qualities and experience proven managerial leadership required at that huge department of health and human services. she has 500 people working in the budget office, and that's an important office. over 70,000. she once served on a board of a local hospital. she just simply is not the person that we need today to bring order out of a disarray that we have in the health care system of this country and the total collapse of integrity and consistency in the implementation of obamacare. and there are a couple of things that i care about, but i really think that it's time for this administration to stop moving around insiders, political allies and put some people in these critical positions capable

of operating them at the highest possible level. mrs. burwell violated the medicare trigger, for example. trustees of medicare issue a report that is heading to insolvency. it's a critical matter. the administration by law is required within two weeks to submit a plan to fix medicare, and they have been submitting this report for years. as the president's director on the 31-usc-1105, ms. burwell was the person responsible for submitting medicare legislation to congress. we asked her about that before she was confirmed. during her hearing, she said she would do everything in her power to comply with the federal law. yet, despite this assurance, she refused to comply with the law and never submitted a plan. don't we need a plan to fix medicare? don't we need the chief executive of america through the

budget director to submit a plan to fix it? she also violated the law and denied congress needed transparency with respect to the health care law, the obamacare law. so the omnibus appropriations bill signed into law in january required h.h.s. to include in its fy 2015 budget a detailed accounting of spending to implement the health law. but neither the budget director, ms. burwell, or the agency she now will head submitted sufficient information to comply with that. and i just would say my time is up, mr. president. i would just say i'm very much taken with mrs. burwell. she's a delightful person. many of my colleagues think highly of her, and some, like our west virginia senators and others, really think she will do a good job. but this is not the right position for her.

this government is drifting into disarray in a whole host of ways. we need the strongest possible, capable leader with proven health care managerial experience for the good of america and for the good of president obama. this is not the right nominee, this is not the right nominee,

saturday morning at 1030 east and. >> as the u.s. presence in afghanistan is winding down some intelligence assessments of one al qaeda and other terrorist groups are beginning to resurface. next, the american enterprise institute hosted discussion on the current capabilities and threats of al qaeda. this is 90 minutes. >> thank you, everyone for joining us here today. thank you. thank you for joining is here today. we are going to start.

i would like to welcome you on this beautiful afternoon. co-sponsored with the foreign policy research institute. i am thankful that they are here . i am catherine zimmerman, senior analyst and i have been working on al qaeda for the past five years. i am hoping that this will be a very interesting discussion. they give us their views on the al qaeda challenge. mary just joined us here. she is publishing her book knowing the enemy next year. and she just published a report called getting a right to available.

senior fellow at the foreign policy research institute and published expense to the excessively on transnational threats. the cia studies on intelligence. work available through the website and also the blog which she is an editor of. i will be moderating the discussion. keep your answers short. i am really looking forward to what has proved to be a lively discussion. so just ask the basic question. >> thanks for having me here. given me a lot of room to run and write a lot of crazy stuff over the years. i really appreciate that.

i'm going to start off with some of my favorite. jan and i love this one because how can you know if you're winning if you have no idea of what al qaeda is? this is a difficult position we are in, and it is not just us try to figure out. al qaeda is trying to figure out who is in al qaeda. what you see right there is person on the coast of kenya. i'm not authorized to speak about that. we pledged loyalty. and then, that does not mean if you give someone the of the loyalty they have to keep follow them if they're wrong. take their course of action we want general of the. is that osama bin laden?

it is osama bin laden. and so this is sort of the tunnel that is going on right now. the funniest thing about our discussion is al qaeda might very well be the second most important group in the world today. in the past three weeks cells have been disrupted in saudi arabia. you have the juice -- jewish museum sugar is being linked to was going on. does not like he was commanded. and then just two days ago he had reports from germany that they disrupted. none of this was commanded or lead by al qaeda central. let's say we want to know about major league baseball.

being the single, how long the cardinal's dying. but the cardinals, while the center of the baseball universe and 95 percent of what is going on are one of only 26 teams in. so what i'm talking about is al qaeda, and i wrote this, the dominant force. there were the ones leading. they call themselves the vanguard. they led that g. harding movement. today they are one of many. there are still the one that i call old guard. you will hear me refer to that today. i have no doubt right now somewhere they are planning attacks against the united states. no doubt they're trying to communicate with affiliates. i am sure that they are, but the way that is received today verses the way that was received

his law of the different. and so when we talk about al qaeda, will call them old guard, those that are still committed to the original objectives and are still focused on four in attacks against the u.s. i tried to be as specific as possible because you will see when i get to this part, i talked about how we have to focus our strategy. a couple dozen old guard committed operatives, al qaeda central, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, the most important al qaeda element in the world at this point have demonstrated and repeated capabilities to do external operations attack and the u.s. i have no doubt they're planning an attack against his right now, no doubt whatsoever. they are the decisive point in the future. we will come to that.

certain key leaders that are running the actual 8qi am cells that are out there, and if you're want to know how they're trying to communicate, there's this document out there. i am worried about those folks. sort of the off the reservation to my running my own group. and that indirect contact. select members hoopla's loyalty in 2012 are still running external operations. abbey has seen it is still concerned about them. and most important now and into the horizon, they are the new base of the future generation for what will come out if they can keep moving on. the other two things that i will

worry about our old guard al qaeda operatives that uc floating around in syria. there will try and coordinate with the as long from. but some of your are americans that are floating in joining. so we have the suicide bomber from florida last week. the suicide bomber. that i am really worried about. so when i talk about al qaeda, that's the story that i am most concerned with soul to this day and that means what al qaeda is. >> same question for use as you just published a report. what to the kern definition. think that it might be useful. >> the administration is actually quite constrained and

narrow. according to that al qaeda is those people who carried out 9/11, of very tiny little group of people. somewhere in afghanistan, pakistan. and from their planning and carrying out attacks. they mean very loosely aligned groups that share some of the goals but not all the. have their own agendas.

