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95-699 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108-634

THE EFFECTS OF THE MADRID TERRORIST ATTACKS ON U.S.-EUROPEAN COOPERATION IN

THE WAR ON TERRORISM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 31, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

BARBARA BOXER, California

BILL NELSON, Florida

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia

JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Staff Director

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia, Chairman

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Allen, Hon. George, U.S. Senator from Virginia, opening statement .................. 14

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, opening statement ... 16

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20

Black, Hon. J. Cofer, Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for

Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC ....................... 1

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5

Dobbins, Hon. James, director, International Security and Defense Policy

Center, RAND Corporation, Washington, DC ................................................... 41

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43

Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., U.S. Senator from Connecticut, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 59

Gordon, Dr. Philip H., senior fellow and director, Center on the United

States and Europe, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC .................... 34

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38

Kagan, Mr. Robert, senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, Washington, DC ....................................................................................... 22

Niblett, Dr. Robin, executive vice president, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC ...................................................................... 26

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 29

(III)

(1)

THE EFFECTS OF THE MADRID TERRORIST

ATTACKS ON U.S.-EUROPEAN COOPERATION

IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2004

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George Allen (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.

Present: Senators Allen, Biden, and Dodd.

Senator ALLEN. Good afternoon to everyone. Welcome. I call this

hearing of the European Affairs Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee to order.

Today, we are going to examine the terrorist attacks in Madrid,

Spain, and what effect that will have on hopeful continued cooperation between the United States and Europeans in the war on terrorism.

I’m going to state at the outset that Ambassador Black, has a

limited amount of time to testify, share his observations and insight and answer questions. So, I’ll forego my opening remarks

until we hear from the Ambassador, and I will ask my colleagues

to do the same.

Senator Biden, I understand, is on the way.

For those of you on the second panel, thank you for being here.

You’ll hear committee members’ opening statements prior to your

testimony.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. COFER BLACK, COORDINATOR, OFFICE OF THE COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. BLACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee for this timely opportunity to appear before you today to discuss European cooperation with the United States in the Global

War on Terrorism.

Cooperation with Europe is very much on my mind, as I have

just left our semi-annual bilateral counterterrorism meeting with

Russia to attend this hearing. The fact that we meet regularly with

the Russians to exchange views on terrorism issues shows just how

far we’ve come in expanding our counterterrorism cooperation.

Before beginning my testimony, I would like to express my own

deep sympathy for the people of Spain who suffered the massive atVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
2

tack in Madrid 2 weeks ago as well as the people of Uzbekistan

who were attacked this week. Our hearts go out to them and the

brutal attacks only strengthen our resolve to try to deter future attacks and see the culprits for this one be caught and punished.

There is cultural and historical reasons. Not all Europeans use

the term ‘‘war’’ to refer to our common confrontation with global

terrorism. However, I believe the people of Europe are united in

their abhorrence of terrorism. This revulsion has only been

strengthened by the horror of the train bombs in Madrid and the

suicide bombers in a crowded market in Tashkent.

Well before the Madrid outrages which killed more people than

any single terrorist attack in Europe since Lockerbie, many European countries have been targets of international or domestic terrorism. Sadly, Europeans well know the price terrorism exacts.

Senator ALLEN. Ambassador Black, let me interrupt. If you could

get the microphone closer to you or maybe more in the middle, I

think we’ll be able to hear you a little better.

Mr. BLACK. I’ll try that.

Senator ALLEN. That’s better.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. Chairman, as shown by the widening Spanishled investigation that is taking place with the cooperation of Morocco and several European countries, neither the U.S. nor Europe

can fight the war against terrorism alone.

Europeans have been reliable partners, both bilaterally and in

multilateral organizations. Cooperation has been forthcoming and

rapid response to immediate threats the norm. France and Britain

and our neighbor Mexico, for example, acted immediately and vigorously to address our concerns about heightened and specific

threats to aviation over the Christmas holiday period. We greatly

appreciate this cooperation.

Successes in the campaign against terrorism have, to a large degree, been the result of the unprecedented level of cooperation and

mutual support among the United States and our partners around

the world. The contributions of European countries in sharing vital

information, arresting members of terrorist cells, interdicting terrorist fighting logistics, and assisting in the rebuilding of Afghanistan have been and continue to be vital elements in the war on terrorism.

European nations are active participants in a variety of multilateral organizations that have made contributions to counterterrorist

efforts, including the G8, the Financial Action Task Force or FATF,

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE,

and the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO.

The United States has worked through all of these organizations

to establish and implement counterterrorism best practices, build

weak-but-willing states’ counterterrorism capabilities, and institutionalized the war against terrorism globally.

OSCE members have committed themselves to become parties to

the 12 U.N. terrorism conventions and protocols, to prevent terrorist groups from operating on their territory and to prevent and

suppress the financing of terrorist organizations.

I’d like to speak a little bit, Mr. Chairman, about European

Union cooperation. The EU has been a solid partner in sustaining

the global coalition against terrorism. Following 9/11, the European

3

Council adopted an action plan to identify such areas as police and

judicial cooperation, humanitarian assistance, transportation security, and economic and finance policy to help fight terrorism.

The EU and U.S. signed extradition and mutual legal assistance

treaties at the June 2003 summit that will expand law enforcement

and judicial cooperation.

The Madrid bombings have provided additional impetus for action. In an 18-page declaration on counterterrorism on March 25,

EU heads of state agreed, among other things, to reinforce operational cooperation, improve the effectiveness of border information

systems, and to increase the technical assistance to Third World

countries.

We applaud the designation of a new EU Counterterrorism Coordinator and a new sense of urgency stemming from the Madrid attacks and will help speed EU implementation of actions outlined in

the EU summit declaration.

The capabilities of our Western European partners are excellent.

European intelligence and security forces are well aware of the

threat posed by Islamic extremism and generally do an effective job

of monitoring extremists. They have successfully forestalled numerous incipient mass casualty attacks since 9/11.

However, significant deficiencies remain. Some European states

have demonstrated a troubling inability to prosecute successfully or

hold many of the terrorists brought before their courts. The nature

of the problem varies from country to country, as do the legal systems, traditions and relevant legislation.

Some countries have legal impediments to taking firm judicial

action stemming from asylum laws. Some have inadequate

counterterrorism legislation. Some have extremely high standards

of evidence that afford loopholes and limit the ability of authorities

to hold suspects. Many do not have in camera proceedings, making

use of intelligence-based information nearly impossible. Ease of

travel among Schengen countries and strict protections of privacy

can also complicate counterterrorism efforts.

Differing perspectives on the dividing line between legitimate political and charitable activity and support for terrorist groups similarly clouds the picture. For example, the EU as a whole has been

reluctant to take steps to block the assets of charities linked to

Hamas and Hizballah, even though these groups repeatedly engage

in terrorist attacks and the ‘‘charitable’’ activities help draw recruits.

Even laying aside the contentious issue of the death penalty, European sentences in general are often significantly less stringent

than those in the United States and provisions for mandatory remission of sentences frequently more generous.

We want to work with our European partners to identify areas

where there is work to be done and ways in which we can collaborate more effectively. Let me briefly address some of them.

All of us, including the United States, need to improve coordination between our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. There

have been significant advances since September 11, 2001, but we

can still do more.

We all need to improve or ability to track terrorism financing.

Most countries in Europe have good laws against terrorism financVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
4

ing, but some of the financial transfers slip past regulators in the

formal economy. Some transactions move through informal, largely

illegal, channels.

All of us need to continue to improve the control of our borders,

both with respect to movement of persons in and out, and movement of potentially dangerous items, especially those possibly related to weapons of mass destruction.

We also must remedy deficiencies in the legal, financial, and enforcement tools. European countries need to fulfill their commitments to ratify and implement all of the U.N. counterterrorism

conventions and protocols.

States must ensure the criminalization of material and logistical

support for terrorism, and in some cases terrorism itself, impose

strict punishments on convicted terrorists, and lower obstacles to

the use of intelligence in law enforcement. Laws against document

fraud need to be strengthened across the board. All countries need

to have a national ability to freeze administratively terrorist assets.

Legal or technical impediments to closer cooperation among

countries on intelligence and information exchanges must be removed. The EU and its member states need to re-examine fundamentally the ways in which strict privacy laws can impede the

sharing of information for law enforcement purposes.

EU member states need to accelerate efforts to complete bilateral

agreements with the United States to implement the U.S.-EU extradition and mutual legal assistance agreements.

I’d like to speak a little bit about wider cooperation. At the same

time, we need to continue to look for ways to develop cooperative

U.S.-European counterterrorism programs to assist less-capable

countries. Many countries need assistance in developing their capabilities to counter terrorism and strengthen their legal framework.

There is more than enough work for us all.

Senator BIDEN. Excuse me. I beg your pardon. Clarification.

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. Are you talking about countries within the EU?

Mr. BLACK. Outside the EU.

Senator BIDEN. Outside the EU but within Europe?

Mr. BLACK. No. Outside of Europe.

Senator BIDEN. OK. Thank you.

Mr. BLACK. As you know very well, Senator, the United States

has a pretty robust program of working bilaterally with countries

that have the will to resist terrorism but not the capability. We

also work regionally, such as in this hemisphere, through the OAS,

and we have been working productively, I think, and need to work

closely with the Europeans so they get out and participate and help

states that can use their assistance.

Addressing the factors that reduce counterterrorism effectiveness

in Europe will be a long process. Varying legal, cultural and historical traditions and practices will complicate and slow the process.

However, there is no doubt the Europeans are increasingly aware

of both the threat and the deficiencies that limit their abilities to

address it.

To win the global war on terrorism, we must continue to work

closely with our European partners to address those concerns and

5

to build on our many successes. We will need to shore up support

from public opinion by more clearly articulating our policies and

underscoring that terrorism is a global threat to citizens of all

countries. Reducing your profile in confronting terrorism does not

reduce your risk from terrorism.

The United States and Europe share a long history of cooperation against common enemies. Together, we won the wars against

fascism and communism and together we will win this war.

At this point, I think I should stop and I’d be pleased to take

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Black follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR J. COFER BLACK

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee for this timely opportunity to appear before you today to discuss European cooperation with the United

States in the Global War on Terrorism. Cooperation with Europe is very much on

my mind, as I have just left our semi-annual bilateral counterterrorism meeting

with Russia to attend this hearing. The fact that we meet regularly with the Russians to exchange views on terrorism issues shows how far we have come in expanding our counterterrorism cooperation.

Before beginning my testimony, I would like to express my own deep sympathy

for the people of Spain who suffered the massive terrorist attack in Madrid two

weeks ago. Our hearts go out to them and the brutal attack only strengthens our

resolve to try to deter future attacks and see the culprits for this one be caught and

punished.

For various cultural and historical reasons, not all Europeans use the term ‘‘war’’

to refer to our common confrontation with global terrorism. However, I believe the

people of Europe are united in their abhorrence of terrorism. This revulsion that has

only been strengthened by the horror of the train bombs in Madrid and of the suicide bombers in a crowded market in Tashkent. Well before the Madrid outrages,

which killed more people than any single terrorist attack since Lockerbie, many European countries had been targets of international or domestic terrorism. Sadly, Europeans well know the price terrorism exacts.

Mr. Chairman, as shown by the widening Spanish-led investigation that is taking

place with the cooperation of Morocco and several European countries, neither the

U.S. nor Europe can fight the war against terrorism alone. Europeans have been

reliable partners, both bilaterally and in multilateral organizations. Cooperation has

been forthcoming, and rapid response to immediate threats the norm. France and

Britain—and our neighbor Mexico—for example, acted immediately and vigorously

to address our concerns about heightened and specific threats to aviation over the

Christmas holiday period. We greatly appreciate this cooperation.

Successes in the campaign against terrorism have, to a large degree, been a result

of the unprecedented level of cooperation and mutual support among the U.S. and

our partners around the world. The contributions of European countries in sharing

vital information, arresting members of terrorist cells, interdicting terrorist financing and logistics, and assisting in rebuilding Afghanistan have been and continue

to be, vital elements in the war on terrorism.

European nations are active participants in a variety of multilateral organizations

that have made contributions in counterterrorist efforts, including the G-8, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Organization for Security and Cooperation

in Europe (OSCE), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The

U.S. has worked through all of these organizations to establish and implement

counterterrorism (CT) best practices, build weak-but-willing states’ CT capabilities,

and institutionalize the war against terrorism globally. OSCE members have committed themselves to become parties to the 12 UN terrorism conventions and protocols; to prevent terrorist groups from operating on their territory; and to prevent

and suppress the financing of terrorist organizations.

EU COOPERATION

The EU has been a solid partner in sustaining the global coalition against terrorism. Following 9/11, the European Council adopted an Action Plan to identify

areas, such as police and judicial cooperation, humanitarian assistance, transportation security and economic and finance policy, to help fight terrorism. The EU and

6

U.S. signed Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties at the June 2003

Summit that will expand law enforcement and judicial cooperation.

The Madrid bombings have provided additional impetus for action. In an 18-page

declaration on counter terrorism on March 25, EU heads of state agreed, among

other things, to reinforce operational cooperation, improve the effectiveness of border information systems, and bolster technical assistance to Third countries. We applaud the designation of a new EU Counterterrorism Coordinator and a new sense

of urgency stemming from the Madrid attacks will help speed EU implementation

of actions outlined in the EU Summit declaration.

The capabilities of our Western European partners are excellent. European intelligence and security forces are well aware of the threat posed by Islamist extremism

and generally do an effective job of monitoring extremists. They have successfully

forestalled numerous incipient mass casualty attacks since 9-11.

However, significant deficiencies remain. Some European states have demonstrated a troubling inability to prosecute successfully or hold many of the terrorists brought before their courts. The nature of the problem varies from country to

country, as do legal systems, traditions and relevant legislation.

Some countries have legal impediments to taking firm judicial action stemming

from asylum laws; some have inadequate CT legislation; some have extremely high

standards of evidence that afford loopholes and limit the ability of authorities to

hold suspects; many do not have in camera proceedings, making use of intelligencebased information nearly impossible. Ease of travel among Schengen countries,

varying immigration laws, and strict protections of privacy can also complicate CT

efforts.

Differing perspectives on the dividing line between legitimate political or charitable activity and support for terrorist groups similarly clouds the picture. For example, the EU as a whole has been reluctant to take steps to block the assets of

charities linked to Hamas and Hizballah, even though these groups repeatedly engage in deadly terrorist attacks and the ‘‘charitable’’ activities help draw recruits.

Even laying aside the contentious issue of the death penalty, European sentences

in general are often significantly less stringent than those in the U.S., and provisions for mandatory remission of sentences frequently more generous.

We want to work with our European partners to identify areas where there is

work to be done and ways in which we can collaborate more effectively. Let me

briefly address some of them:

All of us, including the United States, need to improve coordination between our

law enforcement and intelligence agencies. There have been significant advances

since September 11, 2001, but we can still do better.

We all need to improve our ability to track terrorism financing. Most countries

in Europe have good laws against terrorism financing, but some of the financial

transfers slip past regulators in the formal economy. Some transactions move

through informal, largely illegal, channels.

All of us need to continue to improve the control of our borders, both with respect

to movement of persons in and out, and movement of potentially dangerous items,

especially those possibly related to weapons of mass destruction.

We also must remedy deficiencies in legal, financial and enforcement tools:

• European countries need to fulfill their commitments to ratify and implement

all the UN CT conventions and protocols.

• States must insure the criminalization of material and logistical support for terrorism (and in some cases, terrorism itself); impose strict punishments on convicted terrorists; and lower barriers to use of intelligence in law enforcement.

Laws against document fraud need to be strengthened across the board.

• All countries need to have a national ability to freeze administratively terrorist

assets.

• Legal or technical impediments to closer cooperation among countries on intelligence and information exchanges must be removed. The EU and its member

states need to re-examine fundamentally the ways in which strict privacy laws

can impede the sharing of information for law enforcement purposes.

• EU member states need to accelerate efforts to complete bilateral agreements

with the U.S. to implement the U.S.-EU Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements.

WIDER COOPERATION

At the same time, we need to continue to look for ways to develop cooperative

U.S.-European CT programs to assist less-capable countries. Many countries need

7

assistance in developing their capabilities to counter terrorism and strengthen their

legal framework. There is more than enough work for all of us.

Addressing the factors that reduce CT effectiveness in Europe will be a long-term

process. Differing legal, cultural and historical traditions and practices will complicate and slow progress. However, there is no doubt that the Europeans are increasingly aware of both the threat and the deficiencies that limit their abilities to

address it.

To win the global war on terrorism, we must continue to work closely with our

European partners to address these concerns and to build on our many successes.

We will need to shore up support from public opinion by more clearly articulating

our policies and underscoring that terrorism is a global threat to citizens of all countries. Reducing your profile in confronting terrorism does not reduce your risk from

terrorism.

The U.S. and Europe share a long history of cooperation against common enemies.

Together, we won the wars against fascism and communism and together we will

win this war.

At this point I would be pleased to take any questions. Thank you.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Ambassador Black, for your testimony and insight.

I think after 9/11 and after 3/11, all of us learned a great deal

of how we need to adapt and I think all of us know that we need

to improve.

I thank you for your comprehensive statement and assessment.

Let me follow on some of the details from your statement, and

one of the reasons for this hearing and why it’s timely is we just

had the Madrid attacks. There’s a concern about what are the implications, and have you seen any perceptible change in cooperation

from Europe since the attacks in Madrid, and how would you respond to the argument or the assertions or insinuations made in

parts of Europe that the attacks on Madrid prove that persuasion

and diplomacy are preferable to military engagement when combating terrorism?

Mr. BLACK. I think at this point, Senator, it’s too soon to be able

to speak definitively on the subject. I think we can make some sort

of tentative judgments.

Initial signs are that these attacks have spurred sort of an increase in a sense of urgency. We have to accept that our European

partners on the other side of the ocean viewed with horror the catastrophic attack of 9/11 against the United States. They were very

supportive. A coalition was formed.

I think to a certain extent, it was seen to be somewhat remote

and that their plans and policies and procedures were adequate for

them in their geographical location and in their time. I think this

tragedy has underscored the concept, of course, that no one is immune. I think Europeans are coming to terms with this. They have

particular national orientations, but it has had some positive results.

Security measures have been tightened. I think cooperation within the EU, within the European countries, has increased. Cooperation certainly with the United States has increased. European

Union has identified and named a Counterterrorism Coordinator.

They realize that cooperation is the key to success. Transparency

is required, and the Europeans have a lot of work to do in this

area, as do we all, but I think it’s an appreciation that they need

to devote additional time and resources.

The European populations generally have felt a sense of outrage

and they are coming, I think, closer to our position, at least appreVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
8

ciating the horror of this, and I think it’s our obligation from our

position of having gone through such a catastrophic experience to

help them in this quest to reach the right conclusion, and in fact,

before this hearing began, Senator, you and I briefly discussed this.

I think there’s a general inclination to think that

counterterrorism issues can be managed and perhaps managed successfully. The President of the United States, George Bush, has declared this as a global war on terrorism and he’s exactly right.

In a war, management is a part of success, but you have to identify the enemy. You have to engage them. You have to prevent

them through various means from hurting innocent men, women

and children, and I think the Europeans are on the conveyor belt

of generally reaching this impression. When they will reach where

we are, I just can’t say.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you. One of the other troubling aspects of

this terrorist attack in Madrid was the timing. It was right before

an election, and therefore there’s the impression, and there certainly is a connection, and I’m not going to say how clear it is, but

a connection that they’re trying to affect the outcome of the election

and, of course, all the political scientists feel that it did have an

effect on the election.

Now, how is our administration countering the perception that

al-Qaeda can influence elections? How can we make a better case

for our policy to prevent electorates in various countries from associating cooperation with the United States with terrorist attacks?

I know that’s a very tough question, but it’s one that you hear

a great deal about.

Mr. BLACK. You’re absolutely right. I think, in response to that

question, I’m mindful of the statement made by Mr. Armitage, the

No. 2 man at the State Department, Deputy Secretary, when asked

this question.

It was his view that the election in Spain was basically revolving

around the issue, the perception of management, political management of this issue by the Aznar administration and certainly was

not a repudiation of the threat of terrorism as it is represented to

the Spanish people.

Our interaction with the Spanish is intensive. Our diplomacy is

solid. It’s on a very good base. We are strong colleagues in the war

on terrorism, and their support has been excellent. After the elections, the Spanish have underscored to us their full acceptance that

terrorism is an issue of great significance to them. They plan to engage it more closely, unilaterally as well as with their European

partners, and will work with us on this.

