Written Statement
for the Record of
James L. Pavitt
Deputy Director for Operations
on Weapons Mass Destruction (WMD) Programs
before the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
Washington, DC
14 April 2004
Good morning. It is a privilege for me to appear before
this commission on an issue of vital importance to our nation. By virtue
of my position in the CIA, I am not a public person. Indeed, in the
history of the CIA, no one in my position has ever testified publicly.
And, like my colleagues here at the table, I am a public
servant, dedicated to defending the security of our nation. For the
last five of my more than 30 years in the intelligence business, I have
had the honor of leading a unique organizationthe Directorate
of Operationsthe clandestine service of America. I am remarkably
proud of this extraordinary group of dedicated professionals, their
commitment and their accomplishments. Many of the men and women of
my organization operate abroad in dangerous locales and always in secret.
They cannot publicly appear before you today. I am here to represent
them all.
The threat posed by terrorists prior to 9/11 was unambiguous.
The threat was not just outlined in sensitive intelligence documents.
Two highly regarded commissionsthe Bremer Commission and the Hart
Rudman Commissionwere prophetic in laying out in unclassified
reports, the terrorist threat we facedincluding the possibility
of terrorists inflicting mass casualties both overseas and on American
soil.
Two-and-a-half years ago, that adversary shattered
the sense of security that the people of this country have come to cherish.
We fought this enemy through the 1990s, but it was the tragedy of September
11 that unified and focused this country and allowed us to counter this
threat as never before.
The damage to al-Qa'ida since that tragedy has been
striking. The pre-9/11 al-Qa'ida leadership, almost gone. Bin Ladin
and al-Zawahiri, in hiding. Clandestine operations, at the heart of
some of the most dramatic takedowns of the al-Qa'ida organization.
Covert action, working hand-in-glove with the US military to oust the
Taliban and al-Qa'ida from Afghanistan in an intelligence/military partnership
that is seen as a model. I will answer all the questions you have today,
but my first responsibility here is to look at where we are in this
campaign. And to give you a sense of where we are headed. As you know,
I cannot publicly describe our operations in detail. But I can give
you, I hope, a clear sense of how we see this point in time, and how
we want to chart the next steps forward. As I paint this picture, I
want to return to a few themes:
- One: working with partners here and abroad, we are
in the midst of inflicting irreversible damage on the al-Qa'ida organization.
- Two: Al-Qa'ida has poisoned an international movement
with an ideology that is fueling attacks from Madrid to Manila. Our
mission will not end as long as members of this broad movement see
the killing of innocents as an acceptable cost of achieving their
ends.
- Three: The demise of Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri will
be a signpost, not a turning point. All of us
you, me, the American
people watching today must realize that this is a campaign with no
clear end in sight, a campaign that will continue to demand our attention,
our partners' assistance, and the full commitment of American resources
and tools of national power.
Let me turn to where we are, by taking a step back
for a moment. Think back to October of 2001, and imagine what you would
have said if someone had described the following future to you:
- Taliban and al-Qa'ida, essentially ousted from Afghanistan.
- International recognition of new leadership in Afghanistan,
with a Political process in place.
- Periodic times of heightened alerts in this country,
but no further attacks on our soil.
- About three-quarters of the al-Qa'ida leadership,
gone.
- A worldwide coalition of partners, dozens and dozens,
cooperating despite occasional political differences, in a global,
behind-the-scenes war of massive, indeed unprecedented, proportions.
Despite all we have left to do, the vision I just described
is as real today as it was unimaginable even 30 months ago. The clandestine
service I lead is at the heart of this transformation. Men and women
who are committed to helping their countrymen regain some of the sense
of security, the American way, that has become so tested in these past
few years.
Where does this leave us, today, in this campaign?
This adversary is hurt, but we are by no means through yet with al-Qa'ida.
The group's leadership was surprised by the ferocity of our reaction
to September 11; they had no coherent escape plan from Afghanistan.
They fled, east into and through Pakistan and west, into and beyond
Iran. They tried to reconstitute a command structure. They failed.
Pakistani cities are no longer a hub of senior leadership
plotting, cleared of senior leaders by our work in partnership with
Pakistan and its courageous leader, President Musharraf. Iran detained
many of the leaders who fled west.
