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94–834PDF 2015

STATE DEPARTMENT’S

COUNTERTERRORISM BUREAU

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, 

NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 2, 2015

Serial No. 114–75

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

TED POE, Texas, Chairman 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

PAUL COOK, California 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Charles Johnson, Jr., Director, International Security Issues, International Affairs and Trade, Government Accountability Office ....................... 4

Mr. Justin Siberell, Deputy Coordinator for Regional Affairs and Programs, 

Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State ................................... 33

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Charles Johnson, Jr.: Prepared statement ..................................................... 6

Mr. Justin Siberell: Prepared statement ............................................................... 36

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 58

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 59

Written responses from Mr. Justin Siberell to questions submitted for the 

record by the Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Texas, and chairman, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade ..................................................................................................... 60

(1)

STATE DEPARTMENT’S

COUNTERTERRORISM BUREAU 

TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. POE. This subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, all members will have 5 days to submit statements, questions 

and extraneous materials for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. 

Two weeks ago ISIS had one of its most successful weeks, in 

Syria took over an ancient city, Palmyra, located in the center of 

the country. The city is known for its archeological gems that date 

back to the Romans. In Iraq, ISIS took over Ramadi, the capital 

of the Anbar Province. 

Losing a city in the Sunni heartland caused many to question the 

administration’s strategy in this part of the world. Defense Secretary Ash Carter remarked that the Iraqi troops ‘‘had lost the will 

to fight.’’ The battle for ideas isn’t looking much better. Thousands 

of foreign fighters continue to leave their home countries to fight 

for ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Those who don’t go to Iraq and Syria 

have been happy to pledge allegiance from afar. 

ISIS now has 10 networks outside of Iraq and Syria. Three in 

Libya, two in Saudi Arabia, one each in the Sinai, Nigeria, Yemen, 

Algeria, in the Khorasan, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. From pulling off two successful suicide bomber attacks in Saudi Arabia in as 

many weeks to taking advantage of the fall of the government in 

Yemen and the lawlessness in Libya, each of ISIS’s 10 networks 

are getting stronger, they are not getting weaker. 

Terrorists now control more land than at any time since the end 

of World War II. In the midst of this struggle lies the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau. Originally set up as an office 

back in 1972 in response to the terrorist attack at the Olympic 

Games in Munich, Germany, it became its own bureau in 2012. 

The primary mission of the Bureau for Counterterrorism is to forge 

partnerships with non-state actors, multilateral organizations and 

foreign governments to advance the counterterrorism objectives 

and national security of the United States. 

2

Under that broad mission it has five principal responsibilities. 

One, countering violent extremism; two, capacity building; three, 

counterterrorism diplomacy; four, U.S. counterterrorism strategy 

and operations; and lastly, homeland security coordination. Even 

though the Bureau accepts the idea that it should be spending 3 

to 5 percent of the program’s resources on monitoring and evaluation, it has no way of tracking how much it actually is spending 

so it can know if it is meeting that goal. 

Over the last 5 years, the Bureau has only completed four evaluations. It seems to me it needs to be doing a whole lot more. Most 

of the money that the CT Bureau spends is on capacity building. 

From 2012 to 2014 it spent $191 million on building the capacity 

of 53 partners through antiterrorism assistance. But of these three 

partners it has only evaluated two countries. The CT Bureau is 

having trouble learning from the four evaluations it has done in 

the past. The Bureau has only implemented half the recommendations made by the evaluation and has no timetable for when it will 

implement the other half. The Bureau has never done or does it 

have any plans to do impact evaluation. The only kind of evaluation it can really tell us, if American money made a difference or 

not. 

While it struggles to properly evaluate its programs, the CT Bureau is asking for four times more money than it received in the 

budget last year. The Bureau wants money for a counterterrorism 

partnership fund, but it can’t give Congress any specifics on how 

it plans to spend the money let alone how the money will be evaluated that is spent. 

There are also problems with how the CT Bureau is spending the 

money it already obtains from the taxpayers through Congress. According to the GAO, every year since 2012, the CT Bureau has 

failed to fill staff positions Congress has authorized it to have. The 

vacancy rate on unfilled positions has hovered around 20 percent 

every year, but every year since 2012, the CT Bureau keeps asking 

Congress for more money to authorize more staff positions. Why 

should Congress grant this request when the Bureau cannot fill the 

positions Congress has already given it? 

Recently the administration has started emphasizing the term 

‘‘preventing violent extremism,’’ or PVE, more than ‘‘countering violent extremism,’’ or in the vernacular, CVE. PVE says that everything to women’s right to education to health care is important to 

prevent violent extremism. The question arises, is this the duty of 

the Bureau to try to eliminate poverty, health care issues, create 

jobs under this authorization? 

The problem with PVE is that could include almost anything 

that PVE wants to spend the money on as opposed to strictly counterterrorism operations. It is difficult to know what the definition 

means when it covers so many issues. It is also unclear what the 

shift from CVE to PVE means for the Bureau which used to take 

the lead on counter or CVE efforts. 

So at a time of limited resources and a terroristic threat that is 

increasing we cannot afford to have a squabble over who is in 

charge or a questionable commitment of evaluating how we are 

spending American money, and that is the purpose of this hearing 

today so we can get to the bottom of all of this. 

3

And I will yield to the ranking member Mr. Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Chairman Poe, for conducting this 

hearing. I would also like to thank our witnesses Mr. Johnson and 

Mr. Siberell for being here today to discuss the State Department’s 

Counterterrorism Bureau. As we know, to degrade and ultimately 

defeat a foreign terrorist organization like ISIL or al-Qaeda we 

need to cut off its supply of money, manpower and support. Specifically, we need to improve our efforts to prevent the flow of foreign 

fighters to the Middle East, especially to Iraq and Syria. 

We also need to do a better job countering violent messaging to 

potential recruits, engaging with at-risk communities, and working 

to prevent radicalization. Further, we need to do more to restrict 

terrorist financing, whether it is financing it has obtained through 

taxes imposes on the population of occupied territories or through 

the sale of contraband such as trafficking in antiquities looted in 

Iraq and Syria. 

The United States can’t do this alone. We have to work with our 

allies to reduce terrorist access to resources and support. The capacity building programs funded and coordinated by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau are the types of activities our 

Government needs to engage in. These programs are aimed at, for 

example, assisting our partners in counterterrorism law enforcement, counterterrorism financing, counter radicalization efforts, 

border security, and restricting terrorist travel. 

Already the Bureau has been hard at work to seek and address 

these critical objectives, and I know we will hear a lot in greater 

detail from Mr. Siberell later on. It is vital, however, that we ensure that funds appropriated to the Counterterrorism Bureau for 

these capacity building programs are being used wisely and the 

United States is getting a good return on our investment. To this 

end I welcome the participation of Mr. Johnson from GAO, look forward to hearing both of our witnesses to discuss this program, and 

I yield back. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, gentleman. The Chair will yield 2 minutes 

to the gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I want to focus these 2 minutes on a big gap in 

the State Department—its failure to hire people who really understand Islam and the culture involved of the countries. There, last 

time we had these hearings and in subsequent hearings, the State 

Department has confirmed they haven’t hired a single person who 

is hired because of their expertise in Islamic jurisprudence or scripture. 

And so when we go to try to do our counter propaganda, we are 

able to show that ISIS kills Yazidi women and children, but the 

target audience doesn’t regard that as an anathema. We need pictures of al-Baghdadi eating a bacon sandwich. That, his target audience would find an anathema. But that is my limited understanding of his target audience. We need people on staff who can 

quote Hadith for Hadith, Sunnah for Sunnah, and we also need 

people who have grown up in the relevant countries, whether they 

be Muslims by faith or whether they even be members of the religious minorities who are easier to screen to be sure that they don’t 

subscribe to the viewpoints of ISIS since there are very few Iranian 

Jews and Yazidis, et cetera, who are Islamic extremists. 

