THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 88, May 3, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AMERICA'S CLANDESTINE SERVICE &
U.S. COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY
By
James L. Pavitt
FULL STORY:
I am a public servant, dedicated to defending the security of our nation. For the last five of my more than 30 years in the intelligence
business, I have had the honor of leading a unique organization, the Directorate of Operations -- the clandestine service of America.
I am remarkably proud of this extraordinary group of dedicated professionals, their commitment and their accomplishments. Many
of the men and women of my organization operate abroad in dangerous locales and always in secret. They cannot publicly appear
before you today. I am here to represent them all.
The threat posed by terrorists prior to September 11, 2001, was unambiguous. The threat was not just outlined in sensitive intelligence
documents. Two highly regarded commissions, the Bremer Commission and the Hart Rudman Commission, were prophetic in laying out,
in unclassified reports, the terrorist threat we faced, including the possibility of terrorists inflicting mass casualties both overseas and
on American soil.
Two-and-a-half years ago, the terrorist adversary shattered the sense of security that the people of this country had come to cherish.
We fought this enemy through the 1990s, but it was the tragedy of September 11, 2001, that unified and focused this country and
allowed us to counter this threat as never before.
The damage to Al-Qa'ida since that tragedy has been striking. The pre-9/11 Al-Qa'ida leadership is almost gone. Osama bin Ladin and
Al-Zawahiri are in hiding. Clandestine operations have been at the heart of some of the most dramatic takedowns of the Al-Qa'ida
organization. Covert action is working hand-in-glove with the U.S. military to oust the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida from Afghanistan in an
intelligence/military partnership that is seen as a model.
My first responsibility here is to look at where we are in this campaign, and to give you a sense of where we are headed. As you know,
I cannot publicly describe our operations in detail. But I can give you, I hope, a clear sense of how we see this point in time, and how
we want to chart the next steps forward. As I paint this picture, I want to return to a few themes:
One: working with partners here and abroad, we are in the midst
of inflicting irreversible damage on the Al-Qa'ida organization.
Two: Al-Qa'ida has poisoned an international movement with an
ideology that is fueling attacks from Madrid to Manila. Our mission
will not end as long as members of this broad movement see the
killing of innocents as an acceptable cost of achieving their ends.
Three: The demise of bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri will be a
signpost, not a turning point. All of us -- you, me, the American
people watching today -- must realize that this is a campaign with no
clear end in sight, a campaign that will continue to demand our
attention, our partners' assistance, and the full commitment of
American resources and tools of national power.
Let me turn to where we are, by taking a step back for a moment. Think back to October of 2001, and imagine what you would have
said if someone had described the following future to you:
Taliban and Al-Qa'ida, essentially ousted from Afghanistan.
International recognition of new leadership in Afghanistan, with
a political process in place.
Periodic times of heightened alerts in this country, but no
further attacks on our soil.
About three-quarters of the Al-Qa'ida leadership gone.
A worldwide coalition of partners, dozens and dozens,
cooperating despite occasional political differences, in a global,
behind-the-scenes war of massive, indeed unprecedented,
proportions.
Despite all we have left to do, the vision I just described is as real today as it was unimaginable even 30 months ago. The clandestine
service I lead, the CIA's Directorate of Operations, is at the heart of this transformation. The Directorate of Operations is comprised of
men and women who are committed to helping their countrymen regain some of their sense of security, the American way, which has
become so tested in these past few years.
Where does this leave us, today, in this campaign? The terrorist adversary is hurt, but we are by no means through with Al-Qa'ida. The
group's leadership was surprised by the ferocity of our reaction to September 11; they had no coherent escape plan from Afghanistan.
They fled, east into and through Pakistan and west, into and beyond Iran. They tried to reconstitute a command structure. They failed.
Pakistani cities are no longer a hub of senior Al-Qa'ida leadership plotting. The cities have been cleared of senior jihadist leaders by our
work in partnership with Pakistan and its courageous leader, President Pervez Musharraf. Iran detained many of the terrorist leaders who fled
west.
As these leadership nodes eroded, the operational cells they directed or inspired in North Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and Southeast
Asia coiled to strike. And they did strike in Bali, Saudi Arabia, East Africa, Morocco, and elsewhere. They did so at an operational pace
that was no less intense after September 11 than it was before.
