[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: DEFENDING
IDEALS AND DEFINING THE MESSAGE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 23, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-261
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
98-211 WASHINGTON : 2005
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas Columbia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee JIM COOPER, Tennessee
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida ------
------ ------ BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DAN BURTON, Indiana DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio TOM LANTOS, California
RON LEWIS, Kentucky BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
DIANE E. WATSON, California
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Thomas Costa, Professional Staff Member
Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on August 23, 2004.................................. 1
Statement of:
Beers, Charlotte, former Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State;
Keith Reinhard, president, Business for Diplomatic Action,
and chairman, DDB Worldwide; Gary Knell, president and CEO,
Sesame Workshop; Dr. Rhonda S. Zaharna, associate professor
of public communication, American University; and Hafez Al-
Mirazi, Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera Washington Office......... 118
Harrison, Patricia de Stacy, Acting Under Secretary of State
for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of
State; Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman, Broadcasting Board of
Governors; Charles ``Tre'' Evers III, Advisory Commission
on Public Diplomacy, Commissioner; and Jess T. Ford,
Director of International Affairs and Trade, Government
Accountability Office...................................... 53
Kean, Thomas H., Chair, National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission); and
Jamie S. Gorelick, Commissioner, National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11
Commission)................................................ 19
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Al-Mirazi, Hafez, Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera Washington Office,
prepared statement of...................................... 201
Beers, Charlotte, former Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State,
prepared statement of...................................... 122
Evers, Charles ``Tre,'' III, Advisory Commission on Public
Diplomacy, Commissioner, prepared statement of............. 78
Ford, Jess T., Director of International Affairs and Trade,
Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of.... 85
Harrison, Patricia de Stacy, Acting Under Secretary of State
for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of
State, prepared statement of............................... 56
Kean, Thomas H., Chair, National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission); and
Jamie S. Gorelick, Commissioner, National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11
Commission), prepared statement of......................... 26
Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Ohio, prepared statement of................... 7
Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 14
Reinhard, Keith, president, Business for Diplomatic Action,
and chairman, DDB Worldwide, prepared statement of......... 129
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut:
Information concerning Muslim Public Affairs Council..... 45
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Tomlinson, Kenneth, chairman, Broadcasting Board of
Governors, prepared statement of........................... 70
Zaharna, Dr. Rhonda S., associate professor of public
communication, American University, prepared statement of.. 192
THE 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: DEFENDING
IDEALS AND DEFINING THE MESSAGE
----------
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats
and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, LaTourette, Platts,
Kucinich, Maloney, and Tierney.
Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and
counsel; Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Sarah
D'Orsie, deputy clerk; Andrew Su, minority professional staff
member; and Earley Green, minority chief clerk.
Mr. Shays. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on
National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations
hearing entitled, ``The 911 Commission Recommendations on
Public Diplomacy: Defending Ideals and Defining the Message,''
is called to order.
In the war against trans-national terrorism, we are losing
ground on a crucial front: The battle of ideas. Words, not just
weapons, fuel revolutions; and the language of political
liberty and economic opportunity can inspire the victory of
life over death, faith over fatalism and progress over
stagnation throughout the Muslim world.
The next generation of potential terrorists can be stopped
with books rather than bombs, if we help empower and mobilize
the moderate majority with the vocabulary of hope.
Public diplomacy, the cultural exchanges, educational
programs and broadcasts used to convey U.S. interests and
ideals to foreign audiences, helped win the cold war. But
according to the State Department's advisory group on public
diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim world, ``the United States
today lacks the capabilities in public diplomacy to meet the
national security threat emanating from political instability,
economic deprivation and extremism.''
In the rhetorical arms race for the hearts and minds of the
Muslim world, some ask how the most technologically advanced
Nation on earth is being outgunned by a movement largely based
in caves.
In our previous hearings on public diplomacy, witnesses
described a lack of strategic coherence in U.S. efforts to
communicate with global audiences. Successful cold war
structures have been stripped bare and scattered throughout a
State Department bureaucracy with other priorities. Since
September 11, 2001, the State Department and the Broadcasting
Board of Governors have increased the reach and frequency of
communications on U.S. policies. New, more aggressive
approaches, seek to counter anti-American stereo types and
caricatures dominating the news cycles.
But the 9/11 Commission found those efforts still
inadequate to meet the threat. They called for ``short term
action on a long range strategy'' to compete as vigorously on
the ideological battlefield as we do on the military and
intelligence fronts. The Commission recommended a clearer
message in support of the rule of law, human rights, expanded
opportunity and political reform, and they said we needed to
expand regional satellite broadcasting and rebuild scholarship,
exchange and library programs targeted to young people.
The Commission's call for reinvigorated public diplomacy
adds urgency to the debate already underway over the
appropriate mix of U.S. communication tools. Some say mass
audience programming based on popular music and other modern
advertising techniques lacks necessary depth. Others say the
old, more academic methods targeting societal elites will not
reach the larger body politic. The Commission calls for
expansion of both approaches.
So we meet this afternoon to examine those recommendations
more fully, determine which can be done by the executive branch
alone and which require legislative implementation, and to
assess the strengths and weaknesses of public diplomacy as a
tool against future terrorist attacks.
We are aided in that discussion today by Governor Thomas
Kean, chairman of National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States, Commission member Jamie Gorelick, and two
other panels of extremely qualified and experienced witnesses.
We thank them all for participating and we look forward to
their testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Shays. At this time, the Chair would recognize the
ranking member, Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
welcome to Governor Kean and also to Ms. Gorelick.
Today's hearing is the third hearing this subcommittee has
held on public diplomacy in the Middle East. We've heard from
numerous State Department officials, media experts, academics,
and representatives from various advisory commissions. We've
heard repeatedly that the hatred of the Muslim world toward the
United States is growing.
However, the truth is that no matter how many hearings we
hold on this topic, our public diplomacy in the Middle East is
a failure and will continue to fail without changes in our
foreign policy.
The problem is not that there are cultural differences or
different value systems. It is not a failure of the quantity or
quality of our message. Our public diplomacy fails because it
is derived from failed foreign policy. We must change our
foreign policy if we're going to have credibility in talking
about changing hearts and minds.
In its final report, the 9/11 Commission made the following
recommendation, ``when Muslim governments, even those who are
friends, do not respect these principles, the United States
must stand for a better future. One of the lessons of the long
cold war was that short term gains in cooperating with the most
repressive and brutal governments were too often outweighed by
long-term setbacks by America's stature and interests.''
The Commission is correct in that our foreign policy
strategy continues to reflect cold war mentalities. During the
cold war, the United States supported brutal dictatorial
governments throughout the world because they were strategic
allies. Democratic and Republican administrations both
supported with military aid regimes in Iraq and Iran where
those regimes were torturing citizens and suppressing
democratic aspirations.
Our policy of arming Mujahedin before and during Soviet
invasion in Afghanistan led to the Taliban having the ability
to flourish that afterwards. The people of the Muslim world
remember that the United States chose to support these brutal
regimes against them. Recent polls such as those conducted by
Zogby international show that Arab respondents do understand
and do respect American values. But they do not see American
policy reflecting those values. They saw the horrible picture
of pictures at Abu Ghraib prison. They read about the treatment
of detained prisons at Guantanamo Bay, so why are we surprised
that there's harsh feelings toward the United States?
Perhaps we have a credibility problem in the Muslim world
because people there believe that we have treated them poorly.
If we say there's a gathering threat of weapons of mass
destruction and we launch an unprovoked attack on another
country to capture those weapons and it turns out that no vast
stockpiles were found, our actions look highly questionable at
best and our credibility as a Nation is undermined.
Who's going to believe America the next time a U.S.
Secretary of State makes a presentation at the United Nations
calling for the world community to participate in a plan for
war? No amount of American pop music Fulbright scholars or
athlete exchange programs is going to conceal the false
pretences of a war. Today we'll hear again how much more money
and attention should be spent to influence public opinion in
the Arab world and to carry a message of hope to Muslims.
Mr. Chairman, I think that our national policymakers have
to match words and deeds or pretty soon the United States will
lose all credibility, not just in the Middle East but
throughout the entire world.
Let's figure out what the message is before we discuss how
best to beam it across satellites to the Middle East. Let's
have the makers of our foreign policy come testify and be held
accountable for their decisions.
I want the thank the witnesses here today and I want the
thank Governor Kean and Ms. Gorelick for the honest assessment
they've made of our Nation's vulnerabilities in the 9/11
Commission Report, and I hope that your testimony today and
continued advocacy will help to spearhead serious deliberation
and reform by this and future generations and Congresses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich
follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. Governor Kean and
Commissioner Gorelick, the subcommittee has less members, so
I'm going to have each of them make statements. Then we will
get to you real quick. Thank you. At this time, the Chair would
recognize the vice chairman, Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
efforts at having what is the first hearing on examining the
need for a clear and coordinated public diplomacy strategy. The
9/11 Commission Report contains numerous recommendations to
change both within the government structure and government
policy, and one key aspect of the report deals with public
diplomacy or the ability of the United States to project its
public image and accurately portray our Nation to people around
the world.
Public diplomacy is a campaign of words and images and it
can be easily lost. To portray the United States as the great
Nation that it is, we must set the tone and message or more
radical groups will define our message. In the 9/11 Commission
Report, it States that to Muslim parents, terrorists like bin
Laden have nothing to offer their children but visions of
violence and death. In this war of diplomacy and public policy,
we have to recognize that the Islamic extremists in which we
are defending ourselves promote a culture of celebrating and
glorifying death both of innocent lives of suicide bombers, and
certainly that means our task is just greater than just
defining who we are.
I look forward today to hearing from the witnesses and
hearing their recommendations on public policy and reform.
Thank you.
Mr. Shays. At this time, the Chair would recognize the
gentlewoman from New York, Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. And welcome to Governor Kean and
Ms. Gorelick. I just left another hearing on financial
institutions where Vice Chairman Hamilton is testifying. I join
my colleagues, and really, the American public, in thanking you
for your bipartisan, thoughtful work.
The 9/11 Commission Report is more popular than Harry
Potter. So I hope people not only read the Commission report,
but will work to implement all of its suggestions, and along
with my colleague Chris Shays and others, we have formed a
caucus that will be working together to really support the
implementation of the recommendations.
I, for one, believe that the Commission should be extended
with legislation and it will be the first bill that I introduce
when we go back into session in a bipartisan way.
I know that you're fund-raising, but I do not believe that
your important work should depend on bake sales. I would prefer
Governor Kean and Ms. Gorelick, for you to be spending your
time testifying and not having to fundraise with private money.
Your work is tremendously important. Nothing is more important
than securing America and taking every step to prevent
terrorist attacks.
So I hope that this will be as successful as the
legislation that Chris Shays and I authored creating the
Commission and really supporting the legislation to extend the
operation of the Commission until you've got all of your work
done.
Again, I thank you for an excellent job and I look forward
to your testimony today. Your Commission report really mirrors
what the advisory group on public diplomacy, the General
Accounting Office, the Heritage Foundation and the Council on
foreign relations, they all issued reports stating that a
greater emphasis is needed by our government on public
diplomacy, that we cannot allow the terrorists to define who we
are and what we stand for.
So I would request permission to place in my long opening
statement but I look more forward to hearing your comments
today and thank you for your many contributions so far.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney
follows:]
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Mr. Shays. I thank the gentlelady. I need to confess that
we don't have four witnesses before us today. Starting out
mispronouncing both your names here could set a bad precedent,
Governor Kean and Gorelick, so we'll call them that and nothing
else.
Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was going to
call them that any way.
But I want to first begin by praising you and Ranking
Member Kucinich for holding this hearing. One of the most
intriguing things about the 9/11 report has been all the
different assets and different things that the United States
has done and needs to do since September 11, and I, like Mrs.
Maloney, Governor Kean, I was just down at the Financial
Services Committee with your sidekick, Congressman Hamilton,
and I wanted to praise not only the both of you, but all of the
Commission members for all of the good work you have done in
the last month not only in getting the tough work done and
doing your work in a bipartisan way, but also taking all of
your valuable time to explain it to us and to the American
people, and I really think that you have been on television
probably more than the summer Olympics and you've done I think
a really good, workman-like job.
Mr. Chairman, I think it's important that we talk about the
public policy considerations in the Middle East. I just want to
harken back to Congressman Hamilton and what we learned in the
Financial Services Committee meeting that you were at, Mr.
Chairman, and Mrs. Maloney was at as well.
One of the astounding things as I read the 9/11 report was
the fact that this whole enterprise on September 11th cost less
than $500,000; that it took less than $500,000 for 19 madmen to
create such terror and devastation in the United States of
America, and what we learned and what you learned and was
shared with us today is that even this paltry sum of half a
million dollars wasn't financed, as many believe, by Osama bin
Laden. It didn't come from his personal wealth or inherited
wealth. It came from charities, Islamic charities, both witting
and unwitting, I think the report indicates.
As we look at the ramifications of particularly Title III
of the Patriot Act, as we try to ramp down and get handle on
some of the finance that goes into terrorism, we now have
partnership agreements with 94 countries in an attempt to
control the flow of money to terrorists, and I think your
report gives us further evidence and ammunition as we pursue
that.
But its relevance to this hearing is that when you're
dealing with 94 other separate and sovereign States, a number
of them have Islamic majorities, and if we are going to be
successful, we can go about it the old way and just go out and
catch the bad guys and follow the paper trail and find their
money, or we can attempt to do it a different way, and that's
where public diplomacy comes in, and I'm very hopeful and I'm
looking forward to your testimony today, again, all of the
outstanding work you've done already.
But our challenge needs to be not only to deal with this
generation of terrorists in an effective way, but to make sure
that the next generation of terrorists at least as a competing
message that is believed by the United States of America, and I
thank you very much for being here today and I yield back.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. At this time, the Chair
would recognize Mr. Platts before going on to our witnesses.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to add my
words of thanks for your very important and very substantive
work. We're a grateful Nation because of your efforts, and
hopefully we'll be successful in moving forward and embracing
your ideas.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. Before swearing the
witnesses in, I ask unanimous consent that all members of the
subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the
record and that the record remain open 3 days for that purpose.
Without objection, so ordered.
I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
permitted to include their written statement in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
As is the practice of this committee, the full committee
and subcommittee, we swear in all our witnesses. I only
chickened out once in umpteen number of years with, Senator
Byrd, but if you all would stand, raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Note for the record our witnesses have responded
in the affirmative. Once of the nice things about our
subcommittee work is we can give the Members 10 minutes to
question. We can get into an issue a little more in-depth, and
we will do that, and Governor Kean, thank you and we would love
to hear your statement.
STATEMENTS OF THOMAS H. KEAN, CHAIR, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON
TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES (THE 9/11 COMMISSION);
AND JAMIE S. GORELICK, COMMISSIONER, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON
TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES (THE 9/11 COMMISSION)
Mr. Kean. Chairman Shays and Ranking Member Kucinich, and
distinguished Members, I want to thank, by the way, the
chairman and the ranking member and the other committee members
for their very thoughtful statements. I might say that the
chairman and other members of this committee were some of the
first to spot the seriousness of the problem that finally
resulted in September 11, and I thank them for their foresight
on this matter. There weren't many people out there with you at
the time. Thank you.
We are honored to appear before you today. We want to thank
you and the leadership of the House of Representatives for the
prompt consideration you are giving to our recommendations.
We're grateful to you and the leadership of the entire House.
The findings of this Commission were endorsed by all members,
five Republicans and five Democrats.
You see we share a unity of purpose on the Commission, and
we'd like to call upon Congress and the administration, even in
this very difficult season, to display the same spirit of
bipartisanship as we collectively seek to make all our country
and our people safer and more secure.
Terrorism is the No. 1 threat to the national security of
the United States. Counterterrorism policy must be the No. 1
priority for the President, and as any President and that's any
President and this Congress, or perhaps any Congress and that's
going to go for the foreseeable future.
We cannot succeed against terrorism by Islamic extremist
groups unless we use all elements of national power: That means
military power, it means diplomacy, it means intelligence,
covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid,
homeland defense, and yes, of course the subject of today,
public diplomacy. If we favor any of those tools while
neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our
national effort and by the way that's just not our view. That
is the view of every single policymaker we interviewed. You
cannot then succeed against terrorism with one tool alone.
I give you an example. When Secretary Rumsfeld testified
before us he said he can't get the job done with the military
alone. For every terrorist we kill or capture, he said, more
can rise up to take their place. He told us the cost benefit
ratio is simply against us.
Cofer Black told us: You can't get the job done with the
CIA alone.
What became clear to us as we heard these leaders answered
so many other is that the U.S. Government remains geared to
cold war threats who are--we're still, in many cases, talking
about great power threats. Our government still today is not
geared to deal with the threat from transnational Islamic
terrorism. The threat to us today is not from great armies
anymore. The threat to us comes from the beliefs, those beliefs
that propelled the 19 young men to take their lives simply to
do the greatest possible harm to us.
The military struggle is part of that struggle we face, but
if you think about it, far more important is the struggle for
the war of ideas. As much as we worried about bin Laden and al
Qaeda, and we do worry about that, we should worry far more
about the attitudes of tens of millions of young Arabs and
hundreds of millions of young Muslims.
Those who sympathize with bin Laden represent, in the long
term, a far greater threat to us. They represent the well
spring to refresh the doctrine of hate and destruction, no
matter how many al Qaeda members we capture or kill. For those
reasons, Mr. Chairman, we welcome the opportunity to this
afternoon to address this question of public diplomacy.
The United States is heavily engaged in the Muslim world
and will be for many, many years to come. The American
engagement is resented. Polls in 2002 found that among
America's friends, I'll take Egypt for example, Egypt is the
recipient of more USAID for the past 20 years than any Muslim
country by far. Only 15 percent of the people in Egypt have a
favorable opinion of the United States of America. In Saudi
Arabia, another friend, that number goes down to 12 percent and
two-thirds of those surveyed in 2003 in countries from
Indonesia to Turkey were very or somewhat fearful and they were
fearful that they feared the United States might attack them,
they really believe this.
At this time, the support for the United States has
plummeted. Polls taken in Islamic countries just after
September 11 suggested something quite different. At that
point, people felt we were doing something right and there was
a lot of support for us at that point, even in the Arab world,
for our fight against terrorism. But by 2003, the bottom had
fallen out of that support in most of the Muslim world.
Negative views of the United States among Muslims which had
been largely limited to the countries in the Middle East have
spread. Since last summer, favorable ratings for the United
States have fallen from 61 percent to 15 percent in Indonesia
and from 71 percent to 38 percent among Muslims in Nigeria.
Now, what we know is that many of these views are
uninformed. At worst, some of these views of course are
informed by cartoonish stereotypes, the coarse expression of
fashionable Occidentalism among intellectuals who caricature
U.S. values and policies. Local newspapers and a few
influential satellite broadcasters like al Jazeera often
reinforce such Jihadist theme that portrays the United States
again and again as simply antiMuslim.
The small number of Muslims who are committed to Osama bin
Laden's version of Islam, we can't dissuade them. We've got to
jail them or we've got to kill them. That's the bottom line.
But, the large majority of Arabs and Muslims are opposed to
violence, and with those people, we must encourage reform,
freedom, democracy and perhaps, above everything else,
opportunity, even though our own promotion of these messages
will, for a while, be limited in its effectiveness simply,
because we are the one carrying the message.
Muslims themselves often reflect on such basic issues as
the concept of Jihad, the position of women in their societies,
the place of non-Muslim minorities. We can promote moderation.
We can ensure its ascendancy. Only Muslims themselves in their
own countries can do that.
So the setting is difficult. Forty percent of adult Arabs
are illiterate. Two-thirds of them are women. One third of the
broader Middle East lives on less than $2 a day. Less than 2
percent of the population has access to the Internet. The
majority of older Arab youths who express the desire to
emigrate, particularly to Europe.
So this is fertile ground. This is fertile ground for any
ideology which is dedicated to hate. This is the kind of soil
in which it can grow best.
So in short, the United States has to defeat an ideology,
not just a group of people, and we must do so under very
difficult circumstances. How can the United States and its
friends help moderate Muslims combat these extremist ideas?
As a Commission, we believe the United States must define
its message. We believe that we have to define what we stand
for and we believe that simply have to offer an example of
moral leadership. We've got to be committed and show we're
committed to treating people humanely to abiding by the rule of
law and being generous and caring about our neighbors. You see,
America and its Muslim friends can agree on respect for human
dignity and the belief in opportunity.
To Muslim parents, terrorists like bin Laden have nothing
to offer their children, as I've said, except violence and
death. America and its friends have a crucial advantage. As we
can offer if you're a parent in the Muslim world, we can offer
you a vision, and that vision can give their children a better
future. If we heed the views of thoughtful leaders in the Arab
and Muslim world, we believe we can seek a moderate consensus.
Our vision of the future should stress individual
educational and economic opportunity. Our vision includes
widespread political participation and contempt for
indiscriminate violence. It includes respect for the rule of
law, openness in discussing differences, and tolerance for
opposing points of view.
Where Muslim governments, and this even those goes for
Muslim governments that happen to be friends, when they do not
respect these principles, the United States must stand for a
better future. One of the lessons of the cold war was that the
short term gains in cooperating with the most repressive and
brutal governments was sooner-or-later outweighed by long-term
setbacks for America's stature and interests.
Above all, we as Americans must not be hypocrites about our
own values. American foreign policy is part of this message.
America's policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it
is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli
Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant
staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.
Now it doesn't mean that the United States choices have
been wrong. It means those choices must be integrated with
America's message of opportunity to the Arab and Muslim world.
Neither Israel, or hopefully a new Iraq, will be safer if
worldwide Islamic terrorism grows any stronger.
