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HEARING OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON 

TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES 

“TERRORISM, AL QAEDA, AND THE MUSLIM WORLD” 

253 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2003, 9:02 A.M. 

PANEL I: TERRORISM, AL QAEDA, AND THE MUSLIM WORLD 

WITNESSES: ROHAN GUNARATNA, INSTITUTE FOR DEFENCE AND STRATEGIC 

STUDIES, SINGAPORE; MAMOUN FANDY, SENIOR FELLOW, UNITED STATES 

INSTITUTE OF PEACE; MARC SAGEMAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

PANEL II: STATES AND TERRORISM 

WITNESSES: LAURIE MYLROIE, AUTHOR; JUDITH YAPHE, NATIONAL DEFENSE 

UNIVERSITY; MURHAF JOUEJATI, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; MARK 

GASIOROWSKI, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY 

PANEL III: THE CHALLENGE WITHIN THE MUSLIM WORLD

WITNESSES: RACHEL BRONSON, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS; GILLES 

KEPEL, INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL STUDIES, PARIS; STEVEN EMERSON, 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT; AND DENNIS ROSS, 

WASHINGTON NEAR EAST POLICY INSTITUTE 

POST-HEARING MEDIA ADVISORY: THOMAS H. KEAN,CHAIR,and LEE H. HAMILTON,VICE CHAIR 

 MR. KEAN: Good Morning. As Chairman of the National Commission on 

Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, I hereby call to order our third 

public hearing, on the topic of Terrorism, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim World.

Many have compared the attacks of September 11, 2001 to the bombing of 

Pearl Harbor, sixty years previous. There were, of course, important differences 

in what transpired on both days. More people died on September 11 than died 

during the Pearl Harbor attacks. And unlike the case of Pearl Harbor, almost 

all who died on September 11th were civilians. The planners of the 9-11 attacks 

targeted not military bases of operation, but the heart of America’s financial 

center and the seat of its government. 

There also are many similarities between what happened on both days. In 

each case, a surprise air attack left thousands of Americans dead. Immediately 

after both events, the President declared the US to be in a state of war. In 

each case, our attackers had decided that they were at war with us long before 

we realized we were at war with them. War for them began with preparations for 

attack and the assembly of forces to execute their attacks.

Now, as was the case 60 years ago, we confront a global war with all its 

inherent uncertainties of dimension, duration and loss of life. To defeat and 

destroy our enemy, we must understand more than the crimes that are already 

committed. We must understand what drives and motivates it; the source of its 

power; the resources at its command; its internal strengths and weaknesses; the 

identity, roles, motives of its allies, enablers and supporters; and its ability 

to adapt to changed circumstances, especially after we struck back.
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 In other words, we must know everything we can about al Qaeda if we are 

to crush it. To help us do precisely that, we have assembled a distinguished 

group of experts to guide us in our work. Our first panel brings together three 

distinguished experts to address the origins of al Qaeda, Dr. Rohan Gunaratna is 

the author of "Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror." He currently is 

head of terrorism research and associate professor of Institute for Defence and 

Strategic Studies in Singapore. Our second speaker is Dr. Mamoun Fandy, 

currently a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. Professor 

Fandy is an expert on Saudi Islamist movements, and the author of "Saudi Arabia 

and the Politics of Dissent." Marc Sageman, our third speaker, is a member of 

the American Psychological Association's Presidential Panel on Terrorism. Dr. 

Sageman is an expert on the psychological aspects of al Qaeda, recruitment and 

membership.

 All prepared statements will be entered into the record in full, and we 

would ask each of our witnesses to summarize their statements before we turn to 

questions from the commissioners. Dr. Gunaratna.

 MR. GUNARATNA: Thank you, Chairman Kean, ladies and gentlemen. I am 

going to begin my testimony by asking the question, Why did al Qaeda attack 

America's iconic targets on 9/11? I want to answer that question, because I 

believe that even to this very date many Americans, including policy- and 

decision-makers of the United States, do not understand why al Qaeda mounted 

those attacks on America's most outstanding landmarks.

 You must turn and examine al Qaeda's founding charter, a charter that 

was written by Dr. Abdullah Azzam, the founder of al Qaeda, in March 1988, and 

published in "Al Jihad," the journal of the Arab mujaheddin, a publication that 

was printed in Peshawar, Pakistan, during that period. According to the charter 

of al Qaeda, al Qaeda is the vanguard, "the pioneering vanguard of the Islamic 

movements." That is, as the spearhead of Islam. According to al Qaeda, al Qaeda 

must mount attacks that will inspire and instigate the other Islamic movements, 

as well as the wider Muslim community that seeks to support, that al Qaeda wants 

to build support, in order to continue with their political agenda. If you look 

at the charter, the charter very clearly states that al Qaeda has a role as the 

pioneering vanguard. And it is because of that specific role that al Qaeda 

mounted attacks very selectively on your outstanding landmarks, on your iconic 

targets, because by charter al Qaeda has a responsibility to show the way to 

these other movements, that the United States can always be attacked and 

destroyed the same way the Soviet Union was reduced from a superpower into 

Russia, the same way the largest land army in the world, the Soviet army, was 

defeated in Afghanistan. By the predecessor of al Qaeda, the Maktab al-Khidmat, or the Afghan Service Bureau, an institution which even had 30 officers 

inside the United States during the Cold War, when Maktab al-Khidmat fought 

against the Soviets in Afghanistan. And al Qaeda wanted to show the way to many 

other Islamic movements, wanted to empower these movements. And that is why al 

Qaeda built with the assistance of Taliban state-of-the-art terrorist training 

and operational infrastructure in Afghanistan.

 Throughout the 1990s, Afghanistan became a terrorist Disneyland, where 

more than 40 different terrorist organizations were training and using 

Afghanistan as an operational base at the time the United States, its allies and 

its friends intervened in Afghanistan in October of 2001. But for 10 years, the 

U.S. government, European governments, the international community tolerated 

Afghanistan from becoming the center of gravity of international training. The 

center where terrorist organizations planned, prepared and executed operations.
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 If you look at the previous attacks conducted by al Qaeda, all those 

attacks were mounted either by members who were trained in Afghanistan and using 

Afghanistan as a training base. The U.S. government and many other governments 

have seen 9/11 as an attack that is very different from all its previous 

attacks. But if you look at the trajectory of al Qaeda operations, there is an 

incremental escalation in al Qaeda attacks. Look at August 1998, the East 

Africa bombings. Al Qaeda mounted land suicide attacks against the U.S. 

Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, coordinated simultaneous attacks. If you look 

at October 2000, al Qaeda mounted a maritime suicide attack. If you look at 

9/11, al Qaeda mounted an airborne suicide attack. And look at the 

sophistication of the organization. When al Qaeda attacked those American 

targets, those land targets in East Africa, the Americans increased the 

perimeter security of their land targets. Then al Qaeda attacked a maritime 

target. Then the Americans increased the perimeter security of their land and 

their maritime targets. But then al Qaeda again deceived the United States and 

conducted an airborne suicide attack. Al Qaeda could have never mounted those 

attacks against those targets on 9/11 if it did not use airborne vehicles to 

attack those targets.

 So, and also if you look at the targeting of al Qaeda, there was 

gradually a larger number of fatalities. There was an increase in 

sophistication of the organization. The U.S. security and intelligence 

community, the U.S. think tanks, the U.S. political leaders knew that al Qaeda 

will strike the United States. If you examine the reports of the Central 

Intelligence Agency, soon after the East Africa attacks, the U.S. agency warned 

that it is a question of time that al Qaeda will strike inside the United 

States.

 But there was more than an intelligence failure. There was operational 

failure. There was a failure to act. You knew that your country will be 

attacked, but you did not do what was necessary to prevent your country being 

harmed and humiliated. You knew that the intention of al Qaeda was to kill 

American people wherever they could be found. But still you did not act, and 

therefore you paid a very heavy price for it.

 In the future, if you want to prevent these attacks, you must continue 

the path you have adopted after 9/11 in terms of establishing closer security 

and intelligence cooperation, especially with the Asian and the Middle Eastern 

Muslim countries, because today the threat has moved beyond al Qaeda. Today we 

are confronting a large number of Islamist terrorist organizations.

 Let us look at the two waves of attacks that we saw in October of last 

year and May this year. The attacks in May this year were staged on the 12th of 

May by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. On the same day there were attacks in 

Chechnya. On the 14th of May also attacks in Chechnya by Al-Ansar Mujaheddin, a 

group that is very close to al Qaeda. For example, the head of the Al-Ansar 

Mujaheddin in Chechnya, his real name is Mohammed Al Ghamdi. He goes by the name 

of Abu Waleed. Mohammed Al Ghamdi is the cousin of two of the 9/11 hijackers, 

Ahmed Alghamdi and Hamza Al Ghamdi. So you can see the coordination of the 

attacks in that week of May between al Qaeda and the Chechen group.

 And then again on the 16th of May in Casablanca, the Casablanca attack 

was not by al Qaeda but by an associate group of al Qaeda called Assiarat al 

Moustaqim. And then again the previous day, that is on the 15th of May, again 

an associate group of al Qaeda, Lashkar-I-Jhanqui, attacked 21 Shell and Caltex 
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stations in Pakistan, coordinated simultaneous attacks within a half an hour -- 

21 stations attacked.

 So you can see within that week al Qaeda, Assirat al Moustaqim, AlAnsar Mujaheddin and Lashkar-I-Jhanvui coordinating attacks. So what I would 

like to say is that the threat has certainly moved beyond al Qaeda.

 The last point I want to make is let's look at the attacks in October 

of last year. The worst terrorist attack after 9/11 occurred in Bali on the 

12th of October. That was not by al Qaeda, but an associate group of al Qaeda 

called Jemaah Islamiya. Another group al Qaeda had armed, trained and financed 

in Afghanistan during that 10-year period in Afghanistan. And in that same week 

in October, we saw attacks against the U.S., against the French oil supertanker 

Limburg off Yemen, and also killing of two U.S. personnel in Kuwait, which was 

by al Qaeda. So you can see that, in the future, because we have damaged al 

Qaeda's training infrastructure so significantly in Afghanistan, al Qaeda will 

increasingly rely on organizations and groups it had trained, armed and financed 

and ideologized; that is, given the ideological training of the need to wage a 

universal jihad, not a territorial jihad. And these groups will continue to 

fight. Al Qaeda will more or less remain in the background, will be more an 

ideological provider, because it lacks the operational capability, while these 

other groups will continue to fight with al Qaeda in the background.

 So it is a long-term threat. And to fight this kind of threat you need 

a multi-pronged, multidimensional, multi-agency and a multinational response.

 The United States, although it is the most preeminent political, 

military, economic and diplomatic superpower, you cannot defeat this kind of 

threat unless you continue to work with your allies and your friends, not only 

in the military field, but also in the political, ideological, diplomatic and 

economic fields. Thank you very much.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. Dr. Fandy.

 MR. FANDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, since my 

colleague talked about, a little more about al Qaeda, I will submit my full 

testimony to the record, and I am just basically going to fill in some added 

information on the testimony.

 It is very important to first of all reverse the popular understanding 

about al Qaeda that bin Laden is the main figure in al Qaeda, and focusing on 

bin Laden puts our efforts in a different trajectory of pursuing al Qaeda. In 

fact, if Osama bin Laden is the chairman of al Qaeda, the real CEO of the al 

Qaeda organization is Ayman Zawahiri. And although my colleague just mentioned 

to you that an airborne attack was in its inception in Peshawar, in fact in 1981 

as Ayman Zawahiri said he was contemplating the Sadat association he was 

discussing with his colleague Aboud Az Zumur to use an airplane and crash it in 

the stand of President Sadat. Thus using planes to target high-level targets was 

not conceived in Kandahar, but rather on the Nile shores in Cairo.

 To understand Zawahiri is really key understanding of al Qaeda and how 

it operates. Zawahiri, a man born in Egypt, in the southern part of Cairo 

called Al Mahdi -- he was born in 1951. He graduated from medical school in 

1974 in Cairo, and joined the jihad movement in 1968 after he graduated from 

high school to form Al Jihad movement. His jihad movement was inspired by the 

ideas of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood, mainly the figure of Sayyed 

Qutb as well as Abu Al’ Ala Maududi. Ayman Zawahiri was arrested and kept in 
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prison for three years in Egypt, and left Egypt in 1985 for Saudi Arabia, and 

spent one year there working at Anifis (ph) clinic as a doctor. And from there 

he moved to Peshawar.

 Some of us are mystified by the name "al Qaeda." The origin of the 

word "al Qaeda" was actually a guest house that was created by Ayman Zawahiri 

with Mr. Assam, the Palestinian leader of the jihad in Afghanistan. Ayman 

Zawahiri and his jihad movement coming from Egypt started an al Qaeda guest 

house. The other group, which also came from Egypt, the Islamic group, started 

another house called al Ansar, the supporters of al Qaeda. The main umbrella 

sponsors in that neighborhood in Peshawar and Pakistan and Afghanistan was 

represented by three figures, mainly Gul Buddin Hekmatyar who represents also 

the branch of the Muslim brotherhood, and that takes us back to the ideological 

trajectory of al Qaeda, as well as Abdel Rebrasu Sayyef, who was also protecting 

the Islamic group members who were coming again from Egypt via Jeddah, as well 

as the Taliban and Mullah Omar, who sponsored Bin Laden and the Zawahiri.

 But to understand all of this, we cannot just focus on the technical 

aspect of al Qaeda. We have to look at al Qaeda in its broader context in the 

Muslim world. Al Qaeda hangs in a web of relations in the Muslim world. Unless 

it's understood, we miss the whole point of al Qaeda.

 Just, not to waste your time, I'm going to draw broader implications 

and some policy recommendations. Since September 11th on balance I can say we 

have won the war against the formal structure of al Qaeda, its organization, its 

military capacity, and its financial networks. This progress has been helped 

greatly by recent attacks on Riyadh on May 12th. In fact, if al Qaeda shot 

itself in the foot on September 11th, it shot itself in the head on May 12th in 

Saudi Arabia, because practically it dried the whole financial support and 

allows the Saudi state to start an all-out war on these groups, because 

basically the threat is coming home. Although we seem to understand the formal 

structure of al Qaeda, we have yet to grasp the broader context and the forces 

that make such organizations appealing to many people in the Muslim world, from 

which al Qaeda and its affiliate organization draw their support and new 

recruits.

 One central area that we need to examine, and it's very important, is 

the area of ideas and look at the media in the Arab and Muslim world. The 

culture of terrorism is not a sentiment; it's an industry. It is easy enough to 

identify individuals and governments who finance newspapers, TV stations that 

promote extremist ideas.

 But the media developed even by many moderate leaders of state and 

media organizations in the Arab and Muslim world, even America's friends have 

failed to take a clear stand in terms of their relationship with al Qaeda. This 

is both in terms of how they present their ideas in the media and how they deal 

with those who disseminate an actively radical branch of Islam. The financial 

aspects of the media have to be reconsidered and studied more in depth.

 In many Arab newspapers and TV programs bin Laden can appear as an 

hero, and even if al Qaeda is not named, its ideas and its mission is being 

supported. This speaks in Qatar's al Jazeera and the Lebanese channels and the 

Usubua in Cairo who recently called for praise, whoever puts the bullet in the 

heart of any American.

 Currently many governments in the Arab and Muslin world are happy with 

the new division of labor, where the media is for bin Laden and his affiliate 
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organizations, and state power is for the traditional elite. Thus, President 

Bush's question posed after September 11th, "Are you with us or against us?" has 

not been answered throughout the Muslim world. We need to have a balance sheet 

and wait for these answers from every government in the region.

 Terrorism in the Muslim world can be drawn as a triangle between 

three points: states that harbor terrorists, terrorists themselves, and finally 

the Islamic movements that provide the pool of recruits and intellectual drive 

and justification for acts of terrorism. The current policy addresses two 

elements of this triangle: terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and states that 

harbor terrorists.

 It has failed, however, to adequately understand the nature of the 

third component of the triangle of terror, and it's important. In fact, 

movements to be ahead of states in the Middle East -- at least the trend points 

to the primacy of these movements in the Arab world, and we see Hizbollah is 

much more important than the government of Hariri in Lebanon. We see Hamas is 

much more important than Arafat, and all of that.

 The threat represented by these movements causes a loss of focus in the 

fight against terrorism for the U.S. and for governments in the Arab and Muslim 

world. It is clear that the U.S. and its allies are determined to attack 

terrorism from above by searching out planners and perpetrators of terrorist 

actions and drying up their financial resources.

 But we have to keep in mind that these movements are part and parcel of 

broad social tendencies. They represent a major obstacle for any long-term 

strategy to simply attack terrorism from abroad. If the incubators of terrorist 

organizations are to be done away with, we have to allow and encourage 

alternative movements to take root. More civicly and democratically-minded 

ideas have to show that they can have a broader appeal. This requires the 

cooperation of Muslim and Arab governments, but also attention to broad spectrum 

of social issues.

 Currently governments and societies in the Muslim world are under 

attack. Governments in particular are alarmed by the magnitude of this threat, 

but they are not always sure whether they compromise or confront these 

organizations.

 Some governments recently came to understand the magnitude of the 

threat. In fact, Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia finally admitted that the Muslim 

Brotherhood is the mother of all problems in the Arab world. And Saudi Arabia 

hosted the Muslim Brotherhood during the Arab Cold War that was between Nasser 

and King Faisal in the '70s. And, in fact, the Muslim Brotherhood, one can 

argue that they hijacked the total educational Saudi system and turned it around 

to produce what we know as al Qaeda. The Muslim Brotherhood was the first 

Islamic organization with global reach, in fact. With its headquarters now next 

to CENTCOM in Qatar, under Sheikh Qaradawi, practically the Muslim Brotherhood 

has global reach. It has offices in Germany. It has offices in Virginia next 

door. It has offices in Yemen and other places.

 So unless we really consider the Muslim Brotherhood as part of that 

larger network, we fail to understand this whole organization. The Muslim 

Brotherhood is responsible for the civil war in Algeria, responsible for its 

civil war in Yemen, and responsible for the current situation that we see in 

Egypt and in Saudi Arabia.
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 Just practically, one has -- before we make any clear policy about 

terrorism, we have to understand that it is states that harbor terrorists. It 

is organizations that conduct these acts. It is movements that support and 

legitimate these acts and make them look good and look attractive in the eyes of 

other Muslims. And at the center of all of this is what we call moderate 

Islamic movements that, in fact, engaged since 1928, at the inception of the 

Muslim Brotherhood, in secret wars throughout the Arab world.

 We have to understand also that the Arab and Muslim world are going 

through a civil war, and we have to decide what position should we take on this 

Islamic civil war. This civil war starts from the home, from two brothers and 

sisters fighting over the headdress and cover, and jihad through the whole 

society at large. It is very fundamental -- the fundamental issues in the core 

of the Muslim world. We have to have a clear position on where do we stand 

there.

 Without addressing the third component of terror triangle, the war on 

terrorism will lose its momentum. The U.S. and the world cannot afford this. A 

constant stand on the Muslim Brotherhood and all movements that provide support 

for al Qaeda-like activities is key to developing an effective way of addressing 

the rise of terrorism in the Muslim world. It does not make sense to target the 

branch of the Muslim Brotherhood known as Hamas in the Palestinian territories 

and leave it in Cairo and in Yemen and other places. We have to have a 

consistent stand on these movements.

 To stand as bystander also on the civil war in the Muslim world is to 

expect the next generation of al Qaeda with nuclear weapons and devastating 

consequences for the United States of America.

 Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. Dr. Sageman.

 MR. SAGEMAN: Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the national 

commission, thank you for inviting me today to testify about al Qaeda. I'm not 

going to read my statement, because I agree with what has been said before, but 

there are some few differences that I want to highlight, and they have to do 

with the ideology, the members themselves, the al Qaeda members, and the growth 

of the organization. Unlike my colleague, I actually studied it from the bottom 

up instead of the top down. And various patterns actually emerge. But before 

we can actually understand the patterns, we have to understand why they are 

doing it, the ideology.

Al Qaeda is part of a global movement which I call the global Salafi 

jihad. The movement has its root in Egypt; I completely agree. It's a violent 

Muslim revivalist movement which seeks to return to pure and authentic Islam as 

practiced by the prophet and his companion. To them, Islam is the answer, and 

on the recreation of the practices of the devout ancestor, Salaf in Arabic, will 

bring glory and prominence back to Muslims.

 Salafists advocate a strict interpretation of the Quran, and they view 

with skepticism any later innovation, for it might be a heretical corruption of 

the original message. And here there's been an evolution in the ideology. I 

don't really -- cannot go back 20 years and see the ideology the same as it was 

20 years ago, but the evolution which came to its ultimate conclusion in 1998 

was a process of evolution.
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 The first is the concept of jihad. And jihad is often a defensive 

strategy when the lands of Islam are invaded by infidels. And this was the 

strategy advocated by Abdul Azzam in Afghanistan.

 The second strategy, one that's overlooked because we're all focusing 

on jihad and violent movement, is the peaceful strategy of dawa, the call to 

Islam. It consists of peacefully preaching the strict and literal imitation of 

the prophet and his companion as the model of Islamic society. This is a 

strategy of the Tablighi Jamaat, a born-again Islamist movement operating 

informally at the grassroots level. It's been very successful, but because it 

shies away from undue publicity and stays away from politics, it has attracted 

very little attention, a little bit like al Qaeda before they started bombing, 

but they're peaceful.

 A third strategy is what I would call the Salafi jihad, and that was 

the one advocated by the Egyptian Salafists. They looked at their own society 

and they branded it jahiliyya, which is the barbaric state of ignorance that 

existed before the prophet's revelation, because the modern leaders of Muslim 

states refuse to impose the Sharia, the strict Quranic law, and the strict 

Islamic way of life. As such, they accuse their leaders of being apostate, 

deserving death, and indeed they killed Anwar Sadat. They advocate the violent 

overthrow of their regime. And the priority here is to actually overthrow your 

own regime. It's really to fight the near enemy, as they put it, as opposed to 

the far enemy.

 And then, when they all congregated -- and Dr. Fandy is right; a lot of 

the Egyptians went to Afghanistan -- and when they met there, they really 

developed this global perspective, and that's the fourth strategy, the global 

Salafi jihad. It was really first proclaimed by Osama bin Laden in his 1996 

fatwa, and it reverses the previous strategy.

 Now the priority is the far enemy, i.e. the United States, as opposed 

to the near enemy. And the idea is that without the far enemy, the United 

States, supporting the local governments, their local governments would not be 

able to survive.

 And their strategy is a need to inflict maximum casualties against the 

opponent, for this is the language understood by the West, and concentrate on 

the method of martyrdom operations as the most efficient in terms of damages and 

least costly to the jihad. Al Qaeda is only one of those groups.

 I'm going to skip over the history, because I think that's been covered 

pretty well. And what I'd like to do now is to give you a composite of about 

150 members of that jihad that I've collected and give you a picture of who 

those people are.

They're very heterogeneous. There's three large patterns that emerge.

About 60 percent came from what I called core Arab countries, mostly Saudi 

Arabia and Egypt. Thirty percent came from Maghreb Arab countries, and they're 

fairly important, especially in Western Europe, or even here. Ahmed Ressam is 

part of that. And 10 percent came from Indonesia.

 In terms of socioeconomic status, two-thirds came from solid upper 

middle-class backgrounds. Most of the rest came from what's called the excluded 

Maghreb immigrants, second generation in France, as well as western Christian 

converts. They all came from caring, in tact families. The Indonesians were 
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uniformly religious as children. About 60 percent of the core Arab children 

were ,and almost none of the Maghreb Arab children were.

 As a group, they were relatively well-educated, with over 60 percent 

attending colleges. Only the Indonesian group was exclusively educated in 

religious schools, and I'll talk about that a little bit later. Most of them 

had a good occupation, and only a quarter were considered unskilled, with few 

prospects before them. Three-quarters were married, and the majority had 

children.

 I detected no mental illness in this group or any common 

psychological predisposition for terror. The average age for joining was about 

26 years. The Indonesians joined at a later age; the core Arabs at a younger 

age. Three-fourths of the group decided to join when they were expatriates.

That means they were living in a country where they did not grow up.

 An additional 10 percent were second generation who felt a strong pull 

to the country of their parents. So, about 85 percent were literally cut off 

from the culture and social origins. And I'm going to develop that a little bit 

more. The majority of the rest were Saudis, on whom we know very little, so I 

can't really tell you much about that.

 Compounding the isolations of a new country was the fact that they were 

underemployed. By the time they joined the jihad, there was a dramatic shift in 

devotion to their faith. So the only significant finding here is that the 

terrorists felt isolated, lonely, emotionally alienated. Otherwise they were a 

very diverse group.

 How did they join the jihad? They did it through pre-existing social 

bonds, with people who were already terrorists or they decided all together to 

join the jihad as a group. Affiliation with the jihad was through friendship, 

kinship, discipleship and worship. Sixty-five percent of the cases had preexisting friendship bonds with people that were already in the jihad.

 The typical scenario was a homesick young man to drift toward familiar 

settings such as mosques to find companionship and to alleviate their 

loneliness. Their clusters of friends formed spontaneously, and they often 

moved in together in apartments.

 Another 15 percent joined through relatives already in the jihad. The 

Indonesians were all disciples of the same teacher. They first studied in one 

of two religious boarding schools and joined the Jemaah Islamiayya, which had 

been founded by their teacher.

 The last 10 percent gave religious beliefs as the only reason they 

joined the jihad. But whatever source of their social bonds, these groups 

underwent a period of intense social interaction in their apartments mostly and 

developed strong mutual intimacy which relieved their previous distress.

 As they became closer, they progressively adopted the belief and faith 

of their friends, their most extreme friends. They knew Salafi faith distanced 

them further from their childhood friends and families, leading to increased 

isolation and loyalty to the group, which in turn intensified their faith. They 

were ready to join the jihad.

 The critical factor -- and this is a key issue -- was the existence of 

a human link to the jihad who could actually arrange training in Afghanistan.
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This was usually a peripheral acquaintance and a chance encounter, and a formal 

invitation and acceptance to join the jihad was actually done in Afghanistan 

after senior members were able to evaluate them.

 In terms of growth, the common element detected in all of them was, of 

course, their link to the jihad itself. So if we trace the links, we can 

actually see how they grow. Unlike the military organization, the global jihad 

was structured around popular human hubs surrounded by more isolated human 

nodes. From the historical data, it seems that the jihad grew haphazardly 

around these hubs.

 Surprisingly, there is no evidence of a comprehensive top-down 

recruitment program in the global jihad. The pressure comes from the bottom up, 

prospective young men eager to join the movement. I have detected no dedicated 

recruiter in my search, and I've looked for it. Nor is there any evidence of any 

recruitment committee with a full staff and its own budget in al Qaeda 

headquarters, nor any evidence of aggressive publicity campaigns to increase 

membership.

 This absence of privileges kept its profile low enough, despite its 

size, that it avoided detection by us in this country. On the other hand, 

because of its haphazard growth, it left it vulnerable to the preference of the 

people who volunteered for it, so that left huge gaps in it.

 Specifically, it's without a pool of members able to operate 

clandestinely in the U.S. and thus limits its ability to wage war on U.S. soil.

This is the number one priority for al Qaeda or any of those organizations in 

the jihad.

 The growth of jihad depends on its ability to gain new members. Anger 

at U.S. policy will increase the pool of potential candidates, but they still 

need to establish the crucial link with the jihad to become part of it. The 

degree of tolerance of the jihad also affects its rate of growth.

 In a tolerant country, like most western democratic countries, or Saudi 

Arabia, Yemen, Malaysia and Tunisia, and Salafi mosques prior to 9/11, potential 

members could listen to people who'd boast of their connection to the jihad. "I 

was in Afghanistan. I trained. I'm a hero." And so people approached them and 

said, "Gee, we'd like to do the same. Can you connect us?" After 9/11, this 

has changed dramatically. People who could have provided a potential link now 

become reluctant to reveal their affiliation. The result of this growth pattern 

is a network that's very robust, but it's also very vulnerable to targeted 

attacks, namely against those what I call social hubs. If the hubs are 

destroyed, the system breaks down into isolated nodes. The jihad will be 

incapable of mounting sophisticated large-scale operation like the 9/11 attacks 

and be reduced to small attacks by singleton. These hubs are vulnerable because 

most communication goes through them. By following communication back to them, 

good police work would be able to identify and arrest these human hubs. This 

strategy has already shown considerable success.

 In terms of policy recommendations, there are several. The greatest 

priority right now is extensive penetration of these movements. The best bet 

for penetration lies in recruitment from the pool of those who went through the 

training but decided not to join the jihad. That pool right now is being 

prosecuted for providing material support and resources to the jihad.
11

 Before prosecuting them, I would suggest that all efforts should be 

made to try to turn them around and have them go back and join the jihad to 

penetrate the jihad. However, at present it's unlikely because of the fact that 

they fear prosecution. Perhaps a program of immunity in exchange for a goodfaith effort to help fight the jihad may convince them to actually --

 MR. KEAN: If you can start to wind up.

 MR. SAGEMAN: I'm sorry?

 MR. KEAN: To wind up.

 MR. SAGEMAN: Yes, I'm almost done.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you.

 MR. SAGEMAN: It also requires the active support of American Muslim 

community. And I'm concerned here about some accounts of strong-arm 

governmental tactics antagonizing Muslim community in this country and 

elsewhere. We really have to repair those bonds.

 Also I think that we need to elicit the help of peaceful movements, 

revivalist movements, such as Tablighi Jamaat, who would like to get rid of all 

the people who have penetrated them and are violent, just like we allied 

ourselves with socialists in Western Europe to fight the communists. Here, I 

think, it's the same strategy.

 And I think that, as Dr. Fandy mentioned, we really need to clamp down 

on the anti-western and anti-American hate speech. And here I would suggest the 

establishment of an international anti-defamation league to monitor such speech 

and work with the press, religious organizations, governments and respective 

justice systems to condemn and control it. And there is some indication that 

now the Saudis, after the May 12th bombings, are starting to do that. The last 

item is the war in Iraq. This is -- now that we're there, it's going to become 

a litmus test of our policy in all the Middle East. If we succeed, great. It's 

going to be a model for other people to emulate. If we fail, it's going to 

increase our problems, mainly the pool of people going to fight us.

 So despite our major victories, we have not yet defeated this movement.

If we relax our vigilance, its network will spontaneously reconstitute. If we 

continue our fight based on understanding of its network and dynamics and with 

good police work and intelligence work, combined with more global measures, and 

especially international assistance, we should be able to conclusively eliminate 

it.

 Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Questions from the panel? Senator 

Gorton.

 MR. GORTON: Last week there was an election in Kuwait. The franchise 

was limited to maybe one-third of the male residents of the country. And, of 

course, women were not allowed to vote. And the radicals won overwhelmingly.

Now, it would be difficult to name a nation anywhere in the world, especially a 

Muslim nation, in which the influence of the United States has been more benign 

than it has been in Kuwait. It owes its existence to the United States.
12

 Does this not indicate -- I ask all of you this, but I'm going to quote 

particularly in two places that Dr. Gunaratna says that radical Muslims are only 

a minuscule percentage of all Muslims. Now, I think most of your written 

statement, Doctor, is contrary to that, that the support, at least passive 

support, is much broader. If we have not succeeded in Kuwait in creating a 

society which is reasonably liberal, how in the world do we, or does any western 

country that is not Muslim, tell Muslims what true Islam is?

 I'd like any of you to comment on that.

 MR. FANDY: Just let me -- just because I was recently in Kuwait and I 

followed the elections and all of that, probably I can say something about it.

Sir, one of the main lessons from the Kuwaiti elections is that, one, the Muslim 

Brotherhood lost and gained only two seats. And some Salafi radicals, the S-1, 

the Jihadist groups, certainly won seats, especially Walid al-Tabatabai and 

others, who are very much anti-U.S.

