Outlook: Worse Than Bin Laden

Georgetown security studies professor Bruce Hoffman was online Monday, Sept. 11 at noon ET to analyze Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bin Laden consul and strategist who is the new public face of al-Qaeda.

Scarier Than Bin Laden (Outlook, Sept. 9)

The transcript follows.

Archive: Transcripts of discussions with Outlook article authors

____________________

Fairfax, Va.: Considering our current situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm amazed at the number of people who suggest "well, why don't we just go into Pakistan and get Bin Laden?" They make it sound so simple. Does the American military think this would be easy? I hope they have more sense than the people who make these kinds of suggestions.

Bruce Hoffman: You are the correct about the difficulties in storming into Pakistan and "grabbing" bin Laden. You may have read a story in the New York Times last month that detailed how a 2005 plot to do this went awry because of fears of casualties and geostrategic repercussions such an incursion would raise (e.g. allegations that the U.S. was "invading" yet another Muslim country). Yet at the same time, despite the fact that bin Laden is more a symbol now than before, I still think it is imperative we bring him to justice for Sept. 11 and other heinous acts -- either by killing or, preferably, capturing and trying him in a court of law.

_______________________

Freising, Germany: Regarding al-Zawahiri's treatise concerning martyrdom operations as a way of preventing casualties to the mujaheddin, what is the current state of martyr recruitment compared with four or five years ago? Is it possible that al-Qaeda is trying to incite and maintain a civil war in Iraq with the intention of creating willing martyrs to attack non-Sunnis and American troops?

Bruce Hoffman: Unfortunately, there appears to be no shortage of martyrs to al-Qaeda's ranks. The recent arrests in your country are evidence of this, as were the arrests in the U.K. last August and the continuing flow of foreign fighters who wish to martyr themselves in Iraq. Interestingly, thugh, al-Qaeda in Iraq carries out far more "martyrdom" attacks on civilians, and especially Shia -- and secondarily against Iraqi Security Forces -- than against U.S. and coalition military forces. Seventy-three percent of the attacks on U.S. forces for July, for instance, were staged by the Shia Mahdi Army, and not al-Qaeda in Iraq.

_______________________

Washington: Can I go back to a basic/fundamental question? Does America put too much stock into killing Osama bin Laden and therefore not get the bigger issue? Granted, getting Osama would be a blow, but I would say that for the overall movement Osama bin Laden does not matter. Bin Laden transitioned the focus to include American sites, but the struggle will continue with or without him.

Bruce Hoffman: I agree with you entirely -- we have to be realistic that killing or capturing bin Laden will not end the struggle he started and inspired, which now has been emulated by others. But I still think in the interests of justice and morality, we need to make good on President Bush's pledge of six years ago to bring him in, as it were, dead or alive. Our failure to do emboldens him and his followers and breathes life into his mythical, heroic stature in the eyes of both his followers and would-be followers.

_______________________

Leadership Time and Counterterrorism: With your access to decision-makers, what opportunities have you seen lost because of the attention that must be paid to the Iraq disaster? Not the cases where they made decisions you would disagree with, but the cases where they lacked time to even make some decisions?

Bruce Hoffman: You have hit on the major challenge facing decision-makers around the world today -- and one I discussed even nearly a decade ago in the first edition of my book, "Inside Terrorism" -- the lack of time to frame and make decisions. I think with terrorism, though, it is imperative to act soberly and rationally and not emotionally and in a febrile way -- because after all that is what the terrorists are trying to provoke us to do. With respect to the current situation in Iraq, I don't think that it is a question of lack of time, but one of being blinded to outside influences and ideas and suggestions.

_______________________

Washington: Prof. Hoffman, you specifically stated in Terrorism/Counterterrorism (one of your courses at Georgetown) that the administration has a legitimate fight in Iraq, a position with which several students took issue. Now you seem to be telling people that the administration needs to do more, thereby implying that what used to be good work really wasn't. And you've always claimed that "al-Qaeda" is linked to Iraq and Hussein. If you're right, why hasn't a single credible expert ever once agreed with you?

Bruce Hoffman: I have to correct you -- I never have stated nor believed that there was ever a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq or Saddam Hussein. I have no idea where you got that notion from. This includes going back to 2001 and 2002, and I am on record in many quotes in newspapers to that effect. I had an op-ed in the New York Times in December 2003 (I think Dec. 17) that stated exactly this. Also, I never discussed Iraq in terms of the "administration [having] a legitimate fight in Iraq" -- either your memory is faulty or whoever was in my class misinformed you.

