[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM: LESSONS LEARNED FROM LONDON
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-259
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JON C. PORTER, Nevada C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ------
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio (Independent)
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
David Marin, Staff Director
Lawrence Halloran, Deputy Staff Director
Benjamin Chance, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
R. Nicholas Palarino, Staff Director
Elizabeth Daniel, Professional Staff Member
Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on September 19, 2006............................... 1
Statement of:
Rollins, John, Specialist in Terrorism at International
Crime, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division,
Congressional Research Service; Tom Parker, former British
counterterrorism official, adjunct professor, Bard College,
executive director, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center;
Baroness Falkner of Margravine, member, House of Lords,
United Kingdom, fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard
University; James A. Lewis, senior fellow, technology and
public policy program, Center for Strategic and
International Studies; and David B. Rivkin, partner, Baker
and Hostetler, member, U.N. Subcommittee on Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights, contributing editor, National
Review, former official at the White House and Departments
of Justice and Energy...................................... 12
Falkner Baroness......................................... 57
Lewis, James A........................................... 65
Parker, Tom.............................................. 40
Rivkin, David B.......................................... 73
Rollins, John............................................ 12
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Falkner, Baroness, of Margravine, member, House of Lords,
United Kingdom, fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard
University, prepared statement of.......................... 60
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio, prepared statement of................... 8
Lewis, James A., senior fellow, technology and public policy
program, Center for Strategic and International Studies,
prepared statement of...................................... 68
Parker, Tom, former British counterterrorism official,
adjunct professor, Bard College, executive director, Iran
Human Rights Documentation Center, prepared statement of... 44
Rivkin, David B., partner, Baker and Hostetler, member, U.N.
Subcommittee on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights,
contributing editor, National Review, former official at
the White House and Departments of Justice and Energy,
prepared statement of...................................... 76
Rollins, John, Specialist in Terrorism at International
Crime, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division,
Congressional Research Service, prepared statement of...... 16
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3
COMBATING TERRORISM: LESSONS LEARNED FROM LONDON
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging
Threats, and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:07 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Porter, Kucinich, and Van
Hollen.
Staff present: J. Vincent Chase, chief investigator; R.
Nicholas Palarino, staff director; Robert A. Briggs, analyst;
Elizabeth Daniel andAlex Manning, professional staff members;
Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa,
minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Shays. Quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats, and International
Relations hearing entitled, ``Combating Terrorism: Lessons
Learned from London,'' is called to order.
Last month, British authorities announced they disrupted a
terrorist plot to detonate as many as 10 transatlantic aircraft
leaving Heathrow Airport for the United States.
A London metropolitan police representative said the
successful execution of this plot would have wrought mass
murder on an unimaginable scale.
This is the most recent incident in a decades-long pattern
of attempted and successful terrorist attacks against passenger
airlines.
In January 1995, Philippino authorities disrupted an
operation which sought to blow up American passenger planes.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists tragically used our
aircraft to attack the United States.
Five years after September 11th, in an international
atmosphere of uncertainty we continue to ask the question, is
our country safer?
The successful disruption of terrorist attempts like this
London bomb plot indicates we may be headed in the right
direction, in changes we have implemented, improved information
sharing, surveillance, increased law enforcement resources
devoted to national security, appeared to be helping thwart
terrorist attacks. But the fact that such threats remain and
that these threats exist in such a potentially massive scale
also warns us we must remain vigilant. Detection and prevention
must be the first line of defense enabling the intelligent
infiltration of terrorist cells and prevention of their
actions. All of this must take place within a comprehensive and
transparent legal framework governing the counter-terrorism
apparatus.
The key in this disruption of the London bomb plot was that
it was foiled before the would-be terrorists got to the
airport. We understand local and international elements of the
British counterterrorism apparatus helped secure the crucial
tip that led to the capture of the suspects. They tracked
terrorist financing evidence via intelligence cooperation with
Pakistan. They were able to coordinate their internal
counterterrorism components to react quickly, effectively and
flexibly. And their authorities have the legal and
jurisdictional tools to allow them to conduct a thorough
investigation after the fact.
Today, we focus on the counterterrorism tools available to
the British, which of these of their tools does the United
States share? What do we lack? And how could some of these
tools usefully be adopted to an American environment? Which of
these tools are more appropriate for Britain? And what are the
implications for some of those tools coming face to face with
American civil liberties regulations?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Our witnesses today appearing together on one
panel will offer their perspectives from both sides of the
Atlantic.
We will hear testimony from Mr. Tom Parker, a former
British counterterrorism official, and Baroness Falkner of
Margravine--you will teach me how to say it better--a member of
Parliament from the House of Lords, who served as an adviser on
Prime Minister Tony Blair's task force on Muslim extremism. Our
American witnesses include Mr. John Rollins, an expert on
intelligence and homeland security from the Congressional
Research Service; Dr. Jim Lewis, a specialist in surveillance
technology and its implications from the Center For Strategic
and International Studies; and Mr. David B. Rivkin, a former
official at the White House, Justice and Energy Departments
under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
We are grateful to all of them for their appearing before
us today and we look forward to their testimony and the
interesting discussion I think that will come from it.
At this time, the Chair would recognize a gentleman who has
no name evidently, but is the ranking member of the
subcommittee, Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Operating incognito. I want to thank you for holding this
hearing. There are many lessons to be learned from attempted
terrorist attacks, both here and abroad. First, we must also--
thank you----
Mr. Shays. When a member tries to help, it makes it worse.
Mr. Kucinich. I didn't say that. First we must also be
deliberate in the method and manner in which we address the
issue of terrorism in our world.
This should not be considered a war on terrorism, which is,
in my estimation, is an oxymoronic proposition.
One need only look to the arrests in Britain to realize
that the prevention of terrorism is primarily a police action.
The planned attacks were not stopped by an army, but through
careful police work. Second, while the work of British police
in foiling the terrorism plot certainly deserves praise, it
does not mean that the United States should rush to change our
Nation's laws to mirror those in the United Kingdom,
particularly laws which would hinder the protection of our
right to privacy and civil liberties.
The so-called global war on terror has already translated
into a dangerous assault on our Constitution. The PATRIOT Act
permits the government to conduct criminal investigations
without probable cause, to conduct secret searches, to gain
wide powers of phone and Internet surveillance and access
highly personal medical financial mental health and student
records with minimal judicial oversight. And I might say that
this is still a subject of great debate in the United States.
There is many of us who feel that our Constitution, which
yesterday we celebrated another birthday of, our Constitution
is being undermined by this oxymoronic war on terror.
Third, we need a careful re-examination of our Nation's
foreign policy in the Middle East, and a careful reexamination
of our Nation's foreign policy with respect to Muslims in the
world.
Continuing down the path that led to a disastrous war based
on false pretenses, and our continuing occupation of Iraq,
which has led to civil war is causing blowback against the
United States and the United Kingdom. That is why these attacks
continue. And that is why the young men in this plot, all
second generation Britains of Pakistani descent, admittedly
adopted a violent means of protesting United States and U.K.
foreign policy. There is no excuse for terrorism. But we sure
better understand how terrorism gains its roots.
I believe the United States needs to change its long-term
policy to respond to this growing threat. We should start by
withdrawing our military forces from Iraq and by stepping back
from preparations from military invasion in Iran.
We also need to address the real roots of terrorism, why it
appeals to so many young men in the Middle East, Africa
Southeast Asia and the middle of London. There is still a huge
cultural divide and a misunderstanding of the Arab world that
has led to the perception that many Arabs and Muslims are
potential terrorists.
Extremists clearly do not represent the views of the
majority of Muslims, and that needs to be said over and over.
As a matter of fact, as even the equation of concoction, Muslim
terrorist, I think is a smear on all those who practice Islam,
and so we should be careful about how we approach that.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. Look
forward to hearing your testimony.
Mr. Shays. Thank the gentleman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
follows:]
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Mr. Shays. At this time, I will introduce our witness. We
have Mr. John Rollins, Specialist in Terrorism at International
Crime Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division,
Congressional Research Service. It is great to have you here.
Mr. Tom Parker former British counterterrorism official adjunct
professor, Bard College, executive director Iran human rights
documentation center. Baroness Falkner of Margravine Member
House of Lords, United Kingdom, fellow, Institute of politics,
Harvard University, member and 2005 prime minister's task force
on Muslim extremism. Dr. James A. Lewis, senior fellow,
technology and public policy program, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, and Mr. David B. Rivkin, partner,
Washington, DC, Office of Baker & Hostetler, member U.N.
Subcommittee on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights,
contributing editor, National Review, former official at the
White House, and Departments of Justice and Energy during the
Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
We are delighted that all of you are here. First let me
take care of some business, I ask unanimous consent that all
members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening
statement in the record and that the record remain open for 3
days for that purpose, and without objection, so ordered, and
ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted
to include their written statements in the record and without
objection, so ordered.
At this time, let me swear in all our witnesses. We swear
in witnesses even across the Atlantic, but we understand you
may want to define that yes. But, thank you for participating
as all the other witnesses are, so if you would stand please.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Note for the record all of our witnesses have
agreed to that, and in fairness the only other member from
Parliament from the House of Lords was Lord Morris, who came
and it was on the Gulf war on these issues, and it was
delightful to have him and it is delightful to have you and it
is delightful to have all the other members.
Mr. Rollins, we will start with you. We are do the 5-minute
rule. Could the staff move the timer and put it in between Mr.
Rollins and put the other timer in between Mr. Lewis and Mr.
Rivkin? We are trying not to hide that. We want them to see it.
Right there is good. And let me just tell you how it works.
It is 5 minutes, and then we will roll it over another 5
minutes. We would want you not to take more than 10 minutes but
it would be nice if you were closer to 5 more than the 10 but
you have that time. I don't want to read fast.
All right, Mr. Rollins you are on. We will do 5 minutes and
then roll over for another 5 minutes and have you stop.
STATEMENTS OF JOHN ROLLINS, SPECIALIST IN TERRORISM AT
INTERNATIONAL CRIME, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENSE AND TRADE
DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE; TOM PARKER, FORMER
BRITISH COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, BARD
COLLEGE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS DOCUMENTATION
CENTER; BARONESS FALKNER OF MARGRAVINE, MEMBER, HOUSE OF LORDS,
UNITED KINGDOM, FELLOW, INSTITUTE OF POLITICS, HARVARD
UNIVERSITY; JAMES A. LEWIS, SENIOR FELLOW, TECHNOLOGY AND
PUBLIC POLICY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES; AND DAVID B. RIVKIN, PARTNER, BAKER AND HOSTETLER,
MEMBER, U.N. SUBCOMMITTEE ON PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF HUMAN
RIGHTS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, NATIONAL REVIEW, FORMER OFFICIAL
AT THE WHITE HOUSE AND DEPARTMENTS OF JUSTICE AND ENERGY
STATEMENT OF JOHN ROLLINS
Mr. Rollins. Very good. Thank you, Chairman Shays, thank
you Representative Kucinich, for allowing me to come speak
about lessons learned from the recent arrests in London of
individuals suspected of plotting to detonate explosive devices
aboard U.S. airlines transiting to the United States.
As the former Chief of Staff for the Office of Intelligence
of the Department of Homeland Security, and now as a policy
analyst at the Congressional Research Service, I was fortunate
to have the experience of traveling on the morning of August
10th. I say fortunate in that for most of the previous homeland
security advisory system alert notifications, I was involved in
the threat assessment and notifications phase of the advisory
system, and never had the opportunity to experience the
operational implementation efforts that accompanied these
announcements. So I think I now have a new perspective.
As I progress through my day's travels, a number of
thoughts occurred to me regarding issues relating to the latest
threats stream and efforts the United States has undertaken in
the 5 years since 9/11, and the 3\1/2\ years since the
establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. Based on
the details regarding this latest terrorist plot concerning the
use of liquid-based explosives to destroy multiple aircraft and
kill thousands of passengers, I wondered why other modes of
transportation, specifically rail lines, the most targeted in
the post 9/11 environment, were not included in raising of the
alert level.
I also wondered if State and local communities in the
private sector were apprised of the generalities of this threat
stream during the early stages of the United Kingdom's
notification to the United States or, as in past alert level
change notifications, the calls were made concurrently to
State, local private sector leadership, thus placing the
entities that safeguard the homeland in a reactive rather than
in a proactive mode.
While recognizing the need for investigative and
operational security 5 years post 9/11, the Federal Government
continues to question and concerns persist regarding the role,
State, local, private sector leadership can and should play in
providing information and assistance during times of normal and
heightened threat levels.
As we sit here with the flights originating from the United
Kingdom and U.S. domestic flights still designated at high
risk, or orange in this testimony, I would like to briefly
discuss three points that may be useful in attempting to assess
lessons learned. First, the United Kingdom's investigation and
the United States's response.
On the evening of August 9th, British authorities arrested
24 individuals ranging from age from 17 to 36 years old. Some
suggested these arrests came as a terrorist cell was very close
to the point of execution, while others suggested the plot was
still in the planning stages as the airline reservations had
not been made and two members of the cell did not have
passports.
Peter Clark, chief counterterrorism of the London
Metropolitan Police, stated that they were still trying to
ascertain the basics of terrorist's intentions, the number,
destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked.
Others wondered whether any of the suspects were
technically capable of assembling the devices and detonating
the liquid explosives while aboard the plane. The individuals
arrested in London were known to authorities over 1 year ago as
a result of numerous tips by neighbors after the July 2005
London suicide train bombings. These local east London
neighborhood tipsters were concerned about the intentions of a
small group of angry young men.
This investigation significantly intensified over the
summer of 2006 with the use of human and technical collection
efforts, including those of the U.S. intelligence community.
The urgency was the result of the United Kingdom learning
in the 2 weeks preceding August 10th that the cell may be
conspiring to bring aboard an explosive device on the U.S.
airliners transiting from the United Kingdom to the United
States.
During the post arrest investigation, it is reported
several martyrdom videos were discovered. The motivation of one
of the purported leaders of the cell is reported to be seeking
revenge for the foreign policy of the United States and their
accomplices, the United Kingdom and the Jews. In the martyrdom
video, this cell member demands other Muslims join the jihad as
the killing of innocent civilians in America and western
countries as justified because they supported the war against
Muslims and were too busy enjoying their lifestyle rather than
protest the policies of the country. Another cell member
remarked as well that the war against Muslims in Iraq and
Afghanistan motivated him to act.
Now, I would like to focus on the U.S. response to the
London threat stream. Is it a model for future success?
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and other
administration officials have stated that this was a remarkable
example of coordination between two countries and that of the
interagency council, U.S. interagency councils. And while the
international and Federal Government coordination efforts are
an example of success, a question remains whether the
uniqueness of this United Kingdom-based terrorist plot lends to
a model for future U.S. counterterrorism success.
Was civil aviation receiving a great deal of attention,
resources and deployed assets to counter today's threat? Can we
expect the same level of security when a credible threat is
directed against a less secure sector of our society?
Will U.S. homegrown terrorists with or without
transnational connections be recognized and detected by our
international partners or our Nation's State, local and private
sector community members? And while the U.S. flag air carriers
and State, local, and private sector entities were notified of
the cell's planning early on the morning of August 10th, when
the alert level change was announced, a question remains
whether this is the most effective threat notification model to
follow for future credible threat streams.
