because of the way our welfare programs are working or do not work, whether it is the regulatory state that is really , especially small businesses and manufacturers. whether it is just our tax policy that makes us uncompetitive. i live in janesville, wisconsin. i live on the block i grew up on. most people i'd love with either went to the gm plant or something like that. our big employer was general motors. they were there for 85 years. you could get a really good job there and do very well and have a very nice life and your kids could do the same, and that just went. i mean, we lost that plant like that. we made tacos answer burdens, and now they are all made in texas. there was nothing to -- tahoes and now, they are all made in texas. ibo had to move.

they went to indiana, arlington, or they just did something else. a buddy of mine, i worked with him on an adoption case. two little girls, he and his wife adopted. he works at a convenience store. he went from a good skilled trades jobs with rate benefit, six-figure income at gm, to the manager at quiktrip, a 7-eleven. mr. seib: i worked at a quiktrip when i grew up in hayes. rep. ryan: i did not know it went that far west. there is a perfect example. his first name is john. anxiety and lack of opportunity, and i can give you stories all throughout the rust belt. like that.s there is a huge anxiety. what do we do about it? i see johnson controls, biggest company in wisconsin has become

an irish company. they are moving to ireland. ireland has 12.5% tax rate. miller, miller park in milwaukee, we've really beer, but the headquarters are overseas. we are losing our base. we are losing our companies. we are losing our competitiveness. you take a look at all the betty y regulation -- the bevv regulations making it harder to replace the jobs. the wage gap is huge. this atrophy we have experience, they don't have the skills to line up with it. we cannot find welders and wisconsin to do really good custom welding which you can make a very good income as a custom high skilled welder. and so, employers are now just taking it upon themselves to go train people. situation got a where, i think this election uncovered this.

there are a lot of working-class people who were doing well and are doing much, much worse, who do not see good prospects in front of them and who we do not have an education system that can help them acquire the skills that they need to get a better job and that better job is not there because we have bad domestic policy, which is making it harder for that better job to be created in the first place, so that is why this issue of upper mobility should not be a segment of this. we should not be speaking to people as if they are in some class. we believe in class mobility. we have got a multi-front policy in theare going to have battle of ideas to deal with economic growth, american jobs,itiveness, restoring manufacturing, closing the skills gap, and dealing with the welfare poverty trap so we can get people unstuck on the poverty trap they are in and that to me is one of the best messages we should get from this election. mr. seib: you are defining in

the extremely broad agenda, not a narrow antipoverty agenda, but in the prioritizing that you're going to have to do, where does the poverty program that you have just described fit in? rep. ryan: it is among the highest. and i do not see these things as mutually exclusive because i think what most of us, because of where we come from, we are very familiar with the working-class economic anxiety issues. that is where i am from. a lot of us had to go and spend time in the persistent poor communities in rural and urban america to see how persistent this is the ago two appellation of. i mean, i could list names of places. go to appellation. cia,go to appela .

i could list a name of places. i do believe the multi generational poverty, the high poverty is something we need to go out right away because that to me is who is hurting the most and if we can help crack tobacco, all the rest of these problems it much easier to solve. mr. seib: what are the areas you can anticipate you can get cooperation from democrats from .nd where are the areas we. ryan: this is something need to agree can be addressed. if you take a person's benefits, they will have these benefit cut off that this incentivize taking ncentivize taking the next steps.

bigger country. we need to get more local control involved so we can customize benefits to the person's particular needs and this is the mistake we have made before. a think we can come up with better mouse trap on the way benefits need to be structured, but everybody has got a slightly different problem and everybody has got a slightly different that it makes, and so i think you need to go more for benefit customization and i like to think we could get consensus on breaking up the poverty monopoly. mr. seib: is there a consensus that this trap exists? rep. ryan: yes, i think there is a consensus. that is something i think a lot of us agree on. i think that is a good way of helping pull people into the workforce in smoothing this benefit cliff. i think we could move the itc -- eitc to not being embedded in the page at. there's a lot of details

involved to doing that, by that is something we could get consensus on. if you look at success in our communities, where we have broken up the poverty monopoly, countyt being the welfare agency, seeing people as they called in a machine or line but inreadsheet, powering other groups, whether it is the salvation army, catholic charities, telephone networks, lutheran services, whoever, to be the actual distributor of benefits -- california works, lutheran services, whoever to be the actual dispute or a benefits. forward has a great program on this. they do the wraparound benefits and try to come up with a benefit customization to work with a person with carrots and sticks instead of disincentives. you have to break up the welfare monopoly in order to get that kind of dynamic at large. i like to think we can get consensus on that. mr. seib: you're talking about

energizing civil society and creating a way for government to work with that? rep. ryan: correct. it is in spite of each other, it is in lieu of each other. the whole concept of wraparound benefits, that the civil society sector is working on, is that governments doing this in its ways is and distinct counterproductive. we need to wrap around and fix this. imagine if we did not have to think like that. mr. seib: how do you not think like that? what is a way to get from here to what you're talking about? rep. ryan: the better way plan. getting things back to the states, but i know everybody hates the block grant works. it is not just some crude, you know, spending cuts exercise. it is making sure these resources can be tailor-made and they must go to the poor, a must go to the purpose, they cannot be used to pad the budget or build a road or something like that. they must go to their intended purpose and we had to measure

and test results. homeless, we did the homeless programs in the bush testsstration with beta of these ideas of testing results with what worked. that is the solution, which is give local officials the ability to consolidate, to combine, to test, allow multiple providers to compete for the person's business and treat them like clients, not like, you know, some commodity, and test results. doeseib: by and large, this connective tissue between civil society and the government programs exist in most places? rep. ryan: no. it is in lieu -- civil society exists. civilment displaces society, pushes it aside, ignores it, or in some places, disallows it to breathe.