compose their vision of very extremist. that is the definition that is used. that is the way it al qaeda itself to finds itself. with the little bit of skepticism. so how does al qaeda define itself? define itself as an organization and ideology. guys under them who are subversively doing with the want them to. bleeped organically. so the argument that they have

is this organization gives orders. people down try to obey them. there are other people. you're supposed to obey just as let's say the king of france had whole lot. and then along with that there are personal connections. his personal connection. but along with that there is also the ideology that links them together. the methodology the specific

version of circassia. here's the thing about that. sometimes we get lucky and you have people they say things like we are a part of al qaeda. you have some sort of dispute or discussion going on. you're not really al qaeda. they have indeed swan of the fealty. some of the documents that were found after northern mali was liberated. one of the things that was found was document.

and what that said was they actually were al qaeda the whole time. don't say anything about your connections to anything having to do with al qaeda or a global agenda. that's messaging, the firm you want. you don't give in the glasses into the real relationships that are going on with people allows people leak things. so have -- the ideology.

ideology or creed and dispersion the interesting thing, the is lined state, in sort of breakaway group once had a relationship the argument they're having was specifically about men hunched, specifically the methodology that was being used by al qaeda. disagree profoundly with it. and for that reason they broke away. your ideology and methodology.

the ideologies of al qaeda. slightly different take. >> i put that out right away. ideology is valuable. these guys never they want to change it will. and that is what's going on. if you follow there's a lot of debate between al qaeda and ices . he says, no, i kind of did. the justification right now for what they can suicide bomb that kent suicide bombings their

picking and around shakespeare recede is a debate going on in pakistan, which is fascinating. they pledged loyalty. just last week in a public statement precluding these nine. that ideology is valuable and will change based on the connections on the ground and the situation in the power plays. three years ago everyone would tell me that the ideal as you was so blinded that there would never be. the first one is somalia. it became more severe with. all sorts of connections. they want to pledge loyalty. he was really nervous about those guys, for good reason

probably. and as you read some, the talk about it two or three times, power plays about who was pledging. they would use that as a tool to corral all of these underneath sometimes with them, sometimes against them. what is going on, they can't control it. personnel and resources problems arise, loyalty and ideology will shift. limited communication.

when you keep sending a message is the message and it takes three weeks you start giving your own interpretation of the ideology the the number one threat is of a jihad is. this us. ideology, resonated command the as monday. did you have now?

not a lot of fun. kind of a bad loss. verismo china made plans of these affiliate's. and so what happens? he can communicate with them on a routine basis. the smartest thing he did to which he did try to do, was nominating the emir why? this is game of the roads. what did he do that to try to keep that in line. he did not have that. a lot of connections. he did that. that was a strategic power play. the only one that would give him something.

they don't go. if you want to know the area to do is look at where the books are. reminds me of where we were told years ago. a highly stylized ideology we're pursuing will we call terrorists who have week or different intensive ability commitments. instead we were probably making more of them. we were providing impetus. we made a second-generation. whether we like it and not. that's what happened. this created this enormous dissension in the right because

they're is a lot of the tension between the first generation, that group from afghanistan's and they all have physical relationships with each other. then missed out on the second generation. the differences is targeting, direction, and ideology and think the ideology is a wild area we can say some of the place. the commitment to different forces. so that's sort of my take.

>> just to respond to the idea that ideologies is not how we see al qaeda. now it is changed how the differentiate between to read some minor key part of that court. >> just starting their 12 years ago ideology was dismissed by most people. what the masters and the dow was g autism. people engaged. that is really all they cared

about. it did not distinguish between different groups. in fact, they find the threat so broadly, tom's of groups that were not intend. the methodology. i would say actually there is very little attention paid to it . when people began to be interested in ideology and distinguished. so instead of seeing any group that engages is a danger to the united states, they began to see which proves have an ideology that compels them to attack the united states first? that is part of the al qaeda methodology and ideology, to attack the added states rather than other local governments. so by looking at that there were able to distinguish among troops and actually narrow the definition of the enemy from the broad expanse of definition they had.

but getting back to this question of whether ideology is even a board, pragmatism absolutely plays a role in nearly everything. there is an extremely pragmatic group, especially when it comes to military matters. you read some of those things airbrushed san antonio car rode his master's thesis on jobs about that job was a model to follow. so of -- you will able to do the same thing. pragmatic when it comes to military matters, economic matters. a lot of different issues. you will notice that the examples you gave where all about actually engaging with each other and arguing over ideology.

if ideology really doesn't matter why would they do that? is one thing the say someplace in the depths of your heart, not doing this because of ideology, but engage in this kind of public debate and make ideology the center for your argument when you don't actually believe that has some significance. so ideology was the motivation for a 700 page book called the exoneration in which he took on the argument of one of his mentors, one of the sort of godfather's and argued against his ideological interpretation to show people where he had gone astray, the very first middle park and the end part, all about the ideological justification. as i mentioned, the main dispute

is about their change in creed and methodology and the engagement in the ideological struggle over the future of al qaeda. and the implications of that, the particular methodology that they have chosen to follow follows that of those are cali. some people call this the split. he believes upset you should take care not to kill innocent civilians spots. in other words, who talked about not killing civilians, but it was going to make you give up an operation that was really worth it to my believe you should just wed with it. you killed 50 innocent moslems and one american, that was

perfectly fine. he also believed invoking and causing a sectarian gore. killing in order the set of the sectarian. they purposely set up costs is addition of methodology and creed, it's perfectly fine for a steven. people like the justifications for doing that. on the other hand, they have consistently constantly said that it is wrong to kill innocent moslems, and he put a lot of pressure on those who have sworn to live up to that. and the change that we have seen as a result of that in places like somalia where, if you remember, they carry out the horrible terrorist attack.

