frommal news rah. that i'm really worried about. when i talk about al-qaeda, that's the strain that i'm most concerned with still to this day, and that, to me, is what al-qaeda is. >> great. and i have the same question for you since you just published a report looking at what is al-qaeda and, actually, walked through the kind of administration definition of al-qaeda. i think that it might be useful for the viewers to actually hear what the administration has defined as al-qaeda and how you see it. >> the administration's view of al-qaeda is actually quite constrained and narrow and defined to a large extent by the authorization for the use of military force that was passed in september of 2001. it might explain why the senate is in the midst of updating that. according to that, al-qaeda is solely those people who carried out 9/11. that is, it's a very tiny little group of people sometimes called the core or core leadership, have their houses or residence

somewhere in afghanistan, pakistan and from there are plotting and planning to carry out attacks against the united states and others. that's the definition used by this administration, and when they talk about affiliates, very loosely-aligned groups that share some of the same goals of al-qaeda but not all of them. sometimes listen to what the al-qaeda core says, sometimes don't and have their own agendas, usually local. they want to overthrow the local guy, replace him with their type of leadership, impose their vision of a very extremist sharia on unwilling muslims. so that's the definition that's useed by this administration. my definition of al-qaeda is actually based primarily on their self-definition; that is, the way al-qaeda itself defines itself. corrected and also adjusted and with a little bit of skepticism by looking at what's going on in

the real world. so how does al-qaeda define itself? it defines itself as an organization and an ideology. an organization that is a hierarchical organization with a leadership and then guys under them who are supposedly doing what the leadership wants them to do. and also hierarchical in the sense that you have what's known as the high command up there in afghanistan/pakistan, and then you have what they call branches that are linked organically. the term they use in arabic do sr. [speaking in native tongue] linked organically to this high command. so the argument they have is this organization gives orders, and people down on the ground at least attempt to obey them. but there's other things about the organization. it's also defined by an oath very much like a feudal oath that you're supposed to obey just as, you know, let's say the king of france back in 1200 had

a whole lot of dukes and barons and others that had sworn an oath, and they're supposed to obey their king based on that oath. and then a along with that there's all these perm connections. people -- personal connections. people who have known each other for decades. trained in afghanistan and these personal connections also go into forging this organization to. but along with that there's also ideology that links them all together. and it's an ideology that has three pieces, at least according to al-qaeda. it has an ideology, al-qaeda, it has a methodology -- [speaking in native tongue] and it has a very, very extremist and specific version of sharia that no one else in the world actually adheres to. so those three things are what al-qaeda uses to define its in who belongs to us. now, here's the thing about that. sometimes we get lucky and you have people leak things or say things like this on social media when they're not supposed to,

and they say, yes, we're part of al-qaeda. or you have a dispute or discussion, and somebody says you're not really al-qaeda, and they say, yes, we really are, we swore bayat. they do consider themselves to be al-qaeda. but often people are sort of hiding it. so, for instance, clint mentioned some of the documents that were found after mali, northern mali was riblated from these extreme -- liberated from these extremists. one of the things was a document describing the relationship between a local group that was somehow attached to al-qaeda and describing its relationship with al-qaeda in the islamic maghreb. and what that said was they actually were al-qaeda the whole time, and we're told -- and were told don't say something about your connections to anything having to do with al-qaeda or a global agenda or even, you know, something

jihadist. you are a group who's just here to fix things in northern mali. that's your messaging, that's the framing we want the for you. we do not want you to be talking about your connections with al-qaeda. so sometimes you don't get any glimpses into the real relationships that are going on with people unless people leak things in social media or, you know, put something out in an e-mail or something that happens to get leaked, and we all get a chance to look at it. so you fall back, as i have, on those last three. that is the ideology. do they share al-qaeda's methodology? ideology or creed and their version of sharia. now, the interesting thing about the islamic state of iraq and baa shell which is this short of breakaway group in syria that that has declared its independence from al-qaeda, once had a relationship with them and now it's declared their independence from them. the argument they're having

with al-qaeda was specifically about min hajj, that is, specifically about the methodology that was being used by al-qaeda. they disagreed profoundly with it, and for that reason they broke away from al-qaeda. so it was significant enough for isis to make in the center of their dispute with al-qaeda and to define themselves as different from al-qaeda. that is, their ideology and their methodology this particular. >> great. well, clint, there's a lot to respond to there. >> yeah. >> i think from what i read of your work, you've written extensively about the ideology of al-qaeda and actually the threat that that poses to us. and my sense is that you have a slightly different take than mary on what that is. >> so i think the ideology stuff is nonsense. i'll just put that out right away. here's why. ideology is malleable, and these guys whenever they want to change it, will. and that's what's going on with the loyalty right now. the if you follow with isis, a

lot of debate about did baghdadi swear an oath of loyalty to bin laden, and al-qaeda says, oh, yes, he did, and baghdadi says, no, i kind of did but then things changed. i'm waiting for the ideology that tells me the justification right now for why isis can suicide bomb jabhatal news rah can suicide bomb against isis members. that ideology will morph to whatever the conditions are on ground for these local groups. they're picking their own sheikhs now. we see this in a debate going on, actually, in pakistan which is fascinating. you had nine or ten folks in pakistan come out and pledge loyalty to isis. just last week al-qaeda central published a statement from clerics refuting these nine for why they're wrong for joining isis. that ideology is malleable, and it will change based on the connections that are on the

ground and the situation in the power plays. three years ago everybody would tell me that the ideology was so binding and pure that there would never be in-fighting in this organization. the three ss that prove this to be completely false. the first one is somalia. there have been fractures in somalia, and they became more severe once go can pledged to al-qaeda central and al-qaeda central recognized it with she babb. there had been all sorts of connections. they wanted to pledge loyalty, they thought they did to al-qaeda. bin laden was really nervous about those guys for good reason, probably, and sort of rebuffed them. they talk about three or four times where there'd be these "game of thrones" power plays. and they would use that to corral all these clans underneither them. and as soon as they did that -- underneath them. you'd seal a whites with loose

connections to al-qaeda. shows up in the harmony documents. what is going on? they can't control it. al-qaeda really can't control it. they don't have the control that they did under bin laden's era. and what really shows after all this ideological stuff is when personnel and resource problems arise, oaths of loyalty and ideology will shift to whatever those guys need to do and however they want to propel themselves. the second s is in the sahel. there was limited communication. those letters are great because they do show the communication, but when you keep sending out a message to the boss and he never answers you back or because of the digital pony express which is where you take the thumb drive, the messenger goes, it takes three weeks for him to get back there pakistan. you do what? you're on your own. you start making your own plans. you start giving your own interpretations of the ideology, and it's usually a convenient of that. the sahel was the second s, and

the third one, which i'm third we'll come back to, is what's going on in syria right now. the number one killer of jihadis in syria is other jihadis right now. and why? that ideology isn't strong enough. they had difference of opinion based on it, but there's also resource of personnel issues that are there. there's a huge leadership problem right now in al-qaeda. bin laden resonated, and he had money. he had resources. he was from the gulf, the heart of the foreign fighters that come into these conflicts. who have you got now? zawahiri. not a lot of fun to be with, kind of a bad boss. very smart, though, strategically. right? he's always reaching out, trying to make plans. doesn't command the resources. these guys have gone off on their own now. they're resourcing themselves. so what happens? he can't communicate with them on a routine bay i sis, and he starts to lose control. they start choosing their own direction. the smartest thing he did was

nominating the emir of aqap to be the deputy of al-qaeda. why did he do that? this is "game of thrones," folks. you can watch it on hbo, just change the names, okay? why did he do that? he needed a gulf guy to try and keep that in line. he didn't have that, remember? he's from egypt. he's got a lot of connections in lfg. i've got to have my gulf guy. aqap was the winner. they were the only ones that were getting some success trying to do external operations against the west. and you can tell it from our actions. drones go where with terrorists are. so if you want to know where the strength of al-qaeda's movement is look at those blips in those drone strikes and where they're going. so when i hear the ideological discussion, i get really, really nervous because it reminds me of where we were 12 years ago, which was a highly expansive

ideology was used to justify action on many, many levels. and so we were pursuing what we called terrorists who had very weak or different, intent capability and commitment to striking the west. and instead of actually eliminating threats, we were probably making more of them in some of these places. we were providing impetus, right? it was called iraq. we made a second generation of foreign fighters in that conflict. whether we like it or not. but that's what happened. the only thing that's good about this in some ways is it's created this enormous dissension this the ranks because there's a lot of dissension between the first generation of foreign fighters which is that group from afghanistan that made the original al-qaeda, and as mary rightly pointed out, they all have relationships with each other. they actually work together and team together. bin laden and sa what writer hi -- zawahiri, they missed out on the second generation. those are czar zarqawi's boys. he had his own interpretations,

and we saw that back in 2006 which i think mary talks about really well in her article, the differences about targeting, direction and ideology. my final point is i am very focused on the strains that are most, you know, committed to awe tacking the u.s. i think the ideology -- attacking to u.s. i think the ideology is a wild hair that we can chase all over the place. and all these groups have component ideology, but they're also debating internally about their commitment to different portions of it. so that's sort of my fake on that as an -- my take on that as an al-qaeda definition, too expansive to me. >> mary, to respond to the idea that ideology isn't how we fundamentally see al-qaeda? i know it's changed over the past 12 years where when we first started the war on terror, it really was a way we had a very expansive view of what the ideology is, but i me you have been studying it and have a much more refined idea of exactly what that is and how to differentiate between zarqawis

