[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PREPARING FOR THE WAR ON TERRORISM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 20, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-37
__________
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
_______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 20, 2001............................... 1
Statement of:
Netanyahu, Benjamin, former Prime Minister of Israel......... 65
Zinni, General Anthony, U.S. Marines, retired; Dr.
Christopher Harmon, professor, U.S. Marine Corps Command
and Staff College; and Dr. Jessica Stern, Harvard
University................................................. 111
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Barr, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Georgia, prepared statement of.......................... 45
Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Indiana, prepared statement of.......................... 53
Harmon, Dr. Christopher, professor, U.S. Marine Corps Command
and Staff College, prepared statement of................... 113
Lantos, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California:
Article dated September 19, 2001......................... 94
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 35
Netanyahu, Benjamin, former Prime Minister of Israel,
prepared statement of...................................... 73
Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement of....................... 24
Ros-Lehtinen, Hon. Ileana, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Florida, prepared statement of................ 15
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 63
Stern, Dr. Jessica, Harvard University, prepared statement of 127
Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Calilfornia, prepared statement of................ 169
Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 59
Weldon, Hon. Dave, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 32
PREPARING FOR THE WAR ON TERRORISM
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2001
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Burton, Barr, Gilman, Morella,
Shays, Ros-Lehtinen, Horn, Mica, Tom Davis of Virginia, Ose,
Lewis, Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, Platts, Weldon, Cannon,
Putnam, Otter, Schrock, Duncan, Waxman, Lantos, Owens,
Kanjorski, Mink, Sanders, Maloney, Norton, Cummings, Kucinich,
Blagojevich, Davis of Illinois, Tierney, Turner, Schakowsky,
Clay, and Watson.
Also present: Representative Jones of North Carolina.
Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; Daniel R.
Moll, deputy staff director; James C. Wilson, chief counsel;
David A. Kass, deputy chief counsel; Mark Corallo, director of
communications; M. Scott Billingsley, Chad Bungard, John
Callendar, Pablo Carrillo, and Randall Kaplan, counsels; Thomas
Bowman and Marc Chretien, senior counsels; S. Elizabeth Clay,
Caroline Katzin, Gil Macklin, and John Rowe, professional staff
members; Robert A. Briggs, chief clerk; Robin Butler, office
manager; Josie Duckett, deputy communications director; Toni
Lightle, legislative assistant; Leneal Scott, computer systems
manager; Danleigh Halfast, assistant to chief counsel; Corinne
Zaccagnini, systems administrator; Michael Layman, staff
assistant; Joshua E. Gillespie, deputy chief clerk; Elizabeth
Crane, legislative aide; Phil Schiliro, minority staff
director; Phil Barnett, minority chief counsel; Kristin
Amerling and Michael Yeager, minority deputy chief counsels;
David Rapallo, minority counsel; Ellen Rayner, minority chief
clerk; Jean Gosa and Earley Green, minority assistant clerks;
Kate Harrington, minority staff assistant; and Nancy Scola,
minority computer information manager.
Mr. Burton. Good morning. A quorum being present, the
committee will come to order.
Let me start off by saying former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is on his way. He probably won't be here for about 45
minutes or so, so what we are going to do is we are going to go
ahead and start with our opening statements and have that
completed and then, when he gets here, we will go right to
former Prime Minister Netanyahu.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members' and witnesses'
written and opening statements be included in the record; and,
without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and
extraneous or tabular material referred to be included in the
record; and, without objection, so ordered.
Before our opening statements, I also wanted to have the
committee fill the vacant chairmanship of the Civil Service and
Agency Organization Subcommittee. As you know, our colleague,
Joe Scarborough, retired on September 6th of this year. The
vice chairman of the subcommittee, Dr. David Weldon, has agreed
to serve as chairman of the subcommittee, and we are looking
forward to having you chair that subcommittee, Dr. Weldon.
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that Congressman Weldon be
appointed as chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Service and
Agency Organization; and, without objection, so ordered.
We will now start with opening statements, and we will
recognize the chairman emeritus of the Foreign Affairs
Committee, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank Chairman Burton for conducting this very
timely hearing. As you know, we had a prior terrorism hearing
under Mr. Shays' chairmanship in our subcommittee, and I think
that was appropriate at that time, and I hope we will take
another look at the testimony of that hearing.
As the dean of New York delegation in my congressional
district adjoining New York City, I personally witnessed the
horrible devastation of the recent barbaric terrorist attacks
first hand. In my congressional district just north of New York
City, more than 86 Americans are missing, many of whom are
firemen and police officers.
While there has been an unprecedented outpouring of
charitable donations by our fellow Americans and our community
organizations and our corporations and a tremendous outpouring
of volunteer work in both the Pentagon and the World Trade
Center and with the Congress and our Nation standing united in
support of the victims and their families and our President,
regrettably, we are all well aware that on last Tuesday,
September 11th, our lives have changed. Terrorism has become a
common enemy of the entire civilized world.
Few world leaders have more experience in dealing with
international terrorism than today's leading witness, former
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, and we look forward to
his testimony. Before thinking systematically about terrorism,
as was current, he wrote the text, Terrorism, How the West Can
Win. More recently, he wrote, ``Fighting Terrorism, How
Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.''
I recommend this book as good, important reading for our entire
committee.
Moreover, Bibi Netanyahu carried on that fight for his own
nation and collaterally for the rest of the civilized world
when he was Israeli prime minister.
These recent attacks on our own Nation were targeted,
coordinated acts of terrorism and were of a character beyond
what Prime Minister Netanyahu had to deal with. The devastating
kind of terrorism attack that a well-educated country can plan
over the course of years with the explicit intention of
committing suicide after living in the target country for years
is something that is hard for us to believe, and we have not
seen it before.
Our traditional profiles of suicide bombers are no longer
reliable. In fact, even Israelis were recently shocked when an
older married man with children, a Palestinian Israeli citizen,
blew himself up in a marketplace. The fact that suicide bombers
are coming from different sectors of society makes it even more
difficult to defend against such attacks, even in the State of
Israel.
In a broader sense, I know that neither Israel nor our own
Nation is inclined to making our war on terrorism a war between
cultures. Not a war between Islam and the West. Nor is this
necessarily a war between democracies and nondemocracies. Even
people living under authoritarian regimes have the right to be
free of terror, and even authoritarian regimes can be recruited
to help stamp out terrorism. Mr. Netanyahu, I am certain,
shares our views that the appropriate characterization of our
struggle is a war between civilization and barbarianism and not
one against my religion or any ethnicity.
We look forward to hearing the witnesses' thoughts today
and particularly Mr. Netanyahu's thoughts on how we can reach
the men on the street among whom terrorists operate and
encourage vigilance on their part. How can we deal with the
hatred of the West and what kind of compromises can we accept
on our freedom of movement today and what can we do about the
state's and powerful private sources that provide assistance to
terrorist organizations? We look forward to hearing our
witnesses today on these most important topics.
So, again, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this
very timely hearing.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.
I think it is extremely important that the American people
really have a thorough knowledge of what we are up against, and
that is why it is so important that we have these experts here
today.
We will pass on Mr. Waxman right now. We will give his
opening statement, along with Mr. Shays, myself a little bit
later.
I now recognize the gentleman who knows a little bit about
war firsthand, Mr. Lantos.
Mr. Lantos. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think it
is important that we hold this hearing today, and you put
together a stellar list of witnesses.
A week ago, Mr. Chairman, our Nation lost its innocence,
but it has found a new sense of unity and purpose. This new
sense of unity comes from the sudden realization that our
democratic way of life is under attack. It must be and it will
be defended. This awakening came at a terrible cost--the
devastation of thousands of innocent American lives and the
destruction of our national symbols of strength and prosperity.
It is precisely because we paid such a heavy price for this
awakening that it is so valuable. We are at the hinge of
history. We can bemoan the tragedy, or we can draw the
appropriate lessons from it and move forward. I believe it is
critical we learn from the tragic experience, not only to
ensure that such events don't happen again but that we take
intelligent and thoughtful and sweeping actions to deal with
the crisis.
It is also critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu's
appearance that we learn from those such as our friend and
ally, the State of Israel, who have been confronting terrorism
on a daily basis and who have succeeded in reconciling security
with democracy.
The world is watching, Mr. Chairman, our Nation's military
preparations and the deliberations here in Congress; and it is
asking, is the United States up to the challenge? Are we, the
greatest democracy on Earth, capable of mounting a sustained,
costly and concerted global campaign against international
terror?
Mr. Chairman, I am confident that we are. Throughout our
history the American people have risen to the challenge of
coming together and mobilizing all of our Nation's strength,
our formidable military might, our dynamic economy and our
indomitable spirit, and we will do so again this time. But in
committing to this fight, Mr. Chairman, let us not delude
ourselves. We are embarking on a costly, painful, difficult
struggle like none other in our Nation's history. It will
demand resolve. It will demand patience, and it will demand
sacrifice.
On the subject of sacrifice, allow me to expand on this a
bit. For many years now we have been conducting military
operations with a firm commitment to have zero casualties. That
is a noble goal, but the events of September 11 demonstrate
that debate is now behind us. We will have had probably over
6,000 casualties, and I think the Vietnam syndrome with respect
to casualties will have to be rethought. Every single American
life is precious beyond words, but it is absurd for a society
to tolerate thousands of civilian casualties and still believe,
as we did in the Kosovo engagement, that no military casualties
can be accepted. This issue will be a subject of protracted and
serious debate, but those who claim that no casualty is
acceptable better talk to the families of the 6,000 innocent
Americans who were casualties just this past week. This debate
is over, and the price we paid is over 6,000 innocent lives. It
is a return to the reality of living in a dangerous world.
Mr. Chairman, in this struggle, we are not alone. All
Americans deeply appreciate the many expressions of sympathy
and support from our friends and allies across the globe. We
trust that now these words will be translated into action. I
welcome our European friends' expressions of sympathy. I look
forward to our European friends' actions vis-a-vis their
policies of trade and investment in Iran, Libya and elsewhere.
We have been debating these issues in this Congress in a very
lonely fashion, and it is long overdue that our European
friends who are so strong in their expressions of condolences
should be equally strong in falling in line with respect to
policies.
In this fight against international terrorism there can be
no neutrals. Those who are not with us are against us, and I
welcome the decision of Pakistan in this moment of historic
crisis, that they have chosen to be with us. This will serve
them well.
As our military commanders and the brave servicemen and
women they lead prepare to wage war against the perpetrators of
last week's terrorist strikes, our sights are trained on Osama
bin Laden and his Taliban protectors and with good reason. But
I think it is critical that we don't personalize and trivialize
this war. If Osama bin Laden is turned over tomorrow morning,
the international war against terrorism must continue unabated.
Defeating or capturing or eliminating Osama bin Laden will not
spell the defeat of terrorism unless we broaden our efforts and
eradicate terrorism wherever it lurks. If we personalize and
trivialize this struggle and limit our focus to the
perpetrators of these acts, we may win some battles, but we
risk losing the war.
I am encouraged, Mr. Chairman, by the administration's
efforts to target not just Osama bin Laden but terrorists
throughout the Middle East and beyond. I applaud Secretary
Powell's efforts in the midst of this week's war planning to
pressure Syria and Lebanon to surrender Hezbollah terrorists
operating in their territories, a policy I recommended in
sanctions legislation that was adopted by this body by a vote
of 216 to 212 just a few months ago. As my friends will recall,
at that time the State Department issued two letters opposing
my amendment. By this week's action, I welcome them on board;
and I have no doubt that if this amendment would be up on the
floor today it would not squeeze by with a vote of 216 to 212
but we would get well over 400 affirmative votes.
Secretary of State Powell has affirmed the administration's
commitment to eradicate terrorism root and branch, a worthy and
necessary goal the American people passionately and seriously
support, but in the framing of this struggle, it is critical
that we focus on the forest, not just some of the trees. Osama
bin Laden must go, but so must all the terrorists in the Middle
East, in Colombia, in Indonesia and elsewhere who share the
evil goals and operational methods of terrorists.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Lantos follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7229.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7229.006
Mr. Burton. Let me say to my colleagues, because we have an
important schedule here with Mr. Netanyahu, and he ought to be
here in about half an hour, I would like to have our Members
limit their comments to 5 minutes, if it is possible.
Mr. Horn.
Mr. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In defense of terrorism, it is not simply weapons. It is
language, knowledge, writing and getting within the psychology
of particular languages and particular people.
Back in the 1980's, when Caspar Weinberger was Secretary of
Defense, he made a real point that America is way behind in
terms of educating our students. We do a good job with the
military academies but not so much with the civilian side. And
the people in great areas of the world, be it Indonesia, be it
Russia, be it the Middle East, Latin America, so forth, and
Weinberger said we have got to invest money in educating these
people in the secondary schools, even the elementary schools,
and we ought to, frankly, start in kindergarten and first grade
in some of these languages, because at that point it is sort of
fun, but when you do it later, the brain says, gee, I can't do
that. Well, we can do it, and we ought to put more emphasis on
that in the United States.
When this chaos of the last week started, all four networks
talked about an Arabic newspaper in London where columns were
in Arabic, and they wondered why wasn't somebody looking at
that. I have asked the question of a number of people that
should have known, and they say, oh, well, we just don't have
the Arabic skills that we ought to have.
So that is part of our problem. We do very well with the
Voice of America, but we don't do very well in some of our
basic intelligence agencies, and we could do a lot better. The
Department of Defense has a marvelous language school at
Monterrey, CA. They do teach people how to read, write, speak
in very complicated languages; and I think, Mr. Chairman, that
we ought to get from--all of these agencies into this committee
and see just where we are in doing those things. It is a little
late now, but maybe it won't be late again.
Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Horn; and we will be talking
with various agencies about making sure the coordination is
there.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The events of the past week have had a profound effect on
this Nation and the world. We all saw the events unfold before
our eyes on national television. Our cities, the Nation's
transportation infrastructure, including subways and airports,
nuclear power plants, national monuments and landmarks became
and still are vulnerable.
With weapons of mass destruction and biological weaponry,
it has become very clear that there is an increased need to
protect not only the citizens within our borders but also those
who defend our country against outside threats.
With that said, I am pleased that this committee is the
first in Congress to ask the question, how does America prepare
for the war on terrorism?
First, I believe we must come to an understanding of what
terrorism means. It is defined as the systematic use of terror,
and terror is a state of intense fear. America must work hard
to combat this fear.
Then we must ensure that our local firefighters, police
departments and emergency medical personnel are properly
trained and have the available supplies to respond in a crisis.
As we saw in New York and at the Pentagon, these groups were
the first to respond.
Next, the country must prepare our public health
infrastructure. We must assess the Nation's long-range
capabilities to respond not only to those weapons that are
physically visible and threatening but also biological and
chemical weapons. Are there vaccinations and antidotes
available if the need arises?
Furthermore, America must continue to build coalitions with
Nations around the world. The fight against terrorism will be a
long and difficult one, requiring the cooperation of many
nations.
Finally, America must stay prepared by being alert. We must
focus on enhancing our national security by ensuring that
emergency plans and procedures are set. U.S. citizens and
facilities have been targets for years and will continue to be
targets.
This was not just an attack on America but an attack on
freedom and democracy. Not only were Americans affected by the
terrorist attacks but citizens from more than 80 countries
worked at the World Trade Center.
During this crisis, America will be defined by how we react
and respond to terrorism. Our response must be carefully
balanced. On one side, we place our commitment to spare no
effort in eradicating terrorism and punishing those responsible
for this heinous crime. On the other hand, we balance the
responsibility to hold true to our Nation's principles, to be
cognizant of innocent life and to use military force only when
necessary. This is a difficult scale to balance, but I believe
that we have a duty to reach the appropriate equilibrium that
justice requires.
We are all living through this day by day and must stand
together as Americans. I would urge all Americans not to target
Arab-Americans or Muslims. Racial profiling and hate crimes
cannot be tolerated. Tolerance is the glue that has held this
diverse country together.
This is not a war against people from different cultures or
who practice a different religion. This is a war on terrorism.
We cannot trade in our civil rights and liberties.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing
and yield back the balance.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Cummings.
Mrs. Morella.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you and Ranking Member Waxman for holding the hearing.
Protecting Americans and determining who is responsible for
the tragedy of September 11th have become the most important
issues for every Member of this Congress. I appreciate the
quick action by this committee in raising the issue today.
In many of the comments uttered after the terrible assault,
we heard people note that all of us woke up on September 11th
to a nightmare, and that couldn't be more true. But then we
found the nightmare became a reality. Last Tuesday's attack was
the single most calamitous day in terms of loss of life in our
Nation's history. And sadly, for many of us, though, the
nightmare we spoke of has worsened. But now we realize just how
vulnerable we are. Those who wish to do us harm are not only
willing to sacrifice their lives but have the resources to
wreak terrible violence upon our shores. We see violence as the
means of violence. Therefore, it must be the focus of this
committee, this Congress, this country to do everything
possible to prevent another tragedy. Today is the first step.
Among our responses, we should include coordination among
agencies, one office to oversee terrorism in this country.
Presently, we have the FBI, the CIA, FEMA, Department of
Transportation, Department of Defense, all with separate
offices to combat terrorism in different ways. We need one
office with representatives from each of the agencies to come
up with the cohesive strategy. So, Mr. Chairman, we have expert
witnesses that you have assembled to detail our present
vulnerabilities to terrorism and to describe what can be done.
We are honored also to expect the arrival of the former
prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has both
written about terrorism and unfortunately experienced it.
I look forward to the testimony of all the witnesses in
learning how to best prepare ourselves for the new realities
that face us. The age of innocence is lost. The age of anxiety
is upon us.
I yield back the balance of my time; and, again, thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mrs. Morella.
Mr. Owens, do you have an opening statement, sir?
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I would like to
commend you for having these hearings.
It is another opportunity for me to thank the Members of
Congress and the people of the United States in general for the
way in which they have come to the aid of people of New York
and Washington. We are all mourning together those who died.
We also would like to together salute the bravery of the
firemen and the policemen who went in to rescue people while
others were coming out to safety. Firemen in my district
suffered a tremendous loss in one of the companies, and we of
course are struggling to deal with that in many ways.
I would like to take advantage of this particular forum,
however, to talk about the fact that so many of my constituents
have emphasized to me the fact that they would like to hold me
as a Member of Congress responsible for national security,
regardless of what committee I serve on. I have said over and
over again, there is a limited role I play. I am not on the
Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence. I am not on the
Foreign Affairs Committee. Certainly I think it is our
responsibility, but we play a limited role. They are saying
every Congressman and the institution as a whole must take
greater responsibility for national security.
There are too many comments being made about things that
probably could have been avoided or things that are not being
done that should have been done and should be done rapidly if
they are not being done. People take note of the fact that our
intelligence agencies have suffered some tremendous
embarrassments. They tell me. I don't have to tell them. They
read. They remember better than I do the Aldrich Ames disaster
with the CIA when the top person in charge of
counterintelligence with respect to the Soviet Union is on the
payroll, the--Hoffman--the recent FBI top intelligence person,
counterespionage person, being found to be on the payroll of
the Soviet Union. They bring up these things and they say,
well, why can't you tell us if they have taken steps to make
sure this never happens again?
The intelligence community, they know it is kind of an
incestuous community, and they don't like to have open forums
and discussions, and not many Members of Congress really
discuss those things that go on there. There are some basic and
simple questions that we can all ask without in any way
jeopardizing the security of the Nation. If the people don't
want to answer them and find that they are jeopardizing the
security and the operations of the intelligence community, they
don't have to answer it.
But basic questions like, how many high-level people do you
have in decisionmaking positions who have background and
understand Islamic culture? Are there people at top places who
are making these decisions who really understand? If they are
there, what kind of resources do they draw on? Is there a think
tank? Is there a resource pool that they can steadily draw on
of people that are currently monitoring and can really monitor
because they understand the language, they understand the
culture, they have background?
These are basics that surely the answer ought to be in the
affirmative, but we don't know until we ask.
What about the language situation? Mr. Horn has just said
we have the school out West who teaches all kinds of languages.
I have no doubt about their ability to do this, but what kind
of recruits are they getting? How rapidly are they taking in
recruits? And are we back to the basic problem of education in
America where the pool of young people who are coming out of
college who can tackle some of these positions--because these
are positions that will require a great deal of training. Just
as the terrorists show that they have a great deal of training
and education, the people who are going to be involved in
counterterrorism are going to have to have the same kind of
training and education. So we have the situation where there is
a great shortage in every profession in America. Law
enforcement is suffering greatly, as is teaching and other
areas in recruiting people to go into these professions.
So we need for take a look at the long run--and this is a
long-term battle. We all agree. The long-term needs of our
education system in terms of making certain that the pool of
people are always there so that you can recruit for doctors,
lawyers and other folks. At the same time, law enforcement,
teaching and other professions don't suffer, that we have the
very best that can be made available.
There was an advertisement on a station in New York a few
days ago by the FBI. They want people who speak Farsi. I said,
well, you know, that is great that they are doing that now. How
much of a deficit do we have in people who speak Farsi that has
to be made up? I am glad that it is being done now, but we
should ask the basic questions of, how many people are there
being recruited and what kind of process is there to guarantee
that the system is always in place?
I have served on this committee for a long time. At one
point I served on the Transportation Subcommittee, and we had
several hearings on safety. I am afraid that in the records of
those hearings you will find recommendations about airport
safety which included guaranteeing that the cockpit is always
secure and that nobody can get into it, and I am sure that many
other government reports over the last 10 years have repeated
the need for this guarantee with respect to the cockpit. And
yet we are now talking about, yes, this is a good idea. Well,
why is it that these things are not done?
The Federalization of airport safety, the security of our
airports has been recommended on several occasions. I don't
think that violates the private sector's rights to do certain
kinds of things. Some form of Federalization is needed, and we
should go forward.
I just want to repeat what my constituents are saying to
me. Security of the Nation, security of the airlines, all
aspects of security is everybody's job now. They hope that the
Congressmen, every Member, will understand it that way and that
the institution will understand it and all America will
understand it. It is all of our problems, and we should all not
be afraid to take part in the dialog and deliberations to make
things better.
Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Owens.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As President Bush has underscored, the terrorist attacks of
September 11th were not just against the United States. They
were against freedom and democracy, against the integrity and
essence of our Republic. It was an attack against the free
world and the moral precepts which guide human relations. It
was an act of barbarism born of wanton disregard for the value
of human life, born out of a desire to terrorize the global
community of nations into submission.
Those behind these terrible acts sought to change our
American way of life. They hoped that fear would lead to a
transformation of our character and our society. They obviously
do not know what we are made of. Much like the attack on Pearl
Harbor, the terrorist acts of September 11th had served as a
catalyst, a call to action, a demand for the United States to
exert our leadership role and to use all available means to
confront this threat.
The United States is being called upon, as it did during
the cold war, to create conditions under which our free and
democratic system can live and prosper. As we did during the
cold war, we must take the necessary steps in terms of policy
and resources, offensive and defensive strategies to ensure
that this century will see the triumph of freedom and the
vindication of our democratic principles, to ensure that the
aftermath of this new war that we have embarked upon is global
stability, to ensure that we may again live without fear.
Fortunately, President Bush and his national security team
have learned this lesson of history. They understand the
mistakes of the past so we are not condemned to repeat them.
They have deciphered the elements leading to our victories over
totalitarianism and tyranny so that we may build upon them.
While the nature or manifestation of the terrorist threats
may differ from any we have encountered in the recent past, the
principles of Realist political theory, the tenets outlined in
the landmark cold war document now known as NSC-68, and the
Reagan doctrine of peace through strength still hold true.
The President and his advisers understand this reality.
President Bush and his national security team understand that
the dream and the hope of containing the cold war enemy and
deterring attacks against U.S. interests was converted into the
``long peace'' through the implementation of a policy firmly
rooted in U.S. military superiority and overwhelming strength.
The United States won the cold war and ensured peace and
stability by stating its resolve and demonstrating its
commitment to make good on these threats. Some would argue that
when the United States abandoned this principle in the closing
decade of the last century that instability and new forms of
conflict began to grow.
President Bush and his advisers realize this. They hear the
echoes of the drafters of NSC-68 who underscored that, without
superior aggregate military strength, a policy of containment
is no more than a policy of bluff.
Thus, the resources and funding we allocate for the war
against terrorism must match our commitment and our resolve. We
may not be able to deter the suicide bombers and the kamikaze
tactics. However, the threat of unleashing American power in
response to those terrorist attacks will have a sobering effect
on those who harbor these terrorists, who provide them with the
financial support and training facilities to execute these
attacks.
The military component of our strategy must provide for a
flexible but comprehensive response which includes many options
available to us in the United States.
Further, the application of the doctrine of peace through
strength to the war on terrorism requires the United States to
possess an extraordinary amount of intelligence, using not just
sophisticated technology but also expanding the human
intelligence capabilities. We must follow every lead and use
every method to uncover the network of individuals, groups and
sponsors which have empowered and enabled these terrorists to
commit such deplorable acts. In doing so, we should remember
that Realism contends that nation states are engaged in the
never-ending struggle to improve or preserve their relative
power position and that in the global system force is the final
arbiter.
Thus, based on this premise, we must look at both emerging
powers who seek to challenge the current global structure and
the U.S. leadership, as well as those declining powers who seek
to retard or halt their diminishing role. We must investigate
whether the terrorist acts on the United States were tools
employed by a state or regime to exert its position with its
neighbors and of the world stage. Is the approach of the
terrorist groups based on the same power and political
considerations which determine the behavior of nation states?
What are the geopolitical or strategic objectives of terrorist
groups?
Whatever the answers, we must not limit ourselves. As the
attacks of September 11th clearly demonstrate, anything and
everything is possible. For this reason, our response must
include a defensive posture that prepares for the possibility
that these new aggressors can obtain nuclear materials and
weaponry.
What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that
their well-being did not rest exclusively upon the threat of
U.S. retaliation? What if we could intercept and destroy these
missiles before they reached American soil and American
interests? It will not happen overnight, but is it not worth
every investment necessary to free the world from this threat?
