 Thank you, David and thank you to CSIS for hosting this event. It's real honor for me to participate in this discussion And it's also really gratifying to see TFI I'm very emotionally tied to TFI and to see it Continuing so successfully under David's excellent leadership as I as I knew it would I do have a few policy points to make but actually I wanted to first take a step back and Just offer a few thoughts about how far we've come in ten years Ten years ago. I was not I was nominated but not yet confirmed to be the under secretary for TFI along with Juan who is nominated and not yet confirmed to be the assistant secretary and I spent some time Doing some research and reading up on this office that I was going to be leading and I'd read a lot about the history of financial measures and In sanctions and I must say there was a clear consensus these things don't work and There you know sanctions are some you know you could anyone who took economics 101, you know sanctions They don't work. They're symbolic at best They hurt the people you're trying to help by depriving them of things that they need They don't change the behavior of intransigent regimes The company the countries that implement sanctions They those are the countries that get hurt because their companies have to give up lucrative business The countries that honor the sanctions their their economies get hurt as well And it's the countries that cheat that benefit And basically there was it was very easy to write an article about the history of how these things fail so that was really encouraging and And Then there was a huge amount of skepticism in Washington about this new office because if you remember Treasury had just given up all of its law enforcement with the Department of Homeland Security And as Juan and I would go up to the Hill and talk to people about this new office We'd often hear what do we need this thing for we we just created the Department of Homeland Security Why can't they've got the custom service? Why can't they do all of this stuff? They have an intelligence office Why can't they do this? And then on top of that it was a really really small organization and you heard the comment the secretary live There's 700 professionals now, but at the time it was very very small I think the policy office that that the big secret we had the only thing that was really classified was that Juan and Danny Glazer who were leading the policy office really only had them in about seven other people And they were doing all this stuff and no one knew that it was so small But overall the the the situation was pretty demoralizing at the time Let's just say and I reflect on this event. It was pretty hard to imagine an event like this With the Secretary of Treasury speaking with two national security advisors talking the one thing that they I thought was great They agreed on that The one thing to worry about is that TFI was a victim of his own success and maybe we're gonna overuse these things in the future I think that's you know a nice to have problem if you will And the the the transformation that occurred from the beginning until until now is Highly to my mind by two anecdotes that both happen to involve Moa Mark Adafi So very early on in my tenure at Treasury This is a time when you recall that Gaddafi had given up at the WMD programs in Libya and Apparently he was grousing to the State Department that no one had visited Libya and so I got the short straw and Adam Zubin and I took a trip to to Libya and At the end of the at the end of our visit They asked us to just as we were getting ready to leave they asked us to get on a plane and it turns out to be Gaddafi's plane and they fly us out to the desert and We go to his oasis and he's sitting out there He's got a white track suit on and a sailor's cap and orange sunglasses and We walk out there and introduce ourselves and I remember one of the first things he said to me was I'm glad you come. Can you deliver a message to George Bush? I Want to send a message to George Bush and I don't remember exactly what I said But I remember what I thought which is I don't think George Bush could pick me out of a lineup so I Don't know how this is gonna go So fast forward to my very last day at Treasury very last day in 2011 at that time Gaddafi was Conducting attacks on civilians in Libya And we in the administration were considering putting sanctions on them and again I turned to Adam and we asked well if we put sanctions on what kind of money are we gonna you know find here in the United States and I come back from a deputies meeting probably with Michelle and others and I have an email from Adam which says That we've canvassed and it looks like there's 20 billion dollars in the United States or so and he says that's not a typo That's billion with a B and Unfortunately for Gaddafi my ability to get a message to the president had improved Because I walked over my phone called Dennis McDonough talked to Tom Donilon literally by the end of that day An executive order been signed by President Obama and turned out there was even more than that that we're ultimately The Treasury Department ultimately froze for the benefit of the living people. So we've come quite a long way in in that period So What what really had changed why what accounts for for this kind of This kind of success and I think you know it was great to sit and listen to Secretary Liu and and to listen to Tom Donald and Steve Hadley the fact is the the team at TFI delivered effective strategies in a number of different categories on terrorism in North Korea on Iran etc and You know that kind of success read success And you get more support and I just want to mention kind of what are the what are the features of you know Why did these things work when the history of sanctions? It was so Was so unsuccessful and I'd point to three three things one is as you've heard it We focused instead of on country sanctions instead of putting embargoes on countries we focused on illicit activity on bad on bad conduct and Then when you try to build a coalition, it's not purely political It's not just the countries that agree politically with the United States But it's rather those who will stand with you against that kind of activity And when you're talking about terrorism and money laundering and proliferation. It's pretty easy to build that kind of That kind of coalition because there's a huge group of countries and private sector actors who are committed to the integrity of the system Second we focused again as as Steve Hadley mentioned on the private sector explicitly And we kind of learned I would say that the private sector was perhaps even more important than governments in this effort because in When you think about country sanctions and trade sanctions the private sector has a particular reaction to them They they know it's the rules that they have to follow them and they'll try to follow them But there's no other incentive to go along with it So they'll do everything they can to go just to the line and try to try to work around them But when it's conduct based sanctions They have reputational interests They have their own sense of integrity about the system and they actually will try to amplify what you're doing and so much of what we Have seen the success that the treasury has had is by Having the private sector do much more than is required simply because They they don't want to be involved