[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IS AL-QAEDA WINNING? GRADING THE ADMINISTRATION'S COUNTERTERRORISM
POLICY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 8, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-130
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
or
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
______
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida--resigned 1/27/ GRACE MENG, New York
14 deg. LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
TED POE, Texas, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina BRAD SHERMAN, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JUAN VARGAS, California
PAUL COOK, California BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
TED S. YOHO, Florida Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Joseph Lieberman (former United States Senator).... 6
The Honorable Jane Harman, director, president, and chief
executive officer, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars (former Member of Congress)........................... 13
Seth Jones, Ph.D., associate director, International Security and
Defense Policy Center, RAND Corporation........................ 29
Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D., Christopher DeMuth chair and director,
Critical Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research......................................... 44
Mr. Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow, Governance Studies, The
Brookings Institution.......................................... 52
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Joseph Lieberman: Prepared statement............... 9
The Honorable Jane Harman: Prepared statement.................... 16
Seth Jones, Ph.D.: Prepared statement............................ 32
Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.................... 46
Mr. Benjamin Wittes: Prepared statement.......................... 55
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 70
Hearing minutes.................................................. 71
IS AL-QAEDA WINNING? GRADING THE
ADMINISTRATION'S COUNTERTERRORISM
POLICY
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TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock p.m.,
in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Poe. The committee will come to order. Without
objection, all members may have 5 days to submit statements,
questions and extraneous materials for the record subject to
the length of limitation in the rules.
Al-Qaeda is not on the verge of defeat. The administration
called al-Qaeda's affiliates a junior varsity squad of
wannabes. If groups like ISIS and al-Nusra are junior varsity I
would hate to see what the varsity team looks like.
Al-Nusra, as you may recall, has taken credit for the
Benghazi murders. Since the death of bin-Laden the
administration has announced the near defeat of al-Qaeda,
describing the core leadership as a shell of its former self.
But some intelligence officials say that the organization
in fact is changing and actually franchising. In recent
testimony, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and
Defense Intelligence Director Lieutenant General Mike Flynn
said that al-Qaeda was not on the run and not on the path to
defeat.
It has been 13 years since 9/11. The administration
sometimes can't even get on the same page about the nature of
al-Qaeda's threat to America and the rest to the world. When
our soldiers raided bin-Laden's home in Pakistan, they
recovered a treasure trove of documents, computers and the
like.
These bin-Laden documents should be publicly released. This
would not harm U.S. national security in any way. Actually, it
is the opposite. If world renowned al-Qaeda experts could
analyze these files they could tell us a lot we don't know
about al-Qaeda, how they operate, what their vulnerabilities
are, et cetera.
For some reason the administration seems to be pushing
back. According to news reports, intelligence officials with
knowledge of documents say that they show a far more
complicated picture of al-Qaeda than the administration seems
to be willing to admit.
If these documents are not made public, they should at
least be provided to the new independent commission that has
been established by Congress to study how al-Qaeda has evolved
since 9/11.
Think of this as a new 9/11 commission. Al-Qaeda has not
been reduced to a few old men hiding somewhere in Pakistan. Al-
Qaeda and their affiliates have a strong global presence as we
can see by the map that is on each side of the wall. The red
areas mark the areas where al-Qaeda is today and the blue areas
mark other terrorist groups. As we can see these are in Africa
and the Middle East primarily.
Al-Qaeda and their affiliates are devastating Iraq. We have
seen more deaths in Iraq over the last year than the worst year
when our troops were there.
Al-Qaeda is all over Somalia. This branch crossed over into
Kenya to launch a spectacular attack. It killed over 60 people
who were just shopping at a mall.
Al-Qaeda is resurgent in Libya. The government can't go
into the eastern half of its own country because it is
controlled by terrorists.
Al-Qaeda affiliates killed three Americans when they took
over an Algerian gas plant last January. One of those victims
was my constituent from Texas, Victor Lovelady. Much like
Benghazi, the victims still don't have justice. In Syria groups
like ISIS and al-Nusra are the most capable of the fighters.
As many as 11,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Syria
to join the fight against the dictator Assad. Many of these
potential terrorists are from Europe. Some are from even the
United States.
At some point they will return home radicalized and highly
trained. This is not a pleasant thought. Today, al-Qaeda
controls and operates in more territory than it has at any time
since its creation. Al-Qaeda on the run? Hardly.
Although the use of armed drones and precision kill or
capture raids can kill bad guys here and there, this is not a
universal strategy or long-range plan. There does not seem to
be a whole government plan to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-
Qaeda.
At some point, al-Qaeda could destabilize the entire Middle
East and then work its will in North Africa. If it is allowed
to go down that road the consequences for U.S. national
security are unthinkable. Al-Qaeda is playing the long-term
game.
In the United States, it is questionable whether we are in
the game. The core group of al-Qaeda and many of their
affiliates actively seek ways to strike the United States at
home and abroad.
Many of these plots, luckily, have either been foiled or
failed because of incompetence or luck. We need to call this
like it is. Al-Qaeda is a robust global organization that is
not on the path to defeat. They still have a global plan--a
global long-range plan. Until we come to terms with this, we
cannot hope to develop an effective approach to defeat them.
And I will now yield 5 minutes to the ranking member for
his opening statement, Mr. Sherman from California.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am impressed with
the witnesses we have been able to start this panel off on and
I am not sure that we should have a hearing grading the
administration's past. But if we are able to secure such fine
witnesses with such a title then maybe it is worthwhile.
I am much more interested in determining what our policy
should be in the future than grading the past. But if you are
going to grade this administration we ought to grade on the
curve. And there are only two Presidents in this century
focusing post-9/11.
The number one terrorist organization is the Iranian
Government, the number one state sponsor of terrorism. Now,
where were they on September 12th, 2001? They faced a great
ideological opponent in al-Qaeda and the Taliban in
Afghanistan.
Their number one geostrategic threat was Saddam Hussein,
who had killed close to 1 million Iranians. They faced a
unified American population galvanized by the events of 9/11
and they were nowhere close to a nuclear weapon.
What happened after that? We removed Iran's enemies east
and west. Baghdad, which had been their number one geopolitical
threat, became their number one geopolitical ally.
The unity of the American people was squandered by the
absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and a decision
to invade Iraq even after Saddam at the last minute agreed to
inspections of even his presidential sites.
And as for Iran's nuclear program, we went 8 years in which
President Bush used all the power of the presidency to prevent
this Congress from adopting any new sanctions of significance
and refused, after hearing a hearing in this room, to enforce
the laws we already had. And so when this President came to
office, bin-Laden was alive and the Iranian nuclear program was
alive and kicking.
Since then we have gotten out of Iraq. We got out of
Afghanistan. We have killed bin-Laden. So I would say if you
are going to grade on the curve you got to give this
administration an A. What are the standards that we should
have?
There are those who believe that if only this President had
a different personality that all the Islamic extremists would
endorse Jeffersonian democracy. It is not true. We as a people
have agreed to only 9 percent of our GDP being collected in
income taxes.
That is 9 percent to cover our international and domestic
government excluding Social Security, and for that we are told
that somehow by force of personality the President should be
able to assure the territorial integrity of Ukraine, Japanese
sovereignty over every island in dispute and the complete
abolition of al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism.
That is a lot to expect. The fact is we have a limited
budget, a limited willingness to commit our forces and given
those limits this administration has achieved a lot.
Now, al-Qaeda has metamorphasized but they haven't been
able to have the technological capacity to hit us again, as
they did on 9/11. That doesn't mean that Islamic extremism is
not alive and well and living on the map that the chairman just
showed us.
So I think given the limited taxes we are willing to
collect, the limited money that is available for international
operations including the Pentagon and the intelligence agency,
given how close Iran was to a nuclear weapon on the day this
President took power, I would say that if we grade it on a
curve we will award an A.
But I look forward to trying to craft a foreign policy that
looks forward rather than grading any past President and with
that--oh, finally, I do want to comment upon the chairman's
idea that the papers collected with bin-Laden should be make
public.
They should only go to the Intelligence Committee. They are
as sensitive as all the other documents that only go to the
Intelligence Committee and if we were to publish those papers
it would be a last will and testament from a man with millions
of supporters ready to die for him or millions of supporters
and many willing to die for him.
Those papers would provide guidance as to what he was
thinking, guidance as to what targets he thinks should be hit,
ideological inspiration to those who find their ideological
inspiration in Islamic terrorism.
So I don't think that the last will and testament or final
papers or anything else of Mr. bin-Laden's should be revealed
to anyone who we will not reveal the most sensitive secrets,
and I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The chair recognizes Mr. Kinzinger from Illinois
for a 1-minute opening statement.
Mr. Kinzinger. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our
witnesses thank you for being here. It is great to see you. I
am unapologetic about American strength and American power
around the globe.
I think America is a great stabilizing force. We don't seek
to be an empire but we also can't stand by and watch people
oppressed. We can't stand by and see threats to our homeland.
And I would like to remind everybody that this discussion
emanates because of 9/11 when thousands of our fellow brothers
and sisters in this country were killed by a ruthless murderer
and many of his offshoots still exist today.
