Text: Shays Says U.S. Needs Long-Term Strategy to Fight Terrorism

Rep. Christopher Shays' Oct. 25 speech to House





The United States needs to articulate a long-term strategy on how it


will defeat international terrorism, according to a lawmaker who has


specialized in national security issues.





Global terrorism, says Representative Christopher Shays (Republican of


Connecticut), "turns our strengths against us, exploiting the freedom,


pluralism and openness we cherish to spread hate, fear and death."





In an October 25 speech before the House of Representatives, Shays,


the chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on National


Security, International Relations and Veterans Affairs, warned that


each terrorist attack "is practice and prelude for the next."





Shays, who has chaired a series of hearings on the threats posed by


biological weapons, noted that as the nation worries about access to


crop dusters and anthrax exposures by mail, "a clear-eyed, fully


informed view of the threat, particularly the threat posed by chemical


agents and weaponized pathogens, is a national security imperative."





Assessing the threat of bioterrorism, Shays said, "requires a sober


judgment about the motives, intentions and capabilities of people so


intoxicated with hate and evil they would kill themselves in the act


of killing others."





Criticizing the Clinton administration's "reactive" efforts to respond


to the threat of terrorism, Shays warned that America's struggle


against terrorism "will remain fragmented and unfocused until there is


a thorough assessment of the threats we face and overarching national


strategy articulated to guide planning, direct spending and discipline


bureaucratic balkanization."





The Connecticut Republican noted that President Bush has instructed


the Director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, former


Governor Tom Ridge, "to formulate that strategy based on the most


current threat intelligence."





Shays cautioned against overstating the threat of terrorism, as that


could invite "overreaction, in which we waste scarce resources and


terrorize ourselves with Draconian security restrictions."





According to Shays, the United States will have to change the way it


implements its anti-terrorism policy. "We can no longer indulge the


tidy, familiar mechanics of solving the crime and punishing


individuals when the crime offends humanity and the individuals are


eager to be martyred," Shays said.





"That approach," he went on, "has been compared to battling malaria by


swatting mosquitoes. To stop the disease of modern terrorism, the


swamp of explicit and tacit state sponsorship must be drained and


disinfected," Shays told lawmakers.





The United States will have to find a way to isolate states that


sponsor terrorism, and enlist other nations in that effort, he said.





Building a coalition to punish state sponsors of terrorism "is now


being pursued in earnest," Shays said.





But, he added, that was not always the case, "and it is by no means


clear what longer-term strategy should be pursued in this regard


beyond Afghanistan."





The long-term strategy should be developed "with a high-level


statement of national objectives," Shays said, and that statement


"should be coupled logically to a statement of the means that will be


used to achieve those objectives."





"Only then can we hope to resist the drift of the events thrust upon


us by others and be prepared to confront terrorism in our time and on


our terms," Shays said.





The struggle against international terrorism will not be easy, he


said. Citing a statement by David Abshire of the Center for Strategic


and International Studies, Shays said the United States enters the


fight with "a greatly weakened State Department, a traumatized


intelligence community, a disorganized National Security Council, and


a reactive national security posture left over from the Cold War."





According to Shays, America's economic, military, and cultural


dominance also fosters "vocal, sometimes violent resentment to which


we seem unaccustomed and unprepared to rebut." Citing remarks by


former Senator Warren Rudman, the co-chairman of the U.S. Commission


on National Security 21st Century, Shays said that the management of


that resentment "would have to become a central element of U.S. public


diplomacy in the years and decades ahead."





Following is the text of Shays' remarks from the Congressional Record:





(begin text)





LONG-TERM TERRORIST STRATEGY


SHOULD BE DEVELOPED WITH


HIGH-LEVEL STATEMENT OF NATIONAL OBJECTIVES





House of Representatives


October 25, 2001





Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, on September 11 we were brutally awakened to


the harsh realities we dreamed might never reach our shores. With the


thousands of dead, we buried forever any illusion the scourge of


transnational terrorism could not strike here.





Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it our


"wake-up call from hell." We have awakened to a recurring nightmare of


escalating brutality and carnage unfettered by moral or political


constraints.





Each attack is practice and prelude for the next. Global terrorism


turns our strengths against us, exploiting the freedom, pluralism and


openness we cherish to spread hate, fear and death.





On that day, our world changed in ways we are still struggling to


understand, our vision still blurred by disbelief and tears of grief.





