White House publishes new counter-terror strategy document
Here’s the link to the website, with full pdf document.
I’ve just scanned parts of the document– and this section is interesting:
Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states. The United States and its allies and partners in the War on Terror make no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor terrorists. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has chosen to be an enemy of freedom, justice, and peace. The world will hold those regimes to account. To break the bonds between rogue states and our terrorist enemies, we will work to disrupt the flow of resources from states to terrorists while simultaneously working to end state sponsorship of terrorism.
- End state sponsorship of terrorism. State sponsors are a critical resource for our terrorist enemies, often providing funds, weapons, training, safe passage, and sanctuary. Some of these countries have developed or have the capability to develop WMD and other destabilizing technologies that could fall into the hands of terrorists. The United States currently designates five state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, and Cuba. We will maintain sanctions against them and promote their international isolation until they end their support for terrorists, including the provision of sanctuary. To further isolate these regimes and persuade other states not to sponsor terror, we will use a range of tools and efforts to delegitimate terrorism as an instrument of statecraft. Any act of international terrorism, whether committed by a state or individual, is reprehensible, a threat to international peace and security, and should be unequivocally and uniformly rejected. Similarly, states that harbor and assist terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists, and they will be held to account.
Iran remains the most active state sponsor of international terrorism. Through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the regime in Tehran plans terrorist operations and supports groups such as Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Iran also remains unwilling to account for and bring to justice senior al-Qaida members it detained in 2003. Most troubling is the potential WMD-terrorism nexus that emanates from Tehran. Syria also is a significant state sponsor of terrorism and thus a priority for concern. The regime in Damascus supports and provides haven to Hizballah, Hamas, and PIJ. We will continue to stand with the people of Iran and Syria against the regimes that oppress them at home and sponsor terror abroad.
While Iranian and Syrian terrorist activities are especially worrisome, we are pressing all state sponsors to take the steps that are required to have state sponsorship designation rescinded. Each case is unique, and our approach to each will be tailored accordingly. Moreover, we never foreclose future membership in the coalition against tyranny and terror. The designation of Iraq as a state sponsor was rescinded in 2004 as it transitioned to democracy, ceased its terrorist support, and became an ally in the War on Terror. Similarly, the United States in June 2006 rescinded the designation of Libya, which has renounced terrorism and since September 11 has provided excellent cooperation to the United States and other members of the international community in response to the new global threats we face. Libya can serve as a model for states who wish to rejoin the community of nations by rejecting terror.
- Disrupt the flow of resources from rogue states to terrorists. Until we can eliminate state sponsorship of terror, we will disrupt and deny the flow of support from states to terrorists. We will continue to create and strengthen international will to interdict material support, akin to our efforts in the Proliferation Security Initiative – a global effort to stop shipments of WMD, their delivery systems, and related material. We will build international cooperation to financially isolate rogue states and their terrorist proxies. We also will continue to expose the vehicles and fronts that states use to support their terrorist surrogates.
Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror. Our terrorist enemies are striving to claim a strategic country as a haven for terror. From this base, they could destabilize the Middle East and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence. This we can never allow. Our enemies had established a sanctuary in Afghanistan prior to Operation Enduring Freedom, and today terrorists see Iraq as the central front of their fight against the United States. This is why success in helping the Afghan and Iraqi peoples forge effective democracies is vital. We will continue to prevent terrorists from exploiting ungoverned or under-governed areas as safehavens – secure spaces that allow our enemies to plan, organize, train, and prepare for operations. Ultimately, we will eliminate these havens altogether.
- Eliminate physical safehavens. Physical sanctuaries can stretch across an entire sovereign state, be limited to specific ungoverned or ill-governed areas in an otherwise functioning state, or cross national borders. In some cases the government wants to exercise greater effective sovereignty over its lands and maintain control within its borders but lacks the necessary capacity. We will strengthen the capacity of such War on Terror partners to reclaim full control of their territory through effective police, border, and other security forces as well as functioning systems of justice. To further counter terrorist exploitation of under-governed lands, we will promote effective economic development to help ensure long-term stability and prosperity. In failing states or states emerging from conflict, the risks are significant. Spoilers can take advantage of instability to create conditions terrorists can exploit. We will continue to work with foreign partners and international organizations to help prevent conflict and respond to state failure by building foreign capacity for peace operations, reconstruction, and stabilization so that countries in transition can reach a sustainable path to peace, democracy, and prosperity. Where physical havens cross national boundaries, we will continue to work with the affected countries to help establish effective cross-border control. Yet some countries will be reluctant to fulfill their sovereign responsibilities to combat terrorist-related activities within their borders. In addition to cooperation and sustained diplomacy, we will continue to partner with the international community to persuade states to meet their obligations to combat terrorism and deny safehaven under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373.
Yet safehavens are not just limited to geographic territories. They also can be non-physical or virtual, existing within legal, cyber, and financial systems.
