[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM: THE 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS AND THE
NATIONAL STRATEGIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 22, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-271
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
98-354 WASHINGTON : 2005
_____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas Columbia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida ------
------ ------ BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DAN BURTON, Indiana DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio TOM LANTOS, California
RON LEWIS, Kentucky BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
DIANE E. WATSON, California
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
R. Nicholas Palarino, Senior Policy Analyst
Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 22, 2004............................... 1
Statement of:
Gorton, Slade, member, National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States; and Richard Ben-Veniste,
member, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States.............................................. 18
Rabkin, Norman, Managing Director, Homeland Security and
Justice Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office;
Raphael Perl, Senior Policy Analyst, Congressional Research
Service; and John V. Parachini, Senior Policy Analyst, RAND
Corp....................................................... 54
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Gorton, Slade, member, National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States; and Richard Ben-Veniste,
member, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States:
Article dated September 7, 2004.......................... 47
Prepared statement of.................................... 24
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio:
New York Times article................................... 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 115
Parachini, John V., Senior Policy Analyst, RAND Corp.,
prepared statement of...................................... 92
Perl, Raphael, Senior Policy Analyst, Congressional Research
Service, prepared statement of............................. 77
Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 16
Rabkin, Norman, Managing Director, Homeland Security and
Justice Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office,
prepared statement of...................................... 57
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3
COMBATING TERRORISM: THE 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS AND THE
NATIONAL STRATEGIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats
and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Kucinich, Turner, Duncan,
Putnam, Lynch, Platts, Ruppersberger, Maloney, Tierney, Watson,
and Sanchez.
Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and
counsel; R. Nicholas Palarino, senior policy advisor; Robert A.
Briggs, clerk; Richard Butcher and Andrew Su, minority
professional staff members; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant
clerk.
Mr. Shays. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations
hearing entitled, ``Combating Terrorism: The 9/11 Commission
Recommendations and the National Strategies,'' is called to
order.
The final report of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States, referred to as the 9/11
Commission, gave us the first comprehensive, objective analysis
of what went so tragically wrong that day 3 years ago. A
unanimous commission called for reflection and reevaluation,
saying that the United States should consider what to do, the
shape and objectives of the strategy. Americans should also
consider how to do it, organizing their government in a
different way.
Today, we respond to that call for a dialog in the national
strategies and tactics required to meet and defeat the threat
of radical Islamic terrorism. Prior to September 11, 2001, this
subcommittee heard testimony based on the work of the three
national commissions on terrorism: the Bremer, Gilmore and Hart
Rudman, citing the need for a dynamic threat assessment, and
the lack of any overarching counterterrorism strategy.
After September 11th, we were told the 2002 National
Strategy for Homeland Security, the 2003 National Strategy to
Combat Terrorism, and other high level policy statements
addressed the need for a post-cold war security paradigm that
replaced containment and mutually assured destruction with
detection, prevention, and at times, preemptive action to
protect the national security of the United States.
The commissioners now ask us to consider whether these
strategies adequately reflect the harsh realities and hard
choices they confronted on our behalf. To a large extent, they
do. Current policy and spending guidance mirror many commission
recommendations on disruption of terror networks abroad and
protection of Americans at home. But the September 11 panel
seeks greater strategic clarity in characterizing the threat.
Terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. A war against terror
targets an incorporeal emotion.
The commission argues for a strategy based on a realistic
assessment of the threat posed by radicals perverting religion,
Islamic whose motivations, goals and capabilities can be
estimated, analyzed and countered. Additionally the commission
looks for a far sharper focus on public diplomacy to supplant
the toxic ideology of hatred and death that seeks both global
and generation reach. They believe under-utilization of the so-
called soft powers of communication and persuasion leave us
without an effective long term strategy to address the root
causes of Islamic terrorists.
The strategy articulates a goal, a desired end state, a
long term objective achieved by artful orchestration of the
means and ends of national power. But in the modern context,
against a foe insidiously detached from the civilized norms of
statecraft, strategy must be as much process as product, more
verb than noun. The key to modern security is dynamic strategic
thinking, not a static strategic balance. The 9/11 Commission
recommendations challenge us to strive for that new level of
strategic vigilance.
We are very grateful for the commission's work, profoundly
grateful, and for the contribution of the two commission
members testifying today. We look forward to their testimony
and that of all our witnesses.
At this time, the Chair would recognized the distinguished
gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
welcome Senator Gorton and also Richard Ben-Veniste and thank
them for their work and for their commitment to our country.
I want to thank the Chair for calling this hearing and say
that it's always a welcome opportunity for Congress to hear
from members of the 9/11 Commission and to discuss how to
implement the recommendations they put forth in their report.
To this point, the focus of Congress has been on reforming our
intelligence community so that the multiple intelligence
agencies are finally held responsible for their work.
I'm pleased that this aspect of the commission's work is
being addressed so quickly. The culture of secrecy is far too
great in Washington, and if we are to defeat terrorism, then we
must learn to share with and trust one another. We simply
cannot allow our security to be weakened by internal disputes
and turf battles.
As you know, I have grave concerns about the direction of
our foreign policy, especially the military decisions made by
the current administration. Yet I do fully agree with the
documents we are to discuss today in one important area, that
the civil liberties of all people should be respected. The
national strategy on homeland security states that, ``to secure
the homeland better, we must link the vast amounts of knowledge
residing within each Government agency while ensuring adequate
privacy.'' It goes on to state, ``We are a Nation built on the
rule of law and we will utilize our laws to win the war on
terrorism while always protecting our civil liberties.''
The other document we are to discuss today, the National
Strategy to Combat Terrorism, concludes by stating in the very
last paragraph, ``The defeat of terrorism is a worthy and
necessary goal in its own right, for ridding the world of
terrorism is essential to a broader purpose. We strive to build
an international order where more countries and peoples are
integrated into a world consistent with the interests and
values we share with our partners, values such as human
dignity, rule of law, respect for individual liberties, open
and free economies and religious tolerance. We understand that
a world in which these values are embraced as standards, not
exceptions, will be the best antidote to the spread of
terrorism. This is the world we must build today.''
The 9/11 Commission's report also clearly states on page
349 that the President should ``safeguard the privacy of
individuals about whom information is shared.'' On the next
page of the report, the commission recommends that there be a
board to oversee the commitment the Government makes to defend
our civil liberties. That is one part of the commission's
report which has not garnered much attention, but which should.
Yet unlike the overall of U.S. intelligence which may be
enacted by legislation in the near future, I've seen very real
little action within the current administration to implement
the recommendation in the commission's report.
Instead, I see far too many attempts to curtail our civil
liberties at our libraries, our airports, even when we exercise
our right to demonstrate. I see, and for that matter terrorists
see, the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and at
Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Chairman,
I would like to submit for the record a lead editorial from
Monday's New York Times entitled ``In Defense of Civil
Liberties.'' This editorial urges a stronger, more independent,
more accountable civil liberties board than that of the
President's, and which would truly accomplish what the 9/11
Commission envisioned.
Mr. Shays. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8354.003
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things
about this editorial, which I hope every Member gets an
opportunity to look at, is a quote that every Member should
take note of. It says ``A polarized Congress, wary of being
portrayed as soft on terrorism, is not adequate defense for our
constitutional rights.''
On one hand, I would have to take exception to that as a
Member of Congress, but on the other hand, we need to be aware
that these debates sometimes can cause us to throw overboard
the very liberties which we swear to uphold. And I think that
the 9/11 Commission's report says, and this is worthy of
considering as I conclude, ``The choice between security and
liberty is a false choice, as nothing is more likely to
endanger America's liberties than the success of a terrorist
attack at home. Our history has shown us that insecurity
threatens liberty. Yet if our liberties are curtailed, we lose
the values we are struggling to defend.''
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing the
testimony of the witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. I don't know if the vice
chairman of the subcommittee has a statement. We have Mr.
Duncan as well. Do you have a statement you'd like to make?
Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chairman, I don't have a formal statement.
I just want to commend you for how active you are in leading
this subcommittee. I think you're one of the most thoughtful
and hard working chairmen of any subcommittee that we have in
this Congress and calling this hearing this morning is just an
example of that. I want to say how impressed I was with the
work of the 9/11 Commission. I was very impressed with the
bipartisan nature about which, the way in which they went about
their duties.
I think one of the problems that we sometimes face is that,
nobody who is a real critic of the intelligence agencies ever
gets on the intelligence committees. So no real tough question
are ever really asked until after there is a serious problem.
And I have never asked to sit on an intelligence committee, and
I don't want to, I prefer to serve on other committees. But
that's something that I think we need to consider in the
future.
But thank you very much for this hearing this morning.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman for his nice comments, and
also to call on the former vice chairman of this subcommittee,
Mr. Putnam.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit my
statement for the record, but I do want to echo Mr. Duncan's
comments that I was honored to serve as your vice chairman when
you took testimony from the Gilmore Commission, from the Hart
Rudman Commission and from the Bremer Commission before Bremer
was a household name. And all of those things took place before
September 11, and those commission reports by and large
gathered dust until September 12, 2001.
It's good to see that this thoughtful commission report is
attracting the attention that it deserves and I hope that we
will be very thoughtful and deliberative in taking up their
hard thought recommendations. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of
time, I'll submit the remainder of my statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8354.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8354.011
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman.
I just want to say to our two witnesses before I call on
them, just to thank them for the work that they did on the 9/11
Commission, but thank them for choosing excellent staff. The
staff has been extraordinary. They have written really, I
almost think, a sacred report. That's kind of how I feel about
it. I want to also say that the bottom line to this hearing for
me is, this is one of the most interesting hearings I think we
can have. Because if we don't get the strategy right,
everything after that is almost useless.
So at this time, let me recognize the Honorable Slade
Gorton, member, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States; and Mr. Richard Ben-Veniste, member,
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States. As you know, we swear in our witnesses. At this time, I
would ask you to rise and swear you in. This is an
investigative committee, and all our witnesses have been sworn
in except only one, and that was Senator Byrd, because I
chickened out. [Laughter.]
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent that all members of the
subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement into
the record, and that the record remain open for 3 days for that
purpose. Without objection, so ordered.
I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
permitted to include their written statements in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
At this time, I don't want to choose between a Republican
and a Democrat, not with this commission, Senator, you have the
floor.
STATEMENTS OF SLADE GORTON, MEMBER, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON
TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES; AND RICHARD BEN-
VENISTE, MEMBER, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON
THE UNITED STATES
Senator Gorton. Chairman Shays, Ranking Member Kucinich,
distinguished members of the subcommittee. The Commission is
honored to appear here today. We're gratified by your deep and
continuing interest in the Commission's work. We appreciate the
opportunity to discuss with you again some of the commission's
recommendations, particularly some which have not received as
much attention as those involving reform of the structures of
the executive branch.
The commission's findings and recommendations were strongly
endorsed by all commissioners, five Republicans and five
Democrats. We share a unity of purpose. We hope that the
Congress and the administration will display the same spirit of
bipartisanship as we collectively seek to make our country and
all Americans safer and more secure.
We begin by reviewing briefly the road we have traveled
since July 22nd, the day the commission presented its report.
We believe we have made important progress. We're pleased with
the overall direction of the debate. From the outset, we have
had statements of support from the President and from Senator
Kerry. We thank the Congress for the opportunity to explain our
work to the Congress and to the American people. Members of the
Commission have testified at 18 hearings since July 22nd. We're
gratified by the work of Senators McCain, Collins and Lieberman
in support of our recommendation.
Chairman Shays, we thank you and Representative Maloney for
introducing a bill in the House that speaks to all of the
commission's recommendations. We believe, as you do, that we
cannot prevail in the struggle against Islamist terrorism
unless we adopt a comprehensive approach. We welcome the
endorsement of the President and of the House leadership of the
idea of a National Intelligence Director and a National
Counterterrorism Center. We want to work closely with both the
administration and the Congress in the refinement of our
proposals, and work for the adoption of as many of our
recommendations as we can achieve between now and the
adjournment of this Congress.
Mr. Chairman, in response to your letter of invitation, we
start with a few comments about the National Strategy for
Combating Terrorism and the Homeland Security Strategy put
forward by the President. We find them in general terms to be
helpful documents.
We make two points about the National Strategy for
Combating Terrorism. First, the President's strategy places a
heavy emphasis on destroying the terrorist threat. So do we. In
our very first recommendation, we state that it must be the
policy of the United States to deny terrorists the ability to
establish sanctuaries. To deny, disrupt and destroy such
sanctuaries, we want to work with friends and allies, if
possible, and alone if necessary. We believe strongly that Bin
Ladin and his lieutenants must be captured or killed and that
the al-Qaeda organization must be destroyed.