the trash is it with regulations. you have to have a growing economy. growing to have a economy to produce the opportunities you can help people recognize and realize. mr. seib: if you set that from this and has not worked, it replaced it 25 years ago. what has an up and more progress? rep. ryan: it did work. it lowered child poverty rates, helped lowered more child poverty rates than any other program have seen. it is one program. there are 72 other programs that spent about $800 billion a year and so, that reform, which was more local control, work requirements, time limits, which ways, the work requirements kind of atrophied and we'll have to explain more about how that happened over the years. we could give you a chapter and verse on that, but it was one program out of dozens of other programs that never got those reforms.

never got those principles injected in them. what ended up happening is the system took over those ideas and principles and it is time for a new round of welfare reform. 2.0.welfare reform again, this is not a budget exercise. this should be seen as a life-saving exercise. this should be seen as a poverty fighting expertise respecting -- fighting exercise. this is where this all ought to go. mr. seib: so you're saying the centrality of work in all of these programs is still true now? the centrality of work has been displaced by other programs. we call it poverty trap. by stacking benefits on top of each other. the highest tax rate is not warren buffett, it is the single benefitsng $24,000 in with two kids who will lose money if she gets a job offer.

why would we ever want to do that? how you get out that without -- it is hard to do that from washington with some new formula. you need to be able to customize benefits. you need to be able to test results. the other thing is, we don't have all the ideas. there are people in the communities who do have good ideas. let us see them, learn from them, push them, test them. and then, again, let us get to this -- i love that the evidence-based policy mindset is here. the evidence-based policy notion is a 21st century creation based on data, evidence. that is here to stay. let's see it through. and that, to me, is the top of all this. test results and go with evidence and go with what works. right now, we are not able to do that because of government. mr. seib: in the wake of this

election that we started out talking about, is there some tension between the working-class poor and the traditional nonworking poor? because you sense some of that in the electorate this year. there was a certain amount of resentment. do these things now, you are basically describing a situation where things ought to be pushing for both those classes of people in the same direction, but is there some tension between them, and could they work in opposite directions? rep. ryan: there should not be and no one should try to exploit , it. i cannot stand identity politics no one should play it. , it is wrong. we have seen identity politics a lot in the last handful of years. and so, these are not -- this is not a zero-sum game. some person's gain does not come at another person's loss. that is not how a dynamic society works. and so i certainly don't see it , that way. people may see it that way.

and we have to labor to make sure that they be that that is not what it is. a growing economy with opportunity and upward mobility and encouraging work and upward mobility is good for everyone. it is good for all of society. and the notion that i think we have to attach which i am , excited about seeing a group like this instead of five people around jack's conference table, is that unfortunately, indirectly, we, as in society have reinforced this idea that , the war on poverty is a government responsibility. you know, pay your taxes, and we've got the rest. don't get involved. you don't have to do anything. you're busy in your life. two income earners and a household, and we have reinforced this idea. this is not your problem if you , pay your taxes, government will fix this. that is wrong that is dead , wrong, and we need everyone to get involved in this. we need everyone's ideas and

talents and we need to , reinvigorate and reintegrate the poor, all forms of poverty, into our society again. and we have done too much displacing of this. there has been books written on this. bob putnam writes a lot of stuff on this, about how we are self segregating ourselves into various classes, into various groups, and if our politics tries to exploit that we are , going in the wrong direction. our politics needs to break down those barriers and seek policies that stop the stratification of our society and get back to this beautiful idea of the melting pot or whatever you want to call it. and that, to me is the challenge , in front of us right now, and the opportunity. mr. seib: i think it is fair to say that you and the house republican caucus have ond of established ideas this issue because of the work you did over the last couple of years. what about the incoming trump administration? what is your sense?

have you had any conversations with him? mr. ryan: i've brought this up with him a bunch of times and he, as well, un-prompted. i think there is enthusiasm and desire. i think we have spent a lot of our time working on this, so we are probably farther down the path on this issue, but i sense nothing but enthusiasm and desire to get moving on this. i spoke with donald friday about this. so i do believe there is a big desire and a lot of enthusiasm for this. mr. seib: you have the lead on it? is that fair to say? rep. ryan: well, congress -- all bills start in the house and run through congress. there's this other thing called the senate. i forget about that sometimes. [laughter] mr. seib: who are those guys? [laughter] rep. ryan: i don't know if lead is the right word. this is a very high priority and we all plan on working on this. mr. seib: you know, as you move down that path, i wonder how you

