Threats to the American Homeland After Killing Bin Laden: an Assessment

THREATS TO THE AMERICAN HOMELAND AFTER KILLING BIN LADEN: AN ASSESSMENT HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION MAY 25, 2011 Serial No. 112–25 Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 72–235 PDF WASHINGTON : 2012 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY PETER T. KING, New York, Chairman LAMAR SMITH, Texas BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California LORETTA SANCHEZ, California MIKE ROGERS, Alabama SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas HENRY CUELLAR, Texas GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia LAURA RICHARDSON, California CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois TIM WALBERG, Michigan BRIAN HIGGINS, New York CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota JACKIE SPEIER, California JOE WALSH, Illinois CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan BEN QUAYLE, Arizona WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia VACANCY BILLY LONG, Missouri VACANCY JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas MO BROOKS, Alabama MICHAEL J. RUSSELL, Staff Director/Chief Counsel KERRY ANN WATKINS, Senior Policy Director MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk I. LANIER AVANT, Minority Staff Director (II) C O N T E N T S Page STATEMENTS The Honorable Peter T. King, a Representative in Congress From the State of New York, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security .................... 1 The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security: Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 2 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 3 The Honorable Laura Richardson, a Representative in Congress From the State of California: Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 4 WITNESSES Mr. Lee Hamilton, Bipartisan Policy Center: Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 5 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 8 Ms. Frances F. Townsend, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Government, Legal and Business Affairs, MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. ................. 15 Mr. Peter Bergen, Director, National Security Studies Program, New America Foundation: Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 18 Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 20 Mr. Evan F. Kohlmann, Flashpoint Global Partners: Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 27 Prepared Statement with Laith Alkhouri .......................................................... 30 APPENDIX I The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security: Information Submitted for the Record ............................................................... 49 The Honorable Henry Cuellar, a Representative in Congress From the State of Texas: Charts ................................................................................................................... 57 (III) THREATS TO THE AMERICAN HOMELAND AFTER KILLING BIN LADEN: AN ASSESSMENT Wednesday, May 25, 2011 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:33 a.m., in Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Peter T. King [Chairman of the committee] presiding. Present: Representatives King, Smith, Lungren, Rogers, McCaul, Broun, Miller, Walberg, Cravaack, Walsh, Meehan, Rigell, Duncan, Marino, Farenthold, Brooks, Thompson, Jackson Lee, Cuellar, Clarke of New York, Richardson, Davis, Speier, Richmond, Clarke of Michigan and Keating. Chairman KING. Good morning. The Committee on Homeland Se- curity will come to order. The committee is meeting today to examine the near-term and long-term consequences and benefits to the security of our homeland resulting from the successful killing of Osama bin Laden. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. First of all, let me welcome everyone here this morning. Let me especially thank our witnesses. We have an outstanding panel of witnesses, and I truly look forward to their testimony. I want to thank the Ranking Member, as always, for his assistance in this hearing. My remarks will be brief this morning. I believe this hearing is absolutely essential for a number of reasons. One, all of us can take great satisfaction and pride, quite frankly, in the killing of Osama bin Laden. I give the President tremendous credit for having done it. It took courage. It took basically ice water in his veins at the last moment to make that decision, and I give him tremendous credit for it. The only concern I have is that too many, I think, of the Amer- ican people somehow feel that now with bin Laden dead, as great a victory as this was, and we can discuss how great it was, how significant it was, what the implications are, the fact is I believe too many people think that with bin Laden dead, somehow the war against terrorism is over, or the terrorist war against us is over; that this will significantly impact the war against us; and somehow maybe we should step back and let our guard down, maybe we can relax, maybe start cutting back in some of the programs that have kept us safe over the last 10 years. My own belief is that in the short run, the threat is probably greater than it was. Long term, there is no doubt that the death of bin Laden is extremely positive for so many different reasons. (1) 2 But in the short run in particular, I think it is very likely to as- sume—and just looking at al-Qaeda’s own language—the fact is that they feel they have to not just avenge this, but they have to show the rest of the world, the rest of the Muslim world, the rest of the terror world, that they are viable, that they are vibrant as before, that they have not been taken down, and they have to have a dramatic showing. That, to me, would involve obviously an attack by al-Qaeda or one of its franchise operations. My belief is that because of the many programs that have been instituted over the last 9, 10 years, it would be very difficult for al-Qaeda to carry out another 9/11-type attack, attack from over- seas into the United States, certainly not on the dimensions of the September 11 attacks. But at the same time, starting several years ago, al-Qaeda did begin recruiting in this country people under the radar screen. In addition to that, we have had those who are self- radicalized, those who are radicalized through the internet. We have seen a series of cases, for instance, just in New York, Najibullah Zazi, the subway bomber, who was totally under the radar screen, who was taken to Afghanistan for training and came back to this country and came within hours of carrying out a mas- sive attack on the New York City subway system. We had Major Hasan, who was in a way self-radicalized through his dealings with Awlaki over the internet, and what he carried out at Fort Hood in the fall of the 2009. Then we had Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, again, under the radar screen, an American citizen trained by the Pakistani Taliban, who came, again, very close to a successful attack in Times Square. So with all of this, I look forward to the witnesses telling us ex- actly what they see both in the long term and the short term, what it means that bin Laden is no longer here, what it means as far as our defenses, where we should be looking to for the next attack, the type of attack it could be, the dimensions of that attack. Also, as far as the power structure in al-Qaeda, who is going to take over? Is there anyone who has the capability of having the type of evil magnetism that bin Laden had where he could hold the var- ious ethnic groups together and keep al-Qaeda unified? Is there anyone who can step up to that? Will it be Zawahiri; will it be someone else? What is the role of someone like Awlaki, who is out- side the traditional al-Qaeda structure? So these are all the questions that I look forward to hearing the answers to. I look forward to the insights of the members of our panel, all of whom have long records of expertise and experience. I, again, thank all of the witnesses for being here. I thank the Members for having such a large turnout this morning. With that, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi, the Rank- ing Member, Mr. Thompson. Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for hold- ing this hearing. I join you in welcoming our panel of witnesses. Before we consider the risk of a terrorist attack following the death of bin Laden, I want to publicly add my voice to the many who have commended the President, the National security team, and our uniformed forces for successfully completing

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