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COMBATING TERRORISM: A PROLIFERATION OF

STRATEGIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 3, 2003

Serial No. 108–20

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

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

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

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

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

CHRIS BELL, Texas

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Senior Policy Advisor

THOMAS COSTA, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 3, 2003 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Decker, Raymond, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Team,

U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by Stephen L. Caldwell,

Assistant Director, U.S. General Accounting Office .................................. 12

Gilmore, James S., III, chairman, Advisory Panel to Assess the Domestic

Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction; Michael E. O’Hanlon, senior fellow, foreign policy studies,

the Sydney Stein, Jr. Chair, the Brookings Institution; John Newhouse,

senior fellow, Center for Defense Information; and Andrew F.

Krepinevich, executive director, Center for Strategic and Budgetary

Assessments .................................................................................................. 58

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

Decker, Raymond, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Team,

U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ............................ 15

Gilmore, James S., III, chairman, Advisory Panel to Assess the Domestic

Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, prepared statement of ................................................................. 62

Krepinevich, Andrew F., executive director, Center for Strategic and

Budgetary Assessments, prepared statement of ........................................ 148

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

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 7

Newhouse, John, senior fellow, Center for Defense Information, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 119

O’Hanlon, Michael E., senior fellow, foreign policy studies, the Sydney

Stein, Jr. Chair, the Brookings Institution, prepared statement of ......... 102

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

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

(1)

COMBATING TERRORISM: A PROLIFERATION

OF STRATEGIES

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2003

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 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, Murphy, Janklow,

Kucinich, and Bell.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; R.

Nicholas Palarino, Ph.D., senior policy advisor; Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A. Briggs, clerk; Mackenzie Eaglen,

fellow; David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority

assistant clerk.

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

hearing entitled, ‘‘Combating Terrorism: A Proliferation of Strategies,’’ is called to order.

Almost 2 years before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, far more widely and

succinctly known as the Gilmore Commission, concluded the United

States lacked a coherent, functional national strategy to guide disparate counterterrorism efforts. In testimony before the subcommittee on March 26, 2001, the Commission’s vice chairman said, ‘‘a

truly comprehensive national strategy will contain a high-level

statement of national objectives coupled logically to a statement of

the means used to achieve these objectives.’’

The Bush administration inherited a loose collection of Presidential directives and law enforcement planning documents used as

a strategic framework, but that fragile construct collapsed with the

World Trade Center on September 11th. The brutal nature of the

terrorist threat shattered naive assumptions terrorists would be deterred by geographic, political, or moral borders.

A new strategic paradigm was needed. Containment, deterrence,

reaction and mutually assured destruction no longer served to protect the fundamental security interest of the American people. The

threat demands detection, prevention, and a proactive, preemptive

approach to self-defense.

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To meet the demands of a new, more dangerous world, the executive branch has promulgated strategy statements articulating national goals for various aspects of the war on terrorism. Subordinate to the overarching national security and military strategies,

other plans guide efforts to secure the homeland, combat terrorism

abroad, integrate military response capabilities, combat weapons of

mass destruction, stanch terrorist funding, secure cyberspace and

protect critical national infrastructure.

A strategy famine has given way to a variable feast of high-level

statements of national objectives and tactics to defeat the multifaceted foe that is global terrorism. Today we ask how these strategies link to form the national comprehensive policy recommended

by the Gilmore Commission. Are they dynamic to meet changing

adaptable threats? Do they guide the application of finite resources

to achieve critical objectives? And how do we know if they are

working?

Just as reorganizing the Federal Government to counterterrorism

will take time, reorienting the U.S. long-term strategic mindset will

require sustained effort and hard choices. Some fundamental elements of a fully integrated preparedness and response strategy are

not yet evident. State officials and local first responders are still

waiting to know how much will be expected of them in the event

of a major incident. What capabilities in terms of training and

equipment should be resident at the local level? When and how

should Federal capabilities be brought to bear?

To help us begin our consideration of these important questions

today, we welcome two panels of distinguished witnesses, including

former Governor James Gilmore, chairman of the advisory commission that has been and remains on the forefront of the national debate on combating terrorism. In future hearings, we will hear from

administration representatives and others to address specific elements of the strategic bulwark against terrorism.

We welcome all our witnesses and look forward to their testimony. At this point, the Chair would recognize the distinguished

gentleman, our ranking member, Mr. Kucinich.

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

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would

like to extend a warm welcome to you and everyone connected with

the work of our committee and to let you know that I look forward

to working with you in this session.

Mr. SHAYS. Likewise.

Mr. KUCINICH. As you know, Mr. Chairman, we worked together

in the last Congress to conduct oversight over the administration’s

efforts to secure our country against terrorist attacks. After the

awful events of September 11th, it became more evident than ever

that we needed a rational approach to protecting the American people.

Officials from the U.S. General Accounting Office, who are appearing before us again today, testified that the No. 1 step in

crafting a national strategy was a comprehensive threat and risk

assessment. Before we reorganized ourselves or allocated additional

funding, we needed to understand and to prioritize the true threats

to our Nation.

Mr. Chairman, on October 15, 2001, you and I joined together

and we were accompanied by our counterparts on the full committee, Chairman Burton and Ranking Member Waxman, and the four

of us signed a letter to President Bush. We urged the President to

conduct exactly this type of assessment. In the spirit of bipartisanship, we moved forward and asked the President to use the opportunity of Governor Ridge’s appointment to carefully examine all the

threats we face.

Unfortunately, President Bush was not responsive in regard to

our request. He did not respond to the committee. The administration moved ahead with the new Department of Homeland Security

and produced a new budget, all without taking the initial step of

completing a comprehensive threat, risk, and vulnerability assessment.

What is the result of this? Today’s hearing is aptly entitled, ‘‘A

Proliferation of Strategies.’’ The administration has been proliferating national security strategies, nearly a dozen by my count, without any logical or demonstrable sense of priorities.

This lack of logic and the lack of priorities is exemplified by the

administration’s push for a preemptive attack on Iraq. The administration has not been able to make any kind of a credible connection between Iraq and al Qaeda with regard to September 11th, nor

has the administration produced credible evidence connecting Iraq

and September 11th. Yet the administration is moving ahead with

the preemptive war despite the fact that Iraq poses no imminent

threat to the United States.

This rush to war, in the face of international opposition, threatens to alienate the United States from the international community

at the very moment we need international cooperation to root out

terror. By pushing our Nation and the world to the verge of a historic preemptive attack, we are making America far more dangerous as a place to live.

I would suggest that whatever strategies we are discussing here

must take into account the impact of any preemptive action by the

United States against Iraq, because it’s quite likely that such action, according to reports I’ve heard, Mr. Chairman, from the FBI

that were published in the New York Times, it’s quite likely such

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action could result in more terrorist attacks being directed against

this country. So that’s why it’s important we have this hearing.

This weekend’s capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind behind numerous al Qaeda attacks by Pakistan,

the capture that was effected with the help of Pakistan, once again

demonstrates the great importance of international coalitions and

cooperation in our ongoing efforts to root out the terrorists. The administration’s rush to a historic preemptive war against Iraq, I believe, threatens to isolate our country and alienate allies that we

need in our efforts to disrupt, capture, and dismantle the al Qaeda

network.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

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

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would recognize Mr. Janklow,

former Governor of South Dakota, and then we will recognize Mr.

Murphy from Pennsylvania. This is our first hearing and we’re delighted to welcome both of them. Mr. Janklow, you have the floor.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. And I am

going to be very brief in my comments.

As I had an opportunity to review the strategies that were put

forth by staff, I believe there were eight in number, it becomes

really clear as it’s been suggested, that we have had a proliferation

of strategies enunciated and, at the same time, they are interrelated in certain respects, overlapping in certain respects. What I

think we do lack is one clear overall strategy.

Now that’s really not surprising. Notwithstanding political comments any of us want to make, this President was President for 9

months when the World Trade Center was attacked and we were

subjected to the greatest terrorist attack in the history of this country. As a matter of fact, I believe it was the War of 1812 the last

time that America, in a substantive way, had enemy soldiers within our borders operating.

Be that as it may, this administration inherited no strategic

plans at all; that occasionally cruise missiles would be launched

against some site in Afghanistan at an empty camp to enunciate

some kind of announcement. But other than that, there really

wasn’t any clear cohesive strategy. But the important thing is now

we have thousands of dead people. We have enormous damage to

individuals’ lives, survivors’ lives. We have trauma the likes of

which this country has never known before. We have untold damage to our economy totaling in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

And terrorists have figured out they have the ability to bring

America virtually to a standstill.

Five or six anthrax letters stopped the U.S. Postal Service, and,

for all practical purposes, most of the governments in America,

from being able to function for a period of time. The airlines were

shut down. America’s economy, for all practical purposes, was shut

down.

And so, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your leadership and

working with you and the other Members of the Congress, the administration, and the American people to do what we can to come

up with an overall program, laying out the road map in a very

clear—in very enunciated ways, specifically setting forth what it is

that we are trying to accomplish and the objectives by which we

mean to accomplish that.

I realize when I say that, it is not unlike a play book for a football game; that you go into the football game with a play book and

by the time the second play is called, the other team intercepts

your ball and your play book is back to the drawing board for modification.

But we in this country have about 18,000 law enforcement units

that have never before had to work together in an absolutely coordinated way. In my State of South Dakota, which is one of the

least populated in the Union and one of the largest—as I tell people in my congressional district, it is just slightly smaller than

Great Britain in terms of size; we have 534 fire departments within

the State of South Dakota, over 250 of which are in communities

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of less than 1,000 people. So we can begin to understand the magnitude on a national scale of what it is that we have to deal with

and how we have to address it.

So, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that you have been selected to

be our chairman, with respect to this subcommittee, and look forward to working with you and others as we move forward to try

and get accomplishments done at the speed of light to better protect and secure the American people in this country.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

At this time we will call on Mr. Murphy from Pennsylvania.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I first of all commend

you for calling this hearing. It is very important that if there’s anything that the Government Reform Committee should be doing during this time, it is looking at ways to reform our strategies on national security; to make them more efficient, both in local emergency services, as Congressman Janklow just alluded, but also at

the State and national level. We have to be united in our message,

united in our strategy, and then united in our means of implementing that strategy during a time when people will—and certainly the

terrorists will look for ways to divide us. They are counting on our

short memory of events, although they are burned in our memories

forever. They are counting on Americans to be fickle about their

memories and counting on us to be divisive in our politics as they

watch the news, and they mistake freedom of speech for disunity.

There may be times when this committee and other committees

may have people who do not agree, but I want them to also know

a message that as we iron out ways of making these strategies

more efficient, as we’ll hear from testimony today, these are geared

toward working in a united way to take care of these problems

quickly and efficiently. So I look forward to the hearing, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

We will call our first panel. Our panel is Mr. Raymond Decker,

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Team, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by Stephen Caldwell, Assistant Director of Defense Capabilities and Management. As is our

practice, we will ask you gentlemen to stand and we will swear you

in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlemen. Note for the record that our

witnesses have responded in the affirmative. I think we only have

one statement. That’s from you Mr. Decker, correct?

Mr. DECKER. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. And just let the record note, Mr. Decker, we have

worked with you for many years and we appreciate very sincerely

the work of the GAO and specifically your work. Thank you very

much. And, Mr. Caldwell, nice to have you here as well.

I am going to put the clock for 5 and rotate it another 5, so you

will have 10, and we will go from there.

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STATEMENT OF RAYMOND DECKER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT TEAM, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY STEPHEN L.

CALDWELL, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Mr. DECKER. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to participate in this

important hearing on national strategies relating to combating terrorism.

More than 2 years ago, in July 2000, GAO testified before this

subcommittee on ‘‘Combating Terrorism: The Need for a Strategy.’’

We had just completed our initial review of the Attorney General’s

Five Year Interagency Counterterrorism and Technology Crime

Plan, the closest document to a national strategy at that time, and

commented on its weaknesses. We stated at that time, there should

be only one national strategy to combat terrorism. We indicated

that additional planning guidance providing more detailed information for specific functions should be integrated under this one overarching national strategy in a clear hierarchy.

At that time, Mr. Chairman, you were sponsoring a bill to establish an office that would, among other duties, coordinate a single

integrated strategy.

A lot has happened since then. My testimony today is based upon

GAO’s comprehensive body of work in the area of combating terrorism over the past 6 years at the request of this subcommittee and

others. In our past work, we have stressed the importance of a national strategy to combat terrorism which should serve as a foundation for defining what needs to be accomplished, identifying approaches to achieve desired outcomes, and determining how well

the goals are being met. It should not only define the roles and

missions of the Federal Government and agencies, but also those

of State and local government, the private sector and international

community. Finally, a national strategy must incorporate sound

management principles promoting information sharing and coordination in order to guide effective implementation.

Sir, I’ll focus my comments on two areas, the current national

strategies and their implementation.

During the last year or so, the administration has developed several new national strategies relating to combating terrorism. This

constellation of strategies generally replaces the 1998 Attorney

General’s Five Year Plan I mentioned earlier. We have identified

at least 10 national strategies relating to terrorism; 9 of the 10 are

approximately 14 months or younger; 3 are less than a month old.

As you can see from the chart on my right, which is also on page

11 of the written statement, we have attempted to portray the complex relationships among these various strategies based on our review of the strategies and discussions with executive branch officials. Please note that the National Drug Control Strategy isn’t

shown on the chart since its relationship with combating terrorism

is mentioned in only one or two areas within that strategy. Also,

we are unaware of any national intelligence strategy to combat terrorism tailored to support all of the strategies, although we recognize intelligence and related activities as crucial for their success.

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Overall, the strategies do generally form a national framework

for combating terrorism. Collectively they provide goals and objectives on broad issues of national security and how combating terrorism and homeland security fit into that larger realm. In addition, they offer more detailed goals and objectives in specific functional areas to include military operations, weapons of mass destruction, money laundering, cyber security, and the protection of

physical infrastructure. Although we have not fully evaluated

whether the framework these strategies form is cohesive and comprehensive, there are some positive indications. The strategies are

organized in a general hierarchy; some share themes, and some explicitly refer to the other strategies. They are more comprehensive

in breadth, coverage, and actions needed to combat terrorism than

the Attorney General’s Five Year Plan. And consistent with our

earlier recommendations, the strategies include not just the Federal, but State, local, private, and international partners.

Since the administration has not adopted a single overarching

national strategy to combat terrorism and has stated that the National Security and the National Homeland Security Strategy are

mutually supporting documents, it’s difficult to ascertain the real

hierarchy within its framework that may complicate implementation plans. For example, since different Federal agencies have a

role in many of these strategies, some confusion in setting priorities and developing coordination mechanisms may exist without a

clear understanding of how the strategies are integrated within a

tiered framework.

Therefore, we believe that a better defined hierarchy among the

various strategies is needed. One approach that better explains the

precedence and the interrelationships of the strategies might be

with a basic pyramid configuration. Although some blocks might be

of different shape and size, a pyramid depiction is somewhat easier

to understand for all participants.

For example, might the National Security Strategy of the United

States occupy the top-most position on the pyramid and perhaps

the National Homeland Security Strategy and National Strategy to

Combat Terrorism sharing a tier below.

Mr. Chairman, allow me to briefly comment on implementation.

These national strategies, individually or collectively, no matter

how well crafted, will not prevent terrorism. However, these documents when implemented through intergovernmental, interagency,

and international programs that are seamlessly integrated, effectively coordinated, appropriately resourced, and smartly led will

make the difference in the war on terrorism. While these strategies

must direct and guide programs, it should be noted that the strategies reflect a host of preexisting initiatives that must be reviewed

to ensure proper focus and alignment with newly established goals,

objectives, and actions. A critical element for successful implementation is the need for clearly defined roles and responsibilities for

all players. If the Federal, State, local, private, and international

participants have a thorough understanding of the roles, responsibilities, and capabilities of all involved, then coordination through

established mechanisms is greatly facilitated. Finally, leaders at all

levels must ensure that the implementation process is effectively

and efficiently carried out to achieve goals and objectives within

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the time line set. Using essential tools like risk management to

guide decisionmaking and performance indicators to gauge

progress, leaders will be better able to focus attention and adjust

resources to move closer to goals and end states.

Due to the serious consequences of failure, GAO has designated

the implementation of homeland security as a high-risk Federal

area. This is a product that clearly delineates that challenge. Sir,

the leadership challenge is daunting but not impossible.

In closing, we believe the framework formed by these strategies,

if effectively implemented with the full involvement and commitment of all partners, will result in significant progress toward our

stated goals on the war on terrorism. Congress will play an increasingly important role in addressing the challenges facing this

process. In addition to recently passed legislation, reorganizing the

Federal Government to combat terrorism, and the appropriation of

significant funds to support the war on terrorism, Congress will

need to provide keen oversight through hearings like today to ensure all programs are well designed, developed, and executed to accomplish the national goals. Our success on terrorism depends on

the leadership and actions of the Federal Government and its domestic and international partners.

Sir, this concludes my prepared statement and I will be pleased

to respond to any questions.

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

[The prepared statement of Mr. Decker follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Just for the benefit of new Members here—and first

let me welcome Congressman Chris Bell from Texas, a new member to the committee. We are delighted that you are a member of

this committee. I think you will find the work of this committee

quite meaningful and helpful to your district and our country. At

this time, Mr. Bell, I would be happy to recognize if you would like

to make an opening statement.

Mr. BELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I very much appreciate the opportunity to serve with you on this committee. And

I thank you for calling this hearing on what has obviously become

one of our Nation’s top priorities, finding a way to combat terrorism and securing the homeland. And I would like to thank Mr.

Decker and the others who will be testifying here today and offer

themselves to answer our questions.

I have some questions about the plan, but I will hold off on those

until it becomes my time, but I thank you for the opportunity. And

thanks for your welcoming remarks as well.

Mr. SHAYS. What we usually do in this committee is 10 minutes

if we have two or three members. But what we’ll do is first do a

5-minute round and then we’ll come back and if someone needs to

go over the 5 minutes or wants to do a second round, we’ll do another round. And I have a rusty staff that didn’t turn on the clock

for you, Mr. Decker, but don’t blame the clock. So here we go. Mr.

Decker, I want to ask you to describe in very short terms why a

strategy is important.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, very simply, this strategy is the foundation

piece in which you can go and implement particular plans and actions and make sure that they achieve some type of end state. I

have used strategies, and I think most professionals will look at

them as road maps or concept papers, that give you an idea of

what has to be accomplished, what is in the Nation’s best interest,

and, in a general way, how to go about doing that.

So if you have a good strategy, you’re off to a good start, because

from that you can derive many other vehicles and tools that will

help you do what you need to do.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. You have come before this committee before September 11th, as have all three commissions dealing with

terrorism. And all three, the Gilmore, the Bremmer, the Hart-Rudman Commission, made these three points. They said there’s a new

threat out there. They said you need to develop a new strategy.

