U.S. Policy Challenges in North Africa

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MR. WELCH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My apologies for being a little late. You have a considerable number of visitors to Congress today, and there's a very long line outside and I had --

REP. LANTOS: We are a very popular institution. (Laughter.)

MR. WELCH: This committee is a warm and welcoming place for us, sir.

But I had to choose between irritating those in line or irritating you --

REP. LANTOS: You chose well! (Laughter.)

MR. WELCH: (Laughs.)  Sir, thank you for calling this hearing. I'm happy to address a number of the points that you made and discuss our strategy toward the countries of North Africa, which include a number in my area of responsibility in the State Department, particularly Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.

Our relationships with these places have undergone a tremendous expansion in recent years. We have a long and traditional bilateral relationship with Tunisia and Morocco. In contrast, we're laying the foundation with Libya and Algeria for important changes in the coming years.

Our overall policy approach to the Maghreb is to seek a more secure, moderate and unified group of countries. We promote reform, economic growth, and partnership in the area of counterterrorism. Counterterrorism, as both of you have reflected in your opening remarks, continues to be an immediate national interest because there is terrorist activity and even attacks in the region, which regrettably have become more frequent, and unfortunately and dangerously, are connected to global terror networks.

Our counterterroism cooperation with each of the countries in the Maghreb, the four in particular that we're scrutinizing today, has been very good and, on specific threats, quite effective. We use technical assistance to help these governments in the Maghreb track and block terror financing. Through the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, we're also building capacity on this problem within the Maghreb states and between them, as well as with Sub-Saharan Africa. The TSCTP serves the longer-term objective, to enhance this regional and sub-regional cooperation and, as a collateral benefit, to deepen the integration between the countries in the region.

The Western Sahara issue, which spans the past 30 years, continues to be a destabilizing element. It thwarts regional ties, which are necessary for economic expansion, and it has had an effect on government-to-government cooperation within the Maghreb. We have welcomed, Mr. Chairman, Morocco's recent initiative to resolve this dispute. We are encouraged that it has spurred discussion. And we believe that it has created a new opportunity for both sides to come to an agreement. We consider the Moroccan proposal to provide real autonomy for the Western Sahara to be serious and credible.

The Security Council of the United Nations recently approved a six-month extension of the mandate for the MINURSO mission. And that approval took note of serious and credible Moroccan efforts to move the process towards resolution. The MINURSO resolution also noted a proposal submitted by the Polisario Front. We have been in touch with the UN to raise our view that direct negotiations without precondition should proceed forthrightly and expeditiously as called for in the resolution. We have urged that these begin later this month, and that they make real progress.

Any settlement of the Western Sahara must also take into account the concerns of the Sahrawi people and be consistent with their right of self-determination. Morocco has said its proposal would be subject to a vote by the Sahrawi people. Morocco has led the way in commitment and progress towards overall reform, but it is hindered by an economy that is not very well diversified and by quite rapid population growth. We seek to build upon the Moroccan reform agenda and make the government there more responsive to citizen concern, and to enable Moroccans to benefit from the global economy.

Very few bilateral relationships have changed as quickly as ours with Libya. We have made significant progress, as you mention, in eliminating Libya's WMD and MTCR class missile programs. The Libyan nuclear program has been dismantled. In response to Libya's renunciation of terrorism, we rescinded its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism on June 30th of last year.

Resolution of the claims pending against Libya, such as those of the LaBelle claimants and of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie claimants, remains our most important objective. Libya continues to reaffirm its commitment to respect any court judgments against it even as it pursues out-of-court settlements for some of these cases.

Our other pressing activities include assisting in the ongoing dismantlement of WMD programs in Libya, cooperation on counterterrorism, seeking an end to the crisis in Darfur, and encouraging greater protection of human rights, including the release of five Bulgarian medics and the Palestinian doctor.

In Algeria, we are working with the government to advance its political and economic reform agenda through technical assistance programs funded by our Middle East Partnership Initiative. We seek to help Algeria fulfill its goal of building a workforce more adept to the 21st century through better education. Algeria has come far in the past decade. It's made significant progress on human rights, though it has more work to do. It's paid down its debt and registered considerable economic growth. Trade with the U.S. has ballooned. Algeria is now one of our largest trading partners across the Arab world.

Tunisia has been a regional leader in social and economic reforms, with the strongest non-petroleum economy in the Middle East and North Africa, including rates of growth that have averaged 5 percent or better for the last 10 years. It also has the highest GNP per capita in the region, while boasting North Africa's lowest poverty and unemployment rates.

This progress has contrasted, however, with a very slow pace of political reform and poor performance on human rights. The Tunisian leadership has not been very forthcoming in addressing these issues. Our bilateral security relationship with Tunisia is very good, also with close cooperation in counterterrorism, and we seek to maintain this through robust assistance programs. I realize that already in your opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, you and Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen have introduced a number of other subjects, which I'm happy to answer in questions and answers. We've submitted a fuller statement for the record. Thank you very much.

