WASHINGTON, APRIL 26, 2010--U.S. senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and a panel of counterterrorism experts convened Monday to discuss the current state of U.S. counterterrorism policy in the wake of the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day last year. Senator Collins, ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, opened her remarks with a quote by Winston Churchill: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." This is how the United States must approach and prosecute its struggle against global terrorism, Collins said.

What is most surprising and, indeed, troubling about the Christmas Day attack, Collins said, is the chain of breakdowns in America's security systems. "For America, the Christmas Day terror plot is a tale of missed opportunities." The first missed opportunity was the U.S. State Department's failure to revoke Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's U.S. visa after his father contacted the U.S. embassy in Nigeria with information about his son's extremist ties. Another missed opportunity occurred at the Amsterdam airport, where U.S. immigration advisory officials did not have the necessary information on Abdulmutallab to ask the airline not to board him. Yet another missed opportunity to stop Abdulmutallab occurred at the National Counterterrorism Center, which did not include him on a "no fly" list. Despite significant improvements in information sharing since 9/11, the U.S. intelligence community, the senator said, "continues to rely on internal systems that are relics from the days before the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004." These systems urgently need to be upgraded.

The United States must also examine how it can better identify individuals who should be on watchlists for additional screening at airports. Moreover, Collins said, the United States must also better understand the radicalization process given the evidence that Abdulmutallab's radicalization began in London. Another critical element in the United States' approach to counterterrorism since passage of the intelligence reform law is the authority wielded by the director of national intelligence (DNI). "In addition to the question of the president's backing of the DNI, we must determine whether or not these authorities have been used often enough and effectively," Collins said. Presidential backing and strong leadership are vital to ensure the DNI's success. In closing, Collins said, "December 25 reminded us of a sobering reality: terrorists haven't stopped. Their efforts haven't paused. And so we must strengthen our efforts, at all levels of government, to detect, deter, and disrupt terrorist attacks."

Rick Nelson, director of the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, opened his remarks on a sobering note: "The United States is still at war with al Qaeda. They are still intent on attacking the United States." According to Nelson, the United States is at a critical point with al Qaeda. The organization is transitioning from a core group of individuals to a self-sustaining ideology that may no longer be dependent on its core leadership. Nelson characterized present-day al Qaeda as a three-tiered movement: al Qaeda's core leadership; al Qaeda's affiliates, such as Laskhar-e-Toiba (LET) in Pakistan; and lone wolves or domestic extremists. The latter group, or at least some of its members, should be of particular concern because of what Nelson called their "duality": U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent residents with extensive overseas family ties. The uniting factor, Nelson pointed out, is their shared identification with Islamic extremism. Another issue of great concern to the United States is the use of the Internet and, particularly, the web's ability to connect individuals inside the United States with extremists abroad. Interdicting these intermediaries and channels of communication will be critical for the United States in the future. Finally, the United States must do a better job at undermining the false narrative that America is at war with Islam. The United States must not allow this extremist ideology, particularly the homegrown type, to become self-sustaining. It is important to remember that 85 percent of al Qaeda's victims are fellow Muslims, Nelson concluded.

AEI's Frederick W. Kagan, director of the AEI Critical Threats Project, said the United States needs a broader definition of who exactly is the enemy. What is important to recognize, Kagan emphasized, is that the United States is engaged in a war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. "The United States hasn't had a declaration of war since 1941," he said, but this has been true for every conflict the United States has been engaged in since then. In fact, Kagan pointed out, Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States in the 1990s. The problem with bin Laden's declaration is that the United States is not accustomed to regarding terrorist organizations' declarations of war as "legally significant." The United States, Kagan said, should take al Qaeda's declaration of war seriously and act upon it.

How then does one go about defeating a group like al Qaeda? In the end, Kagan argued, mainstream Islam--as it has done in the past--will reject al Qaeda's radical Islamic extremism. The al Qaeda brand has been very seriously damaged because of the brutality directed against local Muslims by al Qaeda and its affiliates in Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. This victimization of fellow Muslims, Kagan said, has done irreparable damage to the al Qaeda brand. The only remaining questions are, "How long does it take for al Qaeda and its affiliates to be defeated and how much damage will they inflict in the meantime?" In this context, the United States must consider the central importance of terrain. Access to critical terrain and a steady stream of supplies into those critical areas is vital to the terrorists' campaign.

