Brought to the world. Rose internet. The internet, social media, an engine for social change, an engine for free speech, an engine for creativity. And so how do we address their messaging . Weve got to do, in the digital space, what were trying to do in the physical space, which is deny them a safe haven. Rose lisa monaco for the hour, next. Funding for rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by american express. Rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. She is is president obamas chief counterterrorism and Homeland Security advisor. She succeeded john brennan in 2013 when he was chosen to lead the cia. Her role encompasses Critical Issues that affect u. S. National security. They include the campaign against isis, our hostage policy and cybersecurity. Shes also near the head of the table in the situation room briefings on immigration and other Critical Issues. In addition to that, she coordinated the administrations response to the ebola outbreak. Lisa began her career as a federal prosecutor in washington and serveds achieve of staff to f. B. I. Director bob muller. Im pleased to have her here at this table for the first time. Welcome. Thank you, charlie. Good to be here. Rose is there more interesting jobs than you have in washington . Im not sure there could be. Rose yeah. How do you see it . I mean what dow defined task do you define the task of the job that the president has given you . Well, charlie, in many respects i have the best Job Description that there is. I get to help the president and his National Security team keep the nation safe. And keep the American People safe. That fundamentally is the job. Rose what is the biggest threat to our National Security . Well, if were talking about terrorism, as you mentioned at the outset, my job encompasses Homeland Security and counterterrorism. On the Homeland Security side, cyberthreats, first and foremost, were very concerned about. On the terrorism side, people are very, very focused on isil as they should be. But i continue as do many of my colleagues continue to be very focused on al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most determined and persistent affiliate of al qaeda corps. And their continued efforts. Rose and alnusra. And the krrx orisan group and it goes on. Rose is it possible that they will be able to coordinate all of these groups so that there will be one Central Command of all terrorists coming under one umbrella . Baghdadi or whoever . Whats interesting, charlie, is you see a shift in the terrorism landscape since 9 11. And even in the last few years. Isil arguably hassle vateed in terms of being at the vanguard of the global jihad. Al qaeda and what we refer to as al qaeda core operating in the fatah in afghanistan and pakistan, was for a long time our chief focus. And isil now and the area that it occupies between iraq and syria, and increasingly its efforts to extol adhereance to violence is our focus. Rose al qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula. Uhhuh. Rose are they reporting to a bin lad everyones successor, zawahiri. Well, up until a short while ago, the leader of al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, mr. Alwahisi who died over the summer was the deputy to zawahiri. He was and had been named by zawahiri as the number two in all of al qaeda. So yes, very much a close relationship. Rose has the success of isis changed al qaeda . You know, its interesting, i think. And there was a statement from zawahiri just last week. There is, i think you see in the Counterterrorism Community, would tell you, a struggle for continued relevance. Al qaeda corps has been largely designated in the afghanistan, pakistan theater. And that is due to the relentless pressure that our Intelligence Community, our military, our Law Enforcement efforts, working with our partners including Pakistani Military operations over the last year. Rose how do you coordinate with drone policy . Well, we continue to take action, direct action, Lethal Action against those threats, those terrorist actors who pose a continuing imminent threat to u. S. Persons. So what does that mean . That where a country and a partner nation, where those terrorists are operating, cannot or will not take action to stop a threat that is posed to the United States, we will do so. And the president has spoken spoken about this quite clearly. My job is to assist him in doing that so im working with the members of the Intelligence Community, with the military, to work through those operations. Rose and operational role with respect to drones, is that now handled by the cia or the pentagon . Well, weve been very clear and the president has been very clear that Lethal Action against terrorists ought to be done largely by the military. And ought to be done. Rose largely. Well, there are operations sometimes that you need to have be done by the Intelligence Community. Im not going to speak to specific operations. But you want to make sure that the president has a whole range of tools at his disposal. But when youre talking about the most great action you can take, the most serious action you can take to disrupt a threat, and that is Lethal Action, that is the job of the military. That is what the president said in his speech in 2013. When does he got involved about the use of drones. Well, i think the best example of this is with regard to the strike zens anwar alaki that has been talked about. But largely, charlie, this is about setting policy. Its about setting priorities. And making sure that the military and the Intelligence Community have clear policy guidance. So for instance, the president set out very clear standard for when the United States government will use direct action, Lethal