A second, less noticeable, advance is the worldwide police and
intelligence campaign against Al-Qaeda. Before the attacks,
counter-terrorism was often low on the list of U.S. priorities in
talks with European and Asian allies. Even when senior U.S. officials
did raise the issue, many foreign governments did not see the same
degree of danger as did the United States. This produced tremendous
benefits for Al-Qaeda. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
testified, "even worse than the training camps [in Afghanistan], was
the training that took place here in the United States and the
planning that took place in Germany." In essence, many governments
around the world, including ours, provided Al-Qaeda a permissive
environment in which to operate. Although these governments in no way
supported Islamic radicalism, their own indifference or legal
restrictions allowed Al-Qaeda operatives to recruit, train and plan
with relative impunity.

No more. Although allied governments' police and intelligence
services have different degrees of skill and face different political
pressures, they have unquestionably made Al-Qaeda a priority. In
Europe and in Asia, security services are far more willing to monitor
and act against suspected radicals. In addition, several countries
have scrutinized their legal codes to ensure that terrorists do not
exploit various loopholes. Tenet testified on February 11, 2003 that
more than a hundred countries have been involved in the capture and
arrest of Al-Qaeda members.

An Incomplete Body Count

The United States has also killed or arrested numerous Al-Qaeda
leaders. Although the total number of those arrested comes to more
than 3,000, according to Tenet, these arrests often receive little
notice, appearing in media coverage as just another unknown person
sent to an undisclosed facility where it is unclear what may be
revealed. Yet such measures are the indispensible ingredients of
counter-terrorism success. These arrests do more than take dangerous
individuals off the street and bring them to justice. Each individual
arrested brings with him the potential to reveal more of the broader
network, helping U.S. and allied intelligence focus more effectively
on stopping the next attack and making it harder for Al-Qaeda to
train and vet troops.

In March, the United States and its allies scored perhaps their
biggest success yet: the capture in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, of Khalid
Sheikh Mohamed, the mastermind of 9/11 and a key Al-Qaeda planner and
facilitator. His capture is only the latest in an impressive series
of victories. As the war in Afghanistan commenced, U.S. bombing
killed Al-Qaeda's military chief, Mohamed Atef. Numerous other
Al-Qaeda members were killed in Afghanistan, along with members of
affiliated groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Abu Zubayda, Al-Qaeda's chief recruiter and
thus an individual who could detail the full extent of the
organization, was taken prisoner in Pakistan. Ramzi bin al-Shibh,
another 9/11 planner, was also captured. Numerous regional and local
leaders, such as Abdel-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Al-Qaeda chief of
operations for the Persian Gulf, have also been captured or killed.
So, too, have financiers, logisticians and leading trainers.

This considerable progress should not obscure remaining tasks,
however. Much of Al-Qaeda's senior leadership apparently remains
alive, including of course bin Laden himself and his deputy,
Zawahiri. So too is Saif al-Adel, Al-Qaeda's long-time security
chief, and Abu Hafs, nicknamed "The Mauritanian", who led religious
education efforts and was involved in many operations. Not only can
these leaders continue to organize and plan, as the mid-May
atrocities in Riyadh and Casablanca clearly show, but the failure to
kill or capture them bolsters their cause. As terrorism expert Bruce
Hoffman explains, "for bin Laden--like guerrillas and terrorists
everywhere--not losing is winning." As long as these leaders remain
alive in the face of a massive worldwide manhunt, they build stature
for their movement simply by their successful defiance. (In the
Middle East, in particular, leaders have often "won" politically by
losing militarily. No one expected Egyptian President Nasser to
defeat Britain in 1956, his successor Anwar Sadat to defeat Israel in
1973, or Saddam Hussein to defeat the United States in 1991. Rather,
all three leaders gained admiration for successful defiance against
an acknowledged superior foe, not outright victory.)

