good morning today the house armed services committee meets to receive testimony on al qaeda and two thousand and ten how should the u s respond i went to ces today richard clarke currently an adjunct lecturer at our university and previously the national coordinator for security and counterterrorism ones who are senior adviser with the center for strategic and international studies and the former deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism and steve called president of the nobel foundation and the pulitzer prize winning author of ghost wars the secret history of the cia afghanistan and bin laden from the soviet invasion to september tenth two thousand and one welcome you and we thank our witnesses for being with us this is the attacks on september the eleventh two thousand and one yesterday just acted forcefully as to increase our force levels in that conflict but as he attended a bombing of an airliner over detroit on christmas day but i now feel it reminds us even as we pursue ben laden and his allies in afghanistan and pakistan al qaeda has continued and evolve us nor the zation an inspiration to terrorist groups around the world in order for us to combat this evolving threat i believe we must understand the state of al qaeda and how it's changed over the years in this effort the committee's hearing today with outside experts bills on the classified briefing we held recently and for and past full sanchez the title of this hearing al qaeda in two thousand and ten how should the u s respond poses a deceptive it is a simple question that i hope our witnesses can help us with the real questions are what is al qaeda today and how has that organization have on how can the united states government in particular department of defense take effective action to end the threat posed by al qaeda allies its affiliates around the globe what tools do we have and how should we employ them and we undermine their media campaign and attempt to provide an ideology justifying attacks against the united states in short what actions can we and should we take to minimize the chances that we're faced with future attacks like the attempted attack on christmas i hope our witnesses can help us with these questions by the way that this is a reminder today destruction a destructive nature of al qaeda until the tragic events of nine eleven but we must not allow our determination and vigilance to wane we can be assured that al qaeda remains as real as real endless and as violent as ever and today's hearing allows us to better understand al qaeda and what must be done to protect our nation and its citizens i would also like to welcome our witnesses your insights today are extremely important given the influx of additional troops to afghanistan in support of general mcchrystal strategy and given recent events such as the christmas day airline bombing attempt on the fort hood shootings we look forward to your testimony we cannot forget that we're a nation  war al qaeda stormed into the public view with that here effect acts of nine eleven but well before that time had been plotting and acting against the one nine hundred ninety three world trade center bombing the one nine hundred ninety eight embassy bombings in kenya the failed attack against the u s s the sullivans and the successful attack on the u s s cole in two thousand all pre sales what was to come in two thousand and one al qaeda had already declared war on us only after the world trade center bombing the pentagon and a pennsylvania field were burning did we fully appreciate that fact i was heartened when on december first two thousand and nine president obama officially took ownership of the war in afghanistan and the broader war on terrorism during a speech west point he is our nation's commander in chief and plays the critical role of guiding the united states during war time al qaeda operating havens in afghanistan brought war upon our nation and our message must be clear we will not back down from those who seek to do us harm we have denied al qaeda operating base in afghanistan but must ensure our efforts to prevent afghanistan from becoming a safe haven once again do not waver the administration's decision to support general mcchrystal counterinsurgency strategy is an important step toward stabilizing the country and importantly in degrading al qaeda operational capability i'm gravely concerned however about the announcement of a timeline in conjunction with the decision we must allow events and conditions on the ground to be the basis for any decisions on our afghanistan strategy not washington politics and i have to wonder has president obama emboldened our adversaries by revealing a lack of commitment on our part or like his proclamation that guantanamo bay would close by january two thousand and ten does this hint to an end ministration that does not fully understand the ramifications of its actions and statements we must remember however that afghanistan is not the sole focus in this struggle pakistan is a key partner for us as al qaeda has been forced to seek refuge in private areas controlled by the extremist taliban pakistani forces have gained important victories in their attempt to root out al qaeda and its host than in the federally administered tribal areas but much more needs to be done we must continue to support pakistani efforts through intelligence sharing operational support security of the security assistance with vehicles like the pakistan counterinsurgency and we also need to support the defense department's twelve train and equip authority which it uses elsewhere to ensure our partners in this struggle have improved capabilities to meet threats to security and stability al qaeda does not act alone and is a highly adaptable organization is leveraged a franchise system to bring like minded groups the time and space to allow its affiliates to rise as in iraq in two thousand and six two thousand and seven when al qaeda took advantage of one governed space to train plan and attack the vulnerable iraqi government as well as s interests al qaeda in the arabian peninsula seeks to gain ground in yemen where the government forces fighting not only al qaeda but also in extremis shiite insurgency for control of large areas of its country further  qaeda very quickly capitalize on these groups actions in the name of its grand strategy even in failed or thwarted attacks al qaeda just its message for greatest effect always seeking to gain new recruits and enhance its brand image as effective and successful therefore we must be very aware that a reduction of al qaeda fingerprints on terrorist operations does not necessarily mean that the threat of al qaeda is diminished ideology radicalization and the media that are available in today's world provide a volatile mix for al qaeda to exploit well complicating our attempts to identify and focus on al qaeda as an organization the little rock arkansas fort hood shootings and christmas day bombing attempt all represent an increasing threat that of radicalized individuals who attack either on their own or with minimal operational coordination with an al qaeda handler  not be nearly visible but the threat remains the challenges we face are many but we absolutely must not fail to recognize that we are at war and our enemy will advance its cause we're not facing common criminals and this fact was reaffirmed on january when the u s court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit upheld the right of u s government to detain combatant and reaffirms a belief that the laws of war are the appropriate foundation for and are needed in our efforts against terrorists who may not wear uniforms but who are waging war against i believe the administration would be making a very dangerous mistake were it to treat terrorists common criminals operatives may not wear uniforms or follow the geneva convention we cannot ignore the fact that al qaeda is waging war against us and the terrorists they do not merely break civil laws but advance a strategy to  topple governments through terrorism and other means they cannot be viewed as anything less than prisoners of war one would think that the president's policy towards guantanamo bay detention facility would reflect the fact that we are  supporters