I believe that when America retreats from the world that
chaos fills that vacuum or the leadership from a country that
we are not necessarily good friends with. So I am looking
forward to hearing from our witnesses about how the United
States can play a stronger role.
I agree with Mr. Sherman about the importance of having a
discussion about military spending and diplomatic spending. But
I think at the end of the day we must never tire, we must never
waver and we must never forget the enemy that we are facing
lest we face them again back here on the shores.
And I thank you for our witnesses and, Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Mr. Poe. The chair recognizes Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania
for 1 minute in his opening statement.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
the witnesses as well. Great to see you again. This will be my
opinion.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliates control more territory now than
ever--than they ever have and are using that space as
previously done in Afghanistan to plan and prepare attacks
against the U.S. and U.S. interests.
President Obama and the administration repeatedly have
conveyed that al-Qaeda is on the run and has been decimated.
However, for months al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been
increasing their presence and attacks in Iraq, neighboring
Syria and elsewhere in the region.
Having served in Iraq as a commander of a large task force,
I personally witnessed the courage and sacrifice of our troops
in Iraq, and to correct the record we found the very same WMDs
currently found in Syria when I was in Iraq.
As U.S. forces withdraw in 2011, however, President Obama's
administration failed to negotiate an agreement with Iraq that
could have allowed a limited U.S. military presence to help the
Iraqis keep al-Qaeda from filling the power vacuum created by
the withdrawal.
If this administration again fails to reach an agreement
allowing a critical stabilizing force in Afghanistan it will
create yet another power vacuum but this time in al-Qaeda's
traditional sanctuary where the Islamist militants and
terrorists likely will thrive again.
And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poe. And without objection, the chair recognizes the
gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, and I welcome my
former colleagues and nice to see you again, Jane, and Senator,
and I appreciate seeing you. Let me just note America--this is
not a piling on our President because he happens to be a
Democrat.
Most of us are adult enough to and have seniority enough
here to remember that the worst mistake made in my time in
Congress was supporting George W. Bush's order to go into Iraq,
which turned out to be a catastrophe for our country, and we
ended up ousting a secularist leader from that part of the
world.
But what we have today is a President of the United States
who the American people don't trust his word. The President of
the United States has lied to us about Benghazi. It is clear
that he has intentionally lied to us about an attack that left
an American Ambassador dead.
We know also that he was--we don't understand the
relationship that he had with President Morsi and whether that
had something to do with this lie to the American people.
And finally, we have a President who is being very cautious
about helping General el-Sisi, who is the one bulwark against
radical Islam in that part of the world. So we are not just
making this partisan. We recognize George Bush's mistakes. But
we have to focus on where this President is leading us and it
is right over the cliff.
Mr. Poe. Gentleman's time has expired. I will now introduce
the witnesses that we have. First, without objection, all the
witnesses' prepared statements will be made part of the record.
I ask that each witness will keep their presentation to no more
than 5 minutes and we will begin with our first panel of
witnesses.
We have two excellent witnesses here today and I
appreciate--we all appreciate the fact you took time, both of
you, to be here. Senator Lieberman, as a former senator from
Connecticut, congratulations on UCONN, by the way.
Mr. Lieberman. We consider that to be an event of
international importance.
Mr. Poe. In March 2013, he joined the American Enterprise
Institute as the co-chair of the American Internationalism
Project. The project aims to rebuild and reshape a bipartisan
consensus around American global leadership and engagement. He
is also senior counsel at Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman.
Representative Jane Harman is the director, president and
CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
During her nine terms as a representative in the 36th District
of California, she served on all the major security committees
in the House of Representatives.
Senator Lieberman, we will start with you and you can
present your testimony.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (FORMER UNITED
STATES SENATOR)
Mr. Lieberman. Thank you very much, Chairman Poe, Ranking
Member Sherman, distinguished members of the committee. I am
honored to appear before you today and particularly happy to be
here with my dear friend, Jane Harman.
You have two of the four of us of one Gang of Four, the
other two being Pete Hoekstra and Susan Collins, who spent a
lot of time working with all of you to pass the Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004.
Let me begin by thank you for holding this hearing. We all
know that in the aftermath of 9/11 the overwhelming focus of
our Government was on the threat of terrorism, in particular,
al-Qaeda.
Twelve years later that is no longer the case. This is in
large part a consequence of our success but the fact is that
the absence of an attack anything like 9/11 since then is not
because of an absence of terrorist plots or plans against the
United States.
Rather, it is because of the vigilance, determination,
courage and creativity by national security professionals and
elected leaders across two administrations as well as the close
cooperation in help of America's allies and partners around the
world. Pride in this achievement, however, has got to be
tempered by an awareness of several realities.
First, al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain a ruthless,
determined and adaptive adversary. The underlying ideology that
inspires and drives al-Qaeda to hate and attack us and our
allies, which is the ideology of violent Islamist extremism, is
obviously neither defeated nor exhausted.
For that reason, our safety as a nation is ultimately
inseparable from our ability first to recognize the continuing
threat from violent Islamist extremism and to adapt and meet
it, and I want to say that we will do that not only with a
strong counter terrorism program but by making sure that we
stay engaged more generally in the world beyond our borders.
Unfortunately, we increasingly hear voices who say that the
threat from terrorism is receding or that it was overblown in
the first place and that the end of this conflict is near.
I wish I could say I agree with that but those arguments
are badly mistaken. There is no question that the U.S.
beginning under President Bush and continuing under President
Obama has inflicted severe damage to core al-Qaeda.
But if I many borrow a phrase from David Petraeus, the
progress we have achieved against core al-Qaeda, though real
and significant, is also fragile and reversible.
While space for core al-Qaeda in tribal Pakistan has been
reduced thanks to U.S. pressure in recent years, territory
where al-Qaeda affiliates can find sanctuary has grown
dramatically during this same period, particularly in the
Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups have
repeatedly exploited Muslim majority countries weakened or
fragmented by conflict and neglected by the international
community.
They take advantage of these places and people to recruit,
radicalize and train the next generation of extremist foot
soldiers. That is why al-Qaeda first went to Afghanistan in the
'90s, why they turned to Yemen and Somalia in the 2000s and why
today they are fighting to build sanctuaries in Syria, Libya
and Iraq.
Several factors make the prospect of al-Qaeda sanctuaries
in these three countries especially dangerous. The first is
their respective locations. Syria and Iraq are the heart of the
Arab Middle East, bordering key American allies including
Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Libya and Syria are Mediterranean states comparatively easy
to reach from the West, in contrast to remote Afghanistan and
Pakistan, and Libya is also adjacent to vast Sahel with its
weak and poorly-governed states.
These are also places, I want to stress, where U.S. policy
makers have signaled that involvement of the U.S. military is
for all intents and purposes off the table or at least severely
constrained. And that means that the U.S. is not able to
effectively combat or even deter the rise of al-Qaeda in these
countries.
Of the three countries that I have mentioned, the situation
in Syria is, I believe, by far the most alarming, the failure
of American policy by far the most profound and its
implications for our national security the most severe.
According to analysts, there could be as many as 10,000
foreign fighters in Syria today. This means that there are more
foreign fighters in Syria now than there were during the peak
of the wars in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
To me, that is a stunning number. The director of national
intelligence recently described Syria as an apocalyptic
disaster. Secretary of Homeland Security recently warned that
Syria has become, and I quote, ``a matter of homeland
security.''
In my opinion, Syria has become the most dangerous
terrorist sanctuary in the world today and as far as I can tell
the U.S. has no coherent or credible policy for dealing with
that reality. There is much we could be doing that we are not
and I will briefly describe what I hope we will do.
In Afghanistan, we can choose not to squander the gains of
the past decade and instead keep a sufficient follow-on
military presence to sustain the increasingly capable Afghan
national security forces in our shared fight against al-Qaeda
and the Taliban.
In Libya, we can put in place a large-scale well-resourced
U.S.-led effort to build up the new Libyan army and security
forces. In Iraq, we can make clear, and I hope we will, we are
willing to support Iraqis against al-Qaeda including with a
selective use of U.S. air power, and if the Iraqis are prepared
to talk to us again about a SOFA that grants immunity to our
soldiers on the ground there I hope we will talk about a
presence of a small force of American military, particularly
embedded advisors.
In Syria, we can much more aggressively provide militarily-
relevant support to non-extremist rebel forces who are fighting
our two most dangerous enemies in the world there at once--al-
Qaeda and Iran.
None of these actions represent simple or quick solutions.
The fact is there is no simple or quick solution to the threat
posed by al-Qaeda.
But in my opinion, there are smart measured steps we can
take that will put us in a stronger position to deal with these
threats and make us safer as a country. It is also worth noting
that in every one of these countries we have repeatedly seen
that al-Qaeda and its extremist vision, violent vision, are
rejected by the overwhelming majority of people living there.
In Iraq, Syria and Libya we have seen popular grassroots
movements rise up against al-Qaeda and their extremist allies
and in Afghanistan as recently as this past weekend we saw
millions of people peacefully and enthusiastically
participating in a democratic election, defying the threats of
the Taliban as well, frankly, as the naysayers in the West who
claim that the Afghans don't want democracy.
They obviously do want to control their own future and they
do not want to go back to the Taliban past. The question is
whether we will provide these anti-extremist majorities in the
Muslim world with the help and support they need or whether we
will abandon them to the tyranny of a violent majority.
