al qaeda in the tribal areas of pakistan, al qaeda in afghanistan, al qaeda increasingly getting footholdin bangladesh and india. that's a not well understood phenomenon. the intelligence committee is watching it closely. but it's not well understood outside the government. host: the defense department originally reese down to silicon valley to help it -- reached out to silicon valley to help them with their military systems. is there lessons the cia could take from that? mr. morell: we actually way ahead of the defense department. when george tenant was the director of cia, he created a not-for-profit private entity whose job is -- this is all public information. the job is to invest seed money in startups in which he could tell believes there is a technology that will be of use to the intelligence community and will be commercially viable so that the company will survive and continue to enhance the technology and service it. they have been incredibly successful over the years, 70% of its investments have resulted in products coming back to the intelligence community. it's one of the lar

top of the list is al qaeda in the arabian peninsula in yemen aqap, al qaeda in yemen. the last three attempted attacks against the united states were by al qaeda in yemen. the christmas day bombing in 2009. almost brought down an airliner on christmas day. the plot that was designed to bring down multiple cargo planes by putting a very sophisticated explosive device into a printer cartridge in and then into a printer which was foiled literally at the last minute and then the attempt to bring down an airline with a nonmetallic suicide vest. they have that capability. they have the capability to bring down an airliner in the united states of america tomorrow. i would not be surprised by that. i think most americans would. the khorasan group, which is part of al nusra in syria, which is -- al nusra is an al qaeda group, and it is associated with the al qaeda senior leadership in pakistan. it is a group of operatives that runs the al qaeda organization. sent by syria at the beginning of the syria civil war to help al nusra organize itself. they have become the external ope

so al-qaeda in yemen.the khorasan group which is part of those are considered which is on those are is an al-qaeda group and his associate with -- al-nusra. the khorasan group is a group of operatives that were sent to syria the beginning of the student civil war to help al-nusra. they have the external operations arm for al-nusra. they are acting to protect western europe and the united states. they are a greater threat contract threat than is isis to end in third the al-qaeda senior leadership, although significantly degraded in afghanistan and pakistan still presents a threat to western europe and the united states. >> tumor question before i opened it up to the floor. into groups you mentioned you didn't mention al-qaeda and the maghreb. are they still a threat? >> so they are, they are very much a local threat. they are not yet a threat outside the region. they could easily become a threat outside the region. a couple years ago the french became so concerned that they were becoming a threat to france

al qaeda was able to aattract tens of thousands troops in what became what i call al qaeda 2.0 al qaedan iraq, an organization i fought against personally, killed a number of my soldiers and a number of my iraqi friends. we as a result of, i believe the course incentury generals doctrine that was implemented in iraq and by the greatest advantage we have against radical islamic extremists, which is the fact that nobody likes these people, and in particular if you were ruled governed by radical islamists-it's no fun and ultimately you will rebel against them and that's what happened in the parts of al-anbar province of iraq in 2006 and 2007, and ultimately the sunnies of al-anbar, moderate sunnis, got tired of hearing the daughters taken in what al qaeda in iraq called forced marriages got tired of people's nicotine stained fingers being cut off because islamists don't believe in smoking tobacco and the sunnis rose up against al qaeda 2.0 aqi and with the help of the american military we pushed aqi al qaeda 2.0. out of iraq, back into syria where it should have died on the vine but becaus

in history to what al qaeda was. al qaeda is really a rebellion against modernism. it's not a rebellion against a state in any sense. the anarchists of the 19th 19th century basically were rebelling against the industrial revolution. and they used assassination and small bombings in europe and the united states to make whatever point they had and their problem was they didn't really have a point. al qaeda didn't have a point. and unless you want to believe that they want a global caliphate. but it's such a fantasy world that they've lived in, that they didn't -- i think it's fire say they didn't have a real political strategic aim in anything they were doing. and so i think to look at it in those terms it makes it easier do understand all they were trying to do in real terms is provoke us. and they did a damn good job of that. and that is why i think the response that we have had to this has been far worse from our point of view than what the original attack was. because we have transformed our society in response to

