 Now I have the distinct honor and pleasure of introducing Arno de Borshkrav, who will lead the next panel. Arno needs no introduction. He's a legendary journalist, as you all know. He's the director of the Transnational Threat Project at CSIS, as well as a senior advisor at CSIS. A 30-year veteran of Newsweek at the age of 27, made senior editor a position he held for 25 years. Was later the editor-in-chief of the Washington Times, president and CEO of UPI. A man whose list of accomplishments, publications are just boundless, so I recommend his bio to you. It's really been an honor for me to be a part of CSIS as a senior advisor and to work with Arno and to learn from him. He will lead the next panel. It's really a pleasure to introduce him. And I will say one thing about Arno. He has always been ahead of his time, whether it's his publications, his writings or his work, he's always been on the forefront. So without further ado, Arno de Borshkrav, thank you. His Highness Prince Turkey Al-Faisal and Ambassador Negroponte. Great privilege for me to introduce two dear friends of very long standing. Prince Turkey Al-Faisal directed, as you probably know, his intelligence service for 25 years. He then became ambassador to the UK and later to Washington. He is also founder or co-founder of the King Faisal Cultural Foundation, which straddles the past and the technological future. He is the son of the founder of the kingdom, grandson of the founder of the kingdom, king known as Ibn Saud or Abdulaziz, and he is the son of the late King Faisal. And as for John Negroponte, I first met him in Vietnam when he was a very young diplomat in the mid-60s. And he went on, as you probably know, to play a very important role in bringing about a settlement in Vietnam, way ahead and working for Henry Kissinger at the time. John has been ambassador in all sorts of important places. He was the first ambassador to liberated Iraq. He was the ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador to Mexico, ambassador to the Philippines, Honduras, and I think I may be missing one. He was deputy secretary of state. He was deputy national security advisor. And more lately, he was the first director of national intelligence. I think we'll start it off. Prince Turkey told me he had a few things to say before we get into questions. Thank you, Arnault. A slight correction on Arnault's introduction. The intelligence service was not my intelligence service. It was the kingdom of Saudi Arabia's intelligence service. Ms. Napolitano put it very well when she spoke here this morning in saying that terrorism did not begin with Al Qaeda, nor will it end with the death of Osama bin Laden. And from that context, I have just a few remarks to make about the report that was mentioned in the previous session. These remarks I sent to Arnault, which I'm sure he shared with them, had to eliminate recruitment to terrorism. It takes a lot of effort. But the most important thing is to try to resolve the issues that operate as recruiting tools for the terrorists. And these are mostly political issues, in my view. Mention was made of things going sour, let's say, in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. But I think what is important is that we live now today such issues as in Kashmir, the Caucasus, Palestine, the Horn of Africa. And one has to find ways of resolving those issues in order to pull the rug from under the recruiters who if you watch the cyberspace appeals that are put out by these recruiters to young people, they mainly rely on scenes depicting these problems in these areas. So I hope that the report will focus on promoting solutions for these problems. The other thing that the report did not mention, which I think is very important, is the need for an international center for counterterrorism. This has been on the table of the international community since 2005 when a conference on counterterrorism was held in Riyadh, Miss Townsend, I believe, was attending that conference. And one of the main recommendations there was that there should be a counterterrorism center where not only information is pulled, but also know-how. Many of these countries in the world where the terrorism operates from whether it is in Yemen or in sub-Saharan Africa or in some Asian countries simply don't have the capabilities of a financial or human to challenge the presence of these terrorist groups that operate from them. And in order to get those things in hand, we need to pull, as I said, not only the information, but also the know-how. Being here so few days just before the anniversary of September 11th, that event weighs heavily on my shoulders as a Saudi. 50 years from now, 100, 200 years from now, whenever September 11th comes about, Saudi citizens will be the ones mainly blamed for the event. And that is a heavy weight for any citizen of a country to bear. A slight consolation to that in my view is that the kingdom has been the leading country in fighting al-Qaeda and eliminating the cells and the other structure of al-Qaeda, not only within Saudi Arabia, but also by sharing information and know-how with our allies in the United States and in Europe and in the Middle East. Hopefully we can help in eliminating that scourge from the world. We have successfully dismantled and eliminated al-Qaeda cells so that now for the past six years, I think, or five years, we've had absolutely no terrorist, successful terrorist operation in the kingdom. That's a blessing from God. Doesn't mean it's not going to happen. It might. We still have to face that problem when it comes. But one of the things that we learned from our experience is that you have to treat with al-Qaeda holistically. You can't simply use security measures. You can't simply use political measures. It's not a matter of buying off people with money. It's not a matter of simply using one or another or a third. You have to use all of these methods. And in that effort, the kingdom, I think, has successfully combined all of those things in fighting al-Qaeda in the West, in Saudi