The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of inform ation released prior to January 20,

2001. Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush too office on that date. This site is not updated so external lin s may no longer function. Contact us with any ques tions about finding information. NOTE: External lin s to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endor sement of the views contained therein. Admiral William J. Crowe, Chairman Press briefing on the Report of the Accountability Review Boards on the Embassy Bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam Washington, D.C., January 8, 1999

ADMIRAL CROWE: Good morning. This is my first experience in a press conference a t the State Department; also an intimidating one, I might say. As the Secretary informed you, the two commissions which I head, which investiga ted the Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam bombings, have submitted a combined report tod ay after some three months of deliberation. These efforts include visits to Nair obi and Dar Es Salaam. We have interviewed, in total, over 130 witnesses. First I thin it appropriate to ma e a few general comments about the report, an d then I will address any inquiries that you might have. Please understand that today we are releasing an unclassified version of a longe r and more complete classified report. At the outset, I should note that this wa s not a pleasant tas . Throughout, we have painfully aware of the human toll tha t was involved. I would li e to reflect, as the Secretary did, our heartfelt sym pathies to the families and friends of the victims; and I include in that the Ke nyans, Tanzanians, as well as Americans. To recap, the two terrorist bombings resulted in the deaths of over 220 persons and injuries to more than 4,000 people. Twelve American US Government employees and family members and 40 Kenyan and Tanzanian US Government employees were amon g those illed. Both chanceries and several other buildings were severely damage d or destroyed. The security of our people has been the ey focus of the boards' wor . That is, our primary concern was the future protection and security of the thousands of A mericans and foreign nationals who wor ed for the United States in hundreds of o verseas missions. The report should be examined in this light. The Accountability Review Boards, which I chaired, were a group of distinguished Americans who withdrew from their normal occupations for the last three months and devoted their considerable talents and energy to this tas . They represented a wide range of experience -- diplomatic, military, intelligence, legal and aca demic. I am especially proud of their dedication and the study that they produce d. Perhaps most important, and I want to stress this, I am convinced that their labor was completely devoid of pressure from any government agency. I can testif y from personal experience that they went to exceptional lengths to reach sound, fair-minded and independent judgments. The boards did not find reasonable cause to believe that any employee of the Uni ted States Government or member of the uniform services breached his or her duty in connection with the August 7 bombings. However, we found that security affai rs in today's complex bureaucracy are widely dispersed. Consequently, it is diff icult to pinpoint responsibility. Nevertheless, we believe that there was a collective failure by several Administ rations and Congresses over the past decade to reduce the vulnerability of US di plomatic missions adequately. In this regard, the boards were most disturbed by two inter-connected issues: Fi rst, the inadequacy of resources to provide protective measures against terroris t attac s; and second, the relative low priority accorded security concerns thro ughout the US Government by the Congress, the Department, other agencies in gene

ral, and the part of many employees -- both in Washington and in the field. Saving lives and adequately addressing our security vulnerabilities on a sustain ed basis must, in our judgment, be a given higher priority by all those involved if we are to prevent such tragedies in the future. Let me stress a clause in th e last sentence: "by all those involved." We discovered that many people want to continue to do their wor as always, but consider it the job of someone else to ma e them safe. In today's world, I'm afraid it's not that simple. Security -to use a Navy expression -- is an "all-hands" proposition. All employees serving overseas must adapt their lifestyles to ma e their wor place and their residenc es more safe. The security systems and procedures of both posts at the time of the bombings we re in general accord with current Department policy. Alarmingly, those procedure s and systems followed by the embassies under the Department's direction did not spea to large vehicular bombs with any specificity or trans-national terrorism , nor the dire consequences that would result from them. This gap existed throug hout the system. Both embassies were located immediately adjacent or close to public streets and were especially vulnerable to large vehicular bombs. The boards found that too m any of our overseas missions are similarly situated. Unless these vulnerabilitie s are addressed on a sustained and realistic basis, the lives and safety of US G overnment employees and the public in many of our facilities abroad will continu e to be at ris from further terrorist bombings. The boards further found that intelligence provided no immediate tactical warnin g of the August 7 attac s. We understand the difficulty -- in fact, more than we did when we started -- of monitoring terrorist networ s, and concluded that the current role or state or play in the intelligence community and intelligence ex pertise offers us no assurance that we will have tactical warning and that our m issions which are vulnerable will have such warning. In any case, there are instances, of course, that we have tactical warning, but they are more the