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COMBATING TERRORISM: LESSONS LEARNED

FROM LONDON

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 19, 2006

Serial No. 109–259

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

BENJAMIN CHANCE, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Staff Director

ELIZABETH DANIEL, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 19, 2006 ..................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Rollins, John, Specialist in Terrorism at International Crime, Foreign

Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service;

Tom Parker, former British counterterrorism official, adjunct professor,

Bard College, executive director, Iran Human Rights Documentation

Center; Baroness Falkner of Margravine, member, House of Lords,

United Kingdom, fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard University;

James A. Lewis, senior fellow, technology and public policy program,

Center for Strategic and International Studies; and David B. Rivkin,

partner, Baker and Hostetler, member, U.N. Subcommittee on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, contributing editor, National

Review, former official at the White House and Departments of Justice

and Energy .................................................................................................... 12

Falkner Baroness ...................................................................................... 57

Lewis, James A. ......................................................................................... 65

Parker, Tom ............................................................................................... 40

Rivkin, David B. ........................................................................................ 73

Rollins, John .............................................................................................. 12

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Falkner, Baroness, of Margravine, member, House of Lords, United Kingdom, fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard University, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 60

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 8

Lewis, James A., senior fellow, technology and public policy program,

Center for Strategic and International Studies, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 68

Parker, Tom, former British counterterrorism official, adjunct professor,

Bard College, executive director, Iran Human Rights Documentation

Center, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 44

Rivkin, David B., partner, Baker and Hostetler, member, U.N. Subcommittee on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, contributing

editor, National Review, former official at the White House and Departments of Justice and Energy, prepared statement of ................................ 76

Rollins, John, Specialist in Terrorism at International Crime, Foreign

Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 16

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

(1)

COMBATING TERRORISM: LESSONS LEARNED

FROM LONDON

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:07 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Porter, Kucinich, and Van

Hollen.

Staff present: J. Vincent Chase, chief investigator; R. Nicholas

Palarino, staff director; Robert A. Briggs, analyst; Elizabeth Daniel

andAlex Manning, professional staff members; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant

clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. Quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘Combating Terrorism: Lessons Learned from

London,’’ is called to order.

Last month, British authorities announced they disrupted a terrorist plot to detonate as many as 10 transatlantic aircraft leaving

Heathrow Airport for the United States.

A London metropolitan police representative said the successful

execution of this plot would have wrought mass murder on an unimaginable scale.

This is the most recent incident in a decades-long pattern of attempted and successful terrorist attacks against passenger airlines.

In January 1995, Philippino authorities disrupted an operation

which sought to blow up American passenger planes.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists tragically used our aircraft to

attack the United States.

Five years after September 11th, in an international atmosphere

of uncertainty we continue to ask the question, is our country

safer?

The successful disruption of terrorist attempts like this London

bomb plot indicates we may be headed in the right direction, in

changes we have implemented, improved information sharing, surveillance, increased law enforcement resources devoted to national

security, appeared to be helping thwart terrorist attacks. But the

fact that such threats remain and that these threats exist in such

a potentially massive scale also warns us we must remain vigilant.

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Detection and prevention must be the first line of defense enabling

the intelligent infiltration of terrorist cells and prevention of their

actions. All of this must take place within a comprehensive and

transparent legal framework governing the counter-terrorism apparatus.

The key in this disruption of the London bomb plot was that it

was foiled before the would-be terrorists got to the airport. We understand local and international elements of the British

counterterrorism apparatus helped secure the crucial tip that led

to the capture of the suspects. They tracked terrorist financing evidence via intelligence cooperation with Pakistan. They were able to

coordinate their internal counterterrorism components to react

quickly, effectively and flexibly. And their authorities have the

legal and jurisdictional tools to allow them to conduct a thorough

investigation after the fact.

Today, we focus on the counterterrorism tools available to the

British, which of these of their tools does the United States share?

What do we lack? And how could some of these tools usefully be

adopted to an American environment? Which of these tools are

more appropriate for Britain? And what are the implications for

some of those tools coming face to face with American civil liberties

regulations?

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Our witnesses today appearing together on one panel

will offer their perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic.

We will hear testimony from Mr. Tom Parker, a former British

counterterrorism official, and Baroness Falkner of Margravine—

you will teach me how to say it better—a member of Parliament

from the House of Lords, who served as an adviser on Prime Minister Tony Blair’s task force on Muslim extremism. Our American

witnesses include Mr. John Rollins, an expert on intelligence and

homeland security from the Congressional Research Service; Dr.

Jim Lewis, a specialist in surveillance technology and its implications from the Center For Strategic and International Studies; and

Mr. David B. Rivkin, a former official at the White House, Justice

and Energy Departments under Presidents Reagan and George

H.W. Bush.

We are grateful to all of them for their appearing before us today

and we look forward to their testimony and the interesting discussion I think that will come from it.

At this time, the Chair would recognize a gentleman who has no

name evidently, but is the ranking member of the subcommittee,

Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Operating incognito. I want to thank you for holding this hearing. There are many lessons to be learned from attempted terrorist

attacks, both here and abroad. First, we must also—thank you——

Mr. SHAYS. When a member tries to help, it makes it worse.

Mr. KUCINICH. I didn’t say that. First we must also be deliberate

in the method and manner in which we address the issue of terrorism in our world.

This should not be considered a war on terrorism, which is, in

my estimation, is an oxymoronic proposition.

One need only look to the arrests in Britain to realize that the

prevention of terrorism is primarily a police action. The planned attacks were not stopped by an army, but through careful police

work. Second, while the work of British police in foiling the terrorism plot certainly deserves praise, it does not mean that the United

States should rush to change our Nation’s laws to mirror those in

the United Kingdom, particularly laws which would hinder the protection of our right to privacy and civil liberties.

The so-called global war on terror has already translated into a

dangerous assault on our Constitution. The PATRIOT Act permits

the government to conduct criminal investigations without probable

cause, to conduct secret searches, to gain wide powers of phone and

Internet surveillance and access highly personal medical financial

mental health and student records with minimal judicial oversight.

And I might say that this is still a subject of great debate in the

United States.

There is many of us who feel that our Constitution, which yesterday we celebrated another birthday of, our Constitution is being

undermined by this oxymoronic war on terror.

Third, we need a careful re-examination of our Nation’s foreign

policy in the Middle East, and a careful reexamination of our Nation’s foreign policy with respect to Muslims in the world.

Continuing down the path that led to a disastrous war based on

false pretenses, and our continuing occupation of Iraq, which has

7

led to civil war is causing blowback against the United States and

the United Kingdom. That is why these attacks continue. And that

is why the young men in this plot, all second generation Britains

of Pakistani descent, admittedly adopted a violent means of protesting United States and U.K. foreign policy. There is no excuse

for terrorism. But we sure better understand how terrorism gains

its roots.

I believe the United States needs to change its long-term policy

to respond to this growing threat. We should start by withdrawing

our military forces from Iraq and by stepping back from preparations from military invasion in Iran.

We also need to address the real roots of terrorism, why it appeals to so many young men in the Middle East, Africa Southeast

Asia and the middle of London. There is still a huge cultural divide

and a misunderstanding of the Arab world that has led to the perception that many Arabs and Muslims are potential terrorists.

Extremists clearly do not represent the views of the majority of

Muslims, and that needs to be said over and over. As a matter of

fact, as even the equation of concoction, Muslim terrorist, I think

is a smear on all those who practice Islam, and so we should be

careful about how we approach that.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. Look forward

to hearing your testimony.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, I will introduce our witness. We have

Mr. John Rollins, Specialist in Terrorism at International Crime

Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service. It is great to have you here. Mr. Tom Parker former

British counterterrorism official adjunct professor, Bard College,

executive director Iran human rights documentation center. Baroness Falkner of Margravine Member House of Lords, United Kingdom, fellow, Institute of politics, Harvard University, member and

2005 prime minister’s task force on Muslim extremism. Dr. James

A. Lewis, senior fellow, technology and public policy program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Mr. David B.

Rivkin, partner, Washington, DC, Office of Baker & Hostetler,

member U.N. Subcommittee on Promotion and Protection of

Human Rights, contributing editor, National Review, former official

at the White House, and Departments of Justice and Energy during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

We are delighted that all of you are here. First let me take care

of some business, I ask unanimous consent that all members of the

subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the

record and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose,

and without objection, so ordered, and ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in the record and without objection, so ordered.

At this time, let me swear in all our witnesses. We swear in witnesses even across the Atlantic, but we understand you may want

to define that yes. But, thank you for participating as all the other

witnesses are, so if you would stand please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record all of our witnesses have agreed

to that, and in fairness the only other member from Parliament

from the House of Lords was Lord Morris, who came and it was

on the Gulf war on these issues, and it was delightful to have him

and it is delightful to have you and it is delightful to have all the

other members.

Mr. Rollins, we will start with you. We are do the 5-minute rule.

Could the staff move the timer and put it in between Mr. Rollins

and put the other timer in between Mr. Lewis and Mr. Rivkin? We

are trying not to hide that. We want them to see it.

Right there is good. And let me just tell you how it works. It is

5 minutes, and then we will roll it over another 5 minutes. We

would want you not to take more than 10 minutes but it would be

nice if you were closer to 5 more than the 10 but you have that

time. I don’t want to read fast.

All right, Mr. Rollins you are on. We will do 5 minutes and then

roll over for another 5 minutes and have you stop.

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STATEMENTS OF JOHN ROLLINS, SPECIALIST IN TERRORISM

AT INTERNATIONAL CRIME, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENSE

AND TRADE DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE; TOM PARKER, FORMER BRITISH COUNTERTERRORISM

OFFICIAL, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, BARD COLLEGE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS DOCUMENTATION

CENTER; BARONESS FALKNER OF MARGRAVINE, MEMBER,

HOUSE OF LORDS, UNITED KINGDOM, FELLOW, INSTITUTE

OF POLITICS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY; JAMES A. LEWIS, SENIOR FELLOW, TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY PROGRAM,

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES;

AND DAVID B. RIVKIN, PARTNER, BAKER AND HOSTETLER,

MEMBER, U.N. SUBCOMMITTEE ON PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, NATIONAL REVIEW, FORMER OFFICIAL AT THE WHITE HOUSE

AND DEPARTMENTS OF JUSTICE AND ENERGY

STATEMENT OF JOHN ROLLINS

Mr. ROLLINS. Very good. Thank you, Chairman Shays, thank you

Representative Kucinich, for allowing me to come speak about lessons learned from the recent arrests in London of individuals suspected of plotting to detonate explosive devices aboard U.S. airlines

transiting to the United States.

As the former Chief of Staff for the Office of Intelligence of the

Department of Homeland Security, and now as a policy analyst at

the Congressional Research Service, I was fortunate to have the experience of traveling on the morning of August 10th. I say fortunate in that for most of the previous homeland security advisory

system alert notifications, I was involved in the threat assessment

and notifications phase of the advisory system, and never had the

opportunity to experience the operational implementation efforts

that accompanied these announcements. So I think I now have a

new perspective.

As I progress through my day’s travels, a number of thoughts occurred to me regarding issues relating to the latest threats stream

and efforts the United States has undertaken in the 5 years since

9/11, and the 31⁄2 years since the establishment of the Department

of Homeland Security. Based on the details regarding this latest

terrorist plot concerning the use of liquid-based explosives to destroy multiple aircraft and kill thousands of passengers, I wondered why other modes of transportation, specifically rail lines, the

most targeted in the post 9/11 environment, were not included in

raising of the alert level.

I also wondered if State and local communities in the private sector were apprised of the generalities of this threat stream during

the early stages of the United Kingdom’s notification to the United

States or, as in past alert level change notifications, the calls were

made concurrently to State, local private sector leadership, thus

placing the entities that safeguard the homeland in a reactive rather than in a proactive mode.

While recognizing the need for investigative and operational security 5 years post 9/11, the Federal Government continues to

question and concerns persist regarding the role, State, local, private sector leadership can and should play in providing information

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and assistance during times of normal and heightened threat levels.

As we sit here with the flights originating from the United Kingdom and U.S. domestic flights still designated at high risk, or orange in this testimony, I would like to briefly discuss three points

that may be useful in attempting to assess lessons learned. First,

the United Kingdom’s investigation and the United States’s response.

On the evening of August 9th, British authorities arrested 24 individuals ranging from age from 17 to 36 years old. Some suggested

these arrests came as a terrorist cell was very close to the point

of execution, while others suggested the plot was still in the planning stages as the airline reservations had not been made and two

members of the cell did not have passports.

Peter Clark, chief counterterrorism of the London Metropolitan

Police, stated that they were still trying to ascertain the basics of

terrorist’s intentions, the number, destination and timing of the

flights that might be attacked.

Others wondered whether any of the suspects were technically

capable of assembling the devices and detonating the liquid explosives while aboard the plane. The individuals arrested in London

were known to authorities over 1 year ago as a result of numerous

tips by neighbors after the July 2005 London suicide train bombings. These local east London neighborhood tipsters were concerned

about the intentions of a small group of angry young men.

This investigation significantly intensified over the summer of

2006 with the use of human and technical collection efforts, including those of the U.S. intelligence community.

The urgency was the result of the United Kingdom learning in

the 2 weeks preceding August 10th that the cell may be conspiring

to bring aboard an explosive device on the U.S. airliners transiting

from the United Kingdom to the United States.

During the post arrest investigation, it is reported several martyrdom videos were discovered. The motivation of one of the purported leaders of the cell is reported to be seeking revenge for the

foreign policy of the United States and their accomplices, the

United Kingdom and the Jews. In the martyrdom video, this cell

member demands other Muslims join the jihad as the killing of innocent civilians in America and western countries as justified because they supported the war against Muslims and were too busy

enjoying their lifestyle rather than protest the policies of the country. Another cell member remarked as well that the war against

Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him to act.

Now, I would like to focus on the U.S. response to the London

threat stream. Is it a model for future success? Department of

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and other administration officials have stated that this was a remarkable example of coordination between two countries and that of the interagency council,

U.S. interagency councils. And while the international and Federal

Government coordination efforts are an example of success, a question remains whether the uniqueness of this United Kingdombased terrorist plot lends to a model for future U.S.

counterterrorism success.

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Was civil aviation receiving a great deal of attention, resources

and deployed assets to counter today’s threat? Can we expect the

same level of security when a credible threat is directed against a

less secure sector of our society?

Will U.S. homegrown terrorists with or without transnational

connections be recognized and detected by our international partners or our Nation’s State, local and private sector community

members? And while the U.S. flag air carriers and State, local, and

private sector entities were notified of the cell’s planning early on

the morning of August 10th, when the alert level change was announced, a question remains whether this is the most effective

threat notification model to follow for future credible threat

streams.

Recognizing once again the ever present balance between operational security and ongoing investigation, the potential for future

intelligence gleaned from the suspect activity, the need to safeguard the homeland, one wonders what should the point, at what

point should the scales tip to earlier involve effective State, local

and private sector leaders? And a larger question, if such an earlier

notification model were in place that recognized the value of information gathered at the State and local level, which agency in the

U.S. Federal Government is charged with compiling seemingly disparate surveillance reports, suspicious individuals or group activity

or general community irregularities?

Last, what are the local communities or the terrorists plot, plan

and undertake actions toward their objective of carrying out a terrorist attack? What is the Nation’s involvement or of our local communities?

