MODERATOR: JAMES B. STEINBERG Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution; former Deputy National Security Advisor SCHOLARS: THOMAS E. MANN Senior Fellow, Governmental Studies Program, The Brookings Institution; former Executive Director, American Political Science Association MICHAEL E. O'HANLON Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution; Author of Defense Policy Choices for the Bush Administration: 2001-2005 and Brookings Policy Brief "Beyond Missile Defense: Countering Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction" MEGHAN L. O'SULLIVAN Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution; Author of Shrewd Sanctions: The Wise Use of Economic Tools in Foreign Policy (forthcoming); co-editor of Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy

Friday, September 21, 2001
9:30am-11:00am
The Brookings Institution
Event Information

RON NESSEN: Good morning, and welcome to Brookings. My name is Ron Nessen. I want to welcome you to this briefing on America's response to the terrorism threat, and to President Bush's speech last night. We do expect that these briefings will become a regular ongoing series as events evolve.

We will also be announcing shortly a more formal Brookings project to analyze the challenge of terrorism and its impact on American foreign policy, and other aspects of American life. This project, details of which will be coming out in the next day or so, will be called the Brookings Project on Terrorism and American Foreign Policy [since changed to America's Response to Terrorism].

Also, no later than Monday, we will have created a new section of the Brookings web site which pulls together a very large collection of materials and resources on terrorism. Much of that material is already available. The URL for this new section will be www.brookings.edu/terrorism. As I say, a lot of it is available now, it will be more formally making its debut no later than Monday.

This morning's briefing is being webcast live, streaming audio and video are available if you click on the main Brookings home page, it will take you directly to the webcast. In addition, the audio and the video, as well as the full written transcript of the event will be archived no later than tomorrow on the web site.

If you are watching or listening to this webcast, you can ask a question or make a comment during the briefing by sending an email to Question@brookings.edu.

This morning's briefing will be led by Jim Steinberg, who is the vice president and director of foreign policy studies here at Brookings, and a former deputy national security advisor to President Clinton. He will describe areas to be covered, and will introduce the other panelists.

Jim.

JAMES B. STEINBERG: Thanks. And welcome to this briefing which, as Ron said, will be part of not only a series of briefings that we conduct here, but an expanded effort on the part of Brookings to address some of the issues, short and long-term involved in this response to the September 11th attack. There are tremendous resources here at Brookings, and I think there will be a lot that we can help you think about in the difficult challenges ahead.

This morning, I'm going to talk briefly about the policy implications of the president's speech last night, and then we'll hear from some of our colleagues, from Tom Mann who will talk about some of the political challenges that the president and the country are facing; Mike O'Hanlon, who will talk a bit about the military options facing the president and his advisors; and finally Meghan O'Sullivan who will talk about some of the economic tools that we have available in dealing with the response to the terrorists.

The speech last night I think was an important turning point in the effort to describe for the American people and the world how the United States is going to respond to the events of September 11th. In his speech, the president answered key questions, and also raised some new ones about what he called our mission and our moment. He certainly laid out very clearly who he believes and the administration believes is behind the attack. Specifically identifying and describing al-Qaeda, he made clear that this was more than one individual. It was a network, and he talked in a fair amount of detail to try to help the American people and others understand what this network was about.

He also made clear that the target that we seek to defeat, and I'm quoting, "every terrorist group with global reach." And that choice of the adjective in particular "global reach," was presumably designed to distinguish the adversary here from terrorist groups that are involved particularly in regional conflicts, at a minimum groups, for example, such as the Basque Separatists or the Talmud Tigers. But we still have to ask the question of how does that apply to groups like Hezbollah, for example, which operate in many countries, although their focus is a regional one, and others which are perhaps even more regional, like Hamas.

The president made very stark demands on the Taliban, they must deliver all the leaders of al-Qaeda. They need to release foreign nationals, protect journalists, close the terrorist camps, and give the United States full direct access to inspect this. That's a pretty high bar, given that the height of that bar certainly means the possibility that they will not comply, and therefore we will need to act. It has to be seen as very high.

He also laid out the fact that the campaign that the United States and the supporters are about to conduct was a broad-based one. He identified diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war. And he also made clear that this was not going to be something that was solved in days and weeks and months, but a lengthy campaign with both visible military strikes and covert operations.

It is interesting that although the president focused the campaign and the definition of the adversary on terrorist groups with global reach, when he began to talk about states that harbor or aid terrorism, his words seemed to go beyond that to include all terrorist groups. And we'll have to see what the implications of that are, because he described this in very stark, broad-based language. He said, from this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. So, we're going to ask ourselves in the days and weeks ahead, what does that mean for our relationships with countries like Iran, Syria, or Cuba, countries that are designated as countries for harboring and supporting terrorism.

It was interesting that as the president tried to analogize for the American people what this struggle was like, he chose fascism, nazism and totalitarianism as the enemies that we've faced before that have presented similar challenges. But interestingly, he did not include communists among that list. Given the history of this country, and the nature of the challenge of political and military, it's interesting to speculate on why that might have been, particularly coming from a group associated with former President Bush who put such great emphasis on theirs and President Reagan's campaign against the Soviet Union and communism.

Another notable feature of the speech, of course, was the president's announcement that he was going to create a Homeland Defense Office in the White House. This plan is short of what some, including Hart-Rudman Commission, called for by actually establishing a Homeland Defense Agency. And speaking for myself, I believe that the choice that the president made was the right one, that if you want to bring the maximum resources to bear and really get the kind of coordination that's necessary, you do a better job by using a coordinating mechanism, rather than trying to figure out which parts of which agencies should be moved over to a new agency, and dealing with all the administrative and bureaucratic hurdles that would represent.

But the big question mark will be whether Governor Ridge has the clout to tell the Director of the FBI, the Attorney General, the Director of the CIA, what to do, how to do it, how to mobilize the resources. For this reason, some of us have advocated taking the approach this president proposed, but instead of having a new cabinet level official be in charge, think about having the vice president be in charge, where you could really bring the highest clout, and the authority of the president to bear. We will have to see over time whether, given that the personal relationship between President Bush and Governor Ridge, whether they're able to provide that kind of leadership.

So these are some opening observations. I would like to turn now to Tom to talk about the challenges the president is facing, and how well he's doing, and then we'll hear from the rest of the panel.

THOMAS E. MANN: Thank you, Jim.

