do you think in light of the bin laden death or any way, a aqap will continue to go more outwardly as well as inside and also what about al-maliki i have doubts about his leadership. >> even before herb bin laden aqap al qaeda in the arabian peninsula have beeny identified by intelligence experts and policy makers as the most active network if you look at john brennan speech last december from the director of national intelligence our counterintelligence and early this year it is clear aqap in this way have surpassed al qaeda is anrgan organization that is quite formidable that it is very creative and have come up with uses of the internet, a media and english language media surpassing al qaeda and are not shy at all to state the ambition is tobed strike the u.s. homeland and not be there with yemen or saudi arabia. it is a threat that needs to be addressed. that is recognized. now president mo rocky is an asset especially expanding the pool of the mujahideen for a bit -- are beyond arabic speakers alsodu appealing to those individuals who have more passed under our radar. but al-mali

but a lucky is not the leader of aqap. there are homegrown yemenis who are the former leaders in the up durational leaders. we have a tendency sometimes in the popular counterterrorism to latch on one individual who we can identify and know the name and mistake that individual for the organizations or for the real -- the real leadership. i don't doubt at all that the professionals lamely were afraid the white house get this, but i think sometimes the media or journalist tend to be a little bit careless in the way they report the rules of these. thanks, bill. >> molly williamson. thank you for your presentation. we are now today in this town looking at a lot of important programs on the budgetary cutting block. i like your analysis of what projections you think are likely to surface from all quarters if people see the united states is not able to pony up the necessary resources as we transition in some cases reducing footprints, military for prints from the region. where are there opportunities? other coalitions, other like

for example, in yemen, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula aqap, is led by a fellow i think most americansard of who is an american yemeny who is hiding out in the boonies of yemen who publishes or helps to publish a magazine called "inspire" in cloak -- colloquial english, and who has called on americans using, you know, appropriate selective portions of the koran et cetera to conduct jihad in america. he's a very potent and lethal fellow. there are also important cells in africa. al qaeda in the magrab. just friday the germans arrested four al qaeda members intending to attack in germany. let's think a different kind of threat. a more loose threat and let's think also opportunistic terror cells from other organizations that can attach and we still have a big problem here. >> when you were on the intelligence committee, did you get a sense of just how cold the trail was in terms of trying to catch osama bin laden? we heard the president just saying this is in 2002 saying, if he's alive at all, saying who knows if he's hiding in a cave or not. if he's alive at all. did you reach the point

we have efforts globally as well against places like aqap. >> chris: we have a few minutes left. libya, where the war between gaddafi and the rebels seems now to be a stalemate. an administration official recently defended the president's decision to turn over the lead of the operation to nato. here was the comment. obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. one of the advisors described the president's actions in libya as leading from behind. question: can you honestly say that the idea of leading from behind is working? >> i don't know who that advisor was. the advisor has not been in meetings with the president on foreign policy, that i know, that it would have been reflected. i'm in all the meetings on foreign policy. on libya, we acted militarily in an emergency humanitarian situation to protect thousands of civilians in a town called benghazi. we have succeeded in doing that. we have established in that case after our lead putting the coalition together, including arab partners. we provide base support and it's a perfectly good division of labor. >> chris:

now, turns out that osama bin laden did communicate with al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, or the aqape finding that out frm the materials that was take eb by the navy s.e.a.l.s. what we don't know yet is whether this yemen-based terror group ever got the message or acted on them, and something else that the s.e.a.l.s found as well is evidence that bin laden was pushing the supporters to attack americans and u.s. interests in europe late last year. >>> well, a lot of of you out there visit us daily at the cnn center here in atlanta, and done everyday, a soldier gets help from a grammy-winning band. i have not seen it yet, but this happened down in the cnn atrium just down from where i am sitting right here, and i am told that this will shed a tear no matter what. we will watch this one together. ♪ i promise to sing to you ♪ all the music ♪ and you want to sing this one to me, jonathan ♪ ♪ marry me ♪ today and everyday ♪ marry me ♪ if i ever get the words to say hello in this cafe ♪ ♪ say i will >> seriously, you have to say -- ♪ i will ♪ say i will >> because we are on cnn, please say