Recognizing once again the ever present balance between
operational security and ongoing investigation, the potential
for future intelligence gleaned from the suspect activity, the
need to safeguard the homeland, one wonders what should the
point, at what point should the scales tip to earlier involve
effective State, local and private sector leaders? And a larger
question, if such an earlier notification model were in place
that recognized the value of information gathered at the State
and local level, which agency in the U.S. Federal Government is
charged with compiling seemingly disparate surveillance
reports, suspicious individuals or group activity or general
community irregularities?
Last, what are the local communities or the terrorists
plot, plan and undertake actions toward their objective of
carrying out a terrorist attack? What is the Nation's
involvement or of our local communities?
Mr. Shays. Let me warn you, because you have a lot more to
your talk, you want to try to find a way to round it out?
Mr. Rollins. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, you spoke of British tools that the United
States may adopt. One of the tools is community awareness and
community involvement.
Though the London threat stream was certainly not perfect
intelligence, the specifics of the plan known to the U.S.
authorities far exceeds the specificity of the vast majority of
information normally assessed regarding threats to the U.S.
national security.
The knowledge of the type, location and general timing of
the potential attack, and the ability to safeguard the target
and passengers due to post 9/11 civil aviation safeguards far
exceed the scenarios we will most likely face in the future.
In sum, Mr. Chairman, I am proposing a homeland security
citizen corps that allows for the Federal Government to work
with State and local authorities to assist, and local citizens
identifying irregularities in their neighborhood, and thus
having a reporting mechanism to report that back to the Federal
Government.
The question remains, the Federal Government, which Federal
Government agency is responsible for putting these dots
together? In closing, whether one ascribes to the belief that
corporate Al Qaeda is continually reconstituting with the
objective of carrying out a catastrophic attack or the Nation
will soon experience deadly attacks by those ideologically
aligned, past terrorist planning efforts including the most
recent London threat stream offer a lesson that citizens in
their local community are likely to be the first to recognize
signs of terrorist activity.
This concludes my opening remarks and I look forward to
your questions.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, very much. And your full statement
obviously will be in the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rollins follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Parker.
STATEMENT OF TOM PARKER
Mr. Parker. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to
preface my remarks by saying I am really approaching this
subject, primarily as an academic. I am talking on my own
behalf, not representing any organization.
I wanted to address each of your questions in turn. Some in
more detail than others because I am conscious there is a great
deal more expertise in some of these areas than mine. I wanted
to start by talking a little bit about how Britain approaches
counterterrorism conceptually.
This is, I think, the most significant difference between
the current U.S. approach and the British approach.
We have, since 1974, in the United Kingdom, pursued a
doctrine of criminalization. Terrorism is treated essentially
as a criminal act, not as an act of war or something outside of
criminal activity. It is seen primarily as a criminal act.
This doctrine emerged largely as the result of lessons
learned in the early 1970's in Northern Ireland where Britain
initially treated the troubles as essentially almost a colonial
insurgency. It had tried to apply the same military tactics
that had been used successfully in Malaya, less successfully in
other colonial emergencies. And by and large, it was
tremendously unsuccessful.
Measures such as internment without trial, coercive
interrogation were introduced in joint operations, mounted by
the military and the police. And ultimately, far from reducing
the level of violence in the province, there was a substantial
escalation. It went from a situation in 1971, where I think 21
people were killed in the first 8 months of the year. These
measures were introduced. That figure jumped to 147 people by
the end of the year, and to 460 by the end of the following
year.
Mr. Shays. 460?
Mr. Parker. 460 the following year. Most studies done of
this period on the mobilization of nationalist opinion stress
the impact the British military activity had on the local
communities.
There was a change of government in 1974, labor government
came in and the strategy changed. The strategy that was adopted
was one of criminalization, Ulsterization and normalization.
The idea was to try and back off putting military on the
streets. The military remained clearly in a support role to law
enforcement. But the idea was to put law enforcement back in
control and----
Mr. Shays. Did you say criminalization, and another word?
Mr. Parker. Ulsterization, normalization, it is a slogan
rather than a prescription. But a popular one at the time.
And the idea was to take a local approach and try and
deviate as little from the criminal norm as possible.
Clearly, the United Kingdom recognizes that terrorism is
not ordinary crime. In fact, in Northern Ireland, people refer
to the distinction, operational police officers will talk about
ODCs, ordinary decent criminals, to distinguish them from
provisional IRA members. So we don't see it just as purely
ordinary criminality. We see it, perhaps, as extraordinary the
criminality, criminality that poses a threat that doesn't
require a degree of extraordinary response, but one that is
essentially a departure from the norm and that we will return
to the norm as soon as that emergency is brought under control.
And that is why up until the end of the 1990's, you essentially
had only a series of temporary instruments that introduced
counterterrorist legislation. It is only with the Terrorism Act
2000 that changes.
And finally, in the United Kingdom you have a legal
architecture that addresses terrorism directly as a phenomena.
Up until that point, you simply had short-term emergency
measures. In fact, under British law, until about 2000, it was
very difficult for you to be considered a terrorist unless you
were from Northern Ireland or one of the subscribed groups that
identified during the troubles as causing problems in the
province. That made it very difficult to allow the United
Kingdom to address other terrorist groups that were operating
on their soil particularly when allied countries, France
notably in the early 1990's were very keen to see the British
crack down on Algerian extremists operating in the United
Kingdom. Very difficult for us. We just didn't have the legal
architecture at the time.
But the basic, the message here that I am putting across, I
think, is simply that we treat it as a crime, and we deviate
from criminal norms purely to the extent that we think it is
necessary to ultimately achieve prosecution, successful
prosecutions. So I think that is the main conceptual
difference. I am conscious my time is already running out.
Mr. Shays. You have another 5 minutes, so keep going.
Mr. Parker. Thank you. Organizations is the other big
difference. Clearly, the United Kingdom is much smaller than
the United States. We have a fraction of the number of police
forces, I think it is 18,000 different law enforcement agencies
in the United States. It is essentially less than 60 in the
United Kingdom. This clearly makes coordination easier.
The other difference is we have a central coordinating
point in the security service that has undisputed primacy
outside of the province of Northern Ireland for combating
terrorism, which enables one government agency to focus on the
terrorist threat with laser-like precision and can focus right
in and they can devote their resources to trying to tackle it.
They also act as the center of the hub, and they make sure
that intelligence and information, background material is
disseminated to everybody who needs to know it. Because it is
ultimately supporting a law enforcement structure, that means
you have a direct link from the security service effectively
all the way down to the Bobbie on the beat, the two don't
interact, but there is a network that cascades information down
with the appropriate protections for sensitive information. So
ultimately, we can do things like outreach and have an impact
on Muslim communities around the United Kingdom in a targeted
manner, using local safer neighborhood teams, local community
police officers, as our very first sort of eyes and ears on the
ground. And that is great because these are the people who help
communities. These are the people who help parking around
mosques. These are the people who help local kids when they are
in trouble, help local community leaders defuel tensions in
neighborhoods. And this is a positive police image. This isn't
flak-jacketed arms toting police officers.
These are soft, often civilian officers in just plain
clothes, not carrying weapons or anything like that who spend a
lot of time in the community. And so we have this very nice
integrated system that goes from that to international
intelligence coordination.
Overarching the security services is the joint Intelligence
Committee. That pulls the entire intelligence community
together, make sure that intelligence that is provided from
overseas or from all the different collection methods, goes to
one coordinating point in the security service for assessment
and then dissemination. So it is a very tightly coordinated
system.
I should add, though, that it has taken a long time to get
to that point. You know, we have had 30 years to refine this
system and it has taken most of those 30 years to get to this
point so, in offering it up as a quick fix, I would add the
proviso that you could put the architecture in place, but it
doesn't necessarily mean that people admire the building for
some time.
I wanted to touch also on the difference between civil
liberties in the United States and the United Kingdom.
I think there is a tendency in the United States to think
that the United Kingdom doesn't have laws that protect civil
liberties, that we essentially have some vague series of
understanding----
Mr. Shays. You have this long memory that goes back to a
few years ago.
Mr. Parker. Yes, a revolution came up in my last
conversation in the House committee.
Mr. Shays. That's all right. Your prime minister reminded
us he burned the building down.
Mr. Parker. Having spent two fourth of Julys on American
military bases now, I think I heard every joke on the subject.
I usually say it proves one of the great lessons of history,
you don't send Germans to fight Englishmen and leave it at
that.
Basically we have a very strong human rights regime in the
United Kingdom and it is very strong because it is enforced
from without the United Kingdom via the Europe court of human
rights. The European convention on human rights is enshrined in
British law now, thanks to the Human Rights Act of 1998. So
that means that every article in the convention is embedded in
British legal practice. There is also an enforcement mechanism
in Strasburg, where foreign judges sit in judgment on things
done by the British state. It is a binding enforcement
mechanism. That is incredibly powerful. It is almost entirely
immune from political pressure--certainly domestic political
pressure. And it holds states to a universal standard, a
universal standard that is interpreted with what is known as a
margin of appreciation, which allows each state a certain
degree of interpretation in the way that it institutes the
convention provisions.
But that said, any egregious breach is very quickly
referred to Strasburg and very quickly adjudicated. And the
United Kingdom has found itself in many circumstances before
the European court to defend counterterrorism practices, both
operational practices and specific techniques such as coercive
interrogation.
So that is a very powerful mechanism, every bit as powerful
I submit as the U.S. Supreme Court in overseeing the way we
behave. So quite the reverse of the sort of typical perception.
I am not going to touch on the impact British foreign
policy has had, because I think Baroness Falkner is in a much,
much better place than I to comment on that.
Mr. Shays. Let's make sure that if we don't ask you that,
you do bring it up later on, so you do that and we will segue
to the Baroness. You have the floor. And we need to put that
mic in front of you.
Just one mic would be good, so choose your weapon there and
you need to lower it down.
Am I allowed to tell a Baroness these instructions? Is this
allowed?
[The prepared statement of Mr. Parker follows:]
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STATEMENT OF BARONESS FALKNER
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, you are in the chair. I am in
your hands. Let me start, Mr. Chairman, by thanking you for
your very warm welcome. It is very good to be here and I hope I
can, to some extent, illuminate the discussions a bit from the
other side of the pond. I--as means of caveat, I have put my
written evidence to you, but I would like to just point out,
and wish the committee should note, that I am speaking in a
personal capacity. In that respect, it neither represents the
findings of the Prime Minister's extremism task force nor,
indeed, those of the British government.
In your inquiry today, Mr. Chairman, I think they are
looking at the motives planning and tactics of the recent
London bomb plotters, the bomb plotters as of August 10th,
alleged bomb plotters, I think all we can do is speculate. We--
people have been arrested. Some have been charged. Some have
been released. And due process will take its course. But we are
not likely to know the details, particularly of their motives
and planning, until we come to court, and that is unlikely to
be before the end of 2007, some say early 2008. However we have
an official report of the London bombings of July 7, 2005.
And if we assume that some of the characteristics are
similar, then we can also assume that we can draw some lessons
from that.
In that case, we found out that most of the suspects were
mainly of Pakistani origin, they were male, and second-
generation British citizens. Three of those four in that case
were from the same generation ethnic origin and social
background.
They were not educational high fliers, and they had become
religious in the period preceding the events of 7/7.
They became radicalized it is assumed, in the period after
9/11, when intense media attention would have focused on Al
Qaeda. And they would have become more aware of arguments about
and in the Muslim world about western foreign policy.
The questions to whether recent suspects were directed from
abroad is, I think, again, speculative, but it is likely that
some element of indoctrination and support could have come from
abroad. This is unsurprising.
Much has been made in Britain and in the U.S. media of
home-grown terrorists.
I would argue that home-grown terrorism is not a new
phenomenon. In fact, is most terrorism, it is the state's own
citizens that have carried out those egregious acts. Other
examples of recent home-grown terrorism include France, Canada,
only very recently, Indonesia, Turkey and several countries.
Let us not also not forget that in the U.S.A. itself, of course
Timothy McVeigh and John Walker Lindh were both U.S. citizens.
I think it is a matter of prevention and a matter of
loyalty as to whether one's own citizens decide to carry out
certain egregious acts or not. And I don't think any one
country is particularly blessed to have citizens that don't
disagree with its policies to the extent that they carry out
those acts.
To the extent that British and U.S. laws respectively
hinder or help terrorism prevention, I think, Mr. Chairman,
there is a philosophical difference in the U.K. and U.S.
approaches to legislation since 9/11. In the United Kingdom, we
still have a strong emphasis on the common-law tradition of
jurisprudence, and I would argue that we are coming to a
consensus that we probably have sufficient legal instruments in
place, and we need to see how they bear down.
We have passed two controversial pieces of legislation only
in the last 2 years, after much debate. And if we see a third
piece of legislation now, as it has been hinted to by the home
secretary, I think we are going to see that it is a
consolidation of the last four acts rather than breaking
particular new ground.
What is very clear, though, I think across all sides in
Parliament, if there is further legislation likely, it will
have to undergo prelegislative scrutiny on a full evidential
process prior to being tabled in parliament. There is no
stomach any longer for rushed bills.
One of the innovations that we have in the U.K., which I
think is of great value in terms of public confidence and
transparency in the working of terrorism legislation, is the
establishment of the independent reviewer of terrorism
legislation. The U.K. independent reviewer at the moment is
Lord Carlisle of Berriew QC. He has been the independent
reviewer since the establishment of the 2000 Terrorism Act.
He makes judgments of the working of the acts, from the
perspectives of all the interested parties, including those, of
course, who might have been arrested under the provisions of
the various acts.
The effect of having an independent reviewer is that
interested parties have the ability to feed into what they see
as a nonpartisan process of assessment to the provisions of the
act.
As I implied, this increases public confidence and provides
a measure of how provisions are bedding down in practice.
He has sight of sensitive material and can seek insights
into why certain actions are taken by administrative
authorities. His reports are made public and he encourages
public feedback and comment.
In terms of U.S. legislation and its effectiveness in terms
of terrorism, I believe that U.S. law and or the lack of
adherence to international law in the United States would not
be acceptable in the U.K. context. As for practical issues
involving due process, there is a strong view within British
opinion that adherence to due process, including criminal
proceedings, as pointed out by Tom Parker, culminating in trial
and conviction is the most suitable way forward, and this is
across the political spectrum that this view is held.
Apropos, the recent arrests of terrorist suspects after 10
August and to do with issues, acts preparatory to terrorism,
this is an innovation of the 2006 act--well it is not an
innovation to be honest, it was there in the 2000 act, but it
has been broadened to include acts preparatory to terrorism,
the suspects arrested in August were arrested under some of
these provisions, and it will be very interesting to see
whether now these very wide ranging offenses, which are
available are used, and to what extent they play a part in
gaining convictions if the latter are secured.
To the extent that U.K., and I would argue, U.S. foreign
policy, sometimes some of us think they are almost
indistinguishable, to the extent that U.K. foreign policy has
contributed to what has been called home-grown terrorist
activity, I am skeptical of whether there is a causal link
between our foreign policy. I would rather see a consequential
link. And what I mean by that is that I think foreign policy
facilitates indoctrination.
Mr. Shays. These are just bells that tell us when the House
opens up and when there are votes and all of that. And I have
been here 19 years and I still haven't figured it out. So don't
you worry about it.
Ms. Falkner. OK, as you will see my evidence, I detail the
extent to which British citizens were radicalized from the
1990's onwards. And I don't think that the conduct of foreign
policy, in terms of engaging in the Iraq war, is necessarily a
causal link for terrorism. But it is undoubted to me that it
has effected an increased radicalization and facilitate
indoctrination.
As I say in my written evidence the extent of which conduct
of foreign policy continues to divide the government and the
country cannot be understated.