This is no time for a theater critic reviewing the performance of last night. It's utterly foolish to look at the speech, and its delivery in isolation from the broader context in which it was given. It is a truism to say, there are no precedents for the extraordinary set of events that have occurred over the last nine days. I believe the desire for the president to succeed in dealing as effectively as possible with the scourge of terror is widely and genuinely felt among politicians in both parties and in the country as a whole, that we have really switched in a real sense from half of the electorate very skeptical of the president in his abilities and his plans to a country that is offering its support. And I think, by any fair measure, we have to judge in that sense the president's speech a real success last night. He built on and reinforced this national unity that was so palpable in the House Chamber and in the country as a whole.

I think perhaps for the first time in the nine days he found the right tone, a tone I hope he now embraces and provides as a sort of consistent message to the country and to the world. I think he has veered rather wildly heretofore, but last night it was serious, it was somber, it was focused, and it was strong. And I think that's precisely what's needed. I had yesterday hoped for signals emanating to the world that have not been forthcoming in a timely and consistent way since September 11th, and I saw those in the speech last night.

Finally, the proper emphasis on Islam, and distinctions between Islam and the radical form of fundamentalism that is behind the terrorists. And so I thought that was constructive as well.

I also thought we saw a shift away from the cheerleading and the sort of rah-rah, the stirring of the American public when the American public needs no stirring. I thought the tone was one of reassurance, resolve, and sacrifice. The sacrifices were not detailed in any way, nonetheless, a clear implication was, there would be real cost in money and blood to be paid to achieve our objectives.

Now, make no mistake, we will never confuse our president with Winston Churchill or Franklin Roosevelt, but I see a clear if not dramatic improvement in the performance of the president last night from what we had seen since September 11th, but even more important, what we had seen in the first eight months of his presidency, which I thought was not responsive to the extraordinary conditions of his election. I think he clearly understands that the slate has been wiped clean. He now has a responsibility and an opportunity to build a very different kind of presidency, and he's taken the first step.

But we have to be clear about this. Again, this is a very early moment in the Bush presidency, in the second Bush presidency. The most important test of his presidency lie ahead, they weren't to be judged last night. We will be looking for his wisdom; we will be looking for political skills. We will be evaluating him in terms of the performance of the policies that are embraced.

I think one final point, it is going to be so important to see how he deals with Congress and with democratic leaders in the days and weeks and months ahead. The first eight months were not encouraging in that respect because we saw bipartisan rhetoric mixed with harshly partisan tactics and strategies and programs. I was actually encouraged by developments last week where Congress took the time to make changes in both the resolution for a military response, and in the initial $40 billion package to deal with the immediate crisis. I thought Congress acted responsibly as an institution, and I thought the administration, the Republican leadership in the House were properly responsive to concerns on both sides of the aisle.

Now, a test is faced in terms of the economic recovery, in terms of the sort of domestic antiterrorism activities, in terms of the assistance to airlines, and what flows from that in terms of potential fight over the content of the defense budget, particularly as it relates to national missile defense. The early signs are really quite encouraging. On the economy, some early efforts, sort of encouraged by the Wall Street Journal editorial on Wednesday, to sort of rush through a partisan conservative agenda, have been dampened, and the signals coming from the administration and from Speaker Hastert is, we will not move domestic legislation that doesn't enjoy broad bipartisan support. It's going to be a tremendously important test, because if the president allows partisan items to go forward under the cover of national unity, he will plant the seeds of the destruction of that national unity. But the initial signs are encouraging. There is room for disagreement about civil liberties, about tax cuts and spending, those voices should be given room to be heard. I think they will. And at least at this stage, looking at the speech, the departure and the performance of this president and the initial actions with regard to the Congress, I would say the signs are encouraging.

JAMES B. STEINBERG: Thanks, Tom.

Mike.

MICHAEL E. O'HANLON: I thought this president last night gave a very good speech. I thought he was correct to call for a firm military response. One could argue we tried an approach of relative restraint in the 1990s, very understandably, but it obviously did not produce deterioration or reduction in terrorist activity. We have to be firm at this point.

However, I think we have to keep in mind that any military option needs to recognize that the military option is probably not going to e the primary way to solve the terrorist problem. Keep that central premise in mind as we think through every other possibility. International law enforcement, control of immigration, control of people's movements while trying to clamp down on finances of terrorists, these are going to be just as important, and we risk losing international solidarity for those operations, for those efforts, if we do the military side of things the wrong way. That's the central point I would like to emphasize.

Mr. Bush certainly has raised the military bar quite high, as I just said, and there's a possibility of imagining some very significant uses of force, most of which I think would run not only very risks for American troops, but perhaps for our broader effort as well. And I'm actually not particularly enthusiastic about most of them.

So let me quickly run through and list the main categories before winding up with a suggestion for a number of limited tools that will have to be employed over a prolonged period in all likelihood, and not necessarily be successful at any given moment.

First of all, one could say, well, what about sort of a Kosovo-style air campaign, a concerted, strategic air bombardment campaign against the Taliban in an effort to try to convince and coerce this regime to turn over bin Laden, and his top lieutenants, and push the rest of al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan.

Well, the problem with this, of course, is that there are no real strategic targets in Afghanistan to hit beyond a few modest number of military facilities, a modest number of communications facilities, and government structures. I think if you start going beyond that, you run into a situation where you're hurting the Afghan people and, therefore, angering the Islamic world and threatening your coalition much more than you're likely to be achieving any results. The Taliban are extremists, they're willing to take a lot of punishment. They've already punished their country and their own economy for many years without being in any way interested in turning things around through a more reasonable set of policies. I see no reason to think they're going to change their minds because bombs start falling.

If you recall, we have 40,000 sorties against Milosevic, we had 100,000 sorties against Saddam Hussein, these sorts of campaigns were not enough to coerce those leaders until the very end in the case of Serbia. But Serbia was a more European country, more developed infrastructure. And, moreover, I think we're just not going to have the ability to bomb at that length of time in this situation without causing much more pain to the Afghani people, which is already one of the most suffering people on the face of the earth. And if we're concerned here about innocent life, obviously, we have to be concerned about retribution or indirect collateral effects on the Afghan people.

So, limited air strikes, yes. A strategic air campaign, no.

