Press Releases

Today, Rep. Mac Thornberry, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, made the following opening statement, as prepared for delivery, at the hearing on "The Evolving Threat of Terrorism and Effective Counterterrorism Strategies." For testimony and other information and to watch the hearing click here.

"Following our hearings on the state of the world security environment and the state of the U.S. military, today we begin to examine some of the specific security challenges facing the United States.
This week the topic is terrorism. In conjunction with the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, there will be a number of classified and unclassified events this week.

The United States has been explicitly at war with terrorist organizations for close to 18 years. The threat to Americans and to American interests has certainly changed over the course of that time.

Today, we all have hopes that the Iraqi military will continue to drive ISIS out of Iraq and that a coalition can reduce its presence and ability to operate in Syria. But, we should be under no illusions. Squeezing ISIS out of Iraq and Syria will push some of them into other parts of the world, such as Africa and Southeast Asia.

Al Qaeda has not gone away, despite its lower profile in the news, and in fact, some believe that it is rebuilding its capacity for attacking the West.

And while terrorists have physically spread out to more locations, some of them have become quite adept at operating online as well, challenging our intelligence collection and our counterterrorism efforts.

We are privileged to have three experts to whom this Committee has regularly turned for perspective and guidance over the years. They will help us step back from the headlines of the moment to assess the status of the terrorist threat, how it is evolving, and what kind of capability the United States must have to defend our people."