Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day has shined a spotlight squarely, if belatedly, on Yemen. I cannot overstate the importance of denying al-Qaida safe havens in Yemen and countries like it, an issue on which I have been working for years. The threat from al-Qaida in Yemen, as well as the broader region, is increasing, and our attention to this part of the world is long overdue.
That is why I welcome the President's increased focus on Yemen. But we need to remember, as we focus needed resources and attention on Yemen, that it shouldn't be seen as the new Afghanistan, or the new Iraq. Instead, Yemen highlights the importance of a comprehensive, global counterterrorism strategy that takes into account security sector reform, human rights, economic development, transparency, good governance, accountability, and the rule of law.
We must seize the opportunity to focus attention on the strategy and policies we need to deny al-Qaida safe havens around the world, including in Yemen. Concurrently, we need to examine our policy in Yemen and better understand how we can develop a partnership that is both in our national security interest and helps Yemen to move towards becoming a more stable, secure nation for its people. The recognition at the recent high-level international meeting on Yemen in London of the importance of addressing broader economic, social and political factors in Yemen is thus very welcome.
Any serious effort against al-Qaida in Yemen will require strengthening the
weak capacity of the government as well as its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. We need to be careful about providing assistance to a government that isn't always aligned with the needs of the Yemeni people, as last year's State Department report on human rights notes. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor with Senators Kerry and Feinstein of a resolution that urges the implementation of a comprehensive strategy to address instability in Yemen that also calls on the Yemeni government to strengthen efforts to address corruption, to respect human rights and to work with its citizens and the international community to address the factors driving instability in the country.
Yemen is a fragile state whose government has limited control in many parts of the country. It faces a multitude of challenges including poverty, a young and growing population, resource scarcities, and corruption. It is also distracted from the counterterrorism effort by two other sources of domestic instability--the al-Houthi rebellion in the North and tensions with a southern region with which Sana'a was united less than 20 years ago. In other words, counterterrorism is hampered by weak governance and by internal conflicts that would not appear on the surface to threaten our interests. With this in mind, we must also work to ensure that, in the provision and use of our counterterrorism assistance to Yemen, care is taken to protect civilians and prevent the alienation of the local population and attention is given to the local conditions that enable militants to recruit followers.
Instability in Yemen is, of course, also closely linked to conflict in the Horn of Africa. Last year, Somali pirates attacked a U.S. vessel, which briefly raised awareness of maritime insecurity fostered by a lack of effective governance and insufficient naval capacity on both sides of the Gulf of Aden. This problem continues, even when it is not on the front pages, and is both a symptom and a driver of overall instability in the region. Meanwhile, refugees from the conflict in Somalia, as well as from the broader region, are fleeing to Yemen. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, more than 70,000 Somalis and Ethiopians arrived on Yemen's shores in 2009--a dramatic increase from previous years. The human cost to this exodus, as well as the potentially destabilizing effects, demand our attention.
Congress and the executive branch need to work together to ensure that the weak states, chronic instability, vast ungoverned areas, and unresolved local tensions that have created safe havens in which terrorists can recruit and operate do not get short shrift in our counterterrorism efforts. We cannot continue to jump from one perceived ``central front in the war on terror'' to the next. Local conditions in places like Yemen--as well as Somalia, north Africa and elsewhere--will continue to enable al-Qaida affiliates and sympathizers to recruit new followers. As a result, although we should aggressively pursue al-Qaida leaders, and our efforts to track individual operatives are critical, we will not ultimately be successful if we treat counterterrorism merely as a manhunt with a finite number of al-Qaida members. I am pleased to see that Ambassador Daniel Benjamin has underscored the importance of our counterterrorism efforts addressing conditions that facilitate recruitment to terrorism and extremism. I hope this understanding is shared throughout our government agencies and in the implementation process.
To effectively fight the threat from al-Qaida and its affiliates in Yemen and elsewhere, we also need to change the way our government is structured and how it operates.
In this regard, we need better intelligence. For example, we need to improve the intelligence that relates directly to al-Qaida affiliates--where they find safe haven and why and the local conflicts and other conditions that create a fertile ground for terrorist recruitment. And we need to pay attention to all relevant information--including the information that the State Department and others in the Federal Government openly collect. Conditions around the world that allow al-Qaida to operate are often apparent to our diplomats, and do not necessarily require clandestine collection. The information diplomats and others collect therefore should be fully integrated with the intelligence community.
That is why I have proposed and the Senate has approved a bipartisan commission to provide recommendations to the President and to the Congress on how to integrate and otherwise reform our existing national security institutions. Unless we reform how our government collects, reports and analyzes information from around the world, we will remain a step behind al-Qaida's global network.
We also need better access to important countries and regions. When our diplomats aren't present, not only will we never truly understand what is going on, but we also won't be able to build relationships with the local population. In some cases, we can and should establish new embassy posts, such as in northern Nigeria. In other cases, such as Yemen, where security concerns present obstacles, we should develop policies that focus on helping to reestablish security, for the sake of the local populations as well as for our own interests.
In addition, as Yemen makes clear, we need strong, sustained policies aimed directly at resolving conflicts that allow al-Qaida affiliates to operate and recruit. These policies must be sophisticated and informed. We have suffered from a tendency to view the world in terms of extremists versus moderates, good guys versus bad guys. These are blinders that prevent us from understanding, on their own terms, complex conflicts such as the ones in Yemen that undermine broader counterterrorism goals. This approach has led us to prioritize tactical counterterrorism over long-term strategies. And it has contributed to the misperception that regional conflicts, which are often the breeding grounds for al-Qaida affiliates, are obscure and unimportant and can be relegated to small State Department teams with few resources and limited influence outside the Department. We must change this dangerous pattern, which is why my resolution with Senators Kerry and Feinstein urges a comprehensive policy toward Yemen, approved at the highest levels and agreed upon by the entirety of the U.S. Government.
We have an opportunity to take a smarter approach. By recognizing al-Qaida as a global network that takes advantage of local conditions, instead of a monolithic threat, we can get ahead of the curve and identify threats before the next attack.