statements at least from our three witnesses before we go to vote some will try to keep it as long as possible and get back as quickly as we can but we are joined by three witnesses this morning gary reed who is the deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations in combating terrorism at the department of defense admiral eric olson united states navy who is the commander of special operations command and ambassador daniel benjamin the counterterrorism coordinator for the department of state and the purpose of this hearing is to offer the committee members brief background on our ongoing fight against al qaeda in our knowledge of their terrorist network sorry about the move back a little bit and in peninsula in response to the recent attempted bombing of the airline flight on christmas day that apparently appears to have at least in part come out of yemen to give us a broader understanding of the broad global flight that is going on against al qaeda been on the armed services committee for thirteen years now and shared this committee for three years and i can assure the american public the three gentlemen in front of us and many many others have been working for a long time against the threat that al qaeda presents and working in a comprehensive fashion it is not a battle that is limited to afghanistan or pakistan or rock we understand that this is a  threat to sizes in a variety of different directions and we are responding to that threat other members of this committee have been around the world to a variety of different places where this is going on certainly again we've been to iraq and afghanistan and pakistan but we've also been to the philippines to indonesia to yemen other parts of the middle east and in africa it is a comprehensive struggle that we are engaged in and we are engaged aggressively in protecting the united states of america from that threat i am particularly want to point out that the special operations command is the command that has primary responsibility for coordinating this response they work very closely with the very various regional combatant commanders but they are the ones that take the lead in coordinating the fight against al qaeda and against other terrorist groups and they are doing an outstanding job the men and women who serve in our special forces are some of the best that we have to offer in this country and they're doing a great job all across the world not behalf to prepare for us get us in a position to fight back against al qaeda so with that i will yield to mr miller for any opening statement that he might have the ranking member on the committee  safe haven from which we operate they operate we cannot destroy our efforts however to specific countries or regions as our enemy is unbounded in its approach as al qaeda continues to morph and adapt we must also be agile in our approach countering the threat of terrorism around the globe and with that i'd like to add my statement for the record thank you i too have a statement for the record that the bells have gone off we're going to press on for a little while anyway get as much testimony as we in with regards to the fight against al qaeda involves top secret information that we don't want our enemies to know all three of these folks here have information that is of a secret nature that they will not be revealing during this public hearings i think it is important nonetheless to have this hearing to talk about what we can talk about what the public know that we are responding to the threat but i would encourage all members of this committee if they have questions that require secret information seek out these gentlemen seek out their departments they are always very open and willing to meet with members and do that for the purposes of this hearing obviously they will not be able to reveal that information but we can get it in a different form mystery please go hang thank you mr chairman and with your permission and congressman miller distinguished members  i just have a brief opening remarks thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the threat of al qaida in iraq damp and and other regions of the world the department of defense appreciates the enduring efforts of this committee to provide our special operations forces with the tools they need to defeat al qaeda to protect themselves from improvised explosive devices and to operate at the leading edge of technology and today's extremely complex global security environment although the attempted terrorist attack on december twenty fifth on u s soil the duty of all muslims to fight in every part of the world bin laden's exploitation of and governed in poorly governed reasons such as pakistan's federally federally tribe or federally administered tribal areas the transfer hell the horn of africa and the remote islands of the south pacific a sanctuary for his movement reflects his aspirations to establish a new caliphate that would extend from mauritania to indonesia although department of defense efforts to counter al qaida around the world must be tailored to each specific region they all rely on the concurrent execution of training and equipping our partner nation security forces increasing intelligence collection on the enemy threat and conducting with our partners counterterrorism operations and if i could just provide a brief overview of how this manifests itself of and several regions in pakistan the al qaeda core of those still a dangerous threat has been significantly weakened by the operations and activities of many nations against them since two thousand  through the resources and authorities provided by the pakistan counterinsurgency fon the department of defense will continue to provide equipment training and assistance to pack stance security forces to help improve their capabilities to defeat al qaeda and exit and its extremist allies in their country and north central africa al qaida and the islamic magreb or a q i am is currently engaged in a region wide kidnapping campaign to terrorize us and european travelers and members of the diplomatic community a q i m terrorists attempted to kidnap u s embassy employees in this year the centerpiece of our efforts to counter a q i am as the translator counterterrorism partnership the department of defense conducts bilateral training events underneath this program with partners in the region designed to improve counterterrorism capabilities and we provide c t related equipment through section twelve zero six authorities in east africa al qaida continues to use the somalia safe haven as a training and recruitment base q has provided training to al shabaab which although predominantly an internal somali movement has shown signs of expanding its operations across africa and to yemen and further into europe department of defense counterterrorism and engagements in the region are designed to deal with both near term threats and long term development challenges we worked closely with our international and interagency partners to address al qaida and other terrorist threats emanating from the horn of africa our long term regional strategy is led by combined joint task force horn of africa which employs an indirect approach to countering violent extremism conducting operations to strengthen partner nation security capacity to enable long term stability stability predict prevent conflict and protect u s and coalition interest august two thousand and nine and of course he attempted to summer two thousand december twenty fifth attack on the u s commercial airliner to defeat a q a p the department of defense cooperates closely with yemeni security forces since two thousand and six we provided over ninety eight million dollars in counterterrorism assistance to increase their capabilities to prevent cross border arms trafficking and regional foreign fighter flows develop competent counterterrorism forces and medicate the threat of improvised explosive devices we anticipate continuing a high level of commitment to developing yemen's military and counterterrorism capacity in the future through a broad array of bilateral and multilateral initiatives that department supports u s government efforts to address yemen's political economic and humanitarian concerns in iraq although still capable of dramatic suicide bombings al qaida has been declining since the june two thousand and six operation that led to the death of former leader abu musaab was our colleague the u s military continues to provide training and assistance to iraqi counterterrorism forces and will continue to provide this assistance until u s forces are withdrawn at the end of two thousand and eleven and southeast asia has always been attracted to the large population of muslims in the region long before the attacks of nine eleven they s islamiya an organization led by indonesian extremists cells got across malaysia singapore