“It is important that we use the only thing they understand – force.”
WASHINGTON, DC – With America marking the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, The Ripon Society held a breakfast discussion yesterday morning looking at the continuing threat posed by terrorist groups and U.S. security in a volatile world. The discussion featured two of the leading experts on intelligence and national security issues on Capitol Hill – Senator Saxby Chambliss (GA), who serves as Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Congressman Mike Rogers (MI-8), who serves as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“I think it is very appropriate that we are here today on the 13th anniversary of September 11th,” Chambliss stated. “It is one of those seminal moments that all of us remember where we were … The Al Qaeda that we knew in 2001 was a narrow band of renegades and killers that numbered about 1,000 fighters. Today, we’re looking at thousands and thousands of not just Al Qaeda, but elements of Al Qaeda that are gathered around the world and present a greater threat to us today than in 2001. We have Al Qaeda now in Maghreb. We have Al Qaeda in Iraq. We’ve got Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In just the last 30 days, we have seen the announcement of Al Qaeda in India, Bangladesh, Burma and other parts of the world. We have to destroy them just as the President has talked about destroying ISIL.”
“ISIL is not an isolated terrorist group, but they are the most vicious of the terrorist groups out there today, as we have seen exhibited on TV over the last several months and, in particular, over the last several weeks. They are committed to a caliphate in the part of the world that stretches from Syria into Iraq. They want to stretch that into Jordan, Lebanon, and Gaza. If we don’t eliminate their capability by destroying them and killing those individuals, then they may have the capability to do that. That is why it is important that we use the only thing they understand — force, deadly force, to counteract and to destroy them.”
Chambliss, who has served as Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2011, also commented on President Obama’s speech to the nation on Wednesday night in which he laid out a strategy for confronting ISIS – something Chambliss has been calling for, and something he said he would support.
“The President didn’t answer all the questions last night,” the Georgia lawmaker said referring to the President’s speech. “But this is not a partisan issue. It is not about giving him the benefit of the doubt as much as it is about joining together as Americans to solidify the offensive action that needs to be taken to kill this group of nasty terrorists… We need to join hands with the President and make sure that we exhibit the right kind of forceful action to destroy ISIS. But at the same time, we need to make sure we’re giving the tools to our intelligence community and our law enforcement community to make sure they have the capability to keep these bad guys out, or if they somehow get by, that we’re able to monitor them and control them and keep an eye on them while they’re here … Our intelligence community is composed of a lot of brave men and women who are doing a wonderful job, and our military is composed of brave men and women who are doing a wonderful job. But if we don’t give them the right kind of support from a policy standpoint, they’re not going to be able to continue to do that.”
Rogers echoed Chambliss’ comments, and said he thought it was important to put the challenge America faces into historical perspective as well.
“We think this fight with Al Qaeda and the jihadists started on 9/11,” he stated. “That’s just not the case. If you remember the bombing that happened in Germany that killed our soldiers in the 1980s, that was designed by a radical jihadist movement. In 1993, they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. The Cole bombing happened in late 1998. Just a few years later, 9/11 happened here on our soil. They were at war with us long before we ever noticed. That was part of the problem.”
“One of the 9/11 commissioners said something interesting. Because we never really engaged them, they believed they could get more emboldened. They could do more and be bolder. They could do things like 9/11. One of the things they also said is that we lacked imagination. We had bits and pieces of information, but no one had the imagination to put those bits and pieces together. We knew they were taking pilot lessons. We knew that they were jihadists. We knew they were committed to acts of terror and violence. But we couldn’t quite put it together. No one asked, ‘What if they got our airplanes and flew them into buildings?’ No one had that imagination to put the puzzle together. So 9/11 happened, and now we fast forward to where we are today.”
Noting that Al Qaeda became a real threat to the U.S. once Osama bin Laden found safe haven in Afghanistan, Rogers said a similar situation is happening with ISIS in Syria today.
“What you see happening now with ISIS is that you have a group taking safe haven in Syria,” he said. “They are further radicalizing their individuals, employing their harsh version of Sharia law that includes beheadings, cutting hands off, summary executions, burning churches, killing Christians, and killing people of the Muslim faith who don’t agree with their version of the Muslim faith. They have taken oil refineries, and we think they have$1 billion in cash to sustain their operations. The notion that we can call any of these teams ‘JV’ or less than serious is a serious mistake. I’m very proud that the President decided to change his path. He stood up last night and said we have to do something. That’s a good start.”
Rogers added that while he agreed with much of what President Obama had to say in his speech, he disagreed with the President’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and believed the country must understand and gird itself for the fact that we are at war.
“I hope that America shakes itself out of the notion that we can’t be there,” the Michigan lawmaker stated. “Less than three percent of the nation was asked to do anything. You didn’t have to give up sugar or your tires. You didn’t have to stop eating eggs; didn’t have to ration flour. We’ve done all those things in this country before. Those people were at war. They had to give up a lot to fight. We have to give up a little Kardashian TV. If that is who we’ve become then we will have to suffer the problem of terrorism for generations to come. I hope this is our moment. I hope this is the President’s moment. I hope that America rallies around the President and bucks him up a little bit. I hope that we do this together – Republicans and Democrats — and say we’re not going to tolerate this. We won’t tolerate the spread of radical jihadists around the world, and we will not tolerate them threatening the United States in any way wherever we find them. If we don’t, you’re going to have this conversation with two more Members next year on 9/11 wondering why this is taking so long.”