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Five and Ten Year Homeland Security Goals

Chairman Price, Congressman Rogers, thank you for inviting me today. It is always good to be back in the “Peoples House” and I am honored to speak on such a critically important topic.

I would like to begin by commending this subcommittee for holding hearings on this very important subject. As I saw during my service on the 9/11 Commission, the United States has too often arranged its defenses to counter the last threat. It is encouraging to see this subcommittee attempt to reverse this trend by preparing for the next generation of threats before they arrive.

The practice of homeland security in the 21st century represents a daunting challenge for America. Increases in global trade, immigration, travel as well as developments in technology have come to define those aspects of globalization which have helped make this country great. But for each of the benefits globalization brings us there exists a darker side: free trade brings us prosperity, but erodes our ability to prevent harmful goods from entering the country or sensitive technology from leaving it; America’s welcoming immigration policy has enriched our society and economy, but can make us vulnerable to those few bearing violent ideologies; technology has made our lives easier and longer yet the growing availability of weapons of mass destruction threatens to reverse this.

In many ways, the Department of Homeland Security can be thought of as a gatekeeper for globalization. It is charged with the difficult task of wading into the rapid currents of information, people and goods to find those harmful elements and prevent them from entering the country. The challenge for homeland security’s future will be to strike the appropriate balance in globalization—to make us safe enough without dismantling those elements that have made this country great.

I have divided my remarks into two categories. First, I would like to call your attention to the next generation of threats that the department is likely to face. Second, I have outlined the direction I believe the department should be moving towards to counter these threats.

The Next Generation of Threats

Terrorism is a Darwinian enterprise. The degree and type of pressure exerted by a state’s security services often influences the shape a terrorist network will take. Perhaps the best example of this can be found in the writings of a recently captured al-Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Suri. Al-Suri began his career as a jihadist fighting the secular Syrian regime and saw how easily the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown destroyed hierarchical terrorist networks. In his later writings, al-Suri advocated decentralized, homegrown terrorist networks logistically disconnected from their leadership. Al-Suri’s motto became “system, not organization.”

In the next five to ten years we are likely to see many would-be terrorists, consciously or not, heeding Abu Musab al-Suri’s call for homegrown “do-it-yourself” jihad. Today, Islamist terrorism within the West is closer to a system than a traditional organization. Since 9/11, small cells with little or no direction from abroad have carried out or have attempted to carry out many of the major terrorist attacks in the West—including London, Madrid and Toronto. Some look at these self-affiliating cells and conclude, based on their small size relative to the 9/11 cell, that homegrown terrorism—in any country—represents a net reduction in the threat from terrorism. It is true that, though the attacks in Madrid and London represented murder on a tragic scale, they were not as destructive, at least numerically, as those seen on 9/11. If these attacks do reflect the upper limit of destructive force available to small cells there is no reason to believe this will remain so. As the technology of mass destruction proliferates, it becomes more likely than smaller numbers of people can do greater amounts of damage.

Others take comfort in the fact that homegrown terrorism of the radical Islamist variety has not touched the United States on the scale it has in Europe. On the surface it would seem that homegrown terrorism is a primarily European problem rooted in the difficulties of integrating large Muslim minority populations into Western society. By contrast, American Muslims tend to earn more and achieve higher levels of education than both their European counterparts and American non-Muslims. As many experts point out, historically al-Qaeda has had to import non-Americans into the United States to carry out its attacks. That the 9/11 hijackers, the first World Trade Center bombers and the would-be millennium bomber came from abroad suggests to many that al-Qaeda’s message is not as resonant with American Muslims as it is with those in Europe or the Middle East.

