>> rose: welcome to our program. tonight, admiral denis blarb the former director of national intelligence, the man who briefed the president every day about u.s. intelligence operations. your judgment is-- we'll stop short of making nuclear weapons. >> if i had to make one choice, but i wouldn't bet my national pols that. i would make a national policy if i were still in government that had the breadth to cover both possibilities because as i said, iran hasn't made up its mind. we don't know who will win in this argument. so we have to be ready either way. we don't know right now if it-- if putting physical stress on people makes them tell the truth

more, better, faster than not. the main downside is that's not the american way. we don't do that. so, i absolutely agreed with this president, and in fact the whole administration. >> rose: dennis blair, the world of intelligence, when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: dennis blair is here. he is a retired four-star admiral way 34-year career in the united states navy. he served as the third director of national intelligence from january 2009 until last may. the position, which oversees the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, was created after the attacks of september 11 to build interagency cooperation. but many say it has added layers of baurs, and more intelligence

reform is needed. admiral blair has thought a great deal about all of this. i am pleased to have him on this program for the first time. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. it's good to be here. >> rose: i want to start with the obvious. help us understand, after 9/11, how the d.n.i. was created and the office of the director of national intelligence, and what was its purpose and why was it better in intent? >> coming out of the 9/11-- 9/11 tragedy, the 9/11 commission found that the intelligence community was still in a pretty balkanized state. it was no longer unified by a big common enemily the soviet union and had not done as good a job it as could detecting these new threats like al qaeda and specifically the agencies had not shared intelligence enough to put together a total picture that would have helped. it was all laid out in the 9/11 commission -- >> one might be sitting on information that was relevant to another but they didn't know. >> exactly, exactly, and there was no forcing mechanism to get

them together on that. this was not a new idea because the director of the central intelligence agency also had a second hat as the director of central intelligence and in the second hat he was to bring the agencies together. i worked out there at langley in the past and saw time after time the duties of being the correct of the cia basically overwhelmed that person and he had little chance to really pull the agencies together. so with this imperative of sharing information better, working more-- in a morcoherent fashion, and the fact that that was really a full-time job, the 9/11 commission recommended and eventually the congress pass expected president signed this position of the director of national intelligence, whose job it was to put the budget together for all these groups, drive the information sharing so information would not sit in one place when it could be used by another and raising the entire level of the performance of all of the agencies. >> rose: for something like this to work, everybody has to believe in the mission. >> right.

>> rose: did you find that was true, that everybody had bought into the idea of a director of national intelligence? >> it was mixed, frankly. charlie, the-- there was a little bit of happy children who had been put in the orphanage. they thought they were just fine where they were, and why were they given this new-- new director. but you raise an interesting point. i found-- they're magnificent people in the intelligence community-- smart, hard working-- by the way, half of them have joined since 9/11. it's basically a young outfit, people who came in for the right reasons. >> rose: some have argued with great respect for anybody who served and made the ultimate sacrifice, that some of the younger people are even better because they bought into a new world. >> right. you know, you're a-- you deal with these young people. they're more matrix. they deal more with others so they come into it naturally but they still have the same patriotism that the ones who came before them did. but what found if you could put

them together on a mission, if you could tell the team, "your job is to go after al qaeda. your job is to go after these secrets that are being held by countries that wish us ill, whether they be north korea, iran, venezuela" when you could get them together in that small group, they would do magnificent magnificent things. when you allowedly the agencies to act as agencies, you know p.e.t., prerogatives, ego, turf-- all came into bear, so a part of what the d.n.i. does when it does it well is to build these mission teams which then can work on specific problems, get that mission burn that people always have when they get on to it and try to arrange the resources that they support that activity rather than be set into the stovepipes. >> rose: i want to flesh that out. do you think your experience and the role of the d.n.i. in the obama administration was different than the role of the d.n.i. in the bush administration? >> as you know, the bush administration originally opposed the notion, was sort of

pulled into it, pulled in, like congress and john negroponte was able to. but to its credit, one the administration made the decision they made it their own. mike mcconnell came in, made tremendous increases in particularly the cyber area where whis background and all. this & then i felt i was able to move the ball during the time i was there. so it's been sort of a steady progression, and all of us-- i think the duties-- the problem that we all had are not so much attributable to a single administration as they are atributable to the difficulty of setting up a new organization. >> rose: what did you think you were able to do? >> well, as you said earlier, it's hard to talk about specifics, but let me give in-- some. there was a big technical collection program that was absolutely stopped cold when i came into the job, and congress in fact had put in escrow hundreds of millions of dollars because the intelligence community had not been able to get together and decide exactly