deal with -- there is a kind of a long-term notion of getting this right so it works in the long run. there is also the short-term kind of human element here which is that relief is needed by some people right now. how do you reconcile those two? transitions are hard. mr. ryan: that's a good question. transitions are hard. the sooner you can act, the better you're going to be. i really think if we can get some growth in the economy very quickly, that is important. growth, to me, is the initial shock the system needs. i think the fastest transmission for growth policy is regulatory relief. people in congress know this because we represent our district, but i hear more about the strangulation of regulation s on businesses and their growth and development than anything else. even more than, say tax policy. , if we can provide regulatory relief right away, that can

breath a sigh of relief in the economy, it can reignite animal spirits, and if we can get our tax policies right pretty soon, those two combinations will help alleviate, getting good economic growth can solve problems. not all of them, but -- >> you have this act by newt gingrich -- rep. ryan: we are going to that analysis now. what can the new administration do on their own? what is an executive order? what does the cabinet secretary do with regulations? and what do we do with the act? that is something this administration has not done yet, the current one. so we have to wait and see if it will do something at the last minute and then we will get with the cra. so, that is the analysis we are going through right now. is one otherre element of this package that has to to get overlooked, but in the real world, you cannot

overlook, and that is health care. if you are in a world in which you are repealing and replacing next, youover the pick the number of months, 18 months. and that involves considerable changes in the way medicaid has been changed because of the affordable care act how can you , guarantee the showstopper for the people? rep. ryan: yeah i think the , states have done fantastic jobs in instances for waivers to get better reforms. indiana is a perfect example. the cms director was originally the mitch daniels person, the architect of healthy indiana, which has done a very good job of getting access. -- health care to the poor that they can actually get and access. the problem with medicaid that a lot of people outside of states do not see is most doctors will not take it. it is a loss leader. the hospitals have to, but they don't want it, and a lot of doctors will not take it. then you can talk about dentists , and the rest.

so, there is a huge access problem, and i think by giving states the ability to craft reforms that are unique to their states, like we have badger care in wisconsin, healthy indiana, those are two i am familiar with. we can do a better job of getting people affordable health care and access, not just to insurance, but health care. and that is the problem with medicaid right now. it is a program with dire fiscal problems, and it is a program that the provider community is struggling with. mr. seib: we are running just about out of time so let me step , back and ask you a final big picture question here, which is, you know transitions , are a time for confusion and optimism, i suppose. how optimistic are you that you can get there and what is the timetable? how fast, how slow, how difficult to get from here to the kind of changes you are talking about? rep. ryan: well, these changes,

the big ones we are talking about, whether it is health care or welfare, take time. as far as the legislative process we have an aggressive , timetable for 2017. we are right now sitting down with senator mcconnell and the trump transition team to flush flesh out what we think is a realistic timetable so we get the legislation prepped and ready to go. transmitting the policy once the legislation is done takes time. again, if we can get some growth going that is a huge accelerant, thet let us just take poverty stuff we are talking about. it's a long time to get those into place. i see johnny english standing over here. they are the architects of that idea. i do not know how long it took. 1996, passing, that bill to michigan putting it , in place and putting it on the

ground -- >> [indiscernible] rep. ryan: right, so, it takes time. mr. seib: is the senate the graveyard? [laughter] mr. ryan: i could think of another few words. no, they are a patient system. [laughter] rep. ryan: we can move pretty fast. we play rugby they play golf. , that is the analogy i use. but i do believe we have a good plan. and a lot of this should be bipartisan. a lot of this stuff does not need to be us against them. this does not need to be packers versus the bears, which packers will beat the bears this sunday. i'm pretty sure of it. [laughter] rep. ryan: but this doesn't have to be so partisan. and i am hoping that is not the case. and you know the tax reform or , obamacare, i understand there is ideological differences, that is what it is and that's fine. but on a lot of these things, i

think we are hopefully getting to a consensus of common sense of what it takes to get these things done. hoping we can make a difference that way. mr. seib: we can close out on common sense. you have your hands full, mr. speaker. thanks for taking the time to talk with me. [applause] mr. ryan: enjoy this warmer weather. [applause] >> german chancellor angela merkel delivered a statement today on the investigation into the berlin christmas market attack. she voiced hope the prime suspect in the truck attack would be caught quickly. >> the chancellor has been involved in this information session.

she has been informed about the , andh for the suspect about the overall situation in the context of the attack. we can tell you today that additional information has come in to suggest it is highly likely that this suspect was .ndeed the perpetrator in the truck, we have found fingerprints and there is other evidence that corroborates the suspect. this is why it is furthermore important that we are successful as possible in our manhunt. we are convinced now that the authorities have been working nationally and internationally with the highest level of professionalism to do everything within our power's to capture the suspect or suspects as

quickly as possible, and we hope that we will be successful seen. later, we'll talk about the consequences of this. not now, but at the moment, we are focusing on the manhunt itself, and we have great respect for the work of the people trying to get results here. our greatest responsibility at the moment is of course apprehending the perpetrator. it was particularly important to see here that cooperation between the chief federal prosecutor who is heading this investigation as well as the federal criminal investigation agency and the corporation is going very well. officer from the federal chief prosecutor's office here at all times and the exchange of information is incredibly fast. things that need to be done are done quickly and this means that all prerequisites are in place