one of the things they did was attempt to figure out who was the muslim, who was not before they started randomly shooting people. but they actually asked people the set of questions to try to figure out before they carry out terror attack. nobody had done anything like this before you put out his statement saying this is what you're going to do and here is the sure readjust vacation. those who follow our methodology are going to be doing this. bitter complaints. the spokesman. you have left the original methodology and are following in their footsteps, and you're not going to change this.

for him ideology actually matters. now, three examples. an argument. let's start. suggested and they seemed to be taking direction from al qaeda because that came out, a public statement about these are the things we want to do. and this occurred several months after it cannot. make an argument, but it sounds like they're actually doing. more importantly, all those things you mentioned of got away all the people who are going to leave have either left or been killed. and just recently there reaffirmed their allegiance twice. at a terrible argument.

and the head of a group. called itself -- signed themselves and blood. and don't know what you want to call them that. i guess that was what he thought best. terrible argument. even more clearly than enhance and press reports. but what also became clear over time is the something that happened to settle this. they went off and joined. not made the head of a new group but was put off someplace else. and in other words, he was willing to be under someone else and was willing to, again, swear his allegiance to al qaeda just

a month ago. so end of april, april 30th, he also came forward. i have my allegiance to al qaeda central. and finally when it comes the major argument that is going on is between ice and the breakaway group. the guys who have definitely declared their allegiance. what other groups are signing up ... verses those letters signing up. and the results are about 20 of 30 to one verses those of her son in an. >> i think we will circled back. i actually want to come back to the point made about pragmatism. setting aside the ideologies and

actually looking at the leaders on the ground. part of your argument, and correctly of vermont. over the past few years what happened, the arabs offering. the centralization. a lot more autonomy, and now they essentially harsh self funded, self starters, and kind of like the generation. looking to center around. so how does that play into a al qaeda? what actually is the state of al qaeda today? is the corporation incoordination, or are we looking about more of the individualized actor? >> al qaeda is getting killed today for the same reasons that we get worried about our young employees. it is fascinating to watch. if you're familiar, it's really

the one that was putting it together. they could kind of keep -- back in 2006 and seven, the internet is the panacea. it is helpful to branch out and get the message out there. but has the internet has evolved into the social media, this 2-way engagement it is honorable course in the way when we want to control message. so white house employee the starts a bogus twitter account, starts comments and you see stuff like this all the time, we're having a hard time right now, and our tow you to read to things that are really excellent , for understanding how things are playing out, not just with al qaeda but in terms of terrorism in general. the first on, the terrorist the lama. a great discussion about how they play against each other, and he deconstruction from this al qaeda thing we have been talking about.

how al qaeda is really just one group and that there are all these sorts of debates about direction and pragmatism. so if you want to know what al qaeda central those well, it comes down to just a few things. success worse is failure. the reason that they have to compete right now to be top dog. their external attack happened back in 2005 that al qaeda attack. they're not taking tons of credit for young fighters are motivated right now are going. it's a wonder. they're doing a tax.

really attracted. they are really excited about it. some of the push back, you guys have not succeeded in putting together state. it has been us out here working on it. the other thing year after a number, as truckers are no, how old were they? they were young. this is something they saw and knew about. it was in their communities. success has not been held strictly within the old guard. being achieved by a lot of different groups. if you are one you have better be hitting home runs. it's a reciprocal relationship. the presence of an accident, which is resources you see people all the way out until is death : and essentially asking

him both for strategic taxes. what did the great if you could cough up a hundred bucks? there's still that discussion in the background about resource allocation. interest in things under their to show that kind of network and control. he does not have it. and greg johnson your rowboat, got a great "and there. just like all the others except yet one thing there was different. he had money in a out organized a resource. when you go back to the 90's we have this national geographic special about how and originated. but then when you look, on the man. i am the leader and. and so successfully to draw brought a lot of them together. senses' lead that has really been distributed.

your your resource in. year-on-year around. resource in on the wrong. you and our right now in syria of one to. we can literally pledge money to a group. so as resource control is limited, he starts to do more of what you want. we have to keep the connection that and keep that going. political. the next burger want to make sure we talk about as a physical relationship. we deceive ourselves in the thinking of the internet would keep all of the adherents around 2005 to seven were to reach of the. we were wrong. the power of the legion is really what's going on. you see it with the militias that have risen out. the parallel. fascinating discussions about entered austria doing something really great.

he is a really unique dynamic going on in those legions critical importance for understanding. the first one, the foreign fighters from libya and tunisia. i will just show where this rift is. so these are some scenarios are will talk about a second. foreign fighters from libya and tunisia. you see the debate.

still in. they're screening the foreign fire recruits. they are being much smarter. but if you can win over the resources. this is as john gerard now, you can whenever the people, don't command the resources, a very, very bad situation. our way out through scenarios. the first one is that you could see the to emerge. old guard and the ones that they have the connections with and then over time all of these sort of foreign buyers and motivated. with that you will still have a lot of these groups now that are just waiting in out.

