Words. A colossal victory. For the first time weve negotiated with the taliban as equals. And we gave them everything they asked for, the dream team. These are the heads of intelligence, military, with long ties to osama bin laden. When i was in iraq last month, i met with general demford and ambassador cunningham. As we were standing in front of the afghans, im concerned about the influence the five could have on the process. As the ambassador told me, as we withdraw, his biggest fears will be a vacuum and then well be hit again. Mr. Secretary, can you tell me how this move is in our best interest in terms of our security . To start with, as i have covered this ground this morning, we got our one remaining prisoner back. I dont think thats an incidental accomplishment. Second, as has been quoted here, here a couple of hours ago, the former Central Command commander, marine general jim maddos, what he said this sunday last sunday, about one of the significant features of this return wa
Later was chief counselor of the Senate Agriculture committee. In 1988 he founded the wellknown Government Relations firm with his brother tony. He served president clinton as to be the chief of staff and then as white house chief of staff until 2001. He was cochairman of obamas Transition Team in 2008. He is the proud father of air force captain gabe podesta. So much for prior review. Now to the process portion of our program. Anga a gas alliance is sponsoring todays breakfast. Our thanks to them, for sitting at the table back there keeping me from the pain of premature retirement. Sponsors or not, we are on the record here. No live blogging and no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what the guest says. There will be no embargo at the end. As regular attendees know the monitor breakfast is one of the last bastions of fusty folkways. Do the traditional thing and send me a subtle nonthreatening signal, and i will happily call on everyone with
Stars and bubbles. Through, i wasng just interviewing a lot of different people. 14 or 15 people that i will talk to and say what do you think about this scenario. I do not like anything that is less than a probability of what things might be. That is why you saw me put up three scenarios. I do estimates based on circle size. Lly troublesome one, a confederation in syria. How do you assess them . I do an estimate for the overlaps of how i think they might communicate. I came up with those estimates in terms of not official statements, because i do not care about the official statements, i care about what those supporters are talking about in the online community, who i am reaching out to in terms of experts. I will ask them their opinions because i cannot stay on top of these different groups. Official statements will stay with the oldcard al qaeda, but i look for pushes and pulls in between. Al assessment on ou sharia, based on the foreign fighter numbers. If you read the biggest sect
Somewhere in afghanistan, pakistan and from there are plotting and planning to carry out attacks against the United States and others. Thats the definition used by this administration, and when they talk about affiliates, very looselyaligned groups that share some of the same goals of alqaeda but not all of them. Sometimes listen to what the alqaeda core says, sometimes dont and have their own agendas, usually local. They want to overthrow the local guy, replace him with their type of leadership, impose their vision of a very extremist sharia on unwilling muslims. So thats the definition thats useed by this administration. My definition of alqaeda is actually based primarily on their selfdefinition; that is, the way alqaeda itself defines itself. Corrected and also adjusted and with a little bit of skepticism by looking at whats going on in the real world. So how does alqaeda define itself . It defines itself as an organization and an ideology. An organization that is a Hierarchical Or