This is one thing i know many of to hear about today is how have they capitalized on the instability of covid19 . The geopolitical priorities are shifting. One of the areas where we dont see stability but on the same end, we do not see a threat to the homeland. It is clear today many of the American People are united by the fact that they want to see us invest at home but as a new yorker, i can tell you this the memory of 9 11 lives on. Not just 9 11, but the myriad of other terrorists attacks. To move on, i know many of us the importance of coalition building. Proactively and robustly, how do we efficiently and effectively fight the terrorist threat . Particularly the gis terrorist threat. How do we fight it . The terroristt threat of today, not just yesterday. We are certainly seeing a resurgence. Some appear to have escaped. Germany wereis in arrested after they planned to attack a u. S. Air force base. In may, a florida man was arrested who planned and attempted to carry out a mass shooting in the name of the islamic state. The suspects sister was shot dead after attempting to stab a local Law Enforcement officer. Last month, the department of justice released information that determined the terrorist attack on the pensacola military base was connected with an Al Qaeda Affiliated group in yemen. Addition, we would love to hear today how can we hold Technology Companies accountable . How do we innovate in and around the space understanding the most likely threat we space we face, someone who has been radicalized online often without traveling . What have we learned from the recent case in pensacola about how jihadists and terrorist are communicating with al qaeda affiliates overseas . Thely two decades after september 11 attacks, we are seriously reevaluating and updating the approach to combating terrorism. As a new yorker and a patriot standmeone honored to today and say in a bipartisan manner that we need to continue to fight terrorism at home and abroad. We thank the witnesses and members for being here today and i look forward to making progress on this important issue. I would like to recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the general and from north carolina, someone i consider a deer friend, mr. Walker, for his Opening Statement. Thank you, chairman, i appreciate your passion about this. You have been relentless about this since day one. This is not just a political talking point, it is from the heart. I apologize for being a couple i minutes late to stop while wish we were meeting in person, i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the continuing threat links to islamic terrorism. Al qaeda declared war on the United States and followed up with the Embassy Bombings in kenya and tanzania. The attack on the uss cole and the direct attack on the home went on september 11, 2001. From that, isis spawned from a split with al qaeda around 2013. They implemented an even more brutal and violent ideology, killing and slaving minority groups and enslaving hostages. Their messages have killed 30,000 plus foreigners who traveled to join them, including over 200 americans stop after years of persistent counterterrorism pressure, both terror groups have suffered major territorial and leadership losses. However, the territory did not remain overseas. The fbi has testified on multiple occasions that they betweenn investigations al qaeda and isis supporters across the United States. We have seen a rise in competing threats that have resulted in diversion of resources that risk a way for the organizations to regroup. Particularly in cyberspace and we have seen a rise in global White Supremacy extremism. I applaud the Trump Administration for recognizing nationalts in the strategy for counterterrorism and focusing on the need to use counterterrorism to address these threats without losing focus on the threats posed by al qaeda and isis. We are also challenged with terrorism fatigue. After nearly two decades of military action in afghanistan, the American Public is ready for military forces to come home. While i share this goal, it is essential we maintain the ability to gather necessary intelligence to prevent power vacuums where terrorists can fill the slot. Im concerned about al qaeda and isis link groups are expanding in africa and Southeast Asia. We have seen this movie before. After 9 11, al qaeda was able to continue plotting and caring out attacks. Maintaining pressure and coordinating with the national committee, we need to be sure these new hotspots do not turn into operational safe havens. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about the current state of al qaeda and isis and their recommendations on how to implement a new strategy to counter the terror threat. Before closing, want to congratulate chairman rose on the birth of his first child stop my best pictures my best wishes for you and your family and i yield back my time. Thank you, my friend. We are of myself and the Ranking Member can go back and forth briefly, i apologize. This will take just a few minutes. I think the Ranking Member and i membereld to the ranking for the purposes of closing. Could you explain proceedings during remote proceedings . Standing house and Committee Rules and practices will continue to apply during remote proceedings. Members will be expected to continue to adhere to the rules of the committee and house stop designated by the speaker, the committee will operate with house rule 965. A manner that respect the rights of all members to participate. Technology we are utilizing requires to make small modifications to ensure numbers can fully participate in these thank you,op mr. Chairman. What could a member expect should they encounter technical issues during a remote event . Will recognize members for their fiveminute questions based on seniority determined by our subcommittee roster, a departure from our previous procedure. Members must be visible to the chair to be considered present for establishing a quorum or voting. Members should make every effort to remain visible on screen throughout the proceeding with their video stream. If hearing members are on mute, at thell be recognized conclusion of speaking. Members will be expected to meet themselves to prevent excess background noise. Beene event, a clerk has ordered to mute members to prevent 1 inadvertent background noise. And must unmute themselves seek recognition at the appropriate time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. What should members expect regarding decorum during the remote event . Memberhe event the icounters technical issues, will recognize that member at the next appropriate time slot, providing they have returned to the proceeding. I will recognize that member at the next appropriate spot once their issues have been resolved. What should members expect if a vote is called during a remote event. Members are reminded they are only allowed to attend one Virtual Event at a time. They are expected to observe standing rules. May it be on the record that the first time ive ever heard the term zoom cheating. [laughter] with that, yelled back. To add a few other things. That is i believe all. With that, i ask unanimous consent to waive rules during remote can remote proceedings. Objection, so ordered. Recognizes we have a full committee. The general and from mississippi for Opening Statements. Are you still with us . Is the Ranking Member, mr. Rogers from the great state of alabama, john . I am really honored to welcome our panel of witnesses. The former acting deputy director, he spent more than three decades at the cia. Our work to prevent the proliferation of mass destruction during the there is no major or minor terrorist incident in the last 20 to 25 years that he has not been front henter of combating was in new york city on 9 11, a teenager at the time. I thank you, sir for keeping us safe. Our second witness is ambassador who recently left the part of defense where she is Senior Advisor to the underside which undersecretary for acquisition for fema. Former or native or counterterrorism at the department of state. The deputy chief in kabul. Thank you for your extra neri service. Our third and final witness is a senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracy where she conducts research. Where isis and al qaeda operate around the world. Asy have been described having an encyclopedic knowledge of terrorist biology. To Rudy Giulianis campaign. The witnesses full statement will be inserted in the record and i will ask east witness to summarize his or her statements beginning with the former acting director, mr. Morel. Good morning. Membern rose, ranking walker, members of the subcommittee, it is great to be with you today. Ishink this hearing extraordinarily important. I was honored to be invited and, as your staff notes, i jumped at the opportunity. Its great to talk to you about the threats our nation still and isis and qaeda i want to emphasize that word still. Because i hear that as a country, we are losing our focus on terrorism. In large part, because most americans think al qaeda and isis have been defeated. Once we got bin laden, the idea was al qaeda was defeated and once we took the caliphate away from isis, the idea was isis is defeated. That an attack on the homeland is no longer possible. I believe those perceptions are wrong. Dead wrong. Hearingwhy i think this is so vitally important. Agency. 