to tom's very good answer. as fred said, we didn't present a menu of things that we think need to be done. we think all of them need to be done. and right up there is the reorganization of the oversight of our homeland security process. when i was general counsel at d.o.d., the chairman of the joint chiefs was in a regular dialogue with the oversight committees in the house and the senate. two of them. and the chairs and ranking members of those committees knew what he was thinking, and he knew what they were thinking. we don't have that with regard to homeland security. you couldn't do that if you wanted to. we'll have an opportunity to talk to chairman mike mccall on the house side in a little while, but i think it is -- if you look at the chart that lee hamilton held up, it would be impossible to have a sense on the executive branch side of

what would be acceptable in congress in a short period of time with the structure that we have. so the agility that tom talked about is critical. you need organization on the executive branch side, but you also need a fully armed partner on the congressional side, and i don't think we have that. >> governor thompson? >> as to the rapidly evolving technology, we all understand that. and what is useful today may not be useful tomorrow and things we can't even imagine now may be coming along. i'm sure they will. but what we're looking at is a framework within which government in the private sector can accommodate each other's

interests in preventing cyber attacks. does the military of the united states or nsa possess knowledge, experience that can be useful to the private sector, to our banks, to our utilities, all of whom can expect some kind of cyber attack because it's happened before. well, the answer to that is yes. do we have a framework in the united states where the military, the nsa, other branches of government can sit down with the private sector whose interests are vital to the welfare of the united states and work together so that everybody is protected to the extent that current technology will allow?

and the answer to that is no, we don't have that. and why don't we have that? i don't understand. there can't abe republican or democratic position on this. i can't imagine that. is something that the congress is doing today more important than that? well, please tell me what it is. so i think that's one of the answers, too. >> tim roemer? >> just quickly, your question is very important. i think the speed of change today is comparable not to a bullet train but to a speeding bullet, almost literally. and we're seeing now terrorists that used -- 10 years ago terrorists used to go to training camps in the northwest territory of pakistan and be trained and radicalized and potentially go to their targets. today they're radicalized in

months or weeks over the internet. so the speed of change, the speed of radicalization, the speed of cyber technology to attack our banks, our c-17 programs or f-22 programs and steal information in our security is incredibly rapid and quick. so as tom said, we cannot afford to have bureaucracies put in washington, d.c. to fight these nimble networks. we need networks to fight networks, not bureaucracies to fight networks. >> i'm going to the audience now for questions. go back here. please identify yourself. >> ken meyer. prior to the attack on 9/11, the group supposedly responsible had received aid from us back when the soviets were occupying

afghanistan. today we are associated with groups of a extremist nature. look at who took over libya after we bombed the hell out of it. probably we have facilitated the rise of isil through our training of the sort of insurgents we hoped would take over in syria. i get all concerned that we are facilitating the growth of groups that will, in the end, prove to be our enemy. >> the sensational commissioners are being very reluctant on that one. >> i think if we had been a little more nimble in our facilities in dealing with the

issue in syria, we might have prevented some of the more radical anti-administration in syria forces from gaining the strength that they have. but we deliberately chose not to encourage those who we thought were, quote, moderate, unquote, if you can apply that to a military force fueled by idealogy. we didn't give them the weapons that our military, i think, thought they should have. and so while there may be some truth in what you're saying, i don't think it's appropriate to go back to the aid that we gave in afghanistan encountering the

soviet threat. my guess is that that's too long ago and too far away and doesn't have a lot of relevance to the challenges we're facing now. >> senator gordon? >> 10 years ago, this group decided that it could be of value only if it looked forward more than backward. and in our report, we did not criticize individuals or administrations for what had happened in the past by the use of 20/20 hindsight. i think as you look at what we're doing here today, we've adopted the same philosophy. we give oa good deal of credit, and i think the credit is deserved, to the response of our

country and of our administration to 9/11. and we have not had another 9/11. we emphasize, however, that the challenges changed very, very substantially. there's already many answers on the threat of cyber security. but our recommendations look forward saying how we can be safer in the future, how we can deal with these challenges in the future. and it's only by looking forward rather than backward with criticism that we can be of value. we hope that congress takes our recommendations seriously and acts on them seriously. but it will do that best by looking forward rather than backward. >> one thing to have in mind in