exception than the rule. We must consider that a bonus rather than a normal event. We found, however, that both policy and intelligence offici als have relied in the past on warning intelligence to measure threats; whereas experience has shown, that trans-national terrorists often stri e without warnin g at vulnerable targets in areas where expectations of terrorist acts against th e United States are relatively low. In our investigations of the bombings, the boards were struc by how similar the lessons were to those drawn by the Inman Commission over 14 years ago. What is most troubling is the failure of the US Government to ta e the necessary step to prevent such tragedies through an unwillingness to give sustained priority and funding to security improvements. We viewed as our primary and overriding respon sibility the submission of recommendations that will save lives of personnel ser ving at US missions abroad in the future. We are advancing, in this report, a number of proposals that deal with a handlin g of terrorist threats and attac s; the review and revision of standards, includ ing a review of the Inman Report; also, a review of procedures to improve securi ty readiness and crisis management; the size and composition of our missions; an d the need to have adequate and sustained funding for safe buildings and securit y programs in the future. Some of these recommendations are, of necessity, classified. We recognize that t he Department of State and other US Government agencies are already ma ing adjus tments. In fact, we have cooperated with that by, as our investigation proceeded , occasionally telling various concerned departments of some of the things that we were encountering and some of the measures that we might suggest. They are in essence ta ing measures now to enhance the protection of our personnel in facil ities abroad. It is clear, however, that still much more needs to be done. While many of the recommendations in our report identify problems which we found in various areas of security, none of this should obscure the outstanding and o ften heroic efforts made by the diplomatic and Marine security guard personnel i n the field in the wa e of the horrific terrorist attac s. They often save lives and acted in the highest traditions of government service. It was a very moving

experience to encounter this. In closing, I would li e to express both a warning and a plea. The boards conclu ded early in their deliberations that the appearance of large bomb attac s and t he emergence of sophisticated and global terrorist networ s aimed at US interest s abroad have dramatically and irrevocably changed the threat environment. Old a ssumptions are no longer valid. Today, US Government employees from many departm ents and agencies overseas wor and live in harm's way just as military people d o. We must ac nowledge this fact of life and bend every effort to continually remin d Congress and our citizenry of this reality. In turn, I would vigorously argue that the nation must ma e greater exertions to provide for their safety. Service abroad can never be made completely safe; we fully understand that. But we can reduce some of the ris s to the survival and security of our men and women who c onduct the nation's business far from home. This will require a much greater eff ort in terms of national commitment, resources and procedures than in the past. In fact, it involves a sea-change in the way we do our business. We have a choic e, of course: we can continue as we have been, we can continue to see our embass ies blown away, our people illed and our nation's foreign reputation eroded. I would hope we would not ta e that choice. I would be happy to address questions that you may have. QUESTION: Admiral Crowe, does your report deal with the contradiction between an attempt to have absolute security and the need for diplomats to reach out to th e community and have the community accepted by them? How do you square that circ le? ADMIRAL CROWE: Certainly it is a difficult question, we would be the first to ac nowledge that. The commissions had many spirited discussions on that. I thin there are several things you've got to recognize. First of all, when you tal about openness and your ability to conduct business, the threat has alread y closed up many of our current embassies in the middle of communities. When I w as the Ambassador to Great Britain, we were a very tight embassy because of secu rity. You just didn't wal into our embassy; you had to have business there. Eve n an American citizen could not come in without business or a contact. We were n ot an open embassy. I thin more important to understand -- now, ta e the case of Nairobi where 4,00 0 people were wounded. There were very few Americans in that total number. It's important to the host country that we be invulnerable, that our embassies not be vulnerable. They don't enjoy having their citizens illed or wounded, and they don't want an embassy in the middle of their cities that's going to be that vuln erable or that attractive a target. So part of our foreign policy in this new age of new bombs, new ways to loo at things, is it's very important and symbolic and of significance that we have emb assies that are invulnerable and that can deter this ind of attac . I thin tha t this transcends some of the old arguments that we must fly the flag in certain places; we must be open; we must always be available and conveying an American image of openness, et cetera. The fact is that we have to change our way of loo ing at the world. When you tal about lives at sta e, they should assume a very, very high priority -- not only on our agenda, but also on the agenda of the hos t country. QUESTION: There are two major embassies under construction -- one in Berlin and one in Beijing. Did you loo at those; and did you offer any advice? ADMIRAL CROWE: No, we did not. Our charter was not to loo at those. We were lim ited -- one of the problems in a commission li e this -- we were limited to the two instances which we were examining. On the other hand, we were determined fro m the very outset to try and reach conclusions that extended beyond just these t wo embassies. Now, we were aware that a new embassy was being contemplated in Berlin, and I ac tually did have an opportunity to mention to the Secretary my concerns about jus t letting symbolic things control. I was not familiar with the details, I'm not quite sure exactly what the embassy's li e and so forth; but I thought it was im portant that in selecting that embassy and going forward, that security be very

