[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 112-47]
TEN YEARS ON: THE EVOLUTION OF THE TERRORIST THREAT SINCE 9/11
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JUNE 22, 2011
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman
JEFF MILLER, Florida JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
CHRIS GIBSON, New York TIM RYAN, Ohio
BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
ALLEN B. WEST, Florida HANK JOHNSON, Georgia
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona KATHY CASTOR, Florida
DUNCAN HUNTER, California
Peter Villano, Professional Staff Member
Mark Lewis, Professional Staff Member
Jeff Cullen, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2011
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, June 22, 2011, Ten Years On: The Evolution of the
Terrorist Threat Since 9/11.................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, June 22, 2011......................................... 25
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2011
TEN YEARS ON: THE EVOLUTION OF THE TERRORIST THREAT SINCE 9/11
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Johnson, Hon. Hank, a Representative from Georgia, Subcommittee
on Emerging Threats and Capabilities........................... 2
Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.............. 1
WITNESSES
Bergen, Peter, Director, National Security Studies Program, New
America Foundation, Author of ``The Longest War: The Enduring
Conflict Between America and Al Qaeda''........................ 4
Gorka, Dr. Sebastian, Assistant Professor of Irregular Warfare,
National Defense University.................................... 6
Jenkins, Brian Michael, Senior Advisor, RAND Corporation......... 2
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Bergen, Peter................................................ 43
Gorka, Dr. Sebastian......................................... 65
Jenkins, Brian Michael....................................... 30
Langevin, Hon. James R....................................... 29
Documents Submitted for the Record:
``Who's Winning the Battle for Narrative? Al-Qaida versus the
United States and its Allies,'' co-authored by Sebastian
Gorka and David Kilcullen, in ``Influence Warfare: How
Terrorists and Governments Fight to Shape Perceptions in a
War of Ideas,'' edited by James J.F. Forest................ 79
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[The information was not available at the time of printing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Thornberry............................................... 93
Mr. Wittman.................................................. 95
TEN YEARS ON: THE EVOLUTION OF THE TERRORIST THREAT SINCE 9/11
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, June 22, 2011.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:04 p.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES
Mr. Thornberry. The hearing will come to order.
Tonight the President will announce a schedule for
withdrawals of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, an engagement that
started nearly 10 years ago. Ten years after the Twin Towers
fell and the Pentagon was assaulted and heroes in the skies
above Pennsylvania prevented the Capitol from being struck,
Americans are still battling terrorists around the world, here
at home, and in cyberspace, and we are still debating what we
need to do to prevent further attacks.
With the approach of that 10-year mark and with the removal
of Osama bin Laden, it seems to me to be appropriate to try to
step back and look at the course of the last decade, analyze
whether and how the threat to us and our interests have
changed, and thereby try to gain some perspective on where we
need to go from here.
The subcommittee has assembled a first-rate panel to help
guide our inquiry today. Unfortunately, it is also a day in
which Members and witnesses are being pulled in a variety of
directions. And I appreciate very much everybody's flexibility
to try to start a little earlier so that, hopefully, we can
have as much opportunity as we can before votes.
I do recommend that all of the Members and guests read the
written testimony submitted by each of the witnesses. But in
due course, I am going to ask them to summarize their
statements so we can get into questions and discussions in the
course of the time we have before us today.
So, with that, let me yield to Mr. Johnson for the ranking
member.
STATEMENT OF HON. HANK JOHNSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM GEORGIA,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, for hosting
this very timely hearing.
And thanks to our panel for joining us. I am looking
forward to your testimony.
And I will ask that we reserve the ability of Ranking
Member Langevin to make comments when he arrives. And I would
ask that his written statement be placed in the record, without
objection.
Mr. Thornberry. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the
Appendix on page 29.]
Mr. Thornberry. And I would also ask unanimous consent that
other members of the committee be allowed to participate in
today's hearing after all subcommittee members have had an
opportunity to ask questions. And, without objection, they will
be recognized at the appropriate time.
So, again, let me thank our witnesses for being here.
We are privileged to have Mr. Brian Michael Jenkins, senior
advisor at RAND Corporation; Mr. Peter Bergen, who is director
of national security studies at New America Foundation and also
author of ``The Longest War''; and Dr. Sebastian Gorka,
assistant professor of irregular warfare, National Defense
University.
So, if I could, let me turn to you all in that order for
the summary of your statement.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN MICHAEL JENKINS, SENIOR ADVISOR, RAND
CORPORATION
Mr. Jenkins. Chairman Thornberry, Mr. Johnson, members of
the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk
to you about this important topic.
In my written testimony, I outline Al Qaeda's terrorist
campaign since its inception. Let me here just summarize, to
note that in the past 10 years we have seen Al Qaeda move from
large-scale, centrally directed terrorist attacks to increasing
emphasis on individual jihad and do-it-yourself terrorism.
Now, this is an indication that we have made considerable
progress in the past 10 years. Al Qaeda's operational
capabilities have clearly been degraded. But we haven't dented
its determination one bit. Nor does the death of bin Laden end
Al Qaeda's global terrorist campaign. Indeed, the reported
elevation of Ayman al-Zawahiri as his successor suggests that
bin Laden's focus on attacking the United States will continue
after his death. But Al Qaeda today has less capability to
mount another attack on the scale of 9/11, although caution is
always in order. Small groups can still be lethal.
The Arab Spring, in my view, demonstrates the irrelevance
of Al Qaeda's ideology. However, Al Qaeda benefits from the
current chaos in these countries. And the latest news from
Yemen is that there was just a major jailbreak in that country,
which resulted in the escape of a number of Al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula [AQAP] members. And if these revolutions are
crushed or produce no change, then Al Qaeda certainly will find
new recruiting space.
As I mentioned, Al Qaeda has embraced individual jihadism
and do-it-yourself terrorism. This is a change from its initial
centralized strategy, and it reflects the organization's
current realities. The threat now is much more decentralized,
much more diffused. But their objective remains to bankrupt
America's already weakened economy with continued at least low-
level attacks. That is going to depend heavily on their ability
to recruit homegrown terrorists, but thus far, fortunately,
exhortations to join its violent jihad have yielded meager
results among American Muslims.
I agree that a 10-year time period is an appropriate time
for a review. As Al Qaeda has evolved, so must American
strategy. Here are some just basic principles.
First, Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain the primary
target of America's counterterrorist campaign. Although
weakened, the jihadist movement still poses a threat. Left
unmolested, it will pursue its campaign. War weariness,
economic restraints, the death of bin Laden must not be allowed
to erode the unprecedented worldwide cooperation among
intelligence services and law enforcement organizations that
has reduced Al Qaeda's capability to mount large-scale attacks.
How things turn out in Afghanistan remains critical to the
future trajectory of the conflict, but creating a national army
and a national police force in Afghanistan able to effectively
secure the country will take longer than the United States is
willing to sustain current troop levels.
But this is not just about numbers. We really should
examine ways we can reconfigure our efforts. The challenge is
how to deprive Al Qaeda and its allies of safe havens without
the United States having to fix failed states. We may be
chasing Al Qaeda for decades. Therefore, what we do at home and
abroad must be sustainable.
We can't eliminate every vulnerability. Efforts should
focus on developing less burdensome ways to maintain current
security levels. We should also move toward risk-based security
rather than pretending that we can prevent all attacks. And
Americans, themselves, must be realistic about security and
stop overreacting to even failed terrorist attempts.
The threat of homegrown terrorism is real, but it shouldn't
be exaggerated. The tiny turnout of jihadist recruits suggests
that America remains a country where immigrants successfully
assimilate into the life of our communities. American Muslims
are not America's enemies. But domestic intelligence collection
and community policing are essential, especially as Al Qaeda
places more emphasis on inspiring local volunteers to take
action.
In sum, we have greatly reduced Al Qaeda's capacity for
large-scale attacks, but at great expense. But the campaign led
by Al Qaeda may go on for many years. It is time for a
fundamental and thoughtful review of our effort. We have gone
big; we need to go long.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jenkins can be found in the
Appendix on page 30.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Mr. Bergen.
STATEMENT OF PETER BERGEN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES
PROGRAM, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION, AUTHOR OF ``THE LONGEST WAR:
THE ENDURING CONFLICT BETWEEN AMERICA AND AL QAEDA''
Mr. Bergen. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry and Mr. Johnson
and other members of the committee.
We were asked to look at today's threat and how the threat
has changed and what to do about it. So, in the 5 minutes I
have, I will try and summarize.
I, you know, concur with pretty much everything that Mr.
Jenkins just said. The threat is much reduced. Al Qaeda's
capability to do a 9/11-style attack on the United States is
extremely constrained.