Action against a terrorist target outside an area of active hostility. Rose you can tell us what the standards are . So as the president laid out in his speech now, two years ago, in the National Defense university in 2013, he made very clear that we apply the highest standard we can. And so that means that a terrorist target, there must be near certainty that that terrorist target is a first of all, the terrorist target has to be a lawful target. Then that that we have to have near certainty that that target is present and importantly that there is no civilian civilians that will be killed or injured. Rose civilians killed or injured. What kinds of mistakes occur . Or a hostage. The most disturbing and unfortunate example of that is, as you know, the announcement the president made a few months ago, about the death of Warren Weinstein and giovanni laporteo, an italian aide worker. They were killed in a u. S. Counterterrorism operation. We did not have indications that they were there, quite obviously. And despite the application. Rose did you have evidence that they had been there sm. No. Rose so you had no reason to believe they were there at all. No. Rose had been there, went there. Had there been as the president said in his statement when he made the announcement, had we had that information, we would not have conducted that operation. Rose even if you had a suspicion that they might be there, there would be no operation, even if you couldnt confirm that they were there. There has to be near certainty that the highest standard that you can apply, that there isnt going to be a civiliancasualtyor injury. And it is a devastating thing when that happens. And as the president said, and he made the decision, immediately upon being told what had happened, that there would be account accountability and it would be public. That this was the action that had been taken and the United States would take responsibility for it. Rose if you are an al qaeda leader or terrorist leader, i assume the wisest thing you could do to avoid a drone attack is to have people close to you, a family or children or a hostage. Weve seen terrorist actors undertake actions to try and thwart operations. Rose like what . Staying off Certain Communications devices. Rose i assume they do that as a matter of course. At a certain point youve got to communicate. Youve got to move. And the work of the Intelligence Community in the military tries to work within that. Rose how is isil different . It is a threat and a phenomenon different in kind, i think, than the al qaeda core threat and even its affiliates. A few things to note. They have displayed a, almost apocalyptic ambition. Certainly a brutality that has been unprecedented. Rose apocalyptic vision is kind of to establish a caliphate. To establish a caliphate. Rose between iraq and syria. Exactly. And in the wider world as well. They have shown the ability to take and hold territory. This was the distinguishing factor. And one that we were talking about at this time last year. And as you know, the president was able to bring together a group of some 60 nations in a coalition to fight isil in military terms, and as well to go after their finances, to before foreign fighters, to address their abhor ant messaging that they provide to young people, to enlist them, in their acts. So isil is different in the vision it puts forth, its focus on the caliphate, its ability to take and hold territory. But most distinguishing feature, i think, charlie, is the success they have had in their ability to use social media. I make the analogy that several years ago, just a handful of years ago, my colleagues and i in the Counterterrorism Community were focused on aqap, al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to use a magazine to expoll their extol their followers and give direction. At that time t was a pdf file, hard copy magazine distributed in forums on the web. That looks like the 8track tape version of propaganda now, when you see what isil is doing. Isils use of twitter. And social media poses what i refer to as an exponential threat. Rose but is it primarily for recruiting or in multiple ways. Its both. So it is people use the term recruiting. But it is more like enlistment. Because they put the messages out there. There are some 90,000 twitter accounts that are associated with isil and sympathetic to isil. A smaller number, a smaller fraction of them maybe real true isil members. But they themselves will have 50,000 followers. So just do the math. They are getting their word out, getting their vision out, in some cases directing, in some cases just extolling individuals. And theyre preying on vulnerable people. Mostly youth this is a distinguishing factor too, charlie. We dont see one demographic who are drawn to this. All ages, but mostly youth. And. Rose and what is the a traction for them . Is it the romantic adventure that they are buying . This is a question that we need a lot more focus on. And frankly a lot more research on. But i think one of the things is an attraction to being part of something bigger. Something these are disillusioned vulnerable souls. Rose thats the reason young people join gangs in urban neighborhoods. Thats exactly right, thats exactly right. Rose an theres been a lot of talk about the parallels. And are there ways that we can give those young people an offramp, if you will, before they get drawn to this . Rose my impression is, just from reading a lot of media, is that recently there have been some people who fled, to give testimony that it has not what you expect. Yeah. And this is what we need to lift up. This is what we need to get more attention to. Rose but thats a responsibility of the state department or the