Let me say finally that ultimate success in this struggle
depends not simply on the death of particular terrorist leaders
or the destruction of particular terrorist groups, important
though that is.
It requires the discrediting of violent Islamist extremism
as an ideology, and let me underscore here the enemy is violent
Islamist extremism, a political ideology that seeks to justify
totalitarian political systems by misusing a great world
religion.
Mr. Chairman, if I may say in closing and go back to a
great world leader of the last century, when it comes to the
fight against al-Qaeda and violent Islamist extremism, the
harsh truth is, according to Churchill, now this is not the
end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps
the end of the beginning.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lieberman follows:]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Senator Lieberman. As you all have
heard, it is those famous bells that are ringing but we will go
as far as we can before we recess for votes.
Representative Harman.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JANE HARMAN, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENT,
AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL
CENTER FOR SCHOLARS (FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS)
Ms. Harman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't miss the bells but I do miss many friends and I
express especially warm affection for the Californians on your
panel and for my dear friend, Joe Lieberman, who I consider an
honorary Californian.
So it is nice to be before you today. I said to Ranking
Member Sherman that many good people continue to serve in this
House. The problem is the business model is broken and that is
a frustration I know for all of you and I see heads nodding on
a bipartisan basis.
On the subject at hand, I flew in from Boston today,
mindful that the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing is
next week. At a time of horror, Boston was resilient and
remained strong.
The damage was contained, evidence that our country has
changed and matured since 9/11. Last week, however, Ayman al-
Zawahiri, who is, as we know, successor to Osama bin-Laden as
the leader of al-Qaeda, released an audio message about the
death of someone called Abu Khalid al-Suri, who was Zawahiri's
representative in Syria.
Al-Suri was also a founding member and senior leader in
Ahrar ash-Sham, a militant group in the Islamic front, a
coalition of several rebel groups. Al-Suri was killed in
February by two suicide bombers in Aleppo.
In the audio tape Zawahiri recalled knowing al-Suri since
the conflict against the Soviet Union forces in Afghanistan in
the '80s--in the 1980s and he called for Islamist fighters to
reject the infighting in Syria. Sounds a little bit like
Congress.
Zawahiri said, ``Everyone who has fallen into these sins
must remember that they accomplish for the enemies of Islam
what they could not accomplish by their own abilities.''
So why does this matter? Because now more than any other
time since 9/11 it is extremely hard to differentiate terror
groups from your average band of militants or to understand
their various missions and strategies.
No longer is it just good guys and bad guys. It is also
terrorist on terrorist. It is bad guy versus bad guy,
complicated further by misguided and dangerous transfers of
weapons and money by some Gulf States to groups like ISIS,
which even al-Qaeda has denounced.
In a perverse twist, 13 years after the U.S. entered
Afghanistan, a country with little governance that served, as
we all know, as a safe haven for al-Qaeda to plan the 9/11
attacks, we may be seeing its sequel in Syria.
And after years of small steps, our options to influence
the situation are limited. Some predict that the only way
America will engage directly in the Syrian conflict is a CT
mission following an attack on us or our interests.
At a dinner I attended in London over this weekend, several
prominent observers predicted just this. I sure hope it doesn't
turn out that way.
The good news is that it is highly unlikely that the U.S.
will suffer a catastrophic terror attack on the scale of 9/11
ever again based on the security improvements put in place
since then.
But the risk of lower tech and lone wolf attacks remains
and perhaps grows. Crucial is an understanding of the field of
play. As the threat continues to evolve, the U.S. must continue
to reevaluate our strategy to counter terrorism and consider
answers to the following four questions.
One, how has the threat evolved over time? We all know that
what once was a highly centralized structure, core al-Qaeda,
has been decimated. I personally don't think it will be able to
recreate itself but we should watch it.
Rather than disappear, however, al-Qaeda has morphed into a
decentralized horizontal organization composed mainly of so-
called affiliates.
Question two--are we giving al-Qaeda too much credit? There
are affiliates and connected groups but they are opportunistic
and don't always share the same goals and aren't always
welcomed by al-Qaeda. The latest Zawahiri audio tape is a case
in point and let us remember that it helps the al-Qaeda
narrative to call every terror group al-Qaeda. They are not.
Question three--how will the long-term consequences of a
war-torn and destabilized Syria impact our strategy? As
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said recently at the
Wilson Center, Syria is now a homeland security problem.
A major part of our effort must be to use a whole of
government approach including aid and development efforts
rather than just kinetic tools to deal with refugees, stagnant
economies and challenged leaders.
Forty-one percent of Syrians have been displaced, 150,000
are dead and millions are squatting outside the country in
neighboring states like Jordan.
Question number four, perhaps the most important, and I
will conclude very quickly, Mr. Chairman--what is our
narrative? As mentioned, next week marks the anniversary of the
Boston bombing.
The Tsarnaev brothers, at least Tamerlan, were radicalized
in part on the Internet. We need to win the argument with the
next kid who is trying to decide whether or not to plant a
pressure cooker bomb or strap on a suicide vest.
Many think out in the world that the U.S. stands for
drones, Gitmo, gun violence and spying. What do we really stand
for? The rule of law, tolerance, economic opportunity,
generosity to our neighbors and those in foreign lands plagued
by natural disasters.
But we aren't making the sale. The Middle East Research
Institute found that since Inspire Magazine's launch in 2010--
that is the Islamist hate magazine published in the boonies of
Yemen--over 20 young people have been arrested on terrorism
connected charges with copies of Inspire in their possession,
and that is just in the United States.
There may be many more we don't know about. Ending the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq should help but we must also stop using
the AUMF as the legal bedrock for a grab bag of CT operations
around the world.
Closing Guantanamo Bay Prison must happen and we still
haven't fully explained the legal framework for our
surveillance efforts, efforts I support but under and within a
strict legal framework.
In conclusion, as one European colleague said recently, we
have changed our culture from need to know to need to share.
But the new paradigm, sadly, is need to blame.
As I have often said, the terrorists won't check our party
registration before they blow us up. So on the anniversary of
Boston, let us unite to tell the right story about America.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harman follows:]
----------
Mr. Poe. I want to thank both of our witnesses for their
testimony. We are going to be in recess until the votes are
over. Ten minutes after the last vote we will reassemble and
then we have a few questions for you all.
Thank you very much for your patience.
[Recess.]
Mr. Poe. The meeting will come to order. Thank you both for
returning. I hope you had a good conversation while we were
voting to save the country.
Several questions--you both are experts. I want to make the
questions general so you both can weigh in on them. Tell me a
little more in detail about al-Qaeda. How many of them are
there? Senator, can you tell us?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes. Of course, when I was a senator I could
say I would like to tell you but I can't--it is classified. But
the truth is at this moment I don't know the exact answer.
I am struck by the number, which has gained some currency,
that there are--if not al-Qaeda there are 10,000 foreign
fighters in Syria now so they are members of al-Qaeda or
associated groups or groups that could fit the general
description of violent Islamist extremists.
I mean, the truth is in some of the countries we worry
about the numbers of al-Qaeda or associates are probably in the
hundreds and yet if you are, you know, prepared to blow
yourself up to kill people you can still have a terribly
painful effect on a society.
Mr. Poe. If you talk about the 10,000 foreign fighters in
Syria, are you just talking about those that are fighting
against the government or are you including Hezbollah on the
side of the government?
Mr. Lieberman. No, I am not including Hezbollah. These are
primarily, excuse me, Sunni and, of course, I am not including
the Free Syrian Army or the other opposition groups that
started this with a peaceful protest.
These are violent Islamist extremists who have come in from
around the world, not just the region. That is a big number and
that is why I said in my testimony that I think that Syria
today is rapidly becoming the most threatening terrorist
sanctuary in the world.
Mr. Poe. Representative Harman.
Ms. Harman. Well, I said in my testimony that some are
predicting now that the way we will finally intervene
adequately in Syria is when there is, unfortunately, a
terrorist attack against us or our interests by those there.
I agree with Senator Lieberman that Syria could easily
become the sequel to Afghanistan in training large numbers of
terrorists.
But on your question of how many in al-Qaeda, I think there
is no answer to that question. I mean, think amoebas. I mean,
it is a--there is a loose affiliation of terror groups that
form and reform around projects. Some of them are al-Qaeda.
Some of them are not.
Al-Qaeda is now fighting with groups like ISIS, which it
considers too radical. I find that quite amazing to get your
head around. But also there are Sunni and Shi'a terror groups
inside of Syria, for example.
Hezbollah is a Shi'a terror group and yet a lot of these
other groups, al-Qaeda being one, are Sunni groups and they are
fighting each other. So it is just two conclusions. Number one,
it is I think impossible to measure but, number two, let us not
overstate the number of al-Qaeda. That is their narrative. We
don't want to make them look good. Some of these groups are not
al-Qaeda.
Mr. Poe. All right. Senator, you mentioned during the--your
testimony three areas of concern--Syria, Libya, Somalia--and my
opinion is the United States, the public, is ``war weary'' of
military intervention in some other country.
So what would be, is or should be our foreign policy, our
plan, our national defense plan in specifically those areas and
more generally al-Qaeda worldwide?