the question raised is some very nuanced areas is that we, looking forward, need to learn from history. and i suppose the question of support to the moja hadine in opposing our then rival and enemy, the soviets, is instructed in that. once aid is given, once weapons are transferred, there is no guarantee about how they would be used. and so i think that has proved instructive in the current situation so that letting go of arming and arming various factions does not guarantee how

those arms and training will ultimately be used in an area that is so intensely nuanced and difficult to predict. >> your question points out to me just the complexity of the middle east. there are so many different groups out there. there are so many cross currents that are taking place, so many shifting alliances that it's a very difficult thing to keep up with it. there is no one in the united states government that wants to facilitate an enemy. but you're caught in an exceedingly complex world. every day i pick up the paper and read about support the opposition to syria. there are 1500 opposition groups in syria. well, you sort through those for a while to see who is going to help you and who is not going to help you. which we've been trying to do

for several years, of course. so it's a complexity. i'm told we have time for one more question. i'll have to go over here, okay? >> good morning. lauren bedulo for business executives for national security. the changing nature of the threat you identify highlights the importance of information and intelligence collected domestically and disseminated domestically. who is in charge of domestic intelligence and how do state, local and federal law enforcement fit into your findings? >> well, you raised a very good question, and it's something which we have talked about. there is far more sharing 10 years after our report than there had been, and that's very good news from all quarters that we've talked to. we hear good marks given to the

integration of material in sharing information. the state and local authorities are the greatest area for enhancement force protection. so while there have begun to be greater efforts made to share information, more needs to be done. as we say in our report to bring state and local authorities into an integrated national approach. so it is something we've talked about. we're headed in the right direction. there is more to be done. >> we'll be hearing shortly from the director of national intelligence, and there has been, as richard says, a lot of progress here. the intelligence community, as you all know, is a very vast community. billions and billions of

dollars, many, many leaders, and the extent of integration in the last 10 years has really been quite remarkable. so there is much more cohesion than in previous times, but it's a work in progress, and we have to keep working at it. who is in charge of the intelligence community is a question that invites all kinds of answers. the director of national intelligence, we believe, has performed his function very well, has done a lot towards integrating the community, coordinating the community, and he will be speaking to us very shortly. i think that's our time up for questions, carrie, we'll turn it over to you to get moving along here. thank you. [applause] >> so at this point we're going to transfer into our first panel, so i'm going to invite all the commissioners to come off the stage, please, except

for jamie, since she's going to be leading our discussion. we're very pleased today to be joined by chairman mccall. i'm going to leave it to jamie to do a proper introduction of the chairman. but i did want to just say a few words as we make the transition that this panel is about the state and evolution of the current threat. as many of you in the room know, the homeland security project at the bpc has started an annual series of reports assessing the threat called the threat assessment. last year we released the first one. it was authored by peter bergen, bruce hoffman, eric suthers and mike hurley who is here as well. we plan to release a new one with peter bergen this september. we obviously, based on the report we released today and the work we've been doing the past few years, realize that the threat is evolving. and we know that our nation needs to make sure that it's evolving its counterterrorism

measures accordingly. no group is doing that more thoroughly than the house homeland security committee. not only are we joined by the chairman, chairman mccall, but we're also joined by members of his staff who are in the audience. we want to thank them for their hard work at keeping our nation safe and secure. we know that they often do it without being recognized, so we're glad they're here with us today. i also want to thank the members of the 9/11 staff that are with us here today. there are a large number of them. many have gone on to continue serving their country in a wide range of positions, and we're just so glad they could take time out to be here to honor the report that they worked so hard on 10 years ago. and with that, i'm going to turn it over to commissioner jamie gorelick to introduce chairman mccall and then begin our discussion on the state and evolution of the threat. >> thank you, carrie. we are really honored to have mike mccall with us. there is really no one better

suited to discuss the issues that we raised in our 10th anniversary report. the chairman is a 10-year veteran of congress representing a really robust and interesting district in texas. he has a background that is really quite perfect for the role, at least in my view, since i'm a lawyer and a former justice department official, and he served in that department with distinction and is quite familiar with some of the mechanisms by which we keep our country safe. so thank you, mike, for being here and for helping us think through some of these issues today. >> thank you. >> i think i'd like to start where we -- where the conversation just left off and put on the table this question of who is responsible for protecting us in a very complex environment. in our report, we made a couple