The Maxwell School at Syracuse University and New America
Foundation looked at 183 jihadist terrorism cases since 9/11,
as defined by individuals or groups motivated by anti-American
beliefs who are in this country. Of those 186 cases, there was
quite a lot of good news and some bad news.
The good news is, not one of those cases involved a
chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear plot, which is
pretty surprising, in a sense, if you think about how concerned
we were about that eventuality after 9/11.
Secondly, there was a real uptick in these cases in the
2009-2010 time period; there were 76 cases. However, there has
been a sharp dip in 2011, with only eight cases. So the
question before all of us is, in a sense, was 2009-2010 sort of
an outlier or part of a larger pattern?
Mr. Jenkins referred to the relatively small threat of
domestic jihadist terrorism, and I agree with that. But,
clearly, there was something happening in 2009 and 2010 which
was a little bit different. Part of the reason that you saw a
big increase in plots was a large number of Somali Americans
planning to go to Somalia, or actually going to Somalia, who
were charged in cases relating to Al-Shabaab.
Another piece of good news in all of this is that, of these
186 individuals, only 4 actually carried out any attack, the
most famous being, of course, the Fort Hood, Texas, attack,
which I am sure is very familiar to members of this committee,
which killed 13 people. There were three other attacks, which
killed four people. So, since 9/11, only 17 Americans have been
killed by jihadist terrorists in the past 10 years. Again, I
think that would have been something that would not have been
expected if we had had this conversation a couple of years
after the 9/11 attacks.
So, much that has happened, both, you know, what the U.S.
Government has done and Al Qaeda's own weaknesses, has made us
relatively much safer.
How does the death of bin Laden play out in all this, and
what effect does it have? And I would say that the effect--if
everybody in this room collectively came together and came up
with a better plan to sabotage Al Qaeda, it would be hard to
come up with the Arab Spring and bin Laden's death happening
within several months of each other. Between these two events,
Al Qaeda's ideology has taken a pretty massive, you know, blow.
And Al Qaeda, the organization, which was founded and led by
bin Laden, has also taken a pretty massive blow.
When you joined the Nazi party, you didn't swear an oath of
allegiance to Nazism; you swore a personal oath of allegiance
to Adolf Hitler. Similarly, when you joined Al Qaeda, you swore
a personal oath of allegiance to bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahiri,
as Mr. Jenkins has pointed out, has officially taken over. But
this is very good news, I think, for the United States. Ayman
al-Zawahiri will drive what remains of Al Qaeda into the
ground. He is neither charismatic nor an effective leader,
whose leadership of even the Egyptian jihadist militant groups
of which he was once part is contested. And just as the death
of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi dealt a pretty big blow to Al Qaeda in
Iraq, the people who replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were not as
effective leaders. So the fact that Ayman al-Zawahiri has taken
over is a good thing.
But even before the Arab Spring and the death of bin Laden,
Al Qaeda was in very bad shape. It was losing the war of ideas
in the Muslim world, not certainly because the United States
was winning them, but because Al Qaeda was losing them,
principally on the issue that Al Qaeda and its allies had
killed so many Muslim civilians. For groups that position
themselves as the defender of Islam, this was not impressive.
And, you know, if you look at polling data in Indonesia,
Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, pick your country,
support for bin Laden and Al Qaeda suicide bombing has been
dropping precipitously in the last several years.
That said, how is the threat changing, which is the second
question that we were asked to address. I think one of the most
problematic parts of the threat that is changing is Al Qaeda's
ability to infect other groups that don't call themselves ``Al
Qaeda'' with its ideology, particularly in South Asia.
To give you two obvious examples, the Pakistani Taliban,
which was seen as a bunch of sort of provincial country
bumpkins uninterested in anything other than Pakistan, sent
suicide bombers to Barcelona in January of 2008, which should
have been a canary in the mine, and then, of course, sent a
suicide bomber to Times Square in May of 2010. So the Pakistani
Taliban now are acting in a more Al Qaeda-like manner, a fairly
large group of people.
Similarly, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that focused on
India, sought out American and Jewish targets in Mumbai in
November of 2008. Again, a rather large group with quasi-
governmental support from the Pakistani Government. And I think
that their change is concerning.
And then, of course, the regional affiliates: Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, with which you are all familiar; Al-
Shabaab; Al Qaeda in Iraq; Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The
fortunes of these groups wax and wane.
But one final point I wanted to make before this committee,
because it directly affects your interests, is, going back to
that survey of the 183 cases, jihadist terrorism cases, we
found that the target of a third of those individuals was U.S.
military personnel serving overseas or U.S. military bases. So,
clearly, for individuals motivated by this ideology, American
soldiers and American servicemen and servicewomen, involved in
up to five wars in Muslim countries, are very tempting targets
for these kinds of groups and individuals.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bergen can be found in the
Appendix on page 43.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Doctor.
STATEMENT OF DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF
IRREGULAR WARFARE, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Gorka. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member
Johnson, and the members of the subcommittee, for providing me
this honor to testify before you on the vital issue of the
evolution of the terrorist threat to the United States.
I must start with the standard disclaimer that this
testimony reflects my views and not necessarily those of the
National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or any
other organization or agency I am affiliated with.
As you have already noted, Mr. Chairman, we are approaching
the 10th anniversary of the September the 11th attacks, which
resulted in the longest military campaign the United States has
been engaged in since 1776. Despite the mastermind of that
attack having been killed by our forces, the war is not over.
In my testimony today, I have two core messages. The first
is that, a decade after the events of September the 11th,
America does still not fully understand the nature of the
enemy. Secondly, that tactical successes do not necessarily
lead to strategic victory.
If I may address the second point first, it is clear that
the operation in Abbottabad that led to the death of Osama bin
Laden will, in decades to come, represent the textbook example
of such a covert action on foreign soil. Nevertheless, to quote
the quintessential strategist Sun Tzu, tactics without strategy
is simply the noise before defeat. This was a tactically
supreme operation but does not necessarily mean that we have
won a strategic victory.
To illustrate this point further, as you are all aware, one
of the most popular official documents in the last 10 years was
the Field Manual 3-24 on Counterinsurgency, reformed and
rewritten under the aegis of General Petraeus. The fact that
today, with the success of that counterinsurgency doctrine in
Iraq and elsewhere, in Washington the phrase
``counterinsurgency strategy'' is used every day, reflects the
paucity of understanding of what we are doing. In fact, a
cursory Internet search with the phrase ``counterinsurgency
strategy'' will give you 300,000 hits, despite the fact that
counterinsurgency always has and always will be a doctrinal
approach and never a strategic one.
Going on to the question of understanding the nature of the
enemy, if I may share a personal anecdote with the members of
the subcommittee. Several years into this war, I was asked with
a colleague to address a group of assembled Special Operations
officers on the war in hand and how things were going. This was
a 3-day event at a relatively high level of 06.
On the third day, when I rose to give my remarks, I was
forced to tear up my speaking points and inform the officers,
who really were risking their lives in this fight against Al
Qaeda, that for 2\1/2\ days I had witnessed them debate whether
the enemy was an organization, a network, a network of
networks, an ideology, or a movement. This lack of clarity
amongst our operators, which I have seen amongst other
agencies, not just the Special Forces, is akin to us debating
in 1944 what Nazism actually represents and what the Third
Reich is. We didn't do it then; why are we doing it now?
The plain matter of the fact, Mr. Chairman and Members, is
that we have institutionally failed to meet our duty to become
well-informed on the threat doctrine of our enemy. Without a
clear understanding of the enemy threat doctrine, victory is
likely impossible.
The reasons for this lack of understanding are many, but
they are guided also by the belief that the religious character
of the enemy's ideology should not be discussed. This is one of
the reasons why today in official circles we use the phrase
``violent extremism.'' The fact is, we are dealing with a
hybrid totalitarianism that depends very much on religious
ideology to justify its violence.
Secondly, there is the question of our institutional
capacity to deal with the threat that we currently face. I
would like to remind the subcommittee that the 9/11
congressional commission described for us how very different
the threat environment is. Today, we no longer live in a
Westphalian threat environment, where the nation-state is the
primary enemy. As Philip Bobbitt has noted, groups such as Al
Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, or the Muslim Brotherhood do not fit neatly
into the national security apparatus we built over the last
hundred years.
To paraphrase James Kiras of the Air University, we have
denied Al Qaeda the capability to conduct complex, devastating
attacks on the scale of September the 11th, but we now need to
transition away from concentrating on dismantling and
disrupting Al Qaeda's network to undermining its core strategy
of ideological attack.
To conclude, in the last 10 years since September the 11th,
we can summarize our actions as a vast collection of tactical
and operational successes occurring in a vacuum of strategic
understanding and strategic response. We have failed to
understand the enemy at any more than an operational level and
have instead, by default, addressed that enemy solely on that
operational plane of engagement.