Arabia, but hopefully in other parts of the world. And I'm reminded in this of last year's aborted mailpaper bombs, mail parcel bombs that were coming to Chicago via the Yemen when Saudi Arabian intelligence tipped off American and European intelligence services on these parcel bombs, and they were intercepted. Fortunately, and thankfully before they caused any harm anywhere. The other thing I think I would like to mention is that the people in the country are the key. Terrorists like Ladin or others would like to present themselves as either liberators of people or as saviors somehow providing a solution for their problems. And if they succeed in doing that, then you're lost. But fortunately, if you can get the people on your side, they become your first line of defense and your early warning system. Many terrorist attempts in the kingdom were forestalled because of citizens picking up the telephone and calling the local police station and saying, I see suspicious activity in the neighborhood, whether it is a house or a person or a car. And that leads to investigation and that investigation generally has succeeded in disrupting these terrorist activities. This is what I have to say. Thank you so much, Prince Turkey. Ambassador Nigroponey, would you like to say a few things? Yeah. Can we get into questions? Thank you, Arnaud. Thanks for the introduction and your heinous pleasure to be here with you and to see you again. Arnaud, you say we go back a long ways. I think we first met in 1964 in Saigon. Arnaud was a fantastic war correspondent. Still hard. Goes out to some pretty challenging places to cover local situations. I stand in awe of how well you still do that. Just a couple of points. I think there are two key issues. Prince Turkey raised the question of the root causes and getting to the bottom of whatever gives rise to terrorist activity. And I couldn't agree with him more and I also agree that the remedies have to be holistic. There's no silver bullet that's gonna solve these problems for you. So that's one side of the issue. And then I think related, but I find it a fairly universal problem and that is the issue of governance and particularly, and governance of course has to do with the ability of a state or a country to come to grips with root causes, but specifically competence in the security area. I mean, it's one thing to stand there with a uniform and a gun. It's another to really know how to solve problems of terrorism and that is a skill. I think a skill that, where there's been substantial improvement during the past decade or so, but where there's still a long ways to go and I think that if you look around the world, it's in places where these problems of governance and of inadequacy of security forces that there's probably a greater likelihood that terrorist activities of various kinds might be successful. So those would be two points. And the only other point I would make is that obviously this problem as has already been said and I'm sure will be said repeatedly didn't start with 9-11 and it won't end there. But when Arno reeled off the different countries to which I had been ambassador and had served, I mean, every single one of them, we've had terrorist activities of one kind or another to deal with. So regrettably, these kinds of activities have not spared any particular part of the world and are not unique to any particular location, although at the moment they seem to be concentrated in certain particular areas. Well, Peter Bergen, who is one of the best-known experts on al-Qaeda, who was quoted recently saying it's time to call off the war on terror. And then we had Defense Secretary Panetta on his first trip to Afghanistan in which he said, it's now just a question of killing seven, eight, nine or 10 more people and it will be over. I take it you both disagree with that. I certainly do. And I don't know what the context was of either of these gentlemen's comments were, but terrorism will be with us, whatever the circumstances. People will find excuses to commit these horrible crimes for whatever reason they may divine in their minds. Sometimes it's megalomania, sometimes it's political ambition or whatever. But Belladon is not the end of the terrorism. What I think is important though, is that the death of Belladon, particularly in this country, which I'm very glad that it happened as a result of his own sort of nihilistic and really vicious and barbaric killing of people and justifying them with high moral principles. The killing of Belladon has not gotten the accolades that it deserves, not just throughout the world, but even in this country. And I think the war on terrorism between quotation marks, after September 11th, I remember President Bush saying, we're going to get him dead or alive. President Obama reiterated that sentence almost word for word during his campaign and after he became president. And I think it should have been given more value, if you like, or worth by the American people and by the rest of us in the rest of the world. And I say that because I've been advocating for the last few years, that the United States should kill Belladon or arrest him and then declare victory and withdraw from Afghanistan. Now I know there are those who will say, oh, we can't leave Afghanistan in the way that it is. And I don't mean withdrawing your embassy or your economic aid or your other support, but having troops on the ground in Afghanistan has never succeeded, starting with Alexander the Great, going on through all of the conquerors that followed him, the Soviets are the recent example of that. And I'm afraid America will come at a time, whether it is next year or the year after, or the year after that, when it will inevitably have to withdraw. And this would have been the perfect moment to declare victory and to leave with a victory behind and not to go on and sort of continue in this endless measure of strike, counter-strike. The Afghan people will not accept foreign troops in their country and they're gonna fight them. And more and more, as I read in