 But it is very important to understand in this context that Kuwait, 

compared to the neighborhood -- at least women in Kuwait, I saw them driving 

their cars and running around. Yes, they did not get the suffrage. The emir of 

Kuwait put out a request for the parliament last time, and again the Islamist 

radical forces clamped down on this and women could not get the vote. But it is 

very important throughout the Middle East -- not Kuwait alone. One thing we are 

not getting thus far, whether it is in Iraq or Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, 

is that we need to hear gratitude for what we do in that part of the world. In 

fact, governments are unable to come forth and say, "We are friends of the 

United States."

 And I think our problems throughout the Middle East is really about an 

approach that has developed over the years that somehow we tolerate Arab leaders 

telling us something in private rooms, and letting them deal with their public 

the way they want to. It is very important for friends of the United States to 

stand by the United States and speak out, that indeed Kuwait was liberated by 

the United States. None of the Muslim or the Arab world, if it were left to the 

devices of the Muslim or the Arab world, Kuwait would have been occupied until 

this day. It is very important that the governments come out and be grateful, 

even in Iraq it is very important that the Iraqi people come out and be 

grateful.

 The question for Kuwait -- I like the idea that Kuwait is experimenting 

with democracy, whether it includes radicals or non-radicals. It is very 

important to bring these people in in a dialogue. The one problem in Kuwait 

which remains is the international element of the Muslim Brotherhood represented 

by a group named al-Islah, that basically has tremendous finances and capable to 

recruit. But Kuwait was good enough to refuse the spokesperson of al Qaeda to 

be handed from Kuwait to Iran recently. So it is very important to really push 

the government of Kuwait into really being forthcoming on the question of 

Islamists, and the question also of finances. But we have to realize that also 

they are limited in their means. We have to technically assess these things in 

tracing the finances that go to al Qaeda and other organizations.

 But I wouldn't be very worried when some members, even if they are 

extremist in their views, are part of the parliament. I would be terribly 

worried about --

 MR. GORTON: Well, they are a substantial majority of the parliament 

now, are they not?
13

 MR. FANDY: I don't think they will affect -- they are right now 

probably 10 members of parliament, including -- still the government has the 

majority thus far. It's very important that we tell the government of Kuwait 

very clearly that gratitude is the essence of friendship. And if you talk 

publicly and increase the talk publicly about we are friends of the United 

States, and people come out and speak about their gratitude, then the media can 

affect everybody. But the Islamists and the radicals are practically taking 

advantage of an atmosphere where everybody is quiet about the friendship of the 

United States. So everybody is on the run, because leaders are unable to come 

out and say, "We are friends of the United States, and here are the reasons why, 

and here are the reasons why these guys are wrong." Right now nobody is telling 

them that they are wrong, whether it is in Saudi Arabia or Egypt or everywhere 

else.

 MR. GORTON: That -- okay, go ahead.

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, I want to make two points. One is I would still 

say that in the Muslim world it is minuscule of the Muslims that actively 

support terrorism. There may be a larger percentage that supports the various 

coffers that have been spearheaded by these organizations, but in terms of 

active support, the people who give money, the people who carry the explosive 

device and place it, it is still minuscule. If you look at worldwide support 

for violent organizations, whether it is in Northern Ireland in terms of support 

for the IRA, we have seen a maximum of 15 percent of the public will support 

organizations that engage in terrorism -- maximum 15 percent -- with one 

exception; that is, the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

About 60 percent of the Palestinians support suicide terrorism. That is because 

there is a very high percentage of the Palestinians who have been politicized 

and radicalized and mobilized by groups like Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad and 

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

 But other than that conflict, I would say that most other conflicts we 

will find less than 20 percent of any population in any Muslim country will 

actively support terrorism. This may change with time. This may change, 

especially after 9/11, especially after U.S. intervention in Iraq. But prior to 

that, we have not seen evidence of greater support -- not sympathy, but support 

for terrorist organizations.

 MR. SAGEMAN: May I make a comment? Although I defer to my esteemed 

colleagues, I think that the fear is probably greater than the reality here in 

Kuwait. What needs to be done is discrediting those extreme movements that are 

about to capture a lot of countries in the Muslim world. At this point I don't 

think we have a stronger popular support in the Middle East than Iran. And why?

I think because the mullahs have been discredited in Iran. Their policy -- see, 

it's a promise that everything will become a like a paradise that is really 

attractive to all the population. They are faced with a repressive regime, they 

are faced with corrupt governments, and so they try something new, a little bit 

like Algeria tried to do. And once those people will be in power, you will see 

that there is absolutely no substance behind their policies.

 Now, the key here is not to allow them to gather like in Iran all the 

levels of power to prevent other people from running a fair election, even if 

they do like Iran that they have no power whatsoever. So this really the one 

position that we have to insist that, fine, let fundamentalists take over the 

government, and after five years you will see the whole population turn around.
14

 MR. GORTON: But isn't the fundamental problem of antipathy, whether 

highly radicalized and involving terrorism or passive distaste of the West a 

result of the three- to five-hundred-year reversal of roles in the world? And 

is there any possibility that there can be a true prosperity in the Middle East 

or the Muslim world, as long as 50 percent of the population can't effectively 

participate, the whole female part of the population? And how does that change, 

given the fundamental basis of Islam itself?

 MR. SAGEMAN: Well, again, if you look at Iran where the women vote, 

this has changed quite a bit. It seems that the support really comes from the 

base and not really from the top government. Actually, if you eliminate the top 

2,000 in the government you will have a very pro-American country. Remember, 

this is a country that had spontaneous demonstration in support of the United 

States right after 9/11 in the whole Middle East.

 What happened is that after a period of decolonization a lot of Middle 

Eastern countries chose the secular socialist route, and this is what has been 

discredited, and this really led to the popularity of fundamentalist movements.

They have to kind of go through a process of learning; otherwise, still the 

promise will be there and unless you can give in and give them what they want 

for a while and realize there is nothing there, they are not going to stop being 

attracted to it.

 MR. GORTON: Dr. Fandy?

 MR. FANDY: I just wanted to -- I think it is very important what is 

said here. The issue of women is very central for any reform. However, I would 

like you to keep in mind that really what attracted an immigrant like myself to 

the United States of America is the slogan of freedom. And our message should 

not be jumbled up. As we talk to the Muslim world, we have to be very clear 

that we are about freedom and democracy, whether that democracy produces radical 

or non-radical. Even if they were against us, as we know that there are 

institutions and mechanisms that allow them in, as well as allow them out. We 

have to strengthen institutions inside the Muslim world that provide mechanisms 

for people to come into the public arena and debate on the basis of one-man/onevote, and make sure also that these governments have the mechanisms to lift them 

out, as well when they are voted out. Thus far these institutions do not exist.

You might have one-man, one-vote, one-time when the Islamists take over. If you 

have these safeguards that indeed there is no chance for one-man, one-vote, onetime in the case of maybe Iraq in the future or somewhere else, we need to 

strengthen the mechanisms to allow these people to leave.

 Now, our message, I think would be absolutely dangerous for the United 

States of America to say that we are for selective democracy. We are a democracy 

for this and for somebody when we are against it. We are for democracy across 

the board. We are for participation across the board. Otherwise, I think what 

we are suffering from in the Muslim world, sir, right now is that our message is 

jumbled up. Nobody in the Muslim world knows what it is our message on Iraq, 

what is our message on Islam. Do we hate all Islam or half of it, or radical 

only? I mean, we have not put out a strategically positioned message to the 

Muslim world telling them who we are and what we are all about.

 Now, we can differ on tactical issues, specifically case-by-case basis 

like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, other things. But the overarching message I 

think, with all due respect, ought to be uniform on the question of freedom and 

democracy. And that's what makes the United States of America attractive to the 
15

rest of the world. As we get jumbled up, we lose the thrust that made this 

country great.

 MR. GORTON: Yes?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, I believe that the situation can be reversed, that 

is to identify what went wrong. America has been very generous to the countries 

in the Middle East and in Asian countries, especially the Muslim countries. But 

there is no gratitude. It is because American assistance and the relationship 

that America has had with Middle East and Asia has been largely government-togovernment. It is very important to invest more resources in public diplomacy, 

to educate the public formally and informally in those countries. And I think 

that there must be a counter to al Jazeera. There must be more work done to 

empower the non-governmental organizations in those countries. And I think that 

dealing with government-to-government has not created this good will.

 One example is the U.S. government has been telling the Indonesian 

government prior to the attack in Bali, October 2002, that there is a terrorist 

network in Indonesia, but the U.S. government did not tell the Indonesian 

people. So, when Bali happened, the first reaction of the Indonesian people, or 

at least a segment of the people, was "our military has done it." The people 

were not aware. So, I think it is very important to invest in shaping the public 

opinion of the people in those countries, in public diplomacy.

 MR. KEAN: Ms. Gorelick.

 MS. GORELICK: It's been very, very interesting. I'd like to switch 

gears a little bit. The purpose of this hearing is really two-fold. One is to 

understand the enemy so that we are assured that we're taking all possible steps 

to meet that enemy. But the other is to determine why we didn't see and 

appreciate the threat.

 And so I would like to start with you, Dr. Gunaratna, and go back to 

1988. You make a very powerful point in your writing, and you've alluded to it 

this morning, that al Qaeda was essentially borne out of an emboldened Islamic 

movement, emboldened by the fact that it help take down the Soviet Union by 

defeating it in Afghanistan, which, of course, we as a nation supported. We 

armed them. We supported them. We helped create this very potent force. And as 

you point out, in 1988, this movement was potent, with no enemy remaining.

 What did we think at the time these people and this movement was going 

to do? And what were the flaws, if any, in our foreign policy and in our 

intelligence, that led this group to turn its sights on us and our allies with 

seeming impunity? And also, I'd like to hear from you, Professor Fandy, on 

that.

 MR. GUNARATNA: Madam, the al Qaeda was created before the Soviet 

troops left Afghanistan. The Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989.

Al Qaeda was created in March 1988. But certainly, al Qaeda became a very 

powerful organization because al Qaeda used the infrastructure it had built 

during the -- at the height of the Cold War to fight the Soviet army. So, 

certainly al Qaeda made use of the resources that came to Pakistan and 

Afghanistan for that purpose. America did the right thing by supporting the 

Mujaheddin to fight the Soviet army, but, however, the failure of the 

international community, including the United States, was after the Soviets 

retreated, withdrew from Afghanistan. The West turned a blind eye to Pakistan 

and Afghanistan. Pakistan, a front-line state in the war against the Soviets, 
16

was abandoned. The U.S. government threatened Pakistan, neglected Pakistan, 

neglected Afghanistan. And there were some Americans who told me at that time, 

"Well, no, let them fight among each other. It really doesn't matter to us, you 

see."

 MS. GORELICK: If I might interrupt, as a student of that history, you 

can perhaps shed some light on what it was that we in the United States thought 

they would be doing. That is, is it your view that our view was they would 

simply fight among themselves and be of no threat to anyone else?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Madam, the U.S. intelligence community had a very poor 

understanding of those movements. Al Qaeda was created in March '88, but if you 

look at, examine the CIA reports, until August 1998, none of the CIA reports 

refers to Osama Bin Laden's organization as al Qaeda. It is referring to Osama 

Bin Laden's organization as what? As the Islamic army, or as the UBL network.

So, that means for 10 years this organization existed. And I think you invest 

something like $30 billion on your intelligence for a year, right? But they did 

not know even the accurate name of Osama's organization that had declared war on

you in 1996.

 So, I think that you need to invest more in human source penetration.

You need to divert some of your resources that you are investing in your 

technical collection into agent handling operations.

 MS. GORELICK: Professor Fandy. Thank you.

 MR. FANDY: I don't think we have to take all the blame on this. On al 

Qaeda, I think, is like any organization, is really part of these transnational 

movements. Throughout that part of the world we have a great deal of -- a 

number of failed states throughout. And we are also were suckered in the 

process by other states in the neighborhood that gave us their radicals and say 

"They will fight your jihad in Afghanistan." In fact, they were emptying out 

their societies of this threat, and we carried that baby throughout. And then 

we left them high and dry in Afghanistan. We had no plans for what to do in 

Afghanistan and how to deal with al Qaeda.

 Al Qaeda, if you look at the makeup of al Qaeda, who are the foot 

soldiers of al Qaeda? These are people who came from the GIA in Algeria, came 

from the jihad in Egypt, came from supporters of Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia, in 

Yemen, in also Europe. I mean, we have failed also to map what we -- mapped the 

Muslim world in Europe, if you will, we have no understanding of how to map the 

Muslim world in Europe into the societies of Europe, and where do they fit, and 

all of that. It's a very complex problem that requires a lot resources. It 

requires cooperation from local governments. I think we could have done well 

had we subcontracted, if you will, how to fight al Qaeda to local regimes if 

they were willing, because they know more and they understand them more. But 

somehow we failed to do so. I think it's very important to realize that we 

allowed offices here that are extremely dangerous in the United States, like 

Maktab al Khidmat in New York, or the Office of Jihad in New York and in other 

places. So, the blowback effect was expected, given our understanding that 

after the defeat of the Soviet Union, we had no understanding of the mop up 

operation. I mean, we are always -- and I think our pattern is clear even in 

Iraq -- we win wars, but we don't know how to win peace. And I think that's 

really a broader issue. We have to understand how to win the peace. I think we 

did it in Europe, but we failed afterwards. I mean, after World War II, I think 

if it weren't for this whole plan of restructuring Europe, we created a Europe 

that's sustainable. But after that, I think we did not pay attention to this, 
17

and probably even the Iraq example can be very dangerous unless we come up with 

the strategy of winning the peace.

 MS. GORELICK: Thank you.

 MR. SAGEMAN: May I address this issue. I turns out that of all three 

of us, I was the one who was over there at the time. I was the liaison officer 

with the Mujaheddin until I left Islamabad. And my view of the history of al 

Qaeda is actually quite different since I was there.

 I must say that it didn't even come across our screen. They were an 

insignificant part of our fight against the Soviets. They were really a 

hindrance, as a matter of fact. Whenever I ever heard about the Arab Afghans, 

it was really in very derogatory terms by the Afghans themselves. They really 

were not part of that war. Now, they hijacked the notion that they were the 

ones who actually kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan and, you know, they had 

good PR in that sense. But I don't really see that.

 Now, if you can't have a linear view of history, as Dr. Gunaratna has, 

then you really discount the notion that the Gulf I happened. And I think al 

Qaeda is really more a result of Gulf I and having our troops in Saudi Arabia 

and a progressive -- progression in ideology as I try to really kind of outline 

in my statement -- the designation of the United States as the priority really 

did not come until the mid- 1990s. I mean, you cannot find that in 1988. I 

would completely disagree with that.

 MS. GORELICK: That's a very interesting perspective, and I apologize 

for forgetting that part of your very interesting non-linear career. There 

really are not too many liaisons to the Mujaheddin who are also practicing 

psychiatrists -- (laughter) -- and we are very happy to have that peculiar 

combination before us today.

 So, let me actually follow-up, if I might, because this is quite 

interesting. What you are saying is that while the infrastructure was in place 

so that at the time of, let's say a provocation arising out of our very strong 

presence in the Gulf after the Gulf War and particularly in Saudi Arabia, there 

really wasn't a decided threat to us between the fall of the Soviet Union and 

the victory, if you will, of the Mujaheddin and others in Afghanistan and the 

period in the mid-1990s.

 But let me ask you then to put your liaison hat back on. Did we have 

the resources in place to identify the fact that in the 1990s, the mid-1990s, 

that threat had turned on us?

 MR. SAGEMAN: I can only talk until I left the government in 1991, and 

at that point, we did not. As I said, those Afghan Arabs did not come on our 

screen. And having been involved, I kind of followed that situation until I 

left in '91. We did not know then. We had no penetration of them, to my 

knowledge. They just were not relevant at that time. They became afterwards, 

during the exile into Sudan, when we realized that there was a group there, and 

I think probably was the first time that they came on our screen. But this is 

speculation. I was already out of the government. I was out of the loop.

 MS. GORELICK: Well thank you very much. I have a couple of other 

questions, if I might.
18

 I'd like to return, Dr. Fandy, to the point -- Professor Fandy -- to 

the point that you made about whether we are really enforcing, if you will, the 

president's view that we need to know who is with us and who is against us. You 

make the point that the financial aspects of the media in the Middle East really 

ought to be studied by us and -- or by someone -- to determine what the support 

is for this massive propaganda machine focused on us. And this may not be a 

fair question to you, but here it is: Who do you say in the Middle East is with 

us, and who is against us?

 MR. FANDY: I think to be absolutely honest, everybody in the Middle 

East is ambivalent about us and about themselves, that there is -- there is 

political risks that's calculated locally throughout the neighborhood that if 

they come out full swinging with the United States that probably they might lose 

their power. I mean, which is really sometimes not true. These are -- 

everybody talks about the Middle East as the unstable area in the world. I can 

tell you, this is the most stable area in the world if people can rule for 18 

and 20 and 30 years, that's very stable. We haven't seen overthrowing of 

governments throughout. This is a very stable region and people can afford to 

be with us. I think many countries are with us, but also secretly with us. I 

think Egypt helped us a great deal on intelligence after September 11th, but 

also Egypt failed to come full force and be straightforward about their total 

support for us.

 MS. GORELICK: So, on the -- if you were making a list that included 

public support and support in winning and helping to win the minds and hearts of 

the people, or at least presenting a fair presentation of the facts, you would 

find no one fully with us. Is that correct?

 MR. FANDY: Well, I think no one is fully with us. Not only that, but 

there's something extra that needs to be carefully studied. I think there's 

something that can be called sort of "Saddam settlements in the Arab media" that 

need to be dismantled, and also Muslim brotherhood settlements within the Arab 

media that need to be dismantled. It is -- it is disheartening, if you study 

media organizations, that you find people who fought in Afghanistan now wearing 

three-piece suits and doing a talk show. This is -- this is preposterous. And 

I think we have -- we have the knowledge and we know who is who amongst this 

group. We know who is supporting what newspaper, who is financing it.

 The problem is that sometimes we think that Arab media is very much 

like Western media. These are legitimate organizations somehow for freedom of 

expression. If you study certain newspapers that were created -- the number of 

newspapers created by Saddam Hussein throughout the Arab world and by the Iraqi 

intelligence services, from London, to Cairo, to Paris, to other places, these 

are front organizations. We shouldn't have any misgivings to make clear that al 

Qaeda, like any other organization, has a media wing to it. It has public 

affairs officers. And these officers exist and are implanted in all Arab media, 

in the same way that they had officers within Arab armies and governments and 

that sort that supported them.

 MS. GORELICK: So, if I might summarize, your advice to us is not to 

superimpose our western notions of what the press is and what its ethics and 

values are on what we see in the Middle East and look at the funding and the 

actual activities of these organizations.

 MR. FANDY: Who is who, and who is doing what? I mean, this is very 

important.
19

 MS. GORELICK: I appreciate that. I have one final question. It was 

interesting to me that Dr. Gunaratna, in response to Senator Gorton's question, 

made a point of saying that the percentage of truly hostile individuals in the 

Muslim world is minuscule, even if support for their larger goals might be 

broader than that minuscule group.

 So I'd like to address this question to Dr. Sageman, because I don't 

have a lot of experience in foreign terrorism, but I have a lot of experience in 

domestic terrorism. And the analogy is far from perfect, but before the 

Oklahoma City bombing, there was a growing domestic terrorist threat in the 

United States. It was a proliferation of people who were overtly hostile and 

who were militant and who said that they wanted to do violence within this 

country.

 And what the government did in response was two-fold. One was to raise 

the level of opprobrium in society for that sort of activity. We and the culture 

made it clear that violence was just not an appropriate tactic. And, two, we 

infiltrated everybody we could possibly infiltrate. And the two tactics 

together, particularly after Oklahoma City, were, I think, quite successful.

 My question to you is two-fold. One, should we just be worried about 

the minuscule group of actively hostile potential martyrs? Or do we need to be 

as worried about the societal support that I think Slade Gorton was getting at?

And two, from your interviews and your sort of -- the texture you've drawn from 

the interviews you've done, what are the two or three best tactics we can use to 

diminish the potency of the violent groups?

 MR. SAGEMAN: Well, if I knew that, the government would probably hire 

me. (Laughter).

 MS. GORELICK: Well, we're considering that.

 MR. SAGEMAN: Thank you. It's a very difficult two-pronged question.

The first one is, when you have terrorism on your own soil, it hurts more. So 

the Saudis really were not concerned about 9/11. As a matter of fact, they 

dismissed it. "It's not us." But when Riyadh happened, it became real to them.

So I'm not really sure that the domestic analogy can really be transplanted to 

the foreign one.

 The second, we have to penetrate them, absolutely, just like we did 

here. But the key is really to prevent, even though the number of people are 

minuscule -- there's 1.3 billion Muslims; there may be at most 2,000 people who 

are willing to commit violence, which is an infinitesimal part of it -- there is 

still a fairly large pool of people who want to graduate to that level. And 

what's missing is that human link.

 And what we're doing now is really the appropriate way of doing it, 

which is we don't really allow them to advertise freely in either Salafi mosques 

or in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else that "Gee, I'm part of the jihad; if you 

guys want to sign up, just come and see me afterwards and I'll make the 

arrangements." So by eliminating that link, we just keep a potential pool a 

potential pool and not the reality of terrorism.

 MS. GORELICK: Thank you.

 MR. GUNARATNA: Madam, could I?
20

 MS. GORELICK: Certainly.

 MR. GUNARATNA: No terrorist group can continue, can sustain, without 

flow of support. These organizations are continuing to grow like companies.

They're growing because there is support. And that is why I said, during my 

presentation, that public diplomacy is very important. You have to invest in 

the public to create a societal norm and ethic against terrorism and to say that 

these organizations are not Koranic organizations, that they're heretical 

organizations, that they are misinterpreting and misrepresenting Islam, that 

they're presenting a corrupt version of Islam.

 It is important to invest resources in that direction, because if you 

disrupt public support for these movements, these movements will die. They will 

perish. They will be very small in number and they will not be able to conduct 

this type of high-impact operations. I also want to go to the point that you 

raised with Professor Fandy about are they with the United States. If you look 

at since 9/11, there have been arrests of 3,100 al Qaeda members and al Qaeda 

supporters, key supporters, in 102 countries of the world.

 These Muslim regimes in the Middle East and in Asia are perceiving the 

same threat that you are perceiving from these organizations, because if you 

examine their trajectory, initially they want to topple those states and create 

Islamic states.

 Osama bin Laden said that it was too costly for them to conduct 

terrorist operations in the Middle East against those corrupt Muslim rulers and 

those false Muslim rulers and those corrupt Muslim governments and said that 

they must change their strategy.

 Their changing their strategy was they said they must attack the head 

of the poisonous snake, the United States, that was protecting, shielding those 

false Muslim rulers and those corrupt Muslim governments. That is why they 

decided to strike the head of the poisonous snake, the United States.

 You see, so in terms of the changing al Qaeda strategy of near 

targeting to distant targets and now returning back to the near targets, you 

see, it has generated equal amount of fear in those countries that they are 

being threatened by these groups.

 So I think the United States have received measure of cooperation.

Today the most important al Qaeda members, they are not detaining in Guantanamo 

Bay. They've been detained in secret U.S. facilities in those Middle Eastern 

and Asian countries, Muslim countries.

 MS. GORELICK: Well, if I can just summarize so that I can pass the 

baton to my colleague here, your views, while not wholly consistent, are one 

that we are getting good cooperation, if quiet cooperation, from many countries 

because it is in their own self- interest to do so, particularly since the 

attacks in Riyadh.

 But, number two, we are failing to get that support in the whole area 

of public diplomacy, represented by the media and otherwise, which is 

permitting, A, the flow of funds, and B, a degree of public acceptance of the 

kind of violence that has to be brought to an end. And I think that those are 

very strong take-aways for us today, and I thank you for your very helpful 

answers to my questions.
21

 MR. KEAN: Thank you. Congressman Roemer.

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to, 

for 15 seconds, indulge our committee for just a comment to you and our 

distinguished vice chairman. Yesterday, as a chair and vice chair, as a 

Republican and as a Democrat, you went forward in a public press conference, and 

in your usual artful and diplomatic way, you both went forward with velvet 

gloves on and insisted that this commission get more cooperation from some of 

the agencies that have been dealing with us over the last several months and 

respond more forcefully to our aggressive search for facts and for substance and 

for information.

 I strongly applaud that bipartisan effort. It shows the consistency 

and the force of, I think, our commission on this point. I might have used some 

boxing gloves rather than the velvet gloves that you used. But with particular 

reference to the Department of Defense and to the CIA and FBI and main Justice, 

unless we start getting more of not just the document flow but important, 

substantive documents, it's going to be very difficult for us to forcefully move 

forward, and not just have important academics appear before us, but have people 

like Dr. Berger, who might have been in a position to know why we might have 

been slow in the 1990s to identify al Qaeda; Dr. Rice, currently in the Bush 

administration, to answer some of these questions about how the Bush 

administration responded. That's very important for this commission, and I hope 

we can get the White House's cooperation to forcefully move these facts forward.

 Dr. Gunaratna, you studied in my hometown of South Bend, Indiana, at 

the University of Notre Dame. You know how direct we can be in the Midwest.

Let me start with a question with you, and then I want to get to one question 

for all three panelists.

 Mohammad Jamal Khalifa is an individual who is thought by some analysts 

and intelligence experts to have a direct link to al Qaeda. He's a Saudi. He is 

someone who was mentioned in a January 21st, 2003 Christian Science Monitor 

article.

 In that article, you're quoted -- let me read your quote. Quote: 

"Had the U.S. followed the Khalifa case in the Philippines, I believe September 

11th could have been averted," unquote. Extremely powerful words saying this 

one case was so important with an individual connected to all this that if the 

U.S. had done their job, things might have turned out differently.

 First of all, do you stick by that statement, that quote? Secondly, if 

you do, factually, in detail and with substance, why is that true?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa is the brother-in-law of 

Osama bin Laden. He arrived in the Philippines in 1988 and he became the first 

director, the founding director, of the International Islamic Relief 

Organization of Saudi Arabia. He used the IIRO to funnel al Qaeda funds to the 

Abu Sayyaf group and the Moral Islamic Liberation Front. He also hosted Khalid 

Shaikh Mohammad, the brother- in-law of Ramzi Mohammad Yousef, the first World 

Trade Center bomber.

 And what we have seen is that the old Plan Bojinka, the plan that al 

Qaeda had in 1994 to destroy 12 U.S. airliners over the Pacific simultaneously, 

that operation was the genesis of 9/11 operation. If you read the interrogation 

of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who is now in U.S. custody, he has very clearly 
22

stated how 9/11 was planned, that it originated from old Plan Bojinka, that 

plan.

 MR. ROEMER: Have you had access to those interviews and that 

information on Khalid Shaikh Mohammad?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Yes, sir. In fact, in that debriefing, he says very 

clearly that he put a bolt, a metal bolt, in his shoe and he mounted -- to test 

the security of the airports in the Far East. He traveled through to those 

airports -- Seoul, Hong Kong, various other airports. So you can see that in 

the planning of 9/11, the original seeds was out of Philippines. And, in fact, 

they did the first dry run for old Plan Bojinka, where Ramzi Mohammad Yousef, in 

fact, flew from Manila to Sibu on a Philippine airline plane and he placed a 

nitroglycerine device under his seat. He got off the plane in Sibu and there 

was an explosion when the plane was coming close to Japan, and it killed one 

Japanese, injured seven or eight others, made a hole in the fuselage. The plane 

was going to Narita Airport in Tokyo, but the skilled pilot landed in the Naha 

Airport in Okinawa.

 And you can see that they were very serious. And the Americans were 

quite happy with the outcome of old Plan Bojinka because they arrested Ramzi 

Hamad (ph) Yousef in Pakistan. They arrested Walid Amin Khan Shah (ph) in 

Malaysia. They arrested Abdul Hakim Murad, the first al Qaeda pilot, in the 

Philippines. But they failed to arrest Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the mastermind 

of that operation.

 MR. ROEMER: But specifically, Dr. Gunaratna, if the U.S. understands 

the Bojinka plot, that planes could be used as weapons, how then, in not only 

understanding that plot, not only going back and knowing that a group had 

attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, how do you then avert 9/11 by following 

this one particular individual?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa was in the Philippines and 

he was in touch with this group. But Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the more 

important man.

 MR. ROEMER: So you say you get -- eventually you get Khalid Shaikh 

Mohammed and that prevents 9/11 from occurring?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Absolutely, because Khalid Sheik Mohammed was the 

mastermind of 9/11. He organized that whole operation. The first planning 

meeting of 9/11 was held from the 5th to the 8th of January in Kuala Lumpur.

Who chaired that meeting? Khalid Shaikh Mohammed chaired that meeting. The 

first two hijackers to enter the United States they were present at that 

meeting. So the 9/11 operation is an extension of old Plan Bojinka. So the 

players of old plan Bojinka, they were not all arrested.

 MR. ROEMER: Let me pursue that line of questioning in a minute. Let me 

go to Dr. Fandy for a question as well. Dr. Fandy, a former CIA agent by the 

name of Robert Baer, writes in the May Atlantic Monthly issue that particularly 

he is concerned about Saudi Arabia's support for fundamentalism and for 

terrorism abroad. He states in this article many things. But one of them, he 

claims that the Saudis have transferred 500 million to al Qaeda over the past 

decade. Now, do you think there is any kind of credibility to a figure like 

that? How would you be able to track that? And how would you measure the Saudi 

support with the United States for fighting terrorism prior to 9/11?
23

 MR. FANDY: To just be absolutely honest, I just don't know this 

figure. I did not come across this figure. And also the idea of wire transfer 

or transfer funds, I can probably say throughout the Arab world people use cash 

and not banking systems, so it's very difficult to actually trace it, unless the 

origin of the money came from a Muslim country. Unless there is something that 

is really -- it -- the idea that it -- I haven't seen from my study of Saudi 

Arabia that people use checks, or even when they use bank deposits, this is not 

a really large group of the society. Most people get their salaries in cash.

So the idea of wire transfers -- that amount of money has to originate somewhere 

else. It could have connection to Saudi Arabia --

 MR. ROEMER: I think he insinuates, as Dr. Gunaratna did with respect 

to Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, that some of the money was funneled through charities 

and other --

 MR. FANDY: That's right. I think that's the very central question for 

really looking at Saudi Arabia, is to look at these charities. And I talked to 

Saudis about this in interviews in terms of what do they think of that. And I 

think sometimes they come off as these are the unintended consequences of bad 

politics, that somehow they decided to upgrade Saudi Arabia's image in the 

Muslim world; therefore they tried to help the poor with schools, with other 

places, not knowing that the ideology as well as the manning of these 

organizations was hijacked by al Qaeda members. So there is -- I have no way of 

assessing whether this is an honest claim or a dishonest claim, but I would say 

that probably given what I know about Saudi Arabia that this is probably the 

unintended consequences of bad policy and lack of foresight and long-term 

planning. You see mosques and other things being supported by Saudi Arabia, 

even in the United States, but Saudi students use them for four years when they 

are here and then they are taken over by other people. So there is no followup for these organizations.

 Well, money from Saudi Arabia goes -- went to various groups of the 

mujaheddin -- there was certain cultural support that this is a good thing to 

fight the Soviet Union; also money went to organizations that were fighting in 

Europe, in Bosnia to support their Muslim brothers and their co-religionists, if 

you will, who were embattled in Europe. Yes, a lot of money went into that.

But how it is being used and who used it it's very difficult to actually say 

certain money was authorized by let's say officials or something of that sort.

But certainly there was a sentiment in Saudi Arabia that at the time was 

encouraging people to support these charities.

