 Thank you for coming. This is the first here in this year for the Schieffer series, something we're very, very proud to co-host with the Schieffer School of Journalism at TCU. And of course it's named after Bob Schieffer and who has been so generous with his time to highlight this very good series for all of us and we're all richer for it. And I just would like to say thank you to Bob again for this very, very fine experience for us. Welcome back to Dan Benjamin. Dan was here at CSI. I'd forgotten it was six years. He said six years, two books and two babies. I don't know how all that worked out, but it worked out very well. He's got a wonderful family and we're just very glad that he's being willing to serve back in government. I just would like to say a word of thanks to Greg Ward and to our very good friends at UTC that make it possible for us to hold this series and to present it for all of you. They're doing this as part of their leadership in Washington to create a better, more informed society. So we're going to have a very good session. Bob, thank you again for this, and let me turn it over to you to get us started for real. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Hamrick. I would also like to announce that the director of the Schieffer School, John Lunkin, is with us here today with his wife, Eileen. He's right on the front. Well, I think if the events of the past weeks have shown us anything, it is that no matter what kind of a campaign, no matter what plans people come to the local office with, no one can control the agenda, not even the occupant of the most powerful office in the world. So many times events control the agenda, and we have certainly seen that with the arrest of the bomber in Detroit, the other news that's come since then. We have a very fine panel. Dan Benjamin, who was here at CSIS, as Dr. Hamrick said, was sworn in as coordinator of counterterrorism at the Department of State with a rank of ambassador in May of last year prior to his appointment, senior fellow at Brookings. Then the six years before that, he was here at CSIS. 1994 to 1999 served on the National Security Council staff, director of the counterterrorism in the office of transnational threats. 1994 to 1997 served as foreign policy speechwriter, special assistant to President Clinton. Before entering the government, he was a foreign correspondent for Time Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal has co-written two books, The Age of Sacred Terror and The Next Attack, The Failure of the War on Terror, and A Strategy for Getting it Right. Arnold de Borgrove, of course, will be very well known to everyone in this room. He, at the age of 21, how long ago was that? He was appointed the Brussels bureau chief of UPI. Three years later, Newsweek's bureau chief in Paris at 27 became senior editor of the magazine, a position he held for 25 years. He was editor-in-chief of The Washington Times beginning in 1985. He later served as president and CEO of UPI from 1999 to 2001. He has won numerous awards, including best magazine reporting from abroad, best magazine interpretation of foreign affairs, and here at CSIS he has authored and co-authored numerous articles. Jan Crawford, as we welcome home to CBS News as of January of this year. She is a recognized authority on the Supreme Court. Her 2007 book, Supreme Conflict, The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the Supreme Court, was a New York Times bestseller. She began covering the court in 1994 for the Chicago Tribune, went on to become a law and political correspondent for ABC News after they stole her away from CBS where she was appearing often on Face the Nation and as a consultant on legal matters for us. She is back now. She's reported on most of the major judicial appointments and confirmation hearings in the past 15 years. Her reports on the Bush administration's legal war on terror and reports on interrogation techniques have been credited for being the catalyst for congressional hearings. Jan was the one who first reported that members of the Bush administration cabinet were meeting in the White House in deciding on interrogation techniques. She began her journalistic career at the Chicago Tribune, 1987. She then went to the University of Chicago Law School, but before that she graduated from the University of Alabama. And Roll Tide, I'd just like to say. Which who had a pretty good year. Yeah, well next year just wait. Next year they might have to play TCU. Let's start with you, Ambassador. We just had the voice or what was purported to be the voice of Osama bin Laden, warning us that he was really proud of the Detroit bomber and telling us there may be more. I guess number one of the basic question, do we think that was Osama bin Laden? I don't think there's been an official confirmation from the intelligence community, but I think everyone's going on the assumption that it probably was. Sounded like him. Familiar themes? What do we make of it? Well, all we have is this long paragraph. This one's squib. And it's interesting. It's characteristic of bin Laden so far as he is attaching himself to the actions of others showing his relevance again, or at least aspiring to show his relevance. I think it's an interesting development in so far as you see bin Laden like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula doing something that we haven't seen before, at least I can't remember another time, in which they were treating as a success, something that didn't explode, which I think is an indication of some weakness, actually. Additionally, the themes of this brief communication that we have are interesting because bin Laden, of course, has attached himself to the struggles of the Palestinians for a long time, and the entire paragraph really is about the Palestinians, and he is doing this again, and all the older al-Qaeda themes have fallen away about U.S. presence in the Middle East, for example, and