need is. talking about the $10,000 rule for leaving the united states or whether we talk about stored cars in which people are able to move money. we can look at a question right here in the front. >> my name is ron taylor. i have a couple of thoughts. the financial enterprise. for me using is a disconnect. i don't know how much money they raise.

i will put it in different terms and nonetheless the question. the nation to me seems to be identify and disrupt the sources of money that enable sustaining the ongoing violent behavior. we went to eliminate bad behavior can find the money sources and hopefully eliminate. that seems like the mission. so the question is what about russia? what about putin? what about the financial sources that come out of there indirectly sustaining the violent behavior or directly or the criminal element that operate out of russia and what about the umbrella countries around russia to support that kind of activity. who's following it who's tracking it, who's disrupting it? >> great question. appreciate that. just to clarify earlier statements with regards to the

money and financial intelligence is one aspect of it. we are not simply looking at a wire transfer or a transfer between two different bank accounts. but the other intelligence we have been simply not just focusing on the dollar amount, i'm what it's used for. so if we look at overlake travel or perhaps they don't have travel information. it can provide us with the travel. but the dollar amounts are telling a story. that is what helps us paint the picture we have. with regards to russia by the elements in and around russia again as i mentioned earlier

our focus our sole focus is not necessarily iraq and syria. we need to soak as as they are concerned with the european foreign fighter ways. our concern obviously is not just europe not just australia, but we need to take a large look at every threat and every potential threat as you mentioned you make a great point with regards to criminal organizations. so it is not to say that criminal organizations are necessarily fun and terrorist organizations. we can talk for a long time about now. they certainly facilitate that which they overlap that allow for the collaboration happen whether they are ideologically together or not. >> let's go to the back please.

>> thank you for your time, sir. >> a social media campaign, have you given the means of anonymous financing? >> yes. absolutely. you know we are much like -- even before you answer the question like the prepaid cards. the crypto currency again we have the united states government are starting to really take a look at the crypto currency. we are starting to take a look at any source of funding whether it is isil whether it's a criminal organization, international or domestic, we want to see how they are funding whether it is a cash courier traditional financial

institutions, as well as crypto currency is. it allows for a great avenue to transfer funds internationally with little or no oversight in many cases. we are aware of that. we are tracking that and any support anyone can get a site more than welcome. i will just touch on match point earlier with regard to prepaid cards. that is obviously another avenue as well that we need to take a look at and it's very difficult to track. it is easy to buy one of the prepaid cards, blood money and you don't have to physically move that. you can e-mail, call or contact someone in another country halfway across the world and provide them with the numbers on the prepaid card and easily move hundreds of thousands of dollars without any effort whatsoever. >> saudi arabia offered a concrete example of individuals related to isis soliciting funds

on twitter come instructing people to buy prepaid cards get back on skype and provide people in the region with those numbers. tremendous amounts of value moves. not a dime those. nothing through the systems that tremendous vulnerability. yes. >> quick question. you just touched on the idea of charitable donations and as we saw with al qaeda do we see funds being transferred through charitable donations with isis? is that a big thing, small? what are we seeing on that line? >> thank you.

whenever we talk about charities, i hate to broad brush the answer. i think what we need to look at is hundreds of thousands of legitimate charities but much like any other international organization, it allows for the avenue of people to find not just terrorist activity, but criminal activity. obviously, we are cautious with regard to the cannot charities because we don't want to necessarily paint a broad rush. any ave. s. i mention already come and the avenue by which individuals are able to move money, charity business, front companies, et cetera but he and avenue for us to look at. provided the intelligence takes us there. >> as the former government official i can be more blunt. there is no question that

there's an increase in the abuse of charity the past few years. i would say a boomerang effect post-9/11. we've done so much work not only cracking down on that charity and abuse of charity but the vast majority of which in fact is not just the demand, but very graceful. the financial task force is highlighting the point. if you track the number of cases as i have in the u.k. france, here in the u.s. there is no question we are seeing the rise in abuse of charity and it's just logical. he had the massive humanitarian capacity in the middle east. therefore people want to do good and that gives an opportunity for people to use that as cover for not good things. it creates a vulnerability. it brings us back to a few years ago working with the charitable sector again and as we were discussing what the banks, trying to improve their filters work with charities again to

protect them from being easily abused in the context of a real humanitarian catastrophe. which brings me -- there we go. right over here in the back. >> high and now with the western union financial intelligence unit. wittgenstein is moving more towards the qualitative analysis of data and we are doing less with the sharp scholz and taking large data and trying to see what is happening within what has been discussed already. you mentioned having fewer sars more quality sires. if we see activity that appears legitimate like in the opening statement we talked about how the self-funded and smaller dollar amount looks legitimate. if we work with large sets of data and we don't have the intelligence that you have, how could we provide you fewer were

quality starts without the intelligence for us. >> that is a great point. just saw an amazing presentation today at treasury. my point is not necessarily to have fewer stars. my goal is to have more quality sires. whether that means we still have 800 of higher quality that is a great goal to have. using that as a great example rather than have a more may be based on less intelligence than less information that is out there does not give us a greater picture than having the better more directed. my goal is not to have less stars on tran. my goal is that they have a higher quality we put the information to western union and other folks and i commend western union for how proactive

they are in their financial analysis. >> good afternoon. tanks for the presentation. homeland security investigation investigation -- following up with what mr. romano said and asked a conundrum was trying to counter the financing of isis is what is touchable. with al qaeda is a different structure. with the the commercial sectors banking sectors. what do you think is touchable out of the total assets you have. if you have a frame of reference of 10% 50%? >> that is a great question. i don't have a specific answer for you. with regard to the money they have within their holdings. i am former ins, so we kind of

reverse roles here. so i don't necessarily have an interesting number for you as far as what we can tackle. again as i mentioned earlier, it comes down to really that whole of government, all of partnership approach to using every tool in the toolbox whether it be dod authority to tackle oil and other things and sanctions as well to go after that. i think much like transnational organized crime for the money that they keep within their areas controlled, it is difficult to break that. matt mentioned earlier when the money starts to seep out and go outside, that is our avenue in which we can tackle it. >> thank you very much. [inaudible] do you have an explanation about

the proportion of other sources of financing are in this compound of money destroying through isil? >> i don't have a specific numbers to give you but i can tell you obviously the hawala is an avenue as it historically has been. as we touched on prepaid cards and virtual currencies as the gentleman in the back talked about, and now just becomes one avenue by which they are able to fund the money, transfer the money versus a lot of newer avenues. essentially you have traditional hawala spinel almost the introduction of electronic hawala's by which we are able to do that.