But our operations, in concert with our partners, are gaining ground against the core of Al-Qa'ida. Again, look back. Two-and-a-half
years ago, we would have listed as our top concerns Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Southeast Asia. And we remain concerned about extremists
operating in these areas. But today, almost every senior target is gone in Yemen, killed or captured. We have a level of cooperation in
Saudi Arabia that far exceeds anything we have seen before, and the results show it -- damage to the leadership of almost all the
Al-Qa'ida cells we have identified in the Kingdom. There has been progress as well in Southeast Asia, where we are working against
one of Al-Qa'ida's most dangerous affiliates, Jemaah Islamiyah.
These are all places where we have targeted leadership, through technical operations, human sources, and joint work with partners.
Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Hambali, Nashiri, all senior Al-Qa'ida leaders or associates, have been taken down directly
as a result of human source operations that are the fuel for our successes today.
The capabilities and partnerships we are using to fight this campaign are notable, not only for what they bring to bear in the field
overseas but also for the unity of effort they represent at home. Overseas, every station in the clandestine service has
counterterrorism as its top priority. It operate, not just to take down individual terrorists, but to follow terrorists' finances; their efforts
to find chemical, biological, or radiological materials; terrorist recruitment; false document rings; alien smuggling. The clandestine
service is working on every aspect of this international terrorist network.
I've mentioned our work with services worldwide as one of the tools we are using. I cannot overestimate the importance of the global
clandestine coalition we are forging. We work with friends, we work with foes. We cover a terrorist target around this globe, using a
cadre of case officers that is smaller than the number of FBI officers who work in New York City alone.
Complementing these classic clandestine operations is a covert action capability that became critically important two-and-a-half
years ago. My officers remain in the field in Afghanistan, today providing the intelligence eyes that are helping to drive the
operations of our military partners. This capability did not appear overnight. Remember, our ability to move quickly in Afghanistan,
one of the most successful covert actions ever, grew out of the strategic decision we made in the late 1990s to maintain a relationship
with the Northern Alliance.
The Washington, D.C., end of this story, today, is no less vibrant. Visit my building; let me tell you what you will see. With respect
to covert action, you would see interaction and coordination with the U.S. military that are not just a regular occurrence; they occur
daily, every single working day. We talk with military field operators, daily, and Pentagon civilian and military officers sit in our
Counterterrorist Center, privy to any operational detail we discuss. You would see the same cooperation with law enforcement. On
any given day, some 20 full-time FBI officers sit in our Counterterrorist Center. They know our operations, and they know our
human agents. We still need to learn how to continue improving this partnership, but we started learning well before September 11,
when we first posted a senior FBI officer as one of the deputy directors in the Center. We can and we will be better still.
People outside this circle have access to what we know, including information about our operations. We provide our backbone
database, a highly sensitive combination of intelligence reporting and operational detail, to officers across the Intelligence
Community who are sitting in the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. And we have a large cadre of officers whose sole job it is to
disseminate intelligence information to the Intelligence Community and beyond. If we receive a threat, we disseminate it
immediately.
I am proud of what this unique collection of Americans has done. But make no mistake. While we pursue the terrorist enemy, the
record since September 11 shows, time and time again, that it can operate in the midst of decline. I mentioned earlier a few of the
operations Al-Qa'ida and its affiliates have conducted since September 11. I will return to my office today, and I guarantee,
before the day is out, my officers will speak to me about plotters around the world who want to attack us with a lack of regard for
human life that defies description. We are prevailing, but this fight is far from over.
Why? Why is this so? How can I speak to you about the series of successes at the same time that I warn you that the world I see
today, April 14, 2004, is seething with people who are hatching plots that are tomorrow's Madrids, Balis, and Casablancas? It is
because we are watching, as we preempt, disrupt, and destroy the relatively small group we know as Al-Qa'ida, the spread of a far
looser, flatter movement of people inspired by Osama bin Ladin. Our mission will change with this enemy, month by month, year
by year. I've drawn an image of an Al-Qa'ida organization that has its back against a wall, damaged but still potent.
Let me now turn for a few minutes to the movement that this group has spawned, the movement that I believe represents the next
stage in this long campaign. Bin Ladin and his operators attacked in East Africa in 1998, in Yemen in 2000, in New York in 2001.
