[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
BUREAU OF COUNTERTERRORISM:
BUDGET, PROGRAMS, AND POLICIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 18, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-135
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
or
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
----------
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey--
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California deceased 3/6/12 deg.
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
RON PAUL, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
JOE WILSON, South Carolina RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
CONNIE MACK, Florida ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID RIVERA, Florida CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New York
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
TED POE, Texas BRAD SHERMAN, California
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESS
The Honorable Daniel Benjamin, Ambassador-at-Large, Coordinator
for Counterterrorism, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S.
Department of State............................................ 8
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade: Prepared statement..... 3
The Honorable Daniel Benjamin: Prepared statement................ 10
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 32
Hearing minutes.................................................. 33
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement.......... 35
BUREAU OF COUNTERTERRORISM: BUDGET, PROGRAMS, AND POLICIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Nonproliferation, and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward
R. Royce (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Royce. This hearing will come to order.
Today we welcome Ambassador Benjamin back to the
subcommittee for our yearly look at the State Department's
handling of counterterrorism issues. And while al-Qaeda has
taken major blows in the past year, the terrorism threat itself
remains very real.
Late last year the committee was notified that the Office
of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, which has been in
existence since 1972, would transform into the Bureau of
Counterterrorism. According to the State Department, this
elevation was natural, as the office's responsibilities had
outgrown the coordinator title.
When reported to Congress, the State Department noted that
only existing funds would be required to create the new Bureau
and that any changes in personnel would be, in their words,
``marginal.'' Well, for this fiscal year, the Bureau is seeking
to increase staffing by 17 percent, which is a rather
unorthodox definition of ``marginal.''
The State Department would like for this new bureau to be
headed by an Assistant Secretary, and specifically by
Ambassador Benjamin, our witness here. The Department could
have made this move on its own, but it chose to take the heads
of its new Energy and Post-Conflict Bureaus' Assistant
Secretaries instead and appoint them instead. Making that
choice, and now facing a statutory cap for Assistant Secretary
positions, the State Department is seeking legislative relief
to allow the Counterterrorism Bureau to also be headed by an
Assistant Secretary.
Most Members of Congress probably think that the State
Department can be run quite well by the 24 Assistant
Secretaries and the dozens of special envoys it already has,
and that is why we have raised this point before, our
suspicions about this, and we indeed have found ourselves in
this same conundrum with circumventing the cap.
But more critical than title, it is the control of
resources that will seal this new Bureau's fate. While we have
a few hundred million dollars in counterterrorism assistance
money flowing through the State Department, less than half of
it--less than half that amount is controlled by Ambassador
Benjamin's bureau. Posts and regional bureaus control the rest
of the funds. If the Bureau of Counterterrorism is to play as
robust a role as envisioned--and, by the way, we on this
subcommittee support that role--that equation has got to change
in terms of control of those funds.
The counterterrorism landscape has changed substantially
since the Ambassador's testimony 1 year ago. Osama bin Laden
and Anwar al-Awlaki are now dead. But senior Obama
administration officials have gone so far as to declare that
the United States is--and I am going to quote the
administration--``within reach of strategically defeating al-
Qaeda.''
Yet just weeks before bin Laden's death we heard testimony
before this subcommittee--Ambassador Benjamin mentioned at the
time--``we continue to see a strong flow of new recruits into
many of the most dangerous terrorist organizations.'' So we
will hear if that is still the case today. But a year has
brought other changes as well.
Radical elements have Egypt looking into the abyss, armed
militias have Libya deeply factionalized, there are concerns
over foreign fighters in Syria. It is hard to see how some of
these developments have not harmed U.S. counterterrorism
efforts.
Other regions, like Africa and the Western Hemisphere, are
of concern. Earlier this year this subcommittee moved
legislation focused on Iran's growing role in the Western
Hemisphere, and we have got groups like Boko Haram, which means
education is sinful, carrying out attacks across Nigeria,
creating mayhem there.
Pakistan, specifically its security services, and their
backing of an array of militant groups, is a perennial concern
for us. Just the other week, the State Department announced a
reward for information leading to the conviction of Hafiz
Mohammed Said, the head of the ``army of the pure,'' or as they
are also called, Lashkar-e-Taiba. That group was the outfit
that carried out the attacks on Mumbai.
That this individual continues to operate freely today
inside Pakistan certainly is an indictment of Islamabad as a
counterterrorism partner. Unfortunately, there are many other
such individuals that are loose and maybe did not commit that
particular rampage but are planning the next one, that are
operating freely in Pakistan today as well.
We look forward to discussing these and other issues with
Ambassador Benjamin, and I will now turn to Ranking Member
Sherman for an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Royce follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Sherman. Thank you, Chairman Royce, for holding this
important hearing. In November 2011, the Congress was notified
that the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, which
had been in existence since 1972, would be upgraded to the
Bureau of Counterterrorism. On July 4, 2012, the new bureau was
announced. For Fiscal Year 2013, the administration has
requested $238 million to fund various antiterrorism programs
with the Bureau.
