of the enormity of what happened two months ago, will slacken over time. Along with a realization of limits and ambiguities inherent to countering terrorism, we will also need much patience and persistence, into an indefinite future. SOURCE: http://www.dni.gov/nic/speeches_beyondsept11.html
Carl W. Ford, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, Department of State, ‘‘Current and Projected Threats to the National Security of the United States,’’ Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 6, 2002 I appreciate the opportunity to present INR’s view of the current and prospective threats to the United States, its citizens, and its interests. INR sees no challenge to the existence or independence of the United States, strong relations with the major powers, and solid alliances. But significant threats remain, both today and over the next decade. When INR, CIA, and DIA testified on this subject last year all emphasized the threat of terrorism. We all pointed to asymmetric attacks, including by non-state actors using terrorism to counter our vastly superior military capabilities. I read last year’s testimony for the first time when preparing for this hearing and was struck, as one who had no involvement in its preparation, by both its prescience and continued relevance. Indeed, I am resubmitting the
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testimony prepared by INR last year because I believe its comprehensive treatment of the threats we face is still useful. Rather than repeat the tour d’horizon approach used last year, much of which would duplicate the judgments articulated in the testimony submitted by other agencies, I wish to focus on underlying problems and common features linking the general and specific threats facing our country. EDITOR’S NOTE: See Thomas Fingar, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Hearing on Current and Projected National Security Threats to U.S., February 7, 2001 (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/terrorism/t_0031.htm).
Terrorism, clearly the greatest current threat to Americans, transcends borders. It incubates inside failing states and feeds on frustrations arising from political repression, lack of economic progress, social inequality, and conviction that others—national leaders, foreign governments, rival ethnic or religious groups, the ‘‘West,’’ or the sole superpower—are to blame. We need to remember that while terrorists tend to be fanatical devotees of something, terrorism itself is a collection of tactics, not an ideology. It is a blunt instrument intended to change conditions its practitioners find unacceptable. Despite the undeniable impact of Operation Enduring Freedom thus far, many factors that nurture and inspire terrorism persist. State sponsorship. The nature and significance of state sponsorship of terrorism has changed over the past few years. State-directed terrorism has not gone away, but it is now less threatening to Americans than are the actions of non-state actors such as al Qaida. Non-state terrorists increasingly seek not sponsorship as much as a weak state in which to operate. Would-be antagonists have doubtless noted lop-sided US victories in the Gulf war, Kosovo, and in the Afghan campaign. Because no nation can prevail in a direct confrontation with the US military, some may be tempted to strike the United States using terrorism as a low-cost, deniable tactic, and some states may try to use terrorist surrogates in lieu of actual combatants to raise the costs to one’s opponent in long-running struggles. But the new trend seems to be toward well-financed non-state actors taking the lead. Economic underdevelopment. Underdevelopment often breeds the foot soldiers for terrorism. People with little to lose are easily swayed to a cause, particularly if that cause carries with it some excitement and promise of rewards for one’s self and family. Many who join groups that practice terrorism face a life of joblessness and poverty. Often living under oppressive governments with little prospect of a better life, young people—especially those whose exposure to education has made them even more frustrated and embittered—are prone to seek a way out, perhaps by attempting to migrate, perhaps by joining a movement that promises change through violence, perhaps by immersing themselves in religion. When unemployment hovers around 40% and nearly 45% of the population is under the age of 15 (as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip), people find it difficult to wait for a brighter future. Many of those drawn to Usama bin Laden are in similar circumstances. Unresolved political issues. Political issues-such as the status of Kashmir, control of Jerusalem, or a homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamils-serve as focal
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points for the anger of various populations. In each of these instances decades have passed with no political resolution. Similarly, and increasingly, greater awareness of the outside world and the shortcomings of regimes that refuse to change and repress dissent fuels both frustration and willingness to use violence, including terror, to attack an unacceptable status quo. Convergence of terrorism, narcotics, and crime. One of the most notable features of contemporary terrorism is its growing self-sufficiency. Examples abound, but the most notable are al-Qaida, FARC, and Hizballah. All three have independent means for raising and distributing money, including legitimate as well as criminal means ranging from drug trafficking to misappropriating funds intended for use by NGOs. Such groups also have multiple ways to recruit, train, and arm fighters, and to spread their propaganda. This independence frees groups from the constraints of state sponsors and makes them even more dangerous. Western scapegoat. The West, particularly the United States, is widely perceived as the guarantor of the status quo. As champions of progress, we find that painfully ironic. But many groups believe they can more easily attack their own country through attacking Americans or our economic interests. If their attacks can end western support for their country, they believe it will make the overthrow of their target regime far easier. Downside of globalization. States that enter fully into the global economy and have the cultural and economic capacity to find a niche and compete successfully benefit enormously from globalization, as does the United States. Indeed, much of the world incorrectly but understandably sees globalization as Americanization. But the process also has a downside, especially in countries that must make difficult economic, cultural, and political changes before the benefits of globalization outweigh the costs. The process challenges traditional class systems and entrenched economic interests, raising expectations and demands on governments for services and reforms. Globalization makes it easier to move goods, services, ideas, and people, but it also facilitates the migration of knowledge, technology, money, diseases and much more that can be problematic as well as beneficial. Computerized communications and cell phones have made it possible for radical groups to communicate more easily and securely. Terrorists and traffickers in persons and contraband become more difficult to contain, and those with the education and skills to make weapons of mass destruction can move about more easily. Money and investment move more easily, sometimes fleeing perceived future problems and producing a cycle of losses, unrest, further flight, and less investment. The ease of movement and investment has also encouraged the ‘‘off-the-books’’ economy, making law enforcement and revenue collection more difficult. Fragile and failing states. Many states have problems resulting from weak national institutions and often weaker economies. Traditional class, tribal, or regional divisions frequently abet corruption, crime, and chaos, which in turn breed disillusionment and further undermine the foundations of government and civil society. Failure to meet the needs of often burgeoning populations of young jobseekers, or to provide clean water or adequate health care, adds powder to an already full keg that any number of incidents can ignite.
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Fragile and failing countries often provide terrorists refuge and recruits while producing economic migrants and refugees who add to the problems of neighboring states. Many of the states most at risk are in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, but no region lacks them. Competent governments and significant international support together can alleviate the full spectrum of problems, including checking terrorism and proliferation. Failing governments cannot help us or escape their own predicaments without help. Indeed, they become ‘‘our’’ problem in a way we did not earlier encounter. Threats to democracy and the ‘‘Washington consensus.’’ The rush to embrace democracy, capitalism, and more open markets during the 1990s entailed numerous changes we regarded as positive, but the demise of a clear alternative in the form of communism does not ensure that these positive changes will endure. Many new democracies remain fragile. Democracy does not guarantee effective or honest government or ensure higher living standards. In parts of East Asia and Latin America … increasing inequities and a growing perception of inequality fed by rapid urbanization and global communications contribute to resentment of ‘‘greedy western capitalists.’’ Citizens who have endured the pain of short-term ‘‘reform’’ for the prospect of ‘‘gain’’ in the future grow impatient; incomplete or corrupted reform efforts have left many new democracies vulnerable and many new market economies in a parlous state. Local problems with broader implications. Globalization means there is no such thing as a purely local problem. The Palestinian-Israeli dispute was never purely local, but the ripple effects are spreading. Tensions in Korea, the Taiwan Straits, and the South China Sea are generally lower than in the past, but, should tensions significantly increase or hostilities break out, the impact would be felt far beyond the region. The Kashmir dispute, fueled and to some extent controlled by terrorist groups, risks escalation to nuclear war. Threats within borders. Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina that ‘‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’’ The same can be said for successful and unsuccessful states. Whatever their differences, stable and prosperous states have much in common. Every weak or failing state, however, is sick in its own way. These states can be divided into three categories: ‘‘Precarious,’’ ‘‘muddling through,’’ and ‘‘near misses.’’ Dealing with the threats. To deal with an ever-changing, increasingly complex, unpredictable, and interconnected world, the Intelligence Community needs, in my view, greater breadth and flexibility with a new or renewed emphasis on expertise. Money and numbers of personnel will only serve us well if we can recruit, retain, groom, and then fully utilize true experts who can apply their deep understanding to difficult problems and create new knowledge useful to policymakers derived from information of all kinds. Breadth. The Community already collects more data than it can process or analyze. Collection nonetheless remains of critical national security importance in crucial areas and specific contexts. Terrorism and the spread of WMD and missile systems correctly top the list of collection priorities, but we have learned over the past decade that we need both more information on and better analysis of a very wide range of developments on every continent and in every country. Even the wisest of analysts or the best collection managers will,
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at times, fail to anticipate the precise nature and timing of some calamitous event, as happened last September … Thus, we must maintain awareness and vigilance on a global scale, monitoring all major issues everywhere with a solid base of permanent expertise. We in INR, like the rest of the Community, face a looming wave of retirements that will erode our expertise. We must provide analysts incentives, recognition, and career tracks allowing them to acquire and apply the kind of deep expertise needed to make sense of the contemporary world. What is more, we must develop and maintain such expertise on all regions and issues, not just a select few. Flexibility. The Community must develop mechanisms that allow for rapid, manageable reallocation of resources and capabilities to problems as they emerge or bear closer scrutiny. Though I stress the need to remain globally alert, that does not imply spreading our capabilities or personnel across all issues like butter. We need the ability to attack new problems as they come up, working all the while to see them coming as far out as possible. Warning remains essential. The concept of ‘‘surge’’ is essentially unthinkable if we are forced-within our existing manpower-to abandon other key concerns and priorities to scrum against the hottest issue and concern of the day. Depth. Expertise is our lifeblood. Hiring hundreds of new analysts and throwing money at challenges makes sense only if we can engage the best people and apply expertise quickly and effectively. In INR we have many analysts with 20 to 30 years of experience on a small set of issues or countries. They are a tremendous resource, but they must be replenished. Throughout the Intelligence Community we have a major challenge to make the analytic profession attractive to America’s brightest and most energetic, and to offer the stimulation and stature that will persuade many to remain in public service. We must give them the tools, training, and time to build and apply their expertise. Technology without time and training is insufficient and ineffective … SOURCE: http://intelligence.senate.gov/0202hrg/020206/ford.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see similar testimony at the same hearing by Mr. Dale Watson Executive Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Federal Bureau of Investigation, February 6, 2002 (http://intelligence.senate.gov/0202hrg/020206/watson.htm).
Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson, U.S. Navy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 6, 2002 … [T]he catastrophic events of 11 September (and their aftermath) brought a new dynamic to the global situation. While the longer-term implications—for us, our adversaries, and the rest of the world—are still to be determined, we can make some preliminary observations. The Post-September 11 Security Environment: What’s Changed? A New Notion of ‘Strategic’ Threat. September 11 brought home the sharp reality of what previously had been more a theoretical concept—the asymmetric threat to our homeland.
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A strategic attack was carried out against US territory, not by the military forces of a rival state, but by a shadowy, global network of extremists, who struck unprotected targets, using methods we did not anticipate. The attackers turned two of our strengths—a free, tolerant, and open society, and the world’s best air transportation system—into deadly vulnerabilities. Their attack had deep human, economic, and psychological impacts. The terrorists were not deterred by our overwhelming military superiority, in fact, for that day at least, they made it irrelevant. Traditional concepts of security, threat, deterrence, warning and military superiority don’t completely apply against this new strategic adversary. Perceptions of the US Perhaps the most critical dynamic in the wake of the terrorist attacks is how the rest of the world now perceives the US. On one hand, September 11 exposed US vulnerabilities and demonstrated the strategic potential of a wellexecuted asymmetric attack, facts that are extremely appealing to our foes. But rather than demoralizing the US, the attack generated intense patriotism and resolve at home, sympathy and support from peoples and states around the globe, and a greater willingness among the major powers to accept or accede to US leadership (at least temporarily). And the speed and efficiency with which we have projected power to an austere theater, deposed the Taliban, and continue to attack Al Qaida, are leaving a lasting impression. Over the longer-term, the outcome of the war on terrorism will be decisive in determining international perceptions of the US. Success will strengthen our role and leverage, and accentuate positive trends. Failure would invite a host of challenges. A New Struggle The ‘Post Cold War’ period ended on 11 September. The next decade or so may well be defined by ‘the struggle over globalization.’ Our adversaries … equate globalization to Americanization and see the US as the principal architect and primary beneficiary of an emerging order that undermines their values, interests, beliefs, and culture. They blame the US for ‘what’s wrong’ in the world, and seek allies among states, groups, and individuals who worry about US hegemony and are unhappy with the present or perceived future. They are adept at using globalization against us—exploiting the freer flow of money, people, and technology … attacking the vulnerabilities presented by political and economic openness … and using globalization’s ‘downsides’ (demographic and economic imbalances, large numbers of unemployed youth, western cultural penetration, declining living standards, corrupt and ineffective governments, decaying infrastructures, etc.) to foster an extremist message, and attract recruits and support from among ‘globalization’s losers.’ The 11 September terrorist attacks were the first strategic strikes in a war against the US vision of the future world order. They targeted our homeland, but also struck a blow against global openness, the global transportation network, and the global economy. These extremists and their allies understand that their desired world cannot coexist with our brand of civilization.
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Encouraging, furthering and consolidating the positive aspects of globalization, while reducing and managing its downsides, and defeating its enemies, may well be the civilized world’s ‘measure of merit’ for the next decade. Increased Uncertainty … and Unpredictability Last year, I highlighted several trends—globalization … disaffected states, groups, and individuals … demographic changes … rapid technology development and proliferation … ethnic conflict … resource shortages … humanitarian emergencies … and the uncertain future of Russia, China, and other key states and regions—as the factors most likely to define the emerging security environment. Recognizing the ‘staying power’ of these trends, and their combined impact on global stability, I concluded that the next decade would be at least as turbulent and uncertain as the 1990s. Since September 11, my ‘expectation of turmoil and uncertainty’ has heightened significantly: Global defense issues are murkier. Last year, we were anticipating a gradual increase in global defense spending, believing that many states would seek to recapitalize defense sectors neglected during the 1990s. A global recession will undermine that.… Meanwhile, many states will reassess their military and security needs, questioning the role of traditional military forces in deterring and defeating terrorism and other asymmetric threats. The Muslim world is under increased pressure and may be at a strategic crossroads, as populations and leaders sort through competing visions of what it means to be a Muslim state. Longstanding issues—resentment toward the US and the West, unfavorable demographic and economic conditions, efforts to strike a balance between modernization and respect for traditional values— are exacerbated by the global war on terrorism. These pressures will be most acute in moderate Arab states and Indonesia. Near-Term Concerns A major terrorist attack against US interests here or abroad, designed to produce mass casualties and/or severe infrastructure and economic damage, remains my most pressing concern (I will discuss the issue in more detail on page 13). Operation Enduring Freedom has done significant damage to Usama Bin Ladin’s Al Qaida network, but it has not eliminated the threat. And Al Qaida is not the only organization with the capability and desire to do us harm. Escalating violence in the Middle East is also still high on my list. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is intensifying and both sides increasingly operate from a zero-sum perspective. The pressure on moderate Arab governments is high. The situation could escalate rapidly, risking instability within these states and/ or a wider regional war. Widespread violence against US citizens and interests in Colombia, the Philippines, or Indonesia. Political, economic, and social conditions and developments in all these areas could result in an increased physical threat to US citizens and facilities. Rogues, Renegades, and Outlaws. These states, groups, and individuals fear US power and absolutely reject our vision. They blame us for the ‘world’s problems’ and will routinely engage in violence, using primarily asymmetric
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means to target our policies, facilities, interests, and citizens. They respect, but are not necessarily deterred by our military strength. They will not fight by our rules. Our vision cannot coexist with theirs. The Asymmetric Threat Make no mistake, we are the target. Our adversaries believe they must derail the emerging world order or be overcome by it. They also understand the singular importance of the United States in shaping that order and know that they cannot prevail if the US remains actively engaged and influential around the globe. Finally, they recognize that they cannot match our tremendous political, economic, military, and cultural power on our terms. These perceptions are the driving elements behind the asymmetric threat. Asymmetric approaches involve acting in unexpected ways, to present your enemy with capabilities and situations he is unable or unwilling to respond to before you are able to achieve decisive results. While asymmetric concepts are as old as warfare itself, they are important today because they are virtually the only means our enemies have for coping with US power. Asymmetry works at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. At the strategic level, asymmetric approaches will be designed to fundamentally change the United States, the way we behave in the world, and the way others see us. Strategic goals could include: undermining our political, economic, and social infrastructures … destroying our general optimism … thwarting US global leadership … eliminating our will and/or our capacity to remain globally engaged … curtailing the global appeal of our ideas, institutions, and culture … and denying US leaders the military option. The 11 September attacks had elements of most of these themes. They brought ‘the war’ to the American people, demonstrated US vulnerability, and ‘gave heart’ to anti-US elements around the globe. The strategic intent was to deliver a blow that would force the US to either alter its Middle East policies, or goad America into a ‘disproportionate response’ that would trigger an apocalyptic confrontation between Islam and the West. Other secondary impacts, on the political and economic openness of the US and other states, and more directly on the US and global economies, were probably more ‘unintended consequences’ than design. Still, their impact (and the implications for future attacks) is significant. In this context, it is important to think about what our adversaries might have learned from 11 September, and our subsequent actions. Some may conclude that those attacks were ultimately counterproductive, because they were the ‘wake-up call’ that energized the US and its partners to take decisive action against the global terrorist threat. This is likely to be especially true for states, because they are vulnerable to a strategic response from the US. From this perspective, we might expect future attacks to be more limited, to avoid crossing the threshold that generates an overwhelming US reaction. But others, especially terrorist groups intent on inflicting the greatest damage possible, will undoubtedly be dazzled by the ‘strategic potential’ of 11 September, and conclude that the only thing wrong with those attacks was that they did not go far enough. For them, 11 September showed the way, and the ‘art of the possible’ became almost infinite. If this proves true, our definition of success might eventually be that we prevented an asymmetric attack from having a decisive strategic impact.
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At the tactical and operational levels, our enemies (both state and nonstate) will try to use asymmetry to ‘level the playing field’ against the US military, so that we are unable to fight the way we want to fight. While specific adversaries, objectives, targets, and means of attack will vary widely from situation to situation, I continue to expect that most military asymmetric approaches will fit generally into the five broad, overlapping categories … 1. Counter will … designed to make us ‘not come, or go home early’… by severing the ‘continuity of will’ between the US national leadership, the military, the people, our allied and coalition partners, and world public opinion. 2. Counter access … designed to deny US (allied) forces easy access to key theaters, ports, bases, facilities, air, land, and sea approaches, etc. 3. Counter precision engagement … designed to defeat or degrade US precision intelligence and attack capabilities. 4. Counter protection … designed to increase US (allied) casualties and, in some cases, directly threaten the US homeland. 5. Counter information … designed to prevent us from attaining information and decision superiority.
Beyond these broader generalizations, I have highlighted below the kinds of asymmetric threats we are most likely to encounter during the next 10 to 15 years. Terrorism As was vividly displayed on 11 September, terrorism remains the most significant asymmetric threat to US interests at home and abroad. I am most concerned about Islamic extremist organizations, in the Middle East, and throughout the world. Other groups with varying causes—nationalistic, leftist, ethnic or religious—will continue to pose a lesser threat. Operation Enduring Freedom has significantly damaged the Al Qaida network, destroying its geographic center of gravity, causing the death or arrest of several key leaders, and putting others on the run. The group has suffered a loss of prestige, institutional memory, contacts, and financial assets that will ultimately degrade its effectiveness. Even if Usama Bin Laden survives, his ability to execute centralized control over a worldwide network has been diminished. That said, the Al Qaida network has not been eliminated, and it retains the potential for reconstitution. Many key officials and operatives remain and new personalities have already begun to emerge. Some operations that were already planned could be easily completed. The organization could also splinter into a number of loosely affiliated groups, united by a common cause and sharing common operatives. Their capability to conduct simultaneous or particularly complex attacks would likely be degraded, but they would continue to be a lethal threat to our interests worldwide, including within the US. If Bin Laden is killed or captured, there is no identified successor capable of rallying so many divergent nationalities, interests, and groups to create the kind of cohesion he fostered amongst Sunni Islamic extremists around the world. Bin Laden is synonymous with Al Qaida, and the media attention he has garnered, along with his charisma and other attributes, have made him an
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inspirational rallying-point for like-minded extremists. With Bin Ladin’s removal, the network most likely will eventually fragment under various lieutenants pursuing differing agendas with differing priorities. In general, terrorists will likely favor proven conventional weapons over chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) materials, at least through the near term. However, several groups, especially Al Qaida, have pursued CBRN capabilities, and the threat from terrorist use of these materials will continue. Many of the technologies associated with the development of CBRN weapons—especially chemical and biological agents—have legitimate civil applications and are classified as dual-use. The increased availability of these technologies, coupled with the relative ease of producing some chemical or biological agents, make them attractive to terrorist groups intent on causing panic or inflicting larger numbers of casualties. The psychological impact of the recent anthrax cases in the US did not go unnoticed. Some terrorist groups have demonstrated the willingness to inflict greater numbers of indiscriminate casualties and would take any measure to achieve these goals. Since 11 September, the US has employed extraordinary security measures at home and at abroad. We are also enjoying unprecedented cooperation on terrorism intelligence and security issues from governments across the globe. These conditions have resulted in a particularly difficult operating environment for terrorists. However, as history shows, terrorists work on their own timeline and are patient. They are content to wait for the right opportunity— even if it takes years—to increase their chances of success. Many terrorist groups consider themselves to be engaged in a war. They are willing to take risks, accept losses, and carry on. Terrorists make every effort to mask their operational infrastructure and activities until the moment they are used in an attack. This creates tremendous intelligence challenges. Counterterrorism must be viewed as a continuous campaign pitting intelligence and law enforcement services against intelligent, self-styled warriors. We need a fully coordinated community effort, with open sharing of critical intelligence, security, and law enforcement information among the various players. We must continue to be vigilant, and never assume that we have ‘won the war.’ We will be most vulnerable when the threat ‘appears’ to have diminished, security measures are relaxed, and we return to ‘normal.’ Closing Thoughts The longer-term trends and conditions apparent before 11 September— continuing global turmoil … the increasing importance of the asymmetric threat … and the traditional challenges posed by the regional and strategic military forces of other states—still apply today. But the terrorist attacks, and our response, have brought a new dynamic to the global security environment. SOURCE: http://intelligence.senate.gov/0202hrg/020206/wilson.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement for the Record Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Global Threats and Challenges Through 2015, February 7, 2001 (http:// www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/dia020701.htm).
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Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘The Worldwide Threat 2003: Evolving Dangers in a Complex World,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 11, 2003 Mr. Chairman, last year—in the wake of the September 11 attack on our country—I focused my remarks on the clear and present danger posed by terrorists who seek to destroy who we are and what we stand for. The national security environment that exists today is significantly more complex than that of a year ago. ¥ I can tell you that the threat from al-Qa’ida remains, even though we have made important strides in the war against terrorism. ¥ Secretary of State Powell clearly outlined last week the continuing threats posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, its efforts to deceive UN inspectors, and the safehaven that Baghdad has allowed for terrorists in Iraq. ¥ North Korea’s recent admission that it has a highly enriched uranium program, intends to end the freeze on its plutonium production facilities, and has stated its intention to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty raised serious new challenges for the region and the world.
At the same time we cannot lose sight of those national security challenges that, while not occupying space on the front pages, demand a constant level of scrutiny. ¥ Challenges such as the world’s vast stretches of ungoverned areas—lawless zones, veritable ‘‘no man’s lands’’ like some areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border—where extremist movements find shelter and can win the breathing space to grow. ¥ Challenges such as the numbers of societies and peoples excluded from the benefits of an expanding global economy, where the daily lot is hunger, disease, and displacement—and that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes.
Terrorism … [T]he United States Government last week raised the terrorist threat level. We did so because of threat reporting from multiple sources with strong al-Qa’ida ties. The information we have points to plots aimed at targets on two fronts—in the United States and on the Arabian Peninsula. It points to plots timed to occur as early as the end of the Hajj, which occurs late this week. And it points to plots that could include the use of a radiological dispersion device as well as poisons and chemicals. The intelligence is not idle chatter on the part of terrorists and their associates. It is the most specific we have seen, and it is consistent with both our knowledge of al-Qa’ida doctrine and our knowledge of plots this network— and particularly its senior leadership—has been working on for years.
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The Intelligence Community is working directly, and in real time, with friendly services overseas and with our law enforcement colleagues here at home to disrupt and capture specific individuals who may be part of this plot. Our information and knowledge is the result of important strides we have made since September 11th to enhance our counterterrorism capabilities and to share with our law enforcement colleagues—and they with us—the results of disciplined operations, collection, and analysis of events inside the United States and overseas. Raising the threat level is important to our being as disruptive as possible. The enhanced security that results from a higher threat level can buy us more time to operate against the individuals who are plotting to do us harm. And heightened vigilance generates additional information and leads. This latest reporting underscores the threat that the al-Qa’ida network continues to pose to the United States. The network is extensive and adaptable. It will take years of determined effort to unravel this and other terrorist networks and stamp them out. … [T]he Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities aggressively continue to prosecute the war on terrorism, and we are having success on many fronts. More than one third of the top al-Qa’ida leadership identified before the war has been killed or captured … The number of rounded-up al-Qa’ida detainees has now grown to over 3000—up from 1000 or so when I testified last year—and the number of countries involved in these captures has almost doubled to more than 100. ¥ Not everyone arrested was a terrorist. Some have been released. But the worldwide rousting of al Qa’ida has definitely disrupted its operations. And we’ve obtained a trove of information we’re using to prosecute the hunt still further.
The coalition against international terrorism is stronger, and we are reaping the benefits of unprecedented international cooperation. In particular, Muslim governments today better understand the threat al-Qa’ida poses to them and day by day have been increasing their support. ¥ Ever since Pakistan’s decision to sever ties with the Taliban—so critical to the success of Operation Enduring Freedom—Islamabad’s close cooperation in the war on terrorism has resulted in the capture of key al-Qa’ida lieutenants and significant disruption of its regional network. ¥ Jordan and Egypt have been courageous leaders in the war on terrorism. ¥ A number of Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates are denying terrorists financial safehaven, making it harder for al-Qa’ida to funnel funding for operations. Others in the Gulf are beginning to tackle the problem of charities that front for, or fund, terrorism. ¥ The Saudis are providing increasingly important support to our counterterrorism efforts—from arrests to sharing debriefing results. ¥ SE Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, with majority Muslim populations, have been active in arresting and detaining terror suspects. ¥ And we mustn’t forget Afghanistan, where the support of the new leadership is essential.
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Al-Qa’ida’s loss of Afghanistan, the death and capture of key personnel, and its year spent mostly on the run have impaired its capability, complicated its command and control, and disrupted its logistics. That said … the continuing threat remains clear. Al-Qa’ida is still dedicated to striking the US homeland, and much of the information we’ve received in the past year revolves around that goal. Even without an attack on the US homeland, more than 600 people were killed in acts of terror last year—and 200 in Al-Qa’ida-related attacks alone. Nineteen were United States citizens. ¥ Al-Qa’ida or associated groups carried out a successful attack in Tunisia and— since October 2002—attacks in Mombasa, Bali, and Kuwait, and off Yemen against the French oil tanker Limburg. Most of these attacks bore such al-Qa’ida trademarks as intense surveillance, simultaneous strikes, and suicide-delivered bombs.
Combined US and allied efforts thwarted a number of Al-Qa’ida-related attacks in the past year, including the European poison plots. We identified, monitored, and arrested Jose Padilla, an al-Qa’ida operative who was allegedly planning operations in the United States and was seeking to develop a so-called ‘‘dirty bomb.’’ And along with Moroccan partners we disrupted al-Qa’ida attacks against US and British warships in the straits of Gibraltar. Until al-Qa’ida finds an opportunity for the big attack, it will try to maintain its operational tempo by striking ‘‘softer’’ targets. And what I mean by ‘‘softer,’’ Mr. Chairman, are simply those targets al-Qa’ida planners may view as less well protected. ¥ Al-Qa’ida has also sharpened its focus on our Allies in Europe and on operations against Israeli and Jewish targets.
Al-Qa’ida will try to adapt to changing circumstances as it regroups. It will seek a more secure base area so that it can pause from flight and resume planning. We place no limitations on our expectations of what al-Qa’ida might do to survive. We see disturbing signs that al-Qa’ida has established a presence in both Iran and Iraq. In addition, we are also concerned that al-Qa’ida continues to find refuge in the hinterlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al-Qa’ida is also developing or refining new means of attack, including use of surface-to-air missiles, poisons, and air, surface, and underwater methods to attack maritime targets. ¥ If given the choice, al-Qa’ida terrorists will choose attacks that achieve multiple objectives—striking prominent landmarks, inflicting mass casualties, causing economic disruption, rallying support through shows of strength.
The bottom line here … is that al-Qa’ida is living in the expectation of resuming the offensive.
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We know from the events of September 11 that we can never again ignore a specific type of country: a country unable to control its own borders and internal territory, lacking the capacity to govern, educate its people, or provide fundamental social services. Such countries can, however, offer extremists a place to congregate in relative safety. Al-Qa’ida is already a presence in several regions that arouse our concern. The Bali attack brought the threat home to Southeast Asia, where the emergence of Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia and elsewhere in the region is particularly worrisome. ¥ And the Mombasa attack in East Africa highlights the continued vulnerability of Western interests and the growing terrorist threat there.
Although state sponsors of terrorism assume a lower profile today than a decade ago, they remain a concern. Iran and Syria continue to support the most active Palestinian terrorist groups, HAMAS and the Palestine Islamic Jihad. Iran also sponsors Lebanese Hizballah. … [L]et me briefly turn to a grave concern: the determination of terrorists to obtain and deploy weapons of massive destructive capability, including nuclear, radiological, chemical, and biological devices. The overwhelming disparity between US forces and those of any potential rival drives terrorist adversaries to the extremes of warfare—toward ‘‘the suicide bomber or the nuclear device’’ as the best ways to confront the United States. Our adversaries see us as lacking will and determination when confronted with the prospect of massive losses. ¥ Terrorists count on the threat of demoralizing blows to instill massive fear and rally shadowy constituencies to their side.
We continue to receive information indicating that al-Qa’ida still seeks chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. The recently disrupted poison plots in the UK, France, and Spain reflect a broad, orchestrated effort by al-Qa’ida and associated groups to attack several targets using toxins and explosives. ¥ These planned attacks involved similar materials, and the implicated operatives had links to one another.
I told you last year, Mr. Chairman, that Bin Ladin has a sophisticated BW capability. In Afghanistan, al-Qa’ida succeeded in acquiring both the expertise and the equipment needed to grow biological agents, including a dedicated laboratory in an isolated compound outside of Kandahar. Last year I also discussed al-Qa’ida’s efforts to obtain nuclear and radiological materials as part of an ambitious nuclear agenda. One year later, we continue to follow every lead in tracking terrorist efforts to obtain nuclear materials. In particular, we continue to follow up on information that alQa’ida seeks to produce or purchase a radiological dispersal device. Construction of such a device is well within al-Qa’ida capabilities—if it can obtain the radiological material.
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Iraq Before I move on to the broader world of proliferation … last week Secretary Powell carefully reviewed for the UN Security Council the intelligence we have on Iraqi efforts to deceive UN inspectors, its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, and its support for terrorism. I do not plan to go into these matters in detail, but I would like to summarize some of the key points. ¥ Iraq has in place an active effort to deceive UN inspectors and deny them access. This effort is directed by the highest levels of the Iraqi regime. Baghdad has given clear directions to its operational forces to hide banned materials in their possession. ¥ Iraq’s BW program includes mobile research and production facilities that will be difficult, if not impossible, for the inspectors to find. Baghdad began this program in the mid-1990s—during a time when UN inspectors were in the country. ¥ Iraq has established a pattern of clandestine procurements designed to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. These procurements include—but also go well beyond—the aluminum tubes that you have heard so much about. ¥ Iraq has recently flight tested missiles that violate the UN range limit of 150 kilometers. It is developing missiles with ranges beyond 1,000 kilometers. And it retains—in violation of UN resolutions—a small number of SCUD missiles that it produced before the Gulf War. ¥ Iraq has tested unmanned aerial vehicles to ranges that far exceed both what it declared to the United Nations and what it is permitted under UN resolutions. We are concerned that Iraq’s UAVs can dispense chemical and biological weapons and that they can deliver such weapons to Iraq’s neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States. ¥ Iraq is harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a close associate of Usama Bin Ladin. We know Zarqawi’s network was behind the poison plots in Europe that I discussed earlier as well as the assassination of a US State Department employee in Jordan. ¥ Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al-Qa’ida. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al-Qa’ida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.
… [T]his information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources. And it is consistent with the pattern of denial and deception exhibited by Saddam Hussein over the past 12 years. Proliferation Mr. Chairman, what I just summarized for you on Iraq’s WMD programs underscores our broader concerns about proliferation. More has changed on nuclear proliferation over the past year than on any other issue. For 60 years, weapon-design information and technologies for producing fissile material— the key hurdles for nuclear weapons production—have been the domain of only a few states. These states, though a variety of self-regulating and treaty based regimes, generally limited the spread of these data and technologies.
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In my view, we have entered a new world of proliferation. In the vanguard of this new world are knowledgeable non-state purveyors of WMD materials and technology. Such non-state outlets are increasingly capable of providing technology and equipment that previously could only be supplied by countries with established capabilities. We are also monitoring Russian transfers of technology and expertise. Russian entities have cooperated on projects—many of them dual-use—that we assess can contribute to BW, CW, nuclear, or ballistic- and cruise-missile programs in several countries of concern, including Iran. Moscow has, however, reexamined at least some aspects of military-technical cooperation with some countries and has cut back its sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle assistance to Iran. ¥ We remain alert to the vulnerability of Russian WMD materials and technology to theft or diversion. Russia has the largest inventory of nuclear materials that— unless stored securely—might be fashioned into weapons that threaten US persons, facilities, or interests. ¥ Iran is continuing to pursue development of a nuclear fuel cycle for civil and nuclear weapons purposes. The loss of some Russian assistance has impeded this effort. It is also moving toward self-sufficiency in its BW and CW programs. ¥ Tehran is seeking to enlist foreign assistance in building entire production plants for commercial chemicals that would also be capable of producing nerve agents and their precursors. ¥ As a supplier, Iran in 2002 pursued new missile-related deals with several countries and publicly advertises its artillery rockets, ballistic missiles, and related technologies.
I should also note … that India and Pakistan continue to develop and produce nuclear weapons and means to deliver them. Iran We watch unfolding events in Iran with considerable interest … because despite its antagonism to the United States, developments there hold some promise as well. Iranian reformers seeking to implement change have become increasingly frustrated by conservatives efforts to block all innovation. We see the dueling factions as heading for a showdown that seems likely to determine the pace and direction of political change in Iran. Within the next several weeks a key test will come as reformers try to advance two pieces of legislation—bills that would reform the electoral process and significantly expand presidential powers—they claim will benchmark their ability to achieve evolutionary change within the system. ¥ For now, our bottom line analysis is that the Iranian regime is secure, but increasingly fragile. The reluctance of reformist leaders to take their demands for change to the street, coupled with the willingness of conservatives to repress dissent, keeps the population disengaged and maintains stability.
Although a crisis for the regime might come about were reformers to abandon the government or hardliners to initiate a broad suppression on leading
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advocates of change, the resulting disorder would do little to alleviate US concern over Iran’s international behavior. Conservatives already control the more aggressive aspects of Iranian foreign policy, such as sponsoring violent opposition to Middle East peace. ¥ No Iranian government, regardless of its ideological leanings, is likely to willingly abandon WMD programs that are seen as guaranteeing Iran’s security.
South Asia … [T]he military campaign in Afghanistan had made great progress but that the road ahead was full of challenges. This is no less true today. Given what Afghanistan was up against at this time last year, its advances are noteworthy, with impressive gains on the security, political, and reconstruction fronts. ¥ Milestones include establishing the Afghan Interim Authority, holding the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002 to elect a President and decide on the composition of the Afghan Transitional Authority (ATA), and establishing judicial, constitutional, and human rights commissions. ¥ The country is relatively stable, and Kabul is a safer place today than a year ago. The presence of coalition forces has provided security sufficient for aid organizations and NGO’s to operate. Six battalions of what will be the Afghan National Army have been trained by the US and coalition partners to date. ¥ The Afghan Government also has made great strides in the reconstruction of the beleaguered economy. More than $1 billion in foreign aid has helped repatriate Afghan refugees, re-opened schools, and repaired roads. The ATA introduced a new currency, and instituted trade and investment protocols.
That said, daunting, complex challenges lie ahead that include building institutional barriers against sliding back into anarchy. Opposition elements, such as Taliban remnants and Hezbi-Islami and al-Qa’ida fighters, remain a threat to the Afghan Government and to coalition forces in the eastern provinces. At the same time, criminal activity, such as banditry, and periodic factional fighting continue to undermine security. Sustained US and international focus is essential to continue the progress we and the Afghans have made. The Afghans will also have to decide politically contentious issues such as how the new constitution will address the role of Islam, the role sharia law will play in the legal system, and the structure of the next Afghan government. Other major hurdles include bringing local and regional tribal leaders into the national power structure. What must be avoided at all costs is allowing Afghanistan to return to the internecine fighting and lawlessness of the early 1990s, which would recreate conditions for the rise of another fanatical movement. SOURCE: http://www.nti.org/e_research/official_docs/cia/cia021103.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 11, 2003 (http://www.fbi.gov/ congress/congress03/mueller021103.htm).
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Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, U.S. Navy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, ‘‘Global Threats 2003,’’ Statement for the Record: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Armed Services Committee, February 12, 2003 EXCERPTED Defense Intelligence today is at war on a global scale. We are committed in support of military forces fighting the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and other locations where war might take us. We provide warning and intelligence for force protection of our military deployed worldwide even as they increasingly are targeted by terrorists. Detailed intelligence is essential long before forces are deployed. This detailed effort, termed Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, has been ongoing for many months to support potential force employment in Iraq. Near Term Priorities Within the broader context, my most important current priorities are supporting the Global War on Terrorism, retaining our readiness to support any military missions that may be assigned, Iraq, monitoring the North Korea situation, and maintaining the global situational awareness required to warn decision-makers of emerging crises. Global Terrorism. Despite our significant successes to date, terrorism remains the most immediate threat to U.S. interests at home and abroad. A number of terrorist groups—including the FARC in Colombia, various Palestinian organizations, and Lebanese Hizballah—have the capability to do us harm. But I am most concerned about the al-Qaida network. Al-Qaida retains a presence on six continents, with key senior leaders still at large. It has a corps of seasoned operatives and draws support from an array of legitimate and illegitimate entities. The network is adaptive, flexible, and arguably, more agile than we are. Eager to prove its capabilities in the wake of significant network losses, al-Qaida had its most active year in 2002—killing hundreds in Bali, striking a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, attacking Marines and civilians in Kuwait, murdering a U.S. diplomat in Jordan, bombing a hotel popular with foreign tourists in Mombassa, attacking a synagogue in Tunisia, and attempting to down an Israeli airliner. Al-Qaida remains focused on attacking the U.S., but I expect increasing attacks against our allies—particularly in Europe—as the group attempts to widen its campaign of violence and undermine coalition resolve. I’m also very concerned about the potential for more attacks using portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with civilian airliners as the key target. Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups are seeking to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear capabilities, and we are working to prevent their use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD) or ‘dirty bombs,’ pose a particular problem. An RDD is simple to make, consisting of
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conventional explosives and radiological materials widely available from legitimate medical, academic, and industrial activities. Iraq. Saddam Hussein appears determined to retain his WMD and missile programs, reassert his authority over all of Iraq, and become the dominant regional power. He recognizes the seriousness of the current situation, but may think he can ‘outwit’ the international community by feigning cooperation with UN weapons inspectors, hiding proscribed weapons and activities, playing on regional and global ‘anti-American’ sentiments, and aligning himself with the ‘Palestinian cause.’ Saddam’s penchant for brinksmanship and miscalculation increases the likelihood that he will continue to defy international will and refuse to relinquish his WMD and related programs. Should military action become necessary to disarm Saddam, he will likely employ a host of desperate measures. ¥ Saddam’s conventional military options and capabilities are limited, but I expect him to preemptively attack the Kurds in the north, conduct missile and terrorist attacks against Israel and U.S. regional or worldwide interests—perhaps using WMD and the regime’s links with al-Qaida. ¥ He will certainly attempt to energize ‘the Arab street,’ calling for attacks against U.S. and allied targets and encouraging actions against Arab governments that support us. ¥ If hostilities begin, Saddam is likely to employ a ‘scorched-earth’ strategy, destroying food, transportation, energy, and other infrastructures, attempting to create a humanitarian disaster significant enough to stop a military advance. We should expect him to use WMD on his own people, to exacerbate humanitarian conditions, complicate allied operations, and shift world opinion away from his own transgressions by blaming us.
Reactions to U.S. Dominance. Much of the world is increasingly apprehensive about U.S. power and influence. Many are concerned about the expansion, consolidation, and dominance of American values, ideals, culture, and institutions.… We should consider that these perceptions, mixed with angst over perceived ‘U.S. unilateralism’ will give rise to significant antiAmerican behavior. Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missile Proliferation. The long-term trends with respect to WMD and missile proliferation are bleak. States seek these capabilities for regional purposes, or to provide a hedge to deter or offset U.S. military superiority. Terrorists seek greater physical and psychological impacts. The perceived ‘need to acquire’ is intense and, unfortunately, globalization provides a more amenable proliferation environment. Much of the technology and many of the raw materials are readily available. New alliances have formed, pooling resources for developing these capabilities, while technological advances and global economic conditions make it easier to transfer materiel and expertise. The basic sciences are widely understood, although the complex engineering tasks required to produce an effective weapons capability are not achieved easily. Some 25 countries possess or are actively pursuing WMD or missile programs. The threat to U.S. and allied interests will grow during the next decade.
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Other Major Regional Actors Iran. As the recent protests in Tehran attest, Iran is a country with growing internal tensions. Most Iranians want an end to the clerical rule of the Ayatollahs. Mohammed Khatami, Iran’s president, received the bulk of his nowwaning support from minorities, youths, and women when he first won the elections. He is also vulnerable to being forced aside by the religious conservatives who have held power since 1979. Iran’s conservatives remain in control and continue to view the U.S. with hostility. Iran remains the leading statesponsor of terrorism. For instance, it has provided safe-haven to al-Qaida and remains the principal source of military supplies and financial support for Hizballah. For these reasons, I remain concerned with Tehran’s deliberate military buildup. ¥ Iran is pursuing the fissile material and technology required to develop nuclear weapons. It uses its contract with Russia for the civilian Bushehr nuclear reactor to obtain sensitive dual-use technologies that directly support its weapons program. If successful, Tehran will have a nuclear weapon within the decade. ¥ Iran has a biological warfare program and continues to pursue dual-use biotechnology equipment and expertise from Russian and other sources. It maintains a stockpile of chemical warfare agents and may have weaponized some of them into artillery shells, mortars, rockets, and aerial bombs. ¥ Teheran has a relatively large ballistic missile force—hundreds of Chinese CSS-8s, SCUD Bs and SCUD Cs—and is likely assembling additional SCUDs in country. It is also developing longer-range missiles and continues to test the Shahab-3 (1,300 km range). Iran is pursing the technology to develop an ICBM/space launch vehicle and could flight test that capability before the end of the decade. Cooperation with Russian, North Korean, and Chinese entities is critical to Tehran’s ultimate success. ¥ Iran’s navy is the most capable in the region and could stem the flow of oil from the Gulf for brief periods by employing a layered force of diesel-powered KILO submarines, missile patrol boats, naval mines, and sea and shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles. Aided by China, Iran is developing potent anti-ship cruise missile capabilities and is working to acquire more sophisticated naval capabilities.
Coping with U.S. Power Our opponents understand they cannot match our political, economic, and military power. Accordingly, they seek to avoid decisive engagements and act indirectly, hoping to extract a price we are unwilling to pay, or to present us with capabilities and situations we cannot react to in a timely manner. They want to fundamentally change the way others view the United States. This could include: undermining our political, economic, and social infrastructures, thwarting U.S. global leadership, undermining our will to remain globally engaged, and curtailing the global appeal of our ideas, institutions, and culture. Threats to the Homeland. Many adversaries believe the best way to avoid, deter, or offset U.S. power is to develop a capability to threaten the U.S. homeland. In addition to the traditional threat from strategic nuclear missiles, our national infrastructure is vulnerable to physical and computer attack. The
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interdependent nature of the infrastructure creates more vulnerability, because attacks against one sector—the electric power grid for instance—would impact other sectors as well.… Foreign states have the greatest attack potential (in terms of resources and capabilities), but the most immediate and serious threat today is from terrorists carrying out well-coordinated strikes against selected critical nodes. Al-Qaida has spoken openly of targeting the U.S. economy as a way of undermining our global power and uses publicly available Internet web sites to reconnoiter American infrastructure, utilities, and critical facilities. SOURCE: http://www.iwar.org.uk/homesec/resources/threats-2003/Jacoby-DIA.pdf
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘The Worldwide Threat 2004: Challenges in a Changing Global Context,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., February 24, 2004 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY … [L]ast year I described a national security environment that was significantly more complex than at any time during my tenure as Director of Central Intelligence. The world I will discuss today is equally, if not more, complicated and fraught with dangers for United States interests, but one that also holds great opportunity for positive change. Terrorism I’ll begin today on terrorism, with a stark bottom-line: ¥ The al-Qa’ida leadership structure we charted after September 11 is seriously damaged—but the group remains as committed as ever to attacking the US homeland. ¥ But as we continue the battle against al-QA’ida, we must overcome a movement—a global movement infected by al-QA’ida’s radical agenda. ¥ In this battle we are moving forward in our knowledge of the enemy—his plans, capabilities, and intentions. ¥ And what we’ve learned continues to validate my deepest concern: that this enemy remains intent on obtaining, and using, catastrophic weapons.
Now let me tell you about the war we’ve waged against the al-QA’ida organization and its leadership. ¥ Military and intelligence operations by the United States and its allies overseas have degraded the group. Local al-QA’ida cells are forced to make their own decisions because of disarray in the central leadership.
Al-QA’ida depends on leaders who not only direct terrorist attacks but who carry out the day-to-day tasks that support operations. Over the past 18 months, we have killed or captured key al-QA’ida leaders in every
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significant operational area—logistics, planning, finance, training—and have eroded the key pillars of the organization, such as the leadership in Pakistani urban areas and operational cells in the al-QA’ida heartland of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The list of al-QA’ida leaders and associates who will never again threaten the American people includes: ¥ Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, al-QA’ida’s operations chief and the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. ¥ Nashiri, the senior operational planner for the Arabian Gulf area. ¥ Abu Zubayda, a senior logistics officer and plotter. ¥ Hasan Ghul, a senior facilitator who was sent to case Iraq for an expanded alQA’ida presence there. ¥ Harithi and al-Makki, the most senior plotters in Yemen, who were involved in the bombing of the USS Cole. ¥ Hambali, the senior operational planner in Southeast Asia.
We are creating large and growing gaps in the al-QA’ida hierarchy. And, unquestionably, bringing these key operators to ground disrupted plots that would otherwise have killed Americans. Meanwhile, al-QA’ida central continues to lose operational safehavens, and Bin Ladin has gone deep underground. We are hunting him in some of the most unfriendly regions on earth. We follow every lead. al-QA’ida’s finances are also being squeezed. This is due in part to takedowns of key moneymen in the past year, particularly the Gulf, Southwest Asia, and even Iraq. And we are receiving a broad array of help from our coalition partners, who have been central to our effort against al-QA’ida. ¥ Since the 12 May bombings, the Saudi government has shown an important commitment to fighting al-QA’ida in the Kingdom, and Saudi officers have paid with their lives. ¥ Elsewhere in the Arab world, we’re receiving valuable cooperation from Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, the UAE, Oman, and many others. ¥ President Musharraf of Pakistan remains a courageous and indispensable ally who has become the target of assassins for the help he’s given us. ¥ Partners in Southeast Asian have been instrumental in the roundup of key regional associates of al-QA’ida. ¥ Our European partners worked closely together to unravel and disrupt a continent-wide network of terrorists planning chemical, biological and conventional attacks in Europe.
So we have made notable strides. But do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting al-QA’ida is defeated. It is not. We are still at war. This is a learning organization that remains committed to attacking the United States, its friends and allies. Successive blows to al-QA’ida’s central leadership have transformed the organization into a loose collection of regional networks that operate more autonomously. These regional components have demonstrated their operational prowess in the past year.
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¥ The sites of their attacks span the entire reach of al-QA’ida—Morocco, Kenya, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia. ¥ And al-QA’ida seeks to influence the regional networks with operational training, consultations, and money. Khalid Shaykh Muhammad sent Hambali $50,000 for operations in Southeast Asia.
You should not take the fact that these attacks occurred abroad to mean the threat to the US homeland has waned. As al-QA’ida and associated groups undertook these attacks overseas, detainees consistently talk about the importance the group still attaches to striking the main enemy: the United States. Across the operational spectrum—air, maritime, special weapons—we have time and again uncovered plots that are chilling. ¥ On aircraft plots alone, we have uncovered new plans to recruit pilots and to evade new security measures in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. ¥ Even catastrophic attacks on the scale of 11 September remain within al-QA’ida’s reach. Make no mistake: these plots are hatched abroad, but they target US soil or that of our allies.
So far, I have been talking only about Al-QA’ida. But al-QA’ida is not the limit of terrorist threat worldwide. al-QA’ida has infected others with its ideology, which depicts the United States as Islam’s greatest foe.… The steady growth of Usama bin Ladin’s anti-US sentiment through the wider Sunni extremist movement and the broad dissemination of al-QA’ida’s destructive expertise ensure that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future—with or without al-QA’ida in the picture. A decade ago, bin Ladin had a vision of rousing Islamic terrorists worldwide to attack the United States. He created al-QA’ida to indoctrinate a worldwide movement in global jihad, with America as the enemy—an enemy to be attacked with every means at hand. ¥ In the minds of Bin Ladin and his cohorts, September 11 was the shining moment, their ‘‘shot heard ‘round the world,’’ and they want to capitalize on it.
And so, even as al-QA’ida reels from our blows, other extremist groups within the movement it influenced have become the next wave of the terrorist threat. Dozens of such groups exist. Let me offer a few thoughts on how to understand this challenge. ¥ One of the most immediate threats is from smaller international Sunni extremist groups who have benefited from al-QA’ida links. They include groups as diverse as the al-Zarqawi network, the Ansar al-Islam in Iraq, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. ¥ A second level of threat comes from small local groups, with limited domestic agendas, that work with international terrorist groups in their own countries. These include the Salifiya Jihadia, a Moroccan network that carried out the May 2003 Casablanca bombings, and similar groups throughout Africa and Asia.
These far-flung groups increasingly set the agenda, and are redefining the threat we face. They are not all creatures of Bin Ladin, and so their fate is not
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tied to his. They have autonomous leadership, they pick their own targets, they plan their own attacks. Beyond these groups are the so-called ‘‘foreign jihadists’’—individuals ready to fight anywhere they believe Muslim lands are under attack by what they see as ‘‘infidel invaders.’’ They draw on broad support networks, have wide appeal, and enjoy a growing sense of support from Muslims are not necessarily supporters of terrorism. The foreign jihadists see Iraq as a golden opportunity. Let me repeat: for the growing number of jihadists interested in attacking the United States, a spectacular attack on the US Homeland is the ‘‘brass ring’’ that many strive for—with or without encouragement by al-QA’ida’s central leadership. To detect and ultimately defeat these forces, we will continually need to watch hotspots, present or potential battlegrounds, places where these terrorist networks converge. Iraq is of course one major locus of concern. Southeast Asia is another. But so are the backyards of our closest allies. Even Western Europe is an area where terrorists recruit, train, and target. ¥ To get the global job done, foreign governments will need to improve bilateral and multilateral, and even inter-service cooperation, and strengthen domestic counterterrorist legislation and security practices.
… I have consistently warned this committee of al-QA’ida’s interest in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. Acquiring these remains a ‘‘religious obligation’’ in Bin Ladin’s eyes, and al-QA’ida and more than two dozen other terrorist groups are pursuing CBRN materials. ¥ We particularly see a heightened risk of poison attacks. Contemplated delivery methods to date have been simple but this may change as non-Al-Qa’ida groups share information on more sophisticated methods and tactics.
Over the last year, we’ve also seen an increase in the threat of more sophisticated CBRN. For this reason we take very seriously the threat of a CBRN attack. ¥ Extremists have widely disseminated assembly instructions for an improvised chemical weapon using common materials that could cause a large numbers of casualties in a crowded, enclosed area. ¥ Although gaps in our understanding remain, we see al-QA’ida’s program to produce anthrax as one of the most immediate terrorist CBRN threats we are likely to face. ¥ Al-QA’ida continues to pursue its strategic goal of obtaining a nuclear capability. It remains interested in dirty bombs. Terrorist documents contain accurate views of how such weapons would be used.
I’ve focused, and rightly so, on al-QA’ida and related groups. But other terrorist organizations also threaten US interests. Palestinian terrorist groups in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza remain a formidable threat and continue to use terrorism to undermine prospects for peace.
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¥ Last year Palestinian terrorist groups conducted more than 600 attacks, killing about 200 Israelis and foreigners, including Americans.
Lebanese Hizballah cooperates with these groups and appears to be increasing its support. It is also working with Iran and surrogate groups in Iraq and would likely react to an attack against it, Syria, or Iran with attacks against US and Israeli targets worldwide. Iran and Syria continue to support terrorist groups, and their links into Iraq have become problematic to our efforts there. Although Islamic extremists comprise the most pressing threat to US interests, we cannot ignore nominally leftist groups in Latin America and Europe. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s second largest leftist insurgent group have shown a willingness to attack US targets. So has the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front—a Turkish group that has killed two US citizens and targeted US interests in Turkey. Finally, cyber vulnerabilities are another of our concerns, with not only terrorists but foreign governments, hackers, crime groups, and industrial spies attempting to obtain information from our computer networks. Iraq Mr. Chairman, we are making significant strides against the insurgency and terrorism, but former regime elements and foreign jihadists continue to pose a serious threat to Iraq’s new institutions and to our own forces. ¥ At the same time, sovereignty will be returned to an interim Iraqi government by 1 July, although the structure and mechanism for determining this remain unresolved. ¥ The emerging Iraqi leadership will face many pressing issues, among them organizing national elections, integrating the Sunni minority into the political mainstream, managing Kurdish autonomy in a federal structure, and the determining the role of Islam in the Iraqi state.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chairman, the important work of the Iraqi Survey Group and the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction continues. We must explore every avenue in our quest to understand Iraq’s programs out of concern for the possibility that materials, weapons, or expertise might fall into the hands of insurgents, foreign states, or terrorists. Despite progress in Iraq, the overall security picture continues to concern me. Saddam is in prison, and the Coalition has killed or apprehended all but 10 of his 54 key cronies. And Iraqis are taking an increasing role in their own defense, with many now serving in the various new police, military, and security forces. ¥ But the violence continues. The daily average number of attacks on US and Coalition military forces has dropped from its November peak but is similar to that of August. ¥ And many other insurgent and terrorist attacks undermine stability by striking at, and seeking to intimidate, those Iraqis willing to work with the Coalition.
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The insurgency we face in Iraq comprises multiple groups with different motivations but with the same goal: driving the US and our Coalition partners from Iraq. Saddam’s capture was a psychological blow that took some of the less-committed Ba’thists out of the fight, but a hard core of former regime elements—Ba’th Party officials, military, intelligence, and security officers—are still organizing and carrying out attacks. ¥ Intelligence has given us a good understanding of the insurgency at the local level, and this information is behind the host of successful raids you’ve read about in the papers.
US military and Intelligence Community efforts to round up former regime figures have disrupted some insurgent plans to carry out additional anti-Coalition attacks. But we know these Ba’thist cells are intentionally decentralized to avoid easy penetration and to prevent the roll-up of whole networks. Arms, funding, and military experience remain readily available. … We have damaged, but not yet defeated, the insurgents. The security situation is further complicated by the involvement of terrorists—including Ansar al-Islam (AI) and al-Zarqawi—and foreign jihadists coming to Iraq to wage jihad. Their goal is clear. They intend to inspire an Islamic extremist insurgency that would threaten Coalition forces and put a halt to the long-term process of building democratic institutions and governance in Iraq. They hope for a Taliban-like enclave in Iraq’s Sunni heartland that could be a jihadist safehaven. ¥ AI—an Iraqi Kurdish extremist group—is waging a terrorist campaign against the coalition presence and cooperative Iraqis in a bid to inspire jihad and create an Islamic state. ¥ Some extremists go even further. In a recent letter, terrorist planner Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi outlined his strategy to foster sectarian civil war in Iraq, aimed at inciting the Shia.
Stopping the foreign extremists from turning Iraq into their most important jihad yet rests in part on preventing loosely connected extremists from coalescing into a cohesive terrorist organization. ¥ We are having some success—the Coalition has arrested key jihadist leaders and facilitators in Iraq, including top leaders from Ansar al-Islam, the al-Zarqawi network, and other al-QA’ida affiliates. ¥ The October detention of AI’s deputy leader set back the group’s ambition to establish itself as an umbrella organization for jihadists in Iraq.
And we’re also concerned that foreign jihadists and former regime elements might coalesce. This would link local knowledge and military training with jihadist fervor and lethal tactics. At this point, we’ve seen a few signs of such cooperation at the tactical or local level. Ultimately, the Iraqi people themselves must provide the fundamental solutions. As you well know, the insurgents are incessantly and violently targeting Iraqi police and security forces precisely because they fear the prospect of
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Iraqis securing their own interests. Success depends on broadening the role of the local security forces. ¥ This goes well beyond greater numbers. It means continuing work already under way—fixing equipment shortages, providing training, ensuring adequate pay—to build a force of increasing quality and confidence that will have the support of the Iraqi people.
It is hard to overestimate the importance of greater security for Iraqis particularly as we turn to the momentous political events slated for 2004. ¥ The real test will begin soon after the transfer of sovereignty, when we’ll see the extent to which the new Iraqi leaders embody concepts such as pluralism, compromise, and rule of law.
Iraqi Arabs—and many Iraqi Kurds—possess a strong Iraqi identity, forged over a tumultuous 80 year history and especially during the nearly decade-long war with Iran. Unfortunately, Saddam’s divide and rule policy and his favored treatment of the Sunni minority aggravated tensions to the point where the key to governance in Iraq today is managing these competing sectional interests. Here’s a readout on where these groups stand: ¥ The majority SHIA look forward to the end of Sunni control, which began with the British creation of Iraq. The Shia community nevertheless has internal tensions, between the moderate majority and a radical minority that wants a Shiadominated theocracy. ¥ The KURDS see many opportunities to advance long held goals: retaining the autonomy they enjoyed over the past twelve years and expanding their power and territory. ¥ The minority SUNNI fear Shia and Kurdish ambitions. Such anxieties help animate Sunni support for the insurgents. The Sunni community is still at a very early state of establishing political structures to replace the defeated Ba’th party.
I should qualify what I’ve just said: no society, and surely not Iraq’s complex tapestry, is so simple as to be captured in three or four categories. Kurds. Shia. Sunni. In reality, Iraqi society is filled with more cleavages, and more connections, than a simple typology can suggest. We seldom hear about the strong tribal alliances that have long existed between Sunni and Shia, or the religious commonalities between the Sunni Kurd and Arab communities, or the moderate secularism that spans Iraqi groups. ¥ We tend to identify, and stress, the tensions that rend communities apart, but opportunities also exist for these group to work together for common ends.
The social and political interplay is further complicated by Iran, especially in the south, where Tehran pursues its own interests and hopes to maximize its influence among Iraqi Shia after 1 July. Organizations supported by Iran— Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its Badr Organization militia—have gained positions within the Iraqi police and control media outlets in Basrah that tout a pro-Iran viewpoint.
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¥ Tehran also runs humanitarian and outreach programs that have probably enhanced its reputation among Iraqi Shia, but many remain suspicious.
Once the issues involving the selection of a transitional government are settled, Iraq’s permanent constitution will begin to take shape. Here the Iraqi government and the framers of the constitution will have to address three urgent concerns: integrating the Sunni minority into the political mainstream, managing Kurdish autonomy in a federal structure, and determining the role of Islam in the Iraqi state. I don’t want to allow the important security and political stories to crowd out others we should also be telling, including the often neglected one about Iraq’s sizable economic potential. It’s true that rebuilding will go on for years— the Saddam regime left in its wake a devastated, antiquated, underfunded infrastructure. But reconstruction progress and Iraq’s own considerable assets—its natural resources and its educated populace—should enable the Iraqis to see important improvement in 2004 in their infrastructure and their quality of life. ¥ Over the next few years, they’ll open more hospitals and build more roads than anyone born under Saddam has witnessed.
The recovery of Iraqi oil production will help. Production is on track to approach 3.0 million barrels per day by the end of this year. Iraq hasn’t produced this much oil since before the 1991 Gulf war. By next year, revenues from oil exports should cover the cost of basic government operations and contribute several billion dollars toward reconstruction. It is essential, however, that the Iraq-Turkey pipeline be reopened and oil facilities be well protected from insurgent sabotage. Much more needs to be done. Key public services such as water, sewage, and transportation will have difficulty reaching prewar levels by July and won’t meet the higher target of total Iraqi demand. ¥ Electric power capacity approaches prewar levels but still falls short of peak demand. Looting and sabotage may make supplies unreliable.
Finally, unemployment and underemployment, which afflicts about a half of the workforce, will remain a key problem and a potential breeding ground for popular discontent. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2004/dci_speech_02142004. html
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘Worldwide Threat: Converging Dangers in a Post-9/11 World,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 19, 2002 EXCERPTED Mr. Chairman, I appear before you this year under circumstances that are extraordinary and historic for reasons I need not recount. Never before has
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the subject of this annual threat briefing had more immediate resonance. Never before have the dangers been more clear or more present. September 11 brought together and brought home—literally—several vital threats to the United States and its interests that we have long been aware of. It is the convergence of these threats that I want to emphasize with you today: the connection between terrorists and other enemies of this country; the weapons of mass destruction they seek to use against us; and the social, economic, and political tensions across the world that they exploit in mobilizing their followers. September 11 demonstrated the dangers that arise when these threats converge—and it reminds us that we overlook at our own peril the impact of crises in remote parts of the world. This convergence of threats has created the world I will present to you today—a world in which dangers exist not only in those places where we have most often focused our attention, but also in other areas that demand it: ¥ In places like Somalia, where the absence of a national government has created an environment in which groups sympathetic to al-Qa’ida have offered terrorists an operational base and potential haven. ¥ In places like Indonesia, where political instability, separatist and ethnic tensions, and protracted violence are hampering economic recovery and fueling Islamic extremism. ¥ In places like Colombia, where leftist insurgents who make much of their money from drug trafficking are escalating their assault on the government—further undermining economic prospects and fueling a cycle of violence. ¥ And finally … in places like Connecticut, where the death of a 94-year-old woman in her own home of anthrax poisoning can arouse our worst fears about what our enemies might try to do to us.
These threats demand our utmost response. The United States has clearly demonstrated since September 11 that it is up to the challenge. But make no mistake: despite the battles we have won in Afghanistan, we remain a nation at war. Terrorism Last year I told you that Usama Bin Laden and the al-Qa’ida network were the most immediate and serious threat this country faced. This remains true today despite the progress we have made in Afghanistan and in disrupting the network elsewhere. We assess that Al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups will continue to plan to attack this country and its interests abroad. Their modus operandi is to have multiple attack plans in the works simultaneously, and to have al-Qa’ida cells in place to conduct them. EDITOR’S NOTE: See Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, ‘‘National Security in a Changing World,’’ Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the Worldwide Threat 2001, February 7, 2001 (https://www.cia.gov/ cia/public_affairs/speeches/2001/UNCLASWWT_02072001.html). ¥ We know that terrorists have considered attacks in the US against high-profile government or private facilities, famous landmarks, and US infrastructure nodes such as airports, bridges, harbors, dams, and financial centers.
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¥ American diplomatic and military installations are at high risk—especially in East Africa, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. ¥ Operations against US targets could be launched by al-Qa’ida cells already in place in major cities in Europe and the Middle East. Al-Qa’ida can also exploit its presence or connections to other groups in such countries as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Although the September 11 attacks suggest that al-Qa’ida and other terrorists will continue to use conventional weapons, one of our highest concerns is their stated readiness to attempt unconventional attacks against us. As early as 1998, Bin Laden publicly declared that acquiring unconventional weapons was ‘‘a religious duty.’’ ¥ Terrorist groups worldwide have ready access to information on chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons via the Internet, and we know that alQa’ida was working to acquire some of the most dangerous chemical agents and toxins. Documents recovered from al-Qa’ida facilities in Afghanistan show that Bin Laden was pursuing a sophisticated biological weapons research program. ¥ We also believe that Bin Laden was seeking to acquire or develop a nuclear device. Al-Qa’ida may be pursuing a radioactive dispersal device—what some call a ‘‘dirty bomb.’’ ¥ Alternatively, al-Qa’ida or other terrorist groups might try to launch conventional attacks against the chemical or nuclear industrial infrastructure of the United States to cause widespread toxic or radiological damage.
We are also alert to the possibility of cyber warfare attack by terrorists. September 11 demonstrated our dependence on critical infrastructure systems that rely on electronic and computer networks. Attacks of this nature will become an increasingly viable option for terrorists as they and other foreign adversaries become more familiar with these targets, and the technologies required to attack them. The terrorist threat in the Muslim world goes well beyond al-Qa’ida. The situation in the Middle East continues to fuel terrorism and anti-US sentiment worldwide. Groups like the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and HAMAS have escalated their violence against Israel, and the intifadah has rejuvenated oncedormant groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. If these groups feel that US actions are threatening their existence, they may begin targeting Americans directly. ¥ The terrorist threat also goes beyond Islamic extremists and the Muslim world. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) poses a serious threat to US interests in Latin America because it associates us with the government it is fighting against. ¥ The same is true in Turkey, where the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/ Front has publicly criticized the United States and our operations in Afghanistan.
We are also watching states like Iran and Iraq that continue to support terrorist groups.
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¥ Iran continues to provide support—including arms transfers—to Palestinian rejectionist groups and Hizballah. Tehran has also failed to move decisively against alQa’ida members who have relocated to Iran from Afghanistan. ¥ Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorists, including giving sanctuary to Abu Nidal.
… [W]hile al-Qa’ida represents a broad-based Sunni worldwide extremist network, it would be a mistake to dismiss possible connections to either other groups or state sponsors—either Sunni or Shia. There is a convergence of common interest in hurting the US, its allies, and interests that make traditional thinking in this regard unacceptable. The war on terrorism has dealt severe blows to al-Qa’ida and its leadership. The group is no longer able to run large-scale training and recruitment programs in Afghanistan. Drawing on both our own assets and increased cooperation from allies around the world, we are uncovering terrorists’ plans and breaking up their cells. These efforts have yielded the arrest of over 1,300 extremists believed to be associated with al-Qa’ida operatives in over 70 countries, and have disrupted terrorist operations and potential terrorist attacks. … Bin Laden did not believe that we would invade his sanctuary. He saw the United States as soft, impatient, unprepared, and fearful of a long, bloody war of attrition. He did not count on the fact that we had lined up allies that could help us overcome barriers of terrain and culture. He did not know about the collection and operational initiatives that would allow us to strike— with great accuracy—at the heart of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. He underestimated our capabilities, our readiness, and our resolve. That said, I must repeat that al-Qa’ida has not yet been destroyed. It and other like-minded groups remain willing and able to strike us. Al-Qa’ida leaders still at large are working to reconstitute the organization and to resume its terrorist operations. We must eradicate these organizations by denying them their sources of financing and eliminating their ability to hijack charitable organizations for their terrorist purposes. We must be prepared for a long war, and we must not falter. … [W]e must also look beyond the immediate danger of terrorist attacks to the conditions that allow terrorism to take root around the world. These conditions are no less threatening to US national security than terrorism itself. The problems that terrorists exploit—poverty, alienation, and ethnic tensions— will grow more acute over the next decade. This will especially be the case in those parts of the world that have served as the most fertile recruiting grounds for Islamic extremist groups. ¥ We have already seen—in Afghanistan and elsewhere—that domestic unrest and conflict in weak states is one of the factors that create an environment conducive to terrorism. ¥ More importantly, demographic trends tell us that the world’s poorest and most politically unstable regions—which include parts of the Middle East and SubSaharan Africa—will have the largest youth populations in the world over the next two decades and beyond. Most of these countries will lack the economic institutions or resources to effectively integrate these youth into society.
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The Muslim World All of these challenges come together in parts of the Muslim world, and let me give you just one example. One of the places where they converge that has the greatest long-term impact on any society is its educational system. Primary and secondary education in parts of the Muslim world is often dominated by an interpretation of Islam that teaches intolerance and hatred. The graduates of these schools—‘‘madrasas’’—provide the foot soldiers for many of the Islamic militant groups that operate throughout the Muslim world. Let me underscore what the President has affirmed: Islam itself is neither an enemy nor a threat to the United States. But the increasing anger toward the West—and toward governments friendly to us—among Islamic extremists and their sympathizers clearly is a threat to us. We have seen—and continue to see—these dynamics play out across the Muslim world. Let me briefly address their manifestation in several key countries. Our campaign in Afghanistan has made great progress, but the road ahead is fraught with challenges. The Afghan people, with international assistance, are working to overcome a traditionally weak central government, a devastated infrastructure, a grave humanitarian crisis, and ethnic divisions that have deepened over the last 20 years of conflict. The next few months will be an especially fragile period. ¥ Interim authority chief Hamid Karzai will have to play a delicate balancing game domestically. Ongoing power struggles among Pashtun leaders there underscore the volatility of tribal and personal relations that Karzai must navigate. ¥ Al-Qa’ida and Taliban elements still at large also pose a continuing threat to the central government and to the security of those involved in reconstruction and humanitarian operations. ¥ Some leaders in the new political order may allow the continuation of opium cultivation to secure advantages against their rivals for power.
Pakistan. September 11 and the US response to it were the most profound external events for Pakistan since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the US response to that. The Musharraf government’s alignment with the US—and its abandonment of nearly a decade of support for the Taliban—represent a fundamental political shift with inherent political risks because of the militant Islamic and anti-American sentiments that exist within Pakistan. President Musharraf’s intention to establish a moderate, tolerant Islamic state—as outlined in his landmark 12 January speech—is being welcomed by most Pakistanis, but he will still have to confront major vested interests. The speech has energized debate across the Muslim world about which vision of Islam is the right one for the future of the Islamic community. ¥ Musharaff established a clear and forceful distinction between a narrow, intolerant, and conflict-ridden vision of the past and an inclusive, tolerant, and peaceoriented vision of the future. ¥ Incidents like the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, however, highlight the challenges that Musharraf faces in his efforts to crack down on Islamic extremists.
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Iraq. Saddam has responded to our progress in Afghanistan with a political and diplomatic charm offensive. Since the turn of the year he has hinted at the possible return of inspectors, allowed the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to visit Baghdad, and had his Foreign Minister meet with UN Secretary General Annan—for the first time in over a year—to discuss resolutions pertaining to Iraq. Saddam has carefully cultivated neighboring states, drawing them into economically dependent relationships in hopes of further undermining their support for the sanctions. The profits he gains from these relationships provide him the means to reward key supporters and, more importantly, to fund his pursuit of WMD. His calculus is never about bettering or helping the Iraqi people. … [W]e continue to watch Iraq’s involvement in terrorist activities. Baghdad has a long history of supporting terrorism, altering its targets to reflect changing priorities and goals. It has also had contacts with al-Qa’ida. Their ties may be limited by divergent ideologies, but the two sides’ mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggests that tactical cooperation between them is possible—even though Saddam is well aware that such activity would carry serious consequences. In Iran, we are concerned that the reform movement may be losing its momentum. For almost five years, President Khatami and his reformist supporters have been stymied by Supreme Leader Khamenei and the hardliners. ¥ The hardliners have systematically used the unelected institutions they control— the security forces, the judiciary, and the Guardian’s Council—to block reforms that challenge their entrenched interests. They have closed newspapers, forced members of Khatami’s cabinet from office, and arrested those who have dared to speak out against their tactics. ¥ Discontent with the current domestic situation is widespread and cuts across the social spectrum. Complaints focus on the lack of pluralism and government accountability, social restrictions, and poor economic performance. Frustrations are growing as the populace sees elected institutions such as the Majles and the Presidency unable to break the hardliners’ hold on power.
The hardline regime appears secure for now because security forces have easily contained dissenters and arrested potential opposition leaders. No one has emerged to rally reformers into a forceful movement for change, and the Iranian public appears to prefer gradual reform to another revolution. But the equilibrium is fragile and could be upset by a miscalculation by either the reformers or the hardline clerics. The initial signs of Tehran’s cooperation and common cause with us in Afghanistan are being eclipsed by Iranian efforts to undermine US influence there. While Iran’s officials express a shared interest in a stable government in Afghanistan, its security forces appear bent on countering the US presence. This seeming contradiction in behavior reflects deep-seated suspicions among Tehran’s clerics that the United States is committed to encircling and overthrowing them. ¥ We have seen little sign of a reduction in Iran’s support for terrorism in the past year. Its participation in the attempt to transfer arms to the Palestinian Authority via the Karine-A probably was intended to escalate the violence of the intifada
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The current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been raging for almost a year and a half and has been deteriorating. The violence has hardened the public’s positions on both sides and increased the longstanding animosity between Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian leader Arafat. Although many Israelis and Palestinians say they believe that ultimately the conflict can only be resolved through negotiations, the absence of any meaningful security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority—and the escalating and uncontrolled activities of the Palestine Islamic Jihad and HAMAS—make any progress extremely difficult. ¥ We are concerned that this environment creates opportunities for any number of players—most notably Iran—to take steps that will result in further escalation of violence by radical Palestinian groups. ¥ At the same time, the continued violence threatens to weaken the political center in the Arab world, and increases the challenge for our Arab allies to balance their support for us against the demands of their publics.
I turn now to the subject of proliferation. I would like to start by drawing your attention to several disturbing trends in this important area. WMD programs are becoming more advanced and effective as they mature, and as countries of concern become more aggressive in pursuing them. This is exacerbated by the diffusion of technology over time—which enables proliferators to draw on the experience of others and to develop more advanced weapons more quickly than they could otherwise. Proliferators are also becoming more self-sufficient. And they are establishing advanced production capabilities by taking advantage of both foreign assistance and the dual-use nature of WMD- and missile-related technologies. This also allows them to conduct WMD- and missile-related research under the guise of legitimate commercial or scientific activity. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2002/senate_select_ hearing_03192002.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Admiral Wilson’s Statement for the Record Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, ‘‘Global Threats and Challenges,’’ March 19, 2002 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2002_hr/wilson319.pdf).
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘al Qaida: The Threat to the United States and Its Allies,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Washington, D.C., April 1, 2004 … [T]hank you for the opportunity to testify today on the evolving nature of the al-Qaida organization and the continuing threat that it presents to the United States and our allies. This hearing provides a welcome opportunity to
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bring you and your colleagues up to date on this dangerous threat. I also will describe the steps we are taking to defeat the al-Qaida organization. As the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, I have been charged with managing the U.S. Government’s international efforts to counter terrorism through the coordination of our efforts with those of our allies. It is precisely this sort of coordinated action that has scored some important successes against the al-Qaida organization. … Since that terrible day of September 11, 2001, we have undergone a transformation as a nation, and have been fully engaged in a war with terrorism … We are carrying out the President’s clear directive, and are taking the fight to terrorists worldwide using all the elements of national power. We are also enlisting the support of friends and allies in the international community, to great effect. We have made great progress in marshalling the collective strength of the international community into the counterterrorism fight, but we must continue to press forward to face and defeat terrorism. Although there are numerous terrorist organizations of concern in the world today, the top priority of our efforts has been on the al-Qaida organization, its affiliates and those who support them. Al-Qaida remains a potent force, despite the continuing efforts of the community of civilized nations to remove this evil from the world. Al-Qaida is determined to strike the United States, our allies and interests wherever it can, using the most destructive means at its disposal. I have no doubt that al-Qaida would use unconventional weapons if it possessed the capability to do so. Since the Coalition’s successful ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan, the al-Qaida organization has been deeply wounded. It has been forced to evolve in ways not entirely by its own choosing. However, it remains bent on murdering Americans, whether overseas or in our own country. Al-Qaida has amply shown its willingness to kill and maim large numbers of innocent civilians around the world, regardless of faith, nationality, race, class and creed. The Madrid Attack The tragic events of 11 March in Madrid demonstrate the potent global terrorist threat. We continue to see mounting evidence of al-Qaida’s links to the attacks, although we are still awaiting the conclusions of the ongoing investigation by the Spanish government. One lesson from the Madrid bombings is clear. We have learned this lesson before on the streets of Istanbul, Riyadh, Casablanca, Bali, Moscow and Mombassa: No country is safe from the scourge of terrorism. No country is immune from attack, and neither policies of deterrence or accommodation will ward off attack. Al-Qaida seeks only death and chaos, which is why we will continue to pursue the only viable course of action before us: to destroy this enemy utterly, both with the cooperation of our allies and by unilateral action when necessary. Sanctuary Lost The removal of the Taliban regime from Afghanistan stripped al-Qaida of its primary sanctuary and support, and shut down long-standing terrorist
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training camps. Although our work continues in Afghanistan to root-out the remnants of al-Qaida’s former strength, al-Qaida has lost a vital safe haven. With the loss of Afghanistan and its terrorism infrastructure there, al-Qaida has also been separated from facilities central to its chem-bio and poisons development programs. … The al-Qaida-affiliated Zarqawi network continues to spread terror and death as the Iraqi people move towards a brighter future free from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. Iraq is currently serving as a focal point for foreign jihadist fighters, who are united in a common goal with former regime elements, criminals and more established foreign terrorist organization members to conduct attacks against Coalition and Iraqi civilian targets. These jihadists view Iraq as a new training ground to build their extremist credentials and hone the skills of the terrorist. We are aggressively rooting out the foreign fighters in Iraq, and we will continue to devote the resources necessary to ensure that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups will be unable to use Iraq as a training ground or sanctuary. We have relied on the support of our partners in the global coalition against terrorism to ensure that al-Qaida is unable to establish a new secure base of operations like that which existed under the Taliban in Afghanistan. The partnership of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and others has been, and will continue to be, essential to ensuring that al-Qaida is never able to reestablish comfortable sanctuary anywhere in the world. The State of al-Qaida Leadership Historically, al-Qaida has been a top-down organization with strong central leadership control over almost all aspects of its operations. However, our ongoing operations against al-Qaida have served to isolate its leadership, and sever or complicate communications links with its operatives scattered around the globe. Unable to find easy sanctuary in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the al-Qaida leadership must now devote much more time to evading capture or worse. This has further complicated al-Qaida’s communication and coordination efforts, which are much harder and time-consuming in the current operating environment. We have also seen examples of terrorist activities delayed for extended periods as al-Qaida affiliates await instructions from an increasingly isolated central leadership. Also, as al-Qaida’s known senior leadership, planners, facilitators and operators are brought to justice, a new cadre of leaders is being forced to step up. These individuals are increasingly no longer drawn from the old guard, no longer the seasoned veteran al-Qaida trainers from Afghanistan’s camps or close associates of al-Qaida’s founding members. Critical gaps have been cut out of the al-Qaida leadership structure, and these relatively untested terrorists are assuming greater responsibilities. We are relentlessly going after these new leaders as they are identified. This confluence of factors may be resulting in a lack of clear strategic direction and operational mistakes by al-Qaida. An example is the November 8, 2003 bombing of the Muhaya housing compound in Riyadh which killed 18
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persons, predominantly Muslims during the month of Ramadan. This target selection, made either by mistake or due to poor judgment, was a public relations disaster for al-Qaida, which in turn has assisted aggressive Saudi efforts to roll-up the al-Qaida presence in the Kingdom. Whether this operation was plagued by operational or strategic error is still a matter of debate, but I believe that it is indicative of the complications faced by al-Qaida in its truncated and besieged state. Allies in Sowing Terror A few words now on how al-Qaida’s influence has spread to other terrorist organizations. There are growing indications that a number of largely Sunni Islamic extremist groups are moving to pick up al-Qaida’s standard and attempting to pursue global jihad against the United States and or allies. There are also growing indications that al-Qaida’s ideology is spreading well beyond the Middle East, particularly its virulent anti-American rhetoric. This has been picked up by a number of Islamic extremist movements which exist around the globe. This greatly complicates our task in stamping out al-Qaida, and poses a threat in its own right for the foreseeable future. Literally scores of such groups are present around the world today. Some groups have gravitated to al-Qaida in recent years, where before such linkages did not exist. This has been, at times, merely an effort to gain greater public renown for their group or cause, but more troubling have been the groups seeking to push forward al-Qaida’s agenda of worldwide terror. In particular, groups like Ansar al-Islam and the Zarqawi network pose a real threat to U.S. interests. This has been shown very clearly by their deadly activities in Iraq. Other groups of great concern include the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), which operates mainly in the countries of North Africa and Salifiya Jihadia, which claimed responsibility for the May 2003 Casablanca bombings. Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) should also be on this short list. While it would be a mistake to believe that we are now confronted by a monolithic threat posed by legions of like-minded terrorist groups working in concert against our interests, it would be fair to say that we are seeing greater cooperation between al-Qaida and smaller Islamic extremist groups, as well as even more localized organizations. Identifying and acting against the leadership, capabilities and operational plans of these groups poses a serious challenge now and for years to come. In addition to these groups, there are literally thousands of jihadists around the world who have fought in conflicts in Kosovo, Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere … These jihadists will continue to serve as a ready source of recruits for al-Qaida and other affiliated terrorist organizations. A Strategy to Defeat Terrorism Let me go back for a moment to frame the overall strategy we have been employing to defeat terrorism. Following the September 11 attacks, we have forcefully applied the Bush doctrine: any person or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and will be held to account.
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We have done so through our National Strategy to Combat Terrorism, which creates the policy framework for coordinated actions to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, its interests and its friends around the world and, ultimately, to create an international environment inhospitable to terrorists and all those who support them. We have implemented this strategy to act simultaneously on four fronts: ¥ Defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by attacking their sanctuaries, leadership, finances, and command, control and communications; ¥ Deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating with other states to take action against these international threats; ¥ Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk; and ¥ Defend the United States, its citizens and interests at home and abroad. The National Strategy highlights that success will only come through the sustained, steadfast, and systematic application of all elements of national power—diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, intelligence, and military.
While the United States is committed to combating terrorism the world over, in whatever form it takes to threaten the American people and American interests, the focus of our efforts since September 2001 has been on the alQaida organization. Let me tell you about the progress we have made, and how the al-Qaida organization looks far different than it did in September 2001. U.S. Accomplishments, al-Qaida Losses A global dragnet has tightened around al-Qaida, made possible by a broad coalition of 84 nations, all focused on the common goal of eradicating the terrorist threat that endangers all civilized nations. Since September 11, 2001, 70 percent of al-Qaida senior leadership and more than 3,400 lower-level al-Qaida operatives or associates have been detained or killed in over 100 countries, largely as a result of cooperation among law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Terrorist cells have been wrapped up in nations in all corners of the globe, from Singapore to Italy and Saudi Arabia, as well as here at home in Buffalo, Portland, and North Carolina. A growing list of senior al-Qaida leaders and associates will no longer threaten the United States and our allies … The al-Qaida figures we take out of circulation performed roles in all operational areas, including financing, logistics, training and procurement, among others. This has sapped al-Qaida’s strength by disrupting its ability to coordinate complex operational plans and gather the operatives, materials and funding required to carry them out. We have made extensive efforts to attack al-Qaida’s financing, which is the lifeblood of its murderous activities, providing for the movement of operatives, the cooption of officials and local populations, and the acquisition of arms and explosives. More than 172 countries have issued orders freezing or
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seizing approximately $200 million in terrorism-related financial assets and accounts. In addition to attacking known accounts, more than 100 countries worldwide have introduced new terrorist-related legislation or regulations, including new laws to block money-laundering and the misuse of charities in the support of terrorists. An important tool in countering terrorism financing is the authority the Secretary of State uses to formally designate Foreign Terrorist Organizations. This authority, under the AntiTerrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 freezes a designated group’s assets in the United States, makes it a criminal offense for Americans to provide funding and other forms of material support and denies visas to members of the designated group. Thirty-six groups are currently designated. Meanwhile, we have strengthened our defenses here at home, including a comprehensive reorganization of our government to better protect the homeland. We have also implemented more stringent screening measures, and engaged with our international community to raise global standards. For example, in Africa, we and our colleagues in the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security are implementing a program to secure airports in countries where the danger to aviation is particularly striking (Safe Skies for Africa). We must also continue to provide frontline countries the training and assistance needed to support their counterterrorism efforts. The Department of State’s Anti-Terrorism Training Assistance (ATA) Program, Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP) and other counterterrorism training are vital parts of this effort. The support of the Congress for this and other capacity-building programs will be essential to eradicating al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Many of our most important successes have come through joint or unilateral actions by foreign governments. Improving the counterterrorism capacity of key states is clearly in our interest. While the dividends of such investment may not be immediately apparent, we must think of our global war on terrorism as a long-term fight that will take years or, indeed, decades, as was the case with the Cold War. In conclusion, I should stress that while we have made substantial progress toward eradicating the threat posed by al-Qaida, we are on a long, tough road, and we cannot afford to falter. The al-Qaida organization has been gravely wounded, and forced to evolve in new ways to survive. However, al-Qaida is a patient, resourceful and flexible organization and is able to draw from a global support base of jihadists and international mujahedin movement. It must be denied safe haven and kept on the run, while we starve it of its resources, dismantle its cells, and apprehend its foot soldiers at our borders. We must more than match its flexibility and resolve, and commit to combat al-Qaida over the long haul, for there can be no accommodation with this evil. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/31018.htm
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Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 Commission Report Recommendation: Denying Sanctuary to Terrorists,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Los Angeles, California, August 6, 2004 Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission on denying sanctuary to terrorists, as outlined in Chapter 12 of the 9/11 Commission’s report, entitled ‘‘What to Do? A Global Strategy.’’ Today’s hearing contributes to the essential national debate on how we might improve the sustained, steadfast, and systematic application of all key elements of national power—diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, intelligence, and military—in the ongoing task of defending against future acts of terrorism. I welcome the opportunity to speak to one of the specific fronts … the denial of terrorist safe haven around the world. The 9/11 Commission identified six regions of concern as current or future terrorist safe havens. I will briefly address our actions in these and other regions to deny terrorists refuge, time, and opportunity to plan further attacks against the targets they seek to destroy. Pakistan Pakistan continues to be one of the United States’ most important partners in the Global War on Terrorism. Following the September 11 attacks, the Musharraf government responded positively to the Administration’s clear warning that nations were ‘‘either with us or against us’’ in the War on Terror, and actively worked to apprehend al Qaida and Taliban operatives. To date, hundreds of al-Qaida or Taliban remnants have been successfully apprehended with the cooperation of Pakistani authorities. Among some of the great successes in the GWOT was the apprehension of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Walid Bin Attash, a prime suspect in the attack on the USS Cole in October 2002. Just last week, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani along with several family members and confederates was apprehended by Pakistani forces. Captured with him were significant documents and computer files with details of al-Qaida planning against American targets. As a result, we now know a great deal more about the command and control operations of al-Qaida as well as there specific targets. Since the fall of 2003, the Government of Pakistan (GOP) has stepped up its counterterrorism (CT) activities, most notably in the mountainous Federally Administered Tribal Areas. In early October 2003, the GOP warned tribal leaders in South Waziristan that those who failed to stop fellow tribesmen from harboring foreigners would have their property seized and face arrest. As of March 2004, over 70 individuals have been arrested. The GOP resumed operations in June, which are continuing to this day, despite taking casualties. Due to its success, the GOP has expanded this campaign to North Waziristan. In parallel with military action, Pakistan has enhanced its legal, political, and public relations efforts against al-Qaida and the Taliban. In November
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2003, the GOP deported eleven Jemaah Islamiyah members from Pakistan, and in December of last year, extradited Gun Gun Rusamn Gunnawan, brother of Indonesian al-Qaida leader Hambali, to Indonesia. Pakistan also handed over Pacha Khan Zadran, renegade Afghan warlord, to Afghan authorities last month. As of March 2004, the GOP has listed and offered rewards for over 70 terrorists. U.S.-Pakistan joint counterterrorism efforts have been extensive. The U.S. Government has initiated significant cooperative programs that are increasing GOP CT capabilities and building important ties between the U.S. and Pakistan CT communities. These programs include long-term capacitybuilding efforts in border security, criminal investigations, and counterterrorism finance. The U.S. also participates, with Pakistan and Afghanistan, on the recently-formed Tripartite Commission, a problem-solving forum for discussing border and security-related issues … Afghanistan The removal of the Taliban regime from Afghanistan stripped al-Qaida of its primary sanctuary and support, and shut down long-standing terrorist training camps. Our ongoing work in Afghanistan continues to root-out the remnants of al-Qaida. With the loss of Afghanistan and its terrorism infrastructure there, al-Qaida has also been separated from facilities central to its improvised chemical and biological weapons and poisons development programs. Al-Qaida has been a top-down organization with strong central leadership control over almost all aspects of its operations. Our ongoing operations against al-Qaida have served to isolate the leadership, and sever or complicate communications links with operatives scattered around the globe. Unable to find easy sanctuary in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the al-Qaida leadership must now devote much more time to evading capture or worse. The U.S. Government is working closely with Japan and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, which jointly lead the nationwide disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of militias in Afghanistan. To date, the Afghanistan New Beginnings Program has helped demobilize nearly 12,000 militia forces. The U.S. Government is working with the Afghan government, the UN, and Japan to enhance DDR efforts, including cantonment of heavy weapons nationwide. Current plans call for demobilization and disarmament of all militias by June 2005. The USG continues to support security sector reform in Afghanistan by training and equipping the Afghan National Army. Currently over 10,000 ANA forces are deployed to different provinces in support of central government efforts to stabilize the provinces and Coalition efforts in Operation Enduring Freedom. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in coordination with the Afghan government, is supporting the development of Afghan national institutions at the national, provincial, and district levels. These include road building projects, schools, clinics, hospitals, government ministries, and local courthouses. These reconstruction efforts pay an added benefit as we seek to eliminate terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan.
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Arabian Peninsula The U.S. Government is working closely with its partners on the Arabian Peninsula to ensure that the area cannot be used as a safe haven or base of operations for terrorist activities. Overall, USG bilateral counterterrorism cooperation with the Arabian Peninsula has improved greatly over the past several years; all of these states have striven to become active partners in the Global War on Terrorism. The stakes are high, as al-Qaida and other terrorist operatives threaten these governments, as well as U.S. citizens and facilities in the region. We are engaged with the governments on the peninsula to bolster their counterterrorism capacities and support their efforts to combat terror. This includes support for border security, law enforcement training, extensive intelligence support, training and advice to combat terrorist financing, and in the case of Yemen, economic development support. Yemen We are working with Yemen to enhance our partnership in the war on terrorism. The USG restarted a Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program in 2002 to support the counterterrorism mission of the Yemeni military. FMF support has also backed the creation of a Yemeni Coast Guard, which while still modest in scope, has already begun to conduct patrols off of Yemen’s long coastline. In 2003, improvements in Yemen’s internal security situation enabled USAID to re-establish a mission in Sanaa. Our development assistance in Yemen targets health, education and agriculture in underdeveloped governorates in an effort to strengthen and extend the central government’s authority in remote tribal areas historically sympathetic to terrorists. We have been working with Yemen since 2001 to implement a terrorist watch-listing capability and to date have installed computerized systems at two dozen Yemeni ports of entry. The Yemeni government is also working with us to enhance their border security and export control measures. Saudi Arabia Since the May 2003 attacks in Riyadh, the Saudi government (SAG) has arrested more than 600 terrorist suspects, and has conducted more than 60 raids throughout the country, yielding tons of explosives, large caches of arms and ammunition, and valuable insights into the plans and capabilities of the Saudi al-Qaida network. The Saudi security forces have lost approximately 30 men in counterterrorism operations. The government’s two widely-publicized Most-Wanted Terrorist lists issued in 2003 included the pictures and names of a total of 39 suspects as part of a sizable rewards program. Twenty-seven of these individual have been killed, captured, or have surrendered during the past 15 months. The Saudis have also jointly designated nine branches of the al-Haramain Charitable Foundation to the UN 1267 Committee. In all, we have jointly designated more entities with Saudi Arabia than any other state. We have had solid cooperation on intelligence sharing and case development through our Joint Task Force on Terrorist Financing. The Saudis have already instituted a variety of new laws and regulations that have the potential
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to fundamentally alter their banking and charity systems. These steps were validated by the February report of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) assessment of Saudi Arabia’s system of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws and regulations. These entities found the Kingdom to be in compliance or near-compliance with international standards in almost every indicator of effective instruments to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Horn of Africa, Somalia and Kenya To counter the threat posed by al-Qaida in the Horn of Africa, the Department is cooperating with numerous partners, including the Department of Defense and host governments, to suppress the activities of terrorists in the region, to arrest and bring to justice those who have attacked us, and to diminish the conditions in those societies which provide terrorist sympathizers with refuge and support. Much of this latter cooperation takes place in the context of President Bush’s $100 million East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative, announced in June 2003 on the occasion of his trip to the region. Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda participate in this initiative. In late 2002, the Defense Department established the Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) which participates in counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa region. CJTF-HOA is part of the U.S. Central Command and functions in the context of Operation Enduring Freedom. In Kenya, we are working with the Kenyan government to improve its capabilities in the areas of counterterrorism, border control, law enforcement and criminal investigation, airport and seaport security. We also welcome the efforts of the Kenyan government and its partners in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to help the numerous parties in Somalia to reconcile and form a functioning national government. In Ethiopia and Djibouti, we have formed close partnerships to counter the threat of terrorism coming from Somalia. We believe that our successes have degraded the terrorists’ capabilities, but the threat has not yet been fully countered. We continue to act against the terrorist networks at every opportunity. Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a major front in the global war on terrorism, and continues to be an attractive theater of operations for regional terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). The governments in Southeast Asia have been reliable partners in the war on terrorism, but they face tremendous challenges to dealing with the terrorist threat. Indonesia, for example, has arrested over 110 suspected terrorists and convicted some 30 terrorists since the October 2002 Bali bombings; yet as a vast archipelago, effective border control is extremely difficult. We are making progress by working with many of the governments in the region to provide assistance and prevent them from becoming terrorist sanctuaries. We have a robust Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program throughout
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the region, and we are seeing results. In 2003, Thai authorities captured Hambali, JI’s operation chief and Al-Qaeda point man in Southeast Asia, a significant blow to JI. In the Philippines, we have seen success as the Philippine National Police have thwarted plots in Manila and arrested suspected members of JI and the Abu Sayyaf Group. In Indonesia, we implemented an $8 million program to train and equip a specialized counterterrorism unit within the Indonesian National Police. This unit has significantly contributed to the arrests and prosecution of members of JI, the group responsible for the Bali and Jakarta Marriott bombings. In Thailand and the Philippines we are also working to implement terrorist watch-listing capabilities at key points of entry. Because terrorism in Southeast Asia is a regional problem, we also work in a regional context to provide CT assistance. Through centers like the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counterterrorism in Malaysia and the U.S.-Thailand International Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok, we are providing counterterrorism training to law enforcement officers throughout the region. The Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation, recently opened by the Australian and Indonesian governments, provides an additional opportunity for regional training. We are also working with other capable partners to maximize the amount of assistance we can provide: through the G-8’s Counter Terrorism Action Group (CTAG) process, our embassies coordinate CT assistance programs with other embassies in each capital to ensure no duplication of effort. By working with the governments in Southeast Asia and other regional partners, we are making consistent progress towards increasing Southeast Asian governments’ capabilities to fight terrorism and prevent the region from becoming a sanctuary for terrorists. West Africa In West Africa, the primary threat is not from al-Qaida against the U.S., but from a radical Islamist group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), which has been attempting to overthrow the government in Algeria and impose an Islamist regime. Through the Pan-Sahel Initiative, an $8.4 million program, we have sought to better equip the nations of the area by providing training and equipment to improve their border security and deny the use of their sovereign territory to terrorists and criminals. Our partner nations of Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania have demonstrated their seriousness by attacking, pursuing, and degrading the GSPC’s capabilities over the last nine months. Central and Eastern Europe Although no European or Eurasian country provides ‘‘sanctuary’’ to terrorist groups, large immigrant communities in some of the cities of Western Europe are potential sources of support for extremists. Terrorist activity and the presence of terrorist support networks in Europe is a source of concern. Complicating efforts to combat this threat is the fact that some countries have legal impediments to taking firm judicial action against suspected terrorists, often stemming from asylum laws that afford loopholes, inadequate CT legislation, or
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standards of evidence that lack flexibility in permitting law enforcement authorities to rely on classified-source information in holding terrorist suspects. Ease of travel within Schengen visa countries could also make Western Europe attractive to terrorists. In the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, where immigrant communities are smaller, the ability to monitor and control possibly suspect activities and travel is often less than in more developed West European states. To address these potential weaknesses, we continue to work closely with European partners to strengthen anti-terrorist legislation and to help less capable states improve their abilities to restrict terrorists’ freedom of action, block assets, and address social pathologies that contribute to terrorism’s spread. European and Eurasian countries have been reliable partners in sustaining the global coalition against terrorism. Since September 2001, many countries in the region have significantly strengthened their legal and administrative ability to take action against terrorists and their supporters, including freezing their assets. The contributions of European countries in sharing intelligence, arresting members of terrorist cells, and interdicting terrorist financing and logistics have been vital elements in the war on terrorism. Al-Qaida and its associated terrorist cells remain the main organizations of concern in the war on terrorism in Europe, but North African groups are also active; the Madrid bombings, which appear to have been undertaken locally by one such group, may be the harbinger of future attacks organized primarily from within the target countries. Al-Qaida and other extremist groups recruit and proselytize heavily in some major European cities: Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was recruited at a mosque in London; Mohammed Atta’s cell was centered around a mosque in Hamburg; Italian police believe some Islamic Cultural Centers and mosques in Milan serve al-Qaida recruitment centers. Networks among these groups are increasingly evident. In addition, terrorist groups opposed to the Middle East peace process (e.g. Hizballah) have active propaganda, fund raising and other support activities in Europe. Multilateral Efforts Impacting Terrorist Sanctuary As the 9/11 Commission’s report title, ‘‘What to Do? A Global Strategy,’’ implies, and as President Bush has stressed on numerous occasions, fighting terrorism requires a global strategy and a global response. In addition to working bilaterally with partners, the United States’ diplomatic corps has aggressively mobilized the UN and other international organizations to take the fight against terrorism to every corner of the globe. UN Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted with strong U.S. leadership shortly after the attacks of 9/11, assigns firm and binding obligations on all states to ‘‘deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens.’’ We have used our permanent seat on the UN Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) to ensure that the UN fulfills its mandate to identify states that fail to meet such requirements. In this fashion, we identify and support measures to help the international community to bring assistance to those countries that are willing but unable to comply, and apply pressure to those lacking will.
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In many problem sanctuary areas, lack of counterterrorism capacity is the primary impediment to rooting out terrorists. We work with other donors in the Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG), a 2003 U.S. initiative within the G-8, to coordinate and increase CT donor activities, and to prioritize targeted assistance to high-risk countries. International donor CT assistance provided to these countries ranges from building basic law-and-order capacity to legislative assistance to border security assistance. This effort is focused on improving the ability to identify and interdict terrorists before they can take haven, and to track down and disrupt those who have already infiltrated the country … The President obtained agreement from his G-8 counterparts at the June 2004 Summit to adopt the Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI), which includes 28 action projects that will make it much harder for terrorists to use or attack or exploit transportation networks. By increasing security impediments to terrorist travel, we will further limit their ability to seek safe haven or to flee a sanctuary country … SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/35679.htm
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, ‘‘Global Intelligence Challenges 2005: Meeting Long-Term Challenges with a Long-Term Strategy,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 16, 2005 … My intention is to tell you what I believe are the greatest challenges we face today and those where our service as intelligence professionals is needed most on behalf of the US taxpayer. We need to make tough decisions about which haystacks deserve to be scrutinized for the needles that can hurt us most. And we know in this information age that there are endless haystacks everywhere. I do want to make several things clear: ¥ Our officers are taking risks, and I will be asking them to take more risks—justifiable risks—because I would much rather explain why we did something than why we did nothing, ¥ I am asking for more competitive analysis, more collocation of analysts and collectors, and deeper collaboration with agencies throughout the Intelligence Community. Above all, our analysis must be objective. Our credibility rests there. ¥ We do not make policy. We do not wage war. I am emphatic about that and always have been. We do collect and analyze information.
With respect to the CIA, I want to tell you that my first few months as Director have served only to confirm what I and Members of Congress have known about CIA for years. It is a special place—an organization of dedicated, patriotic people. In addition to taking a thorough, hard look at our own capabilities, we are working to define CIA’s place in the restructured Intelligence Community—a community that will be led by a new Director of National Intelligence—to make the maximum possible contribution to American security at home and abroad. The CIA is and will remain the flagship
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agency, in my view. And each of the other 14 elements in the community will continue to make their unique contributions as well. Now, I turn to threats. I will not attempt to cover everything that could go wrong in the year ahead. We must, and do, concentrate our efforts, experience and expertise on the challenges that are most pressing: defeating terrorism; protecting the homeland; stopping proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and drugs; and fostering stability, freedom and peace in the most troubled regions of the world. Accordingly, my comments today will focus on these duties. I know well from my 30 years in public service that you and your colleagues have an important responsibility with these open sessions to get information to the American people. But I also know all too well that as we are broadcasting to America, enemies are also tuning in. In open session I feel I must be very prudent in my remarks as DCI. Terrorism Mr. Chairman, defeating terrorism must remain one of our intelligence community’s core objectives, as widely dispersed terrorist networks will present one of the most serious challenges to US national security interests at home and abroad in the coming year. In the past year, aggressive measures by our intelligence, law enforcement, defense and homeland security communities, along with our key international partners have dealt serious blows to alQa’ida and others. Despite these successes, however, the terrorist threat to the US in the Homeland and abroad endures. ¥ Al-Qa’ida is intent on finding ways to circumvent US security enhancements to strike Americans and the Homeland. ¥ It may be only a matter of time before al-Qa’ida or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons (CBRN). ¥ Al-Qa’ida is only one facet of the threat from a broader Sunni jihadist movement. ¥ The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists.
We know from experience that al-Qa’ida is a patient, persistent, imaginative, adaptive and dangerous opponent. But it is vulnerable and we and other allies have hit it hard. ¥ Jihadist religious leaders preach millennial aberrational visions of a fight for Islam’s survival. Sometimes they argue that the struggle justifies the indiscriminate killing of civilians, even with chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.
Our pursuit of al-Qa’ida and its most senior leaders, including Bin Ladin and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri is intense. However, their capture alone would not be enough to eliminate the terrorist threat to the US Homeland or US interests overseas. Often influenced by al-Qa’ida’s ideology, members of a broader movement have an ability to plan and conduct operations. We saw this last March in the railway attacks in Madrid conducted by local Sunni extremists. Other regional groups—connected to al-Qa’ida or acting on their own—also continue to pose a significant threat.
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¥ In Pakistan, terrorist elements remain committed to attacking US targets. In Saudi Arabia, remnants of the Saudi al-Qa’ida network continue to attack US interests in the region. ¥ In Central Asia, the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), a splinter group of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, has become a more virulent threat to US interests and local governments. Last spring the group used female operatives in a series of bombings in Uzbekistan. ¥ In Southeast Asia, the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) continues to pose a threat to US and Western interests in Indonesia and the Philippines, where JI is colluding with the Abu Sayyaf Group and possibly the MILF. ¥ In Europe, Islamic extremists continue to plan and cause attacks against US and local interests, some that may cause significant casualties. In 2004 British authorities dismantled an al-Qa’ida cell and an extremist brutally killed a prominent Dutch citizen in the Netherlands.
Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-US jihadists. ¥ These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups, and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries. ¥ Zarqawi has sought to bring about the final victory of Islam over the West, and he hopes to establish a safe haven in Iraq from which his group could operate against ‘‘infidel’’ Western nations and ‘‘apostate’’ Muslim governments.
Other terrorist groups spanning the globe also pose persistent and serious threats to US and Western interests. ¥ Hizballah’s main focus remains Israel, but it could conduct lethal attacks against US interests quickly upon a decision to do so. ¥ Palestinian terrorist organizations have apparently refrained from directly targeting US or Western interests in their opposition to Middle East peace initiatives, but pose an ongoing risk to US citizens who could be killed or wounded in attacks intended to strike Israeli interests. ¥ Extremist groups in Latin America are still a concern, with the FARC—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—possessing the greatest capability and the clearest intent to threaten US interests in the region. ¥ Horn of Africa, the Sahel, the Mahgreb, the Levant, and the Gulf States are all areas where ‘‘pop up’’ terrorist activity can be expected.
Afghanistan Mr. Chairman, Afghanistan, once the safe haven for Usama bin Ladin, has started on the road to recovery after decades of instability and civil war. Hamid Karzai’s election to the presidency was a major milestone. Elections for a new National Assembly and local district councils—tentatively scheduled for this spring—will complete the process of electing representatives. President Karzai still faces a low-level insurgency aimed at destabilizing the country, raising the cost of reconstruction and ultimately forcing Coalition forces to leave.
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¥ The development of the Afghan National Army and a national police force is going well, although neither can yet stand on its own.
Iraq Low voter turnout in some Sunni areas and the post-election resumption of insurgent attacks—most against Iraqi civilian and security forces—indicate that the insurgency achieved at least some of its election-day goals and remains a serious threat to creating a stable representative government in Iraq. Self-determination for the Iraqi people will largely depend on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security. Iraq’s most capable security units have become more effective in recent months, contributing to several major operations and helping to put an Iraqi face on security operations. Insurgents are determined to discourage new recruits and undermine the effectiveness of existing Iraqi security forces. ¥ The lack of security is hurting Iraq’s reconstruction efforts and economic development, causing overall economic growth to proceed at a much slower pace than many analysts expected a year ago. ¥ Alternatively, the larger uncommitted moderate Sunni population and the Sunni political elite may seize the post electoral moment to take part in creating Iraq’s new political institutions if victorious Shia and Kurdish parties include Sunnis in the new government and the drafting of the constitution.
Potential Areas for Instability Mr. Chairman, in the MIDDLE EAST, the election of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, nevertheless, marks an important step and Abbas has made it clear that negotiating a peace deal with Israel is a high priority. There nevertheless are hurdles ahead. ¥ Redlines must be resolved while Palestinian leaders try to rebuild damaged PA infrastructure and governing institutions, especially the security forces, the legislature, and the judiciary. ¥ Terrorist groups, some of who benefit from funding from outside sources, could step up attacks to derail peace and progress.
In AFRICA, chronic instability will continue to hamper counterterrorism efforts and pose heavy humanitarian and peacekeeping burdens. ¥ In Nigeria, the military is struggling to contain militia groups in the oil-producing south and ethnic violence that frequently erupts throughout the country. Extremist groups are emerging from the country’s Muslim population of about 65 million. ¥ In Sudan, the peace deal signed in January will result in de facto southern autonomy and may inspire rebels in provinces such as Darfur to press harder for a greater share of resources and power. Opportunities exist for Islamic extremists to reassert themselves in the North unless the central government stays unified. ¥ Unresolved disputes in the Horn of Africa—Africa’s gateway to the Middle East—create vulnerability to foreign terrorist and extremist groups. Ethiopia and Eritrea still have a contested border, and armed factions in Somalia indicate they will fight the authority of a new transitional government.
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In LATIN AMERICA, the region is entering a major electoral cycle in 2006, when Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela hold presidential elections. Several key countries in the hemisphere are potential flashpoints in 2005. ¥ In Venezuela, Chavez is consolidating his power by using technically legal tactics to target his opponents and meddling in the region, supported by Castro. ¥ In Colombia, progress against counternarcotics and terrorism under President Uribe’s successful leadership, may be affected by the election.
In SOUTHEAST ASIA, three countries bear close watching. ¥ In Indonesia, President Yudhoyono has moved swiftly to crackdown on corruption. Reinvigorating the economy, burdened by the costs of recovery in tsunami-damaged areas, will likely be affected by continuing deep-seated ethnic and political turmoil exploitable by terrorists. ¥ In the Philippines, Manila is struggling with prolonged Islamic and Communist rebellions. The presence of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorists seeking safe haven and training bases adds volatility and capability to terrorist groups already in place. ¥ Thailand is plagued with an increasingly volatile Muslim separatist threat in its southeastern provinces, and the risk of escalation remains high. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2005/Goss_testimony_ 02162005.html
Robert G. Joseph, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, ‘‘The Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: A Comprehensive Approach to Today’s Most Serious National Security Threat,’’ Prepared Remarks to the Capitol Hill Club, Washington, D.C., July 18, 2006 Over the last 15 years, the nuclear threat to the United States and our friends and allies has changed dramatically. We no longer face a single adversary with thousands of missiles threatening our national existence. Rather, we now live in a world where transnational terrorist networks, motivated by violent and extreme ideologies, have declared their intent to use nuclear weapons against us. We also confront a growing nuclear threat from state sponsors of terrorism, who either possess a nuclear capability or are in the process of developing one. And finally, we are confronted with the prospect of non-state networks that are willing to sell nuclear technology and material to the highest bidder, and through whom terrorists may seek a nuclear weapon. In addition, we are living in an era of globalization, which has yielded gains in economic prosperity and efficiency, as private enterprises have outsourced business functions, made investments abroad, and developed global supply chains. These trends have, at the same time, exposed us to new risks, such as the potential for terrorists to exploit cyberspace, financial networks, and the
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shipping and air transport industry to plan and carry out attacks against our population centers, including with weapons of mass destruction. We must act to counter these emerging threats. On Saturday in St. Petersburg, Presidents Bush and Putin announced the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism1 an effort that will establish a partnership among nations committed to developing their individual and collective capabilities to detect and defeat the most dangerous threat we face—nuclear weapons in the hands of a terrorist. The Threat Today Let me take a moment to outline our assessment of the threat from nuclear terrorism. The attacks of September 11 taught us that terrorists will stop at nothing to attack us and our way of life. Not satisfied with the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, Osama Bin Laden has declared his intention to acquire and use nuclear weapons against the United States with the potential to kill hundreds of thousands. Prior to 9/11, one member of Al Qaeda spoke directly to this point: ‘‘It’s easy to kill more people with uranium.’’ Along with the nuclear threat from terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, we are confronted with a growing nuclear threat from state sponsors of terrorism like Iran and North Korea who violate their obligations under the nonproliferation regimes. In addition, we know that non-state actors such as A.Q. Khan have entered the black market to sell nuclear technology to the highest bidder. The coming together of these trends—on the one hand, the increasingly lethal goals of today’s terrorists and on the other, the illicit trafficking in nuclear material and technology—makes nuclear terrorism both the most serious international security challenge of our time, and the most urgent. Many American leaders have called attention to the threat of nuclear terrorism. President Bush has described this threat as the central national security challenge of our era. Other leaders have voiced similar views. 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton pointed to nuclear terrorism as the most dangerous risk we face, and urged more focused action against the threat. The President’s WMD Commission also emphasized that more must be done to improve our intelligence capabilities to combat this urgent threat. Both of these commissions concluded that Al Qaeda has taken concrete steps to acquire a nuclear weapon by attempting to buy nuclear material on the black market. Fortunately, Bin Laden’s agents likely fell victim to a scam. Many academics and authors have also identified nuclear terrorism as the preeminent threat requiring more focused efforts to counter. All agree that, to defend against this threat, we cannot afford to wait until after an attack before we take corrective action. The consequences could be catastrophic. To be wrong once is to have lost one of our cities. We do not have a second chance; we must take steps now to avert that dark future. The Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism is the first initiative of its kind, one that takes a comprehensive approach to dealing with all elements of the challenge. The Initiative is consistent with, and builds on, existing legal frameworks such as the Nuclear Terrorism Convention and UN Security 1
See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/print/20060715-2.html.
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Council Resolutions 1540 and 1373. It provides a flexible framework that will enable sustained international cooperation to prevent, detect, and respond to the threat of nuclear terrorism. It offers an opportunity for the United States, Russia, and our international partners to speak—and to act. Our National Strategy and Record of Accomplishment … [I]n 2002 the President launched the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction at the G8 Summit. In December 2002, the President approved the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, the first comprehensive strategy of its kind. The National Strategy outlined the importance of integrating the traditional tools of nonproliferation with next generation counterproliferation efforts. Since the promulgation of that strategy, focused efforts have produced results and led directly to operational successes in the field. For example, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), launched by President Bush in 2003 to strengthen international cooperation to disrupt the trade in WMD proliferation now counts over seventy-five partner nations and has played a key role in helping to interdict more than 30 shipments, including the interdiction of centrifuge parts that led to Tripoli’s decision to abandon its chemical and nuclear weapons programs. Under the President’s leadership, a number of departments and agencies are taking a leadership role in implementing the National Strategy to Combat WMD. The Department of Defense promulgated its National Military Strategy to Combat WMD in February of 2006 and assigned U.S. Strategic Command with the responsibility for the combating WMD mission. Strategic Command, in turn, has established a Combating WMD Center at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to bring together the expertise and resources in the Department of Defense to combat this urgent threat. Earlier, as recommended by the WMD Commission, President Bush signed a new Executive Order to ensure that we have the tools to stop the financing of proliferation related activity, a mission led by the Department of the Treasury in consultation with the Department of State. And the Departments Homeland Security and Energy have been active in establishing detection capabilities at ports abroad and at key land borders. At the Department of State, Secretary Rice spearheaded a reorganization of the bureaus under my direction to focus attention on the entire combating WMD mission, as well as the nexus of WMD and terrorism. Finally, the standing up of the National Counter Terrorism Center, as well as the National Counter Proliferation Center, are bringing additional vigor to our planning and intelligence efforts. We are now ready to take the next step—to build the partnerships abroad that are necessary to achieve our strategic goal to protect the American people and citizens of partner nations against nuclear terrorism. Fostering a Global Network of Partners The central objective of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism is to establish a growing network of partner nations that are committed to taking effective measures to build a layered defense-in-depth that can continuously adapt to the changing nature of the threat. While many individual
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programs and efforts have approached one element or aspect of the nuclear terrorism threat, the Global Initiative provides a capacity building framework for establishing new partnerships with those nations that wish to take similar action. In carrying out this new initiative, we will also cooperate with the IAEA and invite them to participate. The approach begins with protecting material at the source. Here, the Global Initiative will build on activities underway through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) and International Counterproliferation Programs and the Department of Energy’s many nonproliferation assistance programs. Our goal is to galvanize our partners to invest greater resources in their own capabilities to protect nuclear material on their territories. We will also seek to develop new partnerships with the private sector to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, including through innovative DHS programs such as the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). Since our efforts to secure nuclear material can never be fail-safe we must develop a robust international detection architecture. Here the Global Initiative will build on and sustain the successes of the Megaports Program and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, and catalyze new partnerships between these programs and their counterparts among partner nations. Our architecture must enable fixed and mobile detection across the air, land, and maritime domains and be flexible enough to ensure that our partners can develop interoperable and complementary capabilities. A comprehensive architecture must also include capabilities to detect the movement of funds and the growing threat posed by terrorists seeking to procure nuclear technology through cyberspace. Here the Global Initiative will build on efforts underway at the Department of the Treasury to block the assets of terrorists and proliferators. To protect cyberspace, we must build on efforts underway in the Department of Homeland Security to protect our critical cyber infrastructure, including the relationship to critical nuclear facilities. We must develop new approaches to stop terrorists from using the virtual safe haven of cyberspace for planning attacks … The Global Initiative will also strengthen our response capabilities to stop imminent attacks and mitigate their consequences should they occur. In this area, we must build on the capabilities of the Department of Energy’s emergency response teams. At the same time, we must acknowledge that U.S. capabilities alone cannot meet this challenge. Rather, through the Global Initiative, we will foster partnerships with counterpart programs among Global Initiative partner nations, and develop cooperative concepts of operations for emergency response and consequence management. By joining the Global Initiative, partner nations will have the opportunity to participate in joint exercises that support the development of their own capabilities, and under certain circumstances, call on the assistance of partner nations for emergency response, consequence management, and criminal justice functions. Transforming Our Diplomacy to Combat WMD Terrorism In launching the Global Initiative, we will also be taking an important step to implement transformational diplomacy outlined by Secretary Rice. Through new, flexible partnerships, as well as stronger bilateral and regional
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ties, the Global Initiative will ensure that our strategies for combating nuclear terrorism are tailored to the conditions prevailing with our partner nations. In bringing to bear all instruments of national power against this threat, the Initiative will bring diplomats together with first responders, forensic and technical experts, law enforcement officers, the military, and others in the public and private sectors who shape the present and future risks of nuclear terrorism. The Global Initiative will not only reinforce our national efforts, but it signals to all participating nations the importance of developing comprehensive approaches to combat the threat of WMD terrorism. The Initiative can help partners improve their understanding of the intentions of terrorists seeking to carry out attacks … The Global Initiative can also serve as the necessary platform for implementing the provisions of the Nuclear Terrorism Convention to ensure that we bring terrorists seeking to carry out nuclear attacks to justice, including through enhanced forensics techniques, as well as through strengthened legal processes. As we proceed, we will build on the success of the Proliferation Security Initiative and the flexible partnerships it has established. However, we will also fill important gaps. For example, while PSI has focused on the interdiction of all WMD and related delivery systems, the Global Initiative brings a special focus to the operational and technical challenges associated with combating the nuclear terrorism threat. While PSI focuses on the proliferation trade among state actors, the Global Initiative will be focused on those pathways of nuclear proliferation that lead to terrorist end users. While PSI has strengthened our interdiction capabilities, the Global Initiative will move beyond interdiction within the nuclear and radiological area, to cooperation on tasks related to material protection, detection, emergency response, consequence management, attribution, and criminal justice. Establishing Robust Interagency and Public-Private Partnerships While the announcement of the Global Initiative shows diplomatic leadership by the United States and Russia, this effort must extend beyond the diplomatic realm to achieve success. In detecting nuclear material coming into our ports and urban areas and sharing best practices with foreign port operators, the Department of Homeland Security and its foreign counterparts must play a central role. In protecting our nuclear facilities from sabotage and exercising such capabilities with foreign partners, the Department of Energy and equivalent agencies abroad must play a central role. In stanching the flow of funds to terrorists seeking to buy nuclear material on the black market, the Department of Treasury and its fellow finance ministries must work closely. In all these areas, all departments and agencies participating in the Global Initiative will have to improve their sharing of information, whether law enforcement, operational, or technical. There is also a large role for the private sector to play in mitigating the risk of nuclear terrorism. In the United States as in other countries, a substantial portion of the nuclear infrastructure is controlled by private sector utilities, laboratories, or university research centers or institutes. By working closely with these private entities, as well as those that supply and insure them, we
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can stimulate the development of best practices, risk management approaches, and codes of conduct. With the launch of the Global Initiative, the United States and Russia have taken a critical step toward developing a global network of like-minded partners to prevent terrorists from acquiring and using a nuclear weapon. Presidents Bush and Putin have provided us with the leadership and vision we need to confront the growing threat of nuclear terrorism. Now we must act to meet the threat of nuclear terrorism, and turn intentions into results. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/69124.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see companion State Department Paper on WMD Terrorism Risk, undated (http://www.state.gov/t/isn/wmd/c16583.htm).
General Michael V. Hayden, Director of Central Intelligence, ‘‘The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,’’ Statement for the Record Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, November 15, 2006 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee: The overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and of Saddam Husayn in Iraq as well as our determined pursuit of al-Qa’ida worldwide have inaugurated a new era of risk and opportunity for the United States in its engagement with much of the Muslim world. We are now face-to-face with whole societies which are in profound and volatile transitions and whose fate will directly affect the security of the United States. With US forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and with the United States leading the global response to the threat of terrorism, we are now actors to an unprecedented degree in supporting states—especially Iraq and Afghanistan—which are attempting to create and sustain a stable new order. ¥ Against this endeavor significant new forces are arrayed. Political and ethno-sectarian forces previously subordinated are now competing to shape the identity of states. Although some of this competition is taking place within the legitimate democratic process, in other cases radical Islamic groups—including terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan—are able to preempt governments and eclipse more moderate actors. ¥ At the regional level, opponents of the United States—like Iran—are seeking to capitalize on the instability of this transitional period to expand their own influence and contest the vision sustained by the United States and its allies.
Afghanistan With these trends in mind, let me begin by focusing on Afghanistan where we have made important progress in the face of substantial challenges. Afghanistan’s future depends heavily on the international community’s willingness to continue delivering concrete resources to the Afghan Government. It
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depends equally on international willingness to help protect the Afghan Government against the Taliban and other extremists who are waging a bloody insurgency in the south and east of the country. Neither of these tasks will be simple, and neither will be completed soon, but the past few years have been a story of success for the Afghan Government and people, as well as the international community. The country made remarkable political progress through the completion of the 2001 Bonn Accord—the political roadmap for rebuilding the country. The international community and the Afghan Government, under the leadership of President Karzai, have built national-level political institutions—including a new constitution, legitimate presidential elections, and a democratically elected parliament. ¥ These are all remarkable achievements given the ruinous decades of war Afghanistan experienced prior to 2001.
The success of the past few years hasn’t lessened the need for international involvement in the country—it has only provided a foundation upon which to build. Now, we need to bolster the Afghan Government’s ability to provide sound governance at all levels of government. Ambassador Neuman recently said the effort would take a long time—in my view, at least a decade—and cost many billions of dollars. I would add that the Afghan Government won’t be able to do it alone. The capacity of the government needs to be strengthened to deliver basic services to the population—especially security. The problems span Afghanistan, but they are especially prevalent in rural areas. The quality of life for millions of Afghans—spread across desolate land and isolated villages—has not advanced and in many areas the Afghan Government is nowhere to be found. ¥ The social situation will get worse if it is not addressed. Right now, about 55 percent of the Afghan population is under the age of 19; millions of young Afghans will enter the labor force over the next 5-10 years, adding to an unemployment burden that is already hovering around 40 percent.
The illicit drug trade is a significant hurdle to the expansion of central government authority and it undercuts efforts to rebuild the economy. The drug trade also fuels provincial and local corruption. According to the IMF, the Afghan opiate GDP in 2005 was $2.6 billion—roughly a third of the country’s $7.3 billion licit GDP. Key to making progress is bolstering security. Even in areas of the country where the insurgency is not active, security is falling short. ¥ There are not enough properly trained, equipped, or well-paid security forces. Even though the Afghan National Army continues to become larger, stronger, and more experienced, progress has been slow and little progress has been made in constructing an effective Afghan National Police force.
The Taliban has built momentum this year. The level of violence associated with the insurgency has increased significantly and the group has become
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more aggressive than in years past. The Taliban almost certainly refocused its attacks in an attempt to stymie NATO’s efforts in southern Afghanistan. ¥ Kabul ’s ability to provide sound governance and badly needed aid to these areas will be key to preventing the Taliban and other extremists from intimidating the population into acquiescing in its activities. ¥ Kabul needs help because it lacks capacity—not because it lacks political will or lacks support. President Karzai understands this and recognizes his government’s responsibility.
Iraq Iraq provides another example of how the forces of change are reshaping the Muslim world. The deep fissures among the groups fighting in Iraq were not created by the Coalition’s overthrow of Saddam’s dictatorship. Throughout Iraq’s modern history, a Sunni minority ruled with the support of the military; Saddam’s cult of personality tragically reinforced this pattern by using extreme violence to suppress the vast majority of Iraq’s inhabitants … ¥ Saddam ruled during his last years through violent repression and by favoring a small elite within the Sunni community from his home region of Tikrit—to the dismay of other Sunnis. ¥ Saddam deliberately diverted resources to his powerbase, depriving much of the rest of the country of economic and educational opportunities, and in the case of the Shia majority, basic religious liberty.
Operation Iraqi Freedom completely upended the Saddamist state and Iraqi society. In every respect—political, social, economic—OIF instituted a sea change in the way Iraq is governed. The dissolution of the Iraqi military and the Ba’th party swept away the tools that a small group in power had used to terrorize Iraq, and the subsequent vacuum of authority gave vent to deep seated hatreds that had simmered for years in a brutalized society: ¥ The Shia now focus on assuring that Iraq’s new government reflects the will of the majority Shia population and making sure the Ba’thists never regain power. This fear of a return to Ba’thism is almost palpable among Shia elites. Sunnis view the Shia as Iranian controlled and the current government as predatory. The Kurds, for their part, want to keep and strengthen the substantial autonomy they have exercised since 1991. ¥ It is also noteworthy, however, that the Shia and the Kurds, with some Sunni participation, crafted a democratic constitution that could provide a structure to allow Iraqis to settle their differences peacefully. For this to happen, Iraqi leaders—Shia, Sunnis and Kurds alike—will need to flesh out the document through extensive legislation in such a way that all parties, and particularly the Sunni public, accept as legitimate.
We are all acutely aware that Iraq today is very far from peaceful. While some Sunnis participate in the political process, many seek to undermine it through violence. These Sunni insurgents might disagree on Iraq’s future, but all reject the Coalition presence and the constitutional regime they erroneously assert the Coalition has imposed on Iraq. Moreover, No single narrative
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is sufficient to explain all the violence in Iraq today. There remains in Iraq today an active insurgency; a broad al-Qai’da offensive targeting us and Iraqis; criminality and lawlessness on a broad scale; rival militias competing for power. Since the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra last February, however, violence between Arab Shia and Sunnis has grown to such an extent that sectarian violence now presents the greatest immediate threat to Iraq’s stability and future. ¥ Last year violence was mostly limited to Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition and Iraqi targets, but now Shia militia attacks against Sunnis and Coalition forces are an integral part of the pattern of violence. ¥ The Kurds live in a fairly homogeneous region under self-government. Yet in the seamline where Kurds, Arabs, and others meet, we see worrying signs—such as a recent surge in violence in the city of Kirkuk—that the legacy of Iraq’s repressive past continues to shape both the Arab/Kurd and the Sunni/Shia fault lines in Iraqi society.
Any Iraqi leader, no matter how skillful, would be hard pressed to reconcile the divergent perspectives that Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds bring to the table— and also to the streets. To strengthen the common ground that all Iraqis can share, the government of Prime Minister Maliki will have to overcome several formidable obstacles: ¥ Internal divisions and power struggles among the Shia make it difficult for Shia leaders to take the actions that might ease Sunni fears of domination. Radical Shia militias and splinter groups stoke the violence, while brutal Sunni attacks make even moderate Shia question whether it is possible to reconcile the Sunnis to the new Shia-dominated power structures. The Iranian hand is stoking violence and supporting even competing Shia factions. ¥ The Sunnis are even more divided. Many see violent opposition as the only way to overcome the democratic rules that, due to demographic realities, place a ceiling on Sunni political influence.
Even if the central government gains broader support from Iraq’s communities, implementing the reforms needed to improve life for all Iraqis will be extremely difficult. Iraq’s endemic violence is eating away at the state’s ability to govern. The security forces are plagued by sectarianism and severe maintenance and logistics problems; inadequate ministerial capacity is limiting progress on key issues; and the civilian bureaucracy, buffeted by corruption, inefficiency and partisan control, is not currently up to the challenge of providing better services to the Iraqi people. Only if the Iraqi state asserts its authority across the board can the government in Baghdad begin to turn its goals into concrete realities. Complicating these historic forces is the pernicious effect of al-Qa’ida’s presence in Iraq. Despite Zarqawi’s death, al-Qa’ida continues to foment sectarian violence and seeks to expel coalition forces. An al-Qa’ida victory in Iraq would mean a fundamentalist state that shelters jihadists and serves as a launching pad for terrorist operations throughout the region—and in the United States.
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Turning next to al-Qa’ida … Al-Qa’ida sees its war against the West as the continuation of a decades, perhaps centuries-old, struggle to defend Islam from political and cultural domination by a Judeo-Christian alliance now led by the United States and Israel. Since Bin Ladin declared war on the United States in 1998, al-Qa’ida has focused primarily on attacks aimed at weakening and punishing the United States and its immediate allies. ¥ The group sees the United States as the main obstacle to realizing its vision of an extreme fundamentalist social and political order throughout the Muslim world. ¥ Although the group has suffered significant losses since 9/11, it is resilient and thoroughly dedicated to mounting new attacks on the US Homeland and our interests abroad.
Understanding the source of al-Qa’ida’s resilience is key to defeating it. With regard to the central organization headed by Bin Ladin, that resilience stems from several factors: First, the group’s cadre of seasoned, committed leaders has allowed it to remain fairly cohesive and stay focused on its strategic objectives—despite having lost a number of important veterans over the years. ¥ Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri continue to play a crucial role in inspiring jihadists and promoting unity. Their demise would not spell the end of the threat, but probably would contribute to the unraveling of the central al-Qa’ida organization. ¥ The loss of a series of veteran al-Qa’ida leaders since 9/11 has been mitigated by the group’s ‘‘deep bench’’ of lower-ranking personnel capable of stepping up to assume leadership responsibilities. Although a number of individuals are new to senior management in al-Qa’ida, they are not new to jihad: they average over 40 years of age and nearly two decades of involvement in jihad.
A second critical factor is the group’s physical safehaven in the AfghanistanPakistan border area. This safehaven gives al-Qa’ida the physical—and psychological—space needed to meet, train, expand its networks, and prepare new attacks. ¥ Many locals have ties to al-Qa’ida dating back to the 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. ¥ Rooting out al-Qa’ida elements there is complicated by the rugged terrain and a local culture that is intensely suspicious of—and, at times, overtly hostile to—outsiders, including government security forces. ¥ The safehaven not only gives al-Qa’ida and the Taliban a venue for terrorist plotting, but also serves as a jump-off point for its guerrilla forays into Afghanistan.
A third important factor is Bin Ladin’s extremist ideology and strategic vision, which continues to attract recruits, inspire like-minded groups, and help our enemies weather setbacks and reconcile themselves to a long struggle. ¥ In addition to planning attacks of its own, al-Qa’ida supports terrorist activities by other groups and seeks to encourage Muslims worldwide to take up the cause of violent jihad.
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¥ Al-Qa’ida spreads its propaganda through taped statements—sometimes featuring relatively sophisticated production values—as well as books and websites. ¥ As a Western nation, we have limited tools to counteract this propaganda. We need to make sure our own message is clear and we need work with our Muslim allies.
Finally, it’s important to note that the asymmetric nature of al-Qa’ida’s style of warfare gives it certain advantages. ¥ Our open society presents an almost endless source of targets, and the enemy has demonstrated its ruthlessness through a willingness to attack civilians—including other Muslims—a preference for spectacular, high-casualty operations, and its own adherents’ desire for martyrdom. ¥ As 9/11 showed, even a handful of committed attackers, with relatively modest resources, can inflict terrible damage.
Mr. Chairman, in all aspects of today’s global struggle, we are dealing with deep historical forces and it will require patience and wisdom as well as power for us to deal with them. This will be a long struggle. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2006/DCIA_SASC_Tes timony.html
18 Intelligence The 9/11 attacks touched off heated debates about whether there were intelligences failures and gaps. This led to reorganizations in the intelligence community. This chapter focuses on the responses and restructuring by the intelligence community. For context, this chapter should be read in conjunction with chapter 4, containing pre-9/11 statements from intelligence officials. In an April 17, 1985, speech, then-CIA Director William Casey described the threat of stateless, politically motivated, violent actors and asked the question, ‘‘how do we cope with these small bands of highly-trained people?’’ He spoke of ‘‘fanatics, ready to give up life itself to do their evil work and increasingly sophisticated as they move around the world crossing borders with officially and professionally prepared papers.’’ On April 21, 1993, after the first World Trade Center attack, CIA Director James Woolsey noted that ‘‘the United States remains the single-most important target for international terrorists.’’ The chapter on intelligence focuses on speeches and testimonies regarding the makeup and restructuring of the intelligence community pre-9/11, post9/11, and to the present. Relevant intelligence before 9/11 is acknowledged but often dismissed as far too general. For example, James Pavitt, the CIA deputy director of operations, said in an April 11, 2002, speech that before 9/11, ‘‘[w]e had very, very good intelligence of the general structure and strategies of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. We knew and we warned that al Qaeda was planning a major strike.’’ However, ‘‘we never found the tactical intelligence, never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those tragic strikes.’’ Testimony and statements in this chapter describe how agencies reorganized to increase the chances of ‘‘connecting the dots’’ and preventing further attacks. On May 14, 2004, Attorney General Ashcroft said, ‘‘the single greatest structural cause for terrorist attacks of September 11 were impediments to communication and information sharing among the men and women charged with keeping Americans safe’’ (citing his April 13 testimony to the 9/11 commission). As part of the reorganization, the CIA’s Pavitt, in his previously mentioned speech, said the CIA ‘‘built new units and teams around seasoned officers and
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drew heavily on the quality that describes clandestine service and the CIA as a whole-initiative and agility.’’ John E. McLaughlin, the acting CIA director, testified August 17, 2004, on CIA reorganization and activities. On October 1, 2002, at the Department of State, Counterterrorism Coordinator Frank Taylor said that to ‘‘detect, deter, and disrupt terrorist activities around the world,’’ the State Department was concentrating on ‘‘sharing information, interagency groups, information technology, state and local cooperation, and overseas activities.’’ The WMD Commission report was discussed by President Bush and CIA Director Porter J. Goss on March 31, 2005. On May 11, 2006, as part of an intelligence gathering strategy, President Bush authorized the ‘‘National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.’’ His announcement led to a dispute with Congress over the executive branch’s powers and enactment of new legislation.
Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, U.S. Air Force, Director of the National Security Agency, Opening Remarks at the Partnerships for Combating Terrorism Forum, March 4, 2002 NSA is the nation’s cryptologic organization, the world’s best at making and breaking codes. We protect the security of the U.S. government’s classified and sensitive communications and provide intelligence information derived from foreign communications and signals. Intelligence and information assurance have always complemented each other. Intelligence gives us an information advantage over our adversaries. Information assurance prevents others from gaining a comparable advantage over us. The two functions serve as the offensive and defensive squads of a team dedicated to a single goal—information superiority for the United States and its allies. Intelligence is, of course, vital to combating terrorism. The ultimate weapon against terrorists is information regarding their identity and intent. Terrorists depend upon absolute secrecy in conducting their operations, and pose no match for security forces when their activities are compromised. Given our many points of vulnerability and the near-impossibility of defending them all adequately, our homeland security program must include intelligence capabilities that take the initiative away from our adversaries. But intelligence is useless if it doesn’t get to the people who need it. It must be shared, and this is where the defensive team—information assurance—has a key role to play. As we discuss federal, state, and local partnerships here today, I expect that much of the discussion will focus on protecting the networks and information systems that will make these partnerships possible. Before we get into the details, I’d like to make three larger points about the role of information assurance in building partnerships for homeland security. First, our partnerships, like much of our national enterprise, will depend critically on the trustworthiness and availability of our information infrastructure. Second, this infrastructure constitutes a high-value target. And third,
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protecting the information infrastructure will require partnership not only across the various levels of government but with the private sector, as well. In recent years, the nation has become highly dependent on networked information systems to conduct essential activities, including military operations and government business. This technology has become simultaneously one of our most important sources of competitive advantage and one of our most serious strategic vulnerabilities. Our ability to network has far outpaced our ability to protect networks. The efficiency that networking has made possible has come at the price of increased vulnerability of data and systems to attack. Information in unprotected or poorly protected networks can be accessed, changed, or destroyed. Unprotected systems can be controlled, damaged, or shut down, and critical services denied. In a world where information systems control key functions and critical infrastructures, logic bombs rival iron bombs in their power to bring operations to a standstill. The emergence of cyberspace has opened a path over which an attacker could strike powerfully against our homeland—and our efforts to protect our homeland—through cyber attacks against the data and systems on which we depend. The attacks of September 11th have generated a tremendous amount of cooperative effort to defend the country in physical space. We need a comparable sense of urgency and an even greater level of partnership to defend the country in cyberspace. The vulnerability of our infrastructure is thus neither an entirely public nor an entirely private problem. The risk it poses is common to government, business, and citizen alike. Reducing that risk will require coordinated effort within and between the private and public sectors. The need for infrastructure protection creates a zone of shared responsibility and potential cooperation for industry and government. New forms of information sharing between government and the private sector are needed both to improve the effectiveness of the measures put in place to protect the infrastructure and to provide the earliest possible warning of attack. State and local law enforcement have key roles to play in the national defensive information operations effort as primary channels for communication with businesses and communities. That’s the big picture. Our focus today is how we can optimize information sharing within government. Again, assuring our information is key to our success. On January 18th a ten-state coalition of state and local law enforcement organizations met to discuss homeland security, and identified the following challenges: ¥ Develop a secure system for information exchange. ¥ Standardize protocols and access to critical information. ¥ Implement a standard notification system to alert officers if persons of interest to intelligence agencies or INS are encountered. ¥ Develop data integration systems.
The solutions to each of these challenges require confidentiality through encryption, verification of data integrity, authentication of originators, proof
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of participation by parties to a transaction, and availability of service on demand—that is, the full range of information assurance services. SOURCE: http://www.nsa.gov/releases/relea00061.pdf
Jim Pavitt, CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Address to Duke University Law School Conference, April 11, 2002 It’s important to note tonight that we did not discover terrorism on the 12th of September. For many of us the war commenced many many years earlier. In 1986 when the Cold War was still a defining fact of political life in the United States of America the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency created something he called the Counter-Terrorist Center. Now more than 15 years since that the CIA’s Counter-Terrorist Center known to us as CTC remains a model of America’s war against terrorism. Analysts in the intelligence world, in my field case officers as we call them, operations officers, combine their talents and their diverse experiences to the end of getting us a fuller picture of both the terrorist threat, the terrorist mentality, and they help us to create well-informed strategies for fighting it. We’ve had a number of significant successes over the years, but the fact remains, and I think it’s important that I cite this, that we in the government of the United States as a whole could not neither prevent or precisely predict the devastating tragedy of the September 11th attacks. Why do I say that? I believe the answer to the question lies in the very nature of the target itself. On September 10th we were devoting more and more resources against the terrorist target than at any other intelligence challenge we faced. Let me tell you what we knew on the 10th of September. We had very, very good intelligence of the general structure and strategies of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. We knew and we warned that al Qaeda was planning a major strike. There need be no question about that. What didn’t we know? We never found the tactical intelligence, never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those tragic strikes that we all remember so well. And as a reality of that difficult and often frustrating fight against terror, the terror cells that we’re going up against are typically small and all terrorist personnel in those cells, participating in those cells, perpetrating the acts of terror, all those personnel were carefully screened. The number of personnel who know vital information, targets, timing, and the exact methods to be used had to be smaller still. Some of you out there may have heard bin Laden himself speak about this on that shocking videotape that we recovered in Afghanistan. On that tape when he was speaking to friends as he sat around in a little room, he talks about the fact that some of the hijackers, indeed, some of the most senior members of his inner circle had been kept in the dark about the full extent of that destruction operation that took place in New York and in Washington on the 11th of September. In my business we call that compartmentation. In his business, terror, killing of innocent people, he calls that compartmentation.
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Against that degree of control, that kind of compartmentation, that depth of discipline and fanaticism, I personally doubt, and I draw again upon my 30 years of experience in this business, that anything short of one of the knowledgeable inner circle personnel or hijackers turning himself in to us would have given us sufficient foreknowledge to have prevented the horrendous slaughter that took place on the 11th. While we did not stop the awful carnage that day our years of preparation and our experience allowed us to respond to the challenges of war quickly and effectively. From the moment the second tower was hit in New York, CIA began to shift resources to both collection and analysis. We knew from the start that our key contribution would come not in now numbers but in expertise. We’ve built new units and teams around seasoned officers and we drew heavily on the quality that describes clandestine service and the CIA as a whole—initiative and agility. Teams of my paramilitary operations officers trained not just to observe conditions but if need be to change them, were among the first on the ground in Afghanistan. With a small logistical footprint they came with lightning speed. We were on the ground within days of that terrible attack. They also came with something else. They came with knowledge of local languages, whatever you heard to the contrary notwithstanding, terrain, and politics. Let me be clear. I am extraordinarily proud of my officers. Proud of their accomplishments. More proud still of their courage. In those few days that it took us to get there after that terrible, terrible attack, my officers stood on Afghan soil, side by side with Afghan friends that we had developed over a long period of time, and we launched America’s war against al Qaeda. None of this came easy. You cannot learn Pushtan overnight, and you can’t truly understand the complexities of tribalism, regionalism, and personalism in Afghanistan by reading the newspaper or a learned book. My people learned about this by years of study and years of practice often in difficult, hostile places and yes indeed, on the ground in Afghanistan itself. If you hear somebody say, and I have, the CIA abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets left and that we never paid any attention to that place until September 11th, I would implore you to ask those people how we were able to accomplish all we did since the Soviets departed. How we knew who to approach on the ground, which operations, which warlord to support, what information to collect. Quite simply, we were there well before the 11th of September. In a run-up to the millennium celebrations the CIA warned the President of the United States of serious terrorism conspiracies around the world. We predicted, we told the President, that there would be between five and 15 serious attacks against on U.S. soil. But we did much much more than warn. With our allies and our partners around the world we launched immense efforts to counter those threats. Hundreds of terrorists were arrested, multiple cells of terrorism were destroyed. One terrorist cell planned to blow up a hotel, buses and holy cites in both Israel and Jordan. It had also planned to use chemical weapons. The moments of relevant peace we associate with the millennium were not the result of either chance or accident, they were the
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result clearly of great skill on the part of a good many people and very hard work. Good intelligence stopped terrorism. We knew then just as we know now that al Qaeda and those who would continue its mission of murder were nothing if they’re not resilient. Remember, the World Trade Center was attacked once before. Stripped today of their huge safe haven in Afghanistan, denied their sanctuary with their allies, the Taliban, driven from power, they are trying even as we sit here tonight in the splendor of this site, trying to recruit, recover and attack us again. And attack us again they will. Before and after September 11th the CIA has pursued an elusive, deadly enemy. More than 1,000 extremists that we believe are linked to al Qaeda have been arrested in more than 70 countries since the attacks on the 11th. But despite what sounds like large numbers, staggering success, the fact of the matter is that we are far from finished. There’s a good deal more to be done. There’s much more to be done. Today, the year 2002, I have more spies stealing more secrets than at any time in the history of the CIA. I’m proud of what we do and proud more of those who put their lives on the lines to protect the lives and freedom of others. I ask you to take me at my word. We’re stealing more secrets, providing our leadership with more intelligence than we’ve ever done before. To those who preach hate and hopelessness, the murder of innocents is no crime at all. They falsely portray the massacre of ordinary men, women and children of every race and of every creed as a revenge of the powerless against the powerful. It is no such thing. But as we fight the terrorist groups of today we must be, and frankly we have been, careful to avoid the sort of indiscriminate response that would only add to the strengths of terrorists who will strike us tomorrow. At the same time, the world must find a way to come to grips with the roots of terror. I’m an intelligence officer. That’s a responsibility for someone else. But for those who do shape policy the challenge is not merely to attack terrorism but to attack the causes of terrorism as well. … Alongside with military and diplomatic coalitions, there’s something I think very important and that is a global coalition of intelligence services. From around the world, from our allies and our partners, we receive and we share information. We plan operations together and together in many instances we take terrorists off the streets. The cooperation that I’ve just described is vital and it is growing. And it is, like so many other parts of my profession, ultimately founded on relationships of great competence and great trust. Now for the hard truth. Despite the best efforts of so much of the world, the next terrorist attack—it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. With so many possible targets and an enemy more than willing to die, the perfect defense isn’t possible. If I knew any society that would mount such a perfect defense devoid as it would be of the liberties that makes us great, is not worth defending. … My operations officers, talented and bold enough to identify and acquire intelligence anywhere in the world is what we need. Analysts, intelligence analysts skilled and knowledgeable enough to see patterns and data where others
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do not, that’s what we need. And finally, scientists, engineers, and support officers who are gifted enough to create the conditions and the tools and the technologies that let the operations officers and the analysts excel. I have those officers at CIA and I’m getting more. After the deep, debilitating cuts of the 1990s, when any thought that the end of the Cold War would bring us a safer, more predictable world, one in which intelligence was not important, a world in which intelligence officers were no longer as necessary, we now continue to rebuild, back to essential strength where we can continue to do what you and others ask me to do. In the Directorate of Operations alone, since just five or six years ago, we are training more than 10 times as many operations officers. These are people with qualifications that we need today and tomorrow.… SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2002/pavitt_04262002. html
CIA Spokesman Bill Harlow, Statement of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Efforts, September 19, 2002 There appears to be some misunderstanding about the nature and extent of CIA’s efforts directed against terrorism in general, and Usama bin Laden and the Al-Qaida organization in particular, during the period prior to September 11, 2001. We believe it is necessary and appropriate to set the record straight. The number of officers assigned to CTC has more than doubled again since September 11th, and the number of analysts within CTC has quadrupled since the attacks. Specifically, the Joint Inquiry statement reports that prior to September 11, 2001, CTC had ‘‘40 analysts to analyze terrorism issues worldwide, with only one of the five branches focused on terrorist tactics.’’ This is incorrect. Prior to September 11, the CIA had about 115 analysts throughout the CIA, including those assigned to CTC itself, who were working terrorism-related issues or applying specialized skills to the overall terrorism problem. The Joint Inquiry statement also reports that ‘‘in 1999, for example, the CTC had only three analysts assigned full-time to Bin Laden’s terrorist effort worldwide. After 2000 (but before September 11, 2001) that number had risen to five.’’ This also is incorrect. In 1999, CTC had nine analysts within its analytic group assigned to monitor UBL and Al-Qaida worldwide. Added to those nine, CIA had the equivalent of eight additional analysts devoted to UBL and Al-Qaida issues across the Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI). Moreover, about 20 additional DI analysts were assigned to operations issues within CTC to work various aspects of UBL and Al-Qaida from an operational standpoint. Regarding resources directed at UBL, the statement says there were ‘‘approximately 35-40 personnel assigned to CTC’s special Bin Laden unit,’’ but does not point out that this unit tasked and directed about 200 Agency officers deployed worldwide to work the counterterrorism target. The Joint Inquiry Staff statement correctly points out that Director Tenet told Agency officers in 1998 that we were in a war with Usama bin Laden.
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The CIA did devote great resources to that effort, the results of which, in part, can be seen in the fulsome reporting, some of which is covered in the Joint Inquiry Staff statement and in the aggressive worldwide efforts to combat terrorism. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2002/pr09192002. html
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee, Washington, D.C., October 1, 2002 AS PREPARED Mr. Chairman, Committee Members: … An issue of vital importance to America’s efforts to combat terrorism … is the way we share terrorist-related information within the U.S. Government. Information is a key weapon in the global war on terrorism. Having timely and accurate intelligence is essential to disrupt terrorist activity and dismantle terrorist infrastructure. Information is also one of America’s key defenses to deter threats and prevent terrorist acts before they happen. It is in its unique offensive and defensive capacities that having access to intelligence and analysis proves critical to fighting terrorism. I have served as the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism since July 2001. I will never forget the chilling call I received at my desk on September 11: two planes had struck the World Trade Center towers. America and the world would never be the same. A call soon after from Deputy Secretary of State Armitage summoned me to the State Department’s Operations Center, beginning a non-stop effort to help coordinate the U.S. government’s response to the attacks. The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism serves as the lead for coordinating international counterterrorism policy within the U.S. Government and with foreign governments. The Office of the Coordinator is a major intelligence consumer, rather than an intelligence producer, and our mission depends on the timely and efficient flow of information on terrorism and terrorist threats. One of our objectives therefore is to enhance the sharing of threat and other counterterrorism intelligence between our government and the many other governments around the world that are contributing to the global war on terrorism. We monitor and analyze information, but are not directly involved in the mechanisms and infrastructure through which data is shared within and between agencies.… International Efforts I would like to emphasize that we at the Department of State are working aggressively with our fellow agencies and international partners to detect, deter, and disrupt terrorist activities around the world. And when terrorist attacks occur, we work cooperatively with intelligence and law enforcement
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agencies to track down and seek the arrest, extradition, or prosecution of the perpetrators. A key aspect of these activities is intelligence sharing. For example, since the attacks of September 11, the Department has worked hard to step up U.S. government and international efforts to cut off the funds that terrorist organizations such as al-Qa’ida need to survive. This requires substantial sharing of information and intelligence with many countries. Again, I would reiterate that as an institution our mission depends on effective and timely information sharing. Consequently, we are very supportive of efforts to improve the processes involved and it is the Department’s policy to support and seek expansion of our intelligence sharing capacity. Sharing Information … In addition to the daily telephone and in-person contacts with our colleagues in other agencies, there are several processes and procedures in place at the State Department to receive terrorism-related information from the intelligence community and law enforcement organizations. The State Department and its overseas posts are integrated into both classified and unclassified electronic communications networks used by other federal agencies, and the State Department both receives and transmits information on terrorism directly through those channels. Additionally, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) receives terrorism-related sensitive classified intelligence reports from other intelligence community components through dedicated communications, including INTELINK, a web-based communications medium. This data sharing follows the policies and procedures established by the Director of Central Intelligence for the handling of classified intelligence material. In 1987, the State Department established the TIPOFF program for the purpose of using biographic information drawn from intelligence products for watchlisting purposes. In 1993, we established the Visas Viper program as a dedicated telegraphic channel for reporting information on known and suspected terrorists directly to the TIPOFF staff. The Viper channel is used both by our posts overseas and by intelligence agency headquarters in Washington.… In addition to receiving information through the Viper channel, TIPOFF draws from all sources the information it uses to watchlist terrorists. Independently from TIPOFF, the Bureau of Consular Affairs also receives basic biographic data directly from the FBI criminal databases—some of which might include information about terrorists—and feeds that information into the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS). All consular officers adjudicating visa applications overseas run checks against that system before issuing a visa. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security receives information from a variety of sources. Domestically, DS receives information from other federal and local law enforcement agencies directly at the headquarters level and through field offices. Overseas, information is acquired from host governments or other USG sources at our Missions abroad. Data arrives via correspondence, reports, reliable sources, and even untested ‘‘walk-ins.’’ The process by which the
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information is received is often diverse. Once received, DS may forward its information for inclusion in TIPOFF or the CLASS system. Interagency Groups Since ramping-up our counterterrorism activities over the last year, State Department personnel have participated in—and continue to participate in—a number of interagency organizations and task forces. Consular Affairs is represented at the FBI’s Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, the Secret Service’s Document Security Alliance Group, and the interagency Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons Coordination Center. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) represents the Department on the Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism also participate in selected committee activities. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is a member of the FBI’s 19 Regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Alien Smuggling Task Force. Individual employees of the Department have also been integrated into a number of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, including INTERPOL, the Director of Central Intelligence’s Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism and the DCI’s Counterterrorism Center, the FBI’s Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, the Data Management Improvement Act Task Force, and the Office of Homeland Security. State also chairs the Data Share Working Group of the Border Agency Partnership, and Visas Viper committees composed of the many agencies represented at our posts abroad work to coordinate the reporting of terrorism information to Washington and its entry into the TIPOFF system. In addition, my office hosts liaison officers from CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and FBI’s International Terrorist Operations Section. These partnerships have been very effective in pursuing the United States’ counterterrorism goals, and the sharing of information as it relates to these activities generally has been excellent, though there remains room for improvement. State Department personnel participating in these groups and task forces generally enjoy broad access to terrorism-related information. We offer the same access to CIA and FBI personnel in the State Department. Information Technology Terrorism-related information, especially that used for watchlisting terrorists, is shared within and outside the State Department through a variety of electronic media, in hardcopy, and by oral briefings. For example, the Department’s TIPOFF watchlist program receives information electronically and feeds it directly into the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS), which is checked by consular officers worldwide as a mandatory step in the visa adjudication process. Under the terms of a 1991 MOU approved by the intelligence and law enforcement communities, that information is also entered into the Interagency Border Inspection System (IBIS) for use by U.S. Immigration and Customs officers at ports-of-entry. In August 2002, the entire TIPOFF database, including full biographic records on nearly 85,000
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terrorist names, photos, fingerprints, and on-line source documentation, was made available on CT-LINK to authorized users from five Intelligence Community and law enforcement agencies. That information is now instantly available to those users for analytical and law enforcement purposes. State and Local Cooperation In addition to working closely with its federal counterparts, The Department of State understands the benefits of integrating state and local law enforcement agencies into its counterterrorism activities, in accordance with applicable law and regulations. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security has 21 offices in the United States, each having liaison responsibility with state and local law enforcement on a variety of law enforcement issues, including counterterrorism. DS exchanges information among these entities on a regular basis. Domestically, DS focuses investigating passport and visa fraud and its mission to protect Department of State and international persons and facilities. In addition to DS, other parts of the Department are involved in efforts to share information with local and state law enforcement authorities. The INR TIPOFF program currently does not share information directly with state and local law enforcement agencies due to restrictions on disclosure of sensitive intelligence information to persons not authorized to receive it. However, an agreement was written after 9/11 that permits TIPOFF to periodically export certain declassified biographic data elements from its database under strictly controlled conditions to the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force. Under procedures established by the DCI, classified background information may be provided to authorized FTTTF personnel for law enforcement purposes. The Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force has the ability to share certain declassified biographic data with authorized state and local law enforcement officers by means of the FBI’s Joint Terrorist Task Forces. The INR TIPOFF initiative is another example of the Department’s efforts to responsibly maximize information sharing. Discussions with the FBI are underway which will permit a portion of the TIPOFF database to be placed in the National Crime Information Center’s Violent Gangs and Terrorist Organizations File. Local law enforcement has access to that database. Overseas Activities Overseas, the Department also facilitates information sharing with foreign law enforcement authorities. Regional Security Officers, the Department’s law enforcement officers at overseas Missions, are responsible for initiating and maintaining an open line of communication with host country law enforcement on a variety of security issues, including terrorism. Of course, the security environment and other factors dictate what method and level of information sharing is appropriate. For example, the Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) Program may help educate foreign counterparts on the benefits and methodology of information sharing. The information shared is based on a variety of sources, both USG and others. Its substance may have direct impact on the safety of our employees and Americans overseas. As importantly, it may impact our security at home.
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What remains critical in the process is that the sharing of the information cannot be considered the end use. Rather, it must be quickly and accurately vetted and applied to have any value. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/13891.htm
Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Written Statement Before the Joint Inquiry Committee, October 17, 2002 … On September 11th, nearly three thousand innocent lives were taken in brutal acts of terror.… It is important for the American people to understand what CIA and the Intelligence Community were doing to try to prevent the attack that occurred—and to stop attacks, which al-Qa’ida has certainly planned and remains determined to attempt. Let me begin by describing the rise of Usama Bin Laden and the Intelligence Community’s Response. ¥ We recognized early on the threat posed by Usama Bin Laden and his supporters. ¥ As that threat developed, we tracked it and we reported it to Executive Branch policymakers, Congress, and, when feasible, directly to the American people. ¥ We reacted to the growing threat by conducting energetic, innovative, and increasingly risky operations to combat it. We went on the offensive. ¥ And this effort mattered. It saved lives—perhaps in the thousands. And it prepared the field for the rapid successes in Afghanistan last winter.
The Early Years: Terrorist Financier (1986-1996) Bin Laden gained prominence during the Afghan war for his role in financing the recruitment, transportation, and training of Arab nationals who fought alongside the Afghan mujahedin against the Soviets during the 1980s. ¥ While we knew of him, we have no record of any direct US Government contact with Bin Laden at that time. ¥ Bin Laden came to the attention of the CIA as an emerging terrorist threat during his stay in Sudan from 1991 to 1996.
CIA reported that during Bin Ladin’s five-year residence in Sudan he combined business with jihad under the umbrella of al-Qa’ida. ¥ In May 1993, for example, al-Qa’ida financed the travel of more than 300 Afghan war veterans to Sudan after the Pakistani government launched a crackdown against foreign Islamic extremists based in Pakistan. ¥ By January 1994, al-Qa’ida had begun financing at least three terrorist training camps in northern Sudan. Among the trainers were Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian, and Palestinian extremists. ¥ Islamic extremists, who in December 1992 bombed a hotel housing US servicemen in Aden, Yemen, said Bin Laden financed their group. ¥ We learned in 1996 that Bin Laden sent members to Somalia in 1993 to work as advisors with Somali warlord Aideed in opposing US forces sent there in support of Operation Restore Hope.…
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¥ After Bin Laden had left Sudan we learned that al-Qa’ida had attempted to acquire material used in pursuing a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) capability and had hired a Middle Eastern physicist to work on nuclear and chemical projects in Sudan.
As Bin Ladin’s prominence grew in the early 1990’s, it became clear to CIA that it was not enough simply to collect and report intelligence about him. ¥ As early as 1993, our units watching him began to propose action to reduce his organization’s capabilities.
… In an open forum I cannot describe what authorities we sought or received. But it is important that the American people understand two things: ¥ The first is about covert action in general: CIA can only pursue such activities with the express authorization of the President. ¥ The second point is that, when such proposals are considered, it is always because we or policymakers identify a threatening situation, a situation to which we must pay far more attention and one in which we must run far greater risks. As long ago as 1993, we saw such a situation with Usama Bin Laden.
By the time Bin Laden left Sudan in 1996 and relocated himself and his terror network to Afghanistan, the Intelligence Community was taking strong action to stop him. ¥ We established a special unit—known as the Bin Laden Issue Station … to get more—and more actionable—intelligence on Bin Laden and his organization.… ¥ We monitored his whereabouts and increased our knowledge about him and his organization with information from our own assets and from many foreign intelligence services. ¥ We were working hard on an aggressive program to disrupt his finances, degrade his ability to engage in terrorism, and, ultimately, to bring him to justice.
Taliban Sanctuary Years: Becoming a Strategic Threat Beginning in January 1996, we began to receive reports that Bin Laden planned to move from Sudan.… ¥ We have read the allegations that, around this time, the Sudanese Government offered to surrender Bin Laden to American custody.… CIA has no knowledge of such an offer.
Later in 1996, it became clear that he had moved to Afghanistan. From that safe haven, he defined himself publicly as a threat to the United States. In a series of declarations, he made clear his hatred for Americans and all we represent. ¥ In July 1996, Bin Laden described the killing of Americans in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in June 1996 as the beginning of a war between Muslims and the United States. ¥ One month later, in August 1996, Bin Laden issued a religious edict or fatwa entitled ‘‘Declaration of War,’’ authorizing attacks against Western military targets on the Arabian Peninsula.…
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By the time of the 1998 East Africa bombings, al-Qa’ida had established its intention to inflict mass casualties and a modus operandi emphasizing careful planning and exhaustive field preparations, which Bin Laden saw as a prerequisite for the type of spectacular operations he had in mind.… The East Africa bombings in August 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 succeeded because of al-Qa’ida’s meticulous preparation and effective security practices. ¥ CIA analysts looked at captured al-Qa’ida targeting studies and training materials around the time of the East Africa and USS Cole attacks. They published an indepth intelligence study of al-Qa’ida’s terrorist operations that revealed that much of the terrorists’ advance planning involved careful, patient, and meticulous preparation.
Beyond the conventional threat, we were also becoming increasingly concerned—and therefore stepped up our warning—about al-Qa’ida’s interest in acquiring unconventional weapons, not only chemical or biological elements, but nuclear materials as well. ¥ In a December 1998 interview, Bin Laden called the acquisition of these weapons a ‘‘religious duty’’ and noted, ‘‘How we would use them is up to us.’’ ¥ We reported in 1998 that an extremist associated with Al-Qa’ida said Bin Laden was seeking a ‘‘Hiroshima.’’ ¥ As early as July 1993, in testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, DCI Woolsey warned of the Intelligence Community’s heightened sensitivity to the prospect that a terrorist incident could involve weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In February 1996, in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, DCI Deutch expressed his concern about the growing lethality, sophistication, and wide-ranging nature of the terrorist threat, and that terrorists would push this trend to its most ‘‘awful extreme by employing weapons of mass destruction.’’ I made similar warnings to these committees as early as 1998, when I pointed to Bin Ladin’s attempts to purchase or manufacture biological and chemical weapons for an attack against US facilities.1 ¥ CIA analysts published two in-depth assessments on al-Qa’ida’s CBRN capabilities in 1999.
The terrorist plotting, planning, recruiting, and training that Bin Laden and al-Qa’ida did in the late 1990s were aided immeasurably by the sanctuary the Taliban provided. ¥ Afghanistan had served as a place of refuge for international terrorists since the 1980s. The Taliban actively aided Bin Laden by assigning him guards for security, permitting him to build and maintain terrorist camps, and refusing to cooperate with efforts by the international community to extradite him. ¥ In return, Bin Laden invested vast amounts of money in Taliban projects and provided hundreds of well-trained fighters to help the Taliban consolidate and expand their control of the country.
1
See http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1996_hr/s960222p.htm.
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¥ While we often talk of two trends in terrorism—state-supported and independent—in Bin Ladin’s case with the Taliban we had something completely new: a terrorist sponsoring a state.
Afghanistan provided Bin Laden a relatively safe operating environment to oversee his organization’s worldwide terrorist activities. ¥ Militants who received training there were sent afterwards to fight in jihads in Kashmir, Chechnya, or Bosnia. ¥ The al-Qa’ida/Taliban training camps formed the foundation of a worldwide network by sponsoring and encouraging Islamic extremists from diverse locations to forge long-standing ideological, logistical, and personal ties. ¥ Extremists in the larger camps received basic training in the use of small arms and guerrilla tactics. In the smaller camps, militants received more advanced and specialized training in subjects like explosives, poisons, and assassination techniques. ¥ Clandestine and counterintelligence tradecraft courses included basic instruction on how to establish secure, cell-based, clandestine organizations to support insurgencies or terrorist operations. ¥ Indoctrination in extremist religious ideas was emphasized and included the repetition of ideas that the United States is evil, and that the regimes of Arab countries are not true believers in Islam and should be overthrown as a religious duty. ¥ Some of the Afghan camps provided the militants instruction in the production and use of toxic chemicals and biological toxins.
In summary, what Bin Laden created in Afghanistan after he relocated there in 1996 was a sophisticated adversary—as good as any that CIA has ever operated against. Going to War against al-Qa’ida—‘‘The Plan’’ As the Intelligence Community improved its understanding of the threat, and as the threat grew, we refocused and intensified our efforts to track, disrupt, and bring the terrorists to justice. By 1998, the key elements of the CIA’s strategy against Bin Laden and alQa’ida—inside Afghanistan and globally—placed us in a strongly offensive posture. They included: ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
Hitting al-Qa’ida’s infrastructure; Working with foreign security services to carry out arrests; Disrupting and weakening UBL’s businesses and finances; Recruiting or exposing operatives; and Pursuing a multi-track approach to bring Bin Laden himself to justice, including working with foreign services, developing a close relationship with US federal prosecutors, increasing pressure on the Taliban, and enhancing our capability to capture him.
CIA’s policy-and-objectives statement for the FY 1998 budget submission to Congress—which was prepared in early 1997—reflects this determination to go on the offensive against terrorism.
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¥ The submission outlined our Counterterrorist Center’s (CTC’s) offensive operations, listing as their goals to ‘‘render the masterminds, disrupt terrorist infrastructure, infiltrate terrorist groups, and work with foreign partners.’’ ¥ It highlighted efforts to work with the FBI in a bold program to destroy the infrastructure of major terrorist groups worldwide. ¥ The FY 1999 submission—prepared in early 1998—continued the trend in requesting a substantial funding increase for offensive operations against terrorism.
The FY 2000 budget submission prepared in early 1999 described Bin Laden as ‘‘the most significant individual sponsor of Sunni Islamic extremist and terrorist activity in the world today.’’ Our FY 2000 submission noted our use of a wide range of operational techniques, joint operations with foreign partners, and the recruitment of well-placed agents. Despite these clear intentions, and the daring activities that went with them, I was not satisfied that we were doing all we could against this target. In 1998, I told key leaders at CIA and across the Intelligence Community that we should consider ourselves ‘‘at war’’ with Usama Bin Laden. I ordered that no effort or resource be spared in prosecuting this war. In early 1999, I ordered a baseline review of CIA’s operational strategy against Bin Laden. In spring 1999, CTC produced a new comprehensive operational plan of attack against the Bin Laden/al-Qa’ida target inside and outside Afghanistan. This strategy—which we called ‘‘The Plan’’—built on what CTC was recognized as doing well—collection, quick reaction to operational opportunities, renditions, disruptions, and analysis. Its priority was plain: to capture and bring to justice Bin Laden and his principal lieutenants. ¥ The Plan included a strong and focused intelligence collection program to track—and then act against—Bin Laden and his associates in terrorist sanctuaries. It was a blend of aggressive human source collection—both unilateral and with foreign partners—and technical collection. ¥ To execute the Plan, CTC developed a program to select and train the right officers and put them in the right places.… ¥ The parts of ‘‘the Plan’’ focused on Afghanistan faced some daunting impediments (some of which would change after 9/11). For example: ¥ The US Government had no official presence in Afghanistan, and relations with the Taliban were seriously strained. Both factors made it more difficult to gain access to Bin Laden and al-Qa’ida personnel. ¥ US policy stopped short of replacing the Taliban regime, limiting the ability of the US Government to exert pressure on Bin Laden. ¥ US relations with Pakistan, the principal access point to Afghanistan, were strained by the Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998 and the military coup in 1999.
Collection Profile Despite these facts, our surge in collection operations paid off. ¥ Our human intelligence (HUMINT) reporting on the difficult Bin Laden/alQa’ida target increased from roughly 600 reports in 1998 to 900 reports in the first nine months of 2001.
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¥ Our HUMINT sources against the terrorism target grew by more than 50 percent between 1999 and 9/11. ¥ Working across agencies, and in some cases with foreign services, we designed and built several collection systems for specific use against al-Qa’ida inside Afghanistan. ¥ By 9/11, a map would show that these collection programs and human networks were in place in such numbers to nearly cover Afghanistan. This array meant that, when the military campaign to topple the Taliban and destroy al-Qa’ida began last October, we were able to support it with an enormous body of information and a large stable of assets.
The realm of human source collection frequently is divided between ‘‘liaison reporting’’ (that which we get from cooperative foreign intelligence services) and ‘‘unilateral reporting’’ (that which we get from agents we run ourselves). Even before ‘‘the Plan,’’ our vision for HUMINT on terrorism was simple: we had to get more of both types. The figures for both rose every year after 1998. And in 1999, for the first time, the volume of reporting on terrorism from unilateral assets exceeded that from liaison sources—a trend which has continued in subsequent years. The integration of technical and human sources has been key to our understanding of—and our actions against—international terrorism. It was this combination—this integration—that allowed us years ago to confirm the existence of numerous al-Qa’ida facilities and training camps in Afghanistan. ¥ On a virtually daily basis, analysts and collection officers from NSA, NIMA, and CIA came together to interactively employ satellite imagery, communications information, and human source reporting. ¥ This integration also supported military targeting operations prior to September 11, including the cruise missile attack against the al-Qa’ida training camp complex in northeastern Afghanistan in August 1998. In addition, it helped to provide baseline data for the US Central Command’s target planning against al-Qa’ida facilities and infrastructure throughout Afghanistan.
Countering Al-Qa’ida’s Global Presence Even while targeting UBL and al-Qa’ida in their Afghan lair, we did not ignore its cells of terror spread across the globe. Especially in periods of peak threat reporting, we accelerated our work to shake up and destroy al-Qa’ida cells wherever we could find them. ¥ This took resources—operations officers, desk officers, analysts, translators— throughout the Intelligence Community and law enforcement agencies. ¥ We also mobilized intelligence services around the globe.
By 1999, the intensive nature of our operations was disrupting elements of Bin Ladin’s international infrastructure. We believe that our efforts dispelled al-Qa’ida’s impression that it could organize and operate with impunity. Our operations sent the message that the United States was not only going after al-Qa’ida for crimes it had committed, but also was actively seeking out and pursuing terrorists from al-Qa’ida and other groups
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engaged in planning future attacks whenever and wherever we could find them. ¥ By 11 September, CIA (in many cases with the FBI) had rendered 70 terrorists to justice around the world.
During the Millennium threat period, we told senior policymakers to expect between five and fifteen attacks, both here and overseas. The CIA overseas and the FBI in the US organized an aggressive, integrated campaign to disrupt al-Qaida using human assets, technical operations, and the hand-off of foreign intelligence to facilitate FISA court warrants.… there was close, daily consultation that included Director Freeh, the National Security Adviser, and the Attorney General. We identified 36 additional terrorist agents at the time around the world. We pursued operations against them in 50 countries. Our disruption activities succeeded against 21 of these individuals, and included arrests, renditions, detentions, surveillance, and direct approaches. ¥ We assisted the Jordanian government in dealing with terrorist cells that planned to attack religious sites and tourist hotels.… ¥ We mounted disruption and arrest operations against terrorists in 8 countries on four continents, which also netted information that allowed us to track down even more suspected terrorists. ¥ During this same period, unrelated to the Millennium threats, we conducted multiple operations in East Asia, leading to the arrest or detention of 45 members of the Hizballah network. ¥ In the months after the Millennium experience—in October 2000—we lost a serious battle, when USS Cole was bombed and 17 brave American sailors perished.
The efforts of American intelligence to strike back at a deadly enemy continued through the Ramadan period in the winter of 2000, another phase of peak threat reporting. ¥ Terrorist cells planning attacks against US and foreign military and civilian targets in the Persian Gulf region were broken up, capturing hundreds of pounds of explosives and other weapons—including anti-aircraft missiles. These operations also netted proof that some Islamic charitable organizations had been either hijacked or created to provide support to terrorists operating in other countries. ¥ We succeeded in bringing a major Bin Laden terrorist facilitator to justice with the cooperation of two foreign governments. This individual had provided documents and shelter to terrorists traveling through the Arabian Peninsula. ¥ We worked with numerous European governments, such as the Italians, Germans, French, and British to identify and shatter terrorist groups and plans against American and local interests in Europe.
Fusion and Sharing—the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement Taking the fight to Bin Laden and al-Qa’ida was not just a matter of mobilizing CTC, or even CIA. This was an interagency—and international—effort. Two things, which are critical to this effort, are fusion and sharing.
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¥ The Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at CIA was created in 1986 to enable the fusion of all sources of information in a single, action-oriented unit.… ¥ No matter how much is fused within CTC, no matter how large CTC may be, there are still key counterterrorist players outside it, making the sharing of knowledge essential. ¥ It is also clear that, when errors occur—when we miss information or opportunities—it is often because our sharing and fusion are not as strong as they need to be. Communication across bureaucracies, missions, and cultures is among our most persistent challenges in the fast-paced, high-pressure environment of counterterrorism.…
One of the most critical alliances in the war against terrorism is that between CIA and FBI. This alliance in the last few years has produced achievements that simply would not have been possible if some of the recent media stories of all-out feuding were true. There are abundant examples of close FBI-CIA partnership in counterterrorism: ¥ After the first World Trade Center bombing, FBI headed the investigation and CTC created an interagency task force to develop intelligence leads for the FBI. At FBI request, CIA obtained intelligence from a foreign service on Ramzi Yousef, who subsequently was convicted for the attack. ¥ After we received a rash of reports in 1998 threatening attacks in the United States, CIA worked together with FBI to provide advisories for local law enforcement agencies.… ¥ Also in 1998, FBI and CIA worked closely in the wake of the East Africa bombings to disrupt a planned attack on another U.S. Embassy in Africa.
Of course, the relationship is not perfect, and frictions occasionally arise. A 1994 CIA Inspector General report noted that interactions between the two organizations were too personality dependent. This has been particularly so when the two were pursuing different missions in the same case.… Increasing the difficulty of inter-agency communications is an unfortunate phenomenon known as ‘‘the Wall.’’ It has been mentioned before in these hearings—the complex system of laws and rules (and perceptions about them) that impede the flow of information between the arenas of intelligence and criminal prosecution. The ‘‘Wall’’ slows and sometimes stops the flow of information— something we simply cannot afford. The Patriot Act has helped alleviate this. Runup to 9/11—Our Operations The third period of peak threat was in the spring and summer 2001. As with the Millennium and Ramadan 2000, we increased the tempo of our operations against al-Qa’ida. We stopped some attacks and caused the terrorists to postpone others. ¥ We helped to break up another terrorist cell in Jordan and seized a large quantity of weapons … ¥ In June, CIA worked with a Middle Eastern partner to arrest two Bin Laden operatives planning attacks on US facilities in Saudi Arabia.
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¥ In June and July, CIA launched a wide-ranging disruption effort against Bin Ladin’s organization, with targets in almost two-dozen countries.… ¥ In July, a different Middle East partner helped bring about the detention of a terrorist who had been directed to begin an operation to attack the US Embassy or cultural center in European capital.… ¥ We assisted another foreign partner in the rendition of a senior Bin Laden associate. Information he provided included plans to kidnap Americans in three countries, and carry out hijackings. ¥ We provided intelligence to a Latin American service on a band of terrorists considering hijackings and bombings. An FBI team detected explosives residue in their hotel rooms.
Runup to 9/11—the Watchlist Issue During the period of the Millennium threats, one of our operations, and one of our mistakes, occurred during our accelerating efforts against Bin Ladin’s organization—when we glimpsed two of the individuals who later became 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al- Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. ¥ In December 1999, CIA, FBI, and the Department of State received intelligence on the travels of suspected al-Qa’ida operatives to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.… We initiated an operation to learn why those suspected terrorists were traveling to Kuala Lumpur. Khalid and Nawaf were among those travelers … we arranged to have … surveilled. ¥ In early January 2000, we managed to obtain a photocopy of al-Mihdhar’s passport as he traveled to Kuala Lumpur. It showed a US multiple-entry visa issued in Jeddah on 7 April 1999 and expiring on 6 April 2000. We learned that his full name is Khalid bin Muhammad bin ’Abdallah al-Mihdhar. ¥ We had at that point the level of detail needed to watchlist him—that is, to nominate him to State Department for refusal of entry into the US or to deny him another visa. Our officers remained focused on the surveillance operation, and did not do this.
At this early stage, the first days of January 2000, CIA briefed the FBI, informally, about the surveillance operation in Kuala Lumpur2.… During August 2001, CIA had become increasingly concerned about a major terrorist attack on US interests, and I directed a review of our files to identify potential threats. CTC reviewed its holdings on al-Mihdhar because of his connections to other terrorists. In the course of that review, CTC found that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi had entered the US on 15 January 2000. It determined that al-Mihdhar departed the US on 10 June 2000 and reentered on 4 July 2001. CTC found no record of al-Hazmi’s departure from the US. ¥ On 23 August, CIA sent a message—marked ‘‘immediate’’—to the Department of State, INS, Customs, and the FBI requesting to enter al-Mihdhar and alHazmi, Bin Laden-related individuals, into VISA/VIPER, TIPOFF and TECS. The message said that CIA recommends that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi be watchlisted immediately.
2
Deleted material contains details of the Kuala Lumpur—related testimony.
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There are at least two points before August 2001 when these individuals were on our scope with sufficient information to have been watchlisted. During the intense operations to thwart the Millennium and Ramadan threats, the watchlist task in the case of these two al-Qaida operatives slipped through. The error exposed a weakness in our internal training and an inconsistent understanding of watchlist thresholds. Corrective steps have been taken. ¥ The CIA and the State Department are cooperating to transform the TIPOFF all-source watchlist into a National Watchlist Center. This center will serve as the point of contact and coordination for all watchlists in the US Government. ¥ We have increased managerial review of the system to reduce the chance that watchlist opportunities will be missed in the crush of other urgent business. ¥ We have designed a database and assembled a team to consolidate information on the identities of known and suspected terrorists, and to flag any that has not been passed to the proper audience. ¥ We have lowered the threshold for nominating individuals for the watchlist and clarified that threshold for our officers. ¥ We have lowered the threshold for dissemination of information that used to be held closely as ‘‘operational.’’ ¥ These corrective steps notwithstanding, we must not underestimate our enemies’ capabilities.…
Runup to 9/11—the Warning Issue In the months leading up to 9/11, we were convinced Bin Laden meant to attack Americans, meant to kill large numbers, and that the attack could be at home, abroad, or both. And we reported these threats urgently. Our collection sources ‘‘lit up’’ during this tense period. They indicated that multiple spectacular attacks were planned, and that some of these plots were in the final stages. ¥ Some of the reporting implicated known al-Qaida operatives. ¥ The reports suggested that the targets were American, although some reporting simply pointed to the West or Israel. ¥ But the reporting was maddeningly short on actionable details. The most ominous reporting, hinting at something large, was also the most vague. The only occasions in this reporting where there was a geographic context, either explicit or implicit, it appeared to point abroad, especially to the Middle East. ¥ By long established doctrine, we disseminated these raw reports immediately and widely to policymakers and action agencies such as the military, State Department, the FAA, FBI, Department of Transportation, the INS, and others. ¥ This reporting, by itself, stood as a dramatic warning of imminent attack.
Our analysts worked to find linkages among the reports, as well as links to past terrorist threats and tactics. We considered whether al-Qa’ida was feeding us this reporting—trying to create panic through disinformation—yet we concluded that the plots were real. When some reporting hinted that an attack had been delayed, we continued to stress that there were, indeed, multiple attacks planned and that several continued on track. And when we grew concerned that so much of the evidence pointed to attacks overseas, we noted
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that Bin Ladin’s principal ambition had long been to strike our homeland. Nevertheless with specific regard to the 9/11 plot, we never acquired the level of detail that allowed us to translate our strategic concerns into something we could act on. The Intelligence Community Counterterrorism Board also issued several threat advisories during the summer 2001. These advisories—the fruit of painstaking analytical work—contained phrases like ‘‘al-Qa’ida is most likely to attempt spectacular attacks resulting in numerous casualties,’’ and ‘‘alQa’ida is prepared to mount one or more terrorist attacks at any time.’’ A sign that our warnings were being heard—both from our analysis and from the raw intelligence we disseminated—was that the FAA issued two alerts to air carriers in the summer of 2001. Our warnings complemented strategic warnings we had been delivering for years about the real threat of terrorism to America. ¥ Recall, Mr. Chairman, my testimony in open session before your committee on February 2, 1999 when I told you ‘‘there is not the slightest doubt that Usama Bin Laden, his worldwide allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against us.’’ I told you ‘‘he will strike wherever in the world he thinks we are vulnerable’’ and that we were ‘‘concerned that one or more of Bin Ladin’s attacks could occur at any time.’’3 ¥ In February 2000, I testified in open session that, ‘‘Everything we have learned recently confirms our conviction that (UBL) wants to strike further blows against America’’ and that he could strike ‘‘without additional warning.’’4 ¥ Again in 2001 I told you that ‘‘terrorists are seeking out ‘softer’ targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties’’ and that Bin Laden is ‘‘capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning.’’5 ¥ In a National Intelligence Estimates in 1995 we warned, ‘‘As an open and free democracy, the United States is particularly vulnerable to various types of terrorist attacks. Several kinds of targets are especially at risk: National symbols such as the White House and the Capitol, and symbols of US capitalism such as Wall Street; power grids, communications switches, water facilities, and transportation infrastructure—particularly civil aviation, subway systems, cruise lines, and petroleum pipelines; places where large numbers of people congregate, such as large office buildings, shopping centers, sports arenas, and airport and other transportation terminals.’’ ¥ The same estimate also said, ‘‘We assess that civil aviation will figure prominently among possible terrorist targets in the United States. This stems from the increasing domestic threat posed by foreign terrorists, the continuing appeal of civil aviation as a target, and a domestic aviation security system that has been the focus of media attention: We have evidence that individuals linked to terrorist groups or state sponsors have attempted to penetrate security at US airports in recent years. The media have called attention to, among other things, inadequate security for checked baggage. Our review of the evidence obtained thus far about the plot uncovered in Manila in early 1995, suggests the conspirators were guided in their selection of the method and venue of attack by carefully studying security procedures in place in the
3
See https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/1999/ps020299.html. See https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2000/dci_speech_020200.html. 5 See https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2001/UNCLASWWT_02072001.html. 4
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region. If terrorists operating in this country are similarly methodical, they will identify serious vulnerabilities in the security system for domestic flights.’’ ¥ In a National Intelligence Estimate in 1997, we said ‘‘Civil aviation remains a particularly attractive target for terrorist attacks in light of the fear and publicity the downing of an airliner would evoke and the revelations last summer of the vulnerability of the US air transport sector.’’
Message Received In February 1997, the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security reported that: ‘‘The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence sources have been warning that the threat of terrorism is changing in two important ways. First, it is no longer just an overseas threat from foreign terrorists. People and places in the United States have joined the list of targets, and Americans have joined the ranks of terrorists. The bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Federal Building in Oklahoma City are clear examples of the shift, as is the conviction of Ramzi Yousef for attempting to bomb twelve American airliners out of the sky over the Pacific Ocean. The second change is that in addition to well-known, established terrorist groups, it is becoming more common to find terrorists working alone or in ad-hoc groups, some of whom are not afraid to die in carrying out their designs.’’6 In its publication, ‘‘Criminal Acts against Civil Aviation 2000, ‘‘ the FAA stated: ‘‘Although Bin Laden is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so. Bin Ladin’s anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, especially U.S. civil aviation.’’ In discussing the plot by convicted World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef to place explosive devices on as many as 12 U.S. airliners flying out of the Far East, the FAA’s report points out that at least one other accused participant in the conspiracy remains at large, and ‘‘There are concerns that this individual or others of Yousef’s ilk who may possess similar skills pose a continuing threat to civil aviation interests—Increased awareness and vigilance are necessary to deter future incidents—be they from terrorists or non-terrorists. It is important to do the utmost to prevent such acts rather than to lower security measures by interpreting the statistics as indicating a decreasing threat.’’ We have heard the allegation that our analysts erred by not explicitly warning that hijacked aircraft might be used as weapons. Your staff has been given access to over half a million pages of documents and interviewed hundreds of intelligence officials in their efforts to investigate this complex issue. The documents we provided show some 12 reports, spread over seven years, which pertain to possible use of aircraft as weapons in terrorist attacks. ¥ We disseminated those reports to the appropriate agencies—such as the FAA, Department of Transportation, and FBI—as they came in. Moreover, we also 6
See http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/212fin1.html.
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provided sanitized versions of intelligence reports that were about threats to civil aviation so they could be distributed more widely through the airline industry. ¥ But if one goes back and collects the reports over the same period that pertained to possible truck bombs, car bombs, assassinations, kidnappings, or attacks using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear devices, those lists would have been far longer. A quick scan of such reporting since 1996, for example, showed about 20 times as many reports concerning car bombs and about five times as many reports concerning weapons of mass destruction.
Budget and Resources To evaluate our work on al-Qa’ida before 9/11 objectively, it is essential that you look at three issues: global geopolitical issues we were grappling with—including counterterrorism; resource changes throughout the 1990s that affected our ability to fight the counterterrorism fight; and the overall health of US intelligence during this period. It is simply not enough to look at al-Qa’ida in isolation. The last decade saw a number of conflicting and competing trends: military forces deployed to more locations than ever in our nation’s history; a growing counterproliferation and counterterrorism threat; constant tensions in the Mid East and, to deal with these and a host of other issues, far fewer intelligence dollars and manpower. At the end of the Cold War, the Intelligence Community, like much of the National Security Community, was asked by both Congress and successive Administrations to pay the price of the ‘‘peace dividend.’’ The cost of the ‘‘peace dividend’’ was that during the 1990s our Intelligence community funding declined in real terms—reducing our buying power by tens of billions of dollars over the decade. We lost nearly one in four of our positions. This loss of manpower was devastating, particularly in our two most manpower intensive activities: all-source analysis and human source collection.… NSA was hiring no new technologists during the greatest information technology change in our lifetimes. It is absolutely essential that we understand that both Congress and the Executive Branch for most of the decade embraced the idea that we could ‘‘surge’’ our resources to deal with emerging intelligence challenges, including threats from terrorism. And surge we did. ¥ As I ‘‘declared war’’ against al-Qa’ida in 1998—which was in the aftermath of the East Africa embassy bombings—we were in our fifth year of round-the-clock support to Operation Southern Watch in Iraq. ¥ Just three months earlier, we were embroiled in answering questions on the India and Pakistan nuclear tests and trying to determine how we could surge more people to understanding and countering weapons of mass destruction proliferation. ¥ In early 1999, we surged more than 800 analysts and redirected collection assets from across the Intelligence Community to support the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
During this time of increased military operations around the globe, the Defense Department was also reducing its tactical intelligence units and
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funding. This caused the Intelligence Community to stretch our capabilities to the breaking point—because national systems were covering the gaps in tactical intelligence. It is always our policy to give top priority to supporting military operations. While we grappled with this multitude of high priority, overlapping crises, we had no choice but to modernize selective intelligence systems and infrastructure in which we’d deferred necessary investments while we downsized— or we would have found ourselves out of business.… Throughout the Intelligence Community during this period we made difficult resource reallocation decisions to try to rebuild critical mission areas affected by the funding cuts. For example, ¥ In CIA we launched a program to rebuild our Clandestine Service. This meant overhauling our recruitment and training practices and our infrastructure. We launched similar initiatives to rebuild our analytic depth and expertise, and to reacquire our leading edge in technology. Although we will not be given credit for these efforts in the war on terrorism, they most assuredly contributed to that effort. ¥ NSA made the hard decision to cut additional positions to free up pay and benefit dollars to patch critical infrastructure problems and to modestly attempt to capitalize on the technology revolution.
But with the al-Qa’ida threat growing more ominous, and with our resources devoted to countering it clearly inadequate, we began taking money and people away from other critical areas to improve our efforts against terrorism. Despite the resource reductions and the enormous competing demands for our attention, we managed to triple Intelligence Community-wide funding for counterterrorism from fiscal year 1990 to 1999. The Counterterrorism Center’s resources nearly quadrupled in that same period.… … In 1994, the budget request for counterterrorism activities equaled less than four percent of the total CIA program. In the FY 2002 CIA budget request we submitted prior to 9/11, counterterrorism activities constituted almost 10 percent of the budget request. During a period of budget stringency when we were faced with rebuilding essential intelligence capabilities, I had to make some tough choices. Although resources for virtually everything else in CIA was going down, counterterrorism resources were going up. But after the US embassies in Africa were bombed, we knew that neither surging our resources nor internal realignments were sufficient to fund a war on terrorism. So in the fall of 1998, I asked the Administration to increase intelligence funding by more than $2.0 billion annually for fiscal years 2000– 2005 and I made similar requests for FY 2001–2005 and FY 2002–2007. Only small portions of these requests were approved. Counterterrorism funding and manpower needs were number one on every list I provided to Congress and the Administration and, indeed, it was at the top of the funding list approved by Speaker Gingrich in FY1999, the first year in which we received a significant infusion of new money for US intelligence capabilities during the decade of the 90s. … In CIA alone, I count the equivalent of 700 officers working counterterrorism in August 2001 at both headquarters and in the field. That number
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does not include the people who were working to penetrate either technically or through human sources a multitude of threat targets from which we could derive intelligence on terrorists. Nor does it include friendly liaison services and coalition partners. You simply cannot gauge the level of effort by counting only the people who had the words ‘‘al-Qa’ida’’ or ‘‘bin Laden’’ in their position description. We reallocated all the people we could given the demands placed on us for intelligence on a number of the highest priority issues like chemical, nuclear and biological proliferation and support to operational military forces, and we surged thousands of people to fight this fight when the threat was highest. But when we realized surging wasn’t sufficient, we began a sustained drumbeat both within the Administration and here on the Hill that we had to have more people and money devoted to this fight. … we have begun to move aggressively to reverse the funding shortfalls that have had such an impact on the nation’s intelligence capabilities. But we have hardly scratched the surface in our efforts to recover from the manpower reductions, and we cannot reconstitute overnight the cadre of seasoned case officers and assets overseas, or the expert team of analysts we’ve lost. It will take many more years to recover from the capabilities we lost during the resource decline of the 1990s. Final Observations Success against the terrorist target must be measured against all elements of our nation’s capabilities, policies and will. The intelligence community and the FBI are important parts of the equation, but by no means the only parts. We need a national, integrated strategy in our fight against terrorism that incorporates both offense and defense. The strategy must be based on three pillars: ¥ Continued relentless effort to penetrate terrorist groups, whether by human or technical means, whether alone or in partnership with others. ¥ Second, intelligence, military, law enforcement, and diplomacy must stay on the offense continually against terrorism around the world. We must disrupt and destroy the terrorists’ operational chain of command and momentum, deny them sanctuary anywhere and eliminate their sources of financial and logistical support.
Nothing did more for our ability to combat terrorism than the President’s decision to send us into the terrorist’s sanctuary. By going in massively, we were able to change the rules for the terrorists. Now they are the hunted. Now they have to spend most of their time worrying about their survival. Al-Qa’ida must never again acquire a sanctuary. ¥ Third, on defense, we need systematic security improvements to protect our country’s people and infrastructure and create a more difficult operating environment for terrorists. The objective is to understand our vulnerabilities better than the terrorist do, take action to reduce those vulnerabilities, to increase the costs and risks for terrorists to operate in the United States and, over time, make those costs unacceptable to them.
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We have learned an important historic lesson: We can no longer race from threat to threat, resolve it, disrupt it and then move on. Targets at risk remain at risk. ¥ In 1993, the first attack on the World Trade Center did, in comparative terms, modest damage. A plot around the same time to attack New York City tunnels and landmarks was broken up. We all breathed a sigh of relief and moved on, focusing the effort mostly on bringing perpetrators to justice. The terrorists came back. ¥ At the Millennium, a young terrorist panicked at a Canada-US border crossing and his plan to attack an airport in Los Angeles was exposed and thwarted. We breathed another sigh of relief and prepared for his trial. Al Qa’ida’s plan has only been delayed. ¥ Last winter, another young terrorist on an airliner ineptly tried to detonate explosives in his shoes and was stopped by alert crew and passengers. At this point, we’re smarter—we started checking everyone’s shoes for explosives. It is not nearly enough. ¥ In the last year, we have gone on high alert several times for good reason, only to have no attack occur. We all breathed a sigh of relief and thought, ‘‘maybe it was a false alarm.’’ It wasn’t. ¥ We must design systems that reduce both the chances of an attack getting through and its impact if it does. We must address both the threat and our vulnerability. We must not allow ourselves to mentally ‘‘move on’’ while this enemy is still at large.
I strongly support the President’s proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security. The nation very much needs the single focus that this department will bring to homeland security. We have a foreign intelligence community and law enforcement agencies, but we have not had a cohesive body responsible and empowered for homeland security. The President’s proposal closes that gap while building bridges between all three communities. ¥ The Department’s most important role will be to correlate threat warnings and assessments about evolving terrorist strategies with a fine-grained understanding of the vulnerabilities of all sectors of the homeland and translate that into a system of protection for the people and infrastructure of the United States.
While the Department will be vital to our homeland defense, the most valued resource for our work against terrorism has always been and will forever be our people. Moving from this necessary organizational change, I cannot emphasize enough our overwhelming need to recruit and train the intelligence officers we need to win this war. Terrorists have a tactical advantage. They can pick and choose any target they please, who are willing to sacrifice their lives, and who don’t care how many innocents they hurt or kill have tactical advantage. Developing the intelligence to combat them is manpower intensive. With the personnel we have invested in counterterrorism today, we can do much more than we could before 9/11, but more are still needed. I remind you that we lost nearly 1-in4 of our positions since the end of the Cold War. Our people also need better ways to communicate. Moreover, we also need systems that enable us to share critical information quickly across bureaucratic boundaries.… That means we must move information in ways and to places it
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has never before had to move. We are improving our collaborative systems. We need to improve our multiple communications links—both within the Intelligence Community and now in the Homeland Security community as well. Building, maintaining, and constantly updating this system will require a massive, sustained budget infusion, separate from our other resource needs. Concluding Statement Our effectiveness has increased since September 11, … but in the counterterrorism business there is no such thing as 100 percent success—there will never be.… It may be comforting on occasion to think that if we could find the one process that went wrong, then we could remedy that failing and return to the sense of safety we enjoyed prior to 9/11. The reality is that we were vulnerable to suicidal terrorist attacks and we remain vulnerable to them today. That is not a pleasant fact for Americans to live with, but it is the case. There are no easy fixes.… SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2002/dci_testimony_10 172002.html
Lieutenant General James R. Clapper, Jr., U.S. Air Force (Retired), Director NIMA, Statement Before the Joint Inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 17, 2002 … I welcome the opportunity to report on the National Imagery and Mapping Agency’s (NIMA) efforts to improve the collection and sharing of terrorism related information. NIMA’s mission of providing timely, relevant, and accurate Geospatial Intelligence in support of national security objectives is more vital then ever in protecting America’s interest.… While the attacks of 9/11 profoundly changed our perception of what we now soberly understand as ‘‘national security,’’ the counterterrorism mission was not a new one to NIMA. Since long before our stand-up in 1996, NIMA’s predecessor organizations were involved in the Intelligence Community’s approach to locate, identify and analyze global terrorism-related activity. NIMA has capitalized on these efforts and now converges the traditional categories of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial data and information, into what we now refer to as Geospatial Intelligence. Geospatial Intelligence, which forms the foundational baseline for all subsequent analysis, encompasses all the skills, expertise, and capabilities that reside in NIMA today and signals our new vision: ‘‘Know the Earth … Show the Way.’’ NIMA, as the National Geospatial Intelligence functional manger, is responsible both to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and to the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) to ensure vast imagery and geospatial resources are effectively applied across the various organizations in which they reside. To that end, NIMA must ‘‘show the way’’ in the sense of promoting interoperability and
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standardization, and across the realms of tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and dissemination. The terrorism threat has crystallized the imperative for what we term the ‘‘ubiquitous knowledge map’’—and NIMA is assuming responsibilities for its Geospatial Intelligence standards, structure, and content. Geospatial Intelligence is a critical contributor to the counterterrorism mission. First, it provides a common reference of where things are on the earth, and augments the temporal all¼source analysis of terrorists’ activities. When combined with human intelligence (HUMINT) and/or signals intelligence (SIGINT), Geospatial Intelligence helps to identify and monitor terrorist activity. However, it cannot determine intent. Geospatial Intelligence is also crucial for planning and executing operations. In sum, we enable national and military decision makers to understand and see the strategic terrorism intelligence picture. However, Geospatial Intelligence cannot provide the entire picture; it cannot be a primary source of tactical information. It has been of greatest use for strategic description of long-term trends. Before September 11, 2001, NIMA’s counterterrorism analytical effort focused on supporting requirements of the DCI and the SecDef. Whether we were executing our global mission to provide a geospatial foundation for further analysis, or supporting specific requirements of our partners, NIMA’s small but expert analytical cadre met the Geospatial Intelligence needs of the Intelligence Community. Well before September 11, we had worked closely with the CIA and the Joint Staff in support of operational planning and its execution. Since September 11, we have intensified this work by establishing our own Office of Counter Terrorism, and by bolstering our on-site support to the CIA and the military’s Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism (JITF-CT). Geospatial Intelligence, cued by other sources, provides the analytical foundation for understanding the overall terrorism picture. For example, working in a collaborative intelligence source mode, we have located and identified numerous terrorist sites. Correspondingly, other disciplines have leveraged Geospatial Intelligence to refine their own collection and analysis. To further improve this initiative as well as our own collaboration with another agency, we now have NIMA analysts performing hands-on integration of our two disciplines and providing Geospatial Intelligence, as needed. SOURCE: http://intelligence.senate.gov/0210hrg/021017/clapper.pdf
Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, U.S. Air Force, Director, National Security Agency, Central Security Service, Statement Before the Joint Inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 17, 2002 Introduction My goal today is to provide you and the American people with as much insight as possible into three questions: (a) What did NSA know prior to
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September 11th, (b) what have we learned in retrospect, and (c) what have we done in response? I will be as candid as prudence and the law allow in this open session.… You well know the fragility of all that we do and how efforts measured in millions of dollars and thousands of man-years are turned to naught overnight when a story about communications intercepts appears in the press. Such leaks make the intelligence challenges that we face just that much more difficult and costly. A setback of inestimable consequences in the war against terrorism occurred when Usama bin Laden and his key lieutenants stopped using a phone following 1998 press reports of our intercepts. You are also well aware that the nation’s SIGINT effort has successfully thwarted numerous terrorist attacks in the past. While our successes are generally invisible to the American people, everyone knows when an adversary succeeds. NSA has had many successes, but these are even more difficult to discuss in open session. What Did NSA Know Prior to September 11? So, to the first question: What did NSA know prior to September 11th? Sadly, NSA had no SIGINT suggesting that al-Qaeda was specifically targeting New York and Washington, D.C., or even that it was planning an attack on U.S. soil. Indeed, NSA had no knowledge before September 11th that any of the attackers were in the United States. I have briefed the committees on one area where our performance—in retrospect—could have been better. Ms. Hill referred to this in her September 20, 2002 testimony: ‘‘Unbeknownst to the CIA, another arm of the intelligence community, the NSA, had information associating Nawaf al-Hazmi with the Bin Laden network. NSA did not immediately disseminate that information, although it was in NSA’s database.’’ This was not some culturally based ‘‘failure to share.’’ As you know, one of our ‘‘value added’’ activities is sorting through vast quantities of data and sharing that which is relevant, in a usable format, with appropriate consumers. In this case, we did not disseminate information we received in early 1999 that was unexceptional in its content except that it associated the name of Nawaf al-Hazmi with al- Qaeda. This is not to say that we did not know of and report on him and other individuals. We did. In early 2000, at the time of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur, we had the al-Hazmi brothers, Nawaf and Salim, as well as Khalid al-Mihdhar, in our sights. We knew of their association with al Qaeda, and we shared this information with the community.… If we had handled all of the above perfectly, the only new fact that we could have contributed at the time of Kuala Lumpur was that Nawaf’s surname (and perhaps that of Salim, who appeared to be Nawaf’s brother) was al-Hazmi. There is one other area in our pre-September 11th performance that has attracted a great deal of public attention. In the hours just prior to the attacks, NSA did obtain two pieces of information suggesting that individuals with terrorist connections believed something significant would happen on September 11th. This information did not specifically indicate an attack would take place
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on that day. It did not contain any details on the time, place, or nature of what might happen. It also contained no suggestion of airplanes being used as weapons. Because of the processing involved, we were unable to report the information until September 12th. To put this into some perspective, throughout the summer of 2001 we had more than 30 warnings that something was imminent. We dutifully reported these, yet none of these subsequently correlated with terrorist attacks. The concept of ‘‘imminent’’ to our adversaries is relative; it can mean soon or simply sometime in the future. These two reports have become somewhat celebrated so I would like to dwell on them for a moment longer. I will set aside the damage done to intelligence sources and methods when unauthorized information enters the public domain. I will also set aside the impact on the workforce I represent when something it has legitimately kept secret from our adversaries suddenly leaps into the media. What is missing is a sense of how SIGINT is done. Thousands of times a day, our front-line employees have to answer tough questions like: Who are the communicants? Do they seem knowledgeable? Where in the conversation do key words or phrases come? What is the reaction to these words? What world and cultural events may have shaped these words? (You may recall that Ahmad Shah Masood, head of the Northern Alliance, was killed the day before.) How much of the conversation is dominated by these events and are any of the phrases tied to them? And, if you were responsible for the management (or oversight) of NSA, you would have to ask other questions like: Where was the information collected? Were any of the communicants targeted? How many calls a day are there from this location? In what languages? Hazzar? Urdu? Pashto? Uzbek? Dari? Arabic? Is there a machine that can sort these out by language for you, or do you have to use a human? If there is such a machine—does it work in a polyglot place where one conversation often comprises several languages? How long does it take NSA to process this kind of material? (After all, we are not the intended recipients of these communications). Does our current technology allow us to process it in a stream or do we have to do it in batches? When the data is processed, how do we review it—oldest to newest or newest first? And aside from how we normally process it, did the sequence change at 08:46 a.m. on September 11th? Without explaining the context in which SIGINT operates, unauthorized disclosures do not inform public discourse; they misshape it. What Has NSA Learned in Retrospect? Now let me now address the second question. What have we learned in retrospect? The primary lesson is that NSA was indeed on the right path—a path of transformation. Congressional leaders told me at our first meeting more than three years ago that the Agency had fallen behind and was in danger of irrelevance. The challenge was above all technological. As one Congressional leader put it, ‘‘You need to hit a home run your first time at bat.’’ The volume, variety and velocity of human communications make our mission more difficult each day. A SIGINT agency has to look like its target. We have to master whatever technology the target is using. If we don’t, we
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literally don’t hear him; or if we do, we cannot turn the ‘‘beeps and squeaks’’ into something intelligible. We had competed successfully against a resourcepoor, oligarchic, technologically inferior, and overly bureaucratic nation state. Now we had to keep pace with a global telecommunications revolution, probably the most dramatic revolution in human communications since Gutenberg’s invention of movable type. To be sure, we were still producing actionable SIGINT—in some ways the best we had ever produced—but we were accessing and processing a smaller portion of that which could and should have been available to us. To put it succinctly, we did not know what we did not know. Public commentary on this usually comes at us in the form of ‘‘the Agency has failed to keep up with technology.’’ Actually, we have made substantial progress but I would agree that we have a long way to go. We are digging out of a deep hole. NSA downsized about one-third of its manpower and about the same proportion of its budget in the decade of the 1990s.… It was clear to us that we had to recapitalize if we were to keep up. The danger was not that SIGINT would go away, but that it would cease to be an industrial strength source of American intelligence. It would, we feared, begin to resemble an intelligence boutique: limited product line, limited customer set, and very high unit prices. By the end of the 1990s—with a budget that was fixed or falling and demands from our customers that were unrelenting—we attempted to churn about $200 million per year in our program. This meant taking money away from current, still active, still producing activities and investing those dollars in future capabilities. $200 million per year was far short of what we needed and, in fact, I could make only about one-third of that number stick as our program went through the Executive Branch and the Congress. … Shortly after September 11th, I had a meeting of my senior leaders. I asked them the following question: Is there any part of our transformation roadmap that we should change as a result of the attacks? Unanimously, they responded, ‘‘No, but we need to accelerate these changes.’’ With the money the President has requested and Congress has provided, we have done just that.… What Has NSA Done in Response? … Part of our strategy for nearly three years has been a shift to a greater reliance on American industry. We have been moving along this path steadily and we have the metrics to show it. As you know, in project GROUNDBREAKER we have already outsourced a significant portion of our information technology so that we can concentrate on mission. We have partnered with academia for our systems engineering.… Three weeks ago we awarded a contract for nearly $300 million to a private firm to develop TRAILBLAZER, our effort to revolutionize how we produce SIGINT in a digital age. And last week we cemented a deal with another corporate giant to jointly develop a system to mine data that helps us learn about our targets. In terms of ‘‘buy vs. make’’ (the term Congress has used), we spent about a third of our SIGINT development money this year making things ourselves. Next year the number will be 17%.