Since then, there have been times I find myself longing for a return


to the Cold War. The numbing calm of mutually assured destruction


seems in retrospect more tolerable than the unnerving wait for the


next random act of barbaric terrorist mayhem.





But if the global upheavals of the last century yield one lesson, it


is this: the dynamic triumphs over the static, and we dare not indulge


the urge to pause and reminisce.





To be sure, the post-Soviet Pax Americana is not quite what we


expected. The Cold War is over, yet the world is a more dangerous


place. Hard on the heels of hope, we are entering a new world order of


growth and cooperation, intractable regional conflicts and the rise of


radical Islamic militancy bringing, instead, the prospect of chronic,


even cataclysmic disorder.





On the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech


at Westminster College, former British Prime Minister Margaret


Thatcher described these "other, less appealing consequences" of the


global situation.





She said, "Like a giant refrigerator that had finally broken down


after years of poor maintenance, the Soviet empire in its collapse


released all the ills of ethnic, social and political backwardness


which it had frozen in suspended animation for so long."





In 1996, she was prescient enough to warn of the threat posed by


radical Islamic movements and the middle-income countries, Iraq, Iran,


Syria and others, shopping for chemical and biological weapons in the


post-Soviet toxic bazaar.





The Iron Curtain has been replaced by a poison veil that shrouds the


world in dread and terror. We also find our economic, military and


cultural dominance fostering vocal, sometimes violent resentment to


which we seem unaccustomed and unprepared to rebut. Former Senator


Warren Rudman, who served as the co-chairman of the U.S. Commission on


National Security 21st Century, recently said acknowledging and


managing that resentment would have to become a central element of


U.S. public diplomacy in the years and decades ahead.





That is not all that will have to change. The Nation's fight against


terrorism will remain fragmented and unfocused until there is a


thorough assessment of the threats we face and overarching national


strategy articulated to guide planning, direct spending and discipline


bureaucratic balkanization.





President Bush instructed the Director of the White House Office of


Homeland Security, former Governor Tom Ridge, to formulate that


strategy based on the most current threat intelligence.





When pressed for a national strategy, the previous administration


pointed to a pastiche of event-driven Presidential decision directives


and the Department of Justice's 5-year spending plan. Reactive in


vision and scope, that strategy changed only as we lurched from crisis


to crisis, from Khobar Towers to the Cole, from Oklahoma City to Dar


es Salaam.





President Clinton's National Security Council Coordinator for


Counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, scoffed at our committee's request


for a comprehensive threat assessment. He told us the threat came from


the groups on the State Department's list of designated terrorists and


the strategy was to hunt them down like criminals.





As recently as a month ago, threat assessment and security strategy


were still viewed in some quarters as academic or bureaucratic


exercises.





Today, as we worry about access to crop dusters and anthrax exposures


by mail, a clear-eyed, fully informed view of the threat, particularly


the threat posed by chemical agents and weaponized pathogens, is a


national security imperative.





Assessing the threat of bioterrorism requires a sober judgment about


the motives, intentions and capabilities of people so intoxicated with


hate and evil they would kill themselves in the act of killing others.





These are the questions that confound the assessment process: When and


where will terrorists use biological weapons against us? How will the


agent be dispersed? For what type and magnitude of attack should we be


prepared?





Available answers offer little comfort and less certainty in assessing


the threat. Some conclude the technical difficulties of large-scale


production and efficient dissemination reduce the likelihood


terrorists will use lethal agents to inflict mass casualties any time


soon. Others think those barriers have been or will soon be overcome.


Stills others believe neither large quantities nor wide dispersion are


required to inflict biological terror.





From this cacophony of plausible opinions, those charged with


formulating a national counterterrorism strategy must glean a rational


estimate about the irrational possibility of biological attack.





Perhaps the most difficult dimension of the threat to assess is the


deep-seated, almost primal fear engendered by the prospect of


maliciously induced disease. For the terrorist, that fear is a potent


force multiplier, capable of magnifying a minor, manageable outbreak


into a major public health crisis. Failure to account for this unique


aspect of biological terrorism understates the threat, increasing our


vulnerability. Overstating the threat based on fear alone invites


overreaction, in which we waste scarce resources and terrorize


ourselves with Draconian security restrictions.





The changes wrought by the events of September 11 have also brought


into sharper focus just how much of our national security apparatus is


now irrelevant or ineffective.





Last week, Ambassador Paul Bremer, our Nation's first diplomat in 1986


to combat the spread of global terrorism, and chairman of the National


Commission on Terrorism, noted that two of the four pillars of U.S.


counterterrorism policy were already obsolete.





