<DOC> [108th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:94017.wais] EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES AGAINST TERRORISM ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ FEBRUARY 3, 2004 __________ Serial No. 108-150 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 94-017 WASHINGTON : DC ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont (Independent) Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director Rob Borden, Parliamentarian Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio DAN BURTON, Indiana DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio TOM LANTOS, California RON LEWIS, Kentucky BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER, TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland ------ ------ JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts ------ ------ Ex Officio TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel R. Nicholas Palarino, Senior Policy Advisor Robert A. Briggs, Clerk Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on February 3, 2004................................. 1 Statement of: Kass, Lani, professor of military strategy and operations, National War College; David H. McIntyre, former dean of faculty, National Defense University; Randall J. Larsen, Colonel, USAF (ret), CEO, Homeland Security Associates; and Frank Cilluffo, associate vice president for homeland security, the George Washington University................. 78 Yim, Randall A., Managing Director, Homeland Security and Justice Team, U.S. General Accounting Office............... 6 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Cilluffo, Frank, associate vice president for homeland security, the George Washington University, prepared statement of............................................... 141 Kass, Lani, professor of military strategy and operations, National War College, prepared statement of................ 81 Larsen, Randall J., Colonel, USAF (ret), CEO, Homeland Security Associates, prepared statement of................. 132 McIntyre, David H., former dean of faculty, National Defense University, prepared statement of.......................... 115 Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3 Yim, Randall A., Managing Director, Homeland Security and Justice Team, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of............................................... 10 EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES AGAINST TERRORISM ---------- TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2004 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) Presiding. Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, Schrock, Murphy, Ruppersberger and Tierney. Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; R. Nicholas Palarino, senior policy advisor; Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Robert A. Briggs, clerk; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk. Mr. Shays. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations hearing entitled, ``Effective Strategies Against Terrorism,'' is called to order. Scientists remind us the plural of anecdote is not data. In the realm of national security, a similar axiom would hold the proliferation of counterterrorism strategies does not necessarily mean we are any safer. Only if those strategies guide us inexorably and immeasurably toward clearly articulated goals will they secure our liberty and prosperity against the threats of a new and dangerous era. Prior to September 11, 2001, this subcommittee heard testimony based on the work of the three national commissions on terrorism--Bremer, Gilmore and Hart-Rudman--citing the lack of any overarching counterterrorism strategy. Last year, witnesses told us the Bush administration had succeeded in filling the strategic void with no less than eight high-level mission statements on national security, military strategy, global terrorism, homeland security, weapons of mass destruction, money laundering, cybersecurity, and critical infrastructure. These strategies suggest the need for a post-cold war security paradigm that replaces containment and mutually assured destruction with detection, prevention and, at times, preemptive action to protect the fundamental interests of the United States. But the multi-dimensional threat of terrorism demands levels of strategic dynamism, flexibility and accountability never required to meet the relatively static Soviet menace. So we asked the General Accounting Office [GAO], to describe the fundamental characteristics of a coherent framework; one that clearly states a purpose, assesses risk, sets goals, defines needed resources, assigns responsibilities, and integrates implementation. According to their analysis, current strategies contain many of these traits to some degree, but do not yet include key elements, particularly in the area of resource implementation and coordination to avoid duplication. Yesterday, the President's proposed budget for the next fiscal year outlined the near and long-term costs of the war against terrorism. The strategies under discussion here today contain the words that are supposed to be driving those numbers toward achievement of higher level of tangible national goals. How can those strategies be clear, more concrete, and more tightly integrated into an inescapably logical whole? How will we know programs are achieving strategic objectives? Testimony by GAO and by our second panel of expert witnesses will help us understand those questions and assess the strength and weaknesses of current counterterrorism strategies. We are very grateful for the insight and expertise they bring to our ongoing oversight, and we look forward to their testimony. [The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.002 Mr. Shays. At this time, the Chair would recognize the vice chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. Turner. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I just want to continue to appreciate your focus on these issues, and I look forward to the testimony today. Mr. Shays. Thank you very much; and the gentleman from Virginia. Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you for holding this hearing on a most important aspect of national security. It is indeed a fitting and appropriate way for us to begin this session. I also want to thank all of the witnesses for lending their expertise to this committee's efforts to better understand and evaluate this matter. That the events of September 11, 2001, in their scale and audacity were such an unexpected invasion upon our sense of safety and control of our lives and that a small number of terrorists could strike such a devastating blow gives a sense of urgency to our need to distill our security division. The National Security Strategy put forth by this administration in September 2002, is a commendable step in this effort to focus our military law enforcement and diplomatic resources to enhancing our security. Like many members of this committee I still have grave concerns about our ability to integrate the efforts working to make this country more secure, particularly with respect to intelligence gathering and sharing. I am confident that, given the urgency of the war on terror, we all feel that as a Nation we will continue to identify our weaknesses and work to improve and rise to the challenge. Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing to advance us toward this goal and to the witnesses for both their time in testifying and analyzing this important effort. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Schrock, and thank you as well for your really faithful participation on this committee. I'd like to align myself with your comments. I'd ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the record, and without objection so ordered, and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose. I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in the record, and without objection so ordered. At this time, we will recognize our first panel, comprised of one individual, Mr. Randall Yim, Managing Director of Homeland Security and Justice Team, U.S. General Accounting Office. Mr. Yim, if you will stand, we will swear you in and then begin the testimony. [Witness sworn.] Mr. Shays. Thank you. We appreciate your presence here today and the terrific work that GAO does on so many issues. You and your colleagues are invaluable to the work of this committee and to the work of Congress. With that, what we'll do is we have 5 minutes. We'll roll it over another 5 minutes. Is the clock working? OK. STATEMENT OF RANDALL A. YIM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY AND JUSTICE TEAM, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE Mr. Yim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Vice Chairman Turner, Ranking Member Kucinich, Mr. Schrock, members of the committee, thank you for providing GAO with this opportunity to contribute to our Homeland Security efforts. We undertook this work at this committee's request to constructively assist the Congress and the executive agencies in moving our Nation forward, in sync, in concert, with the available resources in a balanced, measured, and measurable manner toward better Homeland Security and national preparedness. We hope that our testimony today assists in the evolution and implementation of national strategies so that Homeland Security efforts nationwide are clear, sustainable, integrated into agency governmental and private sector missions, helps in the difficult decisions in balancing Homeland Security priorities with other national objectives and ensures transparency needed for effective oversight and accountability. In our review, we recognize that the national strategies are only beginning starting points for other parties developing more detailed implementation plans; and we recognize that the true measure of these strategies will be determined through time as they are implemented by the Federal, State, local and private international sectors and as Homeland Security actions are embedded or integrated into ongoing governmental and private sector missions in sustainable, balanced ways. Thus, the value of these strategies will be the extent to which they are useful for and actually used by the responsible parties to guide their own actions, to make difficult resourcing decisions and to develop and maintain their assigned capabilities to respond as expected when needed. This means that the strategies must be relevant and useful not only during times of crisis but during prolonged times of preparedness. The strategies must be useful for all phases of our Homeland Security efforts, prevention, vulnerability assessment, reduction response and recovery; and these strategies should be used not just when an emergency arises, when there is a danger of panic driven activities, but during the hopefully increasingly long periods of time when there are no attacks, no horrific situations that consume our attention. I recently spoke at a senior commanders' conference for the Joint Command that includes the military district of Washington. One of the concerns raised by the senior leaders is that we must act now to define and coordinate the responsibilities of the Federal, State and local governments and the private sector while their memories of September 11 are still in the forefront before complacency sets in and hampers our efforts. Indeed, a survey of about 1,400 private CEOs presented at the World Economic Forum rates global terrorism only tied for 6th on the list of 11 challenges that these CEOs view to the biggest threat to their companies. Our Nation must make the necessary steps to improve Homeland Security now with a sense of urgency. The strategies must make such improvements even without an immediate emergent situation. What did we find? We found that the national strategies are not required by executive or legislative mandate to address a single set of characteristics and, not surprisingly, they contain varying degrees of detail based upon their scopes and maturity in their underlying programs. Further, we found that there is no commonly accepted set of characteristics used for a national strategy. As a result, after consulting with numerous sources, GAO developed a set of desirable characteristics that we believe are critical to provide effective guidance. These are: a statement of purpose scope and methodology; second, a problem of risk definition and assessment; third, identification of goals, subordinate objectives, activities, and performance measures; fourth, resource investment and risk management discussions; fifth, organizational roles responsibilities and coordination; and, finally, integration and implementation. We then evaluated the seven national strategies by the extent to which they contain these key characteristics. The seven strategies we evaluated were: the National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2002, publication; the National Strategy for Homeland Security in July 2002; the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism in February 2003; the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction in December 2002; the National Strategy for Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets, February 2003; the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, February 2003; and the 2002 Money Laundering Strategy. Page 4 of my testimony contains a matrix summarizing the results of our evaluation, and I'd like to emphasize certain points on that table. Five of these points are newly published in September 11 and relate to specific areas of homeland security and combating terrorism. The other two strategies, the National Security Strategy and the 2002 Money Laundering Strategy, were updated from pre-September 11 versions, and only these two strategies are required by statutes that mandate specific content elements. Thus, admittedly the six identified key characteristics and the evaluation of the extent to which the strategies address these characteristics have a degree of subjectivity, even though we at GAO follow consistent and clear criteria during our evaluation. Because of this inherent subjectivity, the value of our analysis lies not in an absolute or stand-alone assessment of the strategies. That is, we are not attempting to assign an absolute grade to the strategy but rather a comparative analysis between and among the strategy. Some are better in our views than others. Some employ best practices that have enhanced value to the users. Our objective is to learn from the best to assist this Congress in continually evolving these strategies in an expedited matter. The strategies generally do not address resourcing risk management and implementation. Those desired objectives are not clearly linked to funding and sustainability. How are we going to pay for homeland security measures, who should pay, how do we factor in costs--effectiveness? How do we implement additional homeland security without consequences such as deleterious impacts upon businesses or civil liberties, privacy issues; and, second, even where the desirable characteristics are addressed, the strategies could be improved. Of course, while strategies identify goals, subordinate objectives and specific activities, they generally do not discuss or identify priorities, milestones or performance measures that we consider are crucial to effective oversight and decisionmaking. So let me briefly touch upon those six characteristics with a specific example. First, purpose, scope, and methodology. Fundamentally, a good strategy has to identify what it does and it does not cover so that the users know what to expect and the right people are brought together for both development and implementation. Importantly, key definitions can provide the clarity necessary. For example, some of the earlier iterations of the critical infrastructure protection strategy defined it as cyberstrategy, as opposed to physical structures. That was clarified later, as to help the users agree upon a problem to be addressed in some means to determine priorities. So some strategies like money strategy focuses on law enforcement, others on deterrence, others on prevention and response; and that can sometimes lead to conflicts or tensions between the agencies because sometimes law enforcement is incompatible with crime scene response. So it's very difficult. We have to define problems, set priorities. We have to do it fundamentally on a risk basis by identifying threats, identifying vulnerabilities and the cascading impacts, should a threat come to fruition. The Homeland Security Strategy does have a separate threat and vulnerability section, but many others do not. Third one, goals, performance measures. Obviously, we would like to have a hierarchy of goals to achieve those end-states. Performance or out-commissioned goals, as opposed to some of the mistakes we made in the Department of Defense of prescribing specific solutions, allow responsible parties to develop integrated approaches and to tailor it to specific sectors or regions; and they allow us some accountability both as to the use of funds but also are people capable of assuming assigned responsibilities once the strategies make those assignments. Next category, resource investment and risk management. The strategy should address cost issues, how much, who's going to pay, how are we going to pay, the types of resources and investments associated. I think they all make the logical assumption that we cannot afford to do everything, so we have to have some rational risk management approach to do the things that are best within our available resources to stretch and leverage our resources. For example, the cyberspace strategy relies upon market-driven approaches because of rapid changing technology in that arena. However, on other sectors that don't move as quickly, bridges or transit, perhaps another strategy could be employed. Organizational roles and responsibility is a fundamental question of who's in charge of not only during times of crisis but during what I said, times of prolonged preparedness. Who's in charge. Also, let's us coordinate the activities among various responsible parties. The Money Laundering Strategy is a good example. It assigns specific objectives. And, finally, integration and implementation. We will never be fully successful in our homeland security strategies if we continue to see homeland security as a separate cost activity. We will and should overlap with other national important strategies. We have to talk about designing in homeland security up-front at the same time we're talking about recapitalizing our infrastructure, rather than trying to retrofit our infrastructure; and I think that these types of integration will help us strike fundamental balances of the many important things our citizens are asking the government to do. So where do we go from here? I'd like to conclude my oral comments with a few observations and suggestions. As I said before, the ultimate test of the strategy will be determined through time as they're implemented. Are they useful? Are they actually being used by the parties responsible? So it's going to be very responsible for GAO, this committee, the Congress, the administration, to solicit input from all responsible parties, State and local, international and incorporate this to ensure improved preparedness. The feedback will be to this committee, and obstacles will be identified that may require legislative action if necessary. Feedback to the Congress will also allow us to improve our grant systems and other stimulus and investment programs. Mechanisms that set performance metrics will really help us tell if we're getting our money's worth. Finally, integration and implementation may be enhanced by national standards that link together these responsible parties using management and systems principles that are analogous to some of the very recognized ISO-type management standards that have been used. Much has been done, Mr. Chairman; much more needs to be done; and GAO looks forward to working with this committee. Thank you. Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Yim, for your testimony and for all your good work. 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We'll start with Congressman Schrock first; and then we'll go to you, Mr. Ruppersberger, and then to you, Mr. Vice Chairman, and then to you, John. Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Yim. Fascinating remarks. I, too, worry about complacency. Every day we get further away from September 11, I worry more and more. This is your matrix? Mr. Yim. Yes, sir. Mr. Schrock. I was fascinated by those that were mixed, mediocre, or weak; and that's not good. This certainly needs to be improved. I don't know how quick it's going to happen, and the desired objective is not linked to money. That seems to be the key to everything up here. It seems we have to put our money where our objectives are or we're going to pay for it. I'm going to make a couple comments, and I'm going to let the second panel know we are going to ask the same questions. I believe the National Security Strategy is a forward- looking vision that goes a long way toward reorienting our Nation toward the post-September 11 world. I do note as a document focused primarily on international relations, reorienting military and intelligence capabilities is only mentioned in a cursory fashion. While a companion national military strategy has been written, I'm not aware of a similar national intelligence strategy. Though there is no doubt in my mind that we possess the finest military and intelligence capabilities in the world, I remain uneasy about our ability to evaluate non-traditional and asymmetric threats and to integrate the many different strains of intelligence that we gather. That being said, in your opinion, should we develop a national intelligence strategy that addresses these perceived weaknesses; and, if developed, what would you recommend such strategy address? You touched on some of that, but I wonder if you could go into more detail. Mr. Yim. Yes, that is certainly a key issue. Threat and risk assessment based on good intelligence is a critical precursor to setting our priorities and allocating the resources effectively and cost effectively. While most of our criteria that we discussed today talked about transparency and accountability, there will be a need for secrecy in a national intelligence strategy. On the other hand, more and more people need to be connected to the intelligence communities that have not been in the past; and those people are unfamiliar as to who to call, what expectations on the type of information that they will receive, the detailed nature of that information. So I think that makes it all imperative that we have some sort of national strategy. Generally, some of the national strategies do discuss intelligence issues. For example, the National Homeland Security Strategy has a primary section on intelligence and warning, talking about building new capabilities through the information assurance and information infrastructure profession directorate. The Combating Terrorism Strategy talks about locating terrorists in their organization and assessing intelligence capabilities to gather human and technical intelligence. The Combating Terrorism Strategy also references this TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, and talks about the need for intelligence fusion, taking all of the data that's being gathered by our intelligence community and fusing it into adequate material. This is in various locations. Does it need to be brought together? I think that's one of the various purposes of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center; and I think our discussion from the State, local and private sector, they would like a more coordinated way to receive threat information so they can plan accordingly. Mr. Schrock. I agree. You said who to call? I think somebody told me there were 47 Federal agencies that did intelligence after September 11. Nobody would share with anybody, and I think that's a big problem. God forbid we suggest merge the CIA and FBI together. There would be a revolt like you've never seen, but it's coming. No. 2, the strategies that GAO submitted reporting to this committee state that--in an unequivocal fashion our national policies toward a variety of threats from both traditional and non-traditional actors. Our goals are clearly stated. As leaders, we have become comfortable with the idea that the war on terror must be a sustained and lasting effort. We believe we must not use that fact as an excuse to prolong our evaluation of our short-term progress. These strategies for the most part do not include metrics or milestones to be used to measure our progress. Question: Should we develop a timeline along which to assess our progress in implementing these strategies, and what would you propose as metric suitable for measuring our progress toward achieving the stated goals and objectives of these strategies? Mr. Yim. Yes, I think, sir, that the timelines are imperative. People do react to timelines. I think initially when the strategies were developed, because so much needed to be done and it wasn't clear how we were going to approach some of these issues, that, in fairness, some of them did not have timelines. However, we have seen iterations now. Further documents come out from our national statutes. We've had firm timelines imposed by the Congress on baggage screening, for example. We've had firm deadlines imposed upon the Coast Guard for port vulnerability assessments. We recently had the administration issue two Presidential directives, Homeland Security Directives No. 7 and 8, in December 2003, that assigned firm responsibilities and tasked the secretaries of the responsible Cabinet agencies within fixed periods of time to develop certain strategies, to develop performance metrics. I think that's clearly what we need. What Congress has done in certain areas is legislate or mandate particular timeframes, and I think that may be an option that could be considered. One of the dangers is that sometimes that may tie or limit some of the flexibility, but certainly I think for the Congress to exert that type of oversight is certainly something that should be considered, sir. Mr. Shays. Thank you. Let me just say that we usually go 10 minutes. I think with so many Members we probably should do a first round of 5 minutes. I just want to say, for all the Members, the first hearing we had was a hearing that said we had no real strategies. Now we have this proliferation of eight strategies; and this hearing is to kind of evaluate how we're doing on these strategies and what is, in essence, a good strategy, how do we determine that. And at the third hearing we're going to have--I just want to put it on the record, Mr. Ruppersberger, because you mentioned it--the third hearing we will have government witnesses. The administration needs to come and say, OK, we know we went from none to many and now we're trying to evaluate them and this is what we're finding. What's your response and where are we. Mr Ruppersberger, I recognize you. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Yim, you stated there was considerable variation to the extent of the strategies and how it related to homeland security and terrorism and that all the strategies identified goals, supported objectives, and other characteristics. But the strategies generally, from what I'm hearing from your testimony and correct me if I'm wrong, do not address resources, investments, and risk management, or integration, implementation. And even where the characteristics are addressed, improvements could be made. For example, while the strategies identify goals, support objectives and specific activities, they generally do not address or discuss priorities, milestones, or performance measures, which is where we want to get, where our goal is; and the elements are desirable for evaluating progress and achieving oversight. Now you stated the strategies range from strong to weak in defining problems. For example, Homeland Security, Cyberspace and Critical Infrastructure Strategies were judged to be the most developed, while National Security Strategy and WMD were considered to be the most vague and weakest; is that correct? Mr. Yim. That's correct, sir. Mr. Ruppersberger. Now do different levels of maturation and subject expertise really account for all the differences? Mr. Yim. I think that accounts for some of the differences but not all of the differences. The value, as I said, of our analysis is it is comparative analysis. You could expect the National Security Strategy, the most top-level strategy, would probably be the most general one in nature. You would expect the Money Laundering Strategy, which is targeted for specific agencies--FBI, law enforcement-- that has a long history of criminal activities would be more definite in defining roles and responsibilities. Mr. Ruppersberger. WMDs have been around longer than cyberspace. Mr. Yim. Yes, and I think that really talks about counterproliferation, nonproliferation and just management in very general terms; and it doesn't--is it useful in such general terms for people that are going to be charged with implementation of the strategy? I think that's the question we're raising. Other strategies like the National Security Strategy, the Homeland Security Strategy had ways to be specific. They said who was in charge of specific activities. Perhaps that could be added to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Strategy. Perhaps there could be some timelines added to the WMD strategies. Performance measures? That's perhaps hard to judge. So we're not saying that each strategy has to be at the same level, but I think there's significant lessons from each strategy. And each could be improved, all could be improved, of course. Mr. Ruppersberger. Why do you think the administration really outlined the strategies the way they did? Mr. Yim. It's hard for me to speculate. I think one of the reasons some of the strategies are less specific is that, in certain areas, so much needed to be done right after September 11 that even general strategies were useful to mobilize the resources. We were so lacking in preparedness, despite the Bremer Commission, Gilmore Commission, Hart-Rudman Commission recommendations, that immediately after the September 11 attacks just focusing attention on certain key areas was a useful exercise for the Nation. I think the need to get a strategy out quickly to mobilize the support was a good goal of the administration, but we're beyond that now. We're, as Mr. Schrock indicates, at a danger of complacency. We need to move toward the implementation stage. And that means the strategies have to firm up, they have to get sharper; and until we do that and provide some performance measurements we're not going to know whether the commitment of resources is really making it safer. Mr. Ruppersberger. It could have been because of September 11 that the strategies were hastily written by the administration, in all fairness to them, because there was none before that, correct? Mr. Yim. I really am not---- Mr. Ruppersberger. We're only trying to get to the end game, and that's the purpose. Do you feel, though, when we're dealing with strategies in these issues and especially such national strategies that before we come out with the strategies that we deal with the facts and data and get more data to come with a more concrete strategy than the way it is now? Mr. Yim. I think that's exactly right, sir. We do need now to move. When we move with implementation, it has to be supported with good data. That's not only data on risks and threats and intelligence data but on our infrastructure. Do we really know what our hospital infrastructure is capable of doing for a SARS attack or an avian bird flu virus? Do we really know what our power grids can do under certain situations, not only an attack but a human error that led to the cascading Northeast blackouts, and how quickly can they recover if there was an exerted--worm or virus being exerted into the system? We need better data. When I was in the Department of Defense, one of the things that really hindered us in doing our infrastructure recapitalization was a fundamental lack of data available. We didn't really know what we owned and what we controlled, and if you don't know that information--and in many senses we don't know exactly what the capabilities of the State and local and private sector are to respond or to be prepared in certain areas--it's very difficult to develop a strategy and to implement. Mr. Ruppersberger. And the local and State issue is a major issue, also, in bringing them all together? Mr. Yim. Yes. Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. Thank you. At this time I recognize Mr. Turner. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would echo Mr. Schrock's statement with respect to a national strategy on intelligence. Because certainly in reading the description of the various strategies, intelligence comes out in each of them; and as we talk about first responders and to agencies and, of course, agencies that are responsible for intelligence gathering, the coordinated effort both in gathering and dissemination of intelligence is really probably the most important aspect of our preparedness with respect to combating terrorism. You spoke about the issue of the strategies themselves and the lack of definitive information on the implementation for agencies and that--really looking at various strategies and the lanes they're in and how really, going forward, each agency might implement aspects of them. I'm interested in the coordination between strategies and agencies, to what extent the strategies provide guidance or to what extent the agencies are looking at the various strategies before them, coordinating their implementation of the strategies or even the agency's efforts with other agencies. Mr. Yim. That issue of horizontal integration among the Federal agencies is critical. When many Federal agencies look at strategies, they talk about their obligations under the GPRA-type of requirements. That's very narrowly agency focused. When we're talking about the Homeland Security Strategies, we're talking about issues that cross-cut over and above a particular agency's jurisdiction. When we are talking about preparedness for a bioterrorism event, it's not only HHS, it's DHS, it's going to be Justice, it's going to be DOD, it's going to be a variety of other agencies. So the key is the strategy would have to cross- cut the agency jurisdictions. Do they do that enough? We found mixed results when we talk about who's in charge. Sometimes they talk about lead agencies, but sometimes they do not. Sometimes they don't add the time component. There may be a lead agency for prevention but a different agency for response or recoverability assessment. I think it's illustrative to look at the Homeland Security Presidential Directives that came out in December. I think they responded to some of the criticisms about the national strategy, and they were very specific. They said, you, Secretary of HHS, you, Secretary of DHS, you, Secretary of Energy, are to do these specific things, and you are to coordinate your activities in this specific manner, but the overall lead is ``X.'' I think that is a good example of where we would like some of these strategies to head, because I think we have to recognize they cross-cut well beyond the ability of any single Federal agency and even the Federal Government. We need to talk about vertical integration. The Feds can't do it all. State and locals are going to have to do stuff. The private sector owns 80 percent of the critical infrastructure. They are going to have to do that, too. Mr. Turner. You talked about the issue of feedback as relates to implementation. Is there any presence of a mechanism for interagency feedback, where one agency who has needs from another that's not being met has an ability to accept within their own agency--cause it to be known of the need or the lack of response or the lack of implementation? Mr. Yim. We had raised some of our concerns about that. The Department of Homeland Security has an Interagency Coordinating Council, and they have that function. They also have a Homeland Security Advisory Council that includes State and local and private sector input to the development of their strategy, but sometimes they have to come up, butt heads, against other Cabinet agencies. How do you prioritize homeland security against education security, energy security, hospital, health care security, and where are those balancing decisions being made, the coordination? Of course, in the executive branch, in the White House, in the Homeland Security Council, perhaps? Is that in the National Economic Council? I think that still needs to be better clarified, and the Congress could provide I think great assistance in the balancing that needs to be occurring between very many--there are so many important priorities that this Nation has to address. Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Tierney. Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Yim, for your testimony and your report. I'm concerned about what I think is an apparent failure to integrate the strategic decisionmaking between international and national criteria objectives on that. Would you speak a little bit to that? It seems to me we have $10 million going to national missile defense, we have billions of other dollars going to weapons platforms that I think will look a little bit back toward the cold war as opposed to what we are going to do and only $1 billion in moneys allocated in port security against the possible introduction of nuclear materials in that manner. What should we do and how does this stack up in terms of international and national planning and what can we do to improve that aspect? Mr. Yim. I think many of our strategies understandably are inwardly focused right now because of the immediate response to September 11, but clearly what we need to talk about is borderless security. When we talk about border security, it really is a bit of an illusion. Our borders are--because of our society are designed to be free and open, to be easily passable through. We talk about cybersecurity. There is really no sense of a border. So if we're talking about borderless security, then we clearly would need international cooperation; and strategies need to address that. Obviously, we need to interdict a dirty bomb or a nuclear device in a cart or container before it arrives in the Port of Philadelphia or the Port of Los Angeles, and the only way we are going to get that is through the international cooperation. Now some of the strategies address that. The Combating Terrorism Strategy talks about involving the international community. The High-Level National Security Strategy talks about, well, if we're fighting terrorism, we not only need to defeat the existing terrorism, we have to prevent the growth of new terrorists by winning the, ``war of ideas.'' Are we doing enough in that arena? Well, I think some of the international community may be dismayed that we are taking unilateral actions. Are our own protocols consistent with their business models, for example? I think that is a fundamental purpose of going toward some type of national standards and using an international systems type standard organization that specifically factors in the considerations of the international community and the U.S. community so that they are compatible. We depend upon foreign trade and export and import, so we must need the international cooperation for cargo security. We depend upon security, so we need the international cooperation for visas verification and terrorist watch. So I agree with you, sir, that definitely needs to be a component of each strategy. I think in this day and age we really do not have just a homeland security strategy. It really is a global strategy. Mr. Tierney. Did you see any evidence in your review of what's going on of any budgetary planning that cuts across the international and the national aspects of strategy; in other words, allocating our resources as between one and the other, going back to the example that I gave, where it seems entirely skewed? Mr. Yim. It's difficult to see that with enough granularity, because many of the activities deal with international topics, are dual purpose or multi-purpose activities. So it's hard to split out this particular funding for increase in Department of State staff or particular programs only designed to counterterrorism. They could only be part of the overseas economic development and economic assistance programs. So the answer is yes. If we need to have greater granularity, it's difficult in the way that the budgets are submitted to see that direct link between foreign support budgets and the counterterrorism activities. Mr. Tierney. Well, would you agree with me that the prospect of having somebody bring over a dirty bomb in a container of a ship is probably far more likely than somebody getting an intercontinental ballistic missile with it targeted and directed to the United States at this point in time? Mr. Yim. I'm sure that's correct. I'm sure the experts behind me would agree with me, also, sir. Mr. Tierney. So it would seem that we concentrate more on the former than the latter in terms of how we allocate our resources. Does that make sense to you. Mr. Yim. Absolutely. Some risk threat assessment is required. Mr. Tierney. And do you see that between international and other types of threats. Mr. Yim. Some of the strategies really only peripherally touch on that; and I think that is an area where we talked about integration, implementation. When we talked about integration, it wasn't just in the United States. It was definitely with the international community. That was one of the major issues that we flagged during our review. We definitely need improvement in that area. Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Shays. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Murphy. Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you, Mr. Yim. Mr. Yim. Thank you. Mr. Murphy. On the issues of intelligence and coordination intelligence, certainly within intelligence agencies one of the things they also must protect is horizontal and vertical distribution of information in order to keep information secret; and yet you have to know when to distribute it horizontally and vertically in order to allow other persons to act on that. Part of Homeland Security is to try to coordinate the efforts of FDICA, NCICA, NSA, etc. Of course, what is becoming clear in the news, too, is that many times we have--or in the last decade or so there's been depletion of perhaps agents or other folks who were able to gather active information, completely wiping out our ability from Asia, the continent of Africa and many areas in the Middle East; and we will suffer the consequences of that depletion for a while because we have not had eyes and ears on the ground. We have been relying on troop movements when we should have been looking at individuals. Given that integration of information, one of the things I look at on a local level is the question of where do we stand now in terms of getting accurate information to all the folks who are really seen as the first and last responders on the ground--the police, the fire, the hospitals--in being able to deal with these and to have accurate information. Because I think, as we see flights canceled from Europe, as we see alerts go up and down, we certainly don't want to have the public become compliant and unresponsive, which would only increase our risk, but, nonetheless, we want to make sure that they have trust and faith in information coming through. Where do we stand, in your assessment, on accurate information being gathered and accurate information being disseminated such as not to lead to complacency? Mr. Yim. I think that's a very common concern that we hear voiced to us from the State and local sector, the lack of detailed information that would allow them to stay specific actions. I mean, they have been critical of the color code, the terrorist threat advisory system, in being too non-specific, that they've asked for more region specific or sector specific information. They've pointed out that they don't need to compromise sources and methods, that the cop on the street doesn't need to know how the information was gathered but only whether you want me to look up or down under the bridge, etc., on the roadways, to take effective action. I think one of the additional concerns would be that people are unfamiliar with the intelligence community and the nature of the information that's being generated. They may lack the capabilities to analyze, certainly analyze, the raw data. So the information I think not only has to be a mechanism to provide it. They have to do some analysis to the type of information that will be provided, information that isn't going to require training to be able to analyze but information that could be actionable by a fire department chief, by a mayor, by a sheriff. I think we are going to overcome it; and, in fact, people are going to get flooded with the data they will receive. The key will be an analysis of the data, synthesis of it, to the extent it is useful. Mr. Murphy. Where do we stand in the timeline of reaching that goal? Mr. Yim. I think that has been one of the most common concerns of any--not any but one of the primary areas for additional attention and in setting some timelines for putting a plan, putting some metrics, as to what is being pumped out, getting feedback loops from State and local as to what information is most useful to them, what information they don't need. I think if we got that feedback we can overcome some of the sources and methods. Mr. Murphy. Are we weeks or months away from reaching that goal? Mr. Yim. I'm not sure I'm in a position to say, sir. I wish I could. On many of these areas, I think we're more--certainly, it's more a long term than it is a short term. Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. I was telling Mr. Ruppersberger that I'm happy I'm not in school, being tested on this; and yet I have a bit of guilt because this is so important. As one of our witnesses is going to say later, ready, fire, aim; and that's kind of what we did when we had the three commissions before us. They said there is a threat, you need to know the threat, you need to develop the strategy, you need to organize your government. It would clearly--and this is what Mr. Tierney, frankly, on this committee has argued more than anyone else, what's their strategy? What I am having a hard time wrestling with, and I'll kind of share some of my ignorance, which I do more often than I'd like, but when I look at the matrix, I look at seven strategies, national strategies, and I look at the national security. Do you have that in front of you? Mr. Yim. Yes, sir. Mr. Shays. I'm going to quickly run them down. National Security is NSC; Homeland Security, DHS, Combating Terrorism, NSC; Weapons of Mass Destruction, NSC; Physical Infrastructure, DHS; Secure Cyberspace, DHS; and Money Laundering, Treasury? Mr. Yim. Yes, sir. Mr. Shays. Now what I'm also learning from this is only National Security and Money Laundering were strategies we had developed before September 11. Mr. Yim. Yes, sir, that's correct. Mr. Shays. And what I have a sense is--yes? Mr. Yim. I think there had been iterations of strategies. They were only published--five of the strategies were published post-September 11. Only National Security and Money Laundering were actually published in this format prior to September 11. Mr. Shays. Well, I have a sense that we've gotten pretty lazy. In other words, the cold war threat we are pretty clear that it was containment, reactive nuclear destruction. What's unsettling for my constituents is that it's probably detection, prevention, maybe sometimes preemption, obviously based on better information than we had, and sometimes maybe the lateral, and I'm just talking in a general sense. When I look at National Security, the matrix that you have, purpose, scope, and methodology it does not address problem definition and risk assessment; does not address resources investment and risk management; does not address organizational roles and responsibilities and coordination; does not address integration and implementation; does not address--and only one is partially addressed, and that's goals, objectives, activities performance measures. Tell me why I shouldn't be hugely concerned about that. Mr. Yim. Again, what we were trying to avoid is to give a score card, an absolute measure. Mr. Shays. You don't have to give a score card on this. Mr. Yim. But the point would be that perhaps such a high- level strategy--in fairness, in something at the top-level strategy, the National Security Strategy, it's not surprising that it would be vaguer or use more general language. However, we still have to ask that things have changed since 1947 when we first were required to develop a National Security Strategy. Things have changed since 1988, when the statutory requirements for the National Strategy were promulgated by this Congress. Have the world changes now, with the changing terrorist threat, the pace of technological development, required the strategies to become more specific? I think that is our general conclusion; and I think, yes, Mr. Chairman, you should be concerned that the National Security Strategy isn't as specific as some of the other ones are. Mr. Shays. Tell me this: Of the so-called desirable characteristics, which is the most important? Mr. Yim. Well, of course, we will say that all are important or we wouldn't--but to answer your question seriously, we would say that the resource investments and the performance metrics ones are the keys. You have to be able to sustain the effort. It's not enough to have high-level goals if the money isn't going to follow along. If people aren't going to invest the money, the people, the prioritization to achieving those objectives and if that is the most important objectives you want people to implement, then you have to have some way of telling whether or not they are spending their money correctly, and that's why the performance measurements-- Mr. Shays. Give me another one that's most important, second one that's way up there. Mr. Yim. I think integration is the key. We talked about if you consider homeland security as a stand-alone item, it's going to be enormously expensive. Mr. Shays. So I would have picked out goals, objectives, activities and performance measurements. That's what I would have picked as No. 1. Tell me why that doesn't top the two that you mentioned. Mr. Yim. Again, it's difficult for me, but because I believe that where we're focused on implementation--it's a question for us--is can we afford to do everything people are identifying that needs to be done? Mr. Shays. Right. Mr. Yim. It's fine to set goals and objectives, but the reality is we are not going to be able to achieve all of those goals and objectives immediately, so how we resource and set priorities I think is going to be the key, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. Tell me which is the least important of that group. I mean, they're all important, but which is the least important? Mr. Yim. I think every strategy has a general purpose statement, so in terms of utility to the user, something that says promote the common defense, ensure domestic tranquility, that's a burden of proof statement that would have been addressed in our criteria. Mr. Shays. Purpose and scope? Mr. Yim. Purpose and scope-- Mr. Shays. I'm sorry, is that the one you said? Mr. Yim. That's the one I said-- Mr. Shays. I understand they're all important. Then tell me--oh, jeez. Let me just ask you: I just was verifying that I was looking at the matrix; and my staff said, ``Yes.'' I was looking at the matrix on page 2, and then I said on figure 1 on page 8 what am I looking at? And the comment was a mess, a chart that is hard to understand. Do you want to break this down in a Top Secret briefing or do you want to just quickly tell us what that means--a strategy of hierarchy? Mr. Yim. When we put that graphic out, people said, you put a dunce cap in your testimony. We would prefer to consider it a wizard's cap, Mr. Chairman, but basically what we're trying to point out is that there is a hierarchy. We expect that the strategies are not the ``be all and end all,'' that we expect the strategies to have some general statements, to be at the top of that cone or pyramid and that we expect that the responsible parties charged with implementation are going to develop further documentation, and it's going to get more granularity as you move down the cone. So as you move from the top of the cone, the National Security Strategy, to implementing documents such as the Homeland Security Presidential Directives to specific agency strategies, that's as you move down the cone, you're getting more specificity and you would demand more performance measures. Mr. Shays. Are there Members that have another question of this panel? Mr. Schrock. Yes. Mr. Shays. Before you go, I want you to tell me, are there any national strategies that have been left out, plus the eight which we are going to have under closed door; but if you could just start to think about what strategies should be there that are not. Ed, why don't you go. Is that all right? Mr. Schrock. Just a couple quick comments, Mr. Yim. We were talking about the hierarchy could be the problem. Is the strategy the point or the mentality of the bureaucracy to put this together? You mentioned a couple of times the coordination of the agencies, the butting of the heads of Cabinet members, everybody has their own turf and nobody wants to give it up. Is that the problem? Mr. Yim. I think that is one problem that the strategies have to address. Mr. Schrock. How do we solve it? Mr. Yim. I think that there needs to be a clear directive to our Federal agencies that they must admit that certain things are beyond their jurisdiction and scope, they must rely upon others to assist in these areas; that it is not exclusively the province--homeland security is not exclusively the province of a particular agency, a Cabinet Secretary or Department and that a topic like bioterrorism is going to overwhelm the resources of a single agency. That is the value of a strategy. How we make that realization come to pass has been a classic question. Mr. Schrock. Clear directive from whom? Mr. Yim. I think the administration clearly has that responsibility. Mr. Schrock. The President of the United States? Mr. Yim. Yes. Mr. Schrock. You talked about a borderless society. We all love that. The fact is that is probably never going to happen again. How much interaction or coordination in this effort do you think needs to be made with some of our allies, some of our partners in this, a little, a whole bunch, none? Mr. Yim. I think that is going to be a crucial aspect of it. The burden of defeating terrorism on a global scale is not going to be able to be met solely by the United States. Mr. Shays. Could you say that again? Mr. Yim. The burden of fighting terrorism on a global scale cannot be met solely by the United States. And certainly the impact of terrorists' attacks is not only felt by the United States even if the attack was only on U.S. soil. We know that 47, 50 or so countries had citizens in the World Trade Center attacks. The financial market ramifications were extended well beyond the U.S.' financial systems. So the international community being aligned in the fight against terrorism is going to be crucial. Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. Could I ask you on that point, I want you to say it again, and I want you to tell me under what basis you can say it. I happen to believe it, but I believe it intuitively. Is it so obvious that it stares us in the face, or is there work to be done that says categorically you can make that statement? Mr. Yim. I think we can use examples. The cargo container security work that we have been doing, Mr. Chairman, could not be done--we can't interdict all of the cargoes without cooperation from the superports in the foreign areas telling us what is going in or having some protocols to secure who's loading what onto those containers. And containers aren't the only problem. There are great bulk carriers that are coming in, too. You could put a bomb in a grain ship as well as a container ship. When we talk about cybersecurity, we certainly know that it's not just that. Mr. Shays. Thank you for your patience. Mr. Ruppersberger. I do agree with the issues. Bottom line questions: First, what are some scenarios--and I'm not sure where you can answer this--where poor risk management could lead to being unprepared against terrorist acts? Mr. Yim. I think that there are several scenarios that we have. When we talk about, for example, the bioterrorism attack in an urban area, poor risk management leads to everyone trying to do the same things. So we can have a lot of different entities begin to stockpile chemical, biological protective suits as the military did following the gulf war in 1991. And we can come back 7 years later in 1998 in the military and find that the shelf life had expired in most of those suits and our protection was illusory. I think if we don't have coordinated activities, we may have the illusion of greater preparedness, but not the actual reality of being able to fulfill the responsibilities. I think that is an example, sir, that is very troubling for us. People need to enhance capabilities over a long period of time, not just the capability to do something within a particular budget cycle. Mr. Ruppersberger. Any other examples? Mr. Yim. I think cyberterrorism--that if we have systems that have identified security holes, and that we don't have coordination so that there can be cascading impacts, or that the vulnerabilities are not clearly made known because people wish to hold back that information for whatever reason, their share value, etc., that we could have significant impacts from a lack of coordination. Mr. Ruppersberger. Wouldn't you say that a terrorist act has clearly a cascading effect in other population centers, financial markets, infrastructure? Are we prepared, do you think, based on that scenario at the local and State level? Mr. Yim. I think we are not to the extent that we should be because we have not completed in general the vulnerability assessments that are required. There are some vulnerability assessments that are being done. It is 2 years after September 11 and 5 years after many of the commissions have recommended or identified terrorism as a major threat. We really need to expedite these vulnerability assessments. Mr. Ruppersberger. Another question: Which agencies in particular bear the greatest risk with the fewest resources? Mr. Yim. We have just seen the 2005 submission. We've seen which ones got plussed up and which ones did not a bit. Certainly the Department of Homeland Security is getting, in certain areas, increased funding and some downgrades in others. I think the Department has been under tremendous stress with this reorganization. I know when we have talked to members of the other Departments, they are not fully staffed in many ways. They are having difficulties responding to some of the deadlines that are self-imposed as well as externally imposed. And they're talking about, well, we just don't have all of the management structure or resources in place. I think that's an area that needs to be looked at. Mr. Ruppersberger. Based on the President's budget that was submitted yesterday, what areas in homeland security do you feel were cut that would have a negative impact on our security? Mr. Yim. Just with this, I know there has been a great concern about the way that money is going to be distributed to emergency and first responders, State and local. There have been a lot of debates about trying to have that on a risk management basis as opposed to purely a per capita or fair share type based on population approach. I think that is an issue that bears a lot of watching. Are we funding enough for preparedness at the State and local and private sector, and is it going to the areas that, based on good intelligence data, deserve to receive? Mr. Ruppersberger. Based on the cuts in the first responders, what negative impact do you feel that would have on national security? Mr. Yim. Certainly any event is going to be local. Everyone uses that phrase. I believe that wholeheartedly. We need to have our State, local and private sector to be prepared for a wide variety of hazards. If we're not, I think the whole Nation suffers. Mr. Ruppersberger. If you would be able to recommend to the President to reconsider that cut, what would your main argument be? Mr. Yim. Again, I don't have enough details on the specifics and the justification, but certainly when we talk to State, local and private sector, that's the people that Congress and the administration serves. Mr. Ruppersberger. Training, equipment. Mr. Yim. Training, equipment. It's not only that, but generally being prepared to deal with a wide range of events. And the same type of preparedness in the Midwest for a tornado is going to help us in an explosive attack. The same level of preparedness in California for an earthquake is going to help us on a wide range of attacks. Mr. Ruppersberger. I represent Maryland's Second Congressional District, city of Baltimore, port of Baltimore, BWI Airport, the tunnels, but one of the--and we did a survey on who had received moneys from Homeland Security, and we checked with every volunteer, career, police departments, all the different areas, and this was about maybe 8 months ago, and I believe the results of the survey was over 73 percent of all those entities had not received a penny from Homeland Security. But more importantly as it relates to your comment, it seems to me that the No. 1 issue that I personally received from this survey from the police, fire, paramedics was the inability to communicate with different systems of communication. And that is very important in a crisis. And New York City, as an example, the Pentagon and different agencies come together. Have you had the occasion to look at that, and what is your opinion as far as the underfunding of that topic? Mr. Yim. Our infrastructure technology team has looked at that and the issue of bandwidth and what frequencies and compatibility of the communication equipment the people have studied. The World Trade Center identified areas in which the first responders, because of incompatible equipment, did not know--people inside the towers did not know what the people outside knew and therefore did not receive some of the warnings. That will continue to be a problem. Are we confident? I think our IT team is fairly confident that technology will be able to solve that problem. What they are concerned about and what we are concerned about is once we are able to talk to each other, what are people going to say to each other; what information are they sharing; what activities are they going to be using to coordinate once they can physically talk to each other. So the immediate problem, yes, enable communications, interoperability absolutely; but we have to address what are they going to say when they can talk to each other. Mr. Shays. This is our second hearing. Mr. Ruppersberger. We have had a lot of witnesses before this committee, but I think he's very direct in answering the questions. Mr. Schrock. He sure is. Mr. Shays. I agree with the gentleman. This is our second hearing now on strategies. We had a hearing on standards. And Mr. Ruppersberger as well as others in this committee, we put our name on legislation, and it's now part of the draft of the Select Committee on Homeland Security saying to DHS that they've got to establish standards and get them set up sooner. So, for instance, in my State, I had asked local communities what had they gotten from the Department of Homeland Security, and they said, no, until I did a little more investigation. And what happens, the Department of Homeland Security had given a substantial sum to the State, and the State had given every department--they had viewed before they set up standards that everyone, fire, police, first selectmen, mayors, all needed better radio equipment. Then protective gear got out to a lot of the communities. And they were getting it from the States, and they didn't realize it was a pass-through. Our point, and I think it's your point as well, and this is what I was going to ask you, sir, so it's a nice lead-in, you also specialize in the whole issue of standards besides strategies. What is or should be the relationship between national standards and national strategies? Mr. Yim. I think there is a key relationship, and I wish to be sure when we talk about standards--many people talk about individual product or equipment standards. That is an important aspect; an example, the thickness of a Kevlar vest. You were talking about systems standards. Mr. Shays. Why should Westport, CT, get the same as Stamford, CT, or why should a small town in Connecticut like Canaan up north be getting anything necessarily? Mr. Yim. That is the goal of national management or systems standards. What you want to identify is that everybody should not be doing the same thing. They should be doing slightly different things, and we have to be developing capabilities. They may be resident in different entities or different locations, but there has to be some way to mobilize that capability together in a time of crisis or contingency. That is the beauty of national standards. National standards based on the ISO, the International Standards Organization, or the American ANSI standards, they were designed in the manufacturing business, in all honesty, and I think that is a great analogy for Homeland Security. When Ford Motor Co.--in looking at its business model, they had to rely on a whole bunch of people in the chain of command. They had to adhere to certain standards as to the quality of the material and the tensile strength. The part suppliers, they had to adhere to certain standards so when it was incorporated into your Ford, that it operated as expected efficiently. They could rely upon that. That same standards approach could link the Feds, State and local together. We assign responsibilities to the private sector. We give them performance measurements and self- certification to standards, can you meet them on a consistent, reliable basis so we can depend upon them coming to the table when the Feds need them or the States need them. I think that's the key. Mr. Shays. Is it realistic to expect these strategies that we have been talking about to yield to an overarching concept like containment to guide the long-term effort against terrorism? Mr. Yim. I think that goes back to the classic feeling that where you sit determines what is the most important thing to you. Where you sit on certain areas, containment may be the most important. Where you sit in other areas, response and recovery may be the most important. I don't think that right that we have some sort of overarching goal, because I think different parts of our sectors, government and society have different priorities, and the strategies have to be flexible enough to recognize those differences. Mr. Shays. I don't know if I agree with you, but then again I don't have any basis to disagree. It would seem to me that you're going to want--I want to ultimately have a sense--are you saying this? Are you saying the good old days of the cold war don't allow us to have a fairly concise sense of strategy? I mean, I worked for a year on what we should do to help cities, and we had pages and pages, and it just got bigger, and then it came down in the end to one thing: We needed to bring businesses in to create jobs and pay taxes. What I'm asking is, after we develop all these strategies, are we going to find some kernels that are going to be found in each one of these strategies that will be--that is what I'm asking. Mr. Yim. I would not disagree with that. I think there are some overarching drivers that should be there. Mr. Tierney. I wanted to say something. I'm shocked to think that you would think a Governor is passing out Federal money without letting people know. What Governors are we talking about? Mr. Yim, this month, the Assistant Secretary For Infrastructure and Protection at the Department of Homeland Security stated that the comprehensive terrorist threat and vulnerability assessment is unlikely to be completed in the next 5 years. What can we do to speed that up, and ought we not be focusing on trying to get something before 5 years are up? Mr. Yim. I think that most experts would agree that we hopefully will have the luxury of 5 years, but it's unlikely we'll have the luxury of 5 years. Definitely, how do we enforce greater timelines? We obviously don't want a bad product, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing. There are many phases that could be put in to a vulnerability assessment and break it down into manageable chunks, set some milestones. If 5 years is the end state, maybe we ought to live with that, but that doesn't mean nothing can be done or measured within that 5-year period of time. So even if we had a 5-year goal, what is the 6- month goal, what is the 1-year goal, what is deliverable in 2 years, and how often are you going to refresh that? I think that is the real focus, not on the ultimate end state, the timeframe for the ultimate end state. We may never have an ultimate end state. In 5 years, that is an eon in Washington, DC. It is an eon for most agencies and certainly beyond the life of a political appointee's life. In light of that, I think you have to set interim steps, and that's one of the deficiencies we pointed out. Mr. Tierney. On the homeland security issues, do you see any importance to educating the local populace with respect to reaction to an event? Do you see that as part of the strategy in homeland security? And where do you put that in the level of importance with other things we might do? Mr. Yim. I think the communication strategy and the education strategy is vitally important. Our citizens have to have confidence in the ability of our governments to protect themselves. If you look back at the anthrax attacks immediately following in October 2001 and the somewhat confusing information that was promulgated, I think that needlessly alarmed or caused people to take actions that perhaps were not only unnecessary, but may have been counterproductive. The broadband use of--or the widespread use of a broadband antibiotic could have other deleterious effects. And information--I think to the education, what people need to do for their own protection how they interact with other people, things that they can't do, there's no way that I'm going to be able to protect against a nuclear attack or even be able to really protect myself against a nuclear attack, and I'm just going to have to live with that, but other things I could do. Mr. Tierney. Did you see much of that in the Homeland Security Strategy? Mr. Yim. It doesn't get down to that level of granularity. I think the National Security Strategy talks about an education component. I don't recall that any of the other strategies deal with an education component, and I think that's a gap. Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Yim, the chairman said that--he talked about Stamford, CT, and talked about Canaan, CT, and I thought I heard you say maybe everybody doesn't need to be doing the same thing, which indicated to me that you thought maybe the small towns didn't need to worry as much as some of the bigger areas. But over the holidays, while the big areas were getting a lot of chatter, the Town of Tappahannock, VA--it is a wonderful little town, very, very small town, and there was a lot of chatter that was going to be a target. Now if something had happened there, what does that say for every little berg and town in America? It is out in the beautiful boondocks, I should say, but it's a magnificent place. But what does that say for other little towns that might think, oh, my gosh, now we are going to be targets, because towns in the Midwest think they are safe, and they are not. Mr. Yim. I think there are some minimal levels of preparedness that no matter where you are, we would expect our towns to be able to respond in certain matters, and because of resource constraints or their location, maybe the only thing we are asking them to do is do a holding action until other resources can be mobilized and arrive. I think that's part of the strategy development. You can't expect that small town to defeat a major bioterrorism attack, but maybe they can triage the patients and hold them in isolation for 48 hours until something can arrive. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Ruppersberger talked about the ports. Port security is my No. 1 issue. I represent the Port of Hampton Roads, which is the Norfolk, Virginia Beach area, and every ship that comes into the massive port has to pass by the largest naval base in the world. And I worry about somebody trying to sneak a major container ship behind our piers and lock our ships in, sort of like what they did in Pearl Harbor. But the good news is the port of Hampton Roads has been the guinea pig, and I think a very good guinea pig, for all this new equipment to test all the containers and the trains that come in and out of there with some absolutely incredible results, and it is the only port in America that has it right now. And the test results are so good, I can see it going to other ports as well. Frank and I went down there a few weeks ago, and I was amazed at the progress. The bad news is they have to pass by the Navy before they get there. The good news: They are being screened if they think something is wrong. The port of embarkation is where everything needs to be. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shays. Mr. Murphy, are you all done? Thank you very much. You have been a wonderful witness, and I'm assuming you or someone from your staff will be able to hear the panelists. Mr. Yim. I will stay myself. Mr. Shays. We are going to invite you to come back and make some comments, so don't fall asleep during that second panel. Thank you very much. Our second panel is comprised of four individuals: Dr. Lani Kass, professor of military strategy and operations, National War College; David H. McIntyre, former dean of faculty, National Defense University; Colonel Randall J. Larsen, U.S. Air Force, retired, CEO of Homeland Security Associates; Mr. Frank Cilluffo, associate vice president for homeland security, the George Washington University. You just stay standing. We will swear you in. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Shays. Our witnesses have responded in the affirmative, I'm sorry you are kind of crunched in. We are going to start as you are on the table. Dr. Kass, we will go with you first, and we will do the 5 minutes. We would like you to stay somewhat within the 5 minutes, but we could go over to the next 5. We prefer it closer to 5. You have the floor, Dr. Kass. STATEMENTS OF LANI KASS, PROFESSOR OF MILITARY STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS, NATIONAL WAR COLLEGE; DAVID H. McINTYRE, FORMER DEAN OF FACULTY, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY; RANDALL, J. LARSEN, COLONEL, USAF (RET), CEO, HOMELAND SECURITY ASSOCIATES; AND FRANK CILLUFFO, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR HOMELAND SECURITY, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Dr. Kass. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen. I'm an American by choice rather than the fortune of birth. I'm particularly honored to be here. And I'm going to avail myself of your generosity of a little bit more time because otherwise I will require English subtitles. The views I'm about to present are my own. They reflect over 20 years experience as a teacher and practitioner of strategy. They do not necessarily reflect official positions of the U.S. Government. Let me start with a quick historic vignette, if I could. In May 1863, on the eve of the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Joe Hooker, Commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, said, ``My plans are perfect. May God have mercy on General Lee, for I shall have none.'' General Hooker's overconfidence had immediate mid and long-term consequences. First, he was crushed by General Lee. Second, he was fired by President Lincoln. Third, General Hooker did not go down in history as a great strategist. Instead his name became a synonym for, shall we say, certain ladies of the evening. Mr. Shays. You didn't tell me you were going to be entertaining. Dr. Kass. The joint lesson, Mr. Chairman, is that humility is a virtue when assessing strategic plans, your own or anybody else's. That is so because, simply put, strategy is hard to do. Strategy seeks to balance ways and means. It seeks to mitigate risk. It seeks to account for current imperatives, future contingencies and unpredictable dynamics of human behavior. Thus it operates in a realm where chance and fog and friction and ambiguity dominate. Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest things are difficult. Strategy guides action. It needs to be translatable into a series of implementing plans, but it cannot be so specific as to delve into tactics. It is supposed to provide vision. It is supposed to provide what in the military is called commander's intent. Strategic effectiveness--and, Mr. Chairman, you asked about that--comes from a synchronized effort sustained over the long term and guided by a clear vision of what it is you are trying to accomplish, what is called the desired end state; in other words, how do you want the situation to look when you are done doing what it is that you are doing. Foresight and flexibility are the keys to success. So is the ability to integrate a wide variety of variables into a coherent whole. In short, Mr. Chairman, this kind of holistic thinking is pretty uncommon primarily because it is so difficult. A logical systematic approach is the necessary first step. I provided the committee with what we use at the National War College to educate the Nation's future strategic leaders. Hopefully it will help you and your staff ask the difficult questions that need to be asked when evaluating any strategic design. The first strategic question and the most comprehensive is to assess, to understand the nature of the war you're engaging in. What then is the nature, the character of the war we are engaged in? And I will focus the rest of my remarks on this. Clearly terrorism is not new. It has been with us for a very long time. What is new is that modern technology has provided individuals with destructive power which up until now was the sole domain of advanced militaries. What is also new is that choice can now operate on the global scale in pursuit of global objectives. With the world as their battleground and globalization as their enabler, they seek to destroy the American way of life and the international system we lead; that, Mr. Chairman, what we are fighting is an insurgency of global proportions, what I would term a pansurgency. This insurgency is not tied to geographic boundaries. Instead it operates in nontraditional domains using nontraditional means clearly and bound by accepted norms of civilized behavior. This insurgency has invoked a legion to declare war on the United States and to mobilize the sympathies of 1.5 billion Muslims. The breathtaking scope of the insurgent goals is matched by their desire to inflict casualties virtually anywhere on the planet. They seek weapons of mass destruction and would not hesitate to use them. They are willing to destroy everything and die trying. They're well financed, exquisitely networked, adaptive, flexible and patient. They also know us much better than we know them. The ultimate defeat of this global insurgency will only come from the synchronized application of all instruments of national power guided by an overarching strategic design and not a practical plan. We must defeat terrorist organizations which have global reach. We must deny them sanctuary and State support. We must diminish the conditions that allow terrorism to flourish. And we must do all that while defending the homeland. So what we're talking about is a multidimensional strategy which fuses offensive and defensive and integrates all elements of national power. Mr. Chairman, I truly believe that terrorism is the societal evil of our time. The war on terrorism is our generation's greatest challenge. This evil must be abolished just like slavery, like piracy, like genocide. We are engaged in a war which demands the long-term commitment of the Nation's will, blood and treasure. It also demands a consistent, focused strategy to achieve the end state of abolishment of terrorism. That does not mean every individual act. Slavery was abolished a long time ago, and there is still slavery, piracy and genocide in the world. But that is the end state we should strive to. And the mission of any current strategy is to provide you this overarching end state that you are trying to achieve. The American people and your elected representatives should not expect a quick or easy victory. I believe World War II and the cold war are pretty useful to think about in terms of the scope and magnitude and duration of the fight we are engaged in. The war on terrorism is a war of necessity which we must win. Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. [Note.--The National War College report entitled, ``Combating Terrorism in a Globalized World,'' may be found in subcommittee files.] [The prepared statement of Dr. Kass follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.057 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.066 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.069 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.071 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.074 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.076 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.078 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.080 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.081 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.082 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.083 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.084 Mr. Shays. I have to say you are the most honest witness I have ever had, because usually when I say you have 5 minutes and please don't roll over another 5, everyone says, well, I will try to stay within the 5 minutes. And you just said, I'm not even going to try to stay within the 5 minutes, so I think you got away with it because of your unique accent. Dr. McIntyre. Dr. McIntyre. I will try to stay within the 5 minutes even though my accent is from Texas. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the important subject of our strategies for national security and homeland security in the war against terrorism, and I want to thank you in particular for the work this committee has done on this subject in the past. The United States is involved in a new, long war for its survival, but it does not feel like war, so voters don't always give full credit to the elected officials and appointed officials who wage it and oversee it. I suspect the members of this committee do not always get the credit due them for the effort spent on these subjects so critical to the long-term destiny of our Nation. As a former military officer and current student of strategy who spent long years studying what happened to nations contemptuous of strategic realities, let me thank you for your efforts in this field. In my written statement I have tried to do what you asked, use my 36 years of strategic and military experience to conduct an analysis of the family of strategies prepared by this administration, evaluate their adequacies both individually and collectively, so I will only summarize. I think the administration's approach to offering a family of strategies to formally lay out their goals in many areas and their concepts for achieving those goals is an admirable one. I recognized what they're doing immediately. It looks like every major military plan I have ever seen. I am not uncomfortable with what some have called the proliferation of strategies. I will give you five brief points we will have to address as time proceeds and we look to refine our strategies. No. 1, we must clarify the fact that in the short run this is about managing dangers to America and attacks upon Americans, not eliminating them. In a world where technology gives big weapons to small people, we cannot eliminate every threat. Some attackers will get through. Some innocent people will become casualties. This is not failure, this is reality. We need to prepare the American people for this reality. No. 2, clarifying the forcing function that will eventually reduce or eliminate terrorist attacks on America is key. This is a tough one because it involves changing the nature of the enemy. We have to cause him to lose hope of victory through what he's doing and accept some alternative solution to his grievances. This is not even easy to conceptualize, certainly not easy to do, but this is the essence of the long-term victory. No. 3, because we cannot kill every potential enemy and protect every potential target, we must prioritize our spending and our efforts. I recommend that our highest priority go to preventing and responding to the types of high consequences of attacks that will be the most damaging to the Nation as a whole. Without a set of public priorities, we will be drawn constantly forward to expanded actions overseas and expanded spending at home. The biggest problem in this war will be knowing where to stop. We need to set these priorities in public. No. 4, we must give more attention to the enemy. Many people and even some experts are still operating under the cold war assumption that our enemies' grievances have to do with economics and the distribution of wealth. That is fighting the last war. This war is about ideology and legitimacy. In the long run, we are going to have to offer an alternative to the enemy's ideology. I am not confident that we have yet considered the implications of that fact. And finally, we must understand that this war will be waged over generations. We cannot win it if we change our underlying strategies every time we change administrations. During the cold war, we pursued a strategy of containment for 40 years through a variety of administrations. The actions, the priorities, the expenditures changed from administration to administration, but not the underlying strategic concept that by denying communism growth and additional resources we would doom it. As in the cold war, we need strategies that will stand the test of time. They must be bipartisan strategies that can garner support across party and ideological lines, and that is why the work of this committee is so important. Thank you again for your efforts in this regard and for the opportunity to contribute to that effort. Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Dr. McIntyre follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.085 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.086 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.087 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.088 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.089 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.090 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.091 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.092 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.093 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.094 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.095 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.096 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.097 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.098 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.099 Mr. Shays. I just want to say that one of my disappointments is that we haven't truly had the kind of debate that can bring both parties together to establish what should be that bipartisan strategy. Very interesting. Thank you for the indulgence of the committee to make that comment. Colonel Larsen. Colonel Larsen. Mr. Chairman and members, thank you for the opportunity to provide my assessment of these strategies. I looked at six. I didn't look at money laundering or the classified military strategy. As I said in my prepared statement, I taught strategy at the National War College, and we always told students how important the strategy is, but also, how difficult it is to develop in this town. Plans, which we heard a lot of this morning, and spending programs are easier to write and understandably so, strategy is difficult. Therefore, sometimes we end up with what the chairman refers to as ready, shoot, aim. Looking at the six strategies, I thought there were some good plans in there. What I thought was missing was a single unifying theme that integrates all missions that were talked about this morning from deterrence, prevention, preemption, to incident management, and all participants. That is what is so different; from the President to the police officer, from a Member of Congress to a mayor, from a Cabinet Secretary to a soldier, a public health officer and a corporate CEO. That is what we do not have. Some would say that's not possible today. I disagree, and I think the members of the panel would disagree with this also. In 1947, it has been mentioned, George Kennan gave us a single word and a philosophy behind it called containment. That guided eight Presidents, Republican and Democrat, and 20 Congresses through 40 years. I think that is what we need. We must look a little bit before we talk about the strategy that I will propose at three things strategists all look at. We understand here how the ways and means have changed, from the FBI going from reactive to proactive; how we want to exchange more intelligence information; reorientation of the military's capabilities. When we saw a soldier, an Army sergeant, ride into battle on horseback with a GPS receiver and a satellite radio, and he's guiding a B-52 designed for nuclear warfare to drop a 500-pound bomb on a machine-gun nest, we understand the ways and means have changed. How about the end state? That's the difficult thing. We understood the end state when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Unconditional surrender. That was it. We understood the end state when dealing with Nazi Germany. We understood the end state for the cold war. What we have to do is really truly admit to the American people there is no end state. As Dr. Kass and Dr. McIntyre said, this isn't going away. If we kill all of al Qaeda tomorrow; technology will allow the other small actors to threaten us. I used the example the president of the American Medical Association in 1967. From the scientific community the president of the medical association said in 1967, ``we will soon cure infectious disease'' because of vaccine and antibiotics. Almost seems humorous now, doesn't it? But there is a good lesson there, because we are curing some diseases. Within 2 years, polio will be eradicated from the human species, but we know all infectious disease won't. We may eradicate al Qaeda; terrorism we cannot. We have to learn to deal with it. Therefore the strategy that I think provides the single unifying strategy to those six that I looked at, for that single unifying strategy, I recommend five points: one, relentless pursuit on a multilateral basis when possible of individuals and organizations who threaten our homeland; two, aggressive programs that prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear and biological weapons--investments in programs like Nunn-Lugar are some of the best investments we can make; three, concentrated efforts to win the war of ideas that we have been talking about here, and some of those war of ideas are inside the United States preparing the American people--the five-step program in Israel for counterterrorism, step 5 is prepare the public psychologically. I'm not sure we're doing that; fourth, development of standards. And I know the chairman and this committee has been working on this since before September 11. We must have standards for prevention, mitigation and incident management that are fiscally sustainable for the long haul. And now I said how good Nunn-Lugar was. Let me tell you how poor Nunn-Lugar-Domenici was. Remember the 100 largest cities? We went out there and threw all kinds of money at them, and it made us feel read good. There was no continuation training program. Colonel McIntyre and I spent 60 years in the military. You train a sergeant to fire an M-16 today, you better be prepared to train him next year or he's not going to hit anything. So we went all that money on first responders, but their turnover rate is 22 percent a year. You have to provide programs that are sustainable. And finally, understanding that overreactions by Congress and the administration could cause more long-term damage to the American economy than the terrorists, we must be able to contain ourselves and our responses. So the strategy that I offer that unifies these six strategies that the administration has produced, my offer is, to borrow a word from the cold war, containment. We must contain the capabilities and global reach of the terrorists. We must contain the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear and biological. We must contain the spread of hatred with an offensive campaign of our own in the war of ideas. We must contain our vulnerabilities. And we must seek to contain our response to overreact, our tendency to overreact. This is a realistic strategy. It's one that will work, and it's one we can afford. It's a strategy that provides guidance for action and spending, and it's a strategy that's attainable and affordable, and containment is a strategy and the end state we seek. Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Colonel Larsen follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.100 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.101 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.102 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.103 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.104 Mr. Shays. Mr. Cilluffo. Mr. Cilluffo. Thank you, Chairman Shays and distinguished members of the committee. It's good to be back and in familiar surroundings to discuss our strategies to combat terrorism and secure the homeland. Like Dr. Kass, my insights or thoughts are my own and obviously do not reflect my views and my time at the White House and/or other organizations, the Homeland Security Advisory Council and others I may be part of. Given time constraints, I will try to be brief. Not one of my strong suits. Mr. Shays. Be concise. Mr. Cilluffo. I will deviate from my prepared remarks and highlight a few of its key points. Like Dr. McIntyre, I would like to compliment the subcommittee for its leadership and longstanding role in helping frame and shape the strategies before us today, and also for recognizing that we cannot march into the future backward fighting yesterday's wars alone. We need to remember that September 11--the attacks of September 11 were not merely a snapshot in our Nation's history. We are in a new normalcy now. The threat remains very real, but yet may come at us in various forms and ways and in morphing ways. This living agile enemy bases its actions on our actions, seeking out and exploiting our vulnerabilities. Thus we must be willing to learn from our successes and mistakes and effectively manage risk by constantly reevaluating our policies and recalibrating our programs in order to stay ahead of the terrorists. In order to combat these ambiguous and moving targets, we need a national strategy that is flexible, comprehensive and coordinated; living strategies, if you will. From my perspective, the President acted decisively on this need. In conjunction with one another, the strategies before us today provide a comprehensive national strategy to win the war on terrorism on all fronts. A comprehensive strategy to combat terrorism must employ every instrument of statecraft to attack the enemy on all fronts and secure our homeland. For example, you cannot separate homeland security policy from economic policy from foreign policy from national security policy from military policy from health policy from science policy and technology policy. It is messy, and I think Congress realizes it's messy, in terms of trying to get your arms around this challenge. It is cross-cutting by its very nature, and they are inextricably interwoven, and you cannot treat policies in isolation. It's not about building a little black box that says break glass when something bad happens. I love the term that Mr. Yim used earlier. It is about embedding tactics, operations and existing tactics and operations, and it is about integrating a whole wherein the strategies feed off and enable one another. The task of securing the homeland has been cast by some as a choice between security or freedom or security or competitiveness. We heard the discussion earlier today. These are not mutually exclusive propositions. In fact, we can and we must have both. The single tenet that underpins everything we are doing, it is not about security or freedom, it is about securing freedom. And we can never forget that. And we need to do so in a way that projects our values. We need to protect Americans, but we always need to protect and project America. The overall strategy to combat the threat of terrorism must incorporate the marshalling of these domestic resources with the engagement of the international allies and assets. We should learn from the experience of our allies. Many have had decades of terrorism that they have had to deal with over the years, and we should continue to build on some of the successes that we are learning as we are prosecuting this war and as we are moving into it day in and day out. I think the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism recognizes that we also need to be proactive and extend our defenses outward. We discussed earlier some of the questions raised by some of the Members here. What are some of those specific international issues we need to be able to address? And quite honestly, we want to be able to push the border out, widen the net to stop terrorists over there, and not waiting until they reach our shores right here. And to do this, we need to recognize that a transnational threat will require transnational solutions. We need to maintain a coalition of countries dedicated to isolating not only terrorist organizations, but also the nations that sponsor, support or harbor them. And I think the National Security Strategy of the United States makes that clear. Bringing all the instruments of statecraft to bear will not only pressure these countries to cease actively or passively harboring terrorist organizations, but also pressure them to take the initiative to deal with the terrorist problem within their own borders and ultimately drain the swamp that spawns terrorism. I clearly see that as one of the end states. Let me just say a brief word because both Congressman Schrock and Congressman Platt brought this up earlier about intelligence. It is the life blood of the war on terrorism whether in support of diplomacy, covert action or in support of military, law enforcement or homeland operations. Intelligence not only provides the detailed information we need to preempt attacks, seize terrorist assets and identify terrorist capabilities, it can also provide us insight into what the terrorists value, allowing us to go on the offensive and take it away. It is critical to illuminate key vulnerabilities that can be exploited and leveraged to preempt, prevent and disrupt terrorist activities before they occur. And I think that the mix between signal intelligence and human intelligence was one that we did for years, Congressman Murphy, neglect. I think that is slowly changing, but you have to realize it takes time. You don't push a button, and it is not as easy as knocking on bin Laden's cave and saying, hi, I am here to join. This is going to take years potentially to get that right. But clearly the objective should be to get there before the bomb goes off. We want to be able to fragment the adversary, to fragment its enterprise and attack the pieces, which I think is one of the action plans we have been working toward. That said, we can never guarantee with 100 percent success in preventing all attacks. Immediately following September 11, the President led an assessment to identify what policies, programs, procedures worked, which didn't, and what are the major gaps and shortfalls that needed to be backfilled. In a way, we were building an airplane midflight. As we go about culminating in the President's National Strategy to Secure the Homeland, we are also going through the greatest transformation in the Federal Government's history since the National Security Act of 1947. Dr. Larsen mentioned the containment word. If I were forced to put our homeland security strategy on to a bumper sticker, that word would be to connect; to first connect the many Federal departments and agencies that have a role in securing the homeland. The President came to the conclusion that the whole was less than the sum of its parts; hence the creation and marrying up of authority, accountability and resources with the new Department of Homeland Security. But it also meant identifying who needed a seat at the national security planning table. This isn't just the regular suspects, FBI, CIA, Department of Defense. Primary care physicians, entomologists, agricultural services inspectors, people who have never really been part of the national security community not only needed a seat, but a front-row seat. Culturally there are huge challenges. One community wanted to string them up--law enforcement, the other community, string them along--intelligence, and then you got the health component that just wanted to deal with the strung out. Very different views on the world. So we want to be able to bring some of these capacities together. But the Federal piece is easy compared to interfacing with Federal, State and local. Obviously any national strategy needs to be national, not Federal. And we all know that those first to arrive and last to leave will be our Nation's emergency responders. They are the ones who need the tools, the capacities and the wherewithal and will ultimately determine whether or not the battle can be won or lost. We discussed the private sector. They own and operate a majority of the infrastructure. This can't be a ``thou shalt'' from Washington. It needs to be a partnership--work with. I personally believe it should be mitigate before litigate or regulate, but we need to be able to put some pressure on some of the shared responsibilities of the private sector, and it is a shared responsibility. Government needs to lead by example, get its own house in order, and only then can they expect the private sector to do the same. Congressman Tierney, you mentioned the American people. I think this is a primary tenet of the national strategy. We need to get information to citizens on what they can do to protect their families and their communities; the Citizen Corps, part of USA Freedom Corps, the ``ready'' campaign asked people to start thinking not to ask how afraid should I be, but what can I actually do about it. And the President's view was the best way to defeat evil is to do some good and to reinvigorate some of the public service that is available. Let me also---- Mr. Shays. No. Let's close up here. Mr. Cilluffo. Let me close very briefly to state--and I will use the wise words of Yogi Berra, who I consider one of the greatest strategists and philosophers: The future ain't what it used to be. And the best way--and I think it is also fair to say that since the end of the cold war, threat forecasting has made astrology look respectable. [The prepared statement of Mr. Cilluffo follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.105 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.106 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.107 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.108 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.109 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.110 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4017.111 Mr. Shays. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Chairman, we have attended a lot of hearings, but these are probably five of the most fascinating informational people we have ever had, and we thank you very much. Dr. Kass, you mentioned Clausewitz, which gives me goose bumps because I had to read that book on war when I was at the Naval War College, and I stuck it away, and we're moving out of our house, and I was looking at the books, and there it was. Believe it or not, I'm going to read it again, because I really believe it will apply to a lot of what we are doing here. So that is one you are right on. You talk about patience. You talk about patience. We don't have patience in America. We want instant gratification. We thought the minute we went in and bombed Afghanistan the first day, it was over and everything was going to be fine, and that is an education process the American people clearly need to understand. And, Colonel McIntyre, you said something I'm going to remember for a long time: managing dangers, not eliminating them. As much as Ed Schrock would like to eliminate all these dangers and get rid of these guys, I'm afraid we are not going to be able to do that. The Vice President has said if we leave one terrorist standing, they are going to put roots in the ground and continue to grow. And that is nice to think we might get rid of everybody, but if we can manage that threat, that is probably some--and know where to stop, that is a fascinating comment. I'm going to be thinking a lot about that, too. And the strategies can change in every administration, and they do. You are starting to hear that on the campaign trail, if I am elected, I will do this, and I will take this action. And I am not sure all that is good for the long-term role or goal in trying to get rid of the terrorists. And, Colonel Larsen, preparing the public, that is one of the hardest thing we have to do, because I think they want this thing over, and they think it's going to be over. But they need to be educated that it's going to be a long time. And sustainable programs, you're right. It's fully funded. It's a feel-good thing. We do it. We think we are done with the job, where in 5 years everybody who was there who got the training is gone, and we need to get that up and going. And Mr. Cilluffo talked about new normalcy. We are never going to be the same again, and that is a very, very sad thing, but we need to stay ahead of the terrorist. I am not going to ask you the two longest questions. The coordination of the agencies is real important, and the heads of the cabinets, the butting of the heads of the Cabinet members, how do we solve this? How do we get these agencies to work together so everybody is talking off of one sheet of music, so everybody out there isn't doing their own thing? I don't understand that, and maybe you do. Dr. Kass. The only way you can do that is exactly the way the committee is trying to do it, namely what is the overarching strategic design; what is it that we are supposed to be all trying to accomplish, and only then you can go from strategy to specific tasks that assign to the various agencies. Right now everybody is doing everything, and you have no clarity. Dr. McIntyre. We are going to have to find some way to reward people. You know, when you play in the Super Bowl, you get paid more if you are on the winning team. You don't get paid extra just for being really good at defense or being a really good pass receiver. So everybody plays for the team. But our entire system is constructed for individual or agency or local evaluation and consequently local reward. We have to find a way to reward the entire system when it succeeds and punish the entire system when it fails. That is very difficult to do, but I am telling you the individual reward is not the answer to moving the team as a whole forward. Mr. Schrock. What I hear you saying is that means going into these agencies and rooting out some of the mentality that's been there forever that wants the status quo and doesn't want things changed for their own security? Dr. McIntyre. The single greatest obstacle we face in changing the bureaucracy is to undo the successes of the past. It is not the failures of the past, it is successes of the past is the problem, because people will continue to do that because it has been successful in the past. Mr. Schrock. But what is successful in the past doesn't apply. Dr. McIntyre. Our whole structure is built from our academic system forward. From the 1500's, we built an academic system that is vertical, and that is the way people are rewarded. Our problems today are horizontal. Our problems today are horizontal, and we've got to find a reward structure that is horizontal in nature and not just vertical in nature. Mr. Schrock. We will--I think the Secretary of Defense is trying to do that in his reorganization of the Pentagon. Give us an example of how you do that. Dr. McIntyre. Jointness is a very good one in that you are not necessarily promoted for being a really good Army officer anymore. You are rewarded for being part of a joint team, for unless you have proven yourself in that joint team there is no advancement no matter how good you are in the Army or the Navy. We are going to have more--I don't like necessarily the word ``jointness'' to apply but more interagency--reward for interagency behavior. Mr. Schrock. Purple. Dr. McIntyre. ``Purple'' is a good word. ``Interagency,'' I think, is the proper word. You do that, you know, the Congress did that with the services by making the requirement that you had to serve jointly for advancement to general officer. When that kind of requirement becomes the commonplace within the agencies in the U.S. Government, then cooperation and interagencies will be desirable, in terms of where you send the extra person out of the office. Colonel Larsen. You used the term ``patience'' a moment ago in talking to Dr. Kass. Remember, that took 40 years to get it right, to get Goldwater-Nichols, but it's a commitment to that long-term effort because it took Congress, not the administration or the Pentagon, to give us Goldwater-Nichols, to give us jointness so we could work together. So it is going to take action by this body and time. Mr. Schrock. I agree. Mr. Cilluffo. Congressman, two points come to mind. First, the Homeland Security Council, in conjunction with the National Security Council and the Executive Office of the President, does have a Deputy Assistant to the President that supports both the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and the Assistant to the President For National Security, Dr. Rice and Dr. Gordon, but let me also say that clearly the turf we should all be worried about is the turf we are all standing on and the horizontal challenges in conjunction with the vertical challenges are not easy. I believe General Eisenhower, and it's in the Pentagon on the way to the bubble, and it's a quote and I'll paraphrase it: In preparation for war I have found plans to be useless but planning to be indispensable, and I feel the training and exercising component of this is so important. We can't afford to exchange business cards on game day. We need to get people to be facing one another, to understand the roles, to understand their limitations, to understand what their actual missions are, at the Federal level and at the Federal, State and local level. The words mean something very different. Lexicon. The word ``surveillance'' to an epidemiologist means something very different than it does from a military perspective, from a C4ISR perspective than it does to law enforcement. This is a transformational change that will take some time for us to get right. I'm not sure it will ever be right, but one thing we do know is we are going where we can afford to fail. As Benjamin Franklin once said, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Mr. Schrock. That's right. Mr. Cilluffo. So I think we need to identify some of those areas that maximize secondary and tertiary benefits beyond just guards, guns, and gates, and training and exercising, getting people in the same room together at the highest level and at the operating level will go a long way in at least breeding some of that trust, because ultimately that's the word. It's not that people distrust one another. It's that they don't appreciate their roles and their missions and I think it takes time and we'll need to reach out to the American people to garner their trust and enlist their trust. Mr. Schrock. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I could stay here all day but I have another appointment I must go to, but I thank you very much. It has been very, very beneficial to you being here. Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Schrock. Mr. Tierney. Mr. Tierney. I don't know if I heard Dr. Kass and Mr. Schrock correctly but there is a discussion about campaign discussions and what people are going to do about this and I don't know if I heard the correct statement, do you think this is healthy or not, and, if that's the case, I think it is absolutely healthy that we have a transparent discussion. I think we all ought to be focused on the issue of terrorism and that we all want to deal with it but I think how we deal with it is essential. To have a transparent discussion among all the candidates, as well as the incumbent, what is our approach to national security, what are our strategies going to be? Mr. Shays. Will you yield? Mr. Tierney. Sure. Mr. Shays. What I heard was ultimately we have to have a national agreement and that we've never had the kind of debate that you're suggesting, that we just kind of---- Mr. Schrock. That's right. That's right. Mr. Tierney. Then we all agree debate is important and critical. Mr. Schrock. Administration after administration. Mr. Shays. But it has to be dealt with on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Tierney. Exactly. I'm much assured to hear that because that's not something we've had so far and we've had a lot of politicking and posturing and setting things out without consulting the other party; sometimes without consulting Congress. This committee is as frustrated as anybody as far as setting standards for our local communities, etc., in terms of what has not been done, in terms of looking at the local resources, and I think we have to know what people are going to do in that regard, what their attitude is toward this whole situation, and that may need to be clarified, I think. All the things that the members of the panel have been talking about here in terms of coordinating, I assume you will agree it is just as important to coordinate the resources between the national and the international level; there would be no disagreement there, right? Dr. Kass. Yes. Colonel Larsen. Yes. Mr. Cilluffo. Yes. Mr. Tierney. I don't know there is a lot to ask in terms of questions, so, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back to you at this point. Mr. Shays. Thank you. Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes. We're talking about plans so that we can get to our end game strategy for implementation, and, just as an illustration, just to have your opinion, we were very successful in the beginning stages of the war with Iraq, and then after we were in it all of a sudden we had problems, and there has been allegations that the planning for the post-invasion was not adequate, it was put together hastily, and it took a while to get to stabilize, to be able to bring the security that is needed to liberate Iraq. Do you have any opinions about that plan and how it would relate to what we're talking about here today? Dr. McIntyre. I've heard that discussion. I think it casts the question too narrowly. I have a problem not just with the issue of Iraq. I have a problem with the direction of military thinking since the end of the cold war, and it seems to me that, regardless of party, regardless of ideological background, regardless of service affiliation, there has been a relentless tendency over the last 15 years to focus on how we're going to do something instead of what effect of whatever it is we're going to do will have on the enemy. I think we perhaps got off on the wrong foot after the end of the cold war, in 1989 to 1990 and 1991, when instead of asking the question how do you defeat enemies, why do people quit, why are wars over and then begin to construct our military to be flexible enough to achieve that, instead we focused on the question of how do we take new information technology and apply it to what we are doing to make it better. That happens to cross-administrations from both parties, it's happened with conservatives and liberals. I'm telling you I think we have not asked as a government, as a Nation, in the academic communities, in the service colleges, we have not asked the single most important, most fundamental question: Why are wars over? We have focused instead on why wars start and if you ask that question why is war over and why do wars end then it takes you to a different pattern. You buy different things. You have a different set of planning, so I guess what I'm trying to tell you, sir, is I understand the criticism with how this war was waged. My criticism, however, is much larger, and that is how all of us have been thinking about wars since trying to recast ourselves and our military for the last 15 years, and if you will take that different approach, I'd suggest the same approach to intelligence. We keep asking the question: ``What do we want to do?'' The central question is: ``What do we want the enemy to do?'' That determines what we do. Mr. Shays. What does that mean? Can you answer? What does that mean? Dr. McIntyre. What do we want him to do, do we want him to surrender, to cooperate with us, want him involved along certain borders, to simply die, change his ideology? What is it we want the enemy to do, and until we can figure that out, our applying different means is not going to solve the problem. We are getting better and better with making the military more flexible, making the arrival of bombs more precise, the employment of forces more rapid. I'm not sure that solves the problem but just getting better at what we do. Mr. Ruppersberger. We are still considered to be the superpower of the world because of our technology but there was an issue that I believe occurred under Carter, Stansville Turner, where there was a policy decision made to take more away from human intelligence and to put it into the technological end, and, as a result of that, if you want to look at the whole picture that's happened right now, we do not have--we had it but we don't have it to the degree we need to have the human intelligence, that we know the culture of the people we're dealing with; I mean, just Iraq, we have religious issues that are out there. We have a lot of issues that we have to address and still--we still have to make sure we secure the area and that we finish what we started. Dr. McIntyre. That's precisely what I was saying. Mr. Ruppersberger. To balance terrorism, and if you look at DOD, it's a huge massive agency, and the culture there was to go after as we did in the beginning of the Iraqi war and we were successful, but we also are dealing with terrorism now and it's a different ball game. Dr. Kass. So it's just another aspect of education which most people forget, and that is the total lack of language skills, understanding of other cultures. If you looked during the cold war, Congress legislated the National Defense Language Act. A lot of us who learned Russian during the cold war, myself included, benefited from scholarships which were designed to learn about our enemy. We do not have that. We do not understand the enemy that we are fighting, and I would submit to you that is a critical step. One of the problems in Iraq is not lack of planning, but it is lack of basic understanding of what the enemy might do, and you've got to be able to understand what he might do, based on understanding his culture, his history, his past behavior. We don't have that. Mr. Ruppersberger. I agree with you. We also need to learn more as a country about the Muslim religion. Dr. Kass. Yes, sir. Mr. Ruppersberger. Because if we're ever perceived by Muslims there is a war against Islam, we'll have a very real problem and it got real close in the beginning of the Iraqi war, Egypt and other areas, but I think it turned around. One other area I'd like to get into, you mentioned the issue of intelligence. Are you familiar with the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense? Almost everyone involved there was more of a political appointment instead of a long time member of CIS, NSA, whatever, and there were concerns about that group circumventing, say, the CIA and not vetting all the information before it actually went to the policy of the President, and as a result of that there was actually information that really got into the State of the Union last year. Do you think that there needs to be, when you have an Office of Special Plans, that there needs to be more of a relationship with that type of group and with the other agencies, such as CIA, NSA, FBI, that type of thing? Dr. McIntyre. I think it's really important, sir, when you're being called upon to testify to your expertise, to know when to draw the line, and I don't have an expertise in that area, so any answer I give you would not be an expert answer. I just don't have the expertise to answer that question. Mr. Ruppersberger. Do you have an opinion? Dr. McIntyre. My opinion, sir, is that we have missed something much bigger than people are digging at right now. It was just not the Iraqi war we missed. We missed the response of the French, we missed the response of the Turks, we missed the response of the Russians. We missed the way Saddam was going to play his hand and we missed it for a long period of time. We didn't get what was going on, so that is structural and is not specific to either this administration or the past one. It's a much larger conceptual problem, cause and effect. Mr. Ruppersberger. Why didn't we do that? Dr. McIntyre. Well, what we taught at the National War College, if you're not real careful believing is seeing, and over a period of about 15 years, we built up, I think, a habit of we thought we knew what we were seeing and consequently we saw it, not just in this area, but in other areas as well and it is very hard to break that. It takes outside thinking, outside expertise, a constant challenging, so I want to be very careful. You asked me for an opinion. I can give you expertise as a strategist and I can tell you the history is filled with people who saw what they believed and you have to be careful about that. I cannot judge this particular office. I just don't know. Mr. Ruppersberger. In your testimony, it was General Hooker, correct? Dr. Kass. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, and that's a prime example, sir, just to reinforce: the notion of understanding your enemy and understanding your allies and not expecting others to behave the way you would in similar circumstances. We are not very good at it. Mr. Ruppersberger. One other issue. One other question? Mr. Shays. Oh, no. Keep going. Keep going. It's fascinating. Mr. Ruppersberger. One other question in a different arena. Your testimony, I forgot whose it was I read, talked about the issue of preemption, without bringing the rest of the world into the fold. What do you think the administration could have done to bring the other nations into the fold before we did the preemptive strike with Iraq from a planning perspective? Mr. Cilluffo. Well, I'll take not Iraq specifically but looking at preemption and the war against terrorism and non- State actors, which actually requires personalizing. When we deal with States, you need the information that exactly you would mention, and largely that's going to be based upon human intelligence and these people were not Boy Scouts, these aren't good people, and obviously good people don't have the insights into the mind of the terrorist, but, ultimately, from a preemption standpoint, obviously you want to bring along as many supporters as you have and we have on the war on terrorism. We're working hand and glove and especially with respect to the indigenous security services. With many nations, we are not on a first name basis with them and good relationships with them, but with the war on terrorism we actually have been able to cooperate and coordinate with the foreign services and many--and I'm not speaking Iraq specifically but it does require making some hard decisions. You've got to be willing to make mistakes. People have to be willing. Analysts aren't clairvoyant. They're going to make mistakes as well. If we were analysts, obviously, we would want to be on Wall Street and identifying where stocks are going in the future. It's an imperfect business, and all too often if people go out on a limb and they get caught for getting something wrong, they don't necessarily see the light of day in the future. So I think that both in the collection side, where people need to be willing to take risk and we need to accept some blowback and on the analytical side we need to be willing to make mistakes, and that is something that ironically is not fostered, to some extent, something I think that the Congress, in conjunction with the administration, can help play. Colonel Larsen. Sir, in line with what we've been discussing here, many of our allies understood the situation better than we did--what the end state would look like. We don't speak the language. There were 40 fluent Arabic linguists in the State Department when the Iraq war started, that's all. Mr. Ruppersberger. Do you feel that is a breakdown in our intelligence then? Colonel Larsen. It's bigger than intelligence, I'll agree with Dr. Kass. Dr. Kass. It's in the nation. Colonel Larsen. We're talking about State Department, Department of Defense, it's national security that we don't understand who we are at war with, which goes back to Mr. Clausewitz's first statement, you better understand what you're getting involved in. Mr. Ruppersberger. It's not only in human intelligence but in analysts. We have to connect the dots. Colonel Larsen. Analysts and policymakers. Mr. Ruppersberger. But eventually the policymakers are relying on the intelligence to make their decisions, and that's why it seemed to me there was a circumvention of a standard that was used in the past that wasn't used, and what are we here about? We're here to learn about what we did wrong, so that we can fix it and make it better. Bottom line, that's where we want to go. Dr. McIntyre. Let me give you two brief points on preemption, since it is such an important topic. This is actually what I did my dissertation on about 5 years ago, modernization forces, and I came to the conclusion in 1999 that the United States was going to be moving inevitably toward a doctrine of preemption during the last administration because that's just where the logic of war takes us. I concluded in looking at previous wars that there were two things that caused a Nation to preemption, to attack preemptively. One is if it decides that the threat against is so overwhelming that it won't be able to survive the first strike, then it will have to preempt. The second is, alternatively, if it decides that its own capabilities are advancing to the point that a strike would be relatively easy and relatively low cost. What we had in the Iraq war was the perfect storm. Both of those things came together. We had a situation where we had every reason to believe that an attack against us, for example, of biological weapons, would be a one-blow knockout. No. 2, we had every reason to believe we could take care of this relatively quickly and with low cost and I guess what that tells me is that we need to be really, really careful because the momentum for any administration will be to be pulled forward by such circumstances. Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. Mr. Cilluffo. Mr. Congressman, and your intelligence should support decisionmakers, that's key. It's not the decisionmaker itself. That's something that's underappreciated or misunderstood. Mr. Ruppersberger. OK. Thanks. Mr. Shays. This has been a fascinating panel, and the questions asked. I feel in some way like I'm losing track of the original effort of our committee. Mr. Ruppersberger. All esoteric. Mr. Shays. If you ran against an opponent, ultimately you would want your opponent to lose. You would then maybe bring it up one level and say you would like to get out of the race before you lose, and third would be you would like them to actually endorse you. Mr. Cilluffo. Right. Mr. Shays. I mean, I would love al-Qaeda to just love us and the world would be peaceful. I know that's not going to happen. I am fascinated though by certain concepts. I've been to Iraq four times, one time just without the military entirely, two times without the military and then with the military and one time just with the military, so four times total, and there was one individual named Mohammed Abdul Hassan and he grabbed me by the arms, by the shoulders practically, and he said you don't know us and we don't know you. That was in April, and I just came back to our folks. We've got to get our Arabic speakers in there and Iraqi Americans as fast as we could. Now, what's surprised me, Dr. Kass and Dr. McIntyre, is I put the blame on this squarely on the military and the White House, because I agree with Mr. Ruppersberger. We went down in April, May, and June, and July and we've been clawing our way up since August, and we've made some progress, so if in Iraq we were here in April and we're here now in February, there's some slight incline. It's more significant because we got ourselves deep in a hole. How in the world, though, given what you all teach, which I totally accept, how would we have blown it? Why would the military have been the one to have blown it in that sense; or let me say this: Was it the military saying in your judgment we better be careful, and it was maybe the political leaders not listening to the military? I know this is a little sensitive, but this is big stuff for me. Dr. McIntyre. Sir, we'll go wherever the chairman wants to go in the discussion. I don't place the blame for this on the administration. I do not place it on the political leaders, and I do not place it on the military. I place it on the academic community. We have been thinking about the wrong things for 40 years. It is not just the intelligence community that was caught totally by surprise by September 11. It was the academic base from which the intelligence community is drawn. That's who educates our people. Dr. Kass. Yes. Yes. Mr. Shays. But you were both there and you're persuasive; I mean, I wouldn't have been in your class and this not been memorable if you had discussed these things. Dr. McIntyre. At the military colleges where Randy taught, they draw what they teach from the civilian academic community, and so there is a limited amount of discussion to draw from, and I'm just telling you, sir, since 1950 or 1960 we haven't talked about how to end wars in the academic community. We talked about how to prevent them, so there is a very limited body of knowledge out there to draw on. Colonel Larsen. Let me give you a very specific example that answers your question. Strategically, I think many of us agree Saddam had to be done away with, perhaps establishing a democracy that's going to make the world safer. Tactically, our troops did a marvelous job. Operationally is where I saw some failures. One hard example and this is from Lieutenant General Paul Surgeon, who is retired and in charge of rebuilding the entire Iraqi Army. It was a great plan. Unfortunately it ended up like General Hooker's because the troops were supposed to lay down their arms at the barracks, in place, stay in uniform, we would take them over, so we had a bunch of good Iraqis that had some bad leaders and now we have a police force and military that we can quickly put leaders upon. CENTCOM Headquarters when the war started a couple days early said lay down your arms and go home. They threw off their uniforms and went home and blended back into society. We don't know where they were, so our whole plan for controlling the country afterwards fell apart at the operational level. Mr. Shays. Well, there was a big discussion because they were--I mean, not big distraction, but we could spend a lot