BROWN: In the wake of the attacks in London, far more questions than answers tonight, including who, and how, and why, not to mention where. We're joined now from Chicago by Robert Pape, professor of international affairs at the University of Chicago and the director of Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism and the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism."
In Washington, Daniel Goure, homeland security expert, vice president of the Lexington Institute. We're pleased to have them both.
Professor Pape, it seems to me, we talk a lot about the who and the what and the how, and not nearly enough about the why. Why did this happen and why did it happen in London? It can't be as simple as they hate our freedoms.
ROBERT PAPE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Well, we actually know a lot more about al Qaeda than we did just after 9/11. "In Dying to Win," I collected the first complete set of every al Qaeda suicide terrorist from 1995 to early 2004. The 71 individuals who actually died to carry out Osama's attacks.
This shows that over two-thirds of those attackers came from Sunni Muslim countries where the United States has stationed tens of thousands of combat forces since 1990. And actually, surprisingly few from some of the most Islamic fundamentalist countries in the world. Iran, for instance, has never produced an al Qaeda s suicide terrorist or any terrorist for that -- attacker for al Qaeda for that matter.
This means is that al Qaeda is not driven so much by Islamic fundamentalism as simply by a response to the presence of foreign troops on the Arabian peninsula and in other Muslim countries.
BROWN: Just briefly, is it possible to execute the American policy goals: spreading democracy in that part of the world, economic prosperity in that part of the world and so on, is it possible to do that without stations American troops there?
PAPE: Actually, it is. And what we need to do is focus on our core interests on the Arabian peninsula, which is access to Persian Gulf oil. The main reason we're in the Persian Gulf in the first place, have been since World War II, is to secure access to oil, which is critical to the world's economy.
Well, we pursued a close called off-shore balancing for decades prior to 1990 that was spectacularly successful. Offshore balancing was secured our interests in oil without stationing a single combat troop or tank or aircraft on the Arabian peninsula. And, instead...
BROWN: I'm sorry. Let me bring in Mr. Goure for a second. In my more cynical moments, I tend to think we do sort of flavor of the month homeland security. It was airplanes one day. Now we're sort of into mass transit. So, maybe we'll spend another $50 million or so there and then they'll hit a chemical plant. Are we doing this in a logical way? And is it possible to do it in a logical way?
DANIEL GOURE, LEXINGTON INSTITUTE: No, we have not been doing it in a logical way. There is not a plan, if you will. What we're trying to do is put together a layered defense. That's the concept. But we're really putting money where either there's there's popular interest, such as airplanes or first responders, firemen and police and the like, or we're trying to put it a little bit everywhere, from the smallest town in Idaho to the largest American city.
There's not a rational approach that tries either to save the most lives, protect the most people, save the most value, or go after the most vulnerable targets. Hopefully, the new secretary of Homeland Security will change the strategy to something that might work.
BROWN: If I gave you just, let's pick a number, say $5 billion, OK, where would you put it first?
GOURE: Oh, I'd put it on the borders first. No matter what we do about intelligence and off-shore operations, the real issue is securing the borders, knowing who is getting in and out of the country, preventing al Qaeda personnel, money from coming from. The kind of money that supported the 9/11 hijackers for 18 months. If you can secure the borders that enter the United States, it's a major way of reducing the terrorist threat.
BROWN: That's a whole 'nother conversation. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you both.
