[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE COUNTERTERRORISM BUREAU: FY 2017 BUDGET
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 17, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-161
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
TED POE, Texas, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
DARRELL E. ISSA, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
PAUL COOK, California BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESS
Mr. Justin Siberell, Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism,
Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State........... 3
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Justin Siberell: Prepared statement.......................... 6
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 24
Hearing minutes.................................................. 25
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE COUNTERTERRORISM BUREAU: FY 2017 BUDGET
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Poe. The subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit
statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the record,
subject to the length limitation in the rules.
The purpose of this hearing is to examine the budget for
the Department of State Counterterrorism Bureau, Fiscal Year
2017. I have a lengthy opening statement, but without
objection, I will make it a part of the record and make some
brief comments.
The purpose of this is to determine the Counterterrorism
Bureau's budget. Terrorism is on the rise throughout the world
in different places, especially with ISIS. In any event, the
administration has asked for a reduction in the
Counterterrorism Bureau budget even though that to me is
counterproductive in the sense that terrorism is on the rise.
On the other hand, my concern is about evaluations that
have or have not been made by the success of what the
Counterterrorism Bureau is doing or not doing. Personally, I am
not satisfied that the evaluation of how the money is being
spent and what we are doing is working. So the purpose of this
hearing is to examine both of those, whether the budget should
be cut or raised and whether the evaluations are being produced
and what are the results of those evaluations.
Without objection, I will allow now the former ranking
member of the committee, Mr. Sherman, to make an opening
statement from California. You are recognized.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. I will use my opening statement to
renew the plea I have been making for the State Department for
at least 5 years and that is that you employ a few individuals
who are hired solely for their knowledge of Islamic
jurisprudence, Islamic history, and Islamic law. To think that
we can combat Islamic extremist terrorism without a single
person at the State Department who has memorized the Quran
means that we don't understand the mental world, the
theological world that our potential adversaries live in.
We have a State Department with people who think that you
can show the evil of al-Baghdadi if you can show him personally
executing a defenseless Yazidi. The fact is they will put that
up on their Web page as a recruitment tool. We need people who
understand that if you could just get a picture of him eating a
ham sandwich, that would undermine ISIS and its recruiting
ability.
I remember the conflict between the United States and
Indonesia over whether Indonesia would give us samples of avian
flu and called an Islamic scholar who said, well, we would turn
to the hadith about what the prophet said about rabies, which
is, after all, just another virus that infects an animal. That
is not the kind of knowledge that you can get at Princeton.
Woodrow Wilson did a great job. He did not memorize the Quran.
So we need State Department people to be able to have
access onsite to that kind of scholarship and to an
understanding of Islamic jurisprudence that is every bit as
sophisticated as the knowledge we have on the Vienna Convention
on the Law of Treaties and why the Habsburgs took this or that
position in the negotiations in 18 whatever when that--we have
a Eurocentric body of knowledge in a very smart State
Department, and we are going to have to hire just a few people
who would never pass the test because it is written by the
Woodrow Wilson school and instead could pass the test to
demonstrate a real knowledge of Islam.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The chair recognizes the ranking member and gentleman from
Massachusetts for his opening statement.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this
hearing. I would also like to thank our witness, Mr. Siberell,
for being here to discuss the State Department's
Counterterrorism Bureau.
In our country's fight against terrorism, one indelible
truth has been stated over and over, and it is in order to
truly degrade and ultimately defeat foreign terrorists,
organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda, we need a whole
government-effort approach. The capacity-building programs
funded and coordinated by the State Department's
Counterterrorism Bureau are the types of activities in which
our Government must continue to engage if we are to be
successful in achieving the Bureau's mission of forging
partnerships with our partners at home and abroad in
counterterrorism law enforcement, counter-threat financing,
counter-radicalization efforts, border security, and restricted
terrorist travel.
Undoubtedly, the Bureau has worked to accomplish these
critical objectives while the State Department has revamped its
efforts to tackle one of the hardest aspects of
counterterrorism, and that is combating violent extremism.
The new Center for Global Engagement is attempting to
effectively coordinate, integrate, and synchronize messaging to
foreign audiences that undermines the disinformation espoused
by violent extremist groups. To be sure, this is not an easy
task, and we will hear in detail from Mr. Siberell on the
challenges facing the Bureau.