who some might argue aren't part of that core al-qaeda and those in yemen who do subscribe to the ideology. >> actually, just starting there, 12 years ago or nearly 13 years ago ideology was, in fact, dismissed by most people in the previous administration. and, in fact, there was sort of a cap put on it. what was looking at -- what the administration at that time looked at was jihaddism; that is, were people engaged in violence. and that's really all they cared about x. they didn't distinguish between different groups by their ideology. and, in fact, defined the threat so broadly it included tons of jihadist groups that weren't in tune with al-qaeda, its methodology and its ideology. so i would say actually there was very little attention plaid to it the, and -- paid to it 12, 13 years ago. that changed somewhere around 2005, 2006 when people began to

distinguish between groups based on that. so instead of saying any group that engages in violence of any sort is a danger to the united states, they began to say, okay, which groups have an ideology that compels them to attack the united states first? because that's part of al-qaeda's methodology and ideology. to attack the united states rather than other local governments. so by looking at that, they were able to distinguish amongst groups and actually narrow the definition of the enemy there that broad, expansive first definition they had right after 9/11. but getting back to this question of whether ideology is even important, let me just say where i agree with you. pragmatism absolutely plays a role in nearly everything that al-qaeda does. they're an extremely pragmatic group. especially when it comes to military matters. if you read some of the things they've written about mao, about, you know, castro's experience in cuba, you name it,

one of their best military leaders, in fact, wrote his master's thesis on jop and thought that jop was the model to follow in order to defeat the united states. after all, the last time somebody defeated the united states was in vietnam, right? so very, very pragmatic when it comes to military matters, when it comes to some economic matters, when it comes to a lot of different issues. ..

so, in fact, ideology was the motivation to write a 700 page book called the exoneration in which he took on the argument, changed argument of one of his mentors, one of the godfather's of jihad as it were in egypt and argued against his ideological interpretation in order to show people where he'd gone astray. if you read through a lot of the things that they say, the very first part, no part in the end part is all about the ideological justification for what we're doing. as i've mentioned the main dispute between isis and al-qaeda central committee what to call them that, is about their change in creed and methodology. in fact, they are engaging in an ideological struggle with each other over the future of al-qaeda. is one of the implications of that. the particular methodology that isis has chosen to follow follows that of zarqawi.

some people call to split the sort of -- when it comes to zarqawi's use of fighting on the police that, well, unicode you should take care not to kill innocent civilians right to the point where it hinges on your military operation. in other words, he talks about not killing civilians but it is going to make you give up an operation that was really worth it, really a sweet operation, he believed we should just go ahead with the. if you killed 50 innocent muslims and killed one american and ex-change, that was perfectly fine. he also believed in carrying out, invoking in fact and causing a sectarian war with the shia and spent a lot of his time killing innocent she and her to set off a sectarian war. how many people can say that they purposely set out to cause sick carry them into the war. like he wrote about that and the fact that's exactly what he started to do. so his vision of methodology and

of greed said it is perfectly fine for us to do this. in fact, yet people write justification, write him justification for doing this. on the other hand, is a wardy has consistently costly said it is wrong to kill innocent muslims and just put a lot of pressure on those who have sworn bayat to him to live up to the. to change behavior we've seen as a result of that in places like somalia where if you were remember, shabaab who carried out the horrible terrorist attack in kenya, one of the things they did was attempt to figure out who was a muslim and who was not a muslim before they started randomly shooting people, killing by the way a lot of muslims in the meantime. but they actually asked people a set of questions to try to figure out if they were muslims before they carried out their attack. nobody had done anything like this before he put out his

statement saying this is what you going to do, and here is the sharia justification for it, here's what they say. for now on those who follow our methodology are going to be doing this. if you go back and take a look, bitter complaints, they just put out a few weeks ago. he's the spokesman for isis. he says repeatedly you have left the original methodology. elected the original creed, and we are following on in zarqawi and osama bin laden's footsteps and you're not going to change this on us. so for him ideology actually mattered. >> you gave three examples of splits and arguments. let's start with the somali when the as i've only suggested they seem to be taking some kind of direction from al-qaeda because that note from zawahiri came out, and public statement about these are the things we want to do, we want to see, and

this occurred several months after that came out. so one can make an argument it sounds like they are doing what he had to say, but more importantly all the people are going to leave have either left or been killed. and just recently shabaab reaffirmed its allegiance to al-qaeda central, twice. whom they reaffirmed their allegiance. the south, have been arguments. it a terrible argument with the heads of al-qaeda islamic maghreb and ahead of a group that called itself -- those who assigned themselves in blood. i don't know why we would to call yourself that, but i guess that was what he thought best expressed his orientation. terrible argument became a been

those mali documents, even more clear than it had in press reporting about this. what also became clear over time is that something had happened to settle this because he went off and joined up with -- was not made the head of the new group that was put off someplace else in the sahel, nor she was willing to be under someone else, a guy who wasn't named until just like a month ago when he was killed, and was willing to again swear his allegiance to al-qaeda just a month ago. ended april, april 30 he also came forward and said no, i have my allegiance to al-qaeda central and to zawahiri. when it comes to syria, the major argument that is going on there as this is between isis, the breakaway group and al-nusra, the nusra front, the

guys have definitely declared their egregious to zawahiri. but i've been watching carefully to see what other groups are signing up with isis versus those that are signing up with jabhat al-nusra. the results are about 20 or 30 to one of the groups that are signing up with just al-nusra versus those with signing up with isis. al-qaeda, in other words, is winning out spent i think we'll circle back to the divide shorter but i actually want to come back to a point that clinton made about pragmatism. setting aside the ideology and looking at the leaders on the ground that have to make the decisions, and i think part of the argument and please correct me if i'm wrong, over the past few years what has happened with al-qaeda and the death of bin laden it's lost its leader -- its central issue. we've seen decentralization. there's a lot more autonomy for these groups, no they essential are self-funded, self-starters

and kind of like the generation today on twitter, are looking to venture out and be their own started. so how does that pragmatism play in to al-qaeda and what is the state of al-qaeda today? is there still cooperation, coordination, or a we look at much more of an individualized actor? >> right. so al-qaeda is getting killed today for the same reasons that we get worried about, like our young employees being on social media. it's fastening to watch. jim burger, like is the one who sort of was putting this together, they could kind keep some centralized control, like back in 2006 and seven we're like the internet is the panacea for al-qaeda. is really helping them branch out, kee get the message out th. that was very true, but as the internet has involved into the -- evolved into this two-way engagement, it's unraveled on the much in the way it unravels

on us when we want to control message. so like the goofy white house employee that starts a bogus twitter account, starts making stupid comments come and you see stuff like this all the time. so they're having a hard time right now and i will tell you to read two things that i think a really excellent that are out there right now for understanding how things are playing out, not just with al-qaeda but in terms of terrorism and to pick the first one is by jake shapiro called the chairs dilemma. it is a great discussion about the ideology and pragmatism play against each other and he deconstruct from us out everything we've been talking about for 12 years. uses lots of different case studies together one, rand put out a report this week talking about the decentralization essentially a terrorism and how al-qaeda is really like just one group in this different organizations that are out there and that there's all these sorts of debates from direct pragmatism and what we should be doing within these groups. so if you want to know when al-qaeda central does well or

old guard al-qaeda which a focus on it comes down to just a few things. one, success versus failure. the reason that a.q. 70 to be right now to be top dog in their own community is because they haven't been hitting homeruns lately. the external attack happened back in 2005, 2002 when let's say waistcoat was al-qaeda attack they kind of are taking press and using -- young folks, fighters right now that are motivating are going to isis because isis in the jihadi world is a winner. they are doing attacks. the other thing that's fastening to watch that i didn' didn't ext was that really attracted to this idea of building an islamic state. they are excited about it. some of the pushback that goes against al-qaeda with this is you guys have not succeeded in putting together a state. it's been us out here working on this. the other thing you got remember when it comes to success and failure to most recruits right now are 18-24. how old were they on 9/11?

they were young. this is something they saw and they knew about and it was in their communities. what valid them was more iraq and yemen and he's other affiliate locations. so success has not been held strictly within the old guard al-qaeda network. it's being achieved by a lot of different jihadi groups. if you want to attract foreign fighters and resources you better be doing attacks. it's a reciprocal relationship. that brings to the next thing which is resources. during the bin laden era and this was fascinating, you see people all the way up to bin laden's death going to bin laden essentially asking them both like strategic guidance and wouldn't it be great if you could cough up 100 bucks so we could like do this. there's still the discussion in the background about resource allocation but even in palestine there's some interesting things there that show that network and control. so what he doesn't have it. and greg johnson who wrote the book on aqap, the last refuge come as a great quote. been hot and -- bin laden knew

how to organize the resource thing. when you go back to the '90s, we had this national geographic special about how al-qaeda originated through about eight or nine years but they would look at the diaries, he was like i am the man in jihad. but bin laden has little money so i will ask and follow my but i am the leader, and to success really brought a lot of al-qaeda together, especially during the intermediate period. since his leadership that has really been distributed. now you see what i called yo-yo resource and that you are on your own and other groups once they start resourcing on their own you and i right now could crowd point a group in syria if we wanted to on twitter. we could literally pledge money to a group. so as resource control gets a limited for al-qaeda and they can't control it, if the boss isn't paying you come you start doing more what you want to with the boss wants. you always keep the connection and keep it going.