I do believe that as the days and weeks unfold and we have a

little bit of time to get past the memorial service—in fact, the Secretary of State just returned the other day from Madrid—in memory of the loss of life, I think that it is likely that Europeans and

their procedures will be enhanced. They will be more formidable in

the global war on terrorism, and they will be benefited by it and

so will we.

Diplomatically, the United States will continue an unrelenting

drumbeat that the President of the United States says there really

are no sidelines. We’re all in this wherever we are and the solution

of victory comes simply from pulling together and doing our best.

9

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Ambassador. Given your limited

amount of time, I’m suggesting 7-minute rounds for questions. So,

I have a little less than 2 minutes.

Let me ask you this. In your testimony, you mentioned European

countries need to fulfill their commitments to ratify and implement

all the U.N. counterterrorism conventions and protocols and you

went through some of the different matters on lower barriers to use

of intelligence and law enforcement.

No. 1. Are those the specifics as you enunciated in your statement, and second, if so or if not, rather than us—the United States

loves our sovereignty and we don’t particularly like others telling

us what we ought to pass around here.

Is it desirable on the part of the European countries, European

Union to commit themselves in ratifying and implementing these

counterterrorism conventions, laws, protocols, and so forth, so

therefore it’s likely that it will happen?

I don’t think that most free countries—it’s just the way we are

as independent free people—don’t like others telling them what

they have to have, but if they find it desirable, they’re more likely

to actually adopt them.

So, what is their desirability and therefore the likelihood of them

implementing these counterterrorism measures?

Mr. BLACK. There are 12 that are being advanced by the United

Nations. Certainly in principle, there is agreement, and what we’re

looking at is each nation——

Senator ALLEN. There’s agreement——

Mr. BLACK. In principle, there is agreement to the 12 protocols

on counterterrorism.

When it comes to a national issue, there are some that require

considerable deliberation and review within their own national systems and our role has been to provide information and encouragement to sign all 12. We believe it provides a basis, an international

basis, from which we can take counterterrorism action. It includes

many things.

As an example, you know, the banning of plastic weapons, handguns made out of plastic and things like that. Some countries may

have some unique and exotic issue with it and that’s a problem.

The role of the United States has been to encourage acceptance of

this, to have each nation approve all 12, so that we have a common

fundamental base from which we can cooperate and increase our

collective effectiveness.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir.

Senator ALLEN. Senator Biden.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to compliment

you on holding this hearing, notwithstanding the fact that other

things are going on. I think this is one of the most important hearings we could have before the full committee or subcommittee at

this moment, and I want to thank you for being willing to and for

the witnesses you have assembled. Obviously, the Ambassador is a

consequential person in this administration and in

counterterrorism, but the witnesses you have to follow are all first

rate, and I want to compliment you.

10

Senator ALLEN. Thank you for suggesting two of those outstanding witnesses.

Senator BIDEN. But really and truly, these are some very serious

people and it’s a serious time, as you know better than I do.

Mr. Ambassador, in the interest of the time we have, and I know

you have a very busy schedule, I’m going to focus on Europe visa`-vis Europe and Europe vis-a`-vis the United States, not Europe

and what ancillary responsibilities we think they should have outside of Europe. OK?

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. They are not able to be clearly distinguished, I’m

not suggesting that, but I want to focus on being as basic as I can

to try to get a sense here.

Now, let me start off by also acknowledging that we’re in a situation where, as you well know, there are other issues that are impacting upon our, not ability, but the atmosphere in which we’re

discussing specific counterterrorist activities that we’d like to see

individual European nations undertake.

We are pushing, as you pointed out, and the protocols, the 12 you

have referred to, I think they make sense. They feel very much,

and I think they were wrong in not cooperating more, but they feel

very much that we stiffed them on a new national criminal court

and so we tend to be, as we always do, every administration, we

tend to be multilateral and bilateral when we need it and unilaterally when we want it.

So, you’re entering this in a very highly charged atmosphere that

doesn’t relate to what happened in Madrid initially. A lot of other

things have come to bear. I know you know that better than anyone, but I just want to state that at the outset.

Having said that, since Madrid, have Europeans reached out for

any advice or assistance from us relative to counterterrorist tactics,

activities, or protocols? Has there been any direct contact? Has the

Minister of the Interior of anywhere from Italy to Belgium called

and said, look, what are you guys doing about A, B, C, or D?

Mr. BLACK. Let me respond that first, as always, it’s an honor

to be before you, Senator. Your questions, as always, are right to

the point.

The relationship between law enforcement and security services

between the United States and all of the European countries is

very good. They do the business of counterterrorism day in and day

out and we don’t really hear much about it or see much about it,

but across the board, it has been good, and I think the quality of

that is improving regularly.

You see evidence of this in the newspapers, such as the arrest

in the United Kingdom of eight suspected terrorists, and what we

usually don’t see with things like this is—what we do not see is

things associated with this arrest. It has a ripple effect. It goes not

only throughout Europe, it can reach as far as this hemisphere,

and there’s intense cooperation of these kinds of issues.

I think immediately in the wake of the Madrid attack, there’s

been excellent working level cooperation in all of the action elements. At the senior levels, there’s contact, but the Europeans are

really coming to terms with the tragedy of this, and they realize

there’s some improvements they can make in their own house.

11

I never, Senator, hear from a European counterpart who tells me

that everything is fine and improvement is needed on this side of

the Atlantic. In fact, this is my own personal and professional view,

but in some key areas in counterterrorism, you know, the Europeans have something to learn from us.

I think they realize that with this type of attack, it spurs them

on. They need to have far better integration within Europe of their

legal systems, the exchange of information, the same types of

issues that you address every day here in the United States on

counterterrorism. They’re having to do it in an EU-wide context,

and they have a considerable way to go.

Senator BIDEN. Yes, they do, and individually, they have hell of

a lot more experience than we do on terror. I mean, they’ve forgotten more about it than most of us are going to learn. The Brits and

the IRA, the Spanish, you know, the list goes on, and I think one

of the fundamental things is our rhetoric, the mutual rhetoric gets

in the way of some of this.

I find at the operational level, there’s a lot more coordination and

respect among our professionals and theirs in cooperating and respecting one another than there is at the political level. I mean, us

included, Congress, everybody. There is this sense that—and they

do view it because it’s been their history as more of a law enforcement effort than we do, and then the President talks about it and

there’s always this sort of not from you, the counterterrorism expert, but there’s these throwaway lines that come out of the Congress and the administration that this is not a law enforcement

issue.

Well, like hell it’s not a law enforcement issue. The guy that’s

going to catch Bin Laden or his counterpart in Europe, about to put

a bomb on the side of a train that can be detonated by remote control, is not going to be a Special Forces guy with night vision goggles.

Mr. BLACK. Right.

Senator BIDEN. It’s going to be some cop with a dog. It’s a law

enforcement issue, so I hope we stop this garbage about somehow

law enforcement is a bad thing and we’re the tough guys. We’re

sending the Marines. The Marines aren’t going to be anywhere

near when someone tries to blow up Amtrak, if God forbid that

happens. It’s going to be a cop, a plain old law enforcement cop,

and so one of the things that I’m concerned about here is that—

and my time is going to be up in 11 seconds, but I’d like you to,

for the record, and it can be classified or not, depending on how

you wish to do it, but you laid out very clearly in your statement

the places where additional work is needed vis-a`-vis U.S.-European

relations.

You said some countries have legal impediments and then you

list them, asylum laws, inadequate counterterrorist legislation, extremely high standards of evidence, in camera proceedings, immigration laws, privacy as relates to assets and transfers and bank

accounts, length of sentence.

I hope you drop the last one. I don’t care whether or not they

pick up Bin Laden’s chief lieutenant in Bonn, Germany, and give

him only 5 years. We’ll get the son of a gun when he gets out of

12

jail. So, I wouldn’t—let’s not get inundated—respectful suggestion.

Let’s not get—— Mr. BLACK. I accept it, Senator. I accept everything you say.

Senator BIDEN. Let’s not get in this argument that can only

anger both sides. Your sentences are not as long as ours. I mean,

you know, and in terms of in camera proceedings, I’m the guy that

wrote the law, literally. I wrote the gray mail statute, took me 2

years to do that, literally, myself, and guess who I got most of the

opposition from? Most of the opposition for the law came from my

conservative friends here in the U.S. Congress when I wrote that

law in the late 1970s with a guy named Mark Gittenstein.

And with regard to the privacy and the privacy of assets, we

should—before we get too lecturing, we’re not, you’re not, we

should understand that our banking system and our powerful interests in this country did not like when I wrote the drug legislation requiring that there be an accounting for everything $10,000

or over. Oh, no, my God. You’re interfering with the free enterprise

system.

So, I know you and I have great respect for you.

Mr. BLACK. Thank you.

Senator BIDEN. I’m counting on you to keep this thing out of the

polemics, but what I’d like to ask is for the record, if you would

be prepared to list for us—and if it needs to be classified, that’s

fine by me, the countries and the specific references you’re making,

like the standard of proof that’s ‘‘too high.’’

For example, there are asylum laws. You know, every time I sat

with Mubarak, Mubarak would say to me, ‘‘Joe, the problem is the

British know exactly who’s sitting in their coffee houses.’’ So, everybody thinks we’re talking about the French when we talk about

that.

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. It ain’t the French. They just lock them up because their sense of what we would call civil rights is not nearly

as acute as ours.

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Senator BIDEN. The Brits have been the problem, our best

friends, our best friends, and so I think it’s important we get the

facts out here so some of my stupid friends who are commenting

here on this stuff stop turning this into a—make it difficult to sort

of overcome the attacks we make on people. Now, it’s if you look

French, there must in fact be something wrong with you. And

that’s one of the reasons I want to know—if you’re willing—who

and what laws you’re talking about in each of these areas rather

than generically stated.

Mr. BLACK. Absolutely, Senator. If I may, I’d like to give you a

classified response so I could be more fulsome that way.

Senator BIDEN. With the chairman’s permission, I think that

would be very helpful. My time has expired by 3 minutes and 21

seconds. So I thank you.

Mr. BLACK. Thank you.

Senator ALLEN. That’s OK. Thank you, Senator Biden. Your

questions were good ones. I was trying to be more diplomatic in

going through some of those that other countries don’t.

Senator BIDEN. I’m a Democrat. So, you know.

13

Senator ALLEN. Senator Biden, your strong leadership in these

areas is valuable to us. I would ask you to submit some questions

in writing and it may be that other members of the committee or

subcommittee will as well.

I do want to get from you your sense and maybe it is best that

it is not made public because it might harm somebody’s sensibilities. There is a sense that appeasement or cutting back on the perseverance and the strength and unified resolve against terrorism

insofar as some of countries in Europe, and it may not even be the

countries. It may be isolated people making comments that look

like appeasement somehow is a viable policy. So, if you could share

with us that information, as to whether or not there’s any currency

in Europe to that sort of approach.

Also, in looking at the European Union’s counterintelligence efforts and there are many different countries with different burdens

of proof, different standards and so forth, one thing we have in this

country are uniform crime reporting forums, so to speak, but we

recognize even in this country what we need to do after 9/11 is to

make sure the FBI, Defense, Intelligence, Immigrations, Customs,

consulates, state and local law enforcement, everyone was sharing

information, trying to use technology to analyze the volumes of information, so you connect the dots, so to speak.

This probably ought to also be classified as this gentleman, I believe you pronounced his name, de Vries.

Mr. BLACK. Gijs de Vries.

Senator ALLEN. Gijs de Vries, whether or not you believe that

he’ll be able to help streamline that intelligence information, so

that when something happens in France, they can share it with

somebody in the Netherlands, or something happens in Spain, they

can share that information with someone in Belgium, and have

that sort of information sharing which is vital in this country

amongst all our different agencies, is vital in Europe, and then, of

course, have it mesh with us as well.

So, if you could, when you get a chance, to do that, I’d appreciate

it.

Mr. BLACK. I’d be happy to do it, Senator.

Senator BIDEN. Mr. Chairman, could I ask a question?

Senator ALLEN. You may.

Senator BIDEN. I hope that you will at some point make it clear

what I think is the truth and if it’s not, then say so, that I have

not met with one European leader or one person involved in

counterterrorism who hasn’t in fact gained more resolve in dealing

with terror in their respective countries since Madrid.

I’ve not seen a single scintilla of evidence of any of your counterparts anywhere in Europe saying, God, we better get out of the

business of being with the United States. We don’t want to be targets.

Have you seen anything like that?

Mr. BLACK. You’re absolutely right, Senator. In general, people

in my line of work see the abyss. They know what the threat is and

that’s what we do for a living. One of the challenges is to communicate this through time, but the way you phrased the question,

since Madrid, I think everyone in Europe associated with

counterterrorism, whether they’re practitioners or politicians, cerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
14

tainly have been more attuned to this threat and certainly realize

that they’re in a fight now.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you.

Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir.

Senator ALLEN. Good question, Senator Biden.

Ambassador Black, thank you for your testimony. I think that

with our next witnesses, which gets into a political science question

that really on what’s the reaction of people in Europe, we’ll be able

to explore that further.

Ambassador Black, again, thank you for your testimony. Thank

you for your great leadership and your advancement of the cause

of freedom, working with our friends across the Atlantic and

throughout the world.

Mr. BLACK. Thank you very much, Senator Allen and Senator

Biden. It’s been an honor.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you. If we can have the second panel to

come forward.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GEORGE ALLEN

I thank our second panel for being here. As I stated at the outset

of this subcommittee hearing, we will have opening statements at

this time. At the conclusion of my opening statement, Senator

Biden will speak, then I’ll introduce our panelists. I understand

that one is on the way. All three of you and Mr. Dobbins, when he

gets here, are outstanding witnesses who we look forward to listening to, learning from and discussing these issues.

Clearly, Spain and the world since 9/11 and more recently, of

course, 3/11, are aware of how difficult executing the global war on

terrorism will be, that we’re going to have to persevere.

It is confirmed as far as we’re concerned here, and I think any

objective observer, that this murdering of hundreds of innocent

Spaniards cannot derail the 84-member coalition that in 2001, after

September 11, declared war on the scourge of terrorism and then

backed that declaration with action in Afghanistan and elsewhere

in the world.

It is important to note, as Ambassador Black did, Spain continues to mourn the loss of their hundreds of citizens. Clearly,

those of us in America know such grief and will continue to help

our ally overcome this terrible tragedy and bring those who are responsible to justice.

The Spanish people, after this terrorist attack, exercised their

rights in a vibrant democracy. They have spoken. They have called

for change. There are all sorts of political scientists who have said,

well, this is the reason for the result, but we must respect their

right to disagree with us. They may not agree with us on 100 percent of the issues, but it is good to hear from Ambassador Black

that Spain is and will remain a strong ally of the United States.

I am confident and believe that we’ll find common ground with

the incoming Spanish President, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and

will continue to work together to try to prevent attacks like those

that have been inflicted on our respective countries.

The political aftermath of the Madrid attack does raise concerns

about U.S. policy and the overall strength and will of the coalition

in their commitment to stamp out terrorism and it’s good to hear

15

from Ambassador Black and it will be good to hear from our second

panel, on this because the seeming cause and effect between the attacks at the train station and the dramatic change in public opinion could be a cause for alarm for nations around the world.

If an attack timed right before an election can yield policies that

are somehow beneficial to al-Qaeda, then the world could be facing

future attacks as a method to threaten or blackmail or weaken the

government’s policies against terrorism by the terrorists trying to

influence the outcome of an election.

Moreover, if people in free countries get the view that support for

the war against terrorism as a likely reason for the attacks in Madrid, political leaders around the world could find themselves

under great pressure. It may be that those who can see the abyss,

like Ambassador Black or others in counterintelligence, can see the

reality and communicate it to the presidents or prime ministers.

But there is also public opinion and the people who are the owners

of the government in free countries.

If they see that this is somehow a concern for their own security,

that we’re fighting a war on terrorism, but that actually is going

to be harmful to them, then I believe the terrorist attacks might

be encouraged by that sort of a reaction. So it’s absolutely essential

that the people in free countries understand the risk because we

cannot allow terrorist attacks to provide terrorists with victories or

appeasement policies.

Terrorists are not rational. They are not people who care about

reason. They don’t like democracy. They’re intolerant of people who

have different points of view. They are religious bigots in many respects as well as all the other aspects of them that we need to be

strong and unified in combating.

The question of whether it will lead to other countries pulling out

from Iraq or distancing themselves from the United States and its

policies, makes it vital that our U.S. leaders maintain open lines

of communication with our allies.

We must assure them that the United States is committed to

eradicating global terrorism wherever it may reside or wherever it’s

given haven. The idea again of reasoning with terrorists without

force or with appeasement in my view is naive and I believe it’s

dangerous.

The enemy clearly seeks to inflict the maximum amount of harm

on innocent civilian lives in its attacks. It is an enemy that cannot

be reasoned with. Al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups believe that

the will of the United States and the will of our allies will be worn

down if faced with attacks like those in Madrid.

In my view, to be successful against this enemy, we have to persevere. We must work closely with our coalition partners, sharing

intelligence and then acting on that intelligence. Many of the recent victories against terrorist groups can be directly attributed to

the sharing of information between governments. Many times, it’s

our military, but many other times, it is law enforcement, as Senator Biden was talking about. That’s where you’re going to get that

information sharing and hopefully a more coordinated effort in Europe, and as far as Mr. de Vries, the new Counterterrorism Coordinator for the European Union, he’s going to try to cut through, all

this red tape bureaucracy and make sure that European countries’

16

various intelligence agencies are communicating potential terrorist

threats.

Such streamlining is what is necessary to efficiently execute this

war on terrorism and we should certainly applaud his decision and

pledge to work closely with Mr. de Vries.

However, if we don’t recognize the potential outcomes of the Madrid attacks, our best sources of intelligence could decide that it is

no longer in their interests to work with the United States and fall

away from our coalition. That simply cannot happen. We cannot

embolden the terrorists.

It’s not in the interests of the European countries or any freedom-loving countries to not make sure this is a multifaceted effort,

and in fact, it’s not just Europe. Of course, the focus here is Europe

and the United States, but it has to do with the Philippines. It has

to do with Indonesia, Pakistan, India, every country of the world,

and so while some may question us on Iraq, that is just one battlefield of this global war on terrorism.

It is my hope that our U.S. Ambassadors, our embassies, our

leaders, our consulates around the globe are engaging in an aggressive campaign to allay the fears or concerns of our allies about Iraq

or, more importantly, the broader war against terrorism, and so we

need to make our case strongly and we have to make that case respectfully. The global war on terrorism could be much longer and

a much more difficult endeavor if we do not make that case in a

strong, persuasive way, but also in one of cooperation and respect

for the rights and sovereignty of other nations who are absolutely

crucial to our victory.

So, I thank our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee

this afternoon and look forward to your testimony. I will introduce

you, but before that, I’d like to turn it over to Senator Biden for

any opening remarks that he would like to make.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want

to thank this panel. It’s a serious panel, and I’m anxious to hear

what they have to say, but I would like to suggest at the outset

that after September 11, I feared that it was only, as many of you

did, only a matter of time before Europe would suffer the same

kind of murderous violence that we experienced in New York and

Washington and from the same source, from the same source.

Europeans have their own images of violence and death and

their own date which will come to define us as governments and

as people. Spain had grappled with homegrown terrorism of the serious kind with ETA just as the United Kingdom has at the hands

of the IRA, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Baader Meinhof Gang

in Germany, the list goes on. They understand what the consequences of terror are, but I think that they believed—I’m going

to say something that’s going to be very controversial.

I think there’s two flaws among the ruling elite in both our countries now. The flaw I think that exists in this country is we believe

that the way to deal with international terrorism is to decapitate

essentially the heads of state in states that are empathetic or sympathetic to terror, whether they’re directly working with terrorist

organizations, and they believe that that will have a more immeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
17

diate profound impact on these terror networks than going directly

after the networks, not that they don’t want to go directly after the

networks as well.

In Europe, where I’ve spent the last 30 years of my 32-year career dealing with this as either chairman of ranking member of

this committee, I think they really believe that the reason we were

a target on 9/11 was our policies.

I think they believe because they in individual countries had

policies different relative to the Palestinians, different relative to

nations in the Middle East, that somehow they weren’t likely to be

the target of the same international terrorist network that has

morphed now. I think that’s a fundamental flaw.

As Mr. Kagan, I suspect, knows better than anyone because he’s

probably, like maybe all of you have done what I have done, I think

I’ve read every major tome literally, not facetiously, I’m being serious, written in the last 12 to 15 years that talks about what is happening internally within Islam.