And then they said that you need to reorganize your government

accordingly. And I think the only area they disagreed was on the

reorganization of government.

When we encountered an ally in the Soviet Union—former ally

of the Soviet Union becoming our enemy, they wanted to destroy

us politically, socially, economically, as well as militarily, we

brought people in and President Truman and then President Eisenhower—but with President Eisenhower, he brought them into the

White House; and it was basically called the Solarium Project, and

they developed the fact that we needed a new strategy which was

basically one of containment and reactive and mutually assured destruction.

You accept the fact that strategy is no longer viable with today’s

threat?

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Mr. DECKER. Sir, it’s difficult to answer. I don’t think we’ve

done——

Mr. SHAYS. I am not asking you what it should be. It’s not difficult to answer. Is that old strategy going to be effective against

this war on terrorism? This isn’t a trick question.

Mr. DECKER. No, sir. I understand——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me put it this way. Do you agree with all three

Commissions that said we needed a new strategy?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So the answer is, so the old strategy doesn’t work;

correct?

Mr. DECKER. The old strategy may not be as applicable today.

Mr. SHAYS. Would you walk me through—you have eight strategies, it seems to me, not—you have nine strategies not eight, unless I’m misreading it. And I would like to know—you have the National Security Strategy of the United States. Would you be able

to articulate that in a fairly coherent way, as to what that is?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir. The National Security Strategy of the

United States would be the top-most policy-driven piece that explains what’s most important about this Nation’s security from the

international standpoint, from an economic standpoint, and from a

democratic standpoint. It covers all those aspects of what has to be

addressed to ensure our security for our way of life.

Mr. SHAYS. Now you blocked it out in the same size as the National Strategy for Homeland Security. Is it equal to or supersede

the National Strategy for Homeland Security?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, that issue came—it’s confusing to us based on

our reading of the document, the Homeland Security Strategy,

which states that the National Security Strategy and the National

Homeland Security Strategy are mutually supporting documents

and represent the top-most tier of the strategies. In contrast, our

sense would be that there’s only one National Security Strategy for

the United States and that encompasses many issues, to include

the threats we have from terrorism, and that the Homeland Security Strategy and the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism

would be the two component pieces that deal with the problems of

terrorism. And so our position is that it is confusing.

If it’s confusing to us, and we happen to have done quite a bit

of work on this, it might be confusing to other agencies, international partners, and so on as they start to look at specific goals

and objectives.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Kucinich, we are going to do the 5-minute rule the first pass

and 10 the second, and you have the floor.

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

Mr. Decker as you stated, there are perhaps 10 national strategies, more or less, each with overlapping and interrelated functions

and each with a set of priorities. I’m concerned about the administration’s conception of prioritization, however. The strategy has described many broad goals as priorities, but the strategies really

don’t involve any comparison. This is a priority, that’s a priority,

everything’s a priority. But the process of prioritization means

picking which comes first. It means choosing where the money will

go. Is that not correct?

39

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir. Strategy should help guide where you put

resources against specific issues.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me expand on this, if I may, and how they

relate. Can you tell me, from the text of these national strategies,

which is more important; for example, securing our ports or building missile defenses?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I would like to answer that by saying that perhaps the priorities that are articulated in the National Security

Strategy would be the big priorities for the Nation. But when you

get below into the specific strategies with critical infrastructure

protection, cyber issues, it gets a little bit more difficult to determine at that particular level which priorities are more important

between the strategies.

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me help you, then. We know the administration is spending $10 billion this year to defend the United States

or to try to create a defense against a missile carrying a nuclear

warhead, while spending less than a tenth of that amount to prevent nuclear material from entering our ports. Isn’t that right?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I’m not sure of the exact numbers.

Mr. KUCINICH. But you know they’re trying to build a national

missile defense on one hand and—there’s a lot of money going to

that—and on the other hand, there’s concern about protecting the

ports, and only a fraction of the money that is going to the national

missile defense would be going toward the ports; is that correct?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now at the same time, the Central Intelligence

Agency reported in its recent national intelligence estimate that

the threat of a national missile attack is actually less than that of

an attack on our ports. Are you familiar with that public estimate?

Mr. DECKER. National intelligence estimate?

Mr. KUCINICH. Right.

Mr. DECKER. I’m familiar with some. I am not sure which one

you’re referring to.

Mr. KUCINICH. It’s in the national intelligence estimate. The Central Intelligence Agency states that the threat of a missile attack

is actually less than that of an attack at our ports. They’re saying

the ports may require more attention than building a missile defense that may or may not work 10 years from now. Do you have

any comment on that in terms of priorities or how would you explain these anomalies?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, as we stated in previous testimony as well as

the statement today, threat assessments should drive your policies

and your strategies. At the national security strategy level, you

look at all threats and you have to consider what they represent

when you’re trying to defend against them. My sense is that there

are—not just the threat of terrorism, but there are other threats

that the government has to address in different ways to ensure

that we’re prepared, that we can prevent if possible some of these

threats, and, if we’re not able to prevent them, to deal with the

consequences.

Mr. KUCINICH. For example, the administration has not yet been

able to make a case that Iraq represents an imminent threat to the

United States, but there’s a lot of money going into that, to a preemptive strike against Iraq; and on the other hand, there’s not

40

money going for chemical and biological decontamination equipment to our hospitals.

In terms of priorities, what’s your role in trying to be able to calibrate the priorities and compare one against the other to see if

we’re actually putting the money where it needs to be put in order

to provide a measure of security for people in this country?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, we look at the strategies. We really do not critique the priorities per se. We have to assume that the government

when they draft the strategy are using threat assessments and

other tools to help them shape that strategy. And if they say that

the strategy will have four goals or four priorities and here is the

list of those priorities, we look at those in general way to ensure

that do they make sense and is the rest of the implementation driven by those priorities.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the Chair and just point out that

in connection with this discussion that the administration appears

to be ready to spend about $500 billion in Iraq, but so far there’s

only about $36 billion that is being offered for securing our own

country.

Mr. SHAYS. We’ll have disagreements on numbers, but we’ll proceed.

Here we go, Mr. Janklow.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Decker, let me ask you, if I can, the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, the Money Laundering Strategy, the Strategy to

Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Strategy for Homeland

Security, the Strategy Plan for the War on Terrorism, the Strategy

for Combating Terrorism, the Strategy for Cyberspace, the Strategy

for Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructure, and the National

Security Strategy of the United States—that list that was prepared—do you know any of those that, standing alone, aren’t important? You agree they’re all important.

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir. I think they have elements that are in a

collective sense important.

Mr. JANKLOW. Am I correct, sir, that a part of your testimony

was we’re really not sure at this point in time that we have been

able to effectively tie them all together into one comprehensive

super-strategy, if I can call it that—I hate to keep using the word

strategy—or policy or plan or whatever characterization you want

to give; but we really haven’t been able to effectively tie that into

one set of documents yet, have we?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, if I can paraphrase. If we looked at these 10

strategies, albeit the National Drug Control Strategy is a very

small piece—and this may not be the total list by the way, this is

what we have come across—they represent a collage, if you will, on

the government’s attempt to deal with combating terrorism from a

very broad look on the national level down to a more focused, when

you are talking about money laundering or weapons of mass destruction.

Our sense is that because we haven’t had time—some of these

literally came out within the last couple of weeks, our sense is they

may not all be wired and cross-walked or integrated in a way that,

if you are that executive, in a Federal agency or a Governor or comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pany or a CEO, that the pieces that really touch you, that you may

have an important role, you may not be able to tease that out.

Mr. JANKLOW. Two other things. One, we can’t minimize, I think,

the whole question of drugs given the number of revelations that

have been made over the past couple of years of the number of terrorist organizations that utilize drugs to raise money for their purposes. So clearly that has a role in this, No. 1. And, two, what are

the institutional forces, what are the philosophical forces that prevent our country from sitting down and coming up with a master

strategic plan that’s debated and then becomes the plan, albeit it

may be modified at times; but what’s preventing us from coming

up with a plan? Why do we have to keep issuing new documents.

There isn’t any human being that can follow all these.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I would agree with you. The National Security

Council, on behalf of the President, has responsibility to craft these

strategies.

Mr. JANKLOW. What is your sense that is preventing this from

happening? It can’t be Republican-Democrat politics. Is it the bureaucracy or just our inability to understand it? What is it that’s

preventing this from happening?

Mr. DECKER. First, I think it’s a pretty complex issue. And when

you look at the partners that are involved, it makes it extremely

hard to craft, when you talk about the role of the Federal Government, State, local, the private sector and the international, and

some of that domain you control and some of it you do not control.

And it becomes extremely hard when you’re, say, with a task force

that’s charged to build a document that has the ability to accomplish—you know, to set clear goals and objectives that are achievable.

Mr. JANKLOW. It wasn’t that hard during World War II after

Pearl Harbor. Why is it so difficult now?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I don’t have a good answer for you. I think part

of it may be if you look at the new Department of Homeland Security, the challenge that Governor Ridge is going to have blending

22 agencies, 170,000 people. I heard a comment that one of the

major issues with some of the agencies was trying to determine

perhaps what color uniform would be used by all.

Mr. JANKLOW. God bless America.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time, the Chair would recognize Congressman Bell from

Texas.

Mr. BELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I understand

that the documents that you provided us today are intended, or I

assume they’re intended to offer a road map, if you will, from

where we are trying to go in this area in the war against terrorism

and overall national security. And in looking at the road map, a

couple of questions come to mind, some of them were already

touched on by my colleague, Mr. Kucinich, in terms of port security. And I think, and I want to be clear that you agree with the

premise that—well, the suggestion has been made that a terrorist

organization would be much more likely to smuggle a nuclear device into the United States via one of our ports rather than launching some kind of missile attack. Would you agree with that

premise?

42

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I think the Intelligence Community and law enforcement community would probably agree with that, and I think

that is more realistic.

Mr. BELL. And if you take that into consideration—and you

didn’t touch on specifics, but my understanding is that the budget

proposal seeks over $9 billion for missile defenses, while seeking

less than $1 billion for port security. And coming from Houston,

TX, where we have the second largest port in the Nation, that’s of

obvious concern, and I am curious about the reason for that disconnect.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I think the government tries to ensure that the

priorities are set right and that the resources to work on those priorities is also linked. And this has to be driven by threat assessment. I don’t have a reason, an answer to give you, why there’s a

difference between missile defense and port security. Why would

there be a difference, you know, between first responder training

issues, you know, and a vaccine? It’s kind of like apples and oranges, if you will, and we are not privileged to understand some

of the reasoning behind——

Mr. BELL. Let me interrupt, because it’s not completely apples

and oranges, because you all are setting the priorities. And if you

already said that port security is a priority—and I realize there’s

not going to be a direct match-up in terms of dollars, but that’s a

pretty significant disparity when you’re looking at $9 billion compared to less than $1 million, and really looking at the same kind

of threat. I’m sure it is more expensive to develop missile defense

systems, but that seems like a paltry sum to be spending on port

security. And when you view a port like the Port of Houston, and

travel the waterway and see what a daunting task it is to try and

protect that amount of shoreline, it is obvious there’s a tremendous

amount of expense involved. And if the administration is not willing to make a more serious commitment to it, then it’s just going

to go unprotected.

Do you see any possibility for change or for it to be addressed

further in the future?

Mr. DECKER. You addressed one of the key issues we stated before, in that there’s going to be an awful lot of vulnerabilities. Governor Ridge, in his new responsibilities, is going to have to do a

balancing act with the resources and the people to address the various concerns that he will be handling as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Above him, the President is concerned

about many threats and issues; and again, there’s not enough funding, resources, or energy to cover all the vulnerabilities to this

great Nation, so it comes down to making leadership decisions.

Those have to be driven by information. Some of it perhaps we are

privileged to know and see.

Mr. BELL. Can you touch on the coordination issue for just a moment as to who is going to be overseeing all of this, because that’s

a rather significant question as well.

Mr. DECKER. You’re talking about the coordination——

Mr. BELL. Well, all of these various efforts that we have been

presented with today.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I suspect the newly formed committees of Congress will have direct oversight, particularly when you’re talking

43

about homeland security. But when you deal with some of the more

specific strategies, they touch a lot of different activities particularly here on the Hill.

The money laundering, I think the Banking Committee will be

involved with aspects of that. When you talk about the National

Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, the House and

Senate Armed Services. Within the administration, this is—again,

the oversight on whether these organizations are performing is

probably going to be driven to a certain degree by the heads of the

different agencies tasked to perform the duties under these different strategies. And the President and his team will have to determine are all the agencies and departments that are being

tasked, are they coming together in a way that makes sense. And

they will report this out, by the way, through their annual report

to Congress on the results.

Mr. BELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. It’s not my attempt at all—I’m sorry, Mr. Murphy.

Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your service on this committee, and sorry I got so eager. I didn’t want to leave you out.

Mr. MURPHY. I appreciate you noticing me.

Mr. SHAYS. You have an extra minute because I simply blew it.

Mr. MURPHY. You know, as I look upon this chart and as I read

the many parts here, I’m reminded of the book and also now the

movie, ‘‘Gods and Generals,’’ which featured a lot of Stonewall

Jackson, and he described his strategy with the enemy as ‘‘mystify,

mislead and surprise.’’

I have to think in looking at this, any domestic and foreign enemies would look at this and they don’t know how to make sense

of this system, although I am sure it makes sense to someone, and

I appreciate it has come out of a comprehensive look of setting

many, many goals to combat terrorism.

But just a couple of questions and we can get into more specifics

another time as to how this is done, but the key feature I see in

this is communication. Can you describe to us how communication

is set up between these strategies; for example, same agencies, different agencies, same people, different people? And I put that in

the context of what we found in post-September 11th and as described by the folks up here, the difficulty in communicating between how many police forces did you say in this Nation—18,000

police forces, it’s pretty massive—and how those strategies work at

that communication to improve upon that?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, let me make a comment or two and then I

would like to ask my colleague Steve Caldwell to address that.

First off, most of the strategies are under the aegis of the National

Security Council and many of the task forces, the working groups

that were put together, and most—this is post-September 11th although several of these strategies are pre-existing before September 11th and have been readjusted to consider the impact of terrorism. Different working groups representing different agencies, departments, and sometimes it’s the same person that may flow between some working groups—normally it’s not—but there are some

key members, participants that are the same. And they are given

a charge, if you will, to work and build a particular document.

Sometimes an agency will be given the lead for the document, pullVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
44

ing in expertise from different agencies and departments as needed. So the partnerships that are developed on these working groups

vary quite a bit depending upon the issue.

I’ll ask Mr. Caldwell if he can provide a little bit more elaboration on that because some of these obviously are very tailored

and some of them are very broad.

Mr. CALDWELL. Thank you. In terms of the coordination in general—and this will address one of the earlier questions as well—

there’s really two major mechanisms for coordinating here.

On the domestic side, you’ve got the Office of Homeland Security

at the level above the individual agencies, you’ve got the Department of Homeland Security now, interagency working groups, and

some of these interagency working groups actually work putting

these plans together. And then you’ve got at the individual agency

level lead agencies which then have other cases where agencies

would support them, and in a few cases, for example, money laundering, there may be a little bit of confusion about who is the lead

agency when you’ve got, say, Treasury and Justice both cited as

leads in the National Money Laundering Strategy. And that’s pretty much the domestic side.

On the overseas side you have the National Security Council,

and within that you have interagency groups as well. For example,

they had a specific interagency working group to come up with

strategies here, the National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism.

Then, again, you’ve got the lead agency concept.

Then you have the other partners, I’ll call them. Those are within just the Federal family. The big challenges, as several of you

have alluded to, on the domestic side is dealing with the State and

local governments and the hundreds of fire departments just within

a single State, as well as the 50 States and all of their subdivisions

in the State and local level.

And then, of course, on the international side, you have the international community where you’re dealing with other countries,

you’re dealing with international organizations and things like

that.

Now, the key is to keep the international side of our coordination

mechanism and our domestic side of the coordination mechanism

talking to each other, and I think if you look at the two top-level

strategies for both of those—actually, I think within the two plans

there is a good deal of commonality.

For example, in what we’ll call the overseas strategy, the National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism, there is an explicit objective to implement the other strategy, the National Strategy for

Homeland Security. So I think those two strategies we look at as

the top-level strategies, one being offensive and overseas, one being

domestic and defensive under the top of the pyramid, as Mr. Decker said, which would be the National Security Strategy.

I’m sorry if our chart is a little bit mystifying. Hopefully the

enemy finds it that way. But this is how the administration had

portrayed those two strategies as being side by side, the National

Security Strategy and the National Strategy for Homeland Security. But as Mr. Decker said, we see the National Strategy for

Homeland Security as being maybe a coequal with the National

45

Strategy for Combatting Terrorism, one being offensive, one defensive; one domestic, one overseas.

And then the other strategies, a lot of them are really kind of

functional strategies within that. So we do see some kind of hierarchy among these plans. Thank you.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I yield back my time.

Mr. SHAYS. I want to just go through—and we’re going to have

a 10-minute cycle here. I’m not saying that Members don’t have to

use the 10 minutes, but I do want to make sure we cover some

things, and if we cover them—and I know my colleagues may want

to do that as well.

I want to ask you four basic questions that I want on the record

that are part of your statement. I want to know what are the essential components of a successful national strategy. That is one of

the questions I want. I want to know are these found within the

eight Bush administration strategies to combat terrorism. So that

is my first question.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, we would look for several key elements within

a national level strategy. Obviously one of the most important

things would be a vision, a mission statement, clear goals and objectives, roles and responsibilities delineated, a general scheme of

how to accomplish some of this, and then some performance measurement issues so that you can measure your progress.

There also should be, when you talk about the mission and up

in the vision statement, a sense of end state.

Mr. SHAYS. What—I’m not clear whether you have attempted to

grade all of these eight strategies, and this is National Security

Strategy, National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism, the homeland security, combatting weapons of mass destruction national

strategy, the National Money Laundering Strategy, securing cyberspace, the physical protection of critical infrastructure. All of these,

have you attempted to evaluate and give a grade of whether it

meets the test of a good strategy?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, let me answer the question without grades. I

would say some of the strategy documents are well written. They

have most of the prerequisite pieces that we would expect, and this

is for implementation purposes.

The National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism is very well

written, has an excellent threat assessment linkage with why

you’re doing what you’re trying to do.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m not going to ask you with my time to go through

each one. I just want to know——

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir. I was just going to give you the field goals,

if you would.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. That is fair.

Mr. DECKER. The one that I think I would send back to redo or

review would be the Strategy for Combatting Weapons of Mass Destruction. I believe it is only eight pages in length. It really doesn’t

do the issues that need to be done about the principles. It does talk

about some focus areas and the roles and responsibilities. It is

quite academic.

Mr. SHAYS. Have you seen—even those that are basically classified, you’ve gone through these strategies as well, correct?