what it wanted. so i pulled the team together. we worked through it. i came up with a plan, got full support for that plan from the white house, pushed that through and now that program is under way, and that was a big thing. the intelligence deployment in afghanistan i would count as a real positive, too. >> rose: during your administration. >> during my administration. >> rose: and the participation in the review and all of that. >> yes, yes. i mean, we had to get an overall plan. we had to get it funded. we had to deploy and link it up. we had learned in iraq how to do intelligence support in tactical operations. i think one of the real success stories of the later phase of of iraq from about 2007 on was a really good intelligence that we were able to provide not only to military units but also to the civil authorities there. we needed to take those concepts move them to afghanistan, where the terrain is different, the infrastructure was much-- was

much less developed than it number iraq, put that together, and be able to provide that information, and that's going on today. and that's a big win, i think. >> rose: so you think at the end of the day it's done well. >> i find that the closer are you to the guns, the better it's done. people tend to do, and the-- and also, when you can get people together with a clear mission, they do it magnificently. when you get back in washington and argue about who's in charge, who pays for it, all the issues -- >> when it's life and death in the field you get more cooperation than battling in washington. >> rose: absolutely. >> rose: when the director came to you and said i want you to be the director of national intelligence, were you surprised? >> yes. >> rose: why do you think he chose you? >> i don't know. i never asked him. i knew people who knew him, so i assume people he was talking to said there's blair, and let's give him a try. >> rose: and what happened then? why did, on may 20, it end?

>> well, it is a difficult job. we just discussed. it's new. the-- i think the-- i was a little bit surprised by the-- be importance of the issues we were dealing with. they're big, important, tough issues that are national security. i was a little surprised by the media and political aspects of it. i was sort of raised in the tradition of you do what's right and let the chips fall where they may. but with the-- with the-- in the political context of the last couple of years, there's a lot of-- a lot of questions-- a lot of things come up that-- and some of the things they tried to do for the good of the community i thought turned out not to play well politically. and eventually the president decided that-- to have somebody else take it on. >> rose: was this president deeply interested in intelligence? was he looking for the best intelligence? was he-- was it important part of how he saw his

decision-making process? >> i'd say yes, and i say the best example of that, which has been pretty well documented through articles and books and so on, was the afghanistan-pakistan decision. and i found that-- and we were part of those decisions-- that there was a hunger that started with the president himself, went through all of his advisors, of what's really going on, on the ground, and if we do this, what will happen? and so i-- i -- you know, in my career, charlie, i find that we made griefous errors when we didn't understand the situation we were going into. that was true in vietnam. that was true in iraq. you need to get the intelligence situation right at the front end and i thought that was done very well by this administration, led by the president. we did not go into to raise the stakes in afghanistan because we didn't know what was going on there. >> rose: did you feel like you had a full opportunity to participate and engage and be listened to at every stage of

that? >> i did. right up to the very end. there was a point about the last month of deliberations when the white house said we've got the intelligence picture. now we're going to make the policy. and neither i nor leon panetta was invited to those meetings. i would have liked to have been there but we had gotten the intelligence picture -- >> why didn't they want you there at that stage? one more person would not have done any damage, i would assume? >> they had the idea that the intelligence-- the intelligence picture is separate from the policy decisions, and once the intelligence has been conveyed, time over to the policy people. >> rose: did you feel like you not only ought to offer them intelligence but also because you were there and because of the information that you had and analyzed, you ought to be engaged in recommending policy? >> i-- i think i had a responsibility right up to the end to ensure that the policy decisions were made on good intelligence grounds in terms of what the adversaries in other

countries might do, what would be the effect of actions that we would take. i think you need to be in the room to do that. so i think it would have been better had i been there. >> rose: and at the same time to recommend policy is one thing. the other thing is to be able to be responsive to a president who is seek information. if there's one thing that come united stateses out of bob woodward's book, this president was looking for options, looking for information. that drove the afghanistan review process, almost like isn't there more? somebody give me more options. >> more options, more information, right. he was demanding, and we pushed a lot of the intelligence. so i-- i think we got a very good-- very well used by this administration in terms of informing policy. there really-- there are really two different aspects we've talked about in this conversation so far as a function of intelligence. one is informing wise policy, getting it right at the front end. these are the president's daily briefing at the white house, meetings of the national security council. you can be a little bit general

but you have to know what you're doing there. then there is supporting effective action. this is when it's out in the field. where is the i.e.d.? where is the terrorist going to be tonight so you conduct a raid? what city is going to be under siege? you have to do both from the intelligence point of view, sit in the situation room and support policy and get really down and dirty in the field trying to get individuals. i thought we did pretty well, pretty well. >> rose: my understanding of your experience there and from what i know and i've read, is that bureaucracy and turf played a huge role in terms of conflict, and that leon panetta, as head of the c.i.a., take one example, did not want the d.n.i. you, appointing station chiefs. he thought that was the privilege of the head of the c.i.a. those kinds-- that represents a kind of conflict that was in the