it's very political pick the next part i want to make sure talk of is the physical relationship and that's really what's going on today. we defeat ourselves of thinking the internet was steeped all of al-qaeda adherents around 2005-seven. loyal to each other. that was wrong. we were wrong. the power of the zarqawi legions is what powered. it's a parallel thing that they build, but there's nothing discussion especially in open source of out enter al-sharia is doing something really great. i would love it if move them out and go with isis. so there's a real unique dynamic that's going on. in those legions come in that region upon iraq there are two nodes that are critical force for understanding understanding the isis, 80, old guard a.q. split and what things will go in the future. the first one are the foreign fighters from libya and tunisia and actually i would just show

where this rift is. we will use this one. so these are some scenarios i'll talk about in a second. should i do that now? will jump to the end. so there are two nodes that are ready critical. foreign fighters from libya and tunisia in north africa and foreign fighters from yemen and saudi in the gulf. they really are the ones that will decide what direction this goes. that is we see the debate about she would be on teen isis shall be an old guard al-qaeda. there's a debate among the young people. young people are motivated by isis because they really sharpen me. they're committing lots of violence. they're going after islamic states are also dumber and so they tend to make more mistakes. old guard al-qaeda on the other hand, is staying loyal entry through the values. they are screening would make sure they don't have any moles in their system. they are being much smarter, but if you get one over the

resources, and this is like the wires challenge on the committee can't win over the people you don't command the resources, you are in a very, very bad situation. i will lay out three scenarios and that's where those dynamics come from the person is that you can see really the two poles emerge. one which i call old guard al-qaeda which are these groups and the ones that they have the tightest connections with in syria, and then over time all of these sort of foreign fighters that are motivated flip over to be the isis sort of network. with that you'll still have a lot of these groups now that are just waiting it out. for some people interpret this as like i pledged loyalty to al-qaeda in telling mary said there are 30 groups loyal to al-qaeda. if i'm not getting money from the boss and his eye communicating with me that much and i don't need to pick sides, and what am i going to do? i'm going to wait and see which way things go and i will play the middle and i'll run my own stuffy or wherever it might be

if it's this era, nigeria, if it's in somalia. i watch them and i will commit intel i have to. we know this from elections and her own country. we all wait to see the candidates and suddenly we use our choice from the beginning. that is the never, never one. number two is what i think is kind of going on today which is fascinating to watch. i'll give you come these are three scenarios because if anybody tells you they are an al-qaeda expert i can say which way this can go, you should show them the door. they don't know what you're thee talking about. there's way too much going on. we have no stroke and old guard al-qaeda with a bunch of different groups industry battling out against isis in any sort of connection that they can go. this is a sustained sort of icon that al-qaeda internal civil war with a jihad is our fighting at each other, fighting at each of the. sounds great a little bit. this is the sunday right now in syria. we've got jihad is fighting jihad is providing hezbollah who are fighting aside and all fighting each other and in their

skirts in the mix and you go, if i strip it from a counterterrorism perspective from what's not to like a? these guys are all chewing themselves up and it's a meat grinder. the effect over the long run is donors i don't want to donate a bunch of and if you're just going to kill other jihadi or get into a sectarian conflict. if you're a foreign fighter you start to say, man, i thought it was just coming here to which is the in jihad and be part of al-qaeda that i mostly protecting my brothers or i am fighting al shia. it has a corrosive effect. today you see foreign fighters coming back. this is a key issue, the blowback we're seeing in europe. europe should be very we heard -- very worried. we see these guys coming back because they'r there disillusion what's going on terms of the conflict. they will still be jobs that the civil war has a really corrosive effect. the third one is that there's so much infighting and things are going poorly that you stick with where you can resource and work together the best and we can communicate the best. where does that happen? it happens regionally.

easy groups like shabaab working with other groups in kenya and to work together the occasional have contact and this document it. i don't doubt that with al-qaeda central and they probably do with isis as well and they sort of swung around the same thing in the desert. ya aqim. they will break into three or four areas. they will ultimately. al-qaeda will try to control. from isis a lot of young veterans would be like we should start our own crew. everyone is choosing their own best path. what you might see is all three of these scenarios but play out in a sequence. i don't know what the sequence will be. i would love to have all the counterterrorism analysts put their backs down on how this'll play a because it would be faceting to see would be right in the end. i really think we are seeing civil war first, maybe some version of could isis become the global leader, although they kind of act dumb recently so maybe they won't. and then maybe just have regional conglomerate over the longer run, 18 months and so.

that's where i see sort of al-qaeda going. what al-qaeda, old guard al-qaeda needs to do is they've got to start getting on top of foreign fighters, recruit and again, they got to start securing resources and distributing, three, they got to make a plot to some sort of dominant player. it comes with two most dangerous scenarios. one, if i was al-qaeda, old guard al-qaeda, zawahiri right now, i would be going through al-nusra, going through my allen know in syria and i would attack syria right now. why attack israel? it put everybody back on your side but everybody wants a common enemy of all those groups in the region and you force the use which is been sitting on the sidelines had to make a decision. whose team are you going to be on? are you going to go with the gulf? are you going to go with israel? choose your alliance. you have to make a decision. the of the most dangerous a new i think that's out there and this comes from this scenario, and i'm worried about this week,

is you get competition. if you want to put yourself as a global leader again, you do a big external operation. that's another thing you can do. it draws all the attention back to you. it shows you are dominant. i think isis is doing a ramp up. okay, we want to be the global leader. what we do? will do an attack in saudi raid and if somebody should have something and do an attack in your. likely they are dumber and moving quickly whereas old guard al-qaeda is smarter and more pragmatic and blind things a. that's kind of were i think things will go. spent a lot to talk about there. and as would like to circle back long-term to the isis question, especially given the treatment from a couple weeks can. but first let's look with the state of al-qaeda is today, and clinton laid out what he saw as a movement that is much more globalized and is fighting resources and al-qaeda core that essentially has been sidelined because the wearies

pockets are is the because he is afraid -- zawahiri, and, frankly, he's just not as good looking guy as bin laden. how do you see al-qaeda today? >> so, ma i'd like to begin with something that i think is underlying some of our different views of al-qaeda, and that is your vision of your objectives versus your vision of my objectives. so al-qaeda is joint defined as a terror screw. that's almost people think about them. they carry out terrorist attacks but is that what their main purpose is to attack america? throughout the 1990s they put out several official propaganda think this and then, bin laden talked about how he would love to kill americans. they actually attempted to do that several times. they could have attacks in east africa, the us uss cole, so onef with. but, in fact, al-qaeda has

always had a second site to it that was taking up the vast majority of its funding, time and effort during the 1990s, at least according to the 9/11 commission report. 99% of its funding was, in fact, going to creating what they called mujahedin. that is, guerrilla fighters. for a long-term insurgency. insurgency rather than the 1% that was 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%? i'll tie you what basis. that 1% was aimed at us. isn't that the important thing? what's going to affect us and americans. certainly is for a americans. we don't pay attention to that 99%. we don't pay attention to all that other messy stuff going on out there that al-qaeda has said from the beginning was the

real objective. that is, to overthrow every single local leader in the muslim majority world and replace them with people who would follow their version, there extremist version of sharia. that is the underlying objective. attacking america was, in fact, just a means towards that end because they saw america as the main stumbling block towards achieving that end. u.s. always shows up. we are always there with funding, with troops, always there messing up their plans for world domination. seriously that's a bin laden thought in the 1990. he called himself in fact and the people around him i suppose he had to say this, although is really all about him, we are a government in exile for the empire muslim world. that's how he saw himself and that was in 2000, long before come as ub40 carried out 9/11. he, in fact, warned them,

something big is coming. something they will, that will change the entire calculus out there, and then we have to start considering ourselves what really are, a government in exile for the entire muslim majority world. they had bigger plans than simply carrying out attacks against the united states. i'm glad you pointed out that they haven't carried out attacks against the united states, and yet as you say, they have managed to recruit more and more and more people to their cause, to their ideology and to the methodology to carry out this war. the reason that than it is through insurgencies. so insurgencies in iraq but more importantly today, you mentioned this younger group and rightly so, more importantly for them is syria. syria is acting as a huge radicalizing force without the presence of the united states. by the way this is a great falsification of the proposal that was put forth by people. that is, the presence of the united states that radicalize is

people and that turns them into jihadists. it turns out you don't need to the presence of the united states. it is, in fact, the absence of the united states that is radicalizing people in syria right now. the u.s. -- yet more and more people are being rather localized. -- radicalized but if you look at what they're focusing on in the 1990s and was he doing today, and as for zawahiri being a failure, i'd like to just go through -- sorry about the change. outside known a different sort of -- so here's al-qaeda linked to terrorism in 2011 before the death of bin laden. the great leader, founder, charismatic guy who is going to lead us forward into tomorrow. but here's in fact where things were at in 25 just before his death. this is where al-qaeda terrorism was occurring at a level that can be called serious but it doesn't mean there weren't other terrorist attacks in other places. for instance, india, ask about