46

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. I would like you to look at each one based on

how you describe what a good strategy is, and I would like you to

provide a document to this committee that we’ll distribute to both

sides, obviously, outlining on each of those tests how they measure

up. OK?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. How will we know if the strategies are effective? I

want to know what performance measures are planned to gauge

the effectiveness of the strategies, and to what extent is the absence of a terrorist attack validation that our strategies have been

successful?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, a strategy by itself, as I indicated, is just a document. It should have some pieces that would help guide the implementation. The performance measures to gauge the progress of

whether you’re succeeding against the war on terrorism by and

large, are still under development.

We approach the performance and progress against the war on

terrorism a little bit differently, and we would—we know how hard

this is for people to wrestle with, but if you consider the war

against terrorism or on terrorism much like the war on poverty, or

the war on crime, you may never succeed in eliminating it totally.

What you do have in the interim, you have positive operational

events that lead to larger positive outcomes.

For instance, when you eliminate the leadership of a terrorist

group, or you freeze their financial assets or you reduce the safe

havens that they enjoy, you have accomplished quite a bit that will

lead to an even greater outcome, which means perhaps less—fewer

attacks of significant measure.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

In regards to—I’m basically asking a question that relates to the

first but are there aspects of combating terrorism that are overlooked or any holes in these strategies. I’m looking for the gaping

ones, not the final ones, and you started to do it with one response,

but when you look at these eight strategies, where do you see the

holes?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, that links back into the review that we will do,

looking at the integration to see where are those true fabrics. When

I asked the team to take a look at that, we did not come up with

any particular gap, except for the one on intelligence.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. How can the NSC, the National Security Council, more effectively coordinate the implementation and oversight of

the eight national strategies? Is the Office of Homeland Security

coordinating and implementing the national strategies? Those are

my two questions. Do you want me to repeat them?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir, if you could paraphrase it just——

Mr. SHAYS. I want to know how can the NSC more effectively coordinate the implementation and oversight of the eight national

strategies?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I think the first step would be to better articulate how they all relate to each other and put it in a way that everyone—from the Secretary of the department down to a GS–7—

can understand how they are in some type of precedence.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s Congressman Janklow’s basic concern.

47

Mr. DECKER. Sir, that would be No. 1. Then once that is done,

then you have better success of trying to tease out whether some

of the implementation is really being effective and efficient and

how it’s being done.

My sense is that—and my team, I give them a lot of credit—they

looked at all the strategies. They talked to a lot of smart people,

and they asked during one meeting at the senior level, has the executive branch come up with a schematic, a graphic depiction of

this? And they said, it’s too hard. They had not.

As far as we know, this is the only depiction of how these kind

of hook together, and obviously it’s not perfect, and it’s very confusing.

Mr. SHAYS. Now, the one strategy that you added, your ninth

strategy, is the National Military Strategy. So that’s what you

added there.

The one area—I think that Mr. Kucinich and I disagree on some

statistics and numbers, and I happen to believe that preemptive is

absolutely essential. I believe that Iraq represents an imminent

threat, not something that’s way off in the future. But the area

where we do agree is that before September 11th we talked about

what various commissions said, and particularly the Hart-Rudman

said there needs to be a Department of Security. In that Department of Homeland Security, when I mentioned it to constituents

before September 11th, they said, what are we, Great Britain? It

seemed like a foreign thing.

Then September 11th happens. The President believes that he

can deal with this issue with a coordinator. A lot of my Democratic

colleagues and a few Republicans, and I was one of them, said we

need something more significant, we need a Department of Homeland Security, and he ended up, I think, coming around to where

most Democrats were.

But the one area that Mr. Kucinich and I think had some real

problems was that while we knew we needed to reorganize, we

never felt that the strategy—the threat was properly described. We

think it was more on an intuitive response, and that the strategy

was never fully described, and I want to be fair to Mr. Kucinich,

but I think on these two issues, we thought that should happen.

The difference is I felt we needed to get this Department moving,

and I think this is still a work in progress.

So I’m happy we have a Department, but I am concerned that

the administration didn’t really state in a sufficient way what the

threat was and what our strategy was to then begin this Department of Homeland Security.

I’m delighted you’re here. I’ll be recognizing other Members, and,

Mr. Kucinich, I’ll start with you.

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

National Security Strategy of the United States of America,

homeland security, physical protection of critical infrastructure and

key assets.

Sir, do you see the quandary which arises when preemption

could actually be counterproductive to assuring the security of the

United States of America, our home?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I can only answer that the executive branch,

the President has a lot of challenges he has to address, and these

48

strategies do address significant issues that the administration is

trying to deal with.

Mr. KUCINICH. I’m going to read from the National Security

Strategy: The United States has long maintained the action of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction, and

the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and

place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile

acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act

preemptively.

I think to have this hearing without discussing Iraq would be inappropriate, because we are talking about a preemptive action

against Iraq, and if the administration—and I’m happy to have any

Member—I’ll gladly yield to any Member who can articulate a case

which says that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons, has biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction that are usable, has

missiles with the potential to strike at this country, has the intention to do so, because I haven’t seen anything on the public record

which indicates a case for preemptive action, and yet the day before our vote on the Iraq resolution, the Central Intelligence Agency in a letter to Senator Graham indicated that there did not appear to be an intention on the part of Iraq to attack the United

States. The New York Times last Sunday had a story that indicated that a preemptive attack on the part of the United States

against Iraq could result in terrorism being visited upon our

shores.

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentleman like to yield? I’d be happy to

jump——

Mr. KUCINICH. Sure, Mr. Chairman. I have a great respect for

you, and I think that this would be an excellent opportunity for a

colloquy on this, because I’m having trouble for understanding

what the basis for preemptive action is.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I think, frankly, it stems from a lot of the work

in this committee. We know that Saddam Hussein had a viable

chemical and biological program before the war in the Gulf. We

didn’t know that he had a viable nuclear program, but he did. We

knew that he had a viable chemical and biological program after

the war in the Gulf. We didn’t know at the time that he had a nuclear program until we had a defector who came before this committee and told us that our intelligence community said there is no

program and didn’t accept his name or that he was in charge of it.

We then discovered where the nuclear program was when his

two sons-in-law came to Jordan. They were debriefed. I spoke with

one of the briefers. We were immediately able to send our colleagues the inspectors to those sites. They uncovered the nuclear

program. So we had a clear one then. We destroyed the systems

that he had, and then when we started to talk to the men and

women who were making those chemical, biological, nuclear programs, Saddam became very belligerent. He started to threaten the

inspectors, and we withdrew them. The fact is that he had one before the war, he had one after the war, and he kicked us out when

we started to tear out the roots, not just destroy the weapon systems.

49

So I really think that the burden is on Saddam to explain to us

what he did with those programs and what he did with the people.

He hasn’t done that, and section 1441 makes it very clear he needs

to cooperate with the inspectors, and he needs to disarm. He has

not done either the disarming or the cooperation.

Just to give you another example, just finding the empty canisters, the rockets that were empty, we had testimony in our committee that made a point that you don’t load your weapon system

with a chemical. You do it just before. Hans Blix pointed out they

were in a new facility.

I could keep going. I don’t know how much longer you want to

yield to me, but our testimony before this committee was that we

know he has a nuclear program. Our allies know he has a nuclear

program. Our opponents know he has a nuclear program. The question is do we wait until he actually has the weapons-grade material? We had testimony before this committee that pointed out the

weapons-grade material is the size of a softball if it is plutonium—

excuse me, the size of a baseball if it is plutonium, the size of a

softball——

Mr. KUCINICH. So you are saying based on that we should launch

an attack against him?

Mr. SHAYS. No. I’m saying that he is within months potentially

of getting nuclear weapons, and I don’t even think Jimmy Carter

would allow Saddam Hussein to have nuclear weapons. So your description to me is answered by that, but I could go on.

Mr. KUCINICH. Wait. But this is—and I appreciate the Chair

being willing to engage in this colloquy, because we need to explore

the ambiguities which exist. It is ambiguous that Saddam Hussein

has nuclear capability right now. I think that actually it’s less than

ambiguous. He has no nuclear capability at this moment. According

to information that has been made public from our own government, he’s at least 10 years away from developing any nuclear capability. However, North Korea, North Korea at this very moment,

North Korea is mentioned in a number of these security documents, and North Korea has the nuclear capability and is actually

rattling a nuclear saber, yet no one is talking about a preemptive

attack on North Korea.

Mr. SHAYS. There’s a reason.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I think you’re right, there is a reason, and the point is that if we are able to use diplomacy in dealing

with North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, which is rattling a

nuclear saber, we can do the same thing with Iraq which doesn’t

have nuclear weapons, even if they have a program that might not

be viable for 10 years.

I want to add to this——

Mr. SHAYS. Could the gentleman just yield?

Mr. KUCINICH. Of course, Mr. Chairman. I think this is important that this debate take place.

Mr. SHAYS. Our CIA didn’t even know he had a program and denied any program. It was not until we had a defector and his two

sons-in-law pointed out that he had a very active program. It was—

so your comment about the CIA suggesting or someone suggesting

that 10 years away, we had testimony before our committee that

50

said it could be 6 months away. So, I mean, this very

committee——

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I would respectfully suggest that

the Central Intelligence Agency, however its defects, is vastly more

equipped to make an assessment of the capabilities of another government than would be a defector whose very presence in a committee room suggests that there’s some political motive to his participation.

Now, I want to add this, and that is—and just for the record, I

think that the Chair has made a case that inspections worked to

destroy weapons, and that’s actually what’s going on right now.

The inspections worked in the past to destroy Saddam Hussein’s

weaponmaking capability, and the U.N. inspectors are working to

continue to do that right now. And all that I’m saying, Mr. Chairman, you know, with due respect, because I have the greatest respect for you, is that this doctrine of preemption, it doesn’t appear

that Iraq measures up to what would be the basis for preemptive

action, that they haven’t met that level, and on the other hand,

North Korea presents a greater challenge, and I would not advocate a preemptive attack against North Korea, but I’d be less inclined to advocate one against Iraq, because it hasn’t met the test,

which would be the threshold of the national security doctrine of

preemption.

And a final point here on this, and that is that inasmuch as the

Federal Bureau of Investigation has had officials who have indicated a concern that an attack in Iraq would bring about terrorism

to our shores, would create lone wolf attacks inside the United

States, then we have to make an assessment whether this doctrine

of national security runs actually—calling for preemption runs actually contrary to this doctrine which calls for homeland security.

And, Mr. Decker, it goes back to the earlier question I asked you,

and that is we are prepared to spend—depending on the estimate—

Lawrence Lindsey’s estimate, $200 billion, Professor Northouse of

Yale, anywhere from $99 billion to over $1 trillion for a war

against Iraq, a preemptive strike, occupation, reconstruction, all

that money involved, and yet we’re not devoting anywhere near the

amount of money to secure our borders, our ports against the kind

of attack which the FBI says is more likely if the United States

launches a preemptive attack.

So do you have any comment on that? I mean, in your work, do

you get a sense of proportion or priorities or anything like that, or

are you just counting beans? What are you doing?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I really can’t comment on what you’ve just

raised. I don’t count beans. I look at issues, try to ensure that these

strategies make sense in the implementation, and that they have

the right component pieces to allow success.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Now, I raise this point, Mr. Chairman—I

know my time is expired. I’ll make it quick. You would think that

these strategies would be integrated. I mean, I would think that’s

optimum, to have the strategies integrated. It would seem to me

that an integrated strategy said that if you had to use preemption,

that would then be in the defense of our home; however, if you see

the possibility that the use of one strategy might run counter to another strategy, it’s an opportunity for discussion.

51

I want to thank the Chair for engaging in this discussion. Thank

you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman for his yielding to me.

At this time, Mr. Janklow, I’d love to ask if you would yield a

second.

Mr. JANKLOW. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Just to put on the record, we may be looking at the FBI data

slightly differently. The FBI data that I’ve seen basically has said

we will have terrorist attacks whether or not there is interaction

with Iraq, and that potentially, if anything, they may just wait, but

the attacks will still come.

We’re not going to respond to the blackmail of Iraq, and I just

wanted to make sure that I corrected for the record the number.

I think it’s very legitimate to raise some real questions about the

amount of money that the military action will take, but the rebuilding of Iraq, it’s very clear, the administration said will be

spent on Iraqi oil for the Iraqi people. We are feeding them—the

people have been starving; giving them medical help—the people

hadn’t been getting the medical help. And I just want to point out

that expense, which will not be small, will be paid for by the 10

percent of the world’s oil owned by the Iraqi people, just to make

sure that’s part of the record.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, other members of the committee, I hear people all

the time using data to run figures around and the comment that

there’s some professor that thinks the war—a prospective war

would cost $1 trillion. That professor must be in the English department writing fiction and couldn’t possibly be a person that understands anything about the current world events.

You know, some people make the suggestion that in the event

that there were to be a war with Iraq, that America is going to be

attacked by terrorists. I don’t know what America did to become

the recipients of the World Trade Center incidents. I clearly don’t

know what we did to precipitate the individual that was coming

down from Canada that was apprehended at the border with the

attempt to blow up things in our country. I don’t know what we

did to encourage the individual to get on the airplane and fly

across the ocean with explosives in his shoes so he would try to

blow up an airliner. I don’t know what we did to precipitate the

Cole incident where they blew up one of our ships in Yemen, but

maybe someone could explain that to me at some point in time, and

I won’t be quite so ignorant on the subject as I apparently am right

now.

But, Mr. Decker, if I can go back to questions with you, I’m really concerned about the fact that all these documents are well

honed. People that sit and write them put a lot of thought and effort into them, but they do it in somewhat of an isolation within

the sphere where they’re working, and they’re not looking at the

big picture.

You know, it’s going to be terribly difficult in this country to

come up with an overall strategy, because of the nature of our Federal system, because of the nature of the way that this country is

52

structured and the division of responsibility and how we operate.

In any State, the Governor thinks that he or she is the chief ultimate law enforcement official. The mayor of the city knows he or

she is. The chief of police really knows it’s in their department,

until you talk to the sheriff who says, it’s my jurisdiction, and the

State’s attorney says, no, you’re all wrong, it’s my jurisdiction. The

county commission thinks that they have it, and we sit around

complaining about the way the Federal agencies try and interact

with each other.

Given the fact that these documents are drafted within the political system, where no matter what you do, someone is going to pick

on you for not having done the right thing, for not having given the

right emphasis to something, for not having given the right focus,

wouldn’t it be helpful if this was—there was legislation passed that

basically mandated an overall document, if I could call it that, an

overall strategy, that once it’s prepared by the executive branch,

then will be picked apart, critiqued and analyzed by the American

people, by all of the various special interests, and by the Congress,

so that we can respond to it, because the way we’re doing it now,

we’re never—do you think we’re ever going to bring it together into

one structure, given the way our system operates?

I realize that’s a compound question, but I think y’all—by the

nodding of my head, you understand what I’m getting at, sir.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, let me break your question into two parts. One

had to do with what legislation is needed, to pull this together to

make sure it’s integrated. The second part is whether this is mission impossible?

Regarding the first part, we’ve not done enough of the work that

we have to look at—we know it’s confusing, but where are the true

gaps in the integration of all these strategies, and does it make

sense to have one overarching national strategy to combat terrorism with key component pieces.

Mr. JANKLOW. Do you think it does?

Mr. DECKER. Well, I think what we did determine—I think

there’s a merit to having one strategy. However, if you look at that

one strategy and break it in two parts, like Mr. Caldwell mentioned, you have a homeland security piece, and you have the overseas combating terrorism piece. They represent the domestic and

international sections, if you will. Those two component pieces, in

my view, could be very nicely crafted into one combating terrorism

strategy with, obviously, the homeland security piece.

When you talk about money laundering, weapons of mass destruction, cyber and critical infrastructure protection and those

issues, those are more functional, strategies that would dovetail

into not just those two combating terrorism strategies, but perhaps

even some larger issues. For instance, the cyber—protection of critical infrastructure and the cyber piece, you have threats that come

from other countries, you know, not just from terrorist groups. So

that has to be a broader strategy to deal with things that come out

of the National Security Strategy.

When I talk about a pyramid, this is not a pyramid with nicely

shaped, equal-sized boxes and blocks that would look really pretty.

This might be, you know, a hybrid, if you will, of an Egyptian pyramid, a Mayan pyramid and some other type——

53

Mr. JANKLOW. But, sir, if we do that, if I can interrupt you for

a minute, if we have all these different structures, how is anybody

ever going to comprehend it? Who could pass the test on what it

all says and what it all means? Who is going to figure it out?

Mr. DECKER. Well, that’s why there’s a crosswalk that hasn’t

happened, at least in our view, and that crosswalk, one of the indications we can tell—meaning has this document, this strategy,

been linked into this other strategy—some of these key goals, objectives and references to this is a support piece for this other strategy, and we’ve only seen that in one or—you know, a couple of the

strategy documents.

There was one revealing anecdote that my team mentioned. During an interview with a department, they were talking to a detailee

from another major department that plays in combating terrorism,

and the mention was, did you know about this strategy which came

from the detailee’s parent department. He had no idea that strategy was even being drafted.

Mr. JANKLOW. But isn’t that always going to be the case the way

we’re doing it?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. JANKLOW. So we need another method. This one has proven

to create a lot of nice documents, but they’re not—they may be

interrelated, but they’re not coordinated, and if people are never

going to figure it out——

Mr. DECKER. Well, I’ll say they’re not integrated. That’s for sure.

And if you have problems with integration with the documents,

you’re going to definitely have problems with coordination and——

Mr. JANKLOW. We talk about integrated working groups, integrating working groups. Just the mere fact that we’ve got to bring

all these working groups together, you know, somebody once said

that God so loved the world, He didn’t send a committee, and this

is what we’re dealing with with all these interagency working

groups all the time. When one member of the group quits and goes

and gets another job, you’ve got to start all over again in bringing

people up to speed.

Isn’t there a better way to do it? When there was the old NATO

and the new NATO, there was a Supreme Allied Commander.

There was a person who was in charge. The military is a great

model for this pyramid of getting things done, albeit they have difficulty dealing sometimes with the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps coordinating, far less today than they used to because

the decision was made to really integrate these things into one operating sphere.

Please tell me, if you can, why can’t this be done with our National Security Strategy as it pertains to terrorism?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I think it can be done, and that’s the role of

leadership, the President, the National Security Adviser getting the

team together and making sure that this constellation of strategies

can be understood.

Mr. JANKLOW. Without bringing in ego, is this a job for the executive branch, or is it a job for the legislative branch?

Mr. DECKER. Well, I think legislation of some sort may be very

useful in coming to closure on this issue. The actual degree, the

mandating of what that language would be, I think I’d have to

54

think about that. The pressure, I mean, through our oversight, I

mean, having someone from the executive branch explain why this

cannot or is not being integrated or what would it take to integrate

would be very useful.