The 10th anniversary of the attacks here in Washington, in
New York, and in Pennsylvania afford those of us in the U.S.
Government who have sworn to uphold and defend the national
interests of this greatest of nations a clear opportunity to
recognize what we have accomplished and what needs to be
reassessed.
My wish would be that this hearing marked the beginning of
that process, whereby we draw a line under our past efforts and
begin anew to recommit ourselves to attacking the deadliest of
enemies at the level which it deserves to be, and that must be,
of course, the strategic.
Osama bin Laden may be dead, but his ideology of global
supremacy through religious war is more vibrant and sympathetic
to audiences around the world than it was on September the
10th, 2011.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gorka can be found in the
Appendix on page 65.]
Mr. Thornberry. A little sobering, but thank you.
But let me pick up with that and ask Mr. Jenkins and Mr.
Bergen to respond to the idea that tactical success does not--
successes--does not necessarily translate into overall victory
or strategic success.
And, you know, you think back, not only the Osama bin Laden
operation, but the fact that we have not had, other than Fort
Hood, a particularly successful attack here in the homeland for
10 years; a lot of success in various other places and efforts
around the world. I think you mentioned that Al Qaeda is not
necessarily well thought of, according to pollsters. Maybe that
is a tactical success.
But so does all of that add up to strategic victory, or are
we still fooling ourselves in some way?
Mr. Jenkins.
Mr. Jenkins. Let me try to address that.
There are two views about this. One is that if we can
continue to disrupt Al Qaeda operations, if we can continue to
protect the American homeland, that ultimately Al Qaeda will
self-destruct. It will self-destruct in ways that Peter was
outlining. That is, first of all, the biggest long-term threat
to Al Qaeda is irrelevance. And as the world moves on, Al
Qaeda, locked in its own little universe of extremist ideology,
will become less and less relevant.
And that is what makes the Arab Spring so important,
because those people demonstrating in Tunisia and Egypt and
elsewhere were not demonstrating on behalf of unending warfare
against infidels or the re-establishment of an 8th-century
caliphate; they were demonstrating for greater democracy, they
were demonstrating for less corruption, for more opportunity.
And that Al Qaeda, with its sole methodology of violence, that
simply it will fade, and we should try to contain them as long
as possible.
Will that suffice in the long run to give us victory? First
of all, the problem is, we have to put victory in quotes here,
because what is victory here? This could go on for many, many,
many years, and we are not going to have something that we can
call a clearcut victory. But, nonetheless, it would be a
success.
Others believe--and there is a shortcoming here--that while
we have, as Dr. Gorka has pointed out, we have pounded on their
operational capabilities with some measure of success, we
haven't adequately addressed the front end of this--that is,
what is the appeal of this ideology? How do they manage to
continue to inspire angry young men around the world to join
with this?
And one of the long-term dangers that we do face here is
that the Al Qaeda ideology really transcends to simply becoming
a conveyor for individual discontents. That is, anyone who is
searching for meaning, unhappy with their condition, whatever,
can find legitimization and direction within this ideology.
Now, we could end up dealing with that kind of a diffused
threat for many, many years.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Bergen.
Mr. Bergen. You know, there are still Marxist-Leninists on
campuses somewhere in the United States; there just aren't very
many of them. And so, you know, Marxism-Leninism as an idea has
never fully died; there are just less takers. And that is where
we are going to be with Al Qaeda.
Mr. Jenkins mentioned the word ``irrelevance.'' I think
that is a good word. The polling data is easily accessible.
Gallup, Zogby, Pew have done, you know, massive polls around
the Muslim world, and the numbers speak for themselves.
You know, the caveat here, of course, is the Baader-Meinhof
Group in Germany had zero public support in the 1970s in
Germany, and a very small group of people continued to inflict
a lot of damage on the German state.
But, you know, I think that they, overall--the chairman
mentioned no attacks in the United States. I think another
point is, no successful attacks in the West since July 7th,
2005, in London by Al Qaeda proper. You know, attempts in
places like Ramstein Air Force Base in 2007; you know, we had
the Mumbai-style--possibility of Mumbai-style attacks in Europe
in the fall of last year, which produced a Europe-wide terror
alert by the State Department. But they haven't got one
through. They may eventually. By the law of averages, they
will. But not only is their ideology in decline, they are
operationally not very successful.
And one final point, which I think, just to kind of
underline about the Arab Spring, it is really striking to me
that not a single picture of bin Laden has been waved by any of
the protesters in Cairo, Benghazi, or anywhere else; not a
single American flag burning; not a single Israeli flag
burning. Al Qaeda's ideas, foot soldiers, and leaders are just
simply not part of this conversation.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you. I want to come back to some of
that, but let me yield to Mr. Johnson for some questions.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Bergen, what would happen if the U.S. allows the
Taliban to take over Afghanistan?
Mr. Bergen. We have already run a kind of controlled
experiment on that question in Pakistan, and very recently. In
2009, the Taliban took over Swat, which was a premier tourist
destination in Pakistan in the north. They beheaded a
policeman, they burned down the girls' schools, and they
inflicted a reign of terror on the population. They did exactly
the same thing in Waziristan in 2005 and 2006 in the tribal
regions of Pakistan.
So if the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, either
partially or fully--they can't take over fully--but even
partially, you know, they have had a long time to reject Al
Qaeda and all its works, and they have never done that. And
with the death of bin Laden--we are now 7 weeks after the death
of bin Laden. This was a perfect opportunity for the Taliban to
say, ``Hey, you know, our deal was with bin Laden, not Al
Qaeda. We reject Al Qaeda.'' They haven't done it. In fact,
quite the reverse; they have said they are going to take
revenge for bin Laden's death.
So I am quite skeptical of the notion that the Taliban is a
bunch of Henry Kissingers in waiting who are just going to
suddenly become rational actors and, you know--they have never
said what kind of society they envisage for Afghanistan, their
view on democracy, elections, or women working or girls in
school. I think we know what their real views are, but they
have been very silent on what they plan to do.
And it is very striking to me, in this country, liberals,
who were very much up in arms about the kind of behavior of the
Taliban before 9/11, have been strikingly silent on the issue
of what the Taliban coming back to power in some shape or form
in Afghanistan would mean for the women of Afghanistan and the
girls.
Mr. Johnson. Is it likely that the Taliban would take over
if the U.S. withdraws too quickly from Afghanistan?
Mr. Bergen. I don't think they can take over, sir, but,
certainly, if our withdrawal was too precipitous, they could
take over large chunks of the south and the east, not because
they are so strong, but because the Afghan Government and the
Afghan National Army, which Mr. Jenkins referred to, are still
relatively weak. And I----
Mr. Johnson. Well, if they did take over those sections,
would those sections become a safe haven or a place where
jihadists and other terrorists could find sanctuary?
Mr. Bergen. In my view, yes, because, again, we have run a
controlled experiment on this question. When Al Qaeda and other
groups allied to it were fleeing Afghanistan, you know, where
did they end up? In Taliban-controlled Pakistan.
Mr. Johnson. All right.
Do either one of you gentlemen want to add anything to what
Dr. Bergen has said?
Mr. Jenkins. Let me just add that I do agree that a
precipitous withdrawal or too rapid a withdrawal from
Afghanistan could, in fact, lead not to a direct Taliban
takeover, because they would still be vulnerable there, but it
could give space to Al Qaeda, space to the jihadists.
Moreover, it would be--that combined with the very
turbulent situation we already see in the adjacent areas of
Pakistan, that would become an area of a source of trouble
again for the rest of the world.
Dr. Gorka. If I may, on the point of the ideology behind Al
Qaeda and whether or not bin Laden's death will effect the
spread of it further, the fact is, what we see in the evolution
of Al Qaeda is a paradoxical evolution. We really have made it
impossible for it to execute large-scale, mass-casualty attacks
on the soil of the United States. That is correct.
But while we have been successful in shrinking its capacity
operationally, its influence ideologically has increased. This
is something that is recognized across the intelligence
community and elsewhere. The fact is, whether bin Laden is dead
or not, whether or not Ayman al-Zawahiri is a charismatic
individual, the brand of Salafi jihadism that they represented
or propagated is still very popular. There is no alternative
that is taking on this ideology.
Yes, the Arab Spring is to be welcomed, but we must
remember one very, very daunting fact. Everybody that the Arab
Spring targeted, whether it was Mubarak, whether it is Saleh,
whether it is even the King of Jordan, who is being
pressurized, all these individuals are inimical to Al Qaeda,
are enemies to Salafi jihadists. So just because we have people
who look to be interested in establishing democracies doesn't
mean that the Salafi jihadists are actually very happy to see
what they saw as secular dictators removed or puppets of the
West removed.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have a great
panel. I am sorry I just missed it. We are all doing about
double and triple duty here today.