Mr. Lieberman. Well, the public obviously is war weary. I
mean, we are going through a period now not unlike others we
have in our history that usually follow either unpopular wars
or wars ending, and often coincide with tough economic times
and people want to pull back from the world.
Almost every time that happens we get drawn in late to
conflict at a much greater price in life and national assets--
national treasure. So like so much else this comes down to
leadership.
I mean, you are holding this hearing, I believe, to remind
at least, if I may say so respectfully, to remind your
colleagues and Congress and hopefully the public that al-Qaeda
is not defeated--that the violent Islamic extremists are out
there and they despise us.
They want to kill us, and give them an opportunity and they
will, and it is a slogan but it has a lot of substance to it. I
would rather fight them over there than here, and we see now
the evidence of them massing in these places we have talked
about--Syria, Libya, increasingly Iraq and Afghanistan if we
totally pull out.
And so I think it requires leadership that has the
fortitude to stand up and say if we--and I am not talking about
a big ground war anywhere in the world but if we stay involved
sometimes economically in Libya, assisting the development of
their army, sometimes being willing to assist with the limited
use of our air power we are going to save ourselves a lot of
lives and a lot of trouble later on.
Ms. Harman. Well, I agree but I would add another
dimension. As I said in my testimony, I think just using
kinetics is not going to defeat this problem and most of our
major military leaders say the same thing.
I do think we have to win the argument with some kid in the
boonies of Yemen deciding whether to strap on a suicide vest
and the way we win our argument--we win that argument is to
convince him of a narrative about the United States, very
different from the one he believes--the propaganda he has been
brainwashed to believe and that will require more than the use
of kinetic force.
I would keep it on the table but I also would do other
things--diplomatic efforts, economic efforts, doing things that
we are now doing in North Africa to keep states from failing.
We are inserting--it is a very interesting thing that we are
doing--some of our special command forces to keep governments
from failing. That helps. So I think it is a complicated
problem but Whac-A-Mole is not an adequate solution.
Mr. Lieberman. Mr. Chairman, if I can really briefly, I
want to say that I would actually agree with Congresswoman
Harman and in my opinion it is not an either/or. There are
circumstances where we have to use our muscle or we have to
help train local forces in our own self-security interests.
But in the end, as I mentioned briefly in my remarks, this
is an ideological conflict, as ideological as the Cold War was,
with a radical minority within the Muslim world rejected every
time there is a vote by the majority of Muslims in the
countries that we have got to stop ideologically.
Mr. Poe. Thank you. I yield to the ranking member for his
questions.
Mr. Sherman. Yes. First, an observation--I couldn't agree
with the two witnesses more that not only do we need kinetic
force but we have to win the argument, and part of that is
broadcasting and webcasting and getting our message out. But
another part is recognizing that there is a whole area of
discourse that is foreign to us.
We make our arguments based on this news development that
is reported on Fox or that insight on MSNBC. To my knowledge,
our broadcasting board of governors hasn't employed a single
Islamic scholar and yet if we are going to make this argument
it can't just be based on econometrics.
It can't just be based on the things that are relevant to
our political discourse. We have got to meet them Koran verse
to Koran verse and Hadith to Hadith. But that is an
observation. Now I am going to move on to an incredibly long
question.
The big buzz word in foreign policy is pivot to Asia, and I
wish we were talking about trade missions to Tokyo and teaching
Mandarin in our schools. But that is not what it means.
Pivot to Asia means focus our national security assets to
confront China, and the Senkaku Islands give us a good pretext
and rallying cry to do that. It means that all the decisions
being made at the Pentagon today about which--what kind of
research to do, what weapons to procure, what kind of training,
deployment, budgeting is all focused at least until Crimea on
the seas around China.
And my theory, and it is an unfortunate one perhaps, is
that we often in this country don't make decisions based on
what is in the national interest but rather based on what is in
the interests of the institutions making the decision.
Now, the Pentagon and the rest of our national security
establishment have a history. Since 1898, we have had a
glorious victory every time we have confronted a conventional
military foe, and perhaps our most glorious victory was against
the Soviet Union where we won a tremendous victory without a
major kinetic action.
And since the Philippine insurrection briefly after the
Spanish war, every time we have confronted a non-uniformed
asymmetrical enemy we have had a frustrating situation that
didn't meet the needs of and actually undermined the national
security establishment.
Now, the idea is we are going to pivot toward Asia. That
allows us to confront a conventional foe and to prevail because
our airplanes can shoot down their airplanes. But pivot toward
Asia assumes that we can pivot away from the Middle East and
Islamic extremist terrorism.
I would ask our witnesses have we, like, solved this whole
Islamic extremism problem and is it time to pivot away from the
Middle East and North Africa and wash our hands of it? Ms.
Harman.
Ms. Harman. Absolutely not. I have been saying lately no
more pivots. I think U.S. leadership and focus is needed
everywhere in the world and it is a very dangerous world and
our leadership is enormously important.
Obviously, everything is not equal and in every part of the
world we have to prioritize. But the Middle East--the problems
in the Middle East are not going away and our leadership is
indispensable.
As we have now learned from Crimea, the problems in Central
Europe and Europe are not going away and our leadership is
indispensable, ditto Africa, Latin America, et cetera,
including Asia.
The word pivot is also a--I think a wrong description of
what we intended in Asia. It was corrected to be rebalanced but
even with that I would take issue. I think it is important to
have a focus on Asia. I think that focus should not be on
confronting China.
I think that focus should be on supporting our allies in
the region and hoping that China's rise is a peaceful rise and
that we are--we build a stronger relationship that is not
adversarial.
I don't mean it will be easy but we build a stronger
relationship that is not adversarial and in that regard I
finally would say that I hope this Congress will find a version
of trade promotion authority it can support and then will help
conclude trade negotiations with Europe and Asia and pass trade
agreements in both regions.
Mr. Sherman. I will just jump in and point out that the
middle class of the United States has suffered a lot from the
trade policy we have had so far and also what is not
illustrated is if you double trade you double the opportunity
to recognize income in the Cayman Islands.
And our ability to support our military is dependent upon
those income tax collections that are very hard to collect from
multinational business. But Senator Lieberman, should we be
focusing on the Senkaku Islands or on Islamic extremism or
raising taxes so we can do both?
Mr. Lieberman. So it is not easy but the truth is we have
got to--we can't pivot away from any one region in the world
because they all matter to our security and our prosperity.
Probably today we are more threatened by what is
happening--our own security here at home in the Middle East. So
we can't leave it. That Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan
Africa, that is where the threat of Islamic extremism is coming
from.
On the other hand, we do have--I am sure there was a way in
which people who were fashioning our policy in the
administration saw the pivot or the rebalance, which is a
better term, to Asia as part of the end of the era of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and moving on to this dynamic region of the Asia
Pacific, which was also extraordinarily active economically and
increasingly important to us in the U.S. economically.
But, you know, the fact is both of those arguments are
right and therefore you can't turn away from either one, and
the irony here is--you probably all have found this--if you
talk to people who are in the government of our allies in Asia
they are unsettled as they watch the Middle East and they think
that we are pulling out because they are seeing themselves and
they are saying whoa, if--you know, if we get in trouble--if we
have a problem with China will the United States come to our
aid.
There was an Ambassador from one Asian country. I asked
about the pivot to the Asia Pacific and he said to me, I am
sure the Americans are on the way--they just haven't arrived
yet, because they don't see that pivot and it is very important
to them.
Mr. Sherman. I believe my time has expired but I will note
that Japan, which is willing to have us spend hundreds of
billions of dollars to have the naval forces to protect the--
they call them islands, the barren rocks in question, continues
to refuse to spend even 1 percent of its GDP on its own
defense. I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois,
Mr. Kinzinger.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for
holding this very important hearing and one that I think,
unfortunately, has lost a lot of the attention of the American
people. Senator, Representative, I thank you guys for being
here. Thanks for your service to your country.
You know, we--the chairman mentioned and, you know, you
hear it all the time in the media this idea of war weariness,
and while I think there is something to it I am actually in the
process right now of reading a book about a company commander
in World War II and, you know, you see about a guy that
literally started out with a couple hundred people under his
command and ended up with one at the end of various battles.
And you think about the intensity of which America
confronted her enemies back in World War II, and while today 1
percent of Americans actually serve in the military and so I
understand an idea of war weariness but I don't think we have
carried near the burden as what the generation of World War II
carried.
And my concern is in 10 years and in 20 years when history
books are written about this moment, which I think is a very
important moment in American world history, what is it going to
say about the United States?
Is this the moment at which we doubled down and said we are
committed to a free world, we are committed to a strong
America, we are committed to allowing the people that live
behind the new soft iron curtain and the iron curtain of
tyranny to look at the United States as an example of what they
want to be and what they want to aspire to?
Or is it the moment we decided to withdraw within ourselves
in an increasingly global world and we will find that that
bites us in the backside? And one of the areas I have been
concerned with, to both of you, is Iraq. I am a veteran of
Iraq.
I flew airplanes in Iraq and I feel every day almost a
sense of mourning when I see the flag of al-Qaeda flying over
where the Marines fought the hardest that they have fought
since Vietnam--that bothers me--in Fallujah.