[inaudible] >> the question is what our prepaid cards and what are hawala's. a prepaid card is where you go to your cvs and buy a card a visa card, amazon and there is value on that card and you can either move the card or give someone the number on the card that can go online and use it anywhere in the world. this is you go to a store. you give money and you get this card. the card now has value on it and you can give someone on the other side of the world that number and they can use it as cash. anywhere in the world. go to cvs and that's probably 30 different types of prepaid cards, including cards that aren't tied to a particular store. they have a visa signal you can use anywhere. it is a form of moving money

within an value transfer system. very old. plays an important role in the international economy, but it is there to be abused. and i'm all stressed between two different people on two different sides of the world, but it's been used lots of good purposes and is there to be used for other purposes. let me ask you this. a lot of talk about crowd sourcing or using another variation of the term crowd funding. the financial action task force port and has a great quote salon reader to you. isil hands encourage donations and conducted a marketing campaign in a manner consistent with industry standards established by major crowd funding companies. most people agree that in your vulnerability. i am former fbi informer treasury intelligence. in what way do something like

that present as an opportunity? >> crowd funding crowd sourcing basically much like utilized by legitimate charitable organizations or any other organization you might see in order to raise funds by their organization. it is through social media. if you don't want to travel or you are not in a position to travel are not in a position to join the fight, do you like to do what you can to help the organization. by doing so they've cashed out this mass marketing campaign by which they are asking folks to fund them through the social media sites. i agree with you much like they are not very similar to their other social media campaigns and communications through spreading propaganda it gives us an

opportunity to identify and target other individuals. >> excellent. yes, sir. >> mike whaley with deloitte. i have a question about your privates that there banks. i understand the primary mode of communication would often take a fair amount of time to compile and get to you guys. when you're dealing with matters of financial crime and fraud, the urgency might be an attack. can you comment on your relationship with the banks related two urgent financial matters like that? >> are banks, the world is flat. there's a lot of information out there. our banks talk about western in in our banks and partnerships are very proactive in what they do. in the case is of an attack,

when an attack occurs, the banks have very proactive in examining what is in their holdings and quickly pushing out those sars. our relationship with the bank obviously we need to follow subpoenas or other information. we have a very good relationship with partners. they understand the urgency and they are able to prioritize and get us the information as quickly as they can. i have absolutely no complaints when it comes to an urgent matter and and a waste of time in which they get the information. that is really part of this whole campaign of why we do the outreach to allow them to understand the current and emerging terrorism threats that they understand the sense of me. >> follow-up in front.

>> just a comment on that if i may it is very important to point out when we hear a lot of sharing the same threats the u.s. treasury through the program which my colleague and i wrote here in d.c. within one hour 40 minutes provide french authorities saw the hostages was held in the supermarket. that is a matter of a public program. it is an evidence that we stand together with the u.s. authority the cases are somewhat facilitated. not every case but in that program. >> that's a pretty amazing to test it. let me ask you a thought question. idea was asking earlier about

the cbe concepts here. i'm wondering if there's a parallel weekend draw here. within our efforts here in the united states we don't have one size fits all approach across the country. just for example the three pilot projects we have across the country are very, very different on the west coast minneapolis and boston because there's different activities we see in these areas even not so much of the radicalization is happening online geography still matters in some ways then we see the phenomenon manifest themselves in different places. a lot of this is happening online. the world is flat but i wonder, do we see different activities, different groups be more prominent in different places in the country?

>> that's a great question. i want to make a push to talk about our partnerships and the outreach we do. the bureau has numerous outreach programs. not just the counterterrorism field across all of our programs. the domestic security alliance council and sat there country and several other to share information. this is not a one-way fbi seem to appear and provides information and everybody leaves at the end of the day we moved on. this is a dialogue and every session i am not i have taken away and learn from those. so as the lady from west union mentioned, we learn from them as well. i just want to clarify that point in the factory do the outreach as much to learn as we do to teach. that is a good leeway into your question. much like we talked about for a

few years now, there is no one picture. whether we talk about counter threats finance, there's one model. i think when we get caught in a trap looking at one model, we might miss another. the uniqueness of the threat of radicalization, the threat of funding terrorist groups we need to have a broad-based view and we need to look at all the options. we are not the necessarily particular community doing it one way. it is across the board as the example they gave earlier sometimes people or borrow money from friends and family and not tell them why they need the money. sometimes they'll take money from their parents for travel. >> meanwhile, we are all focused on the islamic state on isil or

daish for all the right reasons. as we are focused on the collapse of the state, there are reports that al qaeda in the arabian peninsula taken advantage of our broken elsewhere to consolidate the position there. i wonder if there is a concern as we are so supremely focused that this could be an opportunity for a more traditional groups to be a little bit under the radar and take advantage of the opportunity of the finance to their benefit. >> that is something you know from reading here before. having worked terrorism before 9/11 through the present, the threats have changed obviously through the years. i can tell you we are constantly making sure just because we look at the threat in front of us