al qaeda in the tribal areas of pakistan, al qaeda in afghanistan, al qaeda increasingly getting foothold in bangladesh and india. that's a not well understood phenomenon. the intelligence committee is watching it closely. but it's not well understood outside the government. host: the defense department originally reese down to silicon valley to help it -- reached out to silicon valley to help them with their military systems. is there lessons the cia could take from that? mr. morell: we actually way ahead of the defense department. when george tenant was the director of cia, he created a not-for-profit private entity whose job is -- this is all public information. the job is to invest seed money in startups in which he could tell believes there is a technology that will be of use to the intelligence community and will be commercially viable so that the company will survive and continue to enhance the technology and service it. they have been incredibly successful over the years, 70% of its investments have resulted in products coming back to the intelligence community. it's one of the la

behalf of al qaeda senior leaders, yeah. i mean i would say that that's a fair description. >> tom, that's explosive. considering where we are with iran especially. >> well it's explosive but not altogether surprising. the obama administration since july 2011 both the treasury department and state department routinely said iran and al qaeda have an existing deal that allows al qaeda to use iran as soil. i think they've been cherry picked to basically emphasize the antagonistic episodes between iran and al qaeda. those are clear areas of tension where they ared a at odds with one another. those documents conspicuously have not been released to date. >> quickly, steve, this obviously begs more document release and more looking into this connection. >> yeah. and quickly, i think, look we're in the context of nuclear negotiations with iran. we can know everything we possibly can know about the nature of the iranian regime and if it's true like i think it is there was a relationship that iran has vetted and helped al qaeda senior

was able to attract literally tens of thousands of recruits in what became al qaeda 2.0 al qaeda in the organization i fought against personally and killed a member of my soldiers and a member of my iraqi friends. as a result of i believe the counterinsurgency dot trend dot petraeus and others helped write and implement in iraq and by the greatest advantage we have against radical islamist extremist which is the fact nobody likes these people and in particular if you were governed by radical islamists it is no fun and ultimately you will prevail against them and that is what happened in the parts of iraq in 2006 and 2007 and ultimately they got tired of having their daughters taken in what they called forced marriages got tired of nicotine stained fingers being cut off because they don't believe in smoking tobacco and what became known as the awakening rose up against al qaeda and with the help of the american military we pushed it them out of iraq back in where it should have died but because of the obama administration failures to reinforce the nascent iraqi government and the fai

and al qaeda in yemen.ve talked about that before because they focus on it, they have a highly skilled lawmaker who can make bombs that could be hidden in things. they are the biggest threat today. what is happening in yemen is giving them greater room to maneuver. we are having a harder time collecting intelligence, we are having a harder time denying them safe haven and taking them off the battlefield. we are still conducting drone operations in yemen and that's a good thing as far as i'm concerned. by virtue of the civil war underway in the chaos underway in yemen, they will gain strength. they have the capability today to bring down an airliner. give them more room and they could do something more significant. isis today doesn't have the capability to conduct a significant attack. they can motivate people, they can direct small scale attacks but they will be able to do something else here. if you look at what is happening in iraq, we have taken back about 25% of the territory they took when they dig the

the cia is desperate to find al qaeda leaders like awlaki.nd storm, a dane, is exactly what the cia needs. >> i had these different names. i had different personalities. >> polar bear. >> polar bear. it's some kind of schizophrenic lifestyle. >> and he's made important surprising connections with al qaeda leaders. according to counterterrorism expert magnus rantrop. >> sheer luck he'd been to the many maceplace, met the right people. >> he's the forrest gump of radical islamism. >> there aren't a lot of people like him who have all the different dimensions. he was the real deal. >> a real deal. a larger than life personality. who reveals his journey from jihad to james bond in this book, "agent storm: my life inside al qaeda and the cia." co-authored by paul cruickshank and tim lister, both cnn contributors. >>> coming up, how storm goes from boxer to holy warrior. >> i was invited by osama bin laden to join up with him in the training camp in afghanistan. we all enter this world with a shout, and we see no reason to stop. so cvs health is cr