But I wanted to, I think, try and focus a little bit more
on--we have this discussion, anti-insurgency, anti-terrorism--I
don't think you addressed this already. In the light of
terrorist threats, I mean, I have always thought that the two
essentially worked hand-in-hand, you know, that it is difficult
to separate them. Certainly, exactly, you can't separate them,
but even as we talk about them and the need to get information
and be able to do targeting.
Could you address that and how it is perceived, do you
think, by Al Qaeda and where these efforts fit in? Does a
threat of more drone attacks, for example, does that do
anything different than the fact that you are actually working
in villages and using persuasion, and more grassroots, if you
will, work is a greater threat? Where do you see this?
Mr. Jenkins. I think we get wrapped around some of these
doctrinal issues a bit too much and try to make these precise
distinctions. I mean, if we were talking about, as Mr. Bergen
mentioned, you know, the Red Army Faction in Germany, there, we
are talking about a pure counterterrorist strategy, we are
talking about law enforcement and things like that. If we were
talking about, say, something in Central America or Latin
America in the 1960s, we would be talking about a pure
counterinsurgency strategy.
In the situation we face today, they are obviously mixed
together. And, therefore, the means that we employ in dealing
with this worldwide have to be tailored to the specific
situations. In Afghanistan, we are dealing with an insurgency
situation, but we are also going after the terrorists directly
with the drone strikes. In other parts of the world, we are
relying on intelligence and law enforcement and diplomacy to
arrest and bring to justice individual members. Now, that is
not counterinsurgency; that would be more counterterrorist.
So, depending on the situation and the terrain, we have
mixtures of both, and we have to orchestrate all of those
instruments--law enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy,
counterinsurgency tactics, counterterrorist measures, military
force, everything--as it is appropriate to the specific
situation. And that is going to be different in Yemen from what
it is in Somalia, from what it is in Algeria, from what it is
in Afghanistan.
Dr. Gorka. Mr. Jenkins is absolutely right; both of these
can have applicability. Counterterrorism [CT] is primarily a
tool that is used to attack a network or an organization.
Counterinsurgency [COIN] is a far deeper tool which actually
ultimately has to address the conditions and the environment in
which an insurgency grows and challenges the state.
The problem with today's approach is that both of these
have applicability but neither of them answer the strategic
question. These remain doctrinal tools. It is the hammer, it is
the screwdriver, but it isn't the manual of repair that tells
us why we have to use these. So the problem remains the
strategic question.
And the debate is a superficial one. The debate of CT,
counterterrorism, versus COIN is I think in part a product of
what we have seen in the last 10 years as classic mission
creep. We went into Afghanistan to do what? To destroy the
organization that had executed the attacks against citizens
here in the United States. Well, yes, but 10 years later, what
are we doing? Much more than attacking Al Qaeda, because Al
Qaeda has left Afghanistan to a large extent. We are trying to
make sure Afghan girls can go to school. So mission creep has
created this largely artificial debate.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Can I just follow up for a second with Mr. Bergen? Because
I wanted to say I appreciate the fact that you raise that issue
of the women and the extent to which we, I think, send some
very strong messages about the fact that they should be
essentially at the table, that they should have some meaningful
participation as we work toward reintegration, and, I think,
think about a time that they actually would be playing a role
that is acknowledged in development of a civil society.
Now, a lot of people have discounted that, obviously,
because they think that, again, that is part of mission creep,
if you will, it is part of a greater effort that is
generational, it is too difficult, it is too hard.
Could you comment, though, on whether or not you think that
that is an important message and whether or not it--how do you
think it should be articulated?
Mr. Bergen. I would answer it this way, Representative
Davis. Two things.
First of all, if you look at guide books to Afghanistan in
the late 1960s or the early 1970s, you see pictures of women
unveiled working in offices. And, you know, the idea that the
Taliban represents the Afghan view of how women should be
treated is nonsensical. It is a very minority view. And the
idea that--in fact, you know, whether it is mission creep or
not we can sort of debate, but something that I think is not
well-processed sometimes in this country is the huge strides
that have been made for girls in the last 10 years in
Afghanistan. When the Taliban were in power, there were a
million kids in school. About, you know, 0.1 percent of them
were girls. Now there are 8 million kids in school; 37 percent
of them are girls.
So, as we go forward with the Taliban and think about the
kind of society they want, I think this has to be part of the
discussion. Afghans want their kids to be educated, whether
they are girls or boys. And the Taliban, who are going to be
part of some discussion of the future of Afghanistan--I think
that is a sort of nonnegotiable.
One of our demands is they accept the Afghan Constitution.
Well, the Afghan Constitution mandates, for instance, that 25
percent of the people in the Afghan Parliament should be women,
which I think is probably higher than it is in this body in
this country.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Ms. Sanchez.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am very conflicted about some of the statements that I
have heard. And I am sorry I wasn't in here earlier. But, you
know, you just mentioned that Afghan parents want their kids
educated. Well, so do Americans. And one of the biggest
problems we have is that money is being siphoned off halfway
around the world for the wars that we are in.
And it is very difficult because we have no measurement of
how we are doing, and, meanwhile, our own economy is
collapsing. People can't go--in California, for example, our
university system, our Cal State system, our community college
system is all completely impacted. So we, as policymakers and
as people who are entrusted with the fiscal soundness of the
United States, have a big problem with what is going on.
You know, and I am worried about mission creep because I
think we are in complete mission creep. I have been for getting
out of Afghanistan for a while now. Nobody, not a general, even
when they are before our committee, can tell me really why we
are still in Afghanistan.
And I just relate it back to the fact that we are still in
Iraq. And I know, for example--I voted against Iraq. And I have
sat on this committee for 15 years, on the military committee.
So it is not like I am afraid of the military, I am afraid of
the power we have. We have incredible power. But, you know, we
have the best-equipped, best-trained, best-educated military
that the world has ever seen, but it is still a limited
resource.
And, you know, with Iraq, first it was about WMD [weapons
of mass destruction] and nuke terror. Then it was about the
democratic transformation of the Middle East. Then it was about
the freedom of the Iraqi people. Then it was about fighting Al
Qaeda over there instead of over here. Then it was about
preventing a regional war. Then it was about preventing a
genocidal civil war. Then it was about the price of gas in the
United States. It kept changing on us, and we are still there.
So I am looking at Afghanistan and I am wondering, why are
we still there? And for someone to say this is about fighting
Al Qaeda there--and this gentleman just said, you know,
couldn't possibly be, because there are so few there, and there
are other ways to take care of those people, other than having
a conventional-size Army sitting there.
I still disagree, and I disagreed from the beginning, with
our President about sending this surge over there, mostly
because of the types of things I heard out of the
parliamentarians and Karzai when I go and visit.
So my question to you guys is, with respect to Al Qaeda,
why are we still in Afghanistan, in your opinion?
Dr. Gorka. I think exactly for the reasons you just
mentioned. I think the fact is, if we wish to create a
functioning federal country in Afghanistan, where everybody has
civil rights comparable to a developed western nation and which
has a market economy that functions well, we will not do it
with 100,000 troops. NYPD [New York Police Department] has
40,000 officers--NYPD. And we think we are going to turn
Afghanistan into a close ally that functions as a federal state
with human rights and civil rights for all?
The problem is, we haven't asked the difficult question you
just raised. Why are we there if Al Qaeda's center of gravity
is elsewhere and if we don't have the financial wherewithal to
turn Afghanistan into Switzerland?
It will not happen. There probably will be a military
presence there, but it will be of a very different tactical
nature. And the bottom line is, the British and the Soviets
failed. We will not be able to succeed where they failed
because they used tactics that we are not allowed to use, and I
am very glad we are not allowed to use them.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
Mr. Bergen. I have been visiting Afghanistan since the
civil war in the 1990s. I was there under the Taliban. But this
is not really my opinion. Sixty-eight percent of Afghans have a
favorable view of international forces. This is the BBC-ABC
poll taken several months ago. That is an astonishing number.
Can you think of a Muslim country that has a 68 percent
favorable view of the U.S. military that is occupying their
country over the past 10 years?
Why is that? Well, because they know that their lives are
getting better. Now, the question, are we spending too much
money there, $118 billion? Sure. But going to Representative
Davis' question, you can't do an effective counterterrorism
campaign without an effective counterinsurgency presence.
And the reason that we can say with some certainty what
alternative scenarios look like is we have already tried them.
In 1989, the United States closed its embassy to Afghanistan,
and into the vacuum came the Taliban, then allied with Al
Qaeda. In 2002, because of its ideological opposition to
nation-building, the George W. Bush administration did an
operation on the light in Afghanistan. We got what we paid for.
The Taliban came back, again allied with Al Qaeda and with Al
Qaeda-like ideas.
In 2003, there were 6,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan.