So the United States has to do a lot more to communicate
its message. Reflecting on bin Laden's success in reaching
Muslim audiences, as the chairman mentioned this, Richard
Holbrooke wondered how can a man in a cave out-communicate the
world's leading communications society? Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage worried to us that Americans have been
exporting our fears and our anger, not our vision of
opportunity and hope.
Just as we did in the cold war, we need to defend our
ideals abroad and we need to defend them vigorously. America
does stand for values. And at our best, we always have stood up
for those values. If the United States does not act
aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the
extremists are going to define us instead.
Recognizing that Arab and Muslim audiences rely on
satellite television and radio, the government has begun some
promising initiatives in television and radio broadcasting to
the Arab world, Iran and Afghanistan. These efforts are just
now beginning to reach some large audiences. The Broadcasting
Board of Governors has asked for larger resources. They ought
to get them.
The United States should rebuild the scholarship, exchange
and library programs that reach out to young people and offers
them knowledge and hope and where such assistance, by the way,
is provided, it should be identified as coming from the
citizens of this United States.
At this point, I'll turn to my colleague and one of the
most productive and intelligent and hardworking members of the
Commission, Jamie Gorelick.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Ms. Gorelick, you have the floor.
Ms. Gorelick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I think that your mic may not be on.
Ms. Gorelick. There we go. As I said, thank you to both
chairmen. Let me reiterate just a few points and then address
the rest of our agenda. As Chairman Kean said, we are losing
the war of ideas. We clearly need to kill or capture those who
are most hardened against us, but the challenge for us here and
the subject that we are addressing today is how to separate out
the vast majority of Muslims who are currently providing
support and affirmation to those who are the hardened
extremists. That is the challenge and we have concentrated on
the first category at the expense of the second.
The message I hope you take away and that we hope you take
away from our report is that if we do not address the second
challenge, the threat that we face, will pale in comparison to
the one that we face today because we will have created and
sustained tremendous hostility against us across the Muslim
world.
We have lost the high regard of most of the world, and that
is a stunning conclusion of our report and we have to regain
it.
Our national security depends on this as much as it does on
the might of our military and on the capability of our
intelligence community. The problem is that we, as Secretary
Armitage said, we are exporting our fears and our anger. We are
not seen through any lens but the lens of our military and the
lens of corporate America--we are more multifaceted than that.
We have fought to protect the lives of Muslims. We have helped
in innumerable ways in the Muslim world and that message has
not gotten through.
We have receded in so many ways from the work that we did
in the 1990's and before.
So what can we do? First of all, to Congressman Kucinich's
point, we have to do the right thing. We have to be moral. We
have to be generous. We have to be right-thinking. We have to
abide by the rule of law. We have to communicate the very best
values of our country that have been such a source of strength
for us in our foreign policy before this. It is astounding and
striking how the support for us has hemorrhaged in the last few
years. The world was behind us after September 11. Even the
Muslim world sustained support for us invading Afghanistan, and
that support has hemorrhaged. This has real consequences for
our national security.
We need to do the right thing.
Second, as Chairman Kean said, we have to offer an
alternative vision of hope and opportunity. I'm going to
address the specifics of that in a moment. Third, we have to
communicate or we will be defined by others and we have
unilaterally disarmed in our communication. We have receded
from the world. We have slashed the budgets of libraries. We
have cut our speaker's bureaus. We have canceled book
subscriptions. We have cut our staff at the very time when we
need to be building up our presence and our outreach to the
Muslim world.
The United States and its friends have to stress
educational and economic opportunity. The United Nations, we
say, has rightly equated literacy as freedom. The international
community is moving toward a concrete goal to cut the Middle
East region's illiteracy rate in half by 2010 and it targeting
particularly women and girls, and it is supporting programs in
adult literacy. Help is needed to support even the basics like
textbooks to translate more of the world's knowledge into local
languages and libraries to house such materials.
Education about the outside world and other culture is
extremely weak. For example, there is very little emphasis in
Arab education systems about American history, European history
or Chinese history. There needs to be a broader understanding
of cultures outside the world of Islam. We should add, of
course, that Americans too need to better understand the world
of Islam. Our own education system in this respect will need
improvement.
More vocational education is needed in trades and business
skills. The young people of the Muslim world need to have a
vision of opportunity. Right now, most young Muslims are in the
hands of madrassas, many of which teach hate and don't
communicate or teach usable skills. You can hardly fault a
parent for sending a child to one of those schools when there
is absolutely no alternative and we have not helped to create
those alternatives.
We need education that teaches tolerance, the dignity and
value of individuals, respect for different beliefs across the
board.
We recommend specifically that the U.S. Government offer to
join with other Nations in funding what we call an
International Youth Opportunity Fund, where funds would be
spent directly for building and operating primary and secondary
schools in those Muslim States that show their own commitment
to be sensibly investing in public education.
A second agenda is opportunity and jobs. Economic openness
is essential. Terrorism is not caused by poverty. Indeed, many
terrorists come from fairly well-to-do families. Yet, when
people lose hope, when societies break down, when communities
fragment, those are the breeding grounds for terrorism.
Backward economic policies and repressive political regimes
slip into societies that are without hope where ambition and
passions have no constructive outlet.
The policies that support economic development and reform
have political implications. Economic and political liberties,
after all, tend to be linked. Commerce, especially
international commerce, requires ongoing cooperation and
compromise, the exchange of ideas across cultures and peaceful
resolution of differences through negotiation and the rule of
law.
Economic growth expands the middle class which can be a
constituency for further reform. Successful economies rely on
vibrant private sectors, which have an interest in curbing
indiscriminate government power. The bottom line is those who
control their own economic destiny soon desire a voice in their
communities and in their political societies.
We have very specific recommendations about free trade,
which you will see reflected in our written statement, but we
believe that a comprehensive U.S. strategy to counter-terrorism
has to include economic policies that encourage development,
more open societies and opportunities for people to improve the
lives of their families and enhance prospects for their
children's future.
Mr. Chairman, let me sum up for both of us and for the 10
members of our Commission by coming back to the question that
you put to us about the successes achieved by and the
challenges facing U.S. public diplomacy efforts.
The issues surrounding public diplomacy have been with us
since September 12, 2001. It has not gone without notice in the
policy community, among commentators, among pollsters, among
individuals familiar with the Muslim world itself that public
diplomacy is critical, and yet our assessment of where we are
in this regard is not a good one.
Public diplomacy is hard. It faces enormous challenges and
has had few successes in recent years, but we are convinced
that we cannot win this war on Islamist terrorism unless we win
the war of ideas. We need to win the hearts and minds of a
great swath of the globe, from Morocco to Malaysia. We need to
understand public diplomacy in the proper sense of the word.
It's not just how you deliver the message. It is the message
itself. It is the message of our values which have been such a
strength for this country over centuries.
We have to communicate that America is on the side of the
Muslim world, that we stand for political participation,
personal freedom, the rule of law, and that we stand for
education and economic opportunity.
Of course, we cannot take on the responsibility for
transforming the Arab and Muslim world. It's up to courageous
Muslims to change their own societies, but they need to know
that we are on their side. They need to know that we are there
to help. They need to know that we offer a competing vision.
They need to know about us and what we have in common with
them.
And with that we would be pleased to respond to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kean and Ms. Gorelick
follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Before turning it over to
Mr. Turner to ask the first set of questions, I thought I would
basically see your three points in a statement, so I got a
little lazy and didn't write down the specifics. The last one
was communication. The first two?
Ms. Gorelick. The first two were ``do the right thing,''
that is, be what we know we can be.
Mr. Shays. And the second was?
Ms. Gorelick. The second was ``offer an alternative vision,
and that is about education and hope.''
Mr. Shays. Thank you. The vice chairman has 10 minutes, Mr.
Turner.
Mr. Turner. I want to thank both the Commissioners for all
of our work and delivering a wonderful bipartisan report that
gives us a road map of some great recommendations and raises
some very important issues that we have to address as a
country, and I appreciated the Commission's availability as the
Congress has sought to have hearings throughout August to be
able to learn more about the recommendations so that action can
be taken.
Many times, when people talk about the war on terrorism
they talk about the cold war, and one benefit that we had in
the cold war is that communism never declared itself a
religion. Communism claimed to be for the same things we were
for.
In the war of ideas they claimed that their people had
freedom, that they were leading them to prosperity, that they
were, in fact, enjoying equality, and the failure of communism
was in the reality that they were not delivering as an ideology
those things they were claiming they were providing their
people. Our system, though, surpassed it.
In this instance, we have a much difference situation in
that we must not have battles of ideology and ideas. We have a
group that has taken a religion and a religious aspect in its
promotion of its ideas.
I'm very leery of the discussions of polls of the United
States--of how the United States is perceived because I would
venture in my understanding is if you looked at the polls of
not just September 12th, but September 11th that the United
States would have had a great deal of more support in the
Middle East and among Muslims be viewed more favorably on
September 11th than we are now, and yet September 11th on the
day that it occurred, our positive perception was probably
better than it is now and yet it occurred. We were attacked by
19 young men who killed 3,000 Americans. So the goal has to go
beyond just the issue of polls and how we're perceived because
when we're perceived positively, we can still be subject to
attack.
Governor Kean, you said how can a man in a cave
outcommunicate us, and that was a great quote that you
repeated, and our task though is difficult in that we're trying
to change ideas instead of just trying to communicate ideas
that are in line with beliefs that may be held.
In my opening statement I referenced that in the 9/11
Commission Report, you identify the culture of celebrating
death of innocents and of suicide bombers, the emergence of
global terrorism and how that feeds together.
Our task is much greater than just defining who we are in
doing the right thing and declaring that we do the right thing.
You note in your report that the United States has liberated
Kuwait, fed Somalies, protected Kosovo, Muslims in Bosnia, and
yet we are perceived as being antiMuslim, but at the same time,
even if it's not an issue of hate, we have this issue in the
Middle East that we're up against of the glorification and
celebration of death.
And Ms. Gorelick, you talked about the issue of and we
can't do this alone.
So my question goes to who are going to be our partners,
even if we're communicating who we are and we're actively using
diplomacy so that the opinion polls show us more positively.
The support for the emergence of global terrorism and Islamic
extremism comes from the cultural issue of this glorification
of death of killing of innocents and killing through suicides
which, in our culture, is outrageous, considered unthinkable.
Where do you see that we can get our help?
Mr. Kean. Well, the first place, you know, it's such a
perversion of the Muslim religion. To hurt innocents in Muslim,
in the Koran is a great sin. These are people who have taken
part of a great religion, perverted it to their own purposes
and are trying to use it in that way, and it only finds fertile
ground where there are areas of total despair and hate and all
of that. It's a very small group of people.
I guess what we're saying today is that as long as, one, we
don't want it to get any longer, and two, we don't want these
people who currently sympathize with them to go any further. In
fact, we'd like them to understand what a perversion this is.
People don't know that we've helped Muslims around the
world in that part of the world. We haven't told them and
nobody else is going to tell them. We haven't told our story.
You reference quite correctly the cold war. Well, in the
cold war you know how much this country spent on information
agencies and cultural exchanges and education opportunities
and? I mean we were very, very concerned how people thought of
us because we recognized in that battle it was a battle for
ideas and so when Communism got ready to fall, the people in
Eastern Europe wanted to emulate the United States because they
thought so much more of our values and ideals which we had
communicated to them this one way or another than they did of
the ideals of the former Soviet Union.
I think we have to go back to some of those communication
techniques, recognizing the fact that libraries are important,
that schools are important, that cultural exchanges are
important, that we have to have one consistent message of who
we are. Spending money in communications doesn't do much good
unless you have a consistent message. I don't think we've
developed that yet of who we are. But I think your point is
well taken and I think we can, but we can move ahead and I
think we can communicate. We've done that in the past. We have.
If there's any revolutionary force in this world, it is and
always has been democracy. If we communicate that and show
these people that democracy can give their children the kind of
lives that they can't even dream about now in the society they
live in, I think that's what we're about.
Ms. Gorelick. Concretely, I would answer your question this
way. You might think about reversing some of the changes we
made in the 1990's where we literally shut down our support for
libraries. We actually threw people out of very, very popular
outlets that reflected on Western society. We cut back exchange
programs. We cut back scholarship programs. We had a very
substantial cadre of public information officers that we cut
back.
We shut down the U.S. Information Agency. My suggestion to
you would be to look at the tools that we used so successfully
in the cold war to communicate albeit a different message, to
see how we might use those tools in this context.
Second would be education. We have ceded the one vehicle
that can affect the hearts and minds of young people to those
who are filled with hate. The school systems are spewing out
hate and hate-filled information so that by the time a young
person graduates from these schools, he has no skills, no hope
and believes that everyone who is defined as the enemy by
someone else--and that would include everyone in this room and
everyone in this country just about--has no right to live.
We recognize that this is a daunting task and the fact that
it is mixed up in religion does not make it different or
easier.
On the other hand, we aren't doing the most fundamental
things to address the problem. This is why we recommend
challenging Muslim countries to invest in public education and
helping them.
You ask who our partners would be in this. If we create
essentially a challenge fund for education, that could be an
enormous help in showing a vision of hope and opportunity.
Mr. Shays. At this time, the Chair would recognize Mr.
Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Governor Kean and
Ms. Gorelick, thank you for your testimony. I found your
statement, your written statement, very compelling and, there's
a lot of questions that I have as a result of reading it and so
I'll begin.
The 9/11 Commission Report states that, ``one of the
lessons of the cold war was that the short term gains in
cooperating with the most repressive and brutal governments
were too often outweighed by long-term setbacks for America's
stature and interests, on page 376. The report will note on
page 376, American foreign policy was part of the message.
America's policy choices have consequences.''
In light of that, to the Governor and to Ms. Gorelick, it
doesn't make sense to focus on public diplomacy before
reevaluating American foreign policy.
Mr. Kean. Well, I think what we've suggested is we have to
start elevating American foreign policy in these areas and
promoting things we all believe in as a country. I honestly
believe that democracy is the most revolutionary concept. As
long as we promote it, as we understand it, and have always
practiced it in this country, and when we don't try to moderate
governments that are seen by their own people as antidemocratic
and oppressive, it doesn't mean we're going to go attack
somebody as a friend of ours in a number of days who is helping
us militarily or whatever, but we can use our influence in
those governments quite openly to try and moderate them.
We've got to do that, for instance, in Saudi Arabia. It
just can't be about oil anymore. It's got to be about something
very different. It's got to be about how to change that society
and bring a lot of the people in, all those thousands and
hundreds of thousands of young people who are under 18 and are
roaming the streets without an education. We've got to do
something about that, and we've got to encourage the government
of Saudi Arabia to do something about that. I think we can as a
government--not do it overnight, but start moving people in
hopefully the right direction. Some of these leaders I hope
will see that it's not only in our State's interest, but very
much in their interest if they're going to eventually survive
as a family or as a government.
Mr. Kucinich. So there is, of course, different ways to
communicate that message. One is force. Another one is
diplomacy. Some people mistake force for diplomacy. Do you have
anything to say about that?
Mr. Kean. Well, my own view is force is not diplomacy, and
we are seen now as--when we gave the statistics and said that
people in other countries, namely countries dominated by Muslim
populations, a large percentage of the population feels the
United States is going to attack their country.
Mr. Kucinich. I thought that was a telling part of your
testimony. As a matter of fact, I underlined it. Why do you
suppose there are so many nations around the world where people
are fearful the United States is going to attack them? What's
that about?
Mr. Kean. Well, it strikes me that we have not communicated
our values or our message or our purposes very clearly to those
people, and that's what I hope one of the things we're talking
about today.
Ms. Gorelick. We begin our recommendations, as you know,
with a chapter called ``What To Do: A Global Strategy,'' and,
while much of the focus of public reaction has been on how to
do it, which is the next chapter--and that has to do with how
we organize ourselves in the United States--we thought it was
very important to begin with a look at our foreign policy in
key countries around the world, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, for
an example.
We also note that the places where terrorism will flourish
are the failed states of the world. And, therefore, a major
emphasis of our foreign policy has to be the prevention of
failed states.
Mr. Kucinich. Back to Governor Kean, one of the things that
I've been concerned about is that the reason why we may now
have so many countries that fear us is because the message that
was received in many of those countries is that the United
States did not have a proper justification for attacking Iraq.
I'm not asking you to make an evaluation of that, but I know
that's, you know, beyond the scope of the committee's work, but
I just wanted to share with you that one of the difficulties
that this country will have is that if you go back to September
11 with so many people in America believing then and believing
now that Iraq had something to do with September 11, that
perception then fed into support for military action against
Iraq. Those perceptions remain today and also in other
countries, they perceive it differently.
It's my thinking that if we do not really have a kind of a
clear understanding in this country of what the very basis of
our policy is, how in the world are we going to be able to
construct a foreign policy which has some kind of symmetry?
It's actually called coherence.
So I just offer that for your consideration. I mean, I
think that what the Commission has done is to lay out some of
the challenges which this country faces, but all too often in
our national experience we look at image problems as being
public relations problems and not having deeper-rooted policy
derivatives. And so a book by Boorstin called ``The Image''
speaks directly to that. We think that somehow if we can change
the way things appear, that we have addressed the underlying
realities, and I think that we're still in that, in terms of
our national experience with respect to how September 11 is
interpreted by a large segment of the American public.
And it's very difficult, Mr. Chairman, to do what the
members of this Commission have done, because what you've done
is to bring together people who have differences of opinion,
different partisan backgrounds. You've been able to meld kind
of a statement of where we need to go, and I think that you're
addressing the issue of public diplomacy and calling for an
inspection of it, of essentially the historical roots of what
we're talking about. It sets us on the path toward resolution,
and it's really terrific that you've been able to do what.
Now, I'll just try to ask one more question, if I have a
moment here, and that is that U.S. Muslim groups have argued
they should have had more input into the Commission's final
report. Were Arab American groups consulted during the
Commission's investigation? And do you think that U.S. Muslim
organizations should be involved in U.S. public diplomacy in
the Middle East?
Mr. Kean. I think unless we make use of the diversity of
this country, we lose one of our greatest weapons, and Arab
Americans obviously, as Muslim Americans even more, are now
very, very important part of the fabric of this country. We
should use them in every way possible.
Ms. Gorelick. I would second that and just say for the
record that we consulted very widely. I'm sure that time
constraints did not permit us to consult with every possible
group, but many Muslim American groups were on our list of
consultants. I would second what Tom Kean has said, which is
one of our great strengths is our diversity. That is, we are
uniquely--among all the countries in the world--because of our
immigrant background, able to reach out people of different
types, ethnicities, races, much more effectively, or we should
be. We need to counsel with those who can help us in framing
our message, because the substance of our message should be a
good one. Yet, we have failed to communicate to the rest of the
world our highest values.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman.
At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, my appreciation
for your work and your participation here today with our
Commission members.
We certainly have a lot of work to do, and as you reflect
the good work of our Nation over many years, not just in
liberating 50 million Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan but
Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, that message isn't being understood or
fully appreciated in the Muslim community, and somehow to get
the message that I personally receive when I visit Iraq, with
about seven other members, we were up in Kirkuk and meeting
with the city mayor and counsel, and in the opening statement,
the mayor of Kirkuk, his opening statement to us to bring back
to our constituents was please go home and thank the mothers
and fathers of America who are willing to send their children,
our soldiers, to Iraq to liberate his people.
Mayor Mustafo understood that we were willing to put the
lives of our courageous men and women on the line to protect
ourselves and to liberate him and his people. Clearly, that's
not a message, though, that's understood and appreciated.
One of your recommendations is about us doing good work,
like the library and scholarship programs, exchanges. We
continue to fund, maybe not in those direct programs, the
level--we fund a lot of money through the United Nations, and
do you think it's something we need to evaluate, because in
making your recommendation that we should do these things and
then say where such assistance is provided, it should be
identified as coming from the citizens of the United States,
that we give a lot of money for school books for Palestinians,
but it's not necessarily seen as from America.
Maybe it's through, you know, the U.N. and UNESCO, whether
it be education, health care, food. Do you think we need to
reevaluate how we fund programs through the United Nations,
which then is seen as the help versus directly, you know,
engaging in these nations so it's clearly an American
initiative and not a U.N. initiative?
Mr. Kean. Well, as we have seen among our enemies, the U.N.
is viewed almost as badly as we are, and they blow up the
headquarters and they would like to destroy the U.N. and the
community of nations as well. I'm sure it's important we keep
on working through the United Nations, but we also have a
number of programs in our government that don't have anything
to do with the United Nations, and very often, whether it's
charities or whatever, we give a lot of aid, and American
people are extraordinarily generous, and we don't identify as
such. People don't know that's where the aid came from. We find
that out. I mean, people don't know that the food they got and
the emergency and the help or the medical care, whatever, comes
from the United States of America, and we're saying, you know,
fine, we'd like to expand that kind of help, but people ought
to know where it comes from. People ought to know this is
because of the generosity of the people in this democracy and
that we have an outreach around the world for people who are in
need and always have had. And we just should not, at this point
in our history, hide our light under a bushel.
Ms. Gorelick. If I could add two comments to that. If you
look at our recommendations with regard to Afghanistan, we make
a couple of observations that might be of help in addressing
the question that you just asked. First of all, we note that
the State Department presence in Afghanistan is woefully
understaffed and that we don't really fully utilize all the
resources of our government but mainly rely on our military
resources there.
Second, we heard when we visited CENTCOM from the war
fighters that in both Iraq and Afghanistan what they find most
effective is their ability to deliver assistance. They were
proudest of and thought they'd made the most progress with
clinics that they'd opened. We heard again and again that money
for assistance is rigidly allocated on the ground. Somebody who
is on the ground, in a community--with the face of an
American--can only give money for a certain purpose and not for
another. Individual initiatives are blocked almost entirely.
I think if you are interested in trying to address this
question, I would dive down to the ground. I would ask the war
fighters who are on the ground in communities in Iraq and
Afghanistan how do you bridge the gap? How do you relate to the
mayor of Kirkuk? What can you do for that community? What are
the resources at your disposal? How much flexibility do you
have to present a good face of America, to be of real concrete
help?