but hard core operatives given recidivism rates that are twenty percent or higher president's position on detention and prosecution of these wartime detainees held there is especially alarming in its incoherence in response to administration's a responsible handling of the detainee issue we've introduced the detainee transfer and release security act of two thousand and ten this legislation will block transfers from guantanamo to countries with ungoverned spaces active  transfer of two detainees to algeria america cannot be complicit in allowing former detainees to return to the fight against the united states our policies and strategies must reflect the fact that we are at war we should not simply close guantanamo and when that can not allow enemy combatants to return to the battlefield and al qaeda is worldview the us should not exist therefore in this war we must seek to the our enemy measures of fall short of that go qaeda operating space just dropping out operations must not enter our lexicon or our thought process i take it as a personal responsibility to remind my fellow members my constituents my colleagues throughout the government of what is called for in this great struggle with the fact that we are at war claire i look forward to our witnesses input today we're faced with an emmy that is adaptable that leverage is media extremely well  promotes a twisted version of one of the world's major religions and that ultimately is willing to outlast us if that is what is required of it your testimony will help us gain greater understanding of how to face those challenges and how we testimony or other assistance what is the status of al qaida and what should we be doing in way of response to it is questions have been asked a that's really the only difference between a successful attack and the failure that occurred whether or not that detonator worked and i'm afraid that if it had worked a lot of people would have jumped to the wrong conclusion  they would have thought that because one single terrorist was able to penetrate our defenses and cause the deaths perhaps of two hundred americans in the united states necessarily would have meant that al  resurgent or that there was some failure in the policies of the last administration or something there in the policies of this administration and the american people would ask themselves why it was th over a decade after al qaida became a major issue for the united states that we had not been able to eradicate it i think it's important that we ask ourselves these questions now publicly because the difference between one detonator working and one detonator not working suggests to me that we could very well have a successful time when we do if we do we shouldn't panic and we shouldn't necessarily jump to the wrong conclusions so in trying to answer your questions the very high level i've structured my response in the form of seven propositions i'll try to go through them quickly but they're all available in the written testimony the first proposition is that if al qaeda does stages to attack it doesn't you know of itself indicate whether or not they're getting stronger or not  that lone operators will always be a threat whether they are from al qaida or from another organization modern societies are inherently fragile to lone operator attacks we saw that with oklahoma city where there were just two or three people involved we saw it in the washington area with the washington sniper we are always going to face the threat of lone operators secondly many of the groups that we hear about many of the attacks that we see that are labeled as al qaida really are not al qaeda central they are groups that have existed for years in some cases for a century and have been relabeled every label themselves as al qaida two of them for example caught in the  mesopotamia have actually imploded in recent years they lost popular support because of their excesses and they were also successfully suppressed by security forces so i think we need to ask ourselves really what is al qaida and perhaps the best way of looking at it is to focus on al qaeda central the organization attacked us on nine eleven the organization that unlikely affiliates has targeted the far enemy which is the united states and al qaeda central has had its ups and downs it was certainly very strong prior to nine eleven it was hit badly after  our invasion of afghanistan and had a bit of a resurgence in the last several years but in the last two years with our increased tempo of operations against their sanctuary in pakistan with the pakistani government finally on going after the united states including here in the homeland and certainly the taliban is engaged in daily combat with the united states a third group al shabaab in somalia may also be involved in preparing people to attack  the homeland mr chairman i'll skip over the other the other propositions there in the testimony but i think the chief point here is that this is the eradication of al qaida is the work of a generation  and it is not something that the american people should leave that any administration will be able to accomplish what nor should the american people expect that any administration will be able to prevent all successful chairman ranking member mccann distinguished members of the committee please be with you here today to testify and i thank you for the invitation i think it's an important moment to look at the nature of al qaida particular given the past series of events over the last year september eleventh two thousand and one in many ways it has been decimated with the core elements of the organization on the ropes al qaeda senior leadership is being methodically destroyed its primary physical safe haven is being undermined it's audio ideology is being rejected within muslim communities around the world and frankly its strategy has yet to produce the result promised at the same time al qaeda has attempted to spur an ideological awakening among muslims around the world to fight the west the allure of this ideology continues to drop here and and manifest itself in real threats actually argue that al qaeda is actually achieving its goal via the establishment of a virtual caliphate thus i think there is a paradox in which al  organization remains in steady decline but the global terrorist threat inspired by this ideology remains a central national security concern for the united states this is why i think there's been so much debate both here in congress and in academic circles about the nature of al qaeda is that a hierarchical organization a loose confederation of like minded terrorists or groups or simply a metastasized idea with viral people i think al qaeda is a hybrid of those three beast if you will comprise of the al qaeda core as mr clarke mentioned the al qaida regional affiliates and like minded groups and the al qaida inspired radicalization and threats that we face all kind of core leadership largely contained in the afghanistan pakistan region has continued to set the strategic direction for the movement and has directed attacks plotting at the same time al qaida has aggressively and systematically moved to establish co opt and use regional affiliates like arabian peninsula as forward bases for terrorist activity reach until the christmas day attack these regional groups can find their activities largely to their respective regions the most troubling revelation on christmas was that al qaida was trying to hit the united states directly from its outpost in yemen the constellation of terrorist groups that have direct ties associations or parallel ideological agendas with al constantly shifting this i think has been facilitated by the safe haven and training grounds present in western pakistan and in other regions around the world like somalia yemen in the magreb aside from the direct threat to the united states there's a direct danger that some could alter its regional focus and become a global leader and successor to al qaida taking up the mantle to defend all muslims we've seen glimpses of this in the mumbai attacks and with the uncovered plotting against the danish newspaper that published the mohammed cartoons the mere existence of these groups is dangerous and needs to be viewed as a potential