This course will explore the forces that led to the 9/11 attacks and the policies the United States adopted in response. We will examine the phenomenon of modern terrorism, the development of the al Qai'da ideology, and the process by which individuals radicalize towards violence.
Interview with Juan Zarate - Part 2
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En provenance du cours de Duke University
Understanding 9/11: Why 9/11 Happened & How Terrorism Affects Our World Today
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Duke University
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Week 7: September 12, 2001
In this final week of the course we’ll speak with Juan Zarate , one of the key White House counter terrorism advisers in the second Bush administration, about US counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. We’ll look at the current state of threats to US interests from emerging actors, such as ISIS. Finally, we’ll look at the recent developments in the Middle East that affect US security.
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David SchanzerAssociate Professor of the Practice
Sanford School of Public Policy
>> Hi, and welcome to the second part of our interview with Juan
Zarate, a former prosecutor Department of Treasury
official, and a Bush administration counter-terrorism adviser.
Of course you you know, flat going for it even more you still
see that tension in President Obama's speech,
for example, to the National Defense University.
and his effort to do outreach
to the Muslim world relaying to his Cairo speech.
On one hand wanting to.
reach out to people to say we have shared values.
We want to have progress, better life, economic progress,
education and all those things that universally people want, while,
at the same time, feeling the need to conduct this aggressive
and often militaristic effort to go after the enemy.
And it's very complicated to send those dual messages at the same
time in a way that not only people in the United States
but all around the world, the many people from outside the United
States will be taking this course, you know, can understand and identify with.
>> No, you're absolutely right and, and it's clear
that the Obama administration, in some ways, wanted to constrain
the language, the militant language, and so they shifted from the notion of a
war on terror broadly, which they thought brought too much baggage with it and
certainly had the implication that we were at war with a broader community than,
than we were, and constrain it to the notion of a war on Al Qeada.
which allowed them to say look this is constrained.
We're going to be aggressive against the
Al Qaeda core leadership and their movement.
This isn't about
a broader sensibility of, of, of who we're at war with.
I was just going to say I think there was an appreciation over time post 9/11
to the importance of the messaging, to the importance of being very clear.
about who we were at war with.
And I think President Bush actually, in retrospects, in retro, in
retrospect, gets a lot of credit for being very clear that
we're, we weren't at war with Islam.
trying to demonstrate great respect for the religion of Islam.
For Muslims.
the visits to the mosques the, the establishment of the White House iftars.
The placing of the first Koran in the White House.
The first envoy to the OIC.
All that came from President Bush.
The problem I think was as you, you just said, David, I think
there's a fundamental tension in A policy where you're having actually going
out and kill elements of the, of this group that you're at war
with and sometimes the collateral damage that comes with that and then this message
of respect and of of peace which sometimes doesn't mesh very easily.
And I think The Obama administration has struggled with that.
The Bush administration struggled with that.
It, you know, admittedly with the, the overlay of Guantanamo and Abu Braid
and those things which dominated the
perception of what American policy was about.
So I think that's a, that's a fundamental tension for any administration
and, and certainly you've seen that in the Obama administration as well.
Why I'm spending so much time on this because the students has
as their final project to consider that it's September 2012 and that
they are they are going to be, they're giving a, a, a speech or and they're a
high-level policymaker either within their own country or the
United States and they're going to be giving a speech.
Or an interview on television and they're having
to craft a message as to how, explaining
why this conflict came about and, and charting
out a, a, a guide post for the future.
So I hope they'll listen carefully to
our conversation here and when they're
trying to frame that assignment themselves.
[INAUDIBLE]
If I can offer two suggestions to the, the class actually that quite relevant
to the debates that are happening on
September 12th and frankly still relevant today.
wrote an Op Ed that appears in the
Washington Post today that touches on some of this.
But, there were a couple of debates that were
happening on September 12th that were very important and, impactive.
One was What is the nature of the enemy? Who is it that we're actually fighting?
What, what is this network?
And actually that question grows more complicated over time and I would
say it's probably more complicated today than it was on September 12, 2001.
But that was a fundamental question for the government, you know?
How do we define the enemy?
If we're going to go to war with people And it's not a country.
How do we define that, that battle and what are the contours?
Secondly, given that it's not a traditional conflict,
how do you define the rules of the game?
If this isn't going to be a classic battle between states how do you
define not only who were at, who, who we're at war, we're at war with.
But what are the contours of that battle? geographically where does that reach?
Is it just Afghanistan where they were?
Is it where they have any cells that may pop up?
How does that define, is that, that defined geopgrphically?
And then
in terms of time scope. How long does this last?
When does it end?
that will impact in questions on how long you keep detainees in custody.
how long Guantanamo or Abagra remains open.
So, those are fundamental questions on September 12th, and
they persist in terms of being fundamental policy questions today.
>> Well, thank you for that one and let just for
a moment dig a little bit deeper into what you were doing and tell us
how it is that, you know, in the post September 11th world how in the
treasury department you took advantage of the
new paradigm and then ultimately new authorities that
you got from congress to make treasury and
financial tools an effective weapon in a sense.
a non-militaristic weapon but a weapon none-the-less
against terrorists and other rouge actors. >> Well thank you, David.
I, I think this is a great sort of untold story of this period because it wasn't
just that the president was looking toward the use
of military power solely to deal with this problem.
He was looking, again, at his tool kit.
Say what, what tools do we have in
the U.S. Government to actually go after this problem?
And he looked at the Treasury and he looked
at the data in front of him and said, look we have to
deal with the financial underpinnings of this movement, both short and long term.