In Fiscal Year 2011, actual spending for these programs was
$286 million, and in Fiscal Year 2012 the likely amount will be
$268 million. So the administration is actually seeking a
significant decrease in funds available for antiterrorism
programs at the State Department.
I would like to hear from our witness how the transition
from an office to a bureau has aided our counterterrorism
efforts. I would like to thank Ambassador Benjamin for his
service and look forward to his continuing service in this
difficult global environment.
I am considerably less skeptical than the chairman of the
Bureau of Counterterrorism being in fact a bureau and not an
office. And even if the administration was seeking an increase
in funding for the Bureau, I, given the importance of your
work, would be supportive. But it appears from the statistics I
just went over that the administration is able to function
without seeking an increase.
One program of particular importance is the Countering
Violent Extremism, CVE Program, that aims to prevent at-risk
youth from turning to terrorism to contest militant propaganda
and persuade terrorists to renounce violence and to renounce
their affiliation with terrorist organizations.
The State Department has identified five CVE priority
countries--Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, and Pakistan.
I especially want to focus on Pakistan, where I think it is
very important that we reach out through the Voice of America,
not only in the Urdu language but in other languages that are
commonly spoken in Pakistan.
This should not be interpreted by the Pakistani Government
as being an effort toward separatism. If you are trying to sell
products in Los Angeles, you wouldn't dream of having your
advertising program being in only one language. Walmart is not
trying to separate any part of California from the United
States, but they are trying to sell a product to people that
speak a variety of languages.
We have captured or killed most of the world's dangerous--
many of the world's dangerous terrorists, but we have not been
fully successful in the war of ideas and stemming recruitment.
I know the creation of the CVE program was a priority for
Ambassador Benjamin, and I would like the Ambassador to comment
on the effectiveness of this modest program, which is now at
$15 million, and whether it needs to be expanded either in
amount spent in each country or to add more than five priority
countries.
To defeat terrorists long term we must take steps to reduce
recruitment from--of young Muslim men into extremist, violent,
and Islamist organizations. I agree that one of the most
important missions of the Bureau of Counterterrorism will be to
lead U.S. Government efforts to counter violent extremism by
delegitimizing the extremist narrative and developing positive
alternatives for young Muslims vulnerable to recruitment.
Now, I do have one area that I would like to--where I
differ from State Department policy, and that is with regard to
the MEK and Camp Liberty. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in
2010 that the State Department made procedural errors in
reclassifying this dissident group as a terrorist organization.
The court opinion said that the State Department failed to
accord the PMOI the due process protections required by law and
needs to review the status. We would like to see the State
Department act. I realize that Ambassador Benjamin is not in
full control of this entire process. To consider an MEK
petition for a writ of mandamus, an extraordinary remedy not
often granted by the courts, especially not in the foreign
policy area, the court has scheduled an oral argument for May
8, 2012.
Ambassador Benjamin, your predecessor, Ambassador Dell
Dailey, has recommended the MEK be removed from the list of
terrorist organizations. I am not aware, and I got the
classified briefings, of anything this group has done in recent
years that would justify continued designation.
I will note later in this excessively long opening
statement that the Haqqani group has not been designated, and
one has little difficulty identifying acts that the Haqqani
group has committed. That should justify putting them on the
list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The State Department should not list groups as terrorist
organizations and just leave them there. The purpose of the
designation is in part to force the organization to change its
behavior, and whatever behavior caused the MEK to be listed,
and even that is subject to dispute. No one asserts that they
have not identified--that they have taken action in recent
years that would cause them to be put on the list, and of
course the contrast to the Haqqani network is extensive.
I have gone on a little long. I will make a few more
opening comment remarks when I am called upon for questions,
and that means I will have even less time to hear from the
witness, which is why I am going to listen to him so intently
during his opening statement.
Mr. Royce. Mr. Poe.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador Benjamin, it
seems to me we still have a continuous problem. Iraq does not
want Camp Liberty to be a permanent camp for MEK residents. You
can look at the camp and see that that is obvious. The
conditions, in my opinion, are deplorable. Rudy Giuliani says
it is not a camp; it is a concentration camp.
The MEK residents who were all but forced out of their
homes in Camp Ashraf don't want to be in Camp Liberty for a
long period of time either, and the United States, I don't
believe, wants them to stay for a long period of time and risk
possibly another assault and massacre by the Iraqi Government,
who I think gives into Iranian pressure.
The problem we have is no evidence that the MEK residents
will have anywhere to go once they are determined to be
political refugees. There are 1,600 residents in the camp.
After 4 months from when one transition--the transition process
began, no one, not one person, has been resettled to a third
country or even been declared a political refugee.
Until people in the camp start being resettled to third
countries--third party countries, why should Camp Ashraf
residents view this as a temporary home? The center of this
whole issue is the designation by our Government, specifically
the State Department of the foreign terrorist organization of
the MEK.