Four western Muslims and there are 20 million of us, the
facts of hypocrisy, the practice of double standards and the
contempt for international law as practiced by the United
States, and to a lesser degree, the U.K. on European countries
remains baffling. The question asked in the U.K. now is what
the course of events might be if the U.K. were to withdraw its
forces from Iraq irrespective of what the United States might
do. I would say that the consensus is building across the
political spectrum that a more independent foreign policy is in
our country's interest.
How do U.K. civil liberties laws compare to those in the
United States? In winding, in summing up I would say that I
think I really do want to comment on U.S. Constitutional
structure as it is so different from the U.K., particularly as
interpreted since 9/11.
If that makes comparison extremely difficult, the current--
suffice it to say that the tendency currently in the United
States to move away from its obligations in international law
and its own constitutional safeguards is regrettable.
I am sure you will want to continue this discussion in your
questions. And on that note, I will sum up, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, very much, Baroness.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Falkner follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Dr. Lewis.
STATEMENT OF JAMES LEWIS
Dr. Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
thank the subcommittee for inviting me to testify on this
important subject and for the valuable work it has done in this
and other areas.
We find ourselves in a fierce ideological conflict with a
new kind of opponent. The jihadis remain skillful and
inventive, and I think that is one of the things that the
London plot showed. One thing they use is commercial networks
for travel and communications and finance. And this helps them
create a global presence so they can plan in Pakistan and
attempt to strike in the U.K. or the United States.
Winning this ideological struggle will take years. In the
interim, the United States and other nations must be able to
protect themselves from attack. The U.K.'s success this August
provides useful lessons, first, the reliance of the jihadis on
global travel and communications networks is a vulnerability.
The U.K. arrests show that surveillance of travel, finance and
communications is essential for effective counterterrorism. The
use of commercial networks by terrorists creates an opportunity
for western intelligence services that we should take advantage
of.
Second, many countries have refocused the work of their
intelligence and security services to meet the threat posed by
Jihad. The work of these services, particularly in domestic
intelligence, is our main defense against terrorism.
Domestic intelligence, which is the collection of
information within the Nation's borders for security purposes,
often involving clandestine methods, and including collection
on citizens who have not violated any law, is essential for
counterterrorism.
Third, the arrest show that international cooperation has
improved, but sustaining this cooperation will be a major
challenge for the United States.
This combination of network surveillance, domestic
intelligence and international cooperation is what thwarted the
plan to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. The success is
encouraging and points to the ingredients of an effective
defense.
It also led to renewed calls for an American MI-5, and I
should note that MI-5 of course in the U.K., is known as the
security service.
These calls have appeared regularly since September 11th,
and they led President Bush to direct the FBI to merge its
counterterror and counterintelligence division into a new
national security branch. Expanding the FBI's role makes sense.
It avoids many of the problems that a new agency could face. It
avoids upheaval. But many people doubt the FBI's enthusiasm for
this task and these doubts explain why we continue to hear
calls for an American MI-5.
That said, Mr. Chairman, restructuring the FBI might be as
far as the United States can go without significant
constitutional issues. The differences between how the United
States and U.K. conduct counterterrorism grow out of very
different constitutions. While both countries share a heritage
of common-law, there are significant differences that have
emerged.
First, the separation of powers is much less of an issue in
a Parliamentary system. And the British official known as the
home secretary, whom you've heard very little about, has much
greater discretion in proving electronic and physical
surveillance in the counterterrorism investigation.
The home secretary heads the home office, a ministry that
combines many of the functions of both justice and homeland
security.
We don't have an equivalent.
The relationship of the security service to the local
police is also very different, as you have already heard.
Britain has the national police service. The home secretary
has a degree of control and oversight over both local police
and domestic intelligence. We could not match this in the
United States, given our Federal structure.
Based on its experience in Northern Ireland, the U.K. has
gone through several efforts to refine and adjust its anti
terror laws. The most important is the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act [RIPA], which is really a good name
for counterterrorism law. RIPA spells out the conditions for
both electronic and physical surveillance and it gives
considerable authority to the U.K. Government and to the home
secretary. It also establishes independent oversight bodies to
protect civil liberties.
The prevention of terrorism acts, which you have heard
about from some of the previous witnesses, also provide
important authorities to prevent terrorist acts before they
occur, including authorizing the home secretary to impose
control orders that restrict the movements and activities of
suspected terrorists.
An effort to duplicate RIPA and the Terrorism Act in the
United States would produce objection if not consternation. In
a similar vein, I believe it calls for an equivalent to the
Official Secrets Act that would also face serious
constitutional objections.
One crucial difference worth noting is that the U.K. did
not have the rigid separation the United States has between
foreign and domestic intelligence. Watergate era concerns led
to reforms in the 1970's that divided our authorities for
domestic and foreign intelligence, increased importance of
domestic intelligence in the fight against terrorism, makes
this divide problematic.
On the other hand, a change in the existing rules governing
domestic surveillance could put civil liberties at risk. This
makes any effort to refine and adjust U.S. anti terror and
domestic intelligence laws complex and challenging. Let me note
that the British approach is not foolproof. The UK's difficulty
in assimilating its Muslim immigrants has created a major
vulnerability. Their recent successes must be weighed against
these larger problems in immigration and assimilation, and in
this, the United States may have an advantage. However, our
Federal system and the separation of powers means that the
United States cannot duplicate Britain's security service.
There are useful lessons we can draw from the U.K., and
their experience, I would say these include lowering the
threshold for approving terrorist surveillance, or surveillance
of potential terrorists, a greater dependence on the
legislative rather than judicial oversight, and better
integration of intelligence, police, and communications
surveillance into an effective counterterrorism program.
Now, Americans don't like domestic intelligence as you
noted, Mr. Chairman, this dislike goes back to probably some
time in the 1770's, and they have made efforts to make sure
that these kinds of activities have good oversight and are well
restricted. However, an intelligence system that was designed
for the 1970's is not suited for today's conflict. We need to
do more to improve our domestic intelligence capabilities.
On a final note, Mr. Chairman, and in conclusion, let me
point out that the combination of surveillance, domestic
intelligence, and international intelligence cooperation can
provide for effective counterterrorism. We should recognize
however that defeating terrorism requires more than an
effective defense.
It will require convincing both the jihadis and western
skeptics that terrorism is not a solution. Thank you. I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Shays. Sorry we left that red light on when we should
have turned it over, but are you complete?
Dr. Lewis. I took the 5-minute rule seriously, sir.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Dr. Lewis.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lewis follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I am going to have you give back that mic to Mr.
Parker. When we start the question and I am going to have you
take that mic. Thanks.
STATEMENT OF DAVID B. RIVKIN
Mr. Rivkin. Mr. Chairman, ranking member, it is a pleasure
to be with you.
British success in disrupting the plot to attack airplanes
over the Atlantic has been much celebrated. The question of
what has enabled that success has also been extensively
discussed and has not been particularly disputed, at least on
this side of the Atlantic. By comparison, the question, what
losses can we draw from the British experience, especially
taking into account the considerable differences between our
institutions and legal regimes, has been more controversial.
In my time, I hope to run through a few basic aspects of
it. One is a nature of threat and unavoidably some overlap,
being the last one to speak between the points already been
made and what I am planning to say, but it is fair to say on
the nature of the threat side that both the United States and
U.K., quite prominently on the list of targets envisioned by
various radical groups, in both instances, the threat is mixed
in nature and comes from individuals who reside in the
countries involved, and I refer to the second generation or by
foreign personnel.
It is somewhat hazardous to draw generalizations in this
area, especially you in the presence of British colleagues, but
it seems to me that it is generally accepted that the Muslim
communities in Britain is more radicalized and feels more
alienated from the British mainstream, thereby presenting
perhaps somewhat more fertile ground for terrorist recruitment
than the case of the United States.
In the United States the Muslim community is better
integrated, generally more prosperous, most of its mainstream
representatives are supportive of counterterrorism policies,
and the threat to the United States seems to be more driven by
foreign entities and personnel.
But I would submit to you one can make too much of these
differences. I certainly don't agree with a notion that has
been advanced by some observers that British attacks are
largely driven by domestic factors, poverty, sense of anger
discrimination or the foreign policy side. In fact, to me, it
is impossible to decouple the activities by various jihadi
organizations in the Middle East, be it Al Qaeda, Taliban,
Iraq-based jihadis, or even exploits of Hezbollah and Hamas
from the activities of home-grown terrorists, because they
clearly serve as a source of inspiration and technical
expertise, even to those home-grown terrorists that never
travel to an Al Qaeda camp, or even met an Al Qaeda recruiter.
In my opinion, the global war on terrorism is truly seamless.
Now again, it is hazardous to delve into criminal
investigations, not being a Brit myself, but I would submit to
you that the British law enforcement officials in toto clearly
have a more robust ability to investigate suspected terrorist
persons than the U.S. police agencies. This is true in the
range of areas where you heard about tighter cooperation,
intelligence police services, no wall of separation to foreign
intelligence, and law enforcement functions that we had prior
to September 11th. Very important, no need to meet the strict
requirement of probable cause to obtain warrants that the U.S.
investigative bodies must satisfy under the bill of rights, in
the British case, you get reasonable suspicion. We heard about
those extraordinary tools, particularly the control orders to
be fair is a disputed body in Britain itself, but in my
opinion, I am corrected by my British colleagues, it is
primarily about the scope of such controllers because you had
some, Mr. Chairman, very exceptional controllers that really
put people sort of 24-hour restrictions. And there is
restrictions as to travel, daily contacts and meetings, not
about the control orders of such.
These control orders are very useful, because obviously
what we have been able to do not only isolate dangerous
individuals, but sort of precipitate folks who may be hiding
from you because if you impair the ability of one set of people
to function that requires others to step more into the
limelight.
Profiling it is ironic to me that while Britain, I think
again, all generalities are hazardous leans a little bit more
to the left than does the United States, the British attitude
toward ethnic and religious profiling appear to be more
pragmatic than the United States the very idea of profiling,
which is a means of allocating scarce law enforcement and
surveilling resources is a virtue taboo, I think in Britain law
enforcement and intelligence officials can better target
communities of interest.
And they certainly are able to infiltrate more directly the
extremist portions of a community without me having to worry
about the absence or presence of a criminal predicate which by
the way Mr. Chairman is still very much the FBI standard, even
in the post-September 11th environment for FBIs to rely mostly
on informers.
Privacy, the British have certainly virtually invented the
notion of privacy, the saying the Englishman's home is his
castle, can be traced at least to 16th century, the concept is
not as broadly defined in law and politics as in America most
public spaces in Britain are wired for surveillance.
And by contrast in the United States, we are taking the
privacy well beyond the basic contours of the fourth amendment
and progressed to the point where individuals seriously
consider to have a privacy interest in, essentially can be
described as public activities and activities in the public
space.
Secrecy, a lot less, allergic attitude toward secrecy, here
we certainly have people who believe that any government action
to act secretly or punish people for disclosing sensitive
information be fundamentally illegitimate. I am not going to
repeat the business about cooperation and MI-5 being the senior
service. There is also less of a culture of leaks and sort of
the bureaucratic warfare seems to be more manageable and less
threat recital than the one we experience in Washington.
Excellent discussion, but we heard about the experience not
that one would wish that upon anybody, but certainly, 30 years
of being able to refine the coordination between military and
law enforcement agencies in the context of fighting that area
has been very useful.
Let me just briefly summarize the lessons, and of course,
there are some things we cannot adopt. And the official secrets
clearly would be antithetical to our first amendment values and
would not pass, if it were to pass it would be struck down.
But there are some things we can clearly do, and in my
opinion, it is not the new laws and certainly not the question
of dispensing of our constitutional heritage, and it is not
even bureaucrat institutions and I know about the criticisms of
FBI. To me it is not particularly surprising that FBI has
traditionally been a law enforcement institution, is incapable
of replicating this pure and sort of crystalline focus on
counterterrorism, but MI-5 would do and, in an ideal world, I
don't think it would be unconstitutional to have an MI-5
organization, but I think that pragmatism is an essential
attribute of good statecraft.
To me, the notion that we can really recreate an MI-5 type
entity would be so difficult to stomach, it would be
politically, legally and bureaucratically impossible, in my
opinion, would be not worth trying. What is worth trying, and
even here I am not kidding myself into believing it would be
easy, is to change not our constitution but at least political
and cultural discourse in the areas of privacy, secrecy and
profiling.
What I would say, suggest, is we can and should accord the
government, difficult as it may be for some, greater
investigative latitude and accept some compromise of privacy in
exchange for greater security. At the very least, we should
launch a serious national debate about it, a debate conducted
in open and candid fashion instead of slamming hard at people
espousing different positions.
I would like to finish by pointing out that the critics of
the administration would think that already we have had too
much of a tilt toward public safety and away from individual
liberty, often misquote Benjamin Franklin as having said that
those who would ``trade liberty for security deserve neither.''
That is actually not a correct quote. What Franklin actually
said was a balancing test, they that would give up essential
liberty to attain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety. In my opinion, in fighting this terrorism,
British appear to be striking this balance reasonably
successfully and our balance is less than perfect. Thank you,
very much.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Rivkin.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rivkin follows:]
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Mr. Shays. We are going to start with Mr. Kucinich with
you. Eventually, we need to go to the floor of the House so we
will start with him.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Mr. Rivkin,
the suggestions that you have, and the observations that you
have with respect to privacy and secrecy and civil liberties,
how do you help those hold in a condition where there is
widespread belief that the government isn't telling the truth
about the conditions that led to the imposition of such changes
in constitutional governance?
Mr. Rivkin. Mr. Kucinich, I appreciate the question. It's
the question I often get asked, certainly in the public sphere
when I speak in radio and television.
My answer to that is--is as follows: I'm not going to try
to convince folks to change the opinion of the Bush
administration, but what I usually say is the political portion
of our government, our national security establishment, is
tiny. Most of the people you interact with is as a citizen,
career, civil officials at the State, local and Federal level,
and it's a little unfair, whatever one thinks about George W.
Bush or Dick Cheney, to impute to the career civil servants any
degree of exaggeration, bad faith.
In fact, I think the British are a perfect example.
Congressman, to be perfectly rational about it, Tony Blair is
hardly more popular than George W. Bush, but yet the British
don't seem to have a problem distinguishing between cooperating
with a particular MI5 or Scotland Yard official, whatever you
think about Tony Blair. We seem to be painting everything with
a broad brush.
Again, I don't want to turn this into a debate on Iraq, and
I obviously don't agree that the Prime Minister and this
administration has lied, but even if we assume that it did what
does that have to do with a terrorist investigation in Detroit
conducted by career officials, and I can tell you, in my 9
years in government I've not met anybody who was not dedicated
on the career side, sincere, law abiding. So, to me, it just
doesn't follow, whatever your assessment of the role or
strategic aspects of American foreign policy, why it should
induce people to cooperate less with our law enforcement
entities.
Mr. Kucinich. You didn't answer my question, and that is
that how do you establish the legitimacy of regimes for privacy
and secrecy and retrenchment of civil liberties, the retraction
of civil liberties, if they're being offered under
circumstances where the credibility of the overarching policies
themselves have been under substantive attack and even have
been refuted.
Mr. Rivkin. Well, I would--all right. Let me try. I
understand. Let me try it a little differently.
It seems to me that you'll have to look at the nature of a
threat. If one seriously believes we're facing a grave
existentialist threat, then whatever one might think about the
wisdom of like--of a particular policy does not negate the need
to change the balance between liberty and order because the
threat is very serious. Let me submit to you and the quote, you
know, from a pretty well-known book by late Chief Justice
Rehnquist called All Laws But One.