33 years at the i spent the first 15 of those focused on east asia, focused on a different issue. Mr. In those last 18 years, chairman, i covered the whole world. Entirelycus was almost on counterterrorism. Paragraphs in my testimony that i wont read through of all of my touch points with terrorism. Of the forrest gump of terrorism in terms of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Events iof those witnessed personally really ofred into me the danger terrorism and the importance of counterterrorism work. I lived and breathed it for the last 18 years of my career. It defined my career. 9 11 becauseefore i went to work for george tenant in 1998 and walked into a situation where he was obsessed with al qaeda. That is where i learned about the group for the first time, so i was focused on it before 9 11. I want to spend a little time on the lessons those 18 years taught me. What the implications of those lessons are for today. There are four that i want to share with you. Is that terrorism is a symptom. It is not a disease. I think its very important for us to remember that. Address the disease, mr. Chairman, i think we are with thebe dealing creation of terrorists and their actions for a long time to come. I have real doubts about whether we are going to be able to deal with that disease, so i really my childrens generation and my grandchildrens generation, and maybe your sons going to be fighting this fight. And at the end of the day, you and cure your way out of this. This is an important aspect of keeping ourselves saves safe, but it is not going to solve the problem the second Lesson Learned is that this could well be the most important, mr. Chairman. Terrorist groups, once you get the intel in the military excess in our place, they are extraordinarily easy to degrade. There also very easy to rebuild. We seen it time and time again. Whether they are being degraded or in rebuild mode pans on a lot of things, but the most important thing depends on is the degree of counterterrorism pressure that is upon the group. When that pressure is there, they tend to be in degrade and when that pressure is released, they shift to rebuild mode. I think the implication is pretty obvious to me. Is ird Lesson Learned it is impossible to overstate the importance of a physical safe haven to a terrorist group, a place in which they can feel relatively safe and secure, a place from which they can strategize, train, plot and launch attacks. It is therefore actually critical that we deny sanctuaries to these groups. When we dont do that, history clear that the threat increases dramatically, including the threat to the homeland. And then the last Lesson Learned is that the smartest of terrorists are creative and they are innovative. Not too many that you would put into the category of extraordinarily bright and extraordinarily capable, but those that are, are very dangerous. I think examples abound, including the first to conceive of using aircraft as guided missiles. The folks in yemen who came up with innovative bomb designs, from the underwear bombs, from cartridge bombs, nonmetallic suicide vests to even experimenting with putting explosive devices into human bodies through surgery. To the Isis Hollywood quality, madison avenuestyle propaganda is a real danger to us, and the self radicalization of americans. I would also put in creative category, what aqap just did in pensacola. They found a way around the immigration defenses that we put into place after 911. And they did that consciously, and it resulted in the first foreigndirected terrorist attack on the homeland attack since 911. That was just several months ago. I think the implication is we need to be a equally imaginative in thinking about what they may be doing and try to get in front of them. Mr. Chairman, when i put all of these lessons together, i come to the strong conclusion that we need to stay focused on foreign terrorist groups. We need to collect best intelligence we can on their plans, intentions, and capabilities. We need and i will emphasize this working with our allies and partners to continue to keep pressure on them and to make sure they continue to be degraded. I think we also need to think about and this is very hard, we should talk about it a little bit in the q a. Its very hard, but we need to think about how do we play a role in getting at the disease rather than just dealing with the symptoms . In looking around the world, i have many specific concerns south asia, south asia, the middle east, africa. Let me conclude my Opening Statement by pointing out two issues of particular concern to me. The first is isis in iraq and syria. Despite our destruction of the caliphate, which was critically important and needed to be done and the people who did that should be given an awful lot of credit for it. You all know that isis is on the rebound in the middle east in iraq and syria. It is reconstituting. Isis attacks in iraq are on the rise for two years in a row now, including a significant one just a few weeks ago some in samara, just an hours drive from baghdad. Even more worrisome, mr. Chairman, and you mentioned this, German Authorities recently arrested four turk men sent by isis to conduct an attack on a u. S. Military facility in germany. The four had already acquired weapons and they were in the process of acquiring explosive when they were arrested. This suggests to me that isis may be the process of rebuilding its attack ability in europe which was a capability we saw in devastating effect in paris in 2015 and in brussels in 2016. The second thing i worry a great deal about is al qaeda in afghanistan. The taliban today is militarily and politically stronger than at any time since 911. And i believe the taliban in its peace negotiations with the United States have told us exactly what we want to hear in order to encourage us to leave the country. I dont believe what theyre saying about what their intentions are. In fact, i believe that their intention, which is absolutely achievable, is to overthrow the current Afghan Government and a dictatorship based on sharia law. I also believe the taliban will provide safe haven to al qaeda and that it will not do what is necessary to prevent al qaeda from again becoming a significant threat to the United States of america. The ties between the two groups are just too close. Years and years of fighting sidebyside and years and years of shedding blood together, years and years of intermarriages of their children. These two groups are not, in my mind, separable. Mr. Chairman, to sum up, i believe strongly that we need to stay on this watch or we are going to be hit again. I cannot emphasize that strongly enough. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening remarks. I look forward to your and the committees questions. Thank you so much again. I will now recognize ambassador kaidanow, her statement for five minutes. Thank you. I will just say from the outset that i associate myself with everything you said and then some. We can talk a little bit more about some of those issues. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member walker, honorable members of the subcommittee, first of all, it is an absolute privilege to be here and to talk to you today on this really critical issue of potential threat that is coming still, as mike says, from isis and al qaeda, as well as from other groups that were not discussing here today, but nevertheless exist and pop up now with regularity all of the world. The esteemed panel of witnesses youve assembled are all veterans of the u. S. Government effort to contain the threat of terrorism over the past years and to ensure that the homeland, and all of them, and i as well, have grappled with i think what mike was trying to very will give you a picture of that is the key questions of how number one we can best protect our borders in the counterterrorism effort, it is not all of ours to do. Unfortunately, we dont have the resources. We dont have the ability, and you mentioned the german attack, and that is just one. But we find ourselves subject to a lot of resource issues, and i will get to that in a minute, we dont have the resources on our own to be doing this, and nor should we portray it that way. We really need to give it to our partners as something that is both beneficial to us but beneficial to them as well. A number of the attacks we see these days are not necessarily in the homeland, but they are associated with us, because they happen in paris, in brussels, in places where our people are, and they happen in places where we care about what happens in to democratic societies. So a key question, as i said, is how we can enlist them in the counterterrorism efforts and then finally, and i think this deserves a little thought, and how or perhaps better said whether we can do anything to support actual causes of the terrorist problem. That question has consumed an enormous amount of attention, certainly of the u. S. Government and i think outside of the government as well. I wish i could tell you that i thought that a, there was an easy way to do that, and b, that weve made some progress in it. I will tell you personally i dont think thats the case. I will come back to that in a second. It is important to try to at least grapple with that question. When i became the state coordinator for counterterrorism, which is a statutorily created position designed to centralize all the Department Efforts on terrorism and provide advice directly to the secretary of state on those matters, as well as to coordinate closely through National Security council with other important institutional players on ct and Homeland Security. It was the beginning of 2014, and quite frankly nobody, perhaps other than some of our very good intelligence analysts sprinkled through the system had really heard of isis as a feature of global terrorism. When i left the job in 2016 to become the acting assistant secretary for Political Military Affairs at the state department, had changed