Date: 2008-04-24
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Madam Speaker. today is over 79 months after September 11. 2001. I rise today to discuss the grave matter that still lies before this Nation. now 62 years after those horrendous attacks. Jihadism. or radical jihad. was with us before 9/11. has been with us since 9/11. and unfortunately. will continue to be with us into the foreseeable future in this. the 21st century. It bears repeating what al Qaeda has done and intends to do to us. to our allies. to fellow nation states. and to fellow human beings around the globe. This is. in my judgment. the paramount issue of our time. As one scholar wrote 1 month after 9/ 11. for Osama bin Laden and his followers. this is a holy war between Islam and the western world. If that is true. if it is also true. as stated recently in foreign affairs. that al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy today than its ever been before. this discussion is certainly worth having. Let me briefly discuss what. we are talking about. Who exactly are these jihadists? Are we referring to al Qaeda and its cohorts? Are we talking about Iran. Syria and the other nation states whose interests in the Middle East do not properly align with Americas? Or perhaps we mean Hamas. Hezbollah. or the myriad religious nationalist organizations across the Muslim world that share neither the ideology nor the aspirations of global transnational groups like al Qaeda that have. nevertheless. been dumped into the same category. them. I would submit that we are primarily talking about al Qaeda and its minio ns. as well as those whose behavior is imitative of al Qaedas. or any person or group which seeks to kill innocent civilian life for the purpose of coercing. through intimidation. fear and death. political. economic or cultural change. While their aims and purposes may .be somewhat divergent. depending on the geographical and geopolitical location of the perpetrator. wanton violence. death and destruction are their trademarks. As the American people know. these aims and purposes did not originate on September 11. 2001. On February 26. 1993. murderous killers. using a Ryder van. bombed the World Trade Center. killing seven and wounding over 1.000. In 1996. the Khobar Towers. barracks for our U.S. Army. were attacked in Saudi Arabia. In 1998 the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. USS Cole was attacked October 2000. and September 11. 2001 soon followed. Since 2001. attacks. actual and premeditated. have been a constant fact of life across the globe. There have been attacks in Bali. Indonesia in 2001 and 2005. a planned attack in Barcelona in 2003. the deadly attack in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia in 2003. a foiled plot in Istanbul. Turkey in 2003. a deadly attack in Casablanca. Morocco in 2003. a terrible attack in Madrid. Spain in 2004. March 2004. attempted attacks in the Philippines in 2004. the deadly London attack in July. 2005. an attack in Algeria in 2006. an intended attack in Denmark in 2007. and a planned attack in Germany in 2007. Al Qaeda has also tried to overthrow the governments of Egypt in 2004. Jordan in 2005. and Saudi Arabia in 2007. Let us not forget the organization functioning in Iraq. fomenting violence and death as they speak. al Qaeda in Iraq. I found the following summation of events and actors from one contemporary scholar quite informative. and wanted to share with those of you listening this evening. He says this: 9/11 was an epic intercontinental version of the violence Islamists visited upon Algeria and Egypt in the mid 1990s. In other words. it was the culmination of years of failure. From 1992 to 1996. while Osama Bin Laden and his top deputy. Ayman alZawahiri. were based in the Sudan. they. like other veterans of the Afghan jihad. focused on overthrowing apostate.. as they called it. Muslim regimes. Bin Ladens primary foe at that time was the Saudi monarchy which had incurred his wrath by inviting the U.S. troops. after Iraqs invasion of Kuwait. for protection against Saddam Hussein. AIZawahiri. an Egyptian. was particularly concerned with Hosni Mubarak. whom he had unsuccessfully plotted to assassinate in 1995. Al Qaeda tried to help Islamists take power in Chechnya. where they had modest success. and Bosnia. where they had none. Gradually. al Qaedas leaders realized that Islamism was losing its struggle against the regimes of the Muslim world. And as if to underscore this point. in 1996. Khartoum. that is. the Sudanese government. began mending fences with the West. And Bin Laden and alZawahiri were shipped off to Afghanistan. It was there that al Qaeda adds a new strategy. Instead of g6ing country by country. painstakingly trying to build local movements capable of overthrowing individual regimes. it would attack the far away enemy. the United States. in the hope that by humiliating the superpower that guaranteed political order in the Middle East. it would embolden the Muslim masses against their governments. As was explained in the book. "The War for Muslim Minds". alZawahiri was the first al Qaeda leader to switch gears and give priority to the international struggle. The author continues. in an age of satellite television. Zawahiri reasoned. international media attention must replace the patient. close work of recruitment through Islamic charity organizations that in the past had targeted potential sympathizers and militants. The first sign of this new offensive came in June of 1996. only a month after Osama Bin Laden had arrived in Afghanistan. when a truck bomb exploded outside of the Khobar Towers. a U.S. Army barracks in Saudi Arabia. 