Second, the President's strategy speaks of many forms of
terrorism. But we concentrate on just one--Islamist terrorism.
Moreover, we identify Islamist terrorism as the leading
national security threat to the United States.
We believe we cannot succeed against terrorism by Islamist
extremist groups unless we use all of the elements of national
power: military power, intelligence, covert action, law
enforcement, economy policy, foreign aid, homeland defense and
diplomacy, both quiet diplomacy and public diplomacy. If we
favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves
vulnerable and weaken our national effort. This is not just our
view, it is the view of almost all policymakers.
Secretary Rumsfeld told us that he can't get the job done
with the military alone. For every terrorist we kill or
capture, more rise up to take their place. He told us the cost-
benefit ratio is against us. Cofer Black told us the CIA alone
can't get the job done either.
For this reason, the Commission made a whole host of
recommendations in addition to a recommendation on the use of
force. We are engaged in a struggle against a set of ideas with
considerable resonance in the Arab and Muslim worlds. There are
tens, if not hundreds of millions, of Bin Ladin sympathizers in
the Arab and Muslim world. While they may reject violence, they
may also be sympathetic to many elements of Bin Ladin's
message.
We must find a way to reach this great majority of Muslims,
from Morocco to Malaysia. Right now, we are not doing a very
good job. Polls taken in the past year show that the bottom has
fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world.
Negative views of the United States among Muslims, which had
been largely limited to countries in the Middle East, have
spread. If we do not change this dynamic, young Muslims who
expect no improvement in their own lives or societies may well
become the wellspring of support for Bin Ladin.
The President's strategy touches on these themes concerning
the war of ideas. We believe they need to be given greater
emphasis. We cannot defeat Islamist terrorism if we cannot
persuade young Arabs and Muslims that there is a better course.
We must project a message of hope, a message of support for
educational and economic opportunity for them, their children
and grandchildren.
The President's Homeland Security Strategy dates from July
2002. Since that date, the Department of Homeland Security has
been created and many other steps have been taken. We would
concentrate on just two observations about the strategy. They
relate in both cases to implementing that strategy.
First, homeland security assistance should be based
strictly on an assessment of risks and vulnerabilities.
Assessment of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities must be
completed by the Department of Homeland Security and risk must
then be factored in. Now, in 2004, Washington, DC, and New York
City are certainly at the top of any such list. We must
understand the contention that every State and city needs to
have some minimal structure for infrastructure response. But
Federal homeland security assistance should not remain a
program of general revenue sharing.
Second, the American people understand that in a free
society we cannot protect everything, everywhere, all the time.
But they do expect their Government to make rational decisions
about how to allocate limited resources. Since September 11, we
have put 90 percent of our transportation dollars against the
threat to aviation security, even as we know that there are
threats to maritime, rail and surface transportation.
Despite congressional deadlines, the Transportation
Security Administration has developed neither an integrated
strategic plan for the transportation sector nor specific plans
for the various modes. Without such plans, neither the public
nor Congress can be assured we are identifying the highest
priority dangers and allocating resources to the most effective
security measures. DHS Under Secretary Hutchinson has testified
that such plans will be completed by the end of the year. We
believe it important that the Congress hold DHS to that
commitment.
In making decisions about how to allocate limited resources
to defend our vast transportation network, we believe strongly
that TSA must use risk management techniques. This requires
that the Government evaluate the greatest dangers, not only in
terms of terrorist intentions as we understand them, but also
taking into consideration the vulnerabilities of the Nation's
infrastructure and the consequences of potential attacks.
Mr. Chairman, I'm Richard Ben-Veniste. I want to thank you
and your colleagues for the very kind and generous remarks you
made about the commission's work, and particularly, with
respect to your recognition of the work performed by our
incredible staff.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to highlight an important part
of our recommendations on the topic of civil liberties. We can
report to you that from the very beginning of the commission's
work, each commissioner was conscious of the need to make sure
that in our struggle against terrorism we do not compromise the
very rights and liberties that make our system of government
and our society worth defending.
Concern about the civil liberties of American citizens was
one of a number of reasons that the commission rejected the
idea of moving domestic intelligence and counterintelligence
responsibilities of that agency and putting them in a new MI-5
type of agency. We feared that such a new agency, not steeped
in the respect for the rule of law and the constitution that
reflects the commitment of career professionals at the FBI and
the Justice Department would be more likely to trample on
individual rights.
The commission made three major recommendations with
respect to civil liberties. First, the commission dealt with
the critical and complicated privacy issues that are at the
heart of the information society, and they are at the center of
necessary efforts to increase the amount of information
gathered about terrorists. The commission recommends
improvements and enhancements in those information gathering
abilities and in information sharing. But we also recognize
that with the enhanced flow of information comes a need to
establish guidelines and oversight, to make sure that the
privacy of our citizens and residents is respected and
preserved.
We believe, as did the Markle Task Force in its excellent
reports, that we have the ability to gather and share
information and protect privacy at the same time. But this
requires leadership and coordination in the Executive branch.
No one agency can deal with this problem alone. Instead, we
recommend that the President lead a Government-side effort
through OMB and the National Intelligence Director to set
common standards for information use throughout the
intelligence community. These standards would govern the
acquisition, accessing, sharing and use of private data so as
to protect individual rights. The same technology that
facilitates the gathering and sharing of information can also
protect us from the mis-use of that information.
Second, the commission made observations on the provisions
of the Patriot Act relating to information sharing. The
commission commented on the wall created through judicial
rulings and Executive department regulations beginning in the
1890's that had severely constrained the flow of information
acquired through surveillance and under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance ACT, FISA, from the intelligence side
of the FBI to the criminal side of that agency and to Federal
prosecutors.
We believe the provision of the Patriot Act that eliminated
the wall on balance is beneficial. Witnesses were virtually
unanimous in telling us that the provision was extremely
helpful to law enforcement and intelligence investigations with
little if any adverse impact on the rights of potential
defendants.
However, we did propose a general test to be applied to the
consideration of the renewal of other provisions of the Patriot
Act. We believe that principle should also be applied to other
legislative and regulatory proposals that are designed to
strengthen our security, but which may impinge on individual
rights. The test is simple, but an important one. The burden of
proof should be on the proponents of the measure to establish
that the power or authority being sought would in fact
materially enhance national security and that there will be
adequate supervision of the exercise of that power or authority
to ensure the protection of civil liberties. If additional
powers are granted, there must be adequate guidelines and
oversight to properly confine their use.
The third recommendation of the commission on civil
liberties flows from the first two. Individual liberties and
rights must be protected in the administration of the
significant powers that Congress has granted to the Executive
branch agencies to protect national security. A central board
should have the responsibility to oversee adherence to
guidelines that are built into these programs to safeguard
those rights and liberties.
We welcome the President's Executive order of August 27th
creating a civil liberties board as a positive first step in
the direction and recognition of the commission's
recommendations. We note, however, that such a board will be
strengthened significantly if it is created by statute. In
addition, it will be strengthened if certain important
refinements in its composition and powers are made.
We do not believe the board should be comprised of
administrative officials drawn from the very agencies the board
was created to oversee. Instead, we envisioned a bipartisan
board with members appointed directly by the President, with
the aim of including outstanding individuals from outside
Government who can provide a more disinterested perspective on
this vital balance. Though the commission did take an explicit
position on this issue, we believe those members of the board
should be Senate-confirmed.
Such a board will also need explicit authority to obtain
access to relevant information, including classified
information. Such a board should also have broad authority to
look across the Government at the actions we are taking to
ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately addressed. Last,
and importantly, such a board should be transparent, making
regular reports to Congress and the American public.
Mr. Chairman, such a board of the kind we recommend can be
found in the Collins-Lieberman bill in the Senate, and in the
Shays-Maloney bill introduced in the House. We believe we need
a reorganization of Government that will more effectively and
efficiently protect us against terrorism. More specifically, we
recommend a strong National Intelligence Director and stronger,
more intrusive measures for border security and transportation
security. But if Government is stronger, so must be the
protection for individuals against Government action.
Our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty.
Yet, if our liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we
are struggling to defend.
Finally, we want to point out that our recommendations made
to streamline and make more effective the critical role of
congressional oversight have received little attention. This is
perhaps the area that has also received the least public
debate. Yet unless greater authorities provided to the
Executive branch are matched by effective oversight by the
Congress, the critical balance contemplated by our
constitutional system will fall short of our society's
justifiable expectations.
Mr. Chairman, we would be pleased to answer any questions
you might have.
[The prepared statement of Senator Gorton and Mr. Ben-
Veniste follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I thank you both very much for your comments.
I'm not going to be asking the first questions. I will go
to Mr. Turner. But I do want to say this to you. The issue of
how the House is organized is probably not going to be settled
until January of next year, either with a Democratic Congress
or a Republican Congress. But I am going to vote against any
rule, be it a Republican or Democratic Congress, that doesn't
incorporate the recommendations of the Commission. Now, there
may be some slight variations as to how that happens, I mean,
there might be two committees that deal with issues of homeland
security, because you take FEMA, it sometimes is involved in
the threat of the terrorists, but it also can be a natural
disaster, and there may be slight variations.
But I just want to go on record, I will vote against any
rule put forward by either party that doesn't incorporate the
recommendations of the Commission. It's absolutely vital. We're
talking about reorganizing Government and the administration,
we'd better do the same for Congress.
At this time the Chair would recognize, I think what we're
going to do is a 5-minute round. I'll be generous with the 5-
minute round, and then we'll come back a second time, because
we have so many members. I want either member to feel like they
can respond to a question that the other is asked. If that
happens, I'll just go a little beyond the 5 minutes to the
member. Either of our witnesses can answer the question. Thank
you.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank both
the commissioners for being here today and for the excellent
work of the 9/11 Commission. Certainly the 9/11 Commission's
work has been very important for our country. You've delivered
a non-partisan report that has a great to-do list that I think
will make our country safer.
I also appreciate your time in coming to these hearings and
participating. This is the sixth 9/11 Commission recommendation
hearing that I've participated, three that our chairman has led
in his efforts to continue to make certain that this committee
is focused on relevant issues as to how to make America safe in
the war on terror.
One of the aspects of the report and the recommendations
that I have an interest in is the issue, Senator, that you were
talking about, in that beyond intelligence, beyond the issue of
military might, but our efforts in winning the war on ideas.
Many times the war on terrorism is compared to the war on
communism and the cold war. There we had an ideology that
claimed to be bringing increased freedom and prosperity to its
people. But it fell with the weight of the reality of what
democracy was achieving in the world while it was not.
Here, with your report having identified, and I think it's
very helpful that your report took the strong stance of
identifying Islamic extremism as really the issue and the tough
target that we're struggling with, we have ideas that are tied
with a religious basis that talks not only about the reality of
today but also a reward in the afterlife, and a devaluing of
not only the lives of others but even of an individual's own
life. I think that makes it much more difficult for us in the
war of ideas, communism not having been a religion, of the
reality of its performance and the performance of democracy and
capitalism could be felt and compared.
The report talks about the importance of hope and education
and economics. Certainly we know that specifically with the
September 11 terrorists, they were not economically
disadvantaged. But certainly in the war on terror, as we try to
battle these ideas, our typical model battling those ideas is
to work out with exchanges of information and ideas and to work
through processes of education of economics.
I would just like your thoughts as to, who do you think our
partners are going to be as we reach out and attempt to do
this, how do you see the process working? Focusing on the issue
of the war of ideas, I'd like your thoughts, as you went
through this process and put this report together, that would
be helpful to us.
Mr. Shays. Before you respond, let me just say, given that
I think this kind of dialog is important, it's going to take
more than 5 minutes, we're now going to do 10 minute rounds.
I've consulted with Mr. Kucinich, so we'll do a 5-minute clock
and then we'll trip it over for another 5 minutes.
Senator Gorton. Mr. Turner, in a very real sense, you
incorporated our answer in the question itself, the kind of
challenges we face, the parallels and the lack of parallels
between these challenges in the war of ideas to that during the
course of the cold war. I think you've pointed out quite
rightly that in many respects this is a more difficult
challenge. Because in large measure, it is a philosophy that is
religiously motivated. And particularly among the Bin Ladin
organization and its offshoots themselves, there is no
distinguishing feature between politics and religion. They end
up being exactly the same thing. Obviously we aren't going to
attempt to teach religion in any kind of war of ideas.
I think that what we have to do is to encourage those
Muslim societies that have been relatively successful. We can
see a high degree of success in Turkey, for example, after some
80 years, and a philosophy that at least until recently, and to
a certain extent at the present time, separates church and
state in a way very much analogous to the situation we have
here.