next phase in the war on terror in addition al qaida has identified and nurtured pockets of radical i cells and individuals and western europe and around the world with the capability to carry out deadly attacks identifies al qaeda as a leader of this movement this is been an amplified by the radicalization of individuals via the internet and ideologues this ideology as you all know preys on discontent and alienation while providing a simple narrative th pretends to grant meaning and heroic outlet for the young as you know the al qaeda narrative is simple the west is at war with islam muslims have a religious obligation to engage in jihad to defend fellow muslims the us is the head of the snake  far enemy that must be fought along with the pa state allies and al qaida is the ultimate vanguard of this movement for all muslims to disaffected or trouble and individuals this narrative explains in a simple framework the ills around them and the geopolitical discord they see on their television sets and on the internet there are some concerning elements to these recent cases of radicalization within the us which i think are important to note unlike in past cases some of the individuals involved to be second or third generation americans were born into as long as opposed to being converts to the faith they appear to have acted in klosters as with the american somalis in northern virginia five and they attempted to join or succeeded in connecting with a known terrorist organization abroad these factors are troubling especially given the effectiveness of al qaida an extremist like anwar lockie to use the internet to draw a new adherence including from the west this environment then i think suggests that more individuals will be radicalized over time and could take on the global terrorist mantle and the metastasized to metastasize dimension of this terrorist problem is perhaps the most deviling since it is local or even personal in nature and hard to counter and i think this ideological fronts without a doubt essential that the dismantle the core of al qaida is the heart of the global sunni terrorist movement and though its destruction ultimately will not end terrorism or the allure of its ideology it's a key an important step to stable in the global terrorist network us the us in the international community has to deny physical safe haven to terrorist groups we need to shift the momentum against the taliban that afghanistan we need to enable the pakistanis to continue their fight against the p taliban and al qaida in the tribal regions we must continue our support to yemen to root out al qaida elements along with regional partners we should help defend the fledgling transitional federal government in somalia and we must ensure that the iraqi government is able to solidify security against another violent extremist groups we also need an all out offensive in the ideological battle with a concentration on networking and empowering grassroots counter movements against al qaida importantly all quarters and muslim communities are now openly challenging al qaeda and though the united states is not a central parts haggis in this battle within islam it has a key role to play aside from promoting democracy defending our policies and values and demonstrating th the west is not at war with islam the united states should be actively countering this narrative and the vile the violent extremist ideology the goal should be to help foment and network of global grassroots counter movement through the credible voices emerging to  in both the physical and virtual worlds at the end of the day this opposition must be organic and come from within muslim communities and i think muslim americans then have a special responsibility and up against this ideology we need to continue to build a layered defense against  significant terrorist attacks this requires a continual renewed renewal of our commitment to intelligence gathering and prevention as the primary principles guiding our homeland defense we should redouble our efforts to improve identity management to include integration of biometric based technologies in addition we continue to expand our borders with initiatives like container security initiative that should expand the notion of expanding our borders beyond our shores and importantly and this is something my colleagues have argued for we must push government agencies to imagine the unimaginable by continuing to invest resources and energy to prevent terrorist groups from developing acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction that also extends to investment of resources and creating resiliency in our critical infrastructure to include our cyber infrastructure lastly our efforts to defeat al qaeda i believe require a long term legal framework to address the twenty first century threat there is still no established consensus about how to hold suspect terrorists and insurgents in a seemingly endless global conflict in which the theaters of conflict range from recognize war zones in ungoverned havens to city centers  suburban neighborhoods whatever form this takes i think the united states needs transparent rules for justifying continued detention while protecting basic individual rights and all need to gain some degree of international legitimacy i think this can only be achieved if the president congress commit capital and credibility to establishing such a system that can then be defended in the u s courts and in the court of public opinion mr chairman al qaida and the movement it represents is an enemy that is morphing and structure and adapting to changing geopolitical landscape but one that retains the same radical vision and ideology and devotion to the use of terrorism we must hasten the demise of al qaida while containing the post al qaeda terrorist threat and the israel tried to briefly offer complimentary vision i agree also with my predecessor that al qaida presents a paradox of its political and ideological support in the muslim world has been declining and yet it remains resilient as a source of disruptive terrorist violence and part of the explanation lies in the complexity of what we mean by al qaeda it's evolved to a point where it is really several things at once it's a specific organization with twenty one years of history in the describe the decline in public support for tactics throughout the islamic world since about two thousand and one recent particularly rigorous poll found that support for al qaeda directed attacks against american civilians in the u s homeland is virtually negligible across a diverse array of heavily populated muslim majority countries and pakistan for example where american feeling has reached a fever pitch only nine percent supported such attacks against u s civilians  and the number was about five percent it's common to observe the bin laden's poll ratings fallen because al qaida inspired by one just taken so many muslim civilian lives since two thousand and one but the data actually suggests that citizens in islamic countries as elsewhere overwhelmingly disapprove disapprove of all the indiscriminate violence against civilians no matter who carries it out in the matter what because despite its growing isolation however remains resilient and dangerous in large part because its central and original organization and its leadership remains in the field and i think we should be cautious about declaring that central organization disabled my colleague peter bergen has documented that one usually observe and measure of the degree of activity of central unsuccessful have produced a pattern of open source evidence that clearly implicate support from al qaida technicians or leaders in pakistan or elsewhere along the border all of these plots make sure that the group retains enough be the breathing space to launch of evidence about al qaida specific resilience in yemen that's been accumulating for some time the groups presence and connections there back to the resilience that presented itself on christmas is probably traceable to the period immediately after saudi arabia's crackdown on al qaeda in two thousand and three when yemen started to reemerging regional haven in the pakistan and afghanistan region al like minded allies i think are far more robust