2 months later. Osama Bin Laden issued a declaration of jihad against Americans occupying the land of the two holy sites. In February of 1998. Bin Laden. alZawahiri and other Islamist leaders broadened the new jihad. calling. in their words. for the killing of Americans and Jews wherever they may be. Six months later. al Qaeda destroyed the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The date of the attack. August 7. was no accident. for it was the 8th anniversary of Riyadhs decision to allow U.S. troops on Saudi soil. Two years later. in Octobei. 2000. al Qaeda operatives detonated an explosiveladen dinghy alongside the USS Cole. docked at a port in Yemen. killing 17 of our Marines. This strategy reached fruition. of course. with the massive attack on 9/11. which garnered al Qaeda more media attention than it could ever have dreamed. Thus we have a general synopsis of al Qaedas actions and behavior in recent history. We do not need to dissect the Koran. the Hadith. consult with the Ulama. the Shariah. or the Sunnah. to explain that these actions are beyond the pale of historic civilizational values. Whatever their source. reason and common sense dictate that these actions are hideous. egregious. murderous and unequivocally unacceptable in a civilized world. They would lead directly to local and international anarchy were they to be offered the least bit of implicit or explicit approbation. Nonetheless. even those who agree with the quoted statement above have many times struggled to properly define our common enemy. Are they representatives of an Islamic insurgency? Do they symbolize a turn to Arabian Fascism. a totalitarian ideology inspired by a mythologic vision. of the past which does not attract Arabs only but only those for whom the early Islamic wars of religion and conquest represent a golden age. which aims by force to restore this past not only in the world of Islam but ultimately throughout the world? Others prefer the term. Islamicism. or Islamist descriptions and categorizations. I dont believe that these are quite precise enough. As Walter Russell Mead stated 4 years ago. we must find a better name for what we are opposing. Islamicism is an ugly term that also silently concedes that Bin Ladens ideology has a claim to be regarded as a legitimate form of Islam. The phrase "War on Terror" has been the preferred nomenclature of this administration and others. I think it has its deficiencies. As one scholar has written. the War on Terror is a catchy phrase. but a clumsy and misleading one too. In fact. the United States is not fighting a generic war on generic terror. Our concern is with what Robert Art calls grand terror. terrorism like the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that create devastation and economic dislocation on a scale approximating that of a war. Currently. the only organizations in the world with both the will and the means to attack the United States on that scale are radical terror groups based in the Islamic world. It is this kind of terror by these people that we are fighting. so says Walter Russell Mead in his book. "Power. Terror. Peace and War: Americas Grand Strategy in a World At Risk". The al Qaeda attacks were more than a hideous act of terrorism. They challenged core el6ments of American grand strategies in ways that Basque and IRA terrorism never challenged basic elements of British and Spanish security. Besides endangering the security of Americans in their our own hemisphere and nation. the al Qaeda attacks pose a direct threat to the ever closer economic ties the United States seeks to built in the world. The symbolic choice of target. the World Trade Center. indicated a sophisticated mind at work. and the tactic of mass terror was well chbsen. The attacks significantly exacerbated a damaging recession. and the potential that terrorists would smuggle weapons of mass destruction into New York or other major cities threatened the rapid flow of goods and people on which the American trading system depends. The stated goal -of al Qaedas leaders. to build a fundamentalist Islamic caliphate in Saudi Arabia that can unite Muslims into a common struggle against the west. using the oil wealth of the region as a key weapon. is a direct threat to the American presence in a region that every president. since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. has seen as vital to the natiohal interests. While many of the measures that will be taken against al Qaeda and its allies will look more like police work. or at most. covert action by intelligence agencies and special forces than conventional war. the scale of the violence the terrorists are ready to use and the total nature of their demands are more like the actions of a hostile great power than like those of an ethnic resistance movement. Well said. I believe. by Walter Russell Mead. Because of these stark facts. as just articulated. I prefer the simple term jihadism or radical jihad. for that is specifically about which we are speaking. As George Weigel argues in his new book. "The War Against Jihadism." jihadism is the "religiously inspired ideology which teaches that it is every Muslims duty to use any means necessary to compel the worlds submission to Islam." This ideology has nothing to do with a humble commitment to