[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1956-S1957]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               TERRORISM

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, back in February of 1993, as we all 
remember so vividly, the World Trade Center in New York City was 
bombed. Over 1,000 people were wounded and 6 people were killed. Two 
years later, the Federal building in Oklahoma was bombed; 168 people 
died, including many children.
  These two very tragic events highlight the potential threat this 
country is subjected to and, in fact, has been subjected to in the area 
of terrorism. The threat of terrorism was further reinforced with the 
events in Africa where two of our embassies were bombed 3 years ago.
  The Commerce, State, Justice, Appropriations Subcommittee, which I 
chair, directed the Attorney General to develop a plan to address 
terrorism which would be a Governmentwide plan, an interagency 
counterterrorism plan. The Attorney General, in a very conscientious 
effort, put together a 5-year interagency counterterrorism and 
technology crime plan. It was an excellent proposal. This proposal was 
put together by the Attorney General 3 years ago. It basically became 
known as the bible--for lack of a better or more descriptive word--as 
to how we should proceed in the area of developing a Governmentwide 
strategy in order to address terrorism, something we hadn't done up 
until that point.
  It wasn't just to focus on Federal Government agencies but, rather, 
it went beyond that and talked about how we needed to integrate the 
private sector and State and local governments in our efforts to 
address terrorism. It had a large number of functions within it, a 
large number of areas that had to be addressed, as was obvious to those 
of us who took even a cursory look at the issue of terrorism.
  Unfortunately, we, as a culture, were not ready to address terrorist 
acts because we are an open culture. The essence of our culture is 
freedom, the ability of people to move freely among our society. It is 
very difficult for us to deal with people who are willing to kill 
indiscriminately simply to make their points of view known. It requires 
a lot of thought and effort for us as a nation to address a problem 
such as terrorism. That is why we asked for this 5-year plan to be 
developed.
  As part of this 5-year plan, one of the key things we believed we 
needed to address was the fact that there really wasn't anyplace where 
all of the issues of terrorism were being brought together. There were 
something like 43 different agencies addressing some element of the 
terrorist threat. This was not counting the issues of State and local 
government involvement and the issue of the private sector. For 
instance, how would the private sector address a terrorist threat to 
our power grid and our telecommunications systems.
  One of the first things deemed necessary to do was to develop a 
centralized place where people could go, whether they happened to be in 
the Federal Government, State and local government, or whether they 
happened to be in the private sector, a centralized place where people 
could go and find out how to approach the issue of preparing our Nation 
to be able to handle the terrorist threat. An office was designated to 
be created called the National Domestic Preparedness Office, or the 
NDPO.
  The NDPO was essentially to be a one-stop shopping center on the 
issue of how we address the threat of terrorism as a nation, a very 
important activity. It was to include participation by DOD, the 
Department of Defense, by FEMA, by HHS, Health and Human Services, by 
the Department of Energy, by the Environmental Protection Agency, by 
the Attorney General, and by the FBI. State and local authorities were 
to be included for participation in this office. It was to be a central 
agency which had all the players needed to be at the table--up and 
functioning and continually available as a resource to address the 
threat of terrorism.
  Unfortunately, this administration has treated the issue of terrorism 
as a stepchild. When there is a terrorist event, they react. In some 
instances, they react arbitrarily and ineffectively, as they did in 
reaction to the African situation where they essentially ended up 
targeting a facility in Sudan. It is still very much an issue, as to 
whether the facility was actually producing any chemical weapons. Also, 
they attacked a facility in Afghanistan. Rather than assisting our 
ability of tracking down the terrorist Bin Laden, it made it obvious to 
him that he could never again have a joint meeting of his terrorist 
forces. Thus, he scattered them to the wind and we have had much more 
trouble tracking them down.

  The response of this administration has been a PR response, to be 
quite honest, on the issue of terrorism at many levels. When it comes 
to actually substantively addressing the issue of terrorism, this 
administration's response from the top has been woeful.
  I will acknowledge, in fact I will cite and congratulate, that at the 
agency level there is an ongoing, aggressive, and very positive effort 
to address terrorism. But, for some reason, there is an unwillingness 
in the White House to genuinely focus on this issue in a way that 
produces results.
  One of the most glaring examples of that unwillingness to focus is 
the fact that the NDPO--the office which was supposed to be the one-
stop shopping center for people who wanted to get ready to address a 
terrorist event--hasn't really been allowed to wither on the vine 
because they never even planted the seeds to get the vine growing. The 
office has not been funded. In fact, the travel funds which were 
supposed to be applied to it have been cut off. The office has been 
unable to get reprogramming through OMB, even though the Attorney 
General has requested on a number of occasions to get reprogramming 
through OMB to allow the office to function effectively.