to make sure we carry out this as successfully as one would hope. that is our main job at the moment. all of our authorities are focusing all of their attention on trying to apprehend the perpetrator and in terms of the consequences that need to be drawn on the basis of this incident, the things that we know from the run-up will happen later. i would likerkel: to thank the head of the federal criminal investigation agency representing all of the employees of the agency, working together with the german minister of the interior and the german minister of justice. i have come out today to be informed about the investigation and find out more about the perpetrator and the arrest we are hoping will happen soon, and i have to say that everything i see suggests that the

authorities, particularly the federal criminal investigation working extremely efficiently on a state level, on a national level, with the other authorities. coordination is very smooth. there is a great deal of commitment to solving this crime because we all know that millions of people are hoping that we'll soon apprehend the perpetrator of this crime. theoretically, we have known for some time that the german minister of the interior has said this on numerous occasions that we are potential targets of islamist terrorism, but of aurse, when a case like this, terrorist attack

happens, it feels very different. that is why we are helping those in the hospitals and we owe them help to solve this crime. it is good to know that we are well-connected internationally to ensure smooth cooperation with the authorities in countries outside of germany. many of the countries we are working together with have experienced terrorist attacks themselves and are well aware of the terrorist theme. in recent years, we have done everything we possibly can to dangercombat terrorist better than ever before and we have set up a joint terrorist defense task force. also, an internet surveillance center,

and this makes me confident we will survive this test successfully because we have very professional staff who are working to the best of their ability to contribute to this investigation because we are aware of the fact that a value of democracy and rule of law are on our side. thus i am confident that our free, liberal lifestyle and our respect for one another in society will prevail and in recent days i must say i have been really proud of how soberly people have responded to this situation, staying calm as best they can. i wish every success to everyone working to solve this. our thoughts are with you. thank you. nextnis amri continues --"author week" continues next with james kitfield. his book explains how the

military apparatus has adapted to fight terrorism. this is about 50 minutes. now for ourg us author week's james kitfield, veteran reporter and author of this new look, "twilight warriors." he is a senior fellow. who are the twilight warriors? ofst: they are a group as wellilitary officers as special agents, fbi, dea who after 9/11 were thrown into this war and terror in a way they never been thrown together before. and basically developed over we associateel with the drone strikes or special forces raids. it was pretty fascinating by 2011, it was very clear the administration would focus on that aspect to keep us safe and

pull out of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. it seemed like a lot of -- a good time to see what we learned. i profiled their experiences and the lessons they learned. host: why write a book about these folks? guest: it wasn't that, the seminal year was 2011. everybody remembers that we killed osama bin laden with one of these signature kind of raids , that was intelligence driven. we killed an american cleric who led al qaeda. many people thought he was more dangerous than bin laden because he spoke in american vernacular and recruited and was savvy in using facebook. we killed those two leaders. time the president decide to pull the troops. this model was going to be how

the focus of how we were going to keep ourselves safe and it was shrouded in unbelievable secrecy that they would not admit for a long time we were behind some of these strikes. everybody understood as a journalist we were behind them. shrouded a lot of secrecy and it bothers me as a journalist. on thisgoing to depend model, we should understand the strengths and weaknesses. host: you write the phenomenon f globalization -- you movement? ofd the twilight warriors -- is it behind the movement of tar want -- of twilight warriors? guest: it is. the fbi handle domestic intelligence and the cia handled

national intelligence. there were huge disconnect between those agencies. huge disconnect, huge cultural clashes between those organizations. and quite honestly, the 9/11 hijackers exploited those. the fbi knew that some shady characters were taking flying lessons but do not know her connect them to al qaeda because they do not have that intelligence. this rise of terrorism of nonstate actors being empowered is a phenomenon happening since at least the 1990's. clearly, the islamic extremists focused very narrowly on strike and the west to achieve goals of driving us out of regions where they will like to establish and they became very good at exploiting those. those disconnects and how they

found ways to fill them and erase the scenes are a key part. host: how are they doing it? guest: the short answer, really this incubator for this new style of warfare was joint forces of command. , maximumreally maximum power and authority to act on their own. establish these joint task force where you brought the fbi guy and special forces operating in organization. under general stanley mcchrystal and to larger decree mike flynn, they reached out to everyone who was in the fight, intelligence, , drug enforcement administration and put to them and the single room all finding these guys and going after them. find,ated this model of

fix, finish, explore and analyze. the last two parts point to the revolution because these operations are as much intelligence gathering as targeting. they focus on intelligence driven operations which was key because the you are fighting an enemy who could hide in plain sight and operated from the shadows. that changed everything. a new model of operation and focused on -- everybody talks about a hole in the government. we talk about that as the holy grow. they achieved that but with a very narrow mission of targeting terrorist. turning point is 9/11 and you have donald rumsfeld as the secretary of defense. what impact does he have on this new way of fighting? in my donald rumsfeld, writing have been critical of him for number of things, including the iraq war. you have to see -- say getting

credit that he sought special forces would be the key attribute. he understood he was not comfortable with having to rely on the cia and other intelligent agencies. he empowered in the agencies under his own purview including the national security agency who does most of the communications. pampering focus on a special forces giving them more authority to be the counterterrorist and strikeforce that was his legacy here. host: you write in the book that -- what are you getting that? guest: john f. kennedy created special forces and before that