Mr. SHAYS. I might say that the gentleman’s time is up, but we

certainly will make sure that the administration is, in fact, represented and testifies before the committee to point out how they’re

going to be integrating these; all of them being very important

strategies, but how are they integrated? And I thank the gentleman for his questions.

At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Bell for 10 minutes.

Mr. BELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think I share some of my colleagues’ frustration in that there

does seem to be somewhat of a grab-bag approach to fighting the

war on terrorism. It’s everybody’s responsibility, and then at the

end of the day if something happens, where are we to look? Who

is responsible?

And I want to take just one area, one of the strategies, and that

is the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, because in looking

at the document that was provided, the public-private partnership

has suggested it will be again sort of everybody’s responsibility, the

Federal Government, the private sector, State governments, local

officials. Who is going to be responsible for implementing the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, let me direct that question to Mr. Caldwell.

Mr. CALDWELL. Let me answer your question. In terms of the

cyberspace, we have difficulties in a lot of these areas, because

we’ve created a new department. There are incredible challenges

ahead for this department, and the infrastructure protection is one

of those responsibilities that has now shifted even within the Federal Government from the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board to a Cabinet-level department, and it has a division

within there that would look at those kinds of issues.

And the problem that you were talking about in terms of the private partnerships, the partnerships with State and local governments as well, I mean, these are just things we’re going to have

to get used to in terms of the Federal system we live in, and the

sovereignty and autonomy of our State governments, and the autonomy we give to the private sector, and rightly so. I don’t think

we want to change some of our basic precepts here in terms of

what should be private and public in government and what

shouldn’t, because of these other things. I think that there are incentives, and government will use the normal incentives it always

uses to try to get the private sector to do things, to do either taxation, revenue, subsidization, other types of partnership that—to

try to get the government to—or the private sector to——

Mr. BELL. And that’s fine. Let me interrupt, because that’s all

well and good, but at the end of the day somebody has to be responsible, and it needs to make sense, and it needs to be logical.

And the area of cyberspace, if you’re to believe the story in the

Washington Post, and it appeared to be quite credible, that appeared several weeks ago, the Department of Defense is in the

process of engaging in massive plans and having regular discussions about the ethics involved in cyberwarfare and mounting a

55

giant cyberwar effort, if you will. It seems that it would make

sense that the Department of Defense would actually—or would

also head up the effort to decide how to best guard against

cyberwarfare in this country. Those who are developing the offense,

it seems logical, would be in a pretty good position to also design

a defense. Does that not make sense to you?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir, it does, and, in fact, I believe in the

cyberdefense area, there are quite a few participants that are in

the Federal area, some in the State, local, private. Some of the different institutions are involved. There are national security issues.

There are criminal issues. There are terrorism issues. There are

private citizen issues. I mean, there are a lot of participants in

that.

One comment I would make with what Mr. Caldwell said about

the strategy. When we looked at the strategy, there are some

things that are directed, and then there are some things that are

hoped, that are less—more of a voluntary nature, and my sense is

that when you’re dealing with Federal, State, local, private sector,

international partners, it’s a very delicate walk between what you

can direct and what you hope will be the outcome of voluntary participation. I think that’s one of the challenges with the critical infrastructure piece and the cyber piece is people have to be willing

to agree with your strategy and maybe the investment in those

areas that they have to allow for this comprehensive security

framework. That’s going to be the real big challenge.

I heard this when I was out in California last year, talking to

an audience of people that were involved with the port authority

at Los Angeles and Long Beach. The issue was how much funding

was the Federal Government going to give to help on port security.

There were partners in there from the union, from private owners,

from the State, local, the Federal Government. What came out of

the private sector was, you know, when we need to fix the security

here, we’re also going to need to fix a lot of the infrastructure

issues, because these ports were built back in World War II-era,

and the ships can’t get close enough. There are a lot of issues.

So it’s very complicated when you’re asking people to put investment in for, in this case, security, be it cyber or physical infrastructure, and there’s other ramifications on that investment, and it’s

very difficult for a lot of entities outside the Federal Government

to know exactly what to do.

Mr. BELL. While there’s still time, I want to touch on one other

area that I consider quite important. Obviously, as the Chair pointed out, I’m a freshman member, so I’ve just been here a couple

months. Most of the focus has been on Iraq. A tremendous amount

of the focus has been on international terrorism, and I’ve always

felt that we have a very reactive government, and we tend to adopt

this mindset that yesterday’s problem mattered yesterday. Now we

need to move on to today’s problem and tomorrow’s problem, forgetting that yesterday’s problem can very easily creep back and become today’s problem. And not too many years ago back in 1995,

1996, the major threat to many people or many people considered

one of the major threats on the terrorism front to be domestic terrorism, fringe groups within our own borders.

56

Now, as I said, I’ve been here 2 months, and I’ve heard no talk

about domestic terrorism whatsoever or any efforts to infiltrate and

to make sure that those types of extremist groups are not going to

be creeping back into the forefront and doing the kind of damage

that we saw in Oklahoma City several years back. I’m curious,

have we moved on? Are we just focusing on international tier and

threats from abroad? I understand obviously there will be some

overlap in these efforts that would not only be effective against

international terrorists, but would also be effective against those

types of efforts within our own borders, but it does seem that an

overwhelming amount of the concentration is on terrorists abroad,

and I’m curious as to what that’s doing to our focus here at home,

if you could comment on that.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, recently the FBI has released a national threat

assessment, which we have asked for and the committee has requested that this be done as well going back to 1999, and we’ve not

had a chance to review it in its totality, but if it’s a good threat

assessment, it should have the domestic whether they are the

home-grown variety or farm variety threat, be it from terrorism, in

that document. My understanding is that it is a classified document, and there’s two versions, but there’s a law enforcement sensitive. We plan to review that document to better understand is it

a comprehensive assessment.

Mr. BELL. Just to humor us, if you all could start including some

of these domestic efforts in these overall plans, that would be great.

Mr. DECKER. Sir.

Mr. BELL. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Congressman Bell.

We are joined by Mr. Turner, who is the vice chairman of the

committee, and it’s kind of interesting for me to think that one of

our Members is a former Governor and had that kind of chief executive approach to his questions. And Mr. Turner is the chief executive in Dayton and helped balance budgets, and we’re just delighted that you’re the vice chair of the committee and just would

recognize you. And I think your wish is that we get on to the next

panel; is that correct?

I would just note for the record that last week we had—this committee did have a briefing by the FBI on the threat assessment of

the FBI, and one of the challenges we have is that—and I say this

to you, Mr. Bell—is that it is basically a classified document. It’s

not something the press can talk about. But while some people are

focused on Iraq and some in Korea, we’ve got some who couldn’t

tell you anything about Iraq or Korea, but can tell you a lot about

the threat assessment that we’re dealing with domestically. A lot

has happened. It’s pretty impressive.

At this time I thank you, Mr. Decker and Mr. Caldwell. I think

the highlight for me was the question to you on the cyberspace

stuff, and I thank both of you for your very fine answers and for

the committee’s participation. We’ve been keeping the other panel

waiting a bit longer than I thought, but it’s been very interesting

having you both testify.

57

At this time we will go to the next panel. Is there anything I

guess I should have said, Mr. Decker, that you want to put on the

record before we go?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir, if I could make one comment. I would hope

in a year from now when this issue is revisited, that it will have

been totally sorted out so that we are on an effective path for implementation.

Mr. SHAYS. Guess what? We’re going to have you here in 6

months, and we’re going to hope in 6 months it’s done. Is that a

deal?

Mr. DECKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. And you guys will be pushing the administration,

and we will, and we’re kind of the catalyst, and they’ll do their job,

too.

Mr. DECKER. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

At this time the Chair will announce the second panel. Our second panel is the Honorable James Gilmore III, former Governor of

Virginia; chairman, Advisory Panel to Assess the Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. That’s why we call it the Gilmore Commission. I think

if you want to have a commission named after yourself, you just

give it a long title, and then they just decide to use the chairman’s

name.

We have Dr. Michael O’ Hanlon, senior fellow, Foreign Policy

Studies, the Sydney Stein, Jr. Chair, the Brookings Institution.

We have Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of Center

for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment; and Mr. John Newhouse,

senior fellow, Center for Defense Information.

I welcome all four to the panel. I’m going to have you stand up,

and stay standing, because I’m going to swear you guys in. If you’d

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. We’ll note for the record a response in

the affirmative.

Mr. Newhouse, I’m going to have you move your chair over a little slightly.

Dr. O’Hanlon, you can move yours over slightly, too.

OK. We’re changing the batting order a bit. We’re going to have

Governor Gilmore speak first, and then, Dr. O’Hanlon, you’ll be

second. Mr. Newhouse, we’re going to have you third, and we’re

going to have Mr. Krepinevich be the cleanup batter here.

Let me say to you first, Governor Gilmore, you have been before

our committee on a number of occasions, and if it hasn’t been you,

it’s been someone else on the Gilmore Commission, and we appreciate what you did before September 11th, and we appreciate what

you’re doing now. I have read the testimony that was submitted

that was available to me last night, and this is an excellent panel.

We’re really delighted you all are here. Looking forward to what

you’ll have to say.

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much——

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to have you turn that mic on. Let me just

do what I said before and ask unanimous consent that all members

of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in

58

the record, and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose, and without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statements in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I would say to the witnesses that if you want to touch on any

of the questions that you’ve heard, we forced you to listen to the

first panel but if there are some points that you think need to be

addressed, feel free to do that. Regretfully, some of your statements

are even longer than 10 minutes, so I know you’ll have to summarize, so we welcome that, but your statements were excellent.

Sorry for the interruption. We’ll start all over again, Governor.

STATEMENTS OF JAMES S. GILMORE III, CHAIRMAN, ADVISORY PANEL TO ASSESS THE DOMESTIC RESPONSE CAPABILITIES FOR TERRORISM INVOLVING WEAPONS OF MASS

DESTRUCTION; MICHAEL E. O’HANLON, SENIOR FELLOW,

FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, THE SYDNEY STEIN, JR. CHAIR,

THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION; JOHN NEWHOUSE, SENIOR

FELLOW, CENTER FOR DEFENSE INFORMATION; AND ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER

FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and I will

summarize, I believe, within the timeframe, maybe offer one or two

additional thoughts than are contained within the written presentation.

Mr. Chairman, I’m pleased to be here with you and with the others—not only with the other Members of Congress. Thank you very

much, gentlemen, for the chance to be here with you, and particularly my former colleague Governor Janklow, who is an old pal of

mine. So nice to see you, Governor—Congressman.

Ladies and gentlemen, the September 11th, of course, has

changed everything. It seems to me like that much of what we are

doing and what we’re thinking about and the way we’re evolving

as a Nation is simply being driven by the September 11th attack.

It certainly was traumatic and continues, in my judgment, to be

traumatic to this day, and as a result we’re dealing with issues we

previously have not dealt with, and we may even deal with them

in ways that we probably—would be different than the previous

time.

Our reports—as you know, we have now four reports. We are the

official advisory body to the U.S. Congress. We were established

through the House of Representatives. Congressman Curt Weldon,

I think, initiated it. The Congress passed it. The Senate did as

well, and we’re your official panel.

The Commission was accomplished in January 1999. At that

time there was no public commission involving this kind of issue.

We began to go to work on it. In the first year, in a somewhat academic way, we established a threat assessment. We called it a national strategy. We, I believe, appropriately assessed the threat,

and our most recent discussions have confirmed all that.

The second year we did major policy work, recommending an Office of Homeland Security; recommending the formation of a national strategy; focusing on the Federal, State and local involveVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
59

ment, not just Federal involvement; focusing on the difficulty of intelligence stovepiping; and beginning to establish, I think, the

framework for debate. That was presented to the Congress and to

the President in December 2000.

In the year 2001 we focused on some major primary areas and

began to get ready to go to business on our 3-year Commission

when the September 11th attack occurred. This Congress then in

its wisdom extended our Commission 2 more years.

We have now completed our fourth Commission report. I believe

each of you has a copy of this report that has been delivered to

your offices. We are now beginning our 5th year of—the 2-year extension for our 5th year of the Commission.

What are my opening remarks? No. 1, things have gotten a lot

better because we do have these strategies. I think that the committee here is doing a real service to the Congress, to the public,

by focusing on the plethora of the different groups of strategies and

how they interrelate with each other and how that bears upon our

national security. But at least we have strategies. We have the topics being laid out. That is a judgment call in itself in key and important areas. It looks to me like we’re in large measure dealing

with the correct types of issues.

Our panel in its 3rd year focused our attention on the value and

the focus of State and local involvement within the national strategy and how you engage State and local people; a major portion on

health care, which has been a primary focus of our Commission

through all of its 4 years, the importance of health care in the

health care system; the importance of border controls and beginning to watch people going in and out and maybe protect our borders in an appropriate way; the appropriate use of the military, a

very profound issue at this time as we begin to key up the U.S.

military to operate within the homeland, an extremely sensitive

and important policy area; and cyberterrorism. These are the areas

that we focused on.

What are the national strategies focused on at this point? There’s

an overarching strategy for the defense of the United States of a

geopolitical position. There is a strategy to counter terrorism; a

military plan to operate overseas in order to interdict and disrupt

people who would attack us from foreign countries; a homeland security strategy; specific areas of weapons of mass destruction, a

strategy for that; money laundering in order to break up the finance for people who would conduct these kind of military operations such as those we saw on September 11th; a cyberterrorism

strategy; and a critical infrastructure protection strategy.

This is similar to the types of issues that we laid in over the last

4 years. And all of the topics are beginning in a rough way to come

together in the appropriate ways. The trick, it seems to me, is to

strive for focus in order to make sure that we come together to do

the right things. I think one of the earlier speakers said that we

need to get to the proper end state, and indeed we do. We need to

focus on what we are trying to get to with these proper strategies,

not just simply saying that the Nation shall be more secure, homeland shall be more secure. What are we looking to achieve here?

What is the ultimate goal of all of these strategies?

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One key, of course, is to continue to tie in the State and the local

authorities. Federal strategy alone will not do that, although most

of these strategies, I think, do make reference to the role of States

and locals within the respective strategies, and that is certainly a

positive point. But the truth of the matter is that you have to have

a national strategy, not a Federal strategy, and that means that

Governors and key mayors and key law enforcement officials all

across the 50 States have to be tied in and included within an overall national strategy. We have to determine from their point of

view what they need in their respective States, how it develops into

a statewide program, how that interacts with their localities, what

kinds of equipment and processes are needed in order to support

that kind of strategy, how does the Federal Government play that

kind of role, how do you develop the joint types of fundings, and

then how finally do you get into exercising and then measure the

results of what that end state is to be.

So, therefore, there has to be a compete focus on State and local

and with the Federal partnership, and that is the end state that

our Commission has focused on for several years.

And then I think we have to ask ourselves at the end, what is

the goal that we are trying to achieve here? Is absolute security an

obtainable goal? Is it attainable? Historically the answer is probably no. This is not a unique time that we face here today, although the violence of the September 11th attack has created a

trauma that only replicates itself several times in American history. But we have seen the previous assassination of President

McKinley, and then so shortly thereafter, only a few years later,

the shooting of Theodore Roosevelt at a political event, the shooting

and killing of President Lincoln. One might argue that was, in fact,

a terrorist attack in and of itself here in the homeland, the Oklahoma City bombing, a domestic catastrophe of tremendous proportions, lead up of other areas as well. But this is not necessarily a

unique time, but we now have to gain the perspective to make sure

that as we react to it and we put together our strategies and programs, that we remember the longstanding values that we have as

Americans, and that we don’t impinge upon any of those.

And that primarily, of course, leads me back to the theme that

we very frequently stress, and that is the civil liberties of the

American people.

It would be so easy to strive for absolute security and to try to

persuade the American people that we are going to reach for absolute security and to ask them to surrender all their civil liberties

in order to attain that end. Our Commission believes that would

be the wrong approach, and that the goal here must be to gain the

maximum possible security within this country and then to tell the

American people in a straightforward and honest way that total

and absolute security is not possible; to get to the maximum level

of security we can reasonably do consistent with the values and

safety of the people of the United States, naturally spending a

great deal of focus on weapons of mass destruction, because that

would be the most terrible possible violation of the security that we

might have; but within all those goals, that we believe that the

eight strategies are a step in the right direction.

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We congratulate this committee for going about the oversight

work now of determining how the eight could be harmonized best

together and work together for the national security, but I urge you

to think closely about the value of making sure the States and the

locals are contained within the national strategy.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Governor. It’s a nice way to start this

panel. I had forgotten that Curt Weldon had led the charge on this.

He has been one of the heroes, I think, on the issue of terrorism

well before September 11th, and I’m not sure he gets the credit he

deserves. He gets a lot of credit, but I think he deserves more.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilmore follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time we would call on Dr. O’Hanlon.

Dr. O’HANLON. Thank you, Congressman and Mr. Ranking Member. It is an honor to be before this committee on this important

topic on this distinguished panel. I really want to just make three

broad sets of opening comments in keeping with your request that

we be brief. I have a longer statement, as you know, for the record.

Mr. SHAYS. I want to make sure, though, that you cover the territory that you need to.

Dr. O’HANLON. OK. Thank you. I do want to respond, and that

is to your—to many of the questions that were posed to the first

panel, and just give a couple of quick thoughts on the issue of how

many strategies is too many and what kind of overall structure

should we have. And I just have a couple of observations.

It strikes me that you do need more than one strategy, because

there are so many aspects to the war on terror. And it is hard to

put all this into one document, and I fully agree with Congressman

Janklow’s comment that if you have too many, you lose track of

them all. But if you have too few, it would make, I think, for an

excessively dense document that might get weighty of its own simple detail.

And so what I would propose is thinking in terms of three principle documents, and one is the National Security Strategy. And

that has to be the lead document, has to be seen as the integrating

document. Certainly in traditional terms that has been the first

document that has been produced before the military has done its

quadrennial reviews and its national military strategies. And then

below that, the National Military Strategy and the National Homeland Security Strategy are the two natural next pillars.

And there are certain things that are going to be left out. Military strategy and homeland security strategy, for example, don’t

give a lot of time or attention to economic assistance toward developing countries. And we all know we need to worry about the problem of failed states, rescuing failed states, because they are a concern in the war or terror. They can be sanctuaries for terrorist organizations, they can help provide resources to terrorist organizations.

But that is part of the National Security Strategy, and I think

President Bush—speaking of people who don’t get enough credit,

President Bush does not get enough credit for his foreign aid initiative, the millennium challenge account, which I think is a very

good idea and I think needs more attention and more reinforcement, because we need to hold out hope to developing countries

that they will be brought into this globalization procession, and

that also we will prevent their territories from being used as sanctuary or sources of income for terrorists. So I commend the President on that point.

I think there is more that has to be done dealing with failed

states, and I’ve got some of that in my testimony. But the National

Security Strategy brings in economic assistance, brings in intelligence operations, brings in broader economic strategy as well.

