[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 118 (Monday, September 27, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9696-S9700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I also wish to speak for a few minutes
about the mess in Iraq. Last week, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi came to
Washington to join in President Bush's campaign of relentless happy
talk about the war in Iraq. President Bush says:
We're making progress. We're making progress.
Meanwhile, back in the real world--the world that American soldiers
confront on the ground in Iraq--the chaos gets worse and worse. Entire
regions and many provincial capitals are under the insurgents' control.
Virtually every day we see car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations,
beheadings.
As we learned last week, the CIA has produced a formal National
Intelligence Estimate that says that, at best, the current level of
violence will continue and, at worst, Iraq will plunge into a civil
war. As Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged yesterday, it is
getting worse in Iraq. But amazingly, President Bush insists that this
mess in Iraq has made us safer, and the President and his political
allies have been relentless in using the war on terror for their own
electoral purposes.
Their message to the American people is simple: Be afraid, President
Bush will protect you; his opponent will not.
Vice President Dick Cheney also took this line of attack 2 weeks ago
when he darkly warned with his Darth Vader-type voice that if John
Kerry is elected President, then ``the danger is we'll get hit again,
that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating.'' That was Vice
President Cheney.
Last Tuesday, the senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, said that
terrorists ``are going to throw everything they can between now and the
election to try and elect Kerry.''
Last Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said
terrorists in Iraq ``are trying to influence the election against
President Bush.''
If these gentlemen have such excellent access to the terrorists'
thoughts, they are not doing a good job of turning that knowledge into
effective policy against the terrorists. At key junctures, this
administration has made disastrously wrong choices. Repeatedly, these
decisions have played into the terrorists' hands. Let's look at the
record.
[[Page S9697]]
It is a fact that the September 11 attacks happened despite repeated
warnings to Mr. Bush from the CIA that al-Qaida was planning to attack
America. Those warnings included an August 8, 2001, President's daily
briefing which he received while he was vacationing in Crawford, TX.
The report was titled ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.''
That is not a subhead or a sentence in the memo, that is the title of
the memo: ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.''
Let's look at the rest of the record.
On President Bush's watch, the U.S. botched the single best
opportunity to capture bin Laden at Torah Borah in Afghanistan. A
political decision was made to allow Afghan warlords to carry the brunt
of that siege, and bin Laden escaped.
It was President Bush who 3 years ago pledged to smoke bin Laden out
of his cave, but has utterly failed to do so. Instead, by successfully
defying President Bush, bin Laden has become a folk hero across the
Muslim world. He has attracted not only thousands of new recruits, but
dozens of imitators, new bin Ladens who are forming their own terrorist
organizations to attack America and Americans.
It was President Bush who diverted our military intelligence
resources and certain military hardware, such as the Predator aircraft,
the unmanned aerial vehicles, took them out of Afghanistan, away from
the hunt for bin Laden and sent them to Iraq.
It was President Bush whose taunt, ``Bring it on,'' did indeed bring
it on--a nationwide insurgency in Iraq, an urban guerrilla war that has
trapped our Armed Forces in a quagmire.
It was President Bush whose unilateral approach on Iraq alienated
many of our oldest allies and turned world opinion against the United
States.
It was President Bush whose invasion and occupation of the second
largest Arab country has outraged much of the Muslim world and has been
a recruiting bonanza for Islamist terrorists.
This is an astonishing record of mistakes, misjudgments, and
mismanagement. It is an astonishing record of George W. Bush again and
again playing into Osama bin Laden's hands. It is like Wile E. Coyote
chasing the Road Runner, only this time it is not funny. It is a
colossal tragedy. It has put our Nation at even greater risk of
terrorist attack.
Ironically, President Bush's father, George Herbert Walker Bush,
warned against the folly of invading and occupying Iraq. Listen to
this. On February 28, 1999, speaking to a group of Desert Storm
veterans at Fort Myer, VA, former President Bush said:
Had we gone into Baghdad--we could have done it, you guys
could have done it, you could have been there in 48
hours--and then what?