But we see other societies there that have to a certain
extent been successful literally from Morocco to Malaysia, and
the two countries that we mentioned here, we see progress, as
slow as it may be, even in some of the Arab countries, in the
Kuwait that we liberated. We point out that one of the real
problems in those societies, one of the real reasons for this
long, centuries-long decline vis-a-vis the West, is their
treatment of women. It is very important for their own progress
that women be liberated and be allowed to live up to the
maximum of their potential. That's taken place to a greater or
lesser extent in some of those countries.
But I think the best thing we can do is to try to share
those elements in our society that, outside of religion, have
been successful. I think we need to encourage students to come
here to the United States, to provide some support for those
students to see what the United States is like. That isn't
always successful. Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the leader, is a
graduate of a college here in the United States. But I think
overall we can say that helps.
But just as we have the Voice of America and the Voice of
Free Europe, we've got to be willing to engage in that battle
of ideas on the ground with people who have television sets,
with people who have radios and the like, and to present in
their own languages the kind of hope that freedom, both for
individuals and in the economy and in elections, how that has
made lives better here and can make life better there. There is
no one magic formula, there is no one key to overall success. I
think if I were to summarize it, we have to be our own best
selves and share our own best selves with other people who do
not live with the degree of open freedom we have.
Mr. Turner. Commissioner Ben-Veniste.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. As usual, my friend Slade Gorton has
expressed our views eloquently and fully. One thing I would
like to focus on is the issue of education. We make a proposal
for an education fund, which would in our view, greatly
increase the world view, a system that is not the kind of
educational system exported by some of our allies, such as the
Saudis, for decades, which teaches intolerance and hatred, but
rather providing educational opportunities that teach the value
of plurality and hope. Mothers throughout the world will not
choose, if given the choice, suicide over hope.
Mr. Turner. A followup, since we have additional time, on
the issue of measuring our success, one of the things that is
cited in the report are polls. If you look at polls and the
United States standing in the area now, and you compare them to
prior to September 11th, we were doing much better than we are
now. Yet we were attacked. How would you measure our success in
the war of ideas, knowing that the polls don't necessarily
reflect that we're winning the war of ideas with potential
terrorists?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Let me say, Mr. Turner, that the polls
prior to September 11 did not reflect any connection between
the attack by this murderous group of cowards who would kill
women and children to further their ends and the realities of
what occurred. However, if you look at the polls and the
wellspring of sympathy to this country that immediately
followed on the September 11 attack, and you compare them with
the current situation, the handwriting is clearly on the wall
that we are not winning the hearts and minds----
Mr. Turner. My time is almost up. Excuse me for a moment.
So you would agree that the polls prior to September 11 would
not have indicated to us that we were imminently being
attacked, so they're not really a good measurement as to
whether we're being successful in this war of ideas.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. The war of ideas was not, in our view, the
reason for the attacks of September 11. There is no reasoning
with al-Qaeda, with Bin Ladin, with the wannabees which have
sprung up, not only over the past years, but that existed prior
to September 11. Those are not the people who we will focus
upon in winning the war of ideas. We will focus upon people
whose minds are open to a discussion of what is best for their
families in the present and future generations.
We are not winning that war by any objective standards now.
We are killing terrorists, but Bin Ladin and other
organizations are recruiting them faster than we can kill them.
Senator Gorton. The ultimate measurement is right here.
It's whether or not we prevent attacks on the United States and
one hopes in the rest of the world. In the more narrow of those
two questions, of course, we have been successful since
September 11. Obviously some of the measures we've taken have
been important.
But no one can conceivably say to you or to the American
people that we're over the hump, that because we've been
successful for a couple or 3 years we're going to continue to
be successful. That's the reason for our recommendations at
every one of these levels. But the measurement the American
people are primarily interested in is the measure as to whether
or not there's a repeat.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Right. We were successful by that measure
from 1993 to 2001.
Senator Gorton. In the United States.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Yes.
Mr. Shays. The challenge we have, though, in the United
States, is it's kind of like the sign that says, shark infested
waters and someone goes swimming there and then gets out and
says, see, there was nothing to be concerned with.
Senator Gorton. That is a good analogy.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Kucinich, you have the floor for 10 minutes.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Ben-Veniste, you just made a comment that
said that we're killing so many terrorists, but more and more
keep coming up. Is that basically what you're saying?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. We heard testimony, Mr. Kucinich, from a
CIA expert in terrorism before the last hearing, I believe it
was, where I asked that specific question whether there was any
metric by which his agency could measure the level of
recruitment following the invasion of Iraq. He indicated that
there was a substantial increase in recruitment for al-Qaeda.
Mr. Kucinich. So has terrorism become more of a problem the
more people we kill or the less people we kill?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I think the way that we're looking at this
war in which we are engaged is one in which the war of ideas is
almost equally as important. What are we exporting in this
country? What do people throughout the world and particularly
in Muslim countries believe about the United States? And as
Senator Gorton has said earlier, we are not doing enough, we
are not doing what we can to export the heart and soul of what
our country is about. People are seeing the export of violence
and military might and in some instances gross violations of
our dearly held principles in the way we have treated
individuals overseas.
That has to stop, that has to change in our view. We can do
much better, and we should be able to do much better in
exporting the kinds of ideals about which are proud in this
country.
Senator Gorton. We want to emphasize the integration of
responses, not one alone. I think perhaps we can identify four
levels of our defenses against terrorism. One is passive, the
kind of procedures you must go through when you get on an
airplane. Second is intelligence itself, knowing more or
learning more about the threats against us. Clearly our
intelligence agencies failed this prior to September 11 in that
connection. Many of our important recommendations, including
those that have gotten the greatest degree of attention,
reflect on that.
Third is the war of ideas, to try to dry up support for
this kind of activity. And fourth, of course, is to go after
the terrorists where they are, those who cannot be persuaded in
any event. We lay out here in the book what Bin Ladin says, the
way Bin Ladin says that we can get rid of terrorism is to get
out of the Middle East, all convert to Islam and end our
civilization. That's not really something you can negotiate.
Mr. Kucinich. Let me try to tie a few things here together.
I mentioned earlier the New York Times editorial where they
talked about the polarized Congress. Has anyone ever given any
thought on the commission to the effect of the words that we
use in our diplomacy and our policies, the semantic
construction? For example, let's look at the concept of a
``war'' on terrorism, or a ``war'' of ideas. Has anyone on the
commission ever given any thought to the exigent circumstances
which are created by those words that we actually may be
putting ourselves in polarity, creating the very thing that
we're seeking to avoid?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. That's a very reasonable way of looking at
this in a generic sense, Mr. Kucinich. We looked at it from the
standpoint of the conflict of ideologies, whether you call it a
war or a conflict, or a struggle or a competition. It's
something that we recognized we could do better at and we
should do better at, because we have the better argument.
When we talk about a war on terrorism, as Chairman Shays
has said here today, and repeatedly over time, terrorism is a
technique. We are not at war with terrorism any more than we
are at war with tanks or artillery or hand grenades. But we are
in a struggle against a fanatical group of Islamist terrorists,
who are organized, better or worse, over time as you take a
snapshot of them. But they are a formidable adversary. They are
opportunistic, they are smart, they have gamed us, they have
studied us. They have been able to use the very freedoms which
make us great to their advantage.
So we need to be smarter, more efficient and more effective
about how we use our tremendous resources to avoid further
bloodshed on our soil, while at the same time, as you and I
have said, protecting our civil liberties, which makes us the
society we are today.
Senator Gorton. Mr. Kucinich, I think I would divide your
question into two and answer the two halves of it differently.
I think you make a good point, when we overuse that word war.
In connection with ideas, with this struggle, it's a
competition and the like. It may be that we can phrase it
better.
On the other hand, the struggle of life and death is in
fact a war. Osama Bin Ladin declared war on the United States,
and the problem is we didn't pay any attention to it, even when
it was Americans who were being killed overseas. That is a war.
There's no other way to describe it. It is a war with that
group. One of our goals has to be to make that group as narrow
and small as possible and separate them from the vast majority
of people in their own societies. And that's a contest. It's a
contest of ideas.
Mr. Kucinich. Yes. Words matter here, Mr. Chairman, and to
the commissioners. We are in a new environment where we're
speaking of war against a group as against conflict between
nations, which is what we traditionally understood to mean war.
When we use the word war, I would suggest that it spawns not
only the kind of dichotomies which can lead to an
intensification of conflict but can also create real war. Let
me give you an example.
The ``war on terrorism'' led this Nation to attack Iraq, a
nation that did not attack us. There was no symmetry there in
terms of the concept of war. And then that further helped to
create an environment where a rollback of our civil liberties
became something that some in the Government felt was
warranted.
So I guess as we move toward this new environment where we
speak of creating a civil liberties board, I still would like
to see this Congress proceed very slowly about creating any
kind of changes that could either institutionalize a diminution
of civil liberties, directly or indirectly, advertently or
inadvertently, or lock us in to a condition where we're
basically trapped in a war. It seems to me that we're almost in
a closed loop here. War on terrorism, war of ideas, spawning
war, cutting back civil liberties, leaving us more vulnerable
to the destruction of our own democracy.
I know the commission is well aware, having looked at the
report, of the threat to our liberty that's at stake here. We
just saw yesterday, Mr. Chairman, there was a change this week,
Transportation Security Agency, they're now frisking people,
frisking people going through airport security. That's a whole
departure from where we've been. Where does this incursion end?
So I think we need to, I'm glad the commission has done its
work, but I see it as a starting point, I might add, not as an
end point, in the work we have to do here. I'd be happy to hear
your response.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I agree with your last point. We have made
recommendations, which are in our view, directly responsive to
what we have found over a rather intensive investigation of
failures. One of the failures was in our aviation and FAA/NORAD
security. The recent instances of searches, although I don't
have the specifics in mind, may reflect the recommendation that
we made that we have to be more alert to questions of smuggling
explosives onto airplanes. We cannot ignore what happened in
Russia. We cannot ignore the fact that apparently two
individuals on separate flights were able to board aircraft
with explosives.
So do we learn from that, what do we learn from that, what
kinds of steps do we have to take? They should be focused. They
should not be generalized, I agree. But we have to be smarter
than we were before. We've got to be more efficient. And our
recommendations go to that. If we can be, then we can minimize
the greater degree of intrusiveness into our lives.
But we also have to be realistic. These things happen and
we can't ignore it.
Senator Gorton. Mr. Kucinich, I think our brief answer is,
we don't believe we've made any recommendations that would lead
to the adverse consequences you fear.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. There must be balance. As we make
recommendations to be smarter and more focused, we also make
recommendations that there must be countervailing mechanisms to
protect against mission creep, against generalized use of
enhanced authorities that would in fact impinge upon civil
liberties in a more general way.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. And I'm going to take my
10 minutes now. I know we've been joined by Carolyn Maloney and
Mr. Ruppersberger, as well as Mr. Lynch. I want to say that I
want to get you out, Mr. Ben-Veniste, by 12 o'clock, I think
that's your need. I could spend all day with you folks.
I believe, obviously, if this balance, and first off it's
going to be interesting to have to relate this balance to the
topic at hand, which is strategies. But obviously with more
Government power, it requires more Government oversight, that's
the bottom line.
Senator Gorton. Absolutely.
Mr. Shays. That's the bottom line. I was going to respond
to my colleague Mr. Kucinich's point, thank God they're
frisking passengers. I'm not riding on planes if they don't
start to do that on certain occasions. I'm just not flying.
Because the wakeup call we had were two downed planes in
Russia. And we can't be certain why they went down, but we
believe, and I have seen and all of us have seen, the type of
explosive you can put around your body that just simply doesn't
show up in any detection.
But I value Mr. Kucinich's points, and yours as well, Mr.
Ben-Veniste. I went though to make sure that before this
hearing leaves, we also get to talk about the strategies.
Because without the strategies, I don't know where we go.
Because had we done a proper assessment of the threat, had we
done a strategy or strategies before September 11th, had we
reorganized our Government to implement those strategies, we
wouldn't have had a September 11. I believe that with all my
heart and soul. Because the strategies would have pointed out
our weaknesses and it would have done a lot of other things.
I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that this Commission
said something. I think we called it terrorism because we
didn't want to offend anyone. It was this corporeal kind of
response. And you all, I know, particularly you Mr. Ben-
Veniste, given your focus as a lawyer for so many years, to
even mention the word Islamist, you must have said, where are
we going and what does this say. But it gives some focus to
what we have to protect ourselves from.
So tell me a little of that debate, a little bit more of
that debate that took forward in the commission. I want to at
least have a little more sense of why in the end you were
willing to say, it's Islamist terrorists.
Senator Gorton. We debated considerably over that specific
phrase, Mr. Chairman. I think you can see in our report the way
in which we attempted to balance it.