pretty dramatically. In the span of a year or year and a half, isis had gone from a small regional left over presence from the first iraqi war to an absolute global threat, almost as breland virulent in its own way as the covid19 virus pandemic is now. I know it is a strange kind of analogy, but it really has some power, because the idea is we never knew that something could hit us in that way. So what was the difference . What made it so lethal . More lethal, and we think of al qaeda as a hard and lethal group and it is, but in a very interesting way, isis was something very different, like a virus. I think the answer lies in the isis created tools and methodologies that had never been utilized as successfully by any other group, and that had to do with social media. Social media became, what i would consider is a vital hunting grounds, for signing up and isis foreign component, which mike mentioned, or i think actually the chairman mentioned in his Opening Statement, and Building Support outside of iraq and syria. Absolutely the iraq and syria , remains an absolutely isis is a feature there, but guess what . It is a feature pretty much everywhere. How did that happen . The west, and only the west, but those countries where recruitment was especially large scale, like indonesia, jordan, other places, what absolutely absolutely and completely unprepared for the new approaches and unable to muster that kind of stability to push back. Governments, for the most part, and i will just tell you, certainly democratic governments, are neither comfortable nor effective as propaganda or country propaganda machines. Theyre just not good at it. I was talk about how do we pushback on social media, push back on isis ability to recruit, it isnt so easy. You cant just hire a pr firm and then decide there is an lack of and Underlying Trust in what we say as a government all over the world that unfortunately gives us handicap right from the start. I think i am running out of time, so i dont want to go to much other, but i want to say, or is this question, and might mike put it well, what do we do now if we are going to address it . The question comes back to resources. If we are going to do anything, whatever it is we do we have to decide it is a priority for us strategically. At the outset of the relookedtion, we at what we wanted to be doing and we decided for good or for bad, we had left our ability to contain or to stop the russians and chinese all over the world from doing things we didnt want them to do. Great power competition has now become our number one priority. That is fine, but that is going to take up resources that unfortunately used to be, at least in some measure, put against the terrorism problem. I think we are always going to have to constantly be reevaluating where are we with these issues and how much effort, resource, energy, presence, do we send drones to africa . Do we send the same drones to iraq and syria . Do we put them somewhere else entirely because we believe the chinese in Southeast Asia are making inroads . What are we doing as a matter of priority . It is an uneasy question to answer, but it is something we really have to think about. Thats why our allies and partners overseas become very important. Again, we cant fight this fight alone. I am going to stop there. I do want to say, again, i dont think theres an easy answer to the question of how do you stop terrorism at its root. I dont think it is a question of poverty. There is a lot that that comes into the approach to combat violent extremism. Maybe if we can create income and turn people in a different direction, we will be able to stop them from engaging in terrorist activities. I dont its those people. I dont think its the people who are hungry. I think it is the people who unfortunately feel disaffected, sitting in paris or somewhere in minnesota or sitting somewhere its a second and thirdgeneration problem. Their parents were povertystricken and very unfortunately came here and wanted a better life, established themselves that way and now their children unfortunately are not empowered, are not feeling empowered, for whatever reason. That is have to grapple on. It is not easy. I am going to stop there. I know there will be questions. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Now recognize judgment for five minutes. Thank you. I greatly appreciate the invitation to testify today. Obviously, we are living in Turbulent Times and many are facing challenges. Even though i testified before congress 21 times, this is the first time i have done this from my dining room. Obviously, we are living in a new world. I do appreciate the fact that you are taking the time to address al qaeda and isis and the threats we face, because they both remain active thats to the u. S. More on thee is isis side of the coin versus the al qaeda side of the coin. Isis grabbed headlines in 2014 with its overthetop barbarism. What i think is often overlooked and what people dont realize is that al qaeda is goal since inception in the 1980s was to create caliphate. Thiss on record saying over and over again. It is in their literature, their media, the propaganda, and they say it all the time. I think you have to take that into effect that is there overreaching goal. The capitalized on al qaedas drive for quest to build caliphate. They claimed they could bring to fruition the original mission. And today al qaeda and isis remain locked in the competition across many different battlefield, where they are waging insurgencies to clear out order toing political bring a new islamic with sharia law and a basis for a caliphate. When you explain it, that is why i think it is in overarching mission, that explains why we see threats from west africa to afghanistan to this day. You can identify the groups in those areas and you can show that their main goal is to establish a new goal in those areas. The al talk about how qaeda threat has persisted for all of these years. I wanted to give a rundown on acent activity, which i think lot of americans dont know has occurred since september 2019. Just to give you what the threat that the counterterrorism and the nsa and fbi and others are dealing with. I watch what they are doing and they are still dealing with an honest number of threats around the globe. In september of 2019, the u. S. Downfghan forces hunted two guys. The one was a guy who repeatedly threatens americans and was involved in plots against u. S. Warships in 2014. He is someone who oversaw al qaedas operations not only in afghanistan on behalf of the taliban and also throughout the was working qaeda that. He still has by conservative estimate thousands of followers around the globe, people who are loyal to him throughout the chain of command. What is interesting is that not only was this courier running messages, but just recently, general mackenzie, said that one was in eastern afghanistan, very curious an important remark. This was a guy that fits at the top of the chain of command of a global organization. September to december, shooting was perpetrated in pennsylvania at the station. This was a very get attacked, the first that received direction and was successful and there were Security Problems involved. The main innovation he relied on was easy to use Encryption Technology on iphones. There has been discussion about trying to install backdoors on phones or personal devices to give them a window. I am wary of that and it raises Civil Liberties concerns where dictators could take advantage that backdoor. I hope we can talk about that as well. Attack, executed the after they cracked the security talking tone, he was operatives for four years. He tried to destroy the phones afterwards. After they got the intelligence, they were able to hunt down and kill one of his main handlers in yemen and the u. S. Reconstituted efforts to go after the head of a qap. Thedossier goes back to 1990s in afghanistan when he was identified as a potential leader for al qaeda in afghanistan. When he was killed, he was replaced with another guy that was trained in al qaeda camps and is deeply antiamerican and deeply beholden to the mission set for so many decades ago now. Guys we aree dealing with have careers that started in the 1990s. You go through our tiller military chain of command, think about the turnover we have had and yet al qaeda has guys groomed for a generation to leave these groups. That speaks to this being a generational conflict. Some guys have been in the game for a generation and sometimes longer. In march, the New York Times reported that two operatives were arrested after they were found to be engaged in Flight Training. This is their socalled affiliate to a qaeda. They were trying to build an islamic emirate. They were basically involved in Flight Training and setting off concerns they may be participating are planning some aerial assault. A lot of details are murky. Been experimenting with al qaeda experts with high and explosives that they can get on an airplane. I have the photos from 2016, when they blew a hole inside of a turkish airliner. There are experiment and with it and trying to get suitcase bounce through xrays and other technology, all these years after 9 11 and all of the plot stopped, they are still trying to do that. Year, theof this member. Illed a longtime he was communicating regularly with al qaeda senior readership ladens files. N on al qaedas Global Management committee. This was a guy who had essay on al qaedas Global Affairs from his home base outside of west africa. It tells you a lot about al qaeda in 2020. June,r this month, mid the u. S. Launched a targeted drone strike against al qaeda in syria. This is a series of attacks. One was a long time