Our country may be willing to take some of the refugees.
But as long as we call them ``terrorists,'' we are not going to
take them, and third party--or third party countries aren't
going to take them either. The fact is, Ambassador--and correct
me if I am wrong--we know of no country as of today that have
taken or are willing to take MEK residents. I believe it is all
because of the designation.
I hope you can explain why it is that the reevaluation of
the MEK's FTO designation is taking so long. Secretary Clinton
told us back in February that she has folks ``working around
the clock on this.'' And I admire her if that is true, and I
believe it to be true. But what is the hold up? Is there new
evidence that is to be considered? Confusion about what the law
is? Is this country worried about the mullahs in Iran and what
they will think? What is the problem? Why is there no
reevaluation?
The FTO designation is not just some side issue. It is the
one thing that affects the people in Camp Ashraf and progress
being made to move those people to other countries in the
world. I, as Ranking Member Sherman has said, have seen all of
the evidence that we can be given about the FTO designation. It
is not compelling that the MEK should stay on the FTO
designation.
I am willing to see any evidence. I suggest, and strongly
urge, that the State Department, who is stonewalling this, show
us the evidence or delist the MEK. That is what they need to
do. We need to treat the people in Camp Ashraf like Human
beings. They should not be confined to a concentration camp, as
Rudy Giuliani has said.
It is interesting--today we heard in the Foreign Affairs
Committee from not the government officials but private
officials that North Korea should be an FTO designation, but
they are not. I think the little fellow from the desert,
Ahmadinejad, he should be designated as a foreign terrorist
organization, but not the MEK. Show the proof or delist the
MEK.
And I will have some more questions later. Thank you for
being here. I yield back.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Judge Poe.
We are joined today by Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, the
State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and head
of the Bureau of Counterterrorism. Ambassador Benjamin has been
the Senior Counterterrorism Advisor to the Secretary of State
since 2009. In the late '90s, Mr. Benjamin served on the
National Security Council as Director for Counterterrorism in
the Office of Transnational Threats.
Before entering government, Mr. Benjamin was a foreign
correspondent for Time Magazine and for The Wall Street
Journal. Ambassador Benjamin was the co-author of ``The Age of
Sacred Terror,'' a book that won several awards. So we want to
welcome you back to the committee.
Your complete written testimony, of course, is going to be
entered into the record. So we would ask that you give us a 5-
minute summary here, if you could, and then we will go to
questions. Please begin.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANIEL BENJAMIN, AMBASSADOR-AT-
LARGE, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, BUREAU OF
COUNTERTERRORISM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Benjamin. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Sherman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you
again for the opportunity to appear before you today. And as
you mentioned, I have submitted testimony for the record that
provides additional details about the Counterterrorism Bureau's
policies, programs, and budget.
Since I appeared before this committee the last time, my
office was upgraded to full bureau status, fulfilling one of
the key recommendations of the quadrennial diplomacy and
development review. This change will strengthen the State
Department's ability to carry out its civilian counterterrorism
mission around the world.
In coordination with Department leadership, the national
security staff, and other U.S. Government agencies, the Bureau
develops and implements civilian counterterrorism strategies,
policies, operations, and programs. Our efforts constitute what
we refer to as strategic counterterrorism. It is an approach
that Secretary Clinton has championed, and its basic premise is
that United States CT efforts require a whole of government
approach that must go beyond traditional intelligence,
military, and law enforcement functions.
As the national strategy for counterterrorism released last
year makes clear, we are engaged in a broad, sustained, and
integrated campaign that harnesses every tool of American
power--civilian, military, and the power of our values,
together with the concerted efforts of allies, partners, and
multilateral institutions to address a short-term and a long-
term challenge.
Our tactical abilities, as exemplified by the extraordinary
mission against bin Laden last year, answer a critical national
need, but they are only one part of our comprehensive CT
strategy, which also includes concerted action to reduce
radicalization, stop the flow of new recruits, and create an
international environment that is inhospitable for all forms of
support and activities required to sustain international
terrorist organizations, including fund raising, recruitment,
illicit travel and training. And while these activities may not
grab the headlines, they are wise investments against the long-
term counterterrorism challenge.
Achieving these ends requires smart power and the
integration of all of our foreign policy tools--diplomacy and
development, together with defense, intelligence, and law
enforcement capabilities. Only this way can we empower our
partners to deal with the threats within their borders and
regions, so that they can address local and regional threats
before they become global ones that demand a much more costly
response. The State Department has a prominent role to play on
the strategic side, as these elements of our CT work are
civilian-led activities.
Let me now speak about capacity building. Weak states serve
as breeding grounds for terrorism and instability. When states
have the political will, we can assist with capacity building
programs to build law enforcement capability and good
governance. Our key capacity building programs are the
Antiterrorism Assistance Program, Counterterrorist Finance, and
TIP/PISCES.
Lessons learned from our ongoing capacity building efforts
have demonstrated that sustained donor attention, partner
nation political will, and sizeable investments make a
difference.