than they are in yemen the number of foreign al qaeda members operating along the afghan pakistan border probably is only a few hundred but the afghan taliban allied fighting forces  being successful i think we are being successful and i think the ministration long before the incident in detroit the administration focused on the growing threat in yemen and was acting successfully against that's right and it wasn't getting a lot of press attention there was a very effective u s government activity for most of last year in yemen and we were significantly destroying the leadership of al  long before the media even learned what a q a p stood for so we don't conclude automatically that we need to do something different and don't conclude that we if we are only doing the right things al qaeda will disappear overnight this is the work of a generation we are well on track to eliminating al qaeda central and as a significant threat we have greatly improved our homeland security will never be perfect don't expect it ever will but don't expect we'll ever be able to stop every attack i think if you were to look at all the things that the administration is doing and other allied governments are doing in the area that probably needs the most reinforcement is the ideological counterweight my colleagues have talked about it's really not something the united states government can do overtly it is best done by muslim governments and muslim governments have actually done a very good job of saudi arabia jordan egypt morocco united arab emirates other countries have really done a very effective job of creating an ideological counterweight domestically inside their country and that wasn't always the case but i think it is now that they're doing it without us involvement which is great  because u s involvement probably wouldn't help but there are things the united states can do and if there were one area where i would strengthen our efforts it would be  somewhat fuzzy and hard to define area of creating an ideological conduit for congress and the great question i agree with mr clarke but i think there are three areas where we can continue to improve in particular to deal with the movement and i think mr clarke is right to point out that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater terms of assuming that we have failed because of what happened on christmas day i think people have short memories and i think we've over the last eight also inherently alienating to the very constituencies that they're trying to attract and i think the grand lesson from iraq with a lot of our awakening was the fact that the iraqis themselves in the heart of the what is supposed to be al  constituency rose up physically against al qaida and have largely rejected out that which i think to a certain extent was the beginning of the end for al qaeda the next essential but three areas i would suggest some attention dealing with safe havens to avoid these regional groups or militant insurgencies from becoming regional problems or even global platforms that entails not just dealing with the current problems like yemen somalia pakistan afghanistan but looking beyond the horizon to potential problems in places like bangladesh northern nigeria and other parts where there is already sectarian tension where there are forces of radicalization trying to act like leeches to exacerbate those conflicts and where you have the potential for al qaeda to really make in places like that so i think we need to be forward looking countering the narrative is huge and i think the u s does have a role to play in terms of working with the private sector with credible voices groups like the foundation in london ex extremists who come out now fighting against their former mates who are literally organizing against radicalization these are the kinds of groups we need to support network without painting and then finally the legal framework i think we need and what is law has largely become a political football with respect to how we treat this problem for the long term because it is a long term problem this isn't just a problem of guantanamo it's a problem of the legal framework long term and we need to resolve that that was jim thank you i think the gentleman mr bartlett thank you perhaps because i'm a scientist but i think that numbers really do have significance in a recent briefing before this committee i asked for experts their estimate of how many radical islamist but there were in the world that disliked us would hurt us if they could two of them said order of magnitude ten thousand a third winstead a hundred thousand in the fourth and said in terms of our ability to count them essentially an infinite number we have about a bit less than two hundred in guantanamo bay with a twenty percent rate citizen right that would mean that  if those twenty percent return to the battlefield that would increase the number from a ten thousand one hundred thousand are essentially a and then an infinite number to two a number that really is lost in our estimate but i know we're not dealing with the practical reality world here we're dealing very largely with emotion and political issues and so i know that the importance of these forty is usually more than the in the pen testable number that they would add to the international radical islamists who would wish to sailing but hurt us if they could i was impressed with a statement that admiral olson made before this committee special operations forces must focus on the civilian agencies especially the state department and usaid to foster u s credibility and influence among relevant populations in this committee we focus primarily on the military in terms of a  n of the effective weapons that we have to fight against these international threat how large do you think the military is as compared with the others what you had roles and mentioned before the committee congressman i think obviously in afghanistan the military the states military is our principal weapon in fighting against the taliban if you put if you can put afghanistan aside and that's asking a lot but if you if you consider the rest of the world where the threats exist i think the military is a valuable tool probably of equal importance with the f b i and law enforcement cooperation probably of equal importance with the state department and a i d i don't think it's primarily a military issue and i think the dialogue that has occurred over the last ten years at least all the weapons available to the united states and certainly some of our military is a valuable weapon on some occasions in some environments but it's not an either or situation law enforcement plays a very very critical role as does intelligence and as you suggest going after the root causes is also valuable in some countries so we need to need to tailor our response depending upon where we're operating  we need to use everything we've got congressman i'm a huge fan of bad arolsen in the special operations community and i think as we look forward to the to the nature of asymmetric warfare we're going to be lined more and more on special forces in environments of concern and interest both in preparation of the battlefield and in trying to determine what national resources we can bring to bear i would just say we need to remember some important lessons of the last eight years where we have been successful if you look at southeast asia where all of the experts in two thousand and one in two thousand to work spect in the second front in the war on terror to emerge given al qaeda presence there there are deep ties to local groups like  group there has been incredible success i think in not only disrupting those networks but disrupting their regional and global reach and part of that has been the work of the special ops community part of it has been the work of locals and i think that's a good formula to look at in the future   and there isn't an al qaeda there isn't a structured organization known as al qaida and more importantly if the if the violent islamic ideology represented by al is significantly on the wane then i think we would be able to declare victory the ideology is never going to go away it's been around for a thousand years it comes and goes there are waves in islamic history