Transcripts For CSPAN3 Washington Institute Discussion On Counterterrorism 20240713

The ongoing lecture series. Russell took office as acting director in august, but its not his first, second or third time in the building. Hes held many other leadership positions including counselor to the director, chief data officer. Hes held positions at the Defense Intelligence agencies, the National Security council, the u. S. Army, joint chiefs of staff. So were thrilled that hes been able to carve time out of his busy schedule and spend some time with us today to talk about Counter Terrorism in an era of competing priorities. Russell will deliver some opening remarks from the podium and then well sit down for a little fireside chat. Ill ask the first few questions and then i will open it up to all of you who are here to ask some questions and we welcome all of you who are watching via livestream or via cspan, thank you for joining us today. Russell, the podium is yours. So, thanks very much, matt. Its a great pleasure to be here to talk about Counter Terrorism in an era of competing resources. I happen to testify earlier this week and was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and she said that a colleague of hers had seen the testimony and he characterized my performance as that of a thoughtful nerd. I am hoping to aspire to something more than nerddom here this afternoon. We are now almost two decades past 9 11 and if we continue to proceed in protecting against attacks against the homeland, i think the notion of competing priorities is going to get more challenging, as it should. Ever since former secretary mattis issued the National Defense strategy last year, theres been an ongoing, at least implicit discussion about risk. How does the threat track up as opposed to other threats. Along with terrorism, they laid out a dizzying array of different kinds of threats, election security, counter intelligence, intellectual property theft, organized crime which kills more americans than terrorism will. And it is completely understandable that terrorism may no longer be viewed as the number one threat to the country, but i dont know what that means and i think it begs a host of questions. I offered three. What does the National Risk equation look like as the country confronts a very complex interNational Security environment. Secondly, how do we optimized resources in the best interest of the country when departments and agencies may have differing priorities. And if were going to reduce efforts against terrorism, how do we do so in a manner that doesnt inadvertently reverse some of the gains from the past 18 years. I would like to walk you through a road map of the issues that i think need to be considered. Theme number one, good news. Let me say at the outset, terrorism is not, never has been, an existential threat to the country unless it changes who we are. It holds out the the potential of killing a very large number of people. And as history has shown, it can occupy the countrys attention for a very lock time. Fortunately weve made a lot of progress on the terrorism front. The last significant al qaeda attack was five years. The last centrally directed isis attack in the west, was the turkish nightclub, three years ago, and before that, paris and brussels. Attacks are down. The u. S. Has had one this past year and roughly a half dozen in europe, both numbers lower than previous years. While capabilities ebb and flow, weve seen isis struggle to sustain success. Theres been tremendous military and intelligence efforts in iraq and syria to eliminate the caliphate. Many operatives have been captured and killed and that has had many second order effects. Its not just iraq and syria. We have removed leadership from around the globe. Dhs, fbi and state have pushed borders out and made the homeland much less hospitable to terrorists. Weve seen global efforts to improve border security. Weve seen a growing partnership with the private sector to make cyber space less hospitable and services around the globe are working together against terrorism. U. S. Continues to pass on Lessons Learned to interested foreign parties with a robust exercise program that addresses information sharing and cooperation. And we are seeing Capacity Building in other countries. Improvements in cooperation, enhancements in information sharing that can mitigate the impact of terrorist attacks. You compare the kenyan response in 2013 and the hotel earlier this year, it was dealt with far faster with far fewer casualties. So we will never eliminate terrorism. But a tremendous amount of good work has been done and that actually allows for this conversation about comparative risk and that brings me to theme two which is a concern for the potential for complacency. We do need to be careful. When i started working Counter Terrorism after 9 11, we were overwhelming focused on al qaeda and a centrally directed threat emanating from one piece of real estate. 18 years later we see a diverse threat that spans the globe. The primary islamist threat in many of our countries has been home grown extremism. Despite the elimination of the caliphate, we have an insurgency in syria and iraq. Some are very small, others have thousands of people. Nine of them have pledged allegiance to the new isis leader over the past week. We have al qaeda that has received less attention, but it too retains a command structure and we see growing connections and coordination between and among its affiliates. There are also a full range of shiarelated threats, also a growing concern for the militant groups in iraq. If the various strands werent complicated enough, were seeing a global threat of particularly extreme rightwing related terrorism. More on that later. Terrorists around the globe are proving very cable of exploiting technology, theyre good at it. The use of cryptic communications for planning, social media to spread propaganda