 Now, I think this is a very important issue to think about as we think 

about probably phase two in the war on terrorism, really sort of drying up these 

resources or drying up the swamps, if you will. We are looking at really 

educational institutions and charities. We are looking at really the software 

of the Muslim world, if you would. I mean, the hardware and the money and 

everything else can be looked at very carefully, but the software, the 

educations, what is in the Muslim world's head, how people are being raised and 

educated and other things -- this is our task. And that requires investigating 

very carefully educational institutions, investing very carefully charities, 

investigating very carefully textbooks and whatever goes into that bad software.

We have to rewrite that software, if you will. And if we don't rewrite it, 

nobody else will rewrite it.

 MR. ROEMER: So in response to Commissioner Gorelick's question about 

emphasizing public diplomacy, emphasizing non-government-to- government aid, 

emphasizing more help for the types of schools that can educate young poor 
24

children -- not in madrassas but in other ways -- that is extremely important to 

U.S. efforts in the future. On the same hand, some of the charitable work that 

supports those efforts can be diverted for terrorism, and that money can be 

raised in places like Saudi Arabia or, as Dr. Gunaratna talked about, in the 

Philippines, and diverted Abu Sayyaf.

 MR. FANDY: Or United Arab Emirates and other places. The main issue 

for public diplomacy is that we have done a lot for the world. I think our 

problem is that you find schools that were built in Egypt or in Indonesia or in 

other places -- the people took credit for these schools, if you read the names 

of these schools, what they were called, these were not called American schools 

or came to you through the assistance of the United States. It is called Sheik 

So-And-So School, or this Muslim radical leader. So we are paying the money, 

but the branding of these schools is going to somebody else. And we are very 

much like the Ottoman Empire in many ways. We do not follow (what the path is 

?) that we are supporting throughout the whole world what they are doing. We 

visit them once a year, and that's it. We don't do a follow-up. And empires, 

sir, should have always to have Philby and Shakespeare and Lawrence of Arabia 

and people who know the realm of the empire. We don't know the realm that we 

are claiming to have control over. We don't have the expertise, languages and 

other things. And all of this really has to be put in place. We have to follow 

up. We have to follow our money. Even our money can go to al Qaeda, believe it 

or not. So it is very important to just do these -- create institutions and 

systems of follow-ups to know where our charities are -- our own charities -- 

are going. Our aid sometimes goes to corrupt systems that find their way to 

also illegitimate use of our own money.

 So in many ways unless we have -- we have to understand this big 

picture. There is a phase two of war on terrorism that is drying the swamps, 

and here are the mechanisms that are in place. I think most of us get worried 

about tactical small anecdotal evidence and try to draw the big picture from 

that. That's not a good approach to it. The whole plumbing system in the Muslim 

world is broken, and the Muslim world was, if you pardon the expression, was 

flushing in its own neighborhood for years, and we tolerated it. And now 

September 11th they flushed and it came to New York. Unless we fix that sink 

and that system and that plumbing system, it is our duty. Nobody else will fix 

it. People will enjoy drinking their bad water, because they have been drinking 

it for years.

 MR. ROEMER: I appreciate your testimonies and your direct proposals to 

try to fix the plumbing systems with other governments, with our bilateral 

programs, with other governments, with our relationships with other governments, 

and all those governments in the Middle East should be on the table. I think 

the U.S., looking medium and long term should look at ways to give incentives 

and carrots and sticks to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to try and fix some of those 

problems.

 Dr. Sageman, let me end with you. I know my colleagues are anxious to 

ask you questions. You have intimately looked at the structure of al Qaeda, and 

what's interesting about your testimony is you look at these pretty 

sophisticated individuals, fairly well educated, coming from middle class 

backgrounds without a lot of family, historical problems, that are themselves in 

Europe, in Hamburg. And they eventually come up with this plot, combined with 

muscle, so-called muscle on the airplanes coming over from Saudi Arabia, about 

15 of the hijackers come in. They mix together in the United States, and pull 

off one of the most devastating attacks in our nations history, and kill over 

3,000 people. It's a group of very sophisticated people coming with some other 
25

people from other backgrounds. Is al Qaeda capable of this kind of plot, 

pulling this kind of plot off successfully here and now today? MR. SAGEMAN: I 

don't think so at this point. But if we relax in the future --

 MR. ROEMER: Why?

 MR. SAGEMAN: Well, because are far more vigilant right now, and 

perhaps we might have swung the other way, where anybody who looks a little bit 

strange is now a guest of the FBI. But this will fade with time. People really 

get tired of being so vigilant. So I am not saying that in a few years from now 

they won't be able to do it. Right now today, no.

 MR. ROEMER: In the United States?

 MR. SAGEMAN: In the United States.

 MR. ROEMER: But somewhere else they could. Dr. Gunaratna, do you 

agree with that?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, there are three reasons why al Qaeda has failed to 

mount large-scale terrorist operations in the United States since 9/11. One is 

heightened public vigilance. As long as the public are alert, terrorist groups 

cannot plan, prepare and organize a big terrorist attack. Second is that there 

is unprecedented security, intelligence and law enforcement cooperation in the 

United States and by the U.S. agencies with agencies outside the United States, 

including in the Asian and the Middle Eastern countries. And the third reason 

is that today al Qaeda has been aggressively hunted. When you hunt the terrorist 

organization relentlessly, that group does not have the time, space or the 

resources to plan, prepare and execute big operations like 9/11. So if you can 

maintain these three elements you will not suffer another attack of that scale.

 MR. ROEMER: And that's not to preclude the smaller, less expensive 

types of attacks that we see on soft targets around the world?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Certainly sir you will continue to witness attacks of 

the scale of Bali, of Mombassa, of Casablanca, of Riyadh in the next few years, 

because al Qaeda and its associate groups are still able to plan, prepare and 

execute those operations, especially in the poorer countries of the world -- of 

Asia, of Africa, of the Middle East, of the Caucasus.

 MR. ROEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Senator Cleland.

 MR. CLELAND: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and the 

staff for assembling the most profound group of witnesses I've ever seen to talk 

about the enemy that attacked us and the rationale for that and the 

understanding that we need to deal with this in the future. I would say that if 

the government doesn't hire all of you by sunset today -- (laughter) -- they're 

making a big mistake.

 Just a couple of one-liners here. Dr. Sageman, as liaison out of 

Pakistan to the mujaheddin in Pakistan and as a psychiatrist, I just want to 

know how long have you been feeling this way? (Laughter.) I'm just kidding.

 MR. SAGEMAN: You should ask my wife. (Laughter.)
26

 MR. CLELAND: Professor Fandy, I was fascinated with one little tidbit 

that you threw out, and that is -- and I just want to verify it -- that the 

Muslim Brotherhood has an office in Qatar, where our CENTCOM headquarters is, 

and in other foreign countries like Indonesia and Virginia. (Laughter.)

 MR. FANDY: Virginia is not a foreign country.

 MR. CLELAND: I know. Is that really true?

 MR. FANDY: Well, I think -- I mean, the Muslim Brotherhood is the 

mother of all these movements in the final analysis. If you go and trace all 

the ideas and the ideology that drove these 15 hijackers to drive these planes 

into the World Trade Center, it is the ideas of Sayed Kutub bin Abu Ali (ph) 

Meldoodi (ph) and all of that that came from the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes, one 

of the major figures of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders is Sheikh al Qaradawi, 

who lives in Qatar, who is the man actually who selected who is who among the 

Muslim Brotherhood members who became the staff of al Jazeera station. He's a 

very influential figure in Qatar -- very central recruiter. He chairs also the 

Muslim fatwa in Sweden, believe it or not, with the Muslim Brotherhood in 

Sweden, creating these offices. So when there was the change of the guard last 

year who heads the Muslim Brotherhood after the death of their grand murshid, 

these men were consulted, from Lebanon to France to Sweden, to Qatar to other 

places. There is a Muslim Brotherhood International, if you will, that is an 

assembly of the men who were driven out of Egypt during Nasser and stayed -- 

from Saudi Arabia and other places in the world.

 I stand by that statement, sir. I mean, mostly al Qaeda and all these 

Islamic groups, when you see their relationship with America, they are not 

standing next to us as number three. They are right there on our shoulders.

There was a Muslim Brotherhood organization that I came across in 1992 that was 

in Virginia and Maryland as well. So there is an extensive network of Islamic 

movements across the United States that is not being studied, and it's not been 

studied very carefully.

 One thing that I would like to emphasize here as we think of Muslims in 

America, some of us started to really look at Islam in the same way as 

Christianity is, so we look at a mosque in the same way we look at a church.

That's not true. There are Muslims who go only once a week to the mosque. The 

mosque is not a social organization. The mosque is a place where you receive 

your religious guidance, but not necessarily -- the mosque is not the parallel 

of the church, but somehow the Islamic organizations made it clear to us that 

there is this sanctity of front-door mosques if you will and things of that 

sort. These are open for investigation, and one should look into how mosques 

are being built -- and where the money came from.

 MR. CLELAND: Well, thank you. I want to give some thoughts about 

Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. In listening to your conversation, I have been 

thinking about the quote, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave," particularly in 

this murky world of covert or special operations and dealing with guerrillas, 

suicide bombers and the like. As a Vietnam veteran, I am painfully aware that 

during World War II the OSS actually dropped supplies to Ho Chi Minh and his 

Viet men, because they were fighting our enemy at the time, Japan, and the 

Japanese were in formerly French Indochina. And in effect Ho Chi Minh was our 

guy, because he was fighting our enemy. And, matter of fact, it was Ho Chi Minh 

who was a big fan of Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence and 

could quote it extensively. As a matter of fact, about the point, about getting 

our word out and our message out about freedom and democracy, I was talking to 
27

one of the staffers yesterday who is an expert on the Middle East, he said, One 

of the best things we could do is just circulate the Declaration of Independence 

throughout the Middle East to the population there. And, by the way, I was 

thinking about Slade Gorton's question about only men could vote in Kuwait, and 

only a third could vote, and women couldn't vote, elected some clerics and so 

forth. I thought about the history of our own country -- that was 1776 and the 

terrorists were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington.

 But the point being though that at one time Ho Chi Minh was our guy.

After the Second World War, Roosevelt did not want to go back in and support 

France and French Indochina. He did not believe in the colonization of that 

area -- Churchill did. Ultimately we wound up supporting the French as they 

went back in. Ho Chi Minh and the Viet men fought the French. We ultimately 

supported them through about 80 percent of that war, and they lost it. We got 

in there, and I was pat of the 10-year American war in formerly French 

Indochina, and in effect fought Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnamese and VC. Now, 

interestingly enough, the Russians supported the Ho Chi Minh. Well, you go now 

to Afghanistan. There what a tangled web we weave. We are supporting the 

mujaheddin, because they are fighting the Russians, who are our enemy, and 

Afghanistan becomes their Vietnam, and we are supporting the guys that now we 

call the terrorists, who then we abandon as the mujaheddin, and now they turned 

into the people that we are now fighting -- we are calling them terrorists.

 Interestingly enough, too, now in the Iraq-Iranian war, silently and 

tacitly we supported Saddam Hussein because of the extremists that took over 

Iran and captured American prisoners and so forth and so forth, and now then 

Saddam Hussein became the bad guy and we took him out.

 Now, here's the question: In this massive world of 1.3 billion 

Muslims, with obviously an avant garde Osama bin Laden and his terrorist 

organizations and other terrorist organizations springing up -- and, Dr. 

Sageman, did you say in many ways Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda kind of got a 

jump start after the desert war in 1991?

 I'd like to read to you a question -- an actual statement of 

Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, who is on the Foreign Relations 

Committee, and my fellow Vietnam veteran, a statement that he made before the 

National Press Club June 19, 2003, because what I am trying to get at here, is 

you all described a milieu in which the United States functions either well or 

ill, particularly in this troubled part of the world, the Middle East, Senator 

Hagel says, "The June 2003 survey of the Pew" -- P-E-W -- "Global Attitudes 

Project should be an arousing alarm clock, not merely a wake-up call to all 

Americans regarding the perception of America in the world today."

 You're talking about America not getting credit, no gratitude and so 

forth. The Pew project relied on public opinion surveys from 44 nations in the 

summer and fall of last year and further data from 21 countries in April and May 

of this year for a total survey sample of 54,000 people.

 The survey finds a disconcerting message regarding American leadership 

and credibility. From the Pew poll Senator Hagel quotes, the Iraq war has 

widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the 

Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly 

weakened global support for the pillars of the post-World War II era, the U.N. 

and the North Atlantic Alliance.
28

 Isn't that the kind of news that Osama bin Laden and the radical 

Islamic extremists would welcome? And isn't that actually creating more 

problems for us, more terrorism, more potential for attacks against the West?

And isn't this bad news? And is the Iraq war making it more difficult to get 

after the terrorists, or is it making it easier, especially since we're there 

with a quarter of a million troops in Kuwait and Iraq, with no end in sight and 

no exit strategy? Dr. Gunaratna?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, terrorists themselves cannot master large- scale 

support. They do not have the organization to do that. It is often the whole 

reaction of states, of state actors, that lead to the generation of large-scale 

support. That is why, when we fight terrorist organizations, we must ensure 

that there is no overreaction or there is no under-reaction, because if we do 

not react properly to a terrorist group, the terrorists will think we are weak 

and they will attack us.

 That is why, after U.S.S. Cole, no effort -- at least when East Africa 

was attacked, you fired 70 cruise missiles. It did not have a positive 

impact. But after U.S.S. Cole, you did not do anything. So it is important for 

there to be some action. But there must not be underreaction or overreaction.

 The overreaction to 9/11 was U.S. intervention in Iraq. Iraq never 

posed a direct and immediate threat to the United States. It was al Qaeda and 

the associate groups of al Qaeda that posed a direct and immediate threat to the 

United States. So U.S. intervention in Iraq, to get rid of one man, you invaded 

his country. It was, again, the failure of the intelligence community to get 

rid of that one man.

 You do not have to risk all those troops by going into a country to get 

rid of one man. You said that we took him out. You're referring to Saddam 

Hussein. You said, "We took him out." No, sir, you have not taken him out. He 

is still there. He's still challenging you. As long as the core and the 

penultimate leadership of any government or any organization, whether in exile 

or not, is active, that organization will pose a threat to you.

 So what we are looking at is U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was fully 

justified. People fully supported you. But your intervention in Iraq, you have 

not received that scale of support. In fact, that intervention has not earned 

good will toward America. It has earned some criticism and some displeasure.

And the terrorist organizations will harness that displeasure and that 

resentment and that anger in the Muslim world, and they will grow in strength 

and size and they will become a greater threat to you with time.

 By going into Iraq, you have not reduced the threat of terrorism to the 

United States in any way.

 MR. CLELAND: And, in your opinion, maybe increased it?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Certainly. Saddam Hussein, with finance and perhaps 

with access to certain special weapons, may be a greater threat today than he 

was in power in that country. We could have had a different attitude, a 

different response to him at that time, than in a day like today.

 MR. CLELAND: And we have 240,000 soldiers at risk in Kuwait and Iraq 

now.
29

 MR. GUNARATNA: So also we must look at the picture, the overall 

picture in the Middle East. Overnight, the United States has become the 

immediate neighbor of Iran and of Syria, and we must never forget that in 1983 

Iranian-sponsored Lebanese Hizbollah attacked; conducted a coordinated, 

simultaneous suicide attack against the French and the American bases. You lost 

241 American troops, which was the single biggest loss you suffered in such an 

attack prior to 9/11.

 MR. CLELAND: That was Lebanon, right?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Yes, Lebanon. MR. CLELAND: The Khobar Towers.

 MR. GUNARATNA: No, no, sir. I am referring to the attack on the U.S. 

Marine barracks in Beirut.

 MR. CLELAND: Yes.

 MR. GUNARATNA: Hizbollah conducted a suicide attack. The point that I 

want to make here is that the disposition of Iran and toward Syria has not 

dramatically changed toward the United States. Today the United States is the 

immediate neighbor of Iran and Syria. You are in an area where you do not have 

very good friends.

 MR. KEAN: We've got --

 MR. CLELAND: Dr. Sageman?

 MR. SAGEMAN: Very short. Basically, Senator, you've increased the 

pool of potential terrorists, but you still --

 MR. CLELAND: Increased the pool of potential terrorists?

 MR. SAGEMAN: But you still need to make the linkage for Osama bin 

Laden to be able to tap into it. He still needs that link. There is no direct 

translation from anger against the United States to being a terrorist. You 

still need the training. You still need the resources. And unless you have 

that link, you're not going to increase terrorists.

 MR. CLELAND: Thank you. Professor Fandy.

 MR. FANDY: I think I have the opposite view on this one. Osama bin 

Laden and Saddam Hussein and Ayman Zawahiri are born in the Arab and Muslim 

context. And after people in Iraq saw the mass graves that Saddam Hussein left, 

actually there is a change of opinion. What we need is the support of states to 

actually come out and condemn Saddam Hussein for what he did to the Iraqi 

people.

 I think the American presence in the region is reassuring for its 

stability. There is no single state on its own. And we've seen in 1990, we 

waited for the Arab solution for the reversal of the invasion of Iraq to Kuwait; 

it never materialized. I think it is the responsibility of the superpower to 

ensure the stability of that part of the world.

 I think taking out Saddam Hussein and his regime will encourage Arab 

states to become part of a regional arrangement for peace solutions that 

regulates relationship amongst all the Middle Eastern states. And also as we 

push within the new agenda of reform, we can regulate the relationship between 
30

governments and their own people. And with a package like this, probably we can 

-- (inaudible) -- if you will, for the issue of terrorism. I'm not sure that 

that will increase the risks. I think the biggest story during the Iraq war is 

that there was no -- throughout, there was an Arab country, a major country, 

being attacked; its leadership has been changed. I have yet to hear of one 

attack on a single soft target for America during that war. That was the 

biggest story. There was tacit support for that war in the people -- on the 

part of the people who were concerned.

 Syria draws a lesson from this war. Iran is drawing lessons from this 

war. All the neighborhood are drawing lessons from this war. People know now 

that America is a Middle Eastern country, if you will. It has borders with Syria 

and whatever it is, and it can attend even Arab League meetings. So it is -- 

now the Middle East is our responsibility. We have to fix it. We cannot worry 

about -- we cannot leave -- we cannot afford to fail in the Iraq.

 MR. CLELAND: Young Americans are being killed every day. And it seems 

like in a few weeks more Americans will have been killed after the president, in 

effect, declared victory than during the actual combat. And this seems to be 

unending. That seems to me to look more like Vietnam and Somalia than Desert I.

And I just wonder if you feel -- how long is this going to go on? How many 

Americans are we going to lose before this thing gets cleared up?

 MR. FANDY: I think there is a threshold in terms of what kind of 

numbers can we afford. But it is very important to get Middle Eastern states 

themselves to stand by us shoulder to shoulder, that indeed they support this 

operation. Thus far we do not have the open support, and we need to get that.

 Secondly, I think we are ambiguous about Iraq like we are ambiguous 

about everything else. Iraqis and Middle Easterners want to hear probably from 

America that we own Iraq for the next three years and come back to us after 

three years and we'll give it to you. But right now nobody knows when will 

America leave this force of occupation.

 So that whole ambiguous atmosphere, that's not clear; it's creating 

in the minds of many Iraqis that this might go for a long, long time. We need 

to give these people a timetable as to when we're going to put together an Iraqi 

government and when we are leaving.

 MR. CLELAND: Well, right now the Third Infantry Division out of Fort 

Stewart, Georgia owns part of Iraq, and some of those are getting killed every 

day. It's one of my concerns.

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Senator. We're running out of time, so 

I'll ask the commissioners to ask a quick question, and if you could confine 

your answers as concisely as possible. Senator Gorton.

 MR. GORTON: One specific question. One or more of you used the phrase 

"failed states" in connection with at least part of the Middle East and 

Southeast Asia. And I suppose if there were a gold medal for failed states, it 

would be Somalia. And several of you have mentioned that Somalia, of course, 

now is a source or a base for terrorism.

 What would your advice be to the United States with respect to its 

views toward Somalia? Should we be attempting anything there to bring 
31

democracy, justice, a reduction of a terrorist base in that most failed of all 

states?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, the United States must work with the other states 

in the Horn of Africa trying to bring stability in Somalia. Already al Qaeda 

maintains a presence in Somalia. A few months ago the CIA took a very important 

al Qaeda man out of Somalia. Of course, that operation was successful because 

the CIA was able to work with a certain faction in Somalia that cooperated with 

the U.S. government.

 I believe that the other governments in the Horn of Africa will assist 

and work together with the United States to ensure that stability is restored in 

Somalia. It is very important to do what it takes to prevent countries from 

failing, because it is in such countries that terrorist organizations will base 

themselves. Terrorists are like sharks. They repeatedly move in search of such 

opportunities where there is a lack of law and order and where they can recruit, 

establish training camps, and continue to fight.

 MR. GORTON: Any other comments? MR. FANDY: I think Somalia is 

paramount for the United States; from the history of the Cold War until today, 

strategically important. During the Cold War it was strategically important.

Somalia -- (inaudible) -- and all that trade in the Red Sea. It's very 

important for us strategically, but also it's very important to show that indeed 

America cares. And we do care.

 I think we cared about the Muslim world in Europe, and we have not made 

the case for that. It is very important to make the case that also we care in 

putting together another Muslim country and make it work. Otherwise I would 

agree with my colleague that it will be safe haven for all these terrorist 

organizations.

 MR. SAGEMAN: Well, let me put a little spoke in those wheels. Despite 

being a failed state, Somalia still cooperated with the CIA in arresting that al 

Qaeda officer. It's not so much the failed state, because there are a lot of 

failed states in Africa, and they don't really seem to be all that promoting 

terrorism. They have their own problems; Congo, for instance, being one, or 

even Nigeria, but Nigeria is not a failed state.

 The point is that even in failed states you can work with various 

factions. It's not the failed state itself. It's really the failed state that 

allows training bases to be there for skills and resources to develop, to 

develop large terrorist operation. You can very well work with the various 

factions in failed states to prevent that from happening. So, it's not so much 

a failed state itself, it's the opportunity that they allow in terms of 

developing those bases.

 MR. GORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. Commissioner Ben-Veniste.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to commend 

the staff for assembling a series of panel, this panel in particular, for 

providing us with a very stimulating discussion this morning.

 I would like to like to pick up on the subject of the future of 

terrorism and -- which is, of course, a central issue to our mandate as a 

commission -- and address my question to Professor Fandy, who talked earlier 
32

about the importance of winning the peace in Iraq. And I would like you to 

comment on Dr. Sageman's statement that it was the U.S. force deployment in 

Saudi Arabia following Gulf War I that substantially stimulated the growth of al 

Qaeda. On the one hand, we have this set in motion by reason of the invasion of 

Iraq a full menu of disparate forces within that country seeking hegemony or at 

least a substantial say in the future of Iraq. We have the Kurds in the north, 

the interests of the Turks, the Shi'as in the south, the influence of Iran to be 

dealt with, the clerical movement that is strong and afoot, the disenfranchised 

and unemployed Sunnis who were formerly in power and that now don't have a 

paycheck, many of them from the army. All of this militates for our need to 

stay the course and sort all of this out.

 Yet, at the same time, our mere presence in Iraq in these very 

substantial numbers stimulates the recruitment of jihadists, if not to al Qaeda 

but to other groups which may not yet be on our collective screens as we go 

forward.

 How do we deal with this dichotomy of it being both a benefit to have 

removed this tyrant and yet at the same time unleashing forces in that part of 

the world which will, perhaps, as we have heard today, greatly stimulate the 

recruitment and growth of other jihadist movements?

 MR. FANDY: Well, sir, the question is if we zero in on Iraq and look 

at the very specific data about Iraq, we know that really in Iraq we do not have 

a problem that's a, in Kurdistan. America does not have a problem in Kurdistan.

In fact, you know, the Kurds were celebrating the U.S. independence day, and 

like -- I mean, there was a huge celebration --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: The Turks were not celebrating --

 MR. FANDY: The Turks were not celebrating next door.

 There's also a general stereotype that the Shi'a of the South are very 

much influenced by Iran and very much can turn the whole thing sour. In fact, 

the level of terrorism in the southern part of Iraq is very limited. The leader 

of the Shi'a, Sheikh al-Hakim, Bakqr al-Hakim, and others put out at least 

moderate statements about their view of the change of forces in Iraq.

 The problem of Iraq is really about the Sunni center that lost its 

control of power over the 30 years of Saddam's rule and before. These are the 

people who are kicking and screaming for that change of power distribution 

inside Iraq. So, to really exaggerate that question and make it -- this is the 

question of the whole Iraq, there are a variety of attitudes in Iraq about the 

U.S. I would say the most recent polls that I read, it was only 20 percent were 

not grateful. The rest of the Iraqis saw the United States as a liberating 

force --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, without delving too deeply because we don't 

have the time, would it be fair to say that without the United States military 

presence, we would be in the situation, or Iraq would be in a situation where it 

would be very likely that all of these elements would soon be at each other 

throats? My question goes to Dr. Sageman's observation, and perhaps Dr. 

Gunaratna shares this in view of his earlier comments, that this has provided a 

very substantial recruiting poster, if you will, given the history of 

recruitment post the deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia following the 

Gulf War for future jihadist and militant and vicious attacks on our own 

populations? MR. FANDY: The different -- the different poster -- the poster 
33

that people read also in the region, that the United States is here and here to 

change bad regimes that committed huge crimes against their own peoples. And 

there are also a lot of recruitment for that that's going on.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: So, there may be a win-win situation for the 

jihadists and the pro-American sentiments, such as -- (inaudible) --

 MR. FANDY: I think the jihadists are the losers in the Iraq thing. I 

think it shows that the United States is capable and willing to commit its force 

to actually -- after September 11th, the whole strategic environment changed, 

that we are forceful about the deployment of our force -- we're no longer 

reluctant. And that is a very strong message.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Could we have a brief comment from each of the other 

two?

 MR. GUNARATNA: Sir, I disagree. I believe that Iraq has the potential 

to become the new theater for jihadists, to psychologically and physically for 

them to train and to conduct operations against the United States, its allies 

and its friends. And I believe that the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq -- 

Syrian and Iran has not done much, and I believe that these fighters are now 

coming mostly from North Africa, from the Middle East, and with time there will 

be people who will come from Asia, from Europe, the cradle and the convert 

Muslims from the Caucuses. And unless the United States takes decisive to stem, 

to control the flow of these foreign fighters and also to stabilize the 

situation in Iraq, Iraq will become a very important, a very significant theater 

for these jihadists.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Do you prescribe more force?

 MR. GUNARATNA: More force, and also more opportunity.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Smarter force?

 MR. GUNARATNA: And also more diplomacy. More diplomacy. You have to 

target and destroy Saddam Hussein and his key people who are inside that 

country. You have to deal with Iran and Syrian in such a way, where the flow of 

these foreign fighters will be blocked. If you do not do that, you will 

continue to have more U.S. troops dying in Iraq every day, and the number will 

increase.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Dr. Sageman, do you agree?

 MR. SAGEMAN: No. Actually, I sit on the fence. Before you can have 

almost offered me a job here; now you can offer me Paul Bremer's job. Thank 

you. I think the two scenarios are plausible. And Iraq is both a threat and a 

promise. And that really very much depends on what Paul Bremer is going to do.

They're very likely, both of them. And at this point it's two early to tell 

which one will unfold. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: I know there are four other commissioners who have 

questions, but we're 25 minutes over the panel, so we've got to say at this 

point, I apologize to the commissioners, their questions, and say thank you all 

very, very much, and we appreciate very much your appearance.

MR. KEAN: Okay, if we could call the hearing back to order. Yeah, I've 

got a gavel. I'll use the gavel. (Gavels.)
34

 As we all know, the United States has designated a number of states, 

including Iraq, Iran and Syria, as state sponsors of terrorism. The 

difficulties in assessing the attitudes and policies of these states toward al 

Qaeda are the tasks of our next panel. Addressing these very complex subjects 

will be two noted experts on Saddam Hussein's Iraq: Dr. Laurie Mylroie, author 

of "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America," and Dr.

Judith Yaphe, Middle East Project Director at the Institution for National 

Strategic Studies of the National Defense University. Dr. Murhaf Jouejati, 

scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute, will consider Syria. Mark -- 

make sure I get this right -- Gasiorowski --

 MR. GASIOROWSKI: Yes.

 MR. KEAN: -- professor of political science at Louisiana State 

University will tackle the equally complex job of assessing Iranian attitudes 

toward al Qaeda. Ms. Mylroie.

 MS. MYLROIE: Thank you very much for the invitation to address you 

this morning.

 A major policy and intelligence failure occurred in the 1990s, namely 

the emergence of a serious misunderstanding about the nature of major terrorist 

attacks on the United States. Prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade 

Center, it was assumed that all major attacks against the United States were 

state-sponsored. The Trade Center bombing is said to mark the start of a new 

kind of terrorism that does not involve states, and that is simply not true.

 And what I'm going to say to you is going to be different than you 

heard earlier this morning, and that's because the information on which I am 

basing these evaluations is the evidence from the trials rather than the 

intelligence. And because terrorism throughout the '90s was treated as a law 

enforcement issue, that evidence, I would suggest, is more important, more 

relevant, and more reliable in understanding the terrorist threat.

 I'll speak briefly about three plots: the '93 Trade Center bombing, the 

'95 plot to bomb a dozen U.S. airplanes in the Philippines, and 9/11. My focus 

will be on the masterminds -- individuals like Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh 

Mohammad. My point will be: we do not know who these people are. Their 

identities are all based on documents in Kuwait that pre-date its liberation in 

1991, and those documents are not reliable because Iraqi intelligence was there 

for seven months. Indeed, there is substantial reason to believe that these 

masterminds are Iraqi intelligence agents.

 Now, the '93 bombing of the Trade Center is supposed to be the start of 

a new, stateless terrorism. But New York FBI, the lead investigative agency, its 

director, Jim Fox, believed that Iraq was behind the bomb. Why? It was huge.

It was meant to topple one tower on to the other, and it left a crater six 

stories deep in the basement floors. Fox's background was counter-intelligence, 

and he believed that the individuals he was arresting immediately after the 

bombing, like the 26-year-old Palestinian Mohammad Salama, who was detained as 

he returned to the Ryder rental agency for his deposit on the van that carried 

the bomb. These individuals alone could not have carried out such an attack.

There were also Iraqis all around the fringe of the plot. One of them, Abdul 

Rahman Yasin, came from Baghdad before the bombing, returned afterwards. He's 

still an indicted fugitive. Also, see Salama's many phone calls to Iraq at a 

crucial early stage of the plot, which are part of my testimony. That's 
35

government exhibit 824, a page from Salama's phone bill, evidence from his 

trial.

 But the key point is the identity of the mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, 

without whom that bomb could not have been built. He entered the United States 

on an Iraqi passport in the name of Ramzi Yousef, and fled the night of the 

Trade Center bombing on a Pakistani passport in the name of Abdel Basit Karim.

There really was an individual Abdel Basit Karim, born and raised in Kuwait. He 

graduated high school, then went to study in Britain, got his degree in June of 

'89, and returned to Kuwait. And apparently he was still there a year later 

when Iraq invaded. Yousef obtained the passport on which he fled New York by 

going to the Pakistani consulate with Xerox copies of the 1984 and 1988 

passports of Abdel Basit Karim saying he was Karim, he had lost his passport, 

and he needed a new one to get home. The consulate didn't like the 

documentation, but nonetheless gave him a temporary passport, and that's the 

passport on which Yousef fled. The copies of Karim's passport that Yousef 

presented to the consulate were also evidence in the trial. If you look at 

government exhibits 739 C and B, you'll see the first two pages of those 

passports. You can look at the signatures, and you'll see that they're 

radically different.

 Also, a Pakistani address has spaces for a permanent address in 

Pakistan and a present address in Pakistan. The present address in those 

passports is blank because the family lived in Kuwait. But the permanent 

address has changed. The permanent address is, in a Pakistani passport, the 

family's place of origin. By definition, it doesn't change. But in the 1984 

passport, it says Karachi; the '88 passport, Baluchistan. The signature is 

different. The permanent addresses are different. Those documents went through 

a scanner.