Mr. SHAYS. Let me warn you, because you have a lot more to

your talk, you want to try to find a way to round it out?

Mr. ROLLINS. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, you spoke of British tools that the United States

may adopt. One of the tools is community awareness and community involvement.

Though the London threat stream was certainly not perfect intelligence, the specifics of the plan known to the U.S. authorities far

exceeds the specificity of the vast majority of information normally

assessed regarding threats to the U.S. national security.

The knowledge of the type, location and general timing of the potential attack, and the ability to safeguard the target and passengers due to post 9/11 civil aviation safeguards far exceed the

scenarios we will most likely face in the future.

In sum, Mr. Chairman, I am proposing a homeland security citizen corps that allows for the Federal Government to work with

State and local authorities to assist, and local citizens identifying

irregularities in their neighborhood, and thus having a reporting

mechanism to report that back to the Federal Government.

The question remains, the Federal Government, which Federal

Government agency is responsible for putting these dots together?

In closing, whether one ascribes to the belief that corporate Al

Qaeda is continually reconstituting with the objective of carrying

out a catastrophic attack or the Nation will soon experience deadly

attacks by those ideologically aligned, past terrorist planning efforts including the most recent London threat stream offer a lesson

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that citizens in their local community are likely to be the first to

recognize signs of terrorist activity.

This concludes my opening remarks and I look forward to your

questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, very much. And your full statement obviously will be in the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rollins follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Parker.

STATEMENT OF TOM PARKER

Mr. PARKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to

preface my remarks by saying I am really approaching this subject,

primarily as an academic. I am talking on my own behalf, not representing any organization.

I wanted to address each of your questions in turn. Some in more

detail than others because I am conscious there is a great deal

more expertise in some of these areas than mine. I wanted to start

by talking a little bit about how Britain approaches

counterterrorism conceptually.

This is, I think, the most significant difference between the current U.S. approach and the British approach.

We have, since 1974, in the United Kingdom, pursued a doctrine

of criminalization. Terrorism is treated essentially as a criminal

act, not as an act of war or something outside of criminal activity.

It is seen primarily as a criminal act.

This doctrine emerged largely as the result of lessons learned in

the early 1970’s in Northern Ireland where Britain initially treated

the troubles as essentially almost a colonial insurgency. It had

tried to apply the same military tactics that had been used successfully in Malaya, less successfully in other colonial emergencies. And

by and large, it was tremendously unsuccessful.

Measures such as internment without trial, coercive interrogation were introduced in joint operations, mounted by the military

and the police. And ultimately, far from reducing the level of violence in the province, there was a substantial escalation. It went

from a situation in 1971, where I think 21 people were killed in

the first 8 months of the year. These measures were introduced.

That figure jumped to 147 people by the end of the year, and to

460 by the end of the following year.

Mr. SHAYS. 460?

Mr. PARKER. 460 the following year. Most studies done of this period on the mobilization of nationalist opinion stress the impact the

British military activity had on the local communities.

There was a change of government in 1974, labor government

came in and the strategy changed. The strategy that was adopted

was one of criminalization, Ulsterization and normalization. The

idea was to try and back off putting military on the streets. The

military remained clearly in a support role to law enforcement. But

the idea was to put law enforcement back in control and——

Mr. SHAYS. Did you say criminalization, and another word?

Mr. PARKER. Ulsterization, normalization, it is a slogan rather

than a prescription. But a popular one at the time.

And the idea was to take a local approach and try and deviate

as little from the criminal norm as possible.

Clearly, the United Kingdom recognizes that terrorism is not ordinary crime. In fact, in Northern Ireland, people refer to the distinction, operational police officers will talk about ODCs, ordinary

decent criminals, to distinguish them from provisional IRA members. So we don’t see it just as purely ordinary criminality. We see

it, perhaps, as extraordinary the criminality, criminality that poses

a threat that doesn’t require a degree of extraordinary response,

41

but one that is essentially a departure from the norm and that we

will return to the norm as soon as that emergency is brought under

control. And that is why up until the end of the 1990’s, you essentially had only a series of temporary instruments that introduced

counterterrorist legislation. It is only with the Terrorism Act 2000

that changes.

And finally, in the United Kingdom you have a legal architecture

that addresses terrorism directly as a phenomena. Up until that

point, you simply had short-term emergency measures. In fact,

under British law, until about 2000, it was very difficult for you to

be considered a terrorist unless you were from Northern Ireland or

one of the subscribed groups that identified during the troubles as

causing problems in the province. That made it very difficult to

allow the United Kingdom to address other terrorist groups that

were operating on their soil particularly when allied countries,

France notably in the early 1990’s were very keen to see the British crack down on Algerian extremists operating in the United

Kingdom. Very difficult for us. We just didn’t have the legal architecture at the time.

But the basic, the message here that I am putting across, I

think, is simply that we treat it as a crime, and we deviate from

criminal norms purely to the extent that we think it is necessary

to ultimately achieve prosecution, successful prosecutions. So I

think that is the main conceptual difference. I am conscious my

time is already running out.

Mr. SHAYS. You have another 5 minutes, so keep going.

Mr. PARKER. Thank you. Organizations is the other big difference. Clearly, the United Kingdom is much smaller than the

United States. We have a fraction of the number of police forces,

I think it is 18,000 different law enforcement agencies in the

United States. It is essentially less than 60 in the United Kingdom.

This clearly makes coordination easier.

The other difference is we have a central coordinating point in

the security service that has undisputed primacy outside of the

province of Northern Ireland for combating terrorism, which enables one government agency to focus on the terrorist threat with

laser-like precision and can focus right in and they can devote their

resources to trying to tackle it.

They also act as the center of the hub, and they make sure that

intelligence and information, background material is disseminated

to everybody who needs to know it. Because it is ultimately supporting a law enforcement structure, that means you have a direct

link from the security service effectively all the way down to the

Bobbie on the beat, the two don’t interact, but there is a network

that cascades information down with the appropriate protections

for sensitive information. So ultimately, we can do things like outreach and have an impact on Muslim communities around the

United Kingdom in a targeted manner, using local safer neighborhood teams, local community police officers, as our very first sort

of eyes and ears on the ground. And that is great because these are

the people who help communities. These are the people who help

parking around mosques. These are the people who help local kids

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sions in neighborhoods. And this is a positive police image. This

isn’t flak-jacketed arms toting police officers.

These are soft, often civilian officers in just plain clothes, not carrying weapons or anything like that who spend a lot of time in the

community. And so we have this very nice integrated system that

goes from that to international intelligence coordination.

Overarching the security services is the joint Intelligence Committee. That pulls the entire intelligence community together,

make sure that intelligence that is provided from overseas or from

all the different collection methods, goes to one coordinating point

in the security service for assessment and then dissemination. So

it is a very tightly coordinated system.

I should add, though, that it has taken a long time to get to that

point. You know, we have had 30 years to refine this system and

it has taken most of those 30 years to get to this point so, in offering it up as a quick fix, I would add the proviso that you could put

the architecture in place, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that people admire the building for some time.

I wanted to touch also on the difference between civil liberties in

the United States and the United Kingdom.

I think there is a tendency in the United States to think that the

United Kingdom doesn’t have laws that protect civil liberties, that

we essentially have some vague series of understanding——

Mr. SHAYS. You have this long memory that goes back to a few

years ago.

Mr. PARKER. Yes, a revolution came up in my last conversation

in the House committee.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s all right. Your prime minister reminded us he

burned the building down.

Mr. PARKER. Having spent two fourth of Julys on American military bases now, I think I heard every joke on the subject. I usually

say it proves one of the great lessons of history, you don’t send Germans to fight Englishmen and leave it at that.

Basically we have a very strong human rights regime in the

United Kingdom and it is very strong because it is enforced from

without the United Kingdom via the Europe court of human rights.

The European convention on human rights is enshrined in British

law now, thanks to the Human Rights Act of 1998. So that means

that every article in the convention is embedded in British legal

practice. There is also an enforcement mechanism in Strasburg,

where foreign judges sit in judgment on things done by the British

state. It is a binding enforcement mechanism. That is incredibly

powerful. It is almost entirely immune from political pressure—certainly domestic political pressure. And it holds states to a universal

standard, a universal standard that is interpreted with what is

known as a margin of appreciation, which allows each state a certain degree of interpretation in the way that it institutes the convention provisions.

But that said, any egregious breach is very quickly referred to

Strasburg and very quickly adjudicated. And the United Kingdom

has found itself in many circumstances before the European court

to defend counterterrorism practices, both operational practices and

specific techniques such as coercive interrogation.

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So that is a very powerful mechanism, every bit as powerful I

submit as the U.S. Supreme Court in overseeing the way we behave. So quite the reverse of the sort of typical perception.

I am not going to touch on the impact British foreign policy has

had, because I think Baroness Falkner is in a much, much better

place than I to comment on that.

Mr. SHAYS. Let’s make sure that if we don’t ask you that, you

do bring it up later on, so you do that and we will segue to the Baroness. You have the floor. And we need to put that mic in front of

you.

Just one mic would be good, so choose your weapon there and

you need to lower it down.

Am I allowed to tell a Baroness these instructions? Is this allowed?

[The prepared statement of Mr. Parker follows:]

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STATEMENT OF BARONESS FALKNER

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, you are in the chair. I am in your

hands. Let me start, Mr. Chairman, by thanking you for your very

warm welcome. It is very good to be here and I hope I can, to some

extent, illuminate the discussions a bit from the other side of the

pond. I—as means of caveat, I have put my written evidence to

you, but I would like to just point out, and wish the committee

should note, that I am speaking in a personal capacity. In that respect, it neither represents the findings of the Prime Minister’s extremism task force nor, indeed, those of the British government.

In your inquiry today, Mr. Chairman, I think they are looking at

the motives planning and tactics of the recent London bomb plotters, the bomb plotters as of August 10th, alleged bomb plotters,

I think all we can do is speculate. We—people have been arrested.

Some have been charged. Some have been released. And due process will take its course. But we are not likely to know the details,

particularly of their motives and planning, until we come to court,

and that is unlikely to be before the end of 2007, some say early

2008. However we have an official report of the London bombings

of July 7, 2005.

And if we assume that some of the characteristics are similar,

then we can also assume that we can draw some lessons from that.

In that case, we found out that most of the suspects were mainly

of Pakistani origin, they were male, and second-generation British

citizens. Three of those four in that case were from the same generation ethnic origin and social background.

They were not educational high fliers, and they had become religious in the period preceding the events of 7/7.

They became radicalized it is assumed, in the period after 9/11,

when intense media attention would have focused on Al Qaeda.

And they would have become more aware of arguments about and

in the Muslim world about western foreign policy.

The questions to whether recent suspects were directed from

abroad is, I think, again, speculative, but it is likely that some element of indoctrination and support could have come from abroad.

This is unsurprising.

Much has been made in Britain and in the U.S. media of homegrown terrorists.

I would argue that home-grown terrorism is not a new phenomenon. In fact, is most terrorism, it is the state’s own citizens that

have carried out those egregious acts. Other examples of recent

home-grown terrorism include France, Canada, only very recently,

Indonesia, Turkey and several countries. Let us not also not forget

that in the U.S.A. itself, of course Timothy McVeigh and John

Walker Lindh were both U.S. citizens.

I think it is a matter of prevention and a matter of loyalty as

to whether one’s own citizens decide to carry out certain egregious

acts or not. And I don’t think any one country is particularly

blessed to have citizens that don’t disagree with its policies to the

extent that they carry out those acts.

To the extent that British and U.S. laws respectively hinder or

help terrorism prevention, I think, Mr. Chairman, there is a philosophical difference in the U.K. and U.S. approaches to legislation

since 9/11. In the United Kingdom, we still have a strong emphasis

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on the common-law tradition of jurisprudence, and I would argue

that we are coming to a consensus that we probably have sufficient

legal instruments in place, and we need to see how they bear down.

We have passed two controversial pieces of legislation only in the

last 2 years, after much debate. And if we see a third piece of legislation now, as it has been hinted to by the home secretary, I think

we are going to see that it is a consolidation of the last four acts

rather than breaking particular new ground.

What is very clear, though, I think across all sides in Parliament,

if there is further legislation likely, it will have to undergo

prelegislative scrutiny on a full evidential process prior to being tabled in parliament. There is no stomach any longer for rushed bills.

One of the innovations that we have in the U.K., which I think

is of great value in terms of public confidence and transparency in

the working of terrorism legislation, is the establishment of the

independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. The U.K. independent reviewer at the moment is Lord Carlisle of Berriew QC. He has

been the independent reviewer since the establishment of the 2000

Terrorism Act.

He makes judgments of the working of the acts, from the perspectives of all the interested parties, including those, of course,

who might have been arrested under the provisions of the various

acts.

The effect of having an independent reviewer is that interested

parties have the ability to feed into what they see as a nonpartisan

process of assessment to the provisions of the act.

As I implied, this increases public confidence and provides a

measure of how provisions are bedding down in practice.

He has sight of sensitive material and can seek insights into why

certain actions are taken by administrative authorities. His reports

are made public and he encourages public feedback and comment.

In terms of U.S. legislation and its effectiveness in terms of terrorism, I believe that U.S. law and or the lack of adherence to

international law in the United States would not be acceptable in

the U.K. context. As for practical issues involving due process,

there is a strong view within British opinion that adherence to due

process, including criminal proceedings, as pointed out by Tom

Parker, culminating in trial and conviction is the most suitable

way forward, and this is across the political spectrum that this

view is held.

Apropos, the recent arrests of terrorist suspects after 10 August

and to do with issues, acts preparatory to terrorism, this is an innovation of the 2006 act—well it is not an innovation to be honest,

it was there in the 2000 act, but it has been broadened to include

acts preparatory to terrorism, the suspects arrested in August were

arrested under some of these provisions, and it will be very interesting to see whether now these very wide ranging offenses, which

are available are used, and to what extent they play a part in gaining convictions if the latter are secured.

To the extent that U.K., and I would argue, U.S. foreign policy,

sometimes some of us think they are almost indistinguishable, to

the extent that U.K. foreign policy has contributed to what has

been called home-grown terrorist activity, I am skeptical of whether there is a causal link between our foreign policy. I would rather

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see a consequential link. And what I mean by that is that I think

foreign policy facilitates indoctrination.

Mr. SHAYS. These are just bells that tell us when the House

opens up and when there are votes and all of that. And I have been

here 19 years and I still haven’t figured it out. So don’t you worry

about it.

Ms. FALKNER. OK, as you will see my evidence, I detail the extent to which British citizens were radicalized from the 1990’s onwards. And I don’t think that the conduct of foreign policy, in

terms of engaging in the Iraq war, is necessarily a causal link for

terrorism. But it is undoubted to me that it has effected an increased radicalization and facilitate indoctrination.

As I say in my written evidence the extent of which conduct of

foreign policy continues to divide the government and the country

cannot be understated.

Four western Muslims and there are 20 million of us, the facts

of hypocrisy, the practice of double standards and the contempt for

international law as practiced by the United States, and to a lesser

degree, the U.K. on European countries remains baffling. The question asked in the U.K. now is what the course of events might be

if the U.K. were to withdraw its forces from Iraq irrespective of

what the United States might do. I would say that the consensus

is building across the political spectrum that a more independent

foreign policy is in our country’s interest.