The first President Bush continued:
Whose life would be on my hands as the Commander in Chief
because I, unilaterally, went beyond international law, went
beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our
macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an
occupying power--America in an Arab land--with no allies at
our side. It would have been disastrous.
That is the first President Bush. That is not me. That is an exact
quote from the first President Bush, 1999. I would say to this
President: You do not have to listen to us, just listen to your father.
He would have told you what you are getting into in Iraq.
This is what his father said:
We're going to be an occupying power--America in an Arab
land--with no allies at our side. It would have been
disastrous.
It is disastrous. Of course, we heard the same prophetic warnings
from Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and other foreign policy experts.
But this President Bush and his partner Dick Cheney and the
neoconservative intellectuals thought they knew better. They reveled in
words such as ``slam dunk'' and ``cakewalk.'' And so now the disaster
that Bush 41 warned against has become a reality under Bush 43.
The Iraq invasion has set back, rather than advanced, the war on
terrorism and al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden remains at large--an imminent
danger to our homeland. Our Armed Forces are bogged down in Iraq, with
casualties rising above 8,000, and they are not able to respond to real
threats to the United States. Our moral authority and credibility on
the world stage are at rock bottom.
The other day I was watching former President Carter at the Carter
Center answer a question. He said he has been, I believe I am not
mistaken, in over 120 countries. He said never in the history of the
United States has our country been at such low esteem and moral
authority in the rest of the world--never in the history of our
country.
Despite President Bush's blustery threats about the so-called axis of
evil, on his watch, North Korea has acquired nuclear weapons and Iran
appears to be proceeding with impunity to develop its own nuclear
weapons. This is an extraordinary record of mistakes, misjudgments,
miscalculations, and missed opportunities.
As a consequence of President Bush's choices over the last 4 years,
America is weaker, America is less secure, America is more vulnerable.
I say to my friend and colleague from Utah, whom I quoted earlier,
look at the record. Look at this record and come to only one
conclusion: The single best recruitment poster for al-Qaida and the
terrorists is our policy in Iraq. Quite frankly, the architect of that
policy, the person who is carrying it out, is President George W. Bush.
No, it is not John Kerry, I say to my friend from Utah. It is not John
Kerry. George W. Bush's reckless, stubborn policy is the single best
recruiter for al-Qaida, and this must end so that our people can truly
be made secure; that we can go after the terrorists; that we can get
out of this quagmire in Iraq; that we can once again become the moral
authority, the shining city on a hill that America has been to the rest
of the world. I am sad to say it will not happen on this President's
watch. That is why a change is in order.
I ask unanimous consent that an article that appeared September 26,
2004, in the Los Angeles Times be printed in its entirety in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 26, 2004]
Al Qaeda Seen as Wider Threat
(By Douglas Frantz, Josh Meyer, Sebastian Rotella and Megan K. Stack)
Rabat, Morocco.--Authorities have made little progress
worldwide in defeating Islamic extremists affiliated with Al
Qaeda despite thwarting attacks and arresting high-profile
figures, according to interviews with intelligence and law
enforcement officials and outside experts.
On the contrary, officials warn that the Bush
administration's upbeat assessment of its successes is overly
optimistic and masks its strategic failure to understand and
combat Al Qaeda's evolution.
Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda was a loosely
organized network, but core leaders exercised considerable
control over its operations. Since the loss of its base in
Afghanistan and many of those leaders, the organization has
dispersed its operatives and reemerged as a lethal
ideological movement.
Osama bin Laden may now serve more as an inspirational
figure than a CEO, and the war in Iraq is helping focus
militants' anger, according to dozens of interviews in recent
weeks on several continents. European and moderate Islamic
countries have become targets. And instead of undergoing
lengthy training at camps in Afghanistan, recruits have been
quickly indoctrinated at home and deployed on attacks.
The United States remains a target, but counter-terrorism
officials and experts are alarmed by Al Qaeda's switch from
spectacular attacks that require years of planning to
smaller, more numerous strikes on softer targets that can be
carried out swiftly with little money or outside help.