A ground invasion of Afghanistan would undoubtedly have the ultimate benefit of pushing most of the al-Qaeda network out of Afghanistan and making it hard for them to operate, do any kind of training, any sort of movement within the country. However, the price would be absolutely enormous in all likelihood.

First of all, I don't think we're going to get bases from which to stage this kind of an operation. You can't do it from the air alone, you can't simple overfly Pakistan and put in enough air assault forces and airborne forces and special forces to take Afghanistan. We just don't have enough ability to do that, not enough air power, not enough air mobile troops.

You'll recall that in Desert Storm we moved 95 percent of all of our supplies by sea, there is no way to do that sort of a thing in this situation unless Pakistan goes along, and I don't see Pakistan supporting this sort of operation.

Also, as bad as things are, they could get worse. The destabilization of Pakistan, and any uncertainty as to the control of its nuclear inventory, and any possibility of that arsenal falling into the hands of Islamic extremists would make this situation far, far worse.

Today, we're facing a national crisis. We could be facing a national calamity, unspeakable even by the parallels of the World Wars, were the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. So we cannot afford to risk destabilization of the Pakistani government. Obviously, we're taking some small risk even as things are. But we have to be very careful in how far we push that, and I think we have to be careful about trying to coerce Pakistan into allowing a Desert Storm like operation to be conducted off its soil. There may be other operations, other missions that are conceivable in this regard, but frankly I don't consider them very promising.

Some people have said, well, couldn't we do a strategic strike, sort of almost a Blitzkrieg, an airborne Blitzkrieg, if you will, against targeted parts of Kabul and other key Afghan cities to try and install a more friendly regime, and otherwise not use it as an invasion: use it as a limited operation against the relatively weak Taliban regime and try to replace that regime with a more friendly kind of Afghani indigenous government. Well, that's a very appealing concept, but, of course it's a very difficult thing to pull off. I don't know if we can identify the groups who would form such a government. I don't know if we can be confident we can do a quick helicopter raid without losing a lot of our helicopters and our missiles and other kind of capabilities that may be in Afghanistan. I think you have to assume that operation may require escalation to an all out invasion. You'd better be awfully sure you can pull of the strategic strikes with limited numbers of special forces and push the Taliban out and install a new government before you aspire to using that operation, because the risks are enormous. And what do you do if it fails, do you leave 10,000 Americans potentially stranded inside of Afghanistan with no great ability to reinforce or to rescue them.

So I think you have to assume this kind of an air mobile strike may not work, and you'd better be buying into the ground invasion as a back up before you do it. So, I'm not very impressed with the desirability of that option as well. Also, if you seize the major cities, you haven't necessarily gotten at bin Laden and his top lieutenants. You reduce his ability to operate within Afghanistan, but that may not be enough of a victory to justify the cost. Remember, the Afghanis are masters of ambush. They have some of the largest inventories of small arms and mines in the world. They made the Soviets pay dearly for their attempted operation of this very nature 15-20 years ago. The Soviets tried to install a government more to their liking, and supply and provide security for that government, and the operation failed disastrously.

One last option that doesn't make much sense to me is thinking of a broad strategic air campaign against many countries that support terrorism, because when you start to do this, you're going to lose your ability to cooperate with many of these countries, clearly, in the areas of law enforcement, cracking down on finances, and so on. Many of these terrorists are actually in countries who are friendly to the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. We could strike at their bases, and that may not be a bad idea. To do what Mr. Rumsfeld has suggested, strike at the navies, and air forces and capital cities of many countries harboring terrorist organizations is a questionable proposition. Even for the Syrias, Libyas and Iran, one has to ask if the price is not too high, and if we wouldn't be more effective in the long-run in the war against terrorism by working with these countries, to try to improve law enforcement, control of people, control of finances, and other terrorist organizations. So I think we have to be very, very discreet about this.

The only country where it's easy to reach a determination about using air power is, of course, Iraq. But then one has to ask, well, flying a few thousand more air-to-ground sorties against Iraq, we've tried that many times over, and unless you're going to do this in a very concerted way, and perhaps target Saddam's special Republic Guard, you may not achieve very much, and you may be, in a sense, underscoring your powerlessness as opposed to your conviction.

So there probably is a role for striking certain terrorist organization and camps with other countries in the region, but I do not expect that to be a very promising way to go.

Ultimately I wind up throwing a bit of cold water on some of the tenor of what Mr. Bush talked about, because even though I can't criticize any of the specifics he chose, and I admire the atmosphere and the tone he established, nonetheless, the idea of thinking of this as a major military operation to me is suspect. And I think what you're going to have to do is what Mr. Bush did mention at one time, which is a lot of quiet, stealthy, patient operations. I think you're going to have to try to put commando teams into as many countries as possible, Uzbekistan and Pakistan being the two leading candidates, possibly even in parts of Northern Afghanistan, controlled by the Northern Alliance, so that you have people in place to act quickly, intelligence about the whereabouts of bin Laden, if you get it.

You may want to have these commandos in place to ultimately help the Northern resistance go on the offensive within Afghanistan, but that resistance is very weak today, it's going to require a lot of training and equipping from the United States, before it can really be a serious threat to the Taliban regime. So we're going to have to do what we did in Bosnia, in the mid-1990s. It's going to take a lot more work. The Northern Alliance is nowhere near as strong as the Muslims and Croats were in Bosnia in the early 1990s, nowhere near the size of the force, vis-a-vis the opposition. So that's going to have to be a very patiently executed strategy.

Finally, we can use air power in support of that resistance, and air power for limited military strikes. But, again, there aren't that many targets to bomb in Afghanistan, and you can't do it all from the air to help the Northern Alliance, you can only support them with air power to the extent they are able to go on the offensive themselves.

So what I see is a patient strategy involving 30,000 to 50,000 U.S. forces deployed in the region, and probably retained there for a year or more; probably an expense of a billion dollars a month, which is not a big problem, but a potential loss of dozens of American lives in the event that we execute some commando operations, some of which may fail. And possibly even ultimately escalating the potential loss of even 100 or more American lives.

But I think this type of operation limits your risks to that magnitude as opposed to a ground invasion which could push you into the possible range of many thousand American casualties, or a concerted strategic air campaign, which pushes you into the range of tens or hundreds of thousands of additional deaths among the Afghan population. So, ultimately, I think you have to look for a patient limited approach, featuring commandos, limited use of air power, and a train and equip program for the Afghan resistance.

JAMES B. STEINBERG: Mike has talked about the military side, then Meghan will talk to you about more promising approaches on the economic side.

MEGHAN L. O'SULLIVAN: I think it makes sense that today, and in the weeks and months ahead we'll be thinking a lot about the military options, military possibilities, that's clearly called for, and is a good use of our time and thought. But at the same time, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that a long term strategy will have to be a multi-dimensional one, it will have to be a strategy which employs a whole range of tools. And in that strategy economic tools are going to play an important role, and economic sanctions in particular in the whole panoply of economic tools.

What I'd like to do today is just to talk to you, give you a bit of context on how we've used economic sanctions to deal with state sponsors of terrorism, and maybe to suggest why these tools will play an important role in our coming strategies, and to argue that the potential for them being more effective is actually in the cards.

I think that it's important to keep in mind that economic tools will be an essential complement to any kind of military strategy, but also they will be a possible alternative to military strategies in some cases, and a complement to diplomatic efforts. This is particularly important to keep in mind when we realize today, and in the coming days, how difficult the choices we have to make are going to be, and how limited some of the options that Mike has laid out for us really are.

First, we've heard a lot about this category of countries, the state sponsors of terrorism, in the last ten days. And it might not be wrong to say that it's almost common knowledge who falls in that category, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria, with the Taliban being sort of a separate category. As a group that's seen to be a sponsor of terrorism, but not recognized as the government of Afghanistan. We know these countries, and we've heard them referred to as rogue states over the last few years. But, really, the genesis of this category goes back a lot further than those rhetorical devices.

In fact, it goes back to 1979 when Congress put together legislation which mandated that the president designate state sponsors of terrorism, these are countries that are viewed to have given a sustained support to terrorism over the long term. Basically this forms the base of what we know as the terrorism list today. It's not only a symbolic designation, but there's a whole range of economic sanctions that go along with being designated a state sponsor of terrorism

Originally, these sanctions were very targeted, and fairly limited, but over the decades they've really multiplied until today we have many, many tiers of economic sanctions that go along with being designated a state sponsor of terrorism. And broadly these sanctions have had two goals in mind. The first, the ideal goal, I guess, is to change the behavior of the states, to move them away from supporting acts, or groups that use and advocate terrorism. Falling short of that goal there's a secondary goal, and that is keeping resources away from these states to target their ability to support terrorism.

I guess what I'd like to address right now, very briefly is, what has been the trend, what has happened to state sponsorship over the decades that these tools and these mechanisms have been in place? In looking at the overall category we've seen some dramatic shifts. When many of these countries, or most of these countries were put on the terrorism list, they were actively, and directly involved in planning and implementing terrorist acts. And today we see that the nature of involvement of many of these state has changed, from actually implementing, and plotting, and planning terrorist acts, to a more indirect support for terrorism, which involves either in some cases financing, in other cases providing a safe haven. In some cases it's much more passive, it involves simply letting groups come in and out of their territory to operate.

What we've also seen is a changing relationship between the state sponsors and these groups that actually carry out the acts of terrorism. As I mentioned in the '70s and '80s, this relationship was a lot more clear cut. In many cases it was sort of a state-client relationship. Today this relationship is a lot harder to discern, and it varies a lot more broadly. At one extreme we see in Afghanistan is where actually the non-state group is supporting the state rather than the other way around.

Now, these shifts are due to a whole range of factors, which I won't go into right now. But what I will say is the interesting question for policymakers is, to what extent have sanctions on state supported terrorism been accountable for these changes over the years. On the first—on one of the two goals, that is keeping resources away from these countries, the effects have been fairly marginal. Of course, there has been an impact in all cases, but given that terrorism isn't an operation that requires a huge amount of funding, and a huge amount of resources, it's hard to say that sanctions, particularly unilateral ones have been effective in keeping sufficient amounts of resources away from these regimes.

On the other goal, that of changing the behavior of states, the record is a little more mixed. We have some clear successes, and that the most obvious one being that of Libya, where sanctions were a part of an overall strategy which really did help move Libya away from some of its more egregious behavior, towards abandoning the use of terrorism, and actually satisfying in a limited, not complete sense, but some very important goals regarding the Lockerbie case. On the other end of the spectrum we have Iran, which clearly unilateral American sanctions have not had any notable effect on Iran's support for terrorism.

So what I'd like to say very briefly is that sanctions have had a limited role in curbing state sponsorship of terrorism, but there have been three factors which have been important in inhibiting the effectiveness of sanctions overall. And I'll just state them very briefly, and I can go into them in more detail later.

First has been the unilateral nature of many of the sanctions against these state sponsors. There are many reasons why the United States has struggled to make these sanctions multilateral in the past, but probably the most important one is that the United States has had difficulty in convincing other countries, allies, third parties that these states pose the risk, or the state sponsorship poses the risk, or the threat that America has felt it has.

The second factor inhibiting the effectiveness of sanctions has been the competing interest element. In each of these countries the United States has a whole range of interests. And what has happened, this range of interests has really frustrated the use of sanctions in a particularly focused manner, or a strategic manner for the use of terrorism. The thinking seems to have been that when we have many goals, the idea is to impose as many sanctions as possible, and that will maximize the chances that the most number of goals will be satisfied. This, of course, is not the most strategic way to use sanctions for a particular purpose, for a counter-terrorist purpose in particular.

The third factor inhibiting these sanctions has been the undifferentiated, or largely undifferentiated approach which has been taken towards this very disparate group of countries. That more or less there's been a heavily sanctions dominated approach towards these seven or eight entities, and that in fact this approach really hasn't reflected many of the different realities, different challenges, and in some cases opportunities that have existed in these countries.

I'd like to conclude by just saying that these three factors, I believe have all changed in this new environment. And in this new environment, these three constraints will not be as binding on the use of economic sanctions, and they will not be as limiting on their effectiveness. First, the unilateral element. It's clear that we're going to be able to commandeer a lot more multilateral support for economic efforts in cases where state sponsors are unwilling to close or narrow the gap, or narrow the space that these groups operate within their territory. This issue of convincing other countries of the threat is not going to be the problem that it has been in the past.

On the competing interest element, also it sort of goes without saying that terrorism has really catapulted to the front of our priority list. That's not to say there won't be difficult choices to be made, but in some respects our tools might be able to be geared towards that end, rather than hoping to satisfy a whole range of ends simultaneously.