I think of my colleague out here, Duncan Hunter, who is a
veteran of Fallujah and think of now what that leadership is on
and I think of the message that we sent to our enemy that the
moment we said, you know, we fought hard, we spent a lot of
lives and treasure and we can argue about whether we should
have gone in or shouldn't.
But then at the end of the day because in my mind to keep a
political promise we pulled all the troops out of Iraq and
didn't leave a residual force, and I look at now what is going
on in Afghanistan with concern. The elections went well and I
hope that the bilateral security agreement is signed.
But I think it is important for us to show a strong
presence post-2014 lest we repeat the mistakes that we repeated
in Iraq. I spent a long time opening that up but, Senator, I
wanted to ask you specifically about Syria.
I hear people talking, and I was a big supporter of saying
we needed to enforce the red line in Syria. I believe that was
a turning point in American foreign policy when we failed to do
that. But I am hearing people, sadly, say that Assad is the
only protector of Christian minorities in Syria.
I hear people say that Assad is maybe not a good man but he
is better than the opposition. Senator, can I ask you--can you
talk about the opposition and dispel this notion about the fact
that the opposition is all al-Qaeda and we either have to
support a brutal dictator or we are supporting al-Qaeda?
I heard somebody famously say in my own party that had we
enforced the red line we would act as al-Qaeda's air force,
something that is very offensive to me as an Air Force pilot.
So go ahead, sir.
Mr. Lieberman. Thanks, Congressman. I totally agree with
you. Assad is not a good man. He is a bad man. He is a brutal
dictator. I mean, this all started with peaceful protests
against his government and then he turned his weapons on his
own people.
I went over there pretty early in the conflict and met with
some colleagues from the Senate with the opposition to Assad
and my judgement was and my colleagues' was very strongly that
these were not al-Qaeda or violent Islamist extremists.
These were Syrian nationalists. They were patriots. They
were sick and tired of being abused by the Assad
administration, and I will tell you that their motivations were
as much economic as they were political.
They felt quite rightly, just as the protestors in Egypt
and Libya and Tunisia did, that the ruling clique, which is
Assad and his group, were essentially stealing the wealth of
the country and these people, a lot of them educated, had no
chance to live better for their families.
We didn't support them when we should have and it allowed
Assad to kill a lot of people and it opened up a vacuum in
which these thousands of foreign extremist fighters have come
in. But we still know who the moderate anti-Assad people are.
We can't yield to Assad. This man has blood on his hands in
the most awful way and I think we have got to go in. We got to
find people who we agree with, we know who they are, people who
want us to come in who are pro-American and support them as
best we can.
And, you know, I am one who would still go back to that
decision the President made about the red line and use American
air power to inflict some punishment on the Assad government,
which is our only hope now of bringing him to any kind of
discussion of ending this conflict because right now Assad
thinks he is winning, and you know what? He is.
Mr. Kinzinger. I think a multi prong strategy of both
enforcing the red line and also holding true what we have for a
decade, that there will be no safe haven for al-Qaeda anywhere
in the world and that includes parts of Syria.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, thank you and thank you to the
guests. I yield back.
Mr. Lieberman. Thank you.
Mr. Poe. The gentleman yields back. Chair recognizes the
other gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Schneider.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, to the
witnesses, thank you for being here today. Thank you for your
service to our country. Representative Harman, I want to go
back to what you talked about--winning the argument--and the
argument, if you will, on one hand is about narratives.
It is about where do we see or how do we help people see a
different future, set their goals and aspirations to something
that will pull them away from al-Qaeda. But for al-Qaeda I fear
that the argument is an ideology and it is much harder to
change or win an ideological argument. How do we balance those
two things or how do we make sure that we can win that
ideological argument?
Ms. Harman. Well, there are some in al-Qaeda who can't be
rehabilitated and I am not against the use of force. I am not
against the use of drones. I am not against the use of Special
Forces in some cases under strict explainable legal limits to
act against those folks.
I was not unhappy when Osama bin-Laden was taken out. I
certainly was not unhappy when a dual national, al-Awlaki, a
U.S.-Yemeni dual national, was taken out in Yemen. I didn't
think there was another alternative and I didn't think that guy
was rehabilitatable and he posed an imminent threat to us and
he couldn't have been captured. So I get that part.
But I am talking about the fresh recruits to al-Qaeda, the
kids who are a huge part of the force that is willing to die
who could go either way. I mean, think about our inner city
gang problems. It is similar.
If there is some impressionable kid who hears only from
hardened gang members that kid will probably go that way. On
the other hand, if that kid has other messages and other
opportunities he/she may not.
So winning the argument is both being tough with those we
can't persuade but also finding ways through their own
governments to reach folks who could be persuaded--decent
education, better living standards, respect, fair treatment of
women and girls. I mean, a whole list of things we understand.
If I could just add one thing. Mr. Sherman said it and Mr.
Kinzinger said it too though. We have to understand better what
tribal societies look like. That is one of our problems in
Syria.
We didn't really know--some in our Government really didn't
know the best way to intervene with the opposition because they
worried that helping X would hurt Y and so on and so forth.
We need more sophistication and I do agree with Mr. Sherman
that having some Islamist scholars guide us is a good idea. The
foreign minister of the E.U., Catherine Ashton, was at the
Wilson Center recently and she said our understanding of tribal
societies is very poor--the West's understanding. I agree, and
if we are going to win the argument we have to have a better
understanding.
And finally, I would say that a model--it is not perfect
but a model for what could happen in Syria is what did happen
in Yemen. Not perfect, but remember the real bad guy
voluntarily left the government. Someone else, in fact his
deputy but there was support by many tribes, was elected and
there is still--there is still huge problems with parts of
Yemen. But it is a much more peaceful society than it was
before this happened.
Mr. Schneider. Well, I think as you touched on using the
analogy of gangs is understanding that all of this takes place
within a certain context and in Syria the context is within
clans and tribes and the different regions and how that is
playing out.
My understanding is there are many--as many foreign
fighters on both sides of the battle in Syria. There is al-
Qaeda, al-Nusra and the Sunni fighters but you have Hezbollah
and Iranian Guard and fighting on behalf of Assad and that is
the fight that is taking place within the context.
And Senator, I guess I will turn this to you with the last
minute that I have. The idea of U.S. leadership, the idea of
having our narrative and the vision of giving people the
opportunity to achieve their dreams, women and children, all of
that being something that allows people to see a different
story, a different future for their communities and their
countries, what more can we or should we be doing to make sure
that we do win this war with al-Qaeda?
Mr. Lieberman. Well, that has to start with the President
and, really, this President is capable of excelling at
communication but I think forces have drawn him inward post-
Iraq and Afghanistan and we suffer from it.
By our Declaration of Independence we were given a mandate,
a responsibility, a kind of destiny to carry that message which
was universal human rights and there is no people in the world
that don't respond to that. We are just not making the case.
We are not out there making the case enough and, obviously,
Congressman Sherman talked about the lack of an Islamic scholar
on the board of governors--broadcast board of governors. That
ought to be. We ought to be--because the--part of the essence
of our enemy here is a terrible exploitation and abuse of
Islam.
We have to--and it represents really a minority of the
Muslim world. We have to fight that and come back at it on the
ground of Islam. Incidentally, we also have to say, which I
think we believe--I certainly do--that not every form of
political Islam is wrong.
There are moderate political Islamists. You know, religion
plays a large part in the public life of America. We have--some
of our allies in Europe are run by people who lead parties
called Christian Democratic Parties. There is nothing
inherently wrong with linking religion and politics. But once
you take it as al-Qaeda does to violence and extremism then it
has got to stop and I think we have got to make that case.
Congress can do more, broadcasting can do more but honestly
it has to start with the number one American, who is the
President.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you. I am out of time. With that, I
yield back.
Mr. Poe. Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania,
Mr. Perry.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and great to see you
both again. Thanks for your testimony and your candor. And I
think about the discourse and I would agree with my colleague
that I think much of America has kind of lost track of this
discussion over lost airplanes and Ukraine and or economy or
jobs, et cetera. But, you know, this briefing I have describes
al-Qaeda as either in the minimalist view or the expansive
view.
And I don't know if you are familiar but, you know, the
minimalist view views and understands al-Qaeda as group senior
leadership and recognized affiliates, and also sees it more of
a brand--more of a brand than a hierarchal organization and it
is not really al-Qaeda if it is not planning attack against the
United States or United States interests.
You know, is it partisan to say--is it--would it be your
view that the administration has kind of taken on that
minimalist view of al-Qaeda based on that description?
Mr. Lieberman. That is really interesting. So I would say
that the administration has been committed to this fight
against al-Qaeda. I mean, I have had arguments with them
because they won't broaden the vocabulary to say the fight is
against not just al-Qaeda but violent Islamist extremism. That
is really what it is.
But I do think that the administration's pulling back from
global leadership more generally has contributed significantly
to that view, that essentially the battle against al-Qaeda has
been won--we can move on to Asia--the Asia Pacific.
And it is not so. I want to just finish my response and go
back in a way to what Congressman Schneider asked me. I think
that though everybody is prepared to say the American people
are war weary and on polls they seem to suggest that they are
not for a lot of the things that--more involvement in Syria, et
cetera, they have seemed to be awakened by what has happened in
the Crimea.