that we are not necessarily looking at the threat to the left of us to the right of us. as a deputy director here last year touched a little bit on how we do that and the threat review prioritization process by which we take a look at all of the threats and international terrorism and domestic terrorism threat. we look at the threat they pose and their potential to act and we combine's and come up with a band-aid and prioritization of those threats. just because the primary focus for this conversation i am thing does not write any means mean we are taken are asked the ball, but we need to be alert to that because as a lot of the focus of al qaeda after 9/11, we dictate our attention off of their groups and so luckily we have individuals that are spread base within the fbi that necessarily look at all the threat and the

particular focus in portfolio or the other threats as well. >> where in that threat prioritization do we put groups by the united states and may be raising funds and certainly historically have raised funds that don't traditionally target us? if we can take a break from the cutting-edge isil what about the old-school what about hamas hezbollah, what is the status on their committees and what we do about them. >> share. obviously, we continue to look at all of our groups. i can tell you having worked those groups in the past myself although a primary part of my career has been on al qaeda and not a soul, but we haven't taken our eye off the ball. in particular when we talk about

hezbollah in the past few years the attacks they have successfully conducted as was plotting overseas. it raises a real threat to us and to our citizens overseas. by all means, we need to continue our eye not just some isil. >> please join me in thanking jerry for taking time to view this today. [applause] thank you all for taking the time. have a great weekend.

>> mr. morell responded to a recent article by seymour hersh about the killing of osama bin laden impact and in 2011. this is an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning. welcome to the national press club. minus keith hill, editor writer with bloomberg's vma former vice club president and i will be moderating today with our guest, former cia deputy

director, mike morell. before i start come a few housekeeping items. one as i said before, please turn off all cell phones pagers or anything else making noise during the presentation. second the format will be on the last question of mr. morell for 30 minutes and then open the floor to questions. i will give priority to reporters here to do the job. once the reporter asked the questions i will open it up to others. third i request you asked the question. no speeches please. give us your name and location. you all remember may 2nd 2011 the day osama bin laden was killed in pakistan. what are some of the other cia counterterrorism successes and failures over the last 20 years question mark yesterday, mike

trent three com a good person to answer the question because he was probably involved in most if not all. mike's morell is one of the country's most renowned security professions. he served as their and twice as an acting director. mr. morell played a role in the countryside against terrorism in his over 30 years at the agency. he participated in a deliberation in the killing of bin laden in 2011. since november 2013, mr. keith hill has been a senior counselor for global strategies llc. welcome mr. morell. >> great to be here. thank you. >> as i mentioned before, the question as to some of the other success and failure in the counterterrorism area over the last 20 years.

could you give us an example of a failure the cia encountered during that time? .. so it's the most significant intelligence failure that i personally have ever been involved in the. and i think arguably one of the most significant intelligence failures in the history of the

organization. >> talking about bin laden, were you on the team that was tasked with finding bin laden? >> so that was really two aspects to the bin laden story. and again extended discussion in the book about it. in fact, there's a chapter called no mickey mouse operation. mickey mouse was the codename inside the white house for this operation. there's a whole chapter on this. very few aspects to the. one is the intelligence piece of it which was finding him. and it literally took us nine years to find him. the particular lead, the particular thread that led us to that compound to nine years and there's grace aspects of him to talk about all of them in the book. so there's a finding him which is all an intelligence store and

then there's the operation itself which is an intelligence and military story. so i was heavily involved with the first and i say significant involved in the second. but it was a two-part story. >> seymour hersh just published an exposé saying the pakistani military and intelligence about the raid beforehand. give any comments about that? >> he alleges a lot of things in this london review of books story, 10,000 words. he alleges that the pakistanis were keeping him prisoner at that compound. he alleges that we learned about bin laden's presence at the compound from a senior pakistani walking in to our embassy in islamabad and telling us that in return for $25 million. he alleges that the pakistanis were unaware that we're going to do the raid and in fact allowed us to do the raid.

it is all so rubbish. almost every sentence in the article is wrong. i was in the room for every discussion about this at the cia and i was in the room for every discussion about this at the white house. i was there when our guys came in and said we have followed somebody that we believe to be bin laden's courier to some in abbottabad, pakistan. i was there when our guys watched the compound for months. i was there when our guys said, we've come to the conclusion that his affair. and was no information provided us by the pakistanis or anybody else by the way. i see that an immediate this morning some confidential german sources are claiming that the germans divided as information. not true. i was there when the president of the united states decided

that we're not going to tell the pakistanis in advance not because we didn't want to. they would've been nothing better for the relationship between the united states and pakistan than to have worked together on this. but we simply couldn't trust the pakistani system, not the pakistani government by the pakistani system, not to delete the information and advocate that the bin laden and having lead -- having lead the compound before the raid ever happened. and i was there when the pakistanis learned about this ever deeply angry with us. and i was sent by the president to pakistan to begin with relationship back together after the bin laden rate. so everything seymour hersh said is wrong. and he says that he got this information from a former senior intelligence official who is very close to the operation. whoever the source was was not in the room, was not in any room that i was in spirit not only was he a single source, also an unnamed source, according to seymour hersh.