The impact of these smaller attacks can be enormous.
Bombings in Casablanca in May 2003 shook Morocco's budding
democracy, leading to mass arrests and claims of abuse. The
bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid in March
contributed to the ouster of Spain's government and the
withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.
Officials say the terrorist movement has benefited from the
rapid spread of radical Islam's message among potential
recruits worldwide who are motivated by Al Qaeda's anti-
Western doctrine, the continuing Palestinian-Israeli conflict
and the insurgency in Iraq.
The Iraq war, which President Bush says is necessary to
build a safer world, has emerged as a new front in the battle
against terrorism and a rallying point for a seemingly
endless supply of young extremists willing to die in a jihad,
or how war.
Intelligence and counter-terrorism officials said Iraq also
was replacing Afghanistan and the Russian republic of
Chechnya as the premier location for on-the-job training for
the next phase of violence against the West and Arab regimes.
``In Iraq, a problem has been created that didn't exist
there before,'' said Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere of France,
dean of Europe's anti-terrorism investigators. ``The events
in Iraq have had a profound impact on the entirety of the
jihad movement.''
[[Page S9698]]
Officials warn that radical Islam is fanning extremism in
moderate Islamic countries such as Morocco, where the threat
of terrorism has escalated with unexpected speed and
ferocity, and re-energizing adherents in old hot spots such
as Kenya and Yemen.
In recent weeks, police thwarted an attack against a U.S.
target in Morocco at the last minute, and concerns have
increased sharply about the possibility of attacks in Kenya,
U.S. and foreign officials say.
The Madrid bombings and arrests in Britain this summer
highlight Europe's emergence as a danger zone. Long used by
extremists as a haven for recruitment and planning attacks
elsewhere, the continent now is believed to be a target
itself, especially countries backing the Iraq war.
Al Qaeda's transformation since the destruction of its
Afghan training camps nearly three years ago has been
chronicled extensively. Arrests and killings of senior
leaders and the shutting down of major avenues of financing
further fragmented the network.
Bush said at the Republican National Convention this month
that more than three-quarters of Al Qaeda's leadership had
been killed or captured.
Among those arrested are Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged
planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Abu Zubeida, who oversaw
the global network and helped recruit for the training bases
in Afghanistan.
Administration officials contend that information from
interrogations helped prevent new attacks and unravel the
network, leaving Al Qaeda too diminished to carry out a
strike as complex as that of Sept. 11.
Polls indicate that voters trust Bush to handle the fight
against terrorism better than his Democratic challenger, Sen.
John F. Kerry.
A far less reassuring assessment of the condition of
Islamic extremism emerged from the interviews with government
intelligence officials, religious figures and counter-
terrorism experts in the United States, Europe, the Middle
East and North Africa.
Although opinions are not unanimous and ambiguities remain,
there is a consensus that Al Qaeda's leadership still exerts
some control over attacks worldwide. However, veterans of the
extremist movement have demonstrated a new autonomy in using
the group's ideology and training techniques to launch
attacks with little or no direct contact with the leaders.
``Any assessment that the global terror movement has been
rolled back or that even one component, Al Qaeda, is on the
run is optimistic and most certainly incorrect,'' said M.J.
Gohel, head of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London think
tank. ``Bin Laden's doctrines are now playing themselves out
all over the world. Destroying Al Qaeda will not resolve the
problem.''
U.S. and foreign intelligence officials said the Bush
administration's focus on the ``body count'' of Al Qaeda
leaders and its determination to stop the next attack meant
comparatively few resources were devoted to understanding the
threat.
Michael Scheuer, a senior CIA official, said in an
interview that agents wound up ``chasing our tails'' to
capture suspects and follow up leads at the expense of
countering the rapid spread of Al Qaeda and the international
jihad.
Scheuer, chief of the CIA's Bin Laden unit from 1996 to
1999, now plays a broader role in counter-terrorism at the
agency. He is the author of ``Imperial Hubris,'' a recent
book that criticized U.S. counter-terrorism policy; the
interview with him occurred before the CIA restricted his
conversations with reporters.