of observations as lee hamilton just said. we talked about the success as we see it of the director of national intelligence structure finally getting to a place where there is cohesion among the agencies. we talk about the importance of the collection of information in a world in which intelligence and intelligence analysis is really our best tool to dealing with a threat. we talk about the national counterterrorism center which brings together that information and which is quite successful. and i think we also talk about the modelling that the president does for his intelligence agencies by personally calling them together on a regular basis to share information with him and with each other. so those are the observations in very brief in our report, and i'm wondering if you could comment on the state of our

integration and the robustness of our ability to protect ourselves. >> thanks for having me here today, jamie. let me thank the bipartisan and policy center for holding this. members of the commission, i read their report. the report after 9/11 that the commission gave 10 years ago was, for the most part, implemented, and we'll talk about some of the pieces that were not. and i want to thank the members of the commission for this report here today that i think members of congress will take back to the hill. i want to thank them for their resounding endorsement for the current united states congress as well. we can talk about that -- >> it's bipartisan. >> i also want to thank jamie for having me. she, as you know, was deputy attorney general for the united states. i was just a lowly lying federal

prosecutor at the time at main justice, but i remember she was very much a force within the department and did a great job, and it's an honor to be with you here today. now on, i guess, an even level. back then she was way up here and i was ray doway down at them in the public integrities section. if i can just start by saying that everything i have attempted to do in my committee, in fact, everything we have done legislatively has passed unanimously. and i think that is important. i think governor thompson made the great point that this is an area that should not be a partisan issue. wh whenwh it comes to protecting t american people and saving lives. so whether it's the bill that will hopefully be passed unanimously in the next month, or whether it's our border security bill which, if you've read the papers lately, there is

a bit of an ongoing crisis down there. that will hopefully be part of our supplemental coming up. that also passed unanimously. i believe that's an important factor, because as many said, al qaeda doesn't have any partisan affiliation. they have one thing in common, and that's they want to -- they have a deep-seated hatred for the western united states, and they still, unfortunately, want to kill us. the threat has evolved. when i first got elected chairman, i landed in washington. they said, chairman, there's been a bombing in boston. and i think the boston example sort of illustrates a new sort of evolving threat that we are seeing in terms of radicalization over the internet, in terms of smaller scale operations. the good work the 9/11 commission did, i think, stopped by connecting the dots and using imagination, as you alluded to, stopped a lot of these larger scale attacks like a 9/11 style

attack. that would be very, very difficult to pull off in today's world the way the intelligence committee is set up and the homeland security department. i think these small-scale attacks, very difficult to deter and disrupt, and probably more likely the evolving threat you're going to see. and then isis, which has been talked about extensively, this marriage, if you will, between aqap al asiri, the bombmaker, and the force we're seeing now in iraq and syria with isis is a huge threat. the secretary will tell you the biggest threat to the homeland and to the aviation sector. so i think that's going to be very important for us to focus on. the safe havens -- and i'll just stay with this because i know you want to do a lot of q and a, but people ask me, are we safe? in some respects we're safer thanks to the good works of the 9/11 commission. we have implemented the majority

of those recommendations. but it's an evolving threat that in some respects we are not safer because al qaeda owns more territory now today than it ever has. in 16 different countries, as you heard, all these different affiliates, al-shabab, al-sharia. it's important how al qaeda says isis is too extreme? imagine the dayan an al qaeda affiliate would say it's too extreme for al qaeda. that is easy to demonstrate a califate, as they call it, in iraq. i would say in terms of safegrounds and safe havens, it's easier to access, and i think the key point to these fighters is they have claimed legal travel documents. we have 100 americans, we have

thousands of europeans, we have australians in there. and they're poweriuring in every for the fight. and some people will tell you who they all are. i will tell you that we don't, with a high degree of certainty. with that is a threat not only to western europe but also, i think, to the united states. so there are so many threats. i can talk about cyber for probably 30 minutes, but cyber, one of those things that keeps you up at night, because you know we have tremendous capability to shut things down. that capability in the wrong hands like iran, which has already tried to shut down our financial institutions, that they're out there, that the chinese are stealing through espionage. we've had the largest transfer of wealth ever, according to the nsa director, in the criminal ip theft. we just picked up a russian who was indicted in seattle, washington. billions of dollars of intellectual property theft, credit card theft in the united