As these leadership nodes eroded, the operational cells
they directed or inspired, in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and
Southeast Asia, coiled to strike. And they did, in Bali, Saudi Arabia,
East Africa, Morocco, and elsewhere. At an operational pace that was
no less intense after September 11 than it was before.
But our operations, in concert with our partners, are
gaining ground against the core of al-Qa'ida. Again, look back. Two-and-a-half
years ago, we would have listed our top concerns: Yemen, Saudi Arabia,
Southeast Asia. And we remain concerned about extremists operating
in these areas. But today, almost every senior target is gone in Yemen,
killed or captured. We have a level of cooperation in Saudi Arabia
that far exceeds anything we have seen before, and the results show
it: damage to the leadership of almost all the al-Qa'ida cells we have
identified in the Kingdom. Progress as well in Southeast Asia, where
we are working against one of al-Qa'ida's most dangerous affiliates,
Jemaah Islamiyah.
These are all places where we have targeted leadership,
through technical operations, human sources, and joint work with partners.
Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Hambali, Nashiri. All senior
al-Qa'ida leaders or associates, all taken down directly as a result
of human source operations that are the fuel for our successes today.
The capabilities and partnerships we are using to fight
this campaign are notable, not only for what they bring to bear in the
field overseas but also for the unity of effort they represent at home.
Overseas, every station in the clandestine service has counterterrorism
as its top priority. Not just to take down individual terrorists, but
to follow finances; terrorists' efforts to find chemical, biological,
or radiological materials; terrorist recruitment; false document rings;
alien smuggling. we are working on every aspect of this international
network.
I've mentioned our work with services worldwide as
one of the tools we are using. I cannot overestimate the importance
of the global clandestine coalition we are forging. We work with friends,
we work with foes. We cover a terrorist target around this globe using
a cadre of case officers that is smaller than the number of FBI officers
who work in New York City alone.
Complementing these classic clandestine operations
is a covert action capability that became critically important two-and-a-half
years ago. My officers remain in the field in Afghanistan, today providing
the intelligence eyes that are helping to drive the operations of our
military partners. This capability did not appear overnight. Remember,
our ability to move quickly in Afghanistan, one of the most successful
covert actions ever, grew out of the strategic decision we made in the
late 1990s to maintain a relationship with the Northern Alliance.
The Washington end of this story, today, is no less
vibrant. Visit my building; let me tell you what you will see. On
covert action, interaction and coordination with the US military that
is not just regular, it is daily, every single working day. We talk
with military field operators, daily, and Pentagon civilian and military
officers sit in our Counterterrorist Center, privy to any operational
detail we discuss. You would see the same cooperation with law enforcement.
On any given day, some 20 full-time FBI officers sit in our Counterterrorist
Center. They know our operations, and they know our human agents.
We still need to learn how to continue improving this partnership, but
we started learning well before September 11, when we first posted a
senior FBI officer as one of the deputy directors in the Center. We
can and we will be better still.
People outside this circle have access to what we know,
including information about our operations. We provide our backbone
database, a highly sensitive combination of intelligence reporting and
operational detail, to officers across the community who are sitting
in the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. And we have a large cadre
of officers whose sole job it is to disseminate intelligence information
to the Intelligence Community and beyond. If we receive a threat, we
disseminate it immediately.
I am proud of what this unique collection of Americans
has done. But make no mistake. While we pursue this enemy, the record
since September 11 shows, time and time again, that it can operate in
the midst of decline. I mentioned earlier a few of the operations al-Qa'ida
and its affiliates have conducted since September 11. I will return
to my office today, and I guarantee, before the day is out, my officers
will speak to me about plotters around the world who want to attack
us with a lack of regard for human life that defies description. We
are prevailing, but this fight is far from over.
Why? Why is this so? How can I speak to you about
the series of successes at the same time that I warn you that the world
I see today, April 14, is seething with people who are hatching plots
that are tomorrow's Madrids, Balis, and Casablancas? It is because
we are watching, as we preempt, disrupt, and destroy the relatively
small group we know as al-Qa'ida, the spread of a far looser, flatter
movement of people inspired by Bin Ladin. Our mission will change with
this enemy, month by month, year by year. I've drawn an image of an
al-Qa'ida organization that has its back against a wall, damaged but
still potent.