in illicit conduct and we made it a point to reach out directly to the private sector extensively in order to build that part of the coalition And then you find once the private sector is working with you that Governments find it easier to go along as well So if the banks and the big companies in the in their country stop doing business with iran say Then it's much easier for that country to go along and impose tougher sanctions And the third thing that uh characterized these strategies is that they were all Under underpinned they were all underpinned by intelligence And this is I think the big, you know, what is the one if I had to put the one thing that changed the treasury From 2004 to the present. It's that it's, you know, fully a member of the intelligence community They have full access to the intelligence community. They built a tremendous Office of intelligence and analysis. I see leslie ireland Here who who leaves it now, but let me tell you what it was like in 2004 We had a grand total of zero analysts in the office of intelligence and analysis at treasury And janice gardener who was our first assistant secretary Built this thing from scratch I still remember that our then-no-fact director bob werner Offered her five analysts Saying, okay, we'll give you five analysts to start with and uh, we had a hard time Moving those five analysts to the office of intelligence and that's because the people on the hill said wait a minute Why do you need those people at at treasury? And uh, it's come it's come a long way. You cannot build this kind of conduct based strategy without that intelligence and You know iran, which we've heard some discussion of is the is the perfect example, right? So You know in 2006 or so Steve hadley and secretary rice, you know Turned to us and said you know, we need a strategy to put pressure back on iran and to give us some leverage And at the time I actually think steve said it here He's you know, there were many people including people the white house thought we were quote sanctioned out on iran And you could understand that because we had comprehensive sanctions on iran already You couldn't do business with iran in the united states. You couldn't buy their oil Our banks couldn't transact with iran So You know those kind of sanctions were already there and they weren't working So what we we had to design a strategy that was specifically designed to get other countries to join us in maximizing pressure and And get the the world to cut to cut off iran and we came up with a plan that you've seen play out Which is you know start by focusing on their conduct and that depended on having the intelligence And our intelligence analysts pulled together the network of how iran was funding terrorism How they were acquiring items for their proliferation program How they were acquiring items for the missile program and how the private sector was unwittingly Involved how they were part of the transaction chains And we made it a central part of the strategy to go directly to the private sector Because and it was secretary paulson who was a big advocate of this He knew and it turned out to be true that when you went to these financial institutions And you said to look you're in this transaction chain actually they want very much Not to be in that transaction chain Uh, they don't it doesn't take much to persuade them to cut off that kind of business because they really don't want to be in that kind Of business and they were appreciative of it and at the same time as you all know We targeted the the guilty parties in iran we exposed what they were doing We made the the illicit conduct public so that everyone knew this is going to be a serious effort and we're going to go after it And we briefed our allies on the plan We told these other governments who were who knew we had to put pressure on them What the plan was to impose this pressure And it was a huge diplomatic effort and it was not just the treasury problem. We couldn't have done it ourselves You know every, uh government leader was helping, uh when congressional leaders went to actually now i'm looking at Former representative harman because she used to call me when she was going on trips and say here's who i'm meeting with You know, what how can I help and we used to you know collaborate to get support from the hill To get people to work with us on this and I remember conversations with her about that And it worked like we hoped Uh, the banks did cut off the business the private sector did cut off the business and it did make it easier to uh to build that coalition And over time the skepticism toward it faded Uh and we were able to get you know much much tougher sanctions Over time there's lots of other things that contribute to that but it was part of it Uh and again iran as we predicted tried to evade they tried to evade the sanctions and Unlike prior country sanctions where evasion works We made we turned evasion into an advantage for us because we would because we had good intelligence We could expose the evasion and continue to use it to feed the same dynamic And you know as we heard in the in the first panel it's unclear how this thing will end You know no one knows how it will end but uh to the extent Iran is considering giving up its its nuclear weapons its pursuit of nuclear weapons It's certainly been at least in part because of the leverage that comes from a properly you know executed set of financial measures and Uh, I think it's been a true bipartisan success as I as I just mentioned This is a strategy that had complete support from democrats during the bush administration and complete support from republicans during the obama administration And that's something which I personally found maybe the most gratifying part of it Um, so I just want to make a couple of points about how t if I can build on this this record of success And you know, I don't think they just uh, we we had breakfast this morning and and and david and secretary lee were saying that We've got to continue to innovate If it's going to continue to be successful the bad guys are going to innovate We have to continue to innovate and I just wanted to make two Two points and they actually tie to the two panels that you're going to hear later One about the role of the private sector where ruben jeffrey and neil wolan are going to speak and then one about intelligence And the private sector I think it's been crucial as I said to the success of tfi that they've been able to build this Partnership with the private sector and get the private sector to amplify their actions But there's another aspect to the relationship between The treasury and the private sector and that's the flow of information back and forth And that has been something that has greatly improved since 9 11 and in the last 10 years The the kind of information that goes back and forth between the government and the private sector has improved both the reporting that That that we do I say we now because I'm obviously in the private sector now at a very large bank the reporting that we do To the government and also some information we get back from the government That said I think this is This is an area where there is still great untapped potential for better collaboration And I use the word collaboration intentionally because There is a shared objective which is the integrity of the financial system between the private sector has