high in the considerations of the State Department. QUESTION: Admiral Crowe, it's my understanding that among the many recommendatio ns that the board made, and that would reflect this sea change in what you said, in the way that we do our business overseas would be the recommendation to clos e some embassies in, for instance, Africa and perhaps other regions as well and to consolidate some of those embassies. Could you address that please? And could you explain whether or not the board thin s that it's li ely and realistic that the US Government would do that? ADMIRAL CROWE: Again, we didn't consider specific embassies because it was not i n our charter. We didn't have the time to go -- but we did consider the general subject that you're tal ing about. There was considerable experience on the boar d that have had embassies. We had four ambassadors, I believe; and they all thou ght that two subjects should be loo ed at: number one, the manning of our embass ies -- whether they could be cut bac with the use of modern technology and so f orth. We didn't say cut bac a or b; we said the subject is an important one, pa rticularly if you're going to the Congress and as for more money, you should al so say to the Congress that we have pared down what we are doing. And secondly, we should loo at the possibility of reducing the number of embass ies. Incidentally -- let me be very candid -- that's a tender subject in the Sta te Department, because it has always been an American principle that we will fly the flag in as many locations as possible overseas. But it was our view that gi ven this new threat environment, that if a host country cannot protect your emba ssy -- which, incidentally, is one of their responsibilities -- if the embassy i s inevitably at high threat, that we should loo at some ind of other arrangeme nt where we consolidate embassies. We do have some precedent for this -- I belie ve in the Caribbean, for example, where we move to one embassy that is not such a threatened area, spend money to ma e it safe and deter, and accredit the ambas sador to satellite posts, which are convenient, et cetera, and then he would hav e an office in each of those places that's much smaller and not near as appealin g a target, et cetera, et cetera. Now, we did not get into many of the specifics here because we didn't feel it wa s our business nor were we confident to tal in great detail. We strongly urged that this subject be examined and that these possibilities be loo ed at very car efully with an open mind. QUESTION: Admiral, you've spo en about the global terrorist networ and the dram atic and the irrevocable impact that they've had on the threat environment, but isn't it a fact that in this case there's a bin Laden networ and he's located i n a specific country and you now where it is and I don't now how many other te rrorist networ s there are -- I mean, I'm not quite sure what this global threat really is, after the bin Laden people are ta en care of. Isn't there another wa y to ta e care of them -- simply dealing with the Afghans or dealing with him di rectly? ADMIRAL CROWE: Well, it's not our charter nor am I going to get into how we solv e a terrorist problem around the world for the United States. I'll be happy to t al about it as it concerns embassy security and safety of our people, et cetera , et cetera. But you have really opened up a very big subject; and one that, inc identally, is part of the US Government is charged with addressing directly -- a nd I'm tal ing about the Department of Justice and the FBI. The State Department 's involved, but the differences between our investigation and the one that the FBI is currently doing is that they are loo ing for people who are responsible w ith the idea of ultimately prosecuting them. We did not go into that question at all. QUESTION: Secondly, you tal ed about creating invulnerable embassies. I'm not qu ite sure how you're going to do that except for -ADMIRAL CROWE: I don't thin I used the world invulnerable, but certainly that w e create embassies that are safer than they currently are and that ta e advantag e of some of the technology that is now in the research lab. And it is possible to ma e buildings more safe. I can't envision an invulnerable embassy; and certa inly not an invulnerable embassy that doesn't have large stand-off distances. QUESTION: What's the cost of it going to be? How many additional resources do yo

u thin have to be brought to bear -ADMIRAL CROWE: Well, we hit this subject very hard and we recommended a couple o f things. That is that the capital account for eeping embassies current and sol ving these problems be separated and distinct and that the State Department have a sustained program of over ten year of about $1.5 billion a year for that peri od of time, apart from the monies that are funded for political purposes and for their regular functions. This should be over and above that. It shouldn't come out of the funding that the State Department normally receives. Now, I'm not nave; I've been around quite a while. I've served in the US Governme nt over 50 years. One of the questions you probably as is, is that realistic? T hat's not our problem. Our problem is what inds of threats are we facing, what can we do about it and to compare or rather to present the dilemma, are lives wo rth that or not worth it? QUESTION: Admiral, although your team didn't loo at specific other embassies, d id they come up with an estimate of the number