I am particularly interested in hearing how leadership has
addressed a Government Accountability Office report released
last year on resources, performance, and coordination within
the Bureau.
Finally, it is vital that we ensure that funds
appropriated, the Counterterrorism Bureau for these capacity-
building programs are being used wisely, and the United States
is getting a good return on its investment.
As I stated at the beginning, the Counterterrorism Bureau
plays a critical role in our fight against terrorism,
particularly with regards to interagency and regional
collaboration. I look forward to hearing from our witness today
and to discuss the issues that will ensure.
I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
Without objection, the witness' prepared statement will be
made part of the record. I ask that the witness keep the
presentation to no more than 5 minutes.
I will introduce the witness that we have. Mr. Justin
Siberell is the acting coordinator for the Bureau of
Counterterrorism at the State Department. He is a career member
of the Senior Foreign Service and before joining the CT Bureau,
he served as a principal officer in Dubai, and he has also
worked in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Panama.
So thank you for being here, and you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF MR. JUSTIN SIBERELL, ACTING COORDINATOR FOR
COUNTERTERRORISM, BUREAU OF COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF STATE
Mr. Siberell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Poe,
Ranking Member Keating, members of the subcommittee, thank you
for the opportunity to appear before you today.
This afternoon, I would like to briefly highlight the
Bureau of Counterterrorism's work to advance the foremost
counterterrorism priorities of the United States.
As you noted, Mr. Chairman, I have submitted a longer
statement for the record.
As you know, the United States faces a fluid and fast-
changing terrorism threat environment. The international
community has made progress in degrading terrorism safe havens,
but terrorist groups, especially ISIL and al-Qaeda, remain
resilient.
Recent attacks in Bamako, Beirut, Brussels, Jakarta, and
Paris have demonstrated the reach and continued determination
of these groups to commit violence against civilians. These and
other attacks have raised the urgency and political will of our
partners to act against the evolving threat posed by ISIL, al-
Qaeda, and their affiliates.
President Obama has called for the United States to develop
more effective partnerships around the world to confront,
disrupt, and defeat the global threat from terrorism. The
Bureau of Counterterrorism is playing a critical role in
developing those partnerships.
Success of U.S. counterterrorism efforts increasingly
depends upon capable civilian partners, police, prosecutors,
border and aviation security personnel, prison officials, and
community leaders. As with our own domestic experience, these
actors are on the frontlines in preventing and responding to
terrorism in their communities.
The Bureau is leading efforts to build capacity and
cooperation among these various civilian actors. We appreciate
the Congress' appropriation of $175 million for the
Counterterrorism Partnership's Fund in Fiscal Year 2016. We ask
for your continued support in Fiscal Year 2017. With these
resources we will strengthen the ability of key law enforcement
and criminal justice actors from the Sahel to Southeast Asia.
We are focusing on supporting countries that can help prevent
ISIL's global expansion while not losing sight of al-Qaeda and
its affiliates.
We are expanding our engagement with European partners to
ensure they enhance capabilities to stem the flow of foreign
terrorist fighters, improve information-sharing, and disrupt
local terrorist recruitment networks. We believe these efforts
are yielding results. Since 2014, 45 countries with which we
have engaged have passed new laws or updated existing laws to
address foreign terrorist fighters.
Through the Bureau's diplomatic efforts, we now have
enhanced information-sharing arrangements with 55 countries to
assist efforts to identify, track, and deter the travel of
known and suspected terrorists. We have also supported INTERPOL
to enhance its ability to share critical foreign terrorist
fighter identity data with countries around the world. Fifty-
eight countries plus the United Nations now contribute foreign
terrorist fighter profiles to INTERPOL.
As part of our Fiscal Year 2017 request, we have also asked
for additional funding for our Terrorist Interdiction Program.
This program provides a highly valuable capability for
countries to strengthen border controls through enhanced
technology and training.
Mr. Chairman, as part of our overall strategy, we believe
that we must increase our focus on preventing the spread of
violent extremism to stop the radicalization, recruitment, and
mobilization of people, especially young people, to engage in
terrorist activities.
Secretary Kerry has directed the Bureau of Counterterrorism
to play the lead role in a more strategic, integrated, and
ultimately accountable approach to countering violent
extremism. As notified to the Congress, the Department is
increasing personnel resources in the Bureau to support this
mission and renaming the Bureau as the Bureau of
Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism. We will be
working very closely with the newly established interagency
Global Engagement Center and USAID in this effort.
