Posted on 08/23/2006 11:14:05 AM PDT by 2banana
Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security
Posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2006. By Ken Silverstein.
Sources Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004; he served as the chief of the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the formerly anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. I met him for breakfast last week at an IHOP in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington. Over a plate of eggs and hash browns, he answered a series of questions about the current state of the Bush Administration’s “War on Terrorism.” His prognosis was illuminating and insightful—and, unfortunately, almost unrelentingly grim.
1. We're coming up on the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Is the country safer or more vulnerable to terrorism?
On balance, more vulnerable. We're safer in terms of aircraft travel. We're safer from being attacked by some dumbhead who tries to come into the country through an official checkpoint; we've spent billions on that. But for the most part our victories have been tactical and not strategic. There have been important successes by the intelligence services and Special Forces in capturing and killing Al Qaeda militants, but in the long run that's just a body count, not progress. We can't capture them one by one and bring them to justice. There are too many of them, and more now than before September 11. In official Western rhetoric these are finite organizations, but every time we interfere in Muslim countries they get more support.
In the long run, we're not safer because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There's our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies. The deal we made with Qadaffi in Libya looks like hypocrisy: we'll make peace with a brutal dictator if it gets us oil. President Bush is right when he says all people aspire to freedom but he doesn't recognize that people have different definitions of democracy. Publicly promoting democracy while supporting tyranny may be the most damaging thing we do. From the standpoint of democracy, Saudi Arabia looks much worse than Iran. We use the term “Islamofascism”—but we're supporting it in Saudi Arabia, with Mubarak in Egypt, and even Jordan is a police state. We don't have a strategy because we don't have a clue about what motivates our enemies.
2. Is Al Qaeda stronger or weaker than it was five years ago?
The quality of its leadership is not as high as it was in 2001, because we've killed and captured so many of its leaders. But they have succession planning that works very well. We keep saying that we're killing their leaders, but you notice that we keep having to kill their number twos, threes and fours all over again. They bring in replacements, and these are not novices off the street—they're understudies. From the very first, bin Laden has said that he's just one person and Al Qaeda is a vanguard organization, that it needs other Muslims to join them. He's always said that his primary goal is to incite attacks by people who might not have any direct contact with Al Qaeda. Since 2001, and especially since mid-2005, there's been an increase in the number of groups that were not directly tied to Al Qaeda but were inspired by bin Laden's words and actions.
We also shouldn't underestimate the stature of bin Laden and Zawahiri in the Muslim world now that they’ve survived five years of war with the United States. You see commentary in the Muslim press: “How have they been able to defy the United States? It takes something special.” Their heroic status is an important fact. It helps explain why these cells keep popping up. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda is also assisting insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. I agree with the view that we've moved from man and organization to philosophy and movement, but one hasn't entirely replaced the other. There are three levels: Al Qaeda central is still intact; there are groups long affiliated with Al Qaeda, in places like Kashmir, the Philippines, and Indonesia; and there are the new groups inspired by Al Qaeda.
3. Given all this, why hasn't there been an attack on the United States for the past five years?
It's not just a lack of capacity; they're not ready to do it. They put more emphasis on success than speed, and the next attack has to be bigger than 9/11. They could shoot up a mall if that's what they wanted to do. But the world is going their way. Our leaders have been clever in defining success as preventing a big terrorist attack on the United States, but we've lost some 3,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've spent billions on those wars, and as in Vietnam the government has suffered a real hit on its credibility. The war in Iraq has created huge divisiveness in our domestic politics, not to mention in our relationships with our European allies. At the same time, there are more people willing to take up arms against the United States, and we have less ability to win hearts and minds in the Arab world. If you're bin Laden living in a cave, all those things are part of the war and those things are going your way.
4. Has the war in Iraq helped or hurt in the fight against terrorism?
It broke the back of our counterterrorism program. Iraq was the perfect execution of a war that demanded jihad to oppose it. You had an infidel power invading and occupying a Muslim country and it was perceived to be unprovoked. Many senior Western officials said that bin Laden was not a scholar and couldn't declare a jihad but other Muslim clerics did. So that religious question was erased.