this was directed to al qaeda central. he imagine someone from al qaeda would come riding in to save him which didn't happen. in many ways he was the vanguard of the emergence of this and movement on social media and not the only one by any stretch but prior to 2012, 2013 jihadists use of social media was much lower. because of omar and other dissenters from the lockstep jihadi movement people started getting on line. they started coming on line to argue with omar so al-shabaab dispatched people to come out and say this guy is a liar and people popped up to pushback on that and it escalated out from there. the same thing was happening in the al qaeda iraq context so i have had extended correspondence with a mommy on social media which was an unusual experience. some of my comments about the remote intimacy and a feeling of knowing somebody over social media are informed by that he caused when you talk to somebody briefly every day or every couple of days you can get a sense of them as a person which may be artificially inf

it was very difficult to join al qaeda. al qaeda was a vanguard and an elitist movement. so, that affords them access to more people. secondly, their propaganda is extremely violent. and it is also very focused on presenting the group as dynamic, and action-oriented. relative, again, you look at comparison to al qaeda. al qaeda's propaganda, in recent years, especially tends more toward this course. -- toward discourse. we're trying to convince people we have the right idea, that we reasonable people would agree with us, that this is the correct thing to do. and isis doesn't care about that so much. they're willing to just get people agitated and cut them loose. the third element of change is that isis has changed sort of fundamental underlying assumption that we see in the jihadist argument. al qaeda preceded from an assumption of weakness. its argument was based on the proposition that muslims are weak and that they are unable to stand up to apostate regimes in the region. as well as, the reason they couldn't stand up to them is because the west was behind them. the ide

we didn't see al qaeda quit. >> nobody is quitting in afghanistan. >> correct. and so we got to make sure that we are mature enough to turn that lens and appreciate that fact. >> back to the book. are you finding that you end up having more impact on legacy companies or new companies when you try apply some of your military leadership strategies to the business world. >> when we started we thought we would be most welcome in legacy companies that -- with hard structures. we tend to be brought in by very confident chief executive officers very competent ceos, who are good not turn arounds, but companies that are good but had this sense they can get better. that was different from what i expected. so we're probably helping companies go from the 70 to the 95% as opposed to going from 25 to 75. >> when you started this five years ago, i remember touring your offices, seeing what you were doing and what you thought you would be doing now. what is the biggest eye opener in the five years you've been doing this? >> it is very much what we thought it would be except the

in the person as al qaeda not the muslim brotherhood. >> as al qaeda. an they're still there. largely in the sinai today so they still haven't gotten rid of them that is how hard it is. but the other dynamic was it actually reduced the capabilities of countries to take on extremists inside their border. the best example of that is libya. so under cad avi with his intelligence service, his security service, he was very effective at dealing with extremists inside his border. when his government fell and those institutions fell apart, there was no capability any more to deal. so the arab spring was a boon to al qaeda because it reduced either the willingness or the capability of countries to deal with extremist-- extremism. now the one difference i would have over the call we made is i don't think it would have made any difference had we made the right call. i didn't think it would have made any difference had we said mr. president we think the arab spring is going to be a boon for al qaeda. the outcome would have been exactly the same so we got the call w

and it is clear that isis was loyal to al-qaeda senior leadership and broke their loyalty oath to al-qaeda leadership. you can under mine leadership credentials. there are numerous drone strikes on the al-qaeda. and several of them are guys groomed for those position. you can so they are grooming the next generation of leaders in the files and that's how they intend to outlast the drone strikes. >> people we are targeting are the ones that are names. and you can so the plans coming to fruition. and what about they are classified and many of them are put in operation. and bee were told they were operational and some of our agencies are acting on them through drone strikes or otherwise. why should the public need to it see these documents. fif they are tied to ongoing operation they should not have them. >> there are no sources of methods and al-qaeda knows what we got in their possession. and they have tried to mitigate security based on the documents in the first place. the value to the documents and the public's understanding and weigh and judge the measures that the government outweigh s

with al qaeda and iraq which is the predecessor. al qaeda in iraq was going for brutality. it shocked people with videos for the beheaded victims and was thought of as a romantic organization. people wondered if zarqawi had surpassed osama bin laden as the leading figure of the jihadists world. but what happened? remember in 2732,009 that they overplayed their hand, particularly in an bar province where they are in the process seven-foot similar although greater brutality upon the population. site grassroots uprising known as the awakening and combined with two other fact there is a surge of u.s. troops in iraq and also u.s. counterinsurgency type date ended up defeating al qaeda in iraq at the time. the bread went from being sky high to suddenly the entire al qaeda organization wondering what could they do to undo the damage done? this is a brand reversal because what had once been a symbol of strength was reversed into a symbol of having overplayed their hands and turning the population against them. with respect to isis experiences losses. it has been in a somewhat decli