As a matter of fact, I became so aware of my lack of substantive

knowledge about 1.2 billion people in the world who practice Islam,

that I hired a Ph.D. anthropologist from Harvard University whose

expertise was Islam to come and work for me several years before

9/11 just to educate me, and if you read and you understand that

there’s essentially—and I’m vastly oversimplifying—a 16th century

struggle going on within Islam that occurred in Europe with Christendom, you begin to get a sense of what this is about. You begin

to get a sense of the fundamentalists in the Islamic world, of whom

Bin Laden is one, believe that it is literally, Christian phrase, sacrilege to have a state in existence that is separate from the religious body.

That is not an Islamic view in the minds of the way he as a

Sunni and Wahabi reads it. This is not about policy. This goes

deeper. It goes much deeper.

With all due respect, we could settle the situation in the Middle

East if the Lord Almighty came down and said boom, there’s peace

between the Arabs and the Israelis. Does anyone think Bin Laden

goes away? Does anybody think they leave? The pool from which

they can fish for their terrorists to work with them, that dries up

some, but my point is that I think that’s the dilemma from my perspective that has existed with regard to Europe’s attitude toward

international terrorist organizations until now.

I don’t think it was appeasement in the sense that they thought

that if they stayed a distance from us they would not be touched

by this.

The second point I want to make is that the newest form of terrorism that they’re now encountering, different than IRA, the Red

Brigade, the Baader Meinhof Gang, et cetera, is on a different

scale. It’s existential. It’s not political. With al-Qaeda, we come face

to face with an enemy whose goal is nothing less, as the chairman

said, than to kill as many people as possible and in doing so bring

an end to a way of life in the West that we have worked so hard

to achieve and which they want to make sure does not infect their

region of the world.

This, in their view, is literally an assault on Islam. They truly

believe that, these terrorist organizations of the Bin Laden ilk. So,

18

we look to Europe that, like the United States, is bound to change

in the coming months as it grapples with such a diffuse and pernicious new threat that I think they’ve been unwilling to directly

look in the eye up to now.

It seems to me that there are three distinct lessons that we

should draw from the Spanish election that was held a few days

after the Madrid attack.

First, some people may have voted against the conservatives because they believe Aznar’s alliance with the United States made

them a target. I don’t doubt that there’s some Spaniards who believe that and that’s why they voted the way they did. That’s a

very human reaction, but it’s also, I think, a very misguided one.

There is no appeasing al-Qaeda and its allies. Every liberal democracy is a target for the reason I’ve stated earlier, and they’re

going to remain a target, including Spain and Spain’s citizens. Europe more broadly should not fool itself into complacency by thinking that it can opt out of terrorism by distancing itself from Washington, i.e., our policies. Terrorism is not a selective threat, and I

believe that’s the lesson most Europeans are absorbing right now.

Second, it’s also true that an overwhelming majority of Spaniards

opposed the war in Iraq long before March 11 as did the vast majority of the European population which is another thing that we,

Democrats and Republicans, suffer from.

We think if we get the political elites to support our position that

somehow we’ve done the deal. We’ve paid virtually no attention to

the public diplomacy of trying to influence the populations of the

countries of France, Germany, Spain, et cetera.

So, I think that well before the election, Mr. Zapatero campaigned—I don’t think, I know he campaigned on a platform that

he’d remove Spanish troops from Iraq absent a new U.N. mandate.

This is not a Munich sellout in my view to terrorists, as some

alarmists have claimed. Rather, I think it’s a lesson for the United

States that in a community of democracies, it’s not enough to convince another country’s leaders. You’ve got to go beyond that.

Unfortunately, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, we did a fairly

bad job of convincing not only leaders but populations, and after

the war, in the first flush of success, instead of bringing the Atlantic Alliance back together again, we continued to show an overwhelming disdain for our allies who we believed were against us.

Third and finally, it appears to me that many people voted

against the conservatives in Spain because they believe the government manipulated the information. I think that’s the single big

reason—I’m unaware of any exit polls—just my guess as a plain old

politician. As Emerson says, society’s like a wave, the wave moves

on but the particles remain the same.

They ain’t made a new brand of politician in a long, long time

in Western Europe or here, and my instincts as a politician tell me

that the perception of manipulation of the information for political

benefit in the upcoming election, meaning several days later, probably played a larger part in the reaction than the Spanish people

had in any of the above, but I don’t know that, but it clearly played

some part, and it’s becoming—it’s very clear that it’s important to

level with your people.

19

One of the positive things that came out of September 11, and

I trust will further hasten after March 11, is a sharper recognition

that we have to cooperate in what is bound to be a long and very

diffuse war against a very diffuse enemy and despite our differences on Iraq, we enjoy a broad consensus on the need to share

information, facilitate cross-border investigation, apprehend terrorists who are planning to attack, and I think the election of Mr. de

Vries is a recognition of the need to try to figure out how to do

that, although it’s going to be a whole lot harder.

You think we have trouble here. We couldn’t even get, as you’ll

remember, Mr. Chairman, when—actually, just before you got

elected, I introduced legislation almost the same as the Patriot Act

when a bunch of whacko Minutemen and White Supremacists were

viewed as having been responsible for 9/11 and all our right-wing

colleagues said no, no, no, no, we can’t do that. That is unfair, privacy, freedom, militias, and we finally got it right. It took 9/11 to

get it right.

But guess what? We’re not talking about taking on the militia

men in Montana here. We’re talking about taking on another country’s view about how to deal with this and they haven’t even figured out how to get a commerce clause for Europe yet fully. So, de

Vries has a real problem, but it seems to me it’s a recognition that

they know they’ve got to do something more than they’re doing

now.

Let me conclude by asking unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman,

that the remainder of my statement be put in the record and say

that I think that we got a lot of work cut out for us, and I hope

we do what has been suggested. I’m going to ruin his reputation

by acknowledging what Mr. Kagan suggested immediately after 3/

11 in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, and that is, we need

Europe and Europe needs us. We need each other badly, whether

we know it or not, and it’s about time we get about putting aside

the things that marginally we disagree on and focus on what we

agree on.

People wondered how Jesse Helms and Joe Biden got along so

well, which we did and became friends, with fundamentally different views of how to deal with foreign affairs when he was chairman and I was chairman of this committee. It’s a simple reason.

I went into Jesse’s office and said, ‘esse, I’m not Clayborn Pell.

I’m now in charge for the Democrats of this committee. We have

a choice. We can play this flat or we can play it round. You want

to fight all the time, I’m your guy. I’m your guy. But if we can

agree on what we agree on and focus on that first and then move

to the things we have disagreement, we can do something. And to

the shock of everyone, Jesse Helms led the fight to fund the United

Nations. Jesse Helms. Jesse Helms. Because we decided to focus on

what we agreed on and the consensus that grew from that was us

getting back in good stead in the U.N.

I think that’s what we’ve got to do in Europe, and I hope we take

your advice, Mr. Kagan. I’m not quite sure how we get from here

to there, but I know one thing, if we don’t, we got a real serious

security problem.

I thank you for listening, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for

your indulgence, and I look forward to hearing the witnesses.

20

[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing. It is appropriate

that we are meeting today to discuss the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid, and

the implications that this terrible day will have for our transatlantic relationship.

After September 11, I feared that it was only a matter of time before Europe

would suffer the same kind of murderous violence that we experienced in New York

and in Washington. Now, Europeans have their own images of violence and death

and their own date—which will come to define us as governments and as people.

Spain has grappled with homegrown terrorism from ETA, just as the United

Kingdom has suffered at the hands of the IRA, Italy from its Red Brigades, and

Germany from the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

But this newest form of terrorism is of an entirely different scale. It is not just

political, it is existential. With al-Qaida we come to face-to-face with an enemy

whose goal is nothing less than to kill as many people as possible, and in so doing,

bring an end to the way of life we in the West have worked so hard to achieve.

So we look to a Europe that, like the United States, is bound to change in the

coming months as it grapples with such a diffuse and pernicious new threat.

It seems to me that there are three distinct lessons to draw from the Spanish elections held a few days after the Madrid terror attacks.

First, some people voted against the Conservatives because they believed Prime

Minister Aznar’s alliance with the U.S. in Iraq made Spain a terror target.

That’s a very human reaction, but also a very misguided one. There is no appeasing al-Qaeda and its allies. Every liberal democracy is a target, and will remain a

target, including Spain and its citizens. Europeans more broadly should not fool

themselves into complacency by thinking they can ‘‘opt out’’ of terrorism, by

distancing themselves from Washington. Terrorism is not a selective threat. I pray

that’s a lesson Europe does not learn the hard way.

But second, it is also true that the overwhelming majority of Spaniards opposed

the war in Iraq long before March 11, 2004. And well before the elections, Mr.

Zapatero had campaigned on a platform promising to remove Spanish troops from

Iraq, absent a new UN mandate.

So this is not a ‘‘Munich’’ sell-out to terrorists, as some alarmists have claimed.

Rather, it’s a lesson for the United States that, in a community of democracies, it

is not enough to convince another country’s leaders of the policy we want to pursue—we also have to convince its people.

Unfortunately, in the run up to Iraq, we did a bad job convincing others that attacking Iraq was an urgent necessity.

And after the war, in the first flush of success, instead of bringing the Atlantic

community back together again, we continued to show disdain for our democratic

allies who had disagreed with us.

Third and finally, it appears that many people voted against the Conservatives

because they believed the government manipulated information to point the finger

at ETA, not al-Qaida. There’s a lesson here for all liberal democracies, including the

United States. Governments have to level with their own people, especially on matters of war and peace.

Unfortunately, as is becoming clearer and clearer, the Bush administration failed

to level with the American people before the Iraq war in terms of the time, troops

and treasure securing the peace would require . . . in terms of Iraq’s alleged complicity in the events of 9/11 and ties to al-Qaeda... and in terms of the threat

posed by Iraq’s WMD.

One of the positive things that came out of September 11, and I trust will be further hastened after March 11, is the sharper recognition that we must cooperate in

what is bound to be a long and difficult struggle against a determined but diffuse

enemy.

Despite our differences on Iraq, we enjoy a broad consensus on the need to share

information, to facilitate cross-border investigations and to apprehend terrorists who

are planning to attack our people.

But much more needs to be done within Europe and between Europe and the

United States.

I applaud the European Union’s efforts in Brussels last week to address the common threat to its security from terrorism. Their appointment of Mr. de Vries as the

European Union’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, is a positive step forward.

Mr. De Vries will have his work cut out for him. First of all, he will need to guide

the EU into really getting serious about dealing with terrorism, for example by

21

walking the thin line between protecting personal data and carrying out legitimate

counter-terrorism investigations.

Moreover, he will have to overcome bureaucratic obstacles. After September 11

the EU agreed to a number of measures to share information about terrorist

threats. Its record on implementing those agreements is spotty.

Mr. de Vries will need to move the EU into new levels of law enforcement cooperation that undercuts the jealously guarded national fiefdoms of EU member

states.

Each of our democracies faces a classic dilemma. We enshrine individual rights

to due process, fair and speedy trials, and privacy—but these very rights are exploited by those who are prepared to use any means to undermine our democracies.

Striking the right balance is not easy, but the emergency situation we are in makes

‘‘business as usual’’ simply untenable. The first responsibility of a state is the safety

of its citizens.

I am convinced that the struggle against an existential enemy that uses terror

as a tool and will use weapons of mass destruction if it acquires them must involve

the closest possible cooperation with the largest number of countries.

This cooperation will be first and foremost with our allies, but also with the Islamic world.

Despite all of our current differences, Europeans and Americans still look to each

other before they look to anyone else when it comes to combating our many common

problems. On both sides of the Atlantic, we must rethink our approach, and renew

our commitment to one another.

The Bush administration must abandon its reflexive unilateralism and its disdain

for genuine dialog, for working with allies and for international institutions.

Similarly, the European Union has to make a greater commitment to enforcing

the rules of the international community, not making excuses for those who violate

them.

Much has been made of the fundamentally different way that the U.S. and European governments supposedly view the challenge of terrorism. Washington sees it

as a ‘‘war,’’ while Europeans view it essentially as a criminal matter.

If, in fact, we are in a ‘‘war,’’ it is fair to ask why the Bush administration has

not demanded real sacrifice from the American people. Why, for the first time in

our history, have we combined waging war with instituting a massive tax cut? Why,

if we are in a ‘‘war,’’ is Homeland Defense so grossly under-funded? These are domestic issues, but ones with profound international significance.

What remains clear after September 11 and March 11 alike is that the only credible course forward is to work together, the EU and the United States, to secure

and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan . . . to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict . . . to prevent the world’s most lethal weapons from getting into the most

dangerous hands... and to address the root causes of the poverty, isolation, and

repression in which many of the peoples of the Greater Middle Eastare mired.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses this afternoon.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Senator Biden. Your entire statement will be made part of the record. You said how al-Qaeda and

Osama, their view is that there should not be really a separation

of church and state, that the state ought to be advocating——

Senator BIDEN. One and the same.

Senator ALLEN [continuing]. Religious views. Most appropriately,

if you look into history, on this date in 1492, beyond Magellan, the

rulers in Spain on this date made a royal edict saying to Jewish

people in Spain that they had to convert to Christianity, and if

they did not——

Senator BIDEN. Even worse, they said Catholicism. I’m a Catholic.

Senator ALLEN. OK. I was trying to be diplomatic. Thank you,

Joe. Working together.

Senator BIDEN. Called the Inquisition.

Senator ALLEN. Jews who did not want to give up their religious

beliefs or their culture went to North Africa, the Netherlands, and

ultimately the Americas.

22

In 1502, that same sort of royal edict that was used against the

Jews on this date in 1492 was enunciated against the Moors or the

Spanish Muslims. So, not that I think Osama bin Laden or any of

these maniacs are listening or care about the accuracy of history,

the implications of that sort of intolerance is exactly what happened to Muslims and to Jewish people, and is why in this country

one of our first freedoms is the freedom of religion, of individual

conscience. One of the reasons that we separated from the monarchy in Britain was for that first freedom of individual rights and

that is freedom of religion and one’s rights not enhanced nor diminished on account of one’s religious beliefs.

So, with that little history lesson, let us go on to our second

panel, and this is an outstanding panel.

First, Robert Kagan. Mr. Kagan serves as an senior associate at

the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a member

of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he worked in the

Department of State from 1985 to 1988 as a Deputy for Policy for

the Bureau of Interamerican Affairs and as principal speech-writer

to the Secretary of State. He also was the foreign policy advisor to

Congressman Jack Kemp in 1983.

Robin Niblett is the executive vice president with the Center for

Strategic and International Studies. He’s also a senior fellow with

the Center’s Europe Program where he specializes in the U.S.-European security and economic relations area and in the ongoing

process of European political and economic integration. He is the

author or contributor to a number of books and reports, including

the ‘‘Atlantic Alliance Transformed’’ and ‘‘From Shadows to Substance: An Action Plan for Transatlantic Defense Cooperation.’’ Philip Gordon is a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe. He had previously served as Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, a senior fellow for U.S. Strategic Studies, International Institute for Strategic Studies, and as a professor at Johns

Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

And finally, James Dobbins serves as director of the Rand Corporation’s International Security and Defense Policy Center. As a

diplomat, he has served numerous Presidents in a variety of State

Department and White House posts, including Assistant Secretary

of State for Europe, Special Assistant to the President for the

Western Hemisphere, Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for the Balkans, and Ambassador to the European

Community.

Thank you, all for being here. So, Mr. Kagan, will you please

begin your testimony.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT KAGAN, SENIOR ASSOCIATE,

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE

Mr. KAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me also thank

you for holding this hearing. I happen to think that this U.S.-European crisis in the aftermath of the bombings in Madrid is a matter

of some urgency, and I don’t get the sense really looking at Washington as a whole that everyone understands what a matter of urgency it is. I’m happy to see that this committee does, and I appreciate both your efforts in this regard.

23

My concern is that March 11, rather than leading Europeans and

Americans to speak in one voice against the common threat that

we all feel, has actually had arguably the opposite effect. The

United States has gone on along its course without any particular

deviation in policy or rhetoric even and Europe, in my view, has

turned more in on itself in this period.

I think, by the way, something that’s totally understandable, but

in the interests of the transatlantic relationship not a good thing

after a crisis like the bombings in Madrid.

I think it is also certainly true, as Ambassador Black says, that

at the working level, the counterterrorism efforts and cooperation

go on as they have been, and I want to emphasize that there is not

necessarily a contradiction between the kind of political deviation

that we’re having, the political divisions we’re having with ongoing

cooperation in the counterterrorism efforts.

I also think it is true that Europeans as a whole, since Madrid,

understand that they are possible targets and that they have indeed heightened their awareness of the threats that they face.

What I do worry about, however, is that over time, if the divisions between the United States and Europe are not heeled and in

fact do grow wider, that eventually, I don’t know when exactly this

moment will come, there could be a spillover from the sort of grand

political disagreement to the working level, and I would only harken back to events of recent years.

Some of us identified a growing gap between the United States

and Europe, but nevertheless assumed that when something like

the Iraq War came along that France would be with us, but it

turned out that this gap had practical consequences when we went

to the U.N. Security Council and lost France’s vote.

We also have obviously seen the results of the Spanish elections,

so that even though there was this great disagreement between the

Spanish people and the U.S. Government, we thought we could

continue along at the working level, so to speak, but the political

system intruded at the working level in a very dramatic fashion.

So, I do think that we shouldn’t be complacent about thinking

that things will always be working out at the working level even

if, at the broadest level, we’re facing serious divisions.

Now, one of the things I learned living in Europe for 3 years, as

I did recently, is that it’s a big mistake that Americans constantly

make in thinking about how Europeans will respond to certain

events, to basically view Europeans as Americans who speak

French a lot better than we do. I think it’s really important to understand that the world looks different in Europe than it does in

the United States, and that the response that we would anticipate

we would make were we in their shoes we can’t count on them necessarily making.

Now, I won’t bother getting into any great analysis of what the

Spanish elections meant, what exactly tipped the scale in that election. I don’t think anybody knows. I think it is a fair assumption,

however, that the European public reaction to that election was

that the Spanish people felt that their government had made a terrible mistake joining in the war against Iraq because that war was

a mistake and that the Spanish people were punished by al-Qaeda

for engaging with the United States in Iraq.

24

The fact that Spain has also engaged with the United States in

Afghanistan and that al-Qaeda is involved in that, it doesn’t matter, you know. If the perception is that Aznar took Spain down this

course, that’s what’s going to stick in the European public imagination, and whatever the electoral results are, I haven’t been in Spain

recently, but I have friends who have been, and there are murals

on the wall that have pictures of Bush, Aznar and Blair and saying

they’re responsible for the 200 dead in Madrid and that’s just a reality.

So, let us not assume that Europeans are all doing a careful rationale calculation that they really understand that this wasn’t

about Iraq, et cetera, et cetera. I do think that there’s a very great

chance that they do feel that way.

Second, objectively, we have suffered the loss of Aznar. That is

a reality in Europe now. He was a pillar of pro-American feeling

and policy in Europe. I think that we were going to suffer the loss

of Aznar even if Rajoy had been elected, by the way, because I

don’t think that Rajoy was going to be quite what Aznar had been,

but now we’ve suffered a complete reversal.

There’s no linking that reality, and we have to understand again,

there’s a European dynamic to all of this that has nothing to do

with the war on terrorism per se, but a lot to do with internal politics of Europe, the internal dynamics of Europe, and I think we

have to realize that this defeat of Aznar’s party and the victory of

the Socialists was a great political victory for Jacques Chirac who

was seeking to defeat Aznar and his people all along and punish

them for their support of the United States, and that the balance

in Europe has shifted in a direction that France would have wanted it to shift in, and this has to do with issues concerning the constitution, for instance.

I think we need to understand, again looking at it in the European mind, after the horror of the attack, after the morning of the

attack, about the attack, after the determination to strengthen

their terrorist activities in response, I would say the first and most

prominent European reaction was, oh, good, now we can pass the

constitution. That is the dominant reaction, I would say, in the political classes in Europe and possibly even at the public level.

So, we need to understand it would be very unusual behavior on

the part of France and on the part of Gerhardt Schroeder in Germany not to want to take advantage of the enormous victory that

they’ve had to try to steer Europe in the direction that they want

to go in.

More generally, I would say that even on the counterterrorism

front, that Europe has looked for European solutions to this problem. Yes, they’ve named a coordinator. I wish him the best of luck

coordinating the 25 countries’ counterterrorism and intelligence

sharing which you can only imagine what they’re going to be like,

but one thing that they did not do, Europeans did not do, any Europeans as far as I’ve been able to see, was say this is something

that we need to work with the Americans on.

I think Europeans looked internally to a European solution to

this problem, and I also think that now we are in a constitutional

phase in Europe and that Europe is going to continue to be preVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
25

occupied by the constitutional issues and is going to be looking inward rather than outward.

