SPEAKERS       CONTENTS       INSERTS    
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99–825PDF
2005
ELIMINATING TERRORIST SANCTUARIES:
THE ROLE OF SECURITY ASSISTANCE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND NONPROLIFERATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 10, 2005

Serial No. 109–19
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Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/internationalrelations

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
  Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
DARRELL ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
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JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
CONNIE MACK, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MICHAEL McCAUL, Texas
TED POE, Texas

TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
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JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director

Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman

PETER T. KING, New York
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
DARRELL ISSA, California, Vice Chairman
MICHAEL McCAUL, Texas
TED POE, Texas
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina

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BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California

TOM SHEEHY, Subcommittee Staff Director
DON MACDONALD, Democratic Professional Staff Member
MALIK M. CHAKA, Professional Staff Member
GREG GALVIN, Staff Associate

C O N T E N T S

WITNESSES

    Mr. William P. Pope, Acting Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State

    Rear Admiral Hamlin B. Tallent, USN, Director of Operations, United States European Command

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

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    The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation: Prepared statement

    Mr. William P. Pope: Prepared statement

    Rear Admiral Hamlin B. Tallent, USN: Prepared statement

APPENDIX

    Responses from Rear Admiral Hamlin B. Tallent, USN, to questions submitted for the record by the Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas

ELIMINATING TERRORIST SANCTUARIES:
THE ROLE OF SECURITY ASSISTANCE

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2005

House of Representatives,    
Subcommittee on International Terrorism    
and Nonproliferation,    
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:55 p.m. in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward R. Royce (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
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    Mr. ROYCE. This hearing of the Subcommittee will come to order. The title of this hearing is ''Eliminating Terrorist Sanctuaries: The Role of Security Assistance.''

    The 9–11 Commission pointed out in its report the importance of keeping terrorist organizations off guard, the importance of rendering them less capable of mounting a catastrophic attack against the United States by always keeping them on the defense. Part of the Administration's strategy is eliminating terrorist sanctuaries around the world. Most of those sanctuaries, current and potential sanctuaries, are in remote areas of the developing world where government presence is very low. This includes much of the Sahel, Sahara and the Horn regions of Africa. It includes parts of the Caucasus like Georgia and certainly the southern Philippines, areas that we are going to focus on today.

    This hearing is going to look at U.S. programs to train and equip foreign military and security forces for counterterrorism and our ability to train them basically to go after these potential terrorist sanctuaries. Specific programs of interest that we are going to look at are the Pan-Sahel Initiative, the Georgia Sustainment and Security Operations Program and the security assistance training in the Philippines. PSI, as it is known, is being greatly expanded into the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, which is of considerable interest to this Subcommittee, especially as it is to include development assistance and public diplomacy programs. Having visited PSI trained troops in Chad in January, I am especially interested in the details of this program. We saw a special brigade being trained there, and that particular elite unit has been quite effective against terrorist cells in that country.

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    These train and equip efforts are aimed at eliminating what I would refer to as the next ''Afghanistan,'' another terrorist sanctuary like the one from which Osama bin Laden initiated the 9/11 attacks. We need a sharp focus here. In the mid-1990s on this Committee, I tried hard to bring attention to Afghanistan. I said at the time that Congress needed to look no further than the World Trade Center bombing in New York City, the first Trade Center bombing, to see the adverse impact which an unstable Afghanistan can have on United States national security policy. I explained at the time as well that the potential existed for more World Trade Center-like bombings at home as a result of the instability in Afghanistan.

    But it was a situation where the Cold War was over. No one wanted to hear about this particular country. Historically we have a similarity here in the continent of Africa. Africa has been very much ignored, I think, and we have tried to put it on the radar for United States policy over the last few years.

    I think it is important that we remember that it was in Tanzania and it was in Kenya that our Embassies were attacked and Americans and Africans were killed. Osama bin Laden was harbored in Sudan early on. The terrorist threat in Africa is real and it is growing, and our European command understands that only too well, as we will hear today.

    Counterterrorism training is challenging the skills of U.S. service personnel. They are being sent into new situations, different countries, cultures and languages. These men and women are increasingly becoming ''soldier-diplomats.'' In playing this role, which they are doing very well, it is critical that there be close coordination with the State Department. While train and equip programming is important, combating terrorism requires many tools, including development assistance and diplomacy. The political implications of security assistance include its impact on the rule of law and on human rights, and these need to be constantly considered. These are challenging countries that we are talking about to do business in.
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    A good public relations campaign must be waged too. When we are sending troops into countries, even just to train, it is critical that we couple it with a very good explanation, an explanation that will resonate with the locals, of what we are doing and why we are doing it. The 9–11 Commission warned that if we do not define ourselves in the Islamic world, the Islamists will certainly do that for us.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Royce follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE EDWARD R. ROYCE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND NONPROLIFERATION

    WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation (ITNP) held a hearing on eliminating terrorist sanctuaries and the role of U.S. security assistance. ITNP Chairman U.S. Rep Ed Royce (R–CA–40) issued the following opening statement at the hearing:

    ''The 9/11 Commission and others have pointed out the importance of keeping terrorist organizations off guard, rendering them less capable of mounting a catastrophic attack against a U.S. target. Part of the Administration's strategy is eliminating terrorist sanctuaries. Most sanctuaries, current and potential, are remote areas of the developing world, where government presence is low. This includes much of the Sahel, Sahara and Horn regions of Africa, areas of the country of Georgia, and the southern Philippines.

    ''This hearing will look at U.S. programs to train and equip foreign military and security forces for counter-terrorism efforts in terrorist and potential terrorist sanctuaries. Specific programs of interest are the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI), the Georgia Sustainment and Security Operations Program and security assistance training in the Philippines. PSI is being greatly expanded into the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, which is of considerable interest to this Subcommittee, especially as it is to include development assistance and public diplomacy programs. Having visited PSI-trained troops in Chad in January, I am especially interested in the details of this program.
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    ''These train and equip efforts are aimed at eliminating the 'next Afghanistan': another terrorist sanctuary like the one from which Osama bin Laden's initiated the 9/11 attacks. We need a sharp focus here. In the mid-1990s on this Committee, I tried hard to bring attention to Afghanistan. The Cold War was over though, and no one wanted to hear about this country. Historically Africa has been ignored, yet it was in Tanzania and Kenya that our embassies were attacked and Americans and Africans were killed. Osama bin Laden was harbored in early on Sudan. The terrorist threat in Africa is real and growing, which our European Command understands.

    ''Counter-terrorism training is challenging the skills of U.S. service personnel. They are being sent into new situations: different countries, cultures and languages. These men and women are increasingly becoming 'soldier-diplomats.' In playing this role, which they are doing well, it is critical that there be close coordination with the State Department. While train and equip programming is important, combating terrorism requires many tools, including development assistance and diplomacy. The political implications of security assistance, including its impact on the rule of law and human rights, needs to be constantly considered. These are challenging countries to do business in.

    ''A good public relations campaign must be waged too. When we are sending troops into countries, even just to train, it is critical that we couple it with a very good explanation—an explanation that will resonate with the locals—of what we are doing and why. The 9/11 Commission warned that if we do not define ourselves in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly do it for us. This is the role of public diplomacy, which we often shortchange.''

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    Mr. ROYCE. I will turn now to our Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, and then we will go to the witnesses.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome our witnesses. I cannot be here for the entire hearing, so I will leave after this opening statement. I will be deprived of your oral presentation, but I have already looked at your testimony.

    The 9–11 Commission charged us in Congress and the Administration to prevent another Afghanistan. The U.S. needs to identify the places where terrorists are likely to find sanctuaries, prioritize those problems, develop a plan to address those potential sanctuaries and work to deny sanctuary to the terrorists.

    Congress enshrined this requirement in legislation to implement the Commission's recommendations, and I look forward to reviewing the Administration's plan to achieve those objectives.

    The questions we must ask today include, Which states have the desire, but not the resources, to confront terrorists on their own soil and how can we best help them? There are plenty of places where there are weak governments that would like to deny sanctuaries to terrorists, but are unable to do so.

    I commend the Chair, my good friend from the Los Angeles area, for his focus on North Africa's Sahara and Sahel regions, as well as Georgia, the Philippines and other places of concern. They have the attributes identified by the 9–11 Commission and have already unwillingly provided a degree of safe haven, if only temporarily.
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    Of course, Afghanistan was the premiere sanctuary. It was out of the way of the major powers and developed a symbiotic relationship with the terrorists. Al-Qaeda literally means ''the base.'' That is what Afghanistan offered.

    Some 10,000, 20,000, perhaps 60,000 individuals went through boot camp-style training and advanced terrorist workshops in the period from 1996 until the Taliban fell in November 2001. If we had paid more attention, I could tell you whether it was 10,000 or 20,000 or 60,000, but even with an unprecedented satellite capacity, we were looking elsewhere.

    The existence of these bases, of course, were not concealed either from our satellites or even from those who bothered to read the very last pages of major newspapers, but it is impossible to find a columnist, a Member of Congress, or anyone in the Administration who, before 9/11, said it was critical to our national security to dislodge al-Qaeda by force from Afghanistan, even after we saw what happened in East Africa, after the USS Cole. We continued to regard Afghanistan as a minor concern and al-Qaeda as an entity that might from time to time kill a dozen Americans. We should have been far more vigilant.

    The fact though is that we cannot go to war with every country that willingly harbors terrorists, and the Iraq experience has kind of given preemption a bad name. In any case, I am sure, Admiral, you are not looking for another war right now.

    Our greatest challenge is to aid friendly countries and to see how we can confront unfriendly countries that provide safe haven for terrorists without resorting to war. There are probably no sanctuaries in existence today which would allow the Jihadists the freedom they had in Afghanistan. But we do face concerns in parts of Lebanon, Iran and Syria, and of course the Hezbollah demonstration in Beruit demonstrates that terrorist organizations can be very valuable to their, I would say, host governments, but I guess in the case of Syria and Hezbollah, host occupier.
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    This Committee held hearings recently on Iranian terror. We know that al-Qaeda have been given sanctuary there, including a man believed to be behind the May 2003 Riyadh bombings, as well as one of bin Laden's sons and, of course, many others.

    I know, Admiral, that you do not work for CENTCOM and so I will not ask you to address in detail Iran, but I hope Mr. Pope will tell us what we plan to do about sanctuary in Iran and to prevent that country from continuing to harbor al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

    Last, but certainly not least, respect for human rights is, of course, of concern. We have been found wanting ourselves, not to mention some of our allies. I would like to hear from both witnesses how those who participate in our assistance programs are vetted for previous human rights abuses and what type of training is given in respect for human rights and the rule of law to those participating in our training programs.

    Many of the countries that we are providing aid to do not have strong legal traditions or strong traditions of governmental respect for human rights, so how do we assure that the trainees live up to the standards that their own governments, at least nominally, embrace and that, of course, we embrace verbally as well?

    I thank the Chairman for the hearing. I thank the witnesses for their indulgence, and I hope to be back to ask some questions.

    Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.

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    We are going to go to Mr. William Pope, who is the Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department where he has primary responsibility for developing, coordinating and implementing U.S. counterterrorism policy. Mr. Pope represents the Secretary of State on the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG). Mr. Pope previously served as the Principal Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State.

    It is my understanding that after 35 years serving our Nation, Mr. Pope will be retiring as of tomorrow and in fact I understand his father preceded him in government service prior to this building even being built. Mr. Pope remembers when his father moved into this building.

    It is a pleasure, Mr. Pope, to have you with us today and also Admiral Tallent.

    Rear Admiral Hamlin Tallent is the Director of Operations for European Command, where he advises on the deployment of United States forces within the European Command's area of responsibility. His previous assignment was Commander of Carrier Group 1. A naval aviator by background, Rear Admiral Tallent has commanded a carrier airwing, a fighter squadron and served as an instructor at Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known as Top Gun. He has been awarded numerous decorations, including the Legion of Merit and Defense Meritorious Service medal.

    Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being with us, and we will begin with Mr. Pope.

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM P. POPE, ACTING COORDINATOR, OFFICE OF THE COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
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    Mr. POPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thanks very much for the opportunity to testify today and for those kind words just a minute ago.

    I will summarize my formal written statement and ask that you include my full testimony in the record.

    Mr. Chairman, as the President made clear in his speech on Tuesday, March 8, counterterrorism assistance efforts are the first line of defense for the protection of our homeland, as well as U.S. personnel and facilities overseas. The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism—I have a copy of it right here, and I know you are very familiar with that document—describes four main objectives: Defeat terrorist organizations by attacking their sanctuaries, leadership, finances and command and control; deny further sponsorship and sanctuary by cooperating with states to take action; diminish the conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk; and defend the United States, its citizens and interests at home and abroad.

    Partnership with foreign governments is important for each of these objectives. In today's testimony I will focus primarily on the second: Denial of support and sanctuary to terrorists through cooperation with other states.