that and the government has it And there are shared adversaries which are illicit actors again the private sector has the same adversaries That the government does but in many ways The government and the private sector are sort of fighting against the shared adversary with one arm tie behind their back Because they're not they're not collaborating with the information as best as as as well as they could For the most part the institutions Are analyzing their own information putting it together with what they can What they can purchase and glean from the public Public sources and commercial databases and trying to find the anomalies trying to find the bad guys So that they can then share that information With the government They do that For the most part without the benefit of maybe the most important insight they could have which is What is it that the government is already seeing and worried about what is it that they're you know? What is their analysis of the particular threat? and I believe that it is a potential game changer In this effort if there could be found a way to collaborate better And I know this is there's a lot of good hard work already going on about this But the the collaboration yet is not yet comprehensive and if we could get it to be that way Everyone would benefit because the kind of information and the kind of analysis that the private sector would pass back to the government Would be so much more valuable and rich and that would help the government to understand The threats and I think this is something which from my current position. I see even more as an opportunity for For building on prior success The second point I'd like to make is is about the role of intelligence As I said a couple of times intelligence is absolutely key to these strategies and There's been you know, there's a lot of debate obviously in the in the public now about the What is the appropriate amount of intelligence collection and I think that debate is you know, healthy in democracy. It's perfectly appropriate and I don't intend to kind of weigh in heavily On the whole debate, but I just want to make one point, which is that People should consider the cost of not being able to do this You know what what david and dany glazer and adam tried to present to the president in very tough circumstances are real options to deal with tough problems that And to do so in a way where you know, their military force isn't going to be needed And you can't overestimate the value of that if you can settle something without without a military force Without the kind of Information and intelligence that can feed a real Strategy Then you're left with these kind of sanctions that we know all these people who are writing about them were right. They don't work And so you're going to leave the president without that that kind of authority It's very hard to value that you know, what is the value of that? But I think it's it's substantial To to be able to have those kind of strategies offered To the president when he's got very very tough decisions to make and I know It's something that the treasury department really needs this information um I'm going to just stop there. I want to thank you all again for letting me participate in this I I I spent seven years working alongside the team at the office of tourism and financial intelligence at treasury and Everyone who knows who worked with me at the time knows that this is what I say This next thing is really from the heart. That was for me an honor of a lifetime Uh, and I'm very proud that we've put together something that is That has stood the test of time and I'm most proud of the fact that it's it is a bipartisan thing That is something that everyone recognizes as valuable and I hope that it will remain that way. I'm sure under david's leadership. It will thank you So our our next panel is on Timely enough Intelligence and the future of intelligence and what we do The moderator is david sanger of the new york times. Where is david? There is david sanger of new york times And the panelists are keith alexander michelle flunoy and jane harmon. So welcome them to the stage Well, thank you very much. I'm david sanger from the new york times and Great honor to be here at the csis Uh event here and our discussion today is going to be about financial intelligence It flows very nicely from what you just heard from Stuart and also from the the first panel and we've got a great panel of experts here To my immediate left your right michelle flunoy who was of course under secretary policy at the panagon for How many years three And has has been been out just about long enough now to have plunged back in at sea at sea nas Jane harmon who of course served in congress and Served a number of different intelligence committees along the way and now runs the wilson center and general keith alexander who Just left eight years. Was it eight years at nsa? The last year was a doozy Is uphill in the rain? Yeah Some people try to leave that last year their job quietly, but general alexander decided that would be too boring so My hope today is to to pick up from Where the panels were talk a little bit about the role of intelligence in Some of these individual cases and then look forward To where these tools are going how they've been affected by some of the recent Disclosures, but also begin to talk about What kind of utility they could have that we haven't thought of yet that you know where where this may be Where this may be headed I thought that one place to start might be with the question of What's worked and and what hasn't something that you heard tom donlan steve hadley take up and Mr. Donlan made the point that for example We've been much more successful in the sanctions implementation In iran than we have in north korea And one of the natural questions that raises is is that because of the unity on sanctions? Or is that in part because of the intelligence challenge that one one faces? Obviously iran is a much more interconnected society So there are a lot more opportunities a lot more transactions to go look at north korea. Obviously a much more reclusive one But michelle, let's let's start with you on on that subject. What's your overall sense about? This is an intelligence issue versus non intelligence related challenges. I do think that having a very uh High quality of detailed financial intelligence With regard to iran's money flows Did enable us to build a much stronger sanctions regime than had previously been possible in a couple of ways One was the one that steward mentioned in that we could go to private sector entities and Is their level of awareness of the reputational risk of you know, their dealings with some of these iranian Entities and financial institutions But the second is on the diplomatic side when you walk into a country, you know, like China or russia that where there may be some at least ambivalence if not reluctance to Go headlong into joining a sanctions regime and you're able to not just you know urge them With the argument that actually showed them specific relationships and specific financial flows that tied directly to illicit activities that they themselves have are on record condemning That's extremely helpful, right? I mean it just puts the diplomatic conversation on a completely different basis You're talking like somebody who has a specific memory in mind And I would I think most of those discussions