i think there are three al qaeda groups.hey pose a direct threat to western europe and the united states today. isis is not one of those. those three groups are al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and yemen, the group that is part of aldo stretton syria, and the al qaeda senior leadership in south asia. all three is a direct threat. all three are capable of bringing down, in my mind, an airliner in western europe or the united states tomorrow. i think most of our citizens would be surprised by that. i would not. the islamic state is a longer-term threat. the longer they have save haven in iraq in syria, the more capabilities they develop to reach out and direct extremists to attack us in western europe and the united states. right now they only have the ability to self radicalize people, mont wharves, but given time they will be able to direct attacks. anchor: the president at the moment is meeting leaders at the gulf state countries. how convinced are you that america's traditional allies in the region, saudi arabia, the unit

it was very difficult to join al qaeda. al qaeda was a vanguard and an elitist movement. so, that affords them access to more people. secondly, their propaganda is extremely violent. and it is also very focused on presenting the group as dynamic, and action-oriented. relative, again, you look at comparison to al qaeda. al qaeda's propaganda, in recent years, especially tends more towards discourse. we're trying to convince people we have the right idea, that we reasonable people would agree with us, that this is the correct thing to do. and isis doesn't care about that so much. they're willing to just get people agitated and cut them loose. the third element of change is that isis has changed sort of fundamental underlying assumption that we see in the jihadist argument. al qaeda preceded from an assumption of weakness. its argument was of weakness. its argument was based on the proposition that muslims are weak and that they are unable to stand up to apostate regimes in the region. as well as the reason they , couldn't stand up to them is because the west was behind them

we want to know what al-qaeda is up to. and we are told several times if al-qaeda has a strong relationship with iowa ran even if it is an on and off again, possibility of attacks and support of safe havens it is a risk to the american people democrats and republicans should want to know about that. >> to your point, we have iran negotiation says coming up and authorization of military force. and tom, that is important. and you point out something that is specific when it comes not only to the connection of iran and al-qaeda. but the connection with the taliban and al-qaeda. the taliban is not distinguished that way and it is it a game changer for how we deal with them. what is the connection with the documents that are key here. >> the u.s. government tries to make it disingenous. and the taliban has supported insurgency and integrated in the prayings and in asia. and so the idea which secretary of state hillary clinton and other administration try to draw a distifrpgz between taliban and insurgents and terrorist group. >>

it was very difficult to join al qaeda. al qaeda was a vanguard and an elitist movement. so that affords them access to more people. secondly, their propaganda is extremely violent. and it is also very focused on presenting the group as dynamic, and action oriented, relative again, you look at comparison to al qaeda, al qaeda's propaganda in recent years especially tends more towards discourse, we're trying to convince people we have the right idea, that we reasonable people would agree with us that this is the correct thing to do. and isis doesn't care about that so much. they're willing to just get people agitated and cut them loose. the third element of change is that isis has changed sort of fundamental underlying assumption that we see in the jihadist argument. al qaeda preceded from an assumption of weakness. its argument was of weakness. its argument was based on the proposition that muslims are weak and that they are unable to stand up to ap pos state regimes in the region. the reason they couldn't stand up to them is because the west was behind them. the idea beh

the al qaeda leader killed by the raid by u.s. navy seals comes across as a make row manager, issuing orders on the handling of the media negotiating for hostages and vetting suicide bombers. another document shows how paranoid the al qaeda leader has become after years of hiding in a compound in pakistan and with a $25 million bounty on his head. one of his wives visiting from iran was ordered to leave personal belongings behind quote, everything that a needle might possibly penetrate. some chips have been lately developed for eavesdropping so small they could easily be hidden inside a syringe." he talks about the arab spring and overthrow of dictators and questioning in an anxious way how al qaeda will remain relevant during this period. >> it's so fascinating. why do you think, why are the documents being released right now? >> one of the simple explanations is that there is language that was inserted into a recent defense budget that mandated the declassification and release of the bin laden documents. before now, less than tw