your press reports, it's not just the Pashtuns who are fighting back against American soldiers. Now it's gaining a nationwide complexion, whether you call them Taliban, tribal factions, or whatever you want to call them. Uzbeks and Tajiks and even Hazars are joining the fight against NATO and the United States. So killing Miladian, I thought would have been the perfect moment when your president can say we have been victorious and this is the timetable we set for, we draw all of our troops and goodbye and good luck. But it hasn't happened that way. I hope that it will. Prince Turkey, you are one of the few who dealt with Mullah Omar, the head of Taliban. I think I'm the only journalist who ever interviewed him which was three months before 9-11. Do you think a deal with him is possible? I think now, frankly, Mullah Omar is extraneous. All the information that we see is that he's probably somewhere in Pakistan, not even in Afghanistan. And it is becoming more of a nationalist resistance movement to the presence of foreign troops there. So Mullah Omar would be one of many, whether regional, tribal, or other leaderships within Afghanistan that are conducting the resistance to these foreign troops. John, where do you come out on this? Well, I think in a way the solution that to our true presence that Prince Turkey described is sort of what we're doing, but we're doing it in slow motion. And in a way, my reaction to Mr. Panetta's statement was exactly that. He was saying that in reference to the continued presence of our forces in the region. So yes, terrorism will continue, and the quote-unquote, if you will, war on terror, which people have a lot to say about whether that's a misnomer or not will go on. But the question is whether you need to do it with the deployment of regular military forces. And I see us inevitably withdrawing from Afghanistan and I see us doing it somewhere around the 2014 deadline that has been stipulated by NATO. And I interpret, rightly or wrongly, the deployment of Ambassador Ryan Crocker to Kabul as having been sent there to try to negotiate with Afghanistan something similar to the withdrawal agreement that he negotiated with Iraq. When I was deputy secretary, I told Ryan, I said, Ryan, the great thing about your status of forces agreement and Henry Kissinger's Paris Peace Accord, which was called the agreement to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam, is that neither of them accurately describe what was in fact agreed to, which was the withdrawal of United States forces. And I think Ryan is uniquely qualified to negotiate a similar agreement with the Afghan government. So people are always talking about, well, can you negotiate with Mullah Omar or the Taliban? I think we're gonna end up negotiating with the Afghan government. When I was born, there were two billion people in the world. Now there are seven billion. And we have, I think it's four billion cell phones of one kind or another. Two billion people are online. We have WikiLeaks, we have social media. How is all this changing the game of nations in your judgment? Definitely it has changed it. Just look at what happened recently in the Arab world. I remember at a conference early this year, the American representative there invited us all to attend a ceremony in the White House in which he said President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton and other dignitaries would be there, as well as Facebook and Twitter and Google and others. And I had to raise my hand and say, are you sure it is safe for the president to be there with the Secretary of State and all the government officials while Facebook and Twitter and the others are operating? And so yes, it has changed the way things are done. So-called people power is the operating factor here. And people can connect directly with each other now more quickly, too quickly for government authorities to either prevent them or even sometimes to trace them. One of the irony of course is that in Egypt of course and in other countries governments or authorities try to shut the services for internet and other such facilities. And now we see that even when riots broke out in London, the only recourse the government had was to look at possibilities of shutting down the internet and services of Facebook and Twitter. That's, I think that's an indication of where the people as it were have gained the upper hand in this particular situation. And I know that when I look at my children for example and see them operating all of these things, it's a different world from the one that I grew up in. John? But the flip side, I agree with everything that Turkey said, but the flip side of course is that I think if you look at what happened in 9-11 and then subsequently is that the power and the power that this information technology also puts into the hands of our intelligence community in terms of abilities to discern and detect what's going on, sorting out relevant from irrelevant information, targeting terrorists. When you think of the multiplicity of information technologies that have been used to track down people like Abu Musab al-Zarkawi in Iraq, this was in effect a tribute to the utility of these modern technologies also encountering some of these terrorist activities. So it works both ways. We see a prominent member of al-Qaeda, Abdul Karim, I think, forget it, Nezad or something like that, he is now in charge of the military establishment in Tripoli, he's a former al-Qaeda type who was tortured under rendition in Bangkok and who said on television yesterday I'm not holding any of that against the United States which of course elisted quite a few chuckles. Don't you think that this is helping al-Qaeda what's happening in Tripoli today, what's happening in Syria? Is that a plus or a minus for al-Qaeda? The presence of this particular person, I don't know much about him in the fight against Qaddafi, may have ramifications which people better informed than I am can judge. But I think al-Qaeda is on the losing side of history today as a cult, as