Let me talk about countering violent extremism. What
sustains terrorist groups is the steady flow of recruits who
replace terrorists who are killed or captured. We must undercut
the ideological and rhetorical underpinnings that make the
violent extremist world view attractive, while also addressing
local drivers of extremism.
To delegitimize the narrative of al-Qaeda, its affiliates,
and its adherence, the CT Bureau helps stand up the Center for
Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, the CSCC, an
interagency body that works with communicators in the field to
counter terrorist narratives and misinformation. It draws on
the full range of intelligence information and analysis to
provide context and feedback for communicators.
The CSCC challenges extremist messages online in Arabic,
Urdu, and Somali on forums, blogs, and social networking sites,
and also produces and disseminates targeted, attributed videos.
Successful CVE involves more than messaging. We are also
developing programs to provide alternatives for at-risk youth,
including social media programs to generate constructive local
initiatives. And we are supporting skillbuilding, youth
leadership activities, and mentoring efforts.
Let me turn, finally, to multilateral engagement, and in
particular the Global Counterterrorism Forum. Strengthening
partnerships is at the heart of our strategic counterterrorism
efforts, and one of our key initiatives is building the needed
international architecture to address 21st century terrorism,
and thereby to fill a critical gap; the lack of a nimble,
multilateral platform to allow counterterrorism policymakers
and practitioners to share expertise, experiences, and lessons
learned; and of course to mobilize resources and political
will.
To this end, the Bureau created the Global Counterterrorism
Forum. At its September launch, Secretary Clinton was quite
clear. ``We don't need another debating society,'' she said,
``we need a catalyst for action.'' In this spirit, two
deliverables announced at the September launch demonstrate its
action-oriented nature. The first was approximately $100
million contributed by several members to develop rule of law
institutions.
The United Arab Emirates announced the second deliverable--
its intention to host the first ever international center of
excellence on countering violent extremism, which is slated to
open in Abu Dhabi in the fall of 2012. The center will
initially support research, dialogue, and training to
strengthen the emerging international CVE community.
I see that I have already gone over my time, and so with
that in mind I will now conclude my remarks, and I look forward
to your questions.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Benjamin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Royce. Thank you. I am going to go to Mr. Sherman first
for his questions.
Mr. Sherman. I will pick up where I left off in the opening
statement about foreign terrorist organization designation. I
have advocated for well over a decade that you and your
predecessors--for any listed terrorist organization that
evidences a desire not to be on the list, as the IRA once
evidenced such a desire, lay out what our expectations are of
that organization, and, if they do meet those conditions, to
remove them from the terrorist list.
I am concerned that the continued designation of the MEK
first doesn't meet that standard in that there weren't clear
expectations that we have laid out for the MEK, that they could
meet and justify taking them off the list.
The second concern I have is that maybe the process has
been influenced by a poorly conceived notion that we will be
nice to Tehran and Tehran will be nice to us, and that,
therefore, we will list the enemies that they seem to hate the
most as a terrorist organization.
And then, finally, I think that the continued designation
of the MEK negatively influences the ability of the UNHCR to
promptly resettle people of Camp Ashraf, and to prevent violent
attacks on them. We have seen the Iraqis justify the violent
attacks on Camp Ashraf because of the MEK's designation, and we
have seen individuals at that camp unable to get refugee status
in Europe, in part because of that designation.
When reviewing potential FTO targets, the State Department
considers terrorist acts that the groups have carried out,
whether the group has engaged in planning and preparations for
possible future terrorism and whether it retains the capacity
and intent to carry out such attacks. And the organization's
activities must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or our
national security interests.
There are times when perhaps we should add to the foreign
terrorist list more quickly. We did not designate al-Qaeda of
the Arabian Peninsula until days before the attempted bombing
of the airline in 2009 by one of its members. Similarly, the
Pakistani Taliban was not designated until months after the
attack on Times Square.
And we have not yet designated the Afghani Taliban, and I
have co-sponsored with Mr. Poe, who was just here, a bill to
designate the Haqqani network, which I think the State
Department should designate long before we get that bill
passed.
So, Ambassador Benjamin, what can we do to make the
designation process more nimble, better able to carry out its
purposes and act quickly to designate those organizations that
are a real threat, and to remove those who either were never a
threat or have changed their behavior appropriately?
Ambassador Benjamin. Ranking Member Sherman, we certainly
agree with your desire to be more nimble, or at least to be
able to work more quickly on designations. And I would like to
point out that in the last 2 years the office, now the bureau,
has done more designations than in the previous 8 years
combined, and we have significantly stepped up the pace of
work.
Mr. Royce spoke before about additional staff. We are
trying to build up our staff so that we can do more in this
area. We consider it a vital part of our business and an
essential part of our national counterterrorism efforts. And I
would add that the last year was in fact the most productive
year we have ever had.