Former President Ronald Reagan believed that it was worth
it. President Bush knows it is worth every investment. We in
Congress should know this as well. That is why, as part of the
coordinated U.S. response to these attacks and to the broader
threat of terrorism, the Congress should support the Bush
administration's missile defense program. Ultimately, it will
be the strength of character and the moral fiber of the
American people and our unity of purpose which will help the
United States and the free world triumph over evil.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1811, it is impossible to
subdue a people acting with an undivided will. We have that
will. The terrorists will soon know this, also.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you for
conducting these hearings this morning.
I want to start just by saying to my colleague, Mr. Owens,
that we took to heart your words a moment ago, and it was with
some pride that I was with 73 men and women from New England
who were the first to respond as assistance from outside the
city of New York. We all suffer for the loss of everybody that
was involved in that act, and their families and their friends
and everybody wants to do as much as they can possibly do. As I
say, we are proud that some from New England got the
opportunity at least to go directly there and contribute in a
very direct manner.
When a tragedy like this occurs, I think everyone naturally
wants to know what it is that they can do, and that doesn't
stop with this body. It is not a sentiment that is entirely
alien to the Members of Congress. We feel the same way, and
this particular committee and the Subcommittee on National
Security, Veterans Affairs and International Realtions in
particular has a unique role to play in making sure that our
government works as efficiently as is possible.
I want to take just a moment to acknowledge my colleague
and chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans
Affairs and International Realtions, Chris Shays, who, as many
of us will recall, has over the last several years conducted 19
or 20 hearings on related issues alone. He has shown leadership
and has identified in fact that this was a major concern of
this country. We are proud on that subcommittee to work with
him in a nonpartisan way over and over again to address this
and try to focus this government and the American people's
attention on what we thought was in fact the primary risk.
I think there are four things we have to look at here. We
have to look at assessing what the risks to this country are,
prioritizing those matters, coordinating what our response is
going to be, and then allocating the resources and executing
our plans to deal with them.
We have a refreshingly unified outlook of late amongst
committee members here, amongst Congress as the whole. We are
going to pursue our affirmative goals, and we are going to
avoid accusations of fault. We are being called together to
examine the system of our government and decide how to improve
it with respect to the issues that confront us today.
In hearings in that subcommittee in particular we have
heard the GAO tell us that we don't have the proper focus and
we have not prioritized the issues relating to terrorism. We
have to evaluate all the actions and all the threats together
and in a comprehensive way. Then we have to address our
resources, our spending to counter those threats in a way that
is linked to our priorities. We haven't necessarily been doing
that.
In 1995, President Clinton issued a Presidential Decision
Directive No. 39, and he set forward three goals that we had:
reduce our vulnerabilities, deter terrorist attacks before they
occur, respond to terrorism by preparing for consequences,
managing the crises and prosecuting offenders. Chris Shays and
the committee are trying to focus on those three areas to see
where we were, to see what it is we had to do and in what order
and how we would apply our resources to it and whether or not
we were doing an effective job.
We have had legislation filed attempting to address the
issue of how these roles are being coordinated across various
agencies of government, and we continue to try and move in that
direction. Obviously, with the events of recent days we will
see that this is expedited. It has now come to the full
attention of all American people the concentration that
subcommittee has had on this issue.
We have heard numerous witnesses. We have been to a number
of different trials and demonstrations of how it is that we
would respond to these particular types of situations or
crises. We have reviewed the Rudman-Hart Commission's reports
and heard testimony from the members of that Commission and
others on the issue, and now we need to go to work.
When I talk about prioritizing, let me give you an example.
You know, over the past several administrations we have focused
on the national missile defense as being a top priority. I, for
one, have opposed that, as have others, based on serious
concerns with the technical feasibility of that proposal. But
all of us can understand certainly the fear of the rogue state
ostensibly launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at
one of our major cities. The effects, obviously, would be
devastating, and we have to protect against that threat. But we
have to make sure that the technical feasibility is there
before we start spending money wastefully on that. There is
some $8.3 billion next year alone being addressed not just to
researching and trying to develop a system but to actually
deploying a system that so far has shown that it cannot work.
In our assessment of priority threats, none of our
intelligence agencies lift that threat above the one of
terrorism. So we have to ask ourselves, why is it that we are
projecting $100 billion in that direction and, according to the
Office of Management and Budget, across all of our various
agencies in this government only $10.3 billion to counter all
forms of terrorism threats combined?
Now, I do that not because I want to start a political
discussion here but only because I want to start a
comprehensive discussion of policy here. Let us start to focus
on those four things. Let's assess the threats, and then let's
prioritize them in the order that we need to address. Let's
coordinate and work on legislation that will allow this
government to coordinate responses across all of those agencies
in a comprehensive way, and then let us put together a plan of
execution that will let us apply the resources where they need
to be applied at a particular point in time. That will be the
patriotism that this committee has to work for. That will be
the patriotism that this country has to work for, the serious,
serious look at this and the way we go about our business.
I am looking forward to working further with Mr. Shays on
the subcommittee. I am sure our work will be pointed in that
direction, but, as Mr. Owens says, the entire Congress will
have to address legislation that lets us do those four things.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to depart for a second from the
regular order and take a moment to recognize the memory of one
of our staffers, Ned Lynch. Ned worked for me and others on the
Civil Service Subcommittee. He fought a courageous battle with
cancer. He died during the recess, and I want to thank the
chairman for his support. He left five children behind; and,
Chairman Burton, I publicly thank you for what you did in
support of that family.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to
remember Barbara Olson. I lost many friends on Tuesday,
September 11th, as many of you have. Barbara was very special
to me. She worked for this committee as well. Our heartfelt
sympathies go to Ted and her family, and I must say she was a
patriot and a dedicated American right to the very end. So we
remember her today.
Mr. Chairman, I also want to thank you for holding this
hearing. It couldn't be more timely, and it certainly is within
our purview and responsibility as the oversight committee of
the House of Representatives.
Obviously, the events of September 11th indicate that we
did have a substantial failure in some of our systems,
particularly our intelligence system. It is incredible to
realize that our intelligence capability could not identify and
even today we are having difficulty really gaining the true
identity of the terrorists.
It is also difficult that a Federalized system and under
the control of our U.S. Embassies and consular officers would
issue visas to the vast majority of those terrorists who
entered our country and used our borders as almost a swinging
door to enter, leave, and have their family come and go, almost
at will.
Something has gone wrong, and maybe it is our quest in this
country for political correctness, but we have got to really
examine what went wrong.
There are easy scapegoats. I chair the Aviation
Subcommittee of the House, and I have heard that the
Federalization of the screening process is a simple answer.
Ladies and gentlemen, the screening process did--those
screeners did not fail. Federal regulations allowed box
cutters, and the equipment that has been deployed was not able
to detect the material such as plastic and knives, and that is
partly due to our quest for political correctness. We have
machines that have been tested and deployed and then also
withdrawn because some said they were invasions of our civil
liberties. So we have the technical capability to correct the
screening process.
The rules for screeners--this is the Gore Commission report
which came out September 9, 1996, and some of it was a knee-
jerk reaction to TWA Flight 800, which turned out to be in fact
a defect in the electrical system and fuel tanks aboard the
aircraft. We spent billions of dollars to buy detection
devices, and we went off on various tangents. If they failed,
we failed, because we never instituted any measures until the--
Congress did not act until 2000 on some of these
recommendations. Some of them. Again, not very prudent, but we
did pass the Airport Security Improvement Act of 2000.
As of the week before the incidents of September 11th, here
are the proposed rules by FAA as a real result of this law,
which is 4 years after this Commission report. This set of
rules for enhancing screening still isn't in place. So talk
about Federalization. Their folks are examples of
Federalization having failed, starting again with intelligence,
visa distribution and the screening process.
What must we do? First of all, we have heard that we know
what the recommendations are. We must penetrate the terrorist
organizations. We must penetrate their communications. We must
penetrate their finances. To do that, the Attorney General has
come forth with several maybe not politically correct but
several things we need to do, and we must adopt the Attorney
General's recommendations.
Additionally, you have heard, and Mr. Horn alluded to it,
of the stunning lack of qualified linguists, the stunning lack
of intelligence analysts. We have tons of information. We don't
have the people who can interpret it or even understand the
language that it has been relayed in.
The problem has been described--and I will conclude with
saying this--as lack of the proper response.
Khobar Towers, I spoke at the graduation of the young man,
Brian McVeigh, in my district. I spoke at his funeral when he
was blown to pieces at Khobar Towers, and we still have no
response. The U.S. Embassy attacks, no response. The USS Cole
attack, no response. Now I should say no meaningful response.
What we have done is retaliate and on a limited basis and not
eliminate, and that is what our goal must be.
So, hopefully, Mr. Chairman and my members of the committee
and Congress will have learned from these expensive lessons and
do a better job.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Burton. Thank you very much, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much.
I want to thank the Chair for holding these hearings, and I
agree with my fellow colleagues that we need to support
increased efforts to deal with terrorism. These hearings I
think will be productive in doing that.
I also know that I share with many of my colleagues concern
over the resources that the American people have already spent
to deal with terrorism, vast amounts of money to support
intelligence efforts all around the world. This hearing isn't
the forum to ask the question, but people still want to know,
what do we get for the money, and why didn't we have better
notification for the money that we are paying? Because if we
are going to now advocate more resources to fight terrorism,
wouldn't it be good to find out what the failures of the
present system have been? Because, obviously, there have been
failures.
While I appreciate everyone who chooses to serve our
country, whether they are in the uniformed service or they are
in the service of the Central Intelligence Agency, I think that
we are at a time when it is going to be very important to
establish measures of accountability for those who are in the
Central Intelligence Agency so that when they come before
Congress and try to brief us or explain to us what the
conditions are that we feel a certain level of comfort and a
certain level of satisfaction in the integrity of the
information that we are being given; and I think that every
Member of Congress knows what I am talking about. I don't need
to elaborate on that any further.
But, moving on, let's look at what the World Trade Center
represented: international cooperation, international
communication, international finance, international spread of
democratic values. It countenances a view of the world as an
interconnected whole. What the World Trade Center has stood as
the symbol of, and not just an important marker in the skyline
of our country and of New York, is this view that the world is
together, that we are connected, that what affects one nation
affects us all. Indeed, we know that 60 nations lost brothers
and sisters in this tragedy.
The destruction of September 11th has a different message,
too, that we are aware of today. It is a message about American
unity, but it is also a message about world unity to combat
terrorism. And I would say, Mr. Chairman, that what we see in
the world uniting to address the issue of terrorism is
basically the precondition for the end of unilateralism in the
United States. Because the United States, while we have the
power and the strength and certainly the courage to go it
alone, we do not need to do so anymore. We have nations around
the world waiting to cooperate with us in addressing the issue
of terrorism.
And, the truth be told, we have to have their help. We
cannot do it alone. We need international cooperation in the
same way that the World Trade Center symbolizes international
cooperation. We need to have symmetry in that cooperation in
dealing with the issue of terrorism.
So we must prepare for a new world that has already been
unfolding, working cooperatively with all nations for
democratic rights and democratic values, with security
sufficient to protect those rights. In this new world, go-it-
alone strategies are insufficient, which is why my good friend,
Mr. Tierney, when he speaks of the inadequacies of the national
missile defense system, his remarks are well taken.
In the year 2000, annual spending to combat terrorism among
various Federal agencies crept up to just over $10 billion from
an estimated $4 billion at the start of the Clinton
administration's term. In contrast nearly $60 billion has been
spent on a ballistic missile system since 1983.
Now, nonproliferation treaties have great promise. The ABM
Treaty as a model has great promise for the future, global
cooperation on antiterrorism efforts, great promise for the
future because they symbolize a belief that the world while it
can be a very dangerous place also holds out hope for
cooperation, not just militarily, but in economics, in the
environment, in human rights, in addressing those issues which
give terrorists opportunities to gain a hold.
I am confident that the United States has the resources,
the strength, the courage and the intelligence to lead the
world in addressing the issues of terrorism. I am hopeful that
the United States will do everything it can to aid those
families who have suffered as a result of terrorism, because
this Nation certainly needs a period of healing and the healing
is going to take a long time for those who have lost loved
ones. But we have an opportunity to recreate the world again
here, and not just to address terrorism as it exists, as it
must be rooted out, but to look at what it means to have the
world working together on a problem that vexes all free people
but in a manner that gives us an opportunity to envision a
world where we are working cooperatively for peace.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Burton. I thank the gentleman. Let me just remind the
members that the reason we have that clock up there is it shows
when their time is expired. I understand everybody has a great
deal of concern about what happened, but we have Mr. Netanyahu
coming and we don't want to keep him from coming too long or
the other members of the panel who are going to be testifying.
Mr. Ose.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can see the clock from
here and I will be attentive.
In the aftermath of Tuesday's events, I want to pass my
compliments to you and to Mr. Waxman, because what things
really boiled down to was a measure of the leadership on both
sides of our aisle. And the chairmen and the ranking members of
the committees on this Hill basically had pushed on their
shoulders a tremendous burden. It is a measure of the
resilience of our country that the people who are in positions
of leadership from both sides of the aisle last Tuesday and
since were up to the task, and I want to thank both of you for
the roles you played quietly or otherwise. I thought that it
was an affirmation of our system to see the committee chairs
and the committee ranking members coalesce as they did, and I
want to thank you both for that.
I want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Lantos.
I met Shimon Perez last month and he is a gentleman with what I
would call no illusions about the world as it lays. And I think
Mr. Lantos' remarks this morning reflect to a great degree Mr.
Perez' perspective.
I also want to point out Mr. Owens spoke about
accountability among our voters, people we represent, and he
indicated that there was some degree of distress in his
district. Well, there was a degree of distress in my district
too, and I think what the voters ultimately end up looking at
is what we do, not what we talk about but what we do. What we
do is post votes pro or con on this or that issue. One of the
things we post votes on is the intelligence authorization
bills. Most often they go through on a voice vote, but on
occasion they go through on recorded votes, and I think it will
be interesting for someone to go back and do the research on
who voted for or against intelligence authorization bills 3 or
4 or 5 years ago because last Tuesday's actions were
consequences of votes taken 3 or 4 or 5 years ago.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to submit the balance of my
statement for the record. I just thank you and Mr. Waxman for
the leadership you have shown in the last week. I know you guys
have differences. I mean I know you do. But I am just--I have
to tell you I am extremely proud to be associated with both of
you, particularly in the last week. So I thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Ose.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Doug Ose follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The horrific acts
of September 11th have deeply affected all of us as a Nation
and as individuals. We find ourselves taking stock of those
things that are really important in our lives. Yesterday I was
at the birth of my fourth grandchild William, and I want his
world to be safe like all other grandparents and parents do.
And now we are going to be deciding on the specific actions to
take to guarantee our safety and security in the future, to
help a faltering economy that has been made worse by this
terrorist attack and to bring justice to the perpetrators.
As we make those decisions, we must ask one question again
and again: Will this action achieve our goals of safety,
security and justice? We need to move cautiously and consider
all the consequences. The might of the United States is great
and we must use it carefully and to eliminate terrorist
threats, making sure that those who are responsible, and only
those, pay the price. We must allocate all necessary resources
to restore the lost sense of security that has been such an
important part of American life without violating the freedoms
that make us proud to be Americans.
Security measures at airports, on airplanes and public
buildings may be irritating but in my view both acceptable and
necessary. Intrusions into private communications, however,
must be thoughtfully debated and caution taken before we expand
the government's right to step in. This is a time for Americans
to come together, not to turn on each other. There have been
disturbing acts of bigotry and violence against Muslims, Arab
Americans, Sikhs and Jews. We must all take a strong stand
against this in our own communities. Last Sunday I sponsored a
solidarity walk in my district that drew hundreds of people of
all races and religions and national origins who joined hands
and sang God Bless America. We should also move quickly to pass
the Hate Crimes Protection Act as an expression of our
tolerance as Americans. We need to reevaluate how easily we
want potential criminals as well as law-abiding citizens to be
able to access firearms, flight training and other potential
tools that can facilitate acts of terror.
We must ensure that those who might endanger our security
never make it inside our borders, but we must never forget that
this country was built by the contribution of immigrants from
all over the world. Many of those who perished at the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon were immigrants or the sons and
daughters of immigrants who have come here seeking a better
life and who made this country a better place. We must continue
to insist on an immigration policy that welcomes people who
make such valuable contributions to our diversity and our
strength.
We must make the proper investments in our public health
system so that we can prevent and probably address the threat
of bioterrorism.
There are many economic consequences of this disaster.
There are many industries and businesses that have been
affected and may legitimately be coming to the taxpayers for
help. But as we rethink our national funding priorities we must
remember that senior citizens still need relief from the high
cost of prescription drugs, children still need us to invest in
their education. Social Security and Medicare still need to be
protected.
In the National Security Subcommittee under the
chairmanship of Chris Shays, we have had many hearings in the
last few years on antiterrorism policy. We have heard from
scores of witnesses and members and have had numerous
discussions about the need to do more in this country to
prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.
I am glad today that we have with us experts in the field
who can help us determine appropriate policy responses to
recent events. I want to extend a particularly warm welcome to
Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister of Israel, a
country that is a great ally of the United States and one that
has the unfortunate distinction of expertise in responding to
terror.
Mr. Netanyahu's expertise in this field predates his
service as Prime Minister and we are fortunate to have him here
with us today.
Mr. Chairman, we will stand together in this country and
with our allies around the world and all those who consider
themselves civilized, and we will have justice. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Ms. Schakowsky. We have a vote on
the floor. What I would like to do is keep moving ahead with
our opening statements. Those who want to go ahead and vote can
do that and then come back as quickly as possible. I will
remain here in the chair.
Mr. Weldon, I think are you next.
Mr. Weldon. I believe I am.
Mr. Burton. If you want to go ahead, and I know you have
something you want to show the panel as well.
Mr. Weldon. Yes, Mr. Chairman. As we all know,
commandeering a passenger jetliner and converting it into a
weapon of mass destruction by flying it into an office building
filled with civilians is a terrorist act that we all prior to
September 11th would have never imagined. Nonetheless, today it
is the new modus operandi of a network of radical Islamic
fundamentalists who have for years been able to make the United
States their home.
Elements of this terrorist network, what I would call the
evil empire of the 21st century, has been operating in the
United States for years. I would like to use the balance of my
time to just show some clips from a video called Jihad in
America, and I am going to be showing or sending a copy of this
video to all the Members of the House and the Senate for them
to see. I don't know if the staff are able to do this, but I
would like to go ahead and show some of the clips from this
video.
Mr. Burton. I hope everybody will pay particular attention
to this video. I think it is very important.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Weldon. Mr. Chairman, I will just yield back. I am
delivering this to every Member. I just want to underscore one
important point of the enemies of these people are not only
Israel and United States but moderate Muslims who oppose their
agenda. I would encourage every Member and their staff to view
this video in its entirety.
This video is about 5 years old. But I spoke to the
producer of this video yesterday. He told me they just had
another meeting in July. One of the key radicals just came into
the country in July. INS was trying to keep him out, State
Department said go ahead and let him in. They are using our
freedoms to put forward their agenda, which includes a desire
to take away the freedom of speech, freedom of religion.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dave Weldon follows:]
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Mr. Burton. I will be glad to assist you in any way to make
sure every Member gets a copy of that tape so they can look at
it.
Mr. Kanjorski.
Mr. Kanjorski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. After seeing that
tape I would caution Americans everywhere that this is not a
war against Islam. The religion of Islam is very peaceful.
There are, however, fanatics in every religion of the world. To
excite the American people to react against the Islamic
religion is a certainty for defeat for this country.
I would like to raise some important issues with the
committee. This weekend we had several meetings on the
Democratic side to analyze the effects of the attack on the
American people from the standpoint of security. We also
discussed the possible negative effects the attack may have on
the economy by exacerbating the slowing of economic growth that
existed even before the attack. I urge that this committee
exercise its jurisdiction in every way to not only facilitate
the needs of the executive branch to provide for the security
requirements on the airlines, the transportation field, and
other vital industries but also to anticipate those needs. As a
Nation, we will indeed mobilize but in a different way. It will
not be simply calling up troops. Rather, it will include
getting the best people to reactivate themselves and the
various Federal services to provide the manpower necessary for
the security and protection of the American people.
The second area to facilitate mobilization within the
jurisdiction of this committee is the granting of permission to
allow retired marshals, FBI agents and other law enforcement
officials to be reactivated without going through a long
process that would delay their reactivation.
Mr. Burton. Would the gentleman yield real briefly?
Mr. Kanjorski. Yes.
Mr. Burton. I would be happy to cosponsor any legislation
necessary to do that because a lot of them would also lose
retirement benefits, and so in this time of tragedy we probably
ought to suspend some of those rules. I will be glad to work
with you on that.
Mr. Kanjorski. Very good, Mr. Chairman.
Of utmost importance is the outcome of this battle. America
will win this battle and this war. The economy, however, is
probably the most important element to achieve this goal. As
legislation is being prepared, those of us in Congress must be
overly sensitive to the needs of the airline industry and be
certain that we help. We must also consider helping other major
important segments of the American economy to provide support
so that they will not deteriorate further but instead, that
they will rebound. Matched with the strong security protections
this government can afford to provide to the American people,
we can allow them the opportunity to display their courage and
patriotism through consumer spending as they all indicated a
willingness to do.
I urge this committee to act as quickly as possible and
exercise extraordinary jurisdictions which it has the right to
do in such emergency situations to facilitate the best response
to this attack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. As I said, Mr. Kanjorski, I would be glad to
work with you on any aspect of the issue you just raised. Mrs.
Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this
hearing and for your expressed cooperation. I also want to
thank Mr. Netanyahu for advising us during this time of great
need. As a New Yorker who has been to Ground Zero many times, I
have seen the tremendous need for relief and support because of
this tragedy. And on behalf of many, many New Yorkers I want to
thank my colleagues and the President for responding swiftly
and substantively with the $40 billion relief and support
package and antiterrorist initiatives package. Today we will be
reviewing how prepared or unprepared our government was to
detect and deter this disaster. And more importantly, we will
be reviewing what we need to do in the future to make sure that
it doesn't happen again.
I join my colleagues in calling for better intelligence,
better security in our airports, financial support, the tools
to track the financial movement of money for the terrorist
organizations. In the past we have used a variety of diplomatic
and economic tools to combat terrorism. In this instance it did
not work. We need a broad coalition around the world, and we
especially need the support and participation of peace loving
Muslim countries.
Millions of Muslims in our own country and around the world
are appalled by the evil terrorist act of depraved extremists.
I am especially appreciative to Pakistan, which has come
forward with the world community to combat terrorism. Our
enemies would like us to think that we are at war with Islam.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We are at war against
terrorism, against terrorists, against their organizations and
support systems, and any country or organization that harbors
and supports them.
Believe me, the tragedy may have broken our hearts but our
spirit is strong and unbroken. We are united as a country
behind our President in whatever needs to be done to make sure
this doesn't happen again.
Thank you for calling the hearing.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney.
Mr. Sanders.
Mr. Sanders. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I don't have to
repeat many of the important points made by my colleagues over
the morning and I also on behalf of the people of the State of
Vermont want to express my horror at the terrible deed
perpetrated on September 11th and the terrible loss of life and
offer our condolences to the loved ones of those who were
killed.
As you have heard this morning, Mr. Chairman, clearly I
think we are united in saying that people who commit mass
murder have got to be caught and they have got to be punished
and that we have got to as a Nation working with other nations
around the world do everything that we can to stamp out the
horror of international terrorism. Clearly within our own
country we have got to take a hard look at reevaluating our own
security systems and I think make some very monumental changes
in that.
I think the only point I would like to add--I came a little
bit late but I haven't heard it made earlier--is that while we
wage the struggle against international terrorism, we have got
to be mindful of a fact which is very, very distressing to me
and I think to the people of this country and people all over
the world, and that is that for a variety of reasons which we
must understand, somebody like an Osama bin Laden is apparently
being regarded as a hero in various parts of the world. I was
just reading in the paper today that T-shirts with his picture
on it and his videotapes are selling wildly in some parts of
the world. People see him as somebody who is standing up for
their rights. I think that as a Nation we have got to make it
very clear to the Muslim people throughout the world, to poor
people throughout the developing world, that international
terrorism and gangsters and murderers do not reflect their
interests and should not be supported by them.
On the other hand, as a Nation, as the wealthiest and most
powerful Nation in the world, we have got to be mindful about
the need to address many of those terrible economic problems
that fester in developing countries that give rise to support
for people like bin Laden.
There is discussion about military action in Afghanistan,
and one of the problems is the military doesn't know what to
bomb because this country is so poor, is so desperate that
there is virtually nothing there. One-third of the people,
adults can't read. People are hungry. Girls are not going to
school, etc. So I would suggest that as part of our long-term
strategy in dealing with international terrorism, in
apprehending, capturing the terrorists and doing everything
that we can to prevent other acts of terrorism in this country
or other countries around the world, we have also got to pay
attention to the very difficult and long-term issues of how the
rest of the developing world sees us as their friend, somebody
who is trying to provide decent jobs for their people, health
care, education, housing, all the things that every human being
and every mother and father in this world wants to see for
their children.
We must not allow millions and millions of people to see
this country as their enemy and people like bin Ladin as their
allies and their friends. So it is going to be a long hard
struggle. It is going to have to be fought in many ways. And I
just wanted to mention that I think that is an additional area
that I think we are going to have to look at.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Sanders.
Mr. Otter.
Mr. Otter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate you very much calling this meeting. It is too
bad we had a vote because all my colleagues are going to miss
these great words of wisdom to hear from a freshman. But I do
appreciate you calling this meeting.
There could not be a more important subject facing Congress
in a generation or in fact for years to come. It seems more now
than ever that the weight of what our witnesses have to say
holds a true relationship to the direction that we as a
committee and as a Nation must take to defend our fellow
citizens. For a long time we have been sheltered from terrorism
in the United States, and I want to thank the chairman for
inviting Prime Minister Netanyahu to share with the United
States his experience and knowledge of dealing with terrorists
on a daily basis in Israel. Not long ago, we could only imagine
how the Prime Minister dealt with the terrorists.