indonesia and the philippines their hotel bombings in bali in jakarta have killed hundreds despite these attacks indonesian forces have had significant success the u s military counter terrorism command to the region is anchored by joint special operations task force philippines and supported by other training and assistance engagement in southeast asia mr chairman again i thank you for inviting me and i look members of the committee i do thank you for this opportunity to appear before this committee to discuss the threat posed by al qaeda and its associated movements and groups and i'm very pleased to join my colleagues investor benjamin and mr reed today we do in fact meet regularly exploitation of religion nationalism and perceived exploitation with violent action and extremist rhetoric in a way that has attracted thousands of recruits and made heroes of its top leaders al qaeda goals are ambitious employ broad network to conduct local regional and trance regional operations intended to recruit inspire and incite some while intimidating and terrorize in others in order to dominate territory and control the population this provides sa havens then service training areas and bases of operations to launch attacks back and influence originally operating almost exclusively from within taliban controlled afghanistan al qaeda has expanded and become geographically dispersed over the past eight years since it was substantially pushed out of afghanistan into western pakistan in the opening weeks of operation enduring freedom is now difficult to define more than two dozen associated and inherent groups have established themselves in iraq the arabian peninsula the horn of africa the transparent region the magreb of north africa west africa and southeast asia and there are several different groups now operating within and from afghanistan and pakistan leaders have proven elusive and they have learned to use a variety of technical and non technical means to communicate and as you noted mr chairman within the u s government's efforts to challenge and ultimately defeat qaeda special operations command has been doesn't it and as the combatant commander responsible for synchronizing the department of defense is planning against terrorists and terrorist networks we do this through a continuous series of virtual meetings across many government agencies and serving in this role as an extension of the joint staff we receive in review supporting plan submitted by each of the geographic combatant commanders we prioritize the global requirements and then we make recommendations regarding force and resource allocation special operations command has also been dozens of the department of defense lead for foreign terrorist financing and the d o d proponent for security forces systems of means of helping enable less capable countries to be more effective in addressing threats posed to them qaeda special operations command contribution the is in the people based capabilities we provide to operational commanders the special operations force with the support and oversight provided by this committee is well positioned to meet the nation's highest expectations when and where elements of special operations forces are properly employed mostly in small teams in remote places they're making a real difference against the al qaeda network certainly many rising al qaeda leaders have been killed or captured and in many villages our people have provided nonviolent alternatives to all kinds of presents but there is much more to do we must learn to better address receipt of islam successful messaging financing training smuggling and the of brutality that characterize al qaeda and we must do these in partnership with or in support of other nations all of this will require a comprehensive and enduring approach thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee and i stand ready for your questions thank you i think we are down to about two or three minutes on the but we're going to run and do that and then we'll take ambassador mention his testimony it's my hope that we'll be able to be back half hour to forty minutes and we'll try to get back quickly as we can thank you i think out of respect this time we will go ahead and get started i know we have about forty five minutes away there so we'll get started and in the queue and other members to show up and follow up on issues that they're interested in  turn it over to ambassador benjamin for his opening statement mr chairman distinguished members of the committee thanks very much for the opportunity to appear here today thank you for casting a light on this important set of issues i have also already submitted a written statement and i'll try to summarize here the attempted bombing of northwest flight two fifty three which nearly cost several hundred people their lives was a close call the president has rightly demanded reviews of in corrections to the key failures that led to the incident the event was a stark reminder that as the president stated recently notwithstanding our many successes against al qaeda we face a nimble adversary moreover the events of december twenty fifth have shown that at least one al qaeda affiliate not just the group's core leadership in pakistan has the potential and the interest to carry out strikes against the american homeland yet we need to also make a sober judgment about the capabilities and status of al  affiliates the group has been under unprecedented pressure in the fatah the federally administered tribal areas and continues to suffer significant setbacks and losses al qaida and its affiliates have failed to mobilize large numbers of supporters y mutability to attract recruits and their technological savvy means that they continue to constitute a formidable foe let me look at a few key see editors al qaida in afghanistan and pakistan the beating heart of the global network remains located in the afghan afghanistan pakistan border region the president has made clear that the mission of the united states in afghanistan pakistan is to disrupt dismantle and defeat al qaeda and prevent its return to both countries despite the setbacks al qaida has suffered the taliban and other extremist groups continue to provide it with support and at this remains a capable and dangerous enemy hence the critical importance of our military and civilian efforts in afghanistan a key element of these efforts against al qaida will be the significant expansion of our support for pakistan and its people their assistance will demonstrate the united states commitment to addressing problems that affect the everyday lives of pakistanis and bolster pakistan against the threat of extremism pakistan is a frontline partner in our counterterrorism efforts and we are committed to working with it to defeat and dismantle al qaeda and counter the violent extreme isn't that threatens both of our countries both nations are heavily invested in this relationship and as general mcchrystal noted earlier this month the trust deficit between pakistan and the u peninsula is not a new front in our war against al qaida indeed al qaida has had a presence in yemen since well before the united states had even identified the group in one thousand nine hundred two militants who claimed allegiance to bin laden attacked a hotel in aden which was then housing american military personnel who were on their way to somalia to support the un mission in the one nine hundred ninety s a series of major conspiracies were based in yemen most of them aimed at saudi arabia following the attack on the u s s cole in two thousand the yemeni government with support from the united states dealt significant close to al qaeda presence in yemen through military operations and arrests of key leaders during much of the subsequent period the government of yemen became distracted by other domestic security concerns in our bilateral cooperation experienced setbacks next door however in saudi arabia al qaida al qaeda attacks galvanized the government of the qin the kingdom to dramatically improve its counterterrorism efforts the downside of this good news story is that many of the radicals driven out of saudi arabia fled to yemen joining other fighters there this is one of the greatest challenges of the contemporary threat the ability al qaeda and its affiliates have to continually exploit pearlie or ungoverned territor thousand and nine has led to a new whole of government approach to yemen that seeks to mobilize and coordinate with other international actors our strategy aims to address the root causes of instability encourage political reconciliation improve governance and build the capacity of yemen's government to exercise its authority protect and deliver services to its people u s strategy towards yemen is two pronged first strengthen the government of yemen's ability to promote security and minimize the threat from