4

So we can still give the State Department 99.9 percent of the 

jobs can go to people who study well for the Foreign Service exam 

and have all the academic Brownie points and their Ivy League degrees or their A+s from Cal State, Northridge. But if 1⁄10 of 1 percent were hired because they could have memorized the Qur’an and 

could apply it to the situations we face today, then we would be 

speaking the language of the target audiences. I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. Without objection, all the witnesses’ prepared statements will be made part of the record, and 

I would ask that each of our two witnesses keep their presentation 

to no more than 5 minutes inasmuch as we have your written 

statement. 

Charles Johnson, Jr. is a senior executive with the U.S. Government Accountability Office. As a director with GAO’s International 

Affairs and Trade team, his portfolio focuses on U.S. efforts to 

counter overseas threats and international security issues. Thank 

you, Mr. Johnson, for being here. We will hear what you have to 

say. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES JOHNSON, JR., DIRECTOR, 

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to be here to discuss preliminary observations from GAO’s ongoing review of the evolution and management 

of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau. 

My statement submitted for the record provides preliminary information on three issues. First, how the Counterterrorism Bureau’s resources have changed since 2011; second, the extent to 

which the Counterterrorism Bureau has assessed its performance; 

and third, the Counterterrorism Bureau’s coordination within State 

and with other government entities on efforts to counter violent extremism and terrorist financing. 

Before I delve into the three issues, I would like to note that terrorism and violent extremism as demonstrated by the actions of 

ISIL, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and AQ affiliates remain a top national security priority and continue to pose a threat to the United 

States and other nations. In 2010, the results of the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, known as the QDDR, directed by the Secretary of State at the time, highlighted the global 

terrorist threat and among other things recommended that the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism be elevated to a bureau. According to the QDDR, elevation of this office to bureau 

would, among other things, enhance State’s ability to counter violent extremism, enhance efforts to build foreign partner counterterrorism capacity, and enable more effective coordination with other 

agencies. 

As for the first issue, how the Bureau’s resources have changed—

and if I can ask if the figure, I have a figure to be projected. Our 

preliminary analysis shows that the Counterterrorism Bureau has 

received annual increases in authorized full time equivalent staff 

levels since Fiscal Year 2011, as the figure shows, but they have 

continued to face a staffing gap every year. 

5

As you can see, the number of authorized FTE positions increased from 66 in Fiscal Year 2011 to a high of 96 in Fiscal Year 

2015, but over that same time period the percentage of unfilled 

FTE positions fluctuated slightly. As the chairman noted, it has 

averaged about 20 percent a year, and we can say that the range 

was 17 to 23 percent with 2015 being the 23 percent. These vacancy gaps have included both staff level as well as management 

level positions. I would like to note that the Bureau recently took 

some action to close the gap, and they have told us recently in our 

preliminary review that they are down to 10 FTE vacancies as of 

the end of May 2015. 

Next concern, the extent to which the Counterterrorism Bureau 

has assessed its performance. Our preliminary analysis has found 

that while the Bureau has utilized various means to assess some 

progress, it has not established time frames for addressing open 

recommendations resulting from completed program evaluations. 

Specifically, the Bureau as required has established indicators and 

targets for each of its foreign assistance goals and has reported results achieved toward each indicator. 

Since its elevation to a Bureau in Fiscal Year 2012, as the chairman noted in his opening remarks, the Bureau has also completed 

four evaluations of the counterterrorism related programs that it 

oversees. These evaluations resulted in 60 recommendations. Our 

preliminary analysis shows that the Bureau has only addressed 

about half of those recommendations and lacks time frames for 

when it will address the remaining recommendations, which are at 

about 32. Without specific time frames for addressing recommendations, we have previously noted that it may be more difficult, and 

in particular for this Bureau, to ensure programmatic improvements are made in a timely manner, but more importantly that 

some of the implementing partners who have been tasked with 

closing some of these recommendations are held accountable for 

doing so. 

Finally, with respect to the Bureau’s coordination efforts, our 

preliminary analysis indicates that the Bureau’s coordination within State and with other Federal agencies on countering violent extremism and countering terrorist financing, or those two programs 

in particular, generally reflect the key practices for effective collaboration. For example, coordination on policy and programming 

has allowed for the development of joint projects and helped to 

avoid some overlap with existing and planned initiatives between 

the Counterterrorism Bureau and others. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman and members of the panel, I would like 

to thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify, as well as 

the GAO staff who are sitting behind me. Jason Bair, Andrea Miller, Esther Toledo, David Dayton, Mason Calhoun, and Lina Khan 

who worked on this engagement; and second, note that we anticipate issuing our final report on the evolution and management of 

the Counterterrorism Bureau in July of this year. 

This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any 

questions you may have at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

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Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, appreciate your testimony. 

The Chair recognizes itself for its questions. The Counterterrorism 

Bureau, what is it supposed to do? Explain it to the average American, which I would suspect many Americans don’t even know the 

Bureau exists. What is it supposed to do? What is the goal of the 

Counterterrorism Bureau? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I would ground it in the overall goal being 

that the Bureau itself along with the State Department helps coordinate our overseas efforts to combat terrorist threats, those who 

may harm our foreign partners as well as the U.S., so the primary 

role is to provide assistance. One of the things that they emphasize 

is try to build our foreign partners’ capacity so they can address 

that threat. 

Mr. POE. So we give money to foreign countries to help them 

fight terrorism. Is that what you mean by assistance? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. We give assistance in terms of our technical 

assistance or we may provide some training to help them sort of 

counter violent extremism. Or, for example, a good example would 

be the ATA programs, the Anti-Terrorist Assistance program where 

we do fund training programs in some small types of equipment to 

allow them to sort of do investigative law enforcement activities so 

they can sort of determine the results of a terrorist attack or things 

of that nature. We are trying to build up their skill sets and capacity to address the issue or to even prevent the issue before it happens. 

Mr. POE. And then the Bureau is supposed to evaluate that assistance? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Absolutely. It is critical, and we have said this before in many of our reports, that State Department and particularly this Bureau undertake evaluations. The benefit of doing evaluations is that you can learn from those experiences in whether, 

where you put your assistance is that a best practice? Is that something that you can model in another region or another country? So 

definitely evaluations are critical. They should be done routinely, 

and you should learn lessons from those. And you should also take 

steps to, based on recommendations that come out of that, timely 

implement those recommendations. 

Mr. POE. To see if we are actually helping prevent terrorism, 

whether the—just to give an example, hypothetical—the money, let 

us use money, we give to a country making sure it doesn’t go into 

the pockets of corrupt officials but it actually is working to train 

somebody to make sure that they can fight terrorism. And so we 

want them to evaluate all of these programs that they start up. 

Mr. JOHNSON. We definitely think it is critical that the State Department does evaluate these programs, and they established a policy initially in 2012 in response to some of our previous recommendations and concerns from the Congress to do so. They have 

updated that in 2015. They are expected to do somewhere from two 

to four in a 2-year window. This bureau, actually, I would compare 

them to other parts of the State Department, have actually done 

more than some of the other bureaus and offices within the State 

Department. 

Mr. POE. So we partner with 53 countries, correct? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Correct. 

29

Mr. POE. And how many of those countries has the Bureau evaluated the program or the assistance to those countries? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I would highlight there were two ATA evaluations that were done. 

Mr. POE. Now ATA, what does that mean? 

Mr. JOHNSON. The Anti-Terrorism Assistance program where as 

I mentioned earlier we are providing assistance for particularly law 

enforcement individuals to combat terrorist threats. 

Mr. POE. Now are those two assistance programs in two countries or are those two programs that are spread across the 53 countries? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it was not the 53. They have only done two 

of the 53. Algeria, I believe, is one, and I believe the other is Morocco, and Bangladesh. They haven’t really done many in terms of 

countries. 

Mr. POE. We have done two out of 53? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Correct. Well, they have done four but two of them 

were ATA evaluations. 