How do U.K. civil liberties laws compare to those in the United

States? In winding, in summing up I would say that I think I really

do want to comment on U.S. Constitutional structure as it is so different from the U.K., particularly as interpreted since 9/11.

If that makes comparison extremely difficult, the current—suffice

it to say that the tendency currently in the United States to move

away from its obligations in international law and its own constitutional safeguards is regrettable.

I am sure you will want to continue this discussion in your questions. And on that note, I will sum up, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, very much, Baroness.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Falkner follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Lewis.

STATEMENT OF JAMES LEWIS

Dr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to thank

the subcommittee for inviting me to testify on this important subject and for the valuable work it has done in this and other areas.

We find ourselves in a fierce ideological conflict with a new kind

of opponent. The jihadis remain skillful and inventive, and I think

that is one of the things that the London plot showed. One thing

they use is commercial networks for travel and communications

and finance. And this helps them create a global presence so they

can plan in Pakistan and attempt to strike in the U.K. or the

United States.

Winning this ideological struggle will take years. In the interim,

the United States and other nations must be able to protect themselves from attack. The U.K.’s success this August provides useful

lessons, first, the reliance of the jihadis on global travel and communications networks is a vulnerability. The U.K. arrests show

that surveillance of travel, finance and communications is essential

for effective counterterrorism. The use of commercial networks by

terrorists creates an opportunity for western intelligence services

that we should take advantage of.

Second, many countries have refocused the work of their intelligence and security services to meet the threat posed by Jihad.

The work of these services, particularly in domestic intelligence, is

our main defense against terrorism.

Domestic intelligence, which is the collection of information within the Nation’s borders for security purposes, often involving clandestine methods, and including collection on citizens who have not

violated any law, is essential for counterterrorism.

Third, the arrest show that international cooperation has improved, but sustaining this cooperation will be a major challenge

for the United States.

This combination of network surveillance, domestic intelligence

and international cooperation is what thwarted the plan to blow up

airliners over the Atlantic. The success is encouraging and points

to the ingredients of an effective defense.

It also led to renewed calls for an American MI–5, and I should

note that MI–5 of course in the U.K., is known as the security service.

These calls have appeared regularly since September 11th, and

they led President Bush to direct the FBI to merge its

counterterror and counterintelligence division into a new national

security branch. Expanding the FBI’s role makes sense. It avoids

many of the problems that a new agency could face. It avoids upheaval. But many people doubt the FBI’s enthusiasm for this task

and these doubts explain why we continue to hear calls for an

American MI–5.

That said, Mr. Chairman, restructuring the FBI might be as far

as the United States can go without significant constitutional

issues. The differences between how the United States and U.K.

conduct counterterrorism grow out of very different constitutions.

While both countries share a heritage of common-law, there are

significant differences that have emerged.

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First, the separation of powers is much less of an issue in a Parliamentary system. And the British official known as the home secretary, whom you’ve heard very little about, has much greater discretion in proving electronic and physical surveillance in the

counterterrorism investigation.

The home secretary heads the home office, a ministry that combines many of the functions of both justice and homeland security.

We don’t have an equivalent.

The relationship of the security service to the local police is also

very different, as you have already heard.

Britain has the national police service. The home secretary has

a degree of control and oversight over both local police and domestic intelligence. We could not match this in the United States,

given our Federal structure.

Based on its experience in Northern Ireland, the U.K. has gone

through several efforts to refine and adjust its anti terror laws. The

most important is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act

[RIPA], which is really a good name for counterterrorism law. RIPA

spells out the conditions for both electronic and physical surveillance and it gives considerable authority to the U.K. Government

and to the home secretary. It also establishes independent oversight bodies to protect civil liberties.

The prevention of terrorism acts, which you have heard about

from some of the previous witnesses, also provide important authorities to prevent terrorist acts before they occur, including authorizing the home secretary to impose control orders that restrict

the movements and activities of suspected terrorists.

An effort to duplicate RIPA and the Terrorism Act in the United

States would produce objection if not consternation. In a similar

vein, I believe it calls for an equivalent to the Official Secrets Act

that would also face serious constitutional objections.

One crucial difference worth noting is that the U.K. did not have

the rigid separation the United States has between foreign and domestic intelligence. Watergate era concerns led to reforms in the

1970’s that divided our authorities for domestic and foreign intelligence, increased importance of domestic intelligence in the fight

against terrorism, makes this divide problematic.

On the other hand, a change in the existing rules governing domestic surveillance could put civil liberties at risk. This makes any

effort to refine and adjust U.S. anti terror and domestic intelligence

laws complex and challenging. Let me note that the British approach is not foolproof. The UK’s difficulty in assimilating its Muslim immigrants has created a major vulnerability. Their recent successes must be weighed against these larger problems in immigration and assimilation, and in this, the United States may have an

advantage. However, our Federal system and the separation of

powers means that the United States cannot duplicate Britain’s security service.

There are useful lessons we can draw from the U.K., and their

experience, I would say these include lowering the threshold for approving terrorist surveillance, or surveillance of potential terrorists,

a greater dependence on the legislative rather than judicial oversight, and better integration of intelligence, police, and communications surveillance into an effective counterterrorism program.

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Now, Americans don’t like domestic intelligence as you noted,

Mr. Chairman, this dislike goes back to probably some time in the

1770’s, and they have made efforts to make sure that these kinds

of activities have good oversight and are well restricted. However,

an intelligence system that was designed for the 1970’s is not suited for today’s conflict. We need to do more to improve our domestic

intelligence capabilities.

On a final note, Mr. Chairman, and in conclusion, let me point

out that the combination of surveillance, domestic intelligence, and

international intelligence cooperation can provide for effective

counterterrorism. We should recognize however that defeating terrorism requires more than an effective defense.

It will require convincing both the jihadis and western skeptics

that terrorism is not a solution. Thank you. I look forward to your

questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Sorry we left that red light on when we should have

turned it over, but are you complete?

Dr. LEWIS. I took the 5-minute rule seriously, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Dr. Lewis.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lewis follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I am going to have you give back that mic to Mr.

Parker. When we start the question and I am going to have you

take that mic. Thanks.

STATEMENT OF DAVID B. RIVKIN

Mr. RIVKIN. Mr. Chairman, ranking member, it is a pleasure to

be with you.

British success in disrupting the plot to attack airplanes over the

Atlantic has been much celebrated. The question of what has enabled that success has also been extensively discussed and has not

been particularly disputed, at least on this side of the Atlantic. By

comparison, the question, what losses can we draw from the British

experience, especially taking into account the considerable differences between our institutions and legal regimes, has been more

controversial.

In my time, I hope to run through a few basic aspects of it. One

is a nature of threat and unavoidably some overlap, being the last

one to speak between the points already been made and what I am

planning to say, but it is fair to say on the nature of the threat

side that both the United States and U.K., quite prominently on

the list of targets envisioned by various radical groups, in both instances, the threat is mixed in nature and comes from individuals

who reside in the countries involved, and I refer to the second generation or by foreign personnel.

It is somewhat hazardous to draw generalizations in this area,

especially you in the presence of British colleagues, but it seems to

me that it is generally accepted that the Muslim communities in

Britain is more radicalized and feels more alienated from the British mainstream, thereby presenting perhaps somewhat more fertile

ground for terrorist recruitment than the case of the United States.

In the United States the Muslim community is better integrated,

generally more prosperous, most of its mainstream representatives

are supportive of counterterrorism policies, and the threat to the

United States seems to be more driven by foreign entities and personnel.

But I would submit to you one can make too much of these differences. I certainly don’t agree with a notion that has been advanced by some observers that British attacks are largely driven by

domestic factors, poverty, sense of anger discrimination or the foreign policy side. In fact, to me, it is impossible to decouple the activities by various jihadi organizations in the Middle East, be it Al

Qaeda, Taliban, Iraq-based jihadis, or even exploits of Hezbollah

and Hamas from the activities of home-grown terrorists, because

they clearly serve as a source of inspiration and technical expertise,

even to those home-grown terrorists that never travel to an Al

Qaeda camp, or even met an Al Qaeda recruiter. In my opinion, the

global war on terrorism is truly seamless.

Now again, it is hazardous to delve into criminal investigations,

not being a Brit myself, but I would submit to you that the British

law enforcement officials in toto clearly have a more robust ability

to investigate suspected terrorist persons than the U.S. police agencies. This is true in the range of areas where you heard about

tighter cooperation, intelligence police services, no wall of separation to foreign intelligence, and law enforcement functions that we

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had prior to September 11th. Very important, no need to meet the

strict requirement of probable cause to obtain warrants that the

U.S. investigative bodies must satisfy under the bill of rights, in

the British case, you get reasonable suspicion. We heard about

those extraordinary tools, particularly the control orders to be fair

is a disputed body in Britain itself, but in my opinion, I am corrected by my British colleagues, it is primarily about the scope of

such controllers because you had some, Mr. Chairman, very exceptional controllers that really put people sort of 24-hour restrictions.

And there is restrictions as to travel, daily contacts and meetings,

not about the control orders of such.

These control orders are very useful, because obviously what we

have been able to do not only isolate dangerous individuals, but

sort of precipitate folks who may be hiding from you because if you

impair the ability of one set of people to function that requires others to step more into the limelight.

Profiling it is ironic to me that while Britain, I think again, all

generalities are hazardous leans a little bit more to the left than

does the United States, the British attitude toward ethnic and religious profiling appear to be more pragmatic than the United States

the very idea of profiling, which is a means of allocating scarce law

enforcement and surveilling resources is a virtue taboo, I think in

Britain law enforcement and intelligence officials can better target

communities of interest.

And they certainly are able to infiltrate more directly the extremist portions of a community without me having to worry about the

absence or presence of a criminal predicate which by the way Mr.

Chairman is still very much the FBI standard, even in the postSeptember 11th environment for FBIs to rely mostly on informers.

Privacy, the British have certainly virtually invented the notion

of privacy, the saying the Englishman’s home is his castle, can be

traced at least to 16th century, the concept is not as broadly defined in law and politics as in America most public spaces in Britain are wired for surveillance.

And by contrast in the United States, we are taking the privacy

well beyond the basic contours of the fourth amendment and progressed to the point where individuals seriously consider to have

a privacy interest in, essentially can be described as public activities and activities in the public space.

Secrecy, a lot less, allergic attitude toward secrecy, here we certainly have people who believe that any government action to act

secretly or punish people for disclosing sensitive information be

fundamentally illegitimate. I am not going to repeat the business

about cooperation and MI–5 being the senior service. There is also

less of a culture of leaks and sort of the bureaucratic warfare

seems to be more manageable and less threat recital than the one

we experience in Washington.

Excellent discussion, but we heard about the experience not that

one would wish that upon anybody, but certainly, 30 years of being

able to refine the coordination between military and law enforcement agencies in the context of fighting that area has been very

useful.

Let me just briefly summarize the lessons, and of course, there

are some things we cannot adopt. And the official secrets clearly

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would be antithetical to our first amendment values and would not

pass, if it were to pass it would be struck down.

But there are some things we can clearly do, and in my opinion,

it is not the new laws and certainly not the question of dispensing

of our constitutional heritage, and it is not even bureaucrat institutions and I know about the criticisms of FBI. To me it is not particularly surprising that FBI has traditionally been a law enforcement institution, is incapable of replicating this pure and sort of

crystalline focus on counterterrorism, but MI–5 would do and, in an

ideal world, I don’t think it would be unconstitutional to have an

MI–5 organization, but I think that pragmatism is an essential attribute of good statecraft.

To me, the notion that we can really recreate an MI–5 type entity would be so difficult to stomach, it would be politically, legally

and bureaucratically impossible, in my opinion, would be not worth

trying. What is worth trying, and even here I am not kidding myself into believing it would be easy, is to change not our constitution but at least political and cultural discourse in the areas of privacy, secrecy and profiling.

What I would say, suggest, is we can and should accord the government, difficult as it may be for some, greater investigative latitude and accept some compromise of privacy in exchange for greater security. At the very least, we should launch a serious national

debate about it, a debate conducted in open and candid fashion instead of slamming hard at people espousing different positions.

I would like to finish by pointing out that the critics of the administration would think that already we have had too much of a

tilt toward public safety and away from individual liberty, often

misquote Benjamin Franklin as having said that those who would

‘‘trade liberty for security deserve neither.’’ That is actually not a

correct quote. What Franklin actually said was a balancing test,

they that would give up essential liberty to attain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. In my opinion, in

fighting this terrorism, British appear to be striking this balance

reasonably successfully and our balance is less than perfect. Thank

you, very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Rivkin.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rivkin follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. We are going to start with Mr. Kucinich with you.

Eventually, we need to go to the floor of the House so we will start

with him.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Mr. Rivkin,

the suggestions that you have, and the observations that you have

with respect to privacy and secrecy and civil liberties, how do you

help those hold in a condition where there is widespread belief that

the government isn’t telling the truth about the conditions that led

to the imposition of such changes in constitutional governance?

Mr. RIVKIN. Mr. Kucinich, I appreciate the question. It’s the

question I often get asked, certainly in the public sphere when I

speak in radio and television.

My answer to that is—is as follows: I’m not going to try to convince folks to change the opinion of the Bush administration, but

what I usually say is the political portion of our government, our

national security establishment, is tiny. Most of the people you

interact with is as a citizen, career, civil officials at the State, local

and Federal level, and it’s a little unfair, whatever one thinks

about George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, to impute to the career civil

servants any degree of exaggeration, bad faith.

In fact, I think the British are a perfect example. Congressman,

to be perfectly rational about it, Tony Blair is hardly more popular

than George W. Bush, but yet the British don’t seem to have a

problem distinguishing between cooperating with a particular MI5

or Scotland Yard official, whatever you think about Tony Blair. We

seem to be painting everything with a broad brush.

Again, I don’t want to turn this into a debate on Iraq, and I obviously don’t agree that the Prime Minister and this administration

has lied, but even if we assume that it did what does that have to

do with a terrorist investigation in Detroit conducted by career officials, and I can tell you, in my 9 years in government I’ve not met

anybody who was not dedicated on the career side, sincere, law

abiding. So, to me, it just doesn’t follow, whatever your assessment

of the role or strategic aspects of American foreign policy, why it

should induce people to cooperate less with our law enforcement

entities.

Mr. KUCINICH. You didn’t answer my question, and that is that

how do you establish the legitimacy of regimes for privacy and secrecy and retrenchment of civil liberties, the retraction of civil liberties, if they’re being offered under circumstances where the credibility of the overarching policies themselves have been under substantive attack and even have been refuted.

Mr. RIVKIN. Well, I would—all right. Let me try. I understand.

Let me try it a little differently.

It seems to me that you’ll have to look at the nature of a threat.

If one seriously believes we’re facing a grave existentialist threat,

then whatever one might think about the wisdom of like—of a particular policy does not negate the need to change the balance between liberty and order because the threat is very serious. Let me

submit to you and the quote, you know, from a pretty well-known

book by late Chief Justice Rehnquist called All Laws But One.

Throughout American history we have always struck a different

balance, Congressman, between liberty and safety, and safety is

really nothing more than collective liberty, collective safety. It’s not

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really the government versus the individual. It’s public safety versus individual safety, public liberty versus individual liberty. We

buried this. It ebbed and flowed. It’s always been the case.