    Our Government must be prepared to help partner nations protect themselves and, by extension, the United States from terrorism with a wide spectrum of assistance and delivery platforms. Elements of this spectrum may include the most basic cop-to-cop training to military training and assistance at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.
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    Each partner nation does not need every item in our inventory of deliverables. We have to discern, through expert assessment and analysis, what a nation's most pressing requirements are. We must provide that assistance and training in a manner that complements the partner's existing security infrastructure and that can be sustained. These programs are an investment based on U.S. security interests and objectives. The challenge, of course, is to make sure that our assessment of risk is accurate and also that we do not overlook tomorrow's threat by focusing exclusively on today's.

    In counterterrorism assistance, how we do things is as important as how much we have to spend. Measurable, lasting improvement in a partner's capability to confront terrorist activity in or emanating from its territory usually demands customized programs, hands-on training, locally appropriate equipment and ongoing mentoring. It requires frequent face-to-face contact between U.S. Government personnel and the host nation's security establishment, and it requires that our diverse Federal agencies, both military and civilian, work together to ensure that distinct initiatives are complementary and collaborative.

    The foregoing discussion of how counterterrorism assistance should be provided applies globally, Mr. Chairman, but, given your long interest in Africa, allow me to focus on that region.

    In 2004, the Center for International and Strategic Studies issued a report regarding counterterrorism in Africa. The authors were unambiguous:

''The threat of terror to U.S. interests in Africa is concrete, rising and discernible. The probability of another attack on Americans on African soil is high.''
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    Two programs underway on the African continent offer useful illustrations of the requirements I have described and the challenges we face.

    Kenya: In 2003, the President announced the commitment of $100 million for an East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative for six countries in the region: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. As part of this effort, the East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative provided $10 million for an intensive in-country antiterrorism training program for Kenya. This program is overseen by my office and implemented by Diplomatic Security's Office of Antiterrorism Assistance, ATA. ATA customized its plan to focus from the outset on what it perceived as the weakest link in Kenya's capacity to combat terrorist organizations, interagency collaboration and command and control. In close coordination with senior Kenyan officials, ATA devised a 9-week training course that has been delivered to a hand-picked group of investigators, prosecutors, immigration officials and counterterrorism analysts. The participants graduate tomorrow, as a matter of fact, and they will go on to comprise the core staff of a Joint Terrorism Task Force.

    Further specialized training and equipment will be forthcoming, but it will be crafted in consultation with this Kenyan task force. We are moving away from a ''Here you go—good luck'' kind of approach to terrorism assistance toward more of a ''We are all in this together—what shall we do next'' approach, a consultive, collaborative approach.

    Another element of the Kenya program worth noting is the Kenyan Navy. It is conducting maritime interdiction training with the assistance of U.S. Navy personnel. It has agreed to enroll maritime police officers into the next two 8-week courses it delivers. Police and Navy personnel will deploy together in joint coastal operations—an interesting development—share information and communicate with the Nairobi-based Joint Terrorism Task Force.
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    The Kenya program represents several elements of the criteria I mentioned earlier, a customized approach based on the strengths and weaknesses of the partner nation; resident instructors, advisors and mentors who gain the trust and respect of their Kenyan colleagues; and various U.S. Government elements—State, DoD, Justice Department—working together to combine resources and expertise that ensures the most effective assistance possible.

    Sahel and North Africa: The Sahel region, home to more than 100 million Muslims, is an area of potential vulnerability due to its vast low-density geography, nomadic populations and porous borders. International and indigenous terrorist groups have been able to travel across the region, smuggle contraband, including weapons, and recruit new members from indigenous populations. We seek to facilitate cooperation among governments in the region and to strengthen their capacity to combat terrorist organizations.

    The Pan-Sahel Initiative, which you mentioned, is a good example of the collaborative interagency program efforts I described as essential for success. The Pan-Sahel Initiative is an $8.4 million program to provide counterterrorist training that focused on the nations of Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad.

    In 2003–2004, our Defense Department colleagues in the European Command, EUCOM, provided trainers and U.S. Special Forces to train with the security forces of those governments. To complement EUCOM's efforts with military units in the Sahel countries, we directed the Antiterrorism Assistance Program to work with the civilian law enforcement agencies of Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger as well. ATA has delivered approximately $6.6 million in training and assistance to those countries.
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    As you mentioned, we are looking at a follow-on effort that would continue on the success of the PSI, and the working title for this, as you said, is the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative. It is under review within the Administration. We are working to integrate the concept into agency budget and program planning.

    I know I have run out of time, but——

    Mr. ROYCE. Please continue, Mr. Pope, if you will.

    Mr. POPE. Yes, sir.

    Mr. ROYCE. Thank you.

    Mr. POPE. We very much look forward to working with you. We applaud your interest in the Sahel, and we are looking very much forward to working with you on that.

    The foregoing descriptions of counterterrorism assistance efforts in Africa by no means reflect the extent of our CT operations. Our efforts in Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Colombia and elsewhere are extensive and ongoing. I have provided an index, an appendix to my written testimony that describes in some detail—I am sure you have seen it—the priorities and progress of ATA's counterterrorism assistance efforts in these countries and elsewhere.

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    Terrorist Interdiction Program and Counterterrorism Finance: The mission to eliminate terrorist presence and sanctuaries globally extends beyond helping partner nations to investigate and interdict terrorists. We also must constrict their mobility and access to financial support. Through the Terrorist Interdiction Program we provide select nations with the computer systems, training and support to establish effective watchlisting capabilities and thereby help identify suspect persons attempting to pass through their air, land or seaports of entry.

    Combating terrorist financing remains a critical component of the war on terrorism, as terrorist groups need money—they need funds—to recruit, to train, to equip, to operate. Depriving them of funding provides us a better opportunity to identify, disrupt, prosecute and defeat terrorists. The interagency Terrorist Finance Working Group, chaired by State, coordinates, develops and delivers training and technical assistance to priority countries to bolster their anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing regimes.

    In addition to working bilaterally, the U.S. has aggressively mobilized the U.N. and other international organizations to fulfill their counterterrorism obligations under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373. We work also with other donor nations in the G-8's CTAG, Counterterrorism Action Group, et cetera.

    In conclusion, sir, let me finish with three points. First, we are running in a marathon, not a sprint. The starter gun went off, as you mentioned, in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center, but it was not until the morning of September 11, 2001, that the majority of our citizens truly realized that, like it or not, we were at war. We cannot go it alone, and the role of security assistance in all its many forms is absolutely crucial to this struggle and to the security of our homeland. There is no question that Americans are safer if we can assist our international partners to stop terrorists overseas before they are able to bring violence to our home shores. That assistance must be robust and sustained for its effects to be realized.
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    We must be practical and methodical in our efforts. There must be solid coordination among U.S. Government agencies here and abroad. In Washington, the Secretary, of course, with assistance from our office, coordinates overseas counterterrorism assistance.

    Finally, we must maintain a diverse and balanced portfolio of targeted countries in our assistance strategy. We must not focus exclusively on today's threat areas only to find that the quarry has moved on to less hostile environs that we have ignored up to now.

    Thank you once again for calling the hearing today on this very important topic. I hope the testimony has been helpful so far. I would be delighted to answer any questions you may have.

    Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pope follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM P. POPE, ACTING COORDINATOR, OFFICE OF THE COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

    Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Sherman, Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee: thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

    Mr. Chairman, as the President made clear in his speech on Tuesday, March 8, to prevent attacks on American soil, we must pursue partnership and cooperation abroad. Counterterrorism assistance efforts are the first line of defense for the protection of our homeland as well as U.S. personnel and facilities overseas. These programs are not foreign aid in the traditional humanitarian sense. They are an essential element of the vital U.S. interest in safeguarding Americans at home and abroad.
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    The President's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism describes four main objectives:

 Defeat terrorist organizations of global reach by attacking their sanctuaries, leadership, finances, and command, control and communications;

 Deny further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by cooperating with other states to take action against these international threats;

 Diminish the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit by enlisting the international community to focus its efforts and resources on the areas most at risk; and

 Defend the United States, its citizens, and interests at home and abroad.

    Partnership with foreign governments is important for each of these objectives. In today's testimony, I will focus primarily on the second—the denial of support and sanctuary to terrorists through cooperation with other states.

    Just as our views of the nature of warfare have changed to confront the threat posed by al-Qaida and its affiliates, so must our views of counterterrorism assistance evolve. A terrorist does not view an Aegis equipped missile destroyer like the U.S.S. Cole only as a deterrent. He also sees it as a target that he might hope to sink with a few hundred pounds of explosives and a small boat. Conventional weapons continue to hold an important place in our national arsenal, just as providing modern weapons systems to allies through foreign military financing and other forms of traditional security assistance continues to be in our national interest. But the rise of asymmetric warfare, to borrow a term used by military strategists in discussing terrorist operations, has required a fundamental adjustment in our nation's security assistance strategy.
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    Our government must be prepared to help partner nations protect themselves, and by extension the United States, from terrorism with a wide spectrum of assistance and delivery platforms. Elements of this spectrum may include the most basic cop-to-cop training in community policing on the streets of foreign capitals, tactical training of police SWAT teams and explosive ordnance disposal experts, investigative training in arcane areas such as the encrypted cyber communications and reverse money laundering schemes known to be used by terrorist organizations, the fostering of interagency cooperation through effective joint terrorism task forces, institutional reform of ponderous and sometimes corrupt security institutions, assistance in intelligence collection and analysis, and military training and assistance at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.

    Each partner nation does not need every item in our inventory of deliverables. We have to discern, through expert assessment and analysis, what a nation's most pressing requirements are, and then we must convince its policy makers how we can best help. We must provide that assistance and training in a manner that complements the partner's existing security infrastructure and can be sustained. It is worth noting that there will inevitably be countries with legitimate needs that we choose not to assist because, in our estimation, the potential threat emanating from or through that country to U.S. personnel or interests is low. As mentioned earlier, these programs are not need-based foreign aid in the traditional sense. They are an investment based on U.S. security interests and objectives. The challenge, of course, is to make sure that our assessment of risk is accurate and that we do not overlook tomorrow's threat by focusing exclusively on today's.

    As Members of Congress, you are accustomed to reviewing budgets and allocating resources. Please allow me to say a few words about something that is not easily reflected in budget figures. In counterterrorism assistance, how we do things is as important as how much we have to spend. From long experience, we know that impersonal training or equipment packages cannot be simply dropped into the hands of our partners and reasonably be expected to get results. Measurable, lasting improvement in a partner nation's capability to confront terrorist activity in or emanating from its territory usually demands customized programs, hands-on training, locally appropriate equipment, and ongoing mentoring. It requires frequent, face-to-face contact between U.S. government personnel and the host nation's security establishment. It requires talented, experienced trainers, who regard their students as colleagues and treat them with respect. It requires the engagement of ambassadors and the most senior members of our foreign policy establishment to encourage an institutional environment in which tactical and operational training can take root and bear fruit. And it requires that our diverse federal agencies, both military and civilian, work together to ensure that distinct initiatives are complementary and collaborative.
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    There is an additional benefit to the kind of hands-on training I have described that bears mention. Our nation's commitment to sound human rights practices and conducting investigations under the rule of law is strong. Consistent exposure to former federal investigators and prosecutors from the United States helps bring the principles we teach in these areas in each of our courses into sharp relief. In the appendix to this testimony you may note one statistic of which we are most proud. Colombian anti-kidnapping units trained under the State Department's Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) program have rescued over 48 hostages from kidnappers and arrested 206. These units are vetted for human rights issues and provided human rights training. Although Colombia continues to suffer one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world, this type of assistance will make sustained progress in changing this trend.

    The foregoing discussion of how counterterrorism assistance should be provided applies globally, Mr. Chairman, but, given your long interest in Africa as the former chairman of the Africa subcommittee, allow me to focus on that region. I believe you were present in July 2004 when the Africa Policy Advisory Panel of the Center for International and Strategic Studies issued a report regarding counterterrorism in Africa. The authors were unambiguous: ''The threat of terror to US interests in Africa is concrete, rising and discernible. The probability of another attack on Americans on African soil is high.'' Two programs underway on the African continent offer useful illustrations of the requirements I have described and the challenges we face.