frankly happened between My state department colleagues with the help of steward and then david alongside them to and and neo often But your point is that the chinese can't simply say All this kind of stuff happens. Who knows we've asked them for we've asked them to cease and desist It's a different thing. You know institution x and institution y are having these kinds of relationships and and flows And that's going to put your institutions at risk It's going to put you politically at risk in terms of being a power that Your anti-proliferation and yet allowing this to go on right under your nose So I think it's the detailed intelligence was extremely helpful In making the diplomacy more effective The point was made in the first session That I think tom vallon made it that the North korea was really the first place Where we saw a lot of this being used With the mcow bank this was both obviously during the the bush administration and then we saw some pulling back later on At that time, but jane you were in congress at that time Tell us what lessons you think One should have emerged from the mcow bank experience and the north korea experience And then carried forward into iran and into the financial terrorism cases Okay, well, let me make a a couple of general comments first first my steward levy story I mean he told the momar qaddafi story. So i'm telling my steward levy story. So I'm on the house intelligence committee. I'm the senior democrat and I just love this guy He's so good at what he does. So I remember telling him steward. You can never leave You know, it's an idiot. I mean she started trembling. No, no, he left first. So Uh, I repeated that every time I saw him and then so finally one sunday night I'm at home eating dinner with my family and the phone rings. Hi jane. It's steward. I'm leaving and I It was a hugely disruptive moment in my life. I never really recovered But I think he was also trembling Pleased to have that impact on him But it it turns out as fabulous as he was that the crowd that has followed is also fabulous. So that was That's kind of my personal story now about all this stuff A few comments about congress and I may be the only recovering politician in the room. Is anybody else in my situation? Isn't that fabulous you are all so so much more intelligent that you didn't pick that line of work, but but seriously One of the best things you can say about congress and this congress has not messed it up And It has been treated as a bipartisan Effort from day one. I haven't seen no. This is probably singular sniping That is partisan in nature. I'm sure some folks like this and don't like that, but I haven't seen one shred of it Uh, and that is truly amazing So congratulations to all of you for doing this job in such a a seamless way, but on the sanctions um I I'm I may be right or not And David, but I think that that in this case congress hasn't micro managed this either And in terms of sanctions against specific banks um that Judgment and has been delegated totally to people who actually know what they're doing And so in the mcow case and and north korea uh I don't think I mean obviously north korea went ahead and did what it did So I don't think it paid a penalty in the way that other Places have I mean I Say that I'm one who thinks that the sanctions against russia played a very big role in in russia's Change of course on on on ukraine I think they worked even though a lot of people poo pooed this and said just sanctions on individuals don't matter They mattered so I think in general this stuff matters on north korea. I think less effective I don't think that means that this crowd was not effective. I just think north korea because of its I sort of Strangely Has less can be less impacted by sanctions than perhaps other places okay um General alexander, uh, let's start first with this question of Whether or not it was the intelligence on iran that made it so much More effective whether how that compares with dealing with a society like uh north korea And then I wanted to take you to some of the terrorism examples that treasury is uh has pursued in recent times I actually well first one thanks This up and thanks for all you did it was a privilege and honor to work with you uh stewart david lesley, uh really has been And uh, you know, I think what they've done for our country What treasury has done in this area has been absolutely superb. I think we all have a big round of applause It's the only way I can get an applause So so when you when you look at the impact that you can have on a country like iran and I agree with what Jane said the fact is Um You know and by withholding it you can have a larger impact But if you don't have anything telling them you're going to take something away when they look around and say what's left Which is essentially where we are in north korea. I think the the differential is much less I do think there are credible cases where both of these apply to it where it can And so from my perspective on the intel side, I think there's great work being done It's just the impact on iran is going to be more you can have more and they're more connected Their people in iran see this they're a factor A factor and it impacts the people it makes it more difficult on the regime And so I think that in and of itself is a big differential We're in north korea the people are essentially out. There is no real credible network there where the north korean people see that difference So I think when you combine all that that's really the real case that I think drives The apparent success of sanctions on iran versus north korea And how much time at the nsa? Do you spend devoting resources signals intelligence resources? Financial flows and to what degree is that done now elsewhere in the centers that Stuart was just describing and so forth I think there's been a change of mission over the years you were there. Well, I don't spend any anymore. Yeah So it's down to zero But uh, they were great partners. I think they're doing incredible work. Um, and So, you know and the counterterrorism and on the sanctions Uh, a great partner for the whole intelligence community not just nsa And so we were part of a bigger team That was working this in the interests of our country and our allies I think the people who understand the financial stuff Really brought in some great great work here. We had some great, uh, Analysts that we occasionally use. Okay all the time. Uh, that helped in this case So I wanted to turn to a couple of cases involving terrorism We asked treasury, uh in the run up to this if they could Give us a list of some cases which have come out into the public now In which, um, there were good examples of the terrorist finance Tracking program being used One they brought up, uh, that we've been discussing here was the investigation into, um, the The Nawaz brothers these were they were arrested in uh, September of last year They were traveling from France. They were arrested in the uk, I believe And they were accused of traveling to a terrorist camp in Syria and Data that was derived from the finance program Provided a lot of the transaction information account numbers and so forth I guess helped track them, but I was hoping that by use of an example like this, um, and you can Generalize these out to to some other cases You might be able to give us a little bit of a sense of how this actually works in in real life