The Department has also requested additional resources for
CVE programming in Fiscal Year 2017, including as part of the
Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund to expand programs to help
counter violent extremist recruitment and messaging.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, as documented in our statement for
the record, we have made changes within the Bureau over the
past year to foster a culture of strategic planning, learning,
innovation, and collaboration. We have enhanced the monitoring
and evaluation of our foreign assistance programming,
especially our largest programs. Since I last testified before
this committee, we have launched a comprehensive third-party
evaluation of our Antiterrorism Assistance Program. That
evaluation will be completed later this month. We have also
awarded a new third-party evaluation of our CVE programs. We
look forward to briefing you and your staff on the results of
these evaluations.
Mr. Chairman, there is much more work to do. The terrorism
landscape is dynamic, and we must continue to enhance and adapt
our efforts. I am proud of what we are accomplishing at the
Bureau of Counterterrorism. We have a talented team of people
who are committed to the work of countering terrorism and
keeping the country safe.
We greatly appreciate the interest of Congress and your
committee in support of these efforts. I look forward to your
questions and our discussion. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Siberell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The House is in the midst of a series of votes, so the
subcommittee will recess until 5 minutes after the last vote
has ended. So the subcommittee is in recess. We will reconvene
5 minutes after the last vote has ended.
[Recess.]
Mr. Poe. The subcommittee will come to order.
I will recognize myself for 5 minutes for a few questions.
I have three questions, and we have 5 minutes to get the
questions and the answers. So my first question is the
administration maintains that counterterrorism is a top
priority, but why is the administration wanting a budget cut?
Mr. Siberell. Mr. Chairman, I think if you look at the
annual requests that go from Fiscal Year 2015, 2016, 2017, you
will find a significant increase in the '17 request from our
'15 budget. And the reason is that we received a significant
increase in '16 out of the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund,
an additional $175 million that we are working now to develop a
sound process for stewardship of those additional funds. And we
very much appreciate the Congress' support for that program.
For '17 when we put together our request, we looked at what
we believed would be required to sustain those efforts, those
increased efforts in '16, and we determined that an $80 million
request was adequate for that purpose, and bearing in mind that
we want to ensure effective stewardship of those funds. So
either 175 in '16 addition, and then we have asked for 80
additional in '17. So it may appear to be a decrease from the
'16 request because we are asking for less under CTPF from '17
than we received in '16, but overall, it is a significant
increase. I mean, we are talking about a comparison of our
request in '17 from what our budget was in '15 is a more than
$50 million increase in our counterterrorism capacity-building
foreign assistance budget.
Mr. Poe. Okay. We are not reading the same statistics, or
at least I am not reading them the same way you are. The
Counterterrorism Bureau wants 31 percent less money than last
year, is that correct or not?
Mr. Siberell. Well, I would characterize it as our effort
to sustain this significant increase we received in '16, and I
will put it that way.
Mr. Poe. I mean is it--no, put it this way. Is it 31
percent less than last year or not? I don't want to be
argumentative, but I need or yes or no?
Mr. Siberell. Yes. The $80 million we requested is less
than the $175 we received in '16 under the CTPF, yes.
Mr. Poe. The administration promised in 2011 that they
would have a strategy to combat terrorists' use of social
media, 2011. When is that strategy going to be produced because
it hasn't been produced? Do you know?
Mr. Siberell. The administration is working very closely
internally in the United States Government with the domestic
agencies, the FBI, Department of Justice, others----
Mr. Poe. Excuse me again.
Mr. Siberell. Yes.
Mr. Poe. Do you know when that is going to be done?
Mr. Siberell. Is this the strategy you are referring to
from the State Department? I missed the beginning of your
question.
Mr. Poe. Yes, online radicalization by the terrorists' use
of social media, and we were going to have a strategy to combat
that, and the President--the administration promised this in
2011. We don't have it.
Mr. Siberell. Okay.
Mr. Poe. When is it going to happen?
Mr. Siberell. Right. So we have a strategy on countering
violent extremism that we are just preparing to release with
the State Department and USAID that does, as one of its
objectives, address the need for effective counter-messaging
and counter-narratives, and that is one of the five objectives
in that strategy that is to be released within the coming week.