Kenya

    In June 2003, the President announced the commitment of $100 million for an East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI) to provide counterterrorism equipment, training, and assistance to six countries in the region: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. As part of this effort, EACTI provided $10 million for an intensive in-country antiterrorism training program for Kenya. This program is overseen by my office and implemented by Diplomatic Security's Office of Antiterrorism Assistance. The Kenya program was developed from the ground up. DS/ATA experts traveled to Kenya, consulted extensively with members of the Embassy Country Team, and employed experts from other USG agencies, to ensure that Kenya's most pressing needs were addressed. Rather than simply use a training and equipment package for the Kenyans that we have used successfully in other countries, ATA customized its plan to focus from the outset on what it perceived as the weakest link in Kenya's capacity to combat terrorist organizations: interagency collaboration, command and control. In close coordination with Kenya's Commissioner of National Police, Director of Public Prosecutions, and others senior Kenyan officials, ATA devised a nine-week training course that has been delivered to a hand-picked group of investigators, prosecutors, immigration officials, and counterterrorism analysts. The participants graduate tomorrow, as a matter of fact, and they will go on to comprise the core staff of a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Through nine weeks of training, institutional rivalries and suspicions have been broken down among the participants, and they are ready to bring their skills to bear in a concerted fashion. ATA has assisted in identifying and making ready a base from which the JTTF will operate. Each member brings to the task force the experience and resources of his or her agency, but they will now be working together across agency lines toward common counterterrorism objectives.
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    An experienced former U.S. investigator will be resident with the JTTF to provide ongoing assistance and advice. A British counterterrorism expert and the U.S. embassy resident legal advisor (an experienced U.S. prosecutor) will also be on hand for the long term to assist and advise. Further specialized training and equipment will be forthcoming, but it will be crafted in consultation with the Kenyan task force for their use in making arrests and prosecutions. We are moving away from a ''Here you go—good luck'' approach to counterterrorism assistance to more of a ''We're all in this together—what shall we do next'' approach. The difference may appear subtle from here in Washington, but it has enormous implications for partner nation ownership, sustainability, and success on the ground.

    Another element of the Kenya program is worth noting. The Commissioner of National Police is eager to improve the KNP's maritime interdiction capability, particularly in the waters along the northern coast, where traditional cargo dhows transit the Somali border on a daily basis. We know that some of these vessels carry contraband and persons of interest from a counterterrorism perspective, but there is currently a very limited capability to interdict and inspect them. A U.S. Navy group has been working with the Kenyan Navy in this area for some months. In planning the maritime element of its program, ATA has drawn extensively on the Navy group's expertise. They have provided ATA with valuable information about navigational issues, fueling stations, launch ramps, and so forth. Some of their experts assisted ATA in the evaluation of a locally available and serviceable boat/engine package that is well suited to those waters and the interdiction mission.

    The Kenyan Navy, which is conducting maritime interdiction training with the assistance of U.S. Navy personnel for its own sailors, has agreed to enroll maritime police officers into the next two eight-week courses it delivers. Police and Navy personnel will deploy together in joint coastal operations. Since police have much wider arrest authority than navy personnel under Kenyan law, this will be mutually beneficial to both Kenyan services. In addition, they will provide information to the Nairobi-based Joint Terrorism Task Force for analysis. The JTTF will in turn provide leads, derived from investigative intelligence, to the maritime unit.
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    The Kenya program represents several elements of the criteria that I mentioned earlier: a customized approach based on the strengths and weaknesses of the partner nation; resident instructors, advisors, and mentors who gain the trust and respect of their Kenyan colleagues; and various USG elements—State, DOD, Justice—working together to combine resources and expertise that ensures the most effective assistance possible.

Sahel and North Africa

    The Sahel region is an area of potential vulnerability due to its vast, low density geography, nomadic populations, and porous borders. International and indigenous terrorist groups have been able to travel across the region, smuggle contraband, including weapons, and recruit new members from indigenous populations. Islamist terrorist groups pose a terrorist threat to a region that is home to more than 100 million Muslims.

    The most active group in the Sahel is the al-Qaida-affiliated Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC). In 2003, a faction of this group led by Abderezzak al-Para held 32 European hostages in southern Algeria and northern Mali.

    We seek to facilitate cooperation among governments in the region (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, and Nigeria) and strengthen their capacity to combat terrorist organizations.

    The Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) is a good example of collaborative, interagency program efforts that I have described as essential for success. The Pan Sahel Initiative is an $8.4 million program to provide CT training that focused on the nations of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad. In 2003–04, our Defense Department colleagues in the European Command (EUCOM) provided trainers from the U.S. Special Forces to train with the security forces of these governments. Countries in the region are active and willing partners in counterterrorism efforts. In 2004, forces from Niger and Chad engaged GSPC elements in their respective countries. In the case of Chad, its military forces killed or captured 43 operatives in a clash in northern Chad in March 2004, driving GSPC second-in-command Amari Saifi (a.k.a. Abderrezak al-Para) into the hands of a Chadian rebel group, which eventually led to al-Para being turned over to Algerian custody in October.
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    To complement EUCOM's efforts with military units in the Sahel countries, we directed the Antiterrorism Assistance program to work with the civilian law enforcement agencies of Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, as well. ATA has delivered approximately $6.6 million in training and assistance to these countries in Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005.

    The Administration is considering a follow-on effort that would continue the success of PSI, building upon that program, to improve the military and political capability of regional governments to meet the threats they face in the Sahel. The working title for this effort is the Trans Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, or TSCTI. The TSCTI would seek to further strengthen regional CT capabilities, enhance and institutionalize cooperation among the region's security forces, promote democratic governance and human rights, and ultimately benefit our worldwide CT goals and bilateral relationships. The TSCTI concept would look beyond simply the provision of training and equipment for counterterrorism units, but also would consider development assistance, expanded public diplomacy campaigns and other elements as part of an overall CT strategy. TSCTI is under review within the Administration, and we are working to integrate the concept into agency budget and program planning processes. We look forward to working with you further on our efforts to improve security in the Sahel.

    The foregoing descriptions of counterterrorism assistance efforts in Africa by no means reflect the extent of our CT operations. I offer them, first, because I am aware of the Chairman's extensive interest in the region, and, second, because I believe that we are now in the stage of our nation's overall counterterrorism strategy that we must look beyond the immediate priority regions of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. Nonetheless, our efforts in Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Colombia and elsewhere are extensive and ongoing. I have provided an appendix to my written testimony that describes in some detail the priorities and progress of ATA's counterterrorism assistance efforts in these countries and elsewhere.
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Terrorist Interdiction Program and Counterterrorism Finance

    The mission to eliminate terrorist presence or sanctuaries globally extends beyond helping partner nations to investigate and interdict terrorists. We also must constrict their mobility and access to financial support. Through the Terrorist Interdiction Program, we provide select nations with the computer systems, training and support to establish effective watchlisting capabilities, and thereby help identify suspect persons attempting to pass through air, land or sea ports of entry. Since 2001, twenty nations have been provided this capability, and they have been successful in interdicting insurgents in Iraq, hundreds of individuals traveling on stolen passports in Pakistan, as well as wanted criminals, narcotics smugglers, and human traffickers world-wide. The Terrorist Interdiction Program has, in several countries, become the cornerstone of counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.

    Combating terrorist financing remains a critical component of the global war on terrorism, as terrorist groups need funds to recruit, train, equip, and operate. Depriving them of funding provides us a better opportunity to identify, disrupt, prosecute, and defeat terrorists. One way the USG combats terrorist financing is through foreign assistance capacity building programs administered by the State Department.

    The interagency Terrorist Finance Working Group (TFWG), chaired by State, coordinates, develops, and delivers training and technical assistance to priority countries to bolster their anti-money laundering/counterterrorist financing regimes. U.S. assistance programs address the legal drafting, financial investigations, bank regulatory supervision, financial intelligence units, and judicial/prosecutorial aspects of combating terrorist financing. In addition, these programs have begun to address the threat of terrorist financing through non-bank conduits, such as alternative remittance systems, cash couriers, and the abuse of charities. To date, 17 priority countries deemed most vulnerable to terrorist financing have been formally assessed, and training and technical assistance have been provided to countries, bilaterally and regionally, in the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In addition, U.S. anti-money laundering programs underway in regions traditionally plagued by narco-trafficking and organized crime networks have complemented counterterrorism finance efforts by reinforcing host government institutions' ability to follow the money trail.
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    Counterterrorism finance training programs have already paid dividends in the case of Indonesia. With U.S. assistance, Indonesia adopted amendments to its anti-money laundering law to meet international standards to avoid FATF sanctions, established a fully operational financial intelligence unit, and successfully prosecuted the main perpetrators of the October 2002 Bali bombing attacks. Just last month, Indonesia was removed from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering's NCCT blacklist.

Multilateral Engagement

    In addition to working bilaterally, the United States has aggressively mobilized the United Nations and other international organizations to fulfill their counterterrorism obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1373. In UNSCR 1373, States agreed among other things to ''deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens.'' We have used our permanent seat on the UN Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) to ensure that the UN is closely monitoring member states' implementation of their obligations.

    We also work with other donor nations in the Counterterrorism Action Group (CTAG), a G8-initiated forum for CT donors, to coordinate and increase CT assistance to high-risk countries. International donor assistance provided to these countries includes basic law-and-order capacity building, legislative assistance, and border security assistance.

Conclusion

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    Allow me to conclude, Mr. Chairman, with three summary points.

    First, we are running in a marathon, not a sprint. The starter gun went off in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center. Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States and all Americans in 1996. Two U.S. embassies in Africa were attacked in 1998. The USS Cole was attacked in 2000. But it was not until the morning of September 11, 2001, that the majority of our citizens truly realized that, like it or not, we were at war. The rapid overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan was gratifying, but Osama Bin Laden remains at large, and, more important, his extremist vision continues to stir followers and sympathizers around the world to violence against us. We cannot go it alone, and the role of security assistance in all its many forms is absolutely crucial to this struggle and to the security of our homeland. There is no question that Americans are safer if we can assist our international partners to stop terrorists overseas, before they are able to bring violence to our home shores. That assistance must be robust and sustained for its effects to be realized.

    Second, we must be practical and methodical in our efforts. We are a large government with many different agencies that have important roles to play. There must be solid coordination of our engagement and assistance efforts abroad. In Washington, the Secretary of State, with assistance from my office, must continue to coordinate overseas counterterrorism assistance. In our missions overseas, the more nuanced work of ensuring collaboration among various members of the country teams is and must remain the responsibility of the Chief of Mission. That is not to say that there will not be and should not be some overlap of responsibilities among agencies.

    Finally, we must maintain a diverse and balanced portfolio of targeted countries in our assistance strategy. Al-Qaida's strength is its proven ability to adapt and improvise. We must not focus exclusively on today's threat areas, only to find that the quarry has moved on to less hostile environs that we have heretofore ignored.
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    Thank you once again for calling a hearing today on this important topic. I hope that my testimony has been helpful, and I would be delighted to answer any questions you may have.

APPENDIX

The Antiterrorism Assistance Program

    The Department's Antiterrorism Assistance program (ATA) is an essential mechanism for providing partner countries' civilian law enforcement and security agencies with the training, equipment, and technology needed to improve their counterterrorism capabilities.

    The Secretary of State's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT) formulates counterterrorism strategies, provides policy guidance to the ATA program, and identifies partner country training priorities. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Office of Antiterrorism (DS/ATA) implements and manages program operations and coordinates closely with other federal, state, and local agencies that assist in providing expertise, assessments, training, and facilities. This synergy is essential to the success of the program.

    The ATA programs objectives are:

 To advance U.S. foreign policy goals by strengthening bilateral relationships. ATA training plays a vital role in the U.S. Government's effort to build and sustain the global coalition of partner nations to fight terrorist organizations.
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 ATA programs enhance and sustain our partner nations' capacities to take strong, effective, and decisive measures to destroy terrorist capabilities. They serve as a force multiplier to bolster our own efforts to defend American citizens, U.S. business and civic interests, and U.S. Government interests abroad. This is a key part of our nation's first line of defense in protecting the American homeland.

 ATA programs also enhance the operational and tactical capabilities of our partner nations to confront and defeat the threat of terrorism.

 By expanding the number of investigative course offerings and increasing the number of resident investigative advisors, ATA is greatly improving its ability to help partner nations detect, investigate, and arrest terrorists before they can strike.

    ATA has grown each year since its inception in 1983 and this year's budget exceeds $110 million. In 2004, ATA sponsored 209 courses and trained approximately 4,900 students from 67 countries. Over the years, ATA has trained more than 48,000 students from 141 countries. The type of training varies with the needs of each partner nation, and courses are tailored to local conditions. Training includes, but is not limited to: crisis management and response; cyber-terrorism; dignitary protection; bomb detection; airport security; border control; kidnap intervention and hostage negotiation and rescue; response to incidents involving weapons of mass destruction; countering terrorist finance; and, interdiction of terrorist organizations. All courses emphasize law enforcement under the rule of law and sound human rights practices. All students are vetted for human rights abuses and criminal records before being accepted for training.
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    As terrorist networks adjust their tactics and strategies, ATA continues to adapt and refine its counterterrorism training initiatives to meet evolving threats. ATA has expanded its training platforms in order to maximize training benefits and minimize costs. While effectively conducting needs assessments and program reviews, developing curriculum, and managing training, ATA continues to coordinate and rely on the expertise of both federal and state law enforcement agencies. This synergy, along with our role to coordinate all US Government-provided civilian counterterrorism training with embassies and Chiefs of Mission, is essential to the success of our counterterrorism efforts and to the success of the ATA program.