The fact is Blair is now isolated, feeling vulnerable within Europe, if not within his own electoral situation and that the trends

in Europe therefore do not head in the direction of closer relations

with the United States, in my opinion. I’m sure there are those

who would like to see that, but I don’t. I think the general trend

is otherwise.

Let me just conclude by trying to answer the question what can

the U.S. do about any of this, and I think that, you know, I’m sure

my colleagues are going to talk about the criticisms that should be

launched at the Bush administration. I have leveled my own criticisms of the Bush administration, but I don’t think anybody should

kid themselves that even the best, the most capable diplomacy in

America could necessarily solve these problems. I think they are

much deeper than one administration, but there are nevertheless

things that we can and should be doing.

It seems to me one thing we must be doing, and I’m a little

shocked that we haven’t done it so far, is to get ourselves into the

European conversation. I’m rather amazed since Madrid how little

visibility American officials have had in Europe. It’s very good that

Secretary Powell went to the funeral. I think that was very important, but I have not seen what I would have thought should have

been the parade of senior American officials going to Europe and

entering their conversation about how they’re going to respond to

terrorism. They may not want us there, but it’s in our interests

that we be there, and we need to remember we’re a big country and

we’re hard to ignore and we can help shape that discussion. I think

we have so far failed to do that.

Second, public diplomacy. I think that, again as Senator Biden,

both of you have said, it’s very important that we address the European peoples and not simply engage at the working level.

I know, if I’m not mistaken, that the public diplomacy budget in

the State Department for Europe has been cut, not increased. I

don’t understand that decision, quite honestly. It’s almost as if

we’re saying we just don’t have a prayer, it’s not worth the trouble.

I think we should be increasing our efforts in Europe.

I understand in particular that exchanges have been cut rather

dramatically which I think is a mistake. Europeans need to see

more Americans, whether they agree with them or disagree with

them. We need to be part of their conversations.

Let me also say in this regard that I believe that there are important roles for Members of Congress and Senators. Europe needs

to hear bipartisan voices expressing the views of Americans generally in Europe. I think it would be good if Europeans saw more

congressional leaders on a more regular basis, especially since Madrid.

And then, finally, let me just say that there is nothing that we

can do that is more important in terms of giving ourselves any

prospect of improving relations with Europe than succeeding in

Iraq. The more Iraq appears to be failing, difficult, dangerous, out

of control, the more difficult it will be for us to try to knit things

up with our European partners.

26

There is something about success succeeding, and I think we

need to make sure in the interests of transatlantic relations, not

to mention in the interests of the Iraqi people, that we do a good

job in Iraq and continue to do so.

So, thank you very much.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Kagan, for your insight, and now

we’ll hear from Dr. Niblett.

STATEMENT OF DR. ROBIN NIBLETT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Dr. NIBLETT. Thank you very much, and let me echo Bob Kagan’s

words of thanks to you, Mr. Chairman, to Senator Biden, for holding this hearing at such an important time.

I want to condense my written comments down to three questions.

Senator ALLEN. Dr. Niblett, and for all of our witnesses, if you

would want to summarize your comments, we have your written

statements which will be made a part of the hearing record.

Dr. NIBLETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, let me say that I believe the elections in Madrid do

bear quick inspection and I’ll do that in a second. Second, obviously, I want to look at the transatlantic implications of the attacks, and third, following the same pattern as my predecessor,

look at the next steps that we could take.

Let me just talk about the insights we can glean from the election in Madrid first. In my mind, there’s no doubt the terrorist attacks swung the election. At the same time, there’s no doubt in my

mind that this was not an act of appeasement. Comments have

been made already about the long and bloody battle the Spanish

have been engaged with against the Basque terrorist group ETA,

and I believe that the Spanish will fight just as vehemently and

implacably against al-Qaeda in the future.

Nonetheless, there was a second reason why matters turned as

sharply as they did, and I think we’ve touched on this point already. In essence, Spanish people, as Europeans, look at the war

on terror in a totally different way. There is maybe not a majority

view, but certainly a strong view in the United States that the war

in Iraq corresponded with the war on terror. To a certain extent,

the two are synonymous.

I think that the view in Europe right now is that one was a distraction from the other, that Europe is less safe as a result of the

war in Iraq, and the Spanish people, as others might do if they’re

given the opportunity, would choose to punish those who supported

the United States in this action, and I’ll explain a little bit more

about that in a minute.

Turning to transatlantic relations and the impact on

intraEuropean relations of the attacks in Madrid, I think that the

most profound impacts have been at the intraEuropean level. First

of all, we have lost the ‘‘New Europe.’’ The idea of a pool of countries that the United States could draw upon in order to pursue its

foreign policy priorities has gone. Somewhat uniquely, the United

Kingdom and Spain formed the core of the ‘‘New Europe,’’ much as

France and Germany formed the core of the ‘‘Old Europe.’’

27

With Zapatero now turning his direction toward a more traditional Spanish foreign policy of balancing transatlantic relations

with Europe, the ‘‘New Europe’’ in essence has gone, but I do not

believe we’re going to see a domino effect of other leaders. Each

country has its own peculiar concerns and being against the war

in Iraq is not something that necessarily helps you electorally, as

the French Government discovered last weekend.

However, the room for maneuver for these governments that supported the United States in its war on terror and that specifically

came to that standard on Iraq are clearly circumscribed, and I

would draw the committee’s attention to the Global Attitudes

Project that just came out that has some very interesting conclusions on popular attitudes on the amount of confidence one can

apply to the United States in the war on terror and where even the

United Kingdom, 41 percent now do not trust U.S. motives. Also

on the desire for Europe to have a more independent foreign policy,

where you would expect and you sure get French support, this majority exceeds 56 percent of United Kingdom respondents also making the same point. This is somewhat worrying.

Second, on the impact of transatlantic relations, I don’t want to

go into all the points, but we have relaunched European construction at a time when it seemed lost, when the expansion to 25

seemed to put Europe into the doldrums. There is at least initiative

and movement which has emerged again, streamlined decisionmaking, perhaps a new EU Council President.

I was struck most, though, from the recent EU summit on March

26 by the passing of a solidarity declaration. Let me just quote a

couple of words from this because I think they’re interesting. The

EU members state that they will ‘‘mobilize all of the instruments

at their disposal, including military resources’’ to prevent a terrorist attack. There’s semblance here to the NATO Article V passing, and this really carries an echo that Europeans will want to follow through on.

Personally, I believe that greater European integration may be

a plus looking forward to the transatlantic relationship. So, I do

not see this as a negative, and I would also, as my third point here,

want to draw attention to the fact that I think for the first time

since the end of the cold war, Europe and the United States are

converging around the sense of a common threat. This is no mean

feat. This should not be ignored.

The European security strategy document that came out last December pointed to the threats of international terrorism, weapons

of mass destruction proliferation, state failure, organized crime, as

the central threats to European security.

Now, this matched, as many people have commented, exactly the

U.S. national security strategy. There were some claims that perhaps this was mimicking or just trying to ingratiate themselves

with the United States. I think after March 11, we cannot assume

that conclusion anymore.

More importantly, Europeans are conscious of the dangers. They

are close to the Middle East. They have a very large Muslim population. They have porous borders. They have uncoordinated national law enforcement agencies. Although intelligence agencies

have penetrated their local terrorist groups, ETA, IRA, they have

28

not a clue about many of these larger Muslim groups, as Spain

proved so painfully. And they know well, I think, that just because

Spain was a target, it doesn’t mean that countries that did not support the United States in Iraq won’t also be targets. Everyone supported the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and France’s passing of the banning of veils in public schools is something that is

already drawing the attention of Muslim groups.

My fourth point on transatlantic relationships is that even

though we are coming together on a common sense of the threat,

I am obviously concerned, as is everyone, that we don’t have the

same idea of the response, whether tactically or strategically. We

could do a whole hearing, I would imagine, on that issue.

Let me just point out two points specifically on the war on terror.

At heart, Europeans start from the premise that in the war against

terrorism, the effectiveness of military action is limited. It can be

effective. It is important, but it will not see you through to the end.

A lot of the frustration with the U.S. decision to go to Iraq was

because, although they were with the United States in Afghanistan, they were looking for consolidation in the second phase that

wasn’t more fighting to follow through on it.

Second, central to European thinking, I think, in the war on terror, Europeans do see the war against terrorism as a battle for legitimacy, not a battle for victory, and Americans perhaps sometimes start from the view that they have a sense of what is right

and wrong, therefore what they do must be legitimate. The Europeans are very cynical about government. They’re especially cynical

about governments acting internationally, and they look for the

coverage of international law in that case and hence a very different European attitude potentially to the war on terror as well.

Let me wrap up by the following steps we could take. Clearly,

we must avoid what happened in Madrid and the reactions that

might follow driving a deeper wedge on what is already a strained

transatlantic relationship and giving the terrorists a second victory.

First step. I would completely endorse the views of my predecessor who spoke just now. We cannot afford to lose Iraq. We’re in

there together. Europeans have as much, if not more, to lose.

They’re right next to what could become a second conflict zone in

the Middle East. They have large Muslim populations, over 12 million. They heavily depend on gulf energy imports.

I do not believe that Spanish withdrawal on June 30 is foreordained. It’s a very tight timeline to do, to be able to act on it,

but every effort must be made with the transition of political authority to try to help. To have the Spanish keep their troops there

would have huge symbolic value and would also open the potential

for other countries perhaps to join the coalition going forward.

I would mention Afghanistan, where I think that war must not

be forgotten, and the fact that NATO is operating there so clearly

is something of huge importance from a transatlantic perspective.

One should always mention the Middle East. Again, I don’t want

to go into this too far, but the fact is that the United States and

Europe must work together on a joint Middle East strategy. Either

side cannot do it by themselves and that’s an area of central importance.

29

What I want to do as my final point and perhaps most important

one, is pick up on some comments that Senator Biden made earlier.

Practical steps between the United States and Europe going forward to prevent, deter, and be able to recover from terrorism could

be as important a central mission for the transatlantic relationship

going forward. This is a matter of domestic policies, legal procedures, technological standards in some cases, and organizational

agreement.

The EU has done well to be focused on March 26, and on the declaration on combating terrorism. It struck me how little had been

achieved in the 2 years since September 11 and how much remains

to be done, but working with the United States and preventing the

transatlantic space from being one that Al-Qaeda can operate in is

surely a worthy and important mission.

I would point to the upcoming EU and NATO summits and certainly hope that the governments on both sides will look to standing institutional arrangements that might bring together officials

from home affairs, justice, law enforcement, intelligence and emergency response and see if we can develop a complementary approach to the war on terror.

I would note that precisely one of the obstacles to U.S.-European

cooperation that has been pointed out in the last 2 or 3 years, the

disparity in military spending between the United States and Europe, need not be an obstacle to transatlantic cooperation in the

war on terror. It is not military force that will in every case be

most important, but organizational coordination, political will, and

bureaucratic flexibility.

In conclusion, I think the attacks in Madrid have crystallized the

dangerous new post-cold war security environment we’ve entered.

The United States and Europe definitely face a common enemy and

we may have entered the war on terror through different gateways,

the United States through September 11, Europe through decade

long national terrorist struggles, but after March 11, we clearly

face a common enemy and we need to develop common responses.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Niblett follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. ROBIN NIBLETT

INTRODUCTION

Chairman Allen, members of the committee, thank you for convening this hearing

at yet another critical juncture in the history of transatlantic relations. Thank you

also for giving me the opportunity to share with you my thoughts on how the terrorist attacks in Madrid might affect relations between the United States and Europe and transatlantic cooperation in the war against international terrorism.

Let me say at the outset that the terrorist attacks of March 11, 2004 in Madrid

have had a profound effect on the political landscape in Europe. Their secondary,

inevitable effect will be on transatlantic relations. However, the ways that the attacks will affect transatlantic relations and also transatlantic cooperation in the

fight against international terrorism are not pre-determined. While a deepening of

the transatlantic rift that broke open a year ago in the lead-up to the war in Iraq

is a possible outcome, it is not a necessary one.

First, I will touch on the way that the Spanish reaction to the attacks exposes

a serious challenge to the United States in terms of European support for the war

on terror. I will then turn to the impact that the attacks have already had on intraEuropean relations and their potential implications for the transatlantic relationship. Next, I will assess whether the European reaction to the attacks (and the U.S.

reaction to the European reaction) will drive the wedge deeper between the two

30

sides of the Atlantic. There is no doubt that the U.S.-European alliance already

faces a number of long-standing structural tensions. Different strategic approaches

to combating international terrorism have deepened these tensions. However, the

arrival of Islamic extremist terrorism on the European continent may in fact provide

the impetus for the U.S. and European governments to start building a more coordinated approach to this critical aspect of their common security concerns.

SPANISH REACTIONS AND EUROPEAN CONCLUSIONS

It is hard to dispute the fact that the terrorist attacks on March 11, 2004 swung

the Spanish general election in favor of the Socialist Party, led by Jose Luis

Rodriguez Zapatero. Collectively, some three and a half million voters either abandoned the ruling party or added their vote to the Socialists compared to the previous

election, contradicting the poll numbers that stood at the start of that fateful week.

Numerous American commentators and some senior legislators immediately accused Spanish voters of appeasing the terrorists by throwing out a leader—Prime

Minister Jose Maria Aznar—who had stood shoulder to shoulder with the Bush administration in its strategy to fight global terrorism. Others—and I include myself

in this group—argued that this was a simplistic interpretation of the events in

Spain between March 11-13. While some voters may indeed have wanted to punish

Prime Minister Aznar for putting Spaniards directly in the terrorists’ cross-hairs,

many more chose to punish him for the government’s apparent determination to pin

the blame for the attacks on the Basque separatist group ETA, even when the evidence of the group’s guilt was, at best, inconclusive and, at worst, lacking.

The Spanish instinct when faced with terrorism is not to appease. One should not

forget that successive Spanish governments, socialist and conservative, have been

fighting ETA terrorists implacably for nearly three decades, at a cost of some 850

lives over this period. The Spanish people are united in this fight, and Prime Minister Aznar’s hard line on ETA had been one of the important elements of his electoral support ahead of the election.

But there was a second reason why the electorate turned so swiftly against Prime

Minister Aznar’s party after March 11, and this reason carries wider implications

for the transatlantic relationship and the war against terror in the months ahead.

The impression that the ruling government misled the public by blaming ETA also

reminded Spaniards that the decision to go to war against Iraq was based on the

apparently false premise that Saddam Hussein represented an immediate danger

because of his possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Throughout Europe, the failure to find WMD in Iraq has severely undermined public confidence

in the motives that drove the United States to go to war. And it has weakened the

position of European leaders who chose to back the U.S. administration against the

wishes of their public opinion.

Furthermore, the fact that the terrorist attacks in Madrid took place after the

overthrow of Saddam Hussein has made not only Spaniards, but also other Europeans feel that they have now been placed on the terrorists’ target list as a direct

consequence of participating in a war that should not have been fought. The overwhelming conclusion for most Europeans, therefore, is that the terrorist threat to

them has widened and deepened as a result of the invasion of Iraq. They now feel

less rather than more safe and they hold the United States and governments that

supported the war responsible.

A CHANGED EUROPE

The impact of the conservatives’ defeat in Spain has been most profound for intraEuropean relations. It has swung the pendulum of power back to the continental

members of the European Union, who had been derided as representing ‘‘Old Europe.’’

In his second term as Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar had become increasingly frustrated with the desire of the French and German governments to reestablish themselves as the drivers of the process of European integration. After two

decades of dramatic economic modernization and emergence as one of the drivers

of the EU’s Mediterranean and transatlantic agendas, Aznar felt that Spain deserved a place in the core of EU decision-making.

As someone who had personally escaped a terrorist attempt by ETA on his life

shortly before first becoming Prime Minister, he also supported instinctively President Bush’s uncompromising stance in the war on terrorism. And, like Tony Blair,

he saw a close relationship with the United States as a route to increased influence

within the EU hierarchy. The debate over the merits of attacking Iraq gave Spain

the opportunity to place itself firmly in the camp of the so-called ‘‘New Europe’’ that

31

rejected the latent anti-Americanism and deference to Franco-German leadership of

the ‘‘Old Europe.’’

Whereas the United Kingdom sought to repair during the latter half of 2003 the

diplomatic damage that the Iraq debate had caused to its relations with France and

Germany, Spain stepped directly into a second confrontation on the EU stage. This

concerned the proposal contained within the EU constitutional convention that

Spain cede some of the voting weight within EU decision-making bodies that it had

secured a year earlier at the Nice summit. In December 2003, Spain and Poland

refused to compromise and the long-awaited agreement on a first EU constitution

fell apart. The EU was plunged into confusion.

Within two weeks of the Madrid bombings, the specter of gradual intra-European

disintegration that the summit’s failure had raised has receded. At the EU summit

in Brussels on March 26, 2004, following statements from Jose Luis Zapatero that

Spain would reclaim its position as a committed member of the European Union,

EU leaders proudly announced their expectation that the new constitution could be

signed by the summer. Once again, an unexpected crisis has served as a catalyst

for a further spurt of European integration.

Important among the EU constitution’s proposals are a streamlining of EU decision-making better to accommodate the ten new members that will join the EU this

May and the creation of a new EU Foreign Policy head combining the responsibilities of Javier Solana and External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten. More important, perhaps, is a re-gained sense within the European Union of common mission

and purpose following the terrorist attacks in Spain. This sense of bonding around

the tragedy of Madrid was reflected in the summit’s decision to approve a ‘‘Declaration on Solidarity Against Terrorism’’ that calls upon each EU member state ‘‘to mobilize all of the instruments at their disposal, including military resources’’ to prevent a terrorist threat against another, and to protect and assist it in the event of

such an attack.

IMPACT ON TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS

The impact of these events on transatlantic relations and cooperation in the war

on terrorism are still hard to discern. One clear consequence is the disappearance

for the time being of the ‘‘New Europe’’ as a distinct collection of countries sharing

an unquestioning commitment to support the United States in the pursuit of its foreign policy and security priorities. ‘‘New Europe’’ still exists within the European

Union, and tensions between new and old EU members will persist on internal

issues, such as access to agriculture subsidies and EU financial assistance. However, the United States can no longer count on a ‘‘New Europe’’ pool of countries

from which to try to recruit European participants into coalitions of the willing to

tackle global crises or pursue its vision of the war against international terrorism.

It is not simply the fact that Aznar’s defeat has removed one of the central members of the ‘‘New Europe.’’ Nor is it the case that leaders such as Tony Blair, Silvio

Berlusconi, or Aleksander Kwasniewski do not still share a deep sense of the importance of retaining transatlantic solidarity in the face of the new threats of terrorism

and weapons of mass destruction. However, in each of these countries, the leader’s

political room for maneuver has been severely circumscribed. Most important has

been the way that, despite the rapid military victory in Iraq, European public support for the decision to go to war and for U.S. leadership in general has now

dropped off again precipitously, influenced not just by the failure to find WMD, but

also to demonstrate rapid progress in Iraq’s political and economic reconstruction.

Al Qaeda’s apparent ability to operate successfully in Western Europe, despite the

huge investment of resources in Iraq, will harden this view.

The March 16, 2004 report from the Pew Global Attitudes Project paints this picture clearly, comparing polling figures prior to the war, immediately after the war,

and last month. Perhaps most striking in terms of this committee’s interests are two

trends. First, a fall in European public confidence in the sincerity of U.S. motives

for pursuing the war on international terrorism. In France and Germany, two thirds

of respondents now believe the motives are not sincere, and even in Britain 41%

do not trust U.S. motives. Second, is the growing number of Europeans who believe

they should chart a more independent foreign policy from the United States. As expected, French respondents favored a more independent European role by a margin

of 75% to 21%. More surprisingly, German and British respondents also favored a

more independent European role by margins of 63% to 36% and by 56% to 40% respectively.

So, in the aftermath of what appears to be the first major Al Qaeda terrorist attack in the European Union, a swing toward a more united Europe, and a deepening

skepticism in Europe of U.S. motives and leadership in the war on global terrorism,

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what are the prospects for transatlantic relations in the coming year? Are relations

destined to get worse, with unpredictable consequences for cooperation on the war

on terror, or will the tentative efforts to overcome these differences, which had been

visible earlier this year, take root?

COMMON THREAT, BUT DIFFERENT RESPONSES

Before trying to answer these questions, there are two further issues to consider.

The first is the apparent coming together of U.S. and European perceptions of the

nature of the threat that they face. And the second is the continuing dichotomy between U.S. and European strategic approaches to deal with this threat.