It is clearly a form of terrorism motivated by a
combination, a marriage of religion and politics that has a
long and regrettable history. It didn't begin with Bin Ladin
himself. It is totally intolerant of any kind of dissent. Mr.
Ben-Veniste mentioned one of its parents in the Wahabi form of
Islam and Saudi Arabia itself exported to a number of other
parts of the world. And it was like drinking from a fire
hydrant to read all the materials we had, not just on the facts
of September 11 itself, but to try to learn the motivations,
where it came from and the like.
It was in doing that we came up with this distinction and
this dual road to dealing with it. The road that the philosophy
itself, the activists themselves are utterly irreconcilable,
there's no way to negotiate with them or reach a common ground
or an accommodation. And in that case, it is a war. They have
declared war against us and they have proved it, they have
killed now hundreds and thousands of Americans as an element in
that war. And a lack of response didn't slow them down, it
simply encouraged them.
But on the other hand, we recognize this is distinct, it's
a minority within those societies. And we have to do everything
we can in this struggle or contest of ideas to say that a
philosophy that promises you nothing but death and destruction
is not one a majority of those people want. We want to help
them and to help the progressive elements in those societies to
build open, free and democratic places in which to live.
Mr. Shays. Before you respond, Mr. Ben-Veniste, in your
footnote, which is on page 562, it says, ``What to Do, A Global
Strategy,'' you say, ``Islamist terrorism is an immediate
derivative of Islamism. The term distinguishes itself from
Islamic by the fact that the latter refers to a religion and a
culture in existence over a millennium, whereas the first is a
political-religious phenomenon linked to the great events of
the 20th century.'' I guess what I would love is for you to
just tell us in response to anything else you want to respond
to in the question, how do we make sure that people see the
distinction.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Well, we have to reemphasize the fact that
our struggle is not with one of the great religions of our
time. We are not engaged in a struggle or war or competition
with the Muslim religion. And we need to make that abundantly
clear. We are dealing with, as you have quite correctly read,
an outgrowth, a small offshoot which combines religious
fanaticism of the most virulent type with a political agenda
that is willing to use attacks which seem to fly in the face of
the teachings of the Muslim religion in terms of attacks
against innocent men, women and children who are non-
combatants.
So this use of terror tactics by a virulent political
offshoot of a religious fundamentalist belief, we're not in a
struggle with fundamentalism by any means. But when people mis-
use religion and tie it to a political agenda that directly
threatens us, then we must respond.
Senator Gorton. Mr. Chairman, you do a better job with our
report than we do ourselves.
Mr. Shays. That's good staff work.
Senator Gorton. You're absolutely right, that footnote was
the source of the distinctions that we make. Norton has just
published a hard back copy of this that finally has an index. I
must say, I found it difficult going around the country often
to find the places I wanted to find in the original one. This
one is a lot better.
Mr. Shays. I'll make sure I get that as well, because that
will be helpful. Let me just quickly make reference to the
fact, we have a National Security Strategy in the United
States. We also have it divided into the National Strategy for
Combating Terrorism and the National Strategy for Homeland
Security. One is offense, the National Strategy for Combating
Terrorism, and one appears a little bit more to be defense, the
National Strategy for Homeland Security.
Do you feel comfortable that the National Security Strategy
of the United States and the National Strategy for Combating
Terrorism and the National Strategy for Combating Homeland
Security are integrated? Is there a sense that you have that we
need to do better? It seemed to me that you kind of reinforced
these strategies. It may be we don't have enough time to have
you really respond to this in any depth. But do you have any
reactions to these three strategies, the overall national
strategy and then the one dealing with terrorism and the one
dealing with homeland security?
Senator Gorton. I think we testified to that in our formal
testimony here, stating that we think these administration
initiatives are appropriate and have moved in the right
direction. I don't think, we've also said we don't think that
they have emphasized sufficiently this outreach of ideas about
which we've spoken, and that we don't feel that they are
complete yet by any stretch of the imagination, even within
their own terms. It's one of the reasons that we asked Congress
to pass legislation on restructuring our intelligence agencies
and the like.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this. Do you think, then, we need
a new counter-terrorism strategy? That's kind of the bottom
line. And we even call it terrorism, which makes me wonder. Do
you want to respond to that?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. We do believe that there needs to be
greater integration between offense and defense. That's why we
have focused on the shortcomings which, as you have pointed
out, may well have prevented September 11, had we realized them
sooner and had we taken efforts to correct those shortcomings
sooner. That's why we make broad recommendations, with respect
to a national intelligence director with authority to
coordinate the intelligence agencies, 15 or so, who have
information, both offense and defense, and make it a much more
seamless and comprehensive effort by one team, the American
people team, not credit to one agency, not owning intelligence
by one agency or another but an obligation to share for the
common good.
We recognize that the events of September 11 have pointed
us inexorably to fixing what was wrong. That's what we need to
do, and that's why we need to go as far as we have recommended
in a comprehensive strategy, Mr. Chairman, to address those
needs. I think you're quite right.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
We've been joined by Mr. Tierney and Ms. Watson. We decided
we would do 10 minutes when there were four of us and there are
more. But I think we can get it done pretty well.
Mr. Platts, I'm just going to say that you can jump in any
time, because you haven't asked for the 10-minute time. I
intend to go to Mr. Lynch unless you want to jump in.
Mr. Platts. I'll defer to Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Shays. OK, let's do Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your good
work and also of the ranking member. I want to thank the
commissioners for helping Congress and this Nation deal with
our issue of how to develop a national strategy to deal with
terrorism.
I want to ask two questions and try to stay within the time
limit. I'm going to deal with one issue that is of a more
domestic issue for us, and then I'm going to switch to sort of
a global issue. I can't help but notice that prior to September
11th, if you visited any international airport outside of the
United States, whether it be Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome
or Heathrow in London or Ben GUrion Airport in Israel, you
already saw that heavy military presence, they were sort of
combating terrorism far before we were. Yet when you flew
around, domestically in the United States, we had none of that.
It was wide open.
I'm concerned about a trend I see globally, and that is,
over the last 10 or 12 years we've seen repeated attacks on
rail systems around the globe. We've seen the Algerian
terrorists in Paris, we've seen the Chechyan rebels for 10
years attacking the subway system in Moscow. We've seen what
happened in Madrid, Spain most recently and the transportation
systems in Israel are continually subject to attack.
My concern is that, in your September 11 recommendations
you talk about focusing on the neglected areas of our
transportation systems in this country. We've spent about $8
billion on aviation security. We've spent less than one-tenth
of 1 percent of that on rail security, even though we have five
times as many people who travel in this country every day by
rail than do by air.
My first question is, do you think that the way we're
handling this right now is consistent with the recommendations
of the 9/11 Commission? Do you think we need to change that,
and what would those recommendations for change be? I know you
have to keep it general, otherwise we'd have a whole series of
these volumes. But if I could get your thoughts on that.
Senator Gorton. The short answer to your question is no. If
on all of your transportation security 90 percent of the money
and effort is going into one mode, that's not an appropriate
balance. You've mentioned rail, there is also of course
maritime that is vitally important. And we didn't study or
become experts on particular methodologies to make
transportation modes safer. That was beyond our charge, it was
beyond our staff. What we did do and point out is, there does
need to be a greater balance and we need to look at these
others and we need to come up with techniques that provide them
a greater degree of security.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I agree completely with Senator Gorton's
observations. Quite clearly, we point out the fact that the
greater attention needs to be paid to other areas. We are a
target-rich environment. We can have attacks occur on any
number of vulnerable targets which would cause great loss of
life. Obviously because we have seen the use of airplanes as
missiles, we focused on that, and I think not inappropriately.
A train has to stay on its tracks, an airplane can fly anywhere
and becomes essentially a hijacked weapon of mass destruction.
And therefore, it is appropriate that we pay attention to the
potential for the hijacking and suicide use of airplanes, now
that with terrible consequences this has occurred.
Whether we could have taken steps in advance of September
11 is behind us. We now need to focus on the future. And you
are quite right, sir, in focusing on the example of what has
occurred in other societies, allies of ours who have suffered
attacks to their rail systems. Senator Gorton is correct that
we need greater attention paid to shipping. So we make the
recommendation that we not put all eggs in one basket.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. My last question, and it's tougher,
this morning there was an article in the New York Times. I
thought it was illustrative of our problem. It reported of a
military parade that occurred in Tehran, Iran last Tuesday. And
at the parade, President Mohammad Khatami said that even though
Iran was going forward with its nuclear program, that it was
devoted to peaceful use, and that Khatami was saying that there
was no need for us to fear and that it was for producing
energy.
Meanwhile, in the background behind him in the parade there
were these Shahab III missiles, capable of reaching Israel.
What's especially troubling is on the side of the missiles
themselves were banners. One banner said, Crush America, and
the next banner said, Wipe Israel Off The Face Of The Map.
We're in a tough spot here, the President is, everyone is.
Based on what we hear some leaders saying in the Middle
East, but what we see them doing, presents a tremendous
dilemma. It's what I'm worrying about this morning, and
wondering, you know, I'm very, very grateful, as is everyone on
this committee and in Congress for your willingness to devote
your energies and your special talents toward helping us with
this problem. But I'd like your thoughts on that particular
dilemma.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Well, let me say, Mr. Lynch, that I share
your concerns. The words of our former President Ronald Reagan
come to mind with respect to Mr. Khatami's statements, ``Trust
but verify.'' With respect to what we can do, we must through
our international collaborative alliances make sure that there
is proper inspection and that nuclear programs not be mis-used
for the purpose of creating weapons grade nuclear materials
which can be used against us or our allies. I don't see getting
into the weeds here today on anything more specific than to
recognize that this is indeed a major issue that reasserts
itself in post-cold war politics, geopolitics.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
Senator Gorton. The challenge of Iran is a major challenge.
We weren't the Iran Commission, we were the 9/11 Commission.
[Laughter.]
We did not become experts on every element of foreign
policy. We did, however, make this statement: ``The magnitude
of the threat demands that preventing the proliferation of
these weapons warrants a maximum effort on the part of the U.S.
Government. We recommend expanding the membership and resources
of the proliferation security initiative and doing all that we
can do support the cooperative threat reduction program to
secure control over nuclear materials, so that they do not
become loose nukes.''
That doesn't tell you how to respond specifically to Iran.
It's a major challenge you have in the Congress of the United
States. To be honest with you, we have had to concentrate on
our specific mandate that you gave us here in Congress, and to
get back to urging, expressing the strongest possible hope that
the Congress this year, in these next 2 or 3 weeks, can take
significant action toward adopting those recommendations.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I again appreciate
both of our witnesses here today, your participation but
especially your work on the commission. As a Nation, we're all
indebted to you and your fellow commission members.
I was hoping as we move forward and the consensus about a
national intelligence director is evolving and following much
of your recommendation if you could expand on your thoughts on
the breadth of that authority and the responsibility of the NID
and specifically with regard to the current entities under the
Secretary of Defense and how the impact could be on the chain
of command within the military.
Senator Gorton. Way back in the late 1940's when the
Congress created the CIA, it in theory made the CIA director
the head of all intelligence activities. But it gave that
director no authority over the budget beyond the CIA's
immediate budget itself, and no authority over personnel. And
as you know, it has turned out that 80 percent or more of the
budget for intelligence in a very broad sense is controlled by
the Department of Defense through many of its agencies.
We found that one of the principal failures leading up to
September 11 was the lack of communication among various
intelligence agencies, even with that wall within the FBI, but
certainly among the various agencies themselves, and our system
failed. We start with the proposition that the system that we
had was a miserable failure. And we have twin recommendations
in the area that you're speaking to, a national
counterterrorism center and a national intelligence director.
We feel very strongly that national intelligence director
must have broad authority over budget and at least over senior
personnel. If not, if you just create a shell of a national
intelligence director, you've just added one more person, one
more box in that organizational chart. I think if we've learned
anything since 1947, it is that if someone is going to have
that title, they had really better have the authority to do it.
Now, at the same time the Department of Defense and our
armed services obviously live on intelligence. The way that it
has come out I think in the Shays bill and certainly in what
Senators Collins and Lieberman are doing is a distinction
between the direct day to day military intelligence, which
stays there with those armed services and what is defined as
strategic intelligence. Nor is the Department of Defense kept
totally out of the ladder by any means. But we do think it's
important to have one focus for tasking and one focus, one
place where the individual in charge has the authority to
demand a sharing and then to task where there are empty spots,
where we haven't looked.
So we certainly think that progress is being made in the
Senate at this point, and that division is the right direction.
And I believe the Shays-Maloney bill does the same thing.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I agree.
Mr. Platts. And that's kind of supporting Chairman Shays'
approach, as in the Senate, one in distinguishing between
strategic and theater intelligence----
Senator Gorton. And operational help.
