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i 

44–488 2009

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–101] 

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS AND 

COUNTERING IDEOLOGICAL SUPPORT 

FOR TERRORISM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND 

CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

NOVEMBER 15, 2007 
(II) 

TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

SUBCOMMITTEE 

ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

MARK UDALL, Colorado 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

KEVIN GATES, Professional Staff Member 

ALEX KUGAJEVSKY, Professional Staff Member 

ANDREW TABLER, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2007 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, November 15, 2007, Strategic Communications and Countering 

Ideological Support for Terrorism ....................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, November 15, 2007 ................................................................................ 27 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2007 

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS AND COUNTERING IDEOLOGICAL 

SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman, Terrorism, 

Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee ................................. 1 

Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee .................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Doran, Dr. Michael, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Support for Public Diplomacy), Department of Defense .............................................................. 9 

MacInnes, Duncan, Principal Deputy Coordinator of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State ............................. 4 

Pittman, Capt. Hal, USN, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

(Joint Communication), Department of Defense ............................................... 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Doran, Dr. Michael ........................................................................................... 52 

MacInnes, Duncan ............................................................................................ 32 

Pittman, Capt. Hal ........................................................................................... 39 

Smith, Hon. Adam ............................................................................................ 31 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

How to Win The War Of Ideas, by Robert Satloff of The Washington 

Institute for Near East Policy ...................................................................... 65 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Questions submitted.] 

(1) 

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS AND COUNTERING 

IDEOLOGICAL SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

SUBCOMMITTEE, 

Washington, DC, Thursday, November 15, 2007. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. SMITH. Good morning. We will go ahead and get the hearing 

started as close to on time as possible. I look forward to hearing 

from our witnesses. 

We are gathered today to talk about strategic communications in 

the global war on terror, which is a critically important part of that 

effort and one that I think we need to place greater emphasis on, 

greater focus and, ultimately, greater resources as well. 

When you look at the battle that we are fighting against al 

Qaeda and similar ideologies, it is a broad-based ideological battle. 

And I think that the closest analogy you can draw is to the Cold 

War and communism. And there were many, many aspects to the 

Cold War, certainly. Sometimes the Cold War involved military 

confrontations, in Korea and Vietnam and elsewhere. But it also 

overlaid the larger issue; it was communism versus capitalist democracy. 

And we went out and made the case that our system, our ideology was better. And we made that case comprehensively. And, ultimately, that had as much to do with our success as anything. As 

I have facetiously said that, you know, the war on communism can 

best be summed up as we took people from the Soviet Union, said, 

you know, ‘‘Look at your grocery store, look at our grocery store, 

we win,’’ which is a bit of an exaggeration, but that was certainly 

part of it. 

And, more importantly, we had a comprehensive strategic plan 

for how to do that and many other messages about what was better 

about our ideology and what was deficient about the ideology of 

communism. And slowly but surely, the rest of the world, even in 

the Communist world, agreed. They came across to our way of 

thinking ideologically. We basically won a marketing campaign. 

And that had as much to do with our success as anything. 
2 

Now we face a similar struggle, an ideological struggle against 

Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and a very dangerous ideology that 

they are spreading. And it is my judgment, at this point, that we 

are not doing as well in that battle as we should be. We clearly 

have the better ideology. We clearly have more to offer people of 

all faiths, from all places in the world, with freedom, openness, democracy, opportunity, than what Osama bin Laden has been offering. 

When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, it was a complete disaster, 

by everybody’s estimation. That is what they have on the table. 

And yet we haven’t been able to sort of get up on the other side 

of that and begin to win that argument, certainly in the Muslim 

world. You know, you look at various polls and various indicators 

out there. It is clear that the Muslim world still has way too much 

sympathy for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and not enough understanding and appreciation for the West. 

But it goes beyond the Muslim world, even in Europe. I was in 

Afghanistan last spring, meeting and talking with various folks 

about our efforts over there. And while the leaders of some of the 

key European countries have bought into what we are doing in Afghanistan, a lot of their citizens have not, and that makes it extraordinarily difficult for our commanders over there. 

I will always remember General McNeil talking about the various countries that were involved and then the list of what they 

would and would not do militarily. Any military commander, I 

think, would shudder at the notion of a bunch of troops under his 

command that are choosing what they will and will not do. A lot 

of that has to do with the difference of opinion about going about 

conducting the broader battle. We have got to start winning the 

battle for ideas, and we have got to do a better job of promoting 

that. 

And I will say there are many issues—and I look forward to 

hearing from our witnesses today about how we can better coordinate that and what we need to do—but the two that strike me and 

the two I am most interested in: One is interagency cooperation. 

There are many, many people who touch this issue, on all levels. 

Certainly the State Department is the lead agency. The Defense 

Department has a lot to do with it. But all across various segments 

of our Government, right down to the captain in Baghdad trying 

to persuade, you know, a local tribe to be on our side in the battle 

against al Qaeda in figuring out how to do this, there are many, 

many different layers. Are we maximizing those resources? Are we 

getting the most out of the various pieces that are involved in this 

and coordinating them in a comprehensive way that makes sure 

that we are getting the most out of what we have? 

But second is the matter of resources, and we are not spending 

very much money on this strategic communications effort. When 

you look at what we were spending at the height of the Cold War 

versus what we are spending now, it is a joke. We haven’t even 

really, significantly increased our efforts at the State Department 

in public diplomacy, in strategic communications, since 9/11. It is 

pretty close to a flat line. 
3 

And I think the world of what our military has done since 9/11. 

I think the way they have pulled together, coordinated, maximized 

their resources is a real testimony to how great a military we have. 

On the other hand, when you look at that, you can look at the 

Department of Defense (DOD) budget from 9/11 forward and see it 

going like this, and you can look at the State Department public 

diplomacy budget and see it going like this, and hopefully have a 

little sympathy for the folks who are trying to do the strategic communications/public diplomacy piece. We need to invest more resources in it if we are going to get the results that we desperately 

need in this battle. 

So I look forward to the testimony. And, with that, I want to turn 

it over to the ranking member on the committee, Mr. Thornberry, 

for any opening remarks he has. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your 

opening comments, and I agree with them. 

I would ask unanimous consent that an editorial from The Washington Post from last Saturday by Robert Satloff of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy be made part of the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 65.] 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I think this is only the most recent article, 

with a big stack of studies and articles, that expresses the view 

that we are not adequately fighting this war of ideas, in part because it is a hard, unnatural thing for our government to do. And 

I sympathize with each of you in the position that you are in. But 

I also think it is important for this subcommittee to focus on those 

issues and try to encourage us to be more successful. 

The point of this article is that we operate as if this war of ideas 

barely exists and have focused our energies on the wrong problem, 

trying to gain popularity rather than trying to help the struggle 

within the Muslim faith itself. And it goes on to point out some 

suggestions on how and the way we can do that better. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I have been interested in this for 

some time. I have dug out the Defense Science Board Task Force 

report from September 2004, part of which I have introduced as an 

independent bill to try to gain the expertise of the private sector 

on behalf of this effort. But I am concerned that we are moving too 

slowly in really waging this struggle and that this struggle is an 

absolutely essential part of our national security at this point in 

time. 

So I appreciate this hearing. I appreciate the opportunity to hear 

from these witnesses and the increased attention that this part of 

national security is achieving. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mac. 
4 

And before I introduce the witnesses, just one more quick comment. As you are making your comments, basically we are trying 

to win a campaign here, a campaign of ideas. And to do that, you 

have to develop a message and deliver that message in the mediums where your audience is going to get their information. So as 

I hear your testimony, I am curious to know what is our message, 

how are we delivering it, what do we think are the critical mediums to reach those populations that we are trying to reach? 