the role he made a couple of hundred trained by the british air services. in a disk cold war where you were locked in this cold war struggle but a lot of proxy wars going on and the unum is the perfect example. he sought is need for special force. -- he saw this need for special forces and he allowed them to wear green berets. he was pretty present in the wars. stormies and after desert where we revealed our conventional capabilities were unmatched and it was inevitable we would be matched by insurgents, assassins because of these are the week against the strong, always has been. kennedy foresaw that. here fores kitfield the next about 45 minutes to talk about this book, "twilight spiesrs: the soldiers,

and special addresses revolutionizing the american way of war." how is the military responded to your book? guest: very well. i will get blurbs from dennis grime or. note well because we do posit very much. these wars in iraq and afghanistan were very popular. the obama administration was in a hurry to get to -- for the initary people who fought these wars, they understand they went through a steep learning curve and they do not want to go through it again if there are called in for similar type of thing. you: would you say, could say this approach you outlined in your book is succeeding, has succeeded? guest: if you asked virtually days,litary officer and a

months, years after 9/11 if we would go more than a decade without another attack of that scale, almost all of them would say no. you would say they had notable successes. quite notably, all of the key leaders we have identified in these fights end of dead sooner anwar from aler qaeda or osama bin laden himself . 19 of his top 20 lieutenants with the exceptions, we have gotten them. you have to say it is pretty effective. it does not mean you have won at some of the generals point out to me. killing terrorists leaders is not a war winning strategy. it is a management energy. a fundamental problem is that ideology radicalizing tens of thousands of people to attack

and until that is dealt with, it is going to be an ongoing problem. the reason i call it "twilight a is the place between victory and defeat, day and night. president obama started talking about a generational struggle. host: let's invite our callers to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. andcrats, (202) 748-8000, .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 let's go to caitlin, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. project,pporter of the an organization that addresses global poverty and make it a policy. he is supported in addressing national security. the world's most dangerous

company -- countries are among the poorest. syria, iraq, afghanistan. to build these communities up in hopes it is less likely they will be overrun by terrorist organizations and we will see their return here to the united states. i'm wondering about what your thoughts are. guest: an interesting point. what we learned about this itnomenon of radicalization, tends to happen in places there are not stable and do not have a strong government and do not have the law that will keep them under cap's locally. -- tabs locally. look at afghanistan in the 1990's, the civil war. them, including some of them emerge and al qaeda

emerged. it looks like what is going on in syria today. if you have a muslim majority company poor that is subtly destabilized, -- subtly destabilized, these groups will vacuum of power. they seem to be in the most organized groups and that civil war or conflict ill link society area and saw it in somalia and nigeria will bow boko haram and in maili. thatow the conditions create fertile grounds. unfortunately, after the arab spring revolution in 2011, that wars everywhere swept across the middle east. the fertile ground for these groups grew dramatically after the average spring revolution. -- arabs during the revolution.

host: republican, good morning. caller: good morning. my name is special agent michael hughes. and the reason why i am calling this morning is to let you guys know that even though president is not anker bush office any longer, we are still on the job. i still does i just retired november 29. we uncovered a remote control device that can to be read via untilite without a driver a crowd of people whether .ederal building or a facility no soul to giant propane tanks -- and also two giant propane tanks. 9/11, to do now the after george washer -- george walker

bush was almost assassinated by the ecuadorians. you know, he had nothing to do with this. .e was a victim of circumstance by the goodness of his heart and he was the best president this country has ever seen. that and godto say bless you guys and got a bless america. i am in the hospital right now with three gunshot wounds to my chest but i will recover. yards yet. the bone once i recover, i will be back out there. guest: thank you for your service and i hope you have a speed recovery. george w. bush, he was a standout president, desert storm was one of the most lopsided victories and built a huge coalition. i have a lot of time for george bush and the team he built. -- a is aent

generational struggle. they will need secret service for their lives because of their people that we are talking about , people move very freely and that the rest to those presidents indoor. glad people like michael protected them. host: your question or comment, paul? caller: willie you comment on the two big issues, iraq war in 9/11? and the project for the new american century, the plans of the middle east. --ld you please we couldn't take up those either 9/11 or the iraq war, helped innctly, we the middle of the cold war because we were very opposed to the soviet invasion.

we supported a lot of the groups and encouraged our friends, the saudi's, to encourage these people to fight the soviets. they are the most committed. the whole impact of suicide bombing shows you how committed they are. and they to the top the soviets from afghanistan and watching the soviet union crumbled, bin laden inside was we could do the same for the west. get the west out of the middle east and we want to replace kings. he became plotting very early in the 1990's to do the same thing to america that he did to the soviet union, crumbled the empire and forth out of the middle east. that was the impetus of 9/11. direct war was a huge blunder based on intelligence that was that suggested that

saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction and refused to give them up. he had no ties to al qaeda. 9/11,se few years after we were threat sensitive. the bush administration decided they cannot put all with or wanted to deal with the problem of saddam hussein. we knew how it ended. there were no stockpile of weapons. the intelligence community has tried to rebound and not make that kind of mistake again. it was a huge blunder it was stirred up a wasps next and we are being stung today. gets ofesident obama the legacy. what does he do when he is approached with a new way of fighting? guest: two things. he wanted to get our troops out of afghanistan and iraq. he thought afghanistan was at the good war and he had to commit and decided he did not