I would submit to you that one needs to tell the American people

and have a serious dialog that there’s nothing exceptional about restricting individual liberty in the way it was not restricted 15 years

ago, and if we’re successful in this war, God willing, 10 or 15 years

from now, we may go back to the peacetime ballots. To me, it just

is not very useful to sort of take the position that because you disagree with a particular administration, the particular thrust of

their policies, that nothing needs to be done.

It reminds me, during the cold war you had a lot of people who

would harp about waste, fraud and mismanagement in the Defense

Department, $900 toilet seats and what not, and most people typically were against defense spending, and I frankly think it’s ludicrous because what everyone thinks about the wisdom of the particular procurement decisions had nothing to do with the reality of

the Soviet threat. If you recall, the Soviet threat was real. It was

worth investing money in defense procurement while trying to minimize the occurrence of $900 toilet seats. The same paradigm,

seems to me, would apply now.

Mr. KUCINICH. I appreciate the gentleman’s willingness to engage in a discussion here. I would like to point out, Mr. Chairman,

that it wasn’t the career intelligence officials who clearly claimed

that Iraq had WMDs. It was administration political officials who

sold the war and pushed for it, and the reason why I asked the

question, Mr. Rivkin—and I didn’t bring up the name of the President or the Vice President. The reason I asked the question is how

in the world can you expect the American people to willingly see

a rollback of their civil liberties if the circumstances which have

been described, the exigent circumstances which have been described to them, turn out to have been not true. For example, Iraq

did not have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq did not have a connection to Al Qaeda. Iraq did not plan to attack the United States,

and so I just—and I could go on, but I won’t, the point being that

there seems to me to need to be some symmetry with respect to the

integrity of the assertion of the danger and the policies that follow

that are subsequent to the claims of danger. I’ll just offer that for

your consideration, and I appreciate every panelist being here.

Mr. Chairman, I have a number of bills I’m going to be in debate

on on the floor, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I’d like all of you to respond to a number of issues, but first, I’d

like to know where you disagree with each other. So, in other

words—and by that, I mean, Baroness, you may have heard Dr.

Lewis say something, Dr. Rivkin say something that you would disagree with.

Dr. Lewis, you may have heard Mr. Parker say something that

you would see—because I want to just start to get a sense of where

people are coming from on a variety of issues.

Mr. Parker, I’ll tell you what I disagree with, but I could be so

dead wrong. You went after my most heartfelt belief that terrorists

aren’t criminals, and I’ll tell you my most heartfelt belief, and I’m

going to think about it because you’re telling me that Great Britain

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has already been there and done that, but to me, to equate a terrorist as a criminal and give them 10 years of legal rights I find

absurd, and I think—I just think we are dead in our tracks. I mean

your just even mentioning that there’s not going to be a court case

against the individuals in the August 10th until potentially 2008

tells you already how I wrestle with this. So I’m just kind of illustrating the points, and I am so eager to have a really interesting

dialog with all of you about this.

So, Baroness, do you want to start? You need to pull that mic a

little closer and more in the front of you, too, if you don’t mind.

Thank you. That’s it.

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, I’m not sure I disagree very much,

but I was going to say that I possibly slightly disagree with you

in your—in what you’ve just said about how you found it incomprehensible that there won’t be a case until 2007, as I said, or early

2008. If you see how long the United States has incarcerated people in secret prisons or in Guantanamo Bay without having laid

charges against them, then, frankly, to be open and transparent

and arrest people under criminal law and apply due process, terrorism law and apply due process, I think is the right way to go.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this then, maybe, just so we don’t get

too far off and then find out we don’t really disagree. I think there

has to be due process, and do I make an assumption that, if they’re

not under criminal law there wouldn’t be due process—is due process and criminal law the same? And I ask that out of ignorance,

not out of—Mr. Rivkin.

Mr. RIVKIN. Mr. Chairman, I agree with you.

One of the first sayings you learn in your constitutional law

course is the question is not whether due process is needed but

what process is due. What process is due very much depends upon

the proceedings in issue. You have one level of process in a civil

case in our judicial system. You have another level of process in a

criminal case. You have a different level of process in the normal

courts-martial system. You have a different level of due process in

a system designed to try unlawful combatants, and I don’t want to

convert this into a debate about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, and

God knows I speak about those issues more than I like to, but I

would say this.

It’s a little unfair, with all due respect, for our British colleagues

to criticize us for using a non-law enforcement paradigm. We’re

taking into account the fact that the law enforcement paradigm as

practiced in Britain and certainly in continental Europe is far more

forgiving of a government, far easier for you to get at the terrorist.

There’s no question in my mind that who I’d want to prosecute

would be terrorists. I would take the British surveillance regime,

the British profiling regime, the British legal regime, despite the

lack of death penalty, over our regime any time, including your

point. We have an obligation for a speedy trial here. In a speedy

trial in this country, you can’t wait for 2 years before you bring

somebody to justice. You can’t have controllers. You cannot arrest

people.

Mr. SHAYS. You’ve answered more than I needed to know now,

but I find your answer very helpful, because I did interrupt the

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Baroness. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t saying there

shouldn’t be due process.

Ms. FALKNER. Can I give way to Tom Parker for a second?

Mr. SHAYS. Absolutely, and then you can come back.

Mr. PARKER. Actually, I think you framed it exactly right. It is

a philosophical issue, this. I think we’re going to have a clash of

deeply held philosophical issues because for me they are criminals.

I’ve spent my entire professional career basically trying to prosecute mass murderers of one sort or another.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Mr. PARKER. I’ve helped investigate Milosevic in the former

Yugoslavia 4 years for the United Nations. I helped set up the Saddam Hussein tribunal in Baghdad, and I was part of the State Department’s team in Chad, investigating allegations of genocide in

Darfur. These are crimes on a massive scale, but they’re crimes, for

me. I think of the people who commit them as criminals, far more

egregious criminals actually than terrorists. I don’t have a lot of

time for terrorists, frankly. Most of them are sad and diluted people who are socially disconnected from the people they hurt. I think

it cheapens them to treat them as criminals, and I think we gain

legitimacy from doing so. So, I mean, for me, this isn’t a throwaway sentiment. It is a deeply held belief.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Mr. PARKER. I think it is the core of our effective response, and

to just respond to David as well, no criticism is intended in this.

Simply, let me make the observation that this is how we do it, and

I think it works quite well for us. The delay before trial ensures

that we have an effective trial process and the right evidence is

presented in court.

Mr. SHAYS. The only implication, though, was I was thinking

that as—by my suggestion, not criminal, that I wasn’t asking for

due process, and there is a bit of profiling with the Brits that we

don’t do in the United States, correct?

Mr. PARKER. Well, there’s a lot of safeguards on profiling. Basically, it’s a reasonable grounds test. The reasonable grounds test

and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act requires intelligence, direct intelligence, before you profile, so it isn’t simply that a city police officer says, ‘‘Terrorism’s a bad thing, and we associate it with

Muslims, so we can stop and search people.’’ It has to be event-specific, and it has to be location-specific.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. This is what I’m going to ask you to do, and this

is not a quiz in the sense that I would like to—I’ll tell you what

I want to ask you.

I want to ask you what you believe our strategy is against terrorism, and I’d like you not to change your answer based on what

someone else said. Tell us first what you think that it was and if

it changes, and I will tell you what our strategy was in the cold

war. It was contain, react and mutually assured destruction. I

mean that was our basic approach. We wanted to contain the Soviet threat. We were going to react to whatever they did, and if

they sought to blow the hell—to blow us off the face of the Earth,

we would blow them off the face of the Earth, and they, being rational people, would choose not to, and that was the deterrent.

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What I want you to all do is tell me what you think the Western

World’s strategy is against terrorism. If you think it’s different in

the U.K. versus the United States, tell me that, and then my point

in asking this question is it seems to me this is where we start,

and then I want to know how we succeed, and when I ask my own

constituents what is our strategy, no one can tell me, which, in my

view, is the huge failure of our political system right now. We

worry whether someone has earned three Purple Hearts in a Presidential election or has fulfilled their National Guard service requirement instead of educating people about the terrorist threat

and what we have to do about it, and I’m going to tell you what

I believe the strategy is.

Mr. Rollins, are you ready to tell me what you think the strategy

is?

Mr. ROLLINS. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

If I may, I’d like to focus on—since we’re speaking of the criminal

activity area of the discussion, I’d like to focus on one aspect of

this, and that’s the investigative piece of that since we’re

having——

Mr. SHAYS. Is this your strategy on how we deal with the terrorist threat?

Mr. ROLLINS. I was going to draw a distinction between the

United States and the United Kingdom.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, on the strategy to deal with the terrorist

threat——

Mr. ROLLINS. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. Not the methods, the strategy. What is

the overall strategy to deal with it?

Mr. ROLLINS. I think the overall strategy is the United States is

far more reactive than proactive than our United Kingdom brothers

and sisters. I think we are far more likely to engage and try to

thwart a suspected terrorist activity, a terrorist planning effort

than allow—the United Kingdom would allow the suspect criminal

activity to run a little bit so we could gain further intelligence and

further value to see the strategic picture; whereas, we’re focused

more on the tactical level.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Parker.

Mr. PARKER. Mr. Chairman, if I understand your question right,

you’re asking about a grand strategy.

Mr. SHAYS. You’ve got it.

Mr. PARKER. My understanding—and bear in mind I’m not appearing here as an expert on American——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me do this. I’m going to agree that we don’t know

very much about how you do it, and you don’t know very much

about how we do it, but you’re going to express opinions about

both, maybe expose your ignorance, but let’s not keep apologizing

to the other either. So this is just a discussion, and we don’t have

C–SPAN but we’re going to learn a lot, and it’s going to be very

helpful to us, OK?

Mr. PARKER. My understanding is it’s essentially a doctrine of

preemption. It’s a doctrine of preemption that is built around a coordination of a variety of responses from law enforcement to military action. The United States is in a position to project force overseas that no other Western country is in the way that it does, and

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that allows us to pursue a grand strategy of democratizing the

Middle East, for example, that, you know, the United Kingdom

clearly on its own or the European Union on its own could not do.

So I think there’s a divergence in what grand strategies both sides

of the Atlantic can pursue, but broadly speaking, the idea of preemption to disrupt terrorism before it happens is a shared doctrine

at the heart of both approaches.

There’s clearly more emphasis in the United States on the use

of the military than in the U.K. It’s explicit in the Home Office.

The counterterrorism document that military force should be used

purely as a last resort when all other avenues have been exhausted, I don’t think that’s quite the same conceptualization here,

but I’m willing to be corrected on that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Baroness.

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, I speak as somebody looking at

your strategy from a distance, and there are two or three broad

areas that stand out for us when we look at it from Europe, from

a European perspective.

We said from the outset that we thought calling it a ‘‘war’’ and

seeing it as a war was a mistake after the events of 9/11. I think

Representative Kucinich—I’m not sure how——

Mr. SHAYS. Kucinich. Right. You’ve got it.

Ms. FALKNER [continuing]. Has it right in his opening comments.

Once you imply there was a war without an obvious enemy and

open-ended, then it was inevitable that it would mount in

multilateralism, and we feel very strongly in Europe that there is

a move away from multilateralism in other areas as well.

Then we see extremely wide executive powers in operation often

employed after the fact. We see an abandonment of the use of judicial instruments in favor of incarceration, preventative detention.

We see this policy of what we call, rather politely, ‘‘extraordinary

rendition’’; in other words, the kidnapping of suspects, as one of the

tools that is used as part of the grand strategy, and I think Mr.

Rollins kind of got it right when he said that we tend to see it in

a longer timeframe, and therefore tend to not overreact, with all

due respect. Here it seems to be that the strategy evolves as each

incident or near incident comes to light, and it therefore becomes

just responding to events.

And I would disagree a little bit with Mr. Rivkin when he says

that he doesn’t see that foreign policy plays any role in it at all,

that there is a sentiment that if you employ the level of double

standards that you do eventually that you will end up with no

standards at all, and we see that as a dangerous development.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Dr. Lewis.

Dr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, let me beg your indulgence by adding

one footnote that I will be brief on and will bring back to your

question——

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Dr. LEWIS [continuing]. But we’ve heard an assumption that Iraq

has something to do with the conflict we’re in, and for me that’s

very strange because when I entered the Foreign Service in 1984

we were studying how to deal with Islamic terrorism. We were

looking at the bombings of embassies.

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Mr. SHAYS. When was that?

Dr. LEWIS. The 1981 bombing of Gulf embassies, in 1983,

Hezbollah, the murder of the Marines in Beirut——

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Dr. LEWIS. A series of attacks in the 1990’s, Khobar Towers, the

Cole, the World Trade Center.

Mr. SHAYS. I’ve got you. I know. I was really wanting to know—

I want to know when you went into the Foreign Service so then I

could——

Dr. LEWIS. Oh, 1984. So it goes back a long way. So I don’t see

this as something that started with Iraq or that Iraq contributes

to it.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Dr. LEWIS. The people who are trying to kill us would be trying

to kill us even if we weren’t in Iraq.

The second thing to note is we have sort of a strategy. It’s a little

bit inchoate, and I think there’s two parts to it. The first part

you’ve heard about. It’s a reactive or defensive strategy. It involves

intelligence and law enforcement primarily, not the military, I’d

say, and involves disrupting and destroying terrorist organizations,

capturing terrorists, imprisoning them and otherwise making it difficult for them to operate. That’s important. We’ve had some successes.

The second part, however, is an ideological struggle, and we’ve

gotten off to a very slow start, and that is this debate. There’s all

these assumptions about the United States and its foreign policy

that we have not adequately challenged, that we have not adequately defended, and we need to, as we did in the cold war in your

example, eventually figure out a way to start pointing out, look, the

other guy’s system doesn’t work and if you go down that path you

will be unhappy. We need to win the ideological struggle, and

that’s where we’re having trouble.

Now I’d point out—I apologize to my European colleagues,

but——

Mr. SHAYS. No, we’re not doing that anymore.

Dr. LEWIS. Oh, good.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, no more apologies.

Dr. LEWIS. I’m apologizing because I’m going to say something

different, which is that Europe was confused in the cold war, and

I think they’re a little confused now. There are things you can criticize about what the United States has done. I feel those criticisms

deeply, as I’m sure many do, but on the whole there’s a good side,

and there’s the other side, and we need to figure out which is

which, and I don’t have any trouble doing that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Rivkin.

Mr. RIVKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a few basic propositions, not to sound pedantic, but this position comes from territory of——

Mr. SHAYS. Now, you can apologize for being pedantic.

Mr. RIVKIN. I do apologize for something. Being brought up by

the Jesuits, I have a lot of guilt in me.

It seems to me that unless you understand correctly what is the

phenomenon, what is the strategic framework of what we’re fighting, if we’re going to win it would be by accident, and I think it’s

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worth spending time in engaging in discussions about why this is

war, and with all due respect, there’s not much doubt that this is

war, and since we like to talk about international law there are objective standards that go to the question of intensity of violence,

the nature of targets being attacked, and reasonable people can differ about many things.

There was a big debate, as a matter of fact, which my British

friends may recall, about Norman Island. Britain argued quite precipitously at the time that the level of unpleasantness on Norman

Island was not such as to cross the threshold of armed conflict, and

you have certain folks that take a different view, but reasonable

people can differ about it. But to me, when you have people projecting power, state or nonstate actors attacking the seat of government of this country, attacking our financial center and the killing

of 3,000 Americans, if this is not war, then I don’t know what

‘‘war’’ is. It is a war.