What I did say -- and what I argued until August 2006 -- was that having invaded Iraq we were obliged both politically and morally to remain there and see through to the end the process of upheaval and hopefully democratization that we started. I also thought that withdrawing would create a huge propaganda boon for our enemies and further destabilize the region. This position was based in part on my own observations when I briefly served with the CPA in Baghdad in Spring 2004, and from the work I did as an adviser to Gen. Casey in 2004-2005. I visited Iraq again in April 2006 and from my first-hand observations began to question the position I outlined above.

By last August I had changed my mind after I saw how our efforts to train the Iraqi police had not only slipped but reversed course, with fewer and fewer competent, trained police being produced. You cannot have a stable and functioning society -- much less a democracy -- without a stable, functioning police force. I also came to believe more strongly, as I explained in my article, that we were falling into a strategic trap set by Zawahiri to enmesh us in and preoccupy us with Iraq while al-Qaeda regrouped and reorganized. This point also had been made in the aforementioned New York Times op-ed from 2003. So, I don't know how or where you have these interpretations of my views as expressed in your question, but they are inaccurate.

_______________________

chgt: Fine idea, just forget the organizational mastermind and face behind the murder of 3,000 innocent Americans. What an insult.

Bruce Hoffman: Nowhere do I say to forget bin Laden. And as you will see from my reply to two previous readers, I believe it is still imperative to bring him to justice. The point in my article is that he is no longer the mastermind or commander of al-Qaeda, and the sooner we understand who Zawahiri is and how he is thinking and what strategy he is using to guide and direct al-Qaeda, the sooner and the better we will be able to defeat this adversary and bring both Zawahiri and bin Laden -- and indeed their minions -- to justice. By the way, if you haven't already read Larry Wright's masterful book, "The Looming Tower," you should. His view and description of the relationship between Zawahiri and bin Laden, and Zawahiri's more critical strategic role in al-Qaeda's evolution, is detailed exhaustively and clearly.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: Wasn't the same kind of logic, for going into Pakistan, used by Nixon to go into Cambodia to capture the North Vietnam Central command? It would be a short operation, the NVA central command would be destroyed and the war would be over. The opposite took place, the NVA central command never was found, Cambodia was destabilized, the Khmer Rouge gained power in there and the murderous Pol Pot rose to power. If Pakistan were invaded and was destabilized, a militant Islamic government could come to power and then have Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Bruce Hoffman: I agree, and I am not advocating invading Pakistan. I would argue, though, that the billion dollars a year in military aid we are giving Pakistan to deal with this problem is not money that is being well-spent, and that we never should have accepted the withdrawal a year ago of Pakistani military forces from active operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the Northwest Provinces and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. That is among the main reasons we now are confronted with a resurgent al-Qaeda.

_______________________

Falls Church, Va.: Why do you think al-Qaeda has not carried out any further actions within the United States?

Bruce Hoffman: Very good question. First, they lack the infrastructure in this country among a sizeable, restive diaspora or immigrant community -- that they can draw from, radicalize, animate and dispatch on terrorist operations -- that they have in the U.K. for instance (and now, as we see from last week's arrests, in Germany as well). Second, there fortunately is not the same degree of polarization and alienation in this country between Muslim Americans and the U.S. and our government as exists in many European countries, so the pool from which al-Qaeda can draw and radicalize is much smaller.

Third, the U.S. is a harder target than it was on Sept. 11. Bin Laden used to describe the U.S. as a "benign operational environment." It is not impervious toattack (because you can't hermetically seal off a democracy and free and open society like the U.S. from every kind of terrorist attack all the time) but at the same time our defenses are better. This has added to the terrorists' planning and surveillance requirements. Finally, I believe they seek to do something bigger in the U.S. than Sept. 11 -- or at least equal to it -- and that has restrained them from carrying out more modest but nonetheless potentially highly consequential terrorist attacks here.

_______________________

San Francisco: Why are Osama's tapes still greeted breathlessly by Western news media if he's no longer running al-Qaeda?

Bruce Hoffman: Because bin Laden's appearances are more infrequent, they have this dramatic frisson whenever he does appear. This is not accidental: al-Qaeda and as-Sahab, its media arm, deliberately orchestrate and choreograph these appearances. Almost 24 hours before the latest tape's release on Friday, jihadi Web sites were promoting his appearance in "teasers," much like we see on TV and hear on the radio. Also, bin Laden, as I write in the article published on Sunday, has created an al-Qaeda "brand" that is twinned with his image. His symbolic importance is thus important. But also he has one of the most recognizable names around. Accordingly it has become impossible to ignore him -- not least because his appearances are stage-managed in such a way as to arrest our attention.

_______________________

Princeton, N.J.: But when we invaded Iraq, were you in favor or opposed?

Bruce Hoffman: I was always opposed to it on the grounds of the alleged relationship between Saddam and bin Laden and Iraq and al-Qaeda.