Mr. Platts. Within that strategic intelligence, that's from
the Department of Defense that there be maybe a shared
authority between SECDEF and NID over those personnel that it
may not be absolutely one or the other, correct?
Senator Gorton. Yes.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Within that narrow area, within that
specific area.
Mr. Platts. Right, on strategic intelligence.
The one other area I'll touch on quickly is the very
important message you've conveyed in the commission report and
here today is truly winning the big picture and defeating
Islamist terrorism, not just al-Qaeda specific. And could you
expand on how, in winning the ideological battle, any specifics
that we should be looking at, and would that include our
relations with nations like Saudi Arabia in pressure for the
Saudis to change how they treat their own citizens?
Senator Gorton. That is, of course, if that were an easy
question to answer, it would have been answered already. Saudi
Arabia has been a nominal ally and at some level a real ally of
the United States for an extended period of time. But its views
on some of this ideology didn't really change greatly even
after September 11.
It changed very dramatically a year ago last May when it
turned out that the Saudi regime was a target of the very
philosophy that it had created itself. That relationship is
better now, but we have still not persuaded the Saudis to stop
exporting, to stop subsidizing this very intolerant and
extremist form of their religion here in the United States and
in many other places in the world. It clearly should be a goal.
Obviously it should also be a goal for countries like that to
liberalize. Saudi Arabia may be the toughest, the most
discriminating against women of all the scales in those
societies. It's hard for us to figure that you can have a
really successful society and engage in that form of
discrimination.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. We've had some success, particularly with
respect to funding of terrorist organizations from the Saudis
since they were struck on their own soil by terrorists. This
will occur to other countries as time goes on that the threat
of this virulent group of terrorists which seeks to overthrow
virtually everyone who does not share their beliefs will impel
them to be more cooperative. Slade is correct with respect to
the export of Wahabism. We would hope over time that will be
moderated. We have recommendations with respect to competing in
the educational arena with that form of intolerance. But these
are longer term efforts that we must pursue, in our view,
alongside the more direct and focused attempt to kill those who
have launched attacks against us.
Mr. Platts. In winning that battle with the individuals,
those young citizens in Muslim nations that we are not their
enemy, but we are a Nation of good and very humanitarian in
nature, we contribute a sizable amount of money to the U.N. to
provide humanitarian, whether it be food, health care,
education, other forms of assistance in many of these nations.
Should we be looking at doing that more directly so that, the
U.N. is not loved, that is for sure, but probably looked more
favorably at the aid coming from them than if it was coming
from us directly. Should we be looking at more direct
intervention in even the humanitarian side?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I don't think I am competent to provide an
answer to that question. Looking at the simple psychology of
human beings, it is often the case that those who directly hand
out aid, if it's not done well, will create further resentment.
So it is not an easy question to answer.
But quite clearly, we need to do a much better job of
communicating what we are about in this country, what our core
values are. Because fundamentally, a mother raising children in
this country shares much more with a mother in any of the
Muslim countries that we're talking about than do those who
preach suicide and violence. That's what we need to focus on.
It's not going to be something that will occur today or
tomorrow or next year. But it is an objective that we must
pursue with a determination and recognition that it is
essential that we do so and do so more effectively than we have
in the past.
Mr. Platts. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. I just will quickly,
before recognizing Ms. Maloney, point out that we had a hearing
on February 3rd regarding effective strategies. We had one of
the witnesses, Dr. Lanny Kass, Professor of Military Strategy,
National War College. He had various points he was making,
talking about the end game and what terrorism is and so on.
They were just very helpful comments, why do they hate us and
points there. He said in one of them was why we will win, and
the answer was, we can't afford to lose, which was an
interesting way to put it.
But when he talked about integrated strategy, one of his
bullet points was we need to break fundamental asymmetric
symmetry wherein we need to succeed 100 percent of the time and
they need to be successful only once. It's kind of an
interesting concept. They only have to be successful once. We
have to succeed 100 percent. Then he said, you don't start
developing strategy from point of failure, you seize the
initiative and shape it, which is an interesting concept as
well.
Ms. Maloney, you have the floor for 10 minutes.
Ms. Maloney. Thank you so much, Chairman Shays, and welcome
to both of our panelists. A very special welcome to Mr. Richard
Ben-Veniste. I remember your work on the Nazi War Crimes
Disclosure Commission, which oversaw the largest opening of
secret government records in the history of our country. You
brought a great dedication to bringing these documents to the
American public and I congratulate you for that work, too.
You've done an incredible job, and I hope you continue
being a supporter of implementing the document that you
prepared. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Kane said that the 41
recommendations were tied to specific acts that if we corrected
them would make America safer. So many of us are very dedicated
to implementing all of your recommendations, and in that spirit
Chris Shays and I introduced H.R. 5040, which is the same as
the McCain-Lieberman bill that really supports all 41
recommendations. It has been endorsed by the September 11
families and by the two chairs of the committee and the
commissioners. We thank you for that.
We have now well over 40 some sponsors and a caucus meeting
this afternoon with vice chairman Hamilton on how we can work
in a bipartisan way to implement it. Yet I read in the paper
today that the majority has indicated that they will have a new
bill on Friday. No one has seen this bill, but I am told that
it's hundreds of pages long and it is rumored, this is
according to the press, to have a whole litany of provisions,
unrelated provisions that are not part of the 41
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
So instead of working off the document that your commission
came forward with, and really your document is the one that we
have been holding hearings on for the past 2 months, this
Congress, I congratulate them for working through August, very
diligently, on various hearings and oversight. And you gave us
an absolute playbook of what needs to be done.
But now we're told that we'll have a new base bill, not the
base bill of your recommendations that is filled with non-
related items. So my question is, basically I hope this
commission will come forward with common sense and put
credibility behind whatever bill finally goes to the Floor. I
think everyone supports combating terrorism, making America
safer. The question is, how do you do it. I'm troubled by the
reports that I'm reading, that it is filled with unrelated
items that are not specifically related to the purpose and
recommendations of the commission.
Senator Gorton. Ms. Maloney, we worked hard----
Ms. Maloney. I know you did.
Senator Gorton [continuing]. For 20 months. When Richard
and I met, I'm not at all sure we knew then that we'd be joined
at the hip, both in the work of the commission and in working
on it afterward. But we have, as you know, created a non-profit
to keep a small staff together, and to keep us informed of
what's taking place here. We have provided comments and what we
think is constructive criticism of all of the proposals,
including your own, and including the proposal that's very
similar to it that's now, I think, being marked up as we speak
in the Senate, which seems so far to be going very much in the
direction that the Commission has recommended.
So you may be assured that we will comment on any new
proposal that comes out, long or short. Because it is our goal,
it is our goal and our strong recommendation that the Congress
follow the recommendations of the commission and put into
statute those that are appropriate between now and your
adjournment, which is relatively soon. We think it would be a
terrible mistake to get through two different bills in the
House and Senate and be unable to reconcile them, and leave
until some time in January, leaving us in the situation in
which we find ourselves today. We really want action, we want
consistent action. We will examine every proposal that comes
out with that in mind.
Ms. Maloney. Thank you so much, Senator. In fact, we have
put in a bill to extend the commission. I am so glad you have
worked with a non-profit to support your work.
In line of commenting on various proposals, the commission
recommended that the high threat formula be specifically for
high threat and not used as pork, that it should be directed to
where the threat is. As a representative of September 11, of
New York City, which in every terrorist report is target No. 1,
I think that's appropriate and important. I understand you
spoke about that today.
So I'd like to ask you about the Cox bill, which is now
before us that is very well intentioned, yet it continues with
a system of funding all States at a certain amount regardless
of whether or not they have threat at .25. Then it goes up to
.45 for States with international borders. And there are some
restrictions in it that seem to me difficult for areas of large
populations. For example, it caps construction projects at $1
million. I would say every construction project in New York, to
either fortify the Port Authority or the rail or the airports,
has been over $1 million. And it seems to be possibly leaner
pork, but still pork. Your comments?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Well, first of all, let me thank you for
your generous remarks and personal remarks, and commend you for
your leadership with respect to the legislation that made the
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act a reality, and for your guidance
and oversight over the many years in which we have labored.
We're still not finished.
With respect to the Cox bill, I confess that I'm not
familiar with the specifics. It is our understanding that it is
again a step in the right direction, but your characterization
of leaner pork may well be an appropriate one, in that our
recommendation is that these funds be not considered as a
general appropriation for each and every jurisdiction to get
some sort of share, but rather be directed and focused at
communities which pose the greatest level of threat.
Ms. Maloney. Thank you. Any comment, Senator Gorton?
Senator Gorton. I agree with Richard, as usual.
Ms. Maloney. That's great. I also would like to place in
the record an editorial on defense of civil liberties.
Mr. Shays. That has already been put into the record.
Ms. Maloney. Oh, it has. OK. But the commission's report
recommended that a board be set up to oversee the Government's
defense of our civil liberties. Although they were good
intentions, a board was appointed by the President that appears
not to reflect the intent of the 9/11 Commission in that it has
no subpoena authority, cannot initiate investigations, can
conduct meetings behind closed doors, and unlike strategies
we're discussing today, this board has no stated mandate, has
no obligation to issue any type of reports and absolutely no
independence at all.
I would like to ask both of you to comment on the steps
that have been taken so far and whether you think they're
adequate or whether they need to be strengthened in this
particularly important area of civil liberties.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Congresswoman Maloney, I wrote an
editorial myself along with Lance Cole, Professor at Dickinson
Law School, on this very subject, which was published in the
New York Times on the 7th of September. I share your concerns,
the commission shares the concerns that while it is I think
helpful that the President has recognized the need for such a
civil liberties board, the proposal from the Whit House does
not meet the objectives that led the commission to make its
recommendation.
First, with respect to personnel, we believe that the
recommendation or the board proposed by the President in his
Executive order of 20 individuals from the very agencies that
require oversight does not solve the problem. We recommend that
there be an independent board of persons drawn from the outside
community who will likely be more objective and disinterested
in performing the task.
We suggest that it's a good idea to have ombudsmen in the
various agencies who are able to receive complaints and monitor
the way their various agencies are performing, and to bring to
the attention of this bipartisan, independent board whose
members should be confirmed by Congress, we believe by the
Senate, which will enhance focus and the importance of such
oversight responsibilities. And these ombudsmen will have
authorities and the individuals who may come to them will have
the protections necessary for candid revelations that will make
such a board effective and useful.
And finally, if I may say, that board should be
transparent. It should report regularly to Congress and to the
American people.
Senator Gorton. Basically we support the board that you
have in Shays-Maloney and that exists in Collins-Lieberman.
Ms. Maloney. Well, thank you very much, and I request the
chairman to place your article of September 7th into the
record.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8354.018
Ms. Maloney. My time is up. Actually there is a conflict,
there is a meeting right now in the Financial Services
Committee on which I serve on September 11 recommendations,
which is the story of the day. We're holding a great deal of
meetings and oversight. Thank you both for your work and your
dedication.
Senator Gorton. Godspeed. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. At this time I would recognize Mr. Tierney and
thank him for being here, and for all the meetings he's been
here as well.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your
continued work on this. I think that the members of the panel
might agree that Mr. Shays has used his position in the way the
oversight committee ought to be used, and it drops into what
I'm going to talk about next.
I want to thank both of you gentlemen for your service to
the country. I know it's been a sacrifice of your own personal
time and effort and your expertise has been invaluable to all
of us. But I also want to thank your staff, who sits quietly
behind you there, but I know was very instrumental, like staff
here are. I think sometimes we neglect to put in a good word
for them.
Senator Gorton. Squirming at times at our answers.
Mr. Tierney. Because they couldn't hook up a direct line in
your ear. [Laughter.]
Let me segway from what Congressman Maloney just talked
about in terms of the fact that she is leaving now to go to
another committee, essentially going to deal with another
aspect of the 9/11 Commission report and homeland security and
intelligence. You make recommendations in the report about the
need for strong congressional oversight. And I think you're
right on the money there. I'm very concerned that while we're
moving ahead a little bit on trying to implement some of your
recommendations, we have a number of bills that are out there
and hopefully going to be considered, and I agree with you,
Senator Gorton, considered soon, sooner rather than later.
I'm very concerned that Congress, particularly the House,
hasn't yet started down the path of what we're going to do for
oversight. The recommendations that were made by the committee
were that we should either have one joint committee of the
Senate and the House or one designated committee in the House
and one designated committee in the Senate. Would each of you
tell me what your personal preference was?
Senator Gorton. Chairman Shays, earlier during the course
of this hearing, said what I expect is obvious, that in all
probability, this issue wasn't going to be dealt with
definitively this year. We do feel it very important that it be
dealt with definitively at some point or another. Unlike our
recommendations for a national counterterrorism center and a
national intelligence director, we didn't say, here's one way
in which to accomplish this goal.
