Terrorism: The Current Threat

Transcript

Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan:
Prepared Remarks

Michael H. Armacost, President, The Brookings Institution: [Joined in progress] — unusual and very pertinent background, it seems to me. He was confirmed last August. He served in counterterrorist units in the U.S. Army. He has long experience in the U.N. working for the secretary of state, as an advisor to the secretary general. He has been involved in operations abroad. He has served on the National Security Council and the State Department and now, as ambassador at large and coordinator for counterterrorism, he oversees one of the most critical portfolios in our federal government.

It's a great pleasure to welcome you, Ambassador. I look forward to your remarks.

M. Sheehan: Thank you, Mike, for that introduction. I never mind getting my rank — military rank — given in an introduction, but I always prefer "Mi Capitan." That always had a better ring to it, but no one calls me that anymore.

But thank you and to Ron Nessen, as well, for inviting me and arranging this event, and I look forward to the panel afterwards with Richard Haass and the other members of that panel. That should be interesting.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you about the changing threats and challenges we face in terrorism today. It's a subject I know that many of you have followed very closely here.

Today I'd like to review some of the lessons from the recent millennial threat period that we just went through, and talk a little bit about the changing current threat of terrorism and highlight what our priorities are.

Then I'll leave you with a description of what we plan to do in the way ahead.

First of all, let me review the millennial period.

Towards the end of 1999, the intelligence and law enforcement communities were already on the alert for terrorist activity surrounding the millennium. Three events dramatically changed our already increased security posture.

First, in mid-December, the Jordanian police arrested members of a cell planning attacks against Western tourists. This cell was linked to Osama bin-Laden, whose al-Qa'ida organization was responsible for the bombings at our embassies in East Africa in August of 1998.

Secondly, on December 14th, an alert Customs agent arrested an Algerian national smuggling almost 50 pounds of explosive materials and several detonating devices into the United States from Canada. Some of these Algerians, subsequently arrested, were part of what we refer to as "the Afghan alumni" that were trained with various Mujahadeen organizations in Afghanistan and/or linked directly or indirectly to Osama bin-Laden and his organization.

Third, on December 24th — it seems to always happen around holidays — in this business, we don't get holidays — there was a hijacking of an Indian airliner by the Harakat ul-Mujahidin organization, the HUM, which held over 150 passengers hostage and killed one of the innocent honeymooners that happened to be on that plane.

What do these events mean? What does this signify for this increased period over the holidays last year?

Although the terrorist still target military installations, such as the 1996 attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and diplomatic missions, such as our embassies in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, they've also expanded their target lists — not that it's anything new, because they've done this in the past as well — but increasingly to include softer targets, such as hotels, tourist sites and may also be planning to bring those attacks into the continental United States to an extent, quite frankly I think, that surprised members of the counterterrorism community.

Fortunately, due to the outstanding work of the intelligence and law enforcement communities that were alert here and abroad, we were able to thwart some very active planning for terrorist attacks against American interests. But it's not over. And we must remain vigilant and find what I call a sustainable optempo of security within the Department of State and among all Americans that travel abroad to be aware of the certain risks that they entail when they travel to certain parts of the world.

Let me talk a little bit about the impact of terrorism as a preface before I get into the real body of my remarks.

It's obvious that terrorism has an immediate impact on the life and property of those affected. But I wanted to talk a little bit more about the importance of terrorism right now. Domestically — Brian Jenkins, I think captured it well in a recent article where he said, "Terrorist acts cause crises, provoke outrage, and fray community ties and undermine faith in our democratic institutions. Only six people died in the World Trade Center bombing, but such an event, if repeated annually, would put intolerable strains on our society." I think that's correct even though the numbers of deaths could be very small, the impact psychologically and politically far expands that immediate impact.

Internationally, the threat of terrorism has even broader implications than at home where our prosperity and strong democratic institutions are more resilient. International terrorism conducted abroad can destroy and delay peace processes, provoke and prolong and entrench conflicts, and otherwise accelerate a cycle of violence in areas of the world that are important to our national interests.

An example of these phenomena just recent include the following:

The five explosions in Moscow earlier this year that claimed the lives of 300 people in my view significantly contributed to decision-making that has driven the relentless attack by Russian troops in Chechnya.

Secondly, the hijacking of the Indian Airline Flight 814 exacerbated an already tense situation in South Asia and slowed efforts toward reconciliation between India and Pakistan.

In the Middle East, rejectionist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and others threaten the peace process with their terrorist attacks, which can increase tensions and reduce leaders' ability to come to the peace table.

In effect, terrorism in areas wracked by conflict prevent leaders from advancing delicate peace processes and terrorists know this all too well.

It is a credit to the British and the Irish governments that they have been able to keep a peace process on track, especially after the car bomb in 1998 that killed 29 and wounded 330 others in Amagh in August of 1998.

Terrorism can have a disproportionate impact on national economies as well. For instance, in 1996, a small group of Al-Gama'at Islamiyya operatives gunned down 58 tourists and four Egyptians in Luxor, Egypt. Egypt's economy is just now fully recovering from that. The terrorists achieved their goal — not only killing tourists, but crippling the tourist industry in Egypt for a while. The Egyptian efforts to combat terrorism have been outstanding and have been effective and Al-Gama'at Islamiyya has declared a unilateral truce with the Egyptian government. Nevertheless, unofficial statistics estimate that Egypt lost over $1 billion in tourist revenues as a result of this attack.

It's impossible to measure the impact on investment — not only foreign direct investment into a country, but also local investment — on a nation as well that is affected by terrorism.

In 1986 alone — the worst year on record for international terrorist attacks — Pan Am attributed a loss of $300 million to the effect of terrorism, and 24 percent fewer American tourists traveled to Europe and Greece lost a half a billion dollars in tourism revenue. So the economic impact can be very broad.

Fortunately, on that — I was worried about any increase of hijackings — we've had two out of South Asia recently — fortunately, this morning it appears that the incident in London has been resolved successfully, to the credit of the British counterterrorism officials who did an outstanding job in bringing that to a successful conclusion. All the hostages have been released and apparently all the terrorists are in detention. It's the correct way to do a — handle a hijacking.

Let me talk a little bit about the changing face of terrorism after that rather somber introduction. I also want to emphasize that we have had success in the past 20 years in the war against terrorism, particularly against some of the state sponsors. Unfortunately, there's a new breed of terrorist that has emerged in recent years — partly in response to our success against state sponsors, but also partly as a product of other local, regional and international circumstances.

Today's terrorist threat comes primarily from non-state actors with few ties to government, such as the al-Qa'ida network I talked about earlier, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, and the FARC in Columbia. Terrorists are acting more on their own and are resorting to car bombs, suicide bombings, and attacking civilian buildings and diplomatic posts. They have their own funding networks through narcotrafficking, private businesses, criminal activity, independent wealth, charities, and a range of financial support.

They're individually recruiting new members. In many states where governments are weak, they provide basic public services. They create parallel public institutions, such as schools, public health services, and social networks. They're also exploiting volatile areas, such as Chechnya, Afghanistan and Colombia, where local conflicts help terrorist recruitment. Their infusion of resources and training in conflict-ripe areas makes for a very deadly mix.

Especially since the end of the Cold War, a number of terrorist groups have portrayed their causes in religious and cultural terms. This is often a transparent tactic designed to conceal political goals, generate popular support and silence opposition. It feeds upon the resentment and suffering of some people who feel forgotten or marginalized in today's rapidly globalizing society.

In general, these emerging non-state actors exhibit less restraint or constraint than state actors and other groups have in the past decades. Some actively are seeking to gain weapons of mass destruction to increase the lethality, as well as the psychological impact, of their attacks.

Timothy McVeigh, one of our own American terrorists, was quoted as saying he wanted a body count in his bombing in Oklahoma City as it was necessary to get the level of attention he wanted for his twisted mind of conspiracy theories and hatred. Ramzi Youssef, the leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City wanted to knock one of the towers into the other tower and kill as many people as he could in those two buildings in New York City.

Now that I've given you a snapshot of today's somewhat more freelancing and violent terrorists driven by — somewhat by religion and cultural ideologies, let me complete the threat picture. And I will lay out some of our regional priorities. And really, this morning I want to talk about two.

The primary area of concern for me in counterterrorism today is in Southwest Asia, and specifically in two countries — Afghanistan and Iran.

First, let me talk about Afghanistan.

Afghanistan provides sanctuary for the most active terrorists that directly threaten American interests today, and most of them are in areas controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban has expressed to me on several occasions that they'd like to have good relations with the United States. And I have no reason not to believe they meant that. They remember fondly the support we gave the Afghan resistance during the 1980s in their struggle to eject the Soviet occupiers. I also believe that they don't want individuals or organizations to plan and conduct terrorist operations from their soil. They know the consequences of that type of activity internationally.

However, why then, do we find terrorists within their midsts? Although I do not pretend to interpret the intentions of the Taliban, it is obvious to me that most of the groups that reside in Afghanistan have multiple motives. And their primary motive is usually support for other resistance operations, local conflicts or jihads. This includes Osama bin-Laden, who supports the Taliban in their struggle against the Northern Alliance. He also supports militants in Chechnya and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin, the HUM, which wages a struggle in Kashmir.

However, these organizations also are involved in international terrorist activities and have been designated by the State Department, in a very careful and legalistic and methodical process known as foreign terrorist organizations the designation of FTOs. The presence of these groups is increasingly threatening, not only to the United States, but to a number of states both in the region and beyond, which helps explain the rapid and unanimous passing of the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267 on Oct. 15th last year that imposed international sanctions on the Taliban until they turn over Osama bin-Laden to a country where he can be brought to justice.