states. this is a real threat. i hope this bill that we got out of committee will pass in the next month, because it's something the country really needs right now. >> let me go back for a moment to the situation in iraq and syria where you have observed that there are probably thousands of european fighters and in the neighborhood of 100 or so american fighters there. if an individual bearing a u.s. passport or a european passport where they gain entry to the united states via the visa waiver program can travel here with impunity, what are our resources for, a, identifying those people, and b, stopping them? and do we have both the legal authorities that we need and the capacities that we need? >> that's an excellent question. i think one reason you haven't

seen a large scale 9/11 style attack is that we've gotten pretty good at stopping the enemy from coming into the united states. most people think of tsa as the guy who checks your bag at the airport, but tsa does a great job in the intelligence community overall stopping threats from coming into the united states. this is going to be key. number one, how can we identify these threats in syria and iraq? either al nizra, which is tied to aqap, or isis, who has intents to harm the u.s. you have to start first with intelligence. i will tell you our human intelligence is not where it needs to be on the ground in syria. we're getting better reconnaisance as to where these actors are, but in terms of identifying them on a personal case-by-case basis, i don't think we're where we need to be. you saw recently the restrictions on travel in terms

of the screening has been ramped up in certain foreign airports, the ones most likely to be you'd by these foreign fighters to identify a certain category that would fit the terrorist profile for additional screening with respect to certain devices. that's about as far as i can go into that subject matter. i believe that's going to be effective, but remember, we can't sustain that vigilance for more than several months and then we have to ramp things down. what i'm concerned about is when we do ramp things down again is when they decide to make their move. they're very good at backing off and waiting and then making a move. so the visa waiver, you mentioned that, i think that's something we need to be looking at, because they can travel freely and easily get into the united states. these bombs -- this is -- these briefings are very eerie. when you get briefed on the, really, level of expertise they

have in bombmaking and they really haven't given up. they have not given up on blowing up airplanes. it's amazing to me. and they have this tremendous expertise to build types of bombs that could potentially get through our screening, these non-metallic ieds, they call them, like the underwear bomber. so stopping that is very, very difficult. i think precautions are in place now at the foreign airports, but we can't keep that height of vigilance forever. >> let me return to the question of organization. tom and lee showed this chart which is a bewilderring chart showing the construction of the overhead chart from the homeland security. lee was, i thought, nicer than he needed to be on this subject because he doesn't know that we

complained about the department of homeland security having 88 committees and subcommittees to oversee it, and now it has 92. this is directionally wrong. presumably, you would be the recipient of a consolidated jurisdiction. so maybe this is an awkward question to ask you, but is it achievable? is it possible that we could have the same sort of structure for homeland security than we do, for example, with defense? >> i'll be speaking at the aspen institute on saturday on this very topic. i appreciate the commission's leadership on this and calling attention to an issue that i honestly have to deal with every day. it's very, very frustrating as a chairman of a major full committee, but at the same time to be so handicapped many times. you show the chart.

policywise, we all know it's the right thing to do. politically is the problem. jurisdictions are holy grail. other communities don't want to give up their jurisdiction. but the ripest opportunity to get this done was at vthe very beginning, and unfortunately it wasn't. we talk about the executive branch siloing information, not working together, but i think congress is just as, if not more so, guilty of that. my cyber bureau has more committees, which causes me to negotiate with other committee chairmen. one chairman can hold up this cyber bill until just recently. the program that governor thompson referred to because judiciary also has a referral, has stopped that legislation from coming to the fore. i think it's counterproductive, i think it's destructional, and

that hurts the american people. we can't pass legislation that can protect them, and in addition, the oversight issue, reporting to almost 100 committees and subcommittees, how in the world can the secretary who -- jay johnson, who i have great respect and admiration for, but how can he do his job when he's constantly preparing for testimony? and he's got a very important job, and this whole lejts laigi district. why doesn't the committee on homeland security have jurisdiction over the entire department of homeland security and not have to deal with all these offshoots? we are passing authorization bills, this congress, to demonstrate to leadership how many other committees these bills will go to. and it's a spiderweb kind of like that chart. so an authorization for even cbp or an authorization for ice and