We looked back, we heard a number of people speak to us
about the old Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which seemed to
a very powerful and influential committee in its day. And we
found that an attractive alternative, but not the only
alternative.
We did find one of the shortcomings being this total
separation, which certainly I do a lot in the Senate, of
oversight authority from money. And any people on the
intelligence committees have expressed frustration in the fact
that they worked very hard on these issues to come up with
specific recommendations and can effectively be ignored because
they have no power of the purse. That is done by a committee
that doesn't have nearly the expertise in this field that, say,
the intelligence committees do themselves. Most dramatically,
we looked at the huge number of committees and subcommittees to
which the Department of Homeland Security reports, I think
often, derogating from its ability to do the job that it was
set up by statute to do.
My own view is that you can pick one of several courses of
action that concentrates this authority more and that includes
people who are genuinely interested in the oversight function
and greatly improve the way in which Congress operates. In this
particular case, we aren't wedded to a single solution.
Mr. Tierney. You don't have a preference, you're saying?
Senator Gorton. Pardon?
Mr. Tierney. Other members of the commission I've asked
this question to had a preference. You personally don't have a
preference?
Senator Gorton. I didn't serve long enough or go to have
remembered that joint committee. I think I personally, I found
it fairly an attractive alternative.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Ben-Veniste.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I agree with everything that Slade Gorton
has said. I think some of the things we talked about were an
integrated professional staff, no term limits on membership,
the necessity of developing expertise in this area, being able
to ask the right questions, being able to keep one's eye on the
ball is critical to effective oversight. I too have no specific
preference to getting it done right. But it's quite clear that
there needs to be a consolidation and a reduction in the number
of different entities looking at oversight.
But we also take the position that oversight needs to be
more effective. The more authorities granted to the executive,
the more important oversight becomes and the more critical
effective oversight is to the constitutional balance of powers
that we rely upon. It is absolutely critical that this be done.
Now, we are not naive. We know that this is among the most
difficult recommendations we made. And I will tell you candidly
that talking to Members of Congress, present and former, over
time, during our deliberations and inquiries, we learned from
them that they would be unable to do it on their own. It's not
something that anyone thought could be the product of self-
starters in the Congress.
But now, having from this extraneous to the Congress body
of individuals who are operating in a bipartisan way, we saw
the dramatic need to make these changes. And hopefully, they
will be accomplished. Our recommendations are of a piece. They
are interdependent and interrelated. If we have greater
authorities focusing on our making the executive more powerful,
then we must have more effective oversight by the Congress.
Mr. Tierney. I absolutely agree, and I think many of us do
on that, but that brings me to the next level of this question.
I think it's almost dangerous to give that kind of authority to
the executive, whoever's in office, without concomitantly doing
something about oversight at the congressional level.
So Senator, starting with you, because you served here, how
do you see that being done, given the personalities, given the
jurisdictions, given the turf that people are going to try to
protect? Is this something we're going to have to move
statutorily and try to get the larger body to impose it as
opposed to going into the rules of the House or the Senate, or
if it's going to be the rules of the respective bodies, how do
you think we get over that hurdle?
Senator Gorton. Oh, boy, that is a real challenge. I
hesitate to advise the House on that. But that is going to be
the reform that will be the most difficult for you. It's easier
for Members of Congress, when I was a member, equally so, to
say here are reforms that ought to be made in the Executive.
When you say here are reforms that ought to be made here,
you're always goring someone's ox. To concentrate authority in
fewer people means to take some authority away from others. And
no human being likes that very much.
But this is, it was an unprecedented catastrophe that
happened to the United States, and there is no way of looking
at it other than to say that all of our institutions from top
to bottom failed and that we need to do things differently and
better. And one simply has to hope that generous feelings of
statesmanship will triumph and we will do them better in the
future.
Mr. Tierney. I assume Mr. Ben-Veniste has the same----
Mr. Ben-Veniste. I'm just a country lawyer. [Laughter.]
I don't presume to have answers to this question, except to
say it's got to be done.
Mr. Tierney. Let me move on, then. In your report, you talk
about the fact that we need to confront the U.S.-Saudi
relationship. Do you think, the report is a little bit quiet, I
think, on Saudi Arabia, it doesn't deal with the classified
pages that were in Congress' larger report, it doesn't talk too
much about the fact of a number of Saudis being allowed to
leave this country almost immediately after the event without
thorough FBI examination.
Senator Gorton. Oh, it does deal with that. No, Mr.
Tierney, it very definitely deals with that.
Mr. Tierney. You think it does, in detail, Senator?
Senator Gorton. Absolutely, yes.
Mr. Tierney. Well, I might respectfully disagree with that
in terms of the depth of it. I was going to ask you, without
disrespect to your work, and I always want to make that clear,
do you think that the committee did an exhaustive job in
reviewing the Saudi-U.S. relationship, and what do you
recommend as ways that the U.S.-Saudi relationship should be
confronted as we move forward?
Senator Gorton. Well, I suppose to one person it is
exhaustive and to another person it is not. This was central to
the work of the 9/11 Commission, 15 of the 19 hijackers were
Saudi citizens. Some of the philosophy, Bin Ladin is a Saudi,
most of his financing that we could determine came from Saudi
sources. We found no governmental sources in that, but simply
the way that society operates through its religiously oriented
charities is the way in which this entire operation was
financed. It's very, very important.
We did look as carefully as possible into the Saudis who
left afterwards. And we found nothing out of the ordinary
there. The FBI has told us they looked into every single person
that they felt it was appropriate to look into. There was
really nothing more to be done. We do not, generally speaking,
restrict people from leaving the United States when they are
citizens of other countries.
We have found, as I answered, I think, over here----
Mr. Shays. Could I just interrupt the gentleman a second?
I just want to make sure that Ms. Watson gets to respond to
questions, and we're getting to a deadline. Mr. Ben-Veniste, do
you have time to stay? If you could just shorten your answer.
Senator Gorton. The answers is that one of the three
countries we write about in here with respect to our
relationships is Saudi Arabia, because it is important.
Cooperation exists in a very good fashion at some levels, and
at not a very good fashion at other levels. It's a tremendous
challenge for us here in the United States to try to move Saudi
Arabia in an appropriate direction. It is certainly one of the
most, if not the most important of all the relationships in the
Middle East.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. Ambassador Watson.
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much. I want to commend you two
gentlemen for the role you have played in gathering all the
information and recommending to us a direction. I find it very
fine and profound work. Thank you from a grateful Nation.
I notice that with in your report, you said that you
focused on Islamist terrorism, because it's the leading
national security threat to the United States. And I support
your recommendations 100 percent. My concern is, we talk about
the failure of our intelligence sector. And what we really are
talking about are the people within intelligence, the human
capital which is our most valuable asset. We didn't see a whole
lot of concentration on how these people are empowered, how
they are managed, and what would be the key to reform.
If we are going to focus on Islamic terrorism, are we not
advancing a war against the Islamic world? And should we not
get people who are familiar with the mind set of that
particular world and how they think and how they function and
what processes they go through? How are we going to meet that
need if we're going to focus on the extreme Islamic terrorists?
How do we work with our human capital? Can you respond?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. You've raised many important and
interesting questions. With respect to the distinction between
the Islamist terrorists and the religion of Islam, we make the
distinction very carefully and clearly that this country is not
at war nor do we oppose any religions in the world and
certainly not the great Muslim religion. We do identify----
Ms. Watson. May I interrupt you to say that hearing the
President, he says we're at war, and then reading this report
and you say we cannot defeat Islamist terrorism if we cannot
persuade young Arabs and Muslims that there is a better course.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Yes.
Ms. Watson. And really my question is, how do we train, how
do we select the people who work in intelligence so that they
can meet what you have concluded is the path to go?
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Quite clearly there are two elements to
this. One element is the people who are working in intelligence
on various different levels and the others who are working in
connection with our foreign policy. In both areas, we must
obviously have people who have studied and are familiar with
the Muslim world. We make recommendations with respect to
increasing human intelligence, this is an area that we found
had been neglected over time at CIA in favor of spending money
on hardware. It's essentially continuing cold war
appropriations or cold war related priorities as compared with
human intelligence. So in our intelligence community we make
recommendations both foreign and domestic in connection with
our intelligence gathering that we have a greater emphasis on
language skills and familiarity with local cultures.
With respect to our foreign policy, we lay out
recommendations where we must do better in convincing Muslims
throughout the world that the way of these fringe groups of
terrorists is not the way that they ought to follow, it doesn't
benefit them. We have talked here today rather extensively
about what will appeal to families throughout the world and
find that Muslim mothers throughout the world will have far
more in common with American mothers than they will have in
common with terrorists who seek only death, suicide and
destruction for their children. So we must make that case in a
better way, and in doing so, we must understand our target
audience better. You're quit right about that.
Senator Gorton. You may have asked us the most difficult
question of all. But first, I do want to make the distinction
that the chairman actually pointed out. We use a term, Islamist
terrorism, that is defined best in that footnote at page 562
that the chairman laid out, and that makes the distinction
between the actual violent contest in which we find ourselves
engaged today and these other ideas. Clearly, intelligence,
human intelligence failed and clearly we want more
sophisticated and knowledgeable people there.
I'm told, I can't swear to this, that during the entire
cold war, the United States never placed an operative in the
Kremlin, for all the contest and all of the money we spent on
it. We had sources there from time to time, but they were
always, they were brave Russians who were disaffected with it,
and most of them paid for it with their lives. But we never
trained someone over in Langley as an American and got them
into the inner sanctum of the Kremlin. It would be wonderful if
we could train someone and have them as the No. 2 assistant of
Osama Bin Ladin, but I don't think we should hold our breath
until that takes place. We've got to do that in other ways.
And Richard described that. Some of it is training and the
like of our people here in the United States. The FBI, we've
found, in doing a very good job, I think a better job than the
CIA, with respect to terrorism, because it's saying to its
recruits, you've got to learn both law enforcement and
terrorism, you've got to have assignments in both, you've got
to learn how to work together. We want to give you a very
productive career in counterintelligence and in
counterterrorism. So we just say, institutionalize what the FBI
has done. The CIA has a longer way to go in that connection,
but it's got to do a much better and broader job of recruiting
than it's done in the past.
Ms. Watson. If I might finish up, Mr. Chairman, it will
take me just a minute. I think that Lou Stokes, when he was
here back in the 1980's, initiated a program where they went to
the historically black colleges and they recruited young people
and they brought them into the State Department and they
trained them in languages. What occurs to me is that people who
look like them ought to be speaking to them. I think where we
really miss the boat is not identifying people who might have
an Arab background or ancestry or something and bringing them
in and helping others who are already with the intelligence,
the Department, really understand how people think.
Right now I feel, and what I'm hearing and what's been said
on the TV today, that this is a Jihad. They feel we are at war
against their religion. And how we change that is going to be
very important. We're going to be fighting this battle for
decades to come. I don't see an end to it. So I think we have
to be real smart and clever. I thank you because you started
the thinking. I'm not holding you responsible for implementing
it.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. Thank you. [Laughter.]
Ms. Watson. But I just want to raise these issues in the
context of the hearing. You know, we've got to start thinking
differently, non-traditionally if we're ever going to succeed.
We can paint a beautiful picture, and you know, the
administration will continue to say we're winning. We are not
winning, the thing is getting worse. And have on TV, the yell,
the agony of somebody getting their head sawed off, shows that
we're not nearly finished. I don't care how long you talk about
it. We've got to take action, we've got to train people better
to use that human capital if we're going to succeed as a
Central Intelligence Agency.
Thank you so much for your input, and I just wanted to
raise it as an area that I thought wasn't given enough
attention. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. We're going to dismiss this panel. I'm going to
make a comment, I'm not asking for the last word, I'm happy to
have a response back. When I saw the yell of the head being
cutoff, I wanted to hear the yell of people in the Islamic
world that would say, this is not Islam. We're starting to hear
it.
But I also want to say, there was a statement made earlier
that I just want to comment on. We are seeing more terrorists
today than before. But we saw more terrorists before September
11th by inaction as well. So I think that needs to be put in
the mix. I would like to just ask this one last question, I
don't think it requires a long answer.
One question is, why don't we allow the GAO to assist with
oversight of the intel community and for instance, our
committee technically had jurisdiction, technically has
jurisdiction of the intelligence community. But when we wanted
to have hearings, the CIA would always, for instance, get a
permission slip from the Committee on Intelligence that they
did not need to attend. They also, the GAO continually has
resistance when they look at things relating to the
intelligence community.
My question is, did your commission look at this and did
you come up with any recommendation as it relates to GAO?