Mr. POE. Okay, they have done four out of the 53. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Correct. 

Mr. POE. So the other countries, the other 49 that we are giving 

some form of assistance to combat terrorism, the Bureau hasn’t 

evaluated whether we are doing a good job with that assistance or 

it is not a good job. 

Mr. JOHNSON. We are not aware of any evaluations since they 

have been a bureau. 

Mr. POE. Now why haven’t they done that according to your investigation? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is something we hope to address in our final 

product. We have looked at plans. They have had some plans underway to do evaluations, they have reset some of those plans. 

One of the other things I would like to point out, given that countering violent extremism is one of the priorities, one of the things 

we have looked at, they have done no evaluation of the efforts to 

counter extremism. They have had some previous plans which they 

discontinued. We are hopeful that going forward once they finalize 

their 2015 plans that we will get a better indication and be able 

to provide you with that information. 

Mr. POE. So the vast majority of the countries that we want to 

help fight terrorism overseas, we don’t know what they are doing 

with the assistance because they haven’t been evaluated. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, they have not been evaluated——

Mr. POE. I didn’t say that very tactfully, but we don’t know what 

the assistance is doing because they haven’t been evaluated. But in 

your study yet from the GAO, you haven’t determined why they 

haven’t done those evaluations which I agree with you are vital? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, and let me just distinguish a different point 

here, because one they have done as I said earlier, with respect to 

some of the particular foreign assistance efforts they have developed indicators and targets for those so they do have data. Unfortunately I can’t disclose that because it is considered sensitive, but 

I can classify it in terms like a number of individuals trained. But 

independent evaluations they have only done four. 

30

Mr. POE. Well, they did three of them in 2012 and they did one 

in 2013. They haven’t done any in 2014 and haven’t done in any 

2015. Is that a fair statement? 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is a fair statement. 

Mr. POE. So the question still lies why haven’t the evaluations 

been done? And the GAO is going to eventually address that and 

get that back to us? 

Mr. JOHNSON. We will hopefully, yes, drill down deeper on that 

and provide that in our final report in July, to the extent that the 

State Department is in a position to finalize its plans. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure. 

Mr. POE. The Chair will yield to the ranking member, Mr. 

Keating from Massachusetts. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned the 

GAO found preliminarily that the Counterterrorism Bureau’s, 

quote, on coordination with the State and other Federal agencies 

on countering violent extremism and counterterrorism finance programs generally reflects key practices for collaboration. Could you 

go a little more into detail on that? Did you conclude then that the 

CT Bureau’s coordination, for example, NCTC or Homeland Security or the Treasury Department, was generally effective? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, we did, and there are seven key practices 

that you look at in terms of collaboration. It is outcomes and accountability is one of them. I will just highlight a few. Having leadership things defined, resources devoted toward the effort, clear 

roles and responsibilities, that is just four of the ones I am highlighting. We looked at six of the seven and we asked general questions in terms of all the partners and stakeholders that would be 

involved including the ODNI and others, Department of Justice, 

DHS. No one had any critical concerns with respect to the coordination with the Counterterrorism Bureau. Things seem to be working pretty smoothly or much better in that area. 

There was a slight concern with respect to some of the efforts in 

terms of the working group that they had established to deal with 

terrorist financing. Some concerns were raised there because that 

group was disbanded and they are in the process of reassessing the 

way forward with that. So they have been doing that on an ad hoc 

basis which has given some folks some concerns, particularly in 

the——

Mr. KEATING. What was the coordination? Where was it lacking 

on the financing? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it wasn’t that it was lacking. They used to 

have a formal mechanism that they would go about in terms of trying to sort of coordinate with the Treasury and others in terrorist 

financing, and that working group was put on hold or disbanded 

until they reassess that and decide the way forward on that. So 

they are doing it informally right now. We are looking forward to 

getting an update on the direction that they will take and provide 

that in our final report. 

Mr. KEATING. Yes, I would be curious to see that because that 

is one of the critical areas that we have to key in. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And I would note some of the other work we are 

doing particularly for this subcommittee as well, we are looking at 

31

the efforts to coordinate on foreign terrorist organizations, the designation of them, and our results on that show that the coordination is going pretty well including with the intel community, ODNI 

in particular. 

Mr. KEATING. I understand that the CT Bureau’s own evaluation 

of its programs since 2012 resulted in recommendations, 60 of them 

I recall. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Correct. 

Mr. KEATING. And the Counterterrorism Bureau has implemented about half of those recommendations, 28 out of 60. What 

is the status of the other 32 recommendations and is the CT Bureau in the process of implementing them? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, in terms of specific status, unfortunately, I 

can’t discuss that. I think the next panel may be able to. We were 

told the information on the status is sensitive but unclassified. I 

would tell you in terms of numbers there are 32. Four have been 

put on hold and 28 are currently still open and have not been 

closed. But the State Department panel can probably give you more 

details if they are willing to share it. 

Mr. KEATING. Well, okay. If you can’t comment directly on what 

those programs are, you could perhaps help us in the fact that why 

you think there has been that delay in implementing them, just generically. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, in terms of a delay, I mean, I would say in 

terms of, again we are talking about 60 recommendations from the 

evaluations that were done, the four independent evaluations. 

There was also, I throw out some other things. GAO has some open 

recommendations that we have with the State Department dealing 

with counterterrorism related issues that remain open. 

There are also recommendations from the IG report that was 

done in 2012. There were 13 recommendations made. They actually 

have closed 10 of those 13. There are three of those still open. One 

in particular, as I talked about earlier, the need to coordinate on 

the ATA program. That is an outstanding recommendation where 

they were looking for the two entities that have a memorandum of 

understanding or agreement that has yet to be addressed. 

So, I mean there are a lot recommendations that the Counterterrorism Bureau and State Department need to address. I am not 

sure of the rationale or the reason why there has been a delay or 

why they haven’t done it. But best practices as we model and as 

we do in GAO, we update the status of all of our recommendations 

throughout the year, and more so we have a time frame that we 

expect to have them all closed and fully implemented within 4 

years, if possible, and we will take action routinely to update that. 

That is sort of a best practice that we follow that hopefully the 

State Department, as it is moving forward in terms of completing 

evaluations and followup on recommendations, will model some of 

those practices. 

Mr. KEATING. Great, thank you. You have already addressed the 

issue, the third main issue I had for you regarding full time employees and how that was done. So I thank you for doing that and 

I yield back. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, sir. 

32

Mr. POE. Thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. The Chair 

recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. You seem to be switching from a combating violent extremism to preventing violent extremism, so instead of just 

hitting somebody who has already got a gun, prevent somebody 

from taking up a gun. A natural part of that is our broadcasting 

efforts. To what extent does this agency coordinate with our broadcasting, and does your report focus on the fact that our broadcasting to the Muslim world is characterized by weak content, 

weak language coverage, that is to say they only broadcast in some 

languages not others, and sometimes a weak signal? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, we did not specifically look at in detail that 

issue. We would be happy to undertake——

Mr. SHERMAN. But does the agency coordinate on that or is it off 

doing its thing to try to persuade people not to take up violent extremism while the broadcasting unit is off doing its thing? What 

is the level of coordination? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. It is an independent operation within the 

State Department. It is not coordinated with the counterterrorism 

unit from what I understand. I am aware that there are efforts by 

other agencies like the Department of Defense and others to also 

counter violent extremism to coordinate on the propaganda issue. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So the office we created to coordinate our anti-terrorism efforts is not coordinating, or is not itself coordinating with 

other agencies that have similar goals? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, again I think the panel that is going to follow can address that. I do know that they have stood up sort of 

a countering violent extremism unit. It is a relatively new unit and 

it is part of their new structure based on their strategic review. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. Well——

Mr. JOHNSON. And so going forward perhaps maybe that is something that that unit will focus on. 