Again, to expect the circumstances to remain constant is folly. As the rhetoric of “the clash of civilizations” takes hold in our public discourse, the divide between non-Muslims and the Islamic community widens. Non-Muslims increasingly view their Islamic fellow citizens with suspicion. In a poll conducted by Cornell University, researchers found that 27 percent of respondents thought Muslims in America should be required to register with the federal government. Further, a recent poll conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post found that approximately half of all Americans have a negative view of Islam. Similarly, American Muslims have developed unfortunate impressions in the wake of 9/11. A survey of American Muslims’ attitudes conducted by Georgetown University found that 38 percent of American Muslims viewed America’s military efforts in the Middle East as a war on Islam, rather than terror. We have seen time and again that isolation and alienation create the environment for extremism to flourish. If the Muslim community becomes estranged from American society, an environment of alienation could lead to radicalization.

We can look abroad to see the next generation of threats to homeland security. Traditionally this has meant a survey of threats from the Middle East, North Africa or Southeast Asia. We cannot ignore the threats emerging within other advanced democracies, though. Since 9/11 it has become relatively more difficult for non-Europeans to visit or reside in the United States as the decline in visitors, visas and foreign students will testify. Much of al-Qaeda’s post 9/11 growth, though, can be found in the West, particularly in Europe. Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of the U.K’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, recently warned that the British security services are currently monitoring 1,600 terrorist suspects in as many as 200 cells in the United Kindom.

The potential for an intersection between Europe’s growing radical population and visa-free travel to the United States will likely be a cause for much concern in the years to come. We have already seen signs that the terrorist threat in other Western countries may spill into the United States. In August of 2006, British police thwarted a number of suspects who allegedly intended to bomb passenger aircraft on their way to the United States. To be sure, this alleged plot does not involve travel to America in a manner consistent with previous attacks. Nonetheless, it illustrates that Europe’s radical Islamists may be beginning to think outside the borders of their home countries.

Yet terrorism is not the only threat likely to test our homeland security in the near future. In contrast to terrorism, transnational threats present a different set of challenges. The 2005 hurricane season which included Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, devastated the city of New Orleans, shut-in 30 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, and closed the nation’s dominant grain exporting hub. In contrast to 9/11, where 3,000 people perished but life in Manhattan resumed, at least 1,800 people died and more than 200,000 Americans have lost their home. Global warming threatens an increase in severe weather in the form of more severe hurricanes, floods, droughts, and other severe storms. That disruption will in turn wreak havoc on our cities, will disrupt our food, energy, and water supplies.

The global spread of pandemic diseases presents a related, but distinct threat. Estimates of the global death toll from SARS and avian flu could hit in the tens of millions. Meanwhile, insufficient attention to HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis has devastated the population of Africa, weakening the social structure more broadly, creating a real possibility of continental-scale state failure. And we now recognize how terrorists are attracted to and thrive in failed states. Here at home, the under-funding of our public health infrastructure creates a significant vulnerability—to natural or man-made pandemics.

My intention in highlighting these threats, both homegrown and from abroad, manmade and natural, is not to suggest that they will supplant the kinds of threats we have come to expect in a post 9/11 world. Rather, we must prepare to meet the new generation of dangers as we continue to confront the old ones.

The Way Forward

I have heard experts characterize America as focused primarily on an external terrorist threat with Europe looking inward at its alienated minorities. While these characterizations may accurately reflect the state of homeland security perspectives, they make for poor policy. Because we are so closely integrated with Europe—both economically and through our visa policy—we must consider its homeland security problems as relevant to our own security problems.

Since the United States has a visa waiver policy for most of Europe the terrorist watch list is one of the most important layers of defense separating the United States from the looming growth of radical Islam in Europe. In the five years after 9/11 the terrorist watch list has ballooned to 237,000 names. Yet despite its mammoth size the list is not yet fully comprehensive. The federal government is still hesitant to place all the names of known terrorists on the watch list for fear of compromising sensitive intelligence information. The government should check passengers against the list using security-cleared government personnel rather than airline staff. By doing so, we will help insulate ourselves from a growing threat while preserving the integrity of classified information.