REP. LANTOS: Thank you very much, Ambassador Welch.

Let me deal with the issue of terrorism in and emanating from North Africa.

North Africa has become a major hub for exporting Islamist terrorism. Moroccan terrorists were involved in planning and carrying out the attacks on 9/11, and they have been charged by Spanish authorities in the 2004 Madrid train bombing. Thousands of Algerians have trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. They have also carried out suicide bombings in Iraq. Tunisian expatriates with suspected links to al Qaeda have been arrested in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Western Europe, and here in the United States. A former supporter of terrorism, Libya, now fears attacks from its own Islamic opposition, which has ties to al Qaeda.

For its part, Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat has renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, mirroring the name of Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, indicating its plans to expand its mission throughout the entire region and beyond. The group claims responsibility, as you know, Mr. Ambassador, for three near simultaneously suicide bombings in Algiers in April, which killed 33 people.

The growing threat of terrorism in North Africa, and specifically al Qaeda, is a very serious one. I have several questions.

How would you assess the overall threat from al Qaeda and other jihadi groups in North Africa? How much of a threat does this terrorism pose for regime stability in the region? What has the United States done on its own, and through cooperation with European and North African countries, to put a stop to terrorist activity emanating from the Maghreb? What type of cooperation exists among North Africa countries for combating terrorism? This is a particularly serious issue because given the tensions among the countries of North Africa, my impression is that the cooperation is minimal and, in some cases, barely existing. How do you assess the value of U.S.-Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, and are all of North African states fully participating in it?

Ambassador Welch.

MR. WELCH: I'll do my best to cover that list, Mr. Chairman.

First, these countries of Northern Africa, as you know, sir, comprise a very significant proportion of the population of the Arab Muslim world. Morocco and Algeria are quite large countries.

So the population pool there that might be attracted to extremist movements is potentially also quite large. Sometimes they don't get as much notice, except for when there are spectacular actions, maybe in their immediate neighborhood. But it has long been a concern of ours to improve our counterterrorism cooperation with these countries individually, among them, and between them and others.

I assess the threat, in response to your first question, sir, from al Qaeda and its extensions into this neighborhood as significant, very dangerous and potentially growing in a couple of cases. I don't believe, sir, that it represents a danger to regime stability in any of the instances, but that doesn't comfort me a great deal because of the nature of these movements and their indiscriminate use of violence against civilians.

What have we done? First, I think it deserves recognition that in the space of a few short years, we have -- we've altered the discussion between the United States, other friendly nations and these countries and, to some degree, among them.

We've tried to not only have the traditional bilateral counterterrorism programs, with which you're familiar, Mr. Chairman, from our intelligence, our law enforcement agencies, but also to supplement those with other programs to bring people together to look at different tools of combatting the terrorist menace. The counterterrorism partnership initiative that has been mentioned earlier is one of those, and thanks to the support of Congress, it does have some significant funding available to it.

The partner nations in this initiative go beyond some of these countries in Northern Africa to include Mali, Chad, Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania, which was mentioned, and Niger.

We've discussed this initiative with Libya, but so far they've not indicated an interest in participating. We have different sorts of bilateral counterterrorism cooperation with Libya, and we're exploring other ways to broaden the dialogue with them on this matter.

A more challenging issue has been how to encourage the cooperation between them as well. And partly initiatives such as that one provide a forum in which these countries can get together, where they rarely did so in the past.

But a lot of that other work goes on more quietly, Mr. Chairman, where, you know, we would get together with some of our friends there and invite others into the discussion for specific topics. And in this forum, I can say that some of the bilateral work that we have done on specific and effective counterterrorism measures has been most interesting in the area of cooperation between the countries.

As you know, the Northern African area has been a source of those who seek to pursue what they call the jihad elsewhere, and the countries of this area have been, thankfully, quite willing to work against that problem, because I think they realize that it poses a danger to them also.

You asked how would I assess the value of the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership. I don't work directly on it, so I think probably a better answer might come from some of our Counterterrorism folks. But my sense is that this a growing and more successful enterprise and provides us a tool where we didn't have one in our arsenal before to do more cooperative work, and that's (in ?) the public domain as well.

Second, I would say that my experience on the bilateral measures -- and we've broadened those to some degree to cooperation on specific targets -- has also been extraordinarily beneficial for our national interests. And when I look at this incredibly diverse and populated area of North Africa, in some ways, it's one part of my region that -- where we are actually quietly moving things forward. I mean, your list of things that we want to cover in this hearing indicate that there are a lot of topics. There are some moving more quickly than others, I admit. But this is one subject where we've done really quite well in the last six to eight years.

REP. LANTOS: Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you as always, Mr. Chairman. It's good to see you again, Mr. Ambassador, always welcome to have you appear before our committee.

