you re the only member of congress to have also served in the department of homeland security. so-called fusion center. you understand the threat on the ground. is the administration right now prepared to deal with isis as it has evolved as a threat? i think that president obama has shown himself to be open to listening to military leaders, certainly he gets a briefing daily from the cia director and the fbi director. and the intelligence community as a whole. he has shown himself to be one not trapped in rigidity but one who understands that when there are gaps and there have been gaps, that he s open to looking at our internal controls and constantly reviewing, asking the right questions so we can tighten the gaps, and ultimately do what we have to do in terms of keeping americans safe and keeping our global community even safer. as you know the new york times reporting over the weekend that the pentagon is now expanding an internal investigation of the u.s.
intelligence committee. congressman, thanks very much for joining us. i assume you ve been well briefed on what s going on. what can you tell us about this manhunt for this terrorist salah abdelsalam? do officials have any clue where he might be right now? well, i think that folks should be confident in knowing that the u.s., belgium and french law enforcement community has been working very closely together along with efforts from our partners. it is clear that the recent raids and the law enforcement surge that we ve seen in the past week and a half is indicative of a unified and more broad ly growing global front t stop isil and any copycat terrorist who is seek to do others harm. but they got to learn from some of the blunders that did occur, intelligence failures leading up to that horrible friday night in paris. if they want to avoid these kinds of terror attacks down the road. any major blunder stick out in
can for ten days? i think it s possible. they may have kept the trash removal companies out while they did forensics. we don t know. it would be a good question to learn the schedule for pickup and had that trash been removed since that time. the belgium prime minister today said they will continue to high state of alert, this highest state of alert in brussels for another week until next monday. they have to have, spider, some specific information to cause this kind of major dislocation. this is a major shut down. there are probably really good targetble, actionable intelligence we don t know about and not going to share. if they did, it wouldn t become actionable. i think we re going to see here in the next couple days an action that would take place that would lead us to the reason, the reason for locking the place down. the assumption, paul, is that isis may be targeting a location in brussels, right? that seems to be the information coming in and the
your mind right now? well, i think whenever there s a tragic incident like this there are always lessons to be learned and takeaways, our hearts go out to the people of france and across the globe quite frankly. mali, nigeria and other places. but whenever you have this you always go back and monday morning quarterback and look at strengthening and tightening internal controls. but what is more clear is that the isil message, the message of radicalism, the message of extremism will no longer be tolerated from the global community. the global faith community. all people are coming together, people of good will and saying enough is enough. might that suicide vest then bolts that were found in that garbage can today in that paris suburb be a key for investigators in pointing to who else may have been part of this attack? well, whenever you discover a suicide vest, it s always a unique discovery. and something that could unlock other efforts that could have taken place or could have
news. suicide vest, police find a possible suicide device in a paris suburb reportedly containing bolts, and the same type of explosive used in the paris attacks. imminent threat, an entire country is on high alert, its capital now on lockdown as belgian police hunt for a possible isis terror team. i ll speak with belgium s ambassador to the united states. voice of death, new information on the man who claimed responsibility for the paris attacks on behalf of isis. was he one of the masterminds? is he ready to strike again? we have new information. and striking isis, a french aircraft carrier launches its first strikes at isis targets in syria as russia says its missiles aimed at isis targets bear the words, for paris. i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news.