But I want to just point out something else. I think
ultimately that public opinion is much more nuanced and
complicated than we are rushed to make it and maybe this is a
transition to the next panel you have Fred Kagan on. I hope he
forgives me if I cite his brother, Bob.
Bob Kagan just wrote a fascinating piece in which he said
look at all these public attitudes in America about involvement
in crises around the world. The American people say they don't
want us to get involved.
The President doesn't get involved and yet you ask the
American people do you approve or disapprove of the President's
foreign policy. The numbers are lower than if you ask the
President--if you ask do you approve of the President's policy
on the economy or, dare I add, health care reform.
In other words, a lower opinion of his policy on foreign
policy. So, you know, this goes back to American ideals.
American people ultimately they don't want us to go recklessly
picking fights everywhere around the world.
Mr. Perry. But this is real. This al-Qaeda threat is real.
It is real.
Mr. Lieberman. And people get it. I mean, the people still
remember----
Mr. Perry. And it is not partisan to say it is real----
Mr. Lieberman. Not at all.
Mr. Perry [continuing]. And this approach of pulling back
and kind of watching what is over there and as long as they are
not launching planes into buildings here we don't have to worry
about it. That is not partisan. That is just reality.
Mr. Lieberman. Right. And your point, I think, is--it is
one thing to say we are launching drones against terrorists in
Pakistan or Yemen or wherever. I support that.
But then if at the same time you just stand back from Syria
and Iraq you are inviting the same sanctuaries for terrorists
that happened in Afghanistan before 9/11 and from that, as Jane
said earlier, they will attack us once again.
Mr. Perry. And I can tell Ms. Harman is bristling.
Ms. Harman. Yes. If I could just add. I am not sure I agree
with the way you have phrased the question. I agree with a lot
of what you believe but not phrased that way.
First of all, I always said that the so-called war on
terror was a misnomer. Terror is a tactic. It was and it should
be a war on al-Qaeda and its affiliates and we still are at war
with al-Qaeda, and I think the actions of this administration
on that specific point have been pretty robust.
Remember, al-Qaeda is not a top-down vertically integrated
structure anymore. It might become that again but it isn't now.
It is a set of horizontally affiliated--loosely affiliated
opportunistic groups. They are not all al-Qaeda. They come
together sometimes to do missions together. They also fight
with each other, something I was pointing out.
We have to be vigilant against those folks and I think the
actions of this administration, using drones and using Special
Forces in particular, have taken out more al-Qaeda than the
actions of the prior administration.
I don't think this is a score card but it is a fact that
that has happened. So what does all that mean? I don't think it
is fair to say has this administration abandoned the fight
against al-Qaeda.
I think the answer to that is no. Should America offer
robust leadership all over the world? The answer to that needs
to be yes and there I would say some of our leadership needs to
be a lot stronger.
And so I just see the question differently and I do admit
and I said it in my testimony and I know we agree on this that
there is a real al-Qaeda threat, different from the threat on
9/11 but a real al-Qaeda threat in lower tech attacks and
homegrown terror and things of that kind, not just in the
United States but it is in the United States.
Mr. Perry. I yield, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poe. Gentleman yields back. I want to thank both of you
for being here today and the time you spent. The testimony has
been excellent, superb and you are both free to go if you wish
or you can come up here and ask some questions, whichever you
prefer.
Mr. Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thanks again to you
and Congressman Sherman for convening this hearing and trying
to focus us back on this real threat to our security.
Ms. Harman. Mr. Chairman, if I might add that we shouldn't
just talk about things being bipartisan. With Joe Lieberman
here they are tripartisan.
Mr. Poe. That is correct. Thank you very much. We will move
on to our next panel.
Thank you, gentlemen, both for waiting and I am sure you
took in the testimony of our two other witnesses. I will
introduce our three members of this panel and then we will have
your testimony and proceed from there.
Dr. Seth Jones is associate director of the International
Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation as
well as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School
for Advanced International Studies.
He served as a representative for the commander of U.S.
Special Operations Command to the assistant secretary of
defense for special operations. Before that he served as a
plans officer and advisor to the commanding general of U.S.
special operations forces in Afghanistan.
Dr. Fred Kagan is the Christopher deMuth chair and director
of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise
Institute. In 2009, he served in Kabul, Afghanistan as part of
the General Stanley McChrystal Strategic Assessment Team and
returned years later to conduct research for Generals Petraeus
and Allen. In July 2011, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral Mike Mullen awarded him the Distinguished Public
Service award, the highest civilian honor.
And Mr. Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow in the
governance studies at the Brookings Institution. He is a co-
founder and is the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog which
covers hard national security choices and is a member of the
Hoover Institution's task force on national security and law.
He is the author of many books and is currently writing a
book on data and technology proliferation and their
implications for security.
Dr. Jones, you may proceed with your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF SETH JONES, PH.D., ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER, RAND
CORPORATION
Mr. Jones. Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Sherman and other
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to
testify at this hearing.
I have divided my comments into three sections. The first
provides an overview of the evolving terrorism threat. The
second examines the role of special operations, which is what I
was asked to comment on, and the third offers a brief
conclusion.
Let me just talk briefly about the threat. I know we have
heard from other members and then the witnesses in the first
panel but let me just say that at least based on my estimates
the United States will likely face a persistent threat from
groups operating particularly in North Africa, the Middle East
and South Asia.
Of particular concern is the threat from al-Qaeda and other
Salafi jihadist groups. A couple of concerning trends I just
wanted to highlight. One is when you look at the data, collect
the data on groups and fighters, the number of jihadist groups
and fighters have both significantly increased since 2010 in
countries like Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Algeria,
Tunisia.
There has also been a notable increase in the number of
attacks, particularly by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and I am
happy to talk about the data later.
Second, though, it is worth noting that the broader
movement has become more decentralized among a range of tiers
from the core in Pakistan to formal affiliates, a panoply of
other jihadist groups who haven't sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda
but whose goal is still establishing an extremist Islamic
emirate in areas they control and then the inspired individuals
that we saw 1 year ago in Boston.
Let me say, though, that using the core al-Qaeda and its
strength or weakness as a gauge of the movement, in my view, is
increasingly anachronistic because of what we are seeing more
broadly.
And then finally, I think it is worth noting that the
threat posed by this diverse set of groups varies widely and we
can certainly talk about that later. Again, in my view, the
most significant threat remains the group operating in Yemen.
Somewhat recently the core appears to have become more
involved in plotting including in Europe and potentially
against the U.S. homeland so I would not count the core out in
Pakistan.
Let me turn briefly to one of the issues I was asked to
talk about, which is the role of special operations. Based on
this persistent threat, it is probably worth noting that a
range of military, intelligence, financial, law enforcement,
diplomatic and other tools from across the U.S. Government are
important in conducting counter terrorism.
Nonetheless, special operations forces--and I was in
special operations command and then worked in and for the
assistant secretary for special operations in the Pentagon--
special operations can play important roles in several areas.
One of them is building partner capacity and supporting foreign
internal defense overseas.
People often think of special operations forces as
conducting direct action, targeted killing or capture. But I
think without a doubt the vast majority of special operations
activity and some of its most useful is training local forces
and government entities. Special operations forces are trained
to understand local culture, society, language, economy,
history and politics. So quite useful.
On the direct action side, they can also get involved in
precision targeting of terrorist groups and that is useful,
although I would also say they have been very useful in seizing
supplies, undermining finances of groups, overseeing
psychological and information operations, conducting and
collecting intelligence, engaging with state and substrate
entities. But there are a range of ways that they can be
useful.
I wanted to highlight the role of the drones. This is a
controversial subject. In my view, there are risks with some of
these activities. There are limitations to using armed drones
to strike terrorists.
There is mixed evidence, at least as far as I have looked
at this issue, that drone strikes and then broader decapitation
strategies alone are effective. Groups can survive a strike
when they establish more decentralized leadership, possess an
ideology that still has followers or are able to appoint
competent leaders in their places.
So I would--I would warn against focusing too much on the
drone strikes. Let me just conclude by noting that Congress has
played and should continue to play a critical role in helping
support the conduct of special operations forces in
counterterrorism missions.
But again, and they can do this in a whole range of ways
including Section 1208 and 1206 authorities, but let me just
say this is a lot more than just strike operations. The
training overseas, especially of weak governments that need
assistance, is a critical part.
Thank you, Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Sherman and other
members of the committee. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Dr. Jones.
Dr. Kagan, you have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. KAGAN, PH.D., CHRISTOPHER DEMUTH
CHAIR AND DIRECTOR, CRITICAL THREATS PROJECT, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH
Mr. Kagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sherman.
I will start by agreeing with everything that Seth said, which
has become more and more common for us so I won't reiterate
that ground.
I want to make a few points that are--some of which are in
my written testimony and some of which are extrapolations from
it. First of all, I think it is very important to step back in
this conversation and stop compartmentalizing problems to the
degree that we have been.
There is a lot going on. We get a very staccato news cycle.
We get now it is this week it is Ukraine, you know, next--now
it is the Iranian negotiations, now it is this, now it is that.