have an appetite and put a deadline early on in afghanistan. really wanted to get out of iraq. what he did was he empowered, i think he did more drone strikes in pakistan in his first years than the bush administration had done and eight. really ramped up this style of operation i talked about in this book, going after terrorists and went after, reinvigorated a look for bin laden. operation was empowered by president obama. he was very aggressive in this. he is try to institutionalize so when he leaves office, it will be part of the toolkit. if i was to be critical of him, he pulled out of iraq too soon. that was the problem of thinking al qaeda was a discrete organization, once you killed the leader and top leaders, you

decimated it. once they were decimated, franchises were springing up from pakistan all the way to north africa. those groups share intelligence and learn from each other and share foot soldiers. it is a terrorist pension -- pantheum. some are focused locally but many once they get powerful tends to pick up on bin laden's strategy of striking the west of getting the west and the middle east and letting them develop. host: isis? guest: very much hence isis. said it wast once junior varsity but it was al qaeda 3.0. you had been allotted's insight to strident -- bin laden's

insight. then you had al qaeda 2.0 which was in iraq under of the car we -- who use brutal tactics to for a civil war to drive americans out. almost did it. almost won. that was a near thing. i covered that war was a if it was not for petronius emma kristol, -- and if it was not mcchrystal, itd would been a close thing. , if you understand al qaeda in iraq which became isis, they establish all the logistics infrastructures are bringing syrian jihadist to fight american troops. there were first of answer real broke out -- and syria broke out.

these are learning organizations and they learned from al qaeda and the importance of social media, recruiting, radicalization. they learned the terrorist advantage of really brutal attacks. they of taken brutality to a whole new level. they also understood how this idea of a homeland for muslims would resonate with the global muslim. that is part and parcel of the .arrative of the jihadist we need a homeland and that is keeping guns from being a stronger as we were two centuries ago with the ottoman empire spread over europe and the middle east. you have al qaeda 3.0. learning, savvy, evolving organization. only the strong survive, they keep getting better and better. they keep evolving. that is isis. they are a very dangerous, savvy

organization. many a fatal flaw in their plan us establishing, it gave i suspect that we both take that territory back and it will become less powerful. they will start launching germanylike we saw in and brussels and paris. you cannot allow these groups sanctuariesries and or they can plot meticulously. that leads to disaster. to its credit of the sanctuaries or they can plot meticulously. obama administration, they understood when isis took over that land and had to go back in and fight it. host: and the war on terror, james kitfield book "twilight warriors," highlighting national

security and foreign affairs. we will go to patricia and martha's vineyard, a democrat. caller: yes, thank you. this is a conversation -- this is an excellent conversation. i think that department of homeland should create a hotline so that people can call and offer help to homeland security. othersmr. kitfield and have novel and wonderful ideas coming in. the other thing i would like to suggest if we stop talking about it being a generational struggle of islamic terrorism because we never know how long it is going to last. why given that talking point? 9/11 happened in an instant in the world changed.

agreement will change the world in an instant. thirdly, i would like to suggest that cnn do a one-hour documentary about the aftermath of a see something, say something person. the authorities will contact , and whether they are describing their identity, to shift what happened, that people can be empowered to do that more because that is critical. i remember hearing interview on reporteda couple something and ended up missing their train. it was discouraging to people to see something and say something.

ok, patricia. guest: thank you for those comments. see something, say something is something that the department of homeland security has adopted. it is a good idea. maybe someone misses a train or but you may save scores of your citizens. the department of homeland security hotline sounds like a good idea to me. he is very attuned to this thread and will be attuned to the challenge of securing the southern border. his big concern that he has expressed to me is this confluence between drug , mexican drug cartels, and terrorists.

their intersections of that that worry him greatly. on a generational struggle, the problem was the narrative came from the white house after bin laden was killed. al qaeda was decimated and we could go home and these wars were over. that created an expectation and a narrative that allowed isis to rise when we were doing very little about it because we had been told, and a lobby administrations, adjust themselves coming out of the white house. there was a conflict there. they felt it was very premature to say they decimated this threat. in fact, the number of islamic extremist terrorist groups has doubled between 2004 and 2014. when i say i appreciate when

i appreciate when president obama says this is a generational struggle. the is people to maintain these capabilities. through an generational struggle before called the cold war and we won it. gulf money from saudi arabia and qatar going into pakistan and going to radicalized preachers radicalizing the next generation of jihadists. as long as that is happening, this struggle will come pendant -- the struggle will continue. caller: good morning. efforts have to do with their complex in syria and iraq. -- complex situation in syria and iraq.

source oftell us the what service and somewhat base and what ordinance is involved with airstrikes. some of them may be drones. that is one thing. the second thing is, and this is related, what degree are carriers contributing to the airstrikes? guest: great question. i was just in iraq within the last couple of months and did a battlefield tour. one of the essence of this new style of warfare is the technological revolution. it also has to do with precision strike from the air. where something is on the ground, we can destroy it. that is different from 20 years ago in the persian gulf.

