George Tenet
l Qaeda has not yet been destroyed. It and other like-minded groups remain willing and able to strike us. Al Qaeda leaders still at large are working to reconstitute the organization and to resume its terrorist operations. We must eradicate these organizations by denying them their sources of financing and eliminating their ability to hijack charitable organizations for their terrorist purposes. We must be prepared for a long war, and we must not falter.
We must also look beyond the immediate danger of terrorist attacks to the conditions that allow terrorism to take root around the world. These conditions are no less threatening to U.S. national security than terrorism itself. The problems that terrorists exploit-poverty, alienation, and ethnic tensions-will grow more acute over the next decade. This will especially be the case in those parts of the world that have served as the most fertile recruiting grounds for Islamic extremist groups.
We have already seen-in Afghan-istan and elsewhere-that domestic unrest and conflict in weak states is one of the factors that create an environment conducive to terrorism.
-March 19, 2002
Before the Senate Armed Services Committee.