That is the size of the police department in Houston in a
country the size of Texas with 10 times the population. And so
I think the President has been making the right set of
decisions about resourcing this properly.
I completely understand what Representative Sanchez said
about, you know, we have to make choices. But the fact is that
we were attacked from Afghanistan on 9/11. We have a very
strong interest in preventing it from being a safe haven, not
only for Al Qaeda, but every jihadist terrorist and insurgent
group in the world was headquartered or based in Afghanistan
before 9/11. Groups that have attacked us, as well--Pakistan
Taliban is now attacking us. The Islamic Jihad Union tried to
attack us at Ramstein Air Force Base in 2007. So it is not just
about Al Qaeda. It is about a lot of other jihadist groups
which are now on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border.
Ms. Sanchez. Well, I would just say to that, there are a
lot of other places that they can go and train, and there are a
lot of ways to eliminate them from training that doesn't
require us to have 140,000 people on the ground.
I don't know if the other gentleman had a comment to that
question. And I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, if I am taking a little
bit too long, but I think it is an important question to ask.
Mr. Jenkins. First, I tend to be ferociously focused on Al
Qaeda and, therefore, will not argue against the fact that the
invasion of Iraq and the subsequent insurgency there was a
costly distraction and certainly won't defend that.
But the fact is, we went into Afghanistan for a purpose, we
are there for a continued purpose: to prevent the return of Al
Qaeda to that area, which I believe they would benefit from.
However, having said that, I don't think it is a matter of
needing 140,000 troops. If we choose to do it that way, yes, we
need 140,000 troops. I do think we have to lower our
expectations of what we can achieve. We do want to keep a
presence in the area. I think we can do more with local forces
and Special Forces, which could significantly reduce the
footprint of the Americans and the cost.
I hesitate--I mean, I am a veteran of Vietnam, and one is
always hesitant about bringing up an historical example from
Vietnam as anything positive. But in Vietnam, with 2,000
Special Forces, we fielded an army, not the South Vietnamese
Army but something called the Civilian Irregular Defense Group,
of 50,000 tribesmen--2,000 soldiers. Those tribesmen were
extremely effective because they were local soldiers and knew
the territory.
I think we have to move in the direction of greater
reliance on local forces, tribal forces, Special Forces, and
Special Operations, which will reduce the need for the presence
of 100,000 American soldiers.
We are also going to have to lower our expectations
somewhat. We are not going to win a war or, as Dr. Gorka says,
turn Afghanistan into Switzerland. What we are talking about is
managing a very turbulent situation to ensure it does not
permit an Al Qaeda comeback. That doesn't take 100,000 American
troops. That is doing something different.
So we shouldn't get wrapped around the number. We should
think about how we configure our forces to achieve our long-
term goals, doing something that is sustainable. What we have
now is not sustainable.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.
And thank you for the indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. I appreciate the gentlelady's questions.
Let me turn back to a couple of issues that have come up
that I want to ask you all a little more about.
One is the Arab Spring. You have all spoken favorably of
it. Other people write that--building on the idea that it has
displaced people who were helping us fight Al Qaeda, and also,
though, expressing the concern that it has built up
expectations among the populations which cannot be achieved,
and so, in that discontent, there will be an even bigger
breeding ground for Al Qaeda and that sort of ideology. I think
one of you said a while ago, you know, this sort of ideology
becomes kind of like flypaper on whatever people's
disappointments may be stuck on.
So my question is, is the Arab Spring and the changes that
are going on there a uniformly good thing, or does it really
present some downsides when looking at it from a fight-against-
terrorism perspective?
Mr. Jenkins. There are both upsides and downsides.
On the one hand, this is a positive development, certainly
with regard to--I think all of us agree--with regard to the
relevancy of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, as I mentioned before, can
benefit from the short-term turmoil.
In the longer term, there are a number of things that can
happen that are going to be potentially negative. One is that
the expectations of the people are not going to be fulfilled.
It is going to lead to frustration. And that could provide some
opportunities for Al Qaeda.
It is also likely that, whatever new governments emerge in
these countries, counterterrorism is not going to be at the top
of their agenda. And, therefore, it can't be the single
currency with which we interact. So our diplomacy in these
places is going to have to be very adept at addressing the
needs of these new governments--and, hopefully, more democratic
governments, less autocratic than they have been--and, at the
same time, not simply gauging them solely on their performance
of where they put counterterrorism on their agenda. They are
going to have other political and economic issues to address,
and we ought to be able to help them address those.
Mr. Bergen. You know, Czar Nicholas II in Russia in 1916,
you know, certainly didn't know that, in 2 years, not only he
would be dead but Lenin would be ruling in his place. So, I
mean, revolutions--the whole point about revolutions is they
are not predictable. So we don't know what is going to happen.
That said, going to the chairman's direct question, Al
Qaeda was really incubated by these authoritarian regimes. I
mean, it is not an accident that so many of them are Saudis,
Yemenis, and Egyptians. It was these particular circumstances
of authoritarian regimes in these countries that produced this
ideology. Sayyid Qutb, their Lenin, came out of the Egyptian
prison system. Ayman al-Zawahiri himself, bin Laden himself
came out of Saudi Arabia. And so, the fact that there is a real
ideological counternarrative to the authoritarian regimes in
which Al Qaeda isn't playing a role is not to be discounted. No
one is calling for a Taliban-style theocracy in any of these
countries, which is what Al Qaeda really wants.
That said, there are opportunities. The most obvious one is
in southern Yemen, which, if you were to think about a country
which looks most like pre-9/11 Afghanistan, southern Yemen
would be that place. And already Al Qaeda has taken control of
a town. So they will obviously try to take control of places
they can. But in the long term, this is very, very poor, bad
for them.
And one final point on this. It was only posthumously that
bin Laden ever commented on the Arab Spring, in a tape that we
have now recovered. He commented on the most minor news
developments in the Muslim world. We have, like, 35 statements
from him since 9/11. And he didn't comment because it was very
hard for him to know what to say about this thing which was
happening without him, his foot soldiers, or his ideas as being
part of the whole kind of event.
Dr. Gorka. Mr. Bergen is absolutely correct that
revolutions can go either way. We can have the revolution in
1917 create the greatest threat to Western civilization for the
next 70 years, or we can have the revolution of 1776 create the
greatest tribute to liberty and democracy that there ever has
been. So the evidence is out right now.
But the question is, what does the direction of a
revolution depend upon? Two things. It depends upon the
conditions and the building blocks in the country where the
revolution occurs and, secondly, the ideology of that elite,
which drives events after the violence has occurred.
Now, in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East,
what we have is we have conditions which are not favorable to
the establishment of well-functioning democracies because we
don't have civil society there. It has to be built. I spent 15
years of my life in a post-dictatorial country, and I have seen
that, no matter how nice the constitution, how many political
parties there are, how many private media franchises exist, if
the political culture of democracy isn't there, these are all
window-dressing.
Secondly is the question of ideology. The problem with the
events of the Arab Spring is that there may be a temporary,
vast swell of rejection of dictatorial regimes or quasi-
authoritarian regimes. But what is the alternative? Democracy
is not a shake-and-bake effort. And, unfortunately, in
countries such as Egypt, there is only one organized
alternative to the dictatorship, and that is an organization
that, since 1928, has a game plan, that has a playbook, and
that is the Muslim Brotherhood.
And the Muslim Brotherhood has a very famous saying, ``One
man, one vote, once.'' If that is the only tangible, well-
thought-out ideology in this country, then we may have problems
in the future.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you all.
I would yield to Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our panel for being here today and
apologize that I wasn't here at the beginning of the hearing. I
was with Director Panetta at his farewell meeting before the
Intelligence Committee. So I appreciate your being here today,
and if some of my questions have already been asked, again, I
apologize in advance.
But if we could, just turning to the wave of revolution
that is sweeping across the Middle East, considering the
current and future transnational terrorist threats, is there a
particular region that is more problematic than others?
Indonesia, South America, the Middle East, Africa? What,
basically, also, the effect of the Arab Spring had in our
counterterrorism efforts?
Those two areas, those two questions.
Mr. Jenkins. If I understand the question correctly, Mr.
Langevin, the areas that are of greatest concern, most
problematic, is the focus.
Mr. Langevin. Right. And then what effect has the Arab
Spring had on our counterterrorism efforts, would be the----
Mr. Jenkins. I mean, clearly, I think there would be
consensus that Yemen is the most chaotic situation and it is
also the country where Al Qaeda is very well-situated. It is
absolutely unclear how things will unfold in that particular
country. That certainly could be a center of future Al Qaeda
activity. And we have already seen that Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula has been very effective in its communications and its
determination to attack U.S. targets. So, outside of
Afghanistan/Pakistan area, which we already have addressed, I
would put Yemen very high on the list.
