not only was he the al qaeda lead that communicated with al qaeda corps, he also we later learned became the operations chief for all of the arabian peninsula and in fact it was his henchmen who were coming after us when we were working. we later learned, trying to hit us in yemen and later do a truck bomb operation against the embassy. he was captured, as you know, in dubai, sometime in 2002 and been in u.s. custody ever since that time. but i have to say, a comment on my part, in a big, big way. he's still not even past preliminary hearings and legal proceedings in guantanamo. so not even close to trial at this point. it is a capital case. we hope that justice will prevail. >> inching closer, he said. >> inching closer. >> anyone on this side? >> i have a question. >> go ahead. >> first of all, thank you very much for coming out here and sharing your experiences. for an operation like that, when essentially you are acting on behalf of the united states, what's the reach in terms of the -- kind of the guidance and the kind of communications that you're getting when you're deployed like

the taliban were close to al qaeda, they supported al qaeda.he agreement the ambassador signed for the u.s. over a year ago, the taliban promised according to pompeo, to break ties with al qaeda. they have not done so. the u.s. has not had a good handle on al qaeda's presence in the u.s. a number of people in the obama administration, including ambassador lute, said the same thing, that al qaeda had been decimated. but then they found a training camp that caught us by surprise. any claim the taliban is not have ties with al qaeda, is not aligned with al qaeda, is wrong. any belief that al qaeda is decimated is unfortunately not reliable. judy: ambassador? ambassador lute: if i,, -- if i may, i said al qaeda in this region, afghanistan and pakistan, are decimated compared to what they were previously. once the evidence of al qaeda a transnational terrorist threat, the last by my survey is 2005 in london. the presence of a few al qaeda fighters do not -- does not constitute a threat to the american homeland. judy: i want to bring you back to the

but in al-qaeda fashion. we know this largely from those in the organization who provided the information to us during the interview and interrogation. bin laden himself with his deputy at the time decided let's go conservative, we want to get a gray hole, whether it's a commercial or u.s. military vessel. and it was part of their land east africa, then sea and air operations, which of course we know they pulled off. so as best as the investigation intelligence could tell, they started hatching the idea, at least two years before the "cole" was attacked. but they were operational in yemen by the spring of 1999. and the goal, again, was -- and not much of this is in the public realm yet. the goal was to acquire 40 tons of high explosives. and the ultimate was going to be filling a dow, which is their fishing boat in the region, a large dow with high explosives so that with escorts it would be able to ram an aircraft carrier. but, again, al-qaeda central said let's pull one off first before we go big. >> throug

- al qaeda and isis will reform and have safe havens. you can't trust the taliban to look after our interests and that's what we find ourselves. so, what to do next? president biden says we will support peace talks between the government of afghanistan and the taliban, facilitated by the united nations. we went to afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago. that cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021. mr. president, the best people to explain to you why we should stay in afghanistan with a residual counterterrorism force or your own military and intelligence community and people like the afghan study group, they have told you point blank the high risk nature of a decision to withdraw because we're tired of being there. because you want to tell the public 20 years later i got us out of afghanistan. if you will listen to the military, and intelligence community they can explain to you why we need a residual force to protect the american homeland because the afghan study group indicated that if we do this

we had access to hype, locating al-qaeda members after that.t was a treasure trove of information post 9/11. >> any other questions? i have several questions. i'll try to limit the ones that i have. just a bit of background on who i am. my name is tom. all my brother was one of the 17 on board the uss cole. one of the 17 that was killed. and just a little bit of background on what you are saying. this is knotty blame game. my information about john o'neil, a little bit of secondhand. he was more in contact with my father. giving him detail the case throughout. the kind of person he is, you know, this when he first heard about the attack his response was probably expletive. he is kind of very, it's true, the reason is that john o'neill, as you know it was al-qaeda who did an attack right when you heard about it. so he was really angry about it. and thus the kind of relationship, the kind of person he is. to keep that in mind, when his relationship with the ambassador boding for my information, maybe i could be wrong but they did not have to him