The presence of these terrorist groups also contributes to the inability of the Taliban to gain the recognition they support. What should the Taliban do? Again, I fully understand that the Taliban will continue to make judgments it considers to be in their best interests. The best I can do is to lay out to them — outline to them — what they need to do if they hope to get out of an increasingly tight box of international condemnation due to their providing safe haven to terrorists.

First, they must comply with the U.N. resolution — 1267 — and find a way to get bin-Laden to justice, to face charges for his terrorist crimes. They have spoken to me on several occasions about initiatives that they'd like to move forward in this regard, and I urged them to proceed with those initiatives. If they accomplish it, if they accomplish the objective of the resolution, we will lift them. We will not move the goal posts.

However, it's also important that Taliban — that the Taliban is clear to all the groups within their territory that support for terrorist operations or the conduct of terrorist operations in unacceptable, and they need to expel all of those who are engaged in these types of activities.

U.S. policy and U.N. sanctions are not anti-Afghan. We still very much support the aspirations of the Afghan people to live in peace and freedom. In fact, we remain the biggest donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. And the sanctions are designed to limit the suffering of the people the best we can.

The best way for the Taliban to help themselves in this regard is to comply with the resolution.

[Momentary technical difficulties]

Did I step on something?

I'll continue to go through that then.

As I said, the best way for them to deal with the suffering of the people would be to comply with the resolution.

Here we go.

In the interim, we'll hold them accountable for any terrorist activity that originates in areas that they control.

Let me turn now to Iran, a larger, richer and more important country that borders Afghanistan to the west. For us, Iran poses a different problem. We broke diplomatic relations 20 years ago and, since then, finger-pointing, blaming and name-calling have characterized our exchanges. Now, amid the confusing signals coming out of Teheran — like assassinations of dissidents, trials of journalists, the closing of newspapers — there are clearly signs of change and new openness.

While we welcome these changes, terrorism remains a serious concern. Iran continues to support such terrorist groups as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and by Ahmad Jabril's PFLPGC, for the purposes of attacking the Middle East peace process. As CIA Director George Tenet recently testified, Iran remains the most active state sponsor of terrorism, and I fully agree with that assessment.

We are also concerned about possible Iranian involvement in the attack on U.S. personnel in Khobar in Saudi Arabia in 1996. As former Assistant Secretary Martin Indyk testified in the fall, we have information about the involvement of some Iranian official in the Khobar attack. We have not reached a conclusion that the Iranian government was involved and responsible, but we have asked Iran to cooperate with this investigation and have not yet, to this date, received a satisfactory response. Our investigation continues.

Through sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and with the cooperation of our friends, we have made clear to the Iranian government our strong objection to its support for terrorism. The secretary has explicitly offered, without preconditions, to sit down with the Islamic Republic and create a roadmap leading to better relations. Should Iran ever agree to enter a dialogue with the U.S. government, you can be sure that terrorism will top the list on the agenda.

So far, the response to our offer has not been promising and relations with the U.S. remains on a third rail of Iranian domestic priorities and politics. For example, in response to Secretary Albright's offer to develop a roadmap, Iranian Foreign Minister Kharazi recited a tired list of old complaints.

In the meantime, we are repeating our willingness to talk without preconditions, and at the same time have worked closely with our EU and G8 friends to carry a clear message to Teheran: Supporting terrorism and undermining the Middle East peace process are losing games that will keeping Iran from gaining what it desires — membership in the international community.

That brings me to a final point that I'd like to discuss. What do we do about some of these new threats and challenges?

An effective campaign to counter terrorism and bring to justice those who have perpetrated terrorist acts must be multilateral, multiagency, and tightly coordinated. Diplomacy is one of our key tools in forging critical cooperation with other countries and raising the political will of other states to act against terrorists. Terrorists are cunning and will exploit any gap they see between countries or within a country's counterterrorism efforts. We must, as [Unknown Word] referred to, drain the swamp in which terrorists operate. Terrorists do need places to act from.

What does this mean — draining the swamp? We seek to limit the room which terrorists have and which they need to operate, plan, move, work and conduct their operations. We need to show terrorists that there is no room for them, both physically and politically, for them to use terrorism as a means for expression. Terrorism can only exist if they have the space to recruit, train, plan and find refuge. They find the space in countries or areas where a state allows them to operate or where no legitimate government has control, in lawless areas in which any criminal can move about freely.

Today's swamps, where they find this type of refuge, include Afghanistan, parts of Sudan, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and the rural jungles of Columbia.

Let me outline a few points of my strategy that we hope to employ — continue to employ — to help drain the swamp. Let me outline some of our activities.

We pressure state sponsors to try to isolate them from the international community. We criminalize terrorism, depoliticize it, through the process of designating terrorist organizations, the FTO process I referred to earlier. We try to depoliticize the message of terrorism through public statements separating their political action from their criminal — their political message from their criminal action. And we try to build international consensus for zero tolerance by working with the G8, the EU, the U.N. and other organizations.

We also try to build an international legal framework that allows states to move against terrorists within the U.N, the EU, and more recently in the OAS. We work bilaterally to arrest, disrupt and expel terrorists. And finally, we bolster the capability of those countries that need it to fight terrorism through our international training programs, which State Department has an excellent program in my humble judgment, as well as the law enforcement and communities, which also have training programs.

When we drain the swamp or limit the area that terrorists have to move, we expose them. Draining the swamp means making clear to governments that they'll be held accountable for those areas. It requires a coordinated international effort to bring pressure on regimes, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, which harbor terrorists, to police these swamps, expel the terrorists and shut down their areas of operation.

In some cases, such as in Colombia, it means helping those with the will to cooperate. This also means putting pressure on other states — many of them our friends and allies — to cut off terrorist trafficking of fighters, money, weapons or equipment through their countries. Some countries would prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. If a terrorist organization is not seen to directly threaten their interests, they tend not to poke into it. The idea of blind tolerance cannot be permitted, even for seemingly benign like those that were in East Africa in the years leading up to the bombings of our two embassies there.

Finally, draining the swamp also means promoting a shift in public rhetoric around the world. Too often, terrorism — a criminal act — is put in the light of religious expression, freedom fighting, or a political statement. The international community already offers groups legitimate means of expression. Violence and terrorism are not among this legitimate form.

Terrorism is a crime, plain and simple. Terrorists are criminals, just like the murderers who sit in prisons around the world. The fact that they espouse a political or religious view does not change that fact. Murder is murder.

In conclusion, we have made progress — a lot of progress — in decreasing state sponsorship of terrorism around the world. As countries on the list of state sponsorship change their behavior, we will consider them for removal from the list. We will also scrutinize the actions of other states, which could find themselves on the list if their policies warrant it.

We've made it through the new year's celebrations unscathed — thanks to the hard work of many people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. But in counterterrorism, we face new threats and new challenges ahead. Today's choice weapon for terrorism remains the AK-47, the car bomb, and a rocket. But terrorists are looking for a bigger impact. Increasingly, they may turn to weapons of mass destruction or cyberterrorism. We will need to match our intelligence collection and defensive strategies to these new threats and challenges, but the main instrument of counterterrorism, in my view, will remain constant — American leadership, zero tolerance, and draining the swamp that terrorists — so the terrorists know that they have nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to the questions and discussion.

[APPLAUSE]

R. Haass: Good morning. I'm Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies here at Brookings. And what we're going to do is depart somewhat from our normal scenario when we have these policymaker gatherings. It's a sign that this particular policymaker has great confidence, and maybe you've seen why.

What we're going to do is turn to a panel, each of whom is going to speak for a few minutes. Don't worry, you don't have three more talks of that length. What you have is three very short talks, and then we're going to open it up for a conversation, for questions and answers.

What we've got — we'll speak in the following order. We've got Paul Pillar, who for years was the deputy chief of the DCI — he's the director of central intelligence — his counterterrorism center. Paul is here for a year at Brookings, working on terrorism, writing a book for us. He's a true scholar-practitioner. He spent nearly a quarter of a century in the intelligence community, and also has his doctorate from Princeton.

We'll then hear next from Seth Carus. Seth is our senior research professor at the National Defense University. He's worked in the Pentagon. He spent years at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and I think, by all accounts, is one of the leading experts in this or any other town about so-called grand terrorism, the growing use or potential use of weapons of mass destruction as the new weapon of choice for these organizations.

And then, thirdly, we have Meghan O'Sullivan, who's on the staff here at Brookings in the foreign policy program. She has the heavy burden of having to work with me quite often on our sanctions and alternatives to sanctions project.

And we're going to divide it up this morning — Meghan, by the way, recently got her doctorate from Oxford and has worked with the World Bank and with Senator Moynihan. They way we're going to set this up this morning is we're going to have Paul speak first about the threat and the role of intelligence. Then we're going to have Seth talk about the evolving nature of the threat, something that Ambassador Sheehan referred to. And lastly, Meghan is going to talk about some of the remedies, in particular the use of sanctions and incentives. My role here will be something of a master of ceremonies.

I just wanted to say two or three things before we started. One, as you've noticed, we've not used the word "solution" here this morning. And I don't think we are. Think of terrorism not as a problem to be solved, but as a condition to be managed and dealt with, and I think you will be close to the truth. It is now part of the fabric or structure of the post-Cold War globalized world we live in. And it is simply something that is with us. It is, as Mike Armacost said in his introduction, a tool of the weak. It is also, in some cases, a tool of the increasingly strong. It is a tool that will not go away.