I think that we are too hide-bound and too inflexible and
we are not using all the tools that we have when we have
wonderful Americans on the ground in communities that are war-
torn and that need our help. I think we have those tools and
we're just not using them.
Mr. Platts. I concur with your observation that direct
assistance--and heard that as well--in Afghanistan and Iraq, in
Iraq where our soldiers were able to use some of the
confiscated funds to then go back and have the flexibility unit
by unit to give $1,000 to help improve a drainage ditch,
whatever it may be, that direct impact, and that kind of
relates to one of the challenges for us here in Congress in
achieving this effort of better public diplomacy. It's
something that the military, the war fighters told us when we
voted on the supplemental last fall and about $18\1/2\ billion
of that--I think $87 billion or so, if I remember my numbers,
was humanitarian assistance, nonmilitary-related, and that was
some of the really most criticized part of us for political
reasons.
And we're helping to, you know, rebuild fire companies or
firehouses in Iraq, but we're not doing it for our own. Yet,
your recommendation is then what the war fighters are telling
us, that humanitarian assistance that would make a difference
in the everyday lives of those Iraqis or Afghanis, that is as
important to winning the war on terror as the military effort.
And so if I take that message that internally Congress
needs to stop politicizing public diplomacy efforts versus
military and diplomatic efforts, but it's also a part of the
same effort and truly approaching it in a more statesman
approach and putting the partisan politics aside and just doing
the right thing.
A followup question--I think we're still OK on time--is in
doing the right thing, a challenging--one of your
recommendations is leading by example and being the moral
nation that we are and not including in our relations around
the world--including with some of our allies, and I
specifically am interested in your comments regarding Saudi
Arabia and how--are there--is the Commission--is there specific
things that we should do differently with Saudi Arabia given
their internal challenges and how they treat their own citizens
that we should consider as someone who is an ally of that
nation?
Mr. Kean. Well, we do make a number of recommendations
specifically about Saudi Arabia in our report, and the basic
bottom line is it just can't be about oil anymore. I mean, oil
is a very important part of it. It's got to be, because the
need of the industrialized world for oil is still so great, but
that can't be all it's about, because if anything--we
identified countries, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, that
if any of those three areas went their own way, that would
become a terrible breeding ground for terrorists.
So what we suggest is helping the leaders of Saudi Arabia
to move in the direction that many members of the Royal Family
would now like to move anyway and giving them a little push and
helping them to move in a direction which is in their best
interest and which will give their citizens greater freedom,
will move women in an area toward being a greater part of the
overall economy and the overall country and to help them move
in those directions with our rhetoric, with our policy, with
our people on the ground. If we do that, we believe we have a
much better chance of having a stable Saudi Arabia to work with
in the future, and if we don't, we fear the consequences.
Ms. Gorelick. I would only add this: We call Saudi Arabia a
problematic ally, and the problems, we say, are on both sides.
We have a great deal of mutual mistrust right now between these
two countries and our peoples, and that has to be dealt with in
a very straightforward way.
First, as Chairman Kean said, it can't be about oil. It has
to be about a mutually adopted and shared set of goals,
economic opportunity, a commitment to political and economic
reform. We tried to do our part by clearing the air of some of
the rubbish that was out there about what the Saudi Government
had and had not done, what the Saudi Royal Family had and had
not done. But the fact of the matter is that 15 of the 19
hijackers were Saudi.
The fact of the matter is that a great deal of the
charitable money or money that has flowed to bin Laden comes
from Saudi sources. The fact of the matter is that the support
of the madrassas and other school systems around the world that
are harmful, a lot of it comes from Saudi Arabia.
Since the attacks on their soil, as Chairman Kean said,
they have gotten religion, if you will, and we are much more
closely aligned, but we need to do what we can to create
incentives for the leadership of Saudi Arabia to stay on a path
toward greater democracy and toward reform. Otherwise, we will
have a huge failed state in Saudi Arabia, and the dangers there
could be enormous.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Mrs. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
your testimony.
As a former teacher, I was most interested in your focus on
education, and I truly believe we can win any military war, but
as long as madrassahs are teaching hatred and raising well-
educated young people who are willing to be suicide bombers, we
will never be safe.
I'm most interested in how you foresee or how you predict
or how do you suggest that we create alternative educational
systems in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, Pakistan and other
Muslim countries. Do you see this as a--you said, an
international effort? But as you mentioned, the coalition of
the willing, whether it's the United Nations or the commitment
to Afghanistan, it becomes primarily an American focus. How do
we stop Saudi Arabia from fund these madrassahs? How much money
do we now spend in our foreign aid for education? Do you think
we should shift our entire foreign aid package toward education
and providing young people with an education? You really cannot
fault a Muslim mother for sending her child to a madrassah if
that's the only form of educational system that is there for
her to approach.
Also Governor Kean and Ms. Gorelick, you focused a great
deal in your original report, 9/11 Commission Report, on
coordinated responses. How do you see the educational
coordinated response from the United States? Should it be under
the State Department, under the education department? Where
would this be? How would we implement what we obviously need to
do? Thank you.
Mr. Kean. Well, first of all, as another former teacher, I
think we come from the same place. You can't do it alone.
There's no question about it, and these countries have to see
it in their own interest to do it. I mean, part of our job is
to convince them of that. By the way, not all madrassas teach
hate. It would be a mistake to say that. But some of them still
do, and those are the ones of course who are most at fault, but
even the madrassas who don't teach hate don't teach much else.
People don't get the kind of skills that they need to have to
earn a living at these schools.
Therefore, we've got to make these countries understand
that to have a trained work force of intelligent young people
is the best thing they can do to give their whole society a
better life, and certainly to give their young people usable
skills for the modern world. That's in their interest, even
more than it's in our interest. It's the right argument, so it
should be an argument that we can make with conviction. That's
the only way I think we're going to move on this one is to
really convince these countries--we can help. I hope we've got
moneys out there that we can use to help them, but they've got
to be committed to it and it's got to be their initiative and
it's got to come from their governments, because we can't do it
otherwise.
Ms. Gorelick. The Saudis already spend a great deal of
money on schooling, and the pressure from us has to be for them
to examine what their output is from those schools, measured in
what the skills are that the young people are learning and in
the values that they're coming out of those skills with.
There's been, I would say, a Faustian bargain struck, which
is that the schools have been given over as if their output had
no effect on the Saudi way of life. You can't produce unskilled
people filled with hate and not expect that to have a
consequence for the stability of your country. And we make that
observation, and we would encourage the Saudis to examine their
own education system.
We're now giving a tremendous amount of aid to Pakistan,
and we would like to see some incentives there to create an
education system that shifts direction. As you would know
better than anyone, this is a generational challenge. The
problems that we've identified have been in place for decades,
and they're not going to be turned around in a minute. This is
a generational challenge.
Mrs. Maloney. You testified that you would support an
international youth opportunity fund, an educational fund. Do
you foresee this, for example, in Pakistan, to use one example,
as working with the government to set up a youth opportunity
educational system that a parent then could decide whether they
go to a madrassah or go to the youth educational opportunity
system? Do you see literally creating an alternative to the
madrassah educational system?
Mr. Kean. Yes, we do. I mean what we're pushing for
basically is that there should be choice of a public school. I
mean, that's served our democracy extraordinarily well, the
public school, and what we're suggesting is that these states
have to be encouraged to have a system of their own public
schools where there would be an alternative to the madrassas.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you have a sense of how much of our tax
dollars in foreign aid goes to education now in developing
countries? And how much of a foreign exchange program do we
have for higher education for Muslims? Do we have a specific
program to promote exchange between American and Muslim
students?
Mr. Kean. I'll say as a college president, I don't know of
one.
Mrs. Maloney. You don't know of one.
Mr. Kean. There may be one out there, but nothing I'm aware
of, and I think as a college president, I would be aware,
certainly, if there was anything large.
Ms. Gorelick. We do say that the changes that were made in
the 1990's in our education programs, in our scholarship
programs, in our exchange programs to essentially withdraw from
the field have had a deleterious effect on our ability to help
in this most critical area. You could double our public
diplomacy budget, for example, for the cost of a B-1 bomber,
and it would probably be a good investment. I don't know the
specific answer to your question, although I'm sure it's
readily available, but our general assessment is that we need
greater emphasis on education funding.
Mrs. Maloney. I'd like to know how you see this being
coordinated. We have many different departments in our
government doing diplomacy. We have the State Department. We
have USAID. We have our U.N. commitments. We have many
commitments and many different areas, none of which is
coordinated.
One of your themes is that we needed a coordinated
intelligence effort. Do you believe we need a coordinated
diplomacy effort? All of these various budget lines are
independent, and they make their decisions independently. And
it's not coordinated. Do you feel that in the public diplomacy
area we should come together under one heading and have a
discretion under one person to focus more on the goals that you
outlined, specifically education and diplomacy?
Mr. Kean. Well, I assume--and Commissioner Gorelick knows a
lot more about it than I do--but I assume the public diplomacy
area should be coordinated under the State Department. I would
think that's part of their job.
But as far as the education goes, not for each area of
government to know what the area is doing would be a great
mistake, and that would have to be coordinated. We didn't make
recommendations as to how to coordinate it. We sort of set out
what we thought the ideals were, and we thought the
administration in Congress--we'd find out the ways to do it.
Ms. Gorelick. I think it's an excellent question. As
Chairman Kean said, certainly we didn't address this issue
specifically in our report, but it would be in line with the
kinds of recommendations that we made elsewhere to align
responsibility and authority in one person, to coordinate the
many pots of money that operate against the same goal. I would
make sure that you add to the list the considerable funds that
are spent for humanitarian aid through the Defense Department.
They are, in fact, the people on the ground in many respects. I
would look at the different sources of funding and who controls
them, and I would try to make sure that they are working
together in a coordinated fashion, and I would imagine the
administration would want to do that as well.
Mrs. Maloney. But at it stands now, each of these
departments have control over their budgets and their
decisionmaking, and they may be duplicating or not working
together. And, therefore, our message of what America is doing
and doing to help becomes----
Ms. Gorelick. We honestly did not look at the specific
question that you are raising, and I know that you have other
helpful panelists here today. One of the reasons that we
suggested and made as a key recommendation a very high-level
national counterterrorism center run by someone at essentially
a deputy secretary level is that this person would bring
together all the tools available across the government in a
coordinated plan. While we did not suggest, for example, that
all of the budgets relating to education be vested in the
National Counterterrorism Center, we do say that all of the
planning against the challenges of Islamist terrorism be vested
in one place.
As you may recall in our hearings, when I sat where you
are, I kept asking who our quarterback is, and we found no one
with responsibility across the board for focusing all of the
tools of our government against this challenge. If I were
creating this position, as you have the opportunity to do, I
would say this person should also look across the board at
these kinds of aid programs to advance education in Muslim
countries as one of the key important tools.
Mr. Shays. I thank the gentlelady.
Before claiming my time, I just want to introduce into the
record a statement offered by the Muslim public affairs council
and read two to two-and-a-half paragraphs. It says ``Thank you,
Congressman Shays, and your staff, for asking the Muslim public
affairs council to submit written testimony in response to the
9/11 Commission's recommendations from public diplomacy in the
Muslim world. The goals of the Muslim Affairs Council comprise
two equally important and parallel tasks, to promote peaceful
relations within the United States and the Muslim world and to
make Islam a positive component of American pluralism. The
Council views these goals as independent.''
Then further down they say ``public diplomacy among
nonmilitary goals made by the 9/11 Commission is the vehicle
that will be utilized effectively and with leadership to
enhance dialog with the United States and the Muslim world and
to create a global constituency to advocate on behalf of our
interests, namely by the following: Elimination of terrorism as
an instrument of political influence in the region, movement
toward Middle East peace; three, advancement of a nuclear
nonproliferation for development of stable democratic
governance; and five, restoration of human rights, including
rights of minorities and emancipation of women. In short,
public diplomacy means to achieve these goals and not a goal
itself.''
I'll just make reference to the fact that they do then
question the term Islamism in terms of the Commission's report.
So why don't I start my questions by taking that up. I was
struck by the fact that if I had done that, I might have been
called the racist, even though it's a little different.
Obviously it's not about racism, but making that reference that
Islamic terrorism, did you all have a debate on this? And in
the end you say, listen, we're not being attacked by the
Norwegians, Christians? I mean, what ultimately made you want
to state that term, and what should we infer from that?
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Mr. Kean. Well, we really wanted to define the enemy. We
said at the Commission--and we debated this for long hours,
talked about it a lot. Simply the word ``terrorism'' as a war
against terrorism didn't do us a lot of sense. It's a war
against one particular variety of terrorism as practiced by a
certain group of people, and they are Islamic terrorists. So we
came really to define who the enemy is by using that term so it
wouldn't be too undefined or too vague.
You were a part of that debate.
Ms. Gorelick. Oh, yes, I was part of that debate. Let me
say a couple of things. One, we read the national
counterterrorism strategy and were astonished to find no
mention of Islamist religion in parts of the globe. It was as
if the enemy were this inchoate tool called terrorism, and we
honestly don't believe that you can address the threat in that
way. You have to identify the fact that we have an enemy. The
enemy that we have identified is Islamist terrorism, Islamist
extremism. It is not the Muslim religion. It is not Islam. It
is not Islamic terrorism. It is Islamists, and we take some
care in defining what that is, but it is basically a very
radical group. As Chairman Kean said, sort of hijacked element
of the religion, which defines anyone that they don't agree
with as infidels worthy of murder.
Mr. Shays. See, the challenge that we have, I think is--in
trying to win the hearts and minds of ``the Islamic world and
others,'' I happen to believe, for instance, and everything
I've read about Wahabism, that it is a fairly aggressive,
almost violent, approach and extraordinarily intolerant, and
yet that defines a nation. It defines Saudi Arabia, quite
frankly.
So I think what you did was extraordinarily important, but
I don't think you made the job any easier now in terms of
winning the hearts and minds, because we're being honest with
each other, and that honesty I think says we'd better confront
it. And I would view your use of the polls, Governor Kean, as
real, but I'm not quite sure how I'm to interpret it, because I
think when you strip open the carpet and you see the bag that's
underneath there, you have stirred things. You have created
anger and so on that has to be dealt with. I would make the
argument that we've got to go through this process, and we
aren't going to be so popular right now.
I happen to look at Churchill and think he wasn't too
popular in the 1930's. Nevil Chamberlain was a hero, and Nevil
Chamberlain was wrong. So were the French, obviously, and so
were the Germans and so on, and I'm not so sure that having bad
polls isn't an indication of something, frankly--and I'd have
constituents who would take issue with this--really an
indication that we are finally standing up to a reality of
fundamentalism within a particular faith that is widespread and
promoted, frankly, even by governments.
I'd have you comment.
Mr. Kean. Well, as long as you narrow these people down,
because you can't say, oh, Wahabism is Islamic terrorists. A
lot of it is not. It's a very, very small group of people who
have taken that extra step and said that in order to promote
their particular philosophy, you've got to murder a lot of
innocent civilians. That is not even what the majority of
Wahabists believe.
Now, some of the climate that's created by those schools,
Wahabism, sets the necessary climate that this particular small
group of people can exist within.
Mr. Shays. Yes. I would think, frankly, that's almost an
understatement. I mean, we have Saudi Arabia in former
Yugoslavia, their contribution economically is, frankly, more
mosques, teaching their brand of the Islamic faith. That's what
they are doing. Instead of doing what we would like them to do,
which is provide economic assistance and preach tolerance and
so on. So it just strikes me that we've got a real big task.
I salute you for bringing this up, but I believe that--
three commissions told us, before you ever existed, before
September 11 ever took place, they said you have a terrorist
threat out there; you need to develop a strategy to deal with
it, and you need to reorganize your government. They only
disagreed on the reorganizing government, but I will say to you
they weren't as explicit as you were to narrow the threat in
the way you did, and I think that it was important that you did
that.
I would like to ask you in terms of the three categories,
do the right thing, let me just mention about do the right
thing. Jimmy Carter wanted to do the right thing, and he said,
I'm just going to work overtime to negotiate the release of,
and what he said to the Iranians, America, what a world, we can
keep them for 20 years; all we have to do, the Iranian
government, is negotiate, and you did have a President who said
we're going to treat this as what it is, an act of war. Usually
when you have even a war, you exchange your diplomats, and here
we had a government now holding American diplomats. It was an
act of war. Immediately they were returned, and I'd like you to
just comment. I don't want to leave on the table this concept
that somehow force is useful, diplomacy is the answer. It
strikes me that diplomacy without the potential to use force is
useful.
Ms. Gorelick. If I've left the impression in any way that I
think that force is useless, I want to correct that impression
right now. We are very clear about this, that there are people
bound and determined to kill us and that the only way to deal
with them is to kill or capture them and to be most aggressive
about it.
What we have tried to say is that you have this hardened,
committed, zealous group of people that have to be dealt with
in a swift and clear manner. You have, however, a looming
danger, which is the greater public support for this type of
activity across the Muslim world. We want to drive a wedge
between the committed zealot on the one hand and the person
living in the Muslim world who is right now much more
sympathetic to Osama bin Laden than he is to George Bush, and
that's wrong.
We cannot condemn and we do not wish to condemn the entire
Islamic world. We do not do that. The fact is that we are
harmed and our national security is harmed when we have as
little support as we have in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, in Jordan,
in Turkey, of all places, in the countries that have been a
bulwark of support for us. We need them. We need their support
for basing. We need their support for the education reforms we
were talking about. We need their support for covert action. We
need their support for the sharing of information. We need
them, and we need them to understand us. We need them to
respect us. And so this is difficult. It is not all one or the
other.
Mr. Shays. I'm happy that you've made it very clear the
position of the Commission. The sad fact is that Saddam Hussein
never thought we would remove him from Kuwait, or he never
would have gone in, and he never thought we would do a regime
change, or he would have cooperated. He never wanted to be
hunted like an animal. He never wanted his kids killed. He
never wanted his daughters in Jordan. We know that. He never
thought we would attack him. He misread us twice, which strikes
me that a deterrence that people don't think you're going to
use becomes a meaningless instrument, and as a result, we've
had a loss of life. A tremendous loss of lives.
I'd like you to speak on one issue. I have a red light, and
I'll let Members come back with one or more questions and then
get to our next panel, but I do want you to tell me the pluses
and minuses of your recognition that there is a way that we
appeal to people in the Third World. That's important, I would
think, schools, speeches, I mean, forums, come to the United
States, but that generally impacts the elite within society,
those that basically have an opportunity to study in this
country become the elite. Let me put it that way. Whereas, the
other approaches mask communication with the downtrodden who
live there.
Tell me the pluses and minuses of each. I know that you're
suggesting we do both.
Mr. Kean. Well, we're doing a less effective job on both at
the moment. I mean, I'll tell you in my present world as a
college president that we're getting less of those exchanges
now than any time in a long, long time. I mean, the future
leaders of the world, we have benefited because they have come
to this country for education. For whatever reason, in the
present atmosphere, they're deciding not to come, in very large
numbers, and those people from Africa and Asia and other places
are finding other places to get their education, and I think
that will hurt us over the long haul.
It's hard to differentiate between the two. Obviously
you've got to appeal to the educated people, the people who
will be hopefully the future leaders of the country, and you
need to do everything you can to appeal to them. One of the
best ways was getting them to see this country themselves, and
then go back and most of them understood the benefits of our
society and economy and promoted it in their own country in
various ways, but that does not come at the exclusion,
particularly these days, of trying to communicate with larger
numbers, and we have the ability to do that now. There's no
reason that Al-Jazeera should be unchallenged, that there
should be no other means of communication that these people
hear in this part of the world, whether we fund part of that,
whether we do that with the combination of others, but that
shouldn't be challenged, the method of communication,
particularly what they put on the air is not in our interest.
So, yes, I think we've got to do both. I mean, you can't
just say I think deal with the elites and you can't just say
deal with the masses. We have different ways of doing both, and
I think your point is correct. We've got to do it.
Mr. Shays. Does any other Member have a closing comment?
I'm just thinking that Mayor Lindsey who was losing the
election won the election when the Mets won the World Series. I
wonder the impact if the Iraqis get the gold medal.
Mr. Kean. It would be nothing but good.
Mr. Shays. Is there any question we should have asked that
we didn't, any question that you prepared for that we should
have realized or any statement you want to make?
Mr. Kean. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Mr. Shays. Let me just thank both of you for honoring this
subcommittee and all of Congress by your extensive time spent
with so many of us. It will pay off. Your work will pay off.
Mr. Kean. We want to thank you and the Congress for coming
back during the month of August. I know how extraordinary that
is, and I think when most of us in the Commission cheered the
fact that you were willing to do that because of your
understanding of the crisis this country is facing, I don't
think members of the Commission realized that meant we were
going to be here in August too.
Mr. Shays. Let me just ask you right now, though, your
staff members are no longer paid. Is that correct?
Mr. Kean. That's correct.
Mr. Shays. Because what we have, one more hearing tomorrow,
and we were asking the Commission member, a staff member to
come, and we realize they're out around the countryside, but if
you find a staff member loitering around Washington, I hope you
send them to our subcommittee tomorrow.
Mr. Kean. We'll do your best to get them here. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you both very much. We appreciate it a
lot.
The Chair will now recognize our next panel, and thank them
for their patience. Patricia de Stacy Harrison, acting Under
Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs,
Department of State; Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman, Broadcasting
Board of Governors. Charles ``Tre'' Evers III, Advisory
Commission on Public Diplomacy, Commissioner; and Jess T. Ford,
Director of International Affairs and Trade, Government
Accountability Office. We recognize all four. If they would
remain standing, and we will swear them in.
If you'd raise your right hands, I'd like to swear you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Note for the record our witnesses have responded
in the affirmative.