of embassies worldwide that maybe at "sub-par" security; and how dangerous is that situation? ADMIRAL CROWE: Well, there are quite a few figures on that and it's certainly a matter of interpretation. About two-thirds of our embassies have not met Inman s tandards and still require some ind of improvement to reach the minimum level. It's a big job. We have the Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security. Would you li e to spea to that, David? QUESTION: Yes, and if you could just respond when you have two-thirds that are s ub-par, how concerning is that to you, obviously? ADMIRAL CROWE: Oh, very concerning; that's the thrust of the whole report. That' s the reason we stressed funding. Funding's not the only thing we hit, but we st ressed funding because when you trac down these various threats and so forth, y ou also end up somewhere spending some ind of money. Do you have the money or d on't you have the money for it? But we made a very big issue out of funding, sus tained over a long period of time. Now, let's face it, we're not going to have new embassies in all those places in very quic order. So we're going to have a high ris and a lot of embassies in harm's way for quite some time. Now, we believe that in recent technological adv ances and more that we now about these attac s and so forth that there are thin gs less costly than building a new embassy that can upgrade the physical protect ion of these places and save lives. I don't mean that they're going to completel y deter attac s or they're not totally invulnerable; but they can avoid some of the things that we had in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam if we ta e advantage of thos e. We recommended a number of those. They will cost money also, but it will be on a more modest scale than a complete rebuilding. QUESTION: The Secretary, in her opening statement, said that the United States m ust not hollow out our foreign policy. Do you have any doubts about whether this Department and the Administration gets it when it comes to adequate security, o r has your message really gotten through? ADMIRAL CROWE: Well, one of the purposes of this report is to raise the sensitiv ity level, which we thin has been historically very, very low. We thin the tim e, the window that is open to us to hit this subject is very appropriate and rig ht now it's timely. We hope that those portions of the report that tal to this subject will have some impact. And my discussions this morning with the Secretar y before we came here suggest that they are going to. I would be the last one to say that there is no problem between the old way of d oing business and the new way of doing business and how much are you going to im pact of the traditional functions of the State Department in order to improve th e security here and so forth. That is always an issue, and will be for quite som e time. On the other hand, we contend -- and I thin the report spea s straightforwardly to this -- that you've got to loo at those functions. There were several ambas sadors on the commission who said they said they thought there were areas where we could cut bac in other things that we do and functions that would generate l

ess vulnerability and also free up some funds for other purposes. Now, we didn't advise exactly how to do that; we're not telling Secretary of Sta te how to run her business. But we're telling her it's an appropriate area to lo o at. This attitude that I want to be able to do my business as I've done it fo r the last 50 years and don't bother me with security and somebody else should t a e care of me without me having to change anything has got to go. Because of th e impacts of these bombs, and the things that they can do to you, security's got to be a higher priority, and other things are going to have to, in a certain se nse, step aside a little bit -- maybe not down the priority list -- but they've got to ma e some accommodations with this new world. I'm a military man by trade, and one of the big issues in the earlier part of th is century was whether tan s would replace cavalry. Many people said, well, if w e ta e tan s, the enemy will prevail because he has them, and we don't want to l et him prevail, we'll stic with horses. We couldn't do that. The cavalry disapp eared, and people had to ma e a decision they didn't li e to ma e. That's sort o f the way with security. We're going to have to accommodate security in a more p ositive, and a more comprehensive way than we have in the past. It will affect o ther functions. The question "how much" -- I don't now. It's important to us an d to the country that we do preserve our foreign policy functions; that's what e mbassies are for. It's now become a part of foreign policy and our impression an d our reputation overseas that our embassies be safe, and that our people be saf e. QUESTION: Admiral, you said, in your opening statement, that there was no immedi ate tactical warning of the attac . It's my understanding that there was sort of some generalized intelligence regarding the threat that had been discarded as n ot serious. Could you address that? ADMIRAL CROWE: I enjoy your word, "generalized;" I thin that is true. Please be ar in mind how many thousands of threats come through the State Department syste m -- about 30,000 a year, or something li e that. All the embassies, when I was in, we constantly were dealing with threats, whether they were credible or not. There were some contacts made in 1997 in the Nairobi embassy that suggested that perhaps an attac was aborning against the embassy. This was followed up by som e more information which was very general, not specific, not tactical in any nat ure of the word, and was also constantly changing. They said no, no, it's no lon ger a car attac , it's going to be an assassination. Then, subsequently, no, no, it's been put off until after elections, et cetera. These threats were evaluated by the entire intelligence community, which is our practice with all threats, and they were essentially