I don't want to ignore Afghanistan or Pakistan. Pakistan--
put aside Afghanistan for a moment--Pakistan is undergoing a
slow radicalization process. Aside from the insurgent threat,
aside from the terrorist threat, within Pakistan society,
within the Pakistan military, there is evidence of growing
radicalization. So that would be high on the list.
Among the countries of North Africa and the Middle East,
Libya, again, chaotic situation there; hard to see what the
outcome would be. The fighting there could persist for a long
period of time. And it is not clear, in that case, whether or
not Al Qaeda could find some type of foothold there.
The final one I would probably add to the mix would be
Syria, where the government has thus far resorted to brutal
repression. But there is a society where, if we again saw it
descend into a civil war situation or sectarian conflict, where
Al Qaeda could find, again, some ability to purchase space at
the edge of that situation.
So there are a number of spots that relate to that which I
think are very problematic.
Mr. Langevin. Let me go back to Pakistan for a second and
talk about the radicalization that you have seen there.
Some would suggest, obviously, that, initially, Al Qaeda
enjoyed a great deal of support in Pakistan. And, over the
years, for a variety of reasons, including the trouble that Al
Qaeda, in a sense, has brought to Pakistan, that that support
had dwindled. And now you seem to be saying that maybe
radicalization, maybe support for Al Qaeda is increasing? Is
that the case? And does that threaten the current--to what
degree does it threaten the current government in Pakistan?
Mr. Jenkins. The radicalization is not specifically--it is
more complex than Al Qaeda. So it is not that the population is
moving toward a pro-Al Qaeda position, but simply that the
society itself is becoming, or at least portions of it, are
becoming more radical in their views, more hostile toward the
United States, facing some very, very serious problems in terms
of economic problems, demographic problems.
And what we have seen which I think is a cause for concern
is, in some of these recent attacks that have occurred--for
example, the most recent major attack at the Pakistan major
naval base--and some of these others, is that it appears that
there was some degree of inside assistance to those attacks.
And so it is not simply, where is Pakistan on the scale of
pro- or anti-Al Qaeda, but, rather, for other more complex
reasons, a radicalization that is taking place that could lead
to some very serious problems in the country. So, even taking
Al Qaeda out of the equation, Pakistan is problematic.
Mr. Bergen. I just wanted to inject some good news into all
this. I mean, the most populous Muslim country, of course, is
Indonesia. And amongst a lot of bad news that we have heard,
you know, the Al Qaeda affiliate there is basically on life
support. Because it has killed a lot of Indonesian civilians,
the Indonesian Government has taken a very aggressive stance
against it.
And just to pick up on the Pakistan issue, you know, the
recent Pew poll shows the United States is at 12 percent
favorable. Usually, we get about 15, 20 percent. Anti-
Americanism in Pakistan, which I think is part of this
radicalization picture--not just about Al Qaeda, I agree with
Mr. Jenkins--is really a problem that we need to kind of
confront and think about very seriously.
Obviously, there is no appetite in Congress for additional
aid to Pakistan, and, in fact, there is no appetite in Pakistan
for aid from the United States. Very little of it actually gets
disbursed because of all the caveats and reporting
requirements.
But I think a discussion in Congress about some kind of
greater trade agreement with Pakistan--they really want access
to our markets, not handouts. Sixty percent of Pakistani
manufacturing is textiles. We have quite punitive tariffs on
Pakistani textiles compared to other countries like France. And
this is, of course, something that has been long discussed.
But if we are thinking about trying to have more of a
strategic, real partnership with Pakistan, with Pakistan's
people, not with its government or military, a more trade-based
arrangement is the way to go, similar to things that we have
discussed about Colombia, that we might have in place for Egypt
in the future, and other countries.
Dr. Gorka. I would agree with Mr. Jenkins, that, despite
whatever is happening in the Arab Spring events, that Pakistan
remains of primary concern, for the reasons he noted.
But if we looked solely to the Middle East, then it is
Egypt, I think, that perhaps is the most potentially
deleterious to U.S. national interests. If the actions of the
military council could still make moves for the Muslim
Brotherhood easier, such an early election, such as amendments
to the constitution, with the history that Egypt has for being,
as Mr. Berger mentioned, the hotbed of Al Qaeda ideology in
recent years, then that would be the country I would look at
the most closely.
On a technical issue, when it comes to polling data, one
has to be incredibly cautious with any polling data executed in
Muslim or Arab nations. These are not as reliable as polling
data in other countries. A lot depends upon who is asking the
question, what nationality they are, what language they speak.
So even Pew polls can be potentially misleading with regards to
attitudes to America or the West.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
My time has expired. But if you could get back to us for
the record on the second half of my question, what effect has
the Arab Spring had on our counterterrorism efforts, I would
appreciate that.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Thornberry. And we had some other discussion on that,
too, so I appreciate--altogether, I think it is an important
question.
Mr. Johnson, do you have other questions?
Mr. Johnson. Yes, I would.
Quickly, if I could get into this issue of Pakistan. How
important is Pakistan to our decision-making when it comes to
withdrawal from Afghanistan, and why?
Mr. Bergen. Do the thought experiment where Iranian nuclear
scientists have met with bin Laden to discuss nuclear weapons
and Al Qaeda was headquartered in Iran and the Taliban was
headquartered in Iran, we would have gone to war with Iran
after 9/11. Of course, it was Pakistan where his nuclear
scientists were meeting with bin Laden, Pakistan where Al Qaeda
and the Taliban are headquartered.
So Pakistan is just absolutely essential to this whole
discussion. We can't invade Pakistan. They have nuclear weapons
and 500,000 soldiers. But what they decide in their strategic
calculus is key to our national security.
And I think it is important to just put yourselves in their
shoes for a minute. They have lost 3,000 soldiers in the fight
against the Taliban, which is more than the United States and
NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] combined have done in
Afghanistan. And so they feel that they have done quite a lot.
And, certainly, they have done serious military operations in
southern Waziristan and Swat. The question is, you know, what
more are they going to do? They are quite tired of being told
by us, ``You need to do more.''
And that is why I think, you know, this issue of anti-
Americanism and strategic partnership with them, a real
strategic partnership is important, because, you know, whether
accepting Dr. Gorka's caveat about polling, the fact is that
Pakistan is probably one of the most anti-American countries in
the world. And that does not help us.
And if we can get Pakistan to be part of the post-2014
Afghanistan settlement in a way that acknowledges that they
have real concerns about what the post-2014 settlement looks
like and their role in it, and if we can make them more of a
strategic partner through trade with us, I think that that will
go a long way to kind of getting rid of some of the underlying
issues that create the problems that we are trying to discuss
today.
Dr. Gorka. Pakistan remains absolutely central to this, for
all the reasons that have already been noted. But I think the
most important one is that, at the moment, it is a country that
simply has one functioning government element, and that is the
military--a military which now is either seen to be incompetent
or complicit with Al Qaeda. So the fact that Al Qaeda's center
of gravity has shifted there also makes it a vital theater of
operations.
But one thing we have to remember is--and this came out in
an inference in an earlier discussion--it is not just Al Qaeda.
Pakistan is now the breeding ground for general Salafi jihadist
movements, be they ones connected to the government, such as
Lashkar-e-Taiba, or other organizations. So, as we look at
ahead, Pakistan may indeed be much more important than
Afghanistan in the fight against religiously fueled Islamic
extremism.
Mr. Jenkins. If I can just add a note by way of a paradox
here. While Pakistanis may be increasingly anti-American and
while, certainly, the Pakistani Government is increasingly
opposed to U.S. counterterrorist activity in Pakistan, at the
same time the Pakistani leadership is concerned that we will
walk away from Afghanistan, as we did before, leaving them with
a huge mess on their frontier. And they are hedging their bets.
So, on the one hand, while they dislike our activities, on
the other hand they worry about what will happen if we
precipitously depart and leave them to deal with a chaotic
situation in Afghanistan which certainly has already spilled
over onto their borders.
And that is the problem we have with Pakistan, that we have
a country that is driven by a number of existential fears. I
mean, they fear the Indians. They fear our friendship with
India. They worry that the United States is a threat to their
national security. They worry that there will be a chaos in
Afghanistan which will affect them. They worry about the
internal dynamics that we have been discussing. They worry
about insurgencies in Baluchistan.
This is a country that has been driven since its creation
and increasingly in the last decade by overwhelming existential
fears about their survival as a nation. And that makes them
extremely difficult to deal with.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
I think we are down to a minute or two on the clock on the
floor. But, Ms. Davis, if you would like to ask other
questions? I may hang for a little longer, but I wanted to
alert you on what the situation is.
Mrs. Davis. Maybe I will just make this easy.
Is there one lesson that you see that we have had great
difficulty learning from these conflicts?
