26 October 2001
Text: State's Taylor Says Terror Attacks Brought World Together
(War to be fought on many fronts, he says) (3130)
The terrorist attacks on the United States September 11th were
intended to be a blow against Americans, but instead have become an
attack on humanity, says Ambassador Francis Taylor.
"There can be no excuse, no justification, and no rationalization for
these acts of mass murder of innocent people," Taylor said October 26
during a national conference on foreign policy for nongovernmental
leaders at the State Department.
The attacks, which killed citizens from 80 nations, have brought the
world together in a way like no other to eliminate terrorism,
something the terrorists led by Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida
network had not counted on happening, said Taylor, who is the
coordinator for the State Department's counterterrorism program.
Noting that the battles in this campaign will not be fought like any
war before, Taylor said "our victories will be counted in the drying
up of financing, the withering of political support, the rounding up
of terrorist cells, [but] not in the conquest of foreign land."
Efforts will focus on gathering and increased sharing of intelligence,
rooting out terrorist cells, tightening border security, more precise
law enforcement, and disrupting terrorist money flows, he said.
Taylor also noted that the Afghan people are among the
longest-suffering victims of the al-Qaida terrorist network and the
ruling Taliban militia.
One of the most striking examples of international support for the
U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, Taylor said, is the strong
condemnation from the 56 member nations of the Organization of the
Islamic Conference who "unequivocally declared that terrorism is never
sanctioned by Islam. The face of terror is not the true face of
Islam."
Following is a text of Taylor's remarks as prepared for delivery:
(begin text)
Statement of Ambassador Francis X. Taylor
Coordinator for Counterterrorism
U.S. Department of State
Before the
National Foreign Policy Conference
For Leaders of Nongovernmental Organizations
October 26, 2001
(As prepared for delivery)
Distinguished guests: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you today to discuss the subject of terrorism, arid what we in the
Department of State have been doing to fight the terrorist threat
during the last seven weeks.
On the morning of September 11, the world changed. In the wake of the
terrorist attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the United
States launched a global campaign not only against the perpetrators of
those attacks but also against terrorism itself, wherever it exists.
The attacks claimed victims from some 78 nations, from our close
neighbors Canada and Mexico, to countries as far away as Australia and
Zimbabwe, and in large numbers from Britain, India, and Pakistan. For
many countries, including ours, September 11 claimed the most lives of
any terrorist incident in their history. For us, it was the bloodiest
day in America since the Civil War Battle of Antietam.
The attacks may have been conceived as a blow against America, but in
reality it was an attack against humanity.
There can be no excuse, no justification, and no rationalization for
these acts of mass murder of innocent people. Those who try to excuse,
condone, or support groups involved in this activity are no better
than the terrorists themselves. Such support encourages even more acts
like these. For this reason, our campaign will target not just
terrorist groups, but their supporters and those who harbor them.
The war we are waging will be a long struggle with many dimensions.
The campaign is now in full swing, and I'd like to share with you some
of the important victories we have already accomplished.
The nations of the world are banding together to eliminate the scourge
of terrorism. Numerous multilateral organizations have issued
declarations of support, including the United Nations, the European
Union, the Organization of American States, the Organization of
African Unity, and many others have expressed their strong solidarity.
We recognize that al-Qaida could not have carried out such attacks --
planned over a period of years -- without relying on an extensive
support network around the world. A global response is thus essential.
I traveled to Brussels where I met with the North Atlantic Council and
Russia. I made the case that the al-Qaida organization led by Usama
bin Laden was responsible for what happened on the 11th of September.
I traced the history of this organization, its recent activities, and
the events that occurred just prior to and just after the 11th. We
have heard individually from several capitals already that they found
the information very interesting, useful, and persuasive.
NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson stated that the facts contained
in the briefing were "clear and compelling" and point "conclusively to
an al-Qaida role in the attacks." As a result of the briefing, NATO
concluded that the attacks were directed from abroad and will
"therefore be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the
Washington Treaty, which states that an armed attack on one or more of
the allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack
against them all." This was the first time Article V was invoked in
the history of the NATO Alliance.
In response, NATO allies have agreed to provide the United States with
the wide range of assistance that we had requested. This includes
unlimited use of their airspace, base facilities, seaports, logistics,
early warning aircraft, extra security for U.S. forces in Europe,
intelligence sharing and replacement of any troops that might be moved
from the Balkans.
The Organization of American States invoked the Rio Treaty, which also
covers collective self-defense. OAS foreign ministers, meeting in
Lima, Peru on the day of the attacks, were the first to condemn them.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference -- the most important and
comprehensive grouping of Muslim states, 56 in all -- strongly
condemned the savage September 11 attacks and unequivocally declared
that terrorism is never sanctioned by Islam. The face of terror is not
the true face of Islam. Terrorism is a perversion of religion, and
those who hijacked our airplanes on September 11 also hijacked the
faith they claim.