We'll start with you, Madam Secretary. We appreciate your
being here today. We appreciate your service as acting
secretary on two occasions here now. We just know that a lot of
work is required, and thank you for that, and thank all the
other witnesses as well.
So you have the floor.
STATEMENTS OF PATRICIA DE STACY HARRISON, ACTING UNDER
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE; KENNETH TOMLINSON, CHAIRMAN, BROADCASTING
BOARD OF GOVERNORS; CHARLES ``TRE'' EVERS III, ADVISORY
COMMISSION ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, COMMISSIONER; AND JESS T. FORD,
DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE, GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Harrison. Thank you, Chairman Shays, members of the
committee.
Mr. Shays. I don't think your mic is on, Madam Secretary.
Is that it?
Ms. Harrison. Can you hear me now?
Mr. Shays. Yes.
Ms. Harrison. Thank you for this opportunity.
Mr. Shays. Just do me a favor and I'll start you over. Just
tap the--yes. That's all right. Thank you.
Ms. Harrison. Well, first, I do want to thank all of you
for this opportunity. I can't think of anything more important
that we could be doing today. Mr. Chairman, my written
statement for the record provides a comprehensive report on
public diplomacy initiatives since September 11th, and with
your permission, I will just make a few brief remarks.
Mr. Shays. Absolutely.
Ms. Harrison. Thank you so much.
The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission underscore
challenges to public diplomacy as we seek to engage with
audiences in the Arab and Muslim world.
The Commission calls upon us to define our message to take
a strong stand in support of a better future, to defend our
ideas, ideals and values and to offer opportunity to youth. I
agree strongly with these recommendations.
Following the attack on our country, we began to execute a
public diplomacy strategy that aligns with these directives,
with the understanding, as Dr. Rice said recently, there was
much more that must be done.
We have accelerated our effort to communicate with and
engage Arab and Muslim audiences advocating both values and
policy, affirming what we have in common and the mutual benefit
of working together for peace, prosperity and freedom.
The essence of America's message to the world is the hope
implicit in our commitment to individual freedom, the
nonnegotiable demands of human dignity and economic
opportunity, and despite the negative polls, we find that these
values resonate. They are enduring, especially with the young,
an important and rapidly growing demographic.
Our missions abroad are actively engaged in advocating
values and policy through a wide variety of programs, tailored
to specific cultures and taking into account the way people
receive or trust information. We are working more closely than
ever with USAID to ensure recipients of our assistance
recognize that this help does come from the American people,
and the new policy coordinating committee on Muslim outreach,
which I cochair with the NSC, will further strengthen
coordination with DOD and other agencies.
As we work within an environment of instant global
communication, we are using all the tools of technology through
the Internet, television print and broadcast, video and film,
and I'm very pleased to be here today with Ken Tomlinson, the
BBG under his leadership has been vigorous and creative,
through Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV, we are reaching increasingly
larger audiences with the preeminent mass media channels of
radio and television.
The Department's Bureau of International Information
programs, through its expanded Web presence, utilizes the other
critical channel of mass media, the Internet, and also helps us
connect at a grass-roots level through American Corners.
The Bureau of Public Affairs has expanded its outreach to
new media outlets to connect, to inform and counter this
information within a 24-7 global news cycle and is inviting
journalists to expose them to American life in all of its
diversity.
Through exchange programs, we are reaching younger and more
diverse audiences, and we have refocused our programs to engage
a group I call youth influencers: university professors,
classroom teachers, clerics, ministers of education,
journalists, community leaders.
Almost 3 years ago we launched Partnerships for Learning.
It's a collaborative effort with men and women from the region
who want to work with us on behalf of the succession
generation, many of whom lack a solid education, and they face
a future of chronic unemployment and underemployment.
Partnerships for Learning is delivering hope and
opportunity through Fulbright and other scholarships, through
exchanges and English teaching. We have just completed the
first year of our country's first ever government-sponsored
high school program with the Middle East, more than a dozen
Muslim countries, and we did this with the support of hundreds
of Muslim American host families, and may I just interject that
at a time when the polls, the tsunami of polls is so negative,
we have families in these countries on a waiting list who
desperately want to send their young people to our country for
1 full year to interact with Americans and have a little bit
more opportunity for their own future, and in fact we know that
one of the greatest assets in public diplomacy is the American
people themselves.
Through our partnership with the private sector, which
includes a network of more than 1,500 organizations and 80,000
volunteers who welcome and host thousands of people from other
countries to the United States, we are communicating values in
the most direct and enduring way.
Within the Department of State, we have taken steps to
strengthen coordination of public diplomacy and have sent to
Congress notification of our intent to establish an office of
policy planning and resources in the office of the Under
Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
There are many lessons that we are still learning from
September 11th, but one overarching theme remains, getting our
message out in words and images is only part of the job. We
must commit to working in partnership with the vast majority of
people who want a better future for themselves and their
children.
Commission member John Lehman is right. Soft options are as
important as the hard ones. In both peaceful times and times of
conflict, our mission is to ensure a positive, vigorous
American presence in the world, declaring our policies,
demonstrating and communicating our values, forging links of
mutual understanding and respect between peoples on a
continuous and sustained basis. This is not the work of weeks
or months. It is the work of years and generations, and the
mission of soft power is a vital part, not only of our homeland
security but everyone's homeland, everyone's security. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Harrison follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Tomlinson.
Mr. Tomlinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Kucinich,
members of the committee. We thank you so much for this
important hearing on the 9/11 Commission recommendations on
public diplomacy.
Earlier this year, with the enthusiastic support of
President Bush and Members of Congress, the Broadcasting Board
of Governors launched Alhurra, ``The Free One, ``our new 24-
hour-a-day Arab language television network. Through direct-to-
home satellite communications and terrestrial transmission to
Iraq, we are able to broadcast directly to the people in the
Middle East over five time zones in 22 countries, from Morocco
to Iraq to Yemen.
Our broadcasts will not overnight eliminate the effects of
generations of intellectual isolation and neglect so vividly
outlined in the classic U.N. report of 2003, the report on
knowledge dissemination in the Arab world. In contemplating
what we have to overcome to establish real and substantive
dialog with our neighbors in the Arab word, it's daunting to
consider the fact that the aggregate of western books
translated into Arabic since the dawn of publishing amounts to
little more than 10,000 books, equivalent to what Spain
translates in a single year.
Indeed, the United Nations report concluded what we have to
overcome in the region is the absence of a strategic vision
that provides a solid foundation for knowledge dissemination
through education, media, publishing and translation. The
knowledge base for the people in the Arab world is further
limited by the indisputable fact that the news and information
they have received from several popular satellite television
outlets like Al-Jazeera have given them a picture of the world
which is frequently distorted by institutional prejudices and
sensationalism.
Against this backdrop, consider what the people in the Arab
world have been able to watch in recent weeks on Alhurra
television. For 3 consecutive days last week, Alhurra broadcast
live sessions of the Iraqi National Congress in Baghdad. Iraqis
observed their representatives freely debating the future of
their nation, democracy in action, in stark contrast to the
repression they had experienced before.
These broadcasts were not restricted to the people of Iraq.
Throughout the Arab world, people were able to see that freedom
and democracy can exist within a Muslim country, that universal
values can be embraced by Muslim societies.
Daily talk shows on Alhurra which present points of view
across the political spectrum, including positions
unsympathetic to our own, mean that for the first time people
in the Arab world see, hear and participate in the foundations
of democracy. We present. You decide.
Alhurra is helping to frame the debate and the focus on
issues facing this region. We will not win every argument on
every political talk show, but as President Bush has said time
and again, in the long run, truth is on our side. Moreover, we
believe the very existence of free-flowing debate on Alhurra
will encourage people to demand free and open and objective
presentations on indigenous Arab outlets throughout that
region.
Consider the effects of in-depth Alhurra coverage of the
genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Long before the
world had come to focus on this tragedy, Alhurra reporting
teams were on the scene, which led other Arab media outlets to
follow suit and make the events of Darfur a matter of serious
concern to all people. The ability to debunk anti-American
conspiracy theories by credible Arab thinkers alone were worth
the price of U.S.-financed satellite broadcasting. The truth is
on our side.
In the midst of all this broadcasting, it is critical that
accuracy be our standard. The people of the region aren't
stupid. If we're slanting the news, they will figure it out,
but if we establish long-term credibility on these broadcasts,
people will begin asking questions: What went wrong? What
slowed the development of a civilization that was once far
ahead of the west? What were the factors behind the crushing
absence of economic opportunities for youth in the Arab world?
And we will be there to answer them.
Let me turn to Radio Sawa briefly. To me the most striking
success of Sawa has been the widespread acceptance of Sawa news
and public affairs programming as credible.
We realize the draw to this youth-oriented station is
popular music, and when we started, people said, they'll never
listen to your news and they'll never take it seriously. Well,
according to surveys conducted earlier this year by A.C.
Nielsen, Radio Sawa was found to be a reliable source of news
and information by 73 percent of its weekly listenership.
In an era when Arab youth systematically boycott American
products, they not only have widely accepted U.S.-sponsored
entertainment radio, they have accepted its news as accurate
and dependable.
I do want to pay tribute to a fellow board member, Democrat
Norman Pattiz, the father of Radio Sawa, and an irrepressible
force for international broadcasting. Thanks to his spirit and
a dedicated core of journalists led by news director Mouafac
Harb, Radio Sawa has made a truly historic breakthrough in the
Middle East.
And Mr. Chairman, we deeply appreciate the favorable focus
on what we've been doing in the 9/11 Commission Report. The
report said: ``recognizing that Arab and Muslim audiences rely
on satellite television and radio, the government has begun
some promising initiatives in television and radio broadcasting
to the Arab world, Iran, and Afghanistan. These efforts are
beginning to reach large audiences. The Broadcasting Board of
Governors has asked for much larger resources. It should get
them.''
We are currently working with the administration on
potential radio and television strategies that would give us
the same type of impact in the non-Arabic-speaking Muslim world
as we're having in the Arabic-speaking Muslim world. We have
made a good start.
In Iran, we've built on the popularity of VOA radio with a
new 24/7 Radio Farda for the youth which combines the talents
of VOA and RFE/RL. We've also had, thanks in no small part to
the leadership of board member Blanquita Cullum, a tremendous
breakthrough with the Voice of America 30-minute daily TV show
in Persian carried by satellite to Iran.
In Pakistan, thanks to the leadership of board member Steve
Simmons, one of your constituents, Mr. Chairman, we have
expanded Urdu radio from 3 hours a day via a shortwave to 12
hours a day with an AM signal from the region. This 12-hour
stream is designed to attract and inform younger listeners.
But we all recognize this is not enough. Our long-term
plans include new transmitters and satellite television
broadcasting in Pakistan so our programming can be heard in
this critical country.
In Afghanistan, BBG entities broadcast 24/7 in Pashto and
Dari, the languages of those countries. Research shows that
half the people in Afghanistan are listening to us. In Kabul,
we have two-third of adults, but as is the case elsewhere in
the Islamic world, television is becoming an important medium
there.
Iran television is available 24/7 in Afghanistan. We need a
television presence there. In other areas of the non-Arabic-
speaking world, places like Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa,
the Horn of Africa, we're working to expand our radio and
television presence for obvious reasons.
In reflecting on where we want to go with public diplomacy
and international broadcasting, we have to understand why we,
in so many areas, have found ourselves lacking.
In the decade following the end of the cold war, many
believed expenditures for international broadcasting were no
longer necessary. U.S. spending for international broadcasting
were slashed a very real 40 percent. I would like to provide
for the record a copy of this chart that shows what happened to
us at the end of the cold war and, very fortunately, what's
happened to us because of the Bush administration and Congress
in the last 3 years.
Despite the generous support we've received in the past 3
years, however, we are fighting to rebuild from a depleted
base. We're struggling to catch up to what we should be doing
in these strategic parts of the world.
And we at the BBG have benefited by the creation inside the
White House of the Office of Global Communications, as well as
an understanding inside the National Security Council of the
importance of our broadcast initiatives. There would be no
Alhurra Television today had it not been for enthusiastic
support from this office and from the NSC for BBG initiatives.
Support is critical for our mission, and I cannot stress how
much.
Mr. Shays. If you can wind up.
Mr. Tomlinson. I stress the importance of credibility of
what we broadcast, and we look forward to answering your
questions.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much for your nice statement as
well.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tomlinson follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Evers.
Mr. Evers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Kucinich, Mr. Turner and Mr. Platts. I want to thank you on
behalf of our chairman, Barbara Barrett, and the five other
members of the bipartisan U.S. Advisory Commission on Public
Diplomacy for this opportunity to share my thoughts on the
successes achieved by and the challenges facing U.S. public
diplomacy.
The members of our commission are currently preparing the
final version of our annual report for its release on September
28th. The report reviews areas of public diplomacy previously
identified as challenges, recent progresses and areas that
still need to be addressed.
Today I hope to present some of these challenges and
advances to you and to address the recommendations presented in
the 9/11 Commission Report.
Specifically, I'll focus on five areas.
The first is broadcasting, and Mr. Tomlinson here gave a
very good rundown of what they're doing. The 9/11 Commission
Report recommends that they get more resources. Radio Sawa was
launched in March 2002 and is already achieving large listening
audiences. In addition, Alhurra is doing the same and it's a
great advancement in the satellite network arena that we were
previously not competing in.
We also believe that broadcasting English language programs
establishes a mutually beneficial relationship with audiences
that few other public diplomacy programs can match. Learning
American English through programs like VOA Special English
builds physological bonds and deeper cultural understanding
while giving listeners tools they need to succeed in the world.
Yet these programs, despite being popular and efficient,
are restricted by budget constraints. We would echo the 9/11
Commission Report that they receive more funding.
The 9/11 Commission Report remarked on the sad state of our
exchange and library programs. American exchange and library
programs, though they may not show results for years, are
essential to fostering support of the United States among
opinion leaders.
Physical public diplomacy outposts staffed and owned by the
United States present prime targets for terrorists throughout
the globe. The Pallazzo Corpi, a former American consulate and
library in Istanbul, Turkey, located in the city center, was
targeted at least six times by terrorists until it was closed
last year.
Newer programs, like American Corners, Virtual Presence
Posts, Information Resource Centers and others, provide similar
functions while addressing security concerns.
Over the past year, the Department of State has
significantly ramped up its investment in American Corners and
Virtual Presence Posts. There are now 143 American Corners in
Africa, south Asia, east Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle
East and plans to open another 130 in 2004.
The e-Diplomacy Office administers the Virtual Presence
Posts while the Bureau of International Information Programs
administers American Corners. American Presence Posts are
designated by individual missions and must receive approval
from Congress. We believe these programs should be assembled
under one cohesive and comprehensive task force, and cumbersome
procedures such as congressional approval should be
streamlined.
As it comes to the message and how we coordinate America's
message, we believe that in this global 24-hour communications
environment, messages from the U.S. Government to the world are
not all communicated by the State Department. We have messages
from the White House, DOD, the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and
Congress. Without coordination of these communications, the
U.S. Government misses the magnifying effect that a unified
message could have on overseas publics or, worse, shows
inconsistencies that cause credibility.
No comprehensive inventory across agencies of all
government public diplomacy programs and activities has ever
been conducted. The sum of the public diplomacy budgets of
these various agencies is probably in the billions of dollars.
Such an evaluation might show where efforts should be expanded,
combined or eliminated, particularly useful in an environment
of scarce resources.
There are several initiatives that have attempted to better
coordinate public diplomacy efforts recently. The International
Public Information Core team, better known as Fusion Team,
provides information-sharing capabilities for the varied
government agencies involved in public diplomacy through a list
serve and weekly meetings. Another coordinating body, the
Office of Global Communications, or OGC, was established in
January 2003 within the White House to coordinate strategic
daily messages for distribution abroad with the long-term goal
of developing a national communications strategy. The OGC works
with several hundred foreign journalists in Washington,
providing them with access to the White House events and
briefings, as well as interviews with the President and other
top officials.
The Public Diplomacy Policy Coordination Committee [PCC],
was established in September 2002 and is cochaired by the
National Security Council and State Department. It ensures that
all agencies work together to develop and disseminate America's
messages across the globe. These two groups work together on
strategic communications activities such as outreach to the
Muslim world.
The creation of these mechanisms is not enough. They must
also be fully utilized and developed through an interagency
strategic communication plan that clearly identifies messages,
priorities, and target audiences.
We also agree with an important recommendation of the
Commission that we test these programs,all programs. We believe
that focus groups and public opinion research needs to be
involved at the beginning and at the end of exchange programs
and in how we deliver our message.
In conclusion, as numerous reports including the 9/11
report have attested, public diplomacy needs to be a national
security priority. International public opinion is influential
in the success of public policy objectives, and adequate
resource allocation for public diplomacy will determine success
in the areas I have mentioned today.
The commission is pleased to see this concept being
recognized and looks forward to working with the administration
and Congress toward achieving a better American dialog with the
world. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Evers.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Evers follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss GAO's
recent work on U.S. public diplomacy and international
broadcasting with a specific focus on the Middle East and the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
The terrorist attacks of September 11 were a dramatic
reminder of the importance of cultivating a favorable public
opinion of the United States abroad. Recent opinion research
indicates that foreign publics, especially in countries with
large Muslim populations, view the United States unfavorably.
Today my testimony will highlight our findings that are
relevant to the specific 9/11 Commission recommendations to
increase the support for broadcasting to Arabs and Muslims and
to rebuild our scholarship, exchange, and library programs
overseas and to better define U.S. public diplomacy message.
Since September 11, 2001, both the State Department and the
Broadcasting Board of Governors, have expanded their public
diplomacy efforts in Muslim-majority countries considered to be
of strategic importance in the war on terrorism. In the two
fiscal years since the terrorist attacks, the State Department
has increased its public diplomacy funding and staffing and
expanded its programs in two regions with significant Muslim
populations,south Asia and the Near East.
Among other efforts, the State Department is emphasizing
exchange programs targeting young and diverse audiences,
including high school students. State is also expanding its
American Corners program which provides information about the
United States to foreign audiences through partnerships between
U.S. Embassies and local institutions. These efforts are
consistent with the 9/11 Commission Report recommendation that
the United States build this scholarship, exchange and library
programs for young people.
In addition, since September 11, the Broadcasting Board of
Governors has initiated several new programs focusing on
attracting large audiences in priority markets, including Radio
Sawa in the Middle East, the Afghanistan Radio Network, Radio
Farda in Iran, and recently the Arab language satellite network
called Alhurra.
The 9/11 Commission Report endorses the Board's request for
additional resources to expand its broadcast efforts targeted
to Arabs and Muslims. However, although board research
indicates that these initiatives have garnered sizable
audiences, it's unclear whether the program content is changing
audience attitudes or increasing knowledge and awareness of
issues of strategic interest to the United States.
In September 2003, we reported that the U.S. Government
lacked an interagency public diplomacy strategy that defines
the message and means for governmentwide communication efforts
targeted at overseas audiences. The 9/11 Commission Report
recommended that the United States do a better job of defining
its public diplomacy message. Because of their differing roles
and missions, the State Department, the Department of Defense,
the U.S. Agency for International Development, and others often
focus on different audiences and use varying means to
communicate with them.
An interagency strategy would provide a framework for
considering the foreign publics in key countries and regions
relevant to U.S. national security interests. The U.S.
Government communication channel is available in the optimal
ways to convey communication themes and messages.
We also reported that the State Department does not have a
strategy to integrate its diverse public diplomacy activities
and directs them toward common objectives, and that neither the
State nor the BBG had focused on measuring progress toward
long-term goals.
The absence of an integrated strategy may hinder State's
ability to channel its multifaceted programs toward concrete,
measurable progress. We made several recommendations addressing
planning and performance issues that the Secretary of State and
the Board of Broadcasting Governors had agreed to implement. We
recommended that the State Department develop a strategy that
considers the use of public sector/private relations techniques
to integrate its public diplomacy efforts, improve performance
measurements, and strengthen efforts to train Foreign Service
officers in foreign languages and public diplomacy.
Among GAO's recommendations to the BBG were that the board
revise its strategic plan to include audience size and other
key measurable program objectives. In response to our
recommendations, the State Department has recently established
a new Office of Strategic Planning for Public Diplomacy and is
considering how to adopt the public sector techniques in its
programs.
Regarding our recommendation to strengthen performance
measurement efforts, State Department officials have indicated
that they're exploring ways to do so, and that among other
things, they hoped to do more pre- and post-testing of their
exchange programs.
The State Department acknowledged the need to strengthen
the training of Foreign Service officers and told us that the
primary obstacle to doing so was insufficient staffing to allow
for training. Officials said they have already begun to address
staffing gaps by stepping up recruitment efforts.
In response to our recommendations to the Broadcasting
Board of Governors, the board has revised its strategic plan to
create a single strategic goal of maximizing impact in priority
areas, including the Middle East.
In conclusion, the 9/11 Commission Report recommendations
designed to better integrate and focus U.S. public diplomacy
efforts are consistent with our past findings and conclusions
and recommendations, and they should be fully considered by the
executive branch and the Congress.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
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Mr. Turner [presiding]. Thank you. Obviously this has been
a very important discussion, and when you read the 9/11
Commission Report and you look at their recommendations with
respect to intelligence gathering and restructuring of our
ability to respond, one of the elements of their
recommendations that really goes to the future of our ability
to have a relationship in the Middle East and to be successful
long term is the issue on public diplomacy.
And Secretary Harrison, in listening to your description of
some of things that were undertaken and still some of the
questions as to our effectiveness, what do you see as the
message of the U.S. public diplomacy in the Middle East? I
mean, we've talked certainly about the issues in trying to
define more of who we are, trying to talk more about the values
of democracy, but what do you see as the message of public
diplomacy?