there's this discussion as though the United States could spare itself attacks in the future by separating itself from Israel. Now, this is a way to play to the audience because he knows that this is a very big issue for large segments of the Muslim world, but I don't remember him ever suggesting that we would improve our own situation by doing something else. I mean, in the past we were always sort of the genetic enemy, so I think that that is interesting, and of course the final thing to say is that it's interesting. He keeps harping on the Palestinian theme since the Palestinians don't want to have anything to do with him. If you follow these things, you know that bin Laden or more correctly, Ayman al-Zawahiri is number two, and Hamas have had a running battle on the airwaves and in print for years and years that really reminds you of some of the early sectarian battles between early communist groupings, you know, very, very vitriolic. There's no one in the Palestinian world who wants to be associated with bin Laden. They think he's bad news and a dead end for them, so it's interesting that they continue to try to portray themselves as the champion. Arnaud, you have been following these issues for a long, long time. How do you sort of assess the threat of terrorism now? What is it that we ought to be most worried about? I think what we have to be most worried about is what happens on the Internet where they have created a sort of global caliphate for these young radicalized kids of Muslim families, whether it's in the outskirts of Paris or the outskirts of Denver. You get very excited, some of them get very excited, tuning in to what they believe to be a larger global affiliation and it has radicalized quite a few people, including Major Hassan and what was fascinating about the Major Hassan case at Fort Hood is that he had clearly indicated that he was attracted by militancy in the Muslim world and yet in the army report there is no mention of that and no mention of the fact that his business card says soldier of Allah, which seemed to me to be one of the first things you would put in a report trying to figure out what this guy is all about. But this is how I see the biggest threat today is through cyberspace. Also, I think we should remember about Osama bin Laden is that he's convinced that he brought down the Soviet Empire because from the day the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan on February 15th, 1989 until the Berlin Wall fell was only nine months and he's convinced that what he did during the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was largely the work of the Mujahideen that he had recruited from a variety of Arab countries. Jan, you watched the legal side of all of this. It appears apparently from what we learned in hearings last week on the Hill that some people in the government were unaware that this man was the Detroit bomber was going to be charged in a civilian court and yes he was. You had Denny Blair, the director of national intelligence saying well they should have put him in charge of this new committee. What's it called? The committee of high value interrogation. When in fact there is no such thing at this point. He had to later correct that. Which was sort of a confidence builder in itself. What's going on here? Well I mean I'm sure most of you saw, I mean lawmakers I think on both sides were somewhat stunned when Dennis Blair testified that no one had been consulted about whether or not he was going to be charged, read his Miranda rights. You know we would all assume like there was a plan in place but in fact Blair was not consulted, Lider wasn't consulted and Polatano wasn't consulted and even Muller wasn't consulted. Well granted this all happened very quickly. He was interviewed by agents for 50 minutes as he was going into surgery some very unfortunate burns that he had. Do we know what? We can just pause there for a moment. But then he was, a decision was made after consulting with headquarters there in Detroit and here at justice to Miranda's hand. So he then was able to get a lawyer and he stopped talking. So they got about 50 minutes of questioning. It's been reported out of this attempted bomber and obviously now that's what everyone is looking at. We figured out where in the government who gave the order to take him into the civilian court yet? No in fact Republican lawmakers have now all of course signed a letter asking for that question to be answered. Who made this decision? Of course a number of people have pointed the finger at the Attorney General Eric Holder who has already made a number of somewhat unpopular decisions I think in this legal war on terror. But we don't know yet who kind of gave the final say although the fingers are already, the blame game is already starting and the Attorney General is kind of the one who's now in the crosshairs on that. But at any rate, I mean obviously the question is how we proceed with terror suspects and as Blair said in his testimony he believed that this should have been handled initially by this high value interrogation group that had been set up for this very purpose but that it was only organized for incidents that arose overseas. Then of course he later had to come back and say well it wasn't quite operational at all so that's something that's going on now in the White House as part of this broader review of whether or not that was in fact the right decision whether or not Abdul Mitalab should have been of course read his rights and put in the criminal process just like you know some drug dealer who shoots somebody on the street corner clearly the shelf life for his information is very short and you can say that it would be fine and you know we can get a plea deal and we'll be able to talk to him over the period of months but I think someone and you may want to address this but someone in his position kind of sent out as a soldier as it may that intelligence that he has