[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21360-21363]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   COMBATING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it has been seven weeks since the 
horrifying attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the 
crash of the plane in Pennsylvania.
  We have all struggled with a flood of thoughts and emotions about the 
frightening and tragic loss of life, the national response to this 
cruel, mindless assault on innocent people, and where we go from here.
  My wife Marcelle and I have received hundreds of phone calls, letters 
and e-mails from people who have offered thoughtful suggestions, and I 
have read many articles, opinion pieces, and heartfelt letters to the 
editor of the national and local newspapers.
  I do not pretend to have all the answers. No one does. The United 
States military is carrying out bombing missions against the Taliban 
and terrorist sites in Afghanistan. The situation is unpredictable, and 
we are learning more each day. But I do want to express some of my 
thoughts at this time.
  First and foremost, my thoughts are with the victims' families. It 
has been hard, very hard, to see the images of the families as they try 
to come to terms with the loss of loved ones.
  I also share the pride in how our firefighters, police and other 
emergency workers rushed to the scene intent on rescue without thought 
for their own safety. We are in awe of the bravery of those on the 
United Airlines flight who struggled with the hijackers and prevented 
that aircraft from striking its target in Washington.
  I am proud of the skill and courage of our Air Force pilots, who fly 
thousands of miles, often in the darkness of night, into hostile 
territory. They are constantly in our thoughts, and we pray that each 
of them returns safely.
  Amid all the sadness and anger, I have been tremendously heartened by 
the way Americans of all races, religions and backgrounds rallied 
together to help each other. It should not be surprising that we would 
respond this way, but it is enormously uplifting and reassuring.
  And I was also encouraged when millions of people in cities around 
the

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world gathered to express their sympathy and support for the United 
States. There were 200,000 in Berlin alone.
  It was a vivid and moving reminder of how many people in so many 
countries respect what our country stands for, and look to us for 
leadership in solving the world's problems. It is that leadership, in 
combating terrorism but also in addressing other pressing global 
issues, that we must show today and in the future.
  I have been impressed by the leadership shown by President Bush and 
others in the Cabinet. I commend the President for voicing our common 
goal to seek justice for the victims and for our country, our 
condemnation of the despicable acts of harassment and intimidation of 
Muslims in the United States, and our resolve to protect our country 
from future terrorist acts.
  It has been said over and over that ``the world has changed.'' In one 
sense that is true. Our country has suffered its greatest loss of life 
on American soil, in a single day, since the Civil War. Our response to 
this tragedy is causing changes throughout our society. However, in 
another sense, it has a lot more to do with our perceptions of the 
world than with the world itself. The world was changing long before 
September 11, and threats that existed before that infamous day are no 
less present today.
  These attacks destroyed not only thousands of innocent lives, but 
they destroyed mistaken assumptions about our safety in isolation. They 
also, let us hope, erased our complacency. We are now beginning a 
struggle that may take decades, shake foreign governments, and cause 
great disruption in our daily lives.
  We are responding decisively. The American people want to feel secure 
and they want justice. If the Taliban continue to shelter bin Laden and 
other terrorists they will pay a heavy price. They have already lost 
the support of virtually every country in the world, and our military 
has destroyed many of their military assets. Others who knowingly 
harbor terrorists face similar consequences.
  Yet as we seek justice and security, let us not be blinded by anger 
or zealotry. We want a world without terrorists, but we owe it to 
ourselves to calmly ask constructive questions, as we commit to this 
cause thousands of American lives, billions of dollars, and the 
credibility of our nation.
  Our response must single out those individuals, organizations, or 
nations that are responsible for these atrocities. The terrorists want 
us to overreact. They want us to strike back blindly and cause the 
deaths of innocent civilians. They want to draw us into a so-called 
``holy war,'' and they will use these images against us, alienating 
others in the Muslim world whose support we need to combat this threat, 
and among whom there are many who already resent our involvement in the 
Middle East.
  We need to understand the fact that the civilian casualties caused by 
our bombs in Afghanistan despite the efforts made to prevent them are 
not only tragic but also exacerbate the hatred of America by Muslims in 
many parts of the world, a hatred which has been building over many 
years.
  We are seeing this among Muslims in Pakistan, in Indonesia, in the 
West Bank, even in Africa. Despite President Bush's, Secretary 
Powell's, and Secretary Rumsfeld's clear statements to the contrary, 
they see our actions as attacks on their religion.
  We also know what happened to the Soviet army, and to the British 
before them, in Afghanistan. Two of the world's most powerful 
militaries suffered terrible losses and were forced to withdraw in 
humiliation. And we should remember our own disastrous experience in 
Somalia.