. >> we are and have been reviewing all open cases of potential al qaeda core, aqap and operatives, possiblytes in conjunction with the fbi. we are basing this on incoming intelligence. we are continuing to strengthen our recurrent visa asylum and other benefit applicants and recipients in cooperation with the intel community. we are deploying additional officers to nonsecured areas and our large airports, so-called category x airports. and we are providing additional information to all air carriers. now, there is no estimate on how long it will take to fully analyze this material. we're told at this point there is no information about specific threats to the u.s. or u.s. abroad but clearly everyone in government is well aware of the heightened risk of something happened as a retaliatory move and reaction to the death of sew aum ma bin laden. brooke? >> there are a few new nuggets with regard to the compound and what was found in his clothing. what was sewn in there? >> had he two phone numbers sewn into his clothing and also he had some money, $500, approximately, in euros, brooke. so appar

on may 17 we will have an event here at aei, not yet posted, on yemen and aqap which i commend to you fred will be running that. we have written an enormous amount on this topic this week. i commend to you the work of fred and others, but also i know peter has written in and had some work on it, shuja as well can be found at "the atlantic" council's website, our own critical threat team, tom donnelly, i could keep going to i'm going to be leaving people out but there's a lot to read, a lot to see. and i refer you to our website and her facebook page, and, of course, everybody's twitter account. so, with that little advertising let me thank our outstanding panel us and our terrific audience. thank you very much for being here today. [applause] ? >> michele bachmann is your i understand, she's thinking of running for president. which is weird because i hear she was born in canada. [laughter] >> yes, michelle, this is how it starts. >> once explained his, the view of president obama's appearance at the correspondents dinner is our most viewed ever. watch it again on light at our youtu

we have other members of al qaeda, we have aqap, aqim, and that does not even count the homegrowns that we are concerned about from the lawn will stand point. that does not mean under the new criteria that we issue an elevated threat now. as intel comes in, as things are digested, and that is happening on a real-time basis, that may well be adjusted. but i think for the nation to keep paying attention to these alerts, we want to make sure they are tied to something that is specific. >> i appreciate your explanation of the process. from my perspective, it still seems. to temporarily, at least, elevate the threat level -- from my perspective, it seems prudent to temporarily at least elevate the threat level. you just mentioned the lone wolf attack, and that is an issue this committee has devoted countless hearings to the past few years. as far as the fort hood investigation and report, we called upon the administration to create a strategy to ensure a unity of efforts among federal departments and agencies, and the development of a specific strategy to counter radicalization within our co

have other members of al qaeda, we have aqap, aqim, and that does not even count the homegrowns that we are concerned abt from the lawn will stand point. that does not mean under the new criteria that we issue an elevated threat now. as intel comes in, as things are digested, and that is happening on a real-time basis, that may well be adjusted. but i think for the nation to keep paying attention to these alerts, we want to make sure they are tied to something that is specific. >> i appreciate your explanation of the process. from my perspective, it still seems. to temporarily, at least, eleve the threat level -- from my perspective, it seems prudent to temporarily at least elevate the threat level. you just mentioned the lone wolf attack, andhat is an issue this committee h devoted countless hearings to the past few years. as far as the fort hood investigation and report, we called upon the administration to create a strategy to ensure a unity of efforts among federal departments and agencies, and the development of a specific strategy to counter radicalization within our country. i

or the arabian peninsula as we have seen with the cargo plot and the underwear plot coming out of aqap. we know the those are key modes that they are trying to affect not only our livelihood and as administrator he gave mentioned about the terrorist index, but to our economy. we saw $4200 cargo plots, and yet the aliens that could impact the global supply chain. those are all things we are focused on. >> quickly i think this relates to funding as well, but we have been told that there is greater concern about domestic base threats and it would seem to me that mass transit targets would be easier for lack of a better word for domestic base threats than others, so with that is it radar threat in and that has been consistently told that there is concern for domestic-based terrorism. is it the feeling of yours that you are a higher level as a result of domestic base threats than perhaps other types of threats? >> absolutely congressman. complicated. we are not just looking those coming from overseas who may be more or easier to identify hopefully, but with over 300 million people here base

with his central core of foes, will be someone like the al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, aqap?will they be the driving force internationally to destroy america? american citizens deserve to know. we're going to have this huddle to get together and hear from the experts about where we are, what is going on on the ground, and absolutely it is critical for us to focus on those who want to destroy america and american interests. that is what we're going to be doing. host: with your work on the homeland security committee, even before bin laden was killed, where are we the most vulnerable? guest: we have a lot of vulnerabilities, greta. we have been looking at those. whether it is our infrastructure, and we have seen some possible attacks about infrastructure, whether our transportation industries we saw with the panty bomber, and other types of fund abilities, so we need to be ever vigilant to make sure that we keep americans and american interests safe. we will be figuring out where al qaeda central is going. who will replace osama bin laden? will it be these other groups? how muc