And with that, I will turn it over to our witnesses. I will introduce all three of them. 

And we will start with Mr. Duncan MacInnes, who is the Principal Deputy Coordinator of the Bureau of International Information Programs at the Department State. The Department of State 

is the lead organization on the ideological piece, on the strategic 

communications piece of the global war on terror. And the International Information Programs Bureau is the lead piece of the Department of State’s effort. 

We also have Captain Hal Pittman from the United States Navy, 

who is the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Joint 

Communication; Dr. Michael Doran, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

Defense, Support for Public Diplomacy, also with the Department 

of Defense. 

And we will start with Mr. MacInnes. 

STATEMENT OF DUNCAN MACINNES, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY COORDINATOR OF THE BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. MACINNES. Chairman Smith, Congressman Thornberry and 

distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, thank you for inviting me here 

today. And thank you for those opening statements, which summarized some of the issues that we do face today. 

Combatting ideological support for terrorism poses a variety of 

daunting new challenges for U.S. public diplomacy. Terrorists have 

shown themselves to be adept at exploiting the freedom of the 

Internet to spread their propaganda directly to young Muslims 

around the world, using effectively video messaging, imaging and 

text. 

Our traditional communication tools are designed for mainstream media and have had little impact in this new information 

battlefield. Our audiences have also been stretched beyond the traditional opinion leaders, and it leads to the general public and specifically the youth, who are the target of extremist propaganda. 

During the Cold War, we fought a traditional enemy in the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and our tools included 

traditional public diplomacy tools such as educational programs, 

rule-of-law programs, democracy promotion, publications, mainstream media. These strategies remain relevant and powerful still 

today, but we need to continue to develop new tactics to counter 

an elusive and decentralized nonstate foe who is adept at exploiting 

the Internet and new technologies in spreading its ideology of violence. 

We have come a long way in coordinating our efforts on strategic 

communications across the interagency. On April 8, 2006, the 
5 

President established the interagency Policy Coordinating Committee, PCC, on public diplomacy and strategic communications. As 

chairperson of the PCC, Under Secretary Karen Hughes leads our 

international strategic communications efforts within the Administration. 

Over the past year, Under Secretary Hughes has reorganized the 

PCC to ensure more active interagency coordination and synergies 

in the struggle with violent extremism. She established the interagency Counterterrorism Communication Center (CTCC) and created sub-PCCs to work on the issues of State-DOD coordination 

and cooperation and also set up additional sub-PCCs on research 

and analysis and on branding. 

State and DOD now are working closely together on coordinating 

our efforts. Last week, for example, Dr. Doran, Captain Pittman 

and I were together discussing strategic communications at the 

Global Synchronization Conference held by SOCOM in Tampa. 

The week before that, we met together at the State-DOD subPCC on coordination and planning. In that sub-PCC, we are exploring ways to enhance our cooperation and develop shared communication strategies. Already in the works are initiatives on coordinating Website activities and content, video production, blogging, 

and a renewed effort to identify and find ways to empower credible 

Muslim voices, to develop shared image databanks, and to 

strengthen the effectiveness of Military Information Support Teams 

(MIST) teams working in our overseas missions. 

Overseas in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe, our public 

affairs officers at the embassies work closely with military public 

affairs and Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) officers. Military 

information support teams, MISTs, are integrated into the work of 

an increasing number of U.S. missions overseas. 

Let me talk a little bit about the Counterterrorism Communication Center which was set up. Under Secretary Hughes established 

the Counterterrorism Communication Center last summer to coordinate overall overt U.S. strategic communication messaging in 

the war of ideas and to produce and disseminate effective messaging to counter terrorist ideology, especially in the Arab-Muslim 

world but also in Europe and elsewhere. 

The CTCC, as they call it, is a small but truly interagency organization, with staff currently drawn from the Department of State, 

the Department of Defense, the National Counterterrorism Center 

(NCTC) and the intelligence community. Working with State, DOD 

and other U.S. agencies, it produces strategic communication plans, 

develops effective narratives and themes to undermine and counter 

terrorist messaging, and produces specific messages for use by 

State and DOD commuters. It responds with talking points to 

breaking-news events and works closely with our rapid response 

unit at the State Department’s public affairs office to put out a regular antiterrorism message. 

CTCC messaging goes to more than 2,000 key U.S. Government 

communicators, including combatant commands and all U.S. embassies. Those communicators build on the themes and information 

in those messages, customizing them for local audiences in order to 

achieve the greatest impact. 
6 

Our efforts focus on undermining and putting extremists on the 

defensive by exposing how terrorists recruit and exploit young people; destroy religious sites and mosques; murder women, children, 

men and innocent victims, such as in the tragic events last week 

that resulted in the deaths of 59 schoolboys, five teachers, police 

officers and other innocent adults in an effort to target members 

of the Afghan parliament, six of whom were murdered. 

We have also set up a digital outreach team. It was launched one 

year ago as a pilot initiative to counter ideological support for 

counterterrorism on the Internet. It employs Arabic speakers to 

post entries into influential Arabic blogs, challenging misrepresentations and providing accurate information about U.S. policy, our 

society and our motives overseas. Our bloggers speak the language 

and idiom of the region and know the culture references and are 

often able to converse informally and frankly, rather than adopt 

the more formal persona of the U.S. Government’s spokesperson. 

This is a major departure from our previous way of conducting 

public diplomacy. It requires both creativity and a new set of skills. 

We are currently in the process of expanding the original team of 

three up to 10, including an Urdu speaker and two Persian linguists. We are also exploring how we can use other 

cybertechnologies, such as cell phones, Second Life, in our war 

against the terrorists. 

Our Bureau of International Information Programs is also fully 

engaged in expanding public diplomacy and countering terrorist extremist ideologies through the Internet. Our English-language 

Website and six foreign language sites, including both Arabic and 

Persian, are being transformed to use more videos, more blogging, 

podcasts, Web chats, that are designed to reach younger audiences. 

Our Arabic Web site attracts more than 200,000 visitors per 

month, with the top users coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the 

Gulf and Morocco. 

The decline in favorable overseas public opinion toward the 

United States has resulted in an increased skepticism about the 

motives that drive our policies. On the practical side, this has led 

to a distrust that undermines the effectiveness of our messages 

against extremists. We are addressing this issue by working with 

our embassies overseas and with the American Muslim community 

here in the States to reinforce credible antiextremist voices. 

For example, we have sent out dozens of American Muslims to 

predominantly Muslim countries to engage in discussions with 

their counterparts. These citizen dialogue programs directly 

counter al Qaeda’s negative propaganda message that the U.S. is 

at war with Islam. 

The CTCC collects and disseminates antiterrorist statements and 

editorials and cartoons made by Muslims from around the world in 

order to amplify their voices in the fight against extremism. We are 

in the process of finding new ways to empower credible Muslim 

voices in the Muslim world, because this is a key issue we have to 

work on. 

The strongest messages are sent, however, not through words 

but through deeds, what Karen Hughes calls the diplomacy of 

deeds. She talks about the importance of waging peace by showing 

the United States as a positive force for good in the world, in stark 
7 

contrast with the destructive ideologies espoused by al Qaeda and 

other terrorist groups. Americans are generous, committed to helping others, and we have the largest number of people working in 

voluntary organizations. We have worked closely with DOD to promote understanding among foreign publics of our humanitarian efforts. These cooperative efforts have included telling the dramatic 

story of our emergency relief for tsunami and earthquake victims 

in Indonesia and Pakistan. 