Throughout American history we have always struck a
different balance, Congressman, between liberty and safety, and
safety is really nothing more than collective liberty,
collective safety. It's not really the government versus the
individual. It's public safety versus individual safety, public
liberty versus individual liberty. We buried this. It ebbed and
flowed. It's always been the case.
I would submit to you that one needs to tell the American
people and have a serious dialog that there's nothing
exceptional about restricting individual liberty in the way it
was not restricted 15 years ago, and if we're successful in
this war, God willing, 10 or 15 years from now, we may go back
to the peacetime ballots. To me, it just is not very useful to
sort of take the position that because you disagree with a
particular administration, the particular thrust of their
policies, that nothing needs to be done.
It reminds me, during the cold war you had a lot of people
who would harp about waste, fraud and mismanagement in the
Defense Department, $900 toilet seats and what not, and most
people typically were against defense spending, and I frankly
think it's ludicrous because what everyone thinks about the
wisdom of the particular procurement decisions had nothing to
do with the reality of the Soviet threat. If you recall, the
Soviet threat was real. It was worth investing money in defense
procurement while trying to minimize the occurrence of $900
toilet seats. The same paradigm, seems to me, would apply now.
Mr. Kucinich. I appreciate the gentleman's willingness to
engage in a discussion here. I would like to point out, Mr.
Chairman, that it wasn't the career intelligence officials who
clearly claimed that Iraq had WMDs. It was administration
political officials who sold the war and pushed for it, and the
reason why I asked the question, Mr. Rivkin--and I didn't bring
up the name of the President or the Vice President. The reason
I asked the question is how in the world can you expect the
American people to willingly see a rollback of their civil
liberties if the circumstances which have been described, the
exigent circumstances which have been described to them, turn
out to have been not true. For example, Iraq did not have
weapons of mass destruction. Iraq did not have a connection to
Al Qaeda. Iraq did not plan to attack the United States, and so
I just--and I could go on, but I won't, the point being that
there seems to me to need to be some symmetry with respect to
the integrity of the assertion of the danger and the policies
that follow that are subsequent to the claims of danger. I'll
just offer that for your consideration, and I appreciate every
panelist being here.
Mr. Chairman, I have a number of bills I'm going to be in
debate on on the floor, and I appreciate the opportunity to be
here.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I'd like all of you to respond to a number of issues, but
first, I'd like to know where you disagree with each other. So,
in other words--and by that, I mean, Baroness, you may have
heard Dr. Lewis say something, Dr. Rivkin say something that
you would disagree with.
Dr. Lewis, you may have heard Mr. Parker say something that
you would see--because I want to just start to get a sense of
where people are coming from on a variety of issues.
Mr. Parker, I'll tell you what I disagree with, but I could
be so dead wrong. You went after my most heartfelt belief that
terrorists aren't criminals, and I'll tell you my most
heartfelt belief, and I'm going to think about it because
you're telling me that Great Britain has already been there and
done that, but to me, to equate a terrorist as a criminal and
give them 10 years of legal rights I find absurd, and I think--
I just think we are dead in our tracks. I mean your just even
mentioning that there's not going to be a court case against
the individuals in the August 10th until potentially 2008 tells
you already how I wrestle with this. So I'm just kind of
illustrating the points, and I am so eager to have a really
interesting dialog with all of you about this.
So, Baroness, do you want to start? You need to pull that
mic a little closer and more in the front of you, too, if you
don't mind. Thank you. That's it.
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure I disagree very
much, but I was going to say that I possibly slightly disagree
with you in your--in what you've just said about how you found
it incomprehensible that there won't be a case until 2007, as I
said, or early 2008. If you see how long the United States has
incarcerated people in secret prisons or in Guantanamo Bay
without having laid charges against them, then, frankly, to be
open and transparent and arrest people under criminal law and
apply due process, terrorism law and apply due process, I think
is the right way to go.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this then, maybe, just so we
don't get too far off and then find out we don't really
disagree. I think there has to be due process, and do I make an
assumption that, if they're not under criminal law there
wouldn't be due process--is due process and criminal law the
same? And I ask that out of ignorance, not out of--Mr. Rivkin.
Mr. Rivkin. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you.
One of the first sayings you learn in your constitutional
law course is the question is not whether due process is needed
but what process is due. What process is due very much depends
upon the proceedings in issue. You have one level of process in
a civil case in our judicial system. You have another level of
process in a criminal case. You have a different level of
process in the normal courts-martial system. You have a
different level of due process in a system designed to try
unlawful combatants, and I don't want to convert this into a
debate about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and God knows I speak
about those issues more than I like to, but I would say this.
It's a little unfair, with all due respect, for our British
colleagues to criticize us for using a non-law enforcement
paradigm. We're taking into account the fact that the law
enforcement paradigm as practiced in Britain and certainly in
continental Europe is far more forgiving of a government, far
easier for you to get at the terrorist. There's no question in
my mind that who I'd want to prosecute would be terrorists. I
would take the British surveillance regime, the British
profiling regime, the British legal regime, despite the lack of
death penalty, over our regime any time, including your point.
We have an obligation for a speedy trial here. In a speedy
trial in this country, you can't wait for 2 years before you
bring somebody to justice. You can't have controllers. You
cannot arrest people.
Mr. Shays. You've answered more than I needed to know now,
but I find your answer very helpful, because I did interrupt
the Baroness. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't saying
there shouldn't be due process.
Ms. Falkner. Can I give way to Tom Parker for a second?
Mr. Shays. Absolutely, and then you can come back.
Mr. Parker. Actually, I think you framed it exactly right.
It is a philosophical issue, this. I think we're going to have
a clash of deeply held philosophical issues because for me they
are criminals. I've spent my entire professional career
basically trying to prosecute mass murderers of one sort or
another.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Parker. I've helped investigate Milosevic in the former
Yugoslavia 4 years for the United Nations. I helped set up the
Saddam Hussein tribunal in Baghdad, and I was part of the State
Department's team in Chad, investigating allegations of
genocide in Darfur. These are crimes on a massive scale, but
they're crimes, for me. I think of the people who commit them
as criminals, far more egregious criminals actually than
terrorists. I don't have a lot of time for terrorists, frankly.
Most of them are sad and diluted people who are socially
disconnected from the people they hurt. I think it cheapens
them to treat them as criminals, and I think we gain legitimacy
from doing so. So, I mean, for me, this isn't a throw-away
sentiment. It is a deeply held belief.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Parker. I think it is the core of our effective
response, and to just respond to David as well, no criticism is
intended in this. Simply, let me make the observation that this
is how we do it, and I think it works quite well for us. The
delay before trial ensures that we have an effective trial
process and the right evidence is presented in court.
Mr. Shays. The only implication, though, was I was thinking
that as--by my suggestion, not criminal, that I wasn't asking
for due process, and there is a bit of profiling with the Brits
that we don't do in the United States, correct?
Mr. Parker. Well, there's a lot of safeguards on profiling.
Basically, it's a reasonable grounds test. The reasonable
grounds test and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act requires
intelligence, direct intelligence, before you profile, so it
isn't simply that a city police officer says, ``Terrorism's a
bad thing, and we associate it with Muslims, so we can stop and
search people.'' It has to be event-specific, and it has to be
location-specific.
Mr. Shays. OK. This is what I'm going to ask you to do, and
this is not a quiz in the sense that I would like to--I'll tell
you what I want to ask you.
I want to ask you what you believe our strategy is against
terrorism, and I'd like you not to change your answer based on
what someone else said. Tell us first what you think that it
was and if it changes, and I will tell you what our strategy
was in the cold war. It was contain, react and mutually assured
destruction. I mean that was our basic approach. We wanted to
contain the Soviet threat. We were going to react to whatever
they did, and if they sought to blow the hell--to blow us off
the face of the Earth, we would blow them off the face of the
Earth, and they, being rational people, would choose not to,
and that was the deterrent.
What I want you to all do is tell me what you think the
Western World's strategy is against terrorism. If you think
it's different in the U.K. versus the United States, tell me
that, and then my point in asking this question is it seems to
me this is where we start, and then I want to know how we
succeed, and when I ask my own constituents what is our
strategy, no one can tell me, which, in my view, is the huge
failure of our political system right now. We worry whether
someone has earned three Purple Hearts in a Presidential
election or has fulfilled their National Guard service
requirement instead of educating people about the terrorist
threat and what we have to do about it, and I'm going to tell
you what I believe the strategy is.
Mr. Rollins, are you ready to tell me what you think the
strategy is?
Mr. Rollins. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
If I may, I'd like to focus on--since we're speaking of the
criminal activity area of the discussion, I'd like to focus on
one aspect of this, and that's the investigative piece of that
since we're having----
Mr. Shays. Is this your strategy on how we deal with the
terrorist threat?
Mr. Rollins. I was going to draw a distinction between the
United States and the United Kingdom.
Mr. Shays. OK, on the strategy to deal with the terrorist
threat----
Mr. Rollins. Yes.
Mr. Shays [continuing]. Not the methods, the strategy. What
is the overall strategy to deal with it?
Mr. Rollins. I think the overall strategy is the United
States is far more reactive than proactive than our United
Kingdom brothers and sisters. I think we are far more likely to
engage and try to thwart a suspected terrorist activity, a
terrorist planning effort than allow--the United Kingdom would
allow the suspect criminal activity to run a little bit so we
could gain further intelligence and further value to see the
strategic picture; whereas, we're focused more on the tactical
level.
Mr. Shays. OK. Mr. Parker.
Mr. Parker. Mr. Chairman, if I understand your question
right, you're asking about a grand strategy.
Mr. Shays. You've got it.
Mr. Parker. My understanding--and bear in mind I'm not
appearing here as an expert on American----
Mr. Shays. Let me do this. I'm going to agree that we don't
know very much about how you do it, and you don't know very
much about how we do it, but you're going to express opinions
about both, maybe expose your ignorance, but let's not keep
apologizing to the other either. So this is just a discussion,
and we don't have C-SPAN but we're going to learn a lot, and
it's going to be very helpful to us, OK?
Mr. Parker. My understanding is it's essentially a doctrine
of preemption. It's a doctrine of preemption that is built
around a coordination of a variety of responses from law
enforcement to military action. The United States is in a
position to project force overseas that no other Western
country is in the way that it does, and that allows us to
pursue a grand strategy of democratizing the Middle East, for
example, that, you know, the United Kingdom clearly on its own
or the European Union on its own could not do. So I think
there's a divergence in what grand strategies both sides of the
Atlantic can pursue, but broadly speaking, the idea of
preemption to disrupt terrorism before it happens is a shared
doctrine at the heart of both approaches.
There's clearly more emphasis in the United States on the
use of the military than in the U.K. It's explicit in the Home
Office. The counterterrorism document that military force
should be used purely as a last resort when all other avenues
have been exhausted, I don't think that's quite the same
conceptualization here, but I'm willing to be corrected on
that.
Mr. Shays. OK. Baroness.
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, I speak as somebody looking at
your strategy from a distance, and there are two or three broad
areas that stand out for us when we look at it from Europe,
from a European perspective.
We said from the outset that we thought calling it a
``war'' and seeing it as a war was a mistake after the events
of 9/11. I think Representative Kucinich--I'm not sure how----
Mr. Shays. Kucinich. Right. You've got it.
Ms. Falkner [continuing]. Has it right in his opening
comments. Once you imply there was a war without an obvious
enemy and open-ended, then it was inevitable that it would
mount in multilateralism, and we feel very strongly in Europe
that there is a move away from multilateralism in other areas
as well.
Then we see extremely wide executive powers in operation
often employed after the fact. We see an abandonment of the use
of judicial instruments in favor of incarceration, preventative
detention. We see this policy of what we call, rather politely,
``extraordinary rendition''; in other words, the kidnapping of
suspects, as one of the tools that is used as part of the grand
strategy, and I think Mr. Rollins kind of got it right when he
said that we tend to see it in a longer timeframe, and
therefore tend to not overreact, with all due respect. Here it
seems to be that the strategy evolves as each incident or near
incident comes to light, and it therefore becomes just
responding to events.
And I would disagree a little bit with Mr. Rivkin when he
says that he doesn't see that foreign policy plays any role in
it at all, that there is a sentiment that if you employ the
level of double standards that you do eventually that you will
end up with no standards at all, and we see that as a dangerous
development.
Mr. Shays. OK. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Dr. Lewis.
Dr. Lewis. Mr. Chairman, let me beg your indulgence by
adding one footnote that I will be brief on and will bring back
to your question----
Mr. Shays. Sure.
Dr. Lewis [continuing]. But we've heard an assumption that
Iraq has something to do with the conflict we're in, and for me
that's very strange because when I entered the Foreign Service
in 1984 we were studying how to deal with Islamic terrorism. We
were looking at the bombings of embassies.
Mr. Shays. When was that?
Dr. Lewis. The 1981 bombing of Gulf embassies, in 1983,
Hezbollah, the murder of the Marines in Beirut----
Mr. Shays. OK.
Dr. Lewis. A series of attacks in the 1990's, Khobar
Towers, the Cole, the World Trade Center.
Mr. Shays. I've got you. I know. I was really wanting to
know--I want to know when you went into the Foreign Service so
then I could----
Dr. Lewis. Oh, 1984. So it goes back a long way. So I don't
see this as something that started with Iraq or that Iraq
contributes to it.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Dr. Lewis. The people who are trying to kill us would be
trying to kill us even if we weren't in Iraq.
The second thing to note is we have sort of a strategy.
It's a little bit inchoate, and I think there's two parts to
it. The first part you've heard about. It's a reactive or
defensive strategy. It involves intelligence and law
enforcement primarily, not the military, I'd say, and involves
disrupting and destroying terrorist organizations, capturing
terrorists, imprisoning them and otherwise making it difficult
for them to operate. That's important. We've had some
successes.
The second part, however, is an ideological struggle, and
we've gotten off to a very slow start, and that is this debate.
There's all these assumptions about the United States and its
foreign policy that we have not adequately challenged, that we
have not adequately defended, and we need to, as we did in the
cold war in your example, eventually figure out a way to start
pointing out, look, the other guy's system doesn't work and if
you go down that path you will be unhappy. We need to win the
ideological struggle, and that's where we're having trouble.
Now I'd point out--I apologize to my European colleagues,
but----
Mr. Shays. No, we're not doing that anymore.
Dr. Lewis. Oh, good.
Mr. Shays. Yes, no more apologies.
Dr. Lewis. I'm apologizing because I'm going to say
something different, which is that Europe was confused in the
cold war, and I think they're a little confused now. There are
things you can criticize about what the United States has done.
I feel those criticisms deeply, as I'm sure many do, but on the
whole there's a good side, and there's the other side, and we
need to figure out which is which, and I don't have any trouble
doing that.
Mr. Shays. OK. Mr. Rivkin.
Mr. Rivkin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just a few basic propositions, not to sound pedantic, but
this position comes from territory of----
Mr. Shays. Now, you can apologize for being pedantic.
Mr. Rivkin. I do apologize for something. Being brought up
by the Jesuits, I have a lot of guilt in me.
It seems to me that unless you understand correctly what is
the phenomenon, what is the strategic framework of what we're
fighting, if we're going to win it would be by accident, and I
think it's worth spending time in engaging in discussions about
why this is war, and with all due respect, there's not much
doubt that this is war, and since we like to talk about
international law there are objective standards that go to the
question of intensity of violence, the nature of targets being
attacked, and reasonable people can differ about many things.
