Speeches

Combating International Terrorism: Progress and Future Challenges, Remarks at UN Association of Singapore by Franklin L. Lavin - U.S. Ambassador to Singapore

February 2, 2002

Good afternoon. Thank you, Professor Tham, Secretary-General Cheong, and Vice-President Koh. I am grateful to the United Nations Association of Singapore for hosting this afternoon’s event. Let me also welcome your other distinguished guests, my colleagues from the Diplomatic Corps, and the representatives of the media as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me lay out a few points covering the progress of the past few months, and then I will turn my remarks to the future. Finally, I would be happy to take questions.

Before I begin, it is highly fitting that the UN Association host today’s address due to the central role the UN has played in the anti-terrorist effort over the past five months.

The United States, like all nations, will always reserve the right to act in its self-defense. Sometimes this will be through the UN system, sometimes it might be through NATO or other organizations, and sometimes we might have to do the job ourselves. But so far, the United Nations has shown that it plays a vital role in the anti-terrorism effort. Whether the issue is financial controls, peacekeeping, or the reconstruction of Afghanistan, the UN has been at the forefront – and I congratulate you for your efforts.

Six key tasks

Looking back over the past five months, we can see that in a relatively short amount of time the global coalition has accomplished six key tasks.

The first success since September 11 was in the creation of the global coalition against terrorism. It has not been a hard sell. To paraphrase Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan, the fight against global terrorism is in the self-interest of every country, and requires cooperation among nations to be successful.

This coalition is the outgrowth of a strategic miscalculation on the part of Al Qaeda: the terrorists thought their attacks would polarize the world, nation against nation, people against people, religion against religion. Quite to the contrary, September 11 unified the world. Unified by their revulsion, and their sense of self-preservation, nations and their citizens have been spurred into collective action. Indeed, the day after the attacks, the Security Council condemned the attacks, called on all nations to take action against terrorism -- and recognized the inherent right of the United States under the UN Charter to respond in self-defense.

The second accomplishment was the shift from defense to offense. Up until September 11, the United States approach to terrorism was largely defensive. We focused on better security, better intelligence, and better warnings. It is impossible to win a war while only on the defensive, and equally impossible for defenses to be perfectly effective. September 11 was an expensive lesson, paid for in human lives, which taught us that we had to go on the offensive and to take the battle to the terrorists. Four weeks later, we began the effort to wipe out terrorist sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Third, we have eliminated the safe haven for terrorists that had existed in Afghanistan. That troubled land still has many challenges ahead of it, but its people will no longer suffer the brutal repression of the Taliban, and its lands will not be used to spread crimes around the world.

Everything we have discovered since confirms the correctness of our action in Afghanistan. As President Bush noted, 19 persons carried out the September 11 attacks -- but thousands of persons were schooled in terrorist training camps in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Terrorist recruits were taught how to make nerve gas, and there were active efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. From the Taliban-provided sanctuary, terrorist attacks around the world were planned, directed, and financed. We have all seen the chilling videotape found in Afghanistan, and listened as the narrator calmly describes the best places to put a bomb at the Yishun MRT station.

Fourth, since September 11 the world has begun to methodically shut down the support system for global terrorists. To operate, terrorists need to move people, money, and goods. In the United States, we have reviewed our laws and our procedures, so that we can identify and stop these flows. We have already made some changes, and there will be more ahead. Around the world, Singapore included, the pattern is the same. After September 11, the need to improve our efforts was painfully clear.

Fifth, although military action gets the headlines, it is on the home front that the bulk of the war against terrorism will be fought. This means that police departments, intelligence services, and homeland defense organizations will be critical front-line participants. All of us in this room were enormously grateful in the last few weeks for the vigilance and professionalism of Singapore's Home Ministry and related services, which identified and broke up a terrorist network. It is because of their hard work that Singapore remains a safe place for all of us. Malaysia also deserves credit for its good work in breaking up terrorist cells.

Our final success since September is the launch of the Afghanistan reconstruction effort. In December, the Security Council authorized the international peacekeeping force to deploy to Afghanistan. The force is helping the Afghan Interim Authority maintain peace and security as it begins the work of rebuilding. At the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group meeting in Tokyo the week before last, donor nations, including the United States, Singapore, and many others, pledged billions of dollars to help the Afghan people in the next few years.

Where from here?

Not a bad bit of work over the past five months, but where does this point us in the future?

The first goal is to keep on the job. The war is not over, not even in Afghanistan. The war will not be over until the menace of global terrorism is thoroughly smashed. Full stop. That may take a long, long time. We must remain on the offensive -- including, sometimes, by using military force. We need to continue to get reconstruction underway in Afghanistan. We need to continue to enhance our ability to monitor terrorist movements and flow of funds. We need to beef up our police and homeland defense – in short we have to stay the course. Every country has different capabilities and each can play a role.

In this region, there are particular challenges and sensitivities. The easy, rapid, and frequent movements of terrorists within the region, again tells us that a better job needs to be done with border controls. Some of this is police work and some of this is reexamining visa requirements.

Terrorist activity in the Philippines is a matter of concern. The United States has already stepped up its support for counterrorist training there. The Philippines military is being reinvigorated, and from now on the Abu Sayyef Group will need to spend more time worrying about survival and desertions, and less time planning kidnapping and assaults.

Many press reports have stated that several of the terrorists who were planning the attacks here in Singapore have fled to Indonesia. President Megawati has stated that she fully supports the global anti-terrorist coalition so we look forward to Indonesia’s follow-up as well.

Singapore has a distinct challenge because of its port and the potential role of shipping in smuggling contraband. We are told Singapore will be introducing legislation to deal with this issue when the new session of parliament convenes and we look forward to seeing what ideas are put forward.

Finally, it is clear that we need to do a better job of outreach to the Muslim world, the Arab world in particular. So many of the world’s Muslims – heirs to a rich intellectual and cultural tradition – are consigned to live under repressive regimes, with limited information, limited freedoms, and limited opportunity. We need to point them to a better way, and show them what Muslims in the U.S., in Malaysia, and in Singapore all know – Islam is not incompatible with a modern, successful, and peaceful society; indeed, Islam thrives in such an environment.

September 11 was an unspeakably awful day – but to those who planned for it methodically over years, it was only one more effort in a long and continuing campaign of terror. The terrorists hoped -- and still hope -- to follow September 11 with more days even worse. But if we carry out our tasks, we can stop them from carrying out their tasks.

Let me close with a comment by President Bush, from his Tuesday State of the Union Address:

"Our enemies send other people’s children on missions of suicide and murder. They embrace tyranny and death as a cause and a creed. We stand for a different choice, made long ago, on the day of our founding. We affirm it again today. We choose freedom and the dignity of every life.

"Steadfast in our purpose, we now press on. We have known freedom’s price. We have shown freedom’s power, and know in this great conflict, we will see freedom’s victory."

Thank you all. May God bless.