Unfortunately, today we know too well and understand this
ongoing struggle.
Without question, many causes led to this tragic event of
September 11th. While we could spend this and many other
hearings assigning blame, this would be wasted time. Instead,
we need to assess past policies and readiness and do what needs
to be done to decisively fight to win this war on terrorism.
I hope that we as a committee will discover and address the
areas of our national security that not have received adequate
funding. Moreover, we must encourage witnesses here today and
in the future to speak freely about their knowledge of any
weakness and provide recommendations on what we as Congress can
do in aiding in combating this new war on America.
We were told many generations ago, Mr. Chairman, that
Americans were warned that each generation would be called upon
to polish, sustain and then improve this great Republic. We
were also told that these occasions would come disguised in
many ways. The events of September 11th have delivered the
occasion to this generation. We now have to begin anew the
establishment of policies and enhanced collaboration between
agencies and States and businesses and, yes, even Members of
Congress of both parties so that together, working closely with
our allies, we will vanquish these terrorists.
I am hopeful through the testimony today and in the future
that we will be able to shed light on the breakdowns learned
from past mistakes and make sure that the appropriate changes
and preparations are instituted into this war.
However, Mr. Chairman, there is equal importance that must
be given to identifying who the terrorists are. We must also
identify who they are not. Terrorists do not share a national,
racial, political nor religious DNA. They don't just look
alike.
They are as correctly defined by the testimony we will hear
today of the author, Netanyahu, in his book Terrorism and How
the West Can Win. In defining terrorism he said, the author,
``Terrorism is rooted in the political ambitions and design of
expansionist states and the groups that serve them.''
Again, on the day of the tragedy, in an interview, Mr.
Netanyahu identified terrorists, said they typically
misunderstand and underappreciate the resolves of free
societies. But amid the smoking ruins of the Twin Towers you
could see the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty holding the
torch of liberty very high and very proud. It is that flame of
liberty that these people want to extinguish.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would say that we Americans
chose neither the time nor the place for these events and these
devastating events of September 11th, but we must convince
those soulless terrorists who have made their choice known by
these acts that they have once again grossly underestimated the
sterling resolve that historically visits this Nation during
our time of need.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you very much, Mr. Otter.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate how quickly you have
called this hearing. All of us are still, I think, trying to
absorb what war by terror means. I am not yet sure what it
means, but I think I know what terror is. It was spelled out
devastatingly for us on September 11th.
I went last night to the Pentagon and asked to go close to
the building. Members of Congress are going out, and they
normally stand some distance away.
I have lost many constituents. Three children were on the
plane that crashed into the Pentagon, the three teachers with
them. These were honor students who had won a prize from the
National Geographic magazine.
When I went out to the schools yesterday, there were two
children whose father cannot bring himself to tell them that
the mother naval officer is dead.
I wanted to see the Pentagon. I wanted to understand what
it means for a plane to plow into a building. We have seen from
afar how the great towers of a great city could be taken down,
and we know that there is no city that is a greater target than
the Nation's Capitol. We feel enormously fortunate that there
was no harm done to this Capitol, to the 2 million people who
work here, to the 600,000 people who live here.
But, Mr. Chairman, there is something of a temporary
victory in the closing of National Airport. The hearing you
have today is very important because the closing of National
Airport tells us we don't even know how to keep the airport of
the Nation's Capitol open. When you close the airport, you come
pretty close to closing the Nation's Capitol itself.
We have lots to learn from Israel and other countries. Mr.
Netanyahu you have had the wisdom to invite, and others.
Because the attack of September 11th drives home that we are
starting at the basics. We have got to open National Airport
but certainly not recklessly. We don't want to fling it open.
But we have certainly got to open it. We can't let this
monument to the terror of September 11th remain much longer.
So I am hoping that the Congress and the administration
will give greater priority to making National Airport perhaps a
pilot for the rest of the country. Because if we can keep
National Airport, so close to official buildings and monuments
and the Congress and the White House, open, then we can protect
any city in the United States.
I am pleased that the Congress is now moving forthwith.
There was an important aviation hearing. Our airlines must be
saved. No great power can remain a great power if it is left
with one airline or airlines in bankruptcy. I hope that bill
will go to the floor no later than Friday or Monday.
At 2 today I am going to another of my subcommittees to
mark up a bill on domestic preparedness. Fortunately, the
Transportation Committee was working on this bill. Our
Subcommittee of Economic Development and Public Buildings was
working on this bill.
I have inserted an amendment to put the District of
Columbia at the table of domestic preparedness. Because if
there is an attack on the District of Columbia, the first
responder is the police department of the District of Columbia,
the fire department of the District of Columbia. And yet, they
knew nothing. There was no communication with them when in fact
the attack occurred last Tuesday.
Finally, let me say, Mr. Chairman, that I appreciate what I
believe is going on in the administration. I believe that the
administration understands that some of the talk we are hearing
is not the kind of talk that a great power can respond to.
We have got to be both strong and delicate. If you have any
doubt about that, look at what is happening in Pakistan.
Pakistan wants to do the right thing, and its leaders have had
the guts to stand up and say they want to do the right thing
and to go around the country and try to indicate to their own
people that they want to do the right thing. Yet, at the same
time, there is the same kind of internal politics in Pakistan
that we have here. We saw that when we refused to turn the Shah
over and, as a result, we had hostages taken.
People have got to deal with the domestic politics and with
their external politics. We have got to help them deal with
both. They have internal divisions.
There are, of course, in Pakistan some of the very same
people out of the very same schools that we had in Afghanistan.
So I want to commend the administration for what I believe is a
far more careful way of approaching this than some of the
bombast that I heard sometimes on the House floor last week and
that we are hearing from the American people. I believe that
the President's talk this evening offers an important occasion
to educate us about all of the factors that have to be taken
into account as we do what we have to do, and we know what we
have to do.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Ms. Norton.
Mr. Putnam.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a member of a slightly different generation that has not
been exposed to many of the great wars of the last century, I
attempt to bring a little bit of a different perspective to
this debate; and I approach this debate about war with great
humility and respect, not having been exposed to the horrors of
war that many of those who served in Congress have. Unlike many
of our colleagues, not having been exposed to Pearl Harbor, not
having been a part of that greatest generation, that World War
II generation, not living through the tumult of the United
States during the Vietnam era, there are many in my generation
whose only exposure to the horrors of war was seemingly through
the eyes of CNN in a very brief and fortunately relatively low
casualty war in the Persian Gulf.
As we have debated in the Shays subcommittee over the
course of this year on terrorism, we have delved very deeply
into the causes and the impacts and the consequences and our
ability to be prepared and our ability to respond. And that is
no longer an esoteric discussion buried in the subcommittee. It
is now on the front page and in the front of the minds of all
Americans and the world.
So while it is with great trepidation and humility that we
approach this debate about the war, it is an appropriate debate
to have. Because we are now committed. The Nation is resolved
to respond to this network of terror that is around the world
and in our own country.
As we approach this debate and we have these very important
discussions about the balance of the American way of life, of
the civil liberties, the freedoms that all of us enjoy and to
what extent we are willing to sacrifice some of those for
security, the debate is about our preparedness, the debate is
about the proper use of force, the debate is about unilateral
versus multilateral responses.
We approach those in a very new way. There is no historical
precedent for a war of this magnitude with an enemy that has no
assets and nothing to lose in the traditional sense. We have to
go back to the Indian wars of the American West for a similar
comparison of American troops fighting rock by rock, cave by
cave, canyon by canyon after this type of a network of an
enemy.
I would encourage this committee and this Congress to take
into consideration and not squander the political and the
popular will that is out there for us to make the necessary
sacrifice and make the necessary commitment now and henceforth
to eradicate these networks to the greatest extent possible.
This is not the time to be timid. This is not the time to ask
others permission for us to respond to what was an attack on
American soil to American civilians. It is our mandate to
respond to that attack in the best sense and in the best way
for the United States of America.
I look forward to the debate in this country and in
particular some expertise from our good friend, the former
Prime Minister of Israel.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you calling this hearing.
I particularly appreciate Chairman Shays of the
subcommittee for the work, the groundbreaking work that he has
done in Congress on the terrorist threat.
Mr. Burton. Thank the gentleman.
Mrs. Mink.
Mrs. Mink. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this
hearing and giving us a specific opportunity to sit and weigh
in the very serious consequences with regard to what happened
on September 11th. There is no doubt that we are faced with a
national crisis. There is no doubt that we have to take extreme
actions. But there is also a considerable amount of knowledge
and information that we need to sort out and ferret out and
come to a better understanding of why it was that our
intelligence agencies in this country were not able to learn in
advance these terrible things that happened to us on September
11th.
There is a tremendous amount of confusion and certainly a
tremendous amount of uncertainty in the body politic. Pick up
the morning paper and see that Waikiki Beach has nary a soul
where it would be wall to wall people on any day during any
year of the past decade. Suddenly, people are so overwhelmed by
grief, by a lack of knowledge and information, about how these
things could have occurred to so many thousands of our people;
and I think that the tragedy has overwhelmed a very, very large
percentage of our people.
It is not that we are immobilized. It is not that we are
uncertain about what we ought to do. We know what we have to
do. But the first thing I think that this committee can
elaborate on and help this Nation to come to an understanding
is to engage us in a debate and discussion as to how this
happened, what our intelligence consists of, exactly what these
terrorist units are within this country, where they are
located, who they are led by and also the worldwide network.
My own situation in Hawaii, we lost eight people, some of
whom are still missing and unreported from the World Trade
Center. Others--I actually have no words to express the depth
of my sympathy and condolences to those families because they
were on flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. To know of the
heroism that must have been demonstrated on that aircraft, the
decisions that were made undoubtedly to try to take command of
that airplane which ultimately led to its crash--I am convinced
that airplane was headed to the Washington, DC, area; and our
lives were spared as a consequence of the heroism expressed and
demonstrated by these passengers.
So every time I think of September 11th and I think of the
World Trade Center, I end up focusing on the sacrifice that
these individuals made on flight 93, the end result being that
they lost their lives and others were saved.
And I think in debating what we must do in this kind of
circumstance, we know it must take action, but we always have
to think of the presence of necessary facts. Are we being told
enough? Are we acting based upon the best knowledge that our
government can provide us? And are we making every possible
assurance that the basic liberties of our people are not being
unduly hampered?
All of us have got to endure enormous inconveniences. That
is not what I am talking about. Inconveniences are temporary.
What we have to safeguard are the basic personal liberties that
have been so much a part of our Nation.
So the burdens upon Congress, Mr. Chairman, are enormous.
We have to understand the threat, need to understand what we
must do and in the process save the fabric of our Nation to
make sure that our liberties are preserved.
I thank the chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank the gentlelady.
The vice chairman of the committee, Mr. Barr.
Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Even in times such as these, the silliness of some of the
media is unbelievable--and the silliness of some in academia.
There is an article here dated September 15th by Jessica Stern
that seems to indicate that what happened last week,
particularly if it turns out Osama bin Laden is behind this or
people like him, that somehow it is our fault because we didn't
pay enough attention to the humanitarian and refugee needs in
Afghanistan, that somehow we are responsible for this. And I
suppose, you know, we will always have to put up with silly
notions like that.
Thank goodness here in this committee, Mr. Chairman, we
have your leadership, not people like Ms. Jessica Stern. You
understand the nature of the problem. You understand the
complexities of it. You understand what needs to be done, as
does subcommittee chairman Chris Shays.
As Members of both sides of the aisle today have indicated
and in the past week other Members have indicated, we certainly
understand that there were intelligence failures with which we
must contend with and resolve, but there have been no failures
of leadership in this committee or in Mr. Shays' subcommittee.
You have held a number of hearings focusing on key elements
of the war against terrorism and the terrorist problem out
there. Even though one could say, well, it is better late than
never, certainly it is good that people are starting to focus
on what you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Shays have been telling
Americans and the rest of us in Congress for so many months.
You also understand, Mr. Chairman, the differences between
the conduct of foreign affairs and the conduct of our domestic
affairs and the problems presented to us. The situation
presented to us by the acts of war committed against us last
week present that very clear dichotomy.
As the gentlelady from Hawaii just indicated and others
have also, how we deal with this problem domestically and
internationally is very, very different. Internationally, we
want our President to have maximum flexibility, maximum
authority so that he does not have to worry about reading
Miranda rights, he can read them their last rites. He can take
care of this problem the way it needs to be taken care of
without worrying about all of the panoply of civil liberties
that are very important to us and which necessarily come into
play in determining how we address this problem at home
domestically.
The Attorney General has put forward a number of proposals
that we are starting to digest. There are some concerns. There
are some concerns because we have a very carefully crafted Bill
of Rights that we must contend with here in this country
domestically when we address problems of terrorism or other
heinous crimes. We have statutes and case law that have been
very carefully crafted over 200 years that we cannot, no matter
what foreign crisis we face, throw out the window and treat
cavalierly.
So I and others and I know you, Mr. Chairman, will be
taking a very careful look at these proposals to grant the
Federal Government what necessary powers it might need, what
necessary changes there might need to be to domestic laws, very
narrowly focused, very narrowly crafted and going no further
than our Bill of Rights allows and no further than is
absolutely essential to fill gaps in whatever legal armor there
might be with which we can fight and defend ourselves against
terrorism, but being very mindful of the fact that we do not
want to engage in a wholesale unraveling of the fabric of our
Bill of Rights. That would accomplish in a different way but
the net result would be the same as the goal of the
perpetrators of these terrorist acts against us.
So I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your balanced approach to
this. I appreciate your previous work and the work of Mr. Shays
in focusing attention on this and now moving us to the next
phase. And I would ask unanimous consent to include a more
expansive statement in the record.
Mr. Burton. Thank you very much, Mr. Barr.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Bob Barr follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and I join
with other members of this committee in expressing to you our
appreciation for the fact that you have had the insight to hold
this hearing and to help us try and sift through, look at, and
better understand what led to these terrorist attacks and also
make some assessment and evaluation of where we are today and
where do we go from here as a Nation.
Since the attack, I have held several town hall meetings,
and I have observed very carefully what people were saying. One
of the things that they were saying is that, while we all
express our grief and our anger and our feelings of despair,
one of the things that we have to do is be cognizant of the
fact that what we are looking for is something more than
revenge, that we are not simply seeking to go and find the
culprits, although they must be found and everything in our
power must be done to make sure that we find them and that they
are brought to justice.
But, in addition to that, as we try and figure out how do
we prevent these occurrences from taking place, we need to look
seriously at our Central Intelligence Agency and all of the
intelligence apparatuses that we have and figure if there are
ways to make them more effective than what they currently are.
And I agree with my colleague from Georgia that while we
are doing that we must make sure that we carefully guard the
civil liberties and civil protections that our country has
become famous and known for. That is that each and every person
must be protected in a real kind of way.
I have never thought of myself as being any kind of expert
on security, but it appears to me that if we were able to make
sure in terms of transportation that those who were in control
of vehicles were absolutely safe and could not be approached,
that there were entry-free, entry-proof doors or access to the
cockpits of airplanes or to other vehicles where whoever is in
charge of directing the path could not be molested in any kind
of way--then if we could find detection methodology that would
detect even the ingredients that are used for the formulation
of explosive devices. That is, if we could detect bombmaking
material through the equipment, then we could have a certain
level of assurance that individuals, once they had gained
access to vehicles, were not able to assemble something that
did not exist as they were going up or as they were entering.
More importantly than any of that or just as importantly as
any of that, I think we need to chart a course of diplomacy
that at all times is focused on movement toward peace. And I
think that comes as a result of the way in which we interact
with others, the way in which we interact with ourselves, the
kind of policies and programs that we develop for
implementation.
Whenever I think of peace I am always reminded of something
that John Kennedy was supposed to have said at one time, and
that is that peace is not found in treaties, covenants and
charters but in the hearts of men. And I would imagine that if
he was alive today he would say ``men and women.'' And we have
to, I think, continue to move in that direction.
We have to teach tolerance, we have to teach unity, and we
have to teach equal justice and equal opportunity across the
globe.
So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for the opportunity for
these hearings and trust that we will find, if not solutions,
certainly directions that will make not only America but the
world in which we live a safer place to be. I thank you and
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Burton. Thank the gentleman very much.
We will take a 5-minute break. I would like for everybody
to be back promptly at 1. At that time Mr. Netanyahu will join
us, and we will get started with his part of the hearing.
[Recess.]
Mr. Burton. The committee will reconvene. We have three
statements to conclude the opening statements, and then we'll
go directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
For years we watched the turmoil in Israel from a safe
distance. We watched suicide bombers, snipers and car bombs. We
saw the terror, but we didn't really feel it. It was all
happening on the other side of the world. Even when Americans
were targeted, most of the time it was a long way from home.
Twelve Americans were killed when our Embassies in Africa were
bombed. Seventeen sailors were killed on the USS Cole in Yemen.
And those were terrible losses, but they were far from home.
Now that's over. Today we know that no place is safe.
Terrorists can reach us anyplace. We're now faced with the
greatest challenge to our safety and security since the end of
the cold war. If we're going to be successful, it's going to
take the same kind of commitment we had then. At least during
the cold war we knew exactly who the enemy was and where to
find them. Our enemies today are almost invisible. They could
be walking among us at any time. In many ways the fight against
terrorism will be much more difficult than the fight against
communism.
When Ronald Reagan stood in West Berlin and said, ``Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'' we were on the verge of
winning the cold war, but it didn't happen overnight. It was
the culmination of a fight that lasted for decades. We invested
hundreds of billions of dollars in a strong deterrent. We lost
many lives, but we prevailed. If we're going to defeat
terrorists like Osama bin Laden, it's going to take the same
kind of commitment.
One of the things that concerns me is this, and that's why
I asked the Prime Minister to be with us today. I'm afraid the
American people don't realize how long it might take. They
might be thinking about a quick fix. I think people are hoping
that we can fire a bunch of missiles into Afghanistan, kill
Osama bin Laden, and it will be over with. We tried that
before, and it didn't work. After our Embassies were bombed in
1998, we fired dozens of cruise missiles into Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden is still there hiding in the mountains.
Terrorists are not easy targets. They strike, and then they
disappear into the woodwork. And even if we can get to bin
Laden, that's not going to be the end of it. The State
Department lists 28 major foreign terrorist organizations
around the world. If we're going to defeat the terrorist
threat, it's going to take years. We need to have the political
will to strike hard even when it's not popular. We may not be
able to do it from a distance with missiles. We have to cutoff
their financial support. We have to punish countries that give
them safe haven. We have to have much better intelligence than
we've had in the past. Our intelligence agencies and law
enforcement agencies must do a better job working together.
Most of all, we cannot become complacent. The terrorists won't,
and they haven't, and we can't either.
This is going to be a fight that's not going to take
months. It's probably going to take years. The price of freedom
is still eternal vigilance. That's more than ever true today.
We're relative newcomers to this fight. We have a lot to
learn about how to fight modern terrorists. While other
countries have lived with terrorists and terrible tragedy, we
watch from a distance.
No other country has been confronted by the evils of
terrorism like the State of Israel. Today we're very fortunate
to have with us someone who has been leading the fight against
terrorism most of his life. Former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was elected Israel's ninth Prime Minister in 1996.
Earlier in his career, he served in the Knesset. He was Deputy
Foreign Minister, and he was Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. He
served his country as an officer in the elite antiterror unit
in the Israeli Defense Forces, and his brother was tragically
killed during the raid on Entebbe.
Mr. Netanyahu is a world-renowned expert on terrorism. He's
written several books on the subject, and we're very happy, Mr.
Netanyahu, to have you here with us today.
We're also going to have a distinguished panel of experts
assembled on our second panel, General Anthony Zinni, retired
from the U.S. Marine Corps last fall after 39 years of service.
His last assignment was as Commander in Chief of the U.S.
Central Command. His command included 25 countries making up
the Middle East and north Africa, including Afghanistan and
Pakistan. Until his retirement, General Zinni was the
Pentagon's top authority in that region.
Jessica Stern is a professor of public policy at Harvard
University. She worked on the National Security Council in the
White House. She's the author of a book entitled, The Ultimate
Terrorist.
Christopher Harmon is a professor of international
relations at the Marine Corps University. His most recent book
is entitled, Terrorism Today.
And finally, Dr. Bruce Hoffman is the vice president at the
Rand Corp. He studied terrorism around the world for many
years, and his latest book is entitled, Inside Terrorism. I
want to thank them all for being here today.
We're going to have many, many questions. We don't have
many answers. I hope that during the course of our hearing
today we can air some of these issues, and these are things
that I think are extremely important to be answered. Mr.
Netanyahu can help us with this.
Are there more terrorists among us waiting to strike again?
How do we dismantle the infrastructure of the terrorist
organization? Do terrorist organizations have access to
chemical and biological weapons? And do they have access to
small nuclear devices, like those which have been missing from
some of the arsenals in other parts of the world?
Before I finish, I want to make one final comment, and that
is I want to thank Mr. Shays for the hard work he's been doing
on this issue. Many of us are focusing seriously on this issue
for the first time. Mr. Shays has been laboring in the trenches
in his subcommittee for years. He's held, I think, at least,
what, 17 hearings on terrorism, Chris? Seventeen hearings on
terrorism and counterterrorism strategy, domestic preparedness
and medical stockpiles, all of the critical issues that we
face. Hopefully this hearing will build on that record that
he's established, and I look forward to working with Mr. Shays
on this issue in the future.
And with that, that concludes my statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Waxman, do you want to make yours?
Mr. Waxman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you on your statement, and
thank you for holding this hearing. When any of us think about
the horror, the tragedy of last week, no words can adequately
express how sickened we all are.
Congress is trying to do what we can to respond. We've
appropriated $40 billion in emergency relief, and we have given
the President authority to find and punish those who are
responsible for this atrocity, and the President will be
addressing a joint session of the Congress of the United States
tonight, and I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say
and to working with him to address the threat from terrorism.
Terrorism is an incredibly difficult issue to confront.
It's multifaceted. The perpetrators are often anonymous. Their
victims are defenseless men, women and children in an open
society like ours. There are a seemingly endless number of
targets and types of threats, and fighting terrorism is nothing
like fighting a conventional war.
No country knows about fighting terrorism as well as
Israel. In the last 5 years alone, Israel has faced over 100
terrorist attacks that resulted in fatalities, and for this
reason, I'm very pleased that you've invited former Prime
Minister Netanyahu to testify today, and I'm very pleased that
he has agreed to be here.
I've known Prime Minister Netanyahu for a number of years.
I have a very high regard for him. He is a genuine expert on
confronting terrorism. I'm looking forward to what he has to
say. He can tell us what he has dealt with on a practical basis
as the Prime Minister of a country which is every day faced
with terrorist threats, but he also has written a number of
books on the subject of terrorism. He has spoken out about a
network of terror that includes not just Osama bin Laden, but
it also involves Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, as the
chairman pointed out, maybe 28 other groups in this network,
and they're sponsored by countries such as Iraq and Iran and
Afghanistan and other Middle East regimes. They operate
worldwide, and a lot of their funding comes from within--the
U.S. operations.
I'm also looking forward to hearing from the experts on our
second panel. In assembling the hearing today, the chairman has
chosen people who have expertise in some of these areas, and,
after consulting with us, invited them to come and make their
presentations to us. All of these witnesses ought to be given
respect, even if a Member might disagree with a part of what
they have to say or all of what they have to say. No witness
ought to be attacked before the witness even has a chance to
make a presentation by any Member of Congress. I think that is
completely out of line.
We're going to look at how our intelligence agencies handle
issues of terrorism in this hearing today. Many experts think
there is insufficient oversight of these agencies. Some are
recommending that we appoint a terrorism czar to oversee all of
the decisions across agency lines. Other experts are critical
of our lack of a national strategy for addressing terrorism.
The U.S. Commission on National Security, which is a bipartisan
group headed by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart,
earlier this year reached the conclusion, ``Most critically, no
overarching strategic framework guides U.S. national security
policymaking or resource allocation.''
Experts sponsored by RAND and headed by Governor James
Gilmore reached a similar finding last December, stating, ``The
United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for
combating terrorism.'' Other experts were absolutely appalled
that our intelligence agencies last week seemed not to have any
warning of the attacks that we suffered. Senator Richard
Shelby, who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, for
example, said that we experienced a, ``massive intelligence
failure.''
Well, now is not the time just to bemoan the past. It's
also time to look forward to the future. In a time of crisis,
Congress has learned from our experiences and moved forward,
but we're also going to be asked to deal quickly with many
issues, and we need to respond to these issues, but we also
need to make sure that we are not stampeded in decisions
without careful, thoughtful analysis. And this role of giving
an opportunity for airing issues and different points of view
is an area where our committee can play a unique role as the
main oversight committee in the Congress.
For example, Congress is considering providing immediate
relief to the airline industry. I'm sympathetic to the
airlines' plight, and I'm prepared to support providing
assistance to this important part of our economy, but we should
be sure that what we're doing is appropriate and effective.
News accounts say that the airline industry may be facing
losses of up to $7 billion this year, $2 billion of which
occurred before last week's attack. But last Friday on the
floor of the House, a relief package of $15 billion, far above
the amount of the reported losses, was presented.
As the committee with primary jurisdiction over the GAO, we
should ask the Comptroller General of the United States, David
Walker, to analyze the airline industry and provide us with
independent advice about what is the appropriate Federal
response. We can also make an important contribution if we
carefully evaluate the merits of other proposals, such as those
to stimulate our economy. Some are suggesting doing it by tax
cuts. Some are suggesting other means.
I'm pleased that Chairman Greenspan has urged that we go
slow in this effort. I think we need sometimes to go slow,
sometimes to move quickly, but at all times to do whatever
we're going to do with the most careful and thoughtful
analysis. Now is the time for considered bipartisan
decisionmaking and national unity. We need to come together on
a bipartisan basis to confront the new challenges and the
world--the new world we now face at home and abroad.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Waxman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]
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Mr. Burton. And finally, Mr. Shays, once again, thanks for
all the hard work you've put forth on this issue. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to first thank Adam Putnam, the vice
chairman of our subcommittee, and Mr. Kucinich, the ranking
member, and the members on our subcommittee, and then in
particular to thank you for your extraordinary support to our
committee, and to your vice chairman, Mr. Barr, and to Mr.