We've got to figure out was of disrupting it.
And you, Treasury, have the ability to do
that given your authorities under sanctions, your authority
to regulate for money laundering, authority to regulate
the financial community both bank and non-bank financial sectors.
And frankly, an ability to do this internationally
with finance ministries and central banks around the world.
And so, it's interesting that the first sort of formal act in the
way on terror after 9/11 was not the bombing in afghanistan or the
invasion there, but was the signing of an executive order on September 23rd,
2001, that gave the sector of the treasury much more expansive powers, to freeze
the assets of those who are involved in terrorism, those who
were supporting terrorist groups, and
those that were financially facilitating terrorists.
And that was the beginning of a financial campaign against terrorist financing
which really you know, I was fortunate to be a part of.
And what we did there was to amplify the tools that we
had to bring the bear, we used sanctions and targeted ways to identify
individuals and entities that were engaged in terrorism or supporting it.
we deepen the regulatory system, the USA Patriot Act has Title three as part of it.
Its often ignored but it's the part that really deepened and broadened the
anti money laundering system in some fundamental ways We've dealt some
important international coalitions a to go after a the financing of a terror, and so
at the end of the day what we're trying to do is build up
a campaign just like you build a military campaign but build a financial campaign.
To make it harder, costlier and riskier for Al
qaeda to raise and move money around the world.
and ultimately, it's succeeded.
I think it doesn't mean we've stopped every dollar.
And it doesn't mean it's not possible for Al Qaeda to support terrorist attacks
and it certainly doesn't mean that a
terrorist attack doesn't cost a lot of money.
But we did impact, I think, the ability of Al qaeda.
To do what they wanted strategically because we
constricted their budget, in the way that money flowed.
And that was a really important part I think, at least, I was involved in it.
I'd like to think it's import-, important part of a new strategy for
how you went after, not just terrorist's
threats, but other threats facing the country.
>> You know, let's make clear it wasn't
really just about cutting off funding to Al Qaeda but also in a way
influencing a the behavior of, of states and other entities.
Because the idea was you could impose a price to some regard
on states and corporations who were
perhaps if not directly funding but maybe enabling
Al Qaeda to, to gain access to financial channels.
So these tools extend, and it wasn't just about depriving and starving
the funding from Al Qaeda but actually influencing the actors around the world.
>> Absolutely right. And you, you hit the nail on the head.
I think.
There were three components to this
that were interesting and important strategically.
One was, we incentivized and made important to the private sector the
notion of reputational risk.
The fact that banks and non-bank financial
institutions did not want to be caught with terrorist
funds in their bank accounts, or having been,
you know, wired through their facilities, was an
incredibly important incentive for the private sector itself
to guard against these illicit financial flows, and
so they closed accounts on their own, they
stopped accounts, they reported things that were happening.
So that was very important.
In terms of countries, we had to shift the paradigm.
>> Right.
>> Recall that in the 1980s, for example, from the Arabian Gulf
There was a lot of financial sort of, input from our allies
into the Afghan Mujahideen, in the movement that was basically the precursor
to many of the elements of al Qaeda, and al Qaeda core.
We had to shift that paradigm to say look, this is no longer acceptable.
This is now a threat to you, a threat to us, and we've gotta find ways
of cutting off The, the traditional ways that
have largely funded this movement in the past.
That has to end.
And so that led to some very important financial diplomacy with countries like
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others in the Arabian Gulf and around the world.
Then finally it was a way of figuring out how to deter actors.
Without arresting them without you know threatening
kinetic activity, you know, if people have commercial
interests or financial interests they want to preserve
those so if those are put at risk,
that's one way of starting to impact, dissuade,
deter possible elements of the network that can
be convinced that it's not a good idea to be helpful to this Al Qaeda movement.
So all of that helped in shaping
the environment.
>> And students around the world will soon have an opportunity to be able
to read in more depth about this very important aspect of the war in general.
Tell us just a little bit about that. >> Thank you David I appreciate the plug
I'm publishing a book on September 10th 2013 called Treasury's
War, the Unleashing of a new Era of Financial Warfare, so it takes from
the discussion we're having here.
Talking about sort of the, the foundational
principles of this new paradigm post 9/11.
The use of treasury tools powers to go after Al Qaeda's financing.
And how that evolved into a whole new way of thinking about the use
of financial power and influence to go
after the financial underpinnings of America's enemies.
And so the book talks about not just that but how we thought about.
proliferation finance, how we thought
about dealing with international organized crime.
How these tools were used quite effectively, and
continue to be used against North Korea and Iran.
and frankly, the future of the use of these tools.
How China is, has learned from the US, how Russia has learned.
and what the future of financial warfare and influence may look like.
And so, hopefully the book illuminates
with some interesting stories, some great characters.
David, friends of yours and
mine that are in it, and I think it'll be
both entertaining and hopefully helpful to students around the world.
>> Well, I know this'll be an important contribution to the, to
the literature, some of which we're able to study this course and we'll
help fill out the full picture of all the different ways that this this enemy and
this problem of, of global terrorism and also proliferation weapons
of mass destruct destruction and things that
threaten, you know, everyone around the world.
is being is being waged.
Juan Zarate, you've been very, very generous with your time.
Not only talking to me but also trying to set up
this Google chat which I'm glad we were able to do.
>> I figured it out.
[LAUGH]
>> Figure it out. And I'm very grateful.
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.
>> Thank you, David.
It's a pleasure to be with you and all the best to you and your students.
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