  We need to recognize that there are parts of the world, dominated by 
fierce warlords and clans, that we do not understand and probably 
cannot understand. We should be very, very careful not to repeat past 
mistakes.
  Our campaign against terrorism has no direct precedent, and we are 
still feeling our way forward. At this stage of the military dimensions 
of this effort, neither the President nor the Pentagon have yet 
explained, except in the most general way, what they expect to 
accomplish militarily in Afghanistan within the next month, 6 months, 
or year, and how they expect to accomplish it. Nor have they yet 
explained the risks to our Armed Forces, except to say that there will 
be casualties.
  Meanwhile, the American people have been asked to be patient, and 
they have been. Members of Congress have been asked to give the 
President and the Pentagon great latitude, and they have done so. But 
we are all in this together, and the time for clearer goals and more 
direct answers about our strategy is approaching.
  The fact that 2 weeks ago the Pentagon told us that they had 
eviscerated the Taliban's military capabilities, and a week later 
expressed surprise that the Taliban has proved to be a determined foe, 
already has raised troubling questions.
  No one wants to see an end to the Taliban more than I, and I have no 
doubt that we can force them from power. But there is no evidence it 
can be done by bombing alone, at least not without many civilian 
casualties. How many ground troops would it take, over what period of 
time? And then what? Surely the Taliban would regroup and fight from 
somewhere else.
  The American people will deserve and need answers to these and other 
questions.
  There is no doubt that we will need help from others to fight 
terrorism, which exists in every corner of the globe. To his credit, 
the President showed admirable patience in building a coalition to 
track down terrorists and their sources of income. The President must 
also continue to show an understanding of the particular situation of 
each country in the coalition, and of how much we can reasonably demand 
of them given their circumstances, their capabilities, their history.
  The situation we are in is unlike any that we have seen before. It is 
difficult always to know who the enemy is or where they may be hiding. 
They may be right among us, or they may be in the mountains of Central 
Asia. Secretary Powell and others have been clear that we are preparing 
for a long, sustained, comprehensive campaign, using all the means at 
our disposal--diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, financial, 
economic, and military.
  We must confront the entire superstructure of terrorism--the states 
that knowingly provide terrorists with support and safe haven, the 
system of financial support, and sources of recruits, and the hatreds 
that spawn them.
  In doing this, we must heed the lessons from other so-called wars 
that we have fought against other deeply rooted, complex problems--the 
war on poverty and the war on drugs. These ``wars'' have been fought 
with many weapons. They also depend on foreign cooperation. Yet we are 
nowhere near to winning either of those wars, despite the fact that we 
have spent tens of billions of dollars, and even, in the war on drugs, 
imprisoned thousands of people and deployed our forces in foreign 
countries.
  We must be resolute but realistic. We can no more completely 
eliminate terrorism from the face of the Earth than we can eliminate 
poverty. But there is a great deal we can do to protect ourselves.
  The President has waived sanctions against Pakistan so we can assist 
them in this effort. I have heard proposals that we should set aside 
other laws which affirm our commitment to the protection of human 
rights in our international relations. Others speak of waiving 
limitations on our support for dictatorial regimes in Central Asia, or 
countries that have engaged in proliferation of nuclear, chemical or 
biological weapons.
  I will listen to what the Administration proposes, but I am also 
mindful of the lessons of history. We supported the fighters who became 
the Taliban, when they sought to expel the Soviets. Today the Taliban, 
led by religious fanatics, systematically terrorize and brutalize their 
own people. The country has been turned into a virtual prison, where 
its inhabitants, many too

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weak from hunger and disease to flee, suffer the daily cruelty of the 
Taliban's tyrannical rule.
  We gave weapons to Iraq, and to the Shah of Iran, whose secret police 
tortured Iranian citizens who spoke out for democracy. We have 
supported other regimes that committed atrocities, which to the victims 
were no different from acts of terrorism. We must not repeat those 
mistakes.
  We must reaffirm the principles that make this country a beacon of 
hope around the world, and which reflect the most deeply held ideals of 
our people--ideals which the terrorists hate--our civil liberties, our 
individual and religious freedoms. These ideals, far more than our 
military power, are our country's greatest strength. Let us not lose 
sight of the fact that acts of terrorism are human rights atrocities. 
As we go forward, we must continue to show the world what sets us apart 
from the terrorists. Defense of human rights is one of these cherished 
principles.
  There can be no excuse, no justification whatsoever, for attacks 
against unarmed civilians--whether it is the suicide bomber or the 
suicide highjacker, or a government that commits acts of terrorism 
against its own citizens.