has a very short shelf life and there is much that can be learned from him but it could be entirely different in three months. Ambassador would you like to just comment on that and kind of how this was handled? Before we go on though I want to ask a question. I mean to be fair you know one of those things that happens to you when you leave think tanks and you go into government is that you learn to say you know I'm going to defer that to the Justice Department and one of the great things about working at the State Department is that we tend not to muck around in domestic affairs so I think I will forebear any comment on that. Alright before we get too far down this road could we go back to this tape because I wanted I think one thing you know we saw this tape from Osama bin Laden taking credit from this attempted bombing and you know you said I mean you think that it shows that you know maybe they're weakened but I mean isn't there another way you could also say it shows how closely that they are monitoring us and they saw that this caused enormous distress here in our government and created great crisis of confidence among our citizens so because of their close monitoring of our situation they decide to in fact take credit for something that really was a failure as you said a moat with a bomb in his underwear that didn't go off and while yes it shows I think you could say certainly that you know obviously 9-11 was this incredible sophisticated attack that really exceeded anyone's imagination and so they haven't been able to repeat that and now they're taking credit for some you know a moat with a bomb in his underwear that didn't work but then we saw this report yesterday by a senior former CIA official that Al Qaeda is very patient and they're assembling weapons of mass destruction and that they're prepared to that's why we haven't seen some of these attacks and that that threat remains very grave and very real and the probability in another report yesterday is that it's more likely than not that we will see that kind of attack somewhere in the world soon. Let the ambassador and then you are no beautiful you want to respond to that. To your point about they read us carefully that's undoubtedly true and I think it's still valid to say that they've been reading this closely all along and in the past they probably wouldn't have taken credit for something that didn't blow up but it is certainly true that they read us very closely and I always when I worked here for example I used to cite the best example of this as being a letter that was found on the computer I believe in Afghanistan in which he thanked the United States for showing the Mujahideen just how important biological weapons were because they wouldn't have thought about them otherwise so they do read us very closely and they obviously have the advantage of asymmetry and the advantages that go with being able to read the responses of an open society to all these sorts of developments. Now it is also true that it's a group that has historically had a lot of patients. I mean I don't think that is news. I do think that you know they're under enormous pressure particularly in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region so we certainly hope that their patience is not repaid but they have been patient. They have long history of aspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and we know that this is still on their minds and obviously this is the highest threat, the most potent threat we worry about and we spend an awful lot of time working on this every day so there's no question that we still take them very very seriously and recognize what their ambitions are. I'd go back to what the ambassador was saying about Palestine and Osama bin Laden's most recent message because everywhere you go all the travels I've been in the Middle East and Pakistan and Afghanistan it is still central. A lot of people poo-pooed this for many years they've just used it as a pretext but it's not. You go to the Madrasas in Pakistan, Israel is always mentioned right after the United States and India then number three. So I think it's going to be very very long but I would agree with the ambassador completely is that they have taken some very bad hits and I didn't think that the Nigerian trying to blow up the plane and being wrestled to the floor by a fellow passenger was an example of the kind of stuff that is coming down the pike. There'll be far bigger things as you may recall in Kabul when it was liberated all sorts of things were found in the safe houses, the al-Qaeda safe houses, little sketches of dirty bombs and when I... The anthrax and when I was in Kandahar three months before 9-11 to interview Mullah Omar which is still the only interviews ever given there were three Pakistani nuclear scientists staying in the same guest houses we were my Pakistani team and I and when we asked them what they were doing there they sort of smiled and they said we're here on agricultural projects and there had been a drop of rain there for three years. How can it be that you mentioned Major Hassan that we can have a situation where someone is posting inflammatory rhetoric on the internet and somehow or another and it's best I can find out no investigator from any investigative agency in the government ever asked Major Hassan are you the Hassan who's writing all this stuff on the internet? Is that... That's political correctness. Absolutely. It's visible all over Europe. You have say on the Antwerp City Council in Belgium there's a naturalized Moroccan citizen who spouts the straight al-Qaeda line on many issues and yet he's a Belgian citizen and a member of the municipal council of Antwerp they can't touch him and nobody wants to denounce him because they're afraid of antagonizing the Muslim communities in Belgium. Are we going to have to change our ways ambassador? Which ways are you thinking of? I mean I think that one of the things that we