whether it is al qaeda or not al qaeda.ve to tell you, over the nearly 20 years of this, i've heard it all come out that they are -- i've heard it all, that they are separate, or folks like h.r. mcmaster, that they are in distant wishful, and we may be setting us up again -- indistinguishable, and that we may be setting us up again for the taliban to repeat history. what are your thoughts on that distinction between al qaeda and ongoing terrorist groups attacking the u.s., and to the taliban has political players inside afghanistan? >> the taliban to represent a substantial fraction of the afghanistan population. they have some degree of popular support. it's not simply an isolated group of extremists with no base in the community. the community is a large part of the afghan population. but almost all the people who studied this understand the taliban have primarily a local agenda. they have various values and principles we might not agree with, but they don't want to spread them all over the world, they don't want to bring

and how long did it take for it to be linked to al-qaeda? >> to answer the last part of your question, from all sorts of intelligence, that's with the fbi and ncis team said, this will be eight intelligence investigation. having the greatest resources and assets out there it was coming in very early that they were very strong indications that there was al-qaeda modis operandi from east africa for example. so that developed, it's just the beginning to provide a vector for us to do the things we were going to do. so in the morning of the 17th, not too long after i arrived in the command post, cathy mentioned and the great late john o'neill had a briefing that morning, inside -- behind the scenes they were negotiating with the yemeni foreign interior ministry as well as our intelligence service to be able to take the u.s. investigative team out to the sites that were known at that point. there were four sites if i'm on track for the land part of the investigation. we went out in a massive convoy that morning. and we had the fbi hrt team, hostag

of afghanistan which was run by the taliban at the time wouldn't be able to give safe haven to al qaeda again after the attacks of $911.00 but here we are 2 decades later with the taliban out of power but still a significant force in afghanistan late last year the taliban and the united states were very very close to a major summit in camp david when everything fell apart at the last minute former president set a deadline for the withdrawal of the last few 1000 american troops for this may but president biden doubts that's going to happen so what's keeping us leaders from ending this forever war joining me to figure this out is stephen walt professor of international relations at harvard university and one of america's leading political scientists he coauthored the israel lobby with john mearsheimer in 2007 and most recently wrote the hell of good intentions america's foreign policy elite and the decline of u.s. primacy dr weil is terrific to have you on with us today talking about this let me just start for this is there ever going to be a time where america's generals america's strate

what have they left us with except for the taliban and daesh and al-qaeda. such think a dynamic that definitely exists in kunar and nuristan, less when other parts of the country, is that the taliban present in kunar and nuristan was very weak before 2001. this. this was not taliban controlled territory where this is not the taliban heartland. as as a result of u.s. involvet the taliban became strong in the province and was brought in kind of to help the local insurgency fight the americans. so in some ways it really is, there are places that have not seen the taliban presence at all pre-2001 pre-2001 that now are governed by the taliban. there are also decreasingly but still some pockets south of the pech in areas that are governed by the islamic state which is the group that didn't exist before american involvement. there's quite a great deal of bitterness about americans come with good intentions but not fulfilling the promises and in some cases leaving things worse than they started. >> well, colbert has led to the deaths of half a million americans, and

somalia and al-qaeda and a group in syria.the terror threat now keeping thousands of troops concentrateed in just one country at a cost of billion dollars each year makes little sense to me and our leaders. we can't continue the cycle of hoping to create ideal conditions for a withdrawal and expecting a different result. i am the 4th united states president to preside over american troop presence in afghanistan. two republicans and two democrats. i will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. after consulting with our allies and partners and the military leaders and intelligence personnel and diplomats and development experts, the congress and the vice-president as well as with many others around the world, i concluded it's time to end america's longest war. it's time for american troops to come home. when i came to office, i inherited a diplomat agreement negotiated with the government of the united states and the taliban that all u.s. forces would be out of afghanistan by may 1, 2021. we inherited that commitment. it's p