Focusing on a body count of the pre-September 11 Al-Qaeda leadership
also misses several of its most frightening characteristics,
including its tremendous ability to regenerate, rather like demonic
plenaria. An anonymous intelligence officer, in the superb book
Through Our Enemies' Eyes, notes that in the years before September
11 police and security forces worldwide disrupted Al-Qaeda cells and
arrested many members. In mid-1996, Al-Qaeda's senior military
commander, Abu Ubaydah al-Banshiri, drowned in Lake Victoria.
Al-Qaeda also lost Ali Muhammad, its leading trainer, when he was
arrested in September 1998. Another huge blow came the next month
when German authorities arrested Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a key
logistician. Sidi al-Madani al-Tayyib, Al-Qaeda's chief financial
officer, was captured by or surrendered to the Saudi government in
1997, and the Saudi regime also arrested 300 bin Laden supporters in
early 1999. As with the arrests and disruptions today, these efforts
probably saved hundreds if not thousands of lives--but they did not
stop the growth of the movement. As the anonymous officer argues,
Al-Qaeda's ability to recover from detentions, deaths and other
disruptions make claims of its demise by officials "sound like
nothing so much as an arrogant ninny whistling past the graveyard."

Al-Qaeda also regenerates entire lost cells. For example, in August
1997 the home of an Al-Qaeda lieutenant, Wadih el-Hage, was raided in
Sudan, and he fled the country (disturbingly, to a "haven" in the
United States). Although this would be a permanent setback for many
organizations, a year later Al-Qaeda successfully destroyed the U.S.
Embassy in neighboring Kenya. Again, even after several of the
bombers were arrested and the FBI combed through Kenya looking for
suspects, Al-Qaeda launched another attack in Kenya in November 2002
on a hotel frequented by Israelis. The Kenya experience suggests that
cells wrapped up today may reappear tomorrow. So do the May 2003
attacks, and the evidence that Saif al-Adel has taken the place of
Mohamed Atef as military commander.

In addition to its regenerative powers, the body count approach fails
to capture the plain fact that Al-Qaeda is not just a distinct
terrorist organization: it is a movement that seeks to inspire and
coordinate other groups and individuals. Even if Al-Qaeda is taking
losses beyond its ability to recuperate, there is still a much
broader Islamist movement that is hostile to the United States, seeks
to overthrow U.S. allies and is committed to mass-casualty terrorist
violence. A proper listing of the Al-Qaeda roster should also
include, at the very least, senior officials of the Egyptian Islamic
Jihad, Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia, the Salafist Group for
Preaching and Combat in Algeria, and al-Ittihad al-Islamiyah in
Somalia. A more comprehensive list would add Kashmiri groups, the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Armed Islamic Group, the Al-Jama
Al-Islamiyya and other organizations with strong institutional and
personal ties to Al-Qaeda. It probably should include, at least
potentially, the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization worldwide, which,
despite its claims to be against terrorism, is an extremely radical
group.

The conceptual key is this: Al-Qaeda is not a single terrorist group
but a global insurgency. Unlike the November 17 organization in
Greece, Al-Qaeda cannot be crushed with a few key arrests. It
requires instead a painstaking and lengthy struggle to dismantle not
only the current leadership, but also the broader organizational
structure. In addition, the recruiting environment also must be
addressed, or today's victories will be short-lived.

Declining Domestic Engagement?

Another advance--one that is in jeopardy--is an increased U.S. public
concern about foreign affairs. President Bush's successful
mobilization of domestic opinion to confront Iraq, for example, would
have been impossible had the American public not been sensitized to
the risks of neglecting problems until they become truly dangerous.
The administration has faced little criticism for its various
counter-terrorism initiatives despite recent killings of Americans in
Kuwait, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere--all because the public now
understands the continued danger of terrorism and the need for the
United States to be active abroad in fighting it.

In addition, the American public is more vigilant at home. Too easily
this vigilance can slip over into racism or undue suspicion. Vague
electronic messages on our highways to "report suspicious activities"
certainly fall into this latter category. But in general, police and
the FBI have acted circumspectly, and predictions that America would
become a xenophobic police state have not materialized. Instead,
Americans again trust their police and government to protect them,
and most are willing to assist rather than to merely watch from the
sidelines.

The risk of complacency, however, is growing. As Americans return to
business as usual, the urgency that characterized the months after
September 11, 2001 has dissipated. In October 2002, a Council on
Foreign Relations Task Force led by former Senators Gary Hart and
Warren Rudman declared that "America remains dangerously unprepared
to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S.
soil." Although the appointment of Governor Tom Ridge to head a
Homeland Security Department is an important step forward, the fact
that it took well over a year to do so--and that it will take at
least several years to streamline the chaotic grouping of agencies
dumped into the new Department--is dispiriting.

Essay Types: Essay