yesterday the problem was al qaeda, before that it was the taliban. is defeated it'll be the next group. we have to stop the ideology. >> two days before isil seized ramadi the pentagon said quote, the strategy to defeat isis is working they're on the defensive. was that just blatant propaganda? or is the pentagon totally in the dark and they don't really know what's going on? >> i would say the pentagon is listening to the white house, and whatever political points that the white house wants to make the pentagon's going to say, unfortunately. here are some concrete actions that need to happen now. we have to start arming those sunni triable fighters in the province just like we had the great awakening during the iraq war. we need the same thing today to push back against the islamic state. we have to do a better job of arming the kurds and the christian my thats in the north. we also have to hold these iraqi military guys accountable. how many more divisions and brigades are going to run away while they leave our tanks? the military coalition has got

at a time osama bin laden or al qaeda generally sees its mission, the name al qaeda, they think their mission is to set an example for all muslims to jo lin king this jihadis movement so they want to trigger, repeat the word we are a trigger we want to popularize jihad and encourage all muslims to join us in jihad. on the other hand osama bin laden was more focused on shia. he thinks the enemies of islam are she at and this is what we have, this is why the ottoman empire fell, because of that before that all the movements in islamic history were always challenged by the shia. pcs she at as the existential threat that has always existed and has to be dealt with. osama bin laden thinks the enemy is the west and al qaeda focuses on the west only to encourage people based on concerns and for example in syriac, affiliates of al qaeda focusing on winning hearts and minds, never until recently tried to impose itself or its ideology on the people so they provide services and do this stuff because they want to encourage people to like the mint in the beginning didn't want to announce they were

. >> "abu zubaydah was assessed to possess detailed knowledge of al-qaeda terrorist attack plans." >> his name kept popping up at the meeting. "abu zubaydah was a committed, remorseless, psychopathic personality." he was widely thought to be, universally thought to be a key, key figure in the al-qaeda hierarchy. >> narrator: in march of 2002, they found abu zubaydah hiding near the indian border in faisalabad, pakistan. they learned he was at this house. as they surrounded it, a firefight broke out. (rapid gunfire) >> then he almost died in the capture, he was shot in the gut. and you know, part of me is saying, "well, i wish he had died," of course, but part of me is saying, "well, thank god he's alive, we can talk to him get something out of him." >> narrator: abu zubaydah would never be seen in public again. he was secretly taken to a black site in thailand. >> cia had no prisons. no one else, including the military, wanted these high- level prisoners. we had to put them somewhere and we had to do it quickly. and that's how black sites came about. >> narrator: they kept him hidden

isil is not an ally of al qaeda. they're an enemy of al qaeda.bush did say to congress give me the power to take military action against any terrorist group that means harm to the united states and if congress had passed that authorization, it would be a different matter. but congress rejected that authorization. and i think that action of congress shows that you can't just take the 9/11 authorization and stretch it to cover everybody. that's why we need a new war authorization. >> how worried are you when the fbi director james comey suggests there are more plots in the works, isis attacks in the united states along the lines of what we saw in texas a few days ago? is that a serious threat from your perspective? >> i do think it's a serious threat wolf. i would say plots in the works, you know there are all kinds of people some folks who are kind of in the deranged or pathological side who are planning things but as we know even one person with no connection to isil and i'm not sure there's any evidence the individuals had any real connection, b

what did you make of this al qaeda job application? >> i mean the application is the weirdest kind of finding it. but it's also in its way a distillation of al qaeda's vision of itself as a serious network of people being vetted and trained to go off and do things relative to their skill level and education level. and how that kind of resulted in this mixing of the mundanely bureaucratic with the truly frightenly absurd. you mention the questions do you want to be a suicide bomber and that final question about next of kin, which actually includes names for lines and addresses. it really is a bizarre look into the network. that says a lot about it. >> it really does. you know jack, in an open letter bin laden advised fellow terrorists to, quote, avoid insisting on the formation of an islamic state at the time being. now this is before the rise of isis, jack. does it show bin laden couldn't control splinter groups of al qaeda? >> no, he couldn't. he tried the best that he could. his efforts regularly were to try to convince people to foc