a philosophy and equally importantly as a political and military if you like, organization. Because of the damage that they have caused universally, their bloodthirstiness and their viciousness have been quite universal. And if you like democratic, they were willing to sacrifice everybody for their ideal. And this has of course created a counter attack on them from people in general. So I don't think al-Qaeda is winning anymore. As I said, that doesn't mean that there is going to be an end to terrorism in whatever name or banner or under any banner that people may raise. But the al-Qaeda's way of doing things, I think now is passe. John? Yeah, not to mention that their agenda, if you take it seriously, isn't exactly what 99% of the world aspires to. It's not the way they aspire to live. On the point about what's happening in Libya or what happened in Egypt or what might happen in Syria, I think we have to take our chances. Clearly in all these situations, particularly I think Libya and Syria, there's a similarity with Iraq in the sense that natural political life, if you will, has been suppressed for so long that it's not that easy to tell what's going to emerge once the lid is taken off and in Egypt, certainly. And in Syria, you've got pretty strong Muslim Brotherhood movement, so you don't know how that's going to evolve. Which direction are they going to take once they're free to express themselves? But as opposed, as compared with the existing situation, I mean, I think Syria really needs a political change, number one. Number two, I think that the demise of President Bashar al-Assad would lead to the likelihood, not the certainty, but the likelihood that Syria would lose, that Iran would lose its only real Arab friend. And I think that would be an important geopolitical development. I have a question from the floor. How do we get people, the citizenry, on our side to address his Royal Highness's point in an American climate where trust in government is low and the political climate is so hostile? I wouldn't dare speak for America. And I'm not sure I want to on this, except to say that it may not be quite as bad as we sometimes describe it. And I think that there's still a pretty high level of confidence in our security institution. Certainly the military is popular. And I think people understand that we made a lot of improvements in law enforcement and intelligence during the past 10 years. How do we deal with some of these issues? Of course, we don't face the most serious internal terrorist threat as compared to other countries, but I think good governance, which we've already mentioned, and a little bit of prosperity wouldn't hurt. I mean, the world's gone through some, particularly the West has gone through some bad economic times. I wonder if we wouldn't talk and think a little bit differently about all these questions if we started getting back to a period of robust economic growth, which I sincerely hope can happen sometime in the not too distant future. But as far as we can see into the future, there are growing shortages of almost everything, water, number one. Doesn't that indicate that there will be permanent friction, tension and terrorist activities as far as we can see into the future? Well, I mean, oil can be an abundance of oil can be a curse, a shortage of it could also lead to adoption of other technologies and necessity is the mother of invention. I think certainly in the United States, the greater problems we face and there's a whole national debate now being undertaken as to how to get the economy growing again has to do with a lot of other factors including education, training, helping the workforce adapt to modern circumstances and so forth. So it too, just like dealing with terrorism needs a holistic approach. Let me just say something here. America has been an example to the rest of the world and how Americans do things. And I come from a country that is relatively young in age and that looks upon the experience of America as a study case for where we want to go and it's a fascinating experience to watch how America deals with its problems. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully but I think America will remain that example that people look to learn how to avoid pitfalls but also how to progress and to go forward. Your technological achievements are unparalleled anywhere in the world. When I was ambassador here, I was struck by the workaholic nature of your people. You know, from seven o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock in the evening, it's work, work, work, work. You go to lunch and you work. They even have breakfast work sessions and reception work sessions. And so everybody is working all the time and it's not just in Washington. And I used to visit in various other places. The energy expended by Americans in the effort to gain a livelihood is exemplary. You're only outshone by two people that I know, the Japanese and the Koreans. And otherwise, you spend more hours working than all the rest of us. How that energy and that expenditure of effort allows you to have economic problems or medical problems or shortages in other things, a bad highway system, that is still a puzzle to me. And I'm waiting to see how you're gonna get out of that. Prince Turkey, another question from the floor with so much at stake, is it possible to overcome political, religious, and cultural differences between the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the fight against al-Qaeda? Well, there are no differences between us in the fight against al-Qaeda. Where we may have differences that we've had historically, whether it is over Palestine or other issues like that, we've overcome them. We stood by each other over 60 years of tough situations. The young people in this audience don't remember when the so-called red menace threatened the world. Insurrections and assassinations and upheavals throughout the globe were the mark of those years and the Kingdom was a victim of those efforts and working with the United States was always a