and transfer knowledge between and amongst individuals and networks. Drones for swarm attacks, explosive delivery means and even assassination attempts. Highquality documents that undermine screening and threaten border security. Cryptocurrencies to Fund Operation and is the potential terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons has moved from low probability to something that is considered much more likely. Its outpaced the policy framework to deal with the threat. Looking out five years, we are particularly concerned with the impact encryption will have on our Counter Terrorism efforts and this is a key point. We cant freeze our thinking in 2019. We always need to be looking to the future. Finally, both al qaeda and isis have shown themselves to be successful at radicalizing vulnerable populations around the globe. Sometimes they establish people to organize a group, sometimes an emissary is already present with ties or personal connections. Sometimes its done remotely via social media or letters, and sometimes a group deploy to an emissary to an isis core. They are innovative and bolstering their ranks. And that brings me to theme three which is the feed fneed fr focus on prevention. By my standard, there are far more radicalized people now than there were at 9 11. Some think tanks suggested that were looking at four times the number of radicalized individuals and our own database has grown by a factor of almost 20. Unless you believe this fervor will burn itself out, we will faced with a problem around the globe. We believe a mix of personal, group, community, social, political factors contribute to the radicalization of sunni youth. We are gradually as a world accumulating more data. The United Nations Development Program evaluated 718 active or former african extremists to identify the reason that individuals are radicalized at the person level. The most important factor cited was Human Rights Violations by Security Forces but also poverty, the nature of religious education, stable families and government corruption. But its just not about poverty and being downtrodden. As we saw in sri lanka, the individuals are well educated but radicalized by hate preachers. Theres a great deal of Fertile Ground in countries and were facing radicalization in prisons and even amongst young children. There are various initiatives associated with messaging, deradicalization, defection programs, reintegration, offramping, as well as broader programs focused on good governor nance. If the numbers of radicalized people around the globe keeps growing, i do not like our odds of identifying the right people to capture, kill, keep out of the country. And there are second and third order effects. As Climate Change takes its toll, were seeing greater forced migration. And its giving further rise to rightwing violence. Brings me to theme four, the need to focus on identities, people of concern. Terrorist threats revolve around people and networks and while tracking identities is pretty arcane stuff, not as interesting as talked about the future of isis or the latest strike, it is incredibly important. Our terrorist identities underpins much of the screening architecture that evaluates 3. 2 Million People a day and this is where we failed the country on 9 11. Two of the hijackers were allowed to get visas, live in the country and get on airplanes because we were insufficiently stitched together. An enormous amount of effort has been expended over the past 18 years. We have pushed borders out, creating a multilayer defense to identity individuals with terrorist connections at the earliest possible point and we have continually improved building richer dossiers, making use of better technology, classified screening to support unclassified watch lists and making use of bio metrics. This will never be a riskfree proposition, but the system has overall performed extraordinarily well. Nctc working with our partners is responsible for compiling the u. S. Government database of ksts and the data is used to support screening partners. There has been some confusion on this point and when we talk about ksts, precision is very important. Each day, approximately three individuals seek permission to come to the country. This is not to say that they intend to conduct an attack, simply that theres information that warrants scrutiny. Upwards of another 7 watch listed individuals per day may have connections to ksts, but we lack the information to consider them known or suspected terrorists. As you might imagine, when 3 Million People per day are screened, drawing conclusions about any one particular individual can be fraught with challenges. But over the course of 16 years, the system has stood the test of time. In some cases, refugees, for instance, extra levels of scrutiny are provided. We have no indication that foreign terrorist groups have attempted to exploit the program. Over the past two decades the past decade, there have only been two individuals who arrived at refugees and went onto conduct attacks in the homeland, both radicalized after traveling to the United States. Our track record is pretty good. However, we cant rest on our laurels. There are some warning signs. As we saw in the case of the paris and brussels attacks, many of the individuals were known to Security Services but they had highquality fake passport. Lists are on the wrong side of history. We saw this in Northern Syria where captured foreign fighters routinely gave fake names. They focused on biometrically enrolling as many people as we can. How do we process the volume of information and ensure high quality databases . In my opinion we should be treating this period much like we did that after 9 11. What are we trying to accomplish and how are we going to get there . We have a lot of piece matters and we need to ensure they are properly stitched together. The vision should be a near realtime bio metric screening