Now, people like to point out that how can it be war since we’re

not dealing with state actors. Well, with all due respect, there’s a

little bit of historical amnesia here, because if you look at the

world’s history and European history, the notion that you can have

war between a nonstate actor and a state is extremely old. I mean

I wanted to go back to antiquities, look up The Dawn of Modern

Age of the state system. In Italian city states, it was quite common

to have private actors, condottieri, an earlier version of unlawful

combatants, who fought not only on behalf of city states but on

their own account. There’s nothing new about that, and the rules

recognize that.

So we are in a state of war. It is a long conflict, and the only

thing I wanted to add is what is this connection—because it’s very

important, and I think you alluded to it earlier—what is the connection between the counterterrorism fight here and the fight in

the Middle East? And let’s leave Iraq because I don’t want to be

any more controversial than I have to be, but to me there is a clear

connection between being on the offensive, and it’s not just a simplistic note to people to basically have a look. If we go to a place

somewhere in the Middle East and we kill the terrorists there, they

don’t—they’re not going to come here, the ones we kill or arrest.

It’s true, but it’s more than that.

To me, the reason people in Britain and in this country—

radicalized, alienated, sick, criminals, whatever you call them—attack us and Brits and people in Madrid and Bali is for two reasons.

They have a whole list of grievances, and I agree with my colleague

Dr. Lewis the list of grievances is so endless that there’s no way

we can possibly cure them. It certainly includes Afghanistan. It

certainly includes Iraq. It certainly includes Danish cartoons, and

I’m sure by now it includes popes, the pope of a 14th century theologian/emperor, but there’s not a very powerful factor, and that is

a perception of weakness, to call it one or more chummy expressions by Osama bin Laden. It is that first combination of grievances and the perception of weakness that adds as the fuel for both

radicalizing and inducing to action those who have been

radicalized. To me, it is absolutely axiomatic that any ability by the

United States and our partners to do well in any of the overseas

spheres of operation, be it Afghanistan, be it Iraq, Israel——

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Mr. SHAYS. You have so many parentheticals that I don’t know

when to interrupt you here.

Mr. RIVKIN. Sorry. I’m almost done.

To me, the connection between that battle and the

counterterrorism fight is we have to be strong. We have to demonstrate we can take on the terrorists where they dwell and take

them down, and while it may increase the sense of grievance and

alienation, it also tempers the powerful perception that we’re weak,

and therefore, in the long run, is going to produce a great weakening of impetus with terrorism.

Mr. SHAYS. You raise an interesting question, and I know you

want to speak, Mr. Parker, and I’m going to go to you, but I am

constantly being lectured in a very good way by my friends in the

Middle East who say you don’t understand the Middle East so that

when I wanted to apply my Western mind to say get out of Lebanon, I had Israelis say, if we get out of Lebanon, they will view

it as a victory without negotiations, and that’s the way exactly I

interpret Arafat’s basic Intifada. It was, you know, we just can

wear them down, and it sent the exact opposite message that I

would have wanted to send.

So I just raise that point in the question as to draw an analogy

as to how you dealt with Catholics and Protestants in Northern

Ireland, but you wanted to make a point. Then I’m going to tell you

what I think the strategy is.

Mr. PARKER. I thought David raised an important point, but it

was worth developing a little further.

In Northern Ireland, there was a big debate about whether the

insurgency was a war, and David referred to some folks who wanted to call it a ‘‘war.’’ Well, let’s put a label on it. The Provisional

IRA wanted to call it a ‘‘war,’’ and they wanted to call it a ‘‘war’’

because it gave them legitimacy.

The problem is the terrorists want to be considered a state actor.

They want to be considered to act on the same level as governments around the world, and by calling it a ‘‘war,’’ you confirm legitimacy of them. It is extraordinary that people here feel that this

is somehow pushing the terrorists into a hole. This is what they

want. They want to be put on the same level.

One of the big mistakes we made in Northern Ireland was being

confused about what it was at the beginning and treating it as operations short of war, to borrow an Israeli euphemism. We gave

people special category status, and we backed off that because it

was a horrendous mistake.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s a very interesting point for me to—and we can

respond to that.

My view is the cold war strategy was contain, react and mutually

assure destruction, and the war against, as I call it, Islamists—call

it a confrontation, whatever, but I call the war against Islamists

‘‘terrorism’’—is detect, prevent, preempt, and maybe act unilaterally, but if I understand that it’s detect, it says, well then what

does that make me want to do. I want to break into the cell. I don’t

want to have to respond to the consequence of a cell having acted.

Now, what I find intriguing about in Great Britain is you have

a better way of resurrecting who did it, in my judgment, in urban

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ly track this person here and where they were here and where they

came here, and even if they blow themselves to smithereens you

can kind of identify, well, what part of Great Britain did they live

in or London did they live in, and who was their family, and you

can get in. And so the good news I see is that, even though you

didn’t detect it and prevent it, you have a way to reconstruct it and

prevent that cell from doing it again. So that’s one plus that I see.

But respond to my sense that our strategy is detect, prevent, preempt—we’ve all touched on some of that—and maybe act unilaterally. Tell me where you would disagree with that.

Mr. PARKER. Well, the British strategy, the core strategy, is also

defined in very similar terms. There are four pillars, according to

that—there’s a strategy document known as CONTEST that was

published in 2003, and it talks about four areas—prevention, pursuit, protection, and preparedness—prevention being social inclusion.

Mr. SHAYS. Prevention. Pursuit. What is the other one?

Mr. PARKER. Prevention, pursuit, protection, and preparedness.

Mr. SHAYS. Now—so what gets under the ‘‘detect’’ part?

Mr. PARKER. Under the ‘‘protect’’ would be——

Mr. SHAYS. I mean the ‘‘detect.’’

Mr. PARKER. On the ‘‘prevent?’’

Mr. SHAYS. ‘‘Detect.’’ In other words, if you do want to break into

cells, what are those four that gives you that guidance to break

into a cell?

Mr. PARKER. Well, actually, prevent, but all have aspects that

help you. You know, it’s a continuum. There’s not a single event.

Each post-incident investigation will probably produce leads for future investigations, not only from the point of view of the contacts

of the members of the cell, their movements, the places they’ve

traveled overseas, their finances that you’ve tracked, but also in

terms of the MO that’s used, the type of explosives they’ve used.

There’s loads of clues, loads of leads to pursue from an intelligence

perspective, but then also, as I talked about a little earlier, social

inclusion efforts, having local community offices working with the

presidents of the mosques, with local imams. Every level of our response is designed to engage different aspects of the threat.

Mr. SHAYS. Could you respond to where there’s a weakness or a

strength in what I believe is our U.S. policy, which is to detect, prevent, preempt, and maybe act unilaterally? Is there any part of

that detect, prevent, preempt, and act unilaterally if we have to?

Mr. PARKER. I mean act unilaterally comes with a price.

Mr. SHAYS. It does, but maybe not preempt—acting unilaterally.

We had testimony in this subcommittee from someone from a major

medical magazine, and he said his biggest fear was that a small

group of dedicated scientists could create an altered biological

agent that could wipe out humanity as we know it. If that were the

case and they were doing whatever they were doing, wherever they

were doing it, do you think that any leader would wait a moment

not to act, and would they get permission from the country that—

would they get permission in the country that they were in to act

if they literally believed that biological agent could wipe out humanity as we know it? And that may seem like an extreme, but

an altered biological agent could possibly do that. So I look at—I’m

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looking at your strategy, and I’m trying—well, let me just ask you

this.

Well, maybe you want to respond, and then I’d like to ask Mr.

Lewis and Mr. Rivkin and you, Mr. Rollins, to jump in.

Mr. PARKER. The bottom line clearly is there’s always a reasonableness defense. You know, in extraordinary situations you could

always advance the fact that it was a necessity. You had to do

something extraordinary because the threat was so great. So, I

mean that exists in British law just as it exists in U.S. law.

So, the ticking bomb thing, actually, I would argue is a little bit

of a red herring. The problem with unilateralism—let me give

you——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you. Why do you say that?

Mr. PARKER. Well, it doesn’t happen very often, and terrorist actions are fairly commonplace, so I’d focus on the commonplace, not

the extraordinary and unlikely, to be honest, and I’m not for a moment suggesting that WMD won’t be used in a terrorist attack. I

think that’s quite possible, but it hasn’t happened yet, and you

need to focus on what we’re really facing primarily, which is small

groups of cells coming out——

Mr. SHAYS. When I was with your new Scotland Yard this year

they told me that they were shocked by what happened in July of

last year. They told me they were shocked and very surprised.

They did not anticipate it. They didn’t know how it had broken into

cells, and that surprised me that they said it, but they said that.

Mr. PARKER. Well——

Ms. FALKNER. I think, Mr. Chairman—I mean we certainly know

that two of the bombers of July 7th of last year had been in the

peripheral vision of the Security Services. Security Services had to

take a judgment over another investigation that they weren’t really

relevant or—and had stopped surveillance of them. So these people

weren’t absolutely off the radar, I would argue, but also a couple

of things here.

Yes. I mean I think everybody in Britain was shocked, dismayed,

surprised. Attacks on mass transit systems evoke a particular kind

of horror because they affect so many of us. It could be me. It could

be you. We all know that feeling. I don’t think the Security Services and Scotland Yard has said this to you. I’m surprised because

certainly the measures that Security Services were taking in the

leadup—not in the leadup—over several years in the years since 9/

11 where all designed strategies were developed in order to forestall a major terrorist incident. We had an incident at Heathrow

Airport sometime before then where measures were put into place,

so there certainly has been a strategy to prevent.

I think where I would argue that perhaps our strategy of prevention is different from yours is that we, I think, walk closer to the

abyss than you do a little bit.

Mr. SHAYS. Closer to the what?

Ms. FALKNER. To the abyss than you do in the sense that where

human intelligence, where infiltration, where evidence is coming to

light that something is being plotted, we tend to allow it to continue as far down the line as possible in order to be able to prosecute and bring to trial. It seems to me, here, that the slightest

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doing results in people being incarcerated, so it’s a different and

perhaps more dangerous approach.

If I could go back briefly, earlier on, you said that we should talk

about where we perhaps disagreed with each other’s comments. I

think that——

Mr. SHAYS. Before we do, I want to do the strategy, and then—

so could I come back, and——

Ms. FALKNER. Can I just come to Mr. Rivkin because he’s put a

lot of very big things on the table, and I would ask him that since

he—you know, and it’s—what I find quite extraordinary about the

U.S. situation is that somehow assertions become facts, so if we say

something often enough, it’s got to become true.

Mr. SHAYS. Like what?

Ms. FALKNER. Well, like the fact of the war. So I’d like to go back

to him and ask him who the war is against. Is it against all Muslims? Is it against all 1.5 billion of us?

Mr. SHAYS. No. No. That would be silly.

Ms. FALKNER. You know——

Mr. SHAYS. No. That would be silly, and I can answer that question.

Ms. FALKNER. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. The 9/11 Commission, comprised of Republicans and

Democrats, liberals and conservatives, 10 men and women, they all

said the following: They said we are not confronting terrorism as

if it’s some ethereal being; we’re confronting Islamist terrorists,

and I make an assumption we don’t find them in Iceland. It is, I

thought, frankly, and it says to me Islamist terrorists are not just

Al Qaeda. It’s the Jihad, the Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and

a whole host of others. That’s what it says to me.

Ms. FALKNER. And people we do not know of and people who may

never become terrorists, so it’s——

Mr. SHAYS. No. Islamist terrorists, I’m missing your point. What

do you mean people that may never become terrorists? We’re saying these are folks that have basically taken their faith to an extraordinary extreme and basically found comfort in a very large Islamic world that is not willing to condemn it.

Ms. FALKNER. I would——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me let you speak. Let me go to Mr. Rollins, and

then I’ll go to Mr. Rivkin.

Mr. RIVKIN. If I may just say——

Mr. SHAYS. No. No, not yet. Let me just——

Mr. RIVKIN. Sorry.

Mr. SHAYS. Were you going to speak on this issue? I want to first

let the Baroness make her point then.

Mr. ROLLINS. I was going to speak to——

Mr. SHAYS. First, let the Baroness go and then Mr. Rollins.

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, I refute the point that the Islamic

world doesn’t condemn it. We condemn it until we’re blue in the

face. We’ve been condemning it from the outset, long before 9/11,

because it was mainly Islamic countries that suffered the brunt of

terrorism, bombs going off in Lebanon, bombs going off in Egypt,

in Pakistan on a regular basis. The Muslims have been killed by

more acts of terrorism, I would argue, than the 3,000 here in 9/11.

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But to come back to what you said, I would argue that this is

not the faith. It is an ideology. It is an ideology that is explicit, that

calls for foreign powers to leave the countries, particularly the

countries of the holy places, and so on. There is no secrecy about

this. We know what Al Qaeda demands. It comes up and calls for

those demands on a regular basis. It reiterates them on a regular

basis. The fact that it becomes so extremist it’s wacky doesn’t mean

that there isn’t an ideological underpinning beneath it, so it’s—you

know, you cannot really have a war against an ideology. It’s very

hard to do.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s an interesting concept. Did you have something else you wanted to say before I go to Mr. Rollins? I mean you

made a number of points. OK. Mr. Rollins.

Mr. ROLLINS. To that point, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to make two

observations. The new White House counterterrorism strategy that

was just released 2 weeks ago for the first time, from my understanding, attempts to address this ideological piece that we haven’t

addressed since 9/11, so I would offer that.

The second, in returning to your distinguishing between the

United States, the United Kingdom, the four pillars of attempting

to address counterterrorism, I would offer that 5 years post-9/11 we

are still—the United States is still working the detection piece of

that. We are still too reliant on technical, technology, and far less

reliant on human intelligence, far less reliant on outreach into the

communities, far less reliant, and until we get that piece addressed, I believe we’re not going to be able to successfully speak

to the issue you brought up earlier, the example about a group of

scientists trying to unleash a mankind ending type virus.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. ROLLINS. Generally, technical means are not going to pick

that up. It’s going to be somebody in the community or some

human operator.

Mr. SHAYS. And, Mr. Rollins—the rest of you, you’re going to just

go on in a second—what I wrestle with as a policymaker and as

someone who has spent—has chaired this subcommittee since 1998

and has focused on this well before September 11th is that I want

our strategy to be complete enough to have us do everything we

need to do to succeed whether we call it war or not, and I do agree

that part of our strategy can’t be using military forces or criminal

forces. It’s got to be diplomacy. It’s got to be humanitarian. It’s got

to be economic. It’s got to be all of those. So, you know, the strategy

that I’ve outlined may be weak there in covering that, but what I

am stunned by as I think about it, this is a debate no one’s having

in the United States, and to my knowledge—Mr. Rivkin and Dr.

Lewis, that you could maybe speak to if you disagree—but I don’t

hear this on the talk shows. I don’t hear this debated on the House

and Senate floor. I don’t hear the administration talking about

what our strategy is to combat what we think is Islamist terrorism.

I don’t want to get you off the subject you wanted to say, but

maybe you could comment on that as well, Mr. Rivkin.