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Congress has also said that we had listened in on ‘‘large volumes of phone calls from the part of the world where al-Qaeda was located … but didn’t focus on al-Qaeda.’’ That is, frankly, incorrect. Ms. Hill gives NSA good marks in her report for being aware of the Director of Central Intelligence’s declaration of war on al-Qaeda. We were focusing on al-Qaeda. But did we have enough linguists and analysts focused on the problem? Clearly we could have used more, but if these hearings were about a war that had broken out in Korea or a crisis in the Taiwan Straits, if we had been surprised by conflict in South Asia, if we had lost an aircraft over Iraq, or if American forces had suffered casualties in Bosnia or Kosovo—in any of these cases, I would be here telling you that I had not put enough analysts or linguists against the problem. We needed more analysts and linguists across the Agency—period. In that light, Congress has criticized us for a ‘‘failure to recruit,’’ especially to recruit linguists and analysts. Let me try to present the facts on that. NSA recruiting for the decade of the 1990s was indeed minimal. The Agency accomplished the downsizing that was imposed on it in the easiest and most humane way possible—it shut the front door. But as these committees know, we turned the ‘‘recruiting corner’’ in 2000, and 2001 was actually a record year for Agency recruiting, the best in over a decade.… Before the attack in September 2001 we had brought more than 600 new people on board. By September 11th, we had reached a pause in our hiring. We had already reached the legally authorized personnel levels you had set. Conclusion I want to end by focusing on some comments made in recent hearings about NSA’s ‘‘unwillingness’’ to share information. I need to be clear on this point. We are a SIGINT agency. Our mission in life is to provide information to all source analysts, military commanders, policy makers and others in the U.S. government. Our only measure of merit is the quality and quantity of information that we push out the door every day.… There have been some special concerns raised about our willingness to share SIGINT with law enforcement. The fact is that NSA provides a significant amount of SIGINT to law enforcement every day. FBI headquarters routinely receives some 200 reports daily from us. When this is further distributed within FBI, the recipients may not realize it is SIGINT because it is handled in such a way as to protect sources and methods from being disclosed. Much has been said in these hearings about a ‘‘wall’’ between intelligence and law enforcement. I will speak only of NSA but I think it fair to say that ‘‘historically’’ we have been able to be more agile in sharing information with some customers (like the Department of Defense) than we have with others (like the Department of Justice). This is not something that we created or chose. For very legitimate reasons, Congress and the courts have erected some barriers that make the sharing with law enforcement more careful, more regulated. As a practical matter, we have chosen as a people to make it harder to conduct electronic searches for a law enforcement purpose than for a foreign
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intelligence purpose. This is so because law enforcement electronic searches implicate not only 4th Amendment privacy interests, but also 5th Amendment liberty interests. After all, the purpose of traditional law enforcement activity is to put criminals behind bars. There is a certain irony here. This is one of the few times in the history of my Agency that the Director has testified in open session about operational matters. The first was in the mid 1970s when one of my predecessors sat here nearly mute while being grilled by members of Congress for intruding upon the privacy rights of the American people. Largely as a result of those hearings, NSA is governed today by various executive orders and laws and these legal restrictions are drilled into NSA employees and enforced through oversight by all three branches of government. In the context of NSA’s mission, where do we draw the line between the government’s need for CT information about people in the United States and the privacy interests of people located in the United States? We have to find the right balance between protecting our security and protecting our liberty. If we fail in this effort by drawing the line in the wrong place, that is, overly favoring liberty or security, then the terrorists win and liberty loses in either case. SOURCE: http://www.nsa.gov/releases/relea00064.pdf
Winston P. Wiley, Chair, Senior Steering Group, Terrorist Threat Integration Center, and Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Homeland Security, Testimony Before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, February 28, 2003 As you know, in his State of the Union address, the President instructed the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation working with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop the Nation’s first unified Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC).… the President announced that the TTIC would stand up by May 1 and would, as soon as possible, … collocated—with the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and the DCI Counterterrorist Center.… TTIC’s Mission and Structure. TTIC’s mission is to enable full integration of U.S. Government terrorist threat-related information and analysis. Its structure will promote that. TTIC will be an interagency joint venture where officers will work together to provide a comprehensive, all-source-based picture of potential terrorist threats to U.S. interests. TTIC’s structure is designed to ensure rapid and unfettered sharing of relevant information across departmental lines. It will collapse bureaucratic barriers and close inter-jurisdictional seams. The objective is to create value-added efficiencies in analyzing the full array of terrorist threat-related information the U.S. Government has available to it. Elements of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, the DCI’s Counterterrorist Center, the Department of
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Defense, and other U.S. Government agencies, as appropriate, will form TTIC. TTIC will not, however, involve any of its participating agencies in new missions. It will combine their terrorist threat-related analytic efforts in support of a more focused and comprehensive, Government-wide, counterterrorist intelligence effort. We want to stress a few of TTIC’s most important features. TTIC will: ¥ Have unfettered access to all intelligence information—from raw reports to finished analytic assessments—available to the U.S. Government. ¥ Provide all-source terrorist threat assessments to our national leadership. ¥ Oversee a national counterterrorism tasking and requirements system. ¥ Maintain a database of known and suspected terrorists that will be accessible to federal and, as appropriate, non-federal officials and entities.
TTIC will close any gaps separating analysis of foreign-sourced and domestic-sourced terrorist threat-related information. It will provide integrated analysis of potential terrorist threats to all U.S. interests, physical and cyber. TTIC’s structure will promote comprehensive analysis of potential terrorist threats and unprecedented information sharing across agency lines to ensure optimum support to a disparate array of customers—not only at the federal level, but also (through the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI) to state, local, and private sector officials who have homeland security-related responsibilities. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/wiley_speech_02 262003.html
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan Event, May 14, 2004 … We realize the objectives of the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan and dedicate ourselves to its principal goal: to provide law enforcement at all levels with the information and tools they need to prevent crime and terrorism. On April 13, I testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States—the 9/11 Commission—that the single greatest structural cause for the terrorist attacks of September 11 were impediments to communication and information sharing among the men and women charged with keeping Americans safe. Government erected a wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents. Government buttressed this wall. And before September 11, 2001, government was blinded by this wall. The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan is the first of its kind in the nation. It was developed by the Global Justice Information Sharing Advisory Committee as the direct result of recommendations made at the 2002 Intelligence Sharing Summit hosted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. We have heard a lot of talk about our ability to ‘‘connect the dots’’ since September 11. This plan represents law enforcement’s commitment to take it
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upon itself to ensure that the dots are connected, be it in crime or terrorism. The plan is the outcome of an unprecedented effort by law enforcement agencies, with the strong support of the Department of Justice, to strengthen the nation’s security through better intelligence analysis and sharing. At the Justice Department, we have accomplished a transformation of our ability to detect, deter and destroy terrorist threats by adherence to three guiding reforms. Each of these principles is embodied in the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan. The first of these reforms is prioritization: For the men and women of Justice, the prevention of terrorist attacks is now job one. The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan also focuses on prevention by coordinating all levels of law enforcement in order to improve our ability to detect threats and protect communities. Second is mobilization. At the Justice Department, we have mobilized agents and officials with additional tools through the USA Patriot Act and other reforms. The NCISP similarly empowers officials through guidelines and policies on such issues as training in intelligence-led policing and protecting citizens’ civil and privacy rights. Third is coordination. No single government agency—or government—can win the war on terrorism. The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan recommends the establishment of a Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council to provide long-term oversight for the implementation of its recommendations. The Council will serve as a voice for local law enforcement in its efforts to share criminal intelligence. And it will work closely with the Justice Intelligence Coordinating Council, which I established recently to coordinate all intelligence-related activities conducted by the law enforcement components of the Department of Justice. The implementation of this Plan also will be coordinated with the Department’s Law Enforcement Information Sharing Initiative. Under my direction, the Justice Department has made it a top priority to share timely and accurate information among DOJ agencies—the FBI, DEA, ATF, Marshals Service, and U.S. Attorneys, and, just as importantly, with other federal, state and local law enforcement. The Law Enforcement Information Sharing Initiative will make sure that our policies, practices and technologies are focused on achieving these objectives. The National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan is a work of tremendous initiative. And its impact will be that much greater because it builds on the critical tools for law enforcement won with the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2004/51404aginteliacp.htm
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘Tomorrow’s FBI: Changing to Meet New Challenges,’’ Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, June 22, 2004 In 1946, George Kennan issued his Long Telegram, urging a strategy of containment against the Soviet Union. He said that it would be longer and
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tougher than Americans had realized, but that he believed freedom would prevail. So it is with terrorism. Again, it will be a long and difficult war. However, this time, mere containment will not suffice. We must fight back on multiple fronts, with methods both old and new. We must go after terrorists and stop them before they strike. With globalization, the ability of nation-states to effectively respond to criminal activity is seriously challenged. To confront this dangerous new landscape, law enforcement must continue to evolve. We in the FBI have already changed to meet these new threats, but more change is needed. Immediately following September 11th, our primary mission became the prevention of terrorist attacks. As a result, our top three national security priorities are now counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber security. This means every counterterrorism lead is addressed, even if it requires a diversion of resources from other areas. All other programs support this goal either directly or indirectly.… In counterintelligence we are alert to the potential for a foreign power to penetrate the U.S. Intelligence Community and to compromise Critical National Assets. We are also deeply concerned about an agent of a hostile group or nation producing or using weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the players in the espionage game have diversified. The number of countries engaged in espionage against the U.S. has risen since the end of the Cold War. And we are no longer dealing exclusively with intelligence agents. Today the threat can just as easily come from students, business executives, or hackers. In the cyber area, we continue to see a dramatic rise in computer-related crimes … Thanks to our increasingly interconnected world, isolated individuals can now launch attacks costing billions of dollars and impacting millions of people. You may recall the Love Bug from a few years ago developed by a student from the Philippines. By the time the ‘‘Love’’ virus had run its course, millions of systems had been disrupted. Total damages worldwide were estimated at 8 to 10 billion dollars. This trend will increase as criminals discover new ways to exploit the Internet. To confront tomorrow’s threats, we must continue developing our capabilities—in intelligence, in technology, and internationally. While the FBI has always excelled at intelligence gathering, we need to improve our ability to analyze and share that information. We cannot prevent terrorist attacks without the ability to identify potential terrorists, predict their actions, and neutralize them before they attack. This is why we are establishing a Directorate of Intelligence within the FBI—one with broad authority over all intelligence-related functions. This is the next logical step in the current evolution of the FBI’s intelligence capability. This service within a service maintains our commitment to the integration of our law enforcement and intelligence operations. At the same time, it would create direct lines of authority and accountability.
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Intelligence is a tool. That tool becomes increasingly important when there are more threats than we can physically pursue. We need an edge to tell us what to investigate. Soon, all counterterrorism cases will be intelligence-driven operations with law enforcement sanctions as an ancillary aspect. Intelligence will be as routine to every FBI Agent as his or her gun and his or her credentials. Likewise, intelligence analysts will need new tools and capabilities. It does not take long for terrorists to catch on to our technology and to adjust. In the future, it must be upgraded on a continuous basis so that we stay several steps ahead of our enemies. We will have a fully operational modern information technology infrastructure. One with seamless information sharing that will close the communication gap with our law enforcement partners and the intelligence community. Our overriding goal is to provide the right information, to the right people, at the right time. In addition to being connected through technology, we need enhanced connections internationally. Indeed, these relationships will be the key to our success. No nation, or agency, can fight crime and terrorism alone. Since 9/11, our 48 international offices or Legates have become increasingly important to our overall operations. What began strictly as a liaison now assists our counterparts overseas on joint investigations, intelligence sharing, and the development of new methods to prevent attacks. In one recent case, an e-mail contained a threat to bomb the New York subway. Working with our counterparts we were able to trace the message to a Russian address and ask the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry to investigate the credibility of the threat. They mobilized their resources and resolved the threat. This is an example of the instantaneous, 24-hour cooperation we now enjoy with our former Cold War adversary. In the future, the FBI will have offices or Legates in every country with a major impact on the United States. Their resources will include agents, analysts and reports officers who will be instantly connected throughout the world. U.S. law enforcement will have to be aligned with our counterparts overseas much like our military forces are aligned with their counterparts overseas. Some day, there will likely be an official international anti-terrorism alliance, with a structure similar to NATO—united partners joined against a common enemy. To meet the growing international challenge, the FBI will need a truly diverse workforce of individuals who think differently and have different views of the universe. In hiring employees, we will still need those with a background in law enforcement and the military. But we will also need individuals with specialty backgrounds, who understand international law, are fluent in foreign languages, or have a background in intelligence. Even as the FBI moves forward, it is vital that we preserve the best of an agency with a long and distinguished history. We must continue to serve as guardians of civil liberties operating with full adherence to the Constitution. We must uphold our fundamental values of Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity. With the full measure of our dedication, we in the FBI will preserve these traditions, even as we evolve to meet today’s new threats. SOURCE: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech062204.htm
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Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 Commission Recommendation: Counterterrorism Analysis and Collection,’’ Testimony Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., August 4, 2004 Following the September 11 attacks, the Administration developed the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which outlined the policy framework for coordinated actions to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, its interests, and its friends around the world. The National Strategy will ultimately create an international environment inhospitable to terrorists and all those who support them. We have implemented this strategy to act simultaneously on four fronts: Defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by attacking their sanctuaries, leadership, finances, and command, control and communications; Deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating with other states to take action against these international threats; Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk; and Defend the United States, its citizens, and interests at home and abroad. Today’s hearing offers an opportunity to examine the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations.… The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism is premised on sustained, steadfast, and systematic application of all key elements of national security—diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, military, and, as we will discuss today, intelligence. Each of the four fronts in the National Strategy has a significant intelligence component … When discussing ways to improve imagination and creativity in the collection and analysis of intelligence for counterterrorism, it is important to first understand the foundation upon which we must build. I can speak directly to the process in place at the Department of State. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is the Department’s liaison with the Intelligence Community at large. My office works closely with INR and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Office of Intelligence and Threat Analysis to assess the current intelligence information related to terrorist threats both overseas and at home. The Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs has worked with other offices to develop technologies that facilitate legitimate travel while maintaining the integrity and security of our borders. My office also coordinates with the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) on a variety of activities in support of counterterrorism purposes. As a participant in the National Security Council’s Counterterrorism Security Group, I have frequent and direct interactions with senior officials from the Departments of Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security, the CIA, FBI, and other interagency officials who shape and direct the counterterrorism policies of the U.S. Government. Through these relationships, we have ample opportunities to provide input to the U.S. Government’s process for collecting and analyzing intelligence for counterterrorism purposes. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/35678.htm
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John E. McLaughlin, Acting Director of Central Intelligence, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 9/11 Commission Findings, August 17, 2004 Mr. Chairman, as this Committee considers reorganization proposals by the President, the Kean Commission and the Congress, I want to speak to the structure and capabilities of the Intelligence Community as it is today, not as it was in 2001. I believe that today’s Intelligence Community provides a much stronger foundation than many people realize for whatever changes you decide to make. That said, we can still do better.… Intelligence Community Today Three years of war have profoundly affected the Intelligence Community. Since 9/11, our capacity and effectiveness have grown as our resources have increased and as we have taken steps to address many of the issues others have highlighted.… Some examples: ¥ Our policies—the Nation’s and the Intelligence Community’s—have changed— we are on the offensive against terrorists worldwide and many of the most dangerous are captured or dead. ¥ Our practices have changed—intelligence, law enforcement and military officers serve together and share information real time on the front lines at home and abroad. And in Washington, I chair an operational meeting every day with Intelligence community and law enforcement elements represented. Decisions made there go immediately to officers in the field whose penetration and disruption of terrorist groups yields the kind of increasingly precise intelligence you have seen in the last two weeks. ¥ Our worldwide coalition has changed—it is broader, deeper, and more committed. Where terrorists found sanctuary before, they find our allies now—and we are seeing the results from Manama to Mexico City. ¥ Our laws have changed—the Patriot Act has given us weapons in the war we did not have and we have saved lives because of them. ¥ Our institutions have changed—The Terrorist Threat Integration Center enables us to share intelligence collected abroad with law enforcement information collected at home—and plots have been stopped in the US because of that. Twentysix different data networks now flow there to be shared by officers from the widest array of foreign and domestic intelligence agencies ever assembled in one organization.…
In turn, the changes affected our ability to wage war and the impact of change has been striking. ¥ It was imaginative covert action—CIA officers working with the US military— that helped drive military operations and ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and broke up the al Qaida sanctuary. ¥ Terrorist arrests are increasing steadily. That evidence comes with your morning newspapers nearly every day now. ¥ CIA, FBI, Treasury, and other partners, at home and abroad are starving the al Qa’ida of its lifeblood—-money. ¥ CIA has worked with the FBI, as it has taken down extremists in Lackawanna, Columbus, and New York City.
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Our coalition partners include, by varying degrees, Libyans and Russians, Chinese and Hungarians, Pakistanis and Saudis—and our traditional allies in Europe and Asia. In short, the situation has changed dramatically from where the 9/11 Commission left off. Two things, however, are still true: al Qaida and other terrorists remain dangerous and there is still room for improvement in the Intelligence Community.… Thoughts on Reform Looking ahead now, it is important to note that the threat from terrorist organizations is not stagnant. These organizations learn and adapt. It is not enough for us to keep up, we must anticipate and keep ahead. As we seek to build on the improvements we’ve made in recent years, we should keep in mind a few of what I would call ‘‘first principles’’: First, speed and agility are the keys to the war on terrorism, and profoundly important to the nation’s other intelligence challenges. Speed and agility are not promoted by complicated wiring diagrams, more levels of bureaucracy, increased dual hatting, or inherent questions about who is in charge. Second, as in architecture, form should follow function. The functions intelligence must perform today are dramatically different than during the Cold War. Back then, we focused heavily on large strategic forces and where countries stood in the bipolar competition of the day. Today, the focus is more on locating people, tracking shipments of dangerous materials, understanding politics down to the tribal level in a world where the only constant is change. Third, in this world clear structure and clear chain of command is better than its opposite. Fourth, most important to knowing how and what to change is consensus on what we want from our intelligence agencies, constancy in resource and moral support for them through good and bad times, and patience.… Drawing on these principles, I believe that short, clear lines of command and control are required in whatever structure you establish, regardless of what you call its leader. Three words are key: agility, flexibility, and speed. You need to build these into any new structures and procedures. No matter how successfully we anticipate future challenges, we will not foresee them all. So, we will need the ability to adapt our organizations to change, easily and quickly. We will need flexibility in shifting resources, people and money to respond to shifting priorities. The DCI can do some of this with existing authorities. But frankly, it is too complicated and ponderous. It involves more negotiation and signoffs than the times will allow. That is why, should the President’s proposal to create a National Intelligence Director be adopted, I believe that individual should have the clear authority to move people and resources and to evaluate the performance of the national intelligence agencies and their leaders.… SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2004/mclaughlin_testi mony_08172004.html
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President George W. Bush, Radio Address on Intelligence Legislation, December 4, 2004 To protect America, our country needs the best possible intelligence. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission chart a clear, sensible path toward needed reforms to our government’s intelligence capabilities. I strongly support most of those recommendations, and my administration is already implementing the vast majority of those that can be enacted without a vote of Congress. In August, I established the National Counterterrorism Center, where all the available intelligence on terrorist threats is brought together in one place. Just last month, I issued two directives instructing the FBI and CIA to hire new personnel, and to press forward with the transformation of these agencies to meet the threats of our time. But other key changes require new laws. For the past few months, I have been working with the Congress to produce an intelligence reform bill that will make America more secure. Congress made good progress toward a strong new law. Provisions have been included to strengthen our ability to arrest those who aid and train terrorists, to hold dangerous terrorists who are awaiting trial, and to prosecute those who seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The most important provisions of any new bill must create a strong, focused new management structure for our intelligence services and break down the remaining walls that prevent the timely sharing of vital threat information among federal agencies and with relevant state, local, and private sector personnel. Our intelligence efforts need a director of national intelligence who will oversee all of the foreign and domestic activities of the intelligence community. The legislation I support preserves the existing chain of command, and leaves America’s 15 intelligence agencies, organizations, and offices in their current departments. Yet the director of national intelligence will oversee all of America’s intelligence efforts to help ensure that our government can find and stop terrorists before they strike. To be effective, this position must have full budget authority over our intelligence agencies. The many elements of our intelligence community must function seamlessly, with an overriding mission: to protect America from attack by terrorists or outlaw regimes. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/12/20041204.html
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 17, 2005 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY Challenges and Changes We Face The war on terrorism has presented the Intelligence Community with challenges unlike any before. We are facing small groups of terrorists and extremist rather than standing armies. They operate out of homes and caves rather than military bases and government entities. They don’t wear uniforms, they don’t use conventional ordnance, and they don’t observe norms and standards of
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civilized society. And only a few individuals may know the complete plan of a given terrorist plot. In response we changed the way we gather secrets. Professional interrogation has become a very useful and necessary way to obtain information to save innocent lives, to disrupt terrorist schemes, and to protect our combat forces. The USG had documented success protecting people and capturing terrorists with information.… We will continue to be successful and take terrorists and extremists off the battlefield. But these are risky activities and I will be asking the men and women of the CIA to take more risks—justifiable risks—in the days and months to come. I would much rather explain why we did something than why we did nothing.… Processing What We Collect The volume and scope of information that the Intelligence Community collects, processes and provides to policymakers and warfighters has grown tremendously. We face several issues here: ¥ First, I believe we have made great strides in improving the information flow between CIA, FBI, DHS, and others, yet we still face challenges. We all understand this and are working hard to improve the information sharing in all directions. ¥ Second, as we continually vet sources of threat information we need to do better at discerning what is a real threat, and what is wishful thinking, and to establish a threshold for devoting analytical and operational resources to track down a lead. Establishing this threshold is also critical to our ability to provide intelligence on options for strategic decisions, and to give the American public an accurate assessment of the threat facing the country. ¥ Third, for all of the successes we have had and advances we have made, serious and unnecessary damage is caused by media leaks. Unauthorized disclosures of classified information threatens the survivability of the sources and methods that we depend on. We have lost opportunity, if not capability, because of irresponsible leaks and we have made it easier for our enemies.
Making Intelligence Actionable Collecting secrets—and keeping them secret—is only half the battle. Having intelligence that is actionable and is acted upon through clearly defined mechanisms is just as critical. Terrorists started the war on our soil. We have taken the war to them. Sometimes this requires what we euphemistically call a ‘‘kinetic’’ solution on foreign soil. We have to be able to use all of the tools at our disposal and understand the consequences of how we use them. Dealing successfully with dangerous terrorists requires rapid application of the proper capabilities whether the USG is conducting planned strikes or exploiting targets of opportunity. Developing the Right Cadre I welcome the President’s directive to increase CIA’s HUMINT and analytical capabilities by nearly half. The good news is that smart, eager, and talented
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people are applying for work in record numbers. Recruiting, training, equipping, and retaining the new more diverse workforce will be a growing endeavor. To do so, I want to help establish a National University of Intelligence, not just for the CIA, but for all agencies within the Intelligence Community.… Threat Now, I turn to specific threats.… We must … concentrate our efforts, experience and expertise on matters that are most pressing: defeating terrorism; protecting the Homeland; stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and drugs; and fostering stability, freedom and peace in the most troubled regions of the world. SOURCE: http://www.shaps.hawaii.edu/security/us/2005/20050317_goss.html
Porter J. Goss, Director of Central Intelligence, Statement on the WMD Commission Report, March 31, 2005 The Intelligence Community welcomes the final report of the ‘‘Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.’’ It is the product of an in-depth, yearlong inquiry into a complex topic vital to all Americans.… The Commission is right to underscore the difficulty of gathering intelligence on the WMD target. These are some of the most closely guarded secrets of foreign groups and governments. The Commission also rightly points to successes and to improvements—operational and analytic—that have been and are being made at the CIA and elsewhere across the Intelligence Community. We need more robust collection and more rigorous analysis, and I agree wholeheartedly with the Commission’s findings on these issues. These findings, coupled with the Presidential mandate to enhance our HUMINT and analytic capabilities, provide additional momentum as we recruit, train, and deploy officers with substantive expertise, who also speak the languages and know the cultures of the targets critical to America’s security. We can never become complacent. There is still much to be done as we continue to transform the way the Intelligence Community does its work. If anything, we need to accelerate this transformation. It is one of my highest priorities to join with the new Director of National Intelligence to make the desired changes as quickly as possible, with the least disruption to the mission before us, and to achieve greater integration across the Intelligence Community for the enhancement of American security. Intelligence is an area in which we can never afford to stand still. From the acquisition of information, and the assessment of intelligence sources, to the questioning of basic analytic assumptions, and the timely sharing of information, the Community can and must do better—and it is determined to do so. At its core, intelligence is about being objective and unbiased in the collection and presentation of facts. We appreciate constructive criticism. We
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acknowledge mistakes when we make them, and build on our strengths and talents. There is great richness throughout the Intelligence Community, and we will harness our resources to provide the kind of product our consumers expect and the American people deserve. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2005/pr03312005. html
President George W. Bush Discusses the WMD Commission Report, Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, March 31, 2005 … Last year I issued an executive order creating an independent commission to look at America’s intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. This morning the commission presented me with their recommendations … The central conclusion is one that I share: America’s intelligence community needs fundamental change to enable us to successfully confront the threats of the 21st century. My administration has taken steps consistent with the commission’s recommendations. In February, I named John Negroponte the first Director of National Intelligence, a post that was created to help ensure that our intelligence community works as a single, unified enterprise. It’s important for Congress to move quickly on John’s confirmation, because he’ll have a key role in the continued reform and restructuring of intelligence capabilities. Today I’ve directed Homeland Secretary advisor Fran Townsend to oversee the interagency process, to review the commission’s findings, and to ensure that concrete action is taken. The commission report delivers a sharp critique of the way intelligence has been collected and analyzed against some of the most different intelligence targets, especially Iraq. To win the war on terror, we will correct what needs to be fixed, and build on what the commission calls solid intelligence successes. These include the uncovering of Libya’s nuclear and missile programs. In Pakistan, our intelligence helped expose and shut down the world’s most dangerous nuclear proliferation network. Where we have had success, the commission reports we have seen innovative collection techniques and a fusion of interagency intelligence capabilities. We must work to replicate these successes in other areas. The President and his national security team must have intelligence that is timely and intelligence that is accurate.… … We need to understand the threats and adjust our capabilities to meet those threats. We will work to give our intelligence professionals the tools they need. Our collection and analysis of intelligence will never be perfect, but in an age where our margin for error is getting smaller, in an age in which we are at war, the consequences of underestimating a threat could be tens of thousands of innocent lives. And my administration will continue to make intelligence reforms that will allow us to identify threats before they fully emerge so we can take effective action to protect the American people.
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SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050331.html EDITOR’S NOTE: For Text of the WMD Commission Report, see http:// www.wmd.gov/report/.
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Remarks to CIA Employees, September 22, 2005 It is important—especially at a time of change—to meet and talk about the direction of our Agency, … and the next steps that we need to take together.… But first, I want to make some remarks. As you know, the single greatest change that the Agency has embraced as the leader in the Intelligence Community is the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The President studied the results of the 911 Commission and took the opportunity to reorganize the Intelligence Community, as we all know. This was long overdue, because as the last DCI, I can say that the job had become frankly too big for one person. Especially, given that the DCI had limited capabilities and authority to manage anything but the CIA. And the DCI job had simply changed since its inception, which actually was more than a half century ago, as you know. The DNI was established to: ¥ Gain coherence from an ever-larger Intelligence Community; we all know the Community is bigger. ¥ Get some control of the budget process, which we all know is far from perfect. ¥ And most critically, increase the sharing of intelligence so we can hopefully avoid the kinds of problems upon which the 9–11 Commission, and the other commissions, have reported.
So thus, I became the first Director to be responsible for the direction of the CIA, without Community responsibilities attached. Ironically, in this new design, among the first things the DNI is doing is assigning to the DCIA, the community role as the National HUMINT Manager. And the reason for this is actually quite simple. CIA is the gold standard when it comes to human intelligence collection. CIA will have the authority to set standards for the entire Intelligence Community on things relating to HUMINT. Thus, CIA remains the flagship of the IC for HUMINT.… This is a time of great opportunity for the Agency.… We are rebuilding our human resources—not just in sheer numbers, but we’ve also addressing things like our language shortfalls. That applies to the way that we train our newcomers, our middle management, and even our senior management. In short, more quantity, more quality are in our future. Now, in order to accomplish our core mission, we access plans and intentions of our enemies and then we analyze those secrets, identifying and gaining access to the mischief makers and the leaders of the future; providing our customers with a product that they can rely on to make the very tough decisions they have to make. There is no question in my mind as to my priority for this Agency. Improving our global capabilities is our main job. After all,
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how can you disrupt terrorist actions without first knowing their plans and intentions? And, you’re dealing with the explosion of information endlessly circling our globe in today’s technological society. How to filter the nuggets is not an easy job. So, the bottom line is: The CIA is being asked to do better what it has always done—to provide objective, unbiased, and independent intelligence to policymakers without being policy prescriptive. The President expects the CIA to be able to do well what the Agency does uniquely. We are seekers of truth, not owners, and it is an endless task. And now I want to give you my sense of how we are proceeding when it comes to transformation. And, an understanding of where I see things going next. We have been making real progress in all the areas that have called out for improvement. Such as: ¥ We’ve been having substantial, but quiet success in our efforts in the Global War on Terror. We have provided intelligence support that has resulted in the capture or killings of dozens of high-level Al Qa’ida operatives … ¥ We have gotten more unilateral … It’s getting the right kind of people trained in the right places under the right cover against the right targets with the understanding that there is the right kind of political will and leadership to give them the time and the backing to do the jobs they need to do.… ¥ We have been having great success recruiting agents on all the target sets. We have continued various initiatives to stock our asset pool for future anticipated needs and challenges.… ¥ We are getting more and more global. We opened new stations and bases and we’ve reopened some old ones. We are developing new and creative ways to get more and more of our officers out of Washington. ¥ The … work of the DS & T is … a critical pillar of our success in human operations and … a catalyst for some of the IC’s most important technical intelligence.… ¥ We have been reducing Headquarters bureaucracy.… ¥ We are incentivizing language skills and cultural awareness. We recognize the need for diversity in all our disciplines throughout the Agency.… We are bringing in new case officers into the inner core of our Agency family. They are going to include more recent arrivals to the United States and those with a lot of foreign travel and exposure to different kinds of experiences.…
When I was in case officer training, I was advised to beware of recruiting in my own image—back then we were indeed a small old boys network—and that is changing, but we are still not where we need to be on that. ¥ We are rewarding and promoting positive impact on mission, not just time spent at Headquarters. I have asked the Executive Director to begin the process to establish a more flexible track for the Senior Intelligence Service— … so that experts in their field can be rewarded for their impact on mission without being forced to hold management positions. ¥ We have focused our need for a first class and state of the art global infrastructure worthy of the global enterprise that is CIA.… Too much of our aging infrastructure has been run to ruin.… There are too many critical nodes that are single
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points of failure for an Agency on which so much depends. We cannot allow ourselves to fall any further behind. ¥ And we have put the spotlight on creativity and the exercise of one’s ingenuity. The creation and establishment of the Director’s Mission Innovation Center is quickly becoming the place where one’s imagination is allowed to exercise and where the challenges of tomorrow are met and overcome. I will shortly announce a Director’s Group that will work in conjunction with this center, and to make permanent our transformation efforts …
I have placed a refreshed emphasis on the CIA as a global agency. We do not serve our policymakers if we are not in the places that they need us to be today, and are not reporting from places they don’t expect us to be—but where they may need us to be tomorrow. Our people being global enhances our capability to provide better intelligence and better insight. Through a focus on fundamentals of tradecraft, time on target, and the creation of innovative capabilities, approaches, and tools, the CIA will be better positioned to meet emerging challenges and deal with emerging threats and trends. … Unilateral operations will return to be part of the governing paradigm for the CIA. I have said this before, and I talk about it a lot when I am in the field, but I cannot say it enough. I expect and encourage calculated risk taking—and, it will be rewarded. Analysis is the engine that drives the CIA. In my view, it is analysis that must drive collection. Collection for collection’s sake is exciting and interesting, but if it is not put into context and synthesized with the other available pieces of information on the topic, it’s again interesting to policymakers, but it’s probably not of much utility.… In the area of Improved Collection—We do need to get the analysts more information. Collection is job one in support of our analytic capabilities. Getting the right kind of collection, overt as well as secret, for our analysts is, and must be, a big part of the way forward for our agency. Improved Training— … I do feel some of our tradecraft was not what it could have been. Perhaps, it was because of the press of business, perhaps, because we had been thinned out so badly.… Another part is fostering an environment that lends itself to competitive analysis. We are not afraid to publish opposing perspectives, if they exist. This gives policymakers more with which to work. When two groups of smart people come to different conclusions about what a set of facts means, this is—in my view—much more honest, less-biased, and true to our profession. I have talked much about Field forward. You cannot understand people overseas, much less influence them, from Langley. You cannot develop deep and trusting relationships with individuals and with governments overseas by flying in and flipping out a US passport. We are working to change the ratio so that we have more of our case officers out in the field under new kinds of cover in places where they can do what they need to do for us. Aligning capabilities with the threats as they exist today and will be tomorrow cannot be understated. Operating around today’s troubled world requires
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different capabilities in different places. One size fits all doesn’t work and neither does a lot of the old technology. We may need a case officer with a CPA to work in Europe against terrorist funding, we might need a pretty good engineer or physicist someplace to work proliferation issues. I’m still taken with the idea of our case officers riding across the … very harsh terrain—of Afghanistan on horseback, bringing in precision aircraft ordnance from our military on specific targets is an amazing sight. Hiring and deploying the right case officers, with the right capabilities—this is exactly what I have directed the DO leadership to do. We are definitely going to be using new cover arrangements overseas, because we have to. That doesn’t mean we’re going to abandon our old ways. Pinstripes work in some places—and they’ll still be fashionable there—but not everywhere.… Moving on to the Directorate of Science and Technology. The technical revolutions of the past 50 years have brought obstacles and opportunities equally revolutionary to the world of clandestine operations and all-source analysis. The breadth of DS&T capabilities ranges from the most personal of technologies, such as a disguise, to the most expansive collection technologies available today. Tubes, transistors, digitalization, the Internet—each technical advance used by our adversaries has been some mix of obstacle and opportunity for the bright minds in S&T who support our operations. The DS&T has an equally long history—over 60 years—of innovative and comprehensive open source coverage. FBIS is our ‘‘global safety net.’’ Their considerable contribution to mission will be magnified in the coming months through the creation of a National Open Source Center—a fitting acknowledgment to the critical role of Open Source activity. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2005/Goss_address_09 232005.html
Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Announcement Establishing the National Clandestine Service, October 13, 2005 The Director of National Intelligence, John D. Negroponte, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Porter J. Goss, today announced the creation of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) at CIA. The National Clandestine Service at CIA will incorporate the current Directorate of Operations and will be led by the Director of the National Clandestine Service (D/NCS) to whom the D/CIA will delegate his day-to-day National HUMINT Manager responsibilities. The D/NCS will coordinate, de-conflict, and assess HUMINT operations throughout the IC and will report directly to the D/CIA. The D/NCS will also work with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to implement the DNI’s statutory authorities. The D/NCS will be assisted by two deputies—one will lead the daily activities of the CIA’s Clandestine Service while the other will focus on human intelligence activities across the IC. ‘‘These changes hold the potential to make our HUMINT operations better than they were before—from training and tradecraft to technology and
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counterintelligence,’’ Goss said. ‘‘They hold the potential to make our Intelligence Community even more of a Community. It is up to us to make that potential real, and in the process to make the United States safer and stronger. I have every confidence that we will meet that goal.’’ SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2005/pr10132005. html
Director of Central Intelligence Porter J. Goss, Op-ed ‘‘Loose Lips Sink Spies,’’ New York Times, February 10, 2006 At the Central Intelligence Agency, we are more than holding our own in the global war on terrorism, but we are at risk of losing a key battle: the battle to protect our classified information. The C.I.A. has put many terrorists out of action since 9/11. In our pursuit of the enemy, we accept the unique responsibility we bear as officers of a clandestine service serving an open, constitutional society. But we also know that unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence inhibits our ability to carry out our mission and protect the nation. Revelations of intelligence successes or failures, whether accurate or not, can aid Al Qaeda and its global affiliates in many ways. A leak is invaluable to them, even if it only, say, prematurely confirms whether one of their associates is dead or alive. They can gain much more: these disclosures can tip the terrorists to new technologies we use, our operational tactics, and the identities of brave men and women who risk their lives to assist us. Such leaks also cause our intelligence partners around the globe to question our professionalism and credibility. Too many of my counterparts from other countries have told me, ‘‘You Americans can’t keep a secret.’’ And because of the number of recent news reports discussing our relationships with other intelligence services, some of these critical partners have even informed the C.I.A. that they are reconsidering their participation in some of our most important antiterrorism ventures. They fear that exposure of their cooperation could subject their citizens to terrorist retaliation. Last month, a news article in this newspaper described a ‘‘secret meeting’’ to discuss ‘‘highly classified’’ techniques to detect efforts by other countries to build nuclear weapons. This information was attributed to unnamed intelligence officials who ‘‘spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the effort’s secrecy.’’ Whether accurate or not, this is a direct acknowledgment that these unnamed officials apparently know the importance of secrecy. Recently, I noticed renewed debate in the news media over press reports in 1998 that Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone was being tracked by United States intelligence officials. In the recent debate, it was taken for granted that the original reports did not hurt our national security efforts, and any suggestions that they did cause damage were dismissed as urban myth. But the reality is that the revelation of the phone tracking was, without question, one of the most egregious examples of an unauthorized criminal disclosure of classified
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national defense information in recent years. It served no public interest. Ultimately, the bin Laden phone went silent. … Unauthorized disclosures undermine our efforts and abuse the trust of the people we are sworn to protect. Since becoming director, I have filed criminal reports with the Department of Justice because of such compromises. That department is committed to working with us to investigate these cases aggressively. In addition, I have instituted measures within the agency to further safeguard the integrity of classified data. Our enemies cannot match the creativity, expertise, technical genius and tradecraft that the C.I.A. brings to bear in this war. Criminal disclosures of national security information, however, can erase much of that advantage. The terrorists gain an edge when they keep their secrets and we don’t keep ours. SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/opinion/10goss.html
Director of Intelligence John A. Kringen, Op-ed ‘‘How We’ve Improved Intelligence Minimizing the Risk of ‘Groupthink’,’’ Washington Post, April 3, 2006 Nearly one year ago, President Bush’s commission on weapons of mass destruction released its report identifying shortcomings in the intelligence community. Many of the commission’s judgments dealt with analysis, the discipline I lead at the CIA. The primary criticism was that our analysts were ‘‘too wedded to their assumptions’’ and that our tradecraft—the way we analyze a subject and communicate our findings—needed strengthening. We did not try to hide from the criticism or make excuses. Our assessment of Saddam Hussein’s WMD capabilities was flawed. The fact that foreign intelligence services made similar errors in no way absolved us of ours. We in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) have been intent on improving our work by addressing the commission’s recommendations—and those of several other self-initiated and external reviews—head-on. We have taken many steps in the past year to assure the president, Congress and the American people that they can be confident in the integrity of our assessments. CIA Director Porter Goss has encouraged innovation and creativity in how the CIA approaches its mission. In the DI, we have been diligent in integrating fresh thinking and new perspectives into our analysis. Our in-house training center, the Sherman Kent School, features lessons learned from the Iraq WMD case; they are part of tradecraft courses taken by our analysts, including every recruit entering the DI. Our newest analysts—and all first-line supervisors—also have completed classes on alternative analysis and other analytic techniques. We have established analytic tradecraft units across the directorate, including the office drafting our WMD assessments, that promote the use of alternative and competitive analysis techniques. DI analysts routinely engage academics and outside experts—last year we did so about 100 times a month at conferences or informal meetings—to test hypotheses and minimize the potential for being ensnared by ‘‘groupthink.’’ And we have a staff that routinely evaluates the quality of our assessments.
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We have enhanced the precision and transparency of our written products, making a point of stating clearly and upfront what we know—and what we don’t. Our analysts now offer policymakers greater context on sourcing, including an intelligence asset’s access and biases, thanks to increased information-sharing between the DI and the National Clandestine Service. A computerized system for identifying recalled or modified raw intelligence reports alerts analysts to sources whose information is determined to be faulty. … Porter Goss … expressed his concern that for too long we had concentrated on satisfying the daily demand for current intelligence assessments to the detriment of preparing for the strategic threats and opportunities of tomorrow.… The DI’s strategic research program for fiscal 2006 focuses on identifying and assessing long-term trends and emerging foreign threats that go beyond today’s headlines. DI analysts also participate heavily in long-term analytic projects led by our colleagues in the intelligence community, especially the National Intelligence Council. The benefit is clear: Our policymakers will have a better idea of what might lie over the horizon. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2006/pr04042006. htm
John Scott Redd, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Retired), Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Statement for the Record Before the House Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006 … [O]ne of our greatest long-term concerns, is the emergence of new jihadist networks and cells that are unaffiliated with al-Qa’ida or other terrorist organizations. These grassroots or ‘‘homegrown’’ elements may draw inspiration from al-Qa’ida but operate independently, with little or no centralized guidance and control. They may exist under the radar for years, known only to a small circle of members. As a result, they represent a serious challenge for the Intelligence Community. Their existence raises new questions about how we can draw close to the communities from which these extremists may arise and understand the complex forces that give rise to their violent ideologies. However one characterizes the nature of the enemy and the war, one thing is clear. To win the war, the United States and its allies must bring all elements of power to bear on the problem. That, in a nutshell, is why the National Counterterrorism Center was established. … I would like briefly to review with you the role the National Counterterrorism Center—or NCTC—is playing and will play in the Global War on Terror. As you know, NCTC is a new organization, just over a year old. We began life almost three years ago as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. Since then, our role has been dramatically expanded, primarily by the legislation which established us, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004 (or IRTPA, for short).
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Today, NCTC performs two critical functions in the war on terror. In a sense, as Director I wear two hats. One of those hats involves an important—albeit familiar—role: That of Intelligence. In that hat, I report to Ambassador John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. More recently, as his Mission Manager for Counterterrorism, I serve as his focal point for all intelligence matters relating to Counterterrorism. The second hat involves a new and, I believe, revolutionary role. That is the responsibility for conducting Strategic Operational Planning for the Global War on Terror for the entire U. S. Government. In that hat, I report to the President. To summarize in military terms, we are responsible for producing the government’s plan for the Global War on Terror, and the Intelligence Annex that supports it. Let me review briefly that first hat, our intelligence role. In particular, let me highlight three aspects of our intelligence and information functions: Analysis, Information Sharing and Mission Management. In the area of Analysis, the IRTPA expanded our responsibilities substantially. In addition to integrating all counterterrorism analysis performed by the Intelligence Community, NCTC was assigned the primary role for actually performing CT analysis. That assignment derives logically from the law’s mandate that NCTC be the one place where all sources of counterterrorism intelligence, both foreign and domestic, from across the IC and CT communities, come together. Indeed, our analysts have access to an unprecedented number of classified networks, databases and intelligence sources. This rich information base provides them with a unique ability to scrutinize the terror threat and ‘‘connect the dots’’ in a comprehensive fashion never before possible in the US Government. This, in turn, results in a product set ranging from strategic CT analysis for the President to tactical threat reports that assist the warfighter and first responders at the State and Local levels. The second aspect of our intelligence operation is information sharing. I would argue that NCTC is the U.S. Government’s model for information sharing. Beginning with the current threat, NCTC runs a 24/7 high-tech operations center. Three times a day we chair a secure video-teleconference with the key players in the Intelligence Community, ensuring all have the latest threat information. This is augmented by near-continuous cross-talk among watch standers throughout the IC. NCTC also serves the CT community by compiling the U.S. Government’s central database on known or suspected international terrorists. Designated the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, this database contains all source highly classified information provided by members of the Intelligence Community such as CIA, DIA, FBI, NSA, and many others. Today, there are more than 300,000 records in TIDE. When aliases and transliteration issues are taken into account, this represents over 200,000 unique identities. From this classified TIDE database, an unclassified extract is provided to the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center. That information, in turn, is used in compiling various watch lists such as the TSA’s No-Fly list, State Department’s Visa
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and Passport Database, Homeland Security’s Boarder System, and FBI’s NCIC (National Crime and Information Center) for state and local law enforcement. This represents a major step forward from the pre-9/11 status of multiple, disconnected, and incomplete watchlists throughout the government. The final example of information sharing involves what is arguably the most effective classified website in the world—what we call NCTC Online, or NOL. Essentially, we collect intelligence information and analysis from 28 different government networks which come into NCTC and post it on a single website, NOL, where it is then accessible by individual agencies. Thus, planners and analysts at headquarters or forward deployed in theaters worldwide can go online and immediately find all disseminated intelligence on a given subject, published by DIA, CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS and the rest of the IC. Today we provide access to this wealth of information to approximately 5,000 CT appropriately-cleared analysts around the world. Currently NOL contains approximately 5 million intelligence products. Prior to 9/11, such ‘‘one stop shopping’’ for CT intelligence was unavailable to the IC. The third aspect of NCTC’s intelligence function is CT Mission Management. This is a new, formal assignment by the DNI that grew out of a recommendation from the President’s WMD Commission. Among the Mission Manager’s many tasks are responsibility for understanding the needs of our customers, improving the quality of collection and analytic efforts; closing key information gaps that prevent us from understanding terrorist threats; and making the best use of our CT intelligence resources. That summarizes our Intelligence mission. Let me now turn to our second fundamental mission, that of Strategic Operational Planning. When the term Strategic Operational Planning—or SOP—first became public in the IRTPA, I think it is fair to say few people could have given a coherent definition of what the term meant. Indeed, one of the first orders of the day was to put together an inter-agency effort to hash out what it was and how we would do it. As has become clear, SOP serves to fill a long existing gap in government, one that has been present for most of my almost four decades of government service. Simply put, the White House, in the form of the National Security Council and, more recently, the Homeland Security Council has been in the business of developing broad strategy and policy. At the other end of the spectrum, the Cabinet Departments and Agencies have been responsible for conducting operations in the field. That dual apportionment of roles has been the norm for most of my lifetime. What has been missing is the piece in between policy and operations, a concept not unfamiliar to the military. That need has become even more obvious as we prosecute the Global War on Terrorism. Strategic Operational Planning is designed to fill that gap. The goal of Strategic Operational Planning is straightforward: To bring all elements of National Power to bear on the war on terrorism in an integrated and effective manner. By all elements of national power, we mean the sum of our nations diplomatic, financial, military, intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement activities. NCTC’s charter in this regard is simple in description and extremely complex in execution. Basically, it involves three phases:
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First, there is a planning process. This involves taking our national counterterrorism strategies and policies and translating them first into strategic goals, then into objectives, and finally into discrete tasks. Those tasks are then to be prioritized and assigned to departments and agencies, with lead and partner responsibilities defined.… The second phase involves what the IRTPA describes as ‘‘interagency coordination of operational activities.’’ This involves the coordination, integration and synchronization of departmental operations.… The final phase involves an assessment process. NCTC is charged with monitoring, evaluating and assessing the execution and effectiveness of the plan and recommending changes where needed. The bottom line is that this is an iterative process and there is great value in that process. As General Eisenhower once noted, ‘‘Plans are nothing, planning is everything.’’ That summarizes our second major mission, Strategic Operational Planning. SOURCE: http://armedservices.house.gov/schedules/4-4-06ReddTestimony.pdf
President George W. Bush Discusses the NSA Surveillance Program, Diplomatic Reception Room, May 11, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying. Today there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down al Qaeda to prevent attacks on America. I want to make some important points about what the government is doing and what the government is not doing. First, our international activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans. Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities. We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we’ve been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil. As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people from another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060511-1.html
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General Michael V. Hayden, Director of Central Intelligence, ‘‘The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,’’ Statement for the Record Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, November 15, 2006 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee: The overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and of Saddam Husayn in Iraq as well as our determined pursuit of al-Qa’ida worldwide have inaugurated a new era of risk and opportunity for the United States in its engagement with much of the Muslim world. We are now face-to-face with whole societies which are in profound and volatile transitions and whose fate will directly affect the security of the United States. With US forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and with the United States leading the global response to the threat of terrorism, we are now actors to an unprecedented degree in supporting states—especially Iraq and Afghanistan—which are attempting to create and sustain a stable new order. Against this endeavor significant new forces are arrayed. Political and ethno-sectarian forces previously subordinated are now competing to shape the identity of states. Although some of this competition is taking place within the legitimate democratic process, in other cases radical Islamic groups— including terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan—are able to preempt governments and eclipse more moderate actors. At the regional level, opponents of the United States—like Iran—are seeking to capitalize on the instability of this transitional period to expand their own influence and contest the vision sustained by the United States and its allies. Afghanistan With these trends in mind, let me begin by focusing on Afghanistan where we have made important progress in the face of substantial challenges. Afghanistan’s future depends heavily on the international community’s willingness to continue delivering concrete resources to the Afghan Government. It depends equally on international willingness to help protect the Afghan Government against the Taliban and other extremists who are waging a bloody insurgency in the south and east of the country. Neither of these tasks will be simple, and neither will be completed soon, but the past few years have been a story of success for the Afghan Government and people, as well as the international community. The country made remarkable political progress through the completion of the 2001 Bonn Accord—the political roadmap for rebuilding the country. The international community and the Afghan Government, under the leadership of President Karzai, have built national-level political institutions—including a new constitution, legitimate presidential elections, and a democratically elected parliament. These are all remarkable achievements given the ruinous decades of war Afghanistan experienced prior to 2001.
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The success of the past few years hasn’t lessened the need for international involvement in the country—it has only provided a foundation upon which to build. Now, we need to bolster the Afghan Government’s ability to provide sound governance at all levels of government. Ambassador Neuman recently said the effort would take a long time—in my view, at least a decade—and cost many billions of dollars. I would add that the Afghan Government won’t be able to do it alone. The capacity of the government needs to be strengthened to deliver basic services to the population—especially security. The problems span Afghanistan, but they are especially prevalent in rural areas.… The social situation will get worse if it is not addressed. Right now, about 55 percent of the Afghan population is under the age of 19; millions of young Afghans will enter the labor force over the next 5–10 years, adding to an unemployment burden that is already hovering around 40 percent. The illicit drug trade is a significant hurdle to the expansion of central government authority and it undercuts efforts to rebuild the economy. The drug trade also fuels provincial and local corruption. According to the IMF, the Afghan opiate GDP in 2005 was $2.6 billion—roughly a third of the country’s $7.3 billion licit GDP. Key to making progress is bolstering security. Even in areas of the country where the insurgency is not active, security is falling short. There are not enough properly trained, equipped, or well-paid security forces. Even though the Afghan National Army continues to become larger, stronger, and more experienced, progress has been slow and little progress has been made in constructing an effective Afghan National Police force. The Taliban has built momentum this year. The level of violence associated with the insurgency has increased significantly and the group has become more aggressive than in years past. The Taliban almost certainly refocused its attacks in an attempt to stymie NATO’s efforts in southern Afghanistan. Kabul’s ability to provide sound governance and badly needed aid to these areas will be key to preventing the Taliban and other extremists from intimidating the population into acquiescing in its activities. Kabul needs help because it lacks capacity—not because it lacks political will or lacks support. President Karzai understands this and recognizes his government’s responsibility. Iraq Iraq provides another example of how the forces of change are reshaping the Muslim world. The deep fissures among the groups fighting in Iraq were not created by the Coalition’s overthrow of Saddam’s dictatorship. Throughout Iraq’s modern history, a Sunni minority ruled with the support of the military; Saddam’s cult of personality tragically reinforced this pattern by using extreme violence to suppress the vast majority of Iraq’s inhabitants. Saddam killed tens of thousands of Kurds and Shia in the short period from 1988, when he launched the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, to 1991, when he brutally suppressed Shia and Kurdish revolts: ¥ Saddam ruled during his last years through violent repression and by favoring a small elite within the Sunni community from his home region of Tikrit—to the dismay of other Sunnis.
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¥ Saddam deliberately diverted resources to his powerbase, depriving much of the rest of the country of economic and educational opportunities, and in the case of the Shia majority, basic religious liberty.
Operation Iraqi Freedom completely upended the Saddamist state and Iraqi society. In every respect—political, social, economic—OIF instituted a sea change in the way Iraq is governed. The dissolution of the Iraqi military and the Ba’th party swept away the tools that a small group in power had used to terrorize Iraq, and the subsequent vacuum of authority gave vent to deep seated hatreds that had simmered for years in a brutalized society: ¥ The Shia now focus on assuring that Iraq’s new government reflects the will of the majority Shia population and making sure the Ba’thists never regain power. This fear of a return to Ba’thism is almost palpable among Shia elites. Sunnis view the Shia as Iranian controlled and the current government as predatory. The Kurds, for their part, want to keep and strengthen the substantial autonomy they have exercised since 1991. ¥ It is also noteworthy, however, that the Shia and the Kurds, with some Sunni participation, crafted a democratic constitution that could provide a structure to allow Iraqis to settle their differences peacefully. For this to happen, Iraqi leaders—Shia, Sunnis and Kurds alike—will need to flesh out the document through extensive legislation in such a way that all parties, and particularly the Sunni public, accept as legitimate.
We are all acutely aware that Iraq today is very far from peaceful. While some Sunnis participate in the political process, many seek to undermine it through violence. These Sunni insurgents might disagree on Iraq’s future, but all reject the Coalition presence and the constitutional regime they erroneously assert the Coalition has imposed on Iraq. Moreover, No single narrative is sufficient to explain all the violence in Iraq today. There remains in Iraq today an active insurgency; a broad al-Qai’da offensive targeting us and Iraqis; criminality and lawlessness on a broad scale; rival militias competing for power. Since the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra last February, however, violence between Arab Shia and Sunnis has grown to such an extent that sectarian violence now presents the greatest immediate threat to Iraq’s stability and future. ¥ Last year violence was mostly limited to Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition and Iraqi targets, but now Shia militia attacks against Sunnis and Coalition forces are an integral part of the pattern of violence. ¥ The Kurds live in a fairly homogeneous region under self-government. Yet in the seamline where Kurds, Arabs, and others meet, we see worrying signs—such as a recent surge in violence in the city of Kirkuk—that the legacy of Iraq’s repressive past continues to shape both the Arab/Kurd and the Sunni/Shia fault lines in Iraqi society.
Any Iraqi leader, no matter how skillful, would be hard pressed to reconcile the divergent perspectives that Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds bring to the table— and also to the streets. To strengthen the common ground that all Iraqis can share, the government of Prime Minister Maliki will have to overcome several formidable obstacles:
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¥ Internal divisions and power struggles among the Shia make it difficult for Shia leaders to take the actions that might ease Sunni fears of domination. Radical Shia militias and splinter groups stoke the violence, while brutal Sunni attacks make even moderate Shia question whether it is possible to reconcile the Sunnis to the new Shia-dominated power structures. The Iranian hand is stoking violence and supporting even competing Shia factions. ¥ The Sunnis are even more divided. Many see violent opposition as the only way to overcome the democratic rules that, due to demographic realities, place a ceiling on Sunni political influence.
Even if the central government gains broader support from Iraq’s communities, implementing the reforms needed to improve life for all Iraqis will be extremely difficult. Iraq’s endemic violence is eating away at the state’s ability to govern. The security forces are plagued by sectarianism and severe maintenance and logistics problems; inadequate ministerial capacity is limiting progress on key issues; and the civilian bureaucracy, buffeted by corruption, inefficiency and partisan control, is not currently up to the challenge of providing better services to the Iraqi people. Only if the Iraqi state asserts its authority across the board can the government in Baghdad begin to turn its goals into concrete realities. Complicating these historic forces is the pernicious effect of al-Qa’ida’s presence in Iraq. Despite Zarqawi’s death, al-Qa’ida continues to foment sectarian violence and seeks to expel coalition forces. An al-Qa’ida victory in Iraq would mean a fundamentalist state that shelters jihadists and serves as a launching pad for terrorist operations throughout the region—and in the United States. Turning Next to al-Qa’ida … Al-Qa’ida sees its war against the West as the continuation of a decades, perhaps centuries-old, struggle to defend Islam from political and cultural domination by a Judeo-Christian alliance now led by the United States and Israel. Since Bin Ladin declared war on the United States in 1998, al-Qa’ida has focused primarily on attacks aimed at weakening and punishing the United States and its immediate allies. ¥ The group sees the United States as the main obstacle to realizing its vision of an extreme fundamentalist social and political order throughout the Muslim world. ¥ Although the group has suffered significant losses since 9/11, it is resilient and thoroughly dedicated to mounting new attacks on the US Homeland and our interests abroad.
Understanding the source of al-Qa’ida’s resilience is key to defeating it. With regard to the central organization headed by Bin Ladin, that resilience stems from several factors: First, the group’s cadre of seasoned, committed leaders has allowed it to remain fairly cohesive and stay focused on its strategic objectives—despite having lost a number of important veterans over the years. ¥ Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri continue to play a crucial role in inspiring jihadists and promoting unity. Their demise would not spell the end of the
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threat, but probably would contribute to the unraveling of the central al-Qa’ida organization. ¥ The loss of a series of veteran al-Qa’ida leaders since 9/11 has been mitigated by the group’s ‘‘deep bench’’ of lower-ranking personnel capable of stepping up to assume leadership responsibilities. Although a number of individuals are new to senior management in al-Qa’ida, they are not new to jihad: they average over 40 years of age and nearly two decades of involvement in jihad.
A second critical factor is the group’s physical safehaven in the AfghanistanPakistan border area. This safehaven gives al-Qa’ida the physical—and psychological—space needed to meet, train, expand its networks, and prepare new attacks. ¥ Many locals have ties to al-Qa’ida dating back to the 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. ¥ Rooting out al-Qa’ida elements there is complicated by the rugged terrain and a local culture that is intensely suspicious of—and, at times, overtly hostile to—outsiders, including government security forces. ¥ The safehaven not only gives al-Qa’ida and the Taliban a venue for terrorist plotting, but also serves as a jump-off point for its guerrilla forays into Afghanistan.
A third important factor is Bin Ladin’s extremist ideology and strategic vision, which continues to attract recruits, inspire like-minded groups, and helps our enemies weather setbacks and reconcile themselves to a long struggle. ¥ In addition to planning attacks of its own, al-Qa’ida supports terrorist activities by other groups and seeks to encourage Muslims worldwide to take up the cause of violent jihad. ¥ Al-Qa’ida spreads its propaganda through taped statements—sometimes featuring relatively sophisticated production values—as well as books and websites. ¥ As a Western nation, we have limited tools to counteract this propaganda. We need to make sure our own message is clear and we need work with our Muslim allies.
Finally, it’s important to note that the asymmetric nature of al-Qa’ida’s style of warfare gives it certain advantages. ¥ Our open society presents an almost endless source of targets, and the enemy has demonstrated its ruthlessness through a willingness to attack civilians—including other Muslims—a preference for spectacular, high-casualty operations, and its own adherents’ desire for martyrdom. ¥ As 9/11 showed, even a handful of committed attackers, with relatively modest resources, can inflict terrible damage.
Mr. Chairman, in all aspects of today’s global struggle, we are dealing with deep historical forces and it will require patience and wisdom as well as power for us to deal with them. This will be a long struggle. SOURCE: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2006/DCIA_SASC_Tes timony.html
19 Iraq This chapter on Iraq contains speeches, statements, and testimony focusing primarily on that conflict, but it should be read in conjunction with other chapters, particularly those in Part Two containing statements by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Powell, and those in chapter 17, Threats. Those chapters contain material relating to Iraq, often along with other subjects. The Iraq situation is so intertwined with the administration’s portrayal of the overall terrorism threat that it is difficult to separate them. In some cases, Iraq-related statements are contained in other sections because the speech specifically identified with the speaker, such as President Bush’s ‘‘Mission Accomplished’’ speech and Secretary Powell’s United Nations speech. The tone for the Iraq chapter is set with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s February 8, 2003, speech, in advance of the March 20, 2003, military operation into Iraq, in which he said the trend toward massive terrorist attacks made ‘‘the cost of underestimating the threat … increasingly unthinkable.’’ President Bush sounded an often-repeated administration theme in his September 23, 2004, press conference, saying ‘‘If we stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq, they would be free to plot and plan attacks elsewhere, in America and other free nations.’’ In the same press conference, he addressed the continuing issue of training Iraqi forces, saying that the Iraqi government is on track to build a force of over 200,000 security personnel by the end of 2005. A frequent topic in the Iraq discussions, especially in press conferences, was the future level of U.S. troops and the need to keep troops in Iraq to train the Iraqi forces so they could take over the security role. Secretary of State Rice said in a December 13, 2005, speech that ‘‘over time, the role of our coalition will evolve as Iraqis assume greater responsibility for their own security.’’ In his November 30, 2005, U.S. Naval Academy speech, the president outlined the overall strategy for Iraq and discussed the training of Iraqi troops. He enunciated a general theme that was sounded against those calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, saying ‘‘setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies—that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends.’’
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President Bush told reporters in a May 31, 2005, press conference (see chapter 7) that ‘‘I’m pleased with the progress.’’ And in a July 25, 2006, press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Malkii, the president maintained that ‘‘the Iraqi Army is becoming a highly professional force that will help bring confidence to the people inside Iraq that the government has the capacity to protect them.’’ Vice President Cheney, in an March 19, 2006, television interview, said the Iraq situation has to be viewed within the broader context of the Global War on Terrorism. He said, ‘‘I think we are going to succeed in Iraq. I think the evidence is overwhelming.’’ Six months later, at an October 25, 2006, press conference, the president acknowledged that many Americans were not satisfied with the situation in Iraq and said, ‘‘I’m not satisfied either, and that is why we are taking new steps to secure Baghdad and constantly changing our strategy.’’ EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see President Bush’s December 20, 2006, Press Conference in chapter 7. On January 10, 2007, the president announced a ‘‘surge’’ of 22,000 additional U.S. troops for Iraq, mainly to help secure Baghdad.
As the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunnis grew worse in the next few months, President Bush said in response to a question at his October 25, 2006, press conference, Our job is to prevent the full-scale civil war from happening in the first place. It’s one of the missions to work with the Maliki government to make sure that there is a political way forward that says to the people of Iraq … civil war is not worth the effort.
At the same October 25, 2006 press conference he said, ‘‘I believe Iraq will be able to defend, govern and sustain itself, otherwise I’d pull our troops out.’’
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, ‘‘The Global Fight Against Terrorism: Status and Perspectives,’’ Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, February 8, 2003 Our coalition today includes some 90 nations—almost half the world. It is the largest coalition in human history. We are fighting alongside old allies and new friends alike. (Whoops—there’s that word ‘‘old’’ again). Some are involved in the military effort in Afghanistan. Others are helping elsewhere in the world—in Asia, the Gulf, the Horn of Africa. Some are helping with stability operations; still others are providing basing, re-fueling, over-flight, and intelligence. Some not participating in the military effort are helping in the financial, diplomatic and law enforcement efforts. All of these efforts are important, and deeply appreciated by all nations committed to the global war on terror. As to Iraq, we still hope that force may not be necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein. But if it comes to that, we already know that the same will hold true—some countries will participate, while others may choose not to. The strength of our coalition is that we do not expect every member to be a part of every undertaking.
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The support that has already been pledged to disarm Iraq, here in Europe and across the world, is impressive and growing. A large number of nations have already said they will be with us in a coalition of the willing—and more are stepping up each day. Last week, the leaders of Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain issued a courageous statement declaring that ‘‘the Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security,’’ and pledging that they ‘‘remain united in insisting that his regime be disarmed.’’ Their statement was followed this week by an equally bold declaration by the ‘‘Vilnius 10’’—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia. They declared: ‘‘Our countries understand the dangers posed by tyranny and the special responsibility of democracies to defend our shared values. We are prepared to contribute to an international coalition to enforce [Resolution 1441] and the disarmament of Iraq.’’ Clearly, momentum is building—momentum that sends a critically important message to the Iraqi regime—about our seriousness of purpose and the world’s determination that Iraq must disarm. Let me be clear: no one wants war. War is never a first or an easy choice. But the risks of war need to be balanced against the risks of doing nothing while Iraq pursues the tools of mass destruction. It may be difficult for some to understand just how fundamentally September 11th transformed our country. Americans saw the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Towers as a painful and vivid foreshadowing of far more deadly attacks to come. We looked at the destruction caused by terrorists, who took jetliners, turned them into missiles, and used them to kill 3,000 innocent men, women and children—and we considered the destruction that would be caused by an adversary armed with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Instead of 3,000 killed, it could be 30,000, 300,000, or more. Konrad Adenauer once said that ‘‘history is the sum total of things that could have been avoided.’’ With history, we have the advantage of hindsight. But we must use that advantage to learn. Our challenge today is even more difficult: it is to connect the dots before the fact—to prevent an attack before it happens—not to wait and then hope to pick up the pieces after it happens. To do so, we must come to terms with a fundamental truth—we have reached a point in history when the margin of error we once enjoyed is gone. In the 20th century, we were dealing, for the most part, with conventional weapons that could kill hundreds or thousands of people. If we miscalculated—if we underestimated or ignored a threat—we could absorb an attack, recover, take a deep breath, mobilize our forces, and go out and defeat our attackers. In the 21st century, that is no longer the case; the cost of underestimating the threat is increasingly unthinkable. There is a momentous fact of life we must come to terms with: it is the nexus between terror and weapons of mass destruction. On September 11th, terrorist states discovered that missiles are not the only way to strike Washington—or Paris, or Berlin. There are other means of delivery—terrorist networks. To the extent a terrorist state transfers weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups, they could conceal their responsibility for an attack.
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To this day, we still do not know with certainty who was behind the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. We still do not know who is responsible for the anthrax attacks in the U.S. The nature of terrorist attacks is that it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to identify those responsible. And a terrorist state that can conceal its responsibility for an attack would not be deterred. We are all vulnerable to these threats. As President Bush said in Berlin, ‘‘Those who despise human freedom will attack it on every continent.’’ We need only to look at the recent terrorist bombings in Kenya and Bali, or the poison cells recently uncovered here in Europe, to see that is the case. Last week, President Bush spoke to the world about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime. This week, Secretary Powell presented additional information in the Security Council: Intercepted communications between Iraqi officials, Satellite images of Iraqi weapons facilities, and Human intelligence—from agents inside Iraq, defectors and detainees captured in the global war on terror. He presented not opinions, not conjecture, but facts demonstrating: Iraq’s ongoing pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; Its development of delivery systems, including missiles and unmanned vehicles; Its tests of chemical weapons on human beings; Its ongoing efforts to deceive UN inspectors and conceal its WMD programs; and Its ties to terrorist networks, including al-Qaeda-affiliated cells operating in Baghdad. It is difficult to believe there could still be any question in the minds of reasonable people open to the facts before them. The threat is there to see for those who will see it. And if the worst were to happen—and we had done nothing to stop it—not one of us here today could honestly say that it was a surprise. It will not be a surprise. We are on notice. Each of our nations. Each of us individually. The only question remaining is: what will we do about it? We all hope for a peaceful resolution. But the one chance for a peaceful resolution is to make clear that free nations are prepared to use force if necessary—that the world is united and ready to act. There are those who counsel that we should delay preparations for war. Ironically, that approach could well make war more likely, not less—because delaying preparations sends a signal of uncertainty, instead of a signal of unity and resolve. If the international community once again shows a lack of resolve, there is no chance that Saddam Hussein will disarm voluntarily or flee—and thus little chance of a peaceful outcome. There is another reason to prepare now: NATO member nations have an Article V commitment to defend Turkey, should it come under attack by Iraq. Those preventing the Alliance from taking even minimum measures to prepare to do so, risk undermining the credibility of the NATO Alliance. The stakes are high. Iraq is now defying the 17th UN Security Council resolution. The Council voted to warn Iraq that this was its ‘‘final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations.’’ The resolution, which passed
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unanimously, did not say the ‘‘next to final opportunity.’’ It said the ‘‘final opportunity.’’ Those voting knew what it said. They were explicitly reminded what it said. The question is did the UN mean it? Did they mean it? We will soon know. 17 times the UN has drawn a line in the sand—and 17 times Saddam Hussein has crossed that line. As last week’s statement by the eight European leaders so eloquently put it: ‘‘If [those resolutions] are not complied with, the Security Council will lose its credibility and world peace will suffer as a result.’’ To understand what is at stake, it is worth reminding ourselves of the history of the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations. When the League failed to act after the invasion of Abyssinia, it was discredited as an instrument of peace and security. The lesson of that experience was best summed up at the time by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who declared, ‘‘Collective bluffing cannot bring about collective security.’’ That lesson is as true today, at the start of the 21st century, as it was in the 20th century. The question before us is—have we learned it? There are moments in history when the judgment and resolve of free nations are put to the test. This is such a moment. The security environment we are entering is the most dangerous the world has known. The lives of our children and grandchildren could well hang in the balance. When they look back on this period, what will they say of us? Will they say we stood still—paralyzed by a straightjacket of indecision and 20th century thinking—while dangers gathered? Or will they say that we recognized the coming danger, united, and took action before it was too late? The coming days and weeks will tell. SOURCE: http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/rede.php?id=102&sprache=en&
President George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, The Oval Office, March 19, 2003 THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign. More than 35 countries are giving crucial support—from the use of naval and air bases, to help with intelligence and logistics, to the deployment of combat units. Every nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honor of serving in our common defense. To all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces now in the Middle East, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed. The enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military. In this conflict, America faces an enemy who has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality. Saddam Hussein has placed Iraqi
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troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military—a final atrocity against his people. I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment. We come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people. I know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon. Millions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent. For your sacrifice, you have the gratitude and respect of the American people. And you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done. Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly—yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities. Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory. My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail. May God bless our country and all who defend her. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/print/2003031917.html
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Success and Strategies in the Effort to Liberate Iraq,’’ Prepared Remarks, April 17, 2003 The Justice Department’s Iraq-related terrorism prevention efforts included planning for the possibility of intensified domestic threats during conflict with Iraq. Last spring, as a contingency plan, the FBI developed the action plan to address any related threats that we might face during any possible elevation of military operation. History taught us from Operation Desert Storm that Iraq had a plan to use intelligence officers to infiltrate the U.S. in 1991 to carry out terror. The Iraqi Intelligence Service played a role in terrorist operations, including the attempted assassination of President George H. W. Bush, and other attempts around the world. These Iraqi intelligence officials endangered both our nation and the Iraqis who had fled Iraq to start a new life here, free of Saddam Hussein’s oppression and terror.
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An FBI-focused Justice Department Iraqi Task Force plan was put in place, in addition to the integrated prevention security framework established after the September 11th attacks. The Iraqi Task Force Plan consisted of a threeprong strategy to: gather intelligence from Iraqi people, eliminate the Iraqi Intelligence Service’s presence in the United States, and to disrupt potential attacks by other terrorists. First, to identify threats to America and to assist our forces overseas, the FBI gathered intelligence on Iraq in the U.S. and abroad: The Iraqi Task Force conducted nearly 10,000 voluntary interviews with U.S.-based Iraqis to obtain counter-terrorism information and intelligence data, as well as to identify backlash threats to Iraqis in the United States. … [T]he cooperation of the Iraqi-American people was essential to our efforts to secure and safeguard our nation at this critical time. The Department of Justice greatly appreciates the assistance and cooperation of the Iraqi community here in the United States. Efforts to reach out to this community are part of an overall strategy the Department has in place to work with the broader Arab and Muslim communities across the country to ensure their rights are respected and protected. Second, the Justice Department moved aggressively to expel or arrest all known Iraqi Intelligence officials within the U.S. including: Five Iraqi officials with diplomatic status were declared persona non grata and expelled from the country; one individual was arrested and charged with acting as an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. On April 14th, Raed Rokan Al-Anbuke, the son of a former Iraqi diplomat, was charged with working in New York as an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the Iraq government. The complaint alleges that AlAnbuke worked under the direction of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The Justice Department has taken action now against all known officials of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Third, the Justice Department aggressively countered potential counterterrorism threats during the Iraqi conflict: Using all of the tools at our disposal, including provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, we have brought charges against 21 individuals as a result of our stepped-up efforts in the time period before and during the conflict with Iraq. The Justice Department’s efforts leading up to, and during, the Iraqi conflict should send a clear message to the American people and others, that we will not tolerate those who would do our nation harm. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/041703effortsliberate Iraq.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Leadership in the Cause of Liberty,’’ Robert H. Krieble Lecture, Heritage Foundation, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 24, 2003 … Throughout our war on terrorism, President Bush has stood tall in his defense of freedom. Just weeks ago, critics charged that ‘‘thousands’’ of American soldiers would be killed in Iraq. Critics charged that the world
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system was being destabilized and that the ‘‘Arab street’’ would explode into flames. They insisted arms inspections continue, convinced that the crocodiles would eventually eat their fill and cease being crocodiles. President Bush did not allow these voices of critics to distract him from hearing the muffled cries of those desperate to be lifted into the light of freedom. President Bush saw that the war against Iraq reinforced our war on terrorism and made the cause of liberty stronger. Since September 11th, the enemies of freedom have seen decisive action from the United States. For every American, the results of our lawful efforts should be encouraging-we are winning the war on terrorism. For every terrorist, our ongoing successes are a reminder the final outcome of our nation’s war against terror is not in doubt. ¥ To date, we have captured more than 3000 terrorists worldwide; ¥ Forty percent of al Qaeda’s leadership has been capture or killed; ¥ We have identified and tracked hundreds of suspected terrorists throughout the United States; ¥ We have broken up four alleged terrorist cells in Buffalo, Portland, Detroit and Seattle; ¥ We have brought 237 criminal charges in our courts; and ¥ We have obtained convictions or guilty pleas from 119 individuals, including shoe-bomber Richard Reid; ‘‘American Taliban’’ John Walker Lindh; and four of six members of a Buffalo, New York terror cell. ¥ We have cut off terrorist funding, including: ¥ Designating 36 groups and individuals as terrorist organizations; ¥ Freezing $124 million in assets and more than 600 accounts around the world; as well as ¥ Conducting 70 investigations into terrorist financing, with 23 convictions or guilty pleas to date.
… The nightmare of Saddam Hussein’s ambition and his lust for power are ended. For the people of Iraq a new life in the sunshine of freedom has begun. SOURCE: http://seclists.org/politech/2003/Apr/0077.html
President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi, Press Conference, The Rose Garden, The White House, September 23, 2004 Mr. Prime Minister, you’ve accomplished a great deal in less than the three months since the transition to a free Iraq that is governed by Iraqis. These have been months of steady progress, despite persistent violence in some parts of your country. Iraqis and their leaders are engaged in a great and historic enterprise to establish a new democracy at the heart of a vital region. As friends of liberty, the new leaders of Iraq are friends of America, and all civilized nations. As enemies of tyranny and terror, the people of Iraq and the American troops and civilians supporting their dreams of freedom have been the target of acts of violence. The enemies of freedom are using suicide
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bombing, beheadings, and other horrific acts to try to block progress. We’re sickened by the atrocities, but we’ll never be intimidated. And freedom is winning. Mr. Prime Minister, America will stand with you until freedom and justice have prevailed. America’s security and Iraq’s future depend on it. The Iraqi people are showing great courage and great determination. As terrorists have attacked Iraqi security forces, still more brave Iraqis have come forward to volunteer to serve their country. As killers have attempted to assassinate government officials, Iraq’s leaders have refused to be intimidated, and the vast majority of Iraqis remain committed to democracy. The path to our safety and to Iraq’s future as a democratic nation lies in the resolute defense of freedom. If we stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq, they would be free to plot and plan attacks elsewhere, in America and other free nations. To retreat now would betray our mission, our word, and our friends. Mr. Prime Minister, America will keep its commitments. The path ahead is difficult because a free Iraq has deadly enemies. Remnants of the old regime and terrorist groups want to prevent Iraq’s elections and demoralize Iraq’s allies. Because of that, Prime Minister Allawi and I believe terrorist violence may well escalate as the January elections draw near. The terrorists know that events in Iraq are reaching a decisive moment. If elections go forward, democracy in Iraq will put down permanent roots, and terrorists will suffer a dramatic defeat. And because Iraq and America and our coalition are standing firm, the Iraqi people, and not the terrorists, will determine Iraq’s future. We’re making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want, completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and selfgoverning, and American troops can come home with the honor they have earned. The first step was achieved on June 28th, not only on time, but ahead of schedule, when the coalition transferred full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens. The second step is to help Iraq’s new government establish stability and security. Iraq must be able to defend itself. And Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country’s security. Nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel are working today. And that total will rise to 125,000 by the end of this year. The Iraqi government is on track to build a force of over 200,000 security personnel by the end of next year. With the help of the American military, the training of the Iraqi army is almost halfway complete. And in Najaf and other important areas, Iraqi military forces have performed with skill and success. In Najaf, Iraqi and coalition forces effectively surrounded isolated and engaged enemy militias. Prime Minister Allawi and his government reached out to the local population to persuade citizens the path to a better future would be found in political participation and economic progress. The interim government then negotiated from a position of strength to end the standoff. Serious problems remain in several cities. Prime Minister Allawi believes this combination of decisive action and outreach to peaceful citizens is the most effective way to defeat terrorists and insurgents, and secure the peace of Iraq. And America stands with him.
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The third step in our plan is to continue improving Iraq’s infrastructure. On television sets around the world, we see acts of violence—yet, in most of Iraq, children are about to go back to school, parents are going back to work and new businesses are being opened. Over 100 companies are now listed on the Iraqi stock exchange. And an average of five new companies are joining each week. Electricity has been restored above pre-war levels. Telephone service has increased dramatically. More than 2,000 schools have been renovated and millions of new textbooks have been distributed. There is much more work to be done. We’ve already spent more than a billion dollars on urgent reconstruction projects in areas threatened by the insurgency. In the next several months, over $9 billion will be spent on contracts that will help Iraqis rebuild schools, refurbish hospitals and health clinics, repair bridges, upgrade the electricity grid, and modernize the communications system. Prime Minister Allawi and I both agree that the pace of reconstruction should be accelerated. We’re working toward that goal. The fourth step in our plan is to enlist additional international support for Iraq’s transition to democracy. The multinational force of some 30 nations continues to help secure a free Iraq. We honor the servicemen and women of Great Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Thailand, and Ukraine have died, besides Iraqis and Americans, for the cause of freedom and security of the world. Our coalition is grateful that the United Nations has reestablished it’s mission in Baghdad. We’re grateful to the G-8 countries and the European Union for pledging support to the new Iraqi government. We’re grateful to the NATO Alliance for helping to train Iraqi forces. We’re grateful to many of Iraq’s creditors, which have agreed to a further reduction of Iraq’s debt. Because all nations have an interest in the success of a free Iraq, I urge all nations to join in this vital cause. The fifth and most important step in our plan is to help Iraq conduct free national elections no later than next January. An Iraqi electoral commission is now up and running and has already hired personnel and is making key decisions about election procedures. The war for Iraq’s freedom is a fight against some of the most ruthless and brutal men on Earth. In such a struggle, there will be good days, and there will be difficult days. But every day our resolve must remain firm. Prime Minister, today I want to leave you and the nation you serve with a clear message: You have not faltered in a time of challenge, and neither will America. Thank you for your leadership. You honor us with your visit. Q. Mr. President, two more Americans have been beheaded. More than 300 Iraqis have been killed in the last week. Fallujah is out of government control. And U.S. and Iraqi forces have been unable to bring security to diplomatic and commercial centers of Baghdad. Why haven’t U.S. forces been able to capture or kill al Zarqawi, who’s blamed for much of the violence? And what’s your answer to General John Abizaid’s statement that, ‘‘I think we will need more troops than we currently have’’? PRESIDENT BUSH: If that’s what he says—he was in my office this morning; he didn’t say that to me, but if he were to say that, I’d listen to him, just like
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I’ve said all along, that when our commanders say that they need support, they’ll get support, because we’re going to succeed in this mission. The first part of the question was, how come we haven’t found Zarqawi. We’re looking for him. He hides. He is—he is—he’s got a effective weapon, and that is terror. I said yesterday that our military cannot be defeated by these thugs, that—but what they do is behead Americans so they can get on the TV screens. And they’re trying to shake our will and trying to shake the Iraqis’ will. That’s what they’re trying to do. And like all Americans, I’m disgusted by that kind of behavior. But I’m not going to yield. We’re not going to abandon the Iraqi people. It’s in our interests that we win this battle in the war on terror. See, I think that the Iraq theater is a part of the war on terror. That’s what the Prime Minister said, as well. He believes the same thing. He understands what’s going on there— after all, he lives there. And I believe that if we wilt, or leave, America’s security will be much worse off. I believe that if Iraq—if we fail in Iraq, it’s the beginning of a long struggle. We will not have done our duty to our children and our grandchildren. And so that’s why I’m consistently telling the Iraqi citizens that we will not be intimidated. That’s why my message to Mr. Zarqawi is: You cannot drive us out of Iraq by your—by your brutality. It’s tough work, everybody knows that. It’s hard work. But we must not allow the actions of a few—and I emphasize that—I say that because there are 25 million Iraqis, by far the vast majority of whom want to live in a free society. And we cannot allow the actions of a few to determine the fate of these good people, as well as the fate of the security of the United States. PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: What we need really is to train more Iraqis, because this is ultimately for Iraqis, for Iraqi security forces to take responsibility for their own security and to defend the rest of the civilized world. What is happening, sir, in Iraq, is really Iraq is becoming a front line for a global fight against terrorists. So that’s why Zarqawi is not alone. There are other groups similar to Zarqawi. There are groups who are insurgents who have stained their hands with the murders of the Iraqi people, who are Saddam’s loyalists. They are working together. Q. Mr. President, you say today that the work in Iraq is tough and will remain tough. And, yet, you travel this country and a central theme of your campaign is that America is safer because of the invasion of Iraq. Can you understand why Americans may not believe you? PRESIDENT BUSH: No. Anybody who says that we are safer with Saddam Hussein in power is wrong. We went into Iraq because Saddam Hussein defied the demands of the free world. We went into Iraq after diplomacy had failed. And we went into Iraq because I understand after September the 11th we must take threats seriously, before they come to hurt us. And I think it’s a preposterous claim to say that America would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power. I certainly know that that’s the case for America and I certainly know it’s the case for the Iraqi people. These are people who were tortured.… No, this world is better off with Saddam Hussein in prison.
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Q. Sir, may I just follow, because I don’t think you’re really answering the question. I mean, I think you’re responding to Senator Kerry, but there are beheadings regularly, the insurgent violence continues, and there are no weapons of mass destruction. My question is, can you understand that Americans may not believe you when you say that America is actually safer today? PRESIDENT BUSH: Imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein were still in power. This is a man who harbored terrorists—Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Zarqawi. This is a man who was a sworn enemy of the United States of America. This is a man who used weapons of mass destruction. Going from tyranny to democracy is hard work, but I think the argument that says that Saddam Hussein—if Saddam Hussein were still in power, we’d be better off is wrong. Q. Sir, I’d like you answer Senator Kerry and other critics who accuse you of hypocrisy or opportunism when, on the one hand, you put so much stock in the CIA when it said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and now say it is just guessing when it paints a pessimistic picture of the political transition. And I like to, if you don’t mind, follow on something the Prime Minister just said. If General Abizaid says he needs more troops and the Prime Minister says he does not want more troops, who wins? PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me talk to General Abizaid. As I said, he just came in to see me, and I want to make sure—I’m not suggesting any of the reporters here might be taking something out of context—that would never happen in America. But, nevertheless, I do want to sit down and talk to him about it. Obviously, we can work this out. It’s in the—if our commanders on the ground feels it’s in the interest of the Iraq citizens to provide more troops, we’ll talk about it … Q. They say you’ve been opportunistic— PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, got it. Listen, the other day I was asked about the NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE. This is a report that talks about possibilities about what can happen in Iraq, not probabilities. I used an unfortunate word, ‘‘guess.’’ I should have used, ‘‘estimate.’’ And the CIA came and said, this is a possibility, this is a possibility, and this is a possibility. But what’s important for the American people to hear is reality. And the reality is right here in the form of the Prime Minister. And he is explaining what is happening on the ground. That’s the best report. And this report was written in July, and now we are here in September, and as I said, ‘‘estimate’’ would have been a better word. Q. You have been accused on the campaign trail in this election year of painting an overly optimistic portrait of the situation on the ground in Iraq. Yesterday, in Valley Forge, you said that there was a ‘‘handful’’ of people who were willing to kill to try to disrupt the process. Isn’t that really understating the case, particularly when there are intelligence reports that hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign fighters are streaming across the border from Syria to take up the fight of the insurgency? And do you believe, given the situation on the ground in Fallujah and other northern cities in the Sunni Triangle, that elections are possible in four months?
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PRESIDENT BUSH: I do, because the Prime Minister told me they are. He is—he’s interested in moving this country forward. And you heard his statement, and I believe him. The first part of the question? Q. The first question was, aren’t you being … disingenuous— PRESIDENT BUSH: Right. I said—look, what we’re seeing on our TV screens are the acts of suicide bombers. They’re the people who—that are affecting the daily—the nightly news. And they know its effect. I said that the enemy cannot defeat us militarily. What they can do is take acts of violence that try to discourage us, and try to discourage the Prime Minister and the people of Iraq. Look, I’m fully aware we’re fighting former Baathists and Zarqawi network people. But, by far, the vast majority of people, and of 25 million people, want to live in freedom. My point is, is that a few people, relative to the whole, are trying to stop the march of freedom. It is tough work. Everybody in America knows that. And the fundamental question is, are we going to allow the tough work to cause us to retreat, to waver? And my answer to the American people, and the Iraqi people, and to the enemy, is that we will complete our mission. We will do our duty. We will adjust strategies on the ground, depending upon the tactics of the enemy, but we’re not going to allow the suiciders to drive us out of Iraq. … Our strategy is to help the Iraqis help themselves. It’s important that we train Iraqi troops. There are nearly 100,000 troops trained. The Afghan [sic] national army is a part of the army. By the way—it’s the Afghan [sic] national army that went into Najaf and did the work there. There’s a regular army being trained. There are border guards being trained. There are police being trained. That’s a key part of our mission. But I think the world watches America. We’re an influential nation, and everybody watches what we say. And I think it’s very important for the American President to mean what he says. That’s why I understand that the enemy could misread what I say. That’s why I try to be as clearly I can. I don’t want them to be emboldened by any confusion or doubt. I don’t want them to think that, well, maybe all they got to do is attack and we’ll shirk our duties. See, they’ve been emboldened before. They have caused certain nations to withdraw from coalitions as a result of their action, such action reinforcing the ability for suiciders, for example, to affect free societies. I know that. I’ve seen firsthand the tactics of these killers. And so therefore, I think it’s very important for all of us involved in the process not to send mixed signals. I don’t know what the enemy thinks today. But I do know they’re watching America very carefully. I do know they want to affect other nations by their acts of murder. I do know they were emboldened by Spain withdrew from Iraq as a result of attacks on election. And therefore, I have a duty to our troops—for starters, most importantly—not to send a mixed signal. I want our troops to know that the sacrifices they are making are worthwhile and necessary for the security of this country. And I want—don’t want the Iraqis to fear that, oh, all of a sudden, there will be a change of heart, that there’ll be tough times politically, or that a poll might say something and, therefore, cause me to change my opinion. I don’t want them to think that, because they have to make the hard choices
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for freedom. They have to go from a society that has been tortured by a brutal thug to a society in which they take responsibility for their daily lives. I don’t want the coalition forces to feel like we’re wavering. And so I understand that people watch our words. And that’s an explanation of why I say what I say. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040923-8.html
President George W. Bush, Radio Address, November 13, 2004 Earlier this week, Prime Minister Allawi of Iraq authorized military operations to rid the city of Fallujah of Saddam holdouts and foreign terrorists. American Marines and soldiers, alongside Iraqi security forces, are on the offensive against the killers who have been using Fallujah as a base of operations for terrorist attacks, and who have held the local population in the grip of fear. Fighting together, our forces have made significant progress in the last several days. They are taking back the city, clearing mosques of weapons and explosives stockpiled by insurgents, and restoring order for law-abiding citizens. In the course of this operation, Iraqi troops have discovered new evidence of the enemy’s brutality. An Iraqi general has described hostage slaughter houses, where terrorists have killed innocent victims and proudly recorded their barbaric crimes. The terrorists have shown once again the stakes of this struggle. They seek to spread fear and violence throughout Iraq, throughout the Broader Middle East and throughout the world, and they will fail. The terrorists will be defeated, Iraq will be free, and the world will be more secure. Our commitment to the success of democracy in Iraq is unshakable and we will prevail. Ultimately, Iraq must be able to defend itself, and Iraqi security forces are taking increasing responsibility for their country’s security. As we see in Fallujah, and as we saw in Najaf and elsewhere, Iraqi security forces are standing and fighting and risking their lives for the future of their nation. As terrorists have targeted these forces, still more brave Iraqis have come forward as volunteers. Today, nearly 115,000 trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are serving their country. The Iraqi government is on track to meet its goal of fielding more than 200,000 security personnel by the end of next year. In January, the Iraqi people will elect a transitional national assembly, which will draft a new constitution to prepare the way for the election of a permanent Iraqi government. The Iraqi people, like the people of Afghanistan before them, are embracing a democratic future, even in the face of threats and intimidation. Throughout the country, Iraqi men and women are registering to vote, political parties are forming, candidates for office are stepping forward. International support for the Iraqi election is essential, and that support continues to grow. Military forces from some 30 nations are working
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alongside Iraqi forces, helping to establish stability and security. A U.N. team is providing critical technical support to Iraq’s independent electoral commission. Other diplomatic personnel are helping the Iraqi people prepare for those elections, to be held on schedule in January. As those elections draw near, the desperation of the killers will grow, and the violence could escalate. The success of democracy in Iraq would be a crushing blow to the forces of terror, and the terrorists know it. The defeat of terror in Iraq will set that nation on a course to lasting freedom, and will give hope to millions, and the Iraqi people know it. And a free, democratic Iraq will inspire reformers throughout the Middle East and make America more secure. The United States and our allies have shown our determination to help Iraqis achieve their liberty. We will continue to stand by our friends, and we will finish the job. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041113.html
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, January 26, 2005 Q.… When you made the decision to go to war in Iraq, you clearly had majority support in the country. A string of recent polls have shown a clear majority of the American people now believe it was a mistake to go to war in Iraq. You’ve asked for $80 billion in more money on top of the billions already spent. The army says that we’ll probably have 100,000 or more troops in Iraq for at least another year. What would you say to the American people, including a significant number who supported you at the beginning of the war, who now say this is not what we were led to believe, would happen? THE PRESIDENT: A couple of things. I’d say the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power. A world with Saddam Hussein in power would have been a—would have been a more dangerous world today. Secondly, that we’re making progress in helping Iraq develop a democracy. And in the longterm, our children and grandchildren will benefit from a free Iraq. In terms of troop levels, obviously, we’ll have the troop levels necessary to complete the mission. And that mission is to enable Iraq to defend herself from terrorists—homegrown or terrorists that come in from outside of the country. And so our mission is focused on not only an increase in the number of Iraqis in uniform—whether it be Army or National Guard or border patrol or police—but to make sure the quality of their ability to fight is enhanced. And so, over the next year we’ll be advancing our plan to make sure the Iraqis are better prepared to defend themselves and to fight. There’s been some really fine units that have been stood up so far, and obviously we want to make sure there are more units that are capable of fighting. Listen, this problem will eventually be solved when the Iraqis take the initiative and the Iraqi people see Iraqi soldiers willing to defend them. And so— and the American people, when they see the Iraqis step up and begin to fight, will see progress being made toward an objective which will make this world a better place.
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Q.… troop withdrawal … You said in a response just now that it depends on the initiative of the Iraqis. Are you giving the Iraqis a timetable for what you’re going to do with troop withdrawal and when? THE PRESIDENT: We will complete the mission as quickly as possible. And that mission of a secure and stable Iraq will be achieved when the Iraqis are fighting the former regime elements and people like Zarqawi. Therefore, the—it is important that we continue to press forward with proper training. Now, training means not just signing people up. Training means equipping and preparing them for tough fights, as well as developing a chain of command. A good military requires a chain of command from top to bottom, so that orders and plans and strategies can be effected efficiently. And we have work to do there and we will do the work. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050126-3.html EDITOR’S NOTE: For text references to the January 20 inaugural speech, see http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html.
President George W. Bush Congratulates Iraqis on the Election, January 30, 2005 Today the people of Iraq have spoken to the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East. In great numbers, and under great risk, Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy. By participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists. They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. And they have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government. Some Iraqis were killed while exercising their rights as citizens. We also mourn the American and British military personnel who lost their lives today. Their sacrifices were made in a vital cause of freedom, peace in a troubled region, and a more secure future for us all. The Iraqi people, themselves, made this election a resounding success. Brave patriots stepped forward as candidates. Many citizens volunteered as poll workers. More than 100,000 Iraqi security force personnel guarded polling places and conducted operations against terrorist groups.… The commitment to a free Iraq now goes forward. This historic election begins the process of drafting and ratifying a new constitution, which will be the basis of a fully democratic Iraqi government. Terrorists and insurgents will continue to wage their war against democracy, and we will support the Iraqi people in their fight against them. We will continue training Iraqi security forces so this rising democracy can eventually take responsibility for its own security. There’s more distance to travel on the road to democracy. Yet Iraqis are proving they’re equal to the challenge. On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the people of Iraq on this great and historic achievement. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050130-2.html
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview on Al-Iraqiya with Karim Hamadi, Baghdad, Iraq, November 11, 2005 Q. (Via interpreter.) Madame Condoleezza Rice, we welcome you. My first question is you have said that you are not supporting any particular person or group in the elections, but who—what type of government, what kind of government, you would like to have after the elections in Iraq? SECRETARY RICE: Well, it is up to the Iraqi people to determine what kind of government they will have. I do know that in the constitution what is enshrined is that it should certainly be a government that respects individual rights, that respects the rights of women, that respect the Islamic character of Iraq but also respects the rights of others to worship—other religious groups to worship freely. Certainly we would hope that it is a group of leaders that reach out to all Iraqis, that whatever the communitarian interests of Iraqis—Sunni or Shia or Kurd—that the government has to be for all Iraqis and that they will reach out across lines so that differences can be resolved within the democratic institutions. And we know also that the Iraqis are committed to being good neighbors and it’s why that it’s important that Iraq’s neighbors be good neighbors as well. Q. From your knowledge of the military operations that are going on in Iraq, how do you assess the situation militarily in Iraq? Is it things are getting better or are things getting worse? SECRETARY RICE: It seems to me that you can see that in a number of cities, like Mosul for instance, which was a place that was very violent just a little while ago, or Talafar, that not only are these cities beginning to become livable again but Iraqi security forces are key to having defeated terrorists there and to now providing security. And that is the best sign that things are getting better because ultimately Iraq will have to be secured by Iraqis, not by coalition forces, which can help, but it’s really Iraqis who must secure Iraq. I think the security situation will for some time, unfortunately—violent men will be able, in a cowardly fashion, to blow up innocent people. That is the nature of terrorism and we all experience it. But I do think that the foundation is being laid for a much more secure future for Iraq. Q. What you said is truth, but I would like to add to that that the security situation in Iraq is connected to nearby countries such as Syria. And then I’m going to add also to that, don’t you think what happened in Jordan makes what the American officials and the Iraqi officials have been saying for quite some time that terrorism will spread to other countries is true? SECRETARY RICE: Well, on Syria, Syria has an obligation to keep the people who are killing Iraqis from coming across the border to kill innocent Iraqis and all states are saying that to Syria now. And I hope Syria will, in fact, try and be a good neighbor and try to cut off the flow of insurgents and close down training camps that are in Syria. As to what happened in Jordan, unfortunately, terrorists have been able and are able to carry out terrorist attacks and it doesn’t—it just happens to be
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that Jordan is a border state with Iraq. But of course, terrorists have carried out attacks in the United States, in Great Britain, in Madrid, Spain, in Bali and Indonesia—all over the world. They are in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The terrorists are quite capable of carrying out these attacks, but what they fear most is that there will be a Middle East in which their ideology of hatred will no longer thrive. And they know that when Iraq claims its place as a democratic and stable country, where Iraqis are able to overcome their differences through democratic processes, that their ideology of hatred will not have appeal because mothers and fathers don’t want to send their children off to be suicide bombers; they want to send their children to university. And so that is why the Zarqawi people have threatened Iraqis, and Iraqis have still gone out and voted. So the democracy that Iraq will build is the best answer to these violent people who, in a cowardly way, simply kill innocent Iraqis. Theirs is not—the future is not with them. The future is with the democratic process that Iraqis are engaged in. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/56811.htm
President George W. Bush Outlines Strategy for Victory in Iraq, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, November 30, 2005 The terrorists in Iraq share the same ideology as the terrorists who struck the United States on September the 11th. Those terrorists share the same ideology with those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, murdered tourists in Bali, workers in Riyadh, and guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. Just last week, they massacred Iraqi children and their parents at a toy give-away outside an Iraqi hospital. This is an enemy without conscience—and they cannot be appeased. If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people. Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory. To achieve victory over such enemies, we are pursuing a comprehensive strategy in Iraq. Americans should have a clear understanding of this strategy—how we look at the war, how we see the enemy, how we define victory, and what we’re doing to achieve it. So today, we’re releasing a document called the ‘‘National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.’’ This is an unclassified version of the strategy we’ve been pursuing in Iraq, and it is posted on the White House website—whitehouse.gov. I urge all Americans to read it. Our strategy in Iraq has three elements. On the political side, we know that free societies are peaceful societies, so we’re helping the Iraqis build a free society with inclusive democratic institutions that will protect the interests of all Iraqis. We’re working with the Iraqis to help them engage those who can be persuaded to join the new Iraq—and to marginalize those who never will. On the security side, coalition and Iraqi security forces are on the offensive against
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the enemy, cleaning out areas controlled by the terrorists and Saddam loyalists, leaving Iraqi forces to hold territory taken from the enemy, and following up with targeted reconstruction to help Iraqis rebuild their lives. As we fight the terrorists, we’re working to build capable and effective Iraqi security forces, so they can take the lead in the fight—and eventually take responsibility for the safety and security of their citizens without major foreign assistance. And on the economic side, we’re helping the Iraqis rebuild their infrastructure, reform their economy, and build the prosperity that will give all Iraqis a stake in a free and peaceful Iraq. In doing all this we have involved the United Nations, other international organizations, our coalition partners, and supportive regional states in helping Iraqis build their future. In the days ahead, I’ll be discussing the various pillars of our strategy in Iraq. Today, I want to speak in depth about one aspect of this strategy that will be critical to victory in Iraq—and that’s the training of Iraqi security forces. To defeat the terrorists and marginalize the Saddamists and rejectionists, Iraqis need strong military and police forces. Iraqi troops bring knowledge and capabilities to the fight that coalition forces cannot. Iraqis know their people, they know their language, and they know their culture—and they know who the terrorists are. Iraqi forces are earning the trust of their countrymen—who are willing to help them in the fight against the enemy. As the Iraqi forces grow in number, they’re helping to keep a better hold on the cities taken from the enemy. And as the Iraqi forces grow more capable, they are increasingly taking the lead in the fight against the terrorists. Our goal is to train enough Iraqi forces so they can carry the fight— and this will take time and patience. And it’s worth the time, and it’s worth the effort—because Iraqis and Americans share a common enemy, and when that enemy is defeated in Iraq, Americans will be safer here at home. The training of the Iraqi security forces is an enormous task, and it always hasn’t gone smoothly. We all remember the reports of some Iraqi security forces running from the fight more than a year ago. Yet in the past year, Iraqi forces have made real progress. At this time last year, there were only a handful of Iraqi battalions ready for combat. Now, there are over 120 Iraqi Army and Police combat battalions in the fight against the terrorists—typically comprised of between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces. Of these, about 80 Iraqi battalions are fighting side-by-side with coalition forces, and about 40 others are taking the lead in the fight. Most of these 40 battalions are controlling their own battle space, and conducting their own operations against the terrorists with some coalition support—and they’re helping to turn the tide of this struggle in freedom’s favor. America and our troops are proud to stand with the brave Iraqi fighters. The progress of the Iraqi forces is especially clear when the recent anti-terrorist operations in Tal Afar are compared with last year’s assault in Fallujah. In Fallujah, the assault was led by nine coalition battalions made up primarily of United States Marines and Army—with six Iraqi battalions supporting them. The Iraqis fought and sustained casualties. Yet in most situations, the Iraqi role was limited to protecting the flanks of coalition forces, and securing ground that had already been cleared by our troops. This year in Tal Afar, it was a very different story.
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The assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces—11 Iraqi battalions, backed by five coalition battalions providing support. Many Iraqi units conducted their own anti-terrorist operations and controlled their own battle space—hunting for enemy fighters and securing neighborhoods block-byblock. To consolidate their military success, Iraqi units stayed behind to help maintain law and order—and reconstruction projects have been started to improve infrastructure and create jobs and provide hope. As Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead in the fight against the terrorists, they’re also taking control of more and more Iraqi territory. At this moment, over 30 Iraqi Army battalions have assumed primary control of their own areas of responsibility. In Baghdad, Iraqi battalions have taken over major sectors of the capital—including some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. Last year, the area around Baghdad’s Haifa Street was so thick with terrorists that it earned the nickname ‘‘Purple Heart Boulevard.’’ Then Iraqi forces took responsibility for this dangerous neighborhood—and attacks are now down. Our coalition has handed over roughly 90 square miles of Baghdad province to Iraqi security forces. Iraqi battalions have taken over responsibility for areas in South-Central Iraq, sectors of Southeast Iraq, sectors of Western Iraq, and sectors of North-Central Iraq. As Iraqi forces take responsibility for more of their own territory, coalition forces can concentrate on training Iraqis and hunting down high-value targets, like the terrorist Zarqawi and his associates. We’re also transferring forward operating bases to Iraqi control. Over a dozen bases in Iraq have been handed over to the Iraqi government—including Saddam Hussein’s former palace in Tikrit, which has served as the coalition headquarters in one of Iraq’s most dangerous regions. From many of these bases, the Iraqi security forces are planning and executing operations against the terrorists—and bringing security and pride to the Iraqi people. Progress by the Iraqi security forces has come, in part, because we learned from our earlier experiences and made changes in the way we help train Iraqi troops. When our coalition first arrived, we began the process of creating an Iraqi Army to defend the country from external threats, and an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps to help provide the security within Iraq’s borders. The civil defense forces did not have sufficient firepower or training—they proved to be no match for an enemy armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars. So the approach was adjusted. Working with Iraq’s leaders, we moved the civil defense forces into the Iraqi Army, we changed the way they’re trained and equipped, and we focused the Army’s mission on defeating those fighting against a free Iraq, whether internal or external. Now, all Iraqi Army recruits receive about the same length of basic training as new recruits in the U.S. Army—a five-week core course, followed by an additional three-to-seven weeks of specialized training. With coalition help, Iraqis have established schools for the Iraqi military services, an Iraqi military academy, a non-commissioned officer academy, a military police school, a bomb disposal school—and NATO has established an Iraqi Joint Staff College. There’s also an increased focus on leadership training, with professional development courses for Iraqi squad leaders and platoon sergeants and warrant officers and sergeants-major. A new generation of Iraqi officers is being
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trained, leaders who will lead their forces with skill—so they can defeat the terrorists and secure their freedom. Similar changes have taken place in the training of the Iraqi police. When our coalition first arrived, Iraqi police recruits spent too much time of their training in classroom lectures—and they received limited training in the use of small arms. This did not adequately prepare the fight they would face. And so we changed the way the Iraqi police are trained. Now, police recruits spend more of their time outside the classroom with intensive hands-on training in anti-terrorism operations and real-world survival skills. Iraq has now six basic police academies, and one in Jordan, that together produce over 3,500 new police officers every ten weeks. The Baghdad police academy has simulation models where Iraqis train to stop IED attacks and operate roadblocks. And because Iraqi police are not just facing common criminals, they are getting live-fire training with the AK-47s. As more and more skilled Iraqi security forces have come online, there’s been another important change in the way new Iraqi recruits are trained. When the training effort began, nearly all the trainers came from coalition countries. Today, the vast majority of Iraqi police and army recruits are being taught by Iraqi instructors. By training the trainers, we’re helping Iraqis create an institutional capability that will allow the Iraqi forces to continue to develop and grow long after coalition forces have left Iraq. As the training has improved, so has the quality of the recruits being trained. Even though the terrorists are targeting Iraqi police and army recruits, there is no shortage of Iraqis who are willing to risk their lives to secure the future of a free Iraq. The efforts to include more Sunnis in the future of Iraq were given a significant boost earlier this year. More than 60 influential Sunni clerics issued a fatwa calling on young Sunnis to join the Iraqi security forces, ‘‘for the sake of preserving the souls, property and honor’’ of the Iraqi people. These religious leaders are helping to make the Iraqi security forces a truly national institution—one that is able to serve, protect and defend all the Iraqi people. Some critics dismiss this progress and point to the fact that only one Iraqi battalion has achieved complete independence from the coalition. To achieve complete independence, an Iraqi battalion must do more than fight the enemy on its own—it must also have the ability to provide its own support elements, including logistics, airlift, intelligence, and command and control through their ministries. Not every Iraqi unit has to meet this level of capability in order for the Iraqi security forces to take the lead in the fight against the enemy. As a matter of fact, there are some battalions from NATO militaries that would not be able to meet this standard. The facts are that Iraqi units are growing more independent and more capable; they are defending their new democracy with courage and determination. They’re in the fight today, and they will be in the fight for freedom tomorrow. We’re also helping Iraqis build the institutions they need to support their own forces. For example, a national depot has been established north of Baghdad that is responsible for supplying the logistical needs of the ten divisions of the Iraqi Army. Regional support units and base support units have been created across the country with the mission of supplying their own war fighters.
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Iraqis now have a small Air Force, that recently conducted its first combat airlift operations—bringing Iraqi troops to the front in Tal Afar. The new Iraqi Navy is now helping protect the vital ports of Basra and Umm Qasr. An Iraqi military intelligence school has been established to produce skilled Iraqi intelligence analysts and collectors. By taking all these steps, we’re helping the Iraqi security forces become self-supporting so they can take the fight to the enemy, and so they can sustain themselves in the fight. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve faced some setbacks in standing up a capable Iraqi security force—and their performance is still uneven in some areas. Yet many of those forces have made real gains over the past year—and Iraqi soldiers take pride in their progress. An Iraqi first lieutenant named Shoqutt describes the transformation of his unit this way: ‘‘I really think we’ve turned the corner here. At first, the whole country didn’t take us seriously. Now things are different. Our guys are hungry to demonstrate their skill and to show the world.’’ As the Iraqi security forces stand up, their confidence is growing and they are taking on tougher and more important missions on their own. As the Iraqi security forces stand up, the confidence of the Iraqi people is growing—and Iraqis are providing the vital intelligence needed to track down the terrorists. And as the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down— and when our mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation. This is a goal our Iraqi allies share. An Iraqi Army Sergeant named Abbass Abdul Jabar puts it this way: ‘‘We have to help the coalition forces as much as we can to give them a chance to go home. These guys have been helping us. [Now] we have to protect our own families.’’ America will help the Iraqis so they can protect their families and secure their free nation. We will stay as long as necessary to complete the mission. If our military leaders tell me we need more troops, I will send them. For example, we have increased our force levels in Iraq to 160,000—up from 137,000—in preparation for the December elections. My commanders tell me that as Iraqi forces become more capable, the mission of our forces in Iraq will continue to change. We will continue to shift from providing security and conducting operations against the enemy nationwide, to conducting more specialized operations targeted at the most dangerous terrorists. We will increasingly move out of Iraqi cities, reduce the number of bases from which we operate, and conduct fewer patrols and convoys. As the Iraqi forces gain experience and the political process advances, we will be able to decrease our troop levels in Iraq without losing our capability to defeat the terrorists. These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders—not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a message across the world that America is a weak and an unreliable ally. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies—that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends. And setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would vindicate the terrorists’ tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder—and invite new attacks on America. To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in
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the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-inChief. Most Americans want two things in Iraq: They want to see our troops win, and they want to see our troops come home as soon as possible. And those are my goals as well. I will settle for nothing less than complete victory. In World War II, victory came when the Empire of Japan surrendered on the deck of the USS Missouri. In Iraq, there will not be a signing ceremony on the deck of a battleship. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation. As we make progress toward victory, Iraqis will take more responsibility for their security, and fewer U.S. forces will be needed to complete the mission. America will not abandon Iraq. We will not turn that country over to the terrorists and put the American people at risk. Iraq will be a free nation and a strong ally in the Middle East—and this will add to the security of the American people. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051130-2.html EDITOR’S NOTE: See President Bush’s National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, November 30, 2005 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005. html).
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, An Overview of International Support for Iraqi Democracy on the Eve of the December 15, 2005, Elections, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., December 13, 2005 … I have come to the Heritage Foundation to address an additional question: What is the international community doing to advance the cause of victory in Iraq? To answer simply: As the Iraqi people have inspired the world by freely embracing democracy, an international consensus has emerged that securing democracy in Iraq is strategically essential. This new consensus is generating international support that, quite frankly, was not fully present in the earliest days of Iraq’s liberation … On the security front, our coalition today remains strong and active. Some 30 nations are contributing over 22,000 soldiers, who are risking their lives alongside brave Iraqi and brave American troops. Like generations of Americans before them, our men and women in uniform are distinguishing themselves today through selfless service. They are heroically defending the freedom of others against a determined enemy. And we in America mourn the loss and honor the sacrifice of our many sons and daughters who have fallen in Iraq and around the world to protect our way of life. Our coalition in Iraq includes several partners, both old and new, who are also making historic contributions. No ally has assumed greater responsibility
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than Great Britain. Japan is maintaining its first significant overseas military deployment in 60 years. South Korea has more soldiers in Iraq today than any other ally except Great Britain. And even a small nation like El Salvador is making a large impact, sustaining the biggest and most distant deployment in its nation’s history. America is grateful to every nation that stands with us in Iraq. Our coalition members have suffered nearly 200 dead and 500 wounded.… Coalition forces today have responsibility for security in nearly 40 percent of Iraq. In southern Iraq, Britain and Poland are commanding multinational divisions, encompassing 19 nations in total, that are helping to root out terrorists and maintain security. Coalition field hospitals have treated more than three quarters of a million Iraqis. And smaller deployments from nations like Kazakhstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina are removing thousands of landmines and old ordinance. Our coalition partners are also contributing to the important work of building effective Iraqi security forces. NATO is now participating in the training of Iraq’s new military. And Jordan is hosting a major police academy that is preparing thousands of Iraqis every month to protect and serve their fellow citizens. In addition, Hungary has donated dozens of tanks to Iraq’s military. And Japan has provided more than one thousand vehicles like fire trucks and ambulances to Iraq’s police and security forces. Now, over time, the size and shape of our coalition will continue to evolve. In the coming months, some nations will reduce their number of troops in combat, but will continue to assume new security missions, including the training and equipping of Iraq’s military. Other countries, however, will extend the mandate for their forces as many have done in just the past few weeks. Over time, the role of our coalition will also evolve, as Iraqis assume greater responsibility for their own security. With every passing day, Iraqis become better able to defend their nation and themselves and this enables us to shift more of our forces to helping Iraqis build the institutions of their new democracy. In the coming months and years, this will enable America’s men and women in uniform, as well as those of our coalition, to return home to their families with the honor that they deserve. As the security situation in Iraq improves, so too does the prospect for Iraq’s economic reconstruction. It is difficult, however, to overstate the extent of this challenge. For several decades, Saddam Hussein robbed his nation to enrich himself, destroying Iraq’s infrastructure and abusing its most valuable resource: the talented Iraqi people themselves. In less than three years, however, the increased generosity of the international community has begun to build the foundation of a modern economy in Iraq and to liberate the entrepreneurial spirit of the Iraqi people. Two years ago in Madrid, almost 40 countries and international institutions pledged $13.5 billion in assistance to Iraq. And as Iraq continues its transformation into a stable democracy, donors are making good on their promises. Today, this money is providing the Iraqi people access to more clean water and better health care, to renovate its schools with better teachers and upgraded houses in some of Iraq’s poorest neighborhoods. And Iraqis are
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making the most of this increased opportunity: They have started three times as many businesses in two and a half years of freedom as they did in four whole decades of tyranny. Iraq’s international partners have also helped to liberate the Iraqi people from much of the crushing debt with which Saddam burdened the country. Last year, the Paris Club of international creditors agreed to forgive 80 percent of the $40 billion of Iraqi debt that is held by Club members … And in early 2004, the World Bank and the United Nations established the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq. Canada is serving as its co-chair and providing $85 million to the Facility, which has already received over $1 billion in contributions from 25 countries. These funds are enabling millions of Iraqis in cities to enjoy clean drinking water, improved sanitation in their poorest neighborhoods, and make a better life. And in the past year alone, this money has financed the rehabilitation and construction of hundreds of school buildings and provided 69 million new textbooks to children of all ages in nearly all of Iraq’s schools. Now, despite the growing international support for Iraq’s reconstruction, more needs to be done. Many nations, especially Japan and South Korea, have distinguished themselves with their generosity. But others, like Iraq’s neighbors, should be doing a lot more. And for all who have pledged assistance to the Iraqi people, it is now time to deliver. Finally, on the political front, the international community is increasingly overcoming old divisions and supporting Iraq’s transition to democracy. We have now passed four major Security Council resolutions on Iraq, most of them unanimously, pledging the UN’s support for everything from an international mandate for our coalition forces, to an international rejection of terrorism in Iraq … … The Iraqi people clearly voiced their desire for freedom through democratic elections this January. And the sight of eight million free Iraqis, proudly displaying their ink-stained fingers, inspired new levels of international support for the goal of democracy in Iraq. In June, the United States and the European Union co-hosted an international conference in Brussels, at which more than 80 countries agreed to a new international partnership to support Iraq’s freely elected government. The courage and conviction of the Iraqi people has also inspired new assistance from the United Nations, especially in preparation for Thursday’s elections. The UN supported Iraq in its successful constitutional referendum in October and before that in its elections in January, helping the Iraqis do everything from train election workers, to administering polling sites, to print and distribute five million copies of their constitution to their fellow citizens. Finally, a new and hopeful change has been the growing support that Iraq now receives from its neighbors. Of course, countries like Jordan and Kuwait and Qatar were early supporters of Iraq’s liberation. And Jordan’s King Abdullah has consistently championed the emergence of a free Iraq and welcomed its integration into the region. But lately, others have joined this course as well. Last year, Egypt hosted an international conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to support the Iraqi people. And Iraq’s neighbors have welcomed it back into the Arab League. Many Arab
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governments now recognize the legitimacy of Iraq’s democratically elected leaders and this newfound support culminated in the recent Arab League conference in Cairo in which states like Jordan and Saudi Arabia encouraged Iraq’s Sunnis to reject violence and to join the democratic process and to participate in Thursday’s elections. The process of supporting national accord in Iraq should continue early next year when there will be another international conference hosted by the Arab League. Now, some of Iraq’s neighbors are showing themselves to be no friends of the Iraqi people. Syria has still not taken sufficient action to stop the terrorists who cross into Iraq from its territory. And Iran continues to meddle in Iraqi affairs and to support violence in Iraqi society. Nevertheless, the enemies of Iraq are increasingly fewer and isolating themselves from the international community, because today, the world is more united than ever in support of a new Iraq. In just two days, when Iraqis make history by electing the most democratic leaders in the entire Middle East, they will do so with the moral and financial and diplomatic backing of an overwhelming majority of the world. This is remarkable when you consider how sharply divided the world was only three years ago. President Bush’s vision of an Iraqi democracy, standing as a tribute to its citizens and serving as an inspiration to its neighbors, was neither grasped nor supported by many in the international community. Many believed that despotism was the permanent political condition of the Middle East. And they were prepared to countenance the false stability of undemocratic governments. But there were others who knew better. Nations as different as Ukraine and Australia, Great Britain and South Korea, Poland and Japan, Lithuania and El Salvador, nations that were united by the shared conviction that liberty is not a scarce possession to be selfishly horded. Rather, it is a universal right that all free peoples must defend. Today, countries that previously doubted the promise of democracy in Iraq are rallying to Iraq’s side. The Iraqi people are seizing an unprecedented opportunity to live at last in peace and in freedom. And their democratic example is inspiring impatient patriots in places like Lebanon and Egypt and the Palestinian territories—courageous men and women who are now finding ever more supporters in the international community to champion their aspirations and defend their dignity. The lesson, my friends, is clear: When America leads with principle in the world, freedom’s cause grows stronger. We saw this when Ronald Reagan spurned friendly dictators and supported freedom’s cause in Latin America. We saw this as well when Reagan called out the true character of the Soviet Union and liberated a democratic longing that ended the Cold War. And we are seeing this today, as the world awakens to the promise of a free Iraq. … I do think that the case is very clear that we cannot fail in Iraq, that we have not just a tremendous opportunity to have a different kind of Iraq at the center of a different kind of Middle East, and therefore make ourselves safer, but we also have a responsibility to recognize that there could also be a different kind of Iraq and a different kind of Middle East that would be very bad for American interests and for world stability.
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America has always wanted to finish the job. I’ve been, as of late, talking about the circumstances after World War II. And when I look back on that period of time, I can’t imagine what our predecessors were going through as they watched strategic defeat after strategic defeat after strategic defeat, whether it was the communists winning large minorities in France and Italy in 1946, or in 1947 the Greek civil war and the tensions and the strife in Turkey, or in 1948 Germany permanently divided in the Berlin events, or in 1948 the Czechoslovak coup, or in 1949 the Soviet Union exploding a nuclear weapon five years ahead of schedule and the Chinese communists winning their civil war. Those weren’t minor setbacks. Those were huge strategic defeats. And yet they pulled themselves together and they laid a foundation for peace to the point that today, today, no one can imagine war between the great powers of Europe ever again. It was not inevitable in 1945 or 1946 that no one could imagine war between France and Germany. It was not inevitable that Japan was going to emerge as a free, democratic state and an ally of the United States after what we had suffered in Pearl Harbor and in the Pacific. Nothing was inevitable about any of this and yet now it seems inevitable. And so I think that what we’ve been trying to do and what the President has been doing is to tell people what the stakes are, but also to say if we follow through, if we keep our counsel, if we keep our eye on the values that we are espousing, that we’re going to get to a day 10, 20, 30 years from now when people are going to look back and say: What was all the fuss about? The Middle East is a place of peace and democracy and there’s a peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with Israel and the people of Syria and the people of Iran and the people of all of these states are living in a democracy, and it will be unimaginable that it could be a region that produces an ideology of hatred so great that people fly airplanes into buildings on a fine September day. And so I think what the President is challenging the American people to do is to look at what could happen if we do not finish our job, but also at what could happen if we do finish our job. And that has always been the role of American leadership to have a vision of a future that is fundamentally different than the present. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/58039.htm
President George W. Bush, U.S. Strategy in Iraq, Kentucky International Convention Center, Louisville, Kentucky, January 11, 2006 I wish I didn’t have to say this, but we’re still at war. And that’s important for the citizens of this commonwealth to understand. You know, no President ever wants to be President during war. But this war came to us, not as a result of actions we took, it came to us as a result of actions an enemy took on September the 11th, 2001 … I vowed that day, starting when I was in Florida and got on the airplane to head across the country, that I would use everything in my power—obviously, within the Constitution—but everything in my power to protect the American people. That is the most solemn duty of government, is to protect our people from harm.
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And I vowed that we’d find those killers and bring them to justice. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re on the hunt for an enemy that still lurks. I know, because I’m briefed on a daily basis about the threats that face the United States of America. And my duty is to assess this world the way it is, not the way we’d like it to be. And there’s a danger that lurks—and there’s a danger that lurks because we face an enemy which cannot stand freedom. It’s an enemy which has an ideology that does not believe in free speech, free religion, free dissent, does not believe in women’s rights, and they have a desire to impose their ideology on much of the world. … But let me talk real quick about the goals in Iraq. The goal is victory, nothing short of victory. When you put these kids in harm’s way, we owe them the best equipment, the best training, and a strategy for victory. And victory is a country that—where the Saddamists and the terrorists can’t unwind the democracy. Victory is when Iraq is no longer a safe haven for the terrorists. Victory is—will be achieved when the Iraqis are able to defend their democracy. And they’re trying to drive us out of Iraq … and the best way to deal with them is train Iraqis so they can deal with them. And that’s what’s happening. There are two aspects of our training. And, listen, the training hasn’t gone smoothly all the time. I mean, this is a war. And you’re constantly adjusting your strategies and tactics—not strategies—tactics on the ground to meet an enemy which is changing. And so the army is getting on its feet. We’ve turned over a lot of territory to the army. And they’re good fighters, they really are. I spent a great deal of time with General Abizaid and General Casey—they were in Washington this past week—these are generals, you’d be happy to hear, who tell me the way it is, not the way they think I would like it to be.… as I’ve said, as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down. So the strategy, the security strategy is to let the Iraqis do the fighting. It’s their country. The people have shown they want democracy. Millions voted. And now part of the mission is to give this government a security force which will help fight off the few who are trying to stop the hopes of the many. One of the places where we’ve lagged is training police. There are three types of police. There’s a national police force, kind of like a swat team, a national swat team, that can move—they’re pretty well trained. They need some human rights training. In other words, part of the problem in Iraq is you’ve got people that are plenty irritated at what took place in the past and they’re going to use their positions of power to take revenge. You can’t have a democracy in which the police don’t enforce the rule of law, but enforce their view of revenge. And so you got ethics training, rule of law training—all done by good troops who are embedded—who are side-by-side with this Iraqi police force. And it’s getting better, it really is. Secondly, you’ve got the border patrol. The reason why the border is necessary is because there’s suiciders coming in from Syria into Iraq. And the Iraqis have got to be able to enforce their border in order to be able to protect their democracy. And thirdly, you’ve got local police, and we’re lagging in the local police … And so what we’re going to do is use what worked in the Balkans and embed
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people in the local police units to teach them how to—effective enforcements of the law. And so, 2006 you’re going to see a lot of police training and a lot of police focus. Finally, there’s the economic and reconstruction front. We started up grand projects in Iraq when we first got there, said we’re going to build some grand projects. It turns out a more effective use of reconstruction money was localize projects to empower those who were willing to take a risk for democracy with the capacity to say, follow me, your life is going to be better.… and so part of the reconstruction effort was to focus on local reconstruction projects. The Iraqi economy has got a great chance to succeed. They got oil and gas revenues. They had been having trouble getting some oil and gas revenues up to the levels we anticipated because of the infrastructure damage—done by Saddam Hussein, by the way, and because the terrorists, every time there’s some progress, tend to blow things up. Now, having said that, they got these surveys—and I must confess I’m not much of a survey guy, but they got them, and most Iraqis are optimistic about the future … But this economy is going. Small businesses are flourishing. They got a— they had to deal with gasoline subsidies. Saddam Hussein … subsidized gasoline, which meant a lot of the central budget was going for subsidization of fuel, as opposed to education and health. And so the new government made a difficult decision, they started floating that price of gasoline up a little higher, to take the pressure off their budget and to introduce markets, market-based forces into the economy. It’s not going to happen overnight. You can’t go from a tightly controlled economy to an open market overnight, but it’s happening. In other words, the government is making difficult choices to help the entrepreneurial spirit begin to flourish. And so things are good. I’m confident we’ll succeed. And it’s tough, though. The enemy has got one weapon—I repeat to you—and that’s to shake our will. I just want to tell you, whether you agree with me, or not, they’re not going to shake my will. We’re doing the right thing. A couple of quick points … You hear a lot of talk about troop levels. I’d just like to give you my thinking on troop levels. I know a lot of people want our troops to come home—I do, too. But I don’t want us to come home without achieving the victory. We owe that to the mothers and fathers and husbands and wives who have lost a loved one. That’s what I feel. I feel strongly that we cannot let the sacrifice … we can’t let their sacrifice go in vain. Secondly, I—these troop levels will be decided by our commanders … I don’t know if you’ve noticed recently, but we’re beginning to reduce presence in Iraq based upon the recommendation of our commanders. We’ve gone from 17 to 15 battalions. We kept up to about 60,000–160,000 troops in Iraq for the elections. We held over about 25,000 or so on a—that were to rotate out to help in the elections. Those 25,000 are coming back, plus the reduced battalions. And people say, well, how about more for the rest of the year? And the answer to that is, I’m going to do what they tell me to do. And that depends upon the capacity of the Iraqis to help us achieve victory. Q. You’ve talked a lot about history. In your State of the Union after September 11th, you defined this war as a war on terror. In history, our parents’
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generation had V.E. Day and V.J. Day. And in our time, we’ve seen the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. If you define this as a war on terror, will there ever be a V.T. Day? And, if not, what do you need to do to prepare us to be able to go the duration? THE PRESIDENT: I also said that this is a different kind of war, the kind of war we’ve never faced before. We’re not facing a nation-state per se. We’re facing a shadowy network of people bound together by a common ideology that—by the way, the enemy knows no rules of war. They just—they kill innocent people. And so, you’re right, I did say it’s a war, the first war of the 21st century, but I’ve been emphasizing it’s a different kind of war. So I don’t envision a signing ceremony on the USS Missouri. As a matter of fact, this is a war in which the enemy is going to have to be defeated by a competing system in the long run. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/2006/58970.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see ‘‘President Discusses Global War on Terror at Kansas State University,’’ January 23, 2006 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2006/01/print/20060123-4.html).
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Remarks at a Rally for the Troops at Charleston Air Force Base, Charleston, South Carolina, March 17, 2006 Americans understand what is at stake in Iraq—and so do the terrorists. That’s why they commit acts of random horror, calculated to shock and intimidate the civilized world. Our enemies also want to provoke sectarian strife, even bombing the Golden Mosque in hopes of starting a civil war. The terrorists know that as freedom takes hold, the ideologies of hatred and resentment will lose their appeal, and the advance of democracy will inspire reformers across the broader Middle East. As that region experiences new hope and progress, we will see the power of freedom to lift up whole nations, and the spread of liberty will produce a much safer world for our children and our grandchildren. The war on terror is a battle for the future of civilization. It is a battle worth fighting. And it is a battle we are going to win. Our strategy in Iraq is clear, our tactics will remain flexible, and we’ll keep at the work until we finish the job. Progress has not come easily, but it has been steady, and we can be confident going forward. By voting in free elections, by ratifying a constitution, by going to the polls with an amazing voter turnout of more than 70 percent, Iraqis have shown they value their own liberty and that they are determined to choose their own destiny. Our coalition has also put great effort into standing up the Iraqi Security Forces, and we’ve come a great distance over the past year. We’re helping to build an Iraqi force that is well trained and well equipped, and this was vital to the success of the recent elections, and it will be vital to the future peace and security of Iraq. Today the number of Iraqi battalions in the fight has grown to more than 130—with over 60 of those battalions taking the lead in their area of operation. And Iraqi forces are conducting more independent
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operations throughout the country than our coalition forces. Gradually, Iraqi forces are taking control of more and more Iraqi territory. Iraqi units have primary responsibility now for over 30,000 square miles of the country—roughly 20,000 square miles more than the beginning of the year. And as they undertake further missions on their own, confidence will grow within the country and intelligence tips are coming in, in ever increasing numbers from the Iraqi people. As Iraqi forces gain strength and experience, and as the political process in Iraq advances, we’ll be able to decrease troop levels without losing our capacity to defeat the terrorists. And as always, decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground and the judgment of our commanders—not by artificial timelines set by politicians in Washington, D.C. There have been some prominent voices advocating a sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq. Some have suggested that this war is not winnable, and a few seem almost eager to conclude that the whole strategy is already lost. But they are wrong. The only way we lose this fight is to quit—and that’s not an option. Every American serving in this war can be absolutely certain that the people of our country do not support a policy of passivity, of retreat and resignation, and defeatism in the face of terror. The United States will never go back to the false comforts of the world before September 11th, 2001. Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness. And this nation has made a decision: We will engage these enemies—facing them far from home, so we do not have to face them on the streets of our own cities. This work goes on, because we are dealing with enemies who view the entire world as a battlefield. Their prime targets are the United States and the American people. That effort includes a home front, which is every bit as important as the battlefields abroad. In his speech to Congress after 9/11, President Bush said that the United States would, and I quote, ‘‘direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war—to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.’’ The Congress backed him up in full, authorizing the President to defeat an enemy that had already slipped into our country, waged a horrific attack against innocent men and women, and doing enormous damage as they killed 3,000 of our fellow citizens. The President also signed the Patriot Act, which is helping us to disrupt terrorist activity, to break up terror cells within the United States, and to protect the lives of Americans. Another vital step the President took in the days following 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end of their calls in the United States. We have faced, and we are facing today, enemies who hate us, who hate our country, and hate the liberties for which we stand. They dwell in the shadows, wear no uniform, have no regard for the laws of warfare, and feel unconstrained by any standards of morality. It’s a serious fight—and we have a lot more to do before it’s finished. Either we are serious about fighting this
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war or we are not. And the enemies of America need to know: We are serious—and we will not let down our guard. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060317-3.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Virtually identical rallies were delivered at a dozen military bases in 2006 and are available on the Vice President’s Web site (http://www.whitehouse. gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/).
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by Bob Schieffer, CBS News Face the Nation, CBS News Washington, Washington, D.C., March 19, 2006 Q. Let’s start right in about Iraq because that’s right at the top of the list this morning. The conservative columnist George Will in this morning’s paper, reflecting what I think is a growing unease among some Republicans now, says that conditions in Iraq today are worse than they were after the elections in December. And today, Ayad Allawi, the former interim Prime Minister, the most pro-American of the Iraqi leaders, I think, says that we can no longer mince words, Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. Do you agree with that? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t, Bob. I think the assessment that we get from General George Casey, who is our man commanding in Iraq, from Zal Khalilzad, the ambassador, from John Abizaid, who is the general in charge of Central Command, doesn’t square with that. Clearly, there is an attempt underway by the terrorists, by Zarqawi and others to foment civil war. That’s been their strategy all along. But my view would be they’ve reached a stage of desperation from their standpoint. For example, the bombing of the mosque in Samarra here a couple of weeks ago that is a reflection of the fact that they are doing everything they can to stop the formation of a democratically elected government. Zarqawi himself was quoted two years ago saying that if the Iraqis ever achieve that objective, put together a democratic government, that he’d have to pack up his bags and go elsewhere. And I think that’s absolutely the case. So what we’ve seen is a serious effort by them to foment civil war, but I don’t think they’ve been successful. Q. Mr. Vice President, all along the government has been very optimistic. You remain optimistic. But I remember when you were saying we’d be greeted as liberators. You played down the insurgency. Ten months ago, you said it was in its last throes. Do you believe that these optimistic statements may be one of the reasons that people seem to be more skeptical in this country about whether we ought to be in Iraq? THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think it has less to do with statements we’ve made, which I think were basically accurate, and reflect reality, than it does the fact that there is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that’s created because what’s newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad. It’s not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces in terms of making progress towards rebuilding Iraq. The facts are pretty straightforward. The Iraqis have met every single political deadline that’s been set for them. They haven’t missed a single one. They
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took over, in terms of sovereignty, 21 months ago. They held national elections the following January. They wrote a constitution—one of the best constitutions in that part of the world. They held a referendum on it last October, and last December, had turnout of about 78 percent in terms of the election, and now are putting together a government, which they’ll form up here shortly. On the security front, we’ve seen major progress in terms of training and equipping Iraqi forces. Today, roughly half of all of the missions that are being conducted over there are with Iraqis in the lead. They’ve been very successful now in terms of training and equipping over a hundred battalions of Iraqi troops. And it continues to improve day-by-day. Those are the facts on the ground. That’s the reality. Q. Isn’t it also a reality that the violence continues? They keep finding these people that have been executed? And isn’t it also reality that they can’t seem to put a government together? They can’t seem to find a way, a compromise to get this government together. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Bob, it took us a lot longer to put an effective government together when we tried to do it 200 years ago than it has taken the Iraqis. It’s remarkable when you think about a group of people who have been under the heavy hand of oppression for 35 years, with Saddam Hussein, one of the bloodiest dictators in modern times, slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his own people, started two wars, used weapons of mass destruction against his own folks, to emerge from that as effectively as they have in as short a period of time as they have. Yes, there’s continuing violence. Why? There’s continuing violence because our adversaries understand what’s at stake here, because they know that if we’re successful in establishing a democratic government in Iraq, that that’s going to put enormous pressure in that part of the world on all of those other regimes and governments. It offers a counter to the bloody ideology that Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda organizations have tried to perpetrate throughout that part of the world. There’s a lot at stake here. It’s not just about Iraq. It’s not about just today’s situation in Iraq. It’s about where we’re going to be 10 years from now, in the Middle East, and whether or not there’s going to be hope and the development of governments that are responsive to the will of the people, that are not a threat to anyone, that are not safe havens for terror, or manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction—that’s our vision and our view—or whether or not the terrorists succeed. And if they succeed, then the danger is that Iraq will become a failed state as Afghanistan was a few years ago when it was governed by the Taliban, a safe haven for Osama bin Laden, and the base from which they launched attacks against the United States and our friends around the world. Q. Let me read to you what Senator Kennedy, liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, and a long-time opponent of the war said on the third anniversary. Here’s part of his statement. He said: ‘‘It is clearer than ever that Iraq was a war we never should have fought. The administration has been dangerously incompetent. And its Iraq policy is not worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. Yet President Bush continues to see the war through the same rose-colored glasses he has always
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used. He assures the American people we are winning, while Iraq’s future and the lives of our troops hangs so perilously on the precipice of a new disaster.’’ Dangerously incompetent is what he is saying. I want to give you a chance to respond. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I would not look to Ted Kennedy for guidance and leadership on how we ought to manage national security, Bob. I think what Senator Kennedy reflects is sort of the pre-9/11 mentality about how we ought to deal with the world and that part of the world. We used to operate on the assumption before 9/11 that a criminal attack— a terrorist attack was a criminal act, a law enforcement problem. We were hit repeatedly in the ’90s and never responded effectively, and the terrorists came to believe not only could they strike us with impunity, but if they hit us hard enough, they could change our policy, because they did in Beirut in 1983, or Mogadishu in 1993. We changed all that on 9/11. After they hit us and killed 3,000 of our people here at home, we said, enough is enough. We’re going to aggressively go after them. We’ll go after the terrorists wherever we find them. We’ll go after those states that sponsor terror. We’ll go after people that can provide them with weapons of mass destruction. We’ll use our intelligence and our military services very aggressively. And we have. We did in Afghanistan. We’ve done it in Pakistan. We’re working with the Paks. We captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda. We’ve done it in Saudi Arabia. And obviously, we’re doing it now in Iraq. That kind of aggressive forward-leaning strategy is one of the main reasons we haven’t been struck again since 9/11 because we’ve taken the fight to them. Senator Kennedy’s approach would be pack your bags and go home; retreat behind your oceans and assume you can be safe. But we learned on 9/11 that, in fact, what’s going on 10,000 miles away in a place like Afghanistan, or Iraq can have a direct impact here in the United States when we lost 3,000 people that morning. And we know now that the biggest threat that we face of all isn’t just another 9/11, it’s a 9/11 where the terrorists have something like nuclear weapons, or a deadly biological agent to use against us. The Iraq situation has to be viewed within the broader context of the global war on terror. It is a global conflict. You can’t look just at Iraq and make decisions there with respect to how that’s going to come out without having major consequences for everything that’s going on. And I think we are going to succeed in Iraq. I think the evidence is overwhelming … SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060319-1.html
President George W. Bush Discusses the Global War on Terror, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C., April 10, 2006 EXCERPTED We have learned from our mistakes. We’ve adjusted our approach to meet the changing circumstances on the ground; we’ve adjusted depending upon the actions of the enemy. By pursuing a clear and flexible strategy in Iraq, we
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helped make it possible for Iraqis to choose their leaders and begin to assume the responsibilities of self-government and self-defense. In the past three years, our troops in Iraq have done everything expected of them, and more. They’ve brought freedom to Iraq, security to our country, and pride to the uniform—and they have the gratitude of all Americans. Forming a unity government is critical to defeating the terrorists and securing the peace. The terrorists and insurgents thrive in a political vacuum—and the delay in forming a government is creating a vacuum that the terrorists and insurgents are working to exploit. The enemies of a free Iraq blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra in the hope that this outrageous act would provoke reprisals and drag the nation into a civil war. This past Friday, suicide bombers blew up another Shia mosque in northern Baghdad. The longer Iraq’s leaders delay in forming a unity government, the greater the risk that the terrorists and former regime elements will succeed in their efforts to foment division and to stop the progress of an Iraq democracy. Once a government is formed, the international community must also do its part to help this young democracy succeed. Iraq needs greater international support—particularly from its Arab neighbors. Arab leaders need to recognize that the choice in Iraq is between democracy and terrorism, and there is no middle ground. Success of Iraqi democracy is in their vital interests—because if the terrorists prevail in Iraq, they will target other Arab nations … SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060410-1.html
President George W. Bush Discusses Recent Visit to Iraq by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Rose Garden, May 1, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank Secretary Rice and Secretary Rumsfeld, and General Pace, thank you for being here as well … They came by the Oval Office to brief me on their recent trip to Iraq … I thought it was very important for both Secretaries to go firsthand, to be there with the leadership to say we’re supporting them. It’s very important for these two senior officials to sit down with these new folks and say, you have our support and we want you to succeed. And they brought back interesting impressions from the three new leaders. They said they were optimistic people, that they’re full of energy and they’re very eager to succeed. And that’s really important for the American people to know, that we’ve got partners in this effort who are dedicated to a unified Iraq and dedicated to putting a government together that is one that will represent all the Iraqi people. This new government is going to represent a new start for the Iraqi people. It’s a government that understands they’ve got serious challenges ahead of them. And the three leaders spoke to Secretary Rice and Secretary Rumsfeld about their need to deploy the growing strength of the Iraqi security forces in such a way as to defeat the terrorists and the insurgents. And we will continue to support them in that effort. That they talked about the need to establish control over the militias and other unauthorized armed groups and enforce
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the rule of law. And we will support them in these efforts to achieve that important objective. They talked about the need to rebuild infrastructure and strengthen their economy, and we agree with that assessment. And, finally, they talked about the need to make sure that all Iraqis share in the benefits of this new democracy. A new Iraqi government represents a strategic opportunity for America—and the whole world, for that matter. This nation of ours and our coalition partners are going to work with the new leadership to strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve success, a victory in this war on terror. This is a—we believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens, and it’s a new chapter in our partnership. The Secretaries began building this new partnership during their trip. In other words, the Iraqi leaders saw that we are committed to helping them succeed. They need to know that we stand with them. And the Iraqi people need to know that we stand with them, that we understand the strategic importance of a free Iraq in the Middle East, and that we understand the need to deny safe haven to the terrorists who have caused such turmoil and havoc inside of Iraq. There’s going to be more tough days ahead. These Secretaries know that, they’re realistic people. They have brought an assessment of what they saw on the ground, and some of it’s positive and, obviously, there’s some difficult days ahead because there’s still terrorists there who are willing to take innocent life in order to stop the progress of democracy. But this government is more determined than ever to succeed, and we believe we’ve got partners to help the Iraqi people realize their dreams. … [W]hat we have begun to see now is the emergence of a unity government to represent the wishes of the Iraqi people. Last December millions of people defied the terrorists and killers, and said, we want to be free, we want a unity government. And now what has happened is, after compromise and politics, the Iraqis have come together to form that government. And our Secretaries went over there to tell them that we look forward to working with them as partners in peace. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060501.html
President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Joint Press Conference, The East Room of the White House, Washington, D.C., May 25, 2006 PRESIDENT BUSH: I want to thank Prime Minister Tony Blair for coming to Washington to discuss his recent visit to Iraq. The Prime Minister met with key leaders of the new Iraqi government that represents the will of the Iraqi people and reflects their nation’s diversity … The agenda that Prime Minister Maliki has outlined demonstrates that Iraq’s new government understands its duty to deliver real improvements in the daily lives of the Iraqi people. The formation of a new government represents a new beginning for Iraq and a new beginning for the relationship between Iraq and our coalition. The United States and Great Britain will work
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together to help this new democracy succeed. We’ll take advantage of this moment of opportunity and work with Iraq’s new government to strengthen its young democracy and achieve victory over our common enemies. As we celebrate this historic moment, it’s important to recall how we got there, and take stock on how far we’ve come over the last three years. The violence and bloodshed in Iraq has been difficult for the civilized world to comprehend. The United States and Great Britain have lost some of our finest men and women in combat. The car bombings and suicide attacks and other terrorist acts have also inflicted great suffering on the Iraqi people. And Iraqis have increasingly become the principal victims of terror and sectarian reprisal. Yet, in the face of this ongoing violence, each time the Iraqi people voiced their opinion, they chose freedom. In three different elections, millions of Iraqis turned out to the polls and cast their ballots. Because of their courage, the Iraqis now have a government of their choosing, elected under the most modern and democratic constitution in the Arab world. The birth of a free and democratic Iraq was made possible by the removal of a cruel dictator. The decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power was controversial. We did not find the weapons of mass destruction that we all believed were there—and that’s raised questions about whether the sacrifice in Iraq has been worth it. Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing. Saddam Hussein was a menace to his people; he was a state sponsor of terror; he invaded his neighbors. Investigations proved he was systematically gaming the oil-for-food program in an effort to undermine sanctions, with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed and the world looked away. If Saddam Hussein were in power today, his regime would be richer, more dangerous and a bigger threat to the region and the civilized world. The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right. But not everything since liberation has turned out as the way we had expected or hoped. We’ve learned from our mistakes, adjusted our methods, and have built on our successes. From changing the way we train the Iraqi security forces to rethinking the way we do reconstruction, our commanders and our diplomats in Iraq are constantly adapting to the realities on the ground. We’ve adapted our tactics, yet the heart of our strategy remains the same: to support the emergence of a free Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. All our efforts over the past three years have been aimed towards this goal. This past weekend, the world watched as Iraqis stood up a free and democratic government in the heart of the Middle East. With our help, Iraq will be a powerful force for good in a troubled region, and a steadfast ally in the war on terror. With the emergence of this government, something fundamental changed in Iraq last weekend. While we can expect more violence in the days and weeks ahead, the terrorists are now fighting a free and constitutional government. They’re at war with the people of Iraq, and the Iraqi people are determined to defeat this enemy, and so are Iraq’s new leaders, and so are the United States and Great Britain. PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: As everyone knows, I was in Iraq earlier in this week, in Baghdad. And I was able to discuss with the new leaders of Iraq
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firsthand their experience and their hopes and expectations for the future. And I came away thinking that the challenge is still immense, but I also came away more certain than ever that we should rise to it. And though it is, at times, daunting, it is also utterly inspiring to see people from all the different parts of the community in Iraq—the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds—sitting down together, all of them democratic leaders, democratically elected by their people; elected for a four-year term; elected and choosing to come together as a government of national unity, and completely determined to run their country in a different way for the future. … I think after these three years and the democratic process working and producing this government, then it is our duty, but it is also the duty of the whole of the international community, to get behind this government and support it, because the other thing that came across to me very strongly from talking to them was that the reason there is bloodshed and violence in Iraq is that the very forces that we are confronting everywhere, including in our own countries, who want to destroy our way of life, also want to destroy their hope of having the same type of life … Q. Mr. President, Pentagon officials have talked about prospects for reducing American forces in Iraq to about 100,000 by year’s end. Does the formation of a unity government in Iraq put you on a sound footing to achieve that number? And Mr. Prime Minister, is it realistic to think that Iraqi forces will be able to take control of all Iraq by the end of next year as Mr. Malaki suggests? PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, we’re going to work with our partners in Iraq, the new government, to determine the best way forward in achieving an objective, which is an Iraq that can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself. I have said to the American people, as the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down. But I’ve also said that our commanders on the ground will make that decision. And I have—we’ll talk to General Casey once he is—conferred with the new government of Iraq … Q. So the 100,000— PRESIDENT BUSH: That’s some speculation in the press that I—they haven’t talked to me about. And as the Commander-in-Chief, they eventually will talk to me about it. But the American people need to know that we’ll keep the force level there necessary to win. And it’s important for the American people to know that politics isn’t going to make the decision as to the size of our force level. The conditions on the ground will make the decision … PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: I think it’s possible for the Iraqi security forces to take control progressively of their country. That’s exactly the strategy we’ve outlined at the beginning. And I think it’s possible to happen in the way that Prime Minister Maliki said. For that to happen, obviously, the first thing that we need is a strong government in Baghdad that is prepared to enforce its writ throughout the country. My very strong feeling, having talked to the leaders there, is that they intend theirs to be such a government. Secondly, what they intend is to come down very hard on those people who want to create the circumstances where it’s difficult for the Iraqi forces to be in control.… There is no excuse now for anyone to engage in violence in
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Iraq. I mean, if people’s worry is to do with being excluded from the political process, everybody has got their place in the political process today. And, obviously, there are still issues to do with the capability of the Iraqi forces, but all the time they are building up, both in number and in capability, and we’ve got to support that all the way through. But I’ll tell you one interesting thing from talking to all the different groups—because sometimes, certainly in our country, the impression is given that the Iraqi people wish that we were gone from Iraq and weren’t there any longer in support of the Iraqi government or the Iraqi forces. Not a single one of the people I talked to, not one of the political leaders, from whatever part of the spectrum in Iraq that I talked to—and these are all people from all the different communities elected by their people—not one of them wanted us to pull out precipitately. All of them wanted us to stick with it and see the job done. Q. One gets a clear sense of your mutual relief that a government has now been formed, an elected government has been formed in Iraq. But, nonetheless, the current Secretary General of the United Nations has said that he believes that the invasion of Iraq was probably illegal. When you look at your legacy and you look ahead to the reforms in the United Nations you want to see, are you really saying that what you’d actually like to see is a United Nations which could take preemptive action legally? PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: I think what we need to do is to recognize that there are threats in our world today that require us to act earlier and more effectively. And I think we can debate the institutional structure within which that should happen in the United Nations and elsewhere, but I also think that when we look at this global terrorism that we face, there is—to me, at any rate—a very clear link between the terrorism that is afflicting virtually every country in the Western world, either in actuality or potentially, the terrorism that is happening all over different countries of the Middle East and in Asia and elsewhere, and the terrorism that is there in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think that is an issue for the whole of the international community, because I’ve got no doubt at all that if we do succeed, as I believe that we will in Iraq, difficult though it will be, and we succeed in Afghanistan, then the whole of this global terrorism will suffer a defeat. And that’s why I think we need an international community that’s capable of recognizing these problems and acting on them. PRESIDENT BUSH: I’d like to see a United Nations that’s effective, one that joins us in trying to rid the world of tyranny, one that is willing to advance human rights and human dignity at its core, one that’s an unabashed organization—is unabashed in their desire to spread freedom. That’s what I’d like to see, because I believe that freedom will yield to peace. I also believe freedom is universal. I don’t believe freedom is just a concept only for America or Great Britain. It’s a universal concept. And it troubles me to know that there are people locked in tyrannical societies that suffer. And the United Nations ought to be clear about its desire to liberate people from the clutches of tyranny. That’s what the United Nations ought to be doing, as far as I’m concerned. Q. You both presented the Iraqi government as a substantial vindication of the conflict. Do you also accept, as a matter of harsh political reality, that the
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Iraq conflict has also left both of you politically weakened and, whether justly or unjustly, less able to give the kind of moral leadership that you’re discussing today? PRESIDENT BUSH: No question that the Iraq war has created a sense of consternation here in America. I mean, when you turn on your TV screen and see innocent people die, day in and day out, it affects the mentality of our country. But here’s what they’re asking in America. They’re asking, can we win? That’s what they want to know. Do we have a strategy for victory? And so the talk about the unity government—you might remember there was some—a lot of speculation as to whether there would even be a unity government. A couple of months ago, people were saying, well, they can’t even get a unity government going. But we have a unity government—a Kurd President, a Prime Minister who is a Shia, a Speaker who is a Sunni. These are strong leaders. It’s an indication that progress is being made. Part of progress, of course, is on the political track. You know, we had elections in Iraq; 12 million people voted last December … Twelve million people said, we want to be free. It was an astounding moment. And this unity government is now formed, as a result of those elections, under a constitution approved by the Iraqi people. That’s progress. It’s certainly a far sight from the days of a tyrant who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and used weapons of mass destruction and threatened the neighborhood. I mean, that is progress. No question, however, that the suiciders and the killers and the IEDs and the deaths have an effect on the American people. But one of the reasons that I appreciate Tony coming is that he brings a fresh perspective of what he saw, and the American people need to know we are making progress toward a goal of an Iraq that can defend itself, sustain itself and govern itself. That will deny the terrorists a safe haven. You know, al Qaeda has made it clear what their intentions are in Iraq. I’m sure you’ve read some of the intercepts that are laid out there for people to see. And they have made it clear that it’s just a matter of time for countries like Great Britain and the United States to leave. In other words, if they make life miserable enough, we’ll leave. And they want us to leave because they want a safe haven from which to launch attacks, not only on us, but on moderate Muslim governments, as well. These people are totalitarians. They’re Islamic fascists. They have a point of view, they have a philosophy, and they want to impose that philosophy on the rest of the world. And Iraq just happens to be a—one of the battles in the war on terror. And Tony brings up a good point: Why are they resisting so hard, what is it about democracy they can’t stand? Well, what they can’t stand about democracy is this: Democracy is the exact opposite of what they believe. They believe they can impose their will, they believe there’s no freedom of religion, they believe there’s no women’s rights. They have a—they have a dark vision of the world, and that’s why they’re resisting so mightily. So yes, I can understand why the American people are troubled by the war in Iraq … But I also believe the sacrifice is worth it and is necessary, and I believe a free Iraq is not only going to make ourselves more secure, but it’s going to serve as a powerful example in the Middle East.
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Q. Mr. President, you have said time and time again, and again tonight, when Iraqi forces stand up, coalition forces can start standing down. PRESIDENT BUSH: Right. Q. But the fact is, you have been standing up Iraqi forces in great numbers. The administration says you have hundreds of thousand trained and equipped, tens of thousand leading the fight. And yet, during the same period they’ve been standing up there has not been a substantial decrease in U.S. and coalition forces. So what does that tell us about how meaningful the figures are on Iraqi troops? And what does that tell us about a potential for a draw-down? PRESIDENT BUSH: It tells you that the commanders on the ground are going to make the decision, that’s what that tells you. And when they feel comfortable in recommending to me fewer troops, I will accept that. But they’re going to make that recommendation based upon the conditions on the ground. I know I keep saying that, and it probably bores you that I keep giving the same answer, but I haven’t changed my opinion. I talk to our commanders all the time. They feel strongly that the Iraqi army is getting better. It’s hard to have a command and control system with an Iraqi army when you don’t have a defense minister. And so Mr. Maliki is going to have to pick one soon. And then our commanders will gauge as to whether or not the command and control structure is sufficient to be able to enable the Iraqis to take more of the fight. They are taking more of the fight, by the way. They’re in more provinces than ever before. They’re taking over more territory. They’re taking over more missions. There are some gaps that we need to continue to work on to fill—the transportation issue is going to need to be dealt with over time. So these commanders, they need to have flexibility in order to achieve the objective. You don’t want politicians making decisions based upon politics. You want the Commander-in-Chief making decisions based upon what the military thinks is the right way to achieve the objective. I’ve set the objective, it’s clear for everybody—a country that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself. And we’re making progress on all fronts. But as to how many troops we have there will depend upon the generals and their commanders saying, this is what we need to do the job, Mr. President, and that’s the way it’s going to be so long as I’m standing here as the Commander-in-Chief, which is two-and-a-half more years. PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: I spoke to General Casey and to our own General Fry in Baghdad on Monday. We sat down and talked this very issue through. And I think what you will find is that progressively there will be more and more parts of Iraq that are policed by the Iraqi security forces themselves, and their capability is improving. But I also think you will find probably over the next few months there will be a real attempt by the anti-democratic forces to test them very, very strongly. And remember, a lot of the attacks are now happening not on the multinational force, although those attacks continue, of course, but actually on the Iraqi forces themselves, on their police, on their army and so on. And the purpose, of course, of that is to deter them from the very buildup of capability that we want to see. But over the course of the next few months, you will see progressively those provinces in Iraq coming under Iraqi control, and then, of course, it will be for the Iraqis to sort out that responsibility.
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PRESIDENT BUSH: One thing is that we want to make sure we complete the mission, that we achieve our objective. A loss in Iraq would make this world an incredibly dangerous place. Remember there is not only sectarian violence, a hangover from Saddam’s era, but there is an al Qaeda presence, in the form of Zarqawi, who wants to sow as much havoc as possible to cause us to leave before the mission is complete. Listen, I want our troops out, don’t get me wrong. I understand what it means to have troops in harm’s way. And I know there’s a lot of families making huge sacrifices here in America … But I also understand that it is vital that we—that we do the job, that we complete the mission. Q. Mr. President, you talk about setting the objective. But our people, my colleagues on the ground in Iraq, say that when they talk to American troops, the rank and file, they say they don’t believe that they’ve had enough to do the job. They say further that while the Iraqi army may be improving, there is absolutely no way to depend upon the police, who they say are corrupt and aligned with militias. All of this going on—what reason is there to believe that the new government can do any better with these people than we’ve been able to do so far? PRESIDENT BUSH: There are several tracks. One is the political track. I think it’s very important for the Iraqi people to have a government that has been elected under a constitution they approved. In other words, the political track has been a vital part of having a country that can govern itself and defend itself. There’s a security track. And there’s no question that there are a lot of Iraqis trained to fight, and many of them are good fighters—117,000 have been trained and equipped. There needs to be more equipment; no question about that. The Iraqis—I think if you were get a—at least the assessment I get, is that the Iraqi army is moving well along and they’re taking more and more of the territory over in order to defend their country. No question we’ve got a lot of work to do on the police. General Casey has said publicly that the year 2006 is—is the year that we’ll train the police up and running. Perhaps the place where there needs to be the most effective police force is in Baghdad. I just told you we’re moving more troops in. General Casey met today with the Prime Minister to talk about how to secure Baghdad. It’s really important that Baghdad—that a capital city become more secure. And there’s plans to deal with the contingencies on the ground. All I can tell you is, is that we’re making progress toward the goal. PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: … I think that what is important is to try and get a sense of balance in this. Look, it would be completely foolish for us to say, there are no problems with either the police or the army, you’ve got a full force capability in the way that we want. And nobody is actually saying that. It would also be wrong to turn it around the other way, though, even in respect to the police. I had quite a detailed discussion, not, in fact, with the generals, but some of the ordinary soldiers who—British soldiers there up in Baghdad, and also with some of the people who are working with the police at the moment. And what they said to me is, yes, there are real problems to do with corruption in parts of the police force, but actually, there is also another side to it, which there are people who are really dedicated and really committed to a non-sectarian Iraq, who also are playing their part.
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… [Y]ou’re talking about literally building the institutions of a state from scratch. And I don’t think it’s, in one sense, very surprising that it is both difficult and taking time. But I think that they do know that this is of vital importance for them to succeed. And I think that you may find that it is easier for Iraqis to do this themselves and take some of these measures necessary, than it is for us, although we would be there, obviously, in support of what they’re doing. Q. Mr. President, you spoke about missteps and mistakes in Iraq. Could I ask both of you which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret? PRESIDENT BUSH: Sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here—saying ‘‘bring it on,’’ kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner—you know, ‘‘wanted dead or alive,’’ that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted, and so I learned from that. And I think the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib. We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time. And it’s—unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice. They’ve been given a fair trial and tried and convicted. PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: I think inevitably some of the things that we thought were going to be the biggest challenge proved not to be, and some of the things we didn’t expect to be challenges at all proved to be immense. I think that probably in retrospect—though at the time it was very difficult to argue this—we could have done the de-Baathification in a more differentiated way than we did. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/66954.htm
President George W. Bush, Statement on the Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Rose Garden, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Last night in Iraq, United States military forces killed the terrorist al Zarqawi. At 6:15 p.m. Baghdad time, special operation forces, acting on tips and intelligence from Iraqis, confirmed Zarqawi’s location, and delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq. Zarqawi was the operational commander of the terrorist movement in Iraq. He led a campaign of car bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that has taken the lives of many American forces and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Osama bin Laden called this Jordanian terrorist ‘‘the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq.’’ He called on the terrorists around the world to listen to him and obey him. Zarqawi personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He masterminded the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was responsible for the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, and the bombing of a hotel in Amman. Through his every action, he sought to defeat America and our coalition partners, and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which al Qaeda could wage its war on free nations. To achieve these ends, he worked to divide Iraqis and
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incite civil war. And only last week he released an audio tape attacking Iraq’s elected leaders, and denouncing those advocating the end of sectarianism. Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again. Iraqis can be justly proud of their new government and its early steps to improve their security. And Americans can be enormously proud of the men and women of our armed forces, who worked tirelessly with their Iraqi counterparts to track down this brutal terrorist and put him out of business. Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue. Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders. Zarqawi’s death is a severe blow to al Qaeda. It’s a victory in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq’s new government to turn the tide of this struggle. A few minutes ago I spoke to Prime Minister Maliki. I congratulated him on close collaboration between coalition and Iraqi forces that helped make this day possible. Iraq’s freely elected Prime Minister is determined to defeat our common enemies and bring security and the rule of law to all its people. On Monday I will meet with my national security team and other key members of my Cabinet at Camp David to discuss the way forward in Iraq. Our top diplomats and military commanders in Iraq will give me an assessment of recent changes in the political and economic and security situation on the ground. On Tuesday, Iraq’s new Ambassador to the United States will join us, and we will have a teleconference discussion with the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet. Together we will discuss how to best deploy America’s resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself. We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continued patience of the American people. Yet the developments of the last 24 hours give us renewed confidence in the final outcome of this struggle: the defeat of terrorism threats, and a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060608.html
President George W. Bush, Surprise Visit to Iraq, Meets with Prime Minister Maliki in Baghdad, Videoconference with Camp David Participants, June 13, 2006 PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for this opportunity to visit with your cabinet. I have expressed our country’s desire to work with you, but I appreciate you recognizing the fact that the future of this country is in your hands. The decisions you and your cabinet make will be determinate as to whether or not a country succeeds that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. I’m impressed by the cabinet that you’ve assembled. You’ve assembled people from all parts of your country, representing the different religions and the different histories and traditions. And yet the cabinet here represents the entire Iraqi people, and I appreciate your commitment to representing the people of Iraq. I’m impressed by the
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strength of your character and your desire to succeed. And I’m impressed by your strategy. We’ve discussed—I discussed earlier with the Prime Minister and here with his cabinet and with members of my Cabinet the strategy necessary to have a country that is capable of answering to the needs of the people. We discussed the security strategy. We discussed an economic strategy, a reconstruction strategy. And all of it makes sense to me. And so I’ve come to not only look you in the eye, I’ve also come to tell you that when America gives its word, it will keep its word; that it’s in our interests that Iraq succeed. It’s not only in the interests of the Iraqi people, it’s in the interests of the American people and for people who love freedom. Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Iraq is a central front on that war, and when Iraq succeeds in having a government of and by and for the people of Iraq, you will have dealt a serious blow to those who have a vision of darkness, who don’t believe in liberty, who are willing to kill the innocent in order to achieve a political objective. And so, Mr. Prime Minister, I want to thank you for giving me and my Cabinet a chance to hear from you personally and a chance to meet the members of this team you’ve assembled. It’s an impressive group of men and women, and if given the right help, I’m convinced you will succeed, and so will the world. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060613.html
President George W. Bush, Saturday Radio Address on Iraq, June 17, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Earlier this week, I traveled to Baghdad to visit the capital of a free and democratic Iraq.… On my trip, I also met with the new Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, and I was able to see firsthand his strong character and his determination to succeed. We held a joint meeting of our two Cabinets, with members of my Cabinet participating by video teleconference from Camp David. The Prime Minister briefed us on his plan to take immediate steps in three key areas: improving security, building up Iraq’s economy so Iraqis can see real progress in their lives, and reaching out to the international community to secure support for Iraq’s new government. Then we discussed how my administration can help the Prime Minister accomplish these vital objectives. His top priority is securing Baghdad, so Coalition and Iraqi forces have launched Operation Together Forward, a joint effort to restore security and the rule of law to high-risk areas of the city. To help the Prime Minister improve security, we will continue embedding Coalition transition teams in Iraqi army and police units, and we will help the new Iraqi Ministers of Defense and Interior improve their command and control, root out corruption, and investigate and punish human rights violations. We will also support the Prime Minister as he works to rein in illegal militias, build a judicial system that will provide equal justice to all, and promote reconciliation among the Iraqi people. To aid the Prime Minister in revitalizing Iraq’s economy, we will send additional experts to help the Iraqi government develop an economic framework
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that will promote job creation and opportunity for all Iraqis. We will also help the Prime Minister increase oil and electricity production by working together on ways to protect key infrastructure from attacks, and to quickly restore oil and electricity production when attacks do occur. Finally, America will help the Prime Minister engage the international community in Iraq’s success. We will encourage other nations to fulfill the monetary pledges they have already made to help the new Iraqi government succeed. We will also support the Prime Minister’s efforts to forge a new international compact. Under this compact, Iraq will take a series of steps in the political, economic, and security areas, and in return, the international community will provide Iraq with more robust political and economic support. During my trip, I was impressed with the Prime Minister, the team he has assembled, and the plan he has set for his government. I appreciate his determination, and the determination of his Cabinet, to make his agenda work. I told them that the future of Iraq is in their hands. And I told them that America is a nation that keeps its word, and America will stand with them as we work toward our shared goal: a free Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. By seizing this moment of opportunity, we will defeat our common enemies and build a lasting democracy in the heart of the Middle East, and that will make Americans, Iraqis, and the world more secure. I traveled to Baghdad to personally show our Nation’s commitment to a free Iraq, because it is vital for the Iraqi people to know with certainty that America will not abandon them after we have come this far. The challenges that remain in Iraq are serious. We face determined enemies who remain intent on killing the innocent, and defeating these enemies will require more sacrifice and the continued patience of our country. But our efforts in Iraq are well worth it, the mission is necessary for the security of our country, and we will succeed. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060617.html
President George W. Bush, Press Conference at 2006 U.S.-EU Summit, Zeremoniensaal Hall, Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria, June 21, 2006 We talked about our efforts to continue to defeat the terrorists. I reminded my fellow leaders here that the terrorists still want to strike and they want to do harm, and we have an obligation to work very closely together. And, obviously, they brought up the concern about Guantanamo. And I understand their concerns. But let me explain my position. First, I’d like to end Guantanamo. I’d like it to be over with. One of the things we will do is we’ll send people back to their home countries. We’ve got about 400 people there left—200 have been sent back—400 are there, mainly from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen. And I explained to the two leaders here our desires to send them back. Of course, there’s international pressure not to send them back. But, hopefully, we’ll be able to resolve that when they go back to their own country.
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There are some who need to be tried in U.S. courts. They’re cold-blooded killers. They will murder somebody if they’re let out on the street. And yet, we believe there’s a—there ought to be a way forward in a court of law, and I’m waiting for the Supreme Court of the United States to determine the proper venue in which these people can be tried. So I understand the concerns of the leaders. They expressed the concerns of the European leaders and the European people about what Guantanamo says. I also shared with them my deep desire to end this program, but also I assured them that we will—I’m not going to let people out on the street that will do you harm. And so we’re working through the issue. And I appreciate your interest and appreciate your questions. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060621-6.html
Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Interview by John King, CNN, The Vice President’s Residence, June 22, 2006 Q. The Democrats will put on the floor of the Senate today a proposal— they don’t have the votes—but they say this administration’s policy in Iraq has failed. And the leading Democratic proposal would say, let’s have a partial withdrawal—they call it redeployment—and then require the administration to put forward a plan. Now, they say this is not cut and run, it’s not retreat, but they say three years and three months later, it is time for the administration to tell the Iraqi government you cannot have this indefinite American security blanket. You need to do a better job of preparing your own people to take over security, what’s wrong with that? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s wrong in many respects, John. First of all, they’re wrong. We are making significant progress. We’ve had major success on the political front in terms of three national elections last year by the Iraqis. They’ve stood up a brand new government under a new constitution for the first time ever. We’ve got a quarter of a million Iraqis now in uniform, equipped, trained, in the fight. So there has been significant progress made with respect to what’s going on in Iraq. What the Democrats are suggesting basically you can call it withdrawal, you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it, basically it’s—in effect, validates the terrorist strategy. You got to remember that the Osama bin Laden types, the al Qaeda types, the Zarqawi types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States’ will. There’s no way they can defeat us militarily. But their whole strategy—if you look at what bin Laden has been saying for 10 years—is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we’ll get tired of the fight, that we don’t have the stomach for a long, tough battle, and that we’ll pack it in and go home. If we were to do that, it would be devastating from the standpoint of the global war on terror. It would affect what happens in Afghanistan. It would make it difficult for us to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations for nuclear weapons. It would threaten the stability of regimes like Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudis in Saudi Arabia. It is—absolutely the worst possible
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thing we could do at this point would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do, which is to leave. Q. You say—excuse me for interrupting you—you say validating and encouraging the terrorists, the Democrats say they’re tired of validating what they view as a failed policy. And as you know some Democrats want to go even further. Senator Kerry wants to have a complete withdrawal within a year or so. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right. Q. Jack Murtha, an old friend of yours, with whom you have sparred recently in the House, he says, look, when President Reagan realized the policy in Beirut was failing, he withdrew the troops. Call it cut and run if you will. When President Clinton realized the policy in Somalia was failing, he withdrew the troops. Again, some might say cut and run. He says this war is costing $8 billion a month, $300 million a day, there’s no end in sight. And forgive me, but he says, you don’t have a plan, so let’s not have more kids killed. THE VICE PRESIDENT: He’s wrong. I like Jack Murtha. He’s a friend. We did a lot of business together in the past when I was Secretary of Defense and he was chairman of defense appropriations sub-committee. But the instances he cites, Beirut in ’83, Somalia in ’93 is what bin Laden cited back in 1997 and ’98. He made speeches where he, in effect, argued that the Americans didn’t have the stomach for a fight, that ultimately the terrorists would win, al Qaeda would win. And he’s cited as evidence of that, what happened in Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1993. That’s my point. The fact of the matter is that we are in a global conflict. It’s not just about Iraq. It’s—we’ve seen attacks around the world from New York and Washington, all the way around the Jakarta and Indonesia over the course of the last five years. Our strategy that we adopted after 9/11 of progressively going after the terrorists, going after states that sponsor terror, taking the fight to the enemy has been crucial in terms of our being able to defend the United States. I think one of the reasons we have not been struck again in five years—and nobody can promise we won’t—but it’s because we’ve taken the fight to them. And if Jack Murtha is successful in persuading the country that somehow we should withdraw now from Iraq, then you have to ask what happens to all of those people who’ve signed up with the United States, who are on our side in this fight against the radical extremist Islamic types of bin Laden and al Qaeda. What happens to the 12 million Iraqis who went to the polls last December and voted in spite of the assassins and the car bombers? What happens to the quarter of a million Iraqis who’ve gotten into the fight to take on the terrorists? The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting. And no matter how you carve it, you can call it anything you want, but basically it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight. Q. Well, you disagree with the Democrats’ plan, but they are stepping into a political environment in which the American people—clearly, some have anger, some have dissatisfaction, some have doubts about this war and the administration’s plan for this war. Fifty-four percent of the American people
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say it’s a mistake; 55 percent say things are going badly in Iraq; 53 percent in our polling say the American people actually support a timetable. Why is it that the administration has failed to articulate to the American people then? The American people don’t think you have a plan, sir. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re wrong. We do have a plan. It’s there for anybody who wants to take a look at it. The Democrats have repeatedly made this charge. It’s simply not the case. There is a good plan in place. We are making significant progress, but this is a long-term fight. I think there are a lot of people out there— Q. Let me—let me jump in. One other point here, is it wrong—you say it’s wrong to publicly set a timetable. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q. And I understand the argument for that. You’d cue off—tee the terrorists off to what you’re going to do. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. Q. Has the Iraqi government been told privately you need to meet certain bench marks, training your troops, improving security by a date certain because the American people are not going to pay for this forever? THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think they know full well that we are expecting them to take on more and more responsibility. It’s one of the reasons the President went to Baghdad recently. In all of our conversations with them, they know what we’re trying to do, and they’ve stepped up to that task and that responsibility. The fact of the matter is, obviously, we’ve lost a lot of people, which you wish you hadn’t lost anybody. But the heavy casualties are being taken by the Iraqis. There are a lot more Iraqis being—becoming casualties in this conflict at present because they are now in the fight. Again, I come back to the basic proposition: What happens in the global war on terror if the United States bails out in Iraq? And that’s exactly what withdrawal is. You’re going to take your troops out before the conflict is over with. You’re not going to complete the mission—if we follow the Democrats’ advice. And in fact, we will have set up a situation in which the al Qaeda types can win. They have a plan to establish a caliphate that stretches from Spain all the way around to Indonesia, to kick the Americans out of the Middle East, to destroy Israel, to take down most of those regimes in that part of the world. And they will do anything they can to achieve that objective. But ultimately what they’re betting on is that we don’t have the stomach for the fight, and we cannot afford to validate that strategy. We can win. We are winning, but we’ve got to stay at it. Q. In the political debate over the war, even your friends say that you have given the Democrats a couple of doozies by saying early on ‘‘we would be greeted as liberators,’’ by saying about a year ago, ‘‘the insurgency was in its lasts throes.’’ I know factually you have said you stand by those statements based on the circumstances at the time. You’re not new to this game. You’ve been in national politics for 30 something years. In the political environment, do you wish you could take those words back? THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think that, in fact, we are making very significant progress. There’s no doubt in my mind but we’re going to win. We will
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prevail in Iraq. We will prevail in Afghanistan. And I think the evidence is there for anybody who wants to look at it. With respect to the overall course of the campaign, I think it’s been very successful. With respect to this question of liberation, we have, indeed, liberated 50 million people—25 million in Afghanistan from the rule of the Taliban; 25 million in Iraq from the rule of Saddam Hussein, two of the worst regimes in modern times, a very, very significant achievement. But we have to stay the course. It does not make any sense for people to think that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans, leave the Middle East, walk away from Iraq, and we’ll be safe and secure here at home. 9/11 put the lie to that. We lost 3,000 people that day. Nineteen people, armed terrorists armed with box cutters came into the United States and did enormous damage to us. If we pull out, they’ll follow us. It doesn’t matter where we go. This is a global conflict. We’ve seen them attack in London and Madrid and Casablanca and Istanbul and Mombassa and East Africa. They’ve been on a global basis involved in this conflict, and it will continue whether we complete the job or not in Iraq. Only it’ll get worse. Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists. They’ll use it in order to launch attacks against our friends and allies in that part of the world. Q. You acknowledged this past week that the administration and you personally underestimated the strength of the insurgency. As you know even friends of the administration, supporters of this war have criticized the administration saying not enough troops were sent in at the beginning. You have a unique perspective on it. You were the Defense Secretary in the first Gulf War. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q. You’re the Vice President now. In the first Gulf War, it was the Powell Doctrine: If you’re going to put U.S. troops at risk, do so in overwhelming numbers with overwhelming force so that there is no doubt. Secretary Rumsfeld prefers the leaner force, a more mobile force. As history looks at this, is one early lesson that the Powell Doctrine trumps the Rumsfeld Doctrine? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. I think you’ve got to look at each individual circumstance and figure out what makes sense in terms of the kinds of forces you need to bring to bear, what your enemy is capable of, what your goals and objectives are. I think you have to be very careful about generalizing from one conflict to the next. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that—I appreciate Bill’s advice. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060622-8.html
President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, Press Conference, The East Room, The White House, July 25, 2006 Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to the White House. I just had a very constructive meeting with the leader of a government that has been chosen by the Iraqi people in free and fair elections. I appreciate your vision for a free Iraq, and I appreciate you briefing me on a strategy to reduce violence and to rebuild your country.
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You have a strong partner in the United States of America … It’s a remarkable and historical moment, as far as I’m concerned, to welcome the freely elected leader of Iraq to the White House. We discussed a lot of issues. The Prime Minister has laid out a comprehensive plan. That’s what leaders do. They see problems, they address problems, and they lay out a plan to solve the problems. The Prime Minister understands he’s got challenges and he’s identified priorities. Our priority is to help this government succeed. It’s in the national interest of the United States that a unity government, based upon a constitution that is advanced and modern, succeed. And that’s what I told the Prime Minister. He comes wondering whether or not we’re committed. He hears all kinds of stories here in the United States. And I assured him that this government stands with the Iraqi people. We’re impressed by your courage, Mr. Prime Minister, and we’re impressed by the courage of the Iraqi people. And we want to help you. We talked about security in Baghdad. No question the terrorists and extremists are brutal. These are people that just kill innocent people to achieve an objective, which is to destabilize his government. The Prime Minister tells me that he and his government are not shaken by these actions. They’re concerned about them; they’re not shaken by them. The Iraqi people want to succeed. They want to end this violence. Our strategy is to remain on the offense, including in Baghdad. Under the Prime Minister’s leadership, coalition and Iraqi leaders are modifying their operational concept to bring greater security to the Iraqi capital. Coalition and Iraqi forces will secure individual neighborhoods, will ensure the existence of an Iraqi security presence in the neighborhoods, and gradually expand the security presence as Iraqi citizens help them root out those who instigate violence. This plan will involve embedding more U.S. military police with Iraqi police units to make them more effective. The Prime Minister advised me that to support this plan, he and General Casey have agreed to deploy additional American troops and Iraqi security personnel in Baghdad in the coming weeks. These will come from other areas of the country. Our military commanders tell me that this deployment will better reflect the current conditions on the ground in Iraq. We also agreed that Iraqi security forces need better tools to do their job. And so we’ll work with them to equip them with greater mobility, fire power, and protection. We still face challenges in Baghdad, yet we see progress elsewhere in Iraq. Iraqi security forces are growing in strength and capability, and recently, a key province in southern Iraq was transferred to full Iraqi civilian control. In the midst of all the violence in Baghdad, sometimes a—success is obscured. And this transfer of a key province is a beginning of other provinces to be transferred to full Iraqi control. It’s a sign of progress. No question it’s tough in Baghdad, and no question it’s tough in other parts of Iraq. But there are also places where progress is being made, and the Prime Minister and I talked about that progress. The Prime Minister and I agreed to establish a joint committee to achieve Iraqi self-reliance. This new partnership will seek to ensure the smoothest and
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most effective assumption of security responsibility by Iraqi forces. Prime Minister Maliki was very clear this morning; he said he does not want American troops to leave his country until his government can protect the Iraqi people. And I assured him that America will not abandon the Iraqi people. Tomorrow, the Prime Minister and I will travel to Fort Belvoir in Virginia to visit with American troops and their families so we can thank them for their courage and their sacrifice. And we in the United States need to recognize the enormous sacrifice of the Iraqi people. The people are suffering hardships. These terrorists and killers are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi people. But despite large casualties, both civilian and military, the Iraqi people continue to stand for public office, enlist in their security forces, and, through their actions, demonstrate every day that they want to raise their families and live their lives like other free people around the world. And I’m impressed by the courage of the Iraqi citizens, Mr. Prime Minister. We also discussed several new initiatives we’re undertaking to create opportunity for the Iraqi people, and one of them is called the Iraqi Leaders Initiative. And starting next summer, 200 high school and university students from all regions of Iraq and all sectors of Iraqi society will come to America to study at local institutions and build personal friendships with the people of our country. This is going to be the largest program of its kind, and it will help build the next generation of leaders for a free and democratic Iraq. [The] Prime Minister and I also discussed his proposal for an international compact for Iraq. The compact will outline Iraq’s commitment to specific economic reforms and the international community’s commitment to support those reforms. We expect the international compact will be signed later this year. And I told the Prime Minister that the United States will work to encourage other countries to support the compact, and for other countries that have made pledges to Iraq, to make good on their pledges. In light of the recent violence in the Middle East, some are questioning whether democracy can take root in the region. I believe that the Iraqi people are showing us their answer. They’re making enormous sacrifices to secure their freedom, and they’ve elected leaders who are making tough decisions. Q. Mr. President, and Mr. Prime Minister, why should one expect this new security crackdown in Baghdad to succeed when all previous ones have failed? And, Mr. President, you’ve said before that withdrawal of U.S. troops would depend on conditions on the ground. What do conditions on the ground now in Baghdad suggest in terms of whether there can be a significant withdrawal of American forces by the end of the year? PRIME MINISTER MALIKI: Actually, the circumstances that the Baghdad security plans, or other plans related to Basra and other places are different in terms of circumstances from the previous plans. Today Iraq has a national unity government, that is basically composed of—all elements of the Iraqi people are represented in this government. Iraq has a parliament; it has a constitution to face all these challenges. So what the Baghdad security plan gains in terms of support is support from all over the segments of the Iraqi population. Secondly, by monitoring the reality on the ground, we will be able to ensure the success, especially what happens against the innocent people. The
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Baghdad security forces was able to eliminate many hot spots of crimes and troubles in Baghdad. PRESIDENT BUSH: One of the things that’s important is for—and one of the reasons why you trust the commanders on the ground is because there needs to be flexibility. And I explained to the Prime Minister that I’ll be making my decisions based upon the recommendations of General Casey. And, obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and, therefore, there needs to be more troops. In other words, the commanders said, what more can we do; how best to address the conditions on the ground. And they have recommended, as a result of working with the Prime Minister, based upon his recommendation, that we increase the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad, alongside of Iraqi troops. And we’re going to do that. The second request that the Prime Minister made was that he needs more equipment for his troops. And General Dempsey, along with General Casey have reviewed his requests and his ideas. And I told the Prime Minister if this is what these generals recommend, it’s what I support. Conditions change inside a country. And the question is, are we going to be facile enough to change with—will we be nimble enough; will we be able to deal with the circumstances on the ground? And the answer is, yes, we will. Q. I have two questions. One, President Bush. The first one: Is there an obvious change that could be made to the security status, particularly in Baghdad right now? And the second question for you, Mr. Prime Minister. You said in a press conference in Baghdad that your visit to Washington, you will cross the T’s and dot the I’s, especially regarding the security needs. Did you cross the T’s and dot the I’s in your discussion with President Bush? PRESIDENT BUSH: … He believes, and I believe, that the—there needs to be more forces inside Baghdad who are willing to hold people to account. In other words, if you find somebody who’s kidnapping and murdering, the murderer ought to be held to account. It ought to be clear in society that that kind of behavior is not tolerated. And that’s the attitude of the Prime Minister. My attitude is, we shouldn’t try to gauge whether or not someone is justified, or not; we ought to be saying that if you murder, you’re responsible for your actions. And I think the Iraqi people appreciate that type of attitude. And so we—so we’re not only talking about adjusting a Baghdad plan at the Prime Minister’s request, to make it more effective, we’re also talking about how to make the Iraqi army more effective. But the truth of the matter is, the Iraqi army is becoming a highly professional force that will help bring confidence to the people inside Iraq that the government has got the capacity to protect them. PRIME MINISTER MALIKI: … I believe with a great deal of confidence that I have reaffirmed through this, and I became convinced that, I have full confidence of victory and we will be highly capable of defeating terrorism in Iraq. Q. —you had a frank exchange on the Middle East. How can you get Arab nations to apply pressure to stop the fighting in the Middle East, if allies like the Prime Minister won’t condemn Hezbollah? And, Mr. Prime Minister, what, exactly is your position on Hezbollah? Thank you.
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PRESIDENT BUSH: The terrorists are afraid of democracies. And what you’ve witnessed in Israel, in my judgment, is the act of a terrorist organization trying to stop the advance of democracy in the region. I assured the Prime Minister that I care deeply about the suffering that takes place, that we understand the anguish of leaders in the region who see innocent people losing their life. I also assured him that Condi Rice’s mission is to help get humanitarian aid to the Lebanese people. She’s working on not only air corridors, but sea corridors and land corridors, to get aid to the people. And the United States will participate, as will other nations. I also talked about making sure that we adhere to U.N. Resolution 1559, which basically—not basically—strongly urges political parties not to be armed. A key part of our strategy is to support democracy. And so, not only do we support democracy in the Palestinian Territory; we also support the Lebanese democracy. I think the Prime Minister was pleased to hear my strong support for the Siniora government … Q. Mr. Prime Minister. General Abizaid said that the danger that Iraq is facing is the religious danger. Do you agree with his assessment? PRIME MINISTER MALIKI: I do not reduce the risk and the danger of the religious feelings, especially through some of the organizations that are trying to promote this hatred. And there are—some of the events are on the basis of religious divide, but I would like to assure the political and religious leaders and civil societies that the Iraqi parties, politicians, religious leaders are rising to their responsibility and are condemning those who are cooperating with al Qaeda and those who are trying to start a civil war. The most important element in the security plan is to curb the religious violence, because we will not allow any Iraqis to use this background. This is one of the main objectives of the security plan. It is the policy of the government: There is no killing or discrimination against anyone. Everything is by law and everything based on the constitution and the law. The government responsibility is to protect all Iraqis, regardless of their ethnic or religious background. It’s important to say that we are shedding the light against those who are calling for sectarian religious, because we feel that this is a great danger to Iraq. And, God willing, there will be no civil war in Iraq. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060725.html
President George W. Bush, Radio Address, October 21, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: Earlier this week, I spoke with Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq. We discussed the recent increase in violence in his country. Attacks have grown significantly during the first weeks of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. There are a number of reasons for this increase in violence. One reason is that Coalition and Iraqi forces have been conducting focused operations to bring security to Baghdad. Side by side, Iraqi and American forces are operating in the city’s most violent areas to disrupt al Qaeda, capture enemy fighters, crack down on IED makers, and break up death squads. As we engage
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our enemies in their stronghold, these enemies are putting up a tough fight. In a briefing in Iraq on Thursday, General William Caldwell said the operation to secure Baghdad has ‘‘not met our overall expectations.’’ He also explained, ‘‘It’s no coincidence that the surge in attacks against coalition forces coincides with our increased presence in the streets in Baghdad.’’ Our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging: Our goal is victory. What is changing are the tactics we use to achieve that goal. Our commanders on the ground are constantly adjusting their approach to stay ahead of the enemy, particularly in Baghdad. General Pete Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, recently put it this way: ‘‘From a military standpoint, every day is a reassessment day.’’ We have a strategy that allows us to be flexible and to adapt to changing circumstances. We’ve changed the way we train the Iraqi security forces. We have changed the way we deliver reconstruction assistance in areas that have been cleared of terrorist influence. And we will continue to be flexible, and make every necessary change to prevail in this struggle. Iraq’s new leaders are beginning to take the difficult steps necessary to defeat the terrorists and unite their country. The Prime Minister recently met with tribal leaders from Anbar Province, who told him they are ready to stand up and fight the terrorists. He’s also taken action to clean up the Iraqi national police. His government suspended a national police unit after allegations that some of its members were linked to militias and death squads. A battalion commander was arrested for possible complicity in sectarian deaths. And earlier this week, two of Iraq’s most senior police commanders were reassigned as part of a major restructuring of the national police force. Another reason for the recent increase in attacks is that the terrorists are trying to influence public opinion here in the United States. They have a sophisticated propaganda strategy. They know they cannot defeat us in the battle, so they conduct high-profile attacks, hoping that the images of violence will demoralize our country and force us to retreat. They carry video cameras and film their atrocities, and broadcast them on the Internet. They e-mail images and video clips to Middle Eastern cable networks like al-Jazeera, and instruct their followers to send the same material to American journalists, authors, and opinion leaders. They operate websites, where they post messages for their followers and readers across the world. In one recent message, the Global Islamic Media Front—a group that often posts al Qaeda propaganda on websites—said their goal is to, ‘‘carry out a media war that is parallel to the military war.’’ This is the same strategy the terrorists launched in Afghanistan following 9/11. In a letter to the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden wrote that al Qaeda intended to wage ‘‘a media campaign, to create a wedge between the American people and their government.’’ The terrorists are trying to divide America and break our will, and we must not allow them to succeed. So America will stand with the democratic government of Iraq. We will help Prime Minister Maliki build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. And we will help Iraq become a strong democracy that is a strong ally in the war on terror. There is one thing we will not do: We will not pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete. There are some in Washington who
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argue that retreating from Iraq would make us safer. I disagree. Retreating from Iraq would allow the terrorists to gain a new safe haven from which to launch new attacks on America. Retreating from Iraq would dishonor the men and women who have given their lives in that country, and mean their sacrifice has been in vain. And retreating from Iraq would embolden the terrorists, and make our country, our friends, and our allies more vulnerable to new attacks. The last few weeks have been rough for our troops in Iraq, and for the Iraqi people. The fighting is difficult, but our Nation has seen difficult fights before. In World War II and the Cold War, earlier generations of Americans sacrificed so that we can live in freedom. This generation will do its duty as well. We will defeat the terrorists everywhere they make their stand, and we will leave a more hopeful world for our children and our grandchildren. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061021.html
President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, October 25, 2006 Over the past three years I have often addressed the American people to explain developments in Iraq. Some of these developments were encouraging, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the elections in which 12 million Iraqis defied the terrorists and voted for a free future, and the demise of the brutal terrorist Zarqawi. Other developments were not encouraging, such as the bombing of the U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad, the fact that we did not find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and the continued loss of some of America’s finest sons and daughters. Recently, American and Iraqi forces have launched some of the most aggressive operations on enemy forces in Baghdad since the war began. They’ve cleared neighborhoods of terrorists and death squads, and uncovered large caches of weapons, including sniper scopes and mortars and powerful bombs. There has been heavy fighting. Many enemy fighters have been killed or captured, and we’ve suffered casualties of our own. This month we’ve lost 93 American service members in Iraq, the most since October of 2005. During roughly the same period, more than 300 Iraqi security personnel have given their lives in battle. Iraqi civilians have suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of the terrorists, insurgents, illegal militias, armed groups, and criminals. The events of the past month have been a serious concern to me, and a serious concern to the American people. Today I will explain how we’re adapting our tactics to help the Iraqi government gain control of the security situation. I’ll also explain why, despite the difficulties and bloodshed, it remains critical that America defeat the enemy in Iraq by helping the Iraqis build a free nation that can sustain itself and defend itself. Our security at home depends on ensuring that Iraq is an ally in the war on terror and does not become a terrorist haven like Afghanistan under the Taliban. The enemy we face in Iraq has evolved over the past three years. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, a sophisticated and a violent insurgency took root.
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Early on this insurgency was made up of remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, as well as criminals released by the regime. The insurgency was fueled by al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists, who focused most of their attention on high-profile attacks against coalition forces and international institutions. We learned some key lessons from that early phase in the war. We saw how quickly al Qaeda and other extremist groups would come to Iraq to fight and try to drive us out. We overestimated the capability of the civil service in Iraq to continue to provide essential services to the Iraqi people. We did not expect the Iraqi army, including the Republican Guard, to melt away in the way that it did in the phase of advancing coalition forces. Despite these early setbacks, some very important progress was made, in the midst of an incredibly violent period. Iraqis formed an interim government that assumed sovereignty. The Iraqi people elected a transitional government, drafted and adopted the most progressive democratic constitution in the Arab world, braved the car bombs and assassins to choose a permanent government under that constitution, and slowly began to build a capable national army. Al Qaeda and insurgents were unable to stop this progress. They tried to stand up to our forces in places like Fallujah, and they were routed. So they changed their tactics. In an intercepted letter to Osama bin Laden, the terrorist Zarqawi laid out his strategy to drag Iraq’s Shia population into a sectarian war. To the credit of the Shia population, they resisted responding to the horrific violence against them for a long time. Yet the persistent attacks, particularly last February’s bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Shia Islam’s most holy shrines, eventually resulted in sectarian reprisals. The cycle of violence, in which al Qaeda insurgents attacked Shia civilians and Shia death squads retaliated against Sunnis, has sharply increased in recent months, particularly in Baghdad. As the enemy shifts tactics, we are shifting our tactics, as well. Americans have no intention of taking sides in a sectarian struggle or standing in the crossfire between rival factions. Our mission is to help the elected government in Iraq defeat common enemies, to bring peace and stability to Iraq, and make our nation more secure. Our goals are unchanging. We are flexible in our methods to achieving those goals. On the military side, our commanders on the ground are constantly adjusting our tactics to stay ahead of our enemies. We are refining our training strategy for the Iraqi security forces so we can help more of those forces take the lead in the fight, and provide them better equipment and fire power to be successful. We’ve increased the number of coalition advisors in the Iraqi Ministries of Defense and Interior so they can better plan and execute security operations against the enemy. We have changed our force structure so we can better respond to the conditions on the ground. For example, during the Iraqi elections, we increased our force levels to more than 150,000 troops to ensure people could vote. Most recently, we have moved additional coalition and Iraqi forces into Baghdad so they can help secure the city and reduce sectarian violence. After some initial successes, our operations to secure Baghdad have encountered greater resistance. Some of the Iraqi security forces have performed below
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expectations. Many have performed well and are fighting bravely in some of Baghdad’s toughest neighborhoods. Once again, American troops are performing superbly under very difficult conditions. Together, with the Iraqis, they’ve conducted hundreds of missions throughout Baghdad. They’ve rounded up or killed key insurgents and death squad leaders. As we fight this enemy, we’re working with the Iraqi government to perform the performance—to improve the performance of their security forces, so they can regain control of the nation’s capital, and eventually resume primary responsibility for their country’s security. A military solution alone will not stop violence. In the end, the Iraqi people and their government will have to make the difficult decisions necessary to solve these problems. So, in addition to refining our military tactics to defeat the enemy, we’re also working to help the Iraqi government achieve a political solution that brings together Shia and Sunnis and Kurds and other ethnic and religious groups. Yesterday, our Ambassador to Iraq, Zal Khalilzad laid out a three-step approach. First, we’re working with political and religious leaders across Iraq, urging them to take steps to restrain their followers and stop sectarian violence. Second, we’re helping Iraqi leaders to complete work on a national compact to resolve the most difficult issues dividing their country. The new Iraqi government has condemned violence from all quarters and agreed to a schedule for resolving issues, such as disarming illegal militias and death squads, sharing oil revenues, amending the Iraqi constitution, and reforming the deBaathification process. Third, we’re reaching out to Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, and asking them to support the Iraqi government’s efforts to persuade Sunni insurgents to lay down their arms and accept national reconciliation. The international community is also supporting the international compact that outlines the support that will be provided to Iraq as it moves forward with its own program of reform. These are difficult tasks for any government. It is important for Americans to recognize that Prime Minister Maliki’s unity government has been in office for just over five months. Think about that. This young government has to solve a host of problems created by decades of tyrannical rule. And they have to do it in the midst of raging conflict, against extremists from outside and inside the country who are doing everything they can to stop this government from succeeding. We’re pressing Iraq’s leaders to take bold measures to save their country. We’re making it clear that America’s patient [sic] is not unlimited. Yet we also understand the difficult challenges Iraq’s leaders face, and we will not put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it can bear. The way to succeed in Iraq is to help Iraq’s government grow in strength and assume more control over its country as quickly as possible. I know the American people understand the stakes in Iraq. They want to win. They will support the war as long as they see a path to victory. Americans can have confidence that we will prevail because thousands of smart, dedicated military and civilian personnel are risking their lives and are working around
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the clock to ensure our success. A distinguished independent panel of Republicans and Democrats, led by former Secretary of State Jim Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, is taking a fresh look at the situation in Iraq and will make recommendations to help achieve our goals. I welcome all these efforts. My administration will carefully consider any proposal that will help us achieve victory. It’s my responsibility to provide the American people with a candid assessment on the way forward. There is tough fighting ahead. The road to victory will not be easy. We should not expect a simple solution. The fact that the fighting is tough does not mean our efforts in Iraq are not worth it. To the contrary; the consequences in Iraq will have a decisive impact on the security of our country, because defeating the terrorists in Iraq is essential to turning back the cause of extremism in the Middle East. If we do not defeat the terrorists or extremists in Iraq, they will gain access to vast oil reserves, and use Iraq as a base to overthrow moderate governments across the broader Middle East. They will launch new attacks on America from this new safe haven. They will pursue their goal of a radical Islamic empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia. I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation in Iraq. I’m not satisfied, either. And that is why we’re taking new steps to help secure Baghdad, and constantly adjusting our tactics across the country to meet the changing threat. But we cannot allow our dissatisfaction to turn into disillusionment about our purpose in this war. We must not look at every success of the enemy as a mistake on our part, cause for an investigation, or a reason to call for our troops to come home. We must not fall prey to the sophisticated propaganda by the enemy, who is trying to undermine our confidence and make us believe that our presence in Iraq is the cause of all its problems If I did not think our mission in Iraq was vital to America’s security, I’d bring our troops home tomorrow. I met too many wives and husbands who have lost their partners in life, too many children who won’t ever see their mom and dad again. I owe it to them and to the families who still have loved ones in harm’s way to ensure that their sacrifices are not in vain. Our country has faced adversity before during times of war. In past wars, we’ve lost young Americans who gave everything to protect our freedom and way of life … Defeating the terrorists and extremists is the challenge of our time and the calling of this generation. I’m confident this generation will answer that call and defeat an ideology that is bent on destroying America and all that we stand for. Q. Mr. President, the war in Iraq has lasted almost as long as World War II for the United States. And as you mentioned, October was the deadliest month for American forces this year—in a year. Do you think we’re winning, and why? THE PRESIDENT: First of all, this is a different kind of war than a war against the fascists in World War II. We were facing a nation state—two nation states—three nation states in World War II. We were able to find an enemy by locating its ships, or aircraft, or soldiers on the ground. This is a war against extremists and radicals who kill innocent people to achieve political objectives. It has a multiple of fronts.
