Official Remarks & Reports

House Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations

Combating Terrorism: Protecting the United States – Part I

Testimony of Gov. Frank Keating (R-Okla.)

March 12, 2002

I am grateful to the subcommittee for inviting me to visit with you today.

As you know, during my first months as Governor of Oklahoma, I confronted what was at that time the worst act of terrorism on American soil, the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. We learned some important lessons from that tragedy which were repeated in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11. Last year I also played the role of a state governor in the Dark Winter bioterrorism exercise. My early training was as an FBI agent, assigned to investigate internal security matters. I have been a United States Attorney in my state and later served in the Justice and Treasury Departments, overseeing law enforcement functions. I don't claims to be an expert on terrorism, but I do hope to offer my experience -- some of it hard won -- on this most timely subject.

My written testimony will be relatively brief. I want to confine myself to several issues of importance to the subcommittee's deliberations. First, we learned some important lessons in Oklahoma City in 1995, and those lessons were reinforced in Washington and New York on September 11, and in the anthrax assaults on Americans that followed.

First among them is that in any act of terrorism, the first responders will always be local. In 1995, and again in 2001, those first on the scene were local and state law enforcement and fire service professionals -- and we all know how many of them gave their lives in New York. Local and state first responders in Oklahoma City were also joined by federal law enforcement officials from local field offices -- but again, they were local, not from Washington. This was also true in the Dark Winter bioterror scenario; the first responders there, as in the anthrax outbreak last fall, were local physicians and emergency room and public health personnel.

The lesson is clear: the war on terrorism is a military and intelligence battle best fought at the federal level, but the front lines of homeland security remain local. I believe we must strongly resist any effort to repeal or ignore the historic American doctrine of posse comitatus. You cannot federalize local response. Support it, yes, through such outstanding federal agencies as FEMA, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control. Install umbrella control where and when such control is necessary and logical, as in intelligence gathering and dissemination. But let's remember that the people who died bringing aid to the scene at the World Trade Centers were local fire and police personnel. The sole rescuer killed in Oklahoma City in 1995 was a nurse. These people are the experts, just as Special Forces and CIA teams pursuing terrorists abroad are the experts at what they do. The lesson of Oklahoma City -- and of September 11 -- is to allow the experts to do what they each do best, and to resist the urge to federalize everything.

I also want to note that in Oklahoma we have a unique resource in this effort to better prepare and train local and state first responders -- the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, headed by General Dennis Reimer, the former Army Chief of Staff. This organization is rapidly becoming the national and international go-to resource and central clearing house in how to best prepare local and state public safety agencies to respond to -- and hopefully to prevent -- terrorist acts. It is a priceless resource for our nation, and I hope the subcommittee and the Congress will listen to and utilize General Reimer and his staff as you allocate resources and set priorities.

In my state, and in many others, we now have joint local-federal anti-terrorism law enforcement task forces, which are working well. But the same principle applies: the agencies involved must retain autonomy to each do what they do best.

My second central point has to do with commendable efforts by Congress and the administration to flow federal dollars to the first responder level.

Like other governors, I am heartened by federal efforts to fund and support state internal security efforts. However, there is a danger here -- you cannot devise a one-size-fits-all funding solution, and you cannot dilute those funds by parceling them out among a myriad of local agencies.

For example, Oklahoma has responded by creating eight rapid response districts within our state. The federal government has provided initial funding to operate them, but future federal funds are needed to keep them at peak efficiency, ready to respond to any terror incident or threat. In addition, we learned in 1995, following the Oklahoma City bombing, that we have an "Achilles heel" in our public safety operations . . . the lack of common radio systems and frequencies to allow local and state agencies to communicate in times of crisis. That's Oklahoma's greatest immediate need, to create such a system, and it will cost about $50 million. We won't build it if federal funds flow piecemeal to a hundred local agencies.

Other states have their own unique needs. For example, events near the border of one state could directly affect communities in a neighboring state, as the events in New York and Washington on September 11 impacted surrounding communities. There are no borders to terrorism; as we learned in Dark Winter, biological agents released in one place would rapidly spread across those borders. For that reason, I would urge the Congress and the administration to apportion federal funds designed to assist states and localities in homeland security efforts to the states, in block grants, permitting them to use those funds to fill the most pressing downstream needs among their own local agencies, and to most precisely meet their specific needs. We cannot afford to dilute these funds. They must be precisely targeted, and I know that most governors have already conducted needs assessments at the state level that have identified what they need most. Let's allow them to spend those dollars to meet those needs.

Seventy-five percent of projected federal dollars in this effort are earmarked for local agencies. I believe it is important to make distribution of those funds to those agencies contingent on the development of a statewide plan, and on how local initiatives fit into that overall plan. Just as the federal government must retain command and control authority over the international war on terrorism, so must the states act in a policy role for the allocation of funding and resources within their borders.

A second immediate priority many governors identified in the wake of September 11 was for a steady and accurate flow of intelligence information to the states. I faced a situation last fall that was almost laughable, if it hadn't been for the seriousness of the times. My state adjutant general received a terrorism warning, but he couldn't brief me, the man who appointed him, or my commissioner of public safety, a retired FBI special agent in charge, because we lacked the proper security clearances!

It does little good to tell state officials that something bad might happen, and refuse to tell them what, where or when.

Happily, we are addressing that problem, and information on security threats is flowing to the states more effectively. As we proceed with the war on terror and our homeland security efforts, I hope we will continue to keep those lines of communication open. Give us the information in a timely manner, and we will continue to be the homeland's front line in defending our citizens against terrorist threats.

I want to conclude with some general comments on the events since September 11. I join all Americans in applauding President Bush's decisive and effective decision to pursue terrorism to its roots. He is absolutely correct to have further identified the "axis of evil" nations as potential threats to civilized society, and to pursue policies that neutralize those threats. Imagine the lives and misery the world would have been spared had we had a "Bush doctrine" against Hitler in 1938,, instead of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies. You cannot negotiate with or appease murderers. Our country is following the right course, and I can assure you that the people of my state, having experienced terrorism close up in 1995, are firmly behind the President in this effort.

As a veteran of the ominous Dark Winter exercise, I also support aggressive efforts to stockpile medications and vaccines, and to pursue new medical defenses against bioterror agents In Dark Winter, more than a million mythical Americans died of smallpox. We must do all we can to keep that exercise a myth, and to prevent it from becoming a horrifying reality.

Finally, I want to commend former Governor Tom Ridge for his leadership. It is not an easy task to pull together dozens of different agencies in a common cause, but he has done well. His was a fine appointment, and I know I join my fellow governors in offering him our support.

I want to thank the subcommittee for holding this hearing, and for your continuing efforts to protect America.