tv Charlie Rose Bloomberg March 23, 2016 10:00pm-11:01pm EDT
10:00 pm
was around 5.1%. that is basically the same as we had last year. in this process, we have accelerated industrial upgrading and the rapid growth in the services sector, high-tech industries, and manufacturing sector. ♪ ♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin with the attack in brussels. two explosions at an international airport. a third struck a train. this came four days after the capture of paris attack suspect abdeslam joining me is john miller, deputy of counterterrorism at the nypd. tell me what you know about
10:01 pm
this. john: we are looking at a brussels-based network, which had been planning the paris attacks prior to january, around the time of the charlie hebdo attacks. i think we are seeing at a network node of isis. what we are seeing is very good intelligence work that led them to the mastermind, a shootout, a capture, a police officer wounded. a couple of others got away. but they were certainly on the right track. then i think what you saw was the results of parts of that network were able to regroup. charlie: do you think they struck because of the captive,
10:02 pm
because what he may have told police, what was coming up? john: that could be possible. or it could be simply what we refer to as a punishment operation for the capture of their cellular leader. charlie: do we know he was the cellular leader and they may have been connected to him or were likely connected to him? john: i think the operating theory is the people who struck today were part of the network he was running in an external operation for isis. that is a matter under investigation. that investigation is being led by the belgian authorities. we have american citizens among the casualties. that makes it a crime in the united states. the fbi and the nypd joint terrorist task force will be
10:03 pm
involved in that investigation. charlie: all the information is not out and you have to take a couple of days to understand and appreciate what is going on. what questions are you asking? john: i would be asking what is the amount and type of explosives? those bombs seem to be quite large. there a lot of forensics that goes into that. and there is a lot of early reporting that changes over time. i would be cautious on that. but i also want to know what was the preoperational surveillance? what was the target selection? what did they do to choose those targets? what we do here, is we want to look at every attack overseas, reverse engineer it, and then try to build that into our plans.
10:04 pm
how did they execute on that attempt? what did we learn before or during the week and put into planning? you don't have to be that good to kill people. all kinds of idiots have learned how to do that. and many of them have been terrorists. it doesn't require a lot of talent to walk into a crowded nightclub with a 30 round magazine and a machine gun. it's not about how good they are, it's about how committed they are. i think we saw again today they are committed in this process to die. that is not a new feature in terrorism, it is just a frightening one. charlie: we saw pictures from the attack at the airport. two people, i think, died. can you tell us more about the manhunt and how do you find someone like that? john: when you look at that
10:05 pm
photograph it can appear they , are walking together in a line. it could be he was doing the same way, or was he part of that? we had to figure out who he is. was he with them or passing through? charlie: new york city police department and lapd and other cities have to be fearful of the kind of attack in terms of transit, in terms of anywhere there is a large gathering of people or places like outdoor cafes where a lot of people are easily accessible. john: yes. what we see, as we saw once again today, is a concept of returning to mass transit targets. what we saw in paris was a number of random target. son tsu wrote a long time ago
10:06 pm
protects everything protects nothing. you spread yourself too thin. we put together a plan and say these are the 40 or 50 places we are going to place our resources. that is where we think the threat is from one day to the next. the other thing we do is we move that around based on the threat stream and predictability. if you are a terrorist, and we learned this from the planner of the mumbai attacks in india, if you are a planner and you see heavy security one day and then and is back to days later, it is very hard to know what plan there is. also the response piece, which is the forces are out there
10:07 pm
everyday, no matter where they are posted. when you blow that whistle and tell them to respond, they are going to be there very quickly. charlie: if police were able to , was it because of somebody turning him in, was it because of communication, giving himself away? john: it can be you can conduct a surveillance with eyes on the scene or technical surveillance. it can bring you to the right door at the right time, which happened through the hard work of the belgium authorities a few days ago. we can't have these conversations were out of one side of the mouth -- i heard critics on television saying this was the result of an
10:08 pm
intelligence failure. i heard other critics, some of the same critics saying apple shouldn't have to open this phone. these applications that have end to end encryption, that is the kind of thing where it would have been yesterday's intelligence failure. today's intelligence lockout. charlie: they seem to be aware of encryption data and how to use encryption. john: that is right. a good part of this is tradecraft. tradecraft requires discipline, it requires planning, it requires being thoughtful, that -- but it also requires having the facilities to do that. commercially, we as a global society are supplying them with more and more impenetrable facilities.
