Bin Laden Is Gone, But Terrorist Threat Remains

Shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday, May 1, I checked my Blackberry and found an urgent message to call the White House Situation Room. My first thought was that there had been a terrorist attack or a thwarted terrorist plot. I did not expect the astonishing news that I received from the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center: that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. military operation. The architect of the attacks on our country that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, and the mastermind and inspiration for so much violence before and since, had been brought to justice.

In the nearly 10 years since the attacks of 9-11-01, the men and women of our intelligence agencies never gave up in their relentless pursuit of this mass murderer. I am grateful to the Navy SEALS who carried out this daring operation with such incredible skill and courage. Our national security leaders worked as a seamless team, and President Obama made a gutsy decision to authorize the strike using the Navy SEALS rather than bombing the complex. The intelligence reforms that helped analysts to piece together the trail to Osama bin Laden were initiated during President Bush’s Administration.

The members of our intelligence, military, and homeland security communities deserve high praise for never giving up in their pursuit of bin Laden. As a leader of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, it has been a privilege to work with these dedicated professionals to reverse the lack of coordination within the U.S. Government that prevented the 9/11 attack from being detected. The operation against bin Laden demonstrated the crucial importance of sharing intelligence information across agency boundaries, as directed by the intelligence reform legislation Senator Joe Lieberman and I authored in 2004. The agency silos that once kept information from being shared have been turned into avenues for communication.

Since 9/11, we have made great efforts to bring all levels of government together to better protect our nation. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI took actions immediately after the announcement of bin Laden’s death to coordinate with and disseminate intelligence information to state and local homeland security and law enforcement officials, and to urge them to be especially vigilant.

The bin Laden presence in a Pakistani city raises serious questions about the commitment of the government of Pakistan to fighting terrorism. It defies belief that no one within Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies knew anything of the whereabouts of the most infamous terrorist, even though he was living in a massive compound less than a mile from Pakistan’s national military academy. Everything about the compound in the city of Abbottabad – its huge size, the high walls topped with barbed wire, the lack of telephone or internet service, the fact that trash was burned on-site rather than being hauled away – should have made it obvious that someone was hiding there.

This is not to say that officials at the highest levels of the Pakistani government knew bin Laden was there, but it seems very likely that some elements within the country’s security apparatus had to know. Pakistan has been an inconsistent ally, and many questions must now be asked and answered about the billions in aid that we provide to the country.

Following bin Laden’s death, there have been calls for retaliation against Americans by Islamic extremists. Earlier this week, I urged the Secretary of Homeland Security to increase the threat level, at least for the next two weeks, while an intelligence assessment is conducted of the data seized from Osama bin Laden's compound and as a precautionary measure given the possibility of a retaliatory attack. I continue to question the Secretary's decision not to increase the threat level.

The raid on bin Laden’s compound yielded computers and disks that must be thoroughly reviewed. I am hopeful that these materials will prove to be a treasure trove of information about Al Qaeda’s plots and operatives. The elevated threat level would provide additional protection while our intelligence experts assess the current status on bin Laden’s terrorist network.

The world is a safer place without Osama bin Laden, but the war against terror is not over. Our government must continue to use every asset at our disposal to detect, and if necessary, thwart, any attack. As the successful operation against bin Laden so clearly proved, no asset is greater than American resolve.