STATEMENT BY
PETER W. RODMAN
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
"PROGRESS IN THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM"
3 MARCH 2004
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
The centerpiece of this timely hearing should be Gen. Abizaid's superb and comprehensive report on conditions and strategies in Central Command's area of responsibility. However, I am pleased as well as honored to have the opportunity to discuss the War on Terrorism in a broader perspective.
Nearly two and a half years have passed since September 11, 2001. Although we have not suffered a significant attack on American soil since then, we are faced with continual reminders that the threat posed by international terrorism is still with us. We have seen it in Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Mombasa, Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Baghdad. And just last week, we heard Ayman Al-Zawahiri on tape threatening new attacks on the United States warning that "endless 'brigades' carrying death, such as those that attacked New York and Washington, are on their way". So the danger remains for America and the civilized world. It is because of this threat that the Global War on Terror remains the priority in this country's defense planning.
Strategy in the War on Terrorism
But our Nation's strategy in this conflict is not only military, by any means. All elements of our national power are engaged -- diplomatic; economic and financial; intelligence and law enforcement, informational, as well as military.
Broadly conceived, our strategy has three essential elements:
. First is destroying and disrupting terrorist networks. This means hunting down terrorists, as Gen. Abizaid is doing so effectively, and also denying terrorists, by a variety of policy means, the resources and access and other opportunities they require.
. Second is defense of the homeland. The President and Congress came together in 2002 to create a new Cabinet department, and the Department of Defense has reorganized itself -- naming a new Assistant Secretary of Homeland Defense to coordinate DoD activities in support of our Nation's civilian authorities.
. Third, however, is a political and ideological component of our strategy, which must not be neglected.
The political and ideological component of strategy includes a number of things. It means fostering an international climate in which terrorism is treated by all nations as illegitimate, as beyond the pale, as not respectable no matter what the political cause in the name of which it is practiced. One model is the campaign, led by Britain in the 19th century, to banish the slave trade. Britain led the way not only by moral suasion and what we would today call public diplomacy, but by military muscle the Royal Navy's interdiction of slavers as international outlaws.
A key insight of this part of our national strategy is that it is not we, but our many friends in the Arab and Muslim worlds, who are on the front line in the War on Terror. Our starting point is the many moderate, friendly governments in Muslim countries and the millions of moderate, decent people who want to be part of the modern world, not to destroy it. That is why we continue to stress that this is not a struggle of the West against Islam. That is Usama bin Laden's strategy, not ours. It's not about Islam; it's about an extremist political ideology that invokes it -- indeed has attempted to hijack it. Our job, in a nutshell, is to bolster these moderates to help them and strengthen them in their struggle against the extremists. That is one of the most crucial components of our strategy.
This government attempts to do that by a variety of means. Today, as we speak, the Administration is consulting with key allies and other major powers on what we call the "Greater Middle East Initiative". The President has come to the conclusion that lagging political, economic, and social reform has held back human freedom and prosperity, and has contributed to many of the key security challenges we face today, including the nexus of terrorism, WMD proliferation, political extremism, and radical Islamism.
The President has therefore articulated a vision for supporting the transformation of a Greater Middle East through freedom-based reform. The goal is to bolster reform efforts in the political, economic, and security realms. The Greater Middle East Initiative is designed to respond to the region's needs, but the ideas for reform must come from the region. For that reason, we are in consultations with the nations in the Greater Middle East, G-8 governments, and other lay European friends and allies on how to support such reform.
The role of the Department of Defense, of course, embraces only part of this agenda. But DoD's Security Cooperation programs embody a systematic effort to help friendly moderate nations to strengthen their security. We have successful bilateral military-to-military relations with many friends around the world. This can take the form of security assistance, joint exercises, training and other exchanges. It is a large part of what Gen. Abizaid and Central Command do in their regular interaction with allies and friends. For OSD, it includes a wide range of bilateral defense forums and strategic dialogues covering an array of issues, strengthening ties and, especially, bolstering these friends' efforts and capabilities in the military and counterterrorism fields
Afghanistan and Iraq
This brings us back to Afghanistan and Iraq -- because the bolstering of moderate forces is the essence of what we are doing there as well.
In both these countries, since their liberation, we see a remarkable political evolution -- a remarkable project of political construction that is underway. We see heroic efforts of moderate, modern, decent people to build new institutions-political, economic, security institutions-to fill the vacuum left by the sudden collapse of the totalitarian regimes that had so brutalized their countries.
That is the most important thing going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. The violence is serious and disturbing, and must be dealt with. But it is not the most important thing happening. A significant part of our strategy therefore is to help the Afghan and Iraqi peoples accelerate their construction of new institutions. Success in that enterprise will further marginalize the extremists, it will also demonstrate that we have kept our promise -- that we were there as liberators, not occupiers.