violent extremists within its borders and to mitigate yemen's economic crisis and deficiencies in government capacity provision of services and transparency as yemen security challenges and its social political and economic challenges are interrelated and mutually reinforcing so u s policy must be comprehensive and flexible in order to be effective in the short and in the long term in the past year the administration has maintained a vigorous tempo of senior level visits to yemen most recently by general petraeus deputy national security advisor brennan and assistant secretary feltman to press are concerned about a cut his ability to operate from and within yemen this intensified engagement has paid off in the last month yemen has conducted multiple air and ground operations designed to p s operational planning into privates leadership of safe haven within yemen's national territory yemen has significantly increased the pressure on al qaeda in the united states commends the yemeni government on the successful operations we are committed to continuing support for an effective counterterrorism effort that will include both security and economic development initiatives on the security front we provide training and assistance to yemen's key counterterrorism units through diplomatic security anti terrorism assistance programs we provide training to security forces in the ministry of interior including the enemy coastguard and central security forces counterterrorism unit in addition we are working with the defense department with whom we coordinate closely to use twelve o six funds for counterterrorism assistance and the united states is determined to halt and reverse a troubling socioeconomic dynamics in yemen prior as for us assistance include political and fiscal reforms and meaningful attention to a gym an internal grievances that are governance through decentralization reduced corruption and civil service reform in an economic to diversification to generate employment and enhance livelihood these initiatives will contribute to the long term health of our bilateral relationship and help we are encouraging greater coordination among regional states and france to frustrate a q i m desire to establish itself in europe and we view the near term likelihood of such an expansion of operations as diminished in recent in the in just the last few years algeria successful counterterrorism efforts have led the group to focus on the ungoverned areas of northern mali and mauritania in fact the group faces difficulties in recruiting and in some parts of algeria has largely worn out its welcome  sile but it is less of a danger to stability than that posed by a q a p or al qaida in the fatah the group is financially strapped in the increase in hostage taking is clearly an attempt to raise much needed revenue q i m has failed to establish a viable presence in morocco tunisia or libya and the muslim populations of the sahil in the magreb generally rejected six stream isn't east africa east african al qaeda q is composed of a handful experienced operatives who maintain and who have maintained a safe haven in somalia for years and now have the increasingly vocal support of the foreign terrorist organization al shabaab despite some key setbacks most notably the death of  two thousand and nine the presence of these al qaeda operatives in somalia continues to pose a threat to somali regional and western interests the a q maintains links to al shabaab which has in turn publicly pledged support for al qaida and its actively trying to overthrow the transitional federal government and other moderates and so in somalia al shabaab leaders have publicly threatened to target u s and western interests throughout east africa its forces have killed scores of civilians including t f t ministers and foreign in somalia aid workers they've stolen aiding greatly exacerbated somalia's already dire humanitarian situation even driving the united nations world food programme to cease operations in parts of somalia early earlier this month operations by foreign terrorists and somalia will not be a stable as long as terrorist groups are active there in addition to humanitarian assistance the united states has been providing support primarily through equipment logistical support and training to the african union mission in somalia amazon and the t f the president has underscored that we must continue to take the fight to al qaida and its allies wherever they plot and train doing that will require the military diplomatic intelligence and law enforcement resources of the u s and our allies we must also look to what deputy national security advisor john br n has called the upstream factors we need to confront the political social and economic conditions that our enemies exploit to win over new recruits funders and those whose tacit support enables the militants to carry forward their plans we know that violent extremism flourishes where there is marginalization and perceived or real relative deprivation and recognition of this my office has set up a unit focusing on countering violent extremism which will target local communities most prone to radicalization we must do more to address the underlying conditions for at risk populations and improve the ability of moderates to voice their views and strengthen opposition to violence in closing mr chairman let me just say that the contemporary terrorist threat was decades in the making and it will take many more years to unmake it there is still much we need to learn especially about how to prevent individuals from choosing the path of violence but i believe we now have the right framework for policies that will strengthen security for our nation and the global community thank you very much for the invitation speaker today and i look forward to your questions thank you i believe that we have done a fairly effective job of targeting al qaeda networks the leadership of socom in cooperation of a lot of different agencies coming out of which a sock did starting in iraq and more broadly i think there is an excellent interagency process going on right now that has cooperation that has targeted all of those different groups to i mentioned and i think really disrupted their leadership in an aggressive way and also change the way that they have to try to plan to coordinate their attacks they're not too anxious to be talking on cell phones or working on the internet now or to even move around and i think that is a very effective disruptive tactic the thing that sort of gives me the most concern is what you talked about at  that right now throughout the muslim world having greater success with their message that we would like now i think it's true that some sort of backlash on them some of the more violent acts undermine support for al got doing some stuff bunch of different sort of layers to this the n s c is looking at it in terms of their strategic communications message can you talk to us a little bit about how all those different pieces are going to come together better and have better  time with really getting the strategic view in articulating a plan that will deal with the long term because as virtually everyone who has looked at this knows well we are not going to shoot our way out of this problem  i think that one of the hallmarks of the obama administration approach has been that we've put radicalization at the core of our of our concerns and we are thinking very hard about how we proceed in a way that if we take one terrorist  certainly a good news story at the same time they are having not they're not having problems in finding the recruits they need and that for american or terrorism perspective is a bad news story you asked about the interagency i think that  first of all whenever we have looked at this as a government what we do well and what we don't i think that actually the official version tracks very well as what some of us who are outside the government previously thought which is that we didn't we didn't have the right approach on what is as countering violent extremism or perhaps even softer global engagement side i think that there is a clear understanding across the interagency now that this is a very high priority and that  we we need to coordinate better and we need to make this a higher priority we need to put the resources resources against it to carry through as i said at the end we there's still a lot we don't know about why people turn to violence and we need more research on this and there is a thriving research there thriving research going on within the academic community that we are studying there's also a great deal of research going on within the government public diplomacy and  and strategic communications clearly play a vital part in this in terms of reaching out to the large mainstream of the muslim world that that does not want to see violence at the heart of