But having said that, the law, nonetheless, and the
practice that has been established by the Department over the
last--over recent decades requires us to be extremely diligent,
deliberative, and complete--comprehensive in our efforts here,
and we have not yet found any shortcuts to providing--to
compiling the kinds of baseline analyses and inventory of
information necessary both to list and delist.
So I have a lot of people who are working very, very hard
on this, but we haven't yet found the work-around that will get
us to an instant recognition of whether a group belongs on or
off the list. We still have to do the hard work.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. I know your folks are working hard,
you have done a lot, appreciate your service, and, at the same
time, a list that would list the MEK but not the Haqqani
network is hard to justify to my constituents. And I yield
back.
Mr. Royce. Just for the record, the overall question of
elevating to a bureau, as you and I have discussed, we
supported elevation to a bureau. The point was that the State
Department had the capacity to do that. The point was that the
State Department seeked to circumvent the process when there
were actually three elevations to bureaus that they were
attempting to negotiate. They had two slots.
So at the end of the day, despite assurances in terms of
what the overall staffing would be, you now have more personnel
as a consequence, including the 17 percent increase. So that
was the issue at hand for us, so the overall totality in terms
of what the State Department does with its personnel positions
and its ever-increasing size and scope.
Getting down to the issues at hand, the one that I wanted
to ask you about was a quote from a columnist last week. I
don't know the answer to this, but here is his question.
``Osama bin Laden lived in five houses in Pakistan, fathered
four children there, kept three wives . . . had two children
born in public hospitals and through it all, the Pakistani
Government did not know one single thing about his whereabouts?
Can this possibly be true?'' he asks.
I don't know what the answer to that is, but I did want to
ask, Ambassador Benjamin, for your judgment on that.
Ambassador Benjamin. Mr. Royce, if I may, first very
briefly just on that 17 percent figure, I would like to just
underscore that that figure--that projection had already been
established well before the work to become a bureau had been--
--
Mr. Royce. And, Ambassador, you and I don't really have an
argument about that. It is the overall decision by the State
Department to not live within the constraints put by the
Congress in terms of the total number of bureaus. And the easy
way for them to get around it was not to elevate you to bureau
status within the existing confines--so I just want to explain
that. We are good on that.
Ambassador Benjamin. Okay.
Mr. Royce. But it is the agency, it is the Department that
I think needs to play by the rules that are set out in terms of
the constraints. But go ahead with your----
Ambassador Benjamin. With regard to the issue of bin
Laden's presence in Pakistan during those years, I can only
reiterate what you have heard from other officials. We do find
it remarkable, but we still, to this point, do not have any
evidence that suggests that the Pakistani Government per se had
any knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts.
And we have certainly looked at this many different ways,
and it is certainly the case that there were some people--I
think as then-CIA Director Panetta said--there was undoubtedly
the case that there were people in Pakistan who knew where bin
Laden was. But we have no conclusive evidence that the
Pakistani Government knew where he was.
Mr. Royce. Let me ask you, in Africa--get your thought here
on Boko Haram, and especially its relationship with al-Qaeda as
well as Mali and the problems there. After the Easter attacks
by Boko Haram on a number of churches in Nigeria, dozens of
people were left dead, and we had a high-ranking member of the
State Department say that religion is not driving extremist
violence in Nigeria.
Then, you had following that the recent military coup in
Mali, and Islamist fighters have now descended on the northern
part of the country. Top leaders of al-Qaeda's North African
branch have been seen in the area reportedly, so I would just
ask you, what is the outlook there?
I had a Muslim governor of a northern Nigerian province
tell me that he was very, very concerned with the change in the
indigenous Islam of Nigeria as imams were being imported always
with--you know, they bring a lot of money with them. But there
was always an imam from the Gulf states who would then set up
shop and begin expressing a different type of Islam than the
indigenous Islam that he had grown up with. And he was
concerned for his safety, his security, in northern Nigeria as
a result.
I would just like your insights here.
Ambassador Benjamin. Thank you very much, sir. We are
deeply concerned by what is going on in Nigeria. And while I
would agree with whomever made the remark that religion was not
the principal driver, it is certainly the case that extremism
in the north and in Nigeria is being expressed in intercommunal
and interreligious strife, and there have been lots of attacks
on churches. That is obviously the case.
We are deeply concerned about any connections that Boko
Haram, which is a loosely organized organization, in fact sort
of a cluster of organizations, may have, in particular with al-
Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb. And it seems clear that some of
their tradecraft, some of their ability to carry out terrorist
attacks, was learned from AQIM.
We continue to encourage the Nigerian Government at the
very highest levels to also effectively engage communities
vulnerable to extremist violence by addressing the underlying
political and socioeconomic problems in the north, and those
problems are considerable.
The Department is going to work through--together with
other relevant agencies, and the Government of Nigeria and
international partners, to identify ways that we can erode the
capacity of Boko Haram to carry out terrorist attacks against
the U.S., against such international targets as the U.N.
compound that was bombed, and also to prevent attacks against
our friends and their interests in Nigeria as well.