2011 that was really being wrapped up by indian counterterrorism folks. but by 2011 this is basically where serious terrorism is being carried out by people who claim the relationship with al-qaeda. here's al-qaeda terrorism in 2014. i have a big question mark because i'm just not certain who is doing this. the chinese government says the methodology that is being used resonates, it looks like al-qaeda to me but it's uncertain but it is certainly people who are being inspired by, who thinks al-qaeda is worth anything. so i include this here as well. but if you take a look from kenya all the way up to the caucasus, there is more violence being carried out than in 20 live in. that's fairly, the kind of your any ceo of the company wants to see. but that's just the tip of the iceberg. here are al-qaeda insurgencies

in 2011, and you can see a call what was going on in iraq at the time a high level that still manageable terrorism. they were no longer able to keep and hold territory. the people of iraq have turned against them, and successfully with the surge that the united states carried out along with them, able to take out most of the al-qaeda terrorists and insurgents. so the were really only three places where they were serious insurgencies can what i call embedded insurgencies. that is, mature insurgencies occurring. three places, somalia, afghanistan and pakistan have some sort of northern pakistan of course, some sort of connection with al-qaeda. here's al-qaeda insurgency in 2014. and again this is -- if this is fairly, this is the kind of failure that we all want to see. for a guy who was no charisma, and i agree the guy has no charisma, but everybody always

said he was the smart one. they said he was the one who was the planner. the guy who always had something up his sleeve who knew how to do things and was willing to think long-term. five, 10, 15, 20 years into the future rather than go for the short-term gain. and what we see here is in country after country, al-qaeda influence, al-qaeda linked groups using my definition of al-qaeda. and even if you don't use it, those people who believe in al-qaeda's ideology and al-qaeda's methodology for carrying this out are engaged in insurgencies in about a dozen countries today. so if that's failure, that's the kind of god i think we all want to see. you had a second piece to that i think -- >> i need to respond. so i don't know if any of you guys have ever been to the defense contracting community. this light is what we call the moneymaker right there. this is scary al-qaeda met. i've been doing these as 2004 at

least. i worked as a combating terrorism center. that's our shock and all powerpoint slide. scary al-qaeda met. we throw that thing out there. we're -- we are getting so boring way too much credit for a lot of things that are just doing. --''s a wardy. argument that al-qaeda. lots of these places, a great one is like every article went aqim was like on the boom in 2012 really taking over billing, every article said they are the largest state in history of mankind, initiative in parentheses which also happens to be the largest pile of sand on the planet. they operate in a lot of these places but look at what happens when we decide, this goes into the counters him, when we decide to do something, the french, remember that country bailed out in world war ii? they been those guys out of mali in a week. holy cow. never saw that coming, okay?

when we decide we want to do something, when we decide there's a threat to us, we can do. we are circling whole countries here and basically laying out an assumption that this is a threat to an entire country, or that al-qaeda controls an entire country. somalia, somaliland to we are talking about south and central somalia and a declining ratio at that. you can read the series on shabaab and the mapped out, it's good, i think al-jazeera has done it with a show where it is declining. zawahiri to resume if we go by this metric is a lot like the resume of anyone when you get in the inbox and the are only 24 and something event 13 jobs and 14 publications or something like that, out if this person do this and they're only 24? we are giving them a lot of credit. a lot of these insurgencies are shooting themselves in the foot. they're out of control. they are violent. they are not even pursuing things in line with bin laden or

zawahiri's objectives. a great example from two weeks ago, boko haram. we get all upset about boko haram. they kidnap these women and sell them off. probably not something they would recommend and the article said, the first article i read said al-qaeda linked group boko haram kidnaps and sells off women. okay, we are giving them a lot of credit again. yes, the first thing they bring up his bin laden in 2003, 2004, gives money to start up a training camp for boko haram. look, if they're upset about trafficking of women we don't need to go find and al-qaeda connection. why do we do this? aumf, ma armed use of metaphors is a way we can mobilize the two things are what we want to do. these insurgencies are not going to be successful in a lot of cases and in some ways they are weakening al-qaeda because they are going way out of bounds in terms of violence, isis being a great sample. they are weakening their partner support and the local area. and eventually, and this is an example from algeria if you've

ever looked at it back in the day, the usage as you called let it ride. okay, you want to build, you could do the. they would prefer it off and they say you go all day long, and they would wait until what, the businessmen would start to come out, the families to come out and say hey, without is going to be great. turned out it wasn't so great. so we're open to working with you or bring you back into kind of want to recommend any counters him -- counterterrori counterterrorism. when you talk of all these insurgencies, it is a great point that very proud of. i don't think they a most singular thinking about the u.s. i don't. they use the u.s. as a bogeyman really for whatever they are object is our locally. they use them to rally support and motivation with donors, and so i am of the opposite perspective we don't need to get involved in all these insurgencies. we did that for the past decade. it didn't go so well. we spent a lot of money. we instead created weak

democracies would could -- which could not function if we create safe havens. in iraq which now hosts isis. depend on your perspective we could say i says is of our own birth. we created that for them. we have no ability right now to counter them because of her own domestic politics. weekend, in terms of fighting it. i will stop right there. that's my perspective on the insurgency. >> i do feel for mary, trying to figure out whether you can paint ththis and all you just paint te villages because at the end of the day it is a lot of territory. it's not the same, but i know you have something to say. i also feel that we should start bringing ideology back into. i think that's where you two are disagreeing and that's what's bringing up the difference in your assessments, where for mary

the long-term objective of insurgency is quite different than oakland next spent i don't think i disagree on long-term, i think i disagree on how to get there based on current situation. >> just briefly, i firmly support you on the issue of our partners and friends fighting back and doing a terrific job. the french went into mali and literally within just a few weeks had kicked out the vast majority of the al-qaeda guys. unfortunately, they almost immediately infiltrated back in and started carrying out attacks. right now the french are industries trouble action and having to come to a decision point whether they should just withdraw or bring in more troops. because they are nearly at mission failure there. the same thing could be said about yemen. yemeni government put its best effort in 2012 into kicking out the al-qaeda guys there, did a great job accept all the al-qaeda guys just melted into the mountains and into the desert. that's what they did in mali.

it's a mallet technique i think they've adopted which is when the enemy advances, you retreat. you take all of your weapons, take all of your people and go off to the mountains and wait until they get done with her little doodads down there in the valleys, down in the villages and then whenever they got tired of it, you good at the start carry out attacks. and their weakest you find a week spot cities can go ahead and push them out. that's what they're doing right now in yemen and somalia. so somalia absolutely they only control a few districts, a few areas but the able to carry out again attacks inside of mogadishu which they been prevented from doing so for a couple of years. once again they have risen to the capability and the ability to carry out attacks. i don't want to make it sound like debbie downer here, there's a solution. in fact, i think there is a solution. but i'm just putting forward that this is not a map of success. this is a map of al-qaeda and dancing while we retreat.

if i can i'd like to answer as well the points you brought forward about the split between isis and al-qaeda. would you think is a series issue. i don't want to downplay that in any way, shape, or form. that is a sears issue and one that if it goes towards isis, could lead to absolutely a split, you know, the destruction of al-qaeda as we know it. the biggest question that i have with military historian is whether lead to less violence or more violence. if we're giddy with a terrorist group the and would be almost certainly more violence. because when groups split they usually don't carry out terrorist groups against, and attacks against each other. they compete with each other in fact and carry out more and more terrorist attacks in attempt to win funding, recruit, people to their site. when the terrorist group is splintering is a very bad thing, it leads to more violence, not less. and basically decapitation is

the way that forward most people see it. with an insurgency it's a little more ambiguous. you can find examples on both sides but it's not like any means a given that splintering an insurgent group will lead to less violence. it has to do with whether they turn to violence outward and compete or whether they fight against each other. the evidence we're getting right now from isis and a.q. is that they are both doing both. you mentioned that the ourselves being picked up in other countries that have their allegiance to isis. that is a bad thing. is isis wins out there will be more violence, not less. isis in fact are the ones who believe in not putting the gloves on, who believes that you have to carry out his many attacks as possible and kill randomly as many people as possible. you take a look at what they've been doing in northern nigeria, in some way that reminds me very much of what zarqawi did and what the isis group would be

doing if they were given their full steam and allowed to do whatever they want. so as well we may look at this and say hey, they're splintering up, to fight each other, that is not necessary for good thing. but beyond that i actually have a little tiny bit of an issue with the map as it is courageously because i went through, meticulously, each group and was looking for what their stated position is on the isis-a.q. split. i realize that perhaps, please correct me if i'm wrong, this might be based on some false assumptions. so it looks to me, just as an outsider looking at this and at your expedition in your three articles because i can already tell you how we can do verge on this. >> okay. stick your all retired about official statements. i'm not, i don't care about -- >> let me finish before you criticize me. it looks to me that the burden of proof is on the group to affirm or reaffirm allegiance

to al-qaeda, right? the burden of proof is on them to come out with some sort of public statement about the relationship with al-qaeda. if a group doesn't state rejection of isis or allegiance of al-qaeda, in other words, they are sort of neutral, they are soon to be wavering. ..

okay, if you turn that around and simply made those assumptions for al qaeda, this is what you would get. in fact you would have only two or three groups that are aligned with isis and the rest would all be aligned with al qaeda. which of those is true or false depend i believe on whether people have come forward in the last few weeks, last few months, and have specifically stated, i am with al qaeda, and i reject isis or and or i reject isis. so i went through each one of those groups and looked for that. >> okay. so as it says up there, estimate. on the top of it what i'm trying to put up an estimate it is an imperfect model. i don't like the charts i see a lot of times in dod which are line and block charts, they go al qaeda group one command al qaeda group two, three, four. we do that because power points make us do that.