Ms. Harrison. Right now, as we are working in an
environment of what I would call constant snapshot polling, I
think it's important to move beyond the initial questions which
I would characterize as one, two, three: Do you hate us; how
much do you hate us; do you hate us more today than you did
yesterday?
As one woman who was part of our exchange program from the
region--these were journalists, publishers, editors. She was
from Egypt. She said I just wish the American people would stop
asking us all the time how much we hate you. First of all, it
makes us feel bad; and second, we are forced then to answer a
question instead of a real question. A real question might be
how can we work together? And then she said, ``When you ask the
question, please be prepared to listen.''
So as we talk about outgoing messages, we also have to talk
about incoming. And the part we seem to forget sometimes as we
seek to influence and inform, part of engagement is listening.
I know the polls are negative, but I think, though, that there
are some bright spots on the horizon.
We have to work with people within these communities who
understand that their young people want a better life as well.
We have to stand for individual freedom and economic
opportunity and then take those lofty words and put them into
practice. And that's why I was saying it's not just the
message. It's some of the things we can do.
And where are the opportunities? Well, in Malaysia, Prime
Minister Badawi--and this is his quote and that's why I'm
reading it--he said, as a practicing Muslim. We are in deep
crisis. Muslim youth is vulnerable to extremist ideas. We must
recover the hallmarks of peace, prosperity and dignity. Then he
said, I believe that now more than ever, we need to find a
moderate center. We need to bridge the great divide that has
been created between the Muslim world and the West.
Our message, in addition to who we are as a people and our
values--and it is what our message has always been from the
beginning of time--we do not seek to stay in any country. We
seek to help people find their personal freedom, and we have
enough ways to demonstrate that. When you demonstrate it, then
the message becomes one of trust.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Tomlinson, do you have any comments you
would like to add to that?
Mr. Tomlinson. I would like to associate myself with the
remarks of the able acting Under Secretary, Pat Harrison. I
knew you were good. That's a superb answer.
We at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, consider
ourselves, as most people in journalism, as being in the truth
business. We're trying to produce an informed citizenry out
there wherever we broadcast. We want people to know what's
actually going on in the world.
I sometimes think that there may be an overemphasis on this
thing of coordination. I was for many years editor-in-chief at
Reader's Digest, a great magazine. We didn't worry about
coordination at Reader's Digest, we worried about excellence.
We worried about making people want to read us. We worried
about making people want to hear our message.
That's what I think we've been able do using good
journalistic and broadcasting strategies at BBG and the
entities that are under us. We want people to hear us. We want
people to hear what's actually going on in the world. We want
people to understand the fruits of freedom. We want people to
understand the great benefits of the kind of opportunities that
we offer, and we want people to observe the universal values of
the rights for women and opportunity for youth. Thank you.
Mr. Turner. Secretary Harrison, I agree with you on the
issue of the polls. I think the polls don't necessarily give us
an understanding really of the fabric, of the context in which
we need to have this discussion.
The issue of, as you described it, of how we're perceived
is also very separate from the issue of values and the Islamic
extremist message of glorifying death and of the acceptable
killing of innocents and the acceptable killing through suicide
bombers.
What do you see as, one, our ability to impact that message
and that cultural issue that makes this that much more of a
dangerous conversation, and second, who are our allies in the
Middle East to help achieve this discussion of values that
would celebrate life and a relationship based upon that?
Ms. Harrison. It's an excellent question, and one would
think we have no allies. The fact is, in this war of words and
images, we have a lot of allies, but we have to work with them
in a way that they find productive. That means in some cases,
through NGO's, through religious schools, through secular
schools, through community leaders, with new strategic emerging
communities.
I'm going to emphasize what I said earlier. We need to
listen to how they want to work with us. For example, when I
went to Pakistan, I met with the Minister of Education, and she
said we're not going to take on the madrassas; we're going to
offer more choices. Here's how we would like to work with you;
we need more of our teachers coming to the United States to
learn how to teach.
When we had the first opportunity to engage with
Afghanistan, the first thing we did was create the U.S.-Afghan
Women's Council. We brought over teachers so that they could be
trained and go back and train other teachers. And I just feel I
must honor the response to a question I asked this one Afghan
teacher who had taught young children, despite torture threats
from the Taliban, she kept moving these children from place to
place. I said, how did you find the courage to do that? She
said, it wasn't courage, it was the right thing to do.
When we work with people in partnership on behalf of their
young people, that's the message. We are doing the right thing,
and that's when the trust is in the message.
I think truly, if I can answer you frankly, we should
forget about talking about image. Image is only about us. We
should be building long-term relationships with people, who
even in these polls, if you go below the fourth or fifth
question where, finally, one polster asks, is there anything
you admire about America? The first answer is, ``yes,
education, opportunity and how can I get there.''
I'm not minimizing the terrible environment in which we
live, but the fact is this is our environment and we've just
got to do what we can do now.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Tomlinson, do you have any other comments?
Mr. Evers, Mr. Ford, anyone like to add to that?
Mr. Evers. The only thing I would add is on messages, we
just teach our American values which are equality, tolerance,
individual rights, democracy, rule of law. And I think as we do
that, especially in Alhurras, they see the journalistic ethics
as it compares to some of the indigenous journalism, these
types of ethics that we have and our values, because these are
the same values that people hold all over the world.
Mr. Tomlinson. If you look at the pupils, some of the
pupils had some of the worst messages for us in terms of
popularity of Americans. When you ask the people, as the Under
Secretary said, what systems do you want, throughout the world
they admired the freedom of America. Throughout the world, they
wanted our economic system. Throughout the world, they wanted
opportunity-based systems. So I think we're building that now.
Ms. Harrison. I was just going to say that I am very biased
because, as you know, I'm wearing two hats, and one is as
Assistant Secretary of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and
what this means is I get to rediscover America through the eyes
of people who come here for the first time and tell me, ``Do
you know you really do have the freedom to practice religion?
Do you know that your media really is free?'' And one woman
after September 11, says she wanted to be here to find out one
thing, do we still say after September 11th, ``have a nice
day?''
That was a profound question because she was trying to find
out if the basic nature of the American people, in terms of how
she understood us, generosity, humanity, all of the values
we're talking about, had fundamentally changed. When she came
back from her 3-week tour, I asked her what did you find out?
She said it's amazing. I was welcomed by communities. She
talked about our volunteerism, and here is the catch-22, they
don't expect to find that. And that's our challenge. They don't
expect to find the generosity. They are being shaped by
messages that are distorted, and we don't have enough Americans
going to these countries. As someone said fax to fax is never
going to replace face to face.
We need to engage as citizen diplomats. In this war on
terrorism, everyone needs to do what they can do, and that
means engaging a lot with the private sector which I am focused
on right now.
Mr. Turner. Thank you. Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much. To the panelists, thank
you for your work and for your presence here.
I want to pick up on this discussion because I think what I
sense from Ms. Harrison is kind of a puzzlement or perplexing
dilemma when we know there are people who do like America but
at the same time we're seeing these polls reflect what
Commission member Gorelick just called an astonishing
hemorrhage of support for the United States, and the polls that
have been the subject of discussion in the previous panel
pointed out that two-thirds of countries surveyed in 2003 from
Indonesia to Turkey were somewhat or very fearful the United
States may attack them. Support for the United States has
plummeted--this is testimony from Commission members--and that
the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the
Muslim world. Negative views of the United States among Muslims
has spread and they go on and give statistics.
How does that square with what you know and all of us know
to be true, that people--there still is a desire for people to
connect with America but there is this broad negativity toward
America right now? How do you explain that contradiction?
Ms. Harrison. I think, sir, there are many elements. For
the first time, there is only one global power in the world,
and that has great ramifications on how people view us. I also
think that we are in an environment right now that is very
volatile, and people are being asked what they think when
things are happening in Iraq that haven't yet been resolved.
For example, from my standpoint and if I were polled, the
Iraqis I meet come here and say, thank you so much. One
Fulbrighter said, ``you've given me the keys to my future; I
will go back and build a perfect society.'' So I might answer a
poll a little bit differently from those who haven't heard
Iraqis talk about what they can achieve, or the Iraqi soccer
players who said, ``we're going to do the best we can, but we
know if we lose we will not be killed and our family harmed.''
I think polling is almost a cottage industry almost at this
point. We've probably all read the examples of movies and plays
and various things going on that provide an outlet for people
attacking the United States, and that certainly is significant.
And one always has to ask in business, is the trend your friend
or not? And we would say, no, the trend isn't our friend.
Mr. Kucinich. In your experience, have you seen any actions
that you can think of that the United States may have commenced
with that could have caused some kind of an undermining in
support for the United States? How do you account for this?
Ms. Harrison. I account for the fact that we did not have a
strong public diplomacy presence in the region for a long time.
September 11th was a wake-up call. Now it seems what we're
doing is saying why haven't we fixed it in 3 years? I think
that's shortsighted.
I think we have a lot to do in the region, and it's tedious
and it's labor intensive, and it requires a lot more engagement
with Americans on a very local level, at a university level, at
a business level. We have to communicate and define who we are
over and over again. We can't rely on a generation being
grateful to us even for what we've done for Muslims. We can't
rely on the fact that we feel X, Y and Z group should be
grateful, even after what we did in World War II.
And I think the lesson, one of the lessons of September 11
is we have to make a commitment to engage, not declare it's the
end of history, as Fukiyama did, and decide we've won and
there's no need to have exchanges because we've got the
Internet, we've got e-mail.
So I think we're in the process, sir, of learning a lot of
hard lessons about what it means to build relationships.
Mr. Kucinich. So you're talking about a dialog?
Ms. Harrison. Yes, I am, and I know in my native New York,
conversation is characterized as talking and waiting for the
other person to stop. Dialogue means listening.
Mr. Kucinich. I didn't know you were from New York.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays [presiding]. Thank you. Basically, Mr. Evers
triggers this comment in measurement. I'd like you all to
define ``success'' for me. What is success? How do we measure
it? How do we know we're doing a good job?
Ms. Harrison. Yes, sir. Measurement.
Mr. Shays. I'm going to give you a rest for a second. I'm
going to have Mr. Evers start off. Then we'll have all of you
respond.
Mr. Evers. I don't know what the exact answer is, but it's
probably somewhere north of where we are now. It seems to me,
picking up on the comments, Mr. Chairman, that you made earlier
about the difference between diplomacy and force and sometimes
if people don't think you're going to use force, as Saddam
Hussein, they keep pushing you around, that--and then this age-
old question of whether we should be loved or hated or
respected or feared, that until--on September 10, 2001, my
suspicion is we were a lot more loved and respected in the
world, and I'm not sure what type of safety that provided us.
So I think there's a medium between where we are now and
where we need to be. We don't need people blowing up buildings
and flying planes into them, but I don't think we need to be
universally loved. I think as Americans we feel the need to be
loved by everybody, but we need to be respected, and we need to
be known as an honest partner, but we don't need to be dancing
in the streets together.
Some of these poll numbers, I don't agree with everything
that polling's done because, if you ask me to go do a poll, I
could probably give you the answer you wanted, too, depending
on how I worded the question. But I think that we do need to
have some respect and a little bit more understanding from
people, and I think that one of the things--when I talk about
measurement, especially as it relates to exchanges, it's a very
small sample of people, hundreds that come, not tens of
millions; and that is, that when they come to America they
ought to leave with the understanding that we have tolerance
and equality and that we're honest, just like Under Secretary
Harrison said the lady who came here left with. And so they
ought to come to America with their questions, and when they
leave we ought to know that they got their questions answered,
and if they didn't we ought to reengineer the programs.
Mr. Shays. Well, I'm tempted to have a bigger discussion
with you here, because it's not going to be necessarily what
polls say, but you're the one that basically triggered some
type of measurement. Just give me the sense of what are the
various kinds of measurements, and if you want time to think
about it, I can go to someone else. I mean, let me go to Mr.
Ford. I'd like you to just think, Mr. Evers, of whether it's
polls or whether it is that they--I told someone if I lost the
election, I want to lose having people know how I voted and not
like how I voted than to vote against me thinking that I voted
differently than I actually did, and even if the result is
still the same, even if I still lose. I want to know it's based
on good information that we just happened to disagree on.
Mr. Evers. Sure.
Mr. Shays. Maybe you can think a little more about this.
I'd like to come back. Mr. Ford, measurements.
Mr. Ford. Yes, I think there's several different ways that
we can obtain information to help us try to sort out the
answers to questions we're trying to get, and it's not just
polling. There's lots of different types of surveys.
Mr. Shays. No. What are the questions that we're trying to
get answered?
Mr. Ford. Well, I think that's the first thing is you have
to define what that is. In many cases in the past on an
exchange program, we merely asked the individual things like
did they have a good experience in the United States. They were
designed to give a short-term answer to an experience they just
had. They weren't necessarily geared toward answering a broader
question about how they really felt about U.S. values,
democratic principles and how they might translate those into
their own country.
So I think that first you have to define what questions you
want to answer, and I think there are a lot of tools out there
that can be employed to try to get those answers, not just
polls. You can do different types of survey research. You can
do focus groups. You can do pre-and post-questionnaires. There
are a lot of different research instruments out there, many of
which are used by academics and private research outfits.
So I think those are the kind of things you can use as
tools to get the answers to the questions, but first you have
to define what the question is.
Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Chairman, our son is in the Navy. He's
an officer on the USS McInerney, but when he was a little boy
in Chappaqua, New York, we couldn't go more than 10 or 15
minutes on a trip without him saying, are we there yet, are we
there yet? And I think in many ways the question of how do we
judge whether we're meeting our goals is like that question.
Of course, we need to know are they listening to us. We're
in this to have an informed citizenry abroad. We're in this so
that people will share our values, universal values, and in
many ways, it's just a never-ending process. Sure, we should
check to see if our programs are effective, but I don't think
we want to be so survey conscious that we stop telling the
truth or we try to change our message to be effective. I think
the truth will out in the end.
Mr. Shays. Madam Secretary.
Ms. Harrison. Yes. First, let me say that we have a culture
in the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs that is one of
measurement and evaluation. As someone said, anecdote is not
data, and the bureau, ECA, if I can use the initials, received
OMB's program assessment rating at the highest score of 92
percent. Now, this means they rated our exchange programs in
NEA and SA, and how did they evaluate them? They used a series
of questions. It is to see if attitudes have changed in any
significant way on several levels.
As a result of coming to the United States as either part
of Fulbright program, International Visitor, or Humphrey
program, citizen exchange, did you learn more about the United
States than you knew before; did your attitude change? And then
there's a list of indicators that go through policy and other
things about the American people.
The other way that we measure is regular reporting that
comes in from our nonprofit organizations, our partner
organizations, and that's part of every grant agreement, the
evaluation of the specific exchange program, and then we have
reports and stories from our missions. Then we have a results
data base. Then we have use of demographic indicators, and some
of them I know you're familiar with: How many people are now
heads of state, or did that experience in the United States
shape and inform them. Hamid Karzai, for example, or Tony
Blair; another one is Megawati Sukarroputri and others; and
then we have formal independent program evaluations that are
conducted by outside professional evaluators.
This system of measurement and evaluation is carried out
through our new Office of Policy and ECA's evaluation office.
We want to take this system that is successful in the Bureau of
Educational and Cultural Affairs and apply it to public
diplomacy programs and products across the board. We haven't
done that in as systematic a way as ECA has been doing for the
last several years.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Any further comment? I'm just
curious, what do you think the United States did or didn't do
to help the Iraqi soccer team? I'll tell you why I'm wondering.
I'm wondering because Iraqis turned the Al-Jazeera to watch the
Iraqi team play. Did Alhurra televise?
Mr. Tomlinson. We did.
Mr. Shays. You did as well, live?
Mr. Tomlinson. We didn't have a contract to do it live, but
we certainly have covered it massively.
Mr. Shays. So the only reason we didn't do it is we didn't
have a contract to do it live?
Mr. Tomlinson. Right.
Mr. Shays. OK. Has anyone done a report on who helped them
and so on? The reason I have this little bit of concern is when
I was in Iraq a week and a half ago, I saw the team being flown
by, I think, the Australians, because we have somehow a rule
that we can't use a military plane in this capacity, and it
just bothered me if that were the case. I mean, what a huge
opportunity for us to celebrate what is, I think, one of the
greatest stories of the Olympics. This team that was involved
in this huge war, I mean, was having the effects of a huge war,
they didn't have the capacity to play other teams, and yet
they're in the semifinals, one of four teams standing, and I'm
just curious.
Mr. Tomlinson. It's a great story.
Mr. Shays. It is a great story.
Ms. Harrison. Yes. One of the things we haven't talked
about in terms of public diplomacy is cultural diplomacy and
how important it is that it be supported. I went to Iraq a year
ago, and at that time we worked with the Iraqi National
Symphony Orchestra to have them come here and play, as culture
is an important part that was restored after Saddam Hussein.
But we also worked with the athletes through our sports
programming division. They came to Atlanta. We had archers and
wrestlers, and we worked with the soccer players, and we are in
the process of not having just a one-off relationship but a
long-term training program.
At the same time, the unknown story or the story that needs
to be told is this group of soccer players are Kurds and Shiite
and Sunni, and they all play together as a team, all held hands
at the end. If a team can do it, I think a country can. Oops,
I'm starting into another speech, I apologize.
Mr. Tomlinson. It's good. It's good speaking.
Ms. Harrison. Anyway it's a powerful story, sir.
Mr. Shays. It's a hugely powerful story.
Mr. Tomlinson. I thank you for raising it, Mr. Chairman.
Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal did a column last
Friday on this very subject. I'll pass it on to you.
Mr. Shays. I'm just wondering, though, if we've really done
what we need to do just to that one story alone.
Mr. Tomlinson. We can't do too much.
Mr. Shays. I still am very unclear, though, as to what your
answers are as to the issue of measurement, so let me ask it
this way. What are the questions we should be asking and then
how do we measure?
Ms. Harrison. In terms of are our programs and products
working. What way has your attitude changed as a result of a
trip? Or as a result of a program. We have, I would say,
information that would fill books that support the validity of
the exchange process, that minds have changed, the needle
moves. It does increase mutual understanding and respect
which----
Mr. Shays. Let's deal with that. That deals more with what
I would call the elites within the society, those whose lives
alternately--I mean, they have gotten an opportunity to be in a
sports program. They have gotten an opportunity to be in a
cultural exchange. It's not the everyday Iraqi that happens to.
How about with the everyday Iraqis?
Ms. Harrison. Within the last 3 years we have made a
concerted effort to move beyond the elites, to work with our
missions and go beyond what I call the traditional Rolodex to
get out into different areas where we know talent resides, but
which are economically disadvantaged. This is what our PLUS--P
for L PLUS program is about.
Mr. Shays. Let me put it this way, but ultimately, it's
reaching a tenth of a percent, or a percent. About the 99
percent who are left over? That is what? How do we deal with
that?
Ms. Harrison. We're dealing with that through other forms
of communication. We're going to be dealing with that--
measuring that through the Internet. Now, right now the way to
measure through the Internet is how many hits. For example, we
have a new Web site in Persian, and what we're seeing is
increasing numbers of people who are going to that Web site.
And we also know that in Iran there is a proliferation of Web
sites where they discuss freedom. And right now the evaluation
is that people are reading what's on our Web site. They're
coming back and reading more. We're measuring a new product
called Hi Magazine that also has a Web site.
So the measurement and evaluation move beyond how many
people just viewed something, that doesn't mean they agree with
it, but then how many people come back to it over and over and
over? Then you have the chat rooms that go along with that.
Then there are ways to monitor in terms of audience share for
radio and television.
Mr. Tomlinson. For us, it's are you listening to us and do
you believe what we're saying.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Evers, do you want to do another crack at
this?
Mr. Evers. Sure, thank you. I just wanted to read what the
9/11 Commission Report said about this. They said agencies need
to be able to measure success. Targets should be specific
enough so that reasonable observers in the White House, the
Congress, the media, and the general public can judge whether
or not the objectives have been attained, which is what you
continue to ask us here. And I think that the target is
different for different countries.
It seems to me that one of our objectives ought to be that
the political leaders of countries have the courage to support
America and not fear that they'll either be thrown out of
office if they're in a democracy, or overthrown if they're not
in a democracy. And I think if you look at a country like
Pakistan, where you have a president who's had the courage to
stand with us in spite of public opinion that's against him,
he's been able to figure out a way to make it seem logical in
his country to work. And so whatever that model is, maybe that
would work somewhere else.
One of the ideas that we're going to have in our report is
that we're going to propose a way to assess program
effectiveness might be through the evaluation of a test region.
The selected region would receive increased funding for a
variety of public diplomacy programs structured around a
cohesive strategy and funded through supplemental funding from
Congress, where you would take public diplomacy programs,
education programs, Department of Commerce programs and go into
a region or a country and really try to make a difference in
that area and come out and see whether it works or not.
This isn't a novel idea. The British do this right now
every year. They have a different country that they go to and
they coordinate their government around what they're going to
do. And they go in, they do advertising, they do job fairs, and
they do all sorts of things to move people toward them.
Mr. Shays. I think what I'm probably wrestling with is if I
define public diplomacy as ultimately doing the right thing,
however we define that, as presenting an alternative, and that
how we communicate is part of the public diplomacy but isn't
the extent of public diplomacy, I mean I realize, Mr.
Tomlinson, this goes well beyond you. You're the third part of
this effort. How would you define public diplomacy? And then I
would get on to the next panel. Maybe I'm having an incorrect
view of public diplomacy here.
Mr. Tomlinson. I would define it as conveying our values to
people around the world, conveying what we are, what our goals
are for the world.
Mr. Shays. OK. See, I added more. I added economic
assistance as part of public diplomacy.
Mr. Tomlinson. That's a part. That's a part. A part of what
we are is giving people the opportunity to work hard through a
free economic system and produce benefits and a better future
for their children.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you, Secretary Harrison.
Ms. Harrison. Yes.