10:09 pm
it is hard to have a discussion about what is an intelligence failure and what is not, when slowly the aperture that the authorities are allowed to look for is closing. charlie: could you speak to the issue of the fbi saying we may have found a way to open up the san bernardino iphone? john: yes, i think what the department of justice, the position they are taking is they have tried to force that issue through the courts and apple has fought that issue, and even indicated that if the court rules against them, their engineer may still not comply. so what i think the justice department is doing is saying if there is another technical way that they can execute the search against this phone, without forcing that issue, and that is -- then that is a better part in this case.
10:10 pm
charlie: somebody came to the fbi and said i know how to do this, and said it has enough logic to it to believe that they should try it. john: i think it is going to require some testing on other devices. i think it could work, i think it should work. i have read through the science and it seems to be viable. charlie: one question remains is these are not the people who have gotten some message online and decided to go for that terrorist attack. they were trained in iraq or syria. and they are coming back because they have passports. is there enough scrutiny or is there possible task to -- john: one of the big advantages we have is this big tease of -- big piece of water between us and these cases. one of these vulnerabilities -- excuse me --it is good for their
10:11 pm
social society. it comes with a vulnerability. when you have a known terrorist who managed to make his way from brussels into paris to do the attacks that occurred earlier this year, for someone who had already been in paris before and back to brussels, then back to syria, then back to belgium, that comes with a certain cost. this is an old tug-of-war in the argument about terrorism. part of the goal is to cause the government to limit people's freedom, to cause people to question whether the government can protect them, to cause people to be distrustful of their government. charlie: to cause people to change their way of living. john: exactly.
10:12 pm
i think european face a great challenge here. we have the ability to scrutinize people when they come here, when they arrive here. we have a vast intelligence network and we have great partnerships with our european partners where they provide that information about people. charlie: what is it you want your message to be to the citizens of new york tonight? john: i message to the citizens of new york tonight is that we have one of the most complex and layered counterterrorism machines of any municipal police department in the world. i would put us on the level of scotland yard and the london police. we have built on it we have , enhanced it. we are a learning organization. every time something happens we have studied that and add something to the mix. we have had numerous drills in
10:13 pm
physical places, followed by tabletop exercises. this is something we think about every minute of every day. the greatest asset is the public. we say, if you see something, say something. charlie: is it fair to say as you have gotten smarter and buttressed your own activities, that people who wish to engage in terrorist attacks, because of isis and because of syria they are getting better and they are getting tougher and more committed. john: i think they are very committed. also, in the course of june, we had one plot where people were coming from austin to behead somebody in new york city. we had another plan where a group of individuals here were supposed to build pressure cooker bombs that may have been unleashed on the crowds during the fourth of july fireworks.
10:14 pm
charlie: as was the boston marathon. charlie: -- john: and so far through the joint terrorism task force, through our foreign partners, through technology, through our intelligence, we have managed to prevent four of those plots in the last few months, 20 since 9/11. and the number before 9/11, going back to 1993. we understand we are a big target. we understand it is a able adversary, and we are not going to give any ground if we can help it. charlie: john miller, of the new york police department, head of counterterrorism intelligence. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪
10:17 pm
charlie: we are with mike morel, he is a correspondent who has served as deputy and and active director of the cia. first question, how do we determine and is it likely is a -- likely there is a connection between these attacks and the recently captured captured abdeslam? >> i think in brussels he was with a group of individuals that were planning a series of attacks. this was one of them. i think this particular target was one of them. whether this was the timing or not, we don't know.
