US:Homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff tells Mary Fitzgeraldthat the US sees parts of Europe as 'fertile ground' for recruiting extremists
The United States has grown increasingly concerned that Europe may be used as a "launching pad" for a terrorist attack against America, the country's homeland security secretary said yesterday.
Speaking to The Irish Times after addressing a gathering at Dublin's Institute of European Affairs, Michael Chertoff expressed concern that "pockets in Europe" appeared to be "fertile ground" for the recruitment of extremists. "There's no question we have become increasingly concerned about the possibility of a threat coming via Europe - either a home-grown terrorist with clean documents coming in through our visa waiver programme or having people transiting through Europe to come to the United States," he said.
"The greatest threat comes from the ideology that supports these terrorists and it could easily move from one place to another. But there is significant concern about Europe as a [ possible] launching pad for an attack against the United States."
Mr Chertoff said there was "increasing convergence" between the US and Europe on how to deal with the threat of terrorism. "Despite the fact that some try to perceive a wedge between Europe and the United States, I see a remarkable similarity of view and approach among all the European security officials I deal with. They see fundamentally the same problem and recognise that we need to find fundamentally compatible solutions."
Earlier this year the EU agreed to allow the US to store air passenger data - such as names, addresses and credit card details - on a government-operated database for a period of up to 15 years for use in terrorism investigations. Asked about concerns regarding privacy protection and possible misuse of data, Mr Chertoff said US authorities had put in place "some very tough measures" to address this.
"We have strict limitations as to what we can do with [ the data]. I don't think there's much risk of abuse but the data brings very positive benefits. It enables us to stop and question fewer people at the border and be more precise about what we ask.
"There's now a general recognition within a number of governments that the principle of using a limited amount of commercial data to identify people to be brought in for secondary screening has real positive value."
Mr Chertoff said the country's visa waiver scheme, described by some US politicians as its "soft underbelly", was not under threat but had been improved with the recent introduction of tighter controls requiring travellers to register online at least two days before departure.
In his address at the IEA, Mr Chertoff spoke at length about the nature of a threat he said would take "decades of struggle" to overcome. This threat, he said, stemmed from a "totalitarian" ideology that espoused a worldview that was "profoundly inimical to tolerance".
Asked if the Iraq war had acted as a recruiting tool for extremists, Mr Chertoff said: "There's no question that people who recruit use it as a rhetorical way to recruit. But if it hadn't been for the Iraq war, they would have recruited using something else."