An analysis of the history of combating terrorism confirms that the
best way to defeat terrorism is to isolate and localize its activities
and then destroy it through intensive, sustained action. Political
pressures and economic sanctions have moderated some state sponsors,
but have had little effect on individual groups that can sustain an
independent presence. However, due to the broad expanse and
sophistication of some of these global terrorist organizations, we must
first act to reduce their scope and capability. This effort requires us
to identify the terrorists, locate their sanctuaries, and destroy their
ability to plan and operate.

We cannot wait for terrorists to attack and then respond. The United
States and its partners will disrupt and degrade the ability of
terrorists to act, and compel supporters of terrorism to cease and
desist. Preventing terrorist groups from gaining access to technology,
particularly that which supports WMD, will be one of our highest
priorities.

_Objective: Identify terrorists and terrorist organizations_. "Know
your enemy" is one of the most accepted maxims in warfare.
Unfortunately, our knowledge of the inner workings of some terrorist
organizations remains incomplete. The Intelligence Community and law
enforcement agencies will therefore continue their aggressive efforts
to identify terrorists and their organizations, map their command and
control and support infrastructure, and then ensure we have broad, but
appropriate, distribution of the intelligence to federal, state, and
local agencies as well as to our international allies. While we will
not ignore regional or emerging threats, our operational efforts and
intelligence will focus primarily upon the most dangerous groups,
namely, those with global reach or aspirations to acquire and use WMD.

We will prioritize our efforts based on the immediate threat and our
national interests. Based on this prioritization and mapping of
terrorist organizations, we will determine where to position forces and
collection assets to identify terrorist ground, air, maritime, and
cyber activities. Timely and advantageous positioning of these assets
will be crucial for obtaining intelligence and developing options for
decisive action.

A key component of this force and asset alignment will be our ability
to understand the terrorist intent through technical and document
exploitation. This will require a dramatic increase in linguistic
supp