And finally, on the issue of undifferentiated approaches. I would say that this new environment provides and opportunity to unlump this category of countries. In the past, as I've said, we've dealt with them in fairly similar manners, but today and in the near future, and even in the long term, there's perhaps an opportunity to separate out these countries from one another in the way that we treat them.

This is obviously a period of great risk for these countries, and a period of great opportunity. Countries like Sudan and Libya, which have made some progress in moving away from terrorism, they could see this as an opportunity to really demonstrate to the United States that they're serious about making the leap away from terrorism, to be sure that they land on the right side of the fence in this case. And that would mean that the United States has an unparalleled window of opportunity right now to try to work with these groups who do have—or states that do have important information, and their cooperation will be valuable in a longer term strategy.

And I think I'll stop there.

STEINBERG: We'll go to your question. If you raise your hand and wait for the mike to come to you before you begin to speak. Identify yourselves and then go ahead. And then, also, I think we have the capability for those of you out in web cast land, if you have questions we'll try to get to those as well.

Q: Miles Benson with Newhouse newspapers.

We've just had a searing demonstration of our terrible vulnerability in the homeland to attack. While we're conducting these quiet, subtle, covert commando operations, and doing this nuanced, diplo-dance, and trying to engage all of the economic weapons we've got. What are they going to be doing to us?

STEINBERG: I think that there's no question that al-Qaeda and others are out there, and have real capabilities. There is a remaining threat of unknown quantity that we continue to face. And I think that when you think about strategies to deal with terrorism, you have to cover the full gamut. There's a kind of analogy to missile defense here, which is that in the best of all circumstances you have a layer of defense against terrorism, beginning with trying to get at the bases, the financial support, the planning, the sort of core of the terrorist operation, but also having the ability to defend, protect, to guess where their potential targets are going to be, and to respond.

I think the challenge for the country, and I think that's part of the motivation behind creating this Homeland Defense Office, is to recognize that you have to deal with the full spectrum of these things. There is going to be risks. There's going to be risks both in the United States and abroad, now and for the foreseeable future, that there will continue to be terrorist attacks. But, the fact that you aren't going to solve the problem overnight doesn't mean you don't want to get started on it. And it's also, I think, important, and the president correctly did not try to raise false expectations. And said, to think that this is going to be solved overnight, that there is some magic bullet that could end this scourge tomorrow, so we'd never have to fear again, is just unrealistic.

And I think that it's the nature of conflict. It took us years to win conventional wars. It's not surprising it will take us years to have significant success against terrorism. But the very fact that we are mobilizing this way I think does have a deterrent effect, it means the terrorists have to worry that they're more likely to get caught, that they're more likely to see their operations interfered with. It will make them more cautions, it will make them have to think about how our changes and our adjustments force them to adjust. And the more you can keep them beginning to second guess, the more that they have to look over their shoulders, the more effective you're going to be.

It's not a fully satisfactory answer to people who want the assurance that we don't have to worry about this anymore. But, it's the reality of the adversary that we're facing.

MANN: There's a real tension here, and it poses a political dilemma for the president as well. On the one hand, he's stressing a return to normalcy, that the way to be patriotic is to move back into the routines of life, to get the economy going once again. Yet, he's also talking about being realistic about the nature of the threat and the costs entailed in dealing with it. And while he didn't articulate one of the costs, they surely are precisely the points you raised of additional terrorist attacks. There's still a lot of fear in the country. There's fear in the Congress. There's fear all around about the next wave coming in different forms. And so how do you both persuade people to return to normal, and prepare them not to overreact and lose heart, and faith in our sort of ultimate success from additional terrorist attacks.

O'HANLON: Let me just quickly go on if I could. I'm sorry to go on. But, clearly this is an area that the government has been concerned about for a number of years. I think actually one of the better legacies of the Clinton administration's foreign policy is actually starting a lot of programs in these areas, in many cases with the support of Congress. So you have major expansions already underway in stockpiling vaccines and antibiotics against biological attacks. You have, obviously, the Nunn-Lugar program within Russia, trying to make sure the next attack won't be with weapons of mass destruction, stolen, or somehow acquired from Russia's loose nuclear inventory.

A lot of these programs need to be expanded. There are a number of things one could imagine doing. A few of us have been working on proposals. I've got a policy brief from August on the web which details a number of things, everything from trying to encourage prominent buildings to be built with shatter proof glass and lower floors, to making sure air intake systems for such buildings are high, so they can't be reached from the street by terrorists with biological agents, to improving the Coast Guard, so they can actually maintain the kinds of controls that are now underway over a sustained period of time, giving more money to the Centers for Disease Control and NIH to develop better vaccines, and track global epidemiology trends, so that we can know when attacks or biological agents may have already been released somewhere.

There are a lot of things that have already been done, a lot of things we need to turn our attention to. As Jim says, the boost phase is when you want to get things started, and want to do most of your work. But, we have to clearly assume we're going to be under attack to a large extent here at home, and think about our systematic vulnerabilities and try to address them.

Q: Stan Crock from Business Week. Quick questions for each of you. The problems with the president seem to come not when he's offering a scripted speech, but when he wings it, as Kim Dae Jung knows. As somebody who has to be out in front as a leader now, how do you muzzle that problem in his inclination. Then to Mike, Richard Perle this morning said, you don't attack all of the countries at once; you attack one, make an example of it. Do you think that strategy would work?

And finally for Meghan, one of the problems with sanctions is they never seem to get lifted, so the countries don't see any benefit from complying. ILSA was passed without objection, even though Libya has been making some concessions. Is that going to change at all, or is it going to go in the other direction?

STEINBERG: Shall I take the first one? Listen, I actually think during the first days of this crisis the president's least effective performances were reading the scripts prepared by staff over television, including the several given on September 11th, because it sort of conveyed a sense that he wasn't himself involved, engaged, and on top of it. And I thought the better moments were when he gave the informal press conference in the White House, when he actually went to New York City and engaged with some of the rescue workers. This president will never be as knowledgeable as Bill Clinton, he'll never be articulate, he'll mangle words, but we can handle that as a country.

What we need to be persuaded of is that he really knows what he's about, and he's in charge of his administration, and that is going to require him sort of being out there, and speaking in response to questions. He's going to have to do it more and more. I think declaring a moratorium on Karen Hughes appearing in the press, commenting on how thoughtful the president was in his private encounters would be the first step toward letting the president find his own sea legs.