it is true. we get into that like we're trying to make top down charts. that's what we're trained to do in the military. put stars and circles and things like there. when we were going through this when i was doing this i was interview a lot of people. there are 14 or 15 people i will talk to on twitter or email saying hey, what do you think about this scenario? i don't like anything less than probability of what things might be. that is why you saw me put up three scenarios there. i put up estimates based on my circle size, just my general feeling what the group size is like. they are almost like a confederation of jihadi twice and islamists in syria. do you do you assess them. there are different connections. i put those together and i do estimate with overlaps how i think they might communicate. i came up with those estimates in terms of not official states because i don't care about the official statements. i care about the what those supporters are talking about and

in the online community. who i am reaching out to in terms of different experts. i will go to greg johnson or berger or some of them and ask their opinions because i can not possibly stay on top of all these different groups. official statements i think we'll stay with old guard al qaeda as long as possible but i look for pushes and pulls in between. my assessment on ansar al-sharia, like libya and tunisia andance shar al sharia in yemen is going based on the foreign fighter numbers. if you read this section which i think is part 3 which came out in march, this should be updated already, mukhtar is reaffirmed and which is committed to sawahri. this is one mary picked out but there are six of these in there and so there are different scenarios. i don't know what the breakdown is and i might give you estimate how things emerge. the main estimate is in the second chart which is foreign fighters if iraq come out of the

records. tunisia, libya, yemen, saudi arabia, that to me where the fault lines are, maybe they go old guard ad died and stick with them. -- al qaeda and maybe go with sis ice sis or maybe go on their own. that is the estimate where it comes from. >> i think you two could go on ad nauseam. we'll get questions from the audience. two members are walking around with microphones, state your name and affiliation and bless please ask a question. don't ask it as a statement please. so this man right in front, please. >> thank you very much for the discussion. my name is bill hampton and i served with sio international. i have a question and perhaps because i'm a mets fan for my life maybe reality deludes me. but it seems like when you have these parallel and not necessarily working together hierarchies it is scarier thing

than having one to deal with. i have another quick question too, what is going on in eastern europe. is that going to change the equation with what is going on in the world with the terrorist groups? will that be another opportunity for them to open a new front. >> thank you. why don't you start with the question. >> yeah, so, let's go back. let's actually talk about eastern europe first because we didn't get to the counterterrorism sort of discussion. a wonderful opportunity for to us do art of war in the information space. the real far enemy for al qaeda, old guard al qaeda-isis is russia and iran. they're sticking it to us in the information space right now. why doen't we give a little love back to them, right? what if instead trying to directly counter old guard al qaeda which i think a lot of ways is mary is not paying attention. they're fighting a bunch insurgencies around the world trying to get involved in then. why don't we shift that.

guys? iran is supporting assad regime and battling the u.n. in syria. two, russia they are really the ones behind keeping the assad regime in play. i think there is a lot of opportunities in that information space. the caucus ses emirate is real big player in sir -- syria. there are regions of the guys in the call can ses. fighting in caucasus. fighting in syria. that is huge battle against the russians or get tangled up in that caucus caulk can sass region. i talk about the two most dangerous scenarios. i'm a big fan of the competition model. been pushing that since tents 12. jihadi groups want to compete. shape the conditions which we

can't fours them to do that. shape the conditions, communicating with each other. that works great until they pursue external attacks in europe and attacks trying to one-up. what keeps that going is constant resources. to try that up, part of my counterterrorism part which is part five we didn't get to the number one thing i think we have to focus on in terms of counterterrorism strategy is squashing terrorist financiers into syria right now or shapingg what that is if isis sustains resources and old guard al qaeda sustains resources they will mobilize in a way to pursue external operations in the u.s. both of their incentives in the top dog to display that. i absolutely agree. the one thing i see about this most dangerous scenario is out of control violence like that tend to erode popular support. i think that is what you see with isis right now. they're going into bumbling plots a little bit. they're rushing it. i kind of get that sense they're

really trying to hurry up and do this. so they're getting caught or nabbed. i think they will also hit targets where it starts to alienate the population. i do think it's a concern but i think europeans should be a lot more worried than us. i think we have a lot to worry about. gotten better at it last 12 years in the counterterrorism community but europeans have a big problem on their hands. even, thomas hammer will say 3 and 10% of foreign fighters you should suspect will go back home and still participate in some sort of violence. we have 10,000 fighters that are there right now. 5,000 of them survive the battlefield. we're still looking at significant number, depending, doesn't matter what team they're on. i think you're right. >> mary? >> i found myself nodding my ahead in agreement. it really depends where the competition goes. right now, it looks as if it is pretty evenly divided between fighting each other and attempting to do things

elsewhere. but the big thing about isis right now is that they seem to be at least incapable of carrying out major attacks inside syria much. in other words, you hear a lot about attacks carried out by them in iraq but hardly anything carried out against the regime by isis. so when it comes to the competition there, looks like at least, just looking from the outside, that nusra front is winning that competition. but when it comes to the split, you know, there is more or less violence depending on whether they splinter or not, actually i think that just affects your response to it and what you do in order to counter it. you're going to get a ton of violence either way from these guys unfortunately. >> thank you. gentleman the at back table. >> stanley coburn. how do these foreign fighters get into and out of syria? also the materiel and from what i'm reading turkey they're going through turkey. turkey is a night toe member.

how are they -- nato member. how are they transiting turkey so easily. can you discuss that. >> mary? >> kayak.com. i'm not joking. go by plane ticket. make their way to the border. they can link up connections -- there is kind of different groups. you could be a foreign fighter from north africa and middle east and you're likely to have your own logistical person or affiliates like ansar al-sharia in libya, they can pipeline you into a certain group. the other way, you make your way into turkey. you literally ping some people on social media, hey, how do i get from, crowd source their way down there they get to the border. they link up, hey, i want to bo in and be a fighter and they start making their way down there. remarkably unsexy. the way we sort of think about it in our minds i think a lot of

times like the bourne identity movies and it is really complicated. they just bought a plane ticket and went there. it is really fascinating. it is not cooler to look at. yeah. i would say there is difference between nusra and isis. nusra tends to screen or try to pipeline their guys. they're smarter about it. where isis will take anybody that shows up like a volunteer. >> i think you misunderstand my question a little bit. why aren't turkish authorities not picking these guys up. >> i can't answer that. >> i think we'll move on. i think turkey is a little bit overwhelmed with the foe of foreign fighters into syria. we've had u.s. officials talk about the fact that it is most we've ever seen. it is scores above what we saw going into iraq. so gentleman right here. >> hi, my name is lou phillips. i'm an undergrad at university of southern california. we're in a class with dr. wayne

studying nuclear non-proliferation. that being the subject of our class i would like to ask our experts, with this divide between the you two major camps of jihadist terrorism nowadays, what are the prospects for nuclear terrorism for, against the united states? what should we be looking for? because it seems to me if we two competing blocs of jihadists there would be less, less of a nuclear threat directed towards us and maybe more of the, more of the reason to look towards nuclear terrorism in the middle east itself. but i would just like to know what you guys thousand. >> let me twist that a little bit, ask what the threat of chemical weapons would be especially in syria? >> yeah. i obviously that's everybody's nightmare right, nuclear, nuclear terrorist attack but i don't have any basis for making that sort of assessment. i'm sorry about that.

something obviously we all worry about but i just don't have any way of assessing it but when it comes to chemical weapons we do because when it was al qaeda in iraq, they actually did use chemical weapons. they used chlorine bombs, not against the americans by and large by the way but against ordinary muslims. so, and, scores of people were seriously injured, probably for life. and a few people were actually killed in those attacks. so that to me suggests that isis, the current incarnation, would be far more likely to use chemical weapons than any of the other groups engaged and i'm very worried about that coming from isis actually. >> thank you. >> yeah i think isis would do it. the only thing that kind of plays to our favor in the really bad scenario is the best people for executing those sorts of things are probably in yemen. so aqap really seems to be the group that can do those external

operations and really plan things out, do them smartly. they made underwear bombs and printer cartridges. they seem to really have it done and they can think through and really plot out. so i mean the only thing really to our advantage the stockpiles are in syria. the best planners and operators are in yemen. if those things collide, could they put something together like that. even then i think the range is limited. if they will hit a u.s. target has to be in the region to do it. one thing they're competing with each other so much. even though there is a lot more violence coming out they're in a hurry especially on the isis side. >> gentleman in the middle of the room. >> i'm peter. i'm an intel analyst. koran says there shall be no compulsion in religion yet he will never hear those words coming out of an american foreign service officer. so i want to ask about counterterrorism strategy. why are we engaging on our turf instead of on their turf? why aren't we demarshing the

mosques or in addition to foreign ministries? why isn't there a group of koran scholars at the state department, you know, sifting through the koran to come out with appropriate ammunition that can turn down the fields of harvest from where these fighters are coming? >> yeah, so that's obviously a very touchy subject and one that u.s. officials have been very, very reluctant to engage on. i mean this would be sort of like, okay, so this is how i, this is what the analogies i have in my head for what's going on. bin laden saw himself as mujahadeen, somebody who was going to renew the religion, right? he also saw himself as a revival ist, in other words, of the religion in addition to a great leader of jihad and his vision was he alone, amongst all of humanity understood the true version of islam and he was

going to impose that version of islam on people whether they wanted it or not. we've seen what that looks like in places like iraq and anbar province, for instance and northern mali or somalia where it has been rejected. but in any case, his vision of going back to the original islam, and he was making this up as he went along, in some ways reminds one of the reformation in europe. so if bin laden is sort of like, and please if there are any lutherance in the resume don't take this, if bin laden is calvin or luther what role do we play? we're the ottoman empire. that is who we are. we are people with conflicting relationship with this part of world and people who are not trusted and looked at a little bit askance, right? we're trying to make an argument to the pope that we can solve their luther problem. it just, it doesn't compute.