companion of the founder of al qaeda in iraq. In the suicideed bombings in casablanca. This guy has a lengthy dossier has been in the game for a long time. I presume the cia got him with a special drone missile. The perception the cia is hunting these guys around the globe. I think i am out of time. I will wrap up by saying this. This was supposed to be very brief. Think about all of those i talked about in my brief testimony. You have in yemen, somalia, mali, and syria. Al qaeda has distributed leadership across those countries and external operations across those countries. The u. S. Is still hunting those guys on a regular basis. It has been lost in discourse on what is going on but it speaks to the fact that this is a longterm threat we will be dealing with. I think you for the opportunity to testify today. I think you all for your extraordinary testimony. You will each have five minutes to question the panel. Before i recognize myself, the gentleman from mexico will be able to question the witnesses. I now recognize myself for questions. Seems like with the three of you are saying is the threat is still here but we also have to skate to where the puck is going. Lets think about how the threat is evolving. I want to introduce for ideas and then i would like to hear your thoughts on this. Said thatis, it was you either fight america asymmetrically or stupidly. With that being said, are we seeing the emergence of statelevel support for isis, al qaeda, for other nonstate actors, not with the explicit attempt of regional power, as weve seen more so with iran, but with the intent of the attacking the United States of america, our homeland. When the threats i most worried about is the notion of a multilayered attack by isisal qaeda like character using tools and a small arms attack of sorts. What are we seeing from isis and al qaeda with their capacity to utilize cyber tools to inflict term . Can southern border you please speak to what is the potential for a threat from isis or al qaeda at the southern border . This is something the president asked about very frequently, has used it as a justification for the border wall. I am asking if you could speak to the nature of that threat. And lastly, if what you are saying is true and this is now their tuesday for generations to come, should we be thinking to moreltilateral permanently address the issue of terrorism . Mr. Morel, we will start with you. Mr. Rounds let me start at the bottom. Thats talk about multilateral institutions. I think the point i would make ofthat huge crowd is [inaudible]m country terrorism operations is intelligence. You cant do it without firstrate intelligence. Outside ofe services the five eyes and even inside is quite compartmented. Intelligence services dont like exchanges and sharing and cooperation. The reason is simple, because what you are willing to do and share is based on trust. As you expand the number, you make it much more difficult for people to be willing to share. I dont think multilateral institutions are going to be particularly helpful, because i dont think Intelligence Services are going to be willing to share within those multilateral institutions. Any statestion of supporting isis and al qaeda from the perspective of supporting a path, i dont see any. I would love to hear what tom has to say about that. I lefts of cyber tools, government in 2013, so i dont know what the intelligence has up to that point and what i see in the open media and in experts and the work of experts like tom, is i dont see a lot of terrorist interest in cyber. It just doesnt have same kind of effect they are looking for. Another important regard with the factthe kind of that a terrorist group might see be attacksphic would on our critical infrastructure. If a terrorist group will focus on a cyberattack, that is where they would attack and that would create a catastrophe. Those kinds of cyber tools that can do that by the most sophisticated in the world, and that is where our defenses are the best. It is only a handful of nationstates that have those kind of sophisticated tools, only two that i know in terms of fseries have those kind of tools. Even if terrorists wanted to get there, it would be extremely difficult to get there by bringing on a catastrophic intent as opposed as opposedc extent to a minor. Is there anything youd like to add to that. Please feel free to pick any of the four. I again will associate myself with everything mike said. It is not just that intelligence is the key to defining the intent of what these groups are and the level of trust and the trust is bilateral more than it is multilateral and that is correct. It was my case in my experience that part of what we did at the state department, the biggest our, was trite and mary Homeland Security needs on the marhand and was try and ry security needs on one hand and try to do things that would extend out. Our border is no longer on the east and west coast, but it becomes indonesia, our border becomes saudi arabia, and those places that otherwise we might find that people are coming that we dont want. We do that is to get the institutions in those countries, whether internal Affairs Ministry which is where you want to be. That is not necessarily what and not the same people deciding who comes in and out of those countries. , howeverned was disassociated we were before disassociation and same lack of munication exists almost everywhere in the world. Not only does it exist, even in places like france, where they institutions that are dealing with these issues, intelligenceity agency and other agencies doing Law Enforcement. Dealing times sometimes they talk to each other is through us. They dont like giving up their secrets and talking about what it is they do for a living. We find that it is a challenge for us anywhere we go on a bilateral basis to get what we es. D from the countri i think it is a worthwhile effort. We are not owing to be able to do things ourselves. We have made some progress. Utilizehas programs we to try and get at these problems. Border issues, when you cant be always on the offensive and you need to try and when you cant be, you need to have a strong defense. It needs to be not discuss but us,nd our be not just but our allies. We are not in a way where we can get the bilateral friends together and we need to keep trying. Just one other thing, and that i have not seen any evidence that they are on cyber yet, but i will say if they end up having even just a few people who are good at the hacking thing, you notd find that it is resource heavy or intensive and we need to kick an eyeball on it. Dont think necessarily they are there yet and there is no capability of like iran or china , but i do think they are in a place where if they decided there was particularly interested in those issues, and said, they as you were extremely innovated with the caliphate out push and they will still be innovative. They havent necessarily showed us they are doing this in cyber. Is, the emergence of state support. I dont see that, and i will say and i totally leave this, having started in afghanistan, if we give that up and are now in a not here to im dispute and i get it, but wasted is a big word. I feel fine that we have created a system in afghanistan that at least can sustain itself for the time being. If we give the taliban complete political ability to commend in there and now take over, i think we are taking an enormous risk period is my particular opinion. Feeling y strong taking an enormous risk. Opinion. Y particular that is my very strong feeling. Grunt. S just a you were thinking about the highlevel stuff, so we value your opinion. Mr. Walker, five minutes my friend. Your testimony highlights along the street and interconnectedness of the despiteand al qaeda and having signed an agreement with the United States, the taliban will never disavow the organization, it seems. What are your ideas for pressuring the taliban into creating an International Committee to strengthen it what do you think about it. Thank you for the question. I have been highly critical of the fiber 29th deal that was signed between the state department and the taliban. I tracked the taliban everyday of my life and have for 20 years. I know how they think and i think mike is correct when he says he doesnt trust them and they said what they had to say to get us out. With respect to the language of the agreement, it is no different than what they said in the 1990s. What they told the ambassador that they did not pose a threat to the west, they are saying the same thing now. There is nothing in the agreement to verify or ensure they are not lying as they have lied since the 1990s. As a nerdy side note, we are and i amg literature happy to share that. But those details that we dealing shows exactly what mike said, the relationship between al qaeda and the taliban is close at a personal level. Position has been that the u. S. Government hasnt taken a holistic view of that review of that for many years. I am jaded and i dont think they will get it right or put the pressure points on them. When i have these conversations, a lot of times the policymakers dont understand what that relationship looks like. We set forth a series of criteria and my previous testimony and other minis, we said here is the criteria we would look for to effect a break and none of those have been satisfied by the agreement. I have two more questions. The information is very important. Service in afghanistan, youve had firsthand understanding of the violence and Inhumane Treatment of the people, particularly the women under taliban review. Would you take a moment and remind us what life was like for the Afghan People and any recommendations for how the United States and International Community can pressure the Afghan Government to protect their people and the rights . You are quite right. , itainly under taliban rule was a very difficult situation, certainly for the women. What was attractive at the time to the people of afghanistan was there had been so much turmoil and a people that at least with the taliban brought some measure of order. But it a measure of order of what nature . The problem from our point of is for the people, it was a disaster and for the women of afghanistan it was something so terrible it is hard to describe. 