Mr. SHERMAN. To your knowledge, and I know we will talk to the 

next panel, how many of the employees of the agency are native 

speakers of Arabic or Farsi? People who grew up—do you have any 

idea? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Congressman Sherman, I don’t have that information either. Maybe——

Mr. SHERMAN. Ever meet one? To your knowledge do they have 

one or——

Mr. JOHNSON. On the last hearing you guys had where I understand that there were none at the time. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And I don’t think that has changed since then. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And so let us say ISIS was trying to recruit people 

and they had poisoned wells. Naturally, we would be appalled by 

that. We would show a picture of dead Yazidi civilians. But we are 

judging things from our standpoint that it is wrong to poison wells 

and kill Yazidi civilians. Is there anybody in this agency that can 

look at the Qur’an and to see whether, as it outlines the proper 

waging of war, poisoning wells is thought to be a good thing or bad, 

or there is just no bother to find out whether what ISIS is doing 

is a violation of Islamic law? 

33

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, unfortunately we did not in this particular review take a deep dive on the cultural background or the language 

skill sets of the folks. We have done work years ago in the past on 

that and perhaps that is something to look at in the future. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, I think to some at the State Department the 

war against Islamic extremism is just an excuse to get more money 

to hire more of the same kinds of people that they are comfortable 

hiring, doing the same thing they have always done, and then to 

argue that doing anything different than what they have always 

done would be such a clash with their own culture that we 

shouldn’t consider it. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And to that point, Congressman, I would say hopefully they will do it better going forward with the new structure 

that has been put in place post the strategic review. There were 

lessons that they can learn, the key is to follow up on those evaluations, those recommendations. 

Mr. SHERMAN. But as far as we know they are not coordinating 

with broadcasting. As far as we know they have no native speakers 

of the relevant languages. And as far as we know, their meetings 

to discuss how to explain to potential terrorists that what ISIS and 

others are doing is wrong can make use of only the definitions of 

right or wrong one gets from a Western education and cannot explain or even notice which things ISIS is doing are violative of 

Sunna and Hadith and which are not. So we will fund a bureaucracy that has found an excuse for its own enlargement and will enlarge itself without changing itself. I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. I appreciate your testimony, 

Mr. Johnson. You are excused, or you can stay if you want to. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Will do. 

Mr. POE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Mr. POE. The committee is ready to proceed with its second 

panel. I will introduce the witness for this panel, Mr. Justin 

Siberell, who is the Deputy Coordinator for Regional Affairs and 

Programs in the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State. He joined the State Department Foreign Service in 

March of ’93 and assumed the position in July 2012. 

Mr. Siberell, you have 5 minutes for your testimony, and remember we have your testimony already filed so you may summarize 

your testimony in 5 minutes or less. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JUSTIN SIBERELL, DEPUTY COORDINATOR FOR REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND PROGRAMS, BUREAU 

OF COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make brief remarks and try to keep them brief. Chairman Poe, Ranking Member 

Keating, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for 

the opportunity to appear before you today. This hearing comes at 

a critical time in our counterterrorism efforts. Despite the significant blows to al-Qaeda’s leadership, terrorist threats continue to 

emerge propelled in particular by weak and in some cases failed 

governance in key regions and escalating sectarian conflict globally. 

We are deeply concerned about the continued evolution of the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, otherwise known as Daesh, not 

34

only in Iraq and Syria, but through the emergence of self-proclaimed ISIL affiliates in Libya, Egypt, Nigeria and elsewhere. Although it remains to be seen what these affiliations really mean—

whether representative of command relationships, commonality of 

strategic goals or merely opportunistic branding—we and our many 

partners in the international community remain focused on degrading and defeating ISIL. 

We remain troubled by the now more than 20,000 estimated foreign terrorist fighters who have traveled to the Middle East, not 

only for the zeal and unique skills they provide to groups like ISIL 

and the Nusra Front, but for the experience they are gaining and 

the threat they could pose for many years to their countries of origin. Over the past year we have seen an increase in lone offender 

attacks to include attacks in Ottawa, Sydney, Paris, and Copenhagen. 

ISIL and al-Qaeda are not the only serious threats that confront 

the United States and its allies. Iran remains an active state sponsor of terrorism and continues to use its Revolutionary Guard Quds 

Force to train and support terrorist groups engaged in terrorist 

acts and working to propel conflict and instability such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic jihad. I have submitted a longer statement as you noted, Mr. Chairman, that includes more detail on these evolving threats, and I would ask that 

it be included in the record at this hearing. 

As we look to address these threats and to implement an effective response to the rapidly changing global terrorism environment, 

we must broaden our tools and build upon and expand our partnerships with key allies. President Obama has emphasized repeatedly 

that we need to foster strong and capable partners who can address 

and disrupt terrorist threats where they emerge. The United States 

needs partners who cannot only contribute to military operations, 

but also detect threats, conduct arrests, and prosecute and incarcerate terrorists and their facilitation networks. Addressing terrorism in a comprehensive fashion, utilizing civilian security as 

well as military intelligence capabilities within a strong rule of law 

framework that respects civil liberties and human rights is crucial 

both for ensuring the sustainability of our efforts and for preventing the rise of new forms of violent extremism. 

With the Department of State’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request, 

Counterterrorism Bureau seeks funding to sustain our principal 

counterterrorism programs that form the basis of that partnership 

building. This funding is critical to advance our multiyear capacity 

building goals in key partner countries. Focus areas for these programs include building strong counterterrorism legal frameworks, 

improved crisis response, aviation and border security, anti-money 

laundering and financial investigations capabilities, and countering 

violent extremist messaging and recruitment. 

At the same time, the Department has requested an additional 

$390 million in the NADR OCO account for the Counterterrorism 

Partnership Fund, CTPF. This would provide the Department of 

State with additional flexible resources to broaden our counterterrorism partnership activities. This funding would also enable us to 

develop coordinated capacity building efforts with the Department 

of Defense which received $1.3 billion in CTPF funding in Fiscal 

35

Year 2015, thus ensuring a balanced approach. The additional resources provided by CTPF would enable us to increase our law enforcement and other civilian efforts to address foreign terrorist 

fighters, counter existing and prevent the emergence of new terrorist safe havens, and countering Hezbollah’s worldwide activities. 

Mr. Chairman, as you will recall, the Counterterrorism Bureau 

was established 3 years ago upon the recommendations of the 2010 

Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Report. We are playing 

a leading role in the U.S. Government’s efforts to galvanize international commitment and efforts against existing and developing 

terrorist threats. 

The Counterterrorism Bureau has itself evolved even since its inception just a few short years ago. We have implemented a number 

of organizational changes over the past year to enable a more effective integration of our policy planning, diplomacy and program development. We have elevated the Bureau’s policy efforts on countering terrorist financing and countering violent extremism and 

have invested significantly in improved monitoring and evaluation 

capabilities. 

We believe these changes will enable us to be more strategic and 

effective. The terrorism challenges that we face continues to evolve 

at a rapid pace and we cannot predict what the landscape will look 

like one decade or even 1 year from now. However, we believe we 

can best protect the American people and America’s interests over 

the long term by engaging in robust diplomacy, expanding partnerships, building bilateral and regional capabilities, and promoting a 

holistic and rule of law based approach to counterterrorism and 

violent extremism. 

The CT Bureau has a critical central role to play in these efforts. 

We appreciate Congress’ support as we carry out this mission, and 

look forward to working with you in the year ahead. Thank you 

again for the opportunity to be with you today and I look forward 

to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Siberell follows:]

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Mr. POE. Thank you for your testimony. The Chair recognizes 

itself for its questions. Let me try to be succinct here. I agree with 

you, terrorism is a bad situation that is taking place in the world 

and it is increasing. There are more terrorists than there used to 

be, they are doing worse things, they are hurting more people and 

the Counterterrorism Bureau is supposed to fight that. And you 

have asked for a budget increase of several million dollars. One 

concern I have is the staffing levels of previous budgets, the Bureau is not staffed completely. Why aren’t you staffing with the 

money you have already got and you are asking for more money—

I am going to give you all of the questions and then you can answer 

them. But you are asking for money for more purposes. 