demonstrate this is what happens to this legislation. and i want to conclude with this, because this is a very important point. if you can imagine the department has been around for about 10 years. this department has never been authorized by the united states congress. has never been authorized by the united states congress. every other department in the federal government has been authorized by congress except for this one. i think that is shameful. and that is embarrassing. and shame on members of congress. i intend and plan to offer for the first time a full authorization bill in this next congress. and we will see how that plays out. but i hope that will demonstrate the problems, and i hope that mr. hamilton, you and your colleagues on the commission, can help us with our leadership to demonstrate why this is important. this is not about me trying to have some power-grabbing jurisdiction, it's trying to

make things more effective and efficient to protect the american people. >> i would make a couple of comments myself and then move on to the next question. first comment is that nearly every recommendation that we made was implemented by congress imposing a set of changes on the executive branch. and we were very appreciative of that. the only ones that were not implemented had to -- would have required congress to impose similar changes on itself. and that is just not right. and this has real consequences. when i was deputy attorney general of justice, i knew what the chairman and ranking member in the house and the senate of my oversight committees thought, what their reaction would be to actions that we were taking or contemplating, and that helps with the agility that we were

talking about as so necessary to protect ourselves. it is not possible, i don't think, for the secretary of homeland security to test the waters with only the committees on homeland security in the house and senate. and as hard as you may try, it is difficult for you to get each of the other 91 committees to see the whole and the importance of the whole and the tradeoffs that occur at the very top so that the department can directionally move in a co hees i ha -- cohesive way. that would be my comment on that. i want to turn to data collection. we've had a period of debate following the snowden revelations in which the debate has principally been about how

much should we fear the government and what it is doing? and to be sure, our report says that there must be robust oversig oversight. and it seems to me, and this is just a personal comment, though it seems to be reflected in our report, that what is sometimes missing in that debate is an appreciation for how much intelligence keeps us safe. and i'm wondering if you could comment on that, on this occasion of the 10th anniversary of our report. >> yeah, and thanks for your contribution on that. i think with the former chairman of the house intelligence committee here, perhaps you want to answer that question. i fear the terrorists more than our government, but i know it's more in vogue to say you fear the government the most. i think, as you know, we have stopped many terrorist plots

through getting good intelligence by listening to foreign terrorists in foreign countries. there's been a lot of misinformation about the data collection program. but when i was on the sunday talk shows and i was asked about all this, i actually applied for fisas. at that time i didn't envision all the phone numbers in the nsa. so it kind of spooked a lot of americans. with our fisa reform bill, we sort of returned back to how we used to do things, going through the private phone carriers where that data exists. and i think that will give a little more ease to people's privacy, you know, concerns out there. so i think those reforms are good. i mean, i think nsa will tell you it may impact them a little

bit. overall, with respect to mr. snowden, i can't tell you how much damage he has done to the national security of the united states. there is a classified document in the capitol that i've read, and it hits us on almost every level that i'm not allowed to go into, but causing billions of dollars of damage to us, compromising our national security, particularly with respect to russia and china. and so he's not a hero in my book, he's a traitor, and i think the nsa has done great work over the years protecting americans. it's one reason we haven't had a major attack since 9/11. and finally on oversight, i did introduce a bill with adam schiff. the intelligence committee is one area where the government bui accountability cannot really go and do an oversight investigation.

if i want to do an investigation on gis, i can say, imt y want yo look at x, y and z. i can see them wanting to be reviewed by an independent oversight, but i think that could be another step forward that could restore the american people's trust. >> i know you're having a hearing on this subject, but we said 10 years ago that we were deeply worried about the nuclear threat and that the highest priority had to be keeping the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the hands of terrorists. can you give us a brief assessment of where you think we are in that effort? >> i think nuclear is a high damage of lower probability, but it's still a risk. i think what we saw in boston is probably the threat you're going to see play out more. you look at these foreign

fighters in syria trained in bomb-making capability. i think that's what you're going to see. you look at the internet, inspire magazine, aqap out of yemen radicalizing people in the united states to blow up things. i think that's what you're going to see. but we are still always concerned about a weapon of mass destruction coming into the united states, how can we stop it. our reports are pretty secure with our radiation portal monitors. one think i can tell you about the southeast border is if all these kids are coming in and not being hopped, it really demonstrates how wide open it is, and we don't know what's coming through. we can't give you a case specific about a terrorist trying to get in, but the fact remains that that is a vulnerability for the united states until we get it secure. >> let's return, then, to the question of the lone wolves.