As President Bush noted last month, the success of freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan would also have enormous and historic ramifications beyond the borders of those countries, around the Middle East. Speaking at the opening of the Library of Congress's photographic exhibit on Winston Churchill, the President said: "Across the region, people would see that freedom is the path to progress and national dignity. A thousand lies stand refuted, falsehoods about the incompatibility of democratic values in Middle Eastern cultures."
In Operation Enduring Freedom, the Coalition liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban and denied al-Qaida its comfortable headquarters and training camps in the country. At the same time, it has become increasingly difficult for al-Qaida to reconstitute these headquarters or training camps in any other country.
Since then, Afghans have been making significant political progress:
. The interim government set up by the Bonn agreement at the end of 2001 gave way to a broader-based transitional government in mid-2002. On January 4 of this year, following 22 days of open and lively debate in the Constitutional Loya Jirga, the Afghan people approved a new constitution, under which nationwide elections will be held this summer.
. Afghanistan's national institutions are being restored and strengthened, and the central government's authority has been extended throughout the national territory.
. Thus Afghanistan in all its diversity, and amid all its severe economic and social problems, is not only less likely to revert to becoming a sanctuary for terrorists. It is on the path to becoming a modern, moderate state.
In Iraq, the United Nations fact-finding team recently dispatched to Iraq and key Iraqi leaders agree with us on the importance of transferring sovereignty, as scheduled, by July 1. In consultation among the Iraqi Governing Council, the United Nations, and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), a modified plan is being worked out to schedule direct elections at the earliest practicable time and to design an interim government that can take over sovereignty in the meantime.
It is not easy to build new institutions overnight to fill the vacuum left by the defeat of a 35-year-old totalitarian dictatorship. But a political revolution has already occurred in Iraq. More than 85% of all Iraqi towns have elected councils. Over half the Iraqi population is active in community affairs and one in five belongs to a non government organization. Iraqi women across ethnic, regional, and ideological lines have formed an Iraqi Higher Women's Council, and played an active role in the drafting of an Iraqi interim constitution (the Transitional Administrative Law, or TAL) and in the daily activities of the ministries.
Recently an agreement was reached on the Transitional Administrative Law, which with its provisions for civil liberties and other checks and balances may well turn out to be the most liberal basic governance document anywhere in the Arab world. The CPA will soon distribute 500,000 pamphlets on the TAL throughout the country in order to educate the Iraqi people on what will in effect serve as their first Bill of Rights.
Iraqis still have many difficult decisions to make about how they intend to govern themselves over the long term. It would be naïve to imagine that all Iraqis would quickly agree on issues such as the role of religion in the constitution or the degree of federalism among Iraq's provinces and regions versus a strong central government. But this is the stuff of politics.
Lately we saw demonstrations by Shiites calling for direct elections instead of caucuses. We saw the Kurds insisting on their rights to autonomy. But what prompted these assertions was the intense negotiation that has begun on transitional and constitutional arrangements, as called for by the agreement between CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council reached last November 15. This is political bargaining, among a diverse collection of Iraqis whose cohesion and cooperation since the Governing Council was created last July is in fact a remarkable success story in itself.
Thus Iraq, once a rogue regime that had sponsored terror, waged war on its neighbors, and aspired to military hegemony in its region, is on the path to becoming a moderate state a constructive regional actor and a responsible and respected member of the international community.
I quoted President Bush on the fact that the political evolution of Afghanistan and Iraq will have wider and positive regional reverberations. That is why the terrorists are now so determined to destroy what is being built in those countries. The success of moderate democracies in the Muslim world is their nightmare.
Our assessment is that our strategy is making progress, and their strategy is failing. Despite the violence that persists in Afghanistan and Iraq, in neither country are the extremists succeeding in derailing the political evolution that is advancing.
Recently, DoD came into possession of a diskette containing a message from al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi to the al-Qaida leadership. In it, he appealed for help because the evolution of Iraqi democracy and the upcoming end of occupation he knew would weaken his cause. In his own words: "With the spread of the [Iraqi] army and the police, our future is becoming frightening.... The problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance to the people of the region. How can we kill their cousins and Sons and under what pretext, after the Americans start withdrawing? This is the democracy, we will have no pretext."
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee:
The final point I would like to emphasize is this: The fortitude and steadfastness that our armed forces are demonstrating daily on the battlefield are also necessary on the political front. Afghans and Iraqis know that they need our help for a transitional period as they build their own new institutions. They -- and the terrorists -- are watching to see if America will stay the course. Our friends' confidence in us is a crucial ingredient of their success. Our steadfastness is necessary to bolster theirs.
I am confident that this country is unified on the fundamental importance of winning the War on Terrorism, and consolidating success in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Congress demonstrated this on a bipartisan basis in supporting the President's $87 billion Supplemental Appropriation, and the FY-04 defense budget. That continued unity is indispensable to our success, whatever debates may take place this year in our democracy.
I am confident that we as a Nation have that unity and that resolve, and that we will prevail.
Thank you.
2120 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
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