Waxman for his support as well.
The cold war is over, and the world is a more dangerous
place. On September 11th, we were forced to view the
unimaginable, to ponder the unthinkable and to face what some
among us deem the inevitable, a mass casualty terrorist attack
on American soil. This episodic, seemingly far-off threat of
international terrorism shattered monuments to our economic and
military strength, taking thousands of precious lives and
burying forever any illusion that barbaric scourge could not
strike here.
The nature and scope of the terrorist threat have changed.
In the post-cold war world, the rise of radical nationalists,
apocalyptic sects and religious extremists merged with the
increasing availability of the technologies of terror: toxic
chemicals, biological agents, nuclear material and computer
viruses. Loosely organized but firmly guided by fanatic
ideology, terrorism today eschews predictable political goals
in favor of random, increasingly deadly acts of violence
against vulnerable civilians.
In this new war, our first task is to define the enemy, to
pierce the distortions and shadowy obscurity that camouflage
terrorism. As the President has indicated, our foe is not just
Osama bin Laden or any terrorist organization, but includes the
states that sponsor terrorists and tolerate the inhumane
ideology that animates them.
We can no longer indulge the tidy, familiar mechanics of
solving the crime and punishing individuals when the crime
offends humanity and the individuals are actually eager to be
martyred. That approach has been compared to battling malaria
by swatting at mosquitoes. To stop the disease of modern
terrorism, the swamp of explicit and tacit state sponsorship
must be drained and disinfected. The threat must be confronted
with the same focus, intensity and vigilance with which the
terrorists pursue their malignant cause.
In the course of our subcommittee hearings on terrorism and
domestic preparedness issues, we heard the General Accounting
Office and other experts call for more frequent, more dynamic
and more broadly based national threat and risk assessments
upon which to base counterterrorism policy. A naive or blurred
perception of the threat fragments our defenses and leaves us
vulnerable to the deadly plans we must now assume are being
implemented as we speak. Our national security demands a clear-
eyed view of the threat, a strategic vision to address the
threat and a restructured, reformed Federal Government effort
to combat terrorism in all forms.
Our witnesses this afternoon understand the motives and
dimensions of the terrorist threat that plagues the world and
changed our Nation that Tuesday morning in September. So we
join with the President in forging an effective Federal effort
to combat terrorism and be prepared to respond to terrorist
acts.
All those testifying today bring impressive experience and
credentials to our discussion, but none more than former
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We are grateful for
his time and patience, and we value his unique perspective. And
we thank all our witnesses for their participation as well.
Mr. Burton. Thank you again, Chris, for all the work you've
done on this.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Netanyahu, first of all, I want to publicly
apologize for calling you in the middle of the night and waking
you up when you were asleep and asking you to come over here. I
forgot about the time difference, and I think I woke him up at
3 a.m., but he was very kind, and he realized the gravity of
the situation, and he consented to come over. And I also want
to apologize for the mix-up at the airport today, but thank
goodness you're here, and we're all very anxious to hear your
testimony. So, Mr. Netanyahu, proceed.
STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF
ISRAEL
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, thank you.
Chairman Burton, distinguished Representatives, I want to
thank you for inviting me to appear here today. I feel a
profound responsibility addressing you in this hour of peril in
the capital of liberty. What is at stake today is nothing less
than the survival of our civilization. Now, it might have been
some who would have thought a week ago that to talk in these
apocalyptic terms about the battle against international
terrorism was to engage in reckless exaggeration or wild
hyperbole. That is no longer the case. I think each one of us
today understands that we are all targets, that our cities are
vulnerable and that our values are hated with an unmatched
fanaticism that seeks to destroy our societies and our way of
life.
I am certain that I speak today on behalf of my entire
nation when I say, today we are all Americans, in grief and in
defiance. In grief, because my people have faced the agonizing
horrors of terror for many decades, and we feel an instant
kinship, an instant sympathy with both the victims of this
tragedy and the great Nation that mourns its fallen brothers
and sisters. In defiance, because just as my country continues
to fight terrorism in our battle for survival, I know that
America will not cower before this challenge.
I have absolute confidence that if we, the citizens of the
free world, led by President Bush, marshal the enormous
reserves of power at our disposal, if we harness the steely
resolve of free peoples, and if we mobilize our collective
will, we'll succeed at eradicating this evil from the face of
the Earth.
But to achieve this goal, we must first answer several
questions. First, who is responsible for this terrorist
onslaught? Second, why? What is the motivation behind these
attacks? And, third and most importantly, what must be done to
defeat these evil forces?
The first and most crucial thing to understand is this:
There is no international terrorism without the support of
sovereign states. International terrorism simply cannot be
sustained for any length of time without the regimes that aid
and abet it, because, as you well know, terrorists are not
suspended in midair. They train, arm, indoctrinate their
killers from within safe havens in the territory or territories
provided by terrorist states. Often these regimes provide the
terrorists with money, with operational assistance, with
intelligence, dispatching them to serve as deadly proxies to
wage a hidden war against more powerful enemies, which are very
often, by the way, democracies, and these regimes mount a
worldwide propaganda campaign to legitimize terror, besmirching
its victims, exculpating its practitioners, as we witnessed in
this farcical spectacle in Durban the other week.
I think that to see Iran, Libya and Syria call the United
States and Israel racist countries that abuse human rights, I
think even Orwell could not have imagined such a grotesque
world.
Take away all the state support, and the entire scaffolding
of international terrorism will collapse into the dust. The
international terrorist network is thus based on regimes, in
Iraq, in Iran, in Syria, in Taliban Afghanistan, Yasser
Arafat's Palestinian Authority, and several other Arab regimes
such as the Sudan. These regimes are the ones that harbor the
terrorist groups; Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Hezbollah and
others in Syria-controlled Lebanon, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and
the recently mobilized Fatah and Tanzim factions in the
Palestinian territories, and sundry other terror organizations
based in such capitals as Damascus, Baghdad and Khartoum.
These terrorist states and terror organizations together
constitute a terror network whose constituent parts support
each other operationally as well as politically. For example,
the Palestinian groups cooperate closely with Hezbollah, which
in turn links them to Iran and Syria, and to bin Laden. These
offshoots of terror also have affiliates in other sates that
have not yet uprooted their presence, such as Egypt, Yemen,
Saudi Arabia.
Now, the question is, how did this come about? How did this
terror network come into being? The growth of this terror
network is the result of several crucial developments in the
last two decades. Chief among them is the Khomeini revolution,
which established a clerical Islamic state in Iran. This
created a sovereign spiritual base for fomenting a strident
Islamic militancy, a militancy that was often backed by terror.
Equally important was the victory in the Afghan war of the
international mujaheedin brotherhood. I suppose that the only
way I can compare it is to say that the international
mujaheedin is to Islam what the International Brigade was for
international communism in the Spanish Civil War. It created an
international band of zealots. In this case, the ranks include
Osama bin Laden, who saw their victory over the Soviet Union as
providential proof of the innate superiority of faithful
Muslims over the weak infidel powers. They believed that even
the superior weapons of a superpower could not withstand their
superior will.
To this should be added Saddam Hussein's escape from
destruction at the end of the Gulf war, his dismissal of U.N.
monitors, and his growing confidence that he can soon develop
unconventional weapons to match those of the West.
And finally, the creation of Yasser Arafat's terror enclave
centered in Gaza gave a safe haven to militant Islamic
terrorist groups, such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Like their
mujaheedin cousins, they and their colleagues drew inspiration
from Israel's hasty withdrawal from Lebanon, glorified as a
great Moslem victory by the Syrian-backed Hezbollah.
Now, under Arafat's rule, the Palestinian Islamic terrorist
groups made repeated use of the technique of suicide bombing,
going so far, by the way, as to organize summer camps, for
Palestinian children, beginning in kindergarten, to teach them
how to become suicide martyrs.
Here is what Arafat's government-controlled newspaper--he
controls every word that appears there. Here is what his
newspaper, his mouthpiece, Al Hayat Al Jadida, said on
September 11th, the very day of the suicide bombing in the Twin
Towers and the Pentagon, ``The suicide bombers of today are the
noble successors of the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught
the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in Lebanon. These suicide
bombers are the salt of the Earth, the engines of history. They
are the most honorable people among us.''
Suicide bombers, so says Arafat's mouthpiece, are the salt
of the Earth, the engines of history, the most honorable people
among us.
Distinguished Representatives, a simple rule prevails here.
The success of terrorists in one part of the terror network
emboldens terrorists throughout the network.
This, then, is the who. Now, then, for the why. Though its
separate constituent parts may have local objectives and take
part in local conflicts, the main motivation driving the terror
network is an anti-Western militancy that seeks to achieve
nothing less than the reversal of history. It seeks to roll
back the West and install an extreme form of Islam as the
dominant power in the world, and it seeks to do this not by
means of its own advancement and progress, but by destroying
the enemy. This hatred is the product of a seething resentment
that has simmered for centuries in a certain part of the Arab
and Islamic world.
Now, mind you, most Moslems in the world, including the
vast majority of Moslems in the growing Moslem communities in
the West, are not guided by this interpretation of history, nor
are they moved by its call for a holy war against the West. But
some are, and though their numbers are small compared to the
peaceable majority, they nonetheless constitute a growing
hinterland for this militancy.
Militant Islamists resented the West for pushing back the
triumphant march of Islam into the heart of Europe many
centuries ago. Its adherents, believing in the innate
superiority of Islam, then suffered a series of shocks when in
the last two centuries, beginning with Napoleon's invasion in
Egypt, by the way, that same hated, supposedly inferior West
came back and penetrated Islamic realms in north Africa, the
Middle East and the Persian Gulf. For them, the mission was
clear and defined. The West had to be first pushed out of these
areas. So pro-Western Middle Eastern regimes in Egypt and Iraq,
these monarchies in Libya, were toppled in rapid succession,
including in Iran. And indeed Israel, the Middle East's only
democracy and its purest manifestation of Western progress and
freedom, must be wiped off the face of the Earth.
Thus, the soldiers of militant Islam do not hate the West
because of Israel. They hate Israel because of the West,
because they see it as an island, an alien island of Western
democratic values in a Moslem-Arab sea; a sea of despotism, of
course. That is why they call Israel the Little Satan, to
distinguish it clearly from the country that has always been
and will always be the Great Satan, the United States of
America.
I know that this is not part of normal discourse on TV,
where people think that Israel is guiding Osama bin Laden.
Well, nothing better illustrates the true order of priorities
of the militant Islamic terror than Osama bin Laden's call for
Jihad against the United States in 1998. He gave as his primary
reason for this Jihad not Israel, not the Palestinians, not the
peace process, but, rather, the very presence of the United
States, ``occupying the land of Islam in the holiest of
places.'' What do you think that is? Jerusalem? Temple Mount?
No. ``The Arabian Peninsula,'' says bin Laden, where America
is, ``plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers and
humiliating its people.'' Israel, by the way, comes a distant
third, after the, ``continuing aggression against the Iraqi
people.''
So for the bin Ladens of the world, Israel is merely a
sideshow. America is the target. But reestablishing a resurgent
Islam requires not just rolling back the West, it requires
destroying its main engine, the United States. And if the
United States cannot be destroyed just now, it can be first
humiliated, as in the Tehran hostage crisis 20 years ago, and
then ferociously attacked again and again until it is brought
to its knees. But the ultimate goal remains the same: Destroy
America, win eternity.
Now, some of you may find it hard to believe that Islamic
militants truly cling to this mad fantasy of destroying
America. Make no mistake about it. They do. And unless they are
stopped now, their attacks will continue and become even more
lethal in the future.
The only way I can explain the true dangers of Islamic
militancy is to compare it to another ideology bent on world
domination: communism. Both movements pursued irrational goals,
but the Communists at least pursued theirs in a rational way.
Any time they had to choose between ideology and their own
survival, as in Cuba or in Berlin, they always backed off and
chose survival.
Not so for the Islamic militants. They pursue an irrational
ideology irrationally with no apparent regard for human life,
neither their own lives nor the lives of their enemies. The
Communists seldom, if ever, produced suicide bombers, while
Islamic militancy produces hordes of them, glorifying them,
promising them for their dastardly deeds a reward in a glorious
afterlife.
This highly pathological aspect--I can use no other words--
this highly pathological aspect of Islamic militancy is what
makes it so deadly for mankind. But in 1996, I wrote in my book
about fighting terrorism, I warned about the militant Islamic
groups operating in the West with the support of foreign
powers, serving as a new breed of what I called domestic
international terrorists; that is, basing themselves in America
to wage Jihad against America. Such groups, I wrote then,
nullify in large measure the need to have air power or
intercontinental missiles as delivery systems for an Islamic
nuclear payload. They, the terrorists, will be the delivery
system. In the worst of such scenarios, I wrote, the
consequences could be not a car bomb, but a nuclear bomb in the
basement of the World Trade Center.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, they didn't use a nuclear bomb.
They used two 150-ton, fully loaded jetliners to wipe out the
Twin Towers. But does anyone doubt that given the chance, they
will throw atom bombs at America and its allies; and perhaps
long before that, they'd employ chemical and biological
weapons?
This is the greatest danger facing our common future. Some
states of the terror network already possess chemical and
biological capabilities, and some are feverishly developing
nuclear weapons. Can one rule out the possibility that they
will be tempted to use such weapons openly or secretly through
their terror proxies, seemingly with impunity, or that their
weapons might fall into the hands of the terrorist groups they
harbor?
We have received a wake-up call from hell. Now the question
is simple: Do we rally to defeat this evil while there is still
time, or do we press a collective snooze button and go back to
business as usual? The time for action is now. Today the
terrorists have the will to destroy us, but they do not have
the power. There is no doubt that we have the power to crush
them. Now we must also show that we have the will to do so,
because once any part of the terror network acquires nuclear
weapons, this equation will fundamentally and irrevocably
change, and with it the course of human affairs. This is the
historical imperative that now confronts us all.
And now to my third point. What do we do about it? First,
as President Bush said, we must make no distinction between the
terrorists and the states that support them. It is not enough
to root out the terrorists who committed this horrific act of
war. We must dismantle the entire terrorist network. If any
part of it remains intact, it will rebuild itself, and the
specter of terrorism will reemerge and strike again. Bin Laden,
for example, has shuttled over the last decades from Saudi
Arabia to Afghanistan to the Sudan and back again. So we cannot
leave any base of this terror network intact.
To achieve this goal we must first have moral clarity. We
must fight terror wherever and whenever it appears. We must
make all states play by the same rules. We must declare
terrorism a crime against humanity, and we must consider the
terrorists enemies of mankind, to be given no quarter and no
consideration for their purported grievances. If we begin to
distinguish between acts of terror, justifying some and
repudiating others based on sympathy with this or that cause,
we will lose the world clarity that is so essential for
victory. This clarity is what enabled America and Britain to
wipe out piracy in the 19th century. This is how the allies
rooted out Nazis in the 20th century. They didn't look for the
root cause of piracy, nor for the root cause of nazism, because
they knew that some acts are evil in and of themselves and do
not deserve any consideration or any, ``understanding.'' They
didn't ask if Hitler was right about the alleged wrong done to
Germany at Versailles. They left that to the historians. The
leaders of the Western Alliance said something entirely
different. They said, nothing justifies nazism, nothing.
Well, we must be equally clear-cut today. Nothing justifies
terrorism, nothing. Terrorism is defined not by the identity of
its perpetrators nor by the cause they espouse. Rather, it is
defined by the nature of the act. Terrorism is the deliberate
attack on innocent civilians. In this it must be distinguished
from legitimate acts of war that target combatants and may
unintentionally harm civilians.
When the British Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo
headquarters in Copenhagen in 1944 and one of their bombs
unintentionally struck a children's hospital nearby, that was a
tragedy, but it was not terrorism. When Israel a few weeks ago
fired a missile that killed two Hamas archterrorists, and two
Palestinian children who were playing nearby were tragically
struck down, that is not terrorism, because terrorists do not
unintentionally harm civilians. They deliberately murder, maim
and menace civilians, as many as possible.
No cause, no grievance, no apology can ever justify
terrorism. Terrorism against Americans, against Israelis,
against Spaniards, against Britons, against Russians or anyone
else is all part of the same evil and must be treated as such.
It is time to establish a fixed principle for the international
community. Any cause that uses terrorism to advance its aims
will not be rewarded. On the contrary, it will be punished,
severely punished, and placed beyond the pale.
Ladies and gentlemen, armed with this moral clarity in
defining terrorism, we must possess an equal clarity in
fighting it. If we include Iran, Syria and the Palestinian
Authority in the coalition to fight terror, even though they
currently harbor, sponsor and dispatch terrorism--as we speak,
terrorists struck innocent people, murdered a woman this
morning, from Yasser Arafat's domain against Israel. If we
include these terrorist regimes in the coalition, then the
alliance against terror will be defeated from within. We might,
perhaps, achieve a short-term objective of destroying one
terrorist fiefdom, but it will preclude the possibility of
overall victory. Such a coalition will necessarily melt down
because of its own internal contradictions. We might win a
battle, but we will certainly lose the war.
These regimes, like all terrorist states, must be given a
forthright demand: Stop terrorism, not temporarily for tactical
gains, stop terrorism permanently, or you will face the wrath
of the free world through harsh and sustained political,
economic and military sanctions.
Now, obviously, some of these regimes today will scramble
in fear and issue platitudes about their opposition to terror,
just as Arafat, Iran and Syria did, while they keep their
terror apparatus intact. Well, we shouldn't be fooled. These
regimes are already on the U.S. list of states supporting
terrorism; and if they're not, they should be.
The price of admission for any state into the coalition
against terror must be first to completely dismantle the
terrorist infrastructures within their realm. Iran will have to
dismantle the worldwide network of terrorism and incitement
based in Tehran. Syria will have to shut down Hezbollah and a
dozen other terrorist organizations that operate freely in
Damascus and in Lebanon. Arafat will have to crush Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, close down their suicide factories and training
grounds, rein in his own Fatah and Tanzim terrorists and cease
the endless incitement of violence.
To win this war, we have to fight on many fronts. Well, the
most obvious one is direct military action against the
terrorists themselves. Israel's policy of preemptively striking
at those who seek to murder its people is, I believe, better
understood today and requires no further elaboration.
But there's no substitute for the key action that we must
take: imposing the most punishing diplomatic, economic and
military sanctions on all terrorist states. To this must be
added these measures: Freeze financial assets in the West of
terrorist regimes and organizations. Revise legislation,
subject to periodic renewal, to enable better surveillance
against organizations inciting violence. Keep convicted
terrorists behind bars. Do not negotiate with terrorists. And
train special forces to fight terror. And, not least important,
impose sanctions, heavy sanctions, on suppliers of nuclear
technology to terrorist states.
Distinguished Representatives, I've had some experience in
pursuing all of these courses of action in Israel's battle
against terrorism, and I'll be glad to elaborate on any of them
if you wish, including the sensitive questions surrounding
intelligence. But I have to be clear: Victory over terrorism is
not at its most fundamental level a matter either of law
enforcement or intelligence. However important these functions
are, they could only reduce the dangers, not eliminate them.
The immediate objective is to end all state support for and
complicity with terror.
If vigorously and continuously challenged, most of these
regimes can be deterred from sponsoring terrorism, but there is
a possibility that some will not be deterred, and those may be
the ones that possess weapons of mass destruction. Again, we
cannot dismiss the possibility that a militant terrorist state
will use its proxies to threaten or launch a nuclear attack
with a hope of apparent immunity and impunity. Nor can we
completely dismiss the possibility that a militant regime, like
its terrorist proxies, will commit collective suicide for the
sake of its fanatical ideology. In this case, we might face not
thousands of dead, but hundreds of thousands and possibly
millions.
This is why the United States must do everything in its
power to prevent regimes like Iran and Iraq from developing
nuclear weapons and to disarm them of their weapons of mass
destruction. This is the great mission that now stands before
the free world. That mission must not be watered down to allow
certain states to participate in the coalition that is now
being organized. Rather, the coalition must be built around
this mission.
It may be that some will shy away from adopting such an
uncompromising stance against terrorism. If some free states
choose to remain on the sidelines, America must be prepared to
march forward without them, for there is no substitute for
moral and strategic clarity. I believe that if the United
States stands on principle, all democracies will eventually
join the war on terrorism. The easy route may be tempting, but
it will not win the day.
On September 11th, I, like everyone else, was glued to a
television set, watching the savagery that struck America, but
amid the smoking ruins of the Twin Towers, one could make out
the Statue of Liberty holding high the torch of freedom. It is
freedom's flame that the terrorists sought to extinguish, but
it is that same torch so proudly held by the United States that
can lead the free world to crush the forces of terror and to
secure our tomorrow. It is within our power. Let us now make
sure that it is within our will.
[Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Netanyahu follows:]
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Mr. Burton. I have to tell you, Mr. Prime Minister, that in
the 5 years I've been chairman of this committee, it's the
first time I've heard spontaneous applause for a statement by a
person who participated in our hearings.
I think you've covered everything very, very well, but we
do have a few questions, and I hope you wouldn't mind answering
them.
You indicated in your book that there might be the
possibility of a nuclear device put in the basement of the
World Trade Center, and we had some hearings earlier a couple
of years ago about some briefcase-type nuclear devices about
this big that were produced by the Soviet Union when they were
in existence, and by the United States, and we were told that
some of those devices have disappeared, have evaporated. Do you
have any information or indication that those devices may have
found their way into the terrorist enclaves?
Mr. Netanyahu. Not specifically about those devices, but as
far as the general flow of nuclear technology that flows, I
regret, primarily from Russia, there is a steady and continuous
and unchecked flow of nuclear weapons technology from Russia to
Iraq and to Iran, from the Russian, quote, scientific
organizations that work semi-independently, but under the
umbrella of the Russian Government. I have tried many times,
including in conversations with President Clinton, to--and with
some of you, to get a message sent to Russia to clamp down on
this because of the dangers not only to the United States, but
to Russia as well.
There is also ballistic technology that goes--I shouldn't
say technology. Technologists who are onsite in both countries.
It's important to understand that the goals of these countries
is to have--they already have ballistic missiles. Iran is more
ambitious than Iraq in terms of the reach. Iraq wants a
regional--Iraq is--Saddam Hussein is a regional bully with
great danger if he acquires nuclear weapons, obviously,
enormous danger, and that could happen, according to our
defense ministers, within 3 to 5 years.
In the case of Iran, Iran already has missiles that can
reach--overreach Israel, can reach into Europe, but they are
working on a plan, a 10 to 15-year plan, to develop
intercontinental missiles that could reach the eastern seaboard
of the United States. They want to be a global power, and Iran
in many ways is not only the spiritual center of fomenting this
strident militancy, it also sees itself as the physical power
to marshal the forces to get the strategic change in historical
terms.
So I think it's important to understand that the terror
network merely facilitates the ambitions of regimes, but those
ambitions are far flung, and they definitely include, without
any question, the acquisition of nuclear material, nuclear
technology, ballistic technology and possibly the compression
of these weapons into smaller devices. They certainly would be
more able to do so, if you're talking about chemical and
biological weapons, because the physics of it are simpler.
We have had an instance, by the way, in another part of the
world, in Japan, in Tokyo, of sarin gas, which is very deadly
and could kill an untold number. It was apprehended very
quickly in the subways, fortunately apprehended, but you could
have had there a massive catastrophe.
So terrorists have already used chemical weapons. This is
not a projection into the future. We've already been warned. I
said we've been given a wake-up call from hell. It's a
variegated hell, and some of it has already been here and is
here.
Mr. Burton. Regarding the chemical and biological weapons,
do these terrorists states and organizations have these now, or
does the free world have some time to deal with them?
Mr. Netanyahu. At least three regimes in the Middle East
have chemical and biological weapons. None of them, to the best
of my knowledge, have nuclear weapons, but they are working
very hard to get them and very fast.
Mr. Burton. And these chemical and biological weapons,
they're easily transportable?
Mr. Netanyahu. The chemical and biological weapons are a
great deal simpler to manufacture and to transport than nuclear
weapons.
Mr. Burton. In these terrorist training camps, are they
training people how to assemble and make these biological and
chemical weapons? I mean, we think we have terrorists, a large
number of them, possibly, in the United States. Would they be
capable of making those?
Mr. Netanyahu. I cannot tell you in the most recent
intelligence, because I can only talk about things that I was
intimate with 2 years ago when I was Prime Minister, but
there's no question that the terrorist groups around us, bin
Laden and others, are seeking ways to increase, by an order of
magnitude, the destructive power of the weapons--the lethal
power of the weapons that they seek to employ against us, and,
therefore, I think you have to expect that they are perfectly
aware of what happened in Japan. They're perfectly aware of
what their supporting regimes have, and they're also perfectly
aware that it's not that difficult--certain weapons of this
kind are not that difficult to assemble.
So I think we've been warned. We've been fairly warned,
very painfully warned, but if bin Laden conceived of this idea
of taking two airplanes, 150-ton airplanes, loaded with fuel
and launching them into the middle of New York and a third one
here in Washington, then you have to assume that he's aware of
everything that we're talking about and that he's working on
it. I don't have the specifics of it, but would any of you
assume differently?
Mr. Burton. Mr. Waxman.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Netanyahu, I, too, have never seen the kind of response
to your statement that we just witnessed, where Members on both
sides of the aisle and the audience gave you an ovation, which
was well deserved. I thought your statement was an outstanding
one. It clarified, if anyone had any doubt, what we're facing
in the world today. As the President of the United States seeks
to pull together a coalition to fight terrorism, all of our
allies must keep clearly in mind what's really at stake.