post as head of the c.i.a. and the d.n.i. was that unresolved, even when you left? >> a couple of things on that, charlie, since it was an incident which did happen early on, and-- the first-- the first thing is there was not an issue of the d.n.i. appointing station chiefs. the issue was who apoints the-- or who would be the d.n.i. representatives. that is, in any country, we have representatives of a number of intelligence agencies. the person who is the leader of that group is called the d.n.i. representative. it was my-- it was my feeling they should be able to pick that person who in the great majority of cases be a c.i.a. station chief -- >> the c.i.a. station chief might be both the d.n.i. representative and the c.i.a.

station chief. >> that person could be dual representative. so it was just this d.n.i. title on top of the job they already had. so it wasn't appointing a station chief. i inherited this issue, also. it had been kicking around the intelligence agencies for a year or so. so i called in some people, checked on-- checked on what all the different agencies thought, and i thought that i would sign a directive-- in a great majority of the cases it would be the station chief but occasionally it might not be and it's up to the d.n.i. to make that decision. the u.s.a.-- c.i.a.archs peeled to the white house, and the white house felt it should be the station chief. it distracted a lot at an early stage. it wasn't a fight or issue that i sought. it was one i inherited. in retrospect i wish it hadn't come up so we could have gone on

to other things. >> rose: it sounds to me like perhaps other people understood bureaucracy better than you did, or the way things work in a political world. is that a fair assessment? >> i'd say that's fair. if i-- i'd say the things that i was trying to do that turned out to have not been entirely politicalry correct were for the improvement of the intelligence community as i saw it. maybe i was a little naive on some of the bureaucratic political aspects of it, but i think they were right from the point of view of integrating. and i think they'll eventually come to pass as we get our intelligence agencies tighter and better integrated. maybe i was a little bit early. >> rose: the idea, also, is that i have read, sthaubl-- is that you believe-- what you were most disappointed about in terms of not being there, is the sense that you could have reformed the place, that you could have made the d.n.i. and the o.d.n.i. an

effective place to assemble human and analytical intelligence and make the most positive presentations to the president. >> that is-- that is my-- we made so much good progress on things, and the key to it was-- well, there are a couple of things to point out. one, the intelligence community worked better the closer it was to the front. so that's encouraging. the second thing tworked better the younger the people who were-- who were involved. when i would talk to the-- to the young employees, they were used to working together. they wanted information that other agencies had. they were willing to share it with others for the main -- >> but the further you got up the chain the less cooperative? >> i thought-- i thought things are moving in the right direction, we're involved in these really tough situations. those people are going to come back to washington and carry that attitude with them. the younger ones are more

instinctively cooperative and integrated than the older ones. we were headed in the right direction and i would have liked to take advantage of that and push it. as it was we got a tremendous number of things done, and it was with that spirit and so i think it's the right thing. i know it's the right thing for the country. i think it's going to happen. and, you know, i certainly think that my successor will take it another step forward as i did and the ones before. >> rose: but you believe that in order for this system that is now in place to succeed, the c.i.a. director has to understand his responsibilities for the c.i.a., and it's not to coordinate intelligence information. >> i think that running the c.i.a. is a full-time-- is a full-time job. it's an enormously complex organization. i have great respect for leon panetta. >> rose: he not at issue by you-- >> he did a great job and i wish he'd come on your show and talk about it. >> rose: i asked him, believe me. and i know him well. >> sure, sure. but i think that-- i think that

the intelligence reform is unfinished. the roles of the different agencies are adjusting, and i still think the right structure is with the d.n.i. overseeing it. just an example. the c.i.a. does human intelligence and it does analysis. those are the two pieces. that's an odd sort of combination for-- no other country has it that way, and it's really a-- it's really a product of history. most of our intelligence now in increasing proportion comes from the national security agency. all of the information going on the internet and the global information -- >> so it's analytical then. >> so why do we have human intelligence paired with our main analysis agency? i think maybe there are some developments there which the analysts, the best of which are in c.i.a., and some in d.n.i. be put together.