- Legal safehavens. Some legal systems lack adequate procedural, substantive, and international assistance laws that enable effective investigation, prosecution, and extradition of terrorists. Such gaps offer a haven in which terrorists and their organizations can operate free from fear of prosecution. In the United States we have developed a domestic legal system that supports effective investigation and prosecution of terrorist activities while preserving individual privacy, the First Amendment rights of association, religious freedom, free speech, and other civil rights. We will continue to work with foreign partners to build their legal capacity to investigate, prosecute, and assist in the foreign prosecution of the full range of terrorist activities – from provision of material support to conspiracy to operational planning to a completed act of terrorism.
- Cyber safehavens. The Internet provides an inexpensive, anonymous, geographically unbounded, and largely unregulated virtual haven for terrorists. Our enemies use the Internet to develop and disseminate propaganda, recruit new members, raise and transfer funds, train members on weapons use and tactics, and plan operations. Terrorist organizations can use virtual safehavens based anywhere in the world, regardless of where their members or operatives are located. Use of the Internet, however, creates opportunities for us to exploit. To counter terrorist use of the Internet as a virtual sanctuary, we will discredit terrorist propaganda by promoting truthful and peaceful messages. We will seek ultimately to deny the Internet to the terrorists as an effective safehaven for their propaganda, proselytizing, recruitment, fund-raising, training, and operational planning.
- Financial safehavens. Financial systems are used by terrorist organizations as a fiscal sanctuary in which to store and transfer the funds that support their survival and operations. Terrorist organizations use a variety of financial systems, including formal banking, wire transfers, debit and other stored value cards, online value storage and value transfer systems, the informal hawala system, and cash couriers. Terrorist organizations may be able to take advantage of such financial systems either as the result of willful complicity by financial institutions or as the result of poor oversight and monitoring practices. Domestically, we have hardened our financial systems against terrorist abuse by promulgating effective regulations, requiring financial institutions to report suspicious transactions, and building effective public/private partnerships. We will continue to work with foreign partners to ensure they develop and implement similar regulations, requirements, and partnerships with their financial institutions. We also will continue to use the domestic and international designation and targeted sanctions regimes provided by, among other mechanisms, Executive Order 13224, USA PATRIOT Act Section 311, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267 and subsequent resolutions. These tools identify and isolate those actors who form part of terrorist networks or facilitate their activities.
Eliminating “hijacked states” is tough, but the whole war is tough.
This section on international standards of accountability sounds like a wish list for Lebanon.
Bill Keller and the NY Times need to read the part about denying financial safe havens — and then admit they blew a legal, effective intelligence program designed to monitor one type of terrorist financial activity.
It looks like a very good strategy. The question is, will they be able tocontinue implementing it, or will it get blown out of the water by a new Congress in January?
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 9/5/2006 @ 1:14 pm
Call me crazy, but this passage (underline added)… While Iranian and Syrian terrorist activities are especially worrisome, we are pressing all state sponsors to take the steps that are required to have state sponsorship designation rescinded. Each case is unique, and our approach to each will be tailored accordingly. Moreover, we never foreclose future membership in the coalition against tyranny and terror. The designation of Iraq as a state sponsor was ceased its terrorist support, and became an ally in the War on Terror. Similarly, the United States in and since September 11 has provided excellent cooperation to the United States and other members of the international community in response to the new global threats we face. Libya can serve as a model for states who wish to rejoin the community of nations by rejecting terror. …pretty much warns Syria nd Iran that they are on the dinner table and about to be served up W style.
Comment by reelcobra — 9/5/2006 @ 2:25 pm
The underline didn’t work in the previous comment, but the direct references to Iraq and Lybia are designed to remind us of the precedent - i.e. the Bush Doctrine - for going into Syria and/or Iran in the near future.
Comment by reelcobra — 9/5/2006 @ 2:28 pm
This looks mighty like the commencement of a pr campaign justifying an attack on Iran.
Comment by Tom Holsinger — 9/5/2006 @ 3:25 pm
This is absolutely the central explanation for why we went to war in Iraq, and how Iraq is related to the war on terror. Those who oppose the war in Iraq need to address the question: How should we deal with a country that supports terror? What makes Iraq different from Iran and Syria is that Iraq had demonstrated that it was useless to negotiate with it: Saddam would sign an agreement and then break it. The Bush administration is correct (in my opinion) to try all possible non-military alternatives to achieve the outcome that Iran and Syria become states that do not support terror.
Comment by howardl — 9/5/2006 @ 3:44 pm
These are strategic goals, not an actual strategic plan. You can’t have the latter without formulating the former, but simply delineating the goals does not make a plan materialize. I am far from sure that I see the administration has a plan to achieve these goals. I’d love to be shown wrong. As for the Dems, they have neither strategic goals (other than “capture bin Laden) nor a plan to make that happen (other than “fire Rumsfeld”).
Comment by Donald Sensing — 9/5/2006 @ 4:19 pm
I think it a comprehensive document. The goals set forth are essential. Planners at the Pentagon and the combatant commands can take it from there.