Those things are not part of the military strategy or the homeland

security strategy quite as much, but that is OK. You don’t have to

emphasize each and every thing equally. At some point there is a

tradeoff between having 12 or 15 or 20 strategies and having clarVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00102 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ity. And I think the National Security Strategy can provide enough

detail on issues like economic policy toward developing countries

and intelligence that we don’t need major additional documents.

So again, that pyramid of three separate documents, National

Security Strategy, Military Strategy, Homeland Security Strategy,

for me is enough.

Mr. SHAYS. I feel like I’m in church.

Dr. O’HANLON. And I will stick with the trinity theme and go on

now to my two other topics. One is on the issue of homeland security and the homeland security strategy, and now I am getting

more specific.

Within this strategy I just want to make a couple of observations

about how well this one particular strategy is working. It is so new,

it is so important, and I think we have to spend a lot of time looking at it in detail. I will just offer a couple of thoughts based largely on the Brookings work that we have done in the last year and

influenced by the work of the Gilmore Commission and others who

preceded us with various studies.

And first of all, I want to commend the President and the Congress again for a very good start after September 11th. It seems

to me there were a lot of very important things done immediately

after the tragic terrorist attacks to make sure those sorts of attacks

would be difficult to be carried out in the future against us; a lot

of work on airport security, a lot of work on bringing together intelligence briefings for the President, a number of preparations on the

biological weapons front largely motivated by the anthrax attacks.

And I think a lot of that work was very good, but I think Congress

and the President got bogged down a little in 2002. I think the debate over the Department of Homeland Security became seen as

the big issue. And it was a big issue, but it can’t be the only issue.

We have to worry about our actual vulnerabilities, and we can’t

wait for Secretary Ridge to, 1 or 2 or 3 years from now, when he

finally has his shop in order, get around to then addressing

vulnerabilities. We have to have a debate today on the homeland

security strategy and its specifics, what it does well, what it does

not do well.

I think what it does well is to try to prevent the last kind of attack, try to prevent the last war, to use the old adage, about military operations. You know, people tend to fight the last or refight

the last war. And I think we are getting pretty good at stopping

airplane attacks, at stopping biological attacks. We haven’t gotten

as good at a number of other things, and let me just tick off a couple, and you are very well aware of them in this committee, but

it is worth emphasizing.

For example, private sector infrastructure. There is this report

that just came out that tries to be remedial and talk about some

of the things we need to do, but it is not nearly enough. If you look

around this country, there are thousands of chemical production facilities which are vulnerable to attack, and if they were attacked,

they could produce clouds of toxic fumes that could produce threats

to population centers similar to the Bhopal tragedy in India in the

early 1980’s. You could have thousands of people die from chemical

fumes if these facilities were not well protected.

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After September 11th, we did a very good job of trying to improve security at nuclear power plants, perhaps not enough, but we

put quite a bit of effort into that, because there are only 103 of

them, and we could focus on that problem. But meanwhile, you

need to have a longer-term strategy for protecting chemical infrastructure. We have not really done that. So, the administration is

trusting the private sector to protect its own assets, but an individual private sector owner or businessman, that person’s incentives

are different from society’s because the individual owner is trying

to make a profit, trying to deal with a competitor, and not very

worried about a terrorist attack against his facility. The chances of

that are astronomically low. So that person’s incentives are to compete with his competitors; but as a society, our incentives are to

make sure we’re not vulnerable to catastrophic attack against our

chemical facilities, against the trucking that ships a lot of these facilities, against a lot of the ships going into Houston and other

ports that are carrying these sorts of chemicals.

Chemicals I just take as one example, but it is a very prominent

example, and one that does not get the attention of nuclear issues,

but probably should.

Another area within homeland security where we are not doing

enough is the area of bolstering Customs. I think there was a great

deal of good thinking done on Customs and the container security

initiative last year by Mr. Bonner and others. A very good idea: Put

American inspectors overseas and watch cargo being loaded before

it heads toward American shores. The problem is we are not giving

Mr. Bonner any resources to do this job more effectively. In the

2003 budget, there was no additional money, as I understand it, for

this effort, and in the 2004 budget, Customs is supposed to get

$60—$62 million more, not nearly enough for the kind of broader,

more rigorous inspection regime we need.

We inspect 2 to 3 percent of all cargo entering this country. It

is not nearly a high enough percentage. You don’t need to reach

100 percent, but you have to do much better than we are doing

today.

Another area within homeland security that is not getting

enough attention is the surface-to-air missile threat against airplanes, and there has been a lot of discussion about this in the last

few months since the attempted attack against the Israeli airliner.

I think we need to consider government action to help airlines either protect themselves with countermeasures, or at a minimum

help them and help airports patrol the grounds around the airport.

This is a threat that has become very plain, and if those missiles

had hit the airplane and brought it down, I am sure we would be

responding much more quickly to what is a real threat around the

world. And so we should not be taking great comfort in the fact

those two missiles happened to miss by a small distance. They

made the airplane feel a bump. How much more of a bump do we

need? That’s a pretty good impetus to policy right there, and yet

we seem to be waiting for the airplane to actually be brought down

before we make this a national priority.

One last area within homeland security, and then I will wrap up

on my final topic. Information technology is a very important area

to pursue and promote. As you know, Mr. Chairman, there is some

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more money in the 2004 Homeland Security budget for information

technology, but it really is not nearly enough, because today we are

not able to integrate in a real-time basis State, Federal, local,

international players into data bases that would look to try to connect dots. We can share information on suspicious individuals pretty fast, and that is a big improvement since September 11th. We

can tell an airliner or somebody else, watch out for this individual,

A, B, or C. That individual is on a terrorist watch list. That is a

good improvement. However, we are not able to process information, the kind that we saw before the attacks in 2001, Phoenix

memos, dots that need to be connected to discern patterns of terrorist behavior that may be emerging. We don’t have the ability yet,

in other words, to tie together these information systems in a large

data base that’s capable of processing and looking for patterns of

behavior.

So we can share names, but that is not good enough. That is a

very primitive level of information and infrastructure sharing of

data. We have to do better.

Finally, on another matter, and I will just stop here after briefly

mentioning the issue of preemption. And I know that time is out,

so let me just quickly say, the preemption strategy is the national

security strategy sort of benchmark or famous slogan that went

along with the national security strategy last fall. To me, it shows

that if you try too hard to make a splash with your national security strategy, you may get yourself into more trouble than you

want. Sometimes it’s better if these documents are a little more

boring and understated, because I personally think the preemption

concept is a major mistake as an articulated matter of national security policy. I think it’s fine to find out——

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t we debate that issue with you. OK?

Dr. O’HANLON. OK. I will just quickly mention one last sentence,

please.

For me, the problem is on North Korea. North Korea seems to

have been influenced by this strategy. At least it’s one possible explanation for the current crisis. And I worry that stating the doctrine so plainly has actually contributed to the crisis with North

Korea. I like the logic behind the preemption concept, but I’m not

sure the U.S. Government ought to be stating it so boldly and so

plainly.

[The prepared statement of Dr. O’Hanlon follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I was trying to figure out why I liked you, and then

reviewed your bio, and you were a former Peace Corps volunteer,

and so that speaks well of you, sir.

Dr. O’HANLON. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Newhouse.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity.

Mr. SHAYS. If you could turn on your mic. Is it turning on? The

green light should do it. If it’s orange, watch out.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I was about to say, I appreciate the opportunity

to offer a few thoughts with regard to this tough and complex subject you are dealing with.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, we appreciate you being here, sir.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. And I would like to make a few comments on

our government’s approach to various sources of instability as I see

them since the attack of September 11th.

Huge opportunities were left in the wake of September 11th.

Stated simply, most of the world was ready and willing to accept

American leadership. We are all Americans, proclaimed the page 1

head line in Le Monde, on September 12th, a declaration of solidarity from a most improbable source.

In seizing the moment, the administration could and should have

set about stabilizing the most serious sources of instability, the

Middle East, Southwest Asia, and Northeast Asia. In the Middle

East, they could have deployed their new leverage to push Israel

and the Palestine Liberation Organization into serious negotiations. Quite clearly, Israel’s Likkud Government expected exactly

that to happen, especially when on October 2nd, Mr. Bush endorsed the idea of a Palestinian State. Two days later, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Washington not to try to appease the

Arabs at our expense. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia, he said.

The administration listened. Regime change on the West Bank became more attractive than taking on Israel’s Likkud Government

and its allies in Washington.

Since World War II, the Arab world has been largely shaped by

transient passions, notably anticolonialism, nationalism, socialism,

and Islamism. The single constant, apart from corrupt and/or incompetent regimes has been the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a perception throughout the region and most of the world that Washington

shares responsibility with Israel for the plight of the Palestinian

people.

In his speech last week, Mr. Bush offered some hope saying that,

‘‘If the terror threat is removed and security improves,’’ Israel, ‘‘will

be expected to support the creation of a viable Palestinian State.

As progress toward peace develops, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end.’’

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me, Mr. Newhouse, I’m going to have you

move the mic down a spec. Just bring it down a little bit. It’s on.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. However, Mr. Bush provided no specifics. Who

will judge whether the terror threat has been removed or sufficient

progress toward peace has been made? A skeptic would say that if

the recent past is any guide, Israel’s Prime Minister Mr. Sharon

will make those calls.

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On April 4 last year, Mr. Bush said, ‘‘Enough is enough.’’ And he

added, ‘‘I ask Israel to halt its incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas and to begin the withdrawal from those cities it has

recently occupied. Israeli settlement activity in occupied territories

must stop, and the occupation must end through withdrawal to secure and recognizable boundaries.’’

Mr. Bush also announced that he was sending Secretary Powell

to the Middle East to push for a political settlement. Two days

later Mr. Bush called Sharon and said: Israel must pull its forces

out of the West Bank, ‘‘without delay.’’ And the White House appeared to support Secretary Powell’s idea of bringing the parties together in a peace conference. Then Mr. Powell left on a 6-day trip

to the region, and General Anthony Zinni, the President’s special

envoy for the Middle East, conveyed to Sharon Mr. Bush’s call for

Israel to withdraw at once from Palestinian cities.

On April 9th, 3 days after the call from the President, Mr. Sharon said that Israel would press on with its offensive in the West

Bank.

On April 17th, Powell returned without the cease-fire he had

been seeking and unable to secure a withdrawal of Israeli forces

from the West Bank. Meanwhile, Ari Fleischer, the White House

press spokesman, was stressing that Sharon was, ‘‘a man of peace.’’

The tilt toward Mr. Sharon reached a peak of sorts on June 24,

2002, when Mr. Bush told the Palestinian people they would have

to replace Yasser Arafat as their leader before Washington would

support an independent Palestinian State. Without mentioning

Arafat by name, the President made his meaning clear, ‘‘Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian State can be born.’’ Until then, Mr. Bush has resisted the

Sharon position that no negotiations could take place until Arafat

was gone. Polls on the West Bank have shown that Arafat’s approval rating has steadily declined in recent years; it spikes, however, when he is attacked by Sharon. They appear to need each

other.

Again, in last week’s speech, Mr. Bush made the case that regime change in Iraq would provide the conditions for weakening

terrorism and helping Palestinians achieve democracy. I disagree.

The case for and against attacking Iraq now is complex. It should

not be tied into the campaign against terrorism. The connection between Iraq and terrorism is, I think, tenuous at best. Most of the

people I know who have followed the affairs of the Middle East

over the years would argue that the single unchanging precondition

for regional peace and stability is measured but steady progress toward a settlement of the Palestinian issue, starting with an end to

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

If the United States gets too far adrift from reality in the Middle

East, the sole beneficiary would be Usama bin Laden and his

legatees if he is dead. Their purpose, indeed their raison d’etre, is

to divide the West from Islam, starting with the Arab world.

In the Persian Gulf, the Iranian Government reacted to September 11th by authorizing American search and rescue operations on

its soil, the transit of humanitarian assistance and cooperation in

the formation of the new Afghan Government. In many Iranian cities there were meetings to express sympathy for the victims of the

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attacks on the United States. Both hard-liners and reformers denounced the attacks, and at that pivotal moment, Iran’s reformist

government would probably have been politically free to extend its

reach to America even further. The combination of sensible steps

by Washington on the Arab-Israeli front and improved U.S.-Iranian

relations would have further isolated Iraq politically within the region and, hence, appealed to all sides. But the administration’s failure to respond and its harsh reaction, notably the President’s axis

of evil remark, damaged prospects for beginning to repair a bilateral relationship with Iran of surpassing strategic importance.

Pakistan, a nominal ally, is the country that most nearly fits the

President’s profile of evil. Two of its provinces are controlled by

Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers. Although the issues that divide Iran and Pakistan have never reached the level of crisis, relations have worsened in recent years. Pakistan’s heavy involvement

with the Taliban is partly responsible. It is a bone—the Taliban is

a bone in Iran’s throat. Pakistan’s Islamic schools, the madrassas,

have become training grounds for terrorists and other radical

groups in much of the Muslim world.

For now there may be little that the Musharraf government can

do about the chaos and anarchy in parts of the country, but it can

and should be held to account for its remarkable decision to make

possible North Korea’s highly enriched uranium program. Pakistan

is known to have provided much or most of the program, weapons

design, gas centrifuges, materials to make centrifuges, data of the

sort that would enable the customer to avoid having to test its devices. The two-way traffic between Pakistan and North Korea involving ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons technology could

have a dangerous ripple effect.

The campaign against terrorism generated a sense of common

purpose, but at another level also became divisive. Most of Mr.

Bush’s advisors regard the first and best answer to threats to security as lying in preponderant military force. European governments

along with most others see military force as a complementary tool

in the campaign against terrorism, less essential than a soft-power

mix of intelligence, law enforcement, border, and financial controls.

Terrorism is generally seen as part of a larger problem, not a single problem. Thus far, however, the administration’s concern with

the causes of terrorism has been minimal, in my view. Its focus instead has been on identifying and destroying the terrorist threat,

‘‘before it reaches our borders,’’ if necessary, acting alone and using

preemptive force. This thinking is contained in the novel doctrine

laid down by the administration last September.

Other governments assume, doubtless correctly, that in its reliance on massive military power, the new doctrine downgrades alliances. They also worry that the administration may not feel bound

by the body of international rules and restraints that developed

after World War II. Taken at face value, the new doctrine justifies

preventive war waged without allies and without U.N. Sanction.

A doctrine of preemption that relied on very high-quality intelligence to identify an impending attack well in advance and then

head it off would not raise eyebrows, but the Bush doctrine is

based instead on prevention and preeminence; that is, taking military power to a level never before seen, one that would so intimiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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date all parties that no one would even consider an attack of any

kind against the United States. Threats to American interests

would be not just discouraged, but precluded. ‘‘Full spectrum dominance,’’ was a term for it in defense circles. Anticipatory self-defense is a phrase that Secretary Rumsfeld has used.

In practice, such a doctrine harbors many risks. If I am banging

on too long, please cut me off, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Keep going.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. It exaggerates the role and utility of raw military power. The government could find itself unable to carry out

programs in other realms, unable, for example, to cooperative effectively with other governments to combat terrorism. Special Forces

and smart weapons can help in that battle, but other tools starting

with good intelligence and good police work are more important.

No matter how good the performance of the Intelligence Community, surprises are probably unavoidable. Thus, measuring performance by the standard of prediction is unrealistic and can damage

the standing, morale, and performance of intelligence agencies.

They are engaged in not winning a war against terrorism, but in

managing it, restricting the activities and options of hostile forces.

The Bush doctrine, if taken seriously, would mean that prediction

would become the measure of performance, because a preventionbased strategy would require sustained and timely collection of the

kind of intelligence that is rarely available, least of all in a form

that connects all the dots.

Effective intelligence collection must be conducted bilaterally, but

with a wide array of countries. After September 11th, offers of

help, large and small, poured into Washington from around the

world. They were rejected. Another opportunity lost. Accepting

these offers would have harmed nothing, generated enormous goodwill, and, most important, helped at another more important level.

What the United States has needed from other countries, then as

now, is information, a process through which intelligence may be

shared with countries best equipped to penetrate terrorist organizations and cells. Many of these countries took part in the sanctions against Iraq, and most of them have experienced serious difficulties of one kind or another with the terrorist groups located in

the extensive region they share.

Terrorism may be contained if intelligence services and police

agencies acquire the habit of cooperating closely with each other

and suppressing their competitive instincts and preference for acting alone. The United States would be the chief beneficiary of such

activity, first because it appears to be the primary target of al

Qaeda and sibling terrorist groups; second, because it lacks adequate human resources for gathering the intelligence it needs; and

third, because its ability to eavesdrop on global communications is

declining. The rapid growth of commercially available technology is

reported as allowing for the creation of all but unbreakable computer codes. Fiber-optic lines give off no electronic signals that can

be monitored.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Newhouse follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Krepinevich, you have a lot of pressure on you

because you really have three colleagues who preceded you who

have outstanding statements. But I am comfortably able to tell you

that I am sure you will do well, because I took your statement

home last night, and I thought it was a wonderful summary of the

issue. But we do need to get you the mic, don’t we?

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like my colleagues,

I will summarize my remarks.

Mr. SHAYS. Like most of your colleagues.

Dr. KREPINEVICH. First, let me applaud the subcommittee, for

tackling this issue. It really is the missing link. Strategy is about

connecting ends and means. We know the ends we want to achieve:

the defeat of international terrorism. And we know the means that

we are going to apply, in the terms of the budget and the resources

and the capabilities that we are putting to the task. What we need

to worry about is that although the means are impressive, we only

get to spend them once. If we choose the wrong strategy—or if we

choose the right strategy, but do not have sufficient resources to

implement it—what we end up doing is not only wasting resources,

but also wasting time, neither of which can be recovered. With that

in mind, I would like to offer some comments on the administration’s set of strategies.

I do not believe that there is anything inherently wrong with

having a hierarchy of strategies as long as they are comprehensive,

consistent, and, of course, as long as the strategy is effective. What

I think is somewhat remarkable is that we actually have public

statements about strategy in wartime. For example, after Pearl

Harbor I don’t recall President Roosevelt saying, it’s Germany first,

which was our grand strategy, going after Germany before Japan.

I don’t remember anyone saying that General MacArthur would be

pursuing an island-hopping strategy, avoiding Japanese strong

points, as his approach to solving the problem of defeating Japan

in the Pacific. Football coaches don’t advance or announce their

game plans in advance, nor do chess masters before a chess match.

So I do think that—and I would assume, and, quite frankly, I

would hope that there are some key aspects of our strategy for

waging war on terrorism that are not public, that are classified, to

include some of the capabilities and forces that support this strategy.

On the other hand, we have to find some way of squaring the circle, because Congress is responsible for the power of the purse,

they are responsible for the war powers of this country. And so

Congress must identify a way to assess the administration’s strategy. I have no solution for this dilemma.