2012 throughrom 2013, constant refrain from the women of avenue and stan is please dont dessert us of afghanistan is please dont dessert us, please dont dessert us. If i were a woman in afghanistan, i would feel the same way. I think human rights picture will be at risk, no question. We have to ask ourselves, how much does it matter to us . In the way of many things that we care about in the world, what send itriority and we to the top of the list or is it a number two . We cant do everything. And ife a way to try they are going to build something that will stand the test of time, they have to make promises of meaningful that they can actually keep. I am not so sure i have seen that. That is what the Administration Needs to keep in mind. It is not just a matter of getting the hell out, if you get out and it remains stable, you will find you are right that where you were not that long ago and it has implications in terms of security, even with the human rights picture, which we do care about. Back. Ield we will now move on. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. This is a very important hearing. As i listen to the witnesses, i hesitate that i am traveling down memory lane and thank you for your service to the nation and those witnesses. I visited afghanistan on many nations and did not carry the burdens of our those great men and women. Reminded there are women members of congress joined in the newly formed government to to theve input constitution, which in essence gave much power and recognition to women. Those women were then ultimately elected to the parliament. Unfortunately as we deviated in policy from afghanistan and went to iraq, many of the same women were murdered in their home district because of the rise of girlsliban, al qaeda, and schools we formed were destroyed. Important moment as to what our next steps will be. I want to raise the question on ll tobackdrop to mr. More dive into the negotiations and where it puts us and where you have such a strong portfolio and memory of the characters, if you will, that played a role, can you share with us the rising characters in taliban and al ofda to speak to the issue the disposing of the present government in afghanistan and shiang forward a government which would underline placerrent government in and would undermine it. I think the biggest consequence of the deal with the taliban, which would not have been possible had they been candid with us about their intentions, is that we have empowered them politically. Credibilityn them inside and outside afghanistan, more than they deserve. That worries me as they move into negotiations with the government of afghanistan and it worries me for where we ultimately end up. Maam, thato that, i understand the dilemma we find ourselves in. I understand that americans want out. President obama wanted out, President Trump wants out, the American People want us out. I get that. I dont want men and young women fighting for the United States without political support. Unless summit is willing to stand up and make a compelling stay,or why we need to then our only alternative is to figure out, if we are not there, and we wont be there for long, even in an embassy, it will be on before the taliban takes over and we wont be there at all. If we arent there, we have to find out how the collective intelligence on al qaeda, isis, and other groups in afghanistan and outside afghanistan, try to figure out from a military perspective how to reach out and touch those groups and degrade them. It is not impossible. Successfully collecting intelligence and degraded the enemy in the process but we have to figure it out because i think that is where we are headed. Thank you very much. The characterso and the dangers created for the region in afghanistan in particular. Testify, itimes i have testified before you the most. I always say you cut to the chase quicker than anyone. The ambassador raises an important point, which is the taliban hasnt shown any willingness to optimize on political objectives in afghanistan. You may have heard a phrase or a before. Muslimhe title used for rulers over all muslims and it is an authoritarian title. It is not the title you take for a ministerial post in a new Afghan Government. Is something that speaks to a longstanding religious and ideological commitment on their reinject,install and which is there goal all along. Criteria about why break between the taliban and i credit would look like is that one would renounce or disavow another allegiance to him. This is a very serious matter to them. Violated, theu person you are swearing into has the right to take your hat off. This network, all the entities have all recognize the religious legitimacy. A is very important from illogical and ideological perspective. Him is another and i am sure mike is aware of him, because he was involved in one of the deadliest operations against the cia ever in 2009, when they killed seven or eight cia officers, a horrible attack. They have their hooks into all of the nasty characters in the region. They have incubated al qaeda probably back to the 1980s. His father was one of osama bin ladens benefactors. Today his son is a deputy in afghanistan. His network we can detail at some length all the ties, including the fighting going on right now. That remains unbroken. There are all sorts of intermarriages and conflict of interest. That is just two examples of the top leadership where one has a blood oath sworn to him that cant be woken and the other has a legacy going back into the 1980s. These are two very important points that have not been addressed by the very 29th agreement. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you to the misses to the witnesses. We cannot leave these Vital Information points and gentle danger to the United States information points and danger to the United States. Fewhank you for the last decades, striking fear into the witnesses of security testimony. Opportunity the enter testimony. Is to mr. Morell. Thank you to the witnesses and for the chairman for putting this together. I served as a night stalker in task force and many in afghanistan and iraq. I worked with other Government Agencies on many missions, and i want to thank you and your people and organization are all they do for the safety of this country. My question is about the alignment we see in the middle east creating an almost bipolar sunni versus shieh and in particular in yemen and syria, i wondered if you are someone could comment on the militia and where they are today in this unclassified setting. Militia shia militia primarily in iraq pose a significant threat to our mets pose a military folks significant threat to our military in terms of funding, weapons and training. Iranians between the and the militia in iraq has been broken a bit as a result of a death of an official. He was extraordinarily hands on and had influence with those groups. , doesnteadership speak arabic, less wellknown to quest ofrran iran. And it a visit to iraq was his first visit and had to get a visa. Is less iranian control today over those militia. It is not totally gone but it is still there but less. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. Because the Iraqi Government a possibility to pull them in closer, but it creates the opportunity that they do something stupid with regard to the u. S. Presence in iraq that even the iranians dont want him to do. Deposes a series want them to do. It poses a threat. Much,talk about it very but there are significant capabilities that since 9 11 they decided to stay away from us because of what we would to them if they had a certificate attack. Killedo 9 11, hezbollah more markings than any other terrorist group. Thank you for sharing that. I want to shift gears a little. This may be a better question for you, but anyone wants to china in. Some activities in Northern Syria that have been going on, how does that disrupt u. S. Security and our efforts to take , iransia groups efforts to align this access from lebanon all the way around to yemen . What are your pots on where what are your thoughts on where erdogan sits on that . Let me ask tom if he has thought on that. , on the same computer, have a bunch of telegrams the jihadis are running and there is a big debate going on with a relationship with turkey. What they did was come up with a compromise session to allow Turkish Forces and idlib to prevent them from overrunning the province. Issueaised a theological about how close you can get to turkey or work with them, and that is the subject of the ongoing dispute. Al qaeda decided a long time ago that it furthers the longterm objectives. Turkey has become the center of the controversy because of what it did in idlib. Fight has broken out over this and related issues. Turkeyblem i have with is that defendant be duplicitous. There were commanders of isis and one actually left with turkey after mosul fell. The turkish government was not being cooperative. You can identify other figures along those lines. Qaedacovered al operatives that worked in there for years. Pages one my favorite go to is because he