[inaudible] >> speaking about the pakistani isi come on a scale of one to 10 how would you rate cia's relationship with the pakistani intelligence agency? >> depending on what day of the week you're talking. it goes up and down. but here's what i would say about our relationship with isi. first of all of all places i traveled in the world when i was deputy director, i traveled to pakistan more than anywhere else. it was an extremely extreme and would relationship for the united states. two the pakistanis have taken more al-qaeda guys off the

streets then every other country in the world combined. so in some ways they are our closest counterterrorism partner. they played a very very significant role come and we talk about this in the great war of our time. they played a very significant role in dismantling al-qaeda after 9/11. when al-qaeda was forced out of afghanistan and went to prearranged safe houses in pakistan. once president musharraf made the decision of the pakistanis were going to work with us they were in large part responsible for taking the senior leadership of al-qaeda off the streets by capturing them after 9/11. and then the third point is the pakistani government does support other international terrorist groups providing safe havens to the taliban in parts of pakistan providing support

to anti-indian extremist groups. so the same time they are great counterterrorism partner there are counterterrorism problem. it's a schizophrenic relationship. >> and would it have been helpful to have publicized their help in combating al-qaeda? or would that have led to a shakeup when the government at some point? >> no. i think in fact this is the conversation i used to have with them. that i had was not just isi and the pakistani military but the broader pakistani government. i think it would've been opportunistic for them to take more credit than they took for the work that we did together against al-qaeda. >> and why? >> because at the end of the

day al-qaeda is as much a threat to them if not a greater threat to them than to us. >> and why do you think they did not want the role publicized? >> i think that's hard to say. one of the things you learn this is really throughout the great war of our time but a lot of insight into what it's like to be an intelligence analyst andy be an intelligence officer. one of the things you learn very quickly as an intelligence analyst is it's a very dangerous to speculate about people's motivations, very difficult to say here's what this person was thinking when they did x, y or z. you learn not to speculate about why somebody did x, y or z because you're almost always wrong. i'm going to not answer the question because i will just be guessing.

>> i would guess that the united states doesn't play a lone wolf hand in intelligence operations or analysis worldwide. so what relationship do we have or what are some of our best relationships with other intelligence agencies around the world? >> i'm not going to get into specifics for obvious reasons but i will say this. i will say two things. one is what you said is absolutely true. we cannot do our jobs without the cooperation and partnership with other intelligence services, and we're not just talking about a handful. we are talking about many many many relationships. a big part of my job as deputy director a big part of my travel overseas department i was here and i had visitors was maintain and enhance those relationships. so very very, very important or us to do our job to protect our

country and for us to help them protect their country. i will do that to our kind of three levels, second thing else i was is there a kind of three levels to an intelligence relationship, between intelligence partnership. one is the sharing of analysis. here's what we think, what do you think? and what's most valuable in that conversation is not where you agree but what's more valuable in that conversation is where you disagree. the new kind of dive into why do we disagree? and that conversation leads in my experience come at a talk in the book how i was the cia's representative to the british analytical community. in all of my experience those conversations we talk about why we disagree and try to understand that delete a broader and better understand the first

thing is the sharing of analysis. vesica is the sharing of raw intelligence. so we collect intelligence, they collect intelligence. so the cycle of other partnership is the exchange of what information. that requires a little bit more trust than the first love. and then the third level is actually working together to collect information. cooperation on operations and that takes the most trusted i should say that these relationships are built on trust. i should also say that these relationships are not only a tool for intelligence and a tool for security but they're actually strategic foreign policy over the present the united states. i tell some really interesting stories i think in the book "the great war of our time" i tell some interesting stories about my interactions with the former head of egyptian intelligence

service and the former head of the libyan intelligence service with the president specifically tasked me to try to achieve a foreign policy goal. that happens a lot. president yusuf these relationships a lot to try to further the foreign policy of the united states. >> speaking of libya two-part question. is our intelligence good fair bad in libya? and if it's bad is that because of the lack of intelligence -- human intelligence assets related? >> i don't know what it is today. i've been gone for a year now so i don't know what i don't know. but i will say this and again go into extensive detail about this in the book because of benghazi, right? after the fall of the libyan government, the libyan security service can the libyan military fell apart.

and so that was, libya no longer have the capability to do with extremists inside the border. so extremism started to flourish. gadhafi, as bad as gadhafi was on other fronts, particularly with regard to human rights complicated effectively with keep al-qaeda out of libya. and worked with us very closely on the. i had been deleted prior to the fall of the libyan government. i was in libya after the fall of the libyan government. so what if they jobs at the cia after the fall of the leading government was to monitor what is happening inside libya with regard to extremism. one of the stories we talk about in the book is part of benghazi narrative, is we were monitoring it very effectively the rise of extremist in eastern libya in

general, and in benghazi in particular reporting that the both the administration and congress. so i think, this is a success story in terms of us watching very closely with these extremes some of them with connections to al-qaeda were doing in eastern libya. >> dimension of benghazi. -- you mentioned benghazi. why did the attack on the embassy happen? and did we know about it beforehand or was there a way that we could have prevented that attack? >> that's a very good question. so no we did not know about it before and. there was absolutely no intelligence to suggest that folks are going to attack that night, and attacked the way they did.

the only way it could've been prevented, i think that i talk about this in "the great war of our time," the only way that it could've been prevented i think would've been to have battlefield kind of intelligence. what they mean by battlefield kind of intelligence is to really saturate the region with intelligence collection in a force protection kind of way. so whatever they are u.s. troops in the world there's a huge intelligence footprint around them in order to protect them. so you're picking up everything from a signals perspective and from a human perspective. i think the only way to have avoided benghazi would've been to have had that kind of footprint over the top of the. i think that's something we have to think about going for because the real lesson about in gaza is desperate benghazi is that we

protect american diplomats protect american intelligence officers, how do we protect american service men and women overseas moving forward in what is a very, very, very dangerous world? >> abu sayyaf who is supposedly isis oil minister was killed recently. do you, based on what you know, if anything, do you think he was a very significant target for us to take a? >> so a couple thoughts. very significant target. i guy who played a very significant role in advancing the interests of isis. a guy who is very close to al-baghdadi. one of al-baghdadi's senior advisers. so a very important person to remove from the battlefield.

i think there are some real positives here. one is taking him away from the fight. number two is all of the intelligence that was gained year turns out that not only was working for isis his wife was also working for isis. it would've been better to capture him than to kill them so that we could have debris came and got an additional intelligence. unfortunately, he died in the firefight, but she did not and she is being debriefed anorectic and also the significant take-up computers and documents write are all going to give the u.s. intelligence community and our allies insight into the organization insight into its structured come insight into how it's run come insight into its managed and will better able us to attack it.

