 For those of you who have been living under a rock and haven't seen 60 Minutes and Frontline and heard him on NPR and The Today Show and practically every other and haven't seen the front page stories in The New York Times, at least you found as the author of the of this great book The Black Banners which is really a history of al-Qaeda from from the dawn of al-Qaeda to now in a sense and also American counter-terrorism efforts. Also he is the President-CEO of the Sufam Group which does business in the Middle East and spent was one of the principal investigators of the coal attack and also the U.S. Embassy attacks and of course 9-11. And so what we agreed to do is that Mr. Sufam would speak for about 15 minutes and lay out some of the general themes of the book and then I would interview him without using coercive techniques for a little bit and then throw it open to your questions. And I will prove for you that they won't work. Thank you, thank you for the introduction. Very happy to be here with you as much as I hate leaving New York but I'm very honored and pleased to be here in DC today. The reason I wrote the book is mainly because I found out that there's a lot of wrong narratives, wrong narratives about al-Qaeda, wrong narratives about our successes against the group, wrong narratives about our failures against the group. Stand up to see people over there. So I decided to just write the facts. The facts of what happened in our war against al-Qaeda that started way early on than before 9-11. One of the things that annoy many of us who many of you guys are here, I used to work with in the field. It's great to see you. One of the things that annoy us when we hear that we did not know what hit us on 9-11. We were really shocked. Who are these people at al-Qaeda? Well, think about it this way. Osama bin Laden was indicted in the southern district of New York because of the hard work of the people and the intelligence community and in the FBI and the different law enforcement entities that's part of the task force in New York was indicted in June of 1998. That's few months before the very first covert act that al-Qaeda did in attacking the two embassies in Nairobi and in Dar es-Shalam. We already had him under a sealed indictment. So we knew exactly who attacked us on 9-11. We were working very hard during the U.S. School of Investigation and we get a lot of information and a lot of intelligence that if that information and intelligence were responded to by people in Washington and the other half of this information that some other entities in Washington had was shared with us. 9-11 could have been stopped. So it's not the genius of al-Qaeda that carried out 9-11. It's the incompetency of the United States agencies and its institutional bickering that we have in Washington that caused 9-11. And this is not only me saying that. This is not my side of the story. The 9-11 Commission, one of their first findings, they concluded that if the Central Intelligence Agency's past information about a meeting that took a place in Southeast Asia that we got information about from the U.S. School of Attack, if that information was shared to the FBI team investigating the U.S. School, specifically the FBI team investigating the U.S. School, 9-11 could have been stopped at early stages. And that's not only the 9-11 Commission who came up with that conclusion. The CIA's own Inspector General came with a very similar conclusion. The CIA IG said the CIA did not pass the information on timely basis about Nawaf al-Hazemi and Khaled Mehtar being here in the United States to the FBI, to the State Department, to the Immigration and Naturalization Services, nor did they even list them on a fly list. So everyone agreed about these conclusions that I'm making here, or if somebody want to call them allegations that I'm making here. Also, at the same time, we look at all the successes that we did. And every time there's any kind of success or any kind of failure, we start pointing fingers on Washington. This is FBI versus CIA, or this is CIA versus FBI. In my book, you will see how CIA officers, I'm an FBI agent. CIA officers are the heroes of the book. In every chapter, it was CIA people who did the right thing. From enhanced interrogation techniques, that program, ladies and gentlemen, was not stopped. That program was not stopped because of a new administration in Washington. That program was shelved in 2005 because so many CIA people went to their Inspector General and complained about the enhanced interrogation techniques. And after a review of the program, they came up to the conclusion that they could not prove that Inspector General of the CIA could not prove that one single imminent plot was stopped because of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques. And then towards the end, the Inspector General also spoke about the efficacy of this program and the strategic impact, the long term impact and the short impact, short term impact. That's such a program will do not only on the CIA, but also on the United States government. That's why the program was shelved in 2005. 2005. Not a lot of people talk about that. When you see all the successes that we did in East Africa, all the successes that we did in Yemen, all the successes that we did in Albania, in Italy, in the United Kingdom with Operation Challenge and other operations that we did with our colleagues in the UK, the successes in Southeast Asia. This is success, you know, all these successes are when people in the field from the CIA, from the FBI, from the different intelligence agencies from NCIS who were extremely important played extremely important role in the war and terror, especially after the USS Cole. We were working very closely together. I say in my book that when enhanced interrogation techniques was forced down the throat of the agency by outside contractors, before I left the Abu Zubayda location, the undisclosed location where Abu Zubayda was interrogated, before I left as an FBI agent, a CIA person left before me in a protest. So it's not the CIA versus the FBI. It is the CIA and the FBI versus people in Washington. It's operational people in the field, working in the field versus people who thought they know better here in DC. So there's a lot of successes that has been accomplished before and after. But also we have to acknowledge that we have some failures. 400 Ka'ida guys, 400. That is the total number of Al-Qaeda at the eve of 9-11. 400 people lasted in a war longer than World War I and World War II in the Vietnam War. So you want to tell me we didn't do any mistakes? Why? Because instead of looking for bin Laden in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, we're looking for WMDs that don't exist in Iraq. And now on the last two years, I'm glad to say that we have 21 members of Al-Qaeda, high level members of Al-Qaeda has been killed or captured. And this is due to the efforts of the intelligence community, and especially the men and women of the CIA. Because now people are focusing on how to do the job, not putting all our eggs in waterboarding. And there's still until today, people claim that the whole Western civilization was waterboarded, was saved because we waterboarded three people. That's it. We only waterboarded three people, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abdul Rahman Nasher, the mastermind of the USS call, three people. We solved all the problems of the world. We disrupted every terrorist plot in the world because of waterboarding three people. So what I talk about in the book, I talk about the facts. I talked about the facts as a person who witnessed them. I tried not to make any judgment. I wanted the reader to make the judgment, not me. This is a book about a very important period of our history. Very important era of the 21st century. Actually, it's the very first war of the 21st century. And if you look at it, there's a lot of politics concerning this era. But I wanted to kind of like pull away from the politics and just tell the reader and tell the American people what happened. What happened in 1979 that caused eventually al-Qaeda to become the organization that came? What happened when bin Laden was in Sudan after the first Gulf War? How did he structure the organization? How did they build the East Africa network? How did they build the European network? How after Sudan kicked him out of cartoon when he