10:18 pm
but, i don't think so. i think what happened was he was captured. the group he was working with was concerned under interrogation he would give the plot away. so they moved it up and accelerated it. i think that is what happened. it is a likely scenario to me. charlie: what are the near-term considerations? mike: i think the near-term consideration is the threat profile for the next 78 hours over the next two weeks. if we are right about the acceleration of a particular plot, what else might say might they-- accelerate in the days or weeks ahead? that is something you have to worry about primarily in europe. i think you are going to see a high state of alert as a result
10:19 pm
of that. second, you have to worry about copycat attacks. whenever there is a terrorist attack it leads others to think maybe i should do something to join the effort. charlie: do we assume this was directed from isis headquarters? mike: paris certainly was. we know paris was conceived, planned, directed, and we know paris is connected to brussels in some way. whether these guys were told to do something similar or told to do this specific thing, or left to their own devices, not so sure. i'm not sure that matters anymore at the end of the day. charlie: why not? mike: if you are conducting these large-scale attacks on your own, you have been to syria and iraq, you are conducting attacks on your own now that look like paris, it doesn't make any difference whether you are directed to do it or not. you are doing it in isis's name.
10:20 pm
charlie: my understanding is these bombs can be made from readily accessible materials. mike: think about the plan to bring down 15 airliners. it was an al qaeda plot. they were going to mix chemicals on the plane, those were all readily available chemicals. charlie: what is our offense let's talk about the defense and then talk about the offense. the defense, i think, has two pieces to it. al qaeda was always focused on the symbolic target, which tended to be a hard target, which was on the secure side of security. getting through to an airplane, for an example. these guys have learned how to go after soft targets. where a lot of people are. one of the things we need to think about is pushing a security perimeter out further. they have adjusted to what we do on security, we now need to
10:21 pm
adjust what they are doing on security. that is flaunting -- one thing we have to think about for security. ways you disrupt a plot like this. you get in it in iraq or syria at the leadership level, where they do the planning and plotting. and you can disrupt it. the other place is at the local level. the way that usually happens is by picking up communications, or having somebody in the neighborhood saying something is going on. we need to do better in an -- sensence fence in in both of those areas. charlie: we do get the idea -- that they are very sophisticated about understanding technology, throwing away cell phones and a whole range of things that they to their capture. mike: in the case of paris and the investigation we have throw
10:22 pm
away cell phones, we have documented or jury, sophisticated documented forgery. we have the ability to move money around. we have a lot of things like that, which gives you a sense of sophistication, which gives you a sense of training. and with that sophistication you put a very large number of guys, 5000 people went from western europe to iraq and syria to fight. many of them are still there. many of them died on the battlefield. but many of them are starting to come home. some of those who come home will do nothing. some of those will conduct an attack. and just coming home because they can. they have got the right passport. so you have a very large number. and you got sophistication. coordinationmuch
10:23 pm
is there between all the various intelligence agencies? mike: it was great when i was in government. i assume it is great today. there was not an information sharing problem. i really don't know the extent to which european countries, i assume it is pretty good. charlie: everybody knows we have got to know more. mike: i don't think that is the problem. i don't think information sharing is the problem. i think the problem is getting information to share, going back to that intelligence perspective. charlie: how would you gather the intelligence, what is the probable means? mike: it is the cheney's picked up on the right way, and any documents they have. and computers that they half. have.
10:24 pm
the other is the old-fashioned way where you recruit spies. that is the job of the central intelligence agency. that is the job i used to have. charlie: there are professionals about the strategy that gives isis -- the argument was made that they lost 20% of their ground. the argument is some of the financial sources are grinding -- drying up. is isis less strong? does that impact whether strategy is? mike: i heard on cbs radio that the terrorists are winning and that has spread all over the place. charlie: is that against conventional wisdom at the time? mike: i don't know why it is spreading through the media. i think it is a good sound bite. here's what i meant, think about what the terrorists want, what isis wants, and what we want.
10:25 pm
and look at it objectively in terms of whether we are getting those things. what isis wants is to maintain their caliphate in iraq and syria, and they want to spread their ideology to other parts in the world. and they want, as their ideology spreads they want their groups to create their own palisades. -- caliphate's. and they want to attack us to create fear, to create political division in the west. charlie: we are losing ground in iraq, clearly. and that is the caliphate. mike: that is what they want, but what we want is to take away their territory and prevent those attacks. charlie: all of the things we are doing. mike: let's take a look at how we are doing. we are squeezing them in iraq and syria.
