Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Securing America’s Safety: Improving the Effectiveness of Anti-Terrorism Tools and Inter-Agency Communication
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Chairman Leahy, today’s hearing is an important opportunity to find out what went wrong, where the breakdowns occurred, and how our homeland security agencies failed to intercept Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded a Northwest Airlines plane to Detroit on Christmas Day with a bomb strapped to him. This attempted bombing does not appear to be an accidental slip up. Instead, it appears to be a serious breach of our security apparatus by a terrorist intent on harming innocent Americans. As more facts have come to light about what our national security and homeland security agencies knew about Abdulmutallab in the lead up to Christmas Day, the more it appears that these agencies had the information necessary to disrupt and prevent Abdulmutallab from obtaining a visa and getting aboard flight 253.
On January 7, 2010, the White House released the “Summary of the White House Review of the December 25, 2009 Attempted Terrorist Attack.” That review found serious failures in intelligence analysis, following up on high priority threat information, and shortcomings in the watchlisting system. Perhaps, most notably, the review found that “the U.S. Government had sufficient information prior to the attempted December 25 attack to have potentially disrupted the AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] plot.” This is a serious failure and one that should never have happened following the reorganization of government post-9/11. The 9/11 attacks taught us all a lesson that our counterterrorism efforts need to be more diligent, more proactive, and more efficient in how we collect, analyze, and share information. However, it appears those lessons have not been learned by everyone in our government. This attack is a wake-up call for all involved and one that cannot be ignored again.
I find this lack of information sharing and coordination extremely troubling. In the series of hearings the Judiciary Committee held following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, it was determined that a breakdown in information sharing was a major problem. It is quite clear that, contrary to other assertions, the system did not work in this instance. Any time a terrorist is cleared for a visa by the State Department and able to board a flight for the United States with a bomb strapped to his leg, it’s pretty clear the system didn’t work. What we need to do now is figure out why it didn’t work, what warnings were missed, and how these problems can be averted in the future.
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was supposed to fix the gaps between actionable intelligence and law enforcement. In October 2002, CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 Commission, “The Department’s most important role will be to correlate threat warnings and assessments about evolving terrorist strategies with a fine-grained understanding of the vulnerabilities of all sectors of the homeland and translate them into a system of protection for the people and infrastructure of the United States.” The failures of the “system” allowing the Christmas Day attack to occur make it appear that DHS has fallen short of this expectation. Today’s hearing offers us a chance to determine if the breakdown on Christmas Day is indicative of more systematic failures or whether the “system” of protection can be relied upon.
Since the failed Christmas Day attack, I have been joined by my colleagues in leading a number of inquiries to both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security about the failures of the visa issuance process. On January 13, 2010, all my Republican Judiciary Committee colleagues joined me in writing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in seeking the basic visa applications and documents submitted by Abdulmutallab. To date, the State Department has failed to provide the requested documents to this committee and has suggested that it may withhold the documents because of the pending criminal prosecution. While the visa application might technically be introduced as evidence at a trial one day, it is hardly a core part of the case. When I asked the Department of Justice whether it intended to object to the State Department providing the visa application and supporting documents, the answer was shocking. The Department of Justice indicated yesterday that it could not reply because it too has not received a copy of it from the State Department. It seems impossible that the Department of Justice has not received the visa application or supporting documents yet given they are leading the criminal prosecution. I want to reiterate my request for these documents and ask that the State Department provide those documents to the committee immediately.
In addition to the letter to the Secretary of State, I was also joined by my Republican Judiciary Committee colleagues in a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano seeking an explanation why applications to expand the Visa Security Program (VSP) to five new posts have been languishing on Secretary Napolitano’s desk. One of the five applications, for a Visa Security Unit in Sana’a, Yemen has been pending since September 2008, despite being negotiated by the local embassy and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
I received a response to our letter just last night. In that response, DHS Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute stated that she personally approved these five applications and also approved another three that the committee was unaware of. These applications are now sent to the State Department for their approval.
Despite this positive progress many questions still remain. I’m concerned that response from DHS does not even attempt to explain why there was a delay in processing these applications. I find it especially troubling that the application for the VSP in Sana’a, Yemen sat at DHS waiting for approval for nearly 16 months. This application languished on a desk while there was a heightened concern among the intelligence community that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was increasing terrorist activities in Yemen. While I’m pleased these applications are progressing, I want to know what the delay was, why it occurred, and whether or not the process will be expedited for future applications. It’s clear that DHS decided to approve these applications because of the scrutiny our letter and impending Congressional testimony has brought upon this process, but the response raises more questions than it answers.