would document his journey through this temple and where he and through istanbul where he was going. It was here is to be that he was advertising that he was bouncing from block to block in turkey and the turks didnt do anything about it. That is the duplicity and problems you are dealing with. That gives you might lay of the land. Doesnt seem like it gets any harder there than the northern strip in syria. I would and maybe a couple of lines on that. Erdogan is constantly overreaching, constantly thinking he can manipulate places andideas and he is not as good as he thinks he is doing. The fact that he fix that means that we need to be very cautious about how we deal with erdogan and turkey. It was, is, remains clear that he wants to be key player in and part of Northern Syria to preserve, it was off shoring of all of the refugees that came in that they can push back out because it is a burden on the turkish state. So there is that aspect of it and not to mention the security aspect of ocean out orders. Out borders. Yet be good to russians and you have to do deals with the syrians who are in bed with the russians. He is very confident and that is what he conveyed to our president that he can leave me alone and leave me alone to do what i want to do and we have given him a lot of play, and that is very dangerous for a whole host of reasons. I think we have to think of the erdogan side of this. You. Ank to ms. Now move on from thehe great great state of michigan. She wasnt a great number of congress, we wouldve had her on a witness. Rose. You, chairman thank you, chairman rose. I have find memory of working with two of three panelists at least. My quick questions are, as you to saying, you referred getting ahead of iraq in 2011 and i remember very clearly in the winter of 2014, the cia came up for the hearings and told congress that we are seeing al qaeda affiliates of this type taking over more towns and areas and we are worried they are more active. By the time june rolled around, they have taken over a huge swath of territory in syria. My question is what signs do we have, if any, that similar types of behaviors are going on . What are the similarities between what we see them doing now and what we saw them starting to do in early 2014 . First, it is great to see you. And congratulations on all you have accomplished since you left. To the growthack of isis and the explosion it started with that withdrawal from iraq. , and ad to a rebound most immediate rebound in al qaeda in iraq read you could almost feel it immediately because the pressure came off. The iraqis, not only were we not there militarily to help the Iraqi Military deal with aqi, but for some reason the iraqi stopped all cooperation including intelligence cooperation. I guess they wanted to define their sovereignty and is significant a way as possible. And that led to an immediate rebound in aqr. And then they look across the border and they see the civil war going on in syria and decide that is the place to be. That is where the fight is, that is where we want to be and they go across the border and the al qaeda Senior Leadership in south asia does not like that and does not want them to do it and they do it anyway and they change their names, al qaeda in iraq operating in syria is not a cool name so they change their name. In syria grew rapidly because they were fighting and as you fight you get better and they were acquiring weapons as ads weapons ass depots. So they were getting their hands on sophisticated weapons. And they were getting a flow of foreigners to come fight with them. We were watching all of that. And what i tell people is, it is up to that point. Story job in telling that and being on top of that. Where way fell significant lee short, was when they came back to iraq. Whereicantly start we felt significantly short was when they came back to iraq and we misjudged the capabilitys of the Iraqi Military. We thought the Iraqi Military would do a better job of fighting what is now isis and what used to be aqi. And they did not they fell apart. And they broke and they ran essentially. So that is how they got to where they got to in terms of the size of their caliphate. So they are constraints now and being able to do that. I do not know how good the intelligence is today. I do not see it so i do not know how good it is. I would assume we have a decent picture into what the isis leadership is up to. And what it is thinking. But we are constrained from doing the same thing that we did before by the fact that coalition, although less than it was and putting less pressure on isis, it is still operating. And the fact that the Iraqi Military with us there, i would worry again about what would happen if we left. But with us there we are capable of dealing with an isis that tried to grab territories. So i dont see them being able to go down the road they did before and being able to move and gain strength in different places and being able to without the u. S. There, take on the Iraqi Military. I am not as much worried about them creating another caliphate and grabbing territory. I am very worried about them finding safe haven along the iraqsyria border, from which to plan operations in europe. From which to create new videos. Create new propaganda videos. To be able to create new ones, and a new narrative about the reconstitution that then motivates young people to go out and people in general to conduct attacks on their behalf. And most concerning, as we talked about, is the ability to direct and attack in europe. I know my time has expired but thank you its great to see you guys and all of our witnesses. Cement great thank thank you again. I think we will take liberty now of doing a second round of questioning. Want to get for anyone else would like to respond to the question. I want to give you the opportunity. First, congratulations. It is nice to see you. And if you ever want, im happy to come and talk to about some thehe other stuff, some of fence stuff, i believe that offline. I think mike is exactly correct. I hate to say this but we are trying to grapple with not just the problem set, but hout do you address that . The tough question for us always is okay so we know. Isis is a threat. A kind remains a threat. We have all of these other regional issues that we are going to have to deal with that we have the potential in a European Base or european a european attack. What do we do to effectively or semieffectively prevent an attack. It is a very tough question, very layered and very complex. And you can stay here all day talking about it. But i will say and this is often an uncomfortable answer and it gets right back to the question of afghanistan our presence there means something. Thats what michael is describing in iraq, but we know about afghanistan, other places where our being there matters. Now it can be very, very costly. Its all sorts of painful. On the other hand, i will tell you, lets look at afghanistan. It is not just what does the taliban do . It is, what is the government of , can we form a government that will be able to meet anything. Ofis, what is the calculus that pakistanis when they look at that situation, and are they willing to invest in a stable afghanistan . What do the indians do . And how do that pakistanis regard the indians . Perhaps for them it is a threeway war. All sorts of regional and stability issues that overall impacts our security. It goes back to, are we there or arent we there . To send saying we have our people everywhere in the world. I am saying there are costs that we really have to think about and if you are willing to accept that cost it is fine. Mike is exactly correct. We are going to leave afghanistan, we at least need to know how we are going to get the intel and how we are going to address immediate terrorism problem because it is going to come. The art the larger question i think is not only the potential for attack but what happens if s and indians go at it and the element of the taliban that becomes prevalent in the afghanistan sides with one. I think theres a lot of consequence we need to think about. We stayed 40, 50, 60 years in germany for some of the same reasons. Why is that the cost of a relatively small presence which means something and says something to our allies and partners or sometimes to our is which is relatively cheaper, is not something to do. It is important to thing about. [indiscernible] add that we tend to be focused when we look at afghanistan we tend to be , focused on the reconstitution of al qaeda. And the potential for attacks against the United States. Whether somewhere else in the world, or, got for bed, in the homeland. One of the things we need to think about, is a reconstitution of a taliban state in afghanistan. The potential impact of that on radicalization in pakistan. The influence used to come the other way, from pakistan to afghanistan. Now i worry that if afghanistan ends up or i think its going to end up, i worry about the influence going the other way and the increase in rattles radicalization in pakistan which could lead to a disaster governmentth the that has nuclear weapons. So if i may add to that, real quick, that is exactly right about pakistan. The big problem here in pakistan and afghanistan is what i call that wheel of jihad. State supports the afghan it taliban leadership which is been in bed with groups, some of which attack the pakistani state and the pakistani civilians. Unbroken after all these years. That is why this remainsunbroken after all these years. The problem with that canulation is that they contain indefinitely and use it to gain control and access over afghanistan. The problem is when you take one notch down the wheel, when you