In order to deal with it, there's an entire spectrum of American foreign policy response. And we will talk about a lot of the tools in the kit bag, from intelligence to the military tool to sanctions to diplomacy. It's going to take that much to try to cope with it.

In order to think about it also, I think it's useful to keep in mind the sense of a spectrum — that you've got things out there to try to prevent it, to try to deter it. You've got things out there to try to defeat it, to defend against it, but also to mitigate its consequences. It's a policy spectrum of various tools being used for various purposes. We can beat it back, but it cannot be eliminated. And I think, again, that it's something that now we're going to have to live with.

I was heavily involved in the Gulf War when I was in government. And I think one of the ironic consequences of our success is we may have made the most least likely challenge we're going to face in future Desert Storms. I think one of the things that a lot of these state sponsors and a lot of these organizations realized is the one thing they don't want to do is go one-to-one against the United States on an advanced conventional battlefield.

And they took two lessons from it. One is to try to raise it up through weapons of mass destruction. And the other is to try to, in a sense, take the battlefield to us--rather than do it on the deserts of Iraq, rather to think about doing it in the streets of New York or the streets of Oklahoma City. And as a result, terrorism is going to try to create new battlefields using new means.

The fact that we're meeting here this morning after all the hacker incidents is yet another reminder of an additional battlefield, that as we, as a society, become much more involved or dependent — involved with or dependent on — the Internet, on computers, we have to also think about how we protect ourselves. It may not simply be some 16-year-olds out for a virtual joy ride. We could have some very dangerous people trying to inflict real damage on our society and infrastructure.

So with that long-winded introduction, let me turn to Paul. Quickly again, we will go through these introductory comments, and then we will open it up to you.

P. Pillar: Thank you.

I'm just going to point out a few of the dominant trends and patterns in international terrorism in the last few years as we've seen them that amplify what Ambassador Sheehan said. But you should bear in mind, these are just tendencies. All generalizations about international terrorism are false, including this one. And you should bear that in mind.

Ambassador Sheehan already mentioned one of those patterns — the move toward hitting softer, less well protected targets, not just the fortified embassies and the military installations.

Another I would mention — then I'm going to tick off four additional ones.

Number one, there's been an evolution in the nature of objectives that international terrorists have pursued. We see less of the measured use of terrorism, hostage-taking and hijacking and so on, to achieve some particular precise political result — the release of comrades in prison or recognition of a group, something of that nature. We've seen relatively more of the indiscriminate striking out, inflicting death and destruction simply because the terrorist hates his adversary or to seek revenge for perceived wrongs or driven by some divine motive in the case of religious terrorists.

Lethality is higher. More people get killed per incident than was the case in the past. The car bomb and the truck bomb certainly have become the signature MO of terrorists in the 1990s, even though we have the occasional throwback to old methods like the airplane hijackings in South Asia.

A second overall pattern is that we are dealing with groups that have a truly worldwide reach. Terrorists have been full participants in globalization in the sense not only that we are talking about organizations whose infrastructures extend across several continents, but also in the sense of the movement of individual terrorists, like Ramzi Youssef, for example, who literally was a globetrotter, and was hatching plots on three or more continents.

We've seen the effects of this not only in Youssef's activities, but in what Hezbollah did in South America — Buenos Aires — earlier in the '90s, and, indeed, with the embassy bombings of 1998, which were perpetrated by people whose particular concerns and issues, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with Kenya or Tanzania, but that was one of the spots in which they perceived they could hit the United States effectively.

A third pattern is what I would I would call the diffusion, or in some cases confusion, of responsibility for terrorist acts — who is actually making the decisions. We see relatively fewer incidents in which open claims are made — at least explicit ones, as opposed to coded messages and claim names and the like. Ambassador Sheehan mentioned one of the reasons for this — that a relatively bigger part of the international terrorist picture these days is the activity of non-state actors, as opposed to the state. Among the non-state actors, you also have groups continually dividing, aligning, cooperating with each other. And often it's very difficult to determine just who was calling the shots and who made the decision. It is difficult for people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities to disentangle sometimes what are rogue operators from incidents that were ordered from higher up by senior members of a group.

And the final pattern I point to is one that we've seen for a number of years, and I have no doubt it's going to continue into the next decade, and that is that the United States — that this country will continue to be the primary target of international terrorists. We've seen just statistically in the past something like 40 percent of international terrorist incidents targeted against U.S. interests in some way.

There are a number of reasons for this. Richard talked about striking back at us in a way that — where we don't have a comparative advantage like we do on the military battlefield. There are reasons simply of sheer vulnerability in terms of our physical exposure — our open borders, our extensive diplomatic and military and commercial presence. And finally, there are the various reasons that people resent us as a nation. Some of those reasons can be affected in at least minor ways by U.S. policy, but most of them, I would contend, cannot be removed or affected. People hate the United States not so much for what we do but at least as much for who we are, the last remaining superpower and, most important, the leader of the West, which in many ways and in the minds of many extremists is associated with past offenses ranging from the Crusades and the reconquest of Spain to you-know-what or who-knows-what, many of which the United States had absolutely nothing to do with, but of course, the U.S. is the leader of the West and so it is the prime target.

Now, let me close with a minute or two of comment about intelligence as one of those tools in that tool kit bag that Richard mentioned.

Intelligence is properly emphasized as one of the most important tools, and the way in which it is commonly thought of as a means for combating international terrorism is that intelligence is gathered about a forthcoming plot. That information is used to roll up the plot and arrest the perpetrators and terrorism is prevented.

That is a wonderfully satisfying thing to do when we can do it. It is all-too-rare that we can do it simply because it is rare that we acquire the very specific tactical information about terrorist plots that would enable that kind of roll-up to take place. We don't get that very often because it's simply very hard to collect that kind of precise information against groups which are small, ruthless, highly secretive. In a nutshell, they are very tough intelligence targets.

But there's another way in which our intelligence services — the CIA in particular — are very important tools in countering in a very long-run, painstaking way which Richard mentioned, international terrorism. And that is to work day by day with a host of foreign counterparts — intelligence, security and police services overseas — to painstakingly dismantle and counter the activities of the infrastructures of these terrorist groups, to use what information we have and our foreign counterparts have to arrest, to confiscate, to deport and otherwise to make the professional life of the terrorist just as difficult as we can to keep him offbase and thereby reduce the chance that he can formulate operations against the United States or against our friends.

R. Haass: Thank you. Dr. Carus.

W.S. Carus: Thank you.

I'm going to make a few comments about the whole issue that the ambassador referred to a couple of times in passing, which is what is the problem posed by potential use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists. In particular, I want to talk about two issues. One is how do we think about that particular threat, and second, what are we doing to respond to it and how adequate are those responses in terms of use of these weapons outside the United States, which is Ambassador Sheehan's particular area of responsibility.

In thinking about the threat, you really have to start, I think, with the proposition that the comments that Ambassador Sheehan made about terrorist still using the traditional tools as being correct. All the evidence overwhelmingly supports that proposition. However, in the wake of the Aum Shinrikyo attack in Tokyo earlier in the decade, a considerable number of people became aware of the fact that there was another kind of weapon in the arsenal of terrorists which were, especially, chemical and biological weapons, though there have also been concerns about nuclear going back more than 20 years.

Now, some people looked at this and came to the conclusion that it was a matter of when, not if, we would see similar kinds of attacks in the United States and so, therefore, you know, sometime in the near future, we were going to get a large-scale attack affecting large numbers of people in an American city.

Now, those concerns led to the massive domestic preparedness program that a variety of federal agencies are working with states and localities on. Now, recently, that whole approach has started to come under some criticism. Now, the pendulum, after having in some ways hyped the threat, is now swinging the other way and we're getting people saying — looking at the evidence — that there's not a whole lot of support for the notion that terrorists are clamoring to use these kinds of weapons, and that perhaps Aum was a unique case and that we're not going to see a whole lot of these kinds of threats.

Personally, I find neither of these extreme approaches terribly useful, in part because I don't think there's any way of assessing the likelihood of the kind of events we're talking about. There simply isn't the evidence. Based on what we knew, we never would have predicted the kinds of attacks that the Aum Shinrikyo engaged in. And so there's not the data required to say with any confidence that there's a 1 percent or a 99 percent chance that some city is going to get hit with chemical or biological weapons in the next few years.

I think we can say, certainly based on experience, that there is some probability of an attack, and that, based on that, one can take a wide range of prudent measures to prepare both in terms of preventing such attacks, as well as responding to the consequences of them.

And there are three reasons why I think one should take that sort of in-between measured approach. One is I do think that the arguments that are made about the technical difficulties using these kinds of weapons are quite accurate. Based on the work that I've done, it's quite clear that actual practitioners find it extremely difficult to use these weapons and, in a sense, it's not surprising because those who are more experts in terrorism than myself know that even using simple tools — you know, high explosives and guns — can often be very difficult and require a lot of confidence on the part of a group. So going to more complex weapons, you would suspect would be even more difficult.

Certainly, in the case of Aum, there is some evidence of that in the first time they tried a massive use of chemical agent, which was about a year before the subway attack. They actually almost managed to kill themselves in the process. And even in the famous subway incident, it turns out that the number of casualties — true casualties, or casualties that can be definitively confirmed — is far lower than the 5,000 often mention. In fact, it appears that about 80 percent of the victim count were people who would be technically called "worried well," people who went to the hospital because they were afraid they were sick, but that the doctors could find no identifiable symptoms in.