Let me now turn for a few minutes to the movement that
this group has spawned, the movement that I believe represents the next
stage in this long campaign. Bin Ladin and his operators attacked in
East Africa in 1998, in Yemen in 2000, in New York in 2001. But his
organization never saw itself as the sole master of all terrorism.
The group trained Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans, Saudis, Yemenis,
Filipinos . . . and Americans. And, maybe more important, the group
developed and disseminated an ideology that led others, regardless of
their affiliation with al-Qa'ida itself, to see the world as al-Qa'ida
does, with the United States as the primary enemy. What we will face,
in the coming years, are those who absorbed this message, those who
now themselves see the murder of innocents as an acceptable cost of
their drive to act on this ideology.
The web we are disrupting is increasingly global, increasingly
dispersed, and increasingly local. And the tools we use to break down
this web must continue to extend beyond intelligence, the military,
and law enforcement. We need diplomacy to keep partners engaged, education
to stem the tide of recruits into this network, economic progress to
undercut the despair that drives people to radicalism. And, above all,
we cannot afford to dilute the focus and commitment to prevent another
leader from emerging to ride this ideological wave. Never forget, because
our adversary never will.
The kinds of commitments my service will need to make
reflect this assessment of an international network that is broad, committed,
and durable. We started re-growing the clandestine service in the 1990s.
It will take us years to get where we need to be, in clandestine training,
language skills, and field experience. Field officers will be crucial.
The 90s were lean times for the human intelligence business.
As a result of the post Cold Wars so-called Peace Dividend,
We were in a period of decline. Our clandestine ranks were reduced by
20%. During this period, our targets were diverse-from terrorism to
weapons proliferation to counternarcotics-but our resources were not
keeping pace. We worked hard to sustain our collection efforts against
the terrorist target. But let me be clear: We were vastly underfunded
and we did not have the people to do the job.
The tragedy of September 11 unified and focused our
government and our country. As a result, we were granted new and more
robust authorities and resources to attack this threat as never before.
The Patriot Act and expanded covert action authorities mandated by President
Bush are important elements of the foreign policy response to 9/11.
We finally had an unprecedented authority to mount an aggressive and
effective offensive. Further, we received an immediate infusion of funding
to hire hundreds of additional staff. Today, more than 50% of our funding
and about 30% of our people are focused on the terrorism target. Our
Counterterrorism Center has more than tripled in size since 9/11.
The resources we will need to fight this war will not
diminish. They may in fact increase, directly as a result of the fact
that our operations, like our enemy, will have to be global and dispersed.
This vision of an overseas intelligence coalition,
working with our clandestine assistance and supported by al the tools
of national power, must run in parallel to a homeland architecture that
gives us the same sort of teamwork. As we attack this target, we will
not only coordinate with our law enforcement colleagues, we will expand
on programs to run joint human sources with them, not only overseas
but here in the homeland. We must. Our adversary doesnt respect
our borders; we have to have the capability, working with law enforcement,
to ensure that this government can operate seamlessly across borders
as well.
Our operational focus is shifting as well, to meet
the challenge of the coming years of this fight. We have invested, in
the months and years after September 11, in taking out the leadership
of the organization that conceptualized and conducted the attack. We
came to understand better how embedded their web is. We will maintain
these disruption operations against the Al-Qaida organization,
but we will also increasingly shift to aggressive infiltration of the
broader network, to recruitment and penetration operations that will
allow us to map this web, not just its operations but its low-level
and support personnel. We are taking down those who plotted the murder
of 3,000 Americans; we are planning for a future where we take down
those who may follow them.
I know it is time to turn your to your questions but
first I must speak on behalf of those men and women of the CIA who could
not be here today but who work so hard to stop Bin Laden and his associates;
indeed their lives are consumed with combating the terrorist threat.
- To the families, I want to extend our heartfelt condolences to you
for the tragic loss of your loved ones. My officers sounded the alarm
about the gathering, lethal threat and put their hearts and souls
into disrupting and preventing attacks against America. Their commitment,
bravery, sacrifice and dedication to the defense of our nation are
second to none. But in the end that was not enough to stop the attacks
on September 11th. We did all we knew how to do. We failed to stop
the attacks.
- I can assure you the memory of your loved ones continues
to be a tremendous source of inspiration to those of use who dedicate
our lives to combating this enemy. We will succeed.
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