now, everything is guided. the drone is much more revolutionary as a surveillance platform. f3 can combine the whole cycle under one platform. it can find the target and fix the target and destroy the target. then it could do bomb assessments. the real revolution is the network of the combines -- the real revolution is a network that combines all of those things. -- then spambots locally drones being launched locally. basis all over africa -- we have drone bases all over africa. went to identify the target, it does not matter if it's an air of a aircraft flying out

carrier battle group, or the drone or special forces aircraft is the in northern iraq closest to the target. the network can pick and piecemeal all of these things together because we had developed communications and you canh highways that instantly from all of the world -- everyone is looking at the same video screen trying to figure out what can get to that point the fastest. it is revolutionary technology. and it is pretty amazing when you see it. people who describe the network it can turn its focus so quickly from one part of the world to another because we have so many assets in the air, and people -- and so people on so many video screens analyzing the video that this network can turn

a hard stare on the earth in a few minutes. florida, ed, an active in the military? caller: longtime retired. but i have kept in touch with a lot of friends and a lot of their sons. i would ask mr. kitfield who -- on literacy. i understand it is a tremendous obstacle to training and intel. along with that, i have read several editorials about administration's failure to grant visas to the interpreters that work with our people, both currently, an afghan

and they put themselves in tremendous risk and their families are being targeted by al qaeda and isis. and we let in 100,000 strangers from these countries, but the administration fails to grant the visas to these patriots. thank you. host: all right. guest: great points, ed. on the illiteracy issue, it is a huge challenge if you are trying --if you're trying to train up an indigenous force. we want them to defend their own countries. much bigger challenge in afghanistan with the literacy rate is 90% plus. iraq is a very educated population. it was a dictatorship and one that had an education system. iraq is more educated than afghanistan. yes some of the same problems in

somalia where we are trying to train up a local security force. challenge a great when you have a lot of illiteracy to train up an indigenous force. so, you have to deal with that and accept probably less than ideal capabilities, but better than nothing. on the issue on interpreters, i agree, we have had a moral failure of not seeing these people have put their lives on the line. they have saved lives. i have seen it. they are the best friends that are service members and leaders have in country because they are conduit and understanding the environment they are fighting in. we have not done enough to make sure these people have the right to come to america because they are in danger. host: we will go to columbus ohio. caller: hi. am i on? host: yes you are.

caller: mr. kitfield, why is it ok for the united states to kill arabs, but it is not ok for eric to kill americans? secondly, the united states can solve this problem by stop making enemies. stop killing arabs. stop supplying weapons to countries to kill arabs like israel. what are your answers to these questions? guest: chicken and the egg, you know. americannt is that any after 9/11 had a responsibility to go after that organization. they had declared war on us. we were slow to declare war back on them. they attacked our embassies in africa and killed many africans. -- almost sunk a ship in yemen.

constantlylotting against the y2k millennial plots that we averted. stop,ea -- if you just they will stop. i do not buy into that. report all of our troops in iraq in 2011. did our problems go away? no, they started launching attacks in the west just like al qaeda did. they did the paris attacks in brussels attacks. a worldant to live in where you do not respond, i don't think that will prevail. i take the point that these wars generate a constant -- every time you fire a sought -- fire a shot in the middle east, there will be repercussions. the best answer is to leave these places where they are

stable enough to their own local governments and officials can keep terrorist groups who want to attack the west from rising up. that has got to be the go that we -- the goal that we aim for. they will not let us go. host: what about the situation in syria? what was said was it was a stable country, but now you have isis coming into the country as well? guest: syria is a five alarm nightmare fire in the middle of the middle east with all of the sectarian fissures a better region converging. war and ae a civil , that isjority country a combustible mixture.

islamic groups will rise up, to a flame. you can argue -- president obama had just pulled out of iraq and wanted to get out of afghanistan and had the experience of intervening in libya with that country going into chaos. he was basically just done. his own advisers said we should have been much more aggressive early on supporting the rebels. just letting that thing burn would have serious effects. we have seen that. the rise of a hyper violent terrorist group like isis, that haveopulations destabilized with our closest friends like jordan and turkey taking over one million, we are going to be dealing with the after effects of syria for all of my life. we have created a narrative

where the west left a sod -- where the west left assad to murder people. we will be doing with the effects of syria for a very, very long time. that is why i call this a generational struggle. host: let's go to robert in georgia. caller: high, thank you. this call is balanced. how have things gotten out of balanced? 9/11 was a terrible incident and practically unprecedented and something had to be done, but if you look at the number of hijackings that took place in the 1970's, you would be amazed. of theivist at the end 18th century, the communist wars that we were all afraid of, it leads me to think that maybe bin laden was right.

a horrible man, of course, but he decided that he -- that if he pulled out another anarchist type of move, it will cause united states, which had moved to a point of this intimacy practically unmatched -- to a point of descendency practically unmatched, would you propose to do to get back to balance? open? pandora's box been we had to learn this the hard way that we have gone too far, but to the american people think that? guest: that is a great question. balance -- you cannot relive history. when we reacted and when after al qaeda in afghanistan, the

whole world understood that. we had a huge coalition. .he u.n. understood that everyone got that. i think the invasion of iraq was becauseest gift we gave his group was scattered to the winds. but we fell under his trap and got into the knife fight. that is not the repercussions. -- that has lots of repercussions. we have some responsibility in qaeda becausef al they were created over the

problems that we solved. had to get back to balance? -- how do begin to balance? i would like to get back to balance, too. when things start to even out and we can start to extract ourselves from some of these places, but in the meantime, when you have these kinds of groups emerging from these kinds of conditions on the ground, we have learned time and time again that they will be coming after us. you cannot turn your head. we tried that with isis and look what happened? attracted 35,000 foreign fighters from 50 countries around the world who were then sent back out to launch attacks like we have seen in brussels, in paris, in germany recently. i don't think you can turn your back on that. if those groups get that strong, you have to fight them.