and c.i.a. become a human collection agency as the national security agency is a signal intelligence collection agency and national geo-spatial agency does the interpretation of pictures be in various wavelengths, and bring that all into an analytical agency, all of it being orchestrated by the d.n.i. -- >> you'd take the analytical aspect of the c.i.a.'s work-- which is significant-- and pull it out of the c.i.a. and put it somewhere else and mix it with other analytical aspects of our intelligence effort. >> being fed by all the different collector agencies, of which the human intelligence would be a very important factor. so i think there are developments still to do organizationally in this-- before this journey is finished, before the united states has-- one thing i learned, when i went around and talked to the intelligence agencies and all the countries, every single one is different. you have to do one that's right for the country, for your country. we're a tremendous-- we're tremendous technically. we have unrivalled technical

capabilities that no other country has. our analysts are about the best so we ought to set it up to take advantage of our strength and provide the president down to the platoon commander the best intelligence we can. >> rose: it hab argued, as you know, on the human intelligence level, because of differences, we have been at a disadvantage in terms of the kinds of conflicts engaged in, and, therefore, knew less about terror threats than we might have. fair? >> not true now. not true now. >> rose: that's changed. >> yes. >> rose: on the ground, and our ability to penetrate. >> yeah, yeah. no, we're very good. we're very good. and we -- >> as good as we should be? >> you're never as good as you should be. never as good as you should be. there are brilliant young case officers out there, and some old ones, who are able to pull in information that's absolutely priceless, but let me see if i can illustrate that. old-style intelligence, we have

a requirement-- learn something about a program in country x.. each agency goes out and does the best it can. c.i.a. will try to gather human intelligence about that program. n.s.a. will try to tap their phones. n.g.a. will try to look at the pictures them. all that information will come back and analysts will look at it and provide a report. that's old model. the new model is we form a team of representatives from all of those agencies and a c.i.a. agent gets a little hint that this person might be a key person. n.s.a. immediately tries to tap that person's phone. the n.g.a. team member immediately looks at the pictures that are right from that agency, and that information is passed at a very low tactical level. you spiral up until you get a picture of it working with that team who are passing raw information back and forth to get it done. that's what we can do. that's what the d.n.i. is responsible for pushing. each agency individually, if you leave them alone, they'll

suboptimize. they'll do very well in their piece but it's the d.n.i. who will drive them to make those teams, and those teams produce magic. we know things about-- i was last in government in 2002, i was commander of the pacific command. i was dying for some of the things that are routinely available to my successors now because of this team work and we just need a lot more of that. because we're so big, huge budgets, you know, the intelligence budget is now unclassifiesed, $50 billion. we can't be muscle bound. we've got to build these mission teams and do it fast and connect with people who need the information. that's the promise of integrated intelligence, and that's what i was trying to drive and that's what we're going to get eventually. >> rose: it seems to me your message in terms of your experience, if there's one thing that comes out of your experience, you seem to be arguing we need to do better on this aspect. >> absolutely. >> rose: the integration of the teams. >> that's the key, that's the key. >> rose: the president understands that, i would

assume. does he? or does he not? >> well, it gets into a lot-- it gets into a lot of details that are-- that don't belong at the white house. they've got to be worked out. it has to do with really detailed things like the markings on documents so that they get cleared. it has to do with the training of personnel, language, and cultural experience. it has to do with the qualifications of officers on those teams. and there are some people who say the d.n.i. should just be the settor of policy and concepts. if i just sat there and encyclopedia directives in my office, nothing would happen. you have to have enough of a staff helping you -- >> i know exactly what you mean. >> and it's not that you micromanage it from the top. the story that the d.n.i. is a micromanaging layer is bunk. when i was a lieutenant, i thought a lieutenant commander was a micromanager. ( laughter ) you always think -- >> but let me ask you this in the human dimension of what

you're now talking about, did you-- did you have an opportunity to pick up the phone and say to the director of the c.i.a., "why can't we work on th out?" >> leon and i did that on many, membership occasions. >> rose: so? >> but there were a few occasions in which-- in which it didn't work because the prerogatives of the c.i.a. that he felt strongly about didn't match what i felt was -- >> and did it have to do with his access and personnel choices primarily or something else? >> they approximately had to do with-- they primarily had to do with the overall direction of certain individual activities. he thought that the c.i.a. was best to do that itself. i thought it was best to do it at a higher level. >> rose: what do you mean? i'm trying to understand. what does that mean? >> you can either set up a-- you can set up a process by, say-- let's say you have a particular mission. you can say, okay, i'm putting

the c.i.a. director in charge. everybody else reports to him. that's called a lead agency or you can have a process in which you say i'll form the team, everybody contribute to it, and i'll choose the team lead, the task force leader to do it. that's the other model. i lean more towards the second model for the toughest problems. the c.i.a. had traditionally run the first model, and they wanted that in other cases. so it was -- you know, i saw this, charlie, in the armed forces when we had the goldwater nichols reorganization. back in 1990, i remember writing papers saying, "we don't need all this joint activity. we just need to bring other services up to navy standards and we're fine. i was wrong. so this is a growing phase. we'll get through it. >> rose: you clearly recognize the d.n.i. is a good idea and the-- you clearly recommend that there ought to be a separation between analysis and human intelligence. >> right. >> rose: is there anything else of that level that you are