He will become more knowledgeable as time goes on. He's got some good political instincts. There are whole areas of inexperience, and lack of knowledge, but this is serious. He's engaged in it now. This is the president we have, and I think the more he appears in settings where he speaks ad lib, the better. We can live with the butchered prose, and certainly past presidents, Eisenhower, Johnson, Reagan, you name it, have misspoken in these settings, and been corrected. I think the more he does that away from scripts the better.

O'HANLON: I think Richard Perle is almost entirely wrong on this point. I think, first of all, if you're talking about limited strikes against terrorist installations that you can identify, you should probably do them simultaneously, so as not to tell the terrorists that you're serious about your rhetoric. But if you have identified sites in Syria and Iran, they are actually really attractive targets, hit them simultaneously and destroy them. However, the idea, that's not really what they're talking about. They're talking about putting strategic pressure on other countries in the region.

And I personally, my knowledge of where al Qaeda is important as to where it gets its support, I cannot think of any country, besides Afghanistan, that I would support bombardment of at this time. There may be one. Iraq may ultimately become such a country, but, obviously, Iraq is in its own category, and therefore, you wouldn't use treatment of Iraq as an example for anybody else, I don't believe. Iran being the most important example, I think we have more to gain by working with Iran than by threatening and essentially becoming adversaries with Iran in this situation. So I think I would basically challenge Pearl on all points.

O'SULLIVAN: And just to answer your point about are sanctions going to change, in the sense, are we going to be able to lift them and use them more effectively. Because as you rightly point out, the fact that sanctions have been put in place and have stayed there for long periods of time has really diminished any incentive that they might have to getting states to change their behavior. I'd have two things to say to that briefly. The first one being why that has happened.

And I think over the last ten years, we've seen a real rise in the influence of domestic constituencies in the making of sanctions policy. And that has happened largely because there hasn't been a bipartisan foreign policy agenda in the last ten years. And if this turns out to be the bipartisan foreign policy agenda that it looks like it's going to be, then maybe some of that domestic constituency advocacy of interest group influence will diminish, and that will allow for a more strategic use of sanctions.

And very briefly, to say what a more strategic use of sanctions would look like, it would involved using sanctions in one of two ways, either using them for containment, and then you're less concerned about this lifting of sanctions and more concerned about making sanctions multilateral, or using sanctions specifically to get changes in behavior, which means using sanctions with other tools, using sanctions with engagement, diplomacy, with conversations like the counter-terrorism dialogues that have gone on with Sudan in the last year, and using sanctions with incentives, in the sense of lifting sanctions in exchange for positive behavior changes.

Q: Mark Matthews with the Baltimore Sun. To the extent that the United States will now be judging other countries by a single standard, can you talk about the lessons that should have been absorbed from the Cold War and how they can be applied to this war on terrorism?

MANN: Mark, I think you raise a very critical question, because, as we talked about during the last briefing, during the Cold War this really did become the organizing principle about how we interacted with other states. We built formal alliances that were based on dealing with a single threat in which the members of the alliance—as you will recall, not all the members of NATO in its formation were democracies, but we didn't make that a full condition because we wanted to have the support of countries like Portugal. And so that was a factor that we said we have priorities, but they're subordinate to the anti-Soviet organization that we need. It's certainly true with our relationship with South Korea, for example. It's been a long time coming that we saw real democracy in South Korea, yet we had a military alliance there because of the importance that we attached to this. We had relationships with South Africa, which were motivated, to an important degree, on the perception that South Africa was a bulwark against communism in Southern Africa.

We had relations with countries in Latin America, which had governments that were not countries that met our criteria about democracy and human rights. We engaged in covert and other activities against regimes from Iran to Guatemala, again, motivated by our perception about the strategic interests. And obviously, in the most extreme case, we had Vietnam and how that affected our decisions about our interaction with that region.

So you can see how powerful a choice like that can be in terms of what it means for the way we kind of conduct our foreign policy. The president laid it out very, very starkly. He said there are only two categories, and if you're not in the friends of the United States in the fight against terrorism, you're not simply not on our side, you are a hostile regime. And that's a very powerful statement, to say that someone is a hostile regime, because it provides a predicate for taking very, very strong action. And the converse implication is that if you are on our side, that there's a basis for a friendship which might not otherwise have existed.

And so there's a kind of Manichean quality to what has been set up here, that black or white decisions had to be made. And there's a lot of discussion today, and Meghan, in particular, has pointed out, it may not be that simple. You may have situations where governments are generally supportive of the United States, but they're weak, and they fear that if they take on the terrorists too overtly or to be too associated with the United States will cause them to fall. Is that in our interest? How do we make those judgments?

And I think we'll see throughout the world a number of tough choices that we have to make about either whether we're, as Mike has suggested—is there some room for cooperating with Iran in terms of putting pressure on the Taliban? Perhaps, I mean, clearly, the Taliban has been a problem for Iran. There are only two categories. Iran must be in the hostile regime category, because of all the states that we talked about today, I think we'd all agree that Iran is the most explicitly supportive of terrorist organizations. Now, maybe we'll make the distinction and say, well, they're not supportive of global terrorist organizations, but it does raise the difficult question.

And I think that, as a matter of first principle, which the president has talked about as something that I think everybody would agree to and should be as a kind of first order cause, a way of thinking about how we interact with the world. But I think we will begin to see that it is not quite so black and white, and that we have to think strategically about how we interact with other countries, both in terms of ostracizing those who may not be as cooperative as we would like on terrorism and embracing some of those who are with us on terrorism but maybe oppose other topics.

Q: Tom Brazaitis with the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

On the day before these strikes, this country was very concerned about a social security lock box, education, prescription drugs for seniors. What happens now to the domestic agenda? President mentioned nothing about Congress also focusing on some of the things that were underway. Does being on a war-footing mean that we put that agenda aside, and how do we pay for all this if we don't?

STEINBERG: That's an excellent question. I think most of the domestic agenda items that invoked certain sharp partisan differences will be suspended for the time being. I actually think many matters will simply be put off until the next session of Congress. Obviously, the lock box idea, in the short term, is gone. We will very likely have little or no surplus in the unified budget by the time the next fiscal year is over. So the idea that we're going to sort of preserve the lock box for social security has become laughable.

