Provided by from our captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose matt olsen is here, the direct of of the National Counterter civil center until he stepped down last month. The agency is tasked with chrekteding data acrossed u. S. Intelligence apparatus. Announcing his resignation, president obama said of him most americans may not know matt olsens name, but every american is safer because of his service. His 24 year career in government includes nfa general counsel and director of the Guantanamo Review Task force. He was a federal prosecutor in washington an held various positions at the department of justice. As a young man he aspired to become a reporter and started that after graduating from college, he briefly worked as a copy aid at the Washington Post. I am pleased to have him here at this table for the first time in his first major interview since leaving government, thank you for coming. Great to be here, charlically. Rose so what was wrong with being a reporter. It was a very difficult road, i learned, in that one year out of college. I went to the Washington Post as a copy aid. Worked with a lot of reporters there, basically making copies, answering phones. And i learned you couldnt just walk in and be a reporter at the Washington Post. You needed to go somewhere else and somewhere else and somewhere else so i decided to apply to law school. Rose lets talk about what you do. Tell me about the National Counterterrorism center. Sure. So as you mentioned, i just left. I just stepped down a week and a half ago as the director of nctd c. I was there for three years starting in august of 2011. And nctd c just accept bratted its 10th year anniversary. So it is a post 9 11 creation, part of the broad reform of the government, Intelligence Community in particular, after 9 11. The main role of nctd v nctd c is to be the governments indispensable source for the synthesis and analysis of terrorism information so it was really founded on this somewhat bold idea it doesnt sound so bold now at the time looking back. But at the time quite bold that every bit of terrorism information, regardless from where it was collected, overseas, by nsa or cia or inside the United States by fbi should all come together. And in that one place, Intelligence Officers from around the community are working on it together. Rose was this in response to the fact that some people look at the fact that there was not enough sufficient communication between fbi and cia. Exactly rdz that might have somehow, somehow impeded or stopped. Exactly. It was that observation, and you know, the 9 11 commission made that observation. Congress as well. That we just didnt do a good enough job sharing information, particularly cia and fbi in the runup to 9 11. And that we were going to do something to solve that and that was really what really lead to the creation of nctd c. It is one thing to say in law that nctd c has this role as was written into the law in 2004. But its been, you know, a ten year effort to really achieve that vision, of really breaking down those stove pipes. An working with partners like the cia and fbi, nsa to bring all that information together in 1 place. You believe that were safer today than we were pre9 11, because of what has happened since 9 11 in terms of developing safeguards. Absolutely. Were safer today than we were before because of the way we changed our approach to counterterrorism and the way the government has postured. Terrorism has changed too, and they have new tools. The threat has not gone away, absolutely not. In fact, in some ways it is more complicated than it was before 9 11 or even five years ago. So the threat is persistent and its complicated and its dynamic so we see these group as dapt to our efforts. We see them watching us, learning from us. And seeking to evade our, you know, our defences. So theyre quite adaptive. And thats a real hallmark of the nature of the terrorism threat today. President obama has said we must, in fact, define the nature and the scope of the threat of terrorism. Right. They said back at the National DefenseUniversity Last year. I was there for that speech. And that, i felt, you for example he was really speaking to all of the American People. But also to us in the Intelligence Community. And even just, you know, speaking parochially to the National Counterterrorism center. Because that i see as our job to be really precise and analytical about how we see the threat, so that we can prioritize, what are the different groups that pose a threat to us. What is the nature of that threat. What is the scope of that threat. So that we can then align our resources in a way that makes sense. And you know, that was in the in 2013 post ben gaddee benghazi when there was a lot of talk about, was this al qaeda or not al qaeda that carried out the attack in benghazi. And the answer was. Rose you are the first to say it was a terrorist attack publicly. Hi a i didnt have time to think too much about it and right off the bat, the chairman of the committee senator lieberman asked me, was this a terrorist attack. And the answer was absolutely it was a terrorist attack. And that is how we treated it from the beginning. Not all terrorist attacks are the same. Rose let me come back to that, because benghazi is a whole other issue to talk about with you. Ben fine the threat today. The threat today, much more complicated than it was five years ago or even really three or four years ago when it was more centralized, more focused on the core of al qaeda. 