    To determine which partner countries will receive ATA training, S/CT reviews and prioritizes the threat posed by international terrorists and coordinates with ATA to develop comprehensive, in-country training programs in the most vulnerable countries.

    ATA's major program priorities are as follows:

 In Afghanistan, ATA helped to select then trained and equipped special agents for the Afghan Presidential Protection Service. Instruction provides students with the full range of protective detail responsibilities. ATA also established a mentor program where ATA mentors travel with the Presidential protective detail and provide guidance to the Afghan agents as they grow into the challenging assignment of protecting the President of Afghanistan. ATA will expand the program this year to provide enhanced, specialized counterterrorism training.

 Since 1987, ATA helped the Government of Pakistan establish and train a Special Investigation Group for counterterrorism. Special Investigation Group members played a key role in identifying the perpetrators responsible for unsuccessful assassination attempts on the President and Prime Minister last year. Future ATA training and assistance in Pakistan will principally focus on infrastructure protection and investigative courses focused on Interdicting, and Investigating Acts of Terrorism.
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 In Indonesia, ATA helped establish and train a special police unit called Counterterrorism Task Force 88. Task Force 88 members are responsible for arresting more than 120 suspects of terrorist activities in Indonesia. ATA will provide training that continues to increase the Government of Indonesia's crisis response capabilities with the objective of institutionalizing training within the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

 As a key ally in the global war on terror, the Philippines faces threat from several indigenous and regional terrorist groups that have also targeted and killed Americans. ATA plans to launch an intensive program to assist the Philippine police with a sustainable CT capacity, including but not limited to pro-active police intelligence, SWAT, incident investigation, and maritime CT training. This training will establish the essential infrastructure and will begin to fulfill commitments that President Bush has identified as counterterrorism priorities during his October 2004 visit to Manila. This program, which will focus on developing the police capacity to prevent, tactically confront, and investigate for prosecution terrorist activity, complements ongoing DOD efforts to train the Philippine military forces.

 The Kenya In-Country program is designed to build and sustain Kenya's capacity to counter terrorism. ATA has helped the Government of Kenya form and train an interagency Joint Terrorism Task Force to coordinate nationwide counterterrorism efforts. Kenya has made considerable progress in the past year by drafting a National CT Strategy, convening a National Security Advisory Committee (NSAC), creating a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and establishing an Antiterrorism Police Unit. The JTTF will provide enhanced communication, command, and control among Kenya's security agencies. ATA will also assist the Kenyan National Police with establishment of an effective maritime interdiction program to prevent the traffic in arms, terrorist suspects, and other contraband along the east African coast.
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 In Colombia, ATA's Anti-Kidnapping Initiative has provided training and equipment to Colombia's special anti-kidnapping units. It has also helped create a national anti-kidnapping data automation system that allows a number of agencies and tactical units to share and utilize information crucial to preventing kidnappings, rescuing hostages, and arresting kidnappers. Anti-kidnapping efforts are part of the US counterterrorism strategy because the vast majority of kidnappings are carried out by two terrorist organizations, the FARC and the ELN.

 Tens of thousands of foreign law enforcement professionals have graduated from ATA training over years, and they represent a valuable force multiplier in America's long-term strategy to combat terrorism. ATA seeks to cultivate the goodwill generated by training with partner nations through the development of an alumni network. The network program will facilitate the organization of in-country or regional conferences on counter-terrorism, provide Diplomatic Security Regional Security Officers with the names of ATA graduates and their specialties for use in areas such as VIP protection, and improve the sustainment of ATA training by facilitating contacts among graduates in a country or region.

Examples of the ATA Program's Impact

    In many countries, ATA-trained officials have played key roles in local, regional, and global counterterrorism efforts. ATA alumni have served as the lead investigators of a number of recent terrorist attacks and have utilized their training to arrest many of the perpetrators. The following are just a few examples of the overall impact of the program.

 In November, Indonesian counterterrorism Task Force 88 officers arrested the terrorist who had commanded a lethal attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. When the arrest was made, the terrorist had explosives in his possession and was planning additional attacks. Task Force 88 also apprehended three terrorists as they attempted to bomb a major shopping center. Additionally, they arrested 11 other bombing suspects, including members of the Jemaah Islamiya terrorist organization.
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 In Colombia, ATA-trained GAULA anti-kidnapping units have rescued 48 kidnapped hostages, including two American citizens. In conducting these operations, the GAULA units arrested 206 hostage takers, killed four hostage takers, and recovered $7 million in ransom money.

 In the Philippines, ATA-trained officers led the investigations of three terrorist bombing incidents. ATA-trained officers were instrumental in securing the release of an American citizen kidnapped by a crime syndicate in Manila.

 In Pakistan, the ATA-trained Special Investigation Group arrested several terrorists who had attempted twice to assassinate President Musharraf and had detonated two car bombs near the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. The SIG also arrested twelve terrorists involved in the attempted assassination of Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz.

 In Uzbekistan, ATA-trained police responded to the scenes of a series of terrorist bombings last year, professionally collected and analyzed evidence, arrested several dozen suspects, and secured three tons of explosives. When the U.S. Embassy was attacked in July 2004, ATA-trained police employed many of these skills again. They cooperated fully and professionally with the FBI and other USG agencies investigating the attack—a level of cooperation that was directly fostered by investigative skills and collaborative relationships gained through ATA training.

 Through a $12-million program spanning 30 months, ATA served as the primary antiterrorism trainer for the Government of Greece in preparation for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

    Mr. ROYCE. It has been, Mr. Pope. Thank you very much.
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    Mr. POPE. Yes, sir.

    Mr. ROYCE. We will go now to Admiral Tallent.

STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL HAMLIN B. TALLENT, USN, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND

    Admiral TALLENT. Chairman Royce and distinguished Members of the Committee, on behalf of the soldiers and the sailors and the airmen and the marines and the Department of Defense civilians and their families we have in U.S. European Command, I want to thank you so much for having this hearing and giving me an opportunity to be here. I want to also thank you for the strong and continuing support that you and the Nation show for men and women who are deployed. I am confident that they know and they understand the level of this support, and it is an honor for me to be able to express gratitude for what you are doing to support us on our behalf.

    Sir, I would like with your permission to submit my written statement and request it be made a matter of the record.

    Mr. ROYCE. Without objection.

    Admiral TALLENT. Thank you, sir.

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    Sir, I would also like to thank you and Congresswoman McCollum and Congresswoman Watson and Congresswoman Lee for the trip you took to visit us. It is so important. I cannot stress that enough. To have elected Members from our country, from powerful Committees, come and look at what we work with every day is such a tremendous message not just for the people in Africa, but for us too. It is so important for you to come down there.

    You know, the Mercator projection has done us such a disservice. Remember all those years you thought that Africa was just about that size? It is a long way to go. It is arduous, and the things you see are troubling, but I just want to thank you so much for coming down there.

    I really only, in the interest of time, want to offer one point or one thought.

    Mr. ROYCE. Admiral, I have read your testimony, but I would encourage you to go ahead and state your case.

    Admiral TALLENT. Let me just talk to you for a second, to you and the Members of the Committee.

    Mr. Pope has offered, I think, a good list of activities, of security assistance activities that we as a Nation apply, and also in my written testimony you will see a list of these kind of activities too, things like the Joint Combined Exercise Training Program that you saw a part of when you went down to Chad.

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    Things like the International Military Education Training where, as you know, we take civilians and military leadership and expose them to our culture. That is the best selling thing you can do. Things like our state partnership program, things like Partnership for Peace, these kind of activities. There is a list of these things, and I think we should be proud of them. There are millions of dollars of treasury and time that are dedicated to these programs. They are well-intentioned. They are tremendous.

    My thought is when we look at the war on terror, I wonder, Is the application of these programs complete? I am not questioning the value of them, not at all, but is the application complete? The programs that I have talked about are kind of in two categories. There is an incremental improvement category of people and infrastructure, and then there is an elimination, a reduction of misery category that is totally reactive or mostly.

    Sometimes you get the idea that these programs, the engine of them is the bigness of our heart, and that is okay. I think Americans are among the most generous people on Earth. I think we have statistics that prove that. I think that most Americans are under a common notion that if they hear a cry for help, it is help from them, not from the guy next to them, or to be disregarded, but it is meant for them. I think that is who we are.

    Is that enough though? Passion-based programs can be fleeting, and at some point there has to be such an overwhelming event that the drive, the energy behind it—so is that enough?, I ask.

    I think that the global war on terror offers us an opportunity. And I am reluctant to use that word in the context of the global war on terror, but there is an opportunity, certainly—most certainly—a responsibility, for us to take a look at programs we offer in context of a war that we are fighting in terms of a long-term commitment to people.
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    I wonder. In military doctrine there is campaign planning, and by God we plan. I mean, beagles dig. We plan. That is who we are. In campaign planning there are four phases. The first phase is deter and engage. The second phase is seize the initiative. The third phase is decisive operations, and the fourth phase, phase 4, the infamous phase 4 you have probably heard of relative to the war on Iraq, is transition.

    What we wonder in U.S. European Command and what General Jones refers to is, Should there not be another phase, phase 0 if you will, prevention? Should we not have the same kind of campaign planning to prevent things from happening as opposed to dedicating our resources, our treasury, our people, to going and addressing it after the fact? Because we know we have data that indicates it is 100 times cheaper if you can prevent.

    We know what happens. I mean, I will think about Africa now. Things happen. We send in the Marines or a like outfit. There is an activity on the ground. There could be a handoff to another entity like the United Nations. By the way, we know the United Nations. I mean, 27 percent of that peacekeeping bill is paid by us, so when someone says hand it off to the United Nations, what they are saying in effect is hand it off to the United States taxpayer.

    There is a business case to be made for prevention, and so this is the genesis of our thinking on the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI), and I say it is an initiative, but it is designed to be preventative.

    We can take a look at the objectives in that area, our objectives, and I say at large, our United States, the objectives of the people, and the sovereign nations that live there. What do they want? Again, some time arises. Let us say it is 5 or 10 years or whatever. What do you want to happen? What do you want not to happen in that area? What kind of effects can you put in place to reach those objectives? What kind of activities can you generate? How do you fund it?
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    I mean, to take a look at a region in its totality and see how you can put together a concrete program, a comprehensive program that prevents bad things from happening to people.

    Sir, those are my opening remarks. I really look forward to answering any questions that I can.

    [The prepared statement of Admiral Tallent follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL HAMLIN B. TALLENT, USN, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND

I. INTRODUCTION

    Mr. Chairman, Congressman Sherman, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, on behalf of the United States European Command (EUCOM), to discuss the role of security assistance in eliminating terrorist sanctuaries within the context of our overarching theater strategy. In addition, I will also provide a framework of our Theater Security Cooperation programs which are an essential component towards our ongoing efforts to promote security, build relationships, and prevent conflict.

    On behalf of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Department of Defense Civil Servants of EUCOM, and their family members, I want to express our gratitude for your continued support.
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    Our history of bringing stability to areas plagued by ethnic and cultural conflict has prepared us to extend our focus to the east and south. Checking the spread of radical fundamentalism in the largely ungoverned spaces in the Caucasus, and Northern and Western Africa will require patience and sustained effort. Our goal is to assist nations of these regions to build and sustain effective and responsive governments and to develop security structures responsive to emerging democratic governments. Our success depends on maintaining relevant, focused, and complementary security cooperation, tailored to the social, economic, and military realities in both the Caucasus and Africa.

    As we work together to improve our capabilities and to advance U.S. policy objectives, we must also recognize that today's complex security environment requires a greater degree of coordination within the U.S. government and with our allies. EUCOM's plan to promote cooperative security relationships, enhance the capacity of foreign partners, and expand cohesion within the interagency team is consistent with the four core pillars (Building Partnerships to Defeat Terrorist Extremism, Defending the Homeland In-Depth, Shaping the Choices of Countries at Strategic Crossroads, Preventing the Acquisition or Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction by Hostile State or Non-State Actors) of the Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review. We must leverage the full spectrum of diplomatic, economic, and military options to advance our national interests and improve our ability to prevent conflict and achieve post-conflict stability when necessary.

II. STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT

    Instability in Africa and the Caucasus shapes the direction of EUCOM's Global War on Terrorism efforts to meet the challenges of irregular, catastrophic, or disruptive threats to our security and freedom. The new security menace is transnational and characterized by enemies without territory, borders, or fixed bases. Threats include the export and franchising of terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, narco-trafficking, uncontrolled refugee flow, illegal immigration and piracy on the seas. Many of these threats are nurtured in under-governed regions where terrorists and extremist organizations seek new havens from which to recruit and to operate. We are evolving our strategic posture to reflect the new security reality. EUCOM's greatest contribution to security and stability lies as much in preventing conflict as it does in prevailing on the battlefield. This is accomplished through influence, forward presence and engaged leadership. It is sustained only through our enduring and visible presence and commitment in the theater.
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    Our 21st century center of gravity reflects the continuing importance of the Caucasus and the ''ungoverned'' regions of North and West Africa. As a result of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, transnational extremists are increasingly denied their former sanctuaries. Subsequently, they are more reliant on leveraging and franchising indigenous and affiliated terrorist groups worldwide. Further, transnational extremists have demonstrated an interest in exploiting areas where nations are already struggling with resource scarcity, weak national institutions, poverty and inexperienced militaries. These regions are defined by endemic imbalances in the distribution of wealth, staggering health problems, fragile political systems, regressive social systems and disenfranchised youth susceptible to the lure of extremism. They contain equal potential for either positive growth, or catastrophic failure.

Caucasus

    Although the Caucasus is torn by separatist conflict and is also plagued with corruption and crime, some parts of the region have made remarkable progress toward democracy and sound governance in the last year. The Caucasus is increasingly important to our interests. Its air corridor has become a crucial lifeline between coalition forces in Afghanistan and our bases in Europe. Caspian oil, carried through the Caucasus, may constitute as much as 25 percent of the world's growth in oil production over the next five years, while Caspian hydrocarbons will diversify Europe's sources of energy. This region and Georgia in particular, is a geographical pivot point in the spread of democracy and free market economies to the states of Central and Southwest Asia.

Africa
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    The United States faces strategic options and competition in Africa. According to the 2004 report of the UN Organization for Industrial Development, ''Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world where, for the last 20 years, extreme poverty hasn't stopped gaining ground.'' Continued poverty is but one of the many effects of years of tragic violence and instability in certain regions of Africa. Evidence shows that terrorists intend to take full advantage of this.

    Violence from numerous crises has created areas of lawlessness that transcend state borders and cause instability. High population growth rates, poor land management, desertification and agricultural disruptions caused by economic shifts, internal conflicts, and refugee influxes are making it increasingly difficult for several countries to feed themselves. This is especially true in Chad, where drought and refugees from the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan have created a humanitarian catastrophe. In many areas of the Sahara Desert (Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad) there is very little military or police presence, and often no central government influence. These problems, aggravated by difficult terrain and a lack of infrastructure, have allowed smuggling and conflict to flourish.

    Fragile democracies have to combat serious challenges to include security concerns, social pressures, teachings of radical fundamentalism, disease, and criminality that imperil the future hopes for the people of Africa. Again, the broad expanses of ungoverned or poorly governed regions, as well as the proximity and ease of movement to population centers in Europe, are increasingly attractive to transnational terrorists interested in exploiting the region for recruiting, logistics, and safe havens. The breeding grounds of terrorism and illicit activity on the continent of Africa require our attention at both the national and regional security level.
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III. U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND STRATEGY

    In a world of uncertainty and unpredictability, EUCOM must have the agility to rapidly respond to a range of threats that were largely unforeseen just a few years ago. Geographically, EUCOM is ideally positioned to disrupt and prevent terrorists from using their lines of communication and methods of resourcing that are crucial to their operations and sustainment. Forward stationed forces serve to strengthen U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy; signal U.S. commitment to the security of friends and allies; demonstrate the resolve of the United States to meet its commitments; and bolster regional security through theater security cooperation programs.

    EUCOM's Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) programs are the centerpiece of our efforts to promote security and stability by building and strengthening relationships with our allies and regional partners and are an indispensable component of our overarching theater strategy. They are regionally focused and assist our allies with the development of capabilities required to conduct peacekeeping and contingency operations with U.S. forces. Well trained, disciplined allied and friendly forces reduce the conditions that lead to conflict, prepare the way for warfighting success, and ultimately mitigate the burden on U.S. forces. Most importantly, Theater Security Cooperation efforts support the long-term strategic objectives of the Global War on Terrorism by building understanding and consensus on the terrorist threat; laying foundations for future ''coalitions of the willing;'' and extending our country's security perimeter.

    Security Cooperation Activities are managed programs planned and executed for the purpose of shaping the future security environment in ways favorable to U.S. interests. A number of programs are provided under the TSC umbrella including: bilateral and Partnership for Peace training events and exercises; Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET); the State Partnership Program (SPP); and foreign assistance programs such as International Military Education (IMET), and Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program (RDCFP) provides Title 10 funding for educational opportunities for key foreign officials to increase cooperation in conducting the Global War on Terror. These programs provide access and influence, help build professional, capable militaries in allied and friendly nations, and promote interoperability with U.S. forces. We execute these security assistance programs in concert with U.S. Embassy Country Teams.
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Security Assistance

    Foreign Military Financing (FMF) provides critical resources to assist nations to acquire U.S. military equipment and training. It is an essential instrument of influence; builds allied and coalition military capabilities; and improves interoperability between forces. Georgia receives a significant amount of FMF and effectively serves beside our forces in Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM.

    International Military Education and Training (IMET) (including Expanded IMET (E–IMET) ) provides education and training opportunities for foreign military (IMET) and civilian personnel (E–IMET). These programs enhance coalition operations by improving military-to-military cooperation and interoperability; reinforcing civilian control of the military; advancing the principles of responsible governance; and supporting the stability of newly-formed democracies. As a result of the relationships that develop from this program, our return on investment in long-term access and influence is significantly enhanced. Today's IMET participants are tomorrow's senior foreign military and civilian leaders. In Africa, IMET and E–IMET have been the most successful programs in promoting professional militaries that respect democracy and human rights.

    Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET), conducted under the authority of title 10, is designed to: demonstrate continued American intent and capability; reassure allies and friends; promote regional cooperation and trust; deter potential regional aggressors; build force interoperability; and, maintain access to key host nation military personnel and important support facilities. Special Operations Command, Europe participated in 16 JCET events in nine countries during fiscal year 2004. The Secretary of Defense has approved 36 JCET programs in EUCOM's area of responsibility in fiscal year 2005, nine in Europe and 27 in Africa. Another 61 have been requested. An additional and highly desirable benefit of JCETs is that they contribute to the U.S. regional strategy and have become a complementary part of the EUCOM's interaction with regional militaries.
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    Partnership for Peace (PfP), a successful NATO outreach program, has increased stability and built stronger security relationships in Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia through political consultations and individual national programs. EUCOM involvement and leadership in PfP training, exercises, and bilateral programs with participating nations help make this program a success. Thirty nations have joined the PfP since it was launched in 1994, with 10 achieving NATO membership. Seven of these 10 nations were accessed via the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP). The MAP provides for concrete feedback and advice from NATO to aspiring countries on their own preparations directed at achieving future membership. Currently, EUCOM continues to help three MAP nations (Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia) meet membership requirements, especially in the areas of civil-military relations and making appropriate military contributions to the Alliance.

Defense and Military Contacts

    Another viable influencing activity is Defense and Military Contacts. Under this program professional military contacts build valuable, often life-long relationships at all levels that serve to enhance cooperation and advance U.S. strategic interests. An additional influential program employed by EUCOM is the National Guard State Partnership Program (SPP). The SPP links U.S. states and territories with partner countries for the purpose of supporting EUCOM's security cooperation objectives and assists partner nations in making the transition from authoritarian to democratic governments. The unique civil-military nature of the Guard allows it to actively participate in a wide range of security cooperation activities that provide great flexibility in meeting our Theater Security Cooperation objectives. Currently there are 25 states partnered with 23 foreign nations in the EUCOM AOR.
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    This past year was extremely successful as National Guard Soldiers and Airmen conducted over 115 events with partner nations. Indeed, SPP has been so successful that EUCOM is aggressively seeking funding to expand the program in Africa. In the last two years, four partnerships have been added: South Africa—New York; Morocco—Utah; Ghana—North Dakota; Tunisia—Wyoming. SPP is a key Theater Security Cooperation tool that supports U.S. Government objectives by promoting access, bolstering capabilities, and enhancing interoperability.

    EUCOM's TSC strategy is derived from regional priority and policy themes stated in the Secretary of Defense's Security Cooperation Guidance. EUCOM has taken a regional approach that links individual country objectives to broader theater goals. In Africa, EUCOM's priorities are to increase the capability of African nations to conduct peacekeeping and contingency operations in their regions, particularly through the African Union and other regional organizations; to protect natural resources; and to promote stability by assisting medical advice and assistance progress on health issues such as HIV/AIDS, cholera, malaria and other diseases that have humanitarian and strategic consequences.

    Clearinghouse initiatives, designed for Africa, the South Caucasus, and Southeast Europe allow the United States to coordinate actions with other nations involved in security cooperation in the same region. Each serves as a multi-national forum for interested countries to share information about their security assistance programs for specific regions. The objective is to optimize the use of limited resources by merging the various security cooperation programs into a comprehensive, synchronized regional effort. Clearinghouses provide a medium for deconflicting programs, avoiding duplication and finding ways to collaborate and cooperate.
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 The Africa Clearinghouse, not to be confused with the G* Clearinghouse to support PSO capability in Africa, is EUCOM's most recent initiative has brought thirteen African countries together with NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union. The inaugural conference, held in May 2004, focused on West Africa and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The regional approach continued in December 2004 with a conference concentrated on east Africa.

 The Southeast Europe Clearinghouse, aimed at the three Adriatic Charter nations (Albania, Croatia, Macedonia) plus Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro, is open to all NATO, European Union, and partner countries (Russia and Ukraine specifically) that have engagement programs in Southeastern Europe. The objectives of this clearinghouse are to assist the Adriatic Charter nations in their efforts toward NATO membership and to speed the integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro into the Euro-Atlantic Community.

 The South Caucasus Clearinghouse is now firmly established as a forum for EUCOM, our European partners, and international organizations like NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to coordinate security cooperation programs with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. This clearinghouse focuses on defense reform, energy security, maritime security, disaster response, peacekeeping, and training and education.

IV. GEORGIA SUSTAINMENT AND STABILITY OPERATIONS PROGRAM (SSOP)

    The Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program (SSOP) is a security assistance program designed to create an increased capability in the Georgian military to support Operation Iraqi Freedom stability missions. SSOP will also help solidify the progress made during the very successful Georgia Train and Equip Program and continue to assist in the implementation of western standards in the Georgian armed forces. This program, lasting about 18 months, will cost approximately $60 million. Funding for the program is provided under fiscal years 2005 and 2006: Title 10—$27.1M, Title 22—$17.33M, and other (i.e. Excess Defense Articles, Donor Nation Program)—$16.5M.
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    As a result of the Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) the Georgian military has significantly increased its capability to execute combined operations in a multi-nation environment, enhanced their ability to protect their sovereignty, improved their ability to defeat transnational terrorists' cells, and stabilize the region from potential terrorist activities. A remarkable aspect to this program is the impact that can be achieved at the small unit level. GTEP training was conducted using U.S. Special Operations Forces and U. S. Marine Corps Forces, Europe from May 2002 to May 2004. During this time approximately 2,600 Georgian soldiers, including a headquarters staff element and 5 tactical units, received training. The most recent benefit of GTEP came on 1 March 2005, when Georgia deployed the first full infantry battalion in support of operations in Iraq. Georgian troops have also supported operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo. EUCOM expects the rotation of Georgian forces in support of this critical mission to continue under the Sustainment and Stability Operations Program.

    The Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program (SSOP) is designed to train two Infantry Battalions for peacekeeping missions in Iraq; two Logistics Battalions; specialized units for the Georgian 1st Brigade; and staff training for the 1st and 2nd Georgian Brigade, the Land Forces Command Staff, and the Operations Cell of the Georgian General Staff. Additionally, SSOP will provide Georgia with a cadre of trainers and staff to support additional personnel and peacekeeping units.

    In January 2005, Phase I of SSOP commenced as EUCOM conducted a Pre-Deployment Site Survey and assessment of the Georgian Army, focusing on the readiness of the infrastructure and the personnel manning of the first battalion to undergo training. On 1 March, a Georgian Battalion deployed to Iraq, a prerequisite for commencement of follow-on SSOP phases. Based on the readiness of the Georgians to conduct the training and availability of funding and equipment, we have set a start date of mid-April 2005 to begin the training of the first infantry battalion. We estimate that the program will be completed by summer 2006. EUCOM, in coordination with the Defense Department and the Department of State, plans to continue its military transformation support to this developing democracy. This effort is an example of a program in which a small investment can yield enormous dividends in our effort to promote peace, stability and democracy. It is also an example of how small unit training programs, operating at the tactical level, can produce a strategic result.
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V. TRANS–SAHARA COUNTERTERRORISM INITIATIVE (TSCTI)

    Torn apart by war, disease and poverty, and marked by vast ungoverned spaces, Africa is an emerging haven for our enemies in the Global War on Terrorism. That is why stability on that continent has emerged as such a key goal of EUCOM's strategic plan. Despite obvious problems, African nations are joining together and making progress in their quest to provide security and stability for Africans. The United States should focus efforts on assisting our African partners in building their regional capabilities.