their faith and i think that we are making a lot of progress there certainly having president obama's speech deep in gauge men on this issue has made a difference in terms of global engagement and his his trip to turkey has no roo message his speech in cairo all of these have made an important difference and and i think that they can be make a lasting difference if we follow them up expeditiously what i would point out is that  countering radicalization specifically it's a it's a in some ways a taller order because we are not a trusted interlocutor for people who are on the verge of taking the path of violence and that is why we've set up this cd shop within my office to figure out what the interventions are that might be needed to deal with those at risk community specifically what should we be doing in these micro climates in a sense to address the socioeconomic drivers because even though poverty doesn't cause terrorism it certainly can be the case that under recruits well it certainly useful it provides recruits and it's it's useful as an instrument to others who want to point to the deprivation as an indication of the truth of the al qaeda narrative so we're looking at that we're looking at other ways of enhanced in the ability of moderate voices to be heard there is a lot of work going on we're working collaborative said in your opening comments that increasing recidivism rates are contributing to al qaeda as regeneration former detainees are rejoining the ranks of violent extremists do we know how many of these former detainees are from get mowen if if any and are they currently regenerating into the terrorist networks and if they are are we tracking them do we have a way to track  them so we know there are songs i don't think we know precisely how many and and different elements of the intelligence community would come up with slightly different numbers i think the general sense is that probably on the order of a fifth engaging in some sort of of activity that works against our interests or ability to track it is of course limited but there are there are some efforts to do that with  you're talking about those segments of communities that are closest to radicalization it may be people who espouse some ideas that we don't exactly embrace but who are nonetheless trusted because of  some overlap in values and what i'm suggesting here is that the critical issue for us is ensuring that these people if i can if i can interrupt you you specifically said the united states was not a trusted interlocutor can you name somebody who is well there are many clerics for example who will not be sitter the united states to be a great friend of the muslim world both will also be anti violent and those people are as far as we're concerned very much working in our interests day are turning people away from al qaida would you name them there quite a number of them in detail you were very quick to say the united states was not a trusted interlocutor i'd hope that you would be just as quick to tell me somebody that was well i'm not sure that i want to undermine them by associating us with them i don't even have to supply you with a list of of such  with the gentleman yield as i believe him bastard benjamin made that statement within the context of trying to reach these kids mostly who are becoming radicalized and i think your suggestion is that if you know i can lay claim if i can get my time because you you mentioned the united states as a whole now you're talking about individual interlocutors and that's what i'm trying to figure out why is there anybody united states that trusted to talk to these so i'm sure that there are for example american muslim spokesman who would be who would be trusted in this regard we do know the state department pays for muslim me moms to fly around the world and talk about what it's like to be a muslim in the united states i am fully aware of that but i'm not sure that those programs are targeted at the communities that we're discussing so i'm sure they're not not specially when they go to countries like sweden which i think is ridiculous but i just i find it kind of odd that you would single out that is that the united states of america collectively is not particularly trusted in the broader non u s muslim world so when we're thinking about ways to deliver a message to and my question is name me a country that is i don't think we can name a country but you said the united states was not so there must be a country that is not sure that that logically follow an interesting exchange obviously the united states acts through individuals the corporate united states can't do anything independently it's just a concept and so i guess your point is that if an individual is seen as advancing the interests of the united states it's kind of difficult for that individual to be persuasive with somebody who's tended to get radicalized in this movement which is wholly anti united states i guess that's your point afghanistan pakistan it's al qaeda central has been identified as al qaeda central for quite some time and pakistan has nuclear weapons nuclear technology and a history of exporting nuclear technology so we've got a real strategic and that's that's quite clear it becomes a little less clear what our strategic interest is as we sort of look around north africa and elsewhere you know take  out that was a nationalist movement that was largely failing they couldn't get recruits they couldn't get money and so they said ok we're all and all of a sudden they get recruits and they get some money and yet their their behavior is largely the same they're doing exactly the same thing that they were in essence doing before hand just sort of robbing people and you know making a living off being kidnapping people things like that and to the extent that we think we're going to somehow  void countries difficult economic circumstances across the board and across the world and that's going to solve our problem that's pretty unrealistic particularly given the trends that we're going to have more weak states and more economic problems facing global populations to the extent that every time somebody hops up and says i'm al qaeda we're going to run over there to great expense to us you know relatively very asymmetrical relationship there  and attempt to shoot our way out of it when we all concede we can't shoot our way out of this i found myself i think it would be very helpful oh and also we as we as we jump to respond to each one of these little groups that says where al weeks or play into this notion that this is us against islam because they just scatter themselves across all of islam and then all of a sudden we're present in all of islam and with gripes about the behavior of the local populace permitting these individuals to act the way they are so i think would be real helpful to mystery thank you for the question and it certainly is one that we also consider and think of the context of these various groups that we've talked about here and as you mentioned congressman the  and others i think what i would first say is the al qaida network that we described is comprised of these key allies there are a number of other elements we i did not bring up today and mostly in the interest of time that our affiliates or lesser allies but there are some core allies and ambassador mentioned and i both talked about most of those in our statements and i think the if you look at yemen as an as an illustration of what we don't know about where the next attack could be coming from so i agree that the everything you said about the war in the realm worries me a little bit that there are lots of places in the world including within the united states where somebody could decide that they're going to do something awful absolutely that we would object back to what's the strategic interest and i would say sir what i was leading to there is these other areas particularly transparent the horn of africa and the remote areas of yemen provide an opportunity and a potential pathway of shifting the locus of attack planning against us which does cut into our our strategic interests and allows the court to continue to operate so a comprehensive approach to network defeat has to consider these alternate locations because they do have potential out of time  the fundamental strategic needs defense of the homeland and that requires prevention of the development of safe havens from which attacks against our homeland or a vital interest can be launched i would say that a group cannot self declare affectively an allegiance to al qaida and through simple declaration become a group of high interest to us there is a careful and deliberate quite precise process through which a group is designated by our government doesn't affiliate which then leads to a participation and some investment against that group but our preference is always to work