Homeland Security - Michael Chertoff

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      The final section of this volume, International Dimensions, covers our recognition of the international dimensions of the risks we face. In the twenty-first-century global environment, people, goods, money, and ideas crisscross the world in a matter of seconds and hours, rather than days and weeks. Unfortunately, so can terrorists. We need look no further than to 9/11, where the plot was hatched in Central Asia, using recruits from Saudi Arabia who trained in Afghanistan and planned in Europe before launching their attack in America.

      Clearly, the threat we face from our foes remains a global one, requiring strong partnerships with friends and allies overseas. Most nations, including those of Europe, certainly grasp the danger terrorism poses to them and to our entire system of security, safety and prosperity. They recall the post-9/11 bombings in Madrid and in the United Kingdom, and the thwarted plot revealed in London in the summer of 2006 against transatlantic airliners. Yet a myth has developed that America is diverging from the rest of the world in the fight against terrorism. As one who has worked closely and extensively as DHS secretary with my security counterparts abroad, I can attest to the contrary.

      In Chapter 14, “Cooperation and Consensus Abroad,” I cite broad areas of agreement with our overseas democratic partners on the threat we face and how we must counter it. Nation after nation is implementing the same strategies and programs in the effort to prevent terrorists from striking their populations. Strategically, they are increasingly agreeing to extend their security perimeters abroad, coordinate their efforts, and strive to manage their security risks rather than ignoring or trying to eliminate them. And in three key areas—passenger data collection, biometrics, and secure traveler identification—our partners abroad have been implementing the same kinds of programs as our own.

      In working with our partners on security matters, I have had ample occasion to deal with international law. I have concluded that there is a fundamental problem with much of its current architecture. In Chapter 15, “The Responsibility to Contain,” I make the case for international legal reform. Specifically, nations need both freedom and accountability in response to terrorism. This does not contradict their need to partner with each other against our common foe. Rather, it acknowledges that every nation is confronted by a developing framework of international law that can often be a hindrance rather than a help to our collective security needs.

       THREATS

      1

      Assessing the Dangers

      LIKE other nations, the United States has always faced threats to its safety and security. In recent years, however, our media have breathlessly conveyed the impression that threats of nearly every kind are materializing with far greater frequency than in the past. This is partly an illusion triggered by a human tendency to magnify today's problems compared with those of yesterday. What is hardly illusory is the outworking of a number of distinctly modern developments that give rise to emerging vulnerabilities.

      When it comes to natural threats, for example, we have built communities in areas susceptible to wildfires, earthquakes, and floods, putting record numbers of people at risk. Moreover, the globalization of modern travel has produced unprecedented geographical mobility, raising the specter of a worldwide spread of infectious diseases. With respect to man-made threats, the mobility that can deliver diseases to our doorstep can bring terrorism there as well. In addition, modern science and technology amplify the capabilities of terrorists so that they may someday have the potential to destroy countless lives by detonating a single weapon in a well-populated area.

      What can we do about these emerging threats to the homeland? In dealing with natural threats, we can stop some diseases in their tracks through inoculation, but obviously, we cannot prevent earthquakes or hurricanes. What we can do is take steps to reduce our vulnerability and improve our capacity to respond to them. And in the case of man-made dangers, there is much that we can do to prevent disasters from occurring. But it is imperative that we first identify and face squarely the nature and extent of those perils.

       Threats Man-Made

      For much of the last century, the United States and the Soviet Union existed under the threat of nuclear annihilation. As the famous Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock illustrated, we grew sometimes closer to and sometimes more distant from the midnight of an apocalypse. Yet this system was remarkably and fundamentally stable. It rested on the understanding that our Soviet adversaries had as much to lose from a nuclear exchange as we did. They had no desire to become martyrs. This system was sufficiently sturdy that it changed only when the internal structure of the Soviet system crumbled.

      In the new century, we face challenges that are obviously different in a number of ways. Terrorist groups do not wield destructive power remotely on the scale of a nuclear state. But networked terrorists also act without the restraints of deterrence. Their supporters and assets are dispersed and low profile. Their willingness to be martyred is significant. And modern technology has given even small groups a destructive potential that continues to increase.

      Nevertheless, there is a commonality between the current threat of terrorism and the historical challenge posed by the Soviet Union and other communist powers. It is the need to confront a unified, underlying ideology and worldview. In confronting the Soviets, we faced the ideology of Marxism, however hollow it eventually appeared. In our struggle with international terrorism, our main adversary is a cult of violent Islamist extremism, which seeks to hijack for its own ends the religion of hundreds of millions of peaceful Muslims. In the case of Marxism, what began as a movement distributed in pockets around the globe led to an ideology that took control of nations. In like manner, violent Islamist extremists seek host states in which they can train, flourish, and create platforms from which to attack other countries. Their aim is to follow the example of Marxism by gaining control of states or nations. This similarity is no accident. An Al Qaeda training document discovered in Afghanistan in 2002 specifically referred to Mao Zedong's three stages of insurgency: (1) recruitment and indoctrination; (2) sustained terrorist warfare; and (3) the ultimate seizure of territory and the levers of state power. Of course, Al Qaeda came closest to achieving the third and final stage of power during its pre-9/11 alliance with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

      More recently, leaders of this extremist ideology have reiterated this goal. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, proclaimed in July 2006 on an extremist web site that “the whole world is an open field for us.” And the uncompromising view of these radicals is made clear by a line in Al Qaeda's charter that reads as follows: “We will not meet the enemy halfway and there will be no room to dialogue with them.” In order to grasp fully the implications of such rhetoric, we need only recall the conditions in Afghanistan under the Taliban. They harbored Al Qaeda, inflicted horrific punishment on dissenters, and drove women from public life, making them the virtual property of husbands and fathers and denying them an education along with other rights recognized by the modern world. It was only through the overthrow of that regime that these rights were restored.

      But the destruction of Al Qaeda's headquarters in Afghanistan—while a major positive step—did not obliterate this terrorist organization or the virulent ideology it represents. Following this substantial setback, Al Qaeda and its key members retreated to other parts of the world. They removed to the frontier areas of Pakistan, where over time they have obtained breathing space to train, plan, experiment, and maintain a pipeline of operatives. They extended into the Maghreb in North Africa, and carried out attacks against UN facilities, courts, and schoolchildren. They have returned to parts of Somalia, whose weakened government produced a climate conducive to lawlessness, including piracy on the high seas. In Somalia, Al Qaeda and its cohorts hope to control territory and increase their capability of launching further attacks.

      When we outline the continued threats we face from terrorism, we must begin with an extremist ideology and with Al Qaeda, its most potent representative. Vice-Admiral J. Michael

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