Another initiative of Karen Hughes’ is the pilot country program, 

which provides funding for special projects in key countries with 

predominantly Muslim or sizeable Muslim populations. Funded 

through the 2007 emergency supplemental for the war of ideas, the 

pilot country project seeks to find ways to counter ideological support for terrorism through innovative projects that are identified by 

the Ambassador and senior Embassy staff members. The focus of 

these projects is to reach, often, young people who are vulnerable 

to radicalization and help them develop the skills and confidence 

they need to resist recruitment and become committed extremists. 

Mr. Chairman, I have given you and the members an overview 

of our current and new initiatives to counter extremist ideologies. 

I have also highlighted the very positive trends toward greater 

interagency cooperation between the Departments of State and Defense. 

This struggle against the evils of terrorism will take many years, 

and we still have a great deal more to do to meet the challenges 

of violent extremism. We believe that we have made major strides 

in adapting to the new and sometimes daunting media environment of the 21st century. 

These initiatives, however, do not stand in isolation. Public diplomacy and strategic communications must continue to deploy all instruments at our disposal and must rely on the best and most upto-date research data. We need to expand our use of the Internet 

and other new media, while continuing to support effective and 

more targeted educational exchanges, democracy programs, youth 

initiatives, et cetera. 

More importantly, we must continue to work harder to integrate 

our overall U.S. Government efforts, embrace new communication 

technologies and enlist the support of our allies overseas. We must 

continue to work toward a proactive position instead of one that is 

only reactive. 

The battle for the hearts and minds is one that will only succeed 

if we embrace innovation and use our Nation’s great communication talents and creativity to the best effect. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. MacInnes can be found in the 

Appendix on page 32.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. MacInnes. 

Captain Pittman. 

STATEMENT OF CAPT. HAL PITTMAN, USN, ACTING DEPUTY 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (JOINT COMMUNICATION), DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Captain PITTMAN. Chairman Smith, Congressman Thornberry 

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, good morning. 
8 

First, I would like to thank the subcommittee members for all 

you have done to support our military men and women in uniform. 

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about the Department of Defense’s efforts in strategic communication. 

As a military officer and a professional communicator by trade, 

I have served in multiple joint assignments, and I have observed 

firsthand many of the communication challenges we face today 

against a cunning adversary that does not have to tell the truth. 

While the U.S. military conducts a largely kinetic campaign complemented with communication efforts against violent extremists, 

our adversaries conduct an information campaign punctuated by 

kinetic exclamation points—suicide bombings, spectacular attacks 

and the like—to highlight their cause. In a long war where the real 

battle is a battle of ideas, America’s enemies place a premium on 

telling their story, regardless of the truth. 

How we engage in this sphere is important. I believe in the need 

to maintain the credibility of our military and also in the need for 

transparency. At the same time, we must collaborate and synchronize our actions, words and images within both the Department and the interagency to maintain that credibility. 

Above all, strategic communication is a process, and the process 

of communication integration will require a long-term commitment 

and sustained effort by the Department in support of the U.S. Government. 

Today I will focus somewhat on process and try to briefly describe for this subcommittee some of the efforts to date that the Department of Defense has undertaken in this regard, specifically: the 

Quadrennial Defense Review Strategic Communication Execution 

Roadmap; the Strategic Communication Integration Group, or 

SCIG, process, which is the Department’s strategic communication 

planning effort; support the State Department and the interagency; 

and education efforts focusing on helping strategic communication 

thinking occur naturally in every action. 

In September of 2006, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England signed the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Strategic Communication Execution Roadmap. Mr. England cited three primary 

objectives in this document: first, to institutionalize a DOD process 

by which the principles of strategic communication are incorporated in the development of policy formulation, planning and 

execution; second, to define the roles, responsibilities and relationships and develop doctrine for strategic communication and its primary communications-supporting capabilities—and those primary 

supporting capabilities include public affairs, aspects of information 

operations, principally PSYOP, visual information, DOD activities 

of military diplomacy and defense support to public diplomacy; and 

third, to properly resource military departments and combatant 

commands to organize, train and equip DOD’s primary communications-supporting capabilities. 

One of the most significant successes of the roadmap to date is 

the establishment of both an integrating process and creation of a 

Strategic Communication Integration Group, or SCIG. The SCIG 

secretary coordinates and synchronizes communication plans and 

concepts within the Department. And a SCIG Executive Committee, or EXCOM, provides oversight and guidance. And I am the 
9 

Director of the Strategic Communication Integration Group Secretariat. 

The DOD has also significantly increased in communication collaboration with the interagency. My office participates in working 

groups and has joined Under Secretary Hughes’ Policy Coordinating Committee and sub-PCCs on a variety of topics and issues, 

including research, new media engagement, and content sharing, 

as Mr. MacInnes has indicated. We attend a collaboration group 

with DOD, State and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and a weekly fusion cell meeting as well. 

DOD had direct input into the national strategy on public diplomacy and strategic communication through the SCIG process and 

has provided military manpower and expertise to the interagency 

Counterterrorism Communications Center, which was recently established and just mentioned. 

The Defense Department has also conducted multiple strategic 

communication education and training initiatives over the past two 

years to help institutionalize strategic communication as a process. 

Strategic communication and public affairs blocks of instructions 

are being incorporated into the joint professional military education, working closely with the war colleges. Advanced and expeditionary joint public affairs training courses are being developed as 

an Strategic Communications (SC) roadmap task, and they will be 

taught at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade. 

Simultaneously, DOD and State Department are exploring ways 

to leverage training resources. Interagency participants attended 

the first-ever DOD strategic communication interagency worldwide 

seminar in July 2007. And a State Department public diplomacy officer just attended the DOD strategic communication workshop 

which was just held a couple of weeks ago in Monterey, California, 

at the Naval Postgraduate School. 

In summary, we have come a long way in the past four years, 

particularly in the past two years since the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for joint communication was established. 

But the Department has a ways to go yet in realizing our long-term 

goal of institutionalizing strategic communication across the Department. 

We certainly appreciate your support of our efforts and the interest that you have shown by conducting this hearing. And I look forward to answering your questions. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Captain Pittman can be found in the 

Appendix on page 39.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Dr. Doran. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL DORAN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY), DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Dr. DORAN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I thank 

you for inviting me to speak on the issue of countering ideological 

support for terrorism. 
10 

My written testimony provides more detail about this concept, 

but I would like to devote a few minutes in my oral remarks to 

highlight a few key aspects of it. 

The war we are fighting today is an information war, a global 

conflict of perception. Terrorist attacks, even ones of the magnitude 

of 9/11, are not designed to cripple the United States but, rather, 

to generate the perception of American weakness and vulnerability 

among key audiences across the globe. The spectacle of the attack 

is as important to the terrorists, sometimes more important, than 

the destructive effect itself. At their essence, terrorist attacks 

against America are tools in a contest for power and authority 

within Muslim societies. 

Our goal is to purposefully join and influence a political process, 

an ongoing multi-sided conversation that is proceeding independently of the United States. 

The recent success enjoyed by General David Petraeus and his 

Iraqi allies has dramatically demonstrated to us the primacy of 

intra-Muslim politics in counterinsurgency and in countering ideological support for terrorism. The General has taught us that coordinating our statements and actions is an important component 

to influencing the internal Iraqi debate over legitimate political authority in that country. 

But countering ideological support for terrorism is not primarily 

about creating brand America. It should not be reduced solely to 

executing public diplomacy campaigns whose objective is to burnish 

the image of America. Those are laudable efforts, and we fully support and encourage them, but they are not the essence of what 

countering ideological support for terrorism is all about. 

