New Approach to Counter Terrorism Necessary

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

By Jane Skinner, Fox News Live

May 23, 2007

Jane Skinner: President Bush, just a short time ago, on a gorgeous day in New London, Connecticut, telling the graduates of the Coast Guard academy that Osama bin Laden wanted Al Qaeda in Iraq to plan attacks outside of Iraq, with the main target being the United States. What does this newly declassified intelligence that he chose to reveal today tell us? Joining me now is former Indiana Congressman and former member of the 9/11 Commission, Tim Roemer is here. Congressman good to see you.

Tim Roemer: Thanks Jane, Good to see you.

Skinner: This new information- does it illuminate anything for you about the threat in Iraq or does it paint a more detailed picture for us?

Roemer: Well I think--first of all Jane--it’s the right enemy that the President is concentrating on, but the wrong diagnosis, the wrong solution and the wrong strategy. First of all, the talk about 'central fronts' is kind of old World War I or World War II language. These are not central fronts; these are cells and networks, and they are emanating out of a safe haven in Pakistan, going into Afghanistan and Iraq. We have to do something about that.

Second point is: we don’t need a declassified document to understand that Al-Qaeda has been talking about striking the United States and striking the homeland. Bin Laden’s been releasing tapes for ten years saying he was going to do that, and I think we need a better, more effective strategy to counter that.

Skinner: Congressman, now the Afghanistan/Pakistan question is a separate one, but sticking with Iraq for a second, outside of what the President may be doing politically, realistically, is he right to try and- I don’t know- snap us out of this lull we’ve had of security, since we have had no attacks since 9/11 and maybe a wakeup call for the consequences of if we pull our troops out of Iraq?

Roemer: Well I think there are two different questions there, Jane.

One is how does Iraq relate to the overall efforts to go after international jihadist ideology?

And, two, where is this threat going? We’ve certainly seen, in terms of complacency, that we had Americans at Fort Dix the other day inspired by a bin Laden tape, not Iraq, not a training ground in Afghanistan, but a bin Laden tape, to potentially become American terrorists. So, we need be able to have strategies that look at the internet, that look at the networks, that look at the growing threat from western Europe, the franchising in Africa, and the communications of Zawahiri and bin Laden. Zawahiri just cut another tape today talking about the death of one of his so called brothers, Omar Dadullah, and that problem.

So I think we have to look at this with a fresh perspective for the 21st century, understanding the networks and the cells. These are not nation-states. Primarily these are franchises that are coming into the United States; and we therefore need some new strategies to counter this.

Skinner: Congressman Roemer, good of you to be here. Thank you.

Roemer: Good to be here, Jane.

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