Mr. Jenkins. I will be very brief.
Americans typically undertake very ambitious efforts. And
even efforts that we start out sometimes as being very
precisely targeted have a way of becoming ambitious efforts. We
believe that if we pour resources into a problem, we can get it
done with, breathe a sigh of relief, go back to status quo
antebellum.
We don't get that here. And, therefore, coming back to
probably the essential point I would make is, what Americans
have to learn how to do is to really learn how to last for the
long haul. Because the long haul, in this particular situation,
is a given. And we are going to have to adjust our resources
and our objectives to something that we can sustain.
Mr. Bergen. You know, I think there is a lot of good news
in the last 10 years. The United States is a learning
organization, sort of country. And the people in it, they learn
from their mistakes. So we kind of made a set of mistakes in
Iraq, which we then kind of--you know, a lot of good decisions
were then made. Similarly in Afghanistan, we are kind of making
the right set of decisions. You know, Winston Churchill's
famous line, ``The Americans will always do the right thing
after they have exhausted every other possibility.'' And I
think that is the case.
And the point is, the enemy is actually not like that, so
Al Qaeda doesn't learn from its mistakes. You know, it made a
huge strategic error of attacking us on 9/11, which didn't get
its strategic aim of regime change in the Middle East to
Taliban-style theocracies. It also destroyed Al Qaeda, the
organization, more or less. ``The Base,'' in Arabic, lost its
base in Afghanistan. And they continue to regard us as the main
enemy. And a rational actor would say, ``Hey, attacking the
United States is really, actually, a very bad idea. Let's just
go back to do things more doable,'' sort of trying to create a
Taliban-style theocracy in Egypt or something like that. But
they are not going to do that.
So the good news is that we have learned from our mistakes
over time and the Al Qaeda hasn't. And that means that,
inevitably, they are going to, you know, just--they are small
men on the wrong side of history, as President Obama referred
to them. And history has just really sped up for them, with the
death of bin Laden and the Arab Spring.
Dr. Gorka. Thank you for your very pointed question.
As a foreigner working for the U.S. Government, I realized
something very quickly as a problem in the last 10 years, and
that is the focus on the kinetic. The United States national
security establishment, for obvious reasons, focuses on the
violent aspects of this war. Whether it is two towers of flame
crashing to the ground, whether it is IEDs [improvised
explosive devices] or snipers, it focuses on the obvious.
We need to understand the nonkinetic aspects of this war.
We need to understand how a serving major in the United States
Army can decide that his loyalty is with jihadi ideology and
killing his fellow servicemen and their families as opposed to
the constitution he swore to uphold. That is what I mean by the
ideological, nonkinetic part of this war. And we are just
beginning, after a decade, to understand or begin to address
this question. So I think it is the focus on the kinetic we
need to move away from.
But thank you for the question.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentlelady.
And, again, time has expired, but I want to miss a vote, if
necessary, because I want to follow up on actually that point.
I have been in several meetings the past couple weeks with
Members where this idea of the ideological war, the extent to
which what we call, some call, ``strategic communications''
makes a difference. And so I would like to get from each of you
your thoughts on that aspect of this struggle against
terrorism.
And not to go through it, but some people argue this has to
be fought out within the Islamic faith, that we have no role in
it. Other people say that, you know, we have a much greater
role and we have diffuse messages coming out and nobody knows
really--you know, so we are not doing anything very well.
But not just doing talking about broadcasts, the
ideological part of this struggle I would appreciate your
comments on.
Mr. Bergen. Go ahead.
Mr. Jenkins. There are going to be two views on this. And
this is really a bit of a difference of views on this.
One is the view that, look, terrorists themselves do have
tactical successes. 9/11 was a tactical success. These other
terrorists attacks were tactical successes, operational
successes. But, as I think we all agree, that the attack of 9/
11 backfired for Al Qaeda and created consequences that it
didn't expect, and that Al Qaeda's wanton slaughter of fellow
Muslims has backfired on it, and that, therefore, what
terrorists cannot do is translate their tactical successes into
strategic successes. And this is the inherent limitations of
terrorism as a strategy.
And, therefore, the consequence for us is that, if we
maintain our capability to blunt them operationally and, in the
process, hold on to our values, that, ultimately, our
institutions and our values will triumph over this. So it is
not that we have to intervene directly to counter their
message. Now, that doesn't negate tactical psychological
operations and doing other things to create difficulties.
What it does require, however, is a continued adherence to
and projection of American values. Now, we did this during the
cold war, and we devoted a lot more resources to it than we do
today. The issue there was--I mean, we had libraries where
people could in quiet read about Thomas Jefferson and things of
this sort, and it had a great impact. It was useful stuff.
The other view is that we have to intervene more actively
to directly take on the jihadist ideology. I am not so certain
about that.
First of all, the problem we have is that, with the massive
amount of communications going on in the world and the United
States being a media-drenched society and, indeed, a source of
a huge export of various things in communications, good and
bad, that to try to craft a specific counter-jihadist message
in this is, first of all, going to be lost in the noise and,
second of all, is intervening in an area where we don't really
have the credentials to do so. And, therefore, we might instead
take a very cautious approach and say, we are Americans, this
is what we believe, we will stop terrorist attacks, and within
the Muslim community they have to deal with Al Qaeda
themselves.
Now, I realize limitations of polling, but I think Peter
Bergen's polls will also show that, within the Muslim community
worldwide and in the United States, even those who may be
deeply resentful of certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy at
the same time think Al Qaeda and its leaders are a bunch of
crackpots.
So there isn't that kind of widespread support. They are
not getting traction. And they place a great deal of emphasis
on this Internet campaign to recruit a lot more retail outlets
in the form of Web sites, American-born salesmen like Gadahn
and Awlaki and Hammami, but they are not selling a lot of cars.
And that is important.
Mr. Bergen. And following up on what Mr. Jenkins said,
yeah, the ideology is sort of imploding around the Muslim
world. And for the United States to engage in the debate, there
are two problems, really. One is the lack-of-knowledge problem.
We are not Islamic scholars. Two, the kiss-of-death problem,
which is, anything associated particularly with the United
States Government is problematic.
Which is not to say that you can't say certain things. And
I think there is one area where we can just hammer away in the
kind of ideological struggle, which is on the issue of killing
Muslim civilians. It is a tough one sometimes, because we are
killing Muslim civilians in Afghanistan, although that number
is going down pretty substantially. But this is really their
Achilles' heel.
And I remember the first time the U.S. Government, as one,
really reacted. It was during the Bush administration where,
you may recall, two women, one with mental problems, went into
the central market in Baghdad, killed a hundred people in a
suicide attack. Everybody in the U.S. Government, from
Condoleezza Rice down, immediately said, you know, this is
against Islam, a bad thing.
And so, if you can kind of hammer away on this issue of
them killing a lot of Muslim civilians, that is pretty
effective. To get into an arcane debate about Islamic theology
won't work.
Dr. Gorka. The attacks of September 11th may have backfired
for Al Qaeda but not for Al Qaeda's ideology. On the contrary,
the events of September the 11th branded this ideology as
something powerful because it could take violence to the heart
of the United States.
With regard to the question of, are we allowed to be part
of this discourse inside Islam, after September the 11th of
course we do. We have a dog in this fight, and we have every
right to be part of that discourse.
I think we have to remember that the cold war, for all its
thousands of nuclear warheads and aircraft carriers and battle
tanks across the German plain, was won in the ideational plane.
It was won primarily on the grounds of ideology. And we need to
do the same kinds of things we did then today.
I agree that we have to start with who we are, as Mr.
Jenkins said. We have to be clear about what it is that these
individuals threaten in this Nation, why it is constitutional
values that are undermined by anybody who believes in this
ideology. And that Congress also has some work to do on this,
because not only do we have confusion in the executive, but we
have very out-of-date acts, such as the Smith-Mundt Act, which
makes informational campaigns in this Internet age almost
impossible for members of the national security domain.
Lastly, on the issue of our current label for this part of
the war, which is countering violent extremism, this is
deleterious to the national security of the United States. We
did not say when we were fighting the Ku Klux Klan that we are
fighting violent extremism. We said that these were white
supremacists and racists. You have to be clear about the
ideology and what they say about themselves. This is an
ideology of global jihad, not a grab bag of violent extremism.
So let's begin to be specific, and let's start to take the
fight to the enemy on the ideological plane as well as the
kinetic.
Mr. Thornberry. Well, thank you all. I think this is a good
start for our inquiry as to 10 years after 9/11. I appreciate
all your insights and your, again, flexibility on timing.
And we will have future hearings to explore these ideas
further, but, again, thank you all.
With that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
June 22, 2011
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
June 22, 2011
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. THORNBERRY
Mr. Thornberry. To mitigate the threat we are facing--what would an
effective U.S. information operations and strategic communication
strategy look like?