this war gets won when there is stability over these regions where these groups are popping up. host: following up on your marks on syria, this story in the paper and the new york times, out of aleppo and into a leader's embrace. this is a young seven-year-old who has been tweeting from aleppo and has got a lot of followers on twitter. her message of being left behind in aleppo. her family was evacuated from the two. -- was evacuated from there. there is a picture of the turkish president holding her in his arms. what are the objects of this? guest: turkey has been totally destabilized by not only two million refugees, but by the terrorism from the likes of

isis, which has destabilized one of the greatest cities. himself, he was the number one guy who said as sad must go. he basically lost the bet. he did not count on russia coming in and the iranians on behalf of assad. now he is trying to walk this fine line. he was recently in moscow come his foreign minister was recently in moscow," talking about -- was recently in moscow and putin talking about -- the bombing of civilians and killing women and children has been absolutely a war crime.

he is trying to keep faith with those people with that photo op. host: following the assassination of the russian ambassador in turkey. guest: that just shows you have hass conflict has left -- destabilized the whole region, but certainly destabilized turkey. turkey has a military coup. they have multiple, multiple high casualty terrorist attacks all over the country, but especially in istanbul, which was the jewel of the region. turkey has been transformed by this. your back on these things is not a viable opportunity. that is the situation. florida, what are

your thoughts? , 2001, i watched on television as the planes hit the world trade center, and the thought that ran through my head was this -- it is really too bad that the soviet union's red army withdrew from afghanistan in 1989 because had they stayed in afghanistan, they might have shot bin laden and the scum around him. if that had occurred, then just maybe the 9/11 attacks would not have occurred against our country. the other thought that ran through my head was, it is too bad that the descendents of stalin and the kremlin made that treasonous decision which led to the destruction of the soviet 1991/1992.

it is too bad that they were still in power in the fight against the stalinist. unioney won, the soviet may have been ruled on the basis of revolutionary interventionalists am. -- revolutionary interventionalist. thank you. guest: wow. that is a big bite to bite off. i talked to some of the cia guys involved only themselves against the soviet union. the soviet union was a pretty andy world after -- actor kept hundreds of millions used europeans under their bootheel

and threatened us with national nuclear weapons and launched proxy wars all over the place that led to putting missiles in cuba leading to the human missile crisis. if you could say that he would win the cold war and have to deal with this -- if you could say that you could win the cold war -- the cold war was dangerous and expensive. now, members of nato and the european union were freed. i am not sure i would've taken that bet. to the dissolution of the soviet union, there are risks i am willing to take to get that done and that happened during hostd. host: brian in michigan. you are on the air. up the coal.rought coal was blown up was

because of bad people, but the captain was in a hostile port. he was down in a state room. in his own words, he was doing paperwork. how are you going to guard against that when you have a hostile land and you know it? allowu go in and you actually 17 of your fellow sailors to get killed? then you go around the country for a year and you are talking about security? host: mr. kitfield. guest: i don't think we would sail into a report like that. group wasood this trying to attack us and it was preceded by the embassy bombings. terrorists, who were suicide bombers, which is difficult to deal with because they're willing to this rate themselves in the act of mass murder, they

were smiling and waving. you cannot have shot them out of the water, but at the time, the decision -- a ballistic decision was made. since 2000 andt 11 and they had been pretty hard lessons -- 2000 and 9/11, it may have been pretty hard lessons. host: what does "twilight warriors" in this new war of terror say? what can you tell us about the new trump administration and how they might fight these wars they suddenly picked? people ie of the profile is lieutenant general mike flynn. he is now mr. trump's national security advisor in waiting. i have written about this

recently, but the generals and trump's cabinet including mattis flynn and general that have multiple tours. they have all seen friends and family lost to this. they are very threat-conscious. general flynn particularly says we need to be more aggressive going after isis. he and the trump administration will be more willing to reach an accommodation with russia to align our interests in going after isis. not sure what we will have to give up to do that, and that concerns me and others. more aggressive going after isis and more aggressive with vetting people coming from the regions where there is conflict and terrorism.

i think general kelly will be much more sensitive to security, which talk to me about last year. this confluence of drug trafficking organizations, that has a presence in latin america -- he will be more sensitive to that. threat-sensitive guys. they will be much more supportive of our allies. iran, justthat because we reach nuclear deal with them, it does not make them friends. they are behind the mask assughter going on -- the m slaughter going on in syria right now.

forcere a destabilizing and he is very sensitive to that. you will see a much more administratione that does not take the situation in the middle east as normal. i think they will be more aggressive. host: the book "twilight >> beginning monday, december 26, we take a look at national security and defense issues including challenges facing president-elect trump national security team at a closer look at the career of secretary of defense nominee james mattis. on tuesday, december 27, and examines how congress and the trump administration could change