    The Trans-Sahara region spans ten African and Maghreb countries and is an area of acute vulnerability due to vast expanses of desert and porous borders. With a long history of being a center through which arms and other illicit trade flow, it is becoming increasingly important as terrorists now seek to use these routes for logistical support, recruiting grounds, and safe haven. We have indications of extremist groups with experience in Afghanistan and Iraq operating in the Sahel. Islamist terrorist organizations in the countries that border the Sahara, like the al-Para faction of the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) that held 32 Europeans hostage in 2003, continue to pose a threat to the stability of an already vulnerable region.

    The Administration is considering a long-term interagency plan to combat terrorism in Trans-Saharan Africa. The goal of the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, or TSCTI, proposes to assist governments in this region to better control their territory and to prevent huge tracts of largely deserted African territory from becoming a safe haven for terrorist groups. TSCTI is being planned as a follow-on to the successful Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) that began in 2002, which helped train and equip at least one rapid-reaction company, about 150 soldiers, in each of the four Saharan states: Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.
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    The overall approach is straightforward: build indigenous capacity and facilitate cooperation among governments in the region that are willing partners (Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria and Tunisia, with Libya possibly to follow later if relations improve) in the struggle with Islamic extremism in the Sahel region. TSCTI would help strengthen regional counterterrorism capabilities, enhance and institutionalize cooperation among the region's security forces, promote democratic governance, and ultimately benefit our bilateral relationships with each of these states. Key aspects of the TSCTI training would include basic marksmanship, planning, communications, land navigation, patrolling and medical care. TSCTI, like the PSI, would seek to directly engage with participating nations and assists in protecting their borders and exploiting opportunities to detect and deter terrorists by providing basic training and equipment and train additional forces. The TSCTI also envisions engagement with more countries than PSI with a greater emphasis on helping to foster better information sharing and operational planning between regional states. We would fully coordinate TSCTI efforts with U.S. Country Teams to ensure that the total U.S. effort in the GWOT is complementary and tailored to the unique conditions within each country in this region.

    TSCTI would support U.S. national security interests in the Global War on Terrorism by enhancing African regional security and promote an Africa that is self-sufficient and stable. The program would also better prepare participating nations to stop the flow of illicit arms, goods, and people through the region helping focus nations to better protect their own vast borders and regions.

    America's war on terrorism cannot be fought alone. Historically, proactive security costs with programs such as the PSI are significantly less expensive than reactive missions to the world's hotspots. Political instability in Africa that is left to fester, could lead to repeated interventions at enormous costs to U.S. taxpayers. TSCTI would be a proactive program that is a relatively small investment, but that could be a powerful inoculation against future terrorist activity leading to an increasingly stable Africa. The Administration is reviewing how best to transition from planning to implementation of this program including ways to use existing resources more effectively and ensuring that TSCTI is integrated into future budget and planning cycles. Long term, continuous engagement will build bonds where few existed and strengthen those already established. The U.S. needs to continue security cooperation measures with nations that support regional initiatives leading to peace and stability.
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    EUCOM's security objectives in Africa are to eliminate ungoverned areas, counter extremism, and end conflict in order to reduce the chronic instability that hampers and often extinguishes hope for political and economic development. Development of effective security structures in Africa will lay the foundation for future success; however, they are dependent upon on commitment of manpower, financial, and institutional resources necessary to establish and sustain real progress. African security issues will continue to directly affect our homeland security. Modest near-term investments will enable us to avert the manifestation of problems that may require extensive U.S. intervention in the future which could prove costly.

VI. CONCLUSION

    It is a privilege to represent this proud nation. The challenges we now face are enormous, yet our past is replete with examples of how we have overcome daunting, seemingly insurmountable barriers that tested our resolve. Our history demonstrates our commitment to the principles of freedom. What lies before us is the opportunity to advance our leadership role in global affairs, define the 21st Century, and extend peace and prosperity throughout the world. The indispensable influence attained by our forward presence and robust Theater Security Cooperation programs provides the best chance for fighting the Global War on Terrorism and meeting our national security goals.

    Mr. ROYCE. Do you think that the TSCTI does that?

    Admiral TALLENT. I do, sir. I would like to explain how.

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    Mr. ROYCE. Yes, but I would like you to also tell us what stage you think that is really in. That is a concern of mine. I would like to hear from both of you on that.

    Thank you again, Admiral Tallent, for your testimony. Please continue if you can with a response to what stage is that initiative actually in?

    Admiral TALLENT. Yes, sir. TSCTI, the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, is a program that we have been working on for 2 years. The fellow sitting behind me with the white hair is an F–14 fighter pilot, or he used to be. Now his full-time job is the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative. His name is Otto Seiber.

    We took a look at the question of, in a sovereign nation, How do you fight the war on terror? I would just ask you, if you would for a moment set aside Iraq and set aside Afghanistan, and then you ask yourself. You know, when I ask myself, What am I doing to fight the war on terror, what am I doing? It is frustrating. I think it is frustrating for a lot of us because we are not over in places shooting it up and taking decisive corrective actions and those kind of things. So it is very frustrating when you say, What am I doing for the war on terror?

    We thought, What could we do? Can you build a capability for a country that does not have much to be able to exercise its law throughout its borders? Can you do that? Can you train them? I do not mean train them and walk away. I am talking about training them and then keeping a syllabus-generating force there that keeps the training going for a long time, for as long as we can make this program go. I am talking about more than 5 or 6 years.

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    Then you wonder, Well, what is different about that, really from other kind of piecemeal programs? The idea is to connect these forces in these countries with their neighboring countries. It is hard to believe that until we pulled together the chiefs of defense—a few months ago in Stuttgart—it was the first time they had ever met each other. They had never talked to each other. There is no crossborder understandings.

    Do you remember in the old Bonnie and Clyde days whenever the sheriff would chase the bank robber to the county line and then had to stop? This is how they operate down there.

    The ability to have information sharing and intelligence sharing and be able to connect all that in a comprehensive program that has a regional effect is one aspect.

    The second aspect though is this message that, sir, you talked about. You referred to it, and that is this public diplomacy message. We have been approached by leadership in the Sahara region, by Imams—I am not talking about just government leadership; I am talking about social leaders as well—who are concerned, who are concerned about this growing influx of the long beards, about this growing message, this Islamic extremist message.

    They put that against this youth bulge that they have, and then you put that against the high unemployment rates they have, and you see a potential problem that is developing. How do you combat that?

    Mr. ROYCE. Is it the presence of the long beards, or is it the presence of other Imams funded from the Gulf States with resources that make it possible——
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    Admiral TALLENT. Excellent.

    Mr. ROYCE [continuing]. To start schools in Algeria?

    Admiral TALLENT. Well, we were engaged in just such a question about how did Algeria turn the corner.

    I remember one Algerian official explained it to me. We found that the Saudi Wahhabists—yes. That the Saudi mosque in Algiers was being used for this Jihadist activity, and we had to close that down.

    Mr. ROYCE. I know we are looking at it in terms of people, you know, the spread of the long beards as you say. I wanted to ask about the phenomenon of the resources, the Gulf State funding that comes in that builds the competing mosque with a new philosophy compared to the Imam who was there.

    I understand that that always comes with a condition. An Imam who is a Gulf State Imam, not a local Imam, and so I would ask you about that.

    Admiral TALLENT. I do not have figures on the amount of funds that are coming into that region from the Gulf States, but I do know that the message is coming directly from Saudi Arabia.

    Mr. ROYCE. We were in Chad, in northern Chad, as you know. We saw out of the desert—I thought it was a mirage at first. We saw this grand mosque that was absolutely towering, a beautiful building, but this was in one of the most desolate areas I had ever been. I asked about how that was possible. The answer was well, Kuwaitis provided the money for that mosque and for the Imam.
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    I am going to go to Ms. McCollum for any questions she might have, and then we will return.

    Thank you, Betty.

    Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not going to apologize for the meeting that I am going to have because it is to save the children in Africa on some issues in Malawi, which is not part of the PEPFAR AIDS funding package.

    This is a note I left Mr. Royce, so you know it is true:

''Dear Ed, I am sorry I have to leave. This is a wonderful meeting, except I am afraid the question I have they will not be able to answer, and that is, Why is there a zero amount in the Bush budget in the future years?''

Then I told him where I was going, and I said:

''If you want to count me in to find dollars for DoD for Africa, I am there.''

    I know you cannot answer the question, so mine is more of a comment. In all the testimony that we have heard repeatedly in the International Relations Committee, when we go to classified briefings, when I read books on history, when I read current political science books, we are in a new world.

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    Part of that new world is reaching out and building relationships and partnerships. We have started to build a partnership, and it is a wonderful one. It is one that is not only good I think for us as a leader in democracy, but it is also good for us for our own national security.

    Not to continue that partnership, to walk away when we know that in the past when we have walked away from opportunities, as you so well put, Mr. Pope, in Afghanistan, and the havoc that it wreaks, the broken promises that people feel does nothing to add to our national security, nor does it for our leadership in democracy, and I truly believe our country is a leader in democracy.

    I am so glad that I was invited to go on the codel for many reasons, but one of the reasons was seeing the pride, the professionalism, the partnership between the people in Chad and the military and our military.

    I just thank you both for your service, and I will talk to you about things later, and congratulations on your retirement, Mr. Pope.

    Mr. POPE. Thank you very much.

    Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Congresswoman McCollum. I appreciate it very much.

    Going to that question and going to the initiative that our Administration is attempting to put together, I know that there is an intent to draw from numerous sources, including development assistance and including public diplomacy funds, to jump this number up from I think it was about $8 million to an initiative in the vicinity of $100 million.
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    One of the questions that that would bring to mind is, assume you achieve that. Admiral, How do you keep a program of that size from becoming bureaucratic?

    Robert Kaplan is a respected military writer, and he wrote, ''The smaller the American footprint the more effective the operation,'' so he has been critical of our efforts in Afghanistan because he sees the support tail getting longer and the command structure getting too layered.

    In his opinion, United States forces were at their best when they first went into Afghanistan when the bureaucratic layers, to use his words, between the U.S. forces and the Secretary of Defense were severed at the time.

    How do we expand and get more countries' militaries geared up for the terrorist fight? We know this has worked in Mauritania, Chad, Niger, but the question for me is, we now are going to expand this fairly rapidly. How do we make sure that the emphasis is on guys getting their boots dirty and not on the paperwork?

    Admiral TALLENT. Thank you, sir. This program is designed to have small groups of trainers in each of nine countries. We were going to start with four countries at a time. When I say small groups of trainers, I am talking 30 trainers. The idea is to have these trainers train the leadership in these nations.

    I will tell you that the willingness and the aggression, positive aggressiveness of the countries we are talking about and their energy to take this capability, this program, is so refreshing. You saw it in Chad. I do not need to say that to you.
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    The way you keep the footprint small is you have a very focused program. You concentrate on training the trainer. This is about Africans helping themselves. This is not about us doing it for them.

    I read testimony from you, sir, where you said we have to do more. I will paraphrase. You said we have to have a different approach to Africa than just aid. It has to be much more than that.

    We feel that if we give them the training up front and then the critical piece, the piece that has not been provided hitherto, is the sustainment of the equipment, the sustainment of the syllabus with a small group of people on the grounds, an agreed-to list of measures of effectiveness on how they are doing, how they are progressing so that these measures of effectiveness will be how we judge the program, not by laying out a bunch of bureaucracy and a bunch of people checking our math.

    Also, the maintenance of vehicles and maintenance of the communications systems and infusion cells and things like this.

    Mr. ROYCE. Mr. McCaul?

    Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if I am being repetitive. I missed part of the testimony, and I apologize for that.

    I worked in counterterrorism at the Justice Department, and one thing, or at least my experience is, we would get these intelligence cables and intercepts. One in particular came out of the Sudan. Many came from Mexico and South America. The real problem we had was just determining, and I am sure you have encountered this, trying to determine if they were accurate or not. You know, you get all the stuff coming in. You think, my God, is this really happening or not? If it is, it is a very frightening scenario.
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    It really goes to the issue of human intelligence as well. Some of it we got obviously from intercepts, but the human intelligence portion I think can be very valuable, but also very unreliable, depending on the source of the information.

    I think Special Operations are fighting this war on terror overseas. That is the way to do it in a very strategic, focused way, but I guess my question is, What are we doing to coordinate with not just the U.S. intelligence, but the global intelligence community to get this kind of information that is so critical to protecting our country?

    For instance, with CSEN in Mexico, we tried to reach out to them. They seemed a little more reliable than the PGR, which was the Attorney General's Office.

    I was just kind of curious what the military is doing in that regard to strengthen our intelligence capabilities.

    Mr. POPE. He is asking about the military, and I feel less capable of talking about that than you, but I can also say something.