bettering mankind. reflecting on theological inspiration or transcendence. or furthering a collective knowledge of the physical and metaphysical world. No. its identity can be judged by its actions. Its commitment to death. destruction. and chaos. regardless of the victims gender. education. age. skin color. creed. or socioeconomic status. It is coldblooded and ruthless. It believes grievances. serious or superficial. are helped to resolve not through consultation. deliberation. and selfgovernment but rather through intimidation. death and carnage. How can one be so certain of this characterization? How can one attempt to perceive and interpret what guides the hearts and minds of others on our planet? All you or I have to do is simply listen. listen to the words and ideas expressed by such persons. So let me begin in 1993. As I have mentioned. it was in that year that the World Trade Center was bombed and several persons lost their lives and 1.000 were injured. The mastermind of the attack. Omar Abdel Rahman. the blind sheik. referred to the cells then as emerging jihad army as the Battalion of Islam. Just a few weeks before the bombing on February 26. 1993. Rahman said at a rally in Brooklyn. New York. God has obliged us to perform jihad. The battalions of Islam and its divisions must be in the state of continuous readiness to hit their enemies with strength and power. Nidal Ayyad was one of the Trade Center bombers arrested in March 1993. On his hard drive. the FBI recovered a "claim of responsibility" letter. In it. it says. "We are the Liberation Army fifth battalion. Unfortunately. our calculations were not very accurate this time. However. we promise you that next time it will be very precise. and the World Trade Center will continue to be one of our targets unless our demands have been met." What a shame we didnt listen. In February 1998. Osama bin Laden published a declaration of holy war against America. He said this: To kill Americans and their allies. both civil and military. is the individual duty of every Muslim who is able. Those are the words of Osama bin Laden in 1998. Jihadist leaders have delineated a terrible difference between themselves and Americans.. Shortly after 9/11. Osama bin Laden told a reporter this: We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us. Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah has said. "the Americans love Pepsi Cola. We love death." Sheik Feiz Mohammed. leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney. Australia. preached these words: "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to jne than wanting to die as a mujahid." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Irans spiritual leader. said in a speech. "It is the zenith of honor for a man. a young person. boy or girl. to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve in the interest of his nation and his religion." Hassan Nasrallah. the leader of Hezbollah. has said. "We are going to win because they love life and we love death." Hes also said. "Each of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah." Furthermore. jihadist leaders have been quite explicit about their goals and aspirations. A1Zawahiri has said. Like our glorious ancestors. the Afghan jihadists believe that they. too. had brought down one global superpower. and now these modernday knights must recommit their efforts to wreaking havoc on the remaining one. the United States. One scholar has noted that the contents of one of alZawahiris texts depicted ordinary Muslims as passive. sickly. and devoid of conscience for which the only cure was an apocalyptic jihad. Then. following the exemplary attacks on the far enemy. unspecified process would lead to the collapse of apostate regimes and the creation of Islamic states. These states would form the core of an Islamic caliphate that would eventually rule the planet. Osama bin Laden has openly justified the brutality in the innocent deaths of 9/11. He said this: "America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine. Chechnya. Kashmir. and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack American reprisal. The September eleven attacks were not targeted at women and chil&ren. The real targets were Americas icons of military and econoric power." . In the same interview. bin Laden openly discussed his willingness to use nuclear weapons. In October 2001. one month after September 11. bin Laden said. "If inciting people to do that. referring to 9/11. is terrorism. and if killing those who are killing our sons is terrorism. then let history be witness that we are terrorists." He said. "We practice the good terrorism." The next year Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa authorizing the killing of up to 4 million Americans and specifying in that fatwa that half of them should be children. This he calculated as a proportionate response to the number of Arabs killed by U.S. and Israeli actions. and the only way to really kill on this scale would be with a nuclear weapon. In relation to 9/11 itself. bin Laden said. "Here is America struck by God almighty in one -of its vital organs so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west. and thanks be to God. God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims. the forefront of Islam. to destroy America. May God bless them and allot them a supreme place in heaven. As to America. I say to it and its people a few words: I swear to God that Axierica