in afghanistan there may be only 200, 300, maybe 400 al qaeda members total.the organization is no longer capable of planning large-scale attacks against the united states. that's what our intelligence estimates tell us. and frankly there are far more al qaeda members today in other countries, like yemen, for instance. does that mean that we should also plant huge numbers of u.s. troops in every place where there are security vacuums to eliminate the terrorist threat from those countries? of course not. after two decades of the war on terror, we made a ton of mistakes but we've also gotten a lot better in terms of our intelligence capabilities and our ability to strike against a terrorist threat absent a huge in-country presence. why not apply that lesson learned to afghanistan? to their credit, the trump administration was right to finally call it like it is and state that the u.s. presence in afghanistan couldn't and shouldn't continue forever. but, as usual, the trump team didn't put in the work to ensure that week -- we could do this by may 1. so a four-mo

. >> threats from al qaeda and afghanistan is significantly degraded since osama bin laden has about to justice. even when our troops the innocent security partnership bipartisan that commitment to the afghan security forces. we will intensify our countries that have the economic investment development as they were more prosperous future and then to advocate for women she is and if tradition to editor in assistance and refugees. i shared that message in all my meetings today with representatives from civil society working every together the0 past 20 years because of their service and sacrifice and now we are embarking on a new chapter in our work here in partnership with the afghan people. thank you and happy to take questions. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> first things we know from our experience the last 20 is no. the only path forward to a durable lasting and just and cto the conflict is through negotiation and biblical and through compromise. and i hope that caliban understand that as well. if the forces are withdrawing so everyone uses their influence and

in syria and al qaeda in the arabian peninsula so the u.s. president saying that if there is a resurgence that the united states will address that but at the same time the large military footprint that has been very large in the past generation is coming to an end and of course the drawdown will start in may and is due to finish on that very symbolic date his isn't a complete live and 2021 of course 20 years after the attack all on the twin towers if we have some kind of i guess picture of what is going to happen over those over those months obviously the troops will withdraw but when it comes to putting anything in place to help the afghan government after that withdrawal. well we heard from the president that his intention is that the sort of u.n. process that is continuing to be sort of. worked out in terms of the. the taliban and the afghan government will continue and that he believes that is the best venue for that but at the same time that doesn't mean that the united states is not going to be in afghanistan any more in fact they belie

shore, that there would be a natural standoff from launched weapons mortars of some kind, but what al-qaeda did for its part was really quite ingenious in that exploiting the local cell -- he was actually taken out on an air strike on the 1st of january this year. he was the senior local guy that the masterminds tapped into because they knew him from relationships of bosnia and other places. but he would not know the nuts and bolts of the operation again, because of the car pun meant to lies a shun. but what al-qaeda was able to do, and wing about yemen and generally if not down to ground level, through those trusted relationships, they knew that they could hide in plain sight because one of the things i'll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, and i've met a lot of smart people in the community that are convinced that the yemen government was complicit, there's not one scintilla of evidence that has combined way that the government -- and again, that's counterintuitive to how al-qaeda operated and if anything, the government was an enemy of that kind of sunni extremist islam. so my greater point

al qaeda and afghanistan significantly degraded, osama bin laden has been brought to justice. after years of saying we leave militarily at some time, that time has come but even when our troops come home from a partnership with afghanistan will continue. our security partnership will indoor. there's strong bipartisan support for that commitment to the afghan security forces. we'll intensify our diplomacy with the taliban, countries in the region and around the world have a stake in afghanistan future. withstand the afghan people including through economic investment and development systems as they look forward to a more prosperous future. we will continue to support civil society and advocate for equal rights for women putting meaningful dissipation in the ongoing negotiation and equal representation throughout society. we'll maintain the american tradition of providing humanitarian assistance for those most in need including girls and refugees. i shared that message and all meetings today with chairman of dual representatives from civil society working for change every single