9 al qaeda Senior Leaders hunkered down in pakistan, in the tribal areas of pakistan, in limited areas in afghanistan. It now is involves a number of different actors. And those include groups that are formerly affiliated with al qaeda like al qaeda in at rabbian peninsula, or aqap which is based in yemen. Al shabob based in some amia. Those are grouped officially affiliated with al qaeda, sworn allegiance to al zawahiri. But beyond that you have groups that are allies of al qaeda like boko haram, vicious, extremely violent groups, groups like sharia in benghazi n lib ya, these are groups with more local or regional. How about alnusra. So alnusra is based in syria. That say group that is officially affiliated with core al qaeda. They are theyve set up shop in syria, very permissive environment and they are a formal affiliate of al qaeda. But even beyond the diversity of the actors,. Rose do they speak to each other . They do. They definitely do. They speak to each other. They share resources like fighters, weapons. They share tactics. And they take advantage of poor supporters like in north africa. To move people and resources and material. So theres definitely a degree of collaboration and cooperation. Rose so explain to us where isis came from . So isis is not new. Isis has been around since really 2004 when it was al qaeda in iraq. Thats the origins of the group. Zarqawi was the leader, vicious guy, swore allegiance to bin laden at the time, in 2004. And was focused on carrying out attacks in iraq. Rose had a lot to do with the sectarian conference that a rupted there. Exactly. Took advantage of that and ferr amed more of that sectarian conflict. That lead, as you recall, to sort of the Sunni Awakening of 2007, the backlash. Which was also aided by our presence there, and iraqi counterterrorism. That really put al qaeda in iraq on the run. What we saw then is 2011, we withdrew. The Iraqi Government became much less effective as a counterterrorism force. And you saw the resurgence. Rose why was that . First of all, they didnt want to have anything to do with the sunnies. They really allowed for the disaffection of the sunni population. And they did not take care of trying to create an inclusive government in iraq. So you had really the reemergence of the sunni extremists, the aqi, al qaeda and iraq group, starting in 2011. So weve seen this for the last few years, going from in baghdad alone, you know, five or so suicide bombings a month in 2011, to upwards of 40 suicide bombings a month in 2013. Something that weve seen grow in terms of the violence over the last few years. And its been very concerning. Rose why are most of them sunni rather shia even though you have shia militias. We certainly have shia militias and we have shia terrorist groups. But it is, and i actually dont know the answer to that question. Why it is more associated with sunni islam. Rose is it because of i dont know what it is that makes them so many of them. Yeah, but if certainly isnt all the groups i mentioned in term of al qaeda and the al qaeda ideology, is a subi Extremism Movement that has spread from, you know, its center in pakistan, outward to all these different countries. And what weve seen as its spread is its gone from, again, afghanistan and pakistan, across south asia, across the middle east and across africa west to places like mali. Rose i want to get to what the attraction is. But let me just say, zarqawi, one of his lower level lieutenants is the guy who now leads icist. Baghdadi. Rose was once in iraq a lower level guy in czar what quarteree. And quite capable. Quite kanl. Shadowy figure. Rose when do we know that . I think weve known that for the last few years. You know, weve had some in some insights. But i think the more general point here, charlie, is that our insights in iraq and in particularly syria are limited so we do not have the intelligence collection in syria, for example, that allows us to really have real fiddlity on the specific intentions of a lot of these individuals. Rose obviously we have surveillance intelligence, obviously. Because they use things like that to a degree but we dont have human intelligence. Is that what we dont have . Its partly that. We dont have the human source network, that in certain places that we have in other places. I mean that just goes, that follows common sense. But the other thing is we i woon overstate the degree to which we have surveillance other wise, these individuals are quite savvy. They understand as a general proposition again that we seek to intercept communications of bad guys. And so they take steps to avoid that. Rose how are we to people like that who have the potential to be what he is . Yeah. I mean, you know, al baghdadi is also known as abu duo, another name for him you may see. He is a shadowy figure. Hes been very careful some we have limited insight into his exact role, his whether radio whereabouts, certainly. But the broader point of, the question should we have seen this coming, you know, i think the answer is. Rose first him and then the rise of isis. We saw sort of his role but what al qaeda in iraq, and then isil did is they set up shop in syria. And they had a cover group, alnusra. That was in 2011. Rose the focus was on alnusra. We were focused on alnusra. We knew this was a cover organization for them. And then obviously these two groups split in 2013. Rose and became hostile to a degree. And are actually very hostile to each other and are fighting each other. So part of the point there is just its a very fluid situation and very dynamic. But the question of whether we saw this coming, we absolutely saw the rise of the group in iraq, the rise of violence in iraq. The role of the sunni extremists in iraq and perpetrates the violence. I think and director clapper talked about this. Rose he did, indeed. One of the challenges we had and i think where we did not anticipate, is the lack of will of the Iraqi Security forces. Rose he made that great point. And i think thats fair. I think we all felt, we see a lot of violence but the Iraqi Security forces will be in a position to stem the movement of isil. Rose so talk to me about what you think of and know about isis today. Why have they grown as they are . And why do they have the size that they do . There are a number of reasons that isil rose to the prominence that it now has in that part of the world. The first and most significant reason is the safe haven that theyve benefitted from. And thats the conflict in syria. So three years of conflict in syria has created an absolute security vacuum that allowed isily] h to amass people, arms, gain money and