discredited. This view was reinforced by the fact that with the passage of time, nothing did happen; that a t the same time, some of the non-governmental groups that we were really not in agreement with and that we were concerned about in Kenya were ta en down and the main players were deported, leading our intelligence people to believe that pro bably the main threat had gone away -- at least any real threat against the Amer ican Embassy. Then, we went through a very long period of no information whatsoever. Now, the question would arise in your mind, when you get a warning, how long do you eep that warning -- one year, ten years, 20 years? We just had a silent, blac hole there. So we did come to the conclusion, after interviewing everybody involved i n the process, that there was not a legitimate or genuine tactical warning. To t his day, after the explosion, we still have no evidence that those particular wa rnings were connected in any way with the actual attac . But the more significant conclusion we came to -- which, incidentally, so did th e Inman Report, but we just reinforced that -- is that this is not a matter of i ntelligence failure. I don't li e that term. The fact is that in the state of in telligence today, and in the state of how complex these organizations, are and t he difficulty of deriving what they're doing, that it's just not within our reac h to have tactical warning. We may have it sometimes, but that's a bonus, not so mething we can depend on. We've got to assume that we will be without tactical w arning and proceed on other bases. That's not a new conclusion; that's not uniqu e to us. It's been drawn by many people, and we just reinforce it.

MR. RUBIN: Than you, Admiral Crowe. I now the Assistant Secretary would li e t o say a few words and answer some of your questions. ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: If I may start by saying, I was sworn in on Augus t 11: that's four days after the bombings. But that is not to say that, had I be en in this capacity prior to the bombings, this would have been prevented. I was drawn to the one question about sub-par security. We do have -- we found o ut after the bombings -- that 88 percent of our embassies did not meet set-bac standards that were established following the Inman Commission. That's not to sa y that we have sub-par security at any of these facilities; we're simply lac ing in that one element. I'd also li e to -- I feel compelled to second both everything the Secretary sai d, and the things that the Admiral has most recently said here in his statement. This Department ta es very seriously what happened in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam . There has been no lac of will or spine to go forward and establish the best s ecurity possible for our people out there. But one of the things that I have to mention, and one word that I've become, ove r my career, very frustrated with is "ris management." As you see ris increase and funds decrease, you're no longer managing ris ; you're ta ing ris . That's the position that some of our facilities found themselves in -- ma ing decisions on where best to put their efforts and their money, when their efforts and mone y needed to be spent in a lot of different arenas. So I, quite fran ly, since I've been here, have been very proud of the efforts a t not only this Department, but other government agencies in supporting our effo rts, as well as host governments in supporting our efforts, have provided to ee p us safe to date. We have a lot more to do. We're continuing being very aggress ive; we're continuing to be proactive. In reference to the Admiral's last comments about intelligence: Intelligence is nice when you've got it. But when it's not provided to you, you have to be prepa red, 24 hours a day, for some sort of eventuality as occurred in Dar Es Salaam a nd Nairobi. That's the approach we've ta en to secure our facilities the best we can for all eventualities, not only car bombings, but other assaults, in the li ght of today's environment, and what we're facing in that environment. QUESTION: Can you say whether you have done an evaluation of all of our embassie s; and those that do not meet Inman standards, where you have made a determinati on as to the number that should be relocated -- those that are (under) the great est threat? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: I can say we've made an evaluation of every embas sy, and our potential vulnerabilities to car bombs and other types of attac s, a nd are wor ing closely with our ambassadors and our regional security officers a t each of these embassies, as ing their input into what is needed. Again, the one major problem that we have against a car bomb -- or, we found to have -is set-bac . Clearly, in some instances, we cannot obtain that set-bac . But the re are other alternatives to set-bac , and we're exploring those very vigorously . QUESTION: You can't help but notice that steps that have been ta en here around the State Department as far as set-bac goes. Does this building now meet Inman standards as far as set-bac goes? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: I'm glad you noticed our enhancements; that's enc ouraging. Yes, we have ta en steps here at the Department of State. The standard s as set forth by Inman ideally call for 100 feet of set-bac . You can go out an d loo around the building and in some locations, there's not. We are trying, or wor ing with DC Government to try to increase our set-bac here at State. By pu tting the barriers that you see out there, we have, in some locations, increased our set-bac dramatically, in other cases, not quite as much as we li e. QUESTION: Are you considering closing C Street? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: That is a part of our ongoing evaluation. QUESTION: Mr. Carpenter, what is your bureau's current resources? How much money do you have available annually? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: The current budget is around $300 million.