Mr. Poe. Within a week?
Mr. Siberell. That is the State Department, USAID
countering violent extremism strategy, joint strategy.
Mr. Poe. All right. And the last question is GAO reported
that the CT Bureau has not evaluated its Countering Violent
Extremism program despite the Bureau saying since 2012 it would
evaluate the program. When is that going to happen?
Mr. Siberell. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question. In
our hearing last year we discussed the importance of evaluation
of CTE Bureau-funded Foreign Assistance Programs, and you
emphasized the importance of this, and we have taken that very
seriously. We have undertaken a number of evaluations,
including we have put out a notice of funding for a
comprehensive third-party evaluation of our Countering Violent
Extremism programs in three countries: Indonesia, Kenya, and
Bangladesh. That has been out for funding. It is being awarded
now, and we expect that that evaluation will be completed by
the end of this year.
Mr. Poe. So the GAO, their answer would--I mean, it hasn't
happened yet, and your answer is that it will be done by the
end of the year, there will be an evaluation?
Mr. Siberell. Yes.
Mr. Poe. Combating terrorism, I think we can all agree to
the fact that it is important because terrorism is on the rise.
Tell me why we should justify the CT Bureau? Why should
Congress justify its existence? Try to keep it simple if you
would.
Mr. Siberell. Sure. I think it is a very good question, and
I appreciate the opportunity to answer.
People often think of counterterrorism as a mission for law
enforcement agencies in the domestic realm or for the military
or intelligence agencies in the international realm. In fact,
diplomacy plays a key role in bringing together partnerships
and nations to address our primary counterterrorism objectives.
We see that in the coalitions that we build to defeat terrorist
groups on a regional, sub-regional basis, or even a global
basis. So the global coalition to fight ISIL is an example. The
coalition of African partners we have developed to fight Boko
Haram in West Africa, the coalition of nations we have helped
to develop to fight Al-Shabaab in East Africa.
Those are just examples of where diplomacy plays a key
role, and the Bureau of Counterterrorism leads in a number of
those efforts to build international will, political will and
partnership and cooperation against these common threats.
The other piece of what we do--and we appreciate, again,
the funding we receive from Congress for this purpose--is to
help build capacity in our primary counterterrorism partners.
In line with the President's policy of developing strong
partnerships, I know the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund we
are helping to build capacity among our partners across the
civilian agencies so not just in--and our DOD colleagues handle
that on the military side, but we helped to build improved CT
legislation, improved judicial capability to prosecute
terrorist suspects, improved border security measures, improved
civilian security agencies.
All of those programs are funded through the support you
provide to our bureau, and that is what we execute in our
foreign assistance. So on the one level we are working
diplomatically to build coalitions to address our terrorism
challenges, and then we are trying to build capacity in our
partners to address those in the regions from which these
threats emanate.
Mr. Poe. Thank you. The chair recognizes the ranking
member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Keating.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Last week, I was in Tunisia, and the situation there was
described in terms of dealing with terrorist issues there by
the President himself as fragile, a term he used in our
conversation at least 10 times by my count. And you are looking
at a country like that that is struggling to do so many things,
and he kept impressing on us, too, and I have seen it in other
countries, particularly in that region, where they are getting
stressed, leaders are, particularly leaders that are trying to
move forward in a way that improves democracy.
The economic issue is just squeezing them on one end in
terms of support. Some of the other changes that languish, too,
are a problem.
How is the Bureau working, you know, to coordinate not only
counterterrorism but also rule-of-law issues? How do they
factor that in, economic issues? Because I don't think there
will be a lasting effort with this without a strong
collaboration on all of those issues.
Mr. Siberell. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
With Tunisia, I agree entirely that that is a country that
is passing through a very important political transition but
that has caused significant fragility within the government
system. And you can absolutely correlate the rise of terrorist
groups to failures in governance in certain parts of the world
and certainly in North Africa and the Middle East. And we see
that in Libya, obviously, and Yemen and other places where the
government has collapsed and the terrorist groups rise.
So it is absolutely important that we help the Tunisian
Government through this transition, and that absolutely
includes economic support to assist the government to ensure
that their economy produces the jobs and hopes and
opportunities for young people that have high expectations from
this political transition.