white house . So the state department runs under the leadership of rick stengel, who i think you may have had on here before. Rose or known a long time. Known a long time. Runs something called the cfcc, which is basically a Strategic Communications center to provide messaging that seeks to counter isils narrative. But the truth of the matter is, charlie, we can do that and ricks doing a tremendous job on that. And we have set up and he has worked to set up the gulf version of this in the uae, something called the center that will send out messages to debunk isils narrative. But what really needs to happen is we have to lift up the voices of those people who have traveled and found that isil is being hypocritical. It cant. Rose its not as romantic. Its not a romantic jihad, it is a brutal undertaking. Its a savage undertaking, where women are enslaved and raped and beaten and soldiers who come. Rose including baghdadi himself. In terms of. Rose rape and they have been reports. There have been reports, there have been reports. Rose can you confirm it . I can to the. Rose you cannot or you cant tell me. I cant tell you. Rose that had to do with a hostage as well who was later killed. Yes, i think youre speaking of kalla moore. Rose exactly. Stories that came out about her. Thats correct. Rose where is he . Do we assume hes in syria and roca. Q roca is largely viewed as the stronghold. Rose for both syria and iraq. For isil. Now for a long time and the last time he was public and that we had a public sighting of him was in mosul. And it was a big step, i think, and the first time he had been seen publicly in quite some time. And a show of defines that he had gone out publicly in mosul. Correct. But there is also this. You have been able to launch successful drone attacks against isil figures high up in the leadership. Correct. Rose including the guy who was doing the finance for them. Yes. Rose does that have any impact . Because some people have said to me, they have carefully organized themselves so that there is someone to step up. They expect to lose certain members because of drone attacks or other clashes militarily. Well, weve been putting tremendous amount of pressure on isil in iraq and increasingly in syria and increasingly around aroca. You mentioned abu saif who was a key finance lead are and he was killed during the course of a capture operation, charlie. This was. Rose it was intended to capture. It was. Military members going into syria to capture him, and. Rose special forces, is that the idea . Correct. And what did happen though in that raid was a tremendous amount of intelligence was gathered. And that helps us understand what isil is doing in its finances. But also in iraq, during the course of the coalition operations, the u. S. Military was able to remove from the battlefield an individual named haji mutah, the number two in isil. And over the last few months. Rose meaning you killed him. Correct. And over the last few months, in syria, due to, an over the course of increasing operations in syria, there has been the death of an individual named janad. Hussein and others who were the main focus, main proponents in isil of external operations, particularly extoling persons here in the United States to undertake what we refer to as opportunistic attacks. Rose a put intold me that he worried most about people on the battlefield coming back. Yeah. Rose to russia . Those russians have been attracted coming back. He said i would rather fight them in syria than fight them in russia. And thats why im in syria. Lets just talk about russia and syria. He has made no he is clearly telegraphed fact that he wanted to build up Russian Forces there, to support assad. Uhhuh. Rose he also says hes there because he wants to defeat isis, and he thinks its important to keep assad in government because you need a Central Government to fight isil, isis, and invited the United States to join him and other countries in that effort. Why is that not a good idea . So a few things about that, charlie. One, those things are fundamentally intentioned, we believe. Rose fundamentally. Intentioned. The Assad Government and what it has done to its people through the use of barrel bombs and other atrocities. Rose gas. Gas. Is a magnet for extremists to come and indeed foreign fighters to flow in to syria and iraq, but into syria. So assad is not a counterterrorism partner. But, but, and he said that. Putin, i mean i asked him that very question. A lot of people believe that assad is a magnet to attract near recruits to isil. He said, i mean, most people believe that, many people believe that you ought to be able, and secretary kerry has said this, not to immediately take assad out. But agree that you want to transition him out, but then near term, we need him for that effort. Is that the administrations position . Because thats clearly what secretary kerry has said unless you correct me. Well, i think what i would say, im not trying to say we need him for that effort. Because assad is not going against isil. Now if the russians want to make some constructive contributions to the fight against isil, i think thats a good thing. I would say, however, theres no need to reinvent the wheel. The president began and led and continues to lead and will convene again tomorrow, the coalition of 60 some odd nations, countering isil. And that was begun last year, at around this time, as you know, or a little bit earlier in the summer, precisely because of one of the main considerations, certainly, was the flow of foreign fighters. And the need to fight isil. Rose coming through turkey and other places. Coming through turkey to europe, and frankly an eticket away to the United States. Rose right. So the the aim