And al-Qaeda--the al-Qaeda problem gets put in a pigeon
hole, historically a rather large one, now an ever shrinking
one, I would say, and within that there are a number of
individual pigeonholes that we put al-Qaeda groups into and
that especially this administration has been eager to parse the
groups, I think, too finely and talk about al-Qaeda core as
being the real problem and get into arguments about whether
this group or that group is actually part of al-Qaeda or is
actually covered by the authorization to use military force,
which Ben will talk about.
And the legalisms are very important and getting the
legislation right is important. But it should not be allowed to
shape the way that we understand the group because the group is
a holistic entity and it does not make sense to look at an al-
Qaeda franchise in Yemen or al-Shabaab or al-Qaeda in Iraq, now
ISIS, and argue about whether these are parts of al-Qaeda.
They are parts of al-Qaeda and they do share the global
ideology of al-Qaeda and this is one of the things that I think
has also gotten lost in the discussion about local groups
versus global groups, that the administration talks about a lot
on the premise that we shouldn't really concern ourselves too
much with local groups--locally focused groups--and we should
really focus on those that are trying to attack the United
States.
And the problem is that as you look at what happened in
Syria when we got into--when they got into the argument about
whether the Islamic state of Iraq and ash-Sham was or was not
operating in Syria and Zawahiri came in, it forced the actual
Syrian al-Qaeda franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra, to decide whether
or not to declare itself publically as an al-Qaeda franchise.
And the issue was put very starkly then to Jabhat al-Nusra
as we have seen it in a couple of other places, namely what is
meant by that, what is the distinction between Jabhat al-Nusra
focused on Syria and being Jabhat al-Nusra as a member of al-
Qaeda.
And the distinction is signing up to the global jihad,
signing up to the global ideology and signing up to the support
of attacking the West, and I think this has gotten lost in the
conversation. This is a live discussion amongst radical
Islamist groups.
Do you or do you not support the global jihad? Do you or do
you not believe that we should take the fight to the West?
Wwould you or would you not support that whether or not you
would do it yourself?
And what is interesting is that groups like Jabhat al-Nusra
who have been confronted with that and pay a price locally in
Syria for being affiliated with al-Qaeda nevertheless adhere
when pushed and say yes, we are an al-Qaeda franchise and in
fact we are the only al-Qaeda franchise.
That should give us a lot of pause because that is a
conscious decision that that group has made to stake a claim to
an ideology that is explicitly distinguished from the
alternatives by the fact that it is part of the global movement
and sees the United States in part as a major enemy.
About the AUMF, we had been having a very good conversation
previously and I will leave it to the expert on the AUMF to
talk about the language there. My sense is that the
administration has tended to take--this administration has
tended to take an overly narrow view of the AUMF by deciding in
many cases that it is only applicable to people who were
actually members of al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001 which I
don't think is what it says and which, of course, is an
absolutely failed strategy regardless of what--whether or not
the AUMF covers that.
But the more important point to me is that we have come to
mistake the AUMF for the strategy against al-Qaeda and this is
a huge mistake because the AUMF authorizes force by which we
mean targeted strikes and so forth, and Seth made the point
better than I could that that is not an--that is not a strategy
and it will not be effective against this organization.
We need to understand that special operations forces do
fit. We need to understand that there have to be other
comopnents of a strategy than simply attacking the leadership
under an AUMF. And so as we talk about the AUMF, as we think
about under what authorities people do anything, it is very
important not to allow us--not to allow that discussion to
shape our entire discussion of a strategy that is going to have
to be a lot more holistic than that and for which, frankly, the
military and the administration already have a lot of
authorities and don't need authorities to do it in a lot of
places, don't need special authorities to do various other
things.
But we have gotten too focused on targeted killing and we
are not going to be able to kill our way out of this problem.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kagan follows:]
----------
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Wittes.
STATEMENT OF MR. BENJAMIN WITTES, SENIOR FELLOW, GOVERNANCE
STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Mr. Wittes. Thank you, Chairman Poe and Ranking Member
Sherman for inviting me to present my views. You have asked me
to address both the AUMF and intelligence collection under
Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, so I am not sure these
issues directly concern, you know, whether al-Qaeda is winning
much less do I mean to sit here and try to grade the
administration's performance to date.
But they definitely do involve sort of the structural
question of whether the administration, this one and the next
one and the one after that, will have the tools to make sure
al-Qaeda doesn't win and that our counterterrorism policy gets
to receive good grades in the future.
So as a preliminary matter, the two topics that you have
asked me to address are actually kind of, sort of only oddly
related to one another. They involve different legal
authorities passed at different times with fundamentally
different purposes.
But there is a very important common thread between them
that I want to draw out here. These are two of the most
important legal instruments in the struggle this committee is
endeavouring to assess. One is the key legal authority for
virtually every military action the United States undertakes in
its battle against al-Qaeda, its offshoots and its affiliates.
And the other is the single most important legal authority
the intelligence community has for collecting intelligence
against the al-Qaeda target as well as against a sort of wide
variety of other national security priorities. And,
importantly, both laws are today for very different reasons
under considerable stress.
So, you know, to put it bluntly, major pillars of the legal
architecture of our conflict with al-Qaeda are now on the
legislative table and Congress, over the next few years, is not
going to be able to avoid the question of how much it wants to
alter the fundamental architecture of that conflict.
So let us start with the AUMF and why, exactly, that is
under stress today. So President Obama has announced that he
wants to end the AUMF conflict. He has spoken passionately
about this and I think, you know, entirely sincerely, and I am
sympathetic to the objective, frankly.
I am not--you know, the idea of endless war is not
attractive and most analysts, whether they favor repeal of the
AUMF or reauthorization and refinement of it in some form of
agree that the current AUMF is badly out of date.
So it is tied textually to the September 11th attacks and
for some of the reasons that my colleagues have said here it
does not really describe well the conflict the United States is
currently pursuing.
This actually creates operational problems. Specifically,
there are groups that oppose ongoing and growing threats that
the application of the AUMF to which is something of a puzzle
and in some cases hard to make a good legal argument for and
the administration has struggled with that a lot.
So as you can probably tell, the answer to these problems,
in my view, is not the repeal of the AUMF or the declaration of
the end of the conflict. The first and most obvious reason for
that, and I go into some others in my written statement, is
that Congress may wish to continue to authorize military force
against foreign terrorist groups that actively threaten the
United States, and unless one believes that the result of
ending the AUMF conflict will be the near exclusive reliance on
law enforcement authorities and that this is a desirable
outcome, the realistic alternative to a new AUMF is not--is
likely to be excessive reliance on the President's inherent
Article 2 powers, and I confess I can't see that as an
attractive option.
I think the better option is a statutory option, which is
to modernize the AUMF. In my view, Congress ought to authorize
the executive branch to use force against groups the executive
formally designates as posing an imminent threat to the United
States, and it should pass a series of accountability
mechanisms so that Congress is kept informed of the executive's
view of the scope of the authorization's coverage.
The idea here is to create both a more nimble instrument--
as the enemy continues to shift it stays current and more
adaptable--but also to create a more accountable instrument
that ensures appropriate interbranch cooperation in defining
the contours of the conflict.
So if I may, I would like to tie this very briefly to the
question of intelligence collection under Section 702. Good
intelligence is key to any armed conflict and good technical
intelligence is a huge U.S. advantage in the fight against al-
Qaeda.
But technical intelligence, ironically, becomes more
important the more one attempts to narrow the conflict. So the
fewer boots on the ground we have in Afghanistan, the more we
rely on drone strikes in areas where we lack large human
networks, the more, not less, we will rely on technical
intelligence collection.
And if you imagine staying on offense against a
metastasizing al-Qaeda after the withdrawal from Afghanistan,
you have to imagine a huge burden on technical collection. And
this is why it is such a problem that even as we have narrowed
the AUMF conflict and contemplate its formal end, serial leaks
have generated such incredible anxiety about Section 702
collection and collection under Executive Order 12333, and all
these calls in the press and the general public, among our
allies and in Congress for reform and substantial changes to
these practices.
Section 702 actually sunsets in 2017. If we don't maintain
the political will to have these authorities they actually go
away. The legal regime here is one that Congress knowingly and
deliberatively created and in my view, really requires no
apology.
It really needs an active defense, and there are certainly
areas where the regime could benefit from reform. The big risk
here is that overreaction and panic in the face of exposure
will lead to a burdening of our core signals intelligence
capacity with legal processes designed to protect domestic
civil liberties.
To the extent that members of this committee and this body
continue to believe, as I do, in the essential integrity and
value of the legal authorities for intelligence collection and
oversight, the essential legislative task in this environment
is to defend that architecture publicly and energetically to
ensure it remains available.
Thank you. I would be happy to take any questions you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittes follows:]
----------
Mr. Poe. Thank you.
Each of you have been furnished a map that I mentioned at
the opening statement earlier. Generally, I would like to get
your input. Do you think that is a fairly accurate summary of
al-Qaeda worldwide? Dr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. I would quibble with the--some of the shaded
areas in a few cases and then I would add some areas in a few
others. I see no--I see no highlighting of the Sinai in Egypt
or the Muhammad Jamal network operating in Egypt. So I think it
does reflect a number of countries where al-Qaeda or other
groups are operating. I would add a few things, take a way a
few things but----
Mr. Poe. All right. Let me ask you this, all of you, and
weigh in on the money. Where does al-Qaeda generally--the core
and these little bitty groups, affiliates--where do they get
their money? Finances.
