Know thy
enemy
In
a sit-down interview with Congressional Quarterly earlier this week,
Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the five-term Texas Democrat and incoming chair of the
House Intelligence Committee, flunked a pretty simple quiz.
When
asked whether al-Qa’ida was Sunni or Shi’ite, Reyes answered, “They are
probably both.” He then compounded his ignorance: “You’re talking about
predominantly? Predominantly—probably Shi’ite.”
Wrong.
Very wrong. In fact, al-Qa’ida’s raison d’etre is the purification of
Sunni Islam, which Osama bin Laden considers tainted by the Saudi royal
family’s personal corruption and alliance with the United States. Shi’ite
Muslims, on the other hand, are heretics deserving of death for their perversion
of the “one true religion.”
Then
Reyes, who also sits on the House Armed Service Committee, was asked the same
question with regard to Hizballah.
“Hizballah.
Uh, Hizballah...” Laughing nervously and shifting in his seat, Reyes evaded.
“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do
you speak Spanish?”
In
the end, Reyes confessed that he didn’t know the answer, despite the fact that
Hizballah has existed as a terrorist arm of Iran for more than two decades,
from the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 of our
servicemen, to the political assassinations, the attacks on Israel and the
attempts to bring Lebanon under Hizballah control today. It’s equally worth
noting that Hizballah, which means “Party of God,” is now helping train Iraqi
Shi’ites to kill Iraqi Sunnis in that country’s internecine conflict.
“Know
thy enemy” is perhaps the oldest maxim of warfare, yet Rep. Reyes’ ignorance
appears to be the rule rather than the exception.
Last
summer, the same sort of question was posed by CQ to Republicans Terry
Everett and Jo Ann Davis. Rep. Everett, a seven-term Congressman from Alabama,
is outgoing vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical
and tactical intelligence. Rep. Davis, of Virginia, is outgoing head of the
House intelligence subcommittee that oversees the CIA’s recruitment of Muslims
to infiltrate Islamist organizations and its analysis of the information these
agents provide.
“Do
you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi’ite?” CQ’s national
security editor, Jeff Stein, asked Everett. “One’s in one location, another’s
in another location,” Everett asserted. “No, to be honest with you, I don’t
know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or
something.” After Stein briefly explained the differences, Rep. Everett
replied, “Now that you’ve explained it to me, what occurs to me is that it
makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but
that whole area.”
You
don’t say.
Davis
didn’t fare any better when asked the same question. “Do I?” she replied. “You
know, I should. It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The
Sunni are more radical than the Shi’a. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis
who’re more radical than the Shi’a.”
“And
what is al-Qa’ida,” Stein asked? “Al-Qa’ida is the one that’s most radical, so
I think they’re Sunni,” Davis decided. “I may be wrong, but I think that’s
right.” Davis then summarized the importance of knowing the difference:
“al-Qa’ida’s whole reason for being is based on their beliefs, and you’ve got
to understand, and to know your enemy.”
Some
might say that congressmen have oversight responsibilities, and that they’re
not the ones directly responsible for counterterrorism efforts; that it’s the
officials engaged in security and intelligence that know better. Yet, when
asked, a number of high-ranking counterterrorism officials had no idea what the
1,400-year-old schism in Islam that defines the battle lines in Iraq and across
the Middle East is all about.
Willie
Hulon, chief of the FBI’s national security arm, was all but clueless. “The
basics goes [sic] back to their beliefs and who they were following.” Asked
which one Iran and Hizballah are, Hulon took his chances: “Sunni.” Wrong.
Al-Qa’ida? “Sunni.” Right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Then
there was the interview with Dale Watson, until recently the FBI’s head of
counterterrorism. The interviewer asked, “Do you know who Osama bin Laden’s
spiritual leader was?” “Can’t recall.” “Do you know the differences in the
religion between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims?” “Not technically, no.”
It
gets worse. Last year another top FBI counterterrorism official, John Lewis,
was asked, “Was there any relationship between the first World Trade Center
bombing and the 9/11 attacks?”
“I’m
aware of no immediate relationship, other than it all emanates, you know, out
of the Middle East, al-Qa’ida linkage, I believe,” Lewis contrived. “Not
something I’ve studied recently that I’m conversant with.” (Like the others, he
didn’t know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi’ite, either.)
Gary
Bald, the FBI’s most recent counterterrorism and counterintelligence chief (the
sixth since 9/11), waved off the question entirely. “You don’t need subject
matter expertise,” Bald scoffed. “The subject matter expertise is helpful, but
it isn’t a prerequisite. It is certainly not what I look for in selecting an
official for a position in the counterterrorism [program].”
This,
of course, begs the following question: Does knowing the basic differences
between the two major branches of Islam really constitute “subject matter expertise”?
Apparently
it does in the FBI, where five years after 9/11, only 33 of the Bureau’s 12,000
agents have even minimal knowledge of Arabic, and until recently new agents
received only two hours in Arab-culture training. Nor is the FBI alone.
Courtesy of the State Department, only six people at the U.S. Embassy in
Baghdad are fluent in Arabic. The CIA has struggled to recruit and retain
analysts and operatives with these skills. Rare, too, is the Army unit that can
communicate directly with the Iraqis they encounter, or assess captured enemy
documents on the spot. From top to bottom, knowledge of Islam and the Middle East is all but
absent.
Yet
this knowledge matters—immensely. Only this week, Saudi Arabia announced its
intention to support Iraqi Sunnis should the U.S. withdraw its troops. Iran and
Hizballah are, already, supporting Iraqi Shi’ites. Meanwhile, Iraq’s
Shi’ite-dominated army announced a plan to begin taking over security
responsibilities from U.S. forces in Baghdad, in essence making the country’s
Shi’ite-Sunni conflict its own. In Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of
the Taliban-allied Hezb-e-Islami guerillas, defiantly proclaimed Republican
election losses as a victory for the mujahedeen—proving he definitely knows
more about us than we know about him.
Further,
Iranian elections for city councils and the Assembly of Experts are slated for
today, and the outcome could significantly affect President Mahmud
Ahmadi-Nejad’s hold on power. Also, as Iran continues to pursue nuclear
weapons, this week the Saudis and their Sunni neighbors all but announced their
intent to follow suit, cooperating in matters of nuclear-energy development. If
that’s not enough, the FBI warns that a “medical emergency” experienced by
imprisoned al-Qa’ida spiritual leader Omar Abdel-Rahman, the infamous “Blind
Sheikh” who inspired the first World Trade Center attack, could prompt
al-Qa’ida retaliation against the U.S.
And
that’s just the news this week, all undergirded by the Sunni-Shi’ite
cleavage. With the likes of Iran and al-Qa’ida fueling violence in the region,
and our troops’ lives on the line, maybe—just maybe—these are enemies worth
getting to know.