How To Win the War Against Terrorism

Transcript

KEN POLLACK: The first Bush administration made what it called the global war on terrorism its highest priority. And I think there's no question that there have certainly been achievements by that first Bush administration.But by the same token, there are also things that have been left undone, challenges that have not yet been accomplished. And we thought that this would be a major, a very good opportunity to bring together a group of experts on the subject and to ask the question, what is it that we've achieved and what is it that we have yet to accomplish?

Because, I'll be frank with you, even though I am someone who tries very hard to follow these developments, I find it difficult at times to do so. It's very tough to know exactly what it is that we've done to Al Qaeda. Have we crippled the organization? Or have we simply forced it to transform itself into something new but equally deadly? To what extent have we convinced other states around the world that it's no longer in their interest to support terrorism?

For me, I'll be honest with you, these are still open questions. And I hope that at the very least I will have a better idea at the end of the day from our experts, but I hope you will as well. And I hope there will be a variety of different things that you'll take away from this day. And I hope that this will be a moment when we can all think back over the last four years and think about what it is that we have achieved and haven't achieved and also about what it is that we still need to accomplish and what changes we may need to make to tackle those new challenges.

Keynote Address by Avi Dicter (PDF—69kb)

Keynote Address by Daniel L. Byman (PDF—23kb)

Panel 1 Remarks (PDF—117kb)

Panel 1 Summary (PDF—75kb)

Panel 2 Remarks (PDF—182kb)

Panel 2 Summary (PDF—82kb)

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