we had major hussein, the ft. hood killer, we had the rf brothers in t-- tsarnaev brothes in the boston marathon bombing. how worried are you about these individuals who take it upon themselves to do harm to the united states? how well equipped are we to find such people and to stop them? >> well, boston was a -- i think will be a textbook case for counterterrorism students and experts for a decade when you look at the failures in that case. and not to point fingers because 20/20 is hindsight, but here we saw an individual where, albeit it was the russians, but a russian letter warns us he's going to dogistan and radicalize. i talked to ed davis, the chief

of the boston police. they had four boston police officers on that task force. the fbi opened up what they call a guardian lead investigation, yet none of the boston police officers knew about this open investigation. so when i asked ed davis, did you know the fbi had him under investigation, he said no. did you know the russians warned us about him? he said no. do you know he actually left as a warrant and went to dogistan and went over there and met with the chechen radicals? no, he didn't know that. when he came back, it was clear hamas had kicked him out. there's a lot that the state can help us. i work for the fbi, i have a lot of respect for them. but they know the streets, they're the eyes and ears, and they could have played a big role in that case to help stop, potentially stop what happened. and when i heard the response, it wouldn't have made any difference, chairman, because that case was closed.

that infuriated me because when he traveled overseas and met with chechen, that case should have been reopened, and it wasn't. so all the work you did in connecting the dots, i still think there's work to be done between the fbi and the state and locals and dhs. >> so let me follow up on that, because our report does indeed say the one place among all the others where we think there has not been that much progress is the vertical sharing between the federal government and state and locals. the connection of the dots across federal agencies deed the flow of information from locals to the federal law enforcement authorities has been excellent. it's the other way around that the inspector general of the justice department and others

have said has been a failing. you worked on a joint terrorism task force in your prosecutorial days. you now chair at least a committee that has oversight over this. what can be done? >> i think, again, the boston experience stressed to utilize statements in these suggestions and help monitor people like tsarnaev. jtfs can vary. the one i worked for, the locals were very integrated. i think some things can be done through technology so that when, gee, the flag went up to travel overseas and automatically ensured between the task force of the network and cbi. all these flags, everything that

went in the wrong direction to make it happen, did in that particular case. for the most part, jtfs work pretty well. that's why we stopped a lot of things from happening, but i would say in the larger cities like -- they have to be enhanced in, i think, new york, boston -- the main target cities -- washingt washingto washington and even houston. i think they're saying you have to be full partners with your locals. >>. >> one of the observations we made in our report was there was a failure of imagination on the part of our government at 9/11. that doesn't mean there was no creative or people in the go government, there wasn't imagining what al qaeda might do

as well as there was manuimagin what the soviet union might do. this might be an odd question, but i'd like you to try it. how well have we done at institutionalizing information in a department as sprawling as the department of homeland security? >> well, i think there is no department of imagination. i do think that the intelligence service, the homeland security folks, the fbi, in their own way, they do a very good job day in and day out, difficult circumstances, and i do think in their own way try to incorporate thinking about, okay, what could be the next threat? how could they apply this threat and get it into the united states? it's ratcheted up tremendously since 9/11, but it's not institutionalized, it's more of a culture and a way of thinking that needs to go forward.

i think one thing in the report that got my attention was the american public's fatigue and waning interest in this topic and the unwillingness to fund terrorism operations. and i think that would be a huge mistake. i was on, again, a sunday show, and i think it was ted koppell that we spend too much money, it's a big monster and it n's n worth it. i think it is worth it, but when i get the threat briefings, and it's clear that threat is not going away. as that threat grows overseas, so it grows in the homeland because they have the capability of bringing them inside. we've done a great job keeping them out, but it only takes 19

hijackers to do what they did. >> if you had to point to one critical observation in our report this time would be the danger of complacency and that perhaps we have been the victims of our own success in preventing another 9/11. which could lead people to believe that there really isn't a threat. one of the things that we've tried to do, both in writing this report and having an event in this one, is to say let's pause on this for a moment and look at where the threat is and where we need to be vigilant. 10 commissioners are going to go back to our day jobs and other lives having been exhumed for