Accordingly, I plan to raise the following issues with the witnesses here today and look forward to candid and direct answers to questions on the following topics.
State Department Visa Issuance and Revocation Oversight
The State Department has the authority to deny permission to foreign nationals to enter the United States for any number of reasons. It’s not necessary that the applicant is on a terrorist watch list. It’s not necessary to have hard evidence that the applicant is planning an attack. An applicant can be denied or have a visa revoked merely if the State Department suspects that the reason given for travel to the United States may not be accurate. Moreover, that decision by the consular officer is not reviewable or appealable to any court. Given that in this case, his father warned U.S. officials that his son might be planning a suicide mission in Yemen, the State Department needs to explain why it would not immediately suspend his permission to travel to the United States and begin the process of revoking his visa. A State Department employee properly classified him as a “possible terrorist” in the State Department computer system, and yet that did not trigger any review of his pending visa. There’s a lot of interagency finger-pointing going on here, but regardless what other mistakes have been made, the State Department has to answer for its failings. The decision to give him a multiple-year, multiple-entry visa to enter the U.S. even though his stated reason for coming here was to attend a single two-week conference in 2008 is questionable at best. But, there seems to be little doubt that the failure to revoke his visa after receiving a warning from his father was a mistake that we cannot afford to allow the State Department to make again.
Homeland Security Visa Security Units
After the State Department allowed the 9/11 hijackers into the country, many people advocated taking the visa issuance function away entirely and transferring it to the Homeland Security Department. As a compromise, DHS was instead given the authority to station personnel in high-risk visa issuing posts to review applications. Eight years later, these Visa Security Units (VSUs) are only in 14 of more than 220 posts around the world, and the pace of implementation is unacceptably slow. There isn’t one in London, there isn’t one in Nigeria, and there isn’t one in Yemen. The State Department needs to explain why it is taking so long to provide the clearances and approvals necessary for DHS to perform this vital function in more posts around the world. Moreover, the Homeland Security Department needs to explain why it has not been more aggressive in using the authority Congress granted it in 2002 to implement the program despite State Department objections.
FBI Remedial Measures
In addition to the White House review of the attempted attack, the White House issued a memorandum for the heads of the counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement agencies on January 7, 2010. That memorandum included a list of remedial actions required by federal government agencies to help prevent a future attack. While many of these “corrective actions” are simply vague reiterations of policy positions that have been proposed since 9/11, one set of corrective actions stuck out. Specifically, the FBI is tasked to “Conduct a thorough review of Terrorist Screening Database holdings and ascertain current visa status of all “known and suspected terrorists,” beginning with the No Fly List.” This is an interesting directive because it seems to imply that the State Department may have granted visas to individuals that have been designated as “known and suspected terrorists.”
We now know that Abdulmutallab was labeled by State Department officials as “P3B” meaning a person who is a “potential” or “probable” terrorist, but was still able to obtain a visa to travel to the United States. Given this directive to the FBI, it appears there is a concern that “known and suspected terrorists” were able to obtain visas. I want to know if the FBI is going to go further than the President’s directive and look not only for “known and suspected terrorists” that may have obtained a visa, but also for any individuals labeled by the State Department as “possible” or “probable” terrorists. I also want to know what the FBI will do with the information once they have conducted this review and what steps will be taken if any “known and suspected terrorists,” “probable” terrorists, or “possible” terrorists are found.
Strengthening Visa Issuance and Prevent Future Communications Breakdowns
The next steps Congress must take are clear. Information sharing is the critical component to preventing future individuals like Abdulmutallab from attempting another terrorist attack. However, more must be done to ensure that our counterterrorism agencies are doing all they can to prevent another attack. Simply telling agencies to do what they’ve been told since 9/11 isn’t enough. How many times must we in Congress tell the government to share information? One immediate step we can take is to force the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to expand the Visa Security Program by installing Visa Security Units in the embassies of all high risk visa adjudicating posts immediately.
Another step is for Congress to pass legislation I am introducing that would limit judicial review of visas that have been revoked. This process is similar to the current practice of limited appeals for visa denials. There is no reason to allow an individual who has had a visa revoked because of charges of terrorism to remain in the United States while they appeal the revocation. My bill is a common sense approach to ensure that we are doing all we can to remove individuals who have no right to be in this country. This is a logical next step and one that is urgent given the FBI’s directive to review all terrorist databases to determine if any “known or suspected terrorists” currently have a valid visa. If the FBI does find any known or suspected terrorists with a valid visa, it is vital it is revoked immediately without the right to run to U.S. courts.
I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses and to getting answers to these serious questions.