move from the Senior Leadership to the al qaeda leadership they have already aggressively been looking at what theyre doing in pakistan, kashmir and the region. They are saying we are not just about afghanistan but looking at the whole indian subcontinent. That is inherently an idea that is destabilizing that they are trying to accomplish. Weve also been following the literature which is not often looked at in urdu and apostate. Pashto. They have already repositioned it to say we are not looking at just afghanistan but the whole region now. So they had a lengthy periodical that came out every month that pages that was named after the afghan jihad. They are saying the americans are living and we have one, this is a victory for the taliban and our allies in afghanistan, we are looking at the whole region. My oral testimony i mentioned the leader Whose Mission was to use afghanistan as a safe haven to launch their networks and extend out of the indian subcontinent and that will keep coming. One other player on iraq. About isis in iraq. One thing that has happened is there is a political scene that is led to a security scene between care cook, the kurdish area of control in kirkuk and the Iraqi Government area of control and isis has exploited that where there is a vacuum of control. They have been executing it large number of attacks, low scale attacks, not massive operations. But they have a steady drumbeat of these attacks going on in kirkuk, and kurdish controlled areas outside baghdad. To wrap up, one reason why as mike mentioned, you keep the pressure on them and you can degrade them but they bounced back. One reason is they are organized as insurgencies. Theres all kinds of redundancies and builtins to basically keep them coming. So when youd knock down that toptier there someone you need them. H he haska abdulla been in the game since 2004. Again, thank you all. We have time for a few more questions. Let me try to refocus this around protecting the homeland and how that relates to technology and afghanistan. And i say this as a member of congress, a new yorker, and someone who was a platoon leader in afghanistan. The American People cannot fathom us staying there forever. Its already americas longest war and i have buddies who have deployed four or five or six times. One area as completely controlled by the taliban. To be also just dont want to be stupid and waste blood and treasure. You hit on a great point, that this is a global threat and we have done this in other places without acting as a landholding power. So, lets say we do leave afghanistan, what do we do then . , wedo we utilize the tools have been employing weather in libya or 20 other countries where we have fought this threat what then do we do . , because the American People should not stand this much longer and i say this as someone who cares about National Security. And second, how are these terrorists communicating right now . I think we have seen progress with the Major Social Media Companies cracking down on this. The establishment of an independent indio independent ngo and director and resource and policy and still much to be done. Now the problems lie in the telegrams and video games and other forms of communication. What do we do about them . How to be go on the offensive as it pertains to them . So in reverse order. On the communications, the issue is social media and other platforms they involve very quickly. Its exactly with the ambassador said earlier about the extensive use of their tools just how innovative they been able to evolve so quickly in this regard. Obviously twitter was a firstgeneration and facebook was a first generation of isis and its fourway into the social media world. They migrated very quickly to use telegram or anything else. I will show you some things on my own computer. I have channels i follow and isis channels that regenerate. Others dont regenerate because no one takes them down. Theyve been there for a long time. In fact earlier last year the european union, worked with telegram to take down hundreds of isis channels. Whats interesting about this, i have known folks on that and operate under my own name. The account under my own name was taken and in fact it was on their side and when they reinstated me i came back and i was able to see what channels existed, none of the al qaeda channels have been taken down. Many isis channels stayed in place. So the sweep got people like me but not a lot of the bad actors, so its an ongoing issue. When they did this when telegram and europol did this to knock out the channels what Creative Force was a problem that we now have to follow and ive account on platforms called riots, rocket chat, hoop, there so many of these now. They are on they generate all of them and content very quickly. All of these not all that many have private messaging capabilities which means you dont even need to be in an actual messaging app you can go through the social media messaging applications and connect with someone very quickly and start getting instructions or get details on how to operate. It has become a complete nightmare from people i talked to in the counterterrorism world and Law Enforcement. That is how i address the cyber or Communications Part of this. Thank you. And addition. Absolutely, tom is right. They are innovative like you would not believe. Theres a goodfaith effort being made by a lot especially the larger firms on the communication side. The facebook and others. But i will tell you [inaudible] ,they are not using this stuff. What they are using is [inaudible] here is the deal. We are never going to catch up. We cant not ever create content fast enough, well enough, whatever thats going to give them something meaningful to them or trustworthy to them. So that whole effort im sorry is just not well used. And our money there is not well used. And we continue to do at and i am not sure why. I think what you need to be doing is monitor that stuff and as an adjunct, all intel is a conglomeration of many things. You got incoming communication, you have humint. Because to develop that you are going to have to rely on somebody to tell you something some signal you should be watching x, y or z. There are ways and is not it foolproof. But we are better at this than you could see were not going to catch all of the bad guys some of that will be successful we have to keep trying to get better at it. I think that is the way. Tom demonstrated some of the cool innovative things hes doing even on the nonclassified side. I think there are ways of addressing that. And if we go back to the presence or no presence and staying or not staying, i do not know we need the kind of presence weve had in some of the places. I think it is possible we have a very small very targeted presence in some of the places we really care about, afghanistan being one of them in which which we signal just by a very small group of people. Theyre very resourceful they can do what they need to do especially if there oriented and so forth. What you need is a very small targeted presence for the business. Thats really what you have to decide is that worth it to you are not worth it to you . Otherwise youre going to be doing both the intel side and then on the political side youre going to have to think about what the implications are so you are cognizant. More will have to be done to but make up for your losses. I think that is an honest assessment. It is not a pleasant or easy one, but it really is the case. Mr. Morel . Mr. Chairman i would just add that i agree completely with the ambassador and tom. In particular the more advanced the technology the bad guys are using in regards to encryption, the more humint becomes important. The more it becomes important to be at one of the ends of the conversation. And having a human being there becomes more important in the new Technology World we are in. I think thats an important point. With regards to afghanistan, i think we have to think about how we leave. I think were leaving. Thats my judgment. I dont think its necessarily the right answer. But i think that is what is happening. So i think we need to think about how we leave. And i would strongly encourage us not to empower and embolden the taliban as we do so. Number one, number two we really have to think about not only our presence there, but also the Financial Assistance that we provide to the Afghan Government. Thats well over 5 billion. Dont know the exact number. But pulling our forces out is one thing, taking away that Financial Assistance, i believe the Afghan Government would collapse overnight. Without the Financial Assistance. So nobody talks about that. I dont know where that stands in the negotiations or how the administration is thinking about it i just dont know. So its incredibly important that money continue to flow so are out. And then i think it is important to think about how we collect intelligence and partners on the intel side. And on the military side, what are the platforms . Abased . See based se are they in central asia . I think the intel piece is easier than the action piece in terms of taking care of the problem once we are not there anymore. Thank you again. Mr. Walker . Question for more mr. Joslin. In your testimony you suggested there has been a decadelong reduction in u. S. Counterinsurgency activities in iraq, syria, afghanistan and northern africa. And that these activities have been placed with more of an ad hoc targeting strategy. Without committing more u. S. Forces to the battlefield i would like to know what recommendations you have to improve intelligence collection and counterterrorism targeting to enter sustained pressure campaigns against these terror organizations . Thank you for the question. Theres a lot of talk these days about endless wars. I get it. I never thought i would be covering this stuff and i do not have skin in the game like others do or have deployed to afghanistan over and over and i have tremendous respect for them and their families and either stem a lot of people are frustrated and just want out. I would say when you look at the big picture the u. S. Shifted away from the largescale counterinsurgency that form of one decade ago and it and at route 2011. 