Dr. LEWIS. Well, let me—oh, sorry.

Mr. RIVKIN. You can go first.

Dr. LEWIS. Let me try two points, and then I’ll be quick.

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I do think people are beginning to realize that you do see that

this public diplomacy effort is not very good, but there is a conception now. In some of the conferences you saw on the fifth anniversary of September 11th, you did have discussion of,you know,

there’s this notion of somehow of a return to the Caliphate and use

of Sharia law is a good thing and that we need to start fighting

that. So I think you’re starting to see the debate, and in some ways

your parallel with the cold war is very interesting. I mean, in the

1940’s, you had a lot of Americans who, you know, had some sympathy with the Soviet Union initially, certainly in the 1930’s, and

by the 1960’s or 1970’s no one had any sympathy left. Hopefully,

it won’t take us that long, but I do think you’re beginning to see

the ideological conflict emerge, and it’s something we have to do.

Related to that is the issue of unilateralism. I would take exception with you on this point because I don’t think we’re acting unilaterally. Let me give you a classic example.

Mr. SHAYS. But should we be allowed to in our strategy is the

question.

Dr. LEWIS. I think we should be allowed to, but we’ve chosen in

most cases not to act unilaterally. We’ve chosen——

Mr. SHAYS. So you’re saying that our strategy is not that, and

I think it’s a part of it.

Dr. LEWIS. I think a part of our strategy that is not reflected in

your four points is that we have worked very hard to develop

strong cooperative relationships with security services around the

world. One of the best examples is France. Another example would

be Italy, although when the Italians cooperated, their judicial system threw their chief of intelligence in jail.

The perception is that we’re acting unilaterally. It’s a false perception. Whether we can sustain this level of cooperation is another

matter given the hostility that the United States now engenders,

but we are not acting unilaterally and people who think that just

need to reassess how we work in other countries.

Mr. SHAYS. You know, I thought of ‘‘unilateral’’ in the sense that

we may have to act unilaterally if no one else is willing to take action. I did not mean it in the sense that we are not cooperating

with, and—but the mere fact that comes up tells me that what I

describe as our strategy still isn’t—it’s not a complete strategy. I

mean I got this strategy from all our hearings, the many of our

hearings that we had even before September 11th, and yet it’s got

its weaknesses.

Mr. Rivkin, what do you want to say?

Mr. RIVKIN. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I agree that we need a comprehensive strategy. I also agree that not just this administration—

maybe you’re not making that point—but any administration is not

particularly good, or any government, in articulating in a crisp,

strategic, compelling manner what the strategy is. God knows we

issue reports every couple of years, and you know, they read as ex

poste facto the rationalization of what’s going on, but that’s an endemic problem. Academicians and scholars write best strategy usually on a retrospective basis, but one thing that I don’t think we

get enough credit for is the notion that the way to carry out the

ideological struggle and the way to do it and what you have to do,

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whether you call it a ‘‘war’’ or a ‘‘conflict,’’ is to engage the strong

beliefs held by the enemy.

The strong beliefs held by the enemy is that the alternative to

Western democratic regimes—and let’s strip away opposition to

specific policies. They really do appear—if you look at the Al Qaeda

documents and documents on various other radical Web sites, they

really do—and look at the statements by Ahmadinejad. He really

does believe, seriously I think, sincerely, that democracy is a bad

way of organizing society, that it’s not a good way of organizing a

society that promotes virtue, that enables people to escape the

temptation of sin, etc. Actually, that view is not unique. There are

many theologians in centuries prior to that who also did not like

democracy for that reason. The best thing we can—and the enemy

also points out that’s the only alternative we have helped impose

on theories they made sound on the Middle East efforts and regimes. That’s why I sort of shudder, frankly, when I hear people

talking about the pursuit for democracy in the Middle East as my

epic quest as decoupled from this war.

The best thing we can do to demonstrate that there’s an alternative way of organizing good society that delivers the benefits to

its citizens and allows people to practice their Islamic faith is to

have a democracy, a democracy where Christians, Jews and Muslims all have similar and political rights, which is not the case

under Sharia and certainly not the case under Caliphate where

Christians and Jews were at best well-tolerated minorities with

zero political power. You have to try to come up with a way of demonstrating that there’s an alternative, and frankly, Mr. Chairman,

I think that the bad guys understand it far better than the good

guys, and one of the reasons it’s so hard in Iraq is because they

know what the stakes are far transcending that country. If there’s

ever even an imperfect democratic regime where Shiites, Kurds,

Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and Syrians, etc., are actually cooperating and sharing power and where Islamic law is important but not

the dominant source of authority, that women have political power

instead of being treated as second class citizens and living under

a general apartheid, that would blow sky high all the ideological

pretense, all the ideological hubris that these guys espouse.

Mr. SHAYS. The whole reason why I was getting into the whole

idea of strategy was that I thought that would be a nice mechanism for us to then get into what guides Great Britain and what

guides the United States, and I am finding myself intrigued by the

fact that—do you think in Great Britain there is a general recognition of what the strategy is and, two, do you think there’s an agreement, because I conclude in the United States there is no understanding of what the strategy is and no sense of agreement and no

dialog, and we had that dialog confronting the Communist threat

in the late 1940’s, but we didn’t really start to nail it down until

the 1950’s, but at least we had some dialog.

So, Baroness, I’m asking do you believe—and Mr. Parker—do you

believe that in Great Britain you all are pretty, pretty certain

about, as a people, what your strategy is and how you’re going to

deal with the threat, however you describe the threat?

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, in terms of our own strategy in the

United Kingdom, we have the strategy to deal with the

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counterterrorism strategy, as Tom has illustrated, and I think that

is fairly open, transparent, and there is quite a lot of trust in the

security services in the U.K.——

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Ms. FALKNER [continuing]. Still. So that is, I think, if not understood, it’s certainly understood by those who are interested in understanding it.

Mr. SHAYS. Would you in Great Britain have done what the 9/

11 Commission did and say that——

Ms. FALKNER. No. Alas, I have called publicly many, many times

for us to have had a public inquiry after 7/7. We didn’t do that. We

didn’t have a 9/11 Commission come——

Mr. SHAYS. No. No. No. You didn’t hear my question, though.

You didn’t hear my question the way I meant it.

Would you in Great Britain agree that the threat is Islamist terrorism like our 9/11 Commission did? They didn’t say ‘‘al Qaeda.’’

They didn’t say anything other than—and they didn’t say ‘‘terrorism.’’ They said Islamist terrorism, terrorists.

Ms. FALKNER. I, myself, am not wary of using the word ‘‘Islamic

terrorism.’’ I use it myself. I don’t think there’s a great deal of contemplation of that particularly. We’re not—the word I prefer to use

and I think is more widely used is ‘‘international terrorism’’ rather

than to put—to align it with a religion, and I will tell you why

aligning it with religion is a bad idea, and it is partly a bad idea

because it gives the impression—whether you’re right or wrong, it

gives the impression that you’re lumping together all believers in

that religion into this view that it is from their faith that terrorism

derives, and I’ve already said to you a few minutes ago what my

view on that is, but—so, if you describe it as international terrorism, then you can—it’s much more easily aggregated as an ideology.

Coming back to your question about whether in Britain there is

consensus, I think in Britain there is consensus that whatever

strategy we have has to be reflected in the conduct of our foreign

policy, and there has been a disjuncture between the conduct of our

foreign policy and whatever policy we might have.

As a consequence of the government, particularly the Prime Minister, on the 1-day telling us that he knows that Islam is a religion

of peace and he has complete confidence that there is no such thing

as Islamic terrorism, the following day he will say something completely to the contrary. So there is confusion in the public mind

about the conduct of foreign policy and where the government

draws—Mr. Blair said, to me, that he didn’t think there was a link

between foreign policy and the bombs, and then 6 weeks later in

a Muslim gathering he said there probably was. So it is very—you

get so many conflicting signals.

Overall, there is a consensus that foreign policy has to be—is an

essential part of that strategy and has to reflect a national consensus of where we ought to go and that it’s not currently doing so,

which is why I think you find that Mr. Blair is opting for early retirement.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Well, I’m going to just throw something on the

table, and then I would like to hear any comments where you may

want to move this discussion, any of you that you think are some

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big points that we need to move on to. But I have seen basically

20 years of what I call ‘‘Islamist terrorism,’’ and I’ve seen it directed primarily at the West and primarily at the United States,

and I have seen no reaction to it, so I sometimes bristle with the

thought that somehow we are making it worse when I just see it

continue to grow and grow and grow and grow. I want to someday

have a conversation with Mr. Kissinger or get my staff to do some

research, but I have this memory of 30 years ago Kissinger saying,

you know, the conflict is not going to be against the Communists

and Soviet Union and the United States, but it’s going to be a confrontation with the Islamic world, and I just may have totally lost

it but I have this memory that’s kind of what he said, and when

I meet with folks in Saudi Arabia and others in the Middle East,

I feel like they have one foot in the modern age and one foot in the

dark ages, and I feel like they have been given a pass. Saudi Arabians can come to the United States and live just as we choose to,

and we go there and we have to conform to something that is so

confining that it just—it makes me just wonder what we do about

it. I look at what we see happen in former Yugoslavia, and we ask

the Saudis to help, and what they do is they build mosques promoting Wahhabism, and I then trigger this to—I’ve been to Iraq 14

times, and I was talking to a woman who was in the only shelter

for battered women in all of Iraq, and she said her husband had

become a terrorist, and she described what he did, and then she

said he’s a Wahhabi, and it was—you know, that was—it’s a very

aggressive form of the Muslim faith, and I don’t know how we confront this threat if we—I feel like we’re being asked to close our

eyes because it’s religion, and therefore, we don’t want to get the

religious world unhappy with us. That’s kind of what I feel you’re

saying to us—to me, Baroness. I feel like first we’ve just got to say

the emperor has no clothes and then think, my God, what does that

mean, but that’s kind of where I’m coming from.

Mr. Parker, I’d like you to respond to what I just said.

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, could I come back just briefly?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, I myself have lived in Saudi Arabia, and I have lived in other parts of the Middle East, including

Lebanon, and by way of background my mother was educated at

the American University of Beirut, so——

Mr. SHAYS. May I ask you are you a practicing Muslim or are

you——

Ms. FALKNER. I will come to that.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. FALKNER. You see me before you. I’d like to know what you

think I am.

Mr. SHAYS. I don’t know.

Ms. FALKNER. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. I didn’t——

Ms. FALKNER. Exactly. So I think, you know, I know exactly

what you talk about in terms of Saudi Arabia. I did not choose to

remain there for the very reasons——

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Ms. FALKNER [continuing]. That you talk about, and I think there

is a real problem of modernity in the wide Muslim world.

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I don’t want to sound morally relativist. In fact, I have quite a

lot of contempt for moral relativism, so I don’t want to

contextualize and make excuses for things. I think—let me put it

thus, that there are conservative traits, reactionary—I would say

reactionary traits in all religions, there’s fundamentalism across religions, and I think Wahhabism is a particularly unfortunate expression of Islam. I certainly don’t come from that perspective. I

come from Pakistan where we have mainly Sunnis and Shiites, but

you have the spread of religious practice and adherence across the

country, you know, 150 million people. I come from, as I’ve just indicated to you, a rather middle class and educated and liberal—and

that’s not a swear word where I come from—a liberal background,

and therefore, I tend to think that my faith and my conviction is

a matter for me and a matter between me and God, and I don’t

wear it on my sleeve as many people do.

So, leaving that aside, coming——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just tell you. The relevance of your faith, to

me, is not how you practice it but your understanding of those who

do, and therefore, when you speak, if you spoke as a practicing

Muslim that would mean something different to me than if you

spoke as a practicing Christian. It’s not—it’s in terms of your

knowledge of the faith. That’s——

Ms. FALKNER. I’m not a theological scholar that I understand

faith well. I grew up in it. I didn’t grow up in the West. I grew up

in the faith——

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Ms. FALKNER [continuing]. And as I’ve said, I’ve lived in the Middle East, and just to speak to something you said earlier on that,

you see when you go and speak to these people and you’ve been experiencing Islamic terrorism for, you said, a very long time, indeed,

and you find no reaction to it, I wonder what you mean by that.

Mr. SHAYS. I can be so plain what I mean.

I have watched the media. This has been my study. There is no

outrage that I see by the people that matter, and with all due respect, you could be outraged by it but you don’t really matter. I

want the leaders, the clerics, the people who can make a difference.

They are totally and completely silent. I have as much conviction

about that as anything I have, and whether you get outraged by

it is, to me, not all that important. I want to know what the people

who can change it in their own faith do. That’s the statement.

Ms. FALKNER. Mr. Chairman, the only thing I will say—and of

course I respect what you’re saying. The only thing I will say is

that the people who do express that outrage are often people who

say something that isn’t what—newsworthy. I’ll give you an example.

Shaikh Zaki Badawi, who was the head of the Muslim College in

Britain—he was a knight. He was awarded knighthood except that

it wasn’t applicable because he was Egyptian as a citizen and so

one. He was one of the most eminent Muslim theologians in Europe, not just in Britain. He recently passed away.

Eminent scholar. He was denied entry to the United States only

a few months ago when he was wishing to come and give a major

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takenly on a U.S. watch list. So the plane was landed inside Bangor, and he was sent——

Mr. SHAYS. I really don’t know how that relates.

Ms. FALKNER. But those people don’t make it into the media.

People who are outraged, who are important——

Mr. SHAYS. You are making my point, and this is a small point,

but you are making my point. The people who need to say it are

not saying it and—but you raised—there are a lot of points here,

and we could probably go on for days, and I don’t want to do that.

I would like one of the panelists here to tell me where we need to

go if, failing that—I would like my professional staff to just make

sure that we cover a few questions that we need to ask. Should I

go there first and then add——

Mr. RIVKIN. Can I make one brief point, Mr. Chairman?

Put it this way. I am in full accord with you. Reasonable people

can disagree about the precise parameters balanced between ideology and other forms of motivation. But unless we understand that

we are not—and I think we are talking about unless we understand that this is not a series of random acts, not a series of random acts by random people for random causes or diverse causes,

that there is some unifying factor here——

With all due respect, it is not that it is international. There may

be unifying factors, but the important factor here is there are people, unfortunately, who engage in horrific violence motivated by religion as a form of ideology. We have dealt with people who are engaged in horrific violence motivated by national socialism, by communism. We did not have any qualms talking about it, at least not

as much about religion. But one thing——

And there is such a thing as demonizing too much, and we have

to be careful about it, but there is a problem of not acknowledging

enough. I actually think that our record, not just this country’s

records but British records, has been very good about not overgeneralizing and demonizing it.

Look at the experience in World War I or World War II, at the

cartoons, at the political discourse about the Germans, the Japanese, nothing comparable to that, exceptional degree of discretion

and carefulness on the part of Blair and the President and all the

other leaders.

So it is very difficult for me to imagine we are painting with too

broad of a brush, but we have to paint—Mr. Chairman, I think you

have to agree with that—with some kind of a brush. Because if we

don’t connect, if we don’t see what is a common issue, how can we

win an ideological battle if we don’t understand the ideology of the

enemy? If we are going to win, it would be some kind of an accident.

Dr. LEWIS. You know, in my written testimony I started out by

noting that someone I know had wrote some time ago about the

end of history, that we wouldn’t see any more conflicts because

there was a global consensus on liberal democracy. Well, he was

wrong; and this comes, I think, to your point about, you know, the

international nature of the struggle.