With respect to the strategies themselves, I think there is much

to applaud in terms of the effort on the part of the Bush administration. We need to recognize that this is not just a variation of

former strategies. In fact, what we are dealing with here is a dramatically different kind of threat or combination of threats: the

prospect of rogue states developing weapons of mass destruction

and perhaps having to these weapons fall into the hands of terrorist organizations. Certainly this is about as big a shift in the kind

of threat environment as we have seen since the early days of the

cold war.

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Second, I think this set of strategies is clearly an effort to provide at least some point-of-departure strategic guidance both in

general terms and in terms of the key specific areas that may define the competition, such as cyberspace, the issue of financial

laundering and so on.

If that is the glass half full, I think we also need to examine the

glass that’s half empty. If you look at historical experience, we only

have a few data points. We did not really come up with a strategy

for dealing with the Soviet Union, a comprehensive strategy, arguably until 1950, when you had NSC–68.

We also found that we had to constantly evolve the strategy to

reflect changing circumstances. As you pointed out, Mr. Chairman,

we had in 1953 the Solarium group meeting, when President Eisenhower took office, to revise and revisit the strategy that had

been laid down several years earlier. So, again, this is not a situation where you come up with a strategy overnight. It is not a fastfood approach to strategy. This is going to require a lot of work,

a lot of hard, intellectual work to address a lot of the questions,

quite frankly, raised by you and by my colleagues here today.

I would point out also that both NSC–68 and the Solarium group

were classified undertakings.

The strategies that I reviewed, to the extent that I could, given

that at least one of them was classified and, as our colleagues

pointed out, there were several of them just released recently, do

lead to some unanswered questions. This gets back to my point

that further work is going to be needed. I will just raise a few here

for your consideration.

One, as Mr. O’Hanlon said, is this issue of preemptive attack. If

we really do decide to pursue this policy, or this strategic pillar,

against terrorists or rogue states, we are going to have to get a lot

better at things like surprise, stealthy deployments, operating

along short time lines, and operating over long distances. I don’t

think you can conduct a surprise attack with a precursor being

months’ long negotiations with allies as to whether or not you can

use their forward bases. So, initiatives by the Defense Department

such as converting Trident submarines to provide for the stealthy

insertion of Special Operations forces or the increase in the size of

Special Operations forces, would be consistent with that kind of

strategy.

Of course, we are also modernizing our Air Force to deploy large

numbers of short-range aircraft to forward bases which may not be

available, at the same time developing no new long-range air capability.

So, again, I think at some point you have to begin to look at the

strategy and the means and see where the links and the disconnects are and, again, to paraphrase from my colleagues, to see

if the dots all connect correctly.

In terms of port security, I think the issue was raised by Michael

O’Hanlon. Where is the emphasis? Is it at the port of origin where

the goods coming to our shores originate? There has been talk in

the Pentagon about a maritime NORAD, about a naval force that

will intercept suspicious cargo ships the way our missile defenses

are meant to intercept incoming warheads. Or is it at the port of

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ority? And over what time will we phase in these various elements

of our strategy? What is the standard of performance? How many

cargos are we supposed to be able to intercept and check out?

So, in the area of port security, it seems to me that we know

there is a danger there. We know there is a threat. We are devoting means to address it but not quite clear what the linkage is between the means and ensuring that we achieve our ends.

If you have a strategy that recognizes that deterrence doesn’t

work against terrorists and you may not be able to intercept every

terrorist attack, than a big part of your strategy has got to be damage limitation, or what we call consequence management. How do

you limit the damage of a successful attack? Because that can go

a long way toward defeating terrorism. Where is the responsibility?

With the Federal Government? With State governments? With

local governments?

For example, once an attack occurs in an American city, is it that

city’s responsibility alone to deal with it? I would suspect that we

would want to mobilize resources and flow them toward that city.

Well, who controls those resources? Can the Federal Government

put the arm on other cities’ resources now at its disposal to go to

the city that’s been attacked? Have we built in the transportation

assets that allow us to rapidly reinforce the city that’s just been

subjected to attack? Is it that way across the board?

Or do we recognize that, for example, in the case of first responders, those people who are on the scene first, you are not going to

be able to reinforce them. Either they are going to be able to do

the job quickly, or it’s going to get out of hand. Have we really

thought through the process, the linking of ends and means, to

make sure that we have an effective defense in dealing with consequence management?

There are other matters that deserve consideration. The role of

our allies. Our alliances were formed in a different era, when there

was much more common agreement about what the principle

threat to our security was. We find ourselves needing allies more

in the global war on terrorism but perhaps in some cases being

able to rely on them less. Certainly we want to rely on them for

different things.

There’s a new division of labor. We don’t want tank armies so

much as we want good intelligence, for example. So how do we devise a new division of labor, and what does that say about our

strategy? What resources can we free up to accord to other priorities?

I will just speak very quickly on cost-imposing strategies. It’s

kind of an arcane term, but it’s a strategic term. Bottom line: they

spend $1 million, we spend $100 billion. That’s an awfully effective

strategy. Part of our strategy, part of our strategic development,

has got to answer how are we going to off set their ability to pursue cost-imposing strategies on the United States.

In summary, I would say that the administration’s efforts represent an important initial effort to address the most dramatic

shift in our threat environment since the early days of the cold

war. The effort is both impressive and, I would argue, incomplete.

We are only at the beginning of a major process, primarily intellectual, to come to grips with this threat and make sure that we have

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a strategy that can effectively apply our limited resources to

achieve the very worthy ends that we seek.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Krepinevich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I really appreciate all four of your testimonies. I am

so eager to jump in, but I am going to call on Mr. Janklow to start.

I would just make a comment that will tell you where I’m coming

from. At this table, we had an individual who was a doctor of a

major medical magazine; and he said, before—he said, I want to

put something on the record. And this is what he basically put on

the record. He said, my greatest fear is that a small group of dedicated scientists within a country can create an altered biological

agent that could wipe out humanity as we know it. That to me was

a very real statement of why we can’t wait for a lazy country to

step in and stop a small group of scientists from creating a biological agent that could wipe out humanity as we know it.

In other words, it’s not just those countries that seek to work

with terrorists but those who tolerate them. And there is not a

chance in heck that I would think that we would wait.

Which gets to a topic that you had brought up, Dr. O’Hanlon,

and all of you did, and that’s the whole issue of preemption. My

view was that what we would have over the course of the next few

months and maybe years is, with the world communities, how do

we define when preemption has to happen?

So I took an advantage that I don’t often do as chairman to just

jump in here, but, Mr. Janklow, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank all four of

you gentlemen for your testimonies.

Dr. O’Hanlon, you were specific with respect to certain areas.

When we look at the structure of America, I will call it the infrastructure of this country, given the way history’s developed or we

have developed, but for the military bases, the banks, the jails and

prisons, nothing has been built secure. Everything, 100 percent of

our country is open. Closing those doors and getting into a public

safety mentality is just an incredible cultural and physical shift for

us. What do you think is the threat assessment with respect to our

public utilities, specifically the electrical grids? All we have are

fences that say high voltage, keep out, where we have the transformers. Yet disabling a transformer is probably one of the easiest

things in the world to do.

There isn’t a backlog of transformers in this country on the shelf.

In the event someone were to start to bring the electrical system

down, you could make whole areas of this country uninhabitable

for months. Were it to be done in the wintertime, it is incalculable

how we could deal with it and maintain our standard of living or

not turn on each other. Have you ever had a chance to assess the

question with respect to the electrical utilities or the natural gas

utilities where every so many miles they come up out of the

ground, with the pumps and the monitoring, and it would be a no

brainer just to throw a log chain around them and drive off, pulling

them apart. Do you have any comments, sir?

Dr. O’HANLON. Those are very tough questions, Congressman. I

share your understanding and your concern on electricity in particular because it’s so hard to fix. My understanding—and I’m not

an expert in this area—but it could take several months to repair

some of the kind of damage one might imagine.

Mr. JANKLOW. That’s correct.

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Dr. O’HANLON. During that period of time, as you say, the economy and even the basic ability to ensure heat and other needs for

people would be really at risk.

I think the way you have to prioritize homeland security, because, as you pointed out, we don’t want to protect every restaurant and every movie theater in this country, at least I hope we

don’t have to get to that point, but you have to prioritize. And I

think the way you do is to say major loss of life, major economic

damage, or major damage to the institutions of this country such

as government. Those are the sorts of things we have to focus on

most intently. If there is a plausible risk in one of those areas, you

should think hard about doing something about it if you can.

As Andy Krepinevich says, there may be situations where the

cost is just too high. But I think you have identified a couple of

areas where the cost is not that high, and it’s a matter of scrutinizing our vulnerability, and I think you’ve identified a couple of important ones that I should have added to my list.

Altogether, by the way, I think we can make very good progress

on about a $50 billion a year Federal budget for homeland security.

So, we’re moving in the right direction, but we’re not there yet.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you.

Mr. Newhouse, I gathered from your testimony you’re rather critical of the way things are going under the current administration;

and I notice from your resume that you were a senior policy advisor to Strobe Talbott with respect to Europe. But I was wondering,

did he take your advice on how to deal with Europe during the

time you were an advisor to him?

Mr. NEWHOUSE. You can say, yes, sometimes, but rarely. Because

I found myself in persistent low-intensity conflicts with the State

Department bureaucracy. As I’m sure you know, when you go up

against the organized bureaucracy, the cards are weighted against

you. But it was fun. I wasn’t there very long. I was there for the

last 3 years of the Clinton era.

Mr. JANKLOW. And, sir, if I could ask you with respect to—a lot

of your testimony dealt with our relationship vis-a-vis Israel, our

policy, the policy enunciations by the President. Do you know of

any strategy that any President has ever employed with respect to

Israel that worked, or the Middle East, Israel vis-a-vis its relationship with the Palestinians, given the uniqueness of the threat to

Israel, the constant?

I mean, I just—I was there last week—2 weeks ago on an International Relations Middle East Subcommittee trip; and it was

amazing, just amazing that, to go into grocery stores, you go

through magnetometers. You go into malls, you have the wand put

over you. You can’t go into public parking. The cost of the society

for public protection, none of it contributing to economic growth, is

an unbelievable drag. And that country is so small you could put

six of them inside my State. I just—I can’t even imagine a United

States with that kind of drag.

My question is, do you know of any administration that’s had an

effective policy with respect to the peace aspects of that area?

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, I would say there were two. First, the second Eisenhower administration. After the Suez crisis began—and

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I no longer remember what became of that effort. Maybe it was the

political calendar. I don’t remember.

But I think the most striking example of this was the Presidency

of George W. Bush after the Gulf war, starting with the Madrid

Conference. What transpired during the Madrid Conference when

he had all the key players around the table led eventually to the

Oslo Peace Process. I think the Oslo Peace Process set in motion

other agreements, and they kind of sustained what appeared to be

a sustained process which ended abruptly in 1995 with the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin.

I would submit that the time between the collapse of the Soviet

Union and September 11th was a kind of parenthesis during which

the one event of lasting historic importance would have been the

assassination of Rabin, because that ushered in instantly a Likkud

government, and things began to go from bad to worse.

Now it’s not as if the blame falls largely on Israel. I mean, it also

falls with great weight on the Palestinian Liberation Organization

and its leadership. But I think the Palestinian moderates by and

large understand what’s been happening to them, and they—and

since it has been happening to them in the most injurious and

painful way, they would like to change things, including changing

the leadership. They can’t change their leadership so long as you

have got this nexus of political heavyweights starting with the

Likkud party and government that lashes out at the PLO leadership and quarantines it, makes a hostage of its leader, says that

you have to change this.

Mr. JANKLOW. Sir, if I can ask you, let’s just assume that in this

country we were dealing with an element, a group of people, where

the leader funds—contributes funds toward those that are blowing

up our people and our facilities, where they contribute support,

public rhetoric to give aid and comfort to those that are trying to

drive us out of the area. I’m not being overly sympathetic to the

Israeli position as much as I am to say, put yourself into their mentality and then deal with what Yasir Arafat and his group have

done with respect to the safety in the area or the neglect. It’s not

benign neglect, it’s far more than the benign, and one can understand the activity that individuals take as self-preservation.

You know, I visited the American military when—Patriot missile

units that were in Israel a week ago, and I frankly was dumbfounded at the attitude that all of those soldiers had, the men and

women had, all the way down to the lowest enlisted ranks as to

what their mission was and how important they felt they were for

the security and stability in that particular area.

I am just wondering if you have any insight, sir, as to—coming

back to homeland security. What is it that we can do in this country to make it safer? I mean, obviously, September 11th, we found

out how vulnerable we were. To the extent anybody’s committed

and was willing to commit suicide, you can wreck a powerful lot

of damage over and over and over. What it is that we are not doing

that we ought to be doing specifically?

If you could list the things, Mr. Newhouse.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, I began my statement by suggesting what

I thought we should do first and foremost in bringing stability or

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greater stability to the region—and I mean the entire region. That

is to restart the Middle East Peace Process.

Mr. JANKLOW. No. No. I mean the United States, here.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah. But only we can do that. Nobody else can

restart the Middle East Peace Process.

Mr. JANKLOW. So you are suggesting——

Mr. NEWHOUSE. The Europeans can’t do it. The quartet, that is

to say, the combination of the United Nations, the European

Union, Russia, they cannot do that without the other member of

the quartet, the United States, taking the lead. It is just wholly unrealistic.

Mr. JANKLOW. So what you are suggesting, sir, is to the extent

that the Middle Eastern Peace Process gets started or gets on a

better track, things will be safer in the United States?

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yes, indeed. Because I think that not only does

the region use the Arab—the Palestinian-Israeli issue as the principle—one of the principle tools for generating recruitment in the

region, but I think that the larger part, most of the Islamic world

is profoundly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Mr. JANKLOW. Would that explain the explosions then, for example, in Bali, in Indonesia?

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I don’t know, sir. Partially. Because—I mean, I

think these things are really all connected. What is it that inspires

an organization like al Qaeda? It’s more than one thing. I mean,

I think the leadership probably wants to divide Islam from the

Western world if it can. But it uses whatever grievances, tools, that

it has available to it; and this is certainly a big one.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Sir, can I just make one—with response to one

of your other questions, when you said that these people are being

terrorized and being killed, I’d just make two comments. The number of people being killed over—since the Second Intifada began,

there’s been a great disproportion, a tragic number of Israeli citizens have been killed, that’s true. But a considerably larger number of Palestinians have been killed in the process and a great

number of Israelis, if they were sitting here, Israelis whom I know

personally, would strongly agree with what I’ve said here. But they

feel frustrated because they have very little control.

Amos Elon, one of the great Israeli writers, wrote recently:

Israel’s military power increases on a daily basis, and its security

diminishes on a daily basis, because Israel is a small state with a

low birth rate that lives in a huge sea of Arabs.

Mr. TURNER [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Newhouse.

Mr. Gilmore, would you like to comment on some of the questions?

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Chairman, respectfully, it is a policy decision

about whether the foreign policy of this country is going to shift

with respect to support of Israel or their policies. That is not really

the topic that we are discussing here today. We are discussing here

today the question of what actions the Congress can focus on in

order to try to make the homeland more secure. I think that was

the essence of Congressman Janklow’s ideas about this.

I’m concerned, frankly, about some of the things that I’m hearing

here today. I think there is a risk here that we are being led down

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the path of trying to address all vulnerabilities in the Nation. You

cannot address all vulnerabilities of the Nation. Again, that was

also said from the dais a few moments ago.

This Nation is a free country. It carries within, therefore, inherent vulnerabilities. But vulnerability is not threat. Threat is different. Threat is the things that the enemy has the capability of

attacking, and they don’t have the capability of attacking everything. They don’t—the motivation to attack things and what things

are vulnerable, and that is the threat, and that we can address. We

can address that. If we tried to address everything that anyone

could imagine, any terrorist could imagine, we are driving ourselves into being a financially exhausted martial state, which is exactly what the enemy probably would like to see us get to.

Instead, we have to address that, and then I think you go to a

little different question, which is, how are we doing it?

We are setting up a major bureaucracy with the Department of

Homeland Security, but what are we doing it for? That is the point

to keep the eye on the ball about here. We don’t want to get so tangled up in the administrative efforts to get it all to coordinate and

work together we lose track of what we’re trying to do, which is to

address the potential threats of this country in a reasonable and

prioritized way and to address what we really think the potential

threats are.

And for what purpose are we doing that? I don’t think it’s to

make ourselves a martial state. I think at some point it’s to return

to some sense of normalcy in this country, not a country like was

being described someplace where we are constantly watched and

constantly going through security measures at the grocery store

and things like that, but to get back to the point where we protect

ourselves to the greatest extent possible from reasonable, foreseeable risks and threats and then get on with our lives as free people.

Otherwise, the enemy’s won.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Governor.

Now, Mr. Bell, you will have 10 minutes.

Mr. BELL. Governor, I couldn’t agree with you more when you

suggest that there is no way possible for us to do everything to

keep the homeland safe. I have said for a long time that you could

take every security precaution known to man, some even unknown

at this particular point in time, and still have someone willing to

kill themselves in order to kill other people. That you’re not—there

are going to be instances where you can’t defend against that.

I do believe, though, that after September 11th we live in a new

world in some negative ways but also some rather positive ways,

one being that there has been an awakening and there is a sense

of alertness in America that has never been seen before. Things

that not too long ago would have probably been taken for granted,

an unattended piece of luggage in a crowded facility, will now be

pointed out to a security guard. I daresay if an individual like Timothy McVeigh went and tried to purchase an inordinate amount of

race car fuel that would be reported to some authority. If someone

signed up for a flight class and expressed no interest in taking off

or landing the aircraft, that type of suspicious behavior would be

reported.

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What I am curious about is that the only way that works and

that sense of alertness leads to greater security is if there really

is communication between the various law enforcement authorities;

and I hope that is something positive which has come out of September 11th, too, because we have all heard the stories of turf wars

between various law enforcement entities, the breakdown in communication, information not being transmitted to where it should

be going. I’m curious as to what your feelings are on that particular

subject, whether we really have seen better communication between the different levels of law enforcement.

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, of course, it has to be addressed on

two levels, one is technological and the other is cultural.

The technological part is the part we still have to reach for, the

ability to have some interoperability to address the spectrum

issues, to get local responders some capacity to have the ability to

use their intercommunications, even to allow some spectrum to

allow people in the private sector to be able to have some communication capacities within themselves; and that remains I think

ahead of the Congress. But that’s the easier part.

But that’s the easier part. The more difficult part is the cultural

problem and that is getting intelligence organizations to communicate with each other. This is an issue we first began to address

in the year 2000 with our report to the Congress on December 15,

2000, where we pointed out that there was not information passing

back and forth laterally among Federal intelligence organizations—

FBI, NSA, CIA, all the rest of them. And more importantly, there

was not information traveling vertically up and down the line between Federal, State and local people.

