As people across the United States commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., many wondered how well the nation has improved its ability to prevent similar terrorist attacks today. That was one of the topics Juan Zarate, senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, addressed during a recent lecture at Duke University. Zarate was deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism from 2005 to 2009. After his speech, Zarate discussed the current state of federal anti-terrorism measures with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
During the lecture, Zarate called efforts to take out Osama bin Laden “critically important.”
Zarate: I don’t think we can imagine the end of al-Qaida — or the movement — without the death or capture of bin Laden. And that’s why I think you’re starting to see from [Defense] Secretary [Leon] Panetta and others actual discourse about ending al-Qaida, crushing al-Qaida. [Chief presidential counterterrorism adviser] John Brennan has talked about crushing the al-Qaida core. We’re allowing ourselves to imagine that and to actually drive toward that, in part because bin Laden is gone. Strategically, it matters, though, and I think that some of the things that have been found in the Abbottabad files and in his diary demonstrate what some of us believed, which was: Not only was he a symbolic core of the movement, but he was still strategically driving the movement.
Again, back to the innovation of bin Laden, he and Ayman al-Zawahiri had always been the drivers of attacking the West, keeping the eye on the ball of attacking the United States in the first instance — getting all of the adherents to this movement to face west, to attack west. And we see now in some of the files that are being revealed the fact that this internal debate has actually been heightened over time, something we hoped was happening — we thought, we sensed was happening, but was really happening. In fact, the question of whether or not that’s an important or good strategy, bin Laden was central to that. And I think with his departure, not only do you lose the symbolic core, not only do you lose a key fundraiser — donors wanted to see and hear bin Laden — but you also lose that strategic glue that kept the movement together.
Kokai: Ten years after 9/11, just how safe are we?
Zarate: Well, I think that’s a difficult question to answer because I think we’re much safer than when 9/11 happened — clearly. But the reality is that the terrorist threats that we face in the 21st century are very adaptive, in some ways relentless, and, unfortunately, continuing to threaten the United States. So I think it’s clear we’re safer. We’ve built the institutions and the practices that have allowed us to disrupt terrorism. The legitimacy and effectiveness of al-Qaida have diminished. But there remain concerns: an ideology that is alluring to individuals radicalized by the Internet or otherwise, affiliates of al-Qaida in places like Yemen or North Africa that present a real risk to the United States still. So I think it’s safe to say we’re safer but not yet safe.
Kokai: Based on your presentation, I get the sense that it’s not just the case that there was a threat 10 years ago, and we’ve progressed to some degree in meeting that threat. The threat has changed and transformed in the past decade.
Zarate: That’s right. I think in the first instance the reaction to 9/11 was an attempt to get our hands on a problem that, frankly, we hadn’t dealt with properly and we didn’t know enough about. So it was an intense effort to not only learn more about al-Qaida, but to disrupt its activities around the world. That led to arrests around the world, disrupted networks. We also saw attacks around the world, unfortunately. This was a movement that was poised in terms of both its ideology and its logistics to actually mobilize and to attack. I think we often forget that reality. The good news is our counterterrorism pressure actually impacted the group. It has diminished al-Qaida’s reach. Although it has metastasized, the reality is we have impacted it. It has adapted as a result. So what we’re seeing now is an enemy that has adapted to a lot of the counterterrorism pressure and continues to adapt to the pressure put on — not just by the United States, but by nations around the world.
Kokai: During your presentation, the question came up: “Are we ever going to be safe? Are we ever going to feel as safe again as we did Sept. 10, 2001?”
Zarate: I don’t think psychologically, in terms of national security, in terms of how we view and sense the threats to the United States, we’re ever going to go back to a Sept. 10, 2001, mentality or psychology. I think the realities of terrorism in the 21st century — not just al-Qaida-driven, but other terrorist threats and other transnational threats — you look at drug trafficking networks, you look at the Mexican cartels and what’s happening in Mexico — I mean, these are threats that move beyond their locality, that impact the United States in ways that in a pre-9/11 context didn’t quite equate and didn’t quite calculate in terms of our national security. The reality is individual small cells have the ability to have geopolitical impact. There’s the means to have cataclysmic effect, and al-Qaida in many ways continues to try to inspire via its various heads, like a hydra, trying to inspire attacks against the West.
Kokai: You worked for the Bush administration. Some people listening to us are going to say, “OK, this guy is going to have a lot of bad things to say about the way President Obama has handled terrorism.” But you call his decision to take out Osama bin Laden a “gutsy call” and the “right call.” How has President Obama done in handling anti-terrorism?
Zarate: Well, I think it’s a little bit of a mixed story. I think there’s been fundamental continuity in the counterterrorism policies that were handed over in 2009. I think one of the realities is that our counterterrorism policies evolved over time. What we were doing in 2002 [and] 2003 changed and adapted. By the time we got to 2009, there was a fundamental approach to our counterterrorism that, I think, the Obama administration has largely adopted. Where I differ with the Obama administration is where they have tried to starkly distinguish themselves, in obvious ways, from the Bush administration. That’s when they’ve gotten into trouble because the baseline of their policy is consistent with the Bush administration.
Where they have, for example, signed an executive order trying to close Guantanamo on an artificial deadline — not fully appreciating the complexities of that, not fully appreciating the fact that President Bush said he wanted Guantanamo closed in 2006 and was trying to do that, not fully appreciating the complexities of devising a detainee system that includes a military tribunal option, that includes criminal trials, that includes what the Obama administration accepts is indefinite detention without any trial — those are differences the Obama administration has tried to draw. But the difference has not held up and has forced the Obama administration to retreat from some very controversial policy decisions.
Kokai: You’re a professional in this field. You’re going to be focusing much more attention on anti-terrorism than the “normal” person. What should a normal person who doesn’t have to — or want to — think every day about al-Qaida and terrorism, what should that person know about how safe we are 10 years after 9/11?
Zarate: An ordinary citizen, frankly, shouldn’t be worrying about al-Qaida every day of their life. I actually feel … absolutely privileged by the roles I played, but also somewhat burdened by the fact that I have to worry about what these terrorists are doing on a daily basis as a matter of my profession. The reality is that citizens need to realize that we are much safer now. We have done some very important and good things as a country to make ourselves safer. We also, though, need to realize that 100 percent surety in our ability to stop all terrorist attacks is not there and that we have to have societal resilience in the event that something actually does happen. We’re much safer. Nothing is ever 100 percent, but that’s certainly something that American officials both in the prior administration — and, I’m convinced, in this administration — are trying to see come to fruition.