will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine and before all of the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad. peace be upon him." He continued. "On the blessed Tuesday 11. September 2001. they launched their attacks with their planes and in an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor unmatched by any in humankind before them. Yet with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York. there occurred an even bigger destruction. that of the American Dream and legend of democracy." Osama bin Laden and alZawahiri have been quite open about their desire to institute a new caliphate. Osama bin Laden has said.. "These attacks took off the skin the American wolf and theyve been left standing in their filthy. naked reality. Thus. the whole world awoke from its sleep and the Muslims realized the importance of the belief of loving and hating for the sake of Allah. the ties of brotherhood between the Muslims have become stronger. which is a very good sign. a great step toward the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous Islamic Khilafah inshaAllah.". A1Zawahiri has said. "the war with Israel is not about a treaty. a ceasefire agreement. SykesPicot borders. national zeal or disputed borders. It is. rather. a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established. It is jihad for the liberation of Palestine. all Palestine. as well as every land that was a home for Islam from Andalusia to Iraq. The whole world is an open field for us. "Supporting the jihad in Palestine with ones life. money. and opinion Is the individual duty of every Muslim because Palestine was a land of Islam that was occupied by the infidels. This means that its liberation and reinstatement of Islamic rule there is the individual duty of every Muslim as unanimously decided by the nations scholars. and such as the case with every land occupied by infidels." Examples of jihadist contempt and hatred for the infidels are. Bin Laden has said. "this Is a War of Destiny Between Infidel and Islam" and that "the whole world is watching this war and the two Adversaries. the Islamic Nation on the one hand. and the United States and its allies on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation." Hes also said. "0. young people of Islam. follow the orders of 0 Mighty God. his messenger and kill these people. Follow the example of Muhammad BinMusallamah and his companions. Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers amongst us making a mockery of our religion and prophet. Gods peace and blessings upon him. Fear God. try to please Him. and do not consult with anyone regarding the killing of those unbelievers." . One al Qaeda stated. "There Will Be Continuing Enmity Until Everyone Believes in Allah. We Will Not Meet the Enemy Halfway and There Will Be No Room For Dialogue With Them Until Everyone Believes in Allah. We Will Not Meet -the Enemy Halfway and There Will Be No Room For Dialogue With Them. An al Qaeda training manual gave "guidelines for beating and killing hostages: Religious scholars have permitted beating. In this tradition. we find permission to interrogate the hostage for the purpose of obtaining information. It is permitted to strike the nonbeliever who has no covenant until he reveals the news. information. and secrets of his people. The religious scholars have also permitted the killing of a hostage if he insists on withholding information from Muslims." Again. an al Qaeda training manual says. Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief. but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes. does not know Socratic debates. Platonic ideals. nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets. the ideals of assassination. bombing. and destruction and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun." After a group of Saudis wrote an open letter to the United States expressing their belief that Islam was peace and tolerant. bin Laden wrote in response: "As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels. this is summarized by the Most Highs Word: We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us--till you believe in Allah alone. "So there is an enmity evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. and this fierce hostility. that is. battle. ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam or if his blood is forbidden from being shed or if Muslims are at that point weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart. this is great apostasy! Allah almightys Word to his Prophet recounts in summation the true relationship: 0 Prophet! Wage war against the infidels and hypocrites and be ruthless. Their abode is hellan evil fate! Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle. animosity. and hatred directdirected from the Muslim to the infidelis the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them." Thats Osama bin Ladens response to Muslims who wrote an open letter to the United States describing their religion and peace and tolerant. and he rejected that. Slow debilitating attrition of will and resources in Iraq. and in general. are what jihadists openly desire as well as the importance of Iraq to the impending Islamic rule. Bin Laden said this: "America is definitely a great power. with an unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy. but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation. Therefore. it is very easy to target that flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points. And even if we are able to target /Lo of these weak points. we will be able to crush and destroy them and remove them from ruling and conquering the world." Osama bin Laden has called Baghdad. "The Capital of the Caliphate." and said. "I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic Nation. Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War. Which the CrusaderZionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The worlds millstone and pillar is in Baghdad. the capital of thecaliphate. AlZawahiri has stated. "So we must think for a long time about our next step and how we want to attain it. It is my humble opinion that the jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals. "The first stage: expel the Americans from Iraq. the second stage: establish an Islamic authority or amirate. then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphateover as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq . . . the third stage: extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: The clash with Israel. because -Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity. Rl 1645 Bin Laden added: "Finally. Id like to tell you that the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it. it means your defeat and disgrace -forever as the winds blow in this direction with Gods help." - So the war in Iraq. according to bin Laden. is "a war over the destiny of the entire worldwide Muslim community." Also in Iraq. Abu Musab alZarqawi was responsible for three lethal hotel bombings in Amman. Jordan. numerous beheadings. including that of Nicholas Berg. the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Iraq. where 22 perished. the murder of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr alHakim. a revered cleric. in a car bomb that killed him and over 100 people outside Shia Islams holy shrine in Najaf. In the background of one of this murders filmed beheadings was the trademark black banner of alZarqawis newest group. alTawhid wa alJihad. or Monotheism and Jihad. Jihadist leaders have not been ambiguous in their characterization of the United States. Hezbollali leader Nasrallah has said. "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute. I conclude my speak with a slogan that will continue to reverberate on all occasions so that nobody will think that we have weakened. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September. death to America will remain. a reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said. "Undoubtedly. I say that this slogan and goal is achievable. and with the support and power of God we will soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism and will breathe in the brilliant time of Islamic sovereignty over todays world. " "Open your eyes and see the fate of Pharaoh. Open your eyes and see what happened to the Portuguese Empire. see the final fate of the British Empire. Im telling you"-referring to the major powersif you do not abandon the path of falsehood and return to the path of justice. your doomed destiny will be annihilation. misfortune and abjectness." Again. Ahmadinejad said. "The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a date comes. theyreferring to the Western governmentsshould know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region and will engulf the corrupt powers that support this fake regime too." In relation to America. Osama bin Laden has said. "Its been made clear during our defending and fighting against the American enemy that this enemys combat strategy is heavily dependent on the psychological aspect of war. due to its large and efficient media apparatus. and of course its indiscriminate aerial bombing which hides the cowardice and lack of fighting spirit of the American soldier. Likewise. let me remind you of the defeat of the American forces in Beirut in 1982. soon after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. when the Lebanese resistance was personified by the truck laden with explosives that struck the main military base of the U.S. Marines in Beirut. killing 242 soldierstowards hell was their destination. and what an evil destination that is." Bin Laden continued. "We found that out from our brothers who fought the Americans in Somalia. They did not see it as a power worthy of any mention. It was the big propaganda that the United States used to terrify people before fighting them. Our brothers. who were here in Afghanistan. also tried the Americans. God gave them and the mujahideen success in Somalia. and the United States pulled out. trailing disappointment. defeat and failure behind it. It achieved nothing. It left quicker than people had imagined." AlZawahiri added. "This is the fumbling that precedes the defeat. Bush and Blair are hiding the true disaster theyre facing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." These thoughts should give us pause. and they remind us of how irrational and bloodthirsty are enemies truly are. After all. are any of Osama bin Ladens complaints really meant to be sincere? He complained about economic sanctions- against Saddam Hussein. Well. did he encourage Saddam Hussein to abide by the U.N. resolutions to accelerate the cessation of such sanctions? He complained about U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Did he offer his advice to persuade Saddam Hussein to changehis ways so that U.S. troops could leave Saudi Arabia? He criticized U.S. supp6rt of oppressive regimes. Has he spoken out forcefully for minority rights. democratic