There was a big debate, as a matter of fact, which my
British friends may recall, about Norman Island. Britain argued
quite precipitously at the time that the level of
unpleasantness on Norman Island was not such as to cross the
threshold of armed conflict, and you have certain folks that
take a different view, but reasonable people can differ about
it. But to me, when you have people projecting power, state or
nonstate actors attacking the seat of government of this
country, attacking our financial center and the killing of
3,000 Americans, if this is not war, then I don't know what
``war'' is. It is a war.
Now, people like to point out that how can it be war since
we're not dealing with state actors. Well, with all due
respect, there's a little bit of historical amnesia here,
because if you look at the world's history and European
history, the notion that you can have war between a nonstate
actor and a state is extremely old. I mean I wanted to go back
to antiquities, look up The Dawn of Modern Age of the state
system. In Italian city states, it was quite common to have
private actors, condottieri, an earlier version of unlawful
combatants, who fought not only on behalf of city states but on
their own account. There's nothing new about that, and the
rules recognize that.
So we are in a state of war. It is a long conflict, and the
only thing I wanted to add is what is this connection--because
it's very important, and I think you alluded to it earlier--
what is the connection between the counterterrorism fight here
and the fight in the Middle East? And let's leave Iraq because
I don't want to be any more controversial than I have to be,
but to me there is a clear connection between being on the
offensive, and it's not just a simplistic note to people to
basically have a look. If we go to a place somewhere in the
Middle East and we kill the terrorists there, they don't--
they're not going to come here, the ones we kill or arrest.
It's true, but it's more than that.
To me, the reason people in Britain and in this country--
radicalized, alienated, sick, criminals, whatever you call
them--attack us and Brits and people in Madrid and Bali is for
two reasons. They have a whole list of grievances, and I agree
with my colleague Dr. Lewis the list of grievances is so
endless that there's no way we can possibly cure them. It
certainly includes Afghanistan. It certainly includes Iraq. It
certainly includes Danish cartoons, and I'm sure by now it
includes popes, the pope of a 14th century theologian/emperor,
but there's not a very powerful factor, and that is a
perception of weakness, to call it one or more chummy
expressions by Osama bin Laden. It is that first combination of
grievances and the perception of weakness that adds as the fuel
for both radicalizing and inducing to action those who have
been radicalized. To me, it is absolutely axiomatic that any
ability by the United States and our partners to do well in any
of the overseas spheres of operation, be it Afghanistan, be it
Iraq, Israel----
Mr. Shays. You have so many parentheticals that I don't
know when to interrupt you here.
Mr. Rivkin. Sorry. I'm almost done.
To me, the connection between that battle and the
counterterrorism fight is we have to be strong. We have to
demonstrate we can take on the terrorists where they dwell and
take them down, and while it may increase the sense of
grievance and alienation, it also tempers the powerful
perception that we're weak, and therefore, in the long run, is
going to produce a great weakening of impetus with terrorism.
Mr. Shays. You raise an interesting question, and I know
you want to speak, Mr. Parker, and I'm going to go to you, but
I am constantly being lectured in a very good way by my friends
in the Middle East who say you don't understand the Middle East
so that when I wanted to apply my Western mind to say get out
of Lebanon, I had Israelis say, if we get out of Lebanon, they
will view it as a victory without negotiations, and that's the
way exactly I interpret Arafat's basic Intifada. It was, you
know, we just can wear them down, and it sent the exact
opposite message that I would have wanted to send.
So I just raise that point in the question as to draw an
analogy as to how you dealt with Catholics and Protestants in
Northern Ireland, but you wanted to make a point. Then I'm
going to tell you what I think the strategy is.
Mr. Parker. I thought David raised an important point, but
it was worth developing a little further.
In Northern Ireland, there was a big debate about whether
the insurgency was a war, and David referred to some folks who
wanted to call it a ``war.'' Well, let's put a label on it. The
Provisional IRA wanted to call it a ``war,'' and they wanted to
call it a ``war'' because it gave them legitimacy.
The problem is the terrorists want to be considered a state
actor. They want to be considered to act on the same level as
governments around the world, and by calling it a ``war,'' you
confirm legitimacy of them. It is extraordinary that people
here feel that this is somehow pushing the terrorists into a
hole. This is what they want. They want to be put on the same
level.
One of the big mistakes we made in Northern Ireland was
being confused about what it was at the beginning and treating
it as operations short of war, to borrow an Israeli euphemism.
We gave people special category status, and we backed off that
because it was a horrendous mistake.
Mr. Shays. That's a very interesting point for me to--and
we can respond to that.
My view is the cold war strategy was contain, react and
mutually assure destruction, and the war against, as I call it,
Islamists--call it a confrontation, whatever, but I call the
war against Islamists ``terrorism''--is detect, prevent,
preempt, and maybe act unilaterally, but if I understand that
it's detect, it says, well then what does that make me want to
do. I want to break into the cell. I don't want to have to
respond to the consequence of a cell having acted.
Now, what I find intriguing about in Great Britain is you
have a better way of resurrecting who did it, in my judgment,
in urban areas, you have cameras in different places, and
you're able to really track this person here and where they
were here and where they came here, and even if they blow
themselves to smithereens you can kind of identify, well, what
part of Great Britain did they live in or London did they live
in, and who was their family, and you can get in. And so the
good news I see is that, even though you didn't detect it and
prevent it, you have a way to reconstruct it and prevent that
cell from doing it again. So that's one plus that I see.
But respond to my sense that our strategy is detect,
prevent, preempt--we've all touched on some of that--and maybe
act unilaterally. Tell me where you would disagree with that.
Mr. Parker. Well, the British strategy, the core strategy,
is also defined in very similar terms. There are four pillars,
according to that--there's a strategy document known as CONTEST
that was published in 2003, and it talks about four areas--
prevention, pursuit, protection, and preparedness--prevention
being social inclusion.
Mr. Shays. Prevention. Pursuit. What is the other one?
Mr. Parker. Prevention, pursuit, protection, and
preparedness.
Mr. Shays. Now--so what gets under the ``detect'' part?
Mr. Parker. Under the ``protect'' would be----
Mr. Shays. I mean the ``detect.''
Mr. Parker. On the ``prevent?''
Mr. Shays. ``Detect.'' In other words, if you do want to
break into cells, what are those four that gives you that
guidance to break into a cell?
Mr. Parker. Well, actually, prevent, but all have aspects
that help you. You know, it's a continuum. There's not a single
event. Each post-incident investigation will probably produce
leads for future investigations, not only from the point of
view of the contacts of the members of the cell, their
movements, the places they've traveled overseas, their finances
that you've tracked, but also in terms of the MO that's used,
the type of explosives they've used. There's loads of clues,
loads of leads to pursue from an intelligence perspective, but
then also, as I talked about a little earlier, social inclusion
efforts, having local community offices working with the
presidents of the mosques, with local imams. Every level of our
response is designed to engage different aspects of the threat.
Mr. Shays. Could you respond to where there's a weakness or
a strength in what I believe is our U.S. policy, which is to
detect, prevent, preempt, and maybe act unilaterally? Is there
any part of that detect, prevent, preempt, and act unilaterally
if we have to?
Mr. Parker. I mean act unilaterally comes with a price.
Mr. Shays. It does, but maybe not preempt--acting
unilaterally. We had testimony in this subcommittee from
someone from a major medical magazine, and he said his biggest
fear was that a small group of dedicated scientists could
create an altered biological agent that could wipe out humanity
as we know it. If that were the case and they were doing
whatever they were doing, wherever they were doing it, do you
think that any leader would wait a moment not to act, and would
they get permission from the country that--would they get
permission in the country that they were in to act if they
literally believed that biological agent could wipe out
humanity as we know it? And that may seem like an extreme, but
an altered biological agent could possibly do that. So I look
at--I'm looking at your strategy, and I'm trying--well, let me
just ask you this.
Well, maybe you want to respond, and then I'd like to ask
Mr. Lewis and Mr. Rivkin and you, Mr. Rollins, to jump in.
Mr. Parker. The bottom line clearly is there's always a
reasonableness defense. You know, in extraordinary situations
you could always advance the fact that it was a necessity. You
had to do something extraordinary because the threat was so
great. So, I mean that exists in British law just as it exists
in U.S. law.
So, the ticking bomb thing, actually, I would argue is a
little bit of a red herring. The problem with unilateralism--
let me give you----
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you. Why do you say that?
Mr. Parker. Well, it doesn't happen very often, and
terrorist actions are fairly commonplace, so I'd focus on the
commonplace, not the extraordinary and unlikely, to be honest,
and I'm not for a moment suggesting that WMD won't be used in a
terrorist attack. I think that's quite possible, but it hasn't
happened yet, and you need to focus on what we're really facing
primarily, which is small groups of cells coming out----
Mr. Shays. When I was with your new Scotland Yard this year
they told me that they were shocked by what happened in July of
last year. They told me they were shocked and very surprised.
They did not anticipate it. They didn't know how it had broken
into cells, and that surprised me that they said it, but they
said that.
Mr. Parker. Well----
Ms. Falkner. I think, Mr. Chairman--I mean we certainly
know that two of the bombers of July 7th of last year had been
in the peripheral vision of the Security Services. Security
Services had to take a judgment over another investigation that
they weren't really relevant or--and had stopped surveillance
of them. So these people weren't absolutely off the radar, I
would argue, but also a couple of things here.
Yes. I mean I think everybody in Britain was shocked,
dismayed, surprised. Attacks on mass transit systems evoke a
particular kind of horror because they affect so many of us. It
could be me. It could be you. We all know that feeling. I don't
think the Security Services and Scotland Yard has said this to
you. I'm surprised because certainly the measures that Security
Services were taking in the leadup--not in the leadup--over
several years in the years since 9/11 where all designed
strategies were developed in order to forestall a major
terrorist incident. We had an incident at Heathrow Airport
sometime before then where measures were put into place, so
there certainly has been a strategy to prevent.
I think where I would argue that perhaps our strategy of
prevention is different from yours is that we, I think, walk
closer to the abyss than you do a little bit.
Mr. Shays. Closer to the what?
Ms. Falkner. To the abyss than you do in the sense that
where human intelligence, where infiltration, where evidence is
coming to light that something is being plotted, we tend to
allow it to continue as far down the line as possible in order
to be able to prosecute and bring to trial. It seems to me,
here, that the slightest whiff of any wrongdoing, implied
wrongdoing, suspected wrongdoing results in people being
incarcerated, so it's a different and perhaps more dangerous
approach.
If I could go back briefly, earlier on, you said that we
should talk about where we perhaps disagreed with each other's
comments. I think that----
Mr. Shays. Before we do, I want to do the strategy, and
then--so could I come back, and----
Ms. Falkner. Can I just come to Mr. Rivkin because he's put
a lot of very big things on the table, and I would ask him that
since he--you know, and it's--what I find quite extraordinary
about the U.S. situation is that somehow assertions become
facts, so if we say something often enough, it's got to become
true.
Mr. Shays. Like what?
Ms. Falkner. Well, like the fact of the war. So I'd like to
go back to him and ask him who the war is against. Is it
against all Muslims? Is it against all 1.5 billion of us?
Mr. Shays. No. No. That would be silly.
Ms. Falkner. You know----
Mr. Shays. No. That would be silly, and I can answer that
question.
Ms. Falkner. Yes.
Mr. Shays. The 9/11 Commission, comprised of Republicans
and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, 10 men and women,
they all said the following: They said we are not confronting
terrorism as if it's some ethereal being; we're confronting
Islamist terrorists, and I make an assumption we don't find
them in Iceland. It is, I thought, frankly, and it says to me
Islamist terrorists are not just Al Qaeda. It's the Jihad, the
Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and a whole host of others.
That's what it says to me.
Ms. Falkner. And people we do not know of and people who
may never become terrorists, so it's----
Mr. Shays. No. Islamist terrorists, I'm missing your point.
What do you mean people that may never become terrorists? We're
saying these are folks that have basically taken their faith to
an extraordinary extreme and basically found comfort in a very
large Islamic world that is not willing to condemn it.
Ms. Falkner. I would----
Mr. Shays. Let me let you speak. Let me go to Mr. Rollins,
and then I'll go to Mr. Rivkin.
Mr. Rivkin. If I may just say----
Mr. Shays. No. No, not yet. Let me just----
Mr. Rivkin. Sorry.
Mr. Shays. Were you going to speak on this issue? I want to
first let the Baroness make her point then.
Mr. Rollins. I was going to speak to----
Mr. Shays. First, let the Baroness go and then Mr. Rollins.
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, I refute the point that the
Islamic world doesn't condemn it. We condemn it until we're
blue in the face. We've been condemning it from the outset,
long before 9/11, because it was mainly Islamic countries that
suffered the brunt of terrorism, bombs going off in Lebanon,
bombs going off in Egypt, in Pakistan on a regular basis. The
Muslims have been killed by more acts of terrorism, I would
argue, than the 3,000 here in 9/11.
But to come back to what you said, I would argue that this
is not the faith. It is an ideology. It is an ideology that is
explicit, that calls for foreign powers to leave the countries,
particularly the countries of the holy places, and so on. There
is no secrecy about this. We know what Al Qaeda demands. It
comes up and calls for those demands on a regular basis. It
reiterates them on a regular basis. The fact that it becomes so
extremist it's wacky doesn't mean that there isn't an
ideological underpinning beneath it, so it's--you know, you
cannot really have a war against an ideology. It's very hard to
do.
Mr. Shays. That's an interesting concept. Did you have
something else you wanted to say before I go to Mr. Rollins? I
mean you made a number of points. OK. Mr. Rollins.
Mr. Rollins. To that point, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make
two observations. The new White House counterterrorism strategy
that was just released 2 weeks ago for the first time, from my
understanding, attempts to address this ideological piece that
we haven't addressed since 9/11, so I would offer that.
The second, in returning to your distinguishing between the
United States, the United Kingdom, the four pillars of
attempting to address counterterrorism, I would offer that 5
years post-9/11 we are still--the United States is still
working the detection piece of that. We are still too reliant
on technical, technology, and far less reliant on human
intelligence, far less reliant on outreach into the
communities, far less reliant, and until we get that piece
addressed, I believe we're not going to be able to successfully
speak to the issue you brought up earlier, the example about a
group of scientists trying to unleash a mankind ending type
virus.
Mr. Shays. OK.
Mr. Rollins. Generally, technical means are not going to
pick that up. It's going to be somebody in the community or
some human operator.
Mr. Shays. And, Mr. Rollins--the rest of you, you're going
to just go on in a second--what I wrestle with as a policymaker
and as someone who has spent--has chaired this subcommittee
since 1998 and has focused on this well before September 11th
is that I want our strategy to be complete enough to have us do
everything we need to do to succeed whether we call it war or
not, and I do agree that part of our strategy can't be using
military forces or criminal forces. It's got to be diplomacy.
It's got to be humanitarian. It's got to be economic. It's got
to be all of those. So, you know, the strategy that I've
outlined may be weak there in covering that, but what I am
stunned by as I think about it, this is a debate no one's
having in the United States, and to my knowledge--Mr. Rivkin
and Dr. Lewis, that you could maybe speak to if you disagree--
but I don't hear this on the talk shows. I don't hear this
debated on the House and Senate floor. I don't hear the
administration talking about what our strategy is to combat
what we think is Islamist terrorism.
I don't want to get you off the subject you wanted to say,
but maybe you could comment on that as well, Mr. Rivkin.