Mr. Royce. Well, if I could interject here in terms of
putting an end to that, the observations he made to me, the
Muslim governor of this northern state, is that as long as you
have the importation of religious leaders with the students,
according to him, he had been in this particular madrasa, so--
which was across the street from the madrasa, so where he was
educated, but with a very, very different curriculum.
He said the young men were wearing Osama bin Laden T-
shirts. If you indoctrinate and raise a generation of young
kids with that type of ideology, just the same issue that we
are talking about with Pakistan, as long as these deobandi
schools, some 600 of these particular deobandi schools continue
to do that in Pakistan, and now that they are doing it in
Nigeria and have been doing it for a while, you have got to
expect problems from the graduating class.
And you talk a lot about addressing these different
factors, but to me it seems that the brainwashing and
indoctrination of this type of ideology so early in life, when
you are teaching people to commit jihad, and giving them that
absolutist viewpoint, which now this particular Boko Haram
wants to--you know, if education itself is a sin, and the goal
is simply to indoctrinate and brainwash, without solving that
problem, without shutting that down, the rest of it doesn't
seem too persuasive to me.
Our inability to get the government in Pakistan to shut
down those 600 schools over the last generation is something
that is beyond me. It is beyond me why the Pakistani Government
won't do it, and my concern today over what is happening in
Nigeria is the same.
Ambassador Benjamin. If I may, sir, you know, the world of
Islam is profoundly complex. And there is no doubt that there
are elements of--there are groups, individual donors, and the
like, who advocate beliefs that involve a strong anti-Western
sentiment of the kind that you are describing, who are funding
activities far from their own homes, and this is indeed a major
problem.
The ability to crowd out or to combat extremist ideologies
will depend to some important extent on the ability of those--
of countries and of their donors to provide the social goods
such as education that will make those schools unattractive.
Mr. Royce. All right. But we provided the schools in
Pakistan, or helped do so. I went and visited some of those
schools the last time I went back. Those schools have been
blown up, I assume by graduates of these deobandi schools. All
right? So all I am saying is until those schools are shut down
by that government in Pakistan, this is going to be a recurring
problem for Pakistanis and for the United States.
And certainly for our troops in Afghanistan, for people in
southern Russia, for people in Mumbai, for people in the
caucuses, for people in Central Asia, it is a problem that is
getting exported today, and the problem is the brainwashing
that goes on in those deobandi schools, and the ineffectual
effort to get the government to shut it down.
Ambassador Benjamin. If I may, sir, just one more point,
and that is that we do approach other governments with
regularity and intervene with them to tell them about
individuals who are supporting extremism in ways that lead to
violence and the unacceptable outcomes that it brings with
them.
This is an activity that we embrace, and it goes on in a
number of different channels. It is clearly something that is
going to keep us busy for quite some time to come, because of
the considerable amount of churn that is going on out there in
that world, and that has led to the kinds of rise in extremism
that we have seen in some areas.
But we also know that in particular there are socioeconomic
grievances in places like northern Nigeria that do need to be
addressed. And as they are addressed, extremists will have much
less opportunity to gain a foothold.
Now, I did also want to just mention the issue that you
raised regarding northern Mali. I think that it is important to
recognize that northern Mali has been a troubled area for many
years. It has been the traditional safe haven of al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb for a number of years, really since that
group was largely pushed out of its traditional reach in
Algeria. And it is a very sparsely populated area and was
always only barely under the control of Bamako.
The U.S. Government has invested significant resources in
helping Mali and its neighbors reclaim that sanctuary and
extend the writ of the government there. Unfortunately, those
efforts are at a halt now, because of the coup. I would not say
that there has been a large new influx of extremists into
northern Mali. What here has been is a Touareg rebellion, the
latest in a long series going back over a century.
And this has disrupted all of our ability to work against
AQIM in that region with our regional partners, and we have a
lot of positive successes to report over the last few years in
that collaboration. But we are deeply concerned about the
situation in Mali and working in particular with ECOWAS and
others in Africa to see to it that Mali returns to democracy,
and we can return to our collaborative efforts to rid northern
Mali of AQIM.
Mr. Royce. I am going to go to Mr. Poe. But before I do,
the profile of many of these extremists are engineers, they are
people who have middle class backgrounds. Certainly, bin Laden
is an example of that. The Muslim governor I know came up in a
madrasa with 1/100th of the budget of the one that--and he is
not a radical.
What has created the radicalism is the fact that we have
not stopped these particular people from indoctrinating kids.
And until that is done, the problem will expand.
Mr. Poe.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Benjamin, we meet
again. It is kind of like Groundhog Day. Every 6 months, a
year, we come to the same part of town and discuss the same
issues. To my understanding, a foreign terrorist organization
has got to do several things to be a foreign terrorist
organization.
First, they must be a foreign terrorist organization. They
must engage in some kind of terrorism or terrorist activity and
have the capability to engage in that terrorist act, and they
must threaten the security of the United States or U.S.
nationals.
