Yes We Are Safer

Last week, the nation marked the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in solemn fashion, focusing on memorials and reflection, rather than on point scoring. Too bad Richard Clarke couldn’t manage to do the same.

Clarke, the official in charge of antiterrorism efforts before 9/11, commemorated the anniversary of the attacks by publishing a finger-pointing screed in U.S. News and World Report.

Clarke’s argument went something like the following: Here we are, seven years after 9/11. We haven’t been attacked. But we could be. Al Qaeda still exists, Bin Laden remains at large, and terrorists still commit terrorism. We’re backsliding, and no safer now then we were then. On the home front, our borders are still porous, we’re still not screening people, and security grants are too much about pork and not enough about real risk.

Clarke is mostly wrong.

In fact, we are safer today than we were seven years ago. We haven’t been attacked since 9/11 in part because we have destroyed al Qaeda’s headquarters, enhanced our intelligence assets across the globe, captured and killed terrorists on nearly every continent, and partnered with our allies on information sharing and other security-related efforts.

Today, al Qaeda no longer has a state sponsor. Contrary to Clarke’s claims, most of its original leadership has been captured or killed. It is losing in Iraq -- thanks to the surge and to the Awakening movement among the Sunni tribes--and its savage attacks on innocents have reduced its popularity there and across the Muslim world. Muslim scholars and clerics are increasingly condemning its beliefs and behavior as a desecration of Islam.

This progress has come because we abandoned the practice of treating terrorism solely as a criminal matter – exactly the kind of September 10 policy that Clarke celebrates in his article.

Closer to home, the Department of Homeland Security has made clear progress that belies Clarke’s claims.

At the border that Clarke thinks is so porous, DHS has built hundreds of miles of fence and will double the size of the Border Patrol. We’ve also deployed fingerprint-based screening and radiation portal monitors at all of our border entry points.

To protect against a repeat attack, DHS has built nearly two dozen layers of security into our aviation system, and it has developed comprehensive security plans for other critical infrastructure.

Clarke claims that the executive branch has proved incapable of managing new terrorism programs to success. Tell that to US-VISIT – a massive government IT project that compares fingerprints of travelers to a database of millions and does it in 30 seconds for officials all across the country and the world. We got it up and running from scratch, despite the doubters. And it’s so successful that we’re expanding it to collect all ten prints and to compare them to prints found in terrorist safe houses around the world. We’ve done all that since Dick Clarke left government – and without a word of support from him.

Despite his claims of backsliding, it’s DHS that has been battling complacency, and Clarke who seems to have been sitting on the sidelines.

We’re the ones who’ve been fighting for the carefully targeted, risk-based homeland security grants he favors. It’s Congress that has added billions and made them less risk-based. Has Clarke criticized Congress or praised DHS for our risk based approach? If so, I missed it.

On our southern border, DHS’s fence-building and increased border enforcement have been hampered by local NIMBY (“not-in-my-backyard”) forces and advocates for illegal immigration. Did Dick Clarke speak out against them? Not so I’ve noticed.

To secure our northern border, we’re implementing tougher document standards, and we were ready to require all travelers to produce a passport or passport-equivalent by the end of this year. Where was Dick Clarke when Congress decided to push back that deadline to mid-2009? I don’t remember an op-ed then complaining about how porous this would make our Canadian border.

Clarke says that terrorists who look European have been trained by al Qaeda and may have European Union passports and clean identities unknown to intelligence agencies. He thinks such people could enter the United States almost as easily as did the 9/11 hijackers. It’s indeed true that during Dick Clarke’s tenure, Europeans could come to the US without any opportunity to screen them before they were in the air. As of this January, though, no foreign travelers other than Canadians will be able to come to the US without supplying -- in advance -- the information we need to screen them. At last, we’ll have the time and information we need to investigate risky travelers (and to prepare a rude surprise for terrorists who try this route). That’s all happened since Dick Clarke left government, and without any support from him.

There’s no question that Dick Clarke contributed to strengthening our national security, but his recent assertions are not only incorrect, they disrespect the work of many national security professionals he once called colleagues. That is indeed unfortunate.

Stewart Baker
Assistant Secretary for Policy

A Year of Achievements

This afternoon I had the privilege of giving remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on our department’s accomplishments for the year and our priorities for 2008.

By any measure, 2007 was a year of strong progress and maturation for our department. From border security and immigration enforcement to passenger screening, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency response, we launched important initiatives to strengthen America’s security and we began to see the fruits of our labor in many vital areas.

To keep dangerous people from entering our country, we reached a landmark agreement with the European Union to share advance passenger information on international travelers. We also began collecting 10 fingerprints from foreign visitors at our international airports, which allows us to run more comprehensive terrorist and criminal watch list checks and identify unknown terrorists. We implemented new rules to improve screening of private international aircraft. And we strengthened passport requirements for air travelers in the Western Hemisphere.