[[Page S1957]]

  The FBI Director has not been able to get reprogramming through OMB 
that has allowed the office to function effectively. The State and 
local advisory groups which were supposed to be set up to bring the 
first responders--the local police, local fire, local health officials 
who have the knowledge and the expertise to do the job right and do it 
in a coordinated way with the Federal Government--in to advise the NDPO 
has not been energized in any effective way. We do not get the 
standardization on equipment we need. We are not getting the leadership 
from the top that we need in the area of making the States and local 
people as knowledgeable as we can.
  I will say this: At least in the other areas where we are trying to 
educate first responders, such as our initiatives across this country 
in education, we are making progress. But the central management agency 
has been ignored.
  We understand the reprogramming that the NDPO needs in order to fund 
its activities effectively for this year will not be adequately 
fulfilled. So this agency has been allowed to simply sit there and has 
not been energized. In fact, as I understand it, the person named 
director of the NDPO has recently, within the last week, asked to be 
transferred out of the job. I do not know why he asked for that, but I 
certainly can guess. I suspect it is because of the frustration of 
doing a job where he was not getting the support he needed from the 
White House and from this administration to do it effectively.
  Terrorism is not a political event. It should not be used for the 
purpose of initiating press conferences or trying to drive poll 
numbers. This is an extraordinarily serious issue. We as a nation need 
to have a Government that doesn't approach this issue in a manner which 
involves something less than a total commitment. Yet that is the way it 
is being approached by this administration and its failure to fund, 
organize, and energize the National Domestic Preparedness Office.
  This same problem was highlighted in a news story in the Wall Street 
Journal relative to another issue of terrorism. It was again requested 
by the subcommittee I Chair in this Congress that there be exercises--
much like our military undertakes--to determine our readiness to deal 
with a terrorist event. During the cold war days, if you were in the 
Strategic Air Command, every 6 months you knew, if you were on a 
Strategic Air Command air base, at some point during that 6 months you 
were going to have a full-scale alert, and you were going to have to 
act as if you were in a confrontation with the Soviet Union.
  That was the way we kept our forces current and that is how we found 
out the problems in our systems. It is the way it is still done in the 
military. You have what amounts to war games in order to determine 
whether or not you are ready to participate in a real, live event. 
Well, terrorism is war. It is war on our Nation, and we know there are 
people out there who intend to exercise their ability to wage war on 
America. They have already done it. We need to go through the exercises 
of determining whether or not the agencies that are going to be 
responsible to protect the American people are ready to respond in the 
case of a terrorist event.
  So we asked the administration, to pursue exercises to determine 
whether or not we are ready--mock exercises. These were to take place 
in three different communities across our country. Now, in a recent 
report in the Wall Street Journal, it was stated that some of the top 
agencies that are involved in this exercise are basically taking a 
laissez-fair attitude toward the exercise and are basically saying that 
they may participate but participate at a very low level of operations, 
or they are going to participate with very low level personnel--not 
that they won't be good personnel, but they won't be the personnel who 
have the final responsibility in the event of a real terrorist event or 
attack on our country. That would be unfortunate.
  The Attorney General, I understand, not directly but indirectly, 
believes she is getting commitments from the various agencies to 
fulfill their role of having senior personnel at DOD, DOE, HHS, EPA, 
FEMA, and State, and obviously the Attorney General and the FBI--senior 
personnel--involved in these exercises, so that we know when we have a 
problem, the people who can resolve them are physically there on site 
and can observe the problem and can participate in resolving and 
developing a response to the problem.
  Now, the Attorney General tells me, indirectly through my staff, that 
the news story may not have been completely accurate. But the news 
story quoted some sources and said certain agencies within the 
administration were not going to be seriously committed to this 
exercise. That, again, in my opinion, shows the laissez-fair attitude 
this administration has taken toward preparing this Nation to address a 
terrorist event.
  As I said earlier, terrorism is not a partisan issue, not a political 
issue; it is a serious threat to our country. It has to be addressed 
aggressively and professionally by the agencies that are responsible. 
The Congress can only do so much. We have funded aggressively 
antiterrorism efforts. We have set up structures, working with the 
agencies to try to make sure that we have a coordinated response. We 
have requested that the agencies involved participate in trying to make 
sure that they are as ready as possible for a horrific event. But all 
we can do is fund and request. If we don't get cooperation and 
enthusiasm and commitment from this administration, then we will not 
have success.
  So I have come to the floor today to highlight what I am very 
concerned about and what I think we should all be concerned about, 
which is whether or not there is a sincerity of effort occurring within 
this administration to get us ready to address a potential terrorism 
threat to the United States.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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