The key question is, how do we join and influence this intra-Muslim conversation in order to undermine the intellectual and perceptual underpinnings of terrorism? Terrorists actively foster the perception that the global Islamic community is under severe threat. 

To counter this perception, we must inject critical doubt among key 

populations about the terrorists’ vision of hate and fear. 

For their vision to have any credibility, terrorist groups seek to 

foster a sense of doom, a sense that midnight is fast approaching. 

To manufacture this threat, al Qaeda and others argue that the 

United States and our allies are somehow placing the global Islamic community in peril. To counter this, we must chip away at 

the bleak picture of helplessness and vulnerability that supports it. 

Our enemies foster a culture of blame to foment anger, hatred 

and a sense of victimization. They offer their violence as the only 

solution to the challenges of today. To be successful, we must focus 

on the self-perceptions of key audiences rather than perceptions of 

America. Our core message must outline an alternative future that 

is more attractive than the bleak future offered by the terrorists. 

This positive narrative must contain more than just antiterrorist 

rhetoric. It should include elements that will positively impact the 

future lives of Muslims everywhere. 

To promote this objective we cannot simply focus on getting our 

message out. Success requires taking actions that make the alternative narrative real. Thus, key components of the successful strategy include civil affairs, security, education reform and economic 

opportunity. 
11 

In Iraq’s Al Anbar province, we are beginning to see the process 

of combatting ideological support for terrorism done correctly. Just 

a few short months ago, public commentary in this country widely 

suggested that al Qaeda was firmly ensconced in Iraq. In fact, we 

now know that al Qaeda is not as welcomed in Iraq as outside commentators claimed, especially after the Anbar Salvation Council 

emerged in late 2006 to oppose al Qaeda’s violence, extremism and 

attacks on civilians. 

This trend appears to be accelerating, since, just last week, 

Major General Joseph Fil, Commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, 

told the media that al Qaeda in Iraq has been cleared out of the 

Iraqi capital and that Iraqi families are returning to their homes. 

By countering ideological support for terrorism, we seek to appeal to the self-interest of local communities whose values and aspirations find no expression in al Qaeda’s world view. Although it 

claims to speak on behalf of all Muslims, we should not be taken 

in by al Qaeda’s propaganda or endorse its inflated sense of its own 

ideological appeal. 

Our countering-ideological-support-for-terrorism approach seeks 

to force al Qaeda to live as an actor in our alternative pro-future 

narrative. The reality is that governments and citizens today are 

fighting against al Qaeda. I am not declaring universal success, but 

to paraphrase a famous quote from Winston Churchill: In Iraq, 

what we are seeing is not the end, it is not the beginning of the 

end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. 

With that, I conclude my oral remarks. My written testimony 

will be submitted as part of the record, and I look forward to your 

questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Doran can be found in the Appendix on page 52.] 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you all for your testimony. 

I will pass, and I yield to Mr. Thornberry. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I yield. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Castor. 

Ms. CASTOR. Good morning. 

How do you divide the differences and responsibilities in missions of the Department of State and the Department of Defense? 

I know you all work together and collaborate on a lot of different 

initiatives when it comes to worldwide communications, but I 

would like you to detail how they differ and where your concerns 

lie with, maybe, mission creep of one agency to another. 

Captain PITTMAN. With regard to my specific area of expertise, 

it is the Strategic Communication Integration Group, essentially 

the development and staffing of strategic communication plans on 

behalf of the Department of Defense. Obviously any efforts that we 

make are designed to plug into the greater effort of State Department. 

But, you know, the process of staffing plans and development is 

a time-consuming process of ensuring that all the offices with tasks 

and responsibilities in a particular communication plan come together in harmony, horizontally integrating all of those efforts kind 

of across multiple lanes. 

A perfect example is the recent Afghanistan strategic communication plan that we worked on. It took probably about four 
12 

months to complete that plan, but once completed, it had elements 

of interagency support. It was nested with the plans that were already in place from the State Department and through North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). And it had, specifically, execution pieces that 

were the responsibility of Central Command elements, of other elements within the theater of operations there. 

It is a challenging responsibility, but we have multiple meetings 

on an ongoing basis with our colleagues, kind of, across this spectrum and in larger groups. Again, it is about integrating the process. It is not about creating new stovepipes or organizations, but, 

rather, making sure that we are all working in harmony and synchronization. It is a challenge. It is hard to align those efforts, but 

we are working to that end. 

Ms. CASTOR. Are the DOD communications efforts concentrated 

on the Central Command (CENTCOM) area and then, of course, 

through Special Operations Command (SOCOM) especially? 

Captain PITTMAN. I would offer to you, ma’am, that there are certainly discrete efforts across all the combatant commands. And I 

use the CENTCOM example because it is one example of a pretty 

robust plan that we recently tackled, but there are multiple efforts. 

Obviously, there is a lot of time and energy currently spent on 

our activities and operations in the Central Command theater, so 

there is a lot of effort that goes into that. There is a lot of resources, and a lot of people working at different levels, kind of 

across the spectrum, on those particular issues, just because they 

are so dynamic and they involve our Government to such an extent. 

Mr. MACINNES. For the State Department’s view, two things 

mentioning what Captain Pittman talked about. We are actually 

doing a lot more things than in the past. I mean, the scope of what 

we have to handle is global, and the borders for Internet and other 

activities don’t exist. 

And we have a very close coordination relationship with public 

affairs. That is traditional; that has always been that way. 

PSYOPS and operations that were theater-based, meaning in areas 

of active war, are now global because of the nature of the global 

war on terror. In other words, it has moved beyond being localized. 

And that means that we have had to learn how to coordinate our 

efforts globally on issues like information operations, PSYOPS and 

public affairs and public diplomacy. It is not an easy thing, and, 

actually we didn’t do it well, certainly at the turn of the century. 

But we actually have taken this on. We have realized that, because so many different elements are now involved in this activity 

of what you might call strategic communications writ large, that 

we do need these coordinating mechanisms to be able to sort out 

and to reinforce and to not duplicate but to also not stumble over 

each other. And we have actually created, I think, ways that we 

are moving in that direction quite robustly right now. I think that 

was missing before. But that is all. 

Dr. DORAN. If I could just add to that, since Duncan set up the 

CTCC, that has been enormously helpful for us. We in the Department of Defense recognize that State has the lead on this, and we 

need their leadership. 
13 

The problem that we had before the CTCC existed, I think, was 

not so much that we were getting in each other’s business but that 

we were synced up and that we weren’t working as closely together 

as we might have been. And we hadn’t explained, I think, to State 

what we need from them by way of leadership in this area. 

Now that the CTCC is there, we have developed processes and 

relationships that I think allow for the two agencies to understand 

each other much better and to work much more effectively together 

in this area. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. Drake. 

Mrs. DRAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, first, is there anything that Congress needs to do, or the 

executive branch, for you to be able to work more effectively together? Or, under the current structure, do you have what you 

need? Is there anything we need to do to help you? 

Mr. MACINNES. I believe that we have actually moved—we have 

set up mechanisms that are beginning to really show that we can 

do this and we can do it well. And what we are trying to avoid is 

setting up layers and big bureaucracies. I mean, the Counterterrorism Communication Center is really 12 people. That is a very 

small group, but what we need to do here is coordinate, not reinvent. And so, I don’t see, particularly, any new authorities that 

we need. 

Captain PITTMAN. I would second what Duncan has indicated. A 

lot of the sub-PCC efforts are now working at looking at efficiencies 

and the sharing of information and content, things like a shared 

databank of photography imagery, shared strategies on engaging 

new media and that sort of thing. These are the sorts of things that 

we are working toward right now. 