2012. Ended around when i did this assessment the number was less than 30,000 across afghanistan, iraq and syria. Today i think it was less than 20,000. I do not think we can go to zero in all of these areas and still have intelligence collection and the capacity to get terrorists and the guys i am talking about in my oral and written testimony. I think we need some footprint. That is the problem now, i do not think the talks are aimed at what it should be which is what , is the right size of this footprint overseas. Afghanistan provides all sorts of challenges Going Forward. We said that u. S. Military has had a hard time tracking al qaeda and afghanistan all these years. We had many conversations along this line and even with larger number of forces. It gets more difficult as we fully depart from the country which i think i agree and i said publicly it is coming. I would look particularly at section one subclause s. The u. S. Not only after we are leaving afghanistan it says the u. S. Will not use military force or even threatened military force against afghanistan Going Forward after the the u. S. Withdrawal. That agreement, in effect, taken its face value says the u. S. Doesnt have the right to protect itself and defend american interests and america Going Forward from the counterterrorism threats and afghanistan. Is one clause that has not received public scrutiny but really should. Even if all you want is for the u. S. To get out of afghanistan today, nobody should pretend like we will not have terrorist threats emerging from that region Going Forward. Of course, we are. Even the lower footprint, smaller footprint is not tenable. In africa you have around 6000 American Service members were basically working with the french and local partners and others to keep these insurgencies at bay and take out highvalue targets. The ambassador talks about Building Coalition and thats right. Its what we should be doing but unfortunately right now every thing is about removing american troops as opposed to finding stable alliances or stable platforms Going Forward because the bottom line is we is we will have to reintroduce American Forces in some of these areas once the threats metastasize to a point where it becomes obvious to everyone that the threat, just like isis did in 2013, 2014. Thank you again. Is there Something Else . If you would like to close us out. Sure. On the conversation of what our successful presence looks like abroad. Officer and c. I. A. In iraq and worked on this my entire professional life. I am a big, big believer you have to keep pressure on these terrorist networks or else they grow back and expand and they do claim territory and to threaten us directly and our allies. So i am a big believer. But im also representative of a say, is thee who juice worth the squeeze . Myple say i want to know government is protecting me from terrorist groups and attacks on the homeland absolutely. But when they see the cost of a counter isis campaign from 765 billion. That is the cost of funding our entire defense apartment for one year. The question is is the juice , worth the squeeze. When the request came in is 845 million four iraq and syria where we have less than 7000 forces and i , im as big a believer as anyone that we have to be able to look at people with a straight face and say if the juice is worth the squeeze. Can one of you explain to me and to our constituents how the juices were at the squeeze. And if it is not, in these present locations, how do we get to a leaner, meaner presence that allows us to have that costbenefit analysis the makes sense to the average person . Maybe i will go first but i will look forward to the comments of my colleagues. It is the question. You are at the heart of it. There were two answers that come to mind for me, congresswoman. One is that its incumbent upon our Political Leadership to include members of congress to make the case, that that the threat remains and the threat is dangerous. And that we need to protect ourselves. I have a particular political philosophy and i dont know if its widely shared but my view is that political leaders need to lead, not follow. Lead their constituents not follow them. That is for another debate. I do think its incumbent on the president and members of congress to tell the American People exactly what the threats are and why it is important that we stay focused on them. That is one. Two, the figures you cited is way too much money for the number of troops we are talking about. That is shocking to me that that is the number. If i were at the president i would send them back to the drawing board. And have them resize that number because it sounds outrageous. The more important point to me is i would think about to , structure our ability to both spy on and degrade these groups, i would want to do it as a coalition. So i would want to bilaterally on the intelligence side use as , many partners as we can use to get the information we need and as you note there are partners we can count on and some partners we cant but i think we should rely on our partners as much as we can to collect the intelligence we need and we should rely on our partners as much as we can to action those targets. And that we the United States america only Action Target when we absolutely have to when there is no other choice. So, i look at some parts of the world where u. S. Special forces have been able to train local partners to be fairly effective against the radicals who live or happen to live in their countries. Thats a great model. I think we should be very thankful to the french government for what it has been able to do in africa and that should be a model where we encourage our partners to actually take action that if they did not take we might have to take. I think we really got to think hard about what is the Coalition Look Like to do both the , intelligence and the degradation because i dont think we can justify the numbers even with a truthful and candid evaluation of the threat. The Defense Department budget [indiscernible] part of what i learned is that transparency is not always forthcoming and that there are categories that are fuzzy. In their efforts to classify portions of the budget or parts of the budget and i just dont agree with that. The American People need to know what is being spent. My understanding is that a lot of the wasteful spending , i recall the 911 wars and absolutely a lot of the wasteful spending is on big defense platforms and they may not necessarily be used Going Forward and you can see this in this new book called kill chain who used by an author used to work for senator mccain which goes into this great detail and has details which explains how this wasted money on basically big high end weapon [inaudible] you can also look at [inaudible] does an analysis of the Defense Budget. He tries to break it down into as much detail as he can and he has shown to my satisfaction that the 911 wars became a minority part of the Defense Budget a long time ago. He said, for example, in afghanistan it is about 30 billion a year out of 700 billion of a total budget and projections show it is going to be less than that. Overall 911 wars dont lions share of the cost the lions share of the Defense Budget. There is still money to be trimmed there. What number did you say for the iraq . How much exactly . Fy 21 request the permanent on the Armed Services midi is 845 million. Okay, million. Right. Right, right. Ok i was taken aback when i heard billion but 845 million is probably about right. And im sure its less than a million that could be trimmed there as well. I think the point to my mind as you are asking absolutely the right question and it is a question i dont claim to have the right answers and i know after covering this theres waste and money in some places much more efficient and the u. S. Is more efficient at using smallscale footprint than others but the problem is Going Forward is i dont think people are having that right cost benefit analysis question youre asking right now and debate about this. The question is much more about getting out of everywhere and that is what i see the president has wanted to do for quite some time. Thanks. Okay. With that i do want to thank our witnesses for their invaluable testimony. And thank you for your Extraordinary Service for you have dedicated your lives and careers to this fight. Grateful,raordinarily democrats and republicans for all youve done for this country. The members of the subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses and we ask you respond expeditiously and writing those questions and without objection. The committee record shall be kept open for ten days. Hearing note for the business the subcommittee is adjourned. , thank you all so much again. Be safe. The house and senate are back in session for the week without taking their expected two week holiday recess. The house returns this morning at 9 00 eastern and will spend the week working on the health care law, infrastructure, credit score reporting, and Housing Needs that have arisen due to the coronavirus. Follow the house live on cspan. The Senate Returns today at 3 00 p. M. 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