there is just so little space for us to be doing that as outsiders coming in. so to me the biggest thing that we can do, and i hope we have been doing it, is encouraging ordinary muslims in the muslim majority world to stand up to these guys and to say what they think and feel. here's the thing. it has been happening. it is just never repeated in our media. our media ignores in fact all sorts -- let me give you a great example. benghazi attack. everybody here knows about it, right? that was a huge deal, right? does everybody know immediately afterwards there was 100,000 person march through the streets of benghazi condemning it by ordinary people of benghazi? you know? by and large that was off the radar as far as our media goes. hardly anybody talked about it even. and i think that is one of our biggest props. only thing we can control is, hopefully, getting our media to pay more attention to these sorts of things out in the

muslim majority world rather than focusing on the negative side and on those people who are carrying out terrible attacks. >> i agree with what mary said. we're just table at it. on idealogical stuff we try to get involved in i never seen it go very well. we can't coordinate. we're a pluralist society. we have too many opinions. we don't understand it. we're reading it from afar in translation. we don't have enough experts. we don't have credible voices. i agree with her. i think there has been some success using other, you know, idealogical authorities to counter from that region or helping them or embracing them but for us to can do it, i don't think we do it very well. >> unfortunately this has to be the last question of the woman at the front table. >> kara foster, from university of southern california. you mentioned that sense of when bin laden was killed, the fragmentation of the jihadist world has escalated and that you mentioned we can't really tell which scenario is going to play out when but my question is,

because the fragmentation has escalated, how do we respond and is that response going to be less and less viable as that fragmentation escalates? >> watch everything, listen to what they say and act very rarely but what, whatever you choose to do, be very decisive about. so in 2006, we used to run what was like the national implementation model for, nims, whatever, for counterterrorism and we did hundreds of tasks very poorly and lightly across a enormous bureaucracy. it was a disaster. i remember going to meetings. it would be the department of education. everybody who wanted to button something would float an al qaeda dude. we used to joke if we could capture an al qaeda guy and smuggle him across the mexican border we could fight drugs. that is how convoluted our strategy was. we were trying to solve all the world's problem. in my opinion, with

decentralization, what we need to do is fight hard for our intelligence capabilities while they're under attack because mr. snowden who failed to prove there has been this gross negligence in surveilling americans is also coughed up to all of our adversaries to include the nation-state of russia which he hides and a lot of al qaeda groups who picked up how dominant we were in the intelligence space. with this decentralization and fracturing and infighting and some scenarios, i did three. you could probably do 12. if we're going to figure out which way it will go we better have our intelligence capabilities at a peak right now to know what is going on overseas. the other thing be very nimble for what we pick and be prepared for repercussions of each. i give you one point. we do drones and decapitation and i think we get tote most important person in old al qaeda, not zawahiri. and we get to him in yemen. what are the chain of events

that would unfold from that? we expect infighting and twisting one way. we could also look externally look at attacks in a lot of different directions because there are a lot of young folks going off their own. to do that we got to have capabilities. two, we need to plan for the dangerous scenarios. i hope the administration is doing that right now. what do we do if they hit israel. he was talking about this dangerous scenario when these groups are lashing out in a lot of different directions. three, not overreact and overextend. pick a few tasks. do them really well. shake out of and assess. one thing i do like going on is the disposition matrix discussion that came out and people thought that was the drone targeting list. they were confused about it but i think that was the smart folks in the counterterrorism community, forget all the politics. i don't care about that. i work too hard to be a politician. like on the counterterrorism side i think there are some really smart folks in the

government, intel agency, the fbi doing this now for 12 years. they figured out let's come up with a disposition matrix. how do we mitigate this risk? i think we've got to support that instead of constantly tearing that down. enabling those people with good intelligence coverage. i think that will be critical looking forward. >> mary, if you want to respond the question and give a concluding statement, we'll give clint the last word. >> right. first of all i actually think it is far more ambiguous whether there is this splintering going on or not as you can tell from my slide deck and it's really unclear which side is going to win out. but what you can see is that the violence has spiraled out of control. and, that violence sneads more than we've been doing in recent years. i have three prescriptions. i would say first and foremost we need to stop the deescalation going on in our fight. this is the first time in our 26-year struggle with al qaeda that we are deescalating what

we're doing. since 2011, and i don't think is any coincidence that the violence has spiraled out of control since 2011, we have just deescalated what we're doing. we with drew from iraq. we're withdrawing from afghanistan. we're cutting a lot of capabilities. we're doing all sorts of things to draw this fight down and try to pretend it is still 1995. i don't think we can pretend it is 1995. it's not going to ever be 1995 again. the second thing that we should be doing is we should be paying attention to this and not ignoring what is happening in the rest of the world. so we've been very focused on ourselves. i'm not saying we should ignore our own security and pretend that we don't, there is not a threat against us as well. but we can not pretend as well there is violence out here has no meaning. i mean look, even if you want to say these have nothing to do with al qaeda, the fact you have

gone from this to this, says we have to be doing more. we can not simply withdraw into your own country and pretend all is well with the world, right? the final thing is we can't depend slowly on attrition. attrition works for small terrorist groups. you kill off the small group. they don't replace themselves, problem solved, right? it does not work at all for insurgencies. in fact it kansaser bait them. can use as a point of recrewment for them, right? so attrition alone is not the solution. we really need to find another solution. by the way that is one of the things that aei and are working on and have been working on quite a while and we're hoping to kind an cancer to that. >> concluding thoughts. >> concluding thoughts? we got bigger fish to fry than. russia, iran, climate change, something i'm really concerned about. climate change is real. i don't know if it is or not.

this is all really kind of silly, in the big picture. we're talking about collapse in 20, 30 years, things like that. the second thing i would tell you, stop listening to al qaeda experts. there are too many things going on. you have to really find people experts in regions. i rely on them. i do. you know, jan burger, andrew, great folks out there, greg johnson, will mccans, i talk to call of them. i can't stay on top of this. if you want to understand boko haram, all this, you better have language skills. i grew up in the cold war. wasn't very smart. i learned spanish. it is kind of useless. i can't stay on top of any of this. number two, you have to have people on the ground that really understand things and cultural religious, idealogical dynamics. three, work them together in interdisciplinary things. there is great stuff done in computing. done with mathematical modeling

of attacks. who has that? we have to trust in our government. they really do have it. they're not all great but they're a lot better than they were 12 years ago. which brings me to talk about deescalation. ways in the army 19956789 never once did i see parallel raids in two places in africa on the same day. somalia, tripoli, libya. we did two raids on the same day. got one, didn't get the other guy, withdrew with no casualties. fire it up. we could not do this 12 years ago. that is testament to our military and intel folks out there working. i'm not about deescalation. i'm about being surgical. i'm about being nimble and not overreaching. if you really want to bring all the jihadi groups together, do a foreign intervention. we'll get back to where we were six or seven years ago. that goes to your point you brought up being very nimble and focused. let's think through what we're doing and not be silly we won't

have another attack from one of these guys. it will happen. let's empower people we brought on the past 10 or 12 years. to think we do a raid in somalia, libya, at the same time. took half hour. anybody watch the video of them nabbing that old al qaeda guy in the middle of the streets in tripoli. 30 seconds. holy cow, we could not do this. we really built great capability. keep empowering them. not tear them down with our politics and sort of debates here in the states. >> thank you both. please join me thanking our panelists today and scri. [applause] i think they will be sticking around afterwards and if you want to come up and ask questions. i certainly have follow-up but it will probably be on email. thank you again

>> both the house an senate are in session today. the house is in at noon eastern for general speeches. at 2:00 they will consider a series of suspension bills before beginning debate on legislation to authorize spend forge 2015 transportation and housing programs. votes on amendments to that legislation could occur later in the evening. the senate gavels in at 2:00 eastern for general speeches. at 5:30 senators will vote to move forward on district judge nominations for virginia, massachusetts, and nevada. you can watch the house live on c-span. the senate on c-span2. live today on the c-span networks, china-russia relations an their impact on u.s. foreign policy with former u.s.

ambassador to china, stapleton roy and former australian prime minister, kevin rudd. live 1:00 eastern time on c-span3. at 3:30 the u.s. border and security with officials from u.s customs & border protection and the national border patrol council. that's a labor union representing border patrol agents. they will appear before a senate panel to testify about changing the border patrol pay system. live on c-span3. at the white house today president obama is expected to announce plans to help people with student loan debt allowing millions of borrowers to qualify for programs to better manage their debt by the end of next year. we expect the president's remarks to begin at 1:45. watch them live online at c-span.org.