The line you gave which left a real impression on me is
that intelligence and law enforcement surely can help reduce
the violence, but they're not an answer unless we stop the
terrorist network from operating and stop those countries that
are supporting it. Israel, however, is way ahead of the United
States in dealing on a tactical basis, on a day-to-day basis,
with terrorism. What do you suggest to us; from your own
experience in Israel. If terrorism is a fact of life, how do we
deal with it on that day-to-day basis? What recommendations
would you make to us?
Mr. Netanyahu. Congressman Waxman, I'd say first that
Israel has been living under bouts of terrorism, but indeed
it's been bouts, because we've had the ability to stop
terrorism from certain corners for specified periods. For
example, we had state-supported terrorism from Nasser's Egypt,
and we took very decisive action against not only merely the
individual terrorist, but against Nasser's regime, and the
punishing power of those military actions stopped terrorism
from Egypt years before we had a peace process or let alone a
peace treaty with Egypt.
The same is true of terrorists that implanted themselves
from Jordan in the 1970's. We struck very, very strongly
against them, and King Hussein, who was also concerned that
they would topple his regime, took action against them, and
that was the end of it. So we had no terrorism from Jordan many
years before we had a peace process with Jordan or a peace
treaty with Jordan.
And during my own tenure, we were able to reduce the
terrorism not only from 100 percent to zero, but practically to
zero. The terror rate dropped very precipitously, because I
made it clear to Arafat that I would take very, very strong
action under the policy of reciprocity against his regime, and
I think he considered that his regime might be in danger of
tottering. So the terror dropped almost to nothing. In fact, we
had a record number of tourists and record number of growth in
the economy and, by the way, record economic prosperity in the
Palestinian areas, because there was no terrorism. We didn't
close our job markets with the Palestinians, so they were
having nightclubs in Ramallah and you name it.
So it is perfectly possible to deter most of these regimes.
It is important--and I add it again parenthetically, because I
think it is not a parenthetical remark--it is not clear that
deterrence alone will work for some of the main players in this
terror network.
Now, the question you asked about Israel's experience, I
think the domestic day-to-day experience, I think the role of
leadership is to educate the public to withstand precisely as
Congressman Burton said, a sustained battle. This is a war. It
is not a single skirmish, and it requires that the citizens of
a free society in a certain sense see themselves as soldiers in
the same war. They have to be prepared to absorb the pain, even
the casualties. They have to have this moral outrage in them
but not to crumble when those attacks take place. They have to
be prepared to muster their will and resolve to see it through
the long haul for victory, nothing short of victory.
I must say that what I see in the United States, what I see
in the city of New York, what I see in the leadership provided
by President Bush and Mayor Giuliani and may I say what I see
in this city from all of you is that kind of resolve. I think
that is what has to be repeated again and again. This has been
Israel's experience. No one in Israel will back off and
surrender to terrorism. No one in America will back off and
surrender to terrorism. I am sure of that.
Mr. Waxman. As the President puts together this
international coalition, we know that some of our European
allies have been cooperative with terrorist regimes because it
was in their economic interest to do so. We know there are
going to be not democracies but some of the so-called modern
Arab countries that are going to say to the United States if
only the United States would put pressure on Israel to
accommodate the Palestinians that would help them be part of
the coalition.
What would you tell the President of the United States when
he hears these kinds of claims from our allies, or when those
who would claim to be our allies put these conditions in their
place?
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, I think this is fundamentally wrong on
every count. Yasser Arafat has been called Israel's Osama bin
Laden. But there is a difference between the two. You see,
Osama bin Laden wants to destroy America. Yasser Arafat is more
modest in his goals: He just wants to destroy Israel. That is
why he founded the PLO in 1964, the Organization for the
Liberation of Palestine. 1964. That is 3 years before the Six
Day War. What was the Palestine that he set out to liberate?
Couldn't have been the West Bank, that was in Arab hands.
Couldn't have been Gaza, that was in Arab hands, too. Couldn't
have been East Jerusalem, that was in Arab hands. The Palestine
that he set out to liberate was in fact Israel; that is, Tel
Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and so on. And that goal has not
changed.
Many hoped, I think out of good will and good intentions,
that he had changed his goals when he entered the Oslo process.
But I think those hopes have been dashed in this city not far
from here in the Camp David conference just a year ago when he
was offered everything he says in the West that he wants;
namely a West Bank state with half of Jerusalem as its capital.
He always says that, he or his spokesmen and spokeswomen. When
they come to the West, they say this is what we want. Of course
when he was offered it, he chucked. He threw it out. He said
that's not what I want. What I want is the ability to flood
Israel with millions of Palestinians, effectively bringing
about the end of Israel.
So it is important to understand that what he says in
Arabic to his people is very different from what he and his
spokesmen say in English to America or to the Western media. He
in Arabic tells them very clearly he is not looking for a state
next to Israel, he is looking for a state instead of Israel. He
is willing to back that with what he calls the armed struggle,
which is another word for terrorism. That is what he does.
In other words, Arafat is not an engine for peace, is not a
partner for peace. He is in fact, I would say, pursuing the
illegitimate goal of policide, the destruction of a state,
using the illegitimate means of terror.
Now in this he is not different from the others except he
has got exceptional PR. Exceptional PR. He has got a lot of
people bamboozled. But all you have to do is read those quotes
just like the one I read from the organs of the press that he
controls, glorifying suicide bombers, hatred against the West,
his own appointed mufti, Palestinian appointed mufti. In
Jerusalem on the Temple he said just a few weeks ago we will
paint the White House black. And you know what he meant by
that, he didn't mean a coat of paint. And so on. This goes on
and on and on.
Now, you may say, well, these are things that are said like
the newspaper quote that I gave you. It is a free press there.
That reminds me of a play of Tom Stoppard I once saw in which
an Idi Amin like dictator struts across the stage and he boasts
we have a relatively free press in my country. And someone asks
him what's that? And he says, it's a press run freely by my
relatives. Well, Arafat has a relatively free press, too. Every
word, every image, every picture that he shows on that
television on the radio he controls.
Now, admittedly he is now scrambling to distance himself
from this bombing. But the joyous celebration that broke out in
Palestine, joyous, couldn't hide it in the beginning, people
were celebrating all over the place, well, then they started
terrorizing the news media, using terror to hide the terror.
I have here an AP cable, APTN. ``APTN regrets that the
clients are unable to use the 35 seconds of the Ramallah march
showing one protester carrying a picture of Osama bin Laden.
This material was shot by a Channel 9 Australian crew who have
now withdrawn their permission for APTN to use it. They say
that their decision has been taken on, quote, safety grounds.
This is 4 days ago.
He is terrorizing people to hide the terror. Then he goes
on to donate blood for America. Did you see that? Donate blood
for America. This is the father of modern terrorism. This is
the man who invented--first, we had the bombing of airplanes.
He did. He bombed American aircraft in the Jordanian desert. He
murdered American diplomats in Khartoum and elsewhere. He
hijacked people, killed people, killed innocent people. Taken
them hostage. Murdering Americans as recently as a week ago, 2
weeks ago in the bombings in Jerusalem, American citizens. He
has shed an awful lot of American blood. And now he is donating
blood to America.
Well, I think in the long history of hypocrisy, and it is a
very long history, this surely has to top the list. So I don't
think anyone should be fooled. We have here a classic component
of the terror network. Now we are waiting for a cease-fire.
Cease-fires are very, very welcome. I hope we have them because
people stop getting killed. But if you asked your research
department, Mr. Chairman, to have a printout of all the cease-
fires that Arafat has violated, it would stretch all of
Pennsylvania Avenue. And the question you really need to see is
not a tactical cessation of terror but a complete dismantling
of the terror infrastructure, and indeed a complete disavowal,
a formal disavowal of all those aspects of the Palestinian
creed that effectively calls for Israel's destruction like the
demand for the so-called right of return, and so on.
I say that because the assumption that some of our European
colleagues have, that if they give Arafat and his terrorist
regime, with the goal of destroying Israel, if they give him
the hills above Tel Aviv, that he will stop is absurd. He not
only will not stop, just as he has used any territory that he
has received to continue to wage the unchanging goal, he will
continue from there as well. What must be done is exactly the
opposite. What must be done is to stand before Arafat and say
enough is enough. Terror is not going to be tolerated anywhere
for real or imaginary purposes or grievances. You are
practicing terror, you will get no support. You will get
sanctions. If Israel has to take action to defend itself, we
will support it. Terror will stop in a very, very short time.
And that is the lesson that has to be taught not only to
Arafat but to everyone. And the battle against terrorism has to
be universal. Terrorism is indivisible in its pernicious
effects, and the war against terrorism has to be indivisible.
It cannot be that the Palestinian terrorists are OK, but the
Basque terrorists are not. It cannot be that the Kurdish
terrorists are bad, but the terrorists that fight for them in
another part of the world are good. Terrorism is always bad
whether it is Palestinian or anyone else's and it must be
treated as such. I think that is the message that the Europeans
have to place before Arafat and the entire world. If they
don't, terror will come back to haunt them as surely as the
light of day.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Prime Minister, when you addressed Congress
it was one of the most refreshing statements before Congress,
and your statement here is extraordinary as well. I would hope
that every Member of Congress will get to read it and everyone
in the administration as well.
Mr. Netanyahu. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. When you were before Mr. Hume in an interview
you said some of what you said today, ``The terrorists today
have the will to destroy us, but they don't have the power. We
have the power to eradicate them but must now show that we have
the will. This is the test of time.''
I want to ask you how will we know when we have destroyed
the terrorist network? I mean, I don't know how you ever know.
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, you know if you monitor what is
happening inside the regimes. You know if the regimes take
action--for example, simple test in Syria: There are a dozen, I
think, maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is 15, but more than a dozen.
I haven't counted them recently. They keep growing. There are
over a dozen offices, formal offices, with addresses of terror
organizations. They operate there.
Mr. Shays. So when they go that is an indication?
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, closing them down is a minimal, it is
not the only indication. But the fact they are there operating
with impunity, with the support of the regime, is one thing
that you can demand to stop. You can also know through other
means whether there is--you know, there is only a cosmetic
action and not a real action. It is possible we know. It is not
that we don't know. Our joint intelligence capabilities know
very well. What we don't do is we don't call the bluff often. I
think it is time that the U.S. Congress places everyone,
including Arafat's terrorist groups that are carrying out
terrorism today, the Tanzine, or the Fatah--I'm sorry--Yasser
Arafat's own group, claimed responsibility for murdering a
mother. Today.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you another question if I could while
I still have time. The Mossad is universally recognized as one
of the best, if not the best intelligence organization. What
could we learn from this intelligence organization? What could
the United States learn? Not the information in it but how they
get their information and so on.
Mr. Netanyahu. Congressman Shays, I am going to be
naturally reticent about this subject, but I want to say that
the nature of terrorism is such that even though you need to
bolster intelligence, even though we need to bolster the
sharing of intelligence between us, we often don't do that
because of the concern of burning out sources. Although I think
that the sharing between some countries, America and Britain,
United States and Israel, and a few others, is exceptional,
there is more certainly that we can do in the realm of
intelligence. But the nature of terrorism is such that it is a
war by proxy, it is a war by stealth that regimes use
primarily.
So you cannot anticipate every single action nor could you
always find it. This is the nature of the beast. What you have
to do is go back to the home base. It is like, you know, trying
to intercept the kamikazi pilot or sinking the aircraft
carrier. You certainly want to intercept the kamikazi pilot but
what you really want to do is get the carriers, sink the
carriers, and you will probably get rid of this problem.
Mr. Shays. One of your strong messages seems to be, and
tell me if I am hearing you right, that if we get the terrorist
states we basically pull apart the terrorist organizations. So
would one of the indications be that we see a major toppling of
some terrorist states?
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, I want to define the problem. I am not
sure that it is appropriate here to define the exact solution.
There is a balance, depending on effectiveness, between
deterrence and other actions that have to be taken in case
deterrence fails. One thing that is absolutely clear because of
the enormous dangers inherent now in this terror network and
its coupling with unconventional weapons, we cannot leave this
network intact. How to make sure that it is neutralized will
be, I would say, apportioned by the nature of the regimes and
their response to the measures, the punishments that are meted
out to them. But I think the important thing is to dismantle
the regime before it dismantles us; that is, dismantle the
network before it dismantles it. Neutralize it or dismantle it.
I cannot tell you right now which is which because there is a
sequence of actions that can be taking place over time. And I
am sure there are very smart people and very concerned people
in this city who are now thinking precisely about those
questions.
What I can tell you is that I would definitely not think
that it is a one shot action. Suppose you get rid of bin Ladin,
which you should--and, by the way, dispense with the legalisms.
I mean dispense with the legalisms. This is an act of war. This
guy just sent almost 2 dozen killers to wipe out thousands of
Americans. This is not a court of law. This is an act of war.
You don't go into the middle of a war and say let me try this--
general, let me have enough proof that this general produced
this particular action against us and only when we have this
judicial proof will we take action against him. Get rid of
these legalisms. We are not talking about American citizens. We
are not talking about action in your own country. We are
talking about something beyond your borders.
We in Israel make that clear distinction. When it comes to
Israeli citizens, all the rules of law subject to our reviews
and our laws apply. But when it comes outside of our borders,
this is what we have governments for. This is what we have a
Prime Minister for. This is what you have a President for, a
Commander in Chief for. And unless you give that power, the
terrorist will always hide behind this so-called lack of
sufficient proof. It is not a court of law. It is a field of
war, and it must be done.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Lantos.
Mr. Lantos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you
for holding this hearing, for inviting our distinguished guest.
I want to commend you for one of the most powerful statements I
have heard as a Member of Congress. This is not an
inappropriate time, Mr. Prime Minister, to pay a moment's
tribute to your brother, who is the symbol of the international
fight against terrorism. On July 4, 1976, he gave his life in
that struggle and he will stand as the singular example of
human sacrifice in defense of freedom and liberty and the need
to fight international terrorism.
I very much hope that the speech writers who are preparing
tonight's address of the President that he will give to a joint
session of Congress have been listening to your comments,
because your comments are now in the public domain, there is no
copyright, and I hope many of these thoughts will find their
way into the President's speech at 9 this evening.
It has been stated many times, Prime Minister, that
September 11 was a wakeup call. Well, I think it was a little
more than a wakeup call. It probably provided us, all of us,
with a moment that we can describe as a hinge of history,
because the dialog, the focus, the attention is so different
today than it was just 2 short weeks ago. This is as true of
the Congress as it is of the country, as it is of many of our
allies.
It was also a wakeup call for our own Department of State.
Earlier I mentioned, Mr. Prime Minister, that some months ago I
introduced a piece of legislation calling for the Government of
Lebanon to secure its entire border with Israel, not allowing
Hezbollah to engage in cross border terrorist raids. The
Department of State saw fit just a few months ago to send two
letters to all of my colleagues urging them to oppose my
amendment and not to vote for it. It passed by the narrowest of
margins, 216 to 212. And I so strongly welcome the new attitude
of the Department of State and I ask unanimous consent, Mr.
Chairman, that yesterday's Wall Street Journal article
entitled, ``U.S. Presses Lebanon on Suspects: Bush Seeks Action
on Hezbollah,'' be inserted into the record.
Mr. Burton. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Lantos. What we now have, Mr. Prime Minister, is the
Department of State at long last calling on Damascus and Beirut
to put an end to all terrorist activities, something that just
a few months ago our own Department of State was fighting. This
I think is an index of the seismic change that occurred a week
ago Tuesday which I think will focus our attention for many
coming years on this issue.
It was not long ago that many in our government at the
highest levels were issuing pious calls for restraints when
Israel struck back at terrorists. I remember one specific
instance when a terrorist chief was with surgical accuracy
terminated by an Israeli helicopter pilot and the Department of
State was calling piously for restraint. Just imagine what an
American pilot would get in the form of decorations if he would
find Osama and put an end to him in his cave someplace. He
would get the Congressional Medal of Honor in record time.
Now, I would like to ask you to comment on two concepts,
Mr. Prime Minister. The first one relates to the issue of why
the international terrorist movement hates us so much. Many
argue that they hate us for our policies. It is my judgment
that they don't hate us for what we do, but they hate us for
what we are. We are open, tolerant, accepting of others, and
this is diametrically opposed to what the fanatic terrorists
believe in and for which they clearly are prepared to sacrifice
their lives.
The second issue I would like you to comment on relates to
a statement by the President of Pakistan. I very much welcome
the fact that Pakistan at long last has chosen to stand with
the civilized world and not with the barbarism of the Taliban.
I publicly want to commend the President of Pakistan for his
action. Yet in his statement he offered a caution; namely, that
India and Israel not be part of the coalition. And I find it so
outrageous that a military dictator should tell the two
democracies which in many ways have been the most severely
subjected to international terrorism to stay away.
Isn't it long overdue that we not only tell all the
countries of this world that the time to choose is here, not
just in terms of actions, but also in terms of moral and
intellectual clarity? I think it would be outrageous if Syria
would be invited to join the international struggle against
international terrorism while India and Israel and perhaps
other democracies would be excluded. I would be grateful for
your comments.
Mr. Netanyahu. Thank you very much, Congressman Lantos, and
thank you, too, for your kind words about my late brother. He
fell in the war against terrorism. But it is interesting that
even though he devoted all of his adult life--he fell at the
age of 30; from the age of 18, with the exception of a short
stint in Harvard, he had been in the Army fighting terrorism--
he never viewed the problem as strictly a military one. He
viewed it centrally as a political and moral one because of the
confusion that existed in the democracies that allowed
terrorist regimes and terrorist organizations to grow and
expand their activity. And I agreed with him completely and
devoted a good part of my adult life to making that clear. I
know you and so many others in this committee have taken part
in the political and moral battle against terrorism and its
politics as in South Africa and in Durban, where the American
delegation did the right thing.
Why do the Islamic militant terrorists hate us so much? It
is a collective us. I tell you it is a collective us in the
sense if Belgium were in the Middle East or Holland were in the
Middle East instead of Israel, the same thing would still be
there. And if Israel, by the way, didn't exist, the same thing
would be there. This is centuries, centuries of antipathy of a
particular virulent strain of Islam, to distinguish from the
vast majority that does not recognize modernity. What it
especially rejects is the idea of plurality and individual
choice. It is a very rigid conception of life, I think a very
forlorn and dark one. But it cannot tolerate the idea that we
are having this conversation right now, that we can have
genuine disagreements, that we can have a genuine parliament.
That is why they have these farcical parliaments in Tripoli or
in the Sudan, but they are not real parliaments because what
they want to have is a certain uniformity. They reject our
respect for life, for individual rights. They reject our
conception of personal choice in the way we dress and the way
we educate our children and our choice of music and art--
choices I should say.
It is a completely different world outlook, and therefore
you are absolutely right when they say that they hate the West,
not for what it does, but for what it is. It is a fundamentally
opposed view of the way human life and civilization should be
constructed. And make no mistake about it, ours is better. Ours
is right. Theirs is wrong. That is why they use barbaric
methods to try to stamp out ours. They cannot stand free
competition. They cannot stand free choice on the international
scene or in their own societies. That is why they are closed,
because they know just given the choice--just give the choice
to the citizens of Iran, you know what they will choose.
I once said to the head of the CIA that the best way to
induce a change in Iran was not standard CIA tactics but to get
very, very strong transponders and to beam into Tehran Beverly
Hills 90210 and Melrose Place and all that stuff because--I
don't think it is high art, but it is its uses, because this is
subversive stuff. What it does is it gives the young people in
particular the ability to see a different life, that they could
have a nice house, a nice car, nice clothes and so on. And this
is precisely the kind of competition that these militants not
only want to avoid but hate so much. They want their uniform
idea based on, again, many centuries of a slithering and
simmering hate.
I think this has been written about perhaps most profoundly
and cogently by Professor Bernard Lewis. There are others.
There are Arab writers like Professor Fouad Ajami at Johns
Hopkins and a number of other Arab professors whose books I
have read who have written about this probably more honestly
and more courageously than any Western writer that I can cite.
So it is absolutely correct. They hate us for what we are in
the first instance, not for what we do. I cannot add a single
thing to what you said about Pakistan.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Prime Minister, you have heard from the
ranking member of the International Relations Committee. Now I
recognize the former chairman of the committee, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and, Mr.
Former Prime Minister, we welcome you to our committee. Thank
you for taking the time and the trouble to travel so far, and
again we apologize for the State Department's inability to meet
a leading member of another state.
We hope that you will continue to be a leading member
throughout the world. We hope you will have the opportunity to
meet with our President before you go back to recite to him the
same things you have recited to our committee.
Mr. Netanyahu, what do you think is the most important
initiative that our Nation should now undertake in our war
against terrorism? What is the most significant thing we can do
right now?
Mr. Netanyahu. It should form a coalition of those
democracies that are willing to take on an uncompromising
battle against terrorism everywhere and especially against the
terrorist regimes that make international terrorism possible.
This coalition could consider both military and economic as
well as diplomatic actions against these offending states. The
nature of this action could go so far as to military engagement
and military punishment. It can go short of that, depending on
the response of these regimes and how quickly and how
comprehensively they dismantle the terrorist apparatus within
them. This is the first thing that has to be done.
The second thing is until the scaffolding collapses to
intercept as many of the terrorists organizations, especially
those now that have already dispatched killers en route to our
societies, and root them out. Root them out means to eliminate
them, to kill them if necessary, with no consideration for
undue legalisms if they are citizens, foreign citizens and not
U.S. citizens.
Mr. Gilman. You mentioned some of the countries that are
harboring terrorism. Who do you feel are the most active
supporters of terrorism? Who are the greatest threat to us in
harboring terrorists?
Mr. Netanyahu. Congressman Gilman, there is a distinction I
think should be made between many countries in which now
terrorist cells exist in the West. Including in the West,
Europe has militant Islamic centers just dotted throughout the
continent. America too. These terrorists have taken and made
use of the freedom of democracies to work against democracies.
But invariably they all come back to a handful of regimes in
the Middle East from which the headquarters are launched.
It is very difficult, very difficult to sustain a terror
effort when you don't have this international--these bases,
these home bases. Invariably, free societies are able to--this
you may be happy to hear--free societies faced with terrorism
that does not have an international base can almost always, not
always but almost always, root out such terrorists. So, for
example, in Germany they rooted out the Red Army, their Red
Army. In Italy they rooted out the Brigada Rosa. In France they
eliminated the Action Directe, and so on.
By the way, some of that was made possible because of the
fall of communism. So the Eastern European communist countries
that were, basically the havens collapsed. Even though this
action took place before they collapsed they were already weak,
they were already exposed. Merely exposing them and putting the
sanctions on them worked. We have the power, the enormous
technical power of surveillance against groups that don't have
foreign support. Eventually you can overcome them.
Now the question is what do we do about civil liberties.
Well, I think that the experience of Israel and Britain and
Italy and Germany and others, all vibrant democratic societies,
have shown that as they were fighting terrorism they were able
to maintain their guard and vigil to protect civil liberties.
Usually there is an oscillation. The pendulum oscillates
between tougher measures in times of crisis to reduced measures
in times of tranquility. And obviously the pendulum has to
shift now. If it doesn't shift we are in trouble. But as it
shifts, the responsibility of Congressmen, of parliamentarians
like you, provide alongside the judiciary the necessary
oversight on domestic actions.
So I am very confident in the power of democracies,
certainly the power of the American democracy, the greatest
democracy of them all, to toughen up domestic measures against
the groups here without endangering American democracy.
But again it will not suffice. So you have to go back to
the regimes. Who are the regimes? Again I listed them. They are
very clear. They are Iran, Iraq, Taliban of Afghanistan, the
Palestinian enclave headed by Arafat, the Sudan. This is the
nexus. Syria of course. This is the nexus of countries that
operate openly without even any need to disguise the basis for
these terrorist organizations. And again there are subsidiary
countries that themselves have simply not taken action to root
out these pockets. They have taken some action.
Some of them have not taken any action. Egypt has taken
some action, but it still has a very large and very active
offshoot of terrorism there. Saudi Arabia has been a haven for
financing and other activities. They think they would buy them
off. They don't buy them off. You know, they support the
Taliban, probably not only the Taliban. OK, but they don't buy
them off. I don't think they do it with a view that the Taliban
would attack the United States or that bin Laden would attack
the United States. They think they will purchase immunity, but
they don't.
So we have to be very clear. I think you have to take
varying degrees of action between sanctions and deterrence and
much tougher action depending on----
Mr. Gilman. Just one last query.
Mr. Shays [presiding]. May I interrupt the gentleman. I
would extend that courtesy to you, given Mr. Lantos' long
extension, but I have members who have said they would like us
to keep more on time, so a quick question with a short answer
would be appreciated.
Mr. Netanyahu. Maybe I will give some shorter answers.
Mr. Shays. Your answers are excellent, sir. You answer the
way you want.
Mr. Gilman. Should we be treating Mr. Arafat as a terrorist
in our dealing?
Mr. Netanyahu. He is a terrorist. Treat him as such.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you for your testimony and coming over
today. I think we all appreciated hearing your comments on
that. For one thing I can tell you that you have re-enforced
what has been my understanding for some time that our greatest
fear, if we were to take a look and assess our threats and
prioritize, you know, them in terms of risk, that we certainly
are more at risk for the type of event that happened on
September 11th or, as you stated earlier, from somebody
carrying over some sort of nuclear device and detonating it
here than we are in spending hundreds of billions of dollars on
a national defense system that hasn't been shown it can work
yet on that basis.
So I look at the programs we have, like the nonnuclear
program, in trying to prevent nuclear materials and nuclear
technology from coming from Russia and out. And I wonder what
you think about that program and what else we might do to try
to prevent that type of dissemination of technology as well as
materials from Russia or other countries.
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, I think that there were some
initiatives in Congress about taking action, Congressman,
against regimes or governments that allow the diffusion of
nuclear and ballistic technology from their midst. I have to
say I won't shock you when I tell you that I am not a communist
and never was.
Mr. Tierney. That is tomorrow's headline.
Mr. Netanyahu. But I will say that there is one thing that
I can say for Soviet communism, for the Soviet Union, they kept
that technology, ballistic and nuclear technology, under wraps.