Uh, I think that's a great example if I could give if I could just step back and give some Information for everybody here. I think this is really important to set the The stage for what's going on in the terrorism arena when you look at 2012 There were 6771 attacks And over 11,000 people were killed If you go to 2013 that grew to 10,301 attacks and over 20,641 deaths Almost doubled And that's an incredible set of statistics now. We can argue this is the university of maryland start program that does it for state department So state will go through and counted this level of things my my comment is look let's argue over the things but look at doubled in a year Syria is really a problem And our intelligence analysts across the community have tools to work with and we were we were talking about that What kind of tools do they have? Well, they have this they have the metadata programs They have everything to work with where they're trying to guess like a wheel of fortune Uh, there's a set of blank numbers up here. You get to say I can use this program Is there a t and if a t doesn't come up they say is there a And if there is they can put that on there and start to look at letters And armed with that what they are able to do Is get out in front and that's what happened to the nois brothers when you think about it Because they had information account numbers and all these things that you named there They were able to see from guys who had been trained in syria who were traveling through france to dover Were picked up because there was information that from this program and others were able to stop But that's not the key thing for us to remember the key The terrorist program and there's a bunch more in this whole thing There were 20 000 people killed In 2013 look at how secure europe and the united states are Why is that? It's because of the great great work of people like this across the community Pulling all those tools together and putting them on the table Now the great part about this set of tools the thing that I think is really good about this tools It sets the framework is it's been done with europe We agree with the way you're using it will give you access to it We're all in because we see what you're doing with it and that may These tools that that they've set up may set a framework for using other tools Like metadata and I think that's a huge step forward for us because It's not going to get less. You know the d and I talked about what's going coming out of syria So you have the nois brothers, but there's several thousand in syria A great deal of them coming out of europe some out of the united states It's going to happen. We need these tools And we need partnerships with countries in europe and around the world if we're going to stop them And Well michel you were in office at the beginning of the syrian revolution of course during the early days of the Arab revolutions and you were getting this constant flow of both The financial data and then the other data that you're using of course to try to target Individual cells and so forth and have to make the decisions along the way about Where the limits are on what the us can go do tell us a little bit about Um How the kind of financial data plays in you're getting from these kind of programs plays in with the other stream of information And decisions you're having to make along the way well, I think in with Whether it's the case of syria or other cases like afghanistan iraq What this kind of financial intelligence becomes a pretty critical enabler For lots of other agencies as well. So in some cases it's going to enable A combination of justice and law enforcement to actually take you know to pursue prosecutions or to Take law enforcement action. One of the things we saw we had an afghan Threat finance cell on the ground which had not only A traditional intelligence community representatives, but folks from treasury folks from do d folks from dea fbi and the Pooling of the information the pooling of authorities and the fact that we had vetted afghan partner units to work with Meant that you had much greater effectiveness in actually taking some of this data And disrupting the financial flows That we're supporting the insurgency and associated groups This kind of data also has helped enormously for Do d special operations forces to really just better their understanding of these networks And so if there is an occasion where the military has to action a target Having the understanding of the financial flows is just that much Helps helps you understand the network that much better Um, I also think that this kind of work When it's done interagency and with partners can be a very important part of building partner capacity For taking action. I mean the president in his speech lately Just recently talked about a shift towards really emphasizing building the capacity of partners at the local level to deal with terrorism on their soils This kind helping them use this kind of information develop their own sources of this kind of information Would be very very important And then the last thing I'd note is, you know, in the case of syria, you have groups like hezbollah very very Active, I mean some of the sources of hezbollah's funding with regard to international drug trapping and so forth We talk about reputational risk I mean, you know having the opportunity to publicize some of that the sources of their funding Which are very much Casta, you know, raised a lot of questions about their stated You know Poke a lot of holes in their rhetoric, shall we say in terms of what what they're trying to do in the region So I think, you know, this is an enabler for law enforcement for Understand helping our military understand these networks and our intelligence community writ large for partner capacity building And for putting some of these groups at reputational risk and again, whether it's syria or afghanistan You know, I think these elements are common across the various cases You know, you talked before about the utility and say dealing with the chinese on say weapons proliferation north korea Tell us a little bit in the terrorist case if you tracked something back and then ended up in Saudi Arabia or some other country where there's obviously been a lot of funding going on of Of madrasa's and so forth How did that same dynamic that you described with the chinese for example Translate when you're doing this in the in the terror context Sure, I I you know, I think it it does has enabled conversations with certain countries about Support that is happening in their society that they may or the state may or may The state may not condone and may not even be aware of I have my my own knowledge has to do more with the case of pakistan where we were able to Trace financial flows across the border and among different groups And and even you know initially when the pakistani authorities were sort of in denial about some of what was happening Um And supporting a terrorist and insurgent action coming across the border that was directly impact american Impacting american forces. We were able to say no Here's the evidence. This is happening. Look look for yourselves So I think it can be again Make the make the diplomatic effort much more compelling And is there ever a kickback to that maybe you've seen or jane you saw in I was there maybe since you've left Where you begin to develop the Reaction from the target country