Border security is a critical component of homeland security. Unfortunately, the debate over how best to secure America’s borders—in particular the border with Mexico—has become entangled in heated partisan infighting. We should be concerned about the frightening ease of entry into the United States along our southern border. But I fear that a critical component of border security is being lost amidst this debate. Most of the discussion of border security for purposes has focused on the threat of a terrorist crossing our border, unbeknownst to customs or border officials. While this is a very real threat, and we must build a 21st century virtual border defense, we are ignoring the other, very real possibility that a potential terrorist would openly apply for a visa to the United States and simply overstay its terms. Here a just a few examples

• Mohammed Salameh, one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, overstayed his tourist visa
• Fadil Abdelgani, who participated in a 1993 plot to blow up several New York City landmarks, overstayed his tourist visa
• Satam al-Suqami, one of the 9/11 hijackers, overstayed his business visa

According to a government report, one third of all the illegal immigrants in the United States are believed to have overstayed their visas to this country--illustrating that simply building a wall will not secure our borders. Currently, the Department of Homeland Security’s US-VISIT program—the program charged with monitoring the entry and exit of visa holders—has been forced to abandon its plans to biometrically scan visa holders as they exit the country’s 50 busiest land border crossings because of technological and economic complications. We can do better.

To successfully confront the next generation of threats to our homeland security, we must look internally as well as externally. As mentioned, American Muslims tend to be well integrated economically. But a glance at the many studies of radicalization illustrates that terrorists are far more likely to be educated members of the middle class rather than illiterates on the market’s periphery. Ensuring education and prosperity within America’s Muslim community is necessary for stemming radicalization but cannot preempt the threat of domestic extremism alone. America cannot afford to let its debate alienate its Muslim community, nor can America afford to see the Muslim community retreat within itself.

We must make sure that America’s Muslim community feels as though it is a partner in the war on terror rather a pool of suspects. Many have called for racial profiling of Arabs in the United States in the belief that this would somehow contribute to our homeland security efforts. Far from it. Racial profiling could alienate American Muslims from America’s security efforts, separating us from those who are most familiar with trends in the Islamic community. Many of the terrorists that have attacked us or attempted to were of Arab or Middle Eastern descent. But al-Qaeda is increasingly making use of Western recruits who do not fit a typical profile. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 plot, planned to deploy Southeast Asian terrorists to strike the Library Tower in Los Angeles because he believed American security would overlook them in a wave of post-9/11 racial profiling. We must remember that Islamic extremism is an ideological problem, not an ethnic one. We must elevate the debate and avoid racial characterizations. They isolate us from our allies and blind us to future threats. Make no mistake, we should profile—but behavior is a better indicator of potential danger than race.

We should view homeland security as more than a rainy day exercise—a sunken cost whose benefits are unrealized until we are attacked. If we look closer, we find that the effects of a terrorist attack—and the response thereto—are similar to many of the threats we are likely to face on a more frequent basis, such as hurricanes and pandemic diseases. A smart homeland security policy involves investing in multipurpose defenses and response capabilities that make our society more resilient to any of the catastrophic threats we face.

Some examples are illuminating. In our investigation of New York City’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the 9/11 Commission determined that interoperable communications and usage of the Incident Command System were key to responding to terrorist attacks. Five years later, in the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina both the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the White House issued reports that cited the lack of interoperable communications and improper usage of the Incident Command System as contributing to the disaster.

Conclusion

In his October 2004 speech Osama Bin Laden discussed part of his strategy for attacking America. Bin Laden declared bankrupting the United States a priority for al-Qaeda, saying, “Still more serious for America was the fact that the mujahidin forced Bush to resort to an emergency budget in order to continue fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. This shows the success of our plan to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy, with God’s will.” Bin Laden’s strategy is better than his math. America is not bankrupt, but homeland security can never secure everything, everywhere, all the time. As Sun Tzu said, if you try to defend everywhere you will be weak everywhere.

But the challenge of homeland security is more than just setting priorities. The war on terror is, above all else, a battle of ideas and requires a leadership that embraces constant innovation. I encourage this committee’s efforts to look five and ten years ahead, but it must be followed by substantive change. As Winston Churchill said, “to improve is to change; to be perfect, to change often.”

Thank you.

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