We pointed out that while within the Federal system, clearances

are granted routinely to elected officials in the Congress, there are

no clearances granted routinely to people in the State bureaucracy

who actually have the primary responsibility to deal with these

issues. I was the Governor of one of the two States directly attacked on September 11th, New York and Virginia were the two

States directly attacked, and based upon that, I know from personal experience that there was difficulty with that.

In this past report, our fourth annual report, we recommended

that there be a fusion center of intelligence information that would

also have a role to play with Federal, State and local people all

within the fusion center, the communication back and forth between Federal organizations as well. And a form of that was adopted by the President in his State of the Union address, and we are

optimistic that will be structured in a way that it can be made to

work.

There is a major issue of how you are going to conduct

counterterrorism activity in the United States to gain that information to go into the fusion center from within the homeland. That

remains controversial even on our commission, but we think that

progress is in fact being made. I was briefed at the White House

recently by Admiral Abbott, the acting Homeland Security adviser

to the President, who has pointed out that there are efforts being

made to create those channels up and down the line between Federal, State and local people.

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Last point, condition orange has been widely criticized when it

came to pass, but it does have some value, value in communicating

with the terrorists, value in communicating with the American people so that there is not a shock if there’s another attack, which

would cause a stampede, an overreaction, which I think we are all

concerned about; but also that condition also triggers automatic

communications between Federal, State and local people which I

thought was maybe the most significant point.

Mr. BELL. Dr. O’Hanlon, Chairman Shays pointed out that he

liked you when he realized that you had served in the Peace Corps.

I liked you when you started making my case for me on port security, and I greatly appreciate that. And when I was home a couple

of weeks ago, I started talking to people about this, basically to

raise the flag and see who might salute it.

But I am curious where we go from here, because it is a very legitimate point that when you look at the number of petrochemical

plants we have located along the Houston ship channel and realize

the vulnerability of those plants, and I hope the point you are trying to make is, right now, you can look at that and say, well, that

is your problem or that’s their problem. But if there is any kind

of strike against that type of plant, then as you point out, it becomes our problem. So, given that, I am curious as to what you

would recommend.

And one thing that I’ve considered—haven’t actually proposed it

yet, because I want to get input from other people such as yourself—but should we be looking toward some type of subsidy program for those types of facilities, to provide a certain amount of

Federal assistance, because I do agree with you there, there is a

line and there is an economic line that they will reach.

I think most of the plants in my district have taken extraordinary measures. There’s one chemical plant that I visited that I

thought I was going to have an MRI conducted before I gained admittance. They go through extraordinary precautions, but there are

limits. And before they are going to go to the full extent, I think

they’re going to be looking to the Federal Government for some

kind of assistance; and I am curious as to what your feelings on

that would be.

Dr. O’HANLON. Thank you, Congressman.

Also wrestling with the point that Governor Gilmore made about

how we don’t want to get so caught up in homeland security that

we bankrupt the country, it’s a tough balancing act to work out.

In our Brookings study, we came to a couple of conclusions. One

of them is at the Federal level, we do need some more capability

in institutions like the Coast Guard and in some of the port security funding to develop port security plans that, right now, I think

Federal money needs to go up. It doesn’t necessarily need to go up

astronomically. The Coast Guard budget already is increasing, but

I think the Coast Guard’s fleet needs to get bigger. That’s one piece

of it, but it’s not really your primary concern.

Your primary concern is actual site defense at the place we’re

talking about. And there, I think—personally, I am not strongly opposed to the idea of subsidies, but I am more intrigued, just based

on my research and discussions with economists at Brookings, by

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quire a certain minimal level of regulation, minimal level of security legislatively, but leave the primary effort to the private sector;

require many of these facilities to have terrorism insurance, and

then the insurance market will work to give people incentives to

adopt best practices because they can offer lower rates to people

who are adopting better security practices.

So that’s a partial answer. It still doesn’t get to your real concern

of how do we make sure that these facilities aren’t themselves

bankrupted because we are asking them to adopt a more secure

workplace. If the level of Federal regulation or State regulation is

relatively modest, and we say, you have to do certain basic things,

have monitoring of all your major entrances, have a certain number of security guards on duty, have a certain number of tests per

year of your response capability, and then leave it the private-sector insurance markets to help give these people incentives to develop best practices, that may work better than either Federal subsidies. Because there are so many facilities to subsidize, I don’t

know how you draw the line or simply trusting the private sector

to get it right on its own.

One more point, if I could bring in a separate example and I am

sorry to go on, but skyscrapers, I worry about anthrax being introduced into the air intake of skyscrapers. As far as I know, there

is still no Federal requirement or State requirement in most places

that these air intake systems be elevated above street level or otherwise protected.

We don’t want to fortify every building in the country and we

don’t want to mandate this happen immediately, because it would

cost too much. But I think for large buildings, there needs to be

a certain push by the Federal Government for these buildings to

get more secure on how they handle their air circulation systems.

And then, again, the insurance markets can give them incentives

to do even more, and they can choose for themselves whether they

can afford the additional measures like filtering systems in their

air, circulation devices and that sort of thing.

I am not yet prepared to endorse subsidies because of the sheer

number of facilities and the sheer cost of doing so, but I haven’t

ruled it out either, and maybe there are certain places we have to

at least keep it in mind if the economies of these plants and facilities—if their budgets are so stressed by additional security they

simply can’t do it on their own, we may have to at least give them

a temporary helping hand.

Mr. TURNER. Governor Gilmore, I appreciate your comment concerning the sharing of information between local, State and Federal

Governments. I served as mayor for the city of Dayton, and we actually were one of the few cities and communities that actually

held weapons of mass destruction exercises prior to September

11th. Attorney General John Ashcroft attended those exercises, and

it was phenomenally helpful to our community when September

11th occurred, because we knew who was in charge of what; what

streets were to be closed. We didn’t run to the phone book to figure

out what agencies we needed to coordinate with; there had already

been an effort to put together coordination with the FBI, the sheriff

and the like.

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Recently, I attended a presentation by NCR concerning the application of business data collection software to homeland security

issues, and one of the things that they discussed is that the business process of handling data and information technologies starts

with the question ‘‘what information do we need to know in working backward in designing your systems.’’

So the question I have for you, Governor and Dr. O’Hanlon, is,

in this process of making certain that we are sharing information,

what should we be doing or how is it going—in our efforts to define

what we need to be doing, what information is it that we need to

make certain that we avail ourselves of as we look to sharing that?

Mr. GILMORE. I think that’s a new topic. The issue of what type

of data, I suppose you’re really referring to, if you’re talking about

a National Cash Register-type of presentation, CR-type of

presentation——

Mr. TURNER. It was interesting in the discussion because they

talked about, do you start looking at what data you have and start

sharing that, or do you start with the question of what do we need

to know and what levels do we need to know it. And they clearly

indicated, even from the business process, and they believe from

the government and homeland security process, that there should

be a process of defining what are those things that we believe that

we need to know as we go through setting up our systems and

sharing that information.

Mr. GILMORE. There has certainly been a lot of discussion going

on about the DARPA program that the Pentagon was attempting

to conduct, the total information awareness. It was depicted at its

inception as being so broad that it just scared the living daylights

out of everybody. And I think this Congress decided to put the

clamps on that somewhat. So that was, I think, maybe a starting

effort to determine what you need to know, and it may have been

defined so broadly that it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

So it may be that if we can go through a definition process, we

can preserve civil liberties and the privacy and anonymity of people

as Americans at the same time we are providing for the capability

of our counterterrorism people to focus on the right kinds of individuals or people. But that’s a definitional process that still has to

be gone through.

I think it has to be handled with the greatest care, and the reason is that today we live in an America that has two elements. I

am not sure it is unique, but yeah, it might be. One is the American media to fix and manage our problems. If we say we have this

problem here and this great managerial class called United States

of America 2003 is going to try to find some technological or managerial approach to fixing the problem, that would go to the question

of how you define that.

And the second, that is probably unique in the history of mankind, is this enormous technological society we live in and the capacity to gather data and to hold data and to keep data, which does

threaten the potential privacy and character of the values of the

American people.

Do you have to strike that balance? I think it is entirely a policy

question. You will be led, Congressman, to the sense that it is a

technological question and a managerial question. It is not; it is a

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policy question of how much you are going to permit to be accumulated in order to preserve the security of the country. That is a

judgment call based upon the values you bring with you to the

Congress.

Dr. O’HANLON. Congressman, in this dichotomy you put forth, do

you take what information you have and process it more or do you

go out and look for more? You have to do both, but I want to emphasize the second piece. I want to do the equivalent of Phoenix

memos as much as we can.

So what I mean by that, I would like to see local, State and Federal law enforcement authorities sharing information. If we happen

to see 10 places in the country where there are people casing airfields on the same day or two, you want to know that it’s not just

one isolated place, and if it happens in one place in South Dakota

and one place in Virginia and one place in Maryland, no one ever

knows that it’s happened at all these places simultaneously.

What you want to do is piece that information together or have

it in some kind of a data base where somebody with a creative idea

can write a computer program and say, am I seeing any suspicious

behavior that is systematic?

So you want to have data entered into your National Law Enforcement Information System that allows that kind of correlation

analysis to be done. And whether it is medical supplies being stolen, airfields being cased, crop dusters being rented, there are a lot

of things that can fall into the category of flight training—that we

know very well from 2001—that you would want to know about, especially if they were happening at more than one place at a time,

suggesting some kind of a conspiracy. And that’s where you need

to generate the data and probably more of the data than we have

today, get it into the data bases and then allow some kind of central analysis through Homeland Security’s Threat Analysis System.

That is the sort of thing I want to see much more of. And that

is going to require cultural improvements and technological improvements, as Governor Gilmore said before. I think the Federal

Government is going to have to ultimately support improvement in

information technology at the State and local level much more and

maybe even subsidize some of it.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Newhouse, your comments were very interesting. Some of the analysis, I was concerned, certainly was so onesided that it left out elements of what we all know is occurring.

You state that one of the issues that needs to occur is starting

with an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. I didn’t notice

in your comments the call for the ending of suicide bombing attacks. Your statements appear to be solely placing responsibility on

what we believe are the responsible states and democracies, instead of the parties that are doing very egregious acts; and I would

like some of your comments about that.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. They certainly are egregious and self-injurious.

They are also, if you like, a response to what they see as the illegal

occupation of their territory and the settlement activity, which everyone has said, including President Bush, has got to stop.

There are also acts being committed by, if you will, rejectionist

groups who are also terrorist groups. And the leadership, Mr. Arafat’s leadership, which—his is really an awful leadership. It is corVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00174 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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rupt and it doesn’t advance the interest of the Palestinian people

in any way, but because it is weak, inherently weak, it is unable

to do anything about these acts. It has actually tried and failed.

These acts you speak of are being committed by the terrorist

groups, and these are not terrorist groups that export, but they are

devoted entirely to harming Israel. But there is very little from

here that we can do about it, other than—in my opinion, except for

doing what I suggested that we do, which is restart the Middle

East peace process.

Mr. TURNER. I would take it that you would not indicate that you

believe that the suicide bombings are advancing the cause of a Palestinian state or resulting in a greater likelihood of that occurring?

I mean, it sets back, obviously, the peace process. And when

their occurrence is neglected, in your comments, as merely a responsibility of—or the setbacks are a result of Israel’s reaction, I

think it doesn’t provide us with the information that we need to

come to a conclusion as to what really the United States needs to

be doing.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, I would agree with you that the acts of terrorism committed against Israel are certainly from the point of

view of Palestinian interests and are deeply counterproductive. As

of now, there seems to be very little that anyone can do about that

directly. The Palestinian leadership has been unable to do anything

about it; the Israelis themselves are unable to do anything about

it because retaliation simply invites more of the same.

So it is kind of a demonic process going on, and as I said, there

is very little, if anything, that the United States can contribute directly to heading it off, stopping it. But I think, in a larger sense,

generating some stability out there and getting the sides together

in a peace process, I think, is really the only weapon available.

Mr. TURNER. In your comments, you also talked about your concern about the preemption doctrine having an impact of exacerbating the threats in the United States, and you ended a paragraph

with ‘‘Terrorism may be contained if intelligence services and police

agencies acquire the habit of cooperating closely and with each

other and suppressing their competitive instincts and preference

for acting alone.’’

When the intelligence services and police agencies are cooperating, what action would you think would result from that?

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, if they are cooperating, then I think we

are in very good shape. The problem is getting intelligence agencies

and police agencies to cooperate systematically.

Frequently, they will cooperate. Going back to 1984, the Los Angeles Olympics—this may have been a first, maybe it wasn’t the

first, but we do know at that time the CIA and the FBI worked together very closely. They were under a lot of pressure from the

White House to do exactly that. Not only that, but they were cooperating with their counterpart agencies in other governments, so

that in the days preceding the Los Angeles Olympics, the FBI was

able to assure Members of this body at that time that nothing

would happen. They categorically said, nothing will happen at the

Los Angeles Olympics; we’ve got these groups so penetrated, we

know what they’re thinking about before they think or what they’re

going to do before they do.

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Much was the same at other major events: Y2K was an example,

or the Gulf war when we rolled up 30 different plots to commit terrorist acts. The problem is, when agencies, both within our country

and in their dealings with other countries, ramp up, in a phrase,

for—to make sure nothing happens at a given time, the tendency

then is—after nothing has happened and the event is over, is to

ramp down and go back to the so-called ‘‘stovepipe method’’ where

information is gathered at one level, or low level, if you will, and

it drifts upward to the top and then it stops there, it isn’t transferred.

Because knowledge is power, and an agency that has information

that perhaps another agency doesn’t have and uses that information to advantage, sometimes in the budgetary process—anyway,

it’s counterintuitive to cooperate.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Chairman Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very

eager to get into this dialog. I love this panel, and I guess I am

fascinated by the issue because we fought for 4 years about this.

You know, in the beginning, Governor Gilmore, it was almost

theoretical because, you know, we just didn’t come to grips with it

fully until September 11th, but this is what I want to first start

out with.

After September 11th the eight National Strategies to Combat

Terrorism—this is what I am hearing from this panel—that after

September 11th, the eight National Strategies to Combat Terrorism are a good start, but there is more work to be done.

And then, Dr. Krepinevich, I look at your statement and you say,

you know, the National Security Act of 1947, it took until 1958 before it was structured. The structure was refined, and then you put

in parentheses ‘‘and even then it was only partial.’’ We looked for

a number of years before we had a reorganization that fit into this,

in a sense, the strategy.

Now, so—and you had Eisenhower in 1952. I mean, you had all

these stages of trying to improve this response to what was then

the Soviet Union.

So what I want to know is, do you think this is a good starting

point, if you all agree, and that we need more—more work needs

to be done. And these are the areas I sense you are saying: Interrogation among the strategies; intelligence strategy, big question

mark because that was pointed out as not existing. Should there

be an intelligence strategy, or is there one that we just don’t sense?

Ensuring that our national—not Federal strategies; I think, Governor Gilmore, that was your point, interesting concept of national

versus Federal. And the need for more clear measures of effectiveness.

So that’s where the work needs done. And would you agree and

would you want to speak to it, and would you want to add a fifth

or sixth?

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think we are off to a good start; we’re better

off than we were a couple of years ago. I’m not sure what to compare this to.

Are the strategies integrated? I think, as certain members of this

panel have indicated—let me speak for myself. I think there are

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certainly gaps that have raised a number of issues that we have

not come to grips with.

Do we need an intelligence strategy? I think if we are going to

do what Governor Gilmore suggests, which I think is probably a

way to get around the cost-imposing strategy that the terrorists intentionally or unintentionally are pursuing, the way to do it is to

get them, as opposed to trying to provide an airtight defense ourselves.

Doing that certainly is going to require expert intelligence. We

have underinvested in human intelligence of the kind that is typically crucial to breaking down these organizations.

Mr. SHAYS. So would your point be that we need an intelligence

strategy added to this list of strategies and then integrate it?

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Certainly you need a strategy for how you are

going to employ your terrorist assets. It should fall out of your

overall strategy. For example, if you are going to emphasize preemption, then I think the weight of your intelligence effort is going

to be overseas. If you are going to emphasize a layered defense of

the continental United States and Alaska and Hawaii, then more

of your intelligence efforts may be at our borders and internal to

the United States, which require a different kind of intelligence.

So I do think the kind of strategy you choose begins to inform

how you are going to apply your intelligence assets and what kind

of priorities you are going to place on them.

In terms of measures of effectiveness, I think we’ve only begun

to scratch the surface on this. For example, I think the National

Strategy for Combating Terrorism says, we’ll know that we’ve won

when Americans feel safe and secure and free of a terrorist threat.

That’s probably true, but it doesn’t really give the person who has

to execute a strategy much of a sense of what they need to do to

try and achieve that end.

I would say two strategic measures of effectiveness that I would

certainly consider are: one, what is an acceptable level of damage

for the United States to incur? If it’s impossible to provide airtight

security over the United States, what’s an acceptable level of damage and can we achieve it? What strategic alternative can give us

the best prospect of essentially suffering an attack and having an

acceptable level of damage?

The other is our freedom of action, because success is not only

our ability to defend ourselves here at home, but it’s our ability to

protect our vital interests overseas. If we feel under such risk of

attack here that we forgo our ability to, for example, protect critical

areas whether it’s East Asia, the Persian Gulf where we have vital

interests, then we will have been deterred because of our vulnerability here at home or our ability to deal with the threat abroad.

So I do think that in terms of measures of effectiveness, again

you can go up and down the line, whether it’s dealing with cyber

attacks——

Mr. SHAYS. Bottom line, there needs to be a lot more improvement and the whole issue of whether we’re effective or not in determining how we’ll even measure effectiveness?

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Absolutely.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Newhouse, do you want to speak to the issue of

improving integration? Do we need an intelligence strategy, naVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00177 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tional versus the Federal issue and measures of effectiveness and

any other strategy?

I am asking you, Mr. Newhouse. If you don’t want to speak to

it, I will go to Dr. O’Hanlon.

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Chairman, I think we spent a lot of time on

this today, and I think Governor Gilmore and Dr. O’Hanlon would

have a lot more that would be useful.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me get to you in another question.

Dr. O’Hanlon, one thing I say about a Peace Corps volunteer is,

we were taught to understand the people that we lived with, and

there were things that we did and said that when you understood

their culture, you were able to interact and communicate with

them.

Is there a role that needs to be played here in our strategy on

terrorism as well? I am jumping ahead—do you know what I just

asked you?

Dr. O’HANLON. It’s a tough question. Clearly the answer is yes.

You need to understand your partners and the needs of other countries. I don’t know how to build it into a formalized process like

this with today’s focus on security strategies.

Maybe what I would say is that the National Security Strategy,

which really should be at the pinnacle and does have some discussion of the needs of developing countries, to take one category of

overseas partners, it sort of gets cheapened when there are all

these other strategies that are out there. And I worry about the

proliferation of documents, because we should all still be reading

and developing and debating the National Security Strategy, and

we did for awhile in the fall.