 And similar problem exists with Karim's file in Kuwait. As a routine 

matter, Kuwait's interior ministry maintained a resident alien file on Karim.

Information was taken out. There should have been front -- Xerox copies of the 

front pages of passports with the signature, the picture, et cetera. The 

Kuwaitis recognized that that was missing because of Iraq's occupation. What 

they didn't realize was that the whole file was corrupted. Information was 

added. There was a notation that Abdul Basit Karim and his family left Kuwait 

on August 26th, 1990, traveling from Kuwait to Iraq, crossing to Iran at 

Salancha on the way to Pakistani Baluchistan where they live now. But no one 

gives his whole itinerary when he crosses a border. That information doesn't 

belong in the file. Moreover, on that day, there was an Iraqi army of 

occupation -- no Kuwaiti government. The Iraqis put that information into Abdul 

Basit Karim's file.

 Finally, Yousef's fingerprints are in that file. But everyone's 

fingerprints are unique, so that can mean only one of two things: Yousef's real 

identity is Abdul Basit Karim, or someone switched the fingerprint cards.

 I met with Karim's teachers in Britain for a whole variety of reasons, 

including that Yousef is tall and Abdul Basit Karim was medium to short -- two 

different heights. Karim's teachers believe, as do I, that their student is not 

the bomber, that the student died in Kuwait, and that Ramzi Yousef assumed his 

identity.

 And if Yousef is not Karim, that means a file in Kuwait was tampered 

with, including switching the fingerprint cards for the evident purpose of 

creating a false identity for a terrorist.
36

 You're all aware of the practices of Soviet-style intelligence 

agencies. Agents not attached to an embassy are called illegals, and it's 

standard practice to develop false identities or legends for illegals.

Reasonably, only Iraq could have tampered with Karim's file in Kuwait, including 

switching the fingerprint cards, while it occupied Kuwait. Iraqi intelligence 

created a legend for an illegal, and that's the significance of Karim's file.

 Now, in '95, Yousef was involved in a plot to bomb a dozen U.S. 

airplanes in the Philippines. Arrested with him was an individual known as 

Abdul Hakim Murad. Murad is supposed to be Yousef's childhood friend from 

Kuwait. And, like Yousef, Murad is also Baluch. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was 

indicted for that plot, too. Mohammed escaped and went on to head al Qaeda's 

military committee after al Qaeda moved to Afghanistan, and he masterminded the 

9/11 attacks. Mohammed is supposed to be Yousef's maternal uncle, but his 

identity like that of Yousef and Murad is based on what he himself has told 

other people, and documents in Kuwait that predate Kuwait's liberation from 

Iraq. Neither are reliable. We don't necessarily know who Mohammad is.

 Now, U.S. authorities understand the three other, quote, "relatives" of 

Yousef -- two older brothers and a younger cousin -- there is a chart on the 

back of my written statement -- they are also key al Qaeda figures. The 

brothers, and perhaps the cousin, were also born and raised in Kuwait and their 

identities, too, rest on Kuwaiti documents. Notably, these people are all 

Baluch, Sunni Muslim people living in eastern Iran and western Pakistan. Iraqi 

intelligence has long-standing ties with the Baluch. It used them against Iran.

 Prior to the Trade Center bombing, no Baluch was involved in terrorism 

against the United States. Yes, there's nothing to do with them. And no Baluch 

organization is on the State Department's terrorism list. Why should Baluch 

attach the United States, except for the link to Iraqi intelligence?

 It's essentially the claim now of U.S. authorities that the core of the 

murderous terrorist attacks from the Trade Center bombing to 9/11, at that core

is a particularly talented and murderous Baluch family. Yousef, his friends, 

his uncle, two brothers, and a cousin. Yet there is another explanation. This 

is not a family. Rather they are Baluch illegals given legends by Iraqi 

intelligence on the basis of documents in Kuwait.

 Recently I asked an Israeli retired from the number two position in 

military intelligence which made more sense: "Is this a murderous family or 

illegals with legends?" He replied: "It's obvious. It's obvious that these are 

illegals with legends."

 There's a major lapse in the investigation to take these identities at 

face value. That question must be pursued, and there are suggestions about 

doing that in my written statement. The odds are high that these people are not 

whom they claim to be, and demonstrating that would constitute a clear link 

between Iraq and the 9/11 attack, as reasonably only Iraq could have created 

these legends while it occupied Kuwait. That would also demonstrate that there 

is no new kind of terrorism that does not involve states. This terrorism was 

part of a war that did not end with the 1991 cease-fire, but continues to this 

day. Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: Dr. Yaphe.
37

 MS. YAPHE: Thank you very much inviting me. I want to thank the 

committee very much for inviting me to testify. And for purposes of full 

disclosure -- you may know this already, but let me state it for the record -- I 

worked for more than 20 years for the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior 

analyst on Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf. I continue to follow this in my career 

now, where I am at National Defense University. The comments and analysis that 

I am offering are my own. They don't represent the Agency, they don't represent 

the Department of Defense, or the University. And I say that for pretty obvious 

reasons.

 My testimony focuses on the role and actions of Iraq as a state sponsor 

of terrorism under the control of Saddam Hussein. Iraq under Saddam was a major 

state sponsor of international terrorism. They almost wrote the book, and I've 

read the books that have been written. Iraq under Saddam was an active sponsor 

of terrorist groups, providing safe haven, training, arms, logistical support -- 

requiring in exchange that the groups carry out operations ordered by Baghdad 

for Saddam's objectives. Terrorist groups were not permitted to have offices, 

recruitment, or training facilities, or freely use Iraqi territory under the 

regime's control without explicit permission from Saddam. To mix a metaphor, if 

you took Iraq's shilling, you did Iraq's bidding -- or Saddam's bidding, more 

directly.

 Saddam used foreign terrorist groups and terrorism as instruments of 

foreign policy. Groups hosted by Saddam were denied protection. If he wanted to 

improve relations with a neighboring country and encourage to attack the same 

countries when Saddam wanted to pressure them. If they refused Saddam's 

requests, they were exiled. Now, conventional wisdom casts Saddam as a 

terrorist, a primary consumer of the terrorist tactics and methods, and an enemy 

of the United States. And that is all true. Conventional wisdom describes Iraq 

under Saddam as a primary state sponsor of international terrorism, and that is 

all true. If the mathematics is correct, then the conventional conclusion must 

be that Saddam and Iraq are responsible for acts of terrorism against the United 

States, going back to the 1993 Trade Towers attack to perhaps 9/11.

 Furthermore, this argument would say Saddam and al Qaeda leader Osama 

bin Laden cooperated in planning and conducting operations on U.S. targets.

These assessments are incorrect in my personal view and in my professional 

judgment as a scholar and intelligence officer on Iraq.

 Simply put, Saddam Hussein supported extremist groups that would 

respond to his orders and work against his enemy. This unfortunately does not 

make him the primary suspect or the eminence gris for al Qaeda's attacks on the 

United States.

Now, there are a couple of truths to keep in mind. He used terrorism to 

intimidate Iraqis at home and abroad, and he did that, as we all know, very 

well. We know by the way we have an unsolved murder in McLean of an Iraqi 

businessman. That was almost certainly an act of an Iraqi intelligence officer, 

and a very good one. Now, could there have been an al Qaeda connection? Oh, 

let me before I do that let me -- some other truths. The reasons to do that, to 

support Iraq's revolutionary credentials and ensure his own role as a great Arab 

leader, intimidate rival leaders and governments, he gave safe haven and 

training to a wide range of groups, the Abu Nidal group, the Popular Front for 

the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of 

Palestine, a Hawari group. He created the Arab Liberation Front as a personal 

surrogate in the war, which he used recently to pledge $25,000 to every martyr 

in the intifada against Israel.
38

 Abu Nidal is one of the primary evidences. He urged Abu Nidal to 

attack Hafez al Assad, his primary rival for Arab leadership and Ba'athist 

leadership. He also encouraged attacks -- we've heard a lot about the Muslim 

Brotherhood this morning -- they were also a group he liked. He used the Syrian 

faction, but only against Syria. Other than that, Saddam was not interested in 

religious-based Islamic extremists, because he knew he was their next target 

after they finished their primary target. And I would argue that spreads itself 

to al Qaeda, which Saddam certainly was aware had him on their list after he got 

the Americans out of Saudi Arabia, after the ruling families in the Gulf were 

liberated, Saddam would have been next on his list of undesirables to be 

replaced.

 And you know what's interesting, because we have seen Sabri al Banna, 

Abu Nidal, in and out of Iraq for several years. When he refused to cooperate 

with Baghdad on attacks against Syria, he was told to leave. He came back again 

later when he was found to be useful. He died last summer, almost a year ago, 

of four gunshot wounds to the head. The Iraqis describe this as suicide. I 

don't think so. I would imagine that Saddam decided to remove the evidence of 

his links to one of the most notorious of international terrorists at a time 

when the United States was increasing pressure on him to reveal weapons of mass 

destruction and accusing him of sponsoring al Qaeda. What could be more 

convenient?

 Abu Abbas. Remember Abu Abbas, the Achille Lauro? He also lived for 

many years, and still did up until the war, in Iraq, and threatened targets 

during the intifada, just a year ago, from Iraq. Saddam again helped many 

others. But to show how this was a policy, beside the Palestinians, they are 

targeting the Israeli Jewish, Western and moderate Arab targets. In the 1980s, 

he sheltered the anti-Turkish PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party.

 When he wanted to pressure Turkey he let them go loose against the 

Turks. When he wanted to be nice to Turkey, he let them cross the border in hot 

pursuit to eliminate the PKK. He sheltered the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, the Iranian 

anti-regime group which helped him in his fight against us. He supported their 

attacks against Iran when it was to his benefit, and on occasion, he would 

threaten to close them down when he wanted to get closer to Tehran for whatever 

reasons.

 Now, Saddam's security services and surrogates were successful in 

certain areas, especially internal, especially defectors, especially businessmen 

abroad who were kind of sloppy. But the security services showed little success 

in planning or ordering operations against foreign targets. Palestinian 

dependents refused to launch operations against us in the prelude up to the Gulf 

War in late 1990, early '91. They failed to get their own agents abroad to 

conduct attacks on the eve of that war. They were all arrested as they got off 

the plane. Very sloppy tradecraft. And their attempt to assassinate President 

George Herbert Walker Bush I think was another example of incompetence on their 

part.

 Now, the al Qaeda connection, to move swiftly along: Did Iraq need al 

Qaeda? Probably Saddam might have liked a group like that, but I don't think he 

would have needed them. I've said given the reasons why I thought -- and it is 

in my testimony -- I think he saw him as a threat, Osama as a threat, rather 

than as a potential partner. Do Osama and al Qaeda need Iraq? I would disagree 

with my colleague. I don't think they did. I think the groups were and remain 

global in scope, compartmented in design and membership, in organizational 
39

infrastructure and operational planning. Many of the leaders are well educated 

-- you had that all this morning in earlier testimony. They operate on a needto-know principle. It's not one just restricted to the intelligence community, 

the Soviets. The Muslim Brotherhood used it. The Muslim Brotherhood was 

effective. You've heard a lot about them. I would simply point out that they 

never needed state support -- state sponsorship -- to conduct their activities.

 So we have questionable assumptions. I find troubling the use of 

circumstantial evidence and a corresponding lack of credible evidence. To jump 

to conclusions on Iraqi support for al Qaeda, I will look for credible, reliable 

records, open sources from the community, or clandestine. Now, I worked on 

terrorism, in the Counterterrorism Center for three years. I know the kind of 

information you get. Nice people, heroes of their country, do not give you 

information. They are not patriots, they are not untarnished sources. They are 

people who do this stuff, people who do terrorism that you have to deal with. 

And you have to use your skills -- especially hard to sort out truth from 

fiction, who has a grudge, who is trying to convince you of something for their 

purposes. I don't think that guilt by circumstance should trouble anyone. I 

think it should trouble us. I think the chain of evidence is not good. And I 

would also say that because a person or an agency or a government does not agree 

with one's assumptions, it does not mean they are mistaken, stupid, or 

deliberately obstructive. It means we have a trouble in gathering intelligence, 

in gathering proper evidence, and we need to be careful.

 Let me go quickly to just a few other points that I wanted to make in 

my few minutes remaining. The unwillingness of Saddam and Osama to consider 

cooperation is not because they had different sects -- one's Sunni, one's Shi'a 

-- or different ideologies. Saddam was no ideologue. I think the point again 

was I think it was more of a danger to Saddam. It was a risk he didn't need to 

take. And I don't think that the evidence -- now, I do want to point just 

briefly, because we have had a very interesting turn of events just this morning 

announced, and that was the arrest of one of the al Qaeda -- excuse me, the 

Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague who was supposed to have met with Mohammad 

Atta. Now, evidence about those meetings I think we have an excellent 

opportunity to find out if they took place. We also have in our control the 

Iraqi intelligence officer, the senior operative who was also an ambassador in 

Turkey, Tunisia, and Jordan, who allegedly went to Kabul and met with Osama both 

then and in Sudan in 1994, and that's Farouk Hijazi. And I don't see we've seen 

any evidence of his interrogation either, but we have them in custody.

 My point would be simply this -- and maybe it's not so simple -- that I 

would expect an intelligence agent to have contact with any organization -- I 

don't care if it would be al Qaeda, the Soviets, or any one who was willing to 

operate against the United States. I'd be disappointed. They wouldn't be doing 

their jobs. His purpose would have been to assess intent, operational 

capability, and recruitment potential. It would not have been sufficient for 

both to just simply hate the United States. Saddam always demanded total 

loyalty from and control over any group he supported. And I don't think al 

Qaeda would have agreed to any of that kind of subordination or control. So I 

think that complicity -- we need to talk.

 Now, this will bring me to my conclusion. I know my time is up. I have 

three simple recommendations. First, I think you have to all recognize the 

limits as well as the strengths of intelligence. It's not a science. I think 

it's an art. I especially think when you deal on Iraq and when you deal on 

these issues of terrorist infrastructures, networks, and support, you have to do 

a lot of homework, you have to read a lot, and you have to I think -- it's not 
40

all going to be a smoking gun and looking for clear evidence. That's the 

science -- it would be nice if it were that science. So I would say that, 

again, recognize the limits what can and cannot be given you. And also I think 

one has to read carefully. Always check reliability statements and do not just 

accept what is not vetted or because someone says it's true, it must be true, it 

sounds like it's true. Again, I think we all have to remember that the sources 

on any of this are not the best you'd like.

 My final plea would simply be intelligence does not make policy. Policy 

should not shape intelligence. I think one has to look very carefully. If 

anything, the metaphor of the onion and the Middle East is true: the more layers 

you peel away, the more complicated the story gets. Thank you very much.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Dr. Jouejati.

 MR. JOUEJATI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am truly very honored to be 

here today. I have but a few remarks, and I will approach Syria and terrorism 

not from the micro level, but rather from a macro level.

 President Bush, we know, stated that you are with us or you are with 

the terrorists. Ms. Condoleezza Rice stated there are no good terrorists and 

bad terrorists: terrorists are terrorists. I think the realities in the Middle 

East are bit more complex than this.

 According to the State Department definition of terrorism, terrorism 

means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against 

noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents usually 

intended to influence an audience. If that definition is correct, then groups 

such as the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front 

for the Liberation of Palestine, the PFLPGC, Hamas, and the PIJ are all 

terrorist organizations. And it so happens that Syria has hosted these 

terrorist organizations, and therefore, Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism.

 Syria has supported these groups in order to advance its objectives, 

its realpolitik objectives. It has also supported these groups for the 

furtherance of the larger Arab objectives, which is the liberation of 

territories occupied by Israel. And it has used at least some of these groups 

in order to cut down -- this is at least in the recent past -- Yasser Arafat to 

size in order to deny him the autonomy of movement that he has always sought.

 Syria of course doesn't see things this way. Syria sees these groups 

as national resistance freedom fighters; that their struggle is a legitimate 

one, which is to liberate their occupied territories. Moreover, Syria denies 

supporting these groups but claims that it hosts them by way of them having 

press offices in Syria. And, at any rate, these organizations are the 

representatives of the some 500,000 Palestinian refugees that are in Syria. But 

in reality, what is the nature of the assistance of Syria to these groups? I 

have never in my young career, my 20 years of research on Syria, have never 

found any evidence that Syria finances them, as Israelis would argue. Nor have 

I seen any evidence that would buttress the Syrian argument. In fact, I think 

Syria allows these groups, specifically the PFLPGC, to operate businesses inside 

Syria, the profits of which return back to the PFLPGC, in order to sustain its 

cause and its operations.

 There are no training camps, to my knowledge, of Hizbollah in Syria.

There are no military bases of Hizbollah. There are no offices of Hizbollah in 
41

Syria. And Syria claims that it provides Hizbollah only with moral, political 

support.

 That is difficult to believe, especially that it is a known fact 

that arms that leave Iran to Hizbollah transit through Syrian territory. And so 

Syria, in this particular instance, has at least some influence with Hizbollah 

by closing the routes at will.

 Having said that, Syria does not report any political group, any 

terrorist group, outside the Middle East. Syria is solely concerned and its 

foreign policy is centered on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But given that 

support, given that logistical support that Syria provides these organizations, 

some in the administration have voiced their concern about Syria and even have 

talked of punishing Syria for that support.

 Where there's difficulty, however, is that simultaneously Syria has 

been perhaps one of the closest partners of the United States in the war against 

al Qaeda. Syria saved Canadian and American lives. Syrian security services 

apparently have tipped off the Canadian and American authorities of an impending 

attack against Canadian and American government institutions.

 Syria again saved American lives in that it tipped off the CIA of an 

impending operation against the administrative unit of the 5th Fleet in the 

Bahrain. This information is in the public record. Syria, by providing 

information on Mohammed el Atta, on Marwan al-Shehhi, on Derkanzali, the 

financial conduit to al Qaeda, by providing this information to the CIA, has 

enabled the CIA to break-up cells in Europe.

 Syria cooperates with the CIA on al Qaeda because it has itself been a 

target; in fact, the first target of Islamic militant fundamentalism. Syria was 

nearly at a civil war at the end of the '70s and the early '80s when the Muslim 

Brotherhood wanted to unseat the Hafez al-Assad regime and to destabilize Syria.

And so Syria has been a target and does not want this brand of radical Islamic 

fundamentalism to gain any foothold in the Middle East, and especially not in 

Syria.

 But, of course, the cooperation that Syria has provided the CIA is also 

self-centered. Syria wants to improve relations with the United States. And 

Syria wants to improve relations with the U.S. not only to improve relations 

with the U.S., but also to be able to have the U.S. perhaps not on its side but 

as an impartial mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 But Syria has done a lot against al Qaeda with the United States, in 

cooperation with the United States, and clearly Syria should be rewarded for 

fighting terrorism. The problem is, if we go back to what President Bush and 

Mrs. Condoleezza Rice says, the problem is, how do we punish Syria for harboring 

terrorism and reward Syria at the same time for fighting terrorism?

 Obviously, the two are mutually exclusive. And this should tell us 

something that might be wrong with our own definition. Terrorism in the Middle 

East did not emerge in a vacuum. Terrorism is a product of military occupation, 

specifically Israel's occupation of Arab territories.

 How do we change Syria's behavior? Well, we can threaten Syria with 

political and economic sanctions. Historically that pressure has made Syria go 

in the other direction. When the U.S. and Israel struck a strategic alliance in 

the 1980s, Syria embraced the Soviet Union, or rather vice-versa. When there 
42

was the Turkish-Israeli alliance in the mid-1990s, Syria, who had been the 

foremost enemy of Iraq, opened up to Iraq. Pressure now, I fear, would throw 

Syria further into Iran's arms.

 We can threaten Syria militarily. We might get Damascus' attention 

that way. And we did. And as a result, Syria did apparently, allegedly, 

reportedly close the offices of the PFLPGC and of Hamas and the PIJ. My 

question is, how long will this be before their leaders return to Syria and open 

offices elsewhere?

 Rather -- and I have here only one suggestion, if I may, with humility 

-- rather than simply punishing Syria or simply rewarding Syria, I think the 

U.S. should show both sticks and carrots; sticks by maintaining the U.S. 

assertive tone vis-a-vis Damascus, and carrots by showing U.S. resolve in ending 

the Arab-Israeli conflict peacefully and in accordance with U.N. land-for-peace 

resolutions.

 This the U.S. can do by, one, including Syria and Lebanon in the road 

map, and this immediately, and two, by leaning on both sides to the conflict -- 

and this includes Israel -- to abide by the U.N. land-for-peace resolutions.

Once there is peace, Syria is on record as wanting to normalize diplomatic and 

other relations with Israel, and also disbanding any anti-Israel groups.

 Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: Dr. Gasiorowski.

 MR. GASIOROWSKI: I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to 

testify here. I was asked to talk about Iran's motives in supporting terrorism, 

and so I will begin with a brief overview of what Iran does along these lines 

these days and then talk about what Iran's motives are and what the decisionmaking process is that leads Iran to support terrorism or not in given cases.

And then finally I'll conclude by saying a few things about the prospects for 

change in Iran's behavior along these lines.

 So, first of all, Iranian support for terrorism. Of course, thinking 

back to the 1980s, especially the early 1980s, Iran was doing a great deal in 

the way of supporting terrorism, most importantly, supporting Hizbollah against 

the United States acting against its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, the Saudis 

and others; and in the late '80s and early '90s, assassinating Iranian exiles in 

Europe. And Iran deservedly has a very bad name for these activities.

 Iran has changed a certain amount in the past 10 years in this regard.

Most importantly, they are no longer assassinating Iranian exiles in Europe.

This ended in around 1996. And also they have stopped the behavior that they 

were pursuing in the '80s and the early '90s supporting subversive groups in the 

Persian Gulf, in Saudi Arabia, in Bahrain and Kuwait. So there have been 

important changes in recent years in Iran's behavior.

That being said, Iran clearly does still support important terrorist 

groups today. We can distinguish three categories, and there's possibly a 

fourth that Iran may be involved in.

 First of all, the groups that Iran is most closely connected with and 

most strongly supports are groups in the region that share their Shiite 

revolutionary ideology or that share ethnic connections with Iran. Of these, of 

course, the most important is Hizbollah in Lebanon, which has been closely 
43

connected with Iran since its founding in the early 1980s, and it is just simply 

blood brothers of the Iranian revolutionaries.

 Also, a very similar type of group in Iraq, the Supreme Council for the 

Islamic Revolution in Iran, SCIRI, also was founded very much with Iranian help 

in the early 1980s.

 The third group that Iran has very close long-standing ties with is the 

Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, most of whose members are ethnically Persian 

or at least related or are Shiites. They are now our friends in Afghanistan and 

we helped them or they helped us overthrow the Taliban.

 So these are the main groups that Iran is involved with; I mean to say 

the groups that Iran is most closely involved with. Each of these has changed 

quite substantially in recent years. SCIRI in Iraq is now behaving itself 

pretty well, at least by comparison with Sunni groups in Iraq. The Northern 

Alliance, as I said, has been working with us; worked with us against the 

Taliban and is now, most of its members, at least, cooperating with the 

government of Afghanistan; indeed, populating the government of Afghanistan.

Even Hizbollah in Lebanon, which has a great deal of blood, including American 

blood, on its hands, has changed quite a bit in recent years. Especially since 

the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, it has engaged in little or no 

activities that could be called terrorism, though certainly it remains a 

substantial threat along those lines. So those are the groups that Iran is most 

strongly connected with.

 Secondly, the Palestinian Islamist groups -- here we're talking about 

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- these are Sunni groups.

 These are groups that are rather far from areas of immediate concern 

for Iran. Nonetheless, Iran clearly supports these groups, perhaps less closely 

than the first category that I mentioned, but there's no question that Iran is 

involved with these groups as well. And they are, of course, today very 

actively involved in targeting Israel interests in the region.

 Thirdly, Iran has been evidently involved with Palestinian secular nonIslamist groups. The main evidence for this, as we all know, is the Karine A, 

which was a ship that about a year and a half ago that was intercepted by 

Israelis delivering weapons from Iran to the Palestinians. Certainly Iran is 

less close to these secularist groups, but there's no question that it has had 

this involvement.

 Finally, there's the question of Iran's connections with al Qaeda. The 

United States government has repeatedly charged in the last couple of years that 

al Qaeda members are taking refuge in Iran, and indeed the Iranian government 

has acknowledged this.

 However, there's never been any clear, definitive evidence that the 

Iranian government is supporting them. It might be rogue elements of the 

Iranian security forces or it may simply be that these groups are there without 

any connection with the Iranian government. This is just simply not clear.

 Secondly, Iran's motives in supporting terrorism. There are basically 

three. Historically, most important has been Iran's Shiite revolutionary 

ideology. Throughout the '80s and early '90s, when Iran was very deeply 

involved in this sort of activity, it was largely for the purposes of spreading 

its revolution.
44

 However, during the course of the 1990s, the revolutionary fervor 

dissipated quite substantially in Iran. Today, there's only a relatively small 

group of hardliners, mostly located in the Revolutionary Guards, who still care 

about exporting the revolution. And so this is now not really a major issue 

anymore other than the fact that the Iranian government has to sometimes respond 

to the interests of these hardliners.

 And in any case, the ideological motive in Iranian foreign policy 

really only applies to the first of the groups that I've talked about who share 

Iran's Shiite revolutionary ideology, not really to the others. And 

specifically, al Qaeda does not at all share Iran's revolutionary ideology. And 

this is really the main reason that people are skeptical of connections between 

the Iranian government and al Qaeda.

 Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan are strongly 

anti-Shiites. They are Sunni wahhabis. Wahhabis are very, very anti-Shi'a for 

various reasons. Al Qaeda and its affiliates have been involved in a lot of 

anti-Shiite attacks in the region. Probably something like 100 or so Shiites 

have been killed in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan in the last five or 10 

years.

 And indeed, Iran, partly for that reason, has supported anti-Taliban 

forces. Iran was by far the main supporter of the Northern Alliance before U.S. 

forces came along in late 2001 and began to work with them. Indeed, Iran almost 

went to war with the Taliban; massed 270,000 troops on Afghanistan's border in 

1998. So Iran and Qaeda and its affiliates have a long history of very bad 

relations.

 For this reason, it's pretty doubtful that the Iranian government has 

been involved with al Qaeda, though, of course, anything is possible in the 

Middle East, and I certainly wouldn't bet my retirement money that there is no 

connection there.

 There's a third possibility. It may be rogue elements of the Iranian 

security forces that have been involved with al Qaeda. I don't really know, and 

I don't even think that anybody in the U.S. intelligence community really knows.

 The second reason Iran supports terrorism, and I think more important 

these days than the first, than the ideological reason, is the tactical uses 

that terrorism provides for Iran. Terrorism can be a useful weapon for Iran.

I'll just give two very prominent examples.

 First of all, Hizbollah. Although Hizbollah has largely or entirely 

stopped its terrorist activities in recent years, it remains a very potent 

threat, very well-armed, very well-equipped, very capable of doing all kinds of 

bad things. And Iran is largely responsible for giving it these capabilities 

over the years. And clearly there's a very close working relationship.

 Many people believe Iran has nurtured this continuing capability for 

terrorism on the part of Hizbollah to serve as a form of deterrence against the 

Israelis, and perhaps to some extent against the United States. In other words, 

if Israel directly attacks Iran, Iran might turn Hizbollah loose on Israel. So 

that's a good example of how terrorism can be tactically useful for Iran.

 Much the same in a rather different way is true of Iran's continuing 

relations with groups in Afghanistan and with certain groups among Shiites in 
45

Iraq. Clearly these groups give Iran a fair amount of influence in those 

respective countries and enable Iran to do various things. So the second motive 

for supporting terrorism, then, is that it can be tactically useful. To a 

country that is not militarily very powerful, can't really stand up to countries 

like the United States and Israel, terrorism gives it a way of doing so.

 The third influence on Iran's support for terrorism are foreign policy 

constraints. And this is a negative influence. Increasingly in the last 10 

years, Iran has wanted better relations with the West for economic and 

diplomatic reasons, and Iran has long realized that its support for terrorism is 

a major obstacle to that.

 And it's indeed for this reason that Iran gave up some of the more 

drastic things that it was doing in the early 1990s -- the assassinations in 

Europe, subversive activities in the Persian Gulf Arab countries. It gave up 

these things, it seems clear, largely because it wanted better relations with 

the EU countries and with the GCC countries.

 Similarly, in the last year or so, Iran has extradited an unknown 

number of al Qaeda members, also evidently for diplomatic reasons, to defuse 

criticism from the United States.

 Very quickly, what is Iran's decision-making on these matters? It seems 

that decisions on whether or not to support terrorism are largely made at the 

very top levels. Of course, this excludes this question of al Qaeda, which may 

be supported by rogue elements of the security forces. But generally speaking, 

I think the very top leaders in Iran are responsible for these decisions, and 

specifically supreme leader Khamenei.

 That being said, I think that these decisions are the result of a 

pragmatic weighing of the pros and cons of engaging in any given terrorist 

activity for Iran. And again, I would cite as evidence Iran's decision to give 

up the assassinations in Europe, to give up subversion in Saudi Arabia and other 

GCC countries. Clearly this was a weighing by Iran of the pros and cons, and 

Iran decided to stop doing it. This suggests Iran is relatively pragmatic in 

its support for terrorism.

 So, then, finally, what are the prospects for change? I think there 

are two main things that we can look to that might lead Iran to further reduce 

its involvement in terrorism; first of all, a positive outcome in the domestic 

power struggle that has been raging for a long time in Iran. I think if the 

reformist faction led by President Khatami were to come to power, which doesn't 

seem very likely these days, we would see a substantial change and Iran would 

really move toward fully normalizing its relations with the U.S. and with the 

West.

 Secondly, I think the other major prospect for change is that I think 

there is a fair amount that the United States could do to offer Iran both 

positive and negative incentives to stop its further support for terrorism.

I'll leave it to the State Department to decide what to do along those lines, 

but I would say certainly both carrots and sticks would be appropriate here.

 Thank you very much.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir. Commissioner Lehman.
46

 MR. LEHMAN: Yes. First I would like to join my colleague and friend, 

Tim Roemer, in commending the chairman and vice chairman for what's been 

achieved.

 While it's good that some of our commissioners continue to look at the 

empty part of the glass on what's been achieved, I think the updates from our 

task forces yesterday leave no doubt that our chairman and vice chairman have 

succeeded in getting access to more sensitive information, important 

information, and information essential for us to do our job than any commission 

in history.

 We have the broadest mandate in history, and I think we have obtained 

access greater than any commission in history. There's still more to be done, 

but there's certainly no doubt in my mind that not only are we succeeding in 

doing the job that Congress gave us, but that we will succeed very effectively 

in producing what the country expects of us. So, thank you.

 I would like to also commend the previous panel in setting, I think, 

the right insight for the way we look at this issue, particularly the subject of 

your panel, that what we face here is not a clash of civilizations, but, in 

fact, an Islamic civil war and one in which we must take sides and we must force 

our friends also to take sides. Tthat the phenomenon is one of jihadism. It has 

many manifestations, the most well-organized and recently effective of which was 

al Qaeda, but that is not the only one. And if we succeed in continuing to 

dismantle and destroy it, that is not going to solve our problem.

 So as we look at state sponsorship of terrorism, I think we ought to 

question -- and I'd like to get the views of each of the panelists on what has 

come to be the rubric, really, set by the State Department's annual report on 

terrorism, as much too narrowly defined.

 We note, for instance, that in each of your testimony that each of the 

state sponsors of terrorism that you have addressed have their own particular 

interest in why they are doing it. And some support some groups; others support 

other groups. And then, of course, there is one of the biggest issues in its 

absence from the list is the Saudi role in this Islamic civil war.