Based on these kind of examples and the work that I've done, I tend to strongly belief that, at least for the time being, the real threat comes from groups that have acquired the technology from states — either a state sponsor who somehow illicitly managed to finagle it out of a state chemical or biological or nuclear-radiological program.

In this regard, one thing that I find rather disconcerting is that, if you look at the list of state sponsors of terrorism that the State Department puts out, essentially every one of them has been identified as having some kind of activity in the biological weapons area. It doesn't necessarily mean there will be a transfer, but I think it's at least of concern.

Second, I don't think the threat that we're concerned about is simply limited to terrorism. And this is a danger of stovepiping particular problems. As I've already mentioned, there are a lot of countries that have programs to develop these kinds of weapons, and many of them have incentives to use them in various ways. And so, if used clandestinely — and there are a lot of plausible scenarios where they might be — the use would be indistinguishable from a terrorist attack. And so, in my view, there's sort of legitimate national security reasons to develop responses to this threat, even if you fall into the camp of believing that there's no terrorist threat.

Finally, despite what some critics have suggested, the amounts being spent on responses to nuclear, biological and chemical terrorism are not particularly large, especially in the context of the potential cost of such attacks. To give you an example, the best estimate that I've seen of the impact of a possible attack using anthrax on a population center that affected — in this case, they were saying 100,000 people were affected — the cost could be as much as $25 billion.

Now, given the potentially high cost of such events, it seems to me that reasonable expenditures and response capabilities certainly make a lot of sense, even if you believe that the probability of an attack is low.

Now, in toto, I think — you know, looking at the numbers — and they're not easy to disentangle — it appears that we're spending about a billion and a quarter on responding to weapons of mass destruction terrorism. My crude estimate is that about half of that is on the nuclear and radiological side, about a third on the chemical and only a sixth on the biological. And that strikes me as certainly reasonable levels of expenditure.

In sum, I think this is an issue that we need to take seriously, that we need to develop responses to across the spectrum from intel to consequence management, but that one needn't be hyperbolic or apocalyptic about it.

Now, let me turn to the second issue, which is the adequacy of our preparations for responding to such weapons overseas. My own view is that, at the present time, we're not well prepared to deal with this. To some extent, it's not a surprise. We have spent several years learning how to do this in the domestic sense, and the overseas have started much more recently.

There are a lot of aggressive efforts, including many that are shepherded by Ambassador Sheehan's office, to enhance our response capabilities, but I'm not convinced we're ever going to be where we really want to be in this arena for a variety of issues — a variety of reasons.

There are two in particular that I'd like to highlight, one of which I think is going to be difficult and take a long time to deal with, the other which we'll probably deal with eventually, but is at least more under our own control.

One of the problems in developing responses — and here I'm thinking primarily of what you do after an event takes place — is the sheer problem of time and distance. You know, in the domestic arena, we learned that responses had to be locally based. And that's the reason why we don't have a centralized response, but rather we train cities to respond, and we focus on local responders and local capabilities.

But in the overseas environment, that's not something you can do very easily because the distances are even more daunting than in the domestic arena, so that the time required to get to — to execute a response is necessarily longer, plus you have more complex political and bureaucratic obstacles to overcome because you're dealing with foreign governments in very stressful situations.

To me, what that means is what you have to do is work with foreign governments to enhance their capabilities to respond to these kinds of events, that they're, in effect, the equivalent of the first responder that we keep talking about in the domestic arena.

Now, on the negative side, not many foreign countries have the capabilities to respond to these kinds of events. On the positive side, there's a lot of work going on in the Departments of State and Defense to assist countries in developing such responses and there are a considerable number of countries that are actively interested in working with us to do that. So, the curve is moving in the right direction.

A second area which, I think, deserves a lot more attention but we're just beginning to work things out, has to do with how you handle these things in an interagency context. If you just consider one very plausible incident--if we had a disease outbreak somewhere, it might be a natural event. It might be a bioterrorism attack, or it could be a covert attack by a state.

In theory, as I understand things, you would have rather different mechanisms to coordinate and direct a response depending upon who you thought was responsible. Certainly, in the case of — if you thought it was a bioterrorism attack, Ambassador Sheehan's office would have clear authority. Yet, if experience is any indication, we're not going to know the answer to what caused this outbreak for a long time, and certainly, if my colleagues in the Pentagon thought than an outbreak was a prelude to war, the military guys would be very reluctant to let some guy in a suit take responsibility for the event. I suspect there are some four-stars who would have some issues on that.

These kinds of issues are things that eventually we will solve. We're only beginning to work our way up a very steep learning curve.

I'm encouraged by the fact that there are a lot of people in the federal government who take this issue seriously and are trying to tackle them. But I think we're only beginning to learn some of the daunting complexities of managing operations in some of these new areas. And so it's going to take a long time, I think, before we get the kind of proficiency in this arena that we have achieved in some other areas.

R. Haass: Thank you.

Our last presentation is Meghan O'Sullivan.

M. O'Sullivan: Good morning.

What I'd like to talk about today is what Ambassador Sheehan described as one of the main planks of U.S. counterterrorism strategy, and that is isolating or putting pressure on state sponsors of terrorism and, where possible, foreign terrorist organizations that sponsor terrorism as well.

So, after briefly describing the mechanisms used to carry out this policy, I'd like to speak a bit about what has worked and what hasn't worked and conclude with a few recommendations.

To begin with, the objectives behind these policies of isolation are primarily two-fold. Ideally, the United States would like to convince or coerce these state sponsors and other entities to change their behavior. However, at the very least, we would like these state sponsors and these foreign terrorist organizations to be denied the resources necessary to carry out terrorist acts.

And there are two major tools used to carry out this policy. The first is the terrorism list, and that is a list of state-sponsors of terrorism. Rather than list them all, I imagine that most people are familiar with them here. There's--not coincidentally, there's a great overlap between those on the terrorism list and those we commonly refer to as rogues.

Now the repercussions of being placed on this list are basically sanctions-oriented. And there's a variety of sanctions. I can go through the specifics later if anyone is interested, but let it suffice to be said that, while there are a range of sanctions that are mandated by being placed on this list, the sanctions required are not comprehensive in nature.

The second policy tool used — Ambassador Sheehan also described it — and this was the designation of foreign terrorist organization. It's a much narrower tool and it's essentially a legal designation of non-state actors that are deemed to carry out terrorist activities. And there are currently 28 groups on this list. The implications of being on this list are also sanctions-oriented, and they're primarily financial or travel-related sanctions.

Now, this strategy of isolation and the use of these two tools has both been — had elements of success and it they also have some problems associated with them.

On the side of success, as has been described by Ambassador Sheehan, there definitely has been a decline in state-sponsored terrorism. And these policies of isolation do deserve some credit for this trend. In particular, these hard-line strategies have been successful in galvanizing the international community to come together and enact more limited measures against state sponsors of terrorism. Where this has happened — where the international community has come together — this is where we've seen the most obvious declines or retreats from state-sponsored terrorism. And perhaps the best example of this — of U.S. leadership leading to more limited international measures, leading to some form of success would be Libya.

However, despite this important area of success, there are some problems with this strategy. And the first is that U.S. sanctions, which are unilateral in nature have had farm less success in achieving either of these objectives that I identified — that is, coercing states away from their acts or changing their behavior, or denying them the resources to do — to carry out terrorist activities.

Perhaps the best example of this frustrated policy would be Iran, where a comprehensive American sanction has had not — very modest success in changing the behavior of the regime or denying the resources, such as foreign exchange, needed to carry out this behavior, when our European allies have continued to trade and invest in Iran.

The second thing I'd like to mention is that the current U.S. strategy of isolation doesn't really distinguish between the different levels of involvement in terrorism and the different types of relationships between these foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs, and state sponsors. It might be described that current U.S. policy looks at foreign terrorist organizations and state sponsors as two sides of the same coin. However, it might be more useful to look at terrorism as being dotted along a spectrum where, at one end, you would have state-sponsored terrorism carried out by state actors, and on the other hand, you'd have the truly transnational non-state actors. And in-between these two endpoints, there are a whole variety of relationships between foreign terrorist organizations and state sponsors and whole different levels of collaboration.

Now, what is needed is a policy that does four things, a policy that might be more nuanced, to reflect the different relationships between these foreign terrorist organizations and state sponsors, and a policy which provides clear incentives for the rehabilitation of these state sponsors into the international community, and a policy — these two things were stressed by Ambassador Sheehan — that decreases the activity or the area in which foreign terrorist organizations can operate, and finally, a policy that continues, as the U.S. has done, to encourage international cooperation.

And I'd just like to conclude with three recommendations along these lines.

And the first, and the one I'll spend the most time on, is we need to rejuvenate the terrorism list as a policy tool. Many people have accused the terrorism list that I described, the state sponsors list, as being a very political mechanism.

And I think that there are three things that we could do to make it a more effective policy tool. The first would be to calibrate the penalties to relate to the different levels of state sponsorship. Perhaps state acts of terrorism could be responded to with comprehensive sanctions and perhaps lesser penalties would apply to lesser levels of state sponsorship.

Secondly, I think policymakers could be more explicit about what each individual country needs to do to get off the terrorism list. I think Ambassador Sheehan began to discuss that today with Afghanistan. I think it would be useful to go beyond — as he did today with the Taliban — to go beyond saying that states need to disavow terrorism to lay forward specific actions that each state could take.