Another counter-terrorism expert who works as a consultant
for the U.S. government and its allies said Scheuer's
criticism had been echoed elsewhere.
``I think they're deluged with the immediate stuff and I
think their horizons are also very, very short-term,'' said
the consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``One of
the biggest complaints I hear when talking to intelligence
services around the world is that the Americans are so
interested in the short term, preventing attacks and getting
credit.''
Anti-terrorism experts who fault the administration's
strategy and its optimism argue that concentrating on
individual plots and operatives obscures the need to address
the broader dimensions of Islamic extremism and makes it
impossible to mount an effective defense.
The Al Qaeda movement now appears to be more of an ideology
than an organization, spreading worldwide among cells
inspired by the Sept. 11 attacks.
Adherents generally share a few basic principles: an
overarching belief that Muslims must take up arms in a holy
war against the Judeo-Christian West, a profound sense of
indignation over the deaths of Muslims in Palestinian
territories and Iraq, and a conviction that secular rulers
should be replaced by Islamic governments.
But beyond that, their concerns often splinter along the
lines of geography, local politics and the intricacies of
Islamic thought. A Moroccan is unlikely to pursue the same
targets or even agree with the strategy of his Saudi
counterparts. Saudis, in turn, are fighting bitterly among
themselves over whether it's more important to battle the
royal family at home or the Americans in Iraq.
The inadequate response to the threat is not unique to
Washington.
European officials also see gaps in their policies,
particularly when it comes to understanding the complexity of
the situation, said Gijs de Vries, the counter-terrorism
coordinator for the European Union.
``Al Qaeda is increasingly being invoked as an ideological
motivation of Islamic radicals,'' he said. ``There is a type
of diffuse jihadism, which on the one hand consists of
loosely structured small cells and on the other hand
ideology.''
shift to smaller strikes
A new cadre of second-generation Al Qaeda commanders has
compensated for the damage to the network by stepping up the
pace of attacks with smaller strikes on soft targets.
The strategy relies on a limited number of veteran
operatives trained in Afghanistan who function with a high
degree of autonomy. They recruit foot soldiers through
mosques, local groups and the Internet, then provide on-site
training in bomb-making and tactics.
Senior counter-terrorism authorities in the U.S. and Europe
say they are not certain how much central control is
exercised over these independent operators--or even whether
they are linked to one another in a formal manner.
But officials said evidence indicated that attacks in Saudi
Arabia, Morocco and Turkey during the last 16 months were
part of a loosely coordinated pattern that could be traced to
Bin Laden and his lieutenants.
Based primarily on intercepted communications from Iran to
Saudi Arabia by U.S. listening posts, U.S. and European
officials said orders for the suicide bombings in the Saudi
capital of Riyadh on May 12, 2003, came from an Al Qaeda
fugitive in Iran.
The officials said the most likely suspect was Saif Adel, a
former Bin Laden bodyguard now believed to be Al Qaeda's
military commander. But Western security officials said Adel
was only one of numerous Al Qaeda figures granted haven by
Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Iran denies that.
Extremists behind a string of attacks in Saudi Arabia since
then operate with a large degree of independence, but Saudi
security officials said the radicals retained links with Al
Qaeda leaders in Iran and elsewhere by telephone and courier.
Authorities in Morocco and Europe said the go-ahead for the
Casablanca suicide attacks on May 16, four days after the
Riyadh bombings, was given at a meeting of Al Qaeda
commanders in Istanbul, Turkey, in January 2003. They also
said the young men who died carrying out the five nearly
simultaneous bombings were recruited and trained by an Al
Qaeda veteran.
Turkish extremists who bombed two synagogues, the British
Consulate and the headquarters of a London-based bank in
Istanbul in November 2003, killing more than 60 people,
received money and advice on targets from Al Qaeda and its
associates, according to testimony this month in the trial of
69 suspects.