 There seems to be little doubt that much of the funding for many of 

these terrorist groups, whether you say it's entirely unintentional or some 

intention, has flowed from Saudi sources. The 300-some schools and mosques 

supported by the Saudis around the world preach a kind of wahhabi fanaticism 

that is certainly fertile ground for recruiting of terrorists. Yet this doesn't 

fit into our rubric of what state sponsorship is.

 And when I hear people describe how benign the Syrians currently are 

and the Iranians currently are, and I think back to how effectively both of 

their governments cooperated in putting together that attack on our Marines in 

Beirut and the fact that most of the principals who carried out that attack, an 

attack for which we never retaliated and, as far as I know, have no plans to 

retaliate against, are still operating, still training in Balbek, and still 

training new generations of jihadists.

 And so it seems to me our definitions need refining. I mean, many 

would point out that the European community allows Hizbollah and Hamas openly to 

raise money legally throughout Europe. Is this -- should this fit into the 

rubric of state sponsorship of terrorism?
47

 So I would like each of you to address how we should change the way the 

U.S. government looks at state sponsorship, because it creates, each with their 

delicatessen of special interests, an environment throughout the Muslim world in 

which terrorist groups can flourish, can train; some do well here, some do well 

there. But it is a swamp that clearly we are not addressing effectively in the 

rubric that we now apply in our government policies.

 Ms. Mylroie, would you --

 MS. MYLROIE: Yeah, I appreciate your comments. I appreciate your 

point, say, about wahhabi money and how negative -- the negative impact on the 

region in promoting anti-Americanism. And there was a recent story in the New 

York Times how Indonesia, which is this kind of mild kind of Islam and elements 

are getting Saudi money as well. It's a very negative impact.

 But, with all due respect, I think that that is one issue; it's an 

important issue. And there is another issue. What was the structure of 

authority, organization, which allowed 19 people on September 11th to kill 3,000 

Americans in less than two hours? And they're not the same question, because it 

really can be shown, if the commission would pursue this line of inquiry even a 

little bit, that these people lack the capabilities to do that on their own.

 Al Qaeda was a front for Iraqi intelligence in much the same way that 

Hizbollah is a front for the Iranians and the Syrians. And the administration 

repeatedly speaks, senior administration officials, about the nexus between 

terrorist states and terrorist groups; talks about terrorism using weapons of 

mass destruction, including biological weapons. They describe that as the 

greatest threat to the United States. And that threat can become more evident if 

we do not properly, carefully organize and recognize these structures of 

authority, because a terrorist group allows a terrorist state, say, to inflict 

mass casualties on this country with an anthrax attack or a botulinum attack. 

So, I think, two different issues.

 MR. LEHMAN: Ms. Yaphe?

 MS. YAPHE: Well, Dr. Mylroie's answer leaves me kind of breathless 

because I think she's doing exactly what troubles me the most about leaping to 

great conclusions, that Iraq -- that al Qaeda was a front for Iraqi 

intelligence. I'm sorry, I need evidence. If I'm -- if there is evidence, if 

we can get some material that says this, fine, but I don't see it now.

 The question ,among many of the questions, why would Saddam Hussein 

have given to a group like al Qaeda that he couldn't control, that that did pose 

a threat, an existential threat to him, why would he give them those weapons of 

mass destruction -- botulinum, chemicals, radioactive whatevers -- when he 

didn't want to admit he had them himself? Now, to give them to a group that 

fingerprints would have been easy to trace back, I would think. I don't see why 

he would do it. I don't think he sent them to Syria. I think he learned a 

great lesson in 1990 when he sent his aircraft off to Iran, never to be seen 

again. These are not things you share or give away, especially if you can't get 

them back, you can't control, and they won't do you greater danger.

 I do think, though, looking ahead, as part of your question -- which 

is, I think, a good one -- is that is there are future threat here? Because 

it's one thing to say about the past, Saddam could or couldn't, did or didn't, 

but the question becomes what use will terrorists be able to make of the new 

Iraq, especially an Iraq that in which law and order is not clearly or fully 
48

established and may not be for quite a while, in which you have elements running 

around, whether they are Ba'athist loyalists or disgruntled army officers who 

are no longer employed. Whatever the reason, Iraq is going to be a dangerous 

country -- dangerous for us and for a lot of others.

 And leaving those elements aside and getting back to your question, 

even under Saddam there was indications of outside support going to help 

internally based Iraqi Islamists -- whether they were Sunni or Shi'a. I think 

Saddam certainly believed that the Saudis were helping to spread wahhabism, 

especially among the Sunni Arab center. Iran has been involved in sheltering 

Iraqi Shi'a dissidents, refugees, and those groups of with which it has a clear 

contact. But more than that -- I'm not so worried about what Iran might do or 

might think they could do -- I think we vastly overestimate and I think the 

Iranians do too, the influence they will have on the new Iraq -- but the point 

is that Iraq had within its own structures the Shi'a community. And the Shi'a 

community is a very complicated thing, but I'm thinking now of the mosques and 

the religious community where there were, in effect, shadow governments, 

networks that we saw as soon the regime, the old regime was gone, could come out 

and could do things from getting the streets cleaned, imposing local law and 

order, setting up local authorities, getting the schools opened, the hospitals, 

taking over city hall.

Now, what could that mean for the future? They have a capability to 

attract and to influence believers in Iraq and how they go could be very 

important. If they will say "do not interfere with, we do not support acts of 

terrorism or opposition," or if they say "we will sanction opposition," if they 

sanction opposition to the occupying force, which is what they see us as and 

what we are, then we will see a growth of operations, be they military based, 

terrorists, whatever, there will be an increase.

 But much of that can be resolved and will be inside Iraq. I don't 

see, you know, a foreign hand in that, per se.

 The one remaining question will be the allegation that Saddam supported 

and allowed al Qaeda camps in northern Iraq, which was in Kurdish territory that 

was outside of Saddam's control. I have more of that in my testimony, but I 

think my point is that looking ahead, yes, there will be Islamist extremists in 

Iraq -- maybe encouraged by the outside, but probably with a lot of their own 

support, energy and money to come from inside, and what we need to do is to 

think of a way to disarm this as a weapon and find a way to bring this, absorb 

this into a system in which Iraqi Shi'as, be they of an extremist mind or a 

moderate mind, whether they're secular or religious, see more to gain by having 

a stake in society than by trying to just, you know, blow us up and get us out 

of there.

 MR. LEHMAN: Before we go to Mr. Jouejati, I'd like to just ask a short 

follow-up. There have been many press reports of the recovery of materials in 

Afghanistan and in Baghdad that indicate that al Qaeda received technical 

training in weapons of mass destruction, and received not only training but some 

ability to manufacture some of them. Have you seen such evidence that the 

Iraqis are involved in this? And if not Iraqi intelligence, who?

 MS. YAPHE: No, I've seen the press reports just as you have. And 

frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Iraqis did provide some kind of 

training. That would be a perfectly normal thing -- train them, see if you can 

suborn them, see if you can take them over -- but that wouldn't mean that they 

trusted them or that they did operational planning. I think you have to be 
49

careful to sort out what you try to do to wins hearts and minds of these groups 

to work for you and your objectives and where you draw the line. But again, I, 

as I say, that's almost what you expect to be part of the trade craft and the 

mission of the intelligence of these groups, and being in contact with or trying 

to win over and find out a lot about to penetrate these organizations. And we 

know that the Iraqis were highly successful in penetrating organizations that 

were opposed to them, the dissidents abroad, other terrorist groups -- why 

wouldn't they have tried that with al Qaeda? I mean, what did they have to 

lose?

 MR. LEHMAN: Mr. Jouejati? MR. JOUEJATI: Thank you very much. I 

always envy Dr. Yaphe for being so articulate, and it always happens that I am 

right after you to speak. (Laughter.)

 Again, I will, if I may use generalities and the macro approach, there 

are two components that are interlinked. The Middle East needs peace, and the 

Middle East needs democracy. Hizbollah would not exist had it not been for 

Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Hamas would not see the light of day, nor 

would it have states sponsoring it if there was no Israeli occupation of the 

West Bank and Gaza. There will always be the crazies out there who want to 

destroy Israel, but they will be marginalized if there is peace in the Middle 

East. And we know the contours of the political solution to the crisis in the 

Middle East.

 The Middle East needs democracy. In the 1960s, both the 1950s and the 

1960s, and even in the 1970s, the states that are secular are viewed by the 

people as having failed. And you would talk to many people on the streets -- 

whether in Syria or in Jordan or in Egypt -- and they will tell you: "Well, we 

have tried socialism and it has failed and failed miserably. We've tried 

capitalism and that too has failed. What we need to try now is something, an 

ideology that is rooted in our territory, and that is Islam." And this Islam 

becomes even more radical in the absence of democracy because people are not 

empowered. And so they give up -- they give themselves up to the divine. The 

divine is going to save them.

 Militantism, radicalism in Islam increases when it is combined with the 

socioeconomic factor. In Syria specifically, if there was the rise of the 

Muslim brotherhood, it is because of the socioeconomic conditions. And it is 

because -- and I have done my research -- the 50 top leaders of the Muslim 

brotherhood in Syria are the grandchildren of the 50 largest landholders of 

Syria in the 1950s. And these properties were nationalized by the socialist 

government of the Ba'ath and the grandchildren -- again the socioeconomic factor 

is very important in this -- took up arms against a regime that they cannot 

change through the vote.

 And so again, if we only address one of the two components, we're not 

going to get anywhere. We need to have peace in the Middle East, and we need to 

have democracy in the Middle East.

 When the United States appears to be the ally and supporter of 

undemocratic regimes in the Middle East, this sends the wrong signal to the 

people, and therefore part of the enmity and the resentment against the United 

States.

 MR. LEHMAN: Mr. Gasiorowski.
50

 MR. GASIOROWSKI: I agree with the thrust of your question, that state 

sponsorship is a very problematic concept, and indeed the whole, you know, 

meaning of the word "terrorism" -- exactly who is a terrorist, what are 

terrorist acts? I wouldn't throw them out altogether, but certainly they're 

problematic. The Middle East is an area that is, you know, composed of infinite 

shades of gray -- no black and no white, really. And so more than anything else 

what's needed is subtlety in looking at the region and working with the region, 

and using these terms. And I don't say that, you know, with a lot of criticism.

I think that most of the people certainly that I have interacted with in the 

State Department and elsewhere in the U.S. government have that kind of 

subtlety. I wouldn't quite say that for the people at the very top, but that's 

another matter.

 With respect to state sponsorship, I think, you know, we certainly do 

need to go after state sponsorship. These countries that are being discussed in 

this panel have done a lot of very bad things, certainly all three of them, 

especially Iran, no question about it. And so we certainly need to use sticks -- 

military force, covert means, are an essential part of solving this problem in 

the region.

 However, we also need to address the underlying causes. I mean, it's 

no surprise that it's the United States that is being attacked, not Ireland, or 

the Dutch, you know, or the Italians. It's us who is being attacked because we 

are the ones with the big footprint in the region. We are the ones very close 

to Israel, which has caused so much misery for Palestinians. We are the ones 

now occupying Iraq. We are the ones closely supporting governments in places 

like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that are very unpopular.

 So, in addition to using sticks, and in addition to going after states, 

there are other things as well that we need to do, and we have been doing to 

some extent, but I think probably not with enough emphasis. Certainly 

diplomacy, you know, the presentations by myself and Murhaf, I think, have 

indicated that there's quite a bit of room for maneuver, at least with Iran and 

with Syria, to get them to reduce their activities of this support.

 But, I think ultimately, most importantly, we need to change the 

overall U.S. posture in the region, push for a more even-handed approach by the 

United States, certainly push for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, you 

know, an equitable solution to that problem, and a gradual reduction of the U.S. 

posture in the region, which is simply, you know, causing problems, and simply 

aggravating people in the region.

 MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. One last question to both Ms. Mylroie and Dr. 

Yaphe. What about Salman Pak? It's been so much in the news. Was this a 

training facility for hijackers?

 MS. MYLROIE: Well, that is what two Iraqi defectors said soon after 

9/11. One of them even drew a picture of the area and said, "here's an airplane 

parked right here, which was -- which Iraqi intelligence used to train non-Iraqi 

Arab militants to take over airplanes." Satellite photos corroborated that 

fellow's account. When the marines overran Salman Pak they captured non-Iraqi 

Arab militants. They interrogated them. They said: "These people told us, 

you know, it looks like they're being trained for, what they told us indicates 

they're being trained in terrorism." So, yes, Salman Pak was, was a terrorist 

training camp.

 I'd like to add one more point, though.
51

 What you're seeing here in this exchange, which is somewhat 

unfortunate, between me and my colleague, is I think kind of the microcosm of 

what happened as the United States went to war. We went to war because senior 

administration officials believe Iraq was involved in 9/11. But as we did that 

and they tried to articulate it, they heard, and it would come out in the form 

of disgruntled individuals within the bureaucracies, including the CIA, leaking 

to the press "there is no evidence." This cry always, what the Wall Street 

Journal called an echo chamber, "there is no evidence."

 I did, in 10 minutes -- I thought it was kind of nifty to do it in 10 

minutes -- talk about three major terrorist attacks against the United States, 

and gave -- highlighted some very specific evidence, mainly, you know, the 

question of who are these people. So again, what you're seeing here is the 

bigger fight that has gone on, you know, in the national media.

 MS. YAPHE: Well, I'll take exception to that. I don't think that 

that's necessarily the case. It is true, we do see things differently, and 

that's -- that happens among people to tend to look at things from a different 

perspective.

 But let me go back, first, Laurie is absolutely right about Salman Pak.

That's been known as a terrorist training camp for many years. Palestinian 

extremists, terrorists of many kinds that the Iraqis supported went through 

their training courses there. I think the question is the sightings by one or 

two -- there were two defectors who claimed that extremists were -- Islamists 

were being trained there, and I think they made the conclusion they had to be al 

Qaeda -- or somebody, I don't remember who did -- but they based that on the 

fact that they prayed a lot and wore beards. Again, maybe they were Islamists, 

maybe not. To answer your question, yes, that has been a long-known training 

center, having to do with probably all kinds of terrorist acts, including, yes 

there was an aircraft there. I think initially some people identified that as a 

Boeing aircraft. It's not. To the best of my knowledge, that's a Soviet -- and 

old Soviet Antonov that's been there for many, many years. So, were they 

training to take over an American aircraft? They probably were just training on 

techniques to do whatever terrorists train to do, but yes, that has been known.

 I'll let it go at that.

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Mr. Ben-Veniste, and then Commissioner Thompson.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to echo the 

comments of my fellow commissioners and friends, Tim Roemer and John Lehman, in 

commending our chair and vice chair for their delivery yesterday of our first 

interim report on the issue of compliance with our document and other requests 

made to the executive branch. I don't know that I would use the pugilistic 

analogy of Tim Roemer -- that's not my way, as many of you would know -- 

(laughter) -- I prefer John Lehman's analogy to the glass being half full. And 

I can assure those who are watching our activities that our staff has pretty 

much gulped down that glass and is thirsty for more.

 You all should also know that the interim report was the product of a 

unanimous, bipartisan, and very collegial effort on the part of all members of 

this commission, analyzing what we have requested to date and what we have 

received. And I must say I am gratified in reading what the spokespersons from 
52

the executive have said as reported in the newspapers today, with respect to a 

pledge of cooperation. Particularly, I would hope that the procedures which the 

White House has put in place for our review of certain of the materials with 

which we have disagreed and which we view as necessarily impeding our ability to 

utilizing the information will be rethought and that we will have a constructive 

resolution of that issue.

 The information that we are receiving and expect to receive in the 

very, very near future will allow us to be more informed than we may be at the 

present moment with respect to what our intelligence services have discovered 

with respect to matters which have been discussed here today during this panel.

And so I'm hopeful that the words that the White House spokespeople have 

provided to the media will be matched by deeds, and that we will move quickly to 

assimilate that information.

 Let me direct my questioning to Dr. Mylroie. You start your prepared 

remarks with the observation that the reasons that we went to war in Iraq were 

not as well understood as they might be. And I think many observers would agree 

with that statement. You go on, however, to suggest that a justification for 

our invasion of Iraq was the role of Iraqi intelligence operatives in actions 

directed against United States civilians.

 Is it fair to say that your provocative theory that Iraqi intelligence, 

directed by Saddam Hussein presumably, had a hand in both the 1993 and September 

11, 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and our Pentagon is something 

which you have promoted over a period of time in your written work and in other 

appearances?

 MS. MYLROIE: Yes, I -- MR. BEN-VENISTE: Is it also fair to say that 

the principle reason underpinning your conclusion that the Iraqis were behind 

these two terrorist attacks is that Ramzi Yousef was an intelligence agent of 

the Iraqi intelligence service?

 MS. MYLROIE: That is among the reasons, yes.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: And you have also suggested that Khalid Sheikh 

Mohammad was also an Iraqi operative, is that correct?

 MS. MYLROIE: I believe he is, yes.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, clearly, in the various organs for publicizing 

this theory on television and in books and articles, you have made your theory 

known to officials of the U.S. government at various levels, is that correct?

 MS. MYLROIE: Yes.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: And, of course, in the very short time which is 

allotted here today, and on the basis only of what's in the public record and 

what we've been able to read and look at on the basis of your published 

statements and your presentation in written and oral form today, it would be 

impossible to go through these details and form a penetrating examination of 

your hypothesis. But I want to make a couple of observations. It's fair to say 

at the least that your theory has not been accepted by other scholars in your 

field, such as Dr. Yaphe, is that correct?

 MS. YAPHE: I'd say that.
53

MS. MYLROIE: I think, and I have a book forthcoming on this dealing with 

the scholars in my field that even if one looked only at the question of Iraq's 

weapons as it became known after Hussein Kemal defected, and particularly the 

biological weapons, that 95 percent of the scholars in my field behaved in a way 

that one cannot support. And I pushed one of them very hard -- it was November 

'98.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: So your answer is that it is correct that scholars, 

at least 95 percent of them, have not supported your hypothesis?

 MS. MYLROIE: In my forthcoming book, "Bush Versus the Beltway," I deal 

with the scholars. I don't think their opinions --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: You don't have that copy to hold up right now?

 MS. MYLROIE: No, it will be out the end of the month. I don't think 

that constitutes any significant criticism whatsoever, given how they dealt with 

this.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: And you attribute a CIA motive by the intelligence 

community for rejecting your theories of Iraqi sponsorship for these two 

horrific attacks on the United States and its civilian population to the CIA and 

other intelligence agencies, justifying their prior mistakes. Is that fair to 

say?

 MS. MYLROIE: Say when they concluded that there was no state 

sponsorship, they did not have the evidence from the FBI investigation, because 

of grand jury secrecy laws prevailing then. And they had no basis for making 

that claim.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, is it fair to suggest that the current 

administration would not be reluctant to embrace your theory as a further 

justification for the invasion of Iraq, if evidence obtained since 9/11 -- 

debriefings of captured al Qaeda members, et cetera, which we will have access 

to, and have already begun receiving access to -- supported the notion of Iraqi 

sponsorship for either attack --

 MS. MYLROIE: Senior --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- '93 or 2001?

 MS. MYLROIE: A senior administration official told me in specific that 

the question of the identities of the terrorist masterminds could not be pursued 

because of bureaucratic obstructionism.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: And who was that?

 MS. MYLROIE: I wouldn't want to mention the person's name publicly, 

but a senior and well-informed person. I have been working with him on the 

question of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He said, "We're sorry, we just can't do it 

because of the bureaucratic obstructionism regarding the question of Ramzi 

Yousef's identity." So I went ahead and put it in the public record.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, the public record -- and I'll make reference to 

a June 22nd, 2003, newspaper article published by the Washington Post under the 

byline of Walter Pincus, who is one of the most respected journalists analyzing 

the intelligence community in our country, reported that there was significant 
54

doubt cast on this very al Qaeda-Iraqi connection. It references a National 

Intelligence Estimate from the fall of 2002 -- still classified, but this is a 

report which now is in the press. And of course the National Intelligence 

Estimate reflects the combined consensus of the U.S. intelligence community.

And that report suggested that the National Intelligence Estimate concluded that 

while there had been some contact in the early '90s -- I think something which 

Dr. Yaphe has also concluded -- while Osama bin Laden was living in Sudan, those 

early contacts had not led to any known continuing high-level relationship 

between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda. And, as I say, we are in the

process of obtaining information from debriefings and other sources which could 

conceivably throw more light on it. But your reluctance to mention even the name 

of someone who we could ask about this doesn't help us terribly much.

 MS. MYLROIE: I can ask that person if he will give me permission to do 

so.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Okay, well we would appreciate it.

 Now, your suggestion that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was an Iraqi 

intelligence operative would seem to be something which we would be in a 

position -- we as a government -- would be in a position to investigate very 

carefully, since he is no longer in circulation, and reports are that he has 

been interrogated and is providing information. So are you aware of any 

information based on the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed to suggest that 

he has acknowledged some Iraqi hand in his terrorist activities?

 MS. MYLROIE: I can only cite to you what the friend, retired from 

Israeli intelligence, number two position, a lot of experience, said, "It's 

obviously that these are legends."

 MS. YAPHE: That is not evidence.

 MS. MYLROIE: Evidence is something that --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let's not -- I think you've answered my question that 

in fact to your knowledge -- I am not suggesting it doesn't exist somewhere, or 

might not somehow develop. But to this point with respect to the significant 

information that has been provided already by Sheik Mohammed, there is no 

corroboration for your theory. And presumably that would be something that 

would be of interest for the administration to put forward, given the other 

events that occupy the front page of the newspaper on a daily basis. In fact, 

today's Washington Post, as Dr. Yaphe has pointed out, suggests that we are able 

to investigate still another of the early allegations relating to Iraqi 

intelligence and a potential al Qaeda connection, and that is the arrest in Iraq 

of a high-level Iraqi intelligence operative named Ahmed Khalid Ibraham Samir 

al-Ani -- is that correct, Dr. Yaphe?

 MS. YAPHE: Yes.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: This is a man who supposedly met with 9/11 terrorist 

and murderer Mohammad Atta, supposedly in Prague, in the spring of 1991.

 MS. MYLROIE: 2001.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: 2001, I'm sorry, 2001, just months before the 9/11 

disaster. This is a report that was first sponsored by Czech officials, and 

subsequently they have pulled back substantially from their original suggestion 
55

that this Iraqi intelligence operative met with an individual who they 

identified initially as Mohammad Atta. Again, do you subscribe to the notion 

that in fact Mohammad Atta met with Mr. al-Ani in Prague in the spring of 2001?

 MS. MYLROIE: I think it's an open question. I don't have the 

information that allows me to make a clear judgment one way or another.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: So presumably on an ongoing basis, with our 

interactive relationship now with the FBI and the intelligence community, we 

will be able certainly by the time we are able to give our report, throw 

significant light on that issue, if it hasn't already been made public before.

 There are a number of questions I would ask with respect to the 

hypothesis that you have put forward which basically it seems to me relies on 

the notion that the passports utilized by Yousef, principally his passport, was 

somehow doctored up during the period of time that Kuwait was occupied or 

controlled by Iraqi intelligence operatives. But let me ask you whether you 

have any evidence or even a suggestion that there are other examples of the use 

of Iraqi documents for use in terrorism that originated from this brief period 

of time that Iraqi intelligence controlled certain aspects of the Kuwaiti 

infrastructure.

 MS. MYLROIE: There was a document found in Iraq recently in which the 

palace, Saddam Hussein's office, sends out a memo to all the Iraqi intelligence 

offices -- this is April 2002 -- saying that they are to prepare the documents 

that they have that were taken from Kuwait's archives, they are to remove any 

notes that they have made in the margin, but prepared these documents because 

Iraq will return them in October -- except those documents that were used for 

intelligence purposes. So that does establish that Iraq went carefully through 

the Kuwaiti archives, and there were at least some documents that were used for 

intelligence purposes.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: But is there any suggestion, Dr. Mylroie, that aside 

from the one example you have focused on, any other documents from that period 

of time carried by, utilized by, or any way used by terrorists which we have 

come into contact with and have been able to interrogate?

 MS. MYLROIE: Well, Ramzi Yousef came into the United States on an 

Iraqi passport which to all appearances his travels begin in Baghdad.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: But that's the same example that you've used before, 

and my question --

 MS. MYLROIE: No, I referred to the Pakistani passport on which he 

fled. This is a different passport. You can talk about Abdul Rahman Yasin, who 

came from Baghdad before the Trade Center bombing, returned to Baghdad 

afterwards, stopping in Amman at the Iraqi Embassy there before going on to 

Baghdad, where he was for a decade. Lesley Stahl interviewed him last year 

there.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: These are the same individuals that you suggest 

are in the same operation, correct?

 MS. MYLROIE: Yeah.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Okay. So my question goes to put that aside is there 

any other evidence of use of those documents during that period of time in which 
56

Iraqi intelligence controlled Kuwait to suggest that this was a pervasive use or 

misuse of those documents?

 MS. MYLROIE: Only the people that I name in that chart, Ramzi Yousef, 

Abdul Hakim Murad, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abdul Moneim -- supposed to be --

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: The same individuals that we're talking about --

 MS. MYLROIE: And Ali, Abdel Aziz Ali. Yes, they are legends created 

by Iraqi intelligence while it occupied Kuwait.

 MR. BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Chairman, I simply don't want to monopolize all 

the time in running this to the ground, but you can understand we don't have the 

freedom to spend a lot of time in exploring in detail these allegations, but we 

will certainly look for any indication that would support the suggestion of an 

Iraqi sponsorship for either of the World Trade Center disasters as we go 

forward with our work. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Commissioner Thompson.

 MR. THOMPSON: I'd like to ask the panel to assess the same question:

Do you think that America's military, diplomatic, and intelligence bureaucracy 

is as capable today dealing with both cultural enemies -- that is to say nonstate sponsored, non-state terrorists -- as well as Islamic states whom we've 

never confronted before in our history to any great extent, in the same way that 

we've dealt with other countries in earlier and what seemed to be simpler times, 

like our engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War or engagement with 

China, both of which engagements has led in a change of relationships where we 

now look at both of those countries as either friendly or neutral, as the case 

may be? Do our institutions today have the capacity to deal with all of these 

Middle Eastern states, all of these Islamic groups? And, if they don't, what do 

we do about that? Because one of our mandates is to advise the American people 

on how we can protect ourselves in the future. And it troubles me that this is 

a different kind of enemy or a different kind of confrontation than the American 

public and maybe even the American government is used to. Dr. Mylroie?

 MS. MYLROIE: No, I agree with you, I don't think we have the 

capabilities. I think part of the problem has to do with building up regional 

expertise, and that was never really a high priority regarding the Middle East, 

as it was compared to the Soviet Union and China. One of the things I think 

that's flawed about my field of study is you can't become secretary of State 

based on being a Middle East expert, or National Security Council advisor, but 

you could be a China or Russia expert. So the best and the brightest don't go 

into the field, and I very much include myself. If I had higher ambitions for 

myself, I would not have chosen to be a Middle East expert.

 And the thing is regarding the Middle East for the most part it's not 

important to the United States except the Arab-Israeli issue, except that every 

10 years there is a war there. So every 10 years you have got a lot of 

resources poured into the study of the region, but people forget about it, and 

you know you end up with a -- not enough people who really know what they are 

talking about to deal with the issue. So on a general level I think there needs 

to be much more resources put into the training of individuals to handle Middle 

East issues, language training, and that has to be a sustained effort, and 

independent of Arab-Israeli issues which really take most of the attention most 

of the time.
57

 MS. YAPHE: Yes, I would agree with what Laurie says. I think she's 

absolutely right. Which means -- this is the way I got my education, which was 

by federal government money, national defense, foreign language and the 

education act which paid me to get a Ph.D. looking at, what, at exotic cultures, 

studying exotic languages, the Middle East, for which I have I think paid back 

in a sense all my work has been government work. But you know I thank the 

federal government and those grants for enabling me to -- well, I won't say 

become a smart person, but to gather my skills on what I think is the most 

fascinating area. When I started doing Iraq, nobody looked at it. There were 

only two or three people -- who cared? -- the 1970s, anyway. Who would have 

thought this would have become such a growth industry to guarantee full 

employment through retirement? And I think -- and we need to do a lot more of 

that.

 I want to answer your question by saying something which I found deeply 

disturbing, and it goes back to my experience. I don't want to be seen as an 

apologist for the agency, or for our efforts on counterterrorism or anything 

else. I often get in trouble. I don't share the administration's views, but 

again I think that's -- the issue here is -- again, what I found so deeply 

disturbing, the lack of cooperation. When I started doing counterterrorism 

in the mid-1980s, Bill Casey had just set up the Counterterrorism Center to be a 

proactive, and I couldn't believe the fights. But it was understandable -- turf 

fights. This is my asset, this is my territory, this is my issue, not yours.

And I thought -- not just within the CIA, but within the community at large -- 

and I had hoped after several years that we had gotten past that. And I was so 

disturbed with the information coming out from your committee and the work it's 

doing, and the investigations into what did we know and what didn't we tell 

anybody -- you know, across town -- is appalling. And I would hope that if 

nothing else, this has come at a very, very high cost -- we should have learned 

the lesson. I hope you get access to the full range of publications, especially 

on this issue of Iraq and terrorism, because I think it will show you how 

difficult it is to analyze all of the full range of information and come to 

different conclusions. Estimates are very valuable, if they are allowed to 

express at the same time not just consensus but what could be wrong with this 

document. You know, what could go wrong, where could we be wrong, or what could 

happen to change our judgments. Estimates don't always do that. It is the voice 

of the community. The more consensus you want the less you are going to get of 

the real feel for the certainties and questions over the issues, and that's what 

you need to know.

 I would just simply point out one more thing. Working on the Middle 

East, but working especially on Iraq, and I think it's true of several of the 

other countries, but I think Iraq especially, it's been a denied area. We have 

had diplomatic representation for very few of the past 30 years. It's a society 

where everybody watched everybody else and reported. You had spies in the 

neighborhood, spies in your club, spies next-door, maybe in the apartment, who 

would tell on who you saw, who you talked to, what you did. It was not at 

culture that encouraged contact. Certainly diplomats could use the normal 

cocktail party route to gather information that was so easy and so 

conventionally used. Iraq was not German after World War II. It was not Italy 

after World War II. It was not Moscow. You know, I wouldn't say the problems 

were less. They were serious. They were frightening. I read John LeCarre all 

the time. It's my bible. It's a cultural thing one acquires, I guess.

 But my point is, these were groups. And I think you heard that this 

morning from the first panel. Recruitment was done by who you knew. They don't 

have recruitment agents that go out like the CIA does, "Come and work here; 
58

here's our posters, you know, and here are the benefits you'll get."

Recruitment is who you know. It's done initially through mosques, and everyone 

knows everyone else. You're fully vetted. It's a compartment. You don't know 

who's in the other cell.

 How do you break into that? And I will say this. I don't think it's 

talking out of school, but I think this issue was looked at for a long time, 

going back to when I was in counterterrorism. How do we go about penetrating 

these organizations? And how do you go about seeding people; you know, the 

language of the legend and the mole and all this other -- you know, these 

technical terms, if you will.

 The point is, to do that in a society where everything is known, 

everything is closely held, and everyone knows everyone, is virtually impossible 

to do with the same kind of brilliant success we clearly had in Europe after 

World War II.

 MR. THOMPSON: Let me interrupt you just there, because my second 

question was going to be -- and I'll just pop it on you now -- Dr. Sageman said 

on the first panel this morning that what we have to do is take this pool of 

people who might have gone in for training with the jihad but didn't join the 

jihad for some reason but now we're maybe unfairly prosecuting them because 

they've provided assistance to those who did engage in terrorism, and we should 

solicit them, train them and double them back into the cells of the terrorists.

How realistic is that?

 MS. YAPHE: It's like a movie, I think. I don't think it's that easily 

done. I had trouble with a bunch of things I heard earlier this morning, and I 

think that's one of the things that I find very troubling. That is not an easy 

thing to do. Doubling -- you know, again -- tradecraft that worked in Europe.

And I don't want to talk out of school. I'm not a professional in all of this.