10:26 pm
20% of their territory taken away, and probably increasingly so in several months. at the same time we are doing that, what are we doing outside of iraq and syria? they are growing like wildfire. they are gaining ground elsewhere. primarily libya. not only up along the coast where they are continuing to gain ground that down in southern libya. squeezing them in iraq and syria. isis you have in libya right now are largely focused on gaining territory, possibly conducting attacks. over time they will develop the same external focus on europe and the united states that isis
10:27 pm
and iraq and syria have. over time they will start sending those people to western europe. the biggest flow of foreign fighters is into libya. no longer into iraq and syria, but into libya. the same problem we had in iraq and syria now playing out in libya. that is the story on the safe haven and their territory and their movement. on terrorist attacks, think about it this way, in the last 4.5 months, since late october, they have brought down a russian airliner over the sinai one of , their groups. they directed an attack in paris. san bernardino, a connection. somebody who thought they were
10:28 pm
doing it in their name. against -- four attacks against the west and 4.5 months. al qaeda never achieved that. charlie: so isis is the greatest national security threat to the united states? mike: right now, yes. absolutely, no doubt in my mind. charlie: the president says in an article you and i both read that they are not a national security threat to the united states, and climate change is a greater long-term national security threat to the united states. mike: he said isis is not an existential threat. charlie: yes. that the united states can beat isis. mike: absolutely we can.
10:29 pm
if we do the right things. they can changes in fundamental ways. they are near-term objective is to maintain -- expanded, part of that is putting pressure on us because they see us as attacking them. they didn't come after us in the west until we went after them right after they beheaded people. i don't think this is a case of any one of them wanting to draw us in. they want to create fear, political division, trying to drive us out of the middle east. eventually, those individuals at the center of this movement believe they are preparing a world for the islamic savior, and their job is to convert as many people as possible to
10:30 pm
islam, and those they can't convert, they kill. we are in the way of that. charlie: you said this morning we are losing and we are not doing enough. which begs the question, what should we do? mike: if i had a simple answer that i would be telling it to the president right now. there is not a simple answer. i can give you the broad answer. is, i only answer know of two ways to degrade a terrorist organization. one is to remove their leadership from the battlefield. we are doing that, but not rapid enough and not senior enough in my view. and then you have to take the territory away from them. it is two things. it is a place where they are safe and secure and able to plan and conduct operations. and it is a great recruiting tool.
10:31 pm
it is a great recruiting tool to say we have the caliphate. i don't think 100 u.s. troops is the way to take it away. it was an successful and iraq iraq was not successful in and it was not successful in afghanistan. we are more than capable of taking it away but we are not capable of holding it. it has always been a problem. we have to get local people to hold it who are accepted. the only way this works is a sunni air force to take the territory and hold it. the only way that happens is if both sunni's in iraq and sunnis in syria believe they have -- charlie: and isis is sunni. mike: and this is sunni territory. they are not going to accept the bunch of shia.
10:32 pm
charlie: the question is, in syria we have an increase, the president has an increase in the number of special forces on the ground. we have 3000 people on the ground now. mike: we did not significantly change the strategy but we did intensify it significantly after syria. we have to look again and say we are still not the grading these degrading these guys. we are not the grading them to a point where they are not able to conduct attacks. the way you have to measure whether you are defeating them or not is their ability to take and hold territory. and their ability to conduct attacks. john: and our ability to prevent attacks. mike: we have to measure it. when there are four attacks in months.5 months -- 4.5
10:33 pm
-- charlie: in terms of understanding the elements to conduct an attack. mike: there is no better training for somebody to be a terrorist than military training on the battlefield by actually fighting. there is no better training than that. charlie: thank you for coming. mike morell, deputy director for the caa and acting director -- cia and acting director. we continue our coverage with richard haass, president of the . ♪
10:35 pm
oh, hi! micky dolenz of the monkees here, getting ready to host the flower power cruise. (announcer) we're taking the love generation to the high seas and reliving the '60s. we'll celebrate that unbelievable era with the music that made it so special. there'll be over 40 live performances featuring eric burdon & the animals, micky dolenz, the monkees lead singer and cruise host, the 5th dimension, the lovin' spoonful, rare earth, spencer davis, three dog night, and many more! imagine enjoying all that great music on the fabulous celebrity summit, leaving fort lauderdale and making ports of call in jamaica and the bahamas. you'll be back in the days of bellbottoms, peace signs, and so much more, with special theme parties and 20 fun-filled celebrity interactive events. cabins are filling up fast, so come on, relive the era you remember so well. the flower power cruise, february 27th, 2017.