One of the defendants, Adrian Ersoz, testified that he
arranged a meeting in August 2001 in Afghanistan between
Habib Akdas, the leader of the Turkish cell, and Mohammed
Atef, also known as Abu Hafs Masri, a top Bin Laden
lieutenant later killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan.
He said that Akdas was promised money from Al Qaeda but
that after Afghanistan's Taliban regime collapsed, the cell
leader turned for financial help to Al Qaeda representatives
in Iran and Syria, whom Ersoz did not identify. Akdas fled to
Iraq immediately after the Istanbul bombings and participated
in the kidnapping of several Turkish workers there, Turkish
authorities said.
These smaller strikes cost relatively little, even compared
with the modest $500,000 price tag for Sept. 11, indicating
that the network has adapted to the clampdown on its
financing methods.
Mohammed Bouzoubaa, Morocco's justice minister, said the
bombings in Casablanca, which killed 45 people, cost $4,000.
Top suspects in the Madrid bombings have long-standing ties
to Al Qaeda cells in Spain, Morocco and elsewhere. Still, six
months after the bombings, investigators have no evidence
that the planners received instructions or money from outside
for the attacks that killed 191 people.
The methods used in Casablanca and Madrid illustrate what a
senior European counter-terrorism official described as ``the
most frightening'' scenario: local groups without previous
experience, acting with minimal supervision from an
interchangeable cast of Al Qaeda veterans.
``By now we have no evidence, not even credible
intelligence, that the Madrid group was steered, financed,
organized from the outside,'' he said. ``So that might be the
biggest success of Bin Laden.''
In the past, Al Qaeda militants were mostly educated young
men in their mid-20s and older who had strong religious
convictions and middle-class backgrounds. They trained
extensively at camps in Afghanistan and their missions were
planned over months or years.
Recent attackers were drawn from a larger pool of alienated
young men, reflecting the wider tug of Al Qaeda's doctrine,
Bin Laden's status as a hero to some Muslims and fury at
American foreign policy.
Some experts, like Richard Clarke, the former White House
counter-terrorism chief, publicly blame the war in Iraq for
strengthening the motivation of radical Islamic groups
globally. Others still in governments around the world make
the point privately, saying that the conflict in Iraq has
broadened support for extremism.
[[Page S9699]]
De Vries, the EU counter-terrorism chief, acknowledged only
that there were differences over the impact of Iraq. ``Public
opinion in many countries has not been convinced that the war
in Iraq has helped the war on terror as defined by some,'' he
said.
The bombers in Casablanca were uneducated slum dwellers
between the ages of 20 and 24 with little previous
involvement in extremism, religious figures and people who
knew them say.
The Moroccan immigrants who spearheaded the Madrid attacks
were shopkeepers and drug dealers. They embraced a theology
that justified their crimes as part of their jihad.
The sense that an angry young man anywhere could become the
next suicide bomber, the absence of training camps and only
intermittent contact with any central command structure pose
tough challenges for law enforcement.
``Terrorist culture has been disseminated,'' said Pierre de
Bousquet de Florian, director of France's intelligence
agency. ``Technical knowledge has spread.''
Even U.S. officials, most of whom are more optimistic than
their foreign counterparts, acknowledged that there were too
many blank spots for them to understand the full scope of the
threat.
``From what we have seen and learned, particularly in light
of the recent arrests, we have made enormous strides in
knocking out Al Qaeda,'' a senior counter-terrorism official
in the Bush administration said. ``That said, we believe
there are operational people who have moved up, with
operational expertise, and that there remains some sort of
loose command and control structure.''
Among the mysteries is whether Bin Laden and his second-in-
command, Ayman Zawahiri, still play operational roles.
Another question is the extent of coordination between Al
Qaeda's leadership and the attacks in Iraq.
The role that Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi plays in
Iraq has been cited repeatedly by the administration as
evidence of an Al Qaeda-Iraq link, but many counter-terrorism
officials said he had long operated independently.
His activities in Iraq have boosted his status among
Islamic extremists and led to what investigators suspect is
an even greater independence from Bin Laden.