some people interpret this as, pledged loyalty. others like 30 groups of oil, but if i'm not giving money and he's not communicating with me that much and that all will need to pick sides the woman who says if hot appealing to do? a place a metal. the sahara, nigeria, somalia, or heads the men cannot commit. we notice from elections and our own country. wait to see the candid it is. that is an aerial number one. scenario number two which is what i think is going on today. these are three scenarios. anyone tells you they are an expert, you should show them. there's way too much going on a bunch of different groups that are battling any sort of

connections. the sustained internal civil war . it sounds great. this is the scenario right now. fighting the average ec, they're all fighting each other. kurds in the next. if i'm strictly for my counter-terrorism perspective, you guys are all chewing yourselves up in a meat grinder. the effect of the long run, i don't want to donate a bunch of money and you're going to kill other jockeys. if you are foreign fighters starting to say i thought i was just coming here to participate and be part of al qaeda. i'm mostly attacking my brothers had that corrosive effect. ec foreign fighters be coming back. this is the key issue. europe should be worried, so

should north africa. deasy these guys coming back because they are disillusioned with what's going on. it does not mean that there will be committed to violence. but the civil war has a corrosive effect. the third one is that there is some much infighting that you stick with where you can resources and where you can communicate. where does that really happened? regionally. so you see groups like shibani working with other groups in kenya, and they work together, they occasionally have contact and communicate. i don't doubt that. and they sort of swarm around. you will see this. hq i am. they'll communicate. a lot of the young veterans. what you might see is all three of these scenarios that play out of sequence. i don't know what it will be.

i would love to have all the counter-terrorism analysts put their bets down. it would be fast and see who would be right in the end. really think we will probably see a civil war first, maybe some version. although the kind of act down. there won't. and then maybe just conglomerates over the longer run. those are some of those scenarios and where i see al qaeda going. what old guard al qaeda needs to do is start getting on top of foreign fighter recruitment to muster securing resources and distributing. they have to make a plot to become the dominant player. if i was al qaeda old guard al qaeda i would be going through and attack israel ..

>> it is a core and he has been having this experience in egypt. frankly, how do you see al qaeda today? >> i would like to begin with something that i think is underlying some of our different views of al qaeda. your vision of the

africa and so on and so forth. but in fact, al qaeda has always had a second that has taken up funding time and effort from the 1990s. in 99% of the funding was going to creating what they call guerrilla fighters. the long-term insurgency rather than the 1% that is being spent on external attacks, that is, terrorist attacks. if an organization spends 99% of its money on one effort and only

1% on the other effort, on what basis do we focus on that 1% versus the 99%? that 1% was aimed at us. and isn't that the important thing and it certainly is for americans. we don't pay attention to that or that messy stuff going on out there. al qaeda said was their real objective. and that would replace them with people with the extremist version of sharia law. that is their underlying objective. attacking america was in a means because they saw america as the main stumbling block in the u.s. always shows up. we are always there with funding

and it shows this. and he called himself and the people around him and that was in 2000 a year before and that will change the have to consider a government in exile. and i'm glad that you pointed out that they haven't carried attacks against the united states. and yet they have managed to recruit more and more people to their cause and their ideology

that the insurgency is in syria is acting as a huge radicalizing force and this is a great falsification of a proposal that was put forth by people. that is the presence of the united states that radicalize his people and it turns them into the hottest. it turns out that you don't need the presence of the united states. it is the absence and the u.s. is not present in any of these fights around the world. and if you just look at what was focusing on and that might be a

difference and if this is an al qaeda link to terrorism, like the great leader and founder and charismatic guy who's going to lead us forward into tomorrow. but here's where things are out in 2011, this is where it was at a level and it doesn't mean there weren't other terrorist attacks and this is basically where serious terrorism is being carried out by people who claim the relationship with al qaeda. all right? and here is the al qaeda terrorism in 2014. and i hit a big question mark. the chinese government said the methodology is being used

resonates, but it's uncertain. and this was more violence it was being carried out and that's the kind of failure that any of the company wanted to see. and that is just the tip of the iceberg. so here are al qaeda insurgency is in 2011 and this is a high level but still manageable situation. they were having trouble recruiting people, the people had turned against them and successfully with the surge that the united states carried out, able to take out most of the al qaeda terrorists and insurgents. so there were only three places where there were serious

insurgencies. that is, mature insurgencies occurring. somalia, afghanistan, pat damm and northern pakistan, of course, they had some sort of connection with al qaeda. here they were in 2014. and again, this is the kind of failure that they all want to see. and what we see here is country after country, al qaeda influenced these groups using my definition of al qaeda and even if you don't use it, those people who believe in their

ideology. >> okay. so i don't know if any of these guys have been part of this defense contracting. and we are giving them too much credit for a lot of things that are there doing.

and they said that it should have said in parentheses which also happens to be the largest pile of sand and the planet. they operate in a lot of these places and look at what happens when we decide this. this happens when we decide to do something. remember the country we bailed out? they ran those guys ouin week and holy cow, you nww that coming. when we decide there is a threat to us and this is a threat to an entire country or that al qaeda controls an entire country and i think that al jazeera did it as

well. and a lot of these insurgencies are shooting themselves in the foot and they are out of control. they are violent. they are not even pursuing things and objectives. a great example from two weeks ago, boko haram. probably something that he would not recommend. the first article that i read said boko haram kidnaps and sells women. we are giving them this again. the first thing we bring up is the modern in 2003 and 2004 to give some money to start up a training camp.

that's the only way we can mobilize a and in some ways this is weakening al qaeda because they are going way out of the bounds in terms of this. they are weakening the popular support in the local area. and eventually, this is an example from algeria if you've ever looked at this, they use a strategy and it's like, okay, you go do that. and they would say that you go do this all day long. and they would wait until the businessmen would come out and say hey, we thought this was going to be great. it turned out it wasn't so great. so we are open to working with you and bring this back end.

and so when you talk about all of these insurgents these, it is a great point that mary got up. i don't think they are mostly sitting around thinking about the u.s., they use it as a bogeyman for whatever their objectives are locally. they use it to rattle support with donors. and so i am of the opposite perspective. and we created safe havens which now hosts isys and we can say that this is of our own birth. we created that sentiment. and we have no ability to counteract and we can't come in to wait in terms of fighting it. but that is my perspective on the insurgencies.