Another important aspect in America's fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates is the role played by the terrorists' social support networks. Because this particular brand of Islamism is dependent upon person-to-person relationships, Kagan explained, uprooting and isolating extremists can yield invaluable intelligence. This means that terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens matter greatly--and so does their location. In conclusion, Kagan asked, "Is it actually feasible to defeat this movement, to contain this movement, to mitigate the damage that it causes without eliminating massive sanctuaries and safe havens that exist in places of the world that we would rather not deal with?" If the answer is no, then the United States may have to accept a horrifying corollary: the United States, on occasion, may have to accept attacks against American citizens on American soil because "no defense is perfect."

AEI Critical Threats analyst Chris Harnisch stressed the importance of being "cognizant of and developing a strategy for the other fronts of the global Islamic militant movement," such as Yemen and Somalia. At present, the United States is rightly focused on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, where al Qaeda's core leadership is located, but the United States cannot afford to ignore these other trouble spots. "The threats emanating from Yemen and Somalia," Harnisch explained, "are, in fact, very closely tied into the conflicts in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region." Al Qaeda's core leadership continues to provide operational support to the two main terror groups in Yemen and Somalia, namely al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al Shabab. However, Harnisch stressed that the terror threats emanating from Yemen and Somalia, respectively, are quite different. AQAP is mostly composed of Yemenis and Saudis, including its leadership, with some of its members originating from Africa and the United States. Many of these members have close ties with Yemen's tribes, some of whom have married into those tribes to deepen their ties. Two significant factors are exacerbating the terror threat emanating from Yemen. First, Yemen is on the verge of becoming a failed state. Second, the Yemeni government is not committed to pursuing Islamic extremists in its own country. "The best way to think about al Shabab in Somalia," Harnisch explained, "is as a hybrid, resembling elements of both the Taliban and al Qaeda." They control a vast swath of land, where they are forcing the local population to adhere to a draconian interpretation of Islamic law. Moreover, al Shabab is running an array of terrorist training camps across the country, many of which are run by former Mujahedeen fighters of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Harnisch said, at least two dozen Americans and over a hundred Europeans have traveled to Somalia to join al Shabab. Harnisch emphasized that both terrorist threats in Yemen and in Somalia are very real, very dangerous, and in urgent need of a comprehensive U.S. strategy.

In the context of these issues, Gary J. Schmitt, AEI resident scholar and director of Advanced Strategic Studies, provided an overview of America's domestic counterterrorism programs and efforts. It has been quite surprising, Schmitt said, that the Obama administration has not changed much in terms of U.S. counterterrorism policy since the Bush administration left office. "Virtually everything that President Bush put in place, has remained in place [under Obama]," Schmitt said. Many in the comparatively small counterterrorism community have wondered why this has been the case. Schmitt attributed this continuity to three basic factors. First, confronted with all sorts of challenges at the beginning of its term, most notably the U.S. economy, the Obama administration may simply not have had the time to implement some of the changes it envisioned in the area of counterterrorism. Second, it is possible that President Obama and his Democratic Party simply might not have wanted to be seen as soft on security. Third, the Obama administration, once in office, may have come to realize that these Bush-era policies and programs are indeed needed to protect the United States and its citizens against another terrorist attack. "By and large," Schmitt said, "the system has worked. And we haven't suffered another 9/11." Schmitt was quick to point out, however, that this does not mean that America's counterterrorism system cannot be fixed, adjusted, or reformed. At the same time, there are a few problems with the Obama administration's approach to counterterrorism. First, federal courts have been making ad hoc decisions on counterterrorism, decisions they have not historically been involved in. One important example will be the courts' forthcoming review of the constitutionality of the material support laws as they pertain to counterterrorism. Passed in the 1990s to investigate gangs and drug syndicates, these laws, Schmitt argued, are an essential tool in America's fight against terrorism. Moreover, Schmitt worried that the United States has "its hands tied behind its back when it comes to securing the homeland" because of the Obama administration's decision to limit U.S. interrogation techniques to the ones outlined in the U.S. Army field manual. The use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on certain high-profile terrorists, Schmitt said, had yielded invaluable intelligence. Although the Obama administration has left in place many of the policies introduced under Bush, they have yet to defend many of the policies that have made such an important contribution to securing the American homeland.

--Philipp Tomio

• Video, audio, and event materials