On the first of these points, it is remarkable to note how closely the new European Security Strategy (ESS), that EU leaders developed last year and approved in

December 2003, resembles the administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy in

terms of conceptualizing the changed nature of the threat to national security. The

European paper specifically highlights international terrorism, WMD proliferation,

‘‘state failure,’’ and organized crime as the central security concerns for Europe in

the future. It also highlights, as has the U.S. administration, that ‘‘the most frightening scenario is the one in which terrorist groups acquire weapons of mass destruction.’’ The paper concludes that the threats to Europe of the 21st century are ‘‘dynamic’’ and bear little resemblance to the 20th century European preoccupation with

invasion.

It would be easy to surmise that the language contained in the ESS represents

an effort to mimic the United States linguistically, but without true political conviction. The attacks of 3/11 in Madrid will surely lay this view to rest. Europeans are

well aware that their geographic proximity to the Middle East, large Muslim populations, porous borders, and uncoordinated national law enforcement agencies make

it possible for Islamic extremist groups to operate in their midst with relative ease.

Although intelligence agencies have penetrated national terrorist groups such as

ETA and the IRA, the activities of loosely knit Islamic extremist groups pose new

and unfamiliar challenges. Spain is a case in point.

Nor is this threat perceived as being limited to the countries that have supported

the United States in Iraq. Most EU members have been active and willing participants in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Furthermore, European nations offer other sources of ire to Islamic extremist groups—

the French government’s decision to ban wearing of the veil in public schools being

just the latest example.

Following the attacks of 3/11, European nations find themselves explicitly, not

just theoretically in the new security environment that U.S. leaders entered two and

half years earlier. But agreeing on the threat does not mean that there is transatlantic agreement on the best way to confront it. As closely as Europeans might

agree with U.S. perceptions of the nature of the threat, they tend to differ in their

prescriptions.

At heart, Europeans start from the premise that, in a war against terrorism, the

effectiveness of military power is always limited and often counterproductive. Terrorism reflects a failure of sovereign governments and is a manifestation of societal,

cultural, and religious fault lines. It is rarely, if ever, a battle of good versus evil

or freedom versus tyranny. Whatever the merits of soft power (diplomacy, financial

and other assistance) versus hard power (military suasion) in dealing with interstate rivalries, all European governments perceive instinctively as well as from

hard-earned experience that military actions alone cannot defeat terrorism. From

the European perspective, the satisfaction and achievements of military action

against terrorists are always short-lived unless governments simultaneously work

to starve the roots of the terrorist cause. This explains the majority of European

leaders’ deep frustration with the U.S. decision to follow up the war against Afghanistan immediately with a war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Central also to European thinking is the belief that a war against terrorism is

a battle for legitimacy and not just for victory. Americans start from the view that

their actions flow from a sense of what is right and wrong and that they are, therefore, intrinsically legitimate. Europeans are more cynical. Government action requires the legitimacy of international law and multilateral rules. In the international arena, such legitimacy can flow only from the United Nations, as imperfect

an organization as it might be. Hence, also, Europe’s general preference for an explicitly multilateral framework within which to pursue national actions to combat

international terrorism.

Overcoming such fundamental differences in strategic outlook will be difficult,

however much Europeans and Americans perceive a common threat to their security

from international terrorism. Nevertheless, governments on both sides of the AtlanVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
33

tic must make a supreme effort not to allow the attacks of 3/11 to hand the terrorists a second victory by leading to a further fracturing of the transatlantic partnership. The stakes could not be greater. The United States, Europe, and key allies

have built together a transatlantic community of democratic values, economic interests, prosperity, and individual freedoms that are spreading to the rest of the world.

This growing community of modern, open, interconnected societies is especially vulnerable, however, to determined terrorist attack.

ONE STEP AT A TIME

Mr. Chairman, following the attacks in Madrid, U.S. and European officials face

a series of difficult near-term decisions if they are to confront the threat of international terrorism together and not allow the war against terror to become a source

of division rather than common action. Each decision must be tackled individually,

one step at a time.

First, neither the United States nor Europe can afford to lose Iraq. The risks to

European countries, which are on the door step of the Middle East, have growing

domestic Muslim populations, and are heavily dependent on Gulf energy imports,

are as great as they are for the United States. Spanish withdrawal of all its 1,300

troops stationed in Iraq is not foreordained. Prime Minister Zapatero has repeatedly

stated his intention to remove Spanish troops on June 30, providing that there is

no new UN mandate that would authorize their presence. His harsh language on

this issue is driven in part by the need to demonstrate to people at home and

abroad that his views on Iraq are driven by conviction and not by fear of terrorism.

With the hand-over of political sovereignty to Iraqis on July 1, every effort must be

made in coming months to find a solution at the UN that meets Spain’s requirement, but does not compromise the operational effectiveness of coalition forces. A

decision by the Spanish government to keep some or all of its troops in Iraq would

be of huge symbolic value and would deliver a serious blow to the terrorists who

carried out the outrages in Madrid.

Second, U.S., European forces, and their coalition partners must continue to secure Afghanistan’s transition away from lawlessness and economic despair. NATO

support for the gradual expansion of the role of Provincial Reconstruction Teams

outside Kabul will be central to this process and to the credibility of the U.S. and

European intention not only to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban militarily, but also

to prevent their return.

Third, as many other commentators have noted, the United States and Europe

must show a united front in their plans for long-term political and economic reform

across North Africa and the Middle East. For such an initiative to be both credible

and sustainable in the region, however, U.S. and European governments must be

insistently and actively engaged in helping the Israeli and Palestinian peoples find

a way out of their cycle of violence and toward a viable settlement.

Each of these steps will take time to bear fruit. In the interim, the United States

and Europe can take more direct steps to confront the threat of international terrorism by closely integrating the domestic policies, procedures, technological standards, and organizations that they are putting in place to combat international terrorism in the wake of recent attacks and threats. In this context, the summit of EU

heads of state on March 26 represented an important milestone in European commitment to coordinating their anti-terrorism initiatives. However, the summit declaration also highlighted how slowly EU governments are implementing the steps

that they had identified two years earlier in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The need

for parallel transatlantic coordination could serve as a useful catalyst for European

efforts, while making the transatlantic space a less attractive one for terrorist

operatives.

U.S. and European leaders were hugely successful in building an integrated military structure to confront the danger of Soviet military aggression during the cold

war. At their upcoming EU and NATO summits this summer, U.S. and European

leaders should consider creating new standing institutional arrangements that

would bring together officials covering the fields of home affairs, justice, law enforcement, intelligence, and emergency response. These groups are key components in

the war on international terror. Only once they start working together effectively

will it be possible to roll back the threat of international terrorism.

It is worth noting that the growing transatlantic gap in military capabilities and

spending that has so often been cited as a structural impediment to future transatlantic security cooperation need not be a central obstacle to transatlantic cooperation in the war on terrorism. Organizational coordination, political will, and bureaucratic flexibility will be as important as financial resources in this war, where the

34

deliberately low-tech approach of the terrorists often bypasses the sophisticated defense systems we have put in place.

CONCLUSION

The attacks in Madrid heralded a new phase in the emerging post-cold war security environment. For their part, Europeans suddenly find themselves, once again,

on the front-line of a non-traditional war. This is not a cold war of titanic, superpower proportions, as they experienced from 1948-1990. Nor is it a traditional war

that threatens territorial conquest and identifiable enemies. In this new struggle

the United States and Europe once again face a common enemy. But, as during the

cold war, we see alternative and sometimes competing potential strategies to confront the threat.

Admittedly, Americans and Europeans entered the war against terrorism through

different gateways—the United States through the exceptional events of September

11, 2001 and Europeans through decade-long struggles against domestic terrorist

groups. After the events of March 11, 2004, however, we can no longer say that we

confront different threats. The threat is common and urgent, and we urgently need

to build common responses.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you so much, Dr. Niblett, for your insight

and suggestions. Now we’ll hear from Dr. Philip Gordon.

STATEMENT OF DR. PHILIP H. GORDON, SENIOR FELLOW AND

DIRECTOR, CENTER ON THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE,

THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Dr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you and

Senator Biden for holding this hearing and for your own thoughtful

opening statements.

I submitted a written statement and thus I’d like to just follow

your suggestion to summarize some remarks, focusing particularly

on what I think we need to do.

I think these hearings are particularly important and timely because of the risk of misunderstanding about what happened in Madrid on March 14 and what that means for the war on terrorism

and cooperation with Europeans. I think there’s a risk of people

reaching the conclusion that the Spanish people have turned to appeasement because of the result of the election, which is a charge

we’ve heard often in this country over the past week or so. It is a

misplaced conclusion and possibly counterproductive, and to echo

what some others have said, I think that if we end up depicting

it that way and reaching that wrong conclusion and the wrong policies from that, we can end up actually deepening the split between

the United States and Europe which is precisely what the terrorists wanted.

It is understandable why a lot of Americans reached that conclusion. With the anger and disappointment of many Americans about

the result in Spain, one can understand it was a setback from our

point of view, particularly, I think, from the administration’s point

of view.

Losing a key ally in Europe in Prime Minister Aznar, having a

new Prime Minister come along and explicitly distance himself

from the President and say he’s going to pull troops out of Iraq, undermining the sense of coalition, I think it could also be read, rightly or wrongly, as the notion that political leaders in Europe pay a

price for close association with the United States. Worst of all, on

top of all of that, it gives the message to terrorists that whether

it’s true or not that the Spanish people wanted to appease, there’s

a real risk that the terrorists will read it that way, which would

35

only encourage them to undertake other such attacks in places like

Rome or Warsaw or London, in other countries where leaders have

been close to us.

So, one understands clearly why a lot of people read it that way,

but I think you have to look more closely at the election to understand really what happened. As Bob said, we don’t know for sure

what happened, but just a couple of points.

One is, I agree with Robin Niblett. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the terrorist attacks influenced the outcome. The Socialists were behind by at least 4 points in the last polls before the

election and then the only intervening factor in the meantime are

the terrorist attacks and then there’s a switch of up to 10 points

in terms of the final vote, so clearly that had an effect.

But the things I think that need to be kept in mind when thinking about that are two essential ones. First, as Senator Biden

pointed out and others have said, Iraq was no doubt a part of the

turnaround in the vote. A lot of people said to the press, ‘‘I was

mad at Aznar for not supporting Iraq and that’s why I voted.’’ The

mechanism, by the way, seemed to be more in terms of voter turnout, which went up by 20 percent vis-a`-vis the previous election

than flip-flops from supporters of the Popular Party to the other.

So Iraq was a factor. But I think an equally important factor,

and people said this as well, was the anger at the government for

the way that they handled the attacks and what was really a premature and categorical conclusion that it was ETA, the Basque

separatists, that was responsible. They stuck to that conclusion

and they did everything they could to persuade the press and the

international community and the United Nations Security Council

that that was the case before the evidence was in. That really did

lead to a backlash.

Again, we don’t have the exit polls, but we have opinion polls

saying that 67 percent of the Spanish people believe that the government manipulated information during the crisis, which led to,

anger and a backlash against the government. So, that’s one important factor. It wasn’t only the policies of the government that they

were turning away from. It was the feeling that they were misled.

Second, again as has been pointed out but this is important, the

Spanish never accepted the notion that Iraq was part of the war

on terrorism and therefore it’s a little bit difficult to conclude that,

even to the degree that Iraq influenced their vote, that they were

walking away from the war on terrorism. They said all along that

they didn’t accept that Iraq was a part of the war on terrorism.

There were other hearings in Washington last week that raised

this issue in an important way and there’s a real debate going on.

The administration says that Iraq is the central front in the war

on terrorism. Critics say that attacking Iraq undermined the war

on terrorism. Frankly, I don’t know what the answer to that question is. We probably won’t know for a long time, and it will depend

obviously on how Iraq comes out.

There’s a serious debate to be had, but what is certain is that

the Spanish and the Europeans in general never accepted that it

was the same thing, and therefore I don’t think we should allow

ourselves to then say that they’re walking away from the war on

36

terrorism because they said again that they didn’t support the invasion of Iraq which they hadn’t supported in the first place.

Obviously, even if you understand all of these factors that influenced the election and you conclude, as I have, that it wasn’t appeasement of terrorism, it was still a setback, as I said at the beginning, for the United States and a setback for our desire to sustain international support in Iraq which, as we have said on this

panel, is particularly important.

What policy then flows from this? Let me throw out a couple of

ideas in conclusion on what this means, if we understand the election that way.

First, I think we should be very careful to avoid denouncing the

Spanish people as appeasers and characterizing the Socialist election as a victory for al-Qaeda. The Spanish have now lost more

than 1,000 lives to terrorism in the past couple of decades. They

know what it is. They’ve actually stood up to it very steadfastly.

It’s true that the new government doesn’t support U.S. policy in

Iraq, but it does continue to cooperate, as we heard earlier, with

the United States on terrorism in Afghanistan. Remember, the new

government came in distancing itself from Iraq, but it is also said

that it is not only the rhetoric that it’s going to fight the war on

terrorism but they’re going to double their commitment to Afghanistan which, by the way, was also cited by the alleged terrorists in

the attack. So, they are saying quite clearly they’re still with us on

at least that part of the war on terrorism.

Second, I think that the Bush administration should immediately

reach out to this new Spanish Government and try to work with

it. Bob Kagan used the phrase ‘‘get into the conversation.’’ Absolutely. We need to get into the conversation. I even think that the

President should consider himself a trip to Madrid. He made one

early in his tenure, and he should make one now.

You remember how upset a lot of Americans were when we felt

that Europeans didn’t fully appreciate what happened here on our

soil. It just seemed like they were so far away and they understood

that it was tragic, but they didn’t feel it like we did and that created a lot of resentment here.

We should avoid making the same mistake. If you go to Madrid

or you talk to people who have been there, it’s different when it’s

in a place that you’re familiar with, and we need to let them know.

Absolutely. It was important that Secretary Powell went to the funerals and the ceremonies, but we need to do more than that.

It’s essential that the Spanish know that we know that they were

as shocked and affected by their 3/11 as we were by our 9/11 when

their simple morning rush hour commute was blown up in their

faces.

Third, I think we need to, as part of this connection with the new

Spanish Government, look seriously at what type of U.N. role in

Iraq might make it possible for them to stay. I mean, what got the

news is that the new Prime Minister came in and said I want to

get out of Iraq and I would only stay if the U.N. takes control and

if the occupiers give up political control. That’s pretty harsh, but

there does seem to be some flexibility, potential flexibility in the

Spanish position, and we should absolutely explore it.

37

I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that a U.N. mandate for a force

in Iraq and transfer of sovereignty to a new government would be

enough to give the Spanish Prime Minister the political cover he

would need in order to stay in Iraq, and I think that would be important. I think the Spanish know and they should know, and

other Europeans are starting to reach the conclusion, that a failure

in Iraq would be as much a failure for their interests as for us.

We should also, in the context of the same discussion with this

government and our European allies, look into a NATO role, which

I think also could perhaps help the Spanish stay, and here, I’m a

little bit more optimistic about the overall picture than Bob Kagan

in the sense that I think the European governments are looking at

this and after June 30, if we do transfer sovereignty to a new government in Iraq and the U.N. plays more of a role in organizing

elections, that not only Spain but even France and Germany will

start thinking about doing more in Iraq than they have at present

and that could be debt relief, it could be training Iraqi security officials, it could be reconstruction aid, and it could be support for a

NATO role, and these are all things I think we need to do in order

to get them on board because I think having them on board is essential.

Just two brief final suggestions. One is, we’ve already brought it

up, the question of U.S.-European counterterrorism cooperation,

specifically, and encouragement of European internal borders has

been effective.

Ironically, terrorists actually circulate more freely within Europe

than the people trying to catch them in terms of exchange of information, and we should be able to deal with this. We have enough

trouble coordinating our own agencies on this issue. They have to

coordinate all their agencies among now, as of next week, 25 different countries with people who speak different languages, both

literally and figuratively.

So, it’s really hard, but it’s also really essential, and we can play

a role at a minimum in trying to empower the new organizations

that they have set up and are setting up. We have so much to offer

in this regard. Instead of only relying on our national channels, I

think we should do what we can do to try to empower their EU

level channels. We know it’s going to be hard, but we’ve got to get

them to do it. Someone has to bash heads together and maybe our

voice will not always be listened to in this debate, but it’s so important and we have a lot to offer, I think we should lead them in that

direction.

Last, I would just say that I agree with Bob Kagan about the

public diplomacy aside, this is also about hearts and minds and

persuading people to be on our side and to cut the budget for that

and sort of lead the conversation as if, well, we know what we

want to do and if you don’t agree, that’s just too bad for you guys,

we’re going to go about it the American way is really undermining

our own project. We should actually be doing more and not less.

Finally, I think that the upcoming summits, we all know G8,

U.S.-EU, and NATO, provide a real opportunity to begin this dialog

and to pursue some of the specific things that I mentioned earlier.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gordon follows:]

38

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. PHILIP H. GORDON

Mr. Chairman, Senator Biden, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to address the critical issue of U.S.-European anti-terrorism cooperation

in the wake of the Madrid terrorist attacks and the Spanish elections. I believe this

discussion is all the more timely and important because of the significant potential

for misunderstanding of what happened in the March 14 election and what it means

for U.S.-European cooperation in the war on terrorism and in Iraq. In particular,

I believe that the conclusion that the Spanish people have abandoned the war on

terrorism and opted instead for appeasement—a charge heard from a number of

American commentators over the past two weeks—is both misplaced and counterproductive. The wrong policy reactions in both Washington and Madrid could end

up giving the terrorists the result they wanted by undermining transatlantic cooperation not only in the war on terrorism but across a range of important issues.

The anger and disappointment of many Americans, and in particular supporters

of the Bush administration, is understandable. With the defeat of Prime Minister

Jose ́ Maria Aznar’s Popular Party, the administration has seen a close, reliable ally

in a key European country being replaced by an inexperienced Socialist who is skeptical of recent U.S. policies and who has been highly critical of President Bush. New

Prime Minister Jose ́ Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s pledge to withdraw Spanish troops

from Iraq unless the UN takes over, moreover, is a setback to the effort to build

and maintain an international coalition in Iraq. Spain has been one of America’s

most steadfast allies in Iraq and one of the top foreign troop contributors with 1,300

troops. Its departure could encourage other allies to leave, increasing military burdens on the United States and undermining the mission’s legitimacy. Zapatero’s

election could also be seen as bad news for the United States in that it suggests

that leaders who back American policies without the support of their electorate—

as Aznar did on Iraq—risk paying the price for those policies at the ballot box. Finally, and by far most seriously, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the outcome

of the Spanish election will only encourage the terrorists to strike again, perhaps

once again in the capital city of a country that has steadfastly supported the United

States on Iraq. Regardless of whether or not Spanish voters were in fact distancing

themselves from the war on terrorism, there is a good chance that the terrorists who

planted the bombs just three days before the election will conclude that they were,

and that is very bad news. It is thus not surprising that some Americans have accused Spanish voters of having given in to terrorism with their vote.

A closer look at what happened in Spain on March 14, however, reveals a more

complicated situation. There can be little doubt that the March 11 attacks influenced the outcome of the election. According to the polls published on March 7, the

last day polls could be published under Spanish law, the Socialists trailed Aznar’s

Popular Party by four percentage points (42%-38%). While the gap between the two

parties was narrowing, it seems highly unlikely that the Socialists would have managed to win a 44%-38% victory just a week later had it not been for the attacks.

With emotions riding high, voter turnout rose to 77% of Spain’s 35 million eligible

voters (compared with just 55% in the elections four years ago), and most of the new

voters, including 2 million first-time voters, appear to have voted for the Socialists.

Opposition to the Iraq war, many of these voters made clear, played a role in this

swing vote. But another key reason for the last-minute turnaround was not voters’

desire to distance themselves from Aznar’s policies but rather their anger at the

government’s handling of the terrorist attacks. The government’s premature, categorical conclusion that Basque separatists were behind the atrocities, and its stubborn refusal to back away from that conclusion even as information came in suggesting likely al Qaeda involvement, left the government looking manipulative and

disingenuous in the eyes of Spanish voters. No less than 67% of the Spanish people,

according to an opinion poll published late last week, believe that the government

manipulated information during the crisis.

The Aznar government appears to have concluded that an ETA attack would be

politically helpful by highlighting its tough approach on Basque terrorism, whereas

an al Qaeda attack might hurt the government by underlining its unpopular role

in Iraq and its relationship with the United States. Thus, within hours of the attacks, Interior Minister Angel Acebes had declared that ‘‘the government has no

doubt that ETA was responsible for the attacks.’’ Later that afternoon, Foreign Minister Ma Palacio sent a telegram to Spanish ambassadors confirming this statement

and encouraging them to ‘‘use every occasion to confirm the authorship of ETA’’ and

Spain began lobbying the UN Security Council for a resolution explicitly blaming

ETA for the attacks. That evening, Aznar twice called major Spanish newspapers

to insist that ETA was responsible for the attacks and was even denouncing speculation that al Qaeda might be involved as ‘‘an attempt by malicious people to distort

39

information.’’ In the first hours after the attack it was perhaps reasonable to suspect

ETA, given knowledge of that group’s previous plans to place bombs on Spanish

trains. But the attempts to rule out other options—even though the attacks bore

many hallmarks of an al Qaeda operation and even after a van was found with a

tape recording of verses from the Koran in Arabic and bomb-making materials—was seen as an attempt to deceive Spanish voters for political reasons.