As I said in my opening remarks, I wanted to focus on Libya and whether Libya has fully complied with all that has been requested and required of it. The State Department officials and many spokesmen, including high-ranking officials such as John Negroponte, have touted the idea that full normalization with Libya is on the horizon with the construction of a new embassy in Tripoli and the installment of a permanent ambassador. I wanted to ask if you believe that Libya's continued failure to fully compensate American victims of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Libya and its agents over the past three decades have any impact on this decision to move forward with normalization efforts.

And further, what steps are being taken by our State Department to "enforce Libya's policy and practice of carrying out agreed settlements and responding in good faith to legal cases brought against it, including court judgments and awards"?

And those are the exact words from the State Department's memorandum of justification when we removed Libya as a state sponsor of terrorism on designation.

Has the State Department monitored Libya's good faith response to the myriad of legal cases currently pending against it, based on its prior acts of promoting and carrying out international terrorism against American citizens? And lastly, shouldn't normalization of diplomatic relations, full diplomatic relations with Libya be premised upon Libya's complete fulfillment of settlement obligations that it has undertaken with American victims of Libyan terrorism?

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WELCH: Thank you, Congresswoman.

As this committee knows, I'm a believer in purposeful diplomacy, and I've had some responsibility for the relationship with Libya now in the two years that I've been assistant secretary and some experience with dealing with this issue of Libyan terrorism over the course of my career.

I think you can be confident, Congresswoman, that your representatives here at the State Department and abroad in our embassy in Tripoli are diligently pursuing all these cases.

Normalization is a big word. In the full scope of its meaning and given the pain that Libya's past involvement in terrorism has caused to so many people, Americans foremost among them, as my legal responsibility I don't know what one easily, maybe even ever, normalizes a relationship of this sort.

I believe that it's very important to have the most capable diplomatic representation possible in Tripoli to discharge our national interests, among which are resolving these terrorism issues of the past. But we also have other things that we need to do with the Libyan government, too. I'm a supporter of having a fully functioning embassy there in premises that can be secure and with the United States represented at the level of an ambassador. I don't believe that's any gift to anyone. I believe that is a way of discharging our national interest.

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: If I could interrupt, I wanted to just focus on whether Libya has made good on its pledges on what it has agreed to, and to what extent are we holding them accountable and pushing them to make good on what they've said that they would do.

MR. WELCH: Well, the answer to the latter is we are pushing them to resolve all these cases.

Whatever their status in the judicial system here or in discussions between Libyan officials or representatives of Libya and representatives of the claimants concerned, Libya has agreed to act in good faith with respect to any court judgments against it if there are such judgments. And we've also told them that they should work it out directly with representatives of the families concerned if they're of a mood and disposed to do so.

That's been our consistent position. These cases comprise a -- there's quite a body of them and there are differences among them, but our position on this is we represent the interests of Americans and we want to see that faithfully discharged.

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you so much. And I hope we do continue to monitor each case and make sure that Libya doesn't just say they're going to comply and sign any document, but actually fulfills the obligation, before we move on and they're rewarded unnecessarily.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. LANTOS: Thank you very much.

Mr. Ackerman.

REP. GARY ACKERMAN (D-NY): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good to see you again, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, with the issue of Morocco and the Western Sahara, could you give us an idea of why this issue is of such critical importance to Morocco? We have done so much in furthering our relationship and our ties with Morocco -- free-trade agreement, major non-NATO ally status, Millennium Challenge Account, foreign assistance, et cetera -- but this seems to be the single most important issue in the long term. Why is that?

MR. WELCH: Well, you're right. We have a friendly and, I think, productive relationship with the Kingdom of Morocco. And historically, it's one of the oldest friends of the United States. This problem is a major national security concern for the Moroccan government.

And it -- I think they take it enormously seriously. They have looked at a variety of ways to solve it over the years. Regrettably, those have not borne fruit. It's one of the most vexing disputes in the area because, despite the level of international attention applied to it over the years, there, until recently, did not seem to be a productive avenue to address it.

We've encouraged the Moroccans to come up with some ideas for how they move forward out of this -- what we consider to be uneasy status quo. We thought that that would be important, Congressman Ackerman, because unless something more is done to address this problem, it'll remain a thorn in the side of two of the most important countries in North Africa, Morocco and Algeria. And it presents, as the chairman indicated, some significant concerns with respect to the population in this region of Western Sahara, including some human rights problems.

The Moroccan proposal, I know from having worked with them on it, represents some serious effort, hard work on their part. The Polisario proposal, which came in rather late in the formulation of the last MINURSO resolution, does not seem, in our judgment, to contain new ideas by comparison. Therefore, in the resolution, we suggested that language that would welcome the Moroccan initiative is serious and credible and try to use that to move the diplomacy forward.

I believe the UN has invited representatives of the parties to talks that will occur in just a few days. We've urged them to expedite that, to get it going, and we've talked to our friends, the Moroccans, to encourage them to be flexible, have an open mind with respect to possible compromises that might be made with respect to its proposal to try and advance this.