of this sort of deviant distorted strain of islam just as they were in christianity for hundreds of years so i think it's always going to be there but if we can make it a small minority view in the islamic world and if we can eliminate the structured organization then i think we we can declare success but will never be in a situation where there are no violent islamic cells anywhere in the world for us we need to determine success in part by eliminating organizations that's right in the united states that see as their primary purpose going after what they call the far enemy those are the ones that are should be our highest priority how do you get it to islam islam says who will always have a violent streak in  the things that are being said by al qaeda are lies why they are distorting to do that at the community level throughout the muslim world that is being done in a lot of countries is being done quietly but i think very effectively we now also however need to bring that message into the internet and into the cyberspace because we have seen all too often that individuals have been recruited remotely people who have never been to an al qaeda meeting never been to a rally never been to any place where a group assembled were nonetheless converted and it's very frightening very frightening to our muslim friends that really well done internet appeals have touched a responsive chord in many muslim youth and then having been converted on the internet they then go out and try to find organizations try to find a way of affiliating and actually plugging in to al qaeda we do not yet as far as i know  we had a meeting in july of two thousand and this is what he said his opening statement as a further example of the relatively new terrorist group al qaeda headed by some of in law bin laden may foreshadow a new trend toward relatively self sufficient terrorist organizations that stain cells and operate independently of the state sponsor that was a year and a half before the two thousand and one attacks were now a decade later and and i appreciate your your ongoing efforts here but the second point i want to make  the america lot like the americans excellent english language skills and i asked her what she thought about those photographs that came out when the first release was very polite she said i wasn't there i don't know what happened it may be able to explain she said but when i saw those photographs i felt like it was me on the floor of that prison cell and here this was a young woman in america likes americans and you put yourself in the position of somebody who may not be very pro american and the young young ma you can understand your admonition mr holder avoid mistakes in provocative acts mr geraci i think you and your statement more complete in the o t want to talk about some of these other areas around the world and make some i think very good suggestions you specifically mentioned algeria and morocco and it gives me a chance to say something about the that ambassador christopher ross is doing to try to resolve the issues between the polish sorrow and morocco because until those results until those efforts those of those that complicates resolve it's going to be very very difficult for morocco and algeria to come to gether in the region settled in and of course our attention doesn't get on these intractable conflicts have been going on for several decades but crisscrosses efforts the question i want to ask is it maybe i'll use the flight to give you three put a question what is that group trying to accomplish i think you missed a call that says it has very little strategic significance have their goals changed what are they trying to accomplish what we've said in the past is the goal of al qaeda is to get the united states to remove its troops from muslim lands and stop supporting israel i'd like to hear from you the three of you briefly what do you think the goal was of that attack and other attacks at this stage qaida leaders explain their reasoning repeatedly and they want to hold the united states directly to account for what they regard as its aggressive policies in the muslim world bin laden always use the phrase of raid to describe what we would correctly see a mass murderer but he sees it in this sort of narrative of both political and military and violence that he's got he imagines himself leading so a group in yemen is a little bit more muted about their own particular ideology but when you read into the preacher around what we understand to be the group that recruited into the two fifty three attackers it is the same narrative of direct violence against the united states is associated both with political but also military and narrative in the context of al qaida in iraq but that's precisely what they've been trying to do in the magreb and in yemen and unfortunately this is a manifestation of that very strategy but i would say in terms of long term what al qaeda has in mind is a long term conflict with the u they have in mind that the notion of bankrupting us believing us of blood and treasure thinking of the model of the soviets in afghanistan and i think that is really driving bin laden and al qaida thinking these days and any kind of attack that disrupts us  to fight amongst ourselves and to spend resources is a victory for them in their minds if i could just very briefly i do think they want to overreact they talk about that a fair amount and that's part of the way they get us toward the overthrow the government of saudi arabia overthrow the government of egypt that's their ultimate goal and they seek to get us out of the region by increasing the upon us because they believe we are propping up those governments what's interesting is their long term goal overthrowing the government of saudi arabia and egypt replacing those governments with al qaida government is as far away from ever happening as it could possibly be the chances of them congressman i think it's something we've got to be worried about and worried about even more so with the present population want to know which represents a more hardened group of terrorists and folks connected to al qaeda we've seen in the past the numbers vary from anywhere from seven percent individuals the bush administration did so as i was a part of over five hundred thirty such individuals transferred out of guantanamo you've got to be sure that you have the right security measures on the back end and unfortunately what we've seen in the past is those security measures aren't f represents outstrips the benefits of its specific location as a detention center president bush announced his desire to close the facility for that reason and president obama has followed both presidents have and their staff have wrestled with the extraordinary complexity of the case files and the risks associated with those kids but i do think it's important i understand that their strategic goal here is to create a context in which al qaeda continues to isolate itself in the muslim world and guantanamo is a factor in the provocative narrative that al qaida has sought to explo issues and obviously i think the first question answers itself is once again we've been releasing them for several years now we've learned something in the process i think some of the initial prisoners that were released in the bush administration turned we shouldn't have been released i think we've learned that there are countries such as yemen that probably can't handle it right now and therefore we have to be very careful but there have been other cases that have been quite successful so it has been in the last two administrations something that was considered on a case by case basis and i think we have to continue to do that learning from our past mistakes the second issue of if we're going to keep some number of them is it important that they be kept in cuba and i have never understood the logic that says there's some value of having them in cuba as opposed to someplace else  away from al qaeda no it's not but i don't see why we should continue to hand them a propaganda point by continuing to keep guantanamo open moving them to someplace else would probably have some just a rational issue or economic issue because when we had a briefing here before the holidays and three