U.S. shifts anti-terror effort
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has launched a review of its efforts to battle terrorism aimed at moving away from a policy that has stressed efforts to capture and kill al Qaeda leaders since Sept. 11, 2001, and toward what a senior official called a broader “strategy against violent extremism.”
The shift is meant to recognize the transformation of al Qaeda over the past three years into a more diffuse organization than the group that struck the United States in 2001. But critics say the policy review comes after months of delay and lost opportunities while the administration left key counterterrorism jobs unfilled and argued over how to confront the spread of the pro-al Qaeda global Islamic jihad.
President Bush’s top adviser on terrorism, Frances Fragos Townsend, said the review is needed to take into account the “ripple effect” from years of operations targeting al Qaeda leaders such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, arrested for planning the Sept. 11 attacks, and his recently detained deputy.
“Naturally, the enemy has adapted,” she said. “As you capture a Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an Abu Faraj al-Libbi raises up. Nature abhors a vacuum.”
The review marks the first ambitious effort since the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks to take stock of what the administration calls the “global war on terrorism” – or GWOT.
Officials refused to detail what policies are under consideration. Sources said some issues remain sticking points, such as how central the war in Iraq is to anti-terror efforts and how to accommodate State Department desires to normalize a policy that stresses terrorism to the exclusion of other priorities.
Much discussion has focused on a new generation of terrorists schooled in Iraq. Officials are turning their attention to “the bleed out” of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe.
The review may have been slowed somewhat by the fact that many of the key counterterrorism jobs in the administration have been empty for months, including the top post at the State Department for combating terrorism, vacant since November, and the directorship of the new National Counterterrorism Center.