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Afghanistan was a front in this war against the terrorists. Iraq is now the central front in the war against the terrorists. This war is more than just finding people and bringing them to justice; this war is an ideological conflict between a radical ideology that can’t stand freedom, and moderate, reasonable people that hope to live in a peaceful society. And so it’s going to take a long time … I am confident we will succeed. I am confident we’ll succeed in Iraq. And the reason I’m confident we’ll succeed in Iraq is because the Iraqis want to succeed in Iraq. The ultimate victory in Iraq, which is a government that can sustain itself, govern itself, and defend itself, depends upon the Iraqi citizens and the Iraqi government doing the hard work necessary to protect their country. And our job is to help them achieve that objective. As a matter of fact, my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done. And I’m confident we can succeed in the broader war on terror, this ideological conflict. I’m confident because I believe the power of liberty will defeat the ideology of hate every time, if given a chance. I believe that the radicals represent the few in the Middle East. I believe the majority of people want to live in a peaceful world. That’s what I believe. Defeat will only come if the United States becomes isolationist and refuses to, one, protect ourselves, and, two, help those who desire to become—to live in a moderate, peaceful world. And it’s a hard struggle, no question about it. And it’s a different struggle. Q. Are we winning? THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely, we’re winning. Al Qaeda is on the run. As a matter of fact, the mastermind, or the people who they think is the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks is in our custody. We’ve now got a procedure for this person to go on trial, to be held for his account. Most of al Qaeda that planned the attacks on September the 11th have been brought to justice. Extremists have now played their hand; the world can clearly see their ambitions. You know, when a Palestinian state began to show progress, extremists attacked Israel to stop the advance of a Palestinian state. They can’t stand democracies. Extremists and radicals want to undermine fragile democracy because it’s a defeat for their way of life, their ideology. People now understand the stakes. We’re winning, and we will win, unless we leave before the job is done. And the crucial battle right now is Iraq. And as I said in my statement, I understand how tough it is, really tough. It’s tough for a reason; because people understand the stakes of success in Iraq. And my point to the American people is, is that we’re constantly adjusting our tactics to achieve victory. Q.… Are you considering sending more U.S. troops to Iraq? What would be the justification for it? And how reliable is this new timetable of 12 to 18 months? THE PRESIDENT: I will send more troops to Iraq if General Casey says, I need more troops in Iraq to achieve victory. And that’s the way I’ve been running this war. I have great faith in General Casey. I have great faith in Ambassador Khalilzad. I trust our commanders on the ground to give the best advice about how to achieve victory. I want to remind you, victory is a
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government that can sustain itself, govern itself—a country that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself, and serves as an ally in the war on terror—which stands in stark contrast to a government that would be chaotic, that would be a safe haven for the enemy to launch attacks on us. One way for the American people to understand what Iraq could look like is what Afghanistan looked like under the Taliban, a place where there was no freedom; a place where women were taken to the public square and beaten if they did not adhere to the strict, intolerant guidelines of the Taliban; a place where thousands trained to attack America and our allies. Afghanistan doesn’t have nearly the resources that Iraq has. Imagine a safe haven for an enemy that ended up with the resources that it had. It is—and so this is a war where I say to our generals, do you have what it takes to win. Now, General Casey talked about part of our strategy, and part of the strategy is to give the Iraq government the tools necessary to protect itself, to defend itself. If you’re able to defend yourself, you’re more likely to be able to govern yourself, as well. But politics—the political way forward and the military way forward must go hand in hand. And what the General was saying yesterday is that there is a three-step process to enable the Iraqi forces to be able to help this government bring security. One was to train and equip. The goal is 325,000 troops; 137,000 military and the balance, police. Second was to put the Iraqi security forces in the lead. Six of ten divisions now are in the lead in helping this government defend itself. The strategy has been to embed U.S. personnel, officers and non-com officers, into these forces to help them gain the confidence and the capacity to be effective when they’re in the lead. And the third step is for the Iraqi security forces to be able to operate independently. And this, perhaps, is going to be one of the most difficult aspects of having the Iraqis ready to go, because that means they have to be able to drive themselves, maintain their vehicles, provide logistics, have combat service support. And that’s what General Casey was describing. The key is that our commanders feel that there—they have got enough flexibility to design the program to meet the conditions on the ground. You know, last spring, I thought for a period of time we’d be able to reduce our troop presence early next year. That’s what I felt. But because we didn’t have a fixed timetable, and because General Casey and General Abizaid and the other generals there understand that the way we’re running this war is to give them flexibility, have the confidence necessary to come and make the right recommendations here in Washington, D.C., they decided that that wasn’t going to happen. And so what he was describing to you was the way forward to make sure that the Iraqis are fully prepared to defend themselves. Q. What about the 12 to 18 month estimate? THE PRESIDENT: It’s a condition, a base estimate. And that’s important for the American people to know. This notion about, you know, fixed timetable of withdrawal, in my judgment, is a—means defeat. You can’t leave until the job is done. Our mission is to get the job done as quickly as possible. Q. Mr. President, for several years you have been saying that America will stay the course in Iraq; you were committed to the policy. And now you say
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that, no, you’re not saying, stay the course, that you’re adapting to win, that you’re showing flexibility. And as you mentioned, out of Baghdad we’re now hearing about benchmarks and timetables from the Iraqi government, as relayed by American officials, to stop the sectarian violence. In the past, Democrats and other critics of the war who talked about benchmarks and timetables were labeled as defeatists, defeat-o-crats, or people who wanted to cut and run. So why shouldn’t the American people conclude that this is nothing from you other than semantic, rhetorical games and all politics two weeks before an election? THE PRESIDENT: … there is a significant difference between benchmarks for a government to achieve and a timetable for withdrawal. You’re talking about—when you’re talking about the benchmarks, he’s talking about the fact that we’re working with the Iraqi government to have certain benchmarks to meet as a way to determine whether or not they’re making the hard decisions necessary to achieve peace. I believe that’s what you’re referring to. And we’re working with the Iraqi government to come up with benchmarks. … This is a sovereign government. It was elected by the people of Iraq. What we’re asking them to do is to say, when do you think you’re going to get this done, when can you get this done, so the people themselves in Iraq can see that the government is moving forward with a reconciliation plan and plans necessary to unify this government. That is substantially different … from people saying, we want a time certain to get out of Iraq. As a matter of fact, the benchmarks will make it more likely we win. Withdrawing on an artificial timetable means we lose. Now, I’m giving the speech—you’re asking me why I’m giving this speech today—because there’s—I think I owe an explanation to the American people, and will continue to make explanations. The people need to know that we have a plan for victory. Like I said in my opening comments, I fully understand if the people think we don’t have a plan for victory, they’re not going to support the effort. And so I’ll continue to speak out about our way forward. Q. Sir, you’ve called Iran part of the ‘‘axis of evil’’ and Syria a ‘‘state sponsor of terrorism.’’ You said earlier today that your administration will consider any proposal that will help us achieve victory. So I’m wondering, if it’s determined that Iran and Syria could help you achieve victory in Iraq, would you be willing to work with them? THE PRESIDENT: Iran and Syria understand full well that the world expects them to help Iraq. We’ve made that very clear to them. Let me talk about the Iranian issue. We’ve got a lot of issues with Iran. First is whether or not they will help this young democracy succeed. The second issue, of course, is whether or not they will help the Lebanese democracy succeed. The big issue right now is whether or not Iran will end up with a nuclear weapon. And so our issues with Iran are many. And our position is very clear to the Iranians: There is a better way forward for the government and the people than to be isolated. As to Syria, our message to Syria is consistent: Do not undermine the Siniora government in Lebanon; help us get back the—help Israel get back the prisoner that was captured by Hamas; don’t allow Hamas and Hezbollah
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to plot attacks against democracies in the Middle East; help inside of Iraq. They know our position, as well. Q. Mr. President. Prime Minister Maliki apparently gave his own news conference this morning, where he seemed to be referring to Ambassador Khalilzad and General Casey yesterday, when he said, nobody has the right to set any timetables in Iraq—and also, seemed to be upset about the raid in Sadr City, saying he wasn’t consulted. And I believe the quote was, ‘‘It will not be repeated.’’ Do you still have full, complete and total confidence in Prime Minister Maliki as a partner in Iraq? And what can you tell the American people about his ability to rein in the militias since he seems to derive much of his power from them? THE PRESIDENT: Yes. First, this is back to the question that David asked about benchmarks. You called it ‘‘timetables.’’ Q. He did, sir. THE PRESIDENT: Okay, he called it ‘‘timetables,’’ excuse me. I think he was referring to the benchmarks that we’re developing that show a way forward to the Iraqi people, and the American people for that matter, about how this unity government is going to solve problems and bring the people together. And if his point is, is that those benchmarks, or the way forward can’t be imposed upon Iraq by an outside force, he’s right. This is a sovereign government. But we’re working closely with the government to be able to say, here’s what’s going to happen then, here’s what we expect to happen now, here’s what should be expected in the future. Second part of your question? Q. I was wondering, first of all, he seemed to be pushing back with— THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on the sectarian—on the militias. I heard that, and I asked to see his complete transcript of this press conference, where he made it very clear that militias harm the stability of his country. Militias—people out—who operate outside the law will be dealt with. That’s what the Prime Minister said in his press conference. The idea that we need to coordinate with him is a—makes sense to me. And there’s a lot of operations taking place, which means that sometimes communications may not be as good as they should be. And we’ll continue to work very closely with the government to make sure that the communications are solid. I do believe Prime Minister Maliki is the right man to achieve the goal in Iraq. He’s got a hard job. He’s been there for five months, a little over five months, and there’s a lot of pressure on him, pressure from inside his country. He’s got to deal with sectarian violence; he’s got to deal with criminals; he’s got to deal with al Qaeda—all of whom are lethal. These are people that will kill. And he wants to achieve the same objective I want to achieve, and he’s making tough decisions. I’m impressed, for example, by the way he has got religious leaders, both Sunni and Shia, to start working together. I appreciate the fact that he has made a very clear statement on militias. And, by the way, death squad members are being brought to justice in this—during these operations in Baghdad. Q. When you first ran for President, sir, you talked about the importance of accountability. We learned from Bob Woodward’s recent book that Secretary Card, on two occasions, suggested that you replace Secretary Rumsfeld,
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and both times you said, no. Given that the war in Iraq is not going as well as you want, and given that you’re not satisfied as you just told us today, why hasn’t anybody been held accountable? Should somebody be held accountable? THE PRESIDENT: Peter, you’re asking me why I believe Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a good job, I think, if I might decipher through the Washington code. Q. —or someone else— THE PRESIDENT: Well, let’s start with Rumsfeld, Secretary Rumsfeld. I’ve asked him to do some difficult tasks as the Secretary of Defense—one, wage war in two different theaters of this war on terror, Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the same time, asked him to transform our military posture around the world and our military readiness here at home. In other words, the transformation effort into itself is a big project for any Secretary to handle. But to compound the job he has, he’s got to do that and, at the same time, wage war. And I’m satisfied of how he’s done all his jobs. He is a smart, tough, capable administrator. As importantly, he understands that the best way to fight this war, whether it be in Iraq or anywhere else around the world, is to make sure our troops are ready, that morale is high, that we transform the nature of our military to meet the threats, and that we give our commanders on the ground the flexibility necessary to make the tactical changes to achieve victory. Q. You’ve said, Mr. President, several times here this morning that the definition of failure in Iraq would be to leave before the job was done. But you also said that you have no intention of seeing our troops standing in the crossfire of a sectarian war within that country. With many observers on the ground saying that civil war in Iraq is as close as it’s ever been, how do you reconcile those two statements? And what happens if a full-fledged civil war breaks out? THE PRESIDENT: … [O]ur job is to prevent the full-scale civil war from happening in the first place. It’s one of the missions, is to work with the Maliki government to make sure that there is a political way forward that says to the people of Iraq, it’s not worth it. Civil war is not worth the effort—by them. That’s the whole objective, is to help this government be able to defend itself and sustain itself, so that the 12 million people that voted—they didn’t vote for civil war, they voted to live under a constitution that was passed. And so we will work to prevent that from happening … … I view that this is a struggle between radicals and extremists who are trying to prevent there to be a democracy, for a variety of reasons. And it’s in our interest that the forces of moderation prevail in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. A defeat there—in other words, if we were to withdraw before the job is done, it would embolden extremists. They would say, you know, we were right about America in the first place, that America did not have the will necessary to do the hard work. That’s precisely what Osama bin Laden has said, for example. A defeat there would make it easier for people to be able to recruit extremists and kids, to be able to use their tactics to destroy innocent life. A defeat there would dispirit people throughout the Middle East who wonder whether America is genuine in our commitment to moderation and democracy. Q.… [W]hen you say that you’re not satisfied with the way things are going in Iraq, why should that not be interpreted by some to mean that you are dissatisfied with Prime Minister Maliki’s performance?
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THE PRESIDENT: Because I know Prime Minister Maliki, I know how hard his job is, and I understand that he is working to make the decisions necessary to bring this country together. And he’s—look, we’ll push him, but we’re not going to push him to the point where he can’t achieve the objective. And we’ll continue to work with him. He represents a government formed by the people of Iraq. It’s a—and he’s got a tough job. I mean, think about what his job is like. He’s got to deal with political factions. He’s got to deal with the hatred that is left over from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. It’s in our government’s interest that we help him succeed because he wants a unified country. And I believe we will succeed. I know we’re not going to succeed, however, if we set artificial timetables for withdrawal, or we get out of there, or we say to the enemy, just keep fighting, we’ll leave soon. That’s not going to work. What will work is a strategy that’s constantly—tactics that constantly change to meet the enemy. And that’s what I was describing in my speech, we’re constantly adjusting. As the enemy changes, we change. War is not a—this war, and other wars, they’re not static. They’re dynamic events. And we must adjust to meet those events, and we are. Q.… Does the United States want to maintain permanent bases in Iraq? And I would follow that by asking, are you willing to renounce a claim on permanent bases in Iraq? THE PRESIDENT: … Any decisions about permanency in Iraq will be made by the Iraqi government. And, frankly, it’s not in much of a position to be thinking about what the world is going to look like five or 10 years from now. They are working to make sure that we succeed in the short-term. And they need our help. And that’s where our focus is. But remember, when you’re talking about bases and troops, we’re dealing with a sovereign government. Now, we entered into an agreement with the Karzai government. They weren’t called permanent bases, but they were called arrangements that will help this government understand that there will be a U.S. presence so long as they want them there. And at the appropriate time, I’m confident we’ll be willing to sit down and discuss the long-term security of Iraq. But right now we’re discussing how to bring security to Baghdad, and what do we do in al Anbar province, where al Qaeda still uses violent methods to achieve political objectives. You know, it’s interesting, if you—I’m sure people who watch your TV screens think the entire country is embroiled in sectarian conflict and that there’s constant killing everywhere in Iraq. Well, if you listened to General Casey yesterday, 90 percent of the action takes place in five of the 18 provinces. And around Baghdad, it’s limited to a 30-mile area. And the reason I bring that up is that while it seems to our American citizens that nothing normal is taking place—and I can understand why, it’s a brutal environment there, particularly that which is on our TV screens—that there is farmers farming, there are small businesses growing, there’s a currency that’s relatively stable, there’s an entrepreneurial class, there’s commerce. General Abizaid was describing to me what it was like to go to Baghdad markets. There’s a lot of work to be done, don’t get me wrong, but it is—there are people living relatively normal lives who I believe—strongly believe that they
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want to continue that normalcy, and it’s up to Prime Minister Maliki to do everything he can to make the situation as secure as possible. Q. Thank you, sir. Is the coming election a referendum on Iraq? Should it be? THE PRESIDENT: I think the coming election is a referendum on these two things: which party has got the plan that will enable our economy continue— to continue to grow, and which party has a plan to protect the American people. And Iraq is part of the security of the United States. If we succeed—and when we succeed in Iraq, our country will be more secure. If we don’t succeed in Iraq, the country is less secure. The security of this country—and look, I understand here in Washington, some people say we’re not at war. I know that. They’re just wrong in my opinion. The enemy still wants to strike us. The enemy still wants to achieve safe haven from which to plot and plan. The enemy would like to have weapons of mass destruction in order to attack us. These are lethal, cold-blooded killers. And we must do everything we can to protect the American people, including questioning detainees, or listening to their phone calls from outside the country to inside the country. And there was—as you know, there was some recent votes on that issue. And the Democrats voted against giving our professionals the skill—the tools necessary to protect the American people. I will repeat, like I’ve said to you often, I do not question their patriotism; I question whether or not they understand how dangerous this world is. And this is a big issue in the campaign. Security of the country is an issue, just like taxes are an issue. Q. Thank you, sir. You’ve long talked about the importance when the federal government is involved in an effort, spending money and resources, of measuring success, accountability, as Peter said. Now you’ve set some benchmarks on the Maliki government. You’ve said that you’re expecting him to make tough decisions. Can you tell the American people how you plan to measure his success in reaching those benchmarks, and what happens if he doesn’t hit those benchmarks? THE PRESIDENT: … [T]he first objective is to develop benchmarks that the government agrees with and that we think are important. You can’t—it’s really important for the American people to understand that to say, okay, these are the benchmarks you must live with, is not going to work nearly as effectively as if we have—when we have buy-in from the government itself, the sovereign government of Iraq. And so the step is to say to the Maliki government, which we’re doing, let us work in concert to develop a series of benchmarks to achieve different objectives. And the purpose of that is to assure the Iraqi people that this unity government is going to work to—for the improvement of the Iraqi people. In other words, it will be beneficial for the government to say to the Iraqi people, here is what we intend to do and here’s when we intend to do it. It will also be beneficial for the American people to be able to see that this Iraqi government is going to make the difficult decisions necessary to move forward, to achieve the goal. And that’s what we’re talking about when it comes to benchmarks. It’s—again, I repeat: One should not expect our government to impose these benchmarks on a sovereign government. You’d expect us to work closely with that government to come up with a way
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forward that the government feels comfortable with. And there’s probably going to be some bones of contention during these discussions, but, nevertheless, we’ll respect the fact that the Iraq government is sovereign, and they must respect the fact that we’ve got patience, but not unlimited patience. Q. What happens if that patience runs out? THE PRESIDENT: Why do we work to see to it that it doesn’t work out—run out? That’s the whole objective. That’s what positive people do. They say, we’re going to put something in place and we’ll work to achieve it. Q. Your comment earlier that last spring you believed that troops would be able to come home early next year— THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q. —I wonder if you could talk to us about how you came to believe that, and over what period of time, or whether it was a single development because you realized that wasn’t feasible. THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no, look … here’s the way it works. I meet with our—or talk to our generals all the time. And the security situation looked like at that point in time that beginning next year, we could reduce our troop presence. That’s what we felt—until the conditions on the ground changed. And when they changed, our generals changed their attitude. And when their attitude changed, my attitude changed. Look, I want to get our troops home as fast as we can. But I do not want to leave before we achieve victory. And the best way to do that is to make sure we have a strategy that works, tactics that adjust to the enemy, and commanders that feel confident making recommendations to the Secretary and to the Commander-in-Chief. And that’s how that happened. In other words, they’re saying it looks like things are positive, things are stepping up. The security situation is—looks like it could be this way. And then when it change, we changed. And that’s important for the American people to know, that we’re constantly changing tactics to meet the situation on the ground. THE PRESIDENT: … I believe Iraq will be able to defend, govern and sustain itself; otherwise, I’d pull our troops out. See, you all got to understand that. And the parents of our troops must understand, that if I didn’t believe we could succeed, and didn’t believe it was necessary for the security of this country to succeed, I wouldn’t have your loved ones there. That’s what I want these parents to hear. And that’s a backhanded way of getting me to put a timetable. My answer is, we’ll work as fast as we can get the job done. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061025.html
Ambassador David Satterfield, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and Coordinator for Iraq, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., October 26, 2006 Our role as the United States, our role as a lead member of the coalition, is to support the Iraqi government, support that Government’s security forces to ensure that they have all of the tools that we can help provide for them to lead their country forward. But the decisions on the future of Iraq, on the
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political process, on security must be taken ultimately by Iraqis themselves. We do look to Prime Minister Maliki to take these decisions. We do have confidence in his leadership. On the issue of the Mecca declaration, we think that the gathering together in Mecca under OIC sponsorship was an extremely important step. And we are very appreciative both to Saudi Government officials and to the Organization of the Islamic Conference leadership for helping make this possible. It’s important that as many messages of reconciliation as possible be sent to the Iraqi people; that it be made as clear as possible that there is no legitimate violence against innocent Iraqis; that there is no excuse or justification for the killings of innocents, no matter from what source. And this was an important step in that process and we see it as a part of process, both on the political and on the religious side of addressing the question of how do you get to a peaceful Iraq. How do you bring sectarian violence to an end? How do you bring about ultimately an end to the presence of armed groups, militias, armed gangs that are responsible for so much of this violence? Q. Two things: Recently a number of prominent former diplomats, including Richard Holbrooke and Peter Galbraith, have urged the U.S. Government to redeploy U.S. troops in Iraq in the Iraqi Kurdish control not in Iraq. Do you have any such plans? Would you comment on that? And secondly, are you happy with the position of the Iraqi Kurdish leadership in efforts to counter the PKK? AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: With respect to your first question, a great many pundits have made a great many recommendations, some of them contradictory, on what the best course should be for the U.S. in Iraq and we appreciate very much their suggestions. But at the end of the day, we will move forward on a course which reflects our own best thinking as well as our consultations with our other coalition partners and, of course, with the Iraqi Government. With respect to your second question on the PKK, we do take very seriously the need to contain, confront the PKK and its engagement in violence and in terror. Too many Turks have suffered from PKK violence particularly over the last year. This needs to come to a halt. General Ralston, retired Lieutenant General Ralston’s mission, is to work on how best to address this problem. Now, General Ralston is working with the Turkish Government. He is working with the Iraqi Government. He is working with officials of the Kurdish regional government with an aim to finding a way forward that brings this problem to a resolution, to a close. And the most important first step is an end to the terror, an end to the violence. And it does mean that the PKK must cease its involvement in violent activities. It must lay down its arms. There are other steps that can be taken and must be taken by the Kurdish leadership: closure of PKK offices; other steps with constrain the ability of the PKK to function. Those are all extremely important measures. They are measures which General Ralston is working on with all of the authorities concerned, but we take this very seriously. Q.… [Y]ou make it sound as if the benchmarks and timelines that Ambassador Khalilzad and General Casey spoke earlier in Baghdad were agreed upon in advance. Help me understand, then, why Prime Minister Maliki basically rejected them then and quoted this as an issue of election campaign here in the United States.
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AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: Your first question. The benchmarks of which Ambassador Khalilzad and Commanding General Casey spoke, on the political side have long been—were long in discussions amongst Iraqis, between Iraqis and us, and between Iraqis and other parties. They are, at the end of the day, Iraqi political benchmarks, and they were articulated by the Iraqi Presidency in that sense. Do they reflect input? Do they reflect consideration from other sources including us? They do, but they are primarily agreed to amongst Iraqi parties. Similarly, the process that will lead to the articulation, we hope, of security benchmarks is a process which, at the end of the day, has to be Iraqi. There must be internal Iraqi agreement on this because they will come from Iraqi sources. They will not be issued by us. It’s an Iraqi (inaudible). It’s a set of Iraqi goals and objectives. The same holds true for economic benchmarks, though in that case they will reflect primarily the product of understandings, agreements, discussion between Iraq and the United Nations as represented primarily through the World Bank. With regard to Prime Minister Maliki’s remarks yesterday, I think if you read through the full transcript of what the Prime Minister said rather than take the very few selective quotes that have been made, you will find that there is not a significant degree of disagreement at all between what the President, Ambassador Khalilzad and General Casey have said and what the Prime Minister is saying. No one is imposing benchmarks or ordering timelines, and the Prime Minister acknowledges this. As the value of benchmarks, that is something which Prime Minister Maliki, President Talabani, the Iraqi Government as a whole has recognized, has spoken to and in the case of the political process has actually acted upon in terms of putting such benchmarks out. AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: The whole concept of goals, objectives, benchmarks, achievements to be made as a useful shaping tool is very much an Iraqi product. It is an Iraqi tool. It is something that is reached mainly in internal consultation amongst Iraqis, secondarily in consultation with us, either with us in a civilian sense or us with MNFI on security issues. But at the end it is Iraq. And the question of if there are disagreements the only benchmarks that are going to be articulated are benchmarks that the Iraqi themselves agree are goals that they wish to see achieved. With respect to what happens if benchmarks are not met, the consequences of not meeting benchmarks are first and foremost consequences for the Iraqi people. The impact is on them in terms of security, political and economic developments that are not achieved and negative developments that do take place in the absence of progress in a positive sense. The consequences are primarily for them. … We do see progress being made on the economic track, significant progress. The Iraqi Government has undertaken a number of actions both in the form of legislation on privatization, on an investment bill, on liberalization of private sector fuel importation, but we’ve also seen execution of legislative changes and executive order changes. Fuel subsidies have been reduced by some 60 percent over the course of the last 10 months in Iraq, a very, very, important step. And further reductions will take place. We do see Iraq moving on the economic track and moving very well, and that is the same judgment I believe of international financial institutions,
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including the IMF. On the political track, there are many difficulties confronting progress on some very naughty issues including questions involving amnesty, reform of de-Baathification procedures, how you move forward through a reconciliation agreement on a demobilization, disarmament and reintegration process that ends the existence of armed groups of militias and brings them back into society, back into the state. But we have seen progress on the political track as well. Cross-sectarian alliances were formed with the active support of the Iraqi Government that produced what we think are very good resolutions in the Council of Representatives on how one is to go forward with the possibility of creating federal regions, and the timeframe for consideration of possible revisions or amendments to the constitution. These were important steps. We expect other progress on the political track will come. On security. The security situation, as the President noted yesterday quite graphically, is not satisfactory, not satisfactory in Baghdad, not satisfactory elsewhere. We are doing what we can in terms of adapting our tactics and strategy, in terms of the work that we do in support of Iraqi security forces, our engagement with the Prime Minister and his government, civilian leadership of Iraq to address this problem. But again, I would echo the remarks of Ambassador Khalilzad, General Casey and the President in noting that if you wish to take any one of these tracks, security, political, economic, in isolation, you have to move forward on all collectively for each to reinforce the other. You will not get adequate progress on economics, on politics if you don’t have security. You will not get sufficient sustainable progress on security unless you have an active political and economic track moving ahead. All reinforce the other. They all need to be moved forward at the same time. Q. First of all, is there a civil war in Iraq? … And secondly, after the killing of Zarqawi there were so many expectations. But as I see, there’s a kind of— things are getting worse? Is it true? What do you think about it? AMBASSADOR SATTERFIELD: … We could … hear for the rest of today different academic models and definitions of civil war and it would be a largely sterile discussion. The fact is there is sectarian violence, sectarian killing and sectarian conflict in Iraq. And if it is not addressed and if it is not brought to a close and brought to a close rapidly, it threatens more than any other security challenge in Iraq, it threatens the fabric of Iraqi society, it threatens the ability of Iraq to move forward on security, on political track and with respect to economic growth and development. And that’s the issue that people should be addressing, not the endless pursuit of definitions of civil war, civil conflict. There is sectarian violence. People are being murdered, innocents in this name and this has to come to a halt. Your second question, Zarqawi’s killing, we made very clear immediately after the elimination of Zarqawi that everyone should be circumspect in what the results of this would be, that the organization that he had led, that movement remained very vital, very active, very threatening, very lethal and that remains the case. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/75189.htm
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President George W. Bush, Statement on the Saddam Hussein Verdict, TSTC Airport, Waco, Texas, November 5, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: Today, Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal for the massacres committed by his regime in the town of Dujayl. Saddam Hussein’s trial is a milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law—it’s a major achievement for Iraq’s young democracy and its constitutional government. During Saddam Hussein’s trial, the court received evidence from 130 witnesses. The man who once struck fear in the hearts of Iraqis had to listen to free Iraqis recount the acts of torture and murder that he ordered against their families and against them. Today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of the justice which many thought would never come. Saddam Hussein will have an automatic right to appeal his sentence; he will continue to receive the due process and the legal rights that he denied the Iraqi people. Iraq has a lot of work ahead as it builds its society that delivers equal justice and protects all its citizens. Yet history will record today’s judgment as an important achievement on the path to a free and just and unified society. The United States is proud to stand with the Iraqi people. We will continue to support Iraq’s unity government as it works to bring peace to its great country. We appreciate the determination and bravery of the Iraqi security forces, who are stepping forward to defend their free nation. And we give our thanks to the men and women of America’s Armed Forces, who have sacrificed so much for the cause of freedom in Iraq—and they’ve sacrificed for the security of the United States. Without their courage and skill, today’s verdict would not have happened … SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061105-1.html
20 Legislation This section includes statements on major developments in U.S. counterterrorism legislation, including measures aimed against terrorism funding. Landmark legislation was introduced in January 1995 by the Clinton administration and was enacted on April 24, 1996, as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996. Previously, most of the counterterrorism legislation was aimed at countries that supported international terrorism. The 1996 law made it a criminal offense for U.S. citizens, residents, or organizations to knowingly provide funds or other forms of material support to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) by the Secretary of State. This provision has been used in numerous cases, especially since 9/11. The April 11, 1995, testimony by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick contains summaries of the Clinton administration’s original bill as introduced. Testimony by State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Philip Wilcox, on May 4, 1995, provides some of the historic context for the legislation, which was prompted by the realization that terrorist groups were increasingly turning to front charities and companies instead of state sponsors for their funding. He noted that the original section 103 contained a licensing provision that would authorize donations to designated FTOs if they could prove that none of the funds would be diverted to terrorism. The Congressional judiciary committees rejected that proposal. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 was the next major legislative development and this chapter contains President Bush’s October 26, 2001, signing statement. The measure had been rushed through Congress in the wake of 9/11. Some provisions were criticized because of the hasty passage; however, many of them actually had been drafted earlier by Justice Department career attorneys during the Clinton administration. A prime example is the roving wiretaps provision, which was originally proposed in the 1995 bill but failed to survive Congress. The Bush administration exerted a considerable and successful effort to renew the Patriot Act, which otherwise would have expired in 2003. Attorney General Ashcroft’s testimony on June 5, 2003, in this chapter and his
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additional statements in chapter 13) also lay out the administration’s arguments. (FBI Director Robert Mueller’s May 20, 2004, testimony outlines some of the benefits of the renewed legislation.) This chapter also includes the president’s December 17, 2004, signing of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the position of director of national intelligence (DNI) to direct and coordinate the U.S. government’s intelligence community. In the controversy stemming from the detention of detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq, the Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This chapter contains the president’s October 17, 2006, signing statement and the transcript of a briefing by the State Department’s Legal Advisor, John B. Bellinger III, on October 19, 2006.
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Testimony Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Concerning Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, April 11, 1995 … [I]t is a privilege to appear before you regarding the proposed ‘‘Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995.’’ The protection of this nation and its people against the threat of terrorism, both at home and abroad, is of paramount importance to all of us. The proposed legislation is a comprehensive effort to strengthen the ability of the United States to deter terrorist acts and to punish those who engage in terrorism. Acts of terrorism defy rational explanation, and their harm cannot be measured by counting the number of terrorist acts. Terrorist acts occur within the United States very infrequently and the number of overseas terrorist attacks against U.S. interests is not great, in part because of our extraordinary efforts at prevention. When, as in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, terrorists do succeed, the magnitude of the human suffering is incalculable. Society as a whole pays a high price, as the population as a whole fears similar incidents. Moreover, as weapons of mass destruction become more accessible, the catastrophic potential of terrorist acts becomes more apparent. The recent nerve gas attack in the subway system in Tokyo was a grim warning of that potential. Similarly, earlier this year, two defendants were convicted in federal court in Minnesota of possessing ricin, a deadly biological agent, with intent to use it as a weapon. According to experts, a gram of pure ricin could kill 3,600 people. … From 1990 through 1994, approximately 40% of the reported terrorist acts worldwide were directed against U.S. interests. During the past decade Americans have been killed, injured, or brutalized by bombings, hijackings, and hostage takings. In the past two years, Americans have been the targets of a number of extraordinarily deadly terrorist plots, both at home and abroad. Fortunately, most of those plots were either prevented or failed to achieve the consequences intended by their perpetrators. However, had the intentions of those
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terrorists been fulfilled, tens of thousands of Americans would have been injured or killed. The continuing nature of this deadly threat to U.S. interests and people is reflected in the March 8, 1995, murders of two American civilian employees assigned to the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. The United States cannot await additional terrorist tragedies—such as the Karachi murders, the World Trade Center bombing, and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 -before seeking legislation to enhance its ability to address the terrorist threat. We must take all reasonable steps to prevent and punish terrorist activity directed at U.S. interests. The proposed Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 is a comprehensive effort to fulfill that responsibility. We are keenly aware of our responsibility to ensure that constitutional rights are fully protected. We believe that the proposed legislation fully comports with our nation’s traditional respect for civil liberties. Nevertheless, we are committed to working with this Committee to examine any concerns and to ensure that the legislation is both tough and fair. During the past 20 years, Congress has enacted a number of very important terrorism statutes. Most of those statutes address acts of terrorism undertaken against U.S. people or interests overseas. The Department of Justice aggressively enforces those statutes. We investigate fully all incidents of international terrorism that affect U.S. interests and over which we have jurisdiction. When sufficient evidence is developed, the case is indicted and a concerted effort is made to obtain custody of the defendants for trial, even though they usually reside outside the United States. The Department is committed to pursuing such apprehension efforts for as long as is necessary to obtain custody. We will not forget the heinous acts of terrorists or the human suffering of their victims. The long-term nature of our commitment is exemplified by the arrest of Omar Ali Rezaq in July 1993 on charges relating to a deadly hijacking which occurred in the Mediterranean area in November 1985. Examples of prosecutions that have been pursued as a result of United States enforcement efforts under existing terrorism statutes include the following: – Mohammod Ali Hamadei was indicted in the District of Columbia for the June 1985 hijacking of TWA 847 and the murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem.… – Fawaz Yunis was indicted in the District of Columbia for a June 1985 hijacking of a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight, which had two American passengers onboard. In September 1987, he was lured into international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where he was arrested by the FBI and returned to the United States. He was convicted in federal court in March 1989 and is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence. – Mohammed Rashid was indicted in the District of Columbia for an August 1982 bombing of a Pan Am flight en route from Tokyo to Honolulu, resulting in the death of one passenger. – Rashid was arrested in Athens in June 1988. Greece denied the U.S. extradition request but agreed to prosecute Rashid. Thereafter, federal investigators and prosecutors worked closely with their Greek counterparts to make available the evidence, which supported the U.S. case. Rashid was subsequently convicted and is presently serving a 15- year prison sentence in Greece.
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– Omar Ali Rezaq is currently pending trial in federal court in the District of Columbia on an indictment which charges that he hijacked an Egypt Air flight in 1985, during which he allegedly murdered two passengers, an American and an Israeli.
Other indictments are pending based on terrorist acts directed against U.S. interests and persons overseas. One of those indictments charges two Libyan defendants, as officers and operatives of a Libyan intelligence agency, with having carried out the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 was a grim reminder that the United States is not free from the threat of terrorism within its own borders. Swift and effective investigative work led to the prompt arrest and subsequent successful prosecution of four defendants, all of whom are now serving multiple life sentences. Recently, a fifth defendant charged in the World Trade Center indictment was arrested overseas and returned to New York, where he is currently pending trial. In August 1993, fifteen defendants were indicted in federal court in Manhattan on charges which included conspiracy to levy a war of urban terrorism against the United States by bombing the World Trade Center and planning to bomb several other targets, including a federal office building, United Nations Headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge. The trial of that case is presently ongoing. In contrast to the substantial legislation relating to overseas acts of terrorism directed against U.S. interests, there has been little focus on legislation addressing acts of international terrorism in the United States. The proposed Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 reverses that trend. While the bill would enhance our ability to address extraterritorial terrorist acts, its primary emphasis is on international terrorism aimed at targets within the United States or utilizing the U.S. as a base for monetary or strategic support. In transmitting this legislation to Congress, the Administration provided a detailed section-by-section analysis explaining the intended scope and effect of each of the bill’s 20 provisions. Additionally, I am submitting, as an attachment to this statement, a summary of those 20 provisions. Accordingly, I will limit my remarks to some of the bill’s key provisions. Title I—Substantive Criminal Law Enhancements Section 101—Acts of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries Section 101(a), which would create Section 2332b in Title 18 of the United States Code, provides a more certain and comprehensive basis for the federal government to respond to international terrorist acts within the United States. While most international terrorist violations which might occur within the United States can be reached under some existing federal statute, the coverage is fragmented, the applicable statutes may be insufficient to capture the gravamen of the offense, and their penalties may not be proportionate to the conduct involved. Section 101 would allow the government to incorporate any applicable state statute violated by the terrorists, so long as one of nine jurisdictional bases can be established. The provision would be utilized only with the personal approval of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General, based on a finding that the offense was of an international terrorist nature.
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The proposed provision is patterned after existing federal statutes which have been upheld by the courts and which have been applied without controversy. For example, Subsection 2332b (b)(1)(A), which incorporates state laws relating to murder, kidnapping, maiming, and serious assaults, is drawn directly from 18 U.S.C. Sec 1959, violent crimes in aid of racketeering activity. Similarly, the nine proposed jurisdictional bases provided in the proposed legislation are drawn from existing statutes. State enforcement entities often cannot address effectively criminal activity that has international aspects. This legislation will permit federal enforcement in an area in which the federal government has both expertise and responsibility. Additionally, the legislation would allow the Attorney General to request assistance from other agencies, including the military. The type of assistance that would typically be sought from the military—e.g., logistical support—is not precluded by the Posse Comitatus Act, as it applies only to military enforcement activity that ‘‘regulates, forbids, or compels,’’ Bissonette v. Haig, 776 F.2d 1384, 1390 (1985), aff’d, 485 U.S. 264 (1988), and does not prohibit the military from providing assistance to civilian law enforcement. See, e.g., United States v. Bacon, 851 F.2d 1312, 1313 (11th Cir. 1988). However, if the military aid needed is of a type covered by Posse Comitatus, the Act authorizes such assistance and such authorizations are not unusual. See, e.g., 10 U.S.C. Sec’s 331-334. Indeed, provisions identical to that contained in Subsection 2332b(f) already exist in other federal statutes, see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. Sec’s 351(g), 1116(d), and 1751(i), and have presented no problems. Subsection 101(e) would also enhance the investigative capability of law enforcement agents by permitting a wiretap on one phone number to be transferred to another when the individual tapped changes phones. The government would still have to obtain a court order, supported by probable cause, to engage in the wiretap. However, where the probable cause relates to a violation of Section 2332b, the proposal would permit the court’s order to include provision for the use of a ‘‘roving’’ wiretap. This provision is critical because, in the context of violations of Section 101, the consequences of delay imposed by reapplications whenever a target changes phones could be catastrophic. This provision does not raise constitutional concerns, as the Fourth Amendment ‘‘protects people, not places,’’ i.e., the target of the surveillance and not a particular telephone instrument. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). Subsection 101(d) provides a rebuttable presumption in favor of pretrial detention for persons charged with violating the statute. Federal law currently contains the identical rebuttable presumption of pretrial detention for certain serious narcotics and firearms violations. 18 U.S.C. Sec 3142(e). This provision has been sustained in the courts. See, e.g., United States v. Portes, 786 F.2d 758 (7th Cir. 1986). Although the maximum penalties prescribed in Section 2332b are significant, the actual level of sentence would be left to the discretion of the court in applying the Sentencing Guidelines. However, any term of imprisonment imposed under Section 2332b would have to be consecutive to other prison sentences. In this regard, the provision is consistent with that contained in 18
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U.S.C. Sec 924(c)(1), which applies to persons who commit certain federal crimes of violence or narcotics offenses while armed. Section 102—Conspiracy to Harm People or Property Overseas Current federal law provides very limited jurisdiction over conspiracies undertaken within the United States to injure the property of a foreign government overseas. 18 U.S.C. Sec 956. Section 102 would amend that statute to make it a crime for any person within the United States to be a part of a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act overseas. The amended statute would apply to conspiracies to murder, kidnap, or maim, as well as conspiracies to injure or destroy any public structure, utility, or conveyance, or any religious, educational, or cultural property. The proposal would provide prosecutive jurisdiction over not only U.S.-based conspirators but also over their confederates overseas. Section 102 is designed to complement the proposals in Section 101, concerning terrorist acts within the United States transcending national boundaries, and Section 301, prohibiting terrorist fund-raising. We need an effective basis to reach conspiracies undertaken in part within the United States for the purpose of carrying out terrorist acts in foreign countries. Section 103—Clarification and Extension of Criminal Jurisdiction over Certain Terrorism Offenses Overseas Since 1974, extraterritorial jurisdiction in terrorist statutes has been enacted piecemeal. The statutes contain jurisdictional bases; some statutes make their prohibited terrorist activity a federal offense only if the offender is later found in the United States. The Constitution and principles of international law permit jurisdiction when the victim or perpetrator is a national of the United States. Indeed, some existing extraterritorial statutes already include that jurisdictional base, e.g., hostage taking (18 U.S.C. Sec 1203). Section 103 amends terrorism statutes, which are deficient in this regard to provide jurisdiction wherever the victim or perpetrator is a national of the United States. The amendment would relate to the following statutes: 18 U.S.C. Sec 32(b) (aircraft sabotage); 18 U.S.C. Sec 37(b) (violence at international airports); 18 U.S.C. Sec’s 112, 878, 1116, and 1201 (crimes against internationally protected persons); 18 U.S.C. Sec 178 (biological weapons); and 49 U.S.C. 46502(b) (aircraft piracy outside the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States). Although this section is highly technical, it is of substantial practical importance. If jurisdiction does not vest until the offender is found in the United States, the government is not in a position to obtain an indictment. This places in doubt the government’s ability to stop the running of the statute of limitations applicable to non-capital terrorist offenses. More importantly, the United States is not in a position to pursue an extradition request because there is no clear basis for obtaining the judicial process to support such a request. Title II—Immigration Law Improvements Current procedures in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) are inadequate to permit the government to deport aliens who have engaged in terrorism activity. The first case filed seeking deportation on the ground of terrorism activity has now marked its fourth anniversary and the trial portion of the proceeding has not yet concluded. Further, there is currently no
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effective basis for protecting critical national security information from disclosure in the course of such proceedings as there is in criminal proceedings. Section 201—Alien Terrorist Removal Procedures Section 201 would create a mechanism for protecting national security information during deportation proceedings, which are based on an alien’s involvement in terrorism. Under the legislation, such cases could be handled by U.S. district court judges, if the government can establish that adherence to normal INS deportation procedures would pose a risk to national security. Judges would be authorized to invoke procedures such as the use of summaries in place of classified information to safeguard national security equities while protecting the rights of the alien. All evidence except that bearing a national security classification would be fully available to the alien. The alien would be provided a summary of classified information of sufficient specificity to permit him to prepare his defense. The only exception would be in the extraordinary circumstance that the court finds that the provision of a summary or the continued presence of the alien in the United States ‘‘would likely cause serious and irreparable harm to the national security or death or serious bodily injury to any person.’’ The government’s burden of proof would be by clear and convincing evidence. In criminal cases, the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) has long provided for the protection of classified information through the use of a variety of procedures, including summaries. Their use has been upheld in criminal cases, where a defendant—alien or citizen—has his liberty or even his life at stake. Section 201 provides that the exclusionary rule is inapplicable to deportation cases, a provision that codifies existing law. INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032 (1984). The proposed procedures protect constitutional rights. Deportation proceedings undertaken pursuant to Section 201 would be presided over by an independent, Article III judge; the alien would be represented by counsel, at the government’s expense if necessary; the proceedings would be open to the public; the burden of proof would be on the government; and a judgment of deportation would be appealable to the United States Court of Appeals. When there is substantial risk of serious damage to national security, reasonable curtailment of otherwise available procedures is justified. Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 309-10 (1981). In related contexts, the Supreme Court has stressed that the requirements of due process do not make the Constitution a ‘‘suicide pact.’’ The Court has also extended substantial deference to the procedures considered appropriate by Congress in the immigration and deportation context, in recognition of the fact ‘‘that control over matters of immigration is a sovereign prerogative, largely within the control of the Executive and the Legislature.’’ Landon v. Plasencia, 459 U.S. 21, 34 (1982). The procedures afforded alien terrorists under section 201 of the bill are fully in keeping with the constitutional standards established in this sensitive area. Section 202—Changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act to Facilitate Removal of Alien Terrorists Section 202 amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to facilitate the handling of alien terrorists in traditional immigration proceedings, i.e., in instances where the government does not seek to invoke the special procedures
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contained in Section 201. One of the central aspects of this proposal is to provide that during immigration proceedings undertaken against non-immigrants (i.e., non-resident aliens such as persons who have surreptitiously entered the U.S. or overstayed their visas), the alien would have no right of access to any classified information. Subsection 202(d). This provision would not apply to resident aliens. Section 202 also makes limited modifications to the existing INA definition of terrorist activities. These changes serve to clarify that aliens who are officials or spokespersons of terrorist organizations who provide material support to organizations engaged in terrorism activity are deportable. Section 203—Access to Certain Confidential INS Files Through Court Order Section 203 provides law enforcement a limited basis to obtain access to certain immigration files. Under current law, INS files relating to legalization and special agricultural worker status are not available to law enforcement. The proposed legislation would permit an application to a federal court for an order authorizing disclosure of information in such files in the course of an investigation into serious criminal activity occurring subsequent to the legalization or special agricultural proceeding. The norm in criminal law is that, based on a proper showing, all records are available as needed to carry out criminal investigations. The two statutes, which would be amended in the proposed legislation, are a deviation from that norm. The law enforcement access, which would be permitted relating to those records, is both narrow and subject to judicial scrutiny, as the proposed provision would authorize access only through court order. Title III- Controls Over Terrorist Fund Raising Section 301 authorizes the government to regulate or prohibit any person or organization within the United States from raising or providing funds for use by any foreign organization, which the President has declared to be engaged in terrorist activities. Such declaration would be based on a Presidential finding that the organization (1) engages in terrorist activity as defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and (2) its terrorist activities threaten the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States. For purposes of a criminal prosecution, the President’s designation of a terrorist organization would be conclusive. This simply means that a person may not disregard a designation and thereafter challenge it when detected and prosecuted. However, whatever right, if any, may exist under the Constitution or current statutory principles to affirmatively challenge a Presidential designation would continue to exist. Although the fund-raising prohibition would apply notwithstanding the fact that the terrorist group may also engage in legitimate activities, Section 301 provides a licensing mechanism to address contributions to such activities. Foreign terrorist groups that wish to receive money solicited in the United States for other purposes can establish safeguards to ensure that money will not be used to carry out terrorist acts. The proposal is not aimed at suppressing speech but rather at curtailing the terrorist acts of the designated groups. Even if one were to assume, for sake of discussion, that the fundraising prohibition might have an incidental effect on
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speech, it would still be sustainable under the Supreme Court’s analysis in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 376-77 (1968), based on the importance of the governmental interest involved. See, e.g., Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 307 (1981) (‘‘(i)t is ‘obvious and unarguable’ that no governmental interest is more compelling than the security of the Nation.’’). This does not punish mere membership in an organization without regard to whether the member had any intent to further the organization’s illegal aims. See, e.g., Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11 (1966). Rather, Section 301 prohibits only the act of raising funds on behalf of, or providing funds to, a designated terrorist organization without first obtaining a license. Section 301 would effectively serve to fulfill three salutary objectives. Most importantly, it would limit the funds available for terrorist purposes. Further, it would benefit potential American contributors by alerting them to those groups, which may misuse their contributions for terrorist purposes. Finally, it would give foreign groups an incentive to eliminate their terrorist elements in order to ensure the continued availability of U.S. funds to pursue their legitimate activities. Title IV—Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives Sections 401-407 implement the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for Purposes of Detection. That Convention is an international response to the terrorist bombings of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988 and UTA Flight 772 in September 1989, which would improve the delectability of plastic explosives so that terrorist disasters can be avoided. Starting one year following the effective date of the statute, this provision would require the insertion of a detection agent during the manufacture of such explosives. It would be unlawful to manufacture any plastic explosive without a detection agent or to receive, possess, or transfer any plastic explosive that does not contain such an agent. Title V—Nuclear Materials Section 501 expands the scope and jurisdictional bases under 18 U.S.C. Sec 831, which prohibits certain transactions involving nuclear materials. It would modify current law to deal with the risk stemming from the destruction of certain nuclear weapons that were once in the arsenal of the former Soviet Union and the lessening of security controls over peaceful nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. Among its provisions, Section 501 expands existing law to include nuclear byproduct materials. These materials, which are less than weapons grade, are nevertheless dangerous to human life or the environment, especially if utilized together with other explosives. The Section would also expand the jurisdictional bases to reach situations in which a United States national is the victim of an offense or in which a United States corporation is the victim or perpetrator of an offense. Finally, the legislation would cover those situations in which a threat to do some form of prohibited activity is directed at the United States Government. Title VI—Procedural and Technical Corrections and Improvements This title contains ten relatively technical, but highly important, provisions that would facilitate investigations and prosecutions of terrorist crimes. Included are provisions that would add terrorism offenses to the Racketeer
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Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) and Money Laundering statutes; add terrorism offenses to the list of statutes which are subject to court authorized electronic surveillance; increase the penalties for conspiracies to commit certain terrorist offenses; and enhance the existing weapons of mass destruction statute by, e.g., covering threatened uses of such weapons against the United States or U.S. nationals. One provision of Title VI merits specific explanation so as to avoid misunderstanding concerning the Administration’s intentions. Section 601 would delete an investigative restriction contained within the recently enacted statute addressing material assistance to overseas terrorists. That restriction provides that an investigation may be initiated or continued only when the facts indicate that the target ‘‘knowingly or intentionally engages, has engaged, or is about to engage’’ in a violation. That provision has proved to be unworkable. The threshold requirement can rarely, if ever, be met because the existence of knowledge and intent usually can be established only through investigation. Indeed, in the words of a commonly-utilized federal jury instruction, ‘‘the intent of a person or the knowledge that a person possesses at any given time may not ordinarily be proved directly because there is no way of directly scrutinizing the workings of the human mind.’’ Devitt, Blackmar, Wolff and O’Malley, Federal Jury Practice Instructions, Sec 17.07 (1992). This restriction on investigative activity is also unnecessary. Attorney General Guidelines, which have been in existence for more than 15 years, appropriately limit the FBI’s initiation of criminal investigations. Title VII—Antiterrorism Assistance Sections 701-702 amend existing law relating to the State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance Program to enhance the ability of the United States to provide instruction overseas to officials of other governments to assist them in addressing the problem of terrorism. In conclusion, I want to thank the Chairman for this prompt hearing. The Department of Justice is prepared to work with the Committee and its staff to address any areas of concern. I urge the Committee to move expeditiously toward enactment of this essential legislation.
FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, Opening Statement Before the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., May 3, 1995 As the bombing in Oklahoma City makes clear … [w]e cannot protect our country, our way of life, our government and the democratic processes that ensure our freedoms and liberties if we fail to take seriously the threat of terrorism from all sources—foreign and domestic. There is no real difference between attacks planned or perpetrated against U.S. citizens here or abroad. Our law enforcement response must be the same, regardless of whether the plan or attack is organized and deployed by an American or a citizen of
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another country, whether the funds supporting the attack are raised locally or provided by foreign governments. However, the current scope of federal criminal laws does not reach some very possible and truly frightening terrorist activity. Such activity could easily be the basis of a campaign to affect the operation of the United States government and destroy the safety and confidence of the American public. For example, if, acting within a single state, a terrorist organization entered into a campaign of assassination, killing non- federal officials, leaders of private interest groups and members of the general public, this activity could fall entirely outside of federal criminal jurisdiction. Similarly, if a terrorist organization put up posters threatening to kill or injure non-federal officials, leaders of private interest groups and members of the general public, the FBI would be hard pressed to articulate a legal basis for investigating this activity. Perhaps most frighteningly, if a terrorist or terrorist organization acting within a single state constructed bombs or incendiary devices with ingredients that did not cross state lines and proceeded to bomb or burn non-government owned abandoned buildings, or many private residences, the FBI probably could not investigate. Federal jurisdiction for the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City is plainly based on title 18, United States Code, Section 844(f). That law prohibits the destruction, by means of fire or an explosion, of any building in whole or in part owned, possessed, or used by the United States or any department or agency thereof. Because death resulted, the death penalty applies. The examples I mentioned before, however, illustrate the serious gaps in the federal criminal laws presently used to combat terrorism. There is a need, therefore, for a comprehensive federal law against acts of terrorism committed in the United States. With the tragedy in Oklahoma City, we must intensify our focus on the threat to America from within—by individuals and domestic groups which may have no foreign connections. Terrorism is best prevented by acquiring, through legal and constitutional means, intelligence information relating to groups and individuals whose violent intentions threaten the public or our nation’s interests. Since the 1970’s, the FBI has operated in accordance with the guidelines issued by Attorneys General. Those guidelines were issued in response to prior performance by the FBI. Since then, intelligence gathering and investigative authorities have depended, in large part, on whether those who engage in terrorism are identified as a domestic group or an international group. A domestic terrorism investigation may be initiated only when the ‘‘facts or circumstances reasonably indicate that two or more persons are engaged in an enterprise for the purpose of furthering political or social goals, wholly or in part, through activities that involve force or violence and a violation of the criminal laws of the United States.’’ as you know, the specific requirements for international terrorism investigations are classified. There is a broad range of threats confronting the United States. Many are external. Some, as we have always known, are internal. We must be as concerned about an individual or a group of Americans planning to bomb an
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office building as we are of an individual or group of foreigners planning to do the same thing. Unfortunately, there are individuals and several groups in the United States that are arming themselves for potential conflicts with law enforcement or gathering weapons to further a social or political cause. I am greatly concerned about terrorist attacks here on American soil. The attacks are not only against one or two individuals—the effort, as in Oklahoma City, will be to murder as many as possible through a single blow. I do not support broad and undefined intelligence collection efforts—but law enforcement has to know something about those individuals and groups advocating deadly violence in the furtherance of their causes. The first rule of self-defense is to know the enemy who intends to destroy you. Intelligence serves a very useful purpose and helps to protect the American people. It should not be considered a ‘‘dirty word.’’ I do not want my remarks to be interpreted as advocating investigative activity against groups exercising their legitimate constitutional rights or targeting people who disagree with our government. The FBI is entirely comfortable with the Constitution, due process rights, Congressional oversight, legal process, and the American jury system. They each protect the American people and the FBI. Law enforcement is not interested in investigating lawful activity. Law enforcement is not concerned with a group simply because of its ideology or political philosophy. The fact is—we do not need the business. The FBI has lots of important work to do in protecting people and the United States. The FBI cannot and should not, however, tolerate and ignore any individuals or groups which advocate violence—which would kill innocent Americans, which would kill ‘‘America’s kids.’’ They are not just enemies of the United States, they are enemies of mankind. … I stress that I am appearing today in order to describe the terrorism problem the FBI faces and what we need to fight it. If the threats to our children and us are such that Congress wants now to require that changes be made, then the Congress—acting on behalf of the American people—should not hesitate to do so. I can assure you, however, that if Congress confers additional authorities upon the FBI, they will be applied scrupulously. Most importantly, they will be applied constitutionally, in the broad daylight of the peoples’ oversight. The FBI needs to meet the challenges of terrorism. For example: ¥ … there is no comprehensive federal anti-terrorism law. ¥ There is a need for a single counterterrorism center to be run by the FBI and supported by other agencies. To date, the United States government has never had such a concentrated ability and focus. ¥ There is no prohibition on terrorist fund-raising -the lifeblood of any terrorist organization. ¥ Law enforcement must be able to trace money, explosives, nuclear materials, and terrorists. ¥ The use of pen registers and trap and trace devices in counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations must be eased.
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¥ It is absolutely critical for investigators to have increased access—short of a fullblown grand jury investigation—to hotel, motel, and common carrier records for counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations. ¥ The FBI strictly obeys the law. As we heard the Congress and successive Presidents and Attorneys General tell us, it is clear that we were told to investigate domestic terrorists differently from foreign terrorists. If that is not what the American people speaking through its Congress and President now want, then tell us and the FBI will obey. ¥ In order to conduct effective counterterrorism investigations, there is a continuing need to recruit sources, informants, agents, and support employees from a broad cross-section of society—here and abroad. That type of recruitment effort, however, costs money. ¥ As we enter the 21st century, the FBI must have forensic capabilities on the street and in the laboratory that are on the ‘‘cutting edge’’ of technology. ¥ Law enforcement must have the ability to communicate rapidly by radio and other forms of wireless communications. Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers and agencies must be able to talk among themselves, so that a state trooper on America’s highways—like Oklahoma—has the full benefit of law enforcement’s knowledge as he approaches a car with a suspect in it. ¥ There must be funding for logistical support in counterterrorism operations and activities. The FBI currently relies on the Department of Defense for this support. Although the Department of Defense has been extremely cooperative, the FBI has been required to reimburse it for support. ¥ Encryption capabilities available to criminals and terrorists endanger the future usefulness of court-authorized wiretaps. We must continue working to address this problem. ¥ There are no legally available means to exclude and remove alien terrorists without compromising vital national security information. ¥ Rewards should be increased for those who provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons who commit acts of terrorism. SOURCE: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur13.htm
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Statement Before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Concerning the Clinton Administration Counterterrorism Initiative, May 3, 1995 The terrorist bombing of April 19 challenges all of us to prove that we have the will and the power to fulfill a fundamental responsibility set out for us in the first sentence of our Constitution: to ‘‘insure domestic tranquility.’’ At the same time, we are mindful of our duty to uphold the Constitution’s guarantees of personal freedom in the Bill of Rights. We can and must do both. The Federal law enforcement community’s response to the Oklahoma City bombing has been a model of dedication, cooperation, and efficiency. Immediately after the bombing, the FBI placed into operation its Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC). This Operations Center has representatives of all of the other federal agencies whose resources are essential to a fully coordinated effort, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Secret Service, and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
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I think it is important to put the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in perspective: This is only the most recent in a disturbing and escalating trend of terrorist attacks, inside and outside the United States. These events include the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103; the World Trade Center bombing; the recent nerve gas attack in the subway system in Tokyo; two would-be terrorists in Minnesota who made ricin, a deadly biological agent, with intent to use it as a weapon; and the recent murders of two American civilian employees assigned to the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. To meet this threat, President Clinton has presented to the Congress and the nation a comprehensive and carefully considered program to combat domestic and international terrorism. This program includes two pieces of legislation to enhance our investigation, prosecution, and punishment of terrorist activity: the ‘‘Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, ‘‘introduced in the House as H.R. 896, and the ‘‘Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995 … which is being transmitted to the Congress today. Here are some of the steps we need to take as part of this effort: – We need to provide for an additional 1,000 new agents, prosecutors, and other federal law enforcement and support personnel to investigate, deter, and prosecute terrorist activity. The five- year cost for these investments is approximately $1.25 billion, including funding for digital telephony in the out years. – We need to create a Domestic Counterterrorism Center, under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will establish a single point of contact for intelligence relating to terrorism. It will serve as a collection and dissemination point as well as provide analytical support. It will be available to all law enforcement agencies—federal, state, and local—and to agencies that deal with international’ terrorism. – We should provide clear Federal criminal jurisdiction for any international terrorist attack that might occur in the United States. – We should provide Federal criminal jurisdiction over terrorists who use the United States as the place from which to plan terrorist attacks overseas. – We should provide a workable mechanism to deport alien terrorists expeditiously without risking the disclosure of national security information or techniques. In this regard, I want to make clear that it is not our intent to foreclose appropriate judicial review of the designation of a group as a terrorist organization under either the alien removal or fundraising provisions of H.R. 896. Accordingly, we will recommend deletion of the assertions in that bill that the President’s designations are unreviewable or conclusive.
We should ease access to financial and credit reports in antiterrorism cases. While banking records can be obtained under current law through appropriate legal procedures, credit records—which show where suspected terrorists do their banking—are not currently accessible through those very same legal procedures. Congressman Doug Bereuter’s bill, which is incorporated in the Administration’s antiterrorism initiative, would allow us to use the same process to obtain records from credit firms as is currently available to obtain bank records. – Similarly, we should have the same legal standard in national security cases that we currently use in routine criminal cases for obtaining permission to track telephone traffic with ‘‘pen registers’’ and ‘‘trap and trace’’ devices.
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The national security letter process, which is currently used for obtaining certain categories of information in terrorism investigations, should be available to obtain records critical to such investigations from hotels, motels, common carriers, and storage and vehicle rental facilities. We should fund the ‘‘digital telephony’’ bill passed by Congress last session. This technology will assure court-authorized law enforcement access to electronic surveillance of digitized communications. We need an FBI counterterrorist and counterintelligence fund to pay for extraordinary logistical and other expenses arising from terrorism crises. We should require, within 1 year, the inclusion of taggants—microscopic particles—in standard explosive device raw materials which will permit tracing of the materials post-explosion. We should require the BATF to study and report on: 1) Effective means of tagging explosives for purposes of identification and detection, 2) Whether certain common chemicals used to manufacture explosives can be rendered inert, and 3) Whether controls can be imposed on certain precursor chemicals used to manufacture explosives. We should permit the military to provide technical assistance when chemical or biological weapons are concerned, just as the military can assist in such efforts involving nuclear weapons. We should, within constitutional limitations, expand, in a number of ways, the authority of law enforcement to fight terrorism through electronic surveillance. Examples of such increased authority include expansion of the list of felonies which could be used as the basis for a surveillance order, and authority to obtain multiple-point wiretaps where it is impractical to specify the number of the phone to be tapped (such as when a suspect uses a series of cellular phones). We should criminalize the use of chemical weapons in solid and liquid form, just as they are currently criminalized for use in gaseous form. We should make it illegal to possess explosives knowing that they are stolen. The current maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment for anyone who transfers a firearm or explosive materials, knowing that it will be used to commit a crime of violence, should be changed to a penalty of a minimum of ten years; and The enhanced penalties for terrorist attacks against some Federal employees should be extended to protect all current and former Federal employees, and their families, when the crime is committed because of the official duties of the federal employee. … this Administration is committed to standing up to terrorism without sacrificing our precious constitutional rights. The choice between civil liberties and a safe society is a false choice. We need not—and we will not—trade off the guarantees of the Bill of Rights in order to uphold our duty to ‘‘insure domestic tranquility.’’
SOURCE: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur13.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Deputy Attorney General Gorelick, Testimony Before the Full House Judiciary Committee Outlining Differences Between the Administration Bill and the Judiciary Committee’s Draft, June 12, 1995 (http://www.globalsecurity. org/security/library/congress/1995_h/h950612-3g.htm); also see Acting Director
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of Central Intelligence William O. Studeman, Testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, April 6, 1995 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/ 1995_h/h950612-3g.htm).
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr., Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State, Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, May 4, 1995 Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the administration’s omnibus counterterrorism act of 1995 and its importance to our efforts to combat terrorism. This legislation predates the Oklahoma City tragedy, and is in most respects designed to strengthen our campaign against international terrorism. It reflects the high priority, which the president and the secretary of state are giving, both abroad and here at home. This bill underscores a basic premise of our counterterrorism policy: that terrorists are criminals, whatever their political goals, and that we need to strengthen our legal tools to accompany the diplomatic, intelligence and security resources which we bring to bear against international terrorists. Terrorism has threatened American interests for decades. Our citizens and facilities have been disproportionately targeted overseas, and the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the related conspiracy now being tried in New York prove that international terrorists can attack us her at home as well. Although the number of international terrorist incidents has declined, casualties are trending upward. Events like the World Trade Center bombing, and the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, suggest that international terrorists are seeking increasingly to inflict higher mass casualties by striking at less protected civilian targets. International terrorists are also increasingly mobile, sophisticated, and technologically proficient in explosives and weaponry. Using these skills, as well as computers, cellular phones, and encryption systems, they are a more elusive target. And they pose an increasing danger, not only against innocent human beings, but also against the delicate physical infrastructure on which we rely. The spread of modern weapons also heightens the threat that terrorists might use materials of mass destruction to inflict massive casualties. The recent gas attacks in Tokyo makes this challenge more real. The Tokyo attacks highlight an additional danger: that deviant cults or psychotic elements, of which there are many in our world, may engage in terrorism. We must be increasingly on our guard against these elements, who are more difficult to understand and deter than traditional terrorists who have well defined political agendas. Although Israel, the Palestinians, and many Arab states are moving toward peace in the Middle East, Islamic extremist groups are fighting a vicious rear guard against peace and are creating turmoil in Algeria, Egypt and Pakistan. Other Islamic elements, like the group, which attacked the World Trade Center and plotted attacks against U.S. aviation in the Pacific, are also a menace. These terrorists are a deviant minority, increasingly rejected by mainstream Islam and established Islamic society, but they are nevertheless dangerous.
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We also remain vigilant against terrorism sponsored by outlaw states such as Iran, who is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and Libya, which continues to defy the mandate of the UN Security Council to deliver up the suspects in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103 and UTA 772. Through such actions as the executive order announced by the president this week banning all U.S. trade and investment with Iran, and multilateral sanctions, we seek to deter state sponsored terrorism and encourage more vigorous efforts by other states to do likewise. Mr. Chairman, in confronting these threats, we need to use all available U.S. resources to keep terrorists on the defensive. The law is one of our most important weapons, and in shaping our counterterrorism strategies, the Department of State has worked closely with Justice and the FBI to couple diplomacy and law enforcement: we strongly endorse this legislation, and I would like to comment especially on a few key parts of the bill. Sections 101, 102 and 103, by expanding and clarifying federal jurisdiction over terrorist crimes, will help us overseas, for example, to move more quickly in asking foreign governments to hold suspects for possible rendition to the U.S. Title III, the fundraising section, supports our policy of denying funds from American sources to terrorists abroad, and encouraging foreign governments to do likewise. Terrorists, especially those who do not rely on state sponsorship, raise money abroad, often through charitable organizations and front groups. Section 301, by authorizing the president to determine that a terrorist group’s activities threaten our national security, enables us to stop such funding. I want to stress that such determinations will be made with great care, following under specific guidelines in the bill, and that our intention is not to discourage donations to legitimate charitable organization abroad. We think most Americans will agree that groups who divert funds collected for charitable purposes for terrorism should not be protected, although they may also engage in charity. Moreover, Section 103 contains a licensing provision to authorize donations to designated organizations if they can establish that none of the funds will be diverted to terrorism. Terrorist aliens in our country are a threat, and we need more effective means of deporting them, Section 201 of this bill meets this need. In the past, such deportations have been hampered because of the need to protect sensitive intelligence information about their terrorist activities. Section 201 would allow the use of such information in summary form in deportation proceedings, after review of the raw intelligence by judges. This procedure, like the similar process used to protect sensitive intelligence in criminal trials under the Classified Information Protection Act, is carefully designed to protect against possible abuses. We think this section adequately protects due process while strengthening our ability and the need to rid the U.S. of alien terrorists. The Department of State also strongly supports Title IV of the bill, which would implement the ‘‘Convention on the Marking of Plastics Explosives for Purposes of Detection.’’ This Convention requires states where plastic explosives are made to oblige manufacturers to include a chemical agent that can be detected by sensors or trained dogs. Mr. Chairman, this bill and the recent tragedy in Oklahoma City have engendered a healthy debate on how to reconcile law enforcement needs with
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full protection of the civil liberties of Americans. As a participant in the drafting of this bill, I can assure you that great care has been devoted to balancing the need for stronger legal tools against terrorist with the need for protection of individual rights. This bill meets both objectives. EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Justice Department Press Release, ‘‘Administration Counterterrorism Legislation Passes Senate,’’ June 7, 1995 (http://www.justice.gov/ opa/pr/Pre_96/June95/319.txt.html).
Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Remarks at the Anti-Defamation League’s National Leadership Conference, Washington, D.C., April 23, 1996 I want to speak to you today about the anti-terrorism bill passed by the Congress last week. … but I do not want to focus on it exclusively. Rather, I would like to place the legislation in the broader context of what the Department is already doing to combat terrorism, and in the context of the rise in hateful rhetoric in our society which I think has created the type of climate that allows such acts to occur and makes anti-terrorism legislation an unfortunate necessity. There has been so much attention paid to terrorism recently in the wake of the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings. The attention is understandable, of course: Those tragedies revealed that Americans are not immune from terrorism—even here at home. It is understandable also because the costs exacted by terrorism are so high—not just the psychic costs, but the economic ones as well. Last Friday, for example, the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, we had to close a number of federal buildings completely and evacuated others for good parts of the day as a result of terrorist threats. These actions alone—not to mention the cost of investigating these threats—cost taxpayers untold millions of dollars. Finally, the concern about terrorism is understandable because of the recent legislative activity surrounding the issue. But as understandable as all the attention is, it obscures the fact that fighting terrorism has long been one of the Justice Department’s and federal law enforcement’s highest priorities. It is important for Americans to know that we are not new-comers to this fight. Department of Justice Counter-terrorism Activities The U.S. government fights terrorism in a number of ways: through diplomacy; through economic sanctions; through covert operations; through military intervention; and though law enforcement. The Justice Department’s role is primarily law enforcement and intelligence gathering. Our mission is simple: First, to prevent terrorism before it occurs; and second, should an act of terrorism occur, to mount an immediate and overwhelming investigative response to it. As was demonstrated in the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center cases, we take the second aspect of our mission very seriously. The investigations in
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those cases were models of cooperation and effectiveness. Clearly, however, the most important aspect of our mission is preventing terrorist acts before they occur. We do that in a number of ways: 1. Domestic Intelligence Gathering First, as you know, one of the FBI’s most important responsibilities is collecting intelligence on suspected terrorists in the United States. 2. The Visa Process Second, the Departments of Justice and State also take steps to prevent potential terrorists from coming to the United States by denying them travel documents at U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas. 3. Border Control Third, the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) work together to stop illegal aliens involved in terrorist activities by denying them entry to this country in the first instance, and reentry when they leave and attempt to return. 4. Extradition and Deportation from the U.S. Fourth, we are also cooperating closely with other countries to—where appropriate—extradite or deport suspected terrorists. As one recent example, senior HAMAS leader Musa Abu Marzook is currently the subject of an extradition proceeding in New York, based on a request by the Israeli Government. 5. Extradition of Terrorist Suspects to the United States Fifth, the United States has also successfully obtained the return of a number of defendants in recent years who have been prosecuted in the United States for acts of terrorism committed against U.S. interests. In February, 1995, for example, World Trade Center bombing suspect Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was apprehended in Pakistan after an intense international manhunt and returned to the United States for trial on other terrorism charges. In terms of extraditions, 1995 was a record year for the FBI. In addition to Ramzi Yosuef, four other suspected terrorists were returned to the United States. What these cases demonstrate, above all else, is that if you commit terrorist acts against American citizens or American interests, you will have no where to hide. We will pursue you using all the tools we have at our disposal and, sooner or later, we will bring you to justice. 6. Economic Sanctions: The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (‘‘IEEPA’’) Another important mechanism that we have employed to combat international terrorism is the application of economic sanctions against terrorist
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groups. In January of last year, the President invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—‘‘IEEPA’’ for short—against 12 groups that had committed acts of terrorism in opposition to the Mideast peace process, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The effect of the sanctions was to block financial interests and property of the groups within the United States. 7. International Technical Support and Training Seventh, because cooperation is central to the fight against international terrorism, we have expanded the technical support and training in law enforcement methods and techniques that we provide to foreign police and security personnel. For example, following the recent series of deadly bombing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, FBI personnel accompanied other U.S. Government officials on a priority trip to Israel to assess the bombings and provide immediate technical and other assistance. And, just yesterday, our Attorney General opened the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest which will bring together police officers from all over Eastern and Central Europe for training in fighting international crime, with specific emphasis on terrorism and narco-trafficking. 8. Criminal Prosecutions Finally, we combat terrorism by aggressively exerting our jurisdiction over terrorist activities under existing criminal counter-terrorism laws. Where once the U.S. had almost no extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction, we are now able to assert jurisdiction over a wide variety of overseas terrorist acts which affect our U.S. interests. We can, for example, now reach overseas acts of aircraft hijacking and sabotage, hostage taking, and serious terrorist assaults or murders of American nationals. Additionally, in recent years the Department has focused particular attention on developing jurisdiction relating to the terrorist use of biological weapons, nuclear materials, and other weapons of mass destruction. Using these jurisdictions, it is our policy to undertake criminal investigations of all extraterritorial acts which impact on U.S. interests. Whenever possible, we will obtain an indictment in federal court against the perpetrators. And thereafter, U.S. agencies work with their counterparts throughout the world in an effort to apprehend the indicted defendants. Efforts to apprehend indicted defendants are often painstaking and slow, but we are persistent and our memory is long. The passage of time does not dim our ardor for the pursuit of these international outlaws. In one case, a defendant was successfully prosecuted in the Eastern District of New York for terrorist crimes that he committed 19 years before. In June, the trial of Omar Ali Rezaq is scheduled to begin in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia for an air piracy, resulting in deaths, which he is alleged to have committed in the Middle East in 1985. Three other defendants, who were apprehended overseas, are set for trial this spring in the Southern District of
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New York for their alleged conspiracy to blow up U.S. commercial airliners in Asia. The Current Anti-terrorism Legislation It was against this backdrop of all this activity that we, in late 1993, undertook a review of its overall statutory authority to address terrorism. We found that our statutory authority for addressing acts of terrorism which occur overseas was well-developed and in need only of fine-tuning. In contrast, we concluded that there was need to improve our ability to address other aspects of terrorism including: ¥ acts of international terrorism carried out within the United States; ¥ support from within the United States for international terrorism; and ¥ acts of domestic terrorism.
During the early months of 1995, the Administration proposed two major items of terrorism legislation: ¥ the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, submitted to Congress in February, which addressed the remaining areas of concern relating to our international jurisdiction; and ¥ the Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995, submitted to Congress in May, which addressed primarily domestic terrorism concerns.
Although we had hoped that Congress would act more swiftly on these critically important measures, we are gratified that the legislation which includes many of our proposals has now passed Congress. Some of the key features which the Administration proposed and which are included in the legislative package are: ¥ comprehensive federal jurisdiction over acts of international terrorism which occur in the United States; ¥ a new alien deportation procedures; ¥ provision for the banning of all material support, except medications and religious materials, to foreign groups in the U.S.A.; ¥ implementation of the international convention on the marking of plastic explosives; ¥ upgraded procedures to address the use of nuclear materials, including byproduct materials, to carry out acts of terrorism; and ¥ more comprehensive protection for federal employees who find themselves as potential targets of terrorist activity.
Again, the bill does not contain everything the Administration wanted, including emergency authority to undertake electronic surveillance of terrorist suspects and a provision involving taggants for the type of powder typically used in pipe bombs. In addition, it does not provide the FBI additional authority to wiretap multiple telephones that are used by a single individual suspected of engaging terrorist activities.
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Hate Speech Before I end today, I would like to shift gears from the responses to terrorism to a social and political phenomenon that I view as a major contributor to the upswing in terrorism, particularly domestic terrorism. That phenomenon is hate speech. Wherever we turn, it seems, we are accosted by angry, vile, violent rhetoric. From the political fringes and the mainstream as well, increasingly few, I think, feel restrained in what they say. This is a phenomenon of both left and right. To be sure, strong rhetoric has always been a staple of American political discourse. Yet the quality of discourse in this country seems to me to have deteriorated in very significant and potentially dangerous ways. For one, so much of today’s political rhetoric seems designed to demonize and dehumanize its subjects rather than to illuminate issues. Policy disagreements have given way to ad hominem attacks against political opponents. There also seems to be much more rhetoric floating around these days that not only dehumanizes its subjects, but also condones, if not encourages, violence. The examples are many, but I was particularly struck by a bumper sticker sold at gun shows recently epitomizes the sentiments being expressed. It reads: ‘‘FIRST LINCOLN; THEN KENNEDY; NOW CLINTON?’’ We desperately need to take steps to return civility to our national life because the consequences of this kind of angry speech are all too great. … And there is another, more dangerous consequence of angry speech—one which we saw so tragically last fall in Israel. There can be no doubt that the assassination of Yikzak Rabin was made thinkable by the demonization of him in Israel’s national debate about the peace process. … Radical elements opposed to peace called him a traitor and burned him in effigy. And what would have been unthinkable in that society happened. The analogy to the bombing in Oklahoma City and to the attacks on abortion clinics and to racially-motivated crimes is clear and unmistakable. Speech that demeans; speech that demonizes; speech that portrays fellow citizens as unworthy of treatment as human beings; speech that suggests that violence is an appropriate way to express opposition—particularly when it is legitimized by political and opinion leaders—creates a climate in which politically-motivated violence can flower. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT NOTE: In presenting this address, the Deputy Attorney General may have departed from the text, but she stands behind the text as printed.) SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/dag/speech/0423_dag.adl.html
President William J. Clinton, Statement on Signing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, April 24, 1996 I have today signed into law S. 735, the ‘‘Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.’’ This legislation is an important step forward in the Federal Government’s continuing efforts to combat terrorism.
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I first transmitted antiterrorism legislation to the Congress in February 1995. Most of the proposals in that legislation, the ‘‘Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995,’’ were aimed at fighting international terrorism. After the tragedy in Oklahoma City, I asked Federal law enforcement agencies to reassess their needs and determine which tools would help them meet the new challenge of domestic terrorism. They produced, and I transmitted to the Congress, the ‘‘Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995’’ in May 1995. Together, these two proposals took a comprehensive approach to fighting terrorism both at home and abroad. I am pleased that the Congress included most of the provisions of these proposals in this legislation. As a result, our law enforcement officials will have tough new tools to stop terrorists before they strike and to bring them to justice if they do. In particular, this legislation will: — provide broad new Federal jurisdiction to prosecute anyone who commits a terrorist attack in the United States or who uses the United States as a planning ground for attacks overseas;—ban fundraising in the United States that supports terrorist organizations;—allow U.S. officials to deport terrorists from American soil without being compelled by the terrorists to divulge classified information, and to bar terrorists from entering the United States in the first place;—require plastic explosives to contain chemical markers so that criminals who use them— like the ones that blew up Pan Am Flight 103—can be tracked down and prosecuted;—enable the Government to issue regulations requiring that chemical taggants be added to some other types of explosives so that police can better trace bombs to the criminals who make them;—increase our controls over biological and chemical weapons;—toughen penalties over a range of terrorist crimes;—ban the sale of defense goods and services to countries that I determine are not ‘‘cooperating fully’’ with U.S. antiterrorism efforts.
Such a determination will require a review of a country’s overall level of cooperation in our efforts to fight terrorism, taking into account our counterterrorism objectives with that country and a realistic assessment of its capabilities. By enacting this legislation, the United States remains in the forefront of the international effort to fight terrorism through tougher laws and resolute enforcement. Nevertheless, as strong as this bill is, it should have been stronger. For example, I asked the Congress to give U.S. law enforcement increased wiretap authority in terrorism cases, including the power to seek multi-point wiretaps, enabling police to follow a suspected terrorist from phone to phone, and authority for the kind of emergency wiretaps available in organized crime cases. But the Congress refused. After I proposed that the Secretary of the Treasury consider the inclusion of taggants in explosive materials, so that bombs can be traced more easily to the bomb makers, the Congress exempted black and smokeless powder—two of the most commonly used substances in improvised explosive devices. I asked that law enforcement be given increased access to hotel, phone and other records in terrorism cases. I asked for a mandatory penalty for those who knowingly transfer a firearm for use in a violent felony. I asked for a
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longer statute of limitations to allow law enforcement more time to prosecute terrorists who use weapons such as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and explosive devices. But the Congress stripped each of these provisions out of the bill. And when I asked for a ban on cop-killer bullets, the Congress delivered only a study, which will delay real action to protect our Nation’s police officers. I intend to keep urging the Congress to give our law enforcement officials all the tools they need and deserve to carry on the fight against international and domestic terrorism. This is no time to give the criminals a break. I also regret that the Congress included in this legislation a commission to study Federal law enforcement that was inspired by special interests who are no friends of our Nation’s law enforcement officers. The Congress has responsibility to oversee the operation of Federal law enforcement; to cede this power to an unelected and unaccountable commission is a mistake. Our Nation’s resources would be better spent supporting the men and women in law enforcement, not creating a commission that will only get in their way. This legislation is a real step in the right direction. Although it does not contain everything we need to combat terrorism, it provides valuable tools for stopping and punishing terrorists. It stands as a tribute to the victims of terrorism and to the men and women in law enforcement who dedicate their lives to protecting all of us from the scourge of terrorist activity. William J. Clinton The White House, April 24, 1996. SOURCE: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=52713
Summary of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, S.735 Public Law No: 104-132, April 24, 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Title I: Substantive Criminal Law Enhancements Title II: Combating International Terrorism Title III: Alien Removal Title IV: Control of Fundraising for Terrorism Activities Title V: Assistance to Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Subtitle A: Antiterrorism Assistance Subtitle B: Intelligence and Investigation Enhancements Subtitle C: Additional Funding for Law Enforcement Title VI: Criminal Procedural Improvements Subtitle A: Habeas Corpus Reform Subtitle B: Criminal Procedural Improvements Title VII: Marking of Plastic Explosives Title VIII: Nuclear Materials Title IX: Miscellaneous Provisions Title X: Victims of Terrorism Act
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EDITOR’S NOTE: For space reasons, we are printing only the table of contents for the above important legislation. The Library of Congress links to more details are available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c104:S.735.ENR. Also see the Library of Congress Summary at http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/96-499.htm.
Kenneth R. McKune, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Department of State, Statement Before the Senate Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, February 24, 1998 Thank you for this opportunity to provide for the record for your hearing on foreign terrorist activities in the United States this statement relating to the Secretary of State’s designation of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). This statement has been coordinated with the Departments of Justice and the Treasury, and represents the combined views of the Administration. The State Department is the lead agency for dealing with terrorism overseas. Unfortunately, however, terrorists do not respect international boundaries any more than they respect human lives and common decency. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (‘‘AEDPA’’) added a new Section 219 to the Immigration and Nationality Act (‘‘INA’’), which authorizes the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, to designate an organization as a ‘‘foreign terrorist organization’’ if the organization meets certain legal criteria. The Secretary’s designation on October 8, 1997, of thirty foreign terrorist organizations was the culmination of a massive interagency effort to identity foreign organizations that engage in terrorist activity and threaten U.S. national security or the security of U.S. nationals. Under the terms of the INA, terrorist activity includes not only certain acts of violence but also activities which provide material support to terrorist organizations, such as raising money, providing training, obtaining weapons or false documents, and recruitment. The designation process was truly a cooperative project, in which State worked closely with the Departments of Justice and the Treasury, the FBI and the intelligence community. Congress included in the legislation a provision that allows a designated organization to challenge its designation in court. The provision also requires that the judicial review be based solely on the administrative record used by the Secretary in making the determination. This requirement necessitated that the administrative records be as thorough and comprehensive as possible to withstand possible judicial review. Gathering and evaluating information on a large number of terrorist organizations and reviewing the material for the administrative records was a labor- and time-intensive process involving many analysts and legal specialists from many Departments and agencies. The list of organizations included in the Department’s annual ‘‘Pattern of Global Terrorism’’ was only a starting point. A much more detailed compilation and analysis of information was required for each
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organization to determine whether it met the statutory requirements for designation, and to produce a substantial administrative record that would withstand judicial review. Following the mandated Congressional notification period, State formally promulgated the designation in the Federal Register on October 8, 1997, as required under the law. But we went beyond that requirement. The Secretary herself made the announcement at the Department’s daily press briefing to help give the designations high profile. The major media, including news agencies serving overseas outlets, carried the story. The designations were posted on both the State Department and the Treasury Department’s Internet websites and disseminated by USIA. Officials from State and Justice appeared on USIA’s Worldnet programs to discuss the issue. State, Justice, and Treasury took exceptional measures to ensure that the designations were widely disseminated and publicized. There are three primary legal consequences of the designation of a foreign terrorist organization: It is a crime for anyone in the United States knowingly to provide funds of other forms of material support to the designated organization; U.S. financial institutions are required to block the funds of any designated organization and its agents and to advise the Treasury Department of such action; and Aliens who are members or representatives of a designated organization are not eligible to enter the United States. It is difficult to quantify the impact of the law and designations after only four months. Clearly, criminal cases which involve the international tracing of funds require some time to develop. However, there are other aspects to consider—especially the potential deterrent effects. Congressional passage of the law, the President’s signing it, at a large public ceremony, and the process of designating foreign terrorist organizations were widely reported to the press. For those law abiding citizens who do not want to contribute to a terrorist organization, the law and publicity surrounding it should deter further contributions or other forms of material support. Moreover, Justice, for the first time, will not have to prove during a criminal prosecution that a defendant specifically intended that the funds he was contributing were to be used for terrorist activity. It will only need to prove that a defendant knowingly provided material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, regardless of how he intended the money to be used. Internationally, passage of the AEDPA and the Secretary’s designations have had a substantial impact. Several international for a have begun discussions on ways to limit the provision of funds and other resources to terrorist organizations. A number of foreign governments have comments favorably on the Secretary’s designation of terrorist organizations, including Colombia, Israel, Japan, Peru, Turkey, Spain, and Sri Lanka. The passage and implementation of the section 303 fund raising provision and the section 323 material support provisions also enhance our efforts to encourage other countries to take similar steps, and some of our friends are taking a fresh look to see whether they should tighten their own domestic laws and regulations. We have distributed information on the legislation to our embassies overseas for use with their host governments.
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My office and the State Department’s Legal Adviser’s office have given briefings to officials from a dozen embassies here as well as visiting foreign officials. We also make a point of discussing the legislation and fund raising issues during our bilateral and multilateral conferences with a number of countries. As I noted earlier, the INA permits a designated foreign terrorist organization to seek, within 30 days of the designation, judicial review of that designation in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Only two organizations, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE of Sri Lanka) and the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, of Iran), have filed applications for judicial review. Both cases are currently before the court. The provision of the statute which bases the Court’s review on the administrative record in critically important to limiting the amount of discovery, particularly of classified information, which a designated foreign terrorist organization may obtain during the judicial review process. The statute also provides that the Court’s review of any classified material contained in the administrative record will be conducted ex parte and in camera. This protection was important to the success of the designation process because it was permitted before the inclusion of classified information in the administrative records of the 30 designated organizations. For each of the organizations, the Secretary had to rely heavily on classified information. Although the State Department often relies on finished intelligence in its decision-making process, it was the view of the Justice Department that, in reviewing an administrative record, a Court would want to understand more completely the underlying facts and analysis from which conclusions were drawn. For example, if a terrorist act was attributed to a particular organization, a Court would want to know the basis for that attribution. Without the protection of classified information from unwarranted disclosure, the Secretary would not have had the benefit of this information and analysis from the intelligence community to inform her decisions. In sum, despite the tremendous burden of preparing in advance the required administrative records, we believe the AEDPA to be a useful law. It can be improved. We are presently engaged in developing possible refinements to the current statute based on our overall experience during the implementation process and upon Treasury’s many years of experience in administering sanctions programs, such as the 1995 Executive order and sanctions regime against terrorists threatening the Middle East process. A number of suggestions for improvements are under internal discussion. Once we complete this interagency process, we would look forward—along with Justice, the FBI, and Treasury—to discuss possible improvements to AEDPA. Finally, regarding your question concerning the Irish Republican Army, last October, the Secretary took note of the July 19, 1997 announcement by the IRA of an unequivocal cease-fire, as well as the subsequent decision by the British Government that the cease-fire was genuine in word and deed, permitting Sinn Fein to join inclusive all-party talks in Belfast. The situation, especially during the past week, has become very fluid. We are monitoring it very closely.
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Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at Press Briefing with FBI Director Mueller, FBI Headquarters, September 27, 2001 … Today the Administration has sent to Congress another critically important piece of legislation to aid in the financial front that was developed before September 11. This legislation covers money laundering in a broad sense, but will also help us address the funds that may be flowing to and from terrorist organizations. The Money Laundering Act of 2001, like the other legislative changes we have asked Congress to enact, contains careful, considered provisions that will give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to identify, track down and neutralize international terrorist groups. – For example, the ability for terrorist organizations to finance the atrocities they commit in this country with money generated by crimes committed in other countries is critical to their success. This legislation would make it a crime to launder the proceeds of foreign crimes in the U.S. – One of the financing mechanisms used by terrorists is the smuggling of large amounts of cash into the country and the transportation of this cash throughout the United States. We would make it a crime to smuggle more than $10,000 in currency into or out of the country, or to transport more than $10,000 in interstate commerce with the intent to use the money to commit a criminal offense. – We are also asking for Congress to permit federal courts to restrain the assets of a criminal defendant such as a terrorist pending trial in order to prevent the transfer of his or her assets to others in the terrorist network.
Current law allows post-conviction forfeiture judgments. We believe it makes sense to allow the freezing of such assets earlier, before a terrorist has the opportunity to protect his assets by transferring them to others. These and other provisions in the legislation we have sent to Congress will aid law enforcement on the financial front of the war against terrorism launched by the President earlier this week. These same proposals were introduced in the House of Representatives in the last two congresses, and were passed by the House Subcommittee on Crime with enormous bipartisan support. Some of these proposals are also part of a bill already introduced by Senators Levin and Grassley. Now, this contribution to our ability to choke off the money supply to terrorist organizations is more needed than ever. SOURCE: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/doj_brief010.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see President George W. Bush, ‘‘FBI Needs Tools to Track Down Terrorists,’’ Remarks to Employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Headquarters, September 25, 2001 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2001/09/20010925-5.html).
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President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the PATRIOT Act, Antiterrorism Legislation, October 26, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: … Today, we take an essential step in defeating terrorism, while protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans. With my signature, this law will give intelligence and law enforcement officials important new tools to fight a present danger. … We’re dealing with terrorists who operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, some of which were not even available when our existing laws were written. The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike. For example, this legislation gives law enforcement officials better tools to put an end to financial counterfeiting, smuggling and money-laundering. Secondly, it gives intelligence operations and criminal operations the chance to operate not on separate tracks, but to share vital information so necessary to disrupt a terrorist attack before it occurs. As of today, we’re changing the laws governing information-sharing. And as importantly, we’re changing the culture of our various agencies that fight terrorism. Countering and investigating terrorist activity is the number one priority for both law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we’ll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology. Investigations are often slowed by limit on the reach of federal search warrants. Law enforcement agencies have to get a new warrant for each new district they investigate, even when they’re after the same suspect. Under this new law, warrants are valid across all districts and across all states. And, finally, the new legislation greatly enhances the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them. Current statutes deal more severely with drug-traffickers than with terrorists. That changes today. We are enacting new and harsh penalties for possession of biological weapons. We’re making it easier to seize the assets of groups and individuals involved in terrorism. The government will have wider latitude in deporting known terrorists and their supporters. The statute of limitations on terrorist acts will be lengthened, as will prison sentences for terrorists. This bill was carefully drafted and considered. … This bill met with an overwhelming—overwhelming agreement in Congress, because it upholds and respects the civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution. This legislation is essential not only to pursuing and punishing terrorists, but also preventing more atrocities in the hands of the evil ones. This government will enforce this law with all the urgency of a nation at war. The elected branches of our government, and both political parties, are united in our
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resolve to fight and stop and punish those who would do harm to the American people. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011026-5.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Summary of the bill: To deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act became Public Law No. 107-56 on October 26, 2001. For link to text, see http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/bdquery/z?d107:HR03162:@@@D&summ2¼1&.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.S. House of Representatives, Testimony Before the Committee on the Judiciary, June 5, 2003 The PATRIOT Act gave us the tools we needed to integrate our law enforcement and intelligence capabilities to win the war on terror. It allowed the Department of Justice to use the same tools from the criminal process on terrorists that we use to combat mobsters or drug dealers. We use these tools to gather intelligence and to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction within our country. We use these tools to connect the ‘‘dots.’’ We use these tools to save innocent lives. The ‘‘Buffalo Cell’’ case shows how the PATRIOT Act and the criminal process can drive intelligence gathering. There, we learned of information about individuals who allegedly trained in an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and lived in the United States. The Department used confidential informants to gather facts; we used subpoenas to collect travel information to track their movements; we deployed surveillance to record conversations; we used search warrants to locate weapons and jihad materials; and we used some of the best interrogators from the FBI to obtain critical admissions from some of the defendants. The Department also used one of the most effective tools at the government’s disposal—the leverage of criminal charges and long prison sentences. As is often the case with criminal defendants, when individuals realize that they face a long prison term like those under the PATRIOT Act, they will try to cut their prison time by pleading guilty and cooperating with the government. In fact, since September 11, we have obtained criminal plea agreements, many under seal, from more than 15 individuals, who must—and will continue to—cooperate with the government in its terrorist investigations. These individuals have provided critical intelligence about al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, safehouses, training camps, recruitment, and tactics in the U.S., and the operations of those terrorists who mean to do American citizens harm. One individual has given us intelligence on weapons stored here in the United States. Another cooperator has identified locations in the U.S. being scouted or cased for potential attacks by al Qaeda. With the PATRIOT Act and our prevention strategy, we can point to steady progress in America’s war against terrorism.
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We are targeting terrorists here at home, while developing detailed intelligence on terrorist threats: Hundreds of suspected terrorists have been identified and tracked throughout the U.S., with more than 18,000 subpoenas and search warrants issued; Our human sources of intelligence have doubled, as has the number of anti-terrorism investigations. In 2002, using Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tools, we targeted more than 1,000 international terrorists, spies and foreign powers, who threaten our country’s security. We requested 170 emergency FISAs. This is more than three-times the total number of emergency FISAs obtained in the 23 years prior to September 11. We are arresting and detaining potential terrorist threats: More than a dozen members of alleged terrorist cells in Buffalo, Seattle, Portland and Detroit, were arrested, along with more than 100 other individuals who were convicted or pled guilty to federal crimes as a result of our post-September 11 terrorism investigations; On Tuesday, we gained three convictions in the Detroit Cell case: two on terrorist conspiracy charges and the third on visa and document fraud charges; and We are shutting down the terrorist financial infrastructure: As a result of 70 investigations into terror’s money trail, more than $125 million in assets and over 600 accounts were frozen around the world. Despite the terrorist threat to America, there are some in Congress and across the country who suggest that we should not have a USA PATRIOT Act. Others, who supported the Act 20 months ago, now express doubts about the necessity of some of the Act’s components. Let me state this as clearly as possible. Our ability to prevent another catastrophic attack on American soil would be more difficult, if not impossible, without the PATRIOT Act. It has been the key weapon used across America in successful counter-terrorist operations to protect innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists. Unfortunately, the law has several weaknesses which terrorists could exploit, undermining our defenses. First, in pursuit of terrorist cells, current law makes it a crime to provide a terrorist organization with personnel or training. We must make it crystal clear that those who train for and fight with a designated terrorist organization can be charged under material support statutes. Second, existing law does not consistently encourage cooperation by providing adequate maximum penalties to punish acts of terrorism. Some terrorist acts resulting in the death of citizens do not provide for the death penalty or even life imprisonment. Third, terrorism offenses are not expressly included in the list of crimes that allow for pre-trial detention, even though it could prevent an attack. In criminal cases where public safety is of concern—such as drug dealing, organized crime, and gun crimes—defendants in federal cases are presumptively denied pretrial release. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/testimony/2003/060503aghouserema rks.htm
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Report from the Field: The USA PATRIOT Act at Work,’’ Prepared Remarks, July 13, 2004 (http://www. cdi.org/news/law/ashcroft-patriot-act-071304.cfm).
FBI Direct Robert S. Mueller, III, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 20, 2004 … I am pleased to be here today to update you on the FBI’s substantial progress in the counterterrorism and intelligence arenas since my last appearance before the Committee. I would also like to acknowledge that the progress the FBI has made in reforming our counterterrorism and intelligence programs is due in no small part to the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act. … The terrorist threat presents complex challenges. Terrorists move easily across international borders, use sophisticated technology to recruit, network, and communicate, and finance their operations with elaborate funding schemes.… … To defeat these threats, the FBI must have several critical capabilities: First, we must develop intelligence about terrorist activity and use that intelligence to disrupt their plans. Second, we must be global—we must work closely with our counterparts at home and abroad to develop and pool our collective knowledge and expertise. Third, we must use cutting-edge information technology to collect, analyze, manage, and share our information effectively. Most importantly, we must work within the framework of the Constitution, protecting our cherished civil liberties as we work to protect the American people. Today, I would like to give you a brief overview of the steps we have taken to put these critical capabilities in place by reforming our counterterrorism and intelligence programs, as well as overhauling our information technology. Before I begin, however, I would like to acknowledge that none of our successes would have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of our partners in state and municipal law enforcement and our counterparts around the world. The Muslim, Iraqi, and Arab-American communities have also contributed a great deal to the war on terror. On behalf of the FBI, I would like to thank these communities for their assistance and for their ongoing commitment to preventing acts of terrorism. The country owes them a debt of gratitude. Patriot Act Mr. Chairman, for over two and a half years, the PATRIOT Act has proved extraordinarily beneficial in the war on terrorism and has changed the way the FBI does business. Many of our counterterrorism successes, in fact, are the direct results of provisions included in the Act, a number of which are scheduled to ‘‘sunset’’ at the end of next year. I strongly believe it is vital to our national security to keep each of these provisions intact. Without them, the FBI could be forced back into pre-September 11 practices, attempting to fight the war on terrorism with one hand tied behind our backs.
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Let me give you just a few examples that illustrate the importance of the PATRIOT Act to our counterterrorism efforts: First and foremost, the PATRIOT Act—along with the revision of the Attorney General’s investigative guidelines and the 2002 decision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review—tore down the wall that stood between the intelligence investigators responding to terrorist threats and the criminal investigators responding to those same threats. ¥ Prior to September 11, an Agent investigating the intelligence side of a terrorism case was barred from discussing the case with an Agent across the hall who was working the criminal side of that same investigation. For instance, if a court-ordered criminal wiretap turned up intelligence information, the criminal investigator could not share that information with the intelligence investigator—he could not even suggest that the intelligence investigator should seek a wiretap to collect the information for himself. If the criminal investigator served a grand jury subpoena to a suspect’s bank, he could not divulge any information found in those bank records to the intelligence investigator. Instead, the intelligence investigator would have to issue a National Security Letter in order to procure that same information. ¥ The removal of the ‘‘wall’’ has allowed government investigators to share information freely. Now, criminal investigative information that contains foreign intelligence or counterintelligence, including grand jury and wiretap information, can be shared with intelligence officials. This increased ability to share information has disrupted terrorist operations in their early stages—such as the successful dismantling of the ‘‘Portland Seven’’ terror cell—and has led to numerous arrests, prosecutions, and convictions in terrorism cases. ¥ In essence, prior to September 11th, criminal and intelligence investigators were attempting to put together a complex jigsaw puzzle at separate tables. The Patriot Act has fundamentally changed the way we do business. Today, those investigators sit at the same table and work together on one team. They share leads … fuse information. Instead of conducting parallel investigations, … are fully integrated into one joint investigation. ¥ Because of the creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, and because the FBI has dramatically improved its information sharing with the CIA, the NSA, and a host of other federal, state, local and international partners, our resources are used more effectively, our investigations are conducted more efficiently, and America is immeasurably safer as a result. We cannot afford to go back to the days when Agents and prosecutors were afraid to share information.
Second, the PATRIOT Act gave federal judges the authority to issue search warrants that are valid outside the issuing judge’s district in terrorism investigations. In the past, a court could only issue a search warrant for premises within the same judicial district—yet our investigations of terrorist networks often span multiple districts.… In addition, the PATRIOT Act permits similar search warrants for electronic evidence such as email. In the past, for example, if an Agent in one district needed to obtain a search warrant for a subject’s email account, but the Internet service provider (ISP) was located in another district, he or she would have to contact an AUSA and Agent in the second district, brief them on the details of the investigation, and ask them to appear before a judge to obtain a
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search warrant—simply because the ISP was physically based in another district. Thanks to the PATRIOT Act, this frustrating and time-consuming process can be averted without reducing judicial oversight. Today, a judge anywhere in the U.S. can issue a search warrant for a subject’s email, no matter where the ISP is based. Third, the PATRIOT Act updated the law to match current technology, so that we no longer have to fight a 21st-century battle with antiquated weapons. Terrorists exploit modern technology such as the Internet and cell phones to conduct and conceal their activities. The PATRIOT Act leveled the playing field, allowing investigators to adapt to modern techniques. For example, the PATRIOT Act clarified our ability to use court-ordered pen registers and trap-and-trace devices to track Internet communications. The Act also enabled us to seek court-approved roving wiretaps, which allow investigators to conduct electronic surveillance on a particular suspect, not a particular telephone—this allows them to continuously monitor subjects without having to return to the court repeatedly for additional authorizations. This technique has long been used to investigate crimes such as drug trafficking and racketeering. … terrorism investigators must have access to the same tools. In a final example, the PATRIOT Act expanded our ability to pursue those who provide material support or resources to terrorist organizations. Terrorist networks rely on individuals for fund-raising, procurement of weapons and explosives, training, logistics, and recruiting. The material support statutes allow investigators to aggressively pursue and dismantle the entire terrorist network, from the financiers to those who carry out terrorist plans. By criminalizing the actions of those who provide, channel, or direct resources to terrorists, the material support statutes provide an effective tool to intervene at the earliest possible stage of terrorist planning. This allows the FBI to arrest terrorists and their supporters before their deadly plans can be carried out. For instance, the FBI investigated a case in … which a group of Lebanese nationals purchased mass quantities of cigarettes in North Carolina and shipped them to Michigan for resale. Their scheme was highly profitable due to the cigarette tax disparity between the two states. The proceeds of their smuggling were used to fund Hezbollah affiliates and operatives in Lebanon. Similarly, the FBI investigated a case in San Diego in which subjects allegedly negotiated with undercover law enforcement officials the sale of heroin and hashish in exchange for Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which they indicated were to be sold to Al Qaida. In both cases, the material support provisions allowed prosecutors to charge the subjects and secure guilty pleas and convictions. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, the importance of the PATRIOT Act as a valuable tool in the war against terrorism cannot be overstated. It is critical to our present and future success. By responsibly using the statutes provided by Congress, the FBI has made substantial progress in its ability to proactively investigate and prevent terrorism and protect innocent lives, while at the same time protecting civil liberties. SOURCE: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress04/mueller052004.htm
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President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing H.R. 4567, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2005, October 18, 2004 PRESIDENT BUSH: Today, I have signed into law H.R. 4567, the ‘‘Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2005.’’ The Act provides funds to protect the United States against terrorism and to carry out other departmental functions. Section 518 of the Act purports to direct the conduct of security and suitability investigations. To the extent that section 518 relates to access to classified national security information, the executive branch shall construe this provision in a manner consistent with the President’s exclusive constitutional authority, as head of the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief, to classify and control access to national security information and to determine whether an individual is suitable to occupy a position in the executive branch with access to such information. To the extent that section 522 of the Act purports to allow an agent of the legislative branch to prevent implementation of the law unless the legislative agent reports to the Congress that the executive branch has met certain conditions, the executive branch shall construe such section as advisory, in accordance with the constitutional principles enumerated in the Chadha decision. As is consistent with the text of the Act, the executive branch shall construe section 528 as relating to the integrity and supervision of the United States Secret Service only within the Department of Homeland Security. The executive branch therefore shall construe section 528 neither to affect the functions and supervision of personnel of the Secret Service assigned or detailed to duty outside the Department of Homeland Security nor to limit participation by the Secret Service in cooperative command and other arrangements with other governmental entities for the conduct of particular operations. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041018-7.html
President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, Washington, D.C., December 17, 2004 THE PRESIDENT: … In a few minutes, I will sign into law the most dramatic reform of our nation’s intelligence capabilities since President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947. Under this new law, our vast intelligence enterprise will become more unified, coordinated and effective. It will enable us to better do our duty, which is to protect the American people. Nearly six decades ago, our nation and our allies faced a new—the new world of the Cold War and the dangers of a new enemy. To defend the free world from an armed empire bent on conquest, visionary leaders created new institutions such as the NATO alliance.… President Truman also implemented
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a sweeping reorganization of the federal government. He established the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. America, in this new century, again faces new threats. Instead of massed armies, we face stateless networks; we face killers who hide in our own cities. We must confront deadly technologies.… … [W]e’re strengthening our homeland defenses. We created the Department of Homeland Security. We have made the prevention of terror attacks the highest priority of the Department of Justice and the FBI. We’ll continue to work with Congress to make sure they’ve got the resources necessary to do their jobs. We established the National Counterterrorism Center where all the available intelligence on terrorist threats is brought together in one place and where joint action against the terrorists is planned. We have strengthened the security of our nation’s borders and ports of entry and transportation systems. The bill I sign today continues the essential reorganization of our government. Those charged with protecting America must have the best possible intelligence information, and that information must be closely integrated to form the clearest possible picture of the threats to our country. A key lesson of September the 11th, 2001 is that America’s intelligence agencies must work together as a single, unified enterprise. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 creates the position of Director of National Intelligence, or DNI, to be appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. The Director will lead a unified intelligence community and will serve as the principal advisor to the President on intelligence matters. The DNI will have the authority to order the collection of new intelligence, to ensure the sharing of information among agencies and to establish common standards for the intelligence community’s personnel. It will be the DNI’s responsibility to determine the annual budgets for all national intelligence agencies and offices and to direct how these funds are spent. These authorities vested in a single official who reports directly to me will make all our intelligence efforts better coordinated, more efficient, and more effective. The Director of the CIA will report to the DNI. The CIA will retain its core of responsibilities for collecting human intelligence, analyzing intelligence from all sources, and supporting American interests abroad at the direction of the President. The new law will preserve the existing chain of command and leave all our intelligence agencies, organizations, and offices in their current departments. Our military commanders will continue to have quick access to the intelligence they need to achieve victory on the battlefield. And the law supports our efforts to ensure greater information sharing among federal departments and agencies, and also with appropriate state and local authorities. The many reforms in this act have a single goal: to ensure that the people in government responsible for defending America have the best possible information to make the best possible decisions. The men and women of our intelligence community give America their very best every day, and in return we owe them our full support. As we continue to reform and strengthen the
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intelligence community, we will do all that is necessary to defend its people and the nation we serve. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/12/20041217-1.html EDITOR’S NOTE: See summary of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:4:./temp/~c108Xm Y96P); also see additional text display (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get doc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ458.108).
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Address to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference, Washington, D.C., March 7, 2005 In a few weeks, we will begin here a serious discussion with implications for our Nation’s future, as Congress faces the opportunity to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act. In this dialogue, our goal remains what it was three-and-a-half years ago when the Administration and Congress worked together to pass this law: to give law enforcement the tools they need to keep America safe, while honoring our values and our Constitution. This debate has considerable importance for county officials across our Nation. Whether we, as public servants, serve in Federal, state, or county government, our most fundamental obligation is to protect the people we serve. Simply put, without security, government cannot deliver, nor can the people enjoy, the prosperity and opportunities that flow from freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, certain provisions of this law have attracted some adverse attention. Some local officials have focused only on the investigative tools of the Act without considering the built-in safeguards that protect our liberties. I suspect this has motivated some counties and cities to pass resolutions against the PATRIOT Act. For the past three years, U.S. Attorneys have been available to speak before county and city council meetings about the constitutional protections in and the importance of the PATRIOT Act. I have been told that, in a few cities, U.S. Attorneys’ efforts to be heard have been refused. If true, I am concerned that some local officials have cast votes relating to the PATRIOT Act based on misinformation or a lack of information. In my capacity as White House Counsel and now as Attorney General, I have met and heard from many of the men and women winning the war on terror for our Nation. They tell me that the PATRIOT Act is very important in our law enforcement and intelligence efforts. They tell me that without this law, many of our most important successes would not have been possible. The PATRIOT Act has addressed critical vulnerabilities in America’s pre-September 11th defenses. First, it lowered the artificial and unwise bureaucratic wall that had prevented law enforcement and the intelligence community from sharing information about terrorist movements and plots.
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Second, these are tools, such as ‘‘multipoint wiretaps,’’ which have proven themselves time and again in the fight against drug smugglers, mobsters, and other criminals. They have long been sanctioned by our courts, but were not available for national security investigations until the PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately, a small but vocal minority has attempted to mischaracterize the PATRIOT Act. The critics have dealt in conjecture and hypotheticals. We can point to solid results, saved lives, and a Nation that is safer. For more than three years, there has not been one verified civil rights abuse under the PATRIOT Act. As Senator Dianne Feinstein has stated, quote, ‘‘I have never had a single abuse of the PATRIOT Act reported to me. My staff e-mailed the ACLU and asked them for instances of actual abuses. They e-mailed back and said they had none.’’ I want to encourage you to come forward if you or your constituents have ever experienced an abuse under the PATRIOT Act. If there are violations, I want to know about them. But the Act has helped us considerably in the war on terror. Thanks to this law, America’s law enforcement and the intelligence communities were able to work together to break up the ‘‘Portland Seven’’ terrorist cell. Members of this terrorist cell had attempted to travel to Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 to fight with the Taliban and Al Qaeda against the United States. Because law enforcement was allowed to conduct surveillance on one member of the cell, agents and officers knew they could prevent an attack as well as continue to gather evidence against other operatives in the terror cell. Some commentators have claimed that the PATRIOT Act violates personal Internet privacy. But the law allows Internet Service Providers to aid law enforcement voluntarily, and only in emergency situations. Such voluntary cooperation allows for businesses to protect consumer information as well as allow for swift action when lives are on the line. Some critics have claimed that the PATRIOT Act endangers our civil liberties. Let me be clear that I think we should be free-and we are free-to question the exercise of government power when we believe it may infringe on our privacy or our civil liberties. Such debate is good and healthy for our democracy. But debate should be based on facts. In 2004, the Patriot Act was used to protect the lives and liberties of members of the El Paso Islamic Center. Thirty-year-old Jared Bjarnason sent an email message threatening to burn the mosque to the ground if hostages in Iraq were not freed within three days. Acting quickly, FBI agents used a provision of the PATRIOT Act to identify Bjarnason as the source of the threat. Without this tool, law enforcement would have had to obtain a separate search warrant from each service provider through which the email traveled. In the case of Bjarnason, such a string of search warrants could have taken 30 days-far beyond his threatened deadline. Bjarnason was found, arrested, and has pleaded guilty. As these examples show, the PATRIOT Act protects civil liberties as well as American lives. What is often left out of the critic’s accusations are the many safeguards built into the law itself. The PATRIOT Act requires judicial approval for delayed-notification search warrants.…
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The PATRIOT Act requires investigators to apply and receive federal court permission to obtain a pen register or trap-and-trace device-which simply provide investigators with routing information, such as incoming and outgoing phone numbers from a phone. There is no collection of the content of the communication under the Act. The PATRIOT Act requires investigators to obtain a court order to examine business records in the course of a national security investigation or to protect against international terrorism. Such court orders may not be obtained to investigate ordinary crimes, or even for domestic terrorism. The PATRIOT Act allows individuals recourse if they believe their rights are abused. In addition, the Justice Department’s Inspector General is required by law to designate one official to review information and complaints alleging the abuse or violation of civil liberties by Justice officials. Finally, the PATRIOT Act requires me, every six months, to report to the House Judiciary Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee the number of applications made for orders requiring the production of business records under the PATRIOT Act. As these examples illustrate, the PATRIOT Act not only fully respects the rights and liberties of America, but the law contains built-in safeguards that ensure the protection of our rights. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2005/03072005_naco.htm
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on Legislation, September 16, 2006 As we work with the international community to defeat the terrorists and extremists, we must also provide our military and intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep our country safe. Congress is considering two vital pieces of legislation to help us do just that. My Administration is working closely with members of both parties to pass these bills. The first bill would allow us to use military commissions to try suspected terrorists for war crimes. We need this legislation because the Supreme Court has ruled that military commissions must be explicitly authorized by Congress. I recently announced that 14 suspected terrorists, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay. As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence agencies believe helped orchestrate the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September the 11th, 2001, can face justice. This bill will also provide clear rules for our personnel involved in detaining and questioning captured terrorists. The information the Central Intelligence Agency has obtained by questioning men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has helped disrupt terrorist plots, including planned strikes inside the United States and on a U.S. Marine base in East Africa, an American consulate in Pakistan, and Britain’s Heathrow Airport. This CIA program has saved American lives, and the lives of people in other countries.
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Unfortunately, the recent Supreme Court decision put the future of this program in question, and we need this legislation to save it. There is debate about the specific proposals in this bill, and my Administration will work with Congress to find common ground. I have one test for this legislation: The intelligence community must be able to tell me that the bill Congress sends to my desk will allow this vital program to continue. The second bill before Congress would modernize our electronic surveillance laws and provide additional authority for the terrorist surveillance program. I authorized the National Security Agency to operate this vital program in response to the 9/11 attacks. It allows us to quickly monitor terrorist communications between someone overseas and someone in America. It has helped detect and prevent terrorist attacks on our own country. The principle behind this program is clear: When al Qaeda operatives are calling into or out of our country, we need to know who they are calling, why they are calling, and what they are planning. Both these bills are essential to winning the war on terror. So we will work with legislators from both sides of the aisle to get them passed. By passing these critical bills, we will bring terrorists to justice, continue collecting vital intelligence from captured terrorists in a lawful way, and monitor terrorist communications, so we can stop new attacks on our nation. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060916.html
President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing the SAFE Port Act, Eisenhower Executive Office Building, October 13, 2006 The most solemn responsibility of the federal government is to protect the American people. And since September the 11th, the administration and the Congress have worked together and we’ve led an unprecedented effort to safeguard our homeland. In other words, we learned the lessons of that attack. We’ve more than tripled spending on homeland security. We’ve created a federal Department of Homeland Security with a single mission: to protect the American people. We’ve trained and equipped hundreds of thousands of state and local first responders. We’ve worked with public agencies and private companies to improve security at airports and aboard commercial airliners. We’ve strengthened protections at bridges and tunnels and other critical infrastructure. We have a responsibility to protect the homeland and we’re meeting that responsibility. Protecting our homeland requires protecting our borders. Since I took office we more than doubled funding for border security, from $4.6 billion in 2001 to $9.5 billion in 2006. We’ve increased the number of Border Patrol agents, from around 9,000 to a little more than 12,000. We’ve upgraded technology and infrastructure along the border. We’ve apprehended and sent home more than 6 million people entering America illegally. This is important progress, but we’ve got a lot more work to do. Last week in Arizona, I signed a bill that will allow us to hire 1,500 more Border Patrol agents, deploy advanced technology like ground-based radar and infrared cameras, add beds in our detention facilities so we can work to
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end catch and release. Congress also passed a bill that will authorize the construction of about 700 miles of double-layered fencing along our Southern border. I’m going to sign that bill into law. I’ll continue to work with Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform that protects our country, enforces our laws, and upholds our values. Protecting our homeland also requires protecting our seaports. Our seaports are a gateway to commerce, a source of opportunity, and a provider of jobs. Our ports could also be a target of a terrorist attack, and we’re determined to protect them. Since September the 11th, we’ve launched a series of new efforts to improve port security. We worked with Congress to pass the Maritime Transportation Security Act, which required American ports and vessels to adopt strict new security measures. We made wider use of intelligence to screen cargo and target suspicious containers for inspection. We worked with foreign partners to improve their security procedures. And with the bill I sign today, we renew a clear commitment: We will work tirelessly to keep our nation safe and our ports open for business. The SAFE Port Act will build on progress and help us protect our ports in three key ways. First, the SAFE Port Act will strengthen physical security measures at our ports by helping us harness the power of technology. The bill authorizes the development of 21st century inspection equipment, so that Customs agents can check inside cargo containers for dangerous materials without having to open them. The bill also requires radiation detection technology at our 22 busiest ports by the end of next year. America has the best technology in the world, and with this bill we will apply that technology to make our ports the safest in the world. Second, the SAFE Port Act provides legislative authority for key elements of our port security strategy. The bill codifies into law the Container Security Initiative, which we launched in 2002. Through this initiative, we have deployed American inspectors to dozens of foreign ports on five continents where they are screening cargo before it leaves for our country. The bill also codifies into law the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, a joint effort between the public and private sectors to improve cargo security. Under this partnership, private shippers agree to improve their own security measures, and in return, they can receive benefits including expedited clearance through our ports. And the bill provides additional authority for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which we established to guard against the threat of terrorists smuggling a nuclear device into our country. … Finally, the SAFE Port Act requires the Department of Homeland Security to establish a plan to speed the resumption of trade in the event of a terrorist attack on our ports or waterways. This bill makes clear that the federal government has the authority to clear waterways, identify cleanup equipment, and reestablish the flow of commerce following a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent an attack, but if the terrorists succeed in launching an attack, we’ll be ready to respond. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061013-2.html
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President George W. Bush, Statement on Signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, The East Room, The White House, October 17, 2006 The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the war on terror. This bill will allow the Central Intelligence Agency to continue its program for questioning key terrorist leaders and operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man believed to be the mastermind of the September the 11th, 2001 attacks.… This program has been one of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history. It has helped prevent attacks on our country. And the bill I sign today will ensure that we can continue using this vital tool to protect the American people for years to come. The Military Commissions Act will also allow us to prosecute captured terrorists for war crimes through a full and fair trial. When I proposed this legislation, I explained that I would have one test for the bill Congress produced: Will it allow the CIA program to continue? This bill meets that test. It allows for the clarity our intelligence professionals need to continue questioning terrorists and saving lives. This bill provides legal protections that ensure our military and intelligence personnel will not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists simply for doing their jobs. This bill spells out specific, recognizable offenses that would be considered crimes in the handling of detainees so that our men and women who question captured terrorists can perform their duties to the fullest extent of the law. And this bill complies with both the spirit and the letter of our international obligations. As I’ve said before, the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values. By allowing the CIA program to go forward, this bill is preserving a tool that has saved American lives. The CIA program helped us gain vital intelligence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two of the men believed to have helped plan and facilitate the 9/11 attacks. The CIA program helped break up a cell of 17 southeastern Asian terrorist operatives who were being groomed for attacks inside the United States. The CIA program helped us uncover key operatives in al Qaeda’s biological weapons program, including a cell developing anthrax to be used in terrorist attacks. The CIA program helped us identify terrorists who were sent to case targets inside the United States, including financial buildings in major cities on the East Coast. And the CIA program helped us stop the planned strike on U.S. Marines in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, and a plot to hijack airplanes and fly them into Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London. Altogether, information from terrorists in CIA custody has played a role in the capture or questioning of nearly every senior al Qaeda member or associate detained by the United States and its allies since this program began. Put simply, this program has been one of the most vital tools in our war against the terrorists. It’s been invaluable both to America and our allies. Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American
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homeland. By allowing our intelligence professionals to continue this vital program, this bill will save American lives. And I look forward to signing it into law. The bill I’m about to sign also provides a way to deliver justice to the terrorists we have captured. In the months after 9/11, I authorized a system of military commissions to try foreign terrorists accused of war crimes. These commissions were similar to those used for trying enemy combatants in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War and World War II. Yet the legality of the system I established was challenged in the court, and the Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress. And so I asked Congress for that authority, and they have provided it. With the Military Commission Act, the legislative and executive branches have agreed on a system that meets our national security needs. These military commissions will provide a fair trial, in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them. These military commissions are lawful, they are fair, and they are necessary. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061017-1.html
John B. Bellinger III, State Department Legal Advisor, The Military Commission Act of 2006, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., October 19, 2006 MR. BELLINGER: … Tuesday … as you know, the President did sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006. … The Supreme Court had concluded in the Hamdan decision that the President could hold military commissions, but that he had not set them up the right way, that he needed legislation to do it. And so he went and sought the legislation at the beginning of September and Congress has now passed a framework, a legislative framework that authorizes and creates the structure for military commissions to go forward. And in a minute I’ll just go through a couple of the features with respect to the most common questions that come up. In addition, the Military Commissions Act clarifies the law that is applicable to the treatment and detention of detainees after the Supreme Court’s conclusion in the Hamdan case, that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies. As you know, prior to the Hamdan decision, the President had concluded that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not apply to the conflict with al-Qaida because Common Article 3 says it applies only in cases of armed conflict not of an international nature. And the longstanding view then that that applies to civil wars internal armed conflicts and since the conflict with al-Qaida is clearly taking place all over the world, in many different nations, it had been the President’s conclusion that it was a conflict of an international character. The Supreme Court concluded nonetheless that this was a conflict not of an international character, because it wasn’t between nations, but between one nation and a terrorist group and therefore that Common Article 3 did apply.
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Because the terms in Common Article 3 are vague, the Military Commission legislation clarifies exactly what our requirements are. We were not reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. We were providing clear guidance to those individuals in the U.S. Government, in our military, in our intelligence agencies as to what the terms in Common Article 3 require and it did that in three ways: One, it sets forth nine different criminal offenses so if anyone commits any of those nine actions which include torture, inhumane treatment, rape, medical experimentation, taking of hostages, kidnapping, any of those things commit a federal crime that can be prosecuted. The second, it also prohibits as a violation of Common Article 3, but not criminal, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. That’s essentially a repeat of the standard that had been passed in the Detainee Treatment Act in December of 2005 and it repeats that this is part of what is prohibited by Common Article 3. In addition to the extent that there’s still not clarity as to what is prohibited by Common Article 3, but with respect to those things that are criminalized or is with respect to conduct that is cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the President is authorized to issue additional interpretations that would be published in the Federal Register and those would be the definitive interpretations of the United States. … The military commission legislation addresses all of the concerns that were raised by the Supreme Court and I would say incidentally I think it also fully addresses all of the concerns that the U.S. Government and the State Department have heard over the years with respect to the military commissions as they had originally been set up by the President by Executive Order. They provide full and fair trials that are very similar to all of the protections that we have, both in our federal criminal trials and in our court martials. Just a couple of points here.… [H]aving just returned from Europe, I sense that around the world there is a generalized concern about trying people in military commissions at all. Part of that is that there is in many parts of the world, particularly in Europe, there just simply is not a military justice system. The United States has had a very long and honorable and robust system of military justice that’s parallel to our domestic criminal justice system. This is not something that’s new or made up, it’s gone on for decades and decades with independent judges, independent statutes, a whole functioning system of military justice that we dispense justice to our own soldiers every day and in wars to people who commit criminal offenses. With respect to the two or three most common criticisms that I have heard in the past and that I continue to hear, let me address those. One, the accused under the new Military Commission legislation has the right to be present at all times during the trial. He may not be excluded from hearing any of the evidence against him. In addition, if there is exculpatory evidence, that’s evidence that might tend to show that he’s innocent of the crime, whether that evidence is used in any way the government is required to turn it over to him. But let me be clear, the accused will be present at all times during the trial to hear the evidence against him. You may have heard something about secret evidence. There is no secret evidence. The only thing that the government is not required to turn over is
Legislation
903
evidence that may—or information that is in the government’s files about the individual. But if it’s not used against the accused, they don’t have to turn it over. So the government is not required essentially to turn over its file drawers about every bit of information it knows about the accused. Second, the accused has the right to counsel. He will be assigned a military counsel who—you have seen the zealous advocacy of the counsel who have been assigned in the trials already. They also have the right to civilian counsel and they can retain their own civilian counsel. And then finally, the last concern that I hear most frequently is this allegation that coerced evidence can be used against the accused. So let me be clear about this—one, evidence that is derived from torture may not be admitted period. No evidence derived from torture may be introduced against the accused. There’s a treaty obligation under the Convention Against Torture that we may not do that and we won’t do it and it’s in the military commission statute. In addition, if the accused alleges that a statement was derived from coercion than it may not be admitted. The presumption is it may not be admitted unless the judge having heard the totality of the factors determines that it was reliable, that it was—it would be in the interest of justice and fairness to introduce that information. If it’s a statement taken after the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005, than there’s an even higher standard, in addition the judge has to determine that the taking of the statement did not violate the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. So that law could not have been violated. Now, I’m always asked, well, but that must mean that before December of 2005 a statement derived from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment could be admitted. Not necessarily at all. The judge will look at the totality of the circumstances and will determine if there was cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. And if he determines that it’s not in the interest of justice to introduce the information, it would not be admitted. So last point, why is there not simply a prohibition on a statement based on coercion? This is exactly the same way it is done in our federal criminal courts. There is in U.S. criminal law no flat prohibition on a statement being introduced derived from coercion. In our federal criminal courts, if a defendant raises a concern about his treatment, the judge will listen to what happened and make a determination as to whether the coercion that allegedly occurred would be contrary to our Constitution. So with that, that’s an outline of the Military Commissions Act.… Let me make one more point because I know you will ask me this. What about the CIA program? The act itself does not specifically address the CIA program, which the President said on September 6th would continue as a way to question senior members of al-Qaida, who we may detain in the future. What the Military Commissions Act does is it now makes clear what the legal standard is for the treatment and detention of those individuals. No program will go forward, though, until it has been briefed to our Congress, to our Oversight Committees, who will then determine whether the proposed program, one, has to be consistent with the law that the Congress has just enacted and that Congress is comfortable as a matter of policy with that program.
904
Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy
So at this point we have a new law that clarifies the legal standard, but for a new CIA program to go forward, the Executive Branch will consult with Congress going forward. Q. If you do have a future CIA secret prison system, will you give the ICRC access to detainees? If not, why not? MR. BELLINGER: No determination has been made on that going forward. We do not think that we are required to give the ICRC access. Under the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC is required to have access to individuals who qualify as prisoners of war under the third Geneva Convention or as protected persons under the fourth Geneva Convention. So we’re not required to provide the ICRC access. In fact, in the fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to protected persons, civilians who are not normal soldiers, Article 5 of the fourth Geneva Convention specifically states, and this was in 1949, that certain categories of individuals who pose a threat to the security of the detaining power, specifically spies or saboteurs, shall be deemed to have forfeited their rights of communication. So it’s interesting that even in 1949 the framers of the Geneva Convention, who probably could not conceive that there would be large armies of a group like al-Qaida who would be able to attack a country with the ferocity of a nation, nonetheless that there were categories of people like spies or saboteurs who the framers of the Geneva Convention said would not have outside access. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/74786.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See Department of Defense Directive on Detainee Operations, the Release of the Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collection and an Update on Military Commissions, Cully Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs; Brigadier General Thomas L. Hemingway, Legal Adviser to the Appointing Authority, Office Military Commissions; Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence; and Sandra Hodgkinson, Department of State Deputy Director, Office of War Crimes Issues, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., September 7, 2006 (http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/71958.htm).
E VOLUTION OF U.S. C OUNTERTERRORISM P OLICY
PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD Board Cochairs Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (U.S.A.) Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews (U.K.) Members Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (U.S.A.) Th´er`ese Delpech, Director of Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission, and Senior Research Fellow, CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques), Paris (France) Sir Michael Howard, former Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regis Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University (U.K.) Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army (U.S.A.) Paul M. Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University (U.S.A.) Robert J. O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls College, Oxford University (Australia) Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland (U.S.A.) Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International (U.S.A.)
E VOLUTION OF U.S. C OUNTERTERRORISM P OLICY VOLUME 3
Edited by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft Foreword by Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evolution of U.S. counterterrorism policy / compiled by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-275-99529-4 (set : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-275-99531-7 (vol 1 : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-275-99533-1 (vol 2 : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-313-34692-7 (vol 3 : alk. paper) 1. Terrorism—United States—History. 2. Terrorism—Prevention— United States—History. 3. Terrorism—Prevention—Government policy— United States—History. 4. Civil defense—United States. 5. National security—United States. I. Title: Evolution of United States counterterrorism policy. II. Alexander, Yonah. III. Kraft, Michael, 1937– HV6432.E86 2008 363.3250 170973—dc22 2007028388 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. C 2008 by Yonah Alexander and Michael B. Kraft Copyright
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007028388 ISBN: 978-0-275-99529-4 (set) 978-0-275-99531-7 (vol. 1) 978-0-275-99533-1 (vol. 2) 978-0-313-34692-7 (vol. 3) First published in 2008 Praeger Security International, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Volume 3 Contents Foreword by Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan Preface
xxi xxiii
PART THREE: COUNTERTERRORISM BY TOPICS AND ISSUES (Continued from Volume 2) 21. Law Enforcement: FBI
905
Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Transcript of Media Availability with State and Local Law Enforcement Officials, Department of Justice Conference Room, October 4, 2001
906
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General Thompson, Remarks on the Reorganization and Mobilization of the Nation’s Justice and Law Enforcement Resources, November 8, 2001
908
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Attorney General Guidelines, May 30, 2002
911
Dale L. Watson, Executive Assistant Director of Counterterrorism, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, Statement for the Record Before the Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, September 26, 2002
913
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 17, 2002
917
Attorney General John Ashcroft, News Conference Transcript Regarding the Decision on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, November 18, 2002
920
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘The War Against Terrorism: Working Together to Protect America,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, March 4, 2003
923
John S. Pistole, Deputy Assistant Director, FBI Counterterrorism Division, ‘‘Diplomacy and the War Against Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 18, 2003
927
vi
Contents FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘Combating Global Terrorism and Crime,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., February 17, 2004
929
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the Holy Land Foundation Indictment, July 27, 2004
933
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Remarks at the Announcement of the National Security Division at the Department of Justice, March 13, 2006
936
John Miller, Assistant Director, Office of Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘‘FBI Work with Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, Criminal Investigation, and Cyber Crime,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., June 5, 2006
936
President George W. Bush, Statement on Zacarias Moussaoui Jury Sentence, May 3, 2006
945
White House Statement on the Terrorist Surveillance Program Court Case, The White House, August 17, 2006
946
22. Financial
947
President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, ‘‘President Freezes Terrorists’ Assets,’’ Remarks on Executive Order, September 24, 2001
948
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Financial Action Task Force, October 29, 2001
953
President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Department of Justice Shuts Down Several Financial Networks Exploited by Terrorist Groups, November 7, 2001
955
President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘U.S. Government Freezes Holy Land Foundation Funds,’’ News Conference, The White House, December 4, 2001 958 Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, ‘‘Narco-Terror: The Worldwide Connection Between Drugs and Terror,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, March 13, 2002 960 Celina B. Realuyo, Policy Advisor, Counterterrorism Office, ‘‘Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Remarks to Western Union International Compliance Conference, New York, New York, September 18, 2002
965
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘The Work of the Terrorism Financial Group,’’ Remarks Before the House Committee on Financial Services, September 19, 2002
970
Alan P. Larson, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, ‘‘The International Dimension of Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Financial Committee, October 9, 2002
974
Contents
vii
Juan C. Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Executive Office, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 18, 2003
980
R. Richard Newcomb, Director, Office of Foreign Assets Control, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Statement Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Hearings on Terrorism Financing: Origination, Organization, and Prevention, July 31, 2003
989
E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘U.S. Interagency Efforts to Combat Terrorist Financing,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Banking Committee, Washington, D.C., September 25, 2003
999
Gary M. Bald, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, Statement Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 5, 2004 1002 Juan Zarate, Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing, and William Fox, Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), U.S. Department of Treasury, ‘‘U.S. Efforts in the Financial War on Terrorism,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., August 24, 2004
1005
E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘The State Department Role in Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, April 4, 2006
1009
Gerald M. Feierstein, Deputy Coordinator for Programs and Plans, ‘‘Counterterrorism Financing Foreign Training and Assistance: Progress Since 9/11,’’ Testimony Before the House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, April 6, 2006
1025
23. Homeland Security
1035
Attorney General Janet Reno, Conference on Critical Infrastructure Protection, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, February 27, 1998
1036
Attorney General Janet Reno, Remarks to Firefighters, April 30, 1998
1039
Attorney General Janet Reno, Press Conference on First Responders, October 16, 1998
1041
Attorney General Janet Reno, States’ Terrorism Policy Summit, Williamsburg, Virginia, February 2, 1999
1042
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the Domestic Preparedness Program Grant, Dayton, Ohio, August 17, 2001
1044
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Press Briefing Following U.S. Military Action in Afghanistan, October 8, 2001
1045
President George W. Bush, Governor Tom Ridge Sworn-In to Lead Homeland Security, The White House, October 8, 2001
1046
Attorney General John Ashcroft and INS Commissioner Ziglar, Announcement of INS Restructuring Plan, November 14, 2001
1049
viii
Contents Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the U.S. Border PatrolNative American Border Security Conference, January 17, 2002
1050
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks to the National Emergency Management Association, February 25, 2002
1051
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, June 6, 2002
1052
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Testimony from the Hearing on the Nature of the Terrorist Threat Before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, July 11, 2002
1054
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Testimony from the Hearing on the Nature of the Terrorist Threat Before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, July 11, 2002
1055
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks on the Implementation of NSEERS, Niagara Falls, New York, November 7, 2002
1061
President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the 2002 Homeland Security Act, The Roosevelt Room, November 25, 2002
1062
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Press Conference: Threat Condition Designation Elevated to High Risk, February 7, 2003
1063
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on British Airline Bombing Plot, August 12, 2006
1065
President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, Scottsdale, Arizona, October 4, 2006
1066
President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the Secure Fence Act, Washington, D.C., October 26, 2006
1067
24. Hostages
1069
President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation Concerning the Iran-Contra Affair, March 4, 1987
1070
Negotiations and No Concessions Policy, Excerpts from U.S. Government Statements, 1985–91
1073
U.S. Department of State, Fact Sheet: International Terrorism-American Hostages, Bureau of Public Affairs, October 17, 1995
1076
Richard Boucher, Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, International Terrorism: American Hostages (U.S. Policy Toward), Press Statement, Washington, D.C., February 20, 2002
1078
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, ‘‘Civilized World Must Stand Against Terror Tactics,’’ Interview with Tokyo Broadcasting System International, April 15, 2004
1079
Sean McCormack, Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, D.C., September 8, 2006
1080
Contents 25. Counterterrorism Programs
ix 1083
President George W. Bush, Remarks to Airline Employees, O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois, September 27, 2001
1084
President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Attorney General Announcement, Most Wanted List, FBI Headquarters, October 10, 2001
1085
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Announces the Appointment of the Special Master to Administer the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, November 26, 2001
1087
President George W. Bush, ‘‘Anti-Terrorism Technology Key to Homeland Security,’’ Remarks at Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, July 22, 2002
1087
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Diplomacy and the War Against Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., March 18, 2003
1089
Michael A. Jakub, Director for Technical Programs, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to National Security Subcommittee, Committee on Government Reform, National Combating Terrorism Research and Development Program, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2003
1096
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Foreign Assistance and International Terrorism, April 21, 2004
1100
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Technologies for Public Safety in Critical Incident Response Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 27, 2004
1105
William P. Pope, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Eliminating Terrorist Sanctuaries: The Role of Security Assistance,’’ The House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, March 10, 2005
1107
Dr. Philip D. Zelikow, Counselor, U.S. Department of State, ‘‘Reviewing the State Department’s Annual Report on Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the House Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2005
1114
John O. Brennan, Interim Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Statement for the Record Before the House International Relations Committee, May 12, 2005
1116
Department of Defense Counterterrorism Programs
1119
Major General Stanley A. McChrystal, Vice Director for Operations, J-3, Joint Staff, Department of Defense, Coalition Targeting Procedures, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2003
1119
x
Contents Rear Admiral Hamlin B. Tallent, U.S. Navy, Director, European Plans and Operations Center, United States European Command, ‘‘Security Assistance in Eliminating Terrorist Sanctuaries,’’ Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, March 10, 2005 1121 Brigadier General Mark T. Kimmitt, Deputy Director, Plans and Strategy, J-5, U.S. Central Command, ‘‘The Long Global War Against Violent Extremism, Current Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and NATO Issues,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., February 21, 2006 1126 The Honorable Thomas W. O’Connell, Assistant Secretary of Defense, ‘‘The Role of Special Forces in Countering Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, April 5, 2006
26. International Cooperation
1129
1133
Europe
1135
Ambassador Robert H. Frowick, U.S. Delegation, Plenary Session, ‘‘The Struggle Against International Terrorism: Greater Cooperation Is Needed,’’ March 13, 1987
1135
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Cooperation with the United Kingdom,’’ Transcript of News Conference with U.S. Ambassador William S. Farish, London, England, December 12, 2001
1138
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference with German Interior Minister Otto Schily, Berlin, Germany, December 14, 2001
1140
Mark Wong, Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Counterterrorism Efforts and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,’’ Remarks Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Washington, D.C., May 8, 2002 1141 Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the Meeting in Belgium, September 16, 2002
1144
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Keynote Address to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Annual Security Review Conference on ‘‘Preventing and Combating Terrorism,’’ Vienna, Austria, June 25, 2003
1146
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks for the EU/U.S. Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties Signing Ceremonies, June 25, 2003
1149
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘European Cooperation with the United States in the Global War on Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on European Affairs, Washington, D.C., March 31, 2004
1149
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of the G-8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial Press Conference, Washington, D.C., May 11, 2004
1152
Contents
xi
President George W. Bush Condemns Terrorism in Russia, Remarks to the Press Pool, Russian Embassy, Washington, D.C., September 12, 2004
1154
William P. Pope, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘European Cooperation with the United States in the Global War on Terrorism,’’ Remarks to the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Europe and on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2004
1154
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Remarks at the European Policy Centre, Office of the Press Secretary, Brussels, Belgium, January 13, 2005 1158 R. Nicholas Burns, Undersecretary for Political Affairs, and Sergey Kislyak, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Osobnyak, Remarks Following Meeting of U.S.-Russia Counterterrorism Working Group, Moscow, Russia, December 2, 2005
1162
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, Hearing on Islamic Extremism in Europe, Washington, D.C., April 5, 2006
1163
Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, Hearing on Islamic Extremism in Europe, April 5, 2006
1167
President George W. Bush and Russian Federation President V.V. Putin, Joint Statement Announcing the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, July 15, 2006
1177
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S.-German Counterterrorism Efforts, Remarks to German Ambassadors, German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Berlin, Germany, September 6, 2006
1178
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and European Union Officials, Transcript of Press Conference on Agreement to Improve Efforts to Fight International Crime, Washington, D.C., November 7, 2006
1181
Middle East
1183
Statement by the Press Secretary, President Condemns Assassination of Israeli Cabinet Minister, October 17, 2001
1183
William J. Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, ‘‘Challenges in the Middle East,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, Washington, D.C., June 18, 2002
1183
President George W. Bush, Vow to Bring Terrorists to Justice, Remarks upon Departure for Camp David, The South Lawn, May 16, 2003 1185 Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Syria and Terrorism, Washington, D.C., October 30, 2003
1186
xii
Contents William J. Burns, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Human Rights, and the Future of U.S.-Libyan Relations, Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, March 10, 2004
1188
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Saudi Arabia and the Fight Against Terrorist Financing, Testimony Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004 1190 President George W. Bush, Call for New Palestinian Leadership, June 14, 2004
1193
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Security in the Middle East: New Challenges for NATO and EU, Press Conference at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, February 12, 2005
1195
President George W. Bush and King Abdullah of Jordan Discuss Middle East Peace Trade, The White House, March 15, 2005
1197
President George W. Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Joint Statement, Crawford, Texas, April 25, 2005
1198
President George W. Bush Welcomes Palestinian President Abbas to the White House, The Rose Garden, May 26, 2005
1199
President George W. Bush Condemns Terrorist Attacks in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt, The White House, July 23, 2005
1201
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview with Alia Toukan of Jordan TV, Amman, Jordan, November 14, 2005
1201
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Diplomatic Relations with Libya, Washington, D.C., May 15, 2006
1202
C. David Welch, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, Issues Related to U.S. Relations with Libya, On-the-Record State Department Briefing, Washington, D.C., May 15, 2006 1203 President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Merkel, Press Conference, Town Hall, Stralsund, Germany, July 13, 2006
1208
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, Press Briefing, Heiligendamm, Germany, July 13, 2006
1209
President George W. Bush, Remarks at Meeting with Bipartisan Members of Congress on the G-8 Summit, The Cabinet Room, July 18, 2006
1210
Philip Zelikow, Counselor of the Department to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Strategies for the Multifront War Against Radical Islamists: Building Security in the Broader Middle East, Washington, D.C., September 15, 2006
1212
Contents
xiii
Frank C. Urbancic, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Hezbollah’s Global Reach,’’ Testimony Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, and Subcommittee on Middle East and Central Asia, Washington, D.C., September 28, 2006
1219
R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Comments on Middle East Issues During Briefing on NATO Issues Prior to Riga Summit, Washington, D.C., November 21, 2006
1225
Western Hemisphere
1226
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Canadian Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay, Press Conference, October 2, 2001
1226
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Presence of International Terrorist Groups in the Western Hemisphere,’’ Remarks Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Washington, D.C., October 10, 2001
1227
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Signing of the U.S.-Canada Border Security Agreement, Ottawa, Canada, December 3, 2001
1230
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Organization of American States, Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, January 28, 2002
1231
Thomas Cooney, Western Hemisphere Policy Officer, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 One Year Later: Miami, the Nation, and the World,’’ Address to a Symposium at the Biltmore Hotel, Miami, Florida, September 6, 2002
1233
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Seventh Annual U.S.-Canada Cross-Border Crime Forum, May 21, 2003
1235
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Importance of Counterterrorism Cooperation in Regional and Subregional Organizations,’’ Remarks to the Organization of American States, Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, Washington, D.C., October 7, 2003
1235
William P. Pope, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘U.S. Commitment to the 3þ1 Counterterrorism Dialogue,’’ Opening Remarks at a 3þ1 Group on Tri-Border Area Security, Washington, D.C., December 6, 2004
1237
State Department Press Release, ‘‘U.S. Pledges $1.6 Million for OAS Counterterrorism Efforts,’’ Washington, D.C., February 17, 2005
1239
Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and John F. Maisto, U.S. Permanent Representative to the OAS, Bogot´a, Colombia, March 23, 2006
1239
xiv
Contents Africa
1243
President George W. Bush, ‘‘U.S., Africa Strengthen Counterterrorism and Economic Ties,’’ Remarks to the African Growth and Opportunity Forum, Department of State, Washington, D.C., October 29, 2001
1243
Charles Snyder, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, ‘‘Sudan: Peace Agreement Around the Corner?’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Washington, D.C., March 11, 2003
1244
General Charles Wald, Deputy Commander for the European Command, U.S. Air Force, ‘‘New Initiatives with African Countries,’’ Foreign Press Center Roundtable, Washington, D.C., March 8, 2004
1245
Karl Wycoff, Associate Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Fighting Terrorism in Africa,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, Washington, D.C., April 1, 2004
1247
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Prevention and Combating of Terrorism in Africa,’’ Remarks at the Second Intergovernmental High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism in Africa, Algiers, Algeria, October 13, 2004
1254
Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks at Algiers Conference, Algiers, Algeria, February 6, 2006
1257
Asia
1259
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Press Briefing with the Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia, January 17, 2002
1259
Matthew P. Daley, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittees on Asia and the Pacific, and on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, U.S. Counterterrorism Policy for East Asia and the Pacific, Washington, D.C., October 29, 2003
1261
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, American Center, Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 8, 2004
1265
President George W. Bush Welcomes Afghan President Karzai to the White House, May 23, 2005
1268
Ambassador Henry Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Press Conference, Manila, Philippines, October 22, 2005
1269
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Press Briefing, United States Embassy in Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 4, 2006
1273
President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Press Conference, The White House, May 16, 2006
1276
Contents President George W. Bush and President Musharraf, Press Conference, The East Room of the White House, Washington, D.C., September 22, 2006
27. Key Documents
xv
1277
1281
Report of the Department of Defense, Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Attack, December 20, 1983
1281
Vice President George H.W. Bush, Task Force on Combating Terrorism, February 1986
1282
Presidential Strategy Papers
1284
National Strategy for Homeland Security, July 16, 2002
1284
National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, The White House, September 2006
1284
Commission Reports
1286
White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, The Gore Commission, February 12, 1997
1286
‘‘Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism,’’ Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, The Bremer Commission, June 5, 2000
1286
USS Cole Commission Report, Executive Summary, Department of Defense, January 9, 2001
1286
‘‘Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change,’’ The Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, February 15, 2001
1286
Combating Terrorism: Selected Challenges and Related Recommendations, Government Accountability Office Report, September 20, 2001
1286
Combating Terrorism: Interagency Framework and Agency Programs to Address the Overseas Threat, Government Accountability Office Report, May 2003
1286
The Fifth Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, The Gilmore Commission, December 15, 2003
1286
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission, July 22, 2004
1286
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, Report to the President, March 31, 2005
1286
WMD Commission Report, March 31, 2005
1287
xvi
Contents Bush Administration Implements WMD Commission Recommendations, Actions to Implement WMD Commission Recommendations, June 29, 2005
1287
U.N. Security Council Resolutions and Conventions
1287
U.N. International Conventions to Counter Terrorism
1287
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267: The Situation in Afghanistan, October 15, 1999
1287
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, September 28, 2001
1287
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1390: The Situation in Afghanistan, January 28, 2002
1287
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540: Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, April 28, 2004
1287
Presidential Executive Orders
1287
Executive Order 12947: Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process, January 25, 1995
1287
Executive Order 13059: Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to Iran, August 19, 1997
1287
Executive Order 13099: Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process, Federal Register, Vol. 63, No. 164, August 20, 1998
1287
Executive Order 13129: On Terrorist Financing, Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with the Taliban, July 4, 1999
1288
Executive Order 13224: Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism, September 23, 2001
1288
Executive Order Establishing Office of Homeland Security and Executive Order Establishing the Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council, October 8, 2001
1288
Taliban Executive Order, July 3, 2002
1288
Fact Sheet Executive Order 13224: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Washington, D.C., December 20, 2002
1288
Executive Order: Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, February 6, 2004
1288
Executive Order Amendment of Executive Orders, and Other Actions, in Connection with the Transfer of Certain Functions to the Secretary of Homeland Security, February 28, 2003
1288
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria, May 11, 2004
1288
Contents
xvii
Executive Order: National Counterterrorism Center, August 27, 2004
1288
Executive Order: Termination of Emergency Declared in Executive Order 12543 with Respect to the Policies and Actions of the Government of Libya and Revocation of Related Executive Orders, September 20, 2004
1288
Presidential Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, November 23, 2004
1289
Fact Sheet Supplemental FY 2005 Request for War on Terrorism, February 14, 2005
1289
Executive Order 13382: Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters, June 28, 2005
1289
Executive Order 133388: Further Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans, The White House, October 25, 2005
1289
Executive Order Blocking Property of Additional Persons in Connection with the National Emergency with Respect to Syria, April 26, 2006
1289
Continuation of the National Emergency Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria, May 8, 2006
1289
Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism, September 22, 2006
1289
Executive Branch Directives, Statements, and Reports
1289
NSDD 30, Managing Terrorist Incidents, April 10, 1982
1289
NSDD 109, Responding to the Lebanon Crisis, October 23, 1983
1290
NSDD 138, Combating Terrorism, April 3, 1984 (unclassified excerpts)
1290
NSDD 149, Support to Government of Lebanon in Planning for Counter Terrorism Operations, November 1, 1984
1290
NSDD 180, Civilian Aviation Anti-Terrorism Program, July 20, 1985
1290
NSDD 205, Acting Against Libyan Support of International Terrorism, January 8, 1986
1290
NSDD 205 Annex, Acting Against Libyan Support of International Terrorism, January 8, 1986
1290
NSDD 207, The National Program for Combating Terrorism, January 20, 1986
1290
NSDD 221, Narcotics and National Security, April 8, 1986
1290
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 39, ‘‘U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism,’’ Signed by President Clinton on June 21, 1995
1290
Usama bin Ladin: Islamic Extremist Financier, Central Intelligence Agency Report, 1996
1291
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Contents PDD-62, Establishing National Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the NSC, May 22, 1998
1291
U.S. Counterterrorism Policy and Organization, Roger Cressey, Director, Transnational Threats, National Security Council, September 27, 2000
1291
Department of Defense Instruction 2000.16, DoD Antiterrorism Standards, June 14, 2001
1291
NSPD 9, Combating Terrorism, October 25, 2001 (unclassified excerpts)
1291
NSPD 17, National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, December 2002 (unclassified version)
1291
Treasury Department Report on Progress in the War on Terrorist Financing, September 11, 2003
1291
Office of Counterterrorism, ‘‘Terrorist Exclusion List,’’ December 29, 2004
1291
Fact Sheet Supplemental FY 2005 Request for War on Terrorism, February 14, 2005
1291
Richard Boucher, Spokesmen, U.S. State Department, Designation of Islamic Jihad as Specifically Designated Global Terrorist, May 26, 2005
1292
Office of Counterterrorism, ‘‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations,’’ October 11, 2005
1292
Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing, The White House, December 16, 2005
1292
State Department Paper on WMD-Terrorism Risk (undated)
1292
State Department Paper, Rebuilding Iraq: U.S. Achievements Through the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, U.S. Department of State, February 2006
1292
Treasury: Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN), January 26, 2007 (updated)
1292
State Department Annual Terrorism Reports to Congress
1292
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Country Reports on Terrorism 2005, United States Department of State Publication 11324, April 2006
1292
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006, April 2007
1292
Messages to Congress
1292
Letter to Congress on American Campaign Against Terrorism Including Military Deployment-Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, September 24, 2001
1292
xix
Contents Presidential Letter, Text of a Letter from President George W. Bush to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Reporting on the Use of U.S. Troops in the War on Terrorism, September 19, 2003
1293
Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing, The White House, December 16, 2005
1293
International Statements
1293
Text of U.S.-EU Declaration on Combating Terrorism, G-8 Summit Meeting at Dromoland Castle, Shannon, Ireland, June 26, 2004
1293
U.S.-EU Declaration on Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Non Proliferation and the Fight Against Terrorism, June 20, 2005
1293
U.S.-EU Summit Declaration: Promoting Peace, Human Rights, and Democracy Worldwide, Vienna, Austria, June 21, 2006
1293
Statement on Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, Rabat, Morocco, November 1, 2006
1293
28. Coordination and Strategies
1295
Chairman Curt Weldon, ‘‘Improving Interagency Coordination in the Global War on Terrorism and Beyond,’’ Opening Statement Before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, April 4, 2006
1296
Admiral E. P. Giambastiani, U.S. Navy, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Statement Before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006
1297
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Improving Interagency Coordination for the Global War on Terror and Beyond,’’ Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006
1299
Selected Bibliography Index
1321
1305
Foreword Counterterrorism is a discipline propelled by events that have not yet happened. It involves speculating on possible threats, undertaking measures to prevent them, fortifying our defenses, and bolstering our capability to respond to and recover from an attack. In short, counterterrorism practitioners try to predict the future and then attempt to change it. But to do so, looking back is just as important as looking forward. Particularly now, when counterterrorism efforts have been so greatly expanded and so frequently misguided, an evaluation of our own practices is crucial. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy, the exhaustive collection that follows, is an invaluable tool in crafting the most effective strategies for preventing future terrorist attacks and protecting Americans. Throughout my career in counterterrorism, I have always held that analyzing past terrorist attacks and plots is one of the most effective ways to assess future threats. Case studies of attacks by groups like al Qaeda reveal their modus operandi, methodology, and capability—vital indicators of what their future ambitions may be. And just as there is no greater lens into the intent of terrorists than their history, our own counterterrorism track record holds invaluable insights into what does and does not work. Only through a thorough selfassessment of our past efforts to stop terrorism can we divine the most effective policies going forward. This book lays the foundation for that assessment. The laws, policies, and speeches collected in Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy catalog the scope of American counterterrorism initiatives for the past three decades. These documents are raw history—the artifacts of our ongoing struggle against terrorism. For many Americans, it is a fight that began in September of 2001. But as these volumes show, the genesis came long before. Beginning in the early 1970s, we see the first real recognition of the terrorist threat by America’s national security establishment, then preoccupied by traditional interstate conflict and counterinsurgency. The growing frequency and urgency of the policies that follow in the next three decades reflect the increasing focus on terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s up to the post-9/11 era, when it became the driving force behind America’s national security policy. But it is not only our own history contained here. By telling the story of our historical fight against terrorism, our counterterrorism policies present a perspective on the evolution of terrorism itself. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy begins with a 1972 speech by President Nixon broadly addressing the terrorist threat and then proposes legislative prescriptions outlining
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specific, even arcane, counterterrorism tools. The increasing complexity of the policies reveals an adaptation to an evolving and ever more dangerous enemy. Terrorism is both provoked and sustained by development, technological progress, and globalization. As the world becomes smaller, the ability of the terrorist to communicate, travel, raise and transfer money, and obtain or develop weaponry is enhanced. This has extended the global reach of terrorist groups and magnified their lethality. As terrorists became more cunning, more mobile, and more dangerous, the means used to fight them followed suit. The reader will discern obvious patterns in the intensity of U.S. counterterrorism initiatives. The documents presented here demonstrate only sporadic, reactive attention to terrorism before 9/11. Those of us who devoted our careers to counterterrorism watched in frustration as the institutional focus of the U.S. government locked onto terrorism in the weeks and months following an attack, but inevitably faded as time passed. In this sense, this collection also offers a view of the pre-9/11 world, during which time terrorism occasionally emerged as a foreign policy headache but would reliably return to the back burner, second to the more traditional challenges posed by the Soviet Union or China. This book also archives the work of those individuals within the federal government whose focus on counterterrorism never wavered. In doing so, these documents will answer questions on the minds of Americans who rightly wonder what their government was doing to protect them against terrorism in the pre-9/11 era. Though terrorism was never the national priority it should have been, there were dedicated public servants who did everything they could to prevent attacks. The policies contained in these pages are a testament to those who strove to stop terrorist groups despite bureaucratic hurdles and, when they failed, worked relentlessly to refine their policies to prevent future attacks. Terrorism is a conflict that will be with us for decades to come. If we are to fight terrorism effectively, we must engage in constant, rigorous analysis—not only of terrorist groups, but also of our own efforts to fight them. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy will be the cornerstone of that effort. In an age in which counterterrorism demands so much of our attention and resources, this book is especially important. Since 9/11, there has been an unprecedented expansion of counterterrorism initiatives, many of which have been a waste of valuable time and money. Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy is a monumental first step toward righting those well-intended but ultimately ineffective policies. We will continue to struggle against terrorist groups, and they will succeed in attacking us again. I am confident, however, that this tremendous resource will go a long way toward ensuring that, over time, our counterterrorism efforts will become effective enough that they are no longer needed. Ambassador (Ret.) Michael A. Sheehan New York City October 2007 MICHAEL A. SHEEHAN served as coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department from 1998 to 2000, with the rank of ambassador. He later became assistant secretary for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations and served as deputy commissioner for counterterrorism in the New York City Police Department. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the New York University Center for Law and Security and has also taught at the U.S. Military Academy’s Center for Counterterrorism at West Point.
Preface The speeches, statements, and testimony contained in these three volumes provide an overview of publicly enunciated U.S. government counterterrorism policies, analysis, and programs. These selections contain many documents that have been collected over the years by the editors and are no longer readily available. They predate the Internet and postings on various Web sites and, as a result, were only slightly edited. Where URLs are available for documents, they are included at the end of the items. These documents were, at times, heavily excerpted to eliminate duplicative or irrelevant sections. In many cases, terrorism-related comments were only part of much broader speeches. In other instances, such as speeches, somewhat duplicative phrases were left in where their inclusion provide richer context or include slight changes in terminology. The links provided were those available at the time this manuscript went to press and it is possible that some URLs are no longer accessible. This compilation is by no means all inclusive—the massive volume of terrorism-related statements, especially since the transformative events of the September 11 attacks and the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, prohibits the inclusion of all available documents. Every effort was made, however, to include the most useful statements, speeches, and testimony for both the general reader and as a resource for researchers. The time period covered in the various chapters extends from the Nixon administration to the end of 2006. Because of space limitations, with a few exceptions, we did not include material from daily press briefings by the State Department and other agencies but instead focused on formal testimony and speeches, which usually were precleared and vetted through the Office of Management and Budget’s clearance process. For the same reason, the full texts of useful documents such as Executive Orders were not included; however, their titles and URLs are listed in the Key Documents (chapter 27). Our intent is to provide leads and references for readers who are interested in more detailed research. We note that because of the relationship between the subject matter in various chapters, it is useful to read these chapters together. For example, the chapters covering President George W. Bush (chapter 7) and Vice President
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Preface
Richard B. Cheney (chapter 8) include material related to the Iraq chapter (chapter 19). The Threats chapter (chapter 17) should be read alongside both the Intelligence chapter (chapter 18) and the statements by the various Department of State Coordinators for Counterterrorism (chapter 11). The Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Financial chapters (chapters 20–22) also are interrelated. We hope these documents will further the understanding of the development of U.S. counterterrorism policies and provide a context for understanding the crucial terrorism problems facing the United States and other countries.
21 Law Enforcement.. FBI The terrorist attacks of 9/11 forever altered the federal, state, and local law enforcement environment of the United States. This chapter includes the myriad of changes to the way law enforcement organizations, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have conducted their investigations and operations in this post-9/11 environment, shifting the bulk of their resources toward the counterterrorism mission. In particular, the FBI sought to transform itself from a reactive, postattack investigatory organization, as seen in the aftermaths of large pre-9/11 terrorist incidents such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, into a proactive, domestic intelligence-gathering arm of the federal government redesigned to prevent attacks. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General Thompson outlined 10 major initiatives to reorganize the Department of Justice on November 8, 2001, including the streamlining of duplicative or redundant functions within the Department of Justice, refocusing resources into front-line field positions, expanding intelligence-sharing between intelligence community organs and restructuring the FBI into a counterterrorism-oriented entity. FBI reorganization is addressed in several documents, including a May 30, 2002, speech by Attorney General Ashcroft outlining several key changes to the manner in which FBI special agents conduct investigations, allowing them greater autonomy in conducting counterterrorism investigations at the field office level. The October 17, 2002, testimony by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller outlines other changes, including a more centralized approach to counterterrorism vis-`a-vis FBI headquarters, as well as the creation of ‘‘flying squads’’ able to augment field capabilities at the scene of a rapidly evolving investigation. In addition to FBI reorganization, this testimony addresses how the Department of Justice as a whole has sought to evolve, particularly by streamlining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Applications process. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales describes the creation of the National Security Division within the Justice Department in a March 13, 2006, announcement.
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The expansion of FBI intelligence analysis capabilities is addressed in March 4, 2003, testimony by Director Mueller. This document also profiles the forerunner to the National Counterterrorism Center, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. John Miller, the assistant director of the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, addresses the delicate issue of Muslim-American mistrust of the federal government, and the FBI in particular, in a June 5, 2006, briefing. Finally, USA PATRIOT Act evolution is addressed in several documents, ranging from a press conference with Attorney General Ashcroft on November 8, 2001, to Senate testimony by FBI Director Mueller on March 4, 2003, to the announcement of indictments handed down against the Holy Land Foundation on July 27, 2004.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Transcript of Media Availability with State and Local Law Enforcement Officials, Department of Justice Conference Room, October 4, 2001 MR. MUELLER: As you can imagine, the FBI continues to work on many fronts to respond to the acts of September 11th. To date, we have an unprecedented 260,000 potential leads and tips which have come to us in the course of this investigation. The American people continue to support our efforts in a truly impressive way. Nearly half of those leads have come through our telephone hotline and our Internet site. Just last week we had 24,000 tips come in through those two resources. Our laboratory and forensics experts have gathered and continue to examine roughly 3,000 pieces of evidence from the crash sites and from other searches. Many of these important pieces of evidence have been uncovered, and one such piece I think you received last week, and that was the several letters that were found at a number of the sites. We’re also working with financial institutions and federal and international authorities to dry up the reservoir of funds that terrorist organizations draw upon to support their operations. The effort to seize such assets and to freeze those accounts is critical to sapping the strength of terrorism worldwide. We know from previous investigations that some terrorist attacks could have been much worse had they been better bankrolled. To date, $6 million in assets both at home and abroad have been frozen by the federal government. The spirit of teamwork and cooperation in this investigation has been truly remarkable. State and local law enforcement are playing a critical role collecting information, running down leads, and providing the kind of expertise critical to an effort of this magnitude and of this importance. Information sharing between us all is as important now as it ever has been, and anything and everything that helps facilitate that is really welcome. One area in which state and local enforcement has historically played a leading role is in the area of civil rights. And during these times of anxiety and frustration, that role has taken on increasing importance. Vigilante attacks against Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Americans continue to escalate.
Law Enforcement: FBI
907
Yesterday alone, the FBI initiated 15 new investigations, possibly linked to the September 11th attacks, which brings to the total, 120 investigations we’ve opened under the hate crimes statute. I’m pleased and heartened to hear that progress is being made in the House and Senate toward finalization of legislation that responds to the needs of law enforcement for the right tools to fight terrorism. The process took a very important step forward last night when both the House and Senate agreed upon legislation that will now move the process in both houses of Congress. … The legislation passed by the House Judiciary Committee sunsets important law enforcement intelligence-gathering tools on December the 31st, 2003. No one can guarantee that terrorism will sunset in two years. Our president has wisely counseled us as Americans that this is a long struggle.… Our laws need to reflect the new war, a kind of responsibility and effort that we must wage. It must provide us with tools on a continuing basis to do so. From the beginning, our talks with Congress have been guided by two principles. First, our laws governing terrorism should reflect the priority that the American people give to the fight against terrorism. And the American people expect us to give this fight the highest priority. Second, we will propose no change in the law that damages constitutional rights and protections that Americans hold dear. Just as we have provided law enforcement with the tools they need to fight drug trafficking and organized crime without violating the rights and the freedoms of Americans, we are committed to meeting the challenge of terrorism with the same careful respect for the Constitution of the United States and the protections that that Constitution accords to America’s citizens. Q. About 150 people have been arrested as terrorists, we’re told. Can you tell us whether any of those people have been arrested and are directly related to the September 11 attacks? And have they been charged? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: There are about three categories of the ways in which people have been detained. People have been detained who have violated state or local law enforcement provisions, the laws. Many of those groups represented here today have been a part of that. People have been arrested because they are in possession of information which we feel is valuable in this inquiry, and the courts have provided for their arrest and detention on what are known as material witness warrants. And then other individuals basically have been arrested either in conjunction with activities here or as a result of their association with individuals involved here and their having violated their immigration status. And I believe those define the categories of individuals that have been arrested. And at this time, that’s the nature of the comment that we would make on them. Q. With respect to one of those categories, actually it was President Bush today who said 150 terrorists associated with the al Qaeda organization specifically are in custody, and it sounded like many of those may well be overseas. Do either of you have any accounting, either domestically or overseas, in terms of people who may have this particular connection?
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Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy
ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I’m not prepared at the moment to say a specific number for domestic detentions versus detentions overseas. Q. General, with respect to the anti-terrorism proposals, one of the sticking points with the Senate had to do with the sharing of intelligence of grand jury information. And everything nearly came unglued because the administration decided it could not live with the idea of post-judicial scrutiny. Why is it that the FBI and the CIA object so much to having a judge just be notified in the aftermath of turning over grand jury information in an emergency situation? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: We believe that those issues have been resolved, and that the climate for exchanging information that will be created by the bill, which will take down some of the walls, will provide a basis for facilitating that exchange of information. That’s what we were pursuing. We need to have a circumstance where … if someone in a grand jury describes a situation that could threaten the safety and security of our citizens, there aren’t questions about whether or not that can quickly be shifted from the grand jury setting either to the Department of Defense, or to other law enforcement agencies, or to the intelligence arena, so that we can coordinate that information with other information. That’s our objective. We believe that the bill now will provide a basis for that kind of facilitation of information sharing. Q. Why not judicial notification afterwards, though? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I believe that we’ve arrived at a place that will provide the basis for getting this done well, and without recrimination. I don’t really understand the threat here. The threat is that law enforcement officials and others involved with the security of Americans would have information that helped them do their job. To provide a base—layer of bureaucracy on that unnecessarily simply doesn’t provide a benefit, and it provides an encumbrance. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_4.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Deputy Attorney General Thompson, Remarks on the Reorganization and Mobilization of the Nation’s Justice and Law Enforcement Resources, November 8, 2001 The attacks of September 11th have redefined the mission of the Department of Justice. Defending our nation and defending the citizens of America against terrorist attacks is now our first and overriding priority. To fulfill this mission, we are devoting all the resources necessary to eliminate terrorist networks, to prevent terrorist attacks, and to bring to justice those who kill Americans in the name of murderous ideologies. We are engaged in an aggressive arrest and detention campaign of lawbreakers with a single objective: to get terrorists off the street before they can harm more Americans. Today I am announcing a wartime reorganization and mobilization of the nation’s justice and law enforcement resources to meet the mission of the Department of Justice.
Law Enforcement: FBI
909
The Department of Justice’s strategic plan for fiscal years 2001 to 2006 is a carefully crafted blueprint for the comprehensive reorganization of the department to meet our new antiterrorism mission. It is the product of close consultation with the deputy attorney general, whom I have asked to lead this effort. The plan being announced today contains 10 new initiatives for the systematic reform and restructuring of the Department of Justice. It is a blueprint for change … Our first initiative is the elimination of waste and the retargeting of resources to fight against terrorism. In today’s Justice Department, multiple agencies perform similar functions. Within six months, we must have in place a detailed plan to streamline, eliminate or consolidate duplicative functions. We should not expect our budgets to give us limitless resources. We must protect Americans, regardless of the level of the resources provided by OMB and Congress. We should take responsibility, ourselves, to find ways to get our jobs done. Second: We will refocus our resources on frontline positions. The war on terrorism will not be fought in Washington but in the field, by agents, prosecutors, investigators and analysts. Our long-term goal is to transfer 10 percent of the current headquarters-based positions to the field—to field offices, where citizens are served and where America is protected. Our restructuring initiatives are demanding, and they’re service oriented. The third point of our plan challenges us to hold each other accountable. Performance should be measured by outcomes and results, not by inputs. Fourth: We must attract a diverse, high-quality workforce to the department and train ourselves to be the best-trained and best and most talented workforce in the world. Fifth: We must develop a seamless relationship with state and local lawenforcement agencies. Sixth: We must have information technology from this decade, not from several generations ago, so that we can share intelligence and have the interoperability that a coordinated response to terrorism demands. Major city police departments are better equipped today than is the Justice Department. Finally, the remaining points of our strategic plan mandate fundamental change in several of the most critical components of American justice and law enforcement, starting with the organization that is at the center of our counterterrorism effort, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In its history, the FBI has been many things: the protector of our institutions when they were under assault from organized crime; the keeper of our security when it was threatened by international espionage; and the defender of our civil rights when they were denied to some Americans on the basis of their race, color or creed. Today the American people call upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation to put prevention of terrorism at the center of its law- enforcement and national-security efforts. Since September the 11th, Director Mueller has been engaged in a thorough review of the FBI—its management, its organization. Under the plan being announced today, the Strategic Management Council will develop and implement a series of reforms to and with the FBI. We expect preliminary recommendations for reform by the end of this year.
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Our strategic plan also restructures the Immigration and Naturalization Service, consistent with the president’s goal of separating the function of serving and the function of enforcing. Of course, we have the responsibility to protect the borders of the United States, as well. Commissioner Zigler has already begun—launched substantial effort, devoted significant resources to the development of a strategy of reforming the INS, and I expect that plan soon to be unveiled. As a nation of immigrants, the United States will continue to welcome America’s friends. But we will not allow our welcome to be abused by America’s enemies. In the war on terrorism, the restructured Immigration and Naturalization Service will focus on preventing aliens who engage in or support terrorist activity from entering our country. It will lead the campaign to detain, prosecute or deport terrorist aliens who are already inside the nation’s borders. In either case, the Department of Justice will not allow terrorists to use our hospitality as a weapon against the American people. The department’s Office of Justice Programs and grant management system also will be fundamentally restructured to meet our new antiterrorism mission … Not only will we make our grant process more efficient, more accountable, we will target our resources to maximize the public benefit. State and local law enforcement, victims’ groups, and others on the frontlines in the war against terrorism will have improved access to services and information from this Justice Department. And while we tackle the institutional barriers to the realization of our antiterrorism mission, we will address the legal and cultural barriers as well. In his remarks, Deputy Attorney General Thompson will describe the actions we are taking today to implement new tools passed by Congress in the USA Patriot Act. This landmark antiterrorism legislation contains provisions that begin to break down the barriers to information sharing, to communication and cooperation between and within the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Today I am issuing a series of directives to the Department of Justice component heads requesting that they review information in their possession that may now be shared with other federal agencies, and to do so where appropriate. I have also directed that components assess their intelligence-analysis capabilities, improve those analysis capabilities, where necessary, and coordinate their efforts with other affected federal agencies and with state and local law enforcement officials. In this war on terror, information sharing and cooperation are critical to our strategic mission and to our victory. Terrorists live in the shadows, under the cover of darkness. In order to identify, capture, to incapacitate them, law enforcement investigators and intelligence agents must be able to work cooperatively. Under our new antiterrorism mandate, there will be maximum dissemination, to the fullest extent permitted by law, of appropriate terrorist-related information to all federal officials engaged in the common fight against terrorism. Such dissemination will occur regardless of whether the source of information is a criminal investigation or a counterintelligence investigation. The Department of Justice is fully committed to breaking down the bureaucratic
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and cultural barriers that prevent meaningful coordination and cooperation between criminal law enforcement and the counterintelligence operations, both within the department and between the department and other federal intelligence agencies. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks11_08.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See FBI Press Release, FBI Headquarters Reorganization, December 3, 2001 (http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/reorg120301.htm); also see FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Remarks at the Press Availability on the FBI’s Reorganization, Washington, D.C., May 29, 2002 (http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/ speeches/speech052902.htm).
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Attorney General Guidelines, May 30, 2002 As we have heard recently, FBI men and women in the field are frustrated because many of our own internal restrictions have hampered our ability to fight terrorism. The current investigative guidelines have contributed to that frustration. In many instances, the guidelines bar FBI field agents from taking the initiative to detect and prevent future terrorist acts unless the FBI learns of possible criminal activity from external sources. Under the current guidelines, FBI investigators cannot surf the web the way you or I can. Nor can they simply walk into a public event or a public place to observe ongoing activities. They have no clear authority to use commercial data services that any business in America can use. These restrictions are a competitive advantage for terrorists who skillfully utilize sophisticated techniques and modern computer systems to compile information for targeting and attacking innocent Americans. That is why the Attorney General’s guidelines and procedures relating to criminal investigations and national security were high on the list of action items for reform. Beginning in the 1970s, guidelines have been developed to inform agents of the circumstances under which investigations may be opened, the permissible scope of these investigations, the techniques that may be used, and the objectives that should be pursued. These guidelines provide limitations and guidance over and above all requirements and safeguards imposed by the Constitution and beyond the legal framework established by federal statutes enacted by Congress. Promulgated for different purposes and revised at various times, the guidelines currently cover FBI investigations, undercover operations, the use of confidential informants, and consensual monitoring of verbal communications. The guidelines defining the general rules for FBI investigations, for example, were first issued over 20 years ago. They derive from a period in which Soviet communism was the greatest threat to the United States, in which the Internet did not exist, and in which concerns over terrorist threats to the homeland related mainly to domestic hate groups. Shortly after September 11, I took two steps to free FBI field agents to prevent additional terrorist attacks. First, I authorized the FBI to waive the
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guidelines, with headquarters approval, in extraordinary cases to prevent and investigate terrorism. That authority has been used, but I am disappointed that it was not used more widely. This experience over the past few months reinforces my belief that greater authority to investigate more vigorously needs to be given directly to FBI field agents. Second, I directed a top-to-bottom review of the guidelines to ensure that they provide front-line field agents with the legal authority they need to protect the American people from future terrorist attacks. That comprehensive review showed that the guidelines mistakenly combined timeless objectives— the enforcement of the law and respect for civil rights and liberties—with outdated means. Today, I am announcing comprehensive revisions to the Department’s investigative guidelines. As revised, the guidelines reflect four overriding principles. First, the war against terrorism is the central mission and highest priority of the FBI. This principle is stated explicitly in the revised guidelines, and it is facilitated and reinforced through many specific reforms. The guidelines emphasize that the FBI must not be deprived of using all lawful authorized methods in investigations, consistent with the Constitution and statutory authority, to pursue and prevent terrorist actions. Second, terrorism prevention is the key objective under the revised guidelines. Our philosophy today is not to wait and sift through the rubble following a terrorist attack. Rather, the FBI must intervene early and investigate aggressively where information exists suggesting the possibility of terrorism, so as to prevent acts of terrorism. The new guidelines advance this strategy of prevention by strengthening investigative authority at the early stage of preliminary inquiries. Also, even absent specific investigative predicates, FBI agents under the new guidelines are empowered to scour public sources for information on future terrorist threats. Third, unnecessary procedural red tape must not interfere with the effective detection, investigation, and prevention of terrorist activities. To this end, the revised guidelines allow Special Agents in Charge of FBI field offices to approve and renew terrorism enterprise investigations, rather than having to seek and wait for approval from headquarters. I believe this responds to a number of concerns we have heard from our field agents. The guidelines expand the scope of those investigations to the full range of terrorist activities under the USA Patriot Act. These major changes will free field agents to counter potential terrorist threats swiftly and vigorously without waiting for headquarters to act. Fourth, the FBI must draw proactively on all lawful sources of information to identify terrorist threats and activities. It cannot meet its paramount responsibility to prevent acts of terrorism if FBI agents are required, as they were in the past, to blind themselves to information that everyone else is free to see. Under the revised guidelines, the FBI can identify and track foreign terrorists by combining its investigative results with information obtained from other lawful sources, such as foreign intelligence and commercial data services. To detect and prevent terrorist activities, the FBI under the revised guidelines will also be able to enter and observe public places and forums just as any member of the public might.
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… What I am saying is this: FBI field agents have been inhibited from attending public events, open to any other citizen—not because they are barred by the U.S. Constitution, or barred any federal law enacted by Congress, but because of the lack of clear authority under administrative guidelines issued decades ago. Today, I am clarifying that, for the specific purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, FBI field agents may enter public places and attend events open to other citizens, unless they are barred from attending by the Constitution or federal law. Our new guideline reads, ‘‘For the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, the FBI is authorized to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally.’’ I believe in the principle of community policing, in which an active, visible law enforcement presence is linked to communities and neighborhoods. Local police can enter public places and attend public events in their communities, and they detect and prevent crime by doing so. To protect our communities from terrorism, the FBI must be free to do the same. The revised guidelines will take effect immediately and will be incorporated into the training of FBI agents. These guidelines will also be a resource to inform the American public and demonstrate that we seek to protect life and liberty from terrorism and other criminal violence with a scrupulous respect for civil rights and personal freedoms. The guidelines are available on the Internet at http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/index.html#agguide. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE NOTE: The Attorney General Often Deviates from Prepared Remarks. SOURCE: marks.htm
http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/53002agpreparedre
Dale L. Watson, Executive Assistant Director of Counterterrorism, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, Statement for the Record Before the Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, September 26, 2002 … I am pleased to appear before you today with my colleague Cofer Black from the CIA. I plan to describe to you the FBI’s counterterrorism role within the Intelligence Community prior to September 11, 2001, and to provide my observations of the changes made since then to better enable the Intelligence Community to detect and prevent future attacks. Late last week and earlier this week, the Committees heard, in great detail, about the FBI’s actions relating to two of the September 11 hijackers—Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi; about Zacarias Moussaoui, and a July 2001 communication from our Phoenix FBI Office. While I will be glad to provide my perspective on those matters, in response to your questions, the majority of my testimony will highlight the FBI’s interagency coordination and collaboration of counterterrorism activities within the Intelligence Community, the evolution of the FBI’s response to the growing international threat, and the FBI’s future role in the war on terrorism.
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History of the FBI Counterterrorism Program Before I can address where the FBI is today, I need to give you a short history of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Program beginning in 1993. In February 1993, an explosion occurred in the garage area beneath the Vista Hotel, located at the World Trade Center complex in New York City, New York, resulting in massive destruction, the death of six individuals and injuring a thousand others. Within the FBI and across the United States, this was a wake-up call that there were individuals in the United States who sought to do us great harm. It was the April 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, resulting in the death of 168 persons that provided further confirmation that a terrorist strike could be committed on U.S. soil. Prior to this time, terrorism was perceived as an overseas problem, as indicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 where all 259 passengers, mostly Americans, died. The overseas trend continued in November1995, with the bombing of the Office of Personnel Management, Saudi Arabian National Guard, resulting in the deaths of five servicemen. In 1996, the bombing of Khobar Towers resulted in the deaths of 19 servicemen. In 1998, the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania resulted in the deaths of 12 Americans in Nairobi, Kenya. In November 2000, the U.S.S. Cole bombing resulted in the death of 17 Navy seamen. Then September 11, 2001, the mostly deadly terrorist attacks against the United States—which resulted in over 3,000 deaths. In the early years, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Program was a relatively low-priority program as demonstrated by its size, with approximately 50 people at FBI Headquarters, working on all aspects of terrorism. In May 1998, the FBI made Counterterrorism a Tier One priority and began focusing additional attention and resources. Throughout this period and as a result of our investigations of these above mentioned incidents, professionals in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Program became aware of the threat posed by UBL and others like him. Subsequently, in 1999, the FBI created a separate operational unit focusing completely on UBL matters. In1998, when I became Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division after the East Africa bombings, I realized the FBI was reacting to these terrorist acts with no forward thinking to prevent them. In late 1998, it became clear that no matter how many resources the FBI put into the program, we were never going to stop every act of terrorism. The solution would be to position ourselves in the best proactive stance to counter this threat. Beginning in late 1999, I began working on a initiative designed to get the FBI at its maximum capacity to address the Counterterrorism threat by the year 2005 (MAXCAP05). I convened a working group of Special Agents in Charge (SAC) to create a system to evaluate counterterrorism capacity in the field offices and build that capacity to encompass prevention, as well as reaction. The main focus of this initiative was not cases, which are by definition reactive, but rather about knowing the environment. One of the by-products of this process was a report designed to aid decision-makers, fostering accountability, consistency and accuracy among FBI Executive Management
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regarding understanding and countering the terrorist threat. This initiative was a work-in-progress and I recognized it would take several years to achieve maximum capacity. It is important to note that we were in the midst of that process on September 11, 2001, however, as a result of the work we had done, we had developed a management tool that attempted to quantify weaknesses based on a standard which was intentionally set fairly high. (i.e., maximum capacity) FBI Relationship with the CIA Much has been made during these hearings about the relationship between the FBI and the CIA, and not without cause. There is a long history between these two proud organizations and I am pleased to be seated with Cofer Black during this hearing today to discuss the changes which have occurred from my perspective. In 1996, as a result of an exchange program initiated by FBI Director Freeh and Director of Central Intelligence Deutch, I was the first Bureau official to participate in an exchange of senior personnel between the FBI and CIA in the Counter Terrorism arena. I was assigned as the Deputy Chief with line authority to the Counter Terrorism Center (CTC), and a senior CIA officer was assigned as the Deputy Section Chief in the Counterterrorism Section at FBIHQ. This exchange provided a foundation to solidify our future coordinated efforts and was extremely beneficial as it was top-down-driven. Since that time and continuing today, the interaction between and the exchange of personnel, both agent and analytical, has increased significantly, particularly since September 11, 2001. This continues to contribute in a decisive way to the Intelligence Community’s mission directed at the obtaining, analyzing and sharing of intelligence information, thereby enhancing the United States Government’s efforts to identify, target and prevent terrorist activities. During this period, the FBI initiated a training program in which new CIA Chiefs of Station are introduced to the FBI perspectives and capabilities on terrorism matters, and new FBI Legats are provided the same training regarding the CIA. Overseas, communication and coordination are the hallmark of our relationship with other U.S. agencies. While there might be individual examples where information was not shared, institutionally the barriers have come down and we are currently exchanging information daily, if not hourly, with our colleagues at the CIA. Other Initiatives Supporting Counterterrorism Efforts During the 1990s, the changing perspectives at FBI Headquarters regarding the growing threat of international terrorism prompted then Director Freeh to expand the FBI’s Legat Program. When Mr. Freeh became FBI Director in 1992, there were 16 Legats; when he left, there were 44. This expansion has put more people on the ground in more places, contributing to better investigations of terrorist acts abroad, and better coverage of leads generated in domestic investigations. Legats working with colleagues in the Departments of Justice, Defense and State have also facilitated extraditions of
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terrorists wanted for killing Americans, which must be the absolute cornerstone of America’s message to foreign terrorists: anyone targeting American citizens and/or interests will face justice—no matter where that attack takes place or where that terrorist might hide. The Legat Program’s value became even more apparent with their tireless efforts during the investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Their investigative efforts played a significant part in the FBI’s understanding of the September 11, 2001 conspiracy, and will continue to pay dividends for years to come in identifying key terrorists and preventing future attacks. The FBI is taking a leadership role in enhancing interagency cooperation and communication through utilization of a proactive threat warning system. The National Threat Warning System (NTWS) ensures vital information regarding terrorism reaches those in the U.S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities responsible for countering terrorist threats. The NTWS provides warnings to U.S. Government components and law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada via the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. The FBI also provides Warnings to private security personnel via the ‘‘Awareness of National Security Issues and Response’’ Program. The FBI continues to assess threats and issue warnings and advisories to the Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities, and are still leading the multi-agency National Infrastructure Protection Center, a key force in protecting our nation’s critical physical and electronic infrastructures. There are currently over 56 established Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) in operation, an increase of 45 since 1996. By integrating the investigative abilities of the FBI and local law enforcement agencies these JTTFs represent an effective response to the threats posed to U.S. communities by domestic and international terrorists. Within the FBI, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Center was established in 1996 and is designed to combat terrorism on three fronts: International terrorism operations, within the United States and in support of extraterritorial investigations; Domestic terrorism operations; and Countermeasures, pertaining to both international and domestic terrorism. Through the FBI’s Counterterrorism Center, the FBI has enhanced cooperation with other US Government agencies. An exchange of working level personnel and senior managers at the headquarters level has also strengthened cooperation between the FBI and other agencies. Prior to September 11, 2001, the FBI worked closely with all of the US Government through efforts of the National Security Counsel. Regular, if not daily meetings were held to discuss Counterterrorism matters. The core group participating in these meetings were the CIA, Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Justice and other Federal agencies as needed to discuss and coordinate counterterrorism issues in the US Government. Conclusion The continuing threat and the ever present reminder of the events since September 11, 2001, have reconfirmed my belief that the FBI and our
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partners in the Intelligence Community must continue to aggressively develop the capacity to identify, penetrate and prevent terrorist activities worldwide. The FBI must be ready, in concert with our Intelligence Community partners and foreign services to respond to terrorism issues as they present themselves. In order to do this, we must 1) develop a strategic analysis program to recognize trends aimed at identifying and preventing terrorists activities; 2) develop a coordination program within the United States Intelligence Community and foreign services to identify persons who have attended the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan; 3) improve information sharing capabilities with State and local law enforcement; 4) improve methods and capabilities to track and remove terrorists from within our borders; 5) increase and improve the technology to obtain and analyze information; and 6) increase the number of analysts assigned and trained in terrorism matters. In closing, let me stress-terrorism matters are the number one priority of the FBI. The FBI, along with the CIA and other members of the Intelligence Community, are working to coordinate multi-divisional and multi-agency investigations to establish a robust intelligence base, with adequate and ongoing analysis to identify and stop any future terrorist acts and strengthen our abilities to safeguard the American people and our interests, both at home and abroad. I thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and am available to answer your questions. SOURCE: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/watson092602.htm
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, October 17, 2002 EXCERPTED In addition to the terrorist activities of … individuals and groups, the FBI is confronting a growing interest in the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists and other groups. Given the potential for inflicting largescale injury or death, the efforts of international and domestic terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction have been a significant and growing concern for the FBI. Prior to September 11, 2001, the number of weapons of mass destruction—or ‘‘WMD’’—cases initiated for 2001 was 100, of which 67 were biological. Since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks of last fall, the FBI has responded to approximately 7,089 suspected anthrax letters, 950 incidents involving other potential weapons of mass destruction—such as bomb threats—and an estimated 29,331 telephone calls from the public about suspicious packages. In the 1990s, terrorist groups started using new information technology and the Internet to formulate plans, recruit members, communicate between cells and members, raise funds, and spread propaganda. Their aptitude with
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this technology facilitates their terrorism preparation and operations and raises the specter that they will use their cyber-tools against our critical infrastructures. In response to these disturbing trends, Director Freeh designated Counterterrorism a Tier One priority in May 1998, and he began focusing additional attention and resources on the program. By late 1999, the FBI’s Senior Executive Managers had formulated and were implementing an initiative designed to position the FBI to be at its maximum capacity to address the Counterterrorism threat by the year 2005. As Dale Watson, Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism testified before this Committee, the initiative was still underway on September 11, 2001. II. The September 11th Investigation Immediately after the September 11th attacks, the FBI, the law enforcement community and the US and Foreign Intelligence Communities joined forces to find out everything we could about the hijackers and how they succeeded. Our immediate goal was simple—to prevent another attack by fully understanding how the terrorists perpetrated this one. The FBI’s contribution to this effort has been significant. Thousands of FBI Agents from each of our 56 field offices have participated in the investigation; agents have covered over 337,000 leads and have produced more than 165,000 FD-302 reports of investigation; nearly 300 Special Agents and 85 Support employees have been detailed to more than 30 Legal Attach´e offices overseas to assist in pursuing leads and coordinating the investigation with our international colleagues; and to date, the FBI Laboratory has received over 660 submissions of evidence from the crash sites and related searches, representing approximately 7,332 items of potential evidence. Thanks to these efforts and the unprecedented cooperation of the intelligence and law enforcement communities—both domestic and international— our investigation has revealed many of the details about the planning, financing and perpetration of these attacks.… our investigation continues and will likely develop new and significant details for years to come. In addition to investigating the 9/11 attacks, the FBI and our partners have undertaken investigations and operations over the last year that have dealt blows to a number of terrorist groups. III. FBI’s Post-9/11 Reforms The 13 months since the September 11th attacks have been a time of great change for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Starting immediately after the planes hit, when over half of our 11,500 agents suddenly found themselves working terrorism matters, it became clear that our mission and our priorities had to change. Today, the FBI has twice the number of Agents permanently assigned to counterterrorism as were assigned prior to 9/11. Other permanent changes have been carefully considered and implemented. Virtually every morning since September 11th, Director Tenet and I have briefed the President, updating him on the investigation and our response to the various threats we are receiving worldwide. The President wants to know
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what the FBI is doing—along with the CIA and our other partners—to protect Americans against terrorism. That is his bottom line, and it is the touchstone of our efforts to refocus the FBI. We have been addressing the shortcomings of the Bureau and the Intelligence Community that were highlighted by the September 11th attacks. We have heard, and we acknowledge, the valid criticisms, many of which have been reiterated by this Committee. For example, the Phoenix memo should have been disseminated to all field offices and to our sister agencies; and the 26-page request from Minneapolis for a FISA warrant should have been reviewed by attorneys handling the request. These incidents have informed us on needed changes, particularly the need to improve accountability, analytic capacity and resources, information sharing, and technology, to name a few. We have taken steps to address those shortcomings, some of which I would like to highlight today. Reorganization of the Counterterrorism Division In November of last year, Congress approved my proposal for a reorganization of FBI Headquarters. Under this reorganization, the Assistant Director for Counterterrorism is responsible for management of the national terrorism program and for select cases and operations which require national-level management due to special circumstances, situations, or sensitivity. This management structure is a recognition that counterterrorism has national and international dimensions that transcend field office territorial borders and require centralized coordination to ensure that the individual pieces of an investigation can be assembled into a coherent picture. This ensures accountability for the program. Under the prior system— whereby field offices, and particularly the New York Field Office, would have primary responsibility for terrorism cases—responsibility was diffused and Bureau leadership could not easily be held accountable for the program. Under the reorganization, the Assistant Director for Counterterrorism is accountable for taking all steps necessary to maximize our counterterrorism capacity. One of the ways in which Headquarters supports the field in maximizing their counterterrorism capabilities is through the newly created ‘‘flying squads.’’ These squads augment local field investigative capabilities with specialized personnel and support FBI Rapid Deployment Teams, thereby providing a surge capacity for quickly responding to fast-breaking situations in locations where there is no FBI presence. Analytical Enhancements EDITOR’S NOTE: See more recent description in FBI Director Mueller’s testimony of March 4, 2003, below (http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=612&wit_ id=608).
IV. Conclusion Despite our accomplishments and the success of the FBI reorganization in addressing our shortcomings, however, our transformation must continue.
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We cannot grow complacent. The FBI must develop a workforce that possesses specialized skills and backgrounds, that is equipped with the proper investigative, technical, and analytical tools, and possesses the managerial and administrative competencies necessary to deal with a complex and volatile environment. To assist in these efforts, the FBI is in the midst of an internal re-engineering review to examine virtually every aspect of FBI operations, administration, policy and procedure. As a result of this review, we anticipate additional changes to FBI programs that will enable us to most effectively and efficiently utilize the tools and the resources Congress has provided. SOURCE: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/mueller101702.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, News Conference Transcript Regarding the Decision on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, November 18, 2002 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: … This morning, in the first opinion in the history of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, the court issued an opinion that affirmed President Bush’s and Congress’s call for greater cooperation and coordination in the war on terror. In intelligence, in counterintelligence, and counter-terrorism investigations, the court’s ruling confirmed the Department of Justice’s legal authority to integrate fully the functions of law enforcement and intelligence. Today’s ruling is an affirmation of the will of Congress, a vindication of the agents and prosecutors of the Department of Justice, and a victory for liberty, safety and the security of the American people. The Court of Review accepted in full Department of Justice procedures developed pursuant to the USA Patriot Act, and issued last March the 6th, 2002. When implemented, the measures will facilitate cooperation and coordination between law enforcement and intelligence officials in the war on terror. The Court of Review found—and I quote now—quote, ‘‘Simply no basis for the FISA court’s reliance on FISA to limit criminal prosecutors’ abilities to advise intelligence officials.’’ Close quote. The court also found that the government may use FISA when it has a, quote, ‘‘measurable foreign intelligence purpose other than just criminal prosecution.’’ Close quote. Further, the court ruled that so long as the government entertains a realistic option of dealing with the FISA target, other than through criminal prosecution, it satisfies the ‘‘significant purpose’’ test. In summary, the court held, I’m quoting again now, quote, ‘‘The government’s purpose as set forth in a certification is to be judged by the National Security officials’ articulation, and not by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Authority court inquiry into the origins of an investigation, nor examination of the personnel involved.’’ The Court of Review reaffirmed that, and I’m quoting again, ‘‘All Justice Department officers, including those in the FBI, armed at the control of the attorney general, if he wishes a particular investigation to be run by an officer of any division, that is his prerogative,’’ close quote.
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The Court of Review’s action revolutionizes our ability to investigate terrorists and prosecute terrorist acts. The decision allows the Department of Justice to free immediately our agents and prosecutors in the field to work together more closely and cooperatively in achieving our core mission, the mission of preventing terrorist attacks. Today I’m directing a series of actions to be taken in light of the court’s decision affirming our interpretation. First, we will continue to make operational improvements to streamline the foreign intelligence surveillance act approval process. The department is implementing a secure, computerized system that would permit agents in the field to draft FISA, or foreign intelligence surveillance applications, and to transmit them in real time to FBI headquarters and to the Department of Justice for approval. The Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, known as OIPR, will notify me when it rejects a request for a FISA application so that the director of the FBI and I can bring our judgment to that particular decision. Second, we are assigning new attorneys to facilitate the FISA process. The department has assigned OIPR attorneys to the field to work directly with prosecutors and agents in offices across America. The FBI will double the number of attorneys working in its National Security Law Unit to handle FISA applications more effectively and expeditiously. In addition, earlier today Director Mueller created a new FISA unit within the FBI’s General Counsel Office. Third, we will train prosecutors and agents in the FISA process, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process, so that these powerful tools of foreign intelligence surveillance are utilized fully, appropriately and in keeping with the Constitution. Today I am directing that each U.S. attorney’s office designate at least one prosecutor to be a point of contact for purposes of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence—Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act … The FBI will implement regular mandatory training for all agents on national security and counterterrorism matters, including FISA or foreign intelligence surveillance issues. This additional training will be on top of the already significant foreign counterintelligence training that all new FBI agents receive. Q. General, civil libertarians are quite concerned about this ruling, and I wonder if you could give any assurances that this does not simply mean that the FISA Court is purely a rubber stamp for the Justice Department, and that there will be still Fourth Amendment protections for American citizens. ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well, obviously, this is a decision of the appellate level of the FISA Court structure, and very careful and very considerate of the Constitution has this appellate process been. We have no desire whatever to in any way erode or undermine the constitutional liberties here. And even though it’s not required by law, the appellate court here in this instance welcomed the views and arguments of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Department of Justice welcomed those views and arguments because we wanted the full range of considerations to appear before this appellate body.
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And we believe that the appellate court had a very thorough and appropriate sensitivity to safeguarding rights, and with that in mind, they have issued this decision. This decision does allow law enforcement officials to learn from intelligence officials, and vice versa, as a means of sort of allowing the information to flow from one community to another as long as there are fundamental definitions met, reinforced by this court, realistic options of enforcement and intelligence value. And in doing so, this will greatly enhance our ability to put pieces together that different agencies have. I believe this is a giant step forward. Q. … I was wondering if you could comment on the proposal to create a domestic spying agency within the United States and how this ruling might be a prelude to such an agency. ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well, this ruling really addresses the need to be able to integrate the activities of our law enforcement community. It says that we ought to be able to have things which become—come into the awareness of the intelligence community, they should be able to be passed to the prosecutors, and things that come up in the law enforcement community should be able to be passed over to the intelligence community. In other words, this ruling is a ruling that talks about the value of integration and how it can be appropriately—things can be appropriately integrated, coordinated; there can be cooperation, collaboration in the entirety of the law enforcement community. And frankly, that advances a theme, because we’ve felt that we need better integration, better communication, cooperation, collaboration between our law enforcement and intelligence communities. And that’s something we’ve been working on since September the 11th. It seems to me that the establishment of a separate, distinct agency would be to move in the other direction; instead of to integrate and cooperate and communicate, it would be to segregate and to set aside this. And so, it would be a surprise to me to have it seriously considered that the effort we’ve made to integrate, so that we can have the kind of collaboration and cooperation that brings the right result, so all the information is on the table, so that we can take advantage of all the resources, would somehow now be abandoned and that there would be some reversion to a segregated approach where we have this other agency that would be distinct and outside this relatively active now, flowing stream of information and cooperation which has been developed in response to the terrorism which was so damaging to America on September the 11th last year. Q. … [A]re you at all concerned about possible abuse of these new powers? And how are you monitoring to make sure that the new circumstances aren’t abused, which brought the ban in the first place? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well, none of these powers is exercised absent the supervising authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. So these are all done in a process that has the court’s supervision. And in none of these settings isn’t there action taken that isn’t court-supervised. And it’s with that in mind, plus an understanding that we haven’t really changed the thresholds for occasioning surveillance, we’ve simply said that when we have surveillance, we don’t have walls that keep us from being able
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to share it with individuals who can help interrupt the threat, who could help in identifying, disrupting, delaying and defeating the terrorists. And we’re going to do everything we can to identify those who would hurt us, to disrupt them, to delay them, to defeat them … … [W]e submitted the application of the new guidelines last March, but it’s not until today when the court has made clear its approval and confirmation of those guidelines that they would actually be fully implemented. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/111802fisanewsconfe rence.htm
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘The War Against Terrorism: Working Together to Protect America,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, March 4, 2003 Before I outline for the Committee the advances the FBI has made in the past 18 months, I want to assure the American people and the members of this Committee—who played such a vital role in enhancing the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts through the USA Patriot Act—that the FBI is committed to carrying out its mission in accordance with the protections provided by the Constitution. Every FBI agent is trained to recognize that the responsibility to respect and protect the law is the basis for their authority to enforce it. Respect for Constitutional liberties is not optional, it is mandatory. The FBI could not be effective—and would not exist—without it. The FBI’s efforts to identify and dismantle terrorist networks have yielded major successes over the past 18 months. We have charged over 200 suspected terrorists with crimes—half of whom have been convicted to date. The rest are awaiting trial. Moreover, our efforts have damaged terrorist networks and disrupted terrorist plots across the country. In the past month alone, the FBI has arrested 36 international and 14 domestic suspected terrorists; … Last month, I testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the Al-Qaeda network will remain for the foreseeable future the most immediate and serious threat facing this country. While this remains true, the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, or KSM, in Pakistan only three days ago is a significant blow to the leadership of the Al-Qaeda network. While Osama Bin Ladin maintains worldwide name recognition as the leader of Al-Qaeda, KSM is the operational mastermind. His terrorist plots—believed to include the 1993 World Trade Center bomb delivered by truck, the USS Cole bomb delivered by boat, and the September 11th terrorist attacks delivered by air— have resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people. We will never know the number of lives saved by taking this man into custody. I would like to congratulate and thank our Pakistani partners on this major victory in the war on terrorism. I assure you that any and all resources of the FBI will be brought to bear to exploit the intelligence formation that becomes available as a result of this arrest. … [D]espite the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks are adept at defending their organizations from US and
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international law enforcement efforts. As these terrorist organizations evolve and change their tactics, we, too, must evolve. Accordingly, the past 18 months have brought momentous changes to the FBI—including the incorporation of an enhanced intelligence function—that will better enable us to defend against the terrorist threat. Adapting to Meet the Evolving Terrorist Threat Mr. Chairman, to effectively wage this war against terror, we have augmented our counterterrorism resources and are making organizational enhancements to focus our priorities. Analytical Program ¥ To give new focus to analysis, last year I created an Analysis Branch in the Counterterrorism Division and assigned it the mission of producing strategic assessments of the terrorism threat to the United States … ¥ Since 9/11, the FBI has increased the number of CT analysts by 61 percent. Through FY04, our proposed increase will result in quadruple the number of analysts that we had pre-9/11. Recognizing that we could not get to where we needed to be overnight, Director Tenet detailed 25 of his analysts to the FBI to provide an immediate infusion of expertise into our program while our hiring initiative is underway. ¥ We have also implemented a number of initiatives aimed at enhancing training for our analytic workforce, including creating the College of Analytical Studies, which, in conjunction with the CIA, has begun training our new intelligence analysts …
Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence ¥ These improvements to our analytic program had to be made quickly to address our immediate needs. I now want to ensure our ability to collect and analyze intelligence for the long term. ¥ The centerpiece of this effort is the establishment of an Executive Assistant Director for Intelligence who will have direct authority and responsibility for the FBI’s national intelligence program. Specifically, the EAD/I will be responsible for ensuring that the FBI has the optimum strategies, structure, and policies in place first and foremost for our counterterrorism mission. The EAD/I will also oversee the intelligence programs for our counterintelligence, criminal, and cyber divisions. He or she will also ensure that we are sharing information with our federal, state and local partners.