  But to reduce the threat of terrorism, of whatever form, over the 
long run, we must work to resolve the issues that foster deep and 
lasting hatreds the terrorists feed on, that produces their funding, 
and their recruits.
  Recently, the House of Representatives approved, after minimal debate 
and without a dissenting vote, payment of $582 million in arrears to 
the United Nations. That was both noteworthy and encouraging, since 
those funds had been held hostage by the House for years over unrelated 
issues like international family planning. How shortsighted that was.
  Many of those same Members took pride in cutting our foreign aid 
budget. Foreign aid, a meager one percent of the Federal budget--far, 
far less than most people believe it is-- is used, in part, to help 
alleviate the pervasive poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia 
that leads to despair, instability, violence, and hatred--conditions 
that breed recruits for terrorist organizations.
  Instead of one percent, we should increase five-fold the amount we 
spend to combat poverty, especially in parts of the world where there 
is such resentment toward the United States.
  We are surrounded by a sea of desperate people. Two billion people--a 
third of the world's inhabitants, live on the edge of starvation. They 
barely survive on what scraps they can scavenge, and many children die 
before the age of five.
  Refugees and people displaced from their homes, number in the many 
tens of millions.
  The world is on fire is too many places to count, and at most of 
those flash points poverty, and the injustice that perpetuates it, are 
at the root of the instability.
  Our foreign assistance programs provide economic support to poor 
countries, health care to the world's neediest women and children, food 
and shelter for refugees and victims of natural and man made disasters, 
and technical expertise to promote democracy, free markets, human 
rights and the rule of law.
  But as important as this aid is, the amount we give is a pittance, 
when considered in terms of our wealth and the seriousness of the 
threats we face. The approximately $10 billion that we provide in this 
type of assistance--whether through our State Department and the Agency 
for International Development, or as contributions to the World Bank, 
the United Nations Development Program, the World Food Program, and 
other organizations, amounts to less than $40 for each American each 
year.
  Forty dollars. It is embarrassing. We are failing the American 
people, and we are failing future generations.
  Our economy is suffering, and people are hurting in this country. We 
are trying to help them, and we need to do more. But we cannot continue 
to bury our heads in the sand. We cannot protect our national interests 
in today's complex, dangerous world on a foreign assistance budget that 
in real terms is less than what it was 15 years ago. We cannot.
  Our world is not simply our towns, our states, our country. It is the 
whole world. We live in a global economy. The Ebola virus is like a 
terrorist--an airplane's flight away. We can try our best to control 
our borders, but we cannot hide behind an impenetrable wall.
  We have to go to the source of the problem, and that is to countries 
that are failing--from AIDS, from ignorance, from poverty, from 
injustice.
  We need a better understanding of the world we live in, and how to 
protect our security. Almost 60 percent of the world's people live in 
Asia, and that number is growing. Seventy percent of the world's people 
are non-White, and 70 percent are non-Christian. About 5 percent own 
more than half the world's wealth. Half the world's people suffer from 
malnutrition. Seventy percent are illiterate.
  How can we justify spending so little to address these needs? We 
cannot, any more than we can justify failing to anticipate and prevent 
the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Pentagon 
would be the first to say that they cannot solve these problems.
  I would hope that one of the positive things that comes from this 
time of national soul searching and recovery, is that we begin to think 
differently about what the future holds, and our role in the world.
  Let us act like a superpower. Let us lead the world in combating 
poverty, in supporting the development of democracy. Let us start 
paying our share. As the world's wealthiest nation we have a moral 
responsibility. But we also, because of who we are, have the most at 
stake. Like the Congress, the White House also needs to change its 
thinking. For the past six months, it took a hands-off approach to 
solving complex global problems, turning its back on half a dozen 
treaties and international agreements, ranging from arms control to 
protecting the environment. The unmistakable message is that we are so 
powerful that we do not need the rest of the world, that somehow we are 
immune from the world's problems.
  That notion was arrogant, dangerous and naive then, as it is today. 
We must move beyond the tired battles over foreign aid and the United 
Nations, and forge common approaches to global threats. It is clear 
that this is what is necessary to fight terrorism, and the same is true 
of AIDS, global warming, and so many other problems.
  This brings me to the difficult question of the Middle East conflict. 
No one who is familiar with the history of the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict believes it will be resolved without the active, sustained 
involvement of the United States. And never has that involvement been 
so urgently needed, because to maintain strong Arab participation in 
the coalition we are organizing against terrorism, there must be 
visible progress toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
  Frankly, I have been dismayed as our credibility in the Middle East 
has badly eroded, and as resentment toward the United States has 
intensified and spread among Muslims throughout that region. We have to 
confront this problem earnestly and honestly, and recognize its 
historical and cultural roots. It is clearly in our security interests, 
as well as those of Israel, that we take actions to reestablish 
credibility with the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, while 
continuing to keep faith with Israel and its people--a valued ally and 
a leading democracy.