10:36 pm
let your freak flag fly. don't miss the grooviest trip at sea. charlie: we continue our coverage with richard haass, president of the council of foreign relations. nicolas burns was previously undersecretary of state for political affairs. rukmini callimachi leads the paper's isis coverage. joining us from brussels, peter spiegel, he is the bureau chief from the financial times. i'm pleased to have all of them on this program today. peter, may i begin with you. tell us exactly what is the status of the investigation today in brussels? peter: a lot of raids have happened. shortly after the bombs went off in the airport and the metro stop, we saw several raids in a neighborhood. they uncovered not only bomb
10:37 pm
making materials, but isis flags. that is why those raids are going on. it is still a very tense city. like paris, a very sophisticated operation. this expectation is that it was a well-planned, professional, large cell that perpetrated it today. that's a speculation. literally 24 and 48 hours ago we heard belgian authorities were saying they were nervous because the arrest made on friday, the last remaining at-large terrorist from paris,
10:38 pm
abdeslam, because he was arrested, they thought they were connected. that is the suspicion. they were preparing for this, because they thought they were connected. charlie: is their understanding whether he is talking or not? peter: they were talking about plotting something else. the foreign minister in belgium said what he was telling police is there was something else coming. that is again why there is a lot of speculation that perhaps this terrorist cell that had been planning this for sometime in the future felt they had to move this up. they felt abdeslam was -- abdeslam was squealing. charlie: what do you know about the photographs of these two suicide bombers? and the third man who is under intense manhunt scrutiny? >> among the interesting things
10:39 pm
is two of the men are shown wearing a black glove on the left hand. there has been speculation that this is in order to hide the detonator. at the same time afp was leaving the office and hour ago and reported officials believed the bomb was inside the suitcase. if it was inside the suitcase, the detonator in the hand would not make sense, the court would have to go to the trolley cart, which would not be logical. i just got off the phone with deleting academic. -- with the leading academic. says is that the difference between paris and here is the amount of -- a suicide belt has around one pound of -- what she saw from the damage was something she estimates between 30 to 100 pounds.
10:40 pm
it would have to have been in the suitcase. charlie: any connection to abdeslam? >> beyond the fact that isis has claimed it. starting with their official news agency to the press they do on their channels, i really have no doubt that it is isis. beyond that, no. charlie: what do we to? what is the strategy -- what to begin? what is the strategy? nicholas: i think the government understands we have a common problem with the europeans. we both experienced major catastrophic terrorist attacks. i think we have learned two things. one is the serious daily plotting work of intelligence cooperation, of law-enforcement cooperation, of security
10:41 pm
services and our judiciary's working together slowly in this long war to try to compress these groups. here is where the europeans have not been as strong and forthcoming as washington would have liked, we need more european participation in the air campaign. that is barely campaigning -- containing the islamic state. now you see that threat metastasize. now you see the islamic state control us of them at her -- southern mediterranean sea. we need more european help. and i think the biggest dimension of it geographically is from west africa to molly to chad and all across -- you have the like-minded groups. boko haram saying we are part of islamic terrorism. in this long war, not my term, that was coined 10 years ago, you're going to have to have that military cooperation. of the british in iraq and
10:42 pm
syria, we need more of it from them at the point of attack. charley: in iraq and syria, they have learned how to do this on the battlefield. what can we to do stop them from coming back? >> this is the graduate school for terrorists. there are three venues here. one was putting more pressure on these guys, to the extent there on the defensive, they are not on the offensive. secondly, how do we do a better job of stopping these people before they get in? how do we do a better job of targeting individuals, having better security? homeland security? thirdly there is an internal , problem, and that gets at the issue of these cells. they are finding places to plug into. that is why we have to get into the societies. why are these people still so us -- still so alienated? why aren't they working closely with law enforcement?