Specialized Counterterrorism Units To improve our system for threat warnings, we have established a number of specialized counterterrorism units. These include: ¥ CT Watch, a 24-hour Counterterrorism Watch Center, to serve as the FBI’s focal point for all incoming terrorist threats; ¥ The Communications Analysis Section to analyze terrorist electronic and telephone communications and identify terrorist associations and networks;
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¥ The Document Exploitation Unit which identifies and disseminates intelligence gleaned from million of pages of documents or computers seized overseas by intelligence agencies; ¥ The Special Technologies and Applications Section to provide technical support for FBI field office investigations requiring specialized computer technology expertise and support; ¥ The interagency Terrorist Financing Operations Section devoted entirely to the financial aspects of terrorism investigations and liaison with the financial services industry;
FISA Reforms ¥ We created a FISA Unit responsible for ensuring that FISA applications move expeditiously through the FISA process. This unit is developing and implementing an automated FISA management system, and it oversees the expeditious distribution of FISA Court orders and warrants to the appropriate field offices, telecommunications carriers, Internet service provides, and other specified persons. With the FISA management system on line, we will have the ability—for the first time—to transfer FISA applications between the field offices, FBI headquarters, and the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review in a secure electronic format and to monitor the progress of each application to prevent the processing delays that have, at times, been a source of frustration for our investigators. ¥ The FBI’s National Security Law Unit and the Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review are collaborating on a number of procedural and legal initiatives that are streamlining and simplifying the process by which FBI agents obtain FISA authority. ¥ Since September 11, 2001, attorneys from the National Security Law Unit have conducted approximately 70 training sessions on FISA-related issues. ¥ Since September 11, 2001, we have made full—and very productive—use of the emergency FISA process whereby we can often establish electronic surveillance within hours of establishing probable cause that an individual is an appropriate FISA subject. Thanks to the efforts of our agents and the attorneys in NSLU and OIPR, in the one year period from September 11, 2001 to September 19, 2002, we have obtained 113 emergency FISAs, compared to the 46 emergency FISAs we obtained in the prior 23 years since the FISA statute came into existence.
Other Initiatives ¥ To prevent terrorists from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction, we have undertaken a number of initiatives. We are coordinating with suppliers and manufacturers of WMD materials in an effort to help them voluntarily report any suspicious purchases or inquiries. ¥ To protect US citizens abroad, we have expanded our Legal Attach´e and Liaison presence around the world to 46 offices. Our presence has enhanced the FBI’s ability to bring investigative resources to bear quickly in the aftermath of terrorist acts … We also assist foreign liaison in following up terrorist leads around the world. ¥ To augment local field office investigative capabilities, Flying Squads were established to provide for specialized personnel to respond to fast-breaking situations and provide a surge capacity in support of FBI Rapid Deployment Teams.
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¥ The counterterrorism measures I have just described essentially complete the first phase of our intelligence program. We are now beginning the second phase that will focus on expanding and enhancing our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence.
Information Technology We are also addressing the shortcomings of the Bureau’s information technology. Over the years, we have failed to develop a sufficient capacity to collect, store, search, retrieve, analyze and share information. Mr. Chairman, you are aware of problems the FBI has experienced because of outdated technology. Thanks to support from Congress, the FBI has embarked on a comprehensive overhaul and revitalization of our information technology infrastructure. That process is well under way, but our technological problems are complex, and they will be remedied only through careful and methodical planning and implementation. We have made progress in the past 18 months, and we have laid the groundwork for significant progress in the months and years ahead. Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to pledge my strong support for the President’s initiative to establish a Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) that will merge and analyze terrorist-related information collected domestically and abroad. This initiative will be crucially important to the success of our mission in the FBI, and it will take us to the next level in being able to prevent another terrorist attack on our nation. TTIC will focus on terrorist threat analysis. It will not conduct collection, though it will establish requirements for agencies. The TTIC proposal does not authorize any additional collection of any kind. TTIC will analyze information both foreign and domestic to provide a comprehensive threat picture. The FBI views the TTIC as an important resource. The TTIC will provide all-source, integrated analysis to the FBI, DHS, and other federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies, which, in turn, can quickly share the analysis with state and local law enforcement who are essential partners in the fight against terrorism. We recognize that the two-way flow of information between federal and local law enforcement is necessary to continuously sharpen both the collection and analysis of threat-related information. Once again, the dozens of FBI JTTFs around the country provide an effective channel to share the TTIC’s analytical products with our partners in state and local law enforcement. The FBI is committed to working with the Department of Homeland Security to push information and analysis out of the TTIC to other federal agencies, and to state and local officials. TTIC will be headed by a senior U.S. Government official, who will report to the Director of Central Intelligence. This individual will be appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence, in consultation with the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General, and the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense.
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Co-location of the CIA’s and FBI’s counterterrorism operational elements will: ¥ Speed the creation of compatible information infrastructure with enhanced capabilities, expanded and more accessible databases, and greater network sharing on counterterrorism issues. ¥ Enhance interaction, information sharing, and synergy among U.S. officials involved in the war against terrorism. ¥ Potentially allow the FBI and CIA each to manage more effectively their counterterrorism resources by reducing overhead and redundant capabilities. ¥ Further enhance the ability of comprehensive, all-source analysis to guide our collection strategies.
Co-location will afford greater opportunity for the FBI and the Intelligence Community to enhance the coordination of operations against terrorist targets inside and outside the United States. For this reason, the FBI strongly supports and looks forward to the expeditious implementation of plans to colocate the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division (CTD) with the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC), the Department of Homeland Security, and other U.S. agencies participating in the TTIC. SOURCE: http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=612&wit_id=608 EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Director Mueller’s Testimony to the Invitational Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, April 14, 2004 (http://www.fbi. gov/congress04/mueller041404.htm). For earlier testimony, see J.T. Caruso, Deputy Executive Assistant Director Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence, FBI, ‘‘Combating Terrorism: Protecting the United States,’’ Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, March 21, 2002 (http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/caruso032102.htm).
John S. Pistole, Deputy Assistant Director, FBI Counterterrorism Division, ‘‘Diplomacy and the War Against Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 18, 2003 The FBI’s Office of International Operations oversees our Legal Attach´e (Legat) program, which represents a vital component in our counterterrorism efforts. It is primarily through the Legat program that we coordinate investigative efforts and share information with our international law enforcement and intelligence partners. With the assistance of Congress and the DOS, the FBI has established 45 Legat offices. A Legat presence throughout the world has enhanced the FBI’s ability to bring investigative resources to bear quickly in the aftermath of terrorist acts. For instance, in response to the events of September 11, 2001, Legat offices facilitated the rapid deployment of approximately 700 FBI personnel overseas. Legats were also able to react immediately and lend assistance in the October 2002 shooting of U.S. AID Officer Laurence Foley in Amman; the bombing earlier this year of a disco in Bali; and the recent bombing of the airport at
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Davo City in the Philippines where 21 people were killed, including one American. Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the DOS, FBI Legats are part of the embassy community. The MOU acknowledges the Ambassador as Chief of Mission. In addition to investigative and host country liaison responsibilities, Legats work with the Administrative Officer of the embassy regarding their needs within the embassy itself. They respond to requests from other DOS employees, provide regular briefings to the Ambassador and/or Deputy Chief of Mission, and participate in all other in house activities, such as emergency action meetings and weekly country team meetings. As a result of the FBI’s efforts to identify and dismantle terrorist networks, the Legats work in close coordination with Regional Security Officers and other embassy staff to prevent future terrorist incidents from occurring both overseas and in the U.S. From fiscal year (FY) 2001 to FY 2002, the number of leads (investigative requests) covered by Legats increased from 41,211 to 53,105 (a 29% increase). The FBI’s 45 Legats are staffed by 126 Special Agents and 74 support personnel. By the end of this fiscal year, it is proposed that the staffing level increase to 145 Special Agents and 83 support personnel … Of the additional $44.7 million that the FBI was allotted for its Counterterrorism mission overseas, approximately $23.7 million was earmarked for Legat expansion. I would like to share a few specific examples which demonstrate how FBI Legats are facilitating efforts to address international terrorism. The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), located in Clarksburg, West Virginia, has responsibility for the oversight of the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). A recent priority CJIS effort was facilitated by the ability to leverage professional relationships developed by Legats with Pakistani law enforcement personnel. CJIS sent numerous teams to Pakistan for the purpose of providing equipment and training relating to the computerized capture of fingerprints. This method consists of using inkless portable fingerprinting stations that can be used onsite during an investigation. Subject fingerprints are loaded directly into the system where they are analyzed and classified for future reference and comparison with existing databases. CJIS personnel have trained Pakistani law enforcement personnel in the use of this equipment as well as providing them with equipment. The FBI Laboratory also has been engaged with Legats to ensure that numerous international law enforcement partners are aware of the availability of the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), for assisting in the identification through DNA data of terrorists subjects and other criminal suspects. The FBI, through the assistance and coordination of the DOS, has made progress in disrupting the flow of funds being used to finance terrorists and their operations. The FBI Counterterrorism Division’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section (TFOS), has worked hand in hand with the DOS, and other agencies, to identify countries that are critical to the FBI’s counterterrorism efforts and to provide crucial terrorist financing training and investigative assistance. The DOS has facilitated access to foreign financial information for TFOS as the FBI tracks terrorist financing worldwide. The DOS has also
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rendered assistance by facilitating the assignment of terrorist finance investigators to international terrorist finance task forces and by coordinating the FBI’s participation in major international conferences on terrorist financing. The FBI utilizes the DOS’s Antiterrorism Training Assistance Program to provide specialized counterterrorism training courses on topics such as hostage negotiations, crime scene processing, major case investigations, cyber crime and terrorist financing, in countries involved in the war against terrorism. The FBI is also a participant in other DOS programs, including: the inter-agency Technical Support Work Group (TSWG), which develops and prototypes counterterrorism technologies to provide protections against terrorist attacks; the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), which responds to international terrorist-related crisis incidents and supports the U.S. ambassador and host government in dealing with incidents; and, the Top Officials exercise (TOPOFF 2) which tests the nation’s domestic readiness for responding to a terrorist incident involving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear agents or devices. In addition, the FBI supports the DOS’s Rewards for Justice Program, which offers rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to an arrest or conviction of any person for conspiring, aiding, abetting or committing an act of international terrorism against U.S. persons or property. Working in conjunction with DOS foreign assistance expertise and authorities in this way helps the FBI build relationships with other countries’ law enforcement agencies to contain criminal threats. For example, the FBI is the lead agency for the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Budapest, Hungary. The four ILEAs around the world have greatly strengthened instruction on law enforcement approaches to fighting terrorism since the attacks against our country on September 11, 2001. The FBI and the DOS are coordinating, better than ever, the information we both posses regarding known and suspected terrorists. The FBI is sharing information we maintain in our National Crime Information Center (NCIC) index, and the Violent Gang Terrorist Organization File (VGTOF), with the State Department’s TIPOFF system. The DOS is also a full participant in the Counterterrorism Division’s National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF) at FBIHQ. SOURCE: http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2003/PistoleTestimony030318.pdf
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘Combating Global Terrorism and Crime,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., February 17, 2004 In the wake of September 11th, it was clear to us at the FBI that we had to focus our resources, focus our priorities, so that we knew what we had to address terrorism. We start with our number one priority, which is counterterrorism—ensuring that there can never again or will never again be an attack such as we saw on September 11th. And with that top priority, we have two others that relate to national security: The first is counterintelligence, and the
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second is protecting the United States against cyber-attack. So those are our three top priorities in the national security arena after September 11th: Counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber. If you look for a second at our success in the area of counterterrorism, our number one priority, I can tell you that we are today, I believe, in the United States, and indeed around the world, far safer than we were prior to September 11th. And that is attributable to three factors: The first is taking away al-Qaida’s sanctuary in Afghanistan, which has eliminated al-Qaida’s ability to train. It’s hampered the ability to communicate, plan and organize. So the first step in addressing terrorism in the form of alQaida was to take away the sanctuary in Afghanistan. The second piece of that puzzle is the arrest and detention of at least twothirds of the leaders of al-Qaida. And with the help of our counterparts overseas—whether it be in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or in Jakarta, Indonesia— detaining, arresting the likes the Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, Hambali, Abu Zubaida, Arab League-Baluchi, and a number of the others one can name, severely hurt al-Qaida and al-Qaida’s ability to launch the type of attack that it launched on September 11th. And the last piece of this puzzle for us, particularly in the United States, is to understand that in order to be successful against terrorism in the United States, it will take all of us working together and, in particular, I mean our state and local counterparts working with us on joint terrorism task forces. Prior to September 11th, we had 34 joint terrorism task forces throughout the United States. We now have 84. And on those task forces are not just FBI agents, but Secret Service agents, DEA agents, agents from all across the federal law enforcement establishment, but also state and local law enforcement, all working together shoulder to shoulder to address terrorism. And we have been successful in addressing a number of cells, a number of groups in the United States who were supporters of al-Qaida and UBL. Q. My name is Abderrahim Foukara from Al-Jazeera television. I have a couple of questions. US-based civil liberties organizations are saying that a number of Arab and Muslim people who were picked up after 9/11 have either disappeared or were deported. I was wondering if you could comment on that. I would also appreciate any statistics you may have. And the second question is about President Bush’s immigration proposal and if it does apply to illegal immigrants in this country from Arab and Muslim countries, and if there are any mechanisms that would make employees strictly adhere to the stipulations of the law to protect potential Arab and Muslim employees from discrimination. Thank you. DIRECTOR MUELLER: … As to the first part of the question and those individuals that were detained in the wake of September 11th, in the course of doing the investigation as to who was responsible, and most particularly, as to who in the United States might be contemplating a second wave of attacks, we and other federal and state and local law enforcement agencies interviewed a number of people. And in the course of those interviews, they fell into three categories: One is, those who were detained. Every person who was detained was detained for one of the three reasons: Either there were outstanding charges, federal, state
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and local, which warranted the detention; or secondly, there were outstanding immigration issues and the person was out of status and was detained by the then Immigration Service, now ICE; or thirdly, there was a very limited grouping of people that were detained as material witnesses, and the individuals were taken before a judge who would monitor their testimony before the Grand Jury. Those individuals, almost of them have been—their status has been resolved. Those who were, as I understand it, those who were detained by immigration, most of them have been deported. There was a rather lengthy report by the Inspector General on those individuals, and I would refer you to that for more of the details on the numbers and particularly on the numbers of those who may have been deported. But I do want to emphasize in each of those cases, the detention was based on a legal authority. Let me say one other thing while I am talking about it and that is, you talk about Muslim-American, Arab-American individuals. Since September 11th, we have had substantial assistance and cooperation from the Muslim-American community, the Arab-American community, [and] the Sikh-American community within the United States. And for that all of us are tremendously thankful. Special Agents In Charge around the country meet often with the leaders of the Muslim-American communities. I periodically meet with the leadership here in Washington. And I want to add that from my view that 99.9 percent of Muslim-Americans, Arab Americans, Sikh-Americans are every bit as patriotic and supportive of the United States as any others of us here in the United States, and that has come out since September 11th. Q. How concerned are you about the problem of corruption in the border area with the drug cartels in order to secure the border to prevent a terrorist could enter the U.S. with arms. I’m talking about the case of the FBI contractor that was corrupted by the drug cartel in Juarez. And my second question to you is, do you really think the Mexican authorities are doing enough to secure the border on the Mexican side to prevent some terrorist to enter the U.S. territory? DIRECTOR MUELLER: Well, we have had a longstanding concern about corruption as a result of the monies that are often available to narcotics traffickers. We did have that one language contractor who was arrested, if I recall correctly. It may well have—that case may well have been resolved. … [P]ublic corruption is our top criminal priority and it’s public corruption and all of its iterations, including that along the border. And consequently, we work closely with the DEA and our Mexican counterparts to identify corruption on both sides of the border and certainly on our side of the border to assign appropriate resources to address public corruption. We have a close working relationship with our counterparts on the other side of the border. There are always—whichever side of the border you’re on—there are always wishes, desires that more would be done. And we continue to work with our counterparts in Mexico to address not only narcotics trafficking; but the smuggling of persons over the border as well as the public corruption. Q. I just wondered whether you had a reaction to Congressman Peter King’s accusations that 80 to 85 percent of the mosques here in the United
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States are being controlled by extremists, and that Muslim community is not cooperating properly with the U.S. authorities. And my second question, sir, is whether you’ve felt any change in the attitude of other countries towards cooperation in terrorism following the Iraq war? I mean like Syria, for example, I mean, or other countries who opposed the war. Are they still cooperation as much as the Qaida issue and terrorism? DIRECTOR MUELLER: Well, as to the first issue, I had not heard of that statement made by the Congressman and I would reaffirm what I said before, that we have had very good cooperation from the Muslim-American community, and I anticipate that to continue. On the issue of cooperation after the Iraq war, I have seen no drop in cooperation by those countries who may have opposed the war. I have visited a number of them since the conclusion of the hostilities in Iraq and, if anything, the cooperation is enhanced. I was in London and Paris—was it last week?—I guess it was last week or the week before, and the relationship between our agencies and our counterparts in both France and in the UK could not be better. Q. Could you just reassess how the cooperation has been in the Arab and Muslim world in the last two-and-a-half years, as sort of a trend? Has it been better and better up to this moment? Is it back and forth? And how challenging is that for you today? And could you perhaps mention a few countries that you have felt have cooperated especially well? DIRECTOR MUELLER: … I will tell you it’s gotten better. And it’s gotten better over the last several years, particularly since—quite obviously since September 11th because I think persons around the world recognize the numbers of women and children who were killed in those senseless acts and do not want to see that happen again anywhere in the world. There are certain countries in which there have been terrorist attacks. And those terrorist attacks have led those countries to increase their cooperation dramatically, not only on exchanging information but most particularly, on addressing the financing of terrorism. If you take the money away from terrorists, they cannot operate. They cannot fund their operations. They are also often families and the like, and if they don’t have a job, then they have to be funded by somebody or some organization. And so addressing the financing is tremendously important to cut out the underpinnings of terrorism. And we have seen substantial increased assistance in addressing the finance of terrorism throughout the Middle East. Q. Thank you for putting the emphasis on the patriotism of the Arab and Muslim community in the United States. My question is that, I have read, on my visit to Detroit several weeks ago, some stories from the Arab community here. It seems to me like they need— or they are looking for new assurances the protection of their civil rights, the continuation of that protection would continue. Can you tell me about, or put more emphasis on the, or elaborate on the measures that you are taking in order to maintain that protection of their civil rights? DIRECTOR MUELLER: Well, even in the hours after September 11th, you would recognize that there might be some in the United States who would want to take individual retribution against Arab-Americans or Muslim-Americans and
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we immediately sent word out to our Special Agents In Charge to be alert to any such charges and to immediately follow-up and investigate them thoroughly and aggressively. We reached out to the Muslim-American community, the Arab-American community, to make certain that we were immediately alerted to any such occurrences. Over the two, two and a half years since September 11th, unfortunately, there have been such occurrences. Everyone has been thoroughly investigated. There have been a number of persons who have been indicted, tried and convicted for such acts. And when we hear about it, we will investigate. When we investigate and find evidence of a violation of the federal civil rights laws, we will prosecute. And when we prosecute, we will convict and they will go to jail. That has happened in the past and will continue to happen if such occurrences repeat themselves. Q. … There were some reports that the FBI extradited some suspected terrorists to countries that are on the State Department’s list of human rights violators, many of them experienced torture in those countries. What’s your reaction to those reports, sir? And also, there are huge debate now over the lack of enough intelligence on the front of the weapons of mass destructions. Have you received any, would you say, faulty intelligence from countries in the Middle East that have been helping you with the—with the war on terror? And finally, sir, if you could rate for us the level of cooperation you have received from Israel on the war on terror. Thank you. DIRECTOR MUELLER: Well, on the first one, those are just reports, and I’m not going to dignify them by getting into details—when we extradite people, we extradite them back to the United States. On the issue of weapons of mass destruction, one of our great concerns, as I think any intelligence or law enforcement agency has, is weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists, or those who have no restraints on using them. We, but most particularly the CIA, working with counterparts overseas, work hard to identify proliferators and to utilize all means possible to stop proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And lastly, we have a relationship with our counterparts in Israel that is similar to our relationship with our counterparts in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or elsewhere in the Middle East. We cooperate on issues of terrorism. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/29513.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the Holy Land Foundation Indictment, July 27, 2004 For the past 33 months, the Department of Justice has used every tool within the law to identify, disrupt and dismantle terrorist networks and those organizations that supply the blood money that makes such murderous acts possible. Today, a U.S.-based charity, that claims to do good works, is charged with funding works of evil. About two and a half years ago, President Bush announced the terrorist designation of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
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This designation was based on the foundation’s long-standing association with HAMAS, a notorious terrorist organization that engages in violent attacks to intimidate and coerce the government of Israel and its civilian population. Since its inception, HAMAS has claimed responsibility for numerous acts of terror that have taken the lives of hundreds of individuals, including several American citizens. Suicide bombings perpetrated against innocent civilians are the group’s trademark. Yesterday, a federal grand jury in Dallas returned a sealed 42-count indictment against the Holy Land Foundation and seven of its senior leaders for providing and conspiring to provide material support to HAMAS. After arrests this morning, the indictment was unsealed. Charged in this indictment are: ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
Shukri Abu Baker; Mohammed El-Mezain; Ghassan Elashi; Haitham Maghawri; Akram Mishal; Mufid Abdulqater; and Abdulraham Odeh.
This morning, defendants Baker, El-Mezain, Elashi, Abdulqater and Odeh were arrested. In a separate case, Elashi was convicted last month in federal court for illegally shipping computers to state sponsors of terrorism. Maghawri and Mishal are not in the United States and are now considered to be fugitives from justice. The defendants are charged with: ¥ Twelve counts of violating the prohibition on providing ‘‘material support and resources’’ to a foreign terrorist organization. The maximum penalty for each count is 15 years in prison. ¥ Thirteen counts of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which prohibits transactions that threaten national security, including transactions with HAMAS. The maximum penalty for each count is 10 years. ¥ Thirteen counts of money laundering, which carries a maximum per-count penalty of 20 years. ¥ Baker and Elashi are also charged with four counts of tax violations for filing false charitable tax returns. The maximum penalty is 5 years for each count.
I note that an indictment is an accusation; the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Also, this indictment is neither a reflection on well-meaning people who donated funds to the foundation, nor the Muslim faith and its adherents. The indictment alleges that the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was created for the purpose of providing financial and material support to HAMAS. It is alleged that over the years, the Holy Land Foundation provided significant financial resources to HAMAS, known HAMAS leaders and key strategists. The indictment further alleges that in April 1988 the HLF sent approximately $100,000 to HAMAS’s Mousa Abu Marzook, who shortly thereafter
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became HAMAS’s Political Bureau Chief. Additionally, between April 1989 and October 1989, the Holy Land Foundation transferred approximately $725,000 to an account held by the Islamic Center of Gaza, located in Gaza. The Islamic Center of Gaza was established by HAMAS leader and founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and was used by him to coordinate and conduct HAMAS activities. As the U.S. Government began to scrutinize individuals and entities in the United States who were raising funds for terrorist groups in the mid-1990s, the indictment alleges that the Holy Land Foundation intentionally cloaked its financial support for HAMAS behind the mantle of charitable activities. The indictment alleges that the Foundation and the defendants provided financial support to the families of HAMAS suicide bombers, detainees, and activists knowing and intending that such assistance would support HAMAS’s terrorist infrastructure. As alleged in the indictment, the defendants targeted specifically for financial aid families related to well-known HAMAS terrorists killed or jailed by the Israelis. In this manner, the defendants effectively rewarded past, and encouraged future, suicide bombings and terrorist activities on behalf of HAMAS. Since 1995, when it first became illegal to provide financial support to HAMAS regardless of the purported use of that support, the Holy Land Foundation has provided more than $12 million in funding to HAMAS through various HAMAS-affiliated committees and organizations located in Palestinian-controlled areas and elsewhere. This prosecution would have been more difficult, if not impossible, were it not for the tools provided by the USA PATRIOT Act. After that law’s passage, much of the information that had been gathered by intelligence agents related to this investigation became available for use by prosecutors. Indeed, significant, compelling evidence that will be used at the trial in this case was derived through court-authorized surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Prosecutors also used the PATRIOT Act authority that allowed the court in Dallas, which was most familiar with the case, to issue search warrants for locations outside the Dallas district. This case has been a model of cooperative law enforcement. In developing the evidence for these charges, the prosecutors and FBI agents have enjoyed the benefit of a number of state and federal agencies represented on the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force, including the IRS, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the State Department, the Secret Service, the Department of Army CID, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Police Departments of the cities of Plano, Garland, Dallas, and Richardson, Texas. To those who exploit good hearts to fund secretly violence and murder, this prosecution sends a clear message: There is no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance terrorist attacks. The United States will ensure that both terrorists and their financiers meet the same, certain justice. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2004/72704ag.htm
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Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Remarks at the Announcement of the National Security Division at the Department of Justice, March 13, 2006 As you know, last week the President signed legislation to reauthorize all of the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and add dozens of additional safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. In addition to the many provisions that will help us better protect the American people, the legislation authorizes the Justice Department to establish a new National Security Division. Today, the President has announced that he intends to nominate Kenneth Wainstein to serve as Assistant Attorney General for National Security. In addition, the Justice Department has requested reprogramming funds from Congress to move forward in standing up the National Security Division— that’s in addition to the 67 million we’ve requested for the next fiscal year. Since the attacks of September 11th, the federal government has taken a number of steps to reorganize and improve our resources to better fight terrorism. Our enemy is always changing and adapting … and so are we. The National Security Division will bring under one umbrella the Department’s primary national security elements, fulfilling a key recommendation of the WMD Commission. We will bring together attorneys from the Counterterrorism and Counterespionage Sections of the Criminal Division, as well as those from the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review who specialize in the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act. It is another step in eliminating the infamous ‘‘wall’’ between our intelligence and law enforcement teams. These dedicated public servants who will make up the NSD have been on the front lines of the War on Terror, working around the clock since September 11th to prosecute suspected terrorists and prevent another attack. Their successes have been numerous and noteworthy—the ‘‘Portland Seven,’’ the ‘‘Lackawanna Six,’’ Richard Reid, and others. They have made many sacrifices for the safety of the American people, and our new National Security Division will provide them with additional capacity to do their important job even better through increased coordination and cooperation. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_060313.html
John Miller, Assistant Director, Office of Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘‘FBI Work with Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, Criminal Investigation, and Cyber Crime,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., June 5, 2006 Just to give a brief overview of the FBI as it has changed as world crime and the world threat from terrorism has evolved, as you probably all know, counterterrorism is the FBI’s top priority. Preventing a terrorist attack before it happens is really our number one job and function. Our second priority is counterintelligence, which is to protect the United States from other threats to national security, including espionage.
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Our third highest priority has been cybercrime because it is a field that is relatively new in the scope of crime but also a field that knows no borders and can complement other crimes, from financial frauds to terrorists. It is something that is very high on our list. Our fourth priority is our top criminal priority, away from issues involving spies or terrorists or international cybercrimes, and that’s public corruption. We have made it our top criminal priority because we have found that the FBI is uniquely suited across all other agencies to deal with it … Let’s get back to the top priority because I think from the standpoint of the foreign press it’s probably the thing of greatest shared interest to all of us, and that’s the counterterrorism role. We have created the National Security Branch. Based on input, suggestions and insights from both the 9/11 Commission and the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destructions, we have taken the counterintelligence side, the counterterrorism side and our intelligence directorate, the people who literally connect the dots all day, and brought them together under one branch that addresses national security, because there is always the crossover or the potential for crossover in these three fields and to have them operate under one umbrella actually makes a lot of sense. So we have launched that and implemented it so that we can work better and in better coordination with not just the obvious partners like the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency, but also new entities like the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who is supposed to coordinate the efforts of all agencies. In terms of transformation, we have doubled the number of intelligence analysts, hiring 1,000 since September 11th. We recently reached our hiring goal for the second year, which means we have almost another 1,000 on the way in the process of going through background checks and training. We have hired many more language specialists, particularly in languages that will be very useful in the current trend of the latest investigations. Another thing I wanted to touch on, and I think based on this weekend’s events it’s a salient point to make, is we have changed the shape of the threat of terrorism. Working with our partners around the world, we have taken the key threat which was al-Qaida from being a strong, stable, hierarchical organization and by destroying its camps, by putting its leaders on the run, by capturing through the efforts of the military and coalition partners most of alQaida’s most effective operators, by interdicting the steady flow of funds that went to fuel the multimillion dollar cost it accrued each year to run al-Qaida, by making it more difficult for al-Qaida leaders to communicate with cells and affiliates around the world, we have changed the shape of that organization from being one that had command and control and financial ability, the ability to run institutional training camps, really to one that is steeped more in many ways in propaganda. We still see the video messages from bin Laden, as we saw right before the U.S. election. We see the video and audio messages from Zawahiri. But we don’t see the level of ability that once existed for them to actually run operations. What we instead see is the shape of the new threat, which is the homegrown terror cell. And this I think you see by example in the Madrid train bombings of March 11th, 2003, where a group that was indigenous to
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Madrid put that plot together on their own, financed it through routine crimes and then launched it, probably with the strategy of affecting the election which occurred within 48 hours, certainly with the strategy of affecting Spain’s role in the coalition, and achieved some level of effectiveness there … if you move on from there you see the London bombings of July 7th, 2005, and the attempted bombings that followed on July 21st, again you see people who were indigenous to the country, in some case second-generation Britons who conceived the plot, launched the plot, funded the plot, without any connection to al-Qaida’s front office, if you will, without any money or training coming direct from the organization. I think if you look at the cases we’ve experienced recently in the United States, from Torrance, California, where a terror cell was born out of a group that put itself together in prison and then waited for members to get out of prison to recruit others on the street and attempted to launch terrorist attacks in the streets of Los Angeles; to Toledo, Ohio, where a group of individuals found each other, started to engage in military training and ultimately had a plan to go to Iraq to attack U.S. forces; to the recent events surrounding the arrests in Atlanta and New York where individuals were conspiring with others, according to the complaint, in Canada to attack oil refineries and to disable equipment that was used to provide GPS system guidance to commercial and military aircraft; again, you see a number of places where al-Qaida, through bin Laden, through Zawahiri, through internet websites, through a number of means, puts out the call and counts on people wherever they are who are likeminded individuals who have gone from being radicalized, if you will, to operational, meaning they’re willing to step across the line and take some kind of violent action. They count on them to answer those calls and I think the events we’ve seen this weekend kind of underscore that that is going on in the United States, in Great Britain, in Spain, in Canada and other places. So that is kind of an overview of where we have come from since 9/11, how we have succeeded to some degree and how the face of the new challenge is largely as a result of our success but something that is a very different challenge to face and certainly something that I think given the number of plots that we have disrupted that would have had horrific consequences, it’s good to reflect on that success but I think it’s also cautionary because the ability of these smaller groups with less connection to a terrorist hub to fly under the radar screen is going to be difficult to track. Q. … [W]hat is then the best tool to counter this new threat you were mentioning? And not just from the FBI perspective but in general. Is it intercepting their communications? How do you identify them? MR. MILLER: Well, I think the very best tool is to increase our cooperation between international agencies. I think if you look at the recent events with the extreme cooperation that’s gone on between Great Britain, the United States, the Canadians, the Pakistanis, a number of other countries, you see the results of pooling those efforts and that information to stop things that would have gone forward. But there’s another piece to that, which is under the old model, I think if you just focused on the terrorist base and leadership, the idea was if your
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intelligence was good enough you would be able to glean from that where the next plot would be, who the next players would be. This is in many ways more difficult. It means that you not only have to rely on your international partners but also very much on your local law enforcement partners. I’ll give you the case in Torrance as an example. Here was a case where they were robbing gasoline stations to raise money for their terrorist attack. Had the local police not been successful in the investigation of the string of gasoline robberies, we wouldn’t have gotten that piece of information that they found during a search that allowed us to prevent a series of planned terrorist attacks. If the local police didn’t have the level of awareness and training that made them recognize those clues and bring in the experts, that might have not gone as well. The last piece of that is maybe the most important piece, which is community relations cannot be looked on as a feel-good piece anymore. It’s not just about community policing or making friends for the sake of making friends. In the current shape of terrorism, we really have to take seriously doubling our efforts at outreach to the community. And that’s why you have seen in the case of the Los Angeles Field Division of the FBI a town meeting that was put together with the Muslim Public Affairs Council and a number of other groups involved in their Cultural Diversity Advisory Board that reports right to the Assistant Director in Charge of the LA Field Division of the FBI. In New York you saw a recent town meeting just a couple of months ago where they brought a large group of the Pakistani community together in a restaurant. It was standing room only, despite the heat, and it was broadcast live on Pakistani television here. In Buffalo they’ve done town meetings that have been broadcast across Bridges TV, which is an English-language Arab American station, set of cable stations. … [M]y office has launched a pilot program called CREST, which is the Community Relations Executive Seminar Training, where we bring in community leaders from the Muslim community, across all nationalities, the Sikh community and other communities where we really need to make inroads because we’ve got to do three things … The three things are: We’ve got to bridge the gap in trust. A lot of these communities, frankly, look on the FBI and the federal government writ large with a great deal of suspicion. We need to bridge that gap. If we can get past the trust gap through these repeated meetings where we develop some kind of bond, then maybe we can get to the level that you would call confidence, where we believe in each other. If we can get through confidence, we may end up rounding third base and have an honest and lasting friendship. And that’s what it’s going to take, I think, to have the kind of insurance, the kind of trip wires, if you will, that will make community members, even from communities that hold the FBI or the federal government with some level of suspicion cross the line and come forward and say I’ve seen something, I’ve heard something, I’ve picked up on something that I’m not comfortable with that may be something you need to know about. Because we can’t just count on the idea that some satellite will intercept it, that some piece of pocket litter found in some safe house, you know, three continents away is going to be the key to stopping the attack.
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We’ve got to have that community piece because if the threat is now homegrown to a large extent, we have to be looking for it at home. Q. Alex Berezhkov, ITAR-TASS Russian News Agency. And can you explain a little bit on the international side of cooperation? So in Moscow there are—you have representative in Washington, D.C. What’s the level of— your assessment of the level of cooperation between Russia and the United States in this field? MR. MILLER: I think it’s very good. I also think it’s growing all the time. We have, right now, approximately 56 what we call legal attach´es stationed in embassies around the world, representing the interests of the FBI as the liaison with local law enforcement and intelligence agencies. And they do everything from taking leads that are—that need to be run overseas and investigating them by going to the local authorities and saying, ‘‘I need help running this down,’’ to taking information from the local authorities or intelligence service and saying, ‘‘This needs to be passed back to the United States.’’ We expect very soon to have that number up to 60 legal attach´e offices around the world. Obviously, there has been one for a long time in Moscow and the cooperation with the government there, as well as a number of the other governments in the region, has been extremely good. It’s not just about terrorism. It’s about transnational crime, it’s about cybercrime, it’s about the kind of crimes that bridge continents that used to require getting on a plane and going there … cooperation has been very good from Russia and we hope to continue that. In fact, I can only see it getting better. Q. Any examples … MR. MILLER: Well, I think, without getting into specific cases—to speak in general terms, the material that was shared with us on the Beslan school attacks was something that really opened a window into our ability to look, from a tactical standpoint, about what would we do if an attack like that happened here. So lessons learned from that were very important and the cooperation there was very good. There are cases involving potential terrorist finances using everything from counterfeit CD-ROMs to stolen cars being shipped overseas, where FBI personnel have been able to travel into those areas and countries and receive very welcome cooperation to really become a part of the team and coordinate arrests overseas and in the United States on the same case. That’s the general examples I can give … So everything from sharing intelligence to actually getting out and making arrests. Q. In terms of reaching the different communities here, would you say that recruitment—recruiting people from these communities is a way to—for the FBI to reach these communities? And do you have any—I don’t talk about undercover agent, but do you have any figures about maskings or people from— MR. MILLER: I don’t have the figures you’re looking for, although I could get them and maybe that’ll be useful for me to email you those numbers later. But I think you have seen, on the part of the FBI, a significant outreach to those communities for recruiting. Some of the town meetings I discussed have—you know, come with full-page newspaper ads in the newspapers in those communities, particularly the newspapers that spoke the languages of those communities, which is in only Arabic, and that outreach is going on.
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I have to be candid and honest about that, which is, the longest part about getting hired in the FBI or another agency that deals in classified intelligence is the background investigation. It becomes longer and more difficult when you have to run many of those leads out of country, even using those legal attach´es that I talked about before. You also have to engage with the host government if you’re going to question people there about somebody’s background. And it sometimes takes a long time and can be frustrating to the candidate who, of course, is seeing other jobs come and go. It’s a challenge. It’s not one that we’re not trying to address, but it’s not happening as fast as anyone would like it to because of the logistical concerns. Now there are people from those communities who have been in America, who were born here, whose families are here, and, of course, that’s a lot easier. So it’s not simple, but we’re trying to get it done. We certainly have had a marked increase in the number of people from those communities who speak, particularly, the languages that we need to do critical translations since September 11th. Q. I have a question about undocumented immigrant. Is it a problem for the counterterrorism work? MR. MILLER: Well, I think the subject of undocumented immigrants is, again, a subject for DHS, not the FBI. Immigration is not our responsibility. To answer you in the context of what does it mean in counterterrorism, if you look back through the suspects who have emerged in terrorist attacks in the United States, from Ali Mohamed of Northern California, who was Bin Laden’s chief logistical and training officer, he was an American citizen. Wadih el-Hage, who was the originator of the embassy bombing plot in August of 1997 in Nairobi, Kenya and Daresalam, Tanzania, was an American citizen. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11th plot, went to college in the United States and studied engineering and was here legally. The September 11th hijackers came in on various legal and student visas and remained in the country legally. Most of our terrorist attacks that we have seen that touch on U.S. soil have not involved, necessarily, undocumented aliens. So that’s just to set the context of history. Now I think when you look at everything, from the situation on the Mexican border, the amount of alien smuggling, the amount of narcotics smuggling, and the steps that the United States is taking to address those, you see that there is a concern that terrorists could use the vulnerabilities of those borders to bring people in illegally to do an operation. You certainly would have to focus on that on the Canadian side, in light of this latest case, because of its proximity to the United States; although, just to be clear, there’s no indication that anybody charged in the Canadian part of that case had any plans to attack a U.S. target. So the answer is, it’s certainly something we have to consider, but if you go through the pattern of people who have been big-league operators, they’ve always taken that into account and found a way to get into the country legally. Q. What I understand is that the FBI has successfully changed ways toward tracking terrorism since 9/11, but has the FBI managed to deal with the privacy issue?
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MR. MILLER: The privacy issue will be a continuing challenge and that is something that we work very closely with the Department of Justice with and through the Department of Justice with Congress to address those difficult questions. It’s because of the fast pace of changing technology that technology is changing at a faster pace than we can actually address those issues. Every time we think we’ve found a comfortable zone, of course, technology moves by leaps and bounds and we have to find another way to do it. It’s something that we look at with attention to the Department of Justice guidelines, the FBI’s own rules, and, of course, law. But ultimately, it comes down to relying on the Department of Justice and their legal opinions and that of the courts and Congress to find a comfortable middle ground and one that is proper and lawful. Q. Talking about money as well, (inaudible) the recent current investigation in Brazil right now saying that possibly South America could be actually a route for the money comes from the United States and going to support alQaida. And Brazil was, I think, surprised because it’s unlikely the country being involved in this kind of terrorism. Is FBI aware that this unlikely place in the world could be potentially because it’s not in the (inaudible) right now, potentially a place to money laundering or (inaudible)? MR. MILLER: Well, without getting into any specific country, it’s something we focus on all the time, which is: Is there money coming in from overseas to support terrorist operations, is there money going out from the United States to support terrorist operations? We’ve seen cases that are in the public record that involve down south in the United States, the use of counterfeit or untaxed cigarette sales and counterfeit goods to raise money for Hezbollah. We’ve seen fundraising cases involving Hamas. And we are certainly cogent of the presence of certain fundraising entities in South America in general and we work with those governments with a good degree of cooperation in most cases to keep on top of that. Q. Is there any movement with drug dealers, for example, … MR. MILLER: What we’ve seen is in a couple of cases, one notably in California, where you see drug dealers supplying weapons to terrorist groups in return for money. But we haven’t seen necessarily drug dealers working with what we would consider Middle Eastern terrorist groups where there’s an ideological connection. Usually it’s just been for the cash. Now, there are other groups that are on the list of designated terrorist groups, FARC for instance, where terrorism, narcotics and the money flow join quite naturally. There is certainly the consideration of the increase in heroin from certain regions of Afghanistan where a profit may go into terrorism. So there is those nexuses there. Q. Is there any specific action to try to avoid this? MR. MILLER: I mean, when it comes to terrorism, we treat all these elements the same, which is as soon as we become aware of them we take steps either on our own if they’re here or through the cooperation of the host government to interdict them. Because one of the things we have done very well is to—and this is the entire intelligence community and all our international partners together—is to cut the terrorists off from the big money that they used to receive with alacrity. But I know that as long as they are operating
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they will look for the source that will replace that big money. It used to be from individual donors and laundered through a number of charities, but if narcotics becomes the answer to that, certainly that’s where we’ll turn our focus. Q. … Afghanistan poppy cultivation is on the rise and definitely that poppy is not being consumed in a vault or in Afghanistan; it must be finding a way out. Do you think it’s helping—you know, it’s an obstacle for the FBI and it’s helping to the newly organized terrorist groups in Afghanistan? MR. MILLER: Well, it’s certainly part of the underground economy. That certainly gives it a high potential for its profits to go towards terrorism, as in any part of the underground economy. That’s certainly nothing that’s been lost on the United States. The FBI looks at it from an intelligence standpoint and from a terrorist financing standpoint. The Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, which is another arm of the Department of Justice, is looking at it from a direct standpoint in terms of interdiction and bringing the efforts over there, working with the government of President Karzai and obviously the military has a piece of that in cooperation with the Afghan Government also. It’s something we’re watching develop and are attempting to work with the host government of President Karzai to make sure that it is interdicted sooner than later. Obviously, it’s a challenging terrain, it’s a challenging environment, so it’s not as simple as just saying we’re going to take care of it. It’s as challenging for the host government as anybody else, so we have to consider that, too. Q. Among the Muslim communities here, especially after this case in New York of Union Square, there has been a kind of, you know, apprehension that there is every likelihood of entrapment rather than wanting and targeting those who are potentially terrorists and they are hiding in the community. Mostly there can be an entrapment. How do you address this issue if it’s being put to you by a common (inaudible) on the street? MR. MILLER: I understand the concern but it should not be a great worry to any legitimate member of the community. We can argue over the legalistics of entrapment by bringing in a bunch of lawyers and letting them have at it. But speaking in plain terms, if I go to you and say, listen, I’ve got a great plan that we can blow up a building at 50th and Third and I keep talking to you about it. Your job is to pick up the phone and call the police or the FBI, not to say, yeah, well, what kind of explosives would we use and where would we get them and how would we get the money. You might call that entrapment because it’s my idea, and again, that’s a discussion for the lawyers. But when you get down to the bottom line, somebody who has no proclivity towards terrorism or violence can’t be sucked into one of these plots without some level of intention. The chief mandate of the FBI moving forward from September 11th was less so to respond to the scene, pick up the pieces and find out who set the bomb, and more so to find out through intelligence who had the wherewithal and the intention to commit these crimes and get between them and acting on those intentions or with those wherewithals. And I think we’ve been very successful in doing that, from those—from Lackawanna who saw training to the Lodi case where the jury heard all the
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arguments and still concluded that that individual was in an active planning role to Torrance, California where they had set the dates for their plot and already chosen the targets. And all they had left to do was to go forward before that case was interdicted to the recent events in Canada. You can call it entrapment, but I think that’s a good defense argument. What we’ve seen is it’s not really playing well in front of the juries that hear all the evidence. And I think that what we’ve done so far has passed the test. When you sit down 12 people from the community and you say go over all the evidence not just that argument but the rest, and you come up with convictions that’s the test that we go by. Q. What makes you say that al-Qaida’s capability to strike here in the U.S. has been dramatically disrupted? Isn’t there a risk of lowering the guard too much towards outside threats coming in? MR. MILLER: Well, I say lowered not eliminated. I say al-Qaida’s ability to strike in the United States on the level of September 11th has been lowered because again they don’t have centralized camps where they are bringing thousands of recruits through, where they’re coming out with sophisticated capabilities. I mean, at one time in Afghanistan they ran three major camps full time and a number of smaller camps to a lesser extent. If you look at the time that al-Qaida ran camps from the time it had camps in the Sudan to the time its camps were eliminated in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of people went through those camps. Now that sends up two important signals. One, it means they had to be eliminated because that would have continued and they had sanctuary. Two, it means that the tens of thousands of people who went through those camps by and large ate still out there with those capabilities they learned. The difference is the history of al-Qaida shows that they were on a steadily escalating scale of attack. So if you go back to the embassy bombings, it was two massive truck bombs striking two embassies simultaneously in August of 1998. Their next plot was the product of two years of planning was to be the millennium attacks which would be to have truck bombs strike the Radisson Hotel in Jordan, an assault on the Allen B. Bridge connecting Jordan to Israel and then some other assaults on religious sites that were going to have celebrations that had to do with the millennium. They would move on to having a boat bomb. In fact, the USS Sullivan’s in the port of Aden, Yemen and use that kind of David and Goliath-like imagery of a small skiff sinking a billion dollar battleship and videotaping it. And then their third plot was to have a couple of hundred pounds of explosive hidden in suitcases to blow up on a New Year’s Day of the millennium in the Tom Bradley terminal of Los Angeles International Airport. So they went from two targets in East Africa to three targets over the period of one week both in Yemen, Jordan and the United States with very clear messaging in each one: we’ll attack your friends, we’ll attack your military, oh, and we’ll attack you at home. And all of that was a buildup to 9/11 which was certainly by measure the largest terrorist attack in history. Their ability to launch those kinds of plots without the multimillion dollar funding they used to raise, without the freedom to train and hone militarystyle operators and surveillance experts in camps. That is what I mean by their
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ability has been broken down. But you can’t write al-Qaida off as an organization until you have truly dismantled it. And what we have done is we have disabled it. It has become, to some extent, a propaganda machine. But I think we’ve all seen over the past 20 years the number of blows we have dealt to organized crime and it keeps coming back. I expect that al-Qaida certainly as long as bin Laden and Zawahiri are around, but I wouldn’t rely on them alone, will continue to try to come back. Part of the effort with our worldwide partners, with our coalition partners, with our law enforcement and intelligence partners is to make sure that we keep them as disabled as possible. I still think they’re dangerous as a propaganda machine because we’ve seen the propaganda go out and we’ve seen people rise up to that challenge. Now is that al-Qaida or is that the homegrown threat? It’s kind of an academic discussion. As long as it’s producing either the threat of terrorist plots, or terrorist plots that succeed, it is still a danger by any name. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/69275.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see John Miller, Assistant Director for Public Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘‘Combating Global Terrorism and Crime,’’ U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., April 11, 2006 (http:// fpc.state.gov/fpc/64480.htm).
President George W. Bush, Statement on Zacarias Moussaoui Jury Sentence, May 3, 2006 One year ago, Zacarias Moussaoui pled guilty in federal court to six counts of terrorism, including conspiracy to murder innocent Americans. He openly rejoiced at their deaths. This afternoon, the jurors in his sentencing trial concluded that this man should spend the rest of his life in prison. Our thoughts today are with the families who lost loved ones on September 11th, 2001. Our Nation continues to grieve for the men, women, and children who suffered and died that day. We are still deeply touched by the memory of rescuers who gave all, the passengers who ran a hijacked plane into the ground to prevent an even greater loss of life, and the frightened souls who comforted one another during their final moments on earth. The end of this trial represents the end of this case, but not an end to the fight against terror. The enemy that struck our shores on September 11th is still active, and remains determined to kill Americans. We will stay on the offensive against the terrorists. We will end their ability to plot and plan. We will deny them safe haven and the ability to gain weapons of mass murder. In these four and a half years, with good allies at our side, the United States has killed or captured many terrorists, shut down training camps, broken up terror cells in our own country, and removed regimes that sponsored terror. We have many dedicated men and women fully engaged in this fight—in the military, intelligence, and homeland security; law enforcement personnel; and federal investigators and prosecutors who gather the evidence, make the case, and ensure that justice is done. They are doing superb work every day to remove this danger and to protect our country.
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We have had many victories, yet there is much left to do, and I will not relent in this struggle for the freedom and security of the American people. And we can be confident. Our cause is right, and the outcome is certain: Justice will be served. Evil will not have the final say. This great Nation will prevail. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060503-11.html
White House Statement on the Terrorist Surveillance Program Court Case, The White House, August 17, 2006 Last week America and the world received a stark reminder that terrorists are still plotting to attack our country and kill innocent people. Today a federal judge in Michigan has ruled that the Terrorist Surveillance Program ordered by the President to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the American people is unconstitutional and otherwise illegal. We couldn’t disagree more with this ruling, and the Justice Department will seek an immediate stay of the opinion and appeal. Until the Court has the opportunity to rule on a stay of the Court’s ruling in a hearing now set for September 7, 2006, the parties have agreed that enforcement of the ruling will be stayed. United States intelligence officials have confirmed that the program has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives. The program is carefully administered, and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected Al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist. The whole point is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks before they can be carried out. That’s what the American people expect from their government, and it is the President’s most solemn duty to ensure their protection. The Terrorist Surveillance Program is firmly grounded in law and regularly reviewed to make sure steps are taken to protect civil liberties. The Terrorist Surveillance Program has proven to be one of our most critical and effective tools in the war against terrorism, and we look forward to demonstrating on appeal the validity of this vital program. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060817-2.html
22 Financial This chapter reflects the importance of curbing terrorism financing as part of the efforts to weaken the ability of terrorists to conduct attacks against the United States and its allies. It should be read in conjunction with chapter 20, Legislation, which discussed the legal framework for the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts. The starting point for this chapter is the administration’s freezing of terrorist assets in the aftermath of 9/11, discussed in the September 24, 2001, statements by the president and the secretaries of state and treasury. Rand Beers, assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, discussed the relationship between drug trafficking and terrorism financing in his March 13, 2002, Senate testimony. The role of the private sector in combating terrorism financing was outlined by Celina Realuyo, then head of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Financing Unit, in a September 18, 2002, speech. Descriptions of some of the mechanisms used to counter terrorism are contained in a number of documents, including Ms. Realuyo’s speech; testimony by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller on September 19, 2002; and testimony by Richard Newcomb, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, U.S. Department of the Treasury, on July 31, 2003. The importance of the laws criminalizing the provision of material support to terrorists (described in chapter 20, Legislation) are discussed in the Senate testimony by Gary M. Bald, assistant director, Counterterrorism Division, on May 5, 2004. Overviews of the international aspects of combating terrorism financing are provided in testimony by Alan Larson, under secretary of state for economic, business, and agricultural affairs, on October 9, 2002, and a year later by E. Anthony Wayne, assistant secretary for economic and business affairs in Senate testimony on September 25, 2003. He also discussed Saudi Arabia’s role. (See chapter 26, International Cooperation.) Juan Zarate, assistant secretary of the treasury for terrorist financing, described the Treasury Department’s role on March 18, 2003, and Mr. Wayne described the State Department’s role in a Senate hearing on April 4, 2006.
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Finally, Gerald M. Feierstein, deputy state department coordinator for programs and plans, described the U.S. government’s training and foreign assistance programs to counter terrorism financing in his April 6, 2006, House of Representatives testimony.
President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, ‘‘President Freezes Terrorists’ Assets,’’ Remarks on Executive Order, September 24, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. At 12:01 A.M. this morning, a major thrust of our war on terrorism began with the stroke of a pen. Today, we have launched a strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network. Make no mistake about it, I’ve asked our military to be ready for a reason. But the American people must understand this war on terrorism will be fought on a variety of fronts, in different ways. The front lines will look different from the wars of the past. So I told the American people we will direct every resource at our command to win the war against terrorists: every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence. We will starve the terrorists of funding, turn them against each other, rout them out of their safe hiding places and bring them to justice. I’ve signed an executive order (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2001/09/print/20010924-1.html) that immediately freezes United States financial assets of and prohibits United States transactions with 27 different entities. They include terrorist organizations, individual terrorist leaders, a corporation that serves as a front for terrorism, and several nonprofit organizations. Just to show you how insidious these terrorists are, they oftentimes use nice-sounding, non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities. We have targeted three such NGOs. We intend to deal with them, just like we intend to deal with others who aid and abet terrorist organizations. This executive order means that United States banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts. And United States citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them. We know that many of these individuals and groups operate primarily overseas, and they don’t have much money in the United States. So we’ve developed a strategy to deal with that. We’re putting banks and financial institutions around the world on notice, we will work with their governments, ask them to freeze or block terrorist’s ability to access funds in foreign accounts. If they fail to help us by sharing information or freezing accounts, the Department of the Treasury now has the authority to freeze their bank’s assets and transactions in the United States. We have developed the international financial equivalent of law enforcement’s ‘‘Most Wanted’’ list. And it puts the financial world on notice. If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America.
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I want to assure the world that we will exercise this power responsibly. But make no mistake about it, we intend to, and we will, disrupt terrorist networks. I want to assure the American people that in taking this action and publishing this list, we’re acting based on clear evidence, much of which is classified, so it will not be disclosed. It’s important as this war progresses that the American people understand we make decisions based upon classified information, and we will not jeopardize the sources; we will not make the war more difficult to win by publicly disclosing classified information. And, by the way, this list is just a beginning. We will continue to add more names to the list. We will freeze the assets of others as we find that they aid and abet terrorist organizations around the world. We’ve established a foreign terrorist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international terrorist networks. It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the terrorists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are; and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions. We’re also working with the friends and allies throughout the world to share information. We’re working closely with the United Nations, the EU and through the G-7/G-8 structure to limit the ability of terrorist organizations to take advantage of the international financial systems. The United States has signed, but not yet ratified, two international conventions, one of which is designed to set international standards for freezing financial assets. I’ll be asking members of the U.S. Senate to approve the U.N. Convention on Suppression of Terrorist Financing and a related convention on terrorist bombings; and to work with me on implementing the legislation. We will lead by example. We will work with the world against terrorism. Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations. Today, we’re asking the world to stop payment. SECRETARY O’NEILL: This order provides the authority to block funds of terrorists and anyone associated with a terrorist or terrorism. The order names specific individuals and charitable organizations that are funding terrorist acts. Donors now will know to avoid these charities that front for terrorists. With the signing of this executive order, we have the President’s explicit directive to block the U.S. assets of any domestic or foreign financial institution that refuses to cooperate with us in blocking assets of terrorist organizations. This order is a notice to financial institutions around the world, if you have any involvement in the financing of the al Qaeda organization, you have two choices: cooperate in this fight, or we will freeze your U.S. assets; we will punish you for providing the resources that make these evil acts possible. Many of our allies around the world have already stepped forward to cooperate in destroying terrorism’s financial infrastructure. I will be in contact with my G-7 colleagues again tomorrow to further coordinate our joint effort to shut down the financial underpinnings of terrorism. Today’s executive order gives us a new weapon to deny terrorists access to funds. The foreign terrorist asset tracking center that we announced last week
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(http://canberra.usembassy.gov/hyper/2001/1107/epf303.htmis) up and running, coordinating information from among government agencies with the express purpose of identifying and stamping out the financial network that funds terrorism. And we’re working with the G-7 nations, and many others, to attack all parts of a global infrastructure that finances these acts of evil. Together, we will succeed in starving the terrorists of funding and shutting down the institutions that support or facilitate terrorism. SECRETARY POWELL: … [T]his is an indication of how we’re going to use all the elements of our national and international power to do it. Terrorists require a financial infrastructure. They require safe-havens. They require places that will get them succor and comfort. We’re going after all of them in every way that we can. And we’re focusing this morning on the financial infrastructure of terrorism. We’re going to take this initiative into the United Nations and try to get additional resolutions that will serve similar purposes. We’re working with the European Union. We’re working with the G-7 and G-8, as Secretary O’Neill and the President have mentioned. We’re going to be working with Congress, as the President has mentioned, to get these two U.N. conventions ratified, and the implementing legislation in place. I’m very, very pleased at the level of cooperation that we are receiving from around the world. All civilized nations in the world understand that the civilized world has to go after terrorism. The World Trade Center, America suffered a grievous blow. But the whole world did—some almost 80 nations suffered losses at the World Trade Center. And that’s why the whole world is joining with us. Nations such as the United Arab Emirates, which declared the Taliban no longer welcome and broke diplomatic relations. All of these are part of the campaign. It’s a campaign that will be fought with persistence and with perseverance, and will be fought until, as the President has said, we have prevailed and we have won. Thank you. Q. Mr. President, when will you publish the paper which Secretary Powell mentioned yesterday, outlining some of the proof that you have of the involvement of bin Laden and al Qaeda and others? THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary said that he’d be glad to talk about the paper. Let me first tell you that I gave a speech to the nation last Thursday (Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, September 20, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/2001092 0-8.html) in which I spent a great deal of time talking about the al Qaeda organization as the first terrorist organization that we’re going to deal with. And the reason I did is there is a lot of classified information that leads to one person, as well as one global terrorist organization. But for those of you looking for a legal peg, we’ve already indicted Osama bin Laden. He’s under indictment for terrorist activity … SECRETARY POWELL: I just might point out that he has been under indictment for the bombings of our embassy. And as we gather information, and as we talk to our friends and allies around the world, and as we get more cooperation, more information is coming in with respect to his activities and the activities of this network. Most of it is classified, and as we look through it, we
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can find areas that are unclassified and it will allow us to share this information with the public, we will do so. That would be our intent. But most of it is classified. But there’s no question that this network, with this gentleman at the head—if one can call a terrorist a gentleman, just for purposes of illustration—this guy at the head of this network—the chairman of this holding company of terrorism, is the one who is responsible. And as we are able to provide information that is not sensitive or classified, I think we will try to do that in every way. Q. Mr. President, how much cooperation are you getting from Russia? And is Saudi Arabia going to allow us to use its air base, or aren’t you allowed to talk about it? THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I had an hour-long discussion—nearly an hourlong discussion with President Putin on Saturday. He was very forthcoming in his willingness to work closely with the United States in our efforts to battle terrorism. I was very pleased with my discussion. I found him to be a person who—first of all, understands the vision that we’ve entered into a new conflict in the 21st century. You need to know that when I was on Air Force One and ordered alerts— increased alert status for our troops, President Putin was the first call I got. And he made it clear that he would stand down their troops. In other words, to me it was a moment where it clearly said to me, he understands the Cold War is over. In the past, as you well know, that had the President … raised the DEF CON levels of our troops, Russia would have responded accordingly. There would have been inevitable tension. … The reason I bring that up is that Vladimir Putin clearly understands that the Cold War is over, and that the United States and Russia can cooperate. We can cooperate with a new strategic arrangement. We can cooperate in the battle against terrorism.… And I told him I appreciated his willingness to work with us in that area. … As far as the Saudi Arabians go—and, again, the Secretary can comment on this, he’s had more recent contact with them than I have—but they’ve been nothing but cooperative. Our dialogue has been one of—as you would expect friends to be able to discuss issues. And my discussion with the Foreign Minister, as well as the Ambassador, have been very positive. And there’s been no indication, as far as I’m concerned, that the Saudis won’t cooperate once they understand exactly our mission. SECRETARY POWELL: That’s exactly right, Mr. President. They have not turned down any requests that we have presented to them. Q. Mr. President, last week you condemned the Taliban regime, and said that if they did not comply with your demands, they would share the fate of the terrorists. That raises the question, what is your administration and other coalition members planning to do to maintain stability and order in Central Asia? Are we supporting this exiled King, the northern insurgence, some U.N. administration? What are our goals there, if the Taliban are to be removed? THE PRESIDENT: … [F]irst of all, we were mindful that every action could have a consequence. And as you know, we have spent a lot of time and effort
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and focus on Pakistan. I just talked about the waiving of sanctions with Pakistan and India. We believe that will bring stability to that part of the world. We have talked to other friends about how to make sure that the Musharraf presidency is a stable presence in that part of the world. In terms of activities within Afghanistan, I’m not going to talk about those. I will not jeopardize our mission in any way by talking about military or incountry plans. We have a responsibility as an administration to speak as candidly as we can to the American people, but without jeopardizing life. And so, therefore, we will be willing to discuss that very important question at an appropriate time, and now is not the appropriate time. Q. Mr. President, to put some perspective into all of this, how much—can you tell us a rough estimate of how much the al Qaeda network is worth domestically, and perhaps and/or worldwide? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think in my statement I made it clear that we don’t anticipate many assets to be frozen here in the United States, and that most of the assets will be overseas. And one of the jobs that the Secretary of Treasury is going to do is to help us identify the size of the organization’s balance sheet. I can’t give you a rough estimate right now. Q. —hundreds of millions? THE PRESIDENT: But let’s put it this way—enough to fund terrorist activity that threatens freedom. And there are—take, for example, the non-governmental organizations. They run a fair amount of money through their organizations, and we’re beginning, as you can tell from the list we’ve laid out, or will be able to tell from the list, that we’re beginning to set priorities of those most egregious and their serving as fronts for terrorist activities. I don’t know the full amount of their cash flows, but one dime of money into a terrorist activity is one dime too much. And we know that these organizations cannot function if we’re able to— the way they want to—if we’re able to chop off their monies. And we intend to do so. And we’ve got a big task ahead. In Europe, for example, there are probably going to need to be some laws changed in order for those governments to react the way we expect them to. … One of the interesting things that the Secretary can tell you—both Secretaries will tell you—is a lot of nations and their representatives have asked, how can we help; what can we do to join the effort. Some nations will feel comfortable providing troops. Some nations will feel comfortable providing intelligence. Some nations will only feel comfortable helping us wage the battle on the financial front. And that’s fine by us, because we understand how important it is to stop the flow of funds. Q. How concerned are you about consumer confidence right now? People are afraid to fly, they’re not traveling. And are you, at this point, concerned that the economy has already dipped into a recession? THE PRESIDENT: … I’m concerned about the shock this has had on our economy, and I’m concerned about, obviously, the effect of the airlines, for example, the weakness in the airline sector has had on the economy. That’s why I signed the bill as soon as Congress passed it, to provide some nonrecourse loans to the airlines, to keep them up and running right now.
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But I want to assure the American people that the fundamentals for growth are very strong. That which made us unique in the world existed prior to September—that existed prior to September 11th exists today. We’re still a nation of entrepreneurs and small business vitality. We’re still a nation of innovation. We’ve got a very good tax structure. There is no question the attacks have affected America, but I think when the investors sit back and take a hard look at the fundamentals of the economy, they’ll get back in the market. I think that consumers will realize life is going on. I think people appreciate the fact that our government has come together to act in a very significant way, to provide monies where necessary, for—whether it be to help rebuild New York or whether it be to provide a financial basis for airlines to stay in business. We’ll come out of this, and we’ll come out of it strong. See, these terrorists thought they could affect the United States. They thought they could diminish our soul. They just strengthened our country. And while the numbers aren’t going to look too good in the short-run, we’ll be a stronger nation as a result of this. And they’ve miscalculated. They made a terrible mistake. They thought somehow they could affect the psyche of our country. They’re wrong. … [M]ake no mistake about it, we’re going after them all. And we’ll win, we’re going to win. Terrorists are going to realize they can’t face down freedom. Terrorists are going to realize they made a big mistake, they miscalculated America. And I think they miscalculate a lot of our allies and friends, too. There is a determined will, and we accept the challenge in this administration. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-4.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see White House Fact Sheet on Terrorist Financing Executive Order, September 24, 2001 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/ 20010924-2.html).
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Financial Action Task Force, October 29, 2001 Forty years ago, United States Attorney General Robert Kennedy conducted an extraordinary law enforcement campaign against a different enemy within America, organized crime. Kennedy’s Justice Department, it is said, would arrest mobsters for ‘‘spitting on the sidewalk’’ if it would help in the battle against organized crime. In the war on terror, this Department of Justice will be equally aggressive. We will use every available statute and seek every prosecutorial advantage to arrest, detain and ultimately dismantle terrorist networks. Critical to the success of this strategy is denying terrorists access to the blood money that funds their operations. Those who finance terrorism are equal in guilt and equal in evil to those who direct and carry out terrorist attacks. The work of the Financial Action Task Force is a critical component of our strategy to prevent terrorism by any means within the law and under the Constitution.…
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Since its creation in 1989 the Financial Action Task Force has taken strong stands against international drug trafficking and organized crime. It now falls to the Task Force to turn its attention and expertise to terrorist financing and related money laundering … terrorists use every method of moving and concealing money, from money couriers to wire transfers and from documented traditional banking to the paperless world of underground banking. I understand that Task Force members have been talking about issuing recommendations at the end of this Special Plenary session that would make terrorist financing a domestic predicate for money laundering in all countries. Also included in your recommendations, I understand, will be a call to ratify the Terrorist Financing Convention. I applaud both these steps, and encourage you to consider additional means to starve terrorists of their funding. Originators of wire transfers, for example, must be required to fully identify themselves. Recommendations are also urgently needed to deal with alternate remittance systems including underground banking. In addition, those who use charitable organizations as fronts for terrorist financing—who make charitable givers unwitting accomplices to evil—must find no refuge in the international financial system. Finally, I hope you will enhance your provisions for the informal sharing of information through police and regulatory channels. On Friday, President Bush signed new legislationj into law that will give law enforcement critical new weapons in the war on terrorism. The new antiterrorism law makes sweeping changes to the criminal laws relating to wiretapping and electronic surveillance. In addition it contains a number of provisions relating to money laundering and asset forfeiture.… The key provisions of the new law include: Authorizing civil and criminal forfeiture of all assets, foreign or domestic, of any individual or organization engaged in terrorism, and any assets used to commit or to facilitate terrorist acts; Criminalizing the act of smuggling currency into or out of the United States. All property involved in such offenses is made subject to civil and criminal forfeiture; Increasing the ability of prosecutors to go after illegal money remitting businesses as well as to forfeit their funds; Broadening the definition of money laundering to include additional foreign crimes, including public corruption, and authorizing the civil and criminal forfeiture of both the proceeds of, and the property used to facilitate, such offenses; The law also authorizes courts in criminal forfeiture cases to order a defendant to repatriate assets to the United States and expands the courts’ authority to enforce foreign forfeiture judgments, including foreign restraining orders. The passage of this legislation marks a new era in the struggle against terrorism. United States law enforcement will now use these new tools to identify, dismantle and disrupt terrorist networks. But this is not a battle that the United States government can win alone. All freedom loving nations must join in and support the work of the Task Force and others in ridding the world of terrorism.
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SOURCE: htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/1029financialaction.
EDITOR’S NOTE: See the USA PATRIOT Act (http://www.epic.org/privacy/ terrorism/hr3162.pdf).
President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Department of Justice Shuts Down Several Financial Networks Exploited by Terrorist Groups, November 7, 2001 PRESIDENT BUSH: … The United States is pressing the war against terror on every front, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the bank accounts of terrorist organizations. The first strike in the war against terror targeted the terrorists’ financial support. We put the world’s financial institutions on notice: If you do business with terrorists, if you support them or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America. Today we are taking another step in our fight against evil. We are shutting down two major elements of the terrorists’ international financial network, both at home and abroad. Ours is not a war just of soldiers and aircraft; it is a war fought with diplomacy, by the investigations of law enforcement, by gathering intelligence, and by cutting off the terrorists’ money. Acting on solid and credible evidence, the Treasury Department of the United States today blocked the U.S. assets of 62 individuals and organizations connected with two terrorist-supporting financial networks, the Al Taqua and the Al-Barakaat. Their offices have been shut down in four U.S. states, and our G-8 partners and other friends, including the United Arab Emirates, have joined us in blocking assets and coordinating enforcement action. Al Taqua is an association of off-shore banks and financial management firms that have helped al Qaeda shift money around the world. Al-Barakaat is a group of money-wiring and communication companies owned by a friend and supporter of Osama bin Laden. Al Taqua and Al-Barakaat raise funds for al Qaeda. They manage, invest and distribute those funds. They provide terrorist supporters with Internet service, secure telephone communications and other ways of sending messages and sharing information. They even arrange for the shipment of weapons. They present themselves as legitimate businesses, but they skim money from every transaction for the benefit of terrorist organizations. They enable the proceeds of crime in one country to be transferred to pay for terrorist acts in another. The entry point for these networks may be a small storefront operation; but follow the network to its center and you discover wealthy banks and sophisticated technology, all at the service of mass murderers. By shutting these networks down, we disrupt the murderers’ work. Today’s action interrupts al Qaeda’s communications. It blocks an important source of funds. It provides us with valuable information and sends a
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clear message to global financial institutions: you are with us, or you’re with the terrorists. And if you’re with the terrorists, you will face the consequences. We fight an enemy who hides in caves in Afghanistan and in the shadows within our own society. It’s an enemy who can only survive in darkness. Today we’ve taken another important action to expose the enemy to the light and to disrupt its ability to threaten America and innocent life.… We’re slowly but surely tightening the noose, and we will be victorious. SECRETARY O’NEILL: Mr. President, Secretary Powell, Attorney General Ashcroft, I’m pleased you’re here at one of the key nerve centers in the campaign against global terrorism, the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center. It’s here that we marshal the combined assets of law enforcement, intelligence, and public databases to identify, track, and disrupt the flow of money to terrorists. This ongoing task requires patience and sophisticated means because the financial supporters of terror hide in off-shore havens of secrecy, disguise their true identities, and masquerade as legitimate businesses while directing their profits to underwrite enterprises of hate and violence. They also know that we are watching, and for that reason, they try to funnel their money through undocumented, unregulated financial networks constructed to bypass the civilized world’s detection. But their system is imperfect. Somewhere it must always interface with modern banking and finance. When that connection is made, we have the wherewithal to intervene, and thanks to the cooperation of allies and coalition partners, cemented by the good work of Secretary Powell, we have begun to act, to block assets, to seize books, records and evidence, and to follow audit trails to track terrorist cells poised to do violence to our common interest. … [T]he Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Treasury Department have eliminated barriers that have hampered past efforts. This new joint effort has borne fruit. In the United States we’ve blocked $24 million in assets of the Taliban and al Qaeda. We have an additional 962 accounts under review. We’ve built an international coalition to deny terrorists access to the world financial system. A hundred and twelve nations have blocking orders in force, and nations around the world have blocked at least $43 million in assets. The announcement the president just made is a significant milestone in this effort. But we will not be finished until we have dismantled the financial network of the terrorists.… SECRETARY POWELL: … [W]ith this event we build on success: success in starving terrorists of their money. For money is the oxygen of terrorism. Without the means to raise and move money around the world, terrorists cannot function. Mr. President, your executive order on terrorist financing (Executive Order 13224 http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13224.htm) has been a critical part of our efforts worldwide to deny the terrorists their financial oxygen. We have moved aggressively against the individuals and organizations covered by your executive order. And with your announcement today, we have taken our efforts to a new level. We are now going after the hawala organizations, the shadowy financial networks that underpin the terrorists’ underworld.
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Cutting off their financial flows that feed terrorism requires international cooperation on the broadest scale. And I am pleased by the strong support and cooperation that our efforts are receiving. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373j requires member states to prevent the financing of terrorist acts, to criminalize the provision of funds to terrorists, and to freeze funds and other assets of terrorists and of their supporters. This is a binding obligation under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter. In the past few weeks alone over 130 countries have committed to implement this crucial element of the campaign against terrorism. But that is not good enough. We are working hard to get 100 percent adherence to Resolution 1373. And to that end we have named an experienced diplomat, Ambassador Ted McNamara, to lead our efforts around the world to bring the remaining countries on board, bring them in support of the U.N. resolution. So far, we and our international partners have frozen millions of dollars in terrorist assets.… Saudi Arabia has been prominent among the countries acting against the accounts of terrorist organizations. We and our partners have millions more in suspect accounts under review. But this is only a beginning. There is more to do, and we are doing it. For example, we are pressing all countries to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, a treaty which removes legal obstacles to more effective international cooperation against terrorism. And I am delighted that Saudi Arabia once again has just ratified this convention. We are now working with our United States Senate to gain its consent to our ratification of that treaty. MR. ASHCROFT: … Today we have shut down several financial networks exploited by terrorist groups. Piece by piece, we are dismantling the infrastructure of the terrorist network. The Department of Justice is bringing the full weight of the criminal law against those who fund or launder money for terrorists. This morning the United States Attorney in Boston charged two individuals with operating an illegal foreign money transmittal business. They are alleged to be officers of Al-Barakaat-related businesses in Dorchester, Massachusetts. In addition, in locations across the country, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and other federal law enforcement agencies are interviewing individuals and taking other investigative steps in the ongoing criminal investigations of Al-Barakaat entities. These steps include executing search warrants on Al-Barakaat-related facilities in Massachusetts, Ohio and Virginia. Our criminal investigation of Al- Barakaat-related activities and entities is national in scope and it is ongoing. As today’s actions demonstration, we will use all tools available to us— administrative tools, civil tools, and criminal prosecutions—to find and uproot terrorist financial networks. We will not stop until the war on terrorism is won. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks11_07.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 (http:// ods-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N01/557/43/PDF/N0155743.pdf?Open Element).
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President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O’Neill, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘U.S. Government Freezes Holy Land Foundation Funds,’’ News Conference, The White House, December 4, 2001 PRESIDENT BUSH: Today we take another important step in the financial fight against terror. From the beginning of this fight, I have said our enemies are terrorist networks of global reach, and all who harbor them and support them are our enemies as well. We began with al Qaeda and the Taliban. We identified some of al Qaeda’s financial backers and we moved against their accounts. In November, we advanced further and identified 22 more global terrorist organizations. And now we are moving against their financing as well. At midnight yesterday, the Treasury Department froze the assets and accounts of the Holy Land Foundation in Richardson, Texas, whose money is used to support the Hamas terror organization. Earlier today, federal agents secured the offices and records of the Holy Land Foundation in Texas, California, New Jersey and Illinois as a part of an ongoing investigation. At the same time, we have blocked the accounts of an Hamas-linked bank, an Hamas-linked holding company based in the West Bank. The message is this: Those who do business with terror will do no business with the United States—or anywhere else the United States can reach. Hamas is an extremist group that calls for the total destruction of the state of Israel. It is one of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world today. Hamas openly claimed responsibility for this past weekend’s suicide attacks in Israel that killed 25 innocent people, many of them teenagers, and wounded almost 200 other people. Hamas is guilty of hundreds of other deaths over the years, and just in the past 12 months, it killed two Americans. And today we act. Hamas has obtained much of the money that it pays for murder abroad right here in the United States, money originally raised by the Holy Land Foundation. The Holy Land Foundation is registered with the IRS as a taxexempt charity based in Richardson. It raised 13 million dollars from people in America last year. The Holy Land Foundation claims that the money it solicits go to care for needy Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Money raised by the Holy Land Foundation is used by Hamas to support schools and indoctrinate children to grow up into suicide bombers. Money raised by the Holy Land Foundation is also used by Hamas to recruit suicide bombers and to support their families. … I’m confident that most of the donors to the Holy Land Foundation and perhaps even some of the individuals who are associated with the foundation had no idea how its money was being used. They wanted to relieve suffering in a region of the world that has suffered too much. But the facts are clear: the terrorists benefit from the Holy Land Foundation, and we’re not going to allow it. Our action today is another step in the war on terrorism. It’s not the final step. There are more terrorist networks of global reach and more front groups who use deceit to support them. The net is closing.
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Today it just got tighter. SECRETARY O’NEILL: When the president declared war on terrorist financing in September, we made al Qaeda our primary focus of attention and have since blocked $61 million worldwide in assets of the Taliban and of al Qaeda. In October, we broadened our pursuit of terrorist assets to include all foreign terrorist organizations, including Hamas. We stated very clearly our intent to pursue the bankers who finance these terrorists. Today we’re advancing on those financiers of terror. Today we’re shutting down three Hamas-controlled organizations that finance terror. The Holy Land Foundation masquerades as a charity, while its primary purpose is to fund Hamas. This is not a case of one bad actor stealing from the petty-cash drawer and giving the stolen money to terrorists. This organization exists to raise money in the United States to promote terror. Last year, Holy Land raised $13 million in the United States. Government agents today shut down four offices of the Holy Land Foundation in the U.S. Innocent donors who thought they were helping someone in need deserve protection from these scam artists who prey on their benevolence. Similarly, the al Aqsa Bank and the Beit El-Mal Bank aren’t just banks that unknowingly administer accounts for terrorists. They are direct arms of Hamas established and used to do Hamas business. We will work with every civilized nation around the globe to ensure there is no safe haven for terrorist money. Just as in the ground war, we will win by taking one hill at a time, advancing tirelessly every day, until terrorists and their money have nowhere to hide. ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: … With this action, we go beyond the al Qaeda network to target groups whose violent actions are designed to destroy the Middle East peace process. The suicide bombings in Israel over the weekend and previous attacks claimed by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad over the last few years leave no doubt about the urgency of stopping terrorism in all its forms, whether the terrorism emanates from Afghanistan or from the West Bank and Gaza. By freezing the financial apparatus of Hamas, we signal that the United States of America will not be used as a staging ground for the financing of those groups that violently oppose peace as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We won’t tolerate it any more than we will tolerate the financing of groups that on September 11th attacked our homeland. Today’s action is a result of the FBI’s work with the Treasury Department on a continuing terrorist financing investigation coordinated by the Department of Justice’s Terrorist Financing Task Force. This task force’s sole mission is to dismantle U.S.-based organizations financing terrorist operations. The task force was created in the aftermath of September 11th and is comprised of prosecutors from the Criminal and Tax Divisions, U.S. attorneys’ offices, and FBI agents across the nation, in conjunction, of course, with the Treasury Department—these individuals who have expertise in investigating and prosecuting white-collar crime. Today’s action targets a U.S.-based organization operated by individuals who have been the focus of joint law enforcement action prior to September 11th. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, based in Richardson,
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Texas, shares employees of an Internet company known as Infocom. Infocom was raided by the FBI and had its assets frozen by the Treasury Department six days before the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Infocom, like the Holy Land Foundation, received much of its early money from Mousa Abu Marzook, a top Hamas official who, the U.S. courts have determined, was directly involved in terrorism. In addition to sharing Marzook as an early sponsor, Infocom and the Holy Land Foundation were both established in California and moved to Texas in the same period of time. They are currently located in the same business park and appear to share office space and personnel. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/1204newsconference withbush.htm
Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, ‘‘Narco-Terror: The Worldwide Connection Between Drugs and Terror,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, March 13, 2002 THIS JOINT TESTIMONY BY ASSISTANT SECRETARY RAND BEERS AND AMBASSADOR FRANCIS X. TAYLOR, STATE DEPARTMENT COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, WAS DELIVERED BY ASSISTANT SECRETARY BEERS. The attacks against the United States on September 11 stunned us all. They also made it very clear that the mission of the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL)—to provide support to counternarcotics and other anti-crime efforts worldwide—is more important now than ever. While INL does not have the lead in the war on terrorism, we strongly support these efforts through our counternarcotics and crime control activities, which provide training, equipment and institutional support to many of the same host nation law enforcement agencies that are charged with a counterterrorist mission. We are also working on the diplomatic front, both multilaterally and bilaterally, to strengthen our counternarcotics and law enforcement cooperation with other governments with a special focus on bringing these tools to bear in the fight against terrorism. For example, in the G8 we have since September 11 combined the efforts of Lyon (crime) and Roma (counterterrorism) experts groups to enhance cooperation on a range of specific issues, including counternarcotics in relation to Afghanistan. Symbiotic Relationship There often is a nexus between terrorism and organized crime, including drug trafficking. Links between terrorist organizations and drug traffickers
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take many forms, ranging from facilitation—protection, transportation, and taxation—to direct trafficking by the terrorist organization itself in order to finance its activities. Traffickers and terrorists have similar logistical needs in terms of material and the covert movement of goods, people and money. Relationships between drug traffickers and terrorists benefit both. Drug traffickers benefit from the terrorists’ military skills, weapons supply, and access to clandestine organizations. Terrorists gain a source of revenue and expertise in illicit transfer and laundering of proceeds from illicit transactions. Both groups bring corrupt officials whose services provide mutual benefits, such as greater access to fraudulent documents, including passports and customs papers. Drug traffickers may also gain considerable freedom of movement when they operate in conjunction with terrorists who control large amounts of territory. Similarity of Methods Terrorist groups and drug trafficking organizations increasingly rely on cell structures to accomplish their respective goals. While there may be a strong central leadership, day-to-day operations are carried out by members of compartmentalized cells. This structure enhances security by providing a degree of separation between the leadership and the rank-and-file. In addition, terrorists and drug traffickers use similar means to conceal profits and fund-raising. They use informal transfer systems such as ‘‘hawala,’’ and also rely on bulk cash smuggling, multiple accounts, and front organizations to launder money. Both groups make use of fraudulent documents, including passports and other identification and customs documents to smuggle goods and weapons. They both fully exploit their networks of trusted couriers and contacts to conduct business. In addition, they use multiple cell phones and are careful about what they say on the phone to increase communications security. The methods used for moving and laundering money for general criminal purposes are similar to those used to move money to support terrorist activities. It is no secret which countries and jurisdictions have poorly regulated banking structures, and both terrorist organizations and drug trafficking groups have made use of online transfers and accounts that do not require disclosure of owners. Moreover, bulk cash smuggling methods and informal networks such as ‘‘hawala’’ and the black market peso exchange are easy and efficient ways to launder money. Criminal networks are in a perfect position to use methods that require doctoring of passports or customs declaration forms. These methods are unlikely to change in the near term. Though many countries have been quick to update their regulations, few have the law enforcement structure in place to carry out interdiction. If law enforcement capabilities improve globally, in the long term traffickers and terrorists may increasingly use trusted individual couriers, or more complex balance transfers in informal networks. INL has worked with the Departments of Justice and Treasury and with nations around the world to strengthen controls which could thwart the drug traffickers’ attempts to launder their funds and to investigate and prosecute those who are involved in moving criminal proceeds. These same law
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enforcement controls also help prevent the movement of funds of terrorist organizations. Moreover, many of the skills and types of equipment needed to attack organized crime are applicable to combating terrorism. Much of INL’s assistance—such as the provision of equipment for forensic labs; assistance with drafting asset forfeiture and money laundering legislation; and provision of basic training in investigation techniques, maritime enforcement and port security—applies to both counternarcotics and counterterrorism. Migrant smuggling, document fraud, arms trafficking, auto theft, smuggling of contraband, and illegal financial transactions are tools for terrorists as well as narcotics traffickers. From State-Sponsorship to Drug Trafficking In the past, state sponsors provided funding for terrorists, and their relationships with terrorist organizations were used to secure territory or provide access to gray arms networks. Lately, however, as state sponsorship of terrorism has come under increased scrutiny and greater international condemnation, terrorist groups have looked increasingly at drug trafficking as a source of revenue. But trafficking often has a two-fold purpose for the terrorists. Not only does it provide funds, it also furthers the strategic objectives of the terrorists. Some terrorist groups believe that they can weaken their enemies by flooding their societies with addictive drugs. Growing pressure on state sponsors of terrorism has increased the likelihood that terrorists will become involved in the drug trade. Interdiction of terrorist finances and shutdowns of ‘‘charitable’’ and other non-governmental front organizations have also contributed to their convergence. Terrorist groups are increasingly able to justify their involvement in illicit activity to their membership and have largely abandoned the belief that it can damage the moral basis for their cause. Listed below, by geographic region, are terrorist organizations that are known to have connections to drug-trafficking. Most of these organizations have been officially designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) by the Secretary of State. Latin America In the Western Hemisphere, there is an historic link between various terrorist groups and narcotics trafficking. The Shining Path cut a brutal swath through Peru from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, largely funded by levies the group assessed on cocaine trafficking. In Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, and along the loosely controlled region that it borders with Brazil and Argentina, members of radical Islamic groups are reported to be engaged in money laundering, intellectual property rights piracy, alien smuggling, and arms trafficking. The Andean region is the source of virtually all the world’s cocaine. Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, in that order, are the primary producers of coca and the final products. The presence of terrorist organizations in Colombia and Peru—and their need to finance operations—establishes a natural symbiotic relationship to exploit drugs as a revenue source.
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The linkage between drugs and terrorism in Colombia is one that particularly concerns us and one that we watch carefully. In the 1990s, the international drug cartels operating in Colombia embarked on a campaign of violence that severely challenged the authority and even the sovereignty of the Colombian state … In light of recent events in Colombia, the potential for increased violence between the government and terrorist groups, and the growing linkage between terrorism and drug trafficking, we are reviewing our policy options there. At present, there are three terrorist groups operating in Colombia including the FARC, ELN, and AUC. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—Although the FARC-controlled safe haven, or ‘‘despeje’’—which is situated between two of Colombia’s largest coca cultivation areas—is not considered a major area for coca cultivation or drug trafficking, many FARC units throughout southern Colombia raise funds through the extortion (‘‘taxation’’) of both legal and illegal businesses, the latter including the drug trade. Similarly, in return for cash payments, or possibly in exchange for weapons, some FARC units protect cocaine laboratories and clandestine airstrips in southern Colombia. In addition, some FARC units may be independently involved in limited cocaine laboratory operations. Some FARC units in southern Colombia are more directly involved in local drug trafficking activities, such as controlling local cocaine base markets. At least one prominent FARC commander has served as a source of cocaine for a Brazilian trafficking organization. There are strong indications that the FARC has established links with the Irish Republican Army to increase its capability to conduct urban terrorism. In July 2001, the Colombian National Police arrested three members of the IRA who are believed to have used the demilitarized zone to train the FARC in the use of explosives. National Liberation Army (ELN)—The ELN operates primarily along Colombia’s northeastern border with Venezuela and in central and northwestern Colombia. The territories under ELN influence include cannabis and opium poppy growing areas. Some ELN units raise funds through extortion or by protecting laboratory operations. Some ELN units may be independently involved in limited cocaine laboratory operations, but the ELN appears to be much less dependent than the FARC on coca and cocaine profits to fund its operations. The ELN expresses a disdain for illegal drugs, but does take advantage of the profits available where it controls coca producing areas. United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC)—The AUC umbrella group, which includes many Colombian paramilitary forces, admittedly uses the cocaine trade to finance its counterinsurgency campaign. The head of the AUC, Carlos Castano, stated in 2000 that ‘‘70 percent’’ of AUC operational funding was from drug money and described it as an undesired but necessary evil. AUC elements appear to be directly involved in processing cocaine and exporting cocaine from Colombia. In 2001, the AUC claimed publicly that it was getting out of the drug business, but it will be very difficult for this umbrella group to keep its many semi-autonomous units from continuing in the lucrative drug business. Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso SL) (Peru)—The SL historically has operated in remote areas of Peru where central government authority is least
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prevalent—a condition conducive to drug producers, drug traffickers and terrorists. The geographic coincidence and reliance on violence to protect safe havens made the SL a natural to engage in protection and extortion rackets involving coca and cocaine … As the SL waned in the late 1990s, so did its influence on the drug trade. But in 2001, the SL had a slight resurgence in areas like the Huallaga and Apurimac valleys where coca is cultivated and processed, indicating that the remnants of the group are probably financing operations with drug profits from security and taxation ‘‘services.’’ Tri-Border Islamic Groups—In Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, and along the loosely controlled region that it borders with Brazil and Argentina, members of radical Islamic groups are reported to be engaged in drug trafficking, money laundering, intellectual property rights piracy, alien smuggling and arms trafficking. One such individual is Said Hassan Ali Mohamed Mukhlis, a suspected member of the Egyptian Islamic Group with possible ties to Osama bin Laden. This group is linked to the murder of 58 tourists in Luxor, Egypt, and Mukhilis himself was arrested in 1999 by Uruguayan authorities in connection with foiled plots to bomb the U.S. embassies in Paraguay and Uruguay. South Asia & Former Soviet Union Throughout this region, proximity to cultivation and production, combined with the infrastructure provided by the traffickers, has encouraged mutually beneficial relationships between terrorist groups and drug trafficking organizations. Al-Qaida—Since it transferred its base of operations to Afghanistan, alQaida has been sustained by a government that earned a substantial part of its revenue through taxes on opium production and trafficking. Afghanistan’s opiate trafficking, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the world’s supply, was reportedly advocated by Osama bin Ladin as a way to weaken the West. Kashmiri militant groups—These groups likely take part in the drug trade to finance their activities given their proximity to major production and refining sites and trafficking routes. Middle East Hizballah—The Lebanese ‘‘Hizballah’’ group smuggles cocaine from Latin America to Europe and the Middle East and has in the past smuggled opiates out of Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, although poppy cultivation there has dwindled in recent years. Its involvement in drug trafficking and other illicit activity may expand as state sponsorship declines. Europe Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—The PKK ‘‘taxes’’ ethnic Kurdish drug traffickers and individual cells traffic heroin to support their operations. Irish Terrorists—Although there is some evidence linking the Real IRA to drug trafficking, the extent to which the Real IRA or other terrorist groups in Ireland engage in drug trafficking is unclear.
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Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA)—Reporting indicates the ETA or its members have been involved in a variety of crimes from drug trafficking to money laundering. SOURCE: http://lists.state.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-USIAINFO.EXE?A2=ind0203b&L= dossdo&O=D&P=927
Celina B. Realuyo, Policy Advisor, Counterterrorism Office, ‘‘Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Remarks to Western Union International Compliance Conference, New York, New York, September 18, 2002 One year and one week ago today, terrorists struck the United States in an unprecedented attack on innocent civilians here in New York at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and over the skies of Pennsylvania. September 11 is a date that changed the world and that changed all our lives—personally it gave me a new mission to return to government service from Wall Street to join the ranks of those waging this war on terrorism. I am here today to address the serious subject of terrorist financing. CT Finance War In the wake of the attacks, it was clear that this war on terrorism would have to be waged on various fronts—military, diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement, and most certainly financial. Although some experts estimate that the September 11 attacks cost between $300,000-500,000 to conduct, sophisticated terrorist networks like Al Qaida require millions of dollars to develop and maintain. To root out terrorism, we not only need to capture terrorists and their supporters and bring them to justice but we must stem the flow of funds that keep them in business. New Measures On September 24, 2001 President Bush announced the start of an offensive against the financial foundation of the global terror network using every means of diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement and financial influence to identify, disrupt, and dismantle terrorist financing networks. Let me take this opportunity to review the measures the U.S. has taken—domestically and in concert with the international community—and describe what we have achieved in the past year in the war against terrorist financing. On September 24, 2001 President Bush implemented Executive Order 13224 that expands the U.S. government’s power and authority to target terrorist organizations, freeze and block their assets in the U.S., and subject their financiers and supporters to economic sanctions for aiding and abetting terrorism. Last fall, the United Nations adopted UNSC resolutions 1373 (http:// daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/7201249.html) and 1390 (http://daccess-ods. un.org/TMP/9341613.html) directing member states to criminalize terrorist financing and adopt regulatory regimes to detect, deter, and freeze terrorist
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assets. The resolutions oblige all states to deny financing, support and safe harbor for terrorists. We have actively engaged in multilateral institutions such as the Financial Action Task Force and international financial institutions to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Last October, FATF adopted Special Eight Recommendations on Terrorist Finance. I have actually just returned from the FATF Working Group meeting in Madrid where we assessed progress made by FATF members on the Special Eight Recommendations on Terrorist Financing. We began elaborating on best practices papers on the subjects of wire transfers, oversight of non-profit organizations such as charities, and counterterrorism finance technical assistance. Regarding wire transfers, we look forward to working with private sector entities such as Western Union in developing best practices in this area. On October 26, 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act was enacted which expanded the government’s tool kit in anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing. The USA PATRIOT Act: ¥ enhances transparency in financial transactions; ¥ protects international gateways to the U.S. financial system, ¥ increases the vigilance of all our financial institutions (including money services businesses) subjecting them to more rigorous anti-money laundering and terrorist financing compliance programs ¥ facilitates critical information sharing among U.S. law enforcement agencies such as the Treasury Department’s FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) that investigates financial crimes ¥ amends existing legislation to enhance our ability to freeze terrorist assets ¥ amends the Immigration and Naturalization Act with the creation of the Terrorist Exclusion List that denies or revokes visas for terrorists and their supporters.
Phase I—Success The first phase of the financial front of the war on terrorist financing was dominated by public designations of terrorists and their supporters and attempts to freeze their assets. Bilaterally with our international allies, and multilaterally through the UN, G7, EU, and other regional organizations, we have worked hard to designate or ‘‘name and shame’’ individuals and organizations identified as supporters of terrorism. These designations are aimed not only at freezing these people’s assets but to deter others who may continue to support terrorism. We know that our counterterrorism finance measures are having an impact. We have frozen over $112 million worldwide in over 500 accounts—$34 million in the U.S. alone. In the ‘‘name and shame game’’ of public designations, 236 individuals, entities and organizations are currently designated in the U.S. under the Executive Order as supporters of terrorism and 34 are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The U.S. is working with the UN and its allies to ensure the designation of these groups on international lists and the freezing of their assets. We understand that some potential donors to Al Qaida and other terrorist groups are reluctant to donate funds for fear of the consequences.
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We are seeing encouraging signs that the international community is erecting regulatory barriers to terrorist financing. 166 countries and jurisdictions have issued blocking orders against the assets of terrorists. Almost daily, we receive word of a new money laundering law, a new arrest, a new regulation that will make life more difficult for terrorist groups to finance their activities. Phase II We are now entering a new phase in the war on terrorist financing. This phase will entail more long-term strategies that are aimed at safeguarding our financial systems from abuse by terrorists and their supporters. Since our enemy has a global reach and a global network, we must have a global strategy. The State Department, working with our Embassies around the world, has been a central player in the Administration’s formulation and implementation of policies to combat the financing of global terrorism. We work hand in hand with our colleagues in the Departments of Treasury and Justice and in the intelligence and law enforcement communities and our international counterparts to address terrorist financing. Our international strategy has included the following central elements: ¥ Establishing a clear set of international norms, starting with key United Nations Security Council Resolutions and international conventions to combat terrorist financing. ¥ Making the fight against terrorist financing a central element of every relationship the U.S. has with other countries or institutions. ¥ Pushing other countries to identify individuals and institutions involved in financing terrorism and to take appropriate action to shut down their activities, including through the freezing of their financial assets. ¥ Strengthening law enforcement cooperation on issues related to terrorist finance. ¥ Providing training to increase the capacity of other countries to close down terrorist financing activities on their own soil. ¥ While our short term strategy focused on confronting terrorist actors and freezing their assets, our longer term strategy concentrates on reinforcing our financial systems to combat money laundering and terrorist financing through capacity building.
Our team is responsible for developing the strategy for counterterrorism finance capacity building … Post-September 11, the U.S. and its allies identified countries that might be particularly vulnerable to terrorist financing. We have examined areas susceptible to terrorist abuse in the U.S. and abroad including: the formal financial systems, wire transfers-money services businesses, informal value transfer systems including hawala, gold and diamonds, and the non-governmental organizations, namely charities. We hope to assist countries identify vulnerabilities in those areas and provide training and technical assistance to address them. FSAT Process How have we gone about our mission? I serve as one of the leaders of interagency financial assessment teams that are comprised of U.S. government
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experts from the State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau, Treasury Enforcement, FinCEN, U.S. Customs, the IRS, financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve, FDIC, Office of the Currency Comptroller, the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. These interagency teams are sent worldwide to work with host governments to examine the following functional areas: Legal framework: Determine whether there is a rigorous anti-money laundering regime in place. Confirm that terrorist financing is a predicate offense. Ensure that local prosecutors can put together a strong financial crime case against perpetrators. We work closely with the host country’s judicial branch of government—usually the Attorney General or Interior Ministry on these issues. We also see that international conventions and UNSCRs are in force. Law enforcement: Verify that law enforcement agencies are prepared to ‘‘follow the money’’ to investigate financial crimes with proper legal authorities and can provide state prosecutors with sufficient evidence to press charges that lead to convictions. Determine whether law enforcement agents have necessary training and resources to pursue financial crimes. Financial regulatory regime: Working with the host government’s Central Bank and Finance Ministry, we examine the local culture of compliance. Confirm that rigorous compliance regulations are in force over all financial institutions. Inspect reporting procedures for suspicious activity reports and if applicable currency transaction reporting. Financial Intelligence Units: Examine the effectiveness of local FIUs and determine needs for training and resources. Observe how FIUs handle SARs and how they cooperate with law enforcement authorities and prosecutors to identify financial crimes. Informal value transfer systems: Determine if IVTS pose a threat in host country and see what measures government has taken to regulate them. GOLD: Recent articles in the press have raised the issue of al Qaeda’s transferring its money into gold in order to circumvent the actions I have described above being undertaken by the international community. While there is currently little specific evidence regarding such activity, we are clearly aware of the threat posed by informal value transfer systems such as gold. Money laundering is often ‘‘trade-based,’’ involving diverse commodities such as electronics, foodstuffs, gold, and precious gems.… Smuggling, corruption, narcotics trafficking, foreign exchange transactions, wage remittances and hawala are intertwined with legitimate commerce. And many traditional trading systems ignore, in whole or part, western style financial institutions. While there are no easy counter measures to this problem, we are taking steps to address and heighten awareness of the threat posed by ‘‘trade-based’’ money laundering. The Department of State is working with the U.S. Customs Service to provide specifically tailored training and technical assistance in specific regions of the world on trade and money laundering. Charities: We determine whether charities are regulated by host governments and whether they are vulnerable to terrorist groups. I mentioned earlier the … need to ensure that charities are not used as vehicles to finance terrorism. The American people are probably the most
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philanthropic people in the world. We give to countless religious and secular organizations devoted to helping those in need. We recognize the crucial importance charities and charitable giving plays in our lives, in our communities, and in our nation. We recognize, in this regard, that Muslim charities also play an important role in improving the plight of countless underprivileged people throughout the world. At the same time, it is imperative that we make every effort to ensure that charities are not being misused for the benefit of the terrorists. Under no circumstances should funds donated to help the needy be used instead to support the activities of those intent on killing innocent civilians. We are actively working, therefore, to block the assets of such organizations, and of groups posing as charitable organizations that in reality fund terrorists. And again, given that this is a global phenomenon, our engagement with other countries on this matter is crucial. One key to this effort will be ensuring that adequate oversight is in place both with respect to charities and to financial transfers more broadly. This is important, but more work needs to be done, and we clearly view this as a top priority in our war against terrorist financing. We are determined to work hand in hand with host governments and the nonprofit community in ensuring that charities are not abused by terrorist groups. Private Sector—Public Diplomacy: We meet with private sector such as local banks, bureau de change, and money remitters such as Western Union to determine how local compliance regulations are adhered to. Educate and heighten awareness of the general public and the private sector on how their businesses or services may be used to aid and abet terrorism. International governments cannot win this war on terrorism alone. We need to rely on members of the business community and the general public such as yourselves to assist us in this campaign against terrorist financing. I look to you as the front line of troops in this campaign. Your ability to know your customers, know your markets, ask probing questions, and report suspicious activities serve as the basis for subsequent law enforcement investigations that will disrupt, dismantle and deter terrorist financing networks. As leaders in the business world you know about risk management. Various types of risk such as currency exposure, political risk, and credit risk, exist and can be managed or insured against. As we have seen the recent scandals on Wall Street unfold, reputational risk, however, is virtually impossible to manage. By allowing terrorist financiers to use and abuse your business, you run the risk of being implicated in their activities and destroying your business’ reputation and your own. I know that I am preaching to the choir here at a compliance officer’s conference. I commend Western Union for placing such high importance on educating its agents on compliance in a climate where it more important than ever before.… … let me leave you with one last thought: If you know your customer, know your business, and know your market, you will know that you are doing your part in this war against terrorist finance.… SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/14647.htm
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FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, ‘‘The Work of the Terrorism Financial Group,’’ Remarks Before the House Committee on Financial Services, September 19, 2002 The Terrorism Financial Review Group (TFRG) To illustrate how these anti-money laundering provisions aid our efforts, it is necessary to understand how the FBI has been re-structured to address terrorist financing matters. Identifying and tracking the financial structure supporting terrorist groups is critical to dismantling the organization and preventing future attacks. As in ordinary criminal investigations, ‘‘following the money’’ identifies, links, and develops evidence against those involved in criminal activity. In the early stages of the investigation into the events of September 11, it was financial evidence that quickly established links between the hijackers and identified co-conspirators. It was also in the early stages of the 9/11 investigation that the FBI and DOJ identified a critical need for a more comprehensive, centralized approach to terrorist financial matters. In response, we established an interagency Terrorism Financial Review Group (TFRG) operating out of FBI Headquarters. By bringing together vast databases and the expertise of numerous federal agencies, the TFRG focuses a powerful array of resources on the financial tentacles of terrorist organizations. After September 11th, the FBI and CIA quickly combined their resources to investigate terrorist funding mechanisms, including the exchange of personnel between the TFRG and the CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC). In addition, at my request, the CIA generously agreed to detail a number of its analysts to the FBI Counterterrorism Division to help develop more effective analytical processes … Information sharing has also been facilitated by PATRIOT Act provisions that permit the FBI to disclose foreign intelligence information, including information obtained through FISA, to intelligence agencies. The TFRG was formed with a two-fold mission. First, it was designed to conduct a comprehensive financial analysis of the 19 hijackers to link them together and to identify their financial support structure within the United States and abroad. Second, it was designed as a template for preventive and predictive terrorist financial investigations. The mission of the TFRG has since evolved into a broader effort to identify, investigate, prosecute, disrupt, and dismantle all terrorist-related financial and fund-raising activities. The TFRG has taken a leadership role in coordinating the financial investigative effort, and it is a comprehensive one … it has implemented initiatives to address all aspects of terrorist financing. For instance, it: conducts full financial analyses of terrorist suspects and their global financial support structures; coordinates liaison and outreach efforts to exploit financial resources of private, government and foreign entities; uses FBI and Legat expertise and relationships to develop financial information from foreign law enforcement and private agencies … The TFRG has conducted an aggressive international outreach program to share information regarding terrorist financing methods with the financial
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community and law enforcement, and has built upon long-established relationships with the financial services community in the United States and abroad. The international outreach initiative is coordinated through the network of FBI Legal Attach´e Offices located in 44 key cities worldwide.… A significant focus of the TFRG is prediction and prevention. It has developed numerous data mining projects to provide further predictive abilities and maximize the use of both public and private database information. These efforts are complemented by the centralized terrorist financial database which the TFRG developed. This information is used to identify terrorist cells operating in the United States and abroad to prevent further terrorist acts. Indeed, the TFRG meets regularly with representatives from the banking community and the financial services industry to share information and to refine methods to detect and identify potential terrorists around the world. The TFRG created and updates a financial control list which contains names and identifying data for individuals under investigation for potential links to terrorist organizations. These lists are regularly shared with domestic and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and with the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), which disseminates the lists to financial institutions so they can flag suspicious financial activity. As a participant on the National Security Council’s Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) on terrorist finance, the TFRG leads the effort to target Non-Governmental Organizations believed to provide financial support to known Foreign Terrorist Organizations and affiliated terrorist cells. The PCC coordinates the development and implementation of policies to combat terrorist financing and provides analysis on these issues.… The TFRG regularly shares information with the Joint Terrorist Tracking Task Forces, Customs’ Operation Green Quest (TFRG provides daily downloads from its RAID database to Green Quest), and FinCEN. Further, the TFRG is working with FinCEN to explore new ways to data mine the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), Currency Transaction Report (CTR), and Currency and Monetary Instrument Report (CMIR) databases. Based on its international investigative abilities, and its close association with the Intelligence Community, the TFRG is in a unique position to coordinate anti-terrorism financial investigations and to ensure those investigations are coordinated with the goals and objectives of our Counterterrorism program. Use of the USA PATRIOT Act Terrorist financing methods range from the highly sophisticated to the most basic. Traditionally, their efforts have been aided considerably by the use of correspondent bank accounts, private banking accounts, offshore shell banks, bulk cash smuggling, identity theft, credit card fraud, and other criminal operations. Informal Value Transfer Systems, such as ‘‘Hawalas,’’ also present problems for law enforcement. They permit terrorists a means of transferring funds that is difficult to detect and trace. These informal systems are particularly prevalent in mostly ‘‘cash’’ societies such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the
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Philippines. However, provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act will significantly erode the effectiveness of such methods. The Act establishes stricter rules for correspondent bank accounts, requires securities brokers and dealers to file SARs, and certain cash businesses to register with FinCEN and file SARs for a wider range of financial transactions. The Act contains many other provisions I believe will considerably aid our efforts to address terrorist financing. These include the authority to seize terrorist assets, and the addition of terrorism and other offenses to the list of racketeering offenses. The Act also enables prosecutors to seize money subject to forfeiture in a foreign bank account by authorizing the seizure of a foreign bank’s funds held in a U.S. correspondent account. Other important provisions … provide authority for the service of administrative subpoenas on foreign banks concerning records of foreign transactions. This latter provision allows law enforcement to obtain critical information in an investigation on a more timely basis than was possible before. In counterterrorism investigations, of course, speed is of the essence because prevention is the goal. Section 362 of the PATRIOT Act mandates that FinCEN establish a highly secure network to 1) allow financial institutions to file SARs and CTRs online, and 2) ‘‘provide financial institutions with alerts and other information regarding suspicious activities that warrant immediate and enhanced scrutiny.’’ FinCEN has developed the PATRIOT Act Communication System (PACS) to meet this mandate and is implementing the system. This will be a valuable tool for law enforcement, but it will require the full cooperation of private financial institutions … While I am optimistic the PATRIOT Act will help, it is too early to judge its full effect. We continue to digest its provisions, develop guidelines and protocols for its appropriate use, and educate investigators and prosecutors.… Additional Legislative Needs The Committee indicated an interest in recommendations the FBI has regarding additional legislative measures to advance the financial war against terrorism. In September 2001, the Department of Justice submitted the proposed ‘‘Money Laundering Act of 2001’’ to Congress. The FBI concurs with the recommendations made by the DOJ, which is in the best position to address these issues.… I would like to summarize these recommendations and proposals. The foremost problem we face regarding the recovery of criminal proceeds in terrorism cases, as well as those involving corporate fraud, is the inability to freeze assets pending trial. In both criminal and civil cases, with a limited exception, pre-trial restraining orders are limited to property directly traceable to the offense. Post-conviction, the court can enter an order permitting the confiscation of an amount of money equal to what the defendant obtained by committing the offense, but by that time the money we hope to recover—and return to the victims—is often gone. These strict tracing requirements serve little purpose. Many common law countries permit the pre-trial restraint of property that will be subject to
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forfeiture without requiring strict tracing of the funds to the underlying crime. It is important to the success of our efforts against the economic underpinnings of crime that we be able to do the same. Simply put, if the property can be confiscated after the conviction, it should be frozen prior to a conviction. Thus, the criminal forfeiture laws should be amended to allow the pre-trial restraint of all forfeiture assets without requiring strict tracing to the offense, and the civil forfeiture laws should be amended to treat all electronic funds—as well as diamonds, gold and other precious metals—as fungible property for the period of the applicable statute of limitations. We also need to address the clandestine movement of cash that represents the proceeds of crime or that will be used to finance a future criminal or terrorist act. Section 371 of the PATRIOT Act created a new offense of bulk cash smuggling that makes it illegal to knowingly conceal more than $10,000 in currency and attempt to transport it into or out of the United States with the intent to evade currency reporting requirements. However, it is not an offense for a money courier to transport bulk currency in a vehicle inside the country, even if the funds represent criminal proceeds … The DOJ proposed to make it illegal to transport more than $10,000 in currency concealed in a vehicle traveling in interstate commerce, knowing that the currency was derived from some kind of criminal activity or knowing that the currency was intended to be used to promote such activity. I support this, too. The DOJ noted gaps in our ability to seize proceeds resulting from foreign crimes as well as our ability to restrain the funds, even temporarily, of criminals arrested in the United States. Under current law, only a limited number of foreign crimes are specified unlawful activities. This enables foreign criminals to launder the proceeds of many foreign crimes in the United States without providing us the ability to prosecute and seize those funds for forfeiture. We similarly lack authority to temporarily restrain funds in a U.S. bank account of an international terrorist arrested in the United States to determine whether such funds were connected to illegal activity. SOURCE: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/mueller091902.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Dennis Lormel, Chief, Terrorist Financing Operations Section, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, ‘‘USA PATRIOT ACT/Terrorism Financing Operations Section,’’ Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, October 9, 2002 (http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/lormel100902.htm). Also see Gary M. Bald, Acting Assistant Director (he was promoted to Assistant Director later in the month of March 2004), Counterterrorism Division, FBI, ‘‘Coordination of the United States’ Efforts to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, March 4, 2004 (http:// www.fbi.gov/congress/congress04/bald030404.htm); and Michael F.A. Morehart, Section Chief, Terrorist Financing Operations Section, Counterterrorism Division, ‘‘Terrorist Financing and Money Laundering Investigations,’’ Testimony Before the Congressional Committee of Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, May 11, 2004 (http://www.fbi.gov/congress/ congress04/morehart051104.htm).
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Alan P. Larson, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, ‘‘The International Dimension of Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Financial Committee, October 9, 2002 The United States is engaged in a long-term war against terrorists and terrorist organizations with global reach … A critical front is the effort to disrupt the financial networks that sustain these organizations and finance their operations. … The State Department has been a close partner with Treasury, our law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Justice, and our intelligence agencies as the Administration formulated and implemented a comprehensive strategy to disrupt, dismantle and shut down the financial networks that support terrorism. There is strong interagency teamwork: The intelligence agencies, with support from other agencies including the State Department, have led the Administration’s efforts to understand the system of financial backers, facilitators and intermediaries that play a role in this shadowy financial world. The Treasury Department, working with other agencies, leads the process by which we examine the actions, including but by no means limited to asset freezes and seizures, by which we can disrupt these networks. The State Department has led the interagency process through which we develop the strategies and activities to win support and cooperation from other countries. All these activities operate under the direction of a policy- level committee established under the framework of the National Security Council and chaired by the Department of the Treasury. At the State Department: ¥ Our Coordinator for Counter Terrorism, Ambassador Frank Taylor, leads our efforts to engage foreign countries on specific areas related to terrorist finance and overseas our broad international technical assistance program designed to strengthen other countries’ ability to fight terrorist financing. ¥ Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Wayne, who heads our Economic Bureau at the State Department, works to build and maintain the international coalition against terrorist financing and chairs the interagency body responsible for coordinating our diplomatic efforts against terrorist financing. ¥ And each of our regional Assistant Secretaries, together with our Ambassadors, their deputies and their economic officers all over the world, are actively involved in working directly with the leadership of foreign countries in order to translate our strategy into action.
I have sought to stimulate and coordinate these activities and represent the State Department in the interagency group that establishes overall policy and priorities. The International Dimension of Our Strategy My testimony will focus on the international dimension of our strategy, which includes the following main elements:
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1. Establishing norms and obligations: The Administration has established a clear set of international norms, expectations and obligations, primarily through United Nations Security Council Resolutions and international conventions. 2. Raising the profile of the issue: The Administration has put fighting terrorism, including the financing of terrorism, at the top of the agenda in our relationships with other countries, international organizations and institutions like the G7/G8. 3. Blocking assets: The Administration has worked with other countries to block the assets of terrorists and terrorist organizations. 4. Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the OAS, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group and the OSCE: Treasury and State have broadened the scope of FATF, the world’s leading organization to combat money laundering, to include in its mandate action against the financing of terrorism. The Administration is working with international organizations to insert the issue of terrorist finance into their work plans in ways that complement the FATF’s leadership in setting standards on this issue. 5. Law enforcement: We are working on many fronts to strengthen law enforcement cooperation on issues related to terrorist finance. 6. Technical assistance: We are extending training and technical assistance to other countries that have the will, but not always the capacity, to act against terrorist finance.
… [W]e have made considerable progress during the past year in winning practical support from other countries and international organizations. We have frozen significant amounts of terrorist funds. Today, it is much harder today for terrorists to raise and move money. Many who formerly provided financial support for terrorism seem to have backed away. Some facilitators have been arrested or captured. Terrorists can no longer safely use the international banking system. … [T]here is much more to be done. As formal financial systems are purged of terrorist finance, terrorists naturally are inclined to resort to other, more costly and uncertain, but still serviceable mechanisms for moving resources. We are working with other countries to ensure that funds donated for worthy charitable purposes are not diverted to evil terrorist practices. In some countries we have not yet succeeded in discrediting prominent personalities who espouse popular causes while secretly fostering terrorist activity. Major Activities and Achievements of the Past Year The United Nations has played a key role in our global strategy. Ambassador Negroponte, the President’s representative to the United Nations, moved quickly in the UN Security Council to establish a broad framework of commitments among countries. The Security Council has adopted several resolutions, each of which creates obligations that are binding upon Member States in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter. UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1267 is targeted at the Taliban. UNSCR1390 is targeted at Usama bin Laden and members of al Qaida, and updates the Taliban sanctions. UNSCR 1373 is aimed at worldwide terrorism in general. Resolutions are good but implementation is vital. That is why we are working closely with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, which was
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established by UNSCR 1373, to review the measures taken under the resolution and to assist in the coordination of technical assistance provided to states to help them meet their commitments under the Resolution. We also are working closely with the UN Sanctions Committee established by UNSCR 1267. (UNSCR 1267 was adopted on October 15, 1999, and targeted the Taliban by freezing its funds and other financial resources and those of any entity owned or controlled by it.) The 1267 Sanctions Committee is currently working to implement the sanctions imposed by UNSCRs 1267 and 1390 on the Taliban, Usama bin Laden, the al Qaida organization, and those linked or associated with them. In this Committee, we consolidate the names of all individuals and entities whose assets UN member states are required to freeze pursuant to resolutions 1267 and 1390. The 1267 Sanctions Committee is a very useful mechanism for internationalizing financial or asset freezes against the Taliban, Usama bin Laden, al Qaida and those linked or associated with them, because all UN member states are obliged to enforce the UNSCR freezes. The names of targeted individuals and entities are submitted to the 1267 Sanctions Committee for inclusion in the committee’s consolidated list. Once the names are on that list, all member states are required to take action against them. We also have urged other countries to become signatories as soon as possible to the twelve UN conventions and protocols related to terrorism, especially the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. Before September 11, 2001, only two countries had become parties to all twelve instruments. Today sixteen countries, including the United States, are a party to each of the twelve conventions and protocols. Forty-four (44) countries have become a party to the Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. During the past year President Bush, Secretary Powell and Secretary O’Neill have put the fight against terrorism, including the financial dimension of that fight, at the top of each of our international relationships. For example: 1. The European Union has worked with us closely: ¥ The EU has ensures that nearly every terrorist individual and entity designated by the United States has also been designated by the European Union. Recently the EU took action against the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group that has taken responsibility for a number of cowardly suicide bombings in Israel. ¥ The Dutch Government recently took rapid and effective action against the financial assets of the ‘‘New Peoples Army’’ and its leader Jose Sison, the group and leader known to be responsible for the killing of American citizens in the Philippines. ¥ Earlier this week, France submitted the names of two terrorist organizations to the 1267 Sanctions Committee to be added to the asset freeze list. ¥ On September 26, Germany asked the 1267 Sanctions Committee to add four names of four terrorists to the Committee’s asset freeze list. ¥ On August 29, the Government of Italy joined the United States in submitting to the 1267 Sanctions Committee the names of twenty-five individuals and entities linked to al-Qaida for asset freezes.
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¥ And just two weeks ago, I led senior level meetings with the European Union here in Washington where the fight against terrorism, including terrorist financing, was at the top of our agenda. 2. The G7/G8 has served as an informal task force of like-minded countries on combating terrorist finance. ¥ In June, G8 Foreign Ministers endorsed a revised set of recommendations on counter terrorism. (Section 5 addressed the financing of terrorism.) The G8’s endorsement included a commitment to full implementation of UNSCR 1373 and the FATF special recommendations on terrorist financing. ¥ The G8 also committed to practical measures, such as removing legal obstacles to effective common action, moving beyond freezing to forfeiture of terrorist assets, facilitating the traceability of terrorist funds and ensuring that mutual legal assistance is not refused on the grounds of bank secrecy laws. ¥ In April the G7 countries jointly submitted a list of ten names to the UN so that the assets of those individuals would be frozen worldwide. 3. The U.S. has worked bilaterally with a number of other governments in our fight against terrorist financing. ¥ We recently joined with the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and China in submitting the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement to the United Nations for inclusion on its list of terrorist individuals and organizations associated with al-Qaida, an important step toward greater cooperation on terrorist financing in Central Asia. 4. I would especially like to underscore the efforts we have made with friendly countries in the Near East. Drawing on the counsel of our Ambassadors and embassies in the field, we have worked closely to get effective actions to close down funding for terrorists. Secretary O’Neill traveled to the Middle East in March and discussed the issue of terrorist finance and our efforts in this area during his meetings with leaders in the region. I have engaged on this issue directly with regional leaders as well, as have other senior State Department officials. Through these numerous efforts, we have achieved a number of results: ¥ The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Qatar have passed anti-money laundering legislation. ¥ All member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council have increased oversight of their banking systems. ¥ Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have worked with us to devise ways to prevent the misuse and abuse of charities for terrorist purposes. Both countries are setting up government entities to oversee charities. Bahrain is passing its own legislation to prevent charities from being misused and abused. ¥ Last month, Saudi Arabia joined the United States in submitting to the 1267 Sanctions Committee the name of a Saudi supporter of al-Qaida, so that his assets would be frozen worldwide.
We also are working through a number of multilateral institutions to promote concerted action on terrorist finance. For example: ¥ FATF, a group of 29 countries devoted to combating money laundering, has adopted eight special recommendations on combating terrorist finance. FATF is monitoring compliance with its recommendations, has invited members as well as non-members to respond to a questionnaire on these recommendations and, in coordination with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, is assessing these countries’ needs for technical assistance. ¥ In the Organization of American States, we have secured adoption of the InterAmerican Convention against Terrorism. This Convention requires, among other
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Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy things, that each signatory State establish a legal and regulatory regime to combat the financing of terrorism … In the Asia-Pacific region, we are working with multilateral entities such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, ASEAN, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering to establish regulatory regimes consistent with its member countries’ obligations under UNSC Resolution 1373. The goals are to set up Financial Intelligence Units, advance implementation of FATF’s eight recommendations to combat terrorist finance, set new norms to prevent abuse of alternative remittance systems, and train officials and bankers to effectively implement these initiatives. Under U.S. leadership, APEC Finance Ministers meeting in early September adopted an ambitious anti-terrorist finance action plan. It includes tackling headon the difficult issue of regulating hawalas and other alternative remittance systems.… The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has incorporated terrorism finance into its work plan and agenda as well … The OSCE agreed that it would urge its members to implement the eight FATF special recommendations on terrorist financing, and reports good success in this effort.… Through our technical assistance and capacity-building programs, we have identified and continue to find important vulnerabilities to terrorist financing, such as the lack of capacity in other countries to prohibit financial transactions with terrorist entities. We are working with our partners to redress these vulnerabilities. We are also integrating the lessons learned into training programs for relevant US agencies.… These training and technical assistance programs are critical to the success of our efforts to combat terrorism financing worldwide, since many countries have the will to assist but lack the means or experience to do so. Our success in this arena cannot be measured solely through the number of assets or accounts frozen, but also must include the results of a range of efforts we have made and are making in combating terrorist financing. These include our intelligence efforts, our diplomacy both bilateral and multilateral, and our efforts to give technical and other help and support to other countries.
The UN Monitoring Group Report In order to increase the effectiveness of international efforts against terrorist financing, UN Security Council Resolution 1390 asked a Monitoring Group to monitor the implementation of financial, travel and arms sanctions against al Qaida, Usama bin Laden, the Taliban and those associated with them. The Monitoring Group reports to the 1267 Sanctions Committee, which oversees these sanctions. The U.S. supports the work of the Monitoring Group and the work it has done in pursuit of its mandate The Monitoring Group recently issued its second report. This report makes valuable contributions by highlighting progress and spotlighting where the international community needs to improve its efforts to disrupt terrorist financing. We believe the report galvanized countries into stepping up their efforts on this front.… The report stresses that: a) since September 11th, the 1267 Sanctions Committee has established a list of individuals and organizations linked to al
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Qaida, the Taliban and Usama bin Laden whose assets UN member states are obligated to freeze; b) eighty states have either adopted new legislation, regulations and procedures to strengthen their ability to prevent terrorists from using their financial systems or are in the process of doing so; c) 71 additional states have signed the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism; d) the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has committed its 29 member nations to ensure that non-profit organizations are not misused by terrorists and to develop best-practices on this issue for countries to follow; e) FATF members, as well as many non-member states, are working to implement new legal and regulatory measures imposing anti-money laundering rules on alternative systems used for transferring value, such as hawalas; f) FATF is requiring financial institutions in its member states to report suspicious transactions and to include accurate and meaningful originator information in money transfers; g) the G20 has called for the establishment of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) in each of its member states; h) many of the 69 FIUs that belong to the Egmont Group are taking steps to use their unique intelligence gathering and sharing capabilities to support the U.S. in its global war on terrorism; and i) the IMF and World Bank are launching programs to comprehensively assess their members anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regimes and performance. … The Monitoring Group’s Report is valuable because it … focuses on this massive international effort and shows us where there is room for improvement, it identifies areas the international community should focus its attention, and it makes recommendations for improvements. These are not easy, quick changes to implement. Yet, they are key to strengthening the international community’s ability to deprive terrorist of access to funding. Working with our allies, the U.S. helped to take steps directly addressing concerns raised in the Monitoring Group’s report. These include: a) the adoption of delisting procedures so people/entities can get off the 1267 Sanctions Committee asset freeze list (which we believe will increase international support for the sanctions regime against terrorist financing); b) improved coordination between the U.S. and the EU by establishing an informal mechanism to coordinate and share information on the designation of terrorists and their supporters; c) the U.S. is providing the EU and its member states, whose courts do not have a body of jurisprudence in the area of terrorist financing, with substantial documentation to help them better defend litigation in this area; d) and the recent submission of names to the UN of terrorists and terrorist organizations by both Germany and France. Moving to the Next Level In large part as a result of the international community’s efforts to block terrorists’ access to the formal international financial system, terrorists have sought to evade these actions by developing alternative approaches to accessing and transferring funds. In order to address this challenge, the U.S. and the international community need to intensify efforts in other areas, including informal financial networks, charities and technical assistance. We will need to strengthen our ability to monitor, disrupt and shut down less formal networks. We understand the threat posed by alternate remittance
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systems. Often these transactions are traditional and are intertwined with legitimate commerce, like wage remittances, through systems such as hawala. But such techniques of transferring value lend themselves to use in smuggling, corruption and narcotics trafficking, money laundering and, now, terrorist financing. While there is no easy answer to the threat posed by alternate remittance systems, we are taking steps. Our embassies and consulates are reporting with details on these systems and discussing with foreign governments ways to address the problem. In cooperation with the U.S. Customs Service we are considering training and technical assistance programs that might be appropriate. As noted earlier, the United States has taken action against charities that have allowed funds to be diverted to terrorist purposes. A number of governments are taking steps to exercise greater surveillance of charities. We will continue to block the assets and work with our allies to block the assets of charities that divert funds to terrorist purposes, especially when it is clear that there is witting complicity on the part of the charities’ leaders. At the same time, it is important that our work on charities not leave the impression that we are indifferent to the plight of poor people that legitimate Islamic charities assist. American citizens are the most generous supporters of charities in the world and we therefore respect organizations that raise funds here in the United States and in other countries for charitable purposes. What is important is to ensure that there be effective oversight on how such funds are used. Further work on this subject is a top priority. As we move forward with refined strategies, it is likely that the role of technical assistance and training will grow. Coordination is always a challenge, even within a single government, and it becomes even more of a challenge when several countries or organizations are involved. In the past year the United States, rightly in my view, put the greatest priority on moving quickly. In the next year I believe we will need to do more to develop improved training programs, establish clear benchmarks, exchange information on best practices and ensure that countries committed to the fight against the financing of terrorism get the help they need. SOURCE: http://finance.senate.gov/hearings/testimony/100902altest.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘International Dimension of Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Testimony to House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights Washington, D.C., March 26, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2003/19113.htm).
Juan C. Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Executive Office, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 18, 2003 … Thank you for inviting me to testify today about the international efforts the Treasury Department has taken, in close coordination with the State
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Department and our other sister departments and agencies, to attack the financial networks and systems that support and facilitate international terrorism. Since September 11th, we have led a global campaign to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the sources and means of funding for al Qaida and other terrorist groups.… the money used to fuel terrorism flows not just in dollars but in yen, euros, and pounds. The U.S. government has led an international effort to focus the world’s attention on the threat of terrorist financing, and we have realized significant success. Certainly, the Treasury and the U.S. government have devoted extensive resources and expertise to fulfill this mandate, but this campaign has always been an international endeavor and has relied on the cooperation of our international partners to successfully achieve our goals. International cooperation is critical for our overall success, especially when addressing the short and long-term threats of terrorist financing throughout the world. We cannot bomb bank accounts, and we therefore rely on international cooperation in all our efforts. We have shown quite clearly that our counter-terrorism mission is best served when we work collectively with our partners.… I would like to emphasize at the outset the importance of vigorous interagency consultation and cooperation in attacking terrorist financing, as well as to thank the State Department, the Justice Department, and other agencies and departments in our federal government for their work with us on this campaign. From our experience before and after September 11th, we know that terrorist financing is a complicated and multi-dimensional problem that both domestically and internationally implicates a range of legal, regulatory, financial, intelligence and law enforcement interests. Consequently, no successful attack on the financial underpinnings of terrorism may be advanced without coordinated interagency strategies on the use of legal, regulatory, private sector, law enforcement, diplomatic and intelligence-gathering tools required to combat this problem. In this respect, the State Department has provided the Treasury Department with enormous support in our collective international efforts. In the multiple missions I and others from the Treasury Department have taken abroad and with a series of Treasury initiatives that have required international coordination, we have been well served by our Embassies abroad and by the State Department more generally. Before I address the specific diplomatic and international efforts we have undertaken to advance the fight against terrorist financing, allow me to share with you the overarching efforts and strategy of the U.S. government in attacking this problem. I. Strategy to Combat Terrorist Financing Terrorism in the 21st century is a global enterprise consisting of both simple and sophisticated financial mechanisms. Al Qaida and other terrorist groups have learned to use the ease and freedom of the international financial system—both formal and informal—to support their international network and ambitions. The war against terrorist financing, therefore, is an
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immense undertaking because it requires us to preserve the openness and efficiency of our modern financial system, with the free flow of capital and information, while ensuring that it is not abused by terrorists and their financiers. We know that terrorist groups tap into a wide range of sources for their financial support, including State sponsors, wealthy donors, charity and relief organizations, front companies, and common criminal activity, and that they use formal and informal ways of moving money such as informal value transfer systems and trade-based schemes. To address and disrupt the various ways that terrorist groups raise and move funds, we have developed a seven-part U.S. government strategy to attack terrorist networks and to prevent both the short and long-term effects of terrorist financing: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Targeted intelligence gathering. Freezing of terrorist-related assets. Law enforcement actions. Diplomatic efforts and outreach. Smarter regulatory scrutiny and International Standard Setting. Outreach to the private sectors. Capacity building for other governments and the financial sector.
The objective of our strategy is simple—to prevent acts of terrorism in the short and long term by identifying and disrupting terrorist operations and the financial networks that support those operations. Because of the international and multi-faceted nature of terrorist networks, this is an integrated, interagency strategy requiring international cooperation. II. International and Diplomatic Efforts Treasury is in a unique position to work with the international financial sector—both government and private. Treasury officials have traveled abroad extensively to engage our partners in various ministries and central banks, as well as financial professionals in private industry trade associations and institutions, on the issue of terrorist financing. We are in daily contact with foreign financial officials and are engaged in bilateral and multilateral discussions regarding international cooperation and action against terrorist activities and financing. We are promoting technical assistance and training abroad to ensure that our partners have the requisite capacity to regulate vulnerable industries, enforce laws and share financial information. The U.S. government has engaged in numerous international fora, including the G7, G8, G20, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Egmont Group, and the international financial institutions to combat terrorist financing in a global, systematic way. We have worked with these international bodies and regional organizations … to further coordinate international efforts to stop the financing of terrorism and to ensure that countries take concrete actions … the United States has led the initiative to make the battle against terrorist financing a priority for the world, through bilateral and multilateral engagements as well as constant diplomatic pressure.
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A. Blocking Assets and Cutting Off Worldwide Channels of Terrorist Funding Our most public weapon in the financial war on terrorism has been the public designation of terrorist-related entities and the blocking of their assets pursuant to the President’s September 23, 2001 Executive Order and the authority to designate terrorist organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. To date, we, through the good work of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the State Department, and the inter-agency community, have blocked more than $125 million worldwide based on our ability to internationalize these domestic efforts. Not only have we been able to cut off channels that served to move funds for terrorism, we have impelled an international process to confront the common threat of terrorism, regardless of the source of terrorist funds or the particular agenda of any terrorist group. The United States has worked diligently with the UN Security Council to adopt international resolutions reflecting the goals of our domestic executive orders and providing the mechanism for UN member states to freeze terrorist-related assets. These UN Security Council resolutions form the legal basis for freezing terrorist assets on a global basis. We have worked with our allies in the UN to pursue bilateral and multilateral designations of terrorist-related parties where possible and appropriate. We have achieved some notable successes in this area to date: U.S.-Saudi Joint Designations—On March 11, 2002, the United States participated in its first joint designation of a terrorist supporter. The United States and Saudi Arabia jointly designated the Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina offices of Al Haramain, a Saudi-based NGO. These two organizations are linked to al Qaida and their names were forwarded to the Sanctions Committee for inclusion under the UNSCR 1333/1390 list. On September 9, 2002, the United States and Saudi Arabia jointly referred to the Sanctions Committee Wa’el Hamza Julaidan, an associate of Usama bin Laden and a supporter of al Qaida. G7 Joint Designation—On April 19, 2002, the United States, along with the other G7 members, jointly designated nine individuals and one organization. Most of these groups were European-based al Qaida organizers and financiers of terrorism … all ten of these names were forwarded to the UN Sanctions Committee for inclusion under the UNSCR 1333/1390 list. U.S.-Italy Joint Designation—On August 29, 2002, the United States and Italy jointly designated 11 individuals and 14 entities. All of the individuals were linked to the Salafist Group for Call and Combat designated in the original U.S. Annex to E.O. 13224. The 14 entities are part of the Nada/ Nasreddin financial network, who are two terrorist financiers designated on earlier E.O. 13224 lists. U.S.-Central Asia Joint Designation—On September 6, 2002, the United States, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China jointly referred to the Sanctions Committee the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, an al Qaidalinked organization which operates in these and other countries in Central Asia.
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… [G]lobal actions to designate and freeze the assets of terrorist-related groups have only been effective because we have been able to use the international mechanisms in place to effect a global shut down of terrorist financial infrastructures. For example, the international designation of the al Barakaat network in November 2001, which was a money remitting business used by Usama bin Laden to funnel money to associated terror groups, proved effective because the international community acted in unison. The recent designation of the worldwide network of Benevolence International Foundation, a Chicago-based charity that was supporting al Qaida, is another example of the international community taking common action to cut off the flow of funds to al Qaida. By working with our allies to implement an international mechanism for designation and freezing, we have made it much harder for terrorists to hide their money in the world’s banks or send it abroad through formal financial channels. We have also sent a common signal to the bankers of terror. There will be no refuge from the gaze of the international community. B. Regulation of Charities and Alternative Remittance Systems Our international strategy has achieved success beyond designations and blocking actions. We and our allies have vigorously engaged multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the UN, and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in an effort to examine the measures the international community is taking to regulate and monitor those financial mechanisms being abused by terrorist groups. … Nothing could be more reprehensible than the terrorists’ use of images of widows and orphans to raise money for the killing of innocent lives. The international community has responded by blocking the assets of suspect charities, closing down and taking law enforcement action against others, and setting standards to protect charitable institutions from being abused as vehicles for terrorist financing. Through the 31-member Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international community set forth the first international best practices to protect charities against potential terrorist abuse. The establishment of those standards has been followed by actions by several jurisdictions, including Gulf States, to monitor how their charitable organizations operate, especially in conflict zones. The funding of suspect organizations can originate from both legitimate donations and illegal sources within our own borders. Because these organizations also support humanitarian and relief efforts, the commingling of legitimate and illegitimate funds makes it difficult to follow the money trail. The Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) has worked with the inter-agency community abroad and continues to coordinate these efforts with its Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division, whose primary responsibility is administering the tax laws associated with charitable organizations, to specifically address issues involving terrorism fund-raising by these suspect organizations. … [T]he prevalent use of informal systems of transferring money, often known as hawala, … has been abused by terrorist financiers and other criminals to move and launder large amounts of money quickly and surreptitiously.
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Along with the world community, we have worked to broaden regulatory structures for … hawalas and enforce regulations against those refusing to register. In May of 2002, I led an inter-agency delegation to the United Arab Emirates for the first international conference on this issue. As a result of this conference, nearly forty countries committed to regulate this sector through registration or licensing. Countries like the UAE, Pakistan, and others have responded by regulating this sector for the first time, which is proving important for information gathering and sharing and ensuring financial transparency within the informal financial sector. The FATF and other international bodies have further developed standards that are specific to this sector and will continue to work with countries to ensure that this sector is well regulated and overseen … C. International Standard Setting All of these efforts are part of a strategy to set global standards that will plug gaps in the formal and informal financial sectors to prevent, or at least minimize, the potential of abuse by terrorist groups and their supporters … [W]e have committed ourselves to promulgating and establishing international standards that serve to protect the integrity of all aspects of the international financial system One critical way we have accomplished this is through the FATF, which has served since 1989 as the preeminent anti-money laundering multilateral organization in the world. The United States has played a leading role in the development of this organization as the primary forum for advancing international standards to combat terrorist financing. On October 31, 2001, at the United States’ initiative, the FATF issued Eight Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing, requiring all member nations to adopt a counter-terrorist financing regime. These Eight Special Recommendations have become the benchmark for counter-terrorist financing regimes and have led to several countries modifying and passing new laws to protect their financial systems from abuse by terrorists. The Eight Special Recommendations commit states to undertake the following measures against terrorist financing: 1. Ratify the UN International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and implement relevant UN Resolutions against terrorist financing; 2. Criminalize the financing of terrorism, terrorist acts and terrorist organizations; 3. Freeze and confiscate terrorist assets; 4. Require financial institutions to report suspicious transactions linked to terrorism; 5. Provide the widest possible assistance to other countries’ laws enforcement and regulatory authorities for terrorist financing investigations; 6. Impose anti-money laundering requirements on alternative remittance systems; 7. Require financial institutions to include accurate and meaningful originator information in money transfers; and 8. Ensure that non-profit organizations cannot be misused to finance terrorism.
The FATF has further elaborated on these Eight Special Recommendations, including devising a worldwide standard for the information required to
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travel in cross-border wire transfers and developing best practices for the regulation of charities. Together with the Departments of State and Justice, Treasury will continue to work with the FATF to build on its successful record in persuading jurisdictions to adopt anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regimes to strengthen global protection against terrorist finance. In addition, the Treasury Department will continue its close collaboration with the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN CTC to ensure that (a) countries are assessed based on the standards set by the FATF and (b) countries can be identified to receive priority technical assistance in order for them to come into compliance with the Eight Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing. We will also continue to work with all relevant regional bodies to promote the common international standards being developed on all relevant financial matters. We have had enormous success of late in moving countries to change their relevant laws and regulations in the area of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. Thanks in large part to the authority granted to the Secretary of the Treasury by Congress in Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, countries have been fearful of the economic effects of designation as a ‘‘primary money laundering concern.’’ As a result, countries like Nigeria and the Philippines have taken action to avoid the stigma of this designation by the United States, and the Ukraine moved quickly to pass laws that would remove this designation from their country’s financial system. This power under the PATRIOT Act, in combination with the threat of international rebuke, is an effective tool in molding international behavior to comply with international financial standards. D. International Information Sharing and Law Enforcement Cooperation Information sharing is critical to fighting terrorism, and a critical element in our efforts to identify and dismantle terrorist financing is the ability to access quickly terrorist-related information received from our international partners … The U.S. government has forged ties around the world that are important in continuing to ferret out global terrorist networks. For example, soon after September 11th, a Caribbean ally provided critical financial information through its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that allowed the revelation of a financial network that supported terrorist groups and stretched around the world. In order to improve the flow of information, in particular financial information related to terrorist financing, we have worked to establish and expand international information-sharing channels. Through FinCEN, we have directed the attention of the Egmont Group towards terrorist financing. The Egmont Group represents 69 FIUs from various countries around the world, and FinCEN is the FIU for the United States. The FIU in each nation receives financial information (such as SARs) from financial institutions pursuant to each government’s particular anti-money laundering laws, analyzes and processes these disclosures, and disseminates the information domestically to
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appropriate government authorities and internationally to other FIUs in support of national and international law enforcement operations. … On October 31, 2001, FinCEN hosted a special Egmont Group meeting that focused on the FIUs’ role in the fight against terrorism. The FIUs agreed to: (i) work to eliminate impediments to information exchange; (ii) make terrorist financing a form of suspicious activity to be reported by all financial sectors to their respective FIUs; (iii) undertake joint studies of particular money laundering vulnerabilities, especially when they may have some bearing on counterterrorism, such as hawala; and (iv) create sanitized cases for training purposes. … Egmont has conducted and will continue to host training sessions to improve the analytical capabilities of FIU staff around the world … IRS-CI contributes to international information sharing, law enforcement cooperation, and the overall strategy to combat terrorist financing through its Law Enforcement Attach´es located in key international financial centers throughout the world. These attach´es support ongoing terrorist financing investigations and aggressively develop liaisons with their foreign counterparts to facilitate the flow of information in this area. In addition, we have worked closely with the Departments of Justice and State to establish new means of investigating terrorist financing cases. For example, the United States and Switzerland entered into a memorandum of understanding on September 4, 2002, that allows federal agents from each country to work hand-in-hand with their counterparts on related terrorist financing investigations … We will continue to work on establishing these types of open channels of communication internationally to uncover terrorist networks. In addition, we developed the Counter-Terrorist Financing Public Awareness and Rewards Campaign in coordination with the State Department, which we announced together on November 13, 2002. This partnership with the State Department’s ‘‘Rewards for Justice Program’’ is a campaign to offer $5 million for information on funding networks that support terrorist activities, including underground financial systems, illicit charities, and corrupt financial service providers. In addition, this program is intended to raise public awareness and understanding of how terrorist financing occurs. The State Department has been a strong supporter and advocate of this Campaign, and the Embassies are serving as an important medium for this information. E. Capacity Building Providing our international partners with the legal, regulatory, and enforcement capabilities to combat and prevent terrorist financing is an integral part of our overarching strategy. Along with the State and Justice Departments, we have engaged in several capacity-building initiatives with other governments and the private sector to defeat terrorist financing activity. For example, we have provided several countries in the Gulf with training related to tradebased money laundering, which is a scheme used by smugglers and perhaps terrorist financiers to move money intended for criminal purposes through commerce … we plan to provide it to other countries that are susceptible to
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this practice throughout the world. Treasury has in addition utilized IRS-CI’s financial investigation expertise in conducting assessments of various foreign governments’ law enforcement capabilities, developing courses, and furnishing instructors for training in financial investigative techniques. Moreover, Treasury has and will continue to contribute to the inter-agency law enforcement training programs at the various International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEA) around the world, including the recently established ILEA in Costa Rica. In addition, Treasury is co-chairing a FATF Working Group on Terrorist Financing, which, among other issues, is charged with identifying technical assistance needs of various governments around the world … Bilaterally, members of my office, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and FinCEN, among other Treasury components in close cooperation with the Departments of State and Justice, have worked directly with foreign governments to increase their capabilities to freeze terrorist-related assets and to process and analyze financial information … These efforts will gain strength as we enlist the further cooperation of other international donors. We have certainly seen recently a greater commitment from various countries to provide needed training and technical assistance to countries that have demonstrated a clear need and desire for assistance. III. Challenges Ahead Though the U.S. government has led the world in focusing attention on the problem of terrorist financing, there is still much work to be done. There are several specific challenges that lie before us that we must continue to address in the international context. Foremost, we must maintain political and diplomatic pressure on our partners abroad and the international institutions in which we engage to continue to focus on the problems associated with terrorist financing. The further the world’s memory of September 11th recedes, the harder it is to maintain a sense of urgency internationally to act against terrorism. We must ensure that we are constantly communicating the importance of this issue to our partners and that our own resolve, in particular abroad, is not seen as wavering. We must continue to broaden and deepen our efforts worldwide. From improving the way the international community blocks assets to ensuring that charitable giving is not corrupted by terrorists, we need to be vigilant and ensure that all countries are taking the necessary steps to deter, detect, and disrupt terrorist financing. This is particularly the case in areas of the financial system that are especially vulnerable to abuse by terrorist groups, such as alternative remittance systems and charities … In this endeavor, we will and must continue to address fundamental areas of concern with our partners … nearly every terrorist individual and entity designated by the United States also has been designated by the EU or some of its member states. Moreover, the United States and the EU have established a fluid, informal mechanism for sharing information on terrorists and their supporters.
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Nevertheless, differences remain that must be addressed. We have pressed the EU to join us in labeling Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist organizations. Thus far, most European countries have avoided this issue, on grounds of a supposed distinction between the ‘‘charitable’’ or ‘‘political’’ wing of Hamas and Hizballah and the militant/terrorist wing. The United States has rejected the notion that ‘‘firewalls’’ separate political or charitable activity from the terrorist activities of Hamas and Hizballah, and we urge our European counterparts to do the same. Not only is money fungible across all programs and activities of these terrorist organizations, but no evidence has been brought forward to establish the existence of any such ‘‘firewalls.’’ Nor is there any reason to suppose that terrorists within either organization respect such niceties. We are beginning to see some progress. Recently, for example, Denmark and Germany took concrete enforcement actions against the Al Aqsa Foundation—a fundraiser for Hamas. In addition, the EU recently designated the alAqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Hamas-related group that has taken responsibility for a number of suicide bombings in Israel. These are important developments and movements in the right direction, but we have a long way yet to go. We also need to continue to press the EU on improving and streamlining the methods in which they designate parties under the Clearinghouse process. Our EU counterparts know that the United States is pressing for resolution on these critical issues, which we believe will enhance the EU’s ability to combat terrorist financing. We welcome the generally good cooperation of the EU in the financial war on terrorism to date, and we will continue to push for progress on these remaining issues. In other regions of the world, we face challenges of capacity building to develop more transparent and accountable financial sectors and to establish greater oversight of the charitable sector. In the long run, our success in combating terrorist financing will depend upon the ability of other countries to police their own financial and charitable sectors, and we must assist them in developing these capabilities … SOURCE: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js139.htm
R. Richard Newcomb, Director, Office of Foreign Assets Control, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Statement Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Hearings on Terrorism Financing: Origination, Organization, and Prevention, July 31, 2003 The threat of terrorist support networks and financing is real, and it has been our mission to help identify and disrupt those networks. The vast majority of the world’s Muslims are peaceful, though a committed, vocal, and well-organized minority is competing to mobilize a new generation in the tools and trade of Jihad. There is much we know about how such radical Islamic terrorist networks were established and still thrive. Wealthy and influential individuals and families based in the Middle East have provided seed money and support to build
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a transnational support infrastructure that terrorists have used for their purposes. This network, fueled by deep-pocket donors and often controlled by terrorist organizations, their supporters or those willing to look the other way, includes or implicates banks, businesses, NGOs, charities, social services organizations, schools, mosques, madrassas, and affiliated terrorist training camps and safe houses throughout the world. The terrorist networks are well-entrenched and self-sustaining, though vulnerable to U.S., allied and international efforts applying all tools at our disposal. Looking forward, please allow me to explain how we have come to this view and present the strategy, being implemented in coordination with other Federal agencies including the Departments of Defense, State, Justice, Homeland Security, the FBI, the intelligence community and other agencies, to choke off the key nodes in the transnational terrorist support infrastructure. OFAC Mission and Experience on Counterterrorism The primary mission of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘‘OFAC’’) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury is to administer and enforce economic sanctions against targeted foreign countries and foreign groups and individuals, such as terrorists and terrorist organizations and narcotic traffickers, which pose a threat to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the U.S. OFAC acts under general Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as specific legislation, to prohibit transactions and freeze (or ‘‘block’’) assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Economic sanctions are intended to deprive the target of the use of its assets and deny the target access to the U.S. financial system and the benefits of trade, transactions and services involving U.S. markets, businesses and individuals. These same authorities have also been used to protect assets within the U.S. jurisdiction of countries subject to foreign occupation and to further important U.S. nonproliferation goals. OFAC currently administers and enforces 26 economic sanctions programs pursuant to Presidential and Congressional mandates. Active enforcement of these programs is a crucial element in preserving and advancing the foreign policy and national security objectives that underlie these initiatives that are usually taken in conjunction with diplomatic, law enforcement and occasionally military action. In 1977, the Congress passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (‘‘IEEPA’’), which serves as the primary statutory authority for a Presidential declaration of a national emergency in peacetime for the purpose of imposing economic sanctions. Many ‘‘country-based’’ sanctions programs are part of the U.S. government’s response over time to the threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy posed by international terrorism. The Secretary of State has designated seven countries—Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Iraq, Sudan and Syria—as supporting international terrorism. Most of these countries are subject to comprehensive economic sanctions, including: Cuba (1963); Iran (1979 and again in 1987); Libya (1986); and Sudan (1997). Comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, originally imposed in 1990, were recently lifted although the national emergency remains in place. Comprehensive sanctions against North
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Korea, originally imposed in 1950, were lifted in 2000, except with respect to North Korean imports and ‘‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’’ blockings. Syria is not subject to comprehensive sanctions; however, certain financial transactions involving all terrorism list countries including Syria are regulated. EDITOR’S NOTE: Iraq and Libya have subsequently been removed from the terrorism list.
The origins of OFAC’s involvement in the fight against terrorism stem from the initial conception of terrorism as being solely state-sponsored. OFAC’s mandate in the realm of terrorism was to compile available evidence establishing that certain foreign entities or individuals were owned or controlled by, or acting for on behalf of, a foreign government subject to an economic sanctions program. Such entities and individuals become ‘‘specially designated nationals,’’ (‘‘SDNs’’) and are subject to the same sanctions as the foreign government to which they are related. Authorities to Target Non State Organizations, Individuals and Entities In January 1995, the President used the IEEPA authorities to deal with the threat to U.S. foreign policy and national security posed by terrorists who threaten to disrupt the Middle East Peace Process. This marked the beginning of the use of IEEPA sanctions authorities to target terrorists, terrorist groups and their sources of fundraising. This action, implemented through Executive Order 12947,1 opened the door to new programs and expanded the use of economic sanctions as a tool of U.S. foreign policy to target groups and individuals, as well as foreign governments. During the late 1990s, IEEPA authorities were used to issue additional Executive orders imposing sanctions on Al-Qaeda, and Usama bin Ladin. These E.O.s also provide authority to designate and sanction entities or individuals that are owned or controlled by, act for or on behalf of, or that provide material or financial support to AlQaeda or Usama bin Ladin. The Congress, in 1996, passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (‘‘AEDPA’’). AEDPA makes it a criminal offense to: (1) engage in a financial transaction with the government of a country designated as supporting international terrorism; or (2) provide material support or resources to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Currently, 36 FTOs are subject to OFAC-administered sanctions. These FTOs have been designated by the Secretary of State in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General. Under the AEDPA and OFAC’s implementing regulations, U.S. financial institutions must maintain control over all funds in which an FTO has an interest and report those actions to OFAC. OFAC is the coordination point with State and Justice on FTO designations and also has responsibility for coordinating with the financial community, the FBI, State, and other Federal agencies in implementing the prohibitions of the AEDPA.
1
See http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/eo/12947.pdf.
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Authorities in Response to September 11th The President harnessed these economic powers and authorities in launching the war against terrorism. In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and pursuant to the powers available to the President under IEEPA, President Bush issued Executive Order 13224, ‘‘Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism’’ declaring that the acts of grave terrorism and the threats of terrorism committed by foreign terrorists posed an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. E.O. 13224, as amended, (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo13224.htm) authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Department of State, Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, to implement the President’s authority to systemically and strategically attack terrorists, terrorist organizations and terrorist support networks. This order prohibits U.S. persons from transacting or dealing with individuals and entities owned or controlled by, acting for or on behalf of, assisting or supporting, or otherwise associated with, persons listed in the Executive Order. Those designated and listed under the Executive Order are known as ‘‘Specially Designated Global Terrorists,’’ or SDGTs. Violations of the E.O. with respect to SDGTs are subject to civil penalties; and if the violation is willful, persons may be criminally charged. The Executive Order also blocks ‘‘all property and interests in property of [designated persons] that are in the United States or that hereafter come within the United States, or that hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons[.]’’[1] The PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001, amends IEEPA to provide critical means and authority to OFAC to counter terrorist financing. The Act has enhanced OFAC’s ability to implement sanctions and to coordinate with other agencies by clarifying OFAC’s authorities to block assets of suspect entities prior to a formal designation in ‘‘aid of an investigation.’’ This critical authority helps prevent the flight of assets and prevents the target from engaging in potential damaging behavior or transactions. Prior to the passage of the PATRIOT Act, OFAC was wary of relying on classified information under IEEPA programs, because, unlike the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, IEEPA did not contain a provision explicitly authorizing submission of classified information to a court, in camera and ex parte, upon a legal challenge to a designation. The new PATRTIOT Act authority has greatly enhanced our ability to make and defend designations by making it absolutely clear that OFAC may use classified information in making designations without turning the material over to an entity or individual that challenges its designation. Rolling FTO’s into SDGT’s Makes War on Terrorist Infrastructure Global On November 2, 2001, the U.S. took a significant step in the War on Terrorism when the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, utilized the new authorities in E.O.
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13224 to designate 22 Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). This action expanded the War on Terrorism beyond Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and associated individuals and entities to include Hamas, Hizballah, the FARC, the Real IRA and others. As then recognized by the State Department, this action created a truly global war on terrorism and terrorist financing and demonstrated our commitment to continue and expand our efforts against all terrorist groups posing a threat to the United States, our citizens, our interests, and our allies. Currently, there are 36 FTOs which are also designated as SDGTs. To date, the U.S. has designated 281 individuals and entities as SDGTs pursuant to E.O. 13224. 202 of these entities are associated with either AlQaeda or the Taliban which provides the basis to notify these names to the UN for listing pursuant to United Nations Security Resolutions (UNSCRs) 1267, 1333, 1373, 1390 and 1455. The United States has worked diligently with the UN Security Council to adopt international resolutions reflecting the goals of our domestic executive orders and providing the mechanisms for UN member states to freeze terrorist-related assets. Using Designation Authorities in Cooperation with International Partners The emerging international threat of Al Qaeda in the 1990s necessitated OFAC’s participation in the U.S. government’s focus on developing information and strategies against terrorist financing and infrastructures. In that context, it was clear that the cooperation of foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, would be critical in impeding the flow of funds to terrorists. Having developed an understanding of how terrorist support networks operate, we began direct engagements with allies. For example, in June 1999, an OFAC delegation met with Finance Ministry, Intelligence and Law enforcement officials in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. The purpose of the trip was to find answers to certain questions we were unable to resolve to our satisfaction and to put officials on notice that cooperation on these issues was critical. We were clear that U.S. interest in these issues would continue. In these meetings and others held subsequently in the region, we shared information and asked questions. Through the discussions, we identified areas where we could work together. These areas included strengthening the weak regulatory authorities over financial institutions and discussing the possibility for creating new oversight for charities. These proposals were met with assurances of cooperation, but we understood that getting assistance on these issues would be a serious challenge because it represented a change in policies and structures within governments and societies. Importantly, in efforts to crack down on support for terrorists and terrorist fundraising, we have always made clear the intent of the U.S. government to deal with these issues cooperatively. A key element of our strategy and engagement was to take open, decisive action with host governments against several high impact targets. The designation and blocking of assets of high-profile supporters of terrorist groups could deter others, forcing key nodes of
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financial support to choose between public exposure of their support for terrorist activity or their good reputation. We believed this approach could also be effective against banks, business, NGOs and other institutions. We traveled to Saudi Arabia again in January 2000. The purpose was again to communicate that the U.S. wanted to work with Saudi officials jointly in efforts to crack down on support for terrorists and terrorist fundraising. At the time however, we did not have many of the tools necessary to sufficiently back up threats with action; especially, in cases where the target was assessed as intransigent. This is the strategy that has been in place since September 11th as one of the means of deterring and disrupting terrorist financing. The tools Congress and the President have given us since September 11th have enhanced our ability to deliver this message and carry out this strategy. Post 9-11 Efforts After the 9-11 attacks … the international community, including our allies in the Persian Gulf, joined us and have committed to fully cooperating on all fronts against Al-Qaeda and its supporters. On a regular basis, for example, the United States works cooperatively with Saudi authorities on issues relating to the war on terrorism. In some areas, cooperation is routine and systematic; in other areas, especially those touching on aspects of terrorist financing and infrastructure, which touches on all aspects of government, coordination is more complex. Following up on our previous trips and other U.S. efforts, OFAC visited Saudi Arabia and several other states in the region in December 2001 and January 2002. In Saudi Arabia, we met with an inter-agency delegation to discuss terrorist financing and to explore areas of mutual concern. Specifically, we discussed some possible joint U.S.-Saudi public actions to deny individuals and entities we suspected were supporting terrorism access to international financial markets and to prevent U.S. and Saudi citizens from having dealings with them. We also discussed Saudi efforts to strengthen regulatory oversight of charities and other charitable fundraisers, and steps taken by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to tighten-up banking controls and improve compliance efforts. In addition, we held meetings with a small group of private Saudi citizens and leaders of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce (JCCI). The purpose was to explore the charitable giving practices amongst its membership and encourage actions that would ensure that charitable funds are not ultimately channeled to terrorist activity. Later in January 2002, the JCCI announced that a task force would be set up to develop a comprehensive financial and administrative system for the nation’s charities. On March 11, 2002, Treasury Secretary O’Neill and Saudi authorities announced the joint designation of the Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina offices of the Al Haramain Foundation, a Saudi-based NGO with offices throughout the world. In addition to on-going law enforcement and intelligence cooperation, this effort marked an expansion of U.S.-Saudi cooperative efforts to act against the terrorist support networks. Based on evidence that these two branch offices were providing support to Al-Qaeda, these entities were
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forwarded to the UN Sanctions Committee for inclusion under the UNSCR 1333/1390 list. In May 2002, an OFAC delegation returned to Saudi Arabia to continue the on-going dialogue on issues related to terrorist finance and infrastructure. During this trip, we were informed that the Saudi Government planned to significantly enhance its oversight of charitable organizations to prevent their exploitation by supporters of terrorism. Several months later, on September 6, 2002, the United States acted again with Saudi Arabia and jointly referred to the UN Sanctions Committee Wa’el Hamza Julaidan, an Al-Qaeda co-founder who was a leader of several terrorist-affiliated NGOs. In October 2002, Saudi authorities announced that a full review was conducted of its charitable organizations and issued new guidelines, including one which mandates reporting to the Saudi Foreign Ministry of all charitable activities outside of Saudi Arabia. Shortly thereafter, on December 3, 2002, Saudi authorities publicly announced the establishment of a High Commission for oversight of all charities. Saudi authorities also reported that a process was being developed to establish operational procedures to track all donations to and from charities. … in February 2003, SAMA reported that it had launched a program to train judges and investigators on legal aspects of terrorist financing and money laundering, international requirements for financial secrecy, and methods followed by criminals to exchange information. Effect of May 12, 2003, Riyadh Attacks On May 12, 2003, homicide bombers affiliated with Al-Qaeda struck three residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing thirty-four including nine Americans. Saudi authorities responded with new resolve in fighting the war on terrorism and carried out a number of actions to capture, kill or arrest suspected terrorists operating in Saudi Arabia. Marking a recognition of the seriousness of the challenges on terrorist finance and infrastructure issues, Saudi authorities announced that charitable organizations would no longer be authorized to provide funds outside of Saudi Arabia other than through highly-controlled and government supervised channels. Additionally, Saudi authorities announced that Al Haramain was closing operations in as many as ten countries outside Saudi Arabia. The U.S. continues to monitor the status of these announced efforts and to express our critical interest in cooperating to maximize possibilities for effectiveness. In June 2003, Saudi authorities announced that SAMA distributed a circular to all banks and financial institutions in Saudi Arabia requiring the full and immediate implementation of nine new policies and procedures applicable to charitable and welfare institutions. The new rules include requirements that all accounts of a single organization be consolidated into one account, that depositors provide banks with sufficiently verifiable identification, and that cash withdrawals be strictly prohibited. To implement these new rules, SAMA reported that it intends to verify compliance through on-site inspections by SAMA officials, receipt of regular
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compliance reports, and certification by external auditors. The new rules take into account the Saudi Banking Control Law, SAMA’s regulations, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 40 Recommendations, the FATF 8 Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing, and applicable UN Security Council resolutions. The United States supports all efforts reported by Saudi authorities to improve efforts to prevent the flow of charitable funds to terrorist activity. Joint efforts, including the designation of senior Al-Qaeda leadership based in Saudi Arabia like Wael Hamza Julaidan, demonstrate the willingness of Saudi authorities to cooperate on high impact financing and infrastructure targets. These actions by Saudi authorities present the U.S. with opportunities to cooperate in improving, verifying, and evaluating progress. We must continue to engage Saudi authorities in areas where we believe improvements can be made, and continue to demonstrate that we are steadfast in our determination to eliminate the threat posed by the terrorist networks. As efforts to improve oversight of charities continue, we believe we should seek to cooperate closely in three key areas: (1) programmatic; (2) personnel; and (3) financial. Specifically, it is critical that we continue to follow up with Saudi authorities to measure whether 1) the true goals and objectives of charities are what they purport to be; 2) whether leadership and staff are appropriately vetted and not committed to any dual-purposes; and 3) whether the means that are used to raise and move funds are transparent. Additionally, we must continue our dialogue with wealthy individuals, families and merchants to ensure that they are taking all necessary precautions to prevent charitable donations from supporting terrorist activity. In instances where we have strong reason to believe that some elements are not doing enough, we must pursue more stringent measures, which we believe, may force others to become more vigilant in ensuring that funds are not provided for terrorist activity. Looking forward, Saudi Arabia and other important partners continue to indicate their willingness to cooperate in joint efforts, and we remain committed to ensuring that maximum efforts are made to achieve tangible results. Multilateral Actions Against Al-Qaeda and Other Terrorist Infrastructure Reflecting the broad range of mechanisms by which terrorist groups, particularly Al-Qaeda, receive financial and other material support, OFAC has effectively implemented the President’s designation authority against a variety of targets. These range from using targeted economic sanctions to disrupt the terrorist financing operations of an international ‘‘hawala’’ network as well as a more traditional banking network, to disrupting the activities of several key NGOs in supplying financing and other services to Al-Qaeda. Information available to the US Government indicates that these actions have disrupted Al-Qaeda’s support network and OFAC continues its efforts to plan, prepare and implement actions, which will impact on the ability of terrorists and their networks to provide material, financial and logistical support for future terrorist strikes …
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Due to the transnational nature of the terrorist infrastructure, support and cooperation with our allies is a critical part of making U.S. designation actions successful. By developing and establishing authorities and procedures for entities associated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to be submitted to the UN, we have begun to institutionalize on a global scale the importance of sanctions as a critical tool against the terrorist support networks. We continue to work with our allies in making designations against Al-Qaeda’s infrastructure that may be notified to the UN. Towards a Strategic Effort and ‘‘Key Nodes’’ Approach Over the next six to twelve months, OFAC is seeking to significantly expand its efforts and the impact of the implementation of the President’s authorities under E.O. 13224 by adopting a more systematic approach to evaluating the activities of major terrorist organizations in various regions. This approach will focus on identifying ‘‘key nodes’’ that sustain the abilities of terrorist organizations to remain operational, despite successful actions by the U.S. and its allies to capture, kill and arrest terrorist cell members, leaders and operational planners. In furtherance of this end, OFAC initiated a collaborative effort with the Department of Defense to develop information and strategies against terrorist financing and infrastructure. Before OFAC’s secure facility was operational, DOD agencies to include the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), in addition to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), generously provided space and support to OFAC personnel that was critical to OFAC efforts immediately following the 9-11 attacks. Since this time, OFAC staff have continued liaison relationships with several DOD agencies and combatant commands. As a result of this effort, OFAC has gained wider access to information and expertise critical in carrying out the President’s authorities under EO 13224. Specifically, in October 2002, OFAC began a joint project with the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) and other DOD elements that identified terrorist support networks in Southeast Asia and selected key nodes, or priority targets, in these networks. The project’s geographic scope included four countries—Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore—and eight terrorist or Islamic extremist groups. The project focused special attention on Jemaa Islamiyah (JI), the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), because of their relative importance in the region and threat to U.S. interests. This process is the model that OFAC is seeking to continue and expand in collaborative efforts with DOD agencies including ONI and the combatant commands … Europe, USEUCOM and the Central (USCENTCOM) and Southern (USSOUTHCOM) Commands shortly thereafter. Working with DOD Commands and other DOD agencies provides OFAC and its DOD partners a force multiplier that brings together a variety of counterterrorism tools and resources to enhance opportunities for future efforts. Taking a regional approach along with the various command’s areas of responsibility, the effort will seek to identify and isolate key nodes in the
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transnational terrorist support infrastructure in the respective areas of responsibility. This approach seeks to provide the opportunity to cripple an entire organization at one time through OFAC’s implementation of the President’s authority in coordination with possible actions of other U.S. departments and agencies and in cooperation with our allies. We have already taken steps to implement this approach in some regions. OFAC analysts are currently working with DOD agencies, including analysts from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), to fully identify the terrorism support infrastructure in the Horn of Africa. In this region, shipping and related drug smuggling activities appear to be strengthening the terrorist networks in this area. Working with ONI provides OFAC the opportunity to work with analysts with unique expertise in areas otherwise less accessible to OFAC. In the Southern Command area of responsibility, Narco-Terrorists in Colombia are one of the major targets. On October 31, 2001, three Colombian guerrilla-terrorist organizations that had previously been determined to be Foreign Terrorist Organizations—the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army)—were added to the list of global terrorists under E.O. 13224. On June 1 of this year, President Bush named two of those organizations—the FARC and the AUC—as foreign drug kingpins under authority of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, thus, effectively recognizing them as narco-terrorists. Although the structure, goals, and international ties of these groups are significantly different from those of the Islamic extremist terrorist organizations linked to Al-Qaeda and Hamas, these Colombian narco-terrorist organizations are still dependent upon cash or other media of exchange, such as drugs-forguns, to sustain their guerrilla and paramilitary forces. Thus, although their key nodes may be more difficult to isolate in a meaningful sense for the effective application of OFAC’s economic sanctions, they are not immune. We expect that some aspects of these organizations and their support structures will be found to be susceptible to OFAC actions. Summary The funds necessary for a terrorist organization to carry out an attack often are minimal, but the support infrastructure critical for indoctrination, recruitment, training, logistical support, the dissemination of propaganda and other material support requires substantial funding. The President’s powers under IEEPA, E.O. 13224, as well as other legislation provide the United States with authorities that are critical to attacking the unusual and extraordinary threats posed by the transnational terrorist support networks. OFAC’s effectiveness in implementing these authorities requires strong coordination with other U.S. departments and agencies and support from U.S. allies. Terrorist organizations including Al-Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Jemaa Islamiyah, Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiyya, Hamas, Hizballah and others rely on their infrastructure for support and to shield their activities from scrutiny. The secretive nature of their activities and their frequent reliance on charitable,
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humanitarian, educational and religious cover are vulnerabilities OFAC can exploit by making designations under E.O. 13224. Decisive action against high impact targets deters others, forcing key nodes of financial support to choose between public exposure of support for terrorist activity or tarnishing their reputation, to the detriment of their business and commercial interests. Looking forward, OFAC seeks to continue coordinating with other U.S. agencies as efforts are expanded to impede the activities of terrorist organizations. By duplicating the approach to Southeast Asia in coordination with USPACOM, we plan to identify and isolate key nodes in the transnational terrorist support infrastructure through a regional approach reflecting the areas of responsibility of the military commands. This approach seeks to enhance the coordination of OFAC’s actions with those of other U.S. departments and agencies and in cooperation with allies. SOURCE: http://www.senate.gov/~govt-aff/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Testimo ny&HearingID=106&WitnessID=367 EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see statement of John S. Pistole, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘‘Terrorism Financing: Origination, Organization, and Prevention,’’ Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, July, 31 2003 (http://www.senate.gov/~govt-aff/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings. Testimony&HearingID=106&WitnessID=366); also see ‘‘Progress in the War on Terrorist Financing,’’ U.S. Department of Treasury, September 11, 2003 (http://www.ustreas. gov/press/releases/reports/js721.pdf).
E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘U.S. Interagency Efforts to Combat Terrorist Financing,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Banking Committee, Washington, D.C., September 25, 2003 Saudi Arabia has been a particular focus of our counterterrorist finance efforts. On October 12, 2001, we and the UN froze the assets of Saudi millionaire Yasin al Kadi because of his links to al Qaida. Subsequently, we and the Saudi Government submitted on March 11, 2002, the names of the Somali and Bosnian branches of the charity al Haramain to the UN for worldwide asset-freezing. We and the Saudis also submitted the name of Wael Julaidan, a prominent Saudi al Qaida financier, to the UN for freezing on September 6, 2002. These are a few examples of actions that have been publicly visible. Launched in January, our senior-level dialogue designed to improve communications … has told the Saudi Government forthrightly that they would be judged by their actions. As a result of the May 12, 2003 bombings in Saudi Arabia, the dialogue has intensified. Our strategy with the Saudis has three parts: 1. interaction between key U.S. Government officials with Saudi officials; 2. presenting packages of usable information to the Saudis to help them take action against individuals and organizations involved in the funding and support of terrorism; and
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3. applying diplomatic pressure to ensure effective and timely Saudi action based on the information. This requires follow-up and the building of relationships of trust and confidence.
Saudi Arabia has made fundamental and necessary changes to its banking and charity systems to help strangle the funds that keep al Qaida in business. It is important to note that many of the changes implemented by Saudi Arabia go beyond what we would have legal authority to do.… Saudi Arabia is working with us closely in the context of the new task force on terrorist financing, led on the U.S. side by the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. Experts from the FBI and IRS [Internal Revenue Service] have just completed the first part of a training model designed to strengthen the financial investigative capabilities of the Saudi security forces.… Saudi Arabia’s new banking regulations place strict controls on accounts held by charities. Charities cannot deposit or withdraw cash from their bank account, nor can they make wire transfers abroad via their bank account. And Saudi Arabia has banned the collection of donations at mosques and instructed retail establishments to remove charity collection boxes from their premises, something that is undoubtedly extremely challenging for Saudi Arabia, but that the Saudi Government has undertaken because it understands that terrorists are more likely to use such funds than those channeled through regular banking channels. Having said all this, I want to stress that this is a work in progress. We have reason to believe that the new task force on terrorist financing will be effective, but we will need to see results. We believe the Saudi Government is implementing its new charity regulations, but there too, we will need to see results. Again, please allow me to stress a point, because sincere and concerned questions have been raised in this regard: The Saudis have been and still are limited by their own lack of expertise, a situation we are working to address. They are receptive to our assistance and efforts to help them boost capacity to combat terrorist finance. The Saudis are not where they need to be, and they have much work to do. However, we believe they are headed in the right direction, are committed to countering the threat of terrorist financing, and are giving us very strong cooperation in the war on terrorism. Another key focus of terrorist finance effort has been HAMAS. I would like to highlight the recent U.S. designations related to HAMAS. On August 22, the President announced the designation for asset-freezing of the following five HAMAS fundraisers: CBSP (Comite de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens), ASP (Association de Secours Palestinien), Interpal, Palestinian Association in Austria (PVOE) and Sanabil Association for Relief and Development. He also announced the designation of six top HAMAS leaders (Sheikh Yassin, Imad al Alami, Usama Hamdan, Khalid Mishaal, Musa Abu Marzouk and Abdel Aziz Rantisi). Earlier this year, the U.S. also designated for asset-freezing another HAMAS charity operating in various parts of Europe, the al Aqsa Foundation. HAMAS’ recent suicide bombings demonstrate the organization’s commitment to undermining any real efforts to move towards a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. HAMAS and other Palestinian rejectionist
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groups must not be permitted to undermine the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a viable, secure state living side by side with Israel in peace and security. While the Palestinian Authority and Arab states have endorsed the roadmap devised by the Quartet, HAMAS continues to reject constructive efforts toward a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict. Shutting off the flow of funds to HAMAS is crucial to reducing HAMAS’ ability to carry out its activities and to thwart progress towards peace. HAMAS is also clearly a threat to Palestinian reform, including Palestinians committed to a negotiated peace. HAMAS has used its charities to strengthen its own standing among Palestinians at the expense of the Palestinian Authority. In light of this, the U.S. welcomed the EU’s recent decision to designate HAMAS in its entirety as a terrorist organization. Previously, the EU had only designated Izzadin al Kassem, HAMAS’ ‘‘military wing,’’ as a terrorist entity. We have also urged governments throughout the region to take steps to shut down both HAMAS operations and offices, and to do everything possible to disrupt the flow of funding to HAMAS and other Palestinian organizations that have engaged in terror to disrupt peace efforts. Some of these financial flows may be used to support charitable activities, but some of this money frees up funds used to support HAMAS’ rejectionist and terrorist activities. We will continue to engage with regional governments to prevent all funding of HAMAS and other groups that have engaged in terror. In all our discussions with EU governments on this matter, EU states have raised serious concerns about addressing the basic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. Even as we try to shut off the flow of funds to HAMAS, it is important to remember that a significant portion of this money has gone to provide some basic services to the Palestinian population—services the Palestinian Authority has not yet successfully provided. This is a concern that the U.S. shares and is working with our Quartet partners and others to address. However, as long as HAMAS continues to rely on terrorism to achieve its political ends, we should not draw a distinction between its military and humanitarian arms, since funds provided to one can be used to support the other. Also worth noting are actions taken elsewhere in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, and Qatar have also passed anti-money laundering legislation, and all Gulf Cooperation Council member states have increased oversight of their banking systems. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman are devising ways to prevent the misuse and abuse of charities for terrorist purposes. Asset-freezes and arrests get the headlines, but ‘‘diplomatic action’’ also makes a difference in the world of terrorist finance. Let me just briefly characterize for you the forceful types of actions that we refer to under the rubric ‘‘diplomatic action,’’ a phrase that we well know isn’t always assumed to be a synonym for ‘‘armed and dangerous.’’ But we would consider ourselves second to no agency in the forcefulness and persuasive potential of the tools at our disposal, as validated by the fact that, often, there is interagency consensus on a recommendation to wield diplomacy as a weapon against terrorists. When we talk about diplomatic approaches for dealing with targets, we are
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talking about getting other governments to cooperate in the war against terrorist financing by taking concrete actions of their own, including law enforcement and intelligence actions, as well as getting them to speak out publicly against terrorist groups. It has involved encouraging foreign governments to prosecute key terrorists and terrorist financiers; to extradite a terrorist financier; to pass strong anti-terrorist financing legislation; to prohibit funds from being sent to a charity; and to make sure companies funneling funds to terrorists are shut down. Diplomatic action also means improving conditions for our colleagues in other agencies to work more effectively with their foreign counterparts in the fight against terrorist financing. The results obtained through such diplomatic strategies are crucial to our long-term success. As we move forward with refined strategies, we will continue to work actively with other governments in different regions of the world to make further progress in our fight against terrorist financing. In Saudi Arabia, we will continue our cooperation to achieve actions such as the joint submission to the UN for asset freezing of the Bosnian and Somali branches of the Saudi charity al Haramain, and the similar designation of Wael Julaydan, a prominent Saudi al Qaida financier. These actions as well as other important initiatives such as cooperation in building a joint task force on terrorist financing, we believe are, and will continue to be, productive and in the interest of protecting and saving American lives. In Asia, we will continue to work with governments to confront Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), including its sources of funding. In the last few weeks, the UN has listed 20 new names of individuals associated with JI whose assets UN member states are obligated to freeze. In this hemisphere, the OAS/CICAD [Organization of American States/Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission] Money Laudering Experts Group is drafting model laws and regulations that nations may adapt, enact, and implement to fulfill their FATF commitment to combat terrorist financing. We continue to identify vulnerabilities around the world and to work with other countries to address them effectively. Our capacity-building and technical assistance is vital in this effort. We have made it more difficult for terrorists to move and collect funds, but we still have a long way to go given the dimensions of this challenge. SOURCE: http://banking.senate.gov/_files/wayne.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress04/morehart05 1104.htm.
Gary M. Bald, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, FBI, Statement Before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 5, 2004 Terrorist groups committed to furthering their ideological objectives through violence require both initial and continuing support. In this context, material support includes items related directly to terrorist attacks, such as the procurement of explosives and munitions, and the more distant support related to
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funding, recruitment, logistics and communication resources required to sustain a transnational terrorist network. For terrorists, a lack of finances can hinder or thwart short-term goals, and dismantle long-term agendas. Without funds, terrorist groups suffer disarray, defection and, ultimately, demise. The material support statutes, as broadened by the USA PATRIOT Act, are vital components of our investigative and preventative efforts targeting the support and resource needs of terrorist networks. The material support statutes serve as the framework enabling a thorough and aggressive prosecution of the entire terrorist network—leaving the network without the necessary resources or personnel to conduct terrorist operations. These statutes, based upon a fundamentally simple concept, prohibit material support or resources to all individuals or entities that facilitate, plan, or engage in terrorism. By criminalizing the actions of those who provide, channel or direct resources to terrorists or a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, the material support statutes provide an effective tool to intervene at the earliest possible stage of terrorist planning in order to arrest terrorists and their supporters well before their violent plans come to fruition. Every person who participates in or helps facilitate terrorist activities should be subject to the material support statutes. These statutes have been applied to a wide variety of terrorist supporters. For example, the first material support case to be tried before a jury was a Charlotte, North Carolina investigation in which a group of Lebanese nationals repeatedly purchased large volumes of cigarettes in North Carolina, and shipped them to Michigan for resale. This smuggling scheme was extremely lucrative because of the high profit margin from the cigarette tax disparity between the two states. Some of the subjects were involved in providing a portion of the illicit proceeds to Hizballah affiliates and operatives in Lebanon. Others were involved in providing funds to purchase dual-purpose military equipment in aid of Hizballah. Several subjects were ultimately charged with violations of the material support statutes, and convicted of providing material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The main subject was sentenced to 155 years in federal prison. As a result of this case, material support charges have been used in other similar cigarette smuggling cases in Detroit. A recent drugs-for-weapons case demonstrates the need to investigate supporters of terrorism and, given the implications, underscores the urgency and priority material support investigations require. Between April and September 2002, a group allegedly negotiated with undercover law enforcement agents for the sale of 600 kilograms of heroin and five metric tons of hashish. The subjects also allegedly negotiated with undercover law enforcement for the purchase of four Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which they indicated were to be sold to personnel in Afghanistan. The subjects were charged with conspiring to provide material support. Two of the subjects pled guilty to federal violations and one is awaiting trial. Other examples of successful material support cases involve persons in the U.S. training for violence overseas. The FBI, through the Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country, has disrupted and dismantled jihad terrorist cells in American cities including Seattle, Portland, Buffalo, and most recently in the D.C. suburbs of northern Virginia. Among other things, members of
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these cells have engaged in military style training exercises, acquired weapons, attended Al-Qaeda training camps, and attempted to travel to wage jihad. Another material support investigation identified an Al-Qaeda facilitator in the U.S. who was conducting pre-operational surveillance of potential U.S. targets for Al-Qaeda. The subject is in custody and ultimately pled guilty to providing material support to Al-Qaeda. The subject admitted casing the Brooklyn Bridge and identifying other potential U.S. targets for Al-Qaeda operations. The material support statutes provided the authority to disrupt this terrorist plan while it was being conceived, well before it could come to fruition. More challenging material support cases involve the funding of designated terrorist organizations through the cover of charitable front companies frequently referred to as Non-Governmental Organizations, or NGOs. An investigation involving the Executive Director of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) illustrates the usefulness of the material support statutes in these types of investigations. BIF was a Chicago, Illinois-based charity long recognized by the IRS as a non-profit organization. The group’s purposely ambiguous objectives were, ostensibly, to provide humanitarian relief aid. However, the recipients of the ‘‘humanitarian aid’’ were ultimately revealed to be terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda. The October 2002 indictment described a multi-national criminal enterprise that, for at least a decade, used charitable donations from unwitting Muslim-Americans, non-Muslims and corporations to covertly support Al-Qaeda, the Chechen Mujahideen, and armed violence in Bosnia. … The Executive Director ultimately pled guilty to a material support—based racketeering conspiracy violation and admitted that donors to BIF were misled into believing their donations would support peaceful causes when, in fact, funds were expended to support violence oversees. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the material support statutes to our ongoing counterterrorism efforts. The statutes are sufficiently broad to include terrorist financers and supporters who provide a variety of resources to terrorist networks. The statutes provide the investigative predicate which allows intervention at the earliest possible stage of terrorist planning to identify and arrest terrorists and supporters before a terrorist attack occurs. These statutes form a core aspect of the FBI’s terrorism prevention strategy. It is readily apparent that terrorists open bank accounts, use the internet, communicate, recruit and train personnel, and procure equipment to support their objectives. Those who provide such support or resources are as culpable as those who actually carry out terrorist attacks. Having a statute directed at the support stage provides a crucial, early opportunity for prevention. Moreover, if the terrorist sources of support are not successfully targeted and prosecuted, those facilitators remain capable of supporting future terrorist activities. Terrorist networks cannot exist or operate with a radical ideology as their sole asset; these networks need support and resources. From an intelligence perspective, the material support statutes are crucial to preventing attacks by limiting, if not denying, the necessary support and resources to these terrorist networks. SOURCE: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress04/bald050504.htm
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Juan Zarate, Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing, and William Fox, Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), U.S. Department of Treasury, ‘‘U.S. Efforts in the Financial War on Terrorism,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., August 24, 2004 ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZARATE: … We are announcing today—the Treasury Department—the designation of two financial institutions using the powers given to the Secretary of the Treasury under the Patriot Act Section 311. The designation of these two financial institutions as primary money-laundering concerns is yet another step in our efforts to protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system and forms part of our ongoing initiative to identify rogue financial institutions around the world that pose a risk to not only the U.S. financial system but the international financial system at large. Last year, we designated two Burmese banks, Myanmar Mayflower Bank and Asia Wealth Bank, as primary money-laundering concerns. Just recently, we designated as well the Commercial Bank of Syria as a primary money-laundering concern. And today, we are designating InfoBank as well as First Merchant Bank as primary money-laundering concerns. InfoBank is a bank located in Belarus. It is an institution being cited today for its complicity in activities with the former [Saddam] Hussein regime in activities to violate the Oil-for-Food Program. The bank itself was used to facilitate financial activities that were not sanctioned by the United Nations [and] that were outside of the Oil-for-Food Program and form a basis for the designation today and the finding by the Secretary of the Treasury. First Merchant Bank is actually an offshore bank located in what is termed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a jurisdiction with some problematic anti-money laundering controls. That bank has been engaged in the marketing and sale of fraudulent financial products and services. It has been a conduit for laundering of these fraudulently obtained funds. The U.S. correspondent accounts have been used for such activities, and the director and those who operate and control the bank have direct links with organized criminal activity and were, in one instance, indicted in the Southern District of New York in January of last year for such complicity in such irregular financial activities. So the actions today are yet another step, as I mentioned, in terms of our ability to identify financial institutions as well as financial foreign jurisdictions that pose a risk to the U.S. financial system. With me today is Director Bill Fox from our Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN has had the laboring oar on a good bit of this work and is in charge of implementing the regulations and setting forth the requirements for the U.S. financial system.… MR. FOX: … I thought I would give you all a little bit of detail about the way that this sanction works. The Secretary has designated two institutions today as being of primary money-laundering concern; again, First Merchant Bank from Cyprus and the InfoBank from Belarus. In conjunction with this designation, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, as we like to call it, has issued two Notices of
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Proposed Rulemaking. And this is the technical way that these measures are actually implemented. What our notices will impose is a special measure against the two banks that will prohibit covered financial institutions or, essentially, U.S. financial institutions, from establishing, maintaining, administering or managing any correspondent account in the United States for or on behalf of First Merchant Bank or of InfoBank. In addition, covered financial institutions are required to apply due diligence to their correspondent accounts to guard against their indirect use by First Merchant Bank or by InfoBank. Assistant Secretary Zarate discussed a little bit about what Section 311 is about. It was an amendment to the USA Patriot Act that authorizes the Secretary of Treasury, in consultation with the Department of Justice, the State Department and appropriate federal regulators, to designate a foreign jurisdiction, institution or class of transactions or type of account as being of primary money-laundering concern. When that designation occurs, the Treasury Department can institute one of several special measures, which cover everything from additional reporting obligations to measures that are similar to the ones that we are taking today where we terminate correspondent banking relationships with the designated entity. The notion of the power, again, is to ensure that the United States financial system is protected from jurisdictions, institutions, transactions, [and] types of accounts that pose a particular risk to money laundering or terrorist financing. Q. How many so-called rogue financial institutions have been identified after 9/11? How much money has been frozen so far? And how does the cooperation with Swiss authorities look like? ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZARATE: Well, what we have done since 9/11, as you are well aware, is to identify individuals and entities who are terrorists themselves or who are terrorist supporters. Under the President’s Executive Order signed in September of 2001, we have designated and identified 384 individuals and entities. Those include not just individuals, but also front companies, charities and other businesses that have been used by terrorist groups, not only al-Qaida, but other likeminded terrorist groups to support terrorism around the world. In the context of those designations, there have been a couple of banks that have been designated: Bank Al Taqwa, a bank that was controlled by Yusef Nada, was designated with locations previously in the Caribbean, as well as a couple of banks in the West Bank, Beit El-Mal and Al Aqsa Bank, were designated under that authority. What we are doing today, though, is using a new authority, a different authority, which doesn’t freeze the accounts or the assets of these banks, but what it does is it protects the U.S. financial system by having the rule come out from FinCEN to say U.S. financial institutions cannot and should not have correspondent relationships with these identified banks. And under this authority, we have now identified, I believe it’s five banks worldwide. I mentioned at the beginning First Merchants Bank today, InfoBank today, Commercial Bank of Syria recently, and the two Burmese banks previously. With respect to Swiss cooperation, our cooperation has been extremely good and cooperative with the Swiss authorities. Both Director Fox and I have been to Switzerland numerous times and meet frequently with our Swiss
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counterparts. The recent announcement from the Swiss federal prosecutor’s office of the movement on three of their terrorism and terrorist financing investigations was extremely welcome news for us, in the fruits of over two years of cooperation between our authorities and their authorities. So I would venture to say very cooperative and very good. Q. … [T]here has been a lot of talk about financial activities in the triple border area in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina that could finance terrorists. I’d like to know if you have some clear indication of that, and how the authorities, especially in Brazil, are dealing with the problem. ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZARATE: … The tri-border area has been an area that we’ve been concerned about because of the traditional lack of controls with respect to movement of money, people and goods in that region.… the State Department has met directly with the Brazilian authorities. I was there in May of last year to meet with Brazilian, Paraguayan and Argentinean authorities to talk about some of the issues of concern with respect to enforcement and regulation in that region. One very good example, which we came out with publicly on June 10th, was the designation of a Hezbollah financier, a treasurer, in essence, for Hezbollah, operating in the tri-border area, currently in prison in Paraguay, thanks to the good cooperation between the Brazilian authorities and the Paraguayan authorities. We designated him on June 10th, signaling very clearly that he was engaged in a panoply of different financial activities used to support Hezbollah, everything from extortion to counterfeiting of currency to using his businesses, to trade smuggling. Really, it was a potpourri of financial criminal activity that he was using and his counterparts were using to support Hezbollah and to send funds back to Lebanon. So that, I think, is a very clear example of where that type of funding and that type of illegal financial activity has gone to support terrorist financing from the tri-border area. But we’ve seen very good cooperation and very good results from our South American counterparts. Q. … Can you clarify, sir, about the CBS, the Commercial Bank of Syria? Was it regarding money laundering through the ex-regime, the Iraqi regime, the $10 billion the U.S. talk about? Or is it about the involvement with Hamas or other organization? Can you clarify the Syrian Government involvement in this money laundering? MR. FOX: Absolutely. And I would commend to you the publication from FinCEN on the Commercial Bank of Syria designation because it lays out very clearly the basis for the Secretary’s designation of that bank as a primary money laundering concern, and there were three primary reasons for that designation. First was the complicity, in terms of the movement of money with the Iraqi regime, the Iraqi funds outside of the Oil-for-Food Program that were moved in and through the Commercial Bank of Syria, much of which is still sitting in the Commercial Bank of Syria and has not been transferred back to the Development Fund for Iraq, pursuant to UN Security Council resolution requirements. So that was the first basis. The second basis was a concern with respect to anti-money laundering controls in the bank itself and in the Syrian system. As you will see laid out in the
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FinCEN publication, there are some weaknesses and some very grave concerns that we have with respect to how the bank is monitored, whether or not there is transparency, which is a key point here. And that is a second and very important concern. And as you’ll note, in today’s announcement, it’s also a concern with respect to the Belarusian system that does not exist in the way that we would want. And the third reason was concerns with respect to terrorist financing conducted through the Commercial Bank of Syria or facilitated by the Commercial Bank of Syria. That is something that we laid out, in general terms, and we cannot go into the classified details to substantiate that, but that was a substantial concern as well. So those three primary reasons were the basis for the designation, and the Syrian Government is well aware of those assertions. MR. FOX: If I could just add one thing. The 311 action is really a prophylactic or protective action for the U.S. financial system. It’s not intended to be a direct sanction against another country. It’s really an action that protects the U.S. financial system from an institution, a jurisdiction, a type of transaction that we have determined is of primary money laundering concern or a concern Q. … You’ve spoken a lot about the banking and financial sectors. I was wondering where you’re at on investigating or stopping the flow of money from, say, commercial companies, for example, like logging or mining companies in South Asia that might have advertently or inadvertently transferred money to groups that support or finance terrorism. ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZARATE: As I said before, we’re looking at all potential channels of funding and movement of money for terrorist groups or rogue regimes. We are certainly looking at the context you described with respect to the logging industry. It’s been of concern now for a couple of years because of the potential connections. We’re looking in West Africa, with respect to the conflict diamond issue. We’re looking around the world and dealing with our counterparts, frankly, around the world, to look at where funds may have flowed. And when I mention rogue regimes, that’s an incredibly important point because, at the Treasury Department, we certainly are focused on terrorist financing but we are also in charge of the sanctions regime worldwide with respect to U.S. sanctions. So, for example, we are very much concerned about financing with respect to Charles Taylor and his regime in Liberia, and other such regimes that have used illicit means of pilfering funds from their own people, as well as moving funds for their own benefit. And that’s precisely what we’ve done in the case of Iraq, with the freezing of $6 billion around the world, the return of over $2.7 billion back to the Iraqi people in a worldwide movement to find and return the money to the Iraqi people. Q. … You just mentioned West Africa. And, of course, it’s not financial institutions that are engaged in financing terror in West Africa. And I was wondering if you could talk more about individuals and entities within Africa, besides Charles Taylor, that might have engaged in the financing of terrorism.
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And the other question is, I was wondering if you could also build more on how you intend to engage African countries in undermining the financial networks of terror. Thank you. ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZARATE: Let me address the last question first because, as we speak, financial experts from around the world are assembled in Tanzania with the FATF-style regional body in Africa. It’s known as ESAAMLG, the East and South African Anti-Money Laundering Group. That is a group that’s assembled, that works on building regimes in Africa, building capacity in Africa to deal with these issues—and again, as you mentioned, not just in the banking sector, the formal financial sector, but in the less regulated, less formalized sectors, like the money exchange houses which exist and which are of potential use. So that is one mechanism and one very good example that’s happening right now where we engage, we engage bilaterally all the time with countries around the world, not just in West Africa but in East Africa and Southern Africa. And our concerns range the whole gamut in terms of activities in Africa. It’s a potential source of financing in movement of funds for al-Qaida. We’ve seen that in East Africa with a number of our designations. We’ve seen it in some of the hawaladar networks; for example, Al Barakat, which was a key network connected to Somalia. There are other groups that potentially have used Africa to raise funds and to move funds. One of our great challenges with respect to Africa is building capacity— helping African nations to help themselves in what really is a global endeavor. MR. FOX: I might add, we at FinCEN entertained this past week a delegation from Egypt and their new financial intelligence unit, which was accepted into the Egmont Group this summer. They are also a leader in the, I think it’s the MENA FATF-style regional body, which is the Middle East-North Africa FATF-style regional body. We think it’s really important that we do build this capacity. I know Tanzania is hard at work at developing a financial intelligence unit. There are good units in Mauritius and in South Africa and in Egypt and in other place in Africa. And again, I think the more we globalize this, the better we are and the better we can help African countries develop those systems, again, that lead to financial transparency. I think we’re all better in the world for that. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/35688.htm
E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘The State Department Role in Combating the Financing of Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, April 4, 2006 Thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you the contribution of the Department of State to U.S. Government efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism. As Assistant Secretary of State for
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Economic and Business Affairs, I have been actively involved in our campaign against terrorist financing.… This vital task is a high priority for the State Department. With the new challenges posed by the post-9/11 world, the Department of State has played a critical role, in Washington and overseas, in building and sustaining the international cooperation essential to keeping funds from use by terrorists and terrorist organizations. However, interagency cooperation is vital and essential to success in this endeavor. In my remarks today, I would like to review in general terms what we have accomplished since 9/11 in the international fight against terrorist financing. I would also like to sketch for you the role of the Department of State in this effort, and to update the committee on recent regional developments as well as those in key multilateral institutions. Finally, I would like to say a few words on what we see as some of the key challenges moving forward. What We have Accomplished Since 9/11? Mr. Chairman, all of us involved in the fight against terrorist financing can rightfully take pride that the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report accorded the U.S. Government’s efforts against terrorist financing its highest marks. In the four-and-a-half years since 9/11, we have built a new set of structures and mechanisms within the U.S. government to combat terrorist financing. This is an interagency process that works. That team effort by the U.S. Government has also served as the foundation for the international cooperation, called for in the Commission’s initial Report, which the Administration has worked hard to develop in a variety of settings and with a variety of tools. Our efforts encompass building political will of partners, public outreach, sanctions implementation, law enforcement, intelligence-gathering, financial regulation, standard-setting and training and technical assistance. Since terrorists largely operate internationally, a key component of the fight is to build international cooperation. Diplomacy is critical to winning the political commitment from which cooperation in other areas flows, and our embassy teams play vital roles in this effort. With cooperation, intelligence and law enforcement officers can follow the money. With international cooperation on asset freeze designations (as well as travel bans under UN resolutions) we force terrorists into less reliable and more costly means of moving money. We have, for example, worked with foreign partners to: Implement the sanctions mandated by United Nations Security Council resolutions 1267 and 1373 to expose and isolate terrorist organizations and their supporters. Utilize law-enforcement tools to prevent, investigate and prosecute terrorist financiers. Collect and analyze financial intelligence in order to understand and dismantle terrorist networks, and expose their operations. Build capacity to develop and effectively enforce a robust legal regime against terrorists and their supporters.
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Support development of high-quality international standards, especially through the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (FATF). As the Commission acknowledges, there is still much to do. But our shared goal remains the same: building an international coalition to deny access to the global financial system to terrorists, terrorist organizations, their financiers and supporters. Since 9/11, I have traveled to the political and financial centers of Europe, capitals of key strategic partners such as Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and Pakistan, as well as to the United Nations in New York, as part of our diplomatic effort to build this international coalition. Colleagues who are here with us today, and others from many U.S. agencies, have undertaken similar missions to those and other parts of the world. We have also welcomed a steady stream of visitors to the United States who engage various levels at State and other U.S. Government agencies on terrorist financing issues. These include senior officials at the highest levels of government as well as mid-level officials and journalists sponsored by the U.S. on International Visitor Grants. International cooperation remains fundamental to our common endeavors for the simple reason that most of the funds used to support terrorism are located outside the jurisdiction of the United States. International cooperation is essential to initiatives in fields ranging from intelligence and law enforcement coordination to targeted financial sanctions to norms and standards of financial regulation. Our experience in the years since 9/11 reinforces the conviction that we will be successful in detecting, disrupting and dismantling terrorist financial networks only through active cooperation with partners around the globe. The Changed Landscape One anecdotal measure of the success of this coalition can be seen in the increasing use by terrorist financiers of non-traditional financing channels in preference to the formal international financial system. This means terrorist networks are increasingly relying on riskier, more difficult and expensive means to finance their operations. But it is also further evidence that we face a resilient and adaptable foe, and signals a new phase in our campaign against terrorism finance. Already, abuse of such financing instruments as charities and not-for-profit organizations, cash couriers, wire transfers and other alternative remittance systems have become an increasing focus of our discussions with international partners, as have criminal means of raising money. Role of the Department of State The Department of State’s contribution to Administration efforts to safeguard the international financial system from terrorist financing and money laundering focus on achieving three key objectives: Designation. Blocking assets and cutting off worldwide channels of terrorist financing;
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Standard-setting. Establishing international standards; and Capacity and commitment. Ensuring global compliance with international standards. Our work is based on close cooperation with the National Security Council, Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security and other agencies, and includes foreign policy guidance, diplomatic engagement, and training and technical assistance. In some cases, State will lead, in others Treasury, or DHS, or Justice may take the lead, for example, but we strive to approach them all as a coordinated team. State officials lead or take part in a wide variety of regional and bilateral initiatives and multi-agency diplomatic missions relating to money laundering and terrorist financing. They are also active participants in key multilateral institutions including FATF and the FATF-style regional bodies (FSRBs), the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee and the UN Counterterrorism Committee, the UN Office of Drug Control (UNODC), the G8 Roma-Lyon Group and the Organization of American States. Leadership of our efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing engages the resources of three State Department functional bureaus, in cooperation with a cross-section of other bureaus and U.S. diplomatic missions: The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has primary responsibility within State for international anti-crime issues, including programs to combat money laundering and other financial crimes. The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT) plays a lead role in our domestic designation program, and shares responsibility with INL for coordinating U.S. AML/CFT capacity-building programs overseas. The Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs (EB) coordinates terrorist financing policy, and coalition building on terrorist financing, including on UN sanctions under Resolution 1267. Designation Overall, the key role that the Department of State can play is to help build political will in other countries to staunch the financing of terrorism. As part of this broader effort we focus on two tasks to help identify and interdict terrorist assets: Public designation of terrorists and terrorist organizations; and Work with partners abroad to freeze the assets of terrorists and their supporters. State shares responsibility, and works closely together with Treasury, for designations under U.S. Executive Order 13224. Designations under this order result in asset-blocking and a prohibition on transactions with the designated individual or entity. The Administration has frozen the assets of 436 individuals and entities on 76 separate occasions pursuant to this order. State has responsibility, in consultation with Treasury and Justice, for designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). These designations make it a crime to provide material support to the designated organization, subject its members, representatives, and material supporters to exclusion from the
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United States, and block FTO assets held in U.S. financial institutions. Fortytwo organizations are currently designated as FTOs. We also work with Justice and Homeland Security to designate groups for the Terrorism Exclusion List. Such an action makes individual aliens providing support to, or associated with, these organizations inadmissible to or, if appropriate, subject to deportation from the United States. Many of the groups on this list are banks, NGOs, and other organizations found to have provided support to terrorist organizations. Internationally, State coordinates U.S. diplomatic engagements on terrorist financing, including nominations of individuals and entities associated with alQaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for mandatory sanctions under UNSCR 1267. We also lead U.S. initiatives to build international support for the UN 1267 sanctions process. The 1267 Sanctions Committee has listed over 300 persons and over 100 entities, including 139 names submitted by the United States. Overseas, American diplomats are engaged in regular dialogue in support of U.S. strategies against terrorism and financial crime. We have instructed that at each mission, a senior official chair regular interagency meetings to develop and propose strategies aimed at building a broad international coalition through cooperation with host governments against the financing of terrorism, including on designation, asset blocking and capacity building. Standard-setting In the area of international standard-setting, the Treasury Department leads U.S. efforts in the Financial Action Task Force, but State participates in its plenary and working group meetings to establish high-quality international standards in the areas of money laundering and terrorist financing. We work hand in glove with the Treasury and Justice Departments in this effort, including through diplomatic support provided by missions overseas in pushing the importance of the FATF criteria to host governments. Treasury has provided invaluable leadership within the U.S. Government on our efforts to effectively utilize FATF to address terrorist financing. The FATF 40þ9 Recommendations provide the international framework for a comprehensive national legal regime. FATF continues to clarify and refine these Recommendations through Interpretive Notes and best practices guidelines agreed by its 33 members. State, along with Treasury and Justice, each funds a one-third share of the annual United States contribution to FATF … State has also sponsored an initiative in the Organization of American States to update the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) Model Regulations on Money Laundering to reflect FATF standards and UN Security Council resolutions on terrorist financing. Capacity and Commitment The Department of State has been active in U.S. efforts to support global compliance with international standards, particularly in three areas: Assessing compliance with these standards;
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Providing capacity-building assistance for key countries in need; and Engaging governments and institutions on implementing measures to prevent terrorist financing and money laundering. Assessments The Department of State is a strong proponent of the FATF-style regional bodies (FSRBs) in their work adapting FATF standards to meet regional requirements. In Washington, we work closely on this endeavor with Treasury, the U.S. agency with policy lead on FSRBs, and Justice. Our overseas missions provide diplomatic support for the FATF and FSRB processes. We have supported Treasury in sharing best practices to combat money laundering and terrorist financing with international financial institutions including the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American and Asian Development Banks. We welcome last year’s agreement by the FATF, IMF and World Bank to develop a common methodology to incorporate the FATF 40þ9 into their country financial sector reviews. Capacity Building To help build global capacity, we work bilaterally and regionally as well as through multilateral organizations to develop, coordinate and implement anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing assistance programs. State takes an active role in planning, funding and delivery of U.S. training and technical assistance to a selected group of some two-dozen countries where financial systems are particularly vulnerable to abuse by terrorists. This process demands close interagency cooperation, and we have been working hard to improve the process. These bilateral assistance programs utilize a comprehensive model aimed at developing or reinforcing legal, judicial, financial regulatory, financial intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. Programs encompass legislative drafting, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) development, judicial and prosecutorial training, financial supervision and financial crime investigative training, as well as the funding of long-term resident advisers, and are increasingly focused on addressing abuse of alternative remittance systems, non-profit organizations and cash couriers. Last year, the U.S. government provided anti-money laundering and terrorist financing training to more than 100 countries, and a total of over 130 since 9/11. Some of this training was done on a regional basis, through International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs) in Budapest, Gaborone and Bangkok. Altogether, the U.S. has helped established five ILEAs to combat drug trafficking, criminality and terrorism. Other regional programs have included a partnership with the United Kingdom and European Union to develop and implement the recently-completed five-year Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Program, and a similar program recently established for the 14 non-FATF members of the Pacific Island Forum. In Latin America, the U.S. has provided funds to the CICAD Money Laundering Group of Experts and to the 3þ1 Group in South America.