recommending now that you are no longer part of the institution? >> i think a couple of things are worth mentioning. one is this business of cyber-security is so important, and the agency and government that has the greatest cyber skills is the national security agencies. the agency of our government which -- >> and the biggest toys. >> and the biggest toys, yeah, yeah. it's magic. the department, which has the responsibility for protecting our government and infrastructure, is the department of homeland security. we need a better connection between those two agencies. i thought something as simple as having a deputy at n.s.a. who also reports to the director of d.h.s. would work so we could bring the power of n.s.a. to protect our government networks, our power gridz, transportation, air control, all of those networks, is something that needs to be done. they thinks that to evolve. another one that's really-- gets

a lot of attention is covert action. and it's a very-- it's tough to discuss that without talking about specifics, which i can't. in general, the-- i thought the d.n.i. should play a stronger role in helping oversee covert action. the c.i.a. does it, does a great proportion of it. they're very good at it, but when they're dealing directly with the white house, with n.s.c. staffers who have 1,000 things on their plate, it's difficult to get that sort of consistent follow-up. >> rose: what is it you don't want them to do in a better system? >> i want them to submit a . i want d.n.i. to be the one who approves that plan, and then sends it on to the white house. it's a pretty simple-- it's a pretty simple layer. and because the d.n.i. with a good staff and experience can ask questions, "how long is this going to last? what are the down sides? how do we transfer it to-- how are we working with other agencies? how much does it cost?" >> rose: you wanted the d.n.i. to be the guy or the person who

was vetting whatever was coming to the president, especially covert actions? >> yeah, and overseeing it, asking the tough questions about it. >> rose: the c.i.a. director would probably say, "that's exactly what i do. that's exactly what i do. we have covert operatives in the field and we have a remarkable staff here at langley and that's exactly what we do. we don't need you to come in. what do you know that we don't know to make it better? >> my experience is one more set of eyes-- one more experienced set of eyes always helps, never hurts. and i think if you look at the history of c.i.a. covert action, it's not the c.i.a. anybody who is an action agency has to be committed to that action. you need another level there that is thinking a little bit more broadly to oversee it, to ask the tough questions, to raise the flag when things are not going so well, rather than the agency. and it's just a function of a-- now, the objection that you hear on that is, well, that will slow everything down. it will make it bureaucratic.

there are-- there are equally difficult, tough time-important actions run all over government in which you have a layer of supervision before the white house that are not slowing it down. special operations in the department of defense is a big one. our special operateers are out doing missions of the world. the secretary of defense oversees them. the white house approves them. it's nothing new here. >> rose: that was general mcchrystal. >> he had-- he had the job for terrorism within there. and yet, you know, his staff didn't work with the national security staff, the council staff directly. we went through the department of defense. i think one more check is good and it needn't slow it down. and the times that covert action has done wonderful things for the country. it's also gotten us in trouble in the past in some areas, and i think the extra layer of supervision would be a good one. so that's a good one. i do think, finally, that the-- that the intelligence budget,

which is in the department of defense, ought to be combined with the one that is in the d.n.i. it ought to be one-- it ought to be one budget. we were make something progress during my time to planning those two together. but i don't see any reason they ought not be put together, put in one process and presented as one whole. >> rose: bob woodward tells the story, you had access to information about some possible terrorist activity that involved people who had american passports. >> uh-huh. >> rose: and you wanted to present that to the president, even though you didn't know specificallies. >> right, right. >> rose: and rahm emanuel had you come to his office to-- as chief of staff because he objected to it because he thought you were trying to to c.y.a. right. i don't want to make too much of that-- that incident, but i think it -- >> what does it say, though? >> essentially it says that

somebody with a political background like rahm thinks of these things differently from somebody way military background like me. >> rose: that raises the question-- go ahead, add to that. >> i thought my duty was to inform the president and others who get that presidential dalg briefing of what i was worried about in terms of the threat so that we could do something about it. i honestly was not -- >> i actually don't understand where it was. having read bob's account. >> it was sort of harkening back to the presidential daily bulletin which wander about 9/11 which, you know, which-- i mean, i-- you know, i-- my tradition is that you tell the bad news and the good news. you take responsibility for all of them. so i was a little surprised-- the second part of that story which is not in bob's book which is also important is the president called a meeting, said blair has given us this intelligence. are we doing everything we can?