Mr. Shays. If we are pursuing goals as a country that make
your job in portraiting our country well difficult, is that
part of your job, to convey to others like we are headed in the
wrong direction, no matter what we tell them, as long as we
keep doing these things, we're going to be digging a deeper
hole in terms of public diplomacy; is that part of your job?
Ms. Harrison. Yes, it is, and if I can--my definition,
which I use in a lot of speeches, is basically people-to-people
diplomacy, and people-to-people impact has become much more
important. We talk about the Arab strength. We talk about
strategic communities. They have the ability to topple
governments, to change perceptions. We can look at a recent
election in India which was a surprise, and when you look at
how that happened you see the power invested in people beyond
urban centers and rural centers.
This Secretary has brought public diplomacy to the policy
table and literally to the table every morning. Every single
morning at 8:30 he meets with his Assistant Secretaries and
Under Secretaries, and it is a quick trip around the world
where you can hear what's going on in every region. You can
hear what his focus is, and he also listens to us. So we do
have a seat at the table. We're not over in a stovepipe
somewhere coming up with these things.
He and the Deputy Secretary are committed and understand
the value of public diplomacy, even as governments are engaged
in necessary traditional diplomacy, and he puts high value on
these programs, and he is very supportive of what public
diplomacy can do.
Mr. Shays. President Kennedy invited the leader of the
African states to the White House. He had a cultural sense that
very few Presidents had, or somebody in his staff did. He said,
when that leader comes, invite him not to the East Room and the
West Room for a State dinner; invite him up into your personal
headquarters, because that's how you honor people in so many
societies. When I was in the Peace Corps, there were two rooms.
One was the public and one was what was the sleeping part, the
quarters, and if you were invited to interact with a chief in
that room there, he was paying you a tremendous respect that he
would invite you into a kind of inner sanctum.
Well, when President Kennedy did that, it electrified
Africa because the word got around that he had invited this
leader into his personal home. And there are still, believe it
or not--or there were when I was in the Peace Corps in the
South Pacific--pictures of Kennedy, still remembering this
culturally sensitive President who electrified the Third World.
I have been to Iraq now six times, and four times outside
the umbrella of the military. Every Iraqi told me that why are
we disbanding the military, the police and the civil service,
the government? Whatever you portray, Mr. Tomlinson, in your
media, that policy was so flawed you could never undo it
because it basically said to those who were in Iraq, who had
been involved, they had no future there. So I'm just kind of
thinking that we've got to make sure the policy is something
you can promote and we have the best way to promote the policy.
At any rate, it's a work in process, isn't it?
Ms. Harrison. Well, as Edward R. Murrow said, public
diplomacy should be on the takeoffs and not just in the
landings.
Mr. Tomlinson. He said crash landings.
Ms. Harrison. Oh, I edited that.
Mr. Shays. No, but that's a huge point.
Ms. Harrison. Yes.
Mr. Shays. It's a huge point. We need to be a lot more
culturally sensitive, and we do a lot better job, then, when we
project our public diplomacy in the media.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. In looking at the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission, we talked about this when the two commissioners
were in front of us. On page 377 it says recommendation: Just
as we did in the cold war, we need to defend our ideas abroad
vigorously. America does not stand up for its values. The
United States defended and still defends Muslims against
tyrants and criminals in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan
and Iraq. If the United States does not act aggressively to
define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly
do the job for us.
Now, what I found interesting about thisrecommendation is
that it talks about the United States defended Muslims and it
talks about the actions in Bosnia and Kosovo. And many times we
will talk about the actions of defending Kuwait and liberating
Kuwait, but in a lot of the language and how it has interpreted
what was done in Kuwait, and it refers to war with Iraq.
We have the Bureau Chief of Al-Jazeera's Washington office
who's here, and I was reading an interview that he had in
September 2003, and in that one of the things that he talks
about as a possible contributor to the September 11th event is
the first Iraq war.
And so I wanted to ask you, one, about the issue of our
policies, and don't we have one of the conflicts being how we
view our policies and how others are viewed? And second, I
would like you to comment on--the report says recognizing that
Arab and Muslim audiences rely on satellite television, and Al-
Jazeera certainly being so prominent, I'd love your thoughts
and questions as to your competition.
Ms. Harrison. Well, I think I will let Ken talk about the
competition.
And in terms of your first question and how our policies
are interpreted, if I could push a button, I would have many,
many more speakers, many more people engaging, Americans going
to the region. We can't do this just one-way, even as powerful
as exchanges are.
And what I hear from our Ambassadors and our people in the
posts, when they put together, as they do, these seminars, and
in many of the cultures and Muslim and Arab countries, they
would rather have dialog one on one, a long period of time
where you sit--and I realize this isn't thousands of people,
but it can be televised, as was this Indonesian town hall
meeting, as a result of former Under Secretary Beers' shared-
values initiative.
Anything that leads to dialog. After these seminars, we
asked them to evaluate it on a lot of different levels in terms
of policy, mostly policy.
I'm not going to tell you, that they then agreed with
America's policy, but we did find a majority say, if you
consider the needle moving, we now understand what the policy
was based on. We may not agree with it, but we no longer are
indulging in conspiracy theories, or we're not ascribing it to
something that's negative; we may not agree with you, but we
now believe that America isn't going to take over our country
and stay forever. The challenge of these kinds of dialogs is
that they are one on one, and we have to find a way to magnify
them in a way that doesn't undermine the very essence that
allows people to speak freely.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Tomlinson.
Mr. Tomlinson. Mr. Chairman, this Washington bureau chief
of Al Jazeera, he's nice and all, and I like his wife a lot--
she is an employee of VDA--and I don't mean to say ugly things
about his publication with his being present here with us, but
I think he'll understand.
Imagine if people in the United States had their view of
the world based on the National Enquirer or the worst of our
tabloids. That would be the way people, Arabic-speaking people
in the Middle East have received----
Mr. Shays. I have a hard time hearing you, Mr. Tomlinson.
Mr. Tomlinson. I'm sorry. I said, after saying all of these
nice things about my journalistic colleague back here----
Mr. Shays. I got that part.
Mr. Tomlinson [continuing]. Imagine if people in the United
States had their view of the world based on the National
Enquirer or the worst of tabloids, that would give you a sense
of what the people of the world have received through the
broadcasting of Al Jazeera.
They call American troops ``occupiers.'' They
sensationalize. I hear that Al Jazeera has issued a new
standard or code of conduct, and I look forward to the impact
that Al-hurra is going to have on the satellite broadcasters.
Because the great thing we found about Radio Sawa news during
the war is, we were accurate.
When the news was good from our side, we gave it to people.
When the news wasn't, we gave it to people, and people came to
turn to Sawa News because they wanted to know what was
happening in the world and they wanted to know what the
happening right then and there.
You know, if you tailor your news, it takes a while to put
it together. So I'm very pleased that we're finally in the
Arabic satellite game, because I think we're going to have a
significant impact on our competition, and I think we may even
help them clean up their shows.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Evers, Mr. Ford, do you have any comment?
Mr. Evers. Mr. Chairman, your question at the very
beginning, your first part, Is it hard to talk about American
policies when people don't agree with them? And I think the
classic is--when you talk to Muslim-Arabs, is our relationship
with Israel as it relates to Palestine; and the fact is, this
falls under the ``do the right thing.''
I mean, we support Israel because we have a special
relationship with them, a moral obligation to see them succeed.
They're one of the only democracies in the area. They are a
huge ally of ours, and it is our policy--I believe, is the
right policy--which you would not find a terrible lot of Arab-
Muslims that would agree with us on that. And so it is the
right thing for us to continue to talk about that, but it is a
very hard obstacle for us to get over, because they do not
believe like we do on that.
We have the first President, Republican or Democrat, ever,
to call for a Palestinian state. You've got Ariel Sharon, who
is calling to move settlements and being attacked by his own
party for doing so, but yet we don't really get credit for any
of that.
But the answer is, yes, it's very hard sometimes with our
policies, whether you agree or disagree with them; if the
people you're talking to don't agree with them, it's hard to
get through that.
Mr. Ford. I don't have much to say about the policy end,
but I can say that I think that our research indicates that we
can do a better job of touting things that we're doing that are
positive in nature.
When we did a survey for--last year in Egypt, for example,
we found many Egyptians were not aware of the sizable amount of
foreign aid that we provide to that country, and we've been
providing it for 2 decades now. So I think there are things
that we can do to better show some of the positive things that
we're doing out there.
I know in the case of AID, they have some restrictions on
what they can do, but there's room for improvement in those
areas.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Do any of you have anything you would like to add in
closing from the discussion?
If not, we thank you for your time.
Mr. Shays. Thank you all very much.
Mr. Turner. Thank you for your participation.
We'll turn, then, to our next panel, panel No. 3. It will
include Keith Reinhard, who is the president, Business For
Diplomatic Action, and chairman, DDB Worldwide. He's
accompanied by Gary Knell, president and CEO of Sesame
Workshop.
Also, we'll hear testimony from Charlotte Beers, former
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public
Affairs, Department of State. Also, we'll have testimony from
Dr. Rhonda S. Zaharna, associate professor of Public
Communication, American University. Finally, we have testimony
from Hafez Al-Mirazi, Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera, Washington
office.
Mr. Shays. Please stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Turner. Please note for the record that the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
We'll begin with Charlotte Beers.
STATEMENTS OF CHARLOTTE BEERS, FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE; KEITH REINHARD, PRESIDENT, BUSINESS FOR DIPLOMATIC
ACTION, AND CHAIRMAN, DDB WORLDWIDE; GARY KNELL, PRESIDENT AND
CEO, SESAME WORKSHOP; DR. RHONDA S. ZAHARNA, ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY; AND
HAFEZ AL-MIRAZI, BUREAU CHIEF, AL JAZEERA WASHINGTON OFFICE
Ms. Beers. Thank you. This is my first hearing as a private
sector person.
I think public diplomacy has kind of had a diminishing in
terms of the people's perception of what it means, not only in
our own press, but in our government and maybe in our country.
It has a connotation of propaganda, which in this country is
sometimes very negative. It can be seen as a pitch, an example
of arrogant advocacy. And what I like so much about the
opportunity of being here today is that you have really raised
the eyes off that page and described and defined the job in a
much more comprehensive way. It's worth repeating.
You have asked us to consider something no less than moral
leadership, a demonstration of generosity and caring, to defend
and define our core values and to create an environment for
moderates for reform and freedom. That's all.
That's a pretty big job, but I have a feeling that the
American people are hoping we can pull this off and would
approve of these goals, because it's time for us to think of
ourselves as bridge-builders, as well as all the other facets
of who we are in the world.
But because we've been so isolated and because our enemies
are seen as heroes in the countries in the Middle East, I think
we have to start with a modest goal.
You ask often, what is the message, and I think that the
beginning of the communication effort has to be only a simple
goal of mutual understanding. That's the place we have to
start, and then we can advance to those subjects on which we
can agree. The end result of that will promote national
interest, but you can't start the other way around, because
there's not enough humility in it.
The message: The message has to be words verified by deeds
and programs and experiences, people to people, over time and
consistently, which is not easy to do and is not anything we've
done in the recent past.
The elements of the strategy, as far as I'm concerned, are
that core values are crucial, and it's very fascinating to me
that a number of the core values we rate tops are shared by
Arab and Muslim families, and they would be stunned to hear it.
And as conflicted as they are about the United States, they are
very openly eager to learn science, to give us credit for math
expertise, to take English, because it's the language of the
computer world.
So we have plenty of opportunities. The problem is, we're
not equipped today to deliver on these kind of large-scale
tasks.
I personally think there's a clear problem in not having a
central leadership. I felt it greatly when I was----
Mr. Shays. I'm sorry. Not having a what?
Ms. Beers. A central leadership to guide, as a team, the
strategic direction of public diplomacy and then have the power
to cause it to happen in all the constituencies.
There's not a company in the world who would agree to run
fragmented businesses without a central leadership, and any
time they did, they got in terrible trouble.
We have too many uneven and diverse messages taking place,
sometime quite inadvertently. There's a dearth of skills in the
State Department and in some of our other efforts to do modern
communication content and delivery and research. Research is
not poll taking. Research is a very sophisticated game done by
experts that understand insight, feelings, emotions and content
and can help predict attitudes and then behavior.
So it's not a game for people who don't really understand
how to do it. And you're asking us to consider measurement, and
that's a very important aspect to it.
The purpose of all of these kinds of skills is to build
relationships that will last longer than any foreign policy
issue, so that they are absolutely crucial to our well-being.
Now, with the very best of intentions, it seems to me that
USIA's integration into State has caused certain aspects of
that organization to be weakened. It is limited in its ability
to adapt, to take initiatives and to create new solutions. Even
with Secretary Powell's clear support, it has been difficult to
get new initiatives and follow through with separate funding
for work we need to do to answer those goals you've laid out.
The public diplomacy field staff often reports to three
different bosses, because the structure has been cobbled
together, and most of those bosses are focused on traditional
diplomacy.
There is little training. The first annual meeting of the
public diplomacy field staff was the first year that I was in
that office, and it was a very controversial decision that had
never come together. And you can't bring in new people, as we
could have done, because the security clearances in the State
Department are so difficult.
It's not really a lack of goodwill. It is simply divergent
tasks.
The traditional diplomacy, which I'm calling the main work
of the State Department, has exceptionally qualified people who
are creating a vital dialog with our key governments. They
interpret and define with their counterparts the very meaning
and context of foreign policy. It's hard to imagine a more
important job, but it is by its definition discreet, slow-
moving and secretive.
On the other hand, public diplomacy makes this group of
people quite nervous. It's very public. Its job is to engage a
whole bunch of people with widely diverse interests and topics,
and we're after long-term relationships that have emotional and
tangible subjects, such as religion and trust and freedom,
involved.
Given the totally different task that traditional diplomacy
and public diplomacy have, it's hard to see that this is the
right place for you to take us to task for all kinds of what
you call ``reinvigoration'' under the present structure at the
very least.
Now, there is a lot we have to work with. I mean, you can't
listen to that last panel without being, I think, admiring of
the work that's gone forward in terms of all of the public
diplomacy efforts that are taking place at State in terms of
these new adventures, and also at the BBG.
And we learn from the exchanges. We know that anyone who
comes to the United States has a transforming experience here,
but there's only 25,000 of them a year, and we have to deal
with the issue of scale. If we do not take this story and our
ability to cause exchanges with one another to the countries in
large enough numbers to make a difference, I don't think we can
answer the request for the job description you laid out.
So it isn't enough to just expand the programs that we
have. You're going to hear some very interesting stories about
the private sector, and I think that somehow the public
diplomacy center that you will eventually, I hope, devise will
need to be very powerful partners with the private sector. You
can't expect them to get this done without that kind of
important arm in the service.
We have in the United States amazing musicians, athletes,
teachers, business people who will be very interested in going
to do their part. They are willing to go to countries to stay
there, to teach, to take part in much more complicated ways
than we've ever devised, but we don't have the means, the fund
or the system to activate them.
But there's a lot of that work done on a small basis today
in the State Department. There are charming and efficient ways
to teach science, computer skills and English on the local TV
channels in the key countries. There are departments of
American studies that we could ask universities throughout the
Middle East to take.
Our own Library of Congress has the largest collection of
Arab books in the world. Why aren't we translating those,
putting them beside a comparable American history and putting
that in an American studies class? Think how many people would
come through there as compared to the painstaking one-person-
at-a-time contact that we have been doing in the past.
It's possible digitally to connect a teen in Idaho with a
teen in Cairo. It is possible to take partnerships with local
TV and radio stations in these countries and run stories about
what USAID is doing.
The reason the people in Egypt don't know about the
programs is, everyone agreed we wouldn't tell them, and USAID,
when asked to take part in communicating the brand of the
United States, said, We have no people or mandate to do that.
But in spite of that, they've done some impressive
coprogramming with local TV shows in the country to say, Look,
there's this little brand-new water system we have in Cairo
which has literally transformed a region of that city.
It's unacceptable, I think, to be silent about American
generosity. We could do much more innovative things if we felt
free to take the initiative.
It's possible to make a virtual reality room where we build
not a library which is kind of old form, frankly, or an
American corner, but we create one in a virtual reality. We
make it so much fun to go into, and we put in it a shopping
mall in Rabat. And at one time we had the Smithsonian
Institution working on that sort of thing.
So I'm actually----
Mr. Turner. Secretary Beers, we'll need you to wrap up
your--just conclude your comments.
Ms. Beers. May I conclude? Thank you for signaling me. This
is the danger of being enthusiastic and running amuck.
Mr. Shays. We love it. We love it.
Ms. Beers. One thing I don't want to leave without saying--
please don't buy the idea that the United States can't be the
messenger. We do not have a choice. There are ways that smart,
talented people can get that across. And furthermore, we can't
afford to stand for just foreign policy and military might.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Beers follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Mr. Reinhard.
Mr. Reinhard. Thank you, Chairman Shays, members of the
subcommittee. Thanks for inviting me here today. It's an honor.
Mr. Chairman, I brought a few slides to help me summarize
my very long written testimony so, DJ, if we're ready back
there.
Let me begin with a statement you included in your
invitation, ``If the United States does not act aggressively to
define itself in the Islamic world, extremists will gladly do
it for us.''
I respectfully suggest that we step back a bit and view the
Middle East as part of a much larger problem. The problem of
America's reputation is not confined to the Islamic world,
which means it would not be wrong to paraphrase the
Commission's statement. If the United States does not act
quickly and intelligently to define itself in the post-
September 11 world, our detractors across the globe will do it
for us. Two recent, if small, examples were this illustration
on the front page of the German edition of the Financial Times
and this image from Middle East Online just last Friday.
I claim no expertise in government or foreign policy, but
as a concerned U.S. citizen and international businessman, I
enlisted some of the most preeminent professionals in the
fields of global communications, marketing, research and media
to form business for diplomatic action, a nonpartisan, not-for-
profit organization whose purpose is to mobilize and harness
the private sector in a separate but parallel effort to augment
whatever the government is doing to reverse the alarming
decline in America's reputation.
Let me be clear. This effort is not about ads or selling.
BDA does not stand for ``business for diplomatic advertising'';
it stands for ``diplomatic action.'' Because my background is
advertising, I frequently take these paddles with me to remind
it's not about ads, it's about actions.
Because listening is the most important part of any
communications process--and not, by the way, an attribute
normally associated with Americans--the first brief we gave to
ourselves was a line from the Scottish poet, ``O would that God
the gift might give us, to see ourselves as others see us.''
And our listening confirmed that the image of America, as you
know, is a montage of our foreign policy, our global brands and
our entertainment product. It's a mix which you are we
sometimes refer to as a ``Rummy and Coke with Madonna on the
side.''
Should there be any doubt that government and commercial
actions are inextricably linked, one need only review the
political cartoons in the foreign press the day after Saddam
was toppled. A careful analysis of all our listening efforts
revealed four important root causes for the rise in anti-
American sentiment around the world--U.S. foreign policy, as
we've been discussing, but there are others: the effects of
globalization, so many people are feeling left out or left
behind, the pervasiveness of American popular culture and our
collective personality.
BDA believes that an activated U.S. business community can
effectively address the last three. This slide shows some of
the most prominent positives and negatives that we have found
in how others see us; and to paraphrase Johnny Mercer, we see
BDA's job then as one of ``accentuating the positive and
eliminating the negative.'' To do both means engaging people in
both the United States and abroad.
Let me just touch on a few projects we have underway.
PepsiCo has paid for the initial distribution of this little
World Citizens Guide to the 200,000 young Americans who will
study abroad next semester. The content was provided by
respondents in the 130 countries we asked for advice for
Americans traveling abroad. The response was robust, candid and
prescriptive. This little booklet, an advanced copy we've given
you, is not a travel guide for young Americans. Rather, it's a
compendium of insights that arouse their interest in the world
and move them a little closer to a global mind-set.
This page says, It might be better if you don't compare
everything we do here in this country to how it is back home in
America. We also plan an abridged version of the guide for 50
to 60 million Americans who travel outside the United States
each year.
Everyone acknowledges the importance of exchange programs.
We hope to find new ways of bringing the value of these
programs to life and share them in with mainstream mass
audiences. One approach to this notion is a treatment we've
developed for a reality show featuring interns from Iran,
perhaps, working inside a U.S. multinational corporation here
and then Americans interning in foreign offices of the same
multinational. In the final episode, the CEO of that company
may even say, You're hired.
Now, to the Middle East, I am bothered by the emphasis on
exporting American values. These people have values of their
own, and as Secretary Beers said, we can connect with some
shared values. I agree with the witness who was formerly with
Reader's Digest, or at least I agree with their old headline
writer's rule which said, Always start where the reader is;
don't start where you are.
In the Middle East especially, we need messages that
inspire hope and promise to youth at a very early age. Gary
Knell, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, is an active BDA
board member. He's here with me today. He has vast experience
in enabling locally produced children's programming, especially
in the Arab world. I know you'll have questions for him. This
is an activity BDA is supporting.
Although you may be anxious to create effective messages
from the U.S. Government to the Middle East, I respectfully
suggest that even with careful planning, such efforts at this
time are likely to meet with failure. Based on everything we
know and hear from the region, the U.S. Government is simply
not a credible messenger. The implication for this committee,
Mr. Chairman, is to guide the U.S. Government to give real
support and incentives to empower and activate credible
messengers who can begin the process of bridge-building, even
as the government embraces and enacts previous recommendations
to dramatically overhaul the management of our public diplomacy
efforts.
Other BDA projects are included in your handout.
Mr. Chairman, in crafting a response to the challenge posed
by the 9/11 Commission, BDA would recommend you use the same
strategy development process that we in the marketing world use
for any major global brand in trouble or any company being
attacked by a competitor wishing to destroy it or diminish it.
The process is outlined in my written testimony. I've
provided one of the representative worksheets from that process
for your consideration.