Had Aznar right away characterized the mass killing in Madrid as an attack on

democracy itself, perhaps not as many voters would have allowed themselves to

hand the terrorists the political change they apparently wanted. Instead, the government appeared to try to use the attacks to strengthen its political hand, and outraged voters made it pay a price. The government, after all, already had a reputation for political ‘‘spin’’ after its handling of other high-profile events in Spain, including the oil spill from the tanker Prestige off the Spanish coast in 2002, an airplane crash that killed 62 Spanish soldiers returning from Afghanistan in 2003, and

the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Whether or not the government

really did seek to influence the vote through its handling of the attacks is less important than the strong perception that it did. The government appears to have paid

more of a price for misleading the public than for its policy on Iraq.

Finally, and most important, even to the degree that the vote against Aznar’s Popular Party was a vote against the Iraq war, it was not, in Spanish eyes, a vote

against the war on terrorism. The fact is that while the Bush administration has

defined Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism, the Spanish—and most

Europeans—never accepted that argument. More than 80% of the Spanish people

were against the war in Iraq and many people believed that the invasion could actually be more a spur to Islamic terrorism than a strike against it. As other hearings

in Washington last week demonstrated, there is a serious debate to be had about

the link between the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, and at this point any honest assessment must acknowledge that it is too soon to know for certain. But even

to the degree that the Spanish vote on March 14 was a vote against the invasion

of Iraq, it cannot be said that it was a vote against the war on terrorism, since the

vast majority of the Spanish never equated the two. Incoming Prime Minister

Zapatero’s pledge to make fighting terrorism his top priority and his decision to double the Spanish contingent in Afghanistan underscore the distinction that he and

most of the Spanish make about the two issues. Even a brief glance at the implacable stand that Spanish governments, including Socialist governments, have historically taken against ETA in particular and terrorism in general should convince us

that appeasement is not their natural inclination.

Understanding these factors does not change the fact that the terrorist attacks

in Madrid and the outcome of the Spanish elections were setbacks for the United

States, particularly in its desire to sustain international support in Iraq. But it

should help us avoid misinterpreting the electoral outcome, and therefore to avoid

making policies based on false assumptions. In particular, several general policy

guidelines would appear to result from the analysis of the Spanish election presented here:

• The United States should avoid denouncing the Spanish people as ‘‘appeasers’’

and characterizing the Socialists’ election as a ‘‘victory’’ for al Qaeda. Spain has

lost over 1,000 lives to terrorism over the past 30 years and has stood up to

it steadfastly. The new government does not support U.S. policy in Iraq, but it

continues to cooperate well with the United States on judicial and intelligence

matters, is willing to enhance police and anti-terrorist cooperation within Europe, and it is committed to playing an important role in Afghanistan. American

disappointment with the result of the election and some of the new government’s policies and statements is understandable, but overreaction could backfire and produce the very split in the global anti-terrorist coalition that the terrorists apparently sought.

• The Bush administration should immediately reach out to the new Spanish government to make clear that the United States still considers Spain a vital and

loyal ally whose cooperation it needs in our common interest. In doing so, President Bush should himself consider a trip to Madrid to pay tribute to the victims

of terrorism in the same way that countless foreign leaders have visited ‘‘ground

zero’’ in New York. Americans rightly felt that Europeans did not fully appreciate the shock of such massive terror attacks on our soil. We must not make

the same mistake; it is important that Europeans understand that we appreciate how painful their losses were when our common enemies killed so many

of their citizens during a morning rush-hour commute. The Spanish should not

be left to believe that the United States only stood by them when they had a

conservative and compliant government. One of the clearest messages for the

40

United States in the Spanish election is that it does not suffice to win the support of governments alone; in democracies the United States needs to win the

hearts and minds of the people as well.

• The administration should explore the type of UN role in Iraq that would be

necessary for the new government to maintain Spanish troops in Iraq. Zapatero

has said that Spanish troops would only stay if the UN ‘‘takes control’’ and the ‘‘occupiers give up political control’’ but there may be some potential flexibility

in the Spanish position. It is not impossible that a new UN mandate for the

security force, along with a key UN role in making arrangements for the Iraqi

constitution and organizing elections, could give Zapatero the political cover he

would need to remain part of the Iraq coalition. The Spanish should know, and

be reminded, that however they felt about the war in the first place, a Western

failure there would be catastrophic for Europeans and Americans alike. Thus

the United States should do what it reasonably can to make it possible for

Spain to stay in Iraq, not only because we need their 1,300 troops, but because

broader European support and legitimacy will be a crucial factor in our prospect

for success. If our efforts to persuade the Spanish to remain part of the coalition

should fail, a possible alternative might be to get them to adopt a force-protection mission for an eventual UN presence in Iraq. That would not be as good

as a full security role, but it would be a useful mission that Spanish politics

might permit.

• The United States should also encourage NATO to play a greater role in providing security in Iraq, which could also make it easier for the Spanish to remain involved. Indeed, if the United States effectively transfers sovereignty to

a new Iraqi government on June 30, and if that government asks NATO and

the UN to get involved, it is possible that not only Spain but even potentially

France and Germany could begin to play a greater role in Iraq. The latter two

governments have already suggested that under these conditions they would

consider extending more Iraqi debt relief, enhanced training of Iraqi gendarmes

and security forces, reconstruction aid, and, in the case of France, possibly even

troops at some point. These opportunities should be explored, because just as

transatlantic cooperation only worked in the Balkans when the NATO allies

had troops on the ground, we will only really put our divisions with the Europeans behind us once we are all working together in Iraq.

• The United States should not only encourage but take active steps to promote

counter-terrorist cooperation within Europe. Ironically, despite major transatlantic differences over issues like Iraq, transatlantic cooperation on terrorism

has been reasonably good, indeed better than cooperation among Europeans

themselves. Internal European borders have effectively been eliminated, but

there has been little integration of law enforcement or intelligence capabilities.

As a result, it is easier for terrorists to operate and circulate across European

borders than it is for the police, intelligence officers or prosecutors who are trying to stop them. While we struggle to improve coordination between the FBI,

the CIA, and Homeland Security, Europeans are attempting to coordinate 15

(soon 25) different domestic and foreign intelligence services—who often speak

different languages (both literally and figuratively).

Although intra-European coordination is essentially an internal European

issue, the United States does have both a stake in its outcome and a role to

play in improving it. U.S. intelligence-gathering services, for example, are so advanced that they effectively empower their partners in Europe simply by working with them. The United States should use this leverage to encourage greater

cooperation and coordination at the European level by taking seriously and

working with the nascent EU-level organizations that have been established, including Europol, Eurojust and the newly appointed (post-Madrid) Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gijs de Vries. Because these new organizations lack capacity, the temptation is to ignore them in favor of traditional national channels,

which currently offer more effective partnerships. While bilateral cooperation

must continue, however, we must also recognize a long-term interest in getting

Europeans to use their EU-level capacities and coordinate better among themselves. As both 9/11 and 3/11 showed, the terrorists are adept at using different

European locations to make their preparations and to hide from authorities.

Without better intra-European cooperation, we are fighting them with one hand

tied behind our backs.

• Finally, the United States should take advantage of a series of upcoming opportunities with the Europeans—the G-8, NATO, and U.S.-EU summits and the DDay anniversary—to reestablish a sense of common purpose in the war on terrorism and beyond. Whatever our legitimate differences over Iraq, the fact is

41

that the Madrid attacks underscore that we are all vulnerable to the same

threat, and that neither Europeans nor Americans will be safe until that threat

is defeated. In particular, the upcoming summits should be used to begin the

long-term process of fostering the sort of political change and economic development in the Middle East without which the problem of Islamic terrorism will

never go away.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you very much, Dr. Gordon, for your comments and insights. Now we’ll hear from Mr. Dobbins.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES DOBBINS, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER, RAND

CORPORATION

Mr. DOBBINS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for inviting

me and my apologies for arriving somewhat late.

Clearly, the recent attacks in Spain have exacerbated transatlantic differences over Iraq and the war on terrorism, but before

expanding on those differences, it’s worth emphasizing where we

agree.

There are no apparent differences between the United States and

Europe over the nature of the terrorist threat or the need for closer

cooperation. There are no apparent differences between the United

States and Europe over the need to help construct a democratic,

prosperous and peaceful Iraq nor do there appear to be any differences about how to do so from here on out.

Where there is a disagreement, a fairly fundamental disagreement is over the role of war in the war on terrorism and specifically over the role of the war in Iraq in the war on terrorism.

As Senator Biden pointed out, the attacks in Madrid didn’t

change any Spanish minds about the wisdom of the attack on Iraq.

They did raise the prominence of the issue and the priority of the

issue in the minds of the Spanish voters as they went to the polls.

But most Spaniards and indeed most Europeans had by then

been persuaded that the invasion of Iraq had contributed negatively to the war on terror by exposing American and allied military and civil personnel to terrorist attacks by radicalizing public

opinion throughout the Muslim world, by increasing recruitment to

extremist organizations and by diverting resources from other

tasks, including the stabilization of Afghanistan.

Following the recent attacks in Spain, some Europeans may now

believe that their support for the intervention or their government’s support for the intervention in Iraq has also increased the

likelihood of terrorist attacks in their home countries.

If some European governments and most European people differ

with the United States over the wisdom of invading Iraq, there are

no discernible differences about where to go from here as regards

Iraq. Whatever its original predilections, the U.S. administration

seems in recent months to have embraced the approach to Iraqi reconstruction once advocated by its harshest European and indeed

domestic critics.

The United States is now seeking to expand the U.N. and NATO

roles in post-occupation Iraq and to return sovereign power to an

Iraqi government as soon as one can be formed. Indeed, the U.S.

administration seems to envisage exactly the role for the United

42

Nations in post-occupation Iraq that the new Spanish Government

says it requires to keep Spanish troops there.

Future limits on the multilateralization of the Iraq mission seem

much more likely to result from U.N. and European reluctance to

become more heavily involved than from any residual unilateralist

impulses within the U.S. administration.

There are, as noted, important differences between the United

States and Europe over the role of war in the war on terrorism.

Most Europeans see counterterrorism as primarily a law enforcement, judicial, intelligence, diplomatic and financial activity with

only a limited role for conventional military force. They believe

most terrorists live in and operate out of essentially uninvadable

states.

They’re not convinced that terrorist organizations, like al-Qaeda,

rely on state support. They do not believe that Saddam’s regime

was actively supporting terrorist activity in either Europe or the

United States. They do not feel that Saddam Hussein was likely to

supply WMD to terrorist organizations, even had he had any such

weapons to supply. They supported the invasion of Afghanistan but

not of Iraq.

The 9/11 attacks have increased European concerns over WMD

proliferation and the prospect of such weapons falling into terrorist

hands. Europeans are not willing to sanction unilateral preemption, however, at least not in the absence of an eminent threat. Europeans are open to the concept of multilateral preemption; that is

to say, common action, including common military action against

eminent threats.

Many Europeans, I believe, could also be brought to accept the

need for unilateral preemptive action, but only in cases where the

threat proved in fact to have been eminent. Grave and growing

danger is simply not enough for the Europeans. The threat is going

to have to be eminent to secure their active cooperation.

Transatlantic differences over Iraq are, as noted, more retrospective than prospective at the moment. Now, the dynamics of the

American Presidential campaign make it difficult for the time

being to put these differences behind us on a transatlantic basis.

At least for the next 6 months, the U.S. administration is going

to feel the need to proclaim pretty much on a daily basis that its

original decision to intervene in Iraq was a good idea. This will

lead many Europeans to periodically restate their view that it was

not. At this stage, however, this argument is predominantly a domestic one, albeit with a transatlantic echo.

After November, whichever candidate is elected to the American

Presidency, transatlantic recriminations over past differences are

likely to further recede while the focus turns to next steps, in particular what next steps, what to do about Iraq from that point forward.

As long as American forces remain heavily tied down in Iraq, the

transatlantic debate over preemption as a doctrine with applicability to future cases will remain somewhat academic. Such differences are unlikely to curtail counterterrorism cooperation in the

law enforcement, judicial, intelligence, diplomatic, and financial

areas.

43

1The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author’s alone and should

not be interpreted as representing those of RAND or any of the sponsors of its research. This

product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND testimonies record testimony

presented by RAND associates to federal, state, or local legislative committees; government-appointed commissions and panels; and private review and oversight bodies. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that

address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

Nevertheless, failure to agree on the role of war and the war on

terror will complicate the ability to forge a common U.S.-European

strategy. Certainly, it will remain impossible to base common action between the United States and Europe upon a doctrine of unilateral preemption. Continued enunciation of such a doctrine will

make it more difficult to marshal European support and secure European participation in those instances where military action becomes the last best option.

Whatever preemption’s virtues and the guide to action, it is probably an option that best remains unenunciated until such action

becomes an unavoidable necessity. In sum, preemption is a valid

option but a poor doctrine.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dobbins follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES DOBBINS 1

The recent terror attacks in Spain have exacerbated transatlantic differences over

Iraq and the war on terror.

Before expanding on those differences, however, it is worth emphasizing the areas

of continued agreement.

There are no apparent differences between the U.S. and Europe over the nature

of the terrorist threat or the need for closer cooperation, including transatlantic cooperation to counter it.

There are no apparent differences between the U.S. and Europe over the need to

help construct a democratic, prosperous and peaceful Iraq, nor do there appear to

be any differences about how to do so from this time foreword.

There are transatlantic differences over the role of Iraq in the war on terror, and

over the role of war in the war on terror. The recent terrorist attacks in Spain do

not seem to have changed European opinions on these issues so much as raised

their prominence.

Some European governments and most European people believed, even prior to

the Spanish attacks, that the invasion of Iraq has contributed negatively to the war

on terror by exposing American and allied military and civil personnel to terrorist

attack, by radicalizing public opinion throughout much of the Moslem world, by increasing recruitment to extremist organizations and by diverting resources from

other tasks, including the stabilization of Afghanistan. Following the recent attacks

in Spain, some Europeans may now believe that the intervention in Iraq has also

increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks in European states that supported that

action.

Striking at states that support terrorism has been integral to the Bush Administration’s post 9/11 strategy. Saddam’s may not have been the most complicit of such

regime, but it was the most vulnerable. American action in Iraq, following so closely

on its invasion of Afghanistan, does seem to have given pause to other states, such

as Syria, Iran or Libya, which have shown a predilection toward terrorist methods

in the past. Recent Iranian and Libyan concessions regarding their respective nuclear programs give substance to this linkage and support to the American Administration’s claim that preemptive action in Iraq could have a deterrent effect elsewhere.

This deterrent effect may be undermined, however, by the difficulties the United

States has encountered in reconstructing both Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure

to establish a secure environment in either place. In the short term, U.S. forces are

so heavily committed to these efforts as to make major new commitments elsewhere

unlikely. In the long term regime change as a response to state supported terrorism

will remain a credible strategy only if the United States demonstrates the capacity

not just to take down odious regimes, but to build up better ones in their place if

some European governments and most European people differ with the U.S. AdminVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:48 Oct 13, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 95699 SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
44

istration over the wisdom of invading Iraq, there are no discernible differences

about where to go from here. Whatever its original predilections, the U.S. Administration seems, in recent months, to have largely embraced the approach to Iraqi reconstruction advocated by its harshest European critics. Thus the U.S. is thus now

seeking to expand the UN and NATO roles in post-occupation Iraq, and to return

sovereign power to an Iraqi government as quickly as one can be formed. Indeed

the U.S. Administration appears to envisage exactly the role for the United Nations

in post-occupation Iraq that the new Spanish government says it requires to keep

Spanish troops there. Future limits on the multilaterization of Iraq’s reconstruction

seem more likely to result from UN and European reluctance to become more heavily involved than residual unilateralist impulses on the part of the U.S. Administration.

There are, as noted, important differences between the U.S. and Europe over the

role of war in the war on terrorism. Most Europeans see counter-terrorism as a primarily law enforcement, judicial, intelligence, diplomatic and financial activity, with

only a limited role for conventional military force. They believe most terrorists live

in and operate out of essentially uninvadeable states. They are unconvinced that

terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda rely on state support. They do not believe that

Saddam’s regime was actively supporting terrorist activity against Europe or the

United States. They do not feel that Saddam Hussein was likely to supply WMD

to terrorist organizations, even had he any such weapons to supply. They supported

the invasion of Afghanistan, but not Iraq.

The 9/11 attacks have increased European concerns over WMD proliferation, and

the prospect for diversion into terrorist hands. Europeans are not willing to sanction

unilateral preemption, however, at least not in the absence of an immanent threat.

Europeans are open to the concept of multilateral preemption, that is to say common action, including common military action against immanent threats. Many Europeans could also be brought to accept the need for unilateral preemptive action,

but only in cases where the threat proved, in fact, to have been immanent.

Transatlantic differences over Iraq are, as noted, more retrospective than prospective. The dynamics of the American Presidential campaign make it difficult, however, to put these past differences behind us. At least for the next 6 months the

U.S. Administration is going to feel the need to proclaim, pretty much on a daily

basis, that its original decision to intervene in Iraq was a good idea. This will lead

many Europeans to periodically restate their view that it was not. At this stage,

however, this retrospective argument is predominantly a domestic one, albeit with

a transatlantic echo. After November, whichever candidate is elected to the American Presidency, transatlantic recriminations are likely to further fade, while the

focus turns to future steps.

As long as American forces remain heavily tied down in Iraq, the transatlantic

debate over preemption as a doctrine with applicability to future cases will remain

somewhat academic. Such differences are unlikely to curtail counter-terrorism cooperation in the law enforcement, judicial, intelligence, diplomatic and financial arenas. Nevertheless, failure to agree upon the role of war in the war on terror will

complicate the ability to forge a common U.S.-European strategy. Certainly it will

remain impossible to base common action between the United States and Europe

upon a doctrine of unilateral preemption. Continued enunciation of such a doctrine

will make it more difficult to marshal European support and secure European participation in those instances where military action becomes the last best option.

Whatever preemptions virtues as a guide to action, it is probably an option that best

remains unenunciated until such action becomes an unavoidable necessity.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Dobbins, and I thank all our witnesses, and now we’re joined, also, by Senator Dodd of Connecticut.

I listened closely to all your testimony, all your wisdom, your advice, your insight, why the election turned out the way it did in

Spain, it’s just a question of whether or not the people of the various European countries agree.

I think that leaders, intelligence people, law enforcement, defense, all may agree, but the question is the people. The one strain

through all of this, and I was taking notes from Mr. Kagan, Dr.

Niblett, Dr. Gordon, Mr. Dobbins, is that while the European people were not convinced that hitting Saddam, even though Iraq was

a terrorist state, state sponsor of terrorism, paying families to send

45

children into Israel for bombing, somehow they don’t consider that

part of the war on terrorism.

It probably doesn’t do us much good to just argue endlessly over

that whole issue one way or the other, just suffice it to say they

don’t agree with us.

The one thing, though, from each and every one of you, one of

the key points is we have to be successful in Iraq. Dr. Niblett

talked about we must win in Iraq. The same with Dr. Gordon, as

you went through all that it’s not appeasement, it may be looked

upon that way, but it’s not, and it’s very important to adduce that

testimony from you all here because appeasement won’t work, and

it’s good to hear that they do not care, that the Europeans, the

Spanish don’t even care to appease.

Indeed, Mr. Dobbins, you also said we must win in Iraq. The

question is the method, the method of how we’re going to succeed

in Iraq, and it is good to hear that regardless of how we got into

Iraq, whether they agreed with this tactic, this strategy, this method, if this should have been a battlefront the fact is we must win.

When you argue the military action, though, everyone did agree

with military action in Afghanistan, and it is the model. Even

when I’ve talked to the French ministers or ambassadors, they

looked at the Afghanistan effort as the model.

Now, what’s going to happen, on July 1 of this year in Iraq. One

way or the other, something’s going to have to happen on July 1.

Maybe nothing happens, but there’s consequences for nothing happening as well.

Now, the question is, how do we involve the United Nations or

to a greater extent and easier transition would be to NATO. The

seven countries coming in from the Balkans to Bulgaria obviously

already are contributing in Iraq, and I was there on the White

House lawn and each one of them, the President listed their different efforts, whether they were Lithuanians or whether they

were from Slovenia or whether they were from Romania and that

elicited applause.