But his organization never saw itself as the sole master of all terrorism. The group trained Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans,
Saudis, Yemenis, Filipinos, and Americans. And, maybe more important, the group developed and disseminated an ideology that
led others, regardless of their affiliation with Al-Qa'ida itself, to see the world as Al-Qa'ida does, with the United States of America
as the primary enemy. What we will face, in the coming years, are those who absorbed this message, those who now themselves
see the murder of innocents as an acceptable cost of their drive to act on this ideology.
The web we are disrupting is increasingly global, increasingly dispersed, and increasingly local. And the tools we use to break
down this web must continue to extend beyond intelligence, the military, and law enforcement. We need diplomacy to keep
partners engaged, education to stem the tide of recruits into this network, economic progress to undercut the despair that drives
people to radicalism. And, above all, we cannot afford to dilute the focus and commitment to prevent another leader from
emerging to ride this ideological wave. Never forget, because our adversary never will.
The kinds of commitments my service will need to make reflect this assessment of an international network that is broad,
committed, and durable. We started re-growing the clandestine service in the1990s. It will take us years to get where we need to
be, in clandestine training, language skills, and field experience. Field officers will be crucial.
The 1990s were lean times for the human intelligence business. As a result of the post Cold War's socalled "Peace Dividend,"
we were in a period of decline. Our clandestine ranks were reduced by 20%. During this period, our targets were diverse -- from
terrorism to weapons proliferation to counternarcotics -- but our resources were not keeping pace. We worked hard to sustain
our collection efforts against the terrorist target. But let me be clear: We were vastly underfunded and we did not have the
people to do the job.
The tragedy of September 11 unified and focused our government and our country. As a result, we were granted new and more
robust authorities and resources to attack this threat as never before. The USA Patriot Act and expanded covert action
authorities mandated by President Bush are important elements of the foreign policy response to 9-11. We finally had an
unprecedented authority to mount an aggressive and effective offensive. Further, we received an immediate infusion of funding
to hire hundreds of additional staff. Today, more than 50% of our funding and about 30% of our people are focused on the
terrorism target. Our Counterterrorism Center has more than tripled in size since 9-11.
The resources we will need to fight this war will not diminish. They may, in fact, increase, directly as a result of the fact that our
operations, like our enemy, will have to be global and dispersed.
This vision of an overseas intelligence coalition, working with our clandestine assistance and supported by al the tools of
national power, must run in parallel to a homeland architecture that gives us the same sort of teamwork. As we attack this target,
we will not only coordinate with our law enforcement colleagues, but also expand on programs to run joint human sources with
them, here in the homeland as well as overseas. We must. Our adversary doesn't respect our borders; we have to have the
capability, working with law enforcement, to ensure that the U.S. government can operate seamlessly across borders as well.
Our operational focus is shifting as well, to meet the challenge of the
coming years of this fight. We have invested, in the months and
years after September 11, in taking out the leadership of the
organization that conceptualized and conducted the attack. We
came to understand better how embedded their web is. We will
maintain these disruption operations against the Al-Qa'ida
organization, but we will also increasingly shift to aggressive
infiltration of the broader network, to recruitment and penetration
operations that will allow us to map this web, not just its operations
but its low-level and support personnel. We are taking down those
who plotted the murder of 3,000 Americans; we are planning for a
future where we take down those who may follow them.
I must speak on behalf of those men and women of the CIA who could not be here
today, but who work so hard to stop bin Laden and his associates;
indeed, their lives are consumed with combating the terrorist threat.
To the families, I want to extend our heartfelt condolences to
you for the tragic loss of your loved ones. My officers sounded the
alarm about the gathering, lethal threat and put their hearts and
souls into disrupting and preventing attacks against America. Their
commitment, bravery, sacrifice, and dedication to the defense of our
nation are second to none. But, in the end, that was not enough to
stop the attacks on September 11. We did all we knew how to do.
We failed to stop the attacks.
I can assure you the memory of your loved ones continues to be
a tremendous source of inspiration to those of us who dedicate our
lives to combating this enemy. We will succeed.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
U.S. Intelligence & America's National Security
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
James L. Pavitt, the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations, presented the foregoing statement, on April 4, 2004, as testimony at the
hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon rhe United States (9-11 Commission).
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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