Dr. Lewis. Well, let me--oh, sorry.
Mr. Rivkin. You can go first.
Dr. Lewis. Let me try two points, and then I'll be quick.
I do think people are beginning to realize that you do see
that this public diplomacy effort is not very good, but there
is a conception now. In some of the conferences you saw on the
fifth anniversary of September 11th, you did have discussion
of,you know, there's this notion of somehow of a return to the
Caliphate and use of Sharia law is a good thing and that we
need to start fighting that. So I think you're starting to see
the debate, and in some ways your parallel with the cold war is
very interesting. I mean, in the 1940's, you had a lot of
Americans who, you know, had some sympathy with the Soviet
Union initially, certainly in the 1930's, and by the 1960's or
1970's no one had any sympathy left. Hopefully, it won't take
us that long, but I do think you're beginning to see the
ideological conflict emerge, and it's something we have to do.
Related to that is the issue of unilateralism. I would take
exception with you on this point because I don't think we're
acting unilaterally. Let me give you a classic example.
Mr. Shays. But should we be allowed to in our strategy is
the question.
Dr. Lewis. I think we should be allowed to, but we've
chosen in most cases not to act unilaterally. We've chosen----
Mr. Shays. So you're saying that our strategy is not that,
and I think it's a part of it.
Dr. Lewis. I think a part of our strategy that is not
reflected in your four points is that we have worked very hard
to develop strong cooperative relationships with security
services around the world. One of the best examples is France.
Another example would be Italy, although when the Italians
cooperated, their judicial system threw their chief of
intelligence in jail.
The perception is that we're acting unilaterally. It's a
false perception. Whether we can sustain this level of
cooperation is another matter given the hostility that the
United States now engenders, but we are not acting unilaterally
and people who think that just need to reassess how we work in
other countries.
Mr. Shays. You know, I thought of ``unilateral'' in the
sense that we may have to act unilaterally if no one else is
willing to take action. I did not mean it in the sense that we
are not cooperating with, and--but the mere fact that comes up
tells me that what I describe as our strategy still isn't--it's
not a complete strategy. I mean I got this strategy from all
our hearings, the many of our hearings that we had even before
September 11th, and yet it's got its weaknesses.
Mr. Rivkin, what do you want to say?
Mr. Rivkin. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I agree that we need a
comprehensive strategy. I also agree that not just this
administration--maybe you're not making that point--but any
administration is not particularly good, or any government, in
articulating in a crisp, strategic, compelling manner what the
strategy is. God knows we issue reports every couple of years,
and you know, they read as ex poste facto the rationalization
of what's going on, but that's an endemic problem. Academicians
and scholars write best strategy usually on a retrospective
basis, but one thing that I don't think we get enough credit
for is the notion that the way to carry out the ideological
struggle and the way to do it and what you have to do, whether
you call it a ``war'' or a ``conflict,'' is to engage the
strong beliefs held by the enemy.
The strong beliefs held by the enemy is that the
alternative to Western democratic regimes--and let's strip away
opposition to specific policies. They really do appear--if you
look at the Al Qaeda documents and documents on various other
radical Web sites, they really do--and look at the statements
by Ahmadinejad. He really does believe, seriously I think,
sincerely, that democracy is a bad way of organizing society,
that it's not a good way of organizing a society that promotes
virtue, that enables people to escape the temptation of sin,
etc. Actually, that view is not unique. There are many
theologians in centuries prior to that who also did not like
democracy for that reason. The best thing we can--and the enemy
also points out that's the only alternative we have helped
impose on theories they made sound on the Middle East efforts
and regimes. That's why I sort of shudder, frankly, when I hear
people talking about the pursuit for democracy in the Middle
East as my epic quest as decoupled from this war.
The best thing we can do to demonstrate that there's an
alternative way of organizing good society that delivers the
benefits to its citizens and allows people to practice their
Islamic faith is to have a democracy, a democracy where
Christians, Jews and Muslims all have similar and political
rights, which is not the case under Sharia and certainly not
the case under Caliphate where Christians and Jews were at best
well-tolerated minorities with zero political power. You have
to try to come up with a way of demonstrating that there's an
alternative, and frankly, Mr. Chairman, I think that the bad
guys understand it far better than the good guys, and one of
the reasons it's so hard in Iraq is because they know what the
stakes are far transcending that country. If there's ever even
an imperfect democratic regime where Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis,
Jews, Christians, and Syrians, etc., are actually cooperating
and sharing power and where Islamic law is important but not
the dominant source of authority, that women have political
power instead of being treated as second class citizens and
living under a general apartheid, that would blow sky high all
the ideological pretense, all the ideological hubris that these
guys espouse.
Mr. Shays. The whole reason why I was getting into the
whole idea of strategy was that I thought that would be a nice
mechanism for us to then get into what guides Great Britain and
what guides the United States, and I am finding myself
intrigued by the fact that--do you think in Great Britain there
is a general recognition of what the strategy is and, two, do
you think there's an agreement, because I conclude in the
United States there is no understanding of what the strategy is
and no sense of agreement and no dialog, and we had that dialog
confronting the Communist threat in the late 1940's, but we
didn't really start to nail it down until the 1950's, but at
least we had some dialog.
So, Baroness, I'm asking do you believe--and Mr. Parker--do
you believe that in Great Britain you all are pretty, pretty
certain about, as a people, what your strategy is and how
you're going to deal with the threat, however you describe the
threat?
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, in terms of our own strategy in
the United Kingdom, we have the strategy to deal with the
counterterrorism strategy, as Tom has illustrated, and I think
that is fairly open, transparent, and there is quite a lot of
trust in the security services in the U.K.----
Mr. Shays. Right.
Ms. Falkner [continuing]. Still. So that is, I think, if
not understood, it's certainly understood by those who are
interested in understanding it.
Mr. Shays. Would you in Great Britain have done what the 9/
11 Commission did and say that----
Ms. Falkner. No. Alas, I have called publicly many, many
times for us to have had a public inquiry after 7/7. We didn't
do that. We didn't have a 9/11 Commission come----
Mr. Shays. No. No. No. You didn't hear my question, though.
You didn't hear my question the way I meant it.
Would you in Great Britain agree that the threat is
Islamist terrorism like our 9/11 Commission did? They didn't
say ``al Qaeda.'' They didn't say anything other than--and they
didn't say ``terrorism.'' They said Islamist terrorism,
terrorists.
Ms. Falkner. I, myself, am not wary of using the word
``Islamic terrorism.'' I use it myself. I don't think there's a
great deal of contemplation of that particularly. We're not--
the word I prefer to use and I think is more widely used is
``international terrorism'' rather than to put--to align it
with a religion, and I will tell you why aligning it with
religion is a bad idea, and it is partly a bad idea because it
gives the impression--whether you're right or wrong, it gives
the impression that you're lumping together all believers in
that religion into this view that it is from their faith that
terrorism derives, and I've already said to you a few minutes
ago what my view on that is, but--so, if you describe it as
international terrorism, then you can--it's much more easily
aggregated as an ideology.
Coming back to your question about whether in Britain there
is consensus, I think in Britain there is consensus that
whatever strategy we have has to be reflected in the conduct of
our foreign policy, and there has been a disjuncture between
the conduct of our foreign policy and whatever policy we might
have.
As a consequence of the government, particularly the Prime
Minister, on the 1-day telling us that he knows that Islam is a
religion of peace and he has complete confidence that there is
no such thing as Islamic terrorism, the following day he will
say something completely to the contrary. So there is confusion
in the public mind about the conduct of foreign policy and
where the government draws--Mr. Blair said, to me, that he
didn't think there was a link between foreign policy and the
bombs, and then 6 weeks later in a Muslim gathering he said
there probably was. So it is very--you get so many conflicting
signals.
Overall, there is a consensus that foreign policy has to
be--is an essential part of that strategy and has to reflect a
national consensus of where we ought to go and that it's not
currently doing so, which is why I think you find that Mr.
Blair is opting for early retirement.
Mr. Shays. OK. Well, I'm going to just throw something on
the table, and then I would like to hear any comments where you
may want to move this discussion, any of you that you think are
some big points that we need to move on to. But I have seen
basically 20 years of what I call ``Islamist terrorism,'' and
I've seen it directed primarily at the West and primarily at
the United States, and I have seen no reaction to it, so I
sometimes bristle with the thought that somehow we are making
it worse when I just see it continue to grow and grow and grow
and grow. I want to someday have a conversation with Mr.
Kissinger or get my staff to do some research, but I have this
memory of 30 years ago Kissinger saying, you know, the conflict
is not going to be against the Communists and Soviet Union and
the United States, but it's going to be a confrontation with
the Islamic world, and I just may have totally lost it but I
have this memory that's kind of what he said, and when I meet
with folks in Saudi Arabia and others in the Middle East, I
feel like they have one foot in the modern age and one foot in
the dark ages, and I feel like they have been given a pass.
Saudi Arabians can come to the United States and live just as
we choose to, and we go there and we have to conform to
something that is so confining that it just--it makes me just
wonder what we do about it. I look at what we see happen in
former Yugoslavia, and we ask the Saudis to help, and what they
do is they build mosques promoting Wahhabism, and I then
trigger this to--I've been to Iraq 14 times, and I was talking
to a woman who was in the only shelter for battered women in
all of Iraq, and she said her husband had become a terrorist,
and she described what he did, and then she said he's a
Wahhabi, and it was--you know, that was--it's a very aggressive
form of the Muslim faith, and I don't know how we confront this
threat if we--I feel like we're being asked to close our eyes
because it's religion, and therefore, we don't want to get the
religious world unhappy with us. That's kind of what I feel
you're saying to us--to me, Baroness. I feel like first we've
just got to say the emperor has no clothes and then think, my
God, what does that mean, but that's kind of where I'm coming
from.
Mr. Parker, I'd like you to respond to what I just said.
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, could I come back just briefly?
Mr. Shays. Yes.
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, I myself have lived in Saudi
Arabia, and I have lived in other parts of the Middle East,
including Lebanon, and by way of background my mother was
educated at the American University of Beirut, so----
Mr. Shays. May I ask you are you a practicing Muslim or are
you----
Ms. Falkner. I will come to that.
Mr. Shays. OK.
Ms. Falkner. You see me before you. I'd like to know what
you think I am.
Mr. Shays. I don't know.
Ms. Falkner. Yes.
Mr. Shays. I didn't----
Ms. Falkner. Exactly. So I think, you know, I know exactly
what you talk about in terms of Saudi Arabia. I did not choose
to remain there for the very reasons----
Mr. Shays. Right.
Ms. Falkner [continuing]. That you talk about, and I think
there is a real problem of modernity in the wide Muslim world.
I don't want to sound morally relativist. In fact, I have
quite a lot of contempt for moral relativism, so I don't want
to contextualize and make excuses for things. I think--let me
put it thus, that there are conservative traits, reactionary--I
would say reactionary traits in all religions, there's
fundamentalism across religions, and I think Wahhabism is a
particularly unfortunate expression of Islam. I certainly don't
come from that perspective. I come from Pakistan where we have
mainly Sunnis and Shiites, but you have the spread of religious
practice and adherence across the country, you know, 150
million people. I come from, as I've just indicated to you, a
rather middle class and educated and liberal--and that's not a
swear word where I come from--a liberal background, and
therefore, I tend to think that my faith and my conviction is a
matter for me and a matter between me and God, and I don't wear
it on my sleeve as many people do.
So, leaving that aside, coming----
Mr. Shays. Let me just tell you. The relevance of your
faith, to me, is not how you practice it but your understanding
of those who do, and therefore, when you speak, if you spoke as
a practicing Muslim that would mean something different to me
than if you spoke as a practicing Christian. It's not--it's in
terms of your knowledge of the faith. That's----
Ms. Falkner. I'm not a theological scholar that I
understand faith well. I grew up in it. I didn't grow up in the
West. I grew up in the faith----
Mr. Shays. OK.
Ms. Falkner [continuing]. And as I've said, I've lived in
the Middle East, and just to speak to something you said
earlier on that, you see when you go and speak to these people
and you've been experiencing Islamic terrorism for, you said, a
very long time, indeed, and you find no reaction to it, I
wonder what you mean by that.
Mr. Shays. I can be so plain what I mean.
I have watched the media. This has been my study. There is
no outrage that I see by the people that matter, and with all
due respect, you could be outraged by it but you don't really
matter. I want the leaders, the clerics, the people who can
make a difference. They are totally and completely silent. I
have as much conviction about that as anything I have, and
whether you get outraged by it is, to me, not all that
important. I want to know what the people who can change it in
their own faith do. That's the statement.
Ms. Falkner. Mr. Chairman, the only thing I will say--and
of course I respect what you're saying. The only thing I will
say is that the people who do express that outrage are often
people who say something that isn't what--newsworthy. I'll give
you an example.
Shaikh Zaki Badawi, who was the head of the Muslim College
in Britain--he was a knight. He was awarded knighthood except
that it wasn't applicable because he was Egyptian as a citizen
and so one. He was one of the most eminent Muslim theologians
in Europe, not just in Britain. He recently passed away.
Eminent scholar. He was denied entry to the United States
only a few months ago when he was wishing to come and give a
major lecture at I think it was New York University because he
was mistakenly on a U.S. watch list. So the plane was landed
inside Bangor, and he was sent----
Mr. Shays. I really don't know how that relates.
Ms. Falkner. But those people don't make it into the media.
People who are outraged, who are important----
Mr. Shays. You are making my point, and this is a small
point, but you are making my point. The people who need to say
it are not saying it and--but you raised--there are a lot of
points here, and we could probably go on for days, and I don't
want to do that. I would like one of the panelists here to tell
me where we need to go if, failing that--I would like my
professional staff to just make sure that we cover a few
questions that we need to ask. Should I go there first and then
add----
Mr. Rivkin. Can I make one brief point, Mr. Chairman?
Put it this way. I am in full accord with you. Reasonable
people can disagree about the precise parameters balanced
between ideology and other forms of motivation. But unless we
understand that we are not--and I think we are talking about
unless we understand that this is not a series of random acts,
not a series of random acts by random people for random causes
or diverse causes, that there is some unifying factor here----
With all due respect, it is not that it is international.
There may be unifying factors, but the important factor here is
there are people, unfortunately, who engage in horrific
violence motivated by religion as a form of ideology. We have
dealt with people who are engaged in horrific violence
motivated by national socialism, by communism. We did not have
any qualms talking about it, at least not as much about
religion. But one thing----
And there is such a thing as demonizing too much, and we
have to be careful about it, but there is a problem of not
acknowledging enough. I actually think that our record, not
just this country's records but British records, has been very
good about not overgeneralizing and demonizing it.
Look at the experience in World War I or World War II, at
the cartoons, at the political discourse about the Germans, the
Japanese, nothing comparable to that, exceptional degree of
discretion and carefulness on the part of Blair and the
President and all the other leaders.
So it is very difficult for me to imagine we are painting
with too broad of a brush, but we have to paint--Mr. Chairman,
I think you have to agree with that--with some kind of a brush.
Because if we don't connect, if we don't see what is a common
issue, how can we win an ideological battle if we don't
understand the ideology of the enemy? If we are going to win,
it would be some kind of an accident.
Dr. Lewis. You know, in my written testimony I started out
by noting that someone I know had wrote some time ago about the
end of history, that we wouldn't see any more conflicts because
there was a global consensus on liberal democracy. Well, he was
wrong; and this comes, I think, to your point about, you know,
the international nature of the struggle.