Secondly, Iraq is in the Arab heartland and, far more than Afghanistan, is a magnet for mujahideen. You can see this in the large number of people crossing the border to fight us. It wasn't a lot at the start, but there's been a steady growth as the war continues. The war has validated everything bin Laden said: that the United States will destroy any strong government in the Arab world, that it will seek to destroy Israel's enemies, that it will occupy Muslim holy places, that it will seize Arab oil, and that it will replace God's law with man's law. We see Iraq as a honey pot that attracts jihadists whom we can kill there instead of fighting them here. We are ignoring that Iraq is not just a place to kill Americans; Al Qaeda has always said that it requires safe havens. It has said it couldn't get involved with large numbers in the Balkans war because it had no safe haven in the region. Now they have a safe haven in Iraq, which is so big and is going to be so unsettled for so long. For the first time, it gives Al Qaeda contiguous access to the Arabian Peninsula, to Turkey, and to the Levant. We may have written the death warrant for Jordan. If we pull out of Iraq, we have a problem in that we may have to leave a large contingent of troops in Jordan. All of this is a tremendous advantage for Al Qaeda. We've moved the center of jihad a thousand miles west from Afghanistan to the Middle East.
5. Things seemed to have turned for the worse in Afghanistan too. What's your take on the situation there?
The President was sold a bill of goods by George Tenet and the CIA—that a few dozen intel guys, a few hundred Special Forces, and truckloads of money could win the day. What happened is what's happened ever since Alexander the Great, three centuries before Christ: the cities fell quickly, which we mistook for victory. Three years later, the Taliban has regrouped, and there's a strong insurgency. We paid a great price for demonizing the Taliban. We saw them as evil because they didn't let women work, but that's largely irrelevant in Afghanistan. They provided nationwide law and order for the first time in 25 years; we destroyed that and haven't replaced it. They're remembered in Afghanistan for their harsh, theocratic rule, but remembered more for the security they provided. In the end, we'll lose and leave. The idea that we can control Afghanistan with 22,000 soldiers, most of whom are indifferent to the task, is far-fetched. The Soviets couldn't do it with 150,000 soldiers and utter brutality. Before the invasion of Afghanistan, [the military historian] John Keegan said the only way to go there was as a punitive mission, to destroy your enemy and get out. That was prescient; our only real mission there should have been to kill bin Laden and Zawahiri and as many Al Qaeda fighters as possible, and we didn't do it.
6. Has the war in Lebanon also been a plus for the jihadists?
Yes. The Israel-Hezbollah battle validates bin Laden. It showed that the Arab regimes are useless, that they can't protect their own nationals, and that they are apostate regimes that are creatures of the infidels. It also showed that the Americans will let Israel do whatever it wants. It was clear from the way the West reacted that it would let Israel take its best shot before it tried diplomacy. I saw an article in the Arab press—in London, I think—that said Lebanon was like a caught fish, that the United States nailed it to the wall and Israel gutted it. The most salient point it showed for Islamists is that Muslim blood is cheap. Israel said it went to war to get back its captured soldiers. The price was the gutting of Lebanon. Olmert said that Israel would fight until it got its soldiers back and until Hezbollah was disarmed. Neither happened. No matter how you spin it, this will be viewed as a victory for Hezbollah. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon six years ago. Since then there have been the two intifadas, and now this. The idea of Israel being militarily omnipotent is fading.
7. And finally, an extra question—what needs to be done?
This may be a country bumpkin approach, but the truth is the best place to start. We need to acknowledge that we are at war, not because of who we are, but because of what we do. We are confronting a jihad that is inspired by the tangible and visible impact of our policies. People are willing to die for that, and we're not going to win by killing them off one by one. We have a dozen years of reliable polling in the Middle East, and it shows overwhelming hostility to our policies—and at the same time it shows majorities that admire the way we live, our ability to feed and clothe our children and find work. We need to tell the truth to set the stage for a discussion of our foreign policy.
At the core of the debate is oil. As long as we and our allies are dependent on Gulf oil, we can't do anything about the perception that we support Arab tyranny—the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and other regimes in the region. Without the problem of oil, who cares who rules Saudi Arabia? If we solved the oil problem, we could back away from the contradiction of being democracy promoters and tyranny protectors. We should have started on this back in 1973, at the time of the first Arab oil embargo, but we've never moved away from our dependence. As it stands, we are going to have to fight wars if anything endangers the oil supply in the Middle East.