    Mr. MCCAUL. But if you would comment. Maybe part two of the question, and you may have answered this already and I apologize, but the sanctuaries seems to be Third World. What specifically can we do to these sanctuaries to prevent them from becoming the future Afghanistans of the world?

    Admiral TALLENT. There is a difficulty when you share intelligence with countries, and it is not just with them. It is the neighboring countries. I mean, you can talk to each other in bilateral arrangements, but when you are talking about the third party then it gets to be very complicated.
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    We have had success though in developing a series of bilateral relationships. A lot of this stuff can be shared. It is just how you do it. A lot of it is just cutting through the process by which you share this intelligence.

    Your comment about HUMINT though is very good because in the Trans Sahel they have a little bit of kind of a rudimentary direction-finding capability where you will get a patrol going down a line of bearing, but whatever was generating the signal could be 2 feet away or 3,000 miles away, you know, and so it is very difficult for them. They come across a lot of cold campfires with that kind of routine.

    A lot of their HUMINT, some of it is good of course, but some of it has other agendas. You will have a situation where a person will report, I saw three SUVs heading east toward Gao, let us say in Mali. Well, four or five people report that. Before you know it you have 12 trucks heading toward Gao, and each one has 10 people. My gosh, there are 120 people we are going to face, when actually you are talking about a truck or two or three and there are about 10 or 12 people.

    When you have a little force like that, that has limited mobility, and we are definitely talking about that situation in the Trans Sahel, the one thing that will help them is to give them spot information on where this entity is that they are interested in.

    Now, we have a variety of techniques that we should not talk about, and I know that the Chairman has heard the story of about how in Chad we were able to provide information to the Algerians and the Nigeriens, and we pushed this fellow, Al Para, and his band of about 40 folks, all across Niger by handing them spots of information.
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    They got Al Para and his band out beyond his logistics line. He kept going east and kept going east, and we were able to alert the Chadians that this fellow was coming, and they were able to set up a blocking formation, engaged, killed about half of them or more and captured the rest of them. Now this Al Para character is in jail in Algeria.

    This is one of the first times that we ever were able to coordinate through intelligence sharing three different entities, Chad, Niger and Algeria, in the capture of this person we had been looking for. The Algerians had been looking for him for 10 years.

    There are things we can do. Granted, there is a wide spread of space here. It is very complicated, and it gets more complicated when you get inside urban areas, but this is what we have been doing, sir.

    Mr. MCCAUL. This is a follow-up to underscore the importance of human intelligence. If I am getting into a classified area, let me know.

    Are you seeing any use of IT computer technology or cell phones in this area, or are they sort of getting off? Perhaps they did not have them in the first place, but are they getting off sort of that mode of communication?

    Admiral TALLENT. The amazing thing is just how widespread, and I will say the Internet is just a kind of an umbrella for transmission of this kind. It is amazing how widespread a wireless information transfer is.

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    I mean, the desert out there, it is a large place, but it is not empty. You go to Timbuktu. It is in the middle of nowhere, and right there is an Internet cafe, and an Imam has his own Web site.

    You go to someplace like in Tamanrasset in southern Algeria, and there is not anything there. It is like the Chairman described the mosque. I mean, there is just nothing there but camels and such, but there is an Internet cafe there, and everyone has a cell phone. It is somewhat amazing how connected they are.

    Of course, the bad news is that the ability to coalesce thoughts and activities, as you know, with that kind of capability is both a good and bad thing. I mean, I would say that the international terrorist franchise, if you will, is using the Internet so much more than ever they have done in the past, that and couriers in some cases.

    Mr. MCCAUL. I guess that could be good news. I know certainly we hear that bin Laden is not using his cell phone anymore. That could be good news.

    Mr. ROYCE. Mr. McCaul, we will go to Mr. Sherman, and then we will come back to you for any additional questions.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Just looking at this map of the unified command and reflecting that I believe we are the first country in the history of the world to have a command structure designed to have some degree of force involvement in every square inch on the planet, I do not know whether to view this with pride or with the fear of hubris, but it is daunting. Rome had different legions with different commands, but they did not have Greenland assigned to any of them.
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    How are we doing in terms of cooperation with Britain and France and other European countries in Africa, and do we see rivalries there or a sharing of responsibility?

    Mr. POPE. Let me try it to start with. In terms of the civilian side of things, we cooperate with them very well. In my time doing counterterrorism and working on these, what I call capacity-building issues, I certainly have not seen those rivalries.

    In particular, we work through an organization—I mentioned it in my testimony—that was started when we were head of the G-8, the CTAG, and it was basically because we and they and others were getting far more all around the world, not just Africa, than we could possibly meet for capacity building of all kinds—police units, airport improvement, computer programs to find and freeze money, everything you could imagine.

    In that sense, not just Africa, but globally, we cooperate with them as well as others and very well. I have not sensed the rivalry, in other words.

    Mr. SHERMAN. I know France takes a rather protective view of its position in Francophone African commercially. I guess that has not interfered with our cooperation with the counterterrorism effort.

    Mr. POPE. I have not seen that, no.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Admiral Tallent, you mentioned Libya as a possible TSCTI country down the road. Just the fact that you are mentioning it is a sea change in our relationship.
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    How do you see our relationship progressing, and is security cooperation 1 year down the road, or 5 years, or 10 years, or when the Dodgers win the Series?

    Admiral TALLENT. My leadership is very aggressive and very proactive, and we are making appropriate and, I think, best efforts to convince our seniors of the necessity of engaging with Libya.

    When I make this comment, we are continuously pressing. General Jones has got a personal message already going up the chain to the SECDEF to address this, to keep the pressure on to get more engaged with Libya not only in terms of commerce, but military, military engagement.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Do you see Libya's objectives, and I realize Ghadafi is a little mercurial, but are they folks that really want to help us stop terrorism and bring stability to Northern Africa?

    Admiral TALLENT. I think that Colonel Ghadafi certainly has agendas, but I am convinced the reason that he has swung in our direction is because of his tremendous fear of the Islamic extremist inroads that were being made in his country.

    I mean, he has got his own Libyan fighting group that is coming up on his neck. That is what he is afraid of, and he, I think, realizes that he needs to be a part of this larger global war on terror if he is going to survive that. It is a pragmatic approach by him.

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    Could I make a comment, sir, on the question that Mr. Pope answered and that has to do with your question about France?

    Mr. SHERMAN. Right.

    Admiral TALLENT. Sir, last week I had a conference with my counterparts, the French and the UK J–3s. This was a second meeting we had. Specifically what we decided out of that was to do the combined planning for evacuation operations for the Cote d'Ivoire should that come up and combined operations for Nigeria.

    As you might remember, when we were in Liberia 2 years ago it was the French that made an initial pickup of some of our people. Also in Cote d'Ivoire it was the French who offered to help us take our people out of there. Also in Sudan it was the French that provided refueling and aircraft support for the cargo planes that we sent into the Darfur. From a military perspective, we have a tremendous relationship with them. General Jones has started the——

    Mr. SHERMAN. So when you are on board and you get a hamburger on one of our aircraft carriers, for example, you get that with French fries?

    Admiral TALLENT. French fries. We do French fries and pommes frites.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Hopefully you will be able to get a similar accompaniment to your hamburger if you eat in the dining room here in the Capitol.
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    Admiral TALLENT. Sir.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Go ahead, please.

    Admiral TALLENT. Our relationship mil-to-mil is very positive. General Jones has instituted a NATO fusion cell concept whereby we fuse and share information with our NATO partners. This is a new idea.

    We also have clearinghouses. We have one specifically devoted to Africa. What we were finding is when we were down in Africa we were fumbling around over each other. We would go in and train a group in Ghana, let us say, only to find out the French had trained them the year before, the same group, so we were duplicating efforts. It was just insane.

    We started these clearinghouses. We have had three or four of them to point, and we were able to pull together partners and talk about what all of us are doing as opposed to Africa. We also have them for the Caucasus and for other places.

    Mr. POPE. I would just add, sir, if I could, the British, as you can imagine, both the British and French are very good on counterterrorism. We work well with them. They are good in their own right, and they are good together.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Heartening to hear that, and if I was not on Atkins I would join you for some French fries.

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    The State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism, Mr. Pope, talks in terms of countries that harbor terrorists, and I wonder, If a country is a state sponsor of terrorism, do they automatically go in that same category, or do we treat harboring terrorists separately from sponsoring terrorism?

    Mr. POPE. The way it is evolving it is not necessarily exactly the same now, but it does not necessarily have to be a harboring, although it can be. It can also be assisting in some way.

    For example, Saddam had a long history of helping terrorist groups like, for example, Abu Abas of Achille Lauro fame or infamy was discovered in Baghdad. That type of harboring and help to terrorists.

    North Korea has had its own particular reason, for example, for being on that list. It is kind of a mixed bag is what I am saying.

    Mr. SHERMAN. But you can make the list whether you harbor or whether you help?

    Mr. POPE. Or whether you carry out.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Or respond or carry out.

    Mr. POPE. Like, for example, blowing up airliners over the Pacific.
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    Mr. SHERMAN. Independent contractor, employee. Yes.

    Mr. POPE. Yes.

    Mr. SHERMAN. Okay.

    Mr. POPE. It is a mixed bag. I would just say about that, in principle we really like to take countries off the state sponsor list as well as put them on, and countries like Libya, for example, know what they need to do to get off. Ghadafi has done some things and not done some things, but he is moving the Sudanese and others. There are others who are not making it.

    Mr. SHERMAN. I would point out that while our Committee is doing what we can against terrorism, there is the area of trade where, believe it or not, you have one category for Communist countries, but you do not put into that category state sponsors of terrorism. So if Laos just chooses to be Communist and otherwise causes us no problem, they would be listed as a Communist country and eligible for the worst possible trade relations, but if you, say, harbor bin Laden, well, that is not as bad. Everybody in my district kind of thinks that bin Laden is worse than, you know, communal farms in Laos.

    I hope that we get a chance to talk to our brothers and sisters over on the Ways and Means Committee and see whether we can treat terrorist sponsors with the same voracity that we treat those countries that are Communist, some of which may cause us no harm.

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    Mr. Pope, in the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act, which we enacted late last year, the definition of a state sponsor of terrorism was changed to include countries that tolerate terrorists on their soil. How has this affected the Secretary's determination as to who is on that list? So really, kind of back to that harboring versus sponsoring issue.

    Mr. POPE. Sure. The list has not changed with the exception, of course, of deleting Iraq. As I mentioned, all of us would like to ideally see all of them get off, all of them get out of the business of doing the things that caused them to get on in the first place. Everybody knows what is needed to be done, and we are monitoring it closely.

    Mr. SHERMAN. I yield back.

    Mr. ROYCE. Mr. McCaul?

    Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    After 9/11, I think we learned a lot of lessons about communication coordination. Certainly in the world I was working in, the FBI, the criminal side of the house did not talk to the intelligence side of the house. It was very dysfunctional. Fortunately, the Patriot Act has changed that, but you see that not just with the FBI, but with the intelligence community in general, with the military.

    My question is, in general, if you could talk about your two respective offices. How are you specifically coordinating and communicating, that being the DoD and the State Department, toward these counterterrorism agendas?
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    Mr. POPE. Sure. If I could start, first of all, with your permission, let me just give you 1 second of history.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Sure.

    Mr. POPE. I was overseas for about 6 1/2 years on overseas assignments, and I came back at the end of the summer of 2002, so just a little less than a year after September 11, and then I got plunged in on working on counterterrorism. I got plunged into this world, the CSG that the Chairman mentioned and other groups.

    I was really struck by the breaking down of stovepipes already. Of course, in the last 2 1/2 years, approximately, that I have been doing this I was struck then, and I am very pleased at the—I mean, people really get it. I just have not seen in my time a lot of turf battles and that kind of thing. People are very open. People really get it. I mean, we honestly spend more time together than we do with our own families. We are just meeting all the time and sharing. I am not saying it is perfect, but it does work. That is the interagency.

    Inside the State Department we tend to be the principal coordinators. That is our job. Principal coordinators with the different kinds of bureaus called regional bureaus like the Africa Bureau, for example, as well as the functional bureaus, and make sure that everybody is on the same page.

    We recently created a new Deputy Assistant Secretary in my office for Homeland Security to make sure that we were better plugged in with them. In other words, the past 3 years have been a period not only of trying to hunt down the principal leaders of al-Qaeda and break up attacks and that kind of thing, but also to create or improve a whole range of bureaucratic things. At these meetings, for example, both OSD and JCS are represented. We sent one of our senior officers, a really good senior officer, to EUCOM, and he is embedded, if you want to use that word, in EUCOM. We are doing what we can do to make what you are saying happen.
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    Mr. MCCAUL. Does that also point to the issuance of visas and passports and getting that kind of information, sharing the information?

    Mr. POPE. Well, yes. There are all kinds of databases and procedures set up. I mean, we in our office do not deal so much with passports and visas, but——

    Mr. MCCAUL. Yes. I understand.