The terrorists are doing an excellent job of doing what they do. 

One way is by their use of social media. They raise money on social 

media, they raise recruits on social media, and they use it for propaganda purposes, all social media. What are we doing to combat 

that issue specifically? Because social media, I mean, they know 

how to use it, and some of it is unlawful but they are still doing 

it. 

And the other question is, be more specific. What are we doing 

to counter terrorism? Not, we have more resources or we are helping agencies. What are we doing? Give me some examples of specific things we have done with those 53 countries that have helped 

stop terrorism. So you can take those questions and go wherever 

you want to. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will do my 

best to get through each of those. On the first part of your question 

with regard to our budget request, and you have just heard from 

your GAO colleagues on their report about Bureau staffing, I would 

say that we have had a conversation with them about their estimate of our vacancies and we have continued to staff up. The Bureau was established just a few years ago. We were provided additional positions to build out administrative capabilities to function 

as a bureau different from where we were as an office prior to that 

time. 

So there has been a scaling up of personnel in the Bureau, and 

I think we have kept pace with the addition of those resources on 

an annual basis. The current number of vacancies is 11 in the Bureau, 10 of those are under either hiring and/or interviewing. And 

most of those are related to some of the reorganizations we have 

been making that I referred to specifically with regard to aligning 

our programmatic efforts along a regional basis in line with our 

policy objectives. 

So I separate that out from the request you have made with regard to our programs and getting into your question about what 

are we doing, some specific things that we are engaged in, I will 

give you one example. The CT Bureau has led the U.S. Government’s efforts not only on behalf of the Department of State but 

even within the interagency on pulling together a strong coalition 

of countries to address this issue of the foreign terrorist fighter 

phenomenon. 

And this is a global phenomenon. We have 90 countries that 

have contributed foreign fighters to the conflict in Syria and Iraq. 

And we have led interagency delegations to countries across WestVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Sep 01, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_TNT\060215\94834 SHIRL
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ern Europe, to the Balkans, to North Africa, to the Gulf States, and 

engaged in comprehensive diplomacy to push those governments to 

undertake stronger legislative steps to initiate prosecutions and investigations. We have funded the work of our colleagues at DHS 

and DOJ to provide assistance in the building of prosecutions. We 

have expanded our watch listing and information sharing, again 

along with our partners in the interagency. And those steps have 

made a real——

Mr. POE. Excuse me, let me just interrupt you right there. How 

many prosecutions have there been based upon your agency’s involvement and with assistance? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Sir, I would be happy to get you that number. 

Mr. POE. You don’t know? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I don’t have the—we have absolutely had prosecutions in Albania as a result of our direct cooperation between the 

Department of Justice and the Albanian authorities. And there are 

other examples of facilitation networks having been prosecuted and 

disrupted as a result of our specific assistance in——

Mr. POE. So you will furnish the subcommittee the list of prosecutions? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes, happy to do that. 

Mr. POE. Follow-up question while you are finishing up. But you 

haven’t evaluated this assistance that you are doing? 

Mr. SIBERELL. No, I think we evaluate and we certainly monitor 

all of our programs on an ongoing basis. I mean it is very important to us that any program that we implement is effective. It is 

very difficult work to build the capacity of partners particularly in 

the counterterrorism field, so we take very seriously our responsibility to ensure that our programs are effective. And we have ongoing monitoring in addition to more extraordinary evaluations that 

we do through outside third parties to ensure that our programs 

are effective. 

Mr. POE. The Chair is out of time. I am still concerned about the 

evaluations. According to the GAO you all are not evaluating. You 

say you are. I guess we will just wait for the final report. I yield 

to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the ranking member. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not long ago the full 

committee had a hearing on women in counterterrorism, how they 

can better be utilized, mothers, and others there. Any of the programs you are involved with involve women in those capacities? 

And how effective are they, if you are? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Women have a vital role to play in our counterterrorism effort principally through our countering violent extremism 

programs. We have sought to build a networks of women who are 

helpful in a couple of different ways, and one in particular is in the 

identification of radicalization at the community and local level. 

And so we have engaged in work in Nigeria and in Kenya to help 

build networks of women who have the tools. They are often involved in the community already, have roles in leadership in their 

local communities, and are given the tools and the training to identify the signs of radicalization. 

Mr. KEATING. I would be curious if you could follow up with any 

written material and how they are proceeding as well. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Certainly. 

46

Mr. KEATING. On the financing side I am having difficulty trying 

to get a handle on the scope of terrorist financing through so-called 

conflict antiquities, stolen antiquities and artifacts and religious artifacts from other countries, particularly Iraq and Syria. I know in 

one site there is an estimated, one site alone of $37 million that 

was raised that way. Do you have any estimates what that is in 

scope and anything you are doing about that? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, it is significant and I can try to get you an 

answer on our estimates of the scope of the total amount of funds, 

for instance, that ISIL has raised through its illegal and criminal 

sale of antiquities, looted antiquities. They have simultaneously, as 

you well know, on the one hand engaged in destruction of priceless 

antiquities, and also engaged in the criminal networks that sell 

those priceless antiquities on black markets in order to raise funding. So they are playing both sides of that game. 

Mr. KEATING. That would be helpful. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. 

Mr. KEATING. And the chairman of Homeland Security and myself have a bill to deal with tightening up homeland security on 

that, so that information would be helpful as well. 

Mr. SIBERELL. If I could just add that today in Paris, Under Secretary Stengel, who is with the delegation as part of the CounterISIL Coalition meeting, is doing an event drawing attention to this 

issue, the threat to areas of cultural significance. Of course ISIL 

having overrun Palmyra recently brings us into very clear focus, so 

it is something we are paying close attention to. 

Mr. KEATING. Yes, just a couple of weeks ago I came back from 

Istanbul and toured the airport there and saw 40 million people, 

40 million trips in that airport alone. And we know that that is a 

major pathway for foreign fighters into Syria and an important 

transit point for looted antiquities and smuggling as well. What 

can we do more, from your perspective, I asked them, what can we 

do more to help with Turkey becoming more engaged and involved 

in helping to stop this? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, the Turks are absolutely vital to our efforts 

to detain, degrade and defeat ISIL. They are the through-point, as 

you noted, for people traveling to that region. They are, of course, 

the through-point and have been for some time of the smuggled oil, 

et cetera. We work very closely with our Turkish partners to try 

to cut off those routes. Of course many of them are related to decades old or even ancient smuggling networks that are themselves 

already well established criminal networks. 

So it is working with the Turks to provide them information that 

we have to enable them to take——

Mr. KEATING. Are they utilizing that information? I frankly 

didn’t see a great deal of implementation. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, I can talk a little bit about the efforts the 

Turks have made in disrupting the foreign fighter flow. This has 

been a very high priority for us and we have worked to improve 

the coordination between Turkey and other partners, some of the 

source and transit countries, and particularly European countries, 

and that has resulted in a number of people being arrested, 

stopped and turned around. Of course we still know that people do 

slip through there and pass through, and there have been some 

47

very high profile cases through Turkey. But Turkey remains a key 

partner and one we have to work with closely on all of these issues. 

If I could just address one thing, sir. One other issue I didn’t get 

to was on the women in counterterrorism. Women are often the victims of terrorist crimes. And we work with a number of groups 

globally to give capacity to victims’ organizations to give them the 

tools and the capability to speak out about the crimes they have 

suffered. Women provide very effective voices against terrorism in 

that regard. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. ISSA [presiding]. Thank you. We now go to my friend and 

gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman, for his questions. 

Mr. SHERMAN. The chair earlier was talking about the terrorist 

use of social media. Does your bureau identify postings on social 

media that are from the terrorists or helpful to the terrorists, and 

do you ask Twitter, Facebook, et cetera, to take down those postings? 