REP. ACKERMAN: It's been reported that the Algerians have bought some billions of dollars worth of arms of late. Just curious as to whether we discussed that with them, and why did they need these arms?

The proposal by the Moroccans, which has received wide acclaim across the board for the most part, seems to be their bottom line with very little room to maneuver or negotiate. How do we -- what do we to bring them together? Is there anything else we can do to bring them together?

MR. WELCH: It's my understanding that the Algerian government is pursuing a significant military deal with outside suppliers -- in this case, I believe, Russia. And I'm not certain that we would share the Algerian government's understanding of what the requirements are for such purchases. Given their defense needs, we probably would see this -- their requirements as more modest. But we don't see any indication that they intend to use these weapons, if they purchase them, in any offensive manner against any of their neighbors, on the other hand.

I don't think that the Moroccan proposal is meant as a take-it- or-leave-it enterprise. We've encouraged them to speak to anybody at all concerned about it. And they have indicated that they're willing to hear any reasonable ideas that might address elements of this proposal.

Some of those issues, I'm confident, will come out in the course of these talks.

What have we done to encourage this? Well, partly, sir, it's to work through this track of getting the Moroccans to come up with a proposal that might advance the negotiations. Partly it's to work in supporting the UN mechanism and framework for such talks.

We've also encouraged the parties to address themselves directly to one another, and we've offered in the past to provide the auspices for that. By that I mean that there should be direct Moroccan- Polisario negotiation. It now seems that that will occur within the U.N. framework. So we don't see a reason now to complement that. But you can be sure that our diplomacy will be devoted to trying -- moving it -- to move it forward.

REP. ACKERMAN: Lastly and very briefly, if I may, Mr. Chairman, with regard to Pan Am 103 and La Belle disco, you have stated that it's been at the top of our bilateral agenda with Libya, and for that we are all very, very grateful. And we're appreciative of the fact that we're pushing to resolve the final payment by the Libyans issue.

But it's also my understanding that there are additional lawsuits, and one involves the parents and siblings of victims. Could you tell me whether these particular lawsuits have been included in the administration's discussions with the Libyans? (Pause.)

MR. WELCH: I'm not familiar with that particular suit, Congressman. But I -- it sounds to me as if it would fall in the envelope that I described earlier. That is, the undertaking Libya has to the United States is that it will act in good faith to satisfy the results of any court judgments against it, if those are arrived at. In addition to that, we are pursuing with the Libyans the question of engaging in direct conversations with any of the claimants or potential claimants about these issues.

REP. ACKERMAN: Would you -- appreciate it if you could take a look at that specific sibling and parents' lawsuit.

MR. WELCH: I will.

REP. ACKERMAN: Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. LANTOS: Mr. Royce.

REP. EDWARD ROYCE (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just to go over some facts here, according to the CRS report, at Morocco's initiative, the UN General Assembly referred the question to the International Court of Justice. And this was back in 1975. In response, on November 6th, King Hussein (sic; Hassan) II of Morocco launched a Green March of 350,000 unarmed civilians to the Western Sahara to claim the territory. He did that in response to the ruling in favor of self-determination for the Sahrawi people.

In the 1970s, about 160,000 Sahrawis left the Western Sahara for refugee camps in Algeria and Mauritania. And Mauritania could not sustain a defense against the Polisario and signed a peace treaty with it.

As a consequence, Morocco then took that territory and occupied it, and in 1981 began to build a beam or a sand wall to separate the 80 percent of Western Sahara that it occupied from the Polisario and from the Saharawi refugees. Now, that's the CRS report.

This is an issue that I worked with James Baker on for a number of years. We are to a point where today you've testified that the Moroccan proposal for regional autonomy is serious and credible. There have been a number of Moroccan proposals in the past. Is this more serious and credible than those proposals, in your opinion?

MR. WELCH: Yes, sir.

REP. ROYCE: All right, that's good enough for me.

You state that the recent UN resolution calls on parties to enter into negotiations without preconditions. Once the UN and U.S. position was, frankly, to back a free and fair referendum on independence. Our position is now to back an autonomy plan?

MR. WELCH: The position we've taken in the discussions at the United Nations is that the proposal is, as I said, serious and credible. It offers a potential path forward. We want it resolved in direct negotiations between the parties. We think this is a chance to put something new on the table and address it. And the Moroccans have informed us that whatever conclusion is reached, they see the Saharawi people participating in deciding on it.

REP. ROYCE: Okay, then let's go down the road. If the focus here is to bring the parties together and to focus on an autonomy plan, what is the model for the autonomy plan? Clearly, there's got to be some brokering of the differences here. So in what other regions have we seen this work? What's the model for the autonomy plan that we envision?