QUESTION: And so then, under the Crowe proposals, that would go up by $1.5 billi on per year or what -ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: The $1.4 billion is money allotted in an emergenc y supplemental, not only for State Department but for other agencies to deal wit h the aftermath of the bombings. ADMIRAL CROWE: But our continuing proposal would be an additional -QUESTION: $1 billion a year over ten years is what you said, right? ADMIRAL CROWE: That would be more than operational; it would be also capitalizat ion. QUESTION: Come bac to the question about the terrorist threat, because there se ems to be ind of a worse case scenario that you've developed as part of your wh ole report, which is the assumption that there will be more networ s developed p arallel or similar to the bin Laden one. I'm wondering if that is really a reali stic assessment? And secondly, whether it also impinges -- and this is a twist o n an earlier question -- that people who wor for the State Department abroad -there's so many names in the lobby on the charts there of people who were ille d -- they now that they're going out and ta ing a ris as much as a military pe rson does. But they accept it as the price of doing business as diplomats today. I'm just wondering whether you're not accepting that yourselves in going the wo rst-case scenario route and trying to, basically, close off the embassies, reduc e them in size, and so on. ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: Well, I thin you spea to a number of issues in that statement. I would only say that as a security professional, it's my job to loo at the worst case scenario. It's my job to prepare against the worst case scenario, ta ing into account that this is a building that the public has to fee l free to access. We don't want to be off-putting in our security measures, but we do have to loo at all eventualities. Admiral, I don't now if you wanted to comment on that? ADMIRAL CROWE: Well, I thin by implication I did comment on it when I said that we're in a new environment, and we do anticipate -- and I don't now any sectio n that deals with this that doesn't agree with this -- we do anticipate more and more frequent attempts. And we even are afraid of other developments: not only larger bombs, but going to other methods of attac ing us. QUESTION: You mean li e roc ets or stand-off type weapons? ADMIRAL CROWE: No, weapons of mass destruction -- not nuclear, but biological, c hemical, et cetera, et cetera. QUESTION: It comes bac to my point, isn't there a price of doing business, and that there are some things that you cannot defend against, you can only respond to when they happen? I mean, Pearl Harbor, there's some things that occur li e t hat. ADMIRAL CROWE: I don't agree with that. That has certainly been the attitude. Th at's the traditional and the historical, but given today's research and some of the things we now about -- as we've said, we're not going to ma e them totally invulnerable, but we thin we can save more lives and that we can preserve peopl e if we're smart. May I say just one more word about David's business. I noticed in the papers thi s morning what was, to my commissions, a very disturbing trend -- that several o f the articles were quic to lay the blame totally on the State Department, and to have found a villain, and go after it pretty heavy: That everything that happ ened was the State Department's fault. That is certainly not the view of the commission. As I said, we have come to the opinion that a collective fault for the US Government, including the people tha t appropriate funds in this country, and that terrorism is now threatening to gr ow to the point where it's everybody's business, and everybody's got to accept a role and responsibility. We would never say that it was totally the State Depar tment's fault, as I saw in some of the articles. QUESTION: O ay, this question is for Assistant Secretary Carpenter. You've heard Admiral Crowe, and I'm sure you've read his report, and among the recommendatio ns to shut down or consolidate some of the embassies. Would that ma e your job e asier, and is that a recommendation that you might have as well?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: I thin one can assume that if you have fewer tar gets out there, that your job will be easier. That's not something that -- we're loo ing at the number of embassies that we have now, and doing the best job we can to secure them. I thin that there are groups that are meeting to discuss th e viability, the practicality of having smaller embassies, or larger embassies t hat service different parts of different countries. The security will be factore d into those decisions as they go through them. I did want to ma e one statement if I may, too, about acceptable ris . The State Department personnel that goes overseas, they do accept a certain amount of ris , but they're not suicidal. They're