what else do you think we ought to do? the net effect of it was good, and the president acted like presidents should-- he said, okay, i see this information -- >> did rahm call you in after that or before that? >> it was before. >> rose: before. so, obviously, it went to the president, the information went to the president -- >> the president reacted, as he should. >> rose: he does dexactly what he should have done. >> i don't want to make too much of the incident. to me there was another dimension -- >> the reason i raise the point is people say in some cases-- and this came out i think from jim jones and according to bob, again, who has the best inside story of this -- you know, thought there was too much power invested in political people, david axelrod, people like that, that they had too much influence-- rahm emanuel. >> right. i-- i think the president can choose whichever advisors he wants to listen to, and they all have valid viewpoints. i found that this president listened to-- listened to a lot of us and then made his

decision. so he-- the responsibility is ultimately his. he's got to -- >> no withstanding that this president fired you, and even you heard about the fact that he was looking for somebody to replace, you seem to have a high level of admiration for him, and it's others that you find fault with. >> well, i wish he hadn't asked me to leave. ( laughter ) i'm not happy about that. but he's my president. i mean, and i serve at his pleasure, and if -- >> did you get a chance to make your case? >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> rose: and he basically said no, decided to make a change. >> he said we've decided to make a change, and that's certainly his prerogative. he can do that if he doesn't like the color of my eyes. it's his call if he thinks he can do better, which he did. no, i have no regret, and i'm proud of what we did. >> rose: one argument made is we have too many military people in the job of d.n.i., john

negroponte was not a military person but your successor was. should it be a military person or does it matter? >> it doesn't matter. i think the director of the c.i.a. should be a professional military person eye mean, a professional c.i.a. person, excuse me. i just think that organization is so complex and the history of the people who have been the really great directors are the ones who come out of it, especially at a time when you need to try change. and, also, i know plenty of people in the senior ranks of the c.i.a. who would make wonderful directors. my judgment is calendar by that. as far as the d.n.i., i think you need to know something about intelligence. you can gain that in a lot of ways, and that could be military or someone else. >> rose: the level of a human intelligence and, b., intelligence cooperation, this whole cargo bombing episode from yemen, this didn't happen on your watch.

we would not have known about that and it might have succeeded except for saudi intelligence. >> the reality of intelligence operations against al qaeda group is an amazing international story. we're passing information back all of the time back and forth. and you basically-- if you go back and analyze one of these-- one of these incidents from the very beginning right up to the time the attack succeeds, as it did-- it doesn't succeed here. you find that there are probably eight, 10, 12 points at which you could have-- you could have had the breakthrough that would have enabled you to stop it. you spread your net as widely as possible to try to find one of those points at which you succeed. sometimes it might just be an observant citizen at the very end as in times square-- that car doesn't belong there. all of those you need to count on. you need to cooperate as widely

as you can, pass on information as widely as you can, and empower local people because one of them can prevent it, and that's what you go for. it's not going to be 100%. the 7-- we should always shoot for 100%, but there's a certain amount of luck. >> rose: and there's a notion about intelligence, also, which is part of the game, you can't talk about your successes and everybody knows about your failures. >> correct, correct. there's that. there's that thing. i mean some of our successors are known. but i think the main thing with al qaeda, which is what we're interested in, is we are keeping such a press on them they're reduced to sending packages, sending individuals with very little training. i think that's a market of success the pressure we've been able to put to bear on them. but these sort low-level attacks that are-- that are done are just extremely hard to prevent. the one that did happen on my

watch, mr. abdul natala, happened to have a u.s. visa what that had more entry permissions on it. happened to come to the attention of aqap. they gave him a lot of money. they said to the underwear bomber get to the united states somewhere and blow it up. his father came to the embassy and interestingly said, "i'm worried about my son. he may be radicallized." and that information coupled with other information could have directed us to him quicker than it did. but that's the man, and there were eight or 10 things which we almost got him, didn't quite. luckily, because of this intense pressure, he hadn't had much training, didn't know how to use his explosives and he was nervous. he was not the sort of trained for months as the 9/11 bombers were. >> rose: is there around end game-- is this going to be an

internal struggle or is there an end game here? how does this ongoing struggle with terrorism play itself out? >> it ends when islam decides that this small group of extremist viewpoints is not acceptable. >> rose: no longer allow someone to hijack their religion. >> exactly. >> rose: in the interest of their own ends. >> you can see in the-- you can see that more and more muslims are feeling that way, primarily because it's mostly muslims being killed by this group. but there still are a few who think that's a good thing. i mean, the mother of jordanian was proud that her son took this course. we will win when muslim mothers aren't proud of their sons taking-- or daughters taking a course like that. >> rose: fair enough. so how do do you that? >> i think it's one of those things that comes from strong,