it gets significant resources to counter al-qaeda, isis, and iranian-backed terrorists.al mckenzie, in the last year, i understand you've been able to reduce u.s. troop levels in the region, but i worry this administration's policies in your region are driven more by politics than national security. first, in afghanistan, the administration is, by its own admission, executing a calendar-based drawdown rather than a conditions-based one. we know this is true. we've talked about this for quite a period of time. general mckenzie you recently stated that the taliban still has to take actions to meet the conditions for u.s. troop withdrawal of the february 2020 agreement. and the arbitrary september 11th deadline for troop drawdown risks a power vacuum that terrorists will dominate and use to threaten our homeland again. i want to add here that i'm extremely disappointed that general miller is not yet scheduled to testify publicly before the committee, and i hope you will work to fix that, general mckenzie. second, regarding iran, the administration is moving quickly to negot

diffused, including al qaeda. we need to posture ourselves to be able to deal with that thread differently than we have done in the past 20 years in afghanistan. >> over a two decade period, as someone who was a former military intelligence officer, it does not surprise me to know that the threat profile, the threat of terrorist activity, the threat to the homeland has shifted. not just informed, not just in terms of its level and nature, but geographically, it has shifted, as well. is that accurate? that is accurate. >> did that in form this decision? >> the president made that clear. >> was it assessed that as we look beyond the summer and into future years that there would be a spike in violence targeting our forces, other american personnel in the country of afghanistan if we stayed? >> yes, the assessment was if we stayed post-may 1, based on the agreement that the taliban and us had a, they wouldn't attack us during this period, and we would be back at war likely with the taliban. >> this is the decision, wh

the taliban long fostered al qaeda in afghanistan.urprise visit to our troops in the country this week saying the u.s. will make sure afghanistan does not give rise to al qaeda once again. >> the taliban made a commitment in the agreement it reached with the united states last year to prevent the re-emergence of al qaeda here in afghanistan. we will hold them to that commitment. >> now, in addition to possible terror threats, there are fears the taliban will inflict severe human rights abuses, particularly on women. the group is extremely controlling of girls and women. 20 years is a long time for a war. let's look at the cost of it. in terms of lives lost, more than 2,300 u.s. troops died while serving in afghanistan since 2001. on top of that more than 43,000 afghan civilians lost their lives. as for the monetary costs, recent analysis estimates the price tag is upwards of$2 trillion. after 20 years, the u.s. doesn't have all that much to show for its time in afghanistan. osama bin laden, the architect of the september 11th attacks

we went to afghanistan in 2001 to root out al qaeda, to prevent future terrorist attacks against the united states planned from afghanistan. our objective was clear. the cause was just, our nato allies and partners rallied beside us. and i supported that military action along with overwhelming majority of the members of congress. more than seven years later in 2008, weeks before we swore the oath of office, president obama and i were about to swear. president obama asked me to travel to afghan start and report back on the state of the war in afghanistan. i flew to afghanistan to the kunar valley, a rugged, mountainous region on the border with pakistan. what i saw in that trip reinforced my conviction, that only the afghans have the right and responsibility to lead their country, and that more and endless american military force could not create or sustain a durable afghan government. i believed that our presence in afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place, to ensure afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again. we did

how do we effectively disrupt al qaeda and isis? >> chair man, i will have more comments in the closed session but briefly i will tell you it may be difficult but it's not impossible to accomplish this task. a couple things have changed since 2001. we were last attacked in afghanistan. first the united states itself is a far harder target than we were in september of 2001. it's more difficult to operate in the united states and gain access to the united states, so a variety of things have changed inside of the united states and we should keep that in mind. additionally, although we are going to try to pull out of afghanistan, we are operating under the concept that the u.s. military presence zero is going to be zero, and we can talk a little bit more about that in the closed session. we will have an architecture in the theater that will allow us to work with afghanistan and will not give the same picture that we've got now and it will allow us to see and it will be greater. the risks will be greater but it will be possible to do tho