MR. WELCH: Well, I think we didn't inform our judgment that it was serious and credible by applying it against any particular model, sir. We looked at the content of it, would it address certain central questions about the distribution of authority, control of resources, rights of the people in the area, how the judicial system would operate. And it seemed to be expansive in that sense.

REP. ROYCE: Okay. MR. WELCH: Second, we had some outside experts take a look at it --

REP. ROYCE: All right.

MR. WELCH: -- again, not to pass judgment as to whether it would be our proposal or was it like any other, but just to see whether or not this could be deemed to be credible.

Finally, that does not take away from the ultimate destination here is, which is a negotiated outcome that all parties can accept.

REP. ROYCE: And one that works. Because our exercise here shouldn't be some ivory tower exercise, it should be something that's thought through. And my hope is that your staff is working on that and thinking that through, because there's clearly an imbalance of forces here. We've got a sovereign state and all the economic and political resources it has to muster here, versus about 100,000 refugees in the desert whose biggest asset, frankly, is moral support. So you could see why the Polisario would be a little leery of trusting Morocco in negotiations. And again, that is why if you're going to get this thing -- you know, James Baker spent an enormous amount of time -- our former secretary of State -- on just this issue. So there's a tremendous responsibility here that you have now.

I'd like to know if we're providing the Polisario with any support, such as advice; what guarantees would they have that an autonomy arrangement wouldn't be quickly violated and the world wouldn't care?

On that issue, I'd like your views related to human rights abuses in Western Sahara undertaken by the authorities in Morocco.

These are critical if we're to get the parties together and to get a fair negotiated settlement that will work. And I commend you for doing that, but I really think it needs to be thought through. And so I'd like your responses.

MR. WELCH: Well, I agree with you, Congressman Royce. Each one of the points you make is valid. Having worked for Secretary Baker, I can appreciate the energy and seriousness with which he treated this issue. It really is a very hard problem. And that a diplomat of his skill wrestled with it and didn't, frankly, come up with a solution attests to the difficulty of the issue.

We're not disinterested observers here. We have a concern for the population in the area. There have been abuses, and we are vigilant about those. And we would be vigilant about them even if there were no negotiation process underway. That's not a tradeoff that we're making here.

I expect we will participate in some manner. Now this process has actually not yet started. The U.N. will have these talks on the 18th or 19th of this month, and you can be sure that our folks will be there to keep an eye on it. And just as we made a judgment one time that a proposal was serious and credible, if it works out to be in the course of that negotiation that we've had some reason to question that judgment, I don't think you need worry about our honesty in saying that.

REP. ROYCE: Well, I'm worried about -- you know, the Polisaro is being asked to take a great leap of faith here, based on past experience. It's clearly the next step, but they need support in that. And so I ask, where this has worked. You need to find out where it's worked and how it's going to work. Your staff needs to work on that and show them how and help create a framework here that's going to be durable.

MR. WELCH: I understand the suggestion, sir, and thank you for making it. And as you know, we do meet with the Polisario, and we discuss these issues with them. As we get their observations, we take what they will say seriously. REP. ROYCE: Again, find a case where this has worked in this framework and show me that. Show them that, and then we can move forward.

Thank you.

REP. LANTOS: Mr. Tanner.

REP. JOHN TANNER (D-TN): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here.

I just returned from Tunisia and Morocco. And I had long talks with both of our ambassadors -- in Tunisia, Ambassador Godec; in Morocco, Ambassador Riley -- as well as meetings -- in Tunisia's case, the parliament leaders and the president and in the case of Morocco, the speaker of the parliament and some ministers.

I think the question of western Sahara has been pretty well covered thus far. May I just ask one question: What, if anything, are we doing to encourage Algeria to make a positive or constructive contribution to the talks that are slated, number one?

Number two, to the extent that you can in this forum, can you comment on why there is a feeling that the trendline of anti- Americanism, although not at critical mass, is growing in this part of the world?

MR. WELCH: We have spent quite a bit of time talking to the Algerian government about the issue of western Sahara, and, particularly as we understood the government of Morocco was developing a new proposal, we did engage again with the government in Algiers at a number of different levels to open up this conversation with them and encourage their support for the process that we hope will start productively later this month.

The Algerians have their views on these issues, and I can't report to you that they agree with our approach here, but they have assented to this process, and I don't see their trying to veto it in any manner. We've encouraged them in particular to, as Congressman Royce suggested, work with the Polisario to try and make this a productive negotiation, if at all possible. This point has been made by myself and others in the administration -- Ambassador Ford in Algiers and also by the secretary of State and others in touch with the Algerians at that level.

So you ask a very difficult and complicated question in your second one, which has been the subject of attention from this committee in the past and I'm sure will be in the future, too. There is a very disturbing trend of anti-American feeling that has grown throughout the area. And as I know you all are well-informed on the subject, I don't think it's restricted to my particular area of responsibility alone. This is, in discouraging ways, a phenomenon we see around the globe, and so -- obviously with different intensity in different places.