went back to Afghanistan? How he established a new different organization of al-Qaeda? Totally different with more and more people who came from the Arabian Peninsula from Yemen from Saudi Arabia. How they start establishing that network in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia for al-Qaeda? How they conducted the East Africa Embassy bombing? What we knew after the East Africa bombing was after the attack took place? What is the result of the investigation of the work, the great work of the CIA and the FBI and DOD and all the different elements and entities that's working together? What's all the disruptions that we did in between the East Africa Embassy bombing and the USS Cole? The Millennium operation, for example, in Jordan, the different threats that took place around the world. How important was these kind of disruptions that took place? Like, for example, in Operation Challenge in the UK, Operation Challenge was an operation that we did with the SO-13, which is the anti-terrorism branch at the time in Scotland Yarn. And it targeted an individual named Khaled Fawaz and some of his colleagues. And Khaled Fawaz was a person who actually established the network in Nairobi that conducted the East Africa Embassy bombings. He's the very first guy who established that network. And then he tried to establish a similar network in Europe. And he was assisted to do that by some Egyptian Islamic jihad members. From their office, they send actually from across the street from their office. They send the claims of responsibility for Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. When we did the operation in London, we had a treasure trove of information that we got about the whole Khayda network in Europe, actually in the world. And how it's linked to Afghanistan and to Pakistan. And this is not because of statements of any individual, it's because of their whole archive system was in 1A Beethoven in London. That's the address of their office. Then the USS Cole and all the stuff that we knew from the USS Cole to include a statement from Fahd Al Queso, one of the coordinator of the attack. And he was supposed to videotape the operation when it took place. And the information that Fahd Al Queso gave us could have stopped 9-11. And then after 9-11, all the successes that we had, we had a lot of successes. But we also had some things that's going to, you know, it's, I think the only way I'm going to say it, it's going to damage our reputation for a while around the world. Because if it damaged our reputation in the United States among our people, it is going to damage our reputation around the world. And for what? These enhanced interrogation techniques, the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, these 12 steps, as appalling as they are to people like you and me. They are nothing, they are nothing compared to what these guys are expecting when they go to a jail in Egypt or to jails in the Middle East. There is nothing. Waterboarding, waterboarding is like a drinking tea in an Egyptian jet. You know, the treatment didn't even start. So why do you want to take a detainee to a route where you're already proving to him that everything he believes about you is true because of the way you are treating him. And when you do half torture, because in a democracy, we have a red line. That red line here, the glass ceiling, is waterboarding. So we cannot do anything after waterboarding. So what do we do? We keep doing it again and again and again. In the case of Abu Zubayda, we did it 83 times. In the case of Kalachek Mohammed, 183 times. What do you realize that this is not working? I mean, no wonder he didn't say anything. He doesn't have time to breathe. When do we realize that this is not working? So why do you give that detainee a sense of control of his destiny because that's exactly what he's expecting. And instead of outsmarting them. And believe me, those guys are even the smartest people in the organization. From my experience, they are not that smart. Because if they are, think about it, they won't be doing what they were doing. Logic, linear thinking, critical thinking is not part of their vocabulary. Which makes it easy to break. And I talk about so many interrogations in the book. And these interrogations I can talk about now because they have been declassified by the US government. Or because I testified about them in court. Bin Laden's personal secretary, a person that we have no idea who he was. He was considered in Guantanamo as part of the good guys. That he's not kind. We arrested him by mistake and brought him to Getma. After an hour talking to him, he looks at me and he said, well, you know what? I am Anas al-Makki. I'm Bin Laden's secretary. What do you want? And I said to him, do you want to have some tea? And he was having a cookie and he already, you know, almost spit it out. He said, I just told you who I am and you're telling me if I want to drink tea? He said, well, I already knew who you are. But now I'm respecting you so I'm giving you some tea. And guess what? We did the interrogation right. We get the intelligence that we wanted. We prosecuted the guy in Guantanamo and he will never see the light of the day again. KSM has been in custody for how long and today we heard that there will be not even a trial this year. It's for next year. The end game. We're a democracy. We're the best country on earth even with everything that happened. And let me tell you something. We're not going to take any of these guys put a bullet in their heads and bury them under a tree. What are you going to do with them towards the end? So when I opposed in his interrogation techniques I did not oppose it from a moral perspective. And I had the courage to somebody tell me, ask me, will you torture some guy if you will get the information to save life? It will be a very, very difficult situation but guess what? I think deeply in my heart yes I will because there's a big difference between compliance and between cooperation. Cooperation you see it in the Aboujandal 302 that was released and declassified by the Senate. Bin Laden's personal bodyguard. Hundreds of pages that talks about everything you want to know about Al Qaeda. And we talk about how we get the interrogation and how we did the interrogation myself and my partner, special agent Bob McFadden from NCIS and how we get the intelligence that's needed. Bin Laden's personal driver Hamdan, Bin Laden's personal secretary and we go one after another after another. Awali, Stephen Godin who was one of the FBI agents in New York who interrogated him and get the information that we needed from him regarding the link between the East Africa Embassy bombing and between the between the Bin Laden network. So we talk about how we get a lot of the intelligence and a lot of the information. This is accurate, actionable intelligence. The most important thing when you want intelligence is to get accurate intelligence. Not false intelligence that's going to take you like chasing your tail around the world. Compliance is different. Compliance is what I am telling you when you're interrogating me because I know that's what you want to hear. I want you to stop the better treatment so I tell you whatever you want to hear. And I gave an example that has been declassified by the Armed Services Committee, the example of Ibn Sheikh Al-Libi. Ibn Sheikh Al-Libi was tortured in a third country. It's not the enhanced interrogation techniques it's way beyond that. It's torture. He went to another country that did that job. Ibn Sheikh Al-Libi admitted that Saddam and Bin Laden are working together on developing WMD. People in Washington were high fiving each other. The analysts in the CIA refused to give the information. The analysts in the FBI refused to give the information and now we got the information. See all of you guys are wrong. We got what we want. Column Powell went to the UN. I think all of you guys remember the security council. He spoke about the information that Ibn Sheikh Al-Libi gave us regarding WMD and he mentioned him by name Ibn Sheikh Al-Libi, gave the information. After we went to Iraq we found out two things. First, Saddam and Al-Qaeda are not working together. Second, there's no WMDs. So they went back to him and they said why did you lie? To paraphrase what he said. He said well you were torturing me. I gave you what you wanted to hear. Compliance. Tragic. Lots