against all information to determine if an individual is known or suspected terrorist. This would involve greater focus on collection, integration and sharing of bio metrics as well as business process and technology improvements. The benefits would support screening against other categories of threats. That brings me to theme five, the need for robust intelligence. None of this happens unless we maintain a robust, integrated intelligence capability. There is no question that the Counter Terrorism enterprise is the best part of the Intelligence Community. Weve been doing it as a community for a very long time. But as good as we are and as well resourced there will be significant challenges Going Forward. A globally dispersed and diffuse Intelligence Network places great pressure on our intelligence services. We need to evaluate the threat at multiple levels and determine when they pose a growing threat. The first level was not a high priority before last easter. The most hard line group had denounced isis in 2016 and that spawned a much smaller entity, ntj that was responsible. It had been known for attacks on buddhist statues, not associated with isis, we didnt recognize the threat. One step up from that would be local indigenous islamic insurgencies around the world. Consider the longstanding insurgency in northern mozambique. Extrapolate that to the 20odd current and budding isis affiliates around the world, you get some sense of the intelligence challenge. And then one level higher. We need to have sufficient insight into these insurgencies to determine when they may be expanding to a threat that may threaten the homeland. In 2009 we thought of al qaeda in the peninsula as a regional threat. And on Christmas Day of 2009, northwest flight 253 was attempted to be blown up. And we reviewed t think about the broad array of people and networks and their ability to exploit technology and we have more than a few challenges. At the macro level as we adjust to priorities to other threats, there is no question that intelligence resources, collection and analystic, will be shifted away from terrorism to other priorities. Actions have consequences. What do we stop focusing on . What is the associated risk . And as we draw down military forces, we have less assets capable in theater. There will be less liaison with on the ground partners. With those facts come a degree of risk and well need to determine how great that risk is, whether it can be compensated for and so forth. And then at the national level, we need to ensure that we have the right constellation of organizations and authorities. This is a very large enterprise. There is duplication, there will need to be rationalization Going Forward to ensure that we are using resources wisely. And that brings me to theme seven. The need to get the electrons right. If were going to get the intelligence right, we need to get the electrons right. Data is everything. Whether were looking for strategic trends or conducting analysis associated with individuals and networks, data is the life blood of the Counter Terrorism community. The data challenges we face are complex, particularly when were dealing with information that is incomplete, ambiguous and often wrong. Ten years ago this month, a father walked into the embassy and said his son may be related to extremists in yemen. That cable was available to everybody in the government, it got no attention. Other data existed, but the relationships werent obvious and we did not connect the dots. I have spent my entire career working analytic issues and will say that Counter Terrorism has the worst single to noise ratio to any discipline which ive ever been associated. If i put you in the shoes of an analyst, he or she has seen a quarter of a million threats. Ov overwhelmingly they were bogus, but when they come in, how do you know . We average about 300 threats to our embassies and consulates abroad every year. Almost one a day. To get even a little more concrete, we receive in excess of 10,000 reports a day through which they need to sift and they contain 16,000 names daily. All our services are challenged by the need to process ever expanding amounts of data in order to uncover potential terrorist threats. With the growth of captured media on the battlefield or the explosion of social media, the magnitude of that problem only goes. Terrorists have to communicate, they have to move money, they have to travel, but strictly speaking, these data sets arent terrorism information so they can implicate legal, policy, privacy and operational equities that limit the sharing of such data. Determining which information is relevant and addressing the competing equities remains a work in progress. I will never have enough analysts to process the available information so Artificial Intelligence isnt nice to to have, its an imperative. The National Security commission on Artificial Intelligence chaired by eric shift. With respect to data, the government is well positioned to collect useful information from its Worldwide Network of sensors but much of that data is unlabelled, hidden or inaccessible to the government. Even more data is simply expelled as, quote, exhaust because it is not deemed to be immediately relevant. And the infrastructure is woefully inadequate to process this information. We have a very long ways to go to realize the benefits. And in the case of terrorism, the problem is particularly difficult because so much of our data is unstructured. And its all unstructured in different ways. That makes it very difficult for machines to help our analysts. Harking back to what i said about the evolving nature of the threat, its all about individuals and networks and as we have seen with home grown violent extremists, it can be difficult to uncover these individuals. The haystack has continued to grow and the needles are increasingly subtle. We are seeing this problem across the western