Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror. Our terrorist enemies are striving to claim a strategic country as a haven for terror. From this base, they could destabilize the Middle East and strike America and other free nations with everincreasing violence. This we can never allow. Our enemies had established a sanctuary in Afghanistan prior to Operation Enduring Freedom, and today terrorists see Iraq as the central front of their fight against the United States. This is why success in helping the Afghan and Iraqi peoples forge effective democracies is vital. We will continue to prevent terrorists from exploiting ungoverned or under-governed areas as safehavens—secure spaces that allow our enemies to plan, organize, train, and prepare for operations. Ultimately, we will eliminate these havens altogether.
—Eliminate physical safehavens. Physical sanctuaries can stretch across an entire sovereign state, be limited to specific ungoverned or ill-governed areas in an otherwise functioning state, or cross national borders. In some cases the government wants to exercise greater effective sovereignty over its lands and maintain control within its borders but lacks the necessary capacity. We will strengthen the capacity of such War on Terror partners to reclaim full control of their territory through effective police, border, and other security forces as well as functioning systems of justice. To further counter terrorist exploitation of under-governed lands, we will promote effective economic development to help ensure long-term stability and prosperity. In failing states or states emerging from conflict, the risks are significant. Spoilers can take advantage of instability to create conditions terrorists can exploit. We will continue to work with foreign partners and international organizations to help prevent conflict and respond to state failure by building foreign capacity for peace operations, reconstruction, and stabilization so that countries in transition can reach a sustainable path to peace, democracy, and prosperity. Where physical havens cross national boundaries, we will continue to work with the affected countries to help establish effective cross-border control. Yet some countries will be reluctant to fulfill their sovereign responsibilities to combat terrorist-related activities within their borders. In addition to cooperation and sustained diplomacy, we will continue to partner with the international community to persuade states to meet their obligations to combat terrorism and deny safehaven under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373.
Yet safehavens are not just limited to geographic territories. They also can be non-physical or virtual, existing within legal, cyber, and financial systems.
—Legal safehavens. Some legal systems lack adequate procedural, substantive, and international assistance laws that enable effective investigation, prosecution, and extradition of terrorists. Such gaps offer a haven in which terrorists and their organizations can operate free from fear of prosecution. In the United States we have developed a domestic legal system that supports effective investigation and prosecution of terrorist activities while preserving individual privacy, the First Amendment rights of association, religious freedom, free speech, and other civil rights. We will continue to work with foreign partners to build their legal capacity to investigate, prosecute, and assist in the foreign prosecution of the full range of terrorist activities—from provision of material support to conspiracy to operational planning to a completed act of terrorism.
—Cyber safehavens. The Internet provides an inexpensive, anonymous, geographically unbounded, and largely unregulated virtual haven for terrorists. Our enemies use the Internet to develop and disseminate propaganda, recruit new members, raise and transfer funds, train members on weapons use and tactics, and plan operations. Terrorist organizations can use virtual safehavens based anywhere in the world, regardless of where their members or operatives are located. Use of the Internet, however, creates opportunities for us to exploit. To counter terrorist use of the Internet as a virtual sanctuary, we will discredit terrorist propaganda by promoting truthful and peaceful messages. We will seek ultimately to deny the Internet to the terrorists as an effective safehaven for their propaganda, proselytizing, recruitment, fundraising, training, and operational planning.
—Financial safehavens. Financial systems are used by terrorist organizations as a fiscal sanctuary in which to store and transfer the funds that support their survival and operations. Terrorist organizations use a variety of financial systems, including formal banking, wire transfers, debit and other stored value cards, online value storage and value transfer systems, the informal hawala system, and cash couriers. Terrorist organizations may be able to take advantage of such financial systems either as the result of willful complicity by financial institutions or as the result of poor oversight and monitoring practices. Domestically, we have hardened our financial systems against terrorist abuse by promulgating effective regulations, requiring financial institutions to report suspicious transactions, and building effective public/private partnerships. We will continue to work with foreign partners to ensure they develop and implement similar regulations, requirements, and partnerships with their financial institutions. We also will continue to use the domestic and international designation and targeted sanctions regimes provided by, among other mechanisms, Executive Order 13224, USA PATRIOT Act Section 311, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267 and subsequent resolutions. These tools identify and isolate those actors who form part of terrorist networks or facilitate their activities.
