An Assessment of Counterterrorism Policy.

• Author: Sempa, Francis P.

An Assessment of Counterterrorism Policy

By Rep. Michael McCaul, Chairman, House Committee on Homeland Security

Text: http://csis.org/files/attachments/130731_transcript_mccaul.pdf

Video: http://csis.org/multimedia/video-assessment-counterterrorism-policy

In a July 31, 2013 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul delivered a stinging criticism of President Obama's counterterrorism policies.

Chairman McCaul lamented the administration's retreat in the war on terror, accusing the President of a "pre 9/11 mindset," that wishes to declare victory over Al Qaeda and fight global terrorists with a law enforcement approach. McCaul warned that the threat from Islamic terrorists has grown more decentralized and geographically dispersed, and that the "battlefield is everywhere."

McCaul noted that while the administration has continued to use covert means to wage war against terrorists, it refuses to define them as Islamic radicals and attempts to downplay or willfully ignore the Islamic connection to individual terrorist attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing and the Ft. Hood massacre being two such examples. "You cannot defeat an enemy you are unwilling to define," he said.

The administration, he said, has conducted a "wait and see diplomacy" in countries like Egypt and Syria which has only served to embolden our enemies and undermine moderate Muslim forces throughout the region. McCaul claimed...