al qaeda of iraq when the group formerly known as al qaeda of iraq when the u.s. withdrew from iraq, then they stopped attacks against u.s. forces and the like. so there's been a long period of time in which there was no real threat, even to the point that in summer of last year, the white house had sent a letter to speaker boehner saying we no longer need the 2002 aumf because there's not a threat to the united states coming out of iraq. another indication that they didn't actually pose a direct threat to the u.s. some people cite to the beheadings of american journalists. just be careful. beheadings of american journalists started happening after the u.s. started its air campaign, not before. so it can't be a justification for the air campaign if it was response to it. >> there is inherent weakness to a successor model and concerns about the relationship organizationally between isil and al qaeda central as to whether or not they really have split apart and still fighting a fight against the united states. with that the concern is that if the president is not ac

>> well, it's al qaeda's more public about it.the muslim brotherhood or islamic state, it's just total, complete bas if he my to show his picture. it's something in the west we find almost impossible to understand. but for a strict muslim, this is crossing the line. and you have to twedefend the fh and you're obligated to. and for the jihadist, give up your life. >> in your opinion, they were pretty amateur and the swat team was there. one unarmed security guard who -- private security guard seemed to have been shot in the ankle and will make a full recovery. what would have happened in your opinion if these two guys instead of being lone wolves that we believe them to be, if they had just come back from syria or yemen and had been trained, would they be able to carry this out? would they be under surveillance? >> highly trained assaulters could have taken that building and there's not much the police could have done. they could have taken a car with a suicide bomber in it as they've been seen to do in syria and iraq. second car p

we learned he was actively managing al qaeda. he was in touch with other terror groups and reading things like leftist, antisemitic texts, pornography. and it is a handy reminder. and important to know our enemy. get machine of these documentore of these documents out. >> the young american foundation did a survey of the speakers addressing graduates. they found the top 100 u.s. universities liberal commencement speakers outnumber conservatives six to one. >> i'm shocked. >> in 2014 it was four one. 2012 it was seven to one. >> whose notre dame's. >> fits patton. >> all right. and remember if you have your own hit or miss tweet it to us at jer on fnc. that's it for my panel. and we hope to see you right here next week. >>> the justice department now saying it will review today's verdict in cleveland today that cleared a white police officer in the shooting deaths of two unarmed black suspects. hello and welcome to america's news headquarters. >> demonstrators crowding the streets of cleveland near the courthouse carrying signs an

this is a detailed picture of the leader of al qaeda even though he is deep in hiding trying to direct consistent theme and message from his network. another set of documents i reviewed this morning, talks about the arab spring and there is a sense of anxiety in the red ink about what the impact will be for al qaeda and he writes about the dictators in to nietzsche, ben ali and assad in syria with they got what was coming to them that the larger picture, al qaeda will take these countries back to his followers as opposed to leaders that he says was backed by western nations. some of it is also historical and interesting but i am not sure headline worthy. it talks about the uss cole in 2010 there was dissent within al qaeda and its governing council over whether that attack one of the seminole attacks leading to 9/11 should have taken place. if i was going to bottom line it for you at this point what is not clear and maybe unknowable is how it was these 100 documents were selected from the thousands flow we understand were pulled from the compound and whether in any sense they were cher

that's a wanted poster which was put out by al qaeda. geert wilders has been on al qaeda's hit list for many, many years. he has campaigned in the netherlands to try to ban the koran. he has also campaigned trying to ban muslim immigration into the netherlands. so he is very outspoken. he's very controversial. clearly no coincidence that he was invited to this free speech event. in garland, texas, this evening on a sunday night there. garland, texas, a suburb just outside of dallas. and ed, this venue we understand was specifically chosen by the afdi, the american freedom defense initiative, the people behind this, because there had, in fact, been a pro-islam event just a few weeks ago at the same venue, is that correct? >> reporter: it was. it was back in january. it was an event that was held here. obviously nothing like this happened at that event, but it was definitely, you know, the same scene. you saw confrontations between people who felt threatened by islam, this particular -- the motive of what you saw here tonight in garland, t

in this regard, isis has a different dream than al qaeda. osama bin laden wanted to perpetrate large scale terror attacks against the west. isis may do this, but to further its aim of building a state, a califate. still, you cannot understand isis without going back to al qaeda and its signature moment. it's most spectacular attack. september 11th, 2001. 19 al qaeda operatives hijack four planes, knock down two skyscrapers, crash into the pentagon and kill almost 3,000 people. >> the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> at that moment, with the american people terrorized, the american government searched for a fitting response to this attack. at that moment, the seeds of isis were planted. it would take years, and untold numbers of dead before isis would supplant al qaeda, but you can draw a line from the horrifying events of 9/11 and the american response to the creation of the islamic state. that line begins 18 months after september 11th, the united states invades iraq. >> my fellow citizens, at this hour,