I'd like to close my remarks with a simple way to portray
this state of America's reputation and a way we might think
about it. This is the sigmoid for identification curve. We
often use it to diagram the life of a product or a corporation
or our careers or our very lives.
We wobble a bit getting started. Then we flourish and grow,
and then at the end of the life cycle we start to wane again.
The good news is that for organizations, states and
reputations, there is life beyond the curve if we are smart
enough, astute enough to start a curve.
The integrity of an organization is maintained by making
sure that core values are preserved, perhaps even reemphasized
as a new curve begins. But not everything stays the same.
Typically, what got you from A to B will not get you from B to
C. In the business world, the nature of the competition may
have changed. In our larger world, the nature of our struggle
has changed.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it seems to me that while
in the years preceding September 11, we could lead the world by
force, in the days to come, we must learn to lead the world by
influence and example.
Mr. Chairman, Business for Diplomatic Action stands ready
to help in whatever way we can. Thank you.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reinhard follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Dr. Zaharna.
Dr. Zaharna. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for
keeping the spotlight on public diplomacy. I think it's going
to lead to making not only America but the world a lot safer.
Sir, you asked us to step back and to view the 9/11
Commission's recommendation within the larger picture. This
oral statement provides a brief snapshot. The written statement
for the record provides what I see in more detail.
First, the reviews of American public diplomacy over the
past 3 years, including the recent 9/11 Commission Report, pin
America's communication problem on lack of strategy. They say
America needs a strategy so it can focus its message,
coordinate efforts and measure results.
Sir, when communication lacks a strategy, the results tend
to be random. You win some, you lose some, hit or miss.
American public diplomacy, on the other hand, has had a fairly
pronounced losing streak. That strongly suggests a strategy.
Second, stepping back and looking at the larger picture,
the strategy is clear. Since the terrorist attack, America has
aggressively pursued an information battle strategy, borrowed
from the cold war. The national security strategy put the war
of ideas second to the military war. The battle for the hearts
and minds has been a charge reverberating through the political
halls of Washington to the front pages of hometown newspapers.
The 9/11 Commission echoed that strategy. Just as we did in
the cold war, we need to defend our ideas abroad vigorously.
Three, fighting an information battle was ideally suited
for the cold war era. Then you had two identifiable government
powers dominating the political as well as the communication
landscape. The bipolar context inherently defined the messages.
``us versus them'' had persuasive power. Governments could
control information. Foreign and domestic audiences were
separated by an ocean that technology struggled to cross.
Public diplomacy was a product made in America and shipped
overseas. Achieving information dominance was key to silencing
the opponent. In an information battle, the one with the most
information wins.
Four, fighting an information battle has become the
equivalent of conventional warfare. The strategy lacks the
agility and effectiveness to navigate today's dynamic political
and communication terrain. The bipolar political context has
proliferated into a multipolar one. Culture has replaced
nationalism as the prevailing dynamic, filtering and distorting
even the best message that America can design.
Regional conflicts, once masked by the superpower rivalry,
have surfaced with a vengeance. For the publics absorbed in
these conflicts, American policy is the message of American
public diplomacy. America's domestic and foreign publics have
become one 24-7 global audience.
Today, communication is about exchanging information. In a
world suffering from information overload, disseminating
information is spam. Networking is strategic.
Finally, American public diplomacy needs to switch its
strategic focus. Forget battles. Think bridges. To win hearts
and minds, American public diplomacy needs to bridge the
perception gap between Americans and foreign public.
Disseminating information cannot do this. Building bridges can.
Aggressively pursued, this strategy can cross the political and
cultural hurdles.
This strategy of building bridges is not new. The Fulbright
program, the Peace Corps represent America's long tradition of
building bridges. What is new is the strategic power of this
technique. Building bridges, networking, underlines the growing
influence of nonstate actors.
A woman in Maine began with the idea that led to the
campaign to ban land mines. She received the Nobel Peace Award.
A man in a cave in Afghanistan had another idea. As the 9/11
Commission so thoroughly detailed, al Qaeda is also a network.
In yesterday's information battle, the one with the most
information won. Today, the one with the strongest and most
extensive network wins. Achieving this strategic goal requires
new tactics to identify potential links, create relationships
and forge a network. My written statement outlines some of
these tactics; undoubtedly, there are more.
Communication research also has emerged to measure the
quality of relationships. The quality of America's political
relationships impacts America's image. Using these new research
tools will help measure American public diplomacy effectiveness
more accurately and meaningfully. In its recommendation, the 9/
11 Commission began with a call for institutionalizing
imagination.
For American public diplomacy to be as effective as it
was--for American public diplomacy to be as effective in the
war on terrorism as it was during the cold war, America needs
to imaginatively explore a new strategic focus. To win the
hearts and minds, America needs to forget the battles and think
bridges.
Sir, before I close, I must recognize a communication
professional who took the reins of American public diplomacy
during extraordinary circumstances and led with extraordinary
vision and energy. Thank you, Under Secretary Beers.
And Representative Shays, I thank you for your continued
pursuit to improve American public diplomacy and urging this on
the committee. Your trip last week is the epitome of building
bridges, as was your work in the Peace Corps. It's a strategic
direction that holds the promise for, as the September 11
committee advocated, making America safer. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Zaharna follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Mr. Al-Mirazi.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of
the subcommittee, I want to thank you for this opportunity to
talk to you today about the 9/11 Commission, the report's
recommendations on public diplomacy.
I'm glad that the Arab media is being included in the
discussion of what should be done, instead of being excluded
and blamed for bearing bad news. This hearing reflects a
sincere attempt to diagnose the nature of the problem instead
of finding a scapegoat for the challenges the United States
faces today in the Middle East. And as they say, diagnosis is
half the treatment.
Sometimes it's easier to talk about what is not the
problem. There is a general misconception that the Arab media--
and Al Jazeera in particular, that I am presenting here--is a
major cause of the rising anti-American sentiment in the Arab
and Muslim world. By the way, there is an interesting parallel
in that many Arabs and Muslims blame the U.S. media for
reinforcing anti-Islamic sentiment and negative perceptions of
Arabs and Muslims, but I believe neither is the case.
A recent Zogby International poll of 3,300 adult Arabs in
six Arab countries shows that Arabs who have been to the United
States, who know Americans, or who have learned about the
United States from watching U.S. television, are as angry with
the U.S. foreign policy and have nearly as unfavorable
attitudes toward the United States as those who have no such
direct experience. Media, or medium, I don't think is the main
reason.
The work of Professor Shibley Telhami of the University of
Maryland has also clearly shown that Arab media, exactly--if we
would like to criticize--like the American media, is more
market-driven than commonly understood, and that it does not
shape opinion as much as it reflects it and responds to it. So
as most experts in the Arab world agree, the main problem is
not the media; it is U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East
that is the main source and cause of anti-American sentiment in
the region--in my view, as well.
Unfortunately, post-September 11 U.S. policies did not
elevate the existing problem, but instead exacerbated it.
Before the invasion of Iraq, the United States was criticized
for its perceived role in supporting Israel's occupation of
Palestinian territories. Now the United States is widely
perceived in the Arab world as itself the occupying power of
yet another Arab-Muslim population, the Iraqis. We're dealing
here with perceptions.
The United States has also been criticized in the Arab
world for its business-as-usual policy with certain
authoritarian Arab dictators while promoting regime change in
certain others.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did nothing to change this
view because the United States is now seen as replacing defiant
dictators with compliant, puppet regimes. All the efforts to
improve U.S. standing in the Muslim world, short of making
policy changes, are unlikely to succeed. In fact, as the 9/11
Commission Report states, favorable ratings of the United
States have dramatically decreased in some Muslim countries.
For example, as was mentioned here today, the report says
that favorable ratings for the United States in Indonesia have
gone from 61 percent after September 11 to 15 percent just the
last summer. And by the way, Indonesia is not an Arab-speaking
country, so we cannot blame it on the Arabic-language program,
Al Jazeera.
Today's hearing is titled ``Defending Ideals and Defining
the Message.'' Assuming that one of America's most cherished
ideas is that of a nongovernment-controlled and independent
press, how can you promote this ideal amongst Arabs using a
government-sponsored, funded and controlled medium such as Al-
Hurra TV? You don't need to reinvent the wheel by creating a
new medium that is inherently compromised by its self-serving
goals, at least in the eyes of the Arabs.
To give you a good example, 2 years ago the Israeli
Government launched an Arabic language television channel
satellite, Channel 33, in an attempt to convey its message to
the Arab world. It was a complete failure, and they ended up
going back to speaking through the Arab media outlets that
already exist and that already had the trust of their viewers.
It's worth noting here that Al Jazeera still routinely
interviews Israeli officials and commentators.
As for defining the message, in this age of globalization,
media proliferation and the Internet, you can no longer
distinguish between traditional and public diplomacy, nor can
you distinguish between domestic and international discourse.
Any remarks made in a press conference or in a congressional
hearing, just like ours here, instantly reach the very audience
you think you have time to tailor a specific message for.
Rhetoric is instantly available and disseminated the second
it's uttered, whether by a mullah speaking from a mosque in
Tehran or by a decorated U.S. General speaking from a church in
small-town America; and we should remind ourselves that the
airwaves are just as full of anti-Muslim sentiment as anti-
American sentiment.
I would also like to interject here that General Boyken's
anti-Islamic remarks were first broadcast by NBC and that the
first photos of Abu Ghraib prison were broadcast by CBS, both
U.S. networks, not Arabs, not Al Jazeera.
In summary, given these inherent problems with the whole
concept of a public diplomacy, it's understandable that it's
difficult to keep the position of an Under Secretary of State
For Public Diplomacy filled. Not even the best advertising
executives can help you market a product that serves you and
not the consumer. If U.S. policymakers are confident that their
policies in the Middle East are the right ones and do not need
to be changed, then they should not be surprised at negative
reaction to these policies.
Just as U.S. officials and policymakers make the rounds of
U.S. networks every Sunday in order to explain their policies
to the American audience, they should do the same with the Arab
networks, as I believe should Members of Congress that I invite
on a daily basis to be on Al Jazeera and to speak to our
audience. This kind of routine interaction with an already
established and trusted media would allow these officials to
both explain the policies and instantly gauge the reactions to
them. This kind of engagement over the long term might lead to
the positive changes so desperately needed on both sides.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Al-Mirazi follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Thank you. We'll go to 10-minute rounds of
questions, and we'll start with our chairman, Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank our last
speaker for being here. I think this is the second time he's
testified before this subcommittee.
I'm not all that aware of what members Al Jazeera has--do
you tend to kind of focus on the Senate and get a distorted
view, or do you invite Members of Congress to also participate?
Mr. Al-Mirazi. No. We invite all, and your office, we have
made many requests, unsuccessfully. We could not get you on Al
Jazeera, and we are renewing that request of all of you.
Mr. Shays. I was going to ask that question with that in
mind, because I honestly don't know when we've been asked, and
I would like to make sure that you call me personally, because
I would like to have the opportunity to be on Al Jazeera----
Mr. Al-Mirazi. I appreciate that.
Mr. Shays [continuing]. For a variety of reasons.
One of the things that's very clear to me is that, in a
sense, we're doing the reverse of what we sometimes don't like
about the Europeans. We've set up a government business to
compete with the private sector.
Is Al Jazeera owned privately, or is it owned by a
government as well?
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Al Jazeera is similar to the BBC, in which
it's a public corporation. It receives grants and funds from
the state of Qatar, but it's had its own independent board of
directors that set the policies regardless.
Mr. Shays. Does it have advertising as well?
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Yes. We do have advertisement, and we were
hoping when Al Jazeera was launched that only for 5 years would
we receive public grants, and after that we would be like CNN
is, relying on our own. But unfortunately, Al Jazeera found out
that most of the people who fought against Al Jazeera in the
Middle East--Arab regimes who didn't like Al Jazeera bringing
dissidents to speak over there, or human rights activists to
talk about human rights views, in addition to the pressure they
tried to apply on the Government of Qatar, unsuccessfully--they
found it easier to apply the pressure on their own advertisers.
So most of our advertisers would be very intimidated and
reluctant to advertise on Al Jazeera because of their
government being angry at Al Jazeera.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Knell, please feel free to participate. You
didn't have an opening statement, but we welcome your statement
as well.
Is there anything that was said by another panelist that
you would disagree with, and would want to just make a
contrasting point?
Mr. Reinhard. I think Secretary Beers and I may have a
disagreement on the point about credibility of the messenger,
and I would----
Mr. Shays. So maybe you could elaborate what you mean.
Mr. Reinhard. Yes.
The testimony that was given by the report of the
Subcommittee on Public-Private Partnerships and Public
Diplomacy last June, and the statement in that testimony says
that in many cases in situations, nongovernmental actors may be
better placed to achieve a given impact than the government. It
goes on for a paragraph, but it says, ``Government policies and
resource allocations for public diplomacy should explicitly
address programs that provide incentives to private-sector
organizations to perform tasks in which the direct and obvious
engagement of the government would be counterproductive.''
Someone mentioned a----
Mr. Shays. That seems like a reasonable statement. Do you
disagree with that?
Ms. Beers. By----
Mr. Shays. No. That was Ms. Beers' statement, Secretary
Beers' statement, correct?
Mr. Reinhard. No. This was a statement of the Ian Davis
committee saying that the government is not at this moment a
credible messenger. Fawaz Gerges, who is a Middle East expert,
Muslim professor, at Sarah Lawrence said, ``Arabs and Muslims
are deeply attracted to and fascinated with the American
idea,'' but he goes on to say, ``in the last few years so much
focus has been on foreign relations and on the opposing
relations between the United States and the Arab world.''
Mr. Shays. I'm just trying to understand that. Where is the
disagreement that----
Mr. Reinhard. She is saying that the government is a
credible messenger at this time, and I was----
Ms. Beers. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying----
Mr. Shays. One second. Secretary Beers, I want to just
understand it, and then you'll have plenty of time; and I
realize this is a comment among friends for the most part and
people with respect for each other.
What I'm trying to understand is--I'm trying to figure this
all out, and it would help me to know whether it might be
subtle differences.
And you can explain what you were saying.
Mr. Reinhard. OK. Someone----
Mr. Shays. So what's your position?
Mr. Reinhard. My position is that the government at this
point in time is not a credible messenger to the Middle East
and would be better advised to provide incentives to other
actors, as the previous testimony said.
Mr. Shays. What would your position be, Secretary Beers?
Ms. Beers. Well, we went through this experience with
shared values, which is a series of mini-documentaries, and the
only place we tested it in the form that Keith and I would both
agree is substantially well researched, the process went like
this: People were able to see these stories about Muslims in
America five or six times, and in the first wave of exposure
they said, ``I don't believe you.'' And it's a one-sided
discussion, very skeptical.
But the second viewing, they were in love with the baker
who is one of the candidates and a young woman who is a TV star
in America. After a bit, they found out that the baker was
actually coming to their country to speak, and it shifted the
gears a lot for them, even though they didn't go to the
meeting. And in the final debate, the attitude about the United
States and its anti-Muslim theory was completely diverted.
Now, not by every single person who saw it----
Mr. Shays. And this is a government presentation?
Ms. Beers. And it was clearly--although we said it's from
the U.S. Government and the people of the United States.
Because we're from the State Department, we have to explain
everything. That was a very artificial situation; and what I
think is important is to understand that underpinning--two
things: Underpinning all of the rhetoric about the United
States is a very real curiosity if you can approach it
properly.
And the second thing that's always in my mind is that you
can be in Washington so long, you forget this. If you ask the
people in the Muslim countries what are the No. 1, two and
three things in their lives, they never mention foreign policy.
What they talk about is my faith, my family, education for my
children and ninth on that list is foreign affairs.
So I always hold out the hope, since these people are our
audiences, that we have a right to engage with them. What I
don't disagree with ever is that we'll get there faster if we
have partners like Keith's business circle, which is inspiring,
because they've taken the initiative and they can go places we
cannot go.
On the other hand, we have to go together sometimes.
Mr. Shays. Let me go to Dr. Zaharna.
Dr. Zaharna. I want to say I agree with both, a more
arching framework. Yes, Mr. Reinhard said the United States, it
is the messenger and it's not credible, and that we're going to
have the--I mean, theoretically, there's a big problem with
that.
But then also public diplomacy is the U.S. Government;
that's its responsibility. Other people have other parts, but
public diplomacy is inherently the government. I see it as the
government's charge. But how to work together on that? That's
the thing.
I think the government can do more partnerships and also
with local NGO's, working with international NGO's. Their most
valuable possession is their credibility. If the United States
links up with them, they're going to be afraid it's going to
affect their credibility. But the United States can get extra
mileage if it enhances the local--works with the local NGO's on
the ground, does capacity-building or anything along that line.
And working with American businesses, linking those two
NGO's, an American NGO and a foreign NGO, and getting them to
find private funding, such as an American corporation; they
share the problems, they share the rewards, they build the
links, and the United States gets the credibility.
Mr. Knell. Mr. Chairman, Sesame Workshop is one of those
NGO's that is trying to do, I guess, a version of public
diplomacy called Muppet diplomacy, where we have been working
around the world now in over 120 countries trying to promote
issues around literacy and numeracy and respect and
understanding and health and hygiene, and we've been very
active in the Arab world.
We have gotten good support from U.S. Government agencies
like AID, but we've also gotten support from other governments,
from Canada, from Holland, from the European Union, to help
promote respect and understanding in the West Bank and in Gaza.
And we are one of those NGO's, I think, as my colleague said,
who can make a difference.
And I have to tell you that it is about listening. It is
about facilitating. Americans, like our group, 300 of us based
in New York, who are working around the world trying to make a
difference, it's about creative engagement as educators to
intervene and promote universal values. And we have not really
in any country in the world run into a huge obstacle that did
not allow us to complete our mission.
So we are engaged currently. We are in Afghanistan having
dubbed programs----
Mr. Shays. My time is up, and Mr. Tierney is here, so I
want to make sure we go on.
I'd like to have a second pass, Mr. Chairman, if I could,
but all I hear you gentlemen saying is that we can't just
depend on public diplomacy, that the private side can do a
tremendous amount to present a case. But it strikes me that
Secretary Beers isn't suggesting it only be public.
And so, Dr. Zaharna, you are the great conciliator here who
has brought us all together. Thank you for your comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Turner. One of the questions that I have concerning Al
Jazeera relates to the issues of the shared values that have
been discussed, the issue of--so many people who have testified
before us today talk about the concept of shared values and how
America needs to portray more the common bonds and explain its
policies. And I know that we may never agree on the issues of
American policy.
You might, of course, recall that discussion from our
second panel, I read from--you had a September 26, 2003,
interview where you were talking about the causes of September
11th, and you reflected and said that--you cited the first Iraq
war. We call that the ``liberation of Kuwait,'' and you
referred to it as the ``first Iraq war.'' Many of those
conflicts of policy we may not agree upon, but translating
those conflicts or policies to global terrorism and the
glorification of death and the suicide bombers and killing of
others is something that I think that we can look to you as
having a responsibility for.
There have been allegations that you're cooperating with
terrorists and terrorist organizations. At a minimum, there's
been, certainly, the allegation that Al Jazeera glorifies the
culture of death.
You said you merely reflect the culture which you're
representing, or your market; but I wanted to ask you about,
you know, what is Al Jazeera's view of its role in global
terrorism, where some view you as a facilitator? What do you
view as your responsibility toward real stability in the world?
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Thank you for your question. First of all, I
would like to distinguish between two things, my own personal
views, such as the one that you read in an interview that I
made in September 2003 trying to explain to an interviewer, or
an audience, what I would personally consider reasons or causes
that may express the right to find for September 11.
Going back to the Gulf war of 1991, or the liberation of
the Kuwait war, or the first Iraq war, there are so many names
of it, so if I choose one, it does not mean in any way
eliminating the other or, again, as to another title for that
war.
And between that, my personal views that I can indulge in,
if you would like me to speak about it, Al Jazeera itself, that
is a station that is committed to presenting both sides of the
story in any event, in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict. As I
mentioned, we have Israeli officials, Israeli commentators
speak, and we have Palestinians, regardless of their
affiliation, also speak on the war against terrorism or the al
Qaeda issue.
We also allowed videotapes or statements made from people
related to al Qaeda, as well as we are covering live and
extensively--almost, I would say, more than 400 to 500 hours of
President Bush's speeches, live, carried on Al Jazeera since
September 11.
If you maybe count all of Al Jazeera broadcasts since
September 11 of the bin Laden tapes, it might not be more than
5 hours in all its entirety, but people, of course, I would
understand that they would say Al Jazeera, bin Laden, because
they only heard the tape on Al Jazeera, but for them President
Bush is available everywhere, so why should they mention Al
Jazeera on it? The same way that people would say that the
bomber manifesto was in the New York Times, that does not in
any way mean that New York Times was collaborating with the
bomber or trying to promote ideas of terrorists or the
publisher of Timothy McVeigh's book about why did he do the
terrible things in Oklahoma.
And by the way, Timothy McVeigh was a soldier in Iraq in
the first Iraq war, or the 1991 war, and I believe at some
point in his book mentioned that he learned how it's easy to
kill people during that war.
The Washington sniper was a veteran or someone who was in
the 1991 war, and when I mentioned the 1991 war, I mentioned
that also the violence and the war creates violence and
destabilization, and that could be one of the reasons.
If you would like me to focus on one thing, I would like to
say that just the message and the mission of Al Jazeera is
represented very clearly in our motto, ``the opinion and the
other opinion,'' or the opposite opinion, and we have been
faithful to that. And also we have been criticized harshly,
first in the region and now in the United States--or after
September 11, the United States--for that reason, bringing both
sides of the story and asking people, please do not shoot the
messenger if you don't like the message.
Mr. Turner. Secretary Beers, the shared-values programming
that you had put together is an attempt to communicate, if you
will, a relationship and include, of course, an antiterror
message or antiterror goal.