and then the third, and perhaps the most important is the united states of american flying into syria putting troops on the ground and killing one senior isis person and grabbing another and got a bunch of intelligence really sends a message. there are a handful of what i consider to be important messages in "the great war of our time" your could've most important messages is that you have to put pressure on the senior leadership of these groups. when you put pressure on the senior leadership of these groups, you get them worrying more about their own security than about doing their job of attacking us and taking care -- taking territory and setting up their caliphate. so the more pressure you put on

them the more you put them on their back eels the more you make it difficult for them to plan and do their business. so i think the psychological effect on them, particularly if we follow this up by taking some additional senior guys off the battlefield is very, very, very positive. >> you mentioned isis. there are other terrorist groups in the middle east al-shabaab in somalia terror groups in yemen. you mentioned in your book that there are groups out there that we should be aware of and that we should combat or we could have another 9/11 type situation. could you mentioned some of the ones in and i'd like to focus on two particular geographical areas. one, middle east and number two is east and southern asia. >> great question. let me start with a big picture

here. in this war that i write about in "the great war of our time" come in this war we've had a couple of significant victories but so have they. our significant victories have been the protection of the homeland, and so despite significant effort on the part of al-qaeda, no successful attack, directed attack. we've had some lone wolf attacks, but no direct attacks by outside terrorist group since 9/11. remarkable success despite effort after effort after effort on the part of second significant success is the degradation, near decimation, near defeat not defeat yet come up al-qaeda senior leadership in the border areas of afghanistan and pakistan. the senior leadership that brought tragedy to the united states on 9/11.

those are our two great successes. they are great success has been the spread of their ideology across a huge geographic area, right, from northern nigeria in west africa and other parts of west africa across all of north africa and east africa come into yemen syria iraq, south asia afghanistan, pakistan, india, bangladesh. huge geographic spread. that's been the great victory. one of the reasons why we call this the great war of our time. so specifically this is a very important question because the focus on isis come and there's a reason to focus on isis there's a couple of significant threats from isis. first and probably the most important right now is to the stability of the entire middle east. so isis threatened the territorial integrity of syria

iraq and the potential for spillover to the rest of the region. that is the most important threat from isis right now. second, the second threat from isis is the radicalization of young men and young women in western europe, united states canada, australia responsible for the attacks in ottawa paris, sydney, new york city with a hatchet attack, texas a week and a half ago. and another is a long-term threat, is that the about tab safe haven from a lot of long-term safe haven in iraq and syria, then they will eventually reach out and attack us. they have told told us that. they have to listen they will do that just like bin laden have told us they were going to do that prior to 9/11. but what's interesting about what i just said about isis, this speaks to the heart of the question coming back to your question is despite a

significant threat from isis it is not the most significant threat to the homeland to be. the most significant threat to the homeland today comes from still comes from al-qaeda and three al-qaeda groups in particular. top of the list is al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula in yemen aqap come al-qaeda in yemen. the last three put into the tax against the united states were by al-qaeda in yemen. christmas day bomb in 2009 the printer cartridge which almost brought down the airline on christmas day, right in 2000. the printer cartridge plot which was designed to prevent multiple cargo planes by putting a very sophisticated explosive device into a printer cartridge and then into a printer. that was foiled literally at the last minute and then the attempt to bring down an airliner with a nonmetallic suicide vest or we talk about all of these in "the

great war of our time." they have that capability. they advocate billy to bring down an airliner in the united states of america tomorrow. i would not be surprised by that. i think most americans would. so al-qaeda in yemen. the khorasan group which is part of those are considered which is on those are is an al-qaeda group and his associate with -- al-nusra. the khorasan group is a group of operatives that were sent to syria the beginning of the student civil war to help al-nusra. they have the external operations arm for al-nusra. they are acting to protect western europe and the united states. they are a greater threat contract threat than is isis to end in third the al-qaeda senior leadership, although

significantly degraded in afghanistan and pakistan still presents a threat to western europe and the united states. >> tumor question before i opened it up to the floor. into groups you mentioned you didn't mention al-qaeda and the maghreb. are they still a threat? >> so they are, they are very much a local threat. they are not yet a threat outside the region. they could easily become a threat outside the region. a couple years ago the french became so concerned that they were becoming a threat to france at the french military went in to mali and took back a significant amount of territory that al-qaeda in the maghreb had taken and thereby weakening them considerably. and so could it become a threat someday? absolutely. are they right out outside the region?

no. >> final question. why has isis been so successful in giving foreigners to come and fight for them? did we ever do this with al-qaeda, that al-qaeda had something like 40,000 foreigners come and fight for them? why has isis been so successful? and i mean could we have a future group that could be even more successful than isis? >> so it's a great question. there is a history to foreigners going to fight for al-qaeda to. the best example is iraq after the 2003 invasion. al-qaeda stands up to fight the u.s. occupation. and a lot of foreigners flow into iraq to fight for aqi. so there's a history here.

we've never seen it in the kinds of numbers we are seeing it now. and the flow remains significant. we might have slowed it all of it but the flow of foreigners into iraq and syria to fight for isis and al-nusra but primarily isis is still significant. they have the most sophisticated narrative, social media propaganda that i've ever seen. i've talked about it being madison avenue style quality. their narrative is pretty powerful. their narrative is that the west, the united states the modern world is this different and threat -- is a significant threat to their religion that they have an attitude of threat to the religion which is the establishment of this caliphate and that they are being attacked

as they try to establish this caliphate, being attacked by the united states and other western nations come and live these apostate regimes in the region. and because they are being attacked as their try to set up the caliphate to protect their religion they need support. and the need support in two ways. people coming to fight with them and able to stand up and attack coalition nations in their home. it's a pretty powerful narrative. we don't really have a great counter narrative. not because we are not doing our job but because it's really hard to have a counter narrative in a conversation about a religion where we have absolutely no credibility. so we really need that leaders of muslim countries. we need leading muslim clerics, we need muslim teachers to have this dialogue in those countries

