*EPF512 02/14/2003
Senior Official Says "Breathtaking" Gains Made in Counterterrorism
(National Strategy for Combating Terrorism discussed) (1240)

By David Anthony Denny
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism unveiled February 14 is "a companion piece" to the national strategies on weapons of mass destruction and homeland security already announced by the Bush administration, a senior administration official says.

"What you're seeing is a construct, all of a piece," the official said, concerning various subsets of the U.S. National Security Strategy. He added that separate "companion piece" strategies on cyber security and critical infrastructure security could be expected within a few days.

In talking about the strategy, the official focused on how much improvement has been made since September 11, 2001.

"The changes in capacity and culture -- both -- of the intelligence and law enforcement communities since 9/11 in my judgment have simply been breathtaking in the most positive way," he said. "There were issues about both the quantity of intelligence available in certain areas and the integration -- some people call it ����connecting dots' -- in that time period. Since then the changes that have come about have just been remarkable," he said.

"There are people who are ����making it happen' every day, and at every level of government," he said. "We oversee a process out of the White House that brings together every relevant agency of government twice a day -- at seven o'clock and three o'clock every we day we sit down and go over every threat that we know of," he said. "And we go through not just what we know about it, but what are we doing? How are we chasing it? How are we chasing down every possible thread?"

The official said the process goes all the way up through the president, who meets with his most senior advisers every morning to also make sure that everyone understands the threat and that proper actions are being taken to get in front of it and to disrupt it.

The FBI and the CIA have "significantly increased their capacity in terms of numbers -- hires and numbers in training -- but also in conjunction with the State Department, they have made tremendous changes in their relations with liaison partners -- again intelligence and law enforcement overseas -- in like-minded countries," the senior official said. "The cooperation between so many of these countries in intelligence channels is greater than it has ever been and than I frankly would have expected it to be," he said. People have come to common cause, he said.

"It's been much the same in law enforcement overseas, and then when you come back into this country, the relationship between the FBI and state and local law enforcement has just exploded in terms of its capacity. There are now some 66 joint terrorism task forces in the United States," he said. "And these bring together at FBI offices state, local and other federal capacities in one place with a single focus on counterterrorism," he said.

"Borders and INS and Customs are part of these same meetings we have. And they understand what they have to do," the senior official said. "They sit with us every morning at seven o'clock and three o'clock as well. And we track down every thread of information. A huge percentage turn out to be simple crimes that are misunderstandings; sometimes we call them ����poison pen.' Somebody's learned they can go roust somebody by accusing them unjustly. Every one of those we run down. Every day we get a little bit better," he said.

Readers of the terrorism strategy shouldn't be surprised at the prominent role given to the Department of State, the principal U.S. foreign affairs agency, the official said.

"The Department of State and the diplomacy arm and all that they bring to this is a critical and major and important part of the war on terrorism," the senior administration official said. "While the activities of the Department of State may be slightly less than the military in the first tactical stage, when we're out physically attacking al-Qaeda and the Taliban and pushing them out of Afghanistan -- and I said slightly less -- even in that area the diplomacy side of it is critically important to be able to conduct military operations anyplace," he said.

For the long term, the official said, the need is to bring international forces to bear against terrorism.

"We need to make sure that every like-minded state joins in common cause to both root out the immediate causes -- the immediate terrorists -- but then to build the institutions, the capacities to keep us on track for the long term," he said. "This is a global problem. We need to attack it globally; and the State Department is key to that. Look at the organization of the department itself, with Cofer Black (Coordinator for Counterterrorism) and Frank Taylor (Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security). In every council we have on this issue, Ambassador Black and Frank Taylor are critical parts of this issue and we lean on them to take initiatives and to guide a very robust foreign policy approach in every dimension of diplomacy. So they're major, major players, in many ways leading the international dimension to this," he said.

Part of the counterterrorism strategy is designed to "enable weak states" that "do not have the law enforcement, intelligence or military capabilities to assert effective control over their entire territory."

"We have active programs," the senior administration official said, "managed by the Department of State, with the local ambassador as the front man for us, to go out and work with these states, to work with them on their legal systems, to work on their law enforcement systems, to work with them on borders and coast guard systems. We've brought coast guard training to some of these states so they can better protect their own borders and protect themselves," he said.

Some of these countries "are getting their own wake-up calls, because they're seeing the fruits of -- the damage of terrorism in their own country," he said. "We are actively engaged in those countries that are having problems themselves. Sometimes it's the military; sometimes it's the intelligence; sometimes it's law enforcement: always with State Department. Again, it's that long-term basis that we have to get into," he said.

"We will defeat al-Qaeda and Taliban and get to the bottom of that," he said. "But jihadism and extremism will be with us for a long time. And we need those states to take the other end of the strategy and really nail it down," he said.

With the success in freezing terrorist financial assets, terrorists have moved into informal ways to move money. The senior administration official, however, was reluctant to say very much about the topic.

"We do know that there are informal systems that exist," he said. "We do know that people now have been pushed into trying to carry cash around. And, frankly, that helps us," he said. "But I'm really at a loss to be able to describe anything specifically, other than to tell you that one of the facets of our attacks is to dry up financing, and we think we've had significant success at it. Not everything we do in this regard is public, and cannot be, he said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Return to Public File Main Page

Return to Public Table of Contents