Our committee has information that Al Jazeera refused to
carry those. Is that correct or is that inaccurate?
Ms. Beers. Well, I think what happened is--I'm sorry to
repeat this, but the word came back to me that Al Jazeera had
moved their rate up to double the normal rate because it was
``hazardous material''--I'm not sure it was put quite like
that--and we were refused in a number of governments. But in
this case, I think it was, we fought the very disproportionate
rate and we had it covered with some other networks. So I think
we didn't go on it.
I'm not so sure that they said ``no'' to us, and I'm
working from a memory there. Perhaps you know.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. May I comment on that?
Mr. Turner. Please.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Because it came to our attention that
complaint from a colleague at the State Department working in
public diplomacy, and at that time there was a visit by the
general manager of Al Jazeera in Washington, and when he heard
that, he was outraged and made some phone calls.
We found out that the person that was contacted, the
advertising agent in the region, who was the one who told the
people who carried the advertisement that ``I could buy for you
more time on Al Jazeera for that money'' and convinced them not
to go to Al Jazeera, but they could get more time for their
money than going to Al Jazeera, but not Al Jazeera declined it.
Al Jazeera actually until now put in advertisement that I
would say even glorified or put very positive spin on the Iraqi
interim constitution, or interim law, many other things; and we
are welcome even if someone would like to bring these ads back.
We'll welcome them, but I think they might need to be updated,
because some of the people featured in these ads, I believe,
have been harassed by FBI agents or had some bad experience
after September 11. So maybe they need to update it.
Thank you.
Mr. Turner. Secretary Beers, you look like you're wanting
to comment.
Ms. Beers. No. I'm just sorry. I didn't know what he said
about the FBI agent.
Mr. Turner. Do you want to expound on that?
Mr. Al-Mirazi. I'm saying that the more also we promote the
stories of Arab Americans, and we do promote these stories--
last Thanksgiving, for example, I host a talk show from
Washington, and in that talk show, I brought a story of in
Wayne, Michigan, which I said, let's do news on Thanksgiving in
America, let's explain that this guy won a mayoral election
while he had only two Arab American families in Wayne,
Michigan, and that was in November 2001, immediately after
September 11, yet people in Wayne choose this guy. So we are
not short of putting positive things in America.
But the problem also that you follow, what happened to Arab
Americans. Since the last 2 months, the FBI has been rounding
and meeting and interviewing Arab Americans, just to interview
them, ask about their views, their religious beliefs; and the
excuse for that has been in order--just to remind people that
we are there or collect information as preventive measures.
These things also does affect American image, as well as
the Census Bureau when they were asked by the Homeland Security
to give us information about all the Arabs living in a ZIP
code, more than 1,000 Arabs in any one ZIP code that have more
than 1,000 Arabs, give us the names, and that was a reminder
for people to what happened in World War II. And thanks to
Homeland Security people, the civil rights officer was in Al
Jazeera in my show and explained things. And I believe they
promised to correct the matter.
So sometimes the experience of Arab Americans has to be
reflected in order to give credibility to the message, but if
it's on an advertisement, we don't have to ask you to do
whatever. We will broadcast it as advertisement.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses
for their testimony.
There are some who say that no matter how good we get at
public diplomacy, or think we are getting at it, that we won't
be really good at it in this area of the world unless we learn
to listen better, enhance listening skills.
Would each of you tell me whether or not you think that the
United States is, in fact, listening to people in this region
of the world? If not, how would we enhance those skills and
proceed from there? We'll start with Mr. Al-Mirazi.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. As I mentioned, the interaction is very
important. It's very important to engage U.S. policymakers in
Arab media interviews and in talking to the Arab people,
because it gives them a chance in order to answer questions, to
take questions.
And that is pretty important just not to make it a
monologue, because we carry a lot of press conferences as
monologue. But in order to answer questions and to be sincere,
maybe to take it back and digest it and in a weekly meeting say
we heard that and we couldn't have an answer, a good answer.
And just give the example of the Homeland Security or the
Census Bureau. We had someone from Homeland Security. The
second day, immediately, we had a meeting with Arab Americans
and they almost like regret what happened, and said that has to
be corrected in a very sensitive manner in the future.
I think as you mentioned, sir, listening is very important.
And as we are talking about review of U.S. intelligence, review
of many other things, I think review of U.S. foreign policy in
the region is important. And we should not deal with foreign
policy as if it is something on the side. Foreign policy means
a domestic policy for people who are at the receiving end in
the Middle East, whether they are Iraqis or Palestinians or
Egyptians.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. Zaharna. Are we listening? No. Because if we were--
there is one thing in all of this. The Palestinian Israeli
keeps coming up, and now the situation in Iraq, and Najaf now,
what is going on in the religious site. Before, there was the
superpower rivalry and there was the nuclear threat and
everybody looked at that. Now that is gone, these foreign
policy issues have become like the glaring spotlight. And if we
were listening, we would have heard and done things maybe
differently.
And if we have a security problem here in the United
States, America's allies in the region are sitting on a more
dangerous security problem by not addressing the foreign policy
issues.
Mr. Tierney. What do you think we would have heard?
Dr. Zaharna. What we would have learned?
Mr. Tierney. What we would have heard if we were listening.
Dr. Zaharna. Oh, my goodness, the military in the region.
The American military, these are the young--this was America's
best face. Young American people being in the region. And some
of the actions that were conducted out of cultural ignorance
and cultural sensitivity have tarnished and bruised more than
anything. And that is the biggest thing. They are the face of
the American public diplomacy.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Reinhard.
Mr. Reinhard. We talked to people on the streets in 130
countries. And this was a question--leading the witness
obviously, because we asked them for advice on what they would
give to Americans traveling abroad. But the two most frequently
recurring words were ``listen'' and ``respect.'' And some of
the quotes: Learn to listen instead of talking all the time.
And then they went on to say, and if you must talk all the
time, would you please lower the volume. Stop comparing
everything we do to the way you do it. If you can't stop
talking, turn down the volume, I mentioned. You might try
learning a few words in our language. The Superbowl does not
mean much to us. If we had an athletic competition called the
World Series, it would occur to us to invite other nations, and
on and on.
And then, some verbatims about the negative perceptions.
The ones I had on the screen about the insensitivity to
cultural differences and the supreme arrogance which kept
coming through was that our assumption is that they want to be
exactly like us. I think one of our--I am in the advertising
business and one of our big multinational clients spends $30
million on research. That is no human resources, no capital,
just $30 million on research around the world to win friends
for their brand.
I believe the Federal Government spends something like $5
million.
Mr. Knell. We can listen better and unleash creativity
more. I think we can connect around children. This is not just
a news ping-pong match, even though it sometimes turns out that
way. Education and culture as was mentioned before is really
important. In Egypt, when we did Alam Simsim the Egyptian
``Sesame Street,'' this is a local show. They chose to promote
girls' education and health and hygiene. That was not us
dictating to them. And in the West Bank, our Palestinian
partners tell us that the biggest problem for the average
person is boredom. They are unemployed. They cannot leave their
houses. They're blockaded from traveling to visit relatives.
So what are they doing? They are watching television. What
are they watching? We have heard about some of that today. So
being able to give them some of the resources and the
technology to promote positive values about their own cultures
and self-esteem and to create empathy is something that we are
doing and other people are trying to do. And I would encourage
the committee to think about how our government can help
promote some of those things in the private sector moving
forward.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Secretary Beers.
Ms. Beers. In the goals that I started with, which I think
is modest compared to how we would like to approach our
relationship with the Middle East, I talk about mutual
understanding. And you really can't get there unless you have a
reasonable comprehension and empathy with whom you are
attempting to speak. And this is kind of a golden rule for all
communication.
But in addition to understanding that, you have to be
prepared for some kinds of action, some kinds of programs or
exchanges that activate. That is why I like so much the picture
of the teenager in Cairo being able to talk to whomever he
chooses in Idaho. Because what happens there has its own
chemistry. And it is not so artificial. I know that any program
we put together, whether it is in the private sector or
something the government manages to put on the table that is
people to people, there is a kind of kinetic energy and
chemistry that takes place there.
So it is listening and also being prepared to take part in
a responsible exchange and action.
Mr. Tierney. I take somewhat from this there is general
agreement on the panel that the Commission's report
recommending that we rebuild scholarship exchange and library
programs reaching out to young people is right on the money.
General agreement on that? Not?
Ms. Beers. No, I'm sorry, I do agree with those things.
They are vital, and that is why we are always quoting to you
how many people in the world affairs came and studied here and
now they are leaders. We're doing a very good job with the
elite and leaders. But you can't stop there. I am concerned
that you will think we mean just expand those programs.
In my mind, if you can't take those ideas of education,
school, using the local television just like Sesame has done,
you are not going to get enough reach nor will you make enough
impact. So it is a modification.
Mr. Tierney. OK. I accept that. Anybody else?
Mr. Reinhard. I would second that. And I would also add
that in your invitation you quoted from the 9/11 report that
bin Laden has nothing to offer but death and violence, and we
have to offer hope of a brighter future. I would respectfully
suggest that bin Laden has quite a bit to offer to these
people, which is the word we kept hearing in our listening:
respect and dignity. Which he can grant. And if we can take our
vision of hope and a brighter future and make it real, as
Secretary Beers and Mr. Knell said, by building bridges through
this shared value of learning and education, that would be a
very, very good place to start.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, you had an
interjection you wanted to make? I yield.
Mr. Shays. Thank you for yielding, but it has changed. Is
that all right? What you said to me is stunning in a way, but,
regretfully, very true. And I would love to get Al-Jazeera's
take on this as well. When I was in Iraq, I had more Iraqis
say, ``Thank you for getting rid of Saddam Hussein,'' and
``When are you leaving?'' in the same sentence. There is this
wonderful poll that said two-thirds wanted us to stay and two-
thirds wanted us to leave.
But what struck me was--and it seemed reasonable, when you
think about it, is reasonable. We did not want it to be a
French revolution. In our Revolutionary War, we wanted it to be
the American Revolution. So I found that they were very proud
people.
The little things that we did that we think were
inconsequential were huge to them. And then all these wonderful
things we did just seemed meaningless. I think that you have
done something--you've got the first criticism of this report
that I basically can accept. Because your comment was ``the
only thing he has to offer is,'' and I accepted that and I
believe it on one level. But on another level, he promises them
something that they don't seem to feel from us, and that is
dignity and respect. People were willing to lose their lives
for that, which is obscene to me.
What is your take on this as you hear this, Mr. Al-Mirazi?
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Mr. Chairman, if we would look to
criticizing the whole report, I would also mention that there
is a failure when it comes to United States help and details of
United States help to al Qaeda or the founders of al Qaeda in
Afghanistan. The people who originated it, who used to be
called in the Arab world the Arab Afghanis, the people who
fought the Afghani war against the Russians. And the report
just mentioned very passing sentences about the United States,
Pakistan, and Saudis.
Mr. Shays. You would like to be very clear. In other words,
we supported the very elements that--OK.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Exactly. Exactly, sir. And that is the need
for a review of U.S. foreign policy, not just to say that we
need more scholarships. That is nice. That is important. We
can't say that scholarships are not going to be helpful. Of
course it will. But the damage is still there. And during the
cold war and Voice of America that I did work for before, and
other in the United States, the Saudi Arabia role has been
mentioned that they were only involved in building mosques in
the former Yugoslavia. Yes, they were building mosques with the
help of the United States. They were distributing copies of the
holy Koran with the support of the United States because they
were trying to beat communism and they were helping and
supporting fundamentalism in the Arab world.
Someone quoted Mr. Casey, Bill Casey of the CIA, the CIA
Director, as saying the more fundamentalists they give me in
Afghanistan the better, because they kill more communists.
So we supported that brand. The United States supported
that brand. The United States used the Islamic religion in
order to conquer the Soviet Union, and now we are talking about
madrassa. Madrassa, by the way, just means a school in Arabic.
It is a religious schools. And when people in the Arab and the
Muslim world hear U.S. officials attacking madrassa just by the
word madrassa, it means for them as if someone is attacking in
the Arab world Christian schools or charter schools.
So we also have to find out exactly what do we mean and
what exactly are we talking about. And let's compare. The
Palestinians have raised that issue before, when we told them
we need to look into hatred in your textbooks. And many people
said we would like to look into hatred not only in Palestinian
textbooks and Israeli textbooks, but look into hatred or
antiIslamic statements in the U.S. media as well as in the Arab
media, or the other way around.
This comprehensive view, the clear condemnation of both
killing any innocent, whether that innocent is a Palestinian or
that innocent is an Israeli, is very helpful. Be consistent.
And as to the values of the United States, I don't think that
the Arabs or the Muslims have different values than the
Americans. These are human values. People have taken every
generation and adding to it and enhancing to it.
So if we stand for liberty and justice for all, the
Palestinians will tell you, how about liberty for us? Why it
was not difficult for you to keep Iraq occupation for 8 months
under Saddam and it is fine for to you keep Israeli occupation
for more than 56 years. And you have to find answers for them.
And this is what we are talking about. Engaging in dialog
and really sitting down and reevaluating U.S. foreign policy
toward the Arab and Muslim world. Not because of September 11,
but just because we need it.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Did you want to make a comment?
Dr. Zaharna. What Mr. Reinhard brought up about the appeal
of bin Laden.
Mr. Shays. It is my intention to end this hearing in 5
minutes.
Dr. Zaharna. Oh, I am done.
Mr. Shays. No, no, it is just that I want people to know so
they can judge their time and so on. But I want you to say
whatever you want, and I want other people to as well.
Dr. Zaharna. Islam, when he put what does he have to appeal
and he said human dignity and respect, it hit me today, I
thought this thing from the Council of Muslim is very
important. Bin Laden is getting a lot of mileage by the United
States calling it Islamism. Because Islam is my religion also
and I have read a ton of reports. I can't distinguish between
Islamism, fundamentalism, and extremism. It is the same. And no
matter how you slice it or dice it, they will hear it that way.
Mr. Shays. What do you call it? You can't call it----
Dr. Zaharna. I think the Commission did a great thing by
narrowing from terrorism to al Qaeda and then get it away from
religion. And I have read a lot of reports, too, in the Arab
world and the Muslim world they are not distinguishing it
either. It's an important thing.
Mr. Shays. The reality is, it is not Japanese.
Dr. Zaharna. Japan is a country.
Mr. Shays. It is not Hindus that are basically attacking
the United States right now. It is a particular group that is
very narrow among a particular religious belief. And you know,
that is the reality. That is what it is. You are saying in
facing reality, it is offensive.
Dr. Zaharna. He is getting mileage from it. And as the 9/11
Commission said several, several times it is a very, very small
group. The Commission did a great job by taking terrorism and
narrowing it. The more we can narrow it, the stronger that is
going to be. And they debate it but it just hit me today, this
does get him a lot of mileage.
Mr. Shays. Fair enough. And it is important for us to know
that. Go ahead. If you have something to contribute, the last
thing I want to do is stop you. What else did you want to say?
Dr. Zaharna. That is it.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Just to second what she said, I know it is
easier for an audience to identify with something. But it is
also risky and we have to consider that. I heard a lot of
feedback, negative one when the word Islamic and Islamic
terrorist were put in the Commission. We cut live to the
Commission when they finished reporting it and using words like
``al Qaeda'' or ``bin Laden followers'' or something like that,
it is clear. The same way we are talking about the IRA, not the
Catholic Irish, regardless of how many Catholic Irish would
identify with the IRA. But we say it is the IRA and I think it
is very important to do that. Because you have also Jewish
terrorists who are on the list of terrorist organizations of
the State Department, but we do not use that.
Mr. Shays. And I agree with what you are saying, yet I
wrestle with this. They use as their basis their Islamic faith.
Dr. Zaharna. And the United States is giving them extra
mileage.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. And Muslims in Nigeria, for example, saying
Muslims. So people in Nigeria understand it, and people in the
Arab world understand and they can distinguish Islamists,
Because those people carry the Islamic banner. But when you
take it to a Western audience and send it back to the Arab
world or the Muslim world, it would sound for them as if you
were talking about the whole Islam. But if it is indigenous,
people say Islamists, Islamist does not mean Muslim, but it
would be lost in translation.
Mr. Shays. It is absolutely essential we know what it
means. And if we are going to talk about winning hearts and
minds, and that's what it means, however helpful it may mean to
us, it is often going to have a huge negative. Would you have
any comment on this, Secretary Beers?
Ms. Beers. I think that we tried to be very careful about
that word and we have used sometimes the word ``radical'' as a
way of defining the extreme end that happens in any religious
endeavor. There is always a small group at the very end of it
that are more radical and create a different response to the
whole religious practice. I do not have a solution, and I don't
know what anyone would offer us in a way of a proper word.
Dr. Zaharna. A political name?
Ms. Beers. Just a name we can use in communication.
Mr. Shays. The bottom line is you have told us what we
can't do; I am not sure what we can do, and that is basically
your point. One of the values of the Commission was that we
need to know who we consider the terrorists and what do we call
them, and I am guilty of saying a war on terror, and as one
commissioner said, that is like taking Pearl Harbor and saying
a war against the Zero airplane, which was the vehicle through
which Pearl Harbor was implemented, the use of that aircraft.
But I do not say a war on Zeroes.
So it is something, I guess, that we are all going to have
to sort out: What is the name that means something that is
helpful to us in knowing who ultimately we have to deal with,
but doing it in a way that does not come across to an entire
world population as a huge negative. Anyway.
Do you have any last questions? Is there anything you would
like to put on the record? Any of you? Yes?
Ms. Beers. Outside the debate we had about when to activate
the government as messenger, I would like to say for the record
that Keith Reinhard, whom I have known him for 35 years.
Mr. Reinhard. And I have known you for 35 years.
Mr. Shays. Maybe there is something you want to keep
private here.
Mr. Knell. Sesame Street is in the middle.
Ms. Beers. This is not easy to be interrupted. I am trying
to say something good about him. I have never succeeded yet.
For the record, Mr. Reinhard has provided the most remarkable
leadership I have ever seen in that organization that came to
life under his jurisdiction about a year and a half ago. These
people did not exist. He brought together the most elite team
imaginable. There are people who do not have time to do
anything, and they show up and they work with him and they are
going to do something remarkable on behalf of our country. And
I just hope they get the recognition about that.
Mr. Shays. Secretary Beers, let me just say to you that
your service to our country, and your contribution to this
committee, is very appreciated. You have been a wonderful
servant to America, and we appreciate it more than you can
imagine.
Ms. Beers. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. I would like to ask if anyone else has any
comment?
Mr. Reinhard. One thing. I actually had three pages about
how highly I regard Secretary Beers, but in the interest of
time I will just publish that for you.
Mr. Shays. You sound a little bit not sincere.
Mr. Reinhard. Oh, no. Oh, no.
Ms. Beers. We met in church. He would have to be.
Mr. Reinhard. We are very close friends. We were talking
about listening and we have also been talking about messages.
And the best advice I ever received on the subject is, you
don't learn anything by talking. And I really think we have to
keep that in mind.
And what Professor Zurgis, how he envisages this. He talked
about the floating bloc of young people in Iran. And according
to him, they haven't made up their mind yet whether to buy the
mullah's brand or the Western brand. It is essential that we
make our ideas, which stem from their needs, their shared
values, sensible to them, however we do that.
And the last thing I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is a
quote from one of our young staffers in Cairo. And I believe
that he gives us really good advice for a mind-set that we
should bring to this discussion. He says, in investment America
must be presented as the facilitator, not the patron. In the
realm of charity, as the partner, not the philanthropist. And
in business endeavors, as the courier of progress, and not the
preachers of Westernization.
If we can all become couriers of progress, I think we will
make great progress for our country.
Mr. Shays. That is a nice way to end up. I would be happy
to have both of you make a comment if you would like.
Dr. Zaharna. Thank you.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. The first thing I would hope and renew my
request for interviews for Al-Jazeera with the three of you,
and we would be grateful and glad. That would help promote
United States and articulate U.S. policies and U.S. views to
the Arab world with no expense to taxpayers, unlike Alhurra
Television.
And just to correct for the record, in the previous panel
we were criticized by one of the speakers and the panelists as
comparing Al-Jazeera to the National Enquirer. The harshest
critics of Al-Jazeera compared it to Fox News, but here I got
emotional being compared to National Enquirer.
Mr. Shays. This is the first time I have seen you smile
today.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. Thank you. Let me just for the record--and I
would like anyone to have the commission, independent
commission to compare Al-Jazeera Washington Bureau coverage of
U.S. foreign policy and U.S. policies in general compared to
the U.S. Alhurra Television. We have started since the
primaries in January, a weekly 1-hour election show to explain
to our audience every Tuesday and rerun twice again what the
U.S. political system means.
Mr. Shays. You are actually able to explain that? I should
watch.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. And Alhurra just started like 2 weeks to go
do something like us to follow.
Mr. Shays. Competition is good. You took the lead and they
are following. The one thing I have been encouraging our
government to have Alhurra, but I think it will help you be
better and them be better. They only have credibility if they
tell the truth. And what I had is one or two individuals call
me up from the media, criticizing something that they were
doing that seemed antiAmerican. And I said if that is what
happened, that needs to be said for their credibility. They had
people on the program that others wondered whether they should
have on the program. I realize there are a lot of questions.
Mr. Al-Mirazi. And I agree with you, sir. The more the
merrier, and it is not a zero-sum game. Funding Alhurra doesn't
mean you're cutting Al-Jazeera or the other media.
Mr. Shays. We are looking forward to a continued dialog,
and you all helped us understand all of this better. And
ultimately this, if not more, certainly equal to all the other
efforts that we have in our government. We are not going to
succeed unless we do better with public diplomacy and also
improve our public policy.
Thank you all very much. This hearing is adjourned without
a gavel.
[Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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