  We must get both Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating 
table, working seriously toward a viable peace agreement that addresses 
their long term needs and aspirations--a viable, Palestinian state, and 
lasting security for Israel.
  I do not count myself among those who believe that the deranged, 
hate-filled perpetrators of the September 11th terrorist attacks would 
not have carried out their heinous crimes if Israel and the 
Palestinians had already made peace. It may be that sympathy for the 
Palestinians had nothing to do with it.
  Nor do I believe that a solution to the Middle East conflict will 
solve the problem of international terrorism.

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But I am convinced that, as difficult a problem as it is, the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict must be solved if we are to make tangible 
progress against some of the breeding grounds of terrorism.
  The same goes for our relations with the rest of the Arab world. In 
our single-minded zeal to secure a steady supply of Middle East oil to 
fuel our insatiable and growing demand for cheap gasoline, we have 
turned a blind eye to widespread repression by governments whose 
policies, including the systematic abuse of women, vary sharply from 
our own. We must take dramatic measures to reduce our wasteful 
consumption of oil and our dependence on these regimes.
  At the same time that we combat terrorism around the world, we must 
also get our domestic house in order.
  Over the last decade this country has put an enormous effort into 
counter-terrorism. It has been a top priority of the FBI, the CIA and 
other agencies. Yet, all those resources and all that concentrated work 
failed to prevent this enormous tragedy. It is astounding how 
unprepared we were, how even the simplest safeguards were ignored, how 
many weaknesses were waiting for the terrorists to exploit. It was a 
massive failure of our defenses.
  Let us look hard and honestly at where our defenses failed, and work 
to correct those weaknesses. We need to strengthen our intelligence 
agencies, law enforcement, border control, emergency response and all 
the manifold capabilities we will need to defend ourselves. That 
includes taking steps to eliminate the destructive competition between 
these agencies, which has impeded coordination and undermined their 
effectiveness.
  We have worked with the Administration on legislation to support law 
enforcement and our intelligence community, while at the same time 
protecting our constitutional freedoms. As Benjamin Franklin said, ``a 
people who would trade their liberty for security deserve neither.'' As 
we work to become more secure, we must also protect our liberty.
  I am concerned about press reports of people held in custody for 
weeks, who have not been charged with any crime, being denied 
meaningful access to counsel. This, if true, may be a common practice 
in some countries, but it should not be the practice in ours.
  I am also concerned about the erroneous assertion that the Congress 
has tied the CIA's hands by limiting its ability to recruit informants 
with unsavory backgrounds. There is no such law. In fact, the only 
constraint is the CIA's own internal guidelines, which require prior 
approval of senior management before recruiting such an asset. There 
are sound reasons for those guidelines, and the CIA leadership has said 
repeatedly that this is not a problem.
  Even more disturbing are claims that we need to change the ``law'' 
prohibiting assassinations of individuals involved in terrorism. Again, 
there is no such law. There is an Executive Order, first signed by 
President Ford and reaffirmed each year since then by every succeeding 
Administration that prohibits assassinations. No law, or executive 
order for that matter, protects Osama bin Laden or any other terrorist 
from the exercise of our legitimate right of self-defense, including 
use of lethal force.
  A policy of pre-emptive assassinations would be morally repugnant, a 
violation of international law, and fraught with dangers for our own 
government, as well as for our allies. It is also ineffective, because 
it creates martyrs whose deaths become a terrorist's rallying cry for 
vengeance. And we have seen how easily foreign identities can be 
mistaken or stolen, with potentially irreversible, tragic consequences.
  Our country has suffered a grievous loss. We have had to face our own 
vulnerability as never before. As we support the victims' families and 
set about to prevent future terrorist attacks, we should also 
rededicate ourselves to upholding the principles which set our nation 
apart: freedom, tolerance, diversity, respect for the rule of law, and 
the unique value of every individual. If our leaders appeal to these 
values--to the better angels of our human nature, not to the instincts 
of hate or fear or revenge--then this trial by fire will refine us, 
instead of coarsen us.
  And let us go forward from this experience, which has shown in such a 
tragic way how connected we are to the rest of the world and how much 
we need the support of other countries, to provide stronger leadership 
not only to combat the scourge of international terrorism but other 
urgent global problems, and make this world a better and safer place 
for all.

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