world where partners may be dealing with 10s of thousands of radicalized individuals. This brings me to theme seven. What does america want us to do in the realm of discovery and uncovering individuals . Terrorism like all Trans National threats blurs concepts. Our efforts to ensure Public Safety can bump up against issues of privacy. Part of the governments response after 9 11 was to provide ntct with broad authorities. In my opinion, that was an extremely good move. With that, came expensive oversight and Compliance Regime and im proud of the centers record in this regard and my experience has been that the entire community is very consciousous about these issues. But looking forward and given the pace of technological change, it seems to me the issues are going to become more difficult and the need for an informed, transparent public discussion becomes greater. How do we square the circle, keeping the country safe in a world of Trans National threats and balancing the protection of privacy rights . Theres no consensus in the country about that balance. A notion of discovery is a case in point. That linking nonobvious relationships and finding unknowns unknowns. How much can we, should we do . The processing of information is enormously complex. International cyber criminals, terrorists, proliferators and criminals have linkages into the United States. They may be u. S. Persons with foreign connections. Or they may travel here, call here or use our financial institutions. Exploiting globalization, they can hide the daily Noise Associated with millions of people who cross our borders or the trillions of dollars that slosh around globally, or the unimaginable amounts of telecommunication activity. The data associated with these actors is sitting aside. There are lots of complicated challenges that limit our ability to do discovery. In the case of the 12 25 underwear bomber, it was facts being lost in the background noise. In other cases, relevant data may exist in agency repositories but for operational, law enforcement, or privacy reasons, the information is not broadly available. Retention and use issues are major limitations when it comes to comingling such information. And in other cases, the information resides in separate repositories. Defaulting to slogans like the need to balance privacy and security may sound superficially attractive, but it isnt helpful. Which electrons should be accessible to which organizations for what purpose and when . Let me give you some questions. First, what level and type of Counter Terrorism risk should we be willing to tolerate in order to preserve freedoms and liberties and how can the National Security Community Structure a dialogue with the American Public to address the question . Second, how is a National Security community do we governor and approach the exploitation of the internet particularly at a time when, a, technology is far outpacing rule making and, b, were able to find information on the internet that is far more rich, valuable and intrusive than other types of collection subject to statutory regulation and, third, what is the role of the private sector in National Security Counter Terrorism activities . Is there a point in which their collaborating so closely that there is an intolerable privacy risk to individuals . I suspect these kinds of questions and the associated tradeoffs are going to be increasing important as we look to the future. All right. Let me move away from electrons back to the last three themes. Theme eight, the need for whole of government. Counter terrorism integration will be critical and i suspect increasing difficult. It will also be insufficient. As we found over the past two decades, we need whole of government integration. Thats always been a challenge for us. As any practitioner will acknowledge, the reality of the way the government is configured limits access. We are a government of sovereignty, thats the way were designed, the way money is appropriated. We have hard wired silos of excellence across the government. Endless studies have been written about the process. I think the 9 11 commission had it about right, quote, it is hard to break down stove pipes where there are so many stoves that are legally and politically entitled to have cast iron pipes of their own, unquote. Not impossible, one very good example was the post9 11 watch listing and screening architecture that brought together the entirety of the government. But even that has been under stress as departments and agencies begin to adjust to evolving priorities. We are a role to develop whole government strategies. The enterprise is more coordinated than any other mission in part because of those efforts. That said, integration efforts will always struggle in a system of departmental sovereignty and in absence of integration. That largely happened in the years after 9 11 Counter Terrorism was a major focus because of the eminence of the threat. During a high threat environment when we were seeing major al qaeda plots there were multiple deputies and principal meetings every week. There was tremendous interagency tension at all levels. Understandably, as the threat has declined, so has the degree of interagency focus. In addition, theres been a degree of downsizing and deemphasizing integration, a trend that goes back to the last administration. Theres been a sense that decisions could be cut back to department and agencies partly because of micromanagement and partly born of a desire to wean departments off of the them. Theres no question the nsc will continue to handle the highest Priority Issues but what happens when lesser important questions reasoned recognized as important until they are. Remember, it was the very arcane subject of watch listing and screening that failed the country leading up to 9 11. And it was the technical issue of classified Network Access that gave a rise to wikileaks and snowden. How do we