Our counterterrorism assistance is also robust with the
Tunisian Government and has grown. They face a significant
threat from regional groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic
Maghreb who have come out of Algeria and have brought threats
into Tunisia. Of course, we have seen the attacks on the museum
and the tourist site in Sousse. Those were planned by
individuals----
Mr. Keating. I was there.
Mr. Siberell. Yes. So this is a country under assault
effectively from these terrorist groups, and it does require a
comprehensive response from us----
Mr. Keating. Yes. I think they deserve great credit for
what they are trying to do, but they are definitely in a very
tenuous situation doing it.
Let me just shift quickly. Twitter requested last week as
well, one of its partners Dataminr, a service that offers
advanced social media analytics and early detection of major
events like terrorist attacks, to stop providing intelligence
agencies with their tools and their content. Does this affect
the relationship with the CT or with the Bureau of Global
Engagement at all, these kind of actions?
Mr. Siberell. I am sorry, sir. The action is to restrict
the sharing of information with----
Mr. Keating. Yes, with law enforcement----
Mr. Siberell [continuing]. Law enforcement----
Mr. Keating [continuing]. Agencies.
Mr. Siberell. Well, I think we rely upon a cooperative
relationship with the social media companies, and that is
primarily the work domestically of the FBI, Department of
Justice. A cooperative relationship is important because those
companies, through their terms of service, are in the best
position to identify content which can be helpful to those
groups in radicalization and----
Mr. Keating. In terms of content, do you ever use
testimonials from foreign fighters who have come back
disillusioned?
Mr. Siberell. Yes, indeed, indeed. The Global Engagement
Center to which you just referred has launched several thematic
campaigns to amplify messaging, including they ran a campaign
of formers or defectors. Those who had gone off to Iraq and
Syria had a disillusioning experience and then were putting
their testimonials on social media as a way to push back and
counter the narrative that ISIL has put out about its
caliphates.
Mr. Keating. And again on messaging, and it is too bad I
can't--we are limited with time, but on messaging, are you
using women and community-based projects? Well, Denmark just
advanced a program where it is concentrating on a network of
mothers to identify early signs. Are you engaged in that, and
how successful has that been?
Mr. Siberell. Well, there are two things I can point to.
One is another one of the thematic campaigns that the GEC ran,
which was centered around families and the impact upon families
of those who have gone off to fight for these terrorist groups.
And that was a very effective campaign, and it did focus in
large part on mothers and the role in the family.
The second is we have undertaken in a number of our
Countering Violent Extremism programs to focus on women
because, as you noted, women are in a unique position in most
communities to identify the signs of radicalization or the
infiltration of ideas and ideology of the terrorist groups. So
they are a primary recipient of our Countering Violent
Extremism programming effort.
I will also say, however, that they are difficult to reach
because this is at the community level, and we have to get our
programming down to that level. And that is why we work with
partners like USAID who have the connections in many cases
through their development work to reach women and build
networks of women, which they have a history also of doing in
many parts of the world successfully.
Mr. Keating. Just lastly, I will give you a chance--the GAO
reported recently that there were staffing positions that
weren't filled and recommended that they be filled. What is the
status of that right now?
Mr. Siberell. Well, we have 102 authorized full-time
employment positions in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, 93 of
which are filled. That leaves nine vacancies, and of those nine
vacancies, eight are in the process of being filled or being
advertised. So I think we are doing a pretty good job in
addressing what the GAO had found in the last several years.
The Bureau was established as a result of the 2011 QDDR. It
really became a bureau in 2012. We were allotted a surge of new
positions, and it did take some time for the Bureau to process
through those, but we have done that and now we are in fairly
good shape and are hiring.
Mr. Keating. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Siberell. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts.
The chair will recognize the gentleman from California,
Colonel Cook, for his questioning.
Mr. Cook. Thank you very much, sir.
I wanted to ask you about Libya and the decisions that are
going to be made about our arming certain individuals. And of
course the fear is here we go again. Are we giving this to
ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, whatever acronym you want to use or whatever
you call them? And my fear with the State Department or any is
that the right hand does not talk to the left hand in terms of
coordinating this information so we make an informed choice and
then we regret it afterwards. Can you briefly comment on that?