briefings we were told how much it was going to cost to move t o illinois to new york and we were talking over a half billion dollars and given our economic situation it's hard for me to see how that could possibly be justified but back to the point of where we transfer them if they're going to be transferred is it unreasonable to require that a receiving country not be a state sponsor of terrorism to be able to secure and exercise control over its territory such a terrorist groups do  here i think we need to develop criteria and i think probably the last two administrations have had criteria we need to keep adjusting them as to whether or not the country receiving them is on the state sponsor list or not sponsor list probably shouldn't be receiving them right now congress and i think we need to learn lessons and adjust our criteria cordingley and i think we've learned some lessons from those we've already released and i think the criteria needs to take into account the shifting international security context and i think the bomb administration was wise to to withhold transferring further humanity's given the situation in that country and so i think that's very important if i could just mention very quickly on the guantanamo question again i think the underlying issue with of for which it is a symbol is the question of how we hold individuals in this long term battle and if we are going to have a preventive detention model in many ways the locale the venue doesn't matter the issue is whether or not we can legitimately defend the system by which we hold such individuals especially if they're not going to be held to account in a recognizable court of law and so i think one of the things this administration really needs to grapple with in its part of my testimony is how do you frame that for legal framework and how do you defend and part of that defense may be going back and looking at the fact and i've heard this from my friends at amnesty international that guantanamo is actually a fairly good place to be held as a detainee with the facilities that have been built with attorney general holder going down and saying it's a prison that's being well run and so this may be a time to reflect on whether or not we defended the very notion of want on a more as part of a preventive model that we have to defend for the long term important component of the ideological front and i understand that idea would remind all of us in two thousand and one there were no u s combat forces in iraq or afghanistan there was no getting low and yet the u s was brutally and viciously attacked by al qaeda central i believe as you refer to it and it occurs to me that one of the reasons that we're having this discussion about al qaeda is not because they're so powerful it's because they have demonstrated an intensity of ideology that overwhelms us just by their commitment to do us harm and it is cursing me that there are two primary components to the threat that they compose number one is that intent and number two would be their capacity to carry it out and i feel like this notion that we better take away their talking points is kind of dangerous because it belies what we already know about their intractable intent so let me start there but my my question is that we have to focus on this thing called capacity and nothing of course i don't think concerns any of us more than al qaeda or groups with that mindset gaining access to weapons of mass destruction especially nuclear weapons so what can we do today and hope in the entire panel will discuss this i understand we're not in a closed session so you have to adjust warningly but what can we do today to prevent split for ration of w m d from places in places like pakistan iran and north korea to eliminate the possibility of a nuclear armed them so convinced that that wipes all other issues off the table if terrorist gain access to even one nuclear weapon because then the the response of the free world that follows everything is a completely new world and so what are we doing to focus on preventing the capacity of al qaeda to to do us harm especially in gaining access to nuclear capability and i'll start with you mr cole i think the single most important goal not respect ought to be to create conditions in which pakistan stabilizes and is able and increasingly is willing to take the steps necessary to eliminate extremist ideology from pakistani soil had to stop using extremist groups as a proxy for pakistani regional foreign policy goals and in order to create conditions for pakistan to stabilize in the way it's going to be necessary at least in the medium run to create conditions for normalization between india and pakistan so that they don't embark on a nuclear arms race that only exacerbates the dangers to the entire world of nuclear arsenal a nuclear arsenal in pakistan that's vulnerable to an insider threat over top of your money on your first point i couldn't agree more i think we've got to be careful not to give al qaeda heckler's veto over our policies because i think they do have a centuries long view of their grievances that shift with the political winds and i think we see that time and again with the statements coming out of bin laden qaeda now focused on our support for israel in the past our military presence in other conflicts and so if it's not one excuse it's going to be another and i think we need to be careful we shouldn't be handing them free gifts from a propaganda perspective on the w b front i'm actually quite proud of the work we did as i think we laid out a very powerful six part strategy is laid out in the two thousand and six national strategy for combating terrorism but two quick points i agree with mr cole that on the nuclear front the center of gravity is pakistan where we've seen pakistani scientists in the past associated in helping al qaeda and i think we've got to be very careful with the dimensions of capacity and expertise that al qaeda could gain from the pakistani nuclear  complex on the bio side i think we've got to worry very very diligently about the expansion of bile labs around the world in some places in ungoverned or under governed parts of the world that is dangerous as we look at potentially  all those kinds of problems do how do you spend your dollar how do you spend your time because you could spend the whole national gross national product dealing with the place that i think deserves more attention on the nuclear issue putting aside biological on the nuclear issue the place that i think deserves more attention is not the security of weapons because that has a potential but the security of nuclear material there are hundreds of ton hopefully will continue to move in that direction and then on the propaganda point i agree with mr franks that we should not be at all concerned with how al qaeda is going to react or whether or not i'm always open where we try people what our policies are in afghanistan there are however other voices in the muslim world better pay attention to jordan strong ally our policies will impact their ability to continue to have their citizens agree with us  pakistan afghanistan many places look at our policies one tonne of what goes on in afghanistan the israeli palestinian conflict and these are allies that we should care about and i hope we don't don't forget about that point question taliban in afghanistan or in pakistan what do you think about the relationship right now between taliban and al qaeda in both afghanistan and pakistan i understand we're talking about a complex set of groups here but what can we do to separate them so that if al qaeda has some degree of influence anywhere that doesn't automatically mean that al qaeda does is that even possible i think the relationship is probably close between the heart of the pakistani taliban in particular the masood the nexus of the pakistani taliban and there's also long historical ties that must be continuing between the hakani network which is a sort of semi independent element of the afghan taliban and al qaida in a strategic sense al qaida is clearly enabling both taliban and by distributing insight into tactics bomb making and media operations think of just  oxymoron of the phrase taliban media operations in the one nine hundred ninety s that