>> c-span's new book, sundays at eight, kenneth feinberg who oversaw the victim's compensate fund. >> from the perspective the victims i don't see any distinction. if you try to justify my program, on the basis of the victims lost, i can't convincingly explain why 9/11 yes, '93 world trade center no. i think the only way you justify this program as a special carve-out is from the perspective of the nation. a recognition that 9/11 was,

along with the american civil war, pearl harbor, maybe the assassination of president kennedy and 9/11, its impact on the american people was such that this was really a response from america to demonstrate the solidarity and cohesiveness of the american people towards these victims. >> read more of our conversation with kenneth feinberg and other featured interviews from our book notes and q&a programs in c-span's, sundays at 8:00 from public affairs books, now available for a father's day gift a the your favorite book seller. >> john podesta is a counselor to president obama. he spoke on friday about the epa's proposal to cut carbon emissions, the prisoner exchange for the release of army sergeant bowe bergdahl and veterans health care. mr. podesta previously served as white house chief of staff to

president clinton. this is an hour. >> our guest today is john poe test today. it is his fourth visit with the group. the last was in 2009 when he was president and chief executive officer of the center for american progress, an organization he founded in 2003 and called a think tank on steroids. he grew up in chicago. earned his bachelors degree from knox college where he is life trustee and law degree from georgetown where he is a visiting law professor. spent his early career on capitol hill where he was counsel on the majority staff of the senate judiciary committee working with ted kennedy and chief counsel of the senate agriculture committee. in 1988 he founded the well-known government relations firm podesta with his brother tony. he returned to the hill in '95 as counsel to democrat hick leader tom daschle before serving president bill clinton chief of staff to white house chief of staff from 1998 two

2001. he was co-chair of president obama's transition team in 2008. he is proud father of air force captain, gabe podesta. we got a glimpse of them together during the president's recent visit to bagram airbase. now to the ever popular process portion of our program. anga, america's national gas alliance is sponsoring a number of moderator breakfasts. thanks to anga and and our colleagues who are sitting back there keeping me from the page of premature retirement. sponsored or not we're on the record here. please no live blogging or tweeting. in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to actually listen to what our guest says. there is no embargo when the session ends. as regular attendees know the monitor breakfast is one of the last bastions of fussy folk ways. if you like to ask a question, do the traditional thing and send me a subtle,

non-threatening signal and i will happily call on one and all at the time we have available. start off offering our guest the opportunity to make some opening comments. we'll move to questions from around the table. thanks again for doing this, sir. >> thank you, david. always good to be here. i want to start off, i will talk for about two minutes and say that lots have been going on in washington this week but one of the things that i've been particularly focused on is the rollout of the proposal to reduce carbon pollution from power plants across the united states which gina mccarthy announced on monday and i raised that because one of my principle duties now at the white house is to coordinate our activity on climate change and energy. and put this in a little bit of context. power plants are, account for about 40% of the co2 pollution in the u.s. about a third of the overall greenhouse gas emissions. it is the largest source of

carbon dioxide emission in the united states. so it is very important to reduce that level of pollution. as you all know the president began the, to discuss this proposal when he went to children's hospital to tape his weekly address a week ago today which aired last saturday. the reason he did that is because there are huge public health benefits that will attend and come from this rule. more than 130,000 asthma attacks amongst children avoided. 2800 heart attacks avoided. 2700 to 6600 premature deaths. more than 1800 visits to hospitals for cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses avoided. 310 lost work days. today at -- 310,000 lost work days. today at noon we'll release a report that links effect of climate change to public health.

many of the benefits that i just discussed come from the co-benefit if you will from reducing traditional pollutants, so 2, nox and, pm 2.5 emissions. but, climate change itself will increasingly be a problem for our public health and the report that we're releasing, the white paper we're releasing goes through the recent national climate assessment as we as the ipcc report to show how the effects of climate change will have effect on ground level ozone, which is predicted to raise, for example, the emergency room visits in suffolk county by 10% over the next decade. it's, there are more frost-free days and more plant-based allergens this upper midwest, which will lead to more lost

work days. carbon pollution enhances the urban heat island effect so it again hurts, it has a particular effect on particularly on the elderly who are living in environments where they can be affected by strong heat waves. and the distribution of diseases from west nile virus or lyme disease are already being affected in the united states. particularly dealing with this rule, reducing carbon pollution will have a big effect on asthma. it is the third leading cause of hospitalization for children. african-americans are twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma as whites. latino children are 40% more likely to die from asthma than white children. in 2004 alone the u.s. spent five billion dollars on medicaid on asthma-related illnesses of the so this is a big deal.

we intend to get job done. we've create ad flexible rule that can be implemented by the states but it will have enormous public health benefits. i just wanted to start with that because it is what i've been up to this week. i would note that the jobs report came out this morning. we have a rule in the white house that we don't talk about that until 9:30. so i will watch dave's clock here and if, anybody wants to ask me about that, when the bewitching hour hits i'm happy to talk about it. >> thank you. let me do one or two and then we'll move around the table. we'll start with kate from the post and darren good. david unger, steve toma, george con done and susan page. press coverage of the power plant realliesed among others, four hurdles that could stand in the way of actually getting it implemented. a court challenge, action by coal-dependent states, action by congress under the congressional review act or action bit next

president since the states have until 2018 to file plans. which of those risks do you consider the greatest and what are you doing to counter it? >> well, we're committed to getting this done. that's why we released it now. we have a year to finalize the rule. we're taking comments for 120 days. the, we had a request from a number of other senators to extend the normal 60-day comment period to 120 days which we, after discussions with epa, epa agreed to do that. we'll hear from stakeholders across the country over the course of the next 120 days. i said when i came into my position in january, one of the principle things i needed to do was to make sure that the direction to epa that the president gave last summer as part of the overall climate action plan was to propose this rule by june 1. when i said that, i didn't

realize june 1 was a sunday. so we did manage to get it in on june 2nd. we're committed to finishing the rule by next june. that will give states one year to create implementation plans reviewed by epa. you noted, dave, that some states can move that back, particularly if they get together in regional arrangements which is the most cost effective way that states might come together to get the reductions that are, will be required once the rule is finalized. and if they choose to go that route, as the northeast states have done under so-called reggi program, or as california done under its ab-32 program, to go to a more market based system and get together to find the most cost effective reductions, then they will have till 2018 to

finalize those plans. i'm quite confident we'll get our job done. i'm also quite confident we will resist any, i have no doubt that there will be an attempt to try to overturn this through the congressional review act but i'm certain we have the votes to, to uphold the rule once it is is finalized. with respect to the courts i think there is a long history of litigation now starting in 2007 under massachusetts versus the epa, that recognizes that co2 is a dangerous pollutant and that epa has the authority to regulate it. there is no doubt going to be legal challenges to this. legal challenges to almost everything the epa does. but, they have had a stunning string of successes just this spring in terms of upholding their authority to tackle these, you know, major causes of pollution and major causes of

illness in our country. >> last one for me about the politics of all this as you know the president's has been quoted to say i really don't care to be president without the senate but, former bush speechwriter michael gerson wrote in the post this morning, in the contest between presidential legacy and democratic senate control, obama has chosen legacy, adding that five months before the senate majority will be determined, obama is complicating the message of some democratic senate candidates and exposing them to political risks. he refused to take himself, unquote. what if anything is wrong with that analysis? >> well, some of you may remember me from my previous service in the white house when i worked for president clinton where i banned the word legacy. i don't think the president thinks about it in those terms. i think what the president is thinking about is that he has an obligation to the american people to, children and grandchildren and people who are making decisions today to build

a cleaner and brighter future for them, to build a strong economy based on a clean energy future. to tackle the problems of catastrophic climate change. we're seeing the, the costs of that already. from, increased droughts to heat waves, to storm surges, to sea level rise across the country. we're seeing the effects of climate change. we're seeing it in the public health as i mentioned earlier. so i think the president's obligation is to do what he needs to do under the legal authorities that he has been granted by congress, through the clean air act, to insure that we tackle this most important, really almost existential problem. i think that, if you think about it from a political perspective, "the washington post" had a poll out this week there is broad support for taking action to

reduce carbon pollution. it was roughly 70% across the country. there's, in red states and blue states, amongst republicans, independents and democrats, there is very strong support for taking action to reduce carbon pollution. there is no doubt there are some states where this is an issue that, that presents a different sort of political challenges, particularly coal-producing states. there is no doubt that the polluters who come after, this rule and they will try to attack it and try to knock down that approval rating. they will try to put it in, squarely in the context of the political campaigns that are on going in 2014. but i think if, anyone who wants to go out and talk about the benefits from this rule, do what the president did. visit a children's hospital and their home state, i think that they will find that politics is

such that you can defend taking action here in the public will support that. so i think that we think that, that people who deny the existence of climate change. who want to try to run suggesting that they really aren't scientists. they don't really get it. they can't really see what is going on around them and they want to deny the public health effects that the pollution is having on our, on our families and children in the country i think that is losing side of the argument. i'm certain that, if you think about this in cycle coming forward, anybody who tries to run as climate denier in 2016 will have a very hard time running on that nationally. whether people need to put together the resources to fight back against advertising campaign from koch brothers and others, i think that you know,

that's politics that people have to decide on their own on a state by state or district by district basis. >> katy. >> thanks for taking my question. i wonder, have you read hillary clinton's book and what do you think about her writing about her disagreement with president obama whether or not to arm syrian rebels? >> i think, you know, it's, it was probably a hard choice. but i think she was -- i have no doubt that the narrative she tells in her book as secretary of state will be an honest one. she will lay the facts out as she felt them and saw then. i'm anxious to read i. i have read some of the excerpts from the book and i saw a little bit of, couple of passages of it earlier.