You don’t have to look at the United States. You can look at

India. They have similar problems. You can look at Russia. They

have similar problems. They haven’t done as well as we have, but

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they have the same problems. You can look at Israel. You can look

at Thailand or the Philippines. You can even look at China. All of

them face a similar threat.

So there is a possibility here to build a consensus, and I think

that we need to get that kind of international voice raised up to

say there is something we would all rather do, and the people who

are advocating against us, the people who bomb in all of our cities,

are not doing the right thing.

It will take time, as you have said, for that to emerge; and I just

hope it can emerge quickly.

One part of that, and we have trouble with this in the United

States, we don’t really understand all the dynamics within the

Muslim world. So to think of it as one, you know, monolithic entity,

we want to avoid that just as we needed to avoid it in the cold war.

So there are Muslim voices who support the kind of consensus that

we could live with. We want to encourage them. If we could get

that started, I think eventually we will win.

Mr. SHAYS. What I have taken from this hearing, aside from trying to wrestle with this issue of what is a crime and so on, is the

strategy I outlined that I have believed in for umpteen number of

years, somehow I have to figure out how that outreach fits into this

strategy. But a strategy can help guide you to do—it should be a

complete strategy that helps you do all the elements.

So, did you want to something, Mr. Rollins; and then I will go

to the professional staff.

Mr. ROLLINS. Yes, very briefly, Mr. Chairman, very brief point

trying to tie the two issues together, strategy and the message. As

we all know, the U.S. State Department does have an Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy in charge of outreach. Karen Hughes

has been in this position for 15 months, and that might be one vehicle that we could provide additional focus as we were talking

about to try to get an international discussion on this issue going.

To date, I don’t think that effort has been very successful.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for reminding me about that.

Mr. Parker, do you want to say something?

Mr. PARKER. I am enormously struck as a foreigner and not a

particularly religious person of all the countries in the Western

World that should understand the complexity of religion in the

Muslim world, America is easily at the forefront. You have a plethora of different religious groups in this country actively engaged in

politics, enormous shadings between different religions. It is an incredibly broad patchwork——

Mr. SHAYS. I will tell you the answer to why that is. We don’t

have to work at it. When I taught at a university during the Iranian-Iraqi war, we had students, Iranians and Iraqis, who sat next

to each other and talked to each other, Palestinians and Jews—

Israelis not Jews—Israelis in the same classroom, and somehow

when they are in the environment here, it wasn’t the kind of issue.

So because it wasn’t kind of the issue, there was such a sense of

normalcy that what you just said——

Mr. PARKER. There is always that expatriate phenomenon, that

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tant. Because, frankly, nobody else really understands what is

going on in that little piece of territory.

Having worked at the ICTY and The Hague, there is no problem

between the Croatians and Serbian and Muslim translators, because they all live in Holland, they want to go to the same restaurants and speak the same language.

It is actually kind of nice to bump into somebody who comes from

your part of the world. I have noticed that. I have taught classes

in terrorism with Israeli military and Arab American students and

people from the Middle East in the classes; and, to be honest, they

tend to moderate discussions of sensitive issues, rather than actually be the cause of dissension in the classroom.

Mr. SHAYS. But if they were back in their own countries they

would have a different view of that whole issue.

Mr. PARKER. We hope the educational experience they have gone

through will mitigate that.

The other thing I remember being told by a relatively senior

former counterterrorism official in the United States, we were having a meal one evening, and he turned to me, and he said, do you

know what I think the biggest threat to Western civilization is?

And I said, no, what do you think it is? And he said, European secularism. And that was about the dumbest thing I ever heard. I said

I had never heard anything quite like it. You would never hear a

statement like that out of anybody in Western Europe.

It is interesting. Religion is very much a part of public life here

as it is in the Middle East, and I find it odd that people react to

it as though there is something strange about the involvement of

religion in politics. As a foreigner outsider, I see my American colleagues shaking their heads here. It seems very present in American political life. It may be a misconception, but you turn on the

talk shows or just as I drove up from North Carolina I heard six

on seven religious stations as I was trying to find a radio station

with news on it. You couldn’t find—there isn’t a religious station

in England, period, of any denomination.

Mr. SHAYS. You point out one of my—I have come to this conclusion over a number of years, that the United States should have

diplomatic relations with every country, however fearsome it is—

North Korea, Iran, Cuba. Because our biggest failure in Iraq was

not believing that he had weapons of mass destruction. If we had

been there, we might have found out he didn’t. But it was not

knowing how poor the infrastructure was. And almost anybody who

had been there just traveling to work, you know, not having air

conditioning for, you know, half the day, would have said, you

know, I think this country has some challenges, like basic challenges that we didn’t know.

Plus the fact that half of our embassy employees would not be

from the State Department, which would be another factor. Just

the mere fact that you would have said to me about the religious

stations, I wouldn’t think twice about it, but you would, given it is

different in your society.

If you would tolerate some questions that we just want to get on

the record from the professional staff.

Ms. DANIEL. I am going to string together a couple of questions

relating back, actually, to Baroness Falkner’s testimony in which

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she suggested that the British concentrate on increasing

counterterrorism action at this point after several recent legal reviews while the Americans are mired in continued increase of

counterterrorism legislation at this point.

So as the first part of the question, I am interested in the group’s

reaction to that; and part of it is circumstantial, of course, but your

reactions to that.

Following that, you suggested the United States establish the position of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation—just to

recap—creating a forum where interested parties have the ability

to feed into a nonpartisan process of assessment on the provisions

of the act, increasing public confidence and providing a measure of

how provisions are bedding down in practice so they can be one

source to go to. I wonder, in the American counterterrorism apparatus, where that would fit?

And in a broader sense there, how does the consolidation of reviewing power into one office here affect the balance of powers

among different counterterrorism agency components?

So as each of you wishes to respond, I guess, to those three questions, please. Mr. Rollins.

Mr. ROLLINS. I will take a shot.

The first part, with regards to the legislation, I think I would be

in agreement, if I understand the question correctly, that there is

a focus on increased additional enhanced legislation in the United

States.

We have had the Homeland Security Act, we have had the Intelligence Reform Act, had the PATRIOT Act and a number of other

acts that support our counterterrorism effort. But the focus, quite

often, when it comes to a current threat stream or Hurricane

Katrina or any type of incident is legislative, rather than let’s see

what we have on the books, and allowing it to mature, rather than

to continually revise or come up with new legislation.

If that answers your first question.

The intelligence community specifically, each intelligence community organization has an Inspector General, the Director of National Intelligence has an Inspector General and an ombudsman office as well, but there is not a wholistic office where the public,

much like the United Kingdom, can come into and to the Director

of National Intelligence office or any other office and say, I think

that I am being persecuted by the intelligence community or by the

law enforcement community; I think I am being surveilled without

warrant. That does not exist in the United States today.

And, forgive me, the third question?

Ms. DANIEL. The third point was how the consolidation of reviewing power in such a structure would affect the balance of powers

that now exist among counterterrorism agency components here.

Mr. ROLLINS. I think any organization that gives the populace a

voice and the effort and an ability to be heard about concerns is

good. We certainly have the FOIA capability where U.S. citizens

can write into a department or agency, intelligence community or

law enforcement and request information. Quite often, the information is law enforcement sensitive or it is classified. But certainly

I think that an independent entity where citizens can have a voice

in trying to ascertain their concerns is always a good idea.

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Mr. PARKER. The U.K. has a whole series of different commissioners and different acts and different institutions, but they are

appointed by government, and we have a mixed record of using

these government-appointed tribunals successfully to address public concerns.

During the Northern Ireland conflict, two reports in particular

spring to mind. The Widgery Tribunal that looked into Bloody Sunday and officially found no wrongdoing by the Royal Parachute

Regiment provoked such outrage that the British Embassy in Dublin was burned down. The Compton report, in coercive interrogation, found that there was nothing inappropriate, but, as to techniques that were being used, the European Commission on Human

Rights described it as a modern system of torture, suggesting that

there was some distance between the two committees.

So it is not a panacea. It has worked well in some circumstances,

but in very highly charged circumstances it has worked poorly. The

Security Service Commissioner has received, at least up until 1997,

has received 275 complaints and upheld none of them. That may

be because there was no substance to any of them, but, equally,

that is hard to sell to somebody who is suspicious of the Security

Service. But that was a genuinely independent oversight process.

In Britain, we kind of rely on the fact that the people trust governmental organizations and we trust the great and good to do a

decent job. I suspect that wouldn’t fly over here. People would

much prefer to have someone elected, an elected official perhaps

oversee this sort of thing.

Actually, there is a little bit of a weakness. People appointed

tend to be senior judges or tend to be parliamentarians from either

the House of Lords or the House of Commons; and that perhaps

doesn’t recognize the concerns of a minority group, for example,

that might be complaining. They are not complaining to somebody

who will necessarily have natural sympathy for their point of view,

if the commissioner happens to be the former head of the Home

Civil Service or somebody from the House of Lords.

We do have independent watchdogs as well, and they are very

effective. Some are patchy. Liberty I wouldn’t say is particularly effective, but there have been other groups that have been very good

at raising individual concerns as charities or charitable foundations. But it is a bit of a patchwork, and it is an odd system and

I think fairly unique to the United Kingdom. So I don’t think it

transplants very well, to be honest, in my personal opinion.

I think that is really all I would offer.

Ms. FALKNER. By way of clarification, I should say that the reviewer’s role is not only for the public to have access to him in the

operation of the acts, but, by being the overall reviewer of all the

legislation, he has detailed inquiries of people who use the act, are

affected by it and, as I said, can see material.

He makes a point in his latest report of June 2006, if it were my

view that a particular section or part of an act is odious, redundant, unnecessary or counterproductive, I would make recommendations for it to be repealed. He says some repeals have occurred as a consequence of this.

So it is slightly different from commissioners or the offices of inspector generals in that they are part of the executive bodies that

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implement the act. His role is to look at the overall workings of the

act. For example, he finds that if staff of the Customs Service and

port services don’t have sufficient accommodation to carry out their

jobs effectively—it is a very practical thing—he makes a practical

suggestion to the relevant department to provide them with increased funding in order that they may do their job better, and it

is a very pragmatic and practical course of action.

When it comes to scrutiny, the home secretary, is obliged to lay

his report before Parliament; and I think were the report to be sufficiently contentious that time would be made to have a debate. He

is also cross-questioned and escorted on evidence on the various

parliamentary select committees that have an interest in his area

of work.

Dr. LEWIS. A couple of points that I think hit your questions, and

if they don’t please let me know.

One of the things that a number of us have argued is that it

would be easier to deal with some of the increased requirements we

have for communication surveillance or domestic intelligence if

they were balanced by additional emphasis on civil liberties protection, and there has been some effort in the United States that

hasn’t been sufficient. So if I was thinking of new legislation which

we need, you know, I would put a little more emphasis on how do

you protect civil liberties.

The key there is really congressional oversight. You need all

three branches involved.

You need the judicial branch. We have them, of course, with

FISA. I don’t know if I like the secret court protecting me. Maybe

they do; maybe they don’t. Who knows?

You have executive branch committees, organizations. The PATRIOT Act set up one. Homeland security has a privacy board.

There is a number of boards that look at these things, but they are

mainly invisible.

Perhaps a more dynamic executive branch role would help, but,

you know, you have the issues with confidence with the executive

branch and the appointment; and it doesn’t seem to be working.

God forbid that I would ever recommend that an IG do anything.

Mr. SHAYS. Why is that?

Dr. LEWIS. Just a joke, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. SHAYS. I take it personally.

Dr. LEWIS. No, no. Former fed—can’t touch IGs—very bad.

And that brings you back to Congress, and I think that one of

the things that United States has that is an advantage is the idea

of congressional oversight, congressional hearings. The oversight

function, although when I did work for the government, I disliked

it. It was like being chased around by Congress. It turns out it is

crucial.

So I would look at ways to strengthen that, and this is putting

the ball kind of back in your court, Mr. Chairman, but——

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to quickly respond to, if we are talking

about giving the government more power, it strikes me that—and

the executive branch in our divided system, then you have to have

Congress be more energetic in congressional oversight, not less;

and we do a disservice to the presidency when we aren’t that way.

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ligence community, and I don’t think it does. And we have a civil

liberties board that is weak, that we are creating without Senate

approval, without fixed terms in our subpoena power; and it seems

to me that Senate civil liberties board could be the board to which

you would turn to if you feel that you are being unfairly dealt with.

So as I am listening to you I am thinking of how it would fit in

our own system.

Mr. Rivkin, I am sorry. You have the floor, so keep going.

Mr. RIVKIN. A couple of points, not to repeat what has already

been said.

I think we have a peculiar need in our system for new legislation, in part because the preexisting, the pre-September 11th baseline is quite constraining. We don’t have a huge surplus of law enforcement powers in peacetime, at least in my opinion; and, you

know, unfortunately, I don’t need to remind a sitting Congressman

how difficult it is to do comprehensive legislation spanning across

multiple committees.

In some sense, it would have been magnificent post-September

11th to have comprehensive legislation revisions to FISA, revisions

to the PATRIOT Act and, while you are at it, something similar to

military commissions legislation. Let’s move it along. But that is

not realistic. So the fact that there is this perception that there is

a flurry of legislation to me is unavoidable.

On the civil liberties protection, I agree with the question, Mr.

Chairman, it is actually very—my experience, at least, in the government is it is very confining and very straining, but it is not very

effective. There are clearly better ways of doing that.

In part, I think what is regrettable—and this hasn’t happened

under several administrations—we don’t have a comprehensive

whistle-blower protection system for reasons that are quite inexplicable. I frequently get challenged on NPR as a designated conservative why there is no whistle-blower protection; and my response is, why didn’t one get enacted in the previous administration? It is amazing. It could be done.

But, in some sense, I think the level of protections, civil liberties

in this country is quite unprecedented if looked at in toto. If you

don’t just look at commissions and whistle-blowers but if you look

at the absolute unprecedented media freedom, the fact—how do we

blow a whistle in this country? Technically, it is not whistle-blowing. It is called a leak. I like to reassure people, if the Government

is doing anything naughty, there is no doubt it is going to end up

on the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post very

quickly; and to me that is a source of great solace kind of.

Mr. SHAYS. But that shows the failure of not having a proper

whistle-blower statute. Because if you had a system that really

worked and could protect whistle-blowers you could deal with it.

Mr. RIVKIN. Through the channels, I fully agree, but in terms of

a bottom-line impact——

Mr. SHAYS. That is the safety valve.

Mr. RIVKIN. It is a safety valve; and, therefore, it is not nearly

as onerous. But I wish we could reform the system. But I really

don’t think there is a huge deficit of civil liberties in this country.

My only point, which is one I feel as passionately as some of the

points you mentioned, I think that powerful congressional oversight

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is a necessary component of our system of liberty. What is regrettable is a tendency to push more and more things onto the judiciary and failure to exercise oversight and direct insistence, that we

don’t want to exercise oversight. Because the great thing about

oversight, it not only checks the executive, it does it in politically

accountable fashion. Given a bunch of radical free judges is the antithesis of accountability, because then you can wash your hands

of it no matter what they decide. And that, unfortunately, is a

tendency on the part of many folks where executive is constrained

more and more by judiciary and less and less by Congress.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you all have time to do just one more main question line of questioning? Let’s do it.