>> whether you paint a sand, there's a lot of territory and i know you have something to say and i also feel that we should start bringing these definitions back into it. because i think that is actually where you two are disagreeing and that's what's bringing up the difference in your assessments. where there our long-term objectives that are quite different. >> i don't think i would disagree on long-term debt this with the current situation. >> i firmly support you on the issue of of our partners and our friends fighting back. within just a few weeks we have kicked off the vast majority of them there. unfortunately they almost infiltrated back in and started carrying out attacks.

right now the french are actually in serious trouble trying to come to a decision he and whether they should withdraw or bring in more troops. because they nearly had a mission failure there in the and the same thing can be said about yemen. yemeni government put its best effort in 2012 and they did a great job except all of them just melted into the mountains and desert. and it's actually a technique that i think they've adopted, when the enemy advances you retrieve. you take all of your weapons and your people and you wait until they get some of their little doodads down there in the valley and down in the village as and then you go down and start carrying out attacks, keep attacking them until they are depleted enough and that is what they're doing right now in yemen and also somalia.

so somalia, absolutely they only control a few districts and areas that they are able to cherry out attacks which they had been prevented from doing so for a couple of years. once again they did with the capability and the ability to carry out attacks. so i don't want to sound like a debbie downer. but i'm just putting forward this is not a map of success but al qaeda advancing and so i would like to answer about the split between this and al qaeda. which i think is a serious issue and i don't want to downplay it. if it goes towards this, it could lead toward a split end will that lead to less violence or more violence.

and so it would be almost certainly more violence. so they really don't carry out terrorist groups that they compete with each other and carry out one more terr both doing this. so as you mentioned, they are being picked up in other

countries other than just isys. and that is a bad thing. and you take a look at what has been going on in northern new nigeria, especially if they were given their full state and it may say that they are fighting each other, that is not necessarily a great thing. but beyond that i have a little bit of an issue because i went through on each group and i realize, this might be based on

false assumptions. so it looks to me -- in the three articles. >> okay. you're talking about official statements. and i don't care about this. >> before you criticize me. it looks like burden of proof is on this to reaffirm the allegiance. to come out with some sort of public statement and you can criticize me going forward. if ordinary numbers.

>> if one or two ranking leaders, like these two guys, or the central group that no one has heard of before. >> right. >> they are soon to be with isis. so if you make those assumptions with al qaeda, this is what you would do. and he would have only two or three groups that are aligned with isis and without

specifically stated, i am with al qaeda and/or i reject isis. so okay, each one of those groups can look at this. >> so at the top of it it is an imperfect model. and a lot of them say they do this where they do that and it's like, it's true. and i was just interviewing a lot of different people. there are probably 14 or 15 different people saying what you think about this or that scenario. i don't like anything that is a sort of probability of what things might be.

i do estimates based on circle science based on my general feel of what the group size might be. so it's almost like a confederation and a conglomeration of it in syria. so i put those together and then i do an estimate of the overlap. i came up with those estimate in terms of not official statements because i don't care about the official statements, but i care about what those supporters are talking about in the online community, who i'm reaching out to and i will ask them their opinion because i cannot possibly stay on top of these different groups. official statements, i look for pushes and pulls and between in my assessment on this is libya and tunisia and it's based on these numbers.

so as we actually read this, this should be updated already and should be part of the team which has committed to this. there are six of these different scenarios. so i don't know what the breakdown is, but i'm trying to give you an estimate of how things might emerge. the main issue is the number is that we talked about earlier and that is where the default ones are to stick with them. but that is where the estimate comes from. >> thank you. i think the two of you can talk about this. so we will have two individuals walking around with microphones. please state your name and your

affiliation and your question, go ahead and ask your question. >> thank you for the discussion. i serve and perhaps because a sand in my life, it seems like you have these parallels and not necessarily hierarchies. and i have another quick question which is what is going on in eastern europe, is that going to change with what is going on in the world and will that be another opportunity for them? >> thank you. so, okay, let's go back. we didn't get to that counterterrorism discussion

right now isis is russia and iraq. they are sticking it to us in the information space that now. so what if instead of trying to just directly counter old guard al qaeda, not paying attention and they are really the ones supporting the assad regime. number two is russia, they are the ones that are really behind the bashar al-assad regime. and they are a really big player in syria. so it's really interesting as you can see the legions fighting together. and so i think that will move

back out. it's like there is some sort of huge battle with whatever gets tangled up there. what is the first one again? [inaudible] >> yes, i totally agree. i talk about the two most dangerous scenarios. i've been pushing this since 2012, if they want to compete with each other, how does that work. that works great until they start pursuing external attacks of europe and so what keeps that going is constant resources. to drive data in the counterterrorism part of this, and the number-one thing number one thing that i can do we really have to focus on is squashing terrorist financiers.

old guard al qaeda continues to sustain resources, they are going to mobilizes resources in a way that they will pursue these external operations. it's in both of these operations and i absolutely agree. one thing i see about this dangerous scenario is out-of-control violence tensor wrote popular support. and so they are rushing it and really trying to hurry up and do this. so they are getting caught and i think we will also hit targets in this way as well. i think it's a concern and i think the europeans should be a lot more worried than i. so we've gotten a lot better at it and it's a testament to the counterterrorism community. but the europeans are going to have a problem with it. so somewhere between three to

10%, you can expect that they will will go back home. we have 10,000 fighters that are there right now, i mean, we are still looking at this depending on what is going on. and right now it looks as if it is divided and attempted to do things elsewhere. the big thing is that they seem to be incapable of carrying out major attacks inside of syria. in other words, we hear a lot about attacks carried out by them, but hardly anything carried out against the regime of isis. so it looks like this is winning the competition.