thoughtful leaders within the islam community, and us supporting them from the outside who are not muslims without-- without discrediting them because it appears they're somehow, you know, being-- doing western country's will. so i think it really has to come from inside. >> rose: is al qaeda an element in afghanistan? >> yes. >> rose: it is. >> but the main element -- >>. >> rose: i thought they'd all gone to pakistan and that was the argument the c.i.a. director said, there is not that much al qaeda in afghanistan anymore. >> that's true, but the alliance between afghan and taliban relationship laep is very expreel they share the same goals. in fact, what's frightening is the alliance between the afghan taliban, and the pakistan taliban, who carried out an attack as late as yesterday in imlawmaker bad, the l.e.t. carrying out attacks in india, all of that group, which

is in that same region on the border between afghanistan and pakistan, thinks it's wonderful to blow up bombs in india, pakistan, afghanistan, and the united states. they trade logistics back and forth. they trade money. they trade bomb makers. so it really is a common effort to-- that all of us have to undertake to put them out. and they're allied with each other. you cannot allow one to be secure because it will give aid and comfort and sanctuary to the others. so that's yet taliban and al qaeda are part of the same problem. that's why we have this afghanistan-pakistan strategy. >> rose: the president of pakistan says to the d.n.i. or secretary gates, "we think this is affecting us. it's got to be stopped. and we know we have some problems with i.s.a.but if you

think you know where osama bin laden is, and you think you know where zawahira is. you know where they are, then you have our permission to go get them. could we find them in that case? >> we don't have that information now. >> rose: right. >> and it's very hard to get so you couldn't count on it. >> rose: you present them a plan which said we know they're there. my sense is their response would be different. >> the ideal thing would be a joint operation against them and i think that's what we would try to do and i think the pakistanis would be willing to participate in that -- >> if, if? they'd be willing to participate in that kind of effort if we had information as to where they were. >> right. i think, also, charlie, you have to remember it's just more than taking one person off the battlefield. the pakistan recognizes that its challenge is to have better governance, in those regions. there's got to be better gorn in

the afghan region i don't think we ought to be seduced by the idea that one military operation can solve this whole thing. it's deeper than that. >> rose: that's actually general mcchrystal point as well. >> yeah, and i think we have to do that. the afghanistan people, it's absolutely clear, they don't want the taliban back. they had that for eight years. they know what it's like to live under that. but what they do want is a competent government that can provide security -- >> and not corrupt? >>. >> and is not corrupt. that's the challenge. >> rose: that also raises the question do you have to have a government that's confident, a government that's willing to make the fight and a government that's willing to change and a government that is not corrupt in order to stop the taliban. if you don't have that, you can't stop them. >> you have to have-- you don't need perfection in all of those categories. you need better than the taliban in those categories, and that's a pretty low bar. and the afghans with our help should be able to reach it.

>> rose: you believe that? >> yeah, yeah. >> rose: so you believe it's possible to stop the taliban in afghanistan. does it have a time frame or does it have certain conditions to it? >> i think it's very possible to stop them. i think there's a momentum involved here, not an absolute end point. you demonstrate that you can do it in key areas like kandahar where we're doing it now. it has a cass clading effect because the people of afghanistan realize that they can have something better and it can work. >> rose: i listened to someone who has said at the highest level of intelligence say the chinese government has more intelligence operatives operating against us than any other single country. is that a fair assessment? >> i don't want to confirm numbers, but the chinese government has a very healthy intelligence. i speak to their leaders and they-- they're trying to learn

as much as they can about us, as we are about them. >> rose: so that's just accepted. >> yeah, yeah. in fact, i tell them-- i tell the-- my chinese counter-parts-- intelligence is good. we should know about each other. if we go to war with each other it should be for real reasons, not the wrong reasons. i don't think china and the united states have real differences that can't be worked out as-- and so if that's the case, then the more we understand about each other and can find that common ground and can avoid the core issues on the other side, the more we can adjust to each other and have -? obviously, secretary gates went over and saw the military leadership of china. >> i think that-- i think that every little bit helps. i think the people who -- >> unless it's about currency. >> right, right. even no. i think there is a bit of a

danger that the p.l.a.-- p.l.a. is provincial, literally. their military colleges are in military districts. they do not have a wide-- they do not have a wide view. they're playing an increasingly important role in chinese policy because they've been getting more money and more power and so on. and so -- >> p.l.a. i assume is the people's liberation army? >> it's part of their armed forces. the more conduct we have then to widen their view, i think the better it is for both of our countries. >> rose: torture. tell me what we know about the effect of torture. >> that was a very important question. qhi first came in as d.n.i., that question was before us and i got the experts to come in and read the reports and said, what, is most effective interrogation technique we have when it's done