freedoms. the strengthening of civil society. .the rule of law and economic transparency? He criticized U.S. support of Israel. Has he in any way issued thoughtful statements outlining a path forward towards peace. articulating areas of compromise and concessions that can be worked out on both sides of the IsraeliPalestinian divide? He has criticized American pressure on OPEC to keep oil prices low. Besides being contrary to the petroprofits which demand provides. which would be in his economic selfinterest. has he spoken up for responsible economic policies such oilproducing states could turn to ini order to turn their back on the need to produce oil? If he is so critical of Americas demand. does he thus support ending OPECs monopolistic tendencies so that other consumers can rightly partake in the legitimate capitalist practice of supply and demand? He has criticized the United States for being in Afghanistan and Iraq. Has he offered any thoughtful solutions to those two geopolitical challenges? Surely a man who has criticized President Bush for not signing the International Criminal Court and for Americas campaign finance problems can muster the intellectual strength to offer such astute suggestions as must be at the brim of his cerebral storehouse of knowledge. But we know the answers to these questions. Osama bin Laden has no desire to do any of these obvious suggestions. theyre merely a mirage for his murderous ideology. As Hassan Butt. a former jihadist. explained. "I was a fanatic. I know their thinking. When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network. I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11. the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy." He adds. "By blaming the government for our actions. those who pushed this Blairs bombs line did our propaganda work for us. More important. they also helped draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence. Islamic theology." Now. I would not call it "Islamic theology." I myself would call it jihadism or radical jihad to make clear what Rudy Giuliani said some 4. years ago. He said. "Those who attacked us on 9/ 11 not only hijacked airliners. but they hijacked a noble religion." And we ought to keep that in mind. As weve recently been debating in this war. the nature of intelligence has changed. but it is still indispensable. Its an essential element of any effective risk assessment. If were going to effectively be able to protect ourselves against terrorist attack. we need to be involved in risk assessment. Risk assessment simply is looking at threat. looking at vulnerability. looking at .consequence. We can look" at vulnerability and consequence with the information that is at our disposal. within our grasp. that is. when we try and figure out vulnerability. we look at perspective targets of the enemy. and we can assess what our vulnerabilities are. We can look at a dam. we can look at a building. we can look at the Capitol and we can say. what are the possibilities of attack here? How can we protect ourselves against those areas that we have not defended or thought of defending in the past? Consequence. We - can do models ahead of time to figure out what the consequence of an attack would be against the Capitol. against a dam. against a set of highways. against a number of large buildings in a metropolitan area and so forth. What we dont have within our own information base is the third part of a risk assessment. that is. what is the threat? Because the only way we can determine the threat is by gathering information fromthe enemy. in other= words. intelligence gathering. in other words. listening in on what the other side has to say. in other words. capturing their communications. And its not easy. intelligence gathering is difficult. And as pointed out by some in that arena. all intelligence bureaus get things spectacularly wrong much of the time. which just goes to the point of how difficult it is to be able to gather the information. analyze the information. draw conclusions from that information. and then make sure that in a timely fashion we distribute that information or the conclusions that weve obtained from them. In fact. one of the reasons we didnt prevent 9/11 is simple: Neither the CIA nor its intelligence agencies. Western or Muslim. had a spy or an informant inside al Qaedas command structure. And the stark reality is that our human intelligence against al Qaeda and other Sunni militants will probably never be as good as what we had against the Soviet system during the Cold War. Nevertheless. the importance of intelligence is why Ive been working so hard to find a longterm solution to our surveillance situation. As one distinguished Member of the other body has said. without a longterm solution. "the quality of the intelligence were going to be receiving is going to be degraded. It is going to be degraded. It is already going to be degraded as telecommunications companies lose interest." In a letter dated February 22 of this year. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey both wrote to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In it they said this: "We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress failure to act." What were they talking about? Well. let me explain. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Admiral McConnell. the Director of National Intelligence. stated that prior to the enactment of the Protect America Actthat is the FISA fix that we did last August which has .now been allowed to expire-"we were not collecting somewhere between half and twothirds of the foreign intelligence information which would have been collected were it not for the recent legal interpretations of FISA which required the government to obtain FISA warrants for overseas surveillance." Admiral McConnell said he came onto his job coming out of the private sector to return to government service with the responsibility of collecting information. that kind of information that would provide us with forewarning of what the terrorists intended to do. But he discovered that as a result of a decision made by the FISA court which changed the rules of the game because of technology changes. we were unable to do the job that he was given the responsibility for. Think about that. We had blinded ourselves to somewhere between onehalf and twothirds of the legitimate foreign intelligence targets that otherwise we would have been looking at. Now. we had the Protect America Act. which was the fix for FISA. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and that was in effect from the end of August until February 16 of this year. And what happened after it expired? Admiral McConnell and Attorney General Mukasey said. "Because weve allowed it to expire. we have lost intelligence this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress failure to act." Now. weve heard some say that really thats not true because all of those intercepts that were in effect as a result of the new law that we had from the- end of August until February continue in effect for a year. and that happens to be true. But that only solves part of the problem because. unless one believes that al Qaeda and its affiliates and its associates around the world have put their feet up on the desk and said. you know something. were not going to plan anything else because the Congress cant listen in on what were doing. unless thats a reality. we have put ourselves at jeopardy because we dont know what we dont know. We dont know the kinds of information that otherwise we would be able to gather. the kind of information that has allowed us to protect ourselves. Thats why many of us on this floor have come and said. vell. why not pass the bipartisan Senate FISA bill now? We have almost every Member on this side of the aisle who is committed to it. and we have. I think. over 20 Members on the Democratic side who have. in writing. said they support it. Together. that is more than a majority in this House. So in other words. we could form a majority if we brought that bill up on our next legislative day that would allow us to accept the Senate bill. And we could have it signed into law by the President and we would no longer find ourselves as vulnerable as we are today. Congress should act because we are in the legislative branch and have the responsibility to act. Let me repeat that. Congress has the responsibility to act. These issues should not and were not intended to be left to unelected. more cumbersome aspects of our government. Theyre inherently about legislating and about us. representatives of the people. doing our duty to protect the people. After all. as Andrew McCarthy said in a National Review article dated March 4 of this year. "At bottom the dispute over the warrantless surveillance program is about the division of power between the political branches: Is it the executive or the legislative department that has ultimate authority over foreign intelligence collection? By nature that is a political question. not a legal one. In our system such issues are supposed to be worked out through the normal democratic process: legislation and elections. They are not the province of lawsuits in which. A. the publics interest is purportedly represented by groups like the ACLU. which. lets face it. holds views much different from those of the American people at large. and. B. the final policy determination is made by the judiciary. that is. the unaccountable nonpolitical branch . . . The genius of our system is that it does not draw many fixed. immutable lines between executive and legislative authority or between liberty and security. We have the capacity to rachet up or down depending on threat conditions. We rely confidently on our. politics and the sound judgment of the American people. Voters can remove a President or lawmaker who strikes the wrong balance." I have taken the time to speak on these threats today because .1 believe unequivocally that they are real threats. They are why I have worked so hard to pass legislation such as the bipartisan SAFE Ports Act of 2006. There are legitimate threats out there to which we must respond. But I must say there are those who take an opposite view. Recently one commentator. Michael Hirsh. in the Newsweek Web Exclusive of February 21. asked his readers this: "Think about this for a moment. A small group of ragged American haters. who had one lucky day of mass murder nearly 7 years ago. will continue to define the foreign policy of the lone superpower for years. possibly decades to come. Theres something wrong with this picture. Yes. we can all agree that 9/11 was one of the worst moments in American history. And we can certainly agree that al Qaeda must be completely eliminated. But the group has never come close to duplicating 9/ 11. Even the train bombings in London and Madrid that were attributed to al Qaedainspired cells were minor in comparison . . . The rational policy would be to replace