and this affects the response to read and you're going to get a lot of violence. >> the gentleman at the back table? >> thank you. >> out of these fighters get into this? and it seems like they are going through turkey as well. >> kayak.com. i'm joking. this is basically where they go find plane tickets. they can link up some connections. you can be someone from the middle east and you're more likely to have one of these

affiliates and they can actually pipeline you into a certain group and the other way is to make your way into turkey and you pay some people on social media. and they get to the border and they say i want to make my way down here. so the way that we sort of think about it in our minds, it's like really complicated. and it's very fascinating and very cool. but i would say that there is a difference, they tend to scream or squander about it. with a kind of takes anyone that shows up. >> i think you miss understand

my question. why are they picking these guys up reed. >> i think they're a little bit overwhelmed. we have had u.s. officials talk about the fact that it's the most we've ever seen and scores above what we have seen before. >> hello, i am at the university of southern california and that being the subject i would like to ask our experts with this divide between the two major terrorism situations, what should we be looking for. because it seems to me that we have two competing blocs and there would be less of a nuclear

threat directed towards us and it may be more of a reason to look towards nuclear terrorism in the middle east. so i would like to know what you have to say. >> okay, actually with chemical weapons in syria, obviously that is everyone's nightmare, a nuclear terrorist attack. but i don't have any basis for making that sort of assessment. i'm sorry about that. it's something that we all worry about, but i just don't have that. when it comes to chemical weapons it was al qaeda in iraq they did use chemical weapons, chlorine bombs. but against ordinary muslims. so scores of people were seriously injured probably for life and a few people were actually killed in those

attacks. so to me that suggests that the current incarnation of isis would be far more likely to use chemical weapons than any of the other groups. and i'm very worried about that coming from this as well. >> i think that isis would do it. the only thing that place or favor is executing the sorts of things. so the aqap seems to be those that really plan things out. they made this and they really thought it out. so the only thing to our advantage is that if those things collide it could put them together like that. >> i think the range is limited. the one thing if they are competing with each other so

much and they are in a hurry. >> gentleman in the middle of the room? >> hello, i am an intel analyst. [inaudible] i would like to ask about counterterrorism strategy and why are we engaging on their turf [inaudible] instead of foreign ministries. why are we at the state department coming out with this appropriate ammunition and tear it down the field to arrest? >> that is obviously a very very touchy subject and one that u.s. officials have been very reluctant to engage upon.

so this is what the analogy is for what is going on. he saw himself as someone who is going to remove religion and he also saw himself as a revivalist of the religion in addition to being a great leader of jiang. in his vision was that he alone understood the true version of islam that he was going to impose that version whether they wanted it or not you see what that looks like in somalia. but his vision of going back to the original, and he was making this up as he went along, it reminds one in some ways of the reformation.

so it's kind of like if he is sort of like this, what role do we play? and we are the people who have had this conflicting relationship with this part of the world and looked at in this way. and we are trying to make an argument to the pope that we can solve that and it just doesn't make sense. it's a lot is this as outsiders coming in. so the biggest thing we can do is encourage ordinary muslims to stand up and say what they think and feel. and it has been happening. it is just never repeated in our media. so let me give you a great

example. it was a huge deal, does everyone know that immediately afterward there were 100,000 person march through the streets of benghazi? by the ordinary people of benghazi? know, by and large that was off the radar. hardly anyone talked about it. and i think that is one of our biggest problems. the only thing we can control is to get our media to pay more attention to the sorts of things rather than focusing on those people who were carrying out terrible attacks. >> i agree. we are terrible at it. we try to get involved in it and i've never seen it go very well. we can't coordinate this. we've got too many opinions. we don't understand at in translation, we don't have enough experts or voice says

that i do think that there has been some success in using other ideological authorities to counter from that region and for us to do and i don't think we do it very well. >> on from the university of southern california. he mentioned that since osama bin laden was killed, this has escalated and that we can't really tell when it was good to play out when. but my question is because this fragmentation has escalated from how we respond and is that going to be viable as that escalates? >> watch everything, listen to what they say and act very rarely. and so in 2006 we used to run this for counterterrorism and we

did hundreds of tasks very poorly and rightly across the bureaucracy and it was a disaster. armor going to the department of education. we used to joke that if we could just capture and i'll cut a guy and smother him, that is how convoluted our strategy was heard we were trying to do everything to solve the worlds problems. in my opinion the centralization, we needed to do one thing, which was fight with our intelligence capabilities right now because edward snowden failed to prove his gross negligence and has also coughed up to all of our adversaries to include this in a lot of these al qaeda groups have picked up on how dominant we were. with this fracturing and infighting, so many scenarios.

so if we figure out which way it's going to go, we better have the intelligence capabilities to know what is going on overseas. the other thing is be very nimble and be prepared for the repercussions. so i will give you one key decisive point. what say we are doing drones and this is the most important person in al qaeda. so what is the chain of events will unfold from that? we would expect there to be infighting and twisting one way and then we can also look externally and see this in a lot of different directions because there are a lot of young folks going in this way. to do that we have to have capabilities and we have to plan for the most dangerous scenarios. we hope the administration will do that. where these groups are just watching on.