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State also leads the U.S. delegation to the G8 Counter-Terrorism Action Group (CTAG) to coordinate the international provision of anti-terrorism training and technical assistance. CTAG donors have established a gaps/assistance matrix based on the counterterrorism finance needs identified in FATF assessments of key countries, and agreed that sustained assistance over time is required to close the gaps. By mid-2005, 12 members of the CTAG, including the United States, had provided more than 200 coordinated technical assistance programs to more than 150 countries. Implementation Engaging other governments on the importance of implementing measures against terrorism finance and money laundering has been a cornerstone of our diplomatic strategy following 9/11. Components of this engagement have included bilateral diplomacy, technical assistance and work through multilateral institutions such as FATF and the United Nations. In 2005, 17 countries promulgated or updated anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws. The number of jurisdictions that have criminalized money laundering to include predicate crimes beyond narcotics increased to 172 from 163 in 2004. Ten more countries criminalized terrorist financing, bringing the total number of countries with such laws to 123. In addition, seven more financial intelligence units (FIUs) became members of the Egmont Group, raising its global membership to 101, and 123 governments are members of the seven FATF-style regional bodies (FSRBs). U.S. Government assistance programs, coordinated with our embassies, continue to include programs to help governments to make the necessary legal and regulatory changes to ensure compliance with international standards and expectations. State’s INL bureau played a key role with Treasury and Justice in development of the FATF Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) process to reduce the vulnerability of financial systems to money laundering. Targeted Department assistance programs have contributed to removal of all six Western Hemisphere and 15 of the other 17 NCCTs from the FATF list. In 2005, FATF removed the Cook Islands, Indonesia, Nauru and the Philippines from the list, leaving only Burma and Nigeria as remaining NCCTs. State assistance to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Global Program against Money Laundering has provided mentoring and other assistance for promoting compliance with FATF Recommendations and reinforcing of national anti-money laundering institutions capable of combating the financing of terrorism. Additional Contributions In addition to the aforementioned, the Department of State contributes to efforts in areas which, although related more directly to our larger counterterrorism efforts, support U.S. efforts against the financing of terrorism. These include, most prominently, economic policies favorable to development, and public diplomacy.
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Economic Tools This discussion of the Department’s role has focused on direct actions that we are taking to fight terrorism and terrorist financing. But there are longer term, indirect actions that can help to address the economic conditions that support terrorist rhetoric and recruitment. One of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission focused on the need to include in our comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy policies to encourage development and open societies to improve the lives of those who might otherwise turn to terrorism. In the post-9/11 world, it is now clear as never before that the national security of the United States and the economic development of the world’s poorest countries are inextricably linked. As a matter of United States policy, development is central to the National Security Strategy, which the President issued on March 16 this year. It states: ‘‘Development reinforces diplomacy and defense, reducing long-term threats to our national security by helping us build stable, prosperous, and peaceful societies.’’ In addition to our core AID programs, examples of policy tools aimed at promoting this goal include: The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) provides assistance to reduce poverty through economic growth in those countries that rule justly, invest in their people and encourage economic freedom.… Our long-standing support for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative promotes debt sustainability and enables the poorest countries to devote additional resources to reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. An aggressive U.S. multilateral and bilateral trade agenda to liberalize global markets also supports our development goals, especially in realizing the President’s bold vision of a Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA)—concluding Free Trade Agreements with Oman, Bahrain and Morocco (the last already in force), developing special export zones in Egypt and Jordan, and considering others in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia became a full member of the World Trade Organization in December 2005. Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) support adoption of market-oriented policies that can promote growth and new employment. For example, we are negotiating a high-standard BIT with Pakistan that supports the adoption of market-oriented policies that can promote growth and new employment and reduce poverty. Public Diplomacy The Department of State is also working to address the 9/11 Commission’s critique of U.S. public diplomacy efforts aimed at countering terrorism. State … provides briefings on combating terrorism finance to a mix of foreign professionals—including law enforcement, legislators and government officials, judges, attorneys, and journalists from many parts of the world. These have been very lively sessions that have given us an opportunity to clarify misunderstandings and garner greater support for meeting U.S. objectives.
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We are making a concerted effort to place opinion pieces by U.S. government officials in key media outlets throughout the world. This year we have placed opinion pieces in every continent in multiple languages reaching millions of foreign readers, including a recent placement in pan-Arab newspapers. The number of readers we reach is only part of the story—the fact is these opinion pieces do influence changes in foreign legislation and spur more effective law enforcement efforts overseas. My most recent opinion piece discusses concern over misuse of charitable donations and explains the steps which governments can take to both protect those who donate to charities and to regulate charitable organizations in a way that facilitates rather than hindering their work. This piece has been placed in leading newspapers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, as well as the pan-Arab Ash-Sharq al-Awat, and will be published in European and African capitals in the days ahead. We regularly provide targeted talking points for U.S. embassies to use to educate the public and government officials about the risks and links between terror financing, money laundering, arms trade and drug smuggling. We also provide ongoing training to U.S. foreign service officers and other U.S. government officials on the public diplomacy aspects of discussing terror financing issues with overseas audiences. Recent Developments Mr. Chairman, when we last met in July 2005, my remarks focused on money laundering and terrorist financing in the Middle East and Pakistan (http://banking.senate.gov/_files/ACFAA.pdf). At this time, I would like to take a few minutes to update the Committee on developments in these areas, as well as provide an overview of issues in other regions and international organizations where the Departments of State, Treasury and other agencies, as well as U.S. diplomatic missions, have been active. Key recent developments include: UN Security Council adoption of measures to strengthen international sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaida. Thirty-five new listings for sanctions under UNSCR 1267, including the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) and Al-Akhtar Trust International, sponsored by seven different governments including the U.S. International consensus at the Financial Action Task Force on implementing oversight of non-profit organizations. Inauguration of the U.S.-Saudi Strategic Dialogue and the U.S.-UAE Terrorist Financing Coordinating Committee. Adoption of best practices papers on charities, cash couriers and hawala by the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF). Ongoing anti-money laundering programs aimed at strengthening existing law and building effective financial intelligence units; the Saudi financial intelligence unit is now fully operational. Regular dialogue with the European Union on terrorism finance issues. EU adoption of legislation on money laundering and regulation of cash couriers, and guidance on oversight of charities.
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United Nations During my testimony last July, I briefly touched on work we were doing in New York to improve the effectiveness of the UN sanctions regime targeting the Taliban and al-Qaida. Later that same month, those negotiations resulted in the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of UNSCR 1617. This resolution extends the mandate of the 1267 Sanctions Committee’s Monitoring Team: the eight experts, including one American, who are its eyes and ears. It also clarified what constitutes association with al-Qaida, adds enhanced due-process provisions to the listing process and ‘‘strongly urges all member states to implement the comprehensive international standards embodied in the FATF 40 Recommendations on Money Laundering and the FATF Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing.’’ UNSCR 1624, a resolution related to the incitement of terrorist acts, was adopted unanimously in September at a Security Council summit as part of the UN’s response to terrorism. We are currently discussing the elements of a strategy to drive effective implementation of this resolution internationally.
FATF and FATF-style Regional Bodies FATF With strong leadership by Treasury, the USG team has worked successfully to build cooperation and promote best practices. The Financial Action Task Force adopted an Interpretative Note to guide members’ implementation of its Special Recommendation VIII on oversight of non-profit organizations at its February 2006 meeting in Cape Town. Agreement followed months of negotiation, where Treasury led the U.S. team, and represents international consensus on common priorities and procedures to avoid abuse of the sector by terrorist financiers. The two new FAFT-style regional bodies (FSRBs) recognized by FATF in 2004, the Middle East and North African Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF) and the Eurasia Group (EAG), brought the total number of FSRBs to eight. The U.S. holds observer status with each. Both have been active putting programs into operation. Middle East Gulf States We are continuing high-level interagency engagement with all the Gulf States, focusing on sustaining their capacity to effectively address the terrorist threat. The U.S. Government has conducted Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) programs with all the states of the Arabian Peninsula. The Gulf States have made significant progress in improving their abilities to combat terrorist financing, and have worked closely with us in this area. They have diligently implemented UN Security Council sanctions. While there is more that can be done, we have developed highly cooperative and mutually beneficial relations with the Gulf States in the areas of law enforcement, intelligence sharing, and terrorist finance. We are presently
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working with them to combat the illicit use of cash couriers, which is especially pertinent to these cash-based economies. Saudi Arabia We continue to engage Saudi Arabia through regular, high-level diplomatic meetings to urge enhanced emphasis on combating terrorist finance. I want to highlight for you a number of cooperative activities we are currently engaged in with Saudi counterparts: This past year, we established the U.S.-Saudi Strategic Dialogue, which Secretary Rice inaugurated during her November 2005 visit to Riyadh. The Dialogue includes a number of working groups, including one dedicated to counterterrorism, which will creatively address terrorist finance, among other key issues. A second round of the Dialogue is scheduled to take place in the U.S. later this year. Saudi Arabia is working to establish a charities commission to regulate all charitable donations leaving the kingdom. We continue to stress the need for appropriate regulatory oversight of all charitable organizations headquartered there, such as the World Muslim League, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). Senior Saudi officials have reiterated, as recently as last week, that existing regulations prevent unauthorized bank money transfers by charities from leaving Saudi Arabia. In late 2005, the Government of Saudi Arabia enacted stricter regulations on the cross-border movement of funds. Money in excess of $16,000 must be declared upon entry and exit from the country. While the regulations were effective immediately, Customs staff training is continuing, as highlighted by recent discussions with senior Saudi officials. A cash declaration process is also now in place. The Saudi government is also working to strengthen its nascent Financial Investigations Unit (FIU), established in 2005 and now up and running and receiving reports from Saudi financial institutions. We have consistently urged the Saudis to accelerate the FIU’s membership in the Egmont Group of financial intelligence units in order to facilitate the international sharing of financial information. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the U.S. financial intelligence unit, is working with the Saudi unit on the Egmont application process and plans to sponsor it when it qualifies. Kuwait Kuwait is currently working to revise and strengthen its anti-money laundering law to specifically criminalize terrorist financing. We expect that draft legislation to be ready for review by the cabinet and parliament by the summer. Kuwait’s Ministry of Social Affairs has dismantled all unlicensed charity kiosks, some of which had been linked to terror financing. In December 2005, Kuwaiti Customs, in conjunction with DHS, hosted a conference to train Kuwaiti officials on preventing terror financing.
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UAE The U.S.-UAE Joint Terrorist Financing Coordinating Committee (JTFCC) was launched in January 2006. This interagency, bilateral effort allows high-ranking U.S. officials to work directly with their UAE counterparts to address a range of issues, including cash couriers, charities and hawala. The second JTFCC meeting will take place in the weeks ahead in Abu Dhabi. Since 2000, the UAE Government has frozen $1.3 million of funds in 17 different accounts based on UN sanctions. It has also been a leader in setting up new standards for controlling hawala. The UAE passed an anti-terror law in July 2004, encouraged attendance at the Middle East Law Enforcement Training Center and has signed all 12 UN Counterterrorism Conventions. Jordan The Jordanian government has submitted draft anti-money laundering and bank secrecy legislation for approval by Parliament and is working to strengthen its anti-money laundering and terrorist finance controls. The U.S. Government, in coordination with the Government of Jordan, has assigned a Treasury Attach´e to Amman to provide technical assistance and training to Jordanian banking and law enforcement officials, as well as to others in the region. Syria On March 9, 2006, Treasury issued a final rulemaking that prohibits all U.S. financial institutions from maintaining or opening correspondent accounts used by or on behalf of the Commercial Bank of Syria (CBS), pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, due to CBS’s involvement in money laundering and terrorist financing. The international community has been clear about what it expects of Syria: the government must end the flow of weapons and funds to terrorist groups, such as Hizballah, within Lebanon; it must work to curb the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq; and it must close the offices of Palestinian terrorist groups in Damascus. Lebanon On March 23, 2006, the Department of the Treasury designated al-Manar, a satellite television operation owned and controlled by Hizballah, as a terrorist organization pursuant to E.O. 13224. The order also designated al-Nour Radio and the parent company of both groups, the Lebanese Media Group (LMG). Hizballah, a designated foreign terrorist organization, works through and with these entities to raise funds, recruit and otherwise support terrorist activities. South Asia Pakistan Pakistan’s proposed anti-money laundering legislation, drafted with U.S. assistance and approved in cabinet last year, remains in Parliament. We are concerned that some elements may not meet international standards, and are
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trying to engage the Pakistani government to correct deficiencies. Lack of action, including establishment of a financial intelligence unit, leaves us unable to accelerate planned assistance. In the absence of legislation, Pakistani banking and securities regulators have introduced regulations to improve oversight consistent with Financial Action Task Force regulations. We welcome the concrete actions Pakistan has taken in response to UN Security Council Resolutions, including the freezing of over $10 million of al Qaida assets. However, the presence of al-Qaida, other terrorist groups and front organizations, porous borders, and widespread informal, cash-based financial networks mean Pakistan will remain a focus of concern for some time. We are encouraged by Pakistan’s concern that terrorist groups may be presenting themselves as charitable organizations. We would welcome the opportunity to provide technical assistance to help the government meet international standards on preventing abuse of the non-profit sector. Involvement in post-earthquake relief efforts by front organizations for terrorist entities designated by the 1267 Committee raises serious concerns that funds from international donors for earthquake relief and reconstruction could be diverted. We have shared these concerns with Pakistan and have made clear the types of steps the government needs to take to prevent this from happening. For example, we worked extensively with USAID, which in turn worked with its contractors to make sure that no subcontracts were awarded to terrorist groups.… Afghanistan Afghanistan has made significant progress in creating and enacting a legal framework to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism in the formal banking sector. However, twenty-five years of armed conflict devastated physical infrastructure and human capacity in all economic sectors. Commercial banks have only recently re-opened in major cities, and the country’s informal financial sector remains large and well established. The Central Bank’s primary challenge is to extend formal regulatory oversight to the informal financial sector. It has the legal authority to do so, but many foreign exchange dealers and money service providers see the requirements as overly burdensome. Under legislation adopted in 2004, Afghanistan has set up a financial intelligence unit, and an embedded U.S. Treasury advisor is working with the Central Bank to help the FIU become fully operational. The FIU is working with the informal financial sector to implement regulations, but full implementation will require enforcement capacity which the Ministry of Interior and the Attorney General’s office do not currently possess. East Asia Indonesia We continue to see results from counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering assistance provided by Washington agencies in the wake of the 2002 attack in Bali:
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Indonesia’s financial intelligence unit has been fully operational since October 2003, receiving and analyzing suspicious transaction reports; over 20 cases have been successfully prosecuted. The Indonesian National Police has established a specialized counterterrorism unit that includes financial investigators who have received counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering training. The Indonesian Central Bank has put in place rules and procedures to enhance anti-money laundering compliance for private sector banks. A U.S. Resident Legal Advisor at Embassy Jakarta is assisting the Indonesian government in implementing anti-money laundering legislation and preparing cases to prosecute financial crimes. Changes in its legal regime led to removal of Indonesia from the Financial Action Task Force’s Non-Cooperating Countries and Territories list in February 2005. Partly due to lack of interministerial coordination, Indonesia’s performance in implementing UN sanctions provides an area for improvement. We have provided some training, including on oversight of charities, and are assessing other areas where training might be appropriate.… Europe European Union Cooperation with the European Union is increasingly guided by the U.S.EU dialogue on terrorism finance issues, established in September 2004 in fulfillment of 2004 U.S.-EU Summit commitments. This process brings key players together for regular review of current issues, and provides a framework for joint expert-level projects in areas including prosecution, law enforcement, designation and technical assistance. The U.S. interagency delegation, which I chair, meets with representatives of key EU institutions during each six-month EU Presidency to set direction and assess progress. Informal expert groups of judicial, technical assistance and designation professionals have begun organizing joint work programs. They have organized U.S.-EU workshops on judicial and designation issues, and conducted a joint financial sector assessment in Tanzania. In November, they held a workshop on implementing FATF standards for asset freezing, with follow-up meetings planned this year on enforcement and listing/de-listing issues. Discussions are also ongoing aimed at compiling a shared database on treatment of classified information in the U.S. and EU states. However, attempts to implement a 2004 summit agreement to analyze frozen accounts depend on member states’ willingness to provide Europol with the necessary authority. We are also engaging the EU through key member states and international organizations. Resolving differences of approach with respect to the use of administrative or preventive freezing and criminal proceedings remains a key challenge. However, with prodding by FATF and the UK’s EU Presidency last fall, more EU member states are taking steps to put legal authorities in place to freeze terrorist assets independent of EU action.
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Over the last year, the EU has moved forward with legislation to implement the FATF Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing. It adopted new measures on money laundering, which also addressed terrorism finance issues, and on regulation of cash couriers. Legislation covering wire transfers is currently before the European Parliament. The European Commission issued guidance to member state governments last December on oversight of charitable organizations, and has invited U.S. participation in a conference this fall on preventing abuse of the non-profit sector. Russia With legislation and enforcement mechanisms in place, cooperation with Russia is improving: U.S. and Russian law enforcement agencies have worked together on a number of high-profile money laundering cases, resulting in successful prosecutions in the Russian courts. The U.S. and Russian financial intelligence units (for the U.S., Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) have established a productive working relationship, sharing sensitive financial information on suspicious transactions almost daily. The U.S.-Russia Counterterrorism Working Group (CTWG) meets twice a year to review bilateral cooperation on a range of counterterrorism issues, including terrorism finance. However, our views and Russia’s have sometime diverged regarding the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee’s listing process, and we are working to improve our coordination on these issues. In other respects, Russia has been a key partner in UN counterterrorism initiatives. U.S. cooperation with Russia produced the initial draft of UNSCR 1617. Russia also played a key role in our shared effort with the other permanent members of the Security Council to convince China to approve the resolution’s endorsement of the FATF 40þ9 Recommendations. Latin America Triborder area Although there is no credible information indicating that Islamic terrorist cells are planning attacks in Latin America or the Caribbean, the U.S. Government remains concerned that Hizballah and HAMAS fundraisers are active among the large Muslim communities of the largely-uncontrolled Triborder Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. We remain concerned that proceeds from narcotics and piracy of goods may be used to support Hizballah in the three TBA countries. In September 2005, the Department of State provided $750,000 to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to establish trade transparency units (TTUs) in these countries. The TTUs will enable the TBA countries and the USG to compare trade data declared at
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origin and destination of trade transactions; discrepancies will alert authorities to the possibility of fraud, money laundering, or terror financing.… We have been working with all three countries to strengthen their capabilities to deal with financial crimes in other ways: On March 30, Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies passed long-delayed money laundering legislative reforms. The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires has engaged in an extended lobbying campaign to for passage of the law, which was earlier approved by the Senate. Argentine press reports have highlighted the role of both the U.S. and the FATF in pressing for the changes. Coincidentally, passage occurred during a high-level visit by the FATF President and Executive Secretary. The Brazilian government is currently drafting legislation that would criminalize terrorist financing, refine its anti-money laundering regime and provide administrative authority to freeze financial transactions. I understand Assistant Treasury Secretary O’Brien’s recent visit to Brazil included consultations on this issue. He also visited Paraguay and Argentina to promote cooperation. I raised the importance we attach to passage of Paraguay’s anti-money laundering legislation during high-level meetings with Paraguayan officials last month in Washington, echoing Assistant Secretary O’Brien’s message in Asuncion. The law, drafted with U.S. assistance, would criminalize and enable effective prosecution of money laundering, but has languished in Congress for almost two years, although it may be gaining traction. A $35 million Millennium Challenge Account threshold program, approved in February, would accelerate effective implementation of the law as well as fight corruption and illicit commerce. While it remains unclear whether and to what extent intellectual property (IP) piracy is a vehicle for terrorist groups to raise funds, the State Department is providing significant bilateral training and technical assistance to the Paraguay in combating rampant intellectual property piracy in the Tri-Border region, provides IP training to Brazilian police, and plans to involve Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina in regional training to strengthen cross-border customs cooperation. Africa South Africa South Africa is the major financial center in the region, and has a strong track record of cooperation with the United States in exchanging information relating to money laundering and terrorist financing. Its legislation for dealing with money laundering and terrorist financing has been in place since May 2005 and stands out in a region where few countries have adequate legal or regulatory regimes in place. It provides the government with investigative and asset-seizure powers in case of suspected terrorist activity, and is applicable to charitable and non-profit organizations as well as financial institutions. Detailed implementation of this legislation remains a work in progress. The USG interagency continues to engage the South African government to undertake measures to control cross-country currency movement, fully
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implement the new legislation and take steps to regulate alternate remittance systems. The Challenges Ahead In my presentation today I have attempted to emphasize two themes: 1) we continue to make progress with partners throughout the world against the common threat of terrorism and its financing; and 2) there is much that remains to be done. In closing, I would like to return to the idea that we have entered a new phase in the campaign against terrorism finance. We are moving far beyond a focus on freeze-and-seize tactics toward a more strategic approach on building coalitions with close partners to make it progressively harder for terroristlinked money to be collected and moved. Areas that are becoming increasing prominent in our discussions include: Non-traditional financing mechanisms, including cash couriers, Islamic banking, hawala and other alternative remittance systems. Non-profit organizations, including front organizations and charities set up to funnel funds to terrorist organizations. Corruption, financial crime and trade-based schemes in support of terrorist activities and organizations. State sponsors of terrorism and their role in terrorist financing. Our work in these areas will build on the coalition that has come together since 9/11 to safeguard the international financial system. We will continue to adapt use of multilateral sanctions, establishment of international standards and technical assistance cooperation to changed circumstances, but our shared goal remains the same: isolate terrorist financiers, insulate the financial system and unite the international community through collective action. SOURCE: http://state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2006/64109.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Middle East and South Asia,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Washington, D.C., July 13, 2005 (http://banking.senate.gov/ _files/ACFAA.pdf).
Gerald M. Feierstein, Deputy Coordinator for Programs and Plans, ‘‘Counterterrorism Financing Foreign Training and Assistance: Progress Since 9/11,’’ Testimony Before the House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, April 6, 2006 … In this testimony, I will first discuss the evolution of CT finance efforts since September 11, 2001, followed by a detailed description of the Terrorist Finance Working Group and its successes, and a discussion of interagency efforts to respond to new threats. Finally, I will conclude with a description of efforts underway since the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO)
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October 2005 report to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of interagency CT finance activities. Evolution of CT Finance Efforts Since 9/11 The tragedy of September 11, 2001 changed the way we approach terrorist financing. Over the past four and a half years, we have made solid progress in making it more difficult for terrorists to finance their activities, forcing them into more risky and more costly means of moving money, including the use of cash couriers to transport funds across borders. The U.S. Government has worked to create and implement programs that develop or enhance the capacity of key partner nations to detect, disrupt, and dismantle global terrorist financing networks. These programs deny financial safe-havens to terrorist organizations and their supporters by developing or reinforcing the capacity of key partner nations to monitor and police financial transactions within their borders and share information internationally. Our objective is to build sustainable, dynamic anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing regimes that adhere to international standards and implement effective programs in the legal, financial-regulatory, financial intelligence, law enforcement, prosecutorial, judicial and international cooperation fields. Equally important, improving the capability of our partner nations to combat terrorist financing significantly enhances our own ability to detect and isolate terrorist financiers and to ‘‘follow the money’’ right to where it links global terrorists to their support networks. This is why your hearing today is especially important. The creation of the Terrorist Finance Working Group in October 2001 was a direct result of 9/11. This interagency working group was established to leverage existing anti-money laundering expertise across the U.S. Government and develop specific CT finance capacity-building programs. Members of the interagency working group coordinate, develop, and provide CT training and technical assistance to foreign partners that we have identified as the most vulnerable to terrorist financing. Co-chaired by the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, this interagency process has also included the Departments of Treasury, Justice, and Homeland Security, independent financial regulatory agencies, and the law enforcement and intelligence communities. While the current interagency structures are the subject of ongoing reform discussions, they have been useful and effective for the purposes of receiving intelligence briefings, scheduling assessment trips, reviewing country reports, and discussing the development and implementation of technical assistance and training programs. Since January of 2006, I have been active in the process and am pleased to report that all members of the working group have shown that they are committed to providing well-coordinated, high-quality CT financing assistance to our international partners, strengthening our partnership and furthering our common effort to disrupt the financing of terrorist organizations. The interagency process is part of our national, integrated counterterrorist finance efforts. These efforts include interagency structures that are tasked to
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identify, track, and pursue terrorist financing targets, and other interagency bodies which work with the international community to take measures to thwart the ability of terrorist to raise and channel the funds they need to survive and carry out their heinous acts. The process maximizes U.S. Government training, resources and expertise, and deploys them against the most critical terrorist financing threats and in the countries and regions where we can make the biggest impact. The State Department’s role in the interagency process has been to steer the process to ensure that we develop and sustain the international relationships, and set priorities among strategies and activities to win vital international support for and cooperation with our efforts. These efforts include the provision of training and technical assistance in close coordination with the Departments of Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security and the financial regulatory agencies. Within the interagency process, the State Department has two primary roles: (1) to build the political will and the capacity of foreign partners to combat the financing of terrorism, and (2) to ensure that all agencies set the most effective priorities for use of our limited resources. Stemming from the State Department’s overall responsibility for managing foreign assistance programs, we lead the interagency effort to coordinate, facilitate, prioritize, and deconflict the delivery of technical assistance and training by a variety of executive branch agencies to the governments of priority countries around the world. We seek to improve their ability to investigate, identify, and interdict the flow of money to terrorist groups.… As in any interagency process, there are inevitable challenges and occasional disagreements. To minimize possible friction resulting from poor communications, we have gathered bi-weekly to share joint briefings and analysis to ensure that each agency has the same information and the background for each country and project. The working group mechanism makes it possible for members to receive detailed reviews of programs in individual countries, ensuring that each member agency is aware of what the others are doing. Each agency brings a different set of skills—and occasionally different priorities—to the table, but we share the common objective to deprive terrorists of their money. In my personal experience, the occasional friction is part of a healthy interagency process, normally followed by a robust interagency discussion process that resolves most disagreements. However, the process is part of a larger structure that provides, in the event of genuine disagreements, a path for resolution. As it stands now, the Terrorist Finance Working Group reports to the National Security Council’s Counterterrorism Security Group’s Training and Assistance Subgroup, which in turn reports to the National Security Council’s Counterterrorism Security Group. I will discuss this organizational relationship later in my testimony. CT Finance Activities To maximize resources and focus on the greatest terrorist financing threats, the interagency team developed a priority list of countries for the provision of assistance. Based on intelligence and law enforcement information, the original priority list identified those states most vulnerable to terrorist financing by
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al Qaida, Hamas, and Hizballah. The interagency team periodically reviews and updates this list in response to emerging threats. Approximately two dozen countries are on this list. Once a country is identified as a priority, the working group employs the following systematic five-step process to build specialized, comprehensive antimoney laundering and counterterrorist finance regimes through training and technical assistance: (1) Determine specific assistance needs to combat money laundering and terrorist financing with Financial Systems Assessment Team onsite visits or Washington tabletop exercises. The State-led teams include 6-8 technical experts from the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury, financial regulators, and law enforcement agencies. The onsite visits take about one week and include in-depth meetings with host government financial regulatory and legal officials, law enforcement agencies, the private financial services sector, and non-governmental organizations, as well as with U.S. officials at post. Tabletop reviews of international financial institution assessments are also accepted (2) Prepare formal assessment reports on terrorist finance vulnerabilities and make recommendations for CT finance training and technical assistance to address these weaknesses. The formal report is shared with the host government to gauge its receptivity to U.S. offers of assistance. (3) Develop CT finance training implementation plans based on the recommendations in that report that may include legal drafting assistance to ensure that a country’s legislation meets international standards; financial regulatory training to detect and report suspicious transactions; financial intelligence unit development; financial investigative training for law enforcement agents; and, judicial and prosecutorial training to more effectively address financial crime cases and enhance international cooperation. (4) Provide sequenced training and technical assistance to these countries either in- country, through regional programs, or in the United States. (5) Encourage other donors and providers of technical assistance to deliver complementary training. This burden-sharing is done with our allies via the European Union and/or directly with member governments; with international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other regional development banks; and, through international organizations such as the United Nations, Financial Action Task Force, and the G-8 to capitalize on and maximize international efforts to strengthen CT finance regimes around the world.
Tenets of CT Finance Assistance Through the working group process, U.S. agencies working in countering terrorist financing have determined that vulnerable countries must address certain core issues if they are to respond adequately to the threat. The process is designed to ensure that as we review each country’s program, all of the issues are addressed either directly through U.S. foreign assistance or by other donors. Legal Framework. To comply with the international standards established by the Financial Action Task Force and United Nations, each state is required to criminalize terrorist financing and money laundering. Legislation should establish effective measures to block and seize assets of terrorist financiers and
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their supporters. Each country should provide its law enforcement agents, prosecutors and judges with ample legal authority and tools to pursue and successfully prosecute terrorist financing cases. Every nation should ratify the UN instruments related to terrorism at the earliest opportunity. Robust counterterrorist financing and anti-money laundering legislation provides a country with the requisite legal foundation to combat these crimes. The U.S. Department of Justice is the lead agency providing technical assistance with draft legislation that criminalizes terrorism, terrorist financing and money laundering to countries that request such assistance. In certain cases, the Department of Justice has placed Department of Justice Resident Legal Advisors to provide long-term assistance in-country to those drafting or amending counterterrorism legislation, and to advise on the effective enforcement of a new or revised CT finance and anti-money laundering regime. Financial Regulatory Supervision. Each country should determine which regulatory agency or agencies that will be responsible for ensuring that the financial sector comply with measures to combat terrorist financing. Governments should develop strict regulatory and compliance measures regarding terrorist financing and money laundering and create a formal system for financial institutions to report suspicious activities to the regulatory agencies. Each country should establish penalties to ensure the effectiveness of the compliance regime. Banking, securities and other financial regulators need to educate the public and private sectors as to possible abuse by terrorists. The U.S. may provide assistance to strengthen the financial regulatory regimes of countries that request such assistance through our regulators including the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and its Office of Technical Assistance. Training includes courses for bank examiners on reporting suspicious activity and detecting indicators of terrorist financing and money laundering schemes, such as structuring. Financial Intelligence Unit. Each country should establish a Financial Intelligence Unit, or FIU, to collect, analyze, and disseminate financial intelligence once it has the requisite legislation that criminalizes money laundering and terrorist financing. The FIU should develop an efficient system for the relevant financial sectors to report suspicious activities related to terrorist financing and money laundering. The FIU should be responsible for analyzing these suspicious activities reports and either investigating or referring the cases to law enforcement agencies for investigation. The FIU should establish appropriate channels to share financial intelligence with its foreign counterparts to assist with financial crime investigations. The U.S., through the Department of Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance and FinCEN, provides training and technical assistance to foreign FIUs. Such assistance includes the provision of equipment, information technology assessments, and specialized analytical software and analyst training for fledgling FIUs. Law Enforcement Investigations. Law enforcement agencies must be granted adequate legal authority to pursue financial crimes including terrorist financing cases. Such powers should include the legal basis necessary to access financial records to investigate financial crimes. Governments should establish specialized units and interagency task forces to pursue terrorist financing cases. Law enforcement agencies should coordinate investigations of terrorist
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financing cases with the prosecutor’s office. The U.S. provides assistance programs in the form of financial investigative training to foreign law enforcement agents who request such assistance. The FBI, State Department, Department of Treasury and Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Bureau of Customs and Border Protection conduct training courses for their foreign counterparts to develop the skill set necessary to investigate financial crimes including terrorist financing. Prosecutorial and Judicial Processes. The complex technical nature of terrorist financing cases requires specialized training for prosecutors and judges to enhance their ability to effectively handle these priority crimes. In addition, prosecutors and investigators must work together and, in certain circumstances, be assembled in specialized units to facilitate their work on terrorist financing cases. The Department of Justice has the expertise to furnish technical assistance in creating joint task forces and specialized units, in addition to providing technical assistance to prosecutors and judges in the field. Success Stories The working group has experienced real success. Since 9/11, the coordinated efforts of State, Treasury, DOJ, and out other partners in the interagency counterterrorist financing community have provided CT finance and anti-money laundering assistance for over 1850 foreign counterparts in over 18 priority countries. Numerous countries have either adopted new legislation to fight terrorist financing or are in the process of doing so and they have reinforced their bank regulatory regimes to better supervise their private banks. The assistance we have provided has led to the arrest and conviction of terrorists in South East Asia and the Middle East, as well as the conviction and subsequent designation of a terrorist fundraiser in the Middle East by ‘‘following the money trail’’ … Perhaps the most remarkable example of the impact of our comprehensive counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering assistance is the case of Indonesia in the wake of the Bali bombings. Following the October 2002 attack in Bali, the Government of Indonesia requested significant counterterrorism assistance from the U.S. and Australia to manage the post-bomb blast investigation of the attacks and to enhance their CT capabilities. CT finance training and technical assistance was part of this request. To address the financial aspects of the investigation, in September 2003 a Financial Systems Assessment Team was deployed to Indonesia to evaluate the country’s needs. The U.S., working through the interagency process, crafted a comprehensive foreign assistance program to address those needs. As a result of counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering assistance provided by the U.S., we have seen a number of successes in Indonesia. Anti-money laundering legislation there has been amended to meet international requirements, which subsequently led to the delisting of Indonesia from the Financial Action Task Force’s list of Non-Cooperating Countries and Territories in the fight against money laundering. The Indonesian Central Bank has put in place rules and procedures to enhance anti-money laundering compliance for private sector banks. Indonesia’s Financial Intelligence Unit has
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become fully operational, and is receiving and analyzing suspicious transaction reports; over 20 cases have been successfully prosecuted. The Indonesian National Police has established a specialized counterterrorism unit that includes financial investigators who have received CT finance and anti-money laundering training. Finally, the Indonesian Government is working with a U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training (OPDAT) Resident Legal Advisor in Jakarta to implement its anti-money laundering legislation and to prepare cases to prosecute financial crimes. We have worked closely with foreign partners such as Australia and Japan to coordinate our assistance to Indonesia to reinforce its ability to combat financial crimes. We consider the case of Indonesia a model one in which the U.S. interagency process provided comprehensive capacity building programs in conjunction with our allies in the region to improve the country’s ability to detect, disrupt, and deter terrorist financing and money laundering. The U.S. Government, in partnership with several Middle Eastern governments, has provided specialized training in the financial regulatory, Financial Intelligence Unit, and law enforcement areas. As a result of this specialized training a number of governments have changed their legal regimes to enhance implementation of Financial Assistance Task Force Recommendations. Specialized financial investigative training to partner nations has resulted in the identification of al Qaida members operating in these Gulf countries and law enforcement actions being taken against those identified al Qaida members. Response to New Threats of Terrorist Financing Even with these successes in hand, we must continue to work to respond rapidly to newly-identified terrorist financing mechanisms and international requirements. To that end, we are developing new courses to address these challenges. Since the formal financial sector has adopted stricter measures to monitor bank transactions post-9/11, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using non-bank conduits such as charities, alternative remittance systems (hawalas), and cash couriers to raise and move funds. The international community has recognized these growing threats and the Financial Action Task Force’s Special Recommendations are aimed specifically at these nonbank conduits. As part of the U.S. Government’s efforts to address the difficult challenges of terrorist use of Non-Governmental Organizations and cash couriers, this interagency working group has developed unique courses designed to assist countries in implementing new global standards to effectively confront these threats. Specifically, the working group has developed a charities seminar to educate government officials on the vulnerabilities of the charitable sector to terrorist financing and other financial crimes, and to share best practices and procedures designed to encourage charitable giving, while minimizing the risk of diversion of donation for terrorists and terrorist organizations. The first … seminar was conducted in Southeast Asia just weeks before the devastating December 2004 tsunami, and the best practices shared
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at the seminar were implemented to ensure the integrity of international donations channeled through NGO’s for the relief effort. The working group also has developed a course on combating illicit cash couriers. This comprehensive course is designed to enhance the ability of host nation customers and law enforcement officials to target cash couriers, seize funds, investigate the source and destination, and share this information both domestically and internationally. As a result of this cash courier training, some countries are already beginning to change their laws and procedures for dealing with illicit cash couriers. This course has been conducted in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and has received extremely positive feedback from our foreign counterparts. Progress Since the GAO Report The interagency will continue to work toward enhancing the effectiveness and efficiencies of the process. We have taken measures following the GAO’s report to strengthen interagency coordination and enhance the development and delivery of CT finance foreign assistance programs. These measures have proven effective. The elevation of the working group’s leadership is one such example. The working group previously met as an ad-hoc interagency body, chaired by the State Department at the Office Director level. In January, the chairmanship was elevated to the Deputy Assistant Secretary-level. Another change was the resuscitation of the National Security Council’s Counterterrorism Security Group’s Training and Assistance Subgroup (TASG), led by the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Assistant Secretary-level. It coordinates all USG counterterrorism assistance, including CT finance. The Terrorist Finance Working Group now reports to this body. Should any issues arise that cannot be worked out by the members of the working group—something that has not occurred since I assumed duties as co-chair in January—it is referred to the TASG for resolution. If the TASG cannot resolve the issue, it is referred to the National Security Council’s Counterterrorism Security Group, or CSG, which focuses on broad U.S. counterterrorism policy issues and is chaired at the Deputy-level. Interagency members of the working group agree on this mechanism for dispute resolution. In response to the GAO report, we have dedicated resources at the Department of Justice, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training to measure the effectiveness of our counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering programs. This system of measures includes performance measures that examine the basic tenets of an effective counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering regime for each country that has received. U.S. foreign assistance in this area. This system includes reporting on how U.S. foreign assistance has been allocated, to which countries, for which courses, and for how many foreign counterparts. In addition, we analyze what type of practical impact our training programs have had on the ground. For example, regarding legal development and reform, we evaluate whether counterterrorism finance and anti-money laundering legislation has been drafted in compliance with international standards and adopted in a specific country. For
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the banking sector, we review whether the financial regulators have adopted new measures to improve ‘‘know your customer’’ compliance procedures. On the law enforcement front, we track how many money laundering and terrorist financing investigations are underway and have led to successful prosecutions.… … [O]ver the past few months I have experienced and participated in an interagency process that works well. It continues to operate in accordance with guidance received from Deputies. Specifically, Deputies of affected U.S. agencies and departments agreed on the working group’s integrated strategy, including the roles and responsibilities of members of the working group. Members of the working group agree on each others’ respective roles. For example, we agree the State Department chairs the working group and coordinates training and technical assistance abroad for priority countries. Given its expertise in the area, we support the Justice Department’s lead role in prosecutorial and judicial assistance matters, including drafting anti-money laundering and CT finance legislation. We support the Treasury Department’s lead role in providing financial regulatory assistance and Financial Intelligence Unit development and implementation of targeted financial sanctions. We support the Department of Homeland Security’s lead role in providing training to combat illicit cash couriers. Given our resources, we also agree on the use of contractors for training and technical assistance to priority countries when and where appropriate and as approved by the working group. There is no blanket prohibition against the use of contractors. As per Deputies, should the Department of Justice and the working group agree to use contractors to draft legislation, all parties should be kept fully informed of developments at all times. In this regard, we all now agree that contractors should not enter into confidentiality agreements with foreign governments as it complicates the U.S. Government’s ability to assess a situation and provide appropriate training. This issue has been resolved. Each U.S. Government agency or department brings something unique to the table. Interagency participation in assessments is critical in producing comprehensive, accurate and effective training plans. The State Department works to ensure these assessment teams include the appropriate expertise. Sometimes security and ongoing diplomatic efforts/initiatives complicate our efforts, but we work through these issues with our interagency colleagues. SOURCE: http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/040606gf.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see testimony at the same hearing by Donald W. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, and GAO Report (http://financialservices. house.gov/media/pdf/040606dw.pdf); William Larry McDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Technical Assistance (http://financialservices.house.gov/ media/pdf/040606wlm.pdf); and Barry Sabin, Acting Deputy Attorney General, Criminal Division (http://financialservices.house.gov/media/pdf/040606bs.pdf).
23 Homeland Security This chapter presents a unique look into the concept of homeland security within the federal government as understood in both the pre- and post-9/11 context. Pre-9/11 homeland security initiatives were compelled by a variety of threats, not simply that of conventional terrorism. One pre-9/11 issue covered is the threat of cyberattacks, as discussed extensively by Attorney General Janet Reno in her February 27, 1998, address to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, during which she announced the creation of the National Infrastructure Protection Center designed to detect, prevent, and respond to both cyber- and physical attacks on United States infrastructure. Additionally, the evolving and complicated nature of federal assistance to local and state first responders, enabling them to respond more effectively to terrorist attacks, is addressed in several documents. Attorney General Janet Reno’s April 30, 1998, remarks to firefighters confront key, still-unresolved issues such as radio interoperability between various response organizations (as demonstrated by the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995). An October 16, 1998, press conference announced the establishment of the Department of Justice’s Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), designed to coordinate federal priorities for equipping and training fire departments, emergency medical service providers, public health providers, and law enforcement. The Bush administration’s expansion of this program’s scope and budget is profiled by Attorney General John Ashcroft in his pre9/11 remarks on August 17, 2001, and his post-9/11 remarks on February 25, 2002. In particular, the ODP’s intensified post-9/11 focus on domestic terrorist attack consequence management via better-equipped first responders is highlighted. The expansion of the post-9/11 homeland security establishment, particularly its emphasis on tighter immigration controls, is chronicled in a variety documents, including a May 10, 2002, Attorney General Ashcroft press conference (see chapter 13) establishing the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which was designed to more effectively track foreign
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students studying in the United States. Attorney General Aschcroft’s November 7, 2002, remarks discuss the implementation of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), created to fingerprint and register all foreign visitors, thereby barring entry to aliens with criminal or otherwise suspicious backgrounds. Most recently, President Bush’s implementation of the SAFE Port and Secure Fence Acts, detailed in separate October 2006 statements, highlight continued border control measures aimed at reinforcing homeland counterterrorism capabilities. In July 11, 2002, testimony, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz covers a unique post-9/11 homeland security dimension: expanded Department of Defense participation in domestic preventative counterterrorism efforts, such as the security preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, via the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
Attorney General Janet Reno, Conference on Critical Infrastructure Protection, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, February 27, 1998 This is an issue that is critically important to me: How we protect the systems and the networks of this nation that make its businesses run; how we create a system that can provide for the protection of our nation’s defenses; how you get to the hospital emergency room on time; how do we protect those whom we hold dear from a threat of chemical weapons in a subway. Our energy production and distribution channels, our transportation networks and our telecommunication systems are more vulnerable than ever before as we come to rely on technology more than ever. The government, including the Department of Justice, is facing these challenges head on and taking steps to ensure the protection of our critical infrastructures, but we know full well we cannot do it alone. To ensure the protection of our critical networks and systems, we must work as partners, true partners, with the private sector, with the academic world, with great institutions such as this, in this vitally critical effort for this nation. [Infrastructure protection] demands a partnership among all federal agencies with responsibilities for different sectors of the economy or for certain special functions, like law enforcement, intelligence and defense. It also requires a partnership with private industry which owns and operates most of the infrastructures. It calls for a partnership with academia and labs like the one hosting us today. You have the scientific knowledge to develop technical solutions. I have already been through some of the process that you have been involved in, some of the processes that are actually critical to solving and protecting some of the very critical infrastructures that we have talked about today. It also requires a partnership with state and local law enforcement. They are used to robbers with guns, but there are new criminals out there who do not have guns. They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction.
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The use of weapons of mass destruction or cyber attacks on infrastructures that could lead to events like power outages or telecommunications breakdowns are not hypothetical. They are not speculative. They can happen. And it requires, in the end, a partnership with the American people who have the right to expect that all of us, whether we are an attorney general or a general, whether we are a scientist or a business person, that all of us are going to work together to protect this nation. The Department of Justice and the FBI, as I have indicated, want to be strong, good partners. Let me face up to an issue. Some people get suspicious of law enforcement. They say, ‘‘I do not want to cooperate. I do not want people to recognize my vulnerability. I do not understand the criminal justice system.’’ The Department of Justice and the FBI have a duty to investigate and prosecute most attacks on the infrastructure, but there are constitutional and other legal limitations on what law enforcement can and cannot do. Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizures is one of our citizens most sacred protections. We must work with scientists as partners to develop technologies and processes that enable us to obtain evidence in strict adherence to the fundamental protections guaranteed our citizens by the Constitution. The FBI works daily to prevent attacks on the infrastructure. And it is prepared to immediately investigate if the attack occurs. United States attorneys and other Justice Department attorneys are available with technical expertise on a 24-hour basis to respond. And if the plan is carried out, a cyber attack, if it is carried out by agents of a foreign state or international terrorist group, we have the responsibility as well under our foreign counter-intelligence authorities. In the early stages of a cyber attack on an infrastructure or a power grid, we often have no way of knowing who was behind it, what their motive was or where they attacked from. It is impossible to determine whether the attack is part of a terrorist plot, a probe by a foreign intelligence service, or a part of a national level military assault by a hostile nation state; or is it simply the work of a disgruntled insider bent on revenge against a supervisor; or is it a young juvenile hacker out to test his skills against the latest firewalls. At the outset then, it may be premature to mobilize the military or redirect national intelligence assets. What we do know, however, is that regardless of the perpetrator, his intent or his whereabouts, the intrusion in most cases constitutes a federal crime. This means the Department of Justice and the FBI have the authority and responsibility to investigate it. Whether the crime is physical or cyber, we need to ensure that as we investigate we are coordinating with other agencies as appropriate. If the attack appears to come from non-U.S. persons located abroad, we would want to call on the intelligence community to assist in gathering information about the perpetrator’s intentions; or if the attack seems to be part of a hostile nation’s war plan or involves an attack on the Defense Department’s own critical infrastructures, DOD obviously has a critical role to play.
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Our challenge, our extraordinary challenge, is to identify the attack we need to know: When is it a straight law enforcement investigation that the FBI and the Assistant United States Attorney or Criminal Division lawyer control? When is it something that the National Security Council takes over? When is it something that clearly becomes international as opposed to domestic, and therefore the State Department controls? What this means is that you do not have any ready answers, but you do have to develop a process—and we are in the process of doing that—to determine when we hand it off from one agency to the next, how we work together to make sure that we adhere to constitutional protections, how we adhere to Fourth Amendment issues, how we continue to adhere to the Constitution. Meeting our responsibility to protect critical infrastructures, in my view, is one of the central challenges for law enforcement as we face the twenty-first century. As our reliance on the Internet, on automated systems and on other technological advances increases exponentially with every passing month so do our vulnerabilities to infrastructure attacks. Law enforcement must be prepared to confront this challenge and be prepared to do so in partnership with other federal agencies, with the private sector, with academia and with state and local agencies. And thus today I am announcing the creation of the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI. The NIPC’s mission is to detect, to prevent and to respond to cyber and physical attacks on our nation’s critical infrastructures and to oversee FBI computer crime investigations conducted in the field. The center will build on the important foundation laid down by the FBI’s Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center, which has been subsumed into the NIPC. To ensure the strong partnerships that I consider vital, the NIPC will include representatives from the Defense Department, the intelligence community and other government agencies. We also very much want to and hope that the private sector will be a participant in this center, very much like it participated in the President’s commission. The partnerships that we envision will allow the NIPC to fulfill its responsibility as the government’s lead mechanism for responding to an infrastructure attack. But the NIPC cannot just react from one crisis to the next. To do our job we will have to be able to prevent crises before they happen, and that requires analysis of information from all relevant sources … Through partnerships between federal agencies and private industry and with interagency and private sector representation in electronic connectivity to all of our partners, the NIPC will be able to achieve the broadest possible sharing of information and comprehensive analysis of potential threats and vulnerabilities. And through its Watch and Warning Unit, the NIPC will be able to disseminate its analysis and warnings of any imminent threats to a broad audience in and out of government. This will enable private industry and government agencies to take protective steps before an attack. But, at the same time, we can take steps together to protect the interests of all concerned and balance the responsibilities of everyone involved.
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By creating the NIPC, the Department of Justice is … creating new partnerships with the private sector and with other government agencies to combat threats to the critical infrastructure. I also have asked Congress to provide us with $64 million in increased funding to support our expanded efforts to protect the nation’s infrastructure in fiscal year 1999. These additional resources will be critical to support the NIPC and will also allow the FBI to create six additional computer investigation and infrastructure threat assessment squads to be deployed in cities across the country. And it will allow us to hire additional prosecutors to target cyber criminals. Cyber attacks pose unique challenges. Because of the technological advancements, today’s criminals can be more nimble and more elusive than ever before … Cyber attacks create a special problem, because the evidence is fleeting. You may have gone through this computer 1,500 miles away to break through another computer 5,000 miles away. Simply put, cyber criminals can cross borders faster than law enforcement agents can, as hackers need not respect national sovereignty, nor rely upon judicial process to get information from another country. If we are to protect our infrastructure we must reach beyond our borders.… We must work with our allies around the world to build the same partnerships that we talk about here at home. And to that end, a little over a year ago, I raised with my colleagues, the ministers of justice of the G8 countries … the issue of cyber crime and urged that we join together in developing a common response. Experts from all our countries and departments worked together in the interim. And last December the ministers came to Washington to meet in a day-long meeting that produced agreement as to the dimension of the problem and produced an action plan that I hope can bring real results in the year to come. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/0227_ag_liv.htm
Attorney General Janet Reno, Remarks to Firefighters, April 30, 1998 Currently, the Office of Justice Programs Fire Fighter Emergency Medical Training Program, a program developed and implemented with FEMA’s National Fire Academy and the International Association of Fire Chiefs, is conducting a 16-hour training curriculum which targets fire fighter and emergency medical personnel as first responders to terrorist incidents. Over 68,000 of your fellow fire fighters and emergency personnel will have benefited from this training by June of 1999. This year we will implement a 6-day incident management curriculum for fire commanders. And we will complete development of a 6-day tactical considerations curriculum, targeting hazardous materials teams and emergency personnel responding to a terrorist incident. In partnership with both the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, we have developed a training
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video which discusses the lessons learned in Atlanta, where secondary devices were encountered at two bombing incidents. This video provides important information to alert you … to the potential dangers of secondary explosive devices at the scene of a bombing. We have teamed with FEMA to distribute over 60,000 copies of this video to law enforcement, fire and emergency personnel across the country. We recently hosted a conference in Virginia, again in partnership with the International Association of Fire Chiefs, entitled ‘‘Strengthening the Public Safety Response to Terrorism.’’ At the conference we asked the attendees to identify the various equipment needs of their jurisdictions. It is our hope that this needs assessment will allow those of us at the federal level to best understand what you need to do your jobs and protect the public. We want to do everything we can to develop an appropriate effort that supplies this equipment in an orderly way, avoiding duplication, avoiding almost immediate obsolescence, and making sure that you have the tools to do the job. In addition, the Department of Justice is supporting the Department of Defense in carrying out its statutory obligation under the Nunn-LugarDomenici Amendment to provide weapons of mass destruction training to state and local emergency responders. This initiative will eventually train emergency responders like yourselves in 120 cities throughout the United States. To date, officials from 19 cities have received training. Thirty-one cities will receive training this year, and 35 more next year. … [T]hese partnerships I have described will continue and will grow in the coming years. But they will be stronger if you give us your input as to how they can work better. As we talk about cities, I want to make sure that we hear from small communities and rural areas across this nation. I do not want to neglect any one part of this nation. This partnership cannot bear fruit, however, unless state, local and federal public safety agencies have the ability to effectively and efficiently communicate with and between each other. I know I am preaching to the choir in this room. But fire fighters have too often fallen victim to crowded airwaves and garbled communications, and I have heard it. … [I]n Oklahoma City the … agencies resort[ed] to runners, once they realized that the airwaves were too crowded and that they were unable to communicate with each other. In New York City, after the World Trade Center was bombed, responders who were merely on separate floors of the building were unable to communicate with each other for similar reasons. I could go on and on, and you could cite me too many examples. One example is one too many. Why is this happening? Because there simply are not enough frequencies available to public safety agencies. There is not enough spectrum. Due in large part to the work of the members of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, the nation’s legislators last summer took the first step towards correcting the problem. Congress directed the FCC to allocate more spectrum to the public safety community. … But this was just a first step. We are still unsure whether all of our communities will benefit from this additional space on the radio dial for public
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safety purposes. And we will need to ensure that local, state and federal agencies can talk to each other. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/0430_agfes.htm
Attorney General Janet Reno, Press Conference on First Responders, October 16, 1998 Today I would like to talk about another step forward in the Federal Government’s efforts against terrorism. When a terrorist act strikes the streets or rural areas of America, the first few minutes are very critical. The first people on the scene are often local rescue squads, fire fighters and police. They are on the front lines. The situation is often chaotic and dangerous. For many victims, what these first responders do in those first few minutes can mean the difference between life and death. These first responders do so much. And we have seen them in action. But they need to be supported by proper plans, training and equipment to do the job right. The Federal Government must be a full partner in this effort. And we need to make State and local governments a full partner in the planning effort, since they know what they need there at the front line. For nearly a year, we have been working with other agencies to help State and local governments better respond to terrorist attack. Now, under a new agreement, the Justice Department will establish a new National Domestic Preparedness Office, staffed in part by officials from a variety of Federal agencies. This office will be housed within the FBI, and will assume overall responsibility for coordinating the government’s efforts to prepare America’s communities for terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. I want this new office to be a center for assistance and solutions, not a new bureaucracy. It will be a focal point for helping communities prepare for attacks. And it will offer them a new, more streamlined process for getting Federal assistance, for learning about the newest methods. We want to work with them in every way we possibly can. Our efforts will begin by drawing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s, better known as FEMA, Federal Response Plan, which is supported by 27 agencies and the American Red Cross. FEMA has developed a successful approach for dealing with natural disasters and other emergencies. And we want to build on the excellent work that they have done. We will draw upon State and local plans and expertise to assist us in establishing priorities for federally provided equipment, training, planning, and exercise support. We will begin with two important initiatives. First, we are going to coordinate the establishment of training standards to meet the needs of first responders. We will work with our State and local partners to ensure that they have the latest, best thinking on what to do when the actions they take in a few seconds can truly save lives. We will also focus on the critical issue of equipment, to identify local needs and develop a standardized list for communities across the country. These two steps will help ensure that our assistance is better targeted and more effective than ever before.
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We are not interested in a top-down, one-size-fits-all solution. We are going to work directly with an advisory group of local law enforcement, fire departments, emergency medical services, hospitals, public health organizations, and State and local officials. Today we are unveiling our plan for a full partnership in the fight against terrorism. Next week, we will begin contacting State and local leaders, to ask for their help and their input. If we can do this the right way, we will make a difference, and help save lives the next time a terrorist strikes. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/oct1698.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General Janet Reno, Address to the International Association of Chiefs of Police General Assembly, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 20, 1998 (http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/1020_natpolgenass. htm); and ‘‘How Terrorism Affects Our Freedom,’’ Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, October 25, 1998 (http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1998/1025_okbomterror. htm).
Attorney General Janet Reno, States’ Terrorism Policy Summit, Williamsburg, Virginia, February 2, 1999 We’re not going to be able to prevent everything, but we’ve seen situations where we have prevented a tragedy, and if we work together, exchange information, make sure that we furnish each other with current information we may have some real success. How do we do that? The first issue that I hope that you will come back to me on is … how do we exchange classified information? In many instances we can declassify it in certain forms, but in others you’re going to have to know about a specific person or specific information that might reveal a source and a method, and if you know about it your police officers can be on the lookout for something or somebody that will tie into the information that we have. How do we get that information to you? Who do you want to have it? What can we do? How do we share our five-year terrorism strategy with you? We have here today a declassified version of it, but how do we provide information? These are the issues that I want to resolve and resolve quickly, because we will not have a partnership unless we have a partnership based on mutual trust. At the same time, it was an Oklahoma City policeman that found the VIN number. It was an Oklahoma trooper who arrested the defendant. State and local law enforcement as well will have pieces of information that, if fit together with federal information, might help us prevent the crime in the first place. Exchange of information, to me, is key to prevention.… We’re trying to make sure that all levels of government can communicate in terms of a crisis. It was so frustrating to hear from those on the front line in Oklahoma City about how hard it was to communicate, how important it was to have runners that could get to the next person because there wasn’t communication available. We’re devoting $4 million this year to testing and funding the equipment to help address the interoperability problems that
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plague all of law enforcement and all of first responders. The President’s budget for next year includes an additional $160 million for attacking these problems both at the federal level and at the state level … Another tool that we have developed is the establishment of the National Infrastructure Protection Center to help bring together all the information we have about cyber attacks on our infrastructure.… With respect to biological weapons, the President has announced new money from medical initiatives dealing with these issues and increasing the terrorism budget to train and equip to deal with these threats.… [O]ne of the first things we’ve got to do is identify an attack by biological terrorists as soon as possible, that we’ve got to be able to respond. We’ve been meeting with the national laboratories and others to determine the latest equipment and to do everything we can to bring that equipment on line … At a Stakeholders Forum for First Responders and Emergency Management Officials in August of last year, more than two hundred state and local emergency responders and planners and practitioners came together to identify their needs and recommend solutions … The number one objective was to identify a single federal agency to work with local communities in establishing a coordinated plan for responding to terrorist attacks. We heard your message loud and clear. The federal government, the President, had designated the FBI as the lead agency in domestic terrorist attacks, recognizing that FEMA was the lead agency with respect to consequence management. Working together, we developed a National Domestic Preparedness Office which we have proposed. We want to make sure that we work together to identify one place that you can go to get information to understand what’s being developed in terms of preparedness. But it was clear that there was one agency that had had long-standing experience with dealing with state and local officials at all levels, and that was the Office of Justice Programs. They had a mechanism for training, they had a mechanism for dispensing money, and, so, they have become a partner with the National Domestic Preparedness Office working together, each doing what they do best to make sure that this will work if this office is approved. MR. JENSEN: I’m D. C. Jensen, the Chief Planner for the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness. Louisiana had proposed a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the purpose of setting up specific procedures and mechanisms for cooperation in this area. I wonder if you are encouraging such initiatives. ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: What I want to do is what is best for communities. I think the governors are right. We need some overall strategy, overreaching strategy, but there are going to be differences based on different communities, their needs and resources, and if an MOU can serve a purpose, that may be appropriate. That clearly has been a subject of discussion and one we would like to pursue. The other issue that I want us to think about— Dwight Eisenhower gave a wonderful farewell address. Anybody who has not read it should read it, because it is a great, great political statement. And in it he warned of the industrial military complex. I think we’ve got to make
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sure that we don’t get sold equipment and ideas by the industrial law enforcement or infrastructure protection complex that wastes our money. And, so, anything that we can do in terms of working together to make sure that we spend it right, that we train right, will be extremely helpful. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/1999/williamsburg20299.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the Domestic Preparedness Program Grant, Dayton, Ohio, August 17, 2001 I’m pleased to have this opportunity to observe Dayton’s emergency response agencies at work in preparing for a terrorist chemical weapons incident. Exercises like this are critically important to ensuring that our nation is fully prepared to respond to terrorism here at home. Over the past several years, the Department of Justice has been working in partnership with states and local communities to develop a national program to enhance the capacity of state and local emergency response personnel to respond to weapons of mass destruction and other domestic terrorism incidents. To assist in this effort, we provide funding for planning and equipment acquisition, specialized training, technical assistance, and exercise planning and execution—such as the exercise here today. This year, the Justice Department has over $220 million to help states and local jurisdictions better prepare to respond to terrorism. And, given the critical importance of these efforts, President Bush has requested additional funding for counter terrorism initiatives in our 2002 budget. An important part of our efforts is in helping states—in collaboration with local authorities—to assess their needs and resources to determine what they will need in terms of equipment, emergency responder training, and other resources to adequately respond to a domestic terrorist incident. This includes looking at the needs of hospitals and the medical and public health communities as well.… In addition to our funding, support for exercises, and other resources, the Justice Department is working to assist communities respond to terrorism on a number of other fronts. For example, we also support research to identify, develop, and increase access to technology for state and local first responders. And we’re working to address the issue of communications interoperability. We want to avoid situations like we encountered during the Oklahoma City bombing, when emergency personnel were forced to send runners between command stations because the different radio systems didn’t allow direct communication among personnel from all the different agencies that responded … So we’re now testing new communications technology in 28 cities that will allow different agencies to ‘‘talk’’ to one another during an emergency. … We need to ensure that states and localities are adequately prepared to deal with the impact of a terrorist event on victims and survivors, as well as on first responders.
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We’ve found that emergency responders often suffer the same kinds of emotional trauma as ‘‘civilian’’ victims. So the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime is working with communities across the nation to put in place crisis response teams to respond to these needs. … The Justice Department recently created a National Infrastructure Protection Center to help bring together all the information we have about cyber attacks to better protect our nation’s infrastructure. All of these domestic preparedness efforts have one overarching goal—to ensure that those of you at the state and local levels build the critical capacity to adequately respond to domestic terrorism.… [W]e recognize that the threat of terrorism here at home is a serious and growing challenge for our nation. And we realize that the initial responsibility for responding to a Weapons of Mass Destruction event rests on your shoulders—at the local level. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/0817doesticpreparedness. htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Press Briefing Following U.S. Military Action in Afghanistan, October 8, 2001 Yesterday, the president ordered the United States military to begin strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Consistent with this development, I have instructed federal law enforcement to be on the highest level of alert to strengthen America’s protections. We are taking strong precautions and other appropriate steps to protect the American people while we win this war. The FBI, through the National Threat Warning System, has contacted 18,000 law enforcement organizations and 27,000 corporate security managers, advising them of this highest state of alert. We get some multiplier affect out of those notifications, particularly in the corporate system, because many of the corporate individuals and institutions on the alert sheet have call lists which they undertake and share information with others. Similar warnings have been sent to information sharing and analysis centers. All law enforcement agencies have been asked to evaluate whether additional local security measures are warranted in the light of the current threat level. In addition, authorities in telecommunications, electrical power generation and distribution, banking and finance, oil and gas, information technology, water service providers and railroads have been similarly advised and are the subject of regular communication. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has implemented a heightened border security plan, and all United States Attorneys’ Offices continue to be on heightened alert. To safeguard our nuclear facilities, all have been placed at the highest state of alert and have increased the physical security in and around the facilities. Similar steps are being taken in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency with regard to industrial, chemical and petrochemical facilities.
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The FAA will continue restrictions implemented to protect populated areas and sporting events and certain critical infrastructure components of our industrial base. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_08.htm
President George W. Bush, Governor Tom Ridge Sworn-In to Lead Homeland Security, The White House, October 8, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Thank you all. Welcome to the White House. Today I signed an executive order creating a new Homeland Security Office, charged with strengthening America’s protections against terrorism. And I’ve picked a really good man to lead that office. (Applause.) In case you hadn’t figured it out, it’s Tom Ridge. (Laughter.) Together, we will confront the threat of terrorism. We will take strong precautions aimed at preventing terrorist attacks and prepare to respond effectively if they might come again. We will defend our country; and while we do so, we will not sacrifice the freedoms that make our land unique. The best defense against terror is a global offensive against terror, wherever it might be found. Yesterday, we opened another front on the war on terrorism as we began conventional military operations designed to destroy terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban government. Secretary Don Rumsfeld, who is leading a really fine team, will brief the country this afternoon. But he informed me this morning that the military mission of yesterday was executed as planned. And at the same time, that our good nation dropped over 37,000 kits of food and medicine. This is an important part of a war already underway that is being conducted on many fronts. The first shot of the war was fired several weeks ago, as we began freezing bank accounts and cutting off funding of known terrorist organizations and front groups that support them. And I appreciate so very much the Secretary of Treasury’s work, Paul O’Neill. We’ve worked aggressively on the diplomatic front, developing a broad and strong coalition of countries who are united with us and involved in our campaign. And Mr. Secretary Powell and his team have done a remarkable job of rallying the lovers of freedom to our side. Mr. Secretary, thank you. (Applause.) Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are working around the clock and around the world. Attorney General Ashcroft, and George Tenet and Bob Mueller are all doing a fantastic job of making sure we’ve got the best intelligence and the best information, not only to protect ourselves, but to bring the evildoers to justice. On all efforts and all fronts, we’re going to be ongoing and relentless as we tighten the net of justice. This will be a long war. It requires understanding and patience from the American people. Members of my Cabinet understand that, and I appreciate them all being here. These are fine Americans, who understand the nature of the conflict, and are prepared to join me in doing whatever it takes to win the war, not only for our country today, but for generations to come tomorrow.
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It’s an honor for me to welcome the Ridge family here to the White House; the former First Lady of Pennsylvania, Michele; and of course, Lesley and Tommy, thank you all for being here and thank you for your sacrifice. (Applause.) I want to thank all of Tom’s friends for coming up from Pennsylvania. It looks like he’s got a few who don’t live in Pennsylvania as well. Thank you all for being here. I’m so appreciative that Clarence Thomas is here to swear-in Tom. I appreciate the Mayor of Washington, D.C. being here. Mr. Mayor, thank you for your cooperation. It’s just the beginning of what we need to do together to make sure our Nation’s Capital safe and secure. As we’ve learned, we face new threats; and, therefore, we need new defenses for our country. And I’ve found the right man to coordinate that effort. Tom Ridge has been a chief executive. He is a leader who has shown he can draw the best out of people and out of organizations. He’s a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War. He’s a patriot who has heard the sound of battle. He’s seen the reach of terror in a field in his own state. He’s a man of compassion who has seen what evil can do. I’ve given Tom and the Office of Homeland Security a mission: to design a comprehensive, coordinated national strategy to fight terror here at home. We face a united, determined enemy. We must have a united and determined response. The Homeland Security Office has a series of specific goals and will have my authority to meet them. One, take the strongest possible precautions against terrorism by bringing together the best information and intelligence. In the war on terror, knowledge is power. Strengthen and help protect our transportation systems, our food and water systems and our critical infrastructure by making them less vulnerable to attack. Respond effectively to terrorist actions if they come. The Office will coordinate federal assistance with state and local efforts. America is going to be prepared. The Office will work in conjunction with the new Homeland Security Council, chaired by me and made up of my Cabinet and other senior officials; the Office mission will have the full attention and complete support of the very highest levels of our government. I know that many Americans at this time have fears. We’ve learned that America is not immune from attack. We’ve seen that evil is real. It’s hard for us to comprehend the mentality of people that will destroy innocent folks the way they have. Yet, America is equal to this challenge, make no mistake about it. They’ve roused a mighty giant. A compassionate land will rise united to not only protect ourselves, not only make our homeland as secure as possible—but to bring the evildoers to justice so that our children might live in freedom. It’s now my honor to call Clarence Thomas up here to swear-in Tom Ridge. (The oath is administered.) (Applause.) DIRECTOR RIDGE: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m honored to join the extraordinary team you have assembled to lead America. The attack of September 11th changed our nation in so many ways, starting with the lives of the
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thousands of victims and their families. It changed the lives of our men and women in uniform, who are courageously defending our nation today. It changed the course of my own state, Pennsylvania, which now has a new governor. And it changed the way we look at homeland security, defending our borders from an attack and ensuring our preparedness should one occur. Americans should find comfort in knowing that millions of their fellow citizens are working every day to ensure our security at every level—federal, state, county, municipal. These are dedicated professionals who are good at what they do. I’ve seen it up close, as Governor of Pennsylvania. But there may be gaps in the system. The job of the Office of Homeland Security will be to identify those gaps and work to close them. The size and scope of this challenge are immense. The President’s executive order states that we must detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks, an extraordinary mission. But we will carry it out. I am optimistic because of your leadership, Mr. President, because of the unprecedented support for you throughout the country and among my old friends in Congress. Because we will have the very best people working on it, and because our country’s shared sense of duty and mission is unprecedented. And we will operate from a few basic principles. First, candor. No one should be wary of coming forward when they see a problem. It’s the only way to define a solution. The urgency of our task dictates candor about our challenges and confidence in our ability to solve them. The second, cooperation. We must open lines of communication and support like never before, between agencies and departments, between federal and state and local entities, and between the public and private sectors. We must be task-oriented. The only turf we should be worried about protecting is the turf we stand on. Finally, as the President stated, we will continue to secure liberty, as we secure this nation. Liberty is the most precious gift we offer to our citizens. It’s what the terrorists fear most, what they tried to destroy on September 11th. We will work to ensure that the essential liberty of the American people is protected, that terrorists will not take away our way of life. It’s called Homeland Security. While the effort will begin here, it will require the involvement of America at every level. Everyone in the homeland must play a part. I ask the American people for their patience, their awareness and their resolve. This job calls for a national effort. We’ve seen it before, whether it was building the Trans-Continental Railroad, fighting World War II, or putting a man on the moon. There are some things we can do immediately, and we will. Others will take more time. But we will find something for every American to do. My friends in the Army Corps of Engineers remind me of their motto—Secretary Powell’s familiar with it—‘‘The difficult, we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.’’ That’s the attitude we need. The task before us is difficult, but not impossible. With your leadership, Mr. President, and with everyone working as one, I have no doubt we will be up to the task. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011008-3.html
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Attorney General John Ashcroft and INS Commissioner Ziglar, Announcement of INS Restructuring Plan, November 14, 2001 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Last week, I announced a wartime reorganization of the Department of Justice to accomplish our new mission: the protection of the United States of America and its citizens from terrorist attacks. Our objective is to build a leaner and more efficient, mission-focused department capable of meeting the threat of international terrorism, while at the same time fulfilling our traditional justice function of upholding the rule of law and protecting the freedom of all Americans. Today, I am announcing a critical element of this reorganization that serves both our anti-terrorism mission and fulfills President Bush’s pledge to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the nation’s immigration system. We are unveiling a restructuring plan for the Immigration and Naturalization Service that fundamentally reforms the agency by separating its service function from its enforcement function. This will begin implementation during the next 30 days. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has struggled to perform two often competing missions; the first mission of welcoming new immigrants to America, and the second mission of seeking to protect our borders by enforcing immigration laws. In addition, the INS has suffered from insufficient accountability between field offices and the headquarters, and a lack of consistent operations and policies. The terrorist attacks of September the 11th underscored … that we need better control over individuals coming to our shores from other nations. We remain a nation committed to welcoming America’s friends from abroad, but we have a new determination not to see our welcome abused by America’s enemies. The restructuring plan being announced today provides a framework that will allow the INS to better address its dual priorities of serving new immigrants and enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. Under the plan, clear and separate chains of command for the agency’s service function and the enforcement function are created. Efficiency is improved by eliminating layers of management between field offices and headquarters, and accountability is promoted by providing overall direction under a single agency head, the INS commissioner. Under the restructuring plan being announced today, the INS will continue to serve and assist new immigrants to the United States. The INS will also be an important part of our effort to prevent aliens who engage in or support terrorist activity from entering our country. It will, in addition, detain and in some cases deport terrorist aliens already in our country, terrorist aliens that have violated immigration laws. The restructuring of the immigration institutions we undertake today will make the INS a better servant to our friends and a greater obstacle to our enemies.… MR. ZIGLAR: Let me give you just a little brief overview of the approach to this restructuring. First, this is an administrative proposal. There will be legislation, or pieces of this that we know will be required. The Congress may
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want to do a big piece; they may want to do a small piece. But we definitely will be working with the Congress. We seek their support. We appreciate their interest in this issue. Secondly, the broad goal here is to separate the two functions—the two missions of the INS, as everyone knows—into the service side of the business and into the enforcement side of the business. This is a proposal that has been on the table … for a very long time. It’s been talked about; it’s been studied any number of times over the past few years. We think it makes sense to divide these two functions within the framework of one organization so that we can continue to share the information that we need to share that is generated on both sides of our business, and yet, at the same time, be able to focus on our particularly different missions within the four corners of this organization. Third, the heart of this proposal … is to build a clear chain of command so that we have people who are experienced and expert in their particular area, and they have clear, accountable goals and performance standards, so that we can actually focus on how well we’re doing in our business.… Fourth, a very—also very important, certainly in the post- September 11 environment, is that we’re unifying our law enforcement efforts into one, again, chain of command. Before, we’ve had the stovepipes, if you will, where our inspections, investigations, the Border Patrol, intelligence, and other things had different chains of command; they didn’t really report to—cross over and didn’t report to the same person. We’re going to make this look more like a typical enforcement organization so that we will have this cross-pollination that we need and cross-exchange of information that’s very important. Fifth, we’re going to be building on our information technology resources, as well as developing even better relations with other federal, state, local law enforcement agencies. And that’s a key part of this plan. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks11_14.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the U.S. Border Patrol-Native American Border Security Conference, January 17, 2002 The attacks of September 11 demonstrated in dramatic fashion the need to pay attention to all facets of our national security. Would-be terrorists, drug smugglers and other illegal migrants pose continuing threats to the health and safety of our nation and its people. Your presence here today demonstrates a clear recognition of the critical need for close cooperation and communication between the U.S. Border Patrol and law enforcement officials to protect our borders in Indian country. Although Border Patrol agents have been working with Native Americans ever since the Patrol was established more than 75 years ago, most of this cooperation has been on an ad hoc basis. This informal partnership has often been productive, but we must establish permanent formal relations in order to secure the safety and security of all Americans.
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Securing our nation’s borders is an immense task. The United States shares some 7,400 miles of patrolable international boundary with Canada and Mexico. More than 25 Indian tribes govern lands that are either adjacent to borders or directly accessible by boat from the border. These tribal lands encompass over 260 miles of international borders—a distance 100 miles longer than California’s border with Mexico. Tens of thousands of illegal migrants cross these borders and disappear into the heart of our nation every year. Potentially vulnerable points on our border demand our attention now more than ever. Indeed, as we succeed in protecting routine entry points along our borders, we may expect greater challenges in these remote areas, as persons who wish to enter illegally look for new places with lower visibility. Our homeland security remains threatened so long as any portion of our international border remains unprotected. Local law enforcement agencies play a crucial role in securing our nation’s borders, and tribal law enforcement agencies are no exception. You know your territories. You know your constituents and members. You know and understand local circumstances—how and where people illegally enter the United States, and what can be done to stop them. Your work brings you face-to-face with people who would otherwise escape the nation’s security net. This conference offers a unique opportunity to marry local, tribal expertise with federal expertise to enhance the security of our nation’s borders. We have seen that as coordination increases, so does the security of our borders.… SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/011702agprepared remarks.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks to the National Emergency Management Association, February 25, 2002 Our number one priority is the prevention of terrorist attacks. But we understand that our best efforts at prevention will not always be successful. In the aftermath of September 11th, we at the Justice Department, working with state and local first responders, have continued to promote coordinated programs and cooperative systems to make our response efforts as efficient as possible. In August of 2000, NEMA endorsed a resolution on States. Principles for a National Domestic Preparedness Strategy. We agree with the need— expressed in your statement of principles—for increased training, information sharing and technical assistance between federal and state government. To this end, we have increased the program budget of the Justice Department’s Office of Domestic Preparedness from $5 million in 1997 to over $600 million in 2002. The Office has implemented a three-year nationwide program to develop domestic preparedness strategies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. Territories. You asked for a federal approach that respects the unique characteristics and needs of each individual state. We at the Justice Department agree that the key to coordination is understanding the wide variety of local differences.
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In order to provide the most effective cooperation between federal officials and local leaders, the Office tailors its training, exercises, equipment grants and technical systems to the unique needs of each of these 56 jurisdictions. The Office of Domestic Preparedness has made more than $607 million available for the procurement of equipment for responding to attacks using weapons of mass destruction. We have delivered specialized equipment to major cities such as New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as to other potentially targeted cities such as New Orleans, home to the Super Bowl, and Salt Lake City, home to the 2002 Winter Olympics. Over the last five years, the Office has trained over 96,600 state and local emergency responders from more than 1,548 different jurisdictions and … conducted a total of 93 exercises and plans an additional 220 exercises in fiscal year 2002. In May 2000, for example, the ODP Exercise Program conducted the Top Officials exercise … the largest federal, state, and local full-scale simulation of chemical, biological, and radiological attacks ever conducted.… These exercises and others bring to bear the full resources of the federal government to help state and local emergency teams prepare effective response strategies for use in the event of a terrorist attack. The security preparations undertaken for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City are an example of how federal-state cooperation can produce what has been a safe and successful winter games.… The work we have done thus far marks significant progress in developing a more coordinated approach to domestic preparedness. We must, however, do more. This administration has proposed significant changes in how the federal government is organized and prepared for domestic terrorism and we at the Department of Justice support the Administration’s plans. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/022502nationalemergency managementassoc.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks on the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, June 6, 2002 The vulnerabilities of our immigration system became starkly clear on September 11. About a quarter century ago, the United States stopped asking international visitors to register periodically with immigration authorities, and stopped keeping track of our visitors’’ activities and whereabouts. This is in contrast to the practice of European nations, most of which have rigorous registration systems. Consequently, we have been unable to determine if foreign visitors follow their stated plans while guests in our country or even if they overstay the legal limit of their visas. Accordingly, today I am announcing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. This system will expand substantially America’s scrutiny of those foreign visitors who may pose a national security concern and enter our country. And it will provide a vital line of defense in the war against terrorism. The responsibility to establish the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System is already contained in U.S. law. Some of the provisions date to the
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1950s; others were added by Congress in the 1990s. Congress has mandated that, by 2005, the Department of Justice build an entry-exit system that tracks virtually all of the 35 million foreign visitors who come to the United States annually. This entry-exit registration system is the crucial first phase in that endeavor and will track approximately 100,000 visitors in the first year. There are three components to this initiative: first—fingerprinting and photographing at the border; second—periodic registration of aliens who stay in the United States thirty days or more; and third—exit controls that will help the Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove those aliens who overstay their visas. We will evaluate individual visitors for the risk of involvement in terrorist activity and impose these requirements on visitors who fall into categories of elevated national security concern. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department will work together to identify these individuals at or prior to entry. The criteria that are used to identify such visitors will be continually updated to reflect our evolving intelligence on terrorist threats. The first component of the system is fingerprinting and photographing at the border. It is critically important that we stop known or suspected terrorists from entering the country. Fingerprints are essential to that enterprise. Terrorists and wanted criminals often attempt to enter the country using assumed names and false passports. But fingerprints do not lie. With new technologies, we are able to perform a quick fingerprint check at the border that takes only three minutes to complete.… Under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, we will run the fingerprints of entering aliens against a database of thousands of known terrorists. By running the fingerprints of entering aliens against these prints, we will be able to stop terrorists from entering the country. In addition, we will run the fingerprints of incoming visitors against a database of wanted criminals. And finally, we will be able to stop terrorists from entering the United States a second time under a different name using forged documents. We … now have a sizable database of fingerprints of known terrorists. We need to deploy this technology as soon as possible to protect American lives. The second component of the system is periodic registration. This will only apply to those individuals of elevated national security concern who stay in the country for more than thirty days. They will have to register at an INS office and simply verify that they are doing what they said they came to America to do and living where they said they would live … Our European allies have been using such registration systems for decades.… This is a well-established way of making sure that visitors do not try to disappear into society, and that they stick to their stated plans while in the country. The third component of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System is establishing a system of exit controls, so that we know who leaves on time and who does not. This is a critical part of the system. Which brings me to a critical aspect of the system: arresting those individuals who attempt to evade the registration requirements or who attempt to stay in the country beyond their permitted time.
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When aliens violate these rules, we will place their photographs, fingerprints, and information in the National Crime Information Center (or NCIC) system. The nation’s 650,000 police officers check this system regularly in the course of traffic stops and routine encounters. When federal, state and local law enforcement officers encounter an alien of national security concern who has been listed on the NCIC for violating immigration law, federal law permits them to arrest that individual and transfer him to the custody of the INS. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that this narrow, limited mission that we are asking state and local police to undertake voluntarily—arresting aliens who have violated criminal provisions of Immigration and Nationality Act or civil provisions that render an alien deportable, and who are listed on the NCIC—is within the inherent authority of the states. The Department of Justice has no plans to seek additional support from state and local law enforcement in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, beyond our narrow anti-terrorism mission. We are an open country that welcomes the people of the world to visit our blessed land. We will continue to greet our international neighbors with good will. Asking some visitors to verify their activities while they are here is fully consistent with that outlook. To meet our responsibility to protect American lives in the future, we take the steps that I have outlined today. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE NOTE: the Attorney General Often Deviates from the Prepared Remarks. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/060502agprepared remarks.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Testimony from the Hearing on the Nature of the Terrorist Threat Before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, July 11, 2002 EXCERPTS FROM PREPARED TESTIMONY A number of Department of Justice entities will be a part of this new department, most notably the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but also the Office for Domestic Preparedness, the analysis and training functions of the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center and the National Domestic Preparedness Office. The Department of Justice supports the prompt and effective implementation of these transfers, which are critical to the Department of Homeland Security’s success. I commend Congress for its commitment to act on these measures prior to the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks. For ten months, we have protected the United States from another massive terrorist attack using every appropriate legal weapon in our arsenal. But we are under no illusions. There remain sleeper terrorists and their supporters in the United States who have not yet been identified in a way that will allow us to take preemptive action against them. And as we limit the access of foreign terrorists to our country, we recognize that the terrorists’ response will be to
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recruit United States citizens and permanent residents to carry out their attacks … But as terrorists have learned to adapt to the changing tactics of law enforcement, so too have we learned to adapt to the changing needs of America’s domestic security.… It is now our obligation—and our necessity—to correct the deficiencies of the past. America’s law enforcement and justice institutions—as well as the culture that supports them—must change. In the wake of September 11th, America’s security requires a new approach, one nurtured by cooperation, built on coordination, and focused on a single, overarching goal: the prevention of terrorist attacks. The first crucial steps toward building this new culture of cooperation and prevention have already been taken. Congress’s passage of the USA-PATRIOT Act made significant strides toward both fostering information sharing and updating our badly outmoded information-gathering tools.… … [T]he recently announced reorganization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has refocused the FBI on prevention, taking a proactive approach. Instead of being bound by outmoded organizational charts, the FBI workforce, management and operational culture will be flexible enough to launch new terrorism investigations to counter threats as they emerge. 500 agents will be shifted permanently to counter-terrorism. Finally, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security will be the culmination of the process of restoring cooperation and coordination to our nation’s security. Part of our reorganization is the enhancement of the FBI’s analytical capability and the coordination of its activities more closely with the Central Intelligence Agency. The results of this enhanced analysis and cooperation will be shared fully with the Department of Homeland Security. For the first time, America will have under one roof the capacity for government to work together to identify and assess threats to our homeland, match these threats to our vulnerabilities, and act to insure our safety and security. In accordance with the President’s vision, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security will begin a new era of cooperation and coordination in the nation’s homeland defense. … We must build a new culture of justice in which necessary information is readily available to law enforcement. We must foster a new ethic of cooperation and coordination in government. We must make our institutions accountable, not just to their new anti-terrorism mission, but to the American people they serve. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/testimony/2002/071102agtestimony.htm
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Testimony from the Hearing on the Nature of the Terrorist Threat Before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, July 11, 2002 … I am pleased to testify on both the Department of Defense’s relationship to the proposed Department of Homeland Security as well as the threats facing the Nation and the American people in the 21st century.
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In announcing his intention to propose a new Cabinet-level Department, the President clearly pointed out the need for a single, unified structure, noting that today numerous federal entities across the government are charged with responsibilities having to do with homeland security—far too many for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. As the President put it, ‘‘History teaches us that critical security challenges require clear lines of responsibility and the unified effort of the U.S. government.’’ Those ‘‘new challenges,’’ he said, ‘‘require new organizational structures.’’ And he is right. It was just such a challenge in 1945 that prompted President Truman to combine another collection of offices into a new Department of Defense. Secretary Rumsfeld put it another way. He said, ‘‘New times require new priorities’’ and ever since the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, defense of the U.S. homeland has been the top priority of the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense strongly supports the President’s initiative to create a Department of Homeland Security. One of the foremost doctrinal principles that informs how the U.S. military conducts operations is unity of command. Unity of command refers to people working together, in harmony, towards the same goal and under the same command. By consolidating a number of homeland security functions that are, at present, scattered across the Federal Government, the new Department of Homeland Security would provide unity of command. From our point of view, a Department of Homeland Security would: Provide a single focus, at the federal level, to facilitate DoD support when directed by the President and the Secretary of Defense. By building greater civil capacity at the Federal level to protect our borders, prevent domestic attacks and manage the consequences of attacks, a Department of Homeland Security would expand the President’s options in times of crisis so that he is not forced to choose between employing U.S. military forces in civil support roles or conducting military operations abroad. We should have the capacity to do both. Lastly, by reducing our vulnerabilities at home, a Department of Homeland Security would contribute to our ability to deter conflicts abroad by reducing any potential advantage our enemies might gain by attacking us directly in the course of a conflict abroad. The changing nature of the threats we face today—especially the threats posed by terrorist organizations and outlaw states—makes such a department an urgent priority, and we look forward to working with the new organization to provide for the Nation’s defense. As for the threat posed by terrorists and outlaw states, this is not—as you well know—a new phenomenon. Terrorism has a long and bloody history. What is new, however, is the level to which terrorists are willing to take their murderous deeds, and the weapons they have now, or may soon acquire, to ensure that the fear and devastation they inflict upon the innocent is greater than ever. What is also new, as has been demonstrated in Afghanistan, is the ability of terrorist organizations to completely overtake and occupy a country, co-opt a culture, and oppress an entire people. Left unchecked in a world where the global nature of finance, communications, and transportation make it possible
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for even relatively isolated individuals or organizations to have global reach, terrorism presents the potential for destabilization or, as we witnessed on September 11th, destruction on a scale unmatched in previous eras. Thus, after September 11th, the world was faced with a challenge that could no longer be denied or ignored: Do we live in freedom, or do we succumb to fear? For the United States of America there was only one answer to that question. And, nine months ago, President Bush answered it. In a bold and courageous act that recognized both its deep roots and its terrible potential, President Bush declared war—not just against the perpetrators of the deadly attacks on New York and Washington—but against terrorists and their organizations and sponsors worldwide. Indeed, as the President has made clear, the sources of the threats we face are not limited to Afghanistan or the Middle East. They stretch across the globe. As September 11th so dramatically demonstrated, we are vulnerable to many forms of attack. Who would have imagined, only a year ago, that commercial airliners would be turned into missiles that would attack the Pentagon and World Trade Towers, killing thousands? But it happened. In the years ahead, we will undoubtedly be surprised again by enemies who will attack in new and unexpected ways—perhaps with weapons vastly more deadly than those used on September 11th. Our enemies know we are an open society. They suspect that the space assets and information networks critical to our security and economy are vulnerable. They know we have no defense against ballistic missiles, which only gives them further incentive to develop weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. Our job is not only to close off as many of avenues of potential attack as possible but to prepare for others—whether from terrorist organizations or from the outlaw states who cooperate with them and each other, intent on America’s destruction. September 11th was also a call for the military to do more with regard to homeland defense. The United States remains vulnerable to missile attack— which is why we are working to develop and deploy defenses against the most likely forms of ballistic and cruise missile attacks. But September 11 taught us, to our regret, that our people and our country are vulnerable to internal as well as external attack—from hostile forces who live among us, who enter our country easily, who remain anonymously, and who use the freedom America affords to plan and execute their violent deeds. Thus, the threat facing the United States today is multi-faceted and multidimensional. Not a single adversary, as we faced in the Cold War, but a syndicate of enemies characterized by highly complex and surreptitious interactions between global terrorist organizations and outlaw states. Compounding the danger is that fact that these organizations and states are aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Meeting these complex threats requires an equally complex response. It means employing all the instruments of American power—military, economic, diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, and intelligence—and all the offensive and defensive tools of our government. It means overt as well as covert military operations. It means a two-pronged approach to defending the nation.
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The first is combating terrorism abroad. The President understands that a terrorist can attack at any time, at any place, using any conceivable technique. Because it is physically impossible to defend against every conceivable threat, in every place at every time, we must take the war to the enemy. We must also marshal all of the nation’s capabilities to attack and destroy and terrorist organizations with global reach, and to pressure those who harbor them. In an era in which attacks on our homeland can result in tens of thousands of deaths, we cannot wait until we are attacked before we choose to act ourselves. Our highest priority must be preventing attacks from occurring by disrupting enemy operations, denying them sanctuary, and when necessary, using force preemptively. The second key task in our two-pronged war on terrorism is to secure the homeland. Immediately after last fall’s attack, the President took decisive steps to protect America. On October 8, 2001, the President established the White House Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council to coordinate the federal government’s efforts. On June 6 of this year, the President proposed the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security. to coordinate the efforts of federal, state and local agencies to provide for security at home. Both efforts—prosecuting the war on terrorism abroad and securing the homeland—are crucial, and the role of the Department of Defense in each differs in important ways. With respect to the war abroad, U.S. military forces, at the direction of the president, are charged with engaging enemy forces and the governments or other entities that harbor them. In this effort, the Department of Defense works closely with other government agencies, including the Departments of State, Treasury, Justice and the intelligence community. In these types of operations, the Department of Defense takes the lead, with other departments and agencies working in support of our efforts. With regard to improving security at home, DoD may employ U.S. military forces as follows: 1) Extraordinary Circumstances First, under extraordinary circumstances that require the department to execute its traditional military missions to deter, dissuade or defeat an attack from external entities, DoD and the Secretary of Defense would take the lead Plans for such contingencies would be coordinated as appropriate and, to the extent possible, would be coordinated, as appropriate, with the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, the Department of Homeland Security and other affected Departments and agencies. As an example, in the case of combat air patrols, the FAA, a civilian agency, would provide data to assist the efforts of Air Force fighter pilots in the Guard and Reserve in identifying and, if necessary, intercepting suspicious or hostile aircraft. Also included in the category of extraordinary circumstances are cases in which the President, exercising his Constitutional authority as Commanderin-Chief and Chief Executive, authorizes military action. This inherent Constitutional authority may be used in cases, such as a terrorist attack, where normal measures are insufficient to carry out federal functions.
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2) Catastrophic Emergency Circumstances Second, in emergency circumstances of a catastrophic nature—for example, responding to the consequences of an attack, or assisting in response to forest fires or floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and so on. In these instances, the Department of Defense may be asked to act quickly to provide or to supply capabilities that other agencies simply do not have. 3) Limited Support to Other Federal Agencies Third, missions or assignments that are limited in scope or duration, where other federal agencies take the lead from the outset. An example of this would be security at a special event, like the Olympics, where there were literally more men and women in uniform in Salt Lake City than there were in Afghanistan at the same time. The first of those three categories—extraordinary circumstances in which DoD, at the direction of the President, conducts military missions to defend the people or territory of the United States—falls under the heading of homeland defense. In these cases, the Department is prepared to take the lead. The second and third categories are activities which are emergency or temporary in nature, and for which other federal agencies take the lead and DoD lends support. The Department of Homeland Security will have the responsibility for coordinating the response of federal agencies and, as appropriate, the interaction of those federal agencies with State and local entities. DoD will take an active role in this inter-agency process. In the event of multiple requests for Department of Defense assets, the President would be the one to make the decision on the allocation of these assets. The coordination mechanism of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council exists to support just such a decision. The DoD is represented on both the NSC and HSC In sum, the Department of Defense has two roles to play in providing for the security of the American people where they live and work. The first is to provide the forces necessary to conduct traditional military missions under extraordinary conditions, such as the act of defense of the Nation’s airspace and its maritime approaches. The second is to support the broader efforts of the DHS and federal domestic departments and agencies, and indeed state and local governments. Before I describe the various transformation efforts of the Department of Defense with regard to homeland defense, I’d like to mention briefly the role of the National Guard. The National Guard supports homeland defense and provides support to civil authorities in several ways. First, in state service under the direction of State Governors. An example of this would be the way in which the National Guard in New York and New Jersey and Connecticut responded so heroically to the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11th. Second, in state service but performing duties of federal interest, the socalled Title 32 status. Third, in federal service, or Title 10 status. For example, when the National Guard is mobilized to serve under the direction of the President or the Secretary of Defense.
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These arrangements have worked well in the past. The challenge today is to ensure that these arrangements remain relevant in the new security environment. There are many proposals for doing so, and the Department will continue to work with the Congress, the Governors, the Office of Homeland Security and, if enacted, the Department of Homeland Security, to make certain that we have an approach that meets the nation’s needs. As for how the Department is organized to support these missions, a fundamental transformation has been underway to address the threats the Nation will face in the 21st century. The new Unified Command Plan makes a number of important changes to the U.S. military command structure around the world. Indeed, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers, has described it as the most important set of changes in his military career. The UCP established a combatant command for homeland defense, U.S. Northern Command, which we expect will be up and running on October 1st. NORTHCOM will be devoted to defending the people and territory of the United States against external threats and to coordinating the provision of U.S. military forces to support civil authorities. In addition, NORTHCOM will also be responsible for certain aspects of security, cooperation, and coordination with Canada and with Mexico, and it will help DOD coordinate its military support to federal, state and local governments in the event of natural or other disasters. Second, we will establish a new office, within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to handle homeland defense matters to ensure internal coordination of DoD policy direction, provide guidance to Northern Command for its military activities in support of homeland defense, coordinate appropriate DoD support to civil authorities, and coordinate with the Office or Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies. Third, the Administration has offered legislation to establish a new Undersecretary for Intelligence. The primary responsibility of this office would be ensuring that the senior leadership of the department and the combatant commanders receive the warning, actionable intelligence, and counterintelligence support they need to pursue the objectives of our new defense strategy. This new office will not only enhance intelligence-related activities but provide a single point of contact for coordination of national and military intelligence activities. Most important, it will be the place from which the Department will be able to provide intelligence-derived products to the new Department of Homeland Security. Finally, we support the President’s proposal to transfer two items from DoD to the Department of Homeland Security: the National Communications System (NCS), for which DoD is the executive agent, and a yet-to-beestablished National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center. The NCS is an interagency body of 22 Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government, in addition to its strong government/industry partnership through the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). The National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center’s mission would be to develop countermeasures to potential attacks by terrorists using weapons of
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mass destruction. The Administration’s draft bill would establish the Center from the proposed $420 million in the DoD Chemical Biological Defense Program for Biological Homeland Security efforts, which is included in the President’s Fiscal Year 2003 Budget, and transfer the Center to the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Chairman, September 11th was a stark reminder that mortal threats to national security did not end with the Cold War, or with the passing of the last century but, on the contrary, remain, and indeed, continue to multiply. It is important that we recognize and respond to that fact. SOURCE: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2002/s20020711-depsecdef.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Secretary Paul H. O’Neill, Department of the Treasury, Testimony Before the Select Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, July 11, 2002 (http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/po3247.htm).
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks on the Implementation of NSEERS, Niagara Falls, New York, November 7, 2002 As part of our ongoing efforts to meet this challenge, five months ago, I announced that the Department of Justice and the Immigration and Naturalization service would develop and deploy the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or ‘‘N-SEERS,’’ as it has come to be called. On September 11, 2001, a year to the day after terrorists declared war on the United States, NSEERS began operation at selected ports of entry. … The NSEERS system is up and running at every port of entry into the United States. We have increased our capacity intercept terrorists or criminals who attempt to enter the country, to verify that foreign visitors who may present national security concerns stick to their plans while they are here. And we have elevated substantially our ability to know instantly when such visitors overstay their visas. Today, I am pleased to report that the system is performing extremely well. In the eight weeks since the operation of NSEERS commenced, the INS has fingerprinted and registered more than 14,000 visitors to the United States. A significant portion of those aliens came from those nations that sponsor terrorism, but NSEERS applies to visitors from every corner of the globe. So far, the INS has fingerprinted and registered individuals from 112 different countries. From the Baltic to the Balkans and from the Cape of Good Hope to the Rock of Gibraltar, visitors who may present elevated national security concerns will be included. No country is exempt. In the war against terrorism, we cannot afford to have tunnel vision. NSEERS has already paid large dividends in national security and law enforcement. The fingerprint matching technology has provided a basis for the arrest of 179 aliens at the border. Some were wanted felons who fled law enforcement during a prior visit to the United States. Others were aliens who had serious criminal records and were therefore inadmissible. And others were attempting to enter the United States under false pretenses or with fraudulent documents. These arrests would not have occurred without NSEERS. And let me also add that, if today or tomorrow a suspected terrorists is identified
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through NSEERS, it will not be the first time that such an apprehension has been made. In this way, NSEERS protects both the United States and Canada. Each time a dangerous individual, a wanted criminal, or a terrorist is stopped at the border, both countries are made more secure. Congress has mandated that a comprehensive entry-exit system applicable to virtually all aliens be built by 2005. NSEERS is the first, crucial step toward that goal. It has allowed us to close the entry-exit loop for those aliens who present the highest national security risks. Part of its success lies in the cutting-edge technology that makes it possible to intercept terrorists and criminals at our borders by scanning fingerprints and searching databases in a matter of seconds. But a more important aspect of the system’s success lies in its human dimension. The INS inspectors who serve on the front lines of our national defense have proven extremely capable in operating the system, and have been vigilant in applying the intelligence-based criteria to identify aliens for inclusion in the program. At the same time, they have been courteous to our foreign guests, and have made every effort to minimize any delay or inconvenience. These Americans play a crucial role in the defense of our homeland, and I am grateful for their service. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/110702agremarksnseers_ niagarafalls.htm
President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the 2002 Homeland Security Act, The Roosevelt Room, November 25, 2002 Today, I sign an act of Congress authorizing intelligence programs vital to our security, and creating a national commission to investigate the events of September the 11th, 2001, and the years that led up to that event. This commission will help me and future Presidents to understand the methods of America’s enemies and the nature of the threats we face. September the 11th marked a dividing line in the life of our nation. The events of a single morning dramatically demonstrated America’s vulnerability to the threats of a new era. Oceans that separated us from other continents no longer separate us from danger. America’s enemies are still determined to inflict great harm. We have a duty—a solemn duty—to do everything we can to protect this country. We’ve acted to reduce the nation’s vulnerabilities. We’re stepping up security and transportation systems at port of entries and on our borders. We’ve made important reforms in federal law enforcement, ensuring that the FBI’s primary focus now is the prevention of future attack. We’re doing a better job of sharing information among agencies. By legislation I signed this week, we’ve created a Department of Homeland Security to involve the largest reorganization of the federal government in more than a half a century, with the goal of protecting America. … And that’s important for America to know. In the war against terror our goal is to take every measure that is necessary, to gather all information that is available and gain every advantage that is possible. An aggressive investigation
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into September the 11th, with a responsible concern for sensitive information that will allow us to win the war on terror will contribute to the security of this country. This commission’s findings may show a need for further reform in intelligence gathering and other areas. I’m confident that under Dr. Kissinger’s leadership the commission’s work will be thorough. The recommendations will be helpful and useful. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021127-1.html
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Press Conference: Threat Condition Designation Elevated to High Risk, February 7, 2003 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: The United States government continuously reviews intelligence reporting to assess the current threat condition designation and to determine whether or not it should be adjusted. After conferring this morning with the Homeland Security Council, the decision has been made to increase the threat condition designation, currently classified at ‘‘elevated risk,’’ to increase that threat condition designation to the ‘‘high risk’’ category. This decision for an increased threat condition designation is based on specific intelligence received and analyzed by the full intelligence community. This information has been corroborated by multiple intelligence sources. Since September the 11th, the U.S. intelligence community has indicated that the al Qaeda terrorist network is still determined to attack innocent Americans, both here and abroad. Recent reporting indicates an increased likelihood that al Qaeda may attempt to attack Americans in the United States and/or abroad in or around the end of the Haji, a Muslim religious period ending mid-February 2003. Recent intelligence reports suggest that al Qaeda leaders have emphasized planning for attacks on apartment buildings, hotels and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States. The recent bombings of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, and of a resort hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, demonstrate the continued willingness of al Qaeda to strike at peaceful, innocent civilians, and their ability to carry out attacks on such soft or lightly guarded targets. There are also indications, bolstered by the recent arrests in London, where chemical ricin was discovered. These indications demonstrate al Qaeda’s interest in carrying out chemical, biological and radiological attacks. The United States government has specific intelligence and experience, demonstrating that heightened awareness on our part deters terrorism. Since September the 11th of 2001, the United States has substantially improved its capacity to disrupt, deter and prevent terrorist attacks—terrorist attacks against innocent Americans.… Since September the 11th, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has evaluated and investigated over 3,000 terrorist threats within the United States, issued 103 warnings to state and local law enforcement and announced
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three, not including today’s announcement, three major nationwide terrorist alerts. The threat condition designation was last raised to high risk on September the 10th, 2002 and reduced to an elevated risk standing two weeks later. Today’s change in the threat condition designation from elevated risk to high risk will trigger a series of security precautions by the federal government as well as state and local governments and U.S. citizens to increase readiness to prevent terrorism. I have directed that Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide coordinate their local response with U.S. Attorneys and local anti-terrorism task forces. In addition, I have directed that all appropriate information be shared with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in order for federal officials to work effectively and cooperatively with state and local officials. SECRETARY RIDGE: This heightened threat level has been or is being communicated to local and state law enforcement officials, federal agencies, members of Congress, governors, state homeland security advisers, mayors and those who share responsibility for the nation’s private infrastructure. Information is also being provided to the nation’s first responders: our fire, emergency, health and public safety personnel. The nation’s homeland security advisory system provides a national framework to inform and to facilitate actions appropriate to different levels of government and to private citizens, either in their workplaces or in their homes. The system couples the threat level with protective measures that should or will be taken to reduce our country’s vulnerabilities. As a result of the increase in the threat level, as a result of going from yellow to orange, elevated to high, specific protective measures will be taken by all federal agencies both to reduce vulnerabilities and many of them actually will, we believe, serve as a deterrent: increased security personnel at points of entry, may in fact limit points of entry and exit; enhanced identification checks; restrictions to travel around federal facilities and airports, among the many augmented security measures that will be implemented.… [W]e’ve also alerted the medical and public health communities as well. Q. Is your knowledge based on specific targets, or has this decision been made based more on the weight of everything that you’re looking at? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: I think I will stick with the statements we’ve made, that intelligence, which is assessed on a regular basis, provides a very sound basis and a responsibility for us to communicate what we believe to be an elevated threat to the American people. And for us to go beyond that is probably not in the interest of our doing our job successfully or well. Q. For Secretary Ridge, how confident are you that state and local agencies know specifically what they should be doing in response to the threat and that they have specific plans in place? SECRETARY RIDGE: Well, first of all, for several months now, every governor has called upon someone within their own communities to become their homeland security adviser. And every single state and every single governor has worked very, very hard to coordinate activity among their state agencies and, where appropriate, working through their state agencies down to the local agencies—law enforcement, public health and the like. Q. Mr. Ridge, we’ve talked to state and local community people and they say they’re confused about what to do. They don’t know what specific actions
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they need to take, going from yellow to orange. They feel that they’re already doing everything they can and should be doing. Can you be more specific about what they should do with this elevated risk? SECRETARY RIDGE: Well, I think you’ll find that through the efforts particularly of the FBI, I know simultaneous communications are going out, as we speak, to the 1,700 to 1,800 law enforcement agencies around the country, that we’ve given them some information, and they are professionals and they know how to act on specific information … [W]e want and need to build up our capacity to reduce our own vulnerability and to respond when a terrorist event. That’s one of the reasons that the state and locals are hopeful, very, very hopeful, that the Congress will make available to them in excess of—well, $3.5 billion through the first responders, and a significant part of the $6 billion to combat a bioterrorist threat, that the president submitted to Congress almost a year ago. When those dollars are available to these state and local communities, because these state and local communities have been developing plans to enhance their capacity to respond, through training and the acquisition of equipment, they’ll be in even better shape today than they were yesterday. I have confidence that they know what they need to do to be even better prepared, and confidence that once they get the money, it will be very appropriately and effectively spent. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030207-6.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see statements on earlier threat warning announcements: Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at Threat Level Press Conference, September 10, 2002 (http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/091002 agtranscriptsalert.htm); also see Attorney General John Ashcroft, Addresses Threat Level Status Questions Press Conference, September 24, 2002 (http://www.justice. gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/020703agthreatlevelheightened.htm).
President George W. Bush, Radio Address on British Airline Bombing Plot, August 12, 2006 This week, America received a stark reminder that terrorists are still plotting attacks to kill our people. Beginning on Wednesday night, authorities in Great Britain arrested more than 20 individuals who we believe were plotting to detonate liquid explosives aboard flights from the United Kingdom to the United States. If these terrorists had succeeded, they could have caused death on a massive scale. The plot appears to have been carefully planned and welladvanced. They planned to bring the components of their explosives on board in their carry-on luggage, disguised as bottled drinks and electronic devices. We believe that this week’s arrests have significantly disrupted the threat. Yet we cannot be sure that the threat has been eliminated. So as a precaution, on Thursday, the federal government took several steps to increase security at our airports and aboard our planes. First, the Department of Homeland Security has raised our Nation’s threat warning to Code Red—the highest level—for flights from Great Britain to
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America, in coordination with British authorities. Second, we’ve raised the threat warning for all domestic and international flights landing in the United States to Code Orange—the second highest level. We also have sent additional federal air marshals to Great Britain to provide extra protection aboard flights from the United Kingdom to the United States. This plot is further evidence that the terrorists we face are sophisticated, and constantly changing their tactics. On September the 11th, 2001, they used box cutters to hijack airplanes and kill thousands of innocent people. This time, we believe they planned to use liquid explosives to blow up planes in mid-air. In response, we’ve adjusted our security precautions by temporarily banning most liquids as carry-on items on planes … I ask for your patience, cooperation, and vigilance in the coming days. The inconveniences you will face are for your protection, and they will give us time to adjust our screening procedures to meet the current threat. I’m grateful for the outstanding work of intelligence and law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom and in our country. This week’s arrests were the culmination of hard work, cooperation, and information-sharing across different agencies and different governments. We’re dealing with a new enemy that uses new means of attack and new methods to communicate. This week’s events demonstrate the vital importance of ensuring that our intelligence and law enforcement personnel have all the tools they need to track down the terrorists, and prevent attacks on our country. Because of the measures we’ve taken to protect the American people, our Nation is safer than it was prior to September the 11th. Still, we must never make the mistake of thinking the danger of terrorism has passed. This week’s experience reminds us of a hard fact: The terrorists have to succeed only once to achieve their goal of mass murder, while we have to succeed every time to stop them. Unfortunately, some have suggested recently that the terrorist threat is being used for partisan political advantage. We can have legitimate disagreements about the best way to fight the terrorists, yet there should be no disagreement about the dangers we face. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060812.html
President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, Scottsdale, Arizona, October 4, 2006 The legislation I sign today provides about $33.8 billion in funding to help secure the homeland. This is a good bill. It will help us deploy nuclear detection equipment at our ports of entry, raise security standards at the nation’s chemical plants, safeguard American cities against weapons of mass destruction, and stop terrorists seeking to enter our country. The bill will also help our government better respond to emergencies and natural disasters by strengthening the capabilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This legislation will give us better tools to enforce our immigration laws and to secure our southern border.
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Since I took office, we’ve increased funding for our border security from $4.6 billion in 2001, to $9.5 billion in 2006. We have increased the number of Border Patrol agents from about 9,000 to 12,000. We significantly decreased the time it takes to return illegal immigrants to their home countries. They apprehended and sent home more than 6 million people entering this country illegally. We stepped up work site enforcement against companies who knowingly hire illegal workers. We’re sending a clear signal that we’re a nation of law, and laws will be enforced. We’ve made progress in addressing illegal immigration, but there is a lot more work to be done. This May, I asked Congress to fund improvements in infrastructure, technology, and manpower at the border, and I appreciate Congress delivering upon my requests. The bill I sign today includes nearly $1.2 billion in additional funding for strengthening the border, for new infrastructure and technology that will help us do our job. It provides funding for more border fencing, vehicle barriers, and lighting, for cutting-edge technology, including ground base radar, infrared cameras, and advance sensors that will help prevent illegal crossings along our southern border. That’s what the people of this country want. They want to know that we’re modernizing the border so we can better secure the border. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061004-2.html
President George W. Bush, Remarks at the Signing of the Secure Fence Act, Washington, D.C., October 26, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: … [T]he Secure Fence Act of 2006 … will help protect the American people. This bill will make our borders more secure. It is an important step toward immigration reform. Earlier this year, I addressed the nation from the Oval Office. I laid out our strategy for immigration reform. Part of that strategy begins with securing the border. Since I took office we have more than doubled funding for border security—from $4.6 billion in 2001 to $10.4 billion this year. We’ve increased the number of Border Patrol agents from about 9,000 to more than 12,000, and by the end of 2008, we will have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents during my presidency. We’ve deployed thousands of National Guard members to assist the Border Patrol. We’ve upgraded technology at our borders. We’ve added infrastructure, including new fencing and vehicle barriers. We’re adding thousands of new beds in our detention facilities so we can continue working to end catch and release at our southern border. During the course of my administration we have apprehended and sent home more 6 million people entering our country illegally … The Secure Fence Act builds on this progress. The bill authorizes the construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing along our southern border. The bill authorizes more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and lighting to help prevent people from entering our country illegally. The bill authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the use of advanced
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technology, like cameras and satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles to reinforce our infrastructure at the border.… By making wise use of physical barriers and deploying 21st century technology we’re helping our Border Patrol agents do their job. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026.html
24 Hostages A long-standing tenet of U.S. counterterrorism policy is not to give into terrorists’ demands for the release of hostages because of concerns that doing so will encourage additional hostage-taking. A compilation of excerpts of U.S. government statements on this emotional subject is contained in the third item in this chapter. The policy has been misinterpreted as meaning that the U.S. government will not talk to hostage takers, but as the slightly varying language of statements indicates, the United States is willing to talk, but ‘‘What we will not do is make deals. Making deals only encourages more hostages’’ (March 5, 1991). However, this policy has not always been strictly followed and the most notorious example was the trade of antitank missiles to Iran, orchestrated by former NSC staffer Oliver North, in an effort to free American hostages held in Lebanon by Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists during the 1980s. Shortly after one hostage was released, the Lebanese terrorists seized another hostage. The chapter begins with President Reagan’s March 4, 1987, mea culpa address to the nation after the deals became public. Also included is the State Department’s Fact Sheet: International Terrorism-American Hostages, released by the Bureau of Public Affairs on October 17, 1995, and a press statement by State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher on February 20, 2002. Until the 2003 Iraq invasion, Latin America, particularly Colombia, was the scene of most of the hostage taking, mainly for ransom. Terrorists and criminal elements in Iraq quickly adopted the tactic—both to try to force coalition nations to withdraw their troops from Iraq and for ransom. The chapter includes comments on those kidnappings by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an April 15, 2004, television interview, and remarks at the September 8, 2006, Press Department briefing by spokesman, Sean McCormack.
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President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation Concerning the Iran-Contra Affair, March 4, 1987 My fellow Americans: I’ve spoken to you from this historic office on many occasions and about many things. The power of the Presidency is often thought to reside within this Oval Office. Yet it doesn’t rest here; it rests in you, the American people, and in your trust. Your trust is what gives a President his powers of leadership and his personal strength, and it’s what I want to talk to you about this evening. For the past 3 months, I’ve been silent on revelations about Iran. And you must have been thinking: ‘‘Well, why doesn’t he tell us what’s happening? Why doesn’t he just speak to us as he has in the past when we’ve faced troubles or tragedies?’’ Others of you, I guess, were thinking: ‘‘What’s he doing hiding out in the White House?’’ Well, the reason I haven’t spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There’s been enough of that. I’ve paid a price for my silence in terms of your trust and confidence. But I’ve had to wait, as you have, for the complete story. That’s why I appointed Ambassador David Abahire as my special counselor to help get out the thousands of documents to the various investigations. And I appointed a special review board, the Tower Board, which took on the chore of pulling the truth together for me and getting to the bottom of things. It has now issued its findings. I’m often accused of being an optimist, and it’s true I had to hunt pretty hard to find any good news in the Board’s report. As you know, it’s wellstocked with criticisms, which I’ll discuss in a moment; but I was very relieved to read this sentence: ‘‘[T]he Board is convinced that the President does indeed want the full story to be told.’’ And that will continue to be my pledge to you as the other investigations go forward. I want to thank the members of the panel, former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft. They have done the Nation, as well as me personally, a real service by submitting a report of such integrity and depth. They have my genuine and enduring gratitude. I’ve studied the Board’s report. Its findings are honest, convincing, and highly critical, and I accept them. And tonight I want to share with you my thoughts on these findings and report to you on the actions I’m taking to implement the Board’s recommendations. First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I’m still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds—well, as the Navy would say, this happened on my watch.
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Let’s start with the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower Board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This was counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind. These are reasons why it happened, but no excuses. It was a mistake. I undertook the original Iran initiative in order to develop relations with those who might assume leadership in a post-Khomeini government. It’s clear from the Board’s report, however, that I let my personal concern for the hostages spill over into the geopolitical strategy of reaching out to Iran. I asked so many questions about the hostages welfare that I didn’t ask enough about the specifics of the total Iran plan. Let me say to the hostages families: We have not given up. We never will. And I promise you we’ll use every legitimate means to free your loved ones from captivity: But I must also caution those Americans who freely remain in such dangerous areas must know that they’re responsible for their own safety. Now, another major aspect of the Board’s findings regards the transfer of funds to the Nicaraguan contras. The Tower Board wasn’t able to find out what happened to this money, so the facts here will be left to the continuing investigation of the court-appointed Independent Counsel and the two congressional investigating committees. I’m confident the truth will come out about this matter, as well. As I told the Tower Board, I didn’t know about any diversion of funds to the contras. But as President, I cannot escape responsibility. Much has been said about my management style, a style that’s worked successfully for me during 8 years as Governor of California and for most of my Presidency. The way I work is to identify the problem, find the right individuals to do the job, and then let them go to it. I’ve found this invariably brings out the best in people. They seem to rise to their full capability, and in the long run you get more done. When it came to managing the NSC staff, let’s face it, my style didn’t match its previous track record. I’ve already begun correcting this. As a start, yesterday I met with the entire professional staff of the National Security Council. I defined for them the values I want to guide the national security policies of this country. I told them that I wanted a policy that was as justifiable and understandable in public as it was in secret. I wanted a policy that reflected the will of the Congress as well as the White House. And I told them there’ll be no more freelancing by individuals when it comes to our national security. You’ve heard a lot about the staff of the National Security Council in recent months. Well, I can tell you, they are good and dedicated government employees who put in long hours for the Nation’s benefit. They are eager and anxious to serve their country. One thing still upsetting me, however, is that no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions. This led to my failure to recollect whether I
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approved an arms shipment before or after the fact. I did approve it; I just can’t say specifically when. Well, rest assured, there’s plenty of recordkeeping now going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. For nearly a week now, I’ve been studying the Board’s report. I want the American people to know that this wrenching ordeal of recent months has not been in vain. I endorse every one of the Tower Board’s recommendations. In fact, I’m going beyond its recommendations so as to put the house in even better order. I’m taking action in three basic areas: personnel, national security policy, and the process for making sure that the system works. First, personnel—I’ve brought in an accomplished and highly respected new team here at the White House. They bring new blood, new energy, and new credibility and experience. Former Senator Howard Baker, my new Chief of Staff, possesses a breadth of legislative and foreign affairs skills that’s impossible to match. I’m hopeful that his experience as minority and majority leader of the Senate can help us forge a new partnership with the Congress, especially on foreign and national security policies. I’m genuinely honored that he’s given up his own Presidential aspirations to serve the country as my Chief of Staff. Frank Carlucci, my new National Security Advisor, is respected for his experience in government and trusted for his judgment and counsel. Under him, the NSC still is being rebuilt with proper management discipline. Already, almost half the NSC professional staff is comprised of new people. Yesterday I nominated William Webster, a man of sterling reputation to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Webster has served as Director of the FBI and as a U.S. District Court judge. He understands the meaning of ‘‘rule of law.’’ So that is knowledge of national security matters can be available to me on a continuing basis, I will also appoint John Tower to serve as a member of my Foreign Intelligence Agency Board. I am considering other changes in personnel, and I’ll move more furniture, as I see fit, in the weeks and months ahead. Second, in the area of national security policy, I have ordered the NSC to begin a comprehensive review of all covert operations. I have also directed that any covert activity be in support of clear policy objectives and in compliance with American values. I expect a covert policy that if Americans saw it on the front page of their newspaper, they’d say, ‘‘That makes sense.’’ I have had issued a directive prohibiting the NSC staff itself from undertaking covert operations—no ifs, ands, or buts. I have asked Vice President Bush to reconvene his task force on terrorism to review our terrorist policy in light of the events that have occurred. Third, in terms of the process of reaching national security decisions, I am adopting in total the Tower report’s model of how the NSC process and staff should work. I am directing Mr. Carlucci to take the necessary steps to make that happen. He will report back to me on further reforms that might be needed. I’ve created the post of NSC legal advisor to assure a greater sensitivity to matters of law. I am also determined to make their congressional oversight process work. Proper procedures for consultation with the Congress will be followed, not
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only in letter but in spirit. Before the end of March, I will report to the Congress on all the steps I’ve taken in line with the Board’s conclusions. Now, what should happen when you make a mistake is this: You take your knocks, you learn your lessons, and then you move on. That’s the healthiest way to deal with a problem. This in no way diminishes the importance of the other continuing investigations, but the business of our country and our people must proceed. I’ve gotten this message from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, from allies around the world, and—if we’re reading the signals right—even from the Soviets. And of course, I’ve heard the message from you, the American people. You know, by the time you reach my age, you’ve made plenty of mistakes. And if you’ve lived your life properly—so, you learn. You put things in perspective. You pull you energies together. You change. You go forward. My fellow Americans, I have a great deal that I want to accomplish with you and for you over the next two years. And the Lord willing, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Good night, and God bless you.
Negotiations and No Concessions Policy, Excerpts from U.S. Government Statements, 1985–91 May 17, 1985: ‘‘It has been long standing U.S. policy not to give in to attempts by terrorist groups to obtain the release of their colleagues by capturing more hostages. Other governments such as Kuwait share this policy. ‘‘If we agree to such demands, it would just open the doors for terrorist to take more hostages whenever some of their colleagues were captured. ‘‘… We are always willing to talk, directly or indirectly. In all our contacts on these kidnappings, we have stressed our urgent interest in maintaining open lines of communication. To talk there must be a willing interlocutor. To date there has not been one.’’ —State Department Press Spokesman Bernard Kalb, Department press briefing (regarding demands of by Lebanese hostage holders of Terry Anderson and other American hostages that the U.S. pressure Kuwait into releasing the D’awa 17 Prisoners held by Kuwait following attacks on the U.S. and French embassies). June 18, 1985: ‘‘Let me further make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices, wherever they may be, that America will never make any concessions to terrorists—to do so would only invite more terrorism—nor will we ask nor pressure any other government to do so. Once we head down that path there would be no end to it, no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody ransom all civilized nations must pay.’’ —President Reagan in speech on ‘‘The Hijacking of TWA Flight 847.’’ February 1986: ‘‘The United States has a clear policy of no concessions to terrorists as the best way to protect the greatest number of people. However, the United
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States Government has always stated that it will talk to anyone and use every available resource to gain the release of Americans held hostage.’’ —Public Report of the Vice President’s Task Force on combating Terrorism, page 9. October 6, 1986: ‘‘… [W]e have always stated that we are willing to talk about the safety and return of the Americans held hostage in Lebanon, either through direct talks with the kidnappers or their representatives or through third parties. We’ve worked through a variety of intermediaries who have attempted to make direct contact with those holding the Americans, and we have welcomed responsible private efforts that might prove effective … ‘‘What we have consistently refused to do is to give in to terrorist demands … It’s the firm policy of this Administration neither to give in to terrorist demands nor to pressure third parties to do so. To make such concessions would only encourage more terrorism.’’ —Press spokesman Charles Redman, press briefing. November 5, 1986: ‘‘Our general policy in situation such as this is clear and remains unchanged. We are always willing to talk with anyone or with any group concerning the safety of the American citizens and other innocent victims of terrorist incidents. However we will not give in to terrorist demands nor will we urge third parties to do so.’’ —U.S. Department of State Deputy spokesman Peter Martinez, Department Briefing (regarding hijacking of Pan Am flight 073 at Karachi airport). November 3, 1986: ‘‘Our longstanding policy on dealing with hostage-takers remains that we are willing to talk to anyone about the safety and release of hostages, but we will not make concessions to terrorists. There is an important distinction between making concessions to terrorist demands and conducting a dialogue with those who hold our citizens.’’ —Spokesman Charles Redman, press briefing. May 6, 1986: ‘‘Based upon past experience, the U.S. Government concluded that paying ransom or other concessions to terrorists in exchange for the release of hostages increases the danger that others will be taken hostage. U.S. Government policy is, therefore, to reject any demands for ransom, prisoner exchanges, and deals with terrorists in exchange for hostage release. At the same time, the U.S. Government will make every effort, including contact with representatives of the captors, to obtain the release of the hostages without the paying of ransom, exchanging prisoners, etc.’’ —Statement issued by the Department 5/6/86, Press release 101, and reprinted in Bureau of Public Affairs pamphlet, June 1986. February 20, 1987: ‘‘… It’s inevitable that, as a people, our hearts go out to the individuals directly affected by terrorism and to their families and friends here at home. But we cannot allow our sympathies to overshadow the pressing need for us to stand firm behind our principles and to deny international terrorism further leverage against us. Our foremost priority must continue to be to demonstrate,
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through word and action, that there are no rewards for terrorist violence. We have to see to it that the terrorists not only don’t get rewards, they pay a price. We have to redouble our cooperative efforts with other nations in dealing with this scourge.’’ —Secretary Shultz, Institute of International Education and the World Affairs Council, Denver, Colorado, reprinted in American Foreign Policy, 1987, Document 1. April 23, 1987: ‘‘It has been the longstanding U.S. Government policy that we will talk to anyone who might be able to effect the safe release of Americans held hostage. That remains true. Speaking with hostage holders does not mean, however, that we will make concessions which would only further encourage terrorists to undertake such acts in the future.’’ —L. Paul Bremer III, Ambassador at Large for Counter-Terrorism, Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, California, Current Policy No. 947. February 12, 1988: ‘‘Our government has repeatedly made clear that we will talk to anyone, to any group, to any government about the well-being and release of the Americans still held hostage in Lebanon. Thus far, those holding the hostages have been unwilling to discuss with us the issue or its resolution, either directly or indirectly. In fact their only communications are impersonal and one way— through press releases and video recordings. We will continue to pursue actively whatever contacts we can. At the same time, our policy is firm—we will not make concessions to terrorists or compromise our fundamental principles.’’ —Secretary Shultz, Speech to Anti-Defamation League of the B’Nai B’rith, Palm Beach Florida, Current Policy document No. 1045. February 19, 1988: ‘‘We’re willing to talk to people—groups, individuals—about the welfare and the safe return of our hostages. And we do that, and we make every effort to do that, to obtain the safe return of our people. But no deals.’’ —Press Spokesman Charles Redman, press briefing, following Col. Higgins kidnapping. January 3, 1990: ‘‘… [W]e will talk to anyone authoritative any time about the welfare and unconditional release of our hostages in Lebanon. But we will not reward the hostage takers and place others at risk by ‘buying’ their freedom.’’ —Morris D. Busby, Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism, International Seminar on Maritime and Port Security, Miami, Florida. EDITOR’S NOTE: The phrase ‘‘anyone authoritative’’ began being used following reports of unauthorized persons posing as go-betweens.
March 1990: ‘‘We are working other governments and the United Nations to obtain the release of the hostages. ‘‘We stand ready to talk to any authoritative parties about the release of the hostages, but so far our willingness has not borne fruit. What we will not do is make deals. Making deals only encourages more hostage taking.’’
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—State Department Press Guidance. April 19, 1990: ‘‘We remain ready for a direct dialogue with authorized representatives of the Government of Iran, without preconditions. As have been stated publicly, the U.S. is prepared to talk with anyone at anytime at any place about the release of the U.S. hostages in Lebanon.’’ —State Department Press Guidance. February 11, 1991: ‘‘… We’re prepared to sit down with authorized representatives of the government of Iran if they will renounce state-sponsored terrorism and commit to do something about our hostages in Lebanon … that’s been our position for a long time, and I think the government of Iran knows that.’’ —Secretary James A. Baker.1 March 5, 1991: ‘‘We stand ready to talk with any authoritative parties about the release of the hostages, but so far our willingness has not borne fruit. What we will not do is make deals. Making deals only encourages more hostages.’’ —Statement prepared for Richard Boucher, Deputy Press Spokesman, marking beginning of 6th year of Terry Anderson’s captivity. March 21, 1991: ‘‘We have a long standing position that we are willing to talk directly to authoritative representatives of Iran on issues of concern to both governments, including hostages. At this point, Iran has not responded to this offer.’’ —State Department written response to a taken question from the press. ‘‘We are willing to talk to any authoritative party about the welfare and immediate unconditional release of the hostages. We expect those with influence over the hostage holders to use that influence to have them released, but we will not make deals for their release.’’ —Cleared State Department press guidance. COMPILED BY: Michael Kraft, State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (Retired).
U.S. Department of State, Fact Sheet: International TerrorismAmerican Hostages, Bureau of Public Affairs, October 17, 1995 The U.S. Government will make no concessions to terrorists holding official or private U.S. citizens hostage. It will not pay ransom, release prisoners, change its policies, or agree to other acts that might encourage additional terrorism. At the same time, the United States will use every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of American citizens who are held hostage by terrorists. Hostage-taking is defined under international law (International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, adopted December 17, 1979) as the seizing or detaining and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain a person in order to compel a third party to do or abstain from doing any act as
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an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the seized or detained person. It is internationally accepted that governments are responsible for the safety and welfare of persons within their borders. Aware of both the terrorist threat and public safety shortcomings in many parts of the world, the United States has developed enhanced physical and personal security programs for U.S. personnel and has established cooperative arrangements with the U.S. private sector. It also has established bilateral counter-terrorism assistance programs and close intelligence and law enforcement relationships with many nations to help prevent terrorist incidents or to resolve them in a manner that will deny the perpetrators benefits from their actions. The United States also seeks effective judicial prosecution and punishment for terrorists and criminals victimizing the U.S. Government or its citizens and will use all legal methods to these ends, including extradition. U.S. policy and goals are clear, and the U.S. Government actively pursues them alone and in cooperation with other governments. The U.S. Government believes that paying ransom or making other concessions to terrorists in exchange for the release of hostages increases the danger that others will be taken. Its policy therefore rejects all demands for ransom, prisoner exchanges, and deals with terrorists in exchange for the release of hostages. At the same time, it will make every effort, including contact with representatives of the captors, to obtain the release of the hostages. The United States strongly urges American companies and private citizens not to pay ransom. It believes that good security practices, relatively modest security expenditures, and continual close cooperation with embassy and local authorities can lower the risk to Americans living in high-threat environments. The U.S. Government is concerned for the welfare of its citizens but cannot support requests that host governments violate their own laws or abdicate their normal law enforcement responsibilities. On the other hand, if the employing organization or company works closely with local authorities and follows U.S. policy, U.S. Foreign Service posts can actively pursue efforts to bring the incident to a safe conclusion. This includes providing reasonable administrative services and, if desired by the local authorities and the American organization, full participation in strategy sessions. Requests for U.S. Government technical assistance or expertise will be considered on a case-bycase basis. The full extent of U.S. Government participation must await an analysis of each specific set of circumstances. If a U.S. private organization or company seeks release of hostages by paying ransom or pressuring the host government for political concessions, U.S. Foreign Service posts will limit their participation to basic administrative services, such as facilitating contacts with host government officials. The host government and the U.S. private organization or citizen must understand that if they wish to follow a hostage resolution path different from that of U.S. Government policy, they do so without its approval or cooperation. The U.S. Government cannot participate in developing and implementing a ransom strategy. However, U.S. Foreign Service posts may maintain a discreet contact with the parties to keep abreast of developments.
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Under current U.S. law 18 USC 1203 (Act for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Hostage-Taking, enacted October 1984 in implementation of the UN Convention on Hostage-Taking), seizure of a U.S. national as a hostage anywhere in the world is a crime, as is any hostage-taking action in which the U.S. Government is a target or the hostage-taker is a U.S. national. Such acts, therefore, are subject to investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to prosecution by U.S. authorities. Actions by private persons or entities that have the effect of aiding and abetting the hostage-taking, concealing knowledge of it from the authorities, or obstructing its investigation, may themselves be in violation of U.S. law.
Richard Boucher, Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, International Terrorism: American Hostages (U.S. Policy Toward), Press Statement, Washington, D.C., February 20, 2002 U.S. Government Policy The U.S. Government will make no concessions to individuals or groups holding official or private U.S. citizens hostage. The United States will use every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of American citizens who are held hostage. At the same time, it is U.S. Government policy to deny hostage takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession. Basic Premises It is internationally accepted that governments are responsible for the safety and welfare of persons within the borders of their nations. Aware of both the hostage threat and public security shortcomings in many parts of the world, the United States has developed enhanced physical and personal security programs for U.S. personnel and established cooperative arrangements with the U.S. private sector. It has also established bilateral assistance programs and close intelligence and law enforcement relationships with many nations to prevent hostage-taking incidents or resolve them in a manner that will deny the perpetrators benefits from their actions. The United States also seeks effective judicial prosecution and punishment for hostage takers victimizing the U.S. Government or its citizens and will use all legal methods to these ends, including extradition. U.S. policy and goals are clear, and the U.S. Government actively pursues them alone and in cooperation with other governments. U.S. Government Responsibilities When Private U.S. Citizens Are Taken Hostage Based upon past experience, the U.S. Government concluded that making concessions that benefit hostage takers in exchange for the release of hostages increased the danger that others will be taken hostage. U.S. Government policy is, therefore, to deny hostage takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession.
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At the same time, the U.S. Government will make every effort, including contact with representatives of the captors, to obtain the release of hostages without making concessions to the hostage takers. Consequently, the United States strongly urges American companies and private citizens not to accede to hostage-taker demands. It believes that good security practices, relatively modest security expenditures, and continual close cooperation with embassy and local authorities can lower the risk to Americans living in high-threat environments. The U.S. Government is concerned for the welfare of its citizens but cannot support requests that host governments violate their own laws or abdicate their normal enforcement responsibilities. If the employing organization or company works closely with local authorities and follows U.S. policy, U.S. Foreign Service posts can be involved actively in efforts to bring the incident to a safe conclusion. This includes providing reasonable administrative services and, if desired by local authorities and the American entity, full participation in strategy sessions. Requests for U.S. Government technical assistance or expertise will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The full extent of U.S. Government participation must await an analysis of each specific set of circumstances. The host government and the U.S. private organizations or citizen must understand that if they wish to follow a hostage resolution path different from that of U.S. Government policy, they do so without U.S. Government approval. In the event a hostage-taking incident is resolved through concessions, U.S. policy remains steadfastly to pursue investigation leading to the apprehension and prosecution of hostage takers who victimize U.S. citizens. Legal Caution Under current U.S. law, 18 USC 1203 (Act for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Hostage-Taking, enacted October 1984 in implementation of the UN convention on hostage-taking), seizure of a U.S. citizen as a hostage anywhere in the world is a crime, as is any hostage-taking action in which the U.S. Government is a target or the hostage taker is a U.S. national. Such acts are, therefore, subject to investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to prosecution by U.S. authorities. Actions by private persons or entities that have the effect of aiding or abetting the hostage taking, concealing knowledge of it from the authorities, or obstructing its investigation may themselves be in violation of U.S. law. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/8190.htm
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, ‘‘Civilized World Must Stand Against Terror Tactics,’’ Interview with Tokyo Broadcasting System International, April 15, 2004 In an April 15 interview with the Tokyo Broadcasting System International, Secretary of State Colin Powell praised the way in which Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have
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responded to a rash of kidnappings of foreign aid workers, contractors and journalists by unknown militant elements in Iraq. ‘‘The important point here is that both Prime Minister Koizumi and Prime Minister Berlusconi realize you can’t give in to terror, you can’t allow yourself to be put at the mercy of terrorists,’’ Secretary Powell said. ‘‘The civilized world must stand against this kind of activity.’’ Powell said he was pleased to hear of the release of three Japanese civilians who had been abducted and held hostage for nearly a week, but he expressed regret over the execution of one of four Italian security guards taken hostage on April 12: ‘‘We regret any hostage situation. Nobody wants to imagine what it would be like for a member of their family to be taken hostage, and we will do everything we can to rescue these people. ‘‘But you must not give in to the hostage-taker. You must not say, Oh, it’s okay, we will now do what you want. Because they will just place new demands on you. ‘‘The civilized world must stand against this kind of activity, and I am pleased that Prime Minister Koizumi, Prime Minister Berlusconi, President Bush, President Blair and other leaders have the courage to stand up against this kind of threat from terrorists.’’ SOURCE: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004 &m=April&x=20040416133647ASesuarK0.75837344
Sean McCormack, Spokesman, U.S. Department of State, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, D.C., September 8, 2006 Q. Sean, I have another question about Iraq. Yesterday, I asked you a question about this office of hostage affairs … at the embassy, U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Do you have any information about what it is? MR. MCCORMACK: They did provide me a little bit more information that I can run through … The Office of Hostage Affairs is a collaborative group of experts from all relevant agencies dedicated to the safe recovery of hostages in Iraq, bring hostage takers to justice, and preventing future kidnappings. The office works closely with Iraqi authorities and other governments and has tracked down—has tracked and worked on over 400 foreign and Iraqi hostage cases and assisted in hundreds of Iraqi—in bringing to justice and finding hundreds of Iraqis who were kidnapped, finding those responsible. The office has been involved in efforts leading to numerous successful rescues and recoveries and has cooperated with Iraqi authorities in the investigation and prosecution of kidnappers in Iraqi courts. It is a unique operation in terms of U.S. embassies around the world. There’s no similar office in any other embassy around the world, although there are, wherever there is an issue around the world, the ability on a rapid reaction interagency basis to have people addressing these issues. And certainly within embassies where this might be an issue, there are people—perhaps in some cases individuals—who have—this is a specific part of their portfolio.
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But this is the only American embassy around the world that does have a separate office within the embassy dedicated to this effort. Q. Is it a signal that the security in Iraq is so poor that you really have to create a special unit (inaudible)? MR. MCCORMACK: It’s an acknowledgement of the reality of the current situation, the current security situation in Iraq. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2006/71979.htm
25 Counterterrorism Programs The battle against terrorism includes a number of program tools designed to bolster the capability of the United States and foreign government to deter terrorist attacks and cope with terrorist incidents if they occur. This chapter helps illustrate some of these programs that often are unglamorous and receive little public attention. An exception is the long-standing State Department terrorism information rewards program, which provides rewards for information that helps lead to the arrest and prosecution of terrorists or helps prevent terrorist attacks. President Bush and other officials highlighted the program and the FBI’s most wanted list in an October 10, 2001, press conference. The lesser-known counterterrorism research and development (R&D) program provides funding and guidance for developing a variety of equipment to detect terrorists’ weapons or otherwise deter or mitigate terrorist attacks. President Bush discussed the efforts in a July 22, 2002, speech to the Argonne National Laboratory. Details of the USG’s interagency program were described in September 2003 testimony by Michael Jakub, director for technical programs for the State Department Counterterrorism Office, which provides policy guidance for the Technical Support Working Group established two decades ago to coordinate the government’s R&D effort. Another tool is the State Department’s Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA) program, which provides training and limited amounts of equipment for law enforcement officials of friendly countries. See the April 21, 2004, Senate testimony by Cofer Black, the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the March 10, 2005, House testimony by Acting Coordinator William Pope and Rear Admiral Hamlin Tallent, director of operations for the U.S. European Command. The State Department’s annual international terrorism report to Congress, which is made public as an information and policy tool, is discussed in May 12, 2005, testimony in the wake of changes to improve the accuracy of its statistics. Because of the role of the military in the Global War on Terrorism, this chapter includes the April 3, 2003, foreign press center briefing on Coalition
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Target practices given by Major General Stanley McChrystal, the Pentagon’s vice director for operations, J-3. Also included is a discussion on the role of special forces in countering terrorism, in April 5, 2006, Senate testimony by Thomas W. O’Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/ low-intensity conflict.
President George W. Bush, Remarks to Airline Employees, O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois, September 27, 2001 America understands that these have been incredibly tense days for the people who work in the airline industry—difficult times for stewardesses and captains and baggage handlers and people who are running the desks. America knows that, and we appreciate—we appreciate your steadfast willingness to fight terror in your own way. You stand against terror by flying the airplanes, and by maintaining them. You stand against terror by loading a bag or serving a passenger. And by doing so, you’re expressing a firm national commitment that’s so important, that we will not surrender our freedom to travel; that we will not surrender our freedoms in America; that while you may think you have struck our soul, you haven’t touched it; that we are too strong a nation to be carried down by terrorist activity. When they struck, they wanted to create an atmosphere of fear. And one of the great goals of this nation’s war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry. It’s to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed. … Not only do you have a role to play, which you’re playing in such fine fashion, but the government has a role to play, as well. We’ve got a significant responsibility to deal with this emergency in a strong and bold way. And we are doing so. The first action we took was when Republicans and Democrats alike came together and put together a package to provide stability for the airline industry.… It was the first part of an economic recovery package. We understand when we get our airlines up and running, it’s going to affect so much of our economy. And so we jointly approved $15 billion of monies available to provide not only relief for airlines, but loan guarantees for airlines, to make sure our airlines are strong and healthy in the aftermath of this national emergency. … We must address the issue of airline safety in a constructive, smart way. For the sake of every passenger, every crew member and every pilot, we are going to make our airline security stronger and more reliable. Last week I reserved $3 billion in funding to achieve this goal. And today I want to outline some of our plans to do just that. First, I will work with Congress to put the federal government in charge of passenger and bag screening, and all safety inspections. We will make our standards tougher and better and consistent all around the country. I understand it takes time for legislation to work through the halls of Congress, and you need to understand that, too. And so, to make sure we
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improve security right now, the federal government will pay for governors to call up National Guard and place guardsmen at inspection stations in airports. Some airports already meet high standards, and you all know that. But for those airports that need help, we will work with the governors to provide security measures—visible security measures—so the traveling public will know that we are serious about airline safety in America. Secondly, we are going to dramatically increase the number of federal air marshals on our airplanes. When Americans fly, there need to be more highlyskilled and fully-equipped officers of law flying alongside them. Now, these marshals, of course, will wear plainclothes … But Americans will know that there’s more of them. And our crews will know there’s more of them. And the terrorists will know there’s more of them. And third, we will set aside $500 million in new funding for aircraft security. Grants will go to airlines for enhanced cockpit protection. We look forward to working with the pilots and airlines to fortify doors and provide stronger locks, so our pilots will always be in command of the airplanes. We will invest in new technology for aircraft security, with grants to develop transponders that cannot be switched off from the cockpit; video monitors in the cockpit to alert pilots to trouble in the cabin—and we will look at all kinds of technologies to make sure that our airlines are safe—and for example, including technology to enable controllers to take over distressed aircraft and land it by remote control. With all these actions, we’re returning America’s airlines back to the American people. We’re making a strong statement that together—together—the government and the private sector will make flying a way of life again in America. The American people must know that my administration is confident. Tomorrow nine Cabinet members will board U.S. airlines to fly around our country to do their jobs. And so will thousands of other citizens, from all walks of life, will board aircraft. And these are good things for our nation, because this nation will not live in fear. We have awakened to a new danger, but our resolve is great and the spirit of America is incredibly strong. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010927-1.html
President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Attorney General Announcement, Most Wanted List, FBI Headquarters, October 10, 2001 THE PRESIDENT: I’m pleased to be back at the FBI to unveil a new line of attack on our war against terrorism, the most-wanted-terrorist list. Terrorists try to operate in the shadows. They try to hide. But we’re going to shine the light of justice on them. We list their names, we publicize their pictures, we rob them of their secrecy. Terrorism has a face, and today we expose it for the world to see. The men on the wall here have put themselves on the list because of great acts of evil. They plan, promote and commit murder. They fill the minds of
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others with hate and lies. And by their cruelty and violence, they betray whatever faith they espouse. These 22 individuals do not account for all the terrorist activity in the world, but they are among the most dangerous—the leaders and key supporters, the planners and strategists. They must be found. They will be stopped, and they will be punished. … [B]y shining the spotlight on the first 22, it’s going to make it more likely they’ll be brought to justice. I say the first 22 because our war is not just against 22 individuals, our war is against networks and groups, people who coddle them, people who try to hide them, people who fund them. MR. MUELLER: … For more than a half a century, the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives initiative has put a global spotlight on those attempting to flee from justice. A total of 467 dangerous criminals have been put under the watchful eye of the international community since 1950. Four hundred and thirty-eight of those fugitives have been captured, a success rate of nearly 94 percent. Of that number, nearly one in three have been apprehended through a tip from a private citizen. Already the support of the global community and the work of our legal attach´e offices overseas have helped to bring to justice four out of the five international terrorists on our original 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. One of those was Mir Aimal Kansi, who brutally murdered two CIA employees in 1993. Thanks to a tip from a private citizen overseas we were able to locate and arrest Kansi and return him to the United States to face justice. A second international terrorist we located through the fugitive list was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Yousef was apprehended overseas, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. SECRETARY POWELL: … One of the most powerful tools we have for tracking down terrorists abroad is the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. This program offers rewards of up to $5 million for information that thwarts a terrorist attack on American or other interests, or brings a terrorist to justice. Rewards for Justice is, as we say in the military, a force multiplier. It gives us millions of additional pairs of eyes and ears to be on the lookout. It puts potential informants in every place a terrorist might try to operate or to hide. And it works. Since the program’s inception in 1984, we have paid over $8 million in 22 separate cases to people who provided information that put terrorists in prison or prevented attacks. One example was just touched on by Bob, as to how this program works. Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, was also engaged in a scheme to blow up 12 commercial airliners over the Pacific. But his plot was foiled when an informant in Pakistan, alerted by State Department flyers describing Yousef and his role in the bombing, turned him in. We want to see this story repeated everywhere—everywhere that a terrorist is plotting against us or our interests, everywhere a terrorist is hiding. We are getting the word out about out Rewards for Justice program in flyers and other ways of reaching the public, and we have a web site that will
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give you all the information you need about this program: www.dssrewards. net. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_10.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Announces the Appointment of the Special Master to Administer the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, November 26, 2001 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: … Today I’m announcing an important step in the effort to provide both fair and prompt relief to the victims of the September 11th attacks. That step is the appointment of the special master to administer the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Congress legislated this fund, which President Bush signed into law. They did so in order to provide assistance to victims and families of those who were physically injured or killed as a result of the terrorist attacks on September the 11th. While we can never undo the damage that has been done, this fund will assist thousands of individuals and families in rebuilding lives that were shattered by the indiscriminate evil of terrorism. Kenneth R. Feinberg, a Washington, D.C., attorney specializing in providing relief to victims in mass casualty cases, has agreed to serve as special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund program. Mr. Feinberg is an experienced legal counselor, prosecutor, manager, and arbitrator. He is a former special counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and a former administrative assistant to Senator Edward Kennedy. Ken served as assistant U.S. attorney in New York City and as special settlement master in the Agent Orange lawsuit. Today he is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, at the New York University Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as well as other responsibilities. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks11_26.htm
President George W. Bush, ‘‘Anti-Terrorism Technology Key to Homeland Security,’’ Remarks at Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, July 22, 2002 THE PRESIDENT: … We’re in a new kind of war today. We face a ruthless and a resourceful enemy … To prevail in this war, we’ll use our law enforcement and our intelligence gathering all across our country to prevent the American people from being harmed. And to prevail in this war, we will fight on the frontiers of knowledge and discovery. In this new war, we will rely upon the genius and creativity of the American people. And that’s why I’m here, to look in the eyes of those who posses the genius and the creativity of the American people. Our scientific community is serving on the front lines of this war, by developing new technologies that will
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make America safer. And as you tackle new scientific challenges, I want you to know, our government will stand by your side to make your job easier. It is in our interests that we work together. The Argonne National Laboratory is a cutting edge facility … I’ve just come back from viewing some demonstrations of the great work done at national laboratories, whether it be here, or Los Alamos, or Sandia or others. The American people need to know we’ve got a lot of brain power working on ways to deal with the threats that we now face as we head into the 21st century. For example, I saw a warning and response system that will supply first responders with timely and life saving information in the event of a chemical attack on a subway or any other enclosed space. I saw a project that uses new advances in genetic research to identify and understand biological agents that could be used against us. I saw computer simulations to help policy makers and first responders anticipate the effect of an attack of natural disaster, and to develop life saving plans. What I saw was new technologies that our scientists are developing to help us secure the homeland. America is grateful—it’s grateful for your work. And our government must be organized and focused to support these efforts. Right now there are more than a hundred different federal agencies that have some role in the homeland defense of our country. And despite everyone’s best intentions in those agencies, this inevitably leads to a dispersal of authority. Imagine, a hundred of them scattered all over Washington, D.C. It makes it hard to have accountability when you’ve got a hundred agencies scattered around. And it’s a drain on critical resources. So I asked Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent, Cabinetlevel Department of Homeland Security with an overriding and urgent mission, with this primary focus: to secure the American homeland. Their agencies, once they’re under this—in this new department will have other missions, no question about it. But their primary mission is to recognize the new world in which we live. The world has changed, and so must our government change with it, in order to allow all of us who have responsibility to say to the American people, we’re doing everything we possibly can to protect innocent American lives. This Department of Homeland Security will foster a new culture throughout our government, one that emphasizes cooperation and working together on behalf of the American people. And this department will have four primary tasks. First, it will work to control our borders. There needs to be much better cooperation amongst the agencies to make sure we know who is coming in the country, what they’re bringing in the country, why they’re coming in the country, and are they leaving when they said they’re going to leave the country. … [O]ne of the primary responsibilities will be to work with state and local authorities to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies. In other words, we need to be better coordinated with the brave, first time responders—that means police and fire and EMS teams which exist all across our country.… Thirdly, we need to merge under one roof the capability to identify and assess threats to the homeland, map those threats against our vulnerabilities,
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and address the vulnerabilities. So prior to September 11th, we had the CIA collecting information and we had the FBI collecting information, and sometimes they weren’t talking all that much. Now they talk. Now they coordinate. And, finally, we need our scientists to develop the kinds of technologies I saw today. We need to have an effective strategy of mating up our brain power with the problems we face, so as to stay on the cutting edge of technological change necessary to protect the homeland. And this last point is an incredibly important point … We will harness our science and our technology in a way to protect the American people. We will consolidate most federally funded homeland security research and development, to avoid duplication, and to make sure all the efforts are focused. … [T]he number one priority is to protect America from attack, because we’re at war. The Department of Homeland Security will work to create a long-term plan. And once you have the long-term plan, with the goal of securing the homeland, then we can set funding priorities. We give our scientists the resources they require, and that’s important for you to know … resources necessary to counter the chemical and the biological and the radiological and nuclear threats that our nation faces. And these threats are real. And therefore we need to stay focused, not only to make sure resources are spent, but that critical research continues, because you all know better than anybody, when we research and we set priorities, this great nation can achieve any objective. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020722-1.html
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Diplomacy and the War Against Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, D.C., March 18, 2003 I appreciate your invitation to testify on the State Department’s role in coordinating the non-military war against terrorism overseas. I also want to express thanks to you and members of the committee for recognizing the crucial role our embassies play in combating terrorism. Mr. Chairman, while I will endeavor to avoid covering the same ground as Under Secretaries Grossman and Green in the previous panel, one cannot overemphasize the importance of our diplomatic efforts in the Global War on Terrorism. Terrorists and their organizations cannot be defeated through force of arms alone. As Secretary Powell has stated, diplomacy constitutes this nation’s first line of defense and also one of our most potent offensive weapons in the war on terrorism. Diplomacy is the instrument of power that builds political will and strengthens international cooperation. Through diplomatic exchanges we promote counterterrorism cooperation with friendly nations that serves our mutual interests. We build capacity that bolsters the capabilities of our allies. Diplomacy helps us take the war to the terrorists, to cut off the resources they need and depend upon to survive.
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I want to make clear at the outset of my remarks that the State Department and our embassies and consulates abroad certainly are not alone in carrying out this important mission. The Departments of Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security, Defense, CIA and many other federal agencies have critical missions in this regard. However, as the lead foreign affairs agency, the Department of State—through my office—serves as the statutorily appointed coordinator and overall clearinghouse for the wide span of counterterrorism activities conducted overseas by the United States Government. As you might imagine, the job of coordinating such a large interagency— and international—effort is a great challenge. It is a challenge because of the growth of counterterrorism initiatives and programs since 9/11. It is a challenge because of the evolving terrorist threat and the shifting international environment that, for example, is being affected today by Iraq’s continued intransigence to disarm and its support of and potential future support for international terrorism. Finally, there is the challenge of undertaking these expanded responsibilities in the face of limited resources. In all of these efforts, our embassies and consulates play a critical role. Let me briefly describe our ongoing efforts in this context. Embassy Activities Since 9/11, we have methodically taken the battle against terrorism to the international front lines. Our ambassadors and the staff members of our embassies and consulates, drawn not just from State but also from other federal agencies, are serving us well. Over my career in international affairs and now being a part of that diplomatic front line, I have much admiration and respect for the men and women who serve at our missions overseas. In the face of especially grave threats today, they continue to serve with great professionalism and bravery. Indeed, they are the backbone to our overseas counterterrorist efforts. It is this ‘‘diplomatic readiness,’’ to use Secretary Powell’s phrase, that is vital to our ability to fight terrorism. Our embassies are our direct conduits to the governments of other nations. They facilitate our efforts to disrupt terrorist networks and to apprehend terrorist individuals. The ambassador, his or her deputy, and other members of the country team, including representatives from other agencies, are all instrumental in developing and maintaining good working relations with the host country and pursuing our counterterrorism objectives. It is an important function of my office and staff to support this front line effort. Since assuming the Coordinator’s job three months ago, I have traveled to Russia, China, Japan, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Tri-Border region of South America. In doing so, I can say unequivocally that our Chiefs of Mission and their country teams are invaluable resources. They are both leading and supporting our efforts to promote and achieve our counterterrorism agenda in their respective host countries and regions. Our embassies also help to facilitate efforts to cut off support to terrorists through supporting our CT programs. Just a few days ago, my staff joined an interagency team that went to Manila to successfully assist the Government of the Philippines in adopting financial controls vital to denying terrorists access to funding and in so doing brought the Philippines into compliance with
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international standards. My staff and similar Washington-based interagency teams, joining our country teams overseas, are helping many other front-line states to evaluate their financial systems, identify vulnerabilities, and develop counterterrorism finance training programs. Our embassies and consulates also provide critical information on terrorist organizations. Such information serves as the basis for our imposing legal and administrative sanctions against such organizations. The Secretary of State currently has designated 36 foreign terrorist organizations. Among other consequences of such designations, U.S. persons are prohibited from knowingly providing any designated organization with financial and other forms of material support.… Training U.S. embassies and consulates also are working with us to train and equip frontline states to fight terrorists within and around their borders. Our Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program is providing training to 56 countries through 180 courses during FY 2003 and hopes to step up its training efforts in FY 2004. We are working with 37 countries through our Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP) to evaluate, establish and improve border-monitoring capabilities. To diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists exploit, we are coordinating our assistance programs to dovetail them with our counterterrorism interests. My staff recently met with AID officials to discuss ways to deepen this coordination. Our public affairs programs actively disseminate information overseas that accurately portrays our policies and promotes our democratic values. Our embassies play a vital role here as well, advising us on our international assistance programs and actively fostering greater understanding of the United States through a wide spectrum of public affairs and exchange programs. While these are successes, you have also asked me to comment on the obstacles we face and ways in which they have been or can be overcome. Obstacles Quite frankly, one of the biggest challenges is connecting the resources to our operational and program needs in a timely and effective manner. While we are deeply grateful for the support that the Congress has provided to our counterterrorism programs, delays in the enactment of appropriations have repercussions on our operations.… [T]here are difficulties that arise from having only a half-year to utilize funds for programs that were originally intended to expend such funding over a full year period. The Administration is also reviewing the requirement in current law regarding designations of terrorist organizations and individuals every 2 years. Under a law first enacted in 1996, the designation of a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) expires after two years unless renewed, even if there is little or no change in the activities of these designated groups. This year, 29 groups are up for redesignation. The task of drafting new administrative records every two years to support a determination to redesignate FTOs is labor intensive and unnecessary in most cases. Resources needed for redesignations could
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be better used for other important counterterrorism duties, including monitoring and designating new groups as appropriate. We are preparing draft legislation to amend the FTO statute and make it less administratively onerous.1 Overseas … In addition to our ongoing real-time operations, we must continue to provide frontline countries the training and assistance needed to support their counterterrorism efforts. Your continued support for our capacity-building programs will help. While the dividends of such investment may not be immediately apparent, we must think of our global war on terrorism as a long-term fight that may take years or, indeed, decades, as was the case with the Cold War. Research and Development We must also continue our counterterrorism R&D efforts. On this, I’d like to especially mention the work of the interagency Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), led by my office, that is developing new technologies to protect us against terrorist attacks. I am holding up two TSWG products of direct relevance to this Congress. The ‘‘Quick 2000’’ mask is the one distributed to Members and staff. The TSWG guided its development. Another product of this R&D group is a specially designed card that will alert the wearer to the presence of radioactive materials. The key to fighting terrorism is sustained effort. That can be achieved only through sustained resources. It is not just al-Qaida that threatens our citizens and interests but other terrorist organizations and their supporters, including state sponsors of terrorism.… EDITOR’S NOTE: Additional detail on specific programs follows.
State Department Counterterrorism Programs Terrorist Finance Programs. This is a core function of S/CT. We seek to interrupt and deny the flow of funds going to terrorists and their operations and to strengthen the financial and regulatory sectors of vulnerable coalition partners against manipulation and penetration by the financiers of terror. The groundwork for our counterterrorism finance offensive was actually laid many years before 9/11, with provisions that the State Department proposed and the Congress enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Act authorizes the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Treasury, to designate Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Among other provisions, the Act prohibits U.S. persons and persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from knowingly providing material support or resources to an FTO, or attempt or conspire to do so. Among other consequences of a designation, any financial institution that becomes aware that it has possession of or control over funds of a designated FTO must retain possession of or control over the funds and report the funds to the Treasury Department’s Office of the Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Currently 36 groups are designated.
1
Such legislation was subsequently enacted.
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Following September 11, the President signed Executive Order 13224, which requires U.S. persons to freeze the assets of individuals and entities designated under this E.O. for their support of terrorism. There are currently over 250 individuals and entities designated under E.O. 13224. The White House also established an interagency mechanism to coordinate terrorist financing policy among USG agencies. Each embassy has identified a Terrorism Finance Coordination Officer to lead the effort to work with the host governments to detect, disrupt, and deter terrorist financing. Internationally, the UN has also stepped up its own efforts in the area of fighting terrorist financing in a major way following September 11, requiring countries to freeze the assets of those included in its consolidated list of entities and individuals with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban. This list continues to expand as countries join us in submitting new names of individuals and entities linked to al-Qaida to the UN. So far, USG and coalition freezing actions have netted over $120 million in assets of persons or entities with ties to terrorist networks, and in many cases to al-Qaida. We are working with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—a 31-member organization that sets international standards to combat money laundering and more recently to combat terrorist financing. Last month, the FATF elaborated on two of its earlier recommendations on terrorist financing to make the use of cross-border wire transfers and alternative remittance systems (such as hawalas) more transparent, and less subject to exploitation by terrorist groups. On the bilateral front, interagency teams led by the State Department are traveling to states critical to our counterterrorism efforts to evaluate their financial systems, identify vulnerabilities, and develop and implement comprehensive counterterrorism financing training and technical assistance programs. CT Finance Capacity Building programs are coordinated by S/CT and administered through State/INL (The Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs) and counterpart entities at the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security. These programs are aimed at providing front-line states with technical assistance in drafting anti-terrorist financing legislation, and training for bank regulators, investigators, and prosecutors to identify and combat financial crime, particularly terrorist financing. (For FY 2004, the budget request includes $3.5 million.) Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA). This program was among the first specific counterterrorism programs funded at State, first authorized in late 1983. It continues to serve as the primary provider of U.S. Government antiterrorism training and equipment to the law enforcement agencies of friendly countries needing assistance in the war against terrorism. S/CT provides policy guidance and funding to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Office of Antiterrorism Assistance, which implements the program. The program provides a wide range of courses to strengthen the capacities of recipient countries. The training includes traditional courses such as hostage negotiations, bomb detection, and airport security. In recent years, ATA has developed new courses for countering terrorism financing and defeating cyber-terrorism. It also has provided a series of seven seminars to help other countries strengthen their counterterrorism legislation. The Department works of course with the US embassy officers, especially the Regional Security
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Officers, in developing the training package to meet the recipient country’s needs. In FY 2003, we are scheduling 180 courses for 56 countries. (For FY 2004, the Department is requesting $106.4 million to meet the program’s growing requirements in the NADR account of the Foreign Appropriations Bill …) CT R&D. The State Department, through S/CT, co-chairs the interagency Technical Support Work Group (TSWG) that rapidly develops and prototypes counterterrorism technologies to provide protections against terrorist attacks. For example, the ‘‘Quick 2000’’ masks that have been distributed to members of Congress and staff were evaluated, modified, and improved based on a testing protocol developed by the TSWG. This has been a very successful and important program. S/CT provides policy oversight, managerial direction, and helps provide core funding. The Defense Department executes the program, and provides technical oversight for the program and contributes the larger share of the funding. Recently, the State Department reached agreement with the new Department of Homeland Security to facilitate DHS participation in the TSWG and to contribute funding. S/CT has been able to leverage the relatively small State Department contribution to develop matching contributions and joint research with international partners in Britain, Canada, and Israel. (FY 2004 request: $1.8 million.) EDITOR’S NOTE: See September 29, 2005, testimony by Michael Jakub, Director for Technical Programs, for more details of the research and development program.
Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP). TIP aims at bolstering the border security of countries at a high risk of terrorist transit. Through this program, priority countries are provided a sophisticated database system and related support that identifies and tracks suspected terrorists as they enter and exit these countries. The program uses a sophisticated data base system with highspeed connections to airports or border crossing points. The program provides computer hardware, database software and training, and is currently being deployed in five countries and is scheduled for deployment in 12 more countries this calendar year. Arrests and detentions have occurred in all five countries where the system has been deployed. (FY 2004 request: $11 million for installations in up to 12 new countries and continued work and maintenance on previous installations.) CT Senior Policy Workshops. These workshops aim at improving the capability of participating countries to effectively respond to Weapons of Mass Destruction and other forms of terrorist attack. The objective is to increase senior host nation officials’ awareness of the complexities of preventing and effectively mitigating a major terrorist attack. Ten workshops are planned for FY ‘04, with three in Greece to help preparations for the 2004 Olympics. While the focus of these workshops is to effectively respond to WMD terrorist incidents overseas, some are customized to address host government needs based on their perceived threat. For example, workshops were used in the Caspian Sea as the first phase of the Training and Assistance offered to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey to further facilitate the success of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
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Gas and Oil Pipeline in responding to energy threats. In partnership with the Department of Energy, we are currently conducting Workshops in Central Asia (Kazakhstan) in response to their energy security threats and to effectively respond to nuclear materials discovered following the break-up of the Soviet Union. (FY 2004 request: $2.5 million in NADR funds to conduct 10 Workshops.) Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST). As the lead Federal agency to respond to an international terrorist-related crisis, the Department of State heads the FEST. The FEST provides a specially trained and equipped interagency team to assist the U.S. ambassador and a host government in dealing with a terrorist incident. The team can provide advice, assistance, and assessments for the embassy on a variety of terrorism-related issues. The composition of the FEST varies, depending on the nature of the incident (such as a hostage situation, an embassy bombing, or a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) incident). The team is led by a senior State Department officer and includes additional State Department personnel, such as operations officers, communications experts, and diplomatic security agents. A dedicated aircraft, which is specially configured and carries up to 55 persons, is operated by the Department of Defense and is on a four-hour standby. Smaller teams can be deployed by other means as required. (No program increases are requested in the FY ‘04 request.) Exercises, TOPOFF. The Department of State plans and coordinates the international dimension of the domestic (U.S.) Top Officials exercise (TOPOFF). This series of exercises was designed to test and improve the nation’s domestic readiness for responding to terrorist incidents involving Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) agents or devices. The current TOPOFF exercise, TOPOFF 2, is co-sponsored by the Department of States and the Department of Homeland Security. It is a series of events that started in the spring of 2002 and culminates with the full-scale exercise in May 2003. TOPOFF 2 involves active participation by the Government of Canada in all aspects of the exercise. S/CT also takes part in two or three Theater Commander’s Counterterrorism exercises each year. These full-scale exercises require a year of preparation and normally include representatives from the various agencies that participate in the FEST. The exercises ensure continued inter-operability and provide an opportunity to improve capabilities. S/CT leads the interagency effort and participates in all the planning activities. Most of the scenarios are complex and include such serious threats as chemical, biological, nuclear and cyber terrorism. (No program increases are requested in the FY ‘04 request.) Rewards for Justice Program. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program is an important tool for helping deter terrorist attacks and apprehend suspects. In general, this program offers rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to an arrest or conviction of any individual for conspiring, aiding, abetting, or committing an act of international terrorism against U.S. persons or property or the prevention, frustration, or favorable resolution thereof. With respect to Usama bin Laden and other key al-Qaida leaders, however, the Secretary has authorized a reward of up to $25 million.
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(The FY 04 budget does not include program increases, but there is an $11 million carryover from a previous Supplemental that can be used for the rewards program for terrorism, war criminal and war criminal cases.) SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/31672.htm
Michael A. Jakub, Director for Technical Programs, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony to National Security Subcommittee, Committee on Government Reform, National Combating Terrorism Research and Development Program, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2003 Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the National Combating Terrorism Research and Development Program which is carried out by the interagency Technical Support Working Group (TSWG). I am accompanied today by Mr. Edward McCallum from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (OASD/SOLIC), and by Mr. David Bolka from the Department of Homeland Security. The Terrorist Threat These hearings come at a time of daily reminders of the terrorist threat. Just a few weeks ago, the U.S. Intelligence Community issued a threat advisory warning of continued terrorist planning to strike at U.S. interests both at home and abroad … Statistics compiled by the U.S. Government reflect the spreading international nature of the threat. For example, through June 30, 2003, we have recorded 105 international terrorist attacks resulting in 108 persons killed and 1,022 wounded around the world so far this year. While the primary focus of these attacks occurs in the Middle East and South Asia, no geographic area is immune as demonstrated by last October’s horrendous attack in Bali and the more recent attacks in Mombassa, Jakarta, Casablanca, and even the UN headquarters in Baghdad. Just as the geographic areas for international terrorism are expanding, so too is the nature of the technical capabilities that terrorists are employing. Terrorists have demonstrated that they can acquire rather sophisticated weapons systems like the SA-7 surface-to-air missile used last November in Kenya. What they cannot acquire either through state sponsor support or via the black market, they seek to develop themselves. The terrorist cookbooks and computer files seized in Afghanistan, many of which have been shared by Al-Qaida with other terrorist organizations, demonstrate a growing proficiency in developing improvised explosive mixtures and detonating systems, and a growing preoccupation with developing ‘‘low tech’’ methods to use radiological, chemical and biological materials, including toxic industrial chemicals. The U.S. Response … [T]he U.S. and its allies have been working hard to prevent terrorist attacks, through a variety of means including enhanced intelligence and law
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enforcement information exchanges, joint CT operations with our allies, steps to curb terrorism funding and movement of terrorists, and wide-ranging bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts to pressure and isolate terrorists and those nations that support them. In addition, we also have developed an expanded program to enhance the capabilities of the U.S. and its allies in the Global War on Terrorism by rapidly developing and applying technology to meet the challenges posed by terrorists. To further this national goal, the TSWG continues to focus its program development efforts to balance investments across the four pillars of combating terrorism: antiterrorism (protective); counterterrorism (proactive); intelligence and law enforcement capability support; and consequence management. Our challenge is to provide a coherent and consistent context for technology development based on the threat, technical innovation, real operator needs, and proven procedures and tactics. Simply put, the TSWG philosophy is to try to ‘‘get ahead of the curve’’—to anticipate future weapons and tactics used by terrorists—and to develop security-based countermeasures to defeat terrorist capabilities and enhance the CT capabilities of the U.S. and its allies. History of the TSWG Program To fully understand the TSWG program, it might be useful to describe how the program originated. In 1982, a National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) assigned to the Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism, chaired by the State Department, responsibility for developing overall U.S. policy on countering terrorism. Several subgroups were established, including a Technical Working Group to share information about counterterrorism research and development issues. Counterterrorism R&D was one of the key issues addressed in 1986 by the Vice President’s Task Force on Combating Terrorism, chaired by then Vice President George Bush. The Task Force found that the U.S. Government’s counterterrorism R&D efforts were uncoordinated and unfocused. The Task Force recommended the formation of an interdepartmental mechanism to coordinate a national-level R&D program aimed at filling the gaps in existing R&D and to prevent duplication of efforts. The State Department, as the lead agency for combating international terrorism (and within State, the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism) was assigned responsibility for developing and coordinating this effort. To accomplish the task, we formed the TSWG. Funding Funding for the TSWG Program initially was centered in the State Department’s budget. However, by the early 1990s, it was recognized by our office in the State Department, the Congress, the National Security Council and in other Departments that increased interdepartmental funding for the Program was required if the TSWG was going to grow and prosper. The then Deputy for National Security Affairs (Mr. Robert Gates) formally requested other relevant departments and agencies to consider increasing funding for the National Program. In response, DOD acknowledged the importance of the Program and formally established a dedicated funding line beginning in FY 1992 to support the TSWG and the National Program.
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From 1992 until today, both State and Defense annually contribute the core funding for the Program with DOD providing the ‘‘lion’s share’’ of the resources. Other Departments and agencies also contribute funds based on their interests, needs, and the degree to which the National Program is addressing their specific requirements. In our FY 2004 Program, we are expecting funding contributions from other agencies and departments to assist in accomplishing the National Program. If we receive all of the funds appropriated and promised, we will execute a $200 million Program in FY 2004 with 92% of our funds directed toward projects and a relatively low 8% used for Program administration. TSWG Organization and Accomplishments Our current organization is relatively simple and straightforward. It demonstrates both the TSWG’s interdepartmental approach and our focus on developing technology in those critical functional areas necessary to have a well-rounded counterterrorism program. I have attached an organization chart of the TSWG which displays our organization and its component elements. The TSWG is a jointly administered effort with DOD. My office (Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism) provides policy oversight and overall program direction through our chairmanship of the TSWG Executive Committee. The Department also contributes toward ‘‘core funding’’ of the TSWG Program. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (OASD/SOLIC) provides technical oversight, executes and administers the Program on a daily basis through the Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office, and contributes the lion’s share of core funding for the Program. Ten Federal Departments and a number of Federal Agencies (e.g. CIA, EPA et al) representing over 80 elements of the Federal Government participate in the functional sub-working groups of the TSWG where requirements are generated and proposals are evaluated. In addition to federal elements, the TSWG has extended membership invitations to selected state and local organizations and to Congressional elements as well. (The Capitol Police, the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol participate in several of the TSWG sub-working groups). Most recently, we reached agreement with the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to join the TSWG. As a result, the TSWG will implement (with the support of DHS) those rapid prototyping and development technology requirements of interest to that Department—many of which are also of interest to other Departments and agencies as well. DHS has also agreed to contribute funding to the TSWG to assist the Program. The TSWG Program focuses on advanced technology development activities to meet the near term counterterrorism and antiterrorism technology and equipment needs of the federal community. Specifically, our Program focuses on supporting the immediate counterterrorism technology needs of U.S. diplomatic, intelligence, security, law enforcement, the military, and first responder communities. As the Washington Post reported on February 21, 2003, the successfully transitioned TSWG projects include escape masks issued to members of
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Congress and their staff. The State Department has purchased over 30,000 of these Quick 2000ä masks for use by our personnel at embassies abroad in high threat areas. DOD is purchasing over 80,000 of these masks for distribution to DOD civilian and military personnel stationed in the Washington D.C. area. A Wall Street Journal article on March 3, 2003, described a low-cost dosimeter badge designed to give the wearer an immediate indication of exposure to a radiological source. These dosimeter badges are now being purchased by the Departments of State and Defense, and others are being purchased by local and state police, and first responder groups. That dosimeter badge, as well as the masks, resulted from TSWG projects. These are just two examples describing how the TSWG Program is contributing to the Global War on Terrorism. There are many others which, because of time and in some cases classification, I cannot discuss in an open forum. You should be aware however that some of the equipment being used today by our military forces and intelligence elements in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as equipment being utilized right now to provide anti-terrorism force protection for our embassies and our military bases at home and abroad were developed by the TSWG Program. International Facet of the Program Another interesting aspect to the TSWG Program is that under the State Department’s leadership, we have developed cooperative R&D agreements with three selected NATO and major non-NATO allies to assist in accomplishing its objectives. These are not foreign aid agreements. Each participant contributes funds and expertise, thus we leverage our own funding. These working arrangements with Canada, Israel, and the U.K. have been very valuable to us and to our partners. We can leverage our funding and share the work. Successfully completed projects result in equipment that both we and our partners have jointly developed and employed. For example, we have developed with one of our foreign partners a long range surveillance system which is being used by the U.S. and our foreign powers. With another partner, we have developed a chemical—biological protective suit that also protects the wearer from fragmentation that might result from the detonation of an improvised explosive device. This piece of gear, the only one of its kind in the world, is available for purchase by the military communities in both nations as well as by state and local police and HAZMAT elements. With our third partner, we have jointly developed a variety of tagging, tracking and locating systems currently being utilized by the law enforcement and intelligence communities in both of our nations. Again these are just a few examples. Conclusion Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, we believe the TSWG Program is a valuable arrow in the national quiver for countering the evolving terrorism threat. In the future, we would like to expand the program by adding a few new foreign partners who have demonstrated R&D capabilities in counterterrorism technologies, share our views on the terrorist threat, have an appropriate
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interagency focus in their technical development activities, and are willing to pay their fair share in joint technology development. When combined with other programs for combating terrorism in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and other agencies, we believe that we are making real progress on addressing the technical aspects of the terrorist threat. If funding permits, expanding the Program into new technology areas to support our U.S. consumers, as well as expanding our work with existing foreign partners and possibly adding new partners, will strengthen our efforts to employ modern technology to help counter terrorist threats. Those of us who work in the TSWG Program are very proud of its accomplishments. Our guiding goal is to put enhanced and useable technical capability into the hands of those involved on a daily basis in conducting the Global War on Terrorism—and we are achieving that goal. We believe that our ability to be successful is derived from our current business practices which are based on a requirements-driven process featuring extensive information exchange with the user community. We are also mindful and thankful for the dedication and hard work of all the men and women who are part of the TSWG family. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/24658.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see ‘‘Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Research and Development: Funding, Organization, and Oversight,’’ Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, August 22, 2006 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/ RS21270.pdf).
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Foreign Assistance and International Terrorism, April 21, 2004 … [T]hank you for the opportunity to testify today at your hearing on ‘‘Foreign Assistance and International Terrorism.’’ This hearing is appropriate and timely in addressing the State Department’s specific counterterrorism programs in the context of the U.S. Government’s overall efforts to assist other countries, rather than programs that respond to various regional or global threats. Today’s hearing should reinforce the fact that international programs fundamentally contribute to our goals of diminishing the underlying conditions that spawn terrorism and trying to capture and thwart terrorists before they can strike us and our allies overseas. Resources are lifeblood as we prosecute the Global War on Terrorism. Many countries are willing to cooperate in the Global War on Terrorism, but many of these prospective partners are faced with relatively weak institutions and capabilities.… We greatly appreciate your Subcommittee’s support for the Administration’s full fiscal year 2004 appropriations request for Anti-Terrorism programs funded through the Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related Programs (NADR) account and we applaud your efforts to restore at least some of the cuts made by the House last year. Your action recognizes
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and underscores the essential role of international programs in the ongoing effort to combat terrorism. I sincerely hope your markup of the FY 2005 budget request will also be equally supportive and that your colleagues in the House will follow this example. My colleague, USAID Director Natsios, has described the broad Agency for International Development programs to strengthen the institutions in our partner countries. These programs are a complementary backdrop to the programs we pursue at State. Institution Building for CT Programs. While the State Department’s counterterrorism programs focus on developing specific skills, we recognize that in many of the countries where we work, the overall institutions of the government and society are not sufficiently robust for the task of aggressive counterterrorism programs. For this reason, institution building is not an abstract or academic concept. Institution building begins with having laws in place to provide the necessary legal framework for investigating, pursuing, apprehending, and prosecuting terrorists. It requires capable and motivated law enforcement personnel, investigators and prosecutors and judges. Therefore, aside from the many other benefits that may accrue from our foreign assistance programs, the U.S. Government must consider the status of a country’s social institutions and our role in enhancing those capabilities to support the Global War on Terrorism. Foreign Assistance Programs Support CT Programs. We cannot expect countries to be effective in deterring, detecting, and capturing terrorists if their security guards and policemen are barely literate, poorly paid and susceptible to bribes, if the investigators, prosecutors, and judges are poorly trained, and if the basic communications infrastructure is weak or virtually non-existent. In order to develop these institutional capabilities fully, countries need a good educational system to develop qualified personnel and even radios, computers, and other communications equipment that will allow foreign counterterrorism officials to exchange information in real time. We must do what we can to strengthen the institutions of our partners and thereby move less developed countries closer toward their full potential in combating terrorism. At the same time, we must also encourage our international partners to provide resources and expertise in support of this goal. Mr. Chairman, let me turn now to some of our specific counterterrorism programs. State Department Counterterrorism Programs Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA). For FY 2005, the Administration is requesting $128 million in the NADR account to meet the ATA program’s growing requirements. Of this amount, $25 million is specifically requested for programs in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, and Colombia. The ATA program was … initially authorized in late 1983. It continues to serve as the primary provider of U.S. Government antiterrorism training and equipment to the law enforcement agencies of friendly countries needing assistance in the Global War on Terrorism. My office, the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT), provides policy guidance and funding to the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security Office of
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Antiterrorism Assistance (DS/ATA), which implements the program. My office determines the relative priority for select countries to receive a given type of training. If a country must be assigned a higher priority because of specific problems, we will do so. It is important to keep in mind that we receive far more requests for ATA training than we can accommodate in a year, and there are always countries waiting for the benefits of this program. Once the prioritization process is completed, our colleagues in DS/ATA then work out the details of the training schedules and make the arrangements. The ATA program provides a wide range of courses to strengthen the counterterrorism capacities of recipient countries. The Department works closely with the U.S. Embassy officers, especially the Regional Security Officers, to develop a tailored training package to meet each recipient country’s needs. The training includes traditional courses, such as hostage negotiations, bomb detection, and airport security. In recent years, ATA has developed new courses for investigating terrorist organizations and defeating cyber-terrorism. The program has also provided a series of seven seminars to help other countries strengthen their counterterrorism legislation. In FY 2005, we plan to continue a robust schedule of training and assistance with our partner nations to further enhance their capacity to counter terrorism. The highest priority for assistance remains the ‘‘southern crescent’’ countries, which extend from East Asia through Central and South Asia to the Middle East and into particularly vulnerable East African countries and even beyond to the western hemisphere. We will continue to support specialized programs conducted in-country in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, and Colombia. We will support the Counterterrorism Center in Kuala Lumpur, established by the Government of Malaysia to address pressing regional counterterrorism issues. We will aid the Government of the Philippines in the establishment of a new law enforcement counterterrorism unit. We also expect to develop new courses and programs to meet the evolving terrorist threat. Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP). The Administration’s FY 2005 budget request includes $5 million for TIP. TIP is designed to bolster the border security of countries confronted with a high risk of terrorist transit. Through this program, priority countries receive a sophisticated database system and training support to identify and track suspected terrorists as they enter and exit at-risk countries. TIP is currently operational in 18 countries, and is scheduled for deployment in five more countries this calendar year. The requested funds will be used for TIP installations in up to six new countries and continued work and maintenance on existing installations. CT Engagement. The Administration is requesting $0.5 million in FY 2005 to strengthen international cooperation and working relationships for counterterrorism. In pursuit of this goal, S/CT coordinates and participates in a variety of bilateral meetings and conferences with our allies. These meetings and conferences not only advance U.S. and international goals; they also stimulate the analytical and problem-solving skills of senior officials in the countries that currently confront the terrorist threat. Terrorist Finance Programs. The Administration’s budget request for FY 2005 is $7.5 million for the NADR account to support counter/anti-terrorist
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finance programs. Understanding and interdicting the financial transactions that sustain terrorist activity is a core function of the State Department’s efforts to combat international terrorism. We seek to stem the flow of funds to terrorist groups and to strengthen the capability of our partners to detect, disrupt, and deter terrorist financing networks around the world. We are not alone in our efforts to combat terrorist financing. The UN Security Council has also significantly enhanced efforts to combat terrorist financing after the September 11 attacks, calling on member countries to criminalize terrorist financing and to freeze the assets of terrorists and terrorist organizations. The UN Security Council created the 1267 al-Qa’ida/Taliban Sanctions Committee to maintain a list of individuals and entities associated with al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, or Usama bin Laden. All UN Member States are obligated to implement asset freezes, arms embargoes, and travel bans against those on the list. This list continues to expand as other countries join the U.S. in submitting new names to the committee. So far, the international community has frozen over $130 million in assets of persons or entities with ties to terrorist networks, and in many cases to al-Qa’ida. The UN Security Council’s role in fighting terrorist financing through its resolutions on asset freezing and other sanctions, and especially its listing of al-Qa’ida-related names, has been crucial to our efforts in this area. EDITOR’S NOTE: Deleted material in this Terrorism Finance section duplicates passages in Ambassador Cofer Black’s March 18, 2003, testimony, which preceded this document.
To help other countries combat terrorism financing, we have developed CT Finance Capacity Building programs that are jointly coordinated by S/CT and administered through the Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). We coordinate these capacitydeveloping programs with counterpart entities at the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security, USAID, and the independent financial regulatory agencies. These programs provide front-line states with technical assistance in drafting anti-terrorist financing legislation, and training for bank regulators, investigators, and prosecutors to identify and combat financial crimes that support terrorism. The INL Bureau also runs a number of other programs that strengthen the fundamental law enforcement framework needed to fight a number of problems: terrorism, conventional criminals, and narcotics, including narcotics trafficking linked to the financial support of terrorism. Examples include the International Law Enforcement Academies in Budapest, Hungary; Bangkok, Thailand; Gaborone, Botswana; and Roswell, New Mexico. Bilateral training also is provided for a variety of courses on such topics as alien smuggling, border security, and cyber crime, and some of this training has counterterrorism aspects. In addition to the counterterrorism programs mentioned above, the State Department also has a number of regional and country-specific assistance efforts, focusing heavily on countries where there are major terrorism threats. South East Asia. The Bureau for East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) has put together a $70 million request in FY 2005 using Economic Support Funds (ESF) program to continue to help Indonesia in a number of areas, including
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education, economic growth, and implementation and enforcement of financial crimes and antiterrorism laws and policies. The education program initiative would be designed to improve the quality of secular and technical education and to moderate extremism in madrassas. In the Philippines, $35 million is requested in ESF for EAP and USAID to continue to help the government and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao to implement their peace agreement. This is accomplished by funding sorely-needed health, education, and small infrastructure improvements and the transition of Muslim separatist fighters to peaceful and profitable livelihood pursuits, such as corn, sorghum, and seaweed farming. South Asia. S/CT and ATA have several programs designed to allow countries in the region to defend themselves from terrorist groups. The ATA program has over the past year trained an indigenous presidential protective unit for the Afghan government. It has also recently completed the training of a dedicated civilian investigative unit in Pakistan that will significantly increase that county’s capacity to investigate terrorist groups and their activities. Other ATA training conducted throughout the region is reinforcing the strong partnership between the U.S. and both Pakistan and India, as well as other South Asian governments cooperating in the Global War on Terrorism. In addition to the $6 million we are seeking for ATA programs in Pakistan to train counterterrorism specialists, International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) funds are being requested to improve the effectiveness of that country’s law enforcement efforts in border security, law enforcement coordination and development, and counternarcotics. The Administration has requested $40 million for FY 2005 to help secure the western border of Pakistan from terrorists, criminals and narcotics traffickers. Africa. The President’s East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI) announced in June of 2003 is designed to strengthen the capabilities of regional governments to combat terrorism and to foster cooperation among these governments. It includes military training for border and coastal security, a variety of programs to strengthen control of the movement of people and goods across borders, aviation security capacity-building, assistance for regional efforts against terrorist financing, and police training. EACTI also includes an education program to counter extremist influence and a robust outreach program. In addition to EACTI, we are using NADR funds, Economic Support Funds, and other diplomatic and developmental tools to help strengthen democratic institutions and support effective governance. Amounts devoted to these efforts are relatively small, but in Africa, a little goes a long way. General Law Enforcement Training. As part of a broader institutional building effort, INL is funding a police development program begun in 2002 for national police in Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia. While not specifically CT focused, the program is introducing essential skills-based learning and problem solving techniques to build the capacity of these East African police forces to detect and investigate all manner of crime, including terrorist incidents. INL is also funding forensic laboratory development programs in Tanzania and Uganda … In Kenya, INL is funding technical assistance and
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training for the Anti-narcotics Unit of the Kenyan national police and the anti-smuggling unit that works out of the Port of Mombassa. These units jointly search containers entering the port to interdict drugs and other contraband … Last year we held a major counterterrorism conference for 13 nations in southern Africa. The sessions, held in the International Law Enforcement Academy in Botswana, included crisis management workshops and discussions of ways to strengthen counterterrorism laws. In 2002, six African countries from various parts of the continent took part in a week-long CT legislation seminar in Washington that State co-sponsored with the Justice Department. Latin America. Colombia remains a major trouble spot in the western hemisphere because of the unholy alliance between narcotics traffickers and FARC and other terrorist groups. The varieties of assistance programs include the Andean Counterdrug initiative, and anti-kidnapping initiative and the ATA program … I mention them because they are also part of the overall program to counter terrorism even though the elements are different than the more widely publicized threat from al-Qa’ida and related groups. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/31672.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Technologies for Public Safety In Critical Incident Response Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 27, 2004 I am pleased to discuss just some of the efforts the U.S. Department of Justice is making to provide even better tools and technologies to state and local officials. At a time when law enforcement is asked to do more than ever before, our hope is that teamwork and technology can help you respond more swiftly and surely to critical incidents—incidents such as terrorist attacks. At the top of the hierarchy of needs is intelligence and information sharing. As the last three years have proven, effective intelligence and information sharing are crucial to our success in the war against terrorism. One of our most promising efforts to bring together state, local, and federal law enforcement is the development of the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan. It was produced through the efforts of the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative—a consortium of 32 local, state, tribal, federal, and international justice organizations working together to overcome the barriers to justice information. Global Justice is establishing new relationships to agencies and new disciplines—and at all levels of government—while at the same time respecting privacy and security concerns. As part of the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, we are seeking to connect and share information through the sensitive-but-unclassifiedinformation networks that the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security support and operate. At this time, these systems include: ¥ Homeland Security Information Network (NSIN), ¥ Joint Regional Information Exchange System (JRIES), ¥ The FBI’s Law Enforcement Online (LEO),
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¥ Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS), and ¥ Criminal Information Sharing Alliance Network (CISAnet).
By bringing these systems together, we will increase our ability to detect, deter, and dismantle terrorist cells and operations before they can attack. In addition, information sharing and cooperation have been the driving force behind the creation of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). This system is helping us identify the guilty, solve old cases, and lock up the worst offenders for longer. The National DNA Index now allows 175 participating laboratories from all 50 states, the U.S. Army Laboratory, the FBI Laboratory, and 18 countries to exchange DNA profiles across borders and oceans. Since 1998, CODIS has aided more than 11,220 investigations and connected more than 8,200 forensic samples with convicted offenders. The FBI is also involved in work to increase the capacity of its fingerprint system (IAFIS) and to make it more accessible to state and local law enforcement. In addition, the Justice Department is working closely with the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, and State, to improve and upgrade the tools we use to collect fingerprints from visitors seeking to enter our country and persons suspected of crimes. The increases in the speed of collection and the clarity of the fingerprint that will come from this research will pay great dividends. By preventing terrorists and other criminals from entering our country, we can stop terrorist acts, solve crimes more rapidly, and ensure public safety. Last week, I had the honor of announcing our first grants under the President’s ‘‘Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology’’ Initiative. That Initiative seeks to provide $1 billion over five years to aid and improve the use of DNA analysis and to eliminate the backlogs at state and local labs. The nearly $100 million in grants coming from the DNA initiative this month is nearly twice the amount of last year’s funding. In addition, by the end of September, we will have awarded more than $50 million in grants to help make additional forensic science improvements in areas of critical need at the state and local level. By strengthening our state and local networks of DNA and forensic analysis, we know we can catch criminals faster, put them in jail longer, and free up resources to focus on new frontiers in the fight against crime and terror. The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice has also taken pioneering steps to: ¥ Develop computer algorithms to improve the analysis of handwriting samples; ¥ Deploy laser technology to analyze dyes on paper, allowing better tracking of the origins of written materials used in crime; and ¥ Enhance latent fingerprint analysis for missing and victimized children—fingerprints, which are often difficult to develop over time.
Finally, the National Institute of Justice has undertaken research and development efforts in several other areas to help state and local law enforcement in the fight against terrorism.
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For instance, agencies of the Justice Department and Homeland Security have been working together to build a national strategy to improve the capabilities and meet the needs of state and local bomb squads. We are looking specifically at how to deal most effectively with bombs, suicide bombers, and radio-controlled explosive devices. More specifically, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has been working hard to deal with the potential threat of improvised explosive devices. The National Institute of Justice is working to develop a versatile bomb robot that every bomb squad can afford. We are committed to listening to the opinions of those who do the important work of public safety in our communities. NIJ recently worked with the National Bomb Squad Commander’s Advisory Board to develop a national strategy to address the needs of our state and local bomb squads. Several current research and development projects were undertaken in direct response to this strategy. For example, we have begun: ¥ Development and testing of a ‘‘real time’’ information-sharing system for bomb squads that will allow a bomb technician on the scene in one city to get vital data from colleagues in other cities. ¥ Development of the next generation of weapons detection equipment—ones with ‘‘stand-off’’ capability allowing the operators to detect concealed weapons at a distance from the place at which they might be used and ones that can be used both indoors and outdoors under a variety of conditions. ¥ Research on ways to detect and deactivate large vehicle bombs.
NIJ has also provided grants for more than a dozen social science research projects to help us understand what motivates terrorists, how those motivations can help counter-terrorism operations, and which aspects of our society might be targeted next by terrorists. All of these ideas hold great promise for the cause of justice and public safety—and the potential to bring together federal, state, and local law enforcement to be even more effective and efficient in the defense of lives and liberties. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2004/agremarkstps.htm
William P. Pope, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Eliminating Terrorist Sanctuaries: The Role of Security Assistance,’’ The House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, March 10, 2005 The President’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism describes four main objectives: Defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by attacking their sanctuaries, leadership, finances, and command, control and communications; Deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating with other states to take action against these international threats;
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Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk; and Defend the United States, its citizens, and interests at home and abroad. Partnership with foreign governments is important for each of these objectives. In today’s testimony, I will focus primarily on the second—the denial of support and sanctuary to terrorists through cooperation with other states. Just as our views of the nature of warfare have changed to confront the threat posed by al-Qaida and its affiliates, so must our views of counterterrorism assistance evolve. A terrorist does not view an Aegis equipped missile destroyer like the U.S.S. Cole only as a deterrent. He also sees it as a target that he might hope to sink with a few hundred pounds of explosives and a small boat. Conventional weapons continue to hold an important place in our national arsenal, just as providing modern weapons systems to allies through foreign military financing and other forms of traditional security assistance continues to be in our national interest. But the rise of asymmetric warfare, to borrow a term used by military strategists in discussing terrorist operations, has required a fundamental adjustment in our nation’s security assistance strategy. Our government must be prepared to help partner nations protect themselves, and by extension the United States, from terrorism with a wide spectrum of assistance and delivery platforms. Elements of this spectrum may include the most basic cop-to-cop training in community policing on the streets of foreign capitals, tactical training of police SWAT teams and explosive ordnance disposal experts, investigative training in arcane areas such as the encrypted cyber communications and reverse money laundering schemes known to be used by terrorist organizations, the fostering of interagency cooperation through effective joint terrorism task forces, institutional reform of ponderous and sometimes corrupt security institutions, assistance in intelligence collection and analysis, and military training and assistance at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Each partner nation does not need every item in our inventory of deliverables. We have to discern, through expert assessment and analysis, what a nation’s most pressing requirements are, and then we must convince its policy makers how we can best help. We must provide that assistance and training in a manner that complements the partner’s existing security infrastructure and can be sustained. It is worth noting that there will inevitably be countries with legitimate needs that we choose not to assist because, in our estimation, the potential threat emanating from or through that country to U.S. personnel or interests is low.… [T]hese programs are not need-based foreign aid in the traditional sense. They are an investment based on U.S. security interests and objectives. The challenge, of course, is to make sure that our assessment of risk is accurate and that we do not overlook tomorrow’s threat by focusing exclusively on today’s. As Members of Congress, you are accustomed to reviewing budgets and allocating resources. Please allow me to say a few words about something that is not easily reflected in budget figures. In counterterrorism assistance, how we do things is as important as how much we have to spend. From long
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experience, we know that impersonal training or equipment packages cannot be simply dropped into the hands of our partners and reasonably be expected to get results. Measurable, lasting improvement in a partner nation’s capability to confront terrorist activity in or emanating from its territory usually demands customized programs, hands-on training, locally appropriate equipment, and ongoing mentoring. It requires frequent, face-to-face contact between U.S. government personnel and the host nation’s security establishment. It requires talented, experienced trainers, who regard their students as colleagues and treat them with respect. It requires the engagement of ambassadors and the most senior members of our foreign policy establishment to encourage an institutional environment in which tactical and operational training can take root and bear fruit. And it requires that our diverse federal agencies, both military and civilian, work together to ensure that distinct initiatives are complementary and collaborative. There is an additional benefit to the kind of hands-on training I have described that bears mention. Our nation’s commitment to sound human rights practices and conducting investigations under the rule of law is strong. Consistent exposure to former federal investigators and prosecutors from the United States helps bring the principles we teach in these areas in each of our courses into sharp relief. In the appendix to this testimony you may note one statistic of which we are most proud. Colombian anti-kidnapping units trained under the State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program have rescued over 48 hostages from kidnappers and arrested 206. These units are vetted for human rights issues and provided human rights training. Although Colombia continues to suffer one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world, this type of assistance will make sustained progress in changing this trend. The foregoing discussion of how counterterrorism assistance should be provided applies globally, Mr. Chairman, but, given your long interest in Africa as the former chairman of the Africa subcommittee, allow me to focus on that region … [I]n July 2004 when the Africa Policy Advisory Panel of the Center for International and Strategic Studies issued a report regarding counterterrorism in Africa. The authors were unambiguous: ‘‘The threat of terror to US interests in Africa is concrete, rising and discernible. The probability of another attack on Americans on African soil is high.’’ Two programs underway on the African continent offer useful illustrations of the requirements I have described and the challenges we face. Kenya In June 2003, the President announced the commitment of $100 million for an East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI) to provide counterterrorism equipment, training, and assistance to six countries in the region: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. As part of this effort, EACTI provided $10 million for an intensive in-country antiterrorism training program for Kenya. This program is overseen by my office and implemented by Diplomatic Security’s Office of Antiterrorism Assistance. The Kenya program was developed from the ground up. DS/ATA experts traveled to Kenya, consulted extensively with members of the Embassy Country Team, and employed experts from other USG agencies, to ensure that Kenya’s most
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pressing needs were addressed. Rather than simply use a training and equipment package for the Kenyans that we have used successfully in other countries, ATA customized its plan to focus from the outset on what it perceived as the weakest link in Kenya’s capacity to combat terrorist organizations: interagency collaboration, command and control. In close coordination with Kenya’s Commissioner of National Police, Director of Public Prosecutions, and others senior Kenyan officials, ATA devised a nine-week training course that has been delivered to a hand-picked group of investigators, prosecutors, immigration officials, and counterterrorism analysts. The participants … will go on to comprise the core staff of a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Through nine weeks of training, institutional rivalries and suspicions have been broken down among the participants, and they are ready to bring their skills to bear in a concerted fashion. ATA has assisted in identifying and making ready a base from which the JTTF will operate. Each member brings to the task force the experience and resources of his or her agency, but they will now be working together across agency lines toward common counterterrorism objectives. An experienced former U.S. investigator will be resident with the JTTF to provide ongoing assistance and advice. A British counterterrorism expert and the U.S. embassy resident legal advisor (an experienced U.S. prosecutor) will also be on hand for the long term to assist and advise. Further specialized training and equipment will be forthcoming, but it will be crafted in consultation with the Kenyan task force for their use in making arrests and prosecutions. We are moving away from a ‘‘Here you go—good luck’’ approach to counterterrorism assistance to more of a ‘‘We’re all in this together—what shall we do next’’ approach. The difference may appear subtle from here in Washington, but it has enormous implications for partner nation ownership, sustainability, and success on the ground. Another element of the Kenya program is worth noting. The Commissioner of National Police is eager to improve the KNP’s maritime interdiction capability, particularly in the waters along the northern coast, where traditional cargo dhows transit the Somali border on a daily basis. We know that some of these vessels carry contraband and persons of interest from a counterterrorism perspective, but there is currently a very limited capability to interdict and inspect them. A U.S. Navy group has been working with the Kenyan Navy in this area for some months. In planning the maritime element of its program, ATA has drawn extensively on the Navy group’s expertise … The Kenya program represents several elements of the criteria that I mentioned earlier: a customized approach based on the strengths and weaknesses of the partner nation; resident instructors, advisors, and mentors who gain the trust and respect of their Kenyan colleagues; and various USG elements— State, DOD, Justice—working together to combine resources and expertise that ensures the most effective assistance possible. Sahel and North Africa The Sahel region is an area of potential vulnerability due to its vast, low density geography, nomadic populations, and porous borders. International and indigenous terrorist groups have been able to travel across the region,
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smuggle contraband, including weapons, and recruit new members from indigenous populations. Islamist terrorist groups pose a terrorist threat to a region that is home to more than 100 million Muslims. The most active group in the Sahel is the al-Qaida-affiliated Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC). In 2003, a faction of this group led by Abderezzak al-Para held 32 European hostages in southern Algeria and northern Mali. We seek to facilitate cooperation among governments in the region (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, and Nigeria) and strengthen their capacity to combat terrorist organizations. The Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) is a good example of collaborative, interagency program efforts that I have described as essential for success. The Pan Sahel Initiative is an $8.4 million program to provide CT training that focused on the nations of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad. In 2003–04, our Defense Department colleagues in the European Command (EUCOM) provided trainers from the U.S. Special Forces to train with the security forces of these governments. Countries in the region are active and willing partners in counterterrorism efforts. In 2004, forces from Niger and Chad engaged GSPC elements in their respective countries. In the case of Chad, its military forces killed or captured 43 operatives in a clash in northern Chad in March 2004, driving GSPC second-in-command Amari Saifi (a.k.a. Abderrezak alPara) into the hands of a Chadian rebel group, which eventually led to al-Para being turned over to Algerian custody in October. To complement EUCOM’s efforts with military units in the Sahel countries, we directed the Antiterrorism Assistance program to work with the civilian law enforcement agencies of Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, as well. ATA has delivered approximately $6.6 million in training and assistance to these countries in Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005. The Administration is considering a follow-on effort that would continue the success of PSI, building upon that program, to improve the military and political capability of regional governments to meet the threats they face in the Sahel. The working title for this effort is the Trans Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, or TSCTI. The TSCTI would seek to further strengthen regional CT capabilities, enhance and institutionalize cooperation among the region’s security forces, promote democratic governance and human rights, and ultimately benefit our worldwide CT goals and bilateral relationships. The TSCTI concept would look beyond simply the provision of training and equipment for counterterrorism units, but also would consider development assistance, expanded public diplomacy campaigns and other elements as part of an overall CT strategy. TSCTI is under review within the Administration, and we are working to integrate the concept into agency budget and program planning processes … The foregoing descriptions of counterterrorism assistance efforts in Africa by no means reflect the extent of our CT operations.… I believe that we are now in the stage of our nation’s overall counterterrorism strategy that we must look beyond the immediate priority regions of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. Nonetheless, our efforts in Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Colombia and elsewhere are extensive and ongoing … [A]n appendix to my written testimony … describes in some
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detail the priorities and progress of ATA’s counterterrorism assistance efforts in these countries and elsewhere. Terrorist Interdiction Program and Counterterrorism Finance The mission to eliminate terrorist presence or sanctuaries globally extends beyond helping partner nations to investigate and interdict terrorists. We also must constrict their mobility and access to financial support. Through the Terrorist Interdiction Program, we provide select nations with the computer systems, training and support to establish effective watchlisting capabilities, and thereby help identify suspect persons attempting to pass through air, land or sea ports of entry. Since 2001, twenty nations have been provided this capability, and they have been successful in interdicting insurgents in Iraq, hundreds of individuals traveling on stolen passports in Pakistan, as well as wanted criminals, narcotics smugglers, and human traffickers world-wide. The Terrorist Interdiction Program has, in several countries, become the cornerstone of counterterrorism cooperation with the United States. Combating terrorist financing remains a critical component of the global war on terrorism, as terrorist groups need funds to recruit, train, equip, and operate. Depriving them of funding provides us a better opportunity to identify, disrupt, prosecute, and defeat terrorists. One way the USG combats terrorist financing is through foreign assistance capacity building programs administered by the State Department. The interagency Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG), chaired by State, coordinates, develops, and delivers training and technical assistance to priority countries to bolster their anti-money laundering/counterterrorist financing regimes. U.S. assistance programs address the legal drafting, financial investigations, bank regulatory supervision, financial intelligence units, and judicial/prosecutorial aspects of combating terrorist financing. In addition, these programs have begun to address the threat of terrorist financing through non-bank conduits, such as alternative remittance systems, cash couriers, and the abuse of charities. To date, 17 priority countries deemed most vulnerable to terrorist financing have been formally assessed, and training and technical assistance have been provided to countries, bilaterally and regionally, in the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In addition, U.S. anti-money laundering programs underway in regions traditionally plagued by narco-trafficking and organized crime networks have complemented counterterrorism finance efforts by reinforcing host government institutions’ ability to follow the money trail. Counterterrorism finance training programs have already paid dividends in the case of Indonesia. With U.S. assistance, Indonesia adopted amendments to its anti-money laundering law to meet international standards to avoid FATF sanctions, established a fully operational financial intelligence unit, and successfully prosecuted the main perpetrators of the October 2002 Bali bombing attacks. Just last month, Indonesia was removed from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering’s NCCT blacklist. Multilateral Engagement In addition to working bilaterally, the United States has aggressively mobilized the United Nations and other international organizations to fulfill their
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counterterrorism obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1373. In UNSCR 1373, States agreed among other things to ‘‘deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens.’’ We have used our permanent seat on the UN Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) to ensure that the UN is closely monitoring member states’ implementation of their obligations. We also work with other donor nations in the Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG), a G8-initiated forum for CT donors, to coordinate and increase CT assistance to high-risk countries. International donor assistance provided to these countries includes basic law-and-order capacity building, legislative assistance, and border security assistance. Conclusion Allow me to conclude, Mr. Chairman, with three summary points. First, we are running in a marathon, not a sprint. The starter gun went off in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center. Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States and all Americans in 1996. Two U.S. embassies in Africa were attacked in 1998. The USS Cole was attacked in 2000. But it was not until the morning of September 11, 2001, that the majority of our citizens truly realized that, like it or not, we were at war. The rapid overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan was gratifying, but Osama Bin Laden remains at large, and, more important, his extremist vision continues to stir followers and sympathizers around the world to violence against us. We cannot go it alone, and the role of security assistance in all its many forms is absolutely crucial to this struggle and to the security of our homeland. There is no question that Americans are safer if we can assist our international partners to stop terrorists overseas, before they are able to bring violence to our home shores. That assistance must be robust and sustained for its effects to be realized. Second, we must be practical and methodical in our efforts. We are a large government with many different agencies that have important roles to play. There must be solid coordination of our engagement and assistance efforts abroad. In Washington, the Secretary of State, with assistance from my office, must continue to coordinate overseas counterterrorism assistance. In our missions overseas, the more nuanced work of ensuring collaboration among various members of the country teams is and must remain the responsibility of the Chief of Mission. That is not to say that there will not be and should not be some overlap of responsibilities among agencies. Finally, we must maintain a diverse and balanced portfolio of targeted countries in our assistance strategy. Al-Qaida’s strength is its proven ability to adapt and improvise. We must not focus exclusively on today’s threat areas, only to find that the quarry has moved on to less hostile environs that we have heretofore ignored. EDITOR’S NOTE: For an appendix on the ATA Program, see the full text at http:// wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/109/pop031005.htm; also see chapter 25, Counterterrorism Programs, Defense of Department Counterterrorism Programs, for a statement at the same hearing by Rear Admiral Hamlin B. Tallent, U.S. Navy, Director, European Plans and Operations Center, United States European Command Before
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the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, March 10, 2005 (http://www.internationalrelations.house. gov/archives/109/tal031005.htm).