The point is, if we could transition this to NATO, it would seem

to be the easiest and maybe the most effectual transition in assistance in Iraq.

Now, how do you see us respecting the sovereignty clearly of

each of the European countries, however joined together in NATO,

all recognizing that not only is it important to be successful in Afghanistan but also Iraq?

How would you all say how the United States definitely sticks

with our principles, respecting the differences of opinion of our European friends and allies, how do you see us transitioning that into

a desire and an understanding that we can’t quit, we can’t run

from Iraq, but we all need to pitch in with NATO in assessing

whatever governing council there may be in Iraq after July 1?

Mr. Kagan, I’ll start with you.

Mr. KAGAN. Well, I totally agree with your goal, Mr. Chairman.

I have to say, however, I think it’s almost inconceivable that you

could have NATO coming in in that timeframe because I think the

prior necessity for many of the countries in NATO and not just

Spain but certainly Spain would be a U.N. mandate.

46

For better or worse, you’ve got to cross the U.N. threshold before

you can get to the NATO threshold, and so I would say that in the

near term, over the next 2 months, the focus is going to have to

be on finding a new U.N. mandate that is acceptable, in the first

instance, to France. I mean, Spain doesn’t have anything to say

about how the U.N. mandate is negotiated.

The assumption is that Spain would slipstream, but one could

hope that if it’s good enough for France, then the Spaniards, who

have now decided that they are France’s best friends, would come

in behind them, but I’m not optimistic, quite honestly, that we can

work out a deal in the new post-Madrid environment with France

that might have been a little bit easier to work out in the pre-Madrid environment.

Senator ALLEN. Dr. Niblett.

Dr. NIBLETT. The summits obviously will be too late in the sense

that we have to have agreement by the summits rather than at the

summits, but it is a worthy goal to shoot for that.

I would note the editorial in the Wall Street Journal yesterday

by Miguel Angel Moratinos, who’s designated as being the new Foreign Minister, who talked about Spain not deploying as an occupying force in Iraq and I thought that phraseology was interesting

because, clearly, if it is possible and the timing here is very difficult, but if it is possible for the new Iraqi sovereign government

to request a military force there, then it starts to provide some of

the cover that the Spanish are clearly looking for. The Spanish are

participating in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan which has been noted. Forty percent of the peopled

polled, in one of the polls that was conducted recently in Spain

would envisage Spanish troops in Iraq under a U.N. mandate.

So, clearly, there is some potential here hopefully going forward.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you. Dr. Gordon.

Dr. GORDON. Three very brief points. I completely agree with

you, that there’s no point in redebating Iraq with the Europeans.

There’s so many variables now that point in a positive direction

and a negative direction, that it’s wasting our time to redebate

that. The thing to do is look forward.

Second point. We have a real political problem with the Europeans and European leaders, is that a lot of supporters of the Iraq

war said from the start it doesn’t really matter if they agree or if

they’re on board because we’ll do it, we’ll make it work, and they’ll

come crawling back because they won’t have a choice afterwards.

The problem is they know that and the last thing they want to

do as politicians is fuel that American point of view and just confirm our belief that if we just do things, they’ll eventually come

crawling back, and it’s very difficult for them politically.

I mean, you know, your politicians think about that. They’re supposed to go to their people and say we were against this, it was

a bad idea, but the Americans did it anyway, so we better go and

bail them out, which leads to the third point, which is, what we

have to do to make it politically possible for them to do.

I think we’re already moving in that direction. The transfer of

sovereignty will be key because it’s a lot easier for them politically

to do something at the request of a new sovereign Iraqi government, however appointed, than it is because the United States asks

47

them. That will help and it’s a strong reason, I think, to go ahead

with that, even though we may not be ready in terms of the right

sort of government in place.

Second, the United Nations, it has to have more of a U.N. and

less of a U.S. face on it, to the extent possible. Now, we’ve decided

to skip a U.N. phase and go straight from occupation to an Iraqi

government, but I’m not sure that there’s not still an important

role for an empowered U.N. official in that country, rather than

just an empowered American ambassador, and I think that would

make it easier for the Europeans, if the U.N. Security Council gives

a mandate to the security force and empowers a senior U.N. official

so that again the potential allies feel like they’re doing this for the

U.N. and the international community rather than just us.

NATO, as I said in my testimony, I think that’s very important

to pursue. I think we’ll eventually get there and that, too, could

help the Europeans and the Spanish play a role and that will be

key. If you remember the Balkans, we disputed this vigorously in

the early 1990s and we were really at loggerheads, but once we had

a NATO force go in and we were all on the ground and that NATO

gave them both political cover and a political voice, we put the differences behind us, and I think that’s what we need to do in this

case as well.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you. Mr. Dobbins.

Mr. DOBBINS. Well, I’ll just speak as a cynic. It’s not really a

choice between the U.N. or NATO. The U.N.’s value-added is on

the political side, NATO’s value-added is on the military side.

Senator ALLEN. On the security side, right.

Mr. DOBBINS. Right. On the security side, and there are roles for

both, and as Robert has suggested, it’s probably sequential; that is,

you need to define a clear U.N. role in order to persuade skeptical

NATO countries to expand NATO’s role.

I do think that this is going to have to occur in an incremental

fashion. It’s not plausible that NATO would take over the entire

military operation in Iraq in the near future. What is feasible, I

think, is some time in the late summer or early fall for NATO to

take over a piece of the action, either a sector or a function and

to perform that function or that sector as a NATO alliance, and

this can be seen as a precursor perhaps to a broader multinational

organization as a whole operation at some future date, but we’ll

have to take this one step at a time.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you very much. My time’s expired. Thank

you for your comments and your insight, and now I’d like to turn

it over to Senator Biden for his questions.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much. For those who are listening and the cameras are here, I wish the American public knew

how well-respected the four of you are and how different you have

been in your views on many other subjects up to now and how

much agreement there is here as relates to Europe. I think it’s

really an important point. I really do. I really do.

But let me posit what I would suggest as a possible solution or

approach and then ask you guys to comment on it, if you would.

First of all, I am positive that NATO’s ready to come in and

ready to come in now. There are plans already drafted as to exactly

what functions NATO could take over now and what sectors they

48

could take over now. General Jones is already ahead of the curve

in case he’s asked that. There has already been a request for

NATO to participate in Iraq.

In my almost 2-hour conversation with Chirac, he said he would

immediately support NATO playing a role, No. 1, and No. 2, if

there was a United Nations, a real U.N. resolution dealing with political authority in transition, that he would be prepared to send

French troops into Iraq, and I remember when I wrote an article

5 months ago saying that we should get NATO in and have a high

commissioner, everyone said, well, my God, Joe, that’s not a bad

idea, but God Almighty, the Europeans will never do it.

The Europeans have more at stake in the failure of NATO than

we do. More short-term. Fourteen percent of France’s population is

Arab. Germans are schizophrenic about population flows. What will

happen if there’s a civil war in Iraq with the Turks and the Kurds

and what that means for them in Germany.

We have to get straight. We have to get straight, that there’s this

overwhelming tug of war in Europe between wanting us to fail because they told us what was going to happen and we didn’t listen

and realizing—you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of

Chris Dodd and I voting to bail out Chase Manhattan Bank which

we did in Latin America. They’re greedy SOBs. They took these

high-risk efforts to make a lot of money. If it had been a mom and

pop store that invested down there, we’d let them go under. We

couldn’t let Chase Manhattan go under. We had to save them. They

were too big to fail, too big to fail.

The Europeans understand that. They understand that clearly.

Now, I know you guys are experts, but I’ve spent as much time in

Europe talking to these guys as you have combined. I’m telling you,

they’re ready. They’re absolutely positively ready, but they will not

go, as Mr. Kagan says, before there’s an antecedent resolution and

that’s the real kicker here.

What everybody knows, in my opinion, and this is to get you to

come and take me on on this if you disagree, what everybody

knows is that we don’t have a handle on this. When I speak to European leaders, everyone from Javier Solana to the new President

of the EU to the heads of state in all the major countries, they all

say basically the same thing.

There used to be an old bad joke. I played baseball in high school

and was a haphazard guy in college. I had a coach who used to say

remember that joke about George who played center field, first

three innings, six errors. Coach calls him out, goes nuts, says,

you’re out of here, and he turns around and says Phil, you’re in the

center field, and Phil runs out to center field, first pitch, routine

fly ball to Phil, hits his glove, he drops it, error. Coach goes nuts,

calls Phil in, Phil comes running across the third base line to the

coach. He says, what the devil is the matter with you, Phil? And

Phil looks at the coach and says, coach, George screwed up center

field so badly, no one can play it.

It’s a joke, but they think we have screwed up Iraq so badly, beyond their populations being opposed, they think we’ve screwed it

up so badly that they don’t want to play it, and they realize they

have to play, they have to play, and so it seems to me the key here

is getting what some in this administration are pushing hard for,

49

a serious resolution to the United Nations, having someone of the

caliber of Brahimi coming in like Kouchner did in Bosnia early on,

because who’s going to be the referee from July 1 to January 1

when an election is held?

But mark my words. When Chalabi cuts a deal, cuts a deal with

Mr. al-Sistani about a change in the constitution that limits the

participation of women, for example, or the role of the Sharia,

who’s the one that’s going to demarche that organization like we

did the loya jirga in Afghanistan as they trampled through their

constitution? Is it going to be, as Tony Blinken on my staff says,

we’re going to go from Clark Kent to Superman? With Clark Kent,

at least there’s some help we get in the CPA now because we have

guys like Jeremy Greenstock and others who you know and is an

incredibly well-respected diplomat.

Now we’re going to go to a super Ambassador of the United

States. Is he going to want to go and say, by the way, guys, go back

in a tent and work this one out? Everybody knows this is going to

happen. There’s going to be an implosion, an absolute implosion

when we pull out politically, and so what I don’t get is why we

don’t get.

When I spoke to Chirac, I said—he said, ‘‘You need not go to the

whole Security Council. The PERM–5 is sufficient.’’ These guys are

ready. They know they have to be ready. What is it? What is the

impediment we have to turning this over? We don’t lose face. We’re

leaving anyway. How do we lose face if we negotiate it right now

as we speak what the follow-on entity will be to the CPA, other

than a 3,000-person embassy, which, as you know, Jim, we’re talking about, 1,000 Americans, 2,000 nationals, largest embassy in the

world going to take over in Baghdad?

So, my point is three things. One, it seems to me President Bush

should engage right now, engage in Europe now. No. 2, engage in

public diplomacy. By the way, as Democrats, some of our liberal

Democratic friends voted against my effort to increase—I wanted

to keep Radio Free Europe. They wanted to get rid of it. They

wanted to get rid of the European radios, for example. It’s not just

Republicans.

A U.N. high commissioner or some version of it. They don’t like

the high commissioner, come up with some entity where there’s

real political muscle; that is, a U.N. answerable to the Security

Council. NATO will come in then. You’ll not get more, Jim, than

20,000 NATO forces. You don’t have enough to put in now, but I

tell you the functions, border security, Northern Iraq, free up the

Marines that we have, move in to take over the logistics and all

the efforts of the polls in the southern flat. Spain will stay. Spain

will stay under that circumstance. I’d bet my career on it. Spain

will stay in that circumstance.

Joint task forces with our European friends know how to work

out what we should be doing we’re trying to do here with the bureaucratic entities all getting in a plane, deadhead to Europe, sitting down, FBI, DEA, CIA, Justice, working out the international

terrorist piece, and last, a larger attitude about large agreements

on proliferation, on proliferation, literal treaties which this administration excuses the notion of treaties, other than a bilateral

agreement.

50

What is wrong with—and there may be a long wrong with it.

Just because I feel strongly about it doesn’t make it right. Tell me

what is wrong with that prescription, other than the politics of it,

because I think each of you are right, and by the way, Phil, I

should hold up your book. I’ve sold more of Kagan’s books for him

than you can imagine. I bought over 60 of them to give away.

Mr. KAGAN. Thank you.

Senator BIDEN. I want you to know, Bob, this is even good. I’ve

endorsed this one. You know what I mean?

Dr. GORDON. Senator, could you read the title?

Senator BIDEN. Which probably means you will sell fewer books.

Really, it’s first rate. It’s first rate. But for Dr. Niblett on, why is

it—what is the core problem? Is not the core problem this notion

that is emerging even in the United States and some of us believed

before we went, how can we say the Europeans aren’t prepared to

help and fight terror when there was not a peep about sending

forces now and before to Afghanistan, Afghanistan, and we wanted

to expand international security force and Secretary Powell tried

and the Europeans were prepared to contribute and Secretary

Rumsfeld said no, no.

How can we say these guys aren’t willing to fight terror when in

fact the only guys getting shot at and going after people in Tora

Bora are Frenchmen? There’s a French flag and an American flag.

They fly in the far most outpost in Afghanistan. These are bad

guys, the French. They’re tough. They’re the ones going into the

hills with our Marines and Special Forces shooting people. No one

else is going out looking for people.

So, how can we say these guys aren’t ready to fight, aren’t ready

to be there if they’re still there in Afghanistan, willing to put more

troops in Afghanistan? We’re now expanding the international security force and not understand what a lot of us understand, this

notion we should stop talking about. If we don’t fight them in

Baghdad, we’re going to fight them in Boston. Malarkey.

If the Lord Almighty came down and stood right there in that

middle section between us and said, I guarantee you there’ll not be

one single additional terrorist attack against the United States of

America for the next decade, does anybody think we’ve solved anything in Iraq?

Senator ALLEN. You all are experts, but I think that’s outside of

your expertise.

Senator BIDEN. It’s above my pay grade. Excuse my frustration.

Mr. KAGAN. I’ll just stipulate on some of them.

As far as the Europeans are concerned, look, I think that there

will ultimately be a willingness to go. I don’t disagree with you. I

didn’t spend 2 hours talking to Jacques Chirac, so you’d know better than I do.

My sense, though, is that, as you said, they don’t have a lot to

contribute, and I think honestly 20,000 is optimistic because they

really are stretched. They’re doing a lot, as you say. They’re doing

a lot. I also noticed recently, very recently in fact, that the Germany Foreign Minister has been saying he doesn’t think it’s a good

idea for NATO to go into Iraq, and I think that the people who

would have to count votes today count votes in the NATO councils

without a U.N. mandate, they’re not going to get NATO.

51

Senator BIDEN. Absolutely. I agree with you fully. We need a

U.N. mandate first.

Mr. KAGAN. Right. Now, as to the terms of the U.N. mandate, I

don’t honestly see why we can’t come to an agreement with France

on what the next U.N. mandate should look like. I don’t want you

to bet your—I think it’s very important that you stay in the Senate.

So, I don’t want you to bet your whole career on whether the Spaniards come in after that, because I think that this guy has made

a promise to voters who elected him on the basis of that promise,

and I’m not as optimistic as my colleagues seem to be that he’s

going to be able to turn around in a couple of months and decide

to reverse himself.

Senator BIDEN. Bob, didn’t he say that he was out, unless, unless

the U.N. was in?

Mr. KAGAN. That’s right. But the question is, when he talks—I

mean, I was talking to a French colleague of ours, a friend of ours,

and I was saying, so, what is it exactly that the Spaniards need

in a U.N. mandate, and no one knows what the answer to that

question is, and the best—by the way, the Spaniards themselves

probably don’t know what the answer to that question is right now

because they just got here. They’ve been running a campaign for

a long time.

Senator ALLEN. Anybody else?

Dr. NIBLETT. Let me just quickly on the Spanish thing. It’s worth

noting, I think, the new Spanish rotation came about, I think it

was last week. It was a very tense handover because they had to

go out in essence through a transition period.

It’s interesting that the new rotation has headed out and that at

least that’s taken place, and I think it’s worth noting, obviously the

Socialists who campaigned against NATO back in 1982 were then

the government that turned out to be good allies.

However, the timeline is very, very tight and that obviously is

what’s working against it. I think the intent is possible. The

timeline is what’s going to make it difficult.

Senator Biden, I agree, the role for NATO in Iraq should be

sought. It may even be inevitable. I think there’s probably majority

support for it. The thing about NATO is not everyone has to go,

just everyone has to sign up. I think there are two concerns. One

on the U.S. side is, is the security situation ready? Now, if it’s a

small force that’s doing targeted issues, then maybe that’s OK.

Then you get to the Joschka Fischer concern. The Joschka Fischer concern, I think, is your point. They cannot afford to have NATO

fail in Iraq and they cannot afford to have NATO be seen to be involved in an action that’s going to hell and that is—— Senator BIDEN. He’s worried it’s going to fail in Afghanistan.

That’s his stated worry.

Dr. NIBLETT. So, on both those areas, they want to see a NATO

operation that is successful and it’s taken a lot to get NATO out

of area politically in many of these countries. It’s doing, at least

from the political and a public opinion standpoint, a great job, but

that could turn very quickly. No one in Europe wants to see NATO

fail.

Dr. GORDON. Just one word on Spain and then a word on Senator

Biden’s big point.

52

Bob, just to clarify. I just want to be clear. I didn’t necessarily

express optimism that the Spanish would stay. I think you’re right.

If you think about it, the political incentive for this leader is to do

what he said he was going to do, and it’s going to be hard to get

him to stay. What I said and believe is that we have an incentive

in trying to get him to do that and there’s a bit of wiggle room that

we might as well explore, but no one can deny that it’s just easier

for him to do what made him popular in the first place.

On the broader point, I find myself in a funny position. Usually

Bob is the one who’s pessimistic about getting Europeans involved

and I try to make a case like Senator Biden does that we can, but

since, Senator, you invited more disagreement, let me just try to

say what I think the obstacles are, even though I completely agree

with the overall thrust of what you said. I’ll be very brief.

It’s too big to fail, but the problem is they know that we know

that and the President has already made clear when we needed

$87 billion more, he asked for $87 billion and he got it. So, even

though they know that this can’t fail, there will be a political temptation for them to take advantage of the fact that we’re going to

be there. If we need more troops, we’ll have to come up with the

troops because, as important as it is for them, it’s even more important for us and the administration.

Second, the political obstacles that we’ve already talked about.

For those leaders to look like they’re caving and doing what we

want them to do is just hard and they like to get elected and it’s

very popular to stand up to us on what at least the Spanish leader

characterized as a disaster.

Third are the military constraints that Bob and you talked about.

The Germans are, even if they wanted, everyone’s overextended,

but they are particularly—they have more than 10,000 troops

abroad. The Brits are overextended. Ironically, as I think we all

agree, it’s the French. If someone can come up with the division or

15,000 troops, it’s probably the French, and I think it’s worth exploring, but there’s not a lot of wiggle room there.

Fourth is the questions of rules of engagement and command

structure. I mean, the NATO role, one of the biggest obstacles to

that and one of our reluctance is that do you put the North Atlantic

Council in charge, and if so, in charge of what?

I think this is a solvable problem if, in advance, you very explicitly say what the rules of engagement are, so that they know, but

you can understand a bit of reluctance here about saying that all

of the now-expanding members of the North Atlantic Council could

intervene and direct people to do something, and, of course, on

command structure, NATO and General Jones is one structure, but

that’s not the structure that happens to be in charge of security in

Iraq. So, that’s yet another obstacle to the NATO thing.

All of that, because you invited the reasons that this is hard, but

overall, what it leads to, I think, is still the conclusion that you

reached. It is possible to get more allied support and NATO role,

but we have to pay a price for it, and I don’t even think the price

is that big. A slight political price in terms of control, political control of what’s going on in Iraq, in order for allied support is clearly

worth paying, we haven’t exactly shown that will——

53

Senator BIDEN. That will throw us in the briar patch. You know

what I mean? Iraq ain’t no prize and we keep acting like it’s a

prize.

Dr. GORDON. Keep acting like it’s a prize and acting like if only

you just leave it to us, we’ll be able to set it up politically and everything will work just fine. I don’t think we’ve demonstrated that,

and I think the risk of allowing a few other voices in that debate

is frankly small compared to the payoff that you outlined.

Mr. DOBBINS. Senator, I want to start by making an appeal for

equal time on both endorsements, and I’ll bring one of mine along

next time.

Senator BIDEN. I’ve said so many nice things about you over the

years, you’ve been badly damaged.

Mr. DOBBINS. I’m more optimistic than Bob is about the prospects of getting NATO involved and Europe more involved, although perhaps not to the point that you’ve reached, and I’m not

sure that the reason we haven’t tabled the new Security Council

resolution is a debate in the administration. It’s possible there is

one, but I think there is an issue of sequencing here.