But different methods, different times, different problems, different strategies 

are needed.

 There's a lot of talk today also about root causes. You won't solve 

the problem. You won't stop recruitments. You won't end the attractiveness of 

Islamic extremism by giving everybody a job, solving everyone's economic woes.

You're still going to have this problem persisting.

 Our getting out of Saudi Arabia -- we're simply moving someplace else 

in the neighborhood, but that's not going to solve our problems as being a 

target of these extremists, nor will it solve the Al Saud's problem of still 

being a target. It simply moves things around. But the primary -- you see, the 

problem will still remain because it has so much to do with a basic and 

fundamental view of society, of yourself, your esteem, and what will it take to 

restore us to greatness.

MR. THOMPSON: Dr. Jouejati?

 MR. JOUEJATI: Thank you. It's not only about understanding these 

organizations or penetrating them better and so on. It's not only our knowledge 

about the Arab-Israeli issue or lack of knowledge about the Arab-Israeli issue.

It's the whole political culture that is very complex. And I think there needs 

to be a greater harmony, a more harmonious relationship between academia and the 

bureaucratic capability that you talk about.
59

 In academia, for example -- and here, if I may refer to Syria -- in 

academia, they will tell you that Syria is embedded both in the institution of 

sovereignty -- it's a state -- and it's embedded in the institution of Arab 

nationalism. And by virtue of the history and Syria's involvement in the Arab 

national movement, more legitimacy comes to it from what it does in the Arab 

arena than how a state would otherwise behave.

 And so that would -- from an academic level -- that would explain a lot 

about, say, Syria's ties to Hizbollah and why it's not as simple as telling 

Damascus: "Stop your ties with Hizbollah." It would be political suicide in 

Damascus, and Mr. Bashar Assad is not about to commit political suicide.

 So what bureaucrats say, usually, is confined to their perceptions of 

reality. And these perceptions do not always conform to the reality. And so 

there should be, I think, a greater marriage between academia and between the 

bureaucratic capabilities.

 Dr. Michael Barnett of the University of Wisconsin has made absolutely 

wonderful studies. I don't know how many people in the State Department read 

them or try to read them or try to understand Syria or Egypt through them.

 MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Gasiorowski.

 MR. GASIOROWSKI: I've interacted a fair amount with U.S. government 

experts on Iran in recent years, and my general impression is that they have a 

pretty good understanding of Iran, even though they can't go there, haven't been 

able to go there since 1980. So I don't think that the fundamental problem lies 

in the capability of the experts in the U.S. government to understand at least 

Iran. I can't speak for how this applies to other countries. And indeed, I 

certainly don't think that academics have any better idea. And having spent an 

awful lot of time in Iran in the last 10 years, I don't think that people in 

Iran have a better idea of what's going on in that country than people do in the 

State Department and other agencies of the U.S. government, quite frankly.

 I don't think the problem really lies in the capabilities of, you know, 

the State Department and the intelligence agencies in the U.S. government. I 

think they're pretty good. Of course, there's always room for improvement.

Hiring more people from the region, you know, first-generation Iranians or 

Syrians or Iraqis, can always help, no doubt.

 I think really the problem is at higher levels in general. It's how 

top U.S. policymakers have used the information they get from the experts or 

fail to use the information they get from the experts. That's where I would 

focus most of the blame.

 MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Any further questions? If not, I'd like to thank you all 

very, very much. We appreciate your work. We're going to reconvene at five 

minutes past 2:00, we will reconvene for our third panel. 

 MR. KEAN: Our third panel will turn from specifics of particular 

groups and nations to the broader questions of the links between religion and 

culture, politics and violence that produce al Qaeda and similar groups.

 With us are Mrs. Rachel Bronson, senior fellow and director of Middle 

East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Professor Gilles Kepel, of 
60

the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and author of "Jihad: The Trail of 

Political Islam." In addition, we will hear from Steven Emerson, executive 

director of The Investigative Project and author of "American Jihad: The 

Terrorists Living Among Us." And Mr. Dennis Ross is on the way, the Ziegler 

(sp) distinguished fellow at the Washington Near East Policy -- so I think he'll 

be here shortly, and Ms. Bronson, if you could begin.

 MS. RACHEL BRONSON: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, Board of 

Commissioners, thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. It's a 

particular honor to testify before the chairman. I'm a born and bred Jersey 

girl, and my formative years were spent hearing that "New Jersey and I were 

perfect together." (Laughter.) So, it's quite a pleasure to be here.

 MR. KEAN: I'm sure you were. (Laughter.)

 MS. BRONSON: I was asked today to talk about the notion of whether we 

are facing a clash of civilizations or a clash within civilizations, and I'd 

like to present to the commission a slightly different lens to view it through.

I think we're involved in a political and economic struggle rather than a 

struggle of civilizations, and that if we allow ourselves to define this as a 

clash of civilizations, we will -- we will not have policy options to respond, 

that we will alienate and abandon those in the region who really do struggle for 

our success and our dwindling supporters out there will have fewer and fewer 

issues and ideas to rally against.

 But, saying that this is -- it's about politics and policies doesn't 

offer easy answers. Many of our policies are put in place for very good reasons 

and have been carefully thought through. And so it's not a palliative to argue 

that this is about policy and economics, but rather I think gives us some way to 

think about what we're facing and to define the tools to respond to.

 The problem we face today, I think, is trying to dry up these swamps of 

al Qaeda and terrorism, but that also means changing the climate in the Arab and 

Muslim world. So, to illustrate what the climate out there is that we face, I 

think any of you or us who go out to the region know that things are pretty 

terrible for Americans out there right now. But some numbers, I think, might 

also be helpful. And if you haven't seen it, there's a terrific study by Pew 

that I commend to everybody, but there's some startling figures that are worth 

pulling out.

 In Indonesia, those viewing the U.S. favorably fell from 61 percent to 

15 percent in the last year. In Turkey, 71 percent of the population expects an 

attack against their country, a NATO ally, in the near future. Seventy-one 

percent of Palestinians think Osama Bin Laden can be trusted to do the right 

thing in foreign policy. And anti-Americanism has become the flavor of the 

month, not only in the Muslim world but among our traditional allies. Look at 

the response we've had in South Korea, in Germany, in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

 Five of seven NATO countries support a more independent relationship 

from the United States. But very striking, according to this poll, the bottom 

has fallen out of support for American in most of the Muslim world. It is the 

main conclusion from the report. And far away from the day in 1962, when Prince 

Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who became the king, told President Kennedy that "after 

God, we trust in the United States."

 Now, I believe in the situation we're facing are a result of decisions 

we have made since the Cold War and decisions that our partners, friends, have 
61

made in the Middle East, and it flows directly from the Cold War. I view 

September 11th as part of the Cold War, even though the Cold War had ended a 

decade before. The choices we made in Afghanistan directly led to September 

11th, and the choices we made in the '90s to abandon certain countries for 

geopolitical reasons led directly to September 11th. And I think a quote from 

Brzezinski really sort of captures about how to think about this as part of the 

Cold War struggle. Brzezinski had said "What was more important in the world 

view of history, the Taliban or the fall of the Soviet empire? A few stirred up 

Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?" And I 

do believe that if our policymakers were told in the '80s that some of the 

decisions that they were making would result in the deaths on September 11th, 

the bombing of the Cole, the African embassies, and all of that was to bring 

down the Soviet Union, I think they very well may have said it would have been 

worth it. They wouldn't have said it in those words, but I think in the 

calculation, that is something at the time they would have lived with.

 During the Cold War, obviously the United States chose a strategy of 

working on states for geopolitical reasons rather that ideological 

compatibility. They were determined not to recreate the experience of the 

British and get too involved in the domestic and foreign policies of their 

partners and allies. It was a conscious decision. And what has been 

fascinating to me is to look back at documents in the 1950s where the Saudis 

were actually funding Hashemite groups who were also, bizarrely, pro-communist -

- this is at a time when they were our partner in fighting the communists.

 The British were desperately worried about this and beseeched the 

United States to get involved and to try to use their influence to affect the 

foreign policy of their partners. The United States steadfastly refused 

because, again for very good reasons, we would refuse to recreate the British 

Empire. But the result of not getting involved in the domestic politics of our 

partners has had costs and ramifications that we are grappling with today. And 

as the committee thinks about offering recommendations, I think this is a very 

tough issue and a tough nut for you to crack.

 The United States does not want to be an imperial power, and yet some of 

the price, which is al Qaeda, comes out of a result from not being too involved 

in the domestic politics of our partners. And so arguing for a change in 

policies has vast ramifications for U.S. foreign policy, and will have its own 

set of costs, but it very well may be the path that we choose to move forward 

with. Listen to the words of Egypt's Imam Zawahiri, who argued that "the U.S. 

claims to stand for human rights and democracy but forces corrupt regimes on the 

Muslim world." It is very surprising that elements of al Qaeda would argue that 

we weren't involved enough in the foreign policy of states, but this is what 

brings recruits to al Qaeda.

 Again, a number of our policies have had challenges. I think our 

policy in the '90s, and more recently in how we chose to fight Saddam Hussein, 

was an absolute disaster for our relations with the Muslim world. In the early 

to mid-'90s, we had the Arab world calling for a more active policy against 

against Iraq. But instead we were very comfortable with a strategy of dual 

containment, about keeping Saddam in his box. That led, during the '90s, to 

increasing anti-Americanism. I was doing research on this in the '90s, I can 

tell you from first-hand, it was something that al Qaeda was using to recruit.

It was this festering anti-Americanism that did not begin on September 11th -- 

September 11th hastened it but it was growing throughout the '90s. And 

statements by our policymakers that the strategy of containment was worth the 
62

lives of half-a-million Iraqi children ricocheted through the Arab world and had 

significant affects that drew people against us.

 Now, all the hatred and anger is surely not a result only of our 

policies, and I would be vastly irresponsible if I left you with that notion.

But I do want to convey that our policies do have something to do with what 

we're seeing today. But consider also the choices that our partners have made.

During the 1970s and '80s, leaders across the Arab world supported and funded 

Islamic radical groups. They did so at the time because their real enemy isn't 

domestic politics or the secular nationalists. Israel funded Islamic groups, 

Egypt funded Islamic groups, Tunisia funded Islamic groups. They sent money in 

this because they were fighting domestic opponents. Israel, the case that many 

of us know best, was putting money into groups that would eventually become 

Islamic Jihad and Hamas. But as they were putting money into these, and then in 

the '70s and the '80s we had the boom in oil prices, where the Gulf states began 

funding mosques and schools across the world, the Saudis sent significant funds 

to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Africa, and beyond. In Afghanistan, as 

I mentioned, in the 1980s, we had a pact with the Saudis that we would -- we 

would fund dollar-for-dollar covert operations in Afghanistan.

 Many Middle East states then used this growing Islamic opposition which 

they had fostered as an excuse for enacting emergency decrees and erasing civil 

liberties. This oppressive, increasing totalitarian state -- these totalitarian 

states across the region have stamped out any sort of domestic response and 

criticism. And the only outlet for people now is this venal Islamic opposition.

They're the only ones that are able to survive.

So, what can we do about this situation? The United States does have tools in 

our kit box, and we have to be thinking about preventive measures that we can 

take. In my written testimony, I suggest four, and I'll quickly go through 

them.

 One is the administration's engagement in Arab-Israeli issues is 

very productive. Arab-Israeli problems are not the cause of this. When things 

were going well in the peace process, you still had al Qaeda organizing and 

motivating. What you hear from moderates across the region relentlessly that 

active American involvement helps their cause, and absence of American 

involvement directly hurts the friends that we have out there, and so our 

current involvement is very positive.

 The second thing we can do is commit to nation-building. we have 

undertaken massive projects in Afghanistan and in Iraq. After Afghanistan, the 

Arab world was looking at -- here is a Muslim country that we were committed to 

improving and changing, and they were watching us. Our lack of clear effort to 

try to fix the problem led to a lot of resistance to support the United States.

It empowered our enemies that the U.S. cares very little about what goes on in 

the region.

 We have to think about ways to help our friends, not our enemies. We 

have to look at the social and economic challenges that the region is facing and 

try to think creatively of how we can help the number of unemployed young people 

in the region. We need to focus on education and going one on one with the kind 

of nasty funding that's going on throughout the world and show that the United 

States can offer an alternative. We are a country of competition, and surely we 

can compete on this.
63

 And lastly, we have to improve the communication channels between 

Washington and the world, not only in explaining our policies but hearing the 

concerns of those in the region. From an independent investigation I was doing 

during the recent fight in Iraq, there was a noted lack of hearing what the 

local concerns were, and many of them were quite valid.

 In the future, I think our real challenge is not turning this into a 

clash of civilizations. Look at all the hot spots we are likely to face -- 

Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya. You can look at Nigeria, Sudan. We will be 

operating against organized Islamic opponents. Unless we have a positive 

alternative, the rest of the world will define us as a clash of civilizations, 

and we will be the greatest loser of all.

 Thank you. MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Emerson.

 MR. EMERSON: Chairman Kean, Vice President Hamilton, distinguished 

members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the U.S., thank you 

for inviting me and having this hearing. I'm going to summarize and just 

isolate several comments in my testimony. Obviously the rest is available for 

scrutiny and for questions.

 I think it is very important, at the outset of this hearing, to never 

lose sight of the fact that the killers behind the murder of 3,000 Americans on 

September 11th were not generic terrorists without clear political and religious 

motives. The terrorists were not simply a band of fanatics who, as so many 

officials and pundits have repeatedly stated, had simply hijacked a religion.

 Because of a fear of engendering charges of racism by Muslim leaders, a 

charge that is routinely applied to anything critical of militant Islam, there 

has been an assiduous effort to avoid labeling the terrorists of 9/11 by some 

commentators for what they really were -- militant Islamic terrorists.

 Their behavior was informed and guided by their misguided 

interpretation of Islam. Unfortunately, efforts to sanitize the discussion of 

Islamic terrorism have led to explanations that exonerate the masterminds and 

perpetrators of any responsibility for their actions. In fact, the special 

Hollywood broadcast after 9/11 noted that the attack of 9/11 was simply, quote, 

"pure evil and had nothing to do with religion."

 In fact, the 9/11 attack had everything to do with religion. It had to 

do with the doctrinal interpretation of Islam by militants. At the outset, it 

is critical to point out that militant Islam does not equal Islam. Islam as a 

religion, like Christianity and Judaism, does not endorse violence. Islam is a 

vibrant religion that gives spiritual comfort and meaning to its vast number of 

practitioners. And there are precious few, as they exist, Islamic writers, 

intellectuals and clerics who openly and unambiguously repudiate violent Islamic 

ideology.

 But for the peaceful majority of Muslims around the world, it is not 

the West that is avoiding these distinctions. It is the militants who are 

trying to raise these distinctions by claiming there is no such thing as, quote, 

"Islamic extremism." They have tried to hide under the protection of the 

mainstream majority.

 Anti-American radicalism was pervasive in the Muslim world long before 

the events of September 11th and not limited to bin Laden and al Qaeda. One 

only need read the translations of the Muslim media in many parts of the world, 
64

including the West, to see the resentment, hatred and anger even in countries 

that are our strategic allies, in particular Saudi Arabia. Persistent denial 

that radical Muslims are responsible for the September 11 attacks, with the 

belief that either Israel or the U.S. had secretly launched the attacks, is 

further evidence of this rampant radicalism. The extent of radicalism in the 

Muslim world has gone largely unrecognized, particularly before 9/11, because of 

premeditated deception, a cloak of religiosity, intimidation, the power of Saudi 

Arabia and other oil producers, and a tendency by many in the West to dismiss 

radical statements as nothing more than rhetorical posturing.

 In the last two years, it has been the genuine although belated 

recognition that the problem and threat posed by al Qaeda is not limited to 

card-carrying members of this terrorist group. But although al Qaeda carried 

out the horrific attack of 9/11, the larger problem the U.S. faces is the 

militant Islamic culture and mindset that gave birth to al Qaeda.

 In this regard, al Qaeda is actually shorthand for a much larger 

religious phenomenon -- militant Islamic fundamentalism that has spawned 

violence and terrorism against the U.S., the West, Islamic moderates or other 

perceived enemies of Islam. Within the framework of militant Islamic 

fundamentalism, a culture of violent jihad has become a common denominator 

sanctioning violence, terrorism against moderate and secular Muslims, Americans, 

westerners, Christians, Jews, and other infidels.

 To be sure, the Muslim world is not the only religious umbrella under 

which religious-sanctioned terrorism has taken place. There have been 

Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, and other terrorists, for example. But today, 

no other religious-inspired violence matches the scope and transnational breadth 

of militant Islamic fundamentalism.

 According to research we have conducted, Islamic terrorist attacks have 

now occurred and been planned and supported in more than 100 countries around 

the globe in the past 10 years. One of the basic problems when confronting 

radicalism in the Muslim world is the unwillingness by some western 

academicians, editorialists, and leaders to recognize the pervasive 

institutionalized support and dissemination of jihadist ideology.

 The undeniable fact is that Islamic militants dominate or exercise 

disproportionate influence over the religious, academic, and media institutions 

in the Muslim world, with the notable exception of several countries such as 

Turkey and Indonesia. Within the Muslim world, the religious hierarchy has been 

traditionally controlled by Islamic fundamentalists.

 The question that we now face and which will be of the discussion today 

is what should the response be, what caused this radicalism, and how should we 

behave in the future? Let me just state this: I do not believe that the enmity, 

anger, and hatred developed among Islamic fundamentalists in the Islamic world 

is a result of U.S. policies. I believe it is the result of the U.S. existence.

It is a rejection of American pluralism, American secularism. Let me read to 

you a quote by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a militant Islamic leader that some 

journalists have defined and described as a, quote, "moderate," including a 

recent story in the Washington Post. Mr. Qardawi is a leader of the Muslim 

Brotherhood, living in Qatar. Let me read to you a quote.

 "Secularism may be accepted in the Christian society, but it can never 

enjoy general acceptance in an Islamic society. Islam is a comprehensive system 

of worship and legislation. The acceptance of secularism means the abandonment 
65

of the Sharia, a denial of the divine guidance and the rejection of Allah's 

injunctions. For this reason, the call for secularism on Muslims is atheism and 

a rejection of Islam."

 This is the underlying guide and motif that has led to the development 

of Islamic militancy. If Israel were to disappear tomorrow, disappear, and an 

Islamic state were to replace Israel from the river to the sea, the mantra of 

Hamas, there would still be the same amount if not greater degree of Islamic 

fundamentalism.

 The problem lies in a vast, pervasive system of Islamic radicalism, 

largely perpetrated and sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government. And I don't 

think it's a coincidence that we see the rise of fundamentalism around the world 

coinciding with the oil revolution in 1973-74. Petro-dollars began to fuel 

this.

 In the last 25 years, major radical Islamic institutions -- I describe 

some of them in my testimony; the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the Muslim 

World League, International Islamic Relief Organization -- some of which are 

tied to 9/11 forensically and clinically, these groups have been responsible for 

fueling Islamic militancy around the world.

 It is the Al Jazeera and other media stations that have largely 

inflamed Arab views and Islamic views about the United States. I do not believe 

the United States is culpable or responsible for the rise of extremism. If we 

look at extremist movements, generally speaking, we in the West like to 

associate extremist movements with being only part of a minor view. We like to 

believe that they can be isolated.

 What we have in the Islamic world is a much more pervasive system of 

beliefs, unfortunately dictated and manipulated by a disproportionately radical 

control over the institutions of the media and of Islamic religious 

institutions.

 I do not agree with my colleague, Ms. Bronson here, that, for example, 

Israel was putting money into the groups that would eventually become Hamas and 

Islamic Jihad. Israel, for example, in the 1980s was allowing Islamic 

institutions to develop in Gaza and the West Bank because that's what it tried 

to do in terms of allowing more freedom to local populations.

 Unfortunately, it was occurring at the same time the entire Islamic 

world was being radicalized, in part by jihad in Afghanistan, as a result of 

which, when Hamas was created and Islamic Jihad was created, we also saw the 

creation of more than a dozen other radical Islamic groups in Algeria, Tunisia, 

and elsewhere.

 This whole rise of Islamic fundamentalist ideology is coterminous with 

a vicious type of belief system that views the West, the United States and the 

enemies of Islam to be defeated, subjugated or repressed. In the Islamic 

militant mindset, the world is divided between Dar al Harb and Dawa Islam.

 Dar al Harb is the house of war, where it's permissible to wage war 

against those institutions or countries that do not subscribe to the Sharia or 

are not under Islamic sovereignty. Dawa Islam is the house or the abode of 

peace. That's where Islamic sovereignty reigns, such as in Iran, as it used to 

in Afghanistan, as well as now in the Sudan.
66

 I do not believe we have silver bullets here. There are no silver 

bullets when it comes to stopping terrorism. There is absolutely no doubt in my 

mind that law enforcement needs effective tools, as they have been given under 

the Patriot Act, to fight terrorist groups, seize their assets, as they have 

done.

 The problem is militant Islamic clergy, not just in Saudi Arabia or 

Qatar or elsewhere, but also in the United States, have portrayed every single 

attack on terrorist groups, including the freezing of assets and the arrests of 

actual terrorists, as somehow an attack on Islam. It is these, quote, 

"moderate" Islamic clerics -- and I say so-called because they pretend to be 

Islamic moderates to the West, but in fact they are not.

 I'll give you one very good example -- the World Assembly of Muslim 

Youth. It's a Saudi-run foundation with offices in dozens of countries. It has 

openly supported Islamic terrorism. There are ties between WAMY and 9/11 

hijackers. It is a group that has openly endorsed the notion that Jews must be 

killed.

 WAMY, in 1995, after the Oklahoma City bombing, issued a statement and 

provided money to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, together with other 

Islamic groups, in an effort to portray itself as being very sympathetic to 

American problems and trying to show that it was anti-terrorism. It is this 

very group that has consistently portrayed the United States, Jews, Christians, 

and other infidels as enemies who have to be defeated or killed. And there is 

no doubt, according to U.S. intelligence, that WAMY has been tied directly to 

terrorist attacks.

 The problem is, WAMY and its external group of publications tries to 

issue statements protecting its identity as a moderate group when, in fact, it 

is anything but.

 In the end, I believe we are left with one very resolute thing: We have 

to stay the course. We have to stand up for the American principles of 

pluralism, the notion of the right to disagreement, the notion of the United 

States as a menace to the Islamic militants, not because of U.S. policies, but 

because of the very principles underlying our creation.

 Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you. Mr. Kepel.

 MR. KEPEL: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much 

for inviting me and for inviting a Frenchman under the circumstances.

(Laughter.) I'll try to be as focused as possible, and I'll try not to be 

normative. That is to say, I'm not going to make policy recommendations.

 I would like to try to address one issue which I think is also an issue 

with which this commission is concerned, i.e., how did we get there? How did we 

get from those radical Islamic militants who fought jihad against the Red Army 

against Afghanistan in the '80s and who were, at the time, backed both by the 

USA and by petro-monarchies, if you wish, to 9/11?

 And I think we can try to understand how the phenomenon progressed from 

one to the other and how -- and pardon my French, if I may say so -- but how, in 

a way, jihadi chicken came home to roost.
67

 As you know, when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in late December 

1979, this had been a terrible year for American interests in the area.

Ayatollah Khomeini had seized power in Iran as of February 1st. In early fall, 

the grand mosque in Mecca, then still under the control of a traditional friend 

of the United States, the Saudi dynasty, had been besieged and freed only after 

a heavy battle, and also American hostages had been taken in your embassy in 

Tehran.

 So, on the one hand, you had a revolutionary understanding of Islam, 

the Iranian one, which was claiming to use the origin of Islam as a means to 

fight against the West, and on the other hand, you had the Soviet army, which 

had gone down towards the hot seas or the warm seas following Lord Garrison's 

great game scheme. So for some reasons, then, this challenge to the United 

States was not fought via the force of arms. Seventy-nine, as you know, was 

five years or four years after the end of the Vietnam War, and the war against 

the Soviet Union was waged by proxy, was waged vicariously, thanks to those 

militants, those Islamist radical militants, who suddenly became freedom 

fighters.

 I mean, they were called to jihad; that is to say, to fight against the 

infidels that had encroached on the land of Islam by those very same clerics 

that my colleague, Steve Emerson, mentioned earlier on, Sheikh Qardawi and a few 

others who, at the time, saw that their interests and the interests of the 

United States coincided.

 And so, not only from inside of Afghanistan, but also from Algeria, 

Egypt, the Philippines, even the inner cities of the suburbs of some European 

countries with Muslim immigrant populations. Then you had a sort of 

international brigade, international Islamist brigade, that went to Afghanistan.

 Then the issue was to kill two birds with one stone; on the one hand, 

to inflict a Vietnam, if I may say so, on the Soviet army, on the Red Army, and 

on the other hand, to light a sort of counter-fire against the Iranian 

revolution, and to press the sort of claim about political Islam in a way which 

would not be anti-American but rather anti-communist, anti-atheist, if you wish.

By 1989, both of those objectives were, to a large extent, met. On the 15th of 

February, 1989, the Red Army pulled out of Afghanistan, admitting its defeat.

Though, the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan would only crumble three years 

later. And in the same year, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini died after he had signed 

a truce with Saddam Hussein, who at the time was the darling of the West, of the 

U.S., of France of course, and of the petro-monarchies, because he had resisted 

the expansion of Iran to the west, thanks to the war, the sort of attrition war, 

war of the trenches, that took eight years between Iran and Iraq.

 So, then in 1989, to a large extent when we think of that war, this is 

a war that had almost no cost, because from conservative estimates, and it is 

difficult to know, but I am sure that in your capacity as a commission you will 

have those figures and you will make them public. Generally speaking academics 

like myself would have no access to real information -- consider that the cost 

of jihad in Afghanistan was approximately $1.2 billion per year, half of it was 

being paid by the oil countries, those $600 million for the American taxpayer, 

if I may use an American colloquial expression, it's peanuts for getting rid of 

the Soviet Union. And so plus the fact that no Americans were killed there. I 

mean, the ones who fought against the U.S.S.R. were those bearded guys who at 

the time were called "freedom fighters." They had no mothers, or their mothers 

wouldn't demonstrate or picket down there on the Mall, and they would have no 
68

visas, anyway. And so this was perceived as an operation which almost cost 

nothing.

 Well, then there was a problem, because as of 1989, most people 

believed that there was no hurry or no reason to give any retribution to those 

troops, that if one stopped paying the jihadists who had been there for eight 

years and five years at times in the caves in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, they 

would evaporate, they would disappear. They would go back to their countries of 

origin and disappear. And, conversely, many people thought that there was no 

need to compensate the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein for the human price it had 

paid for the West to a large extent in the war, and for the oil monarchies in 

the war it led against Khomeini's Iran between 1980 and 1988.

 So that led to tremendous misunderstanding, to use a euphemism, between 

the former allies; i.e., the U.S. forces and the U.S. administration and those 

freedom fighters a.k.a. jihadists. And in spite of evaporating, those people 

who knew nothing else but waging war began to turn against the ones who had fed 

them and to bite the hands that had given them food and shelter. That took 

place particularly after the crucial turning point that was the Iraqi invasion 

of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, when as the Saudi regime called the U.S. to the 

rescue on the 7th of August. Then Saudi Arabia, in the eyes of those militants 

got the same status as Afghanistan, if you wish. It was there again part of the 

land of Islam that was invaded by infidel armies. Hence, jihad against America 

became legitimate. Not all of the religious establishment that had backed the 

jihad against Soviet-occupied Afghanistan backed the jihad against American, 

quote-unquote "occupied" Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, some did. And that led to 

a rift within the Islamist movements between the radicals who then would engage 

against Saudi Arabia, against America, and the so-called moderates who would be 

taken into politics of cooptation by the regimes, like the Muslim Brothers in 

Egypt, and so on and so forth.

 So, anyway, that led to a situation where sort of the most radical, the 

most violent elements in the movement suddenly became apolitical. I mean, they 

would believe that violence in itself was not only a means but an aim. And in 

doing so they sought to have a remake which would ape what had been jihad in 

Afghanistan that was successful, because it ousted the Soviets. That developed 

into two different moments along the 1990s. From 1992 to 1996 approximately 

they tried to develop guerrilla movements, mimicking the Afghan one -- in 

Algeria, in Bosnia, in Egypt, later in Kashmir, in Chechnya. And to a large 

extent those movements failed. They did not manage to seize power, because 

ultimately they were unable to draw a large constituency to back them.

 And then, in the second half of the 1990s, then those groups who were 

closely knit and who traced back to the Afghanistan period -- the training camps 

and the network which was created there. As you know the term "al Qaeda" in 

Arabic means base -- it means database -- al Qaeda -- (speaks Arabic). That's 

because bin Laden and his likes had put all jihadists on the database, on a 

computer database so that they could know where they were after they left the 

camps, right? And so they turned to another tactic, which was terrorism, and by 

terrorism as opposed to guerrilla, I mean action which did not need the backing 

of the masses, but action which would be done in closed groups -- very 

spectacular, with the media as sort of a loud speaker. And that was intended to 

change the mentality of those masses and to mobilize them, to show that the 

enemy was weak and that through violence they could achieve their aims.

 Now, to conclude, at first action was directed essentially against 

Saudi-American relations. Most of the bombings took place in relation to that, 
69

the 1996 bombings against American servicemen in Dharhan in June or July 1996, 

in Eastern Saudi Arabia; then the bombing of the two embassies on the 7th of 

August 1996. And the 7th of August is the anniversary of the call by the Saudis 

to the American troops on the 7th of August 1990, which is the main symbolic 

date for them. Then the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000. And all that did not lead 

to any change in the U.S.-Saudi relationship and the U.S-ruling-family-in-Saudi 

Arabia relationship.

 And then in my view this is how we got to sort of the further step, an 

escalation in this logic of terrorism, which led to 9/11. Nine-eleven also has 

to be put into context, because in my view it is something that uses a language 

which is already if you wish in use at the time. Nine-eleven comes 

approximately a year after the beginning of the second intifada. During the 

second intifada who have those kids who have become "heroes and marchers," 

quote/unquote, in some part of the youth in the Muslim world who blow themselves 

up in these areas in Tel Aviv and what have you. There again the retaliation of 

the Israeli army is such that whatever those terrorists do against the Israelis 

nevertheless, militarily the Israelis keep the upper hand. And the 9/11 bombing 

to some extent is a means, is a continuation of both the previous bombings of 

the bin Laden group around Saudi Arabia and so on and so forth, and it blends 

that with, if you wish, the gesture of the terrorism activities in Palestine and 

Israel against the Israelis, to show that they are able to overcome their 

military weakness that they can fight a superpower. And in doing so, they had 

hoped to mobilize the masses throughout the Muslim world in order to show that 

they could topple America.

 This, I think, was a failure, and as far as we can judge as of now they 

have not been able to do so. And what that led to was the toppling of the only 

significantly pro-terrorist regime in the Muslim world; that is to say 

Afghanistan. The Taliban regime was down. Then the Saddam Hussein regime 

disappeared. And in my view -- and I was asked to read the final part of my 

written piece in my statement, so I will abide to that -- so the political cost 

of such campaigns of suicide bombings and terrorism seems in my view to be 

considerable and its gains questionable. There is only the exultation of a 

small minority who have locked themselves into a mentality where terrorism 

becomes an end in itself. Thank you for your patience.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you. Mr. Ross.

 MR. ROSS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the 

commission. Along with you, I have just heard a number of interesting 

perspectives, and I think what I am going to offer is something that complements 

what you've heard. It doesn't necessarily agree with everything, but I think it 

is designed to create even more of a context, at least as it relates to the 

Middle East. I am going to encapsulate what I wrote in my statement by talking 

about what I consider certain basic realities.