And lastly, we need to minimize the discrepancy between who's on the list and who's off the list. And this could be done by making the terrorism list a more flexible policy tool. And one idea might be to provide for a national-interest waiver. And this could provide the president the opportunity to designate a country — to put them on the terrorism list, but at the same time waive some of the sanctions or all of the sanctions that are associated with being on this list. This might be a way to think about our current problem with Pakistan. It could perhaps put Pakistan on the terrorism list, but waive some of the sanctions like the termination of lending from the international financial institutions that wouldn't be in the interest of America or Pakistan or anyone in the region.

Secondly, I think that we need to abandon sanctions policies which have caused tensions with our European and other allies and which have, therefore, inhibited international cooperation over problem regimes. And most notably, that would mean moving away from the secondary sanctions, such as those that are on the books on Iran, Libya and Cuba, which have irked the Europeans and, thereby, probably precluded more cooperative approaches.

And finally, I think that we should move away from branding states rogue regimes. I think, by applying this label, we severely constrain the policy options open, the things that we can consider doing to work with these states. While many of these regimes — engagement with many of these regimes would be neither feasible nor desirable. But if the patterns that we've heard described today are correct — that is, where increasingly we see transnational, non-state actors being hosted by weak, isolated or even failed states, if these patterns are correct, then it will be in our active interest to minimize the number of these failed or isolated states, rather than maximize it.

Thank you.

R. Haass: Thank you.

OK, now we turn to the part of this morning where we open it up to you all.

What I ask you to do if you're interested is let me know. We'll get a microphone to you. Please let us know who you are and where you're affiliated with. And please, also — we've had four talks this morning. If people could keep their questions short and to-the-point, it would facilitate discussion.

Do you have microphones?

The young lady in the second row.

How about an easy question now?

Participant: All right. I have so many questions I don't know where to begin, but I'll start with two.

North Korea is coming — is sending a high level official in March. They're going to talk about terrorism lists. My understanding is they haven't been responsible for any active international terror for a decade even though, of course, they continue to do horrible things to their own people. Is this going to be a serious discussion to get them off the list? What, if anything, do they need to do to get off the list? That's one.

And the second one regards the Iraqi — the Iranian resistance mujahadeen. They are on the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations, as far as I understand, yet then continue to run one of the most active PR efforts I have ever seen in this capital. I get faxes from them everyday, calls from their representatives, from the National Resistance Movement, whatever it is. Is this front organization considered not a terrorist organization? Why do they — why are they allowed to continue to operate in Washington?

R. Haass: Let me begin with Ambassador Sheehan in answering those two and then I will turn to my colleagues on the right. Sir.

M. Sheehan: First on North Korea, you're correct. They are coming at the end of the month, and I plan to be part of the delegation to speak to them directly about counterterrorism — about their being on the terrorism list. It's not the first time we've had discussions with the North Koreans. We've laid out to them in the past in detail exactly what they need to do to get off the list. And that's what we'll do again.

You're correct. They have not been actively involving in supporting terrorist acts abroad in a long time. That's been well known, and we've published that in our annual report.

It's my goal for all the states that are state sponsors of terrorism that they all get out of the business of terrorism, and eventually get off of the list. And I've made that explicit so virtually all of these countries know what they need to do to get off. It's fairly clear.

I don't want to get into it right now exactly what it is. Perhaps later I can get into it. But there are several definitive steps they're going to need to take and then we'll look at how we would move, if they did that, how we would proceed.

And by the way, we have to proceed by the law, which requires certain steps in the administration and a six-month waiting period of the Congress, and we'll obviously work with the Congress as we move on that issue.

R. Haass: Do you want to say something about the — is it the Mujahedin-e Khalq?

M. Sheehan: Well, again, we're restrained by the law again. The law about foreign terrorist organizations, as Meghan mentioned, is primarily focused on the funds — the legal action that can be taken against them is on fund-raising and other activities. Obviously, if they're involved in a criminal conspiracy to conduct a terrorist attack, there's plenty of laws on the books that we can do that. But there's not necessarily laws regarding the use of free speech in the United States.

Now, I'm talking to the law enforcement community about that organization and whether they are violating any of the laws in the domestic legislation that pertains to FTOs. But the actual response to that is a domestic law enforcement issue, but one that I have an interest in and am always talking with them about.

R. Haass: Anybody want to — I just sort of — slightly amplify Mike Sheehan's answer. I think it really is important that we are as explicit as we can be, certainly privately and in public if possible about what it takes for countries to get off the list. To the extent we can depoliticize it, we also legitimize it. And we can lay out exactly what it is they need to do and it also then — at least in principle — ought to make it somewhat less difficult for us to rally international support for sanctions or whatever other punitive measures we impose if everyone understands why they're on the list and they understand the case that justifies their inclusion.

In the back, sir.

Participant: — from Reuters.

Ambassador Sheehan said that — sounded fairly convinced that the Taliban do want to have good relations and he said that they don't want individuals or organizations to plan attacks from their territories. He then went on to say that they did fail to do this, but he didn't, in fact, offer any explanation for their conduct. I wondered if, perhaps, he'd like to fill in that gap.

R. Haass: I'll take that as a question for Ambassador Sheehan.

M. Sheehan: Thank you. Actually, I stated explicitly I didn't want to interpret their motives. I don't think I can do that from Washington to try to figure out their motivations. But I did suggest right after that statement of my own analysis that I saw what these organizations are doing in addition to sometimes being involved in acts of international terrorism that affect us. And mainly, I mentioned about their involvement in different insurgencies and so some of them have multiple causes and multiple activities that runs them afoul with my more narrow interests of international terrorism. And I think I did address that.

But I don't want to sit and try to figure out their motivations. I'm more interesting in their policies and actions and how they respond.

R. Haass: Let me just say you don't have to be an accredited journalist to ask a question here this morning, just to make a — sir.

Keep those with the microphones walking around. We make this an aerobic event.

Actually, I was trying to get the gentleman over there.

R. Haass: You pass the balance of your time. I thank you.

Participant: Ed Bauman [ph], a correspondent for [inaudible], Caracas.

If the FARC in Colombia is a FTO, why does the United States — why has the United States negotiated with this criminal organization?

M. Sheehan: First of all, we don't — we didn't negotiate with the FARC. We participated, at the request of the government, to sit at a table at one time several months back. And by the way, there is not necessarily any prohibitance from dealing with state sponsors or terrorist organizations — not that I advocate it very often, I can assure you of that.

But — so in the case of the FARC, we were not negotiating with them. And right now, we don't have contact with them since the brutal killing of those three NGOs last year.

R. Haass: But as a matter of principle, there's no reason the United States should not be talking or negotiating with FTOs or state sponsors of terrorism. If that's an effective tool to get them to change their ways and conceivably get them off the list, then we'd be foolish not to be speaking or negotiating with these groups.

The gentleman all the way in the back.

Participant: — L.A. Times.

Ambassador Sheehan, two things. Why is Cuba still on the list? Doesn't that politicize the list? And secondly, can you tell us whether, in terms of the arrest of the Algerians, whether targets had actually been identified yet?

R. Haass: Better let Paul answer a few of them.

[LAUGHTER]

P. Pillar: Are you serious?

M. Sheehan: Sure, go ahead.

[APPLAUSE]

I'll be glad to answer it, too.

But many of the things that were said about North Korea in terms of the relative lack of direct involvement in recent terrorism certainly apply to Cuba as well. But beyond that — I mean, they still are — provide safe haven to some old-line Latin American terrorists, so they are a provider of safe haven, and in that sense meet the terms of the state-sponsorship law. But beyond that, it is strictly a policy question, and a matter, one presumes, of future dialogue just as was discussed a moment ago with regard to North Korea, and presumably, part of a larger dialogue on a whole host of issues going well beyond terrorism that will affect when Cuba will finally be removed from the list.

M. O'Sullivan: I think there's no denying that taking Cuba off the terrorism list would be quite an anxious domestic — or would catalyze a domestic debate. I think that's pretty easy to say. And so I might reiterate what was said earlier about how it is necessary to say what needs to be done to get off and on, both in the case of Cuba and with other organizations or other state sponsors. But if we can make those things public to the best of our ability, then that also is helpful in the domestic U.S. debate because it allows — you know — the American public to see progress and to see that these states have moved in the directions that we need, and this helps us rehabilitate these rogues, if you can say that, in a way that not one day Khadafi is an outlaw and the next day he's an ally. I mean it can be a more gradual process, and to the extent that these things can be made public, I think that's helpful.

R. Haass: Do you want to try that?

M. Sheehan: I don't have any problem with that.

R. Haass: Yes, ma'am.

Participant: Good morning. Can you hear me? My name is Ginger Smith. I'm associate professor in the Tourism Department at the George Washington School of Business. And one area of my research is the impact of terrorist acts on tourism destinations. And so my question — I came in a bit late. You were mentioning tourism as I came in. I wanted to know if, overall, you have any sense that tourism, since it's such an integrative type of industry — it crosses over political, social, economic, cultural, religious and heritage types of issues — do you see any targeting — increased targeting of tourism in the future?