In 2004, the MEK gave up their weapons to the United States
military. Since that time, name one terrorist act that the MEK
has committed since 2004.
Ambassador Benjamin. It is not our contention that the MEK
can be--has committed an act since the group was disarmed.
Mr. Poe. Excuse me. Let me just--I only have limited time,
so you can't--there has not been an act of terrorism by the MEK
against the United States since they gave up their weapons to
us. Is that right?
Ambassador Benjamin. We do not allege that there was such
an act.
Mr. Poe. Do they have the capability today--2012--to engage
in some terrorist act against the United States?
Ambassador Benjamin. We have not come to a conclusion on
that.
Mr. Poe. You don't know whether they can--I mean, you are
the guy who is supposed to tell us about terrorism in the
world. You don't know whether they--MEK has the capability to
commit a terrorist act against the United States?
Ambassador Benjamin. Mr. Poe, no one has been in to inspect
or otherwise investigate what is in Camp Ashraf right now. And
we also cannot rule out the possibility that the MEK may have
weaponry elsewhere.
Mr. Poe. You don't know that. You don't have any evidence
that the MEK has a stockpile of weapons someplace. You have no
evidence of that, do you?
Ambassador Benjamin. I can't go into the intelligence
record on this in this setting.
Mr. Poe. Well, let me ask you this. Since I have seen all
of the intelligence that you have furnished this committee,
myself, and Ranking Member Sherman and others, is there any new
evidence since the last briefing we got by your department and
the CIA? And if there is, are we going to get a briefing on
this?
Ambassador Benjamin. Sir, we would certainly be happy to
entertain a request for another briefing from the intelligence
community. I think it is safe to say that there is always
intelligence coming in. And, frankly, I don't know exactly what
was in the briefing you got, which was quite some time ago, but
I will say that this is a deliberative process. And we are
working hard on it, and we are not finished.
But I do want to emphasize that as the Secretary has said,
given the ongoing efforts to relocate the residents of Camp
Ashraf to Camp Haria, closure of Camp Ashraf, the MEK's main
paramilitary base, will be a key factor in any decision
regarding the MEK's FTO status.
Mr. Poe. Last year in May when you were here you told me
that the State Department was going to, and I quote, ``make a
decision within 6 months on whether to continue the designation
or to delist them.'' We are a year later. How much longer is it
going to be before you all can make a decision?
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, I certainly regret the fact that
my prediction on that was incorrect. I cannot give you a date
certain. As you know, the parties are in court on that as well.
We are working as fast as we can. And as I said before, and as
the Secretary has said, the closure of Camp Ashraf will be a
key factor in any decision.
Mr. Poe. Without going into any classified information,
have you received any new information in the last year about
the MEK's activities as a foreign terrorist organization?
Ambassador Benjamin. We have certainly collected more
information in the last year. And, in fact, we received
information from the MEK itself, I believe in June, and had an
exchange between our attorneys and theirs over this issue.
Mr. Poe. So have you received any information that they are
continuing--that they are a foreign terrorist organization? A
specific question, not what you have received from them, have
you gotten any information in the last year that the MEK, who
doesn't have any weapons, is a foreign terrorist organization?
Ambassador Benjamin. Again, sir, that really does go to the
question of intelligence, which I just can't discuss in this
setting.
Mr. Poe. We will--I am requesting the briefing through the
appropriate chairman that had that confidential briefing. May I
have unanimous consent for another minute?
Mr. Royce. Granted.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very quickly, when I was
in Iraq last year with other members of the committee, we
wanted to go see Camp Ashraf. One reason that Maliki
indignantly refused to allow us to go to the camp, and one
reason he claimed he was treating the people at Camp Ashraf the
way he was--in a very inhumane manner, in my opinion--was
because the United States continues to put them on the foreign
terrorist organization.
Is the United States succumbing to the pressure of Maliki
and the Iranian Government, the Mullahs specifically, to keep
them on the FTO organization list?
Ambassador Benjamin. Absolutely not. Our decision is
entirely going to be on the merits, and we are not keeping them
on the list because of anyone else's concerns or views
regarding the group.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Poe. Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I begin, may
I ask unanimous consent my full statement be entered into the
record?
Mr. Royce. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Without objection, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Ambassador Benjamin. The Arab Spring, I just came
back from both Egypt and Libya over the break and have some
views about what is happening in both of those countries. From
the United States' point of view, does the Arab Spring and its
outcome so far help or hurt or have no impact on antiterrorism/
counterterrorism policy?
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, it is an excellent question,
sir. Let me frame it this way. The Arab Spring, the Arab
Awakening presents everyone who opposes extremism with an
extraordinary opportunity. And that is to build the democracies
in those countries, countries where people were denied their
legitimate rights to build the kinds of democracies that would
provide a place where people could express their dissent
without turning to violence, where people would have a stake in
the society, so that they would not want to turn to violence.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Ambassador, I understand that. My
question is really very particular. Are there transitional
governments in both Libya and Egypt, and Tunisia for that
matter--do you find cooperation is about the same, improved, or
actually degraded?