 One reality is the reality that confronted me on 9/11: I had all the 

questions I think that many of you are now exploring, among which, How is it 

possible that we could have been so catastrophically surprised? What 

fundamental assumptions were we making that were not the right assumptions? And 

how do we correct that? -- among other things. But I didn't have any question 

about where this had come from. I had no doubt that this had a Middle Eastern 

connection. I understood very clearly that the kind of brand of radical Islam 

that tends to glorify martyrdom on the one hand and makes us the embodiment of 

evil, the source of contamination of the faith, responsible for corruption their 

culture, in effect being responsible for supporting the intruder in their midst.
70

All these things combine to ensure that the kind of attacks that we saw came 

from those who embrace this kind of radical Islam, and they are primarily in the 

Middle East. So I had no doubt this is where the source of the terror came 

from.

 I also reacted at the time to some who have said that, Well, if we just 

had peace between Arabs and Israelis, and especially between Israelis and 

Palestinians, which is the core of this conflict, that basically we wouldn't 

have had this attack. Now, believe me on this one: no one has committed more 

of his time to trying to resolve this conflict than I have, and I remain as 

committed as ever. But you have to go back to where we were in the year 2000 to 

realize that in the midst of the planning for 9/11, we were at a point when most 

in the Arab world actually thought we were going to resolve this conflict. In 

fact, had we the way most of them thought at that time, we still would have had 

9/11, because in a sense 9/11 wasn't about the Israeli- Palestinian issue. To 

be sure, the Israeli-Palestinian issue sours the climate. To be sure, 

especially with the advent of the intifada, it did create more of a sense that 

somehow something had to be done. And the images of the intifada that were being 

broadcast on Arab satellite TV, which was in effect re-Arabizing the Palestinian 

conflict, were the kind of images that were bound to add to the sense of anger 

and resentment. And anger and resentment is the essence of what people like 

Osama bin Laden and their organizations depend upon. They have to have anger and 

resentment, they have to have frustration, they have to have no hope to be able 

to build a body of recruits.

 And, unfortunately, when it comes to the Middle East, they have very 

fertile ground, even if you didn't have the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We 

are talking about a landscape, at least psychically, that is characterized by a 

sense of humiliation. It is characterized by a sense of indignity. It is 

characterized by a sense of betrayal. And it goes back at least 80 years -- 

actually longer. Part of it is the sense that what was once a glorious history 

is gone. Part of it is a sense of betrayal of promises that were made at World 

War I. It is interesting that in the very first videotape that Osama bin Laden 

released, after 9/11, he referred to 80 years of humiliation, and he was, in 

effect at least implicitly, talking about the promises that had been betrayed 

after World War I when there was supposed to be independence for the Arabs.

Well, not only did they not get the independence, but their image of having one 

Arab state, which was going to be the key to reestablishing their glory, was 

also frustrated. They were denied this. Again, they were betrayed.

 So the sense of betrayal has deep-seated roots in this part of the 

world. And the feeling that somehow there is an ongoing humiliation where the 

outside world has imposed on people in the Middle East, that adds to that sense 

of indignity, is also very much a part of that landscape.

 Now, the imposition is not only what is done from the outside. It's 

also what is done from the inside. Today in the Arab world the feeling is that 

most are imposed on by their own regimes. And that, too, adds to their sense of 

anger and frustration. Now, the fact is this creates a context. It also 

creates a context where, in the current setting, most regimes don't address the 

anger and frustration -- they try to deflect it. They want to make somebody 

else responsible for these ills. And, indeed, when you have a history where you 

can refer to betrayals, it's always easy to do so. And, unfortunately, some of 

our friends are in the lead, at least in terms of what they allow to be said 

within their societies as a way of deflecting anger away from them and on 

towards us.
71

 Now, 9/11 in some respects did create a watershed in the region, at 

least in terms of some of the liberal voices. They became stronger after 9/11 

in terms of calling for a kind of introspection, in terms of saying that, you 

know, it's not necessarily the Americans who are to blame. Some of these 

observers, some of these Arab liberals, some of these Arab reformers began to 

say, we need our religious authorities to come to grips with modernization and 

with modernity. We need our political leaders to come to grips with the fact 

that they lack legitimacy. We need our intellectuals to give up what is the 

kind of comfortable conformity that described most of the intellectual discourse 

and realize that in fact they have to embrace change and not simply resist it.

 And you might ask why am I going through all this with this commission?

Well, I think the answer is if we want to understand the roots of 9/11, and if 

we want to understand why terror may continue, we have to understand in fact 

what produces the kind of hostility, the anger, the sentiments that we see. We 

have to understand that some of this is obviously directed against the local 

regimes and some of it is directed against us. Now, we are frequently accused -

- and this produces a lot of resentment -- of having a double-standard. To be 

sure, when that charge is made, when it is commonplace almost everyplace in the 

region, the focus is principally on Israel. But if you think that that's the 

sole basis of their view of a double-standard on our part, then you wouldn't 

really capture the understanding of what really goes on in the area.

 We are resented in no small part because we are seen as using democracy 

as a tool or as a weapon. We are seen as using democracy as a tool or as a 

weapon against those that we don't like, but never against those that we do 

like. We are seen in a sense as mouthing the words of democracy but then 

supporting regimes that are seen as being repressive in regional terms. Now, in 

identifying this analytically -- I am not sitting here and suggesting that 

somehow we should withdraw our support for countries like Saudi Arabia or Egypt 

or others. I am saying, however, that if we are going to deal with the issue of 

resentment, if we are going to deal with the issue of double-standards, one of 

the things that we are going to have to do is be more consistent in terms of 

what we stand for. We don't have to push any of our friends over the cliff, but 

we do have to be very clear about who we are, what we stand for, what is 

important for us.

 There are in fact, as I said, Arab liberals who are saying today that 

what is required in their part of the world is the rule of law. What is required 

for them is an independent judiciary. What is required for them is a vigorous 

anti-corruption campaign or set of campaigns. What is required for them is 

tolerance, the minority rights. What is required for them is transparency and 

accountability. What is required for them are women's rights.

 Now, these happen to embrace what we believe in. And one of the things 

that is going to be very important for us is for us to adopt a position in which 

it's clear we stand with those who represent those kinds of values. Our friends 

in the region should know from us that we will be very clear not only in private 

but in public about supporting those groups, those reformers, who are committed 

to these kinds of values. They should understand very well, and those in the 

region should understand very well, that when those groups get suppressed we 

will not be silenced in response to the suppression of those groups.

 If 9/11 demonstrated anything for us, it demonstrated one unmistakable 

lesson: We can no longer be indifferent to what goes on within the societies 

within the region. For a long time, we cut our own deals with some of our 

friends. As long as they supported us in the region or outside the region, we 
72

basically turned a blind eye to what went on in their homes. Now, at one level 

it made perfect sense. But 9/11 demonstrated that there was a consequence for 

us. There was an affect on our security. Being indifferent to what was 

happening in their societies was actually a prescription for us not actually 

paying attention to what was required for our security.

 We can no longer be in a position where some of our friends, to deflect 

anger from themselves deflect it onto us, because the consequences of 

socializing that kind of anger, that kind of hostility, ends up being manifested 

in what we saw on 9/11.

 Now, here again don't mistake what I am saying to somehow think 

that I don't think that hard power and only soft power is the answer to 

terrorism. I don't believe that. I believe that the use of hard power is 

essential. I believe that in terms of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and other 

terrorist groups we have to respond to them using military force. We have to 

demonstrate something very profound: We have to demonstrate their way doesn't 

work. They prey on the imagery of humiliation, and they have the answer to 

humiliation. But we also have to demonstrate that the only they that they will 

produce is more victimhood -- not success, more victims from their standpoint.

They have to be seen as the embodiment of failure. There's a long history in 

the Middle East of trying to defy the powerful on behalf of the powerless.

Osama bin Laden is the latest in a long line. Saddam tried to do that, you go 

back to Nasser. All tried to somehow embrace and represent the powerless by 

defying the powerful. Well, this becomes an argument in and of itself for us to 

be I think successful in terms of proving they cannot succeed.

 Let me just sum up since I see the red light is on, and I always 

respect the red light. Let me just sum up by saying the following: It is very 

important for us to use hard power where appropriate and necessary. But we also 

have to be realistic. The military cannot provide us the only answer that we 

need any more than improving law enforcement, which is essential, any more than 

improving intelligence, which is essential, any more in cutting off financial 

flows to terrorist groups, which is essential, any more than ensuring that there 

aren't safe havens. All that is important. But we will have to use all the 

instruments at our disposal, and we will have to press very hard to make it 

clear that any use of terror discredits any cause that employs it. As long as 

resistance is seen as being the equivalent of a normal way to deal with your 

cause, then we are going to find that suicide bombs are somehow seen as being 

legitimate. If they are legitimate in the Middle East, they are going to be 

legitimate anywhere else. We have to focus very heavily on how we discredit 

that. In the end, we also have to create models of success -- for example, in 

Iraq. And the last line of what I wrote was: We have to focus on how we make 

the power of our example as important as our military power. When we do that, 

we will succeed in this war. Thank you.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you, Mr. Ross. Commissioner Fielding.

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the risk of making it sound 

like we are all in a frenzy of self-congratulations and adoration, I would like 

to thank the staff for putting together such terrific panels as we have had 

today, and certainly helping our learning curve. And I would also echo the 

comments made earlier by my fellow commissioners and friends in support and 

thanks to the chair and vice chair for their leadership. Though, Tim, I am in 

the half-full club of that group. (Laughter.)
73

 Seriously, the requests that we have made and the staff has made are 

for the most sensitive documents and information the executive branch has. They 

are of unprecedented scope. And thus far the response is to come up with an 

unprecedented scope of material, which I trust will continue, and we will, I 

trust, also get all the information that we need to complete our work.

 I would also like to thank this panel -- very, very enlightened and 

enlightening report. Obviously there are some differences, and we are going to 

have to parse through them. I am not sure we are capable of it, but we'll sure 

try.

 You know, the chairman made a very interesting observation this morning 

when he opened it and he said al Qaeda was at war with us before we realized we 

were at war. And I think that's very telling, because it really gets down to 

the essence of what we are trying to discern here, and that's why did we not 

grasp, what didn't we grasp, what didn't we understand, and what can we learn so 

that we can impose a little discipline upon ourselves and try to prevent that 

from happening again? And I assure you that this panel has helped us, and will 

in our deliberations be a great help to us, and we are very appreciative.

 I find it interesting, not being a student of this at all, there seemed to 

be two features that marked the September 11th attacks; that was the willingness 

of the perpetrators to commit suicide and the ruthlessness of the people who 

sent them to commit that suicide, and then to justify it, attempt to justify it, 

in terms of Islam. I don't see how that reconciles itself with Islamic doctrine 

or law, on the one hand. And to say that it was in the name of Allah or 

whomever is actually blasphemy in and of itself.

 And yet I was reading the other day a review of a book called "Through 

Our Enemy's Eyes," and the author, who is apparently anonymous at this point, 

says, among other things, that Osama bin Laden is more than a terrorist and 

hence more dangerous than generally thought. He is revered in the Islamic world 

much as Thomas Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt would be in the United States.

 And I find that that is fascinating, and I would welcome the comments 

of the panelists, quite frankly, because what we're trying to do here at this 

panel is to look for the factors in the Muslim world that are exploited at this 

point by terrorist organizations to justify their cause, to justify their 

actions, and why this exploitation exists and how it could be thwarted and how 

we should organize ourselves to at least try that goal.

 So I would appreciate, to the best you can, describing to us what you 

believe, each of you, is the current public attitude in the Arab world 

generally, and more generally in the Muslim world, towards bin Laden, and if 

there's a trend, if there's growing support or not growing support.

 Ms. Bronson, could I ask you first?

 MS. BRONSON: Sure. It's obviously a big question, and there's a lot 

that contributes to what we see. Part is the kind of education throughout the 

world that students are receiving. In sort of anecdotal evidence, somebody I 

was speaking to from eastern Saudi Arabia said when he was growing up -- he's 

about in his 50s, 60s -- he received about an hour and a half of religious 

education a week in school. His children are receiving three to four hours a 

day.
74

 Take that and think about the kind of funding that's going into mosques 

and schools across the region, the kind of things that we're hearing about that 

are being taught. We have a real problem. It's generations coming up who've 

been schooled on nothing but a very awful strand of what the religion means.

Add that to the fact that the Middle East -- the Arab Development Report was 

referenced -- is the furthest behind in political freedoms and liberty.

Economically it's stagnant. Populations are bulging. Most of the population in 

the region is below 50 percent. Most of the population is below the age of 15.

And they're not receiving the kinds of skills that will get them jobs, so 

they're unemployed and they're hanging around, and there's nothing to do. And 

smart kids who come back from American universities come back and can't do 

anything with what they've learned. It's a stagnant political culture.

 But why I sort of focus on the sort of education part of it is my 

frustration that we are not offering alternatives to what is going on in the 

region. In the late 1990s in the Gulf, we had a very heavy military presence 

compared to historically where we've been. We offered very little social and 

economic policies to bolster or support our military presence. We cut back on 

all the kinds of programs that we used to have to woo Europeans to the United 

States.

 If you think of it now, it's somewhat crazy that we felt we had to woo 

Europeans. But surely if we felt we had to have good exchange programs with the 

Europeans, triple that for what is required for the rest of the world, where the 

cultures are so different.

 When I was doing my research, looking at the social and economic lack 

of policy, I had people asking me, "Where's U.S. policy taking us?" And in some 

ways that can be a very frustrating question, because the first response is, 

"Take yourself somewhere. Don't wait for the U.S. to do it. Do it yourself."

 But we are very involved militarily abroad. We are notably uninvolved 

in other ways. And I think as the commission thinks about where we go, it is so 

striking to me that the obvious lesson of September 11th isn't to get heavily 

involved in supporting secular education in Pakistan. That seems like a 

somewhat obvious one, given what we know. And yet that doesn't seem to be a 

fundamental focus.

 So I think we do have to come down strong on policies emanating from 

the region that we don't agree with. I think that's half the battle. I think 

the other half is to be creative about how to have programs and ideas out there 

that allow our potential supporters to support us. Right now I believe we're 

offering precious little in the area of the world that we have defined as a 

significant problem for the United States.

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you. Mr. Emerson.

 MR. EMERSON: I think your question is right to the point. And I'm not 

so sure we're ever going to come up with the right answers. Let me just offer a 

couple of thoughts. One, Islam, unlike Christianity and Judaism, has yet to 

undergo a genuine religious reformation. Now, there are reformists in Islam and 

there are those that unambiguously condemn terrorist groups. But by and large, 

the institutionalized control of the Islamic militant hierarchy is pervasive.

 And absent that reformation, there is an absence of a secularist class 

or of a reformist class. And consistent with that is the fact that, absent that 

reformation, that means that bin Laden is not just a, quote, "terrorist leader."
75

He's a religious leader and a political leader, and there gives infusion to the 

credibility of a message.

 You know, in part of my testimony, as part of a larger investigation 

that my organization is carrying out, we're looking at the exact textbooks that 

are being disseminated, in this case by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in the 

United States. And this was done by the embassy here in Washington. And I'm 

just going to give you a couple of examples.

 One is a textbook for eighth grade talking about triumphing over the 

unjust enemies and recalling Islamic history, when Islam was on top of the world 

and basically saying the mujaheddin were on top of the world, or holy warriors, 

and now were not.

 And the second example is an 11th grade textbook talking about that the 

believer must show the infidels rudeness and violence in the ways of jihad and 

the way of Allah. Now, this doesn't reflect Islam intrinsically. It reflects 

the interpretation of Islam by the militants, who unfortunately have 

disproportionate control.

 The question is, what will dislodge them? What will discredit them?

What will embolden the true reformists? One thing I can tell you is the more 

the U.S. -- the U.S. is struck by an incredible amount of contradictions. In 

Egypt we have pumped in a lot of money, increasing amounts of money, close to 

$2.5 billion a year. The USAID program is very elaborate in Egypt. And yet the 

amount of anti- American radicalism, let alone anti-Semitism, has increased.

 And if you look at Saudi Arabia, you find tremendous support by middleand upper-class youth, who are not impoverished, are not missing jobs, are not 

missing income, but subscribe to the same radicalism that the suicide bombers 

subscribe to in the West Bank and Gaza. So it's a trans-class, trans-economic 

phenomenon.

 I believe ultimately we need to encourage, through either overt but as 

well as covert programs, the whole reformation of Islam, the true emboldenment 

and power of genuine Islamic moderates, not the false moderates who say they 

condemn terrorism, but then when they're asked about bin Laden they say, "Well, 

he's not a terrorist" -- the genuine ones.

 The fact is we are beset by the contradictions. If we get more 

involved in the Islamic world, the more it's perceived as the crusaders coming 

back. The sense of injustice and double standards that Ambassador Ross talked 

about has been endemic since the Islamic world began being part of the losing 

end against the West in the late 1700s. And everything has been portrayed since 

then as a problem of the crusaders.

 So you have a mentality that views everything, going back not just 80 

years but 200 years, as an attack on Islam. Nothing we do, whether it's Radio 

Sawa or another type of -- which I think is a good thing, but not sufficient at 

all -- is going to counter the effective control on the media, Islamic 

institutions, educational institutions, that Rachel just talked about, that are 

deeply embedded within the societies in that area.

 Now, we can ask for secularized curricula, but the bottom line is 

they're not going to accept it, because to accept secularism, as Qardawi said, 

is to accept the defeat of Islam. So the question is, how do we discredit the 
76

militants? How do we embolden the moderates? How do we foster a genuine 

reformation in Islam?

 And one of the things that I suggest -- and it's only one thing, and it 

may not work out -- is that the U.S. government begin to create academic chairs 

around the world and centers, either through U.S. money or through institutes, 

quasi-official institutes like we have the U.S. Institute for Peace or the other 

democratic institutes, that will create genuine centers of learning and 

empowerment for reformists in Islam.

 MR. KEPEL: Thank you. Well, I will make no attempt at reconciling the 

views of Ms. Bronson and Mr. Emerson, but just to focus on the three questions 

that I think you asked. The first one was how come al Qaeda was at war with us 

-- and I include even our part of the world in this task -- before we knew.

 Two, how come this suicide thing became so prominent? Is this 

something Islamic or not? And three, about the popularity of Osama bin Laden.

And I think we can get rather precise here.

 How come al Qaeda was at war with us before we knew? I'm sure that on 

this matter, the work of your commission can shed a lot of light. In my view, 

something took place which we do not know, really, and those who talk don't know 

and those who know don't talk, for the time being, until we read you what you're 

going to do, of course.

 Between, say, 1989 and 1991-1992, most of those jihadists were 

people who had access to this country. They came here. They were treated well.

They lectured. There were a number of centers gathering funds for jihad in 

Afghanistan. A number of students from the Muslim world on American campuses 

were recruited to go to jihad, and so on and so forth.

 And for some reason, it was believed or it must have been believed that 

those people would, say, create no danger, and even maybe that it would be 

useful to keep some sort of access to them in the event that some sort of 

revolution like the Iranian revolution would take place in the future.

 If you remember, no one in the U.S. actually knew anything about the 

people who seized power in 1979, among other reasons, because the shah of Iran 

had poured so much money over DC, over the beltway, at the time that no one knew 

anything about the Iranian opposition.

 So, in order not to make the same mistake, a number of those people 

were (treated?) here -- were visible. And for the French, this is something 

very clear, because much of the Islamist position in Algeria was received here 

because many people thought in the early '90s that Algeria would become an 

Islamist state. And their representatives were here. They were seen by members 

of the administration, and so on and so forth.

 So I guess that probably there was some sort of misassessment or 

misunderstanding of those groups and the belief that they could be under 

control, and that when you stopped paying them, they would disappear, which is 

not at all what happened.

 And I guess there was a whole -- it's not only an issue, I would say, 

of this or that agency that was incompetent. It was more a general policy 

orientation, and the fact that it was believed that they could be used, that 

they would not turn against the ones who had been by their side. But for that, 
77

I guess we have to have access to a number of classified documents, and we 

academics can only use ifs and subjunctives. That's why I'm eager to read what 

you're going to write.

 This issue of suicides -- truly in the Sunni Muslim world, which is 85 

percent of the Muslim world, suicide is not at all valued. On the contrary, 

when suicide is perceived as such, it is something which is seen as taking back 

what God had given and it is a sin which leads those who commit it to the 

fires of hell; hence the qualification of the 11th of September, for instance.

 There was a semantic battle between a number of doctors of the law as 

to whether or not 9/11 was suicide or whether it was martyrdom. And maybe this 

is one of the reasons why some people deem Sheikh Qaradawi, who is the darling 

of Steven Emerson here, a moderate, because Sheikh Kardawi (ph), who's -- he's 

the sort of -- how do you say -- the televangelist, if I may say so, in Al 

Jazeera; he has his program every Sunday morning. Well, he had, because now 

he's having some difficulties with the Qatari state. And Al Jazeera is 

something between 45 million to 60 million viewers, so it's not nothing.

 And he would claim that 9/11 was a suicide operation because there was 

no legitimate jihad against the U.S. and that those people who did it, provided 

they were Muslims and not agents of Mossad, like rumors spread in the Muslim 

world, they were burning in the fire of hell. Nevertheless, he would contend, 

those who planted bombs or who blow themselves up in pizzerias or wherever in 

Israel, those were not suicides. They were martyrs, because they fought in the 

name of God to reclaim the land of Islam that had been stolen by the infidels.

So it's an issue. I mean, it's not only scholarly issue. It's very sensitive 

political issue.

 Actually, I believe this issue of suicides in modern Islamic societies 

came to the forefront with the Iranian revolution and with the fact that in 

Shi'a Islam, the sacrifice of the self is much more valued than it is in Sunni 

Islam. Shi'ite militants and volunteers would go and blow themselves up on 

Iraqi mine fields during the Iraq- Iran war in the 1980s, and that allowed the 

Iranian regular forces to proceed.

 Now, this contaminated those other Shi'as who are Arabs, i.e. in 

southern Lebanon. And then the Hizbollah tradition developed on this suicide 

bombing thing. They were Shi'as, just like the Iranians, but they were not 

Iranians. They belonged to the Arab world, if you wish.

 And that, in a sense, became a model because, particularly after Ehud 

Barak decided to pull out Israeli troops from Lebanon, southern Lebanon, in May 

of 2000, then this was perceived by the rank-and-file people in the Arab world 

as the only military victory, the only Arab military victory of date. And so 

hence this issue of suicide gained some sort of ground and credibility as a 

means to achieve aims that would otherwise be unreachable.

 But then it sort of -- it became loose. It stopped being under control 

because there was endless overbidding in this issue of suicide in Palestine and 

Israel particularly. But eventually this issue of suicide, you know, cannot be 

understood if you don't put it in context with the media, and particularly with 

the satellite television thing.

 I mean, suicide allows you to -- a suicide attack, a suicide bombing -- 

to be in the news, to be in the front page. And this is catching attention.
78

And stop broadcasting suicide bombings and you'll see that suicide bombings, if 

not disappear, I mean, at least lose a lot of their political interest.

 So how come young people with education, and even at times with western 

education, get into those suicide operations? One issue, of course, is, as 

Dennis Ross mentioned, because there's such an amount of despair, that people 

think they have no other way. I mean, this is the only thing they can do.

There is no solution, and so on and so forth. So this is the sociological 

dimension which can be discussed.

 One other thing is that nowadays -- and this is going back to something 

Mr. Emerson said earlier -- that we now have a different type of Islamic 

learning which has gained prominence, particularly during the Afghan years, the 

Afghan jihad years, where obscure interpreters of the book have now become 

extremely active, people who do not speak everyday language but who would look 

out for the sort of most difficult verses or sayings of the prophets and who 

would claim that they have authority in order to fight the Jews, fight the 

Christians, and so on and so forth.

 And there again, then you have the possibility to them, I mean, to have 

control over minds which are not well-grounded in sort of religious learning.

Here clearly there is a big problem in terms of what is Islamic learning in the 

Muslim world today and who has been able to capture this issue.

 Third, and very briefly, about the popularity of Osama bin Laden, I 

mean, definitely he was quite popular after 9/11 amongst the youth. And let me 

tell you an anecdote which I heard in an Egyptian (dialect?), in Egypt and in 

other places. It's the story of a woman in a restaurant who wants to go to the 

toilet, and she goes directly to the men's room. So the waiters tell her, "No, 

no, no, lady, this is for men. You go to the other restroom for the ladies."

And she asks, "Why? Is Osama bin Laden inside the men's room?" And they say, 

"No, of course he is not." Then she said, "So I can go, because he is the only 

male left in the Arab and Muslim world."

 And this is something which is -- she did not fear anything; all 

the others were, you know, castrated. And this is something which is kind of 

telling; i.e., that he was seen, if I may say so, again, in Saudi Arabia, in a 

country where there are a lot of zeros in checks, I mean, as the only hero. And 

then I guess that this doesn't have to -- shouldn't be underestimated.

 Nevertheless, his problem is that he cannot deliver, and he's just like 

an Andy Warhol -- Andy Warhol said that everybody would be famous for 15 

minutes. Well, he's been famous for a little more, but he has disappeared. I 

don't know whether he's dead or not. Maybe you'll discover that also; I mean, 

we hope. But bin Laden, in a way, you have the activist bin Laden; I mean, the 

man who was part of this al Qaeda network.

 And al Qaeda -- it's a strange story, because they never called 

themselves al Qaeda. Al Qaeda was a nickname, and it was something -- I mean, 

this was not a fabrication by the press in this country or by intelligence 

agencies, but rather a way to focus on something. You know, it was a nebulous 

thing. They would call themselves the vanguard of Islam. But al Qaeda -- no 

Islamist movement in my knowledge -- and I have been studying them for 25 years 

-- has ever called himself such a thing, right? So calling them a base was a 

means to focus on them.
79

 So, bin Laden, who is the activist on the one hand and you also have 

bin Laden who is sort of the media icon, and if not this great scholar of Islam 

at least this great scholar of media, Orson Wells, once said the worst -- I 

mean, the best guy is the more money you make at the box office. And clearly 

bin Laden was seen as such a fabrication. I mean, bin Laden without TV coverage 

is just like a fish outside the aquarium, and he doesn't deliver. He doesn't 

deliver anything significantly. He doesn't allow people to make more money, to 

survive, to lead better lives. And nowadays his name is less and less 

mentioned.

 So I think today reference to bin Laden, he will be another of those 

failed Arab heroes -- you know, those heroes who said that they would bring 

something that ultimately they brought nothing but havoc.

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you. Ambassador Ross, I hate to ask a fourth 

person to respond to the same questions, but I'd appreciate your thoughts.

 MR. ROSS: I'm happy to. Look, let me start where Gilles ended. I go back 

to something I was saying earlier. There is the appeal of the defier. There is 

a desire to stand up to those who humiliate you. There is the impulse to have 

somebody who will represent the powerless against the powerful. He embodied 

that, because as I said before he's not the first to try to do that. The 

problem with defiers is ultimately if you are going to succeed you have to 

produce and not just defy. And every single one of the defiers so far has 

ultimately failed, because they have not produced.

 But they are still able to tap that sense of resentment, that sense of 

anger, and the appeal of martyrdom. I mean, it's another expression of this. I 

mean, here's someone who is prepared to inflict pain on those who inflict pain 

on us. Until there is more of an effort in the region, by religious leaders as 

well as political leaders, to discredit this, you are not going to see anything 

change. And you can't have one kind of terror that's okay and another kind that 

isn't. When you go in and you -- you know, you blow up a night club in Tel 

Aviv, that's terror -- it's not resistance. When you blow up a pizza parlor, 

that's terror -- it's not resistance. But when every Palestinian school at that 

time would actually put up banners to proclaim the glory of the suicide bomber 

who did that, when the Arab media generally would do that -- well, you know, 

that's hardly going to be something that becomes illegitimate.

 Now, since 9/11 we have seen some change in that. And since the Saudi 

9/11 we have seen some more change in terms of that, because when local leaders 

begin to see that they are not deflecting the threat away from themselves, but 

it is something that will be visited upon them, they begin to take a somewhat 

different view. It's a kind of reformation in Islam. The problem is it has to 

come from within. It cannot come from without.

 Now, there is the potential for more change coming from within -- not 

just among the religious, but more generally speaking. And we have to look at 

what the fall of Baghdad has meant psychologically throughout the Arab world.

Nobody expected that it was going to be Stalingrad, but they did expect that 

there would be resistance. And when it collapsed very quickly without 

resistance -- and this is a capital with a glorious history -- then it reminded 

everybody in the region that there was something really rotten with Saddam 

Hussein's regime, but it also reminded them that this was a regime that was more 

extreme than theirs but not in many was dissimilar from theirs. Now, what that 

does when it creates the sense that there's rot, it tends to strengthen two very 

different approaches. One is the fundamentalist approach, because after all 
80

they have a very simple explanation for what's wrong and how to get well. But 

it also has emboldened the reformers, who also have their own explanation for 

what's wrong and how to get well, which is one of the reasons that I say I'm 

very strongly in favor of us doing more with reformers. It's not the whole 

story. I think what Rachel said about education should be an important part of 

what we do. I think we have to recognize something critical to this whole 

enterprise. What the defiers need is a complete sense of hopelessness. It's 

what makes -- it isn't just what creates the anger and frustration, but it 

creates a sense, well, you have nothing to lose. We have friends in the area 

who for their own reasons are going to have to begin to figure out how they deal 

with very young populations that are increasingly alienated who feel there is no 

prospect, no possibility, no hope of inclusion. Unless you begin to see the 

possibilities created -- you don't have to have a revolution, you don't have to 

transform the reality overnight, but you have to begin to create a sense that 

something can change. In Saudi Arabia right now the crown prince has embraced a 

call for reform from Saudi liberals, and he's facing in fact real resistance 

from other members of the royal family. One of the things I suggested in my 

statement is this is not a struggle that we should be indifferent to or neutral 

about.

 MR. FIELDING: Thank you all for very fine answers. Mr. Chairman, I 

don't want to monopolize all of the questioning of this panel.

 MR. KEAN: We'll turn it over then to Senator Cleland.

 MR. CLELAND: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ross, we give you 

tremendous kudos for taking shuttle diplomacy to a high level, unheard of in 

modern times. So thank you very much for all that time on aircrafts trying to 

work on the problems of the Middle East.

 May I just say that, Ms. Bronson, I fully agree that this Samuel 

Huntington thesis of a clash of civilizations is exactly what we don't want to 

have. But I am afraid that in terms of what are the results of our policy that 

it may begin to have that effect and create more defiers or create more 

alienation, Mr. Ross. I'd like to just read to you an excerpt from a speech by 

Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, to the National Press Club luncheon 

June 19th, 2003, regards the Pew, P-E-W Global attitudes project, in terms of a 

survey how they see in effect America. Senator Hagel says the June 2003 survey 

of the Pew Global Attitudes Project should be a rousing alarm clock, not merely 

a wake-up call to all Americans, regarding the perception of America in the 

world today. The Pew project relied on public opinion surveys from 44 nations 

in the summer and fall of last year, and further data from 21 countries in April 

and May of this year, for a total survey sample of 54,000 people. The survey's 

finding, according to Senator Hagel, carries a disconcerting message regarding 

American leadership and credibility. And from the poll he quotes, "The Iraq War 

has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed 

the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly 

weakened global support for the pillars of the post-World War II era, the U.N. 

and the North Atlantic Alliance." Mr. Ross, are we creating more defiers? Are 

we creating more hopelessness, more alienation, by the Iraq war and the massive 

presence that we have there? It looks like an open-ended ground war with us 

losing more and more people every day.

 MR. ROSS: Well, I think obviously we have to have what I would call a 

balanced approach. I do think the military dimension of it, as I said, is 

indispensable. And for many who said before the war that we would see an 

incredible uproar and a collapse throughout the Middle East if we went to war, 
81

we haven't seen what many suggested that we would. That said, we have to 

succeed in Iraq. I mean, it's one thing to demonstrate that the Saddam Husseins 

and the Osama bin Ladens fail, and their way will always fail and only produce 

continued humiliation. Sure there will be some who react to what we did as this 

is one more humiliation inflicted from the outside. But I think the majority 

also recognizes one of the things I said. There is something really rotten 

there, and they have to fix it. Now, we need to think about, A, how we can help 

them; B, where we invest heavily we also have to show that our way can work.