Zargawi's reach extends beyond the carnage in Iraq and
makes his offshoot of Al Qaeda an urgent threat. As the
former chief of a training camp in Afghanistan, he has
alliances with militant groups from Chechnya to North Africa.
European counter-terrorism officials blame him for several
thwarted attacks in Europe and suspect that he helped plan
the Casablanca and Istanbul bombings.
Investigators believe that there are ties between suspects
in the Madrid attacks and the Zarqawi network. They have
turned up evidence of an operational and ideological axis
that links fighters traveling to Iraq from Europe and North
Africa--and raises the threat that they will bring the mayhem
home with them.
In June, Italian police arrested Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed,
an Egyptian suspected of playing a lead role in the Madrid
attacks.
According to transcripts of electronic eavesdropping,
police also learned of Ahmed's involvement in a European
network sending fighters to Iraq to carry out suicide
bombings.
``All my friends are dying, one after another,'' he said
during a conversation in his Milan hide-out May 26. ``I know
so many who are ready. I tell you there are two groups ready
for martyrdom. The first group leaves the 25th or 20th of
next month for Iraq via Syria.''
French authorities opened an investigation Wednesday into a
network involved in recruiting extremists and helping them
get to Iraq, but so far the flow of such foreigners does not
approach the thousands who went to Afghanistan before 2001.
Still, European investigators are particularly concerned
about the increasing movement of North Africans--some from
Europe but most from their homelands--to fight in Iraq and
what it means for the future.
``Our fear is that they go and become a threat to our
countries,'' said De Bousquet de Florian, the French
intelligence chief. ``We pay a great deal of attention
because once these guys have gone to Iraq to train, they know
how to use weapons and explosives. That's the first level:
Iraq as a new Afghanistan, a Chechnya.''
Determining who is behind the attacks in Iraq is difficult.
U.S. military and Iraqi authorities blame much of the
violence on foreign fighters, and Saudis, Egyptians and other
nationals have been seen saying farewell in videotapes before
suicide bombings. A Saudi captured after a botched car
bombing in Baghdad recently said he had been slipped across
the border, given $200 and keys to a car and told to attack a
military convoy.
But some say pinning most of the suicide attacks on
Zarqawi's network and foreign fighters in general ignores the
insurgency's home-grown aspects and overlooks growing links
between Iraqis and radical Islam.
Radical Islam Adapts
The new model of Islamic terrorism was born May 16, 2003,
in Sidi Moumen, a shantytown of 200,000 people on the
outskirts of Casablanca. That day a band of unemployed young
men from the neighborhood, most of whom lived on the same
narrow street, carried out five nearly simultaneous attacks.
The targets were in the heart of Casablanca: a Jewish
community center, a Spanish restaurant and social club, a
hotel, a Jewish cemetery and a Jewish-owned Italian
restaurant. The death toll was 45, including 12 of the 14
bombers.
Morocco's role in Islamic extremism previously had been as
a way station for jihadis entering and leaving Europe, and
investigators said the emergence of Moroccans as front-line
operatives demonstrated the ability of radical Islam to
adapt.
In unraveling the Casablanca plot, Moroccan and foreign
authorities discovered that the bombers had no previous ties
to extremism, which meant spotting them in advance would have
been almost impossible, even in a country where paid
informants lurk in almost every neighborhood.
Moroccan authorities identified Karim Mejatti, a Moroccan
veteran of Afghanistan, as the person who recruited them and
received a green light for the attacks in the meeting in
Istanbul. Unlike his recruits, Mejatti is educated and spent
time in the U.S. in the late 1990s. He remains a fugitive.
On camping trips in the dusty hills outside Casablanca,
Mejatti indoctrinated the men and taught them to make
explosives, authorities said. Al Qaeda videos on making bombs
with TATP, the group's trademark explosive, were later
discovered in their homes. They rode to the attacks in taxis
with homemade explosives stuffed into backpacks.
``They did not need sophisticated equipment or means,''
said Bouzoubaa, the justice minister. ``They made their own
explosives.''