10:43 pm
i think that is the biggest gap between europe and the united states. they have done a poor job of simulating the communities. the relationship is not nearly as close. that is one of the lessons i take. you have to get it to right in these three venues come at the and locally. charlie: what is the feeling about brussels as the hotbed of isis support? >> you say we have to stop guys at the border, what happens when they are nationals. most of the guys in paris were not isis fighters who came from syria. the organizers and the
10:44 pm
architects -- most of the guys were petty thugs doing crime in the streets. these guys were picked up and recruited by the bigger organizers that came from syria. it is a real problem. as you say, it is not as bad as many of the parisians or frenchmen. if you look at mullenweg beck versus some of the bad news -- if you look outside of paris, it is a much more integrated society. part of the issue also is there is a narrative here -- they do not where they eat. -- they do not poop where they eat. that attitude changed about 18 months ago after charlie hebdo, we saw the government put more money and effort into the intelligence and the security apparatus. they went a decade under investing in those resources and they are having a hard time
10:45 pm
ramping that up and -- that up and getting better at it. as nick said, it is part of the issue. belgium has done a better job. they have been dealing with these issues in north africa, and really only doing it in the last 18 months. charlie: is this where we should worry about more and more than >> will be no is -- what we know is isis has an external operation branch within it. people were intercepted on the way back. i think the mistake has been, and it goes with the way we have underestimated the group. we thought of isis as territory holding. i'm putting out a story in the next couple of days, looking at the fact that they have been sending people back since february of 2014. the reason we haven't noticed it is because every other attack
10:46 pm
before paris failed. every single one was taken in isolation. people would say this is just an -- just a random act. when you start piecing it together, when you look at the fact every single one -- the fact that it was used in every single one, their interest in governing and holding a territory very much goes hand-in-hand with wanting to attack the west. i think we have blinded ourselves to this reality. charlie: wanting to attack the west, you are suggesting, has risen as a motivating factor for isis as much as holding territory. >> absolutely. you go back to september 2014, with the first statement threatening the west. if you look at that statement it is very clear that their intention is to hit the west, but we didn't take them seriously. charlie: do you think this is
10:47 pm
the biggest national security issue for the united states? >> is it bigger then north korea putting a nuclear warhead on a missile that can reach california? probably not. it is a possibility of getting into a conventional war with china in the south china sea? i would say no. but this is the new normal. this has been with us for some time, it is going to be with us for some time, and the real question is how do we go after it comprehensively in ways ways that we do not tie ourselves in knots, we do not close down the essential openness of our society. and answer your question in a different way, we do not allow it to become the biggest national security challenge. charlie: does that mean we do not have -- does that mean we have not gone at it in the right way? >> what we did and didn't do in libya --
10:48 pm
they are doing things in the region. i'm worried about what they can do against saudi arabia. i don't think we should rule that out, but these guys now have global reach. the chicks will come home to roost. charley: in terms of a terrorist attack not in terms of being , able to overthrow the saudi government. >> i think the saudi government is vulnerable. these guys have been pushed back, the terrorists in syria and iraq. they got a foothold in libya. why would we assume they would not see their principal target in the region as the government that controls the two holiest sites in islam. there is another place called the islamic state. if isis wants to get amazing credibility, it would be posing serious challenge to the house
10:49 pm
of assad. >> europe is our trade partner, it is home to our largest military alliance. a really important alliance. no matter what donald trump said, he is ill advised comment about withdrawing from nato. now you have a rolling crisis there. you have the eurozone crisis, which weakens their sense of integration. you have the refugee crisis which has upset the politics of europe. many of the western european countries saying they will take refugees. most of the eastern european countries, saying no muslims in our christian societies. there is a disagreement about that. it is kind of a foundation of the european union. you now have border controls going up. you have doors being shut from one european country to the next.
10:50 pm
lest we forget, vladimir putin has occupied crimea, put a lot of pressure on lithuania and poland. it is in the united states' interest to help the europeans face this series of crisis. i never thought i would worry about the integration of europe, the success of the european union. there has been a lot of talk about the pivot to asia. i think what the united states has to do is get with angela merkel. she is the key leader. and the other leaders there, holland and cameron. and say how can we help you across all of these different crisis is? three state elections did not go well with her. >> there is a lot of history at stake. one of the greatest accomplishments over the last 60 years in history was the idea that major geopolitical confrontation in europe seemed to be something historical.