On the resourcing side, how I would respond to your question, 

ma’am, is that there is a strategic communication roadmap which 

lists a variety of discrete issues which represent capability gaps 

across the spectrum, or across the enterprise for strategic communication. There are specific issues about developing the capabilities 

of the Department to be more robust and to be able to meet all of 

our challenges. And that roadmap actually looks at funding across 

the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). It is not a short-term 

effort, but rather it is a longer-term effort. 

I will give you a couple of quick examples. For example, in fiscal 

year 2008 funding, we have allotted $10 million to the Digital 

Video Transportation System (DVTS), which is a portable satellite 

communications system that is predominantly deployed in the Central Command theater but also deployed in other areas, that allows 

our commanders and subject-matter experts to be able to broadcast 

live, real-time, back to organizations in the States to be able to address the media in real-time. 

Another example is the Joint Public Affairs Support Element, 

which is based at Joint Forces Command down at the Joint 

Warfighting Center in Suffolk, $3.3 million allocated in fiscal year 

2008 funding for that evolution. And that is a capability, a small 

unit of about 50 people, that is able to deploy in expeditionary in-
14 

stances around the world to support the public affairs, public communications efforts of the Department. 

So these kinds of things. 

Another example is, just within the Assistant Secretary for Pub- lic Affairs, $2 million that will go toward the Defense Information 

School for bolstering courses and the development of a couple of 

courses which essentially meet the requirement for roadmap tasks 

to provide intermediary and senior courses for our communicators. 

So these kinds of efforts are discrete, and they are kind of built 

in to separate budgetary requests from different offices of primary 

responsibility. But they go a long way toward developing the capabilities of the Department. 

Mrs. DRAKE. And I am going to assume that the bulk of your 

message is sort of a moderate Muslim message, as opposed—to 

kind of offset the extreme message? I mean, I didn’t get the impression this is a U.S. message. This is more in support of a moderate 

Muslim message? 

Dr. DORAN. I was putting the emphasis there. I think it is both. 

We definitely have to get our message out. But I was putting the 

message there, the emphasis there, because I think there needs to 

be a culture shift in how we perceive the threat that we face and 

how we develop the tools to deal with it. 

And that is how I would answer your original question, about 

what you might do. I think you can help us in shifting the culture. 

To give you a more specific example, our intel communities, both 

within the Department of Defense and the intel community writ 

large, they tend to collect against threats, against specific terrorist 

threats to the United States. And they don’t tend to collect against 

open source, public discussions about politics and public opinion 

and so forth. And in some elements of the intel community, you 

find out that they don’t consider public opinion to be part of intel 

collection. 

But if you consider the example that I gave in my oral remarks 

here of Iraq, the appeal of the terrorist message in Iraq among 

Sunnis is not so much the intrinsic content of the message but the 

sense that Sunnis had that they were going to be dominated by 

Shias as a result of the change in Iraq. 

So focusing in on the domestic Iraqi debate about relations between Sunnis and Shia would have been or should be a central 

U.S. national security objective. But our intel community, coming 

out of the Cold War, is much more inclined to look for that terrorist 

who might be about to carry out an attack. That is very important 

to do, but there is this wider spectrum. 

Representative Thornberry’s bill, 2800, has one mechanism for 

bringing about this kind of shift and developing the kind of cultural 

sensitivities that we need to develop. 

Mrs. DRAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mrs. Drake. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MacInnes, the digital outreach teams, can you talk to us a 

little bit about how you oversee that or the oversight to make sure 

that they are staying on message? And that when you use the word 

‘‘creativity,’’ how do you make sure that it stays within the white 
15 

lines that we think is appropriate, given that this, I suspect, is 

being conducted in Arabic or Farsi or some language that not many 

of us can interpret? 

Mr. MACINNES. That is a very good question. Those are questions 

we struggled with when we set this up. 

It is clearly difficult for a government organization to do 

blogging, because blogging tends to be a very informal, chatty way 

of working. And, of course, it is actually very dangerous to blog, because when you make a statement to the press in a press conference, you know what you are going to be saying; in a blog, you 

have to actually have a conversation rather than just a lecture, so 

it is very difficult. 

But what we have, though, is we developed a technique and a 

paradigm. We have a senior State Department—a very experienced 

officer who served in Iraq who understands the Muslim world, and 

he is the supervisor for that group. They discuss each posting before it goes up and look at it. And we do not make policy there. 

We stick with policy. But what we are doing is getting at the issue 

sometimes of motivation. 

Many of the things that are on the Web ascribe to America’s bad 

motivations for what we do. You know, they may be perfectly 

aware of what our policy toward Iraq is, but they are doing it because you are there to destroy Iraq for Israel or you are there for 

oil or other things. Our job is to address that motivation issue and 

show them that is not the motivation. 

You need the creativity and what I call the bridging. Because you 

can’t just say, look, here is our policy and drop it into a blog. You 

have to have what I call a bridge. And we use bridges, we use 

sports, poetry, current events to do those bridges that are noncontent-related but allow one to get to be in a conversational mode 

with people. 

What we have found, though, most interestingly—because we 

worried that we would be, in the parlance of the Internet, flamed 

when we came on, well, ‘‘These Americans, get the heck off my 

site,’’ you know. What we found instead—and we deal with mainstream sites; we are not actually going to the hardcore terrorist 

sites. We are going to the mainstream sites, because we believe 

that we must convince the general public in the Arab-Muslim world 

not to support terrorism even tacitly, and we are trying to counter 

those messages. But what we found is people were very glad that 

we were there. We had postings like, ‘‘We don’t like your policies, 

but we are sure glad you are here talking to us about it,’’ or, ‘‘We 

appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to come and speak 

to us.’’ 

Mr. CONAWAY. Right. 

Given that we have got a message, can you talk to me a little 

bit about your perception, any of the three of you, as to why the 

moderate Muslim world, the vast majority of peace-loving, peaceful 

Muslims, have not been a better help to us? I mean, my simplistic 

view is this is a battle for the heart of Islam. And it is not our 

fight, in the sense that I don’t know that I could effectively have 

that kind of input. 

But the 80-percent-plus that are moderates, why have they not 

joined the ruckus to say and to be more open and more vocal in 
16 

terms of trying to reclaim this religion from the far extremists, and 

being more of an ally for us as opposed to simply a silent majority 

out there that does not seem yet to have taken sides the way I 

would have expected them to? 

Dr. DORAN. I am not sure that I would put it that way, exactly. 

If I go back again to the example of what is going on in Iraq, you 

see the Sunnis in Al Anbar are risking their lives standing side by 

side with us against al Qaeda, whereas a year ago they weren’t. So 

it isn’t love of the ideology, and it isn’t an inherent weakness in 

people, because these people are being very courageous today. It is 

a set of local circumstances on the ground. 

I think, more often than not, it is a lack of a tradition in the Middle East of participatory politics, and it is fear: fear from the security services and fear from al Qaeda. And when those circumstances are changed, then we find people standing up. So it is 

a whole complex of issues. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Excuse me, Dr. Doran. What about the folks who 

aren’t in those security positions, who aren’t threatened daily by— 

let us get out of Iraq and—poor phrase from my side of the aisle— 

and look at the Muslim population at large across the world. You 

know, they are not all directly threatened. But why is the mindset 

that it is okay for them to sit on the sidelines and allow the extremists to hijack their religion? Any insight there? I don’t have 

any. 

Dr. DORAN. I think the single most important factor is a lack of 

a tradition of participatory politics. You just don’t find them organizing for any issue, not just along this. 

Mr. SMITH. The gentleman’s time has expired. If you have one 

more quick one, I will let you fire it off there. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I will wait for another round. 