You don't have to look at the United States. You can look
at India. They have similar problems. You can look at Russia.
They have similar problems. They haven't done as well as we
have, but they have the same problems. You can look at Israel.
You can look at Thailand or the Philippines. You can even look
at China. All of them face a similar threat.
So there is a possibility here to build a consensus, and I
think that we need to get that kind of international voice
raised up to say there is something we would all rather do, and
the people who are advocating against us, the people who bomb
in all of our cities, are not doing the right thing.
It will take time, as you have said, for that to emerge;
and I just hope it can emerge quickly.
One part of that, and we have trouble with this in the
United States, we don't really understand all the dynamics
within the Muslim world. So to think of it as one, you know,
monolithic entity, we want to avoid that just as we needed to
avoid it in the cold war. So there are Muslim voices who
support the kind of consensus that we could live with. We want
to encourage them. If we could get that started, I think
eventually we will win.
Mr. Shays. What I have taken from this hearing, aside from
trying to wrestle with this issue of what is a crime and so on,
is the strategy I outlined that I have believed in for umpteen
number of years, somehow I have to figure out how that outreach
fits into this strategy. But a strategy can help guide you to
do--it should be a complete strategy that helps you do all the
elements.
So, did you want to something, Mr. Rollins; and then I will
go to the professional staff.
Mr. Rollins. Yes, very briefly, Mr. Chairman, very brief
point trying to tie the two issues together, strategy and the
message. As we all know, the U.S. State Department does have an
Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy in charge of outreach.
Karen Hughes has been in this position for 15 months, and that
might be one vehicle that we could provide additional focus as
we were talking about to try to get an international discussion
on this issue going. To date, I don't think that effort has
been very successful.
Mr. Shays. Thank you for reminding me about that.
Mr. Parker, do you want to say something?
Mr. Parker. I am enormously struck as a foreigner and not a
particularly religious person of all the countries in the
Western World that should understand the complexity of religion
in the Muslim world, America is easily at the forefront. You
have a plethora of different religious groups in this country
actively engaged in politics, enormous shadings between
different religions. It is an incredibly broad patchwork----
Mr. Shays. I will tell you the answer to why that is. We
don't have to work at it. When I taught at a university during
the Iranian-Iraqi war, we had students, Iranians and Iraqis,
who sat next to each other and talked to each other,
Palestinians and Jews--Israelis not Jews--Israelis in the same
classroom, and somehow when they are in the environment here,
it wasn't the kind of issue. So because it wasn't kind of the
issue, there was such a sense of normalcy that what you just
said----
Mr. Parker. There is always that expatriate phenomenon,
that we say about Northern Ireland the only person who really
understands a Northern Ireland Catholic is a Northern Ireland
Protestant. Because, frankly, nobody else really understands
what is going on in that little piece of territory.
Having worked at the ICTY and The Hague, there is no
problem between the Croatians and Serbian and Muslim
translators, because they all live in Holland, they want to go
to the same restaurants and speak the same language.
It is actually kind of nice to bump into somebody who comes
from your part of the world. I have noticed that. I have taught
classes in terrorism with Israeli military and Arab American
students and people from the Middle East in the classes; and,
to be honest, they tend to moderate discussions of sensitive
issues, rather than actually be the cause of dissension in the
classroom.
Mr. Shays. But if they were back in their own countries
they would have a different view of that whole issue.
Mr. Parker. We hope the educational experience they have
gone through will mitigate that.
The other thing I remember being told by a relatively
senior former counterterrorism official in the United States,
we were having a meal one evening, and he turned to me, and he
said, do you know what I think the biggest threat to Western
civilization is? And I said, no, what do you think it is? And
he said, European secularism. And that was about the dumbest
thing I ever heard. I said I had never heard anything quite
like it. You would never hear a statement like that out of
anybody in Western Europe.
It is interesting. Religion is very much a part of public
life here as it is in the Middle East, and I find it odd that
people react to it as though there is something strange about
the involvement of religion in politics. As a foreigner
outsider, I see my American colleagues shaking their heads
here. It seems very present in American political life. It may
be a misconception, but you turn on the talk shows or just as I
drove up from North Carolina I heard six on seven religious
stations as I was trying to find a radio station with news on
it. You couldn't find--there isn't a religious station in
England, period, of any denomination.
Mr. Shays. You point out one of my--I have come to this
conclusion over a number of years, that the United States
should have diplomatic relations with every country, however
fearsome it is--North Korea, Iran, Cuba. Because our biggest
failure in Iraq was not believing that he had weapons of mass
destruction. If we had been there, we might have found out he
didn't. But it was not knowing how poor the infrastructure was.
And almost anybody who had been there just traveling to work,
you know, not having air conditioning for, you know, half the
day, would have said, you know, I think this country has some
challenges, like basic challenges that we didn't know.
Plus the fact that half of our embassy employees would not
be from the State Department, which would be another factor.
Just the mere fact that you would have said to me about the
religious stations, I wouldn't think twice about it, but you
would, given it is different in your society.
If you would tolerate some questions that we just want to
get on the record from the professional staff.
Ms. Daniel. I am going to string together a couple of
questions relating back, actually, to Baroness Falkner's
testimony in which she suggested that the British concentrate
on increasing counterterrorism action at this point after
several recent legal reviews while the Americans are mired in
continued increase of counterterrorism legislation at this
point.
So as the first part of the question, I am interested in
the group's reaction to that; and part of it is circumstantial,
of course, but your reactions to that.
Following that, you suggested the United States establish
the position of the independent reviewer of terrorism
legislation--just to recap--creating a forum where interested
parties have the ability to feed into a nonpartisan process of
assessment on the provisions of the act, increasing public
confidence and providing a measure of how provisions are
bedding down in practice so they can be one source to go to. I
wonder, in the American counterterrorism apparatus, where that
would fit?
And in a broader sense there, how does the consolidation of
reviewing power into one office here affect the balance of
powers among different counterterrorism agency components?
So as each of you wishes to respond, I guess, to those
three questions, please. Mr. Rollins.
Mr. Rollins. I will take a shot.
The first part, with regards to the legislation, I think I
would be in agreement, if I understand the question correctly,
that there is a focus on increased additional enhanced
legislation in the United States.
We have had the Homeland Security Act, we have had the
Intelligence Reform Act, had the PATRIOT Act and a number of
other acts that support our counterterrorism effort. But the
focus, quite often, when it comes to a current threat stream or
Hurricane Katrina or any type of incident is legislative,
rather than let's see what we have on the books, and allowing
it to mature, rather than to continually revise or come up with
new legislation.
If that answers your first question.
The intelligence community specifically, each intelligence
community organization has an Inspector General, the Director
of National Intelligence has an Inspector General and an
ombudsman office as well, but there is not a wholistic office
where the public, much like the United Kingdom, can come into
and to the Director of National Intelligence office or any
other office and say, I think that I am being persecuted by the
intelligence community or by the law enforcement community; I
think I am being surveilled without warrant. That does not
exist in the United States today.
And, forgive me, the third question?
Ms. Daniel. The third point was how the consolidation of
reviewing power in such a structure would affect the balance of
powers that now exist among counterterrorism agency components
here.
Mr. Rollins. I think any organization that gives the
populace a voice and the effort and an ability to be heard
about concerns is good. We certainly have the FOIA capability
where U.S. citizens can write into a department or agency,
intelligence community or law enforcement and request
information. Quite often, the information is law enforcement
sensitive or it is classified. But certainly I think that an
independent entity where citizens can have a voice in trying to
ascertain their concerns is always a good idea.
Mr. Parker. The U.K. has a whole series of different
commissioners and different acts and different institutions,
but they are appointed by government, and we have a mixed
record of using these government-appointed tribunals
successfully to address public concerns.
During the Northern Ireland conflict, two reports in
particular spring to mind. The Widgery Tribunal that looked
into Bloody Sunday and officially found no wrongdoing by the
Royal Parachute Regiment provoked such outrage that the British
Embassy in Dublin was burned down. The Compton report, in
coercive interrogation, found that there was nothing
inappropriate, but, as to techniques that were being used, the
European Commission on Human Rights described it as a modern
system of torture, suggesting that there was some distance
between the two committees.
So it is not a panacea. It has worked well in some
circumstances, but in very highly charged circumstances it has
worked poorly. The Security Service Commissioner has received,
at least up until 1997, has received 275 complaints and upheld
none of them. That may be because there was no substance to any
of them, but, equally, that is hard to sell to somebody who is
suspicious of the Security Service. But that was a genuinely
independent oversight process.
In Britain, we kind of rely on the fact that the people
trust governmental organizations and we trust the great and
good to do a decent job. I suspect that wouldn't fly over here.
People would much prefer to have someone elected, an elected
official perhaps oversee this sort of thing.
Actually, there is a little bit of a weakness. People
appointed tend to be senior judges or tend to be
parliamentarians from either the House of Lords or the House of
Commons; and that perhaps doesn't recognize the concerns of a
minority group, for example, that might be complaining. They
are not complaining to somebody who will necessarily have
natural sympathy for their point of view, if the commissioner
happens to be the former head of the Home Civil Service or
somebody from the House of Lords.
We do have independent watchdogs as well, and they are very
effective. Some are patchy. Liberty I wouldn't say is
particularly effective, but there have been other groups that
have been very good at raising individual concerns as charities
or charitable foundations. But it is a bit of a patchwork, and
it is an odd system and I think fairly unique to the United
Kingdom. So I don't think it transplants very well, to be
honest, in my personal opinion.
I think that is really all I would offer.
Ms. Falkner. By way of clarification, I should say that the
reviewer's role is not only for the public to have access to
him in the operation of the acts, but, by being the overall
reviewer of all the legislation, he has detailed inquiries of
people who use the act, are affected by it and, as I said, can
see material.
He makes a point in his latest report of June 2006, if it
were my view that a particular section or part of an act is
odious, redundant, unnecessary or counterproductive, I would
make recommendations for it to be repealed. He says some
repeals have occurred as a consequence of this.
So it is slightly different from commissioners or the
offices of inspector generals in that they are part of the
executive bodies that implement the act. His role is to look at
the overall workings of the act. For example, he finds that if
staff of the Customs Service and port services don't have
sufficient accommodation to carry out their jobs effectively--
it is a very practical thing--he makes a practical suggestion
to the relevant department to provide them with increased
funding in order that they may do their job better, and it is a
very pragmatic and practical course of action.
When it comes to scrutiny, the home secretary, is obliged
to lay his report before Parliament; and I think were the
report to be sufficiently contentious that time would be made
to have a debate. He is also cross-questioned and escorted on
evidence on the various parliamentary select committees that
have an interest in his area of work.
Dr. Lewis. A couple of points that I think hit your
questions, and if they don't please let me know.
One of the things that a number of us have argued is that
it would be easier to deal with some of the increased
requirements we have for communication surveillance or domestic
intelligence if they were balanced by additional emphasis on
civil liberties protection, and there has been some effort in
the United States that hasn't been sufficient. So if I was
thinking of new legislation which we need, you know, I would
put a little more emphasis on how do you protect civil
liberties.
The key there is really congressional oversight. You need
all three branches involved.
You need the judicial branch. We have them, of course, with
FISA. I don't know if I like the secret court protecting me.
Maybe they do; maybe they don't. Who knows?
You have executive branch committees, organizations. The
PATRIOT Act set up one. Homeland security has a privacy board.
There is a number of boards that look at these things, but they
are mainly invisible.
Perhaps a more dynamic executive branch role would help,
but, you know, you have the issues with confidence with the
executive branch and the appointment; and it doesn't seem to be
working. God forbid that I would ever recommend that an IG do
anything.
Mr. Shays. Why is that?
Dr. Lewis. Just a joke, Mr. Congressman.
Mr. Shays. I take it personally.
Dr. Lewis. No, no. Former fed--can't touch IGs--very bad.
And that brings you back to Congress, and I think that one
of the things that United States has that is an advantage is
the idea of congressional oversight, congressional hearings.
The oversight function, although when I did work for the
government, I disliked it. It was like being chased around by
Congress. It turns out it is crucial.
So I would look at ways to strengthen that, and this is
putting the ball kind of back in your court, Mr. Chairman,
but----
Mr. Shays. I am going to quickly respond to, if we are
talking about giving the government more power, it strikes me
that--and the executive branch in our divided system, then you
have to have Congress be more energetic in congressional
oversight, not less; and we do a disservice to the presidency
when we aren't that way. You need a whistle-blower statute that
actually works in the intelligence community, and I don't think
it does. And we have a civil liberties board that is weak, that
we are creating without Senate approval, without fixed terms in
our subpoena power; and it seems to me that Senate civil
liberties board could be the board to which you would turn to
if you feel that you are being unfairly dealt with.
So as I am listening to you I am thinking of how it would
fit in our own system.
Mr. Rivkin, I am sorry. You have the floor, so keep going.
Mr. Rivkin. A couple of points, not to repeat what has
already been said.
I think we have a peculiar need in our system for new
legislation, in part because the preexisting, the pre-September
11th baseline is quite constraining. We don't have a huge
surplus of law enforcement powers in peacetime, at least in my
opinion; and, you know, unfortunately, I don't need to remind a
sitting Congressman how difficult it is to do comprehensive
legislation spanning across multiple committees.
In some sense, it would have been magnificent post-
September 11th to have comprehensive legislation revisions to
FISA, revisions to the PATRIOT Act and, while you are at it,
something similar to military commissions legislation. Let's
move it along. But that is not realistic. So the fact that
there is this perception that there is a flurry of legislation
to me is unavoidable.
On the civil liberties protection, I agree with the
question, Mr. Chairman, it is actually very--my experience, at
least, in the government is it is very confining and very
straining, but it is not very effective. There are clearly
better ways of doing that.
In part, I think what is regrettable--and this hasn't
happened under several administrations--we don't have a
comprehensive whistle-blower protection system for reasons that
are quite inexplicable. I frequently get challenged on NPR as a
designated conservative why there is no whistle-blower
protection; and my response is, why didn't one get enacted in
the previous administration? It is amazing. It could be done.
But, in some sense, I think the level of protections, civil
liberties in this country is quite unprecedented if looked at
in toto. If you don't just look at commissions and whistle-
blowers but if you look at the absolute unprecedented media
freedom, the fact--how do we blow a whistle in this country?
Technically, it is not whistle-blowing. It is called a leak. I
like to reassure people, if the Government is doing anything
naughty, there is no doubt it is going to end up on the front
page of the New York Times, Washington Post very quickly; and
to me that is a source of great solace kind of.
Mr. Shays. But that shows the failure of not having a
proper whistle-blower statute. Because if you had a system that
really worked and could protect whistle-blowers you could deal
with it.
Mr. Rivkin. Through the channels, I fully agree, but in
terms of a bottom-line impact----
Mr. Shays. That is the safety valve.
Mr. Rivkin. It is a safety valve; and, therefore, it is not
nearly as onerous. But I wish we could reform the system. But I
really don't think there is a huge deficit of civil liberties
in this country.
My only point, which is one I feel as passionately as some
of the points you mentioned, I think that powerful
congressional oversight is a necessary component of our system
of liberty. What is regrettable is a tendency to push more and
more things onto the judiciary and failure to exercise
oversight and direct insistence, that we don't want to exercise
oversight. Because the great thing about oversight, it not only
checks the executive, it does it in politically accountable
fashion. Given a bunch of radical free judges is the antithesis
of accountability, because then you can wash your hands of it
no matter what they decide. And that, unfortunately, is a
tendency on the part of many folks where executive is
constrained more and more by judiciary and less and less by
Congress.