And there is basically no opposition to that as a matter of principle, in part because neither party could figure out how they could actually live with the lock box for the next fiscal year. Although, one party, the Democrats, saw a way of using it politically to their advantage. That's simply gone now. It seems to me the opportunities on the spending side have increased exponentially. And the real question becomes, will various forms of emergency spending then become part of the baseline for future years? That's a key question when it comes to the defense budget.

Actually, the budget process has ruled that if these emergency appropriations are made at a certain point in the cycle, they become part of the baseline after that. And that will change our fiscal outlook dramatically. I can imagine, for example, as part of the negotiations over some fiscal stimulus that the Democrats garner additional expenditures for education, which becomes the lever for breaking the education bill out of conference and producing one domestic accomplishment for the Bush Administration. I could see that as part of the negotiations.

The trickier matter comes on the tax side, and here is where sort of the real worry is. There are proposals for moving up the schedule of tax cuts. There are proposals for permanent capital gains tax cuts, provisions for investment tax credits, both temporary and permanent, there are proposals for additional rebates, including to those who pay only payroll taxes. What one hopes is that the negotiators will embrace a strategy of separating short-term stimulus from long term impact on our fiscal well being.

That methodology was not embraced when the tax cut was passed earlier this year. I thought one of the most striking findings in the public opinion data so far is 88 percent of the people were willing to basically give up the rest of the tax cut that hasn't gone into effect in response to meeting the immediate needs of responding to terrorism and rebuilding our cities. There was introduced yesterday a bill to basically eliminate the tax cut for the highest income bracket. This is just the beginning of a process of seeing our way clear.

The battles remain, the differences are real, they're beneath the surface, they won't in any way present new spending for this current situation. The real question is whether they become a break on changes that have a profound impact on our fiscal condition over the longer haul.

Q: ?of Copley News Service. This is mainly to Mike.

Two things. One, working with the Northern Alliance, they've been fragmented; they've been beaten almost on every front. They don't have a population base to draw from; their leadership has just been decimated with the death of Masoud. What value are they? And then there's the question of unintended consequences. We supported the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviets, and look what that got us. And your statement that you couldn't think of another country where you'd support bombing, you know, there have been terrorist cases in the Baca Valley for 20 years. We know pretty much where they are. Why would you not support that, other than with the political consequences of directly siding with Israel?

O'HANLON: Well, on the second point, I don't oppose bombing terrorist facilities when they are isolated, when they can be kept separate from major strategic targets in the country. I oppose strategic coercive bombing against other regimes. And then on the point about the resistance, certainly, your points are well taken. And you could have added that the resistance is not really from the right ethnic group and it would not be seen as a legitimate leading government of Afghanistan, even if it could militarily impose itself in that way.

So you have to hope that things will change with time and things will snowball; that as this group becomes stronger, some of the other resistance groups, some of the other tribes in Afghanistan that are not particularly happy about the Taliban will be interested in joining us. But you'll expand the geographic coverage of this resistance group, and that will naturally allow other tribes and folks who may be seen as more legitimate parts of the Afghani government to become part of the territory controlled by rebels to have the option of joining forces.

And you obviously want to convey that the resolve necessary to make resistance groups think that the United States will help, that the training and equipping is not just a tactical thing we do for a couple of months, it's really going to be an enduring way of helping them, and we will provide air power over indefinite periods—there is a good chance for victory. A lot of what's been said, in other words, about helping the Iraqi resistance in the last ten years, and that, of course, is always seen appropriately as an uphill struggle, to say the least.

But in this case, the Taliban is not as strong as Saddam, and you do have a much better chance, I think, of gradually developing momentum. But I think it will take a year and maybe longer before this resistance group would even have a chance. It took several months in Bosnia to begin to tilt the scales, even when Croat and Muslim forces outnumbered Bosnian Serbs to begin with. Therefore here, it's going to take a lot longer than a few months.

Q: Al Millikan, Washington Independent Writers.

What's going on behind the scenes with the Sudan, the White House and the Congress? What justification is there for partnership with a dictatorship that clearly supports terrorism, bin Laden specifically, genocide, slavery, and religious fascism? And is Congress basically divided between principal liberals, conservatives, and lovers of justice, and moneygrubbers, the compromised and the deceived?

MANN: Wow! We'll put him down as neutral. That must be Meghan, huh?

O'SULLIVAN: Well, I mean, you rightly point out that there are a whole range of concerns that the United States has with Sudan. On the issue of terrorism, that has been one of the issues where actually there has been more cooperation and more progress predating the last ten days. The United States and the regime in Khartoum have been engaged in a counter-terrorism dialogue that goes back more than a year. And I actually think that it's important to note that that dialogue was making some progress, not, you know, leaps and bounds, but it was making some progress before the last ten days.

And that dialogue is suddenly going to be more important in our overall relationship with Sudan, as Jim was talking about, that this will take on even more of a priority.

[TAPE CHANGE.]

O'SULLIVAN: —However, I don't think that means that terrorism is going to be the only issue that we're concerned about in Sudan. As you point out, there are strong domestic constituencies that have elevated our concerns in Sudan to such a level that, of course, they're going to be a part of our broader policy towards Sudan in the long term.

Q: Mike Miyazaw of Marubeni.

I'm one of the so many Japanese admirers of the United States for its economic clout, military power, high values, diverse culture and generosity in general. However, sometimes I get puzzled. When you say freedom, democracy, and human rights are the utmost values you have to defend, then why don't you say something, not only to China and Cuba, but to Saudi Arabia, for example, where there's no constitution and no Parliament? If you punish countries that develop nuclear weapons, then why don't you say something not only to India and Pakistan, but to Israel, for example?

Since Tuesday last week, it has become a norm to use Pearl Harbor as an established yardstick to measure the gravity of the tragedy and to express the intensity of anger. There are some people who talk about Tom Clancy's novel, Debt of Honor—a picture was circulated by the internet, a picture with two scenes side by side: American soldiers at the Iwo Jima memorial on one side and New York firefighters in front of what used to be the World Trade Center. Both of those American patriots are raising American flags.

Well, my comment. Lack of consistency or thoughtfulness, like these on the part of some of the American people, I'm afraid may have been one of the root causes of attacks against America. And as far as I know, so far, not many people have not discussed about root causes to prevent future attacks against America.

