State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator's Integrated Approach

By Michael Kraft

The State Department's relatively new Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Dell Dailey, has outlined a broad integrated approach to countering the international terrorism threat downplaying the military role although he was an Army three-star general who headed the Special Operations Command.

In his appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Ambassador Daily also called Ben Ladin a marked man who will eventually be caught.

“Incarcerating or killing terrorists will not end terrorism—it only buys us time,” he said yesterday in one of his first major Washington public speeches since being confirmed in August. As noted by Mike Jacobson in his earlier post, the full text is available on the State Department web site.

Some of the points Ambassador Dailey made have been previously heard in various forms from others, including in the academic world. But the emphasis by the retired Lieutenant General struck me as a marked contrast with the attitudes the Bush administration expressed during its early days in office when it eschewed the concept of nation-building. And it is a somewhat unusual emphasis to come from a man who spent 36 years in the Army and was considered to be legendary in the special operations circles.

In his prepared speech which he read in full, Ambassador Dailey emphasized that “our most important task in the war on terrorism is not the “destructive” task of eradicating enemy networks, but the “constructive” task of building legitimacy, good governance, trust, rule of law, and tolerance.”

Dailey said that countering terrorism requires not only arresting and incarcerating terrorism but also addressing “the underlying conditions that terrorists exploit at the national and local levels and use to induce alienated or aggrieved populations to become sympathizers, supporters, and ultimately members of terrorist networks.”

In the past the speeches by the State Department’s top counterterrorism officials emphasized the need for international cooperation and the efforts to capture and prosecuted terrorists, strengthening the rule of law, and deglamorizing terrorists. Dailey hit these points, but as did his predecessors, he had his own emphasis.  One of the former coordinators, Mike Sheehan, popularized the phrase ”draining the swamps” to undercut the support for terrorism. Henry Crumpton, Dailey’s immediate predecessor, expanded the concept of regional cooperation among neighboring countries. While Frank Taylor and Cofer Black were the Coordinators, before I retired, we began programs, in cooperation with the Justice Department, to help other countries strengthen their counterterrorism laws.

In compiling a large volume of counterterrorism speeches and Congressional testimony by U.S. officials, dating back to the Nixon Administration, for a forthcoming Greenwood Press book I co-edited with Professor Yoneh Alexander on “"The Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy," I was struck by the continuity of the basic themes over the years.

After 9/11, however, the White House put greater emphasis on the military role, especially in dealing with the Afghanistan and Iraq situations. More recently, the Defense Department and other segments of the administration have come to the growing realization that weapons and prisons are not enough to effectively counterterrorism. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s November speech 26 calling for more resources for the State Department and other agencies is a recognition of this, an unprecedented move by one Department to so publicly support funds for another one.
 
Dailey’s emphasis on the need to work with other countries to “provide substantive educational, social and recreational alternatives that will divert impressionable young people away from the recruitment process” seems to be a more detailed articulation of this belief that “soft power” is needed as well as the more conventional tools for countering terrorism. 

Helping other countries improve their economic situations and improve their legal systems and political openness is going to take more money than OMB and Congress are likely to approve. Indeed, the State Department yesterday advised foreign service officers that there will be a 10 per cent cut in each bureau because of manpower shortages.

On the resources issue, Dailey said that he worked with State Department’s regional bureaus to direct foreign assistance to high priority countries but acknowledged during a discussion with a Senate staffer that it was “a tough sell.”

Dailey expressed hope and confidence that OMB, which is currently considering the budget proposals that go to Congress next year, would approve the State Department’s funding request for the Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA) program. ATA is a key program in helping bolster the counterterrorism capabilities of foreign civilian law enforcement and security officials. Dailey’s counterterrorism office coordinates and sets policy priorities for the program, which is implemented by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. In raising the issue I noted, as I have in past blogs, that even after 9/11, OMB has usually cut the Department’s request by 10 per cent or more and Congress typically made additional cuts without much discussion.

In discussing the need to provide “physical and ideological alternatives to what the terrorists offer,” Dailey did not address the developing analysis that many of the terrorists—or at least their leaders—come from middle class families and had some university or even advanced degrees. Poverty and hopelessness is not the only explanation of why young persons, and usually men rather than women, take to terrorism. The psychological dimensions can not be overlooked, although they are difficult for the West to counter, whether in England, the Netherlands, or Algeria and Saudi Arabia.

Dailey did however say that the international community, including religious leaders, must “do better at disputing terrorist propaganda and misinformation.” 

“There is no political cause that justifies the murder of innocent people,” he said.

 In the questions and answers Ambassador Dailey said the U.S. must be faster in countering the Al Qaeda propaganda network and, without elaborating, added that he’d prefer to see fewer layers in the U.S. public diplomacy effort.

He also said that although there were setbacks in the counterterrorism effort, such as this week’s attack in Algeria, he felt that overall we were winning in the war on terrorism, that the West had greatly improved, and countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines had strengthened their capabilities. He also expressed support for Saudi Arabia’s program to rehabilitate Saudis who became involved in terrorist activities.

Discussing Bin Laden, he predicted that eventually “we’re going to get him”, that we’re pecking away at his havens and “this guy is a marked man.”

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