Mr. Shays. Do you all have time to do just one more main
question line of questioning? Let's do it.
Ms. Daniel. As I've been listening to the discussion today,
one thing that struck me is that when we talk about what
Britain does right, for example, locally based counterterrorism
and a more effective--I don't know if I should say streamlined
but a more effective overall communications system, the
conversation comes to a halt when we say, but Britain is much
smaller. Britain has 60, I believe was the number, versus
United States 13,000, I think is what you said, different----
Mr. Parker. Eighteen.
Ms. Daniel. 18,000 precincts.
And this is also related to oversight, because it was
mentioned in the written testimony the utility of locally based
oversight; and certainly in this particular disruption of the
alleged terror plot it was local information and local work
again that contributed to the help--excuse me--to the success.
So I guess my question is, in these different contexts, what is
it about the British system that cannot be replicated on a much
larger scale in the United States? Or, alternatively, if we are
approaching the question for Americans, what is it that the
United States would need to change about its local law
enforcement and intelligence services' oversight and
communication in order to make that work?
Mr. Shays. Why don't we start this way? Mr. Rivkin, we will
start with you.
Mr. Rivkin. Yes. I am afraid that this is one area that
would be very difficult to change, and the chairman alluded to
it earlier, that federalism presents some serious problems.
Because you do have local police chiefs that work essentially
for mayors, and State police forces work for Governors, and
they march--and they have to be accountable. Far be it from me
to say they should not be accountable to the head of a
sovereign to which--political sovereign to which they belong.
But it is very difficult to do that.
And even in less politicized areas you have sort of
ideologically driven refusal to enforce things. You have people
who refuse to enforce the PATRIOT Act; and you have people who,
during the earlier debates going back to the Reagan
administration, refusing to participate in other policies.
There is a big thing with some police departments that don't
want to participate in apprehending illegal immigrants.
So it is very difficult to really force down. You can give
money. You can give grants. But it is very difficult to impose
a particular agenda.
I don't think it is a problem nearly as much in Britain.
Again, maybe I am somewhat pessimistic about the utility of
bureaucratic refinements in organizations, but I think it is
not very likely that we have much more effective local Federal
and State cooperation--more effective in a sense of yielding
appreciably better results, without changing things that cannot
be changed.
Dr. Lewis. I think you can tell from my testimony that I
admire many aspects of the British system. But this is what I
don't admire. I don't want a national police force. I don't
want a Federal police. When I am in Chicago, I want a Chicago
cop to report to the mayor. I don't want the Secretary for
Homeland Security to have anything to do with him. So I
wouldn't want to see a replication of the influence that the
home office has.
We have a Federal system, and I like it better. And that
means that you have to focus on joint task forces, you have to
focus on getting cleared personnel, you have to focus on
finding ways to share information. There has been some work in
that with the FBI and with DHS.
A couple of things would help. What I hear from the local
police is they could use more clearances, that they are unable
to receive information. So finding a way to provide those
clearances to the local cops.
The second thing that I hear is that it would be useful to
have a more coordinated Federal approach, you know, that you
have--I don't know how many Federal agencies, is it 12 or is it
17, all of them trying to coordinate with local or State
officials, figuring out who actually is in charge, is it
justice, is it homeland security and figuring out a way you can
relay information to them.
I think all those things would be useful.
But, you know, to echo the remarks of my colleague, we have
a Federal system. We chose that a long time ago, and that is
going to limit our ability to mimic some of the things the U.K.
does.
Ms. Falkner. I am not really going to say very much on this
area, because I am not an expert, but just to correct the
impression given that Britain has a centralized national police
force. It doesn't. It has autonomous, regionally based,
independent police forces based on counties or regions.
There have been proposals recently to amalgamate them into
a lesser number. There are about 60 at the moment, and the
proposal would bring them down to about 15. That met with such
fierce local opposition that the government has announced that
it won't take that legislation forward. It will review it
again.
Mr. Parker. There are a couple of areas in which there is
an effective national reach within policing Scotland Yard, and
certain specialist areas have a counterfeit currency squad that
will operate throughout the country with the--in support of
local police forces. Because it doesn't pay local police forces
to develop that specialism, but basically it is a diffuse
regional system. The Security Service acts as the glue,
therefore, in counterterrorism to hold all those things
together. I don't know it is as hopeless as perhaps portrayed.
It takes initiative.
What the Security Service did is establish secure
communications systems for all the regional special branches so
they could talk to each other, which they hadn't previously
been able to do from their desks. It put regional offices out
in all the force areas to go and spend a lot of time briefing
people, desk officers tour the country to raise awareness on
their subject areas. You have to get out from behind your desk
and build the networks, you know.
Regional FBI offices could do that. Clearly, there would
have to be a great deal more clarity on who is in charge; and
that, obviously, is easier said than done. But the bottom line
is initiative and a little bit of money. You go out there, and
you build the networks. It can be done, and there are--what--
six or seven task forces now around the country that are
relatively effective, and that is a good model.
Somebody runs the task force. At least somebody is head of
the task force. If you could replicate that everywhere, you
have a system. And you just have to get the task forces to talk
to each other.
It isn't insurmountable. It takes hard work. But what it
really takes is initiative from people who push it forward. And
somebody has to ride it, because people will slide back
immediately. But bombs concentrate the mind wonderfully, and
nobody wants to be responsible for the failed investigation of
the bomb that went off.
You know, the Security Service stops, I would guess, it is,
obviously, difficult to reach figures--but probably two-thirds
of all the attacks mounted in the U.K., if not a higher figure.
But, you know, when the one that goes off is Bishopsgate or
Canary Wharf or the Baltic Exchange and over a million pounds
worth of property damage is done and people are killed, nobody
really cares how good your success rate is. You have to get
better. That is the bottom line.
If people know they are going to be held accountable for
failures, which God knows hasn't really happened in this
country since 9/11, then somebody might actually start pushing
things forward. But heads have to roll, people have to be held
accountable, and people to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck
and push it through. You have to find the right person to do
that.
But it will be kind of a sad comment if it couldn't be
done, to be honest; and it is about getting serious on the
offense. And if we are opposed to abrogating judicial civil
liberties to prosecute the war on terror, then, good God, can't
we talk a little more effectively? That seems to be something
we would do before we give up essential civil liberties.
But it does take will, and somebody has to push it through.
And it takes leadership, executive leadership.
Mr. Rollins. This is tying many of these pieces together.
David said the constitutional authorities make federalism
unattainable, so I don't think that is an area that should be
the focus of our energy. And I agree as well that we do not, I
think, want one central Federal entity setting requirements and
focusing issues for the State and local law enforcement or
homeland security advisers. The 18,000 police offices out
there, they know their operating environment better than us
here in Washington, DC. They know their communities.
I think the piece that we are trying to figure out of what
is missing is, yes, there is now 110 FBI joint terrorism task
forces, there is now 42 State and local fusion centers located
around the country, but back to the comment a number of us have
made, who has the Federal Government roles and responsibilities
for interacting with State and local communities for
counterterrorism? Is it the FBI? Is it DHS?
A National Governors Association report came out a few
months ago. It is still not happy with the level of information
they are receiving, still not happy with the type of
intelligence and still cannot point to one point of contact to
put in information requirements or, in turn, receive taskings
from the Federal Government, just a dearth of responsibility.
Mr. Shays. So I am clear on this, when we talk about the
home department, when we were talking about--years ago, before
September 11th, we had three commissions, the Hart-Rudman
Commission, the Gilmore Commission and the Bremer Commission;
and they all said there is a terrorist threat out there, we
need to have a strategy to deal with it, and we need to
reorganize our government to implement the strategy. And the
most radical was the Hart-Rudman Commission that said we needed
a Department of Homeland Security. And I had constituents who
had said this before September 11th: What are we? Great
Britain?
So I have always like felt like the Department of Homeland
Security was a pretty close parallel. But, as I heard your
opening testimony, it is nothing close is it?
Mr. Parker. No.
Mr. Shays. I am going to ask the Brits first--Mr. Parker,
what are some of the obvious differences, the Department of
Homeland Security here versus the homeland?
Mr. Parker. They can do it better, American.
Ms. Falkner. Well, our home office, as it is called, rather
innocuously I think in other European countries they call it
interior ministries, which is far more sinister sounding, our
home office is responsible for an extraordinary broad range of
issues to do with law and order, which includes the running of
the prisons, the management of offenders, the probation
service, the police services, to some extent the customs and
port authorities, airports authorities to some extent, judicial
systems, judges, magistrates.
The debate we are having in Britain at the moment is
whether it is just too cumbersome a ministry to be able to do
the important tasks as well as it should. There is some concern
in the U.K. that it is not operating--the home--the current
home secretary, giving evidence 2 months ago, described it as
being not fit for purpose.
Mr. Shays. That is a very British way of saying that.
Ms. Falkner. So, sir, I would feel extremely reluctant in
defending it when its representative, its own God on earth, is
not able to do so.
I think where it is considerably different is, apart from
its reach, is the fact that it has a culture--because it is
also responsible for the law offices and the judiciary, it has
a different culture in its approach to civil liberties than
your Homeland Security Department appears to do.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Do you want to say something, Dr. Lewis.
Dr. Lewis. Sure. If you wanted that, you would have to
really think about combining the functions that the Attorney
General has at the Department of Justice with the Department of
Homeland Security and at least--you know, just perhaps my
British colleague sees the United States as more religious. I
see the home office as more nationally controlling perhaps, and
it has a degree of involvement in local matters that would
prompt outrage here. I don't think we can do it. But DHS is a
halfway step there.
You would have to think about what more would you want to
take from the Attorney General or perhaps give back.
Mr. Shays. I am going to just ask all of you to make a
closing comment on any issue you want.
On August 10th, I spoke with some folks at the Department
of Homeland Security, and they were pretty happy about what had
taken place. Someone in my family was very unhappy with the
day; and I said, how are you doing? She said, this is a pretty
difficult day. I said, why? She said, because of what has
happened in Great Britain. I said, no, sweetie, that is a
hugely wonderful day, and that is a success story.
Because we know all of these--well, we tend to realize that
there are these threats, and isn't it good that we succeeded.
And when I say ``we,'' even our Department of Homeland
Security, in my conversation with them, took some pride in
their work.
What is interesting was when I was speaking to someone that
knew Scotland Yard they said homeland security didn't really
have been much to do with that. I said, OK, there is our people
asking for--then when I met one of the advisers to your Prime
Minister, he said absolutely homeland security was involved,
and we were in close contact.
What I thought was encouraging about that was the people
who needed to know knew in the United States and Great Britain,
and other people didn't know that others even within their own
departments knew because they didn't need to know. And I
thought that was a good sign. There was this interaction where
it needed to happen, and that was I think a very positive
thing.
And, you know, I do think Americans are safer and Brits and
others than they were before. It is just that people didn't
realize how unsafe they were before. Unless, Baroness, your
general view is that things have gotten worse because of how we
have dealt with terrorists. At least that is kind of what I
hear in terms of the fact that we are--I don't want to put
words in your mouth--but the concern--it is not attributed to
you, but some would feel that because we are, you know,
confronting this Islamic threat in the way we are that we are
heightening it rather than reducing it.
But my general view is that at least our departments and
our Government entities are starting to have that kind of
interaction that we hope they would have.
Ms. Falkner. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think you are absolutely
right there. I think we are more, all of us, in Europe and the
United States, particularly in Britain and the United States,
are aware that we need to work together and that work is
certainly happening.
Certainly in terms of dealing with the metropolitan police
within my house there is some interaction, and they were good
enough to brief me immediately after the August 10th events. We
get the impression that there is considerable cross-border
cooperation, and indeed it needs to be like that. We discovered
that in the European Union context in the 1990's and set up a
third pillar in the EU for cross-border cooperation.
So, yes, I agree with you. I think we are safer because of
that.
On the other hand, of course--and I won't dwell on that
because I think my views are clear--we are somewhat less safe.
But that is overall in the world. I think everyone is less
safe. Our lives are less secure than they were in the past,
than certainly we expected them to be in the early 1990's when
the Berlin wall came down. The peace dividend hasn't proved to
be what we thought it was.
Mr. Shays. I describe it this way. The cold war is over,
and the world is a more dangerous place.
Mr. Rivkin, any closing comments?
Mr. Rivkin. Yes, just one, to summarize. We are clearly
better off. We clearly have moved a long way. I think there we
can and should do better, and I think we can absorb some of the
British experiences with due regard to differences in our
system.
I am repeating myself when I say what is most important are
not new bureaucratic organizations and not even new statutes
but a serious dialog, not a caricature one, multiple dialogs
certainly in this country about balancing liberty and public
safety that allows the people to make the right choice.
I am a big believer in the wisdom of the American people.
If a debate is raised properly and not a caricature, not finger
pointing, I think they will come to the right answer on all
sorts of issues ranging from privacy to profiling to procedures
for interrogating detainees.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, very much.
Yes, Dr. Lewis.
Dr. Lewis. Just quickly, I think we have covered a lot of
ground in this hearing, and my view is there are useful things
we can learn from the British. We can't necessarily duplicate
them because of our Federal system, but they have some
interesting precedents for how we might want to reshape our
counterterrorism.
I think you have made the point that we need to think of
not only defensive strategy which we can learn from the British
on but also a longer-term strategy that wins the ideological
battle. So I hope anything we come up with will combine both of
those.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I will let you go, Mr. Rollins, and
let Mr. Parker have the last word.
Mr. Rollins. Mr. Chairman, once again, thank you for
allowing me to be here. I think there are definite points of
success to point to at the U.S. interagency Federal Government
level and at the U.S. United Kingdom international level.
My question and concern is, would we have had the same
level of success had the potential terrorist incident, planned-
for attack occurred here in the United States and focused at a
less secure sector other than the aviation sector? And my
concern is both domestically and internationally we continue to
rely on technological solutions rather than human-based
outreach solutions.
As my written testimony offered as well, I think the notion
of homeland security as we matured in the past 5 years as well
needs to take a refined look on more involvement with the State
and local communities, rather than a Federal-based approach.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Rollins.
Mr. Parker.
Mr. Parker. I think the big message that comes across from
the British experience is that coordination pays dividends. But
it comes with the proviso that it takes time to achieve, and
the success that you saw or what appears to be a success,
because we haven't had the court case yet, foiling the
airplanes plot, is the combination of 15 years of developing a
particular system, from the beginning of the 1990's. There
aren't any quick fixes, and you have to invest in a way of
pulling people together, and you have to spend an awful lot of
time building on it. Last thing you really want to do is keep
chopping and changing your approach.
So I find myself in the odd position of drifting toward
``stay the course,'' actually, and, you know, build stronger
links along the lines that you have at the moment. It is those
relationships that is the investment in institutional and
individual personal relationships that will ultimately pay real
dividends.
Mr. Shays. I thank you all very, very much. And I say to
you, Baroness, not only did we have two of your colleagues from
the Parliament come one time and testify, we invited them to
then sit on the panel with us and question other witnesses. But
it is probably the last time I will do it because they were so
witty, so intelligent, so much fun that they made us common
Members of Congress feel very common; and the expectation from
those who heard the hearing was, why can't we have more Brits
join your committee?
So, at any rate, I was thinking, wouldn't it be interesting
to get a group of members and allow us to come to Great Britain
and participate in a hearing and invite some of you all to do
the same and start to share these ideas. I think it would be
kind of--very helpful. I have learned a lot today, and I do
appreciate it. Thank you so very much.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]