The first, to make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals,


has been made irrelevant by the rise of radical Islamic groups. Their


only demand being the demise of the West, there can be no deal to


strike.





The second pillar of our policy, bring terrorists to justice for their


crimes, has been rendered ineffective by perpetrators willing to die


with their victims. We can no longer indulge the tidy, familiar


mechanics of solving the crime and punishing individuals when the


crime offends humanity and the individuals are eager to be martyred.





That approach has been compared to battling malaria by swatting


mosquitoes. To stop the disease of modern terrorism, the swamp of


explicit and tacit state sponsorship must be drained and disinfected.





That leaves the final two precepts of current policy, isolate state


sponsors of terrorism and enlist other Nations in that effort.





Like its totalitarian forebears, terrorism is not incorporal. Its


practitioners must make anchor and draw sustenance through contact


with the people, places and institutions susceptible to the pressures


of military and political statecraft.





So building a coalition to punish state sponsors is now being pursued


in earnest. But that was not always the case, and it is by no means


clear what longer-term strategy should be pursued in this regard


beyond Afghanistan.





That long-term strategy should be developed with a high-level


statement of national objectives. It should be coupled logically to a


statement of the means that will be used to achieve those objectives.


Only then can we hope to resist the drift of the events thrust upon us


by others and be prepared to confront terrorism in our time and on our


terms.





It will not be easy. David Abshire, from the Center for Strategic and


International Studies, CSIS, recently noted this critical strategic


discussion occurs in the context of a greatly weakened State


Department, a traumatized intelligence community, a disorganized NSC,


and a reactive national security posture left over from the Cold War.





With regard to our intelligence capabilities, I would add the


observation their trauma is in part self-induced. Self-satisfied and


for the most part self-policed, intelligence agencies tend to see


information as an end, not a means. We are partially blinded by the


lack of human intelligence in key parts of the world. Classification


standards and jurisdictional stovepipes all but guarantee critical


observations, and analysis will not reach those who need them.





Ironically, a community so heavily dependent on technical means of


intelligence-gathering has not been able to embrace the data mining


and threat profiling tools others are using to glean important


knowledge from open-source material.





Increasingly sophisticated terrorists are becoming adept at hiding


their secrets in plain view. Our intelligence agencies are too busy


protecting Cold War sources and methods to find them.





Similar institutional dynamics were present the last time the United


States was coming to grips with a profound strategic paradigm shift:


the emergence of the Cold War and the nuclear threat. President


Eisenhower wisely tasked the bureaucracies to do what they often do


best, compete with each other. Strategic options were identified,


studied and urged on the President. Conceived in the White House


sunroom, the Solarium Exercise, as it came to be known, produced the


long-range strategy that guided U.S. national security policy for the


next 5 decades.





To meet the current threat, our strategy must be more dynamic and more


open. Security is not a sedative, not a state of rest, but the level


of vigilance required to protect, and advance, what we hold essential


to life and liberty. Advocating for human rights and human freedoms is


not cultural hegemony; it is our God-given right and duty.





Nor can we afford to be squeamish or patronizing in public discourse


about the zealots who target us, or the weapons they wield. A naive or


blurred perception of the threat fragments our defenses and leaves us


avoidably vulnerable.





The inconveniences and sacrifices required to protect national


security and maintain public safety will be more readily accepted if


we are brutally honest about the true nature of our peril. The threat


must be confronted with the same clear-eyed focus, steely intensity


and unflagging vigilance with which the terrorists pursue their


malignant cause.





Since September 11, we have shown we are up to the task.





In another age, another generation faced the prospect of another evil.


Winston Churchill, addressing his besieged nation over the BBC in


1940, spoke to the timeless challenge of defending freedom. This is


what Churchill said:





"And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach, and face the


worst that the tyrant's might and enmity can do. Bearing ourselves


humbly before God, but conscious that we serve an unfolding purpose,


we are ready to defend our native land against the invasion by which


it is threatened.





"We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for


ourselves alone. Here in this strong city of refuge which enshrines


the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to


Christian civilization; here, girt about by the seas and oceans where


the Navy reigns; shielded from above by the prowess and devotion of


our airmen, we await undismayed the impending assault.





"Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps


it will never come.





"We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent


shock, or what is perhaps a harder test, a prolonged vigil. But be the


ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall


tolerate no parley; we may show mercy, we shall ask for none."





(end text)