territory. And then on the other side of the border, really no border now between syria and iraq, but on the iraq side, it was really, again, the lack of inclusiveness of the maliki government that led to disaffection in the sunni communities. So that is one of the reasons, the large safe haven that isil enjoys in syria and iraq. They are an effective fighting force, they are very effective. Theyve got a lot of resources, upwards of a million or more dollars a day that they make from this illicit oil sales. And so. Rose hostages. Hostages and kidnapped for ransom. And then a third point is the Propaganda Machine that theyve proven to be. Rose are they just smarter than the rest of them . Nevers very focused on this. They do have individuals that are quite adept at propaganda and the use of social media. They have taken advantage of the internet as a way to recruit, in particular foreign fighters. So if you look at the numbers, the numbers are daubtsing. We think in terms of isil as a group overall, anywhere from 20 to 30,000 members. In the group. Rose 20 to 30,000. Thats been the latest. Rose on the ground. We thought for a wile ten but its now 20 to 30,000. Right. And then you add on top of that, as many as 15,000 foreign fighters. So thats on top of the individuals that are in isil. These are 15,000 people who have come from other countries to fight with isil. You know, so the numbers there, thats really significant. Rose so they could get up to 50,000. I mean the prospect is those are the kind of numbers were talking about in terms of the overall. Rose what does that mean in terms of their ability to take and hold land unless there is a significant and equally counterbalancing ground force . Right, thats why the strategy that the president has talked about, and sought to implement is to both with the u. S. Lead air strikes, build the capacity of our partners, the iraqies in particular, the kurds, to have an Effective Ground force. Rose and the syrian opposition, opposition, and free syrian army. Right. Rose im asking thisment because they cant do that overnight. Thats going to take time. Right. Rose to train these free syrian army. They are the principles core of it. Right. Rose in syria. Right. Rose an theyre on the march. In the meantime, theyre about ready to take the city. Thats an important city, but its again, their goal is to establish a caliphate and that is why theyre moving to gather and hold this territory. They i think our sense is that there are some vulnerabilities. One of the things i think is important, the point i make, is this group is not invincible. Weve already seen the air strikes. Put them on the defense difficult. And stop their momentum. So those air strikes have been effective in stopping the momentum of isil. They are going to find it more difficult once they start to seek to govern territory than to just take territory. Rose you can shut down their financing . We can take on the financing. We can air strikes on some of theirjf infrastructure. ilun these are the ways that will slowly erode their capability. And beyond that, weve also seen over time that their message is one of such hopelessness and violence that it bears in it the seeds of their own demise. If you look at it, it seems to me that for these, when you listen to these young men and women. And women, who are joining isis, its like a romantic crusade for them. They have bought into whatever the ideology is. Right. Rose uz know that this is a crusade with the black flag and we are he on the march and we represent, you know, a religious passion. My own sense on that is i understand that. I mean that is that message has some appeal to some people. I understand that has some appeal to some people. What i think the counterbalance that will take some time but is there, is the vast, vast majority really almost unanimous rejection of that by sunni leaders, clerics. Some of whom are not pro u. S. , but are nonetheless totally against the isil message. Rose some who hate each other like the saudis and iranians, hate each other but theyre one in terms of weve got to stop isis. Right. And thats why i think, again, not invincible. Its going to take time. And its going to take time for that message to be an feblingive counterbalance to the initial appeal perhaps that isil has had. Rose what do we know about not the government, but private citizens in saudi arabia or the emirates or other countries, going against the devout purpose of their countrys government to support isil for whatever reason . Is it significant in. Well, i dont want to talk specifically. I think weve even over the years, that there have been individuals who have supported some of the extremist groups. And in some cases it has been a significant amount of money. Rose and it still is. I actually dont know if it still is. You know, we do a pretty effective job through the Treasury Department in stemming that flow, and working with the partners in the region to put a stop to that. Rose so where do you come down, back to the earlier question about the intelligence and what the president said in the famous interview with 60 minutes and steve kroft in which he basically said the point that clapper had made, that we did not recognize how bad the iraqi army was. Right. Rose or how fast isis would grow in syria. I mean, i think there were limitations to what we understood about the iraqi army. Rose thats you, isnt it, arent you the guy that collaborates all this stuff. Yeah, we put all that together. Rose coordinate, not collaborate. We are always looking inward to see did we do everything we could. Did we see this coming. Did we and believe me, theres a lot thats a con starningts you know, kind of learned lesson, have we made mistakes, as an Intelligence Community. Here on the question of the growth of isil, you know, i dont think thats the case. I think we saw the rise of that group. We saw them earlier this year, generally take fruition. So there was no and that was well understood throughout the government, you know, and including in the white house. I dont think there was any doub