ensure lower visibility issues that implicate multiple Department Agency equities get add adequately addressed. This could be important in the event of the need for a Rapid Response during a crisis. Terrorism like any trance National Threat in a ses at a times a whole of government response. Well need to ensure that there are ample mechanisms. And that brings me to theme nine. The need for whole of society. As we look to the future we need to look well beyond whole of government. Terrorist use of the internet will require a Robust Partnership between government and the Technology Industry to prevent the distribution of propaganda, communications with supporters, and a proliferation of information to support attacks. Over the past two years, theres been a marked increase in industry willingness to work with one another, the u. S. Government and foreign partners to Counter Terrorism through the Global Internet forum to Counter Terrorism. It provideds a vehicle for discussions and potential information sharing and there has been substantial process. Facebook, twitter and youtube have reported that they detect over 90 of terrorist content through Automated Technology meaning much of it is removed immediately after it is up loaded and never reaches the platform for public consumption. So far this year, youtube has suspended 42,000 channels and removed over 163,000 videos for the promotion of terrorism. Facebook removes 6. 4 pieces of terrorism content in the first three months of this year. The recent move to establish it as an independent ngo offers a more formalized opportunity to better leverage the strengths of the private sector and the government against this problem. The new construct looks to deepen Industry Collaboration and capacity while incorporating the advice of key Civil Society and stakeholders. While it remains what role Government Entities will play in this, success against the future will likely only be realized through Greater Transparency and information sharing across the Public Private divide in near realtime. Current transparency reports provided by the Group Members provide Government Entities with a snapshot of the scope and scale of the problem. But typically they lack sufficient detail on the methods and the type of material that is being purged. Government efforts to support Technology Companies could be better targeted with Greater Knowledge of the actual content being removed, the geolocation of its origin. They will be able to identity new groups. New insight could be passed back to the companies to enhance their models and algorithms. None of this will be easy. Companies willingness to more robustly engage governments depends on a host of policy, legal and proprietary concerns, but if we can work through the impediments, theres no question that transparency would pay dividends. Further, additional constructs might warrant organization. And i found Public Private partnerships to be a very useful platform. A 501 c3 brings together government and private sector representatives for the purposes of information sharing in the cyber crime arena. Both government and the private sector have found that construct to work well. As the threat evolves, we need to evolve. And that brings me to my last theme, ten. Getting our arms around the Global Dimensions of nonislamist terrorism. Nothing highlights the threat more than the growth of what some call dt, and still others raciallymotivated violent extremism. The fbi clearly has the lead on domestic terrorism. What i want to focus on here are the Global Dimensions and the potential for seeing a movement. This has resulted in an environment that features frequent communication between sympathiers and an open exchange of ideas. A large percentage of attackers in recent years have either displayed out reach to like minded individuals or groups or referenced early attackers as sources of inspiration. For instance, dylann roof has gain you had international reverence and have inspired others. Brevick has been inspired attacks around the world. Roof has inspired two attackers or plotters since his attack against a black church in charlotte ton, south carolina, and terrant has inspired at least three attackers since his march 2019 attack in christchurch, new zealand. The connections go well beyond inspiration. We see travel by White Supremacists to fight in conflict areas, communications against racially motivated violent extremists and the movement of funds. Some of this involves connections to rightwing organizations. Some of this involves connections to active paramilitary groups and some of this involves connections between like minded individuals who might or might not someday move from exploring an extreme ideology to extreme mobilization. We dont fully understand how attackers are influenced and or what constituting meaningful relationships between extremists. Rim v does not feature structure organizations or monolithic ideology. It is dominated by own actors and small cells who use the on line spaces as a safe haven. Theyre motivated by personal, economic issues. We will have to address a whole host of issues. Fortunately there are Lessons Learned that could be applicable. Whole of government, improved information sharing, work with the private sector and so forth. That said, there are some challenges unique to this problem set. The lack of a statute and associated materials support charges. The added complexity of constitutionally protected free speech and the difference between the United States and our partners. And the fact that perpetrators are often lone actors. Id also highlight two far broader issues, first, for almost two decades, the United States has pointed aboard at countries who are extreme ideologies. We are being seen as a country with extreme ideologies. As we grapple with how to deal with a global movement, we need to be very careful. In the case of the International Islamist terrorist