To keep dangerous things from arriving here, we launched our Secure Freight Initiative to scan overseas cargo for radiation. We expanded our Container Security Initiative to 58 foreign ports so that our inspectors can screen cargo before it departs for the United States. We installed Radiation Portal Monitors at our land and sea ports of entry to prevent radiological materials and weapons from entering our country. We also seized record amounts of illegal drugs at our borders and at sea.

In addition, we strengthened critical infrastructure protection. We began implementing tough new chemical security regulations to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attack. To protect our ports, we provided port workers with a secure, tamper-proof TWIC credential. We deployed behavioral detection officers to more than 40 of our nation’s airports. And we expanded information sharing with our state and local partners through our participation in fusion centers.

In the area of emergency preparedness and response, we retooled and restructured FEMA, giving its employees better tools, logistics and tracking systems, and more effective disaster registration capabilities. We also hired full-time directors in all 10 of FEMA’s regions. As a result, FEMA’s response time was faster this year and the organization was widely praised for being on the scene quickly during the California wildfires and other disasters.

And to improve the department’s management and operations, we strengthened our information technology oversight and contracting, gave our employees new resources and on-line training tools, and moved forward to consolidate our headquarters operations into a single campus.

Next year we’re going to build on our success in these and many other areas. In particular, we’re going to continue to strengthen security at the border and enforce our nation’s immigration laws. We made a lot of progress this year to build fencing, hire new Border Patrol agents, and strengthen interior enforcement. Next year we will build even more fence, hire more agents, and deploy new technology at the border.

We’re also going to implement new secure identification requirements as part of our Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and we will release final regulations for secure driver’s licenses under the REAL-ID Act. Secure identification was a 9/11 Commission recommendation and remains one of our best tools to prevent terrorism and identity theft.

Finally, we’re going to accelerate our efforts in the area of cyber security and we’re going to continue to institutionalize our department and work with Congress and American people to do our level best to protect this nation.

Of course, behind every one of our accomplishments this year stand the 208,000 men and women of the department. These achievements would not be possible without their resolve, the continued support of our public and private sector partners at every level, and the American people.

Happy holidays and thanks for reading.

Michael Chertoff

The Battle for Our Future

Earlier today, I had the honor and privilege of speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site for one of the greatest speeches of modern times, Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” address.

Delivered in 1946, Churchill’s speech eloquently outlined Soviet communism’s threat to the free world and called for firm and principled resistance. Like his warning a decade earlier about Nazi Germany, his words that day were roundly criticized. On both sides of the Atlantic, Britain’s greatest statesman was called a fear-monger for his efforts.

A half century later, in 1996, the words of Margaret Thatcher, another great former British prime minister, were also unheeded after she had come to Westminster and warned of the rise of Islamic radicalism.

But as I mentioned today, time has vindicated them both.

Appeasing Nazi Germany in the 1930s led to World War II. Containing the Soviet Union following the Second World War led to its downfall. Downplaying the threat posed by Bin Laden a decade ago led to the horrific 9/11 attacks.

Incredibly, we face exactly the kind of complacency in our post-9/11 world that Churchill and Thatcher confronted in decades past.

As I said today, too many members of our “thinking” classes deny or downplay the fact that war has been declared against us by an ideology that is as ruthless and fanatical as that of Nazism or communism. Spread by a network of cult-like entities that span the globe, this ideology denies the dignity and humanity of its opponents, and sanctifies the slaughter of innocent people, especially mainstream Muslims, for rejecting its hateful and bigoted message.

Members of Al Qaeda and their fellow travelers seek not only revolution in their own countries, but domination of many countries. Beginning in the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa, they seek control over actual territory where they can train, assemble advanced weaponry, impose repressive law, and plan further attacks against our nation and its allies.

How have we responded? Under President Bush’s leadership, we’ve destroyed Al Qaeda’s Afghan headquarters, deployed our intelligence assets globally, captured or killed terrorists on nearly every continent, partnered with allies on information sharing and intelligence, and adapted to the evolving threats we continue to face here and abroad.

By responding in strength, we’ve applied Winston Churchill’s words at Westminster to our enemies today. As Churchill said of the communists, “There is nothing they admire so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness.” Whether it’s Hitler or Stalin, Bin Laden or Iranian President Ahmadinejad—for ideological fanatics, weakness is provocative.

Were Churchill alive today, he would encourage us to maintain our resolve, preventing our enemies from launching further attacks, gaining control of nation states, and obtaining weapons of mass destruction. He would tell us that we must have a clear vision of the threat, not one colored by wishful thinking.

I’m also certain that Churchill would recognize that ours is ultimately a battle of ideas, a clash between the forces of reason and modernity and those of medieval fanaticism. Through the liberation and exercise of reason, we’ve witnessed wondrous things – the conquest of ancient diseases, the freeing of legions of people from poverty and starvation, and the unleashing of the information age. Ours is not a struggle against religion, for there is no necessary contradiction between reason and faith. Indeed, reason is God’s gift to humanity.

This is a battle that we must win, and one that calls on all of us to be engaged.

Michael Chertoff