Anti-Americanism is a big concept.

And I don't, from having lived in this part of the world for quite some period of time, believe that people are instinctively anti- American. I think generally they object to our policies, or our means of pursuing our policies, but they're not objecting to us as people. Now, there are certain things about America that they like better than others, some things they may even dislike. That's their right, and I don't think that we in turn need to be undiscriminating about our views towards others, as well.

The problem is when these feelings translate into action. And in recent years I think we've seen the dangers as Americans with what that can mean.

Addressing the phenomenon has to be comprised of a lot of different tools. I'm not a believer that public diplomacy alone will cure this problem, but I'm also not a believer that one indiscriminately or promiscuously changes policies simply because they might be unpopular. The United States takes its policy decisions based on a variety of concerns and understanding a variety of risks and benefits. Sometimes things that we deem it necessary to do may be very unpopular, and I try in our business to help people understand not only what the range of options might be in a particular instance, but what their benefit and costs might be so we can make a judgment about these things.

Finally, I think we all as Americans should be very careful about not falling into the trap of believing that everybody out there has exactly the same opinion. It's a wonderfully diverse set of cultures that I deal with alone, and I have some respect for that. And I don't automatically believe that all the people with whom I work or have to work are evil. I do believe a certain narrow segment of them are not only evil, but dangerous, and that's the problem that we have to take on, not whole societies.

Thank you.

REP. LANTOS: The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Inglis.

REP. BOB INGLIS (R-SC): Mr. Chairman, I pass.

REP. LANTOS: The gentlelady from California, Ms. Woolsey.

REP. LYNN WOOLSEY (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Secretary, I apologize for not being here for your testimony.

I'm particularly concerned about the treatment of women in parts of northern Africa, and in the world at large, actually. But the State Department's report on human rights gave an account of an atrocity in Algeria that related to spousal abuse.

And it's an example of how women are treated in that area. A woman or a person has to be incapacitated for 15 days or more and present a doctor's note certifying the injuries before even filing charges of battery. But social pressures -- and you know better than I, because you're much better informed -- make it so that women frequently (sic) endure the process of reporting because it's just too tough. And according to a study in 2004 by the Justice Ministry, women's associations and the National Institute of Public Health, 70 percent of abused women refused to lodge a complaint or follow through with their complaint.

So what is the United States doing in the region to strengthen the rights of women? How are we working to encourage better protection for women within the judicial system? And just comment on isn't a system based on equality helpful to the entire society, not just women?

MR. WELCH: These are important issues of concern -- should be of concern to all of us. Each of the countries that we're looking at today are different from one another, but I think they have something in common as well. You mentioned, for example, that it's difficult for women to present a complaint. It's in some cases not merely legally difficult, it's culturally very challenging. You know, in societies that covet the privacy, particularly of their women, this can be very difficult to address, and sometimes even dangerous for the women concerned, particularly where the question of family honor gets engaged. This is not to exculpate the abuses that do occur, but to show that even if you had a legal system that's, on its face, fair and open, how that's translated in a particular cultural environment might be quite a bit different.

Education makes an enormous difference. And education is a feature of every one of our Middle East Partnership Initiative programs with the countries of the area. Again, there are differences between these nations. Tunisia, for example, has a proud record of educating women, and an excellent record of how women operate in the society -- a standout in the Arab world. By contrast, there are other places -- Algeria is one you mentioned -- but it's not the only one, where the illiteracy rates among women are high even by regional standards, and regional standards are not impressive. I think that is one area where we have concentrated.

Another is on judicial reform.

Judicial reform, sometimes unfairly, gets labeled as the soft side of democratization. But it's a huge and important part of it. And the legal systems in many parts of the Arab-Muslim world demand modernization. And this is an area where the United States has a pretty good record of cooperation with countries and has significant programs underway, including -- we'd like to open them up in the case of Algeria as well.

Finally, there's the question of how you change the cultural mores generally. And I think, you know, our argument there is one, I believe, I mean, I like to see the glass half-full in all these cases -- has some increasing resonance in the region. And what is that: that, you know, you can't neglect 50 percent of your society.

Whether you want to or not, they are gradually and surely going to feel themselves increasingly empowered, because they are more educated; they're more discerning of their rights. Their families expect it, and they themselves want equal protection. And I think to the extent that we can offer opportunities for women to advance those ideas, whether that's by creating the forum necessary for these kinds of conversation or more directly addressing them with some of our assistance programs, that we should do so.

REP. WOOLSEY: Just a slight, short follow-up: So then, if we encourage a judicial system that women could depend on if they were brave enough to go forward, and that when we educate and they are educated, they will be more willing to come forward, then would our role be to give input and advice on a judicial system that would set a standard for them they could trust, depend on? Because if you've got to be that brave to come forward anyway, how awful when the judicial system falls out from underneath you.

