 Hi there, this is Juan Zarate, Senior Advisor at CSIS. We were just fortunate to host Mike Leiter, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center for discussion here this morning. Michael discussed the changing nature of the threat from al-Qaeda, focusing very clearly on the complex nature of the threat, noting that this is the most intense period of threat since 9-11 that the United States has faced from al-Qaeda. Could you talk about the pace in the last 13 months with the disparate attacks, attempted attacks on the United States? The pace has been relatively frenetic since 2001, and I can tell you that the past 13 months have been as intense, if not more intense, because of the variety of threats than any time since 2001. So to begin with the changing face and frankly the increasing complexity of the terror threat that we face today, I'll break that down into three semi-distinct faces. First al-Qaeda is an organization, and that really runs from about 1998 or so until roughly 2006. Second, the rise of al-Qaeda affiliates, 2006 to 2009. And then what I would describe as our current phase, self-sustaining affiliates and more of a movement of al-Qaeda, 2009 to the present. I've described three phases, but with the emergence of each of these phases, the board was not erased. This was not a whiteboard where one group was written up and we erased it and put up the new phase. Instead, each of these phases was in fact additive of the other. None of the successive phases has eliminated the prior threat. And although the pieces are connected, as I've said, they are in many ways less reliant on one another than they once were. So while I respect my friend Juan Zarate tremendously, he is often referred to this as the hydra that you can cut off heads, but you really have to go for the body. What I would suggest is at least to some extent, there is less of a body here to go after, and it is simply a multitude of heads, which again, although related, are not reliant on one another. So I'll close with saying we do not, again, have the luxury in the counterterrorism community of focusing on simply one of these threats. It is now a multitude of threats that we face. And again, they pose very different threats. And I think understanding those different threats are important in crafting our policy responses. As I said, now Kaida Corps, a level of complexity and potentially catastrophic events, which I think certainly modify my work and make me focus on that every day. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a lower level of complexity, a desire to launch more attacks more often, I believe, than Al-Qaeda's senior leadership, which can certainly have catastrophic effects. If Umar Farouk Abnaul-Biltaub had successfully exploded his bomb over Detroit, more than 200 people could have been killed, but then lower scale attacks, like their planned attack against two cargo planes. And on the homeland front, again, a diversity of threats which, in most cases, do not pose the same catastrophic results, but certainly can have an enormous effect on the United States, in particular events like the shooting at Fort Hood last year. The point I'm trying to get across is, of course, luck does play a part in some of these things. But in many cases, and this is what many in the public do not see, the counterterrorism community helps make its own luck. Now, again, I want to copy out all of this with the fact we haven't always performed in the counterterrorism community as well as we would have liked or as well as we should. That was certainly the case on 1225. But the system has helped us make our own luck in a way that we have again reduced the likelihood of some attacks being successful. No single tool, intelligence, law enforcement, defensive measures, offensive measures will stop all the attacks. But as a whole, they create a system that reduces the likelihood of terrorist success. And that is the luck that we are helping to make. We have to illustrate, ultimately, the futility of terrorism through quiet, confident resilience. We helped define the success of an attack by our reaction to that attack. And one of the ways that we illustrate to terrorists that their methods are fruitless and that their goals will not be achieved through terrorism is to respond with resilience. To respond with the resilience that we will move on. We will address the causes of the attack. We will hold those accountable. We will be ready to respond to those attacks. But ultimately, we as a nation, as I think we have proved ourselves time and time again, will be resilient.