Mejatti recruited the men in November 2002, and authorities
were struck by the speed with which he converted them into
suicide bombers.
Moroccan police foiled a number of follow-up attacks in
other cities by cells formed by Mejatti and a handful of
other graduates of Afghan camps, investigators said.
``The thing about this kind of operation is that it could
be repeated just about anywhere,'' said an Italian law
enforcement official who investigated the European links to
Casablanca.
Spanish anti-terrorism police who visited Casablanca after
the attacks said they were convinced the tactic could be
replicated in Europe. The prediction came true 10 months
later in Madrid.
The involvement of Moroccans in the Madrid attack and
evidence that it was linked to Casablanca sent shivers
through the counter-terrorism community.
Spain's leading anti-terrorism judge, Baltasar Garzon,
testified before a government commission investigating the
bombings that Morocco was home to as many as 100 cells linked
to Al Qaeda. They pose Europe's biggest terrorist threat, he
said.
Other counter-terrorism officials said Garzon's figures
might be too high, but they estimated that 400 to 500 Al
Qaeda veterans returned to Morocco after the Taliban regime's
collapse in Afghanistan.
The officials said Moroccan extremists posed a unique
danger because they could slip easily in and out of Europe
and blend in with the immigrant population. Moroccans are the
largest immigrant group in several European countries.
Morocco prides itself on being a moderate country with
virtually no history of terrorism, but the Casablanca attacks
led to a massive crackdown that has drawn complaints from
local and international human rights groups.
More than 100 mosques have been closed and thousands of
people rounded up and jailed. Family members and lawyers
complained that detainees were abused and tortured.
So far, about 1,000 people have been convicted of
terrorism-related offenses; 14 have been sentenced to death,
including the two surviving Casablanca bombers.
Washington has provided tens of millions of dollars in aid
to Morocco and deeper cooperation in law enforcement.
In July, three FBI agents moved into the U.S. Embassy in
Rabat to work with the Moroccans. A Navy officer was assigned
to help monitor potential attacks on shipping in the Strait
of Gibraltar.
U.S. diplomats are on high alert in Morocco. Two planned
attacks in recent months, including one on an American
target, were stopped only hours before their execution,
authorities in Rabat said.
Police also discovered that a private security guard at the
embassy was reporting diplomats' movements to an extremist
group.
Morocco's leaders are defensive about their country's new
profile in the campaign against Islamic extremism. Senior
officials argue that outsiders are trying to destabilize a
country that is striving to be a model of moderation for the
Arab world.
Moroccans and officials of other Islamic countries agree
that anger over U.S. policies in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict provides much of the motivation for the attacks.
``If the Palestinian issue were settled, if Iraq were
stable, 70% of the threats would disappear,'' said Bouzoubaa,
the justice minister.
But officials say they also recognize that not enough has
been done to reach disaffected areas such as Sidi Moumen.
In July, King Mohammed VI ordered new social programs,
including the construction of 100 small mosques and 20 large
ones to counter the spread of hard-line Islam.
``We are very aware that we must fill the gap between what
is good in Islam and the initiatives by outsiders,
particularly in the poorer areas,'' said Ahmed Toufiq, the
minister of Islamic affairs. ``They were left to themselves
too long.''
[[Page S9700]]
Refuge for Extremists
Even as new trouble spots emerge, eradicating known
extremist sanctuaries has proved difficult, particularly in
remote places out of the reach of government authority, such
as parts of Yemen on the southern tip of the Arabian
Peninsula.
After Al Qaeda bombed the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen in
2000, killing 17 American sailors, Washington helped train
and equip Yemeni security forces and tried to persuade the
government to do more to counter extremists.
But diplomats say the country remains primarily a lawless
place where forbidding terrain and intricate tribal codes
provide an ideal nest for militants.
Saudi and U.S. officials identified Yemen as the primary
source of weapons and explosives for the Al Qaeda cells that
have launched attacks in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
``Yemen still has to be viewed as largely ungovernable,'' a
senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said. ``We sunk some
money and time and effort into it, but we don't have much to
show for it.''