how do you say the same things will not happen now with al qaeda?t extremism if we're not there? >> obviously, isis is a little different than even the taliban or al qaeda but we learned lessons from our time in iraq and as iraq began to unfold when isis grew. but here's what i will tell you, again, we understand the risks. there are the risks of a resurgent taliban. there are the risks of all of the progress that the women made in afghanistan and will that be drawn back? there's, of course, always the risk of al qaeda creating a sanctuary again in afghanistan. from a counterterrorism standpoint, i will tell you, i think we can mitigate that particular risk and we can do so from over the horizon. we have the technology today to be able to keep drones in the air and as long as we can maintain a reasonably good intelligence network on the ground, we'll be able to kind of keep al qaeda at bay. of course, that is the whole reason we went into afghanistan in the first place. >> you mentioned women, how concerned are you going forward and the safety of af

is on our side in syria and biden acknowledged that al-qaeda was in alliance with the united states was in the us and our allies and here we are just as it is being on the show we went to damascus and he said they're going to be elections this year presumably they can be no elections while the european union. well i don't know who they committing murder by these sanctions on syrian people and the united states continues to threaten syria and israel bombs damascus as it has in the bottom to do. yes i mean we do have. a extraordinary bad situation with turkey sponsoring jihadists in italy maybe 2 or 3000000 people under the control of al qaida or head choppers if you like that ilk i mean they're not very pleasant people to talk and then you have the northeast inside. turkey supporting a kurdish and america's 40 a sort of kurdish more autonomy and then you have the rest of the population most of the urban population but i think the will be elections held or it's possible to be held and they will be held in embassies outside syria who are those who are refugees if there are a lot i mean

report that up to 500 al-qaeda fighters remain in afghanistan as close allies of the taliban general miller with his leverage gone issued this warning as fair as a relationship between al qaeda and the taliban the taliban have to break that relationship that is something they have committed to. the world expects under broke that relationship and certain now that afghanistan will never be use a safe haven for terrorism. it's hard to break a relationship you don't have the taliban has long denied there are any al qaeda members in afghanistan they are quick however to confirm their attacks on sunday alone they published 16 posts on their website boasting of killing dozens of afghan soldiers and police offices in recent days if you could be verified 80 miller is america's longest serving commander in afghanistan he has tried to reassure afghan security forces saying he'll leave them with as much equipment as possible it's my objective to ensure that the afghan security forces are in the best possible security posture transitioning bases and equipment to the afghan security forces more th

wants and that is to stop al qaeda or isis from attacking the u.s. homeland so the question is going to be what will the what will we have what will the u.s. have to do and you cannot we the united states will be very and a very difficult position to try and do anything to counter an embedded al qaeda or. or isis which is actually create in the province up in the northeastern part and again the they are actually direct threats to china and to russia more than they would be to the united states at the moment and so i think it's something where the regional countries are going to have to gather come up with a security gram can i just touch upon the taliban itself to do you think the taliban leaders are going to be satisfied will the mic any movement on their stance with this new day from what they've said before it. well they wanted us out by 1 may that that agreement. and they are threatening once again u.s. troops and of course the u.s. will respond to any attacks on u.s. forces but it's logistically going to take time to move out the $4500.00 troops

last few days al qaeda is in syria is an asset of the united states also there is israel this ironclad guarantee given in the past few days by biden's pentagon boss and and of course there are the troops on the air ukraine russia border and the threat by the by the administration of retaliation military retaliation recently against russia or yes i think as a row i read. no sense. if you like supremacy or anything in the 1st it was before the anchorage talks. the chinese were still hoping that could be a moment a modus vivendi achieved with biden and ministration i think it was at the anchorage and what led up to anchorage all the threats than the new sanctions that were imposed and the statements coming out of the us that convinced them that there was a knowledge there are preparing and rush to i think for the sense that the opening of a clash sumps will between the united states and russia china and iran is almost inevitable and that this is something that is going to be the deciding the decisive moment in the future of geopolitics global geopolitics really of entry i'm not talking ne