that comes back and says, you know, this is not an appropriate use of your intel Capability because of course they're They would rather Maintain the ambiguity You ever you ever see any objections to the u.s. Program that in that form Well, I saw you know Feigned outrage Because deniability is built into a lot of the actions of governments including our government That's sort of part of the whole intel landscape. I also saw Efforts which are long-standing. I don't think they were developed to defeat these these programs, but they they work. I mean the The hawala network is one the sort of barter system In muslim countries makes it very hard to track what's going on and another is Just the moving of large amounts of cash that don't go through financial institutions, which still happens and I remember the frustration of some of us in congress on the intelligence committee trying to figure out Who was supporting hamas and who was supporting some of the terror operations in the in the region? Especially in gaza against israel and you know $25,000 ahead went to families of uh suicide bombers for example and where did that money come from and how did it get there? and We we had a lot of trouble Just just one more comment about this because I I do think it's such an effective remedy and I and I think the treasury department so Capably Applies it and that is I let's never underestimate our asymmetric strength using Using financial tools against either non-state actors or state actors A lot of state economies are very fragile and obviously individual wealth if if you can Bar people's access to assets is fragile and these tools are just enormously effective I don't think we have any other tools that are this effective in a final comment Just in terms of congresses by partisan support is that in each party there are and no one has missed this sort of isolationist wings or in the democratic party sense more of a pacifist wing and engagement wings and financial tools Are supported by both of these wings Military tools are not and in certain other kinds of engagement tools are not so this is probably the best set of of Weapons that we have in a very dangerous world General Alexander in your first set of comments You made the observation that because the europeans and others have been so helpful in the financial area This may be a building block to get them to help in metadata programs other intelligence collection, but if you Look across europe these days in fact if you hear anything you hear something in the reverse direction that since the revelations of the past year including the surveillance of European leaders chancellor murkel and others But also the revelation of some of these programs that if anything It seems as if there's pressure on these governments not to cooperate less than they have And you heard one of the earlier sessions that there is a sense that i think steve adley said That the europeans don't believe they're under as great Potential terrorist threat as United states says that they don't believe that the weapons Proliferation threat is is great. So in the last year that famous last year you had an office. Did you see A a reversal of cooperation in any way in in some of these cases? I think there's a public Discussion and then private work I think all the countries realize the threats on terrorism and anyone that says they don't I think is not being Candid because they get and their ones wrapping up the terrorists We give them the the leads they wrap them up And they know that this type of data is helping them I I think you asked an important thing here that i would just take the next step on and that is So the terrorist program actually has a way of Treasury can go to europe poll Show that the data they're requesting meets a set of standards that everybody's agreed to And so my comment with respect to the metadata program is in reality Europe and many of the european nations have a way of working with metadata So do we and we want it for a common good Why can't we use that together and come up with a framework that does it and helps us and I think we can And I think there is good in taking these steps on what we can do together That's a policy decision. It's not not mine now as a as a citizen But what I can say is there is tremendous value in the partnership And I think what the what the policymakers need to do that's the michelin company. I'm a former too former policy We do is say recovering. Yeah, so what they would do is say, so where is the benefits here? From my perspective, it's going to be in the counterterrorism and in the cyber arena We have to work together here. We've got to set this. We've got to set the framework We're gonna have to settle and here's where we will never agree And in those I think you've got you've got some of these every nation is going to act in its best interest You it gets down to it nations and the elected officials Are responsible for protecting that nation are going to act in their best interest. That's us. That's all the other countries Michelle he's perfectly set you up because sorry where this is where this is going a few years out. So We heard in the first session significant disagreements On cyber policy not only between the u.s. And china where we're defining the problem differently But I would say the u.s. And europe where the privacy Debate is underway in a great way Differences with many of our other partners so If if you had to look at where you would you would like to see this and where you think it will be in five years The degree of cooperation on things like terrorist finance On setting some common rules on cyber that would enable the intelligence to go beyond just finance Where do you think we will be? Those are two different things where I would like us to be and where are we maybe you can answer them You know where I would like us to be is You know having benefited from a truly sort of elevated strategic debate about the the benefits and You know Risks to be managed Associated with collecting and using different kinds of metadata I would like to have that intelligence Dispash, you know intelligent Passionate conversation in the united states. I know that's a big that's all for her And then based on that have some note a much You know stronger foundation for the congress some legislation and some reform that we need I mean we need cyber legislation in this country The danger is we're going to rush to it based on the emotional response to The snowden leakage as opposed to based on a truly informed strategic debate about Benefits and risks and how best to manage the latter and what would you like that? What would you hope that that legislation had in it? I I think that I would hope that that it would have positive sort of post war authorization of certain types of Cyber collection and analysis because I think it's it is a critical tool I also would like to see the same kind of discussion in in europe and then Building some kind of cooperative framework again that is Rooted in a balancing of the very real security risks and the very real privacy concerns Right now we have a lot of heat and very little light We have a lot of emotion. We have a lot of people using this for political purposes And if that's the basis on which either we in the united states or Our close partners in europe actually come up with legislation. We will get it exactly wrong Janie at the wilson center, you are