 There isn't an American blueprint that can be imposed on the Middle 

East -- not a chance. You can't impose democracy, you can't impose peace. But 

you can support those who share those values. And what we do in Iraq has got 

to in fact demonstrate that what we said we were going to do is in fact what we 

have done. We cannot be seen as occupiers. We have to be seen as liberators.

We have to show that the Iraqis are the ones who in the end will determine their 

destiny, not us. We will have to find a way to put an Iraqi face on what is 

going on the sooner the better. We will have to do this in a way that obviously 

in the end shows that our words reflected who we are. So I don't believe that 

what we have done in Iraq necessarily creates a bigger problem for us. But if 

we were to come back a year from now and find that the situation looks the way 

it does today, then I would be much more concerned.

 If a year from now Iraq looked like it's on the right track, then I 

will tell you I think that will help us in the war on terror in terms of 

emboldening those who believe there has to be a different way, and the Middle 

East has to look different.

 MR. CLELAND: Mr. Kepel, I am a Vietnam veteran and followed the French 

in Indochina. The Americans have followed the Turks and the British in Iraq.

You want to respond to whether or not this survey of global attitudes about 

involvement in Iraq lessens our chances of doing better on the war on terrorism?

Does it create more Osama bin Ladens as Mubarak once said?

 MR. KEPEL: Well, thank you. Do you want me to answer in my capacity 

as a Frenchman or as a scholar? (Laughter.)

 MR. CLELAND: Whichever you are most comfortable with.

 MR. KEPEL: Well, coming from being -- seeing myself as a stinkycheese-eating weasel -- (laughter) -- and that may explain why the image of the 

present American administration and my country, to use an euphemism, extremely 

positive. And I once even thought that people should shoot some of the American 

media people for portraying French people with the weasel heads and -- I don't 

mean some other groups, discrimination -- I don't know, that's another story.

 So I would say that the view of U.S. policy outside the U.S. nowadays, 

and I can to some extent speak for Europe, for this is where I live, and half 

the Muslim world, because this is what I study -- is that the U.S. is mainly 

interested in its vested interests more than it is interested in the common 

good. And this may be right or wrong. I mean, you are free to approve or 

disapprove of it, but I think that this is a very deeply rooted feeling 

worldwide. And that means what? That means that groups of people, in the middle 

class mostly, who would otherwise be willing to follow the U.S. lead, or who 

would largely, as in the case of Western Europe, share a fair amount of values 

that we have in common, now feel that the U.S. leadership is not really 

trustworthy, because it leads to U.S. interests more than it leads to a shared 

sort of global leadership, if you wish. And if such beliefs are held in a 
82

number of European countries where we share the same culture, we share a number 

of things, to a large extent, then definitely this is felt much more in the rest 

of the world. So I would say that there's a lot to be done probably in patching 

up those differences in terms of not only the declaration, but also action.

That for instance clearly when we talk about Iraq, Iraq was a military victory, 

an American military victory. Though some, and some very well placed people in 

the administration, which I saw today, told me it was not a victory. The war 

was not really over, and that, you know, many Iraqis still believe that the war 

is not over, which is a mistake militarily speaking.

 But nevertheless, if we assume that this is a victory militarily, 

because the Saddam Hussein army is done and so on and so forth, how come it did 

not translate into a political success? How come the Iraqi middle classes have 

not emerged just like, say, the Polish middle classes, or the Russian, or the 

Czech middle classes after the lid of the Soviet system had been taken away?

Now, the lid -- the lead lid, if I may say so, of the Saddam Hussein fascist, 

communist, or what have you -- Ba'athist regime has been taken away. But 

nevertheless, you don't find an organized civil society in the Iraqi cauldron 

underneath.

 I wonder to what extent the U.S. is perceived in the region for that 

purpose as the honest broker -- I mean, as the honest midwife which will give 

birth to Iraqi -- the democratic Iraq, which will, in its turn, lead the way, 

and if most people in the region do not say that the reason why the armed 

operation was called was called Operation Iraqi Freedom and not Operation Iraqi 

Liberty was that the acronym for Operation Iraqi Liberty would have been O-I-L -

- (laughter) -- and that O-I-F was more misleading. So, you know, definitely 

there is -- there is a problem, I would say, of communication.

 There is also a problem of -- it's definitely the U.S. and the British 

were the ones who were instrumental in bringing Saddam down. But I do not think, 

I do not think that they can be the only ones to bring the Iraqi -- Iraqi 

society back on its feet. And without the participation of the international 

community, there will always be some feeling of suspicion which will hamper the 

very efforts that the U.S. are doing in Iraq. And I think this is -- you know, 

some people say that nowadays the Europeans who are not pro-war rejoice. We 

don't. I think that a disaster in Iraq is a disaster for all of us and for the 

whole world.

 So I would rather say that we have to join forces, and we weasels are 

ready to forgive you for all those insults. (Laughter.)

 MR. CLELAND: Thank you, Mr. Kepel.

 Speaking of O-I-L, there is a book out by two French journalists who 

for three years looked at the American experience, particularly in Afghanistan 

and the Middle East, called "Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy 

and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden," Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie.

 MR. KEPEL: Dasquie.

 MR. CLELAND: Do you happen to know the gentlemen? Do you put any 

faith in --

 MR. KEPEL: Yeah, I know those gentlemen. Brisard is the one who is 

the counsel for the victims of the 9/11 blast, I think. And Dasquie is a 

journalist specializing in intelligence.
83

 MR. CLELAND: Worth reading, from your point of view?

 MR. KEPEL: This is on the record, right? (Laughter.)

 MR. CLELAND: Thank you very much.

 Steven Emerson, please, sir? Your comments about America's role in the 

world and whether or not this global attitudes project, saying that the war in 

Iraq has reduced, in effect, American -- well, has widened the rift between 

Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened 

support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global support for 

the pillars of the post- World War II era, the U.N. and the North Atlantic 

alliance. Again, are we creating more Islamic radical terrorists by this 

effort?

 MR. EMERSON: I think that if one looks at surveys prior to the Pew 

Charitable Trust Survey, looking at surveys. for example, right after 9/11, one 

sees an incredible degree of radicalism that existed prior to the U.S. invasion 

of Iraq. For example, BBC reported in November 2001 that, based on a telephone 

survey of 500 British Muslims, it was reported that 67 percent believe that the 

U.S. was unjustified in blaming bin Laden for the attacks on September 11th. In 

2002 Gallup poll, published in USA Today, admittedly not as scientific as other 

polls, but interviewed 10,000 people in nine mostly Muslim countries; 61 percent 

said the Arabs did not carry out the September 11th attacks.

 I'm going to relate to you just a personal experience that occurred 

within the last year, when I gave a speech in Ohio at the University of Toledo 

Law School. And I could see there was a lot of hostility in the room. There 

were about a thousand people, and I'd say several hundred were Muslim students 

or Muslim representatives. And at one point, a young woman wearing hijab got up 

and started heckling me.

 And I engaged her, and she said to me, "We know the Israelis were 

behind 9/11." And I said, "How do you know?"

 Then she says, "Because we see it on Al Jazeera." So I said, "And 

that's the limitation?" She says, "Well" -- she challenged me, she says, "Well, 

how do you know that bin Laden?"

 Now, there was no way I could get beyond and behind her reality; that's 

a fact. What it demonstrated to me, that there is this extremist view that, 

unfortunately, exists out in other parts of the world, not limited to the Muslim 

world, but certainly in large parts of the Muslim world there's a dominate view 

the U.S. is evil, is engaged in an anti-Muslim conspiracy, and that's why bin 

Laden, you know, labeled his fatwas a declaration against the crusaders, 

invoking the crusades.

 And I think this type of extremism has existed, which reflects sort of 

a variant of what Huntington said -- not a clash of Islam and the West, it's a 

clash between militant Islam and the West, or a clash between militant Islam and 

Islam.

 And I'll be frank with you that I don't have the answers in terms of 

trying to unravel this type of extremist views. I do know that the propagation 

within public institutions -- of schools, popular media -- constantly reinforces 

the notion of the extremist views of the U.S. as an evil country, and unless and 
84

until that type of culture is changed -- and some of it can be changed with just 

a simple ruling by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- until -- and in fact, 

Pakistan, to its credit, has shut down more than 10,000 madrassas that were 

teaching jihad in the last two years. There can be efforts, and it may not pay 

off for another 10 years, that would reduce the allure of the jihadist culture.

 MR. CLELAND: Thank you.

 Ms. Bronson, you have the last word.

 MS. BRONSON: Sure. Thank you. In my submitted testimony, I refer to 

an article by Peter Rodman, who is now deputy assistant secretary of defense for 

International Security Affairs. He had a very prescient article, written in 

2000, about growing anti- Americanism. And he said this is a structural 

problem; we are the sole remaining superpower. We are considered the hyperpower 

and something to organize around.

 And so part of this challenge that we have is structural, and our 

policies can temper that. But we do have a challenge that we didn't during the 

Cold War, where we could play off an opponent. So I think it's important to 

remember that this was out there, and I think much of it was growing throughout 

the 1990s, and we probably didn't pay enough attention to it.

 In terms of Iraq, I think Iraq exacerbated it by the way we went to 

war. We had to go to war in Iraq, as far as I'm concerned, because it was a 

rallying point for radical groups, because they were pointing to the ugly 

effects of sanctions, and allowing Saddam to march around his box and destroy 

this important civilization within Iraq, within the Arab world. But the 

radicalism wasn't, in my view, some of these ties -- the argument wasn't these 

ties to al Qaeda, it was the radicalization of the entire region, because we 

seemed so complacent in allowing Saddam Hussein to continue to rule.

 I think it was a very important -- it was the way by which we went to 

war I think that is causing us some challenges.

 I think this very much was a war that was sanctioned by international 

law and U.N. resolutions, and it was unfortunate that we had the doctrine of 

preemption right before it. It warped the debate about what this was actually 

about. But I would say that exacerbated it, although it was necessary, and I 

wish we could have found a different way to go, and I think it was possible to 

find a different way.

 But where we are today, we must get Iraq right. I have had calls from 

Oman, people saying, "Get this right," because they need positive examples, as 

referred to, I think, by Dennis Ross. We need to have successes. We need a 

success in Afghanistan or a success in Iraq. We have engaged in a massive 

project.

 Consider what we poured into Germany alone between 1948 and 1950. We 

poured in $8 billion. We have now said that all we are going to pour into 

reconstruction of Iraq is $1.7 billion -- the $8 billion in current dollars -- 

$1.7 billion in all of Iraq. We took 30,000 troops and made them police 

officers and constabulary forces. We armed them with horses and police riot 

gear. We're reluctant to do that in Iraq.

 We really are nation-builders. It's an uncomfortable role, but we have 

taken on that challenge. And unless we work extremely hard and put serious 
85

resources behind our involvement, losing Iraq will prevent the middle class from 

coming out; it will be this lead lid. The Iraqis don't know that the Soviets are 

gone like the Poles knew that the Soviets were gone -- they don't know that 

Saddam is gone. We have to make absolutely clear this war very much is still 

going on. Whether you agree or disagree with how we went to war, whether the war 

-- this is very important to this part of the world that we absolutely get it 

right, because our friends need a victory. They need us to have a victory. And 

right now, they see precious little reason to rally around the United States.

 MR. CLELAND: And one of our panelists today, the gentleman who wrote 

the book "Inside Al Qaeda" -- I forget his name -- from Singapore, mentioned 

that Iraq could become the new Afghanistan; not the rising middle class taking 

over and putting together a civilized society, but really, an attraction for 

people who rallied around the Mujahideen in Afghanistan now rallying around 

American forces in Iraq, and that that could become, in effect, a breeding 

ground for the terrorism.

 Fascinating panel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Senator. I want to thank this panel, 

particularly. You were a wonderful way to finish our day, each of you more 

articulate than one before. Thank you very much; you've helped us a great deal.

I appreciate your coming. That will end the hearing for the day. 

Post-Hearing Media Advisory 

MR. KEAN: This, as you all know, was our third hearing. And the purpose of the 

hearing was to help us understand the enemy we face and the war that we're now 

waging. We're obviously not ready to give you any conclusions yet at this 

point, but we can note, perhaps, some observations that we heard from the 11 

witnesses who testified today.

 What the witnesses described was not really a clash of civilizations, 

pitting Islam against the West. It was a political and economic struggle, as I 

heard it, within Islam, within a civilization, what one witness called "the 40-

year civil war" in the Muslim world.

 One study we heard about today estimated that 80 to 90 percent of the 

al Qaeda terrorists are either expatriates or the children of immigrants. In 

other words, these are people who were separated from their culture and social 

origins. And when you're separated like that, you find identity in something 

else, and they find their -- found their identity in a cause. And that cause 

turned them into terrorists. But the cause must be linked to an organization to 

do that, and for many that organization, of course, turned out to be al Qaeda.

 Secondly, we heard that al Qaeda is not a terrorist superpower. 

Witnesses stated it can't mount another 9/11, even as still it carries out 

attacks against what they called "soft targets" overseas.

 Al Qaeda is just one combatant, then, in this wider war. It's one 

organization, with global aspirations. But other witnesses called attention to 

the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt as a global network for the ideology of 

terrorism. And, with al Qaeda now weakened, it has to lean more on the actions 

of associated groups who are fellow combatants, as the effort to change the 

Muslim world.
86

 Lee?

 MR. HAMILTON: Chairman Kean and I have been comparing notes through 

the morning and afternoon, and the observations he just made I certainly concur 

with. In addition, I think I have some others that I will make, and I think he 

concurs with them as well.

 First, we heard a number of positive opportunities in this war. Let me 

mention several of them to you. One is, we heard that extremists offer their 

version of Islam as an alternative to failed secular dictatorships, but once the 

extremists come into power, as in countries like Sudan and Iran, they reveal 

their promise to be an illusion. You remember the statement that Professor 

Kepel had at the end of his remarks, and I quote it: "The political cost of the 

campaign of the suicide bombers seems to be considerable and its gains 

questionable. There is only the exaltation of a small minority who have locked 

themselves into a mentality where terrorism becomes an end itself," end of 

quote. This is an end that may not command broad appeal. That's a positive 

note, I think, that was struck on more than one occasion in the afternoon and 

morning sessions.

 Secondly, we heard about some of the peaceful strains of Muslim 

fundamentalism, strains of opinion that would really be partners with us in the 

war on terror, and certainly rebutting the image that equates all devout Muslims 

as terrorists.

 Third, we heard suggestions that our policy should focus on the media 

environment, where newspapers are fronts for the terrorists and where the, 

quote, "the culture of terrorism is an industry," end of quote, where leaders 

are afraid to speak the truth to their citizens and tell them bluntly that 

terrorism is wrong and evil.

 And next we heard witnesses say that the terrorists are drawn from 

clusters of individuals organizing around haphazard networks of relatives or 

friends. Patterns such as that, I think, offer opportunities for us to deal 

more effectively with the threat of terrorism through intelligence and law 

enforcement and other means.

 And finally, let me just observe that we heard about a number of key 

challenges, of course, to American foreign policy. Several of them stood out.

You'll remember one of the witnesses talked about the Middle East now is the 

responsibility of the United States. And others urged that the terrorists must 

be hunted down relentlessly, but they cautioned that we should allow a country -

- we should not allow a country like Afghanistan to turn into what one witness 

called "a terrorist Disneyland." The witnesses helped us to understand that 

this hunt requires unprecedented international cooperation in a variety of 

areas: diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, as well as, of course, 

military. And the word "multi-faceted" kept popping up quite frequently in the 

testimony of several of the witnesses to describe the kind of effort that will 

be necessary in the war on terrorism.

 Witnesses stressed the importance of a clear American message to 

Muslims in the Arab world and to emphasize American values -- freedom and 

democracy, representative government -- on a consistent basis. That was a theme 

struck by several witnesses during the day.
87

 Finally, witnesses stressed the importance of using not just the stick, 

but carrots as well, and indicated that dealing with terrorism is much more 

complicated than just use of military force, although that is often important.

But diplomacy and economic policy, public diplomacy and other aspects of 

American foreign policy can play a very important role in our addressing 

terrorism in the world.

 All in all, I thought it was an afternoon and morning of -- very rich 

with ideas and opinions and suggestions and policy proposals for the commission, 

and, I think, an exceedingly productive afternoon for us.

 STAFF: Kindly state your name and your affiliation.

 Q Dan Friedman of Hearst Newspapers. Some of the panelists in the 

morning panel seemed to suggest under questioning that they didn't think that al 

Qaeda could launch another 9/11 attack on the scale that they did launch. Do 

you agree with that assessment?

 MR. KEAN: I don't think -- personally, I don't think I have enough 

information yet to agree or disagree with that particular assessment. They -- 

that seems to have been the pattern up to this point. They also warned us, 

though, that if they were able to find another base, another place to mount 

operations from, that they could again launch some very serious and massive 

attacks. And so it obviously should be a point of American policy not to allow 

another country to exist that allows them to have that base.

 MR. HAMILTON: I heard that sentence, too, and I reacted very 

positively to it. (Laughs.) And I'm sure most Americans would.

 But I think it's important for us to emphasize that we're not trying 

this afternoon to draw conclusions from all of this. We, like perhaps you, are 

hearing much of this for the first time, so our assessment will be made later.

But that judgment came from more than one, and it came from two or three very 

qualified people. Their opinions deserve our respect, and it's a bright light 

for us, a matter of real hope.

 Q (Off mike) -- I'm with CBS News. Could you talk about what kind 

of cooperation you're getting from the various executive branch agencies in 

terms of the report; getting the access to the witnesses you want and getting 

the documents you've requested in a timely manner?

 MR. KEAN: Yeah, we've -- if you look at the report that we issued 

yesterday, we go down agency by agency by agency, all through the 

administration. And in some of those agencies, the cooperation is quite good, 

and we got a number of things that we needed. In other agencies, where in some 

cases we've made massive requests, we've haven't gotten the materials we needed, 

and we certainly haven't gotten them in a timely fashion. The deadlines we've 

set have passed. We've got our own deadline; by statue, we've got to report by 

next May. So we can't brook that kind of thing. We've got to get the 

information we need to do our work.

 So while I think the White House is cooperating, I think they're trying 

to do their best to help us in a number of ways, some agencies, led at the 

moment by the Department of Defense, is not cooperating to the extent we need 

that cooperation. Now, it's better than it was, and it's moving in the right 

direction. But the next two or three weeks are going to be vital. Talk to me 

in another two or three weeks.
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 MR. HAMILTON: Let me just observe that we are, number one, asking for 

an enormous amount of material. We measure material not by pages, but by boxes.

And we are getting and asking for not a few pages, but hundreds of thousands of 

pages. So the request to the executive branch departments and agencies is very, 

very large. It is understandable to me that they can't handle it quickly or 

overnight. I'm not apologizing for them, I'm just saying that we're making a 

very large request.

 Now, secondly, the requests that we are making are, in some cases, not 

in all, relate to very sensitive material. And it is understandable by both the 

chairman and myself that it takes a little while for those kinds of requests to 

work their way through the bureaucracy.

 This is a difficult task for us, and as the chairman has said, we must 

have that information. We must have it if we're going to do our job. We're 

going to get it. We're impatient. We think a lot of it has been slow in 

coming, but we understand the reasons. There is a bureaucratic inertia. These 

people have things other to do than to answer our requests. There are national 

security concerns. There are conditions that attach to our requests that we 

have to work out -- that are complicated to work it out -- so that it's mutually 

agreed upon, under what kind of circumstances can we see the material, 

particularly when it's the most sensitive material that the government 

possesses.

 I think we're making good progress. We've got a long way to go. We 

certainly need the very strong support from the White House to help us, and I 

was most pleased with the statement I read in the paper this morning from the 

White House that the president remains very committed to cooperating with the 

commission and helping us get the material we need.

 Q (Name inaudible) -- CNN. Senator Schumer is calling for the 

inspectors general of both the Justice Department and DOD to investigate whether 

or not there has been stonewalling by those agencies, and he cited the 

administration's initial reluctance to form the commission that you're now 

heading. And he seems to be suspicious that they're stonewalling for a reason.

Is he going too far?

 MR. HAMILTON: We do not have the impression that we're being 

stonewalled. We -- that's not to say we're entirely satisfied with the rate at 

which the materials are coming in. But I think the word "stonewalling" is not 

an accurate reflection of the circumstances we are now in.

 We were critical, as the Senator's new release mentioned, I think, of 

two agencies particularly, the Department of Justice and the Department of 

Defense. We think we're quite justified in the criticisms that we made of those 

two departments. And we have some reason to think that our first report is 

going to be productive in getting the material we need.

 So I think that's the status of it now, and we will wait for the next 

few weeks, which we think are very crucial in terms of whether or not we can 

successfully do our work.

 MR. KEAN: We've got to remember that in doing our work we are 

launching what we believe is the largest investigation of the United States 

government in this country's history. Now, I don't think the departments were 

ready for that. (Laughs.) I don't think the administration was ready for that.
89

They have promised cooperation. They have promised increased cooperation. They 

have put more people on task helping us directly -- in fact, they've put now 

four people full-time directly from -- in the Justice Department at the request 

of the White House to help us secure the materials we need in a timely fashion.

I think that's going to work. I'm an optimist. I believe it's going to work, 

and I believe we will start getting these materials. But it is -- you know, as 

I say, the next three weeks to a month are going to tell the story.

 Bob?

 Q Governor, Bob Braun from the Star-Ledger. Professor Kepel 

mentioned that as an academic he doesn't have any access to real information, 

and he also said he spoke with if's and subjunctives. I'm wondering why, while 

the panel were all very fascinating and interesting, why the people who actually 

made the decisions weren't here as opposed to those who have opinions about 

those who made the decisions.

 MR. KEAN: Well, we're doing this in a number -- this was a hearing, 

because part of our mandate from the United States Congress is to study al 

Qaeda, to know the history of the enemy. That's part of the -- that's part of 

our mandate. Some of the people who we will be calling in the future from the 

various agencies, the departments who had direct responsibility on 9/11, we want 

a little more information before we talk to them. Some of the materials that 

we've requested we need in order to conduct those interviews. So we thought it 

would be more productive to have them a little later on. But they will -- they 

will be here.

 MR. HAMILTON: We've got to be brought up to date ourselves. We're 

stepping into a moving stream here. A lot of work has been done. I don't 

consider myself any kind of an expert on al Qaeda. For example, I need to know 

an awful lot about it. And I began that learning process as I looked over the 

materials for today's hearing and continued it during the day. The second 

comment is that I think the academics of the world greatly exaggerate the 

handicap they face -- (laughs) -- by not having access to information. I've 

been on both sides of that. I fully understand, I believe, that the amount of 

secret information that you get that is not available to the public is very, 

very small, and almost never -- I can hardly think of an instance when it would 

alter your judgment.

 MR. KEAN: It is very interesting --

 MR. HAMILTON: Almost all necessary facts are and should be in the 

public domain.

 MR. KEAN: It's -- just to echo what Chairman -- what Vice Chairman 

Hamilton said, it's -- what's fascinating to me, as a non-Washingtonian who has 

not, up to this point, been involved in any of these agencies or any of the 

intelligence business, to read highly classified materials and have to read them 

under certain conditions, because they were highly classified, and to have read 

all the material before in the newspaper. (Laughter.) That was a new 

experience for me. But it's happened more than once and, I suspect, will happen 

again.

 Q Margie Burns, American Reporter. I have question regarding the DOD, 

which you mentioned a couple of times. All my uncles were in the military, and 

you know, that tends to leave a great big paper trail. We read in the early 

days after September 11th that several of the skyjackers had received their 
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flight training on military installations here. Wouldn't that be -- is the DOD 

holding up what might permit you to identify these particular attackers -- you 

know, height, weight, blood type, that kind of thing?

 And might that be -- my follow-up question would be, might that be just 

a few pages, rather than hundreds of thousands?

 MR. KEAN: We have asked -- we've made a massive request of DOD. And 

what we are -- and they have not denied us anything. They haven't said, "You're 

not going to get anything." What they've done is just not given it to us yet.

So to say it's coming -- but deadlines pass one week after another, and it 

doesn't come.

 We, for instance, need -- and Forrest, you mentioned the airlines -- we 

need all the information from NORAD very, very badly. That's DOD information.

We haven't gotten it yet. So that's the kind of thing we're talking about.

 Q I'm John Judge with 9/11 CitizensWatch. That's a community 

oversight group, citizen oversight group, and we work with some of the

families. And the panel today didn't address some of the questions that the 

families have raised. For instance, the state sponsorship panel did not include 

any information about Saudi Arabia as a potential sponsor. I know some of the 

families are bringing a suit in that regard.

 There have also been questions raised by a number of the researchers 

about the identities of the people on the plane, whether that's finally 

resolved, that these 19 people that were formally named in the press are in fact 

the people that were on the planes and were they on the planes.

 Some of that rests with airline lists of passengers that don't mention 

any of the names and things that haven't been resolved. And I'm wondering if 

the commission has sort of gone from the official statement to looking into al 

Qaeda as the suspect, or whether you plan to do additional work on what really 

happened that day, who did it and who those people were?

 MR. KEAN: That's what the final report will be all about, really. It 

will be the history of that particular day, the history of what happened. What 

we talked about today was one of the reasons in the why it happened, some of the 

hatred that exists out there in the world. And most importantly, there's going 

to be some recommendations so that no families have to go through this again, to 

try and make the country safer. That, I know, is most important to the family 

groups that I've talked to. Those are the three areas. We will be talking 

about Saudi Arabia, there's no question about it. Saudi Arabia's at the heart 

of a lot of this, and we'll be having meetings on Saudi Arabia.

 MR. HAMILTON: I agree with your comment about Saudi Arabia. Several of 

us talked about that during the lunch break. We had an expert here on Iran, we 

had an expert on Syria, for example. We did not have a person who we 

questioned, at least, with regard to Saudi Arabia, although I think Rachel has 

just completed a book on Saudi Arabia.

 MR. KEAN: Rachel is just about to come out with a book on it, yeah.

 MR. HAMILTON: That was a gap in the hearing this afternoon. We'll 

cover that gap in due time. And with regard to the identity of the people, 

those are questions -- I don't think this panel would have that information.

We'll do our best to get the answers to the questions the families have raised.
91

They've been very good, incidentally, about supplying those questions to us.

We've had a number of meetings with them. We'll continue to do that, and we 

will try to answer as many of the questions they've raised as we possibly can.

Some of them, I must say to you, are going to be extremely difficult to answer.

 Q A brief follow-up on another concern the families have had, and 

some of the researchers, is that none of the testimony to date has been taken 

under oath. And I'm wondering if you're planning to take testimony under oath 

in the future, or whether you see that as a necessity for what you're doing?

MR. KEAN: It probably depends on what the circumstances are and who the 

witnesses are, and we'll make that decision, probably, as we go along. It may 

be necessary at some point, or better at some points. At other points, you 

don't really want to -- once you're under oath and a lawyer and all of that, it 

changes the nature of what you're hearing. And so, we've got to make the 

determination as we go along as to whether we do that, and when we do that and 

with what witness we do that.

 MR. HAMILTON: My own experience on that is you've got to be 

careful with that. Everybody not involved in hearings I think tends to think, 

"Oh, let's put these folks under, oath and that will guarantee that they tell 

the truth." There's some element of that that is valid.

 On the other hand, I think one result of putting people under oath is 

they become much, much more cautious; they're very careful with their language, 

and you don't learn as much because they are thinking all of the time, "I'm 

subject to perjury charges." And so it is not automatic that you get better 

information, more complete information, by putting people under oath.

 Q Sean Waterman from United Press International. We heard some 

testimony and some questions today about the U.S. military action in Iraq. Are 

you -- is there any -- I mean, will you be addressing that in your report, 

possible blow-back, whether it has lessened or increased the terrorist threat to 

the United States?

 MR. KEAN: It certainly, in my mind, is not central to the mandate that 

Congress has given us. I think we've got to be very, very careful when we go 

outside our mandate, because our mandate by itself is enormously wide and 

enormously deep. On the other hand, when you're talking about the Middle East 

and things coming out of the Middle East, obviously Iraq comes up, and so it 

will be at least peripheral to our work and be there as we move along.

 But I think we've got to be very, very careful about not expanding the 

mandate to the point where we don't do what Congress has required because we've 

expanded it beyond that.

 I don't know if you feel the same way.

 MR. HAMILTON: Well, it's -- I think it's a judgment the commission has 

to make in the future as to what kind of policy issues we get into and which 

ones we don't get into. I don't think it's our task to review American foreign 

policy writ large, and I think we'd go down a lot of false trails if we tried to 

do that.

 I was kind of fascinated this morning or this afternoon -- this 

afternoon, I guess, when you had very direct contradiction between two people, 

one of them saying American foreign policy has consequences, and the other 
92

saying American foreign policy does not have consequences, but American values -

- freedom, for example -- has very large consequences. So you get some 

fascinating differences of opinion. I think it's possible that both things are 

true, from my point of view. They're not mutually exclusive. But they are 

fascinating questions. I don't know that, as the chairman has said, they're 

directly relevant to our task.

 We have a fairly narrow task. We're to make judgments about how to 

make this country safer. That's the most important thing we're working on, how 

to make it safer. And that means basically we look forward much more than we 

look back. We do look back in order to try to understand -- in order better to 

look forward, but I'm quite sure our report is going to focus on the future.

 Q (Shaun Waterman) In the past, commission members have told me 

that questions -- the kinds of questions that are going to come up have been 

discussed prior to these public hearings, and indeed individual members have, as 

it were, been given a mandate or subject area that, for whatever reason, they 

want to. So just to press you a little bit on this question, I mean, did you as 

a commission discuss the possibility of asking these questions, or were they 

raised because of individual members', you know, curiosity or --

 MR. KEAN: Well, the way we've been -- well, both, really. The way 

we've been conducting these hearings is, to make sure that all commissioners 

have a chance to question, and question in areas that interest them, we 

generally assign lead questioners for every panel. So every member of the 

commission gets a chance to be a lead a questioner for some panel.

 Now, when those lead questioners are finished -- and the staff will 

help them to prepare, as far as research and as far as suggested questions and 

so on -- once those questioners are through, then, as you saw today, a number of 

commissioners have other questions that have been raised by the testimony beyond 

what the initial questions have answered, and they will ask questions based on 

their understandings and what they want to learn.

 So that's generally the way we've been proceeding. And sometimes -- 

the only problem we have is sometimes, as happened in the morning panel -- I had 

four commissioners burning to ask questions, and we just ran out of time.

That's the only problem we have.

 MR. HAMILTON: I don't think the chairman and I asked a question today.

MR. KEAN: Yeah. We were --

 MR. HAMILTON: I couldn't get it in. (Laughs.)

 MR. KEAN: (Laughs.) I had a couple, but I just figured, well, might 

as well let the other commissioners handle it.

 Yes?

 MR. HAMILTON: Okay. Thank you.

 Q Laura Rozen. I'm a freelancer. Let me just ask one last 

question. What is your work plan for the future? What kind of hearings can we 

expect in the next days?
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 MR. KEAN: Our general -- (inaudible) -- schedule, really, is -- and 

this is approximate -- we meet every other week, generally for about two days, 

with dinner the night before and then a meeting or what have you during the day.

 We're trying to hold public hearings approximately once a month, 

although that -- public hearings, as you can imagine, take a tremendous amount 

of staff time. And we're continually watching to make sure that we're not -- 

that staff is able to concentrate on their main job, which is, you know -- 

(laughs) -- putting together the information to write the report, and we don't 

get too distracted. But we understand the public hearings are a very important 

part of the process, and we want to continue them. But that's our general -- 

that's our general schedule, subject, of course, to change at the will of the 

commission.