_______________________

Wheaton, Md.: Does it really matter who is in charge of al-Qaeda? Does it in any way, effect their intentions and capabilities? We should be more concerned with defeating al-Qaeda, along with Hezbollah, Hamas and other international terrorist organizations, rather than focusing on their internal politics. Would you agree?

Bruce Hoffman: No. We should focus precisely on their internal politics as the most efficacious way to defeat them, by causing them to self-immolate or explode from within. This has been among our greatest failings in this struggle: our inability to identify and then exploit and further cleavages and fissures among the jihadis and within al-Qaeda. We still have to track down and kill and capture the leaders and fighters, but that is only one side of the coin; the other is undermining them from within (which we have been singularly incapable of doing).

_______________________

Fort Washington, Md.: There seems to be a very muted political response to bin Laden's latest videos. Is this Bush's strategy to marginalize bin Laden, or is there a lot of backstage hand-wringing?

Bruce Hoffman: You are correct, there is a deliberate policy to ignore bin Laden (and has been for some time). But at a time when Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are testifying about tangible issues and bin Laden is ranting and raving about mortgage rates, global warning, etc., it's obvious where our attention should, and needs to, be (though that is separate from paying attention to Zawahiri, whom we cannot afford to ever take our eyes off of, given his strategy and actual control of the levers of al-Qaeda terrorist capabilities today).

_______________________

Boston: Can you shed light on a possible rationale for why Fran Townsend described Bin Laden as "virtually impotent" on national/international TV? It would seem that using provocative and baiting terms about a Muslim serves only to further incite extremists and decrease marginal moderate Muslim support. Because she used the term twice on different Sunday TV shows I assume there was some calculus that the phrase benefited the U.S. in some way not understood on its face. Lastly, isn't it the Bush administration that is impotent, given its inability to get Bin Laden "dead or alive" for the past six years, and its decision to divert resources from Afghanistan to Iraq?

Bruce Hoffman: I agree, that was an unfortunate choice of words -- and personalizing the conflict in such a way, I thought, detracted from the fact that he is a homicidal murderer, pure and simple. Certainly, your second point likely encapsulates precisely the response of bin Laden's sympathizers and supporters, and perhaps even others throughout the world who misguidedly regard him as a hero.

_______________________

Princeton, N.J.: Al-Qaeda has gotten us to take U.S. (female) troops out of Saudi Arabia and to topple the most prominent of the secular Arab rulers. Furthermore, as you remark, they have suckered us into not one, but two wars. They have seen how a small band of fanatics can defeat a world power and, indeed, contribute to the dissolution of that power (USSR). Pray tell, why should they rock the boat with an attack in the U.S.? My God, we might even elect sensible leaders.

Bruce Hoffman: Your point may indeed be another explanation of why they haven't attacked the U.S. However, last summer's plot to bomb 10 American passenger jets simultaneously while they were en route from London suggests that striking at the U.S. and killing Americans and others is perhaps still their highest priority, regardless of whether it would cause them longer-term strategic problems.

_______________________

googleguy: Since al-Zawahiri joined bin Laden in 1998, it has been clear that al-Zawahiri was the brains behind al-Qaeda. Hoffman is nine years late coming to that realization.

Bruce Hoffman: I have made these same points about Zawahiri in one form or another for many years now. This is, admittedly, the first article I have written that focuses exclusively on him, but his importance has not been ignored in previous works I have written.

_______________________

ahashburn: Interesting how the author didn't address the fact that many Iraqis are turning against al-Qaeda because of the oppressive actions that Zawahiri accuses the U.S. of using.

Bruce Hoffman: Then why was al-Qaeda in Iraq 90 percent foreigners and only 10 percent Iraqis in 2004, and is now 90 percent Iraqis and only 10 percent foreigners? Yes, tribal sheiks in al-Anbar are turning against al-Qaeda -- and that is good. But it doesn't appear -- at least to me (and perhaps you have different information) -- that al-Qaeda in Iraq has had trouble attracting new recruits.

_______________________

brianfh01: Well, Bruce, you certainly pulled a lot of bedbugs out of hiding.

From the first time I saw Zawahiri speak I knew he was "the brains of the outfit"; but he, too, is suffering the consequences of the Law of Unintended Consequences. The gross brutality of his minions has outraged his base constituency in Iraq, just as the Red Mosque has severely damaged Islamist prospects in Pakistan.

To those who don't believe what Zawahiri and his ilk are saying, you're boiling gently and sleeping like lulled frogs, but boil you will.

Bruce Hoffman: See the previous reply. I am not so sure about that. It has turned the tribal sheiks in al-Anbar against al-Qaeda but, as I said, I don't see any huge diminishing of al-Qaeda in Iraq's strength (e.g. stanching the flow of Iraqi and foreign fighters into its ranks) nor on its operational capacity (e.g., the attacks on the Yazidi villages in the northwest of Iraq last month that claimed the lives of more than 500 people). Also, note that Zawahiri attempted on several occasions to moderate the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's more homicidal tendencies towards civilians and Shia targets.