R. Haass: That comes under the heading of hitting soft targets increasingly as the ambassador mentioned before. There's no question about that. The Egyptian extremists have been leaders in that technique going back well before the Luxor massacre, but going back to the early 1990s, when there were many attacks in 1991, '92, and at that time, the Egyptian tourist industry also took a very big hit. The PKK, the Kurdish extremists in Turkey, have used the same technique, focusing some of their attacks on some of the most popular tourist sites in Istanbul. It works as we have seen with Egypt, at least temporarily greatly placing a huge economic dent in the economy of their adversary and, they hope, then subsequently having political effects of undermining the Mubarak government or what-have-you.

So, the simple answer to your question is — yes. It will continue to be a target.

M. Sheehan: It also works the other way. In the early 1980s, the United States declared that Greece was no longer considered safe for American tourists. And the reason that was done is that the Greek government was viewed at the time as not cooperating adequately with counterterrorist policies. So, in a funny sort of way, what we did at that time — what the U.S. government did at that time — was use Greece's incentive to continue to host tourists, which was a major element of the Greek economy — that was used as leverage in order to get the Greek government to step up their activity and no longer be a safe haven for Palestinian terrorists at the time. So, it can work both ways. It also gives us leverage as well as being an [unintelligible].

R. Haass: The gentleman who gave up the microphone ought to be rewarded.

[LAUGHTER]

Participant: [unintelligible], Voice of America, [unintelligible], broadcasting to Afghanistan. Question for Ambassador Sheehan.

We've tried a number of strategies to get the Taliban to give Osama, to change their actions on this. One has failed. This was trying to get the Pakistanis — or believing the Pakistani government would have the influence to get the Taliban to release Osama. Recently, Nawaz Sharif has said that, you know, they tried and they failed. That hasn't worked. So far, the sanctions don't seem to have worked. Are there any new ideas, new strategies, new options, new ways to try to get them to act on this issue?

M. Sheehan: Well, it's something I think about every day — how we do that. And this takes time, these issues. There are no silver magic solutions to what I refer to as draining the swamp, nor — by the way — do I want to overly emphasize one individual. The problem that we have is much broader than him. So we're going to continue to put the pressure. We're going to find ways to do it. There's a range of things that we have, as Richard said, in our tool bag, our kit bag. I don't want to go through them all. There's a range of them. It takes time. We have patience, but it's a much bigger issue than him.

R. Haass: Further questions?

The gentleman in the back.

Participant: Barry Schweid, Associated Press. It's getting a little confusing about how — whether the list is a pristine list that stands apart from political consideration based on evidence that a country or a group is doing something to foment terrorism. We've heard also the suggestions — don't get too far out of step with other countries. This morning, I heard Robin Cook revive — speak again of constructive engagement, explaining how Britain operates with Libya — relations but some restrictions on trade. The Cuba question has come up. Is the list a political weapon? If Syria comes to terms with Israel, does that give it a credit? Does that help it get off the terrorism list? Or is it on the list or off the list based on its behavior? And of course, what is Cuba doing on the terrorism list? What has Cuba done lately to promote terrorism? Isn't it there because you're using the list as a political weapon in behalf of anti-Cuban people in Florida.

M. Sheehan: Barry, I'm shocked you've raised that question with me here today.

[LAUGHTER]

I'm also sort of glad you've raised so much interest in the list. It must have some impact. Some people have criticized it as not having any impact. But if it causes such interest, it must have something out there.

I hope this year, when we roll out the list at the end of April, that it's going to be different than it's been done in the past. And I'll try to have some of the ideas that were reflected up here incorporated into that. I was very aware of some of the problems associated with the list when I took over this job. I can tell you there's a lot of resistance to changing it, and I have to work through that — from a lot of quarters, not just within the administration, on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

So we're going to look at ways that we can take some adjustments. Some of them that have been mentioned I worry about. We try not to have too much differentiation on terrorism. Terrorism is a crime. If you're associated with it, you need to be condemned. I don't want to — I've got to be careful about having shades of gray in terrorism.

But understanding that, we're going to look to try to adjust the way we go about the list.

Regarding Cuba, I go back to what Paul Pillar said. They know what they have to do. Harboring old terrorists is a problem. If a terrorist knows that he can conduct a crime and go hide out some place and wait it out, then that's a current problem that we have. So, harboring former terrorists, even if it goes back 10 or 15 years, is a problem. And I talk to family members of people — I talk to them regularly — about American citizens who were victims of terrorist events in the '80s. We don't forget them for a moment in my office. It's like that crime was yesterday.

So, old terrorists, Barry, is not a — the fact that they're old and hanging out in there is not a free card.

On the issue of Syria, as with North Korea, as the administration has processes involving some of these countries that are state sponsors, we integrate the issue of the terrorism state-sponsorship issue into that process. And I'm confident that our requirements will be met in those processes. And hopefully, as I said, with all seven of them, that they'll get out of the business, take the steps that they need, and be taken off the list. That's my objective. It includes Syria.

Barry, let me say two things. One is I am confident that, if Israel and Syria sign a peace agreement, Syria will have done things that will make it possible for us to take it off the list. I find it inconceivable that you would have a peace between Israel and Syria where Syria would still be facilitating, for example, arms transfers to Hezbollah or still be allowing Hezbollah and other groups to operate out of Syrian-controlled Lebanon or out of Damascus itself. So, it seems to me that is part of what Syria brings to the table with an Israeli-Syrian agreement.

So I think that will take care of itself if, indeed, we ever get that far.

The other thing I'd say — and I think Meghan O'Sullivan made a good point — is the utility of separating inclusion on the list, which I think ought to be a straightforward, a factual, intelligence-driven judgment, from the price you pay for being on the list, which is a policy question. And right now, the reason the list runs in so much trouble is that inclusion on the list brings with it automatic penalties, which may or may not serve U.S. policy purposes.

So, to the extent we can move towards a disaggregation of inclusion on the list, which ought to be — again — as factual as possible in order to have legitimacy, from how we respond — which should not be done in isolation, needs to be factored into the entire range of U.S. foreign policy goals at any given moment. I think that would be an extremely helpful evolution of this entire policy.

R. Haass: Actually, we've got people. The gentleman in the back.

Participant: John Lancaster with The Washington Post.

Question for Ambassador Sheehan. Sir, I realize that Libya remains on the terrorism list, but, nevertheless, there has been a slight thawing of U.S.-Libyan relations. There have been a few gestures — American oil executives, for example, permitted to travel to Libya to check on their investments, talk of easing the passport or eliminating the passport restrictions that still applies. And you know, in light of the fact that the trial has not rendered a verdict yet and Libya remains, as far as I know, the main suspect for the Lockerbie bombing, I'm wondering how you explain these things to the families of the — who lost relatives in the Lockerbie bombing.

M. Sheehan: I'm not sure of the question — how to explain to the families —

Participant: How do you explain these gestures, for lack of a better word, to the families? I know it's an issue with them, and I'm curious to know, when they come to you and say, you know, "I lost a daughter. How can you be doing this for Colonel Khadafi?" I'm wondering what your answer is.

M. Sheehan: Well, first of all, I'm surprised that that was a question because 99 out of 100 questions I get about Libya are why are we still so hard-lined? Why am I such a hard-liner on Libya? So that's actually interesting that you come from that approach.

What we have tried to do, as Meghan suggested, is try to keep a multilateral front against state sponsors of terrorism. That is always the best way to do it. And what we've tried to do with Libya is keep that process intact. And what we have done with Libya back since '92 when the sanctions were imposed was try to keep that coalition together to get our objectives met. And that has worked to a large extent. And Libya's behavior is significantly changed.

Regarding current policy now, at a minimum, at least we have kept — although the sanctions have been suspended, they have not been lifted. And Colonel Khadafi clearly wants them to be lifted right away. But we're trying to maintain them to be — from being suspended while the trial proceeds and that all the Security Council — relevant Security Council resolutions that they're required to do are — all the steps that they are taken, that they are taking those steps before those sanctions are completely lifted.

So we still have some leverage on Libya through the trial, which is important to me. And that's how I talk to the families about how we keep that leverage on Libya to make sure there's a good trial, a fair trial, and the true facts of Libyan involvement is laid out in this judicial process.

It's a long and painful one that — we approach terrorism in a legal framework, which is good news and bad news. The good news is that it depoliticizes it. The bad news is it's a long and painful process of legal cases that often takes a long time and I just ask the families to be patient with us as we try to work through this procedure with this legal process and with the Scottish trial in the Netherlands.

R. Haass: Paul.

P. Pillar: There are the multilateral sanctions, which as the ambassador mentioned have been suspended but not fully revoked. There are the unilateral sanctions which are still in effect. And really not that much has been done with Libya so far. It is widely recognized within the U.S. government that, in the short to medium term, there are two big interests that need to be upheld — one, continued Libyan cooperation in the trial, and the trial has a long way to go; and two, resolution of the issue of compensation to the families of the victims. And I personally do not expect major new departures with regard to removal from the list or removal of U.S. unilateral sanctions or even formal removal of the suspended multilateral sanctions until those two aims have been taken care of.

M. O'Sullivan: I think this might also be a good point to acknowledge that there's actually more room to maneuver than might be commonly understood, that there are legal ramifications of being placed on a terrorism list, a certain range of sanctions. But as I mentioned, there are by no means comprehensive sanctions. And you can be — we could have lifted the travel ban to Libya and still actually be carrying through all the implications of being placed on the terrorism list. So there are a range of actions although right now most of the countries on this list are subject to maybe 90 to 100 percent of the sanctions that we have at our disposal. That is not necessarily a result of being put on the terrorism list.

R. Haass: The gentleman here in the front row, who has been patient.

Participant: — Tass News Agency. I have a question to Ambassador Sheehan, too.