going to be doing a conference. I think in in about two days time on the post snowden period and What one of the features that we have seen of this Which speaks right to what michelle was discussing is we've got individual countries now talking about walling off parts of their internet Uh, part of the exactly wrong, right? So that was that was sort of my question, which is What's the what's the actual danger if that happens both through intelligence gathering and also just the internet freedom? Well, let's uh start with edwards snowden. I'm hopeful that his 15 minutes are almost up um, I thought his interview the other night with the nbc was extremely revealing of his An incredible personal arrogance and and Misguided approach to all this. He's not a whistleblower. There's no real evidence that he is it would have been nice by the way, keith I'm sure you don't just agree with me if the nsa had been able to put out this Email chain this pathetic little email chain earlier But in any rate it's out and he's not a whistleblower and his actions Moving first to china and then to russia are enormously suspicious whatever they may turn out to be and claiming that None of his material was exploited just it doesn't pass the last test having said that the debate we're having is useful And I keep cringing every time someone talks about the balance between security and liberty I don't think it's a zero sum game. I think it's a positive sum game and this relates to everything You're asking me david I think we either protect civil liberty and security at the same time Or we have neither of those things and as we think forward to what we should do in this country And how we should collaborate with others we have to keep that in mind the cyber legislation that congress is not passing um Has to include a requirement for the private sector to share and then indemnification To the private sector if they share information 85 of the cyber capacity in this country or the last time I looked is in private hands Let's understand that including a lot of our grids That are essential to keep all of us safe from cyber attacks. So there better be some cooperation And um, they're not sharing you know for competitive advantage and for fear of lawsuits So they have to share and congress has not made this possible takes legislation There is an executive order It's just not adequate as to the international scene and balkanizing the internet. It is it such a dumb idea It's just staggeringly dumb and I think in technological terms. Keith would know I don't really I don't think it can work Um, but this notion even that us providers are going to set up Different protections for europeans and so on in different places I I view is really pretty silly and I think in the end consumers Are not going to want this they may purchase it And then they're going to figure out that they're firewalls blocking them from getting things that they really want that are not in their particular service providers Range of action. So I think this thing will Fall to a great big thud in the in the virtual world a virtual thud And and won't work but back to the beginning We need to have the right conversation in this country and internationally With with the anxious publics in both places that explains why serious Security and liberty are not a zero sum game and if we can make that sale and it will take Some serious conversation and some intelligent hearings in congress that may be an oxymoron But if we could do that, I think in the end we would have decent cyber legislation and decent cyber regimes Which would be good norms of international Conduct that will in the end protect consumers and the and the public better than anything else Well, we have about 10 or 12 minutes left to take a few questions from the audience We'll ask that they be succinct and bear in mind that your questions are the last thing between All of your compatriots here and lunch So we'll start with you ma'am right here It's some microphones. Thank you Good morning. Hi. Hi general. Hi Jane. How are you? I don't know You michelle, but I think you're really brilliant. You should have been national security advisor, but this is My question is Twofold we removed the sanctions We removed the the defense shield from poland because the argument at the democratically controlled congress was that around wasn't a threat Then we moved even further and we decide to remove the sanctions from iran Even though we know that iran along with russia and china are obtaining Electronic and Computer and information. They shouldn't be I need to understand what type of smart power was it to remove the sanctions from iran Um at the time we removed them when we're not out of afghanistan and iran Is using water and other forms So we're talking financial, but let's um Do you want to do two points of clarification? Um one is that We have not removed the sanctions the sanctions remain in place there when iran accepted the interim Deal which halts its program. There was a very small release of frozen Assets or funds, but there the sanctions regime is still very much in place Every intent of keeping that That regime in place until we get to the objective of preventing iran from from pursuing nuclear weapons And and reaching a final agreement the other point of clarification is We didn't abandon missile defense in europe. We deployed it A more robust system more quickly that includes Systems that are already being deployed in poland today And in turkey and and with the sm3 Block two missile and so forth, which is actually a more capable system that will be deployed Faster than the original timeline. So and that is because There is shared us and european concern over the ballistic missile threat that iran poses to europe Steve clements Sometimes talking about fiction allows us to talk about the real world more easily David ignatius is one of his last novels blood money Essentially takes financial tracking intelligence and you see in that novel that that is Taken by adversaries and used against agents of the cia the nsa and others And i'm interested into what degree implied in our discussion today as the united states is in such a Leading position in this capacity. There hasn't been discussion that much about Where the gap is with the next leaders and whether or not some of what we're talking about today can be used In a way against american interests by others Good question general alexander. What did you see in the way? American partners and adversaries were developing their own capabilities Well, I think you know this is the issue about the bulk it almost drops you back to the balkanization And you know it is interesting to see technically what's going on Out there and how good silicon valley and all the people we have are in advancing some of these Technologies it's doubling every two years Which means that what you learned in your first year Out and going against that kind of power doesn't make sense. You know it quickly gets you to Dropping back analogous to where aran has dropped back because of sanctions in the way they live today If you look at their infrastructure versus everybody else With respect to others using this against us So, you know, I think there's always a concern of Countries going after ours the the risk of the dollar and things like that expected not just by us, but by many countries and I think In some of these areas we need partners and allies