Dr. Philip D. Zelikow, Counselor, U.S. Department of State, ‘‘Reviewing the State Department’s Annual Report on Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the House Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2005 The Department of State has the lead responsibility for advancing our counterterrorism goals with other countries and welcomes the opportunity to submit a report to the Congress on those issues. After I say a few words on that subject, I will address the composition of the report and why we made the decision to revamp the Department’s report to reflect the creation of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), allowing each agency to concentrate in the area of its expertise. International terrorism continued to pose a significant threat to the United States and its partners in 2004. Despite ongoing improvements in U.S. homeland security, our campaigns against insurgents and terrorists, and the deepening counterterrorism cooperation among the nations of the world, the slaughter of hundreds of innocents at Beslan school and major attacks in Madrid, on a Philippines ferry, and in Sinai, demonstrated the danger that international terrorism poses to friendly countries. Although fortunately there were no attacks on the homeland during 2004, the loss of American citizens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Gaza this year reminds us that the U.S. homeland, U.S. citizens and interests, and U.S. friends and allies remain at risk. In 2004, the United States broadened and deepened its international cooperation on counterterrorism issues. Increased diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement, military and financial cooperation contributed directly to homeland security and the interdiction or disruption of terrorists around the globe. We have discussed these efforts extensively in Country Reports on Terrorism 2004 our annual report to Congress transmitted to you on April 27. In that report, we offered a number of examples of this cooperation … Notably, 2004 was also marked by progress in decreasing the threat from state-sponsored terrorism. Iraq’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was rescinded in October 2004. Although still designated as state sponsors of terrorism, Libya and Sudan took significant steps to cooperate in the global war on terrorism. Unfortunately, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and in particular, Iran continued to embrace terrorism as an instrument of national policy. And, as we have noted before, we find it most worrisome that these countries all have the capabilities to manufacture weapons of mass destruction and other destabilizing technologies that could fall into the hands of terrorists.
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Iran and Syria are of special concern to us for their direct, open, and prominent role in supporting Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups, for their unhelpful actions in Iraq and in Iran’s case, the unwillingness to bring to justice senior al-Qaida members detained in 2003, including senior al-Qaida members who were involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks. Now let me turn to the process issues. For years, as many of you know, statistical data on global terrorism has been published as part of an annual State Department report called Patterns of Global Terrorism, that was last provided to Congress in April 2004. The law itself requires basically two things. It requires detailed assessments of specified countries, and information about specified terrorist groups. The compilation of data about terrorist attacks is not a required part of the report. And, in fact, the Department of State itself has never compiled statistical data on international terrorist incidents. This function has always been performed by the intelligence community, although the State Department has traditionally released this data, going back to the years in which the State Department was the public voice of the U.S. Government on international terrorism generally. Of course, that situation has been changing in recent years. In July 2004, the 9/11 Commission recommended creation of a National Counterterrorism Center to conduct all-source analysis of global terrorism. The President implemented this recommendation by Executive Order in August and the center was created by statute in December 2004, in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. But what’s important for our purposes here is what the law that Congress adopted said the NCTC should do. The law states that the NCTC is the primary organization for analysis and integration of ‘‘all intelligence possessed or acquired by the United States Government pertaining to terrorism or counterterrorism.’’ The law further states that the NCTC will be the United States Government’s ‘‘shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists and international terror groups, as well as their goals, strategies, capabilities, and networks of contact and support.’’ Given that statutory mandate, the State Department has focused its own report to Congress on the issues in its mandate, renamed Country Reports on Terrorism 2004, assessing countries and providing information on terrorist groups, which we are still statutorily required to do. And we respect and defer to the National Counterterrorism Center to assume its new mandate as the ‘‘shared knowledge bank’’ for data on global terrorism. We are gratified by the way some serious experts on terrorism analysis have responded to these innovations. Former terrorism prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy in ‘‘The National Review Online’’ noted that under our new approach, State and NCTC ‘‘have labored to make terrorism information more reliable, more accessible, and more reflective of common sense.’’ On April 27, NCTC committed to developing a new approach to compiling statistics that needs to be and will be significantly revised and improved, including NCTC’s plans for providing a more comprehensive accounting of global terrorist incidents by June of this year. The Department of State would support legislative changes that specifically task NCTC with the annual responsibility for statistical analysis of terrorism
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consistent with its basic mandate. The State Department would continue to prepare an annual report addressing state sponsors of terrorism, multilateral and bilateral cooperation on terrorism, terrorist groups and terrorist sanctuaries, as well as the new Section 7120 reporting requirements that lie within State’s area of expertise. The Department has begun consultations on this topic. We will be working with DNI and NCTC to shape a joint understanding on this topic.… SOURCE: http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/zel051205.pdf
John O. Brennan, Interim Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Statement for the Record Before the House International Relations Committee, May 12, 2005 I am pleased to be here to address the role that the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) have played over the past year in compiling a chronology of international terrorism incidents. By way of background, the Intelligence Community (IC) has traditionally provided input to the State Department publication of Patterns of Global Terrorism. This has included, among other things, Appendix A, that laid out in some detail those incidents of ‘‘international terrorism’’ that were considered ‘‘significant.’’ Because Patterns was produced in response to statutory directive, Intelligence Community input was consistent with the statutory criteria that, for instance, defined ‘‘international terrorism’’ as ‘‘terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.’’ In many cases, the key statutory criteria, such as the definition of ‘‘noncombatant,’’ whether an attack in a specific region should be considered ‘‘international’’ and what constituted ‘‘significant’’ were open to interpretation. In such cases the IC looked to the State Department to provide counting rules; these counting rules, coupled with past practices and our own judgment were then used to evaluate specific incidents. With the standup of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center in May 2003, responsibility to support Patterns shifted from the CIA to TTIC. However, during the hectic early days of TTIC, the database to support Patterns received insufficient attention and resources. Adequate quality control was lacking, incidents were missed, and the document was published with numerous errors. As you are aware, these shortcomings were noted by academics and the press, and Appendix A was ultimately reissued. To avoid a repeat of such problems TTIC/NCTC took a number of actions last year: — Increased personnel assigned to the database from three part-time to ten full time individuals; — Reengineered the database itself to improve data integrity; — Established an Incident Adjudication Board, drawn from Intelligence Community officers assigned to the TTIC/NCTC to ensure quality control; — And took on board, as appropriate, recommendations of the Department of State Inspector General’s Report which had reviewed the 2003 production process.
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In the process of compiling the statistics for 2004, a number of issues became apparent. Because of the significant increase in the resources devoted to maintaining the database, far more source material was reviewed and a substantially higher number of incidents meeting the statutory criteria were compiled; significant international incidents rose from under 200 in 2003 to approximately 650 last year—a copy of the entire chronology of significant international attacks is provided for the written record. While some of the global increase was attributable to incidents in Iraq, the overall growth in total incidents represented a statistical discontinuity—a function of increased resources dedicated to research and not necessarily any change in the nature of global terrorism. The impact of such additional research is seen most clearly in Kashmir, where a dramatic growth is noted over previous years’ data; there is little doubt that a more accurate accounting of the incidents in Kashmir would have reflected far higher totals than was the case in 2003 Patterns. In other words: the numbers compiled for 2004 cannot be compared to those of previous years in any meaningful way. A rigorous application of the statutory criteria and counting rules clearly gave rise to a significant increase in the number of international terrorist incidents. However, in compiling the results, TTIC/NCTC became increasingly concerned with both the statutory criteria themselves as well as the definitions that we were being asked to use. Of primary concern was the statutory definition of ‘‘international terrorism.’’ This definitional approach may be valid for a state sponsored threat, but is far less useful with the kind of transnational threat that we confront now. For instance, the requirement that international terrorism involve the citizens or territory of more than one country necessarily implied that if a suicide bomber from Country A blows up a caf´e in Country A and kills only citizens of country A, it doesn’t count. But … if a suicide bomber from country A blows up a caf´e in Country A and there happens to be a tourist from Country B in the caf´e who is killed or seriously wounded, it counts. In other words, the end results were arbitrary and often a function of serendipity; analysts were left trying to determine citizenship of those people present at an attack or the makeup of an aircraft manifest. In our compilation of 2004 data, we found problems not only with the statutory definition of ‘‘international terrorism,’’ but also with incidents occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan. Determining ‘‘noncombatant’’ status in such an environment is hard enough. But in such ‘‘war-like’’ circumstances, it was often impossible to distinguish between terrorism and insurgency; for instance, in some cases Iraqis were part of the Zarqawi network (a terrorist network) and in other cases they were Former Regime Elements (insurgency). Under the statutory definition, as noted above, attacks by Iraqis on Iraqis wouldn’t meet the definition of international terrorism. But in the context of attacks against the U.S. military, we had little practical or intellectually defendable way of distinguishing between terrorism and insurgency; as such, with State’s concurrence, we focused on attacks against international civilians. Finally, we were advised by Department of State to continue to use the Community definition of ‘‘significant’’ as attacks that involve death, serious
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injury, or property damage over $10000; that amount presents a very low bar, but it is the standard that has been used for many years. These are just a few of the difficulties associated with counting international terrorist incidents. The Department of State and many others shared our concerns regarding the often arbitrary nature of the designations, and a consensus began to emerge on the need for a methodological change that more accurately captured the nature of the terrorist threat. I must emphasize that at no point did the Department of State attempt to pressure NCTC to lower its numbers, or indicate to us that the numbers would not be included in Patterns because they were ‘‘too high.’’ Looking Ahead Under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, NCTC has been given unique responsibilities to ‘‘serve as the central and shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists and international terror groups, as well as their goals, strategies, capabilities, and networks of contacts and support.’’ As such, I believe that this is an opportune time to reexamine how terrorist incidents are reported; we do not pretend to have all the answers and, thus, will be reaching out to subject matter experts both inside and outside the government. Given the concerns highlighted above, we have serious misgivings about the utility of the data that was released on the 27th of April. As such, we will make available, by the end of June of this year, a more comprehensive accounting of worldwide terrorism incidents. The precise nature of this accounting is still being worked, but we will undoubtedly extend reporting beyond those incidents that only involve citizens or territory of two or more countries. Depending on what precisely is counted, this could raise the global totals to several thousand incidents … [A]s we have done with the data released on 27 April, we will make both the methodology and the results as transparent as possible, ideally providing an interactive search capability on the INTERNET; we are currently reviewing precisely what can be accomplished by June. And in this vein, I also want to express my deep appreciation for the efforts of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City (MIPT). MIPT is partnering with us to make the data as accessible as possible to the American public. The data to be released in June, like that released the end of last month, will be available at www.tkb.org. Finally, I would caution against the natural inclination to want to use terrorist incidents as a simple metric to judge progress in the Global War on Terrorism. While we anticipate this new approach will provide data that can be used to more accurately depict the nature of terrorism around the world, it won’t necessarily translate into a simple basis for judging whether we are prevailing in the struggle against terrorism. SOURCE: http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/bre051205.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Andrew K. Semmel, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy and Negotiations, Remarks at Washington and Lee University, ‘‘Nuclear Proliferation: Today’s Challenges and US Responses,’’
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Lexington, Virginia, February 24, 2006 (http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/ 62181.htm); also see Henry Crumpton, Special Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Special Briefing on Release of State Department Country Reports on Terrorism 2005; Russell Travers, Deputy Director for Information Sharing and Knowledge Development, National Counterterrorism Center, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2006 (http:// www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm2/65482.htm).
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COUNTERTERRORISM PROGRAMS Major General Stanley A. McChrystal, Vice Director for Operations, J-3, Joint Staff, Department of Defense, Coalition Targeting Procedures, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2003 COLONEL MACHAMER: Major General Stanley McChrystal … is here to brief us on targeting planning and procedures. And I know you have heard a lot about our precision bombing campaign, and I emphasize ‘‘precision.’’ And I think it’s beneficial to understand just what that means, and the systematic and methodical process that goes on behind it to minimize and prevent collateral damage. General McChrystal will present a briefing on that topic. MAJOR GENERAL MCCHRYSTAL: I would just like to start by emphasizing a few points, and they are really highlighted by the quotes shown. First is, the target of the operation that is ongoing now is the regime of Saddam Hussein. It’s not the Iraqi people. And so, we believe that it’s important that our targeting reflect that same objective, and that is to liberate the Iraqi people by eliminating that regime. Second is, we have an unprecedented capability now with technology to achieve precision in our targeting. We have the ability to hit, in most cases, exactly what we try to hit, and scale the munitions appropriately to the task. We also believe that that capability comes with it a responsibility. Because we can be more discriminating in the use of force, it gives us a responsibility to be more discriminating. As you know, international law draws a clear distinction between combatants and civilians in any war. The principle that civilians are protected during operations lies at the heart of the international law of armed conflict. And it’s that distinction that we believe is important. And it’s also a distinction that I would, at the beginning, say is so contrary to some of the practices we have seen such as the use of human shields by the Saddam Hussein regime in some of the operations to date. Next slide, please. Start by defining what we mean by collateral damage and unintended casualties. Really, they are two separate and distinct things, but they both are undesired outcomes of conflict. In this case, targeting of specific military— militarily legitimate targets that may result in any of the things that you see above.
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One would be protected sites that are damaged or destroyed. That could be a mosque, could be a hospital, could be schools; it could be diplomatic facilities. And those are all things that we take great care not to impact, or not to influence in the targeting process. Second, you’ll see what we’ll discuss a little later in the brief is something called ‘‘dual-use facilities.’’ And that’s something that—a facility that has a civilian use, and therefore might be something that we don’t want to target, but it also, at the same time, has a military use. For example, communications facilities might be that. And so a decision is made in that case, a balancing, the necessity on the one hand with the desire to avoid unintended consequences on the other; and then, a discussion of potential noncombatant casualties. And any time we get any noncombatants injured or killed, or their structure is damaged or destroyed, those are obviously things we want to minimize, particularly in an operation like Iraqi Freedom, where the intent is, in fact, to protect and help the people of Iraq from the regime, as opposed to hurt them in the process. Now, clearly, as I have mentioned, the technology has given us a great capability and a great responsibility, but has not made us perfect. And we’re not anywhere near that, and we don’t expect to be near that. We are going to have collateral damage occur. We have seen it already. There will be unintended casualties. And that will happen when technological systems malfunction, weapons break. It’s going to happen when human beings make mistakes, simple human error. And that will happen in every war and on a daily basis. And it will also happen in the fog of war when the weapons may perform exactly as we desire, and human beings may be operating, making rational decisions, but the information that they have is confused because the battlefield is almost by definition that way. And so the fog of war also produces instances where we strike targets with all the right intentions and with all the right precisions, but with an outcome that we did not seek. And so that will come and that will be with us.… But one of the things I would highlight at the beginning, that we have proven already in this operation, as we said we would, every time we have a case where there is a real or even potential case of unintended civilian injury or death or collateral damage to structures, we’ve investigated it. And we go back and we look at the targeting; we account for every munition that, in fact, was suspended; we look for whether the aim points that we intended to hit were hit, to determine if, in fact, there was the result of our targeting unintended civilian damage—or casualties, or damage, and then we correct the errors as we go. … [O]ur targeting process starts at the beginning of any military operation, either at the beginning of the campaign or in a much shorter—as any commander prepares for an engagement, what he does is he determines those targets or those effects he must create on the battlefield to achieve his military objectives. And that will produce a fairly extensive list of effects. For example, it could be prevent enemy movement across a river or it could be prevent a weapons facility from delivering weapons of mass destruction capability. And then when those effects are determined, the targeteers will determine how we do that. Can it be done by striking the target? Can it be done by preventing the target from having access, i.e., rail or road access to it? Can it be
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done by effecting preventing people who work there from being there? And it will produce a series of targets, then, that they want to strike. And that’s sort of the master target list that comes out. But that’s only really the first part of the targeting process, because once that list is produced, the target list, it then goes through what we call a vetting process, and that vetting process goes through a number of members of the staff and it’s a series of decisions. For example, we’ll go through legal review, public affairs review, intelligence review, and then we’ll look for things like is this really the target we think it is, is it really where we thought it was, is it really necessary, is it legal—a number of issues. … For example, is the target likely to result in noncombatant casualties? Is it like to result in damage to structures nearby, or affect protected sites? Is it a dual-use target? Will the effect of creating the military effect we want actually have a negative effect on the populace? And then of course the last. Is it in close proximity to a fairly new phenomenon we’ve seen, that of human shields? And that is, of course, of two types now because human shields can be divided into those who are volunteers and those, in fact, who might be there as a result of coercion. So the vetting process then takes each of those targets. It eliminates a number of targets from the master list for all of the reasons that we discussed—the desire to prevent or minimize collateral damage and to limit or prevent entirely the potential for unintended loss of life. We then look at each target in a way that we try to essentially engineer the best solution to it. In this conflict, we’ve already had significant cases where the Iraqi regime has positioned military equipment right in the vicinity of historic sites. Just this week, in the Grand Mosque in An-Najaf, we took fire from inside the mosque. We took direct fire from inside the mosque. We did not return fire. We did not engage the mosque at all because of its status, although legally, under the law of war, as soon as a facility like that is used, it loses that protective status, we understand that the unintended consequences of returning fire in a case like that just doesn’t measure up either in values or military necessity, and so we did not.… In fact, the soldiers of the 101st Air Assault Division made a very specific decision not to do that. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/19326.htm
Rear Admiral Hamlin B. Tallent, U.S. Navy, Director, European Plans and Operations Center, United States European Command, ‘‘Security Assistance in Eliminating Terrorist Sanctuaries,’’ Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, March 10, 2005 I. Introduction … [T]hank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, on behalf of the United States European Command (EUCOM), to discuss the role of
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security assistance in eliminating terrorist sanctuaries within the context of our overarching theater strategy. In addition, I will also provide a framework of our Theater Security Cooperation programs which are an essential component towards our ongoing efforts to promote security, build relationships, and prevent conflict. Our history of bringing stability to areas plagued by ethnic and cultural conflict has prepared us to extend our focus to the east and south. Checking the spread of radical fundamentalism in the largely ungoverned spaces in the Caucasus, and Northern and Western Africa will require patience and sustained effort. Our goal is to assist nations of these regions to build and sustain effective and responsive governments and to develop security structures responsive to emerging democratic governments. Our success depends on maintaining relevant, focused, and complementary security cooperation, tailored to the social, economic, and military realities in both the Caucasus and Africa. As we work together to improve our capabilities and to advance U.S. policy objectives, we must also recognize that today’s complex security environment requires a greater degree of coordination within the U.S. government and with our allies. EUCOM’s plan to promote cooperative security relationships, enhance the capacity of foreign partners, and expand cohesion within the interagency team is consistent with the four core pillars (Building Partnerships to Defeat Terrorist Extremism, Defending the Homeland In-Depth, Shaping the Choices of Countries at Strategic Crossroads, Preventing the Acquisition or Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction by Hostile State or Non-State Actors) of the Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review. We must leverage the full spectrum of diplomatic, economic, and military options to advance our national interests and improve our ability to prevent conflict and achieve post-conflict stability when necessary. II. Strategic Assessment Instability in Africa and the Caucasus shapes the direction of EUCOM’s Global War on Terrorism efforts to meet the challenges of irregular, catastrophic, or disruptive threats to our security and freedom. The new security menace is transnational and characterized by enemies without territory, borders, or fixed bases. Threats include the export and franchising of terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, narco-trafficking, uncontrolled refugee flow, illegal immigration and piracy on the seas. Many of these threats are nurtured in under-governed regions where terrorists and extremist organizations seek new havens from which to recruit and to operate. We are evolving our strategic posture to reflect the new security reality. EUCOM’s greatest contribution to security and stability lies as much in preventing conflict as it does in prevailing on the battlefield. This is accomplished through influence, forward presence and engaged leadership. It is sustained only through our enduring and visible presence and commitment in the theater. Our 21st century center of gravity reflects the continuing importance of the Caucasus and the ‘‘ungoverned’’ regions of North and West Africa. As a result of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, transnational extremists are increasingly denied their former sanctuaries. Subsequently, they are more reliant on leveraging and franchising indigenous and affiliated
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terrorist groups worldwide. Further, transnational extremists have demonstrated an interest in exploiting areas where nations are already struggling with resource scarcity, weak national institutions, poverty and inexperienced militaries.… They contain equal potential for either positive growth, or catastrophic failure. Caucasus Although the Caucasus is torn by separatist conflict and is also plagued with corruption and crime, some parts of the region have made remarkable progress toward democracy and sound governance in the last year. The Caucasus is increasingly important to our interests. Its air corridor has become a crucial lifeline between coalition forces in Afghanistan and our bases in Europe. Caspian oil, carried through the Caucasus, may constitute as much as 25 percent of the world’s growth in oil production over the next five years, while Caspian hydrocarbons will diversify Europe’s sources of energy. This region and Georgia in particular, is a geographical pivot point in the spread of democracy and free market economies to the states of Central and Southwest Asia. Africa The United States faces strategic options and competition in Africa. According to the 2004 report of the UN Organization for Industrial Development, ‘‘Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world where, for the last 20 years, extreme poverty hasn’t stopped gaining ground.’’ Continued poverty is but one of the many effects of years of tragic violence and instability in certain regions of Africa. Evidence shows that terrorists intend to take full advantage of this. Violence from numerous crises has created areas of lawlessness that transcend state borders and cause instability. High population growth rates, poor land management, desertification and agricultural disruptions caused by economic shifts, internal conflicts, and refugee influxes are making it increasingly difficult for several countries to feed themselves. This is especially true in Chad, where drought and refugees from the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan have created a humanitarian catastrophe. In many areas of the Sahara Desert (Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad) there is very little military or police presence, and often no central government influence. These problems, aggravated by difficult terrain and a lack of infrastructure, have allowed smuggling and conflict to flourish. Fragile democracies have to combat serious challenges to include security concerns, social pressures, teachings of radical fundamentalism, disease, and criminality that imperil the future hopes for the people of Africa. Again, the broad expanses of ungoverned or poorly governed regions, as well as the proximity and ease of movement to population centers in Europe, are increasingly attractive to transnational terrorists interested in exploiting the region for recruiting, logistics, and safe havens. The breeding grounds of terrorism and illicit activity on the continent of Africa require our attention at both the national and regional security level.
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III. U.S. European Command Strategy In a world of uncertainty and unpredictability, EUCOM must have the agility to rapidly respond to a range of threats that were largely unforeseen just a few years ago. Geographically, EUCOM is ideally positioned to disrupt and prevent terrorists from using their lines of communication and methods of resourcing that are crucial to their operations and sustainment. Forward stationed forces serve to strengthen U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy; signal U.S. commitment to the security of friends and allies; demonstrate the resolve of the United States to meet its commitments; and bolster regional security through theater security cooperation programs. EUCOM’s Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) programs are the centerpiece of our efforts to promote security and stability by building and strengthening relationships with our allies and regional partners and are an indispensable component of our overarching theater strategy. They are regionally focused and assist our allies with the development of capabilities required to conduct peacekeeping and contingency operations with U.S. forces. Well trained, disciplined allied and friendly forces reduce the conditions that lead to conflict, prepare the way for warfighting success, and ultimately mitigate the burden on U.S. forces. Most importantly, Theater Security Cooperation efforts support the long-term strategic objectives of the Global War on Terrorism by building understanding and consensus on the terrorist threat; laying foundations for future ‘‘coalitions of the willing;’’ and extending our country’s security perimeter. Security Cooperation Activities are managed programs planned and executed for the purpose of shaping the future security environment in ways favorable to U.S. interests. A number of programs are provided under the TSC umbrella including: bilateral and Partnership for Peace training events and exercises; Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET); the State Partnership Program (SPP); and foreign assistance programs such as International Military Education (IMET), and Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program (RDCFP) provides Title 10 funding for educational opportunities for key foreign officials to increase cooperation in conducting the Global War on Terror. These programs provide access and influence, help build professional, capable militaries in allied and friendly nations, and promote interoperability with U.S. forces. We execute these security assistance programs in concert with U.S. Embassy Country Teams. V. Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI) Torn apart by war, disease and poverty, and marked by vast ungoverned spaces, Africa is an emerging haven for our enemies in the Global War on Terrorism. That is why stability on that continent has emerged as such a key goal of EUCOM’s strategic plan. Despite obvious problems, African nations are joining together and making progress in their quest to provide security and stability for Africans. The United States should focus efforts on assisting our African partners in building their regional capabilities. The Trans-Sahara region spans ten African and Maghreb countries and is an area of acute vulnerability due to vast expanses of desert and porous borders. With a long history of being a center through which arms and other
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illicit trade flow, it is becoming increasingly important as terrorists now seek to use these routes for logistical support, recruiting grounds, and safe haven. We have indications of extremist groups with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq operating in the Sahel. Islamist terrorist organizations in the countries that border the Sahara, like the al-Para faction of the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) that held 32 Europeans hostage in 2003, continue to pose a threat to the stability of an already vulnerable region. The Administration is considering a long-term interagency plan to combat terrorism in Trans-Saharan Africa. The goal of the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, or TSCTI, proposes to assist governments in this region to better control their territory and to prevent huge tracts of largely deserted African territory from becoming a safe haven for terrorist groups. TSCTI is being planned as a follow-on to the successful Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) that began in 2002, which helped train and equip at least one rapid-reaction company, about 150 soldiers, in each of the four Saharan states: Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. The overall approach is straightforward: build indigenous capacity and facilitate cooperation among governments in the region that are willing partners (Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria and Tunisia, with Libya possibly to follow later if relations improve) in the struggle with Islamic extremism in the Sahel region. TSCTI would help strengthen regional counterterrorism capabilities, enhance and institutionalize cooperation among the region’s security forces, promote democratic governance, and ultimately benefit our bilateral relationships with each of these states. Key aspects of the TSCTI training would include basic marksmanship, planning, communications, land navigation, patrolling and medical care. TSCTI, like the PSI, would seek to directly engage with participating nations and assists in protecting their borders and exploiting opportunities to detect and deter terrorists by providing basic training and equipment and train additional forces. The TSCTI also envisions engagement with more countries than PSI with a greater emphasis on helping to foster better information sharing and operational planning between regional states. We would fully coordinate TSCTI efforts with U.S. Country Teams to ensure that the total U.S. effort in the GWOT is complementary and tailored to the unique conditions within each country in this region. America’s war on terrorism cannot be fought alone. Historically, proactive security costs with programs such as the PSI are significantly less expensive than reactive missions to the world’s hotspots. Political instability in Africa that is left to fester, could lead to repeated interventions at enormous costs to U.S. taxpayers. TSCTI would be a proactive program that is a relatively small investment, but that could be a powerful inoculation against future terrorist activity leading to an increasingly stable Africa. The Administration is reviewing how best to transition from planning to implementation of this program including ways to use existing resources more effectively and ensuring that TSCTI is integrated into future budget and planning cycles. Long term, continuous engagement will build bonds where few existed and strengthen those already established. SOURCE: http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/tal031005.htm
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Brigadier General Mark T. Kimmitt, Deputy Director, Plans and Strategy J-5, U.S. Central Command, ‘‘The Long Global War Against Violent Extremism, Current Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and NATO Issues,’’ Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, D.C., February 21, 2006 MODERATOR: Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt who is the deputy director of plans and strategy for the U.S. Central Command … will be talking today on the—what we are calling the long war, which the concept which is driving the United States military’s Quadrennial Defense Review, as you’ve seen in framing our strategy for the next 20 to 25 years … BRIGADIER GENERAL KIMMITT: … In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the military takes great pride in what they’ve accomplished to date because they’ve provided the military shield for those efforts … setting up a government, restoring the economies, restoring the infrastructure, more than it is about the military activities. Nonetheless, it is our view in Central Command that while there has been progress in Iraq in Afghanistan that the long work continues. And the long work in many ways is separate from this notion and these activities on a dayto-day basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it is our view at Central Command that if you look at the long war through the narrow lens of Iraq and Afghanistan, you’re going to get the problems set wrong and possibly the solutions wrong as well. Because it is our view in the Central Command area of responsibility to the 27 nations that range from Kyrgyzstan* in the northeast to Kenya in the Southwest that the major problem, the long war must continue against al-Qaida and its associated movements. This is more than bin Laden, this is more than Zarqawi, this is more than Zawahiri. This is al-Qaida as the base, but it is also a number of affiliated and associated movements. We’re talking about movement such as a Salafist Group for preaching and combat, we’re talking about AIAI* in Morocco, Ansar al-Islam in Iraq, Zarqawi in Iraq, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jemaah Islamiya, Abu Sayyaf. It is a group that may not be hierarchically bound together the way a military is, but certainly networked together with the center of gravity being this radical extremist ideology that binds them together. That’s the fight that we have. That’s the center of gravity for this enemy that we face. Those are the groups that we are facing. What is remarkable about these organizations, even though they are not tightly bound together, they are put together much like a cellular network telephone. There is a network out there. There’s no doubt about it. And this network manifests itself not simply in the normal ways that the military would view it with fighters, leaders, training camps, so on and so forth, but this is also a movement that makes tremendous use of what we call the ‘‘virtual domain.’’ Not simply the geographic domain of land and space and terrain, but it is also the virtual domain of the internet. This is a group that advertises on the internet, finances on the internet, proselytizes on the internet, sends its results on the internet that you can get on most of these websites, these extremist websites, as well as uses the internet
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for financing and for command and control—loose form command and control. It also uses international criminal networks in many ways, smuggling in some cases drug money to finance its efforts and in some cases, uses sympathetic NGOs for this process. So if you put this all together, you see a fairly sophisticated network. Now I don’t want to mislead you. This enemy is not 10 feet tall, he’s not bright, he’s not strictly intelligent, but he is, in many ways, networked in a way that we are not. Now, that’s point one. The second point I’d make about this enemy is we’ve seen its handiwork. We’ve seen its handiwork from—since 9/11 and before in places such as Madrid, Jedda, Riyadh, Amman, Jakarta, Istanbul and, of course, New York, London and Washington, D.C. So not only is it a fairly clever, but it’s a fairly violent organization as well. This organization shows no moderation in its behavior and certainly shows no moderation in its tactics. It shows no moderation in its brutality. Third, not only is it dangerous now, but it is their declared vision to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction, whether it is chemicals, biologicals or fissile material that can be used in a dirty bomb, we have little doubt that this movement wants to acquire weapons of mass destruction and use them in the prosecution of its efforts against not only the nations in the region, but also the nations outside of the region as well. With that as a view towards the enemy, it may be helpful to talk about how CentCom views taking this forward. What we call principals for this long war against al-Qaida and its associated movements. The first principle I’d like to talk about is it takes a network to defeat a network. Now if this organization is networked as I postulated, that it has the capability to operate not only in the geographic domain, but also in the virtual domain. Also outside those areas that the military habitually has responsibilities for, we feel that to defeat this organization, we must have a network that’s equally adept, more adept, more capable, more life to defeat that network. Right now, a preponderance of the work, certainly not all the work, but a large amount of the work is being done by the military. But to defeat this enemy, it is far more than simply the military. It will take a network, interagency network, international network that brings together the Department of the Treasury, brings together the State Department, brings together all the intelligence agencies, bring together all of our law enforcement agencies, so that we can develop a network both here in America and internationally to fight this network and defeat this network. It is our view that this network cannot be defeated, cannot be deterred. It must be defeated. And by putting together a strong network, we can work against this enemy, although it is transnational, it is borderless, it violates, it does not bind itself by any rules. We believe that the network we build up to this point has been somewhat successful and in the future as we take it forward, can be even more successful. The second principle I want to talk about is helping others help themselves— help others help themselves. It is the professed aspiration of this network to drive international interests, western interests out of the Middle East and after that, then turn its wrath and turn its fury on what it considers to be the
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apostate in secular regimes in the region. Most of our partners in the region, in fact, all of our partners in the region understand that and that’s why it has been so encouraging to see the nations in the region take on the fight themselves. In fact, many if not most of the operations against al-Qaida and its associated movements in the region outside of Iraq and Afghanistan have been taken on by the countries themselves. These are countries that have developed counterterrorism capabilities within their own ministries of interior or ministries of defense. These are countries that are developing their own intelligence capacities and these are the countries that are taking the will to attack al-Qaida and its associated movements itself within their own countries. Countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria. These are countries that recognize the danger that this extremist movement presents to their own countries and they’re taking the fight to al-Qaida itself. I couldn’t help noticing before I came in here that even the Somali warlords have banded together inside of Mogadishu to take on the Islamic as they call it, ‘‘the Islamic extremism inside of Somalia.’’ The U.S. and its coalition partners are part of helping those nations to develop that capacity. We have strong security cooperation, relationships with the countries in the region. There is significant amount of intelligence sharing that goes on between the nations and significant amount of training support that goes on with the nations as well. So it is right. It is appropriate for the nations to take on the fight against al-Qaida and its associated movements themselves and that’s why that second principle of helping others help themselves we believe is fundamental to defeating this terrorist network. A third principle that we operate under is ‘‘no sanctuaries and safe havens.’’ It is not a coincidence that bin Laden found refuge in Sudan. It is not a coincidence that he then went from Sudan to Afghanistan and the federally administrated tribal areas of Pakistan during some periods of chaos and lawlessness. It breeds, it finds refuge, it finds safe haven in areas absent rule of law, absent rule of law, absent rule—government control. And we view the 27 countries in our region as areas—there are some areas in which in the future, these movements might find safe haven refuge. As we push al-Qaida further and further out of Iraq, further and further out of Afghanistan, we continue to look at some of the countries in the region, some of the areas in the region where there is very loose formed government control or none at all and we are making certain that we have eyes and that we have ears in those areas to ensure that if, in fact, al-Qaida seeks to use those as future sanctuaries that they’ve got—they’ve got some people waiting for them. What do I mean by that? You take a look at organizations in Central Command area of operations, such as the headquarters that we have in the Horn of Africa stationed right now in Djibouti, combined joint task force Horn of Africa, very small organization, less than a couple of thousand. They have responsibility and coverage in about seven countries in that area. They are providing primarily civil affairs and humanitarian assistance with veterinarian capability programs, medical capability programs. They do a lot of well digging and a lot of local support. But that gives us the capacity to help the local citizens and perhaps provide some sort of resistance when the citizens are
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asked by al-Qaida or are perhaps lured by some of these extremist movements. And so that third principle of ‘‘no safe havens and sanctuaries’’ is a responsibility that we take very, very seriously. The last principle … is a term that we call re-posturing for the long war. We have said many times that it is our view that were we to make the decisions with the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan similar to the decisions that we made in post-World War II Germany and Japan, to have a long and large presence to garrison the Middle East the way we garrisoned West Germany after World War II; that we would be making a fundamental error. It is our belief that we will not keep and we do not want to keep a huge presence of ground maneuver forces in the region ad infinitum the way we did in West Germany. We certainly understand that we have the residual—after Iraq and Afghanistan are stabilized, we fully understand we’ve got the requirement to provide to a residual capability to continue to prosecute this primarily counterterrorist fight against al-Qaida, also to provide a deterrent effect against hostile actors in the region, but that will be a fraction in our belief—a fraction of the number of forces that we have there now. We have over 200,000 American forces alone in the region; that is not a force presence that we believe will lead to winning this long war in the future. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/61990.htm
The Honorable Thomas W. O’Connell, Assistant Secretary of Defense, ‘‘The Role of Special Forces in Countering Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Special Operations/ Low-Intensity Conflict, April 5, 2006 … [T]hank you for the opportunity to testify about the status of our nation’s superb Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the increasing ability of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to respond to current and emerging transnational terrorist threats as well as evolving asymmetrical threats. The recently published 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report accurately states that we are in a long war that is irregular in nature. This long war is characterized by dispersed, global terrorist networks with radical political aims that directly and indirectly threaten the United States and our way of life. The nature of this long war requires the U.S. Armed Forces to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches to ultimately prevail in this historic struggle. The report further emphasizes the important and necessary changes needed to prepare SOF and other forces to respond to wide asymmetric challenges. The result of this emphasis is a significantly expanded SOF program that will qualitatively increase not only USSOCOM’s capabilities but also its capacities to confront and prevail against the global terrorist network threat. As you know, Title 10, Section 138 requires my position to provide civilian oversight of special operations activities of the Department of Defense. I am responsible for ensuring that our SOF are appropriately tasked and employed,
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and that senior policymakers, to include our interagency partners, understand SOF capabilities as well as their limitations. Not only am I an advocate of the USSOCOM and SOF, I am also dedicated to ensuring our elements continue to be the best trained, best equipped, most flexible and effective fighting force available to our country. I consult closely with General Brown on a wide range of policy issues and participate in the USSOCOM Board of Director’s meetings, the Command’s executive resource body. This effort produces a SOF program and budget that stress force readiness and sustainability, and provides sufficient force structure to meet the demands of the geographic combatant commanders and General Brown in his role as the supported commander in the Global War on Terrorism. We’ve had successes and, yes, some setbacks with our programs, but I believe we’ve taken a prudent course in building both capability and capacity for the long war. The FY2007 President’s Budget Submission for USSOCOM is $5.2 billion (excluding Military Pay), an increase of 27% over the FY 2006 submission … [to] enable USSOCOM to: 1) add over 1,300 personnel to find, fix, and finish terrorist networks; 2) maintain sustained operations in areas where terrorist networks are operating; 3) continue the investment in critical fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and unmanned aircraft that provide SOF with the mobility necessary to deploy and to execute their missions quickly; 4) invest in additional active and reserve component Civil Affairs and PSYOPS force structure; and 5) support the newly created Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC), providing USSOCOM greater flexibility and capability to fight terrorism. … We are faced by interacting networks—sometimes structured—of radical extremists who inflict terror with minimal concern for their innocent victims. These networks will migrate to places where they can survive, operate and grow. Our challenge is to develop counter-networks to monitor, isolate, disrupt, and destroy hostile elements. SOCOM has started this process. While some of USSOCOM’s operations are visible, there has been a substantial investment in low-visibility and clandestine activities. Our Army Special Forces, Army Special Operations Aviation Forces, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Special Boat Units, Army Civil Affairs, Army Psychological Operations units, Air Force Special Operations crews and staffs, Combat Controllers and Weather Teams, have served CENTCOM requirements very well from their counter-insurgency and foreign internal defense roles in Afghanistan and Iraq to their work in the Horn of Africa. The 2006 Defense Authorization Act also established a DoD security and stabilization assistance authority, Section 1207, which authorizes DoD support to the Department of State for civilian deployments and programs in countries falling into or emerging from conflict. The Department of Defense is working closely with the Department of State’s Coordinator for Stabilization and Reconstruction to determine the most effective means of using this transfer authority to deploy civilian experts and facilitate the provision of reconstruction, security, or stabilization assistance. We need substantial Congressional support for the President’s FY 2007 request that will support efforts to build civilian capabilities for tasks like stabilization and reconstruction. Although
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requests for the Department of State and other agencies are outside the responsibility of this committee, I want to stress to the Committee that civilian capabilities will be critical to the nation’s long-term success against terrorism and could reduce the stress on U.S. forces by precluding the need for certain deployments. SOURCE: http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2006/April/O’Connell%200405-06.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see links to additional Defense Department witnesses (http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=1796).
26 International Cooperation Successive U.S. administrations consider international cooperation to be crucial in countering international terrorism. Although a great deal of the cooperation takes place in intelligence and diplomatic channels and of necessity is not made public, there are many public indications of the international ties. Statements in this chapter highlight the efforts in different regions to fight terrorism globally and the necessity of international cooperation in fighting a threat without boarders. In Europe, the need for cooperation was cited in speeches to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe by Ambassador Robert H. Frowick on March 13, 1987, and 16 years later in a June 25, 2003, address by Cofer Black, the State Department coordinator for counterterrorism. The importance of cooperation to curb terrorist financing was cited by Attorney General Ashcroft in a December 14, 2001, news conference in Germany, saying, ‘‘The mechanisms for financing are world-wide. Nothing flows quite as freely around the globe as capital does.’’ Mark Wong, deputy State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, in his May 8, 2002, testimony, cited the need for intelligence sharing. EDITOR’S NOTE: See chapter 22, Financial, on terrorist funding.
The lengthy Middle East section includes testimony on the evolution of relations with Libya, an original member of the terrorism list which was created in 1979. Libya was removed in 2006 after Colonel Qadhafi gave assurances that it no longer supports international terrorism and provided restitution to families of Pan Am 103 victims. See statements by William J. Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, on March 10, 2004, and by Secretary of State Rice and Ambassador Burns on May 15, 2006. Syria’s continued support for terrorism is discussed in a number of hearings and statements, including the October 30, 2003, Senate testimony by Ambassador Cofer Black, and the July 13, 2006, press briefing by Secretary of State Rice. Frank Urbancic, State Department principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, discusses Hezbollah’s close ties to Syria during his September 28, 2006, testimony.
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The problems of funds flowing to terrorist groups through ‘‘charities’’ comes up in testimony about Saudi Arabia, including Ambassador Black’s House hearing on March 24, 2004. The chapter includes a joint statement by President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah on April 25, 2005. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a large part of the U.S. effort to obtain cooperation against rejectionists of the peace process. President Bush calls for a new Palestinian leadership in a June 14, 2004, statement, holds a press conference with Jordanian King Abdullah on March 15, 2005, and holds another with Palestinian President Abbas on May 26, 2005. Comments on the labeling of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations can be found throughout the section, including in testimony by Ambassador Black on October 30, 2003, and statements by President Bush on June 14, 2004, and May 26, 2005. The 2006 fighting between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah group is discussed in Secretary of State Rice’s July 13, 2006, press briefing. Also see the September 28, 2006, testimony on Hezbollah by Frank C. Urbancic, the State Department’s principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism. Statements in the Western hemisphere section reflect the close U.S.-Canadian cooperation in every aspect of the fight against global terrorism. At a press conference on October 2, 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft and Canadian Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay discussed cooperation between law enforcement agencies and efforts to increase border security, while ensuring a continued flow of goods and people. These were the subject of border security agreement on December 3, 2001. The Organization of American States (OAS) also is engaged against the terrorist threat in the Western hemisphere. Steps taken by the OAS and suggestions for improved success were outlined by Attorney General Ashcroft on January 28, 2002. State Department Counterterrorism Policy Officer Thomas Cooney also discussed the OAS role in a September 6, 2002, presentation. In the Africa section, U.S. officials acknowledged that terrorism is one of a long list of issues, and help is needed to address the threat. On October 13, 2004, Ambassador Cofer Black discussed the role of foreign aid in enabling African nations to combat terrorism saying, ‘‘We can marshal our shared resources to provide capacity-building assistance, and deter terrorists from targeting weaker states or from using them for safe havens or fundraising.’’ Remarks by his successor, Henry Crumpton in Algeria on February 6, 2006, outlined the global terrorist threat and the problem of existing regional safe havens. Crumpton, who retired in February 2007, stressed regional cooperation during his tenure in the State Department. The Asia section includes discussion of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, nation building in the Philippines, and relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Matthew P. Daley, the deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, on October 29, 2003, provides an overview of progress in various nations, including Japan’s support in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and freezing of terrorist assets, Australia’s troop support in Afghanistan and Iraq, and work with other Asian countries to strengthen counterterrorism capabilities. He also discussed China’s cooperation in information sharing and freezing assets.
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The documents include statements on the importance of having a good relationship with Pakistan made by Secretary of State Rice on March 4, 2006, and President Bush on September 22, 2006.
EUROPE Ambassador Robert H. Frowick, U.S. Delegation, Plenary Session, ‘‘The Struggle Against International Terrorism: Greater Cooperation Is Needed,’’ March 13, 1987 Mr. Chairman, regrettably the history of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe has coincided with an alarming upsurge in terrorism. This is a serious problem confronting the member states of this Conference. It cannot be ignored. Terrorism and the CSCE Process When the leaders of Europe and North America met in 1975 to sign the Helsinki Final Act, the problem of the contemporary international terrorism was only beginning to take shape. Terrorists had launched a number of spectacular and sanguinary attacks, including the hijacking and blowing up of four airliners in Egypt and Jordan in 1970 and the slaughtering of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. But, by and large, these acts were viewed as isolated, highly unusual events, conducted by extremist groups operating more or less on their own. The specter of state-sponsored terrorism was not to become a dominant factor until the 1980’s. To their credit the drafters of the Helsinki Final Act recognized the threat of terrorism at an early stage. They declared in Principle VI on Non-Intervention in Internal Affairs that the participating states will: ‘‘refrain from direct or indirect assistance to terrorist activities, or to subversive or other activities directed toward the violent overthrow of the regime of another participating state.’’ By 1983 the problem of terrorism had become a serious international menace, and the Madrid document quite rightly devoted more attention to the problem. The authors represented here agreed to: ‘‘Condemn terrorism, including terrorism in international relations, as endangering or taking innocent human lives or otherwise jeopardizing human rights and fundamental freedoms and to emphasize the necessity to take resolute measures to combat it.’’
The Madrid Concluding document contained some additional commitments which are also well worth repeating today. The participating states pledged to: ‘‘take all appropriate measures in preventing their respective territories from being used for the preparation, organization or commission of terrorist activities, including those directed against other participating states and their citizens.’’
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The Madrid document strengthened language from the Final Act by adding that the participating states would: ‘‘refrain, inter alia, from financing, encouraging, fomenting or tolerating any such (terrorist) activities.’’ Negative Trends Mr. Chairman, we regret to note that terrorism has become increasingly lethal during the lifetime of the CSCE process. As terrorism has become more lethal, is has also become less discriminating. Shrapnel from hand grenades thrown at airport ticket counters respects no passports. In addition to Americans, both Eastern and Western Europeans were casualties in the Rome and Vienna airport attacks in December 1985. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, two Atlantic Alliance member states, Turkey and Italy, were subjected to relentless terrorist activity which seemed clearly aimed at destabilizing government authority. I speak from direct experience with the situation in Italy, where I was serving in the American Embassy when a particularly militant wing of the Red Brigades seized United States Brigadier General James Dozier in December 1981. The Red Brigades held him for 42 days before Italian anti-terrorist police saved him and captured his kidnappers in a brilliantly executed rescue mission. During the Dozier case, the Red Brigades ‘‘declared war on NATO’’—following the example of some other Western European terrorists. Such declarations are taken very seriously by my Government. A crescendo of international terrorist incidents directed at Europeans was reached in 1984 and 1985. West German bystanders were wounded when Qadhafi’s gunmen tried to silence Libyan exiled critical of his regime. An unarmed British policewoman was killed under similar circumstances in London. French shoppers became casualties of Arab bombers. Soviet citizens were taken hostage in Lebanon. Across Europe, the terrorists’ battleground expanded beyond London, Paris, and Rome. Colombian terrorists recently traveled all to way to Budapest allegedly to exact revenge. Arabs assassinated Arabs in Bucharest. As we are so painfully aware, even the streets of the Holy See have not been spared. The wake of protracted provocations by Qadhafi, in April 1986, the United States responded with limited military force. This action resulted in a salutary decline in terrorist incidents over the next several months. In Europe, international terrorist attacks were down almost one-third in 1986 from the previous year. State-Sponsored Terrorism The most ominous change over the past decade has arisen from the willingness of too many states to actively to train, equip, and direct terrorists. There are thus no longer lone individuals or small groups of militants acting on their own, literally dependent upon what they can beg, borrow, or steal. We are facing a new kind of danger in which nation-states use international terrorist/criminals as proxies they can easily disown. Terrorists enjoying state support command a number of advantages beyond ready access to equipment, communications, and financing. Sponsoring states can and do provide
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passports and other travel documents to help terrorists transit other countries en route to target areas. For example, those who attacked Rome airport in December 1985 were equipped with passports Libya had confiscated from Tunisian guest workers. The Jordanian who tried to blow up an El Al aircraft in London in April 1986 was in possession of a Syrian semi-official passport. We know that some countries put state-owned airlines and diplomatic pouch facilities at the service of terrorists. Other important forms of support include training facilities and safe houses used to plan operations and to serve as places of refuge after operations are completed. We are also aware that some nations have provided indirect support to terrorists—allowing freedom of transit, for example, in return for immunity from attack. Striking a gentleman’s agreement with extremists is, in our view, a very short-sighted policy. The most notorious group exploiting these kinds of favors is the Abu Nidal organization, which was responsible for the attacks on Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985—and possibly the Pan Am hijacking in Karachi and the Istanbul synagogue massacre last September. Libya and Syria have been the main supporters of Abu Nidal in recent years. Regrettably, members of this group have enjoyed sanctuary and medical treatment in come CSCE participant states represented here. The Cowardice of Terrorism As we look both to the recent past and to the future, Mr. Chairman, it is important to make abundantly clear my country’s view that the kinds of murderous actions to which we have been calling attention are truly acts of terrorism committed by terrorists. Terrorists should be seen for what they are and brought to justice. Americans regard contemporary international terrorists as cowards who plan and carry out armed attacks against defenseless individuals—men, women, and children. The well trained and armed killers, who actively engage in these kinds of assaults cannot be excused as so-called ‘‘freedom fighters.’’ Americans recognize a freedom fighter when they see one. The United States gained its independence through the struggle of colonial freedom fighters just over 200 years ago. Today we still see real fighters for freedom—that is, for respect for national freedom, democracy, and pluralism—in various parts of the world. Such individuals are anything but cowardly. For they are fighting against modern armed forces—not defenseless citizens. Real freedom fighters are courageous patriots. Hopeful Signs Mr. Chairman, I am happy to note that some governments have begun to display increasing resolve in dealing with terrorists—a marked change from the early 1970’s. Today, governments appear generally less inclined, for example, to parole imprisoned foreign terrorists in order to avoid further attacks. Police officials have become more proficient at combating the terrorist menace. It is much harder now, for example—though unfortunately still possible—to smuggle weapons aboard airliners.
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Many governments have demonstrated a welcome new willingness also to work together to deter and prevent terrorism. ¥ Last April, for example, the Foreign Ministers of the 12 European Community countries agreed to reduce the size of the Libyan People’s Bureaus and to increase cooperation among law enforcement and intelligence agencies. ¥ In May, the leaders of the seven governments of the economic summit countries agreed at Tokyo to a series of actions to be taken against international terrorism and states who support it. ¥ More recently, in November, the Council of Europe approved an anti-terrorist resolution which calls for closer scrutiny of diplomats suspected of having connections with terrorists, and for a more extensive exchange of information relating to this scourge.
These developments are steps in the right direction, but much more needs to be done. The Future Mr. Chairman, unfortunately terrorism may well be a prominent feature on the international political landscape for the rest of this century. Though still inadequate, international cooperation to meet this threat is steadily growing— as it must. For its part, the United States has negotiated bilateral cooperation programs with some 50 governments. Our multi-lateral efforts have moved more slowly, but, as I have indicated, noteworthy progress has been achieved over the past year. Meanwhile, more governments are establishing increasingly effective counterterrorism offices. All of us need to take steps together to increase public understanding of the nature of terrorism. We need to resolve collectively to bring terrorists to justice. In the end, the problem of international terrorism represents a grave challenge to every nation represented here. Effective responses to this problem require vigorous international cooperation. My government will continue to seek ways to achieve that goal with all CSCE participating states. We must step up our cooperation in translating into action the principles and pledges of the Helsinki Final Act and the Madrid Concluding Document. Those governments that are indifferent to this process put the security of all of us at risk. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/1212newsconference london.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, ‘‘Cooperation with the United Kingdom,’’ Transcript of News Conference with U.S. Ambassador William S. Farish, London, England, December 12, 2001 … [O]bviously the United Kingdom has had experience with terrorism in ways that have been first hand for a longer period than the United States of America but the acts of September 11th have taught us something about the international nature of terrorist activities. That the training frequently takes
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place in one jurisdiction, that the development and planning of an operation takes place in another jurisdiction and the operation itself might be executed in a third or fourth jurisdiction. Given this span of jurisdictions and the variety of national contacts with the continuity of the terrorist effort it makes it very important for us to have the capacity to cooperate, both in preventing terrorist attacks and, finally, in developing a capacity to prosecute those who perpetrate acts of terrorism at the peril of innocent citizens. The terrorist attack which we describe as an attack on the United States on September 11th turned out to be an attack on a broad number of countries whose citizens were destroyed in that attack. I mean 79 United Kingdom victims, at least our understanding is that count, which may make it one of the largest terrorist attacks ever on the United Kingdom, took place in the United States, and the loss of life there is something that we are keenly aware of and sensitive to. We do not want to be a country in which not only are our own residents unsafe but in which our visitors are unsafe, and we want to do everything we can to fight terrorism. In October of this last year we publicized a most-wanted list from the Justice Department as a part of a worldwide assault on terror. It lists 22 known terrorists who are responsible for acts, and most of the acts for which they are responsible took place outside the United States but we know that these individuals have, in many cases, been linked to the organizations which perpetrated the acts of September 11th. The New Scotland Yard officials, British Constabularies and British Secret Service have extensive experience with terrorism and they can provide for us a much-needed understanding. They have been pro-active in their cooperation with the United States and I personally want to extend my appreciation. Nine Scotland Yard officers, for example, testified and gave critical evidence at the trials of the al Qaeda terrorists who bombed U.S. Embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi in 1998. Their assistance was extremely valuable in obtaining conviction of all the four al Qaeda terrorists regarding those particular bombings that have completed the trial in New York. Q. … There is a danger because of your decision to seek the death penalty with terrorist suspects, that it could make extradition from European countries of other terrorist suspects very difficult. ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: … Each case is dealt with independently in regard to extraditions from various countries and we have in the last several months frankly been favored with high levels of cooperation, particularly by European nations in extraditions, I can think of the French having satisfied two of our requests in regard to one defendant name Einhorn and another defendant name Copp. Both very serious cases for which we were grateful for that cooperation. The United Kingdom has been a model partner to the United States in law enforcement issues, but we understand that case by case defines the way in which we operate in the universe of extraditions. Q. The U.S. has regularly given a diplomatic letter in extradition cases saying that the person extradited from a European country won’t be given the death penalty. Are you willing to give the same kind of letter to European countries saying an extradited person won’t be given placed in trial before a military commission to get the extradition?
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ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well first of all, a military commission is not a place where traditional criminal activity is adjudicated. The order for a war crimes commission on the part of the President is a military order, so it’s outside the jurisdiction of the civil authorities of which I am one. And secondly, it’s designed to adjudicate war crimes not ordinary criminal activity. With that in mind, that decision of the President is a uniquely Presidential decision about whether or not he will assign someone to be considered and adjudicated for war crimes committed against the United States in a war crimes commission. So I simply cannot indicate what all the procedures would be there, he’s asked the Secretary of Defense to come up with a set of regulations. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/1212newsconference london.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of News Conference with German Interior Minister Otto Schily, Berlin, Germany, December 14, 2001 MINISTER SCHILY: I informed my counterpart Mr. Ashcroft regarding the legal measures that we are taking, measures we will be discussing today in parliament, and regarding other measures of an administrative nature that we implemented after 11 September. But I also pointed out that the problem of international terrorism was not recognized only on 11 September, but that we have been confronted with this threat in the past, too, and that we also implemented measures in the past to counter the threat. We are also of the opinion that the fight against international terrorism will be successful only if it is a common fight, that it cannot be waged in isolation, and that in this respect we must coordinate with each other the measures we take, of course in adherence with our differing legal systems and differing legal traditions. ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Terrorism is not directed against any single nation; it is directed at civilization itself. The network of terrorists is worldwide. As Minister Schily has so compellingly stated, the attacks in New York were attacks of savage intensity against the entirety of the civilized world. 86 different nations are among those whose citizens were killed in these attacks. In the United States, we are engaged in a deliberate effort to disrupt terrorists through tighter security around potential targets, through notices and alerts to the public, and a preventative campaign of arresting and detaining violators of the law with the single goal: We want to save innocent lives. But for us to succeed we need the help and cooperation of the international community. 4,000 agents of the Bureau of Federal Investigation are engaged with their international counterparts in an unprecedented world-wide effort to detect and disrupt and dismantle terrorist organizations. We are grateful for Germany’s efforts regarding the investigation of 11 September. I commend Germany for its actions to provide greater opportunity to detect and disrupt terrorism through a better framework of laws in Germany. As you well know, in the United States we were confronted with the need to upgrade our capacity legislatively as well.
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Germany is also participating in the European Union’s efforts to assist in disrupting and combating terrorism through various initiatives, including further enhancing police and judicial cooperation, developing legal instruments that will assist on an international basis, and the effort to disrupt the funding and the financial resources of terrorism. The United States appreciates the access that you have given us to information developed in the investigations here and for the opportunity for us to conduct investigations as well. We look forward to working closely with Germany and with German officials to cut off funding sources that sustain international terrorism.… Q. You mentioned the differing legal norms and traditions that apply in the prosecutions. Does that mean that you also talked about the German position on military tribunals? MINISTER SCHILY: We did talk about this question as well, but I believe it is more of a theoretical possibility of applying this option, which has been created in the United States of America. Mr. Ashcroft explained it to me, but I don’t think we have to go into details here. Q. You are also here to talk about to stop financing of the terrorists. Are there any indications that the terrorists are financed through Germany? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: The mechanisms for financing are worldwide. Nothing flows quite as freely around the globe as capital does, and it’s very important that we choke off the life blood of financing to the terrorist movement, and that’s something that we need the cooperation of every nation to achieve. If we choke off at many different points but we don’t conclude the last point, the flows simply go around the blockages, and so it’s very important that we have cooperation that is comprehensive. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/1214newsconference withschilyberlin.htm
Mark Wong, Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Counterterrorism Efforts and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,’’ Remarks Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Washington, D.C., May 8, 2002 Diplomatic Since September, the President has met with leaders from more than 50 nations, and Secretary Powell has met with numerous foreign ministers and other officials of our coalition partners. The State Department’s Special Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Frank Taylor, has met many foreign officials in Washington and continues to travel to every continent to help forge an effective, common policy to combat terrorism with a global reach. He could not be here today, in fact, because he is leading a Joint U.S. Pakistani Working Group on Counterterrorism. Diplomacy and international cooperation are the leading edges of every nation’s homeland security. This is certainly true for the U.S. and, hence, our allies and partners are at the core of our long-term counterterrorism strategy. This is why we have engaged in intensive diplomatic and cooperative efforts
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to establish coalitions to fight the terrorist menace around the globe. In the war on terror no nation, not even one as powerful as the United States, can succeed alone. We must have the maximum amount of international cooperation possible. For those reasons, increased efforts in such specific areas as sharing terrorism information, tightening border controls, and suppressing terrorist financing have been initiated by numerous multilateral organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the G-7, the G-8, the European Union, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Thanks to a membership that includes countries all the way from Portugal to Kyrgyzstan, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plays an important role in this global effort. I can tell you that the degree of cooperation with our Coalition partners in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia has far exceeded what we would have imagined prior to September 11. The OSCE has helped coordinate the counterterrorism activities of its participating states. For example, at the December 3–4 OSCE Ministerial in Bucharest, the 55 participating States adopted an Action Plan on Combating Terrorism. The Action Plan endorses and is based on UNSCR 1373 and pledges all OSCE participating States to become parties to the 12 U.N. terrorism conventions and protocols by December 31, 2002. The states also pledged to take steps to prevent terrorist groups from operating on their territory, to share information on such groups with other participating states, and to take action to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist organizations. The Plan tasked all OSCE bodies to prepare roadmaps with timetables and resource requirements for implementing their portions of the Action Plan. Permit me to take a moment to comment on the importance of UNSCR 1373 in forming and energizing the coalition I have mentioned, and in working with the OSCE. This unique UN Security Council resolution makes responses by the member states of the U.N. mandatory and lays out a clear and specific set of actions that all states must take to improve their capabilities to counter the terrorists. It also requires states and international organizations to report to the Security Council on the ways that they are improving their capabilities, and it requests capable states to assist those who need help to implement it. Thus, it can be said that UNSCR 1373 is the glue that holds the international efforts against terrorism together. The OSCE has been one of the most energetic and cooperative in responding to this call of the Security Council.… Last December in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the OSCE participating States endorsed an additional Program of Action at the Conference on Enhancing Security and Stability in Central Asia. While the Bishkek Program echoed many of the Bucharest recommendations, it added a pledge to take further action on the financial aspects of combating terrorism. In February, the OSCE Chairman in Office appointed former Danish Defense Minister and current MP Jan Troejborg as his Personal Representative for Combating Terrorism … The OSCE has approved the creation of a CT Unit in the OSCE Secretariat to bring focus day-to-day on implementing the Bucharest and Bishkek plans. The U.S. is also helping in this regard. In addition, the U.S. and Russia have also jointly proposed the creation of a database where participating states can post requests for assistance or where
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OSCE institution’s can post funding requests for CT-related programs so that other donors can make offers of assistance. Similar databases already exist for economic and human rights projects and have worked well in helping coordinate an extensive number of projects over the past several years. The European Union has also done its share. Its support for the U.S. in the struggle against terrorism has been strong and sustained. The EU has publicly backed our targeted military actions in Afghanistan and has actively assisted in building the international coalition against terrorism. The EU has pledged that all member states will sign the UN Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing by end of October and ratify the 1996 Convention on Bombing by the end of the year. Since July the EU has frozen close to $100 million in Afghan assets. The EU is moving to expand the scope of its Money-laundering Directive and its Directive on Insider Trading to block activities linked to terrorism by the end of the year. Financial … The OSCE is a vital forum for European regional efforts to implement UNSCR 1373, as well as to strengthen counterterrorism capabilities in general. It is the only institution in Europe with such a broad membership where we have a particularly strong voice. The OSCE remains essential in coordinating with the EU, COE, UN agencies, and bilateral donors to avoid overlap and ensure that programs meet identified priorities and are complementary. Moreover, the OSCE can also provide much needed expertise on technical issues, an increasingly important function given the limited number of experts in areas such as terrorist financing and the large number of countries that need and have requested assistance. Some of these states lack the expertise in this area and acknowledge the inability of their financial sectors to implement any changes quickly. Ideally, the counterterrorism unit in the OSCE Secretariat would work with OSCE field missions and outside experts to coordinate regional training for these States, and self-assessments, as recommended by the FATF. Law Enforcement Also important are the OSCE’s efforts on police training and law enforcement. A Senior Police Advisor position has been established in the OSCE to oversee and coordinate ongoing OSCE police training activities, now focused on the Balkans. Police training, with considerable USG help, and border security are areas of demonstrated OSCE success. As sound policing is critical to any counterterrorism effort, the OSCE could expand its programs beyond the Balkans. The Bucharest Action Plan specifically targets border security, trafficking in persons, trafficking in drugs, money laundering and arms trafficking. We are giving strong support to the new Police Advisor’s plans to enhance police training, particularly in the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia. For our part, the State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program will continue to be an important part of our efforts to help improve the capability of civilian security forces in fighting terrorism while at the same time respecting human rights. In recent years, our counterterrorism office, which provides policy direction to the program, has given high priority to assistance
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for countries of the former Soviet Union, such as courses on crisis management and the executive seminar, aimed at senior members of government. Finally, to complement police and other security force training and to strengthen a bedrock element of democracy, OSCE will continue to contribute to strengthening the capabilities of courts and lawyers, both prosecutors and defense attorneys.… adequate protections for the accused. Such efforts complement our own programs. We continue to encourage other countries to strengthen their counterterrorism laws and regulations and some already are doing so. To assist the process, the State Department, working with the Justice and Treasury Departments, is developing a series of seminars to give suggestions, to the legal officials of other countries. The first seminar is scheduled to begin June 3 with about half a dozen countries, mainly from Central Asia. Intelligence International intelligence cooperation has dramatically improved in the wake of September 11. This cooperation is vital because gathering and sharing intelligence about terrorists, their movements, and their planned attacks is an absolute prerequisite in countering terrorism … I cannot go into much detail about intelligence matters in an open hearing. However, suffice it to say, planned attacks have been prevented, and lives have been saved because of enhanced cooperation. Although good intelligence is rare and never fully adequate, the global coalition, particularly the key participating states of the OSCE, has demonstrated a resolve that makes it harder for terrorists to carry out their crimes. But this area requires continued and persistent effort. Conclusion In the wake of the horror of September 11, the world has never been so focused on the threat of international terrorism or the absolute necessity of countering it using every available means. It will require time and continuous, relentless political will on the part of many people in many professions, in many countries. The Global War on Terrorism will be a long, hard-fought confrontation fought on many fronts, demanding contributions from all those who wish to rid the world of this blight. We will continue to work closely with the OSCE, the EU and others toward that objective. We also will to continue to work with the Commission and look forward to its future contributions on this important issue. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/10029pf.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks at the Meeting in Belgium, September 16, 2002 … The United States, together with our European allies and many other nations around the world, has recognized the need for a fundamentally different
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approach to justice and law enforcement. Our collective, over-arching objective is to save innocent lives from further acts of terrorism by identifying, disrupting, and dismantling terrorist networks. We have undertaken this challenge constantly mindful that we seek to secure liberty, not trade liberty for security. The European Union and the United States have successfully completed the first phase of adjusting to the post-September 11 world of international terrorism. ¥ We have established points of contact between American law enforcement agencies and EUROPOL and EUROJUST. ¥ Earlier this month, the United States welcomed EUROPOL officers who have been assigned to Washington, and we in turn have assigned U.S. prosecutors to serve as liaisons with EUROJUST. ¥ We have agreed to share crime trend data between the United States and Interpol, and we have collaborated on terrorism threat assessments and identified several European-based terrorists and terrorist organizations. ¥ We have cooperated closely to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and financiers in an effort to cut off terrorists’ ability to fund future acts of terrorism. ¥ We are also discussing the possibility of an unprecedented agreement on extradition and mutual legal assistance between the United States and the European Union.
We have taken the first crucial steps towards strengthening a culture of cooperation between the United States and the European Union, but our work is not yet finished. The key to success in this global war on terrorism is information and resource sharing. We must, for example, work together to harmonize our approach to data preservation and protection. The United States does not require private companies to retain data for definite periods of time. Neither does the United States require data destruction within certain time periods. Mandated data destruction means that critical records—such as phone or email—could be unavailable to law enforcement agencies, thereby seriously undercutting their ability to detect and prevent terrorist activity and other international crime. It is vital that we come to an agreement on data protection issues in the law enforcement field. EUROPOL, for instance, is unable to share personal data with American law enforcement. Our liaison officers cannot work effectively unless information flows freely between and among our law enforcement agencies. The free exchange of information gives us the capacity to gather disparate pieces of intelligence together to form a comprehensive picture of the terrorist threat. By sharing our intelligence, we can turn the terrorists’ tactics against them, assembling from fragmented pieces of evidence a prevention strategy that targets al Qaeda root and branch … SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/091602agremarks belgium.htm
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Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Keynote Address to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Annual Security Review Conference on ‘‘Preventing and Combating Terrorism,’’ Vienna, Austria, June 25, 2003 Where We Stand Over the past 2 years, the world has swung into action to fight the scourge of terrorism and the threat it represents to the lives, freedoms, and prosperity of all of our citizens. We have accomplished much in this period: A military coalition liberated the majority of Afghan territory from Taliban control and disrupted the al-Qaeda leadership and cadre it sponsored. Law enforcement services in more than 100 countries have detained over 3,000 al-Qaida operatives and associates. Intelligence services are cooperating as never before to hinder the ability of terrorists to move and operate freely. The international community—including this organization—has forged new relationships and established new standards to institutionalize the war against terrorism globally. Countries with hard-earned skill in fighting terrorism are working together to build the capacity of less experienced nations. With this increased action and cooperation, the international community has helped to stop multiple planned terrorist attacks that would have killed more innocent civilians and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of innumerable others. Although the situation is better than it was 2 years ago, we have not yet won the war. As the cruel attacks against civilians in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Indonesia, Kenya, and elsewhere show, terrorism is still a threat. We will eliminate terrorism only if we maintain and strengthen our will to fight, and build the capabilities of those countries that have the will but not the necessary skill to join us in this fight. Support for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): With the Anti-Terror Unit, the Senior Police Advisor, the Office of the Economic Coordinator, field offices, and the various Ministerial Decisions taken since September 11, 2001, the OSCE is well-organized as an institution to implement programs that will help all participating States to improve their capacity to fight terrorism. Regional organizations like the OSCE need to foster cooperation in promoting broad adherence of its members to the international standards dealing with counterterrorism and organized crime. We do this by meeting in forums like this one to agree on and promote common standards dealing with counterterrorism and organized crime. But we can also do it through OSCE field missions. We should ensure that each of these field missions adopts, as a priority, assisting its host nation in combating terrorism. We should send more counterterrorism experts to these missions, and ensure that they coordinate closely.
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What the OSCE Is Doing As we look back on the OSCE’s action on security, we can be proud of a growing record of achievement. At Porto, Bucharest, and Bishkek, OSCE states adopted forward-looking documents that establish a region-wide standard and framework for OSCE action against terrorism. We have made genuine progress on terrorist finance. With OSCE assistance, 51 of our members have completed their self-assessments on their compliance with the FATF recommendations on terrorist financing. And the OSCE continues to conduct training seminars in several countries—with more planned—on money laundering and terrorist financing issues. What the OSCE Can Do In 2003 and beyond, the OSCE must continue to focus on concrete and achievable steps that advance regional security and combat terrorism. There is much that can and should be done. FATF/Terrorism Finance/Money Laundering: The OSCE can expand the role it has already played on the terrorist financing front in the following ways: Encourage countries that have not yet completed their FATF questionnaires to do so; and Offer technical assistance to any states that may need it, in coordination with the UN Counter-terrorism Committee (UNCTC) and the CounterTerrorism Action Group (CTAG). Implement UN Conventions: OSCE participating States must make every effort to become parties to the 12 UN conventions and protocols on terrorism and begin implementation of these commitments. Only 38% of the OSCE states have become parties to all 12. The OSCE should encourage participating states to adopt the highest possible implementation standards for international terrorism conventions and protocols, and the Permanent Council and the Forum for Security Cooperation should make this an item of regular discussion. Legislative Reform: The Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the ATU are already providing technical assistance to states in developing their counterterrorism-related legislation. Participating States should strongly support this effort, and facilitate its expansion by working to develop an OSCE-wide plan for legislation. The weak link in legislative assistance is not its development, but its implementation. Therefore, the OSCE Permanent Council should make regular and consistent efforts to encourage all states to implement such legislation. Reform of REACT: The REACT Program—which provides a pool of experts on which OSCE can draw—is a critical tool for the OSCE to maintain its ability to respond quickly to the needs of participating states by providing experts or observers. In order to provide qualified counterterrorism experts, the OSCE and participating states should promote an expansion of the REACT system to include a new category of experts in counterterrorism, and should promote the broadest possible recruitment of such individuals. Improved Coordination with International Organizations: The OSCE must work closer than ever with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee
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(CTC), the G-8, ICAO, and others, to develop international standards where needed, to encourage their regional implementation, and coordinate the delivery of technical assistance. Regular high-level meetings should be held and representatives of these organizations should be invited to brief the Permanent Council. Travel Document Security: At present, the G-8 and ICAO are developing minimum standards for issuance of travel and identity documents and for biometric authentication. The OSCE should coordinate with ICAO and G-8 transportation security experts and adopt these standards for the OSCE region. Recently, the OSCE’s ATU organized a number of workshops on detecting counterfeit travel documents. The OSCE should advance plans to offer these workshops elsewhere and to provide training and technical assistance. OSCE participating States should also seek to implement a common global standard based on the automated United Nations Electronic Interchange for Administration Commerce and Transport (UN EDIFACT) system for the collection and transmission of advance passenger information (API). The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the G-8 have adopted this commitment already. In addition, the OSCE should improve procedures and practices for sharing data on lost or stolen passports and denial of entry to intending visitors. As with the UN EDIFACT system, the G-8 and ASEAN Regional Forum have adopted this commitment. Border Security: In the war on terror, it is crucial that we all work to secure our borders. Drawing on OSCE institutions and the standards already developed by the G-8, the IMO, and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the OSCE should endorse a common set of region-wide standards and provide assistance to help states implement these standards. As a first step, the OSCE could endorse the ICAO Aviation Security Plan of Action, including the rapid implementation of mandatory aviation security audits of all ICAO contracting states. The OSCE should also encourage participating States to assist developing countries in the OSCE region in this and other aviation, port and land border security areas. Some countries have suggested the development within the OSCE Secretariat of a Border Unit to work with the Strategic Police Unit and the Antiterrorism Unit to create comprehensive border security standards. We endorse this idea. If the OSCE can make headway in all the areas that I have mentioned, I believe it will be making a substantial and important contribution to ridding the world of terrorism. Rule of Law and Human Rights In closing, I would also note that the OSCE’s broader work to promote respect for human rights, to foster democratic institutions and market reform, and to prevent conflict are also critical to the long-term success of the war against terrorism. There is no excuse or rationale that can justify terrorism and the atrocities terrorists commit against innocent civilians. We can, however, seek to remove the factors that terrorists use to serve their twisted goals by enabling good
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governance, human dignity, and economic opportunity in the OSCE region and beyond. The rule of law, anti-corruption efforts, and equal economic opportunity give citizens confidence that they will be treated fairly, receive justice, and have a real chance to meet their needs and those of their children. By encouraging tolerance for ethnic and religious differences, and by defending the rights of citizens belonging to national minorities, we deny terrorists a pretext for their self-serving violence. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/22053.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Remarks for the EU/U.S. Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties Signing Ceremonies, June 25, 2003 We sign today the first treaties ever agreed between the United States and the European Union as a whole. In the months since September 11, our law enforcement partners in E.U. member states have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us in the fight against international terrorism. These two treaties represent only the most recent steps we have taken to strengthen our close law enforcement relationships. The treaties, one dealing with extradition and the other with mutual legal assistance, will give us additional tools to combat terrorism, organized crime, and other serious forms of criminality. Let me note only a few examples. The mutual legal assistance treaty provides for the formation of joint investigative teams, the use of video-technology for taking testimony, and the provision of information regarding suspect bank accounts. The extradition treaty updates the oldest treaties in force between the U.S. and E.U. member states, which currently permit extradition for only a limited range of listed offenses; henceforth, extradition will be available for a broad range of serious offenses punishable under both states’ laws. Significantly, these treaties have accomplished these goals, not by supplanting our existing bilateral relationships, but by building upon and supplementing them. Thus, they modernize, but do not replace, the bilateral arrangements now in place. SOURCE: lattreaty.htm
http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/062503eugreekm
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘European Cooperation with the United States in the Global War on Terrorism,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on European Affairs, Washington, D.C., March 31, 2004 Cooperation with Europe is very much on my mind, as I have just left our semi-annual bilateral counterterrorism meeting with Russia to attend this hearing. The fact that we meet regularly with the Russians to exchange views
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on terrorism issues shows how far we have come in expanding our counterterrorism cooperation. For various cultural and historical reasons, not all Europeans use the term ‘‘war’’ to refer to our common confrontation with global terrorism. However, I believe the people of Europe are united in their abhorrence of terrorism. This revulsion that has only been strengthened by the horror of the train bombs in Madrid and of the suicide bombers in a crowded market in Tashkent. Well before the Madrid outrages, which killed more people than any single terrorist attack since Lockerbie, many European countries had been targets of international or domestic terrorism. Sadly, Europeans well know the price terrorism exacts. Mr. Chairman, as shown by the widening Spanish-led investigation that is taking place with the cooperation of Morocco and several European countries, neither the U.S. nor Europe can fight the war against terrorism alone. Europeans have been reliable partners, both bilaterally and in multilateral organizations. Cooperation has been forthcoming, and rapid response to immediate threats the norm. France and Britain—and our neighbor Mexico—for example, acted immediately and vigorously to address our concerns about heightened and specific threats to aviation over the Christmas holiday period. We greatly appreciate this cooperation. Successes in the campaign against terrorism have, to a large degree, been a result of the unprecedented level of cooperation and mutual support among the U.S. and our partners around the world. The contributions of European countries in sharing vital information, arresting members of terrorist cells, interdicting terrorist financing and logistics, and assisting in rebuilding Afghanistan have been and continue to be, vital elements in the war on terrorism. European nations are active participants in a variety of multilateral organizations that have made contributions in counterterrorist efforts, including the G-8, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The U.S. has worked through all of these organizations to establish and implement counterterrorism (CT) best practices, build weakbut-willing states’ CT capabilities, and institutionalize the war against terrorism globally. OSCE members have committed themselves to become parties to the 12 UN terrorism conventions and protocols; to prevent terrorist groups from operating on their territory; and to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist organizations. EU Cooperation The EU has been a solid partner in sustaining the global coalition against terrorism. Following 9/11, the European Council adopted an Action Plan to identify areas, such as police and judicial cooperation, humanitarian assistance, transportation security and economic and finance policy, to help fight terrorism. The EU and U.S. signed Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties at the June 2003 Summit that will expand law enforcement and judicial cooperation. The Madrid bombings have provided additional impetus for action. In an 18-page declaration on counter terrorism on March 25, EU heads of state agreed, among other things, to reinforce operational cooperation, improve
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the effectiveness of border information systems, and bolster technical assistance to Third countries. We applaud the designation of a new EU Counterterrorism Coordinator and a new sense of urgency stemming from the Madrid attacks will help speed EU implementation of actions outlined in the EU Summit declaration. The capabilities of our Western European partners are excellent. European intelligence and security forces are well aware of the threat posed by Islamist extremism and generally do an effective job of monitoring extremists. They have successfully forestalled numerous incipient mass casualty attacks since 9/11. However, significant deficiencies remain. Some European states have demonstrated a troubling inability to prosecute successfully or hold many of the terrorists brought before their courts. The nature of the problem varies from country to country, as do legal systems, traditions, and relevant legislation. Some countries have legal impediments to taking firm judicial action stemming from asylum laws; some have inadequate CT legislation; some have extremely high standards of evidence that afford loopholes and limit the ability of authorities to hold suspects; many do not have in-camera proceedings, making use of intelligence-based information nearly impossible. Ease of travel among Schengen countries, varying immigration laws, and strict protections of privacy can also complicate CT efforts. Differing perspectives on the dividing line between legitimate political or charitable activity and support for terrorist groups similarly clouds the picture. For example, the EU as a whole has been reluctant to take steps to block the assets of charities linked to Hamas and Hizballah, even though these groups repeatedly engage in deadly terrorist attacks and the ‘‘charitable’’ activities help draw recruits. Even laying aside the contentious issue of the death penalty, European sentences in general are often significantly less stringent than those in the US, and provisions for mandatory remission of sentences frequently more generous. We want to work with our European partners to identify areas where there is work to be done and ways in which we can collaborate more effectively. Let me briefly address some of them: All of us, including the United States, need to improve coordination between our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. There have been significant advances since September 11, 2001, but we can still do better. We all need to improve our ability to track terrorism financing. Most countries in Europe have good laws against terrorism financing, but some of the financial transfers slip past regulators in the formal economy. Some transactions move through informal, largely illegal, channels. All of us need to continue to improve the control of our borders, both with respect to movement of persons in and out, and movement of potentially dangerous items, especially those possibly related to weapons of mass destruction. We also must remedy deficiencies in legal, financial and enforcement tools: ¥ European countries need to fulfill their commitments to ratify and implement all the UN CT conventions and protocols; ¥ States must insure the criminalization of material and logistical support for terrorism (and in some cases, terrorism itself); impose strict punishments on convicted
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terrorists; and lower barriers to use of intelligence in law enforcement. Laws against document fraud need to be strengthened across the board; ¥ All countries need to have a national ability to freeze administratively terrorist assets; ¥ Legal or technical impediments to closer cooperation among countries on intelligence and information exchanges must be removed. The EU and its member states need to re-examine fundamentally the ways in which strict privacy laws can impede the sharing of information for law enforcement purposes; ¥ EU member states need to accelerate efforts to complete bilateral agreements with the U.S. to implement the U.S.-EU Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements.
Wider Cooperation At the same time, we need to continue to look for ways to develop cooperative U.S.-European CT programs to assist less-capable countries. Many countries need assistance in developing their capabilities to counter terrorism and strengthen their legal framework. There is more than enough work for all of us. Addressing the factors that reduce CT effectiveness in Europe will be a long-term process. Differing legal, cultural, and historical traditions and practices will complicate and slow progress. However, there is no doubt that the Europeans are increasingly aware of both the threat and the deficiencies that limit their abilities to address it. To win the global war on terrorism, we must continue to work closely with our European partners to address these concerns and to build on our many successes. We will need to shore up support from public opinion by more clearly articulating our policies and underscoring that terrorism is a global threat to citizens of all countries. Reducing your profile in confronting terrorism does not reduce your risk from terrorism. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/30983.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Transcript of the G-8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial Press Conference, Washington, D.C., May 11, 2004 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: The fight against terrorism must not be limited by our borders. We understand that we cannot fight these threats separately. If we expect to emerge safer and more secure, we must fight together. As a result, global law enforcement, communication, and cooperation, which was already strong prior to 9/11, has expanded while the relationships between our respective agencies have grown even stronger. The simple fact is that law enforcement cannot be carried out internationally without the cooperation of other nations, but we must do more, and that is what we addressed at today’s meeting. First, we discussed ways to ensure that our legal frameworks can permit effective law enforcement action that prevents terrorists from acting on their plans.
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This means building on our successful cross-border sharing of intelligence and focusing on investigations of a broad range of terrorist supportive activities, including the recruitment of potential terrorists. Second, we considered ways to prevent terrorists from exploiting weaknesses in the immigration process. One such vulnerability is lost or stolen passports. We will work on increasing international participation in the database regarding lost and stolen blank passports. It’s a problem that is a threat to the security of individuals. The database is maintained by Interpol, the international police supportive agency. Third, we discussed ways to impede the ability of terrorists to use the Internet and escape detection. Today, thanks to the earlier work of the G-8 enforcement exports and ministers, there is a network of almost 40 law enforcement agencies from 40 different nations around the world that provide 24/7 around-the-clock contact in each country for urgent Internet investigations. At our meeting, we discussed increasing these capabilities even more, and we will seek ways to strengthen domestic laws that criminalize misuse of computer networks. Finally, we agreed to fight corruption and to help recover national assets that are stolen by corrupt foreign officials. SECRETARY RIDGE: … There are a couple of notions that I would share with you around which there is universal agreement that the threat of international terrorism is not unique to any of the individual countries here. We accept it as a potential to occur. It has occurred in many of our countries, but that potential to rear its head again certainly exists, but not only within the G-8, but there’s an understanding among these countries that it is a worldwide potential. It is also a collective understanding that because of the globalization of our world, of transportation, of commerce, of communication, of education, that it is in our collective interest that we keep our doors open to each other and to the rest of the world, but again, we work in a collective and collaborative spirit to make sure that the borders are secure. And to that end, we also agreed, and again, this is such a powerful statement, that it is in everyone’s best interests, again, the collective view, the collective aspiration that as we go about setting standards that will enhance our security of our own individual countries, we need to set these standards in a way that enhance security of all countries, and to that extent, it is generally agreed that as we reach for biometric standards, as we look for ways to authenticate the identity of people, or to verify the authenticity of documents, that the G-8 take a leadership role in identifying what those biometric parameters would be and the technology that we would only—not only in the G-8, but encourage our colleagues from around the world to use, as well. We agreed that it’s in our collective interest to deal with the various challenges surrounding port security. There’s been much discussion and much support among the G-8 countries with the Container Security Initiative that the United States began well over a year ago, but it involves far more than that, and again, it is the judgment, the group’s judgment, that we all have a
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role and all have a need to deal not only with the security of the ports in the United States but in collective port security and ship security around the world. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2004/g8pressconf_051104. htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General John Ashcroft Prepared Remarks at the EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers Meeting, The Hague, September 30, 2004 (http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2004/agremarkseu.htm).
President George W. Bush Condemns Terrorism in Russia, Remarks to the Press Pool, Russian Embassy, Washington, D.C., September 12, 2004 THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Ambassador, thank you for receiving Laura and me. I’m here to express my country’s heart-felt sympathies for the victims and the families who suffered at the hands of the evil terrorists. The United States stands side-by-side with Russia as we fight off terrorism, as we stand shoulder-toshoulder to make the world a more peaceful place and a free place. The atrocities that took place in the school were beyond comprehension. Many in America, and I know many in Russia, simply cannot conceive the hearts of a person that would mow down innocent children. And the killers, once again, reminded us—remind us of the duties we have as free people to work in concert, to work in unity, to make this world a better place. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040912-1.html
William P. Pope, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘European Cooperation with the United States in the Global War on Terrorism,’’ Remarks to the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Europe and on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2004 Cooperation with Europe is vital to our ability effectively to prosecute that war—against enemies that threaten all of us, on both sides of the Atlantic. … Following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. Government developed a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which outlined the policy framework for coordinated actions to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, its interests, and its friends around the world. We have implemented this strategy to act simultaneously on four fronts: ¥ Defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by going after their sanctuaries, leadership, finances, and command, control and communications; ¥ Deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating with other states to take action against these international threats;
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¥ Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk; and ¥ Defend the United States, its citizens, and interests at home and abroad.
To achieve these ambitious aims, we have sought, with great success, to create and sustain a broad international coalition: Our multilateral counterterrorism (CT) efforts start at the United Nations. UN Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted with strong U.S. leadership shortly after 9/11, places binding obligations on all UN member states to: ¥ Prevent and suppress terrorist financing by criminalizing financing, planning, preparing or perpetrating terrorist acts; ¥ Prohibit nationals from making funds or economic resources available to terrorists; ¥ Freeze funds and financial assets of terrorists and related entities; ¥ Refrain from supporting terrorist entities, take necessary steps to prevent commission of terrorist acts, and prevent use of territory for terrorist acts; ¥ Deny safe haven and prevent movement of terrorists across borders; ¥ Exchange operational information and enter into agreements to prevent and suppress terrorism, including ratifying the 12 CT conventions and protocols; ¥ Ensure refugee/asylum laws prevent abuse by terrorists; and ¥ Prohibit active and passive assistance to terrorists.
UNSCR 1373 also created the UN Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) to monitor implementation of its obligations, and to maintain countries’ will to continue the struggle. Earlier this year, the UNCTC was revitalized to strengthen the fight against terrorism within the United Nations by giving the CTC further means to fulfill its mandate of monitoring implementation of 1373. A new Counterterrorism Executive Director position was also created. Regional and functional organizations are also crucial to building a seamless global CT web. Functional organizations like the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization can set international CT standards and best practices. Regional groups around the world, including the European Union, can and do encourage their member states to adopt these standards and best practices, and help in their implementation. An example of how the United States is working with such organizations to improve CT efforts involves four different multilateral groups, each doing what it does best: ¥ The G-8, which includes several of European partners, developed a set of guidelines and best practices to improve the security of travel documents, including the use of biometrics. ¥ ICAO reviewed these guidelines and best practices and agreed to adopt them as international standards. ¥ The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed in a Ministerial decision last December to a U.S.-initiated proposal for all 55 OSCE member states to adopt and implement the ICAO standards and best practices.
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¥ The G-8 Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG) focused part of its last meeting on bringing donor attention to document security assistance needs in the OSCE region and beyond.
G-8 actions in these areas will serve as a first step in further bolstering the security of travel. As with G-8 document security standards, the next steps will be to export completed standards and practices to other organizations for broader adoption, and then to help those lacking the means to implement them. The European Union has been a solid partner in sustaining the global coalition against terrorism. Following 9/11, the European Council adopted an Action Plan to identify areas, such as police and judicial cooperation, humanitarian assistance, transportation security, and economic and finance policy, to help fight terrorism. The EU and the United States signed Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements at our June 2003 Summit that will expand law enforcement and judicial cooperation. The Madrid bombings provided additional impetus for action. Since then, EU members have agreed, among other things, to reinforce operational cooperation, improve the effectiveness of border information systems, and bolster technical assistance to third countries. They have also named an EU Counterterrorism Coordinator, whose job is to monitor and encourage implementation of EU agreements on enhancing counterterrorism capabilities. At the recent U.S.-EU Summit, our European partners and we renewed our commitment to further develop our cooperation against terrorism and agreed to work together: to deepen the international consensus and enhance international efforts to combat terrorism; to prevent access by terrorists to financial and other economic resources; to develop measures to maximize our capacities to detect, investigate, and prosecute terrorists and prevent terrorist attacks; to protect the security of international transport and ensure effective systems of border control; to develop further our capabilities to deal with the consequences of a terrorist attack; to diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists can seize to recruit and exploit to their advantage; and to target our external relations actions towards priority developing countries where counterterrorism capacity or commitment to combating terrorism needs to be enhanced. This is the type of multilateral CT effort and cooperation that the United States seeks to promote, a goal clearly shared by our G-8 and EU partners. Let me turn now to the broader question how we see the war on terrorism in Europe: European nations are active participants in a variety of multilateral organizations that have made contributions in counterterrorist efforts, including the G-8, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) … Terrorist activity and the presence of terrorist support networks in Europe remains a source of concern, however; as we all know, much of the planning for 9/11 took place in Europe, and terrorist support networks continue to exist on the continent despite the best efforts of security services and
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European governments. I would note that in Germany, for example, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s annual report concluded that Islamic extremists represent the largest threat to that country’s internal security and remain the main focus of German authorities. Efforts to combat the threat in Europe are sometimes complicated by the fact that some countries have legal impediments to taking firm judicial action against suspected terrorists, often stemming from asylum laws that afford loopholes, inadequate CT legislation, or standards of evidence that lack flexibility in permitting law enforcement authorities to rely on classified-source information in holding terrorist suspects. Ease of travel within Schengen visa countries also makes Western Europe attractive to terrorists. We are concerned that some European states have at times demonstrated an inability to prosecute successfully or hold many of the terrorists brought before their courts. Differing perspectives on the dividing line between legitimate political or charitable activity and support for terrorist groups similarly clouds the picture. For example, the EU as a whole has been reluctant to take steps to block the assets of charities linked to Hamas and Hizballah, even though these groups repeatedly engage in deadly terrorist attacks, and the ‘‘charitable’’ activities help draw recruits. These groups derive a considerable portion of their funding from Europe, and funds allegedly raised for ‘‘humanitarian’’ purposes are easily diverted to the commission of terrorist acts. Even laying aside the contentious issue of the death penalty, European sentences in general are often significantly less stringent than those in the United States, and provisions for mandatory remission of sentences frequently more generous. We all need to improve our ability to track terrorism financing. Most countries in Europe have good laws against terrorism financing, but some of the financial transfers slip past regulators in the formal economy. Some transactions move through informal, largely illegal, channels … To address these potential weaknesses, the United States continues to work closely with European partners to strengthen CT legislation and to help improve abilities to restrict terrorists’ freedom of action, block assets, and address social conditions that contribute to the spread of terrorism. Despite occasional hiccups, I would stress that the contributions of European countries in sharing vital information, arresting members of terrorist cells, interdicting terrorist financing and logistics, and assisting in rebuilding Afghanistan have been and continue to be, vital elements in the war on terrorism. Successes in the campaign against terrorism have, to a large degree, been a result of the unprecedented level of cooperation and mutual support among the United States and our partners around the world. European countries are moving to overcome some of the impediments to pursuing terrorists that existed before 9/11. We want to continue to work with our European partners to identify areas where there is work to be done and ways in which we can collaborate more effectively. Let me briefly address some of them: All of us, including the United States, need to improve coordination between our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. There have been significant advances since September 11, 2001, but we can still do better.
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We remain concerned about the activities of state sponsors of terrorism in supporting some of the world’s deadliest terror organizations. It is the policy of the United States to see that these nations cease their support for international terror. Only then can they be considered members of the international community in good standing. We remain particularly concerned with the activities of Syria and Iran, which are actively engaged in supporting the activities of Palestinian rejectionist terrorist groups and Hizballah, which pose a threat to regional security and the conclusion of a just and lasting Middle East peace. We continue to urge our EU and G-8 partners to keep the pressure on state sponsors to change their behavior, particularly regarding support for HAMAS, Hizbullah, and others. All of us must look for ways to remedy deficiencies in legal, financial and enforcement tools: ¥ European countries need to fulfill their commitments to ratify and implement all the UN CT conventions and protocols. ¥ States must ensure the criminalization of material and logistical support for terrorism (and in some cases, terrorism itself); impose strict punishments on convicted terrorists; and lower barriers to use of intelligence in law enforcement. Laws against document fraud need to be strengthened across the board. ¥ All countries need to have a national ability to freeze administratively terrorist assets. ¥ Legal or technical impediments to closer cooperation among countries on intelligence and information exchanges must be removed. The EU and its member states need to re-examine fundamentally the ways in which strict privacy laws can impede the sharing of information for law enforcement purposes. ¥ EU member states need to accelerate efforts to complete bilateral agreements with the United States to implement the U.S.-EU Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements.
At the same time, we need to continue to look for ways to develop cooperative U.S.-European CT programs to assist less-capable countries. Many countries need assistance in developing their capabilities to counter terrorism and strengthen their legal framework. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/36239.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on European Affairs European Cooperation with the United States in the Global War on Terrorism, March 31, 2004 (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/30983.htm).
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Remarks at the European Policy Centre, Office of the Press Secretary, Brussels, Belgium, January 13, 2005 REMARKS AS PREPARED The United States shares an important partnership with the European Union—and her member nations. In nearly every field of human endeavor, we are bound together by our common interests, common goals and mutual
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respect. We both realize that security—for our individual countries and for freedom throughout the world—must rely on collective action. The defeat of international terrorism will take nothing less. The scourge of global terrorism requires the strength of a global response. And the means to confront the terrorist threat successfully rests in our ability to engage the world community, work together multilaterally and foster healthy dialogue and strategic cooperation among allies. … Within the national strategy, as we outlined domestic security priorities, it became clear that our efforts to secure America would not succeed without international collaboration. Something that I will always remember as Secretary was the impact of the first question that was asked to me at the first town meeting I had with employees of the new Homeland Security Department before we even opened the doors. A gentleman stood up, approached the microphone and asked, ‘‘What are the international implications of homeland security?’’ I expected the first question to be about benefits or integration challenges. Instead, I saw that here was someone that gets it. Visionary and prescient, this person already had a real understanding not only of the reach of our organization but also the importance of international partnerships. The knowledge that homeland security is more than just the integration of a nation—but the integration of nations. And the recognition that we are all more secure in solidarity, working together in unified effort versus a patchwork of unilateral actions. As we have come together to defend our homelands from new dangers— America and Europe—have built upon the common heritage and close ties we share to guide our mutual security efforts. We have and must continue to cultivate this relationship, striving every day to confront challenges large and small, share information and best practices, and develop next generation technologies to protect us today and long into the future. Of course, the first element of a strong partnership is sustained cooperation. That’s why I’m pleased to announce that the United States will establish a full-time attach´e from the Department of Homeland Security to the European Union. This new position is not only symbolic of our commitment to increased cooperation, but, by having a direct link between the Secretary and negotiating partners across Europe, it will allow for constant communication on an operational level. The Homeland Security attach´e will enable us to make decisions faster and ramp up security more easily by working in the arena side by side, rather than across an ocean. The United States and the E.U. share a desire to improve the protections for all of our nations’ homelands, while promoting the free flow of legitimate travel and trade and protecting civil liberties. And in doing so we are stronger and more effective together than apart. In the area of maritime security, we have made marked progress with programs such as the Container Security Initiative. During that November trip, in fact, CSI only existed as a pilot in Rotterdam where U.S. Customs inspectors were working alongside their Dutch counterparts to target and screen cargo. Since that time, the United States and European Union signed an agreement to expand CSI throughout the European Community and increase
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cooperation and mutual assistance on other customs matters. So what began in Rotterdam as a bilateral initiative has now grown to include Antwerp and Zeebrugge here in Belgium, as well as Le Havre, Marseilles, Naples, and 28 other locations around the world. In addition, efforts to secure the vast global shipping industry that were once isolated and scattered are now coordinated under the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code developed by the IMO and put in place this July. For the first time ever, this international effort establishes one world standard for ship and port security.… On a daily basis, we share information about a variety of threats that greatly aids our efforts to remain ahead of our creative and determined enemy. … During the holiday period of 2003, we came into possession of intelligence that terrorists might attempt to take over several international flights, and as a result issued emergency aviation amendments. We began to deal directly with the airlines and learned there was a more effective way to deal with threats to international aviation. The lesson was quite simple—that the primary means of communication must be from government to government. It was an experience that reinforced our understanding of the value and necessity of the international partnerships we’d been working diligently to build. The second lesson was learned during our negotiations with the E.U. to address mutual privacy concerns governing the transfer of sensitive passenger name record—or PNR—data on flights between Europe and the United States. And that lesson was … even though we may have differences of opinion, the place from where we start is often closer than we think. For example, the American public cares about privacy rights as deeply as Europeans do. And while negotiations were intense the ultimate PNR agreement that emerged reflects the shared value both Europeans and Americans place on civil liberties. Having access to PNR data will facilitate the entry of legitimate travelers and expedite the entry of the vast majority of visitors who travel throughout the world without any malicious intent, while helping to identify people who could pose a threat to passengers on the flight or to the security of our countries or evil design. To ensure that the privacy protections we put in place are sufficient, in the coming months, the United States and E.U. will conduct our first joint review of how we use PNR in our counterterrorism efforts. And let me be clear: all of the additional security capabilities that we are building have not, cannot and will not ever come at the expense of our fundamental values or individual liberties. Relationships have to get stronger. Information sharing must become more swift and transparent. Public communication must be improved. Emergency response protocols must be honed. And the latest science and most advanced technologies must continue to be sought out and utilized. To that end, common international standards of biometrics must be developed—the sooner the better. Biometrics is a tremendous technological tool that can not only accurately identify and cross check travelers—and potential terrorists—before they enter our countries, but also provide increased travel document security and important identity protections.
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In America, we have already seen through our US-VISIT program that biometric information can provide an added layer of security, while at the same time bring travelers across our borders with greater ease and convenience. Since the beginning of the year, US-VISIT has processed more than 17 million legitimate passengers. And since the program began more than 370 criminals and immigration violators have been stopped at our borders. More recently, we’ve established a registered traveler program that provides travelers an opportunity to provide biometric and biographic information voluntarily that can be used to perform a security check against law enforcement and terrorist watch lists. A fingerprint or iris scan is all that is then needed for quick passenger identification and expedited processing through security … The Trans Atlantic Partnership and the international community would benefit greatly from an agreement on a set of international standards for capturing, analyzing, storing, reading, sharing and protecting this sensitive information, ensuring maximum interoperability between systems … and maximum privacy for our citizens. Moving forward we must also remain aware of other agendas beyond homeland security that need to be addressed in this ongoing conflict. Dismantling the terrorist threat is not possible unless we make the necessary investments to root out and stop terrorism at the source. And through the seizure of terrorist assets, disruption of cells, a continuation of the arrests in which the European community has been so active, and the sacrifices of brave soldiers who are liberating the oppressed and transforming terrorist havens with the seeds of democracy—together we are making significant inroads—together we are getting it done. In addition, as we were reminded in a meeting this past September with U.K. officials understanding terrorist enemies is the key to their defeat. We must come to know how do terrorist groups form and operate? How do they grow and sustain themselves? These are important questions, and that’s why early this week we allocated $12 million to one of our universities to study the behavioral and social aspects of terrorism. If we do not address the cause that fuels this barbaric and merciless movement, then we can not stop the cycle of young boys and girls who are at this moment being indoctrinated in hate and manipulated into acts of terror. The way ahead holds immense undertakings, yet paved with limitless opportunity we can see our way toward a boundless future of security and peace—but only if we do so together. In the end, the struggle against terror is not a test of military strength, but a test of will—a test of fortitude. The terrorists have no plans to surrender their arms in the near future. On the contrary, this will be a long, hard fight. SOURCE: http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4302 EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see President George W. Bush, Discussion of American and European Alliance, Brussels, Belgium, February 21, 2005 (http://www.whitehouse. gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050221.html).
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R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, and Sergey Kislyak, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Osobnyak, Remarks Following Meeting of U.S.-Russia Counterterrorism Working Group, Moscow, Russia, December 2, 2005 DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER KISLYAK: … We spent the whole day in consultations between the delegations of the two countries on the struggle against terrorism. This is the 14th meeting in this series. This is a well-established channel of interaction between our countries on one of the most important issues. This interaction meets the interests of both Russia and the United States, and I would hope it meets the interests of other countries as well, because the capabilities of our countries may prove useful in fighting terrorism as a global threat. We had a broad dialogue that covered the struggle against terrorism, the narco threat in their regional dimensions; we discussed functional collaboration in fighting this evil both through counterterrorist agencies and agencies that are supposed to suppress unlawful cash flows that can be used by terrorists or drug dealers. We also discussed transportation security and a number of other important and concrete issues. The result: we agreed to continue working on the basis of our achievements and enhancing our cooperation that we can see in the joint work of our relevant agencies. We believe that Russia and the United States have very good prospects for cooperation in this field. We think all citizens in our country and the U.S. and wherever we can be of use will feel the benefits of this cooperation. UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We find this group to be highly relevant to our global objective of trying to contain and defeat terrorism. There is no question that the United States and Russia, both as powers of the world, face this threat together. It’s a common threat, and we do rely upon each other to work closely, to develop effective solutions—as much as we can do that—and to be communicating every day, as we do through our embassies, to make sure that we are working well together. … Today’s meeting was an excellent meeting because there was serious discussion on both sides, of a very high quality, in some respects quite detailed. And we’re pleased by the cooperation that our federal services have together on the counterterrorism fight around the world. We are pleased by what we will try to do now to enhance the level of our counternarcotics cooperation … Q. Is Chechnya not in some respect a counterterrorism issue? Surely from the point of view of your Russian colleagues there are counterterrorism operations going on down there, and I would be surprised if it didn’t come up in some form. DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER KISLYAK: The problem of fighting terrorism in Chechnya certainly exists. But this is one of the issues that I said we cannot discuss outside this room because these issues are for relevant agencies to work on. We cooperate on the entire range of regional problems quite well. We can take one last question. UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I just wanted to be able to do your question some justice and explain that, obviously, and Ambassador Burns may want to
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comment on this … but of course we have discussed for many years the question of Chechnya but in the appropriate channels. In this working group we’re focused on the challenges largely outside the borders of both of our countries and the terrorism threat which is common to both of us. And so what we have tried to develop is two things: an ability to exchange opinions and information about both counterterrorism and counternarcotics, first. And second, we have tried to focus on what we can do together in terms of joint action to be effective … All of us around the world, friends of Afghanistan, are concerned about the narcotics production problem, and also the narcotics trafficking problem. And as you know, the United States has been involved with the United Kingdom and other countries to try to help the Karzai government to lower the level of opium production, but also to help stem the tide of, the flow of narcotics outside of the borders of Afghanistan. It’s there that Russia and America have a common interest not just in discussing the problem but in common actions. So that’s what we focused on, issues like that. Of course we discussed Chechnya in a wide variety of meetings with Russian officials, but we don’t do that here. We have a very specific agenda in this particular joint working group. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2005/57601.htm
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, Hearing on Islamic Extremism in Europe, Washington, D.C., April 5, 2006 It is now well known that the terrorist cell that conducted the 9–11 attacks did much of its planning from a base in Europe. Five years later, and despite many counterterrorism successes, violent Islamist extremism in Europe continues to pose a threat to the national security of the United States and our allies. At the global level, Al Qa’ida (AQ) still seeks to attack the United States, and despite suffering enormous damage since 2001, still retains a capability to do so. But, increasingly, the threat comes from smaller, more diffuse, locallybased groups that are not under AQ command, but rather share its vision of a global war against the civilized world, especially against those Muslims who embrace a vision of tolerance and interconfessional harmony. In Europe, this threat manifests itself in a variety of ways: direct attacks like those in Madrid and London; recruitment of terrorists and foreign fighters for Iraq; and ideological safe havens in immigrant communities isolated from mainstream society. In addition, as our collective efforts in Iraq and that region constrain the mobility of foreign fighters into Iraq, enemy recruits may seek other areas in which to gather and operate. Europe is a potential target. Assistant Secretary Fried has provided an excellent overview of Islamist extremism in Europe (http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2006/Fried Testimony060405.pdf), the conditions that allow it to develop, and some of our efforts to counter these conditions. I would like to provide some additional information on our efforts and the challenges we face in doing so.
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To be successful we will need to address both the immediate, direct threat posed by terrorism today, and the long-term potential for growth in extremism. The immediate threat is clear and in some ways easier to address: specific persons or groups seeking to launch attacks on specific targets. Those people must be captured, killed or deterred, and their attacks prevented, almost always in concert with our partners. But at the same time as we and our partners work to protect and defend our homelands and to attack the terrorists’ ability to operate, we must also counter the ideologies that support violent extremism. Dealing with the threat from violent extremism, therefore, requires that we and our partners wage a traditional campaign using our judicial, law enforcement, financial, military, and diplomatic resources. Simultaneously, we must fight the enemy in the arena of ideas, ideas suffused with justice, integrity, and virtue. This challenge will resemble, in some ways, that which we faced during the Cold War. Countering violent extremism involves a world-wide effort. It will last decades, if not longer. And this ideological conflict—halting the spread of al-Qa’ida’s perverted world view—will be at the heart of this challenge. How do we prepare for this challenge? We need to counter the terrorist network by building alternative networks. All human beings belong to networks. They create bonds of shared experience and trust, and support their needs. Disrupting enemy networks in the war on terrorism is an essential activity, but it can only take us part way to success. We must also work with our partners to find alternative ways to meet people’s social and economic needs and prevent them from gravitating toward extremist networks. To do this, we and our partners need each other’s help, and we will need each other’s trust more than ever. Trust, rooted in understanding, promotes information sharing and collective strategies. In the operational context, trust stimulates speed, agility, stealth, and collective strength. We must understand the enemy networks, their tactics and the space in which we confront them so that we may determine practical countermeasures. We must also understand ourselves and each other. Based on this knowledge, we can forge powerful networks of trust that help us out-think, out-maneuver, and out-fight the terrorists. As we seek to do this in Europe, we begin with a major advantage. Decades of close transatlantic collaboration have created powerful institutions, where the impulse for close cooperation is deep-rooted: NATO, the EU, and the G8. These bodies serve in different ways to help us address the challenge of Islamist extremism. They already institutionalize the habits of trust and cooperation that need to underpin our common effort against the enemy. Moreover, they bring to bear all the instruments of national and trans-national power—diplomatic, informational, military, economic, legal, intelligence— and, better yet, serve as force multipliers. Although we begin with this advantage in Europe, we also need to build and bolster partnerships and trusted networks to achieve our aims. In the eight months since I have been Ambassador for Counterterrorism, we have held a series of high-level CT discussions with the UK, one of our closest allies. I just returned last Friday from our most recent interagency session. Another set of talks is underway with France, an effective, tough CT partner. I will lead an interagency delegation to Paris in May. These discussions are not
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mere ‘‘consultations.’’ On the contrary, these exchanges lead to programs and operations, maximizing our collective abilities to hurt the enemy. With the British for example, we have advanced cooperative efforts to address terrorist use of the Internet and have collaborated to counter the extremists’ message. We also cooperate well beyond the borders of Europe. In Iraq and elsewhere, our teamwork with British and Canadian partners has secured the release of our hostages. The French, working with us, have provided training to judges in Indonesia, which follows French legal practices. Through a bilateral counterterrorism working group, I have engaged with my Russian counterpart to consider ways to counter the influence of extremist ideology. We met most recently in late February and we will meet again in June. In the G8, moving beyond the long-standing and effective program of CT cooperation through the CTAG (Counterterrorism Action Group), we have been working with partners on projects aimed at addressing terrorist recruitment in prisons and developing common policies that reach out to the moderate voices and leaders in Muslim communities around the globe. In addition, we are supporting the Russian-led G8 initiative to find new ways to enlist the private sector in counterterrorism projects through the development of public/private sector partnerships. We have made progress—but there is much more required. Our European partners must also take the lead in their own countries. They need to find ways to build trusted networks of their own that isolate and marginalize terrorists and their supporters, galvanize revulsion against the murder of innocents, and empower legitimate alternatives to extremism. This element of trust will play a key role as European governments seek to mobilize mainstream members of at-risk communities to counter the extremists and their message. Clearly, the Europeans abhor and condemn terrorism and violence. But moving from condemnation of terrorism to active cooperation with authorities to bring perpetrators to justice requires a new level of trust. This underscores a critical point: the struggle against extremism in Europe is not just the ‘‘destructive’’ task of eradicating enemy networks, but also the ‘‘constructive’’ task of working to build trust and confidence in governments’ commitment to fairness and opportunity for all their citizens. This creates interdependent networks that can offer communities legitimate alternatives to the twisted perspectives and false solutions exposed by extremists. As in the Cold War, we and our partners will need to engage in an ideological struggle, a battle to undermine the philosophical basis for violent extremism. As the international community continues to pursue specific organizational remedies, using our legal systems, intelligence services and security forces, we must simultaneously develop a strategy to de-legitimize terrorism. Our European partners must do more to encourage all their citizens to identify with the societies in which they live. This will not be easy. But, we must do a better than we are doing now. Our European partners understand the gravity of the threat. The Madrid and London bombings, the van Gogh murder in the Netherlands, the cartoon riots, all have served to reinforce the need to confront and overcome violent Islamist extremism. Many European governments are rooting out terrorist networks and support systems. Spain continues to disrupt extremist cells on a regular basis,
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detaining and convicting dozens of suspects in the last two years. France recently broke up a network recruiting foreign fighters for Iraq, and just last month put on trial suspects from an alleged terrorist network connected to militants in Chechnya and Afghanistan. The Netherlands, using new and tougher counterterrorism legislation, recently convicted members of the Hofstad Group. But despite this shared perception of the threat, there is disagreement over the most effective means to counter the threat. Some Europeans continue to argue that terrorism is merely—or mainly—a criminal problem. In the last year, there has been a raging controversy in Europe about specific counterterrorism practices allegedly used by the United States. This is a serious issue deserving serious consideration lest it undermine the trust that is essential to our effort. To succeed in applying our vast power against the enemy, we must calibrate and focus that power, so that our actions are legitimate and, importantly, perceived as legitimate. We are engaging on all these issues with our European partners. Secretary Rice and Legal Adviser Bellinger have met with European leaders and officials and laid out clearly our policies and practices. As we move forward in our dialogue, our European friends need to know that the United States understands that these are difficult questions and that differences remain. We recognize the need to address the perception gaps and the need to explain our actions. This point is critical. In our global, high-tech, media-saturated society, perception and misperception affect legitimacy. Legitimacy or lack thereof, in turn, enhances or degrades power, respectively. This is unprecedented, in terms of scope, speed, and impact. And, this is yet another fundamental shift in the nature of war. We must work with our European partners to understand this. We view the enemy on this global battlefield as a ‘‘threat complex’’ comprising three strategic elements: leaders, safe havens and underlying conditions. Given that the overall terrorist threat resembles an insurgency, we must develop a counterinsurgency strategy that incorporates all the tools of governance to attack the enemy, deny safe haven, and address the socio-economic and political needs of at-risk populations. Offensive tactical CT success buys us time and space to build the far more enduring, constructive programs needed to undercut extremists’ ability to appeal to the disaffected. Moreover, this ‘‘threat complex’’ covers multiple, layered, and overlapping battlefields: global, regional, national, and local. Denying terrorists safe haven demands a regional response, given the transnational nature of the threat and of enemy safe haven. For this reason, building regional partnerships is the cornerstone of any enduring counterterrorism strategy. Applying that analysis to Europe, we find that while no states in Europe allow terrorist leaders free reign or consciously provide facilities for terrorists, extremists can and do exploit free societies, with their respect for civil liberties and the rule of law, and their broad access to sophisticated technology, in order to create space in which they can recruit, plan and operate. This sort of safe haven is a problem of growing concern, and we are working with several European partners to devise means to deal with this challenge. European allies must also contend with underlying conditions that terrorists may exploit: local groups, long-standing grievances, communal conflicts and societal structures provide fertile soil for the growth of extremism.…
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Technology is eliminating the distance that once clearly separated us across land and sea. Safe havens in cyberspace and the ability to transfer funds, materiel and people depend on existing regional underground networks (such as those that exist for narcotics trafficking, piracy or people smuggling). Most terrorist safe havens sit astride national borders, in places like the Sulu Sea, the Northwest Frontier—and the Sahel. In Europe, the same ease of travel across national frontiers that has contributed to economic prosperity has also facilitated the movement of terrorists. Pressed by Algerian counterterrorism successes, the once Algeria-centric GSPC, for example, has become a regional terrorist organization, recruiting and operating all throughout the Mahgreb—and beyond to Europe itself. Al Qa’ida leaders may be isolated and under pressure, unable to communicate effectively, but this has not prevented regional groups from establishing independent networks among themselves. In some ways, this poses even more daunting intelligence collection and strategic policy challenges. Much of the impetus for progress in our struggle against extremism must come from the field. Here, our ambassadors and their inter-agency country teams serve as essential sources of information, ideas, and implementation. In addition, we will need more innovative programs with non-state actors, like the Muslim Dialogue Conference held in Belgium by Ambassador Korologos, and a similar meeting planned for the Netherlands by Ambassador Arnall, to listen and learn, to communicate. We and our allies must convince disaffected persons that there are alternatives to messages of hate, violence, and despair. Ultimately, we will defeat violent extremism by deploying our most powerful weapon: the ideals of prosperity, freedom and hope, and the values that we and our European partners represent in our democratic, just and open societies, and which we share with millions of others around the world. We are working to develop a comprehensive strategy to de-legitimize terrorism and to encourage the efforts of the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject violent extremism. Reza Aslan, in his excellent book, No god but God notes that it will take many years to defeat those ‘‘who have replaced Muhammad’s original version of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord.’’ But, he adds, that ‘‘the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here.’’ We and our partners must listen to these Muslim reformers, support their efforts, earn their trust, and continue to press for their and our vision of a better future for all our children. The task will not be easy and success will take time. But if we are to avoid the nightmare of more Madrid and London-style attacks, we must not fail. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/64196.htm
Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, Hearing on Islamic Extremism in Europe, April 5, 2006 I must emphasize from the very beginning that I am not speaking of a challenge posed by the vast number of Muslims living in Europe who, like most
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Muslims anywhere, have no radical agenda. As President Bush has said, ‘‘America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality.’’ Rather, today I am speaking of the ‘‘minuscule minority’’ who would distort Islam for political ends and defile a noble faith by committing terrorist acts against us or our European allies. In this testimony, I will describe the nature of Islamic extremism in Europe and the factors that drive it. I will conclude with a discussion of what we and our European friends are doing to combat this problem. Europe’s Muslim Population Europe (including Russia and the states of the South Caucasus) is home to over 120 million Muslims. Over half of these live in Turkey, a key partner in our effort to counter extremism, with its secular democracy, predominantly Muslim population, and 80-year experience with modernizing reforms. Significant Muslim populations are also present in the Balkans, Russia and Azerbaijan. Within the Balkans, Albania and Kosovo have predominantly Muslim populations, while Bosnia is 40 percent Muslim and a considerable Muslim minority has lived in Bulgaria and Macedonia for hundreds of years. In Russia, the Muslim population, including immigrants from Central Asia, is growing faster than non-Muslims, however most are non-practicing. Militant extremists have been active in Chechnya and have tried to co-opt the secessionist movement or Chechen attitudes, which do not generally subscribe to the extremist agenda … While Islamist extremism is a global phenomenon, we find the nature of the problem in Western Europe to be distinct—both in its character and in its potential to threaten the United States. Many, perhaps most Muslims in Western Europe are outside the mainstream in several respects. They are a minority, and even the third generation is still predominantly viewed as ‘‘foreign.’’ Muslims’ struggles with unemployment, discrimination, and integration have created an audience potentially open to receiving an extremist message. In many countries, this is compounded by legal institutions that struggle with the challenge of free speech that is exploited by extremists, thus leading to the phenomenon sometimes called ‘‘tolerance of intolerance.’’ Add a deeply negative perception of U.S. foreign policy among Western Europe’s Muslims, and relative freedom of movement across the Atlantic, and you have a particularly dangerous mix. Therefore, while this testimony makes reference to countries farther east, our main focus today is on Western Europe. Muslims in Western Europe comprise only about five percent of the total population. However, this number has tripled over the last 30 years, and is expected to double again by 2025. The most common areas of origin are Turkey, North Africa, and Pakistan. The countries with the most Muslims are France (over 5 million), Germany (over 3 million), the UK (2 million), Italy (over 1 million), and The Netherlands (950,000). Western European Muslims are generally characterized by isolated diasporas, for example, Algerians or Moroccans in France, Turks in Germany, South Asians in the UK, and Moroccans in Spain. The vast majority of Western European Muslims are either mainstream
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followers who only wish to practice their religion in peaceful coexistence with their neighbors, or are relatively non-practicing. The Extremist Minority Extremists comprise a very small minority of Muslims living in Europe, with only one to two percent of Western Europe’s Muslims involved in any kind of extremist activity. Of these, only a small fraction has the potential to cross the critical threshold into terrorism. Still, a mere handful of extremists can carry out a devastating terrorist attack. Pockets of Islamic extremists exist in a broad range of European countries. Some mujahideen who fought in the Bosnian war remained in Bosnia after the fighting, acquiring citizenship and propagating anti-Western interpretations of Islam that run counter to the country’s secular traditions. With U.S. urging, the Bosnian Parliament recently enacted legislation that strengthens the government’s authorities to de-naturalize foreign-born fighters that fraudulently obtained citizenship during and after the war. But Islamic extremism remains a threat in Bosnia and beyond. And of course it exists in many European cities. In Germany, a small group of radical Islamist students led by Egyptian immigrant Mohammed Atta plotted the September 11 attacks from an apartment in Hamburg. A variety of transnational groups seek to spread extremism across Europe by claiming to be non-violent and moderate, while appealing to the idealism of socially alienated and/or spiritually hungry Muslims in Europe. One such group is Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of liberation). Founded in the Palestinian territories in the 1950’s, Hizb ut-Tahrir is secretive, organized around cells of 4 or 5 people. Its European headquarters is in London, from which it transmits a hateful, anti-Semitic and anti-American call for the overthrow, albeit nonviolent, of existing governments and the reestablishment of a single Islamist theocracy (or Caliphate). While it claims to be non-violent, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s websites have deemed justified the killing of Americans or Jews, and even the flying of airplanes into office buildings. Germany banned Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2003 for urging violence against Jews. The UK is now instituting a similar ban, and recently prohibited Hizb ut-Tahrir’s splinter group, the radical youth movement Al-Muhajiroun. We lack evidence of Hizb ut-Tahrir having organized terrorist actions, but we know it skillfully uses Western freedoms to provide the ideological foundation for Islamist terrorists. Other groups operating in Western Europe more actively blur the distinction between non-violent extremism and terrorism. These include the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which seeks to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state, and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), which has similar aims in Morocco. At the outright terrorist end of Europe’s continuum of Islamist extremist groups is al Qaida. Since al Qaida’s structure and training camps were destroyed in Afghanistan following September 11, al Qaida and its affiliates have claimed responsibility for several terrorist acts on European soil. In some cases, attacks appear to have been carried out by terrorists who are inspired by al Qaida rather than tied to a central leadership structure. These include the double suicide bombings in Istanbul in November 2003 that killed 57 people,
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the March 2004 attacks on four trains in Madrid that killed 191 commuters, and the London subway and bus bombings that killed 52 in July of last year. With its extremist message and multiple, highly visible attacks, al Qaida has inspired a global movement that has spawned other small, non-aligned groups, some operating in Europe. One example is The Netherlands-based Hofstad Group, a cell of Islamist militants, mostly second-generation Muslims of North African ancestry. In November 2004, Hofstad’s leader, a 27-year-old Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent named Mohammed Bouyeri, murdered filmmaker Theo Van Gogh on the street in Amsterdam. We and our European allies are vigilant concerning the potential consequences of the insurgency in Iraq on European Muslim populations, but to date there have been only a handful of European-residing Muslims who have gone to become foreign fighters. Spanish court papers show that, as early as February 2002, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was laying out plans for a pipeline to send European recruits to Iraq in one direction, and recruiters to Europe in the other. Since June 2005, Spanish police have broken up three networks dedicated to sending suicide bombers to Iraq. Prior to the Iraq war, extremists traveled from Western Europe to enlist in Bosnia, Afghanistan or Chechnya. The Causes of Islamist Extremism Secular Alienation A variety of factors is driving Islamist extremism in Europe by creating a sense of alienation from mainstream, secular society in Europe. These include: demographics; high rates of poverty and unemployment; anti-Muslim discrimination and racism; a strict adherence by many Muslims to the language and traditions of their countries of origin; and issues of identity. In addition, a general opposition to U.S. and Western policies in the Middle East, including support for Israel and the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, has given focus to Islamist extremism and helped increase its attractiveness among Europe’s alienated Muslim population. Poverty and a lack of jobs create a pool of disaffected Muslims from which extremists can draw recruits. In the 1950s and 60s, when the European economy was growing faster than the local populations, the need for additional unskilled labor skyrocketed. Guest workers were recruited en masse, initially from then-poorer countries of southern Europe, and later mostly from Turkey and North Africa. They came largely from rural backgrounds and had little education. This wave of predominantly Muslim legal immigrants was followed by a large influx of illegal immigrants seeking the promise for a better life in Europe. After several successful decades of earning enough to support themselves and send money back home, economic slowdown in Europe coupled with large-scale family reunification and high birth rates led to rising unemployment. Over time, minorities increasingly found themselves segregated, living in poor neighborhoods, and holding low-paying jobs with little room for advancement. European Muslims tend to have lower levels of education, higher rates of unemployment, and lower incomes than the general population across Europe, even in countries such as the UK, which have more stringent anti-discrimination laws.
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This lack of opportunity is compounded by employment discrimination and, at times, racism from native populations. We Americans are familiar with these problems from our own history. While racial, ethnic and religious discrimination is officially banned across Europe, Muslims routinely find themselves turned down for jobs, particularly in the service industry. This is true for second- and third-generation children of immigrants as well as first-generation workers who may have language barriers or lack adequate training for certain jobs. There are few opportunities for these Muslims to interact with or learn about Muslims in the West who are successful and have found a balance between living in a Western country and practicing Islam. Further, many of these immigrants lack support networks to help them integrate into their societies. The 2005 civil unrest in France brought to light the immense frustration shared by young, unemployed and disaffected minorities living in the Paris suburbs, many of whom are second- or third-generation children of immigrants. Muslims are severely underrepresented in Europe’s national parliaments and governments, as well as at the municipal level. However, there are some signs that political participation among European Muslims is increasing … Poverty, lack of education, and anti-immigrant discrimination alone do not create extremists; alienation does. Alienation and radicalization are phenomena related to urbanization, education, cultural uprooting and isolation, and the combinations of communications technology with literacy on a historically isolated, traditional culture. Many extremists are poor; but poverty is not a requirement for radicalization. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the Briton of Pakistani descent who was convicted for the kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, attended private schools and studied at the London School of Economics. In fact, many militant extremists come from the first generation of educated European Muslims, often with technical training. Most are men. But Muslim women can also become extremists, often exposed to radical ideology by their husbands. Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman from a troubled background, conducted a suicide bomb attack in Baquba, Iraq, in November 2005; her family claimed she had been ‘‘brainwashed’’ by her Moroccan husband. We have also seen non-Muslim, European-born converts to radical Islam, such as convicted ‘‘shoe bomber’’ Richard Reid, who was born in London to an English mother and a Jamaican father, and converted to Islam while in prison in his early 20s. The majority of Europe’s Muslim extremists do not have a madrassa education or a background in Middle East conflicts, but all share the same sense of being marginalized by society. Spiritual Alienation We believe that marginalized European Muslims who cross the threshold to extremism are also driven by a sense of spiritual alienation. Less concerned than were their parents with economic survival, many of Europe’s secondand third-generation Muslims seem to long for spiritual fulfillment. But many times their parents are unable to provide cultural or spiritual guidance, while their communities may lack imams with a modern, democratic orientation. Foreign financiers and religious activists often fill this spiritual vacuum by
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building local mosques and supplying them with extremist imams. Disconnected from often tolerant traditions of their families’ original homelands, these second- and third-generation Muslims are susceptible to foreign propaganda and sermons that preach narrow and hateful interpretations of Islam. The Tolerance of Intolerance Trap Many European governments hesitate to take action against extremist preaching in the name of defending religious tolerance and free speech. They often fear that crackdowns will only drive radical elements underground. Extremists take advantage of European freedoms to proselytize and recruit from radical mosques and they have taken over several major mosques. In the early 2000s, London’s Finsbury Park Mosque was attended by Algerian-born UK citizens loyal to Chechen Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the September 2004 Beslan school attack in Russia. In February 2006 a judge sentenced the mosque’s former imam, Abu Hamza al-Masri, to prison for inciting followers to kill non-Muslims. French citizen Zacarias Moussaoui attended London’s Brixton Mosque for a time but was eventually expelled for exposing younger members to his extremist views … The European debate can fall into a trap of seeking a defensive solution, such as formulas to define and ban hate speech. These kinds of legal bans may well be a dead end. A better solution is to develop norms that challenge and expose extremist thought as with other forms of anti-democratic ideology. Failed Integration Models The two most common models of integration, assimilation and multiculturalism, have proven difficult to implement in Europe. Assimilation, the approach taken by France, seeks to counter alienation by minimizing cultural or religious differences and forging a national identity, based on common citizenship. This approach has strong arguments in its favor, in principle. In practice, it has proven difficult to implement. The policy generated France’s controversial ‘‘headscarf law,’’ which bans the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools. Many Muslims believe their needs are often ignored, and, in fact, they often believe themselves to be pushed to the margins of society. Multiculturalism, the approach taken by The Netherlands and the UK, acknowledges the cultural, religious and racial diversity of a nation’s citizens. This approach also has theoretical merits. In practice, however, multiculturalism has not eliminated, as it intended, elements of xenophobia, racism and anti-Islamism in mainstream society. The alienation of Muslim populations has persisted. Shaken by the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist extremist, The Netherlands is now reassessing multiculturalism and pressing its immigrants to adopt ‘‘Dutch values’’ if they wish to attain residency. In the UK, the July 7, 2005, bus and subway bombings are leading to a rejection of multiculturalism and a questioning of British society’s approach to integration. Most countries in Europe have not pursued a conscious integration policy. Until recently, mainstream Europeans viewed Muslim immigrants as guest workers who would someday go ‘‘home.’’ This leads to Europe’s third-generation
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Muslim being seen as ‘‘foreign,’’ despite being born in Europe, as were their parents … Extremist Recruitment The recruitment of alienated European Muslims into extremist networks is a ‘‘bottom-up’’ process. Just as the Islamist movement is largely a loose, nonhierarchical, global network of disaffected radicals, there is also no real structure or process for enlisting recruits in a conventional military sense. Often, prospective terrorists undergo a process of ‘‘selfradicalization’’ by seeking out extremist mentorship among friends and acquaintances, or over the Internet. Much of the recruitment also occurs in mosques. Self-selected radicals begin attending a radical mosque, eventually find each other, and start forming friendships among small groups. As a fledgling extremist group grows more fervent, less-committed individuals are weeded out, and the most hardcore members leave the mosques for more covert meeting places, including private homes, which are less likely to be under surveillance. While radical elements are still present in some mosques, they have become less attractive as recruiting venues in the wake of September 11 and the subsequent attacks on European soil, because extremists suspect that Mosques are being closely monitored. Extremist recruiters also seek out vulnerable second- and third-generation Muslim youths in their neighborhoods. Another site of extremist recruitment is the European prison system. For example, at least one-half of France’s prison population is believed to be Muslim. According to a recent study by the French Interior Ministry, radical Muslims are actively trying to convert other prisoners in approximately one of three French prisons. Despite the large Muslim population in French prisons, only seven percent of prison chaplains are Muslim. Religion is one of the few sanctioned outlets for passing time and forming connections among inmates … In Spain, police are aware of significant extremist recruitment efforts among the 7,000 Muslim prisoners in that country. One such prison-based cell, indicted two weeks ago, had prepared plans to bomb Spain’s National Court … In the early 2000s, Jamal Ahmidan, a young non-practicing Muslim Moroccan living in Spain, became radicalized in a Spanish prison where he was serving for petty criminal offenses. After his release, Ahmidan ultimately joined the cell that perpetrated the Madrid train bombings. Cultural and ethnic associations with particular Muslims in the Middle East further the impression of hostility by the West against disenfranchised Muslims in Western Europe. Conflicts in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East provide fuel for extremist recruiters, who portray these conflicts as an assault on Muslim religion, culture and society. The European and U.S. Response The transatlantic community has a deep and legitimate interest in the outcome of the ‘‘battle of ideas’’ between moderate and extremist voices in the Muslim world, including in Europe. Those few radicals that cross over into terrorism pose a grave danger to the United States, as well as Europe and the rest of the world. Responsibility to address the extremist trend also rests with
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the legitimate Muslim leadership. Healing the rifts within the Muslim community as well as outlining precisely what the extremists want will go a long way to de-legitimizing radicals who interpret Islamic principles in ways that support violence. The United States cooperates closely with our European allies on counterterrorism measures, such as cutting off terrorist finances, intelligence sharing, law enforcement, and aviation and port security, including through formal working groups with the UK, France and Russia. But we must also intensify our efforts to counter the extremist ideas that drive Islamist terrorism. Defeating extremism requires us to work with our allies to connect European Muslims with the cultures of their adopted countries and fend off extremist recruiters. It also requires us to demonstrate through our own nation’s experience that Muslims can be patriotic, democratic and religious at the same time. It is not one or the other. Using examples of a minority population of Muslims in our country, India, and other nations, we can help European Muslims who feel left out understand that it is possible to balance religious identity and European identity. European leaders are devoting more energy to integrating Muslim communities into the secular mainstream, with a focus on economic development, job creation, and improved social services. While this is appropriate and necessary, it does not go far enough, as many European leaders recognize. For European Muslims to believe they are full members of society, both the majority and minority populations need to better understand and respect each other. Prejudice and discrimination need to be countered. At the same time, we need to bolster moderate voices and appreciation for democracy in Muslim communities as part of a greater effort by minorities to fulfill the obligations of living in a Western country. Achieving these goals will require a difficult discussion within European societies, similar to our own debate over civil rights and diversity. Drawing from the lessons of the U.S. civil rights experience, which is still a work in progress, Europe has a chance to meld the positive aspects of various integration approaches. In this way European Muslims would be viewed as wholly European even while retaining some of the values of their ‘‘original’’ cultures. European governments are not passive. Last year, Azouz Begag was appointed France’s first Minister Delegate for the Promotion of Equal Opportunity, and a High Authority for the Fight Against Discrimination and for Equal Opportunity was created. The UK created several committees, with a mixture of government and Muslim members, to improve dialogue and explore concrete measures. The Dutch government launched a comprehensive program for empowerment and integration. These initiatives have had mixed reactions from both majority and minority observers, but it is a beginning. At the same time, the United States is taking its own initiatives. One of our main goals is to improve European Muslims’ understanding of the United States and deepen their appreciation for our relative success in achieving integration. To this end, we use exchange programs and innovative outreach efforts at our Embassies. By dispelling misperceptions about the United States, these programs may help us secure the trust of Europe’s Muslim populations. Many foreign policy professionals regard exchanges as our single most effective public diplomacy mechanism. These programs were, without doubt,
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one of our most potent tools during the Cold War, as Eastern European alumni frequently stress. Our two flagship exchange programs are the Fulbright academic exchange, which brings visiting students and scholars to the United States and sends Americans overseas for study and research, and the International Visitor Leadership Program, which brings emerging leaders to the United States for several weeks. Our Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, Dina Powell, attended a symposium last November with government officials and Fulbright Commission representatives from Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. They discussed ways to expand our exchanges into non-traditional communities, and increase diversity in exchanges in European nations with significant Muslim and other minority populations. We have also launched pilot projects with several Western European bi-national Fulbright Commissions to build bridges to Muslim communities. Additionally, we are developing programs to prepare Muslims and other minorities to compete successfully, given that only small numbers of Muslim students in Europe reach the level of university study that could lead to a Fulbright grant … We are also increasing the number of Muslims participating in International Visitor Leadership Programs (IVLP). The Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs jointly designed a Muslim incentive program for FY-06 encourage selected West European posts to nominate more Muslims for the IVLP on all topics … We also help improve understanding of the United States through a network of educational advising centers, which help attract thousands of Europeans who pursue university study in the United States each year. More than 12,000 students from Turkey attend U.S. universities annually, which is the most of any country in Europe. Such programs can have an important impact in Europe and in the broader Muslim world. Active and innovative outreach by our European Embassies also helps to build bridges among Americans, European minorities, and European governments. Countering Extremist Recruiters European governments are trying to stymie extremist recruiters who prey on young, vulnerable Muslims whose political and economic alienation, coupled with their lack of contact with their own Muslim cultures, stimulate an identity crisis. Left unchecked, this identity crisis can translate into a spiritual vacuum, which extremist recruiters fill with their own, narrow interpretations of Islam via the Internet and direct interaction. Both American and European government (non-Muslim) officials lack theological knowledge, credibility, and legal authority to influence religious thinking. This is not our job in any event. But we can have a positive impact on political thinking by embracing and cooperating with partners among European Muslims who share our desire for tolerance to triumph over extremism. A reliable way to counter European Muslims’ spiritual alienation may be to anchor them in their own traditions of honor, respect, diversity and tolerance. This requires careful work in the countries from which second- and third-generation immigrants’ families emigrated, identifying partners who
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will reinforce local traditions of tolerance. In the rough Amsterdam neighborhood that was home to the murderer of Theo Van Gogh, local police bring a group of Muslim boys each year to volunteer at an orphanage in their families’ native Morocco. The boys often return from such trips with a new recognition of their Muslim identity, and a sense of pride in their adopted European homeland. Most government officials are just learning to identify extremists who cloak themselves in tolerant rhetoric. The Governments of France and the Netherlands are trying to counter extremist recruiters through local training of imams. In both countries, institutes are being set up to train imams in local languages, history and democratic values. Dutch officials are looking for ways to work with Turkish community leaders and embassy officials to draw on Turkey’s successful experience in training imams who reinforce traditions of secular democracy and tolerant faith. Such efforts could be expanded to secular and religious schools in Morocco and Algeria, provided reliable partners can be identified. U.S. Missions encourage Europeans to treat Islam as a co-equal religion. This will help to undermine the extremist message that Muslims are not welcome in Europe. Our embassies sponsor Iftar dinners and inter-faith dialogue. Consistent with our philosophy that Muslims should be treated as mainstream members of the societies in which they live, we strive to integrate them in our exchange programs along with non-minority citizens. We can do more. The Europeans could provide or ease the establishment of Muslim cemeteries (a municipal function in many European countries), add Muslim chaplains in the military and in prisons, and organize cultural exhibitions of the Muslim traditions of Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, and Pakistan. Working with our European Allies, we might also identify partners among European Muslims who are willing to sponsor moderate Islamic scholarship and transparent charities to counter extremists’ inroads in Europe’s poor Muslim communities. Finally, we also need to expand training of U.S. officials posted abroad to understand the cultural context and motivations of European Muslims. We will need additional funding to expand our training programs, as well as the outreach programs outlined above. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/64192.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: See also Tom C. Korologos, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, ‘‘Islamist Extremism in Europe,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on European Affairs, April 5, 2006. Also see Testimony of Dr. Mary Habeck, Associate Professor of Strategic Studies, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. (http://www.senate. gov/~foreign/testimony/2006/HabeckTestimony060405.pdf). See the Testimony of Dr. Robin Niblet, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Director of the Europe Program Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. (http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2006/NibletTestimony060405.pdf); and Testimony of Daniel Benjamin, Senior Fellow International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. (http://www.senate.gov/ ~foreign/testimony/2006/BenjaminTestimony060405.pdf).
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President George W. Bush and Russian Federation President V.V. Putin, Joint Statement Announcing the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, July 15, 2006 The United States of America and Russia are committed to combating the threat of nuclear terrorism, which is one of the most dangerous international security challenges we face. Today we announce our decision to launch the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Building on our earlier work, the Global Initiative reflects our intention to pursue the necessary steps with all those who share our views to prevent the acquisition, transport, or use by terrorists of nuclear materials and radioactive substances or improvised explosive devices using such materials, as well as hostile actions against nuclear facilities. These objectives are reflected in the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities as amended in 2005, the Protocol to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, and other international legal frameworks relevant to combating nuclear terrorism. The United States and Russia call upon like-minded nations to expand and accelerate efforts that develop partnership capacity to combat nuclear terrorism on a determined and systematic basis. Together with other participating countries and interacting closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), we will take steps to improve participants’ capabilities to: ensure accounting, control, and physical protection of nuclear material and radioactive substances, as well as security of nuclear facilities; detect and suppress illicit trafficking or other illicit activities involving such materials, especially measures to prevent their acquisition and use by terrorists; respond to and mitigate the consequences of acts of nuclear terrorism; ensure cooperation in the development of technical means to combat nuclear terrorism; ensure that law enforcement takes all possible measures to deny safe haven to terrorists seeking to acquire or use nuclear materials; and strengthen our respective national legal frameworks to ensure the effective prosecution of, and the certainty of punishment for, terrorists and those who facilitate such acts. We stress that consolidated efforts and cooperation to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism will be carried out in accordance with international law and national legislation. This Global Initiative builds on the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, which Russia and the United States were the first to sign on September 14, 2005. This unique international treaty provides for broad areas of cooperation between states for the purpose of detecting, preventing, suppressing, and investigating acts of nuclear terrorism. One of our priority objectives remains full implementation by all countries of the provisions of UNSCR 1540, which was adopted in 2004 as a result of joint efforts by the United States and Russia. This resolution is an important non-proliferation instrument aimed at preventing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from entering ‘‘black market’’ networks and, above all, keeping
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WMD and related material from falling into the hands of terrorists. The full implementation by all countries of UNSCR 1373, including the sharing of information pertaining to the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism and their facilitation, also remains a priority. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/print/200607152.html
Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S.-German Counterterrorism Efforts, Remarks to German Ambassadors, German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Berlin, Germany, September 6, 2006 On behalf of the Secretary of State and the U.S. Government, I extend our gratitude for your counterterrorism efforts, for your partnership in this struggle. I also offer our congratulations. In the last month, German authorities have tracked down suspects intent on blowing up trains, killing innocents, and spreading terror. Germany has contributed, in many ways, to Afghanistan where ISAF troops are securing the country and NATO forces are combating the Taliban. German intelligence, military, law enforcement, finance, and diplomatic officials play critical roles elsewhere: Lebanon, Iran, the Horn of Africa, and, of course, Europe. Germany will soon assume the Presidency of the EU and the G-8. We all will need your vision and leadership, especially in this time of great global advancement and, also, great global challenge. Germany, like the U.S. and others, continues to define an evolving enemy, to map the shifting global terrain, and to develop better strategies. I need to learn your concerns, your perspectives, and your recommendations so our countries can continue to forge complementary, indeed interdependent strategies in counterterrorism. We have made great progress, such as the U.S.German Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, ratified this July by the U.S. Senate. The U.S.-German counterterrorism conference, helped advance our collective thinking and action. This must continue. Strategic Context As our bilateral ties deepen, indeed as the global community of nations becomes more interdependent, our collective strength grows. The overwhelming power of globalization is transforming our lives. Progress can be measured in unprecedented free-market economic growth (East Asia), monumental advances in science and technology (Internet), and the rapid development of liberal institutions and democracy (Eastern Europe and Latin America). This progress can also be noted in the absence of large nation-onnation conflict. The U.S. National Intelligence Council’s ‘‘Global Trends 2020’’ report states that large-scale wars are much less likely; however, other forms of conflict will persist. Those who reject global political and economic modernity and the legal and moral obligations required to participate in the community of nations, do not have the means to fight a conventional war. Therefore they resort to asymmetric means of conflict, and often this includes terrorism.
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As an example, we do not see large al Qaeda armies. Rather, we increasingly encounter al Qaeda and their allies operating in small teams or even individuals. From an operational perspective, these are ‘‘micro-actors.’’ When combined with sophisticated tradecraft and modern technology, aimed at soft civilian targets, these are ‘‘micro-actors with macro-impact.’’ These types of enemy forces, operating on a global battlefield, seeking to destroy civilian infrastructure and innocent citizens, are changing the nature of warfare. They are not only attacking the U.S., Europe, and our Middle Eastern partners, but the growing global community. My colleague Mr. de Vries has correctly noted that terrorism has ‘‘changed the global agenda.’’ But is this war? Many of my partners oppose this terminology. Five years ago, 3,000 people in my homeland died at the hands of this merciless enemy. From a U.S. perspective, this was an act of war, but what kind of war? In our view, shared by Georgetown Professor Bruce Hoffman and others, al Qaeda and its affiliates share many of the characteristics of a globalized insurgency. And, these terrorist groups may be folded into a larger threat complex that contributes to this struggle, this insurgency. Al Qaeda and allies employ a range of tactics and methodologies, of which terrorism is only one. Other terrorist groups with different agendas, such as Hezbollah, nevertheless share some of the same insurgent-like characteristics. First, they collect intelligence. Al Qaeda deploys operatives to case targets. Al Qaeda and allies also recruit home-grown individuals and groups to commit espionage and treason. Al Qaeda adroitly exploits the internet to collect information on a variety of targets. Hezbollah, trained by the Iranian intelligence services, are especially adept at penetrating organizations and using commercial activities to collect intelligence. Therefore, our broader counterterrorism efforts must include a strong counter-intelligence and security dimension. Surveillance systems and data bases are important, but building trusted networks among civil society where the local policeman is a confidant and a friend is even more effective. Second, these adversaries engage in subversion. According to the U.S. military definition, subversives seek ‘‘to undermine the military, economic, psychological, or political strength or moral of a regime’’ and they reject the rule of law and the democratic process. We see this in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. We, however, should not limit our concern to regimes, but also to communities that are selected for subversion. This, of course, includes Muslim communities in Europe, North America, and elsewhere. Al Qaeda plays on the fears of the isolated and discontented groups within these communities. Yet, these communities are not the source of subversion, but rather the target of subversion. Subversive forces aim at the moral authority in these communities; they seek to undermine and replace business leaders, scholars and clergy. We can find such examples in the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Denmark. Our best approach, therefore, is to strengthen these communities, weave them into the larger fabric of our society, offer them greater benefits for fuller participation in the political and economic process. We cannot counter subversion without offering tangible incentives, without building trust. Third, propaganda is a critical part of this global insurgency. TV, radio, books, sermons, academic lessons, and the internet are all vehicles for this
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information struggle. There is obvious overlap between generating broader popular support through propaganda, building subversive networks, and the ultimate acts of terrorism. But while there are overlaps, there are also differences. We must understand the differences, and make these distinctions when crafting our operations and our policies. We cannot allow our fear or an undisciplined intellect to conflate the threat. In fact, we must be very specific in our calibrated application of power. We must also orchestrate all the instruments of statecraft, and know when and where and how to exercise statecraft. Like in any successful counterinsurgency campaign, the non-military aspects are paramount. Armed force can buy us space and time, but not the enduring, constructive solutions required. Fourth, when and where possible, like in Afghanistan and Iraq, enemy forces engage in open warfare. Moreover, al Qaeda seeks to foment broader ethnic violence to create an environment that affords them greater room for maneuver. Terrorist forces thrive where the rule of law is weak and where ethnic conflict is rampant. Here, we must work with local partners, not only to defeat al Qaeda and affiliates, but to develop an enduring peaceful civil society where economic opportunity and democracy can grow. Fifth, the act of terrorism itself can be a characteristic of an insurgency. In this highly interdependent media-rich global environment, such acts of murder can have more impact than ever. If these parallels with an insurgency are valid, what are the best counter-insurgency objectives? At the strategic level, there are three: the nullification of enemy leadership; the denial of safe-haven; and the amelioration of a specific social, economic, political conditions the enemy exploits. Leaders are global actors who provide vision, inspiration, resources and guidance to networks around the world. Safe havens provide secure base for extremist action, include physical, cyber, and the ideological arenas. These safe-havens may also be ‘‘micro-havens’’ in a rural valley, an urban neighborhood, or even a single apartment building. And by local conditions, I am referring to local grievances, communal conflicts and societal structures that provide fertile soil in which extremism flourishes. We must address all of three of these strategic objectives. Our effort is structured at many levels: a global campaign to counter al Qaeda and associated networks; a series of regional campaigns to target and eliminate terrorist safe havens; and numerous national security and development assistance operations designed to build liberal institutions, support the rule of law, and enhance our partners’ capacity to resist the threat—all focused on unique local conditions. The underlying principal is unified statecraft, working through trusted networks of allies and partners. Just yesterday President Bush, in the revised National Counterterrorism Strategy, stressed the need to address the terrorism conflict and the development of economic and political systems. We must not only deny al Qaeda safe-havens, we must fill these voids with liberal institutions, economic opportunities, and eventually democracies. The success of our strategy depends entirely on the success of our partnerships. The ultimate answer, like in the Cold War, is about collective security, enduring institutions, economic opportunities, democracy, and the most valuable currency of all, trust.
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Germany Germany is one of our closest partners in this effort. Your commitment to combating terrorism has meant that, since September 11, 2001, German authorities have arrested, charged and convicted dozens of terrorist suspects. We are well connected: information exchange at the Ministerial and official working level take place on a regular basis. To help assure the safety of those playing and attending the World Cup, the U.S. and Germany shared information like never before, and we have experienced concrete results on issues ranging from extradition to judicial proceedings, to disruption of terrorist plots. Fortunately, as we work with you and other European partners, we begin with a major advantage. Decades of close transatlantic collaboration have created powerful institutions, where the impulse for close cooperation is deeprooted in NATO, the EU, the OSCE, and the G-8, among others. These bodies serve in different ways to help address this challenge. Both the G-8 and the EU are cooperative mechanisms that do not rely on the military organs of power. By bringing together political, legal, and economic measures, these organizations institutionalize the habits of trust and cooperation that need to underpin our common effort against our adversary. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm2/73812.htm
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and European Union Officials, Transcript of Press Conference on Agreement to Improve Efforts to Fight International Crime, Washington, D.C., November 7, 2006 ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: … We’ve had a very productive meeting today to discuss a variety of criminal justice issues of great importance to the people of the United States and the European Union, including terrorism, border security and human trafficking. The United States and the E.U. are strong allies in the fight against international criminals, and we grow stronger because of meetings such as this one. Today, the U.S. Department of Justice signed an executive agreement with representatives of EUROJUST, the judicial cooperation unit of the E.U. This agreement will improve coordination between prosecutors in the United States and prosecutors and magistrates in E.U. member states and it will enhance our ability to fight international crime. Under the principles we’ve set forth today, we will be able to strategize together on cases and enhance the exchange of evidence to combat transnational crime. This agreement is one more example of our efforts to work in concert with our European allies to attack the evil of international terrorism. It is also a strong acknowledgement that we must carefully balance our security needs as nations with the preservation of civil liberties for our citizens. Q. … On visa waiver program, I’m just wondering did you discuss that today? Because on the European side, there are calls for 10 member states to
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be added onto the visa waiver program and I’m wondering what progress there is on that point. SECRETARY CHERTOFF: On the visa waiver, this is obviously an issue that we know concerns European countries which are currently seeking to be admitted to the program. As you probably know, the requirements are set forth in law by an act of Congress. We have a roadmap for countries that are seeking admission to the program. We are currently working with a number of those countries to see what we can do to help them meet the milestones that are necessary to be admitted to the program. I certainly want to commend the European countries that are currently part of the program for the way in which they acted expeditiously to meet the October 26 requirement of an E-passport with a biometric. So I’m optimistic we can continue to make progress and to help the countries that want to join the program do what they need to do to become eligible. Q. What type of information exchanges are going to be set up? What kind of law enforcement data or intelligence information are the two sides willing to share? And is that spelled out in the treaty? ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, one of the things we’re working through is trying to get as much information as we can that’s absolutely necessary to help us identify potential threats. We’re not interested in personal information that is of no value at all to governments in conducting investigations and identifying threats. We’re not interested in keeping information any longer than we absolutely have to. But what we’re trying to do is establish mechanisms, a framework, that we can share information. And let me just say that we’ve done so pretty much on a case by case. I don’t want to say ‘‘ad hoc,’’ but generally looking at specific issues and problems that arise and working out solutions oftentimes on a bilateral basis. And what we all agree today to do is to look at this more strategically. The sharing of information is something that is going to simply continue to grow. And so to the extent that there are issues because of different traditions and different legal systems that make it more difficult to share information, because of privacy concerns—which, of course, we all very much respect and want to protect, the privacy rights of individuals—these are things that we need to work together on and look at this thing strategically and collectively. Again, with the goal, as Vice President Frattini said, with the common objective of the protection of privacy rights but also the security of our respective countries. … One thing I would point out is we have just very recently had the European Union and the United Kingdom make an adjustment in their rules governing the ability to bring liquids in small quantities on board. The good news is—this is a great example of cooperation—we have essentially synchronized our approaches and have—with the exception of the difference between units of measurement—we have essentially comparable standards for security in terms of what can be brought on airplanes. And I think that’s indicative of the way in which we continue to work together not only to make sure that we have seamless and well integrated security in Europe and the U.S. and around the world, but to also make it easier for travelers, so that people who adhere to the three-ounce rule will also
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satisfy the 100 milliliter rule, and vice versa. And that’s a positive step forward in terms of cooperation. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2006/ag_speech_061106.html
MIDDLE EAST Statement by the Press Secretary, President Condemns Assassination of Israeli Cabinet Minister, October 17, 2001 The President condemns in the strongest terms the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi today. He offers his condolences and those of the United States to Prime Minister Sharon, the Israeli government and people, and the family of Minister Zeevi. This despicable act is further evidence of the need to fight terrorism. We have noted the statement of the Palestinian Authority condemning this assassination. This statement is appropriate, but words are not enough. It is time for the Palestinian Authority to take vigorous action against terrorists. The PFLP, which operates openly in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, has claimed responsibility for this heinous act. The PA must immediately find and bring to justice those who committed this murder, as well as those who would do harm to efforts to restore an atmosphere of calm and security for Israelis and Palestinians. There have been positive steps recently by both Israel and the Palestinians to improve the situation. Israelis and Palestinians should continue down this path. The terrorists must not be allowed to declare victory. The parties should seize the moment to put an end to violence, implement the Tenet and Mitchell plans, and resume political dialogue. The entire world will support them in their efforts. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011017-11.html
William J. Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, ‘‘Challenges in the Middle East,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, Washington, D.C., June 18, 2002 The fight against terrorism remains central to defending our interests in the Middle East. As President Bush has stated plainly on many occasions since the terrible events of September 11, we simply cannot tolerate the notion that any political cause justifies attacks against innocent civilians. In the Middle East, we continue to work hard to strengthen regional coalitions to fight terrorism. We are pressing leaderships to speak out clearly, and act decisively, against terror and violent extremism. We are working hard to close down terrorist financing networks. We are also working hard to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. In that regard, we continue to have very serious concerns about the behavior of some states in the region, particularly Iraq and Iran.
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The Iranian regime continues to develop weapons of mass destruction, and to export terror. There can be no doubt about our determination to prevent any attempt by Saddam Hussein’s brutal and repressive regime in Baghdad to build weapons of mass destruction and once again threaten the region. And there can also be no doubt that the region, and especially the people of Iraq themselves, would be better off with a different leadership—one dedicated to preserving Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, to developing the enormous potential of its people, and to living in peace with its neighbors. … I would like to touch briefly on two other challenges that we face: the importance of rebuilding hope in Arab-Israeli peace; and the profound longer-term economic, social and political dilemmas facing peoples and leaderships in the region. The United States obviously has a powerful interest in showing that terrorism, violence and the use of force can never bring a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But it seems to me that we have an equally compelling interest in demonstrating that a political process can—and must—produce that outcome. There has been too much suffering, and too much death. Israelis and Palestinians deserve better than this. Both peoples deserve a future that puts an end to terror and violence, a future that removes the daily threats to the security of ordinary Israelis who worry about whether their children will return safely from school or their spouses from the market, a future that ends incitement and hate-language, a future that preserves Israel as a strong and vibrant Jewish state. Both peoples deserve a future that puts an end to the corrosive impact of occupation and settlements, a future that stops the daily humiliations of life under occupation, a future that brings Palestinians their own state, responsible governance and the chance for the normal, dignified lives that they and their children must have. None of us should have any illusions about the task before us. It will be very, very hard. Moving forward will require many difficult decisions. It will require courage and vision and compassion from leaders, and a willingness to speak plain truths to their peoples. It will require the international community to supply a sense of purpose and determination and generosity. And it will require all of us to understand that today, even in the grimmest of moments and the most bitter of circumstances, the outlines of enduring peace and security for Israelis and Arabs alike are clearer than ever. President Bush intends to address those issues shortly, and I hope you will understand that I am not able today to address them in any detail. Let me emphasize simply that there are opportunities, as well as dangers, before us. As we seek to apply American leadership energetically to those challenges, we have a number of assets. The U.S.-Israeli relationship is stronger than it has ever been, and there can be no doubt of this Administration’s commitment to Israel’s security and well-being. Key Arab states are more actively engaged in support of a return to peacemaking than in many months; the recent efforts and visits to the United States of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan have all been quite constructive. There is genuine interest among many Palestinians in political reform and institution-building—in their own self-interest, not as a favor to us or anyone else. And there is growing international cooperation, centered on
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American leadership, and reflected in the efforts of the ‘‘Quartet,’’ which includes the United States, Russia, the European Union and the UN Secretary General. Broadly speaking, our approach will involve a commitment to progress in parallel along three tracks, all aimed at the ultimate goal of a permanent two-states solution. The first track is security, where all terror and violence ends. The second is reform and economic recovery, where Palestinians—with the active support of the international community—build strong institutions in preparation for statehood. The third is political, where Palestinians and Israelis renew discussions about their future, leading as soon as possible to the emergence through negotiations of a responsible Palestinian state alongside Israel. Central to this concept is the conviction that progress along these tracks must be made in parallel; it is clear that there can be no real security without a restoration of political hope, just as there can be no enduring political progress without security. Let me be very clear: Palestinians have legitimate national aspirations; but there can be absolutely no justification for suicide bombings or any other form of terror. I repeat, Palestinian authorities must do everything possible to confront the terrorists whose acts are causing grave harm to Palestinian interests and hopes for a better future. For us, there is no middle ground on fighting terror. Let me turn finally to the broader questions facing the region, and American policy. As crucial as fighting violent extremism and achieving Arab-Israeli peace are to the future of the region, they are by no means the only challenges before the societies of the Middle East. Economically and socially, it is obvious to anyone with eyes to see that the region faces enormous dilemmas. The truth is that economic and social inequality in many Middle East countries has grown in recent decades, rather than diminish. Political, economic and social systems are often intertwined, and they appear closed to outsiders. For those who are not already a part of the system, advancement seems hopeless. Corruption is becoming a more and more corrosive force. Politically, the truth is that many political systems in the region do not function effectively as mechanisms for citizens to express and work out their discontents. Political structures all too often serve to insulate the regime and governing elite from change, rather than lead it. The voices of publics are all too often ignored, until they raise them to a shout. Information can no longer be controlled and manipulated, and satellite television and the revolution in information technology will become ever more profound forces in the years ahead. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/11446.htm
President George W. Bush, Vow to Bring Terrorists to Justice, Remarks upon Departure for Camp David, The South Lawn, May 16, 2003 Q. Mr. President, in terms of combating terrorism at home, do you think the Saudis have gotten the message this time around? THE PRESIDENT: Well, Saudi Arabia is our friend, and we’re working closely with them to track down the killers of American citizens and British citizens and citizens from Saudi Arabia, as well as other countries.
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The best way to defend the homeland, the best way to secure the future of the American people is to find the killers before they strike us. And that’s exactly what we’re doing now inside of Saudi Arabia.… Q. But, sir, is the message coming from this administration to the Saudis that you’ve got a problem, you have to deal with it— THE PRESIDENT: The message— Q. —and you have to wake up to the fact that you have to deal with it? THE PRESIDENT: Yes, here’s the message. The message is the war on terror goes on, that there are killers on the loose—obviously, killers on the loose inside of Saudi Arabia in this example. And we want to work with them and find them, find those killers and bring them to justice. And we are still in a— it’s dangerous in the world. And it’s dangerous inside Saudi Arabia. And it’s dangerous so long as al Qaeda continues to operate. And so we’ll chase them down. We’re doing everything we can to secure the homeland. The best way to secure the homeland is to work with countries like Saudi Arabia and to find the killers and get them before they get us. And that’s what this country will do. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030516-15.html
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Syria and Terrorism, Washington, D.C., October 30, 2003 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss Syria’s role as a state sponsor of terrorism. There is no doubt that many past Syrian actions are in direct conflict with U.S. interests in the region and that the current posture of the Syrian government towards terrorism continues to be wholly unacceptable. As a state sponsor of terrorism, Syria has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to fundamentally change its behavior regarding support for terrorism. While we continue to have hope for eventual improvements in Syrian attitudes, policies and actions, we see little at this time to indicate that Syrian support for terrorism is diminishing. Syria remains a security concern not just because of terrorism, but also because of its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since Undersecretary John Bolton has recently testified on the latter, which is his area of expertise, I will focus on the former. The threat to our country posed by states who both sponsor terrorism and pursue weapons of mass destruction is one which we cannot and will not ignore. Syria, a sponsor of numerous terrorist organizations, is a country whose actions we must follow carefully in this regard. While there is currently no information indicating that the Syrian government has transferred WMD to terrorist organizations or would permit such groups to acquire them, Syria’s ties to numerous terrorist groups underlie the reasons for our continued attention.
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The terrorist threat posed by Syria can best be understood by addressing three areas: border security, which is directly related to the security of our forces in Iraq; Syrian government support for Palestinian rejectionist groups; and Syrian support for Lebanese Hizbollah. Obviously, many of you share these concerns, which is why the Syrian Accountability Act is under consideration in Congress. Iraq Syria took a series of hostile actions toward Coalition forces in Iraq. Syria allowed military equipment to flow into Iraq on the eve of and during the war. Syria also permitted volunteers to pass into Iraq to attack our service members during the war. In the period following the conclusion of major military action, foreign fighters have continued to transit into Iraq from Syria. While the situation on the Syrian border has improved in recent weeks, it is still a major source of concern for us. We see indications that the Syria-Iraq border is more secure now that it has ever been. To put the issue in proper context, in the past there was not the security need for the Syrian government to secure the border to the extent they must now do so. That is only one factor in this problem. While it is understandable that the Syrian authorities may have had initial problems in ramping up, what we found unacceptable was the manner in which the Syrians delayed taking effective action. We are cautiously optimistic that the situation will continue to improve along the border. We also remain concerned about the possibility of anti-coalition activity being organized inside of Syrian territory. I refer you to the intelligence community for its assessment of this issue. Palestinian terror groups: As we have said for some time, Syria provides safehaven and material support for several Palestinian rejectionist groups, including HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Abu Musa Organization (AMO), and the Popular Struggle Front (PSF). The Syrian government maintains that the offices of these groups are used solely for press purposes and play no leadership or operational role in the conduct of terrorist attacks. We reject this argument and have seen evidence that some of these offices are, in fact, used for operational purposes. Even if this were not the case, we would continue to insist that the Syrian government close these offices which maintain vocal public support for these nefarious organizations. Syrian tolerance of Palestinian rejectionist groups’ offices in their country shows a lack of commitment to support reasonable efforts toward a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Lebanese Hizbollah: Syria continues to provide safe haven and political cover to Hizbollah in Lebanon, a group responsible for killing hundreds of Americans and numerous
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others in the past. Syrian support for Hizbollah continues to be a major impediment towards progress in our counterterrorism efforts. Syria allows resupply of Hizbollah from Iran via Damascus. Syria also allows wanted Hizbollah terrorists, including Imad Mugniyah, to transit Syria and find haven there. The Syrian military presence in Lebanon supports Hizbollah actions there. Conclusion In Syria we see a convergence of hostile rhetoric and a history of support for terrorism. Our bilateral relationship with Syria is a complex one. We share Congress’ concerns with respect to Syria and have been engaged in extensive, direct dialogue with the highest levels of the Syrian government on a full range of issues—including terrorism, WMD, Lebanon and Iraq. Unfortunately, these conversations have borne little fruit in changing Syrian actions on support for terrorism. While there may have been areas of cooperation on certain counterterrorism issues between our two governments, this is not sufficient to counter our grave concern about Syria’s continued support for groups such as HAMAS, PFLP-GC, PIJ, Hizbollah, and others. It should be noted that what we ask of Syria is not unusual nor is it exceptional. We ask them to join the community of nations which reject terrorism as a political tool. We ask them to cease support for groups whose only goal is to kill and maim in the pursuit of policies which seek to destroy rather than support peace. I remain optimistic that continued engagement with Syria will one day lead to a change in Syrian behavior—a change that will allow them once again to interact with us on a normal footing. But that change must come from the Syrian government—we will judge them on their actions. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/25778.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see William J. Burns, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Statement to Senate Foreign Relations Committee; U.S.-Syrian Relations Washington, D.C., October 30, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/25772.htm).
William J. Burns, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Human Rights, and the Future of U.S.-Libyan Relations, Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, March 10, 2004 I appreciate very much this opportunity to discuss … the dramatic developments in our relations with Libya. After decades of hostility, it is now possible to say that U.S.-Libyan relations are on a path of gradual, careful, step-by-step normalization. This historic possibility is predicated on good faith implement by Libya of its December 19 commitment to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction programs, and the missile systems to deliver them, as well as to adhere to its renunciation of terrorism and pledge of cooperation on the war on terrorism. In the space of less than three months, as Assistant Secretary DeSutter will discuss in detail, Libya’s declared nuclear capacity has effectively been dismantled; its chemical munitions have been destroyed; its chemical agents have
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been declared and consolidated, awaiting destruction; and its SCUD—C missiles have been removed. More remains to be done, but Libya has already made great strides in voluntarily eliminating its WMD programs. Libyan actions on WMD have been complemented as many of you have noted by unprecedented public statements by Libya’s leader. In his March 2 speed, Col. Gadhafi recommitted himself publicly to the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, which he described as a source of insecurity, not security, in today’s world. He also repudiated Libya’s past support for terrorist organizations and pledged to seek a new era in relations with the United States. As the Committee knows, last fall Libya also addressed the U.N. Security Council requirements arising out of the bombing of Pan Am 103, including payment of up to $2.7 billion to the families of the victims and submitting a formal, written acceptance of responsibility for the actions of its official. We were seriously concerned, therefore, when Libya’s Prime Minister gave an interview on February 24 that raised doubt about Libya’s commitment to its acceptance of responsibility. We believed a retraction was essential and, after we raised this with the most senior levels in Libya, that retraction came just a day later. But the episode underscored the importance of moving deliberately, establishing unambiguous benchmarks, and signaling clearly to the Libyan leadership the paramount importance we attach to fulfillment of its commitments. Our policy toward Libya is performance-driven and will not be steered by artificial deadlines. Travel to Libya by Members of this Committee and others in Congress helps underscore the importance of our principled approach to engaging with Libya. Congressional delegations such as the path-breaking visit by Congressman Lantos provide us with unparalleled opportunities to highlight our values and to reinforce our interest in supporting home-grown efforts at political and economic modernization, as well as the importance for human rights. With respect to Libya’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, I will underscore our need to confirm that Libya has implemented fully a strategic decision to repudiate terrorism as a tool of foreign policy and to break any residual ties it may have to any terrorist organization. I look forward to consulting with Members of this Committee as this dialogue develops. In my meetings with Libyan officials I will continue to emphasize the importance we place on Libya fully adhering to its Pan Am 103 commitments. I have had the honor of working with many of the Pan Am 103 family members over the last 3 years. They have been an inspiration and their unity and determination have helped push Libya out of the terrorism business and helped prevent such tragedies in the future. The pain that they have suffered can never be eased entirely, nor should it ever be forgotten. The presence of U.S. diplomats in Tripoli for the first time since 1980 allows us to sustain a dialogue on other issues, including Africa, where our objective is to seek constructive Libyan action in securing the peace and prosperity of the continent, as well as on human rights reform and other claims by Americans, including for past terrorist incidents. As we augment our diplomatic personnel and transition from an Interests Section to a Liaison Office, we will broaden this agenda and deepen our dialogue.
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Mr. Chairman, we are engaged in an unprecedented effort to rebuild a relationship shattered by terrorism and Libya’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. As the President stated: ‘‘Old hostilities do not need to go on forever.’’ We will work with the Congress and with this Committee to ensure that as Libya fulfills the historical commitments it has made we take reciprocal steps to reinforce these extremely positive developments and foster the more hopeful world that we all seek. SOURCE: http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/testimony.asp?congress=&mo= 03&day=10&year=2004&title=&committee=1&submit.x=39&submit.y=10 EDITOR’S NOTE: See Secretary of State Burns, Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 26, 2004 (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/ 30004.htm); also see Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Human Rights and the Future of U.S.-Libyan Relations, Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, March 10, 2004 (http://www.state.gov/t/vc/rls/rm/2004/30347.htm).
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Saudi Arabia and the Fight Against Terrorist Financing, Testimony Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004 Thank you for the opportunity to testify on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, especially as they relate to our efforts to staunch terrorist financing with the assistance of the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We are continuing our global campaign to root out terrorists and those who support them, building on the coalition formed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. There can be no sanctuary, no refuge for terrorists, and we are working closely with our friends and allies in a global coalition to marshal all of our collective strength in this effort. While we have made progress in our global efforts, there is much that remains to be done, and much that remains unknown. Recent terrorist attacks in Spain, Israel, Turkey, and elsewhere clearly show us that our work remains unfinished. We must remove these terrorists ‘‘root and branch,’’ and we will need help from like-minded nations to make this happen. We have such a like-minded counterterrorism ally in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is clear that the Saudi government ‘‘gets it’’ when it comes to terrorism. The Saudis have been confronted with the horror of suicide attacks on their own soil, and have seen how the virtuous intentions of charity can be corrupted for the support of terrorism and terrorists. Cooperation Growing Closer Our dialogue with the Saudis on counterterrorism issues has grown closer over the past year, and took on a renewed urgency following the May 12, 2003 bombings in Riyadh. This latest outrageous murder in the global war
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on terrorism, which resulted in the death of nine Americans and 20 others, including five children, shocked the Saudis, and our cooperation has grown closer every day since. The Saudis are a key ally in the Global War On Terror. Their performance has not been flawless, and they have a large task before them, but we see clear evidence of the seriousness of purpose and the commitment of the leadership of the Kingdom to this fight. They must combat the terrorists who have taken root in their own backyard and simultaneously address those issues—whether social, cultural, or economic—which have allowed extremism to take root in the Kingdom. With our colleagues from across the interagency, we have worked closely with Saudi officials in the Kingdom to enhance our cooperation. This effort has included a number of initiatives to staunch terrorist financing and bolster law enforcement and intelligence cooperation. We expect that they will continue to seek U.S. assistance as they act to address this threat. As a part of this continuing effort to engage with the Saudi Government on counterterrorism issues, I have traveled to the Kingdom five times since January 2003, in the company of interagency colleagues, and more recently with Deputy National Security Advisor Fran Townsend, who now leads this dialogue. This has been a labor-intensive effort, but it is bearing fruit. Progress Against Terrorist Financing Counterterrorism finance has been the central focus of this engagement. The Saudis have responded with an impressive array of new institutional, legal and regulatory changes aimed at combating terrorist finance. In fact, some of these steps are among the most restrictive measures to be found anywhere in the world, particularly their new regulations related to charities. Saudi officials are beginning to make the kind of fundamental and necessary changes to their financial and charity systems which will choke off the flow of funds that keep al-Qaida and other terrorists in business. They have also taken a number of very public steps in the area of terrorist finance. Let me highlight some recent accomplishments in these areas. Accomplishments ¥ On January 22 of this year, we jointly submitted with the Saudi Government the names of four branches of the Riyadh-based al-Haramain Foundation charity to the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee for worldwide sanctions, including asset freezing. ¥ The addition of these four entities made for a total of 10 joint U.S.-Saudi submissions to the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee since December 2002, the largest number of joint designations with any country over that span. ¥ We continue to work together to look for additional entities and individuals providing support to al-Qaida, and hope to have additional success in this arena; ¥ On February 29 the Saudis announced the formation of the National Saudi Society for Relief and Charitable Works Abroad. We are still awaiting full details on the form and function of this new body, but this is a welcome development, as it should allow the government to exert more stringent oversight of Saudi charitable activities abroad;
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¥ The Saudis have already instituted a variety of new laws and regulations that have the potential to fundamentally alter their banking and charity systems; ¥ Saudi banks have implemented strict ‘‘know your customer’’ rules which require additional due diligence on the part of banks to ensure the transparency of all account holders; ¥ Charitable organizations are now required to use only a single bank account, and they are prohibited from making or receiving payments in cash. This obviously allows much greater Saudi Government oversight over the ability of Saudi charities to operate outside of the Kingdom; ¥ The Saudis have taken fundamental steps to increase accountability and prevent misuse of the fundamental Islamic tenet of zakat, or charity, including the removal of all cash collection boxes from mosques and shopping centers; ¥ The government has reigned-in the activities of hawalas, which are the informal money transfer services commonly used throughout the Arabian Gulf region, particularly by foreign workers. Independent hawalas are being closed down in the Kingdom and replaced with government-regulated establishments which perform essentially the same function, but with far greater oversight; ¥ In September 2003, a team of assessors from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) visited the Kingdom. FATF is a multilateral organization of thirty-three members individually and collectively devoted to combating money laundering. The FATF/GCC team conducted a formal assessment of Saudi Arabia’s system of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism finance laws and regulations, and the overarching supervisory and regulatory framework. ¥ Their February 2004 report documents that the Kingdom is in compliance or near-compliance with international standards in almost every indicator of effective instruments to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. ¥ While significant work remains, particularly in the area of implementation, this FATF/GCC report is a testament to the advances the Saudi Government has made in shoring up its controls over its banking system and charities. ¥ A new Joint Task Force on Terrorism Finance … is in its initial stages; this will necessarily move much of our day to day and case by case efforts in the War On Terror away from the interactions of diplomats and put it on an expedited, realtime, law enforcement basis; ¥ The Saudis have established a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which is responsible for analyzing and exchanging information related to suspicious financial transactions with Saudi regulatory and law enforcement entities.
These efforts have begun to make a real difference. Saudi improvements in the oversight and accountability of charitable funds have made it more difficult for terrorists to get their hands on such funding. We are seeking to upgrade Saudi counterterrorism capacity by providing training in a number of fields, particularly in the area of terrorist financing. For example, we will continue to provide financial investigative training to the Saudis to enhance their capabilities to monitor their banking system and charities for terrorist financing and money-laundering activities. Conclusion The Saudis are a strong ally and are taking unprecedented steps to address an al-Qaida menace that threatens us both. We believe that they are headed in the right direction, are committed to countering the threat of al-Qaida, and
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are giving us extremely strong cooperation in the War On Terrorism. There remains, of course, much work still to be done, both singly and jointly, but we are optimistic that our efforts are paying off. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/30740.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see by E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, ‘‘U.S. Interagency Efforts to Combat Terrorist Financing,’’ Testimony Before the Senate Banking Committee, Washington, D.C., September 25, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2003/24623.htm).
President George W. Bush, Call for New Palestinian Leadership, June 14, 2004 THE PRESIDENT: For too long, the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostages. The forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire region. For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East. It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself. In the situation the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable. My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence. And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East. In the work ahead, we all have responsibilities. The Palestinian people are gifted and capable, and I am confident they can achieve a new birth for their nation. A Palestinian state will never be created by terror—it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism. Today, the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation, made worse by official corruption. A Palestinian state will require a vibrant economy, where
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honest enterprise is encouraged by honest government. The United States, the international donor community and the World Bank stand ready to work with Palestinians on a major project of economic reform and development. The United States, the EU, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund are willing to oversee reforms in Palestinian finances, encouraging transparency and independent auditing. And the United States, along with our partners in the developed world, will increase our humanitarian assistance to relieve Palestinian suffering. Today, the Palestinian people lack effective courts of law and have no means to defend and vindicate their rights. A Palestinian state will require a system of reliable justice to punish those who prey on the innocent. The United States and members of the international community stand ready to work with Palestinian leaders to establish finance—establish finance and monitor a truly independent judiciary. Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure. This will require an externally supervised effort to rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services. The security system must have clear lines of authority and accountability and a unified chain of command. America is pursuing this reform along with key regional states. The world is prepared to help, yet ultimately these steps toward statehood depend on the Palestinian people and their leaders. If they energetically take the path of reform, the rewards can come quickly. If Palestinians embrace democracy, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support for the creation of a provisional state of Palestine. I’ve said in the past that nations are either with us or against us in the war on terror. To be counted on the side of peace, nations must act. Every leader actually committed to peace will end incitement to violence in official media, and publicly denounce homicide bombings. Every nation actually committed to peace will stop the flow of money, equipment and recruits to terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel—including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. Every nation actually committed to peace must block the shipment of Iranian supplies to these groups, and oppose regimes that promote terror, like Iraq. And Syria must choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations. Leaders who want to be included in the peace process must show by their deeds an undivided support for peace. And as we move toward a peaceful solution, Arab states will be expected to build closer ties of diplomacy and commerce with Israel, leading to full normalization of relations between Israel and the entire Arab world. Israel also has a large stake in the success of a democratic Palestine. Permanent occupation threatens Israel’s identity and democracy. A stable, peaceful Palestinian state is necessary to achieve the security that Israel longs for. So I challenge Israel to take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable, credible Palestinian state. As we make progress towards security, Israel forces need to withdraw fully to positions they held prior to September 28, 2000. And consistent with the
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recommendations of the Mitchell Committee, Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop. The Palestinian economy must be allowed to develop. As violence subsides, freedom of movement should be restored, permitting innocent Palestinians to resume work and normal life. Palestinian legislators and officials, humanitarian and international workers, must be allowed to go about the business of building a better future. And Israel should release frozen Palestinian revenues into honest, accountable hands. I’ve asked Secretary Powell to work intensively with Middle Eastern and international leaders to realize the vision of a Palestinian state, focusing them on a comprehensive plan to support Palestinian reform and institution-building. Ultimately, Israelis and Palestinians must address the core issues that divide them if there is to be a real peace, resolving all claims and ending the conflict between them. This means that the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties, based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognize borders. We must also resolve questions concerning Jerusalem, the plight and future of Palestinian refugees, and a final peace between Israel and Lebanon, and Israel and a Syria that supports peace and fights terror. All who are familiar with the history of the Middle East realize that there may be setbacks in this process. Trained and determined killers, as we have seen, want to stop it. Yet the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties with Israel remind us that with determined and responsible leadership progress can come quickly. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020624-3.html
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Security in the Middle East: New Challenges for NATO and EU, Press Conference at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, February 12, 2005 While there have been differences over Iraq, such issues among longtime friends are not new. Consider just a few of the divisions that have come up among NATO allies over the past decades since I was a NATO parliamentarian in the 1960’s: ¥ I remember Skybolt in 1962; ¥ France’s decision to pull out of NATO and to expel NATO from France in the late 60’s; ¥ Disagreements about the deployment of Pershing II missiles in the 1980’s; ¥ Differences in approaches to the Middle East peace process; ¥ And so many more.
Today, we also share a common enemy. Extremists have targeted all civilized societies across the globe: in New York and Washington; Istanbul; Madrid; Beslan; Bali; and more.
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Radical Islamists do not seek an armistice with the civilized world. They will not negotiate a separate peace. Rather they seek to impose the totalitarian rule George Orwell described as ‘‘a boot stomping on a human face— forever.’’ By now it must be clear that one nation cannot defeat the extremists alone. Neither can any one nation successfully combat the asymmetric threats of this new era. It will take the cooperation of many nations to stop the proliferation of dangerous weapons. Proliferation is a global concern, and it requires a global effort. This is why some 60 nations have joined the Proliferation Security Initiative in an effort to keep deadly weapons from dangerous regimes. Together, we are having success in dismantling proliferation networks, such as the one directed by the now notorious A.Q. Khan. German, Italian, British and American authorities confiscated nuclear equipment bound for Tripoli in 2003. Such pressure surely prompted Libya’s decision to open its WMD inventories to inspectors. Building on this collaboration, the U.S. proposed a Global Peace Operations Initiative—another way to work together by helping to train countries for peacekeeping operations and to develop their own defense capabilities. And it surely takes a community of nations to gather intelligence about extremist networks, to break up financial support lines, or to apprehend suspected terrorists. These efforts require the contributions of many governments and all elements of national power—legal, diplomatic, law-enforcement, and intelligence gathering. It is not the work of the military alone; indeed, the military can only be part of the solution, and is always the last resort. The arrests of Islamic extremists last month by French and German authorities show the critical work necessary to win the struggle against extremists. Often quietly, America and other NATO nations are sharing intelligence, capturing terrorists, and disrupting their finances. And because of our work together, some three-quarters of known al-Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured and others are on the run. This important work extends beyond the Atlantic alliance, to a 90-nation coalition that includes old friends on every continent, many here today, and most recently, two new allies with capitals in Kabul and Baghdad. It will take many nations to help Afghans and Iraqis succeed in bringing democracy to places where tyrants once ruled and terrorists once trained. Because we know the value of democracy, we stand with those who freely choose it. In Afghanistan, the NATO Alliance is leading the International Security Assistance Force. Every NATO nation has had personnel in that country, and more than half of all NATO nations have had forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, the people are rejecting the ideology of Bin Laden and Zarqawi. And as the Iraqi people take more steps along the challenging road to democracy, more nations are standing with them. A few days ago, at our NATO Defense Ministerial Meeting in Nice, I was struck by the enthusiasm over the democratic experiment underway in Iraq. Many NATO countries have agreed
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to help train Iraqi Security Personnel, put together a war college and military academies, and provide funds or equipment to Iraqi Security Forces. These are welcome and encouraging signs, and the Iraqi people are grateful for them. It sends an important message to the extremists: that they are on the wrong side of history. These are historic times for freedom and democracy. Members of NATO share much more than an Atlantic alliance; we are united by ties of blood and purpose, a heritage of liberty, and a calling to confront extremists’ violence—and defeat it. SOURCE: http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/rede.php?id=144&menu_ 2006=&menu_konferenzen=&sprache=en&
President George W. Bush and King Abdullah of Jordan Discuss Middle East Peace Trade, The White House, March 15, 2005 Q. The Lebanese Maronite Patriarch you’re meeting with tomorrow supports integrating Hezbollah into the political mainstream in his country. Are you willing to consider that kind of role for Hezbollah? PRESIDENT BUSH: … We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they’re not by laying down arms and not threatening peace. One of our concerns The Majesty and I discussed is that Hezbollah may try to derail the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. And it’s very important that this peace process go forward, for the sake of the Palestinians, for the sake of the Israelis, and for the sake of all the people in the region. But Hezbollah has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States because of terrorist activities in the past. Q. Mr. President, the Arab peace initiative in Beirut has defined the ground for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, which would be also re-articulated in the coming Algeria summit. What would be the role of the United States in the coming stage to push for with that initiative? And when it comes to reforms, how would the United States help the Arab world, and Jordan in particular, in pushing forward? PRESIDENT BUSH: … First, let’s start with Jordan. One of the things we’ve done is entered into trade negotiations with Jordan, so that commerce between our countries can flow better. It’s much easier to reform when there’s prosperity, when people are able to see His Majesty’s vision about a prosperous future. And I—the other way to encourage reform is to herald examples of reformers, people who are willing to put mechanisms in place that respond to the voice of the people. And His Majesty has done that. As for the Palestinian-Israeli issue, the role of the United States will be to continue to urge both parties to make the sacrifices necessary—sacrifice meaning that Israel must withdraw from the settlements, there must be contiguous territory for a Palestinian state—into which a Palestinian state can grow. The Palestinians, in their part, must continue to work hard to fight any terrorist activities within the territories, and the Arab world must continue to work together to help Palestine build the necessary structures for democracy. One of the things we’ve done is we’ve recently sent a general, Your Majesty, to the region to help the Palestinians have an effective security force. I
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believe President Abbas is desirous of developing a state that will live side by side with Israel in peace. And we recognize that the Palestinians need help in consolidating security forces and training security forces to defeat the terrorists who would like to stop the march of freedom. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03/20050315.html
President George W. Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Joint Statement, Crawford, Texas, April 25, 2005 The United States respects Saudi Arabia as the birthplace of Islam, one of the world’s great religions, and as the symbolic center of the Islamic faith as custodian of Islam’s two holy places in Makkah and Madina. Saudi Arabia reiterates its call on all those who teach and propagate the Islamic faith to adhere strictly to the Islamic message of peace, moderation, and tolerance and reject that which deviates from those principles. Both countries agree that this message of peace, moderation, and tolerance must extend to those of all faiths and practices. The two nations reaffirm the principles agreed to during the international conference on counterterrorism hosted by the Kingdom in February 2005. These principles were enshrined in the ‘‘Riyadh Declaration’’ which calls for, ‘‘fostering values of understanding, tolerance, dialogue, co-existence, and the rapprochement between cultures … [and] for fighting any form of thinking that promotes hatred, incites violence, and condones terrorist crimes which can by no means be accepted by any religion or law.’’ The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States commit to actively help the Iraqi people realize their aspirations to build a secure, sovereign, prosperous, and unified nation at peace with its neighbors and where Iraqis of all religions and ethnic groups are free to participate in its institutions. Both nations call on the international community to support Iraq’s political and economic development. Both nations urge neighboring states not to interfere in Iraq’s internal political affairs. Both our nations have witnessed the horror of terrorism on our homelands by violent individuals and groups who indiscriminately kill people of all faiths and nationalities in order to further their extremist agenda. Both our nations assert our determination to continue to improve upon our close cooperation to combat terrorism and to choke off resources intended for them and their support networks. We honor the memory of the victims of terrorism-and those who have lost their lives fighting terrorists-and pledge to work together until terrorism no longer threatens our nations and the entire world. The United States and Saudi Arabia continue to support efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and of the technology and materiel needed to develop and build nuclear weapons. Efforts to develop and acquire such weapons run contrary to efforts to promote peace and stability in the region. The United States and Saudi Arabia support UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and, accordingly, take note of Syria’s decision to withdraw all its troops and intelligence personnel from Lebanon. Both nations welcome a provisional Lebanese government and look forward to free and fair elections unburdened by foreign interference or intimidation.
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With regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia desire a just, negotiated settlement wherein two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace and security. We will continue our efforts to achieve this objective, and reiterate our support for the efforts of the Palestinian Authority to bring democracy, peace, and prosperity to all Palestinians. The United States thanks Crown Prince Abdullah for his bold initiative-adopted unanimously by the Arab Summit in 2002-that seeks to encourage an Israel-Palestinian and Israel-Arab peace. We believe that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank will be a significant step forward toward implementation of the Road Map. It is our firm conviction that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will remove a major source of tension and contribute to stability and progress in the region. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050425-8.html
President George W. Bush Welcomes Palestinian President Abbas to the White House, The Rose Garden, May 26, 2005 PRESIDENT BUSH: … We meet at a time when a great achievement of history is within reach, the creation of a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state. President Abbas is seeking that goal by rejecting violence and working for democratic reform. I believe the Palestinian people are fully capable of justly governing themselves, in peace with their neighbors. I believe the interests of the Israeli people would be served by a peaceful Palestinian state. And I believe that now is the time for all parties of this conflict to move beyond old grievances and act forcefully in the cause of peace. President Abbas’s election four months ago was a tribute to the power and appeal of democracy, and an inspiration to the people across the region. Palestinians voted against violence, and for sovereignty, because only the defeat of violence will lead to sovereignty. Mr. President, the United States and the international community applaud your rejection of terrorism. All who engage in terror are the enemies of a Palestinian state, and must be held to account. We will stand with you, Mr. President, as you combat corruption, reform the Palestinian security services and your justice system, and revive your economy. Mr. President, you have made a new start on a difficult journey, requiring courage and leadership each day— and we will take that journey together. As we work for peace, other countries must step up to their responsibilities. Arab states must take concrete measures to create a regional environment conducive to peace. They must offer financial assistance to all—to support the peaceful efforts of President Abbas, his government and the Palestinian people. And they must refuse to assist or harbor terrorists. Israel must continue to take steps toward a peaceful future, and work with the Palestinian leadership to improve the daily lives of Palestinians, especially their humanitarian situation. Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes road map obligations or prejudice final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
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Therefore, Israel must remove unauthorized outposts and stop settlement expansion. The barrier being erected by Israel as a part of its security effort must be a security, rather than political, barrier. And its route should take into account, consistent with security needs, its impact on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities. As we make progress toward security, and in accordance with the road map, Israeli forces should withdraw to their positions on September the 28th, 2000. Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations. The imminent Israeli disengagement from Gaza, parts of the West Bank, presents an opportunity to lay the groundwork for a return to the road map. All parties have a responsibility to make this hopeful moment in the region a new and peaceful beginning. To help ensure that the Gaza disengagement is a success, the United States will provide to the Palestinian Authority $50 million to be used for new housing and infrastructure projects in the Gaza. These funds will be used to improve the quality of life of the Palestinians living in Gaza, where poverty and unemployment are very high. Q. Mr. President, you just spoke about the rejection of terror. Are you satisfied that President Abbas is moving aggressively enough, doing everything he can to shut down terror groups? And do you think that he should, for example, close Hamas or remove from positions of power associates of Yasser Arafat? PRESIDENT BUSH: I believe that—and I know the President is committed to democracy. After all, he ran on a platform that said, vote for me, I’m for peace, and I believe in democracy. That’s what he told the Palestinian people when he ran. And he won with 62 percent of the vote, I think it was. So in other words, he’s committed; that’s what he said he was going to do and he’s now fulfilling it. Our position on Hamas is very clear, it’s a well-known position and it hasn’t changed about Hamas: Hamas is a terrorist group, it’s on a terrorist list for a reason. As the elections go forward, of course, we want everybody to participate in the vote. There is something healthy about people campaigning, saying, this is what I’m for. The President ran on a peace platform; you know, maybe somebody will run on a war platform—you know, vote for me, I promise violence. I don’t think they’re going to get elected, because I think Palestinian moms want their children to grow up in peace just like American moms want their children to grow up in peace. As a matter of fact, I think the people that campaign for peace will win. The goal of a—is, of course, a Palestinian state based upon rule of law, and you cannot have a democracy based upon rule of law if you have armed bands of people who will use their weapons to try to achieve a political outcome. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050526.html
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President George W. Bush Condemns Terrorist Attacks in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt, The White House, July 23, 2005 The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the barbaric terrorist attacks in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt that killed and injured scores of innocent civilians from many nations and religious faiths. We offer our prayers for the victims and their families and join the international community in deeply deploring this assault on the civilized world. The President spoke with President Mubarak this morning and offered his personal condolences and the support of the American people. The United States stands firmly with the people of Egypt at this time of national mourning. The United States stands ready to assist the Government of Egypt in helping the victims and bringing the perpetrators of these acts to justice. Standing together with the rest of the civilized world, we will win the conflict against this global scourge. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050723-1.html
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Interview with Alia Toukan of Jordan TV, Amman, Jordan, November 14, 2005 Q. Today we sit in the Radisson SAS Hotel, one of the three hotels that was the target of terrorist attacks in Amman that claimed the lives of many innocent people. What are your thoughts of these tragic events? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I have just seen the wedding hall and it makes you wonder how human beings could do this to other human beings. And it reminds us of our common struggle against people who kill innocent people who were enjoying the happiest day of their lives and were people who were just trying to enjoy a normal life. I came here because I want the people of Jordan to know that the people of America stand with them as Jordan has stood by us in times of pain and sorrow and need, but also to say that it has been inspirational to see the response of the people of Jordan, people who have denounced terrorism and gone out into the streets to denounce it. We will be victorious over terrorists because they cannot kill the human spirit. Q. You’ve met with His Majesty, the King. What was the focus of the talks? SECRETARY RICE: I talked with His Majesty first, of course, to offer condolences of the President and the American people. We also talked about the response of the people here and all that has been done. We talked about our common struggle against terrorism and redoubling our efforts both in terms of helping with security but also redoubling our efforts to drive terrorists from the safe havens that they have. We talked some also about the Middle East. His Majesty knows that I was just in Israel and he was interested in the discussions that I’ve had about the peace process as well. Q. Do you think these latest attacks in Amman will affect the JordanianU.S. relations?
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SECRETARY RICE: I believe that the Jordanian people are showing what the American people showed, which is that they know that the issue here is the terrorists. We have to be united against the terrorists. This is no time for division among those of us who stand on the side that says that we want peace and security and a more prosperous and democratic future. We are united and we are united against the terrorists, and so I think this is another way to show that the United States and Jordan are the best of friends and will continue to be. Q. Finally, Secretary Rice, terrorism has hit home dearly and Jordan has paid a price for being a key U.S. ally. How can the United States help Jordan overcome any future threats in the Kingdom? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think that Jordan is paying a price for being a peace-loving country that the terrorists have targeted, much as they’ve targeted other peace-loving countries. And the list is long and it’s a list that has a variety of relationships with the United States. I think that we—as Prime Minister Blair said, there is no excuse for the terrorists. They would like us to say, well, it’s because of the relationship with the United States or it’s because of the politics of the Middle East. No, there is no justification for what they did. And so what we must do is to redouble our efforts, as we will, to try and make ourselves more secure, to continue the excellent intelligence and law enforcement cooperation that we have. We have offered help in the investigation here and, of course, we will be ready to listen to any ideas that Jordan might have about how we can help. But ultimately, we have to remain united in our struggle against these terrorists. We have to remember that there is only one choice, and that is to defeat these terrorists. We cannot make excuses for them. We cannot negotiate with them. We simply have to defeat terrorism. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/56888.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Comments on Terrorist Bombings in Jordan, Washington, D.C., November 9, 2005 (http://www.state.gov/ secretary/rm/2005/56729.htm); and Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Wreath Laying Ceremony, Radisson Hotel, Amman, Jordan, November 14, 2005 (http://www.state. gov/secretary/rm/2005/56884.htm).
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Diplomatic Relations with Libya, Washington, D.C., May 15, 2006 I am pleased to announce that the United States is restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya. We will soon open an embassy in Tripoli. In addition, the United States intends to remove Libya from the list of designated state sponsors of terrorism. Libya will also be omitted from the annual certification of countries not cooperating fully with United States anti-terrorism efforts. We are taking these actions in recognition of Libya’s continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism and the excellent cooperation Libya has provided to the United States and other members of the international community in response to common global threats faced by the civilized world since September 11, 2001.
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Today’s announcements are tangible results that flow from the historic decisions taken by Libya’s leadership in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs. As a direct result of those decisions we have witnessed the beginning of that country’s re-emergence into the mainstream of the international community. Today marks the opening of a new era in U.S.-Libya relations that will benefit Americans and Libyans alike. Just as 2003 marked a turning point for the Libyan people so too could 2006 mark turning points for the peoples of Iran and North Korea. Libya is an important model as nations around the world press for changes in behavior by the Iranian and North Korean regimes—changes that could be vital to international peace and security. We urge the leadership of Iran and North Korea to make similar strategic decisions that would benefit their citizens. For Libya, today’s announcements open the door to a broader bilateral relationship with the United States that will allow us to better discuss other issues of importance. Those issues include protection of universal human rights, promotion of freedom of speech and expression, and expansion of economic and political reform consistent with President Bush’s freedom agenda. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/66235.htm
C. David Welch, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, Issues Related to U.S. Relations with Libya, On-the-Record State Department Briefing, Washington, D.C., May 15, 2006 MR. MCCORMACK: … The topic of today’s briefing is ‘‘A New Era in U.S.-Libyan Relations.’’ The Secretary made a series of announcements in the paper statement that you have. We have several briefers here who are going to be able to answer your questions you may have about today’s actions. We have Assistant Secretary David Welch for Near Eastern Affairs, our Counterterrorism Coordinator Hank Crumpton, we have Paula DeSutter from the Verification and Compliance Bureau and for any legal questions, Mr. Jonathan Schwartz from our legal bureau. So I’ll turn it over now to Assistant Secretary Welch. AMBASSADOR WELCH: … This announcement today is the culmination of a lot of diplomatic effort and monitoring of Libyan behavior by the United States. Successive American administrations, both parties have worked hard on this issue to see justice brought. Diplomacy in this case has produced results. Let me briefly remind you of some key points in the U.S.-Libyan relationship. Libya was designated by us as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979 and relations deteriorated during the 1980s. Libya was implicated in terrorist incidents, including the La Belle discoth`eque bombing in Berlin and the bombing of French UTA Flight 772, as well as the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December of 1988 in an incident in which 270 people perished.
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As a result of this horrific series of events, the United States decided to bring Libya’s actions into the court of world opinion together with the United Kingdom. And the United States pursued an investigation of the Pan Am 103 incident. And in 1991, we indicted two Libyan agents and issued a public statement demanding that Libya accept responsibility for the actions of its officials and pay appropriate compensation. With France and the UK we issued a declaration demanding that Libya stop committing acts of terrorism and providing assistance to terrorists. The demands in those declarations became part of Security Council resolutions and the Security Council eventually imposed economic sanctions on Libya for its failure to comply with these demands. In 1999, Libya began to seriously address our terrorism concerns and began the process of fully meeting the requirements to distance itself from terrorism by surrendering the suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing for trial.… The U.S. and UK began direct talks with Libyan representatives in 2001 and in August 2003 Libya confirmed its renunciation of terrorism in a formal letter to the UN Security Council. Then, on December 19, 2003, Libya announced its historic decision to dismantle WMD programs and longrange ballistic missiles. The United States has responded to Libya’s actions through a careful, stepby-step process designed to acknowledge progress by Libya while continuing our review at every stage of this process. I’d like to mention that the work of my predecessor, Ambassador Bill Burns, in opening this dialogue up with the Libyans. Today’s announcement demonstrates that when countries make a decision to adhere to international norms and behavior, they will reap concrete benefits. Libya serves as an important model as we push for changes in policy by other countries such as Iran and North Korea. As a result of successful diplomacy, we are taking three separate actions today. First, effective today, we are omitting Libya from the annual list of countries not fully cooperating with U.S. antiterrorism efforts, and we have notified Congress today of this decision. We are doing this in recognition of Libya’s outstanding regional and international cooperation on counterterrorism. We have also announced and advised Congress of our intention to upgrade our existing liaison office in Tripoli to an embassy following a 15-day waiting period that starts today, waiting period following the notification to Congress, that is. We believe that having a full diplomatic relationship with Libya will give us the best opportunity to expand our engagement and will let us more effectively press our case on the issues of concern between us. Finally, and probably the most significant step that we’re taking today, is the announcement of our intent to rescind Libya’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. This was not a decision that we arrived at without carefully monitoring and assessing Libya’s behavior. The relevant U.S. Government agencies conducted a thorough review of Libyan conduct since 2003. For a number of years now, Libya has ceased its direct support for acts of terrorism and has taken concrete steps to distance itself from terrorist organizations with which it maintained active ties.
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The steps we announced today don’t eliminate our concerns over other aspects of Libya’s behavior. Instead, these steps will enable us to engage with the Libyans more effectively on all issues. In particular, we continue to call upon Libya to improve its human rights record and to address in good faith cases pending in U.S. courts with regard to its terrorist activities of the 1980s. We remain very concerned about the case of Bulgarian and Palestinian medics imprisoned in Libya on charges of intentionally infecting children with HIV/AIDS. We have great sympathy for these children and their families and we are supporting efforts to help them. That said, our position on the medics has not changed. We believe a way should be found to allow them to return home and we are committed to helping resolve that issue as soon as possible. We are going to broaden and deepen our bilateral relationship with Libya as it continues forward with implementing these commitments. Today’s announcement marks an important step forward not only in our relationship with Libya but in Libya’s continued reintegration into the international community. Q. When the report, the annual report came out a few weeks ago, they were credited with improving. But one thing you cited, if I remember right, was continuing allegations—you didn’t actually credit them—of an attempt to assassinate the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Those—whatever the word would be—those concerns or those—is that a—how did that get removed or has it been removed? Is it an issue still out there? And if I may … With our thirst for oil, what is the practical—I’m not saying that motivated it—but … is there a practical benefit for the energyoppressed West … to having normal relations with Libya. Can everybody run out there now and start signing up contracts? AMBASSADOR WELCH: First, with respect to the annual report on terrorism, of course Hank can answer this better than I, but my understanding is that report looks backward at calendar year ’05. We did address the issue of relations between Libya and Saudi Arabia. The case has been closed ever since King Abdallah pardoned the accused conspirators shortly after he rose to the throne in August of last year. In September of ’05, Libya and Saudi Arabia announced that this issue was resolved between them. Both countries have reestablished diplomatic relations and have representation in their capitals of ambassadors from each side. So they’ve closed the door. The second issue you asked about was in terms of our commercial relations with Libya. We do have some. Given the resource base of Libya, if anything, it’s a little surprising that those are not more evolved and mature. But since we lifted economic sanctions on Libya a while back, our companies have been able to operate there. The presence on the terrorism list does bring into bear some other kinds of sanctions and there would be a different effect in that sense. This decision is not undertaken because Libya has oil; this decision is undertaken because they’ve addressed our national security concerns which are in the legislation. Libya remains a problematic place to do business; we would appreciate greater openness as would any number of potential foreign partners for Libya, including in Europe and Asia.