If I am not mistaken, you were planning to go to Moscow at the end of the last year and, for some reason, this trip was canceled or maybe just postponed. Are you still planning to go there and what do you think in general about — are there any real possibilities for practical cooperation between the two countries in the sphere of counterterrorism or there are just too many declarations and intentions on that, but there are no practical possibilities because the issue is very sensitive because, at the end of the day, it's the question of cooperation not for just law enforcement but intelligence agencies of the two countries? Thank you.

M. Sheehan: Well, I think the answer to the second part of your question is yes, there is room to coordinate and cooperate. I always look to form partnerships with any and all countries in order to move forward on mutual goals. And I think there are many with Russia. I've been to Moscow already to have — we had a bilateral exchange with them. I led a delegation in February of '98. There was another delegation here last fall. We had very good consultations with several agencies from the Russian government. I do plan to go again this year. I don't know when yet. I have a really heavy travel schedule in the next few months ahead. I think we have a lot of areas to talk about, and a lot of areas to cooperate and coordinate and we'll continue to do that.

R. Haass: I don't want Seth Carus to feel unloved here since he had to take a cab from all the way across town. Are there any questions about grand terrorism, in particular biological weapons?

In the front row. Yes, ma'am.

Participant: — from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Seth, for you, there's concern about the probability of terrorists escalating in terms of the use of technology. There's also a certain amount of reliance on the past and the limitations on terrorist capabilities. I wonder — it was proposed some years ago, and I don't know that any work has come out on it yet, to actually do a demographic study of the education of terrorist groups to see if there are any shifts in trends toward increased use of engineering studies or biochemistry or anything like this that would give you indicators, perhaps, that there may be pockets of terrorists in certain groups or certain countries that may have greater proclivities and capabilities for going high tech.

W.S. Carus: Well, I do think we need to do a lot more work looking at some of the behavioral issues related to these kinds of weapons because there clearly are some differences between the kinds of people who are attracted to these weapons and more traditional ones.

Part of the problem, however, I think, is that groups that end up being attracted to these kinds of weapons may be — in terms of ideology and structure — very different from what we traditionally think of as terrorist groups. They may not be as concerned about the political motivations that traditional terrorists had in mind. And as a result, in some cases I'm not even sure we would formally — they would formally meet the definition of terrorism that the U.S. government has propounded.

I mean some of them have apocalyptic views that strike me as being very tenuous related to the notion of influencing government policy. So, we would have to expand our vision to include the kinds of groups that are sort of on the borderline or even outside the spectrum of traditional terrorist groups.

Having said that, clearly there's a lot more work to be done. We're just beginning to understand this phenomenon, although we've made a lot of progress in the last few years. Things that in the past we would have ignored, we're now investigating and finding out things that we didn't know were occurring. So I think there are opportunities there.

R. Haass: The gentleman standing in the back by the doorway.

Participant: [Inaudible]

Ambassador Sheehan and Mr. Pillar, if he cares to comment.

There have been several recent spectacular, I guess, to use a word, examples of airline hijacking related to terrorism. Do you expect, first off, that we're going to see more of those as we had some decades ago as a statement by political groups? And secondly, while it had been noted that the recent incident in Britain was just resolved, some people might say without using military force to deal with such an incident quickly that you encourage hijackers, and by letting people possibly seek asylum, you also encourage hijackers. Should there have been military force used in the incident in Britain or in general?

M. Sheehan: Well, let me answer the second part first. I think the British did a spectacularly great job on this. You don't want to use military force precipitously because you endanger the innocent people on the plane. So one of the principles in a terrorist incident is to have patience. You want to — you have to balance two objectives. One is you want to have the safe release of any innocent hostages versus not making any substantive concessions to the hijackers. And the British, I think, achieved both of those goals in an outstanding manner. So I'd be very reluctant to second-guess them on that.

I think the fact that went well bodes well to what I had worried about after the rather successful hijack of the Indian Airlines where they got some of their people released and the hijackers got away. I was worried about a copycat effect. So I'm glad that this one was resolved positively. And hopefully, that will deter any others from using it.

I don't think, based on these two incidents alone, that there's necessarily going to be a rash of new hijackings.

R. Haass: Do you want to say anything?

P. Pillar: I would agree with that. There's always the copycat phenomenon in the short-term. But I would be very surprised to see any secular change back to hijackings as opposed to the other MO that we've seen in recent times. In fact, combating airplane hijackings has been one of the real success stories — certainly here in the United States, but more generally worldwide. What the aviation authorities, including the FAA in this country, now have had to worry more about, of course, is sabotage, i.e., bombs, as opposed to hijacking. And the FAA right now, for example, has out for comment possible new regulations with regard to tightening the handling of checked baggage. It has nothing to do with hijacking, but it would improve security with regard to the other threat. So, no, I don't expect more hijackings.

R. Haass: Sir.

Participant: I have two questions. Eric Wagner with ABC News. I have two questions — one for Ambassador Sheehan and one for Mr. Pillar.

A few months ago, the U.S. deported Hadi el-Sayegh n back to Saudi Arabia. He was, at least for a while, thought of as someone who may have some information about the Khobar Tower bombing and the complicity of Iran. And I wonder what sort of help or cooperation the Saudis — now that they've had Mr. el-Sayegh — what sort of help they've given you on that case.

And for Mr. Pillar, there's been some criticism recently of underinvestment in the intelligent community in human intelligence and perhaps overinvestment in signals intelligence. And I wonder if you could tell us what sort of challenges collection on terrorist groups — what sort of challenges do you face as a result of this imbalance between signals and human intelligence.

R. Haass: The biggest challenge he'll face in answering your question is he'll have to stay here because he won't be invited back, but —

[LAUGHTER]

Do you want to go first?

M. Sheehan: First, on regarding Saudi cooperation on the case for Khobar, it's been excellent, particularly in the last six months to a year, it's been very, very good. And I'd actually ask you to — and that's in my view from the Department of State — but you might want to refer that question also to the Bureau, the FBI. I think you'll get the same answer — it's been good.

Regarding Hani el-Sayegh he is being — that investigation is ongoing and his linkage to it is being worked on by the Saudis. And I hope to go out there also here over the next month or two to talk to them about that. And so there are some others trips in the government out there to talk to them about that as well. But the cooperation has been very good.

P. Pillar: The premise of your question about brands of intelligence is incorrect. One of the major emphases in management, in particular, of the Directorate of Operations at CIA over the last two to three years under the current deputy director for operations and his predecessor has been to beef up, across the board including terrorism, but many other topics as well, our humint or human intelligence capability. And they have worked — those gentlemen and other senior officials in the community — have worked very closely with the intelligence committees in the Congress, I think worked successfully, to rebuild some of the lost capability. So there is not a misplaced emphasis at all.

I would say that, while the well placed human source is — as I suggested before — the best kind of source you can possibly have, it's also the hardest one to obtain. Technical collection does play a significant role as well. It would be number two to human intelligence, but it appropriately with regard to terrorist targets also gets considerable emphasis.

R. Haass: Sir. The gentleman with the blue shirt in the second or third to last row.

Participant: Ron Gore of Sun Publications International Corporation.

Ambassador Sheehan, I have a question. You put an emphasis on draining the swamp when it comes to the terrorist organizations and Colombia, with President Pastrana giving FARC the demilitarized zone and a wide narcotics-trafficking corridor — doesn't that fill their swamp completely? And is that something that we want to really help them with? Pastrana giving him support in doing that?

And ELN wants the same thing now. What's our response to that?

M. Sheehan: Well, I think that's a question more for the Latin American bureau. They're working very closely with the Colombian government in designing — the Colombian government has designed a strategy to move forward on the problem of internal violence in Colombia. And I think we've worked very closely with them and are supporting that approach.

The Colombian government is a good friend. We're going to work with them. It's their country. They are going to design the means in which they're going to deal with their problem. And we're going to work with them. I don't want to second guess a country in that regard. My concerns in Colombia are the violence that the FARC has perpetrated against Americans. They're responsible for the death of at least 10 and perhaps, with three missing since 1980. And we've made that very clear that we want the issues regarding the deaths of Americans and missing Americans resolved as part of that process.

R. Haass: I would give a more forthcoming answer since I don't work for the U.S. government.

[LAUGHTER]

I think the implicit assumption in your question has a lot of evidence going for it. Clearly, they hope that by creating this zone, where the FARC would essentially be free to live and operate, has not worked as intended. You can't argue the counterfactual. You can't say things would be much better if this had never been created. But clearly, this has not worked as intended. The situation is clearly worse than it was. It's hard to see how the creation of this area has contributed to any solution. So, one has to think that, as we go on from here, it's hard to imagine how the creation of future zones or expanding the size of zones is going to contribute to progress in Colombia.

That's not worth a lot since I don't speak for the U.S. government.

[LAUGHTER]

Yes, ma'am.

Participant: — with USA Today.

What do you make of the terrorist cells operating out of Canada these days? And how vulnerable do you think the U.S.'s northern border is? And should the U.S. be rethinking how it manages that border?

M. Sheehan: Well, I think the arrest of Ressam in Seattle last December, mid-December last year, definitely caught the attention of American and Canadian officials. And we have an outstanding relationship with the government of Canada on counterterrorism cooperation. It's as good as with any country in the world. And the Canadian officials, the RCMP is an outstanding organization. They do a very good job. I think they also understand that they're going to have to ramp up some of their activities. I think we've had talks about that. As well as within the United States. I think, again, this is a question more for the local and federal law enforcement agencies. But I think we're looking at that. And I know my colleague at the NSC, Dick Clarke, was up in Ottawa last week talking to them about how we could work together to deal with this problem. And I think those were very constructive talks, and we're confident we're going to be able to move forward and improve that situation. But it's high on our agenda.