STEINBERG: I think your comments obviously go to a point that we've been discussing this morning, which is the question of can you organize American foreign policy and our relations with other countries around a single principle. And while it's very tempting to enunciate that very broad kind of statement that the president did, the reality gets messy, because there are other factors and considerations that come into play.

I think it is both unrealistic and probably not a good idea to have a purely one-dimensional foreign policy. I think we do have to have the ability to have some nuances, but at the same time, be able to explain why you have those nuances, because unprincipled differences are also problematic, because it undercuts the strength of your cause.

I don't know, Tom, if you want to comment on any of this.

Let me take one more question. All the way in the back there, the woman in the aisle.

Q: Thank you. This is Jennifer Beauduy from TomPayne.com.

Judging from the general media coverage to the largely excluded antiwar voices, also the president's speech and his discussion, war appears to be a foregone conclusion. This week, there have been a lot of gatherings across the country of people who don't want war, including some of the victims' families at the World Trade Center. Can someone address a possible response or different solutions that do not include war?

STEINBERG: Well, I think we've heard Meghan talk about the economic options. We talked at some lengths in our last meeting about the law enforcement related options and the need to use intelligence and the like. And I think Mike has given a pretty good account of the difficulties associated with military options. Tom, do you want to say something about the political dimensions of this?

MANN: Yes, I'm actually impressed by the extent to which the combination of the media coverage and deliberations among policy specialists and politicians has raised some cautions about a purely military response to this crisis. And so, rather than beating the drums of war, I actually see a sort of public that is resigning itself to a much more nuanced, complicated and long lasting effort to try to deal with the scourge of terrorism.

NCI this morning reported on the antiwar demonstrations on a number of campuses. My own sense is that that movement will not sort of take on sort of the urgency and the strength as it did during the Vietnam because of the way in which we are likely to proceed. That is, I am assuming that Mike's analysis of the limits on various military options are going to, in the end, guide our policy. And I suspect most Americans, in the end, see some role, limited but important role, for military engagement, but a role for every other aspect of our strategy that has been discussed—is a sensible way to proceed.

And I don't expect to see the old hawk-dove division develop in our politics. And I actually think members of Congress are going to be helpful in this regard. They are not sort of clamoring for an indiscriminate military response. So we've learned from history, we've learned from our efforts to try to deal with terrorism in recent years, and we've learned from the experience of other countries, and so I'm more encouraged than you might be.

Q: I'm Alexander Gragev with the Russian Embassy.

Of course, you know that my country has been for at least two years a target of terrorism. And I just want to stress that everything that happened last week in this country touched every nerve of every Russian, and we're very sensitive to it, and we are mourning with you. And maybe it's symbolic that the same day our citizens brought flowers to the building of your embassy in Moscow. There were two more buildings where the flowers were brought in Moscow, which were demolished two years ago by the terrorists.

So with that said, I want to emphasize that one very important subject has been left intact [sic] in today's discussion, which is the role of the United Nations as a body which has a absolute function, a responsibility for world peace. Is there any role you foresee for the United Nations?

And secondly, so far, there is an emphasis on building the broadest possible coalition by the administration to combat international terrorism. So how do you envisage—would there be a mechanism for interaction on the international basis? In Russia, you understand, there is a national vote, national debate, a broad national debate on to interact? What's the best possibility? It's both in the street and in Duma and other quarters of the government. So how to be helpful. And at the same time, we also want to stress that we hope that our problems will also be recognized in this country, that we are targets of international terrorism, and the Chechen link is part of this.

STEINBERG: Let me just [comment], because we do need to move on.

I think you raised several interesting points. On the UN, I think it's notable, and I think we'll hear more about it as we get closer to military action, that the UN did act very quickly in the wake of the bombings. You had a resolution by both the Security Council and the General Assembly. And I have a feeling you're going to hear from the administration and from others fairly soon that they view that as an appropriate authorization for what they choose to do. And I would be surprised to see much further recourse back to the U.N. as the specifics begin to develop. I think it will be difficult for the administration to see how that becomes a forum that they want to use to organize the kind of dialogue that you're talking about.

But I think the issue of consultation is a very serious one, because while there is tremendous support of the United States internationally, countries are not going to just be cheerleaders who stand on the sidelines and let the United States call the plays, and run the plays, and make new cheers. The sustainability of the coalition will depend, to some extent, on the sense of the voice of the coalition members being heard. And I don't think it's an accident that you're seeing key partners of the United States rush to Washington this week. Your foreign minister was here. We had the German foreign minister here, not to mention President Chirac and Prime Minister Blair, and I am sure that all of them are saying, we're 100 percent with you, but you've got to talk to us, you can't just sort of take us for granted and assume that whatever you do, we'll be behind you. We want to be behind you. There's a tremendous desire to be behind the United States.

And the trade-off will come as the United States, particularly on military matters, there is a tradeoff between secrecy and effectiveness of the military operation versus effective consultation. For sure for countries that are going to be asked to provide real help, whether its basing or over-flights, there will have to be consultation. It will be more difficult, I think, for others to try to do it.

Your last point, I think, is also interesting, because you point out that while there may not be quid pro quo in Russia's support for the United States in response to terrorism, there will be an expectation that the United States understand that we're not the only victims of terrorism. And it's not just Russia. But I suspect there'll be a number of other countries that say, hey, wait a minute, you know, we've got a problem here too. You've certainly heard from India very strongly supporting the United States, saying, don't forget, by the way, we have the terrorist problem in India. And so I think that we will have to, the administration of the United States, will have to look at the question about, is this a two way alliance, and how far will we be prepared to get dragged into fighting Basque separatists, fighting the LTTE in Sri Lanka, and the like. And I think that is another part of the consultation.

Well, let me thank you all for coming, and thank our panelists for what's been a very informative discussion.

[APPLAUSE AND END OF EVENT.]

At this second in an on-going series of press briefings on America's response to the terrorism threat, Brookings scholars will assess the options for America's response and what President Bush and his administration have done so far in meeting the first important test of his presidency.

Experts will examine what forms of military response the United States may undertake following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Other topics to be discussed include:

• Building an anti-terrorism military coalition.
• President Bush's leadership style, including his formal speeches and other communications, and the virtual disappearance of partisan politics from Washington.
• What is the extent of state support of terrorism and what options does the United States have to address it.

The Brookings experts will make brief presentations and answer questions. Participants in this press briefing will include:

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