Dr. Gorka. In the war of ideas we need to fundamentally readjust
our priorities. Our focus should be on making the enemy ``look bad'' as
opposed to making the world ``love America.''
Those that hate America and wish to hurt us will not be affected by
any information or communications campaign aimed directly at them.
Likewise, those that already have an affinity for `things American,' be
it our music or durable goods, need not be targeted by USG information
efforts. Instead, as is always the case, we must concentrate on the
middle ground, those who do not lean decisively either way but who
could provide a passive yet permissive environment for AQAM to operate
within.
As a result our strategic communications and information operations
should target the putative authenticity and credibility of AQAM and its
leaders, such as Zawahiri and Awlaki.
We must not shy away from the religious nature of their ideology.
We must take active measures to question:
Their authority to represent Muslims
Their credentials to speak on theological and religious
matters
Why the majority of all AQAM's victims are in fact
Muslims.
For example, we should sponsor billboards across AFG and IRQ, (but
also in the US) that simply portray the headshots of Muslim victims of
al Qaeda with the name and date of death under each face.
To be even more effective, we should rediscover and deploy those
information operations techniques that were so well utilized by the US
during the Cold War. We should discretely invest in scholars, activists
and organizations within the Muslim and Arab world that are already
fighting the war of ideas against the Global Jihadists but whom we have
not embraced due to our reluctance to engage in the religious debate.
This reluctance is thanks to a political correctness that denies our
right to engage in the religious debate despite that fact that those
that murdered thousands of Americans on September 11th 2001 (and at
Fort Hood) said they did so in the name of Allah.
One of the first such groups we should support are the Khoranists,
such as Ibn Warraq and Christopher Luxembourg, who are risking their
lives by working to spread the message that the violent sections of the
Khoran, so powerfully used by the Global Jihadists, must be
reinterpreted and understood as inadmissible in a modern world that
respects human rights and freedom of conscience.
Mr. Thornberry. In your written testimony, you say that we have
forgotten certain ``cardinal rules of effective information and
psychological operations.'' Please expand. How do we improve upon our
ability to win the ``battle of the narrative'' and limit our enemies'
ability to recruit?
Dr. Gorka. One cannot communicate strategically unless one has a
strategy to communicate. This sounds obvious, but one of the reasons
AQAM still dominates the information agenda is that they have a clear
strategy: the establishment of a Global Caliphate under Sharia law,
whilst we do not.
Take for example our actions in Central Asia and the Middle East in
the last ten years. We first deployed to destroy al Qaeda. Then we
stated that Afghanistan must be a democracy. Then we said Iraq has
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Saddam Hussein must be deposed and Iraq
made a democracy. Now we say that we must leave despite neither of
those nations being stable democracies (and Afghanistan unlikely to
ever be one).
Then in response to the Arab Spring we demonstrated greater
confusion. First the administration was conspicuous by its absence,
despite being nominally committed to democracy's spread in the region.
Then we finally insist that Mubarak must step down despite America
being his staunch ally for three decades. After he does so, the
administration incredibly decides to open talks with the Muslim
Brotherhood and thus formally recognize an organization that in its
official charter is committed to the spread of Sharia law and the use
of jihad. At the same time nothing is being done to stop the massacre
of Syrians by their own president. This confusion speaks to strategic
confusion. When an administration, Republican or Democrat, is confused
about what its strategic goals are, effective strategic communications
and information operations will be impossible.
Therefore America must decide:
Why do we care about the Middle East?
Is democracy important to the region?
If so, what are we prepared to do about organizations--
and governments--committed to the establishment of repressive religious
regimes?
These questions however cannot be answered if we do not first
obtain clarity on the following questions:
I. Who exactly is the current enemy?
What are it characteristics?
What is its strategy?
II. What do we as a nation represent, what are our core values?
Which are the norms we deem universal and non-negotiable and
that we demand our allies adhere to?
III. What is our strategy to defeat the enemy?
What is our definition of victory?
In the tenth year of the war on terror these questions should be--
must be--answerable.
If these strategic level questions are answered and US policy is
consistent with the answers so given, our information campaigns and
psychological operations will have a solid foundation which will guide
our specific actions. Additionally we must identify the particular
weaknesses of the Global Jihadist movement and exploit them, just as we
identified the weaknesses of the international Communist movement and
exploited them to win the last ideological war, the Cold War.
(However, much of this is a moot point if Congress does not repeal
or amend the Smith Mundt Act of 1948, specifically its prohibition on
information designed for foreign audiences reaching US audiences, a
restriction that in the age of the internet is completely unrealistic.)
For further details on how to proceed, please refer to the chapter
I co-authored with David Kilcullen, entitled ``Who's Winning the Battle
for Narrative? Al Qaida versus the United States and its Allies,'' in
the book Influence Warfare, edited by James J.F. Forest, (Westport: CT,
Praeger Security International, 2009, 229-24) that I have attached, and
the wonderful paper by Robert R. Reilly Ideas Matter: Restoring the
Content of Public Diplomacy, Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 24,
July 27th 2009, available at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/
2009/07/Ideas-Matter-Restoring-the-Content-of-Public-Diplomacy and the
chapter by Dr. John Lenczowski, formerly of the NSC, in the forthcoming
book: Fighting the Ideological War: Strategies For Defeating Al Qaeda,
from the Westminster Institute in McLean, VA.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page
79.]
Mr. Thornberry. You work with and consult our Special Operations
Forces. In your conversations with them, what are some of their larger
concerns? Outside the major theaters of battle that are Iraq and
Afghanistan, do they have the authorities they need to effectively
counter terrorist threats? How can we improve?
Dr. Gorka. The major concern I hear repeatedly from the Special
Operations Forces I have the privilege to meet and train is two-fold.
It concerns the lack of strategic clarity and guidance provided to
operators and the related issue of inadequate honesty and detailed
information on the broader aspects and characteristics of the enemy.
Our military, SOF included, are without peer today. However, even
the best fighting forces in the world can be squandered and misused.
Less than a month ago I was briefing a large contingent of SOF
operators prior to their deployment. During the Q and A session after
my brief, one of them actually said in front of his colleagues that he
still did not know why he was fighting this war, that no one had told
him. This is inexcusable.
At the same time I have been routinely informed that the kinds of
briefings I am asked to provide--understanding the enemy, penetrating
his strategic culture and mind-set--are very few and far between.
Although the number of specialists able to summarize and discuss
the religiously-driven ideology that is Global Jihad are few in number,
they could be used more effectively, especially to `train the trainers'
and so provide deeper understanding of Salafi Jihadism to larger
numbers of SOF (and General Purpose Forces).
The one message I try to leave with these brave men whenever I meet
them is that today no-one has the luxury of being ``just a shooter,''
or ``just an analyst'' or strategist. The enemy is made up of
multitasking operator/thinkers. We must be the same. However excellent
our SOF are on the range and in tactical operations in theater, they
must also be able to understand the enemy and how he thinks. This dual
capacity is crucial to victory against any irregular enemy threat
group.
As to Title Ten versus Title Fifty authorities, I am less concerned
by the question of legal mandates than of doctrinal approaches. The
United States will in the future be faced more often by irregular
threats than conventional ones. The data of the last decades makes this
incontrovertible. Nevertheless, we cannot become involved in CT/COIN
operations all across the globe, at least not in the way we have
executed them in IRQ and AFG.
An objective study of Irregular Warfare campaigns of the last
century demonstrates that the odds are against large-scale foreign
interventions. We have seen much greater success in theatres where we
use a ``small-footprint'' approach to the employment of Special
Operations Forces. El Salvador is the quintessential example. Despite,
or rather because of, the congressionally mandated cap of 50 US
advisers at any one time being deployed to that country, we truly stuck
to the Special Operations mantra of ``by, with and through,'' a guiding
principle we have all too often ignored in the last 10 years
(especially in Afghanistan).
Therefore, authorities are less of an issue than is our doctrinal
(and strategic) approach.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN
Mr. Wittman. Former detainees are actively speaking out about their
experiences at Guantanamo, airing grievances and allegations of
mistreatment in an effort to promote the jihadist cause. Uthman al-
Ghamdi's memoir in Inspire magazine is an example of al-Qai'da's latest
propaganda strategy. Is this messaging campaign having a measurable
impact, either on new recruits, or encouraging other former detainees
to return to the fight?
Mr. Bergen. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]
Mr. Wittman. As we consider the question, ``What does today's
threat look like,'' I am interested in better understanding how GTMO
detainees factor into this equation. For example, it is well known that
two former detainees currently hold leadership positions in AQAP in
Yemen. Can you address this issue and discuss how such detainees impact
the threat we currently face from a global perspective?
Mr. Bergen. [The information was not available at the time of
printing.]