_______________________

Princeton, N.J.: Is it clear that the projected attack on the planes was directed by al-Qaeda, or could it have been a local freelance effort?

Bruce Hoffman: I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the intended attack on the 10 U.S. passenger planes last summer was directed, orchestrated, overseen and commanded by al-Qaeda. The person, Rashid Rauf, whose arrest in Pakistan last summer unraveled the plot, was a close associate (protege?) of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a senior al-Qaeda commander whom we apprehended in June 2005. As I wrote in the article, Abu Ubaydah al-Masri, the al-Qaeda commander in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, was the airline bombing operation's controller. He succeeded Hamza al-Rabia, al-Qaeda's military operations chief, whom we killed in a Predator air strike in November 2005.

_______________________

Prescott, Ariz.: As someone who has lived my entire life in small towns in Wyoming and Arizona, I feel like I don't worry so much about terrorist groups like al-Qaeda as I do white power and radical Christianist terrorists. With the recent string of domestic terrorism attacks by such groups (an attempted suicide bombing in Davenport, Iowa, on Sept. 11 of last year, an attempted IED attack in Austin, Texas, an attempted attack on Latinos via gun and grenade in Alabama, etc.), is it possible that we are ignoring the real terrorism threat to a lot of rural Americans in order placate the city folk?

Bruce Hoffman: I first wrote major reports on the terrorism in the U.S. and the dangers posed by the American white supremacist movement in 1986, and again in 1988 when I worked at the Rand Corporation. In my book, "Inside Terrorism," I devote considerable attention to them, as well. So this is a threat I have followed closely for more than twenty years and was writing and warning about long before the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.

That said, they were more of a threat 20 years ago than they are now. Then, they were organized and networked within a broader umbrella provided by groups (now defunct) like the Aryan Nations. The Oklahoma City bombing demonstrated the lethal potential of persons associated with these groups or adhering to their belief system, but their ability to operate strategically, on a global canvas, for instance, is incomparable to al-Qaeda. That does not mean we should ignore them (Oklahoma City is a salutary lesson) -- and I never would suggest that. But if you asked, the greater threat and the more consequential one is that posed by al-Qaeda, which after all succeeded exactly six years ago in killing nearly 10 times as many people as tragically perished at the Alfred Murrah building. Unfortunately, we have to keep our eyes peeled to the waterfront of threats -- but your point about not ignoring the range of threats and adversaries that confront us is very well taken.

_______________________

Norfolk, Va.: Any idea of what the bin Laden video will say? By the way, I am Active Duty Navy (shipped out to boot camp on Sept. 17, 2001). We, as a military, will not rest until we get him!

Bruce Hoffman: You mean the new one out today? I think it is just bin Laden trying to milk as much attention and steal as much limelight as possible given the tragic anniversary we acknowledge today.

_______________________

kmohajer : Don't make a joke of American security forces in order to create an enemy. Al-Qaeda is nothing but bunch of cave living nomads with a maximum of several hundred million dollars at their disposal. By no means do I try to convey the idea that they should not be pursued and brought to justice, but setting the foreign policy priority of the strongest nation on earth based on opposing al-Qaeda? That doggy ain't gonna bite me.

Bruce Hoffman: Meanwhile, no foreign adversary that I know of has been able to penetrate the security of the U.S. as profoundly -- nor kill as many of our fellow citizens -- as al-Qaeda was able to on Sept. 11. I agree that we shouldn't build them up to be more powerful than they are, but at the same, the real lesson of Sept. 11 is precisely why we shouldn't underestimate them. Given their interests and activities -- and the evidence U.S. forces obtained after we liberated Afghanistan -- in developing chemical, biological, radioactive and even nuclear weapons, I still don't think it's prudent to dismiss the threat they pose.

_______________________

Wilmington, N.C.: A question of scale. Could al-Qaeda ever amass the capability to overthrow the U.S. government and replace it with an Islamic theocracy?

Bruce Hoffman: Absolutely not. And this is why we always need to keep the threat they pose in perspective.

_______________________

Princeton, N.J.: Is it clear that al-Qaeda was responsible for the Yazidi bombing? If they are determined to exploit sectarian division, why would they bomb a sect hated by all religious Iraqis?

Bruce Hoffman: Not entirely clear, but it conforms to their modus operandi, and they are as opportunistic as they are instrumental (e.g. striking at a vulnerable target like the Yazidis). Don't forget too that al-Qaeda in Iraq's "audience" is not only Iraqis, but the world, and they deliberately attempt to create global revulsion and fear in equal measure.

_______________________

Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.