
STATEMENT
BY
JEANE J. KIRKPATRICK
BEFORE
THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ON U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
NOVEMBER 19, 2003
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to testify before this distinguished Committee on this vitally important subject.
I accepted your invitation, Mr. Chairman, because I believe it is essential that this nation's defenses be adequate to cope with the growing dangers we face from hostile powers possessing weapons of mass destruction and effective means of delivery.
Mr. Chairman, I encountered this subject and became concerned about this issue, as a consequence of having served on President Reagan's A Blue Ribbon Presidential Task Force on Nuclear Products in 1985; on the APresident's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) from 1985 to 1990; on the Defense Policy Review Board from 1985 to 1992. I chaired the A Fail Safe and Risk Reduction Committee (generally referred to by its acronym as the FARR Committee) charged with reviewing the United States Nuclear Command and Control system.
September 11th dramatized the dangers we face. These experiences made a strong impression on me concerning the dangers of proliferating nuclear and missile technology. As everyone who is interested in these matters now knows, the number of countries capable of producing and delivering nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, has increased and is increasing as we speak, and includes several of the world's most aggressive, repressive, destructive countries B North Korea, Iran, Iraq B as well as a Russia less stable than we would prefer and a China less benign.
We know, moreover, that other regimes with little regard for the rule of law or human rights work hard to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
An effective deterrent has never been as important to the security of Americans as it is today with rogue states developing the capacity to attack our cities and our population. Americans and their allies are more vulnerable than we have ever been.
Mr.
Chairman, as we experienced on September
11th, the threat to Americans,
its cities, and populations, is here and
now. It
has expanded dramatically, not only because
of systematic Chinese theft of
Terrorism
began a rapid growth in the 1970s. The
early success of the PLO was important.
The PLO introduced airline hijacking as an
international weapon. Though seemingly
independent the terrorist groups
throughout Europe, Japan, North and South
American, and the Middle East also seemed
to be linked to one another:
The Arab PLO, Iranian Mujahadeen,
the Armenian ASALA, the German Bader
Meinhof gang, Italian Red Brigades, the
July 17th Group.
They were built around Marxism and
radical Islam. The targets of terrorism
have been numerous -
The
next contact of the Reagan Administration
with terrorism came with the hijacking of
the Achille Lauro, which was, I am sure
everyone remembers, a pleasure ship, a
cruise ship that was hijacked off the
coasts of
That act of terrorism was carried out by a PLO group, headed by one Abu Abass, who was a member of the PLO Executive Committee and a close aide to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. They had smuggled some quite heavy weapons on board the Achille Lauro at the same time they boarded.
The first response of the Reagan Administration to the experience on the Achille Lauro and the Libyan bombings of American property and Americans made clear that President Reagan did not intend to accept attacks on Americans passively.
We all know that the increased capacities, which have developed, not just nuclear, of course, but electrical and biological powers of all kinds, which the committee is fully aware of, have increased our potential powers as a military establishment, and our vulnerability. The centralization of our population renders us particularly vulnerable to some new developments in, for example, miniaturization and liquification and terrorism.
We are all, I think, aware of the increasing capacity at least of very small numbers of people to do very large amounts of damage. That capacity is illustrated in our tragedy in our embassies a few months ago where many people were killed -- Americans and host country personnel B by the work of what will probably turn out to be at most a few dozen people. That capacity of miniaturization and of weapons and liquefaction and centralization and interdependence is familiar, and it is growing continually, and it makes all types of domestic security more difficult than it previously has been.
Larger numbers of people cross our borders on a larger number of days. Most of those people are unknown to us and how to control our borders is unknown to us today, too, in some sense.
Our intelligence needs have increased geometrically alongside our growing vulnerabilities. I have been for a number of years B since my time in the Reagan Administration B quite deeply concerned by our vulnerability, however, to weapons.
Our
open borders and habits of free movement
and casual border security enhance our
vulnerability.
The
We
can also watch the work of Hamas spreading
terror in
The
rise of fanatical Islamic group to power in
The
attacks on American embassies in Dar es
Salam and Nairobi by a band of violent
extremists based, we are told, in
Afghanistan, dramatized the reach of
non-state groups in our times.
We learned later about the efforts of
such groups to procure deadly gases for
their weapons, and also about their links to
terrorist states, such as
The fact that so many of the extremist individuals, groups and states specifically explicitly speak of war against Americans suggests that the problem will be with us for some time.
Bin Laden himself issued a fatwa on behalf of the AWorld Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders, exhorting Muslims Ato kill the Americans and her allies B civilian and military in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the Aqsa mosque and the Holy Mosque in Mecca from their grip.
It
was neither the first nor last time bin
Laden had urged and planned the killing of
Americans.
He is believed to be behind the
ambush in which 19 Americans were killed and
more than 70 wounded in
How
can
With vigilance. Sometimes unilateral action.
Unilateral action is sometimes necessary for an effective response for reasons of secrecy, dispatch, and determination.
Make it clear that states will be held responsible where they protect and service terrorists.
In
sum, an adequate
-
much more attention to better intelligence of all kinds including humanint, and also increased surveillance and more intensive analysis.
-
more realism about seriously hostile governments and groups B when people say they are at war with us, they probably are.
-
a good missile defense that can destroy missiles of diverse kinds soon after they are launched.
-
more research on antidotes to chemical and biological payloads.
I believe terrorists have made necessary the Patriot Act.
2120 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
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