Mr. SIBERELL. We work very closely with the Center for Strategic 

Counterterrorism Communications, which has an entire staff devoted to identifying postings by terrorists in specific forums, and 

then more broadly on open forums and pushing back against——

Mr. SHERMAN. Which social media have been better or worse at 

acting to take down terrorist postings? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. I think we have found an increased level of 

cooperation generally speaking among the companies. 

Mr. SHERMAN. It is time to name names. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, we have——

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay, is Facebook better or is Twitter better? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I think all of the companies have been attuned to 

the——

Mr. SHERMAN. Are you going to answer the question or are you 

going to dodge it? 

Mr. SIBERELL. It is hard for me to compare one over the other. 

There has been certainly an increase in cooperation. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Let us—Facebook has had a much stronger policy 

than Twitter that I don’t know whether you didn’t say that because 

you don’t want to name names or because you are just not as closely related to this effort. Let me shift to something else. Your bureau has how many employees? 

Mr. SIBERELL. We have currently all employees all told we have 

a little over 120. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. How many of them are native speakers of 

Arabic and Farsi and grew up in an Arabic or Farsi culture? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I don’t have that offhand. We do have Arabic 

speakers in our bureau. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes, you have people that have got a bunch of Ivy 

League degrees and learned Arabic out of a book. That is not what 

I asked. To your knowledge you don’t have any native speakers of 

those languages who have the culture in their bones? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I think we do. 

Mr. SHERMAN. You think you do? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. 

48

Mr. SHERMAN. Is it Farsi? Arabic? You want to, you think? You 

don’t know? Did you actually try to hire anybody who has that as 

a background or it is just pure serendipity? 

Mr. SIBERELL. We have a number of employees who do have cultural backgrounds that have the spoken——

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay, by serendipity you happened to hire somebody who may or may not be a native speaker. Is there any—oh, 

let us say—and I hope you were listening to the prior panel. You 

are faced with the circumstance where ISIS is poisoning wells and 

you want to be able to know, I hope you would care to know, 

whether that is forbidden or allowed in warfare by Islamic law. Is 

there anybody on your staff or any employee of the U.S. Government that you could call for that answer? 

Mr. SIBERELL. We do have employees in the Department of State 

who are familiar with religious texts. We have an office of outreach 

to religious communities. 

Mr. SHERMAN. But I mean, are these people that have really 

memorized the Qur’an, people who can tell you the difference between the Shiite and Sunni Hadith, or are these people hired for 

their media skills who have maybe a passing knowledge? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, there are many people in the Department of 

State who have strong knowledge of the Qur’an, of the religious 

text of the Hadith. There may even be——

Mr. SHERMAN. They just happen to know. I mean, look, obviously 

there could be somebody in our Embassy in Liechtenstein who just 

happens to be a practicing Muslim and knowledgeable about his 

own faith. But who would you call for that information? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I think what we have found is that the most effective voices in——

Mr. SHERMAN. I didn’t ask who was the voice. Before you ask a 

voice to speak out, before you know to go to the Islamic voices and 

saying please issue a fatwa against what is going on, you have to 

know which of the activities of ISIS are at least arguably violative 

of Islamic jurisprudence. So who do you go to for that? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, I think, we work with partners to address——

Mr. SHERMAN. In other words you don’t have anybody that you 

can name or any office you can name. Is there a single person paid 

by the U.S. Government who is hired because of their expertise in 

the battle we are fighting which is a battle over the nature of 

Islam? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I think there are many people who have expertise 

in Syria that are employed by the U.S. Government, and many 

at——

Mr. SHERMAN. Who would you call? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Sorry? 

Mr. SHERMAN. You are on the front line. Who would you call? 

You think there are many people, but is there anybody you would 

call? 

Mr. SIBERELL. We have——

Mr. SHERMAN. You think you would find somebody but you don’t 

know who it would be. 

Mr. SIBERELL. I think, sir, we have resources available to us that 

include——

49

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. Others have sat there and testified that 

there is not a single person. You are trying to say that there is but 

you don’t know who it is, which seems to be confirming——

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, there is not a job description or a board of 

Islamic scholars. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. If you wanted to call somebody who had expertise in international jurisprudence you have a whole office. If 

you wanted to call somebody who had expertise in trade law you 

have a whole office and you know who to call. It would take you 

a minute to figure out exactly whether to call Jack or to call Martha. 

But when it comes to whether or not, for example, poisoning 

wells is violative of Islam you have no idea who to call. There is 

nobody who has been hired because they know the answer to that 

question. And I know there are practicing Muslims who work at 

the State Department who may on, again it may be somebody in 

the Liechtenstein Embassy but nobody whose job it is to answer 

that question. And I yield back. 

Mr. ISSA. I would like to follow up on the gentleman’s question 

briefly. There are, what, more like 1,000 people that work both 

here and abroad in the Near East section of the State Department? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Perhaps. 

Mr. ISSA. There are people with tremendous language skills. But 

let us talk about if you have a cultural question, if you want to understand how you combat terrorism by winning over the hearts and 

the minds what is your structure for reaching out both within the 

broad State Department and what your structure would be for 

reaching within civil society here and abroad? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, we have very strong relationships with civil 

society organizations in the United States. 

Mr. ISSA. And go ahead and name a couple just anecdotally as 

you go by. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, we have, and I will give you an example of 

where we have worked with Islamic scholars including and through 

our public affairs sections at our Embassies abroad. We have engaged with partners including the United Arab Emirates Government recently to help to establish a new messaging center that will 

counter message against the perversions that ISIL has committed 

and is——

Mr. ISSA. Using both scholars and imams and the like? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. But back to the gentleman’s question, because I think 

Mr. Sherman deserves a full answer. You do have to, at times, 

reach well outside this 120 or so employees to find people who have 

the technical expertise to know whether there is a problem and 

whether you can relate a solution that is going to resonate in a 

particular area of the Islamic world; is that correct? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. And that process you mentioned overseas. But would 

you touch base a little bit with the Muslim community and the 

community of scholars that exists in the United States? Where are 

some of the resources that—I don’t want you to embarrass anyone. 

I don’t want you to unfairly recognize anyone, but where are some 

of the places you generally go within the structure to find people 

50

that have native speakers, as Mr. Sherman said, and people who 

have real understanding of what people on the ground think? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, first, if I could describe, we have an effort 

under the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications 

which is a staff of people committed to identifying terrorist use of 

Internet and then counter messaging to include messages that 

challenge ISIS and al-Qaeda’s religious interpretations. And that 

staff is also an interagency staff that is linked into our intelligence 

community and other scholars and has expertise available to it. 

We have, of course, outreach through our office of religious affairs, and outreach communications ongoing with a number of Islamic as well as other religious community organizations throughout the United States. That has been a priority of Secretary Kerry 

in particular to expand this effort. And I could speak to them about 

who some of their lead relationships are with and provide that to 

you. 

Mr. ISSA. I would appreciate that. I guess, let me ask a broader 

question for a moment. Having traveled in the region for many, 

many years, one of the worst things you can do is be seen as a puppet of the CIA, a puppet of the United States Government. How do 

you engage communities particularly outside the U.S. to give their 

views without their views being directly, and in this case I hope 

unfairly, written as our views rather than their independent views 

particularly as to the meaning of the Qur’an? 

Mr. SIBERELL. That is a very important question and how we 

build relationships with credible voices abroad is absolutely vital 

work. It is sometimes very difficult. The truth of the matter is that 

some of those that we consider to be credible voices, those who we 

are seeking to win the hearts and minds of, in other words those 

who have the potential to be radicalized, the vulnerable, often not 

particularly well educated or exposed broadly and culturally, might 

not consider those voices as credible as we have evaluated them to 

be. So this is a difficult one. 