Comment by Rich DiNardo — 9/5/2006 @ 4:35 pm
Why is Bush having any relations with the PA? Are they NOT supporting terrorists? Why are we supporting and sending money to Lebanon? Are they not supporting TERRORISTS? Or are we making the DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE and involved with NUANCE
Comment by George — 9/5/2006 @ 4:38 pm
Safe havens for terrorism already exist: one is Afghanistan, still, and another is Somalia. Does anyone have the stomach for a land invasion of Somalia and trying to set up a democracy there? Lots of luck…
Comment by Johnny Tremaine — 9/5/2006 @ 5:24 pm
The MSM will try their damnedest to hide the significance of this document. I have already heard it characterized as a “speech by Bush”. Nothing is more important than that the intellectual clarity in this document receive wide attention. Through their control of the media engine, the Democrats have erected an image of the current administration as bumblers without vision. This document needs to get out as a vivid contrast to the vacuous platitudes that constitue the Democrat’s “strategy”.
Comment by Sherlock — 9/5/2006 @ 7:52 pm
White House publishes new counter-terror strategy document… So much depends on the November Election and who controls Congress. ……
Trackback by The Absurd Report — 9/5/2006 @ 8:50 pm
There’s a plan…… And it’s got a lot more meat than the amorphous “We’ll win by doing everything differently” strategy that the DNC seems to be operating under. Austin Bay Blog � White House publishes new counter-terror strategy document Full PDF here. We……
Trackback by Rusted Sky — 9/5/2006 @ 9:42 pm
New Counter-Terror Strategy Document… The White House has released a revised counter-terrorism strategy paper. Austin Bay gives it a look….
Trackback by Dean's World — 9/5/2006 @ 10:03 pm
Johnny Tremaine, Yeah, Afghanistan sure was a safe haven for those 200 Taliban over the weekend…
Comment by Cybrludite — 9/5/2006 @ 10:43 pm
[…] Austin Bay has thoughts on the strategy. […]
Pingback by In case you missed it « Think Tankers — 9/5/2006 @ 11:56 pm
There’s a huge RealPolitik problem with: “The world will hold those regimes to account.” In fact, the “world” will explicitly NOT hold regimes to account — unless the USA is leading it, and paying for most of it. The “world” of the UN plus gov’ts plus NGOs and amplified by the MSM is unwilling to admit it is Free Riding on the US as an unacknowledged “world cop”. (I think a significant part of anti-Americanism is projected self-hate at being free riders.) The UN in Lebanon is a good example of how they will NOT be a World Cop. But the PR problems of Rumsfeld and the Reps might well mean that, despite the real progress in Iraq, it is so slow that it will be called a failure — so the Dems win. (Rep pork passing doesn’t help energize its small gov’t base.)
Comment by Tom Grey - Liberty Dad — 9/6/2006 @ 1:58 am
Thank you President Bush!… There’s not Right and Left. There’s only Right and Wrong ……
Trackback by Robinik.net — 9/6/2006 @ 2:32 am
The document claims Iraq is a full War on Terror ally, but I certainly didn’t get that from President Maliki’s comments on Hezbollah during his visit to the US. The strategy outlined in this document is too simplistic. We should strive to divide, not unite our enemies. ED NOTE: I’m not sure what you expect of a “public” strategy paper. It outlines strategic goals. But thanks for the thoughtful comment.
Comment by Mark Zimmerman — 9/6/2006 @ 7:51 am
I have always worried that the ICU could turn Somalia into a physical safe haven.
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 9/6/2006 @ 10:10 am
I support the aggressive approach to fighting the war on terror but these words just don’t match up with the diplomacy diplomacy diplomacy mindset that seems to be plaguing the president in his second term.
Comment by Mark Eichenlaub — 9/6/2006 @ 5:23 pm
I’m not sure the document draws clearly enough the relationship between failed states, weak states and rogue states and that concerns me. The enemy is playing the shell game and we are playing the sovereignty game which is the only one we can play and the only one we ought to play and the only one that can lead to success. Although the section about weak states needing help to assert their sovereignty is excellent, it has been contradicted by the signing of UNSCR 1701, which let Lebanon off the hook regarding its sovereign responsibilities. I understand the government is weak but there is good cause for concern that UN troops will aid Hiz’b’allah and not the government of Lebanon. The aid to weak states must come with a commitment by those states to at least disallow militias a political role: Hiz’b’allah must be banned politically if it cannot be disarmed. That way the situation is greatly clarified and clarity is one thing we need very badly.
Comment by Abu Nudnik — 9/7/2006 @ 8:38 am
Mark, We’re just saying “nice regime” until we know where to throw the rocks.
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 9/7/2006 @ 9:02 am
[…] I haven’t read it all yet, Austin Bay has some comments here, after scanning through it. […]
Pingback by Justus For All » National Strategy For Combating Terrorism — 9/7/2006 @ 9:24 am