They didn't give it to any of their allies. They always
controlled it. They didn't let it seep anywhere. One of the
consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union was that this
technology hasn't actually leaked out; I mean it flows like a
river to these militant regimes and actually for little money.
It is not big money. But it is flowing as we speak.
Now, it is true, as I said, that this could end up giving
terrorists the use of more primitive weapons of mass
destruction. Do we really care what the extent of the yield is
and how accurate these weapons are? No, not if they are in the
proverbial suitcase. But it is true that they are developing at
the same time missiles. So you know, the fact that you might
die of cholera doesn't mean that you have to accept cancer.
What I would suggest is that you build defenses against both
the terrorist variety and the state terrorist variety that
could be employed using ballistic missiles.
You don't want to be in a position where Iran--and I
specifically say Iran because it is the most advanced in the
building of ballistic missiles. Iran in 10 or 12 years will
have, according to their plans, if they are not stopped, will
have a missile that can reach this building. Now, you can leave
it and hope that deterrence will operate. It may, or it may
not. And you are not going to have a hermetic defense precisely
because as long as this terror network exists they might have
other ways of delivering the payload. But I think we should do
everything in our power while we have the time to do so. I
think that is what our people, our peoples, the free peoples of
the world, can demand of us, to do everything within our power
while we have the time.
And I would look at all these questions from a fresh
perspective, and I would say there has been a hinge of fate
here, there has been a change. There has been something that
forces us to rise above the previous divisions that divided us.
I say that in Israel because in Israel, for example, there was
a sea change of opinion when Arafat was exposed as not wanting
peace and seeking to destroy us and all of a sudden it merged
into one great united people. I sense that after this enormous
calamity here, enormous catastrophe, that the same is
happening. And I would only hope that spirit animates your
deliberations in this Capitol to forge as many defenses and all
the defenses and all the offenses that we can have while we
have the time. We don't have much time.
Mr. Tierney. I thank you for that. Of course I hope we are
all looking at defenses that will actually work and spending
money only on those and testing them before we start building
things that don't work, which unfortunately has been our
history.
Is it your opinion that individual terrorists who up to
date have sort of worked without really acknowledging any
particular regime and regimes that may have let them work
within their borders without saying they are associated with
him, do you think that is going to change? Do you think there
is any nation that is going to overtly state they have a
connection with these terrorists? Can you expect them to work
without a return address and sort of stay beneath the radar?
Mr. Netanyahu. Right now, Congressman Tierney, they will
stay beneath the radar.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.
Mrs. Morella.
Mrs. Morella. Thank you. Mr. Netanyahu, we are honored that
you came today to discuss a situation that we now have in
common with Israel, and during this time of Rosh Hashana we
certainly can feel kindred souls as we always have with Israel.
I am curious about whether my perception of the changing
characteristics of terrorism are accurate in your point of
view. For instance, it seems to me that now terrorism is
manifesting itself with these small cells, really throughout
the world, predominantly in the countries that you have
mentioned, where you have sometimes pockets of individuals that
have very little in common with the major organization to which
they say they are a member. Therefore, it makes it even more
difficult to ascertain who they are, where they are, and what
damage they may want to be involved in for kind of the
credibility, the accolades, the prestige they may get from
doing that.
Then compounding the problem, it almost seems as though
they don't truly have a political goal or focus as such, they
have gone from not so much political or national but maybe a
touch of so-called religious, which is certainly not the way we
see religion. And it is almost like violence for the sake of
violence, not violence really for a goal. If this in fact is
true, then some of the techniques they would employ would be
even far more dangerous. This could lead to the chemical,
biological warfare. I wondered, have you seen a change in that
regard as change for the worse in the whole concept of
terrorism?
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, I do see, Congresswoman Morella, a
change for the worst because we see the terrorists have gone
from killing, murdering isolated individuals to mowing down
groups with machine guns to blowing up entire buildings and now
blowing up huge structures, and the weapons grow increasingly
more lethal and that will continue. But I do think this
violence has a goal. If there is something I want to stress to
you today, it is that it is a very purposeful and not in that
sense senseless violence; it is a violence that is aimed at
destroying our values and our civilization. It is fantasy, it
is madness, but that is what they do. This is what they think.
That is what they aim at achieving. It is important to read
what they say; it would be equally instructive to read the
inner teachings of untold number of clerics in some of these
terrorist states.
All hatred, certainly I can get from the history of my
people, the Jewish people, there never was a great program, a
great massacre of our people that was not preceded by well
springs of hate; that is, by systematic incitement. The Jews
were the well poisoners of the world, the Jews in the Middle
Ages were accused of bleeding to death Christian children and
using their blood to bake our matzos for Passover and sundry
other hatreds, hateful lies that were part of this
dissemination of hate.
By the way, this began 500 years before the Christian era
in the Hellenistic world. Always the great massacres of the
faithful, so to speak, were preceded by campaigns of hate and
inculcation of hate. That is much the same case in the kind of
massacres that we are witnessing today. The only reason these
massacres are done using the techniques of terror is that the
sources that inspire the hate, the ideological sources
implanted in the terrorist regimes, are simply too weak. The
West is too strong. Otherwise it would be much more out in the
open. It is fairly out in the open if you just examine what
they say, what they read, what they say to their own people;
not what they say in the West when they occasionally speak, but
what they actually say to their own people, and you will see
how this cauldron of hate is constantly boiling over and
somebody is always stoking that fire.
So understand that there is an assault on our civilization.
It is very hard to accept it, and I know that Samuel
Huntington's book stirred much debate. I must tell you that I
read Francis Fukuyama's book, The End of History, with a
chuckle. I thought it was actually--I thought it was tongue in
cheek. Then I read a brilliant article, just a brilliant
article, I mean brilliantly written, in a magazine that I
occasionally read. It won't shock you either when I tell you
that it is called Commentary Magazine, and that article said
that--I won't mention the author, but it said Allah Fukuyama,
that's it, history is over. Capitalism and democracy won, its
obvious advantages to the life of mankind was proven and it's
all over. It's all going to be now downhill. There are not
going to be any more great conflicts and no more surges of wars
and violence.
I got very mad. So I called up my old friend Norman
Podhoretz--maybe he was still editor at the time, maybe he was
just moving out--and I said, Norman, how did you allow
Commentary to publish this brilliant piece of nonsense? He
said, what do you mean? I said, look, this is militant Islam.
It is here. And now with a collapse of communism it has got
weapons that they never dreamed they could get their hands on.
And it is coming, those attacks. I guess it must have been 8
years ago or something like that. He said he would have a
revised edition. Well, I hope he does one now. This is not
senseless violence. It is purposeful and a purposeful assault
on our values and our civilization.
And it is only when we understand that you can mobilize the
greatest democracy of them all, which we are fortunate to have
as leading the world. I think our great fortune is that in the
second half of the 20th century the United States led the world
against Nazism. I am quite confident if the United States had
led the world in the first half of the 20th century things
would have turned out very differently for mankind and for my
own people. It so happens that it didn't. It so happens that it
does now.
I think because of the moral clarity and the basic firmness
of the American people and their ability and their courage--
there is a lot of courage in this, in the citizenry of the
United States. I was enormously impressed with the fire
fighters. I was enormously impressed with the haunting and
moving records of the conversations of those citizens, ordinary
American citizens, on that aircraft headed toward Washington,
DC. And as soon as they understood what it is that this plane
was going to do, even though they knew in a certain sense that
they are doomed, they did something that is very difficult to
do. We knew in concentration camps it was very difficult for
people to rise up and act even though they knew. Well, these
people got up, these Americans got up, and they did something
absolutely remarkable, and they saved a lot of lives. And they
lost their lives. This is a brave people.
I have no doubt that looking at the truth, seeing the
unvarnished picture, not prettying it up, not rounding the
edges but calling it exactly as it is, the American people, the
American President, the American Congress will rise to the
occasion and defeat this evil. It is a purposeful evil, and we
must be determined to wipe it out.
Mr. Shays. Ms. Schakowsky, you have the floor.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you so much, Mr. Netanyahu, for being
here today. Let me just say, first of all, that if one purpose
of the despicable act of September 11th was to deter in any way
our commitment to freedom and our support for democratic allies
like Israel, then it failed miserably. I am just really
gratified with your saying that today we are all Americans. I
am hoping that it is not just Israel, but all of the civilized
world feels that when that attack occurred that we, all
civilizations, we are all Americans and in grief and defiance.
I appreciate that.
Let me ask you this as part of our coalition now against
terrorism. If you can, what are the ways that Israel is going
to be--what role do you see Israel playing with us?
Mr. Netanyahu. Israel has been leading the battle against
international terrorism for a long time because we have been on
the front line. We have simply been on the geographic cutting
edge, facing this militancy in geographic terms. So we have had
to fight to stay alive. We have had to roll back the tide of
terrorism. And I think that in this we continue to do so. We
have been sharing our experience, our knowledge and our
intelligence with the United States, and undoubtedly this is
being done as we speak. That was a matter of course.
I can tell you that in my tenure as Prime Minister there
was never a day, I don't think a single day, in which Israel
did not pass on to the United States intelligence of substance.
And may I say that it worked the other way around, too. Always.
So I think you have that. But also in times of action, Israel
is there. We are if you will, the Western position, the
reliable Western position in the Middle East. We cannot have
any coups. We have, as you know, periodic changes of
government. People actually vote in the heart of the Middle
East and we change governments, but this doesn't change. Israel
stands behind America, and I am quite sure and I am happy to
hear from you, Congresswoman, that America will continue to
stand behind Israel. I think that we have to neutralize the
terror attack that comes from that part of the terror network
that is directed at us. We can do so pretty much on our own,
but we need your understanding, your understanding in the
international scene and unfortunately until recently your
understanding and support in such forms as the Security
Council, which often had supporters of this very terrorism
directed against us, seeking not to punish the terrorists but
Israel that defends itself.
As far as Israel's role, precise role in the international
battle against terrorism, I believe that is something that
should be discussed between the leaders of our two countries,
the governments of our two countries right now, in concrete
terms. It is not something that I think would be wise to
discuss here except to formulate the principles that I said
earlier; namely, that obviously all the democracies that agree
that they must take a stand and fight against terrorism should
be part of that coalition. Others will join later. Of that I
have no doubt. But also that we must ensure that the terror
sponsoring regimes that are not part of this coalition, we must
demand that they dismantle their terrorist apparatus.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask you this: What are the limits to
our use of force? Are there? For example, would you rule out
the offensive use of nuclear weapons, for instance?
Mr. Netanyahu. Congresswoman Schakowsky, I don't think that
we are faced with as powerful an enemy as the Axis powers in
World War II. In other words, it is equally fanatic. There is
no difference as far as I am concerned with this militant
Islamic terrorism and Nazism. It is, by the way, different from
communism, as I said before. Communism didn't have an after
life to offer the adherents, as you know. Here they not only
have an after life but they use it in a twisted way to reward
the most dastardly deeds. You get this paradise. I won't
describe to you what they are offered in paradise. We will
dispense with that but inquire on your own. It is quite
astounding what they do to these people, and so you have here
this mad fanaticism that like Nazism knows no bounds. But if I
have to compare the power of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
with the power of the terrorist networks it is well, well, well
below their power today. Tomorrow it could be different if they
acquire nuclear weapons. But today they are much weaker. And
therefore while there has to be a global war of the democracies
and certainly led by the United States, by the democracy, the
largest democracy of them all, the effort that is required is,
I would say, not as encompassing as that previous world war. It
does not bring us to quite those levels if we act today.
If we act today, it is within our power to use means that
we have available and not necessarily all the means we have
available. If we don't act today, and they acquire nuclear
weapons, then I cannot tell you what will happen. Then the
clock will stop. Then something that is unfathomable could
happen. Unfathomable. When I described the bombing of the Trade
Center a few years ago, it was seen as this, you know, rantings
of irresponsibility. Every one of us can imagine what would
happen, or maybe we can't imagine what would happen if a
terrorist state or one of its proxies would drop nuclear bombs
on New York or in Washington. It is not about to happen, it is
not right around the corner. But inexorably it probably will
happen. It will happen if we don't stop it now or it certainly
could happen. We have to remove that ``could.''
I would say this is the main message that I give you today,
is that we could witness horrors that would make the
heartbreaking carnage in New York and not far from here seem
pale by comparison. And that is a sober and realistic
assessment of where we stand today. So we don't require quite
the effort that we needed against Nazi Germany and Imperial
Japan. But we will require untold efforts if the enemies of
freedom acquired nuclear weapons, and we must not let that
happen.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Horn, you are recognized.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to see you again. Sorry I haven't been in the
questioning before. I was going to put the question to you. You
have Arabs within the boundaries of Israel that have worked
there over the years. There are Arabs represented in the
Knesset.
You go to find Hamas and Arafat, who just plain lie, and
they get this complete misuse of children--and we saw that on
the television of the United States when they're all saying,
isn't it wonderful that the towers are coming down and
thousands of people are going down? And I'm just curious, how
are you going to handle that when you've got Arabs, which I'm
sure some of them would like to be within Israel and might well
have jobs and professions there, and how will you handle that
to separate the terrorists and the people that could easily be
swayed one way or the other?
Mr. Netanyahu. Congressman Horn, I think that Israeli
democracy, like American democracy, is sufficiently strong to
strike a balance between our need for security and our respect
for our--all our citizens, Arab and Jews alike. I think the
danger is that when terrorism is unchecked and fanaticism is
unchecked, it starts affecting other populations.
We had a warning signal the other day when an Israeli Arab,
who had been in the Palestinian Arabs--an Israeli Arab citizen
had been in the Palestinian area, which as you know is a
separate regime, is not--by the way, you understand that Israel
no longer occupies, quote, any Palestinians. 100 percent--maybe
I'm wrong--maybe it's 99.9 percent of the Palestinians are
governed by Arafat. Israel doesn't govern Ramallah or Gaza or
any place else. They live, for better or worse--some say for
worse, but that is not my point right now--they live under
Arafat. We have a dispute about territories that are empty of
Palestinians, the disputed territories. That is, Arafat
controls all the areas where the Palestinian population lives,
100 percent of it.
The areas that are contested in the normal course of
diplomatic negotiations, for example, the ones I had in the Wye
River Conference, are the areas which are empty of
Palestinians, virtual uninhabited, but they are replete with
historical significance for us as part of our homeland
historically for thousands of years, and they're replete with
security significance in Israel that would otherwise be 10
miles wide, facing the likes of Syria, Iraq and the entire
eastern militant front.
I stress that point because that problem, as difficult as
it is, would probably have been resolved if it had been a
territorial one. I believe it could be solved if it's not an
existential problem. But what we've discovered in the past few
years, virtually all of the people of Israel, is that the
reason the conflict with the Palestinians doesn't get solved is
because it is not a territorial problem but an existential
problem, that is, basic opposition to Israel's very existence
and that is fermented from within the Palestinian areas by this
mentality of, among other things, that prepares suicide
bombers.
The Israeli Arab community has been immune to this. The
Arab citizens of Israel for very long were immune to it, but
the other day we had an Israeli Arab who had gone and crossed
over to the Palestinian areas, had been inculcated there, came
back and became a suicide bomber. By the way, not a young man.
I think 55, 56-year-old person. And that's very disturbing. And
in fact, it is--I think it tells you something larger and
significant for our battle against terrorism.
Terrorism and the terrorist militancy has the unfortunate
quality of expanding when it thinks it identifies weakness.
And, by the way, it contracts accordingly. So one of the things
we have to do, we in Israel, you in the United States, all of
us together, along with the rest of the democracies, what we
have to do, having now been faced with the awful horrors of
today, of the present and those that can confront us in the
future, what we have to do is, above all, show strength, show
strength.
If we show weakness and vacillation, if we hesitate, if we
start--forgive me, if we start pussyfooting, if we're not clear
about the complete, absolute rejection of terrorism everywhere
and our absolute willingness to take very, very strong action
against everyone who practices terrorism, then the terrorists
will continue. If we don't take this action, then the
terrorists and the Islamic militancy that backs them up will
see this as weak, and if it's weak, they can do more and more
and more.
The thing that we can do about terrorists is to take action
against their bases. The thing that we can do against Islamic
militancy is to show them that this madness that America is
weak, that western civilization is weak and will collapse the
way the Soviet rule in Afghanistan collapsed--that is their
model they have in mind. We have to tell them it's not true.
America is strong. The democracies are strong. Israel is
strong. You will never defeat us, and we will continue to forge
a new future for the entire world.
When they understand that, for America, for the other
western countries, for Japan, for Israel, then you will see
this danger recede from without and indeed from within as well.
Mr. Shays. I recognize Mrs. Maloney, actually from the city
of New York. Mr. Owens is here, too, from the city of New York.
Mr. Netanyahu. Congressman Shays, I must thank you for this
tremendous hospitality, and I'd love to take these questions,
and I will, but I want to say that because of the somewhat
tardy arrangement of schedules, I'm going to have to leave
shortly. Normally, I say this in a speech. I say, you can ask
me all the questions you have, but in 3 minutes I'm leaving. It
is not 3 minutes, but----
Mr. Shays. Give us your time, sir. Do you have 10 more
minutes?
Mr. Netanyahu. Yes, I do, and I apologize for bringing up
the problem of the schedule.
Mr. Shays. Well, then we're going to--Mrs. Maloney, you're
going to start, and we'll see about--you have the floor. Let's
get to it.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you so much for coming and sharing your
unique experiences. You've certainly been at the forefront of
studying international terrorism, and thank you for sharing
this story of your brother Yoni who lost his life fighting
international terrorism.
I really am concerned about press reports that were in
Reuters and in the L.A. Times that stated that Israeli military
intelligence may have warned the United States 6 weeks ago of
the possibility of a major attack and that Iraq may have
provided support and assistance for the September 11th attack.
And I'd like to know if you are familiar with the reports that
the Mossad, the intelligence agency, allegedly to our FBI and
CIA that we were, quote, large-scale targets, that Americans
would be vulnerable. And what, in your sense, is--why our
intelligence, the American intelligence, did not respond like
they have been responding now to this great threat of terrorism
in our own country and soil, and your comments and your wisdom?
Mr. Netanyahu. Congresswoman Maloney, I'm familiar with the
press reports, but I couldn't comment on their accuracy.
Mrs. Maloney. You cannot comment on it?
Mr. Netanyahu. I'm simply not in a position to know of the
transfer of intelligence in the last few weeks. I haven't
looked into that.
Mrs. Maloney. Could you give us some understanding of what
is the current threat or capability of terrorist organizations,
including Osama bin Laden's group, to use biological and
chemical warfare here in the United States, and how are we
prepared to counteract this type of terrible attack?
Mr. Netanyahu. Chemical and biological weapons are by
several orders of magnitude easier to produce than nuclear
weapons. They're just in a different league altogether. There's
no requirement for very complex engineering and physical--
knowledge of physics and other things that simply are not--do
not stand in the way of producing these weapons, some of which
are fairly easy to assemble. So we have to assume that sooner
or later, possibly sooner rather than later, the Osama bin
Ladens of the world will get their hands on this, either by
being volitionally offered such weapons by regimes that have
them or by--and having the ingenuity to make them.
If we learn one thing from the experience of this attack,
it was meticulously, rigorously planned as a military act of
war, a military operation par excellence. It was timed with a
ghoulish perfection. It was done by a mind or minds that are
able to overcome the difficulties--eventually are able to
overcome, I'm sure, the difficulties of assembling much more
potent weapons.
Mr. Shays. Prime minister, we have four more members.
They're going to try to accommodate you so you get out at 15
after.
Mr. Netanyahu. I'll try to accommodate, as I said, with
shorter answers, yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Mica will be recognized, and then we're
going to go to Mr. Davis and then Mr. Blagojevich and then Mr.
Clay.
Mr. Mica. I just have actually two short questions. One you
can answer, if you recall. I was just curious as to how many
Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks over the last,
say, decade.
The other question is, you're familiar, of course, with
your whole network of dealing with terrorism, and I understand
it's pretty much--there's some central control and
coordination. You're probably familiar with the United States'
efforts, and we have some 30 agencies spread out. What would be
your advice to us on organization and how we might improve our
approach, based on, again, what you've operated--of course, you
have a smaller country, been under great threat. We have a
larger country, larger agencies but sort of a disorganized
effort.
Mr. Netanyahu. Well, the number roughly is about 400 since
the Oslo process began. This was the process that was supposed
to end all terror, and it ended up producing the greatest
terror that we've seen. Israel is about 1/60th the population
of the United States, so that would be equal to 24,000
Americans dead in a country that is 6 million strong.
It's been a very heavy price indeed, but, as you see,
Israel stands strong, and the people are united, just as
they're united in the United States, to ward off this evil.
As far as the complexity of counterterrorism or
intelligence organizations as a whole, this is an interesting
problem. If you have one central repository of intelligence,
which you normally should have, then you run into the risk that
additional sources of information or the--I would say
additional points of view will be lost by one conception.
For example, Israel, after the Yom Kippur War, came to the
conclusion that it had one fixed conception by the main agent
of our intelligence, and so we actually went around to the
other side of diversifying the intelligence and letting the
leaders receive a lot of our intelligence. I spent at least an
hour and a half each day, each day of the 3 years that I was
prime minister, going over raw material of intelligence that
came from all the various arms of intelligence just so that
they would not be lost.
So I think you have to strike a balance here between the
number of gathering agencies that you have and the sifting of
information upwards. It is a very delicate balance.
I'm not sure I could give you a better formula than the one
we have, but, in any case, I want to tell you that, whatever
you do about intelligence, don't pin on it the hopes to deliver
what it cannot. You know, if you look for a pin in a haystack,
it's gong to be very hard. It's much better to remove the
haystack, and there are lots of haystacks of terrorism. Get rid
of them as best you can.
Because looking for the pin--you know, if you play their
game, it's going to be very hard. It is not quite true that we
don't know who does it. We do know. Especially we know--we know
this. We know that terrorists can hide, but we know the regimes
cannot hide, and once they know that you know and you're
willing to take action, you'll see how quickly the equation
changes.
Now, they're going to threaten you. The minute you take
action, they will threaten you. They will even maybe take
action against you and you'll have an inevitable exchange of
blows and counterblows. But as they see over time--first of
all, your blows are a lot harder, a lot. As they see over time
that you're prepared to take out the haystack, they will stop,
and if they don't stop, then you have to go from deterrence to
something else.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Netanyahu, they're in your hands. You have
three final questioners. They will just ask a question or two,
and then your answers will be to their questions. We have Mr.
Davis, then Mr. Blagojevich and then Mr. Clay, all from
Illinois and from Missouri.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Prime Minister, let me thank you for coming. I know the
difficulty that you may have had getting here. I was actually
in Tel-Aviv at the time the terrorists struck, and on my way to
Dimonia, meeting with members of the Black Hebrew Israelites.
I've always been amazed at the ability of people in the Middle
East, both Arabs and Israelis, to cope with the level of
terrorism, violence, constant threat of violence. We have not
experienced that to this level in this country. We've been most
fortunate. We've not had an actual war in a long time. None of
us have had that experience.
What would you say to the American people, relative to
their ability to cope in this stressful period, as we try to
find solutions and work our way out?
Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Davis, I would be as short as I can. Not
for the sake of brevity, but because I think this is the most
concise answer I can give you. I would read to them the book of
Joshua, which says, be strong and of good courage, and you
shall win the day. That is what is required today of America
and of all free societies.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Well, I would certainly agree and
thank you very much. And I must confess that Joshua is one of
my favorites, too.
Mr. Netanyahu. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Blagojevich.
Mr. Blagojevich. I'll make this brief, Mr. Prime Minister.
Just as you were finishing with Congressman Mica's
question, if you remove the haystack and they still persist--
and then you were interrupted. What were you going to say?
Mr. Netanyahu. I'm saying you have gradations of action.
One is to deter by the application of sanctions. The second is
to actually go in and take out terrorist bases. The third is to
act militarily against an offending regime and act to the point
of dismantling the regime. This is more or less the gradations
that you have.
You have taken that action, for example, in Yugoslavia. You
acted, by the way, without ground force. You induced a change
of the regime and that stopped the aggressive action and you
induced the change of the regime.
I'm saying that there are a variety of things that you can
do, and whether or not you want to go the whole gamut depends
really on what you're facing, what kind of behavior results in
the action that you take, and you should monitor that.
And, by the way, you have enough intelligence to monitor
that. It's much easier to monitor a regime than to monitor one
of the foot soldiers of that regime. It's a totally different
issue. So our intelligence is good enough to address the home
base always. It's good enough for that.
Mr. Blagojevich. In your experience, when you address the
regime that is harboring the terrorist cell and you're
successful, by and large----
Mr. Netanyahu. By and large, yes, by and large, yes.
Mr. Blagojevich [continuing]. Then you find that the
terrorist activity decreases or----
Mr. Netanyahu. It stops.
Mr. Blagojevich. It stops?
Mr. Netanyahu. Yeah.
Mr. Blagojevich. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Netanyahu. There were many instances in which it
stopped, but I think what has happened is that over the last
decade--well, I'll give you one example of how it stopped,
because this is not a one-shot deal, but all of you are
familiar with a form of terrorism that was totally based on
international support and state support that was eliminated. I
had a big argument on this in the 1970's, and I would say
happily some of the people in this city did the right policy
and eliminated terrorism.
Remember, we used to have airline hijackings as a matter of
course, I mean, every day. Not suicide bombings, every day. A
plane was hijacked here and there, would fly to Libya. It would
fly to Algeria and so on.
The minute you took action against the offending states and
they knew that their citizens couldn't take off anywhere or
they could suffer much worse actions and did, then it stopped.
And until this last bout of suicide bombers, we had close to 20
years of relative quiet, relative tranquility in the skies,
simply because the home base of terrorism could not be used to
accept the hijackers--or to launch them. See, the cost was too
heavy, so it stopped.
Now we're faced with a more strident militancy, again, that
seeks to work ostensibly in the shadows. But make no mistake
about it, if you go after the home states, if you apply the
measures that I discussed, you might see an exchange of blows
initially, but you will see a decline, and a rapid one.