themselves. that's where it has to take place. one of the things that i think president sisi has been exceptional is actually raised this issue in his society. he tried to have a conversation with his own people about this. that's where it has to take place. >> before we open the floor to questions, i do think it sometimes but his book is "the great war of our time: an insider's account of the cia's fight against al-qa'ida." i would like to open the floor up to questions. yes, please give us your name and your affiliation. [inaudible] based in beirut, lebanon. bears growing skepticism about whether united states is a series about fighting terrorism in the region isis or isil, or al-qaeda. from time to time there is

selective attacks like the one in syria. but how isis or al-qaeda is able to move freely in a large area with all the surveillance and not detected and attacked while it's moving? so one other aspect of this also skepticism is image and al-qaeda in yemen and in the peninsula. the united states is assisting saudi arabia and attacking the people who are fighting al-qaeda in yemen. a who the group and the yemeni army were fighting al-qaeda and that were allow al-qaeda to expand and take more -- houthi. so how can you say this is effectively or this is a serious way of attacking?

one last just think about the cia. this is a military campaign or a cia campaign? which one is more effective to conduct operations against al-qaeda or against terrorism? sorry, i lost my voice. >> thank you for the question. good questions. look here's what i would say. number one and there's a chapter in the book on the arab spring that, the title of the chapter is al-qaeda spring. the arab spring was a boon to al-qaeda, a boon to al-qaeda. why? two reasons. one is left some countries unable to deal with extremism inside their border. that's what i was talking about earlier with regard to libya

right? gadhafi was able to do with al-qaeda inside its borders. the new libyan government was not capable. they wanted to. i had many conversations with them. they didn't have the capability. when you don't have let me come back to that. second it left the arab spring also left some countries unwilling to deal with al-qaeda inside their borders. best example, egypt under president morsi. the guys who i worked with in egypt still had the capability to do with al-qaeda that they no longer believed that they had the political top cover to do their job. and as a result of the pressure was taken off of al-qaeda in egypt, and guess what? al-qaeda can back to egypt for the first time in 25 years. and they are still there.

and so in both of these, right your inability to deal with extremism inside your borders or your unwillingness to do with extremism inside your borders gives terrorist groups safe haven. and they thrive on safe havens. when you safe haven is really tough to get at them. one of the things you up so they need to be able to deal with these groups and keep pressure on them is intelligence. so this is an intelligence war. and i don't mean fun aspect of fighting it. i mean from the intelligence perspective. you can't understand these guys capability. you can't understand their plans and intentions. you can't understand their vulnerabilities. you can't understand where they

are without first rate intelligence. and we are good at this but it takes time. you can't just have isis all of a sudden do a blitzkrieg across iraq and into okay, where's the intelligence on where these guys are? it takes a tremendous amount of time and a tremendous amount of effort to put together the intelligence you need. the other thing i will say is that the middle east is a concentrated place. incredibly complicated. number one from anyone who tells you they know what the middle east is going to look like a year from now or five years from now is either lying or they don't know what they are talking about. but this whole bunch of different dynamics going on in the middle east, and with the dynamics going on is this cold war. i think about it as a cold war. this cold war/proxy war going on

between iran on the one hand and the gulf arab states on the other. and that war right gets in the way sometimes of fighting the war against these terrorists. syria is an incredibly good example of that. because if you look at syria from one perspective if you look at syria from one perspective, it's a war between a secular leader, assad come and al-qaeda and isis. so who should we be supporting in that war? assad. but on the other hand, from another perspective it's a war, a proxy war between iran inside saudi arabia. who should we be supporting in that were? i think saudi arabia. you could argue with me on that but i think saudi arabia. so you've got two different perspectives of the world when even completely two different direction in terms of what the

united states should you. yemen is a bit like the. is a proxy for between saudi arabia and iran. the iranians are supporting the houthis. the saudis are supporting president hadi. who by the way was a very effective partner of the united states against al-qaeda. al-qaeda is benefiting from the chaos in yemen. it's not benefiting from the fact that president hadi was in charge of the place to you is very effective against al-qaeda the they are benefiting from the chaos that there, and that goes back to the original point is these groups always benefit from a little instability and chaos. it's very difficult to get your arms around her. i don't know if that answers your question, but there's that spent i can follow about the issue of city, you didn't address that whether that criticism of the united states in selective and serious, and also about the issue of cia

versus the military. this is an operation you mentioned about -- >> i'm going to purposefully not answer the second question okay? but it will answer your serious question. i'm pretty confident, despite the loss of ramadi, i am pretty confident that in enough time iraq in the coalition will push back isis and iraq. there will be ups and downs in this fight and ramadi is a great example of a down. but the fact of the matter is the coalition is taken back 25% of the territory that isis first took in its discrete. so the coalition is actually not doing that. i'm pretty confident that given time, connection airstrikes the mixture of kurds, shia militia and retraining of iraqi security forces, i'm pretty confident

that the strategy, the president's strategy in iraq is going to work. i would be really honest with you, i'm less confident about our strategy in syria. a strategy conceived in is to train and equip moderate opposition guys in syria to take on isis in syria to be the ground force to go with the airpower to be the ground force that takes back the territory from isis in syria. there is not too many moderate opposition guys left because many of them have joined al-nusra because al-nusra was taking the fight more effectively. a lot of them have abandoned ship and gone to fight for either al-nusra or isis. and then i don't think our plans our plans are not robust enough. you would have to train i think

tens of thousands of moderate opposition guys a year in order to effectively take on isis in syria. so i'm not sure we've got serious right yet. and i'm not sitting here like i have the answer to this question. it is really hard. but i have some confident in iraq, and i like that conference in syria. >> just to get a baseline here. you with a brief afford george bush -- >> i was president bush's first intelligence briefer, so everything kind of the entire calendar year of -- >> you are not acknowledging that the bush administration falsified information on iraqi wmds and other -- >> i am not acknowledging it because it's not true. it is a great myth come a great myth that the bush white house

or hard-liners in the bush administration pushed the central intelligence agency to push the u.s. intelligence community and every other intelligence community that look at this issue to believe that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. all they have to do is tell you this, that the cia believed that saddam had weapons of mass destruction programs long before george bush ever came to office. we were telling bill clinton that. >> all become one would not be following iraq is a the clinton administration never falsified information on iraq as well. so for example when bush -- >> go ahead spent on putting evidence if i could. so september of 2002 when he was at a news conference with tony blair and this is just one example, that there was an iaea report saying that iraq was six-month with a development of open. i don't know how much more evidence we need. and then the iaea says there is no such report that was just an

honest mistake. >> youmistake. >> you have to ask in the building i can tell you, the only thing i can tell you is what we were telling them at the time. that's the only thing i can tell you. >> so you among other things in your time at the cia had a role in "zero dark thirty" which in effect glorifies the use of torture to gain quote-unquote intelligence. i would ask you about a different case and that's the case of shakeout libya -- shaikh al-libi who was tortured by egyptian authorities in our behest to -- if i make -- >> do whatever you wanted your premise is wrong. >> you're interrupting me. >> your premise is wrong. >> and you can say that if you like, who was tortured and ordered said that iraq and al-qaeda were related to this is actually in the latest senate report on torture. among other places. so contrary to the mythology

that torture is immoral it actually breeds intentionally useful but false information. >> okay if i'm going to go back to your first comment about seattle pays enhanced interrogation techniques which you call torture, which i want to tell you that premise right off the bat. when the central intelligence agency used enhanced interrogation techniques to get information from al-qaeda detainees, the justice department of the united states of america on multiple occasions said it was illegal said it wasn't torture. so for you to call it torture is you calling my officers torturers come at the justice department of the united states of america said they were not. so i'm going to defend my officers to my last breath and people calling in torturers. number two i'm going to challenge your premise that the

egyptians tortured at libya at our behest. at our behest not true. we never asked the egyptians to torture shakeout libya. what is your evidence for that? >> that mtv that evidence off-line does with other people who want to ask questions. >> andrew craig editor of the justice integrity process also an author so my question goes into the best because we came in a what happened last week. one, there are pictures widely circulated of a senator mccain meetings some people about two years ago, some allege temple of them is al-baghdadi. senator mccain has denied that same essentially that he didn't meet with isil. who did he meet with?

's been very quick answer, i have no idea. i really have no idea. two more if you don't want, quickly. two of the greatest crimes of the last 55 years are widely considered 9/11 and the jfk assassination. that cia has awarded release of documents on both of those including the 28 pages of who funded 9/11 as well as the remaining documents that were supposed to be released with jfk. why does the cia fight release of these critical documents to historians? >> so i don't know the specifics in each case. i really don't know the specifics but i will tell you a personal view. my personal view is that there is no room for the central intelligence agency and its senior leadership to talk to the public about what the cia does. there's more room for us to release documents, it's resource

intensive. it's not zero cost. with other things to do so you got to balance these things. but i think there is more room for us to put more out there because i do think it's very important, very important in a democracy, particularly for secret intelligence organizations to have as much conversation with the public ask it can possibly have. just so we don't get these misperceptions that we are talking about here. >> the gentleman in the back and then the woman in front. could you come towards the middle? >> item from the media. my question is about the syrian al-nusra and so if these affecting your actions against al-nusra because they apparently side and someone with the sunni against the shia hezbollah and so in syria. >> i am not aware of anything

that the israelis are doing that has made our life more difficult, these are the al-nusra and isil. i'm just not aware of any. spent tony with "bloomberg news." i read your book pretty closely. ramadi can have significant setback is it for the count i saw effort? i have follow-ups spent a good question to go back to what i said earlier. there are going to be ups and downs in this war. is going to be battles won and battles lost. this is a battle lost come a significant battle lost but i do think that when you look at the bigger context it's taken by 25% of the territory that they took into its craig. -- blitzkrieg. it looked pretty good additive conference that the strategy that we have in place is eventually going to win back iraq. >> in your book one of the things you criticize worthy

debaathification decision taken by the cpa. the debaathification at issue. the whole sunni-shia tensions that have been going on for decades. is ramadi somewhat of a product of the debaathification issue? albeit 13 years later and the inability to transcend shia-sunni divide? >> so sure absolutely. look, here's the story of the rise of isis, very quickly. so when we left the country at the end of 2011 al-qaeda in iraq was really at its nadir. when we left two things happened. the first thing that happened was the military pressure was reduced significantly on aqi. because the u.s. was

significantly assisting the iraqis and keeping pressure on aqi. so they benefited from that. the other thing they benefited from were the policy of former prime minister maliki. the moves against sunnis a significant disenfranchisement of sunnis driving moderate sunnis into the arms of aqi. that also benefited aqi. that is the sunni-shia divide we're talking about. bendigo across the border into syria and changed their name. isis is aqi by by a different name. they go across the border and the benefit from recruit, benefit from weapons assad's stockpiles and to benefit from money. they become this very significant organization. but scheuer part of the story here is the politics of iraq no doubt about it. >> so you're saying the invasion of iraq coming originally the

one you said there was an imminent threat, i forget the page, with the invasion in iraq in retrospect setting the stage for the rise of al-qaeda and isil? >> so there's no doubt that the u.s. occupation of iraq created al-qaeda in iraq and had al-qaeda the organization throw all its resources into iraq to take on another u.s. occupation in the region. no doubt about that. but we also beat them back and one of the things i try to do in this book is not judge previous decisions as right or wrong. so i the same president bush's decision to invade iraq was the right thing for the wrong thing. i don't the idle say that enhanced interrogation with the right thing or the wrong thing.

what attracted in both those cases is in a lot of detail in "the great war of our time" companies to thank the context of the times. to paint the context in which president bush made the decision on iraq, to paint the context in which george kennan, condi rice and the president made the decision on enhanced interrogation techniques. it's really important for people to understand the context because it's very easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say it's a good thing or a bad thing. it's much tougher when you're in the moment and you got to make that decision and this is the information base you have some of this right, some of this wrong in retrospect and you've got to make the call. that's what i try to do in the book is try to put people into the shoes of these guys as they make these extremely tough decisions. >> sputnik international news. a few reports have come out a big one from poland on the polish government having to pay

detainees about a quarter million dollars in reparations for being held at cia transfer and interrogation sites. there have also been reparations demanded of the macedonian government, former president of romania came out and said that he regretted allowing the cia to use territory in his country to interrogate detainees. what is your response to this? will there be any recourse by the cia by the united states government as these other countries come under pressure to pay reparations, come under pressure from europeans, human rights european human rights court's? >> so not going to talk about in specific cases for obvious reasons. countries where we may have or

may not have held detainees. but i will say this. the countries that supported this program the leadership of those countries was aware. this wasn't some rogue operation inside the borders of these countries. they did so, they did so because they thought the mission of protecting the united states and the west in their own country was an important one. and because they thought that would be able to keep all of this secret. they wanted our discretion and they wanted our thanks, and we were not able to deliver on the discretion part. >> two questions for you. the first one is --

>> give us your name. >> sorry stephen nelson from u.s. news. i'm wondering if you could clarify your personal views on how much, how many e-mails records should be collected on americans in the mission of counterterrorism and how much that's legal now? and if you could speak in general terms like on what surveillance you think is currently being done on julian assange and edward snowden individuals for whom they work? >> so the second question i have no idea. the first question, so i obviously be say that security is very important to i wouldn't have spent 33 years and the central intelligence agency if i didn't. but i also believe that privacy and civil liberties of americans is extremely important. i am a supporter of the telephone metadata program.

it fills important gaps that were there before 9/11. i believe, you know i can't prove this i can put a lot of evidence on the table to show this but i believe if the program had been in place prior to 9/11 that we might have seen some the communication between the 9/11 hijackers and maybe that would've allowed us to disrupt it maybe not. we just don't know. but it was put in place specifically to fill a gap. i was a member of, so i think it should remain. [inaudible] >> let's talk about the telephone metadata program first. i think it should remain. in think it should rethink a convective thing in some ways it should be strengthened because it doesn't include all phone calls made in the united states. and it does include metadata from e-mails. so if there's an al-qaeda cell in the united states communicate with each other via e-mail, and we wouldn't see it.

we would not see it. and believing believe me that there was another 9/11 and they were communicating via e-mail, the american people would say, why the heck were you not monitoring? right? so i think it should be strengthened but also think that, and i was on president obama's review group on snowden. the whole chapter in "the great war of our time" on this come and we recommended that the program be kept by to be reformed. what were the reforms that we recommended? we recommended to reforms that we recommended that the government cannot hold the data together recommended that they can be required to get a court order anytime they wanted to query the data. matches be able to query the data anytime they wanted under any product court order. so those other forms that we recommended. those reforms were accepted by president obama.

that is what the obama administration is pushing on the hill. it's essentially the bill that was passed by the house. so i'm a supporter of that deal and i think, i think that the reform i'm talking about which still allows us to greet the day that when we need to for the purposes we need to to see whether terrorists are talking to each other gives us of that capability and also protects privacy and civil liberties at the same time. because i agree, i agree that that kind of data in and out of government creates the potential for abuse to there was no abuse. we found no abuse in an essay in this program which does create the potential for abuse and that's why we are committed what we get. i stand by my recommendation report. >> i'm going to take a moderate prerogative and ask the last two questions. on to any terrorist groups in east/south asia that the cia should be looking at closely?

>> so i defined south asia broadly. al-qaeda in the tribal areas of pakistan, al-qaeda in afghanistan, and al-qaeda is increasingly getting a foothold in bangladesh and india come and that's not well understood phenomenon. the intelligence community is watching it closely but it's not well understood outside the government. >> last question. the defense department has recently reached out to silicon valley to help it find and include advanced technologies into military systems. is there any lessons that cia could take from the speak with we are actually way ahead of the defense department on this question. so when george tenet was director of the cia he created the cia created a not-for-profit private entity called -- their

job, this is all public information, their job is to invest seed money in startups in which they believe that there is a technology that will be of use to the intelligence community and will be commercially viable so that the company will survive and continue to enhance the technology and service it. they have been incredibly successful over the years 70% of its investments have resulted in products coming back to the intelligence community. it's one of the largest hedge funds now in silicon valley. and it has been incredibly successful in bringing technology into cia and the intelligence community. >> with that i would like to thank mr. morrell for his insightful discussion today about like to thank you all for joining us.

without this proceeding is closed -- with that. [inaudible conversations] >> the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress with color photos of every senator and house member plus bio and contact information, and twitter handles. also, dislus bio and contact information, and twitter handles. also, district maps a foldout map of capitol hill and to look at congressional committees the president's cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. order your copy today. it's $13.95 plus shipping and handling at c-span.org. >> the u.s. senate about to gavel in, continued work on the trade promotion authority

measure which would grant the president fast-track authority to the unbendable trade agreement to congress for up or down vote. members will recess at 12:30 p.m. for their weekly party lunches. also possible this week come work on the highway trust fund and government surveillance provisions in the patriot act which are both set to expire at the end of the month. you are watching live coverage from the floor of the u.s. senate. the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. gracious god of all, we have heard glorious things about your goodness. let your glory be over all the earth. our hearts make melodies to you because of your exceeding greatness. thank you for your faithfulness