We often also see that some of those who have influence with 

these vulnerable populations, particularly youth, are people who 

espouse ideas and values, frankly, that we could not associate ourselves with. But they do stop short of advocating terrorism or violence against civilians. 

Mr. ISSA. And let me just put words in your mouth for a moment, 

because it might not be something you would say but as a member 

maybe I am freer to say it. You often find yourself with people who 

talk ill of the Zionists, who talk ill of Israel or maybe even of Christians, while at the same time they are willing to disavow the extremism and the tactics. Is that paraphrasing what you might say? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, those would be examples and I would say 

there would be others. I mean there would be views that are antidemocratic. There are views that sideline the role of women in society. There are any number of views that——

Mr. ISSA. There is a long list, isn’t there? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes, it is. 

Mr. ISSA. And I am going to close with this quick question. You 

don’t get to pick people because they meet all of America’s standards, just the opposite. You have to pick and choose people on perhaps as few as one issue, the issue of violence and terrorism, leavVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Sep 01, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_TNT\060215\94834 SHIRL
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ing aside that we may disagree on a host of other values between 

our two countries. 

Mr. SIBERELL. That is unfortunately often the case, yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. And it is now my pleasure to recognize the 

gentle lady from Illinois, Ms. Kelly. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All of us here know that 

we live in a very dynamic and challenging times with respect to 

global security. From Benghazi to Boston we have been tragically 

reminded of that truth. As such, our diplomatic efforts, defense systems and intelligence capabilities must be as vibrant as the security threats that we face. 

As a representative of a major American city, Chicago, that bad 

actors and terrorists often seek to target, I know the importance 

of counterterrorism and maintaining a secure homeland. Our best 

counterterrorism cooperation results in the gathering and sharing 

of intelligence and our ability to swiftly and effectively arrest, 

thwart and prosecute terrorists. 

My question is what role, if any, does counterterrorism have with 

respect to engaging foreign countries and groups suspected of attempting to illegally access U.S. Government and private sector 

computer systems for purposes of intelligence or economic espionage? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you very much for the question. This is an 

emerging threat we face, related to cyber terrorism groups that 

systematically seek to undermine and penetrate the U.S. Government’s computer systems in an effort to develop a greater understanding and intelligence on our own vulnerabilities, and this is an 

area that we are working very closely with our partners in the 

interagency to defend ourselves against and ensure we have robust 

systems in place. 

I would also say, however, that the terrorist groups are also 

using publicly available information as we know. Researching, for 

instance, the protection and security around infrastructure in the 

United States, and what I am getting at is not only are the government systems vulnerable, but other systems and available information can be exploited by terrorist groups. 

And this is why it is so important that we protect ourselves in 

particular against this lone wolf phenomenon, which we are seeing 

more and more of, where some of these groups have more difficulty 

sending operatives to the United States or to Western Europe because of enhanced border security measures that have been put in 

place since 9/11, but what they do therefore is they seek out those 

who are already here to conduct attacks. 

And so there is an active effort underway by a number of these 

groups we know to radicalize and to encourage attacks among individuals in this country, and so we need to be very careful to protect 

ourselves against that vulnerability. And our colleagues in the domestic law enforcement and homeland security community are 

seized with particular vulnerability. 

Ms. KELLY. Do you feel you have enough resources to do your 

job? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, as part of our budget request we have requested an increase for some of our partnering activities. This gets 

at building the capacity of partners to address the threats that 

52

they face in their own region, neighborhood, and country. And this 

is very difficult work. It does require a lot of resources. We think 

we could use more resources, we could scale up some of that 

partnering activity. 

This, for instance, as an example, we have a very dire situation 

in Libya which is emerging more and more as a safe haven for terrorist activity. We have a very close partner right next door, Tunisia, which is a country struggling to move forward in a positive and 

progressive and democratic way. They need our help to build up 

their capacities. Not only their military and intelligence capacities 

but their civilian law enforcement capacities, their ability to 

strengthen their own legislation. They need guidance on how to do 

that. They need help with investigations and in forensics and applying the whole of government approach to counterterrorism that 

we have taken. So that is one small example where we would seek 

to increase our assistance to a particular partner who needs our 

help at this moment. 

Ms. KELLY. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you. 

Ms. KELLY. I yield back my time. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. And I am going to close, but I want to very 

quickly just run through a couple of things that were on the committee’s ask, and I think it is an open-ended question so hopefully 

you are ready for it. The majority of the $300 million going to 

Counterterrorism Partnership Fund as of right now are unspent, or 

at least not fully committed. Can you give us some specifics of the 

process for your decision making and some of the areas you expect 

those funds to be disbursed into? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Sure. Thank you very much for the opportunity to 

lay that out and to be clear that we are requesting this $390 million in Fiscal Year 2016 funds. The State Department has not received funds under the CTPF previously, Fiscal Year 2015 included. The DoD did receive a $1.3 billion appropriation for CT 

partnership, the State Department did not. So we are seeking for ’16, the $390 million, and we have broken 

that down——

Mr. ISSA. Okay, and they may be talking about the earlier money 

but they parenthesized the 390. So why don’t you answer both 

sides, the DoD and how some of that is going, briefly, and then tell 

us a little bit more about what you would do with the 390, prospectively, because the earlier question, which I skipped, asked about 

the $493 million for Fiscal Year 2016. They had a number of those 

and I skipped over it and went to the second question. But please 

touch on both because I think it is insightful of what you have 

spent, where it has been committed in concert with DoD. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Happy to. The concept here is to build up partners 

as I noted in the previous response to have the capability across 

a range of civilian capacities so it would match up against building 

parallel capacities on the military and intelligence side, and that 

is the work, generally speaking, of our Department of Defense colleagues. 

So whereas we would build, let us say, a capability within a ministry of defense to provide a focused counterterrorism response capability, we also want to ensure that the civilian side of the ledger 

53

is also addressed in terms of being able to incarcerate anyone that 

those forces might detain. The ability to prosecute those defendants 

or detainees. The ability to address shortcomings in border security 

or counter radicalization. There is a whole suite of capabilities we 

would seek to build on the civilian side. 

Now with respect to the $390 million, we break that down into 

three principal categories. Sixty million dollars of that would go toward our efforts building on our current efforts to strengthen, as 

I noted earlier, capacities of governments to deal with the specific 

phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, those who are traveling to 

Iraq and Syria and some of whom are actually on their way back 

to their home countries. Another $20 million would go specifically 

toward activities against and aimed at dismantling and disrupting 

Hezbollah’s global network and activity particularly in the criminal 

sphere to raise funds that it uses in its activities in Lebanon and 

elsewhere, in Syria, et cetera. 

Mr. ISSA. But again it would be money to government agencies 

you are working with? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Some of that money would go to our partners in 

the interagency. So with Hezbollah, for instance, we have an initiative underway to strengthen our work with European law enforcement agencies to build joint investigations. And so a lot of that 

money would go to the FBI, would go to the Department of Justice, 

and Homeland Security, as an example. And then the bulk of the 

funds, $310 million, would go toward the addressing current and 

then working to prevent the emergence of new terrorist safe havens. 

So looking at East Africa as an example, bolstering our partnerships with countries on the periphery of al-Shabaab in Somalia, 

giving them the capability to better address the threat that is emanating from there; working with the Lake Chad Basin countries to 

address the threat coming from Boko Haram emerging out of 

northeast Nigeria and with the Nigerian Government itself; and 

noting earlier, the work we would like to do with Tunisia, but also 

with Libya’s other neighbors, Niger, Egypt, et cetera, to help bolster their capabilities against those threats. So those would be examples. 

Mr. ISSA. Okay. And I want to briefly go to one other thing. Earlier when you were discussing Turkey and their support late in the 

Saddam era, 60 Minutes, I believe it was, just went ahead and 

showed us an aerial view of thousands of trucks, tanker trucks, 

small tanker trucks lined up in a row for miles and miles taking 

fuel from Iraq, clandestinely, into Turkey. The same was happening in Jordan. The same was happening through a pipeline into 

Syria. And the government pretended like we were doing something about it, but in fact if 60 Minutes can get you a video of it 

obviously it was not a secret. 