The War on Terror will be a long war. Yet we have mobilized to win other long wars, and we can and will win this one. During the Cold War we created an array of domestic and international institutions and enduring partnerships to defeat the threat of communism. Today, we require similar transformational structures to carry forward the fight against terror and to help ensure our ultimate success:
—Establish and maintain international standards of accountability. States that have sovereign rights also have sovereign responsibilities, including the responsibility to combat terrorism. The international community has developed a compelling body of international obligations relating to counterterrorism. Twelve universal conventions and protocols in force against terrorism have been developed under the auspices of the United Nations as well as various U.N. Security Council Resolutions related to combating terror. These include UNSCR 1373, which imposes binding obligations on all states to suppress and prevent terrorist financing, improve their border controls, enhance information sharing and law enforcement cooperation, suppress the recruitment of terrorists, and deny them sanctuary.
The Group of Eight (G-8) along with other multilateral and regional bodies also have been instrumental in developing landmark counterterrorism standards and best practices that have been adopted by international standard-setting organizations. But our obligations are not static. We will collaborate with our partners to update and tailor international obligations to meet the evolving nature of the terrorist enemies and threats we face. We also will work to ensure that each country is both willing and able to meet its counterterrorist responsibilities. Finally, we will not just continually monitor whether we and the community of nations are meeting these standards but will evaluate if we are achieving results both individually and collectively.
—Strengthen coalitions and partnerships. Since September 11, most of our important successes against al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations have been made possible through effective partnerships. Continued success depends on the actions of a powerful coalition of nations maintaining a united front against terror. Multilateral groups such as the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization, as well as regional organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization of American States, NATO, the European Union, the African Union, and the Association of South East Asia Nations, among others, are essential elements of this front.
We will ensure that such international cooperation is an enduring feature of the long war we will fight. We will continue to leverage the comparative advantage of these institutions and organizations—drawing on what each does best in counterterrorism, from setting standards to developing regional strategies to providing forums for training and education. Indeed, a significant part of this effort includes expanding partnership capacity. We are building the capacity of foreign partners in all areas of counterterrorism activities, including strengthening their ability to conduct law enforcement, intelligence, and military counterterrorism operations. Through the provision of training, equipment, and other assistance, the United States, along with a coalition of willing and able states and organizations, will enhance the ability of partners across the globe to attack and defeat terrorists, deny them funding and freedom of movement, secure their critical infrastructures, and deny terrorists access to WMD and safehavens. Ultimately, it will be essential for our partners to come together to facilitate appropriate international, regional, and local solutions to the challenges of terrorism.
—Enhance government architecture and interagency collaboration. In the aftermath of September 11, we have enhanced our counterterrorism architecture and interagency collaboration by setting clear national priorities and transforming the government to achieve those priorities. We have established the Department of Homeland Security, bringing under one authority 22 Federal entities with vital roles to play in preventing terrorist attacks within the Homeland, reducing America's vulnerability to terrorism, and minimizing the damage and facilitating the recovery from attacks that do occur. We have reorganized the Intelligence Community. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created to better integrate the efforts of the Community into a more unified, coordinated, and effective whole. The DNI also launched a new Open Source Center to coordinate open source intelligence and ensure this information is integrated into Intelligence Community products.
In addition, a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was established to serve as a multiagency center analyzing and integrating all intelligence pertaining to terrorism, including threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad. NCTC also is responsible for developing, implementing, and assessing the effectiveness of strategic operational planning efforts to achieve counterterrorism objectives. We similarly established a National Counterproliferation Center to manage and coordinate planning and activities in those areas.