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Q. Some of the relatives of those killed in the Pan Am bombing are very angry by this decision and they say that it’s premature and that it’s rewarding people who are responsible for an incredibly violent act. And they also say that they believe that it has more to do with oil than anything else. You’ve responded to that but what would your reaction be to those, those that complained that they were not told beforehand of this decision. AMBASSADOR WELCH: Well, first of all, these families who’ve been through a tragedy that we hope is never again repeated, played an important role in seeing these remarkable changes. I think their courage and commitment has to be recognized. Libya is out of the terrorism business and that has saved additional lives. The families’ concerns, I don’t think in terms of the emotional damage to them, speaking as a parent of children, I don’t think we could ever really address those. I want to repeat that I have a lot of sympathy for their loss, having lost a friend myself onboard that Pan Am 103. That said, the requirements we put in front of the government of Libya to address this issue have been met. The Libyans, for example, were asked to address the compensation question and the legal representatives of the Pan Am 103 families have worked out an arrangement directly with Libya to address that request for compensation. We, the U.S. Government, were not part of that negotiation; at their request we were not part of it, but we did support those efforts. Q. … you opened direct talks with Libya before they renounced terrorism, or before they at least effectively stopped the terrorism business and before they gave up their nuclear weapons. So for those who would say you should be having the same kind of talks with Iran, what do you say? And also, the behavior of Qadhafi is still quite erratic. He has these outbursts at Arab League meetings and screams obscenities at other world leaders. I mean, is that a serious—someone you should sit across the table and have serious talks with? AMBASSADOR WELCH: Well, with respect to the process that we went through with Libya, I mean, if you freeze the timeline at any given point you can analyze where you freeze it at. But let me observe the following. Reasonable demands after a terrorist crime were put in front of the court of world opinion. Taking a decision upon those reasonable demands, they were embodied in Security Council resolutions. Libya underwent a long period under sanctions as a result of their noncompliance with those resolutions and those demands and the demands in them. That is a process, in my judgment, that could be emulated in other cases. The Libyan Government addressed each one of the requirements in the Security Council resolutions in turn. Q. Before you sat down to talk with them? AMBASSADOR WELCH: That’s correct. They began that process when they turned over these two criminals for trial in 1999, then they later accepted to renounce terrorism directly.… we sat with them and we worked through this and never compromising in what the requests were made in the Security Council resolutions. Q. About the screams—he screams crazy things at Arab League meetings, et cetera.
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AMBASSADOR WELCH: I work in the business of commitments by governments and in leaders, and in this case, since we are certifying pursuant to legislation, according to American law, both about Libya’s past behavior and about our confidence in their future behavior, we have to have some confidence in those assurances. We would not have undertaken those steps today unless we were confident about what they had done in the past and it not being a problem, and second that we believed that we could hold them to these commitments for the future. In terms of mercurial personalities, I don’t want to go there. You know, I deal in my business with a lot of colorful people and I’m concerned about what our positions are. Q. First for Mr. Crumpton, in announcing that we are immediately removing Libya from a list of nations that is not fully cooperating with U.S. antiterror efforts, I wonder if you could describe for us the nature and extent and the scope of Libyan cooperation in anti-terror efforts and give us an idea of how it’s paying benefits for U.S. interests in the global war on terror. MR. CRUMPTON: Right. Good question. This is not only about Libya not supporting terrorist groups; it is about their cooperation with us and with other partners in this global fight. The cooperation in intelligence is strong and getting stronger. They have made direct and important contributions to our national security. They have worked with us to track operatives and networks of terrorist groups throughout the region, some leading into Iraq, so we’re very encouraged by their assistance in that regard. Q. Is al-Qaida among those groups? MR. CRUMPTON: Al-Qaida and affiliated groups with al-Qaida, like GSPC and others. Secondly, in terms of their diplomatic efforts, we are encouraged, as noted earlier, by their work with the Saudis, reestablishment of relations there. I should also note that Libya has signed 12 of the counterterrorism conventions and I am very optimistic that we can work with them, both in the multilateral fora regionally and also bilaterally. Q. And my question for Ms. DeSutter, recently we read for the first time this briefing to the Iranian parliament that Hassan Rowhani gave in August of last year, in which was a very frank history of the Iranian nuclear program from its inception. And in that briefing he mentioned repeatedly that the ‘‘defection’’ of Libya to give up its weapons programs had a deleterious effect on Iran’s own nuclear progress. Is that true? Can you confirm that? Can you flesh that out for us somewhat? MS. DESUTTER: Not all that much, but I do think that the—we talk about the Libya model, a part of what we’re talking about is that this is a country that made a decision, a strategic decision to give up weapons of mass destruction. And then didn’t just assert that it had done so or that it was entitled to the programs that they had, but said we’re going to give up these programs and we’re going to do so with international inspectors and U.S. and UK experts there available. They did so with tremendous transparency and with great rapidity. And so in terms of the heat that they’ve taken from Iran and the criticism that they’ve gotten form North Korea, I think it’s a good example.
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They also made a decision to do this—and we did remove from Libya a number of items of great interest that have shed some light on what the Khan network was doing and that has been helpful in trying to decipher what has been out there, what was (inaudible). It doesn’t tell us directly this is what Khan sold to Iran over time. But it does help us say, we know that Iran is buying things from Khan and we know—or was—and we know that the Khan network is selling these types of things. We didn’t know until Libya told us, for example, that they had the nuclear weapon design documents. So can we demonstrate from that that Iran got them, no. But we can say we know that they were on the market. So I think in that regard it’s very significant. And also in terms of—from the perspective of Iran and North Korea, Libya and its people have obtained already tremendous benefits from having made that decision. And those are benefits that are available to the people of countries that make a similar one. The President made no specific commitments in December 2003. What he said is that ‘‘leaders who abandon the pursuit of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, will find an open path to better relations with the United States and other free nations.’’ That has happened. SOURCE: www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/2006/66268.htm
President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Merkel, Press Conference, Town Hall, Stralsund, Germany, July 13, 2006 … [W]e talked at great length about international issues. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of problems that we need to deal with and for whose solution we feel responsible. The first and foremost, on top of the agenda is certainly Iran. The international community actually submitted a very substantial, very fundamental offer to Iran, starting from the firm view that Iran should not be in possession of a nuclear weapon, but that, on the other hand, Iran should have—should know good development. So far we have not received any sort of reaction from the Iranian leadership as to how their position is on this offer. We also addressed the very disturbing situation in the Middle East, and it fills us with concern and we have also stated clearly that everything needs to be done in order to come back to a peaceful resolution. We need to remind all of us again how this escalation started, with the kidnapping of a soldier, through rockets—for the firing of missiles against Israeli territory. And we can only urge all parties, appeal to all parties to stop, to cease violence and to also release the kidnapped soldier, and to stop this firing of missiles at Israeli territory. We talked about the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli issues with Hezbollah, and our common desire to work together to help bring peace to that troubled region. My attitude is this: There are a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace. And those of—who are peace-loving must work together to help the agents of peace—Israel, President Abbas, and others—to achieve their objective. You got to understand when peace advances, it’s in the terrorists’ interests in some cases to stop it. And that’s what’s happening.
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We were headed toward the road map, things looked positive, and terrorists stepped up and kidnapped a soldier, fired rockets into Israel. Now we’ve got two more kidnappings up north. Hezbollah doesn’t want there to be peace. The militant arm of Hamas doesn’t want there to be peace. And those of us who do want peace will continue to work together to encourage peace. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060713-4.html
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, Press Briefing, Heiligendamm, Germany, July 13, 2006 SECRETARY RICE: … Obviously, there is considerable concern about the situation in the Middle East, both the situation in Gaza and the situation that has emerged in Lebanon. Let me just step back for a moment and remind us all how this began. This began with the abduction of an Israeli soldier in Gaza, a similar abduction in Lebanon. It had followed weeks of rocket attacks against Israeli population centers. This itself escalated today with attacks against Haifa, a major population center. And the reason that I mentioned this is that it—suggests a way ahead. First of all, let me say that Israel, of course, has the right to defend itself. And we would not ask of any country that it not take steps to stop the kind of rocket attacks that have been going on against Israel. It also suggests a way ahead, which is that it is extremely important that the abductions stop and that the soldiers be returned safely. It is also very important that the international community continue to condemn acts of terrorism. And because we believe strongly that there needs to be another day—in other words, that once this crisis ends, we need to be able to return to the road map, we need to be able to return to our partnership with the people of Lebanon to fulfill their democratic aspirations—it is extremely important that Israel exercise her restraint in its activities of selfdefense. … [I]t is obviously extremely important that regional states play a positive, not a negative role. And in this regard I would highlight the very positive role that Egypt and a number of other countries have played in trying to diffuse the crisis, in trying to bring the parties together. But on the other hand, I don’t think that there is any doubt that Syria and Iran have been very much in the opposite direction, encouraging and, indeed, in the case of Syria, sheltering the people who are perpetrating these acts. We have to remember that both the external leadership of Hamas and a number of the Hezbollah activities are carried out from the territory of Syria, and Syria needs to act responsibly and stop the use of its territory for these kinds of activities, and it needs to bring all pressure on those that it is harboring to stop this and to return the soldiers and to allow the situation to deescalate. Q. Madam Secretary, you’ve said that democracy is the best solution here. But, clearly, Hezbollah draws on democratic support in Lebanon, and Hamas has majority democratic support in the Palestinian Territories. Wasn’t one of
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the ideas here that being part of government in Lebanon would somehow normalize Hezbollah? Do you think that that’s still possible? SECRETARY RICE: Well, it’s certainly the hope that when people—when groups go to their people, ask for their vote, receive that vote, that they then act responsibly, rather than making the lives of their people worse, which is precisely now what the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah are doing. And so I wouldn’t blame democracy for this. I think that it is always a good thing when people have an opportunity to choose their leaders. But they chose these leaders because they thought they were going to bring a better life and because of aspirations that they would be—that these people would be able to fulfill. There’s an obligation, when you’re elected democratically, not to try to have one foot in terror and one foot in politics. And we’ve been saying that all along, and I think we’re getting a demonstration now of why that is so critical, because Hamas is clearly not delivering a better life for the Palestinian people because they have one foot in terror. Hezbollah is not helping the Siniora government to deliver a better life for the Palestinian people because they have one foot in terror. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060713-8.html
President George W. Bush, Remarks at Meeting with Bipartisan Members of Congress on the G-8 Summit, The Cabinet Room, July 18, 2006 THE PRESIDENT: I just had the pleasure of briefing the key members of the House and the Senate on my trip to St. Petersburg and to Germany. Thank you all for coming. You know, prior to my traveling to St. Petersburg, I thought the issue was going to be whether or not we could bring the world together to deal with North Korea and Iran—and, by the way, during my stay there we did get an unanimous United Nations Security Council agreement on North Korea, and it was my pleasure to be able to thank the Chinese and the Russians and the Japanese and our European friends for voting favorably for that resolution— but, instead, a lot of the discussion was on the Hezbollah attacks into Israel. What was really interesting was that—and I briefed this to the members— that we were able to reach a very strong consensus that the world must confront the root causes of the current instability. And the root cause of that current instability is terrorism and terrorist attacks on a democratic country. And part of those terrorist attacks are inspired by nation states, like Syria and Iran. And in order to be able to deal with this crisis, the world must deal with Hezbollah, with Syria and to continue to work to isolate Iran. I strongly believe every nation ought to be able to defend herself from terrorist attacks. We’re also mindful—and I talked to the members about—the need to make sure the government of Lebanon does not collapse. It’s in our interest that Lebanon be free and the Siniora government succeed. We also talked about the evacuation of U.S. citizens in Lebanon. And Condi briefed the members about the joint plan with the Defense Department to make sure there’s enough transportation to expeditiously provide
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transportation for those who want to leave. And we’re in the process of doing that. All in all, it was a very positive visit there at the G8. We dealt with significant problems. Sometimes it requires tragic situations to help bring clarity in the international community. And it is now clear for all to see that there are terrorist elements who want to destroy our democratic friends and allies, and the world must work to prevent them from doing so. With that, I’ll be glad to answer a couple of questions. Q. In trying to defuse the situation in the Middle East, is the United States trying to buy time and give Israel a chance to weaken Hezbollah militarily? THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have made it very clear that Israel should be allowed to defend herself. We’ve asked that as she does so, that she be mindful of the Siniora government. It’s very important that this government in Lebanon succeed and survive. Everybody abhors the loss of innocent life. On the other hand, what we recognize is that the root cause of the problem is Hezbollah. And that problem must be addressed, and be addressed through—internationally by making it clear to Syria that they’ve got to stop their support to Hezbollah. Listen, Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me. We passed United Nations Resolution 1559, and finally this young democracy, or this democracy became whole, by getting Syria out. And there’s suspicions that the instability created by the Hezbollian attacks will cause some in Lebanon to invite Syria back in, and it’s against the United Nations policy and it’s against U.S. policy. Q. There’s a Deputy Army Chief of Israel who said that for this offensive to reach its goal will take weeks. Are you comfortable with that kind of time frame? Are you comfortable with letting the offensive go on for weeks? THE PRESIDENT: I want the world to address the root causes of the problem, and the root cause of the problem is Hezbollah. I also—and we’ve been, of course, in touch with Israel. Condi spoke to Prime Minister Olmert yesterday on the airplane flying back. And we’re never going to tell a nation how to defend herself, but we are urging caution when it comes to the survival of the Siniora government. It’s essential that the government of Lebanon survive this crisis. We’ve worked hard to free—and we being the international community— worked hard to free Lebanon from Syrian influence. And there’s a young government there. And it’s in our interest that Syria stay out of Lebanon, and this government survive. And so in our consultations with countries in the neighborhood, we have urged all to address the problem—that would be Hezbollah, and its terrorist attacks on Israel. Remember, this started, this crisis started when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. They were unprovoked—Hezbollah were unprovoked, and they then took hostages. Imagine how the United States would react if somebody provoked us with that kind of action. And secondly, started firing rockets. And it’s this provocation of Hezbollah that has created this crisis, and that’s the root cause of the problem. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/print/200607184.html
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Philip Zelikow, Counselor of the Department to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Strategies for the Multifront War Against Radical Islamists: Building Security in the Broader Middle East, Washington, D.C., September 15, 2006 Discussing the task of building security in the broader Middle East in just a few minutes is a formidable task. I’ll try to do it by covering ten points because I know it’s the end of a long day … [and] as all of you know, ten is a number that has mystic power when you discuss the Middle East—commandments, tribes—so ten points. First: The underlying sources of insecurity All look at a few things over and over when we think of the underlying sources of insecurity in the region. We look at the generational challenge that modernity poses for the Arab and Muslim world. What after all do we mean by modernity? By modernity we mean abstract institutions, a civic culture and a civic society that owes allegiance to abstract concepts. We mean a society that is dominated by the constancy of change confronting Arab and Muslim societies built on deep reservoirs and pillars of tradition where loyalty is owed to family, clan, tribe and where change is threatening. And we see as the Arab and Muslim world confronts modernity, many issues of political development, economic development, and indeed human development. The 9/11 Commission report in chapter two tried to succinctly summarize some of them.… Another underlying source of insecurity one has to reckon with in this region is the centrality of Islam; not in a critical sense, but simply as a dominant cultural fact of life for the region. So here it’s important, for example, to notice the lingering significance of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and what followed not just for Iran itself, but because it created a dynamic in which devout religious zealots across the Middle East competed for primacy with competitive demonstrations of zealotry and outreach in their own versions of evangelism. So it created a dynamic in places like Saudi Arabia, for example, of competition for ideological dominance that had some important and, in some ways, quite negative and serious results. We saw the rise of political Islam, its decline in the 1990s, and perhaps now we’re seeing its resurgence again. We’re seeing the growth of violent Islamic extremism which President Bush has referred to using a more commonplace and less academic phrase: Islamic radicalism. Another underlying source is simply the fragile polities—the people who form the ruling elites of these states—and their fragility with weak states, themselves weak in their sheer administrative capacity to do even simple things that we take for granted in modern states like collect taxes, even the most basic sorts of efforts to monitor their borders, and so on. Second: There are enduring regional flashpoints These are familiar to you. There is of course the enduring flashpoint of the Arab-Israeli conflict on which I think I need add no more. There is also an enduring flashpoint of Iran confronting the Arab world—coming back to the
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fore again. And, of course, the flashpoints within particular countries. Lebanon, for instance, is one notable example recently in the news; there is Iraq and other cases we could point to. Third: Terrorism as a corrosive agent I choose those words because I don’t want to present terrorism alone as the force that overthrows governments and replaces what rules them. I find it useful to think of terrorism, instead, as working the way a powerful acid would work on the bonds that hold the society together, corroding them and weakening them, thus enabling other forces to tear them apart more easily. The terrorist threat itself is a multifaceted threat; at least three facets are worth noting, each distinct though they overlap. First there’s al Qaeda: its affiliates, its adherents. What’s notable about it— the ideology is familiar, the President has given a speech recounting at some length the kind of ideas al Qaeda espouses—is to step back and notice that these ideas are basically fantasist. The organization and its operation has been significantly broken by our efforts since 9/11 and now is largely atomized, though still quite dangerous for that. It is reminiscent in some respects, speaking as a one-time historian, to the threat that anarchism seemed to pose to the civilized world 100 years ago. All sorts of cells around the world, which were believed to be affiliated with each other, somehow seemed to be working together. They were animated by a common ideology without formal structure but drew common inspiration from ideologues like Prince Kropotkin in London. This is an organization that venerated the ‘‘propaganda of the deed,’’ as they called it, practically worshipped the new technology of dynamite as a great equalizer, and was responsible for the murder of half a dozen heads of government around the world, including an American President. But in addition to that facet of terrorism, you have Shiite extremists—Shi’a extremism often with Iranian support. And it’s worth noting that both the Shiite extremists and their Iranian sponsors often forge opportunistic connections to Sunni terrorism as well. Those who argued that Iran would never work with Sunni terrorists will find a number of examples where Iran will forge alliances of convenience to serve its purposes. A third facet is local insurgencies that overlap with transnational terror networks in various ways. You have, for example, the special case of Iraq, an insurgency that really deserves a chapter of study all its own and that is predominantly Iraqi. Even al Qaeda in Iraq is overwhelmingly Iraqi in its makeup. There are foreigners in middle management, maybe one in top management. They use a number of foreigners as ammunition in effect, expending them as they arrive. But it’s a predominantly Iraqi organization, yet clearly with ties to transnational terror as well. And then there’s the Taliban. There are organizations in Southeast Asia or in Africa. But when you step back from this terrorist phenomenon, one thing that’s worth some perspective … is to observe the historically unprecedented nihilism and barbarity of these terrorists. There is simply no precedent for it. I remarked on the anarchists earlier. An anarchist of 1906 would regard the terrorist activities perpetrated by these groups as appalling—the beheadings on
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television and so on. The anarchists were people who would plant dynamite in a public street and even they would be appalled by the things that these groups are willing to do and countenance. Today’s groups both create and play to what I’m afraid I can only call a desensitized and debased public sensibility—a public so callous that it does not recoil anymore at the shocks that are being inflicted on them and the appalling contrast to civilization that these groups present. These groups play, and really reflect, inchoate hatreds, insecurities, and alienation. They have a nominal ideology but one which is utopian and can’t be taken seriously in the real world. In many cases their meaning, I believe, is defined more existentially—and in some cases the clues to their existence can better be found in the works of Albert Camus than through reading their ideological tracts. Insight into these organizations comes by looking past their political veneer to the study of cults or racketeering organizations. They have assets. They exploit our globalized society. They exploit the vulnerabilities of the complex systems, a term I use here metaphorically as well as literally, as well as the potential that they might acquire weapons of mass destruction. Fourth: Old bargains have disappeared Old bargains have disappeared, and with them the often illusory sense of security they provided. What do I mean by that? I mean old bargains like enforced secularism as we saw in countries like Turkey and Egypt. ‘‘We can keep the lid on these religious groups.’’ That kind of apparent deal that seemed to provide security and stability is disappearing. What was happening as they kept the lid on those groups is that they drove political activity into the mosques; and they Islamicized it; and then it emerged in forms that we can all witness today. You had the bargains of state-controlled religious practice, as we see in Saudi Arabia—where the state cuts its deal with the religious establishment in ways that I think even many in the Saudi government would quietly regard as problematical, as they cope with its consequences. You had the bargain of the oppression of the Shi’a, and the assumption that that arrangement could endure stably and indefinitely. You had the bargain, indeed, with the terrorists themselves, sometimes called freedom fighters not so long ago—even Yasser Arafat, the freedom fighter. Or you had the more sordid bargains: don’t attack us here attack somewhere else, leave us alone here. They cut their deals, and they found that those deals now have come back to haunt them. So those old bargains have disappeared, and as those old bargains disappear, we are indeed seeing transformational change across the Middle East, which then brings me to my fifth point: how to build security in an environment of such understandable and in some ways inevitable turmoil. Fifth: Practical idealism The Secretary of State has spoken of the ideal of practical idealism. There are a number of other phrases people have tossed out—progressive realism, etc. The point is that it is possible to avoid the simple dichotomy between being a realist or being an idealist which, by the way, I believe is a false
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description of American history and American political ideas. It is a false description and a false way of pigeonholing people today. It is possible to have both ideals and be realistic and practical in how you implement them. The challenge is whether we can execute such a vision. But in a policy of practical idealism you accept the inevitability of change and then work to help others shape its course. For the Bush administration, there are some important landmarks. In the Arab Israeli conflict, President Bush’s statements in 2002 and 2004 moved towards a new vision of the future of relations between Israel and the Palestinians. There is the liberation of Iraq and the resulting empowerment of the Shi’a there in 2003 and beyond … There were the moves that pushed Syria out of Lebanon, at last. That allowed Lebanon to attain a truly national government that began to represent more of the Lebanese people than before. And other changes in other parts of the Middle East that are still underway. But it is absolutely true, as many have observed, that trying to shape such change has posed a tremendous challenge to our imagination, to the imagination of our policy makers—to my colleagues and to myself—and has posed a tremendous challenge to our institutions. Our institutions weren’t built for this world, weren’t built for these challenges and are struggling to adapt to them and to find the capacities to help others cope. Beyond that, there is also the challenge to Arab and Muslim leaders because, after all, they must end up providing the leadership that will shape the future of their societies. The United States can be their partner, their friend, their source of support. But ultimately the shape of the political cultures, the shape of the economies, the shape of their societies will be determined by Arabs and Muslims themselves. And of course there is a challenge to the rest of the world to notice and take interest and get off the sidelines and to try to take part in a constructive way, too. Some countries in the world have stepped up to that challenge and I think they’re confronting the same strains on their own imagination and their own institutions that we, too, confront.… Sixth: Shaping the environment … the conduct of the global war on terror The sixth point is a little bit different. It has to do with shaping the environment in the way we conduct the global war on terror. I don’t think you can really separate the way we conduct the war on terror from American policy in the Middle East. I don’t think you can separate what we do—say, with Guantanamo or with detainees—from American policy and fortunes in the Middle East. The Secretary of State does not think so and neither does the President of the United States. That’s why—in addition to adopting a whole series of new strategies for combating terrorism, that talk about the way institutions are changing, the new attention to the role of Islamic radicalism, the willingness to confront those ideas directly, and the efforts we’re giving to public diplomacy—President Bush has announced a comprehensive new approach to the issues of detainees. This topic has been a source of attack on America and its ideals throughout the world.
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I think in the debate in recent days, dominated in the newspapers by arguments over the details of the pending legislation, the larger picture is obscured. It is a comprehensive new policy—a paradigm shift in our approach to these detainee issues. Let me just tick off some of the ingredients so you can realize the comprehensive nature of these changes. I’ll list just nine. 1. The decision that we need a sustainable policy for the long haul built on partnership: domestically with the Congress; internationally with allies and partners. 2. A new and public Army field manual and DOD directive providing baseline policies for the detention and treatment of captured terrorists. 3. An entirely new approach to military commissions already underway before the Supreme Court’s decision and now informed by it as well. 4. Employing those military commissions for major war criminals, not Osama’s driver. These commissions will finally bring the 9/11 conspirators to justice and, I hope, usher in a process where America will be reminded what the struggle is all about. 5. The decision announced in the East Room of the White House that America does intend to close Guantanamo. Indeed, the description of that glide path will prepare the way for that closure in the repatriation of prisoners to their home countries and trials of war criminals. It is necessarily a difficult process working on problems involving 33 different countries, many of whom don’t want their people back. 6. The decision to disclose and explain a particular CIA interrogation program and the vigorous defense of the need to preserve a small program of this kind. 7. The decision to transition such a program so that today, aside from the existing facilities in the United States criminal justice system and the law of war facilities we have in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are currently no detainees held by the United States who are not at Guantanamo. All of them are filed with the International Committee of the Red Cross. All of them with access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. No one being held in secret prisons as we go through a transition period—(audio break)—and will be worked on in consultation with Congress so we can sustain an important intelligence collection program for the future. 8. Putting the program on a durable legal framework that reiterates our commitment against torture, but also accepts, as a minimum standard, that America will adhere to common Article III of the Geneva Convention. By the way, I notice there has been some controversy in the papers over whether we’re reinterpreting it or not. I think I can strongly defend the position that we are not narrowing the scope of common Article III. We’re trying to clarify the interpretation of vague provisions, but in a way that will narrow the way it would be interpreted anyway under our laws and, I think, in international law as well. We do need to clarify the application of common Article III under American law because there are issues of felony liability associated with violating it. 9. An offer to foreign governments telling them that we’ve listened to their concerns and challenging them to work with us on what the President called ‘‘a common foundation to protect our nations and our freedoms.’’
Seventh: Iran … Iran is simply a central issue in thinking about a comprehensive strategy for the region. This comprehensive strategy is premised on understanding the significance of Iranian revolutionary ambitions, seeing them as a central threat
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not only to Israel, but also to the Arab world. Iran wants to challenge the status quo, vie for primacy in a number of respects, and tear things down. Right now, there are a lot of people writing that Iran is feeling confident. ‘They’re feeling good. Things are working out their way.’ As a historian it’s sometimes useful to have perspective—there’s always a moment where the enemy looks ten feet tall, then a few months later maybe nine and a half feet. Iran has some weaknesses. It is not fundamentally a strong, prosperous, unified country. It is a weak base from which to challenge the region and it’s useful to keep those weaknesses in mind. There are questions for Iran’s leaders, questions that they must answer. I’d summarize the questions very simply. We see you can tear things down, what is it that you want to build. Or, more fundamentally, what do you want your country to become? You believe that you’re the heirs of a great civilization and that’s a fair statement. What should the country that has that inheritance become? Should it become gradually a kind of pariah state feared and reviled by its neighbors, increasingly isolated by the rest of the world, its economic prospects, its cultural influence, its prestige shrinking accordingly? Or is there another more positive future that Iran should try to reach? The goal of American diplomacy is, in effect, to pose those questions … To make the Iranian leaders look at those hard choices, you have to present them with diplomacy that has serious costs associated with their present policies.… Meanwhile, we must work together to stand up to Iran in the region with our Arab friends, stand up to Iran in Iraq—standing for the cause of Iraqi nationalism not Iraqi dependence—stand up to Iran in the United Nations and in Europe and East Asia. Notice President Bush’s message which was in David Ignatius’ column this morning. EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401415.html.
We take the diplomatic road very seriously. We want diplomacy to work. Eighth: Lebanon … The conventional wisdom (CW) here of course, is Hezbollah and Iran won, Israel and America lost. I would just urge all of you to stop, reflect, and look again. This situation is changing. Events now are on a line where, if they continue along this line, it could be very different a few months from now than the standard conventional wisdom was in the first 72 hours after resolution 1701 was passed. After all, the fundamental goal of American policy was to be sure that the status quo ante that produced the last war will change so that the likelihood of it producing another war is less. How are we doing on that? Look at the strategic priority. How are we doing on reducing the danger of Israel being attacked from Lebanon? That’s the enemy’s perspective. The enemy’s perspective is to use Lebanon as a proxy battlefield from which you can launch another front of assault against ‘‘occupied Palestine.’’ Thousands of international troops, with unprecedented rules of engagement, are streaming into southern Lebanon. That is more than the CW predicted would come in. The force is more robust than the CW predicted. And
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they are standing there as a buffer to help protect Israel from renewed attack. The Lebanese armed forces have deployed to that part of Lebanon for the first time in a generation to work with the international force. It’s not perfect yet. The Syria-Lebanon borders aren’t secured the way they should be. There are flaws and issues we’ll need to confront, but the status quo that produced the war is already changing. The Lebanese national government comes out stronger in many ways than it was before as a national government. Hezbollah faces new dilemmas, new choices. When Nasrallah says he wouldn’t have started the war if he’d known what would happen, that’s not a crow of victory. They will face new constraints, new choices. And Syria, which was out of Lebanon last year, is still out of Lebanon. Contrary to the advice that some of my friends here in Washington were offering, we did not invite Syria to once again become the central power broker in Lebanon, using Lebanon of course as a vehicle to negotiate Golan. So Syria is a loser. My hope is, of course, that they won’t act out in certain ways because of that fact. Lebanon’s prospects could turn out to be better than people think if we can realize the potential of the moves that are already underway. Ninth: Iraq … I want to comment just for a minute on Iraq. Here our major strategies are relatively easy to summarize, but a little harder to execute. Three basic pillars: security as a foundation, Baghdad first; pressing hard for a national reconciliation process so that the Iraqi leaders will show their people and us that they will work out a way to live together and share power. And third, reinforcement and leverage through an international compact that brings a lot of the outside stakeholders on Iraq together. The Compact will say to Iraq: if you reach national reconciliation and you transform your political economy, addressing some of the things that are needed to turn your country around, the whole world is going to be behind you and we’ll help invest in your future. There is so much gloom about Iraq right now that any commentary I would make about the problems there would only reinforce and recapitulate things you’ve already heard. But we have some assets on our side. The terrorists are not popular in Iraq. They scare people but they are not popular. They do not represent a nationalist movement that has gripped the imagination of the people of Iraq. The Iraqi government is better—much better—than it was. It is more capable of carrying through the kind of strategy I just outlined than its predecessors. Also, the U.S. government is experienced. The Shi’a and Sunni militias that cause a lot of the violence actually do not wish to overthrow the Iraqi government. They have a more limited agenda, often about self-help and autonomy. But that helps you sense that there is the basis here for some kind of political understanding. And there is a widespread belief among Iraqis that they want a thing called Iraq to succeed because all of their plan B’s are less certain and less secure than the plan A of a successful Iraq. But the challenges there are immense. We and the Iraqi government have to fight overwhelming, enervating fear. We have to fight the impatience of Iraq’s friends. We have to fight a deep mistrust that exists within Iraq among
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its communities, often well founded by bitter experience each of the communities have had with each other. … You can see how in certain ways if they would all come together they would all be more secure. They would all be more prosperous. Yet to come together requires such an intricate set of concessions and bargains that it is hard for any one side to propose and stand for it. It’s a classic political problem that Iraq’s leaders must step up to resolve with the strong and continuing help of friends like the United States. Tenth: Israel and its neighbors My tenth point, and my last one, is to conclude by discussing Israel and its neighbors. The significance of the Arab-Israeli dispute across these problems is, I think, obvious to all of you. What I would want to emphasize is if you see the threats in a way something like the way I’ve just described them, think then about what is the coalition you need to amass in order to combat those threats. Who are the key members of that coalition? You can imagine the United States, key European allies, the state of Israel and the Arab moderates—Arabs who seek a peaceful future. You could call it the coalition of the builders, not just a coalition of the willing. The coalition of the builders as opposed to the coalition of the destroyers. What would bind that coalition and help keep them together is a sense that the Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed, that they see a common determination to sustain an active policy that tries to deal with the problems of Israel and the Palestinians. We don’t want this issue to have the real corrosive effects that it has, or the symbolic corrosive effects that it causes, undermining some of the friends we need to confront the serious dangers we must face together. That’s kind of a broad overview of the points I wanted to make to help understand the administration’s approach to building security in the broader Middle East. It’s an extraordinary challenge. It’s the kind of challenge that America and its friends have lived through before in times that sometimes seem very dark. But it’s important to understand the breadth of the challenge we face and to try to work together sometimes across party lines, across some of our pettier divisions in dealing with them and forging a brighter future. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/c/rls/rm/72855.htm
Frank C. Urbancic, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Hezbollah’s Global Reach,’’ Testimony Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, and Subcommittee on Middle East and Central Asia, Washington, D.C., September 28, 2006 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY … [T]hank you for the opportunity to testify today on Hezbollah, its ambitions, capabilities and global reach. I will summarize my formal written statement and ask that you include my full testimony in the record.
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Hezbollah’s Origins, Aims and Ambitions Formed in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this Lebanese-based radical Shia group takes its ideological inspiration from the Iranian revolution and the teachings of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. The group follows the religious guidance of Khomeini’s successor, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Hezbollah is closely allied with Iran and often acts at its behest, but it also can and does act independently. Though Hezbollah does not share the Syrian regime’s secular orientation, the group has been a strong ally in helping Syria advance its political objectives in the region. The Majlis al-Shura, or Consultative Council, is the group’s highest governing body and has been led by Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah promotes Shia interests within the Lebanese political system and is an exemplar for Shia communities throughout the region. Hezbollah supports a variety of violent anti-Western groups, including Palestinian terrorist organizations. This support includes the covert provision of weapons, explosives, training, funding, and guidance, as well as overt political support. Prior to September 11, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist group. Hezbollah formed its ranks in part by subsuming members of separate Lebanese organizations, many of which had cooperated under the umbrella of the Islamic Jihad group during this time period. It also began to receive financial and material support from the Iranian government very early on. The organization has portrayed itself as an instrument of legitimate national resistance, focusing a majority of its efforts on ending the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Following Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has continued to assert that regions of Lebanon remain occupied and has used this pretext as cover to strengthen its capabilities. Hezbollah has a wide, increasing global reach, with an ability to harm U.S. and other western interests across continents. As we saw during the most recent conflict, Hezbollah’s rhetoric targets the United States for its alleged complicity with Israel. In addition, Hezbollah’s recent actions demonstrate the destabilizing effect it has on the region. These events have reinforced the need to deny non-state actors such as Hezbollah the ability to exploit weak states and undergoverned areas. We believe that Hezbollah maintains the ability to threaten the survival of the current government of Lebanon from within, as well as continuing to threaten the security of Israel and the region. Hezbollah receives logistical, material, and financial support from its Iranian and Syrian backers. It maintains an extended network of social and support services to the Lebanese people, particularly in the Shia-dominated south of the country. We cannot recognize Hezbollah as a legitimate party until it ends its terrorist activity and gets out of the terrorist business. Relationship Between Hezbollah, Iran and Syria Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria continue to enjoy a relationship which can best be characterized as symbiotic. Iran and Syria cooperate with each other and with Hezbollah to supply funds, arms and training for, and to facilitate travel by Hezbollah members. Hezbollah continues to actively advance interests
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within the Lebanese political system that coincide with Syrian and Iranian interests, and otherwise behaves in a manner that benefits both Tehran and Damascus. The USG has long assessed that Iran provides technological, operational, and financial support and guidance to Lebanese Hezbollah. The Iranian regime has for 27 years used its connections and influence with terrorist groups to combat U.S. interests it perceives as at odds with its own, and Hezbollah has acted as a willing partner in that conflict. We believe that Iran’s support for Hezbollah continued throughout Hezbollah’s recent conflict with Israel. Hezbollah and Iran are strategic collaborators. We believe that Hezbollah’s decision to exacerbate the conflict with indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel targeting Israeli civilians could not have happened without at least the tacit support of Tehran. We also believe that Iran and Syria’s non-humanitarian support for Hezbollah—including financial, logistic, and military support—has not stopped since the cease-fire or the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1701. Just last week Nasrallah bragged publicly about Hezbollah’s remaining weapons cache. We continue to call upon Iran and Syria to comply with the legally binding requirement of UNSCR 1701 to prevent the transfer of illicit weapons to Hezbollah. The United States and the international community condemned the recent conflict and we worked hard with our partners in the international community to end it, and to adopt and implement all of the provisions of UNSCR 1701. When it is fully implemented, resolution 1701 will radically change the reality in Lebanon for the better, strengthening Lebanon’s sovereignty, independence, and freedom—thus ending Hezbollah’s ability to threaten its stability. The international community continues to call upon both Syria and Iran to meet their obligations fully to help implement resolution 1701 and past Security Council resolutions on Hezbollah, including the full and verifiable disarmament of Hezbollah. Iran is the ‘‘central banker’’ of terrorism and a primary funding source for Hezbollah. Because money is a terrorist group’s oxygen, attacking terrorist financing is an essential element to combating terrorism. In that regard, we have made progress in impeding Iran’s financial support for Hezbollah and in undermining Hezbollah’s own financial network. The Department of Treasury is spearheading an interagency effort to undermine Iran’s financial support for terrorism.… Treasury and State Department teams have traveled to Europe, the Middle East and Asia to meet with banking officials to enlist their support in our efforts to combat terrorism and cut off Iran’s support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah. The U.S. Government announced on September 8 that it will prevent one of Iran’s largest state-owned banks—Bank Saderat— from gaining access to the U.S. financial system. We believe Bank Saderat has been used by Iran to transfer money to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations. We have also taken active steps to cut off Hezbollah’s financial support from Iran and others, including by designating the Islamic Resistance Support Organization, a key front charity funding Hezbollah, under U.S. Executive Order 13224, thus freezing that organization’s assets under U.S. jurisdiction.… we continue to urge our partners in the
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Global War on Terror to take similar steps to cut off Iran’s funding of Hezbollah’s terrorist activities, and to press the Iranian regime to end its support for terrorism. Finally, we assess Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have implemented training programs for Iraqi militants in the construction and use of sophisticated IED technology. These individuals then pass on this training to additional militants in Iraq. Hezbollah’s Current Activities in Lebanon Hezbollah maintains the only significant armed militia in Lebanon, despite requirements under UNSCR 1559 that it be disarmed. We believe that UNSCR 1701 will strengthen the previous resolution, and assist the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL troops in interdicting weapons shipments coming into Lebanon intended for Hezbollah. The Government of Lebanon will need to address the ability of Hezbollah to re-arm, particularly as this relates to the Lebanon-Syria border. Hezbollah, an established, stable movement with deep roots and broad support, especially in the southern Lebanon Shia community, has shown an ability to cross confessional lines in order to garner further support. With its social services network largely intact, Hezbollah has also been very quick to provide high-profile reconstruction and humanitarian assistance over the past month, well in advance of international donor efforts. For the moment, Hezbollah appears to have lowered its military profile in the south; however, we are unable to assess whether this is primarily motivated by domestic political concerns, UNFIL presence, or losses suffered during the recent conflict. Hezbollah leaders have made public statements indicating that they will not be disarmed and that the disarmament issue should not fall within the purview of the UNFIL troops. With that said, we remain wary that even with the increasing presence of the Lebanese army and international troops in the south, Hezbollah will retain a potentially strong military capability in southern Lebanon and its ability to receive logistic and material assistance from Syria and Iran. Indeed, Hezbollah was able to receive this support despite the fighting with Israel, taking full advantage of existing land access routes and tunnels along the porous Lebanon-Syria border, especially in the Bekaa Valley, to receive weapons and other material. Hezbollah’s Activities Worldwide The Middle East. While Hezbollah’s most robust presence remains in the Levant, its support network extends well beyond, including into the Gulf, where Hezbollah performs various fundraising activities. Hezbollah has supported terrorist activities in the Palestinian territories since at least 2000, by providing financial, training and logistical support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terrorist groups. While the vast majority of Palestinians support peace negotiations and want a two-state solution, Hezbollah actively foments terrorist activity that directly undermines this goal. Latin America. Although there is little credible evidence of the present activity of operational Hezbollah cells in Latin America, Hezbollah has numerous supporters and sympathizers throughout Arab and Muslim communities
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in the region who are involved primarily in raising funds for the terrorist group, by licit and illicit means. Hezbollah supporters and sympathizers are also involved in a number of illegal activities, including smuggling, drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, fraud, intellectual property piracy, and other transnational crime. We are working with all our partners in the Americas to heighten awareness of this threat and to take the necessary measures to contain and eventually dismantle Hezbollah activities in this hemisphere. Our focus has been on thwarting terror financing, improving border controls, strengthening our friends’ intelligence capabilities, and urging adoption of stricter counterterrorism legislation. On the critical component of intelligence, U.S. bilateral cooperation with our hemispheric partners is, with a few notable exceptions, excellent. Perhaps more importantly, intelligence and information sharing among our neighbors is at an unprecedented high. We are particularly encouraged by the growing collaboration among Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay to address smuggling, drug and arm trafficking, money laundering, fraud, intellectual property piracy, and other transnational crime in the Tri-Border Area.… This enhanced cooperation has led to a number of these suspects being prosecuted by our three partners for a variety of crimes. Yet challenges remain. Most of our neighbors in the hemisphere have high competing priorities for scarce public resources, making it politically difficult to invest even modestly in CT capabilities when basic social services, such as education and healthcare, remain under-funded. Official corruption is another serious problem that can undermine the most advanced training and the most sophisticated detection systems. We have more work to do in encouraging foreign legislation. No Latin American country has in place, or is seriously considering adopting, terrorist designation regimes that would make membership in and support for a designated terrorist organization a crime. In the case of Hezbollah, this is an especially high hill to climb, particularly because some of our neighbors consider Hezbollah a legitimate political party. West and Central Africa. Hezbollah also receives a significant amount of financing from the Shiite Muslim diaspora of West and Central Africa, whose presence was established in the late 19th century. The Lebanese disapora is active in West Africa’s commercial sector with extensive business networks throughout the region and extending beyond. In many cases these businesses have significant control over basic imported commodities, such as rice and chicken. Lebanese traders are also very active in diamond exports, both as a business and in criminal exploitation. It is important to note that the Lebanese community in West Africa is not monolithically Muslim nor completely supportive of Hezbollah, but mirrors the same religious and political divisions present in Lebanon. It is clear, however, that Hezbollah receives significant support from this community. Contributions, which often take the form of religious donations, are often paid in cash, and are collected by Hezbollah couriers transiting the region. These groups provide safe haven and R&R sites for Hezbollah fighters. Countering this network of terrorist financing will be a challenge and will take significant resources and time.
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Al-Manar Hezbollah has been designated by the U.S. Government under three different counterterrorism authorities—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a Specially Designated Terrorist, and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The Lebanese Media Group (LMG) and its subsidiaries, Al-Manar television and Al-Nour radio, form a recognized arm of Hezbollah. Hezbollah established Al-Manar in 1991. Al-Manar and Al-Nour have provided Hezbollah with fundraising and other material support. Al-Manar has raised funds for Hezbollah by running advertisements on its television broadcasts and website. In addition, Al-Manar regularly airs Hezbollah promotional videos featuring suicide bombers and rallies of Hezbollah fighters. To confront the threat posed by the LMG, Al-Manar, and Al-Nour, the USG has multiple authorities for designating terrorist organizations, each with significant—and different—consequences. In December 2004, the U.S. Department of State added Al-Manar to the Terrorism Exclusion List (TEL). Putting an organization on the TEL has immigration and deportation consequences for non-U.S. citizens who have certain associations with the group, but it does not result in economic sanctions. Their addition to the TEL did, however, lead to the removal of Al-Manar’s programs from its main satellite television provider in the U.S. and made it more difficult for Al-Manar associates and affiliates to operate here. At the same time, Al-Manar also lost access to its main satellite television service providers in Europe. On March 23, 2006, the Department of Treasury designated the LMG, AlManar, and Al-Nour under Executive Order 13224, making all three organizations Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities. This resulted in economic sanctions, namely the assets and other property of these entities, subject to U.S. jurisdiction, which have now been frozen. Moreover, it is now a criminal act for any U.S. person to willfully engage in any financial transactions with these organizations or to provide them any material benefit. This has made it far more difficult to gain access to Al-Manar programs in the U.S. A satellite television service provider in New York was recently arrested for making Al-Manar available to customers. We continue to monitor the situation and keep a careful eye on the activities of the LMG, Al-Manar, and Al-Nour. Conclusion In summary, I would emphasize that Hezbollah presents a very serious challenge to us. Hezbollah is a highly organized, disciplined, and trained organization, which enjoys robust funding through multiple sources and means, and is capable of acting against U.S. interests on several fronts and on several continents. Where we can act effectively to stem its activity is through the close cooperation of our allies across the globe who also recognize this threat. Hezbollah’s penchant for exploiting poorly-governed areas is all the more reason to continue focusing our efforts and our resources on enhancing regional cooperation and building partner will and capacity. Absent this type and level of continued attention to Hezbollah and the threat it poses, our knowledge of the group and the means of confronting it are hindered immeasurably. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/73352.htm
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R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Comments on Middle East Issues During Briefing on NATO Issues Prior to Riga Summit, Washington, D.C., November 21, 2006 UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: … We just heard the news just about a half hour ago of the assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon. Obviously this is a very sad day for Lebanon. We were shocked by this assassination. We view it as an act of terrorism. We also view it as an act of intimidation against the March 14th Coalition. And we believe it’s the responsibility of all countries to support the Siniora government and to oppose those who would try to divide Lebanon or return violence to political life in Lebanon. The Gemayel family has played a very important role in the history of Lebanon. They have suffered too much tragedy as a family and our condolences go to the Gemayel family. We think it’s very, very important that those who would divide Lebanon, who would use violence to destabilize the political situation, not be able to succeed. And we will give full support to the Siniora government in the days and weeks ahead to support that government, to support its continuation because it’s been duly elected by the people of Lebanon, to support what it needs to do to reconstruct the country. Q. Does this cast any doubt on the ability to construct a carefully balanced government in Lebanon, which you’re calling a democracy? We have had our own assassinations and we’re a democracy, but does this say something about the abilities of the various Lebanese people to pull together for the good of the country? UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, it’s unfortunately all too—part of an all too often pattern of violence and assassination in Lebanon’s recent political history over the last 30 to 40 years.… We have seen statements from Mr. Nasrallah and others over the past few weeks that are meant, we believe, to destabilize Lebanon and to divide the country and we oppose those statements. And we call on all countries to support the unity and territorial integrity of Lebanon and to free Lebanon from these acts of political intimidation and terrorism. This was an act of terrorism today. Q. President Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran has come out saying that they’ll help negotiate with—in Baghdad with the Baghdad new interim government or present government. Is this just plain silliness on his part? It just came out in the news overnight. UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: … The United States, of course, wants a sovereign Iraqi Government to have good relations with all of its neighbors, including Iraq—Iran and including Syria. And so we would obviously want to see an improvement of relations between Iran and Syria with Iraq. But probably more importantly, we want to see Iran and Syria be good neighbors. Right now, the Syrian Government permits people—insurgent fighters to cross its border to go into Iraq to kill American soldiers and to kill Iraqis. That ought to stop. The Iranian Government, we believe, has given assistance, material and otherwise, to Shia insurgent groups that are attacking Sunni Iraqis, but also attacking American and British forces. That has to stop. So I think the real story here is are—will Iran and Syria act in a more responsible and constructive way to support a unitary state in Iraq and to support the process that we support of political reconciliation among Shia,
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Sunni and Kurd and a more stable political environment. The challenge really is to the leadership in Tehran and Damascus to demonstrate that they have good faith here. It’s not just to remark about meetings. It’s to see some substantive change, policy change on the ground. That’s what everyone’s looking for. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2006/76464.htm
WESTERN HEMISPHERE Attorney General John Ashcroft and Canadian Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay, Press Conference, October 2, 2001 ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: … Allow me to express my deep appreciation to Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay of Canada and to Canada’s government for its both immediate and comprehensive assistance to the United States of America in relation to the tragedy of September 11 this year: the attacks by terrorists on the World Trade Center, on the Pentagon and, of course, on the flight which ended so tragically in Pennsylvania. Our relationship with Canada is one of the most satisfying relationships that could be anticipated between two nations … And it’s very important that we have the kind of continuing relationship, and the kind of openness between our cultures, and the kind of capacity for commerce and individuals to flow back and forth across our borders that sustains our relationship. The assistance on September 11 and since then by our Canadian neighbors has been remarkable. The attack on September 11 was not just an attack on the United States, it happened to have been an attack on every civilization that values freedom. I’m personally saddened by the—deeply saddened by the 23 Canadian victims still unaccounted for in the World Trade Center attack. And I want to express publicly my condolences to the solicitor general of Canada and the citizens of Canada for their loss … … [L]et me reemphasize again the urgent need to implement strong and sometimes difficult measures to combat terrorism. The vital assistance that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are providing to the United States investigators builds on a foundation of excellent law enforcement cooperation, something both authorities depend upon in the ordinary course of our relationship. In previous cases, Canada’s assistance in our investigation of terrorist activity, especially the matter that was planned to coincide with the millennium’s celebrations in the United States, that was facilitated by our relationship and which made easier the work of prosecutors from Seattle and New York in convicting Ahmed Rassam, known to have been affiliated with Osama bin Laden and other individuals—that all took place earlier this year and was a result of our cooperation. In these extraordinary circumstances, all countries must implement measures aimed at dismantling terrorist organizations and preventing further and future attacks.… SOLICITOR GENERAL MACAULAY: … As the prime minister indicated, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with you and support you in these difficult times …
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We also discussed legislation and what we plan to do in our country. We passed a resolution in our country today that freezes assets connected with terrorists, and that just extends the list and that will be also published. We also discussed the Canadian border—the Canadian-American border. And I was so pleased that Mr. Ashcroft indicated and is also concerned about the free flow of goods and to make sure that the economies of both countries do not suffer and, in fact, more or less, do what the terrorists intended to do and that was hurt democracy. Q. Senator Ashcroft, do you think one of the solutions to the potential for trouble between Canada and U.S. in terms of crossing the border and the vulnerability there is a security perimeter around North America? Is that something you favor? ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT: Well, I believe that we can work together to improve the right kind of access on our border. It’s in Canada’s interest that they have an awareness of who’s crossing the border from the United States to Canada. It’s in our interest to have an awareness and a cooperative endeavor for us to know who’s both leaving United States, and coming into the United States. These mutual interests will provide, I believe, the basis for a continuing cooperation. And it may be that we’ll adjust the way in which that cooperation is achieved as a result of what happened on the 11th of September. But I believe that we’ll continue to cooperate, and I think that it will facilitate our capacity to prosper in both settings. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_2.htm
Ambassador Francis X. Taylor, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Presence of International Terrorist Groups in the Western Hemisphere,’’ Remarks Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Washington, D.C., October 10, 2001 Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee and testify with my colleagues on the subject of terrorism, and the presence of international terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere. The horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, just one month ago, were a jarring reminder that our country and our hemisphere are no longer safe from international terrorism. In this global era, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans can no longer protect our land and our people from violence, as they have done in previous international conflicts. … The September 11 attacks originated in Afghanistan, with Usama bin Laden’s al Qaida organization. While this connection is clear, we must also recognize that the threats to our people and interests can come from any venue, including from within the Western Hemisphere. This hemisphere is no stranger to terrorism. Although we in the United States have been, until recently, blessedly free of terrorist attacks by international groups, terrorism has been a fact of life in many Latin American countries such as Colombia and Peru for thirty years or more.
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In fact, one can argue that modern terrorism originated in our Hemisphere. We date the advent of modern terrorism from 1968, four years before Munich, when revolutionary movements began forming throughout the Americas. The following year, in 1969, the first terrorist kidnapping of an American ambassador took place when Ambassador Burke Elbrick was taken hostage in Brazil by members of two revolutionary groups. In those early years of the still-new phenomenon, Latin America saw more international terrorist attacks than any other region. Current Threats Today, the most dangerous international terrorist group based in this hemisphere is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Included on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), the FARC have murdered 13 Americans since 1980 and kidnapped over a hundred more, including three New Tribes Missionaries, kidnapped in 1993, and now believed dead. FARC leaders not only welcomed the September 11 attacks. Afterwards they reiterated their periodic call for the targeting of Americans for murder and abduction. In addition, we have seen in recent months evidence of an apparent relationship between the FARC and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and possibly the Basque separatist group ETA as well. The danger presented by the FARC is compounded by activities of the other major Colombian insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN)—a group that also targets Americans, and by the far-right United SelfDefense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Both of these groups are also included on the FTO list, and the AUC in particular has a history of extreme brutality. In Peru, the Shining Path, though greatly weakened, continues to carry out sporadic attacks in isolated parts of the country. These attacks, mostly raids on small villages for supplies and financial gain, have resulted in 27 deaths so far this year, the majority of which were civilians. Further South, in what is known as the ‘‘Tri-Border Area’’ where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay converge, we see the long-standing presence of Islamic extremist organizations, primarily Hizballah and, to a lesser extent, the Sunni extremist groups al Gamaat (IG) and HAMAS. These organizations are involved in fundraising activities and proselytizing among the large expatriate population from the Middle East that lives in the Tri-Border area and also on Venezuela’s Margarita Island. These organizations engage in document forgery, money laundering, contraband smuggling, and weapons and drug trafficking. The size and nature of these groups may signal the existence of clandestine support cells that could be activated to conduct terrorist attacks anywhere in the region. Hizballah is the prime suspect behind the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombings of the Argentine Israel Mutual Association (AMIA) community center. These attacks were characterized by the same faceless cowardice that we saw on September 11, and they remain unsolved to this day, although I am pleased that a trial in the 1994 bombing
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is now underway in Buenos Aires. We hope the perpetrators will at last be brought to justice. North America The hemispheric threats of terrorism are now moving closer to home. Turning to North America, we are faced with a more diffuse and insidious threat: the threat posed by our open borders with our friends to the north and south. The world’s longest non-militarized border is that shared by the US and Canada, and the second longest is that shared by the US and Mexico. Since the inception of NAFTA, these borders that were already the world’s busiest in terms of commerce have become even busier. We will never have perfect knowledge of every person and every vehicle that crosses these borders. Therefore, it is imperative that we work hand in glove with intelligence, law enforcement, customs, and immigration officials in these countries in order to make it as difficult as possible for international terrorists to come into the U.S. undetected, as difficult as possible to cross and re-cross our borders with criminal intent, and with impunity. We in the office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism view our relationship with Canada as the model for bilateral counterterrorism cooperation, and we know that we must continue to build on that solid foundation. Like our relationship with Canada, we must improve coordination with our counterparts in Mexico as well as with the Central American nations that act as points of transit for people and materials destined for the USA. We know, above all, that we cannot stop terrorism alone. We know that our best hope at stopping al Qaida operatives and operatives from other terror organizations from crossing land borders into the US, is to continue close intelligence and law enforcement cooperation with Canada, Mexico, and the Central American states. We know that our only hope of limiting the threat posed by groups such as the FARC and the ELN in Colombia and the multiple Middle East-based groups in the Tri-Border Area, is close intelligence and law enforcement cooperation with our allies in these areas of operation. With these goals in mind, we are working closely with the OAS to expand its involvement in Regional counterterrorism activities. My office has chaired the OAS Counterterrorism Committee (CICTE) for the last year and has sought to invigorate it as a forum for exchange of ideas and improved cooperation within the Hemisphere. We are pleased with our progress and are optimistic for the future. Strategy My office has also worked with the interagency community to craft a Counterterrorist Strategy for Colombia and the other countries of the Andean region. This strategy is designed to complement last year’s Plan Colombia and this year’s Andean Region Initiative (ARI). We also intend to intensify our bilateral relations with Mexico as well as those countries in the Andean and Tri-Border areas of South America to address specific threats from groups operating in these Regions. Much of our
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efforts in this area began before the events of 11 September; but that event has given even more urgency to these initiatives. Now, more than ever, is the time for building coalitions against terrorism based on proactive diplomacy, proactive law enforcement, financial controls, intelligence sharing and iron-willed resolve in the pursuit of justice. We cannot pretend that we can make terrorism go away, but we can, in the short term, make it far more difficult for terrorists to achieve their deadly objectives in this hemisphere. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2001/5674.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Signing of the U.S.-Canada Border Security Agreement, Ottawa, Canada, December 3, 2001 Today, two great friends have united to form a common defense against a common enemy. The law enforcement and justice officials of the United States and Canada have built an extraordinarily close and cooperative relationship. This relationship pre-dates September 11, but it has deepened in the months since then with the recognition that the United States and Canada have a fateful choice to make: Either we will stand together to combat terrorism, or we will fall together to those who hate our freedom and seek to see it extinguished. The United States and Canada have chosen to stand together against terrorism, and North America is a safer place as the result. Earlier today in Detroit, Michigan, our two nations announced a cooperative agreement strengthening security along the United States-Canada border. It is an honor to be here in Ottawa to formally sign this agreement and another accord marking a new era of cooperation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With the signing of these agreements, border security and law enforcement cooperation between the United States and Canada will undergo a sea change—from local, state and provincial law enforcement to the highest levels of our two federal systems. Under the border security agreement, joint teams of U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials will widen and deepen their enforcement of security along the border. We will expand our Integrated Border Enforcement Teams—or I-BETS—to cover more areas and target priority ports of entry. This agreement also initiates a new era of coordinated visa policies between the United States and Canada. It increases the number of Immigration and Naturalization Service officers and Canadian Immigration Control officers who work overseas to detect and intercept inadmissible persons before they enter our two countries. We have agreed, as well, to redouble our efforts in joint training of airline personnel. We will enhance the sharing of intelligence in document fraud, irregular migration and criminal activity. Additionally, I am honored to sign a cooperative agreement between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Royal Canadian Mounted Police that will improve the criminal justice capabilities of both our nations.
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The United States and Canada have agreed that the FBI will provide the RCMP with electronic access to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS. The IAFIS is the United States’ national repository for digital criminal fingerprint images and currently houses over 42 million records. The Integrated Distributed Imaging System, currently used in all FBI field offices, will allow the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to access these critical fingerprint images. This system has been employed at major domestic and international events and critical incidents, such as the Olympics and the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. Our agreement today marks the first international cooperation and access to Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. SOURCE: http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2001/1203aguscanadaborder securityagreementsigningceremony.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Organization of American States, Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, January 28, 2002 On September 11, 2001, the day terrorists struck the United States, the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States were convened in Peru to express our common commitment to democracy and respect for human rights. Without hesitation, the Organization of American States expressed its shock and outrage, becoming the first multilateral organization to condemn officially the attacks. Soon after, the Rio Treaty was invoked, designating the attack against the United States an attack on the entire hemisphere. Mr. Chairman, we in the United States have not forgotten these timely expressions of solidarity and support. On behalf of your friends and your neighbors in the United States, I am honored to be here to express our thanks. Our common principles and common interest in preventing terrorism inextricably led the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States to call for an urgent meeting of this body—the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism. CICTE’s response to terrorism was to identify specific plans of action aimed at strengthening inter-American cooperation to, quote, ‘‘prevent, combat, and eliminate terrorism in the Hemisphere.’’ These plans for promoting tighter border and financial controls, to be considered at this meeting, are a promising start to the enhancement of all OAS member states’ practical ability to prevent terrorist acts, and to respond effectively when attacks occur. Through this Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, the OAS plays an integral part in the worldwide effort involving the United Nations, regional organizations and individual states collaborating in what will be a long war against a difficult, highly mobile and transnational enemy. … I am heartened and encouraged by the cooperation we have received from the Organization of American States, which has been supportive not only in word, but in deed.
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Although the Western Hemisphere has been victimized by terrorism for decades, the events of September 11 have focused attention on the growing threat from terrorists who operate on a global basis. Groups with links to international terrorists operate here in our hemisphere, laundering their finances, trafficking in narcotics and smuggling illegal arms and munitions. The possibility that these groups could violate our borders for the purpose of terrorism is very real. In response to this threat, the Organization of American States is taking important steps to help prevent terrorism of the kind that took root in Afghanistan from establishing itself in the Western Hemisphere. In the four and a half months since the September attacks, CICTE has correctly focused on practical results. I commend the committee for promoting concrete action among member states in three critical areas: ¥ tightening border controls against those who would enter a country to commit terrorism, ¥ establishing more effective networks and mechanisms to track and intercept the financing of terrorists, and ¥ sharing each others’ experiences through training, and joint exercises.
CICTE also is committed to producing a working database of experts who can share their expertise in areas relevant to countering terrorist threats, and to conduct training to widen our knowledge in counter-terrorism throughout the hemisphere. I urge the committee to continue these efforts, and at the same time to address other important issues that are fundamental to enhancing the ability of states in the hemisphere to fight terrorism. This hemisphere should, in particular, be a model for the world with respect to adherence to the twelve United Nations counter-terrorism conventions. The U.S. is already a party to the first ten of these conventions and has signed the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. On December 5, 2001, the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to their ratification. I urge member states that have not already done so to sign and become a party to these conventions, and I urge CICTE to make this a priority in its future work. The United States is pleased to be playing its part in the effort to draft an Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism that will enhance practical law enforcement cooperation in this area. We commend the Mexican delegation for its able leadership in this important task. I also urge CICTE to promote the additional cooperation that is critical to combating terrorism effectively. Mutual legal assistance between countries is key to the fight against terrorism, and CICTE should seek to broaden the number of parties to the OAS Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters. It is equally important for member states to pursue the framework to combat computer crime. I encourage the acceleration of efforts in the OAS to address cyberterrorism and other threats. Finally, I would ask CICTE to consider how national infrastructures can best be developed to facilitate the fight against terrorism. I hope that in the years ahead, CICTE, working with other inter-American organizations and
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sharing their resources and experience, can help us all to work cooperatively to improve the quality of life in this hemisphere. In this way, we can make the Western Hemisphere a place where our common values of freedom, prosperity, and equality can flourish and the totalitarianism of terrorism can never take hold. SOURCE: remarks.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/012802agprepared
EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Organization of American States, 4th Meeting of Ministers of Justice or of Attorneys General of the Americas, First Plenary Session, March 11, 2002 (http://www.justice. gov/archive/ag/speeches/2002/031102agpreparedremarksorganizationofamericanstates. htm).
Thomas Cooney, Western Hemisphere Policy Officer, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘9/11 One Year Later: Miami, the Nation, and the World,’’ Address to a Symposium at the Biltmore Hotel, Miami, Florida, September 6, 2002 … I would first like to convey Ambassador Taylor’s sincere regrets that he could not be here today. The assassination attempt on President Karzai and the Kabul bombings yesterday naturally have required his attention in Washington. In his absence, I am pleased to share the message that he had hoped to bring to you himself today. The anniversary of the September 11 attacks is upon us, and it revives for many, including myself, the shock and horror of one year ago … One year on, the international coalition has moved beyond immediate responses. The initial challenges are being overcome. We are freezing assets, and have scored impressive military successes thus far. But we have several more challenges to face. We don’t have all of the answers, and so we welcome your dialogue here today. The main challenges that we in the State Department see are: ¥ Sustaining political will; ¥ Investing in capacity-building to fight terror; ¥ And, defining success.
Let me first address political will. As the emotional impact of September 11 fades, we must remember that this campaign will take many years … However, we must not forget our mission or allow it to become lost if the threat appears to recede. Terrorists are patient and methodical. In turn, counterterrorists must be equally patient and methodical in order to be truly effective in our efforts. We must not forget that al-Qaida sometimes waits years between major operations. The bombings of our embassies in Africa in August 1998 were followed 2 years later by the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, which was almost a year before September 11, 2001. The next challenge after sustaining political will is to build the actual capacity to defeat terrorists. This second phase has already begun in Georgia, Yemen, and the Philippines. Long term, the U.S. Government views UN
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Security Council Resolution 1373 as the key document to follow. It maps a comprehensive strategy to build international cooperation on training and terrorism financing initiatives. How do we define success in our global campaign against terrorism? In our view, we will have succeeded when terrorism is no longer a legitimate form of political expression. There can no longer be a tolerance on the world stage for premeditated killings of innocent non-combatants to achieve political, social, or religious goals. … As we approach the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States remembers how the nations of the Americas, along with regional associations such as the Rio Group, stood fast by us as we struggled to cope with the tragedy and to understand such wickedness. We remember that Secretary Powell was in Lima on the day of the attacks for an important OAS meeting to celebrate democracy, and we note how Latin American states moved immediately and resolutely to translate their expressions of solidarity into legal frameworks to prevent future terrorist attacks in the hemisphere. The Rio Treaty of Mutual Assistance was invoked on September 19, 2001, declaring the attacks against the United States to be attacks against all treaty members. However, we cannot risk losing momentum as the emotional impact of the attacks recedes. We are working with the nations of the Americas to implement all 12 of the UN anti-terrorism conventions, to ratify and implement the OAS’ new Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, and to starve terrorist groups in the hemisphere—the Shining Path in Peru, and the FARC, ELN, and AUC in Colombia—of weapons and narco-trafficking routes. The U.S. also remains particularly concerned about the illegal activities of Hizballah and other terrorist groups of global reach operating in the hemisphere, such as the Southern Cone triborder area and Isla Margarita in Venezuela. Several nations have acted vigorously on the law enforcement front with a number of key arrests. However, only a sustained and coordinated campaign can succeed in stamping out such a resilient and embedded threat. We look forward to working with our partners in the region toward our common goal of ridding the hemisphere of both international and indigenous terrorist threats. Besides maintaining the State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism also maintains a list of the state sponsors of terror. There are seven countries currently on this list, and only one in the hemisphere. Cuba has been listed by the State Department as a sponsor of terrorism since 1982, and it continues to provide safe haven for members of the terrorist groups ETA (Spain), FARC (Colombia), and ELN (Colombia). Further, Sinn Fein’s longtime representative in Cuba was arrested in Colombia in August 2001 for allegedly training FARC operatives in advanced explosives techniques for application in an urban terrorism campaign. Numerous fugitives from U.S. justice live freely on the island. Clearly, Cuba has not yet made moves consistent with the rest of the Americas to reduce the threat of terrorism in the region; on the contrary, Cuba has worked to keep it alive. It has not yet renounced terrorism as a legitimate political tool, and thus remains on our list of state sponsors of terror. In Colombia, the U.S. is committed to helping President Uribe’s administration in its struggle against the three terrorist groups undermining stability
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in its territory—the FARC, ELN, and AUC. Our ultimate goal is enhanced stability and security for the Colombian people so that they may develop their economies and societies in peace. We have sought, and received, new Congressional authorities and assistance this year for Colombia to help counter threats posed by these groups, which use narcotics trafficking to fund their terrorist activities and to undermine the national security of Colombia. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/15091.htm
Attorney General John Ashcroft, Prepared Remarks at the Seventh Annual U.S.-Canada Cross-Border Crime Forum, May 21, 2003 Operation Northern Star is evidence that U.S. and Canadian law enforcement—on every level—are building a strong and secure zone in North America; a ‘‘smart border’’; a border open to commerce, but closed to criminals who would do us harm. The attacks last week in Riyadh and Morocco, however, remind us that the terrorist threat, while diminished, has not been destroyed. If we are to break terrorism’s shadowy network of death, we must continue to work together. We must constantly adapt to this shared threat with speed, efficiency and purpose. For this reason, I welcome the Forum’s creation of a subgroup focused on promoting Counter-Terrorism cooperation. Its overarching aim should be to increase our ability to stop terrorist attacks before they occur, through coordination and mutual assistance. The subgroup’s efforts have my full support. The Forum has undergone a valuable reorganization of its working groups, in order to focus the participants’ talents in finding practical solutions to specific cross-border law enforcement problems. Nowhere is such problem-solving more important than along the Border itself, where quick coordination between American and Canadian law enforcement is vital to our mutual security. Obstacles to such cooperation must be removed, because the price of failing to do so may be catastrophic. SOURCE: http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2003/05-21-03crossborder remarksfinal.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General John Ashcroft at the Eighth Cross Border Crime Forum with Canada, October 22, 2004 (http://www.usdoj.gov/archive/ ag/speeches/2004/agremarkscbcf.htm).
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Importance of Counterterrorism Cooperation in Regional and Subregional Organizations,’’ Remarks to the Organization of American States, Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, Washington, D.C., October 7, 2003 REMARKS AS DELIVERED The events of the last few years have shown the entire world that terrorists respect no boundaries. They respect no creed, no set of laws, no reasoning
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but their own. They often attack the easy target—the soft target—to make their brutal and misguided point as easily and cheaply as they can. Today’s terrorists operate globally. Terrorists often raise funds in one country, plan in another, and conduct operations in a third—all the while communicating, recruiting, and traveling across borders. No one nation can defeat this multinational threat alone. Regional and sub-regional fora can help us to confront terror together. We can prevent and disrupt terrorist activity by working together to secure our borders, control migration, strengthen customs enforcement, and develop strong legal and financial regulatory systems to criminalize terrorism and terrorism finance. By marshalling our shared resources to provide capacity-building assistance, we can deter terrorists from targeting weaker states or from using them for safehavens or fundraising. And by sharing information, as well as coordinating joint investigations and efforts to bring terrorists to justice, we can deal a serious blow to terrorism. Some regional and sub-regional organizations stand out as models of this cooperation against terror. Our host, the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE), is one of the shining examples. Created in 1998, CICTE has been an important player in antiterrorism in the region since September 11. We support CICTE’s contributions to the development of the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism— the first to be adopted after 9/11—and to member states’ efforts to implement the convention by sharing information, experience, and technical knowledge. We commend CICTE’s Work Plan and its detailed road map to help member states implement counterterrorism legislation, strengthen financial controls, enhance border security, and organize training and conferences on specific counterterrorism objectives. We also strongly support the UN’s efforts to keep combating terror at the top of the international community’s agenda. We are proud collaborators in the efforts of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (UNCTC) to assist member states to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1373. We also commend and support Ambassador Arias’ efforts to lift the CTC to a new level of effectiveness. Important contributions have emerged from the UN/ODC’s Terrorism Prevention Branch’s outstanding efforts to fully implement the 12 international counterterrorism conventions. Full implementation of UNSCR 1373 and the 12 international CT conventions will close many of the security seams that terrorists seek to exploit. In June, I attended the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) first Annual Security Review Conference in Vienna, and saw real progress being made to enhance regional counterterrorism cooperation, develop common standards, and lay the groundwork for capacity-building programs. The OSCE is currently developing an initiative to help all 55 members achieve the most rigorous document security standards. We also strongly support the efforts of the G-8’s Roma-Lyon Group and Counterterrorism Action Group, the ‘‘3þ1’’ Counterterrorism Dialogue formed last year in South America’s Tri-border region, and other regional and sub-regional fora.
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I have named only a few of the multilateral fora in which the U.S. is active. Time constraints prevent me from detailing our involvement in Africa, East Asia, and other areas Will member states of your organizations soon suffer a terrorist attack? I hope not but I do not know. No one does. Will your member states soon be used for secret training camps, points of transit, or bases of operation for attacks? Again, no one can say for certain. We can say for certain, however, that the terrorists will try to do all of the above. We must try to prevent them. We require sustained and high level action and programs to defeat them. Effective counterterrorism cooperation means more than just attending meetings and sharing information. It means being committed to coordinating a broader counterterrorism agenda on the diplomatic, financial, military, intelligence, and law enforcement fronts. It means working together to identify needs and develop specific capacity-building programs to meet those needs. Most importantly, it means developing strong, continuous, and collaborative relationships to use shared resources and expertise to make real advances in the war on terror. And I think it is obvious that regional and multilateral organizations play a powerful role in all of the above. And we are seeing the benefits of cooperation today. Two-thirds of al-Qaida’s leadership have been detained or killed, and 3,400 terrorists have been taken out of action worldwide. As the recent arrest in Thailand of Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali shows, regional cooperation has proven critical to achieving success in the war on terror. We must maintain momentum in the counterterrorists’ favor; our work is far from finished. We urge you to continue to advance counterterrorism issues and programs in your organizations. And we look forward to working together to keep up the momentum against terrorism and build on our shared successes. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/25128.htm
William P. Pope, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘U.S. Commitment to the 3þ1 Counterterrorism Dialogue,’’ Opening Remarks at 3þ1 Group on Tri-Border Area Security, Washington, D.C., December 6, 2004 AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY The United States is committed to work with friendly nations around the globe, and especially in our hemisphere, to ensure that terrorists cannot take advantage of our free societies and our vibrant interaction to attack us here. In the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), the 3þ1 dialogue is among our highest priorities. This is not only because of the progress we have achieved in addressing security challenges in the region of the 3, but because of this mechanism’s potential as a model for other regional cooperation efforts. The US cannot win the GWOT alone. In our hemisphere, we need strong networks of cooperation. The 3þ1 is an important one. We are interested in
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building others in this region, and remain committed to strengthening the international entities that have arisen to address terrorism. These include CICTE, which was created at Argentina’s initiative, and the UN Counterterrorism Committee.… Our policy is to engage with willing, capable and serious partners, and where appropriate, provide the material assistance needed to improve their counterterrorism capabilities. Over the next two days we will review some of the initiatives we have taken together in the last two years to strengthen our posture against terrorism. We may find that some initiatives have been successful, while others need more work, or re-thinking. The United States remains committed to this dialogue, and we will seek to do everything we can to make available the resources, expertise and training we need to confront the menace of terrorism. Looking ahead, one of greatest challenges we anticipate is that our success in preventing attacks, seizing terrorists’ assets, and denying them access to our countries, may persuade us to believe the problem is ‘‘under control.’’ … [A]s Islamic extremist terrorists have lost their sanctuaries, had their networks disrupted, and leadership decimated, they have become more unpredictable—and therefore dangerous—especially as their operational decisionmaking is now decentralized. The attacks in Madrid and Saudi Arabia were perpetrated by AQ-affiliated groups acting, for the most part, independent of direction and resources provided by UBL or his lieutenants. This means that we need to develop and strengthen our capacity to quickly identify and target autonomous, self sustaining groups. We can’t depend on being tipped about imminent attacks by the terrorists’ central planners. At the same time, we must remain vigilant to the threat posed by groups directed and supported by States that sponsor terrorism. And we must tighten the noose on the narco-terrorists of Colombia, denying them not only their main source of income—drug trafficking—but also arms and travel documents. Our intelligence capabilities and border control systems, working together, will be the keys to all these efforts. As regards the current threat, we believe that there are no operational cells of known extremist Islamic terrorist groups in Latin America. I think we all agree that we want to keep it that way. The best way to accomplish this, in our view, is to deny terrorists the use of our territory for any purpose whatsoever—whether fund-raising, propaganda, recruitment, or even rest and recuperation. We’ve all seen media reports about terrorist links with organized crime gangs. While we can discount these reports as the product of journalists’ overactive imaginations, we must recognize that places with overburdened law enforcement, poor border controls, and limited intelligence capabilities could certainly attract the attention of terrorists. Terrorists need money to carry out their operations and to sustain themselves, and such environments make it easier for them to both generate income from illicit activities—such as pirating goods, extortion, or smuggling—and move freely between legal jurisdictions, and plan attacks in anonymity. Last May we also brought our financial intelligence units together in Buenos Aires to discuss ways to better deny to terrorists the use of our financial
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systems. We want to continue to cooperate where needed, and where we can, to improve our partners’ capabilities. Last month, for example, the United States provided to financial crime specialists from all three of your countries an advanced course on international case processing and money laundering. And shortly we will provide to Argentine authorities a first responder awareness course for a weapons-of-mass-destruction incident. Over the next day and a half we will exchange views on this and other initiatives spawned by the 3þ1 Dialogue. Many important cooperative activities you have undertaken among yourselves, with little involvement of the United States. Whether it is strengthening terrorism legislation, or the establishment of new institutions—such as a regional intelligence fusion center—to foster cross-border cooperation, we are very interested to hear more about them. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/39704.htm
State Department Press Release, ‘‘U.S. Pledges $1.6 Million for OAS Counterterrorism Efforts,’’ Washington, D.C., February 17, 2005 The United States has pledged an additional $1.6 million to strengthen and expand counter-terrorism coordination in the Western Hemisphere, bringing the total U.S. contribution to $5 million since the terrorist attacks of September 11. Asa Hutchinson, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, announced the pledge at the Organization Of American States (OAS) Fifth Regular Session of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE), a three-day conference hosted by Trinidad and Tobago. The U.S. pledge represents approximately 80 percent of total hemispheric investments in the Committee. This year’s session brings together official delegations from all 34 participating OAS member states to evaluate existing policies and to develop new strategies for hemispheric communication, cooperation, and training in combating the threat of transnational terrorism. Among the issues addressed at this year’s conference are: improving border controls; document security; aviation security (including potential threats to civilian aircraft posed by Man Portable Air Defense Systems, or MANPADS); biometrics sharing; and links between arms/narcotics trafficking and terrorism. … The Committee was established in 1999 to foster a cooperative multilateral approach to counter-terrorism. For more information on this year’s session, visit online at http://www.cicte.oas.org/. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/42412.htm
Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and John F. Maisto, U.S. Permanent Representative to the OAS, Bogota, ´ Colombia, March 23, 2006 … The OAS Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) is an outstanding, perhaps the best, example of a region pulling together to protect
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itself to endure the pursuit of democracy and economic freedom, all shared values among the OAS members. I am happy to be here today to discuss this with you and the U.S. Government’s participation and goals for CICTE’s Sixth Regular Session in Bogota. It is clear that the region has demonstrated an increased determination and political will to address terrorism as demonstrated through national acts and the work of the OAS’ Inter-American Committee against Terrorism, the only permanent regional multilateral organization focused exclusively on counterterrorism. CICTE is an outstanding example of a region pulling together to protect itself, building bonds of understanding and trust, and ensuring the pursue [sic] of democracy and economic freedoms, all of which are shared values among OAS member states. The U.S. values relevant multilateralism and it is firmly committed to CICTE’s long term success, working with fellow democratic governments to defeat transnational terrorism and ensure the safety, prosperity, and well-being of all people in the hemisphere. The Sixth session is providing the U.S. and the other 33 members an opportunity to address hemispheric cooperation in the comprehensive fight against terrorism. In the coming decades the global war on terrorism, waged in a rapidly evolving global society, will defy our best predictions, despite our best intelligence efforts. We must therefore prepare for uncertainty by building bonds of understanding and trust through CICTE partnerships. The U.S. strongly supports the mandate adopted in 2006 by CICTE to focus on travel document security. This will be a strong complement to the successful efforts last year to expand its mission beyond focusing on terrorism financing and enhancing border security to include addressing threats to transportation security, aviation and seaports, and also cyber-security. The meeting will also give us an opportunity to reaffirm hemispheric recognition, as reflected in the UN, OAS, and CICTE conventions, protocols, and resolutions, that there is interdependence between terrorism and illicit transnational activities, such as trafficking in arms, asset laundering, organized crime, and drug trafficking, they all pose serious threats to our security. The U.S. federal indictment of 50 FARC leaders for narco-trafficking underscores that point. We also encouraged CICTE and its members to continue to enhance collaboration with other OAS entities, international organizations, such as the UN, the G-8’s Roma-Lyon Group, and the Counterterrorism Action Group, and other organizations outside the hemisphere. The U.S. is committed to CICTE’s long-term success, and intends to provide it with approximately $1.8 million during 2006 to support port, land border and document security activities, and training for Custom’s officials. In addition to the $1.8 million, the U.S. will authorize the transfer of $454,000 to CICTE for a comprehensive airport security program. This brings the U.S. total contribution to $2.25 million, our largest contribution to CICTE. This represents an increase of $654,000 from last year. Investment now in counterterrorism cooperation, prevention will pay significant future dividends in a secure homeland, safe trade, and expanded tourism throughout the entire hemisphere.
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The U.S. is invested in CICTE’s future development and has great confidence in Colombia’s leadership as the next country chair. Q. How much information does the U.S. government have about links between the FARC organization and international terrorist organizations such as al Qaida and Hamas, especially in light of a recent false passport ring which was disbanded here and which the Colombian authorities insist did have links to the Middle Eastern terrorist groups? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: We do not believe that any of the Middle East terrorist groups have operational cells in the Hemisphere or more accurately we are not aware of any operational cells that al Qaida and Hezbollah or Hamas might have. However, we do have information that these organizations raise money in this Hemisphere, they are tied into international, transnational criminal networks, and that poses a great threat. If you look at terrorist mobility around the world, they rely on these transnational criminal networks to acquire documents for them to move across borders, and also increasingly they use illegal activities to raise funds that enhance their mobilization. The narcotrafficking here in Colombia is an example of that. So, to answer your question there are links, not at an operational, tactical level but certainly tied into these transnational criminals that we talk about. And, that of course is one of the key objectives of the CICTE meeting this year: looking at terrorism and looking at transnational crime and seeing they overlap and then trying to work toward a comprehensive answer to those issues. Q. You mentioned that one of CICTE’s goals is to seek greater cooperation in counterterrorism regarding asset laundering, trafficking in arms. The Colombian government has said in private that it is also concerned with the co-responsibility of other nations. This co-responsibility exists for counternarcotics, shouldn’t it exist for counterterrorism? Do you think Colombia’s neighbors support its efforts against terrorism? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: We are encouraged by Colombia’s leadership. We are also encouraged by the growing awareness and political will of other countries in the region that this is a regional problem, in terms of narcotics and terrorism. That is where the challenges we face go. This is not just about Colombia; it really is about the region. It is a transnational problem and the only way to respond to that is through regional cooperation, which is why CICTE serves such an important role. Capabilities from country-to-country vary, understanding of the problems vary but through a mutual dialogue and through joint training, through building inter-link capacity like CICTE is trying to do in terms of hindering the mobility of terrorists, helps us move in the direction that we have to go in terms of this regional cooperation. Let me also note that we have a long way to go. There are some gaps, there is uneven understanding of the problem but we are determined to move forward with this partnership … Q. Could you describe or characterize the U.S. relationship with Venezuela when it comes to fighting terrorism? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: Again, expanding on the question I just noted, we think Venezuela has got an important role to play in the region in terms of counterterrorism. Colombia is engaging with Venezuela on some of the issues regarding the border, issues of common goals and common strategies. While
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we have clearly some disagreements with Venezuela, we are willing to engage with them, in fact we want to engage with them on this issue, because terrorism is going to impact not only Colombia, not only us, but the region, and perhaps even Venezuela. The FARC and others are criminal organizations, they do not adhere to the rule of law, any legitimate government will suffer from this, and I think the Venezuelans understand this. We look forward to working with them and working through some of our disagreements to achieve what I hope will be common regional goals. Q. You said you hope the 52 FARC leaders will be brought to a U.S. court to stand trial on drug trafficking and terrorism charges. The difficulties of arresting them in Colombia are proven. In what way can the U.S. cooperate with Colombia to effectively make those arrests: providing intelligence, technical assistance or sending experts to help in pursuing terrorists? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: As you know we have an extensive bilateral program working with Colombia. In terms of military and just police assistance for this year it is about $400 million, including a variety of different programs: antikidnapping, intelligence collection, intelligence analysis. It also includes border security issues. We are looking at travel documents and how we can help each other in that regard, and a range of topics. But, also and perhaps most importantly, we are working together and we are learning form each other. Frankly, some of the lessons that my government is learning through this cooperation with Colombia we are able to use this in other parts of the world—the Middle East and Central Asia. The bilateral cooperation here not only helps us in Colombia—not only helps Colombia—but it helps our efforts around the world. Frankly, the array of different things we are doing is very extensive, and some of it is fairly sensitive. It is a robust, integrated, even intimate cooperation covering intelligence, law enforcement, even economic development—a range of things. I must note also that when we think of counterterrorism it is not just about the military, police, perhaps most importantly it is about the enduring, liberal institutions that we have to strengthen and build. This is reflected in what Colombia is doing here. The funding—you take one piece is military and multiply times three and it goes to social-economic programs in Colombia. That is an important lesson for us also. When we talk about counterterrorism it is not just about arrests, it is not just about military strikes, it is not just about intelligence. You have to do that, you have to stop the enemy from killing us and killing our people but you also have to address those enduring social, political, economic factors the enemy exploits. You have to build civic society; you have to establish the rule of law. You look at the progress Colombia has made starting with President Pastrana and now with President Uribe, it is remarkable, and not only can we learn from it, we can also reach out for inspiration.… SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/63672.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Treasury Department Press Release, ‘‘Treasury Targets Hizballah Fundraising Network in the Triple Frontier of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay,’’ December 6, 2006 (http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp190.htm). For more information on the designation of Assad Ahmad Barakat, also visit http:// www.treasury.gov/press/releases/js1720.htm.
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AFRICA President George W. Bush, ‘‘U.S., Africa Strengthen Counterterrorism and Economic Ties,’’ Remarks to the African Growth and Opportunity Forum, Department of State, Washington, D.C., October 29, 2001 PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me begin by thanking the nations of Africa for their support following September the 11th. America will never forget the many messages of sympathy and solidarity sent by African heads of state. Ambassadors from Southern Africa presented a check to the American Red Cross to assist the families of the victims. One Rwandan journalist wrote in a condolence book at the U.S. Embassy, ‘‘We feel and understand what the Americans must be experiencing. The forces of evil must be fought and defeated wherever they are.’’ That’s represents exactly the firm resolve of the American people. We will fight and defeat the forces of evil wherever they are. Over 80 countries, including Ethiopia and Egypt, Ghana and Gambia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo and Zimbabwe, lost citizens along with the Americans on September the 11th. The United States is deeply grateful to all countries and all African countries that have now joined in a great coalition against terror. We are grateful for the political support offered by the Organization of African Unity and by many African regional organizations. We appreciate the basing and overflight rights offered by African countries and the growing number of African nations that have committed to cracking down on terrorist financing. We are encouraged by the strong declaration issued at Dakar, by 28 African countries calling on all African nations to ratify the 1999 Algiers Convention against Terrorism. I spoke to Senegal’s President Wade, to thank him for his leadership in convening the Dakar meeting. The Algiers Convention was developed following the 1998 embassy bombings by al Qaeda, which took 12 lives and over 200 African lives, including many Muslims. Now it is critically important that this convention be ratified so that African nations have additional judicial, diplomatic and financial tools to root out terrorism. And as nations begin to put these measures in place, the United States will look for ways to work together. In an era of global trade and global terror, the futures of the developed world and the developing world are closely linked. We benefit from each other’s success. We’re not immune from each other’s troubles. We share the same threats; and we share the same goal—to forge a future of more openness, trade and freedom. Recent events have provided the world with a clear and dramatic choice. Our enemies, the terrorists and their supporters, offer a narrow and backward vision. They feed resentment, envy and hatred. They fear human creativity, choice and diversity. Powerless to build a better world, they seek to destroy a world that is passing them by. And they will not succeed. We offer a better way. When nations respect the creativity and enterprise of their people, they find social and economic progress. When nations open their
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markets to the world, their people find new ways to create wealth. When nations accept the rules of the modern world, they discover the benefits of the modern world. This vision of progress is not owned by any nation or any culture, it belongs to humanity—every African, every Muslim, every man or woman who wants to make it real. Good governments, of course, will look different from place to place. Cultures must preserve their unique values. Yet, everywhere—East and West, North and South—there is a model of successful development, a market economy trading with the world that respects human rights and the rule of law. Every nation that adopts this vision will find in America a trading partner, an investor, and a friend. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011029-2.html
Charles Snyder, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, ‘‘Sudan: Peace Agreement Around the Corner?’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Washington, D.C., March 11, 2003 Achieving peace in Sudan is one of the Administration’s highest priorities in Africa. Accomplishing this requires a set of comprehensive accords that address the legitimate grievances of southerners while establishing a national democratic framework leading to fundamental change … … The violence and suffering in Darfur have made it one of the worst humanitarian crises in Africa. Fighting between Sudanese government forces and the rebels is continuing. Of particular concern are the activities of the largely Arab Jingaweit militias. They are systematically burning African villages, killing and abusing civilians. We have rejected the government’s claim that, while it may have originally supported the Jingaweit, they are now out of its control. These militias are proxies for the government and Khartoum bears responsibility for their conduct, whether they say they have control or not. We have spoken out forcefully on Darfur. We are pressing the Sudanese government, at the highest levels, to negotiate a humanitarian ceasefire with the rebel groups so that humanitarian relief can reach all needy populations. Another of our principal goals in engaging with the Sudanese government has been cooperation in the war against terrorism. I am pleased to report to you that while we remain concerned about certain Palestinian rejectionist groups, which maintain offices in Sudan, we have continued to make progress in our counter-terrorism dialogue with Khartoum. The GOS has proactively responded to some specific requests we have made to combat terrorism. In addition, Sudan has played an increasing role in working with regional governments to combat terrorism and has both signed and ratified all twelve international counter-terrorism agreements. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm/30356.htm
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General Charles Wald, Deputy Commander for the European Command, U.S. Air Force, ‘‘New Initiatives with African Countries,’’ Foreign Press Center Roundtable, Washington, D.C., March 8, 2004 GENERAL WALD: … Every place I go in Africa that we talk about the war on terrorism, there is a resonance and an agreement that we have something in common, immediately, no matter where it is. Frankly, it’s no matter where it is in all the 93 countries we have in our command that when you talk about extremism or fundamentalism or non-state sponsored terrorism or criminal activity and the threat that poses to the democratic or any government for that matter, but democratic governments, it’s universally understood and the idea of responding to that problem, every place I go everybody agrees that we need to do it together. You know, it’s just a matter on how we do that and when we do it. So Africa is no different, and we’re having a lot of successes there, over the last year particularly, with really, really great interest, enthusiasm, cooperation. I think the other key word is partnershipping, where it’s not a matriarchal relationship here at all; it’s an equal partnership. And that’s a good thing for two reasons: One is the United States can’t and won’t do it all ourselves. We shouldn’t. It’s everybody’s problem. And number two is, it gives countries in the world pride to know that they have a significant input and a part to play in this problem. Q. We hear, sort of in a geographic sense, three areas of concern on the part of the European Command or the Pentagon or—and it comes from both briefings here at the Pentagon, as well as in Europe: One is with the North African tier of the continent, where we are told that al-Qaida is making significant inroads, given the alienation that exists in many chunks of the communities, particularly in Morocco and Algeria. Secondly—and this has been expressed early by the Pentagon—concern certain countries down the West Coast of Africa, part of that initial concern was how those countries were being used to finance al-Qaida and some of that was the drug trafficking out of West Africa. And the third area of concern, where the U.S. has the largest number of troops, being the Horn of Africa. … If these are growing concerns of the Pentagon or the United States, to what extent can we expect both an increase in U.S. troops in Africa or the increase of U.S. military presence in Africa? And are you in discussion about— and I think General Jones seemed to hint at this at one point some months ago—are you in the process of discussing some expansion of the mission of EUCOM? GENERAL WALD: On the first issue, the al-Qaida in North Africa issue, I wouldn’t call it significant. I don’t know what the definition of significant would be in your case, but there has, without a doubt, been some al-Qaida presence in portions of North Africa. It could be on a temporary basis. It could be more than temporary. But it isn’t like Afghanistan or other places, and that’s more Pakistan, for that matter.
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But they’ve shown an interest there, and we’ve had indications of that. And this is not meant to be, you know, hyperbole or anything else. It’s just the fact of the matter they’ve been there. And that; therefore, is a bad signal, we think. You know, and what al-Qaida, based on some successes by the United States and our partners, has been disrupted quite a bit. They’re not gone. We know that. But it’s been more difficult for them to operate. And I think they’ve become less exclusive and more inclusive worldwide and they’ve become—they’re out franchising different organizations to help them, for two reasons: … [T]hey want more people involved in their organization and they’re recruiting in that respect. And, you know, the jihad is universal to them. In the case of Algeria, for example, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, has—about four months ago released a manifesto that said they’re associated with al-Qaida, for example. Now, whether al-Qaida has agreed to that or not, we don’t know, but they have made the statement they want to be associated with al-Qaida. We’ve had indications that knowledge that there have been al-Qaida people in places in North Africa. You mentioned West Africa. And it’s kind of one of those things where, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And one of the lessons we’ve learned is you can’t wait for the problem to become large and then address it. You have to get ahead of this problem. And North Africa is no different. Now, Algeria, for example, has been fighting an internal insurgency against terrorist group, recognized internationally as the GSPC for years. And one of the things that we’ve noticed, or decided in the United States, as you know, and the President’s made the comment, that we’ll fight terrorism as partners wherever it is in the world; and if it’s a recognized terrorist group, we’ll help. We feel obligated to help in North Africa. We’re doing that in a partnership. On the West Africa issue, on funding, it’s not just drug trafficking; it’s illicit arms; it’s what used to be called … GENERAL WALD: Blood diamonds. Conflict diamonds. In Sierra Leone and in Republic of Congo, then the northwest corner of Gabon and other places, those are—we still know in Sierra Leone that the diamonds are going out illegally, and al-Qaida has been interested in that as a funding source—no doubt about it; so is Hezbollah, in a huge way. So governments that don’t have the ability to govern all their area or to stop illicit trafficking of arms, peoples, drugs, you name it, are a problem. And those areas in North Africa and on the West Coast of Africa that you’ve alluded to are areas that we need to eventually get control of. Now, ‘‘we’’ is a big word.… our philosophy, and I’ll say it up front is, we want the Africans to help themselves. We want to help them help themselves; and it’s a long road. Now if you look at terrorism around the world, they either are living and operating and training in places that are conducive to that, Afghanistan, you know, the Taliban regime that basically there was no governance—it was an agreement with al-Qaida that they could live in Afghanistan and train with impunity. And as that is closed down a little bit, both Afghanistan, and eventually, Iraq will be also, they’re going to have to look for other places that are
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conducive for them to operate in. North Africa is a huge, expanse of space that’s very difficult to control militarily. So we want to help with that. Q. I have three questions. So first, what is your appreciation about the contribution of Algeria in the world war against terrorism? Second, how about the military relationship with one United States and Algeria? And the third question, the Algerian newspapers said recently that U.S.A. will create a military base in Algeria. What about this I’ll information? GENERAL WALD: … I’ve seen the reports on my comment about building a base in Algeria. We’re not building a base in Algeria. We are interested in being able to land at bases in Algeria with our aircraft, or train together, but we’re not interested in building a permanent base there, and I don’t think the Algerians are interested in us doing that either. So I’ve seen in the Algerian papers that I was there visiting to help set up a listening site and all these things, which is a—not correct. We aren’t doing that. Number two is, how do I think the Algerians—the first question—are doing on the war on terrorism? I think they’re doing a fantastic job. I think they’re very good at the issue of fighting the GSPC. They’ve, unfortunately, had a lot of practice at it. It’s been a very big issue for Algeria. We respect their ability to do that. Matter of fact, I’m taking a team of general officers from European Command to Algiers this spring and we’re going to have a meeting with the Algerian military and have them tell us about both insurgencies during the battle of Algiers and how they’re fighting terrorism, and try to learn from them. We think we have a lot to learn from the Algerians. Lastly, are we working with them on terrorism? Yes, heavily. We have every intention in the world to help them where we can, maybe not with a physical presence, with information sharing and discussions on fighting their war against the GSPC. And we value that. We think Algeria is a leader in the north. We’d like to see Algeria partner with South Africa on training and moving forward on this. But we definitely see a significant improvement in— not improvement—change, increase with our relationship with the Algerian military and government. SOURCE: http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/30274.htm
Karl Wycoff, Associate Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Fighting Terrorism in Africa,’’ Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, Washington, D.C., April 1, 2004 … Thank you for the opportunity to testify today at your hearing on ‘‘Fighting Terrorism in Africa.’’ This hearing provides a good opportunity to bring you and your colleagues up to date on the many, and varied, programs we have developed and are implementing to combat terrorism in Africa. Africa is vulnerable to the threat of international terrorism and important in our efforts to counter that menace. While 9/11 is generally regarded as the watershed in the threat from al-Qaida and its allies, the horrible August 7,
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1998, attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania were an even earlier wake-up call. These attacks killed and wounded far more Kenyans and Tanzanians than Americans, the ostensible target. These mass bombings brutally demonstrated the willingness of these terrorists to kill and maim large numbers of persons in far-flung corners of the earth, in countries that were not directly involved in the grievances of South Asia and the Middle East. Additional attacks in Mombasa in November 2002 showed that terrorist cells were still active. Although we are concerned about attacks elsewhere in Africa, we consider the Horn of Africa—Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya, and Tanzania—to be the area most at risk. The main contributing factors include proximity to the Arabian Peninsula and the failed state of Somalia, large areas where the governments’ control is weak or non-existent, weak CT and police capabilities of host nations, the probable continued presence of the al-Qaida cell that carried out the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi, and armed conflicts that have long plagued the region. Working with the African frontline states of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, we have developed and are implementing a policy that encompasses both containment and action against alQaida and other terrorists and terrorist organizations. We are working with partner countries to closely monitor the situation in the Horn and are prepared to take appropriate action. We are very concerned about the possibility of terrorist attacks in the Horn region, especially in Kenya and Tanzania because, as the attacks of 9/11 showed, al-Qaida will continue to plan and carry out attacks against a target if its initial efforts failed or were only partially successful … U.S. Government Efforts to Build Counterterrorism Capacity in the Horn One of our principal tenets in the war on terrorism is that, whenever possible, our foreign partners should take the lead in combating terrorism on their own territories or in their own financial systems, with the USG in a strong support role. The ability of most African states to effectively participate in the campaign against terrorism is getting stronger with U.S. help. The President’s $100 million East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI) announced in June 2003 is designed to strengthen the capabilities of our partners in the region to combat terrorism and foster cooperation among these governments. It includes military training for border and coastal security, a variety of programs to strengthen control of the movement of people and goods across borders, aviation security capacity-building, assistance for regional efforts against terrorist financing, and police training. EACTI also includes an education program to counter extremist influence and a robust outreach program. The program is on track. The Department of State is currently organizing an international conference to be held later this month to discuss progress made in fighting terrorism in East Africa in the context of the President’s East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative.… As part of the conference’s goals and objectives, the participants will be considering ways and means to make further progress against
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indigenous terrorist cells, as well as to diminish the conditions which allow extremists and terrorists to recruit and train new followers. In addition to EACTI, we are using NADR funds, Economic Support Funds, and other diplomatic and developmental tools to help strengthen democratic institutions and support effective governance. At the conference I just mentioned, we hope to encourage allies and partners to coordinate resources to ensure the sustained effectiveness of our common efforts in the war against terrorism. I would like to briefly describe some of the programs that the U.S. uses to strengthen African capacity. CT Finance Assistance The interagency Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG) chaired by my office, is working closely with Kenyan officials to develop a comprehensive anti-money laundering/counterterrorist financing regime in Kenya. An interagency team conducted an assessment of Kenya’s financial systems in August 2003, and has developed and begun implementing a plan to develop Kenya’s capacity in this field. In January 2004, a DOJ representative, along with a legal expert from the United Kingdom and a representative from the Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Program (CALP) conducted a legislative drafting seminar for Kenyan officials that resulted in draft Anti-Money Laundering/Counterterrorist Finance (AML/CTF) legislation that conforms to most international standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. These same representatives traveled to Kenya last week to conduct a seminar to educate legislators and the public on the urgent need for an AML/ CTF law. Once the law is enacted we will provide a Resident Legal Advisor to train prosecutors and judicial officials, conduct financial investigative courses, steer financial intelligence unit development, and advise on financial regulatory assistance. Curbing the flow of money to terrorists is important not only as part of the global war against terrorism but also to help countries protect their own citizens from attacks by groups operating locally. Immigration Monitoring and Control In an effort to assist countries threatened by terrorist transit, the Department of State instituted the Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP). Since mid2003, the Terrorist Interdiction Program computer system has been operational at select airports in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, and is expected to be operational this year in Djibouti and Uganda as well. TIP is a good example of international cooperation. The program was conceived as a result of conversations with Kenyan officials who, after the 1998 Nairobi attack, suggested that post-attack investigations could be aided if a system were available for quickly checking suspects who might have fled a country just before or after a major terrorist attack. The TIP hardware/software package is intended to significantly impact terrorists’ freedom of movement between countries by providing participating nations with a state-of-the-art computer name-check network that enables immigration and border control officials to quickly identify suspect persons attempting to enter or leave the country.
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The TIP watch list is developed by each country but it may incorporate information from INTERPOL or individual nations. TIP also provides nations with an increased capability to collect, compare, and analyze traveler data and thereby contribute to the global effort to understand terrorist methods and track their movements. General Law Enforcement Training The Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) is funding a police development program begun in 2002 for national police in Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia. While not specifically CT focused, the program is introducing essential skills-based learning and problem solving techniques to build the capacity of these East African police forces to detect and investigate all manner of crime, including terrorist incidents. INL is also funding forensic laboratory development programs in Tanzania and Uganda, designed to build the capacity of these governments to analyze evidence collected at crime scenes. In Kenya, INL is funding technical assistance and training for the Anti-narcotics Unit of the Kenyan national police and the anti-smuggling unit that work out of the Port of Mombasa. These units jointly search containers entering the port of Mombasa for drugs and other contraband that may be brought into Kenya otherwise undetected. Export Controls Assistance The Export Control and Related Border Security Assistance (EXBS) Program, which is funded through the NADR account of the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, will be used in FY04 to assist Kenya and Tanzania to improve their border controls to prevent transfers through their territory of weapons of mass destruction and other items of proliferation concern. Department of State Anti-Terrorism Assistance—the Kenyan Example Kenya is an example of the many types of training and assistance provided to front-line states under the State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program which was established in 1983. The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, headed by my boss, Ambassador Cofer Black, provides policy guidance for the program. It is implemented by the ATA division of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which works closely with the Department’s Regional Security Officers in each embassy. Funded through the S/CT NADR account, these law enforcement training programs are intended to help a country develop its own indigenous counterterrorism capability. Types of training include detection and rendering safe explosive devices, post-blast investigation techniques, VIP protection, senior leadership crisis management exercises, hostage negotiations, and much more. DS/ATA has maintained a training partnership with the Government of Kenya since 1989. Since that time ATA has trained 594 personnel and has expended over $4.05 million. As part of the President’s East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI), ATA … is currently developing an in-country training and equipment program, including at least seven training events in FY04 for Kenyan law enforcement agencies. Kenya’s commitment to this
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effort is reflected in its passage of anti-corruption legislation, its efforts to pass counterterrorism legislation, the recent creation of an Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, establishment of a National Security Advisory Committee to provide policy guidance to its CT structures, and the opening early this year of a National Counter-Terrorism Center … Sudanese Peace Process and Somali Stability In the longer run, reestablishing an orderly governance mechanism in Somalia and a successful conclusion to the Sudanese Peace Process will help make the region more stable and less vulnerable to terrorists and their facilitators. We are working diligently to bring the Sudanese peace talks to a successful conclusion. Restoration of a functioning central authority in Somalia would remove a failed state and thus the disorder that provides haven and transit opportunities for extremist groups. We support the efforts of regional leaders under the IGAD process to promote peace and reconciliation talks in Somalia. The Pan Sahel Initiative The Sahel region, including Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania, is also an area of concern. The immense size of these countries, their physical geography combined with weak central authority, and the traditional independence of nomadic life styles, make border control and law enforcement exceedingly difficult. No longer isolated from the rest of the world, the traditional caravan routes in this region now serve as conduits for illegal migration and drugs and arms trafficking, as well as a hideout and staging areas for international and regional terrorists and criminals. The State Department has formulated and implemented the Pan-Sahel Initiative, which is providing training and equipment for quick reaction forces to secure the vast borders of the region. Mali and Mauritania are completing their training cycles, and Chad and Niger will begin training cycles later this year. In light of recent events, we are looking at what other forms of engagement may be useful. Events over the past several months have underscored the need for continued training and cooperation in this region. When European tourists were kidnapped by members of the Algerian terrorist group Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) in 2003, the GSPC was said to have received a large ransom payment. After reportedly using this money to purchase weapons, ammunition, and equipment, they were pursued across the desert with the cooperation of all four Sahel countries. One portion of this group was cornered and forced out of Mali and promptly captured by Algerian security forces. Another turned up in Chad, where Chadian and Nigerien forces attacked and defeated this group. West Africa In parts of West Africa, we have seen dramatic rises in the level of antiAmerican and extremist Islamic rhetoric, most notably in northern Nigeria. We are working to support effective and inclusive governance in these
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countries to dilute the appeal of extremists. The end of conflict in Liberia and on-going efforts to stabilize Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire are fundamental to our interest in stabilizing the wider region. The U.S. is cooperating with other countries to address the enormous security, development, and other needs of Liberia and to support efforts in neighboring countries to ensure that this region does not become a haven for terrorist and criminal activity. Southern Africa We continue to work with the nations of southern Africa to find and capture known terrorist operatives and to disrupt terrorist financing. South Africa has set up its own Financial Intelligence Unit to track terrorist assets and place them out of terrorists’ reach. We are encouraging South Africa, one of Africa’s powerhouses of resources and expertise, to begin exporting training, intelligence, know-how, and other assistance to neighboring countries.… Last year we held a major counterterrorism conference for 13 nations in southern Africa. The sessions, held in the International Law Enforcement Academy in Botswana, included crisis management workshops and discussions of ways to strengthen counterterrorism laws. In 2002, six African countries from various parts of the continent took part in a week long CT legislation seminar in Washington that State co-sponsored with the Justice Department. North Africa The states of North Africa have had long experience with terrorism, and continue to fight this scourge. In the aftermath of the May 16, 2003, bombings, Moroccan authorities conducted an investigation that uncovered extremist Islamist cells (Salafiya Jihadiya) in nearly every major city in the country. These ‘‘cells’’ were in various stages of planning and organizing terrorist actions against the Government of Morocco. Senior Moroccan authorities concede that if it were not for the Casablanca bombings, in which 45 people were killed and over 100 injured, they would never have uncovered planned terrorist operations in Morocco that could have resulted in several hundred deaths. Throughout the summer and fall of 2003, over 1,000 people were arrested on terrorism charges and over 800 have now been prosecuted under the new terrorism law passed in the aftermath of the May 16 attacks. In February 2004, the Moroccan Authorities disrupted two Salafiya Jihadiya cells in Fez and Meknes. Thirty-seven people were arrested in the raids. Explosives, detonators, and rudimentary weapons were found in the safehouses. Two of the people arrested were wanted in connection the May 16 bombings and were believed responsible for other murders of Moroccan police and officials. In the aftermath of last month’s Madrid bombings, Moroccan authorities immediately sent a team of investigators to Madrid to work with Spanish authorities. The cooperation between the two governments in this investigation is exceptionally close and productive. We are assisting the Moroccan authorities in a number of key areas of counterterrorism through a variety of programs including the State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance and Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP).
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Tunisia has been an effective partner in the GWOT. We have an ongoing, high-level dialogue with the Tunisian Government about ways to increase their cooperation including information sharing. The Tunisian Government passed anti-terrorism legislation at the beginning of its fall 2003 session, and the government has introduced state-of-the art machine readable passport in an on-going effort to secure its borders. Tunisia also became more active in the State ATA program.… Counterterrorism cooperation with Algeria remains an important part of our bilateral relationship, one that has expanded significantly since 9/11. Algeria has provided consistently outstanding support and cooperation in the global war against terrorism. Cooperation has increased, particularly in the areas of information sharing, military cooperation, and the tracking of financial assets. However, the Algerians continue to need assistance in building their CT capabilities so as to better contribute to both regional and international efforts against terrorism. Although there have been significant improvements in the security environment in Algeria and terrorism no longer threatens the regime, a residual, significant terrorist threat exists.… The government’s ability to deal with this remaining threat will be key. We hope to continue our close CT cooperation. A Long-Term Continent-Wide Effort Throughout the continent, the prevalence of poverty, famine, and disorder offers terrorists an opportunity to insert themselves into a region, to develop support systems, and to troll for new members for their groups. Charitable and non-governmental organizations have been abused by terrorists and their supporters to raise funds, disguise their true intentions, and travel internationally. Some terrorists have been able to use charitable organizations, turning those organizations into producers of ever larger numbers of extremists. One such organization, al-Haramayn, has been identified in several locations in Africa. Its offices are being closed. However, in addition to serving extremist ends, it also built schools, hospitals, and engaged in normal charitable activities. Closing these offices has had the unintended consequence of depriving some of the needy of a source of help. It is therefore essential that the U.S. pay attention to development issues and to public outreach. USAID has designed and implemented programs to reach out to Muslim schools and offer support, materials, and training. Department of State Public Diplomacy programs offer opportunities for discussions, conferences, seminars, and travel by selected policy- and opinionmakers to explore Islam in America … and American society in an effort to expand mutual understanding. These long-range programs, are essential to ultimate success in the war on terrorism. … As all of us know, the global war on terrorism cannot be won by half-measures or temporary commitments. Attacking terrorism in Africa requires a mix of short-, medium- and long-term strategies, and it will require additional resources. Many of the short- and medium-term programs are in place and working. Longer-term strategies to address the factors that create an enabling environment for terrorism—poverty, intolerance, political alienation, and corruption— are being formulated and will require support not only from our African and
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other international partners but also from this chamber. Our adversaries are committed for the long term. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/31077.htm
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘The Prevention and Combating of Terrorism in Africa,’’ Remarks at the Second Intergovernmental High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism in Africa, Algiers, Algeria, October 13, 2004 International Cooperation … As we have seen recently in places such as Morocco, Kenya, and Russia, no country, no airport, no hotel, no school, no citizen is beyond the terrorists’ reach. In an instant, one act of terrorism can affect us all. The United States has been struggling against terrorism since the early 1970s. In 1973, U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and fellow diplomat George Curtis Moore were killed in Khartoum by terrorists belonging to the ‘‘Black September’’ organization. He was not the first U.S. victim of international terrorism, and far from the last. Africa is no stranger to terrorism. In 1998, the United States was again the victim of terrorism in Africa, but though the U.S. was the apparent target, thousands of innocent Kenya and Tanzanian citizens were also victims. But Africans are also winning their struggles against terrorists. Algeria has suffered from attacks by terrorists since the 1990s. Innocent civilians were killed with guns, their throats cut, and pregnant women murdered. But the government of Algeria persevered, and now the terrorists are in retreat. Another group of terrorists, the Lord’s Resistance Army, is also losing headway. The government of Uganda has combined military strength with offers of amnesty to move forward in defeating the terrorists. With the aid of international institutions (like the United Nations), functional organizations (like the International Civil Aviation Organization), and regional and sub-regional groups (like the African Union), countries of the world can join together to take the necessary actions to defeat the terrorists, wherever they are. We can prevent and disrupt terrorist activity by working to secure our borders, control illegal immigration, strengthen customs enforcement, and develop strong legal and financial regulatory systems to criminalize terrorism and terrorism finance. We can marshal our shared resources to provide capacity-building assistance, and deter terrorists from targeting weaker states or from using them for safehavens or fundraising. And by sharing information, as well as coordinating joint investigations and efforts to bring terrorists to justice, we can deal a serious blow to terrorism. This is why it is so important that we strengthen and energize our international, regional, and sub-regional organizations and groups. Multilateral efforts start at the United Nations. Through the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (UNCTC), we work with our partners to assist member states to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1373.
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We have also seen important contributions from the UN/ODC’s Terrorism Prevention Branch’s outstanding efforts to fully implement the 12 international counterterrorism conventions. Full implementation of UNSCR 1373 and the 12 international CT conventions will close many of the security gaps that terrorists seek to exploit. Some African nations have already become party to all 12 of the conventions—Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Sudan, and Tunisia—and nearly as many others have joined all but one of the conventions. Similarly, the G-8’s Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG) was set up in 2003 to serve as a forum for donors of Counterterrorism assistance. Today, it is working with governments around the world to address specific regional issues. It is also developing new standards and practices for international cooperation and assisting countries to implement them … The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reviewed and decided to adopt those standards and practices, as did the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Regional groups such as the African Union can encourage their member states to adopt such standards and best practices, and help in their implementation. Five years ago, the Organization of African Unity adopted its Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism. In October 2001 the Dakar Declaration against Terrorism reaffirmed member states’ rejection of terrorism. The Center you have inaugurated today will be an important step forward as you seek to address, fight, and eventually eradicate terrorism from Africa. U.S. Government Assistance The United States Government is committed to working with you to assist and enhance your efforts. President Bush’s $100 million East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative has provided key states in the Horn of Africa with military training for coastal security programs, programs to strengthen control of the movement of people and goods across borders, aviation security capacitybuilding, assistance for regional efforts against terrorist financing, and police training. This initiative also includes an education program to counter extremist influence and a robust outreach. Through the Pan-Sahel Initiative, a $7.75 million program, we have sought to better assist the nations of the Sahel region by providing training and equipment to improve their border security and deny the use of their sovereign territory to terrorists and criminals. Algeria, together with our Pan-Sahel Initiative partner nations of Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania have demonstrated their seriousness in this regional effort. The various programs introduce essential skills-based learning and problem-solving techniques to build the capacity of African police forces to detect and investigate all manner of crime, including terrorist incidents. We are also providing funding for forensic laboratory development programs in Tanzania and Uganda. These programs are designed to build local capacity to analyze evidence collected at crime scenes. We hope to build on the successes of the PSI with additional training and assistance in the trans-Sahara region in coming years, and we look forward to
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working with and supporting the Center in its work of developing training programs, expanding the capacity of member nations to combat terrorism and developing effective habits of regional cooperation against this insidious threat. We know, however, that training and equipment alone will not be enough to eliminate terrorism. Strong militaries are necessary for a government to protect its citizens against external threats, and strong law enforcement, prosecution, and judicial regimes are essential to preserve internal peace and security. But military strength and strong police forces alone are not enough to defeat terrorism. In Africa and elsewhere around the world, we know that there are other priorities in addition to terrorism—economic development, combating AIDS, good governance, health care, alleviating poverty. But we know these concerns cannot be used as excuses to bow out of the struggle against terrorism. In fact, the struggle against terrorism is also in part the struggle for a better society. Success in improving the lives of the people is success against terrorism. Terrorists are not born terrorists. Terrorists choose the way of violence because they believe something is lacking in their lives, their societies that cannot be obtained in any other way. Poverty does not create terrorists, though it is likely a factor in whether an alienated young person turns to violence. Many of the terrorists—like the more familiar ones of today, such as Usama bin Ladin, were moderately to very wealthy. Many of the members of al-Qaida are educated; they are sophisticated users of modern technology. Nevertheless, improving the lives of ordinary people will reduce terrorism. When people are less desperate, they will be better able to resist the lures of money and status that terrorists promise to their recruits. So we must work together to improve the lives of the people. There are many ways to do this—foreign investment brings funds and jobs into a country. Attracting foreign investment requires a trustworthy legal structure—the rule of law—and a certain degree of confidence that agreements will be honored—transparency and good governance. Thus anticorruption efforts are as essential to the struggle against terrorism as the struggle against poverty. The AU’s 2003 Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption recognized the importance of these efforts. The AU is to be congratulated and encouraged for facing these difficult but timely and crucial issues. … [W]e must all work together to combat terrorism, and we must work globally, regionally, and bilaterally. African nations must find an African solution. In cooperation with each other, by sharing information, by assisting each other’s legal systems, by securing mutual borders, and by making it clear that political violence is no longer acceptable, Africans can defeat terrorists and find a better way for all the African people. It is our hope and desire that the African Union’s Center for Study and Research on Terrorism can be the beginning of a new forum for cooperation and mutual assistance amongst the African states and their partners in the international community. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/37230.htm
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Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Remarks at Algiers Conference, Algiers, Algeria, February 6, 2006 The organizers of this conference asked me to outline a common understanding of the global terrorist threat and how it has changed given the U.S. response to 9/11. I wish I could outline a complete, clear, unified, perfect understanding of such a complex challenge. We still struggle at the United Nations to agree on a common definition of terrorism. We debate about the war in Iraq; what will be the outcome, the impact? How will enemy tactics develop? Where is the next threat going to emerge? How do we measure the threat? How do we measure our success? While we cannot answer all those questions today, I hope to offer some ideas and outline some broad parameters of the road before us. Then in the next few days, the hard work will rest with you. Let me stress a couple of those points at the outset. In the coming decades this conflict, waged in a rapidly evolving global society, will take twists and turns that nobody can predict, despite our best intelligence efforts. We must therefore prepare for uncertainty, as you are doing in this forum, by building bonds of understanding and trust.… Trust, rooted in understanding, promotes information sharing and collective strategies. In the operational context, trust stimulates speed, agility, stealth, and collective strength. All of us are part of trusted networks. That, in large part, is the purpose of this conference. Yes, we must understand the enemy, the battlefield, the tactics, and determine practical countermeasures. We must also understand ourselves. We must understand each other. Based on this knowledge, we must forge deeper bonds of trust. This conference and all of you can contribute to this network of trust. My second point: because of our collective efforts, because of our interdependent strength, we will win this fight. We can no longer assume that every state can control and direct threats emerging from its territory nor can we assume that weak and poorly governed states are merely a burden to their people or simply an international humanitarian concern. Technology is eliminating the distance that once clearly separated us across land and sea. Safe havens in cyberspace and the ability to transfer funds, materiel and people depend on existing regional underground networks (such as those that exist for narcotics trafficking, piracy or people smuggling). Most terrorist safe havens sit astride national borders, in places like the Sulu Sea, the Northwest Frontier—and the Sahel. Terrorists use national borders to their advantage. Denying terrorists safe haven therefore demands a regional response. For this reason building regional partnerships is the cornerstone of any enduring counterterrorism strategy. The United States seeks full partners, bilaterally and regionally, to engage the enemy with all the instruments of statecraft. We have witnessed in recent years how smuggling activity in arms and other goods in the Sahel by the GSPC has supplemented their terrorist activity. Now, the GSPC aims to establish a safe haven in the trans-Sahara region. The activities of the GSPC faction led by Abderrezak al-Para—including the
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holding of 32 European hostages in 2003 and running battles through many of your countries—underscored the real threat posed to the region. The GSPC has become a regional terrorist organization, recruiting and operating in all of your countries—and beyond. It is forging links with terrorist groups in Morocco, Nigeria, Mauritania, Tunisia and elsewhere. The June 2005 GSPC attack on a military outpost in Mauritania was stark confirmation that al-Para’s capture has not deterred or ended the GSPC threat. After that attack, the terrorists fled into Mali. If we do not act, we will see more such attacks. We see increased cooperation between terrorist groups in the region and, unfortunately, also new links to groups outside the region, including Europe. Al Qaida leaders may be isolated and under pressure, unable to communicate effectively, but this has not prevented regional groups from establishing independent networks among themselves. In some ways, this poses even more daunting intelligence collection and strategic policy challenges. Because this is not a new threat, the United States sought, through the PanSahel Initiative, to reinforce the CT capabilities of security forces in that area. We collectively understood that even this effort was insufficient, so we launched a new initiative to encompass a broader geographic area to include the Maghreb. We also agreed to expand our effort beyond security and military CT capabilities. Given that this threat resembles an insurgency, we must develop a counterinsurgency strategy that incorporates all the tools of governance: to attack the enemy, deny safe haven, and to address the socio-economic-political needs of these safe havens. Offensive tactical CT success buys us time and space to build the far more enduring, constructive programs society needs. This new unique regional partnership is the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (or TSCTI). This initiative is why we are all here. This will be the subject of your conversations in the coming week. TSCTI seeks to link all of our CT efforts across the region, in the Maghreb countries, and in the Sahel. We envision a multi-faceted, multi-year strategy aimed at defeating terrorist organizations by helping to strengthen regional counterterrorism capabilities, by enhancing and institutionalizing cooperation between your security forces and ours and MOST importantly, by promoting economic development, good governance, education, liberal institutions, and democracy. Through broad policy success we discredit terrorist ideology and deny them the recruits they need, while providing these erstwhile recruits opportunity and hope. The isolation and ultimate destruction of terrorist networks is only the first step. We must offer much more in the second step. We must offer a better vision. We must replace an ideology of hatred with an ideology of hope. This is also a key part of this Initiative. Democratic governance programs would strive, in particular, to provide adequate levels of U.S. support for democratic and economic development in the Sahel to strengthen your abilities to manage terrorist threats. Public diplomacy programs will allow us to work with you to expand outreach efforts in the Sahel and Maghreb regions, Nigeria, and Senegal, and seek to develop regional and local programming embracing this vast and diverse region. We will emphasize preserving the traditional tolerance and moderation displayed in African Muslim communities and countering the development of extremism, particularly in at-risk youth and in rural populations.
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Practically, this implies that our most important task in the war on terrorism is not the ‘‘destructive’’ task of eradicating enemy networks, but the ‘‘constructive’’ task of building legitimacy, good governance, trust, prosperity, tolerance, and the rule of law. Systems that are characterized by an absence of political choice, transparent governance, economic opportunities and personal freedoms can create incubators for extremism. We need to find ways to encourage and nurture democratization. A society where a lack of freedom destroys hope, individuals sometimes feel they are justified to lash out in rage and frustration at those they believe responsible for their plight. We envision assistance to all partner countries, including the creation of networks to exchange information. We hope to have many of the TSCTI programs in place later this year. The role of the United States is to work with you, to identify how we can work together. Our operations in the war against terrorism need to be partner-led, home-grown initiatives—developed with local partners like you to meet YOUR needs and to address the conditions on the ground. That is why my colleagues and I are here, and we look forward to our conversations this week with all of you. In conclusion I offer the following summary of the broader, more enduring aspects of the TSCTI framework, that should include the following principles: ‘‘consultation, justice, and equality in its drive to achieve good governance, widen political participation, establish the rule of law, protect human rights, apply social justice, transparency, and accountability, fight corruption, and build civil society institutions.’’ Those are words from the Mecca Declaration, signed by the leaders of the Organization of Islamic States in December 2005. This guidance will serve us well. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2006/62325.htm
ASIA Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Press Briefing with the Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia, January 17, 2002 … I thanked the minister for the very strong support that India has provided for the war on terrorism since September 11. Both of our nations know firsthand about terrorism. We have a common interest in defeating terrorism in Afghanistan, and needless to say, the United States’ stand against terrorism is principled. We think about terrorism against India in the same terms that we want India to think about terrorism in the United States. We discussed the crisis and the tension in the region between India and Pakistan. President Musharraf’s speech last Saturday and the actions he’s taking to implement the steps that were outlined in the speech, we are certainly hopeful will go a long way toward lowering tensions and promoting a constructive dialogue between India and Pakistan.
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President Bush, of course, has been in touch with the prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan. Secretary Powell has just arrived … in India and will be conducting meetings there and has forcefully expressed the hopes of the United States that the tensions will be reduced and that discussions will take place. Today, Minister Fernandes and I signed a U.S.-India bilateral general security of military information agreement, paving the way for greater technology cooperation between the United States and India, and we discussed the good progress that our two countries are making in our security relationships. … In the coming months, we have an ambitious schedule of meetings on counterterrorism, on service-to-service exercises, further strengthening the friendship and cooperation between the world’s two largest democracies. With respect to the situation on the Afghan-Pakistan border, which is, of course, something that is of considerable interest to us, because we are most anxious to see that the terrorists in the Taliban and the Al Qaeda do not escape out of Afghanistan into Pakistan, I don’t think it’s in anybody’s interest that those folks end up in Pakistan. It’s not in Pakistan’s interest. It’s not in our interest. It’s not in Afghanistan’s interest, because they can come right back across that border. And it’s certainly not in India’s interest. Q. … [A] question about Guantanamo Bay and the detention situation there. Those detainees who are not put before a military tribunal, will they be held there indefinitely then or will they be returned to their home countries? Have you decided that? SECRETARY RUMSFELD: The situation is that there are people who have been fighting and killing people in Afghanistan who are now being held, in some cases in Pakistan, where they have crossed the border into Pakistan and Pakistan has captured them; in some cases in Afghanistan, in two or three locations, including Kandahar, where the largest detention center is; and increasingly in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with a couple of exceptions aboard ship, U.S. ships, for a variety of reasons, medical or whatever. The issue as to what happens to those people will follow the interrogations and the process of getting as much information out of them as we can so that we can stop other terrorist attacks. Then a decision will be made as to their disposition. Some may or may not end up in a military commission; others conceivably could end up in the U.S. criminal court system. Others could be returned to their countries of nationality and end up being prosecuted there. It’s conceivable some could be kept in detention for a period while additional intelligence information is gathered, or if they simply are dangerous, and there’s no question there are a number down in Guantanamo Bay who every time anyone walks by threaten to kill Americans the first chance they get. These are quite dangerous people. They may just be kept in detention for a period. And those issues are all being sorted out by lawyers and experts and people knowledgeable about international law and conventions, which I’m not. SOURCE: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/17/se.04.html
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Attorney General John Ashcroft, Press Conference, U.S. Embassy Auditorium, Tokyo, Japan, October 22, 2002 (http://www.justice.gov/ archive/ag/speeches/2002/102202ashcroft.htm).
Matthew P. Daley, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittees on Asia and the Pacific, and on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, U.S. Counterterrorism Policy for East Asia and the Pacific, Washington, D.C., October 29, 2003 In East Asia and the Pacific, counter-terrorism moved to the top of our foreign policy priorities after September 11. Southeast Asia, home to more than 200 million Muslims, is threatened not only by Al-Qaida but also by regional terrorist organizations such as the Jemaah Islamiyah. With the murder of 202 people in the October 2002 bombing in Bali, Indonesia, East Asia suffered the worst terrorist attack since September 11. Southeast Asia was often viewed as on the fringe of the Muslim world. Thus, immediately after 9/11, Islamic-based terrorism was often portrayed as a foreign import to the region. We ourselves were most concerned that members of Al-Qaida would make their way from Afghanistan to Southeast Asia. But that was a misunderstanding. To one degree or another the states of the region, like the U.S., have been forced to readjust their views, and acknowledge the extent and sophistication of indigenous terrorist organizations and networks. Moreover, these networks are not composed of the wretched of the earth, but often of educated and well-off recruits. We continue to be impressed by the depth of the links that connect Southeast Asian terrorists with their counterparts inside and outside the region. For example, a cell of the Southeast Asian regional Islamic terrorist Jemaah Islamiyah was recently dismantled in Karachi, Pakistan. We are not confident that we have yet identified all the tentacles of the terrorist networks or the boundaries to their presence and influence. The new terrorism all of us face is transnational. Thus, defending ourselves demands unprecedented international cooperation. Just as terrorists work together to move men, materiel and money across borders, coordination with our allies, partners and friends is essential to prevent terrorists from slipping through the cracks between national authorities and, indeed, within some countries. Thus, diplomacy is the bedrock on which intelligence, law enforcement, financial and, in specific cases, military cooperation against terrorism, has expanded in East Asia. In 2 years, Southeast Asian states have come a long way toward developing effective, cooperative strategies against international terrorism, while continuing to wrestle with demands to strengthen democracy and restore prosperity after the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–98. Australia, China and Japan, among others, have made significant contributions to the international campaign against terrorism, both within and outside the region. Japan, our linchpin ally in Asia, continues to back the international
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war against terrorism. It supports our counter-terrorism efforts during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan by supplying coalition naval vessels with operating fuel at its own expense. Japan is a major contributor to Afghanistan reconstruction, and is vital to the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration efforts for that country. At the recent Madrid conference, Japan committed over a billion and a half dollars to Iraq’s reconstruction to promote a civil society that does not harbor terrorists. Japan is also a partner in freezing and disrupting the flow of terrorists’ assets. We have no more staunch and valued ally across the board than Australia, whose troops fought side by side with American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and which contributes personnel and funds for Iraq stabilization and reconstruction. Australia has also assumed an important role in combating terrorism in Southeast Asia, closely coordinating with Asian countries and the U.S. on strengthening police, customs, immigration and intelligence capabilities. We have worked with China on sharing counter-terrorism information and blocking the flow of terrorist finances by designating terrorists and terrorist organizations under the appropriate UN resolutions. China’s awareness of the terrorist threat informs its global perceptions of the role of the United States’ military operations in Central Asia. Equally important is the fact that our joint efforts against this threat have, in turn, built trust and strengthened our relations with these countries as a whole. At the recent meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders, the President stressed our fundamental belief that security and prosperity are inseparable. Leaders of the 21 APEC economies committed to take all essential actions to dismantle, fully and without delay, transnational terrorist groups that threaten APEC economies. Among the specific measures they agreed to this year was to control MANPADs. Over the past two years, the United States has also worked very closely and productively with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to develop multilateral responses to a threat that knows no boundaries. Concentrated attention on and coordinated policies to combat terrorism have degraded terrorist networks in East Asia. More than 200 terrorists have been detained or arrested by our partners. Hambali—a key link between Al Qaida and the Jemaah Islamiyah—is now in custody. Malaysia has established a nascent regional CT center and regional training and cooperation is at an all time high. Nonetheless, we are well aware of the costs should complacency reemerge, and of the long road many nations still have to travel to improve CT capabilities. Moreover, as they come under pressure in former havens in Southeast Asia, terrorists search for softer targets, in neighboring countries or potentially in piracy-infested waters, such as the Strait of Malacca. … I would now like to take the opportunity to review our specific efforts and the constraints we face in several countries in the region. Indonesia As the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia demonstrates daily that democracy and Islam are compatible.
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Indonesians were inward-looking and, frankly, often reluctant to acknowledge the reality of the terrorist threat until the Bali bombing last October led to a dramatic shift in public opinion. Since Bali, and especially since the Marriott Hotel bombing in August this year, Indonesian authorities have aggressively pursued and brought terrorists to justice. Domestic counter-terrorism legislation has received parliamentary approval and the government has increased cooperation and consultation with its neighbors. Indonesian courts sentenced Jemaah Islamiyah spiritual leader Abu Bakr Bashir to imprisonment, though this sentence is now under appeal. Indonesia has convicted nearly 30 Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists in connection with the Bali bombing, sentencing some to death. And finally, Indonesia’s important moderate Muslim organizations are speaking out against violence, and recapturing the lead in public discourse. However, while the will to combat terrorism has grown, Indonesia remains a country whose counter-terrorism efforts face the challenges of porous borders, an often-lax judicial system, corruption, and a generally poor educational system, a small part of which has proved to be a breeding ground for extremists and terrorists. Moreover, some in Indonesia continue publicly to attribute part of the blame for international terrorism to U.S. Middle East policy. A key challenge for the political system in Indonesia will be the sustained pursuit of terrorists even as sensitivities are heightened by the approach of elections next year. Our counter-terrorism cooperation with Indonesia is designed to strengthen Indonesia’s capabilities, through ongoing programs for police, judicial, and financial training, and through investigative assistance. We are working with the Indonesian government and several other donors to bolster that country’s border controls and to coordinate anti-terrorism assistance. Moreover, the President proposed, during his recent visit to Indonesia, a major educational initiative designed to support educational reform and provide an opportunity to obtain modern education free of extremism. The Philippines The government of President Arroyo is a committed and valued partner in the war on terrorism, but limited resources and internal weaknesses constrain our close ally’s efforts to fulfill its commitments. While Philippine CT operations, involving U.S. military training and operational support, achieved significant results against the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in 2002, more recent operations planned for February 2003 sparked an internal Philippine debate, and were postponed. The Philippine Congress did agree to amend its Anti-Money Laundering law to meet international standards, but the institutional weakness that is endemic among the security organizations in the Philippines was dramatically displayed with the escape of three dangerous terrorists from a high security facility in Manila on July 14, 2003. Subsequently one Jemaah Islamiyah bomb-maker, Fathur Al-Ghozi, was killed as he encountered the Philippine police in Mindanao, and another was recaptured on October 7. The most hopeful development is President Arroyo’s initiative to explore the possibility of peace negotiations with the separatist Moro Islamic
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Liberation Front (MILF), the largest remaining Muslim insurgency in the Philippines. Unfortunately, some factions of the MILF have maintained links with terrorists.… Additional U.S. help for Philippines anti-terrorism efforts is extensive, and includes security assistance, such as the training of anti-terrorism Light Reaction Companies, other programs to increase the efficiency of the Philippine Armed Forces, the Terrorist Interdiction Program, and new educational assistance for Muslim areas. The key factor, however, is institutional reform, without which U.S. assistance will not avail. Malaysia/Singapore/Thailand Singapore and Malaysia have been highly effective in their pursuit of terrorists. In fact, they were the first states in the region to crack terrorist cells and detain their members. Their commitment to fight terrorism in Southeast Asia is undiminished. Malaysia hosts a nascent regional counter-terrorism center, through which we offer training, and has detained nearly 100 members of the Jemaah Islamiyah and other terrorist organizations. In two waves of arrests in 2001 and 2002, Singapore also detained domestic Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists planning attacks against U.S., Singaporean and other interests. Singapore was the first Asian port to go operational with a program, known as he Container Security Initiative, which allows U.S.-bound cargo to be pre-inspected and cleared. Singapore has supported U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both nations will be critical to programs to implement maritime CT programs. Thailand’s recent capture of Hambali, al Qaida’s point man in Southeast Asia, demonstrates the support of this longstanding ally that prefers to say less and do more. Thailand has signed the Container Security Initiative … The Thai government has recently passed tough anti-terrorism legislation and amendments to its anti-money laundering law. It has also dispatched over 400 soldiers to Iraq and recently completed a deployment in Afghanistan. Conclusion Throughout East Asia, we support other governments and encourage them to cooperate with each other and with us against terrorism. We are determined to limit the ability of terrorists to carry out terrorist acts or find refuge, and eventually to eradicate terrorism. Bilaterally and multilaterally, we share intelligence, where appropriate, and provide and coordinate training, as well as other essential resources. In addition to helping our allies and partners to enhance their capacity to combat terrorism, we lay the groundwork through active diplomacy to build a coalition that will protect American citizens and interests in Asia against terrorism. We believe this effort has reassured Asians of America’s commitment to their welfare, degraded terrorist capabilities, and strengthened U.S. relations with its East Asian allies and partners. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/p/sa/rls/rm/25738.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony Before the House International Relations Committee, Subcommittees on Asia and the Pacific, and on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, U.S. Counterterrorism Policy in Asia and the Pacific Washington,
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D.C., October 29, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/25713.htm); also see testimony by Christina Rocca, Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs, at the same hearing, October 28, 2003 (http://www.state.gov/p/sa/rls/rm/ 25738.htm); and William P. Pope, Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Luncheon Keynote Address at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, National Bureau of Asian Research, September 22, 2004 (http://www.state.gov/s/ ct/rls/rm/2004/37410.htm).
Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, American Center, Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 8, 2004 RELEASED BY THE U.S. EMBASSY, SRI LANKA AMBASSADOR BLACK: … I am very appreciative of the government of Sri Lanka’s contribution in the field of counter-terrorism. I just came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their contribution [the Government of Sri Lanka’s] is multi-faceted. First of all in terms of the U.S. perspective, bi-laterally they have been very supportive in the global war on terrorism. They have played key roles regionally as well as in international fora at the United Nations. They have been key players in executing specific UN Security Council resolutions, and so they have done what we think is a very very good job of it, and we are very grateful. We share a common view of the point of all of this. Sometimes I think that when one watches the absolute carnage on TV and the horrors of terrorism, it’s important to remind ourselves of what we believe. Sri Lanka and the government of Sri Lanka have experienced terrorism; they are not strangers to this. The point of our efforts is to protect innocent men, women and children. The government of the United States strongly supports the current peace process here in Sri Lanka; we salute the persistent efforts of the Norwegian government in its role of facilitating this process. I want to make it very clear that good faith negotiations are the only way to achieve lasting peace. We call upon the government and the LTTE to swiftly resume the peace talks and seriously move towards an agreement that is acceptable to both sides. We are particularly concerned that we have recently seen a clear increase in violence, including the July 7 suicide attack here in Colombo. I want to make this very clear, and I don’t want any misunderstanding—the LTTE is presently on our list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and they are going to remain there until they show by word and deed, that they are negotiating in good faith [have renounced terrorism in word and deed], producing concrete results … The global war on terrorism, from the American perspective, has come a long way since 9/11. We in the United States work both bi-laterally and internationally. We have good relationships with regional organizations. We support regional solutions to problems and play a key role in APEC and CTAG, and the Organization of the American States and the counterterrorism action group of the United Nations, the Counterterrorism Committee of the UN and the like. We utilize all elements of statecraft. Very often people assume that the American approach to terrorism is one heavily weighed to the
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military. This is incorrect. Our approach, as determined by the President of the United States, utilizes all elements of statecraft. It requires law enforcement, intelligence, financial activities involving our treasury department, and last, when appropriate, the military. But the first among equals is the statecraft in the Department of State that engages in diplomacy with our friends overseas that enables the element of statecraft to cooperate efficiently and effectively with their counterparts. Q. Time and time again, Mr. Ambassador, you have, your government has reiterated the stance that the LTTE must lay down arms and renounce terrorism and join the democratic process. Before you recognize them, what movement is there towards, I mean, pushing the LTTE into that position? AMBASSADOR BLACK: Well, the U.S. position on this is very clear. We made it clear to the media and we certainly made it clear to the government of Sri Lanka, they have our support in this. There’s no question where we stand, there will be no compromise, there will be no wavering. Our policy is determined by the objective that the LTTE must negotiate with the government in good faith, but not just negotiate—it has to in good faith [renounce terrorism] in word and in deed. This is our view and we actively promote it, with our allies and with our international contacts in international fora. Q. A question on cooperation between the U.S. and Sri Lankan counterparts on curbing terrorism. Could you be a little specific on how the U.S. plans to—I mean if the LTTE reneges on this occasion and it does not negotiate in good faith and pulls out on some flimsy grounds, and resumes war, or resumes hostilities—what are the specific areas in which there will be certain you know, cooperation with the U.S. government to the Sri Lankan government? AMBASSADOR BLACK: … We support the government in its efforts to create peace. The object is to have a situation of peace so that men and women of good will need not fear for their safety. The object is peace; to protect individuals on all sides, and that’s what we strive to do, that’s our objective. It’s no small thing that the United States put the LTTE on our list of terrorist organizations. They are in the exalted company of the Al-Qaeda organization and the rest of them. It’s a bad place to be. Q. Well, Mr. Ambassador, do you have any special plans with the government of Sri Lanka to defeat terrorism here? AMBASSADOR BLACK: Our approach is to support the government. We have, certainly the government has, the will to resist terrorism, to engage in negotiations, good faith negotiations. We do have programs to support the government so that it could be in a position to negotiate effectively. Q. … Compared to Al-Qaeda, how do you see the LTTE? What is your assessment? AMBASSADOR BLACK: My assessment? We could spend hours here making various different comparisons. When I travel around the world and talk to people, invariably people bring in localized factors about the Israelis and the Palestinians, or the Kashmiris. I am an Irish Catholic—and in Ireland, when I go to where my forbears came from, they will say in the year 800 an Irish girl was raped here by the British and on and on and on. What is the important thing here? The protection of innocent men, women, and children. Let the
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politicians sit down like real adults, and negotiate solutions for the ages to protect people. The first element of this is the protection of innocent men and women and children. Look at this horrific scene in Russia. I mean, what could possibly justify the mass murder of little children? Nothing, nothing at all, and that’s what the business of international counterterrorism is about: to put these killers into a position where they are no longer hurting anybody, to get the politicians to resolve these causes that seem to incite some elements of society in some countries. Q. Just one question, related to Al-Qaeda. In Pakistan during a recent interview you said that bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, could be arrested any moment—that you’re trying to sort of localize him, if that is the exact expression you used. What [is the] progress since last Saturday? AMBASSADOR BLACK: Thank you for the opportunity [to clarify]. It’s unfortunate when you try and give a response to a question, and if you give five points people choose one of the five points that really may not be an accurate reflection of what I said, and what I wanted to say. Essentially this is what I was trying to say: Since 9/11 the President of the United States has spared no expense or resources to conduct the hunt against Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. This has been in conjunction with our friends overseas. Since 9/11, as our President recently said at the Republican National convention, about 35 percent of the Al-Qaeda leadership of the period of 9/11 has been arrested, detained or killed, more than 3,600 of their operatives and supporters are also out of the picture. The operational program, the global operational program, is in place right now. Resources have been allocated, both financial and personnel. These guys are deployed doing what they’re meant to be doing— they’re catching these guys left and right all over the planet. It’s very impressive, and as Americans we’re very gratified and we’re very appreciative, because most of the heavy lifting is done not by the United States but by our friends. We have supported others and they’ve done a great job, particularly the Pakistanis, they have done a great job under the leadership of President Musharraf. So what I was trying to say is the program’s in place, it’s making great progress. The difference between today, not having Osama bin Laden, and an hour from now, having Osama bin Laden, or tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now, is unpredictable. You just don’t know. But it’s not like we could devote more effort and more people. He’s the most hunted man on the planet—maybe, ever. It is essentially only a matter of time, and it could be very soon. It could take longer, who can say? He and his senior leadership are primarily on the defensive, but they continue to be very dangerous. They’re still able to plan and support attacks, but not as many as before. They’re greatly diminished. They spend most of their time trying to keep from getting caught, which is a good thing, because it means they’re not executing operations with the same volume and velocity as before to hurt innocent people. So the sense I’m trying to convey is everything that can be done is being done. He could be caught at any time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sooner or later, but that’s the kind of sense I was trying to convey.
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Q. But there is no definite, I mean you cannot sort of like— AMBASSADOR BLACK: Say, like tomorrow at three o’clock? Or if not then, the next day? No, unfortunately counterterrorism doesn’t work that way. People watch too many movies or something, as if, if you just got by with a little less sleep and worked a little harder, then you would achieve the objective. You have to work hard and you have to spend a lot of money and resources, but there is an imprecision in the result. You put your resources out and it may happen quickly, it may take a while, but it can happen at any time. Does that make sense? Because that’s what I was trying to convey. Q. That’s not what was said in the news report. AMBASSADOR BLACK: That would not be an accurate reflection of what I said, and that’s what I was saying to you before. It’s not like there’s an impending [capture], such as tomorrow. That’s incorrect. Everything that needs to be done has been done to allow us to catch him. Sooner or later, he will be caught, because the more aggressive you are in the hunt, the more defensive the guy becomes, and I’ll tell you, when he gets caught, it’s going to be like Saddam Hussein. He’s going to be in a hole in the ground, not communicating, and have nobody around him. I mean, if you go in your backyard and you dig a hole and you hide in it, how’s someone going to catch you if you don’t communicate and have no contact with others? So as time goes on, the more defensive he becomes. That’s why it’s harder—we’ve got a good system in place. And I’d also say that when he is caught, it would be very gratifying, it would be a good thing. People will be safer. But life will go on. There are a lot of other people to catch, a lot of terrorists to stalk, and a lot of innocent people that need to be protected. It’s not by any means ‘‘oh well, he’s caught, it’s all over, the Americans can now go home.’’ Uh-uh. No, no, no. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2004/36077.htm
President George W. Bush Welcomes Afghan President Karzai to the White House, May 23, 2005 THE PRESIDENT: Your leadership has been strong, and it’s in our interests that Afghanistan be free. Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for terrorists. Afghanistan is a key partner in the global war on terror. Our troops have fought and will continue to fight side-by-side to defeat the few who want to stop the ambitions of the many. Q. Mr. President, will you give the Karzai government custody of Afghan citizens detained by the United States? And are you willing to give Afghanistan more say in U.S. military matters in their country? And to President Karzai, did you discuss the prisoner abuse at Bagram issue with the President? PRESIDENT BUSH: First, in terms of more say over our military, our relationship is one of cooperate and consult. Of course our troops will respond to U.S. commanders, but our U.S. commanders and our diplomatic mission there is in a consultative relationship with the government. It’s a free society. There is a democratically-elected government. They’ve invited us in, and we’ll
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consult with them in terms of how to achieve mutual goals, and that is to rout out the remnants of al Qaeda, to deal with those folks who would come and like to create harm to U.S. citizens and/or Afghan citizens. I must say, the Afghan military is making great progress. It hadn’t been all that long ago that we started a training mission. Now there’s over 25,000 troops who are trained and ready to fight, and they take the fight to these thugs that are coming across the border to create havoc. And we’ve got another, I think, 22,000 to train to get this army fully stood up. Our mission in Afghanistan and Iraq is the same. I mean, we want these new democracies to be able to defend themselves. And so we will continue to work with the Afghans to train them and to cooperate and consult with the government. … Our policy, as you know, has been to work our way through those who are being held in Guantanamo and send them back to the host countries, and we will do so over time, with the Afghan government. Part of the issue is to make sure there is a place where the prisoners can be held. As I explained to the President, that our policy is one where we want the people to be sent home, but, two, we’ve got to make sure the facilities are there—facilities where these people can be housed and fed and guarded. Now, you asked about the prison—yes, he did bring up the prison abuse. PRESIDENT KARZAI: On the question of the prisoner abuse, we are, of course, sad about that. But let me make sure that you all know that that does not reflect on the American people. Q. Just to follow up on the treatment of the prisoners. Mr. President, you know, anti-American feeling is running high in the Muslim world. We’ve seen it in Afghanistan after the alleged disintegration of the Koran in Guantanamo. After meeting with the President, how do you assure the Muslim world and Afghan people that have seen death as a result of the article, that this incident in Bagram and other treatment of prisoners is isolated incident, and it’s not systemic? And if I may ask you, Mr. President, as you know, the casualties of Iraq is again high today—50 more people dying. Do you think that insurgence is getting harder now to defeat militarily? Thank you. PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I don’t think so. I think they’re being defeated. And that’s why they continue to fight. The worst thing for them is to see democracy. The President can speak to that firsthand. The worst problem that an ideologue that uses terror to try to get their way is to see a free society emerge. And I’m confident we’re making great progress in Iraq. And clearly, it’s dangerous and we mourn the loss of life. On the other hand, the eight-and-a-half million Iraqis who went to the polls sent a very clear message to the world, that they want to be free. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050523.html
Ambassador Henry Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Press Conference, Manila, Philippines, October 22, 2005 AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: … I am here to thank the Philippine government for its role in fighting terrorism, and to learn from our partners on how they are dealing with terrorist threats. I am impressed by what I have learned. From
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March 2004 to October 2005, the Anti-terrorism Task Force neutralized 183 terrorists, including 156 members of the Abu Sayyaf group (ASG) and four Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorists. Notable achievements have included the capture of JI operative Zaki in Manila earlier this year, and the discovery, also in Manila, of 600 kilograms of explosive materials that terrorists had planned to use in a suicide bombing targeting the United States and other allies in the war against terrorism. The United States stands with the Philippines in this fight. We are working closely with the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines to help them defeat these enemies. Your success is our success. U.S. and Filipino forces worked together in 2002 on Basilan to eradicate Abu Sayyaf Group havens on the island through a combination of civil-military operations and improved counterterrorism coordination. This model offers a highly successful example of what we can do together. There is still much to do, and the challenges are great. I am concerned about potential terrorist efforts to use chemical-biological weapons. We need to do a better job collectively, employing the rule of law, in policing porous borders, eliminating terrorist safe havens and addressing the conditions that our enemies exploit. We know the House and Senate are working hard to pass an effective antiterrorism law. Early adoption of this legislation will give law enforcement and security officials the tools and legal framework they need to fight terrorism, while protecting civil liberties and human rights. We also need to do a better job of working towards a regional approach to counterterrorism. I am encouraged on this front by the Asian Development Bank’s Regional Trade and Financial Security Initiative, jointly funded by the United States, Japan, and Australia. This initiative aims to enhance port security, and combat money-laundering and terrorist financing. The Philippines has already tapped into this $3 million fund to improve its anti-money laundering efforts, and we are looking at new projects that can improve maritime security among countries in the region. Q. With regard to the overall capacity of the Philippines in fighting terrorism, in what respect do you think it is strongest and weakest? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: I think some of the strongest efforts are reflected in the dedication and courageous efforts of the Filipino police and military, and most importantly the Filipino people. Their assistance to the government is critical and I think that this is where I am most impressed. As far as weaknesses—I think there are certain areas of technical expertise where the United States is trying to help, with the full realization that this is an enormously complex problem. This a problem not just in the Philippines, but a regional issue, and a challenge not only for the Filipino government, but for other countries and for us as well. Q. I have two questions. We were just wondering on the timing of the United States putting the bounty on Dulmatin and Umar Patek, because I think in Jakarta these two are not even prominent. How come they were given that very high bounty? And about the timing—I think these two people have been in the Philippines since April 2003, and for almost two years they have been roaming in southern Philippines. How come the bounty was only raised
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now? My second question is that there are obvious links between the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), JI (Jemaah Islamiya) and the Abu Sayyaf. Do you think there’s some contradiction when the Philippine government said that they don’t want the MILF to be listed as a terrorist group when there are obvious links between the elements of the MILF, the JI and the Abu Sayyaf? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: On your first question—there are a variety of factors and variables that come into our decision regarding use of the Rewards for Justice program. These include close consultation with our foreign government partners, and we also look at threat reporting, and the impact of such a reward. All these things come together when we make a decision. We think this is the right decision and we think that it will certainly help the Philippine government, countries of the region, and us in capturing these two enemy leaders. Regarding your second question—I must note that I am encouraged and hopeful concerning the ongoing peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the MILF. I’m also grateful for the role that the government of Malaysia is playing in brokering these negotiations. We all need to see these negotiations come to a successful conclusion and to bring the MILF into the fold because not only will it bring them into the broader community here in the Philippines, it will require the MILF to participate and help the Philippine government in counterterrorism efforts. We think this is the right way to go. We also believe that when this accord is signed, it will put enormous pressure on Jemaah Islamiya and the Abu Sayyaf Group. So in the long term we think this is the most effective way forward, and important in bringing the political elements in the Philippines together. Q. There has been a lot of talk about civic-military operations in the south involving U.S. forces. Has there been any significant shift of engagement as far as the U.S. forces are concerned from specific anti-terrorism activities or projects into a civic-military component? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: That’s a good question. Counter-terrorism is not only about intelligence and law enforcement and military efforts. It is a much broader issue than that. It encompasses economic assistance and the broader rule of law. It requires building liberal institutions of civic society, and the importance of providing economic opportunity and hope. This is part of our broader counter-terrorism policy and strategy.… Since 1991, U.S. assistance to the Philippines has exceeded a billion U.S. dollars. We’re hopeful that this, plus non-state actors, and private investors will follow suit, especially once these areas that are stabilized—as has occurred in Basilan for example. So this assistance plays a critical role in our counter-terrorism efforts. Q. What is the explanation on the shifting of role of the U.S. in the Philippines fight against terrorism—and Australia’s keen interest in the fight against terrorism in Southeast Asia most particularly in the Philippines? Do you suppose that Australia is the U.S. proxy in the war on terrorism in Southeast Asia and with its apparent entry to the ASEAN Summit, will that change the course of how ASEAN is handling the counter-terrorism campaign? Is Australia taking the role from the U.S. in a military way in combating terrorism? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: No, we don’t see it that way at all. We see an extraordinarily close relationship throughout the region with the various
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governments and we certainly welcome Australia’s contributions. We defer of course to the government of the Philippines and to the government of Australia to work out the details of that bilateral relationship. As I noted in my opening statement, the more regional cooperation we have, the more regional interdependence—that is a great thing. Q. … [H]ow well prepared or ill prepared is the Philippines, in your assessment for the threat of biochemical attacks? Second, how real is the threat of biochemical attacks in the Philippines? Is there any specific group which is planning, or have any of the groups which we now know are involved in terrorist operations planning any specific biochemical warfare attack in the future? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: I have concerns not only about the Philippines, but about all countries’ preparations for chemical or biological attack. It is extraordinarily difficult to detect in many respects, and our defenses need to be improved. One example is avian influenza, which is a major challenge for us, and I think there are many similarities between this and a biochemical weapons attack. Regarding your second question: Al-Qaida and its affiliates like Jemaah Islamiyah have made their intentions abundantly clear. You can read their public statements, you can read the training manuals that have been captured, you can go to the Internet and see the instructions there about chemical and biological weapons and the use of toxins. Moreover, they have demonstrated this. In Afghanistan, anthrax laboratories were revealed after 2001 and 2002, and we know that Al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah were looking at Southeast Asia as a target. This is a concern for every nation in the world, because if your have a biological attack, it is not only a problem in Manila, it will be problem in Chicago, in London, in Buenos Aires, in Sydney.… Q. Sir, in your meetings with Philippine officials during the last two days, what were the discussions? Did you discuss anything about U.S. assistance in terms of counter terrorism? Can you give us more specific details? For example, for next year, how much will the Philippines get from the U.S. in terms of counter terrorism? What kind of program are we expecting from the U.S.? My second question is based on U.S. assessment, what is the role of Mindanao in the Jemaah Islamiyah’s campaign for a pan-Islamic state in the region? They were saying that Mindanao could be just a safe haven, but the presence of JI could become a base operation where they can plan, and they can stage attacks from that site? Thank you. AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: I think I’ve got three questions. The first is the content of my meetings with Philippine government officials here. I must say I was impressed by their focus on counterterrorism. We had a very frank exchange and a broad range of discussions. I met with Secretary of National Defense Cruz, I met with the Foreign Affairs Secretary, I met with my counterpart, the Ambassador for Counterterrorism here. I met with the President, met with leaders in the AFP and PNP, and we talked about everything from economic aid to technical assistance, to integrating our efforts across the board, not just here but anywhere we can help each other. Our talks were fairly broad ranging, and I would prefer not to go into details of specific operations that we discussed. Regarding your second question regarding how much we will we invest, I’ll give you one figure in terms of military assistance. In fiscal year 2004,
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more than a $100 million was spent here in Philippines. There are other programs as well. I’ll give one good example—our Department of Justice has a program in which they assign prosecutors overseas, and there is a US prosecutor here working with the Philippine government looking at the rule of law, not just legislation but how the police and judiciary can work more closely together. I think that this is an important element in counterterrorism. … [A]bout Mindanao. I think that Al-Qaida and its affiliates have made clear their intent. There is an objective to establish a pan-Islamic state from Morocco all the way to Mindanao. I refer you to the recent letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi, which goes into some detail about their political aspirations. This is not only about killing innocents, it’s not only about disrupting local and state and national governments, it really is challenge to the nation-state system. That is why we talk about the global war on terrorism, since if you look at the enemy’s objectives, they are talking about a fundamental shift in how people or governments are organized—they are talking about doing away with the civil liberties and the human rights that we all cherish and work so hard for. So, yes in a larger sense, Mindanao is part of the enemy’s objectives. Q. Can you tell us in terms of regional cooperation, during your visits to the four countries that you’ve been to, what do you think should be the biggest focus at this point to improve or enhance cooperation among countries in the region? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: It is such a broad front. We must engage this problem, from developing liberal institutions and economic investment, all the way to intelligence collection, law enforcement and sometimes military power. To pick out only one front would be incorrect … Q. There is now this move by the Philippine government to pass the antiterrorism bill but there are also some talk opposing this. In your opinion, how important is this anti-terrorism bill to be passed in Congress? AMBASSADOR CRUMPTON: How important is the anti-terrorism legislation that’s pending? We think it is very important. In the U.S., we struggled with this, and we continue to struggle with it, because it is a very complex issue. We passed the Patriot Act and we reformed our intelligence community, and there is an ongoing debate over how we can better address these threats through the rule of law and legislation. I think it is very important that we continue these efforts in the U.S., and important for the Philippine government to move forward with the legislation. We need to give the police and the judiciary the tools they need to engage the enemy and protect the citizens of the Philippine nation, and I am hopeful that this legislation will do that. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/55700.htm
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Press Briefing, United States Embassy in Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 4, 2006 SECRETARY RICE: … This is a region that, obviously, September 11th changed dramatically American strategic interests and perspective in the region. It’s hard to look back and think about Afghanistan from five years ago, when the Taliban was in power, when in fact the relationship between Afghanistan and
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Pakistan was one in good—Pakistan was one of the only countries that actually recognized the Taliban. If you look back to December of 2001 or June of 2002, you had a situation in which everybody worried about war between India and Pakistan. And you come here now, and there’s been a dramatic change in the relationships among the countries, but also in the relationships with the United States. And even though, obviously, September 11th and the war on terror have very much shaped these relationships and the strategic nature of them, I think that it’s clear from all three that they are much more than that. Now there are broad relationships in Afghanistan—a relationship of helping to have given rise to a young democracy there, and now trying to help stabilize that young democracy, trying to build a country that, after 25 years of civil war, obviously has a very tough road ahead, to India, which I might note that the President, also back in 2000 when he was running for office, noted the importance of the rise of India, and has followed through on his determination to build a strategic, broad relationship with India. I know that there’s a lot of focus on the civil nuclear deal, which is an important step forward, and I think really does bring India into the mainstream on non-proliferation policy. And for a country that has really an excellent relationship on proliferation, now will give access to the IAEA, to its civilian nuclear industry. And I know that a lot of the focus was on that, but if you just looked at the agricultural agreement, harkening back to the grain revolution of the ’60s, the business roundtable, the CEOs, the relationship with the business school, if you look to the extraordinary defense relationship that we now have with India, where there were exercises here just before the President arrived, air exercises, that’s obviously a deep and broad relationship, based on our common democratic and multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious—we share those elements. Obviously, Pakistan has a road ahead of it, in terms of democratic development. I think President Musharraf spoke to that this afternoon. But I would just—today, I think you have to look back at where Pakistan was in September of 2001. This was a country that, I think, was very, very close to losing completely the grip on extremism, very close to Talibanization of its own, and probably just a step away from losing the chance to ever return to a state of moderation in this region. And I think that you’ve seen now, over the last several years, when you think about women’s rights, when you think about minority rights for religious groups, you’ve seen some changes in a positive direction. Q. There was a story a while back about how Karzai had hand delivered some information to Pakistan about some of the extremists down in the western and southern part. The thought was that he wanted Pakistan to do more to crack down. Was that discussed today, the border issues, and can you give us a sense on how each one of them were handling that issue? SECRETARY RICE: Sure. We discussed it in Afghanistan, and we discussed it here. There are efforts underway—the United States has tried to help the two cooperate more, through trilateral type of efforts. And I think it’s fair to say that this is not easy. This is a very hard place. This region hasn’t been controlled for years, ever. The British didn’t control it; the Pakistanis have never
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controlled it. And I think that the Afghans understand that, but they, like everybody, are suffering from the fact that this is a region that is producing a lot of violence and has been an area in which terrorists have operated. I don’t think there’s anyone who wants more to get them than President Musharraf. After all, these are folks who tried to kill him a few times, who are very much a block to his—a hindrance to his efforts to root out extremism in Pakistan. But it’s a very hard area. I think the more cooperation that you have, and that’s one thing that we’ve been encouraging, in intelligence, the more that specialized forces start to be developed that can deal like regions like this—and I think both in Pakistan and Afghanistan you’re seeing the development of more specialized forces, the better that they’re going to do. But this is a very tough region. Q. Did the President ask him to do anything? SECRETARY RICE: Oh, the President discussed it in full with him, and— Q. What was the message to him? SECRETARY RICE: Well, the message was to him, we all have to really work hard and continue our efforts in this very difficult region—is there anything more that we can do, is there anything more that Afghanistan and Pakistan can do together? I mean, it was more of a kind of problem solving approach. Q. What did you say? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I’m not going to go into details here, but we’re working it. Everybody is working it. There are long histories of suspicion between Afghanistan and Pakistan. That’s no secret to anyone. What’s remarkable is that they now have a relationship in which President Karzai could come here, could present information to President Musharraf, could talk to him about it, and they can agree to work together. But this has been a difficult relationship for a long time. It’s getting—the good news is that they’re getting better. That picture that we had last year, of President Bush, President Karzai and President Musharraf in the same room, you could not have taken just a few years ago. Q. That having been said, it is a difficult region, and I’m sure everyone at the table today acknowledged it. President Musharraf has a delicate balancing act as he tries to move forward. But does President Bush feel like U.S. forces, U.S. intelligence has the ability to act in that border region, and pursue every tangible lead in a real-time way, or are there obstacles that need to be dealt with? SECRETARY RICE: We have a very good, cooperative relationship with the Pakistanis. It is a politically delicate area, and we coordinate and we work closely together. I don’t think you’ll find a closer working relationship than Ambassador Crocker and the military here and General Abizaid and with the Pakistanis. Everybody wants to defeat these terrorists in this region. One point that I would make about the region is, yes, it’s delicate, but President Musharraf talked about not just getting the terrorists, which is obviously extremely important, but also creating conditions in this region where terrorism won’t continue to breed. So one thing that we talked about today is a zone, kind of an opportunity zone, in the area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which could give some economic development to this region by tariff-free export to the United States. So you also have to do some—this has been an area that’s been economically and politically isolated for its entire history …
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So there’s a short-term effort—the Pakistani military is fighting up there, as I said, nobody has, ever. They’re changing the kinds of forces that they use up there in order to be more effective. They’re working very closely with us, and they also are—we always talk about winning the hearts and minds, well, this is an effort to reintegrate that region into Pakistan proper. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/62594.htm
President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Press Conference, The White House, May 16, 2006 PRESIDENT BUSH: … I admire John Howard’s understanding that the war on terror still goes on and that we’ve got to be steadfast and firm if we intend to succeed in defeating the terrorists. Secondly, I appreciate very much his understanding and discussions about the way forward in Iraq. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the new government. I described to him as best as I could my feelings about the Prime Minister-designee, who I believe is a firm and decisive person that is going to make a difference in that country’s future. I thanked him very much for the commitment of Australian troops. We of course talked about the Iraqi security forces’ capacity to defend themselves. I reported to him that we’re pleased with the progress being made, but that the United States will make decisions about our troop levels based upon conditions on the ground. We talked about Afghanistan, … North Korea, … Iran. We talked about a lot. And that’s what you’d expect when you’re talking to an ally and a friend and a good strategic thinker. PRIME MINISTER HOWARD: … The war against terror will go on for a long time; I think we have to accept that. Progress is being made. The challenge remains very, very strong and there needs to be a continued commitment. And we admire and respect the leadership given by you and by the United States in that war. And it’s a war that confronts us all. Those who imagine that somehow or other you can escape it by rolling yourself into a little ball and going over in the corner and hoping that you’re not going to be noticed are doomed to be very, very uncomfortably disappointed. We did have an opportunity to talk extensively about some of the challenges in our immediate region. And I spoke about the situation in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, and the importance of the role of Indonesia. The symbolism and also the practical consequence of Indonesia being the largest Islamic country in the world, and, therefore, the success and prosperity of moderate Islamic leadership in that country is itself a very important factor in the long-term success of the fight against terrorism, because the fight against terrorism is not only a military and physical one, it is also an intellectual one. And it’s a question of providing within the Islamic world a successful democratic model as an alternative to the fanaticism of those who would have seemly invoked the sanction of Islam to justify what they seek to do. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060516-1.html
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President George W. Bush and President Musharraf, Press Conference, The East Room of the White House, Washington, D.C., September 22, 2006 PRESIDENT BUSH: … This President is a strong defender of freedom and the people of Pakistan, and I appreciate your leadership … He understands that we are in a struggle against extremists who will use terror as a weapon. He understands it just about as good as anybody in the world—after all, they’ve tried to take his life. These extremists who can’t stand the thought of a moderate leader leading an important country like Pakistan want to kill the President. That should say things to the people of Pakistan and the people of America, that because he has been a strong, forceful leader, he has become a target of those who can’t stand the thought of moderation prevailing. I admire your leadership. I admire your courage. And I thank you very much for working on common strategies to protect our respective peoples. We had a good discussion here today. We talked about how our intelligence cooperation can continue. I want to remind the people of Pakistan and the people of America that because of the good work of our intelligence forces and Pakistani intelligence forces, as we helped people in the United Kingdom, we prevented the loss of innocent life. That kind of cooperation is necessary in a world in which extremists and radicals are willing to kill to try to achieve political objective President Musharrf and I discussed the entire gambit of relations bilaterally between the United States and Pakistan, and also in our region and on international issues. Bilaterally, we reinforced our desire to have this relationship on a long-term basis, broad-based, and a strategic relationship. When we are talking of broad-based … it involves all aspects which we discussed. It has its political and diplomatic aspects, which we reinforced, and then our desire to fight terrorism and succeed against terrorism. PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: … We had an in-depth discussion on what is happening in Afghanistan and our tribal agency. They are—I explained to him whatever we are doing in the form of the peace treaty that we have just signed through a grand jirga, which is an assembly of elders. This treaty is not to deal with the Taliban. It is actually to fight the Taliban. The misperception in the media, I did clarify to the President. And may I very briefly say—and what I explained to the President—that this is a holistic approach that we are taking to fighting terrorism in Pakistan, in the tribal agencies of Pakistan. This is a political site of the holistic strategy—the holistic strategy being the military arm being used, a political element, an administrative element, and a reconstruction element. … The deal has three bottom lines, which we fixed for ourselves. And this is very important, which I explained to the President. Number one, there will be no al Qaeda activity in our tribal agency or across the border in Afghanistan. There will be no Taliban activity in our tribal agency or across in Afghanistan. There will be no Talibanization, which is an obscuritas thoughts or way of life—no Talibanization. All these three have been agreed by the tribal elders who signed that deal. And when they signed
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the deal, they are honor-bound, and they have already strict honor code to not only abide by it, but also that whoever violates it, they’ll move against them. So this is, in brief, the deal which I explained to the President. And I know that he’s satisfied with that deal. Q. Mr. President, after 9/11, would the United States have actually attacked Pakistan if President Musharraf had not agreed to cooperate with the war on terrorism? He says that the United States was threatening to bomb his country back into the stone age. And, President Musharraf, would Pakistan have given up its backing of the Taliban if this threat had not come from Armitage? PRESIDENT BUSH: First, let me—she’s asking about the Armitage thing. The first I heard of this was when I read it in the newspaper today. You know, I was—I guess I was taken aback by the harshness of the words. All I can tell you is, is that shortly after 9/11, Secretary Colin Powell came in and said, President Musharraf understands the stakes and he wants to join and help route out an enemy that has come and killed 3,000 of our citizens. As a matter of fact, my recollection was that one of the first leaders to step up and say that the stakes have changed, that attack on America that killed 3,000 of the citizens needs to be dealt with firmly, was the President. And if I’m not mistaken, Colin told us that, if not the night of September the 11th, shortly thereafter. I need to make sure I get my facts straight, but it was soon. I don’t know of any conversation that was reported in the newspaper like that. I just don’t know about it. PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: I would like to—I am launching my book on the 25th, and I am honor-bound to Simon and Schuster not to comment on the book before that day. PRESIDENT BUSH: In other words, buy the book, is what he’s saying. Q. My question is for the U.S. President. Your Excellency, President Musharraf has issued a call for building bridges and promoting interfaith harmony between the West and the Islamic world, which is in upheaval and in complete turmoil. So your comments of Islamic fascists, and then the comments of the Pope, have inflamed the Islamic world. And my question is that would you take the leading role, along with President Musharraf, to build these bridges and promote interfaith harmony to avert any wrong notion of class of civilizations, sir? PRESIDENT BUSH: I appreciate the President’s leadership in promoting harmony. There is unbelievable propaganda in the Middle East these days that try to inflame passion. The propagandists are attempting to create conditions where terror is justified. And so at my speech at the United Nations, I stood up and said loud and clear, America respects Islam. And we do. We don’t respect people who kill in the name of Islam to achieve political objectives, like the terrorists do. As a matter of fact, these extremists exploit propaganda in order to justify their behavior. All of us need to step up and talk about a world in which we respect each other’s religions. As a matter of fact, it’s very important for Muslims around the world to know there’s a lot of Muslims living at peace here in the United States. They are proud Americans and they’re equal to me as a citizen. We respect their religions.
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I repeat to you, however, that the free world and the moderate world must stand up to these extremists and not let them spread their hateful propaganda, not let them try to incite people to acts of violence, because these extremists are not only against Western people, they’re also against moderate people. And the President is reaching out to help understand—the world to understand the Muslim religion is a peaceful religion is very important. And we can help, and we will help.… Q. There’s been a back-and-forth this week over whether the U.S. needs permission to strike inside Pakistan if Osama bin Laden is located. Could each of you give your position on that? And did you—are you satisfied with his assurances on the tribal deal? PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, I appreciate the briefing on the tribal deal. When the President looks me in the eye and says, the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people, and that there won’t be a Taliban and won’t be al Qaeda, I believe him, you know? This is a person with whom I’ve now had close working relationships for five-and-a-half years. And when he says, if we find—when we find Osama bin Laden, he will be brought to justice, I believe him. And we’ll let the tactics speak for themselves after it happens. We’re on the hunt together. It’s in the President’s interest that al Qaeda be brought to justice. And it’s in our interest. And we collaborate and we strategize and we talk a lot about how best to do this. Q. So you do have permission to go inside Pakistan? PRESIDENT BUSH: All I can tell you is that when Osama bin Laden is found, he will be brought to justice. And that’s what we’ve continually discussed. PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: I think, as the President said, we are on the hunt together against these people. Now why are we bothering or how to—the semantics of the tactics of how to deal with the situation? We will deal with it. We are on the hunt together. You want the person—if at all we confront him, if at all we find out his location, we are quite clear what to do. But let’s not get involved in how it ought to be done, by whom it ought to be done. There’s total coordination at the intelligence level between the two forces, there’s coordination at the operational level, at the strategic level, even at the tactical level. So, therefore, we are working together, and when the situation arises, we need to pick the right decision to strike. That’s how I— PRESIDENT BUSH: You probably don’t want to let them know what we’re thinking about anyway, do we? SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060922.html
27 Key Documents EDITOR’S NOTE: Following are links and in some cases brief descriptions of key documents relating to U.S. government counterterrorism programs and policies. Because of their length, we are printing only those for which no links are available or which we believe the introduction warrants inclusions.
Report of the Department of Defense, Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Attack, December 20, 1983 EXCERPTED
U.S. Military Response to Terrorism B. Discussion The Commission believes that terrorism as a military threat to U.S. military forces is becoming increasingly serious. As a super power with worldwide interests, the United States is the most attractive terrorist target and, indeed, statistics confirm this observation. Terrorism is warfare ‘‘on the cheap’’ and entails few risks. It permits small countries to attack U.S. interests in a manner, which if done openly, would constitute acts of war and justify a direct U.S. military response. Combating terrorism requires an active policy. A reactive policy only forfeits the initiative to the terrorists. The commission recognizes that there is no single solution. The terrorist problem must be countered politically and militarily at all levels of government. Political initiatives should be directed at collecting and sharing intelligence on terrorist groups, and promptly challenging the behavior of those states which employ terrorism to their own ends. It makes little sense to learn that a State or its surrogate is conducting a terrorist campaign or planning a terrorist attack and not confront that government with political or military consequences if it continues forward. State sponsored terrorism poses a serious threat to U.S. policy and the security of U.S. personnel and facilities overseas and thus merits the attention of
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military planners. The Department of Defense needs to recognize the importance of state sponsored terrorism and must take appropriate measures to deal with it. C. Conclusion The Commission concludes that state sponsored terrorism is an important part of the spectrum of warfare and that adequate response to this increasing threat requires an active national policy which seeks to deter attack or reduce its effectiveness. The Commission further concludes that this policy needs to be supported by a wide range of timely military response capabilities. Recommendation The Commission recommends that the Secretary of Defense direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a broad range of appropriate military responses to terrorism for review, along with political and diplomatic actions by the National Security Council. SOURCE: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AMH/XX/MidEast/Lebanon-19821984/DOD-Report/index.html
Vice President George H.W. Bush, Task Force on Combating Terrorism, February 1986 EDITOR’S NOTE: This report from an interagency task force led by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush followed the TWA 847 hijacking and other major terrorist attacks in 1985. The recommendations codified and laid down the framework for the counterterrorism policies of the Reagan administration and subsequent administrations.
The introduction follows: Fellow Americans: As 1985 closed, the world was shocked by yet another savage terrorist act. The violent attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports left 114 wounded and 18 dead, five of whom were Americans. One was a young American girl of eleven. Earlier in the year we saw the hijackings of TWA Flight 847 and the cruise ship Achille Lauro, where innocent Americans were brutally murdered by international outlaws. Such vicious attacks are representative of what has become a growing trend toward international terrorism over the past decade. Concerned about the increasing loss of American lives, as well as repeated terrorist threats against our citizens, last July President Reagan asked me to chair a Cabinet-level Task Force on Combating Terrorism. Comprised of 14 senior government officials with major responsibilities for our national program to combat terrorism, the Task Force spent the last half of 1985 reviewing and evaluating current U.S. policy and programs. One of the first things we discovered is that Americans view terrorism as one of the most serious problems facing our government, ranking it alongside such issues as the budget deficit and strategic arms control. They want assurance that
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the United States is prepared to handle the growing threat of terrorism, that we have a policy and response mechanism in place, and that we are working to improve our system. Our citizens’ concern is justified, for terrorism has grown at an alarming rate. In 1985 alone there were 812 international incidents, with a loss of 926 lives, including 23 Americans. Clearly the growing threat from increased terrorist activities against U.S. citizens and interests abroad calls for a strengthening of our own programs as well as greater cooperation from foreign governments. Domestically, although there were only seven terrorist incidents in the United States last year, the potential for future problems exists here at home and we must be well prepared. When President Reagan asked our Task Force to review the nation’s program to combat terrorism, it was not primarily a mandate to correct specific deficiencies, but one to reassess U.S. priorities and policies, to ensure that current programs make the best use of available assets, and to determine if our national program is properly coordinated to achieve the most effective results. Our Task Force was briefed by more than 25 government agencies, visited 14 operations centers to observe our capability firsthand, met with over 100 statesmen, military officers, scholars and law enforcement officials, and traveled to embassies and military commands throughout the world where discussions with both U.S. and foreign officials were conducted. I personally met with many members of Congress, airline chief executive officers, media executives, and former Cabinet officials and diplomats. Our conclusion: the U.S. policy and program to combat terrorism is tough and resolute. We firmly oppose terrorism in all forms and wherever it takes place. We are prepared to act in concert with other nations or alone to prevent or respond to terrorist acts. We will make no concessions to terrorists. At the same time, we will use every available resource to gain the safe return of American citizens who are held hostage. Our national program is well-conceived and working. The United States currently has in place antiterrorism activities in virtually every federal department and agency. Specific agencies have been assigned to respond to any threat or attack directed at our citizens whether on foreign soil, here at home, in the air or at sea. To build on these existing safeguards, our Task Force made a number of recommendations to the President in December 1985. The following public report on terrorism includes those unclassified proposals dealing with improved coordination among government agencies, plus the creation of a full-time position on the National Security Council staff and the establishment of a consolidated intelligence center on terrorism. The Task Force also is recommending strong Administration support of proposed legislation calling for the death penalty against any terrorist who kills an American hostage. Additional proposals cover increased cooperation with other governments and outline expanded communications programs with families of hostage victims, the media and the general public. While international terrorism poses a complex, dangerous threat for which there is no quick or easy solution, I believe that the recommendations of our Task Force will significantly improve America’s capability for combating
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terrorism. As long as vicious attacks continue, terrorism will remain a top priority of this Administration. SOURCE: http://www.populationsecurity.org/bush_report_on_terrorism/bush_report_ on_terrorism.htm
PRESIDENTIAL STRATEGY PAPERS National Strategy for Homeland Security July 16, 2002 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020716.html
National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, The White House, September 2006 1. Overview of America’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism 2. Today’s Realities in the War on Terror s Successes s Challenges 3. Today’s Terrorist Enemy 4. Strategic Vision for the War on Terror 5. Strategy for Winning the War on Terror s Long-term approach: Advancing effective democracy s Over the short term: Four priorities of action n Prevent attacks by terrorist networks n Deny WMD to rogue states and terrorist allies who seek to use them n Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states n Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror 6. Institutionalizing Our Strategy for Long-term Success 7. Conclusion
Overview of America’s National Strategy for Combating Terrorism America is at war with a transnational terrorist movement fueled by a radical ideology of hatred, oppression, and murder. Our National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, first published in February 2003, recognizes that we are at war and that protecting and defending the Homeland, the American people, and their livelihoods remains our first and most solemn obligation. Our strategy also recognizes that the War on Terror is a different kind of war. From the beginning, it has been both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas. Not only do we fight our terrorist enemies on the battlefield, we promote freedom and human dignity as alternatives to the terrorists’ perverse vision of oppression and totalitarian rule. The paradigm for combating terrorism now involves the application of all elements of our national power and influence. Not only do we employ military power, we use diplomatic, financial,
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intelligence, and law enforcement activities to protect the Homeland and extend our defenses, disrupt terrorist operations, and deprive our enemies of what they need to operate and survive. We have broken old orthodoxies that once confined our counterterrorism efforts primarily to the criminal justice domain. This updated strategy sets the course for winning the War on Terror. It builds directly from the National Security Strategy issued in March 2006 as well as the February 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, and incorporates our increased understanding of the enemy. From the beginning, we understood that the War on Terror involved more than simply finding and bringing to justice those who had planned and executed the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Our strategy involved destroying the larger al-Qaida network and also confronting the radical ideology that inspired others to join or support the terrorist movement. Since 9/11, we have made substantial progress in degrading the al-Qaida network, killing or capturing key lieutenants, eliminating safehavens, and disrupting existing lines of support. Through the freedom agenda, we also have promoted the best long-term answer to alQaida’s agenda: the freedom and dignity that comes when human liberty is protected by effective democratic institutions. In response to our efforts, the terrorists have adjusted, and so we must continue to refine our strategy to meet the evolving threat. Today, we face a global terrorist movement and must confront the radical ideology that justifies the use of violence against innocents in the name of religion. As laid out in this strategy, to win the War on Terror, we will: ¥ Advance effective democracies as the long-term antidote to the ideology of terrorism; ¥ Prevent attacks by terrorist networks; ¥ Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states; ¥ Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror; and ¥ Lay the foundations and build the institutions and structures we need to carry the fight forward against terror and help ensure our ultimate success.
Today’s Realities in the War on Terror The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were acts of war against the United States, peaceful people throughout the world, and the very principles of liberty and human dignity. The United States, together with our Coalition partners, has fought back and will win this war. We will hold the perpetrators accountable and work to prevent the recurrence of similar atrocities on any scale—whether at home or abroad. The War on Terror extends beyond the current armed conflict that arose out of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and embraces all facets of continuing U.S. efforts to bring an end to the scourge of terrorism. Ultimately, we will win the long war to defeat the terrorists and their murderous ideology. SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct/2006/
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COMMISSION REPORTS White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security The Gore Commission February 12, 1997 SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/212fin~1.html
‘‘Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism’’ Report of the National Commission on Terrorism The Bremer Commission June 5, 2000 SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html
USS Cole Commission Report, Executive Summary Department of Defense January 9, 2001 SOURCE: http://www.dod.mil/pubs/cole20010109.html
‘‘Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change’’ The Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century February 15, 2001 SOURCE: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/nssg/PhaseIIIFR.pdf
Combating Terrorism: Selected Challenges and Related Recommendations Government Accountability Office Report September 20, 2001 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/gao-01-822.pdf
Combating Terrorism: Interagency Framework and Agency Programs to Address the Overseas Threat Government Accountability Office Report May 2003 SOURCE: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gao/d03165.pdf
The Fifth Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction The Gilmore Commission December 15, 2003 SOURCE: http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/Gilmore-Commission.asp
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States The 9/11 Commission July 22, 2004 SOURCE: http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see Executive Summary: www.9-11commission.gov/report/ 911Report_Exec.pdf
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction Report to the President
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March 31, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.wmd.gov/report/
WMD Commission Report March 31, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/wmd/
Bush Administration Implements WMD Commission Recommendations Actions to Implement WMD Commission Recommendations June 29, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/print/200506292.html
U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS AND CONVENTIONS U.N. International Conventions to Counter Terrorism http://www.un.org/terrorism/instruments.html U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267: The Situation in Afghanistan October 15, 1999 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/2549876.html U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373 September 28, 2001 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/7201249.html U.N. Security Council Resolution 1390: The Situation in Afghanistan January 28, 2002 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/4265667.html U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540: Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction April 28, 2004 http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/8872062.html
PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE ORDERS Executive Order 12947: Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process January 25, 1995 http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/eo/12947.pdf Executive Order 13059: Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to Iran August 19, 1997 http://www.iraniantrade.org/13059.htm Executive Order 13099: Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process, Federal Register, Vol. 63, No. 164 August 20, 1998 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/eo13099.pdf
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Executive Order 13129: On Terrorist Financing Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with the Taliban July 4, 1999 http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13129.htm Executive Order 13224: Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism September 23, 2001 http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13224.htm Executive Order Establishing Office of Homeland Security and Executive Order Establishing the Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council October 8, 2001 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011008-2.html Taliban Executive Order July 3, 2002 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020703-1.html Fact Sheet Executive Order 13224: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism Washington, D.C. December 20, 2002 http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2002/16181.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see statement by President regarding Executive Order 13224 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/08/20030822-2.html).
Executive Order: Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction February 6, 2004 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040206-10.html Executive Order Amendment of Executive Orders, and Other Actions, in Connection with the Transfer of Certain Functions to the Secretary of Homeland Security February 28, 2003 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030228-8.html Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria May 11, 2004 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040511-6.html Executive Order: National Counterterrorism Center August 27, 2004 http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/Executive-Order-08272004-C.asp Executive Order: Termination of Emergency Declared in Executive Order 12543 with Respect to the Policies and Actions of the Government of Libya and Revocation of Related Executive Orders
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September 20, 2004 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040920-5.html Presidential Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence November 23, 2004 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/print/200411235.html EDITOR’S NOTE: For a current list, updated regularly, of terrorists and groups identified under E.O. 13224, see http://www.treasury.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ programs/terror/terror.pdf.
Fact Sheet Supplemental FY 2005 Request for War on Terrorism February 14, 2005 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050214-13.html Executive Order 13382: Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters June 28, 2005 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050629.html Executive Order 133388: Further Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans The White House October 25, 2005 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051025-5.html EDITOR’S NOTE: See text of the Executive Order (http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/ 7/257/2422/01jan20051800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2005/pdf/05-21571.pdf).
Executive Order Blocking Property of Additional Persons in Connection with the National Emergency with Respect to Syria April 26, 2006 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/print/200604261.html Continuation of the National Emergency Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria May 8, 2006 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060508-17.html Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism September 22, 2006 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060921-13.html
EXECUTIVE BRANCH DIRECTIVES, STATEMENTS, AND REPORTS NSDD 30 Managing Terrorist Incidents April 10, 1982 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd30.pdf
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NSDD 109 Responding to the Lebanon Crisis October 23, 1983 SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-109.htm
NSDD 138 Combating Terrorism April 3, 1984 (unclassified excerpts) SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd138.pdf
NSDD 149 Support to Government of Lebanon in Planning for Counter Terrorism Operations November 1, 1984 SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/index.html EDITOR’S NOTE: NSDD 149 remains classified as it has not been reviewed for release or release has been denied in full.
NSDD 180 Civilian Aviation Anti-Terrorism Program July 20, 1985 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd180.pdf
NSDD 205 Acting Against Libyan Support of International Terrorism January 8, 1986 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd205.pdf
NSDD 205 Annex Acting Against Libyan Support of International Terrorism January 8, 1986 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd205a.pdf
NSDD 207 The National Program for Combating Terrorism January 20, 1986 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd207.pdf
NSDD 221 Narcotics and National Security April 8, 1986 SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-221.htm
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 39 ‘‘U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism’’ Signed by President Clinton on June 21, 1995 PDD-39 establishes the roles and responsibilities for the many government agencies that are involved in the government’s counterterrorism response. It says that the national policy of the United States is to regard acts of terrorism as both a threat to national security and a criminal act, and to respond vigorously to all such acts on our territory or against our citizens wherever they occur. SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm
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Usama bin Ladin: Islamic Extremist Financier Central Intelligence Agency Report 1996 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/ciaubl.pdf
PDD-62, Establishing National Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the NSC May 22, 1998 SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd-62.htm
U.S. Counterterrorism Policy and Organization Roger Cressey, Director, Transnational Threats National Security Council September 27, 2000 SOURCE: http://web.mit.edu/ssp/seminars/wed_archives_00fall/cressey.htm
Department of Defense Instruction 2000.16, DoD Antiterrorism Standards June 14, 2001 SOURCE: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/2000.16.pdf
NSPD 9 Combating Terrorism October 25, 2001 (unclassified excerpts) SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-9.htm EDITOR’S NOTE: While much of the document remains classified, the released excerpts constitute the broad outline of the U.S. strategy against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
NSPD 17 National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction December 2002 (unclassified version) SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-17.html
Treasury Department Report on Progress in the War on Terrorist Financing September 11, 2003 SOURCE: http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/js721.pdf
Office of Counterterrorism ‘‘Terrorist Exclusion List’’ December 29, 2004 Section 411 of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (8 U.S.C. § 1182) authorized the Secretary of State, in consultation with or upon the request of the Attorney General, to designate terrorist organizations for immigration purposes. This authority is known as the ‘‘Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL)’’ authority. A TEL designation bolsters homeland security efforts by facilitating the U.S. government’s ability to exclude aliens associated with entities on the TEL from entering the United States. SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2004/32678.htm
Fact Sheet Supplemental FY 2005 Request for War on Terrorism February 14, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050214-13.html
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Richard Boucher, Spokesmen, U.S. State Department Designation of Islamic Jihad as Specifically Designated Global Terrorist May 26, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/46838.htm
Office of Counterterrorism ‘‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’’ October 11, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm
Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing The White House December 16, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051216-9.html
State Department Paper on WMD-Terrorism Risk (undated) SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/t/isn/wmd/c16583.htm
State Department Paper Rebuilding Iraq: U.S. Achievements Through the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund U.S. Department of State February 2006 SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/60952.pdf
Treasury: Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) January 26, 2007 (updated) SOURCE: http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/index.html
STATE DEPARTMENT ANNUAL TERRORISM REPORTS TO CONGRESS U.S. Department of State Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism Country Reports on Terrorism 2005 United States Department of State Publication 11324 April 2006 SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/65462.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: For earlier reports, see http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/.
U.S. Department of State Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 April 2007 SOURCE: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/
MESSAGES TO CONGRESS Letter to Congress on American Campaign Against Terrorism Including Military Deployment-Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate
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September 24, 2001 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-17.html
Presidential Letter Text of a Letter from President George W. Bush to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate Reporting on the Use of U.S. Troops in the War on Terrorism September 19, 2003 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/print/200309191.html
Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing The White House December 16, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051216-9.html
INTERNATIONAL STATEMENTS Text of U.S.- EU Declaration on Combating Terrorism G-8 Summit Meeting at Dromoland Castle Shannon, Ireland June 26, 2004 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040626-5.html
U.S.-EU Declaration on Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Non Proliferation and the Fight Against Terrorism June 20, 2005 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050620-1.html EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/39656.htm.
U.S.-EU Summit Declaration: Promoting Peace, Human Rights, and Democracy Worldwide Vienna, Austria June 21, 2006 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060621-2.html
Statement on Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Rabat, Morocco November 1, 2006 SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061101.html
28 Coordination and Strategies Coordinating the U.S. government’s counterterrorism program is a major challenge, with scores of agencies involved in one aspect or another of the issue, billions of dollars being spent annually on various programs, and numerous priorities to be met. Covering the issue fully would require preparing an additional volume, especially to discuss the Department of Homeland Security with its various start-up problems. Different Congressional Committees have taken up one or more aspects of the coordination problem over the years. The State Department has worked over the years to coordinate the numerous facets in dealing with foreign countries, such as countering terrorism financing, providing training to friendly governments, and keeping an eye on law enforcement activities and investigations conducted overseas by the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Other aspects of the problem are included in the chapters on Homeland Security and Civilian Programs, such as the interagency group for coordinating the counterterrorism research and development program. For space reasons, we have chosen to focus in this chapter on one of the more recent Congressional hearings, the House of Representatives Armed Services hearing on April 4, 2006. Admiral E.P. Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified on the military aspects of coordination. He testified that the Defense Department is developing a road map to track its efforts and bolster its capabilities with its partners. On the State Department side, Henry Crumpton, the coordinator for counterterrorism, testified about the administration’s strategic goals and interagency coordination. The chapter also includes references to the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism issued by the White House in September 2006.
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Chairman Curt Weldon, ‘‘Improving Interagency Coordination in the Global War on Terrorism and Beyond,’’ Opening Statement Before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, April 4, 2006 As we fight the global war on terror, we face a determined, adaptive and ruthless enemy. Since this war began, President Bush and other senior leaders have repeatedly said that, to preserve our freedom in the face of such an enemy, we must use all the instruments of our national power—such as the diplomatic, economic, intelligence, law enforcement and military elements. Given this Committee’s particular focus on our Armed Forces, I would add that this effort cannot involve only—or even primarily—America’s military services. Simply put: the fronts of engagement are so vast, no one agency can fight this war alone. So it follows that to effectively employ all of America’s instruments of national power, the organizations involved—from cabinet agencies to other non-defense agencies—must collaborate and cooperate as seamlessly as possible. But, to quote one recent witness, interagency coordination is ‘‘both essential and lacking.’’ Many other administration officials, military leaders and non-government experts have echoed this assertion. In fact, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) recent Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) notes this deficiency in a section devoted to ‘‘achieving unity of effort.’’ To illustrate the challenge, it cites the relationship in the field between DoD’s combatant commanders and the State Department’s Chiefs of Mission, concluding that people from the two agencies ‘‘must expend considerable effort, on a case-bycase basis, to act together in support of operations.’’ The result, according to the QDR, is that ‘‘Commanders and Chiefs of Mission lose agility in the face of an adaptive adversary, fleeting targets are missed, and risks to U.S. interests and those of our partners increase.’’ We look forward to the witnesses commenting on this particular issue. Experts cite various factors as to why such joint collaborations are ultimately unresponsive, cumbersome and slow: they point, for example, to the different legal authorities, philosophies, cultures and missions that guide each agency. Today, this Committee looks forward to the witnesses’ assessments regarding the state of interagency coordination, the progress being made to address particular areas of concern and how, if appropriate, Congress might help. This Committee wants to be as supportive as possible in achieving the goal of seamless interagency coordination. If the way we are currently arranged is not flexible or responsive or comprehensive enough to meet this war’s frontline demands—and that appears to be so—we must critically examine our interagency relationships. Then we must make the necessary strategic and institutional changes to eliminate the stovepipes that restrict resources, information and expertise. The longer we wait to address the root of this national security challenge, the more difficult it will be to fix. We should therefore ensure in all proper haste that we can use instruments of national power as easily and as effectively as situations on the ground demand.
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SOURCE: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2006_h/060404weldon-2.pdf
Admiral E. P. Giambastiani, U.S. Navy, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Statement Before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006 I am especially pleased to be here to speak about interagency coordination, a critical issue. In my almost 40 years in uniform, I have experienced two events that have truly transformed the Department of Defense: ¥ The move to an All-Volunteer Force, mandated by Congress in 1973; and ¥ The passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.
Goldwater-Nichols’ success proves its value as a model for improving integration among disparate but related organizations that share a common goal. DoD’s experience in implementing Goldwater-Nichols provides us with particular insights into the challenges ahead as we seek to expand that success throughout the Federal Government. I want to make three main points about improving interagency cooperation … First, I want to briefly review actions already underway to better improve interagency efforts, both at the national level and within DoD. At the national level, most of our effort has been focused on military support to stability, security, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) activities. National Security Presidential Directive-44, ‘‘Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization,’’ set the State and Defense Departments on track to unify their SSTR efforts. DoD has taken steps to implement NSPD44 through the DoD Directive on military support to SSTR operations, signed out on November 28, 2005. Perhaps most importantly, this Directive establishes SSTR operations as a core military mission, on par with combat operations. This builds on the Stability Operations Joint Operating Concept, which joined joint concepts on Major Combat Operations, Homeland Defense and Strategic Deterrence. As a Combatant Command, Joint Forces Command led the SSTR effort. DoD has also been looking more broadly at interagency requirements. Better integrating DoD’s capabilities into the national effort was a key topic of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR. The QDR concluded that we in DoD need to do more to share expertise in planning, training, and professional development and education with our partners in the federal government and with key allies and friends. To ensure DoD’s senior leaders don’t lose sight of our progress, we have directed the development of a roadmap tracking our efforts to build partner capabilities. This roadmap is currently being staffed, but will be publicly available as soon as it is approved. These efforts build on actions already underway both outside and inside DoD. As a Combatant Commander, I directed intense and substantial support to the State Department’s effort to stand up the Coordinator for Reconstruction
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and Stabilization (S/CRS), commissioned in July 2004. S/CRS is a huge step forward in our national ability to develop concepts, experiment, and exercise together, and to build interagency capabilities that are particularly important for the civilian workforce. We also have a great model that has been operational in Southern Command since 1994, when an existing military Joint Task Force combating the drug trade in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific was transformed into a Joint Interagency Task Force called JIATF-South. This unique task force is composed of joint, interagency, and international personnel, including members from all of the military services, many US Federal law enforcement agencies, a large number of intelligence agencies, and liaison officers from 13 countries. Second, though we’re making progress, improving the integration of various agencies is, in my view, an area ripe for further transformation. The Global War on Terror is primarily a communications, cultural, political, economic, and diplomatic war, with strategically-important security and military components. In Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, most of the key activities for success are the responsibility of organizations beyond the uniformed military. Security is a prerequisite, but other agencies must step up to solidify progress. Most of our interagency counterparts are beginning to take steps to build capabilities within their own departments. However, in my judgment, at the Federal level we can improve upon our structure, authorities, and tools to more effectively integrate executive branch actions in the Global War on Terror. As always, it is harder to identify solutions than problems, and I don’t know what all of the potential solutions might be. There are, however, areas where you can help. Section 1206 of the FY06 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the Secretary of Defense to build the capacity of foreign countries to conduct counterterrorist or stability operations. We thank you for your support for this key provision, but more needs to be done … I also appreciate your help with Section 1207 of the FY06 authorization bill, which enhances interagency cooperation by authorizing the Secretary of Defense to transfer funds to the Secretary of State for the purpose of facilitating reconstruction, security or stabilization assistance to a foreign country. This is another key step toward helping us work together more effectively with both our interagency and international partners. Finally, I ask for your support for the FY07 request for State’s Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization office. As mentioned earlier, this is a critical capability to help us build our capacity and break out of our traditional stovepipes. … [W]e also have to think about our national assets. Only 18 percent of our GDP is generated by the federal government. Therefore, when we think about applying all of our national capabilities, we also have to consider elements outside of government. That is why a wide-ranging conversation is needed, to include experts in think tanks and academia—the work begun by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Beyond GoldwaterNichols is just one example of type of work that can help.… SOURCE: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2006_h/060404giambastiani.pdf
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Ambassador Henry A. Crumpton, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, ‘‘Improving Interagency Coordination for the Global War on Terror and Beyond,’’ Testimony Before the House Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006 … I am delighted to have an opportunity to brief you on the State Department’s role in this issue of vital importance to the national security of the United States. The very title of this hearing indicates that you believe, as I do, that we must have a comprehensive government strategy, employing all the elements of U.S. national power—domestic and foreign, to win this war on terrorism. Today, I would like to offer our perspective of the rapidly evolving terrorist enemy, the global battlefield, and our field-driven, interagency strategy to address this threat. The Enemy In general terms, Al Qaida and affiliated forces—the terrorist group which currently poses the greatest threat to the United States, its allies and partners—represent a multilayered threat. They operate on four levels: global, regional, national, and local. We must engage this enemy on all levels simultaneously. Moreover, the enemy exhibits many of the characteristics of an insurgency, one that aims to overthrow the existing world order and replace it with a reactionary, authoritarian, transnational entity. This enemy collects intelligence, employs denial and deception, uses subversion, wages propaganda campaigns, engages in sabotage, and, of course, embraces terror as a defining tactic. This is a generational struggle. Defeating it will require stamina, focus, interagency coordination, and a global response executed regionally, nationally, and locally. We must attack the enemy ‘‘threat complex’’ in three strategic areas: First, terrorist leadership: Due in large measure to the success of the United States and its partners, Al Qaida’s core leadership is dead, incarcerated, or on the run. It no longer plays the central recruiting and command role it once did. This success means that we face a more diffuse, less capable, but in many ways more dangerous enemy than we did in October 2001. There are the dangerous remnants of the al Qaida leadership, but now also regional leaders such as Zarqawi in Iraq. Second, we must eliminate terrorist safehaven. There are three basic types of enemy safehaven: ¥ Physical safehaven—these are failed or failing states, under-governed areas and state sponsors who provide places for terrorists to hide, train and organize. Many of these safehavens are on borderlands between national boundaries, for example in the Sulawesi Sea littoral or the Afghan-Pakistan border. Denying safehaven in these areas, therefore, requires a regional strategy. ¥ Cyber-safehaven—terrorists increasingly rely on the Internet to communicate, recruit, train, fund raise and plan attacks. Dealing with this safehaven at the same time as we advance our deeply held values of freedom of speech and the free flow
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of information poses difficult legal and practical challenges. Yet, we must contest the enemy in this area because of their growing presence and sophistication in using the internet. ¥ Ideological safehavens—These are belief systems, ideas and cultural norms that either encourage violent extremism or keep communities from denying support to terrorists or speaking out against terror. These small areas of ideological refuge often surface with individual leaders or single institutions, then spread within the cracks of society. The Finsbury mosque in London is one example.