Ambassador Benjamin. I would say that in the case of
Tunisia it is undoubtedly improved significantly, and in fact
my office will be conducting programs under the antiterrorism
assistance program there. There is no question that there has
been an improvement. We have a better relationship with the
Tunis government.
I would say that we have a good but nascent relationship on
counterterrorism with Libya, and our counterterrorism
cooperation continues with Egypt, which is obviously a state
nation going through considerable major events. But we continue
to work closely with them, and we are optimistic that that
cooperation will continue into the future.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. With respect to
Pakistan, I have two questions. One is, first of all, is the
United States Government satisfied that after the tragic
incident on the border that we are back on track in terms of
cooperation and collaboration with respect to
counterterrorists?
Ambassador Benjamin. As Secretary Clinton has said, this is
a very complex relationship that we have with Pakistan. And
there is no question that there has been something of a pause,
an interregnum, if you will, caused by the tragic incident in
Mohmand.
We are hopeful, now that the Pakistani Parliament has
concluded its deliberations, that we can continue to build the
relationship and to get over the tensions of the past. We know
this won't be easy. There are a lot of contentious issues, but
we believe that we are going again in the right direction.
Mr. Connolly. Are they cooperating?
Ambassador Benjamin. On a number of issues, they certainly
are.
Mr. Connolly. On April 12--you mentioned the Parliament. On
April 12, Pakistan's Parliament unanimously demanded the end of
all U.S. drone strikes in Pakistani territory. What is the
reaction of the United States Government to that? And if they
are cooperating with us, how does--that seems to fly in the
face of cooperation.
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, we are still studying the
resolution that the Pakistani Parliament passed, and we are
engaging in talks with the government to see what the
implications of that are. And of course this is a program that
we don't discuss in public, so I am afraid I can't really go
beyond that.
Mr. Connolly. Well, without discussing the program, let us
just discuss the policy. When another legislative body
unanimously does something that would suggest that certainly at
least on the legislative side of that government they have
taken a pretty firm position of non-cooperation, it is not a
classified matter that the United States has deployed drones
both in Pakistan and across the border.
Should the Congress of the United States not read into that
a resolve to end cooperation, at least with respect to the
deployment of that technology, without getting into the
deployment of that technology?
Ambassador Benjamin. My own view, sir, is that the prudent
thing to do is allow us to have our conversations with the
Pakistani Government, and to see how it wishes to act on the
basis of a resolution which I believe is non-binding.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I know my time has ended, but I
do think this is a very important development. And I understand
the diplomatic nicety being expressed here by Ambassador
Benjamin, but I would simply say for the record that I think
this is a grave matter. And I think that while the Ambassador
pleads for patience, and he deserves patience, patience is
wearing thin I think in the Congress on both sides of the aisle
on this matter.
With that, I thank the chair for the time.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Connolly.
I had one last question for Ambassador Benjamin. And that--
just going through your testimony last year before the
committee, you testified that ``we continue to see a strong
flow of new recruits into many of the most dangerous terrorist
organizations.'' And I was going to ask you if that strong flow
is still the state of play. What do you see?
Ambassador Benjamin. It is hard to measure the flow of
recruits, but we have a strong sense that in many different
parts of the world the terrorist groups are indeed gaining
strength. This is certainly the case in Yemen where AQAP, al-
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has--now holds territory, as I
mentioned in my statement, and where it has picked up
membership.
We have seen that what is going on, admittedly not in an AQ
affiliate, but in Boko Harem, which you mentioned before,
suggests that that group has grown in strength. We do believe
that AQIM and the Islamic Maghreb has also probably added some
recruits to its ranks.
The exception is probably al-Qaeda core in the federally
administered tribal areas. That group is in particularly
difficult circumstances, as I think is well known to this
subcommittee. But, you know, I believe that our work in
strategic counterterrorism, and particularly in countering
violent extremism, is as essential as ever, precisely because
even though many of the peaks of this movement have been cut
off and don't threaten us in the way they did before, there
remains a large number of people out there who are committed to
violence against the United States, its values, and its
friends. And that is why I believe that we need to do what we
can to cut off the flow of recruits to these organizations.
Mr. Royce. One of the areas where counterterrorism has been
pretty effective is with the Philippines. The Joint Special
Operations Task Force Philippines, do you see that continuing
as it has?
Ambassador Benjamin. Sir, I think that is a question best
for the Department of Defense. But I would certainly agree with
you that both on the military side and on the civilian side we
have had very good results in the Philippines. And I think it
demonstrates the kind of advances you can make with a robust
capacity building effort, and robust coordination between our
military and our others.
And when I look around the region, in particular of
Southeast Asia, I think that we have a strong model of what you
can do with robust engagement with these countries, whether it
is the Philippines, Indonesia, or others. And I would certainly
commend that to the attention of the committee.
Mr. Royce. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador
Benjamin, and thank you for your testimony here today.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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