through the host nation through supporting the development of capabilities within that nation to deal with its own problems an american all advantages then you look at the ones who come out of these impoverished areas and govern spaces what causes that and how we addressing it because it seems to me this is a  problem is they were caught up in they were collateral damage so to speak and your answer to a similar question it was not until late in your answer that you use the word clerk or muslim and it's troubling that that given their problem really i don't think that that the christians or americans remotely have best ideas as to how to counter radicalization that it would be that late in your quite your answer is that we wouldn't be engaging for lack of a better phrase moderate muslims because to me that's who has got to solve this radicalization problem are the moderate muslims they've got to stand up many of them are and some that you mentioned but comment on that and then  broader question is what's the saudi arabia saudis attitude toward yemen because it seems to me that they are equally disposed to going after saudi as they are us and watch the saudis attitude and our help and they help  fellow believers and that's why it is vitally important we create more political space for moderates that we find ways to constrain the environment in which radicals operate so that people believe that that is not in their interest to having to have terrorists to have radical extremists operating in their neighborhoods in their cities and that will leaders that would be alexandria virginia where major son grew up well for example quite clearly from the reviews we've seen there were failures in not noticing the kind of radical influences that he was a spouse and one of the things that we are looking forward to over the long term is creating environments in which people take seriously radical statements and consider that to be their problem as well and begin to confront that and find interventions whether it's clerical therapeutic course of some other kind that is one of the ways that we're going to tamp down radicalization and there are many different ways that we're going to have to get at that but i think the key thing is to help other countries and communities that have a radicalization problem to create the structures in which they contain it identify it and defeat it really you asked about saudi arabia saudi arabia is every bit as concerned i'm more concerned about a remember their deputy interior minister who's the head of counterterrorism was nearly killed several months ago by an a q a p attack that a similar device to the one that was employed on the northwest flight saudi arabia is the country that has the most influence with yemen and they're working very hard to get the yemenis to maintain  went but you know this is a country that has enormous economic needs including simply budget support and and also training of their security forces so it's not news that the economic requirements of the government of yemen are rather  just to go back to the earlier point i think we do have to identify and address in advance these potential safe havens and some of these operations and engagements we talked about today get to that they have telegraphed this already with their but there was a period of time in the one nine hundred ninety s when we were quite worried about radicalization particularly in the tri border region in south america but the countries in that region have done quite a good job i think it can diminishing threat there and that points to a larger issue which was in response to the earlier question which is that however we define our strategic goals a key part of the answer is going to be capacity building because  qaeda and its affiliates are going to show up in many many different places and we need to have a strategy for enabling those who are in those regions to confront their threats and deal with them because we cannot be everywhere all the time and we cannot fall into the trap of expanding enormous amounts of treasure running to wherever and suggested they just declare that they're there mr bright mr chairman thank you very much for this hearing worthwhile and gentlemen thank you for your presence in your testimony and my colleague pretty much asked my question but i'm going to probably phrase a little differently and see if i can get a little more information but quite frankly i'm not sure  expertise and your knowledge where do you think the next area might develop and for us to be watching out and i guess my question is what specifically are we doing  describe sir and so when they laid that out several years ago and say this is our strategic intent and then they start setting up these enterprises and you along the map all in that area i think you have to take it for what it represents so i do think it is it is a strategic effort and it doesn't have the same level of success in every area what we can do to learn more about it goes back to what ambassador management just mentioned and that is to strengthen the security capacity and institutions of our partners in those areas and that is where our department of defense efforts are focused in this security force assistance across across many of these countries and regions we've discussed today we have been engaged for many years in training equipping advising and helping these countries build up a force that's capable of dealing with terrorism very many of them have never organized their defense or security forces around that type of threat and as we ourselves have learned over many years of war it does take an adaptation of your armed forces to to optimize against that threat sure  about where next year they're trying to move ahead of them or chase them to that place but it's really the notion of applying pressure wherever they are with persistence preferably through the government of the nation that is currently serving as a location we have not been successful and predict in absolutely where the next attack on the united states would be launched we know where all is but we don't know in many cases but we don't know for certain which element of all is the one most ready to say simply two things one is that we should never be complacent about the possibility of radicalization within our midst and the trickle that we have seen of people who have gone to east africa to fight and who have become radicalized there ought to be cause for concern we're certainly not immune to the same holds true for western europe which has also seen occasional radical is a cases of radicalization and there are a number of people who are training in the fatah who come from those countries i would also say that among the things that keeps me up at night is not so much a new a new geographic theater as a different form if it has some obvious limb i mean the was the jordanian who was the suicide bomber that killed our cia agents had been one of those that had been reformed early on or saudi arabia was pretty much saying you know it's got a one hundred percent success ratio  had any success and actually we are seeing it once people have been radicalized and if so how is that work so i would just note that it's quite possible  people are being released this far into the war that those of the the longest probably are the more hardcore and it sort of elevates the potential of the  phenomenon logically those released earlier presumably guilty of less or less along the spectrum so i think that's a factor as we look at the timelines and the increases i think we have to consider that there is some logic to that and i think it speaks to that the careful consideration that's given for further releases to the saudi program from all that i've seen it is generally a successful program clearly one is too many when it comes to someone like our amy or one of these characters that's currently fighting us but but among those that we work with it has shown great success and they do invest quite a bit in it and they have offered to help us form these programs elsewhere but i do think that one point about the group of people we're dealing with is going to spike those numbers and you mentioned rethinking thinking our policy on when to release detainees in light of some of what we've learned can you spell that out a halt to that to review particular the yemeni problem and it is a problem that we have been dealing with for several years and trying to find a way to release them overall and broadly the system is well developed and it's an inter agency system with a great amount of discussion and a great amount of review from all angles about the risks of release and the factors go into what we know about the individual population or what country we intend to release them and what the likelihood and the risk factors are there and they're all very carefully considered in every decision