Mr. Jones. I can start.
Mr. Poe. Go ahead.
Mr. Jones. It depends on the affiliate and the specific
group. There is money that the core has received and some other
groups have received from the Gulf. We know that from wealthy
Gulf donors.
In some areas in Somalia, for example, al-Shabaab has been
involved in both illicit and licit trafficking in a whole range
of activities including charcoal. Kidnappings have been
extremely profitable among al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliates.
So I would say there is a fair amount of redundancy in the
financing from wealthy donors including from the Gulf but also
now from the Levant with the Syrian groups from the kidnapping
and from other licit and illicit activities.
Mr. Poe. Do you want to add anything to that, Dr. Kagan?
Mr. Kagan. I would say it is important to keep in mind how
robust and diversified are the sources of income that these
various groups harness.
The threat finance problem here is an absolute nightmare
and it is not something that I think we are likely to be very
successful with although we could be doing a lot more I think
than we have been in come cases.
But one of the things that Seth did mention that I think is
very important to keep in mind is where they control territory
they tax the population and this is not a terror----
Mr. Poe. They set up their own tax structure?
Mr. Kagan. They do.
Mr. Poe. When they control an area they tax the people like
they were the legitimate government?
Mr. Kagan. They do, and it is very important to keep that--
--
Mr. Poe. And they are doing that in Syria, aren't they?
Mr. Kagan. They are doing it in areas of Syria. They are
doing it in Iraq. They are doing it a little bit more carefully
in Yemen. They had been doing it a lot in Somalia. They are
doing it in North Africa.
They are also--you know, they were trying to do it in the
Caucuses until the Russians had at them and that is one of the
areas on the map that needs to be added back in because the
Islamic emirate of the Caucuses which had been moribund is no
longer and is a group that is going to matter. But they do have
the trappings of a state.
They do set up the trappings of a formal state. In fact,
al-Qaeda in Iraq, or ISIS, is setting up governorates all
around Afghanistan and it is really important, again, that we
keep that in mind because too often the discussion is had in
terms of al-Qaeda as a terrorist group that intends to attack
us.
It is a terrorist group. It does intend to attack us but
that is not how it defines itself. It defines itself as an
insurgency moving into a governing power wherever it can.
Mr. Poe. They go in and take, try to take over an area of
some country----
Mr. Kagan. Right.
Mr. Poe [continuing]. And just set up a state within a
state of some type?
Mr. Kagan. Well, they set up an independent emirate and
then they talk about the relationship of that emirate to other
emirates that they are trying to set up.
Mr. Poe. All right. And let me ask this of you. What is--
what is our overall plan? We have talked about al-Qaeda here
for several hours. What is the United States' overall policy
and plan and where do we need to improve it?
I am not looking for criticism of any administration. I
just want to know what is our plan, what do we do if we want to
eliminate, go after, diminish this al-Qaeda threat? Dr. Jones,
you are first again.
Mr. Jones. I don't know what the plan is. We have put out
a--the administration has put out a counter terrorism strategy
but I see different plans from different government agencies
that are sometimes coordinated and sometimes not very well
coordinated. I cannot give you a concise answer about what our
plan is.
Mr. Poe. So we don't have a plan that you know of. What
should it be? Dr. Kagan, do you want to weigh in on that in the
remaining minute?
Mr. Kagan. In 30 seconds what should the plan for defeating
al-Qaeda be?
Mr. Poe. Yes. Thirty seconds.
Mr. Kagan. I don't know. The problem is that not only do we
not have a plan but we don't have an agreed upon definition and
this is something that is very distressing at this point. But
when you look through administration statements, and we will
have a paper coming out soon from AEI from Mary Habeck, going
through this in a lot of detail it is actually very hard to
figure out exactly what the administration thinks al-Qaeda is.
And so before we have a plan----
Mr. Poe. So we can't define the enemy, so to speak?
Mr. Kagan. Well, I think one could define the enemy but I
think that this administration has not defined the enemy in any
clear way and there is no prospect for having a plan to deal
with something that you haven't defined properly.
Mr. Poe. Right. I yield to the ranking member, Mr. Sherman,
from California.
Mr. Sherman. I would point out that al-Qaeda and its
ideology will inspire people to die and to kill until such time
as it becomes apparent that dying and killing will not bring
any portion of the victory that they are seeking, that it will
not recreate a single Islamic caliphate.
It will not conquer additional territories for Islam beyond
where there are Islamic majorities today and that it won't take
every Islamic society back to the seventh century. We are going
to have to spend a decade or two longer managing the problem
until it becomes apparent to those with a very long time
horizon that their tactics aren't working.
The question is can a society that brought--that defined
instant gratification carry on a conflict that may outlast both
you and I, Mr. Chairman, because they are not going away
anytime soon and as long as their ideology has appeal and the
prospect of victory has not been defeated, we are going to be
facing them.
Speaking of terrorist financing, Mr. bin-Laden personally
was a pretty wealthy man. What happened to his fortune? Does
anybody know? I have got two witnesses shaking their heads and
one not responding at all so I assume we don't know.
Mr. Wittes, you talk about legal authority and the
authorization to use military force. We have a War Powers Act
that was designed in response to the Vietnam War where the
focus of war powers was troops on the ground for a certain
amount of time.
Arguably, an unlimited number of drone attacks is
authorized by the War Powers Act that says as long as you get
in and out in 60 days I am not sure you even have to file a
report.
But if you have to file a report that is all you have to
do. You are here visiting the world's most prominent
dysfunctional Parliament. Do you really think we are going--
beyond relying on the War Powers Act and the authorization to
use military force, do you really think we can pass anything
else? I would think that perhaps we could pass something that
is designed to trim and reduce the authorization to use
military force and sell it not as passing something new but
restricting something old.
But what would you propose--what should be the legal
structure to guide us for the next 10 years?
Mr. Wittes. Well, so, I mean, so the question of what is
politically doable is, frankly, beyond my competence. My job is
to sort of figure out what I think the right answer is and so I
think there is basically two problems with the existing AUMF.
One is that in one sense it is hopelessly over broad,
right. It doesn't have an end date. It authorizes sort of
endless war against anybody the President decides is
responsible for 9/11 or who harbored that person or who is
affiliated with that person, right, and it doesn't have a lot
of accountability mechanisms associated with it.
And you are quite right that the War Powers resolution asks
for--you know, has this sort of very intermittent interaction
with deployments of force involving the AUMF. So it does
authorize a sort of whole lot of unaccountable, you know, long-
term violence.
On the other hand, it is also hopelessly too narrow, right,
and some of the issues that Dr. Kagan raised----
Mr. Sherman. Are you saying it is too narrow because it
doesn't focus on every terrorist group that might wish us harm
but only on those that have some connection with the original
al-Qaeda?
Mr. Wittes. Well, but take, for example, the group that
formulates in the post-9/11 era, joins the fight to various
extents and is a rising emergent power that we have every
reason to be worried about and that military force may
reasonably play a role in counteracting but that hasn't crossed
that threshold of--the administration has a complicated and not
altogether public legal test about who counts as al-Qaeda but
that hasn't yet crossed that threshold or maybe as in the case
of al-Shabaab parts of it have and parts of it haven't.
And so you don't really know what the scope of the AUMF is
vis-a-vis those groups that you might want to use force
against. So what I would think is when you have--when you have
an authorization that is in some ways substantively too narrow
and in some ways, you know, too broad a grant of unaccountable
power, the right strategy and we actually, a group of us----
Mr. Sherman. Perhaps you could furnish for the record the
AUMF reform act.
Mr. Wittes. As a matter of fact, sir, I can. About a year
ago, my colleagues Jack Goldsmith, Bobby Chesney and Matt
Waxman and I tried to--tried to figure out sort of what would
it take to rewrite the AUMF and we laid out in a sort of series
of options what we would do.
And, you know, I was a little but surprised when a few
months later the President's reaction not to the paper in
particular, obviously, but to the issue in general was that he
would not sign and would not contemplate any sort of new AUMF.
He was looking for its repeal. I do think that is the wrong
direction to go. But I also think relying indefinitely on the
current AUMF is a big mistake and it is asking for trouble. It
is asking for trouble across a lot of different----
Mr. Sherman. It certainly poses some real risks to civil
liberties.
Mr. Wittes. But I would be delighted to give you a copy of
this if you want the details of my thoughts on it.
Mr. Sherman. Without objection we will make it--excuse me.
I would ask unanimous consent that it be made part of the
record.
Mr. Poe. Without objection it is part of the record.
Mr. Sherman. Had to get that role right. I used to sit over
there. I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I want to thank you all for being here and your
testimony--written testimony too is excellent and helps to
broaden the scope of our knowledge of what has taken place in
the world.
Thank you, all three of you, and the committee--the
subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m. the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the RecordNotice deg.
\\ts\
[Note: The essay submitted for the record by Mr. Benjamin Wittes,
senior fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution, entitled
``A Statutory Framework for Next-Generation Terrorist Threats,'' is not
reprinted here but is available
in committee records. This essay may also be accessed via the Internet
at:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/monographs/141271]