Mr. Siberell. Thank you, Congressman. In Libya it is a very
difficult, fluid situation, as you have noted, basically
chaotic, and you have militias that are squaring off against
Daesh principally in the area around Sirte in the center of the
country. Those militias are not yet integrated into a Libyan
national force, so sharing arms or assisting those groups on
the ground would be a complicated and difficult endeavor. In
some cases, however, there are those sub-state actors who are
in the best position to confront ISIL, so navigating that
landscape while ensuring that those arms would no transfer over
to ISIL would be a significant task and a very difficult one.
Mr. Cook. I want to shift gears a little bit. Maybe this is
out of the realm a little bit, but I am from San Bernardino
County. And obviously, we had a very difficult and horrific
situation involving a terrorist there. And the coordination of
Federal agencies with--and by the way, I was very, very happy
with the way the FBI and the sheriff and the police chief, they
all worked together.
But in terms of--and then we had some problems with getting
the data from the cell phone of one of the individuals, you
know, Apple and you have heard all that drama. Now, if you have
information of something that would actually affect us in the
country here, how is that coordinated?
And I know that is a very difficult question, but I get the
feeling that we don't always have the best of coordination with
Federal agencies because everybody works in their own
functional area or functional silo and the word is not
disseminated, and what happens is boom, something like this
happens even though we might have had advanced warning. But if
you could comment on that, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Siberell. Well, sir, if you are speaking about
coordination of the domestic level among the national security
agencies or the law enforcement agencies, I may not be the best
place to----
Mr. Cook. Well, I meant somebody that had ties to a
terrorist country that----
Mr. Siberell. Yes.
Mr. Cook [continuing]. But eventually, the terrorist
incident actually happens. You know, we had this a few years
ago when we were talking about the bombings in Boston and
Chechnya and we had talked about this previously. But----
Mr. Siberell. I would say that in my own experience, the
counterterrorism community and the U.S. Government is extremely
well coordinated and integrated in so far as when there is an
incident like the Boston Marathon bombers and the need to
understand the linkages that might exist in a different
country.
Same thing with the San Bernardino attack. There is very
close cooperation between the FBI, the principal investigative
arm of the U.S. Government, and FBI agents who might be posted
at our Embassies abroad or representatives of the intelligence
agencies who can help to pull back the threads on any
connections. And that is always one of the very first
questions, of course, that arises in a domestic terrorism
incident: Is there a connection to an international
organization or is this directed by a group outside the United
States?
And particularly for these attacks like the one in San
Bernardino, we see ISIL trying to inspire attacks, and those
questions are always asked and then referred to the host
country where we work with the intelligence agencies, the law
enforcement agencies in those countries to develop those
threats.
Mr. Cook. Thank you. And I am jumping around a little bit,
but I always go back to Turkey. And it is not even
Thanksgiving. Anyway, bad joke. Really concerned about
The PKK, the Erdogan, and it is like who is the terrorist
and whether somebody is being falsely accused of being a
terrorist. And obviously, this affects the politics of that
particular country where you can use the counterterrorist
threat to carry out a political agenda. Would you want to
comment on that or is that too politically sensitive? Or is
that something that would fall under counterterrorism?
Mr. Siberell. Well, I can say, sir, in general terms on a
global basis we are quite concerned about how governments
undertake their own counterterrorism efforts domestically. And
those governments that might use counterterrorism as a
justification for acts that transgressed human rights or that
are heavy-handed, let's say, in their security approach might
actually drive the grievances that are leading to the terrorism
in the first place. So that is a conversation we have globally
with many, many partners around the world, and it is something
that we watch very closely.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The committee may ask you to appear before the committee in
a classified setting. Colonel Cook and the ranking member and
others have raised some questions that we may want to get to
the bottom of it to understand the situation in the classified
setting where some of these questions can be answered so we get
to the bottom line of what is taking place. So thank you for
being here today. You have got a lot of work to do. You have a
got a mess on your hands as far as all these bad guys all over
the world, you know, causing mischief and taking the lives of
innocents. So it is a tough assignment.
So, anyway, there may be some other questions that we have
for you that we will put in writing and we will send to you, in
addition to the possible classified setting.
So without objection, all the witnesses' prepared
statements will be part of the record. Members will have 5 days
to submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for
the record subject to the length limitation and the rules.
And the subcommittee is adjourned.
Mr. Siberell. Thank you. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:18 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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