to release either your comment i would just add that one of the key considerations now and will continue to be the ability of law enforcement and intelligence services in those countries to monitor those who are being released and that that is something that i know that the interagency process looks at very carefully now and that will continue to be the case because quite frankly a one hundred percent of his emirate is likely unattainable so it's going to be important that we have capable partners who are going to be able to deal with the threats within their borders so i follow up a little bit on i think mr marshall raised the issue of our footprint as we go around every time someone pledged allegiance to al qaeda we don't want to show up in force but i think one of the strengths of what socom what some of the other agencies have done is where we see threats in a variety of different places we can deal with them with a very light footprint in fact i think going forward when you look you know iraq afghanistan those would not be the models of how we hope to be able to operate in the future that we can do it working with the host nations in a cooperative fashion and i know i'm also into the agree with you get into this can you talk a little bit about how a light footprint can in and the military and law enforcement to provide better for their own sovereignty and their own security it's difficult to measure measure success by what doesn't happen but you are i would second what you said that there are there is no in value to what it is we're doing in relatively small footprint around the world thank you very much  was looking through your remarks and i just if i can attempted bombing of northwest flight two fifty three that may have resulted in the deaths of several hundred people efforts to strike qaeda militants attacked a hotel attack on the u s s cole al qaida attacks repeatedly targeted westerners for kidnapping for ransom have killed a number of local military  personnel an american angio worker and a british hostage carry out attacks and kidnappings hostage taking is clearly an attempt to raise revenue its forces have killed scores of civilians and then you say the president has confirmed that we must continue to take the fight to al qaeda and its allies wherever they plot and train that includes exploiting opportunities to bring out qaida operatives to justice by presenting them before a court of law that scares the hell out of me is is that supposed to scare people that will cut your head off and take you for ransom and blow up ships and i mean you don't the courts of law as it says in my statement sir we do use the entire range of different capacities to target terrorists i believe the passage that you are referring to actually talks primarily about our partners having the law enforcement capability to try terrorists within their countries which we have found as an empirical matter to have a very powerful effect in terms of discouraging radicalization because the experience of terrorists being taken into court and treated like ordinary criminals and be glorified as it were from the kind of cosmic warrior or go holy warrior image that they have is a very humbling one and i submit that the example of a country like indonesia which under our with our advice instituted a number of very important counter terrorism laws and has used a law enforcement approach among others they have killed quite a number of terrorists has been extremely successful in terms of tamping down radicalization within their borders the saudis also use a law enforcement approach within their borders and i would submit that many people would say that their rehabilitation system is even softer than their court system so i think that we need to be flexible in how we approach these matters we have i think by and large encouraged our counterterrorism partners around the globe to strengthen their rule of law institutions as part of our broader counterterrorism efforts and they have been very successful but your statement says doing that will require the military intelligence and law enforcement resources of the u s and the allies so it's not just the courts of our allies you're talking about the courts of the united states as well are you not well i certainly support the president the attorney general's decision to try people in american courts i think that this is a vindication of our system and this is an appropriate response to the threat we have at hand i do not suggest by any means that the only response to terrorism is to insist on the arrest the capture and arrest and conviction of terrorists there many terrorists who are far beyond our ability to  capture i work very closely with admirals and secretary read to deal with the others but i certainly think that a law enforcement approach has to be part of the arsenal that we use do you think we should kill him i think that when it is appropriate we should target terrorists with lethal force absolutely what about military tribunals and the administration has decided that in some cases tribunals are an appropriate approach i'm not the attorney general but i will certainly bowed to his authority and his counsel on this and to the president you about to the attorney general yes i'd happily defer yes thank you sir than that i'm free to say but certainly all americans know that we are prepared to hit these people and kill them and we are doing that and we're doing it weekly we're doing it not only in pakistan but we're doing it elsewhere and it's not as if we're reluctant to do so in fact we what we worry principally about is what sort of collateral damage are we going to cause once we've identified a target that's really on our list can we go ahead and kill that target  the range of things that we're tempting do back to the strategic interests you know admiral so obviously the goal is to protect the united states united states interests united states that is the question is the strategy that we're where we adopt and further and that goal we wrestled for a while there with how we should approach afghanistan should there be a troop build up and concluded that the appropriate we knew what our strategic interest was the appropriate strategy here was to go ahead and build up the capacity of the afghan people to deal with this threat themselves that wasn't going to happen without a buildup of troops for us so we were building up troops and that we had a real strategic interest unique strategic interest because the fact of  pakistan and al qaeda central and nuclear technology etc we're not suggesting that we apply the same strategy globally and it certainly is our hope that it's a lighter footprint and it's certainly our hope that we have partnerships of partners out there all of whom who have a strategic interest to further our interest in avoiding having somebody with a bomb in his underwear get on a plane and come to the united states that's very minute police work you get information about folks like that from local people who are willing to cooperate probably not with us since we have some credibility issues right now but but with local folks so we're building capacity and at the same time we're trying to give people a strategic interest to help us out now why would some of these countries have a strategic interest what how do we get them interested in helping us of fighting against their own religion in a sense they can be accused of that and they can be exposed in many different ways those individuals who step forward to say yes we do have a strategic interest in keeping people like this from hitting the united states i think that by and large the level of international cooperation in defending ourselves and our allies against this threat is is really quite good and many countries and we don't need to name them all that would that that might criticize aspects of our politics our our policies in the world if i could interrupt i don't have that much time so let's take yemen specifically and i think we would both have to concede that we cannot police the population of yemen can't be done saudi arabia could get closer to doing it but certainly we can't do it so what we would really like ideally is for somebody within yemen to police yemen so how do we get them strategically interested in doing that well i think that the experience of the last few months is indicative in that repeated engagement the  assistance and i mean high level engagement the offer of assistance to deal with this critical issue which they have come to realize threatens them this is the combination of incentives and when you bring together  different members of the international community such as saudi arabia such as the u a e in their neighborhood as well as little britain and others and interrupt yes so we're going to pay him in a sense to do this for us and do we create an environment as a result of