>> i think the striking part is how different he is and how different that al qaeda, al qaeda 1.0 or 2.0, is from isis. isis is very professional very organized, has created successfully an islamic state, let's admit it. they run three or four cities probably have 2 million or 3 million people under their control. and bin laden says don't make the islamic state your priority go after the americans. and so far, isis hasn't gone after the americans in a big way. they've urged those in the united states to act on their own. but the contrast between this sort of philosophical approach of bin laden, this unclear approach of bin laden, and the businesslike organized, sort of corporate governance approach of isis is striking. >> is it because, do you think, the goals of the groups are so different? al qaeda more aimed at tearing down the west and isis aimed at building a caliphate? >> i think they both wanted to build a caliphate ultimately. but isis or daesh as the arabs call it just went straight to it and did it. and bin laden saw this as sort of something like the withering away of the

that's al qaeda in yemen.to february copenhagen another cartoonist swedish, also on the al qaeda hit list. attending a freedom of speech event in kobe hagan in a cafe a lone gunman approaches the cafe tries to get in opens fire with his automatic weapon kills a filmmaker outside the venue. lars vilks and other people say because he had with him swedish and danish details, both those details pulled weapons, chased off the gunman. he comes back later in the evening in copenhagen kills a guard outside a synagogue who was securing a bat mitzvah that was in progress that evening. that gunman there later we find out in the minutes really before he goes on this killing spree, he's later killed by the police in the minutes before he goes on that killing spree, has given this pledge of allegiance to isis leader baghdadi. alisyn? >> okay nic, thanks so much for all of that background. we want to bring in david gardensteen ross. he's a senior fellow for the foundation of defense of democracy. what do you see when you loo

now this with al qaeda. there's a question about whether the president is really attending to the business of knowing just what sort of position we're in. >> also you have to say the irony of all of this is by saying we're not going to put u.s. troops in harm's way, he's allowing this order and call fate to grow that may require more u.s. troops in the region in the long term. >> i was in the white house with president bush when he announced the surge. ramadi was the first test of it. it's not just a symbolic victory. it also means isis is growing in power and it means the iraqis are looking to iran. there's a leader quoted today saying the americans are our friends on paper, but in combat it's the iranians. ramadi is two kinds of extremists gaining an influence. >> the officials in the pentagon understand all this. but is their reputation at risk? are they going to be fighting internally we've got to change course here and accelerate bombing and do more or we're really going to suffer a strategic defeat? >>

the al qaeda leader telling followers not to grab territory, to keep going after american targets. "you should ask them to avoid insisting on the formation of an islamic state for the time being, to work on breaking the power of our main enemy by attacking the american embassies in sierra leone, togo, and to mainly attack the american oil companies." then his bookshelf, a digital library. everything from bob woodward's "obama's wars" to classics like paul kennedy's "the rise and fall of great powers." and the "delta force extreme 2" video game. most likely for his children. the treasure trove offers new insights into bin laden, the ceo of al qaeda central, a bureaucracy complete with a lengthy online application. questions like -- what is your favorite material? science or literature? the final question -- who should we contact in case you become a martyr? >> these documents show that bin laden of was very much in command, that he was on his game, that he was focused, that he was totally dedicated to making sure al qaeda had the capabilities to continue to attack america and the we