The transformation extends to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, with the help of legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act, is now more fully integrated with the Intelligence Community, has refocused its efforts on preventing terrorism, and has been provided important tools to pursue this mission. CIA also has transformed to fulfill its role to provide overall direction for and coordination of overseas human intelligence operations of Intelligence Community elements. In addition, the Department of the Treasury created the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence to arm ourselves for the long term with the intelligence and tools to undercut the financial underpinnings of terrorism around the world.
The Department of Defense also is preparing to meet a wider range of asymmetric challenges by restructuring its capabilities, rearranging its global posture, and adapting its forces to be better positioned to fight the War on Terror. This includes significantly expanding Special Operations Forces, increasing the capabilities of its general purpose forces to conduct irregular warfare operations, and initiating the largest rearrangement of its global force posture since the end of World War II.
The Department of State is implementing a new framework for foreign assistance to establish more integrated and coherent strategic direction and tactical plans to meet our current and longterm challenges, including terrorism. The State Department also is repositioning its domestic and overseas staff to better promote America's policies and interests and have more direct local and regional impact. This transformational diplomacy positions State to work with partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.
We will sustain the transformation already under way in these and other departments and agencies. Moreover, we will continue to build and strengthen a unified team across the counterterrorism community, and a key component of this effort will be fostering "jointness." Where practicable, we will increase interagency and intergovernmental assignments for personnel in counterterrorism-related positions. This will help to break down organizational stovepipes and advance the exchange of ideas and practices for more effective counterterrorism efforts.
—Foster intellectual and human capital. To better prepare ourselves for a generational struggle against terrorism and the extremist ideologies fueling it, we will create an expert community of counterterrorism professionals. We will continue to establish more systematic programs for the development and education of current professionals in counterterrorism-related fields. We will substantively expand our existing programs with curricula that includes not only training in counterterrorism policies, plans and planning, strategies, and legal authorities, but continuing education in appropriate area studies, religious philosophies, and languages. We also will ensure that personnel throughout all levels of government and in all fields related to combating terror are invited to participate.
Yet such development and education programs must not be restricted to current counterterrorism personnel. We will support multidisciplinary studies throughout our educational system to build a knowledgeable pool of counterterrorism recruits for the future. The recent National Security Language Initiative is an essential step forward. It will help to expand U.S. foreign language education beginning in early childhood and continuing throughout formal schooling and into the workforce. Our efforts to foster intellectual and human capital also will extend beyond our borders—to academic and non-governmental forums with our international partners to discuss and enhance our knowledge about the critical counterterrorism challenges we confront.
In the War on Terror, there is also a need for all elements of our Nation—from Federal, State, and local governments to the private sector to local communities and individual citizens—to help create and share responsibilities in a Culture of Preparedness. This Culture of Preparedness, which applies to all catastrophes and all hazards, natural or man-made, rests on four principles: a shared acknowledgement of the certainty of future catastrophes and that creating a prepared Nation will be a continuing challenge; the importance of initiative and accountability at all levels of society; the role of citizen and community preparedness; and finally, the roles of each level of government and the private sector in creating a prepared Nation. Built upon a foundation of partnerships, common goals, and shared responsibility, the creation of a Culture of Preparedness will be among our most profound and enduring transformations in the broader effort to protect and defend the Homeland.
Since the September 11 attacks, America is safer, but we are not yet safe. We have done much to degrade al-Qaida and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism. Our Muslim partners are speaking out against those who seek to use their religion to justify violence and a totalitarian vision of the world. We have significantly expanded our counterterrorism coalition, transforming old adversaries into new and vital partners in the War on Terror. We have liberated more than 50 million Afghans and Iraqis from despotism, terrorism, and oppression, permitting the first free elections in recorded history for either nation. In addition, we have transformed our governmental institutions and framework to wage a generational struggle. There will continue to be challenges ahead, but along with our partners, we will attack terrorism and its ideology, and bring hope and freedom to the people of the world. This is how we will win the War on Terror.