Mr. Blagojevich. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Clay is your last questioner.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Chairman, very quickly.
Mr. Netanyahu, in Israel it seems like terrorism is a fact
of life. Can we expect suicide bombers here in this country,
and is there any way to end this for Americans to fight it?
Mr. Netanyahu. Suicide bombers are only the tip of the
iceberg. There is a system that is manned by people, who by the
way generally don't want to die. They want to live in order to
kill another day. So there is a whole system that prepares the
suicide, that takes care of its family, that arms them, that
plots the attack.
We in Israel, for example, see them giving them TNT, taking
them to the target, preparing them mentally, psychologically
for this, giving all sorts of promises, theological promises to
them about the afterlife and so on. So there's a whole network,
a whole system behind this, just as there is a whole system
behind this. And that system, again, is not--at this point, at
least--suicidal. It wants to--at least it wants to dispatch
more and more. It wants to live to kill. So I think that--and
it is based on the states that give shelter to the system. So
you have to go to the base of the pyramid and not only to the
top.
Can you expect more suicide bombers? You have to, if you're
logical, because it's still out there. It's still out there.
It's not finished. Whether or not they will strike, I don't
know, but I'm sure--this is just a guess--I'm guessing that
whoever planned this anticipated--must have anticipated--must
have anticipated today that the United States will respond and
probably has in the cartridge, so to speak, more attacks.
That is there. That we have to--you have to realistically
assume that. Although I have no information whatsoever about
that specifically at this time, but I can say that over time
they cannot reload the cartridge without states. They just
cannot do that. Now, they can shoot what they have, but they
cannot overtime reload the magazine. And that is what really is
expected to take away the capacity, to launch terrorists over
time, and that can only be done if, in addition to the
terrorist organizations, you target the states that support
them.
I want to thank you, Mr. Shays, and I want to thank each of
you, Congresswomen and Congressmen, for giving me this
opportunity to speak to you. It's a great honor, and I
appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Prime Minister, we want you to be safe, and
there are many of us--I'm certainly one of them--who considers
you, frankly, the Winston Churchill of our times. Thank you for
being here.
Mr. Netanyahu. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shays. We'll have, like, 3 or 4 minutes just to enable
the Prime Minister to say good-bye to people, and then we will
call our next--so we'll have just a slight recess of 3 to 5
minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Shays. I'd like to call the hearing to order. I'd like
to welcome General Anthony Zinni, Dr. Christopher Harmon, Dr.
Jessica Stern to our panel. I'm going to ask all three of you
to stand. We do--if you're a former Prime Minister of a
country, we probably won't swear you in, but why don't you move
over, Dr. Stern, and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. I would note for the record that all of our
witnesses have responded in the affirmative. And please be
seated.
Let me say to you that you won't have the latitude that the
Prime Minister had, but we don't have a lot of members here, so
that gives us a little more latitude.
We have a 5-minute clock. We roll it over 5 minutes, but,
after 10, we would stop you. The clock is right in front, that
little light that will be green, and it goes to--but, at any
rate, you have a total of 10 minutes, but 5 is the first time
it goes through.
All right. Welcome. General, we'll start with you.
STATEMENTS OF GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI, U.S. MARINES, RETIRED; DR.
CHRISTOPHER HARMON, PROFESSOR, U.S. MARINE CORPS COMMAND AND
STAFF COLLEGE; AND DR. JESSICA STERN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
General Zinni. Well, Mr. Chairman, I will dispense with an
opening statement. I think the questions will bring out all the
points I'd like to bring out. So I'll defer to my colleagues.
Mr. Shays. Dr. Harmon, we do want a testimony if you'd like
to give it, so don't be reluctant.
Mr. Harmon. Thank you. I'm very honored to be here with you
today.
I'm a professor of international relations----
Mr. Shays. We're going to have you pull the mic a lot
closer. Move that in front.
Mr. Harmon. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm a professor of international relations. I work for the
Marines, but I think really I've been asked here, and I'm
coming here to speak, as an individual scholar and author of a
book on terrorism.
I think that Americans now are very well aware of how
varied a phenomenon terrorism is. They understand that some of
it's been rooted here in our country. Some of it's born
overseas and stays there. Some of it's transnational, and
that's the main problem with September 11th.
We do seem to be facing something like a militant Muslim
international. It's not precisely like the Bolshevik
international of the 1920's or 1930's, because its motivations
are different and so is its degree of centralization. But it is
akin, I would say, to the less formal coalition of
international Communist groups of the 1960's and 1970's and
1980's. That is, a coalition of front groups, terrorists,
radical states and some powerful central governments.
This new militant Muslim international is wide in its
appeal and global in its operations. It seems feverish in its
faith. It is profoundly angry at its enemies and, of course,
those begin not with Americans but with moderate Arab regimes
and others. And it seems well versed in ideology. It's versed
in ideology, not mere momentary heat or inspiration. It's so
combative that some within it defy all sense of self-
preservation, and it's well-financed, well-educated and so
forth.
Let me add a few words about some of those.
Religion should be a source of enlightenment and soothing
spirits, but, in some cases, it's been twisted into blood lust.
If we think about the 1993 case that precedes the recent
tragedy of September, we remember Sheik Abd al-Rahman, who
arrived here from Egypt and the Sudan, who put together a
multinational coalition of persons and did all the damage they
could to the city of New York. Militarized religion was one of
the motives there. Ramzi Yousef said himself his group that did
that act in 1993 was an ``international movement concerned with
affairs of the world's Islamic armed movement.''
A second major problem is our foreign policy--not for me
but for those who perpetrate these acts. We can read the
charter of Hamas, which almost no one does. We can look at the
new training manual of the bin Laden organization, which is
called, Military Studies in the Jihad Against Tyrants, and we
can see the way in which our foreign policy is damned by these
groups.
One of the 1993 New York City bombers, Nidal Ayyad, sent a
letter explaining his motives, ``the American people are
responsible for the actions of their government . . .'' and so,
``Americans will be the targets of our operations.''
A third major feature is the willingness of these groups to
kill a large number of civilians. That's true of the Algerian
group, Armed Islamic Group, it's true of Hamas, which means
Islamic Resistance Movement. It's true of Osama bin Laden, who
tells us as much in his 1998 fatwa, which explicitly threatens
all Americans, both military and civilian. And to go back to
the 1993 case in New York, one of the plotters there said his
purpose was, to, ``demoralize the enemies of Allah by
destroying and blowing up the pillars of their civilization.''
On the operational level, these groups are remarkably
mobile. They have very fine communications sometimes. They use
everything from couriers with computer disks, to cell phones,
to encrypted data on the Internet, to flight on airplanes and
transit. Many men have been available to do bin Laden's work in
many different places. They operate well in Europe, which is
rich, which has many media outlets, which is generous to them
and gentle in most of its immigration laws.
Now, they use a cell structure which has never been better
explained publicly than in the famous film, ``The Battle of
Algiers,'' in which is shown the way in which a clandestine
organization can form and operate and, while never
impenetrable, reduce some of its counterintelligence problems.
This front has been well funded. I admire Judith Miller's
work in the New York Times and some of the others who have
looked into the financing of the Muslim militant movement.
And the last point I want to make is of sovereign states,
so much dwelled upon by the Prime Minister. This movement is
extremely diverse, and it does have state backers. They include
Afghanistan and Pakistan, but they also have included Iran and
the Sudan. Iran doesn't really like the Taliban. There may be
some inclusion by of Iraq. Certainly there are some independent
operators, like those who showed up in Bosnia quite
unrequested.
There are differences within this movement. It encompasses
Sunni versus Shia, or Sunni and Shia. It encompasses Iran and
Libya. It includes the Palestinians of Hamas, but also the
Lebanese of Hezbollah. I think there is, therefore, an evident
movement which requires our attention; and I would agree with
what Representative Lantos said this morning, which is that if
bin Laden goes away or is done away with, that will only be the
beginning of the effort that's required.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Dr. Harmon.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harmon follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Dr. Stern. Put it nice and close to you.
You'll have to bring it closer than that. Thank you.
Ms. Stern. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the
committee, it is a great honor to be able to appear before you
today to discuss this important subject. Let me begin by
expressing my deep sorrow to the victims and families impacted
by the tragic events of September 11th. My thoughts are with
them.
Mr. Chairman, a war on terrorism must be fought on many
fronts, using every tool at government's disposal--diplomacy,
intelligence, and when we identify the perpetrators, military
strikes. But force is not nearly enough. Our goal should be to
drain the swamps where extremists thrive, and that implies a
combination of measures: stopping the flow of money to these
groups, intelligence cooperation and military force. But most
importantly, it implies understanding that failed and failing
states are important sanctuaries, as well as sources of
recruits for extremist movements. When we talk about Pearl
Harbor, we should also be thinking of the Marshall Plan.
Several surprising facts about bin Laden's group came to
light during the trials of the men informed in the 1998 attack
against U.S. Embassies in Africa, and those facts reveal how
well-organized, sophisticated and elusive a network we're up
against. Government officials estimate that bin Laden's
organization has thousands of operatives who are active or
suspected to be active in 34 countries, including in the United
States.
But the threat doesn't come from bin Laden's group alone.
Many groups, such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Algerian
Islamic Group, are closely affiliated with al Qaeda. They train
at his camps and carry out bin Laden's objectives. Bin Laden is
probably correct that if the U.S. Government kills him,
hundreds of Osamas are prepared to take his place. The al Qaeda
and others like it that I've studied have wings that handle
finance, documents, public relations and intelligence. They run
businesses. They conduct surveillance of enemy targets. They
cultivate journalists to ensure favorable coverage in the
press.
And by the way, they also cultivate me. They have
sophisticated Web sites for both fundraising and recruiting.
Clerics teach operatives that killing civilians is allowed.
Like any conventional business, the group includes both
skilled and unskilled labor and money can be an important
component. A former Sudanese member of al Qaeda, Jamal Ahmed
Al-Fadl, said that he was paid a monthly salary of $500, while
Egypt's members made up to three times as much. When he asked
bin Laden, why are the Egyptian members making so much more
money, bin Laden responded, well, they have passports and other
job opportunities. In other words, bin Laden is paying these
guys the opportunity costs for their time, like a CEO.
Like other business managers, bin Laden also needed to
recruit unskilled labor. K.K. Mohamed, for example, received no
monetary compensation for his efforts, which involved acquiring
a truck and acquiring explosives; and given his role in the
Embassy bombing in Tanzania, he'll spend the rest of his life
in jail.
But the group also reported undergoing training in
engineering and to pilot planes. One talked about purchasing
the plane with a goal of transporting equipment, including
Stinger missiles from Peshawar to Khartoum.
This group, and others like it that I have studied, has
thought carefully about evading law enforcement detection. And
if you're interested in that, I urge you to take a look at that
manual--I won't go into details--the manual that Dr. Harmon
just mentioned.
The most important aspect of training militants is,
actually, mental training. It takes relatively little time and
effort to learn to fly a plane; many people can do that. But
training someone mentally to carry out suicide mass casualty
attacks is more difficult.
The Taliban were actually born out of extremist madrassahs
in Pakistan. These schools function as orphanages. Families
that cannot afford to feed their children send them to these
schools where--send them to these schools where they are
educated, but also fed and housed. Madrassahs I have visited
have children from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Chechnya,
Kuwait, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey,
Uzbekistan, and Yemen. This helps to give us a sense of what
we're talking about here. In a school that purportedly offered
a broad curriculum, a teacher I questioned could not multiply 7
times 8.
Pakistan is prepared to assist the international coalition
on the basis of principle. It does not expect a quid pro quo
according to its officials. But, still, now would be a good
time to offer assistance because it is in U.S. national
security interests to do so. If we inadvertently turn Pakistan
into a second Afghanistan, the results would be disastrous not
only for India, but for the entire world.
How can we help Pakistan? Pakistan has long been seeking
market access for its textiles. Opening our markets would
translate into $300 to $400 million according to the Pakistani
Embassy, which could make a crucial difference to Pakistan's
economy. We should also be considering debt relief.
We need to help Pakistan especially in the areas of health
care and education. It may even make sense to make some of
these efforts visible. The extremists groups that I interview
are unlikely to change their minds, but we can reduce their
ability to mobilize others, and that is really critical.
We need to think about how to undermine these groups'
appeal. Islam strictly prohibits targeting innocent civilians.
Religious scholars need to get out the message, loud and clear,
that bin Laden's version of Islam is a grotesque distortion of
their faith. Those scholars should be speaking out, not just in
America, but all over the world.
Finally, we have to learn to dictate less and listen more,
as Joseph Nye argues in a forthcoming book on America's soft
power. We have a stake in the welfare of other peoples and need
to devote a much higher priority to health, education and
economic development, or new Osamas will continue to arise.
I have some additional material that I would like to give
you for the record.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Stern follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I'm going to recognize our chairman first, but I
will tell you the question I'm ultimately going to ask, so if
the others of you could think about it when the chairman is
asking his questions, I'd like to know where you would agree
and disagree with what you heard the Prime Minister say and
what you would emphasize about what he said and so on.
So I'm just looking for the extremes--where you really
strongly agree, where you would possibly disagree and where you
would put the emphasis on what he said, because he said a lot.
I think you all know that. And maybe that's one reason,
General, why you're a man of few words at this moment.
But, Mr. Chairman, you have as much time as you'd like to
consume.
Mr. Burton. I'll try not to abuse the privilege, Mr.
Chairman.
Let me just start off by saying, as I understand it, Dr.
Stern, you're saying that there ought to be some kind of a
Marshall Plan up front for allies like Pakistan, so that we can
dissuade some of the people who might be swayed by economic
matters to joining the terrorists?
Ms. Stern. Well, I think that we really ought to be helping
Pakistan educate its youth. I think that those madrassahs are
an important component of the Jihad International Inc., and
what else we've got to be doing initially before we go forward
is--it does seem to me that Pakistan is ready to assist us,
and, therefore, we have to have that Marshall Plan. We would
need to develop that Marshall Plan right now. It's not that we
need to pour money into Pakistan instantly, but we need to be
ready. We don't want to turn Pakistan into Afghanistan. It's a
real danger.
Mr. Burton. So you think we ought to start moving that
direction right away?
Ms. Stern. We ought to start planning it.
Mr. Burton. OK.
General, you worked with Pakistan, and you were with them,
I guess, during the problems we had in Somalia. You were the
commander in chief of CENTCOM at that time. What was your
assessment of the Pakistanis in that conflict?
General Zinni. Well, they were truly heroic. The Pakistanis
suffered--I think it was 135 killed, more than any other force.
When we were bringing in coalition partners and, of course,
trying to give coalition partners some of the tough duty, like
the city of Mogadishu or some of the difficult outlying areas,
Pakistani brigade voluntarily took on the heart of the city,
and they paid a big price for it.
I also commanded the force that covered the withdrawal of
the U.N. Forces, and the Pakistani brigades were the last ones
on the beach, except for our forces. We conducted nine tactical
maneuvers, all at night, extremely difficult, passage of lines,
release in place; doing it with an ally that doesn't even
operate under the same doctrine is extremely difficult. They
were highly professional, and they're greatly appreciative of
what we did.
I would also say, Congressman, that after the millennium
bombings or alleged preparations for attack were in Jordan, the
Jordanians coughed up a number of terrorists ready to attack a
number of civilians, and we picked up the terrorists trying to
come through the Canadian border to LAX. I was asked, because
of my relationship with General Musharraf, to call him and ask
him to apprehend the leaders of this effort who were identified
as being in Pakistan along the Afghan border. He said, Of
course, and he immediately apprehended them all.
I was then asked to call him again to ask if he would allow
our lawful and other agencies to have access to them, and he
said, of course, send them right away.
I was then asked to call him again and see if he would give
up computer disks and other things that were confiscated, and
he said, Of course.
To make a long story short, I have asked to make five calls
and he delivered under everyone of them. He wasn't under
pressure and he knew he wasn't going to get anything for this.
As a matter of fact, I said, this ought to be motivation for us
to improve our relations. He said, I don't want anything for
this. He said, it's the right thing to do.
So that's been the kind of individual he's been. He leans
toward the West. I think he wants more Western influence. His
No. 1 concern in his army is that 70 percent of his officers
have not been outside of Pakistan. Traditionally, it's been an
international officer corps, educated offshore in many of our
institutions, but now cutoff from that; and he worries about an
army that has to turn inward and the influences of extremists.
I think he's someone that we should help, as Dr. Stern
says, and the country, not because we get something out of it,
because as Dr. Stern says, we can't afford a Pakistan that
becomes another Afghanistan.
Mr. Burton. Very good.
Let me just ask one more question. I see the red light came
on, and I appreciate the generosity of the chairman.
One of the questions that has not been asked, and I'm not
sure you'll want to answer this question in open forum, but I'd
like to pose it to you anyhow, and that is, I think--I can't
remember whether it was Dr. Harmon or Dr. Stern commented about
a truckload of Stinger missiles.
Was it you, Dr. Harmon?
Mr. Harmon. It was Dr. Stern.
Mr. Burton. And the concern I have is the Stinger missiles
are shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that can bring down
a plane.
Do these terrorists have these kinds of weapons or access
to them, and should we be concerned about that right now here
in the United States?
General Zinni. We have had reports that the terrorists do
have Stinger missiles or their equivalent, Soviet model, I
believe it's SA-7. As a matter of fact, as I mentioned, when we
covered the withdrawal of the U.N. Forces out of Somalia,
rumors of Stinger-like missiles caused us to have to do an all-
surface. In other words, we had to withdraw the entire force by
sea for fear of bringing in heavy-lift air and the problems
around Mogadishu airport.
Obviously, during the Afghan war, the Afghans were provided
with surface-to-air hand-held missiles, and there's been an
attempt to account for all of those. I've never seen anything
that absolutely confirmed, but I would strongly believe that
they have those missiles, or have access, or could certainly
buy them on the weapons market.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll have some more
questions later.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Waxman.
Dr. Harmon, I want you to put your mic a little closer.
Move that, if you would, and get it a little closer.
Mr. Waxman, you have the floor for at least 10 minutes and
more if you need it.
Mr. Waxman. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want
to greet the three witnesses and apologize that I wasn't here
for your testimony, but I had a conflict that I had to attend
to.
This is probably the most important issue before us I
think, far above any other. There are all the other issues that
are still pending, like what do we do with energy and
electricity deregulation, what do we do with compensating
health providers and things like that.
We heard from former Prime Minister Netanyahu. I don't know
if you were here to hear what he had to say, but he described
the need to have a clear policy of sanctioning any state that
allowed terrorism to operate within its borders, or gave
support to terrorism.
Now, he made a convincing case that terrorism, which is the
intentional attack on innocent civilians, should not be
acceptable under any circumstance. But how practical is such a
policy as we now try to bring together a broad international
coalition to deal with this problem and to strike back at those
who attacked us last week?
General Zinni, do you have any views on that?
General Zinni. Well, I think there's the obvious problem of
one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. You're
going to run into that. Certainly not in the case of Osama bin
Laden. I think you'll find very few people who describe him as
a freedom fighter or the kind of terrorist that we're talking
about, that Dr. Stern, Dr. Harmon mentioned, who are directly
informed in these sorts of activities.
But if it becomes a blanket policy, I think it's going to
be difficult on the fringes as we get into areas where it's
unclear as to who is a terrorist or how we define them. I do
think the Prime Minister's statement about terrorism as an
attack on innocent civilians is not acceptable in any case, and
I do think we ought to----
Mr. Waxman. Terrorism is unacceptable, not his statement is
unacceptable.
Mr. Zinni. No. Terrorism is unacceptable; I'm sorry--that
we should sanction any country that advocates or condones
attacks on innocent civilians as a means of responding to
whatever their political problems are.
Mr. Waxman. Dr. Harmon, did you want to comment?
Mr. Harmon. May I add something?
I think that sanctioning states which harbor terrorist
groups is quite practical for at least a couple of reasons. One
is that all traditional law and modern international law, to
the limited degree I understand them, bar a state from allowing
its territory to be used as a refuge and as a base for
operations against foreign states. Since that's a bedrock
principle of international law and our U.S. foreign policy, I
think we should use it and rely on it and push others to live
up to it. And I think the Prime Minister's arguments do point
in that direction.
The second thing, as to this notion of just how well we can
recognize terrorism, I was struck in 1997, December and also in
1994, at two great summit meetings involving many dozens of
Arab states, that they published the most extreme condemnations
of terrorism, especially the kind committed in the name of
Islam.
I think Americans have heard so many commentators talk
about the difference between real Muslim faith and Muslim
militancy that would kill innocent people, that I think we
understand that, and think we can rely on it. I think we can
turn to a moderate Arab state and make every reasonable
insistence that they help us in fighting terrorism. It's in
their interest as much as ours.
Hosni Mubarek went to Addis Ababa on a state visit in 1995
and was nearly murdered by terrorists who came from the Sudan.
It was completely reasonable that Egypt, after that, was
infuriated by Sudanese behavior. It was reasonable that the
United States and Egypt both joined in sponsoring sanctions in
the U.N. against the Sudan, which I think have had some effect;
and so I think it is practical, and I think it must be pursued.
Mr. Waxman. We're now trying to bring together an
international coalition to fight terrorism. I think the
President is doing exactly the right thing, and I certainly
support him. But prior to this time, we were resisting some
international efforts--for example, the Biological Weapons
Convention in 1972 which prohibits the development and
stockpiling of biological weapons for 6 years. Negotiations
have been ongoing to add to the treaty a protocol containing
provisions that will allow inspectors to obtain information
about and go to sites of expected biological weapons
production, development or use.
Earlier this year, the United States rejected this protocol
and failed to offer an alternative proposal.
In addition, the U.N. is in the process of negotiating a
treaty to counter small arms proliferation. In these
negotiations, the U.S. has been supporting civilian ownership
of military weapons in trying to block proposed restrictions on
trading arms with rebel groups.
Do you think that we ought to change course and support the
Biological Weapons Convention to be expanded to allow
inspectors to proceed to get this information, and do you think
we ought to reverse course and work within the U.N. in trying
to negotiate a treaty to counter small arms proliferation?
Do any of you have any comments on those two areas?
Ms. Stern. I think what we've learned in the last week is
that this is very much a globalized world, and there is a dark
side to globalization, and that we need other countries to help
us fight a variety of threats, not just terrorism, but also
reemerging antibiotic-resistant disease. There are going to be
certain kinds of threats that we can absolutely not fight
alone.
I think that certainly the Bush administration should put
forward some kind of alternative if it can't accept the
Biological Weapons Convention itself. I understand that there
are some kinds of experiments, which seem to be reasonable
experiments, ongoing in what our adversaries might have planned
for us in the area of biological warfare, and it's
understandable that we would want to--not to reveal exactly
what is going on. So we need to come up with a good
alternative.
The bottom line, I think you're absolutely right, is that
we cannot go it alone. In a way, we are declining, our power is
declining. We need the world; that's become very, very clear.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
testimony and your answer to my questions, and I wanted to say
to you, Dr. Stern--I don't know if you were here or where--one
of our colleagues I thought was very unfair to you, and I just
want to apologize on behalf of the overwhelming majority of
this committee that, I'm sure, disagreed with a Member of
Congress acting in such an unprofessional way.
Ms. Stern. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Platts, you have the floor. You've been very
patient, and you are a very valued member of our Subcommittee
on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Realtions. Thank you for staying and being here.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one question for
the panel.
Given your knowledge of the broad issue of terrorism, in
this region in particular, and how we're clearly looking to
Pakistan to be of assistance--and we're aware of their
assistance in the past, General, and appreciate your insights
into that assistance. Earlier, with the Prime Minister, there
were some questions regarding how we build the coalition
against terrorism and the issues of Israel and India being
included in that terrorism and how that affects the coalition,
and our ability to stay united and go forward.
And I'd welcome your comments on both of those nations
being included in the coalition.
General Zinni. I would echo what Dr. Harmon said. This
threat affects Islamic countries as well as non-Islamic
countries.
If you look at the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam,
Muslims were killed. In the case of Dar es Salaam, 11
Tanzanians were killed. 10 were Muslim. It's obviously
destroyed countries, made them incapable or failed states, the
cases of Afghanistan, Somalia.
We have countries out there that have tried to turn this
around. Yemen is a good example. Yemen has a lot of problems,
but Yemen asked for help. They asked for help in intelligence
sharing, in training counterterrorism forces, in helping
develop a coast guard, a border security force. We were
involved, in my time there, in trying--because it was in our
interest--to also help them secure their borders and not become
a transit point for terrorists.
Unfortunately, the Cole was bombed in their harbor, and it
set us back a considerable way and even brought questions from
Congress about why we should even do this. Well, I think now
those questions are pretty well answered.
I'd like to just make one statement about--most of the
things that have been said here have to do with what I would
call ``the first phase'' of this. The first phase is, get
better intelligence, fuse it better, go after the money, get
the leadership, take care of the infrastructure and take it
down. We may need some legal help in terms of computer network
attack and information operations, changing some of our own
laws.
There will be military action. It should be done in the
appropriate way with the appropriate targets.
All that is short-term, tactical first phase.
You have a second phase that really, I think, gets to your
question, Congressman. What do we do after that? We can leave a
lot of broken china in this region, a lot of people that will
not understand our motivations and intentions. Eventually you
have to ask the question, how do we get at the center of
gravity of this problem, radicalized young men who are willing
to destroy things for this?
How do they get there? It isn't just religious fanaticism
that suddenly struck them. That's the rationale, and that's the
means by which they're cultivated. But there are economic and
political problems; there are cultural conflicts out there that
we need to work to resolve. It's in our interest and the
interest of those in the region.
Those members of the coalition, beyond Israel and beyond
India, I think basically the Islamic countries, will join us in
this, but they want a long-term commitment and they will want
us to help them address these issues that go beyond just the
immediate tactical attacks or fixes that we need to do.
Mr. Platts. Would either of the other panelists like to
address it as well?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate all three of our
panelists being here today and giving their time; and,
certainly, your leadership and the full committee chairman's
leadership on this issue.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Platts.