Ms. DANIEL. As I’ve been listening to the discussion today, one

thing that struck me is that when we talk about what Britain does

right, for example, locally based counterterrorism and a more effective—I don’t know if I should say streamlined but a more effective

overall communications system, the conversation comes to a halt

when we say, but Britain is much smaller. Britain has 60, I believe

was the number, versus United States 13,000, I think is what you

said, different——

Mr. PARKER. Eighteen.

Ms. DANIEL. 18,000 precincts.

And this is also related to oversight, because it was mentioned

in the written testimony the utility of locally based oversight; and

certainly in this particular disruption of the alleged terror plot it

was local information and local work again that contributed to the

help—excuse me—to the success. So I guess my question is, in

these different contexts, what is it about the British system that

cannot be replicated on a much larger scale in the United States?

Or, alternatively, if we are approaching the question for Americans, what is it that the United States would need to change about

its local law enforcement and intelligence services’ oversight and

communication in order to make that work?

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t we start this way? Mr. Rivkin, we will

start with you.

Mr. RIVKIN. Yes. I am afraid that this is one area that would be

very difficult to change, and the chairman alluded to it earlier, that

federalism presents some serious problems. Because you do have

local police chiefs that work essentially for mayors, and State police

forces work for Governors, and they march—and they have to be

accountable. Far be it from me to say they should not be accountable to the head of a sovereign to which—political sovereign to

which they belong. But it is very difficult to do that.

And even in less politicized areas you have sort of ideologically

driven refusal to enforce things. You have people who refuse to enforce the PATRIOT Act; and you have people who, during the earlier debates going back to the Reagan administration, refusing to

participate in other policies. There is a big thing with some police

departments that don’t want to participate in apprehending illegal

immigrants.

So it is very difficult to really force down. You can give money.

You can give grants. But it is very difficult to impose a particular

agenda.

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I don’t think it is a problem nearly as much in Britain. Again,

maybe I am somewhat pessimistic about the utility of bureaucratic

refinements in organizations, but I think it is not very likely that

we have much more effective local Federal and State cooperation—

more effective in a sense of yielding appreciably better results,

without changing things that cannot be changed.

Dr. LEWIS. I think you can tell from my testimony that I admire

many aspects of the British system. But this is what I don’t admire. I don’t want a national police force. I don’t want a Federal

police. When I am in Chicago, I want a Chicago cop to report to

the mayor. I don’t want the Secretary for Homeland Security to

have anything to do with him. So I wouldn’t want to see a replication of the influence that the home office has.

We have a Federal system, and I like it better. And that means

that you have to focus on joint task forces, you have to focus on

getting cleared personnel, you have to focus on finding ways to

share information. There has been some work in that with the FBI

and with DHS.

A couple of things would help. What I hear from the local police

is they could use more clearances, that they are unable to receive

information. So finding a way to provide those clearances to the

local cops.

The second thing that I hear is that it would be useful to have

a more coordinated Federal approach, you know, that you have—

I don’t know how many Federal agencies, is it 12 or is it 17, all

of them trying to coordinate with local or State officials, figuring

out who actually is in charge, is it justice, is it homeland security

and figuring out a way you can relay information to them.

I think all those things would be useful.

But, you know, to echo the remarks of my colleague, we have a

Federal system. We chose that a long time ago, and that is going

to limit our ability to mimic some of the things the U.K. does.

Ms. FALKNER. I am not really going to say very much on this

area, because I am not an expert, but just to correct the impression

given that Britain has a centralized national police force. It doesn’t.

It has autonomous, regionally based, independent police forces

based on counties or regions.

There have been proposals recently to amalgamate them into a

lesser number. There are about 60 at the moment, and the proposal would bring them down to about 15. That met with such

fierce local opposition that the government has announced that it

won’t take that legislation forward. It will review it again.

Mr. PARKER. There are a couple of areas in which there is an effective national reach within policing Scotland Yard, and certain

specialist areas have a counterfeit currency squad that will operate

throughout the country with the—in support of local police forces.

Because it doesn’t pay local police forces to develop that specialism,

but basically it is a diffuse regional system. The Security Service

acts as the glue, therefore, in counterterrorism to hold all those

things together. I don’t know it is as hopeless as perhaps portrayed. It takes initiative.

What the Security Service did is establish secure communications systems for all the regional special branches so they could

talk to each other, which they hadn’t previously been able to do

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from their desks. It put regional offices out in all the force areas

to go and spend a lot of time briefing people, desk officers tour the

country to raise awareness on their subject areas. You have to get

out from behind your desk and build the networks, you know.

Regional FBI offices could do that. Clearly, there would have to

be a great deal more clarity on who is in charge; and that, obviously, is easier said than done. But the bottom line is initiative and

a little bit of money. You go out there, and you build the networks.

It can be done, and there are—what—six or seven task forces now

around the country that are relatively effective, and that is a good

model.

Somebody runs the task force. At least somebody is head of the

task force. If you could replicate that everywhere, you have a system. And you just have to get the task forces to talk to each other.

It isn’t insurmountable. It takes hard work. But what it really

takes is initiative from people who push it forward. And somebody

has to ride it, because people will slide back immediately. But

bombs concentrate the mind wonderfully, and nobody wants to be

responsible for the failed investigation of the bomb that went off.

You know, the Security Service stops, I would guess, it is, obviously, difficult to reach figures—but probably two-thirds of all the

attacks mounted in the U.K., if not a higher figure. But, you know,

when the one that goes off is Bishopsgate or Canary Wharf or the

Baltic Exchange and over a million pounds worth of property damage is done and people are killed, nobody really cares how good

your success rate is. You have to get better. That is the bottom

line.

If people know they are going to be held accountable for failures,

which God knows hasn’t really happened in this country since 9/

11, then somebody might actually start pushing things forward.

But heads have to roll, people have to be held accountable, and

people to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and push it through.

You have to find the right person to do that.

But it will be kind of a sad comment if it couldn’t be done, to

be honest; and it is about getting serious on the offense. And if we

are opposed to abrogating judicial civil liberties to prosecute the

war on terror, then, good God, can’t we talk a little more effectively? That seems to be something we would do before we give up

essential civil liberties.

But it does take will, and somebody has to push it through. And

it takes leadership, executive leadership.

Mr. ROLLINS. This is tying many of these pieces together. David

said the constitutional authorities make federalism unattainable,

so I don’t think that is an area that should be the focus of our energy. And I agree as well that we do not, I think, want one central

Federal entity setting requirements and focusing issues for the

State and local law enforcement or homeland security advisers. The

18,000 police offices out there, they know their operating environment better than us here in Washington, DC. They know their

communities.

I think the piece that we are trying to figure out of what is missing is, yes, there is now 110 FBI joint terrorism task forces, there

is now 42 State and local fusion centers located around the country, but back to the comment a number of us have made, who has

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the Federal Government roles and responsibilities for interacting

with State and local communities for counterterrorism? Is it the

FBI? Is it DHS?

A National Governors Association report came out a few months

ago. It is still not happy with the level of information they are receiving, still not happy with the type of intelligence and still cannot

point to one point of contact to put in information requirements or,

in turn, receive taskings from the Federal Government, just a

dearth of responsibility.

Mr. SHAYS. So I am clear on this, when we talk about the home

department, when we were talking about—years ago, before September 11th, we had three commissions, the Hart-Rudman Commission, the Gilmore Commission and the Bremer Commission;

and they all said there is a terrorist threat out there, we need to

have a strategy to deal with it, and we need to reorganize our government to implement the strategy. And the most radical was the

Hart-Rudman Commission that said we needed a Department of

Homeland Security. And I had constituents who had said this before September 11th: What are we? Great Britain?

So I have always like felt like the Department of Homeland Security was a pretty close parallel. But, as I heard your opening testimony, it is nothing close is it?

Mr. PARKER. No.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to ask the Brits first—Mr. Parker, what

are some of the obvious differences, the Department of Homeland

Security here versus the homeland?

Mr. PARKER. They can do it better, American.

Ms. FALKNER. Well, our home office, as it is called, rather innocuously I think in other European countries they call it interior ministries, which is far more sinister sounding, our home office is responsible for an extraordinary broad range of issues to do with law

and order, which includes the running of the prisons, the management of offenders, the probation service, the police services, to

some extent the customs and port authorities, airports authorities

to some extent, judicial systems, judges, magistrates.

The debate we are having in Britain at the moment is whether

it is just too cumbersome a ministry to be able to do the important

tasks as well as it should. There is some concern in the U.K. that

it is not operating—the home—the current home secretary, giving

evidence 2 months ago, described it as being not fit for purpose.

Mr. SHAYS. That is a very British way of saying that.

Ms. FALKNER. So, sir, I would feel extremely reluctant in defending it when its representative, its own God on earth, is not able to

do so.

I think where it is considerably different is, apart from its reach,

is the fact that it has a culture—because it is also responsible for

the law offices and the judiciary, it has a different culture in its

approach to civil liberties than your Homeland Security Department appears to do.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Do you want to say something, Dr. Lewis.

Dr. LEWIS. Sure. If you wanted that, you would have to really

think about combining the functions that the Attorney General has

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curity and at least—you know, just perhaps my British colleague

sees the United States as more religious. I see the home office as

more nationally controlling perhaps, and it has a degree of involvement in local matters that would prompt outrage here. I don’t

think we can do it. But DHS is a halfway step there.

You would have to think about what more would you want to

take from the Attorney General or perhaps give back.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to just ask all of you to make a closing

comment on any issue you want.

On August 10th, I spoke with some folks at the Department of

Homeland Security, and they were pretty happy about what had

taken place. Someone in my family was very unhappy with the day;

and I said, how are you doing? She said, this is a pretty difficult

day. I said, why? She said, because of what has happened in Great

Britain. I said, no, sweetie, that is a hugely wonderful day, and

that is a success story.

Because we know all of these—well, we tend to realize that there

are these threats, and isn’t it good that we succeeded. And when

I say ‘‘we,’’ even our Department of Homeland Security, in my conversation with them, took some pride in their work.

What is interesting was when I was speaking to someone that

knew Scotland Yard they said homeland security didn’t really have

been much to do with that. I said, OK, there is our people asking

for—then when I met one of the advisers to your Prime Minister,

he said absolutely homeland security was involved, and we were in

close contact.

What I thought was encouraging about that was the people who

needed to know knew in the United States and Great Britain, and

other people didn’t know that others even within their own departments knew because they didn’t need to know. And I thought that

was a good sign. There was this interaction where it needed to happen, and that was I think a very positive thing.

And, you know, I do think Americans are safer and Brits and

others than they were before. It is just that people didn’t realize

how unsafe they were before. Unless, Baroness, your general view

is that things have gotten worse because of how we have dealt with

terrorists. At least that is kind of what I hear in terms of the fact

that we are—I don’t want to put words in your mouth—but the

concern—it is not attributed to you, but some would feel that because we are, you know, confronting this Islamic threat in the way

we are that we are heightening it rather than reducing it.

But my general view is that at least our departments and our

Government entities are starting to have that kind of interaction

that we hope they would have.

Ms. FALKNER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think you are absolutely

right there. I think we are more, all of us, in Europe and the

United States, particularly in Britain and the United States, are

aware that we need to work together and that work is certainly

happening.

Certainly in terms of dealing with the metropolitan police within

my house there is some interaction, and they were good enough to

brief me immediately after the August 10th events. We get the impression that there is considerable cross-border cooperation, and indeed it needs to be like that. We discovered that in the European

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Union context in the 1990’s and set up a third pillar in the EU for

cross-border cooperation.

So, yes, I agree with you. I think we are safer because of that.

On the other hand, of course—and I won’t dwell on that because

I think my views are clear—we are somewhat less safe. But that

is overall in the world. I think everyone is less safe. Our lives are

less secure than they were in the past, than certainly we expected

them to be in the early 1990’s when the Berlin wall came down.

The peace dividend hasn’t proved to be what we thought it was.

Mr. SHAYS. I describe it this way. The cold war is over, and the

world is a more dangerous place.

Mr. Rivkin, any closing comments?

Mr. RIVKIN. Yes, just one, to summarize. We are clearly better

off. We clearly have moved a long way. I think there we can and

should do better, and I think we can absorb some of the British experiences with due regard to differences in our system.

I am repeating myself when I say what is most important are not

new bureaucratic organizations and not even new statutes but a serious dialog, not a caricature one, multiple dialogs certainly in this

country about balancing liberty and public safety that allows the

people to make the right choice.

I am a big believer in the wisdom of the American people. If a

debate is raised properly and not a caricature, not finger pointing,

I think they will come to the right answer on all sorts of issues

ranging from privacy to profiling to procedures for interrogating detainees.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, very much.

Yes, Dr. Lewis.

Dr. LEWIS. Just quickly, I think we have covered a lot of ground

in this hearing, and my view is there are useful things we can

learn from the British. We can’t necessarily duplicate them because

of our Federal system, but they have some interesting precedents

for how we might want to reshape our counterterrorism.

I think you have made the point that we need to think of not

only defensive strategy which we can learn from the British on but

also a longer-term strategy that wins the ideological battle. So I

hope anything we come up with will combine both of those.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I will let you go, Mr. Rollins, and let Mr.

Parker have the last word.

Mr. ROLLINS. Mr. Chairman, once again, thank you for allowing

me to be here. I think there are definite points of success to point

to at the U.S. interagency Federal Government level and at the

U.S. United Kingdom international level.

My question and concern is, would we have had the same level

of success had the potential terrorist incident, planned-for attack

occurred here in the United States and focused at a less secure sector other than the aviation sector? And my concern is both domestically and internationally we continue to rely on technological solutions rather than human-based outreach solutions.

As my written testimony offered as well, I think the notion of

homeland security as we matured in the past 5 years as well needs

to take a refined look on more involvement with the State and local

communities, rather than a Federal-based approach.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Rollins.

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Mr. Parker.

Mr. PARKER. I think the big message that comes across from the

British experience is that coordination pays dividends. But it comes

with the proviso that it takes time to achieve, and the success that

you saw or what appears to be a success, because we haven’t had

the court case yet, foiling the airplanes plot, is the combination of

15 years of developing a particular system, from the beginning of

the 1990’s. There aren’t any quick fixes, and you have to invest in

a way of pulling people together, and you have to spend an awful

lot of time building on it. Last thing you really want to do is keep

chopping and changing your approach.

So I find myself in the odd position of drifting toward ‘‘stay the

course,’’ actually, and, you know, build stronger links along the

lines that you have at the moment. It is those relationships that

is the investment in institutional and individual personal relationships that will ultimately pay real dividends.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank you all very, very much. And I say to you,

Baroness, not only did we have two of your colleagues from the

Parliament come one time and testify, we invited them to then sit

on the panel with us and question other witnesses. But it is probably the last time I will do it because they were so witty, so intelligent, so much fun that they made us common Members of Congress feel very common; and the expectation from those who heard

the hearing was, why can’t we have more Brits join your committee?

So, at any rate, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be interesting to get

a group of members and allow us to come to Great Britain and participate in a hearing and invite some of you all to do the same and

start to share these ideas. I think it would be kind of—very helpful.

I have learned a lot today, and I do appreciate it. Thank you so

very much.

With that, the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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