MR. WELCH: Yes, I would say, we should do that. And given your interest, Congresswoman Woolsey, I can send you some data on what we do in the area of judicial assistance, not merely in these countries but it's actually an important feature of our assistance programs elsewhere in the region as well. And we're spending a fair amount of money on this. It's an important question.

But I don't want to neglect that there should also be role models. It's important for us to provide a forum and show respect, where that is possible. And we have a unique attribute in my department, because I work for a female secretary of State who's uniquely capable of going out there, and usually quite energetically discusses these issues.

REP. WOOLSEY: Thank you.

REP. LANTOS: The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for being a bit late, that I have three or four different things that I'm doing at the same time here, which is clearly true of all my colleagues as well. Just for the record, I would like to associate myself with the concerns of Ms. Woolsey on the importance that we place on demanding the rights of women in Arab countries.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that we need to speak out forcefully and just unmistakably on the rights of women in the Arab countries in particular -- all throughout the world, not just Arab countries. But in Arab countries, we need to let people understand that half of their population cannot be mistreated or be relegated to second-class status, and that is not acceptable to the United States of America. And if we're going to be a force for freedom and democracy in the world, that has to include equal treatment for that half of the world that are females. And so I'd like to associate myself with that concern that was raised by my colleague, Ms. Woolsey.

In terms of actual freedom and democracy, other than the gender issue, I'm concerned that what we do is real in other ways as well, and I'd like your analysis for me of whether or not what we've seen -- has there been democratic reform in Libya, or are we just making friends with a dictator?

MR. WELCH: Well, we're not on either end of that spectrum, Congressman. My job is not to make friends with authoritarians, it's to pursue what I think are national interests and to come before you all and engage on those propositions and defend them where I'm called to or advocate them.

Libya is not a democracy by any stretch of the imagination, and it's -- I'm not entirely sure that current leadership of Libya intends to proceed in that direction with great energy. That said, I believe our representatives there have a way of presenting these issues and can have a way of presenting these issues so that the Libyans and their leadership can understand what it means to, as Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen had mentioned, become part of the civilized world. And as aspect of that is to open up their society, including in the area of political participation. I think in the case that you mentioned Libya's going to be enormously difficult. That doesn't mean that there aren't Libyans who want to change their country. I believe there are. And one important aspect of --

REP. ROHRABACHER: Well, what's the course of the point? The point is there are Libyans who want to change it, and I would hope that we don't get caught into the trap, which is, in order to be friends of the regime, that we make enemies of the people who want democracy in that country.

And it's a very easy trap to fall into because you've had this maniacal and somewhat unstable leader there for a long time, and it's very easy to think, well, at least he won't be our enemy. Well, if we do that at the expense of basically convincing the people of Libya that we are now actually his friend rather than just a friend of trying to promote their freedom, we've actually failed in the long run.

MR. WELCH: I couldn't agree with you more. I don't see us making that kind of trade-off. I believe that having, as I mentioned earlier, sir, diplomatic representation in Tripoli, with a fully functioning embassy and an accredited ambassador, would be a strong instrument in the hands of the United States to advocate reform across the board. And I think that the Libyan leadership should take a very careful look at what it is that we're suggesting here, because I don't believe it presents a danger to them.

Now --

REP. ROHRABACHER: Let me offer this. In Qatar, and actually in Kuwait now, they are easing their way into an electoral system, and they are permitting women to vote, for example, and to hold office in their local things. This is really an important message; that we need to make sure that the people of Libya know that we're not just making friends with Qadhafi but we're actually trying to make sure that in the long run their people will have that kind of freedom and participation. And of course, it is a good thing that Libya and this crazy man is not now looking at us as a target for doing evil things, but we can't placate him and give up the long-term objectives of democracy and equal rights.

So I appreciate your --

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: If the gentleman would yield, Mr. Chairman.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Actually, my time's up, but I'll be happy to yield.

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you. I agree with you on the issue of Libya.

And on your first point about the empowerment of women, I've noticed that the gentleman from California has become an even greater spokesman for the cause of greater empowerment of women since he's become the proud father of triplet girls. REP. ROHRABACHER: (Laughs.) (Laughter.)

REP. ROS-LEHTINEN: So I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but we thank you for that.

REP. WOOLSEY: And if the gentlewoman will yield, also he has a very powerful, smart wife.

REP. ROHRABACHER: There you go. All right. Well, we know where the real power is. Thank you very much.

REP. LANTOS: Your cup runneth over, Mr. Rohrabacher.

Before recognizing my friend from Georgia, I ask unanimous consent that a statement provided by the government of Morocco and a letter from a bipartisan group of foreign policy experts led by our former secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, be made part of this record.

Now I'm pleased to recognize Mr. Scott of Georgia.

REP. DAVID SCOTT (D-GA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me first start off by offering my congratulations to you and the ranking Republican member for this hearing. It's very informative.