of blood. Treasure. Foreign policy. Influence. You name it. That's compliance. So yes you can get the information that you want. But is it accurate information? And then to finish we were told, all of us, about what's the information that we got from enhanced interrogation techniques that saved lives. We were told it's because of waterboarding. We knew that Jose Pidea, the alleged dirty bomber, was going to detonate a dirty bomb in the New York area. We knew that because of that KSM was identified as a mastermind of 9-11. Or we knew about the plot to blow up apartment buildings in the United States. Or about the plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and so forth. With all the respect to people who told us this, I was there. We did not get that information because of EITs. We did not get the information because of waterboarding. Waterboarding did not start until the summer of 2002. Jose Pidea was in custody after an international manhunt in three different countries in May of 2002. Unless you have a time machine, you're going to have a problem with the timeline. KSM, we knew about him as a mastermind of 9-11. In April of 2002 waterboarding did not start until the end of July 2002. Verbally July 25th. Written order August 1st. So how can you justify that? And these things are not, these things are now the result of a lot of government programs and government, sorry, government declassified documents from the DOJ to the Office of Professional Responsibility. Actually the Office of Professional Responsibility declassified the report last year and it was amazing. Mr. Bradbury who was trying to reinstate the 2000 and 2005 the Enhanced Intrigation Program after the CIA IG you know how shelving that program mentioned that timeline that I just mentioned to you in his memo. So the investigators in the DOJ asked, well wait a second, Pidea was arrested in May 2002. Waterboarding did not happen until August of 2002. So how can you, how can you say it's because of that? He said no you know in the efficacy memo they said that waterboarding, they said that Pidea was arrested in May 2003 not May 2002. So they went back and they found out he was arrested in May 2002. He said why didn't you check the fact that they gave you a wrong date? He said my job is not to check facts. I'm not making that up. Google it. OPR report. So this is why I felt obligated that we need to put the truth out. And the truth is not a truth about who's right and who's wrong. It's not a truth about FBI. It's not a truth about CIA. It's not the truth about DOJ or DOD. You will see in the book that each one of these entities that I mentioned they have heroes in the book. It's about people in the field who knew better and who were told not to follow up on what they know because Washington knows better. And that's why ladies and gentlemen 400 Kaida guys on the eve of 9-11 lasted in a war longer than any other war that we fought. And it goes back to the golden rule of warfare. Sun Tzu said long time ago if you know your enemy and know yourself you will win a hundred times in a hundred battles. Unfortunately we forget about who we are and we definitely did not take time to learn about the enemy. Thank you very much. Thank you Ali. That was a brilliant summation of the themes of the book. What did you call it the black banners? This again to show how little we know about the enemy. There's a alleged saying for the prophet Hadid that said towards the end of time black banners will come to from Khorasan Khorasan and historic area in Central Asia and they will be victorious. They won't stop until they erect their flag near Bayt al-Makdis Jerusalem. So if you see them it's your religious duty to follow them. That hadid was quoted to me many times by Kaida members and they truly believe that this is the end of times and they truly believe that it is their role to fight for the sake of the prophet because that's an order given to them by the prophet. I wanted people to know about the cult that al-Qaeda created. There's a cult there is a counterculture counterculture even within Islam even within Sunni radical Islam and that's something we don't know about and that's something we're not very familiar with but this is important this is who they are. This is what they believe in. This is ideology that sustained them as a group. Even they changed you know in Sudan people thought it's probably the end of al-Qaeda they want to Afghanistan and they changed in Afghanistan and they became a different entity. The same thing in after 9-11 we thought it was the end of al-Qaeda after Tora Bora and after all the arrests that took place in Pakistan in Faisalabad and many different areas around Pakistan. However they were able to switch from being chief motivator chief operator to being chief motivators and they created different al-Qaeda's. So now we have al-Qaeda central command that's headed by Zawahiri and it's interesting that the term central command now is being used by al-Qaeda statements and then you have al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula. You have al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. You have al-Qaeda in Iraq but each one of these al-Qaeda's are totally different. They recruit differently they get their money for different reasons their funding for different reasons in Islamic Maghreb. We start seeing alliance between some radical Islamists from Algeria with some groups tribal groups in the border area between Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Now they are expanding and they start to have some you know operational relationship with Baku Haram in Nigeria in Iraq totally different. They don't care about many of these local issues that Islamic Maghreb cares about they care about the problem between Sunnis and Shiites and trying to create more factions between them and more war between Sunnis and Shiites because that's how they get their money and their funding from people in the Gulf who really thinks fighting the Shiite in Iran in Iraq will stop Iranian influence in Iraq. You look at al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula it's two different factions now it's the Saudi factions and it's the Yemeni factions and their operation is totally different than the operation in the other two areas. Now we see them trying to be part of the fabric political opposition in the south and taking advantage of that insurgency very similar way to what they did in the Sunni triangle in Iraq at the very beginning. So now there is legitimate concerns in southern Yemen there are people who believe that their rights their lands has been confiscated by the south and by the Salih regime and those individuals have a lot of problem with the north unfortunately now al-Qaeda came in the middle of this and they start to give the support and the funding for a lot of these entities and the only reason I think that we can separate them from is to force the Salih regime to negotiate with the opposition down south exactly like General Petraeus did in Iraq in negotiating in the Sunni triangle with the Sunni tribes this is the only way when al-Qaeda showed their own skins and start killing other Sunnis because they are negotiating. I think every Qaeda has different regional social economic political incubator that makes it function in that region so it's very different but there is one thing in common between all of them this kind of ideology the ideology that they are doing something because it's the end of time they are doing something because this is their religious duty to do it and this is what the Prophet wanted them to do. So how would you assess the claim that this doesn't have much to do with Islam or religion? It doesn't because actually that hadith is a very questionable hadith and even Salman al-Aouda who was a Saudi scholar who supported al-Qaeda at the beginning and he ended up in Saudi jail after the first Gulf War. Bin Laden mentioned him in his declaration of jihad in 1996 and he also mentioned him in the claims of responsibility for the East Africa Embassy bombing both bombings in Nairobi and Arsalaam. He said that this is a questionable hadith and this is not an accurate hadith. This is a counterculture that they created for themselves and interestingly enough Peter that hadith is also mentioned by Shia and they believe that the black banner will come from Kufa from Iraq and some of them believe it comes from Iran and Horasan is more Iran than Afghanistan. So both Sunnis and Shia use their hadith and a lot of the radical Hezbollah or radical revolutionary guard people if you actually talk to them they basically believe that Khamini is the leader of the black banners. How would you want a company which obviously you're a very busy man with your business. How did you go about your writing process and Daniel Friedman is here and he's your kind of co-author. How did that how did you work this? Well it was at the beginning I had to put down the information and Dan played with the information and made it basically readable because if you trust me with the information I'll probably confuse the reader more than I confused most of the people today when I'm talking. So Dan was extremely helpful in putting this together. And what was your writing process you wrote in the morning before going to work or how did you? It was every time I have free time sometimes in the morning sometimes at night sometimes on the plane you know it depends. You mentioned the book has heroes it also has some villains but let's talk about the heroes. John O'Neill is clearly a hero in the book. Yep. He was sort of a mentor. John O'Neill was an interesting guy he was a legend in the FBI especially when it comes to national security he was a special agent in charge in the New York office for national security at the time terrorism and foreign counter intelligence with all the different branches came under one umbrella umbrella of national security and John was in charge of that. John one of these people who basically knew about the threat and knew that it's only about time for something as big as 9-11 to take taking place. Unfortunately for many reasons he became very disappointed with the FBI and he retired about a week before 9-11 only to take a job at the head of security as a World Trade Center. Unfortunately on 9-11 the threat that John was always warning about happened and John was a victim of it. He died in the World Trade Center. But he's a guy that I learned a lot from. I consider him as a mentor. Our relationship became stronger and stronger during the U.S. call because he was on the ground most of the time and I learned the importance of focusing on the details and not drinking the Kool-Aid and jumping on the bandwagon. How unusual was it to be an Arab speaker at the FBI before 9-11 and how many Arabic speakers do you think are at the FBI now? And do you know George Pirro who of course is Saddam Hussein's interrogation? Right. No I don't know George well but I met him a couple of times. I think we have honestly I truly believe that we're probably at the same level. Now the Bureau will tell you we have a lot of people who speak Arabic but they speak Arabic after learning Arabic as a second language. As you know with Arabic you need to if you want to speak it as a second language you have to be you have to live overseas because there's it's a language that have a lot of window windows. The culture affects the language so much without understanding both it's very difficult to carry on you know an interrogation for example and in Arabic. So I think the numbers are probably in the same field and I think we need to do more in recruiting native speakers. Where were you when bin Laden died? I was home I was putting together a very complicated baby chair. Congratulations. Thanks. It was very complicated all these maps that they give you they don't work. And then I had the greatest excuse not to finish it because the president was talking about bin Laden's death and that was my excuse to my wife. Were you surprised about how he died without putting up a resistance or where he died in Abdubad? How long it took to find him? I was surprised that we found him in you know I knew most of probably he will be in Pakistan but I was I was surprised that it was a town that hosted the Pakistani's West Point and literally like a few yards from the gate where you know it's very difficult for me to believe that in a town like this knowing Pakistan and you know Pakistan they don't know who lives in each one of the houses especially with all the terrorism and stuff like that that's taken place. It's very difficult that the Pakistanis or some elements not everyone in Pakistan some elements in Pakistan did not know about him being there. When you interrogated members of al-Qaeda after 9-11 did they ever give you a kind of really unvarnished assessment of bin Laden or was he I mean the sense that you know he didn't really have much of a plan in Torah Barah. He didn't you know he... Yes it's extremely interesting how al-Qaeda members view these things. Bin Laden cannot do wrong in their mind. I mean when we talk about sports he's the best sportsman in the world. When we talk about soccer everyone wants bin Laden to be on their team because the Sheikh knows how to score goals when he talks. He is the best in everything I mean this guy have a God image to these people and I mean those are the the muscles the operational people. I think when you go to individuals like Abu Zubaydah and Haia Robb they are more critical but still they are very hesitant to say bad things about about the person that they gave Baya to. Baya means he owns your life he tells you die you will die he tells you live you will live. So you have to have a lot of trust or a lot of idealism to an individual to give them a Baya. Baya means oath and Arabic right? But oath of allegiance. Have you seen the film The Oath about Salim Hamdan? No not yet. I think you find it interesting. Are you concerned I mean there are about a hundred Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo. Do you think they'll be there for yes I mean for I don't I think this is one of the biggest problems in closing Guantanamo it's what to do with the Yemeni detainees. Do you have any ideas? Do you have any sense of how long it might take? I think that the situation is going to be very difficult especially with what's happening today in Yemen. We we investigated the call we arrested all the people who were involved in the call and you know I'm being a little bit sarcastic but somebody forgot to lock the jail so they escaped. Twice. Twice and then they only came back after they negotiated with Saleh that they will surrender if he give them clemency and they don't go to jail. And this is for example Badawi who had a capital punishment on him by a Yemeni judge and we help the Yemenis prosecute them. Then we did another operation we arrested them again and we did it jointly with NCIS and the military. It's a fusion cell that existed in Yemen at the time. They were planning to do some hits on the American Embassy, the French Embassy, the British Embassy, Italian Embassy and you're going to love this one the Cuban Embassy. They want to blow up the Cuban Embassy because of the Guantanamo Bay. And I wish we didn't miss that you know. Sorry I didn't mean that. So we arrested them we put them we prosecuted them actually this Yemeni said no they have to be prosecuted there so we went we prosecute we worked with the Yemeni prosecution team it was you know reported on the media and everything that we were there put them in jail and then they dug a tunnel supposedly and they escaped and the people who escaped were the people that you hear about today as the leaders of al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula Nasr al-Hashif for example who was known as Abu Basiri Yemeni one of bin Laden's close assistants Abdullah Rimi Qasim Rimi sorry Qasim Rimi was a little player then he wasn't that important when we arrested him Abu Huraira Sanani and the people that you see now Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula are people who escaped plus the number two guy the big bomb maker who was involved in every bomb making plot from the cargo to the dirty bomber to the assassination attempt on Muhammad bin Naif he was in Guantanamo and we sent him back to the Saudis and he escaped from Saudi Arabia went to Yemen and he joined al Qaeda in Yemen creating him and Abu Basir meaning Nasr al-Hashif what we know today as al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula you meant so what do you want to do you know you send them to Yemen you're going to have more people to worry about over there you mentioned Nashiri the leader of the coal operation yes he's going to go on trial in Guantanamo it's going to be a military commission right and he will probably face the death penalty almost certainly right right will you be a testifying in the trial absolutely are you concerned about military commissions as a venue for justice why I actually look you know it's something interesting with the military commission the US government cannot force you if you're not part of the government to go down and testify because they don't have authority over you as citizens but I went down and testified against Hamdan I testified against Bahlu you know you know almost two other trials I met with both the defense in the prosecution because I get the confessions from the guys and thankfully the two guys flood guilty so we don't have to worry about you know going down and having a trial so I've been involved from the beginning with the military commission and I truly believe that you know we are at war and we have a lot of tools in our toolbox and we need to use whatever we have in the toolbox to win that war I don't believe it's either or I don't believe it's I believe in the federal system I believe in the title three courts I believe they are extremely effective but also I believe that sometimes we don't have the we don't meet the threshold that's required in a title three court but however we know that the person like not sure if for example is an evil guy so why don't we use the military commission and I worked in the military I worked I you know didn't work for them I testified during military commission so I had the pleasure and the honor to work both with the prosecution and with the defense and let me tell you the military commissions those people have more rights than maybe most of the countries around the world with with the prosecutions so it's not a kangaroo court I hate one I hear the term I think the military prosecutors and the defense are doing their job to prosecute these people and to guarantee that justice is being served and I think somebody like Hamdan for example I believe sometimes that the threshold the sorry I believe sometimes the the the federal court are more effective because somebody like Hamdan if he found guilty on the same charges in a federal court yeah he will be in jail for at least 12 years in Guantanamo they didn't they did not have at the time sentencing guidelines so he got like four years time served or something like this and they sent him back to Yemen so I believe that the military commissions have its role but also the federal system have its role and there's not there's no system better than the other it depends on the detainee and it depends on the terrorist are you concerned about I mean the way that we're dealing with high level members of al Qaeda now is we're essentially killing them with drone strikes there are some advantages perhaps in the sense that you don't have to I mean there might be some advantages in the sense that you don't have to detain them in the legal morass of Guantanamo right obviously there's some disadvantages and you can't interrogate them there's no pocket litter there's no computers there's no cell phones how do you come down on that issue I mean we just I think just two different things I think the people who are we killing in the in drones are people who are far away in areas like in the in in the feta region or in north waziristan or in in Yemen in a place that it's going to be extremely difficult to send the troops and special forces and seal steam just to arrest the individual so it's going to cause a lot of problems so I think it is better if you know they are sitting there they are conspiring they want to carry an attack I say you know sorry I'm not trying to be insensitive but wag them you know kill them before they kill us that's how I look at it now I disagree that we're killing everyone we have been arresting a lot of people just recently for example before 9 11 we arrested del moritani right and so if an individual if there's an individual that we can arrest no we're grabbing we're not killing but if there's people who are really far away we use a drone this is a very first question the second part of the question is I don't think the drone will change the strategy of the war I think the drone missiles give us tactical wins but these tactical wins won't change the strategy because of the nature of al-qaeda because we're not you know combating the narrative we're not combating the ideology we're not dealing with the local and regional incubators that's creating this this problem and but I think I think it give us a lot of tactical wins in the process one final question you mentioned NCIS which stands for naval criminal investigative services and your closest partner was Bob McFadden who was is that an unusual kind of where the FBI and the naval criminal investigation no actually it's interesting my very first partner when I joined in the FBI at the terrorism task force with a CIA officer and then I had an FBI partner and then with the USS Cole we had an NCIS agent assigned to the JTTF in New York the time of the call I think the JTTF in New York had probably about 35 different agencies and we always worked very closely together then after the call attack in October 12th of 2000 Bob was assigned as a case agent from NCIS and we usually work great with other agencies so John O'Neill came and told me that he's going to be a person from NCIS they have to work with and we bonded and we're still best friends until today actually he just retired a few months ago and we work together now great I'm going to throw it open to questions if you could identify yourself before and wait for the microphone and questions or encourage not statements so who has where's Jen if you come to the front here Alex this option I'm representing myself here question is my question is the following many people claim that al-Qaeda is basically over that it will never be able to mount an operation such as sophisticated operation like 9-9-11 some people say that arabic spring might breathe new life into something al-Qaeda likeish what is your forecast what is your prognosis how long this war is going to last is that another 10 years it's another generation what is what is this war the end one more thing in what you said remind me very much about the docker drama passed on 9-11 which is practically banned for any practical purpose in the U.S. what do you think of this docker drama passed to 9-11 it was shown in abc in september 2006 five-year university to start with the last portion of the question i seriously didn't see the drama i didn't watch it i don't watch a lot of things about 9-11 and stuff like that personally and i uh it's the first question i think al-Qaeda that attacked us on 9-11 doesn't exist anymore you know there's still members from that organization that exists but i think al-qaeda i think you know peter you talked about qaeda 2.0 i think now we're al-qaeda 3.0 it's a different organization however we should not take it as a paper tiger in any way shape or form i think the wahiri is a an organized person i think the wahiri will be happy uh to carry out an attack if he can and he needs to carry out an attack in order to give legitimacy for his leadership among the other factions in al-qaeda so we have to keep our eyes on the ball we cannot just let it go um now i think it's way difficult for them at this point to carry an attack for many reasons um as for the uh as as for the portion about the arab spring i think the arab spring definitely dealt another blow to al-qaeda like the death of bin laden because now the ideology that we have to focus on the far enemy rather than the close enemy which is a big difference between the jihadi qaeda type and the jahidic type uh does not exist anymore because now people believe that if you uh focus in changing your own destiny with your own hands without using terrorism without using uh you know uh bad evil ways the people the the united states and the whole world and nato and everybody will be with you and libya is is an example of that egypt is an example of that tunisia as an example of that um so however this might create down the road a problem and we have to keep our eyes open to see what's going on in libya for example and who is going to be you know in charge of in libya because there are elements uh who are radical islamists not necessarily qaeda but they are radical islamists people as a few years ago they were on the terrorist watch lists uh you know the libyum fighting a group for example the leader of the libyum fighting group abdallah sadaq uh is actually bilhaj the leader of tripoli today uh he's a person that was arrested before he's a person that uh uh was invited to our secret sites for some special treatments and given given back to each to to to to libya uh so these guys are now grueling libya so we have to monitor how how they do it will they be inclusive or they will be exclusive and what's happening today in libya is is is very nice uh you know not nice very very important situation to monitor same thing we're talking about yemen you know if we allowed al qaeda to become fabric of the legitimate opposition in the south then we're going to create a big problem with the arabian peninsula al qaeda and the arabian peninsula and al qaeda and the arabian peninsula won't be only fahd el koso and jamal badawi and other people al qaeda and the arabian peninsula then will be uh all the southern people in yemen who have legitimate concerns against the north so we have to be very careful on all these things it's not over the threat is not over and i think we have to keep monitoring it the threat is changing as i said and now it is more into regional and local uh issues that's making al qaeda organize itself again and gain uh territorial sanctuary among some people uh again how do you come down on the idea of that there should be some kind of commission that would investigate coercive interrogations you know i i was against it before i said you know what people will know the truth we declassified all these documentations people can read but to be honest with you at this point i think we need something like this we need to tell uh the american people once and for all uh is was this effective on every level or wasn't it effective i mean when i talk about the efficacy i don't only talk about if that guy gave us a structure of al qaeda that we already have you know i'll talk about what value did we really get from these techniques how did it affect our influence around the world and how did it affect our strategy domestically and with our allies because i come from a school of thought that there should be a perfect synergy between your laws your morality and your strategy and if that synergy doesn't exist you ain't going you ain't getting anywhere it's called hypocrisy i think exactly um hi my name is antony i'm a consultant on economic development out of the reviews and other material that's been written about your book is there anything that you would consider both fundamentally critical of the arguments you've made especially on interrogation and also well informed and intellectually honest in other words have those who take a different position from you engaged with your arguments substantively uh no they never mentioned anything yet uh the reviews has been good that has been people who know about what they are talking about see there's a big difference between people who uh look into facts and use facts to reach their conclusion and people who already have a predetermined conclusion and cherry pick facts to support their argument argument and i think people like peter for example um cherry picks all the time cherry pixels they will figure it out immediately when when they say it well let me ask you a little more um on the the courier the cabinet al-kuwaiti really the information came from people who were coercively interrogated actually from what uh has been declassified i don't know much about the information that led to bin laden i knew about the kuwaiti before but not information that led to bin laden uh from what we know today that after 183 sessions of waterboarding kala cheikh muhammad downplayed the role of al-kuwaiti said he's basically he's a nobody uh so is abu farijal liby and uh one of al-qaeda commanders and later on years later in 2005 they arrested uh no more than that they arrested hasan gul in iraq hasan gul and from what we understand from senator feinstein what she said before getting to any treatment and hasan gul i don't believe he get to waterboarding he wasn't waterboarded he wasn't anything he uh he was actually released and sent back to pakistan he's now free free um he basically immediately upon his arrest they asked him how do you get to bin laden uh to kala cheikh muhammad or to abu faraj or to bin laden if you want to pass a message and he said i go through that guy al-kuwaiti so a smart CIA analyst back in langley said wait a second why ksm is lying about him and why abu faraj is lying about him he must be important now if you tell me that is a proof that enhance interrogation techniques and waterboarding works i have a great price for you and a bridge in brooklyn well let me uh let me press you on that a little bit um there was katani the 20th hijacker right um he was subjected to susan crawford who was a judge appointed by reagan said the i know i talked to katani right the treatment that he received was uh tantamount to torture and he couldn't be prosecuted right he also identified amit kuhadi um now the question is you know in a totally different context right he identified him as a person who was heading the guest house in karachi right he was at the guest house in karachi he also said that he trained him um before he came to the united states to be the 25th yeah and i actually i talked to katani about that what did he say this is this is basically i have to keep in mind that a lot of these things are still classified right so i'm talking around stuff that i already heard people in the administration and people in the government talking about but that's basically that is that is the idea of it and uh and and now we actually know more than that now we know why he was the head of karachi uh guest house right for pakistan because he's he's not a kuhadi he's a pakistani born in kuhayt and who's a pakistani born in kuhayt kalachek muhammad so kalachek muhammad being the narcissistic individual that he is doesn't trust anyone he's looking for a mini me somebody like him somebody who basically have the same kind of background that he trust he's in his in a circle and i won't be shocked if ksm knew him back in kuhayt what was your impression of the role of kuhadi before it became clear that he was the bin laden's career you know i and again i have to be very careful on how we i answer this but i can tell you something that in guantanamo after torabora and when we start getting all the visitors to retire in in the caribbean island in guantanamo and we found out that bin laden starts surrounding himself with more kuhadis and that was at the time i thought it's maybe because abu ghayth salman abu ghayth and suddenly he became like high up spokesperson for al-qaeda and then you have another individual who has been with him for a long time abu yusuf al-qannas who is also a kuhadi so we start seeing some kuhadi influence but to be honest with you at the time we never even thought in a million years that maybe because ksm also born in kuhayt that didn't even get to our did the people in tar that you spoke to say that bin laden was at the battle of tarabara he uh he was and then he left he left and then i think soon after they start leaving and evacuating but he left before them and when were they telling you this information in o2 um let me throw it up to other questions in front here andrew ackinson with the csis and the transnational threats project um we were talking about the arab spring and the issue of if islamists take power in libya and yemen especially but what if uh you know another dictator takes power that could kind of lend credence to the near enemy argument do you see that as an issue and do you think that the u.s needs to do something to intervene if that is the case yeah absolutely and i'm not against islamists taken over i'm just against radical islamists taken over because radical islamists have the tendency to take over when they are in power and then they're not going to give back power because they believe that it's ungodly to share power democracy is is is not the right thing to do um and this is this is what makes me scared because that will also create a problem uh over there but yeah definitely if you have a dictatorship uh regime taken over that's going to create actually we go we go back to the 80s and the 70s you know what happened in egypt with the assassination of sadat and it will be history will be repeating itself yes i mean look so far i mean i i like this term the arab spring and everything but if you think that there is there is a legitimate concerns that took a place in the middle east in e in in egypt for example uh people had enough of mubarak and his sons and their cronies but what happened is not a change of the regime what happened is the military that was always in charge of egypt of the egyptian institutions in the 50s since nasser you know told mubarak so many times put a vp put a vp put a vp he didn't want to put a vp so finally when this thing starts happening when there is a legitimate revolution by the egyptian people the military stood on the side protected the people but then when they knew that mubarak is not gonna stay they had to take a decision either they will witness uh 1979 iran all over again or they will eject him out and the military takes over and that's what happened so the regime in egypt is still the same regime didn't change yet tunisia it's still the same regime didn't change up they ejected ben ali but all the main people of the regime and the institution still exist as it was before the ben ali but ben ali and his cronies are out what happened in yemen is more interesting because what happened in yemen today first of all you have an intelligence you have a political elite the tooling the country and this is basically an alliance between ali abdullah salih who can have all the security and the army and the intelligence service and the security bureau and the central security and he put all his you know children and nephews in in these positions and between uh al-ahmar clan hashad all the tribes of hashad led now by sadiq al-ahmar the son of hussain al-ahmar who used to be the speaker of the parliament when the revolution of egypt and tunisia when that arab spring came to yemen it caused a fraction in in in the government elite so now they are against each other however the people in tahir square of san'a if you want to call it they do not have any alternative for salih and the opposition of salih al-ahmar and their associates are not really like nor trusted by the people so the situation in yemen is very different and then think about it this way and then think about south yemen that has a legitimate concerns against the north that goes back way before the arab spring you know there's issues about land confiscation there's issues about money for the families for people who used to serve in the army during the south south of yemen there's issues about political representation there are a lot of legitimate issues so now al-qaeda is trying to take advantage of all these legitimate issues and saying look we're here to support you I mean I read an article the other day one big tribal leader in south of yemen jeffrey he was saying to I think one of the press media entities forget which one they were interviewing him he said well we asked the government to promise to send us six teachers for our area for the school six teachers fahd al-qusso one of the coal bombers he came with 16 teachers and then you blame us for supporting them and giving them giving them access to our land and access to our houses I mean these are the issues that al-qaeda is trying advantage of so if we support salih in basically in his war against the south because salih claims everybody in the south is al-qaeda well not everyone is al-qaeda okay if al-qaeda is very very small fraction of what's happening in abyan and zanzibar even so if you look into this and you support him then al-qaeda is going to be in the same position as they were in iraq with the sunni triangle with the sunnis that they become they become part of the fabric of the counter insurgency against the government so we have to be very careful about that there is a thin line between targeting al-qaeda and between supporting salih and we have to don't cross that line so the adab spring is a scary I mean a lot of people saying I was in the middle east just a few weeks ago and everybody is talking about the new birth of the middle east right and I said well let's see how the child is going to look like so it's all fine and dandy but that child might have five heads you know affected by the iranian nuclear this lady here hello sir thank you for your remarks you've raised a lot of questions but i'll try to limit to one i'm lieutenant colonel Lorraine Barlett with the office military commissions I'm on the defense side representing a client but my question doesn't have to do with that instead I'd like you to please comment concerning the arab spring harkening back for the last 10 years a little I guess represented issue that doesn't get much press for obvious reasons is some of the motives that the al-qaeda have stated particularly relating to Palestine in your opinion how does the arab spring affect what's going on right now as far as the greater arab world and the view about the the emergence of a palestinian state and do you believe that if the united states were to essentially switch its position would that assist us in resolving some of our ongoing conflicts in the middle east in other words if we instead of vetoing what's pending at the un if we if we came around and decided to support the emergence of a palestinian state would that have the strategic impact of lessening our threat from al-qaeda thank you right I honestly think that al-qaeda's threat today with everything that's happening in in in the arab spring is not that significant that it has to impact our voting in the united nation on the palestinian states I mean there's a lot of other issues that we have to think about and I think for example the problem that's happening today in Egypt between the Islamic Brotherhood and the Salafis and the liberal groups is way more important and we need to focus on it way more than the other stuff that we're focusing on with al-qaeda now as for what's happening today in the arab spring we start realizing today that there is in Egypt for example in many other countries around there's a huge support for the Palestinians and the new governments even the military government in Egypt has to be extremely careful on how to deal with the Arab-Israeli issue it's not like it was under Mubarak and we saw that recently not only with what's happening in Sainab but also what's happening with the borders in Rafah what's happening but I think in the same time overall in the Arab countries they are very nervous even many Arab nations are very nervous about the creation of new Palestinian states because nobody knows how this Palestinian state's going to be there is a whole issue of Hamas there is a whole issue of Mahmoud Abbas there is alliances that these countries these entities there is the Palestinians don't even have one voice on this issue like even Hamas for example Hamas is against a Palestinian state and they think of Mahmoud Abbas is betraying the Palestinian cause by announcing Palestinian states for the 1967 borders because they believe Palestine is all of Palestine 1948 included so there's a lot of issues that need to actually be solved and I think many of the Arab countries having a lot of concerns about these issues and many Arab countries they don't even want a Palestinian state like Syria for example I don't think the Syrians would love to have an issue this is a card Lebanon and the Palestinian issue is a card that they've been playing for the longest time and they don't want to lose that strategic card but I think the point of the question is if we had a more even-handed kind of approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that that would take some of the anger out of the the drives al-Qaeda and like might it might it might from al-Qaeda's perspective but think about it this way what did al-Qaeda do for the Palestinians? they didn't conduct one operation for the sake of Palestine you know if you want to talk about the Palestinian I think maybe Hassan Nasrallah from Hezbollah did more than al-Qaeda for the issue of Palestine so al-Qaeda just uses that and most of the people that we talk to about al-Qaeda they have a lot of other reasons to hate the United States I mean if you wanted to make al-Qaeda happy get rid of the Saudi monarchy that will give them happy well you know we're not going to do that so there's always an issue so there's always an issue even if we give if you wanted to satisfy few hundred Qaeda members around the world and change our policy to satisfy these few hundred Qaeda members around the world there's a lot of things we can change around the world and we need to change you know the Saudis are part of them the oil prices are another part they truly believe even with the you know a hundred dollar barrel that we're stealing the oil I mean there's a lot of issues and again logic and common sense doesn't exist now if we were more even-handed if as Peter was saying in this issue will we will be more will be more receptive in the region maybe but I think foreign policy especially in that region is way more complicated than only the Arab-Israeli issue way more complicated than that okay we have about five minutes and maybe we'll and we're going to have 10 minutes for Mr. Tufan is very kindly agreed to sign some books so Jen if we could go in the back and just grab some questions there hi how you doing I'm Adam Serwer from Mother Jones I just want to know why do you think the FBI has had such trouble recruiting more native Arab speakers it's the bureau since 9-11 I really have no idea Adam I mean I wish I can tell you but I have no idea I think I think many Arab Americans today when they hear the FBI they think of them as subjects not as agents and I think that's a big problem we have to we have to deal with and we have to fix that's unfortunate but that's reality why did you leave the FBI I think I had enough just you know I had enough of the bureaucracy not necessarily of the bureau but the overall government I mean I truly believe in one thing I think you lead you be led or you get the heck out of the way and since I couldn't do the first two I get the heck out of the way any other in back yeah Hi Christina Lam from the Sunday Times that was fascinating I wanted to ask you what you learn in your interrogations and in your work about relations between Pakistan's ISI and Al-Qaeda from the interrogations we didn't learn much about that with the people that I was interrogating you know nothing significant from that however I mean it's not a secret that the ISI thinks of non-state actors or some elements at least in the ISI thinks of non-state actors and think of you know some of them are terrorist groups like Lashkar Tayyiba like other elements Haqqani network as a proxy for Pakistani interest in Central Asia and I think we have to look at it from their perspective I think countries don't have friendships countries have national interest and our national interest today in Pakistan and Afghanistan is very different than the ISIs and some people in Pakistan's national interests we are looking into Pakistan we're looking into Afghanistan saying how the heck can we get out without guaranteeing that transnational terrorist group will use it again for attack to launch attack against us and against the West and they are looking at it how can we guarantee India doesn't take over and how we can guarantee we establish a strategic depth to support Pakistan and how do we do that we do that with the Taliban we do that with the Haqqani network we do that with other elements that exists I mean the Haqqani network has been always the main proxy for the ISI in Pakistan even during the Northern Alliance times before and the wars was going on early on after the Mujahideen took over Kabul and the Taliban Pakistan supported the Taliban and when the Taliban took Kabul Haqqani Jalaluddin Haqqani actually became a minister in the Taliban government for tribal affairs I believe if I'm not mistaken because this is what the ISI in Pakistan wants him to do from the time against the Soviets from our war against the Soviets in Afghanistan because we were involved in that war against the Soviet and the ISI always entrusted Hikmatiyar group and Hikmatiyar group the main commander for Hikmatiyar group in Pakistan in that region on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was Jalaluddin Haqqani so if you want the Pakistanis to give up Jalaluddin Haqqani it's like asking us to give up a strong ally for us in the world and that's that's not going to happen for the Pakistani are you a Shia Muslim I'm both my mom and my dad one parent is Shia one parent is Sunni is that useful when you're interrogating people yeah you know if you're a Hezbollah I can interrogate you as Shia as long as you're American okay this lady here with her hat in the middle thank you especially you know it's awesome to argue religion over scotch good afternoon Mr. Suthan and I want to tell you I really admire you I read The Looming Tower and a number of books and you've been featured in them and thank you for your service to our country you don't know how much I admire you I want to ask you a question we always look for a U.S. response to trying to resolve the issues of radical ideology in the Middle East now what are the Islamic countries or Arab countries doing about it themselves you said there's this radical ideology that looks at the this is the end of days you can't negotiate with something like that it's very difficult you're dealing with someone who's looking at something with a different cosmic reality what are they doing the U.S. we have a lot of commitments around the world maybe in over 179 countries and what what can what can they do to help their own situation it destabilizes their own countries having that type of al-Qaeda and all these different groups running around I think you hit on a very very important point I think al-Qaeda we have a lot of tactical wins against al-Qaeda but from a strategy perspective we're still behind the eight ball in countering the ideology countering the narrative many countries around the world are doing a lot but they are doing a lot in limiting the threat in their own boundaries like the Saudis for example they have that institute Muhammad bin Naif Institute where they do de-radicalization and they try to basically bring those people back to reality I don't know how successful the program is but they have their own numbers their numbers is probably about 70 percent success maybe I don't know but you go to Indonesia for example there's an ad hoc program going on and dealing with these you know radicals and how you counter it in every Arab country they have or Muslim country they have a program even in countries that has large Muslim communities in India for example now they have a program where they train all the imams and you cannot be just an imam for a mosque without getting a certificate and you know in advance in Singapore they have a phenomenal program of community relation not necessarily religion building stronger community relations and you will see a lot of people in their police service and you know and the intelligence service from the Muslim community and so forth they have great relationship with ustaz over there ustaz is what we call imam so every country has something unfortunately I think we started to do something here in the United States and I think we started to focus recently in the last few years on this issue and trying to study what other countries are doing around the world and I think I believe that our state department is involved in trying to study these issues and phenomenas and even if we want to do something here in the United States to counter the home grown terrorism we have to understand that what works in Minneapolis will be very different than what works in Queens in Minneapolis it's a Somali issue you have to understand Somalia and the reasons people are joining the Shabaab movement Queens you have to understand Afghanistan and Pakistan Brooklyn you have to understand the Palestinian issue so what is the trigger for a person to join a terrorist organization always always even the global jihadi movement always based on local reasons not global reasons and nobody woke up one day and say hey I understand the global jihad of bin Laden of 1996 even the 1996 jihad of Afghanistan this is considered the dissertation on global jihad that bin Laden wrote in August of 1996 or published in August of 1996 and by the way he signed the Khurasan Afghanistan to make subliminal link to the black banners even that it was based on what it was based on our presence in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia is what his homeland what he considers as his homeland the title of it expelled the infidels from the Arabian Peninsula so even the global jihad movement was based in its roots and on local reasons want to thank Alex Yufan for a really brilliant presentation and thank you