threat, we lost some control of the narrative amongst vulnerable populations, radicalization has succeeded under the pretense that the west is conducting a war against islam. Its false. But its effective. We need to guard against that in the rim v space. We must disaggregate. While not being perceived as painting with too broad a brush and impinging on legitimate free speech. Creating the International Toolbox for that particular desegregation is going to be tricky but absolutely necessary. In conclusion, let me take you back to the questions i supposed at the outset. What does the National Risk equation look like as the country confronts a very complex interNational Security environment . How do we optimize our ct resources in the best interest of the countries when departments and agencies may have differing priorities. And if were going to reduce efforts against terrorism, how do we do so in a manner that doesnt reverse some of the gains of the past 18 years . Reasonable people could answer those questions in very different ways and the answers are not selfevident. They deserve informed consideration by thought leaders inside and outside the government. I believe that the ten themes that ive laid out that involve focuses on all aspects of the future threat, addressing a host of mustdos and resolving a series of issues will help us develop a Good Government Risk Assessment as we move forward. Thanks very much. [ applause ] thank you. That was a really tremendous presentation. It really covered the waterfront. Im going to take the m moderators prerogative and ask a series of questions and well open it up to everyone here for questions and answers. So my first question is this, you mentioned at one point that a military draw down leads to less liaison and you talked about we do what we can to make sure we dont reverse our gains. The counter Isis Coalition is going to be holding a hearing in d. C. And i understand that theyve taken some things off the table for the purpose of next week, like dealing with the providences and the missions should be expanded given the turkish incursion and the u. S. Withdrawal or partial withdrawal. Without getting into the big policy issues, just strictly from a Counter Terrorism perspective, what needs to be done to be able to make sure that the Current Events on the ground in northeast syria in particular dont lead to tremendous set backs in intelligence collection and losing some of the progress that weve made . From an intel perspective, weve been very pleased, the president and secretary of defense have reiterated that the forces that remain will have a counter isis mission. I think thats really important. From an intel perspective, the foreign fighter problem and the isis prisoners in that part of syria have been a source of much attention for us over the last couple of years. We have obviously been pushing very hard as a country to get our partners to repatriate foreign fighters. That has not gone well. There are tremendous issues associated with judicial systems and so forth in many of our partner countries. As a result, as i mentioned, weve gotten kind of fatalistic about this. Weve been concerned that theres a growing likelihood, eventually we could see many of these foreign fighters again when theyve broken out of prison or released from prison and so the focus on biometrically biometrically enrolling becomes a focus. Similar, the sdf have been fabulous partners over the years. Theyve born tremendous costs in Northern Syria. Theres a willingness to provide information to us. They are sill being i think very responsible in the way that they are focusing on prisons, though, they drew down substantially when they were responding to the turkish incursion. And so for us, probably the greatest midterm concern is a retention of those prisoners and not bolstering the isis ranks and not seeing a foreign fighter outflow from Northern Syria. Do you have a level of confidence that bio metrics have been taken of the people who have been detained so that the reports of the hundred or so, whatever the number is, of the people who might have escaped are people that weve collected biometrics on already. We have a fog of war problem. We dont know who exactly these hundred people are as the sdf was pulling back, there was movement. Our expectation was and i think its proven to be the case that the knowledge of where specific individuals are and sort of the list keeping that was associated with that is going to be increasing problematic. Were quite confidence that we did get biometrics on virtually all of the foreign fighter component, probably less so in the case of iraqis and syrians, were not as comprehensive, but those individuals would be more likely to stay in theater, anyway. Lets talk for a minute about shia extremism. You mentioned early on concerns about iranian, he szbollah and other threats. Weve seen a sharp uptick in iranian terrorist activity in the region and aboard, including in the United States. We got news that two iranians pled guilty in a plot which involved surveillance of both mea and in the United States. From the hezbollah side, weve had one individual convicted in new york city, another who pled guilty, a third whos been indicted scene indicted and is awaiting trial. How does the Community Look at the issue of shia extremist terrorism in the context of this uptick of activity . So the bureau works really hard in the United States. We do see these kind of periodic arrests. I think, frankly, the uptick in activity in the region is what is of greater concern to us, sort of the pressure campaign, the response of the pressure campaign, the potential for hair triggers, the activity of the shia militia groups in iraq in particular, the relationship with the force. Thats going to bear really close watching in the years ahead. Thats kind of where we are, i think. Then finally, before i open it up to questions and answers from the