And Mr. Welch, certainly appreciate you coming before the committee.

I'd like to ask a few questions, if I may, about the Middle East. And specifically, the country of Algeria legitimizes the activities of foreign terrorist organizations operating within the Palestinian territories as "armed resistance" and not as terrorism. And furthermore, the country has opposed U.S. policies towards Iraq and Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's sort of an edgy rub there.

So what, if anything, can be done to make Algeria more supportive of U.S. initiatives? And how receptive has Algeria been to initiatives within Middle East countries, such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative?

MR. WELCH: At the outset of my summary remarks today, I mentioned we've had a traditionally and historically close relationship with Morocco and Tunisia. In fact, if you look back in the history books, they're some of the earliest countries to recognize the United States.

That hasn't been the case with Algeria and certainly not Libya. The evolution of our relations is a much more recent one in the case of Algeria and a very, very recent one in the case of Libya.

There are things to this day that we disagree with Algeria on, including its use of nomenclature, as you mention, to describe what we would consider to be violence, if not terrorism.

That said, the Algerian government participates in Arab League decisions and has voted affirmatively for an offer for peace from the Arab League toward Israel.

Also, they, like other members of the Arab League, make contributions toward support for the Palestinian Authority. And our experience has been in the recent past that those have been done responsibly.

What would particularly trouble us is if we saw that there were more than words, but there was direct support. The chairman was asking earlier about the threat of terrorism coming out of Northern Africa, and I assessed it as growing and dangerous. And I don't think it would be restricted against us alone, could be occurring against some of our friends, too. I don't see that in the Algerian case, though. I think the government of Algeria is not supporting practically organizations that we would consider to be terrorist organizations.

We do have MEPI programs under way in Algeria, though our partnership in that area hasn't been as easy and dynamic as I would hope it would be.

Our ambassador there is devoted to trying to increase the range of cooperation we have on these issues. And as I mentioned in response to an earlier question, I think that can be done in a way that the government can understand that our objectives may well be complementary and carry less risk than they seem to imagine that they do.

REP. SCOTT: Let me ask you just a follow-up. Let's take the Middle East countries maybe just one at a time in terms of what is Algeria's opinion of our policies towards Syria.

MR. WELCH: I -- to be completely honest -- in answer to your question, sir -- (I'm asked ?) of that recently. We've had quite extensive discussions with the government of Qatar about voting on the tribunals for the Hariri prosecution, because they're on the Security Council, and some within the Arab world believe that affects Syria in one way or another. But we haven't engaged directly with the Algerians on this.

I don't sense a very dynamic Syrian-Algerian partnership on things. It may be that in a political sense, their language might be similar on some things, but they're quite geographically distant from one another.

REP. SCOTT: If -- I know my time is (passing ?), Mr. Chairman. May I have just 30 seconds?

I guess my concerns here are what we find in, say, Algeria as an example, that counter to so much of what we're facing in the Middle East is to try to build democracies, and voting rights is a very large concern, certainly to all of us here in this country. But in Algeria's last elections last month, voter turnout was 39 percent, and by some accounts, it was as low as 14 percent in the capital of Algiers. Could you tell me what attributes to this? And the main point of my thrust of this whole question is, how may democracies best flourish in this country in general, and how do you assess the state of democratic development in Algeria and these North African countries as a counter, especially when we see this downward slide in terms of voter participation? Is this democracy really working here?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WELCH: It's a very important case -- question, especially in the case of Algeria, because I think the interrupted election -- parliamentary election in 1991 led directly to the onset of civil violence and terrorism through much of the '90s in Algeria.

This recent election that you mention wasn't the step forward that we had hoped it would be. Even the government of Algeria was disappointed at the turnout -- 35-or-so percent. In our judgment, they could have made some decisions that would have increased that number, and some of the decisions they made might have had an effect in depressing the number. In particular, in any election you want to see that all political currents that play by the rules can be represented.

Their elections commission is examining some aspects of the conduct of this election, and there's a debate going on between the commission and the Ministry of Interior responsible for the election itself. There are reports of fraud. It's a good thing that the election commission actually is paying attention. We would hope that they would -- that these will be resolved in a manner that contributes to the growth of democracy.

Taking a step further, then, to conclude an answer to your question, these things should go right because especially in the case of Algeria, if they go bad, then you have a high risk that people will see that they have no other alternative but to pursue their political concerns in a way that may be very unhealthy for all of them. And we would like to see that trend broadened.

The sophistication of some of the questions I've received today indicates that this committee and its membership are not judging one country by the standard of another, but are willing to recognize that the way it may be done in, say, Kuwait, is going to be different than the way it's done in Qatar or Algeria. But in every instance, we look for the countries to take steps forward in a responsible way to increase political participation; have it done in a legal manner that all citizens can enjoy.

REP. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. Welch.

And thank you for your generosity, Mr. Chairman.

REP. LANTOS: Thank you.