You are all very gracious to allow one member to proceed,
but I have a number of questions, and I consider you a
phenomenal resource. I would like you to tell me where you
agree the most with the Prime Minister, or where you might have
been a little uneasy, if you were at all; and what would you
have wanted to emphasize about what he said?
And, General, I'll start with you.
General Zinni. I didn't find anything in particular that I
would disagree with.
I understand we have a strong relationship with democracies
around the world, and we have special relationships with
countries, but I think it's clear to us that the coalition that
we need to build, what we need in the international community
to fight this, has to be broad; and we have to make sure that
what we do includes countries that may not be democracies,
countries that may be struggling toward democracies, even
countries that have a lot of problems that need to be fixed and
need to perform a lot better to measure up to our standards and
to receive our support. Because the immediate problem is
dealing with this.
As I mentioned, the first phase of this problem is to
eliminate this cancer that's out there, but then in the second
phase to eliminate the causes.
I don't want my son facing this. He's a second lieutenant
in the Marine Corps, by the way. But we will create
generational problems if we only go at the tactics of this, if
we only view this as a war, if we only view this as attacks.
Dr. Stern mentioned the Marshall Plan. General Marshall
defeated Nazi Germany and then found a way to make sure we
didn't face that again. Douglas MacArthur certainly helped in
the defeat of Japan and then made decisions on rehabilitating
Japan, to bring it around to where we never had to face that
again. As distasteful as that seems now, as much as that runs
against our emotions at this moment, when we finish the job of
getting Osama bin Laden and breaking his network and destroying
other terrorist networks--which I'm convinced we can do; we now
have the will and the popular support, unfortunately through
this tragic incident, that we hadn't had before. But we need to
take it that step further, and we need to prevent the
conditions that allow this to grow, from happening again. We
are the only power left in the world that can cause this not to
become a future problem.
Mr. Shays. I'm going to pursue a question with you before
we ask the others to respond to the same question.
It seems to me that the Prime Minister was giving us a
recipe that makes it easier for us to fight terrorism and to
have our--and to use our military, because he's making it very
clear we have to hold the harboring states accountable as if
they committed the act, instead of--in that sense, we're not
looking for the needle in the haystack. I mean, we know it's
there. We know who the leaders are, and we hold them
accountable.
Tell me, though, what that means.
General Zinni. I've been in this business for 18 years. I
was the Marine Corps's counterterrorism officer, appointed
after the Beirut bombs. Every time you tried to generate the
resources or the attention to deal with this issue, you never
really could get everything you felt you needed.
I think we're going to find in the intelligence community,
for example, we're woefully inadequate in the number of
analysts, in the fusion center, in the kinds of things we need
to bring that together.
The comment would always be that more Americans die from
bee stings each year than they do from terrorists. Well, that's
not true anymore. We've crossed into a new era, and I think
that we have now, unfortunately because of this tragedy, the
public support and the political will to do something.
Any nation-state that promotes, supports or condones
terrorism, we must consider it as an act of war against us, and
we must go after that nation-state and, I believe, remove the
regimes that advocate this, that support it or direct it. In
that sense, I completely agree with the Prime Minister.
I think there are going to be nonstate entities that are
going to require a different approach, and of course, Osama bin
Laden is the classic case, where they do have the wherewithal,
the financing, the network, the support structure to do things
that only nation-states were able to do just a short time ago.
There is going to be a third category of nations, incapable
and failed states that are used and abused. They are not going
to look pretty. They are going to be states where maybe in some
cases, the government is supportive of the kinds of things we
want to do, but there is mixed reactions from the population.
We push the governments very hard, we could lose the state. So
we are going to have to be very careful how we handle that
category of state. We have to help them out of this more as in
many ways and we have to help them come out when they make the
hard decisions in ways that their people can see they benefited
from making the right decision.
So we have to look at those three categories, Mr. Chairman.
States that fully condone it and we have to go after them as we
would any nation that has committed an act of war upon us.
Non state actors. This is going to be the strange new war,
the war of computer network attack, of high degree of
intelligence, of selected military strikes, of all the things
you have heard testimony about.
And then the third category, failed or incapable states
that will need our help. I would give one caution in that third
area, because I have lived this when I attempted to do the
engagement in my region. We have a number of people in this
body who honestly believe, as they should very strongly, about
certain principles. And when they look at these nation states,
they see a principle that isn't fully the way they would like
it to be, be it human rights, non proliferation,
democratization. Because of this one flaw or one fault, we
totally become incapable or we become prohibited from engaging
in any way.
I conducted military to military connections with countries
that I was turned off because their police committed a
humanitarian or human rights violation. The military people
that were clean told me how does this affect me. I am trying to
do the right thing. This happened right after an incident in
New York. How does it affect you in the military? I made the
case back here that I often felt like someone charged to
provide medical assistance, but the patient had to be
completely healthy to qualify. We are going to have to change
the rules a little bit and understand that we have a long way
to go with some of these nations. It may not be perfect but we
have got to help them along the road or they will degenerate
into what Dr. Stern and Dr. Harmon have described here,
especially in cases like Pakistan and Yemen and other places.
Mr. Shays. Sir, you almost accomplished the impossible.
Behind you are two Marines that haven't cracked a smile all day
and they almost started to smile.
General Zinni. And they haven't been ordered to, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I will have you think about it now, that is, I
thought human intelligence required us to be in the various
countries we are not at and I saw the conflict of our treating
these countries as enemies, and yet we need to be good
diplomats or military people, our businessmen and women to
interact, to learn things. But you seem to suggest that, you
know, we were woefully inadequate on human intelligence by not
maybe having analysts. So I need you to come back to that to
flesh that a little better. Dr. Harmon, Dr. Stern, one of you
would respond to the thing you agreed most with Mr. Netanyahu
and maybe the area have you some caution.
Mr. Harmon. I would like to reply. Thank you. Benjamin
Netanyahu help set the terms for debate on forcible
counterterrorism in the mid 1980's when this was such an
important issue. His first book appeared, and everyone in the
building--and I had the privilege of having a small desk in a
distant part of the building--everyone here was struck by the
intelligence of the book, by its emphasis on clear thinking and
good logic and its insistence that morals play a role in this
debate, that it is not just a question of morale, but of the
fact that in democrat societies, a moral position is part of
morale. He did, in short, a great duty with his publications.
And his last word today, if I recall correctly, was an
emphasis on will. I think that as our distance from September
11th grows, that will be something we all really need to
remember.
I would like to underscore General Zinni's emphasis that
certain threats we face don't necessarily have a good home
address, that there are failed states, there are individuals
that need dealing with in ways that we can't only take through
capitals, state capitals in these cases.
Let me mention something that is sort of controversial. The
United States strategy has included for years the matter of
forcible rendition in the case of an individual who may be
stateless, like Osama bin Laden's case, or a narco-trafficker
or something who is abroad from his own country, they have used
a combination of law and force to seize these people, bring
them here for trial. There is no reason that this country can't
contemplate careful and intelligent use of force in a military
vein while also doing far more of that kind of thing, such as
forcible rendition. All administrations, Democrat and
Republican, have done it. Our courts uphold it. If we are
willing particularly to use lethal force, if need be, when the
case demands it, this is a very practical thing we can do in
the difficult war, in the difficult world between war and peace
that counterterrorism involves.
And so, that is an attempt to--reasonable countries can
deal with particular individuals of the kind that General Zinni
was discussing in that way. Otherwise, I think that the Prime
Minister's testimony is a good lesson for Americans and
something well worth retaining.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Dr. Stern.
Ms. Stern. I would just like to talk a little bit about
what I have seen about how some of these groups raise money.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this though, could you first
respond to what you comment on Mr. Netanyahu's.
Ms. Stern. Yeah. It is closely related because I think
that--what I want to emphasize is that these groups don't
really need states for--they need states, obviously they have
to live somewhere; they are not going to live on Mars. But they
are getting a lot of what they need from other entities than
states. And I think it is very important to realize how they
are doing that. They are wealthy individuals, and I want to
talk about the Jihadi groups that I have interviewed in
Pakistan. You will see something similar in other parts of the
world.
Mr. Shays. May I ask you parenthetically, if you continue
to interview people who are potential terrorists, are you put
in the awkward position of being able to say what you need to
say?
Ms. Stern. Actually, I have already published. They don't
really like what I publish and I probably will not be able to
continue doing this kind of research.
Mr. Shays. I would like to have you back a few more times.
Ms. Stern. I think my husband doesn't want me going back.
Mr. Shays. That is a good sign. It must mean he loves you.
Ms. Stern. Right. I don't think I am about to tell you
anything.
Mr. Shays. If your husband wanted you back, I think you
need to consult someone.
Ms. Stern. Well, I will just put----
Mr. Shays. For the record, the two Marines smiled for the
second time.
Ms. Stern. I think it is very important to realize that
there are wealthy individuals around the world that are
supporting these movements. And governments may be able to
control them, but we have to pressure those governments a lot
more.
Mr. Shays. So that implies the Swiss or whomever that don't
harbor terrorists, if they are enabling someone to be harbored
and they are aware of it in any way, they need to step forward.
Ms. Stern. That is right. I think that may be a good way of
saying this is--we should be going after terrorism enablers,
and obviously we are not going to impose sanctions on every
terrorism enabler.
Mr. Shays. OK. What else would you like me to know?
Ms. Stern. There is a lot of money. There is a lot of money
in this world, the Jihadi world. Without going into details,
since it obviously makes you nervous, I will say on my behalf,
and thank you very much, I will say that one group, for
example, told me they had so much money they didn't know what
to do with it. They are also getting donations in kind of these
groups are donating operatives for particular operations. So
groups are acting together. They are loaning operatives to one
another. That is another way--I mean, there a way that is
another--you can think of that as a kind of support for the
group that really has nothing to do with states.
Mr. Shays. General, maybe you could respond to the issue of
human intelligence. You heard the assumption I made. How would
you respond?
General Zinni. I think there is two issues regarding
intelligence. I am sure more, but two issues that jump out at
me, Mr. Chairman, one is human intelligence. I can't remember a
testimony that I gave as a commander in chief where, when asked
what my deficiencies were, especially in intelligence, that I
didn't say it was the lack of human intelligence.
Mr. Shays. The question, though, is how is that curable?
General Zinni. It is curable but not in the short term. It
takes a long time to buildup a network and it takes resources
and money, and it obviously takes the authority, the legal
basis for it in some cases, which may not be there now as a
result of some legislation. To buildup the kind----
Mr. Shays. So we are not speaking in tongues here, are you
referring to legislation that says we can't deal with bad
people?
General Zinni. Yes.
Mr. Shays. You would knock that out quick.
General Zinni. I think in this case we have to. I would be
careful. I wouldn't advocate blanket authority to do things. I
think certainly oversight is necessary. I wouldn't want that as
an American citizen. But I do think we have to look carefully.
This is a new and different kind of war. How many times have we
heard that? It is going to require tactics some times that
require us to take measures like that in order to get the
intelligence.
But the intelligence problem doesn't stop there. We will
find out in this, I am afraid that there were bits and pieces
out there, that if somebody could have pulled it together we
might have seen this coming. I think that in the intelligence
world the terms that always used is fusion.
After the Beirut bombings of the Marine barracks, we
created a terrorist fusion center here, interagency in
Washington. And everything regarding terrorism, any report, any
call-in, any information we received went in there. And they
were given the proper resources, the proper number of people
and analysts so they could quickly turn it around and put the
pieces of that puzzle together. I am concerned about, at least
at first blush, what I see that the INS had a bit of
information, the FBI may have had a bit, the CIA, whoever. How
is this coming together? Do they have the resources in people,
in money, to turn this around? In the intelligence area it is
collection, it is processing and analysis and it is quick
dissemination so you can act.
I lived in an AOR, an area of responsibility that had Osama
bin Laden and many other terrorists for 4 years. And we tried
to protect our forces. 99.9 percent of the times we were
successful. There were times when we weren't, or our State
Department wasn't or NGO's weren't or our businessmen weren't
or our tourists were not. The only way we can counter that to
be better is to have the intelligence. And it is going to
require a big investment, I think, to get us there.
Mr. Shays. In one way, I am encouraged because I have been
going under the assumption that we couldn't do some of this
human intelligence because we certainly weren't there and
didn't have the network. The sad news is maybe this information
was available and we didn't have the people to analyze it and
to collect it all and analyze it and make the process of
knowing what it said, which is sad but that seems to me to be
something we can remedy pretty quickly.
General Zinni. I think so. And I think we need to question
the intelligence community about what their needs are to make
this happen. I should add one other point, and that is
intelligence sharing. The program is very difficult in a formal
sense because obviously we have to vet nations in their ability
to handle the intelligence. But I do think we need to make the
connections as soon as possible. And in some cases, we may
actually have to waive some of the obviously important
bureaucratic things that we put in to protect information in
order to get access. The best information I ever received is
when I sat down over tea with the intelligence chief of some
nation who gave me his views of things. That was the best
intelligence.
Mr. Shays. But the implication is you got to be there.
General Zinni. Yes. Absolutely.
Mr. Shays. One of the things that I have been impressed
with in my travels overseas for the work in any national
security subcommittee is the amazing contacts that our military
personnel that all branches have overseas with very powerful
military people in those other countries. And I think I learned
more almost from those interagencies where our military invited
me to meet the military personnel of France, Great Britain or
other countries than I have learned, frankly, from briefings
that I have had in my own country.
General Zinni. I agree, sir.
Mr. Shays. It is very impressive. This is a book that, by
the way, whenever I ask one witness a question, I am happy to
give you an idea. I am going to limit myself to 10 to 15 more
minutes because I could go on for hours, but--unless I care to
go on longer, then I will just use that authority. So the point
is if you have a comment to a question I asked the General, I
am happy to have you jump in, either one of you.
This is from the Department of Health and Human Services
and it is fiscal year 2002 to fiscal year 2006 plan for
combating bioterrorism. And it said, ``During the year that
small pox was eradicated, the Soviet government embarked on an
ambitious program to grow smallpox in large quantities and
adapted for use in bombs in intercontinental ballistic
missiles. The successfulness of that project has the U.S. very
concerned about the intentional use additionally.'' Then it
says, ``the WHO, the World Health Organization, has expressed
concerns that smallpox might be freeze-dried to retain
virulence for prolonged periods. The technology and
intellectual capacity exists for a well-funded, highly
motivated terrorist group to mount such an attack.'' That's
just you know from our own HHS. Does that surprise any of the
three of you?
General Zinni. It doesn't surprise me. It is in line with
all the intelligence reporting I saw while on active duty.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Harmon.
Mr. Harmon. It is my understanding that it does not take
much sophistication to make a small biological weapon which
could be useful in a terrorism case. There is a major new study
of considerable interest of some of the cases in which either
chemical or biological weapons have been tried. It is edited by
Jonathan Tucker and done by MIT press recently. And some of the
major cases have been studied about American groups, foreign
groups, attempting to use and make weapons of mass production.
The general conclusion, and then Dr. Stern, I think,
contributed to that, so she will doubtless want to comment. I
think the general conclusion could be two things: one is that
they haven't come as close as people feared to success; but on
the other hand, it is evident that they sure are trying. And I
think all of us----
Mr. Shays. You don't have any doubt given that they were
willing to destroy potentially the lives of 50,000 people that
they would be hesitant at all.
Mr. Harmon. The kinds of groups we are discussing today
don't, I think, hesitate on that basis. 25 years ago, Mr.
Chairman, there was a strong argument advanced that
particularly with nuclear weapons, that terrorists don't want
lots of bodies, they want lots of attention. The author of that
line of argument, and it is a fine article, has backed off a
little bit. He did a new version of his own. He is a----
Mr. Shays. Before Tuesday or after Tuesday.
Mr. Harmon. This was before. About a year ago, he published
a new examination of that issue. He said essentially I hope it
is still true that they won't go to weapons of mass destruction
but I am less sure than I used to be. I think Aum Shinrikyo's
activities in Tokyo should divest us of any hope we have that
they are unwilling to work with this kind of material to try to
make it effective. We have been somewhat lucky, frankly, so
far, that some of these cases have not worked out for the
groups which----
Mr. Shays. The terrorists developed a new smart bomb. They
just got on a plane and they became the guiding guidance
systems, and they were just willing to blow themselves up in
the process. So we know if they haven't handled, how do they
expose the general public to a biological or chemical agent
without hurting themselves? We can learn now that they may not
care.
Ms. Stern. I would like to add something to here. I think
it is very important to point out that very few groups are
interested in mass casualty attacks, but the kind of group we
would be worried about would be of the sort that we have now
seen. And regarding your question about smallpox, I did
contribute to that volume that was just referred to, actually I
wrote a couple chapters in that MIT press book, and one of the
individuals that I have studied extensively is a guy named
Larry Harris, who had actually successfully acquired Yersinia
pestis from the American Type Culture Collection. That is the
bacterium that causes bubonic plague. With smallpox, if someone
acquires it, we are in trouble.
Mr. Shays. We have about 24 million doses--12 million
doses, and I hope we are starting to make more of them.
General, I am going to kind of see if I can end up in this
area. It seems to me--first off, in terms of I hope we don't
look for blame right now, because I have never known our
country in a type of crisis when to get it right. But it seems
to me that it is almost unfair to affix blame on anyone right
now. Because everybody was shouting and later we are--we can
say later that person shouted and that person shouted and that
person shouted, but there were so many others who were warning
things too. It would seem to me is part of our problem is
knowing which shout to listen to. It may be that we can go back
and say they should have known this or they should have known
this or they should have known this. But then what was the
environment that it came in? I mean, you know what I am trying
to express.
General Zinni. Yes. I couldn't agree more Mr. Chairman. You
know, in recent years I have seen us punish good people. We
have ended careers of fine military officers because they were
99.9 percent perfect. And there was a moment when there was a
vulnerability, there was a pattern set that they weren't aware
of, an attack came at them from a direction they didn't expect.
And we have a tendency to frankly, immediately look inward and
find accountability becomes the main issue. I think we ought to
think about lessons learned as the main issue.
There is probably enough blame to go around for everyone.
And all agencies and many people that tried their best but
didn't quite get it 100 percent perfect. I testified before
this body and the other body many times on terrorism and made
the same statement. I made it in 1996 when I was first
appointed. We are being stalked every minute of every day.
Someone is waiting for us to make a mistake to let down our
guard. It is hard to ask our military, for example, to be
completely 100 percent dedicated to force protection. If they
did, they wouldn't accomplish their mission.
For example, I had hundreds of people in my region
responsible to me for security assistance. They had to be out
and about on their own in order to do their job. They had to
expose themselves to danger. We ask commanders to carry out
missions, like enforcing the sanctions against Iraq that are in
positions and bases and places and have to do things that
expose themselves.
Sometimes the mission becomes all consuming and sometimes
the emphasis on force protection drops just a little bit. And
it hurt me deeply to see that we were fast to punish and fast
to look for accountability and fast to look for blame. And I
would emphasize that is not the important part right now. It is
to get the lessons learned and to fix the mistakes that we
maybe have made, or the places where we have had gaps.
Mr. Shays. This relates to that. If your military forces
are on alert constantly, how do we expect them to maintain
operational capability?
General Zinni. That is an excellent point. We have four
threat conditions. Let me give you an example, Mr. Chairman. I
had 25 countries for which I was responsible for American
military involvement, influence, presence. Of those 25
countries, 24 in my entire time as a commander in chief and
deputy commander in chief, 4 years, 24 were in a terrorist
threat condition all the time. The only one that wasn't was the
Sea Shell Island. Every other one was not even just in the
minimum threat conditions, but one of the two higher threat
conditions.
What that means is we ask our troops to be at this high
state of alert when more intelligence comes in, when another
threat comes in, one more reliable, one more specific, there is
nothing left to ratchet up to. And the troops frankly can be
worn down by that. There is no place to go. It is easy to cover
yourself by constantly keeping them in that state of alert. If
you do, you punish the troops. Many times I granted waivers or
I made exceptions or I took the risk as the commander to ease
it down because I knew my troops needed it. You can't keep them
at that highest state of alert full time.
Mr. Shays. I had an opportunity, in my capacity as
chairman, to land on the Theodore Roosevelt and stay there for
a night. I was astounded at this. I mean it is a city with an
airport on top of it. Basically run average age, 19-year-olds.
And I was in awe. I even get teary eyed just thinking about it.
I was in awe of what each of them did. But these are very young
people as well. And the description of all the various
countries that we may have to hold accountable and the
implications of that are quite mind boggling, frankly.
I will end with this area, Dr. Harmon. And maybe Dr. Stern,
and maybe General as well. We can't eliminate the fact that the
media will become a platform for terrorists, especially after
an attack. What should we do to make the media less of an
unaware participant?
Mr. Harmon. I think it is a superb question, Mr. Chairman.
The other day one of the newspapers in the midst of a story
about our current difficulties referred to the political
offensive against terrorism by saying that the diplomatic
effort includes reaching out to such countries as Cuba and
Sudan with which the United States has had adversarial
relationships.
What a simple little line which hides so much. The story of
the 1990's was a story of amazing involvement by Sudan in
terrorism worldwide and bin Ladin himself was there for about 5
years as his base. So that statement, which seems so objective
and so simple, in fact, covers over many truths. And I think
that the skill, therefore, of the reporters who are really
good, who try to dig seriously and report honestly is even more
impressive. Because that kind of blandishment leaves the
typical reader, who doesn't know the Sudan well, with a sense
that jeez, bilateral relations are tough between Khartoum and
Washington. That just doesn't begin to tell the story. I guess
one reason I mentioned Judith Miller of the New York Times, or
I could mention Tim Weiner of the same paper or Steve Emerson,
who help produce the film, some of which was shown here
earlier--these are journalists who really do first-rate work,
and they are out there. And so mention of them is helpful.
And I think that the U.S. Government's published position
carefully put together by the State Department year after year
and published in April, deserves good attention. I think our
media should not assume that what one angry sheik says is the
equal of what State puts together in this town with a great
deal of honest work, with a great deal of weighing of
intelligence after a great deal of deliberation about the
verbiage.
And so the challenge I think for the people, for the
citizens who don't--who are not experts in these areas, is to
understand the truth. Because it takes us back to this issue of
will. Sudan deserved strong measures during the 1990's when the
Al-Turabi regime was in charge. You would never know that from
some of the newspaper coverage of the Sudan.
Ms. Stern. I would also like to say a few words. I think we
need to be very aware that our rhetoric can actually make a big
difference. Words like ``crusade'' imply a war against Islam
and make Muslims everywhere feel threatened. We need to
remember that after the victims and their families, the other
victims most hard hit by these attacks are peace-loving Muslims
around the world. I think that you can do a public service by
making clear that this is not a war against Islam. This is not
a crusade, that Muslims are critically important Americans and
that attacking them at a time like this is not only a violation
of law, a violation of ethics, but also counterproductive. So
you can use the media.
Mr. Shays. Those of us who have been here for 14 years
remember legislation we had to vote on dealing with the
incarceration of our Japanese citizens and we were all ashamed
of that. So hopefully we will remember that in terms of our own
real life experience and practice what we preached.
Is there any question that you would have liked me to ask
that you would have liked to answer?
General Zinni. If I could, Mr. Chairman, I would like to
address one issue. It is sort of related to your last question.
Last night there was a TV show that implied that justification
for this act was based on the missile strikes in 1998. And I go
back now to the point about the media. And I think it is
important that we understand and we don't let the American
people believe that was the case. In February 1998 Osama bin
Laden put out his fatwa, his religious edict that says American
citizens, civilians should be killed not just military, not
just diplomats, but all Americans. It followed up about a month
later where his council ratified that and put it out as a
declaration and we were following this.
Immediately after that, in 1998, about a month later, he
made a statement about acquiring, ``an Islamic nuclear bomb,''
that it was, it should be their principal effort. They had a
right to it and they should use it. He then attacked the
Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. He killed over 200
innocent Kenyans and Tanzanians, most of them Muslims. He
killed 12 Americans. He killed three of my people at central
command. We had intelligence reports that he was planning other
attacks, very specific very reliable intelligence reports. As
we will find in this business, there aren't good targets. There
isn't the infrastructure you have in a nation state. There
isn't a military force. There isn't a capital. It is hard to
find things to attack. We had some intelligence.
We knew of some camps, a terrorist camp doesn't offer you
much. It is remote. There are many facilities. We had to make a
choice. There was a possibility that you could take the shot
and get something. There was a possibility that even Osama bin
Laden and his leadership might be there. But we couldn't bank
on it. Or not take the shot and let it pass and suffer another
attack. The best we could hope for is that we at least send a
message that we can reach you behind those hills. We took the
shot.
And I concurred in it. I mean, I was the commander in chief
that launched the missiles. When directed, I felt it was the
right thing to do. I had no illusions that we were going to
score a great victory or hit anything. But to believe that this
was the cause of this incident where these people were in place
well before that ready to do this or we had no right to take
that shot, based on the event that had happened just months
before I think is erroneous. But we had media people that
allowed that one-sided version to come out. I have no doubt
that the American people certainly would not be deceived by
that. But that may give rationalization and a sense of
justification to those that are on the edge out there that
suddenly are horrified what happened, and maybe are going to
rethink their sympathies. That is why I think sometimes the
sensationalism is out of order.
Having said that, I don't believe we should police the
press. I think the first amendment is one of our strengths.
Truth hurts these evildoers more than anything else. We just
have to ask them to be responsible in their reporting.
Mr. Shays. I think that is a very nice way to end up. And I
thank all of you. Just hold on 1 second. Before I ask unanimous
consent, that the prepared statement of Dr. Bruce Hoffman of
the Rand Corp. and a September 9th article from the Wall Street
Journal entitled, ``U.S. Presses Lebanon On Suspects'' that Mr.
Lantos wanted to be inserted into the hearing record, that both
be inserted into the record. And obviously without objection so
ordered.
I would just say that to the three of you, you were very
patient in waiting. It is important that you testify before
this committee. It is important that my staff and other staff
hear what you had to say as well as members. And I consider all
three of you having made a valuable contribution to the work of
our committee. I thank you very deeply. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson and
additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]
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