taking that approach in which for decades if you give us enough money we'll keep the militants down if you give us enough assistance will keep the militants down i don't think that's correct we are not paying them in fact we do not give them cash subsidies our assistance to yemen is directed on the un on the humanitarian side on the  side of things it all goes through ex non governmental organization incentives that you're discussing yes obviously there are incentives on it i've heard use a shorthand some how we're going to help them but it's also a matter of of persuasion and showing them the extent to which the threat is targeted that they are targeted as well and i'm sure that part of the government's move toward a more effective stance against al conditioned by the targeting of their own intelligence officials and others within that society and that they have come to see that this endangered them this they are not in alliance with al qaeda in the arabian peninsula in any way shape or form and this is really about dealing with a threat to yemeni stability understand that but the underwear bomber how does the underwear bomber play into their you can trust which i think in fact is what you've identified there threatened as well if i you can talk to us about in general but that statement opinion would be that there's certainly an element of puffing in there but we can't dismiss the thrust they have demonstrated the ability to strike from yemen including strike at sea from yemen and i think we've got to take what they say seriously although it is in their own interest to inflate their capabilities and then planning a response goes without saying but you need to say it in a way for the record that we are in fact planning those kinds of responses necessary to counter that kind of nonsense so the response clearly depends on on what it is we're responding to but the government of yemen has very clear that the decision on where the whole the people who are currently in guantanamo is one of things that abating we have no intention of simply releasing them in fact whether one tom remains open or close has no impact whatsoever on how many of these people are going to be let out it simply isn't part of the discussion and i think that has been mixed up a number of times in public debate  you know we've transferred hundreds of these people from guantanamo under the previous administration and i think the decision not to release them to yemen anymore is a reflection of the fact that that didn't always work out in again even whether or not we release these inmates to other countries the decisions would be the same whether one tama was open or closed at that person is perceived to be a risk to be released to that other country they will not be released whether they're held in guantanamo or someplace else that's that's a tricky balance i'll grant you that and certainly in the past both administrations have you know we leased people that later return to the battlefield and we're going to take steps to change that policy and we've released some people to countries where we thought they were going to be held and they weren't held as well so we've learned from that experience and we'll hold them but again that is a separate issue and we turning a little bit to mr miller's points about holding people and civilian court and trying them in convicting them that is one piece of the broader strategy and whenever there's issues come up you seem to get the impression from the people questioning them as if that's all that we are doing it clearly is not this is a comprehensive strategy in a huge element of that comprehensive strategy has been to target and eliminate leaders in various al qaeda groups across the globe and we have been statistically more aggressive in doing that in the last year than under any year since nine eleven so we have not backed down in the least bit under the idea that there are some people who threaten us who we don't have the opportunity to bring them to court and we will use whatever means necessary to make sure that they do not threaten us however there is value to bringing these people to justice to trying them convicting them and locking them up and if that is available if that is a piece of it then that we must do this been this false dichotomy like well or either this is a law enforcement issue and i can't believe we're still having that conversation because anybody who's paying any attention knows that the answer to that question is it's both but obviously both these people threaten us in a variety of different ways some of which call for a law enforcement mechanism and some of which call for a military action and i can't believe that even the former vice president would disagree with that basic assessment it's both and then it's a matter of how you choose to do both and how smart you are in policy and where we're all and getting better at it but there's an absolute commitment i know from this administration to do what is necessary to make it secure as possible and to weigh all of those options appropriately the question that i have has to do with something that is concerning some earlier questions about  effort and i think it would be a mistake to treat those people as part of a broader global thing and give them greater importance than they may have but what has seemed to be happening with these groups is they seem to have gone from being local groups to being more invested in the broader broader jihad move even seen that with the pakistani taliban bottle in the suit these were groups that had local grievances but all of a sudden decided that they were at least publicly going to state that they were trying to do broader attacks certainly that's happened in yemen and i think we have some evidence that al shabaab is talking in the same way i am at this point confine themselves within their region but has in fact started to attack westerners tell me a little bit about you know what our analysis is of these various you know localized groups thinking and why we think they may suddenly now be willing to do these broader outside of attacks if that you know one called upon the affiliates to take more action even to the extent that the affiliates are being looked at to raise revenue for the core instead of as it used to be so i think that's a factor in why  why would the dude at why would a group that's you know we want to overthrow the algerian government what sort of the different reasonings that would make them because it seems to me would be sort of counter to their certain stated unfocused goal of in many cases years if not decades all of a sudden start doing the broader approach why would they do it in their interest to make that transition i would agree that it ought to be probably viewed as a miscalculation on their part and i think it speaks to back to i believe mr marshal question about how do you divide this and they have weakened their brand weakened their ideological strength across the network by expansion and again i think but i also think there are there are certainly plenty of indicators of stature that bin laden and zawahiri hold within these movements is powerful and there are these leaders and sub leaders that want to gain in stature by aligning with them and pledging loyalty to them and it only takes one or two in these movements to generate this type of activity so i think there is a gaining favor and gaining stature and credibility as a jihadist aligning yourself with the core and then there is the practical side of revenue generation and recruitment and they when they run attack it generates more recruits and i think that is part of now within the great strategy however it is has to be looked at as part of their overall effort to attack at us to make us look weak to strengthen themselves right out over over time so just taken a cue i am as an example faltering effort hard to persuade people to join those who are you know they attempt to recruit sort of look at their circumstances the circumstances of a hugh i am as a sense is breathed into the operation and those folks who have been at it for a while don't know any other life part of the problem with the folks that we were with that we return to that we live with that we let out a get mo wherever this is what they do this how they make their living and in economies like the ones that sort of foster this kind of problem there's not much else they can do to make a living so  not no big surprise what worries me is if we sort of get suckered into it and we acknowledge that this is a key strategic answer to the united states well then that's confirming and somehow elevating their status and yet we also can see there's not a whole heck of a lot that we can do about them the locals are going to have to deal with that so all of a sudden this is the most heroic robin hood like group that we've defined now  which makes it more