the overblown war on terror with what we should have been engaged in every day since 9/11: a war of annihilation against al Qaeda. an allout effort to rid the Earth completely of the small. lunatic group that attacked us on that day. This is a task we should apply ourselves to fully. at long last. But it is absurd to assign the term transcendent challenge to such a band of murderous anarchists. who have about as much hope of achieving their grand dream of turning the Mideast into an Islamist caliphate as scientists have of proving one day that the moon is made of green cheese. Terror cells may be spreading. but their ideology. such as it is. keeps dying every time it is exposed to. the open air. Even in the tribal regions of Pakistan. safe haven to the newly regrouped Taliban and al Qaeda. voters last week turned out radical religious groups because of their ineffectiveness. Al Qaeda and related terror groups are hardly the heirs to communism and totalitarianism. as Bush has described them." Ht2747 With all due respect. I profoundly disagree. Does anybody believe. for instance. that Libya. with its leader. gave up its nuclear weapons. its weapons of mass destruction. because they just wanted to sit down and reason together? Is it by accident that Libya. Khadafi. changed their position after we moved aggressively to respond to terrorism in the Middle East? I think not. And with all due respect. I do believe these threats Ive outlined here today are real and that they are the .heirs to communism and totaftitarianism. And while their victims may not as yet add up numerically to the quantified brutality of previous dictators and killers. nonetheless. their potential to do equivalent destruction is without question. The focus on "one lucky day." while disrespectful to the other victims of jihadism before and after 9/11. cannot be allowed to turn into "many" lucky days. We also have a situation today where the possibility of obtaining a nuclear weapon and exploding it in a metropolitan area cannot be swept off the table as unthinkable. In fact. we ought to be thinking about it every day and thinking about how we prevent it. We have seen and can envision without straining credulity what would happen in our large cities and our places of governance or commerce were other attacks such as 9/11 to be initiated. What would happen to us all. urban and rural. large and small. men and women. east and west. north and south. if our dams. our transportation structure. our trains. our subways. our purification system. our ports. our electrical grids. or our energy sources were to be maliciously struck? The results. both real and psychological. would be catastrophic. Nevertheless. we must not give in to fear. Instead. we must think about what victory will mean in this confrontation. and whatever the definition of our terms of multifaceted success. we must continue to properly consider the possibility of what success means to al Qaeda. Those in the United States may not have an agreed theory of victory or path to get there. but Osama bin Laden and his cohorts certainly have. Bin ladens goal. as he. his deputy. Ayman alZawahiri. and others have often articulated. is to drive the United States out of Muslim lands. topple the regions current rulers. and establish Islamic authority under a new caliphate. The path to this goal. they have made clear. is to "provoke and bait" the United States into "bleeding wars" on Muslim lands. Since Americans. the argument goes. do not have the stomach for a long and bloody fight. they will eventually give up and leave the Middle East to its fate. Once the autocratic regimes responsible for the humiliation of the Muslim world have been removed. it would be possible to return to the idealized state of Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. A caliphate is in vision from Morocco to Central Asia. sharia rule prevailing. Israel destroyed. oil prices skyrocketing. the United States recoiling in humiliation and perhaps even collapse just as the Soviet Union did after the mujahideen defeated it in Afghanistan. These are their goals. and these are the goals we must understand if we are to be successful in defeating al Qaeda. Remember. they warned us prior to 9/ 11 as to what they intended. They issued a fatwa. They said they would go after the World Trade Center once again. And we. as a Natibn. didnt take them seriously enough. We are facing a strange ruthless "hydraheaded" enemy. As some have recently demonstrated in their research into the biographical backgrounds of jihadists. many of these individuals are simply driven by individual alienation and group dynamics. while. as I have pointed out. the leadership often has more ideological views. These differences must be exploited. Also. as the RAND Corporation has recently reported. our ability to help states with their counterinsurgency measures has to be greatly enhanced. So. Madam Speaker. whatever the means. whatever the solutions. whatever the minor delineations between the terrorusing groups. whatever the tactics we must use. we must take this jihadist threat seriously. It is our first duty as representatives in a constitutional government and as trustees charged with preserving and protecting our Constitution. which upholds our equal natural rights as citizens in this great land and as a part of this esteemed republic. Let us be wise. Let us be discerning. Let us be steadfast. Let us uphold our Constitution. And in the end. let us be successful.