Mr. SMITH. Thanks. 

Mr. McIntyre. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing today. 

If I could ask you a couple of questions in my time allowed, so 

let me ask the first one. If you can tell us, does the U.S. Government have a human capital strategy that supports our national 

strategic communications effort? And, specifically, does that human 

capital strategy—how does that impact on recruiting, retention and 

personnel management? 

Mr. MACINNES. For the Department of State, we have very little 

trouble recruiting, certainly. We have a long waiting list of people 

trying to come in. We currently and at all times have always needed more people. I mean, in fighting wars of ideas, you have never 

done your job, because there is always something else to do. 

I think getting area expertise has been very important and getting language training. We have made a major effort at the State 

Department to increase our cadre of fluent Arabic speakers to be 

able—and that has paid some results now. We now have people 

that have come through that system that are going on the air and 

speaking in Arabic on television and radio. 

But we have always had a strong area of expertise, but that is 

an area that we actually have to expand that even further. And 

language has been one of the key issues for us. 
17 

Mr. MCINTYRE. So if recruiting is not a problem, is retention a 

problem? 

Mr. MACINNES. Retention has not been a problem. The biggest 

problem, I think, is overall numbers maybe are not at the level we 

would like to have. We have more positions than we have people, 

at this time. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Can you tell us, with regard to personnel management, if there are issues there, as part of your human capital 

strategy? Are you comfortable with the personnel management as 

it is in place, or do you think there need to be improvements made? 

Mr. MACINNES. Well, there always can be improvements. One of 

the problems that those of us who work overseas a lot have encountered is that the dynamic of serving overseas with families is harder, because spouses expect to work. The dual-spouse working is 

standard now. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, you could go overseas and 

basically the spouse did not work. Nowadays, there is a different 

expectation level for that. 

And the other is it can be difficult for people with children, because levels of schooling vary widely across the regions out there. 

And school matters a lot to people. 

So those are issues that we work on all the time, that we have 

made a lot of accommodations for tandem couples and for people 

working together and for other things. But, of course, more needs 

to always be done on that. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. So are you saying it does not negatively impact, 

though, your retention of personnel? 

Mr. MACINNES. It has not. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. And when you say there are more places available than people but yet you say there is not a problem recruiting, 

how do you solve that issue? Do you think you need to be more 

proactive in recruiting or what? 

Mr. MACINNES. I think we have certain ceilings that are set in 

terms of numbers we are allowed to have. I am not sure. I could 

take that question, because I am not really—personnel is kind of 

a little far from my area of expertise. I wouldn’t want to venture—— 

Mr. MCINTYRE. If you could check into that and get back to us 

on that. 

Mr. MACINNES. I will. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. If you would do that by the first week in December. Can you do that? 

Mr. MACINNES. Yes. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right, thank you. 

The other thing is we obviously need to be from a legal standpoint, being the legislative branch, whether there are any legal or 

regulatory impediments that we need to address in Congress or 

that you believe the executive branch needs to address to make 

this strategic communications effort more effective. Can any of you 

speak to that? 

Dr. DORAN. I think it would be worth looking into something like 

the 1206, 1207 authorities, so that when you have situations on the 

ground where, let us say you have a moderate imam who is preaching a message that we think should have a larger listening audience, and you find out that the Department of Defense has part of 
18 

a broadcasting facility and USAID has another part, that the two 

of them could more easily transfer resources. If the heads of both 

agencies agreed, I think that kind of thing could be very helpful for 

facilitating exchanges in the field. 

We often find a situation where the Department of Defense has 

lots of resources and the authorities or responsibilities fall to the 

Department of State. And if there was a more streamlined mechanism for moving resources back and forth, it could be helpful. It is 

worth at least looking into. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Saxton. 

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And I want to thank the ranking member for calling our attention to this piece that was written by Mr. Satloff of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I think it has a real nugget 

of value in it. It talks about what we need to do to be successful 

in this situation. And he says here, ‘‘This requires a conceptual revolution. Rather than expand effort on winning Muslim friendship 

for America, our engagement with Muslim publics—what we call 

public diplomacy—should focus on identifying, nurturing and supporting anti-Islamist Muslims.’’ I think that says a great deal in 

just a few words. 

And I have watched our Republican Administration, I have 

watched the previous Administration try to deal with programs to 

accomplish what I think we can all agree is a very worthwhile and 

necessary goal. But we, it seems to me, for the last 15 years, almost 16, going into our 16th year, in the last two Administrations 

facing this situation, it is natural for us to view this situation and 

how to achieve that goal based on our perception of success, based 

on our perception of what values in the West and around the world 

should be, and, I think, a very basic failure on our part to be able 

to cross a bridge, a bridge of understanding other cultures, particularly the Islamist culture. 

We have advocated education programs. We have advocated economic advances in Muslim countries. We have advocated establishing and supporting democracies in other countries. And I think 

that we have not crossed that bridge of understanding, of understanding what motivates people from the countries that we desire 

to have an effect on. 

I think of Lebanon often. And I was never there when Lebanon 

was in its glorious years, influenced by the West, ruled by a democratic process, with a great economy. All of the elements in a Muslim country that we would like to see today, from a Western perspective, were there, and we all know what happened. 

And when we look at the countries where we are engaged today, 

there are failures and there are successes. And I would submit that 

the successes, in establishing Satloff’s well-stated goal, I would 

submit that the successes that we have had have been partly because of us but mostly because of Muslims who have been influenced by the situation. 

In the Anbar province, for example, great successes today. In the 

Diyala province, success is perhaps not as good, but great successes, because somehow tribal leaders, Muslims, Sunnis, became 
19 

influenced to help carry out this goal. And so, somehow or another, 

we crossed that bridge, at least in a couple of places, in order to 

carry out the goal that we would all like to see carried out. 

And I guess I would just conclude, and then ask for your comments on this—I would just conclude by saying this. One of the understandings that seems to be prevalent, at least in Anbar, in the 

Diyala province, is that tribal leaders became convinced of two 

things: Al Qaeda was bad, and the United States and the West 

wasn’t going to go away; we were going to stay there and support 

them. 

Mr. SAXTON. And to the extent that we should learn from those 

lessons, Lebanon on the one hand and Anbar and the Diyala Province on the other hand, there are some real lessons to be learned 

there in how to carry out and achieve Satloff’s goal. 

What do you think? 

Mr. SMITH. And you have 10 seconds to express your thoughts on 

that. I will give you slightly more to that. We have got a vote coming up shortly. 

Mr. MACINNES. I would say on—I mean, Iraq is a very special 

case because it is deeply into war; and actually, when you talk 

about the broader Muslim and Arab world, one of the things in 

terms of getting our values and talking to people about these issues 

is that we have sent out quite a number of American Muslims to 

talk about precisely those issues: about what it means to be—what 

it means to have a site engaged, and discussing and fighting back 

against extremists. 

We also have brought a lot of clerics—several hundred clerics 

from overseas, Muslim clerics—to the United States to look at how 

we do diversity and religion and how society can be supportive of 

religion and opportunities. 

And, last, a lot of our programs overseas look to try to create the 

kind of economic and political opportunities to keep people—they 

make people involved in a positive way in society. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Gillibrand. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have two areas of inquiry that I want to cover if I can. The first 

is, you are here to talk about communications strategy, and I want 

to talk about the use of language, because one concern I have is 

that this Administration has painted all terrorists as Islamo-Fascists, and if we look at this article, How To Win the War of Ideas, 

by Robert Satloff, he calls them Islamists. 