What you want with foreign policy is options. Right now we don't have options because our economy and our allies' economies are dependent on Middle East oil. What benefit do we get by letting China commit genocide-by-inundation by moving thousands and thousands of Han Chinese to overcome the dominance of Muslim Uighurs? What do we get out of supporting Putin in Chechnya? He may need to do it to maintain his country, but we don't need to support what looks like a rape, pillage, and kill campaign against Muslims. The other area is Israel and Palestine. We're not going to abandon the Israelis but we need to reestablish the relationship so it looks like we're the great power and they're our ally, and not the other way around. We need to create a situation where moderate Muslims can express support for the United States without being laughed off the block.
Bahrain - Constitutional monarchy w/ an elected parliament
Bahrain is nice. Basically the Las Vegas of the Middle East, and not much larger. That said, monarchs are dictators. Poltical parties are outlawed in Bahrain, although political 'societies' are now allowed to congregate. Population: 700k.
Comoros - Democracy
I'll give you that one, even though 98% of Americans couldn't find it on a map. Population: 700k.
Egypt - Democracy. The last dictator, Nasser was always backed by USSR.
Come on, now. If Egypt is a democracy, so was the Soviet Union. All parties and candidates must be government sanctioned, and political repression is tight. Go make a 'Mubarak must resign' poster and walk down the street in Cairo. Record me how many steps you make it before Egyptian police beat you senseless, and get back to us. Population: 79 million.
Iraq - Democracy. US invaded specifically to depose the last dictator.
Iraq is democratic. That's two. Population: 27 million.
Jordan - Monarchy
Monarchs are dictators. Population: 6 million.
Kuwait - Monarchy w/ an elected parliament
Monarchs are dictators. Kuwaiit is a constitutional hereditary emirate, with all positions except for elected 50 legislators being appointed by the Amir. Population 2.5 million.
Lebanon - Democracy
Lebanon is nominally a democracy, albeit in reality it's a failed state run de facto by neighboring dictatorships and local terrorist groups. I'll give it to you, I guess, if you want to claim it. Population: 4 million.
Oman - Monarchy w/ an elected parliament
Monarchs are dictators. The Omani parliment is bicameral, on side being appointed, the other elected. Both have only advisory powers, and do not make law. Population: 3 million.
Palestine - Islamist Democracy
All you. Population: 2.5 million.
Qatar - Monarchy
Monarchs are dictators. Qatar does have some elected officials, who have advisory powers only. Population: 900,000.
Saudi Arabia - Monarchy
Monarchs are dictators. Saudi Arabia is one of the worst dictatorships on the planet. Population: 27 million.
Syria - Dictatorial Republic
Syria is a dictatorship. Population: 19 million.
UAE - Monarchy. Bin Laden used to (mid 90's) take its princes hunting i Afghanistan)
Monarchs are dictators. Population: 2.5 million.
Yemen - Democratic (although pro-US govt is viewed as corrupt by Islamists)
Yemen is democratic. Amusingly enough, the government is nominally pro-US, but Yemen is one of the most openly pro-jihad countries anywhere. Population: 21 million.
Iran (if you want to count it as Arab which it is not) - Islamist Democracy.
It is not Arab, but for arguement's sake, let's include it. Iran is a theocratic republic. Political parties and candidates must be approved by the government. Population: 69 million.
So, out of all of your examples, we have Comoros and Iraq leading the pack, with Lebanon, 'Palestine' and Yemen tied for 2nd. Combined population: Over 50 million. So which of the five would you like to move to first, to see democracy in action?
Any of the other countries named are centrally controlled, with political power given out in either symbolic or minor doses to the elected officials. Political repression is harsh, and open criticism of the government leads to violent reprisals, imprisonment, torture, or death. Call it democracy all you want. Just don't call it anything else while you're there, unless you want a visit from the local cops.
I never said that. I just said that they don't like their repressive governments. No matter where you go in the Middle East, that's going to resonate with people, be they secular liberal, or Wahabbi extremist.
Beyond that, there's a vast disparity in what people think should be done, and most people in the Middle East aren't fundamentalists. There are plenty of secular Arabs out there that don't want Islam as part of their government. The only reason that they are so outgunned is that both Islamic extremists and brutal dictators have a stranglehold on the politics of the region, and they tend to reinforce each other's harshness as part of their conflict.