this day. but you live with this every day. what is the responsibility of a national leader to fight that complacency? and what are the tools at your disposal or at the disposal of the president and others to do so? >> fortunately, this will not be the end today, i hope. i know you're testifying for our committee tomorrow on the 9/11 report, and i thank you for that along with governor kean. but my responsibility, as i see it, as chairman of the national security committee, is to first and foremost be responsible. there are a lot of congressmen who go on television and they say crazy things to get attention. they may not be on tv that much,

so they say crazier things to get more attention. there is an entertainment value to some of the news these days. one need only turn on the tv at nighttime to see some of the craziness. i try not to put myself in that situation. i like to go on, i think, newsworthy shows that are responsible in their reporting -- >> have you found any? no offense here to the press here today. >> it is becoming more difficult. i do think the sunday shows are probably the lastabastion reporting of the issues. they don't say i think the sky is falling all the time, but let them know the threat is real, because i think galvanizing that support from the american

people, we are doing what is important still. i wish this threat was gone, but it's not. i don't think it will end in my generation. i hope it ends in my children's generation, but what we're dealing with is an idealogy that hasn't gone away. it's a war of idealogy at the end of the day. and while drone strikes have been very effective, i think, at killing high value tarkgets, an we did take down bin laden, drone strikes alone cannot kill an idealogy. this is an idealogy struggle that i think we'll be in again, for my lifetime. in the end i'm realistic because our idealogy prevails. it's the right idealogy. it's not one of hatred and strapping bombs to your kids' chest and blowing them up. it's like golda meir's comment that at the end of the day, will this end?

i think that's why your work is important, because i don't see this going away, and maybe in some small way i can make a difference on the national stage to educate the american people in a responsible way as to what needs to be done. >> well, mike mccaul, you are a terrific leader, and i don't say this just because your thinking is so well aligned with that of the former commission members, but because you are at it every day in a way that is hard. you have to operate in an environment of secrecy, so it's very difficult for you to make the case in the way that it is made to you and that you see it and appreciate it. we have a couple of minutes, i think, for a question or two. and let me try to go across the room. >> hi, i'm don wilkinsburg at

the wilson center. i enjoyed the comments and thank you for being here today. getting back to the turf question from the other committees and whether it's possible to consolidate jurisdiction under your committee, i tend to agree that other committees don't want to give it up, i think it's unlikely that they will. so my two-part question is, a, do you think there is benefit to the competition? we've seen this on fisa and the phone records issue, but do you think it is possible for you to convince the leadership when you bring up your authorization in the next congress to put deadlines for reporting on other committees so that you don't have the problems you've had on some legislation with other committees holding up important legislation? is the leadership committed to doing what you want to do next year? >> please give jane harmon my best. she's a real leader and a sparkplug. i think that was mentioned earlier. to answer your question, i think the reason i want to do this organization bill, which has never been done, is to test

this. and it's -- i have no illusions that the jurisdiction is going to change in the next congress fundamentally. maybe we can make some tweaks -- >> wait, that was before our report. >> well, you know -- >> you mean everything is not going to change tomorrow? we do not accept this. the 9/11 families do not accept this. >> i want to work with you to talk to our leadership. but i think this authorization will be a test. because it's going to fundamentally rely on me working with the other chairmen to get it done. and that's where i'm handicapped. and if i can achieve that, it will demonstrate why we need to correct in jurisdictional problem. and the burden of oversight placed on the department, the other piece is just being able to legislate. i gave you two examples of important bills, a cyber bill that got hung up on a jurisdictional fight and a le

legislation bill that got hung up on a jurisdiction fight. that's the case when you talk to my leadership, jamie, and those have already happened in the congress, that these two illustrations of very important bills that because of jurisdiction, and no other reason because of jurisdiction -- it's not because of policy hangups, it's purely on jurisdictional grounds. that has prevented thus far those bills from coming to the fore. i think we worked out the cyber piece, but that remains to be seen, so i do want to galvanize the efforts of the commission and everyone in this room to help me on that. thank you. >> yes, all the way in the back. identify yourself, please. >> i'm from the center of national policy, and i want to thank all the 9/11 commission members as well as chairman mccaul for your great dynamic leadership. i know we are kind of a little bit obsessed with the isis

