in a prisoner swap for brittney griner. bout always denied breaking any laws. but before being apprehended in an elaborate sting in thailand in 2008, he was thought to have funneled weapons of war from afghanistan. he was known as charismatic figure, a devoted family man, but also as a bully who would barge in on government meetings. if you look at the wars directly impacted by his weapons deliveries, they escalate directly in proportion to the amount of weapons arriving. i would say certainly tens of thousands of people suffered if not hundreds of thousands of people because of the weapons he was able to deliver. reporter: former cnn moscow bureau chief jill dougherty interviewed bout in moscow in 2002. at that time he denied accusations he sold weapons to the taliban and al qaeda. did you ever meet osama bin laden? unfortunately, i don t have a chance to meet him maybe. if i was in position to meet him some way. maybe in that period i would decide to do something to prevent w
but third, remember, the state department and the u.s. government is a giant bureaucracy, and it wouldn t work if every ambassador was e-mailing the secretary every day. instead what you have is an interagency policy process. it starts with, i m going to use a lot of acronyms here, the icp, the interagency policy committee. for me, that was russia. then the deputy s committee, the principal s committee. and you interact with your colleagues to formulate policy and deal with issues, including diplomatic security issues, which were an issue for me as ambassador out in moscow. that s a chain of command, if you will, that then goes up to the secretary, up to the president ultimately for them to make decisions. that s the way the system works. maybe it should be changed. but then we should have a debate about the system of communication in the u.s. government, because i m sure it worked this way when i was in government for five years, and i know it probably worked the same
appointed by the president of the united states. so you also have a channel to the president and to the national security staff. but third, remember, the state department and the u.s. government is a giant bureaucracy, and it wouldn t work if every ambassador was e-mailing the secretary every day. instead what you have is an interagency policy process. it starts with, i m going to use a lot of acronyms here, the icp, the interagency policy committee. for me, that was russia. then the deputy s committee, the principal s committee. and you interact with your colleagues to formulate policy and deal with issues, including diplomatic security issues, which were an issue for me as ambassador out in moscow. that s a chain of command, if you will, that then goes up to the secretary, up to the president ultimately for them to make decisions. that s the way the system works. maybe it should be changed. but then we should have a debate about the system of