basically involved covering up oil paintings in kabul ministries and today they're putting out many more videos than even al qaida so al qaida clearly has an effect on these groups how to separate them ultimately it requires a strategy that persuades many taliban leaders that their interests are regional and local and political that they are territorial and that i will be doing on that front and what can we be doing better i think we're just beginning to construct a strategy in afghanistan and we're way behind in building a partnership with the pakistani government that would lead to an effective approach to their western frontier and domestic insurgency i would agree with mr called assessment but i would say that in terms of pakistan the pakistani government has to have a different view for the long term commitment they have to the tribal areas we saw for example in two thousand and six the peace deal with the tribes in north waziristan which eliminated the pressure that al qaeda was under at the time and the incentives that the tribes actually had then to negotiate and work with the central government in pakistan there was a withdrawal of forces the withdrawal of checks of an foresman of that deal space and i think part of this is physical pressure part of it is negotiation with purse and other goodies that the tribals like including influence and i think part of the political solution on the other side of the border in the nail on the head because i think we can't be all things to all people and we can't have boots on the ground for both the symbolic reasons that we've talked about here but also for resource reasons i think we need to devise strategies like we did in southeast asia where you have  the local authorities with capacity building taking on the fight themselves both the hard edges of the fight and the soft edges and you look at things that the indonesians have done the malaysians with australian help with u s help that's been incredibly effective if you look yemen i think there's a much greater role for saudi arabia and the gulf states that have in their interest not to have an al qaeda safe haven in their backyard i think there's a greater role there in the magreb having algeria and morocco work more closely together that's something we tried to achieve over many years that's critical so i think the regional partners have to take the leading role with the u s and other capable western countries providing supporting capacity that's the only way you're going to contain these problems and then start to deal with them in the long term which involves development aid assistance economic investment all of which we can't do on our own and all of which the local authorities and countries and interested parties whether they are tribal or otherwise have the most primary interest asia i think is the best example i traveled in indonesia this summer and i was struck by the extent to which capacity building and the extraordinary success the government of indonesia government plays even to govern the philippines to a degree has had is a product of regional economic integration i mean these are middle income countries that are moving ahead in such a confident way that they are able to muster a national capacity to insurgent groups and to control ungoverned spaces in a way that just wasn't imaginable twenty years ago ultimately in the arab world and in africa that kind of momentum as distant as it looks in a place like somalia or yemen is a central american u s aid or boots on the ground is no somalia have a vested interest in building the power of a central government or some semblance of central government we are getting there i think with the process that has been supported by the u s and other partners part of it is having  regional countries like kenya and ethiopia which are not well liked in some instances for obvious reasons take greater ownership and frankly help contain the problem while the political process develops and where you have the capacity but that at least as important on the foreign office i think we need to look at whether or not the special forces command is out to quickly adequately sized it's been very strained over the last few years because  of its successes in iraq and being used extensively in afghanistan and perhaps and in yemen and elsewhere that's probably the place where on the military budget  the greatest contribution can be made i would agree with that i think we need to look to see where we have resources that apply to be asymmetric threats and i think socom is one example of that where we have programs that can be applied i think programs that allow us to build capacity with foreign counterparts the special operations community has built a very important good global network of special operations forces around the world including with some arab allies and so building that capacity to deal with problems as we see in yemen or somalia or in the magreb becomes very important so that we don't have to put boots on the ground and we've got good and capable allies that are willing and able to do it so i think that's important and finally i know this may be outside the purview of this committee but trying to find a way perhaps to twelve six funding to blend the funding that goes to state and for these longer term development aid and assistance programs in environments where you've got incipient conflicts that my colleagues not a problematic this is much better than i but i would step back and just make two quick observations first to reinforce the notion of so calm's enabling capacity when you look out over twenty years one hopes that the stress that special efforts of the defense department in this budget cycle because i do think there's an opportunity in the need to reset on a nonpartisan serious basis american thinking about strategic communications and and where the dollars are going and whether they're effective  of the lessons that we've learned in the last number of years is how to be more efficient in some ways across agencies but i also am wondering if you could maybe just point out where where are we in the most inefficient in trying to  aligning our development aid and assistance long term with our short term national security without doing damage to those long term goals and so we haven't figured that out yet and i think dick is absolutely right in terms of the lack of efficiency and i would echo what mr cole said in terms of strategic communications i think that was something that we left unfinished in the prior administration figuring out both bureaucratically and programatic like how you deal with this new war this asymmetric internet based war in terms of  strategy and structure so that that's important and finally i would just say congressman i think we as a government need to start thinking more creatively about how we engage align and work with private sector actors i think we don't do it well enough and what you have to face enough as an enemy made up made up of non state actors cells networks what we haven't figured out is how to align those good guys on the good side of the ledger to work against those very networks how do we try these terror it's become a political football i believe it's become a political football because in my district in rural pennsylvania the truck driver the average american the average citizen my district is asking me why are we giving these people the same rights that american citizens have when they're not why did we the underwear bomber i understand after fifteen minutes of interrogation they read him his miranda rights any and he took the advice of the miranda rights and shut up and waited for his attorney do to get there  so there's that that's the reason it's a political football i believe i think there is an accepted credible system out there and that's the military tribunals so i'd like to hear your comments on what you think the solution do we have the solution in place congressman i agree with you i think one of the challenges of this administration faces and perhaps is of their own making and i think to a certain senate is especially the khalid shaikh mohammed decision to bring him to new york and some of his  compatriots to face trial in new york is the lack of clarity as to what exactly is the