Are We Getting Good Intelligence?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

By Bidgette Quinn, Fox News

May 23, 2006

Transcript

Bridgette: Well he might be in custody but he is still calling for teams of Islamic extremists to help in a decentralized terror war against the U.S. al-Qaeda mastermind Mustafa Nasar writing a 1600 page volume called, The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance. Counterterrorism officials are finding these theories were used in the terror attacks in Casablanca, Madrid and London. Joining us now, former congressman from Indiana, Tim Roemer. Good to have you here Congressman.

Tim Roemer: Thank you Bridgette

Bridgette: Are we getting good intel? Sure sounds like it. I mentioned the number of pages of this particular document – has this individual been a treasure trove though of information?

Tim Roemer: Well this is a new strategy Bridgette, to al-Qaeda fighting the United States. To often times we have an old response. We cannot continue to look at a pre-9/11 al-Qaeda and put together Cold War institutions. We need to look at this document and look at it as a wake up call. This is really a way for strategists like Nasar, to say, jihad can be committed by anybody at anytime at any place. That’s his template.

Bridgette: What do you mean by we can’t look at this through the prism of Cold War institutions?

Tim Roemer: I mean that, we cannot look at al-Qaeda as a vertical institution, command and control. The 9/11 Commission looked at al-Qaeda and found that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed took the planes operation, the 9/11 attack to Osama bin Laden, command and control got approval. What Nasar is saying is, we need decentralized, quick and mobile, self-sustaining cells in an information age to attack the United States and their allies, any time and any place. So—

Bridgette: I’m sorry, are you suggesting that there is no hierarchy here? I mean, are there still leaders who— inspire is not a great word but I think you know what I mean. Sort of—

Tim Roemer: Motivate?

Bridgette: Yeah, give these people their marching orders, maybe not specifically, but at least theoretically?

Tim Roemer: I think you’re right there. That the leaders like Osama bin Laden, who Nasar criticizes in his 1600 page book, he says he’s getting too enamored with the fans and the applause. He says that they can be inspirational leaders, but we need to be able to attack on the ground at any time at any place, and it shouldn’t be command and control. We need to be nimble and quick and therefore I think the key here is the United States needs to not create huge departments of Homeland Security which are not nimble and quick to respond to a very dynamic threat. We need to look at this strategy and respond in new ways and be quicker to respond.

Bridgette: Tough though because after 9/11 everybody said, gosh we should have invested more money in airline security, and we should have studied al-Qaeda more, and ya know, we put a lot of our resources toward that, and if this guy’s playbook is to be believed, we have to look at these little groups. What kind of a structure do you set up to try and combat them?

Tim Roemer: Well I think that you need to go back to what the 9/11 Commission recommended. That it’s a three-part strategy: it’s like playing three-dimensional chess. You need good intelligence, good human intelligence at the CIA, to capture these people- or also you need good special ops to kill them in the first place. Secondly, you need to have a national strategy for homeland defense, not pork barrel spending, but protect our borders and our ports. And thirdly, I think that you need to invest in a hearts and minds strategy, so that we don’t let these people, whether they’re in small cells in Europe or some place in Africa, start to think that the messages from Zawahiri, Zarqawi, and Osama bin Laden are better than what the United States stands for and its values of freedom and democracy and hope.

Bridgette: Former congressman from Indiana, Tim Roemer. Good to have you here, thank you.

Tim Roemer: Thank you.

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