but i'm, like most of you, i'm still catching up with the, with the excerpts that are now being printed. i think it will be, you know, i'm sure it will be interesting for the public to see what it is like to have to take on those tough problems that she took on quite successfully i think as secretary of state. so i think the public is, you know, awaiting being able to line up at the bookstore in manhattan i guess tuesday and get copies of the book. >> darren? >> thank you. -- what is very complicated epa rule, even for -- >> i will try not to too. >> thanks. one thing i thought that kind of stood out and one thing that you mentioned earlier was about how some states have until as late as 2018 to finalize how they are going to do this. as you know that puts you into the next administration. do you run the risk of possibly

ceding too much left reining and ground to that white house, especially if a republican is there? >> well, you know, i think that, again the country needs to tackle this problem. i think, with the deadline of 2018 exists for states that want to join together, to reduce emissions in the most cost effective way as possible. i think states that choose that option will take a commitment to do that and carry forward with making those deductions. -- reductions. the rule will have been finalized. the need for states to reduce their emissions will have gone, will have been finized by the end of the obama administration. they will be under legal obligation to try to take those reductions down. i think states that decide that whether they want to join with california and i know that there are some discussions on the west

coast of not only washington and oregon but other states perhaps combining with the ab-32 system that california has implemented or more states want to join reggi. maybe new jersey would go back into reggi or other states, depending what the outcome of the election in pennsylvania. you might see that happening. there are other states might decide that is the path forward. i think what you made that decision, then i think there is, there will be a legal obligation to move forward with it. there will be political commitment to move forward with it and i think the rule will be implemented president bush tried to overturn a number of rules that president clinton issued at the end of his term. i believe none were successful. a few in the environmental

arena. a few, when they finally went into effect president bush took correct for. including the diesel rule. he tried to reverse appliance efficiency rules. basically occurs upheld them because they were finalized as is appropriate and under the laws that were prevailing at the time. so, people can try to, you know, to roll it back. i'm fairly confident. i, i'm fairly confident we'll have a president who embraces the cause of tackling climate change and, reducing emissions. and as i said, i think that if you think about a challenge in the 2016 context and politics of this in the 2016 context, if you're a climate denier trying to run nationally i think you will have a very hard road to hoe getting elected president of the united states. >> mr. unger.

>> can you tell us a little bit what is next for the clip mat action plan? these rules, is that the peak? do you hope to accomplish more in the remainder of obama's presidency? >> well, there is, again, the primary action plan that was put out last summer is based on three pillars. on mitigation, which is this is a, i described it as the crown jewel. there are other elements. including implementing, efficiency rules for heavy-duty trucks. and, more deployment of renewables. we're doubling the amount of renewables permitted on public lands. we just had a successful solar summit. the president was out in california recently expanding both the commitment to distributed solar and as well as to more building efficiency through the better building

initiative. one is mitigation. the second is resilience. this is the first administration really focused on the fact that we're looking at a significant amount of climate change already baked into the system. and that communities will have to react to that. plan for that and build more resilient economies going forward. so, there is a, whole workstream going forward on that. the president's propose ad billion dollars in the current budget to give states and communities the resources they need to begin to plan for the, if you will, baked in effects of climate change. the third is on the international front. so we have a strong dialogue going at both the multilateral level. the empty was just at the g7. this was a serious topic around all the g7 leaders recommitted themselves to try to move

forward towards of the out come in negotiations that will culminate in paris in 2015 and all committed to put forward to put forward significant reduction strategies in the post 2020 period in that time. they also spent a lot of time talking about building energy security particularly in the european system as a result of the aggressive actions the russians have taken in ukraine. so there's a lot to do at international side. one of the principle places we're in dialogue is with the chinese. there's, there's some news coming out of china but mostly from the academic advisors to the government about what they intend to do in this post-2020 period. there is movement in china terms of taking on commitments to have their emissions peak and then gradually reduce then. so, yeah, there's a lot to do. this is, i think this is the most important element.

but it is one element of a multiprong strategy. >> steve? >> [inaudible] -- now at least giving vouchers so medicare. why not do that permanently? why not do the whole thing into voucher, with medicare by all accounts seems to work pretty well? >> i think veterans system, and people who, you've seen in the press recently, has served veterans well when they're getting care. this has been a problem of being able to get into the system. i think the bill senator sanders and senator mccain just agreed upon last night is a much better way to go than privatizing veterans health care. i think we have a sacred obligation to our veterans to provide health benefits that they have been promised and think that the resources that are contained in the sanders

mccain bill, the focus on getting more primary care doctors into the system, the focus on improving facilities that come from the resources contained in that bill would be a much better way to go than simply privatizing the system. and i, the, you know, that builds on the president's commitment which sometimes gets lost in recent conversations having expanded access for pts, for agent orange, for taking care of the veterans that are the baby boomer veterans now entering into the system as well as post-9/11 veterans who need care and quality of care that the veterans system is capable of delivering. obviously we have problems in

the structure how that service was being performed. and, you know, the, the acting administrator, the acting secretary has now taken action as he announced in phoenix yesterday to improve that. but i think it is going to take the kind of legislation that is now moving on bipartisan basis through the senate to really improve the delivery of health care in the system. we also, obviously, are looking and for someone who, to lead the va. who can and lead the, lead the veterans health system who can provide, the kind of reinvention that will be necessary to get those improvements in place. >> george? >> as you know there's a lot of democratic unhappiness with the level of the president's engagement in the the

congressional campaigns. they're effective how happy he is raising money but don't feel he has at all been effective framing a message that the democrats can run on. when are we going to see how? and how do you break through or how does he break through all the other issues that are, you know, getting the headlines of bergdahl and va and everything else? >> i think the president's framed a choice between an economy that works for the middle class and working people versus, versus an economy that is based on old, failed ideas. and so his push for raising the minimum wage, which is caught traction across the country as we've seen states and cities raising the minimum wage. his push for pay equity. his, his, push for reforming the way individuals are paid for

overtime. i think are all things that are valuable, you know, pointers in the direction that a, democratic congress would lead the country versus republican congress. i think he is doing what he needs to do, which is doing his job, first and foremost. and secondly, putting issues on the table where we can make progress through executive action but noting that with democrats in congress, they can be much more effective in getting the economy working, to get wages growing for the american public. when does he engage that, you know, he is not out running himself and he will engage when it's appropriate. he makes, he makes that argument i think to democratic constituencies as is is out around the country. i think you will see an increase in that as the campaign season really heats up in the fall.

>> when? >> when? i think he is out there talking about issues important to the american public and whether that's the cost of college. the minimum wage. pay equity. those are all issues that are critical to the, to moving the country forward and they're all issues that democrats on capitol hill have said are ones that they want to campaign on. so, i think he is, he is not on the ballot. they are. they are going to have to make their case to their own constituents. i think that he can provide a narrative and a supporting environment that, you know, he is trying to make. >> let me tell you where we're going next. it will be john, susan page, jeff earl, david joaquin, karen bowen and alexis. jim cunningham and lauren fox and todd gilman to end. >> thank you, david.

sir, you talked earlier about candidates running as climate change deniers, the problems that they would have. well, natalie tenant, democratic senate candidate in west virginia and miss karen lundergan grimes in kentucky, both came out and faster than many republicans denouncing the new standards and referring it on assault on the coal industry. republicans rather than taking the climate change approach and they say it is war on the poor. and it will lead to higher electricity rates for lowest income earners. how do you respond to those charges and what do you say when other democrats, grimes or tenant criticize within hours. >> with respect to the republicans poor might be surprised the concern for them but, i think that, if you look

at the real economics of this, i think that, as the epa analysis shows, prices, because of the efficiencies that is being built into the system here, you will see prices, you will see bills on average go down by about 8% over the course of the program. >> low income earners? >> for, that is the price of electric bills at the household level. so, you know, i think that there are things that we need to do to insure that people and, administration has a commitment to make sure that people get affordable, reliable electricity. we think this bill gives the flexibility to do that. obviously the states need to implement it. i mentioned rggi earlier. if you look at the rggi system,

the nine states in rggi, they spent significant amount of money weatherizing the homes of low income individuals and reduced their bills by $2 billion. it is possible to do that with the right policies. i think that is what we're asking the states to look at and, of course it is ultimately, they have the flexibility to decide how to move forward with that. the other thing is that i would say is that i will come back to my, where i started which is the poor are the most affected by the public health implications of continued pollution at the levels that we're seeing. so, when i gave you some statistics at beginning to demonstrate that. so they get both public health benefit. i think that there are ways to, to insure that electricity remains affordable and reliable. and that is why the flexibility

built into the rules to do that. with respect to the politics in coal country, i would say a couple of things. first of all, this rule doesn't end coal in the electric system. we're looking at, it reduces the amount of over a fairly long period of time between now and 2030 from about 40% of u.s. electricity production to about 30%. you see increases in gas, in in renewables and a significant reduction in demand as a result of the rule. but we're not taking all the coal out of the system. but the coal that will be burned will have to be doned in a more efficient way and more effective way to raise the efficiency of coal that is being, that is being utilized. so the oldest, the dirtiest, the least efficient plants, i think,

states will make decisions. utilities make decisions whether to keep those online or whether to retrofit them. but we're not taking coal out of the electric system through this rule. >> now 9:32. questions on unemployment are available and we're going to susan page. >> here's a question given your experience, you're the most qualified person in the world to address which is having served in the bill clinton white house and obama white house, how would a hillary clinton presidency be different from obama's presidency in and bill clinton's presidency? >> well, that's a topic i haven't pondered, susan. you know, i think each, each person who comes into office brings their own skills and the times are different and the challenges are different. you know, we obviously face the

breakup of the soviet union. we tried to expand a democratic and more unified europe. that is obviously a big challenge right now. i think the project was, was pushed forward. . .