Israel is not really that big a deal to the Middle Easterners, except for one important thing. They don't care about the plight of the Palestinians, and treat them like crap at every turn.
Israel a scapegoat, a rare topic in a world of taboos that they are allowed to openly hate. Arabs are powerless in the face of their own governments, but the shame and rage they feel is allowed to be expressed at Israel. Most Arabs have never been to Israel, and it doesn't affect their daily lives one whit, whether it was run by Jews, Buddhists, or Satan worshippers. They'd never know one way or another, and wouldn't care. They come up with a lot of reasons why they hate Israel (and, by extention, the West), but it all boils down to the fact that they're not allowed to hate anything else.
this is the asshole that was in charge of the "BIN LADEN" unit in the C.I.A in the mid to late 90's...and such a fine job he did...countless unanswered attacks that led to 3000 americans killed on 9-11...hes interviewed like hes some kind of an expert, in reality this jack-off was a complete failure..where do they get these guys, geez!!
All killed by Islamothugs.
The Muslims want an Islamic world and will never rest until they get it. Israel, US policies and all the other "reasons" for muslim terrorism are all side issues.
Their main goal is and always has been a world-wide caliphate. Everything else is window dressing.
Pretty much how I explain al-Qa'ida - Religious fundamentist extremism. They'll always be around, in some fashion. But those organizations, like any cult, at best, number in the low thousands. The problem isn't the hard core whackjobs, who will never be statistically significant. It's the fact that once they have a major grievance to subvert, people will flock to them.
It's the same thing that people did with Communism. It's hard core fanatics are rare, but the people who will sell out to it to win independence, or to fight another local evil, is the problem.
Thanks for the possibility of getting the questions to him. I very seriously doubt that he will answer any of them because thus far no one from the Clinton Administration has had to answer for their failures and I'm pretty sure it's not about to start now.
Mr. Schuerer is a disgruntled former spook who, due to his own failures was no longer allowed to participate in an area of intelligence that was not only of the highest importance (and status in the CIA) but was an area he considered himself singularly expert in. He blew it. He was downgraded and now he wants to blame the policy makers.
And, the book I referenced above is a very thorough, one-stop cavalcade of the deep and long-building origins of the religious-political philosophy and tactical purposes of Osama and his many clones, as well as the major historical elements and actions of Osama, Al Queda and the many past and present terrorist leaders with him, and like him. It should be required reading for everyone at the CIA, State Department and Pentagon.
We might be sold short by a POTUS who does not have the deep background compiled on this topic by the author; because I can think of many places in this long tale, documented by Wright, where CIA, State and DOD would not like to highlight their past, and possible continuing ignorance. But a POTUS who understands the full matter, as well as Wright has laid it out, will be more inclined to ask the questions that the presentation of CIA, State and DOD "analysis" is not addresssing.
I urge all Freepers to put "The Looming Tower" on their "must read" list.
Also described by another veteran CIA colleague (Robert Baer) in the NYT's best seller "See No Evil" - our human intelligence gather abilities under the Clinton administration was castrated...the wanted nothing to interfere with the polls.
Sorry, but the history and the facts don't agree with you. As late as 1998 the CIA had not affected one single direct human penetration of Al Queda or anyone near it. Most of what they thought they knew came from what they were told by other intelligence agencies (which never told them all they knew) and which left the CIA not even looking to track Osama until years after Al Queda was formed and its goals set, and then (mid to late 1990s) knowing mostly only, from the NSA technical data, where Osama was and not how his network was managing to operate. They did not, for far too long, understand the depth and breadth of the Islamic terrorist networks and the comprehensive religious-philosophical principles from which the rational for those networks developed; the principles Osama and all his clones believe in; and how it is those principles, and not US policy that draws in Osama's, Hamas, Hezbolla's recruits. CIA and State accepted the false notion, handed by Al Queda's religious backers to the "Muslim street" that US policy was the core problem that drove the terrorists to their actions, and our intelligence actions were actually reactions to our own acceptance of that false belief.
"But, the reason that the U.S. policy angle sells so well in the Middle East is that most people there live under the boot of U.S. backed dictatorships, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc. They see their own governments as cowards and bullies who sell their people out to stay rich and live like kings, and arm themselves with U.S. firepower. Islam totally notwithstanding, that's a huge factor in AQ's attraction as a resistance movement."