Senator Gorton. No, I don't think we did. I suspect the
reason for that is that they aren't cleared.
Mr. Shays. Well, there are lots of reasons. But they are
clear.
Mr. Ben-Veniste. While we don't talk directly to GAO, an
organization about which I have the utmost respect and
confidence, but we do talk about greater transparency, we talk
about the over-classification of materials and we could go on
for hours on that subject alone. But we think Government wide,
there has to be a much greater respect for the fact that we're
all on the same team and that we need to bring our resources to
bear in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Senator Gorton. And the declassification of at least the
top lines on the intelligence budget we think is long overdue.
Mr. Shays. I think that one change would be huge. Because
then our budget becomes a lot more honest. We don't have to
hide things in a budget. We just have a line for it, and we
don't have to stick them in other places and give people the
impression that we're spending more in an area where we may not
be spending money.
But I also would say, we had a hearing on this whole issue
of over-classification. The hearing started by saying, we have
a 10 to 90 percent over-classification. When we asked the DOD
Governmental witness how much over-classification, she said
approximately 50 percent, which we appreciated. That was an
honesty that we appreciated. But it's a huge, huge mistake to
over-classify. We can talk about so many things.
Any last words? OK. Gentlemen, we praise you and we thank
you and we'll get to our next panel.
We want to welcome our second panel, which consists of Mr.
Norman Rabkin, Managing Director of the Homeland Security and
Justice Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Mr.
Raphael Perl, Senior Policy Analyst, Congressional Research
Service; and Mr. John V. Parachini, Senior Policy Analyst with
the RAND Corp.
Gentlemen, why don't you stand and I'll swear you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
We evidently have two votes. So what I think we'll do is
just start, then we'll go and come back. I really am looking
forward to this panel, thank you very much.
We'll start with you, Mr. Rabkin.
STATEMENTS OF NORMAN RABKIN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HOMELAND
SECURITY AND JUSTICE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE; RAPHAEL PERL, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, CONGRESSIONAL
RESEARCH SERVICE; AND JOHN V. PARACHINI, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST,
RAND CORP.
Mr. Rabkin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the
subcommittee today to address three issues of interest: the
extent to which elements of the National Homeland Security and
Combating Terrorism Strategies are aligned with recommendations
issued by the 9/11 Commission; second, the Departments that
have key responsibilities for implementing the Homeland
Security Strategy; and third, the challenges that are faced by
these key departments in assessing their progress toward
achieving homeland security objectives.
First I will talk about the connections between the
strategies and the 9/11 Commission recommendations. The
Homeland Security Strategy with a domestic focus sets out a
plan to organize Federal, State and local governments as well
as private sector organizations to accomplish six critical
missions. It also identifies 43 major initiatives to be
addressed within each of these 6 mission areas. The Combating
Terrorism Strategy with an overseas focus emphasizes
identifying and defusing threats before they reach the borders
of the United States. This strategy seeks to accomplish its
goal of reducing the scope of terrorism through 4 strategic
goals and 15 subordinate objectives.
The 9/11 Commission report contained 41 recommendations.
Our analysis shows that eight of the recommendations are not
aligned with any of the specific initiatives in the Homeland
Security Strategy or with the objectives of the Combating
Terrorism Strategy. These eight recommendations generally
pertain to reforming the intelligence community and
congressional oversight of both homeland security and
intelligence matters. Because the National Strategies are
expected to evolve over time, they can be updated to reflect
these recommendations.
The remaining 33 commission recommendations are aligned
with the specific initiatives of the Homeland Security Strategy
and the objectives of the Combating Terrorism Strategy. For
example, the commission recommended that DHS quickly implement
a biometric entry-exit system as part of the screening process
for people passing through U.S. ports of entry. It also
recommended that DHS design a comprehensive border screening
system that could be extended to other countries. These
recommendations align with the Homeland Security Strategies
initiative to create smart borders.
As another example, the commission recommended that
emergency response agencies nationwide adopt the incident
command system. The Homeland Security Strategy calls for the
creation of a national incident management system.
The second issue is regarding key departments responsible
for implementing the Homeland Security Strategy. Our
preliminary analysis identified six departments as having key
roles in implementing the strategy: DHS, DOD, HHS, the Justice
Department, the Energy Department and the State Department.
These six departments represent 94 percent of the proposed $47
billion budget for Homeland Security in fiscal year 2005.
DHS is designated as lead agency for 37 of the 43
initiatives in that strategy. But many of these initiatives
have multiple lead agencies. For example, DHS, State and
Justice each have been designated as a lead agency to create
smart borders. In situations like this, effective coordination
among the involved agencies is very important to achieve the
expected results. In the forthcoming report for the
subcommittee, we'll provide much more detailed information on
these departments' efforts to plan and implement the
strategies.
Third, as these departments continue to implement the
Homeland Security Strategy, the development of performance
standards and measures will help them assess their progress in
implementing homeland security goals. Once they are
established, performance measures can be used to determine cost
effectiveness of specific initiatives. Development of standards
will also provide a means to measure preparedness and guide
resource investments.
We have reported on difficulties the agencies are having in
developing a comprehensive set of preparedness standards for
assessing first responder capacities, for identifying gaps in
those capacities and measuring progress in achieving
performance goals. We have also reported similar challenges in
developing standards and measures for bioterrorism preparedness
in interoperable communications for first responders.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal statement. We look
forward to providing you with a more detailed report on the
plans, activities and challenges regarding those departments
involved in the Homeland Security Strategy. I'll be pleased to
answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rabkin follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you. It's going to be an interesting
panel.
Mr. Perl, let's see if we can get some of what you need to
say. Don't try to speed it up, if we have to interrupt you in
between, we will. Just do your statement.
Mr. Perl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also have a chart
here.
I'd like to state at the onset that the 9/11 Commission
report incorporates many of the central elements of the
National Strategy for Homeland Security and the National
Strategy for Combating Terrorism. The commission report
additionally contains recommendations for changes in the roles
and responsibilities of agencies and Congress. Today I'd like
to summarize areas of agreement and overlap in the two
strategies in the 9/11 Commission report and I'll conclude with
some observations.
Thirteen themes are central to both strategies in the 9/11
Commission report. They are: one, a need for both protective
and preemptive action; two, a need to help foreign nations
fight terrorism; three, a need for timely and actionable
intelligence and warning; four, a need for integration of
information sharing among governments, across the Federal
Government and at State and local levels; five, a need for
effective law enforcement cooperation and coordination; six, a
need for law enforcement and intelligence coordination, both
domestic and foreign; seven, a need to remove barriers to
cooperation between governmental agencies, both domestic and
foreign; eight, a need for an informed citizenry at home and
abroad, this also includes winning hearts and minds; nine, a
need to target, monitor and attack terrorist financing; ten, a
need to track and apprehend terrorists; eleven, a need to
combat fraudulent travel documents; twelve, a need to better
secure borders, including ports; and thirteen, a need for risk
analysis to help assess threats and prioritize use of
resources.
Mr. Shays. You know what I think we'll do? I think we'll
stop right there, because you've gone through that. We have 5
minutes before we vote. I'm going to suggest that, mine says
two votes, others say we have five or six. What we'll do is
I'll have a staff member here to tell you how many votes we
have to take, if you have 20 minutes or whether you have a half
hour or 15 minutes or so. We're going to recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Shays. The subcommittee will come to order.
Mr. Perl, you still have the floor, and take your time.
Mr. Perl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So we were talking about these common themes, Mr. Chairman,
and how meeting the objectives of these common themes would
likely benefit our efforts to combat terrorism. But important,
however, is not only to state our options to achieve these
ends, but also to ensure that these objectives are feasible,
cost effective and achievable in an acceptable timeframe.
Moreover, I would suggest it is vital to include strategies
and policies to mitigate the conditions that contribute to
terrorism in societies that are incredibly different from our
own. We might also want to consider to what degree our
strategies and the Commission's recommendations focus on the
last war and not the ongoing war of tomorrow. For example, the
Commission in its first recommendation stresses the need for
identifying and prioritizing terrorist sanctuaries, with a
focus on failed states. However, terrorists are also using
politically stable home countries for sanctuary, including
western democracies, where they blend into local communities,
where their training camps are in civilian housing complexes,
and where their bomb factories are in private residences.
Also, although a number of the Commission recommendations
fall within the category of preventing the growth of Islamic
extremism, none addresses directly the issue of confronting
incitement to terrorism when promoted, countenanced or
facilitated by the action or inaction of nation states. The
President talked yesterday in his U.N. talk about this issue of
incitement.
Terrorists clearly demonstrate flexibility to be
successful. So arguably, to be successful in combating
terrorism, the challenge may not so much be in creating new
organizational relationships, but in establishing policies and
institutional arrangements that can adapt to change. For just
as old organizational structures may be outdated today, new
organizational structures and arrangements may be outdated
tomorrow.
And Mr. Chairman, some question whether the push to reform
organizations and implement new polices and programs is a
runaway train, gathering momentum but not under control, with
increasing impact on civil liberties.
The escalating economic costs of homeland defense has
limits. No sizable nation can afford the costs of fortifying
and securing every square inch of its territory. So as the 9/11
Commission has recommended, both strategy and implementation
must wisely prioritize allocation of resources. And this is the
issue of risk analysis, to a certain degree, the last point
that I made here.
A point that one of the members of your committee brought
up was the issue of the human factor. While strategies and
reform of governmental structures can accelerate success
against global terrorism, many experts see human resource
factors as equally critical, including strong national
leadership and high quality rank and file personnel and
technology. In this context, the question arises, to what
extent were the failures surrounding September 11 human rather
than organizational failures.
There is concern today that in today's critical times, full
individual and organizational efforts should be focused on
combating terrorism and not diverted by a need to adapt to new
organizational structures, responsibilities and roles. But if
not now, when? Many argue that not enough has been accomplished
since September 11 to keep pace with the rising threat of
terrorism. And many argue that given the gravity of the threat,
changes in organizational structure, strategy and tactics long
overdue must be implemented without delay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Perl follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
Mr. Parachini.
Mr. Parachini. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to put my
remarks into a little context here. At the RAND Corp., we
recently conducted an exercise to simulate what might be a
strategy session of the Jihadists and then try to evaluate how
our current national strategy is configured in order to counter
that strategy, what might happen in the future. So that will
inform the remarks that I'm going to make about the 9/11
Commission recommendations as well as the national strategy
documents.
Let me say that the basic message I would want to
underscore here is, I think the institutional recommendations
are not nearly as important as some others. I say that because
we are really facing a prolonged global insurgency from a
Jihadist movement that I think the 9/11 Commission has aptly
identified as Islamist terrorism. More important in my view are
the commission's recommendations about how we stem or stop the
spread of Islamist terrorism. An important part of that, and
the Commission provided a number of valuable suggestions that
were both in the realm of soft power, both public and private
diplomacy. We are not going to be strategic about stopping this
global insurgency unless we somehow stem the recruits who are
coming at us.
So that's the basic message. I think the institutional
recommendations are not nearly as important in the longer
strategic term that we need to be focused than their emphasis
on trying to stem the spread of this problem.
Now, I think the commission does us an enormous service by
really trying to provide a focused characterization of the
threat. This was certainly our experience in the exercise at
RAND. We cannot know how to prioritize and focus our efforts or
allocate funds unless we have some consensus on who we think
the adversary is and how they are liable to evolve.
We can have lots of strategy documents that give us
blueprints for doing things, but unless we know what we're
planning against, we're just planning in the abstract, or one
department and agency is planning in one direction and another
department and agency is planning in another.
So we have to at least start with a baseline. And this I
think the commission, albeit briefly, did quite nicely, which
is they have essentially a three point strategy. They talk
about attack Islamist terrorists, prevent the spread of
Islamist terrorism and essentially defensive measures against
terrorist attacks, two offensive strategic thrusts and one
defensive.
I think on balance we're doing pretty good on one
offensive, attack the terrorists, and the defensive one. What
we're not doing very well at is stopping the spread of this
phenomenon. Even if Bin Ladin is captured or killed tomorrow,
we already see in somebody like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi another
person up the road who is tangentially linked to al-Qaeda,
appeared at al-Qaeda training camps but actually in Afghanistan
had his own camps, competed with Bin Ladin for recruits.
There will be others who will replace even him, and in
medrosses all around central, south and southeast Asia is the
next generation of what we're now calling al-Qaeda. But I want
to talk about more a broader global Jihadist insurgency. That's
what the problem is that we have to deal with. So in order to
deal with that type of broad, multi-year threat, we have to
focus on the objectives and the programs that get at that
longer term problem.
