[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19408-19412]
[From the U.S. 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.
  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

[[Page 19409]]

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.''
       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

[[Page 19410]]

     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.
       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.

[[Page 19411]]

       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

[[Page 19412]]

     poorer areas,'' said Ahmed Toufiq, the minister of Islamic 
     affairs. ``They were left to themselves too long.''


                         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.

                          ____________________