Now, if we are trying to win a war of ideas using the fundamental tenet of Islam in the middle of a world that connotes terrorists, is that an effective communication strategy? It seems to me 

that when we are creating our foreign policy to deal with various 

elements that we are concerned with, they have different leadership, they have different values, they have different goals; they will 

require a different attack strategy. And so to paint them with one 

brush, I would find as—if you painted a Christian group with a 

Christian label and framed it as a terrorist group, I would be offended. 

So have you heard or is there any feedback from your expertise 

that this broad brush is actually counterproductive? 

Mr. MACINNES. Yes. Two things. 
20 

One of the things that we look at when we do messaging in the 

Counterterrorism Communications Center and with DOD is, we 

have to be keenly aware of what we say—what we say may not be 

what they hear—and that you want to be saying things that they 

hear the way you want them to be hearing it. 

When we say ‘‘Islamo-Fascism,’’ whether that term has meaning 

or not, what they hear is, ‘‘We are Islam, attacking my religion.’’ 

When you say ‘‘Islamist,’’ they don’t; they hear ‘‘Muslim,’’ you 

know. And as one of my Arab friends said once, you don’t start a 

conversation by poking a stick in the eye of the person that you are 

trying to talk to; and that is—when you say ‘‘Islamo-Fascism,’’ it 

is the verbal equivalent of poking a stick in somebody’s eye. 

And they do not—and bin Laden has been very good at taking 

our words and turning them to his advantage by saying, See, they 

are actually at war with Islam. And we fall into the trap of, you 

know, of having to answer that question, like, Have you stopped 

beating your wife? You can’t answer that well. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could interrupt, I want to draw a point on this. 

I think what you are saying basically is, the word Islam-Muslim 

should be no part of how we describe al Qaeda and who we are 

fighting. Again, that is something we have struggled against, the 

Islamo-Fascist comment, ‘‘Islamists,’’ no matter how you put it. 

And I have been through this over the years figuring out how to 

put it, because you think, well, logically they have a certain religious bent. 

But I think the ultimate answer, what Ms. Gillibrand is pointing 

out, is, there is no way you can put Islam in there; and is that a 

decision that our strategic communications folks have made? Let’s 

call them—you know, al Qaeda, call them Qutb, which is one person that they followed—find something else to call them that does 

not give them any piece of the Islam label. 

Is that a decision that you have made? 

Mr. MACINNES. We basically call them terrorists, murderers, 

what—basically what they are. But when you want to talk to them 

as Muslims, you are better off using a positive Muslim voice saying 

that. 

When we talk about Islam, we are not credible in terms of, you 

are not a Muslim. So what we actually have examined—and Dr. 

Doran talked about it earlier—is, we are looking at getting and collecting those positive statements made by leading Muslims against 

terrorism. And they can say—you know, they can use the word 

‘‘Islam’’ and talk about Islam, and they are very convincing. And 

we are finding that there is a lot more of that going on now than 

was previously. 

I mean, there are editorials. There are great concerns that poke 

fun at terms. And I think that Muslims are concerned very much 

about their religion being hijacked. But, as Dr. Doran said, they 

are not a society that tends to have a lot of public debate. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. And what is your experience in the military? 

Are we beginning to change our terminology? 

Captain PITTMAN. I think lexicon is always important, and we 

look at these kinds of things when we are working together to develop messaging. And we have some people who have studied these 
21 

areas quite a bit. We are always focusing on trying to get more regional, cultural expertise, et cetera. 

But part of the challenge is pushing it down to the very lowest 

levels because when you have operational, you know, activities 

going on in a country, then you need to be able to have specific cultural expertise in that area. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Do you make these recommendations to the 

higher levels, too? Because this is something—I mean, if you watch 

the Presidential debates, you will have Presidential candidates 

using this terminology, you will have the Administration using this 

terminology. 

Have you made those recommendations to the higher-ups that if 

you are going to have a better communication strategy, choice of 

identifying language is something that has to be a priority. 

Captain PITTMAN. I think language is something that leadership 

focuses on. I think that phrases like ‘‘violent extremists’’ as opposed 

to using ‘‘Islam’’ in a characterization or whatever, I think that is 

something that we have evolved to over time. I don’t think it is 

something that we naturally can bow at the beginning of this. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I would encourage you all in your positions of 

expertise and advocacy to help improve how we address this issue. 

The second question I just want to raise quickly is, in your digital outreach teams, you only have two individuals doing it now. 

What kind of recruiting are you doing on college campuses? This 

is an area where I would think, for the military, there are enormous numbers of young individuals who would love to be part of 

winning the war on terror, whom we could develop to look to become foreign language experts, to work in a different capacity for 

the military to do things like blogging and reviewing Websites. 

What is your long-term plan, strategy to build that capability? 

Captain PITTMAN. I will address that from the defense side, and 

Duncan can roll in as well. 

There are actually—I mean, the digital outreach team at the 

Counterterrorism Communication Center is one cell. But there are 

also discrete operations within combatant command headquarters. 

For example, Central Command has a blogging capability that they 

used at that headquarters level. 

There are new media-type engagement efforts at lower levels. 

The Joint Forces Command, for example, has a blogging engagement capability, and they have written a pamphlet or a brochure 

on how to go about doing that. So it is an area that we are moving 

into. 

The Department of Defense has new media engagement as well. 

Now, does that mean that we have Arabic speakers or Farsi 

speakers? It doesn’t necessarily mean that. Sometimes in the field 

there may be contracted capabilities that are working in these 

areas to address these types of new media. But it certainly is an 

area that we are sharing with State in trying to better our knowledge. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. But are you actively recruiting on college campuses for these new kinds of talents that could be brought into either our diplomatic side or our military side to really add value to 

our mission here? 
22 

Captain PITTMAN. I would tell you that I don’t believe that it is 

drilled down to the extent that we are specifically seeking those 

skill sets. Rather, for example, in recruiting military personnel, we 

would look for a background, perhaps, in media. I mean, almost all 

young people coming into the military today have some experience 

in using new media, and much more than people our age, for example. 

Mr. SMITH. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. I have just a couple of questions. 

One, in terms of how our audience in this war of ideas gets their 

information, you know, what is the best medium for reaching 

them? And there are a whole bunch of different mediums out there, 

depending on who your audience is and where they get their information. 

From my own campaign experience when I was first running, 

you know, for Congress, there were a lot of different ways to reach 

the people in my district, the ones who are going to vote—radio, 

mail—but just sort of walking around and having grown up there, 

I knew that television, if you will, that is the killer app. If I had 

a limited amount of money, and I did, it should all go there because that is where they are going to get the bulk of their information. 

That was 12 years ago, so things may have changed. 

But in the audience out there, sort of the disaffected Muslim 

world, the ones we are trying to persuade, have you discovered sort 

of what is that best source of information? Where do they get their 

information? When they develop an opinion, where is it coming 

from? And what have we done to try to get into that medium in 

the most effective way possible? 

Mr. MACINNES. That is a very good question and one we grapple 

with all the time. 

First of all, what happened in the modern 21st century is, audiences have segmented a lot. 

Mr. SMITH. It is a lot more difficult. 

Mr. MACINNES. I watch television a lot—news. My son, who is in 

high school, never watches television, but gets lots of information 

off the Internet. 

Mr. SMITH. There are hundreds of channels. 

Mr. MACINNES. So, for the general public in the Muslim world, 

television is the most powerful medium, without question. For the 

youth audiences in much of the Muslim world that is well connected to the Internet, it is Internet without—okay. So we need to 

do both. 

But what happens is, there is a relationship between the Internet and television. You know, bin Laden puts a video on the Internet and if it gets picked up by TV, TV runs something, the segment 

gets put onto YouTube. 