came here, al qaeda. the u.s.ent just in january said they were growing in strength because they were cooperating with the taliban. they haven't been removed. they are still here. counterterrorism operations have massively changed. it is entirely possible that within the fine print of talking about the possibility of security for the u.s. diplomatic presence here, and just how counterterrorism works now with local partners and drones and surveillance, that the u.s. could continue to hunt them whilst not having 2,500 troops here. i genuinely felt listening to that speech it was courage brought from experience, from seeing this war over many, many years, and also possibly the courage to know when to say stop, almost went to quit, if you like, because there is some degree of correctness in what he was saying. that u.s. have tried, frankly, everything here. they've tried invading, they tried a surge, they tried drawing down the surge, sticking to counterterrorism, negotiation, and the only real thing left it seems is

al qaeda is in yemen and syria and somalia. a cross that border region in iraq and syria and in multiple countries in africa, so to really protect this country from the terrorist threat, we need to allocate our resources and capabilities across a range of countries and continents, not just focus them on afghanistan. and finally, on the question of women and girls, president biden -- sorry, i can stop there if you'd like. >> chris: welcome a real quickly if you can give me an answer to that, it's an important issue. >> jake: so on the issue of women and girls, president biden said in his speech that the united states would continue to provide civilian and humanitarian assistance to help protect their rights, but more than that, that the united states would continue to finance the afghan national defense and security forces. we have trained and equipped 300,000 afghan forces to defend their country and their people. and seven years ago nato said that at the end of the year, at the end of 2014, we would transition full responsibil

with regard to global terrorism, isis and al qaeda are the most pressing threats to u.s. interests overseas. these groups seek to conduct attacks inside the united states. sustained pressure has broadly degraded their capability. domestically lone actors pose a greater threat. we see the threat manifest itself in individuals inspired by isis or al qaeda and those who commit acts from goals stemming from other influence such as racial bias. which we refer to as domestic violence extremism or dve, which is a growing threat in the united states. these extremists see themselves as part of a broader movement and, in fact, a number of other countries are experiencing a rise in dve. for example, australia, germany, norway and the united kingdom considering violence extremists to be the fastest growing terrorist threat they face. and regional conflicts continue to fuel humanitarian crisis, the fighting in afghanistan, iraq and syria has an implication for u.s. forces while tensions between india and pakistan are a concern for the world. the violence between israel and iran, the a

they are not al qaeda. they are actually anti-regime. they were based in the southern libya and they transited a long way across the desert towards the south. the government forces starting engaging in them. it looked like the column made the decision to withdraw. this has happened before. they were about to withdraw and then the news of the president's death became known. it is not clear what this means. for our relationship there. his son, the former intel chief has been appointed as the interim president. we expect he is inclined to have good relationships and we think that that will continue. there could be some potential for violence and we are working with the team. the embassy did a drawdown of personnel to minimum staff and we also have military folks working with the french and the embassy so we are watching closely to keep america safe while this becomes a little more clear. the situation in libya is getting worse as well with a failed state following the regime. with the transition counsel that has some position of leadership

. >> bin laden is dead and al qaeda's degraded in iraq -- in afghanistan. and it's time to end the forever war. >> reporter: the president's move drawing bipartisan praise but also criticism. >> al qaeda and isis are going to come back he's paving the way for another 9/11 >> reporter: president biden's own cia director today acknowledging there's a, quote, significant risk that al qaeda and other terrorist groups will try to rebuild once the u.s. and its allies leave still, for the military it marks the end of an era. more than 2,300 u.s. troops dead. the war lasting so long that multiple generations served >> i went and served my country in this theater so that my son wouldn't have to >> reporter: but eventually master sergeant trevor deboor's son specialist payton sluss, would serve there too. >> it was too long to be there something we should definitely improve on so we don't have 20-year wars down the road >> reporter: despite concerns the taliban could overwhelm the afghan government, president biden says waiting for the right moment is a recipe for st