We can’t table the resolution until we’ve got an Iraqi government. It doesn’t have to be in office. It has to be in offing. In other

words, the whole point of the resolution will be to welcome and authorize the transfer of power to an Iraqi government. You can’t do

that until there’s something there or people of the Security Council

are going to say, well, this is fine, but let’s wait a couple of weeks,

let’s see if Brahimi succeeds. You may not have a June 30 transfer,

in which case this resolution is premature.

So, my guess is, while there may be some debate over the nature

of the resolution, the administration at the moment just doesn’t

want to put itself in a demander position by admitting it needs a

resolution but it knows it needs a resolution and it will table the

resolution. It recognizes it’s then going to have to negotiate the

terms with France and other countries.

But it needs to have gotten over this next hurdle which is getting

al-Sistani and Chalabi and others to agree on how this government

is to be formed. That’s my guess.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you all.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you all so much. Now, I’d like to recognize

the Senator from Connecticut, Senator Dodd.

The morning of that terrible tragedy on March 11, Senator Dodd

and I worked together on a resolution expressing the condolences,

the concerns of Americans for the people of Spain, and I remember

as we were trying to get all the evidence, and I was saying, well,

let’s not put some of these things in here.

Let’s not blame anyone until they actually figure out who is at

fault. Senator Dodd is a strong colleague and ally in expressing the

sentiments of the U.S. Senate and therefore the American people,

and he’s an esteemed member of this committee with a great deal

of experience. Welcome.

Senator DODD. Well, thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. It’s been

interesting to hear the conversation of the last hour or so, and I

obviously know these people and am very impressed with their observations, and I have an opening statement, Mr. Chairman, that

I’d asked be included in the record at the appropriate place.

54

Senator ALLEN. So ordered.

Senator DODD. And in addition to serving on this committee, the

full committee, I’m not a member of this subcommittee but the full

committee, I chair something called U.S.-Spain Council, along with

my colleague from Madrid, Antonio Rodriguez, and in fact every

meeting we’ve had, including the most recent one just a few weeks

ago in Miami, the annual meeting in this country, we spent a good

deal of time during that discussion on the subject of terrorism.

The Spanish have more than just a passing appreciation of this

issue having lived over the past three or four decades with ETA

and the terrible hardships that have been visited on Spain as a result of the activities of that Basque separatist organization. So,

they bring a very compelling set of understandings about the issue.

Very different form of how terrorism is engaged in a sense, not that

it makes much difference to people.

Just a couple of things I wanted to share. I think it’s important,

and I really appreciate the comments that were made by all of you.

Too often, I think we have a tendency just to see the dark side of

all of these things, and there have been some very compelling moments.

I recall right after 9/11, when we became painfully aware of the

hardships of terrorism, there was not an uncommon headline in

many European newspapers that identified very directly with who

we were. French newspapers, News Americanes, we’re all Americans. Spanish papers, the same line being used. Something we

hadn’t seen out of the European community in years.

I think bringing forth some deeply felt emotions about the relationship between the United States and Europe. Despite these annoyances and differences which dominate the headlines of the news

from day to day, there is a deep and fundamental relationship that

exists, and we should never lose sight of that.

I think the fact that the international community with Resolution 1373 right away after 9/11, setting up the committee to really

go after and look at the issue of terrorism. Just 5 days ago, the

U.N. adopted Resolution 1535 which is a very important document.

The fact that the European Community has begun to move very aggressively in a number of areas that have been identified.

The two documents, I think particularly those referenced and

adopted over the last few months, the European Security Strategy

from December of 2003, which lists terrorists among the most serious threats facing the European Union. I’m not sure that was widely reported here in the United States.

The second is the European Council’s March 25 Declaration on

Combating Terrorism which lays out a specific set of objectives to

better equip Europe in the fight against global terror. That was, of

course, 2 days after the attack in Madrid. They’re very important.

The Declaration also expresses support for the creation of the

post Counterterrorism Coordinator of the European Union and already High Representative Solana has named a former Dutch Deputy Interior Minister to fill that role.

So, there have been some major steps, and of course, there are

other documents, the treaties, the mutual legal assistance, extradition treaties, and other things that really do evidence the kind

of cooperation that exists. Now, there clearly are differences.

55

What I’d like to raise with you is what I think is needed here.

As I look at this, and you and certainly Senator Biden, Senator

Allen, spend a lot more time thinking about these things, but what

it seems to me—and I’m not suggesting there’s necessarily merit to

what I’m about to say, but I’m curious as to whether or not you

agree that this is one of the problems, the obstacles.

I don’t disagree at all with the notion of sequencing. I think

there clearly has to be a U.N. resolution before any discussion of

NATO commitment. I don’t think there necessarily has to be great

sequencing, though, over the issue of sovereignty and the issue of

U.N. resolution. I think there can be some simultaneity that occurs

here. In fact, I think one may reinforce the other. So, rather waiting for other before doing the other, I think, may be unnecessary.

What I think is needed here, in my view, is the issue of the

United States and the Bush administration being very bold and

doing something, which what I’m inclined to do because I think the

impression is within the European Community, not that they don’t

have to be involved and want to be involved, but there is a suspicion that unilateralism is still very much a part of this game and

that we may not be as serious about developing the kind of international cooperation as we’re saying.

What I’m suggesting is why wouldn’t the administration ask the

French and the Spanish, write the resolution yourself? Gotta ask

them to do it. What better way to get the Spanish at this juncture,

given the timeframes we’re dealing with, to begin to move off their

point of making contingent their continued involvement in Iraq

based on a U.N. involvement. I can’t think of any quicker way to

take this new Prime Minister and to move him into a position of

leadership and responsibility on this issue than asking them to

draft the resolution. We certainly want to work with them but let

them take the lead on it.

I realize there will be some hesitancy, and I’m not suggesting

here that the administration is disingenuous, but I think the impression, my impression is that within Europe, the impression is

that we’re really trying to get over the next 6 or 8 months past our

elections. That’s the impression I think exists there, and I think to

disabuse the Europeans of that impression, to be bold and say you

do it, you’re claiming you want to be involved, you think you have

to be involved, you write the resolution, and then we’ll work with

you, but you take the lead on it, you draft it, and let’s see if we

can’t move on that basis.

I’d be curious as to how you might respond to that kind of suggestion as a way of breaking through this. Whether or not you

agree that the problem is the impression that we’re not really serious about multilateralizing this effort but more as a ruse. Anyone

want to comment on that?

Dr. NIBLETT. Senator, if I could just jump in, because I think

your point gets to one of the points that Phil Gordon mentioned as

well in his comments just now, which is what sort of political cost

might European governments face by accepting a change of policy.

European governments will have political cover if it’s visible that

the United States followed their advice, that it was not the U.S.

taking the lead. That’s the cover in essence they need. They could

turn around to their electorates and say look, the United States

56

wouldn’t have done this if we hadn’t put our foot down. That is a

tough thing to do potentially, first, in an election year, and second,

it may be tough also procedurally, and since the United States does

have a very important interest in the rights of the resolution being

drafted and one that meets their needs.

But I think from the point of view of the ultimate U.S. objective

in Iraq, which is to get as much international support as possible

for the long term, for the long term as much as for the near term,

that it needs to find a way to let the European governments see

that their advice is being followed. That cover is what’s needed,

then the kind of scenario that Senator Biden painted out could be

possible. Thank you.

Senator DODD. Anyone else want to comment on this? First of all,

I think the impression is wrong. I just think you’re going to have

an awful time getting the second and third sequencing events,

given the politics of these places and so forth. It’s going to be hard

for the leadership, no matter what they tell Members of Congress

or visiting officials from the Bush administration.

The fact of the matter is they’ve got to deal with their electorates, and in the absence of their electorates getting a feeling that

they’re not just following along but they are actually leading on

this issue, I think it’s going to be damn near impossible for the politics locally in the separate European nations to be able to do much

else, and so do you think my impression of how Europe sees this

is wrong, tell me that, because obviously if you disagree with that,

then the suggestion that we ought to ask them to take the lead on

it doesn’t have any value.

Mr. Kagan.

Mr. KAGAN. Well, I think, you know, if Chirac and the United

States work out a deal on a resolution, the French public will go

along. They’re not going to feel like Chirac got taken. I don’t think

Chirac has to worry about——

Senator DODD. What’s the problem with asking Chirac to write

it?

Mr. KAGAN. Well, I would say, I think we should—it’s a bad negotiating strategy. I mean, we do have serious equities involved. It

is our force, for one thing, that’s going to be involved, and I think

that we do have an obligation to the Iraqi people to make sure that

whatever the resolution is—now, I’m not saying that we have the

totality of wisdom on what’s best for the Iraqi people, but I think

it—I’m not sure it would be entirely responsible or the right negotiating tactic to say to the French you write the resolution.

Senator DODD. Well, I’ve said to you that obviously we’re going

to be able to work with it, but the lead—imagine what that headline would be in Paris tomorrow. Obviously, we’re not going to sit

there and just say write it, we’ll take whatever you say.

Mr. KAGAN. You know, Senator, at this point, I think some good

old-fashioned diplomacy would be a step forward from where we

are right now. You know, I’d be happy just to see the negotiation.

I’d be happy to see a stream of American officials going over to

Paris and to other European capitals and begin this.

Frankly, I think that itself would send the signal that you’re trying to send. I mean, where we are right now is we’ve got Americans

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who are hanging out in Washington. You have Europeans hanging

out in Europe and Brussels, and there’s just not this kind of thing.

Senator DODD. I don’t disagree with that either, that suggestion.

By the way, I’m told Secretary Powell actually had a very good

meeting—— Mr. KAGAN. Right.

Senator DODD [continuing]. With the incoming Prime Minister

and the Foreign Minister I’ve known for some time and actually attended the U.S.-Spain Council meetings in Florida with us a few

weeks ago, and there’s been a good relationship there.

The relationship between Spain and the United States is a very

deep and profound one. We shouldn’t overread the situation in

Iraq. Obviously, there’s differences.

I happened to be in Madrid during U.S. Council meetings when

the decisions were made about going into Iraq and the demonstrations were huge in Madrid, but it was really a policy debate and

division. It would be overreading it to suggest somehow this was

anti-American feeling, in my view. Anyway, just as an aside.

Any comment on this?

Dr. GORDON. Just a word. I think your description of the European perception is accurate, but it’s also starting to change. I think

to be fair, the administration has already come a long way, I think

belatedly, but in the direction of giving the impression that it

doesn’t want total control over this whole political structure to be

in the hands of the Pentagon alone and no one can influence it.

The preparation of the transfer of sovereignty, the appointment

of Brahimi and the role for the U.N. in organizing elections and exploring with the communities, I think the discussion of and preparation of a possible NATO role and a new U.N. mandate is already

movement in the direction that lessens the European perception

that we just want to hold on to this for ourselves. So, the perception is there, but the administration, to be fair, I think is starting

to deal with it.

In terms of asking them to write the resolution, I said in my

opening testimony what we need to do at a minimum is hear what

they need. That may be another way of putting it. I’m not sure I

would also go as far as to say OK, you write the draft, but immediately go over and say OK, what do you need? You’ve said or implied that there might be conditions under which you would stay

and the French and others have said that there might be conditions under which they would do things, like train forces and support NATO and all that. Well, what are those conditions? If the answer is in the ballpark, if the answer is not something just unacceptable in terms of rules of engagement and chain of command

and political authority, then I think we’re in business.

But the point is I think we are in business. I think this is what

we’re doing, and I think there’s a good chance it’ll work.

Senator DODD. YES.

Mr. DOBBINS. I think President Bush will have at least three occasions over the next few months to persuade the Europeans that

he’s a born-again multilateralist. It’s going to be difficult to do so

for the reasons you said and for the reasons you also suggested

which is in a Presidential year, it’s hard to admit you were wrong

and that you’re prepared to start over.

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So, I think that it may take longer than between now and June

to make that a convincing case.

And indeed, a real reconciliation may have to wait till after the

elections, and then one will see whether this was a tactical change

or a fundamental one, assuming administration victory, but I think

a start is being made, and I think the administration is sincere in

its desires to expand the multilateral role in this regard.

What’s missing, and here I agree with Bob, is the diplomatic

campaign to bring that about. Summit meetings aren’t enough. Occasional visits by Secretary Powell aren’t enough. You need backroom conversations among principal allies, Germany, France,

Spain, Poland, the ones who have troops on the ground or whom

we would like to have troops on the ground, where we talk privately in some depth at some length about what our true objectives

are, what our strategy is, where we’re going, how we want to use

various international instrumentalities, and once we’ve got an

agreed strategic framework that is the product of intimate, extensive and confidential discussions, then working out one of these

resolutions is not a big problem.

But you cannot achieve that through instructed negotiations on

the behalf of Ambassadors in New York. All you get then is you

get words, but you don’t get a strategic consensus.

Senator DODD. I totally agree with that. I think you all at least

share that view and I certainly think that’s absolutely essential,

and there is a sense of estrangement here and we’ve got to work

much, much harder at that if these efforts are going to work.

Well, again, I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s very

helpful. I appreciate you allowing me to come and participate in

this. It’s been very instructive, and again I think I say at the outset

here, expressing our collective sympathies and the chairman was

very helpful in working on that resolution that the Senate adopted

hours after the events in Madrid, and whatever other differences

we may have over policy issues and the like, there is a tremendous

amount of respect.

Spain has been a great story in the last few years. What has

happened in 25 years under the leadership of King Juan Carlos

and then the government of Felipe Gonzalez, the government of

Aznar and this government may emerge has really been one of the

not as well told a story in the European Community.

One of the great, great success stories of the last quarter of a

century, and this is a great relationship between our two countries,

and it’s because we don’t talk about it, we always talk about the

relationship with Great Britain obviously, with France, with Germany, even Italy to a larger extent, but this U.S.-Spain relationship is a significant one and it requires some work here, but I have

no doubt in my mind that it will remain solid and reaching out,

and I think you may have made this suggestion, maybe it was Phil,

but made the suggestion of the President going, offering to go to

meet, inviting the new Prime Minister to come here, whatever may

work. Those kinds of gestures are very significant.

I know when President Bush did that with the President-elect of

Brazil, President Lula, it was a stunning piece of news that this

President would invite a left of center President in Brazil to come

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to the United States and invite him to have joint cabinet meetings

with Brazil was unheard of.

In moments like this, those kinds of objectives are worth a tremendous amount, really following up with the kinds of things Bob

talked about, can really be of help.

So, I thank all of you for your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Senator Dodd follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD

Mr. Chairman, I know that along with many here in the U.S. and around the

world, a sense of shock still lingers from the tragedy which struck our friends in

Spain only 20 days ago. The images of the bloodshed and immense suffering are still

vivid in our memories and will never be forgotten. But at the same time, I believe

it is imperative that we look ahead so that we can work together to prevent the

loss of more innocent life. This hearing is an opportunity to do just that, and I commend the chairman for holding it today.

The threat of terrorism is not new to the United States. Only three short years

ago, on September 11, 2001, we were the victims of another terrorist attack—the

deadliest ever to occur on U.S. soil. In response to that horrific crime, we as Americans came together in an unprecedented show of solidarity to fight the threat posed

by international terrorist organizations.

This solidarity was echoed by the international community. On September 28,

2001, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1373, which called upon member

nations to take certain concrete actions to fight back against the global terrorist

threat. It also provided for the creation of a Counter Terrorism Committee as a subcommittee of the Security Council. And while this body has not been as effective

as had been hoped, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1535—which was passed 5

days ago—contains important provisions aimed at increasing the effectiveness of

this committee. These provisions include the creation of a Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate and the appointment of an Executive Director—who is to be named

in the coming weeks by Secretary General Annan.

The European Union has also taken several steps of its own. During the past 3

years, European laws aimed at fighting terrorism and terrorist organizations have

been strengthened. Border control mechanisms have improved, and intra-European

police and judicial cooperation have increased. Agreements such as the European

Arrest Warrant serve as indicators of this progress.

Progress can also be seen in other areas. I would call to the attention of my colleagues two important documents that were drafted by our European allies over the

last few months. The first is the European Security Strategy from December 2003,

which lists terrorism first among the most serious threats facing the European

Union. And the second is the European Council’s March 25 Declaration on Combating Terrorism, which lays out a specific set of objectives to better equip Europe

in the fight against global terror, as well as time-lines for completion of these objectives. The Declaration also expresses support for the creation of the post of Counter

Terrorism Coordinator for the EU. I am pleased that High Representative Solana

has already appointed former Dutch Deputy Interior Minister Gijs de Vries to serve

in that role.

Certainly, there have been some differences across the transatlantic divide with

respect to appropriate methods for battling the terrorist threat. There have also

been disagreements as to where anti-terrorism efforts should be focused. But these

differences shouldn’t be allowed to compromise our unity against global terrorism.

Over the past few years, the U.S. and Europe have made some important strides

in increasing cooperation on the war on terror. This cooperation must be expanded

and strengthened. The treaties on Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) and extradition,

which were signed in June 2003 by the U.S. and E.U., have helped to further this

goal.

Having said that, much work remains to be done. The heinous attacks in Madrid

are a reminder of this fact. Domestically and globally, the U.S., European Union,

and peace-loving nations throughout the world must continue to strengthen their

defenses against terrorism. That requires more resources, better organization, closer

cooperation, and flexible institutions capable of quickly adapting to emerging

threats. It means that we must ensure individual liberties are not jeopardized under

the rubric of increased security—that the foundations of democracy are protected.

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And it requires that we not only fight terrorist organizations but battle poverty and

repression, which remain some of terrorism’s root causes.

It also requires that when terrorist attacks do occur that we be as honest and candid about what transpired in the context of such attacks—that we look carefully at

what efforts were made to detect and deter those attacks, what additional steps

could have been taken, and what steps we intend to take in the future to make it

less likely that similar attacks will occur in the future. While this might seem obvious on its face that these measures should be undertaken, the really is that these

things are harder to do that one might think. But it is critical to our shared national

security that we find constructive ways to do this without getting into the blame

game.

The extent of effective international cooperation—especially the transatlantic relationship between the U.S. and Europe—will be a barometer of our success in the

war on terror. We must unite around our fundamental values of freedom and democracy so that together, we can ensure that this world is safe for freedom-loving

people everywhere.

I look forward to asking some questions of our expert witnesses.

Senator ALLEN. Thank you, Senator Dodd. I want to conclude by

thanking you all. I think that there is some commonality of views

here on what needs to be done.

There’s been assertions made that Iraq is a prize. I don’t think

that anyone really believes in this country that Iraq is a prize. The

President’s motivation in Iraq is a vision of bringing freedom to the

Middle East. It won’t be easy. There aren’t George Masons and

Thomas Jeffersons and Benjamin Franklins there, but if we can

succeed, as tough as it looks right now, what a model that would

be for other countries and people in the Middle East.

Spain is important. They’re an ally. They made their decisions.

I understand why we want to work with Spain. Each country,

though, has their own prerogatives. We can’t have our country’s

freedom or the investments we’ve made in this war on terrorism

determined by one country.

The effects of Madrid are more than just Spain. The question

that we’re trying to address here in this hearing today is what does

that do and what’s the psychological impact, what is the reaction,

what actions, constructive actions can be taken in Europe?

The one good thing from this that has been unanimously stated,

and whether it’s from this panel or from Ambassador Black, is the

determination of our friends in Europe to fight terrorism. They’re

not going to back off. They’re going to have to work smarter, with

greater intelligence, I’m talking about counterintelligence, with us,

with each other, within their countries and that’s positive.

How we move from here and what happens with our relationship

with Spain, the implications therefrom have big impacts on Europe. What the U.S. and Europe’s transatlantic relationships are on

whether it’s the war on terrorism or if it’s on an issue, such as

Iraq, sends messages to the rest of the world because it’s not just

the United States and the Europeans together on this, but if the

United States and the Europeans who have so many good ties, so

many shared principles, philosophies, freedoms, trade, commerce,

all of that, if we can’t agree, it makes it very hard to get other

countries in the rest of the world to agree.

So, what happens there on the Iberian Peninsula really does

have a lot of far-reaching impacts, and we’re going to work through

it, but I think there’s that willingness to do so.

Listening to Ambassador Black, I have no doubt that some of the

prescriptions or insights that you gentlemen have put forward are

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actually going on through back channels. That’s where it works up

before it gets to the chief principals, and I think that your counsel

here today is good for the American people who are listening, who

will read about your testimony from this hearing, to recognize the

United States respects our allies. We’re willing to work with them

and our allies are also going to be with us persevering in this war

on terrorism.

While we may disagree on some of the tactics, the overall goal

is the same, and so I thank each of you. Robert Kagan, Dr. Robin

Niblett, Dr. Philip Gordon, and Ambassador James Dobbins. Thank

you all so much for your insight, for your commentary, and your

good direction for this committee and America.

The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:13 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]

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