to take the same kind of stance that we do it can't be done alone Unless we can't get anybody Recognize that you know the white house policy makers can choose to do something like that But it sure is strengthened when you get others involved in it. I've not seen though to that extent where it's been used that way And I'm trying to think of a case, but I can't think of one I can see where they're using it to attack people The barb C of cases one of the ones that they released where I think was a hundred thousand dollars to go after the Saudi ambassador Here in the u.s in washington So when you start to look at some of those there is tremendous impact that these programs have There's a question hand down here right here Hi, uh, Nicholas and I'm an intern here at CSA as I greatly enjoyed your talk My question is Are American and other western multinational oil companies who are doing business in russia? Like axon shell and stat oil are they affected by sanctions against russia? If so, how? Who's best on this? On what the actual effect has been Go ahead Jim No, I don't know I know the answer is yes, but Question to the audience here's uh, or one free answer david knows david you want to pick that one up? Yeah As has been noted the sanctions in Relation to the russia-ukrain situation have been Largely focused on individual actors not on Not on the companies in russia That being said The fact that we have applied sanctions against a number of Significant russian business people including some of the cronies quite close to president putin Who themselves? Supervised significant operations in russia and the in the energy sector and other sectors has had a chilling effect I think secretary lu noted this in his remarks that the The sanctions and the threat of sanctions and the fact that we have the ability under Recently adopted executive order to apply sanctions against Actors in various sectors of the russian economy including the energy sector the financial sector What have you combined with the fact that we have in fact applied sanctions against individuals who are The the chief operating officers of some of these entities Thank you Barbara Slavin from the atlantic council and i'll monitor.com and david kohen is welcome to answer this one too This morning has been This morning has been all about the success of sanctions How well they've worked reputational risk? How well it's worked and how the private sector is totally spooked by all of them and so on Is there a concern that it's going to be difficult to unravel these sanctions and in the event there is An agreement with iran iran is going to insist on this But once you have terrified the private sector into avoiding a country, how do you convince them that it's safe to go back? Well, let's divide that question up into two parts Part number one, which I have to give to jane is Let's say there was an iran deal This takes three deals one between the u.s. And the europeans and iran Western and the others in the in the group One between the iranians and negotiators and The clerics and of course the irgc and then the hardest one of all between the president and congress So could you imagine congress voting? To lift the sanctions that barba was referring to if there was a deal Not easily. I think It would take everyone is aware Bob menendez who chairs the senate forum relations committee Has teed up a bill to impose stronger sanctions and held it For the nine-month period of the negotiation on the deal and if there is no deal by whatever it is end of july I'm guessing well congress will be Pull this back easily. I think it's a great question barba. Are we ever going to undo these regimes? I also think that the sanctions on iran have to do with more than the nuclear deal They also have to do with iran's conduct bad conduct With respect to proxy terror organizations in the region and that's not on the table and you know So I I would say in the iran case Very unlikely that all sanctions would be listed certainly by the us one last comment about the rest of the world The french have already been in there having conversations. Nothing was consummated But I think much of the world wants to resume trade with iran and has agreed to our sanctions because The treasury folks in the front row have been so brilliant at building an international coalition to do this But I think a lot of members of that coalition if there is no deal Are going to want to roll back their participation in the multilateral sanctions regime and that will be very Harmful to achieving the result we all want to achieve in iran You know, I I just add to that I think there's tremendous benefit if we can get an agreement to raising To release and getting rid of the sanctions and the reason is what that does is it gives The iranian people more access to what's going on And I think having them closer to the western world is a good thing And I think that's part of the solution Getting that information out there. They're good people. I think you know, they they you know If you sent Arnold Schwarzenegger or any movie star over there, they'd be treated great And the problem is we're not communicating with them. So I think it's in all our best interests to get there The problem I agree the problem is if they continue down the road to build a weapon It polarizes the region in such a way that it just goes really bad So we've got to win we've got to get to that point and that's a huge set of issues that are on the table Shall any last thoughts on on this and particularly on the Iran deal What you think the big challenges would be if you we actually got to a point of lifting sanctions I do I do think that Getting some agreement about what are the elements of a good agreement? What does a bad agreement look like what does a good agreement look like getting Doing some and you know think tanks can play an important role In this regard of building that Bipartisan consensus that is right now sorely absent and very much needed. I also think That as you said Israel will have a lot of influence as to how People view the ultimate terms of the agreement So there are challenges associated with actually lifting the sanctions regime But I also want to underscore something that Steve Hadley said earlier That even if we get to a good agreement sanctions are lifted Um Figuring out how do you hold Iran accountable? And prevent cheating this incentivize them To in terms of cheating and what kind of instruments do you short of the use of military force? Do you have at your disposal which may mean being able to turn these sanctions back on right which is I think we should not That would not be an easy test right I mean I think once once this particular regime which took years of hand crafting and you know Lots of work to get every all the compliance that we've had and all the buy-in Once you let this go There I don't think there's any hope of getting anything that looks like this back for a long time So figuring out what your leverage is to enforce this agreement Um, it speaks to the level of transparency and inspection and Intrusiveness that you have to get as part of this, but it also speaks to thinking through What is going to be what it's going to be your enforcement leverage down the line? Very good. Well, I thank you very much. I think we have run slightly over our time here and uh, so thank you for your Patience with that and we look forward to the rest of the program