Yes, they, with the help of the American media, sell Arab and Muslim myths. There was no more oppressive state governing Muslims in the Middle East than Iraq under Saddam Hussein and he was not "backed" by the U.S., in spite of the myths told about the U.S. even-handed (hope for no winners) approach to Iran and Iraq during their war. Syria, another oppressive dictatorship has never been propped up or greatly embraced by the U.S. There is no more oppressive state in the Middle East governing Muslims today than the theocracy in Iran; no great puppet of the U.S. There was probably no more oppressive state in the Middle East than Afghanistan under the Taliban, and it was created by fellow-travelers of Osama, which should tell every Muslim of just what Osama's "liberation" has to offer.
Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East are great at blaming everyone else for their own indigenous failures, expect the world to help get rid of their failures and then blame the world for interfering when it does. It doesn't matter, too many Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East just love victimhood.
I think you should ask the Saudis.
"Also described by another veteran CIA colleague (Robert Baer) in the NYT's best seller "See No Evil" - our human intelligence gather abilities under the Clinton administration was castrated...the wanted nothing to interfere with the polls."
I am no longer convinced it was purely "political" and incompetance on Clinton's part and how much it was a result of the entrenched, decades-old Saudi-centric views at Foggy Bottom and CIA itself. You must accept that the greatest amount of what we knew, what we thought we knew and when we thought we knew it, about Osama, was delivered (and filtered) by the Saudis and the Pakistani ISI. The Saudis in particular knew when, and how much he had decided to see us as his main target, long before we gained that knowledge. And, I question just how much we questioned the timing and level of honesty from them, about Osama, after his goals became known to us.
Look, Clinto was a schnook, now doubt.
However,
The CIA operational deficiencies you refer to, leading to less human intelligence, and greater reliance on "technical intelligence" and intelligence alliances with "allies" began in the aftermath of the Church Committee in the mid 1970s (when the humit exodus started).
The declines were slowed, but only marginally under Reagan (he went around formal CIA channels with people like Oliver North and others in special ops when he needed to) and continued again in a long decline after Reagan and including during the H.W. Bush era.
Clinton's period witnessed the advanced stages of an internal management-change process at CIA that had been building for almost twenty years. Had Clinton been a Reagan or a G.W.Bush type in the immediate post-H.W. Bush era and with Al Queda raising its head, might he have tried to change it or reverse it? Yes, maybe, but he didn't start the CIA decline, it was a process that began before he took office.
Fault him for not seeing it as a decline, but not for initiating it.
Part of the lax concern for humit grew, politically, from the "peace dividend" psychology after the fall of the Soviets. Al Queda was not even on the radar screen when Clinton was elected, China was seen as a long term "problem" but, barring some major change, not a strategic threat (probably a bigger error than not understanding Al Queda).
After the fall of the Soviets and what was believed to be "containment" of Iraq soon thereafter, and until the Al Queda, Iran and China areas were more clearly understood, by a few more years of history, there was a lot of political thinking, from both major parties, that humit was not as critical as it had always been. It was wrong, but it was not a strictly Democrat or liberal opinion at the time.
Did Clinton make some specific errors, in addition to his countenancing the humit decline that had already begun? Sure, like with the Osama-Sudan affair; just to name one. And, I can appreciate everyone's view of how political Clinton was in so many critical decisions. I don't think that is in dispute.
What I cannot do is attach Clinton's political motivations to every, or any one specific, decision with regard to Osama-Al Queda (we - as yet - have few if any "smoking guns" to prove them) and allow that suposition to disregard that I think many of his decisions were often favored and agreed to at the top, at CIA and State Department for their own reasons, outside of Clinton's politics; reasons related to forty years of "alliances" that State and CIA thought they had created and thought they could trust; not only trust in the operational sense, but trust that when we agreed to certain actions based on those alliances that the alliance had provided a good enough basis for trusting the results of those actions.
I think our State and CIA have grossly underestimated how much and how often the "national interest" of supposed allies, as opposed to what we think is our common interest, have affected the "advice" from "allies" to us in many areas; particularly when that advice has concerned issues for which they were also a primary source of the humint we had on the issue. I put the Saudis with Osama (from the 1980s to as late as 1999), and France with Saddam (up to now) in this category. Even G.W. has, in my mind, not fathomed the extent of this error yet, inspite of many examples since he took office.
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