threat and the isil threat in iraq and syria. considering that we'll be leaving afghanistan in a year or two almost in total, what do you see about the threat of al qaeda and taliban elements both to the homeland and otherwise to our allies in afghanistan and pakistan? thanks. >> it's a great question. i think this commission warned about iraq becoming a safe haven 10 years ago. and you were spot on in your recommendations. i'm concerned about the same scenario that played out in iraq playing out in afghanistan. i talked to a gold star mother and she said, i just wanted my son's death in fallujah to count for something, and now it's falling apart. i think there is a combination of factors, one which was the failure to negotiate a four-star agreement, and there's plenty of

blame to go around on that one. but we can't allow that to happen in afghanistan. if we don't have an original force in afghanistan, the network will move in, the taliban will move in. it will be utter chaos just like we're seeing in iraq, and it will revert back to a safe haven for terrorists. that's precisely what we don't want to see. both candidates, now that you have a contested election with potential fraud, but both candidates do support that notion. the president says he supports it, too, but on a timetable which i'm not sure i agree with that. but having said that, i think that's vitally important and the leadership. now, malaki utterly failed to reach out and include the sunnis and the sunni tribal leaders. and now he's paying the price for that. i mean, for five years he purged his own administration. he couldn't work it out with the sunnis. and now what do we have? we have a safe haven for isis.

and it is one of the sad ddest things. i talked to ryan crocker, the ambassador, and they are so upset with the situation. we worked with the shia to kick out al qaeda. they don't like al qaeda but malaki has been so arrogant that they'll take right now temporarily anything over malaki. and that's essentially what they're doing. i don't think at the end of the day they're going to stick with isis because they're so brutal. but for now they are. and so it's a political reconciliation, diplomatic that has to happen. i think targeted air strikes if we can hit isis without collateral damage to the sunnis, that provides stability and eliminates a threat to the homeland at the same time, but you're absolutely right on point with afghanistan. we've put too many lives, too

much, you know, as they say, blood and treasure in there to watch that one fall apart as well. and i think the iraq experience is very instructive as to how we should be dealing now with afghanistan as we pull our troops out of there. thank you for asking. >> thank you. we have time for a couple more questions. we'll take one right here in the front. >> hi, i am a law student and becoming a patent attorney. i'm also an american. i was 16 when 9/11 happened. obviously it was a tragic day for all of us. my hearts go out to the 9/11 families and it's really sad they had to wait for a year and a half before we actually started an investigation into what happened. my question was like you mentioned. drone strikes cannot kill an idealogy. why are we not addressing the idealogy?

to that point i wanted to mention, suicide is completely forbid d forbidden in islam, in the koran 289 and 482, there are chapters which truly forbid the taking of innocent life and it says you will be condemned to hell, and that's the idealogy. islamics are all about peace. there are a billion-plus muslims all around the world. if it was founded on those harsh values, they would not have survived. so what al qaeda is using in 9/11, on page 47 you talk about osama bin laden's idealogy and you admit he wasn't a scholar of islam. he misinterpreted to advocate for his grievances. and some people caught on to that in raff began stan. i want to know why are we not

addressing the idealogy from islam? how many islamic scholars are working at dhs? how many at d.o.d.? how many at the intelligence? it's growing threat in 16-plus countries because we haven't addressed the idealogy. if we tell them, islam tells you not to kill, they have nothing to fall back on. these are just petty criminals who are illiterate. if you can please comment on that. >> first of all, thank you for your comment. we did say in our report that one of the most effective tools in keeping us safe has been the effort of the muslim american community to emphasize the points that you have been making, that islam is a peaceful religion, that the behaviors that led to 9/11 were aberrational within the religion and that that sort of violence will not be tolerated within the community.

and i continue to believe that is a very important part of our saving our country. >> and i've always said, and i think there is an ignorance, a tendency to cascade all muslims as part of this, when, in fact, it's a very, very small percenta percentage, probably less than 1%. i always thought the moderate muslim, as jamie said, is the most effective tool against this radio radical idealogy. whether it's sunni shia, baghdad now saying he's the kalif, which is pretty bold and means all muslims have to bow to him. i just came back from the middle east.