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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Closing the homeland security gap is just one element of what must be a comprehensive approach. We must take the fight to the terrorist leaders and their operatives around the world.
There will be times when urgent problems require swift American action. But defeating al-Qaida and other terrorist groups will require much more. It will require a long-term effort on the part of many nations.
Fundamental to our strategy will be restoration of strong U.S. leadership in the creation of a new global alliance to defeat terror, a commitment among law-abiding nations to work together in law enforcement, intelligence, and military operations.
Such an alliance could have been established right after Sept. 11, when nations stood shoulder to shoulder with America, prepared to meet the terrorist challenge together. But instead of forging an effective new partnership to fight a common foe, the administration soon downgraded the effort. The Iraq war diverted critical intelligence and military resources, undermined diplomatic support for our fight against terror, and created a new rallying cry for terrorist recruits.
Our administration will move swiftly to build a new anti-terrorist alliance, drawing on our traditional allies and involving other partners whose assistance can make a difference.
Our vigilance will extend to every conceivable means of attack. And our most important challenge will be to address the most dangerous threat of all: catastrophic terrorism using weapons of mass destruction. Here, where the stakes are highest, the current administration has, remarkably, done the least.
We have, rightly, paid much attention to finding and eliminating the worst people, but we need just as vigorous an effort to eliminate the worst weapons. Just as important as finding bin Laden is finding and eliminating sleeper cells of nuclear, chemical and biological terror.
Our global alliance will place its strongest emphasis on this most lethal form of terror. We will advance a global effort to secure the weapons and technologies of mass destruction on a worldwide basis.
To do so, we will build on the efforts of former Sen. Sam Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And our effort will build on the extraordinary work and leadership, as senator and as vice president, of one of America's great leaders, Al Gore.
The Nunn-Lugar program has been critical to securing the vast nuclear, chemical, and biological material inventory left over from the Soviet Union. Incredibly, despite the threat that the nexus of terrorism and technology of mass destruction poses, despite the heightened challenges posed by 9/11, the current administration has failed to increase funding for these efforts to secure dangerous weapons. I know that expanding and strengthening Nunn-Lugar is essential to defending America, and I will make that a priority from my first day as president.
Our new alliance will call upon all nations to work together to identify and control or eliminate unsafeguarded components -- or potential components -- of nuclear, chemical and biological arms around the world. These include the waste products and fuel of nuclear energy and research reactors, the pathogens developed for scientific purposes, and the chemical agents used for commercial ends. Such materials are present in dozens of countries -- and often stored with little if any security or oversight.
I will recruit every nation that can contribute and mobilize cooperation in every arena -- from compiling inventories to safeguarding transportation; from creating units specially trained to handle terrorist situations involving lethal substances to ensuring global public health cooperation against biological terror.
A serious effort to deal with this threat will require far more than the $2 billion annual funding the U.S. and its key partners have committed. We need a global fund to combat weapons of mass destruction not just in the former Soviet Union but around the world -- that is much larger than current expenditures.
Our administration will ask Congress to triple U.S. contributions over 10 years, to $30 billion, and we will challenge our friends and allies to match our contributions, for a total of $60 billion. For too long, we have been penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to addressing the weapons proliferation threat. We urgently need to strengthen these programs in order to defend America.
The next president will have to show leadership in other ways to mobilize the world into a global alliance to defeat terror.
We and our partners must commit ourselves to using every relevant capability, relationship, and organization to identify terrorist cells, seize terrorist funds, apprehend terrorist suspects, destroy terrorist camps, and prevent terrorist attacks. We must do even more to share intelligence, strengthen law enforcement cooperation, bolster efforts to squeeze terror financing, and enhance our capacity for joint military operations -- all so we can stop the terrorists before they strike at us.
The next president will also have to attack the roots of terror. He will have to lead and win the struggle of ideas.
Here we should have a decisive edge. Osama bin Laden and his allies have nothing to offer except deceit, destruction and death. There is a global struggle underway between peace-loving Muslims and this radical minority that seeks to hijack Islam for selfish and violent aims, that exploits resentment to persuade that murder is martyrdom, and hatred is somehow God's will. The tragedy is that, by its actions, its unilateralism, and its ill-considered war in Iraq, this administration has empowered radicals, weakened moderates, and made it easier for the terrorists to add to their ranks.
The next president will have to work with our friends and partners, including in the Muslim world, to persuade people everywhere that terrorism is wholly unacceptable, just as they are persuaded that slavery and genocide are unacceptable.
He must convince Muslims that America neither threatens nor is threatened by Islam, to which millions of our own citizens adhere.
And he must show by words and deeds that America seeks security for itself through strengthening the rule of law, not to dominate others by becoming a law unto itself.