difficult for the locals to deal with that robin hood like group and so i again i'm back to you know sort of what's our strategic vision here and how we just want to make that observation  branding i think that they viewed the al qaeda brand as being a global attractive brand precisely because al qaeda had inflicted the damage of nine eleven on a superpower it had attached itself rightly or wrongly to the glory of driving the soviets out of afghanistan and so i think that they felt that this was a way of getting a shot in the arm for a in the particular case of algeria for a group that was actually on the ropes and you know it has not necessarily worked out very well for them but you can understand how they made that decision what i would also point to is that there are counter trends as well and it's interrupt and ask what you mean by  very it hasn't worked out very well for them well i think that they did not attract the recruits or the finances that they expected from taking this  plunge by associating themselves with al qaida and in fact if anything it drew greater attention from regional partners from the united states and from others who decided that they wanted to contribute to capacity building in the area in cooperation is that widely conceded by those who are actually working this and in mali and elsewhere that would be my assessment i but i have two other experts here so i'll defer to them i would agree q but what it to us has the added dimension of this external aspirations directed at us and our european allies and they do have potential and there are indications of of their extra planning that concern us and that's what the  dimension brought to this group we were very well focused on g s p c in trying to assist partners in the region before the merger existed long before the merger so we see a situation where we are relatively succeeding against a group  have been approached about merging and have declined to in the libyan islamic fighting group is a case in point a group that is actually in negotiations to put down its arms or perhaps those negotiations have been concluded a group that saw the didn't have a future  with al qaida didn't want the external direction of that sort and you know that is suggest to me that the that the picture is more complicated out there and in fact within the  gyptian group of radicals some chose to go with al qaida some chose not to some decided that the al qaeda argument about attacking the far enemy attacking the west was persuasive others did not so it's it's not a monolithic picture and i think that's important to speech being most prominent i think we need to do a better job of making clear why that is so important in the broader battle against al qaeda and i think that sort of gets into the narrative that al qaeda is pushing i think is a number of different pieces and one of the things i do believe that we need to do better is a little bit of negative campaigning i think out qaeda has fallen the most based on their own actions basically certainly we've disrupted them but you know you look to the bombing  jordan when they bombed the wedding party at the hotel jordan just totally you know the population in the country always was against the population turned against them the violent acts and others in iraq totally turned the iraqi population against them so sort of pointing out as i like to put it that you know for all of the ideology for the you know they love to go online and talk about their islamic outlook and all of the stuff at the bottom the end of the day there are a bunch of violent psychopaths and when that is made obvious that undermines their support across the muslim world we certainly want to make that point but the other side their message to muslims that has some appeal is many many muslim countries don't have a great deal of economic opportunity don't have a great deal political freedom and al qaeda blames the west for that the west is at war with islam in a nutshell that is their message if you go into jihad it is a defensive posture because of what the west is doing to us they want to eliminate us i mean that's the message they send it is obviously not true and not what we want to do and i think some of the outreach efforts are designed to counter that and this is a place where even though we're not the most reliable interlocutor or as you correctly pointed out  we still have to deliver some kind of message that begins to counter that walk us through the cairo speech a little bit in the overall strategy of how we present an image that makes it clear to the muslim world that al qaeda is whine about simply isn't true why that's so important and how we do it well of course this is a very large and multifaceted effort i think that the president did a super job of reopening the dialogue in a sense between the united states and  large parts of the muslim world many different muslim communities and his focus on our need to work together based on common interests and shared respect i think is vitally important and that is a message that he has gone to great lengths to underscore along the way i think that his his general message and the administration's message that we understand that we cannot that we as a nation will not prosper and that we will not that we will not flourish as long as others are lagging behind is a very powerful one at the moment we have to recognize that there is an awful lot going on out there that is that those communities are looking to for support of that message and i think that the president and his team have shown for example a great deal of engagement in the middle east peace process as a further example of that kind of commitment to deal with key issues of concern obviously there is a lot of there is a lot of work to be done here because we did not get to the position that we saw in the last year to the kind of low polling numbers which were indicative of that position overnight and so there does need to be that kind of engagement i know that my boss the secretary of state is deeply committed to this and you know she has appointed the first ever special representative to muslim community she made a point of going to  the conference in morocco though and to continue to amplify on on these messages her commitment to a whole range of different programs of engagement in the middle east but in other parts of the muslim world i think is also exemplary in that regard there's no question we have a lot of work to do and you know a great deal of it will be in the realm of the dialogue and a great deal that will be in the realm of action that's all i've summary of all of that we have actually convened a number of interagency conferences to discuss this work i have hired a number of staff to do this we are looking to work closely particularly with embassies because they have the ground knowledge and they're the ones who will have a separate budget we have within the within our budget a line for a line number of different posts we have put out notices to posts of the kind of programming that we are interested in doing we have done quite a lot of smaller projects in the past through the ambassadors fun which is roughly a billion dollars sounds like you're sort of getting up and running at this point getting up and running i would not presented as more than that is this a new effort or is it modeled after something we've been doing is it taking over from others within states that were doing something similar there have been a number of different programs within the office of the coordinator one of the problems that we have in the government is nomenclature lots of people believe they're doing it means a lot of different things to different organizations to  difficult tasks in very dangerous places as part of this effort certainly d o d special operations command are fighting the fight a number of different countries on the state department as well as people doing on the development the communications piece in harm's way really confronting the challenge that we face in a very comprehensive way and we appreciate that we can always get better at it the purpose of this hearing is to have that conversation so that we in congress can cooperate with you to get to that point where we can be moving on to another subcommittee and for the record i'd just like to say that all of us who worked on the committee have enjoyed his leadership and found him to have been very thoughtful and very  very energetic and sort of exploring the in a very creative fashion frankly i thought the different issues that this committee ought to be deceptive ought to be  wrestling with so i want to compliment you on the record before you moved on thank you jim i appreciate that and as we will see we're going to be reorganizing a lot of a retirement on our committee i will say that no matter what i will remain on this committee even if not as chair thes