and then three, we have do not overreact and not overextended. take a few tasks and see what works out really well. one thing i like is the disposition matrix and what is going on. people thought that was something they were confused about. but that was the smart folks in the counterterrorism community is. forget the politics, i work too hard to be a politician. on the counterterrorism side there are some smart folks in the government and the fbi could've been doing this and they sort of figured out saying let's come up with the disposition and how we mitigate this. so i think we have to the support that instead of constantly tearing it down and enabling those people with good intelligence. >> please respond to the question and then we will make statements. >> okay, so first of all i actually think that it is more

ambiguous and it's really unclear which side is going to win out. but what you can see is the vibrance has spiraled out of control and that needs more and so i have three prescriptions. i would say first and foremost we need to stop the escalation that is going on in this is the first time in our 26 her struggle with al qaeda that we are de-escalating what we are doing. so since 2011, and i don't think it's any coincidence that violence has spent about a control, we have the escalated in with john from iraq and afghanistan. we are putting a lot of capabilities and doing all sorts of things to draw this fight down and try to pretend it is still 1995 and so i don't think think we can pretend it's 1995

with not going to ever be 1995 again. the second thing that we should be doing is paying attention to this and not ignoring what is happening to the rest of the world and we have been very focused on ourselves and i'm not saying that we should ignore our own security and pretend this as well, but we cannot pretend as well and so even if you want to say that these have nothing to do with al qaeda, the fact that you have gone from this to this says that we have to be doing more than that we cannot simply withdraw and pretend that all is well with the world. the final thing is we cannot depend solely on attrition. it works for small terrorist groups. they don't replace themselves, problem solved. but it does not work at all for insurgencies. in fact it exacerbate them and can be used as a point of recruitment for them.

so attrition alone is not the solution and we really need to find another solution and that's one of the things that we are working on and have been working on for quite a while. >> are there any concluding thoughts? >> concluding thoughts? >> we have bigger fish to fry than terrorism and now. we have russia, and iran, and another thing that i'm really concerned about, if climate change is real, this is all really kind of silly. we are talking about collapse and things like that. the second thing i would tell you is stop listening to al qaeda experts. there are too many things going on and you really have to find people that are experts in regions. all of these great folks that are out there, i talked to all of them and i can't stay on top

of all this. so if you really want to talk about it and understand it, you better have language skills. i used spanish when i was younger, it's kind of useless now, you know people that have been on the ground in a really understanding the cultural dynamics. you have to work them together in interdisciplinary teams. some really fantastic stuff, you really have to have that. you have to trust in their government. they are not all great, but they're a lot better than they were 12 years ago, which brings me to the escalation. i was in the army in 1995 and never once did i see parallel places in africa on the same day. we did two raids on the same day and we withdrew with no casualties. we could not do this 12 years

ago. that is a testament to our military intel folks who have been out there working. so i'm not about the escalation, but i'm about being nimble and not overreaching. if you really want to bring all of these groups together, we will get right back where we were six or seven years ago. really think what we are going through thinking that we will not have another attack from one of these groups. let's do our best to mitigate and the power it can help these people. it took like a half hour. as anyone watch the video of the al qaeda guy in tripoli? so we really had some great capabilities but let's not tear them down with our politics.

>> please join me in thanking our panelists today. [applause] >> they will be sitting around afterward to follow up. thank you so much again. [inaudible conversations]

will travel to another d-day commemoration close to the allied landing at sword beach. that is live at 8:30 a.m. eastern. >> senate democrats outlined the bill that would allow borrowers to refinance their existing public and private student loans at lower interest rates. from capitol hill, this is 20 minutes. >> student loan debt is an emergency in america now and this week the democrats have

introduced the reef financing act to can help young men and women who are struggling. right now there is one point to chile in dollars in outstanding student loan debt. 40 million americans are dealing with student loan debt. today it is causing young people not to be able to save up money to buy a home or to be able to start small businesses or make the purchases the move this economy forward. consumer financial protection bureau, the department of the treasury have all sounded the alarm. student loan debt is a drag on the economy. this is truly an emergency circumstance. it is hurting people household by household, family by family. and it is also hurting the economy. the democrats have introduced

emergency financing and it is a pretty simple plan. the idea is to refinance the outstanding student loan debt. we propose to refinance debt from the current high interest rates and there are people out there with student loan debt at 6%, 8%, 10% and even higher depending on when they took out their loans. our proposal is to refinance all that debt down to exactly the numbers that the democrats and republicans agreed upon last year is the right number for new debt issued in 2013 to 2014. would bring it down to 3.8% fixed across the board and this is fully paid for. we propose to limit this for millionaires and billionaires and this includes the cbo that has just given us the scoring and we not only fully pay for

it, this would reduce the deficit by billions of dollars and this includes an economic emergency and it is also an issue about our values. did we invest in? do we invest in the billionaires or do we take that money and invest in young people? those who are trying to change their lives. is it time to get started with those who are trying to make something of themselves? we want a fair shot at affordable education and we have introduced a bill to provide that. >> we have worked on a number of ills related to college loans and college debt and this is the centerpiece. the senator has worked so long

and hard to put together an approach that will give millions of american students and families an opportunity to finally get out from under the burden of student debt it poses the basic question to congressional publicans. whose side are you on? we have asked this question over and over again and we asked this when we wanted to extend unemployment benefits to the folks out of work so that they had a fighting chance either families together and to find a new job. we pose this question to those when it came to paycheck fairness, whether men and women would be treated fairly when it came to compensation. we will give them a new opportunity to decide whether congressional congressional republicans are on the side of the 44 million americans who are currently paying off college

student loans. what we have at this legislation is a lifeline. chicago, campus after campus, story after story from a, student after student, and it's all the same. they are overwhelmed with debt in america that compromises their lives and reduces their opportunities in life. we are going to give them a chance with refinancing a lower interest rate and coming to grips with debt which is compromised and i want to thank the senator for this leadership. will any senate republicans step up and join us in this effort to help these students and the working families that support them? >> most americans don't realize that 40 million american families are paying interest rates that are exorbitant and they are paying into u.s.