found maybe perhaps ask people if they're the ones who wrote something that's on the internet. Well I think that the Secretary of Defense has indicated that there were clearly failures in this particular case and I think one of the things that we have found out very powerfully in the last month is that this continues to be a dynamic and evolving threat that we will continue to see foot soldiers coming from different corners and wearing different guises and that we know for example that our enemies are very eager to find people who don't look like what we think they should look like. So in that regard yes we are going to have to change our ways. We are going to have to always maintain our intellectual edge our technological edge. We're going to always have to be improving our trade craft when it comes to intelligence. All of these requirements suggest that we're going to be in a foot race for a long time and I don't think anyone in government thinks otherwise. We were fortunate this time in that we had our shortcomings illuminated for us and now we can correct them. Jan let me just ask you this question. Do you think just from a legal standpoint because now we're seeing not just Republican lawmakers but some Democrats are saying maybe we ought to rethink this thing of charging him in a civilian court. Can they undo that and put him before the military? Well you've seen some people already say we need to get him back out and get him back in and that's what now I think you're going to start I don't see any movement in the administration to do that. I mean I think they've taken this course and they're going to say on this course and they're still at least today saying that it was the right course and they're going to review that decision in the event God forbid that that ever happens again. But I think that as we talk about all these issues particularly even from a legal standpoint and obviously as the Obama administration is now moving forward it's a foot race but in many ways it's a marathon that we're in and we're in a marathon against an enemy. In America I think 9-11 was a long time ago we've moved on we've forgotten about that but we're up against an enemy that is still thinking about the 13th century and so when we're in this marathon I think we have to be acutely aware that nine years isn't all that long and when you think about patience and determination I think that's what we're up against and now we have a new administration that is starting to evaluate the policies of the old and acutely aware of this rub and you're going to see this in every terror program and you already have some have been abandoned, some have been preserved this real rub between civil liberties you alluded to kind of the political correctness civil liberties kind of assuring your base that you fired up during the campaign a different approach than the evil bush administration versus assuring the American public that you understand the grave threat the determined enemy and the real dire consequences that we could face as a nation and a world if we don't take this threat seriously so when we talk about I think all of these terror programs that kind of overarching foundation has to be kept in mind that the president now is really looking at this and trying to grapple with these two very competing interests civil liberties and again reassuring the American public and doing everything he can to keep the American public safe I think the Christmas Day attempted bombing was in many ways a turning point for this administration I think this last year we've seen a lot of programs where I don't want to tread on your territory here but where if you think about it there's a chug between state the State Department and kind of looking at how we're viewed in the world and preserving our image in the world State 1 a lot of those arguments last year I think you're going to see defense start to take a more vigorous approach and start winning out going forward now when Obama I don't want to filibuster I'll just start but the president and I think what we see when we look back he has in fact preserved many of Bush's President Bush's programs and I think that surprised a lot of former Bush administration officials so you know when you look at some a lot of second term programs I think of it as a political reporter Barack Obama in many ways ran against the first term Bush but adopted many of the second term Bush's programs that's causing him some problems now because if you think back to a lot of the rhetoric that he used in the campaign and the way he was going to completely repudiate the evil ways of George Bush in many ways he was talking about policies that George Bush himself had already abandoned because of the Supreme Court decisions or because of you know a few years after September 11 he was reevaluating them but the rhetoric of the campaign that he believes is that we're looking at George Bush in 2002 and that's what Obama in many ways was running against so now that he's in the White House and lo and behold he's keeping some of these programs he's going to allow indefinite detention we haven't closed Guantanamo you're starting to see this uprising from people on the left and in the base that he really is not doing what he said let me just pick up I would disagree a bit with that the president is completely committed to closing Guantanamo we have found that it is a lot more difficult to do than we thought on January 20th but you know there wasn't a lot done in those days to actually close it they took some out and filled it back up so I do think that there is a pretty distinct difference there was also an executive order immediately banning so-called enhanced interrogation there have been a lot of different things that we have done that are quite different and you describe the tension the political tension but I think you have to add one more dimension and that is that as you describe it as our image in the world it's not