Today isn’t there a large amount or at least an amount of oil that 

are going right through Turkey? Driving right down those same 

roads in plain sight of both us and the Turks delivering oil from 

the east to the west and could have come from nowhere legitimately. Isn’t that true? 

Mr. SIBERELL. There is oil smuggling that continues. We have 

worked to try to disrupt it even at the source. Some of our coalition 

54

air strikes have been against those small oil refineries and the distribution points, but it is the case that oil smuggling does continue. 

Mr. ISSA. And when the trucks are on the road they are off limits 

to fire on. We have to get them in other places, and clearly the 

Turks are not going to pull over Turkish trucks and take away 

their oil even when it clearly comes from a clandestine source. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, as I noted we are trying to work very closely 

with the Turks, the Kurds and others to stem that flow of smuggled oil. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. We now recognize the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sir, I am sorry I missed 

most of the meeting but I do have a couple questions which I think 

are germane and go to monitoring in particular. The Bureau has 

been criticized by some in Congress for the under funding of the 

monitoring and evaluation of its programs and the general guideline is 3 to 5 percent of program resources. So my question in that 

vein is how much did the Bureau spend on monitoring and evaluation in 2013 and ’14? 

Mr. SIBERELL. I can get you the specific figure, the amount of 

money we spent in those 2 fiscal years. We are monitoring and 

evaluation activities, in line with the Department’s guidelines on 

monitoring and evaluation. I just want to say that all of our programs are monitored on a constant basis and we want to get this 

right. We have no interest in perpetuating programs that are not 

seeing results, and this is very difficult work in capacity building. 

What you may be referring in the 3 to 5 percent range are some 

of the evaluations we have done which are bigger, in some cases 

bringing in outside parties to evaluate larger programs. And then 

we can give the list of those evaluations we have completed and the 

total cost we have put into this. 

Mr. PERRY. So if you know the cost then you should know the 

amount of each program that has been evaluated, right, or if you 

know the cost, I mean, it is a certain percentage. The program 

costs X amount, we are spending this much to monitor, right. So 

we should know that, right? I mean that should be readily available if——

Mr. SIBERELL. We can get you that. 

Mr. PERRY. You do monitor that, correct? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. 

Mr. PERRY. Now according to my notes, so correct me if I am 

wrong, only two of 53 countries where the Bureau is doing anti-terrorism assistance have been evaluated since 2010. Is that—two of 

53 seems low. Is there some reason it is low? Is it not low? Why 

is that correct or why isn’t that correct? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Okay. Well, thank you for the opportunity to clarify. I think it is both correct and incorrect, if I might. We have ongoing monitoring of every one of our country ATA programs, and 

every 2 to 3 years there is an assessment done of the results of previous training and what the requirements are for the coming period. 

When you are referring to the two programs, specifically what we 

did is we subjected two specific country programs to a separate outVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Sep 01, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_TNT\060215\94834 SHIRL
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side evaluation. That was in Morocco and in Bangladesh. And in 

those two countries we brought in a third-party evaluator to look 

at the program, the life span of it, and I can tell you that we have 

had very, very important conclusions from those evaluations. 

In Morocco, as an example, we determined that the Moroccan 

Government has achieved at such a level of capacity and capability 

through that training that we are now working with the Moroccans 

to actually train third-party countries. And we are putting the Moroccans together, for instance, with countries like Mauritania and 

other Sahel countries so that the Moroccans can actually do that 

training. And that was the result of the conclusions of that evaluation. 

So it is true that two specific country programs——

Mr. PERRY. So you are saying that those are two that were with 

a third-party evaluation? 

Mr. SIBERELL. But every ATA program has an ongoing process 

of monitoring and assessment that is done in combination between 

the Counterterrorism and the Diplomatic Security Bureaus. Every 

2 to 3 years every program is evaluated in that way. 

Mr. PERRY. So this stuff is expensive, $233 million in foreign aid 

to the Counterterrorism Bureau, will all those dollars be evaluated? I think about the question that the gentleman, the chairman 

just asked, and it seems obvious to Americans, right. Counterterrorism, it has got to be funded. Terrorism is funded by something. 

So if you have got trucks driving across the desert—I have been 

to the desert, it is kind of a wide open territory for a lot of it—and 

that is the source of income for the terrorists, it seems obvious. If 

we are spending $233 million, like you don’t need a whole lot, you 

don’t need to know a lot to know that right there is a target. I don’t 

know if it has to be bombed or if it can be serviced with small arms 

or medium arms. I don’t understand why we let that target continue to exist, quite honestly. 

And it is expensive, $233 million. It seems to me that we have wasted 233 or a portion of $233 million when the target is sitting 

out in the open and you say it is being smuggled. People hear the 

term ‘‘smuggling’’ they think about something being stolen away in 

the night under the cover of darkness and deception. This is out 

in the open in the middle of no-man’s land and we let it drive from 

this point to that point unfettered. What am I missing? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, the amount of money you are referring to is 

a global pot and it addresses a number of different areas. Let me 

focus in on some of the money we do dedicate toward counterterrorism finance work, and that is where we engage our partners in 

building up their financial intelligence units, their central bank, 

their ability to monitor funds that flow through the banking system. These groups, each of them, raises money in different ways. 

ISIL raises the majority of its money, we believe, through extortion 

and through criminal networks ongoing in the places that they control. So in cities like Mosul or in Raqqah they have the extortion 

networks and the ability to raise, effectively, taxes from the local 

population. 

Mr. PERRY. With your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 

that and I think you are right. It is not genuine to say that the 

$233 million were spent counterterrorism operations with ISIS. But 

56

how do you quantify success? So it is my understanding that ISIS 

raises about $2 million a day. A certain amount of that comes from 

oil revenue, smuggled oil, illicit oil sales. How do you connect the—we spent a portion of this $233 million 

on figuring out their financial network. Once we have the information, isn’t success when we have actualized on that information and 

destroyed the funding source, i.e., the truck driving across the 

desert full of oil into and through Turkey? Isn’t that, or don’t we 

care? Once we have the information we don’t put the two together? 

Mr. SIBERELL. No, I think cutting off the sources of funding one 

by one, whether it comes from oil or antiquity smuggling or extortion or taxes from ISIL controlled territory, these are things we 

have to address each of its own. So it is very important to get at 

the source of the funding for the——

Mr. PERRY. Do you ever see where the information that you got, 

the intelligence you received through the counterterrorism operations led to the servicing of the target, the destruction of the target, the destruction of the source of funds; do you ever see that? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Well, absolutely. We have taken——

Mr. PERRY. Where is that listed? Can I see where American taxpayers spent this much money to find out this information which 

led to this action which led to this outcome? How can I see that 

as a taxpayer and as a Member of Congress and a citizen? 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you. Specifically that issue probably is a 

question for DoD, but we have taken strikes against the oil installations in Iraq and in Syria controlled by ISIL. We have taken 

strikes against distribution points. So there have been very specific 

responses to available intelligence in that sector in particular. 

Mr. PERRY. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. But in response just to that we will ask DoD, but I will tell you having 

served for a fair amount of time of my life, if DoD wants to hit the 

target and is allowed to hit the target and is resourced adequately 

and missioned appropriately there will be no target left. If we want 

to end this target it will be gone, and my concern is that this actionable intelligence hasn’t been used to the fullest. With that, Mr. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. This concludes all of our questions. You 

have agreed to a number of things you would respond to for the 

record. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Yes. 

Mr. ISSA. Would you mind additional questions if they are received within the next 3 days to be added to that response list for 

members who are not here? 

Mr. SIBERELL. We would welcome them, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ISSA. So thank you. With that we stand adjourned. 

Mr. SIBERELL. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 3:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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