10:51 pm
it was then, not now. but suddenly the european project has lost all of its forward momentum. the very accomplishment that was europe, i think it is now under threatened in ways that we have never imagined. if we had this conversation two years ago we would talk about every part of the world except europe. the fact that europe is again in play historically, that is a major deterioration of the global situation. charlie: does that mean we need to see more leadership from the united states? >> everybody is talking about jeff goldberg's article, this in-depth torture of president obama. and to see a sitting american president call our allies free riders, when you have to work with britain and france, and to defend the syrian redlined decision from 2013, that you
10:52 pm
draw a redline and tell assad he can't use chemical weapons, he has a great record of foreign policy except this integration of diplomacy in our foreign military. it is so important in our expression of american power. i think most previous secretaries of state have understood that, but this is a weakness. >> you have to pay attention to it, he was to get the united states out of the middle east and wants to make a pivot to china and latin america. in a sense of saying we can't make a difference there in part. >> up to a point. you don't want to turn a moment to what we have seen his people -- what we have seen is things going wrong in the middle east -- we need to do more in asia and in others. we don't have the option. and one of the things right now, the biggest threat to our
10:53 pm
position in asia is trade. the missing piece of american policy and presence in asia is the tpp, the trade negotiation. the problem is the for leaning candidates for president is to not. we have to do certain things in the middle east but we can't walk away from europe. charlie: i want to come back to isis. i asked the question earlier and we will see after this part here of mike morell, former deputy director of the cia and active cia director, he said isis is winning, isis is not losing, yet they have lost ground, they have not -- they have lost individual personnel. is isis gaining because it has new tactics? >> they have had two major hits. they had the most devastating attack on european soil and brussels.
10:54 pm
even as their territory shrinks, they have a position among their recruits that they are ever powerful, they are threatening the infidel west in all of its heartland. the territory they have lost -- i was in syria and i was in the city when it fell to the white -- to the ypg, which is an allied group to the u.s.. we have yet to really bear down. charlie: you were there on the ground, tell me what the most important question there is this evening, including the conversation you participated in here. what are the core questions to be asking tonight? peter: i think it is how deep and extensive these networks are. the realization only now that some of these attacks were much
10:55 pm
more sophisticated, with the networks that were much broader and much more in depth than we knew before. there was an intelligence report that came back as far as january 2015 that pointed to one of these attacks, in which it said this looks like isis is now trying to create a network in europe to attack consistently and rapidly. to be able to move up this attack and be so successful -- the question that is going to be asked here is how far does this go? it is multiple people in multiple capitals, using networks that go back to syria. that is the thing they have to come to grips with. those are the important questions we have to answer. >> and of of police -- and a
10:56 pm
police report that i got regarding the paris attacks, there was a witness who said -- was the planner of the attack. she has an interaction with him, she is considered credible. and in that interaction -- i entered in the migrant flow along with the refugees with 90 other operatives. that could be an exaggeration, up -- add just had it it up now. we have 10 attackers in paris, and we know 20 other people have been arrested in direct connection with those attacks that came from syria one third. charlie: what is the united states not doing? >> we have to work short-term, long-term. we have to remember we are part of the fabric of europe. sometimes our vocabulary, the obama administration, nato is them, nato is us. we have to reinforce our support in the short term, maybe in the law-enforcement intelligence, to help the europeans cope with the
10:57 pm
fires breaking out in the continent. long-term, hope that europe can make the same leap that it took us so long to. we are a melting pot society, they are a mosaic society. they have large collections of people that don't feel part of the society. charlie: thank you. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪
11:00 pm
mark c.: i'm mark crumpton. you are watching "bloomberg west." the u.s. is waiting for more -- it could be an indication that both attacks are links to the same cell of the state. belgians remain on high alert. seen on this surveillance video. president obama is pledging the united states will go after i saw aggressively at a joint press congress -- conference in one of iris. esther obama also said the u.s. would provide any assistance it
55 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
Bloomberg TV Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on