And then preemption was the flavor of the month for a few

weeks, and now we’re on to other documents. And there’s a lot of

stuff in the National Security Strategy that has nothing to do with

preemption, as you well know, largely this economic assistance

issue for developing countries who are very important partners of

ours in counterterrorism.

So it’s not a very clear issue.

Mr. SHAYS. I kind of got you off the topic here. I was eager to

share a bias that I have here without thinking it through.

Let me ask you to address the issue—the eight strategies are a

good start, better integration. Do we need an intelligence strategy—national, not Federal—and the whole issue of effectiveness.

Comment on any of those?

Dr. O’HANLON. I will comment on a couple of them. I had the opportunity to at least tangentially talk about a couple of the others

already.

The issue of national versus Federal response, it does occur to

me that we need to spend more time thinking about the State and

local role. Obviously, Governor Gilmore has more experience than

I do. But I, for example, have some contacts at the L.A. city council

who were very concerned about the delay in the first responder

fund over the last year. And Washington let down the States and

the local governments in having this stalemate on that.

And one can look for different people to blame, but the bottom

line is, I think, Washington didn’t get the job done until too late.

We spent a whole year when we should have been dealing with

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first responder capacity, improving that, and we really didn’t do

much.

In fact, I’m told that in L.A. city council debates, advocates of

doing more were often stymied because others would say, Washington is going to help us pretty soon, we don’t have to find the

money, just wait and the $3.5 billion is going to start to come our

way. And people who wanted to find local funds had their own argument for finding local funds undercut by this promise from

Washington that was not fulfilled for a full year.

So maybe—you know, I hate to call for more strategies, but

maybe we do need to get the Federal versus national distinction a

little more prominent in our thinking and spend more time—I was

delighted to see the Governors put some pressure on Washington

a couple of weeks ago, and I think we’ll need more of that.

Mr. SHAYS. Governor Gilmore—and I will take my next round to

talk about the whole issue of multi—unilateral, and this whole

issue of preemptive.

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, it is a good start. We didn’t have a

national strategy before September 11th, of any kind; now we have

eight strategies. And I guess I would like to think about them a

little bit and the Commission will think about them a little bit. I

believe that will be a topic we will address in this 5th year for the

Congress and for the President and try to think through that.

I think we should make sure they don’t contradict each other or

that they don’t place different emphases. But I think we’re going

to find that these are—supplement each other. Some of the strategies like the cyber and so on like that are points of emphasis, and

I am not sure that I see them as something where you have to try

to conglomerate them into one overall strategy. I think it might

work out all right, but we will look at that.

The intelligence piece is really tricky. This is very, very difficult.

We have placed a great emphasis on this all of our 4 years that

we have been in existence and recommended that stovepiping be

broken through and fusion center be created and the culture of separation be broken down between all these different agencies.

The trick is that you do all that and you run the risk of contaminating the society by looking over the shoulder of regular people

out there who are just trying to live their lives every day. This is

tricky. It means that we all believe that you have to do effective

sharing of information to get at the bad guys, but at the same time,

you have to find some method to not be looking over the shoulder

of the good guys.

This is a very tricky challenge—national, not Federal, absolutely.

And I think that this is the real, maybe one of the focuses. I would

say to you, Congressman Shays, that the danger here is, we are

going to get so caught up with how you put the agencies together

and the Department together, that you implement everything, that

we lose some focus and momentum toward actually doing the

things that are going to be necessary. I am uneasy with the idea

that every witness who comes before you for the next year is going

through a list of vulnerability that he sees within his own State

and then, of course, naturally demand money to go into that State

to take care of that vulnerability. That’s not a very good approach.

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Instead, you have to find an all-hazards type of approach, one

that really focuses on enabling the States to create State-oriented

plans in cooperation with their localities so that instead of worrying about any individual chemical plant, you enable your localities

and your States to observe that plant, all the plants, all the railroads, all the airlines, and enable them to be watched in a reasonable way and to respond if an attack does occur and to circumscribe

the potential attack.

The key issue is implementing that, really not worrying so much

about the organization as implementation of the program to, in

fact, get out here and to get proper funding in accordance with the

proper strategy, in accordance with a proper State plan and make

sure that they are properly equipped, enabled, and they know who

is on first and that it’s properly exercised and ultimately measured.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I would love to come back. When the

Governor has had a chance, I would love to get into the issue of

preemption.

Mr. JANKLOW. Go ahead and then I’ll go.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Krepinevich, do you agree with Dr. O’Hanlon that

a policy of preemptive self-defense should be more implicit than explicit?

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I agree with him to the extent that, the option

of preemption is nothing new. For example, in the Solarium Study

you cited, one of the three groups explicitly looked at conducting

what was called preventive war against China. President Kennedy

also explored in great detail and actually engaged the Soviets in

discussions about a preemptive attack on China’s developing nuclear facilities.

Certainly, President Clinton debated with his security advisers

the prospect of conducting a preemptive attack on the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon. So this is not new; it has always been

an option in our strategic arsenal.

I think perhaps by stating it as boldly as the President did, it

might have garnered some unwanted attention on the part of the

administration.

On the other hand, I think it’s also necessary to point out to people that the last big threat that we faced, the Soviet Union, was

a threat that we felt could be deterred; and so we put a lot of our

eggs in the basket of deterrence. And that is why we had public

statements of strategy, because again we wanted to get into the

minds of the Soviets. We wanted them to understand that any unacceptable action on their part would produce catastrophic consequences for them.

Well, what do you do when you can’t deter a group that can inflict substantial damage on your country? You have to begin to reweigh your balance of options. And this administration has argued

for preemption—which is really preventive war in the case of

Iraq—and I’m not quite sure how you preempt somebody you’re already at war with; we are already at war with terrorists—but at

any rate, I think you’ve got to prepare the American people for the

fact that we are going to be acting perhaps quite differently than

we have in the past. And the reason is because our traditional reliance on deterrence has been eroded.

177

And you have to prepare the American public and you have to

make the case to its elected Representatives for their support to develop the capabilities, because they are not identical to the kinds

of capabilities you would want for a posture of deterrence.

Mr. SHAYS. Governor Gilmore, would you speak to this issue

next? I would just preface it by saying, I think this is a huge issue

that there has to be lots of debate about.

Dr. O’Hanlon, I don’t come down on your side of the argument

because it strikes me that the world community has to know that

they can’t allow a small group of dedicated scientists within their

borders to do something that could wipe out humanity. We have to

be honest with our own folks and say, this isn’t—this needs to be

stated explicitly, because this is the world you live in. It’s a different world.

So I am giving you my answer to it, but I’d be happy to have you

comment to it, Governor.

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, I think we have an obligation to be

very precise on our threat assessment before we decide to take serious military action. The intelligence community ought to be able to

give us some testable advice about any particular risk. The chance

of a dedicated group of scientists someplace creating a bio weapon

that can destroy humanity is remote, so you should be cautious.

Mr. SHAYS. Why do you say, it’s remote?

Mr. GILMORE. It’s hard to do. All of the information that our commission has gotten is that it’s extremely difficult to get these weapons, extremely difficult to weaponize them and extremely difficult

to deliver them. We were not prepared to rule out a weapon-ofmass-destruction attack on the United States, but in the very first

year, we assessed the likelihood of a conventional attack on this

country as being highly probable, the chance of a weapon-of-massdestruction attack on this country as being highly improbable, not

completely beyond the pale; and that’s why we have considered it

on a continuous basis as we have gone on.

Our most recent threat assessment contained in our fourth report changes that analysis not one whit. It’s just very difficult to

deliver those kinds of weapons, and we should be cautious about

governing policy along those lines.

Mr. SHAYS. It’s difficult if you are not willing to carry it yourself.

But if you’re willing to carry it yourself, it becomes a lot easier.

Mr. GILMORE. If you can get it.

Mr. SHAYS. There are two parts. But if you are willing to infect

yourself and others who are very willing to, you know, be blown up

in an airplane that hits a building, it strikes me that the reality

becomes very different.

Mr. GILMORE. It’s very difficult to get those weapons. It’s very

difficult to create those weapons.

It’s very difficult to get smallpox, for example, very difficult to

weaponize it. If our suggestions are put into place, particularly on

the health side—which has been the greatest extent of our work,

by the way, for the 4 years has been the health piece and the public health system and the ability of hospitals to deal with this—you

could contain those kinds of attacks, should they occur. But they

still remain highly unlikely compared to that which terrorists can

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get, which are explosive devices, hijackings, attacking vulnerable

points. That is very likely and has of course, been borne out.

I think your question with respect to this, I think September

11th is driving and coloring the policy decisions that the Congress

is making and the executive branch is making. The threat seems

so much more real after September 11th in terms of the potential

attack, which then leads us to the analysis that if you allow either

a terrorist organization or a foreign country to continue to develop

these kinds of weapons, and with the visceral fear we now have in

America with this kind of attack, then that leads more toward a

policy of preemption, the notion being that we can’t allow someone

to develop that kind of weapon and put us in that kind of position.

Even if they can’t get the weapon here, which they probably

can’t, they could get it around their neighbors, and then, in that

position, upset the entire balance of a major region where the national interests of the United States are at stake. This is the analysis, I believe, of the President.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Governor.

Mr. TURNER. Do you have any additional questions?

Mr. JANKLOW. Let me pick up on where Congressman Shays left

off on the comments that some of you panelists made.

Governor Gilmore, it’s extremely difficult to manufacture these,

there’s no question about that. But when a State sponsors the research and the manufacturing, just exactly like has gone on historically in the Soviet Union, what has gone on in North Korea and

clearly what is going on in Iraq.

I mean, we can all argue and will continue to argue what is or

isn’t present in Iraq. But after the inspections started back in the

1990’s and after several years and after Saddam Hussein’s son-inlaw came out of the country and then others talked about what was

inside the country, all of a sudden the world—there was an admission, there was anthrax in the country in very substantial quantities and research going on.

There was smallpox within the country. There was no candid admission, but I don’t think there’s been any intelligence service from

any country that hasn’t understood that there has been smallpox

research going on in Iraq.

Clearly, there was research with respect to risin and some of the

other types of weapons of mass destruction.

You don’t have to wipe out the human race in order to wreck it,

especially when you live in as sophisticated a society and economy

as we have. September 11th is a classic example of the hundreds

of billions of dollars, the price we’re paying for those particular incidents taking place.

Our country has had a long history of explosions: antiwar efforts

blowing up buildings at the University of Wisconsin; as I recall, the

Symbionese Liberation Army [SLA], back a couple of decades and

explosions they were doing; things that some other groups were involved in. Europe clearly had the Red Guard and all of those types

of things. Japan has had the incidents with respect to poisonous

gas.

But the point is, it doesn’t take much in a society to change the

standard of living, to change the culture.

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You keep talking about—very eloquently, Governor, about how

we just have to evaluate all this and then we have to make policy

decisions. But the fact of the matter is, no one who drafted our Bill

of Rights, or subsequently that has dealt with it, ever had in mind

the kinds of terrorism or the kinds of wanton acts that human

beings would do to one another with respect to deliberately inflicting diseases and those types of things. So, I mean, we have a tremendous challenge, as you keep saying all the time, where do we

draw that line?

I think hoof and mouth disease, although it has been with animals, is a classic example of how easy it is to spread—for example,

smallpox is not a difficult disease to spread. Clearly, it’s done by

contact. But to the extent that people are as mobile as they are in

today’s world, again if someone is willing to die, to infect themselves with smallpox and they’re willing to die, they can have a

huge amount of contact with others, like at airports or public arenas, what have you, before they reach the point where they are no

longer capable of being a bomb themselves.

So after having said all of this rhetoric, my question to you and

to you, Mr. Krepinevich, is what is it—what is it that should be expected to us? If you’re a citizen out there, what is it they should

expect of us to be able to do—is there anything we can do in the

legislative sense? Is it our responsibility to talk about it? What is

it that should be expected of us?

Mr. GILMORE. It’s a very great policy question. I don’t think that

the American people should expect of their legislators that they are

going to provide them complete security from all imaginable attacks and terrorism. I don’t think the legislature can do that. It’s

unrealistic to hold you accountable for some diseased mind and

some idea that somebody might come forward with—and, you

know, it doesn’t even have to be a weapon of mass destruction. It

can be a bomb in a local McDonald’s in downtown St. Louis.

Mr. JANKLOW. It could be snipers.

Mr. GILMORE. And I think we have to begin to go through the

education process that says that we are going to assess the risk in

a realistic way. We’re going to take the appropriate measures that

are realistically based upon those threats, those realistic threats;

and then we are going to get on with our lives and understand that

we’re going to live like we have always lived. And I think that’s

part of the answer of both expectations.

I mean it’s clear that you don’t have to have weapons of mass

destruction to wreck a society. I think the society is on a hair trigger right now, and I think we need to back away from that a little

bit.

The agricultural terrorism—by the way, I want to throw in, since

you raised it, Congressman, that we have a whole chapter here on

agricultural terrorism, so we are not excluding any possibility as a

weapon of mass destruction, hoof and mouth disease or any other

potential attack.

But we think there’s an obligation to reasonably assess the

threats in a realistic way. Try to avoid—in a perfect world, I suppose, trying to guard against everything for fear that if you miss

something and something bad happens, then some commentator or

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some newspaper is going to criticize you and say that you didn’t

think of that.

Mr. JANKLOW. That’s what they do, though.

Mr. GILMORE. We can’t think of everything. And we have to be

honest about it with the American people that we owe an obligation to reasonably assess the threats, put together a national strategy and make sure all the resources of Federal, State and local people are drawn to it, and we all understand what it is, we’re properly funded, not crazily funded, and then put it into place; and then

build this and then explain to the American people that life has

never been risk free and go on from there and ask them to live free

lives.

Mr. JANKLOW. Dr. Krepinevich.

Dr. KREPINEVICH. To come full circle, again, Congress has the responsibility of the purse to provide the means. Congress is also responsible for declaring war. So I think it’s appropriate that Congress pass judgment on the strategy, which essentially is, how we

are going to go about dealing with this particular threat to our security?

So what does this mean? I will count off a number of things that

I think Congress has to look for. One is, do we have an adequate

statement of the character of the threat? Is the threat a renegade

group that we’re talking about in terms of international terrorism,

or is it a popular movement?

If it’s a popular movement, then it takes on the characteristics

of an insurgency; and an insurgency is a popular movement that

has got a fundamental level of support among a specific group of

the population. If this is a movement in the Arab world, for example, or in the Islamic world, then it’s not essentially a police action.

It’s an action that at some point if you are going to get rid of this

brand of terrorism, you are going to have to go after the root causes

of why these people are doing what they’re doing.

And it seems to me their objective is to get the U.S.’ influence

out of their part of the world, and in a sense, to keep Americans

from exporting their culture, to stop being Americans in a sense.

So what is the character of the threat that we’re dealing with?

What is the goal? What do we wish to accomplish? What are the

means?

And, again, your responsibility is to get a sense of whether the

means can actually be provided. Are we willing to make that kind

of a national commitment to ‘‘X’’ billions of dollars year after year

after year because, as we know, the President said: that this is a

protracted conflict which we’re in.

Preemption, strategists will tell you, buys you time. When the

Israelis attached the Osirak reactor in 1981, they bought themselves time. What do you do with that time? That has got to be a

critical part of your strategy.

Metrics, again, how do we measure progress, not just in one area,

but in a number of areas. But I think that is if we have these multiple strategies then we ought to have performance metrics.

Mr. JANKLOW. Don’t you think—and I am cutting you off just a

little because of time, but don’t you think when Congress, when all

of America, focuses like they did after September 11th, which we

all agree was a focal point for us, and then we all agreed we needVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:05 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00184 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\87702.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ed a homeland security-something, and then we get hung up and

Congress goes home for Christmas and everybody just takes time

off while we discuss civil service protections for people, doesn’t that

really—and I am not questioning the impact it has on individuals

that are employed in the government. I’m not. But doesn’t that

really trivialize it for someone out there in Timbuktu, America,

with respect to what it is, the sense of urgency we are trying to

convince them we’re dealing with?

And then we still haven’t funded it. Now they’re all screaming,

where’s the money? We told them we would give them the money.

We’re not giving them the money. Doesn’t this really fly in the face

of what we call a sense of urgency?

Dr. KREPINEVICH. I think certainly there needs to be a sense of

urgency. One of the political wags opined that the situation is critical, but not serious and in a sense you could argue——

Mr. JANKLOW. Where I come from we call that a distinction without a difference.

Dr. KREPINEVICH. Again, the years 1945 to 1950 when we developed a containment strategy, we were not at war. We were not

being attacked. We did not have military forces engaged in combat.

We certainly need that sense of urgency. And I couldn’t agree

with you more. The question is, what is it going to take to get that

sense of urgency?

Mr. JANKLOW. We don’t have it, and we expect the public to

give—we are privy to folks like you coming before us to give us information. But out in the hinterland, they don’t get that. They will

get a snippet of this. They will get a paragraph of this in some

third rewrite of an AP story.

I’m not being critical. I’m just saying, it isn’t fair to them in

order for them to drag their politicians to make policy decisions.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, do you have any additional questions?

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would

like to thank the witnesses for their participation today and particularly to thank you, Governor Gilmore, because when we set this

up, you could have asked for a separate panel. It would have made

it not as interesting, and by your participating with the other three

panels this way, it makes it more informative. I appreciate you not

pulling rank like that.

I would like to thank the rest of you—just a tremendous job.

Mr. TURNER. Well, I would like to thank the panelists also and

ask if you have any additional comments or statements you would

like to be included in the record. Do any of you have any additional

comments?

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I remained silent during this brief discussion,

but it seems to me, rightly or wrongly, there isn’t any sense of

prioritizing this enormous range of threat.

The so-called ‘‘threat of terrorism’’ has a number of elements.

And there was discussion just a few minutes ago about focusing the

public—making the public more aware. Seems to me the public’s

attention has been focused, but it has been focused on Iraq. And

Iraq is a real threat, ugly threat. The issue, really—and it’s debated and there’s a case to be made either way, but the case is

whether it’s an imminent threat, or if it isn’t an imminent threat,

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how imminent. Is it more imminent than say the interrelated

threat from al-Qaeda and the Arab-Israeli quarrel. Or Pakistan

and the interaction between Pakistan and North Korea, the fact

that this technology exchange between—could result in the North

Koreans selling nuclear technology to this one and that one, anyone

who is prepared to buy it. It is also the case that while we are debating a lot of this, that is, to say what to do about Iraq, that India

and Pakistan will shoot their way to the head of the agenda.

So there’s a lot to worry about. But I myself don’t get any sense

of prioritizing the range of threats.

Mr. TURNER. If other members of the panel have no additional

comments, we thank you again and we will be adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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