boon to us. We as Saudis never forget how you stood with us in those years, particularly at the time when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and seemed to be ready to invade Saudi Arabia. Those are issues where we came together to face certain situations. Of course, we had our differences as well. So it's an up and down affair between us but it's a strategic alliance I think that we have with each other and especially on the issue of terrorism. And the example I gave in my presentation about the parcel bombs that were intercepted was one of many other examples that could be pointed at where either information from America to Saudi Arabia helped abort certain bad things from happening in the Kingdom or vice versa. There's one more question from Prince Turkey. You spoke of the need for shared intelligence and know how in countries and intelligence agencies, does this require agreement? What group should be classified as terrorist organization? What happens when a group such as Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by some countries such as the United States and Israel but not by others? Well, that works equally well. I think if you say from an Arab point of view that some Israeli actions are considered terrorist actions. The destruction of homes, the targeted killing, the incarceration of thousands of Palestinians in prisons without trial, et cetera. That should not hold us back from sharing information on what we clearly see as common threats to us all. And already when I was in intelligence in my career, we used to share information with the US and with other people. The problem today is that communications have become so quick and events inevitably will go on and not wait for somebody to verify a piece of information that came from here or who's the source of that information. So holding back on intelligence from others, I think is harmful and detrimental. That's why the need for this center to pool information and know how is essential. And the kingdom made that proposition to the United Nations whereby everybody can join together in sharing that information and know how. And that's the only way I think you can face threats of terrorism and whoever is behind them. So the Arab Israeli problem is not an impediment in your view about in terms of counterterrorism. No, I don't think so. John? I would just qualify that slide. I'd say it's somewhat of a problem. I remember when I was ambassador to the United Nations, we worked on these, there's four or five conventions or treaties concerning terrorism, terrorism against aircraft, terrorism against this, that, and then there's one on where we actually had to define terrorism. And I think that treaty, that draft treaty has been hung up for 25 or 30 years because we've not because of, I think in some measure, because of the Arab Israeli dispute, we've been able to agree finally to what a definition, a technical definition of terrorism. It comes down to a couple of words that are disagreed. If I could just go back one moment to the earlier question about understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States. I do think one of the consequences ultimately of 9-11 was a bigger effort in this country to understand the Arab world. And I certainly see it, I saw it when I was director of national intelligence and deputy secretary of state in terms of the amount of training and the number of people that we mobilized to study Arabic and so forth. I mean, most of us who've traveled around the world know that in other countries, there's a much greater knowledge of the United States than we ever have in terms of a corresponding knowledge of the country that we're visiting. And sometimes we're stunned to find out the level of detail that people know about our country. But I think we're moving in the direction of trying to better understand the rest of the world. I think certainly that applies to the Arab world. Prince Turkey, I think this is gonna be the last question because I'm getting a signal that we're almost out of time. Tell me about your view on what seems to be the beginning of robotic warfare with the predator strikes in the federal tribal areas of Pakistan. We now have already testing a submarine without a crew of fighter planes without a pilot. We seem to be moving in a whole new phase, but this of course has impacted very unfavorably on public opinion in Pakistan. And I was wondering how it's seen in the other parts of the world where you travel. The problem with the predators, particularly in Pakistan, I think is twofold. One, the Pakistani government has been rather equivocal in its allowing predators to strike in Pakistani territory and flying out of Pakistani territory for one reason or another, mainly because popular sentiment in Pakistan would not like them to allow those strikes to take place, especially because they come from America for all of the reasons that you have discussed earlier and I'm sure we'll discuss later. So every time there is a predator strike, in my view, it undermines the authority in Pakistan in having to stand up and defend itself against those critics within Pakistan who would like to see these strikes ended. And by doing that, as I said, the undermining of the authority of the Pakistani army particularly creates dissension and pressure points within the armed forces and in the government. The other drawback of these predator strikes, no matter how successful they are in eliminating individual al-Qaeda members or so-called Taliban leaders, is the collateral damage that comes with them. Unintended consequences, the killing of innocents, whether children, women, old people, sometimes by mistake as well, eliminating 10, 15, sometimes 30 people at a wedding party or at a funeral or something like that. And that adds to the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and in other places where these strikes take place. I hope you will join me in thanking these two formidable characters here. I'm sorry, I had a time. I would have liked to answer that, of course. Thank you.