Develop concept of operations

Develop activation plan

Determine team composition

Identify equipment and supplies

:

Identification of training requirements

13

Senator NUNN. Our next panel-and I would ask if you would come up and remain standing until you take the oath, but in this order; we will go from my left to right in terms of the people who will be testifying.

Ambassador Morris Busby has served as a United States ambassador for four Presidents. He is the former Counter-terrorism Coordinator for the U.S. Government and former Ambassador to Colombia. Ambassador Busby is currently President of BGI International Consulting Services. He will discuss the role of intelligence and law enforcement in combatting terrorism.

Our next witness is Dr. Duane Sewell. Dr. Sewell has been in the nuclear field since 1940. He worked on the Manhattan Project and helped develop Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and is the former Deputy Director of Lawrence Livermore and Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy. Dr. Sewell is often called the father of the NEST program.

We are glad to have both of you.

Our next distinguished witness is Dr. Bill Richardson. Dr. Richardson is the former Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense with oversight for chemical and biological warfare defense. He was the Program Executive Officer for Chemical and Nuclear Programs, Department of the Army. Dr. Richardson will discuss U.S. capabilities to respond to a chemical or biological domestic terrorist incident.

Our next witnesses represent the men and women who are the first responders to a terrorist incident in the United States. Chief Gary Marrs, Fire Chief of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, will provide the Subcommittee a first-person perspective on the fire services' preparation and the ability to handle major U.S. terrorist incidents. Finally, Chief Lamont Ewell, President of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and Fire Chief of Oakland, California, will discuss the overall national and international aspects of fire and emergency services' preparation for anti-terrorist response.

I am going to ask each of you to raise your right hand. We swear in all the witnesses before the Subcommittee.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Senator NUNN. I would ask each of you-as you can see, we have several witnesses here and then we have another panel following. Your testimony is very important. I can assure you every word of it will be read. We would encourage you to summarize as best you can in 5 to 10 minutes so that we will have time to have a dialogue between the witnesses and with the Senators who are here.

I am told we have a vote. Senator Lugar, it might be best if we take a break right now and go vote and come back so we don't have to leave right in the middle of testimony. That will give all of our witnesses a chance to prepare their concise summary that will make all of their points they need to make in a 5- to 10-minute period.

We will be back in about 10 minutes.

[Recess.]

Senator NUNN. My apologies for the delay. The votes around here are a part of our job, so we have no choice; we have to show up and we have to say yes or no when they ring the bells.

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Ambassador Busby, we are glad to have you. I welcome all of you. We will start with you and then move from left to right with Messrs. Sewell, Richardson, Ewell and Chief Marrs.

TESTIMONY OF MORRIS D. BUSBY, FORMER COORDINATOR FOR COUNTER-TERRORISM, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, AND FORMER AMBASSADOR TO COLOMBIA

Mr. BUSBY. Senator, I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify here today. I have appeared before the Congress many times, but this is the first time I have ever come as a private citizen with no obligation to defend any positions except my own opinions, and it feels good.

Senator NUNN. You have a feeling of complete freedom, then, right? Tell us what you wanted to say all these years. [Laughter.] Mr. BUSBY. I think I would lose some friends.

Senator NUNN. We will give you an extra 5 minutes here. [Laughter.]

Mr. BUSBY. I am sincerely flattered that you would ask me to come and I hope I can contribute to the work that this Committee is doing. I have submitted a statement and, per your request, I will dispense reading that and simply comment on what I think

Senator NUNN. All of your statements will be part of the record, without objection-total statements.

Mr. BUSBY. Senator, I hold the firm view that our Nation has the resources and capability to defend ourselves from terrorists, including terrorists that would employ weapons of mass destruction. Having said that, I would have to also say that I must agree with many of the conclusions that were arrived at by your staff.

I think in order to do the job correctly, you need constant and consistent policies. You need good intelligence and an organization to collect, analyze and produce that intelligence; proper coordination, preparation and training; and competent operational capabilities. I think you also need strong leadership and you need to accept that this is an ongoing, never-ending process. Because of who we are and what we are, we are always going to be the target of terrorists, and I myself don't believe that there are any simple solutions. There is not going to be any single win. There is no silver bullet to shoot at this and I think that we should not become fixated on closure for this problem, as we so often do.

The threat domestically from terrorism, I think, is sometimes misinterpreted and misperceived. We always seem to be behind the curve, and I want to commend this Committee for the visionary approach that you are taking to the problem. Terrorism incidents are down statistically, but the violence associated with them seems to be up, and I also agree that the use of high technology and weapons of mass destruction by terrorists is something which clearly looms on the horizon.