legal structure and paradigm being applied because what you will have in that context is in essence a tiered legal system for the worst of the worst they are getting the most protections under u s law the same protections you and i would get in a civilian court while there are lower level al qaida individuals who will not face trial at all will have no due process as we understand it in a civilian court with no explanation as to why that system makes sense or is in concert with the rule of law and so i think the first thing needs to happen is is a framework that explains these tiers and explain exactly why they're being applied i'm not against fundamentally i was a former prosecutor terrorism prosecutor to using the criminal legal system but it's one tool of many and shouldn't necessarily be the first point of entry for these individuals and i think it goes to the nature of what we're facing i think got to make some choices if we want to teligent from terrorists we capture like the christmas day bomber then you don't mirandize him and you don't put him immediately in the criminal legal system but it doesn't mean you can't prosecute him later as we did for example with jose but mr clark i wonder what your thoughts or do you believe al qaeda is on the situation where we're bringing him into our federal courts and giving them rights as americans think that's  miranda the prisoner and the criminal the civil criminal process has been exaggerated it's really not that different in terms of their rights i think we have successfully prosecuted a very large number of terrorists and bush administration the clinton administration in the federal civil system was very very high success rate and i just don't understand why people are afraid of using the federal civil system civil court system criminal court system which is proven to be so effective and i would submit i think the folks in my district are saying because it'll take months and months if not years and millions of dollars of money that need to go out to fight terrorism and i was told the military systems so w concerning my time's running short so if you don't have an opportunity to answer if you could give us something in writing concerning sheikh abu al libbi who i keep hearing his name who's heard him called  the rest of you to chime in as well but i wanted to ask you mr cole one of the fundamental limiting factors to our success in afghanistan which is obviously related to this whole and it is just the willingness of the afghan government to do some of the fundamental reforms any corruption measures and other things that that are necessary and i wanted to get your as somebody who's written about  many of these players in afghanistan for a long time i wanted to get your take on how you would characterize the willingness of the karzai government today to make some of the changes that that we need to see to realize our goals in afghanistan where all the evidence is that it's an adequate and it's certainly one of the major strategic risks facing u s policy in afghanistan having said that the better news is that the his office you see now in the relationship between parliament in the president the potential for a sounder more broadly based approach to the limited role that the kabul government actually vision that is based on the idea that there are many more actors in afghanistan who can turn things around than those just in the complement of working through effective governors and at the with relation to that i think a big question that the afghan government and our policy confronts is a question of the center versus the locality how much we rely on local and tribal partners in the first instance versus  the focus on kabul and the central government and in particular from a security perspective whether or not to rely more heavily on local security militias i think that becomes a very important policy question for not only folks here in washington but also in energy and creativity and resources as it is because it is approaching the military question and i think you described it framed correctly which is that a successful policy of national reconciliation and political  reintegration that complements the security in afghanistan over the next three to five years has to be more broadly based on the presidential palace that you can achieve that broader base lots of different mechanisms you can parliaments you can  other institutions traditional institutions you can do it regionally as well as nationally but you have to do it and it has to also be reinforced by regional diplomacy brings to bear pressure on these factions in afghanistan about or otherwise not likely to participate in such a reconciliation program and i think there's always been an articulation of this vision in u s policy but now bringing it to bear successfully it's hard it's going to be a zigzag it's always going to be incomplete but if it's not made a priority that it won't s policy in afghanistan that are my questions a little bit different given the facts related to this christmas day incident given what we know is going on in yemen and the problems there what impact does that have on on your view of the strategy at all in afghanistan in terms of putting more troops on the ground all of  it has no impact on my view in the sense that i think that as i believe it was mr clarke pointed out understanding that there were problems outside of the pakistan afghan region predated the christmas attack the robust activity under way just wasn't publicized i think the reason that the president made the right you know afghanistan has to do with core al qaida which as we talked about earlier remains resilient and while under pressure and diminished still able to transfer of bomb making techniques still able to participate in a robust operation and still able to assist the destabilization  course if we're squeezing in one place it would lead to another you mentioned one of you mentioned what's happened in yemen as a result of saudi which is the crackdown in saudi arabia can't we simply expect that to happen based on the crackdown in afghanistan a governor of pakistan is certainly concerned about spillover effects their version of what's happened after nine eleven emphasizes the consequences to pakistan of the migration of al qaida from afghanistan into pakistan as a result of u s military action there but i i think my response to the argument that you referred to which has been part of very healthy american discourse about u s policy choices about afghanistan this notion that you squeeze the balloon in yemen pops up in somalia pops up but there's no territory that means to al qaida what the afghan pakistan border and the role of the court leadership and networks that are located there is distinct from any other expression that doesn't mean these other expressions are dangerous but  order to achieve any definition of success against al qaeda that core organization needs to be disabled or destroyed and i do think it's a distinct problem i would disagree i would i would say that al qaeda core will make the what i mean by that is i think the american muslim community or communities i should say have been very good with a logical war within their own communities more successfully radicalized than those in the united states i think it's logical to expect that this is going to happen we're going to have people individuals who are radicalized in part through internet outreach seen over the past year i think we've seen a fairly consistent element of a domestic radicalization problem that hasn't reached a crisis or tipping point and as dick mentioned you know you had derek sharif the fort dix plot the torn south you know over the last eight years we've had numerous cases where the f b i and others done very good work in disrupting so i don't think we should make any grand conclusions to things we should watch though is the clustering the fact that you have groups of individuals within communities like the american somali that are drawn to the ideology and secondly the attempts the continued attempts to reach the foreign terrorist organization cells i think that is a bit different in kind that we need the kind of thing we need to watch very carefully because that that presents a different kind of