    Mr. POPE [continuing]. DHS, for example, is plugged into that, as is the intelligence community. Everybody who gets pieces of information feeds it in so it can go both to consular officers before a person comes or, if someone has a preexisting visa, so it can be available to people at the border.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Great. Admiral Tallent?

    Admiral TALLENT. Sir, I think your question leads to one of the greatest challenges we have. You know, we talk about sanctuary, and a lot of times our mind goes to the desert or something like that. A sanctuary that we offer is our inability to work in an interagency approach in the time required to get the job done.

    First of all, I mean, there is no interagency. There is no number you can call like interagency answering. There is just a whole, I guess the technical word is bunch, a whole bunch of different offices that you have to pull together to try to come up with a legitimate body of thought on something.
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    As Mr. Pope said, right now in EUCOM we have planners who work with our planners, and they are from the three digit agencies to include State, Counterterrorism. Tim Walsh is our guy. We have, of course, the FBI, the Treasury. We are trying to get greater representations.

    General Jones would like to have much more participation in this ''joint interagency coordination group,'' that we call it than we have right now——

    Mr. MCCAUL. Right.

    Admiral TALLENT [continuing]. But these members help us, and they are a part of our planning teams. Still, there are disconnects though when you try to go beyond the local level and get decisionmaking at higher levels.

    We also have a problem in that the culture and planning is different with the interagency, the different groups. For instance, State Department does not have the same mechanisms and doctrine for planning that we have. We have different tools. We are very attuned to collaborative environments where we are doing planning through cyberspace together so that we can work with SOCOM and with STRATCOM and with CENTCOM altogether, as well as the Joint Staff, so we are able to get into cyberspace together in virtual planning rooms.

    The other agency players do not have those kind of equipments, so there are some culture problems. There are some tool/equipment problems. There are procedural problems. All of this together is stifling our ability, I think, to do very quick interagency agreed-upon plans in this fight on terrorism.
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    Mr. MCCAUL. So right now the structure is you just have these plans to try to track membership. What about the Counterterrorism Center? Do you participate fully—will you—in that new center?

    Mr. POPE. The CTC you are talking about?

    Mr. MCCAUL. Right.

    Admiral TALLENT. The CTC.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Are you participating in that?

    Admiral TALLENT. That is going to be at a level beyond where we are. I do not know yet what the representation attachments are going to be, sir.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Sure.

    Mr. POPE. DoD will.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Okay.

    Mr. POPE. They will for sure. They are already out there. We have somebody out there, FBI, CIA and others. In my view, it is not the question you asked, but in my view what was TTIC—the Terrorist Threat Integration Center—and what is now the NCTC was a great idea. In my view, it was the sort of thing I wish I had thought of myself because it is a place where really smart people can come together, and you get bits.
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    I have actually seen it, without being able to talk in any detail here, where you get bits of information, maybe one from an African Government, and one from somebody else, and one from one of our agencies, and you put it together at TTIC—now NCTC—on their analytical and you say, ''So that is what this guy is up to.'' But you could not see it from any one of the pieces. They are moving into strategic operational planning as well.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Sitting from where I am, of course, I am trying to think of ways to help you in terms of as a Member of Congress. Of course, the President has an Executive Order on TTIC and the NCTC, and, of course, we passed it legislatively in the last session, so I hope that provides some structure for you to be able to coordinate better.

    Mr. POPE. It is. It is already starting to get there. There is a strategical operational planning group. Originally TTIC was analysis.

    Mr. MCCAUL. Right.

    Mr. POPE. Now there is this new piece. They are standing up very shortly. We have people, as does DoD.

    Mr. MCCAUL. That is good to hear. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. POPE. It is going to be a bonus.

    Mr. ROYCE. You know, there is another aspect of this that I think is interesting. These are elite brigades that I saw trained in Chad, and I witnessed the same thing in Senegal some years ago where ACRI units were being trained there. There is another aspect of this going, Admiral Tallent, to your long-term vision and that is something that General Abubakar told us in Nigeria after Sani Abacha had that heart attack or whatever happened to him. The troika turned to General Abubakar and said, ''Okay, you are in charge now.''
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    General Abubaker contacted us, and his statement was, ''I do not want to be in charge of some troika.'' He said, ''I should take my orders from the Constitution, and we do not have one, and from an elected Government, and we do not have one.'' He said, ''I learned that at Fort Benning, Georgia.'' He was very proud of this.

    He said, ''We are going to have an election.'' He asked General Colin Powell and I. We were Co-Chairmen of this election observer team. ''We are going to have an election, and after that election I am going home. We are going to have a Constitution, and the Officer Corps are going to take their orders from the Constitution.'' General Powell was there on the ground for the week leading up to that Constitution to tell the officers in this election, ''Gentlemen, you stay in the barracks. You stay in the barracks.''

    The important aspect of this was Abubakar's own intent to drill into his officers this fealty to a Constitution and his almost obsession with enacting one after the election and also his thought that he was going to expand that knowledge throughout the upper echelons of the military right down to the most junior officers and enlisted men.

    Now, if that can translate long-term, if other officers in Chad and Senegal and other places where I have seen this training, who take this great pride, if they can go through the human rights component of this, the more expansive explanation of governance that so impacted General Abubakar, then there might be very real hope for the question you initially raised, which is the sustainability long-term in the developing world for a transfer to a type of government which is more responsive to the needs of the people and, therefore, less susceptible to the type of anarchy and chaos that form the breeding ground for al-Qaeda.
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    I was going to ask you about that and ask you about any component in this plan of the same type of training that went on at Fort Benning, Georgia.

    Admiral TALLENT. Sir, I think what you brought up is more important ultimately than the marksmanship and the patrolling and the overland navigation, the communication, the logistical planning portions of this syllabus.

    A key part of the syllabus that we are talking about covers exactly the subjects that you are talking about, specifically the rule of law, specifically the support for representation of elected leadership.

    We get into the value of diversity in terms of gender. I mean, we are somewhat careful about that with Muslim countries, but that has got to be discussed too. That is a critical part of this syllabus. This syllabus, as I say, is exercised after our major trainers leave. We have people there, as I said, that will oversee the syllabus in conjunction with the country leadership, the military leadership.

    Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Pope?

    Mr. POPE. If you were going to stay on that line I will come in in just a minute.

    Mr. ROYCE. No. I will go to you. Go ahead.

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    Mr. POPE. Thanks. I was just going to say, if you would permit me, beyond the military, you remember I mentioned that after September 11 we moved in a rather aggressive way on a number of areas, including what we call capacity building. Some of my colleagues back here worked very, very hard to do that.

    Some of it was sort of related, for example, building counterterrorism police units in some places, but some of it was really different from the kind of thing that the Admiral does. For example, one of the things we were helping in a number of countries is with their legal systems, and what you were talking about reminded me of that.

    Many, many countries took a look at their legal systems, assumed they had laws against terrorism and found out they did not. They had laws against money laundering or against drug trafficking.

    We have helped through the Justice Department. We have sent what are called attachés from Justice Department to a number of places to help laws, help draft laws and guide them toward it because it has been very discouraging in a few cases for some of the law enforcement people to come up and essentially say, ''Look, I got him. He was about to blow something up.'' Then the prosecutor looks and says, ''Do you know what? There is no law against that.''

    We have been helping in a whole range of areas, finding and freezing money and other things, but also on the legal because you would be very surprised at how many countries globally—not only Africa—thought they had laws against terrorism and then after September 11 they looked and did not. They had big holes.
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    Mr. ROYCE. I talked about that issue in Tanzania with President Mkapa because in Zanzibar, as you know, that was being used as a transfer point without the ability really to monitor or without the transparency. They have now moved that legislation, but you are right. It is an area where also, I believe, if we would elevate our position in Treasury, if we would elevate the influence of our U.S. Treasury Department and use our positions, frankly, on the World Bank and the IMF in order to force—we have some hard power and soft power involved here—in order to really seek compliance with transparency worldwide in the banking system.

    If you choke off the funds necessary to train Jihadists and to plan attacks, it is hard to sustain all of that, the training camps and so forth, without the funds.

    A concerted effort on this front is also important. If you are in-country doing the other training, it is a way to make the connection and make it understood.

    Mr. POPE. We are working on those things every day, and we have no intention of stopping on any of that, not Africa and elsewhere.

    Mr. ROYCE. One of the things that I have noticed is there is a great deal of disinformation while the United States is in-country, and I am going to take the Philippines as an example.

    We are in inoculating people with vaccinations, and the response on the radio is do not take the vaccination because it will turn Muslims into Christians. Silly stuff. But is U.S. public diplomacy countering the type of nonsense that we often see put in play as a disinformation campaign? We have kind of a mixed record on public diplomacy.
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    Mr. POPE. Well, we are trying. The Embassies, for example, every Embassy in developed countries or developing countries devotes some aspect of its work to do that very kind of thing. It is not all meant to counteract, some of it is cultural exchange and things, but some of it is directly to do what you are talking about.

    Mr. ROYCE. Right, but it is pretty minuscule in terms of the funding. I think a more robust——

    Mr. POPE. I agree with you.

    Mr. ROYCE. I am thinking back also to the effectiveness during the Cold War——

    Mr. POPE. Yes.

    Mr. ROYCE [continuing]. Of Radio Free Asia and Radio Liberty in which there were so many and in which we used local Poles and Czechs and East Germans and so forth who had their finger on the pulse, but we had the budget really to communicate with people and to knock down successfully these different arguments that were continually brought to the fore. I do not know that we have that capability right now in our public diplomacy area, and I thought I would ask.

    Mr. POPE. We could certainly do better. We could certainly do better. Secretary Rice has talked about it some and probably others as well.
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    Mr. ROYCE. Increasing the capacity of the Georgian military. Admiral Tallent, you had made reference to that, but I was going to ask you about security cooperation with Georgia. That was developed so that Tbilisi could assert better control over its Pankisi Gorge.

    There is an ongoing problem in that gorge. I have talked to a couple of Dagestan Russian legislators over the years who have come out here—one is a doctor on humanitarian missions—who have explained the use of that gorge by not only Chechens and Osama bin Laden, but another terrorist organization. Are we confident, now that we have gone through the exercise, that it is cleared of transnational terrorists at this point?

    Admiral TALLENT. I do not think you could ever say that it is cleared, but we keep a heavy watch on that place, as much as we can. You are right. The Georgia train and equip program trained about 2,600 soldiers with the idea of internal security specifically for that problem we are talking about.

    We of course negotiate with and talk and work with the Russians on a routine basis and are trying to develop that relationship. I was with General Wald, and we went in October to visit them. They are coming back to visit us this spring. The Russians are very sensitive to that and will often raise the thought that Chechen and other terrorists are running rampant in the Pankisi Gorge, so we are very sensitive to that, sir.

    Mr. ROYCE. Admiral Tallent, our time has run out, but I very much appreciate your testimony here today. Thank you for all your answers and your testimony.
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    Mr. Pope, thank you as well.

    Mr. POPE. Yes, sir.

    Mr. ROYCE. We stand adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m. the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

RESPONSES FROM REAR ADMIRAL HAMLIN B. TALLENT, USN, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND, TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE TED POE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

SAFEGUARDS AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Question:

    What are the safeguards that keep U.S. trained troops from committing human rights abuses—especially in countries where the government response to terrorist groups has victimized innocent civilians caught in the middle of the conflict? Defense Department officials stressed that Georgia training included respect for human rights and civilian control of the military. Is this replicated in other programs? What are some examples of these types of human rights safeguards?
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Response:

    The United States military is the finest, best trained, and most disciplined military in the world. When we embark on training foreign troops, we endeavor to impart the elements of leadership and discipline, as well as the principle of accountability, that underpin the adherence to international human rights standards. Training on respect for the rule of law and human rights is integral to our programs. We communicate through diplomatic channels and directly to our military counterparts the expectation that U.S. security assistance and training will be withheld if there are human rights abuses attributable to a foreign military or regime. In some instances, the U.S. has been able to assist in taking custody of violators, for example in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, for transfer to an appropriate court or tribunal. Finally, we set the example. In those extremely rare instances of abuse such as Abu Ghraib, we deal with our own human rights violators with quick, determined justice.

    All train and equip programs administered through the U.S. European Command include training on human rights and the rule of law. In addition, other Security Assistance Programs, such as Expanded International Military Education and Training (E–IMET), cover the Law of Armed Conflict, Constitutional Law, and Human Rights Training. This training is conducted by the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS).

    There are sanctions in place that prevent Title 10 and Title 22 resources from being spent on nations involved in human rights violations. Prior to the execution of any Security Assistance mission involving U.S. military forces, human rights vetting occurs to verify that the militaries and countries we are engaged in are not involved in human rights violations. Once trained, sustained engagement through exercises and normal operations continues to promote and safeguard human rights.
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