of time here, because, for me, Dr. Kass, you started out not the Hooker part but the humility part was what caught me. Dr. Kass. Yes, sir. Mr. Shays. Because given what I thought and the President thought and the French even thought and the Germans even thought, that we would find weapons of mass destruction. There were a few Members of Congress who didn't think that and I acknowledge that, but it strikes me that a little less hubris is in order. Dr. Kass. Yes, sir. Mr. Shays. And what struck me is that there was just tremendous arrogance having won this war, even without the Turks' help, because that was a whole theatre we weren't able to enter in and we still did it. It's hard not to feel like, boy, things are going well and then it just kind of fell apart for a few months, and hubris is the thing that I put in the biggest challenge. Yes, what were you going to say? Dr. Kass. Yes, I couldn't agree more with you. We are the victims of our own success. Being the world's superpower, having our products, our music, our entertainment spread globally makes us believe everybody likes us. They don't. They don't want to be just like us, but we somehow fail to understand that. You asked, couple of minutes ago, sir, why don't we understand the adversary? The simple answer is: We don't study them. We apply our own modes of behavior, our own standards of rationality to the universe, and that is why we are quite often incorrect in our assessments. Dr. McIntyre is exactly right. It comes down from inside, what we teach in our universities, in our colleges. We are still wedded to the cold war paradigm of what we teach. That horizontal integration that we all talked about needs to be taught to our kids in high school and in college. It is not. By the time they become general---- Mr. Shays. I get your point. It gets me, and I'm looking at Mr. Yim and I think he's probably thinking, what does this have to do with what we talked about; but I'm going to ask you to tie it up, Mr. Yim, or Doctor, because it gets to what John Tierney and I talked about. As soon as we start reorganizing, we developed a national strategy, and one of the tragedies I think has taken place, tragedy is a strong word, but we have never fully had a dialog about what the threat is. So, for instance, I believe strongly, in the Patriot Act, not some of the other losses of authority by the general public and civil protections, but the Patriot Act I believe in strongly, and a lot of people don't in my district, don't because they don't think there's a threat. They honestly don't think there is a threat because we have stopped talking about what the threat is, and why we need it and that people, when our intelligence community had better intelligence and blame them, that they in my judgment don't want them to have a very important tool to get intelligence. I realize we can all look at this differently but this is the kind of thing I'm sorting out. I'm thinking I hope that the Democratic candidate forces a dialog on this whole issue. You know, what is the threat and how are we responding, and maybe in the end we are all going to come to an agreement that we all need to do all the things that we've done, but at least we'll all be in agreement. I don't know what you ultimately decide. Let me ask this: What happens in the end if we can't agree on a strategy; in other words, one of the arguments is maybe we can't debate the strategy because maybe we can't agree to it. I mean, one of the important elements is there has to be a buy off, I think, with the general public, so maybe you can talk about that. What happens if the public doesn't agree on a strategy? Should I assume that ultimately we can, we should do it, or should I assume that if we can't, something happens? What happens? Dr. Kass. So let me take a stab at it. Passion is good. Consensus is not necessary. I would submit to you that we have shied away from even identifying the enemy. If you read the strategy skillfully, they tell you who the enemy is not. The strategies will tell you we are not at war with Islam, and so you mentioned that, but the strategies do not tell you positively who the enemy is or what the enemy is. That is where you need to begin to build consensus. That is too fundamental an issue to skirt or void and jump immediately to. This is what I'm going to do about this. This is another example of ready, fire, aim. Mr. Shays. Anybody else? Dr. McIntyre. Based on the discussion I had previously with Colonel Larsen, if we don't get a consensus bureaucracy takes control of the administrative part of this government. Mr. Shays. If you don't consensus. Dr. McIntyre. If you don't get a consensus on the strategy, the bureaucracy takes control of the future and local interests take control of Congress and the bureaucracy determines what we do and the local interests determine what we buy, and we find ourselves in a significant problem 10, 12, 15 years down the road, because those are the two things that will seize control. Mr. Shays. Bureaucracy and what? Dr. McIntyre. Bureaucracy and local interests. It's more the case that the people in your district will want certain types of spending in your district, so that's not exactly special to say I want you to take care of me in our district. Mr. Shays. Can I put it in my words: They may not know what they need because there's nothing, so they just think--in other words, I want to understand this a little better: Are you suggesting that without some consensus or without a national strategy that everybody buys in, we go in a lot of different ways? I don't understand. Dr. McIntyre. You have to have a fire shield, I think, as a representative, in the same way that the only way we were ever able to close bases is if we were able to establish a set of priorities and rank the bases and then say local Congressmen can't be blamed by the fact that you didn't meet this priority. You see, we've built a fire shield. I think we have to have some system of priorities to help build a fire shield for you and for other Members of Congress; otherwise the pressures will be to continue spending at local levels regardless of priorities. So two things will happen. I think bureaucracy will run things at the top and local requests will overcome and will be a constant strain on the budget. Colonel Larsen. I agree completely. The focus will be on Americans in your district as opposed to defending America. That's the sound bite for you. I agree completely. Mr. Cilluffo. Mr. Chairman, I think we do have some of the overarching strategies in place. It needs to be an execution and implementation and, as the old military adage goes, amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk tactics, they talk implementation and execution. That said, I think your point, in terms of raising it and in terms of a debate and dialog, is absolutely crucial. We need to enlist and marshal and mobilize everyone in our generation's war against terrorism. I spent a lot of time speaking, I've got four young daughters of my own and spend a lot of time speaking in public schools and other schools, and how do you send that message, while at the same time having it not become a self-fulfilling prophecy and creating fear. So I don't think we even had full consensus on a containment policy, so consensus shouldn't be the goal. Mr. Shays. We did during the cold war, correct? Mr. Cilluffo. Not completely. Mr. Shays. We may not have gotten a consensus on whether we need a missile defense system or something, but generally it was containment, reactive, mutually assured destruction. Mr. Cilluffo. For the most part, but it took a while to get to that point, and even at the end-state some would argue we were too hard in areas and not hard enough in others. It took a couple of key people who bridged, Scoop Jackson and a couple of others, parties to help mobilize the thinking along those lines, but I don't think we need to look for consensus, but I do think there are different actions that different constituencies need. I don't want the general public being all that afraid, so if they're not worried about something happening tomorrow, that's one thing. If those that are on the front line, those that are going to turn victims into patients, our first preventers and our first-responders, if they're lulled into a sense of complacency, then I've got problems, and the same can go in terms of the international issue. So this is a long term challenge. I think it would be arrogant to think we know the answers today. Mr. Shays. Mr. Ruppersberger, do you have questions? Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes. First I believe your issue of implementation is extremely important. As far as your issue of bureaucracy and the local level, our system of government is a representative democracy and what really works is a strong leader. If the strong leader has the plan and sets the goal and then works on the consensus and works on getting the votes, the system usually works. The best defense against a strong bureaucracy is a strong leader, and it's about leadership, and if you really look at the politics in this country now, in my opinion, why Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the Presidency is because I feel Americans feel Republicans are better at national security and probably feel for some reason, and I don't agree with it, that Republicans are more patriotic. But if you look at polling, as far as general issues of education and other issues, people like what the Democrats do, but I think that issue more than anything else is the leadership. The issue of national security and the patriotism is a strong issue. So I'm not as concerned about the bureaucracy, whichever party is the leader at the top who is setting the agenda. What I'm concerned about though is the plan and the information that is getting to the President or to the leader and where he's going or she's going to make the judgment on where they're going to go, how they're going to implement the plan. You talked about it, Mr. Cilluffo, and I think that's where we need to look, and, if not, that's why I think the argument-- I remember, I wasn't here--but term limits. I think term limits were extremely dangerous, because if you have term limits the bureaucracy controls. Mr. Cilluffo. Yes. Dr. Kass. Sir, leadership is key and I totally appreciate you raising that issue. What helps a leader is having a bold idea that can light up, galvanize, support, both domestically and internationally, and that is why I suggested the pretty bold idea of abolishment. Containment to me is too passive. Mr. Shays. Before we break, I'd like Mr. Yim--for you to just make some comments on what we've been talking about. Also welcome you all responding. I feel in one way like we're getting totally distracted and equally so, because maybe it's an indication that we were talking about things rather than theory, so I can gravitate more to that than others can. Also, I think we were talking about some, I think, really fascinating issues. Tell me, put some perspective on what you've heard, and also I wanted you to tell me if it was a strategy that was not part of the seven that I saw, and also I would like you, this panel, before we leave, and I don't want to drag this on, but I'd like to ask about the list of strategies that we were talking about and whether they are just countless strategies or should be or shouldn't be. Yes? Mr. Yim. I think, as an overall perspective, Mr. Chairman, I actually am, perhaps because of my success or failure rate, I'm willing to accept less than 100 percent solution, because I very rarely in my life have been able to achieve 100 percent solution, and I think when we talk about this issue of consensus I don't think it's absolutely necessary in the sense that I don't believe we would ever have 100 percent consensus. I don't think we need 100 percent consensus. When I was working with the military, I could never get the Navy and the Air Force and the Marines and the Army to agree, but for OSD there was some commonality in the debate and we have so far to go in improving the debate that even if we only got a 70 percent solution, I would be pleased with a 70 percent solution. Ms. Kass talks about Clausewitz. There's another philosopher Goethe. I'll paraphrase it and destroy the quote. Just start something because when you start something there's a whole other bunch of events that come to play that you may not even have imagined once you started embarking on that path and things may have come to your assistance that you may not have anticipated. I think for Homeland Security we are so far at the beginning that if we can arrive at a 60, 70 percent. solution-- -- Mr. Shays. Define what you mean by solution. We were talking strategies and standards and you're talking solutions. I'm confused by that term. Mr. Yim. I'm talking an all-hazards approach, for example. If people are talking about we have to focus on bioterrorism as opposed to a bomb in the port or as opposed to agriterrorism, we have to buy this type of equipment versus this type of equipment. If you really look at those scenarios, let's look at the five high-risk scenarios, a bomb in the port, a bioterrorism, agriterrorism, a cyberattack, something like that. If you really think about it, probably each of those different scenarios, even if in different jurisdictions of different agencies, they're probably about 60 to 70 percent of what you would do. The prevention and recovery is probably the same. Why don't we do that stuff; and I don't think we focused enough on the common stuff that we can do. Other things are going to happen. There is going to be new technology. Nobody would have predicted the dramatic fall of the Soviet Union. I don't think we could have predicted that. Things just happened, and I think that's really important for us. That means for me answering your second question what strategy are we missing? I mean, I think we are focusing too much on Homeland Security Strategy. I think the strategy that we're really missing, Mr. Chairman, if I could be so presumptuous, this is not a GAO position, I've been increasingly concerned about the gap between the condition of our infrastructure and the ability or what we're going to be demanding of our infrastructure in the future, the capabilities of our infrastructure to meet 21st century challenges, and by infrastructure I mean not only bricks and mortar, but people, the skill sets, the education level of our people. We are not devoting enough money to recapitalizing our infrastructure. We can talk something as simple as bridges. We all know that many bridges are deteriorating. They are not going to be able to handle the traffic load. Talk about our hospital systems. They were not being recapitalized in a way that can handle SARS, a major league bioterrorism attack, and the gap is going to increasingly widen. Mr. Shays. Let me see if I understand. So if we decide-- it's fairly obvious that our electricity grid is just substandard, shouldn't that be part of a national strategy related to the war on terrorism or not? Mr. Yim. Yes, but we are debating energy policy and security energy recapitalization. Those debates are to focus on certain things. Why aren't we building in energy security, homeland security into fundamental decisions in recapping the power grid? We are talking. Why aren't we talking about making the transit systems more secure while we talk about recapping Amtrak? Mr. Shays. Let me just go to the panel and go to Mr. Ruppersberger and then we're going to end here. Any comments to be made? Mr. Cilluffo. I fully support Mr. Yim, especially the maximizing secondary and tertiary benefits to get a return on investment beyond just guards, guns, gates, and you can splice that so many ways, and the President in his budget for 2003 and 2004 actually did put a close eye toward achieving that; for example, enhancements in improving our biological warfare really is about epidemiological surveillance and disease surveillance, which was really a public health structure that was broke and broken, so there was attempts to try to maximize some of that. I think we can go further, but I think one of the points here is that security for the American people is always too much until the day it's not enough, and that's something we need to keep in mind. It's not fun. It's not easy. There are no ways to--defining success is a huge challenge, but I can tell you one thing I think the President and the Congress as well--and I honestly do appreciate in terms of the actions that were taken. We can't go to the American people and say what I coulda, shoulda, or woulda but didn't because of this or that. We need to act and act decisively. Mr. Shays. I would go on forever, but we have a 1 o'clock closed-door briefing and I think with you, Mr.Yim. Mr. Yim. With Mr. Decker. Mr. Shays. With Mr. Decker, I'm sorry. We'll do that at 1. We need to end up. Just any closing comments? Mr. Ruppersberger. Just infrastructure. I agree with you but infrastructure costs money. Gets back to leadership again. Leadership has to prioritize and if the economy isn't doing well, and I'm not, in any way, making this political. I mean, do you stay with a tax cut, do you stay with funding education, do you stay with all these different issues? So we know that infrastructure makes you stronger and it's probably pretty wise politically in the end, but it's the will to top, and again the decisionmaker, getting the advice on where to prioritize and put the money. I can tell you this: If and when there is another incident like September 11, all of a sudden you will see reprioritization of money going back into homeland security, and in a way that's unfortunate but that's the way it's going to be, and if you could just comment on that. We could go on forever. This is an enlightening panel, and, Mr. Yim, you've done a good job, and why we've gone off the subject matter is because we want to get to the bottom line. Dr. Kass. Yes. Mr. Ruppersberger. Hopefully, we can learn from our mistakes and move forward. Mr. Yim. I think one of the keys is long-term strategy. Even when we budget for recapitalization, we look at the value within the OMB scoring period, which is typically 2 to 5 years, and most of the value recapping an infrastructure occurs in the 10th year, something like that. We have too short-term of a perspective I think in analyzing the strategies. The terrorists have 100, 500-year plans. We have 2-year plans. Mr. Ruppersberger. That's a culture, though. Look at Scheiner vs. the United States. We want it now and we get it now. We're effective in doing it. OK, thank you. Mr. Shays. Yes, we get it. Thank you all. Mr. Tierney, any closing comments? Thank you all for your participation. It's been very interesting. I appreciate it and I appreciate the indulgence of the audience here. Thank you. This hearing is adjourned. We will be having a closed-door briefing in room 2003 at 1 o'clock. Thank you. Just to finish up. It will be a fairly short meeting, I think. [Whereupon, at 12:49 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] <all>