under duress. do you actually get true information better than if you don't use that? and the answer, charlie, is we don't know. there is no-- there has not been systematic science, and work on it. what you have a bunch of anec dots. some people say yes. some people say no. i think the question is unanswerable if the techniques we used back in the wake of 9/11 yielded information that could not have been gotten in another way or not. so -- >> it's unanswerable. >> it's unanswerable. we don't know right now if it-- if putting physical stress on people makes them tell the truth more, better, faster. the main downside is that's not the american way. we don't do that. so i absolutely agreed with this president and in fact the

administration -- >> and that's why people admire us because those values are-- >> we stand by our values. we don't believe in -- >> if you make exception to your values you will soon start a corruption. >> yes, and from a practical -- >> you're say, even ife do not know it might be effective, it's not who we are and, therefore, don't do it. >> it's not who we are and sets a whole lot of actions into effect in which people assume we are -- >> john mccain who can speak with authority on this argues, in fact, if it is known that we do it, then other people do it. whether they still do it now or not. that is the impact of it. >> i think when you add it all up-- to me the most important thing is when you add it all up don't do it and. >> rose: this is why your world is so fascinating to me, all of it, from the analytical standpoint, understanding where the world is, the kind of

forths. i love going to the c.i.a.'s web site, extraordinary stuff, because i'm trying to understand where the world is and they've got some smart people doing that. it's right there, the analysis in terms of scarcity of water, emergency demands, and terrorism. all of that stuff there. jik i'm happy too on your show because we can demystify-- you've been very good not asking for despalz-- but we can talk about the business. they're patriots trying to do the right thing in the intelligence agency. there's too much of the "bourne identity" on the one hand and then, you know, waterboarding on the other hand. but you have a bunch of people doing tough jobs very, very well and we need to get that across. so i thank you. anyway, go ahead. >> rose: i'm happy to do that. yet, at the same time, like so much, there's also if-- it's

clear, the human dimension of information gathering still has a crucial role. the story coming in today's newspapers is that the russians, there was a u.s.-- there was a source. >> when you get into that really detailed espionage business, almost every story i read in the paper has a grain of truth, has a grain of falseness, and is not the whole truth. so i would just leave-- i can't help you any more than that. >> rose: do you think we know where iran is in its upon intent intent? >> intent, right. >> rose: and its place in getting to the-- in getting to the capacity to make nuclear weapons and the missiles to fire them. >> i don't think we know because i don't think iran knows. i think there are two-- there are two-- at least two but let

me just talk about the broad categoris-- of people in iran. some argue that as a potential of nuclear power where we are now, roughly a year away from being able to have a weapon, should we turn it on and kick the inspectors out? that satisfies all of our needs, and if we comply with the regime we are not subject to all of these economic sanctions and that's a better iran so let's stick where we are. there's another group that says, hell, no. we need an actual tested weapon before we have the effect we need and the united states and the international community is trying to deny it, so we ought to continue until we have an actual weapon. >> rose: where do you stand on this? >> i think that, you know, if i had to bet all my money red or blark i'd bet on group one. i think that the iran will decide to stop short.

>> rose: does that put them where japan is or a few inchs-- or where we assume japan is. >> a lot short than japan. >> rose: your judgment is they will stop short of making nuclear weapons? >> if i had to have one choice, but i wouldn't bet my national policy on that. i would make a national policy if i-- if i were still in government that had the breadth to cover both possibilities because as i said, iran hasn't made up its mind. we don't know who will win in this argument so we have to be ready either way. >> rose: iran has not made up its mind. >> iran has not made up its mind. the supreme court leader has not yet spoken. >> rose: your judgment is we have to look at all possibilities. >> yes, right. >> rose: and you don't believe the decision has been made to stop because it's the decision

of a supreme court leader and he hasn't made the decision and communicated it to ahmadinejad. the revolutionary guard-- >> the nuclear power structures. that's where it is right now, yeah, germany. and i hope he does the right thing for his hat trick. >> rose: mao do we influence that since we don't talk to him? >> he's certainly getting a nice dose of what sarchgs look like. >> rose: do you think they can work? >> i think it makes life uncomfortable enough to iran--. of course, iranian public pride, if i were still in office, and we were saying something like this to iran, that that's just the red flag in front of bull and probably insight them to do something else, but i'm telling you, i think they will pull back at a ball of the different factors. iran has made rational decisions in terms of pros and cons and pluses and minuses in the long run. i think they'll do the same on this one, and they're pagan

awfully heavy price. unemployment is rising. that was the subject of-- when the shah fell it was labor troubles that pushed him over the side, not ideological or religious troubles. so the sanctions are causing that to hurt, and i hope they make the right decision. >> rose: i hope that we can have the kind of debate about intelligence and all of its ramifications that you've suggested would be wise on this program and in the country. so i thank you for having this conversation. >> well, you're welcome, and thanks for giving me the chance. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org