Yemeni officials acknowledged in interviews that surface-
to-air missiles, grenade launchers and other weapons remain
widely available despite a crackdown on open-air arms
bazaars.
The mix of radicals and weapons is particularly potent
along the Saudi border, which encompasses rugged mountains
and remote desert where tribal leaders hold sway.
``If somebody comes, he's going to pay for tribal
protection,'' said Faisal Aburas, a sheik from the
impoverished province of Al Jawf on the Saudi border.
``Then it would look bad for a sheik to hand him in, even
if he's a criminal, because it shows weakness.''
Abubakr al Qerbi, Yemen's foreign minister, denied that the
country still harbored Al Qaeda veterans.
``This is old information,'' he said, saying they were
expelled in 1995 and again after the Cole bombing.
But Hamood Abdulhamid Hitar, a Yemeni government official
in charge of negotiating with extremists, said he was holding
theological debates with hundreds of militants, including 107
suspected Al Qaeda loyalists.
Yemen also links the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of
Africa. Somalia, where there is virtually no workable,
central government, is just an hour by boat across waterways
that are essentially wide open.
Farther down the coast in Kenya, concerns focus on a group
run by Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an Al Qaeda operative with a
$25-million bounty on his head. Mohammed, a native of Comoros
off the southeastern coast of Africa, was indicted in the
United States on charges of orchestrating the 1998 bombings
of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He also is
suspected of organizing the 2002 attacks on Israeli targets
in Mombasa, Kenya.
Today, U.S. and other Western security officials say they
believe he is planning another round of attacks, possibly on
the new U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
``Al Qaeda is preparing for another sensational attack
against Western targets in Kenya,'' a Western security
official said. ``Two attacks planned for Kenya were exposed
during the past year.''
U.S. officials suspect that the hunt for Mohammed has
driven him into a remote part of northern Kenya, but they say
he remains in touch with Al Qaeda leaders through courier and
computer.
``I consider him to be a high-value target and a real
player in the global Al Qaeda operation,'' said a senior U.S.
official in Washington.
U.S. Still a Target
U.S. and foreign intelligence and counter-terrorism
officials warned that the United States remained the prime
target of radical Islam.
``They have overcome the shock of the Afghanistan war and
very likely they are preparing another large scale attack,
possibly on a U.S. target,'' the senior European counter-
terrorism official said. ``There are good reasons to be on
alert.''
A Changing Roster
Despite the arrests of several high-profile leaders, anti-
terrorism experts believe that Al Qaeda has managed to
reemerge as a lethal ideological movement. Dispersed
operatives--loosely organized or acting alone--recruit and
quickly train local terrorist groups for small but deadly
attacks.
A Terrorist Evolution
In operations such as the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in
Africa and the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda leaders exercised
considerable control over operations. Today, Al Qaeda appears
to have become more ideology than network, spreading globally
among cells inspired by Sept. 11.
Marking Terror's Changes
``In Iraq, a problem has been created that didn't exist
there before. The events in Iraq have had a profound impact
on the entirety of the jihad movement.'' Judge Jean-Louis
Brugulere, French anti-terrorism investigator.
``Any assessment that the global terror movement has been
rolled back or that even one component, Al Qaeda, is on the
run is optimistic and most certainly incorrect. Bin Laden's
doctrines are now playing themselves out all over the world.
Destroying Al Qaeda will not resolve the problem.'' M.J.
Gohel, head of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London think
tank.
``Once these guys have gone to Iraq to train, they know how
to use weapons and explosives. That's the first level: Iraq
as a new Afghanistan, a Chechnya.'' Pierre de Bousquet de
Florian, director of France's intelligence agency.
``Al Qaeda is increasingly being invoked as an ideological
motivation of Islamic radicals.'' Gijs de Vries, counter-
terrorism coordinator for the European Union.
``By now we have no evidence, not even credible
intelligence, that the Madrid group was steered, financed,
organized from the outside. So that might be the biggest
success of Bin Laden.'' A senior European counter-terrorism
official.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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