Now, in the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism,
there is an interesting chart that essentially shows a network
of groups that start at a national level, go through a regional
level and go up to a global level, essentially talks about
transnational terrorist networks, and that is the nature of the
threat today. The national strategy then articulates that what
the end state of the strategy is is to essentially delink that
global network of transnational terrorism and render it
unorganized, localized, non-sponsored and rare. That is a
useful, I think, definition of where the starting point is and
where the ending point is. My concern is getting from one point
to the other.
The national strategy documents provide blueprints with
long menus of things to do. But it does not give the
appropriate guidance in a focused, prioritized fashion. There
are a lot of things to do. Indeed, immediately after September
11, the portfolio management approach was probably a good one,
because we had a lot of holes to fill. Now, 3 years after, we
have to figure out how to not only spend big but actually spend
smart. And unless we have a more focused approach, a more
prioritized approach, we won't be able to do that.
So one of the ways to get a better handle on prioritization
and focus is to develop metrics that are helpful for gauging
our progress or our falling back, backsliding. This is not an
easy task in a global insurgency. It's not an easy task in a
global insurgency that's liable to be longer than 2 years
longer than 4 years and longer than 6 years. So we have to
think about metrics that take into account things that we can
count in the short term, terrorists killed and captured,
finances frozen, States that drop off of our State sponsored
list, foreign terrorist organizations that are no longer on the
foreign terrorist organization because we deem that they are no
longer a terrorist organization. Things that we can clearly
identify and count.
But that is not sufficient. We also have to think about
qualitative longer term metrics like, the United States has not
been attacked in quite some time, and that time is meaningful.
Just because we have not been attacked in the last 3 years is
not necessarily indicative of very much, given al-Qaeda's
historical pattern of planning several years in advance and
waiting for the moment to strike.
We have to also be concerned about disrupting their command
and control system. Even though we might take down 30 people,
there may still be the one key person who's out there. So we
have to think differently about what the metric is, and
something more qualitative in nature may be more valuable.
Let me conclude here by saying, measuring this
mestastisizing global Jihadist movement is not going to be
easy, but it is an avenue to accomplishing that greater
priority and focus that I think is needed and that is hard to
achieve. Senior leaders in the Government are as you know, Mr.
Chairman, and Congressmen, don't have a lot of time in the day
and there are a lot of things to do.
And given the long term nature of this problem, we have to
hit a few home runs on a few key issues, and I guess the one
that is, I think, most important that the commission brings our
attention to is stopping the spread of this phenomenon.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Parachini follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you all very much.
Sorry for the interruptions, and we'll have another
interruption. Do you want to start? I'm happy to have you
start, Mr. Tierney. Why don't you start?
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we're both
heading in the same direction here, so it's fine either way
with me.
Mr. Rabkin, you made the comment during your opening
remarks that you've noticed some difficulties in establishing
the standards of first responders. Can you give me sort of a
status assessment? I know the chairman has been a leader here
in a bipartisan method to try and get some standards
established, so that local responders, even local industries
understand where it is they're supposed to go, when it goes
from yellow to orange, from one color to another, instead of
just running around like chickens with their heads cutoff doing
everything in sight, spending every dime they have just to try
and say they're doing all they know how to do, without really
knowing whether or not what they're doing is the most effective
thing.
So can you give me a status report on that, or some
suggestions on how to get there quicker?
Mr. Rabkin. I think you defined some of the problem in your
question. There is a lack of standards as to how prepared they
should be and what they should be prepared for. There is also a
lack of definition of who is a first responder and what the
various colors on the threat advisory mean. The Department of
Homeland Security is making some progress on this, and they're
getting help from some private sector organizations as well.
There is also some work being done developing performance
standards for responding to emergencies, whether they be caused
by terrorists or by natural causes.
There are plans and strategies and plans within the
Department to incorporate these standards into the programs so
that the Department can figure out where the first responder
grant funds should go. The standards would be based on common
definitions of what first responders are supposed to do, what
kind of equipment they need to do it, and how prepared they
need to be. So it can be transferred into the funding decision.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Parachini, is RAND one of the organizations that the
Department of Homeland Security is asking for some advise and
counsel?
Mr. Parachini. RAND does do some work for the Department of
Homeland Security.
Mr. Tierney. Does any of it involve setting up the sort of
metric that you were talking about?
Mr. Parachini. No. Not that I am aware of.
Mr. Tierney. Have there been published papers or studies
done in terms of expanding or expounding upon what you've
recommended there?
Mr. Parachini. No, and your question is a good one and it
points to what I think is a national deficiency, that we really
need to get much better at understanding how to measure
progress in something like this. Quantitative tools are indeed
part of it, but we've got to think about other ones.
Unfortunately, that means it's probably a mosaic of different
metrics. This problem is not an easy one to understand, and
there will not be an easy balance sheet way to understand it
and whether we're making progress. That doesn't mean we
shouldn't try and we shouldn't try hard.
Mr. Tierney. One of the concerns I have with the Department
of Homeland Security itself is just how well they are coming
together. There are 22 odd agencies coming together at a very
critical time when we have so much for them to do and there
were some criticisms at the beginning that it would simply be
moving the deck chairs on the Titanic at that time. Do any of
you have a perspective on how well the Department has done in
actually coming together as a cohesive unit, whether or not we
are there?
I read one very critical article recently talking about
just the simple matter of where it's located, and its offices
and how difficult the physical setup is for people to work in
that environment. Are we really putting together a cohesive
Department of Homeland Security? Is there still a lot of
fractured relationships going on there? Are we focused?
Mr. Rabkin. I can try to answer that, Mr. Tierney. Before
the Department was created, we put it on the GAO high risk
list, because we knew the difficulty there would be in not only
a department putting 22 agencies together, but 22 agencies that
bring a lot of management problems with them, alnd doing it
while carrying out perhaps something that's the most important
mission in the Government today. We will be revisiting that
issue as to whether they are still at high risk in their
transformation and implementation in the Department.
But to answer part of your question, that immediately when
they were put together their first priority was dealing with
the mission and some of these other issues of management and
blending departments or the components together dealing with
pay systems, dealing with insignias was of less importance.
They have made progress in identifying what has to be done and
starting down that road, they've done a lot of work in
financial management and acquisition management, strategic
planning, human capital management. It's a little early to say
if they've gotten over the hump. But we've pointed out that
these kinds of transformations generally take 5 to 7 years to
work themselves out. It would be a little unreasonable to
expect them in a year and a half or 2 years, to have done all
that.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Anybody else care to comment on
that?
Mr. Perl. I had some thoughts on the issue of metrics. One
of the things that the commission talked about is maybe to
include a little bit more out-of-the-box thinking. And
shortfalls exist when we establish metrics. There are two
shortfalls that I see traditionally. No. 1 is that when we look
at success, I think it's important to include: did we over-
react. Because we're not fighting one decisive victory, we're
fighting an ongoing war or campaign where resources are
limited.
So we can have success on a particular issue, but what was
the cost? Did we over-react? I think the key is measured
success, not just success by itself.
And the other issue is, I think it's important to factor in
the terrorist concept of success and not just our concept. To a
certain degree we may be fighting different wars and measuring
on different scales. For example, we may view as success the
fact that we have large numbers of Transportation Security
Administration people now at our airports. But the terrorists
may also view that as success, because they're draining our
resources, it costs the country an enormous amount of money and
we're not putting the resources in other areas where they may
attack.
Another observation is that it seems to me that when we
tend to measure success--and this ties in with what John was
saying about going after al-Qaeda and not trying to go after
having better relations with the Muslim world generally and
looking toward the future--we tend to measure success in
tactical terms. And they tend to measure success in strategic
terms. So it's not easy to do, and it's a daunting challenge,
but I do think that as part of the framework that we have for
measuring success, these factors are important.
Mr. Tierney. I yield back.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
We have another round of votes, and I think what we're
going to do is just try to finish here, so I don't keep you
waiting another half an hour. But that does mean that there
might be some questions to the subcommittee. And you all are
real experts on this issue. I'm going to run through some
questions real quick, and I'd love short answers.
Do the 9/11 Commission recommendations constitute a new
counterterrorism strategy for the country?
Mr. Rabkin. I wouldn't call it a new strategy, but I think
it suggests that the current strategy probably needs to be
updated and some of these ideas worked into it.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. That's helpful.
Mr. Perl.
Mr. Perl. The 9/11 Commission recommendations constitute
some fine tuning of strategy, particularly in terms of money
laundering and terrorist financing: a recognition that seizing
the money cannot be the only object. And some fine tuning in
terms of emphasis, more emphasis on going after hearts and
minds.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Parachini.
Mr. Parachini. I think it does account for a new strategy,
because it's a very focused strategy.
Mr. Shays. What's a very focused strategy? The existing or
what they want?
Mr. Parachini. The 9/11 Commission strategy. It's focused
on the adversary and it defines who the adversary is.
Mr. Shays. In other words, even that point of just saying,
instead of saying terrorism, it's Islamist terrorism?
Mr. Parachini. Extremely important. A small little word
change, but I think it is extremely important.
Mr. Shays. And I think the other members would agree with
that?
Mr. Perl. Yes.
Mr. Rabkin. Yes.
Mr. Perl. But that can also be a pitfall. Because we may
not be focusing enough on other types of terrorism in the
future that we'll be seeing.
Mr. Shays. And there will be. There will be.
Mr. Parachini. I understand that argument, but we don't see
other terrorist groups rising up to this level of threat to the
United States. There is nothing like this global insurgency out
there.
Mr. Shays. The communists weren't our only threat. But Lord
knows, they constituted the bulk of it. And we had a strategy
to deal with that.
Beyond the Federal Government, who needs to be involved in
developing strategies to combat terrorism?
Mr. Rabkin. I think it's important that all the partners in
carrying out the strategy have some part in putting the
strategy together. This includes the State and local
governments, the private sector, and our international
partners, Congress ought to be involved. Certainly the
Executive branch has the responsibility to promulgate the
strategy, but others should be involved in the process of
pulling it together and updating it.
Mr. Perl. I think we need to involve people with no
experience in terrorism, sociologists, anthropologists, not
just the usual gang of suspects. And also, this is very
controversial, so I'll present it as an option, one option that
might be worth considering would also be to engage criminals
and former terrorists in developing counterterrorism strategy.
Mr. Shays. I hear you. When we have hackers, we invite
hackers to tell us how we can figure them out.
Mr. Parachini. Well, there may be many stakeholders. It's
really the President in a dialog with the Congress, to set a
national strategy.
Mr. Shays. How should we think about measuring our national
progress? I want it done in non-scientific terms, Mr.
Parachini. I want to understand, how will John Tierney and I
know we're making progress?
Mr. Parachini. I think if we see the number of recruits
declining who go into Jihadist groups, that's a good sign. If
we see editorials in government-owned Arab newspapers
condemning the types of beheadings like we've seen recently,
that's progress. If we hear in mosques all across the Islamic
world these types of things being condemned, that I think is a
sign of progress that's long term, that's important, and we're
taking note of. I know we're taking great note of the opposite.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Others?
Mr. Perl. I think also of progress in terms of civil
liberties, if people can go to an airport, not have to wait a
long time in line and not go through intrusive inspections or
searches, I think that would be a sign of progress. I also
think of progress in terms of the way the population reacts on
a daily basis, is it a fearful population, how do they change
their daily lives in terms of terrorism. In Israel there is
something called the fear index that they give, or government
commissions to get a sense of how the population sees progress.
And also important is progress on the street in other
countries. We tend to address our polices to the elite,
terrorists tend to talk to the street.
Mr. Shays. I'm going to respond to your fear issue, because
I look at it both as a negative and a positive. Mr. Rabkin.
Mr. Rabkin. I think my answer would probably be too
technical, because I think we ought to start with what the
goals are and the organizations that are responsible for
carrying it out need to develop those measures. That's what we
ought to be paying attention to. There ought to be a system of
measures. You don't need 500 measures. There ought to be one or
two that each of the organizations is going to be held
accountable to. And it would roll up into the kinds of measures
that these gentleman are talking about.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Just the thing with fear, sometimes
when I hear our Secretary of Homeland Security say, we've gone
to code yellow, to code orange, we've gone to elevated, to
high, but just keep doing everything you ordinarily do, that to
me is a false sense of security. I rebel at that. So I don't
know. When I see a corrupt government but nobody's looking at
it, and they say, well, it's an honest government, that doesn't
mean it's an honest government just because they haven't
grabbed at it. So your fear factor, I'm just responding to it a
little bit.
We only have 4 minutes left. This is tragic, for me it is.
Is there any last comment, gentlemen, you would like to put on
the record? Because we could go a lot further. Any last
comments, short ones?
Mr. Rabkin. I appreciate your interest, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Let me just say, I think we're going to get all
three of you back. If I'm back next year, I'm getting the three
of you back. [Laughter.]
Thank you all very much. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
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