homeland in the various parts of the world and so far we've heard from experts on the threat posed by aqap in yemen in the northeast africa on the counterterrorism effort. today's hearings also, in historic moment in the global war on terrorism in the last 48 hours not the direction of president obama and the result of the incredible work the u.s. military, intelligence community and the law enforcement al qaeda leader 9/11 mastermind osama bin laden was killed by u.s. forces deep inside pakistan. this is a critical blow to al qaeda in the ideology of islam. it's a victory for the united states and allies around the world and as president obama stated, the world is a safer, more secure place, as a result of bin laden's death. i commend president obama and his national security team for the planning, execution of the mission for taking the enormous risk to eliminate bin laden, the nation is grateful for his leadership. were also deeply grateful to the men and women who carried out the mission, their dedication, professionalism and sacrifice exemplified the best of our fighting forces. today

most of those by the way we think came from aqap. the point is i don't think it's a very good way to legislation, to put a bunch of dates in there of the various attacks and the president's authorized to go over who did those various attacks. that's not a good way to do it. a much better approach is to take the exact argument this administration is using in court to -- just to -- to justify what it's doing right now and saying, yeah, we'll take that language, it makes it clear, it's what we're doing now and we'll -- but congress will do it this time rather than rely on court interpretations of what they're doing. so somebody might ask, well, why bother if that's what they're doing now, you know, why do you mess with it? number one, it's less time with the lawyers. straining and stretching language to fit back to the attacks of september 11. i would say number two, nearly everybody in this house is concerned about our relevance in authorizing the use of military force in various engagements. now, are we going to set back there and sti

al qaeda or al qaeda peninsula, as we've seen with the cargo plot and underwear plot coming out of aqap. we know those are the key modes they are trying to attack, and as mr. fugate mentioned, the terrorist impact. but our economy. we saw in a magazine, $4,200 it cost and yet the billions that could impact the global supply things. so those are things we are focused on. >> quickly, this relates to funding as well. we've been told that there's greater concern about domestic-based threats. it would seem to me mass transit targets would be easier, for lack of a better word, for domestic-based threats. with that, a greater threat, and that's been consistently told to us there's a concern for domestic-based threats. is it a feeling of yours that you are a higher level target as a result of domestic-based threats than perhaps other types of threats? >> well, yeah, absolutely, congressman. it complicates it. we are not just looking from those coming overseas. it may be more or easier to identify, hopefully, but with over 300 million people here, based on my experience in the f.b.i. and all the

we have other members of al qaeda, we have aqap, aqim, and that does not even count the homegrowns that we are concerned about from the lawn will stand point. that does not mean under the new criteria that we issue an elevated threat now. as intel comes in, as things are digested, and that is happening on a real-time basis, that may well be adjusted. but i think for the nation to keep paying attention to these alerts, we want to make sure they are tied to something that is specific. >> i appreciate your explanation of the process. from my perspective, it still seems. to temporarily, at least, elevate the threat level -- from my perspectiveit seems prudent to temporarily at least elevate the threat level. you just mentioned the lone wolf attack, and that is an issue this committee has devoted countless hearings to the past few years. as far as the fort hood investigation and report, we called upon the administration to create a strategy to ensure a unity of efforts among federal departments and agencies, and the development of a specific strategy to counter radicalization within our coun

we have every reason to believe that aqap, al qaeda and the arabian peninsula, more or less operates under its own banner. yes, they're in contact with al qaeda's leadership, al zawahiri, but when they make on the ground decision, that's their own business. i believe al awlaki has been a target for years regardless of what happened in pakistan. >> when al zawahiri says taking bin laden is like taking a grape from a bunch of grapes, there is truth to that. >> exactly. this is the message al qaeda has been putting out since 9/11. we had a 9/11 hi jacker in his will say it doesn't matter if osama bin laden is killed or captured. we are all osama bin laden. al qaeda will be there tomorrow. >> what about bin laden's widows that the u.s. is trying to gain access to? what does it say that they are denying access? >> i think pakistan wants all the information from those women first and there is nothing that says they were involved. i think it's very unlikely we'll get access to those women anytime soon. >> if they did, could we trust what they would say at that point? >> i think yes. the int

we have other members of al qaeda, we have aqap, aqim, and that does not even count the homegrowns that we are concerned about from the lawn will stand point. that does not mean under the new criteria that we issue an elevated threat now. as intel comes in, as things are digested, and that is happening on a real-time basis, that may well be adjusted. but i think for the nation to keep paying attention to these alerts, we want to make sure they are tied to something that is specific. >> i appreciate your explanation of the process. from my perspective, it still seems. to temporarily, at least, elevate the threat level -- from my perspective, it seems prudent to temporarily at least elevate the threat level. you just mentioned the lone wolf attack, and that is an issue this committee has devoted countless hearings to the past few years. as far as the fort hood investigation and report, we called upon the administration to create a strategy to ensure a unity of efforts among federal departments and agencies, and the development of a specific strategy to counter radicalization within our co