Finally, and most challenging, we must address the underlying conditions that terrorists exploit. These include geo-political issues or ethnic struggles such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, which have been aggregated into a perception—even if it is false—that the Muslim world is disrespected and aggrieved. Al Qaida exploits local grievances, communal conflicts, and economic injustice. Al Qaida offers empty promises, but promises that resonate nonetheless. Poverty and tyranny does not cause terrorism, but terrorists exploit a sense of helplessness for which economic prosperity, liberal democracy, and hope all offer real, if sometimes distant, answers. A Strategy for Defeating the Enemy Countering this multi-layered threat requires calibrated application of all the elements of U.S. national power: diplomacy, information, intelligence and covert action, economic power, military power, and the rule of law. How we calibrate and orchestrate these tools of national power—most of which are international in focus, but some of which require domestic efforts—is the key. We must also build trusted networks that undermine, marginalize and isolate the enemy, displace terrorist networks from the societies on which they prey, and empower legitimate alternatives to extremism. We must act over an extended time-frame, to isolate the threat, defeat the isolated threat, and prevent its re-emergence. Domestically, we must build resistance to radical influences that wish to harm the American people. Our effort is structured at multiple levels—a global campaign to counter Al Qaida and associated networks; a series of regional cooperative efforts to deny terrorist safehavens; and numerous national security and development assistance operations designed to build liberal institutions, support the rule of law and enhance our partners’ capacity to resist the threat and address the conditions that terrorists exploit—all focused on unique local conditions. Key to this strategy is that we must work with or through partners at every level, whenever possible. How, in practical terms, do we accomplish this? Internationally, our Ambassadors, as the President’s personal representatives abroad, are uniquely poised to bring all the elements of U.S. national power to bear against the terrorist enemy. The interagency Country Teams they oversee develop strategies to help host nations understand the terrorist threat and strengthen host government political will and capacity to counter it. Bilaterally, some of these interagency programs have proven highly successful. Last month, the Department of State, USAID, and PACOM orchestrated a campaign of public diplomacy, assistance development, and civil-military operations in Jolo, a long time Abu Sayyaf safehaven in the center of the southern Philippines’ Sulu Archipelago,
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to undercut the enemy presence. Moreover, this local effort demonstrated to the local population that they can have a future free from terrorism. There are other examples of interdependent interagency teams working at local levels, such as the Provincial Reconstruction Teams operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. As part of the State Department’s transformational diplomacy strategy, 100 slots, with more to follow, have been shifted to areas of CT concern; many of these slots will be for local deployment, outside the traditional capital cities, often in concert with U.S. military deployments. But as I noted earlier, we need more than local or national bilateral programs to root out transnational safehavens. With that in mind, we have worked with our interagency partners to develop regional strategies. For example, the Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative is a multi-year strategy aimed at defeating terrorist organizations by strengthening regional counterterrorism capabilities, enhancing and institutionalizing cooperation among the region’s security forces, promoting democratic governance, discrediting terrorist ideology, and reinforcing our bilateral military ties. EUCOM, State, USAID, and others contribute to this regional effort. We are broadening this approach through a Regional Strategic Initiative (RSI), a program designed to develop a flexible networks of interconnected Country Teams. My office is working with Ambassadors in key terrorist theaters of operation to assess the threat and devise interagency strategies and policy recommendations. These strategies are key to promoting cooperation between our partners in the War on Terror—between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, for example, as they deal with terrorist transit across the Sulawesi Sea; or between Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, Niger, Chad, and Mali to counter a GSPC enemy recruiting and hiding in the desert which sits astride their national borders. We have had three RSI conferences this year, and more are scheduled for the coming months. These conferences are chaired by a regional group of Ambassadors, with the Washington interagency representatives in attendance. This, of course, includes representatives of the Geographic Combatant Commander, plus Special Operations Command. Flexibility is a requirement. Our terrorist enemy is highly adaptable. Defeating him requires both central planning and field authority to amend plans in the course of implementation. We must also apply resources quickly, and with specific focus. We can achieve this agility by generating an interagency consensus, a shared ‘‘diagnosis’’ of the strategic situation in a given region. Using this common perspective, networked country teams can then self-synchronize efforts across multiple diverse programs that would otherwise be too complex for central coordination. Our Chiefs of Missions’ strategy sessions have produced some recommendations on other issues which I understand are also of interest to Members of the Committee, such as deployment of State personnel to conflict zones, and cross training with other agencies. For example, the Joint Interagency Coordination Group and Joint Interagency Task Force (West) in Iraq are effective. My office is working with the Pentagon to assess whether State Department representation on those bodies could contribute to regional integration and serve as a model for future interagency cooperation. The State Department’s
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Office of Political-Military Affairs has assigned Political Advisors to all the Combatant Commanders and this program is growing. Within my office, there are more active duty and reserve military officers detailed to our operations directorate than State Department officers. Moreover, we are also working with the Diplomatic Security Bureau, USAID, the intelligence community, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of Treasury and others to integrate our efforts. I believe that our best counterterrorism strategies will come from fielddriven interagency cooperation, relying on the local knowledge and experience of the inter-agency professionals, from a range of agencies, and deployed in strategic areas throughout the world. Here in Washington, the National Counterterrorism Center is tasked to serve as a center for joint intelligence and joint operational planning, ensuring that we unify our counterterrorism efforts across the government. The NCTC has made great strides in improving terrorist threat information sharing, and is beginning to coordinate joint operational planning and strategy. Interagency groups such as the Counterterrorism Security Group and the CT Technical Assistance Support Group, also share information and develop policies to counter terrorist threats, drawing on the capabilities and expertise of each government agency. Key USG agencies dealing with threats meet by secure videoconference three times a day to share current information and develop responses to any perceived threat to the U.S. or its interests. These Washington based interagency efforts and our Regional Strategic Initiatives must intersect, to provide the best global strategic perspectives and resources with the best field perspectives and implementation. The Way Forward Wars of the 20th century taught us the need for joint operations rather than separate army, navy, or air operations. 9/11 taught us that we cannot afford to act as independent ‘‘stove-piped’’ agencies; our success against the enemy largely derives from our mastery of joint, highly integrated operations that unify all elements of national power into a coherent whole. The strategy I outlined here today—of building regional partnerships to confront transnational threats and working at the intersections of diplomacy, democracy promotion, economic reconstruction and military security—embodies the transformational diplomacy Secretary Rice outlined in her January 18 speech at Georgetown University. The State Department is deeply committed to this regional, comprehensive interagency approach. What we need to make it work is unity of effort, as much as unity of command. My personal commitment to this interagency approach derives from my experience working in many Embassy country teams, being detailed to the FBI after the August 1998 bombings, and working hand-in-hand with the U.S. military in Afghanistan immediately after September 11, 2001. There, small groups of intelligence officers worked closely with the military and local partners to develop an integrated strategy that killed or captured terrorist leadership, denied terrorists safehaven, and ultimately replaced the networks we destroyed with infinitely better institutions and the potential for a better future.
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… Bringing terrorist leadership to justice, denying terrorists safehaven and addressing the conditions that terrorist exploit so that those we eliminate are not replaced by scores more requires us to use all the elements of national power. This is the case on a policy level—our counterterrorism agenda and our Freedom Agenda are linked for real and strategic reasons. It is also true on a practical level. We are working well and improving our cooperation in Washington. However, our best means of countering the multilayered terrorist threat is to engage coordinated networks of interagency Country Teams operating under the Ambassador’s Chief of Mission authority to bring to bear diplomacy, intelligence, military power, economic assistance, law enforcement and rule of law capacity building, and the power of what America stands for against the terrorist enemy. This need for inter-agency operations goes far beyond mere coordination or cooperation. It demands that we plan, conduct and structure operations— from the very outset—as part of an intimately connected whole-of-government approach. We are not there yet, but we have made progress. SOURCE: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2006_h/060404crumpton.pdf EDITOR’S NOTE: Also see John Scott Redd, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Retired), Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Statement for the Record Before the House Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2006, located in chapter 18, Intelligence (http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2006_h/060404-redd.pdf). See National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, The White House, September 2006 in chapter 27, Key Documents (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/wh/71803.htm); also see an earlier version of the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February 24, 2003 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/counter_terrorism/ counter_terrorism_strategy.pdf). For background, see also Congressional Research Service Issue Brief, ‘‘International Terrorism: Threat, Policy and Response,’’ August 16, 2006 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33600.pdf); and see Andrew P. N. Erdmann, Policy Planning Staff, ‘‘Future Challenges in the War on Terrorism,’’ Remarks to the Gaudino Forum, Williams College; Williamstown, Massachusetts, November 18, 2002 (http://www.state.gov/s/p/rem/15554.htm).
Selected Bibliography BOOKS Abuza, Zachary. Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003. ———. Political Islam and Violence in Indonesia. London: Routledge, 2007. Adams, Simon. All the Troubles: Terrorism, War, and the World After 9/11. Fremantle, Australia: Fremantle Arts Center Press, 2004. Alexander, Yonah. Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. ———. Counterterrorism Strategies: Successes and Failures of Six Nations. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2006. Alexander, Yonah, and Michael S. Swetnam. Usama Bin Laden’s Al Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2001. Allison, Graham. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. New York: Times Books, 2004. Arquilla, John, and David F. Ronfeldt. Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2002. Balis, Christina V., and Simon Serfaty, eds. Visions of America and Europe: September 11, Iraq, and Transatlantic Relations. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2004. Bamford, James. A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Benjamin, Daniel, ed. America and the World in the Age of Terror: A New Landscape in International Relations. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2005. Benjamin, Daniel, and Steven Simon. The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam’s War Against America. New York: Random House, 2003. ———. The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right. New York: Henry Holt, 2005. Berkowitz, Peter. Terrorism, the Laws of War, and the Constitution: Debating the Enemy Combatant Cases. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2005. Bloom, Mia. Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Bohn, Michael K. The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004. Bolz, Frank. The Counterterrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures, and Techniques. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis, 2005. Bolz, Frank, Kenneth Dudonis, and David Schulz. The Counterterrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures, and Techniques. 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2001.
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Boulden, Jane. Terrorism and the UN: Before and After September 11. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Boyle, Francis Anthony. Destroying World Order: U.S. Imperialism in the Middle East Before and After September 11. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2004. Brisard, Jean-Charles, with Damien Martinez. Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda. New York: Other Press, 2005. Brookes, Peter. A Devil’s Triangle: Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Rogue States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. Brunn, Stanley D., ed. 11 September and Its Aftermath: Geopolitics of Terror. London: Frank Cass, 2004. Buckley, Mary, and Rick Fawn, eds. Global Responses to Terrorism: 9/11, Afghanistan, and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2003. Buruma, Ian. Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies. New York: Penguin, 2005. Byman, Daniel. Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Cabinet Office. The United Kingdom and the Campaign Against International Terrorism: Progress Report. London: Cabinet Office, 2002. Caldicott, Helen. The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex. New York: New Press, 2004. Carafano, James Jay, and Paul Rosenzweig. Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom. Washington, DC: Heritage Books, 2005. Ceu ´ Pinto, Maria do. Islamist and Middle Eastern Terrorism: A Threat to Europe? Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro): Rubbettino, 2004. Chalk, Peter, and William Rosenau. Confronting ‘‘The Enemy Within’’: Security Intelligence, the Police, and Counterterrorism in Four Democracies. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004. Chayes, Sarah. The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban. New York: Penguin, 2006. Clarke, David, ed. Technology and Terrorism. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2004. Clarke, Richard A. Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004. Cohen, David B., and John W. Wells, eds. American National Security and Civil Liberties in an Era of Terrorism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Combs, Cynthia. Terrorism in the 21st Century. 4th ed. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2005. Conby, Ken. Second Front: Inside Asia’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Network. London: Equinox Publishing, 2005. Cook, David. Understanding Jihad. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Cooper, Barry. New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004. Cragin, Kim, and Sara A. Daly. The Dynamic Terrorist Threat: An Assessment of Group Motivations and Capabilities in a Changing World. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004. Cragin, Kim, and Scott Gerwehr. Dissuading Terror: Strategic Influence and the Struggle Against Terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004. Cronin, Audrey Kurth, and James M. Ludes, eds. Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004. Crotty, William. Democratic Development and Political Terrorism: The Global Perspective. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2005. ———, ed. The Politics of Terror: The U.S. Response to 9/11. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004. Cushman, Thomas, ed. A Matter of Principle; Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Cwiek, Mark A., James A. Johnson, and Gerald R. Ledlow, eds. Community Preparedness and Response to Terrorism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
Selected Bibliography
1307
Daly, Sara, John Parachini, and William Rosenau. Aum Shinrikyo, Al Qaeda, and the Kinshasa Reactor: Implications of Three Case Studies for Combating Nuclear Terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005. Daniel, Benjamin, ed. American and the World in the Age of Terror: A New Landscape in International Relations. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2005. Danieli, Yael, Danny Brom, and Joe Sills. Trauma of Terrorism: Sharing Knowledge and Shared Care, an International Handbook. Binghamton, NY: Hawthorne Press, 2005. Davis, John, ed. The Global War on Terrorism: Assessing the American Response. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004. de Blij, Harm. Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America—Climate Change, the Rise of China, and Global Terrorism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Egendorf, Laura. Terrorism: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Ehrenfeld, Rachel. Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed—and How to Stop It. Chicago: Bonus Books, 2005. Emerson, Steven. American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us. Reprint ed. Washington, DC: Free Press, 2003. ———. Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006. Farah, Douglas. Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror. New York: Broadway Books, 2004. Fijnaut, Cyrille, Jan Wouters, and Frederik Naert. Legal Instruments in the Fight Against International Terrorism: A Transatlantic Dialogue. Leiden: M. Nijhoff, 2004. Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering: Germany: Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes—FATF Recommendations for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2004. Flynn, Stephen. America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Forest, James. Teaching Terror: Strategic and Tactical Learning in the Terrorist World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Franke, Volker, ed. Terrorism and Peacekeeping: New Security Challenges. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Frey, Bruno S. Dealing with Terrorism: Stick or Carrot? Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004. Friedman, George. America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies. New York: Doubleday Books, 2004. Gaertner, Heinz, and Ian M. Cuthbertson. European Security and Transatlantic Relations After 9/11 and the Iraq War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Gallis, Paul. European Counterterrorist Efforts: Political Will and Diverse Responses. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004. Ganor, Boaz. The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005. Ganser, Daniele. NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe. London: Frank Cass, 2005. Gareau, Frederick. State Terrorism and the United States: From Counterinsurgency to the War on Terrorism. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2004. Gartenstein-Ross, Daveed. My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir. New York: Tarcher, 2007. Gerges, Fawaz A. The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Germani, L. Sergio, and D. R. Kaarthikeyan. Pathways Out of Terrorism and Insurgency: The Dynamics of Terrorist Violence and Peace Processes. Elgin, IL: New Dawn Press, 2005. Gertz, Bill. Breakdown: How America’s Intelligence Failure Led to September 11. New York: Plume, 2003. ———. Treachery: How America’s Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies. New York: Crown Forum, 2004.
1308
Selected Bibliography
Giessmannn, Hans J., Roman Kuzniar, ´ and Zdzislaw Lachowski, eds. International Security in a Time of Change: Threats, Concepts, Institutions—Festschriff for Adam Daniel Rotfeld. Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2004. Gilmore, William C. Dirty Money: The Evolution of International Measures to Counter Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2004. Giraldo, Jeanne K., and Harold A. Trinkunas, eds. Terrorism Financing and State Responses. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007. Goody, Jack. Islam in Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. Gottren, Frank, and Dana Shea. Small-Scale Terrorist Attacks Using Chemical and Biological Agents. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004. Graham, Bob, and Jeff Nussbaum. Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War on Terror. New York: Random House, 2004. Greenberg, Karen. Al Qaeda Now: Understanding Today’s Terrorists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Guelke, Adrian. The Age of Terrorism and the International Political System. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995. Gunaratna, Rohan, ed. The Changing Face of Terrorism. Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2004. Gunaratna, Rohan, and Graeme Steven. Counterterrorism: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Hannity, Sean. Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. New York: Regan Books, 2004. Harari, Haim. A View from the Eye of the Storm: Terror and Reason in the Middle East. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Harik, Judith Palmer. Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004. Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Harvey, Frank. Smoke and Mirrors: Globalized Terrorism and the Illusion of Multilateral Security. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Hassan, Hamdi A. Al-Qaeda: The Background of the Pursuit for Global Jihad. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 2004. Hastings, Tom H. Nonviolent Response to Terrorism. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004. Hayes, Stephen F. The Connection: How Al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Henderson, Harry. Global Terrorism. New York: Facts on File, 2004. Hippel, Karin von, ed. Europe Confronts Terrorism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Hoge, James F., and Gideon Rose, eds. How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. Howard, Russell D., and Reid L. Sawyer. Defeating Terrorism: Shaping the New Security Environment. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill, 2004. ———, eds. Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment—Readings and Interpretations. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Ignatieff, Michael. The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Jacobsen, Annie. Terror in the Skies: Why 9/11 Could Happen Again. Dallas: Spence Publishing, 2005. Jacobson, Michael. The West at War: U.S. and European Counterterrorism Efforts, Post– September 11. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2006. Johnson, Loch. Strategic Intelligence. Westport, CT. Praeger Security International, 2007. Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Junaid, Shahwar. Terrorism and Global Power Systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Selected Bibliography
1309
Kaiman, David. The McGraw Hill Homeland Security Handbook. Guilford, CT: McGrawHill, 2006. Katz, Samuel M. Global Counterstrike: International Counterterrorism. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 2005. Keeley, Jennifer. Deterring and Investigating Attack: The Role of the FBI and CIA. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2004. Kegley, Charles. The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controls. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2002. Kessler, Ronald. The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror. New York: St. Martin’s, 2004. Kettl, Donald F, ed. The Department of Homeland Security’s First Year: A Report Card. New York: Century Foundation Press, 2004. Khalsa, Sundri. Forecasting Terrorism: Indicators and Proven Analytic Techniques. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004. King, Gilbert. Dirty Bomb: Weapon of Mass Disruption. New York: Chamberlain Brothers, 2004. Knop, Katharina von, Heinrich Neisser, and Martin van Creveld. Countering Modern Terrorism. Bielefeld, Germany: Bertelsmann, 2005. Kohlmann, Evan. Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2004. Krieken, Peter J. van, ed. Terrorism and the International Legal Order: With Special Reference to the UN, the EU, and Cross-Border Aspects. The Hague: TMC Asser, 2002. Kronenwetter, Michael. Terrorism: A Guide to Events and Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Lance, Peter. Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror. New York: Regan Books, 2004. Laqueur, Walter. The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ———. No End to War: Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. London: Continuum International, 2003. LeVine, Mark. Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005. Levitt, Matthew. Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. ———. Targeting Terror: U.S. Policy Toward Middle Eastern State Sponsors and Terrorist Organizations, Post–September 11. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2003. Lewis, Bernard. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. New York: Random House, 2004. Linden, Edward. Foreign Terrorist Organizations: History, Tactics, and Connections. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004. Lutz, James M., and Brenda J. Lutz. Terrorism: Origins and Evolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Three Leaves Press, 2005. Martin, Gus. The New Era of Terrorism: Selected Readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. Martin, John R. Defeating Terrorism: Strategic Issue Analysis. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2002. Maxwell, Bruce, ed. Homeland Security: A Documentary History. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2004. McAllister, Richard. ‘‘Support from a Bichepalous Executive: France.’’ In Mary Buckley and Rick Fawn, eds., Global Responses to Terrorism: 9/11, Afghanistan, and Beyond. London: Routledge, 2003. McDermott. Roger N. Countering Global Terrorism: Developing the Antiterrorist Capabilities of the Central Asian Militaries. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004.
1310
Selected Bibliography
McInerney, Thomas, and Paul Vallely. Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004. McMahon, Kevin, David Rankin, and Jon Kraus. Transformed by Crisis: The Presidency of George W. Bush and American Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Mead, Walter Russell. Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk. New York: Knopf, 2004. Mellehovitch, Vitali B. Bioterrorism and Public Health. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2004. Moghadam, Assaf. The Roots of Terrorism. New York: Chelsea House, 2006. Nacos, Brigitte Lebens. Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding Threats and Responses in the Post–9/11 World. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2006. Naftali, Timothy. Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism. New York: Basic Books, 2005. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 2004. Nonneman, Gerd, Anoushiravan Ehteshami, and Iris Glosemeyer. Terrorism, Gulf Security, and Palestine: Key Issues for an EU-GCC Dialogue. Florence, Italy: European University Institute, 2002. O’Neill, Bard E. Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005. Orahovec, Zvonko, and Peter Stopa, eds. Technology for Combating WMD Terrorism. Budapest: Kluwer Academic, 2004. Oren, Michael B. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. Orr, David W. The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004. Palmer, Monte, and Princess Palmer. At the Heart of Terror: Islam, Jihadists, and America’s War on Terrorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Pape, Robert. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005. Peters, Michael A. Education, Globalization, and the State in the Age of Terrorism. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2005. Phares, Walid. Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. ———. The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Post, Jerrold. The Mind of the Terrorist: The Psychology of Terrorism from the IRA to Al Qaeda. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Preble, Christopher. Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War Against Al Qaeda—Report of a Special Task Force. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2004. Primoratz, Igor. Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Randal, Jonathan. Osama: The Making of a Terrorist. New York: Knopf, 2004. Reich, Walter. Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. New ed. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998. Richelson, Jeffrey. The U.S. Intelligence Community. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. Ritchie, Nick. The Political Road to War with Iraq: Bush, 9/11, and the Drive to Overthrow Saddam. London: Routledge, 2006. Sageman, Marc. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Satloff, Robert B. The Battle of Ideas in the War on Terror: Essays on U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Middle East. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2004. ———, ed. War on Terror: The Middle East Dimension. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2002.
Selected Bibliography
1311
Sauter, Mark. Homeland Security: A Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing, and Surviving Terrorism. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Schanzer, Jonathan. Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2005. Scheuer, Michael. Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005. ———. Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2006. Schmid, Alex Peter, and Albert J. Jongman. Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005. Shearman, Peter, and Matthew Sussex, eds. European Security After 9/11. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004. Siegel, Marc. False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear. Indianapolis: Wiley, 2005. Sifaoui, Mohamed. Inside Al Qaeda: How I Infiltrated the World’s Deadliest Terrorist Organization. Translated by George Miller. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004. Silke, Andrew, ed. Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements, and Failures. London: Frank Cass, 2006. Sloan, Stephen. Beating International Terrorism: An Action Strategy for Preemption and Punishment. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2004. Smucker, Philip. Al Qaeda’s Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror’s Trail. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004. Stern, Jessica. Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. New York: Harper Perennial, 2004. Stout, Chris. Psychology of Terrorism: Coping with the Continued Threat. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. Tal, Nahman. Radical Islam in Egypt and Jordan. Brighton, United Kingdom: Sussex Academic Press/Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2005. Talbott, Rhiannon. United Kingdom’s Legislation in International Law: Counter-Terrorism Legislation in the Commonwealth. London: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, 2003. Thackrah, John Richard. Dictionary of Terrorism. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2004. Thomas, Troy S. Beneath the Surface: Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace for Counterterrorism. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, Joint Military Intelligence College, 2004. Thorp, Arabella. The Prevention of Terrorism Bill: Bill 61 of 2004–05. London: House of Commons Library, 2005. Ullman, Harlan. Finishing Business: Ten Steps to Defeat Global Terror. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General. DHS Challenges in Consolidating Terrorist Watch List Information. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, 2004. Venzke, Ben. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Shooting, Hostage Taking, Kidnapping Wave, May/June 2004. Alexandria, VA: Intel Center/Tempest Publishing, 2004. Vermaat, Emerson. Bin Laden’s Terror Networks in Europe. Toronto: Mackenzie Institute, 2002. Vidino, Lorenzo. Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005. Walker, Clive. Blackstone’s Guide to the Anti-Terrorism Legislation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Walter, Christian. Terrorism as a Challenge for National and International Law: Security Versus Liberty? Berlin: Springer, 2004. White, Jonathan R. Terrorism and Homeland Security. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2005. Whittaker, David. Terrorists and Terrorism in the Contemporary World. London: Routledge, 2004.
1312
Selected Bibliography
Wieviorka, Michel. The Making of Terrorism. Translated by David White. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Wiktorowicz, Quintan. Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Williams, Paul L. The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, and the Coming Apocalypse. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005. ———. Osama’s Revenge: The Next 9/11—What the Media and the Government Haven’t Told You. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004. Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006. Youngs, Tim, Paul Bowers, and Mark Oakes. The Campaign Against International Terrorism: Prospects After the Fall of the Taliban. London: House of Commons Library, 2001. Zimmerman, Doron, and Andreas Wenger. How States Fight Terrorism: Policy Dynamics in the West. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007. Zuhur, Sherifa. Saudi Arabia: Islamic Threat, Political Reform, and the Global War on Terror. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005.
JOURNAL ARTICLES Aboul-Enein, Youssef H. ‘‘Islamic Militant Cells and Sadat’s Assassination.’’ Military Review. Vol. 84, No. 4 (July/August 2004): 91–95. Addison, Tony, and S. Mansoob Murshed. ‘‘Transnational Terrorism as a Spillover of Domestic Disputes in Other Countries.’’ Defence and Peace Economics. Vol. 16, No. 2 (April 2005): 69–82. Andreani, Gilles. ‘‘The War on Terror: Good Cause, Wrong Concept.’’ Survival. Vol. 46, No. 4 (December 2004): 31–50. Arquilla, John. ‘‘The Problem: How to Win.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 160 (May/Jun 2007): 45. Baltazar, Thomas, and Elisabeth Kvitashvili. ‘‘The Role of USAID and Development Assistance in Combating Terrorism.’’ Military Review. Vol. 87, No. 2 (March/April 2007): 38–40. Borch, Fred L. ‘‘Comparing Pearl Harbor and 9/11: Intelligence Failure? American Unpreparedness? Military Responsibility?’’ The Journal of Military History. Vol. 67, No. 3 (July 2003): 845–60. Cannistraro, Vincent. ‘‘Terror’s Undiminished Threat.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 137 (July 2003): 69. Carpenter, Ted Galen. ‘‘The Imperial Lure: Nation Building as a US Response to Terrorism.’’ Mediterranean Quarterly. Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter 2006): 34–47. Cordesman, Anthony H. ‘‘Winning the ‘War On Terrorism’: A Fundamentally Different Strategy.’’ Middle East Policy. Vol. 13, No. 3. (Fall 2006): 101–8. Cossa, Ralph. ‘‘US Security Strategy in Asia and the Prospects for an Asian Regional Security Regime.’’ Asia-Pacific Review. Vol. 12, No. 1 (May 2005): 64–86. Crawford, Neta C. ‘‘Just War Theory and the U.S. Counterterror War.’’ Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2003): 5–25. Deutch, John, and Jeffrey H. Smith. ‘‘Smarter Intelligence.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 128 (January 2002): 64–69. Dolan, Chris J. ‘‘United States’ Narco-Terrorism Policy: A Contingency Approach to the Convergence of the Wars on Drugs and Against Terrorism.’’ Review of Policy Research. Vol. 22, No. 4 (July 2005): 451–71. Durodie, ´ Bill. ‘‘Cultural Influences on Resilience and Security.’’ Homeland Security and Resilience Monitor. Vol. 3, No. 7 (September 2004): 4–6. ———. ‘‘Facing the Possibility of Bio-Terrorism.’’ Current Opinion in Biotechnology. Vol. 15, No. 3 (June 2004): 264–68. ———. ‘‘The Globalization of Terrorism.’’ The Global Review of Ethnopolitics. Vol. 3, No. 2 (January 2004): 108–9.
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———. ‘‘Sociological Aspects of Risk and Resilience in Response to Acts of Terrorism.’’ World Defence Systems. Vol. 7, No.1 (Spring 2004): 214–16. Elazar, David. ‘‘Roots of Terrorism.’’ Armed Forces Journal International. Vol. 142, No. 5 (December 2004): 6. Enders, Walter, and Todd Sandler. ‘‘Is Transnational Terrorism Becoming More Threatening?’’ The Journal of Conflict Resolution. Vol. 44, No. 3 (June 2000): 307–32. Falah, Ghazi-Walid, and Colin Flint. ‘‘How the United States Justified Its War on Terrorism: Prime Morality and the Construction of a ‘Just War’.’’ Third World Quarterly. Vol. 25, No. 8 (December 2004): 1379–99. Flanagan, Stephen J. ‘‘Managing the Intelligence Community.’’ International Security. Vol. 10, No. 1 (Summer 1985): 58–95. Foxell, Joseph W., Jr. ‘‘Mass-Casualty Terrorism’s Next Phase: Tool for Hidden State Actors in a Revised Version of Multipolar Covert War Gaming.’’ American Foreign Policy Interests. Vol. 29, No. 2 (April 2007): 143–60. ———. ‘‘What Went Wrong in the US ‘War on Terror.’ ’’ American Foreign Policy Interest. Vol. 26, No. 6 (December 2004): 485–500. Frost, Robin. ‘‘Nuclear Terrorism Post-9/11: Assessing the Risks.’’ Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations. Vol. 18, No. 4 (October 2004): 397–422. Gause, F. Gregory, III. ‘‘Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?’’ Foreign Affairs. Vol. 84, No. 5 (September/October 2005): 62–76. Glaessner, Gert-Joachim. ‘‘Internal Security and the New Anti-Terrorism Act.’’ German Politics. Vol. 12, No. 1 (April 2003): 43–58. Glaser, Charles L., and Steve Fetter. ‘‘National Missile Defense and the Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy.’’ International Security. Vol. 26, No. 1 (Summer 2001): 40–92. Gore, Al. ‘‘The Politics of Fear.’’ Social Research. Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter 2004): 779–98. Grinstein, Joseph. ‘‘Jihad and the Constitution: The First Amendment Implications of Combating Religiously Motivated Terrorism.’’ The Yale Law Journal. Vol. 105, No. 5 (March 1996): 1347–81. Gunaratna, Rohan. ‘‘The Prospects of Global Terrorism.’’ Society. Vol. 42, No. 6 (September/October 2005): 31–35. Handley, John M. ‘‘International Law Challenges: Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism.’’ American Diplomacy. Vol. 9, No. 3 (2004). Hillen, John. ‘‘Developing a National Counterinsurgency Capability for the War on Terror.’’ Military Review. Vol. 87, No. 1 (January/February 2007): 13–16. Hoffman, Bruce. ‘‘Is Europe Soft on Terrorism?’’ Foreign Policy. No. 115 (Summer 1999): 62–76. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. ‘‘The Rise of Complex Terrorism.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 128 (January 2002): 52–62. Horowitz, Irving Louis. ‘‘Terrorism and the Return to a Bi-Polar World.’’ Society. Vol. 42, No. 1 (November/December 2004): 7–9. Jenkins-Smith, Hank C., and Kerry G. Herron. ‘‘United States Public Response to Terrorism: Fault Lines or Bedrock?’’ Review of Policy Research. Vol. 22, No. 5 (September 2005): 599–623. Johnson, Loch K. ‘‘Smart Intelligence.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 89 (Winter 1992): 53–69. Johnson, Thomas H., and James A. Russell. ‘‘A Hard Day’s Night? The United States and the Global War on Terrorism.’’ Comparative Strategy. Vol. 24, No. 2 (April/June 2005): 127–51. Khalifa, Ahmed. ‘‘Terrorism in Israel.’’ Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. 14, No. 1 (Autumn 1984): 152–57. Kimmitt, Robert M. ‘‘Fighting Terrorist Financing.’’ Hampton Roads International Security Quarterly. (April 15, 2007): 51–52. Kirby, Michael. ‘‘Terrorism: The International Response of the Courts.’’ Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. Vol. 12, No. 1 (Winter 2005): 313–44. Korin, Anne, and Gal Luft. ‘‘Terrorism Goes to Sea.’’ Foreign Affairs. Vol. 83, No. 6 (November/December 2004): 61–71.
1314
Selected Bibliography
Kurlantzick, Joshua. ‘‘Where the War on Terror Is Succeeding.’’ Commentary. Vol. 123, No. 5 (May 2007): 35–39. Matheson, S. A. Terrorists Exploit Internet. Computer Fraud and Security. Vol. 2005, No. 9 (September 2005): 1–2. McCulloch, Jude, and Sharon Pickering. ‘‘Suppressing the Financing of Terrorism.’’ British Journal of Criminology. Vol. 45, No. 4 (July 2005): 470–86. Monar, J€ org. ‘‘The European Union’s Role in the Fight Against International Terrorism: An Evaluation in Light of the Response to 11 September 2001.’’ Me´langes en hommage a` Jean-Victor Louis. Vol. 1 (2003): 337–54. Mueller, John. ‘‘Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?’’ Foreign Affairs. Vol. 85, No. 5 (September/October 2006): 2. Muguruza, Christina Churruca. ‘‘The European Union’s Reaction to the Terrorist Attacks on the United States.’’ Humanit€ ares V€ olkerrecht: Informationsschriften. HuV-I, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2001): 234–43. Natsios, Andrew. ‘‘Fighting Terror with Aid.’’ Harvard International Review. Vol. 26, No. 3 (Fall 2004): 88–89. ‘‘New Aspects of the War Against Terror.’’ American Foreign Policy Interest. Vol. 26, No. 6 (December 2004): 501–2. Nye, Joseph S., Jr. ‘‘The Problem: A Smarter Superpower.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 160 (May/ June 2007): 46–48. Parker, Charles F., and Eric K. Stern. ‘‘Blindsided? September 11 and the Origins of Strategic Surprise.’’ Political Psychology. Vol. 23, No. 3. (September 2002): 601–30. Posen, Barry R. ‘‘The Struggle Against Terrorism: Grand Strategy, Strategy, and Tactics.’’ International Security. Vol. 26, No. 3 (Winter 2001): 39–55. Post, Jerrold M. ‘‘When Hatred Is Bred in the Bone: Psycho-Cultural Foundations of Contemporary Terrorism.’’ Political Psychology. Vol. 26, No. 4 (August 2005): 615–36. Prendergast, John, and Colin Thomas-Jensen. ‘‘Blowing the Horn.’’ Foreign Affairs. Vol. 86, No. 2 (March/April 2007): 59. Ramadan, Tariq. ‘‘Muslims, Terrorism, Europe.’’ New Perspectives Quarterly. Vol. 22, No. 1, (Winter 2005): 28–33. Reynolds, Michael. ‘‘Homegrown Terror.’’ Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Vol. 60, No. 6 (November/December 2004): 48–57. Richardson, Louise. ‘‘Terrorist Rivals.’’ Harvard International Review. Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring 2007): 66–69. Riedel, Bruce. ‘‘Al Qaeda Strikes Back.’’ Foreign Affairs. Vol. 86, No. 3 (May/June 2007): 24. Rosand, Eric. ‘‘The Security Council’s Efforts to Monitor the Implementation of Al Qaeda/Taliban Sanctions.’’ The American Journal of International Law. Vol. 98, No. 4 (October 2004): 745–63. Rosendorff, B. Peter, and Todd Sandler. ‘‘The Political Economy of Transnational Terrorism.’’ Journal of Conflict Resolution. Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 2005): 171–82. Saad, Raouf Adli. ‘‘New Possibilities for Cooperation.’’ International Affairs (Moscow). Vol. 50, No. 2 (2004): 142–47. Sprinzak, Ehud. ‘‘The Great Superterrorism Scare.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 112 (Autumn 1998): 110–24. Steele, Robert David, Lock K. Johnson, Melvin Goodman, and Michael Herman. ‘‘An Intelligence Response.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 130 (May 2002): 6–10. Stern, Jessica. ‘‘Fearing Evil.’’ Social Research. Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter 2004): 1111–26. Stromseth, Jane E. ‘‘Law and Force After Iraq: A Transitional Moment.’’ The American Journal of International Law. Vol. 97, No. 3 (July 2003): 628–42. Taylor, Francis X. ‘‘Clear and Prescient Danger.’’ Foreign Policy. No. 127 (November 2001): 16–17. ‘‘Terrorism and Terrorist.’’ Forensic Science International. Supplement 1, Vol. 146, No. s1 (December 2004): S189–S190. ‘‘Terrorism Response Plans Will Not Protect Many Americans, New Study Finds.’’ Journal of Environmental Health. Vol. 67, No. 5 (December 2004): 4–5.
1315
Selected Bibliography
‘‘Terrorist Attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon.’’ The American Journal of International Law. Vol. 96, No. 1 (January 2002): 237–55. Ullman, Harlan. ‘‘Is the US Winning or Losing the Global War on Terror and How Do We Know?’’ Australian Journal of International Affairs. Vol. 60, No. 1 (March 2006): 29–41. Woo, Brian. ‘‘A Growing Role for Regional Organizations in Fighting Global Terror.’’ Helsinki Monitor. Vol. 16, No. 1 (January 2005): 88–97. Zmeyevsky, A. ‘‘International Law and the Struggle Against Terrorism.’’ International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations. Vol. 51, No. 5 (2005): 80–84.
ONLINE RESOURCES About.com Terrorism Issues Page. http://terrorism.about.com/ Brookings Institution Saban Center for Middle East Policy. http://www.brookings.org/fp/saban/sabancenter_hp.htm Business Executives for National Security. http://www.bens.org/what_threats.htm Center for Defense Information. http://www.cdi.org/program/index.cfm?ProgramID¼39 Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT): Response to September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/terrorism/terror.htm Center for Immigration Studies—Terrorism and National Security Page. http://www.cis.org/topics/terrorism.html Center for Non-Proliferation Studies. http://www.cns.miis.edu/research/terror.htm Center for Strategic and International Studies—Terrorism. http://www.csis.org/researchfocus/TNT/ Center for Terrorism Studies. http://c21.maxwell.af.mil/cts-home.htm Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/academic/intrel/research/cstpv/ CIA and the War on Terrorism. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/cia-the-war-on-terrorism/index.html Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, United States Military Academy. http://ctc.usma.edu/ Congressional Research Service. http://zfacts.com/p/576.html Council on Foreign Relations Terrorism Site. http://www.cfr.org/issue/135/ Counterterrorism Blog. http://counterterrorismblog.org/ Douglas Farah’s Web Site. http://www.douglasfarah.com/
1316
Selected Bibliography
EagleSpeak. http://eaglespeak.blogspot.com/ EU-Belgian Red Cross Terrorism Victims’ Site. http://www.eureste.org/index.php?lang¼en&PHPSESSID¼35c09b522f3afdfeb2fddf88 ee74adf0 European Union’s Fight Against Terrorism Site. http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/s22008.htm Evan Kohlmann’s Global Terror Alert. http://www.globalterroralert.com/ FBI Counterterrorism Website. http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/waronterrorhome.htm Financial Action Task Force (FATF). http://www.fatf-afi.org/pages/0,2987,en_32250379_32235720_1_1_1_1_1,00.html FindLaw Special Coverage: War on Terrorism: Laws. http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/terrorism/laws.html Focus on Sunni Extremism. http://fose.blogspot.com/ Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. http://www.defenddemocracy.org/ Gates of Vienna Blog. http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/ Google Terrorism Site Directory. http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues/Terrorism/ Government Executive Magazine Homeland Security Site. http://www.govexec.com/defensehs/ Heritage Foundation Homeland Security Project. http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/index.cfm Hudson Institute’s International Security page. http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction¼research_publications_list&resType¼ IntSec Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. http://www.ict.org.il/ Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies. http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/site/home/default.asp Intelligence, Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism WebRing. http://intelligencesummit.org/webring.htm The Inter-American Committee on Terrorism (CICTE). http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/docu2.htm International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals. http://www.iacsp.com/ International Institute for Strategic Studies. http://www.iiss.org/
Selected Bibliography
1317
InternationalSecurityResources.com. http://www.internationalsecurityresources.com/ International Strategy and Assessment Center. http://www.strategycenter.net/ Internet Haganah. http://haganah.org.il/haganah/ Interpol. http://www.interpol.int/ Jamestown Foundation Global Terrorism Analysis. http://jamestown.org/terrorism/ Jawa Report. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/ Jeff Stein’s CQ/SpyTalk. http://www.jeffstein.info/ Jihad Watch. http://jihadwatch.org/ Law, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Blog. http://www.lawandterrorism.com/ Legislation Related to the Attack of September 11, 2001. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/terrorleg.htm MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). http://www.memri.org/ Middle East Forum. http://www.meforum.org/ National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Chronology of Significant International Terrorism for 2004. http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/2004nctcchronology.pdf National Intelligence Council. http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_home.html National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. http://www.mipt.org/ New America Foundation Foreign Policy Page. http://www.newamerica.net/issues/foreign_policy# Newsweek’s ‘‘Terror Watch’’ Site. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7658468/site/newsweek/ 9/11 Public Discourse Project. http://www.9-11pdp.org/ Office of the Director of National Intelligence (John Negroponte). http://www.odni.gov/ Public Broadcasting Service. ‘‘Ahmed Ressam’s Millennium Plot.’’ Frontline: Trail of a Terrorist. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/inside/cron.html
1318
Selected Bibliography
RAND Corporation—Terrorism. http://rand.org/research_areas/terrorism/ Russia-Eurasia Terror Watch. http://www.retwa.org/ September 11 Victims List. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,62151,00.html Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm StrategyPage. http://strategypage.com/ Terror Finance Blog. http://terrorfinance.org/ Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, and Homeland Security Page (Project on Defense Alternatives Web site). http://www.comw.org/tct/index.html Terrorism Law and Policy. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/terrorism.htm Terrorism Research Center. http://www.terrorism.com/ Terrorism, Security, and America’s Purpose Conference. http://www.americaspurpose.org/ Terrorism: The United Nations and Global Issues. http://un.org/partners/civil%5Fsociety/docs/d-terror.htm 23rd of October—Beirut Bombing Veterans Blog. http://beirutveterans.blogspot.com/ U.K. Intelligence Community Online. http://www.intelligence.gov.uk/ United States Action. http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/ University of Michigan Library: Terrorism. http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/usterror.html U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center. http://cpc.au.af.mil/ U.S. Defense Department: Central Command (CENTCOM). http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/default.aspx U.S. Defense Department War on Terrorism Site. http://www.defendamerica.mil/index.html U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/ U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1985–2004 (book purchase site). http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/brw/product.asp?projid¼60 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Reports on Terrorism. http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/featured/terrorism.html
Selected Bibliography
1319
U.S. Justice Department: USA PATRIOT Act. http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/ U.S. Library of Congress 9/11 Documentary Project. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/911_archive/index.html U.S. Mission to EU: Response to Terrorism. http://useu.usmission.gov/Terrorism/USResponse/index.htm U.S. State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/ U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control. (with links to designation lists). http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ U.S. Treasury Department Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ Washington Institute for Near East Policy. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateI01.php World Anti-Terrorism Laws. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/terrorism3a.htm
Index Abbas, Abu: Achille Lauro, 33, 36; Palestinian Liberation Front, 235; Saddam Hussein, 798 Abbas, Mahmoud: Arab-Israeli conflict, 437, 715, 1134, 1198–1200, 1208; Condoleezza Rice, 288, 448, 453; Hezbollah, 322, 340; Tel Aviv attack, 292 Abdallah, Georges Ibrahim, 112, 170–172, 181 Abdullah Al-Muhajir. See Jose Padilla Abdulqater, Mufid, 934 Abizaid, John: Iraq assessment, 814, 818, 840, 847, 851; troop levels, 796, 798 Abshire, David, 1070 Abu Ghraib, 829 Abu Musa Organization (ABO), 1187 Abu Nidal Organization (ANO): City of Piraeus attack, 185; Convention for the Suppression of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, 10; death of Abu Nidal, 36; Department of State white paper, 17; Eastern Europe, 111; Egyptian airliner hijacking, 184; Iraq, 179, 235, 470–471, 697, 798; Khartoum’s Acropole Hotel, 184–185; Libya, 185, 189; Mohammad Atta, 181; 1985 airport attacks, 1137; Sudan, 142; Syria, 111, 179, 183, 190; use of computer technology, 660 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG): Dean Acheson, 443, 445; funding, 997; links to other terrorist organizations, 714, 1271; losses, 1270; Philippines, 405, 710, 1263, 1270, 1300 Achille Lauro: Abu Abbas, 36; Convention for the Suppression of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, 10; conviction of hijackers, 167; counterterrorism treaties, 203; growing trend toward international terrorism, 1282; International Maritime Organization,
173, 194; Leon Klinghoffer, 11, 33, 45, 173 Adenauer, Konrad, 789 Afghanistan: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, 423, 528; Afghan National Army, 535, 553, 555, 1269; Afghan National Police, 334; Afghan Transitional Authority (ATA), 683; Afghan-Pakistan border, 677; Al-Qaeda, 252–253, 256, 284–285, 302, 309, 330–331, 336, 357, 360, 364, 376, 428, 476, 494, 492, 497, 508, 516, 522, 528, 606, 659, 665, 679–680, 689, 695–697, 702, 707, 721, 725, 896, 930, 944, 1056–1057, 1059, 1096, 1128, 1169, 1179–1180, 1246, 1260–1261; Al-Qaeda/ Iraq connection, 423–425; American losses in, 1114; anthrax, 508, 520, 1272; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 1101–1102, 1111; Australia’s support in, 1134, 1262; Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 516, 528; biological weapons research program, 696; Caucasus, 1123; CENTCOM requirements, 1130; Central Intelligence Agency, 515, 732; coalition efforts in, 788, 820; Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, 1021; cruise missile attacks on, 79–80, 86; defining incidents, 1117; democracy, 368, 371, 374,380, 382, 390, 436, 455, 458, 463, 467–469, 800; detainees, 1216; drug trafficking, 217, 942–943, 1164; Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, 977, 983; emergency Loya Jirga, 683; National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS), 572; European Union, 1143; extremist groups, 1122, 1125, 1170; failed state, 209; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 306; George W. Bush, 374; Germany, 1178; government of, 678, 683, 693, 699, 707, 721–722; Guantanamo Bay, 599,
1322 Afghanistan (continued) 832, 860; Hamid Karzai, 390; humanitarian aid, 258, 335; India, 1259, 1274; intelligence elements, 1099; interagency cooperation, 1302; international cooperation, 390; Iran, 385, 404, 522, 699; Iraq, 364, 368, 376, 382, 439, 527; Islamic extremists, 476; Japan, 1134, 1262; John Howard, 1276; Jose Padilla, 573; judicial system, 438; liberation of, 268, 279, 286–287, 295, 298, 291, 307, 309; Middle East, 374; Mullah Omar, 84; narcotics and drug enforcement, 960, 964, 1003; National Army, 683, 707, 715, 722, 799; NATO, 334–335, 336, 390, 542, 723, 1196; New Beginnings Program, 707; Operation Desert Storm, 358; Operation Enduring Freedom, 2, 259, 263, 317, 390, 480, 482, 487, 516, 535, 538–539, 554–555, 584, 1262; Organization of American States (OAS), 1232; Osama Bin Laden, 252–253, 329, 476, 516, 739–740, 744, 1128, 1227; Pakistan, 337, 376, 487, 516, 528, 531, 1273, 1275, 1299; Pervez Musharraf, 487, 1277; prisoner abuse in, 442; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 1301; public diplomacy, 399; reconstruction, 404–407, 428–429, 524, 534–536, 548, 555, 608, 683, 695, 698, 699, 1126, 1298; refugees, 55; religious conflict, 1173; reward programs, 7; Russia, 256; seizures, 1096; September 11 attacks, 368, 451, 459, 472; Singapore, 1264; Soviet invasion of, 52–54, 186, 192, 476, 698; Special Export Zones, 1016; stabilization of, 1129; Taliban, 26, 218–219, 245, 257–258, 262, 276, 278, 333–334, 336, 340, 357, 360, 364, 371, 376, 387, 390, 432, 459, 494, 522, 532, 653, 701, 707, 721, 819, 836, 842, 847, 896, 1045, 1113, 1146, 1178, 1213, 1246, 1260, 1273–1274, 1277–1279; terrorist sanctuary, 80, 364–365, 368, 371, 376, 527, 531; terrorist training camps, 2, 209, 268, 276, 278, 281, 299, 364, 365, 576, 580; Thailand, 1264; training camps, 888, 917, 944, 1045; tribal leaders, 358; United States, 312, 481, 482, 515, 707; United States operations, 952, 955–956, 959; United States Navy, 358; United States-Australian cooperation, 401; United States-China cooperation, 401; United States-Russia cooperation, 401; War on Terror, 290, 311, 321, 328, 338, 340, 357–358, 360, 364, 374, 382, 385, 387, 400, 440, 462, 466, 480, 487, 524, 546, 554, 665, 684, 825, 841, 846, 850; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD),
Index 425, 508, 520, 1268; withdrawal from, 833 African Embassy bombings (1998): Al-Qaeda, 476, 491–492, 494–495, 499, 740, 750, 1233, 1248; Algiers Convention against Terrorism, 1243; Condoleezza Rice, 456; counterterrorism, 11, 38; inter-agency cooperation, 745; John Ashcroft, 562; Madeline Albright, 135–137; Osama Bin Laden, 80, 218; Richard B. Cheney, 365, 371, 376, 387; Scotland Yard officers’ testimony, 1139; War on Terror, 2–3 African National Congress, 13 African Union, African Union (AU): Center for Study and Research on Terrorism, 1256; Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, 1256; terrorism, 1254–1255; War on Terror, cooperation in, 6, 1254–1255 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 448 Al-Akhtar Trust International, 1017 Al-Anbuke, Raed Rokan, 793 Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade/Bank/ Foundation: arms deals with Hamas, 959; EU action against, 976, 989; freezing assets by U.S., 1000, 1006 Al-Arian, Sami, 582 Al-Askari Mosque, 724 Albania, 789 Al-Barakaat, 955, 957, 984 Albright, Madeline, 22, 135–137 Alfaro Vive Cajaro (AVC), 186, 191 Al-Gamat al-Islamiyya, 238, 1228 Algeria: Boudiaf assassination, 234; Islamic extremist groups, 204, 235–236, 874; Algiers Convention against Terrorism, 1243; Al-Qaeda, 1245–1246; Beirut, 1197; counterterrorism cooperation, 1253; imams, 1176; Pan-Sahel Initiative, 1255; Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), 710, 1167, 1169, 1207, 1246–1247, 1251, 1257–1258, 1167; terrorist attacks, 1254; War on Terror, cooperation in, 688, 1301 Al-Hamzi, Nawaf, 330–332, 746, 756, 913 Al-Haramain Charitable Foundation: closing of, 995, 1254; freezing of assets, 999, 1002; UN Sanctions Committee, 708, 983, 994–995, 1191 Al-Hussein, King Abdullah II bin, 1134, 1184, 1197 Alien Terrorist Removal Court, 31–32 Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiyya, 998 Al-Jazeera, 841 Al-Kadi, Yasin, 999 Al-Khodir, Bashir, 174 Allawi, Ayad, 795–796, 800, 818 Allen, George, 42
Index Al-Maliki, Nouri: benchmarks/timetables, 849, 854–855; character, 831; government, 788, 827, 841, 844, 850–852; Iraqi people, 822; Iraqi security, 824, 830, 838, 840, 852, 854; Iraqi unification, 724; George W. Bush, 315, 324, 325, 339–340, 354, 460, 461, 463, 465 Al-Masri, Abu Hamza, 1172 Al-Mihdhar, Khalid, 330–332, 913 Al-Owhali, Mohamed Rashed Doud, 562 Al-Qaeda: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, 372, 385, 488, 526, 528, 531, 646, 828–830; Abu Nidal, 365; Abu Sayyaf Group, 495; Abu Zubaydah, 470; affiliates, 481, 495, 507–509, 514, 517, 1093, 1126–1127; Afghanistan, 357, 360, 364, 376, 458, 492, 495, 512, 606, 653, 679, 683, 689, 697, 701–702, 707, 731, 930, 1096; African Embassy bombings (1998), 2–3, 11, 38, 495; Al-Barakaat network, 581; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 478; arrests, 276, 278; attacks against United States interests, 491, 495, 506, 508, 511; Ayman AlZawahiri, 372, 385, 528, 937–938, 945; Basque Fatherland Liberty (ETA), 488; biological weapons, 900; Cold War, 367; communication, 380–381, 384, 394, 728, 817, 898, 937, 946; counterterrorism efforts against, 462, 480, 485, 487, 508, 523, 528; covert action against, 37; creation of, 476; cruise missile attacks against, 2; decentralization, 653; Department of State, 735; destruction of, 398, 405, 432–433, 538; detainees, 678, 689, 900, 907; domestic support, 580; domestic terrorism, 888, 896, 900; Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, 481; economy, 617; enemy combatants, 440; entry into the US, 585; Europe, 526; exploitation of local conflict, 1300; facilities, 696, 702, 707; financial efforts against, 949–950, 952, 955–956, 958– 959, 964–966, 981, 983–984, 993–1000, 1006, 1013, 1031; financing, 23, 35, 678, 688, 697, 704, 942; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), 23; freezing assets, 1093; funding, 17, 1009; future threat, 738, 923, 944, 1063; Global Islamic Media Front, 841; global threat, 485, 488, 589, 647, 1092, 1105, 1108, 1299; globalization, 480, 492, 512–514; Hezbollah, 521; homegrown terrorism, 607; homeland security, 586; Horn of Africa, 709; ideology, 819; international cooperation against, 386, 481, 485, 508, 932, 937; Internet, 606; Iran, 439, 654,
1323 679, 686, 697, 1115; Iraq, 277, 314, 320, 323–326, 345, 346, 354, 365, 372, 385, 386–387, 388, 423–425, 439, 462, 470– 471, 491, 495, 508, 509, 517, 526–527, 531, 679, 681, 685, 699, 702, 724. See also Chapter 19; Italy, 481, 494; Jack Murtha, 385; Jemaah Islamiyya (JI), 488; Jordan, 689; Jose Padilla, 573–574; Kenya, 689; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 470, 923; Kuwait, 689; Latin America, 493; law of war, 505, 512–513; leadership, 678, 684, 687–688, 697, 702–703, 725, 794, 930, 1299; local conflicts, 508, 509, 523; legal processing, 494; losses, 794, 820, 830, 846; Madrid train bombings (2004), 701; media, 360, 480, 487–488, 508, 547; Middle East, 372; Mombasa attacks (2002), 495; Morocco, 689; Mounir el Motassadeq, 581; National Security Agency (NSA), 394, 446–447; National Security Council (NSC), 539–540; non-state actors, 4, 668; Operation Enduring Freedom, 673, 675; operations against, 1128; Osama Bin Laden, 364, 385–386, 469–470, 487, 492, 525, 528, 532, 733, 937–938, 945, 1095; Pakistan, 365, 376, 382, 486, 515, 529, 679, 689, 706, 1021; public diplomacy against, 399; Ramzi Bin AlShibh, 470; recruitment, 462; religious profiling, 632; resiliency, 732; rewards for capture, 7; Richard Reid, ‘‘Shoe Bomber,’’ 584; Riyadh bombings, 995; Rumsfeld v. Hamdan, 603; Saddam Hussein, 365; Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), 1111; sanctuaries, 360, 365, 372, 382, 1128–1129; Saudi Arabia, 492, 688, 703, 708, 714; self-radicalization, 526; self-sufficiency, 669; September 11 attacks, 360, 366–367, 374, 394, 460, 467, 472, 488, 491–492, 494, 508, 528, 584; Shiites, 517; Singapore, 481; Somalia, 695; Southeast Asia, 494, 680, 688–689, 709– 710, 714; Soviet Union, 367; spread of ideology, 689, 703, 726; structure, 727, 730; Sudan, 492, 738; Taliban, 357, 376, 492, 532, 741, 896; targets of, 506; Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, 604; terrorist financing, 478, 487, 494, 508, 518; Terrorist Surveillance Program, 590– 596; Thailand, 509; threat to Europe, 679–680, 711, 714; threat to United States, 678–679, 687, 689, 696, 700, 713, 725; terrorist training camps, 360, 364, 576, 580, 740–741, 888, 944, 1003– 1004, 1028, 1045; transnational network of, 433, 480, 512, 516, 528, 531; Tunisia, 492, 494; Turkey, 494, 689; UN sanctions against, 975–979, 991, 1018; Unification
1324 Al-Qaeda (continued) Jihad Group, 488; United Nations, 481; United States, 357, 374, 380, 381, 388, 394, 481, 511; United States efforts against, 672, 677, 679, 701, 704, 713, 721, 741–754; United States military targeting, 476; USS Cole bombing, 539; videotape releases, 470, 613–614; War on Terror, 382, 385, 386–387, 439, 467–468, 479, 488, 505, 508, 526, 528, 554, 604, 608; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 360, 365, 382, 491, 520, 676, 680, 690, 696, 713, 717, 739–740; World Trade Center bombing (1993), 598; Yemen, 405, 688 Al-Saud, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, 1134, 1184, 1199 Al-Shannaq, Rasmi Subhi Saleh, 576, 583 Al-Taqua, 955, 1006 Al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab: Al-Qaeda, 828, 1273; death, 646, 829–830, 842, 856; democracy, 288; eluding of capture, 796–797; ideology, 311, 313, 1196; Iraq, 299, 301, 313, 423–425, 462, 467, 471, 798, 802, 804, 806, 681, 1299; Iraqi civil war, 818, 843; Osama Bin Laden, 466; Saddam Hussein, 327, 470–471; Shia, 326, 345; terrorism network, 424–425, 799, 1170 Al-Zawahiri, Ayman: Iraq, 439; Osama bin Laden, 546, 598, 713, 725, 945; propaganda messages/tapes, 614, 937–938 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 38, 896, 921 American Red Cross, 1041 AmeriCorps, 262 Amnesty International, 300–301 Animal Liberation Front, 241 Ansar Al-Islam, 423 Anthrax attacks, 559–561, 563 Antiterrorism Act of 1991, 33 Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, 479 Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995, 872, 879, 881 Antiterrorism Arms Export Control Act (1989), 14–16, 160 Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA): aviation security, 198; budget, 39, 215, 428; Colombia, 219; international cooperation, 6, 144, 136, 206, 219, 428, 492; Jordan, 38; regional conferences, 219; seminars, 40; subcommittee staff, 41; terrorist financing, 215, 478 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996: creation of, 19, 25; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 883, 991, 1092; implications, 881–882, 884–885; international
Index cooperation, 478; passage, 880, 991; terrorism financing, 33, 377, 478, 496, 705, 859, 991, 1092 Arab-Americans: attacks on, 906; cooperation, 931–932; discrimination against, 930 Arab League, 130 Arab Liberation Front, 235 ‘‘Arab Street,’’ 685, 794 Arafat, Yasser, 130, 131, 138, 153, 403, 700 Argentina: Argentine Israel Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing, 1228; disappearances, 103; radical Islamic groups’ activity, 962, 964, 1007, 1023; international terrorism, 130; Jewish, Israeli, targets, 199, 234, 662, 1228; law enforcement cooperation, 1223; Tri-Border Area, 1228 Armenia, 152, 154 Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), 152 Arms trafficking, 962, 964, 1017 Arnaout, Enaam, 581 Army Corps of Engineers, 1048 Ashcroft, John: Al-Qaeda, 481; Department of Justice reorganization, 905; intelligence, 1046; Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), 1035; September 11 attacks, 727; Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), 1035; USA PATRIOT Act, 28, 246, 859, 906; War on Terror, 37, 588 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Group (APEC): CT Task Force, 502; Financial Action Task Force, 975; international cooperation, 1142; leadership meeting, 1262; maritime security, 504; terrorist financing countermeasures, 481, 978; United States relations, 1265 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s Counterterrorism Task Force, 502 Assad, Bashar al, 133, 142 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 481, 500, 978, 1168, 1262, 1271 Atta, Mohhamad, 181, 1169 Attash, Walid Bin, 706 AUC (United Self Defense Forces of Colombia): charges against, 578; Colombia, 217; combatants, 525; destabilization of Colombia, 1235; Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, 998; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 1228; murders, 493; narcotics trafficking, 963, 1234 Aum Shinrikyo, 208 Australia: Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 6; bilateral cooperation, 5, 401; counterterrorism Laws, 43; democracy in Iraq, 812; Embassy bombing, 432;
Index international conventions, 9; Regional Movement Alert List, 504; September 11 attack losses, 475; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 6; terrorist financing, 40; Visa Lookout System, 31 Austria, 172–173 Aviation Security Improvement Act, 196, 198 Azzam the American, 612–614 Aznar, Jose Maria, 91 Ba’ath Party, 411 Baader-Meinhoff Gang, 64 Babar, Mohammed, 586 Badat, Saajid, 597–598 Badr Organization Militia, 693 Bahrain, 977, 1001, 1016 Baker, Howard, 99, 1072 Baker, James, 8, 845 Baker, Shukri Abu, 934 Baker-Hamilton Commission. See Iraq Study Group Bald, Gary M., 947 Basrah, 693, 808, 838 Balkans, 654, 814, 1061, 1143, 1168 Beers, Randy, 947, 960 Beirut: airport, 66; American targets, 81; Embassy bombing, 101, 153, 158; hostages, 61–62, 66; Jordanian airliner hijacking, 112; Marine barracks bombing, 8, 45, 95, 101, 234, 539, 542–543; Mohammad Hamadei, 172; state sponsored terrorism, 58; Syrian shelling of suburbs, 13; terrorist apartments, 665 Beit El-Mal Bank, 959, 1006 Belarus, 1005, 1008 Belgium: assassinations, 63; extradition treaties, 111, 173; Iranian terrorism, 132; Fighting Communist Cells, 154, 180; Container Security Initiative, 1160; Muslim Dialogue Conference, 1167; Richard Reid, 494 Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), 984, 1004 Bereuter, Doug, 872 Berlusconi, Silvio, 1079–1080 Berman, Howard, 16 Bin al-Shibh, Ramzi, 470 Bin Laden, Osama: Abu Faraj Al-Libbi, 299; Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, 336, 423, 829, 843; activities, 516, 546; Afghanistan, 329, 364, 492, 516, 532, 580, 665, 697, 714, 740–741; African Embassy bombings (1998), 80, 136–137, 218, 491; Ahmed Rassam, 1226; Al-Qaeda, 215, 364, 433, 467, 470, 476, 526, 528, 666, 738–739, 923, 945, 1227; Al-Barakaat, 955, 984; Ali Mohamed, 941; attacks, 653, 655, 747–749; Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 516, 528,
1325 598; Beirut, 385; bodyguards, 599; capture, 1267; chemical weapons factory in Sudan, 80; CIA operations against, 733, 741–747, 752; communication, 516, 756, 776–777, 785, 937–938; control of terrorist organizations, 675–676, 725; cruise missile attacks against, 79–80; Democrats, 385; eluding capture, 688; family connections, 476; fatwa, 329, 739; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), 212; freezing of assets, 976, 979; George W. Bush, 245, 252, 360; goals, 476, 491, 526; indictment, 950; ideology, 528, 785–786, 819, 1196; international community, 528; International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) Sanctions, 991; Iraq, 301–302, 313, 372, 385, 424–425, 833–834; local conflicts, 528; location and health, 466; media, 487, 528; Mullah Omar, 841; nuclear capability, 740; Operation Enduring Freedom, 673; Pakistan, 299, 516, 1279; propaganda, 841; Raison d’etre, 311, 329, 336; reward for, 562; Terrorism Information Rewards Program, 7. See also Rewards for Justice Program; rise of, 738; Saddam Hussein, 424; Said Hassan Ali Mohamed Mukhlis, 965; sanctions against, 532; sanctuary for, 492; Saudi Arabia, 476, 492, 739; search for, 467, 469–470; Security Council Resolutions 1267/1390 Sanctions, 975–976, 978–979, 1013; September 11 attacks, 307–308, 329–331, 491, 531; Somalia, 385; statements by, 487, 528, 531; Sudan, 424, 492, 739; supporters, 668, 725; Taliban, 256, 329, 364, 653, 740–741, 819; tapes, 385, 589, 612–615; terrorist financing, 738–739; terrorist organizations, 666; terrorist training camps, 80, 740–741; threat to Americans, 136; U.S. military, 476, 491–492; United States as target of, 661, 664, 689, 695, 717, 725; United States pursuit of, 713, 834, 850; United States, 79, 385, 392, 476, 491; Wa’el Hamza Julaidan, 983; War on Terror, 385, 386, 392, 487; wealth, 1256; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 425, 655, 657, 660, 680, 690, 696, 717, 740; worldwide associates/ contacts, 655, 657, 659, 675, 681, 689 Binalshibh, Ramzi, 900 Biological weapons: abandoning of, 1208; Al-Qaeda, 402, 655, 660, 676, 690, 713; asymmetric attacks, 86; attack on US, 648; Biological Weapons Convention, 84, 87, 223; Bio-Sensors, 636; Biowatch Program, 631; Counterterrorism Research
1326 Biological weapons (continued) Development Program, 198; defense against, 89–90; Emergency Support Teams, 243; hoaxes, 560; homeland defense against, 269, 287, 316–317; intelligence, 630; Iraq, 411–412, 414–419, 422, 425; military assistance, 873; Osama Bin Laden, 655; PDD-39, 237, 243; Philippines preparedness, 1272; potential terrorist use of, 1270, 1272; preparedness budget, 87–88; Saddam Hussein, 269–271, 276; terrorism, 82, 87, 208, 264, 266, 281, 290, 298, 563, 565; terrorist groups, 657 Bjarnason, Jared, 896 Black, Cofer, 42, 700, 706, 913, 915, 1083, 1133–1134, 1250 Black Panthers, 152 Blair, Tony: Baker-Hamilton, 341; hostage crisis, 1080; Iraq visit, 822; London attacks, 304; meeting with George W. Bush, 339; Middle East, 340; nuclear weapons threat, 343; statement on terrorism, 338 Blix, Hans, 408, 410–411, 415, 417 Bloomberg, Michael, 645 Bolivia, 186, 188, 192, 962 Bolka, David, 1096 Bonn Declaration, 162, 722 Border Security Program, 450 Bosnia and Herzegovina: Al-Haramain, 983, 994, 999, 1002; Coalition of the Willing, 810; violence, 1004 Boucher, Richard, 217, 1069, 1076 Boudiaf, Muhammad, 234 Brazil: democracy, 454; kidnapping of Ambassador Burke Elbrick, 1228; leader in South America, 449; money laundering, 942, 1024, 1223; radical Islamic groups’ activity, 962–964, 1007; Tri-Border Area, 1023, 1223, 1228 Bremer, L. Paul, 1075 Bremer Commission, 630 Biden, Joseph, 20 Bingham, Jonathan, 14 Bulgaria, 153, 198, 789, 796 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), 871 Bureau of Prisons, 607 Burma. See Myanmar Burns, R. Nicholas, 1162, 1188 Burns, William J., 1133 Bush, George H.W.: assassination attempt in Kuwait, 2, 362, 792; consultation with Europe, 66; Counterterrorism R&D, 1097; Operation Desert Storm, 46; public diplomacy, 8; terrorist policy, 1072 Busby, Morris, 1075
Index Bush, George W.: achievements, 1215; address to the nation on Iraq, 38; Afghanistan, 374, 406–407, 436, 524; Africa, 1243; Al-Qaeda, 589–590, 907; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 39; attitude towards North Korea, 401; border control, 30; budget request, 397; Businesses Building Bridges Program, 524; call for inter-agency cooperation, 920; counterterrorism funding, 1044; counterterrorism measures, 360, 368, 476–477, 498, 526; critics of, 793–794; Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), 524; David Ignatius, 1217; democracy, 454–455; Department of Defense, 540; Department of State, 436; doctrine, 360, 363, 376, 703; East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative, 1255; East Asia, 456; electronic surveillance, 954; enemy regimes, 360, 363, 370, 376; European allies, 436; expansion of Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), 1035; Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, 998; foreign policy mission, 435, 539; Freedom Agenda, 1203; Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, 717; global strategy, 711; Holy Land Foundation (HLF), 933; homeland security, 359; immigration, 30–31, 930; intelligence legislation, 768; international affairs budget, 449; international cooperation, 476, 479, 482, 501; Iraq, 38, 369, 436, 460, 552, 787–788, 819; Islam, 1168; Islamic Radicalism, 1212; Israel, 378; Middle East, 526, 1183; multilateral institutions, 498, 510; National Counterterrorism Strategy, 1180; National Security Agency (NSA), 380, 781; National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, 5; Overseas Business Advisory Council (OBAC), 524; Osama bin Laden, 360; Pakistan, 1135, 1260, 1275; Palestine, 378, 437; peace process, 403; Proliferation Security Initiative, 718; public diplomacy, 8; public-private partnerships in the counterterrorism effort, 524; Europe, relations with, 402; Russia, relations with, 400; Saudi Arabia, 1134; Second Inaugural Address, 443, 449; September 11 attacks, 362, 366, 380, 458, 498; terrorism issues, 476, 477, 482; terrorism sponsoring / funding, 477–478, 498, 965, 976, 992; Terrorist Information Rewards Program, 1083. See also Rewards for Justice Program; terrorist sanctuaries, 360; Terrorist Surveillance Program, 29; threats, 366, 385; U.N. Nuclear Terrorism Convention, 510; United Nations, 510; USA PATRIOT
Index Act, 859; War on Terror, 358–359, 366, 368, 370, 374, 378, 405, 429, 442, 460, 479, 499, 476, 483, 498, 501, 533, 554, 817, 1057; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 363, 368, 718; Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission report, 728, 771, 777; worldwide threats, 790 Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, 2, 45, 47–48 Caldwell, William, 841 Canada: Afghan National Army, 334; border with United States, 30, 316, 1051, 1227, 1229, 1235; Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 1229; counterterrorism programs, 531; Counterterrorism R&D, 206. See also Technical Support Working Group (TSWG); extradition treaties with the United States, 111; Group of Eight (G-8), 162; Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), 1231; international conventions, 9; International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq, 811; Lawrence MacAulay, 1226; National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, 916; National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS), 1062; NORTHCOM, 1060; Operation Enduring Freedom, 259; partnership with United States, 5, 577–578; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 335; September 11 attacks, 475, 1226; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 6. See also Counterterrorism R&D; terrorist attack plans, 938, 944; terrorist financing, 40; trade, 616; Visa Lookout System, 31; War on Terror, cooperation in, 531, 1134, 1165, 1230 Carlucci, Frank, 1072 Carter, James Earl, 13 Casey, George: Iraqi troops, 293; Bush and Rumsfeld meet with, 320; benchmarks/ timetables, 849, 854–855; Iraq assessments, 814, 818, 839, 846, 851; Iraq security, 827–828, 837, 847, 856 Casey, William, 229, 727 Castro, Fidel, 64 Center for Anti-Terrorism Security Training, 140, 215 Center for Disease Control (CDC), 560, 631 Center for Domestic Preparedness, 225 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): Afghanistan, 731; arrests of terrorists, 745; asymmetric attacks, 667; Bin Laden Issue Unit, 739; Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, 45; Cofer Black, 913; Counterterrorism Center, 970; counterterrorism efforts before 9/11,
1327 732–733, 743–744, 748–752; counterterrorism, 37; diplomatic role, 1090; Directorate of Intelligence, 733, 763, 777; establishment, 894; FBI cooperation, 274, 284, 331–332, 891, 915, 917, 919, 924, 927, 933, 970; George Tenet, 217, 273; headquarters shooting, 137; information collecting, 745; intelligence, 330–331; inter-agency coordination, 139, 405, 554, 736, 747; Inter-Departmental Group on Terrorism, 156; international cooperation, 746; interrogation, 336, 1216; Iranian terrorism, 63; Jose Padilla, 573; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 897, 900; Mir Aimal Kansi murders, 1086; National Operations Analysis Hub, 628; National Security Coordination Council, 569; National Security Counsel, 916; Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 147; Osama Bin Laden, 740; overseas counterterrorism, 157, 206; Porter Goss, 442; pre-9/11 intelligence collection, 1089; Prohibition against the Training or Support of Terrorist Organizations Act of 1984, 18; response to 9/11, 732; responsibilities, 894; Robert S. Mueller, 273; role in Intelligence Community, 712–713; secret prison system, 438, 904; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 1098; terrorist interrogation program, 897, 900, 903–904; Terrorist Threat Integration Center, 269, 926, 1116; torture, 441; Training Assistance Group, 156; Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, 542; USA PATRIOT Act, 27, 584, 605; William Webster, 1072 Chad, 710, 1251, 1255, 1301 Chalabi, Ahmed, 472 Chavez, Hugo, 716 Chechnya, 703, 1004 Chemical weapons: abandoning of, 1208; Al-Qaeda, 655, 660, 676, 690, 713; asymmetric attacks, 86; attack on transit systems, 636; attack on US cities, 648; Chemical Weapons Convention, 74, 78, 84, 87, 875; Counterterrorism R&D, 198; defense against, 89, 90; explosives, 873; hoaxes, 560; homeland defense against, 287; Iraq, 409, 412, 416–419, 422, 425; Libya, 187, 1188; military assistance, 873; Osama Bin Laden, 655; Philippines preparedness, 1272; preparedness budget, 87; proliferation, 74; Saddam Hussein, 73, 269–272, 276, 290, 299; Soviet Union, 186, 192; Sudan factory, 80; terrorism, 82, 186–187, 192, 208, 263–264, 266, 269, 298, 402, 565, 657, 1270, 1272; Tokyo subway attack, 87, 208
1328 Cheney, Richard B.: American Enterprise Institute, 246; Iraq, 787; Operation Desert Storm, 73; Office of National Preparedness, 91; War on Terror, 788 Chertoff, Michael, 246 China: border problems, 670; Communist revolution, 317; United States, cooperation with, 401, 443, 499, 577–578, 1134, 1261–1262; diplomats, 450; East Turkistan Islamic Movement, 481, 983; Financial Action Task Force recommendations, 1023; freedom, 267; future of, 673; George W. Bush, 1090; international progress, 449; Iran, 686; North Korea, 270; terrorist financing, 977 Christopher, Warren, 205, 209, 210 Civil Aviation, 748–750 Clark, Dick (Senator), 13 Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), 865, 875 Clausewitz, Carl Philipp Gottfried von, 118 Clinton, William Jefferson: Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995, 872; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 134, 859; Bashar Al-Assad, 142; Boris Yeltsin, 131; cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan, 472; cruise missile attacks on Iraq, 2; African Embassy bombings, 136; Emergency Response Planning, 140; foreign policy agenda, 207; Group of Eight (G-8), 222; immigration, 221; intelligence surveillance, 595; international cooperation, 210; international terrorism, 203; Iran sanctions, 205; Iraq, 370; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 872; PDD-39, 236; peace process, 129; rule of law, 210; Sharm el-Sheikh Summit, 131; Shimon Peres, 131; Somalia, 246, 385, 834; Syria, 133; terrorism financing, 19–20, 129; terrorism threat, 141; tsunamis, 296; United Nations address, 130; USA PATRIOT Act, 27 Coalition Provisional Authority, 434 Coast Guard, 261, 613 College of Analytical Studies, 924 Commission Reports (Listings): Bush Administration Implements WMD Commission Recommendations (Actions to Implement WMD Commission Recommendations), 1287; Combating Terrorism: Interagency Framework and Agency Programs to Address the Overseas Threat (Government Accountability Office Report), 1286; Combating Terrorism: Selected Challenges and Related Recommendations (Government Accountability Office Report), 1286;
Index Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Report to the President), 1286; Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism (National Commission on Terrorism), 1286; Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change (The Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/ 21st Century), 1286; The Fifth Annual Report to the President and the Congress of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (The Gilmore Commission), 1286; The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (The 9/11 Commission), 1286; USS Cole Commission Report, Executive Summary (Department of Defense), 1286; White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (The Gore Commission), 1286; WMD Commission Report, 1287 Colombia: Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 163, 406; attacks, 186, 673, 1227; Attorney General assassination, 112; Avianca flight bombing, 186, 188; democracy, 403, 427; drug trafficking, 695; elections, 716; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 884; funding Ecuadorian terrorism, 192; hostage-taking, 218, 1069; Inter-American Committee against Terrorism, 1241; M-19, 152; narco-terrorism, 112, 154, 185, 191, 216, 217–218, 402, 430, 962–963, 998, 1241; National Liberation Army (ELN), 186, 963, 998, 1228–1229, 1234–1235; Palace of Justice seizure, 152; Plan Colombia, 146, 219, 1229; progress against narcotics and terrorism, 716; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 217–218, 578, 684, 691, 696, 714, 963, 993, 1228–1229, 1234–1235; United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, (AUC) 217, 578, 963, 998, 1228, 1234–1235, 1228; United States assistance, 450, 1242 Comprehensive Crime Control Act, 160 Computerized Passenger Screening System, 224 Congress/messages and reports to (listings): Country Reports on Terrorism 2005 and 2006 (Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism), 1292; Letter to Congress on American Campaign Against Terrorism Including Military DeploymentText of a Letter from the President to the
Index Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, 1292; Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing (The White House), 1292–1293; Presidential Letter (Text of a Letter from President George W. Bush to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate) Reporting on The Use of U.S. Troops in the War on Terrorism, 1293 Constitution (United States): civil liberties, 606, 632; Commander-in-Chief military powers, 1058; Department of Justice, 1037; executive authority, 591–592, 610; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1037; Fourth Amendment issues, 1038; surveillance, 593, 601 Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS), 735, 736 Container Security Initiative: advance cargo manifests, 616; expansion, 1159; G-8, 1153; international cooperation, 641; SAFE Port Act, 31, 899; Singapore, 1264 Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR), 719 Cooney, Thomas, 1134 Costa Rica, 64, 163, 198, 716 Cote d’Ivoire, 1252 Council of Guardians, 699 Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC): Al-Qaeda, 742–743; creation of, 745; inter-agency cooperation within, 745 Counter-Terrorist Financing Public Awareness and Rewards Campaign, 987 Counterterrorism Security Group, 3, 147, 1302 Counterterrorism Technical Assistance Support Group, 1302 Country teams, 1300–1303 Critical Infrastructure Working Group, 242 Crowe, William, 138 Crumpton, Henry A., 6, 1134, 1295 Cuba: Colombia, cooperation with, 186; international terrorism, 990; sanctions against, 137; state sponsor of terrorism, 15, 137, 142, 154, 160, 170, 201, 205, 234–235, 237; Trade Enhancement Act of 2000, 41 Cultural Diversity Advisory Board, 939 Customs and Trader Partnership against Terrorism, (C-TPAT), 616, 719, 899 Cyber-terrorism: Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 1093, 1102; crime, 940; critical infrastructures, 918; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 924, 929–930, 937 Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia, 789, 813 Daley, Matthew P., 1134 Darfur, 715
1329 Denmark, 789, 796, 989 Daschle, Tom, 560 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 542, 667, 937 Department of Agriculture, 554, 639 Department of Commerce, 87, 554 Department of Defense (DOD): Afghanistan reconstruction, 555; anthrax, 631; armed forces transformation, 540–541; budget, 555; challenges, 1036; civilian contractors, 192; civilian oversight of special operations, 1129; collaboration with Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), 997; Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), 709; command structure, 319; Committee to Combat Terrorism, 47; cooperation with FBI, 871; Counterterrorism R&D, 198. See also Technical Support Working Group (TSWG); Counterterrorism Security Group, 3; Critical Infrastructure Working Group, 242; critical infrastructures, 1037; cyber-terrorism, 88; Defense Authorization Act (2006), 1130; Defense Intelligence Agency, 937; Department of Homeland Security, relations with, 542, 1055–1056, 1058, 1061; Department of Justice, 607; diplomatic role, 1090; domestic terrorism, 225, 1036; excerpts of Report of Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Attack, 1281–1282; Foreign Emergency Support Team, 1095; Guantanamo Bay, 599; homeland security, 629; inter-agency cooperation, 908, 916, 1058–1059, 1061, 1106, 1130, 1295; Inter-Departmental Group on Terrorism, 156; Jose Padilla, 573; Legal Attaches, ´ 915; military commissions, 603; National Defense Authorization Act, 1298; National Infrastructure Protection Center, 1038; National Security Act of 1947, 893–894; National Security Coordination Council, 569; National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, 718; Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Amendment, 1040; Office of Bomb Prevention, 649; Office of National Preparedness, 91; Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), 997–998; Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (OASD/SOLIC), 1099; overseas counterterrorism, 157–158; Pan Sahel Initiative, 1111; public diplomacy campaign, 8; Quadrennial Defense Review, 541, 1056, 1122, 1126, 1129, 1296–1297; Secretary of Defense, 1056, 1058–1060; Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) efforts, 1297;
1330 Department of Defense (DOD) (continued) state-sponsored terrorism, 1282; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 39, 156, 1094, 1098. See also Counterterrorism R&D; terrorist financing, 990; Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), 926; Trade Enhancement Act of 2000, 42; transformation, 1297; War on Terror, 555, 607 Department of Energy (DOE), 156, 225, 718, 720 Department of Health Human Services (DHHS), 88, 91, 225, 631, 639 Department of Homeland Security (DHS): Asa Hutchison, 1239; border security, 30, 431–432, 450, 1067; Cargo Security Summit, 615; Chief Intelligence Officer, 638; Congressional oversight, 43; Counterterrorism Security Group, 3; counterterrorism, 612–613, 623; creation of, 254, 261, 305, 332, 367–368, 393, 624–625, 630, 893–894, 1046, 1055–1056, 1062, 1088; Department of Defense, 1055, 1058–1061; diplomatic role, 1090; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 612–613; first responders 632; grants, 624, 634, 650; Homeland Security Information Network, 1105; immigration, 941; Intelligence Community, 627; inter-agency cooperation, 640, 644, 1012, 1026–1027, 1030, 1055, 1058, 1060, 1106–1107, 1302; long-term plan, 1089; mission, 1047–1048; National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan, 1105; natural disasters, 638; Office of Bomb Prevention, 649; program transfers, 1054; SAFE Port Act, 898–899; Safe Skies for Africa, 705; Second Stage Review, 632–634; Secretary of, 619; security before Election Day, 614; separate offices, 638; startup problems, 1295; state and local governments, 620, 622, 647; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 7, 1094, 1098; Terrorism Exclusion List, 1013; terrorism, 281; terrorist financing, 990, 992, 1026, 1030, 1033, 1093, 1103; Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), 269, 926–927; threat level, 1065; Tom Ridge, 1159, 1239; TOPOFF exercise, 1095; transportation security, 635; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 1023; vulnerabilities, 359, 606; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 718, 720 Department of Justice (DOJ): 9/11 Investigation, 574, 579; Abu Nidal
Index Organization, 17; Achille Lauro, 33; Al-Barakaat, 957; Alien Terrorist Removal Court, 31–32; anthrax attacks, 559–560; Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991, 33; AntiTerrorism Act of 2001, 478; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 20–21, 25; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 6, 40, 219, 1144; Arab and Muslim Communities, 223–225; arrests, 588; Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, 968; budget, 566, 587, 589, 602; Center for AntiTerrorism Security Training, 215; China, 578; civil liberties, 447, 561, 579, 639; counterterrorism efforts, 861, 876–879, 894; counterterrorism funding, 37; Counterterrorism Security Group, 3; counterterrorism white paper, 24; Department of Defense, 607; diplomacy, 495; domestic terrorism, 242; Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 943; EUROJUST, 1181; Financial Action Task Force (FATF), 986, 1013–1014; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 581, 595, 920–921; Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), 22–24, 211–212, 884, 991, 1012; Germany, 581; Great Britain, 598; immigration, 570, 583; Intelligence Reform Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, 26; inter-agency cooperation, 405, 554, 910, 916, 942, 1012, 1026–1027, 1037, 1040, 1044, 1051, 1058, 1302; Interagency Working Group of Legislative Specialists, 19; Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism, 156; international cooperation, 6, 205, 510; Iraq Task Force, 793; Iraq, 608, 792–793; John Ashcroft, 28, 37; Jose Padilla, 573; Judge Advocate General, 609; Kennedy, Robert, 564, 953; Larry Thompson, 568; Legal Attaches, ´ 915; mission of, 908; Money Laundering Act of 2001, 972; Most Wanted List, 1139; National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), 1039, 1045; National Security Coordination Council, 568; National Security Division, 905, 936; National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS), 571, 1052–1053, 1061; NonCooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) designation, 1015; Office for Victims of Crime, 1045; Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), 1035, 1041, 1051–1052, 1054; Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), 921, 935, 936; Office of Justice Programs, 9, 910; Office of Legal Council, 573, 1054; Office of Overseas Prosecutorial
Index Development Assistance Training (OPDAT), 1031–1032; Office of Terrorism and Violent Crime, 20; Omar Mohammed Ali Rezak, 36; Omnibus Diplomatic Security Antiterrorism Act, 11; overseas building operations, 398; overseas counterterrorism, 206; overseas investigations, 1295; Philippines, 1273; Primary Money Laundering Concern designation, 1006; reorganization, 909, 1049; Resident Legal Advisors, 1029; Southern Africa, 1252; strategic plan, 909; Terrorism Exclusion List, 1013; Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG), 1026; Terrorist Financing Task Force, 959; terrorist financing, 933, 957, 961, 967, 974, 981, 987–988, 990, 992, 1013, 1028–1030, 1033; Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), 598, 946; USA PATRIOT Act, 27–29, 581–582, 585, 859, 888, 897; War on Terror, 561, 563, 565, 568, 579– 580, 586, 602, 604, 607; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 1044 Department of State: Abu-Nidal Organization, 17; Africa, 1248; Alien Terrorist Removal Court, 32; Al-Manar, 1224; annual terrorism report, 4, 10; Annual Terrorism Reports to Congress; Antiterrorism Act of 1991, 33–34; Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, 478; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 219; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 4, 38, 40, 163, 201, 206, 210, 428, 478, 483, 705, 709, 737, 868, 929, 1018, 1083, 1091, 1093, 1101–1102, 1104– 1105, 1109–1111, 1143, 1250, 1252, 1253; Arms-Control Export Act, 160; asset forfeiture, 28; Aviation Security Improvement Act, 196; border security, 431; budget, 38–40, 42, 145, 149, 397, 406, 426, 427–429; Bureau of Consular Affairs, 735, 765; Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), 735–737, 765, 871, 874–875, 877, 883–885, 901–902, 1302; Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), 667–668, 671, 735–737, 765; Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), 219, 947, 960–961, 968, 1012, 1015, 1026, 1093, 1103–1104; Bureau of International Narcotics Law Enforcement Affairs, 219; Bureau of Public Affairs, 1069, 1074, 1076; Chiefs of Mission, 1296; Cofer Black, 1133; Colombia, 578; committee staffs, 41; Condoleezza Rice, 435–436, 443; Counterterrorism Coordinating Group, 3; Counterterrorism Financing Unit, 947; Counterterrorism Office, 2,
1331 1083, 734; counterterrorism policy, 1134; Counterterrorism R&D, 144, 188, 194, 203. See also Technical Support Working Group (TSWG); covert action against AlQaeda, 37; deaths, 164, 423; diplomacy, 448–449, 1016, 1266; diplomatic role, 1300–1301; Diplomatic Security Corps, 148; domestic terrorism, 148; embassy security, 138, 400; export licensing, 14; extradition treaties, 111; federal agencies, 504, 510; Financial Action Task Force (FATF), 975, 986, 1013–1014; Financial Systems Assessment Teams, 1028, 1033; Foreign Emergency Support Team, 148–149, 243; Foreign Service, 109, 145, 159; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 22–23, 962, 991–993, 1012, 1224, 1228; Frank C. Urbancic, 1134; Frank Taylor, 1141; Group of Eight Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG), 1015; hearings, 42; Henry Crumpton, 515, 1134; Hostages, Fact Sheet, 1069, 1076–1078; Human Rights Violators list, 933; immigration, 635, 1053; intellectual property training, 1024; intelligence sharing, 157, 735–736; inter-agency cooperation, 916, 929, 935, 956, 974, 981, 1012, 1026–1027, 1032, 1295, 1301–1302; inter-agency groups, 736; Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), 1013; InterDepartmental Group on Terrorism, 156, 157–158; international cooperation, 6, 109, 499, 510; international efforts of, 734–735; Iran, 554, 1221; Iraq, 343–344, 433; Israel, 497; Legal Attaches, ´ 915, 927–928; Mohammed Ali Rezak, 36; money laundering, 1015; National Crime Information Center, 582–583; National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS), 572; national security role, 1299; Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) designation, 1015; Office of Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), 1297–1298; Office of Counterterrorism Emergency Planning, 156–157; Office of PoliticalMilitary Affairs, 1302; Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT), 2, 139, 495, 701, 734, 1012, 1026, 1083; Omnibus Antiterrorism Act (1977), 13; Omnibus Diplomatic Security and AntiTerrorism Act (1986), 172; OSAC, 486, 524; overseas activity, 737–738; Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), 486, 524; overseas security issues, 486; overseas terrorism, 146–147, 149, 156–158, 242, 243; Pan-Sahel Initiative, 1251; Philip
1332 Department of State (continued) Wilcox, 859; Policy Coordinating Committee on Counterterrorism, 195; Powell, Colin, 499; Primary Money Laundering Concerns, 1006; proliferation, 451; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 355; public diplomacy, 8, 399; Regional Terrorism Conference, 6; rendition, 294; Rice, Condoleezza, 524; Saddam Hussein, 362; Secretary of State, 1298; seminars, 1144; Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of, 256; Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) efforts, 1297; State Sponsors of Terrorism List, 12, 14–16, 234–235, 471; statistics, 182; Student Exchange Visitor Information System, 583; Technical Support Work Group (TSWG), 39, 136, 929. See Also Counterterrorism R&D; Terrorism Exclusion List (TEL), 1224; terrorism financing, 17, 20, 496; Terrorism Information Rewards Program, 7, 198, 929, 987, 1083, 1086, 1095–1096. See also Rewards for Justice Program; terrorism trends, 527; Terrorist Alien Removal Act, 187; terrorist financing, 928, 956, 967, 974, 977–978, 980–981, 983, 987–988, 990, 992, 1006, 1009–1013, 1017, 1030; Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP), 147, 705, 1091, 1094, 1102, 1249–1250, 1252, 1264; terrorist sanctuary, 504; Terrorist Threat Integration Center, 431; TIPOFF program, 735–737, 746–747, 929; Tony Blair, 339; Trade Enhancement Act of 2000, 42; Trade Transparency Units (TTUs), 1023; transformational diplomacy strategy, 1301–1302; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Global Program against U. S Navy SEALs, 95; United States-VISIT Program, 639; Violent Crime Control Enforcement Act, 18–19; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 718; World Trade Center bombing (1993), 202 Department of Transportation, 224–225, 705 Department of Treasury: Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 6, 219; Department of State, coordination with, 883–885, 1302; diplomatic role, 1090; Financial Action Task Force (FATF), 975, 986, 988, 1013–1014, 1018, 1143, 1147, 1150, 1156, 1192; Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), 966, 968, 971–972, 986–988, 997, 1005–1009, 1019, 1023, 1029; Financial Systems Assessment Teams, 1028; Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center, 949, 956; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation,
Index 211–212, 991, 994, 1012, 1092; Holy Land Foundation, 958; Infocom, 960; inter-agency cooperation, 956, 959, 961, 974, 981, 986, 988, 1012, 1026–1027, 1030, 1032, 1127; Interagency Working Groups, 19, 405–406, 554; InterDepartmental Group on Terrorism, 156; international cooperation, 6; International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs), 988; Iran, 1221; legal seminars, 1144; Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 1266; Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) designation, 1015; Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), 39, 947, 983, 988, 990–999; Office of Terrorism Financial Intelligence, 39; Office of the Currency Comptroller, 968, 1029; Office of the Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), 1092; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 881; primary money laundering concerns, 1005–1006; Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), 1224; Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG), 1026; terrorist financing, 948, 955–956, 967, 974, 980–982, 992, 1005, 1008, 1017, 1020, 1093, 1103; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 718–719 Detainee Treatment Act, 603, 902–903 Deutch, John M., 915 Diplomatic Security Corps, 148 Director of National Intelligence (DNI), 625, 629, 860, 894 Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR), 707 Djibouti, 709, 1248–1249 Domestic Nuclear Detection Offices, 635, 719, 899 Downing, Wayne, 662–663 Dozier, James, 1136 Drug Enforcement Agency: drug trafficking/ dealing, 878, 887–889, 892, 896; Financial Action Task Force (FATF), 954; Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism (IG/T), 156; International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs), 1014; National Security Coordination Council, 569; terrorist financing, 947, 960–965 East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI), 503, 1248–1250, 1255 East and South African Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), 1009 East Timor, 401, 535 Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, 481, 977 Ecuador, 163, 185–186, 191, 716 Egmont Group, 982
Index Edwards, Don, 18, 24 Egypt: 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 177; airline attacks, 1135; airliner hijacking, 184, 190; al-Gamat al-Islamiyya, 209; anti-money laundering legislation, 977, 1001; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 163; Cairo conference, 812; democracy, 452, 454, 458, 461; Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), 659, 964, 998; elections, 445; Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), 1009; Hamas, 454; Hosni Mubarak, assassination attempts against, 155, 205; International Maritime Organization (IMO), 173; Iraq, 811–812; Israeli-Lebanon conflict, 461; Khartoum, 235; Libyan attacks, 13–14; Luxor attack, 964; Mamoud Abbas, 453; Omar Mohammed Ali Rezak, 36; Palestninian territories, 452; Rabbi Meir Kahane, 19; religious extremism, 236; secularism, 1214; security arrangements, 1193, 1195; September 11 attack losses, 1243; Sharm el Sheikh attack, 1201; Sharm el-Sheikh conference, 811; Special Export Zones, 1016; target of Middle East terrorism, 153, 204; terrorist attacks, 25, 874; terrorist funding, 21; tourism industry, 208; United States, relations with, 403, 451; War on Terror, cooperation in, 678, 688, 933 Eisenhower, Dwight, 1043 Ekeus, Rolf, 128–129 El Al Airline, 2, 12 Elashi, Ghassan, 934 ElBaradi, Mohammad, 408–410 Electronic surveillance/communication: digital telephony, 873; encryption used by terrorists, 871–872; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 859, 863, 868, 879, 881; USA PATRIOT Act, 887–888, 891–892, 896–898 El-Hage, Wadih, 562, 941 El-Mezain, Mohammed, 934 El Paso Islamic Center, 896 El Salvador, 62, 64, 110, 154, 192, 796, 801, 812 England, Gordon, 624 Enhanced Border Security Visa Entry Act, 30 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 225, 1045 EPB-Macheteros, 241 Eritrea, 709, 715 ETA (Basque Fatherland and Liberty), 64, 171, 180, 965 Ethiopia, 709, 715, 1243, 1248–1250 European Community, 168, 179–180, 183 EUROJUST, 577 European Commission (EC), 436, 441 European Court of Justice, 645
1333 EUROPOL, 143, 577 European Union (EU): Action Plan, 1156; Afghanistan, 1143; Al-Qaeda, 494, 509, 526; Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Program, 1014; Container Security Initiative, 1159; Department of Homeland Security, 1159; designated terrorists, 481; EUROJUST, 1181; Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements, 1156; extradition treaties with US, 598; Great Power War, 443; intelligence sharing, 601; international cooperation, 401–403, 481, 503, 510, 519, 577; Iran, relations with, 658; Iraq, 436, 509, 527; Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 502, 531; Palestine finance reform, 1194; passenger screening, 641, 645; poison plots, 679–681, 796, 811, 790; post-September 11 world, 1145; ‘‘Quartet,’’ 1185; Sensitive Passenger Name Record (PNR), 1160; September 11 attacks, 503; terrorist designations 976, 988–989, 1001; terrorist financing, 949– 950, 966, 976–977, 1017, 1022–1023, 1142–1143, 1157–1158; treaties, 1149; United States, coordination with, 979, 1022; United States, 481, 503, 510; War on Terror, cooperation in, 439–440, 443, 480–481, 503, 645, 1141, 1144, 1150– 1152, 1155–1156, 1164, 1181; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 505 Executive Branch Directives, Statements and Reports: Department of Defense Instruction 2000.16, DoD Antiterrorism Standards, 1291; Fact Sheet Supplemental FY 2005 Request on War on Terrorism, 1291; Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing (The White House), 1291; NSDD 109 Responding to the Lebanon Crisis, 1289; NSDD 138 Combating Terrorism, 1290; NSDD 149 Support to Government of Lebanon in Planning for Counter Terrorism Operations, 1290; NSDD 180 Civilian Aviation Anti-Terrorism Program, 1290; NSDD 205 Acting against Libyan Support of International Terrorism, 1290; NSDD 205 Annex Acting Against Libyan Support of International Terrorism, 1290; NSDD 207 The National Program for Combating Terrorism 1290; NSDD 221 Narcotics and National Security, 1290; NSDD 30 Managing Terrorist Incidents, 1289; NSPD 17 (National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction), 1291; NSPD 9 (Combating Terrorism), 1291; Office of Counterterrorism (‘‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’’), 1292;
1334 Executive Branch Directives (continued) Office of Counterterrorism (‘‘Terrorist Exclusion List’’), 1291–1292; PDD-39 U.S. Policy on Counterterrorism, 1290; PDD-62, Establishing National Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the NSC, 1291; Richard Boucher, Spokesmen, U.S. State Department (Designation of Islamic Jihad as Specifically Designated Global Terrorist), 1292; State Department Paper (Rebuilding Iraq: U.S. Achievements Through the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund), 1292; State Department Paper on WMD-Terrorism Risk (updated), 1292; Treasury Department Report on Progress in the War on Terrorist Financing, 1291; Treasury: Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN), 1291; U.S. Counterterrorism Policy and Organization (National Security Council), 1291; Usama bin Ladin: Islamic Extremist Financier (Central Intelligence Agency Report), 1290 Export Administration Act, 15 Fallujah, 796, 798, 800, 805, 843 Farabundo National Liberation Front, 192 Faris, Iyman, 586 FALN (Armed Forces for Puerto Rican National Liberation), 241 Faryniaz, Joseph, 559–560 Federal Administered Tribal Areas, 706 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): Aviation Security Improvement Act of 1990 (ASIA), 196; Computerized Passenger Screening System, 224; security, 196, 1046, 1058; hijacking, 157; InterDepartmental Group on Terrorism, 156 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): Al-Barakaat, 957; Al-Qaeda videotapes, 613; anthrax attacks, 559–560; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 19, 885, 991; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 219; antiterrorism funding, 86; Arab-American community, 224; Awareness of National Security Issues and Response Program, 916; budget, 227, 588; Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, 47; China, 578; Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), 928; Communications Analysis Section, 924; Community Relations Executive Seminar Training (CREST), 939; Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center, 1038; Canada, cooperation with, 1230–1231; Counterterrorism Division, 947, 970; counterterrorism funding, 37,
Index 236, 873; counterterrorism program, 914–915, 924; Counterterrorism Security Group, 3; counterterrorism Special Agents, 221, 792–793; Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), 928; critical infrastructure capabilities, 244; critical infrastructure protection, 1037; Cyber-terrorism, 87; databases, 735, 737, 779; Department of Defense, 607; Department of Homeland Security, 582; Department of Justice, 575; diplomacy, 875; Directorate of Intelligence, 605; Document Exploitation Unit, 925; Domestic Counterterrorism Center, 243; domestic emergency support, 243; domestic terrorism, 135, 152, 208, 239, 243, 877–879, 888, 894, 1043, 1062; Louis J. Freeh, 135, 139, 868–871; field offices, 76, 243; Flying Squads, 905, 919, 925; Foreign Emergency Support Teams, 149; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list, 883; General Counsel Office, 921; Germany, 577; Infocom, 960; Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), 928, 1106, 1231; Intelligence Reform Terrorist Prevention Act, 587; intelligence sharing, 284, 287, 331–332, 405; inter-agency cooperation, 736, 742, 744–746, 744, 749, 752–753, 765, 769, 780, 968, 970, 990, 1030, 1037; Inter-Departmental Group on Terrorism, 156; Interim Infrastructure Protection Task Force, 242; international cooperation, 205, 510; International Terrorist Operations Center, 736; International Training Initiative, 243; INTERPOL, 180; investigative guidelines, 911–913, 942; Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, 77; Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), 567, 1003; Jose Padilla, 573; Legal Attache´ (Legat) Program, 764, 970–971; military commissions, 603; militia groups, 240; Money Laundering Act of 2001, 886; Most-Wanted Terrorist List, 1085; National Crime Information Center (NCIC), 929; National DNA Index, 1106; National Domestic Preparedness Office, 1041, 1054; National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), 916, 1038–1039, 1054; National Operations Analysis Hub, 628; National Security Coordination Council, 569; National Security Law Unit (NSLU), 921, 925; National Threat Warning System, 1035; 9/11 investigation, 567, 579; NunnLugar, 243; Office of International Operations, 927; Office of Public Affairs, 906, 936; Office of the Coordinator for
Index Counterterrorism, 147; Omnibus Diplomatic Security Anti-Antiterrorism Act (1986), 12; overseas counterterrorism, 158, 206, 243, 1140; overseas investigations, 1295; PDD-39, 241–244; post-9/11 improvements to, 266, 269, 273–275, 274, 279, 304–306, 319; post9/11 investigations, 1063; pre-9/11 intelligence collection, 1089; Public Diplomacy Group, 156; Rapid Deployment Teams, 919, 925; recommendations, 972; reorganization of, 574, 970, 1055; Terrorism Information Rewards Program 7. See also Rewards for Justice Program; Robert S. Mueller, 860–861; Saudi Arabia terrorist financing task force, 1000; September 11 attacks, 254–255; special events, 243; special interest terrorism, 241; Special Technologies and Applications Section, 925; state and local law enforcement, 243, 605, 612; Strategic Information Operations Center (SIOC), 871; Terrorism Financial Review Group, 970; Terrorism Forensic Science Database, 223; Terrorist Financing Operations Section (TFOS), 925, 928; Terrorist Financing Task Force, 959; terrorist financing, 20, 766; Great Britain, 598, 604; U.S. Troops in Saudi Arabia, 77; USA PATRIOT Act, 27–29, 584, 605, 890–892, 896; Violent Crime Control Enforcement Act, 18; Violent Gang Terrorist Organization File (VGTOF), 929; War on Terror, 393, 568, 586; wiretapping, 27; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) attack, 225; World Trade Center bombing (1993), 202 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 968, 1019 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 225, 639, 650, 1039–1041, 1043; Office of National Preparedness, 91 Federal Intelligence Advisory Board, 627 Federal Reserve, 968, 971, 1029 Federal War Crimes Act, 603 Feinberg, Kenneth R., 1087 Feinstein, Diane, 896 Feierstein, Gerald M., 948 Fenwick Amendment. See State Sponsors of Terrorism List Fenwick, Millicent, 14–16 Fighting Communist Cells of Belgium (CCC), 154, 180 Financial Action Task Force (FATF): assessments of key countries, 1015; collaboration with U.S. Department of State, 1093; Group of Eight
1335 Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG), 504; Indonesia, 1112; inter-agency cooperation, 986, 988; international cooperation, 500, 975, 982, 984, 1002, 1012–1015, 1022; 9/11 Commission, 1011; Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) designation, 1015; oversight of non-profit organizations, 979, 984–985; Recommendations on Terrorist Finance (40þ9), 481, 485, 966, 977–978, 985, 996, 1013–1015, 1018, 1023; Saudi Arabia, 709; UN Security Council, 532 Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs): Afghanistan, 1021; East and South African Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), 1009; effectiveness, 968; Egmont Group, 979, 986–987, 1015, 1019; Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), 986; G20, 979; international Cooperation, 987, 1029, 1014; Kenya, 1249; Saudi Arabia, 1019, 1192; South Africa, 1252; Tri-Border Area, 1238 Finsbury Park mosque, 1300 Flores, Luis Martinez, 576, 583 Foley, Laurence, 927 Ford, Carl W., 667 Ford, Gerald, 15 Ford, Henry, 99 Foreign Intelligence Agency Board, 1072 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): application process, 905, 921, 925; Court of Review, 891, 920–922; Holy Land Foundation surveillance, 935; 1978 passage of, 593, 605; reforms to, 331, 925; USA PATRIOT Act, 29, 581, 970; uses of, 446, 582, 589, 595, 605, 889; wiretaps, 562–563 Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, 998 Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, 33–34 Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO): Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 219, 705, 859, 883–885, 991; Colombia, 998; designation, 212, 962, 966, 983, 1003, 1012; Hamas, 959; Hezbollah, 1020; National Commission on Terrorism Report, 211; renewal, 1091–1092; Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), 993; Terrorism Financial Review Group (TFRG), 971; terrorist financing, 214 Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force (FTTTF), 737 Fox, William, 1005–1006 France: Abdallah Arrest Trial, 171; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 424; Afghanistan, 1166;
1336 France (continued) assassinations, 153; aviation security, 196, 1150; Beghal conviction, 598; civil unrest, 1171; cooperation with FBI, 932; cultural assimilation, 1172, 1179; Direct Action, 154; Group of Eight (G-8), 162; internal and external threats, 152; Iranian terrorism, 154–155; Iraq, 1166; Libya, 201, 1204; Muslim population, 1168; NATO, 1195; poison plot against, 680; Target of Middle East Terrorism, 153; Threat to Legal System, 171–172; TWA 800, 223; War on Terror, cooperation in, 976, 979, 1164, 1174, 1176 Frank, Barney, 21 Franks, Tommy, 535–536 Freedom of Information Act, 592 Freeh, Louis J.: counterterrorism as FBI priority, 918; expansion of FBI Legat program, 915; inter-agency cooperation, 915; millennium terrorist attack threat period, 744; Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act of 1994, 18 Fried, Daniel, 1163 Frowick, Robert H., 1133 Fry, Robert, 827 Gallegy, Elton, 23 Gates, Robert, 345 Gaza, 130–131 Germany: Abdullah Ocalan, 138; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 424; Al Aqsa Foundation, 989; Alfred Herrhausen, 193; assassinations, 153; asset freezing, 976; aviation security, 196; Baader-Meinhof Gang, 180; Berlin division/Berlin Wall, 813; Cold War, 813; cooperation with FBI, 577; development aid to Syria, 168; European Union, 1141; extradition treaty with the United States, 111, 173; German-Arab Friendship Society bombing, 170; Group of Eight (G-8), 162; Hizb ut-Tahrir, 1169; Iranian terrorism, 132, 141; John Ashcroft, 1133; Mohammad Hamadei arrest, 112, 166, 170, 172, 181; Mohammed Atta, 1169; monitoring group report, 979; Mounir el Motassadeq, 581; Muslim population, 1168; NATO targets, 154; Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s annual report, 1157; Red Army Faction, 152, 154; September 11 attacks, 1140, 1169, 1181; Soviet Union collapse, 120; terrorism threat, 130; terrorist financing, 1141; U.S. embassy, 427; War on Terror, cooperation in, 1178, 1181 Geneva Convention: Article 3, 603, 901–902; International Committee of the Red Cross, 904; Military Commissions Act, 609–610,
Index 901–902; United States obligations under, 609 Georgia, 400–401, 405–406, 424, 1233 Ghailani, Ahmed Khalfan, 706 Ghana, 1243, 1255 Ghul, Hasan, 688 Giambastiani, Edward P., 1295 Gibraltar, 679 Gilmore Commission, 630, 632 Global Anti-Terror Conventions, 84 Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, 716–718 Global Islamic Media Front, 841 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, 718 Golden Gate Bridge, 621 Goldstein, Baruch, 19 Goldwater-Nichols Act Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, 1297 Gonzales, Alberto R., 895, 905, 1181 Good Friday Agreement, 294 Goss, Porter: Central Intelligence Agency, 777; intelligence, 442, 778; Iraqi Security Forces, 654; National Clandestine Service, 775–776; WMD commision report, 728 Gorelick, Jamie, 595, 860, 871 Government Accountability Office (GAO), 1025 Grapo, 154 Great Britain: Abdul Qadeer Khan, 309; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 424; Afghanistan, 405; African Embassy Bombings, 562; Al-Qaeda, 290; Alberto R. Gonzalez, 1182; alliance with United States, 252, 259, 340–341, 577; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 163; anti-terrorist raid, 307; bilateral cooperation, 5; Cofer J. Black, 1150; counterterrorism, 43, 478; El Al airliner bombing conviction, 167, 170; extradition treaty with United States, 111, 173; George W. Bush, 1277; Group of Eight (G-8), 162; Guy Fawkes attack on King James and Parliament, 209; Hermant, Lakhani, 585, 597; homegrown terrorism, 938; international conventions, 9; Iraq, 245, 271, 279–280, 282, 412, 789, 796, 810, 822–823, 826, 932; Irish Republican Army, 152; Istanbul Consulate attack, 488; Libya, 153; London airliner plot (2006), 328, 604, 648, 1065–1066; London attacks (2005), 304, 597, 804, 836, 938, 1163, 1165, 1167, 1170, 1172; mail, 592; Nezar Hindawi, 112; operation Medusa, 334; Pan Am 103 bombing, 209, 1204; personal identification card, 641; poison attacks, 494; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 335; R&D efforts, 479; Richard Reid, ‘‘shoe
Index bomber,’’ 494, 597; security authorities, 494; security council resolution 1373, 40; September 11 attacks, 475, 598, 1138– 1139; Syrian sanctions, 111, 168, 170, 183, 189, 201, 209; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 6; terrorism finance, 478; terrorism threat, 130, 328; Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG), 1249; War on Terror, 343, 598 Greece: Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 478; Bilateral Aviation Security Articles, 198; Olympics, 214; Muhammad Rashid, 184, 201, 861; ‘‘not fully cooperating’’ status, 213; November 17, 154, 214; sanctions, 213 Grenada, 97–98, 117 Group of Eight (G-8): Global Partnership, 505; CICTE, 1240, 1153; Coalition of the Willing, 480–481; Counter Terrorism Action Group (CTAG), 502, 710, 712, 1015, 1147, 1156, 1165, 1255, 1265; counterterrorism conventions, 483; counterterrorism, 503, 510, 1142, 1158, 1181, 1236; cyber-crime, 1039; document security standards, 502–503; Europe, 1150, 1155, 1156, 1181; Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), 979; Forum for the Future, 437; Germany, 1178; Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, 718; global partnership, 451; information exchange, 504; international cooperation, 5, 222; Interpol, 504; Iraq, 796; Justice Home Affairs Minstrel, 643, 644; Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 502; Roma-Lyon Group 960, 1012, 1236, 1240; Sea Island Summit, 505; Secure Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI), 502–503; September 11 attacks aftermath, 480–481; summits, 718; in Halifax, 129; in Lyon, 77, 222; in Ottawa, 131; in Paris, 77, 222; terrorist assets, 481, 485; terrorist financing, 478, 481, 966, 975, 977, 982; travel document security, 1148; travel security, 502–504; UN EDIFACT, 1148; United States, 402, 503; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 505 Group of Seven (G-7). See Group of Eight Guantanamo Bay: Afghanistan, 263; closure, 832, 1216; conditions, 600; court clog, 603; detainees, 1215–1216, 1260, 1269; European concern, 599; Europeans, 833; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 897; legal protections, 599; Military Commissions Act, 607; National Security Division, 607; transfers, 600
1337 Guatemala, 154 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 658, 709 Gunnawan, Gun Gun Rusamn, 707 Hamas: aid to, 455; Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, 493; Al-Aqsa Foundation, 989, 1000; Argentina, 493; Association de Secours Palestinien (ASP), 1000; attacks on Israel, 493, 657, 696, 700; Bank Saderat, 1221; Brazil, 493; charities, 1151; chemical weapons, 660; Comite de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP); elections, 130, 377, 1210; European Union, 1157–1158; FARC organization, 1241; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 989, 998, 1001, 1134, 1200; funding, 17, 21, 493, 942; Hezbollah, 493, 521; Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, 934–935, 958–960; Imad Al-Alami, 1000; information technology, 660; international embargo of, 1194; Interpol, 1000; Iran, 132, 234, 521, 680; Iraq, 493; Israel, 493, 459, 1194, 1208–1209; kidnapping, 322, 459; Latin America, 493; members inside the United States, 238; Khalid Meshaal, 1000; Musa Abu Marzook, 877, 934–935, 960, 1000; Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), 493; Palestinian Association in Austria (PVOE), 1000; Palestinian government, 452, 454–455, 461, 1210; Paraguay, 493; peace with Israel, 132, 204, 209, 493, 878; Rantisi, Abdel Aziz, 1000; religious terrorism, 209; Saddam Hussein, 425; Sanabil Association for Relief and Development, 1000; Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, 1000; Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), 993; state sponsor of terrorism, 1158; Sudan, 235; suicide attacks, 493; Syria, 848, 1187–1188, 1194, 1209; terrorism networks, 264; terrorism, 138; Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, 604; Tri-Border Area, 493, 1023, 1228; Turkey, 457–458; United States, 493; Usama Hamdan, 1001; Yasser Arafat, 132 Hambali, 688–689, 707, 710 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 603 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 592–593 Hamedei, Muhammad, 184, 191 Hamilton, Alexander, 114 Hamilton, Lee, 16, 717, 845 Hammoud, Chawaki, 581 Hammoud, Mohamad, 581 Hard-Rudman Commission, 630 Harithi, 688 Harlow, Bill, 733 Harper, Stephen, 316 Hatch, Orrin, 21
1338 Hasi, Ahmad, 170 Havana, 663 Hawalas, 971, 978–979, 985, 1031, 1192 Hayden, Michael, 590–593, 604, 721, 728 Heideman, Richard, 36 Helsinki, Conference, 106 Helsinki Final Act, 1135, 1138 Herrhausen, Alfred, 193 Hezbi-Islami, 683 Hezbollah: Africa, 1223, 1249; AMAL, relations with, 465; ambitions, 1219–1225; Argentina, 493; arrests of members, 744; attacks, 403, 493, 662; Beirut bombing, 322; Brazil, 493; Bruce Hoffman, 1179; Buenos Aires Israeli Embassy attack, 141, 199, 234; capabilities, 493, 684, 1219–1225; cooperation with other terrorist groups, 691; criminal activities, 527; democracy, 294; drug trafficking, 964; Europe, 711; financing, 21, 217, 493, 581, 942; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 28, 455, 989, 998, 1003, 1134, 1197, 1224; goals, 507; Golan Heights, 493; Hamas, 493, 521; Hassan Nasrallah, 1218; hostages, 33, 1069; international terrorism, 666; Iranian support of, 132, 141, 205, 217, 321, 323–324, 448, 461, 512, 528, 554, 680, 686, 697, 1179, 1217, 1220–1222; Israel, 493, 1194, 1208, 1210–1211, 1217; Israeli-Lebanese Conflict, 321–323, 326, 459, 461, 465, 466; Latin America, 493, 1241, 1223–1224; Lebanese Media Group (LMG), 1020, 1224; Lebanon, 493, 507, 1197, 1210–1211, 1222; military operations, 493; Nouri al-Maliki, 839; Palestine, 1210; Paraguay, 493; peace process, 132, 204, 322, 878; peacekeepers, 327; propaganda, 323; religious terrorism, 209; security council, 321; self-sufficiency, 669; Shia interests, 1220; Fouad Siniora, 340; smuggling, 892; Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), 993; Syria, 321–322, 493, 528, 848, 1133, 1209, 1211, 1220; Syrian support for, 1020; terrorism network, 264; Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, 604; Tri-Border Area, 493, 1023; United States, 493 Hindawi, Nizar, 112, 166 Hitler, Adolf, 117 HIV/AIDS, 401, 406, 427, 429 Hizb ut-Tahrir, 1169 Holy Land Foundation (HLF), 906, 933–935 Homeland Secure Data Network, 649 Homeland Security Council (HSC): coordination mechanism, 1059; creation, 1058; relationship to Homeland Security
Index Office, 1047; threat condition designation, 1063 Homeland Security Information Network, 611 Honduras, 64, 163 Howard, John, 1276 Human intelligence (HUMINT), 742–743, 755, 769–770, 772, 775 Hughes, Karen, 453 Hungary, 198, 789, 796, 810, 929 Hussein, Talal bin, 104, 155 Hussein, Mohammed, 581 Hussein, Qusay, 410–411 Hussein, Saddam: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 470–471; Afghanistan, 387; Al-Qaeda, 424–425, 470–471, 699; Arab Liberation Front, 422; ballistic missiles, 420; biological weapons, 416, 419; broader Middle East, 467–468, 472; capture of, 691–692, 842, 1268; case for Iraq invasion, 681; chemical weapons, 417, 419; democracy, 370, 388; destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, 810, 815; disarming, 788, 790; domestic unrest, 657, 660–661; former regime loyalist insurgents, 279–280, 282, 301, 355; Hamas, 425; in power, 360, 365, 368, 383; inspections, 74, 410–415; Iran, 360; IranIraq War, 16, 471; Iraq, 365, 368, 370– 371, 388, 445; Kurds, 235; Kuwait, 362; Libya, 368, 387; life in Iraq Under, 547; loyalists, 37, 40, 118; mass graves, 548; noncompliance with UN resolutions, 791, 797; nuclear weapons, 419–420; Oil-ForFood Program, 371, 472, 1005; Operation Desert Storm, 73, 360; Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2, 245, 270–273, 279–280, 285–286, 297, 327–328, 353; Osama Bin Laden, 424; overthrow of, 36, 369, 462, 473; regime change, 536; regime of, 205, 370, 378, 387, 388, 389, 654, 681, 694, 702, 723; sanctions, 72, 74, 404, 472; Security Council, 370; sentencing, 857; September 11 attacks, 271, 327, 388, 472; Shiites, 235; state sponsor of terrorism, 15, 195, 201; surveillance, 408; toppling of, 654, 721, 823, 842; trial of, 438; United Nations (U.N.), 72, 360, 370; unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 422; use of civilians as shields, 791–792; War on Terror, 368, 371, 388; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 73, 360, 365, 370–371, 409–416, 426, 468, 469, 473, 653, 658, 685, 798, 819, 1184 Hutchison, Asa, 569 Hyde, Henry, 21 Ikle, Fred, 160 Immigration Nationality Act (INA), 18, 25, 32, 864, 866, 883, 885
Index Immigration and Naturalization Services: 9/11 investigation, 576, 583; border control, 877; border security plan, 1045; budget, 221, 227–228, 567; Department of Homeland Security, 582, 1054; deportation, 1053; enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Act, 30; immigration and Nationality Act, 1054; INS Commissioner Ziglar, 1049; insufficient accountability, 1049; interagency cooperation, 405; missions, 1049–1050; National Security Coordination Council, 569; National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS), 572, 1061–1062; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 865–866; proceedings, 224; restructuring, 910, 1049; student visas, 570–571 India: bilateral cooperation, 5, 400; diplomats, 450; information technology, 657; international progress, 449; Iraq, 420; Kashmir, 494; Kashmiri and Sikh Groups, 235; Muslim population, 1174; nuclear weapons, 682; sanctions, 952; September 11 attacks, 475; Pakistan, 494, 1259–1260, 1274; United States partnership, 443, 538; War on Terror, cooperation in, 1259–1260, 1274 Indonesia: Al-Qaeda, 589, 689, 696, 707, 835, 845; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 198, 428; Bali attack, 38, 457, 679–680, 684, 701, 709–710, 790, 804, 927, 1021, 1030, 1063, 1195, 1261, 1263; Central Bank, 1022, 1030; corruption, 716; counterterrorism assistance, 930, 1021–1022, 1030–1031; counterterrorism cooperation, 457; counterterrorism funding, 451; democracy in, 1262–1263, 1267; diplomats, 450; Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), 1022, 1030; international progress, 449; Islamic extremism, 695; Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation, 710; Jakarta Marriott hotel attack, 710, 834; Jemaah Islamiya (JI), 430, 680, 703, 707, 709–710, 714, 716; legal training assistance to, 1165; Muslim World Modernization, 673; National Police, 710, 1022, 1031; Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) designation, 1015, 1022; Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) project, 997; Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance Training (OPDAT), 1031; regional strategic initiative, 1301; threat to United States Citizens, 678; US aid to, 428–429 Infocom, 960
1339 Informal Value Transfer Systems (IVTSs). See Hawalas INTELINK, 735 Interagency Border Inspection System, 736 Intifada, 422 Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), 1231 Intelligence Community (IC): Al-Qaeda, 657; Central Intelligence Agency, 712, 900; classified information, 885; combating terrorism, 729; director of National Intelligence, 860, 894; domestic intelligence sharing, 735, 747–748; expertise, 678; Federal Bureau of Investigation role in, 913, 917; flexibility of, 670–671; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 883; inter-agency cooperation within, 905, 917, 922, 927; Iraq insurgency, 692; military commissions, 898; partnerships, 736; protecting information, 728–729; reorganizations, 727; September 11 attacks, 663, 727; shortcomings, 919; Terrorism Financial Review Group, 971; terrorism trends, 653; terrorist financing, 942, 990 Intelligence Community Counterterrorism Board, 748 Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, 684 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, 29, 860, 893–895 Interagency Counter-Terrorism and Technology Crime Plan, 135 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), 709 Internal Revenue Service (IRS): Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), 1004; Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), 984, 987–988; Holy Land Foundation, 958; inter-agency cooperation, 935, 968; terrorist financing, 935; training of Saudis, 1000 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, 719; India’s civil nuclear program, 1274; Iraq inspections, 271, 408, 419; nonproliferation, 269, 406; protection of nuclear facilities, 1177 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO): cooperation with OSCE, 1148; counterterrorism, 502, 504, 1155–1156, 1254–1255; aviation security, 173, 197, 431, 1148; Europe, 1150 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, 10, 59, 232 International Convention against Torture, 441, 442, 903
1340 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing, 10 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism: African embassy bombings, 11; Bush administration, 478; definition of terrorism, 10; European Union, 1143; Financial Action Task Force, 985; international cooperation, 215; monitoring group report, 979; ratification, 954, 1232; Saudi Arabia, 957; terrorist financing, 976 International Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, 10, 160–161, 173 International Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, 10 International Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, 10, 161–162, 173, 179 International Convention for the Suppression of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, 10, 232 International Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, 144, 197, 867, 875 International Convention on the Prevention Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, 10 International Conventions to Counter Terrorism, 1287 International Counter-proliferation Programs, 719 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 19–24, 877–878, 934, 990–992, 998 International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), 1019 International Law Enforcement Academy (Budapest), 878, 929, 988, 1014 International Maritime Organization (IMO): border security, 1148; counterterrorism, 173, 194, 197, 502, 504, 1155–1156; International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, 1160 International Monetary Fund (IMF): antimoney laundering, 979; Department of Treasury, 986, 1014; Iraq, 856; Palestinians, 1194; terrorism financing, 430, 722, 984 International Security Assistance Force, (ISAF), 98, 405, 1178, 1196 International Tokyo Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, 59 International Security Assistance Arms Export Control Act (1976), 12
Index International Statements: Statement on Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, 1293; Text of U.S.-EU Declaration on Combating Terrorism (G-8 Summit Meeting at Dromoland Castle), 1293; U.S.-EU Declaration on Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Non Proliferation and the Fight against Terrorism, 1293; U.S.-EU Declaration on Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Non Proliferation and the Fight against Terrorism, 1293; U.S.-EU Summit Declaration: Promoting Peace, Human Rights, and Democracy Worldwide, 1293 International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), 1175 Internet/Internet Service Providers (ISPs), 884, 887, 891–892, 896 INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization), 180, 736 Interim Infrastructure Protection Task Force, 242 Iran: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, 521; Al-Qaeda, 522, 528, 679; anti-tank missiles, 1069; arms sales, 105; ‘‘Axis of Evil,’’ 245, 848; Bank Saderat, 1221; Central Bank, 50; Central Intelligence Agency, 63; chemical weapons, 192; civil suits, 34, 36; Contra Affair, 15–16, 45, 68–71, 169, 182–183, 189; European Union, 133, 658; export controls, 42; government of, 270, 288–289; Hezbollah, 33, 199, 217, 493, 512, 521, 1158, 1179, 1188, 1217, 1220, 1221, 1222; ‘‘Holy Alliance,’’ 101; hostage crisis, 49–54, 56, 62–63, 68; hostages in Lebanon, 69; influence in Iraq, 693, 721; intelligence services of, 521; Iran-Contra Affair, 1070–1071; Iranian revolution of 1979, 1212, 1220; Iraq Insurgency, 340–343; Iraq, 360, 365, 521; Iraqi meddling, 812; Khartoum, 235; Kuwait airline hijacking, 158; Libya, 1203–1204; Middle East, 493, 1216–1217; Minister of Intelligence, 142; Mohammed Khatami, 655, 658–659, 686, 699; Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), 23, 885; navy, 104, 686; Nicaragua, 64; North Africa, 234; nuclear program, 448, 451–453, 456, 833, 1206–1208; oil, 50–51, 69; Operation Desert Storm, 360; Pakistan, 385; Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), 493; Palestinian State, 813; peace process, 132; political change, 682, 699; postKhomeini government, 1071; pre-emption, 538; Radio Farda, 431; Rafsanjani, 132, 234; relations with Iraq, 1225; relationship with United States, 68–71, 439, 456; religious extremism, 236; revolution,
Index 51–52, 70; Revolutionary Guard, 1222; Rouhollah Mousavi Khomeini, 56, 111; Saddam Hussein, 468, 471; Salmon Rushdie, 234; sanctions, 77, 129, 205, 209, 213; Saudi Arabia, 658; Sayyid Ali Khamenei, 132; September 11 attack victims, 252; Shiite radicals, 153, 232; Soviet Union, 53; state sponsor of terrorism, 15, 63–64, 67, 69, 97, 129, 133, 137, 141–142, 154–155, 160, 167, 170, 175, 178, 189–190, 201, 205, 209, 212, 217, 234, 237–238, 292, 301, 312, 321–325, 404, 471, 476, 491, 493, 507, 516, 528, 654, 655, 659, 680, 686, 691, 696–697, 717, 875, 990, 1076, 1158, 1209, 1213, 1220–1221; Sunni terrorism, 1213; support for Hezbollah, 1069; Syria, 493, 516; Taliban, 522; trade embargo, 133; sanctions, 658; United States, 521, 522; War on Terror, 81, 554, 1222; war with Iraq, 16, 69–71, 105, 186, 192, 417, 693; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 129, 264, 309, 353, 365, 385, 521, 656, 682, 686, 717, 1183 Iraq: Abu Abbss, 13, 36; Abu Musab AlZarqawi, 517, 521, 528, 531, 1299; Abu Nidal, 179; Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 495; actions against Western interests, 491; Al-Qaeda, 422–425, 439–440, 462, 467–468, 491, 495, 509, 517, 518, 526–531, 679, 688, 702, 724; Ansar al-Islam, 689, 692, 703; Arab League, 130; Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 517; Baath Party, 799, 829, 844–845, 856; Baghdad, 658, 660, 677, 681, 699, 724; ballistic missiles, 421–422; biological weapons, 129, 412, 414–419, 422, 425, 681; Bush address to the nation, 38; chemical weapons, 412, 416–419, 422, 425; Civil Defense Corps, 806; coalition troop presence, 552–553; communications, 548; cruise missile attacks against, 2, 472; democratization, 509–511, 531; detention policy, 596; diplomacy, 491; disarmament, 789–791, 856; domestic defense/security, 691, 693, 715; elections, 436, 447, 455, 795–796, 798– 803, 808, 811–812, 815, 816, 818–819, 823, 826, 833, 836, 841–843, 847–848, 852, 854; Europe, 402, 509; Fallujah, 436, 462; foreign fighters/jihadists, 690–692, 702, 713–714, 1020; freezing of assets, 1008; Golden Mosque attack, 816, 821, 843; governance of, 691–694, 723; Hamas, 493; Hezbollah, 516; High Tribunal, 857; hostage-taking, 1069, 1080; inspections, 408–417; insurgency, 445, 447–448, 459, 552, 692, 715; intelligence preparation of the battlespace, 684;
1341 intelligence service, 792–793; international cooperation during Iraq War, 932; international relations, 658; invasion of and related intelligence, 473; invasion of Kuwait, 195; Iran, 448; Iranian influence on reconstruction, 42; Iraq Liberation Act, 473; Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, 436; Iraq-Turkey pipeline, 694; Iraqi National Army, 460; Iraqi National Congress, 472; Iraqi Security Forces, 289, 293, 298, 302–303, 306, 553, 555, 795, 797, 800, 802, 803, 804–806, 807, 808–809, 810, 816, 821, 823, 824, 827, 837, 841, 843, 844, 847; Iraqi Survey Group, 691; Iraqi-American Community, 890; Joint Interagency Task Force (West), 1301; Joint Staff College, 806; judicial system, 438; Kharg Island, 104; Kurds, 142, 235, 693; life under Saddam, 547; mass graves, 548; media, 548; Military Commissions Act, 860; Military Intelligence School, 808; National Intelligence Estimate, 461; National Strategy for Countering Terrorism, 5; NATO support for, 436; navy, 16; new government, 298, 300, 315, 324, 345, 354, 436; no-fly zones, 658; nuclear weapons, 419–420; oil production, 694; Operation Adam Smith, 297; Operation Desert Fox, 660; Operation Desert Storm, 74, 197, 201, 235, 491; Operation Enduring Freedom, 542; Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2, 37, 275, 312, 486, 497, 508, 510, 519, 721; Operation Mountain Fury, 335; Osama Bin Laden, 492; PKK, 457; post-war, 246, 551; pre-emption, 538–539; pre-war, 245, 436; prisoner abuse, 442; project-report, 551–552; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 1301; reconstruction of, 280, 302, 315, 354–355, 429, 608, 805–806, 796, 810– 811, 815, 823, 831, 1298; regime change, 404; Saddam Hussein, 360, 491, 497, 608, 653–654, 657, 660, 685, 721; sanctions, 129, 137, 142, 206, 404; Saudi Arabia, 492; sectarian strife, 460, 692–693, 724; security situation, 1081; Shia, 235; Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) activities, 1297; state sponsor of terrorism, 15–17, 137, 195–196, 201, 234–235, 237–238, 422, 432–434, 470–471, 696–697, 721, 723, 990; suicide terrorism, 493; Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), 693; Syria, 516; terrorism support, 476, 491, 516, 518, 521, 528; terrorist attack opportunities, 509, 516, 530; terrorist training ground, 509–510,
1342 Iraq (continued) 521, 527; U.N. Development Fund, 1007; U.S. embassy, 1080; United Nations mission bombing, 583; United Nations, 361; United Nations Resolutions, 699; U.N. Security Council Resolution 1411, 408, 411, 413–414, 422, 426; United States government, 510, 519; United States military, 461, 508; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 422; USA PATRIOT Act, 896; War on Terror, 461; war with Iran, 16, 69–71, 105, 186, 192; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 128, 405, 409, 411–422, 426, 653, 677, 681, 685, 691 Iraq Study Group, 339, 342, 344, 353 Irish Republican Army (IRA): bank robbing, 216; bomb making, 187, 193; ceasefire, 885; Colombia, 963; drug trafficking, 964; George W. Bush, 294; indigenous European terrorism, 154; Libya, 185, 187, 193; Nicaragua, 64; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), 1228; Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), 993; Great Britain, 152 Islamic Center of Gaza, 935 Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), 714 Islamic Relations Support Organization, 1221 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 689, 703, 714 Israel: Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, 976, 989; Al-Qaeda, 495; Arab League, 130; Arab Relations, 17; Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1134, 1183–1185, 1193–1201, 1208–1212, 1215–1222; Argentinean embassy bombing, 141, 199, 234, 492, 1228; assassination, 209; attacks on Israeli targets, 657, 662, 679, 684, 691, 714, 731, 747; bilateral cooperation, 5; chiefs of mission, 1090; Colin Powell, 145; Condoleezza Rice, 288; democracy, 813, 840; Department of State, 479, 1094; El Al Hijacking, 2; elections, 132; extremist groups, 874; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 878; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 884; Golan Heights, 493; Goldstein, Baruch, 19; Hamas, 425, 493, 934–935, 958–959, 1000; Hezbollah, 234, 493, 714, 1134; Ibrahim Abdallah, 112, 170, 181; internal external terrorism, 152; international cooperation, 479; Iran, 133, 205, 234, 493, 521; Israel-Palestinian conflict, 292–293, 322, 340–342, 657, 670, 673, 690–691, 696, 700, 715, 959, 1000–1001; Jewish Cultural Center Bombing in Buenos Aires (1994), 493; Jordan, 130; Judeo-Christian alliance, 725; Justification for Attacks Against, 10;
Index Kahane Movement, 19; Latin America, 493; Lebanon, 133, 493; Libyan attacks against, 35; Mohammad Atta, 181; Mombasa terrorist attacks (2006), 492, 495; Munich Olympics attack (1972), 2, 1135, 1228; Musa Abu Marzook, 877; 1981 Iraq bombing, 360; 1991 Iraq Ballistic Missile Attack, 362; 1973 War, 177; Palestinian attacks against, 19; Palestinian statehood, 257, 288, 323, 340; partnership with US, 106–107, 131, 146; peace process, 107, 131, 204–205, 207, 209, 364, 378, 403; radical Palestinians, 185; refugees, 132; September 11 attack victims, 252; Sharm el-Sheikh, 131; Syria, 133, 142, 205; target of Middle Eastern terrorism, 153; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 6, 479, 1099. See also Counterterrorism R&D; terrorist threat to, 130, 371, 375, 387; terrorists, 253, 311–312, 328; Tunisia, 104; United States relations, 296; use of force against terrorism, 161; War on Terror, cooperation in, 551, 554, 933; war with Lebanon (2006), 321–323, 326–327; Western support of, 1170; Wye Accords, 138; Yasser Arafat, 131; Yitzak Rabin, 880 Italy: Abdullah Ocalan, 138; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 424; Achille Lauro, 112; Afghanistan Reconstruction, 335–336; Al-Qaeda, 481, 494, 704, 976; Aldo Moro, 180; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 163; aviation security, 196; Bashir al-Khodir, 174; Cold War, 813; counterterrorism measures, 494; deaths in Iraq, 796; freezing assets, 976; Group of Eight (G-8), 162; Iranian terrorism, 141, 155; Iraq, 282, 293; Lebanese terrorism, 181; legal processing, 494; Muslim population, 1168; 1970’s and 1980’s terrorist activity, 1136; pre-war support for invading Iraq, 789; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 335; Red Brigades, 154, 171; Rome attack (1985), 1136–1137; Salafist Group for Call and Combat, 983; support for Iraq invasion, 789; trials, 174; United States, 481; War on Terror, 487, 494; World War II, 317 Jackson, Henry ‘‘Scoop,’’ 103, 107 Jacoby, Lowell 654, 684 JAG Corps, 607–609 Jakub, Michael, 1083, 1094 Japan: Afghanistan, 707, 1134; Afghan Donor Conference, 404; alliance with US, 401, 443, 454; Asian Development Bank’s Regional Trade and Financial Security Initiative, 1270; chiefs of mission, 1090;
Index Colin Powell, 1079–1080; death penalty, 174; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 884; Group of Eight (G-8), 162; Indonesia, 1031; Iraq, 810–812; military deployments, 810; North Korea, 1210; Ramzi Yousef, 441; War on Terror, 1261–1262; World War II, 809, 813, 1129 Japanese Red Army, 12, 185, 190 Jarad, Maher, 576 Javits, Jacob, 12–14 Jemmah Islamiyah, (JI): Abu Bakr Bashir, 1263; arrests, 1264; Asia, 433, 1261; Bali attack (2002), 430; Department of Defense, 997; Fathur al-Ghozi, 1263; funding, 1002; Hambali, 1237, 1262; infrastructure, 997–998; sinks to other terror organizations, 1271–1272; Malaysia, 1264; Pakistan cell, 1261; Philippine government, 1270–1271; target threats, 1272 Jensen, D.C., 1043 Jerusalem, 668 Jewish Defense League, 19 Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 1282 Joint Forces Command, 1297 Joint Interagency Coordination Group, 1301 Joint Interagency Task Forces: Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF-South), 1298; Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF-West), 1301 Joint Task Force on Terrorist Financing, 708 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs): capabilities, 583–585, 607; Colin Powell, 148; counterterrorism, 588; expansion, 930; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 916, 926, 929; heightened threat level, 1064; Holy Land Foundation Indictment, 935; John Ashcroft, 567 Jordan: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 423, 531, 681; airline hijacking, 181, 184, 191; Al-Qaeda, 457, 476, 684, 688–689, 1168; Amman attack, 803–804, 829, 1201; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 38; Arab Bank, 35; arms sales, 104; attacks in, 731, 744; bilateral cooperation, 5; bombings, 598; British Air Force Base attack, 38; Colin Powell, 145, 403; counterterrorism 430, 451; Fawaz Younis, 112; internal external threats, 152; Iraqi insurgents, 714; Iraqi Police Academy, 807, 810; Israel, 130; King Abdullah, 811, 1184; Libyan terrorism, 155; millennium attacks, 944; murder of Iraqi scientist, 235; 1986 attempted London bombing, 1137; 1970 airline bombings, 1135; 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 177; peace treaties, 1195; relations with U.S., 1201–1202; security
1343 arrangements, 1193; Shimon Peres, 104; social reforms, 458, 461; support for democracy in Iraq, 811–812, 843; target of Middle East terrorism, 152; United States aid to, 428–430; United States relations, 499; United States trade negotiations, 1197; War on Terror, 678; World Economic Forum, 437 Joseph, Robert G., 654 Judeo-Christian alliance, 725 Julaidan, Wa’el Hamza, 983, 995–996, 999 Justice Information Sharing Technology Programs, 589 Kabul, 683, 723 Kahane, Rabbi Meir, 19 Kalb, Bernard, 1073 Kandahar, 680 Karine A, 699 Karzai, Hamid: assassination attempt, 1233; coalition, 335; Drug Enforcement Agency, 943; George W. Bush, 333, 337; insurgency, 714; interim authority, 405; National Police, 334; opium production, 1163; power struggle, 698; reconstruction, 722–723; relations with Pakistan, 1274–1275; Supreme Court, 336; Taliban, 340 Kashmir, 668, 670, 703 Kay Report, 283 Kazakhstan, 801 Kean, Thomas, 717 Kennedy, Edward, 819–820 Kennedy, John F., 93 Kenya: Al-Qaeda, 689, 709; Anti-Money Laundering/Counterterrorist Finance (AML/CTF), 1249; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 1101–1102, 1109–1110, 1250; Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 1104; Central Command Responsibility, 1126; Export Control and Related Border Security Assistance (EXBS), 1250; International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), 1250; Mombassa attacks (2002), 492, 495, 679–680, 790, 1063; September 11 attacks, loses in, 1243; Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG), 1249; Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP), 1249; United States Embassy attack, 365, 371, 376, 424, 562, 1248, 1254. See also African Embassy Bombings; United States, relations with, 499; War on Terror, cooperation in, 1255 Kerry, John, 18, 798 Khalilzad, Zalmay: benchmarks/timetables, 849, 854–855; Iraq assessments, 818, 844, 856
1344 Khamenei, Ali, 655, 699 Khan, Abdul Qadeer, 309, 365, 368, 393, 717 Khatami, Mohammad, 655, 658–659, 686, 699 Khobar Towers bombing, 77, 663 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 56, 63, 111, 234 King, Peter, 931 Kinkel, Klaus, 132 Kislyak, Sergey, 1162 Kissinger, Henry, 363, 1063 Klinghoffer, Leon, 11, 33, 45, 173 Koizumi, Junichiro, 401, 1079–1080 Korean War, 94, 117 Kosovo, 668, 703 Kraft, Michael, 1076 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK): bombings, 662; drug trafficking, 964; extortion, 216; Iraq, 457–458; Kurdish leaders, 854; terrorism statistics, 204; terrorist group, 138, 457; Turkey, 141 Kurds: Ansar al-Islam, 692; attack on, 685; autonomy, 691, 693–694, 723–724; Civil War, 447; constitutional reform, 464; democracy, 824; international terrorism, 1226; Iraqi governance, 715, 803, 826, 844, 1226; Iraqi identity, 693; Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), 854 Kuwait: airline hijacking, 105, 158; Al-Qaeda, 679, 679, 689; Assassination attempt on President George H.W. Bush, 2; bombings against the Emir, 105; Gulf Cooperation Council, 658; hostage policy, 1073; Iraqi invasion of, 15, 195; Operation Iraqi Freedom, 811; Powell, Colin, 145; Saddam Hussein, 419; target of Middle East terrorism, 153; terrorist financing, 977, 993, 1001, 1019 Kyoto Protocol, 402 Kyrgyzstan, 481, 977, 983 Lackawanna Six, 481, 586 Lakhani, Hermant, 597 Latin America, 402 Larson, Alan, 947 Latvia, 789, 796 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1035 Lebanon: Antiterrorism Arms Export Control Act (1989), 14; armed forces, 1218; Beirut assassinations, 1073; Beirut attack, 820; Bekaa Valley, 216; Colin Powell, 403; democracy, 291–292, 295, 309, 324, 327, 354, 435, 455, 460–461; drug trade, 217; Egyptian Islamic Jihad, 659; elections, 292; Hezballah, 217, 295, 321–323, 327, 340, 459, 892, 1003, 1007, 1020, 1069, 1187–1188, 1209–1210, 1221–1223;
Index hostages, 3, 33, 108, 158, 174, 182, 188–189, 1069, 1074–1076, 1209; Iran cooperation, 153, 205, 217; Iran-Contra, 16, 43; Israel, 133, 1220; Lebanese Media Group (LMG), 1020, 1224; Marine barracks bombing, 8, 246; peace process, 132; Pierre Gemayel, 1225; reconstruction, 132, 143, 321, 324; refugees, 132; relations with Israel, 1195; Shiite radicals, 154; Siniora government, 848, 1210–1211, 1225; state sponsor of terrorism, 103; Syria cooperation, 190; Syrian occupation of, 288, 292, 322, 354, 445, 454, 1198, 1211, 1215; United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), 327; United Nations Security Council, 321; U.S. military role in, 95, 99, 117, 834; War on Terror, 321; war with Israel (2006), 465 Legal Attache´ (Legat) Program: expansion, 915, 928; role, 927–928; September 11 investigations, 916; training, 915 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 98, 126 Levin, Jeremy, 158 Liberia, 990–991, 1008, 1252 Libya: Abdul Qadeer Khan, 309, 365; Abu Nidal, 1137; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 33; chemical weapons, 187; Colombian terrorism, 186; democracy in, 291–292, 295, 309, 324; export licenses, 13; expulsion of diplomats, 63; Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), 15, 17; abandonment of nuclear weapons program, 285, 282, 298, 305, 309, 368; Group of Eight (G-8), 505; ‘‘Holy Alliance,’’ 101; international cooperation, 516; IRA cooperation, 187, 193; Iranian-Libya Sanctions Act, 77; Iraqi insurgents, 301; Israeli-Lebanon war (2006), 321–322, 326–327; Jordanian Embassy attack, 63; lawsuits against, 33, 35–36; Libyan People’s Bureaus, 1138; London Embassy shooting, 153; Marine barracks bombing, 246; Muammar Qadhafi, 1133; nuclear weapons program, abandonment of, 285, 282, 298, 305, 309, 368; Palestinian cooperation, 153, 184; Pan Am 103 bombing, 77, 85, 129, 131, 235, 238, 1133, 1189, 1203–1204, 1206; Pan Am 73 hijacking, 35; plastic explosives, 187, 193; pre-emption, 538; prohibition against the Training or Support of Terrorist Organizations Act of 1984, 18; sanctions, 85, 131, 142–143, 201, 205, 209, 235; Saudi Arabia, 1205; Security Council Resolution 731, 72, 201; state sponsor of terrorism, 63–64, 67, 97, 111, 137,
Index 154–155, 160, 167–168, 170, 175–176, 178–179, 183–184, 189, 190, 201, 234, 237–238, 875, 1189, 1202, 1204, 1206–1207; Syrian dominance of, 295, 321, 354; terrorism support, 476, 491, 516; terrorist base, 288, 321; threat to Egypt, 14; threat to United States, 77; travel documents, 166; use of force against, 2, 45, 175–176, 178, 183, 189; United States, relations with, 1188, 1202–1203; UTA 772 bombing, 129; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 505, 542, 1189–1190, 1196, 1203, 1207–1208; white papers, 8 Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, 689 Lincoln, Abraham, 576 Lindh, John Walker, 481, 575, 580, 794 Lithuania, 789, 812 Lloyd, Jim, 624 London: Al-Qaeda, 589; attacks on, 551, 542; El Al 747 bombing attempt, 166–167, 181; Harrods bombing, 101; Irish Republican Army bombings, 141; Libyan Embassy shootings, 153; May 15th Middle Eastern Terrorist Group, 191; subway bombings, 304, 310, 314, 440, 457, 458, 635, 597–598; Syrian attacks, 111, 183, 189; trials, 169 M-19, 152, 171 MacAulay, Lawrence, 1134 Macedonia, 789 Madrid: Al-Qaeda, 589; attacks on, 551, 553; bombings, 612; train bombings, 635 Maghawri, Haitham, 934 Mahdi Army, 464 Majles, 699 Malaysia: aviation security, 198; Department of Defense counterterrorism cooperation, 997; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 330; Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 509, 1271; regional counterterrorism cooperation, 1301; U.S. counterterrorism cooperation, 520, 530, 678, 710, 746, 1102, 1262, 1264 Mali, 1251, 1255, 1258, 1301 Malta, 36, 143, 174 Maritime Transportation Security Act, 31, 899 Martinez, Peter, 1074 Marzook, Mousa Abu, 934 Mauritania, 710, 1251, 1255, 1258, 1301 Maryland v. Pringle, 596 Mazen, Abu, 461 McCallum, Edward, 1096 McChrystal, Stanley, 1084 McCollum, Bill, 21 McCormack, Sean, 1069, 1080–1081
1345 McFarlane, Robert, 70 McLaughlin, John E., 728 McNamara, Thomas, 199, 957 McVeigh, Timothy, 631 Megaports Program, 719 Mexico: counterterrorism cooperation, 643, 1229; narcotics trafficking, 931; NORTHCOM, 1060; presidential elections in, 716; September 11 attack victims, 252, 475; trade, 616; U.S. border, 616, 941, 1051, 1150, 1229 Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF), 1017–1018 Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA), 1016 Mihdhar, Khalid, 746, 756 Military Commissions, 602–603, 607–610 Military Commissions Act of 2006, 860, 900–901, 903 Military force, authorization for use, 591–594 Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), 438, 1016 Millennium threats, 744, 746 Miller, John, 906 Mishal, Akram, 934 Mitchell Accord, 257 Mitterrand, Francois, 72 MLN (Movement of National Liberation), 241 Mohamed, Kalfen Khamis, 562 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh, 329, 336, 470, 900, 923, 941 Mondale, Walter, 12 Money Laundering Act of 2001, 886 Montreal Convention. See International Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation Moro, Aldo, 180 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 714, 997 Morocco: Al-Qaeda, 1245, 1273; Casablanca bombings (2003), 689, 701, 703, 1252; free trade agreements, 1016; Middle East, 403; Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), 1169; Rumsfeld visit to, 547; student exchanges, 1176; terrorist groups, 1258; War on Terror, cooperation in, 688–689, 1150, 1301 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 1263–1264, 1271 Motassadeq, Mounir, 581 Moussaoui, Zacharias, 331, 575, 580, 913, 945, 1172 Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), 1017 Mubarak, Muhammad Hosni, 131, 155, 205, 1184, 1201
1346 Mueller, Robert S.: FBI inter-agency cooperation, 273–274, 1046; FBI reform, 909; FBI FISA Unit, 921; financial counterterrorism measures, 947 Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), 23, 885 Mukhlis, Said Hassan Ali Mohamed, 964 Munich Olympics attack (1972), 2 Murad, Abdul Hakim, 206 Murphy, Richard, 17 Musharraf, Pervez: Colin Powell, 430; counterterrorism cooperation, 264, 688, 698, 706, 952; democratic development, 1274; Francis X. Taylor, 487; George W. Bush, 264, 333, 336–337; Hamid Karzai, 1275; Pakistani people, 1267; Richard B. Cheney, 385, 833; terrorist violence, 1275 Muskie, Edmund, 1070 Muslim-Americans: attacks against, 906; cooperation, 931–932; discrimination against, 930; mistrust of government, 906 Muslim Public Affairs Council, 939 Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties: European Union, 1145, 1149–1150, 1152, 1156, 1158; Germany, 1178; OAS Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, 1232 Myanmar, 1005, 1015, 1005 Myers, Richard B., 1060 Nada, Yusef, 1006 Najaf, 795, 799–800 North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 643, 1229 Narco-Terrorism: Afghanistan, 1163; Bolivia, 186; Bucharest Action Plan, 1143; Colombia, 402, 1235, 1238, 1241–1242; counterterrorism, 428, 430; Hezbollah, 1232; indictment of FARC leaders, 1240; Michael A. Sheehan, 216–220; Organization of American States efforts against, 1234, 1239, 1241; proliferation of groups, 191–192; safe havens, 1167, 1257; threat, 154; Tri-Border Area, 1228; West Africa, 1245–1246, 1251; Western Hemisphere, 1232 Nashiri, Abid, Al-Rahim, 688 Nasrallah, Hassan, 137, 1218, 1220–1221, 1225 National Academy of Sciences, 86 National Bio-Weapons Defense Analysis Center, 1060 National Combating Terrorism R&D Program, 1096 National Communications System (NCS), 1060 National Counter Proliferation Center, 718 National Crime Information Center (NCIC), 572–573, 582–583, 1054
Index National Counterterrorism Center, 305, 332, 588, 894, 906, 1302 National Defense Authorization Act, 1298 National Domestic Preparedness Office: creation, 1041, 1043; Department of Homeland Security, 1054; inter-agency coordination, 225–226 National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), 1051 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 246, 283 National Guard, 260, 261, 306 National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC): creation, 1035, 1038; cyber-attacks, 1043; cyber-crime, 1045; Department of Homeland Security, 1054; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 916; role, 1038–1039; Watch and Warning Unit, 1038 National Intelligence Council Officer, 653 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), 461, 798 National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, 916 National Liberation Army (ELN): Alvaro Uribe, 1235; Cuban support, 1234; Foreign Terrorist Organization Designation (FTO), 998, 1228; narcoterrorism, 963; threat to United States, 691, 1229 National Operations Analysis Hub, 628 National People’s Army, 192 National Preparedness Plan, 620, 634 National Security Act of 1947, 893 National Security Agency (NSA): Al-Qaeda, 728; civil liberties, 446–447; intelligence, 728, 743, 751; surveillance, 817, 898; Terrorist Threat Integration Center, 891; U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 2006, 590–592, 595; USA PATRIOT Act, 29 National Security Council (NSC): Al-Qaeda, 37, 539–540; coordination, 971, 1058–1059; creation, 894; Department of State, 1012; diplomatic actions, 1282; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 916; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 23; Inter-Branch Coordination, 44; Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism, 156; Iran-Contra, 16, 45; National Strategy Countering Terrorism, 40; Office of Budget Management, 41; Office of National Preparedness, 91; overseas terrorism, 157; Ronald Reagan, 1071; Security Council Resolution 748, 201; Task Force on Combating Terrorism, 1283; terrorist financing, 974
Index National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS): creation, 1052; effectiveness, 1061–1062; fingerprints, 1053; purpose, 1036, 1062 National Security Strategy, 1285 National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), 1060 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, 4, 308, 704, 1154, 1159, 1295 National Strategy to Combat WMD, 718 National Threat Warning System (NTWS), 916, 1045 Negroponte, John, 434, 975 Nethercutt, George, 42 Netherlands: Al-Qaeda, 714; deaths in Iraq, 796; Dutch, 714; Hofstad Group, 1166, 1170; multiculturalism, 1172; Muslim extremism, 1176, 1179; Muslim population, 1168; New People’s Army, 481; non-traditional exchanges, 1175; Theo Van Gogh murder, 1165, 1172 New People’s Army, 481, 495 New Scotland Yard, 597 New York City: anti-terror funding, 645–646; securing the cities initiative, 648; World Trade Center bombing (1993), 131, 135, 137, 140–142, 202, 204–207, 209, 233, 290, 322, 338, 365, 371, 376, 393, 441, 476, 492, 539 New Zealand, 41 Newcomb, Richard, 947 Nicaragua, 16, 142, 154, 716 Niger, 710, 1251, 1255, 1301 Nigeria: Muslim extremism, 1251; terrorist groups, 1258; Non-Cooperative Country and Territories List, 1015; money laundering, 986; militia groups, 715; Muslim extremism, 1251; terrorist groups, 1258; September 11 attack losses, 1243 9/11. See September 11 attacks. See also World Trade Center bombing 1984 Act to Combat International Terrorism, 153, 172 Nixon, Richard M: Cabinet Level Committee to Combat Terrorism, 2, 45; Munich Olympics Attack (1972), 2, 45 Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT), 1015, 1030 North, Oliver, 16, 1069 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): Afghanistan, 329, 334–335, 459; Article 5, 254, 401, 790; attacks on targets, 154; collective self-defense, 505; coordinated attacks Against, 63; Counterterrorism R&D, 144. See also Technical Support Working Group (TSWG); divisions in, 1195; Greece, 213; international cooperation, 500, 1142, 1164, 1181,
1347 1196–1197; International Security Assistance Force, 334; International Security Assistance Task Force, 1196; Iraq, 287, 303, 436, 806–807; Operation Enduring Freedom, 390; Operation Medusa, 334; OSAC, 480; Pearl Harbor, 290; post-Cold War world, 89; Provincial Reconstruction Teams, 335; Rapid Reaction Force, 319, 542; Red Brigades, 1136; Security Council, 505; September 11 attacks, 599; Taliban, 723, 1178; Turkey, 790; United Nations, 505; War on Terror, 430, 480, 505; World War II, 468 Northern Ireland, 187, 193, 207 North Korea: Abdul Qadeer Khan, 309; agents arrest, 109; Airliner 858 bombing, 111; Axis of Evil, 245; criticism of Libya, 1207–1208; intelligence priorities, 684; Iran, 686; Japanese Red Army, 235; John Howard, 1276; Korean War, 317; Libya, 1207–1208; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 677, 717; nuclear weapons, 142, 270, 287, 401, 677, 717; policy changes, 1203–1204; pre-emption, 538; sanctions, 137, 991; South Korean Cabinet officer murders, 57; state sponsor of terrorism, 15, 64, 67, 97, 101, 111, 137, 142, 201, 205, 212, 234, 237, 471, 717, 990; threat to United States, 74; United Nations Security Council agreement, 1210; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 264, 451 North Yemen. See Yemen November 17, 154, 214 Nuclear Suppliers Group, 420 Nuclear Terrorism Convention, 717, 720 Nuclear weapons: Abdul Qadeer Khan Network, 305, 309; asymmetric attacks, 86; attacks with, 621, 635; blackmail, 149; cargo security, 31; Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 87; control over, 867, 873; cooperation with Russia, 131; defense against, 89, 90; domestic detection, 899; export licenses, 42; Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, 1177; International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, 1177; Iran, 288–289, 322, 324, 343, 353, 1207–1208; Iraq, 245, 264, 269–271, 419–421; Libya, 282, 285, 299, 305, 1188, 1206–1208; Muammar Qadhafi, 17; Nonproliferation Treaty, 677; North Korea, 142, 270, 287; nuclear age, 113; nuclear material, 87; Osama Bin Laden, 655; potential terrorist use, 1177; proliferation, 74, 94, 128, 139–140, 145; rogue regimes and, 290; Roper Poll, 176;
1348 Nuclear weapons (continued) Security Council Resolution 1373, 1178; Soviet Union, 94, 269, 317; terrorism, 186, 192, 208, 402, 406, 621, 648; terrorist use of, 264, 266, 269, 281, 298–299, 878–879; tracing, 870; U.S.-Saudi efforts against proliferation, 1198 Nunn-Luger program, 243, 1040 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 593 O’Connell, Thomas W., 1084 O’Neill, Paul H., 950, 976–977, 994, 1046 Ocalan, Abdullah, 138 Odeh, Abdulraham, 934 Odeh, Mohamed Sadeek, 562 Office of Management and Budget (OMB): Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 39; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 21; counterterrorism budget, 44, 909; Federal Bureau of Investigation Budget, 37; Internal Revenue Service, 39; State Sponsors of Terror List, 23; Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), 39. See also Counterterrorism R&D; White House, 41 Oklahoma City bombing (1995): Al-Qaeda, 664; Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, 25; counterterrorism fund, 221, 227, 646; Department of Justice, 876; domestic terrorism, 207; law enforcement, 868–871; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 874–876; politically motivated violence, 880–881; suspect arrest, 78; terrorism, 76, 81, 203; trends, 204, 872 Olmert, Ehud, 1211 Olympics: Atlanta, 207; Greece, 214; Munich, 2, 45, 48; Sydney, 219 Oman, 538, 1001, 1016 Omar, Mullah, 646 Omnibus Antiterrorism Act (1977), 12–13 Omnibus Counterterrorism Act (1995), 860–862, 972, 874, 879, 881 Omnibus Diplomatic Security AntiAntiterrorism Act (1986), 11–13, 33, 172 Operation Desert Storm. See Iraq Operation Iraqi Freedom. See Iraq Operation Together Forward, 831 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 481, 1243, 1255 Organization of American States (OAS): Action Plan on Combating Terrorism, 1142–1144; Al-Qaeda, 480; Annual Security Review Conference, 1236; Castro, 64; conference, 219; Financial Action Task Force, 975, 978; G-8’s Counterterrorism
Index Action Group, 1255; global campaign against terrorism, 500; International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards, 502; Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE), 502, 531, 1229, 1231–1232, 1234, 1236, 1238–1241; Inter-American Convention against Terrorism, 977; Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), 1002, 1013; international partners, 531; Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); protecting the Western Hemisphere, 1134; Robert H. Frowick, 1133; September 11 attacks, 1234; support for, 1146–1149; terrorist financing, 975, 1012; War on Terror, international cooperation in, 504, 1142–1143, 1150, 1155–1156, 1181, 1236, 12556, 1142, 1239 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), 854 Pace, Peter, 821, 841 Padilla, Jose, 466, 469, 573–574, 679 Pakistan: Abdul Qadeer Khan 305, 309, 365, 368; Abu Zubaydah, 336; Afghani refugees, 55; Afghanistan-Pakistan border, 488, 528, 529, 679, 1260, 1276, 1299; Al-Qaeda, 285, 287, 299, 311, 336–337, 382, 425, 486, 494, 515, 517, 529, 688–689, 702, 725, 738, 786, 820, 1245, 1260, 1267; anti-terror measures, 49; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 451, 1101–1102, 1104, 1111; Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 528; Bilateral Investment Treaty, 1016; capabilities, 487, 529; cooperation with the US, 206, 682, 702, 706–707, 930, 933, 938–939; counterterrorism aid to, 451; counterterrorism efforts, 276, 290, 333, 335–337, 430; Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), 928; Department of State, 525; earthquakes, 549; Egyptian Embassy bombing, 79; Egyptian Islamic Jihad, 659; emigrants, 1168; extremist violence, 494, 1277; Federally Administered Tribal Areas, 1128; fleeing terrorists, 494, 517, 528; capturing terrorists, 494, 515, 528; Forum for the Future, 437; Gaza, 1199–1200, 1209; government of, 515, 706; Hamas, 1209; Hezbollah, 1222; Hizb ut-Tahrir, 1169; India, 494; Hawalas, 971, 985, 1011; Intelligence Services of, 487; International Cooperation, 499; Islamic Extremists, 204, 874; Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), 1261; Joint U.S. Pakistani Working Group on Counterterrorism, 1141; Jose Padilla, 573;
Index June 2002 Islamabad church bombing, 486; Karachi murders (1995), 861, 872; Kashmir, 494; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 336, 897, 923; Legal Attaches, ´ 928; Muslim culture, 1176; Muslim extremism, 1274–1275; nuclear weapons, 682, 742, 750, 771; Osama bin Laden, 467, 469, 1267, 1279; Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), 1187; Pan Am 73 Hijacking, 35; peacekeepers in Somali, 79; Pervez Musharaff, 385; Ramzi Yousef, 877, 1086; relations with Afghanistan, 1273–1275; riots, 547; sanctions, 952; September 11 attacks, 264, 336, 475, 488, 698; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 55, 69; Special Export Zones, 1016; state sponsor of terrorism, 201, 213, 235; Taliban, 487, 522, 531; tension with India, 1259–1260; terrorism support, 522; terrorist activity in, 1197; terrorist arrests in, 492; terrorist attacks, 696, 714, 833; terrorist financing, 1017, 1020–1021; Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP), 1112; trials, 174; United States, relations with, 5, 400, 540, 577, 1134–1135, 1277–1278; U.S. aid, 428–430; U.S. coalition, 538; War on Terror, 486, 487, 529 Palestinians: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 423; barrier, 1200; democracy, 288; Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), 212; economy, 292; elections, 437, 451; Fatah, 190; Gaza Strip, 437, 668, 958–959, 1200; Israeli settlement in Palestine, 1195; Iraq, 422; Mahmud Abbas, 292, 340, 1199; 1973 War, 177; Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), 132, 234, 235, 657, 680, 696, 700, 878; Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), 235, 422; Palestinian Authority (PA), 34, 131, 292, 445, 455, 699–700; Palestinian Islamic Jihad, 582; Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), 33–35, 64, 153, 155, 208; Palestinian National Council, 130; Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF), 191, 1187; Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 657, 670, 673, 700; peace process, 204, 208, 257, 277, 292, 342, 403, 1199; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), 2, 12, 33, 110, 185, 190, 235, 696, 1187–1188; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC), 1187–1188; Rehavam Zeevi assassination, 1183; state, 177, 257, 292, 295–296, 322–323, 340, 342, 813, 846; Syria, 1183; territories, 291, 376, 403, 435–436, 452, 454–456, 459, 461, 812, 840; terrorism, 152; U.S. support for, 1199–1200; West Bank, 668, 690,
1349 958–959, 1006, 1199–1200; Yasser Arafat, 1200, 1214 Pan Am 103 Bombing: Antiterrorism Amendments Act of 1995, 881; counterterrorism, 188; human suffering, 860; International Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of detection, 197, 863; Libyan extradition, 77, 205, 209, 862, 875; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 861; overseas terrorism, 914; plastic explosives, 202; terrorism trends, 872; United Nations Security Council, 201 Pan-Sahel Initiative, 1251, 1255, 1258 Paracha, Uzir, 585 Paraguay: Hamas, 1228; radical Islamic group activity, 962, 964, 1024; terrorist financing, 1007, 1024; Tri-Border Area, 1023–1024, 1223, 1228 Patriot Act. See USA PATRIOT Act Pavitt, James, 729 Peace Corps, 139, 406 Pearl, Daniel, 698, 1171 Pearl Harbor, 551, 592 Peres, Shimon, 104, 132, 131 Peru: elections, 716; cocaine, 962; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 884; Shining Path, 152, 186, 191, 963, 1228, 1234; terrorist attacks in, 1227; insurgency, 154; terrorism in the Andes, 185 Philippines: Abdul Hakim Murad, 206; Abu Sayyaf Group, 529, 714, 1263, 1271; AlQaeda, 673; anti-terrorism bill, 1273; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 38, 400, 405, 428–429, 1102, 1111; assassinations, 188; Australia, 1272; Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, 1104; chemical attack, 1272; counterterrorism policy, 38, 496, 509, 529–530; Dulmatin, 1270; fighting terrorism, 1269–1270; George W. Bush, 264, 276, 282, 290, 311; Indonesia, 530; Hawalas, 972; international cooperation, 482–483, 509, 530; Jemaah Islamiya (JI), 529, 714, 716, 1263, 1271; Malaysia, 530; Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 495, 509, 1264, 1271; nation building, 1134; National Police and Armed Forces, 710, 1270; New People’s Army, 192, 481, 495, 976; Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) designation, 1015; Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) project, 997; Primary Money Laundering Concern designation, 986; Regional Strategic Initiative (RSI), 530; Terrorism Information Rewards Program, 7. See also Rewards for Justice Program; terrorism
1350 Philippines (continued) financing, 1090, 1233, 1270; terrorist attacks, 476, 496; terrorist groups, 481, 495, 504, 529; Terrorist Interdiction Program, 1264; threat to U.S. citizens, 673; U.S. financial assistance to, 1271–1273; Umar Patek, 1270; United States, 529; War on Terror, 482–483, 529–530 Pillar, Paul R, 653 Pistole, John S., 927 Poland, 275, 282, 290, 789, 796, 810, 812 Pope, William P., 1154, 1237, 1083 Portugal, 171, 789 Portland Seven Terror Cell, 891, 896 Posse Comitatus Act, 863 Powell, Colin: Al-Qaeda, 950; Condoleezza Rice, 465; counterterrorism, 496, 499; diplomacy, 1046, 1089–1090; doctrine, 387, 836; Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center 956; Francis X. Taylor, 486; George W. Bush, 73; India, 1260; Iraq, 1069; Japan, 1079–1080; meeting with international leaders, 1141; OAS meeting, 1234; Operation Desert Storm, 73; September 11 attacks, 1278; support Palestinian reform, 1195; terrorist financing, 976; United Nations, 677, 681, 787, 790 Presidential Executive Orders: continuation of the National Emergency Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria, 1289; continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism, 1289; Executive Order 12947: Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process 1287; Executive Order 13059: Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to Iran, 1287; Executive Order 13099: Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process, Federal Register, Vol. 63, No. 164, 1287; Executive Order 13129: On Terrorist Financing Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with the Taliban, 1288; Executive Order 13224: Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism, 1288; Executive Order 133388: Further Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans, 1289; Executive Order Amendment of executive Orders, and Other Actions, in Connection
Index with the Transfer of Certain Functions to the Secretary of Homeland Security, 1288; Executive Order Blocking Property of Additional Persons in Connection with the National Emergency with Respect to Syria, 1289; Executive Order Establishing Office of Homeland Security and Executive Order Establishing the Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council, 1288; Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria, 1288; Executive Order: Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 1288; Executive Order: National Counterterrorism Center, 1288; Executive Order: Termination of Emergency Declared in Executive Order 12543 with Respect to the Policies and Actions of the Government of Libya and Revocation of Related Executive Orders, 1288; Executive Order 13382: Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters, 1289; Fact Sheet Executive Order 13224: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism Washington D.C., 1288; Fact Sheet Supplemental FY 2005 Request for War on Terrorism, 1289; Presidential Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence, 1288–1289; Taliban Executive Order, 1288 Presidential Strategy Papers: National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, 1284–1285 Presidential Decision Directive-39, 237, 241, 242, 244 Prohibition against the Training or Support of Terrorist Organizations Act of 1984, 18 Project Bioshield, 269 ‘‘Project 2020,’’ 512 Proliferation Security Initiative, 287, 299, 309, 319, 451, 718, 720 Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee, 629 Puerto Rico, 239–241 Putin, Vladimir, 951 Qadhafi, Muammar: against international terrorism, 1133; behavior, 1206; gunmen of, 1136; expulsion of Libyan Diplomats, 168, 175, 183, 189; ‘‘Holy Alliance,’’ 101; Iran-Contra Affair, 71; international pressure, 111; military action against, 175, 189; Pan Am 73 hijacking, 35; Pan Am 103 bombing, 85–86; renouncement of nuclear weapons, 17; sanctions, 111, 137; state sponsor of terrorism, 63, 155, 168,
Index 178, 185, 235; threat to Egypt, 14; threat to United States, 74; training camps, 235; US military action, 137 Qatar, 607, 977, 1001 Rabin, Yitzhak, 130, 132, 209, 880 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) and Money Laundering Statutes, 28, 867–868 Radio Free Europe, 550 Radiological weapons: Al-Qaeda, 655, 660, 676, 690, 713; attack on Transit Systems, 636; attack on US city, 648; bio-sensors, 636; Colin Powell, 402; Jose Padilla, 573–574; Osama Bin Laden, 655; Radiological Dispersal Devices, 684; terrorist groups, 657 Rafsanjani, Akbar Hashemi, 132, 234 Rahman, Shayke Omar Abdel, 238 Ramadan, Taha Yasin, 410, 413 Ralston, Joseph, 854 Rashid, Mohammad, 184, 201, 861 Reagan, Ronald: attacks on Libya, 2; bicentennial, 105; Chemical Weapons Convention, 74; Criminality of Terrorism, 7; Democracy Promotion, 443; diplomacy, 95; hostage taking, 1073; Iran Contra, 3, 43, 169, 1069; Iran-Iraq War, 16; Leadership on Counterterrorism, 155, 1282–1283; legal system, 176; military strikes on Libya, 45; prohibition against the Training or Support of Terrorist Organizations Act of 1984, 18; Soviet Union, 812, 277; US Foreign Policy, 98, 100, 116; withdrawal of peacekeepers from Lebanon, 45, 246, 834 Realuyo, Celina, 947 Red Army Faction, 152, 154, 185, 216 Red Brigades, 64 Red Cross, 1216, 1243 Redman, Charles, 1074–1075 Regional Strategic Initiative (RSI), 1301 Registered Traveler Secure Flight Programs, 636 Reid, Richard: American Airlines Flight 63, 576; Ashcroft, 481; Britain, 494; holding terrorists accountable, 393; life of, 1171; recruitment, 711; shoe bomb plot, 597; sentence, 580, 794 Reno, Janet, 135, 139, 1035 Republic of Congo, 1246 Republican Guard, 409, 418 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC): charges against, 578; Colombian instability, 1235; drug trade, 217–218; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, 1228; kidnappings, 218; links to international terrorist groups, 1241;
1351 narcotics trafficking, 1234, 1240, 1242; self-sufficiency, 669; terrorist financing, 942, 963, 993, 998; threat to U.S. interests, 684, 691, 714, 1228–1229 Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/ Front, 691, 696 Rewards for Justice Program, 7 Reynolds, Jim 20 Rezak, Omar Mohammed Ali, 36, 143, 861–862, 878 Ribicoff, Abraham, 12–13 Rice, Condoleezza: Afghanistan, 524; Al-Qaeda, 540; Department of State reorganization, 718–719; economic development, 519; European partners, 1166; immigration policy, 635, 644; Iraqi security forces, 787, 821; Karen Hughes, 296; Lebanon war (2006), 840; transformational diplomacy, 1302; Middle East, 1133; Pakistan, 1135; peace process, 288; testimony by, 510; U.S. image abroad, 643 Ridge, Tom, 624, 629, 638, 1047, 1158 Rogers, William, 48 Romania, 789 Roosevelt, Franklin, 551, 553 Rosenthal, Hal, 12 Rumsfeld, Donald H.: doctrine, 393; media, 246; Middle East, 1195; Iraq, 275, 320, 347; Pentagon, 393; War on Terror, 359 Rushdie, Salman, 205, 234 Russia: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi plots, 424; Afghanistan, 256; Beslan school attack, 312, 432, 433, 457, 551, 554, 940, 1154, 1172, 1254, 1267; bilateral cooperation, 5, 42; business with Iraq, 420; Chechnya, 494, 1162–1163, 1166, 1168, 1170, 1173; combating nuclear terrorism, 718, 720, 721, 1177; counter-proliferation, 682; democracy, 267; future of, 673; goods review list, 404; Group of Eight (G-8), 129, 131, 524, 1165; Hemant, Lakhani, 585; Iran, 353, 686; Muslim population in, 1168; Non-Proliferation aid, 406; North Korea, 270; revolution, 122; Syria, 292; terrorism, 328; Third World, 121; United States, relationship with, 400–402, 443, 482, 499; U.S.-Russia Counterterrorism Working Group (CTWG), 1023; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 469; War on Terror, cooperation with United States in, 951, 1023, 1090, 1142, 1149, 1154, 1163–1163, 1165, 1174 Rwanda, 438 SAFE Port and Secure Fence Acts, 31, 899, 1036
1352 Sahel, 710, 714 Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), 703, 710, 983 Salameh, Farouk, 170 Salifiya Jihadia, 689, 703 Sandinistas, 64 Satterfield, David, 853 Saudi Arabia: Afghan Donor Conference, 404; Al-Qaeda, 253, 287, 311, 423, 476, 688–689, 703, 708, 714, 1128; Al-Haramain, 1191; attack on American military in, 74–75, 81, 207; attacks on civilians in, 1146; Baathists, 492, 517; Bin Laden, Osama, 476; civil suits, 35; counterterrorism cooperation/efforts, 678, 688, 702, 704, 708; Crown Prince Abdullah, 1134, 1184; democracy, 288, 314, 458; Department of State, 1090; fund raising, 285; government of, 688, 708, 833; Guantanamo Bay detainees, 832; Iraq, 492, 517–518; Iraqi insurgents, 301; Iraqi relations with, 658, 699; Islamic extremism, 1212, 1238; Islamic faith, 1198, 1214; Jeddah Chamber of Commerce (JCCI), 994; Khobar Towers attack (1996), 365, 739, 790, 914; Kuwait, 492; Libya, relations with, 1205, 1207; Most-Wanted Terrorist List, 708; National Guard bombing (1995), 914; National Saudi Society for Relief and Charitable Works Abroad, 1191; Operation Desert Storm, 358; oversight of charities, 977, 1134, 1192; Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 1199; Riyadh attacks (2003), 701, 702, 708, 804, 995, 1190, 1235; Saddam Hussein, 468; Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), 994–995; support for democracy in Iraq, 812, 844; Syria, 292; Taliban, 533; target of Middle East terrorism, 153; target of Saddam Hussein regime, 362; terrorism, 76, 382, 385, 518; terrorist financing, 518, 709, 1134, 1190–1192; U.S. losses in, 1114; United States, 403, 476, 491–492; U.S. forces in, 77, 312, 462, 472; War on Terror, cooperation in, 318, 487, 930, 933, 951, 1185–1186, 1190–1192, 1198; women’s rights, 454 Saunders, Stephen, 213 Schumer, Charles, 20, 645 Scowcroft, Brent, 1070 Secure Fence Act, 30 Securing the Cities Initiative, 648 Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI), 634, 712 Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), 152, 186, 191, 962–964, 1228, 1234 Senior Corps, 262
Index September 11: Afghanistan, 451, 534, 536, 538, 1227; aftermath of, 359, 365–367, 374, 376, 559, 563; Al-Qaeda, 308, 329–332, 333–334, 458, 460, 462, 488, 491, 494, 508, 528, 581, 598–599, 613, 687, 704, 725, 944, 965, 1115, 1169, 1213, 1267; Algeria, 1253; anniversary, 1234; anthrax, 560, 561, 563; Asia, 1261; Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 1142; Asymmetric threat, 671–672, 674–675, 695, 726, 786; Australia, 475; authorization for use of military force, 591–592, 594; barriers to investigation prior to, 890–891; Bin-Laden, 491, 531; border security, 30; budget, 37, 39, 41, 566; Bush Doctrine, 703; Canada, 475, 1226, 1230; causes, 480; China, 499; civil suits, 35; commission report, 16, 37–38, 43, 316, 321, 329–330, 446, 584–585, 590, 624, 631, 663, 706, 711, 717, 761, 765, 767–768, 937, 1016, 1115, 1212; conspirators of, 1216; conventions, 499; counterterrorism efforts after, 36, 328–331, 374, 380–383, 386, 391, 393–395, 432–433, 793–794, 834, 1090; counterterrorism efforts prior, 331–332, 380–381, 393, 727, 733, 743, 745–748, 750, 754–756, 780, 817, 820, 1035; counterterrorism Policy, 479, 498, 500; death toll, 914; Department of Homeland Security, 647; Department of Justice, 574, 579, 908; Department of State, 1233; Dependence on Infrastructure, 696; disappearances since, 930; effects of, 294, 316, 506, 1047–1048; electronic surveillance since, 898; Emergency Response Fund, 407; Europe, 710–711; European Union, 494, 503, 1142, 1145, 1149, 1150, 1156; extraordinary security measures since, 676, 678; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 588, 905–907, 911, 915, 917–919, 924, 929–930, 937–938, 941; flaws in National Defense, 584; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 889, 925; freezing of terrorist assets, 947, 960, 992, 1006, 1010–1011; Group of Eight (G-8), 1142; George W. Bush, 362, 498, 1183; Germany, 494, 1181; Great Britain, 475, 494; Hezbollah/Hizballah, 1220, 1228; hijackers, 442, 447, 470; Homeland Security Initiatives, 1035–1036, 1050–1051, 1055, 1057; Horn region, 1248; immigration vulnerabilities, 571, 1052; India, 475, 1259; intelligence, 485, 487, 538, 623, 663, 735, 761, 913, 919, 1089; international cooperation, 482, 484, 496, 505, 508; international deaths, 1243;
Index international impact, 475; international intelligence, 1144; International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs), 929; interoperable communication, 611; investigations, 565, 567, 579, 584, 970; Iraq, 466; Italy, 492, 494; Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, 688, 689, 706, 897, 900, 941; law enforcement, 8, 485, 575; Legal Attache´ (Legat) program, 916, 927; legal processing, 494; Libya, 1202; Marine cargo, 637; media coverage of, 488; Mexico, 475; military commissions, 901; Mohammad Atta, 666, 1169; Moussaoui, Zacarias, 575; multilateral forums, 480; Muslim-Americans, 931–933; National Security Coordination Council, 568; National Security Division since, 936; National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (N-SEERS), 1061; national strategy for combating terrorism, 765, 1154; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1142; Operation Enduring Freedom, 333–334, 336–337; Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 1146; Organization of American States (OAS), 1142, 1231, 1239; Organization of American States InterAmerican Committee against Terrorism (CICTE), 1236; Osama Bin Laden, 307, 329, 371, 470, 923; Pakistan, 487, 488, 494, 499, 698, 706, 1278; passenger screening, 636; Patterns of Global Terrorism Report for 2001, 4, 664, 667; planning for, 365; plea agreements since, 888; pre-9/11 testimony, 653; preemptive action, 363, 538–539, 543; preparations for, 665–666; prevention of, 480, 537; propaganda following, 841; public diplomacy, 399–400; Ramzi Binalshibh, 900; Rasmi Subhi Saleh Al-Shannaq, 583; responses to, 479, 496, 499; Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 1228; Russia, 401, 499; Saddam Hussein, 362, 368, 370–371, 376, 388, 471–473; Sudan, 485; surveillance, 445–446; Syria, 482; Taliban, 494; targets, 662; technology, 488; terrorism finances, 7, 477, 487, 499, 1093, 1103; terrorism training camps, 1169; terrorism trends, 476–477; terrorist attacks after, 376, 381–382; Terrorist Rendition Program, 441; terrorist strategy following, 789; Terrorist Surveillance Program, 380–381, 590–592; trade, 616; Transit Security Administration, 635–636, 639; Tunisia, 492, 494; Turkey, 494; unconventional attacks, 696; United Nations, 502, 510, 1155; United States Society, 498, 500, 518; UNSCR 1373,
1353 711; USA PATRIOT Act, 26–29, 374, 393, 582, 584, 859; use of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), 859; War on Terror, 604, 606, 608, 1257; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 479, 480, 917; World Trade Center bombing (1993), 662, 664, 666, 727, 732, 745, 753, 861–862, 872, 874, 876–877; Victims Compensation Fund, 1087; victims of, 475; Zacarias Moussaoui, 945; Zimbabwe, 475 Sharia Law, 683 Sharm el-Sheikh, 77, 131 Sharon, Ariel, 91–92, 403, 437 Sheehan, Michael, 139 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 106 Shiite: cooperation in governance, 803, 824, 836, 844, 849; extremists, 665, 692, 697, 1213; Hezbollah, 1220, 1222–1223; international terrorism, 152; Iran, 153, 232, 694, 1213, 1225; Iraq, 235, 1225; Iraqi government, 715, 723; sectarian strife, 693, 724, 788, 843 Shultz, George, 8, 155, 158, 186, 192 Sierra Leone, 438, 1246, 1252 Sikh-Americans: attacks on, 906; Community Relations Executive Seminar Training (CREST), 939; cooperation, 931 Singapore, 6, 481, 487, 499, 704, 997, 1237, 1261, 1264 Siniora, Fouad, 327, 340, 461, 465 Sison, Jose/New People’s Army, 976 Slovakia, 789, 796 Slovenia, 420, 789 Snyder, Charles, 1244 Somalia: Al-Barakat, 1009; Al-Haramain, 983, 994; Al-Qaeda, 79, 695–696, 1248; armed groups, 715; failed state, 216; Intergovernmental Authority on Development, 709; Osama Bin Laden, 738; peacekeepers, 79; stability, 1251; troop withdrawal, 834 South Africa, 1002, 1243, 1247, 1252 South America tri-border region, 1090 Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counterterrorism in Malaysia, 710 Southern Command, 1298 South Korea, 810–812; Colin Powell, 401; Rangoon bombing, 101 South Yemen. See Yemen Soviet Union. See also Russia: Afghanistan, 476; bilateral relations, 178, 193; chemical weapons, 186, 192; collapse of, 200–201, 204, 207–208; condemnation of terrorism, 179; connections with state sponsors of terrorism, 66; containment, 762; deterrence, 119, 366–367; expansion, 115; fall of, 545, 556; Helsinki Accords, 106;
1354 Soviet Union (continued) hostages in Beirut, 66; invasion of Afghanistan, 53, 55, 69, 186, 192, 535; Iran, 53, 69; low intensity warfare, 120; nuclear testing, 813; nuclear weapons, 94, 867; Ronald Reagan, 812; sanctions, 53; terrorist victim list, 153; Third World, 121 Spain: Abu Nidal, 179; Al-Qaeda, 835, 845; Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), 1234; deaths in Iraq, 796; ETA, 107, 171; extradition treaty with US, 111; extremist cells, 1165, 1173; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 884; Grapo, 154; Iranian terrorism, 155; Madrid train bombings (2004), 440, 457, 598, 701, 711, 713, 804, 836, 937–938, 1150–1151, 1156, 1163, 1165, 1167, 1170, 1173, 1195, 1238, 1252; muslim population, 1168; non-traditional exchanges, 1175; poison, 680; pre-Iraq War Support, 789; terrorism, 438; trials, 174; withdrawal from Iraq, 799 Special Operations Command, 1301 Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), 992–993 Specter, Arlen, 605 Sunnis: connections to Shiite extremists, 1213, 1218; cooperation in governance, 803, 807, 812, 824, 826, 844, 849; extremists, 659, 665, 675, 689, 697, 703, 713, 724, 1228; Iraqi government, 691, 693–694, 715, 723; Iraqi security forces, 807; participation in government, 1226; sectarian strife, 693, 724, 788, 843, 1225; triangle, 798 Speakes, Larry M., 56–57 Sri Lanka: cooperation with United States, 1265–1266; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 884; Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 138, 668, 885, 1134, 1265–1266; terrorism, 136 Strasbourg Convention, 233 Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), 1035 Strategic Management Council, 909 Student Exchange Visitor Information System, 570–571, 583 Sudan: Abu Nidal Attacks, 184; Al-Qaeda, 462, 492, 516, 944; Carlos the Jackal, 441; Coalition of the Willing, 482; counterterrorism conventions, 1255; cruise missile attacks, 2; Darfur, 1244; ethnic conflict, 236; failed state, 216; humanitarian crisis, 1244; Iranian terrorism, 155; Iraq, 447; Iraqi insurgents, 301, 448; Osama Bin Laden, 738–739; peace process, 1251; sectarian violence,
Index 462–464, 467; state sponsor of terrorism, 15, 201, 205, 212, 237–238, 990; terrorist groups, 235 Supreme Court: Abdullah Al-Muhajir, 574; due process, 865; Fourth Amendment, 595–596; Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 602–603, 608; Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 592–593; military commissions, 599, 897–898, 901– 902; Solicitor General, 607 Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 684 Switzerland, 191, 196, 562, 987, 1006–1007 Symbionese Liberation Army, 152 Syria: Abu Nidal, 1137; Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit, 451; attacks on Israel, 10; Berlin Wall, 378; civil lawsuits, 36; Colin Powell, 145, 403; Commercial Bank of, 1005–1008, 1020; cruise missile attacks against, 79–80; democracy, 813; economic sanctions, 137; export licenses, 13–14; foreign assistance, 12; foreign fighters in Iraq, 1187; Golan Heights, 493; Hezbollah, 493, 516, 691, 1020, 1220–1222; ‘‘Holy Alliance,’’ 101; Iran, 516, 1213; Iraq, 516; Iraqi insurgents, 299, 301, 342, 353, 798, 803, 812, 814, 1020; Lebanon, 1198, 1211, 1215, 1218, 1222; Lebanon occupation, 292, 295, 322, 343, 445, 448, 454, 455, 493; Middle East, 493; Palestinian terror groups, 1020; peace process, 133; relations with Iraq, 1225; relations with Israel, 1195; Saddam Hussein, 468; sanctions, 77; state sponsor of terrorism, 15, 77, 80, 97, 101, 111, 137, 142, 234, 288, 292, 312, 321–322, 324, 461, 471, 476, 491, 507, 516, 528, 680, 848, 990–991, 1133, 1158, 1186–1188, 1194, 1209–1211, 1220–1222, 1225; Syrian Accountability Act, 1187; War on Terror, cooperation in, 482, 516, 932 Tajikistan, 407 Talabani, Jalal, 855 Taliban: Afghanistan, 256–259, 281, 284, 286, 314, 333–334, 340, 357, 360, 364, 371, 376, 390, 405, 459, 467, 492, 494, 531, 683, 722–723; Al-Qaeda, 252–253, 281, 284, 312, 329, 335, 481, 492, 494, 532, 702, 732; Al-Qaeda/Taliban Sanctions Committee, 1103; diplomatic ties, 533; freezing of assets, 956, 959, 976, 979; ideology, 375, 379; international pressure, 214, 219; Iran, 522; John Walker Lindh, 481; local afghan forces, 535; Mullah Omar, 646; Operation Enduring Freedom, 245, 1045–1046; opium, 218; Osama Bin Laden, 697, 739–741; overthrow of, 378, 382, 387, 400, 404,
1355
Index 423, 430, 432, 438, 538, 540, 653, 672, 701, 707, 721, 1113; Pakistan, 486, 494, 522, 531, 678, 698, 706, 725; regime, 951; sanctions, 214; save haven in Afghanistan, 218; ‘‘shoe bomber,’’ 481; South Asia, 494; Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) designation, 993; Taiwan, 401; terrorist financing, 958, 1093; U.S. & NATO strikes against, 262, 276, 284, 286, 314, 329–338; United Arab Emirates, 950; United Nations sanctions, 975–976, 978–979, 1013, 1017–1018; United Nations, 532; United States, 481; War on Terror, 665, 993, 997 Tallent, Rear Admiral Hamlin, 1083, 1114 Tamil Tigers (LTTE), 666, 668 Tanzania: East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative, 709; East and South African Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), 1009, 1022; Embassy bombing. See African Embassy bombing Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), 1009; Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, 1250; Horn of Africa, 1248; Department of State, INL, 1250, 1255; Terrorist Interdiction Program, 1249 Taylor, Frank X., 728, 960, 974, 1141 Targeted Infrastructure Preparedness Plan, 634 Technical Support Working Group (TSWG). See also Counterterrorism R&D: creation, 6, 1097; Department of Homeland Security, 7, 1094, 1098; Department of State, 39; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 929; organization, 1098; R&D efforts, 1092, 1094, 1096–1100 Temporary Worker Program, 635 Terrorism Finance Coordination Officer, 1093 Terrorism Financial Review Group (TFRG), 970–971 Terrorism Information Rewards Program, 7, 137, 144. See also Rewards for Justice Program Terrorist Exclusion List, 25, 966, 1013 Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP), 479, 504 Terrorist Screening Center, 588 Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP): creation of, 308; NSA, 330–331; Al-Qaeda, 380–381; legal challenges, 383–384, 394–395; Albert R. Gonzalez, 590–596, 601, 604 Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), 269, 273–274, 906, 926–927 Terrorist Threat Intelligence Center, 542, 588, 628–629 Tenet, George, 217, 441, 653, 738, 918, 924, 1046 Thailand, 710, 716, 796 Thatcher, Margaret, 187, 193
Theater Commander’s counterterrorism exercise, 1095 Theater Security Cooperation (TSC), 1122, 1124 Thompson, Larry, 905, 910 Tokyo subway attack, (1995): chemical weapons, 208; proliferation, 874; terrorism, 37–38, 75, 82, 129–130, 208, 860; trends, 204, 872; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 37, 87, 130 TOPOFF, 627 Tower, John, 1070–1072 Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI), 1258–1259, 1301 Transportation Security Administration, 332, 635–636, 639 Treasury Enforcement Communication System (TECS), 746 Trevi Group, 111, 180 Tri-Border Islamic Groups, 964, 1007 Tripartite Commission, 707 Truman, Harry S: Cold War, 317, 319; Condoleezza Rice, 443, 445; Department of Defense, 1056; doctrine, 277; National Security Act of 1947, 893; peace, 95 Tunisia, 155, 166, 1253, 1255, 1258 Tupamaros, 64 Tunisia, 101, 142, 547, 679, 684 Turkey: Al-Qaeda, 689, 696; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 163; Armenia, 154; Cold War, 813; combating extremism, 1176; emigrants, 1170; exchange students, 1175; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 884; Hamas, 457–458; internal and external threats, 182; Iranian terrorism, 141; Istanbul attack, 836; Istanbul synagogue attack, 1137, 1195; Muslim population, 1168; North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 790; Abdullah Ocalan, 138; Operation Desert Storm, 196; Pipeline with Iraq, 694; PKK, 141, 216, 457, 854; Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/ Front, 691; secularism, 1214; Syria, 142; terror attacks in, 1136, 1190; terrorism, 103, 130; trials, 174; Turkish targets, 662; U.S. aid to, 428–429 TWA 800 crash, 222 TWA 847, 47, 1282; airline security, 78; Germany, 112; Mohammod Ali Hamadei, 861 Uganda, 709 Ujamma, Earnest James, 576, 580 Ukraine, 796, 812, 986 Umm Qasr, 808 Unabomber, 78 Ungar, Yaron, 35 Unified Command Plan (UCP), 1060
1356 Uniform Code of Military Justice, 603, 608 United Arab Emirates (UAE): Al-Barakaat, 955; Al-Qaeda, 678, 688; Al-Taqua, 955; Gulf Air Flight bombing, 101; Hawalas, 985, 1020; Iraq, 844; money laundering, 977, 1001; Taliban, 533, 950; terrorist financing, 993, 1020; US-UAE Joint Terrorist Financing Coordination Committee (JTFCC), 1017, 1020; women’s education, 525 United Kingdom. See Great Britain United Nations: 40th Anniversary, 105; 50th Anniversary, 205; aid to Afghanistan, 428; Al-Qaeda, 481, 532; ambassador for the United States, 47; assistance mission to Afghanistan, 707; Baghdad headquarters attack, 829, 842, 1096; Bush, George W., 510; charter, 71, 175; charter, 957, 975; Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 84; Coalition of the Willing against Iraq, 73–74; Colin Powell, 245; communism, 127; conspiracy, 240; Counterterrorism Committee (CTC), 5, 502, 711, 975, 977, 986, 1012, 1113, 1147–1148, 1155, 1236, 1238, 1254, 1265; counterterrorism measures, 500, 502, 510, 532; Educational Scientific Cultural Organization, 427; Financial Action Task Force, 481, 532; freezing assets, 1093, 1103; General Assembly, 532; High Commissioners for Human Rights Refugees, 84; implementation of conventions, 1147, 1150–1151, 1158, 1234, 1240, 1262; inspectors, 677, 681, 790, 794; international cooperation, 501–502; international discussion of terrorism, 162, 178, 179; Iranian hostage crisis, 50–51; Iraq disarmament, 197, 265, 269–272, 286–287, 302, 404, 409, 414, 422; Iraq reconstruction, 805, 811, 855; Justification for terrorism against Israel, 10; Kofi Annan, 699; Lebanon, 403; Libya, 85, 129, 131, 137, 142–143, 201, 205, 209, 235; Middle East, 128; Mission in Baghdad, 583; national sovereignty, 49; no-fly zones, 658; non-proliferation, 128; Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 1015; Oil-for-Food Program, 1005, 1007; Organization for Industrial Development, 1123; peacekeeping, 398; preemptive action, 825; prevented attacks, 78; Pierce Rogers, 48; Saddam Hussein, 654; Security Council, 502, 532; September 11 attacks, 599; Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 55; Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, 699; state sponsors of terrorism, 59; Taliban, 532; terrorism, 129–130, 177; terrorist financing, 481, 949, 977, 1011, 1015, 1028; travel to the
Index United States, 160; United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), 327, 465; United States, 500, 502; universal action against Terrorism, 161; unmanned arial vehicles, 681; UNMOVIC, 408, 416–417, 421; UNSCOM, 128, 413–417, 421; War on Terror, 502; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), 510; William Jefferson Clinton, 130 United Nations Security Council: Iran, 324; Iraq, 270, 272, 278, 280, 282, 286; Lebanon, 321; Tony Blair, 339 United Nations Security Council Resolutions and Conventions: Resolution 242, 1195; Resolution 338, 1195; Resolution 731, 72, 201; Resolution 748, 201; Resolution 718, 790–791, 811; Resolution 965, 976, 978, 983, 993, 995; Resolution 1267, 975–979, 993, 1010, 1012–1013, 1017–1018, 1021, 1023, 1191, 1287; Resolution 1373, 5, 39, 481, 485, 502, 711, 718, 957, 965, 975–978, 993, 1010, 1142–1143, 1155, 1178, 1134, 1136, 1254–1255, 1287; Resolution 1390, 1297; Resolution 1455, 983, 993, 995; Resolution 1540, 451, 1177, 1287; Resolution 1559, 292, 323, 326, 1198, 1211, 1222; Resolution 1617, 532; Resolution 1624, 532; Resolution 1701, 1217, 1221–1222 United States Agency for International Development, (USAID): Afghanistan, 707; budget, 426, 428, 435, 448; diplomatic role, 1300; inter-agency cooperation, 1302; murder of Laurence Foley, 423, 430; reconstruction aid, 429; Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI), 1301; Yemen, 708 United States Customs: cargo screening, 637; Container Security Initiative, 616; interagency cooperation, 968; Operation Green Quest, 971; terrorist financing, 980; Trade Transparency Units (TTUs), 1023; training, 1019, 1030 United States Information Agency, 8, 550 United States Marshals, 567, 871 United States National Intelligence Council, 512 United States Secret Service, 871, 893, 930, 935 United States Strategic Air Command, 718 United States v. Knights, 595 United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT), 621, 636, 641, 644 Uruguay, 964 Urbancic, Frank, 1133–1134 US-Thailand International Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok, 710
Index USA PATRIOT Act: Alien Terrorist Removal Court, 31–32; Civil Liberties, 366, 393; Commercial Bank of Syria, 1020; counterterrorism during Operation Iraqi Freedom, 793; currency smuggling, 973; evolution, 906; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 923; FISA Court, 920; Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations, 26; George W. Bush, 817, 859; implementation, 27; information sharing, 281, 308, 319, 332, 611, 970, 1055; intelligence, 383; International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 992; investigative guidelines, 912; John Ashcroft, 246, 579–586; law enforcement, 368, 374; passage of, 393; primary money laundering concerns, 986, 1005–1006; reauthorization, 28–29, 281, 284, 306, 602, 895–897, 936; terrorism financing, 1003; terrorism prevention and response, 499; terrorist exclusion list, 496; tools, 910, 935, 966; use of, 971–972; War on Terror, 887–892 USS Cole Bombing: millennium threat period, 744; Central Intelligence Agency, 740; Walid Bin Attash, 706; Abu Ali al-Harithi, 688; Al-Maliki, 688; loss of United States Citizens, 656; Al-Qaeda, 476, 688, 1233 UTA Flight 772 attack, 867, 875 Uzbekistan, 538 Venezuela, 716, 963, 1228, 1234, 1241–1242 Victims of Trafficking Violence Protection Act, 34 Vienna attacks (1985), 1282 Vietnam: George P. Shultz, 94, 96, 98, 116, 118, 123; L. Paul Bremer, 177, 192 Villalobos, Herbert, 576, 583 Violent Crime Control Enforcement Act, 18 Visas Viper Program, 735, 746 Wainstein, Kenneth, 936 Wald, Charles, 1245 Warsaw Pact, 141 Washington, George, 113, 592 Watson, Dale, 37, 918 Waite, Terry, 70 Wayne, Anthony E., 947, 974 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): Al-Qaeda, 360, 366, 425, 512–513, 684; Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA), 219; Argentine authorities, 1239; asymmetric attacks, 86; attack on US cities, 647–648; border control, 1151, 1250; combating, 718–720; commission report, 717, 728, 770, 771, 936–937; Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR), 505; defense
1357 against, 87–88, 90; Department of Justice, 868; domestic terrorism, 225, 1044–1045, 1066; European Union, 505; Export Control and Related Border Security Assistance, 1250; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 917; finance networks, 1183; G-8 Cooperation, 75; globalization, 480; Group of Eight (G-8), 505; Hamas, 512–513; initiatives, 925; intelligence, 670, 933; international cooperation, 479, 482, 497, 505; International organizations, 427; Iran, 683, 1184; Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, 77; Iraq, 72, 74, 362, 404, 408–411, 413–414, 421, 425–426, 468–469, 471, 497, 514, 536, 653, 658, 660, 681, 685, 699; law enforcement, 1036–1037; Libya, 505, 1188–1190, 1196, 1203–1204, 1207; National Bio-weapons Defense Analysis Center, 1060–1061; National Domestic Preparedness Office, 1041, 1052; North Korea, 401, 991; Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Amendment, 1040; Office of National Preparedness, 91; Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, 868; preparedness activities, 227; prevention of, 480, 501, 504–505; proliferation of, 90, 376, 480, 501, 504–505, 522, 527, 700, 933; Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), 505; responses to, 479; Rouge regimes, 497, 505, 514; Russia, 406, 682; Saddam Hussein, 1184; Sea Island Summit, 505; Security Council Resolution 1373, 1178; Security Council Resolution 1540, 1177; September 11 attacks, 479; Syria, 505, 1186, 1188; terrorism, 186, 192, 204, 208, 363, 365–366, 378, 393, 370–371, 402, 428, 480, 497, 527, 542, 860, 874, 1089, 1214; trends, 151 Weather Underground, 152 Webster, William, 1072 Welch, C. David, 1203 Weldon, Curt, 1296 West Bank, 128, 130–132 White House Homeland Security Council, 637 Wilcox, Philip, 20, 859 Williams, Chuck, 398 Wilson, Thomas R., 653, 671 Wolfowitz, Paul, 1036, 1055 Wong, Mark, 1133 Woolsey, James, 233, 727, 740 World Bank: international cooperation, 84; Iraq reconstruction, 811, 855; Palestinians, 1194; terrorist financing, 430, 979, 984, 986, 1014, 1028 World Food Program, 84 World Trade Organization, 401, 1016 World War I, 592
1358 World War II, 317, 593, 619, 809, 842, 845, 901, 1048 World Trade Center bombing (1993). See September 11 attacks. Wycoff, Karl, 1247 Yarkas Group, 598 Yassin, Sheikh Ahmed, 935 Yeltsin, Boris, 131 Yemen: Al-Qaeda, 688, 696, 702, 738, 944; Egyptian Islamic Jihad, 659; foreign military financing, 708; Guantanamo Bay, 832; state sponsor of terrorism, 160, 170; US assistance, 708; War on Terror, 1233
Index Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 591 Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, 716 Yugoslavia, 141, 438 Younis, Fawaz, 112, 181, 184, 191, 861 Yousef, Ramzi Ahmed, 205–206, 208–209, 238, 441, 666, 745, 749, 877, 1086 Zadran, Pacha Khan, 707, 947, 1006 Zeevi, Rehavam, 1183 Zelikow, Philip, 1212 Zimbabwe, 475 Zubaydah, Abu, 336, 470, 688, 903
About the Editors YONAH ALEXANDER is director of the Inter-University Center of Terrorism Studies, a consortium of academic institutions in more than forty countries. He is also a senior fellow and director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia, a senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, and co-director of the Inter-University Center of Legal Studies at the International Law Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a professor and director of terrorism studies at the State University of New York and George Washington University, Dr. Alexander has also held academic appointments and visiting lectureships at many other institutions in the United States and abroad. Educated at Columbia University (Ph.D.), University of Chicago (M.A.), and Roosevelt University of Chicago (B.A.), he founded and edited three international journals on terrorism, political communication, and minority and group rights. He has published ninetyfive books, the latest titled Counterterrorism Strategies: Successes and Failures of Six Nations (2006) and The New Iranian Leadership: Ahmadinejad, Nuclear Ambition, and the Middle East (2007). His numerous articles and interviews have appeared in both the United States and international media. MICHAEL B. KRAFT is a former State Department Counterterrorism Office Senior Advisor for Legislative and Budget Affairs with nineteen years of experience in the office, working on a variety of legislative, program, and regional issues. He is now a Washington-based counterterrorism consultant and writer, contributing chapters to other books as well as articles to newspapers and counterterrorism blogs. Since retiring from the State Department in 2005, he has also been an adjunct counterterrorism faculty member at the National Defense University’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies and consulted on Defense Department and Homeland Security projects. Before joining the State Department in 1985, Mr. Kraft spent ten years working in Congress as staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and as national security legislative assistant for
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About the Editors
members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. Previously, Mr. Kraft was chief congressional correspondent for Reuters and a correspondent and editor for United Press International in Washington, London, and Central Africa; he also contributed to the BBC. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan.