Embattled contested arena and certainly they saw Political Parties like we have today they would faint dead away. If they saw seniority in the senate they would faint dead away. If they saw women voting they would faint dead away. If they saw an africanamerican president. They didnt expect the future to be frozen in 1787. So i think we should stop arguing about what the man who wrote the constitution meant and what they wanted and Start Talking about what we want and what we need. Host i think thats a perfect note on which to end this discussion. It was a pleasure to talk to you professor berkin. Guest thank you, thank you. I enjoyed it. Michael morell is next on booktv. He talks about the successes and failures on the war on terror and its current fight against al qaeda and isis. Michael morell has a 30year career in the cia. He was with president bush and briefed him shortly after the 9 11 attacks and also with president obama during the bin laden raid in may of 2011. He is the author of the new bestseller, the great war of our time the cias great fight against terrorism from al qaeda to isis. He is going to be interviewed tonight by cbs reporter david brian. Ladies and gentlemen director Michael Morell and dave bryan. [applause] [applause] thats for you. With your permission i would like to ask first of all thank you for being here. Absolutely, thank you. We are going to talk at length about the book and you will get a chance to answer questions. I will want to see how many people the book is just my recently but how many people a better chance to read the book . And how many of you have gotten a copy of the book . Thats great. You are going to have a great time. Its an easy read and a fascinating book and theres a lot of Important Information there are some of which is very controversial. We are going to start her interview tonight with some very Current Issues taking place right now and i mean today. There are reports on fox news and cnn today that the advisory on terrorism on the military bases and military personnel was raised to the bravo level because of information about a possible attack within the United States from isis. Who better to ask about this than the former Deputy Director of the cia . Tell me if this is something we need to be seriously concerned about. We hear these advisories being raised from time to time. Whats the significance of this one and how concerned should we be . I think its just a matter of time before theres another isis inspired attack in the United States. We have now had to. The first one was in new york several months ago which was an attempted attack with a hatchet on two new York City Police officers and a couple of weeks ago an attempted in. Both of those were inspired by isis. Individuals who had never gone to iraq never gone to syria but who were hearing the isis narrative and the isis message and decided to act. We are going to see that again. I think what we saw on the last couple of days as a result of a couple of things. One is that isis has repeatedly said that we are going to attack the United States because of what the United States is doing against us in iraq and to the persistently called on people to attack u. S. Soldiers and to attack u. S. Military installations so i think that is where it came from. I think we need to take it seriously absolutely. Another issue thats current about a federal law that will run out on sunday at midnight unless the Senate Takes Action to prevent that before that time and that is the phonorecord Surveillance Program the nsa program. Its something you wrote about in your look. You are appointed committee by president obama to look at this when it became public with Edward Edward snowden that revealed a lot of details about the program. If this runs out on sunday night what impact will that have . I think this is a very Important Program. This is the socalled section 215 telephone metadata program. What metadata means is the phone number there received a call and made the call and duration of the call. Thats the information that nsa has. This is a very Important Program because it fills a gap that existed prior to 9 11. I cant prove this to you but i believe if the word inspired and live and we may have seen the communications between the 9 11 hijackers and we may have disrupted that plot so its a very Important Program. But i also believe thats the Security Side of it and thats where i come out this. I also believe in the importance of privacy and civil liberties. There is given the amount of data in here and the type of data in the database there is the potential for government abuse. We know from our history that there have been times where the government has abused its power so we have to take that very seriously. What we recommended to the president for their review group recommend to the president was keep the program but dont have the government hold the data. Have the phone Companies Hold it. The government accepted that recommendation. The president accepted that recommendation and thats what they recommend to congress. Thats what the house passed almost two weeks ago now the usa freedom act and i hope the senate followed suit in passes it. Its important. Lets move on to the next important issue that is current at that has benghazi because last week the first batch of emails of the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton were made public. There are 50,000 or so emails involved only a few hundred were released at that time so there will be more releases in the coming months. First of all heavy look to the emails that were released and is there anything in there thats worthy . The pile of emails that everybodys focused on are the emails from a friend of the clintons Sid Blumenthal who was sending emails about libya prior to the benghazi bombings and benghazi after the benghazi bombings. I have looked through all those. I have to tell you i was underwhelmed by them. I dont think there is any there are, here. Most senior officials in government including me get emails from friends and former colleagues providing you with this thought at that thought or please read this or think is as important. It happens to all senior officials. Happened to the secretary. Its not unusual. Sometimes you pass those on to your staff and say take a look at this. Those emails from Sid Blumenthal never made their way into the highest levels of discussion. I never saw them until i read them two days ago. They never showed up in a deputys conversation or principles conversation. I dont know conversation. I dont know if i analyst saw them or not. I will tell you of my analyst did see them they would put absolute no credibility into the information in there because they would have no idea where the information came from. I dont think they are big deal. Were there and if your man emails were there any viewer emails . One of the issues about this and you talk about it in your book. I want to read you a section of your book. Those arguing against believe by saying thereve been a protest. As one of the issues. Was their protest before the attack on benghazi or was this a planned terrorism attack whacks those who believe by saying there had been a protest cia and dying conspiracy with the white house were trying to hide the hand of al qaeda in the attack and thereby protect president obamas Campaign Theme that hugh is tough on terrorism. Now i think the issue in question was the first part of the analysis that the cia did two days after the attack and they said the assault on the tmf, thats the facility which is what the consulate there was called and benghazi had been a spontaneous event evolved from a protest outside of the tmf. That was the issue i think that people were concerned about. Was it his continuous sort of eruption from a protest or was this a planned terrorism attack . That is what my analyst thought create two days after the event when the analysts that down to say tell the person president what they thought happened i thought this this was a protest that evolved into an attack. That was wrong. They did not get that right. But they didnt get it right because they were trying to be political. They didnt get it right because they didnt have the right information. They didnt have the right information was not presented to them so thats what they thought that they were doing their job calling it like you see it being a referee, being an import umpire. All the judgments they made that day that the only one thats turned out to be wrong. All the other judgments that they made two days after turned out to be right. Thats significant because the administration was saying we are tough on terrorism and winning the war on terrorism. At this was a planned terrorist attack that wouldnt have looked good for the administration. The things they said in those first two days, one of the things they said and they still believe today is there was very little preplanning. This was not an attack that had weeks or months of planning. This was an attack that probably had hours of planning and you can actually see that. We talk about that in the book you can see that in the disorganization of the attack the lack of a military style assault. Release the first attack on the state Department Facility. You had guys run through the gate running all of the compounds looking like they were happy to be in the compound. You had them try to kick down doors in almost a comical farcical fashion and they failed to knock the door down so they would walk away. You have them successfully it inside some buildings were there americans hiding and they dont look for americans. One guy walks out with an xbox and somebody else walks out with a suit. You have them randomly setting fires. This is clearly an event with not a lot of preplanning. The other two attacks that night there was more, they were more like a military assault rate there were two attacks on the cia facility in benghazi which were separate and i think there was more those were more of a military assault because they have more time. They have additional hours to plan those attacks. Two questions flow from that. First of all it seems to me since you had not one but three attacks is harder to believe that this was something spontaneous that wasnt planned in the other thing is it seems to me what you were saying is the original attack on the mission was a just a people that came over with guns who spontaneously decided lets jump over the fence and attack . Is a very good question. The analysts believe and i believe that the analyst believes so im with them on this. Its me too but what the analysts believe is the guys in benghazi saw what happened in cairo earlier in the day and what happened in cairo earlier in the day wasnt a joke guys went to our embassy got over the fence and set fire to vehicles and did a lot of damage. What my analyst believe is the bad guys in benghazi extremist terrorists saw what happened in cairo and said lets do the same thing to the state Department Facility. And they did the assault on the state Department Facility and then they followed the state Department Facility to the cia conducted an attack immediately on the cia facility and were dashed by my security guys. They came back four hours later with much heavier weapons. One of the questions they want to ask yourself is people have pointed to these as this is evidence of preplanning. This is evidence and the effectiveness of the mortal fire. One of the questions you have to ask yourself is that there was a lot of preplanning why would they bring those mortars to the first attack against the state Department Facility for the first attack against the cia facility. Why did they wait until nine hours later . The answer to that question is because they went and got the mortars at the last minute for that attack. People say they brought five mortars and three of them were affected. Why did they only bring five . They had time to fire more than five. The answer is thats all they brought. Thats all they could find in the short trade of time that they planned this operation. The question here in the issue that you raised in the book is did you work in conjunction with the administration . Absolutely not. These were calls with the analysts and one of the things that Everyone Needs to know about analysts at the cia as they take great pride in calling things like they see them. They take great pride in telling policymakers you are wrong about something. They actually like to stick their finger in the policymakers eyes and say you are wrong about that. Theres absolutely no political influence on the analysis here. I didnt tell the analysts what to think of some folks have claimed. The analyst did their job. Director petraeus and i defended the analysts. We both believe that the animals had to say. Director petraeus defended at the next day at a principles meeting. He believed the analyst, i believe the analysts and like i said most judgments have held up including the fact that there are was a preplanned. Ive never seen significant evidence that there was a preplanned. We are going move on to the iraq war. You talk about secretary of state colin powell. A number of occasions in recent years secretary powell has a express chagrin that no one from the Intelligence Community has come forward and apologize to him for putting his welldeserved reputation at risk by arming him with bad intelligence to use as the basis of the u. N. Speech. The cia and the broader Intelligence Community clearly failed the American Public so someone in the chain of command at the time of the iraq wmd analysis provided i would like to use this opportunity to publicly apologize to secretary powell. Tell me about that create. At the time and the months leading up to the iraq war there were two big intelligence judgments to be made. One is what is the status of Saddam Husseins weapons of mass distraction program and the second was what was the relationship between iraq and al qaeda . On the first, what was the status of the weapons of mass distraction program . The analysts at cia and about the analysts in the entire u. S. Intelligence community, and that the analysts and every Intelligence Service on the planet that looked at the question came to the same conclusion. This guy has chemical weapons. This guy has a biologic weapons production capability and this guy is reconstituting his Nuclear Weapons program. That is what the analysts believe. They turned out to be wrong. All of these people who looked at this question turned out to be wrong and we can talk about why but it turned out to be wrong. The reason i apologize to colin powell was twofold. One is i think colin powell is a remarkable man. I think he served his country with great distinction in job after job after job after job. He deserves the stellar reputation that he had going into this u. N. Speech. This u. N. Speech and he did not say anything at the u. N. That the cia and the rest of the Intelligence Community did not believe. This u. N. Speech tarnished his reputation. Hes the first person to tell you that ive heard him say that the iraq wmd presentation at the u. N. Is going to be on his tombstone. He has carried this with them. Ive also heard him say that nobody from the cia ever apologize to me. I was the number three on the analytic side of the agency when we did this analysis that we got and so given all of that i wanted to apologize to him. I also didnt want to surprise him. I didnt want him to pick up the book and see that was in there so i sent him the chapter. He called me and we talked for 45 minutes and he was deeply appreciative of the apology. Would you agree that the war were sold to the American Public largely on the basis of wmd weapons of mass destruction . I wouldnt say sold. I think president bush would have to tell you himself but its very important. One the main job of an analyst is to put things into context so one of the things i try to do in the book is put some of these Big Decisions into context. What was the context in which president bush made his decision . 9 11 had just happened. The largest single attack on america in our history. 3000 people had just been killed killed. The cia was telling him that Saddam Hussein is one of our primary enemies, a sworn enemy of the United States had active weapons of mass destruction programs including a Nuclear Weapons program and we were telling him Saddam Hussein supports International Terrorist groups, not al qaeda but Palestinian Terrorist groups and so there sits president bush having faced this huge attack on the United States understanding job number one of the present is to protect the American People and we are telling him this guy has got weapons of mass destruction and provide support to terrorist groups. He is sitting there thinking if saddam uses these weapons against us or if saddam gives these weapons to a terrorist group and they use these weapons against us that could make 9 11 look small. I think that is what drove president bush to action in iraq and its exactly what led a majority of congress to support him for exactly the same reason. So absolutely the analysis on iraq having weapons of mass destruction played into his thinking, no doubt about it. These are tough calls and nobody gets them all right but did the cia have an obligation to do more to find out more direct way rather than based on circumstantial evidence . A great question. A fabulous question. When you read about the intelligence failure that was iraqs weapons of mass destruction you will read mostly about the failed analysis. In fact there have been books written about it. Academics have written articles. This has been studied to death and ive read it all. I was involved in this and i have read it all. Part of the failure here was something that never gets talk about. Part of the failure here was not just the analysts at cia that the people at cia who are responsible for collecting secrets. People at cia who are responsible for recruiting other human beings to spy for the United States. They were not successful in getting a human agent close enough to saddams inner circle to find out what saddam was really doing and what he was really doing was believing that the only way he could get out from under sanctions was to get rid of his weapons programs. He believes the cia would see that the cia would tell the president about it the president would get rid of sanctions but he didnt want anybody else and now that he had got rid of these programs because they were a deterrent to his main enemy, iran. He wanted to keep a secret that he had gotten rid of programs. And by the way he planned all along to eventually go back to his weapons programs after sanctions went away. How do we know this . Because he told us this. After he was captured we had long discussions with them and he told us exactly what is thinking. So it turns out that he overestimated the capabilities of the Central Intelligence agency interestingly enough. For example the part that deals with having access to redeveloping Nuclear Weapons, my understanding is it was based on the fact that iraq had acquired aluminum cases that are often used in that process. But also used for other things so it sounds shaky. Look, the aluminum tubes and we can talk about aluminum tubes if you want. I dont know we need to go into a lot of detail. Just let me say this that was one of the factors that led the analysts of the nuclear conclusion. There were a lot of others. The department of energy which concurred in the judgment that saddam was reconstituting his Nuclear Weapons programs didnt buy the argument. The rest of the evidence was Strong Enough to make that judgment. Did the cia ever do an analysis of what to expect if we go to war in iraq and what the ultimate outcome could be . I think we did it in different places. I think we owed president bush before he went to war we owed him what is called a National Intelligence estimate which is the kind of elite analysis by the Intelligence Community. We owed him here are the implications if you go to work. Heres what to expect in Iraqi Society iraqi politics if you go to war. Heres whats important here are the key factors that will determine whether the place stays stable or whether it becomes unstable. We did that in pieces. We didnt pull it together in one place. When you look at what has happened is not a pretty picture. Saddam hussein is gone but aside from that iran has now merged is a huge world power because we talked about iraq was the main Country Holding them back. Isis and al qaeda had a field day. And you put in your book you talk about that and now taking huge portions of territory back. In the book what actually say in the book and i really believe it, the decision to invade iraq at the end of the day i dont think was a decision that brought about the instability in iraq. The decisions that brought about the instability in iraq were the deep application decisions by the coalition traditional authority. After the military operations ended and we were in charge of iraq there were the first two decisions of that coalition original authority were one to remove from the government anybody who is a member of the baath party and to basically disband any organization that had a very close relationship with the baath party. Those two decisions resulted in the collapse of the Iraqi Military the Iraqi Security service and the iraqi Intelligence Service. All these guys were members of the baath party and all of a sudden they didnt have jobs anymore so what did they do . A whole bunch of them went to work for the insurgency and the whole bunch of them went to work for al qaeda in iraq because they were mad number one and number two they got paid by those organizations. It was those two decisions that i think were the critical decisions that led to the instability. When you look back as a former Deputy Director of the cia speaking for yourself not to have an agency were you satisfied with how things worked out in iraq . Of course not. Its a mess. Bits and mass. But one of the things you have to think about is what would the place look like today if we hadnt done this . You have to do to counter factual. What would iran look like today if we had not invaded iraq . Let me give you a possibility and who knows but let me give you a possibility. Sanctions would have eventually gone away without a doubt. There is no way the United States would hold the sanctions together over the longterm. They would have gone away. He would have restarted his weapons programs and he would have had chemical chemical weapons and a biological weapons capability and would have developed a nuclear capability. Either would you would have had to do with that as you saw it happen or you would have won in any fastforward and say okay what happened in tunisia, what happened in egypt what happened in libya, what happened in syria in terms of the arab spring could have easily happened in iraq. In other words saddams people would say we want you to go away. He might have a country that has these weapons of mass distraction i have that have the same instability today that libya has. So you cant look back and say that if we hadnt done this that iraq would look like this today. It could easily look like this today with Nuclear Weapons. One of the things you talk about that connects benghazi and iraq war was the politicalization of intelligence by the administrations in power at the time. One democrat, one republican. In fact with regard to the leadup to the iraq war you wrote about Scooter Libby who worked for Vice President cheney. Libbys attempt to intimidate a cia official with the most blatant to politicize intelligence that i saw on the 34 years in the business and it would not be the last. What impact is this politicizing of intelligence happening and doesnt this disport what distorts the cia is doing . This is what it is. This is really important. Remember he said there were two big judgments on iraq weapons of mass distraction and iraq and al qaeda. On iraq and al qaeda what we said was what the analysts believed was there were some distort restrictions between iraqi intelligence and al qaeda but as of 2002 there was no current relationship between iraq and al qaeda. There was no iraqi involvement in 9 11. There was not even an iraqi foreknowledge of 9 11. They were surprised as we were. Thats what we said. Scooter libby did not like what we said. He believed there was a connection. He thought we were wrong and after we put this paper out and said what i just said the call that my boss and told her to withdraw the paper and fix fix it because it was wrong. We just put our hands up and said no im not doing that. I told you earlier we are nonpartisan and we call it like they see it. We are the umpire and we are the refereeing please call it like we see it. We didnt budge. Scooter libby called John Mclaughlin was the Deputy Director of the cia to complain about the paper and george tenet and John Mclaughlin said no, stop. And president bush did something really important. My boss to Scooter Libby called and said that javas paper and she refused she briefed president bush on Christmas Eve in 2002. Went to camp david to give him his daily intelligence briefing and at the end of that racing as she was getting up to go president bush said jamie just one more thing. I heard about this issue regarding iraq and al qaeda. Ive heard about the pressure on you guys. I just want you to know that i have your back and i want you to continue to call it like you see it. Very, very important thing for the president of the United States to say but in my experience of 33 years i have never seen an analyst buckle under to anybody trying to get them to say anything that they dont believe. We trained analyst that way. We beat it into them they are proud of it. They really call it like they see it. They dont budge to pressure. In fact the pressure strengthens their back even more. Lets talk about osama bin laden. Some of this material was just released a few days ago. Some of his notes and some of the books that he has been reading and so on and so worth. He says al qaeda saw opportunities in the arab spring which is something that seems the west didnt necessarily recognize. Tell me about that create. So with regard to the arab spring there were a couple of things we got right and there were a couple of things we got wrong. And by the way one of the points i want to make here is the work that the agencies asked to do can be really hard. The analysts only get hard problems. They dont get the easy stuff they only get the hard questions. And they get most things right and occasionally they get some things wrong. These are really hard so arab spring. First of all we provided what we called strategic deployment. What does that mean . For years we have been telling president S National Security teams congresses ball to pull congresses that there were pressures building in the arab world that were unsustainable that they there were political pressures economic pressures demographic pressures societal pressures that were building for change and we wrote that over period of years in depth. They provided strategic warning on the arab spring. What we didnt do one of the things we didnt get quite right is we didnt provide what we call tactical warning. Tactical warning is we think this place is going to low up over the next six months. We think we have reached the tipping point. Thats very difficult to see coming. We didnt see it, we didnt write it. Shame on us. We could have done a better job minding social media to see what they arab spring was thinking and saying to each other about what was happening in those countries. Could have done a better job of that. They still have their say and capabilities but did think they could fight terrorist. Al qaeda i came back for the first time in 25 years within a matter of weeks. Back in business. The other dynamic is the countries to have a willingness to fight extremism but no longer had the capability because the institution that was there to fight al qaeda was weakened by the arab spring. Best example is libya where the government wanted to fight terrorism but the military was gone and the Security Service was born with those in the mix significantly overpowered. Some of that that we see in our own images not . If they have any bias it is seeing it halfempty their bias is to see the downside not the upside. This is serious stuff. Lets talk about water boarding you talk about the great linkedin of book and all of the enhanced interrogation techniques pound and the one that you point out that you had serious doubts or reservations was water boarding i got the feeling you have mixed feelings. This is a really important issue. The first thing you need to know is this was not just the caa program it was americas program. What do i mean . This yea carried out but it did so at the direction of the president of the president denies states in the National Security team and department of justice and the approval of the of leadership of both the Intelligence Communitys democrat and republican. It was very important to remember that it was not a rogue caa operations there to talk about context 9 11 3,000 people were just killed. Cia had credible information and there was a second wave of attacks coming at us that over the equivalent size of 9 11. Credible. The cia had information at the time it did not know if it was but it turned out to be true that no osama bin wanted was meeting with pakistan a scientist to get a Nuclear Weapon. Returned our not to be that they tried to smuggle Nuclear Weapon into new york citys of the level of threats in the oval office every morning was through the ceiling george and i use to walk into the office to say to ourselves is sedated day we get hit again . That is what a fall like a ticking time bomb. , that pakistan is agreed to work with al qaeda with us against of ida the arresting senior operatives that we believe had information that we thought we were telling the president every morning. And they had counter interrogation and training and were not responding to a traditional interrogation techniques. Vitter produced a boatload that stopped attacks in and saved lives into a conditional sr. Al qaeda ad guys to be knocked out. That is the big difference. I did not know about the enhanced Interrogation Program until 2006 my director was trying to wind it down to find a way to end the program. So i did not pay of lot of attention to the argument because we were out of the business but they did iran last month on the job. I was to oversee the Agency Responds to the Diane Feinstein report. Are really studied the issue in i can tell you that i convinced resolve the i went into it with an open mind i am not a part of this i will not protect anybody and i looked closely that yazov they were effective. Absolutely. I will tell you why. Because of lifting information the details provided before it techniques that was not full answers to questions or specific or actionable. You could not do anything with said that after words full answers, specific information and actual information no doubt in my mind this in a report is wrong in that regard. Number three. Is a necessary . It could be effective was there another way to get the information . The honest answer is we will never know. That is true with almost every decision that anybody makes. Was it necessary to drop two atomic bombs on japan to bring about the tiring surrender . We will never knew was a necessary for Abraham Lincoln to do habeas corpus to win the civil war . So that is not a question i find interesting. The last question and even if it is legal and effective is it the right thing to do . , morally to inflect the harsh techniques on another human being . First looked at each technique you cannot punish them together one was simply grabbing somebody by the lapel of theyre not paying attention to you. I am guessing the vast majority would say it is okay. Ball away from that to water bordering. The 92 extremely harsh asking a question about morality of right and wrong that the said report never dealt on the morality question. The right and wrong question. Never. Some people think it is easy. But to stand for human freedom and human dignity. Some people make it sound easy but the other side is how could you not if you believe you need to in order to save american lives . These are decisions for the president and he made these decisions. With the water bordering if i was captured by than enemy and i were grabbed deprived of lapel what i said i was tortured . No. If i was captured and water bordered with vice there was tortured . Yes so i am uncomfortable with water according. But here is my moral dilemma when i was looking at the program in depth and effectiveness what technique was by far the most effective . Water boarding the one i am the most uncomfortable with this the most effective behalf. It is not easy at all. My final point is that i do think it is something to eric and people need to know about the media needs to talk about academics and historians best blend of our responses to 9 11 but i want the real history of the program out there and i want the senate Intelligence Community produced is nowhere near close to the real history of what the real history out there so we can talk about it. Now we will take questions from new. Those people with microphones raise your hand. To talk with a domestic analyst that is just with those and when i went home at night at the end of the day i would ask myself how did you do today and how could you have done better . And in that conversation was harder on myself than any boss ever was. Then i took the actions that were dictated by that one pretty harsh Self Assessment and that is the reason weve progressed as fast as we did because i learned i will go back to the hotel to think how did you do and how will you do better . That is my one piece of a vice but in terms of books to read it is tough i would tell them to read the great war of our time. [laughter] just kidding but i would tell them create as much as you possibly in the part of the world that you are responsible for Read Everything that has ever been written one characteristic of a successful analyst is soon say you were actually. We have a question. Water your thoughts and space projective in analytics. There are related to jobs. One that is happening today what is the capabilities of al qaeda and the yemen today . So what is going on today . The other is the bulk of the work of an analyst. When they do take of the future they dont predict the future but tell you the key factors that will determine what the future looks like in to get up production of the future because milling those factors give policymakers ideas how to influence with the future may look like. To simply say this is what they would look like will not help. If somebody can tell me what the future will look like i want to talk to them but nobody can answer this approach to talk about the of factor is much more difficult. My question is the possibility of big gauzy and maybe because we didnt do anything maybe there were prepared to come in . I dont think it was. To see how they respond. That is not how they think. Day attacked the place. But certainly if there was a response that was available but that does not the way they thought about it. There was of video of the attack. I was in favor of releasing the video. Cinephile wanted of video out there. Who didnt . There was of you that you dont want to release that or set a precedent for that. I cannot tell you why but jim and i were in favor of it. I question is outside the middle east but what is your assessment of russia and the Baltic States . Director great question. One context is everything. To give you an idea whether russia and the ukraine is all about. So what is putin trying to do do . If he were here right now with his buddies in the last weather you doing . He would use the words analytic constructs from cia told this i will reestablish the russian empire. What does that mean . He would say i want to control or significant influence in every part of the world that used to be the russian empire that happens to match up pretty closely to the former soviet union. This is what he wants his legacy to be. It is long term he thinks he will run that country over the next 25 years. He is not going anywhere seconds every part of that former soviet union and russian empire is important for ukraine is in particular one is the history from the original russian state was founded, ukraine was part of russia that capital was in kiev, not moscows so you think of that as part of russia. The other parts is ethnicity they think of themselves as brothers as they are both slavs. They are afraid they will have their own air of spring to say we dont like the direction you take our country. Wed like you anymore. Go away and we won a greater say in how we are governed. He is scared to death it happened in the streets of kiev in the islamic country he does not want to have happened there become a precedent for moscow. So ukraine is very important. The third piece is how does he think . If you look at his eyes use the kgb. Cavy k. G. B. I hope he is listening he is a thug and he is a police he only understands relative power. He does not believe it is possible to sit down in the negotiation to have though winwin outcome kinnealey believes will lowes will lose with the entrepreneurial risktaking personality but it is a particular kind that makes him dangerous when he takes a risk and he thinks he has succeeded he is willing to take a bigger risk that is why we are worried about the baltics. He was willing to go to war in ukraine but we are not in the baltics i think nato is willing to go to war and i hope he understands that. Mentioning weapons of mass destruction the intelligence communities across the world predicted but i do know he had an active program and biological warfare but not in facilities for nuclear production. I aid to remember as we are preparing to get troops on the border of iraq great transports of large vans were headed to syria i wish you were right to because then we would not have been wrong. Unfortunately there was no real evidence of him shipping anything to syria. The u. S. Did not find anything. I wish you were right this minute we have time for one more question. Could you address information about isil that the soldiers made that up . Where are they coming from and why today if they know they will be slaughtered . By me time the United States militarily left iraq at the end of 2011. Al qaeda in iraq was at its washington, dc point at its naadir. But almost immediately after the United States military left, al qaeda in iraq started to rebound. And it started to rebound for two reasons. Number one the military pressure was taken off because the u. S. Military and the u. S. Intelligence were a very effective in helping the iraqis take on al qaeda in iraq, so that pressure was removed and they immediately started to rebound. The other thing when the u. S. Left former Prime Minister maliki was emboldened to undertake a series of steps that basically disenfrance characterized the sunnies. So you had moderates who war frustrated with maliki, shearch that moderate sunnis started supporting and joining al qaeda in iraq so they also rebounded because of that. Then the Syrian Civil War breaks out. Syrian civil war breaks out and al qaeda in iraq wants to be part of the action in syria. So they go across the bored, and thats when they change their name. You cant be fighting in syria and be called al qaeda in iraq. So they rebrandded themselves as isis. Three things happened in syria that made them really, really strong. The first was they got their hands on a whole bunch of new recruits both syrian sunnis who joined them as well as all these forefighters who were flowing into syria to fight in the civil war, joined isis. They also got their hands or money. The way you get money in the terrorism business is to be successful. Thats howow get donations get financing, by being successful. Conducting an attack, taking territory. So they got themselves a lot of money. And they also got themselves a lot of weapons because the war overrunning a Syrian Government weapons stockpile so they got very sophisticated weapons. So they went from their weakest point at the end of 2011 to an incredibly strong position by late 2013, early 2014. They take a lot of territory in syria and go back into crosswalk do this blitzkrieg across iraq, which would not have been possible without what you said happened which is the iraqi milita