given a certain amount of training relative to security awareness. Once they arrive at their post, they get continued train ing. This is an ongoing process here. So sometimes a problem appears so large th at there may not be a readily available solution. That doesn't mean that we don' t continue to wor on it. We are wor ing with a number of agencies. This is not just a State Department ef fort to come up with a silver bullet that eeps this from happening. We're loo i ng to other agencies for assistance, guidance, loo ing at technology, how it can be used to best protect these people, so that when they go out there, that ris that they're accepting -- and they are accepting a certain amount of ris , cert ainly -- is reduced to an absolute minimum. QUESTION: The Admiral evo ed the possibility of chemical and biological attac s on US embassies. I wondered whether either the commission or your bureau had con sidered countermeasures to prevent such attac s, and what conclusions did you co me to. If you hadn't come to any conclusions, whether perhaps it would be better to spend some of that money, or most of that money, on dealing directly with gr oups li ely to do that, whether you've considered that might be a better way to spend the money. And also, can we have a copy of the non-classified report? MR. RUBIN: We're giving you that after the briefing. ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: I'll ta e this first. Of course we are, as the Ad miral mentioned, when we tal about worst-case scenario, one cannot loo at wors t-case scenario without loo ing at how you counter, or propose to counter, chemi cal, biological attac and/or nuclear. There are a number of entities within the US Government -- this is a governmentwide coordinated effort to loo at how do we deal with this phenomenon. This is something relatively new -- relatively new in the last five or six years. There are a number of groups that are meeting, trying to discuss this. The State Depar tment is an active part of it. We feel that we're sort of on the tip of the jave lin when it comes to this. We feel that perhaps we may be as vulnerable as anyon e else, and want to participate in the solution to that, and are wor ing very ha rd to that end. QUESTION: There was a public announcement issued earlier this wee , I believe it was, for Egypt -- a warning to Americans there. It sounded li e it was not only official Americans, but it was also Americans who may be traveling there -- civ ilian Americans. Is there anything else that you can tell us about that threat? My understanding is that you all were also going to be doing some security train ing for American civilians in that community. Is that a new part, a new duty tha t you're ta ing over under this? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: No, this is a part of an ongoing program. There a re parts of the world who continue to get what I would consider a very, very hig h number of threats, both towards the embassies and/or the American community at large. Our embassies are very active, which is why, I guess, maybe spea s bac to a little bit about going with the regional embassies. We need representation out there to wor with our American citizens on a continuing basis, to ma e sure that they're safe, they feel safe and they are in touch with the latest informa tion. These travel warnings in Egypt are nothing new. You can be assured that our peop le in the embassies are, in fact, wor ing directly with the community. QUESTION: Since you raised it, you tal ed about these extraordinary measures you 're considering to protect the embassies and the diplomatic personnel. How expos ed are American business people, and how can they -- they don't have those types

of resources, or anywhere near those types of resources. What should they do? S hould they just close up shop and forget about it? ASSISTANT SECRETARY CARPENTER: Absolutely not. I thin what your question gets t o -- a much larger issue on how do you do security worldwide, and it's not coo i e-cutter. One size does not fit all here. We've got to adapt measures ta en to t he community and the threat and the number of American personnel there -- where are they located; where are their businesses; what security is currently in plac e? A lot of American companies operating overseas have very, very professional s ecurity in and around their facilities. We are -- the State Department, and specifically Diplomatic Security -- involved in the overseas OSAC, Overseas Security Advisory Council, which deals with the communities in most of our posts overseas, relaying information bac and forth, receiving information from them, and wor ing on a monthly basis to ma e sure tha t everyone stays in touch. [End of Document] Africa Home Page | Department Home Page This is an official U.S. Government source for information on the WWW. Inclusion of non-U.S. Government lin s does not imply endorsement of contents.