The Government of Australia, pledged air, ground, and naval forces in
the global campaign against terrorism.
Other nations, great and small, have made pledges and contributions to
what is a global response to a global attack. We have received
numerous offers of support, diplomatic, political, police,
intelligence, and military. Members of the global coalition are
dedicated and are remaining steady. This coalition will remain intact
and will stick with the campaign until it is successful.
Forging the Tools to Fight Terror
As President Bush said in his address to a joint session of Congress:
"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you
are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Most have already
chosen, and they have chosen to stand with us against terrorism.
President Bush also told Congress, "We will direct every resource at
our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence,
every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and
every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat
of the global terror network." This campaign will be unlike others we
have fought. The battles are as likely to be fought in small
conference rooms among bankers, at border crossing points, or in
forensic laboratories as over the skies of some hostile power. Our
victories will be counted in the drying up of financing, the withering
of political support, the rounding up of terrorist cells, not in the
conquest of foreign land.
Our efforts include gathering and increased sharing of intelligence,
rooting out terrorist cells, assisting countries to tighten their
border security, good law enforcement, and identifying and disrupting
terrorist money flows. In addition to the State Department's success
in building the Coalition Against Terror, let me share with you some
of the other work we have been doing.
Terrorist Funding
The first shot in the war against terrorism was fired on September 24
when the President signed executive order 13224. This shot froze the
assets of 27 terrorists, terrorist organizations, and terrorist
financiers associated with al-Qaida and blocks U.S. transactions with
such persons or entities. The Executive Order was later amended to
include 39 additional names of persons and organizations known to
conduct or financially support terrorism. In addition, the assets of
all 22 of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists are now subject to this
blocking order. Additional names will be added in the days ahead.
The September 11 terrorists apparently had enough money to make their
preparations many months, if not years, in advance. We are therefore
encouraging other countries to join in our efforts to clamp down on
terrorist fund raising and money transfers. Funding is a critical
element in these large-scale terrorist operations and in the
recruiting of supporters. We need to choke it off.
A previous Executive Order, in effect since 1995 and renewed each year
since, includes such groups as Hizballah and HAMAS, as well as
al-Qaida, that represent a terrorist threat to the Middle East peace
negotiations.
On September 28 the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted
resolution 1373, binding on all states under international law, which
goes to the heart of how terrorism operates. It obliges all member
states to deny financing, support, and safe harbor for terrorists. It
will also expand information sharing among UN members to combat
international terrorism. A Security Council follow-up mechanism has
been set up to monitor compliance on a continuous basis.
This effort has already yielded results. The United States has frozen
some $4 million and is reviewing many other accounts. We have received
reports of millions of additional dollars being frozen around the
world. Other nations are still seeking to identify terrorist assets
that they have pledged to block. In all, one hundred eleven nations --
more than half the world -- have acted to choke off the oxygen of
money for terrorists, and this is only the beginning.
The Treasury Department-led Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center is
up and running and will be a tremendous help in this overall effort.
It is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of
terrorist funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take
place.
Another important tool in countering terrorist fundraising is the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996, which
makes it a criminal offense for persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction
to knowingly contribute funds or other material support to groups that
the Secretary of State has designated as Foreign Terrorist
Organizations. U.S. law also allows freezing of the designated groups'
assets and denial of visas for members as well as leaders of terrorist
organizations. Last week, Secretary Powell designated 28 such groups,
including al-Qaida.
An important section in the AEDPA is worth repeating for the world at
large.
"(F)oreign terrorist organizations that engage in terrorist activity
are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such
an organization facilitates that conduct."
This is a key point. Before they make a contribution to groups
supporting terrorists, people around the world need to understand that
by doing so they are assisting criminal conduct -- and are themselves
committing a criminal act.
Using this and other legislation as a potential model, we have urged
other countries to tighten up their own laws and regulations to curb
terrorist fundraising and money transfers. Great Britain already has
done so, and other countries, such as Canada, Greece, India, and the
Philippines, have new counterterrorism laws or proposed legislation in
various stages of consideration. We have met with officials of some of
these countries to discuss laws like AEDPA and to exchange ideas and
suggestions.
The State Department has developed a training course in our
Antiterrorism Training Assistance program to help other countries
improve their ability to identify and curb terrorist fund raising and
transfers, and we are encouraging other countries with expertise to
make similar efforts.
In addition, the Administration is making ratification of the
International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of
Terrorism a top priority. This is the newest of 12 U.N. conventions
related to terrorism, and the United States signed it in January 2000.
The Administration is now finalizing proposed implementing legislation
for this Convention, and we strongly encourage the Senate to act
swiftly and provide advice and consent to ratification to this treaty.
