[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 110 (Thursday, July 21, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1381-E1382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        ADDITIONAL CONCERNS REGARDING MATTHEW OLSEN'S NOMINATION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 21, 2011

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit additional concerns about the 
President's nomination of Matthew Olsen to lead the National 
Counterterrorism Center.
  During a May 7, 2009, Senate hearing, Attorney General Eric Holder 
said,``With regard to those you would describe as terrorists, we would 
not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would 
consider to be a terrorist.''
  It is now well known from numerous press accounts, including 
Newsweek, The Washington Post, and National Journal, that the Obama 
Administration's Guantanamo Review Task Force, led by Matthew Olsen, 
recommended the transfer and release of at least two Uyghur detainees, 
who were members of a recognized terrorist group, to the United States 
in April 2009. The secret transfer was to take place on or around May 
1, 2009.
  The Uyghur detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are trained terrorists 
and members or associates of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement 
(ETIM), a designated terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda, as 
designated by both the U.S. government and the United Nations. Whether 
their intended victims were Chinese or Americans, a trained terrorist 
is a terrorist, under U.S. immigration law.
  According to testimony and government documents, many of the Uyghur 
detainees have admitted to training at ETIM camps in Tora Bora under 
the direction of ETIM leader Abdul Haq prior to their capture by 
Pakistani authorities in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) 
of Pakistan.
  By recommendation of the task force led by Mr. Olsen, the Uyghur 
detainees were to be secretly settled in an apartment in northern 
Virginia under an unknown immigration statute. The immigration status 
of these detainees remains one of the critical unknown questions 
surrounding this failed effort. A careful reading of U.S. immigration 
law shows a broad and strict ban on the entry of any member of a 
terrorist organization.
  As a former special counselor to the attorney general, Mr. Olsen 
should have been well aware of the strict statutory restrictions that 
would bar the admission of any alien who is affiliated with a 
recognized terrorist organization into the U.S. As the Senate Select 
Committee on Intelligence considers Mr. Olsen's nomination to lead the 
National Counterterrorism Center, they should carefully consider his 
judgment in recommending the legally-questionable secret release of the 
Uyghur detainees into the U.S.
  Under Title 8, Chapter 12 of U.S. Code on ``Inadmissible Aliens,'' 
the law clearly and unconditionally bars a member, representative or 
associate of a recognized terrorist organization from receiving any 
sort of visa, refugee or asylum to the U.S. The law prohibits entry to 
the U.S. for any individual who has ``engaged in a terrorist activity'' 
or is ``a representative of a terrorist organization,'' ``a political, 
social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity,'' 
``is a member of a terrorist organization,'' ``endorses or espouses 
terrorist

[[Page E1382]]

activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity 
or support a terrorist organization,'' or ``has received military-type 
training from or on behalf of any organization that, at the time the 
training was received, was a terrorist organization.''
  The only limited exception to this strict ban is for the attorney 
general to exercise ``parole'' status into the U.S. for a limited 
amount of time in the case of ``significant public benefit.'' If this 
option were to be exercised, it would conflict with the 
administration's stated intent to permanently settle the Uyghur 
detainees in the U.S. It also would raise serious questions about 
whether the task force, led by Mr. Olsen, recommended the settlement of 
terrorist detainees would have ``significant public benefit.''
  The ETIM is a terrorist group that uses violence against civilians 
for the creation of an independent, Islamic state--in the image of the 
Taliban's Afghanistan--in the Xinjiang region of China. The group is 
linked to a number of terrorist attacks in China during the mid-1990s, 
including several bus bombings that killed dozens and injured hundreds 
of innocent civilians, as well as threats of attacks against the 2008 
Olympics in Beijing. Over the past decade, the group has predominantly 
operated out of Afghanistan and Pakistan and has developed close links 
with al Qaeda and the Taliban.
  On August 19, 2002, then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage 
designated the ETIM as ``a terrorist group that committed acts of 
violence against unarmed civilians.'' The group was designated by the 
State Department under Executive Order 13224, ``Blocking Property and 
Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, 
or Support Terrorism,'' which defines terrorist as ``activity that (1) 
involves a violent act or act dangerous to human life, property, or 
infrastructure; and (2) appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce 
a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by 
intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by 
mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.'' In 
2004, the State Department further added the ETIM to the ``Terrorist 
Exclusion List'' (TEL) under section 411 of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 
(P.L. 107-56), which prohibits members of designated terrorist groups 
from entering into the U.S.
  Later in 2002, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing reported that two members 
of the ETIM were deported from Kyrgyzstan after allegedly plotting to 
attack the U.S. embassy there. Following the attempted attack, the 
U.S., Peoples Republic of China, Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan asked the 
United Nations to designate the ETIM as a terrorist group under 
Security Council resolutions 1267 and 1390, which provide for the 
freezing of the group's assets.
  In April 2009--the same month the release of the Uyghur detainees was 
being planned--the Obama Administration added the current leader of the 
ETIM (also recognized as the ETIP), Abdul Hag, to terrorist lists under 
Executive Order 13224, following U.N. recognition of Haq, under 
Security Council Resolution 1267, as an individual affiliated with 
Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, or the Taliban. According to Stuart Levey, 
Treasury under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, 
``Abdul Haq commands a terror group that sought to sow violence and 
fracture international unity at the 2008 Olympic Games in China.''
  The ETIM's relationship with al Qaeda has grown since it was invited 
by the Taliban to conduct training in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, 
followed by the move of the ETIM headquarters from the Xianjang region 
to Kabul in September 1998.9 By 2005, Abdul Haq had been admitted to al 
Qaeda's ``Shura Council and on November 16, 2008, an al Qaeda spokesman 
``stated that a Chinese citizen named `Abdul Haq Turkistani' was 
appointed by Osama bin Laden as the leader of two organizations--`al 
Qaeda in China' and `Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan.'' This appointment was 
also confirmed by Abu Sulieman, a member of al Qaeda.
  It is abundantly clear that the Uyghur detainees held at Guantanamo 
Bay are affiliated with the ETIM and trained under Abdul Haq in 2001. 
According to the detainees' sworn statement to U.S. authorities, many 
acknowledged that they had trained in an ETIM training camp in Tora 
Bora from June to November 2001 and at least one confirmed, ``The 
person running the camp was named Abdul Haq.''
  Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in fall 2001 cooperation 
between the ETIM and the Taliban increased. It is reported that the 
ETIM's leader prior to Abdul Hag, Hasan Mahsum, ``led his men to 
support Taliban and fight alongside them against U.S. and the coalition 
forces. On 2 October 2003, Hasan Mahsum was killed, along with 8 other 
Islamic militants, by a Pakistani army raid on an al Qaeda hideout in 
South Waziristan area in Parkistan.''
  Additionally, a January 2008 al Qaeda in Afghanistan publication, 
``Martyrs in Time of Alienation,'' identified 120 ``martyrs''--
including five Uyghurs from Xianjiang and who trained in Tora Bora--who 
fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against U.S. troops. One is 
reported to have been killed fighting U.S. forces during the invasion 
in 2001. Hasan Mahsum confirmed, prior to his death in 2003, that ETIM 
members trained and fought with al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.
  In addition to their affiliation in a designated terrorist 
organization and association with al Qaeda leader Abdul Hag, these 
detainees fervently believe in the creation of a Taliban-style Islamist 
state in northwestern China and do not share American values of 
respect, tolerance, and religious pluralism. In fact, one recent press 
account stated that, ``Not long after being granted access to TV [at 
Guantanamo], some of the [Uighurs] were watching a soccer game. When a 
woman with bare arms was shown on the screen, one of the group grabbed 
the television and threw it to the ground, according to the 
officials.''
  Reports indicate that the ETIM's philosophy has dramatically evolved 
as a result of their training and cooperation with al Qaeda and the 
Taliban over the last decade. According to two experts, Rohan Gunaratna 
and Arabinda Acharya, ``In the post-9/11 era, ETIM began to believe in 
the global jihad agenda. Today, the group follows the philosophy of al-
Qaeda and respects Osama bin Laden. Such groups that believe in the 
global jihad do not confine their targets to the territories that they 
seek to control . . . [The ETIM] is presenting a threat to Chinese as 
well as Western targets worldwide.''
  Although the Uyghur detainees may not have been considered ``enemy 
combatants'' by the Obama Administration, U.S. immigration law clearly 
bars the admission of members of recognized terrorist groups. The 
Senate should carefully consider the legal steps that Mr. Olsen and his 
task force recommended be used to bring the ETIM detainees into the 
U.S. for permanent settlement. If his task force advocated exploiting 
limited ``parole'' entry for the detainees with the intended goal of 
permanent settlement, it would go against the letter and spirit of the 
law.

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