R. Haass: Again, coming back to something we talked about before. You can improve the situation. You can't solve it. The very openness of this society, the very openness of that border — neither of which you'd want to change — means that it will always be exploitable by terrorists. It is the dark side of globalization, and it is one of the prices we pay for being the way we are and organizing ourselves the way we do.

Sure.

Participant: Just for a change, another question for Ambassador Sheehan.

[LAUGHTER]

Barry McKenna [ph] from the Toronto Globe Mail.

I wanted to follow up on the question of Mr. Ressam and the Afghan alumni that you described.

Is one of the appropriate responses to this incident to reinforce the border? And secondly, what do you know about their intended targets?

M. Sheehan: Reinforce our border? That's really out of my — I don't do U.S. border. That's really a domestic issue. So I think I'll duck that one.

Participant: But it's an appropriate response to — or it is a possible response to a terrorism threat is reinforcing the physical border.

M. Sheehan: You know, again, personally, I don't think so. It's my personal view that I would be reluctant to try to build a fence between the U.S. and Canada. I think there are ways to do this without resorting to that, and I'm not sure that would work anyhow. So I'm not advocating any — from my perspective — any major changes on how we deal with our border with Canada. I think we're taking a look at it and very closely working with the Canadians to figure out ways we could try to prevent this from happening. But I don't think that any draconian steps along that border are necessary.

Participant: What about the targets?

M. Sheehan: Which targets?

Participant: What were the intended targets?

M. Sheehan: Again, I'm not sure what I can say about that. I'm not sure the — it's another — better to ask the FBI about that.

R. Haass: Well, I've got time for a couple of more questions.

I'm going to try to get people who haven't spoken.

Sir

Participant: — Khan [ph] with Jane's Information Group. I want to ask whether President Clinton is going to visit Pakistan. And if not, are we trying to abandon Pakistan just like we did Afghanistan?

M. Sheehan: The answer to your first question is: No, we will not abandon Pakistan. The answer to your first question is: It's under review right now. No decision has been made.

R. Haass: This gentleman here.

Participant: — from the Canadian Embassy. Miss O'Sullivan mentioned how sanctions are not the best or most effective way of combating a state that's presume pro-terrorism. Having said that, do you think the policymakers in D.C. will rearrange their approach to countries such as Iran becoming more friendly and less — and more sanction-prone?

M. O'Sullivan: If I could just clarify one thing so I'm not misunderstood. I wasn't saying that sanctions are never an appropriate response. What I was trying to communicate is that, where sanctions tend to be multilateral in nature, they have borne fruit, and that that is the approach that we should be focused on more. And this is certainly — Ambassador Sheehan's comments confirm that this is — the ideal situation is where we would get a group, an international group, to apply multilateral sanctions. And my point was that unilateral sanctions have been less effective, even when, in the case of Iran, we have applied unilateral sanctions and have tried, you know, have coupled this with a diplomatic effort to get a more multinational effort to complement it. And I think what I would like to — what I have in my comments recommended is that we move away from approaches that actually impede this international cooperation. And I mentioned secondary sanctions as the most obvious policy option. That's where we keep buffering up our unilateral efforts, and that it actually comes at the expense of seeking a multinational effort, which may be more modest, but might be more successful.

R. Haass: There you go.

OK, we've got time for about two more.

Sir.

Participant: David Vice [ph] with The Washington Post.

R. Haass: Go ahead.

Participant: Glad to make you smile up there.

Ambassador Sheehan, and anyone else who wishes to respond. How's that?

How closely would you relate or link the Algerian terrorist cell to al-Qa'ida and to bin-Laden? And what are the elements or the specific links that you would draw or make or conclusions you would reach in answering that question?

M. Sheehan: I think it's important to understand one thing about this organization — bin-Laden's organization. It's really a loose-knit web of organizations. It's not a defined wiring diagram. What we have seen in the case out of Canada is that some of these people have relationships and ties some of bin-Laden's lieutenants. And I think that's about as far as we've characterized it so far. And that is still being investigated.

R. Haass: Yes, sir.

Participant: Richard Cupid [ph], University of Georgia.

Most of the discussion today has been about responses on a state-to-state level or a state to an organization level. Yet, I noticed that Ambassador Sheehan mentioned that increasing criminalization of terrorist acts was a key part of his strategy. And that, to me, usually means individuals. And I wonder if you might — and this goes to anyone on the panel — might speak to some of the U.S. efforts to increase its efforts to criminalize these acts of terror and using individuals as a focus, such as a specially designated nationals list and such like that. Thank you.

M. Sheehan: Well, we haven't done the second part. But what we do to criminalize is — what we've done for the past 20 or 30 years is had a very painstakingly focused process in the U.N. to pass international conventions regarding different types of threats — hijackings, car bombs, financing is the most recent one — that we've take a sort of piece-by-piece, narrowly focused on the criminal act, trying to separate it from all the political rhetoric that's normally associated with these issues, and try — once a nation signs that convention, they're then required to adopt domestic legislation that conforms with the international law. And we've done that as well here, and that provides the legal framework for criminalizing the behavior. And that's really a cornerstone of our policy.

R. Haass: Paul?

P. Pillar: I think our colleagues at the Department of Justice would point out that the laws are already on the books to prosecute any terrorists we need or want to prosecute. And in fact, getting to the multilateral side, the United States was ahead of the multilateral action in having the provisions enacted by Congress in 1996 about criminalizing material or financial contributions to groups before we had even the international convention.

But most anything else — shooting people, capturing people, what have you — the law is there. If a prosecution is not made, it's because the evidence isn't there and the case can't be made, not because it hasn't been criminalized in law.

R. Haass: David?

Participant: David Ensor of CNN.

Ambassador, you spoke in your speech about how the terrorists have added to their lists soft targets, softer targets, such as hotels and tourist sites and may be planning to bring those attacks to the continental United States to an extent you were not anticipating. Are you speaking only of the Afghan alumni from Canada? Or are there other cases that you could tell us anything about where that is the case?

M. Sheehan: I would say the former, primarily of that — those groups and associated groups.

Participant: Primarily the former?

M. Sheehan: Yes. I wouldn't say there's any — that much direct evidence of others bringing it to the U.S. right now, although I would, again, be loathe to say that we don't worry about that threat. We certainly do. But I don't think — maybe Paul would be able to make a better judgment on that.

P. Pillar: There are certainly other groups that have had a substantial presence and infrastructure here in the United States, which the FBI monitors carefully. For the most part, for the very large part, those have been devoted to fund-raising, proselytization and other activities that don't involve mounting actual terrorist operations in the United States. And in fact, those groups — precisely because of those activities, despite the '96 law about criminalizing financial contributions — would see themselves has having much to lose in most cases to mount an attack against U.S. targets in the United States. That's not to say it can't or won't happen, but there are certainly disincentives pushing them in the other direction.

R. Haass: I've got time for one last question.

In the back.

And let me apologize in advance to those we didn't get to. We'll have to get Ambassador Sheehan back to he can stop talking about this and start fighting it.

[LAUGHTER]

Participant: I'm going to disappoint all of you. I'm not a journalist. My name is Richard Owens. I work at USAID, specifically the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. I'm one of those U.S. government interagency first responders internationally to the consequences of terrorist acts overseas. And my question, on behalf of myself and my other first responders — both domestically and in the international realm — is for Mr. Carus.

Why so much attention paid by those who make policy and write about this field on the high ticket end, the weaponized agents — biological, chemical — when, in my experience, most first responders are more concerned about the fact that people can do it on the cheap by inducing an industrial accident either at a facility or somewhere in the transportation chain and get just as much bang for a whole lot less bucks?

W.S. Carus: Well, I think to be fair, those — at least the people I've dealt with who've been concerned, and here we're particularly talking about chemical agents — have been quite aware that: A, the military chemical agents that people talk about are merely variations of chemicals, many of which have legitimate commercial uses, and that, as a result, you're not concerned merely about the sarins and the VXs, which are the military agents, but also about a whole range of toxic industrial chemicals, and that — you know — the responses required are, in many ways, not inherently different for the kinds of consequence management activities you're talking about.

And to the extent that you could accomplish something with one of these military agents, you could accomplish it with a toxic industrial chemical. So, I don't see them as being necessarily disaggregated, and I don't think the programs ultimately have tried to disentangle them because it's the response we're concerned about, not what causes the response.

R. Haass: On that grim note of a grim subject, I want to thank Ambassador Sheehan for giving us all this time this morning. And I want to thank my three colleagues here on the panel. I want to thank you all. But before you go, I have two quick announcements to make.

For those of you who have not had your fill of grim subjects, there's an Internet chat, a live Internet chat, with Paul Pillar and Meghan O'Sullivan from 3 to 4 today on the Brookings Web site, [email protected]. And then the next policymaker event we have here at Brookings is on Valentine's Day — appropriately enough — achieving agricultural liberalization after Seattle. We're going to have Nick Brown, who is the minister — the British Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food talk about Seattle, talk about genetically modified organisms and talk about all the issues that got to people in the streets at Seattle and Davos.

Again, thank you all for coming to Brookings this morning.

[END OF EVENT]