You are focused largely on domestic terrorism and responses to it. My experience is almost entirely in international affairs, but I would submit to you that many of the mechanisms and procedures that we put in place in the mid-1980's to combat international terrorism offer a guide as we begin to grapple with the problems do

There are several key elements that you should consider. One, we need to make better use of the intelligence capabilities that we have. Our goal in all of this should be to prevent attacks, and you can't be preemptive if you don't have good intelligence. Security measures work, but there are limits to what you can impose on our citizens in a free society, so intelligence becomes key. I view this, as did your staff, as largely an organizational and coordination problem, with an overlay of bureaucratic turf battles and some legal constraints.

I wonder sometimes how far we can go with this because the CIA and the intelligence community have as their mission to collect, analyze and, above all, to disseminate information. If they don't collect information and if it is not used by policymakers, then everything that they have done doesn't mean anything. On the other hand, the FBI and the law enforcement agencies have a completely different view of that. They have remarkable intelligence-gathering capabilities, but by and large those capabilities are focused on supporting their case agents. Their job is to make prosecutions, to take people to court, and rather than disseminating the information they have, they hold on to it and protect it because of the rules of evidence and they do not share it with anyone.

I tend to believe myself that there is a lot of talk today about bringing these missions together, about having liaison officers, and you have to applaud that, but my opinion and experience is that what really needs to be done is to delineate the lines of responsibilities clearer. The FBI has its job, the CIA has its job. That should be made absolutely clear. You should not have overlapping roles and responsibilities. What you should do, however, is develop a coordinating mechanism so that you can have a sharing of information within the constraints and the authorities that are granted to both agencies.

On a related point, I think that the organizational problem which was referred to in responding to an event and in consequence management is also something which needs a lot of work. You have to be ready to react when a crisis comes. The response to the event in the first few hours is often the key element, and if you haven't trained for that, if you don't know who sits where at the table and who has what authority to do anything, then you are in terrible shape.

I personally am a very strong supporter of law enforcement as a deterrent to terrorism, for several reasons. One, I think that it is something which terrorists fear. They fear being brought to the United States and put before the United States justice system. Secondly, I think it is appropriate for us as Americans to apply the rule of law.

Having said that, I think that you certainly have to hold open other policy responses. do not believe that law enforcement in and of itself can provide the solution to all of our counter-terrorism problems. Sometimes, you have to do other things. Sometimes, you have to make some very difficult choices, as was made in the previous administration with the bombing of Libya in response to the terrorist attack in Germany. These kinds of responses are particularly appropriate if there is State sponsorship involved or if the perpetrators are being sheltered overseas.

A point was made regarding the coordination and hand-off, and I would like to say that I think one of the problems that you have, particularly domestically, in terms of coordinating a response is that too often the people designated as the lead agency—and in this particular instance I am talking about the FBI-have tremendous operational capabilities of their own. In my experience, too often they interpret "lead agency" as being "let's get everyone else out of the way so we can do what we do", and I don't think that is what the concept of lead agency should be at all.

The lead agency means to lead. It means to coordinate. It means to ensure that you are bringing the full power of the United States response capability to bear. Internationally, in my experience, we are in much better shape on that particular score, part of the reason being, I can say from my lofty perch as an ex-State Department official, because the State Department is in charge and they don't have any real operational capability. Their job is to "run" everybody else, and over the years they have developed that into a rather finely-honed mechanism. There are many lessons that could be learned from that as we look at this domestically.

Senator NUNN. You mean because the FBI has significant operational capability, when they are designated as the lead agency the temptation is for them not to be the leader of a team, but rather the whole act?

Mr. BUSBY. That is precisely what I mean, yes, sir.

I also think-and it perhaps is a result of my background as a military officer-that the points which were made on training and exercise are precisely on the mark. I would make one observation, however, on what was said. I don't think it should come as any surprise at all that the shortcomings that were revealed in Mirage Gold were there. You can't have an effective exercise program if you only do it once every 8 years.

An exercise program has to be something which is carefully thought out, which is coordinated, and which proceeds step to step from various levels. An exercise program is of no use to you if you don't train the people that are participating. I think one of the things the Committee might focus on is not the shortcomings that came out of that one exercise, but rather the shortcomings in the fact that we are not doing these exercises in a coordinated and correct fashion. I am a great believer in training and exercises, but I think it has to be done correctly.

As I said earlier, you need to define clearly the roles and responsibilities of the various agencies. In many cases, that has been done, but if you have turf battles going on while you are trying to manage a crisis, then you are doomed to failure. Developing those roles and responsibilities is a progressive and constant process. You can't simply issue a PDD or some other statement and think that it is going to work forever. Through your exercise program, through the lessons you are learning, you have to constantly develop and meet the threats that you have.

Finally, I would say—and I certainly don't need to say it to this Committee-none of this can happen without leadership. Nothing ever happens in our Government without some political power being put behind it and without some real attention being given to what the bureaucracy is doing. This is an issue where the Presi