government. the u.s. government is charging people six and 7% when interest rates are at three. for their student loans. it is just incredible. and our bill rectifies that as well as the private banks. what does it mean? it means a family that could be starting out to buy a home. maybe they can start a new business. student loan debt is the hidden anchor on our entire economy. when young families can't get started because they have this huge burden of debt on their shoulders, we want to give them a fair shot and every person deserves a fair shot at college and a reasonable interest rate

when the interest rates are so far down. our fair shot agenda shows that we are for average families and we can't get any of our public and colleagues without sinking in with people to understand that. and so i want to thank all of my colleagues who worked so hard on this. elizabeth has been the leader here and a guiding force and al franken has had some very good ideas and is one of our sponsors. so is tom harkin who is head of the committee. and we are united. we pay for it by saying the people who make over a million dollars should pay the same tax rate as are secretaries. so this is actually eight that reducing bill.

they agree with the concept that people shouldn't pay exorbitant interest rates and if they want to pay for it in a different way, we welcome them to step forward. but make no mistake about it, this is a huge issue in america and we are going to come back to this issue again. people on college campuses are talking about it. and we are going to make this happen. maybe not next week, but we will make this happen because it's only fair and it's only right and the vast majority of americans, they are on our side. >> as you heard today, more americans than ever are being crunched under this burden of student loan debt that is hurting borrowers and our families in economies and people are looking to congress to do something about this. yesterday i held a hearing on this issue on the budget committee and we had a young woman there by the name of

britney said that since she was in the second grade, she wanted to be a teacher more than anything. but to make that impossible and go to college, she had to rely on student loans. today she is dealing with the overbearing burden of paying down the debt. after graduating she said that those crushing student loans have been the driving force of her decisions and will continue to be for the next 25 years. decisions like buying a home was saving for retirement. she was there to ask congress to act and to help people like her so that americans have a fair shot at pursuing their dreams. and that is exactly what senator warren and other senate democrats are trying to do. the refinancing act would simply let borrowers refinance your student loans and put wal-mart in turn more money into borrowers pocket.

and this includes starting a new business and making the kinds of purchases that willet. and this includes starting a new business and making the kinds of purchases that will help boost our economy today. this bill is fiscally responsible. it is fully paid for by asking the wealthiest americans to pay their fair share. so the question today is will republicans choose to protect loopholes for millionaires and billionaires, or will they choose to help ease the burden for student debt. will they side with people like britney or block the chance for her to lower the interest rates on term loan? will republicans work with us to help families and the economy or will they put politics first. i really hope that they choose the bipartisan path on this just like they did last year with the bipartisan certainty act. they are asking us to help them out with increasing debt on families that they are having to pay for year after year, making them make choices that hurt their families and it's time for us to be on their side.

>> i was in las vegas and southern nevada. the students represent and they are afraid. we talk about 34 million people having student debt. these men and women leave that they do deserve a fair shot. and that is what this is all about. we want to make sure that student debt is reduced and not increased and that every university around the country, we are talking about is even more, which means that they would have to borrow more money and it's vitally important to the stability of our great country. >> my understanding of the bill

[inaudible] >> he will have a better answer of that. >> the cbo has now scored it and they have told us what the cost will be people who are eligible refinanced down to 3.86% for undergraduate loans. exactly the numbers that we agree to and they have determined the cost of that and the revenue that will come in and that there will be billions of dollars more that can come in that we need to spend and this will be an additional amount is to pay down the deficit. >> the cbo has a number out there. we don't have an exact number, but we do know that it's many billions of dollars.

>> you have any intention to try to take this on? >> yes, and my colleague has been stellar in this. he has talked about this at least once a week. so any time that he makes progress on this, it's important to us. ..

he has tried to escape a couple of times and the conditions he lived under during this period of time were deplorable. the president of the united states has granted the chief of the united states natori had a decision to make make any have an opportunity to bring home an american soldier and he brought them home and i'm glad he did. >> well was your impression of his health? >> dana i don't know. i'm not going to, i don't know. we do know that his health is not good that's obvious but i mean that's not -- let's assume he was in vibrant health and he was faking all of this. he is an american soldier who has been in captivity for five years. the war is winding down. let's bring them home. we did and if there are privation --

when he gets in a condition that they can stabilize his mental and physical situation they will determine what if anything more should be done. >> do you think the white house could've done a better job in moving it through congress? >> listen i know and everyone here a timeline was very brief here. this has nothing to do with the briefing -- the classified briefing. we all know the president had a short period of time to make a decision. he made a decision to bring them home and i'm glad he did because in my opinion based on nothing in the classified briefing, in my opinion every day that he was there was a day closer to his dying. >> you why were you the only one that got a heads up the day before?

>> i'm not sure i was only one. it was a whole big deal made of nothing. weather was friday or saturday what difference does it make? >> or colleague who called on the administration to release declassified files on the prisoner that were released. >> that's a decision they will have to make. that's not for us to make and also in answer to everyone's question here the president did this in consultation as commander in chief with his highest military advisers and there's not a single one that i'm aware of that disagreed with his decision. >> general motors industry reports there was no cover-up and they fired -- make people. [inaudible] do you believe the department of justice will bring charges against the people that were fired and will be held

accountable? >> they were fired. do you want to put them in jail now? i don't know. let's determine if it was illegal before we start throwing them in jail. >> do you think senator sanders and senator mccain will be able to come to a compromise? >> i've spoken to senator sanders a couple of times a day and senator mccain is working with him. it's my understanding senator schumer has talked to both of them last night into day and i'm very confident and hopeful that they would work something out on a bipartisan basis. i have gone over the outline of what they are planning on doing and i hope that sticks because it sounded pretty good to me. [inaudible] >> lets wait and see what they come up with. we are a long ways from what they want to do to what they are going to do. i will wait and see what they have to say this afternoon. thanks everybody.