The Strength of International Cooperation in Defeating Terrorism

As part of an Antiterrorism Executive Forum sponsored by the Antiterrorism Assistance Program (ATA), Ambassador Taylor met with senior officials of the Royal Malaysia Police. The forum participants received briefings from federal and international agencies on a variety of topics related to terrorism.

Welcome. Welcome to Washington. Welcome to the United States. It's my pleasure to be here with you today to reinforce the superb relationship that our government enjoys with the government of Malaysia on many bilateral issues, and most especially the issues of counterterrorism and security cooperation.

I had the honor of meeting with your former prime minister and your current prime minister when Secretary Powell came to Malaysia last August, and to see your beautiful country.

Unfortunately, we've invited you here to our beautiful country during a period of time when it's very, very cold. I understand that when you arrived two weekends ago, you knew there was a cold snap coming, and you came prepared with a couple of scarves or other sorts of things that would be appropriate to the cold weather in Malaysia.
Well, I must tell you, I just came back from the Bahamas last night and was not suffering through the cold too much until I got in and had to walk to my car last night. I was not prepared in my suit jacket to greet the bitter cold.

But it's a wonderful part of our country that we do have three seasons, or four seasons, during most of the year. For my purposes, winter creates optimism for spring and summer. I'm optimistic that this weather will pass on, and we will see our normal beautiful spring and summer that is so much a part of the landscape here in Washington.

Our government has received absolutely superb support from the Government of Malaysia. The Royal Malaysian Police provide excellent support to the U.S. mission, including around-the-clock police support at our mission, and your special operations force officers accompany our ambassador when she is outside of the mission. We greatly appreciate it.

We understand that security for foreign missions overseas is a primary responsibility of the government. Your help in that regard has greatly benefited the security of our installations. My responsibility is to make sure your installation, your embassy, is appropriately secured. I take very seriously that responsibility and would assure you, from a reciprocity point of view, that anything we can do to help improve and enhance the security of the Malaysian embassy here is what I am prepared to do in reciprocity for what we get in Kuala Lumpur.

Your response has been very professional and quick to our requests for investigative support in instances of surveillance and other suspicious activity around our embassy. It is a partnership. We appreciate your support at demonstrations and other events, such as this year's Marine Ball where 70 of your officers helped to secure one of the great American traditions around the world on the birthday of our Marine Corps.

Our bilateral relationship, I think, is reflective of the challenges that we face on a global basis. Security is a global issue. It's no longer just a bilateral, or a multilateral, or a regional issue. It's a global issue. I know that in your country international football is a very popular sport. It's gaining popularity, particularly among the women in our country more so than the men, because we play American football here, and that is the most popular kind of football in America.

But when I speak to international audiences, and I talk about the global challenge in international coordination, I use the international football analogy of splitting the defenders. You know, when the striker is on the attack and he or she can fool the defender and get them thinking not as a team but in two different ways; the ball goes through and it's in the back of the net.

I see international cooperation on counterterrorism and security in the same light. Any regional partner that does not work with the international community against this menace presents a seam that the strikers, the terrorists, can exploit. They only have to be right once. We have to be right 100 percent of the time. If 9/11 has taught us anything, it's the strength of international cooperation in defeating terrorism. Certainly, Malaysia has been a strong ally and partner with the United States and your regional partners in not allowing our defenders to be fooled, to not work together, to not provide a solid defense against this menace that we all face.

Your partnership with us on the war on terrorism is greatly evidenced by what I understand to be one of the strongest delegations we've ever had visit our country for this particular executive forum — very professional, hard working, and dedicated. Before coming to the United States, your delegation leader, Commissioner Nyomek was assigned as the new commandant of the senior police college of the Royal Malaysian Police. Ambassador Marie T. Huhtala, Regional Security Officer (RSO) Brian Duffy, and ARSO Andrew Simpson are very grateful for your outstanding support. The entire mission in Kuala Lumpur appreciates all the support that makes them feel safe.

In the coming year, ATA will provide training support to the Southeast Asia Regional Counterterrorism Center in cooperation with the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Department of State and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security look forward to a continued mutual cooperation with the government of Malaysia.

Let me speak a little bit about the notion of cooperation and the notion of capacity building. We've spent a lot of time in our country working with our partners around the world to train at the tactical level, to train investigators, to train crisis response forces, first responders, to train counter-assault teams—the people who actually go out and take on the bad guys.

This forum, in my view, provides what is particularly lacking across the world—the understanding and executive vision required to execute those forces; understanding more broadly how police executives internationally have to begin to think about terrorism; and the application of all resources available to us to take on terrorism in an integrated, organized fashion, within our countries, within our regions, and then internationally.

So I'm most excited about what this forum does in terms of bringing the leadership together to talk about these issues, to better understand your challenge of creating the vision within your country and among your regional partners, for how counterterrorism cooperation must continue to grow in the coming years.

The threat from al-Qa’ida, Jamat al-Islamiya, and other groups has not subsided. They are strong and still bent on disrupting our societies, killing our citizens, and imposing their view of totalitarian government on our people. We, as a free and democratic people, cannot stand by and let that happen. That's what the global war on terrorism is about. It's about defeating those individuals who would attempt to undermine the democracies of the world and the global system through the force of violence; a totalitarian philosophy that attempts to hijacks one of the great religions in the world, that of Islam.

We are with you on that, and we will fight this war until it's over. I know the people of Malaysia, and the government of Malaysia, will be with us until that fight has ended successfully.

(Exchange of representational gifts.)

Thank you very much. I do remember and recall very fondly our visit to Malaysia last year. I had a different job at that time; I was coordinator for counterterrorism. But the commitment of your government and the steadfast, solid police relationship that we have had has been a source of inspiration and pride to all of us. The spirit of cooperation here will not wane when you move on.

In fact, if you don't like the winter, we'll have to bring you back in the summer just to enjoy that part of the weather. Washington in the springtime is as beautiful as Kuala Lumpur year around, I know.

Thank you very much.