So we need to do both. 

Mr. SMITH. And if I may make the observation, based on a previous hearing we had on this subject, we need to do a lot more on 

the Internet. 

And I think you guys get it. I think the people in the top leadership now understand that. We have not—and this sort of follows 
23 

up on Ms. Gillibrand’s question, we have not put the resources into 

it. I mean, once I discovered that television was the thing, I 

stopped doing everything else, and every nickel I could, you know, 

I put into that. 

I don’t sense that we have seen—we have done the same with 

the Internet. We are vaguely aware of it. We don’t have enough 

people involved, and we need to do more, dramatically more; and 

we would like to be helpful here on this committee and in Congress 

in doing that. 

Is that a fair assessment? 

Mr. MACINNES. I think that is a fair assessment. I think we have 

identified that we are weak there and we need to move into it. 

One of the things, to answer—Ms. Gillibrand’s earlier question 

was on recruitment. One of the things we are looking at for Internet is, do we need to have it done within the government? Is that 

the most effective way to be doing it? 

We need to be doing some of it. But we also have been working, 

like, with the University of Southern California School of Diplomacy on, are there ways we can get people outside the government 

to be doing it? Because they will be more effective. They can be 

freer. They can say, I don’t like this policy, but—which we—we are 

in somewhat of a straightjacket. 

So we would like to seek out ways that we can get nongovernmental organizations involved in using the Internet against extremist terrorism in ways that amplify, because the Internet is best 

done, often, as a decentralized—— 

Mr. SMITH. I just have one more question, and we are going to 

have to wrap up. 

We are blending a new regime now. We are actually doing votes 

now in 15 minutes, instead of a half hour, so I have to let members 

go to get over there in time. 

And that is: Who is really in charge of the operation? Because 

we have heard a lot of different organizations, I sort of get the 

sense, that the CTCC coordinates; and on the other hand, we have 

the position that Karen Hughes is currently occupying and leaving. 

Someone will be taking that post. 

You know, if we were to say, Who is the person in charge of strategic communications within the whole government, and State is 

the central, but is it the CTCC? Is it Karen Hughes’s shop? Is it 

you? 

I mean, who really is in charge of the overall operation? 

Dr. DORAN. Karen Hughes. 

Mr. MACINNES. Karen Hughes. 

I do have a proviso there on overt strategic communications. We 

don’t have authorities on the internal side. And there are things 

that need and have to be done on that side. 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. 

And it is really, I mean, the covert piece—I mean, there are a 

lot of different things going on. I think it is more of the overt piece 

that we are interested in. 

And so it flows from Karen Hughes, down; the CTCC then coordinates. 

So does the head of the CTCC then report directly to Karen 

Hughes on a fairly regular basis? 
24 

Mr. MACINNES. Yes, very much so. But again, the CTCC is interagency. The deputy director is a DOD officer, and it is interagency 

in its nature and makeup. 

Mr. SMITH. But from a hierarchy standpoint, they then report up 

and go on from there? 

Mr. MACINNES. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. That is all I have. 

Do you have anything to wrap it up? 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few questions in the limited time we have. 

I just mentioned—in response to the point you were asking 

about, my understanding is that for a substantial segment of the 

Muslim population, short-wave radio is still a big deal, and yet too 

many—there is some issue of funding where we are no longer funding some initiatives of the government that we have funded in the 

past. And so, while I agree with you completely on the Internet, 

different strategies, different mechanisms seem to make sense in 

different places. 

I want to get briefly back to Mr. Saxton, because I think he very 

eloquently laid out the heart of this issue and not everybody had 

a chance to respond. 

I am looking back at that Defense Science Board report I mentioned before, and it talked about building on an in-depth knowledge of other cultures and factors that motivate human behavior, 

which it does seem to me is the heart of the matter. He laid out 

the contrast between Lebanon and some of the recent successes in 

Anbar. 

Dr. Doran, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate our in-depth 

knowledge of other cultures and factors that motivate human behavior as are applied to our strategic communication strategies? 

Dr. DORAN. I would give us a five or a six. It differs in different 

areas. I think we can do a lot better on that. 

But I would put the emphasis on, as I said before, the need for 

a huge cultural shift. It isn’t because people aren’t trying, but the 

institutions and the processes that we have set up are really 

geared for another era and another threat. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I guess that is—let me ask you. 

Mr. SMITH. I apologize. I have to run. I will let you wrap up the 

meeting, if that is okay, and finish your questions, but I have to 

get to my office before I get to the floor. 

Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY [presiding]. Mr. MacInnes, how many folks do 

you have working at the Communications Center? 

Mr. MACINNES. The Communications Center is 12 people. We 

have kept it deliberately very small because we are not trying to 

be a production unit, but more of a—— 

Mr. THORNBERRY. So you don’t intend to expand? 

Mr. MACINNES. We don’t intend to expand. We might go to 18, 

but I doubt more than that. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. This may be an unanswerable question, but 

what you have essentially described, an interagency cooperation 

collaboration, that seems really hard to make effective in a time 

when communication goes at the speed of light. 
25 

Now, if you are to develop a—you know, I think maybe you said 

earlier, before you post on a blog, you have to talk about it and 

make sure that posting is going to be okay. How can that possibly 

be effective? 

Mr. MACINNES. It can be effective, but the turnaround time 

needs to speed up, there is no question. 

One of the things Karen Hughes set up is this rapid response 

unit because we used to, like, read the news in the morning and 

get somebody on the air about 5 in the afternoon. Well, in Europe, 

that means you have missed the nightly news; it means you missed 

24 hours of the cycle. 

Now we actually have it so that, by 7:30 in the morning, we have 

heads up; we will get somebody on the air to answer a question in 

Europe by 11 in the morning, which means you get on the nightly 

news. 

Doing that on the Internet requires greater efforts on our part. 

It requires more robust efforts and a more 24/7 effort. 

It is true when we have the cycle, it is relentless and it is very 

difficult. And we are grappling with that because bureaucracies do 

not move as fast as—we need to be more entrepreneurial. We need 

to figure out ways to be more entrepreneurial in how we deal with 

this, because the traditional ways do not work, often. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. And wouldn’t you agree, in power, people on 

the front lines—understanding they may make a mistake here or 

there, but you are going to have to tolerate that; we are going to 

have to tolerate it too, by the way—in the interest of speed. 

Let me ask one other question. Then I am going to have to go. 

I may have some others for the record, if you don’t mind. 

How are the things you all do plugged in to the NCTC because 

as I understand it, the overall planning in the government for the 

war against terror is by the NCTC. Defense Science Board and everybody else says you can’t have strategic communications as a 

plug-in; you know, it has got to be an integral part from the beginning. And so the work you do, to be effective, has to be integrally 

plugged in and integrated to the strategic planning that the NCTC 

does. 

Are you integrated yet? 

Mr. MACINNES. We are very integrated. We have a full-time 

NCTC person sitting in the office. He is one of the 12 people, and 

he does 4 days with us, one back at NCTC. 

We also, when we do messaging, we run it by the NCTC analytical unit. In fact, we use the intel to inform how we think about 

addressing these issues. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. But do you have folks at NCTC to be part of 

the planning process? 

Mr. MACINNES. There are State people there, but probably not— 

I don’t know if they are in the planning division. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Okay. 

I appreciate the work you all do, and I appreciate your being 

here. I am sorry we are cut short a little bit. We are going to have 

a whole bunch of votes. We may have some questions for the 

record, if that is all right. 
26 

Thank you again, all of you, for your testimony and for your 

work. 

And with that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:23 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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