really just a matter of our image in the world one of the things that I think the president has brought to this issue is a constant focus on the question of radicalization what are we doing as we confront terrorists to ensure that if we take one off the street we're not creating 10 more and I think that that was really at the heart of the critique of the bush counter terrorism program and I think that this is something that has remained a constant and that we continue to try to elaborate on and figure how we can do this job better we know that we're not going to see an overnight cessation to radicalization or create the environment in which radicalization is vastly more difficult because a lot of the dynamics that created this threat have been decades of making Ambassador you would agree they're not going to be able to close Guantanamo for a long time I mean if you do close it you're just going to have to move the people there to some place else and to another prison and so far the congress won't give them the money to do that so I think it's going to remain open for a while Bob it seems to me that we haven't we haven't really focused on how many of these people are running around the world determined to do great evil to the United States all the moderate heads of state I've talked to from Algeria to Jordan Saudi Arabia Pakistan they all say that the total number of real extremists in their society is about 1% and then you ask them how many fundamentalists they have they say about 10% well you extrapolate that on a global scale that gives you 130 million people who approve the actions of 13 million and that means we're going to be up against that for long, long years to come agree? the 13 million is not an accurate reflection of the number who are actually committing violence let's stipulate that so no but these who would like to commit acts of violence yeah I think that that's an overstatement of the actual numbers well I don't know exactly what day Guantanamo is going to be closed on but I know that this president is absolutely committed to closing it down to so thoroughly as possible if you take the number of youngsters, young boys graduating from the Madrasas in Pakistan you come up with millions of people since 9-11 who have been taught that America is enemy number one they're totally brainwashed of course they learn the Quran by heart but they also learn how to hate the United States and by the end of those 10 years they're quite willing to sign up for anything well I'm not disputing that there are an awful lot of people who've been inculcated with a particularly potent kind of hatred very few of those are ever going to have the cultural skills necessary to go somewhere that could really damage the United States and many of them may have the hatred but don't have the actual the kick to go and actually commit violence there is a big difference between intense hatred and actually being able to take up weapons you know I would just kind of put a bookend on this discussion of Guantanamo and then we will go to some questions so everybody wants to ask the question come up to the microphone it seems to me that one of the lessons I always talk to young reporters about is when you're doing an interview it's not the first question you ask that is important it's the follow up question which always comes from whatever the person says in response to the first question and during this presidential campaign since John McCain and Barack Obama both said we want to close Guantanamo we all and I take as much responsibility because I interviewed both of them many times during the campaign we all forgot the follow up question how are you going to do that and now we see when you don't ask that follow up question what kind of happens because I think we still don't know how they would all respect to you Mr. Ambassador I think nobody knows what to do with these people at this point would be my thought on it are we ready for some questions okay right here thank you my question is that this week President Obama completed his one year in office and also tomorrow is State of the Union what do we get how many points do you give him for one year and as far as terrorism is concerned and other problems going on around the globe so people like it was directed at me well I would say the magic is gone the bloom is off the rose and our allies are very disappointed at what has not happened so far you hear that everywhere including many of my moderate Republican friends who voted for President Obama they're very disappointed at how little progress has been made and they all seem to say he's taken on too much he should not have taken on healthcare to begin with he could have left that to the end of his term and then campaigned on health but he obviously was trying to do too much in too little time I would just capsule it by saying I do believe in retrospect and it's always easy in retrospect I think he probably tried to bite off more than the country could suggest at one time but I think he launched some very noble initiatives you had to give him a grade at this point it would simply be incomplete if you look at what the American people think and the most recent polling on national security issues he's starting to lose the confidence of the American people the polling on some of these issues whether it's Guantanamo interrogations the public is starting to shift and think more overwhelmingly we should not close Guantanamo much more supportive aggressive interrogations that are stopped or ending these enhanced interrogation techniques so he has I think an appearance problem at the very least with the American people on some of these issues and the immediate response to the Christmas Day bombing attempt I don't think gave Americans a lot of comfort would you like to say something, Master? I would just say that it's a really good thing that national security policy and the rule of law are not dictated spot-polled because that's how we do really really bad things I think it's vitally important that we keep in mind what our values are one of the problems we have faced in dealing with this threat and dealing with our friends around the world is that we didn't navigate by our values I think at the end of the day the president will be seen to have made the right decisions on Guantanamo on enhanced interrogations and on a variety of other issues related to this you know the framers of the Constitution were quite insistent that some things be beyond the issue of popular consent on a day-to-day basis and I'm personally quite grateful that's no question but I think the problem when you start losing the support of the people is that when you have to get Congress involved to put a new prison in Illinois and give you money to bring Guantanamo's from detainees from Guantanamo it makes it much more difficult and if you don't care about that at the end of the day you're starting to sound awful like George Bush who was criticized enormously for just saying I don't care about polls and this is the right thing to do and I don't need to consult Congress well first of all this president has consulted Congress on numerous issues all along the way I would also question I'd like to look at the polls in historical context he's you know in the upper half by any measure compared to where lots of other presidents were after the one year mark so I think that it's premature to make these kinds of judgments Michael Marshall UPI question about Yemen the Christmas bomber was very probably almost certainly radicalized in Yemen and quite possibly trained there as well so now there's a great deal of focus in the U.S. on what measures we can take to counter al Qaeda in Yemen pressure on the Yemeni government to take more action even though that government has very limited control over much of the country do you think with the pressure arising from the experience of this bomber we are likely to go into Yemen in a way that makes things worse or will we actually get it right and what we're getting it right mean in the Yemeni context let the ambassador take that and then I'd like to get your thoughts on that well I'm grateful for the question much more my home turf than the polls Yemen obviously has al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has obviously come up a notch in terms of our threat perception and that is due to the fact that they demonstrated a desire and at least a good deal of the capability to carry out an attack against the U.S. at home and that changes matters that's clearly not a good news story but the other side of the story is that this administration came into office and quickly saw that the deterioration of the security situation as well as the deterioration of key socioeconomic indicators in Yemen required that we change paths and there was a policy review that began in March that was concluded this fall and that indicated that we needed a new policy towards Yemen it is focused on two efforts one is strengthening them to strengthening the Yemenis to take on the threats within their borders particularly al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula but also creating the conditions in which this country can strengthen its government strengthen its governance in different parts of the country where it has not been strong and deal with some of the really critical economic issues that afflict I think the 166th wealthiest nation on earth and the other good news piece of this is that after being distracted by other issues within Yemen for many many years the government decided that it needed to take a decisive step against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and that turn came in part because of the really consistent engagement of senior administration officials including John Brennan from the White House General Petraeus my colleague Jeff Feltman and the State Department and many others and so they have been going after al Qaeda the Yemenis have been going after al Qaeda with a great deal of resolve since December and we are hopeful that that will continue to be the case we're also encouraged that the international community has recognized what a serious issue Yemen is and that's being discussed at the conference in London tomorrow Jim Jones when he was a NATO Supreme Commander five years ago took me on a trip and we stopped to Africa mostly Muslim countries we stopped in Djibouti which is now a US base used to be called Camp Le Monnier it's called Camp Lemonade because they can't pronounce it in French and it's a former foreign legion base we have almost 2,000 Marines there and they are very well informed on what's happening in Yemen and this was five years ago and there was plenty of action already taking place so I can't conceive of another operation the size of Afghanistan taking place in the Arabian Peninsula and as the president and the chairman the chiefs have said we have no intention of putting boots on the ground I'd like to go back to the discussion I'm Suzanne Svalding with Bingham McCutcheon and I would like to go back to the discussion about the handling of Abdul Mutalab the Christmas Day bomber attempted bomber even if you accept the premise which I think is very constitutionally questionable suspect that we could see someone in the and throw them into military detention isn't it true that the concern about getting a lawyer would still apply that Jan, wasn't it Judge Mukasey who said that in a habeas petition for example that those suspected terrorists get access to an attorney and the congress and the military commissions act also said in the military commissions you get to have a lawyer so the concern about being lawyer it up would not be addressed by that and then Dan isn't there a cost to that policy of treating suspected terrorists as combatants in terms of the point you made about locking one up and creating 10 more Jan well it definitely is true that he would be entitled to a civilian lawyer through the military system if that's how he was tagged but I think it's no question that would have been an entirely different type of interrogation that would have been allowed had he gone into that system and there is precedent for that I mean Hadea for example was held in a military capacity for about a month before he was then turned over to the regular kind of civilian court and I think that why this is such an urgent issue for the Obama administration and why the Obama administration is actually internally now trying to weigh the right decision and would do that again going forward is because there is such valuable intelligence that could be lost and while these were very able FBI interrogators operating out of that Detroit office the ability to have a high value intelligence group once it's up and running interrogate terrorist suspect could produce with the knowledge of the kind of context and you know kind of be able to connect the dots would make an enormous difference and that's the decision and a choice that this administration again I mean I don't want to keep you know beating the strong but that's the decision that they're going to have to make when they're balancing civil liberties versus national security once again how they're going to treat and they've obviously decided that they're not going to do the same kind of interrogations that the Bush administration did and what is that going to mean and what are we going to give up you know the decision for you there are consequences but you have Jan have you not there are there will be intelligence loss now you may say you're okay with that because we value civil liberties but there will be consequences to that decision I just wanted to before you have reported have you not that there is some discussion going on within the administration about whether they ought to go back and charge some of these people in the military tribunals rather than in the court like there's some second guessing about this is all part of this internal review that's going on right now and as we're also seeing part of this review that's going on right now not even limited to Abdul-Mathalib and the Christmas Day bomber is how we're going to charge and handle all of these detainees who are now being held at Guantanamo are we going to put them in the military commission system which President Obama of course has signed into law not all that the administration's military commission system or are we going to put them in regular civilian court just like a drug dealer who's you know kill somebody on the street corner and bring them here and have them for trial now the Obama administration and I think what is one of the sharpest breaks in terms of a policy matter has decided to bring as you guys all know a Kaleesha Mohammed in the top 4911 plotters to lower Manhattan and have them go through a regular criminal for their roles in killing 3,000 people on September 11 they have decided however not really clearly articulated why that they're going to have other Guantanamo detainees still go through this military commission process so we are already kind of getting a two track system and again as they go forward they're going to have they're still evaluating how they're going to handle some of those guys we don't know how they're going to handle some of those guys we don't know because it's a felicitous idea do you think whether or not it's the right decision that's obviously whether it's the right decision to try a terrorist suspect in federal court which is now what we're seeing with Abdul Mitalib it's an entirely different decision to try someone in federal court who has been held in Guantanamo for 7 years without charges subjected to waterboarding you know 182 and say you know what we're going to put you in the federal courts now and we're going to give you the full panoply of constitutional rights and procedural rights than any American citizen would get the right to speedy trial the right to file a motion for outrageous government misconduct they get all of that now and I've got to say the problem with these trials in criminal court for KSM these other four is that it could pervert our entire system of justice because when KSM files a motion for outrageous government misconduct which he no doubtedly will how is the judge going to evaluate that I mean how so then what does that mean for the next trial if you're just a regular defendant you know and the judges ruled that it's not outrageous government misconduct on KSM's behalf then you know what does that mean for our next trial there's a danger that could actually water down protections for everyone and so the cost of this there are real I mean again these are choices do your cost benefit analysis to this if these are going to be real trials you know if this is just not a show trial but if it's a show trial and we're doing why are we doing it I mean the point is to show that we're a beacon our justice system is fair so you know well a few points last I checked we didn't actually have the capability to just do a show trial we do have constitution and we have laws and so I don't think that's going to happen when your attorney general says when your attorney general testifies that these cases are going to be one that again I mean that suggests that right and you know the judge won't dismiss them on a technicality which is a constitutional protection actually but look first of all political appointees say what we say what we say but nonetheless there's still the laws of the land and they'll be observed I think that the proposition that you always are going to lose by charging people and bringing them to trial is an untested hypothesis and it may be true in some cases but I would wager that it is untrue in many cases because if you put someone in a criminal justice system you are in a bargaining position and you can offer them things that they would like to have that will make them talk and that is a huge incentive for a lot of these guys once they've seen the inside of a cell and let me tell you if ever there was a great motivator out there it's the notion of spending the rest of your days in a super max second I'm not going to comment on what we do here because I work at the State Department but I will say that at the State Department we encourage countries around the world to try their terrorists and we do this for a very important reason when terrorists are tried when they are put in courtrooms and when they are subjected to the same treatment as common criminals they are they are shown to be not holy warriors but just thugs just people who like to blow things up and kill innocent people and it has an enormous deal of impact we have done this with many countries around the world I was just in Jakarta for example they have done a fabulous job bringing terrorists to trial and it has had a profound impact on driving down radicalism and I'm building public support for their counter terrorism efforts countries that simply detain people either for a limited or in many cases for an unlimited period are often only enhancing the perception that they are not legitimate authorities in their own countries so this is a very important issue for us and I strongly believe that underwriting the rule of law programs we do is a vital part of our counter terrorism and it's something that we really ought to expand on yes there are intelligence gains that we want to make but intelligence is not the only is not the only good in this contest and you really need to weigh these things and believe me we have found that putting people in trial has a profound de-radicalization value so it's not an unequivocal thing to get that intelligence interrogation well in the best I guess there's no to your point I mean that wasn't it a Saddam Hussein I mean those were carefully when they were touching his hair on some of those photographs that was designed to because that's such a grave insult you know someone showed me today the picture of I think there was I don't know if he was just back in court or not Manuel Noriega a man who wanted to be tried in his military uniform and we said no you'd be tried in your civvies and you know he didn't look very forbidding like that and frankly I think it's a good thing when terrorists are cut down to size right here Andy Kutchins CSIS terrific panel thanks very much for really enjoying this I'd like to change the topic a little bit though Ambassador Benjamin mentioned the London conference coming up in a couple of days for our allies and partners to discuss our strategy in Afghanistan other important meetings taking place in Ankara and Islamabad and other places last week the the State Department did release a document elaborating a a new strategy for for stabilization of Afghanistan and Pakistan and I'd like to hear our panelists discuss what they think to be some of the strengths and weaknesses and key differences in this this approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan thanks Andy I think you know better than most people is that after 9-11 when our allies rushed into Afghanistan after we liberated the place they thought they'd be there for seven or eight or nine months not seven, eight or nine years and the pressures to get out as quickly as possible are enormous the Canadians who were obviously authorized to fight along with the Dutch and the Brits they all want out by 2011 some by the end of 2010 so the pressure right now is on as you've seen just reading between the lines for negotiations that would lead to some kind of coalition of warlords, the Karzai government elements of Taliban whether all that is going to work or not I have no idea but I do know from my experiences with Mullah Omar in Kandahar three months before 9-11 that he was already pretty annoyed with Osama bin Laden he said you won't see him, he talks too much he issues too many fatwas he has no business issuing fatwas as he didn't complete his religious education I said well you didn't complete yours either did you Mullah Omar he said well you're quite right but I don't issue fatwas I said what do you do then he said well my council of elders issues fatwas and I count assign them it was quite clear that there was tension tension between Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and I know that the ambassador doesn't agree but he told me at the time that we tried everything possible to get Osama bin Laden out and I still think it could have been done anyway it wasn't done but it could still happen Ambassador I'll give you the last word we really tried to get him out I know you did we tried very hard we ran up against a brick wall with the with the Taliban well I think that actually what was a much criticized process was very deliberative and well thought through and while obviously there is a deep desire not to be there forever I think there's also an important value really a critical value in showing that we are going to stay the course with the Afghan people that were prepared to take very seriously their security needs that were going to protect their populations that we are going to be there certainly in the civilian sense for the long haul because that is what's going to embolden them to pursue a path of state building and democratization and stability and I think that we have gotten a good balance and I think the president has done a good job in terms of showing the way forward obviously this is not easy obviously we think that a lot was neglected in the period that we were as a nation focusing on Iraq and you know a lot of us wish we weren't this far down this particular road but the security interests there that we have are enormous and I think that you know our commitment is exactly the right thing to do under these circumstances ladies and gentlemen if there's one thing I know how to do it's get off on time thank you all so much thank you Bob well done thank you