Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your willingness to chair this hearing today. I am grateful to FBI Director Freeh for appearing before us, to discuss the FBI’s role in U.S. counter-terrorism strategy and how the events of the past several weeks fit into that strategy. I want to offer my personal congratulations, Mr. Director, on the excellent work of the FBI in identifying and arresting two suspects in the Nairobi bombing. I also look forward to our second panel of witnesses, former DCI Jim Woolsey and former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, both of whom bring years of experience in national security strategy and policy making, and a great deal of wisdom and insight to these critical issues.

On Tuesday, Senator Feinstein and I had the opportunity to receive a detailed briefing from Richard Clarke of the NSC staff on the military actions taken against terrorist training camps in Afganistan, and the chemical weapons facility in Sudan. Based on that briefing, I am persuaded that the strikes against these elements of bin Laden’s infrastructure were appropriate, and indeed, necessary. I have criticized President Clinton frequently in the past for not acting forcefully enough to protect American interests and ideals. I hope that the President took this action because he, too, recognized its necessity, and that this may signal a new willingness by the Administration to use force when required.

And yet, Administration spokesmen insist that these actions do not signal a new direction in U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. So we are left with the question, what is our counter-terrorism strategy? The Congress needs to have a clear understanding of our national objectives, and the standards by which different measures may be undertaken. That is the principal motivation for our hearing today.

I know that the Administration will be sending us a supplemental request to enhance embassy security. And certainly that is something we will need to act upon.

At the same time, it is impossible to turn our embassies into fortresses. It seems to me that what we need most is better operational intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks in the first place -- and the will to act on that intelligence. This means improving our intelligence capabilities to identify potential terrorists, detect their plans, and to provide a basis for preemptive actions against them. You can’t get that capability overnight; rather, it requires a long-term investment strategy to develop the human and technical resources we need. But U.S. intelligence spending -- along with defense spending -- has been on a steady decline for the last 8 years. That has to stop.

We also need consistent and effective foreign policy to deal with state sponsors of terrorism. The chemical weapons facility in Khartoum, which Bin Laden’s organization apparently owned, drew its technical expertise from Iraq. So long as Saddam Hussein is able to face down U.N. inspection teams, and sees that the United States is weak and vacillating, he will continue to produce weapons of mass destruction, and he will continue to be a threat to his neighbors and to us. The President owes the American people an accounting of the disparity between public representations of his policy as one of firmness, and the contradictory reports from Scott Ritter and others that reveal a policy of appeasement. I, for one, do not believe that appeasing Saddam can ever be in our interest.

Finally, foreign terrorists should -- and do -- know that we will use all of the resources at our command to hunt them down and bring them to justice. One of those resources is money, specifically the rewards program for information leading to the arrest of terrorists, which has been very successful and may warrant a fresh look at reward levels and funding. On this subject generally, I look forward to Director Freeh’s testimony. I am particularly interested in exploring with him the uses and limits of legal processes in dealing with foreign terrorists, including how this Committee might best be of assistance.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing.