repeatedly. when they talk about their objectives, they don't say, oh, and by the way, one of our main objectives also is to attack the united states. i think attacking the united states before 9/11 was about bin laden's kind of fantasy about what this would do. and after 9/11, was about recruiting. and about showing people they were still relevant. and about lots of other things, but not about those main objectives any longer. so that is why i call al qaeda not a terrorist group, because a terrorist group is a small, secretive group, few hundred people, don't have either the capabilities or the desire to expand further, unable to recruit people into their organization fast enough to replace them. and are incapable of holding territory and governing it. and when you look at al qaeda core, you can say, well, that certainly is what's going on. but as you pointed out, the term al qaeda actually means headquarters. and, in fact, their first term for themselves was the high command.

something that is repeated also in these captured document and elsewhere. the high command of something they hoped would be bigger. and which since about 2005/2006, has begun to live up to these aspirations of the 1990s. they set out to create, which you call franchises, but they actually call branches of their organization. they believe that those branches are an integral part of their organization, are carrying out their orders. they're not off there on their own, they believe. simply conquering territory and doing all kinds of things they shouldn't do. at least that's what they thoug thought until zarqawi came along and suddenly they couldn't count on these guys to agree with them in a sort of general way about objectives, to agree with them about the strategies to go about achieving these, because zarqawi was a huge lesson to them in what happens if you don't have tighter command and control. so before about 2005, 2006, they

were slowly creating something. and then zarqawi showed them what would happen if you allowed somebody to completely destroy your name. and since that time, i think they have kept a much tighter sort of command and control than was possible before that time. i don't think it's any coincidence about the same time that bin laden moved into that house in abad abad. because as you pointed out, the way we knew about communications before last year, suggested that they used couriers only in order to carry their orders around, and that turned out to not be very helpful at all, especially when you send off orders as atia did back in 2005, and zarqawi just says, no, thank you, i'm not going to do whatever you suggest. so in 2005, they moved in this house in abad abad, and the early news reports from, you know, what was found in the house said, in fact, that there were fiberoptic connections in

the house. so to me, that answered a huge question that had been raised about my assertions that were backed up by very, very little evidence about command and control. i mean, i could see people doing what they ordered. i could see them putting out orders and people actually fulfilling them. but how precisely are you going to organize something like this on a global scale without some sort of tighter command and control? i couldn't understand how they were doing it. although i should point out that command and control in an irregular war is a very, very different thing from command and control in a regular war. always much looser, and people disobeying orders and things like that. and has, you know, general strategic guidance from the high command rather than specific daily updates required and things like that. so even in -- before i heard about abad abad, there was this recognition at least by me that we weren't talking about the kind of command and control that, for instance, the pentagon exercises on combatant

commanders around the world. but so in 2009, 2010, i had some really rough conversations with people in which they attacked this notion of command and control at all, and i began to change my mind. the one thing i couldn't answer is how is he going to do this from a cave up in northern waziristan? and i was like, yeah, that's right. i can't imagine how you would do this from a cave in northern waziristan. and as soon as i heard he was in abad abad, i was like, wow, i think i'm getting it. and as soon as i heard that there were these fiberoptic connections, i was like, that answers an awful lot too, because you don't have to, perhaps -- perhaps, depend entirely on some sort of courier system, there might be other methods that could be used for this. i would like to finish by saying that i understand that making this assertion -- that is that this is not a terrorist group but is, in fact, a headquarters or high command of something that is attempting to become, or is in the process of becoming a

global insurgency, has an awful lot of policy implications, some of which are tremendously unpalatable. but i don't believe that you should ignore what's -- reality is telling you, because one, you can't afford it. or two, you just don't like what reality is telling you, right? because the fact that we can't afford to carry out a global counterinsurgency in the way we did in anbar province, for instance, should not make us flinch from recognizing, at least, the scope of the problem we're dealing with, right? so i understand that there are tremendous policy implications from everything i'm saying. and that first and foremost, it argues that attrition is absolutely the wrong way to go. it will, in fact, encourage radicalization and recruitment. and that our main method for combatting these guys is probably adding to the problem, rather than helping to solve it. there's an awful lot of places where it's the only thing we can

be doing, though, right? we don't have partners. we don't have capabilities ourselves. we believe that that's it. well, maybe that's true, maybe that's not. but to engage in a practice that is, in fact, worsening the problem for us on a daily basis, is not the way to go, if, in fact, we are not dealing with a terrorism problem, but are, in fact, dealing with an insurgency problem. so i just would like to stop there, and please forgive me, again, for leaving early after throwing all these rhetorical sort of twists. thank you. >> thank you very much, mary. it will be a few minutes before we come back to your thinking bomb. and we are going to ask our final speaker, dr. thomas ninch, who is a distinguished research fellow, at the institute for

national strategic studies at the national defense university. and retired from the military after 26 years or so. tom? >> great. thank you very much. thank you for having me here today. as yoena mentioned, i'm a research fellow over at the national defense university so let me offer this opening comment. the comments i'm about to make to you here neither represent the position of my host institution, national defense university or the department of defense, but are my own individual conclusions. again, delighted to be here today. as we near the one-year anniversary of the operation that eliminated bin laden, i'm here to contend perhaps not as starkly as mary has offered about diverging with her position, but i'm out here to contend to you that rather than overestimating the death of bin laden, we still under estimate, and underappreciate the degree to which bin laden's death has really clarified and made more understandable what -- here's

what i do disagree with mary, what is not a global insurgency, but rather has been a radical ideology that has prospered under the leadership of a core and unique organization which tried to bring life to five separate dimensions of that particular diverse ideology and has attempted to get its arms around it and challenge in the direction of the aims that mary so eloquented pointed out here. what i'm here to contend to you is bin laden is a personality and is no less relevant than lenin was, in being able to fuse and bring together. and we misappreciate badly, if we think bin laden's death isn't the equivalent of lenin dying in swits land and making it into russia. much like lenin, there was no other organizer of victory who brought together the charisma, fund-raising ability, and now as we know -- i was like mary, convinced that bin laden was a strategically relevant communicator with disparate

outfits, and i have to confess insider knowledge, while still in uniform, i worked in u.s. cent com and iraq and we knew bin laden personally was involved in communications and tried to corral or bring under control zawahiri, and making outreach to al shabaab and he was working through mediums and other individuals. but we knew he was there and doing that. and as a consequence, and no surprise when you're talking about a global ideology, bin laden was relevant. consequently, his death changes, or evolves or morphs al qaeda and what it is. but it also leaves extant what i think mary has referred to and sha reason and matthew has referred to, this wider issue of ideology, which i'm going to contend in a second remains extant and really is the issue. but like a boulder being rubbled into small pebbles, when you take away the cohesion and the glue and you're left with -- and

i agree with matthew here -- sandpaper as the relevant cohesive idea, when you take away bin laden from bin laden/zawahiri, you're left with a different managerial problem and one i would contend needs an altered vocabulary to understand. not that it's any less relevant, but that rather than being pursued and taken on in the language of a global conflagration or a quest against a global insurgent movement, that you instead focus a lot more on bringing down your overseas footprint so you aren't the met as sizing element in a lot of different places where you don't have to be. second, that you focus more on special forces operations and direct operations and working with partner nations, some of whom may not share your particular proclivities about democracy in the short term, but who in the long term wish to see and see vanish this kind of same metastasized violent threat that al qaeda is. and third, you spend more time on your intelligence and police cooperation, because the rubbled elements are less of a threat to do what mary has correctly referred to as kind of the

outside-in approach that bin laden and zawahiri brought to al qaeda which is this notion we're failing in trying to overthrow corrupt governments in the period of the 1990s, algeria,agea ba shan, and we have to come together to throw out this buttressing influence of western nations. this, indeed, was the spark of al qaeda that was the most significant to altering the organization from what was the kind of chaos of the salafi/jew haddy movement. i'm arguing here, our interest right now is in recognizing this change, backing off of the rhetoric of trying to take on every one of these affiliate groups as though they are some kind of inherent threat to put on the man tell of what he represented. or claims he's influencing syria or involved in some type of plots in yemen, has anything other than a steering wheel

disembodied from this bus of the wider ideology. because we make a policy mistake if we move in that direction when in reality it is the voices of the islamic world, where i have had the privilege of living in afghanistan and pakistan. it is those voice that is indeed at the end of the day are going to find a path forward that moves in a more modern way, without the resort to violence as the only way towards political change. which is the underpinning of salafi jew haddism, and which al qaeda opted to move and organize and ban together in a very globally focused and therefore a very dangerous set of activities that did gavel economize our intention on 9/11, probably should have above, but did g galvanize. indeed, i've written on this, and argued that bin laden's death really is the 820% solution to the unique problem that al qaeda tried to graft itself on top of this movement.

and the five elements of al qaeda, which, by the way, has been, as mary correctly notes and orients, been oriented towards trying to co opt and bring together these diffuse elements that are revolutionary inside the muslim world is really the following, i argue.r dedicated to planning, recruiting and training for, as well as for organizing -- and this is the important word here, catastrophic global terrorist events against america, westerners and zionist targets, especially in their home lands. and i think matthew alluded, as well, for the purpose of what? for the purpose of getting us out of muslim land so they could have free rein what they believe to be autocratic regimes. second, organizing and coordinating already regionally focused groups and acts of violence against muslim lands. where their presence was believed to defile islam and bring to a level unacceptable.

third, and this is important, although a lesser included. an inspiration to the disaffected and lone wolf muslims worldwide to act out on their frustrations through violence against symbols or perceived oppression against islam. fourth, and very important, to serve as a brand name, representing the kind of highest level of this ideology in bringing successful violence against the so-called crusader governments and officials in which most senior leaders of the jihad remain free from serious punishment, penalty or harm. and here indeed was this mystical notion of al qaeda prior to the raid against bin laden, was this notion of imimpunity, that bin laden and zawahiri were immune. they could go, find, sucker, find a way to hide out and this long arm of americanism and westernism couldn't get to them, all right? and then fifth, that they, that is al qaeda, would serve as a base certain for the conquest of afghanistan, and included in that is western pakistan. in the name of global jihad. and this is particularly important, and i write about

this in the paper, because of the mystical origins as sha re and matthew have pointed to about how it built up at the end of the soviet jihad period and how then it turned itself towards first these local jihadi activities, and then eventually towards the galvanized framing and bringing together of zawahiris egyptian islamic jihad with bin laden's al qaeda and a focus on the far enemy first in order to get and defeat the near enemy second. now, these five elements, i argue, three of them have been totally castigated by the raid in abad abad, right? this notion of a brand name that was free from -- free from retribution or had impunity against being captured or attacked, that was brought to its knees and most of us saw that clearly over the next two to three months, okay? this notion of how could this have happened, followed by this claim and this desire to have

revenge and revaunch for rage. but the notion of impunity and living above and beyond the law, that came crashing down by way of this raid. and i would argue to you that zawahiri in particular, as well as several other of the limited number of remaining core group elements still feel the wrath of that, because they are no longer seen as impugn ant, i would tell you here, we made it clear to the pakistanis and others that any obvious intelligence on where zawahiri is would produce the same type of response. and i think that's to the right, okay? and that's exactly where we need to be on this. because even though he is sandpaper to bin laden's glue, he still controls a cohort of well-trained and well-capable egyptians and to a lesser extent algerians who are very capable of attacks, and should not be taken lightly. second, this notion of a core organization able to plan, recruit and conduct successful overseas terrorist operations. that has been put asunder in the

last five to six years. we can all point to things that have been plotted or planned in western pakistan, and indeed our intelligence has correctly identified that since it leaves 2006, but we've also shown an ability to intercept, adapt and work with partners to include the much maligned and deservedly so, but the very janice-faced isi in pakistan to corral and arrest a number of these folks who were plotting very massive attacks in western europe and in some cases against us in the homeland or to find the critical bits of information that allowed us to intercept those plotters that would be here. so al qaeda as a core organization no longer has that cache or capability. and in the monday graph i published in february listed those left out there, oh i argue, other than zawahiri have limited cableability to organize this group. and the relationship between bin laden and omar and the haqqani

group was really a personal relationship. and i think we're starting to see a little more nuggets of that coming out now with people releasing from abad abad, not that zawahiri wasn't in play here. but zawahiri and the egyptians never swore an oath or a buy outto omar. and having lived in that part of the world and done a lot of work with kahl and others suggests strongly it is not the ideological linkage to al qaeda anymore that matters most to omar, but the strategic linkage to pakistan and how far pakistan wishes to see notions that the jihad from western pakistan is being fermented into an international problem, either for americans or chinese or others, that that's the constraining break right now. so what does that leave us? with half the other two of the five key things of al qaeda that are left out there, that we do legitimately have to worry about, but we neat to need to

take a different tack and approach that says res reduce the footprint of american military and western military where you can, orient around special forces, indirect strikes, technology and better police coordination. and that's kind of where i think we're headed in yemen and somalia, maybe slow for our liking, but where we need to get to. and also as a consequence, we should expect that al qaeda is trying -- attempt to inspiration -- really try to co opt these regional groups will continue. but again, the bus analogy. let's be careful about making sure the handle on the wheel is connected to the bus, and not just a claim or an attempt to claim virtual ownership of something that has a lot more local roots and origins. and second the issue of the lone wolf terrorism attacker, where i think where even in the united states finally started to come to grips with this right now, and i refer you to the most recent counterterrorism strategy where the phrase resilience comes up a lot. over and over and over again. and that has to do with the fact that, you know, no matter how good we are in counterterrorism activities, we're never going to do away with the lone wolf.

or the inspired individual that shows up regretly at the recruiting station, okay, or with a claim of self professed internet activity that caused them to read an al qaeda website, one of the several hundred,000 out there, and go off and do something negative. they're harder to get to, but they're less catastrophic in their effect and orientation and i think it's time we followed the mantra of resilience and looked at our own capabilities and said we've got more than enough ability to handle these types of things through local law enforcement, as long as we keep connected with these parts of the world where the folks are likely to be over the next couple years. so the prescription is not to overemphasize or hyper inflate the degree to which al qaeda brings together but not a globally catastrophically dangerous salafi/jihadi movement, and to recognize that al qaeda's uniqueness attempt to bring it together. that made it dangerous. bin laden's death dramatically reduced that danger and our policy, i argue, needs to reflect that going forward. thank you.

>> thank you. >> thank you very much, tom. in honor of our speakers, i would like to develop some sort of discussion, especially because i know that mary and matt have to leave for your teaching. okay. are there any questions now at this point? >> use the microphone. >> would you kindly come to the mic over there? we've scared them speechless. >> can i say one thing about this whole kalafa -- >> if members of the panel want to make a statement or ask a question or comment? yes, milton. >> milton hoenig.

a very general question. what is -- what you've said have to do with the concern over a rise in domestic terrorism? and terrorism, perhaps, is inspired by the ideals of al qaeda. even after the death of bin laden. what is your feeling about the importance of a concern over domestic terrorism? one speaker emphasized it strongly. what is the panel's concern about that? >> mary? >> i'm -- on the one hand, what i've said might seem to minimize the danger from terrorist attacks, but, in fact, terrorist attacks are one of the major means that al qaeda has used in this war as a whole. so it's one of their major tactics they've used in this war. so i personally do not believe that anything i said should minimize the threat that we face

for potential terrorist attacks. and i'd like to just say about zawahiri in particular. if he were smart, he would never carry out another attack on the u.s. again. because unless americans are dying, apparently we don't care. so if he were smart, he would never, ever, ever attack us again. and keep doing what has been going on in the rest of the world as one person put it to me, the garden spots of the world. this person put it dismissively. and we wouldn't -- we wouldn't intervene, we wouldn't -- made a public declaration, you know, tomorrow, we've given up, you know -- we're not going to attack the u.s. again. i think that would be one of the smartest things he could do strategically. given his war aims. but i don't believe he'll do it. and that's because i have a slightly different read on zawahiri than perhaps others on the panels do. around the panel do.

15 years ago, i think that was right on. i think -- he had ticked off he have been in his entire organization that he had had started. he had such an abrasive personality i think caused by certain events in his life, most especially the fact that he was tortured so horribly. and betrayed his best friend. right? to death. so i think there was a lot of pent-up anger that kept him from working well -- you know, playing well with the other children. but on the other hand, he has had 15, 20, you know -- nearly 20 to watch how bin laden did things, to learn from him, to see how the organization works. and i'm sure he has a deputy, as well, who will take over for him if he is killed. because the organization is this tightly knit hierarchical organization with lots of room for guys getting killed off and replacing them. not that that doesn't cause them problems. i'm certain it does. but a lot of people expected the entire al qaeda core to collapse.

and the whole worldwide thing to collapse after the death of bin laden. and that didn't happen. there were 40 days of silence, because that's the mourning period. and then he was announced as the next head, and things just went on. but on the other hand, i said that i don't think he'll be able to give up attacking the united states, even though his strategic focus seems to be egypt and la vont and exploiting the arab spring in particular, from everything he is saying. but he is also extremely angry at the united states. and i think his attack on the u.s. won't be about chasing the u.s. out of the -- you know, our lands, won't be about fund-raising, per se. in fact, i don't think it has a rational -- it will have a rational basis at all. i think it will be pure revenge. because it was the u.s. that killed his wife and his kids and i don't think he's ever forgotten that anymore than he has forgotten that his -- he was tortured by the egyptian

government, and betrayed his best friend. so i do worry about attacks on the u.s. but i don't see them as having the kind of tight sort of strategic aims that bin laden's 9/11 attack, for instance had, that went after economic, military and, you know, political centers. i believe it will just -- it will be in a sort of i want revenge, and he's going to do it regardless, i think, of whether it's to the benefit of the group or not. >> yeah. you know, i think that part of that is irrelevant, in that the attacks in the united states could come from al qaeda core. it could be driven by al qaeda core. and i do think there is something to be said for the fact that the al qaeda core today has less to do with than once did. there are people still out there, people who know the united states, who are certainly trying to carry out attacks. but i think the larger thing, to

get to the question, which was about the homegrown violence extremist threat, is that the most likely threats we're going to have here in the united states aren't going to come from the al qaeda core. they're not going to be al qaeda, per se, at all, other than from the big idea. i think that operationally, what that means, it's not that we won't have at least attempts on spectacular attacks, whether it's from al qaeda core or the al qaeda peninsula, the franchises, you'll still have that. but what's much more likely, and likely to be more frequent, is smaller-scale attacks. by home-grown violence extremists or other wannabes. some may have ties back as the times square bomber did, back to pakistan. and others may not. hopefully most of those will fail -- well, hopefully they'll be thwarted. if they're not thwarted, and let's call a spade a spade, we didn't thwart the times square bombing, it's just they weren't as capable. they couldn't remember how to make the bomb so it would actually go off with the right materials. or even the subway bombing that the trial just finished in new

york, where they had to communicate back one more time, days they couldn't figure out how to wire it just right. i think in some ways that's most likely. so things -- i don't take a whole lot of comfort from there. it could kill hundreds or several dozen. and if you had a bunch of those, it could be devastating and it could have a devastating economic effect, as well. so i think some of the shifts in how we understand al qaeda beyond just the core, that's why i think it's so important to go beyond just debating what is the core today, what might it be tomorrow? it's -- unbelievably relevant, and thomas, i think your paper was very, very good. but i think it's beyond that. i think we all agree, it's also now the affiliates, and it's very much the fact that this idea has metastasized, and we don't do a good enough job, neither the kind of terrorism level, nor at the kind of what the europeans call the social cohesion level to deal with this. because homegrown violence extremists seem to be driven by some combination of two things. one, most importantly, i believe, a radical ideology.

but what makes them amenable to that ideology, what opens them to it, oh things that have to do with social cohesion. again, whether it's being underemployed or unemployed or not knowing as a second or third generation muslim whether they fit in my husband limb or my american -- as we see in europe, if you look at the sew monthlyian-american community, it's not something that would go a long way towards making the country safer. >> i think there is a tactical implication that both mary and matthew touched on that i want to highlight here. and that is the feature of the core, in terms of being able to provide this cadre of very capable bomb-makers and trainers and rehearsers. and matthew's point about, you know, the failure of faisal sha sad to have the bomb go off is indicative of the fact he was a boy scout camper in the fatah. he didn't have a lot of training or route reach. the fact that mahmud couldn't get his underwear to go off in the plane mean