it would take years and untold numbers of dead before isis would supplant al qaeda. you can draw a line from the horrifying events of 9/11 and the american response to the creation of the islamic state. that line begins 18 months after september 11th, the united states invades iraq. >> my fellow citizens, at this hour, american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger. >> when the u.s. invaded, it hadn't really thought much about the day after. it was very much focused on overthrowing saddam. >> there it goes. there it goes. >> and what happened in the initial weeks was a total power vacuum. >> as the american occupation quickly devolved into chaos, one man sees the moment. that man is abu musab al zarqawi, the godfather of isis. in 2004 zarqawi swore allegiance of osama bin laden and became the leader of al qaeda in iraq. >> the u.s. has described him as one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. >> zarqawi's ultimate goal was to create an islamic state. and e

i think al qaeda knows what we got. that the american people from a transparency point of view, unless there is a overriding national security or danger to our teams or anything the american people ought to know too. >> there are some things best left unsaid. and certainly to verify and confirm what we have to the enemy. i think is unwise decision. certainly i think american public should know we were there eventually but i think, too when you say either delta force or seal team 6 i think it's better to say special operation forces. there is always a danger when you get close to individual trigger squeezes and delay relay information about specific units. i any there is a danger there that sets up for unintended consequences and i think it puts our troops in harms way. >> well, congressman it certainly is -- i also have a sense of pride because when we do hear about our special operations, you know, they are -- they do an extraordinary job. so efficient. so brave. and do so much for us. so i actually think sort of almos

with those who are enabling al qaeda. who is funding al qaeda? how do you put pressure on the people funding them? those questions were not only never addressed, but those who said they should be addressed, who said if we want to stop this from happening again, we have to understand the root causes of why it happened in the first place. many of us were called apologist for terror. if we were not supporting war, we were somehow apologizing for terror. we were somehow supporting terror. we were sucking up to saddam hussein. i mean the insults were pretty , constant. that was what we needed to do, was figure out root causes. maybe you can't prevent an extremist of some sort who is a sociopath from a kind of attack, but you can figure out why people from many places around the world think that maybe it was not such a bad idea, and look at what those reasons were. and try to figure that out which makes it much harder to ever do it again. if your goal is to prevent it from ever happening again, you have to start with figuring o

asian, involved in leadership of al qaeda. a couple americans maybe messaging on al jazeera. now more than a decade later, thousands of people talking in native languages across not the media we knew even 15 years ago but across youtube, twitter. having been a government official i can tell you the speed of that revolution the world of terror is something i don't think the government is suited to accommodate. >> any media the united states needs to do now? >> we need to be smarter. the fbi right now is still reeling from sequestration. they have not recovered from the number of analysts and linguists they had to stop hiring because of sequestration. >> the forced budget cuts. >> you can't have a hiring program on and off like a water faucet. they estimate about a 20% reduction in the manpower they should have that they've lost because of that. people don't think of that when we have these political stunts happen. >> we got to leave it on that note. political stunts. we've often left our conversations on that note. mubin, thank

the al qaeda stuff is fiction. i believe that bush himself was radicalized by the events of 9/11, and opted to go big, and go big was to send a shockwave through the part of the world and the phrase was used at the time, drain the swamp. the swamp was the semi-states that provided shelter for al qaeda, that you might move that region of the world in a more positive direction. >> we have time for one more question. >> to broaden the conversation back to decision to invade iraq, kofi annan said this was an illegal war a war of aggression, so based under the nuremberg tribunal, what about accountability for that? amy goodman mentioned accountability. would you call it an illegal war off the bat? mr. goss: in terms of strictly american legality, i know the authorization to use force you had the initial authorization to use force against afghanistan in the fall, winter of 2001, and you had congress go on record essentially giving bush the authority to use force if he thought that was appropriate. again, we should point

the links to al qaeda. the yellowcake uranium with the tubes that could only be used for nuclear weapons. as we know, none of those were true. it was a war fought for a host of other reasons. i will not get into those reasons, that have to do with power, oil, and a whole other group of resources and power. i think that we do have to recognize that the region is more dangerous now because of the illegal wars waged by george w. bush stand would have been the case otherwise. -- than would have been the case otherwise. i think we talk about war crimes it is also important that we distinguish the war crimes that have to do with how wars are carried out from another kind of war, the crimes that have to do with how the war was carried out are more common in much of our discourse. so the issues of collective punishment, shock and alwe, the massive civilian deaths that were known to occur, the thousands that were killed, the rendition, torture -- all of those things, the determination that some prisoners somehow to