Law enforcement
The FBI has mounted the largest criminal investigation in its history,
involving seven thousand agents in an operation truly global in scope.
Thousands of leads are being tracked down, and hundreds of credible
threats have been analyzed. In addition to the hundreds of arrests and
detentions here in this country, hundreds more terrorists and
suspected supporters of terrorism have been arrested or detained in
over 25 countries.
We are building an ever-stronger case against the al-Qaida network. We
have been briefing our allies on what we know so far and receive new
pieces of the puzzle from them every day. We will not stop our efforts
until justice done. The United States has a long memory and an equally
long history of success in seeing terrorists face justice. The most
recent example occurred only a few weeks ago when we arrested a known
terrorist for his role in a brutal 1986 hijacking that killed 22
persons, including two American citizens. With the help of some of our
international friends, U.S. law enforcement officials picked him up
and brought him to the United States to stand trial. He is the 14th
international terrorist to be arrested abroad and brought here to face
American justice. Although he has no known connection to the September
11 events or to al-Qaida, his arrest demonstrates that the United
States will track terrorists who attack Americans no matter how long
it takes. As Secretary Powell has said: "We will defend the rule of
law against the lawless." There is no statute of limitations for
international terror.
Intelligence
The sharing of intelligence information concerning terrorists and
planning for terrorist attacks has grown steadily over the years among
many nations of the world. Such cooperation has resulted in the arrest
of numerous terrorist suspects and the prevention of untold numbers of
attacks. But in the weeks since September 11, the increase in
intelligence sharing among nations has been phenomenal. Both the
amount and quality have vastly improved. We are heartened at this
development as yet another sign of the seriousness shown by the global
coalition in fighting terrorism.
Other Measures
There are a number of other tools that we have been using to counter
terrorism, and we are sharpening and improving them in this new
struggle.
We are utilizing training-related programs to help combat terrorism
overseas and thus also help protect Americans living and traveling
abroad. The State Department's Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA)
program in which we train foreign security and law enforcement
officials is a pillar of this effort. The program not only provides
training but also helps promote our policies and improve our contacts
with foreign officials to achieve our counterterrorism goals. We have
trained more than 20,000 officials from over 100 countries to date. We
are hoping for additional funding for the ATA program in the wake of
the September 11 attacks to permit us to accelerate the pace of this
training.
We have been providing policy and working level seminars and training
to assist countries in preparing for or responding to weapons of mass
destruction terrorism.
We also have developed a Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP) which
utilizes sophisticated computer data base systems and improved
communications to help identify potential terrorists who try to cross
international borders. This program will be most effective in
countries that are major crossroads.
The Department's contribution to the interagency counterterrorism
research and development program, the Technical Support Working Group,
also helps advance in explosives detection and other areas and bolster
our cooperative R&D efforts with Britain, Canada, and Israel.
We have proposed increasing our terrorism information rewards program.
The current maximum reward we can pay to an informant is $5 million.
We propose raising that by several million dollars. This important
program has resulted in the arrest of several terrorist suspects, and
it has generated information about planned terrorist attacks that we
have been able to prevent. We have paid out more than $8 million since
the program has been in place. I am pleased to say that clue to the
generous efforts of some entrepreneurs in New York, a fund has been
created to collect public donations and give them to the Department's
rewards program. This will greatly increase the amount of money we
will be able to pay for information, and the higher amount will
doubtless attract more informants.
The Afghans: Also Victims of Terror
I want to say a few words about the plight of the Afghan people. They
are among the longest suffering victims of the al-Qaida network and of
a regime that has traded its responsibilities to serve and protect
them in favor of support for terror. Where the Taliban has failed its
own people, we have consistently sought to ameliorate the conditions
of the Afghans. Even before the attacks of September 11, the United
States was the most generous provider of relief to the Afghan people.
Last year alone, the United States gave more than $170 million in
humanitarian assistance, roughly two-thirds of the total contribution
of the international community. Now we are giving an additional $320
million in humanitarian assistance, almost matching the $36.5 million
pledged by 26 other nations of the world that have responded to the
needs of the Afghani people. To root out the safehavens of terror, we
look forward to supporting a terrorist-free Afghanistan at peace with
its neighbors, with a government not imposed from the outside, but
supported by a broad base of its diverse population. Afghanistan is a
key step in our war on terror, and our commitment there is steadfast.
The international coalition and our bilateral programs are just some
of the measures we are taking to meet this new challenge. Our response
to the horrific events of September 11 will be broad-based and will
not be completed in a short time. We are committed to a long term
strategic campaign, in concert with the nations of the world that
abhor terrorism, to root out and bring to justice those that use
terrorism. We are in for a long haul. As President Bush has told the
world: "Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to
our enemies, justice will be done."
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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