audience, i want to mold together your thoughts about the rightwing, ethnically motivated extremists and your points on social media because the growth of one is so dependent on the other. Do you think that government needs to play a greater role in regulating the social Media Private sector, or do you think theyre doing a good enough job . I let a small group out to california a few months ago, and we came back feeling there were some things in which the private sector on social media was really doing incredibly good, very forward leaning work, but it wasnt consistent. So for some platforms, the issue of free speech, you can say anything you want anywhere, has taken much more strongly than others. Some platforms will not only deplatform you for terrorism but for hate, which is even more forward leaning than government. The fact its inconsistent, is it a problem that the industry is selfregulating . Do we need to get involved . I think the government has to be really careful about getting involved. Hence my point about transparency. The terms of service are the province of the individual platforms. As you say, some are far more forward leaning. Some are more willing to engage with the government. As i said, weve been a huge fan. I think its fair to say the platforms themselves are struggling with once you get outside the realm of an isis association or an al qaeda association, it makes it harder for them to train their algorithms. Theres going to be, i hope, a growing conversation related to the remv space and how do you do that. There are lots of questions about what constitutes ensitemee encitement and how far you can go. Some are pretty savvy about staying within the legal bounds of the first amendment. So were in kind of new territory. I think the strategic picture here is there has been a tremendous growth in the conversation between the social Media Companies and the government. They have been much more forward leaning over the last couple years, and that just needs to continue. I was pleased to hear you acknowledge because i hear it every time i go abroad as a former government official, that we, the United States, are being seen by many as the source of a particular type of extremism, rightwing extremist ideology in the same way that we saw others being responsible for that in other contexts. A significant amount of anger and frustration with us saying, well, we have some legal restrictions in how we can deal with that. Leaving aside the bit that is clearly in the fbi and dojs realm, from an nct perspective, as you engage with partners, are there authorities of some time that you would like us to have or to change domestically so we could deal specifically with the transnational aspect of this . Do you find when were following a transNational Threat and it comes back to the United States in some way, that we are injured from pursuing that . This is a work in progress. The government is kind of feeling its way forward. I was cautious about the way i talked about the nature of those connections and what they mean. There are some that want very much to designate overseas organizations in a way we do with ftos. Were going to have to be really careful about that. Weve seen some examples here just recently about entities like the battalion in ukraine. There are those that would like to designate that entity. Parts of that entity are parts of the Ukrainian National guard. So the potential for unintended consequences and, as i said, making the situation worse if were not careful, i think, are simply there. So were going to have to go kind of slowly here and be deliberative, both to understand the problem, and then go through the potential. Great. Thank you. Let me open it up to questions and answers. Raise your hand if you have a question and wait for a mic to identify yourself. Well start up here with my colleague. Thank you. So you mentioned in one of your answers the problem of the fighters in northeastern syria. You also mentioned the iraqis and the syrians detained in northeastern syria as well. So my question would be, leaving aside the question which has got a lot of attention, whats your assessment of the risk and the potential trends regarding the iraqis and the syrians, knowing that in 2007, 2009 in iraq we saw al qaeda in iraqs affiliates going underground and r reemerging years later. So theres kind of a history of militants disappearing and reappearing. How do you assess these threat, and what are the other possible scenarios when it comes to isis detainees from iraq and syria in the region . So six years or so ago, isis maybe down to a thousand individuals in iraq and syria. The bottom line number right now is 14,000. Some would think its substantially higher, mostly in iraq. They recognized the end of the caliphate was coming a couple years ago and started moving towards an insurgent orientation, going underground, as you suggest. Our concern about that is that given what they did six years ago, 14,000 people now, at least, potentially another, oh, 8,000 or 9,000 that are in prisons. Before his death, he did a radio thing in which he called for attacking those prisons and idp camps and breaking people out. So i think the expectation is that number is going to do nothing but grow. Now, in terms of activity on the ground, there are already nogo areas at night. We see isis flags and small areas in which sharia is being implemented. The whole crop burning thing and everything else. So the insurgency is alive and kicking in northwest iraq for sure, and to a lesser degree syria. I dont see the forcing function for why that gets better. Its going to require a combination of both military pressure and dealing with the entire demand side of the equation that reconstruction has gone far slower than any of us would have liked. So the potential for longterm sueny disenfranchisement in that part of those countries is prig significant. In that regard, i think theres a lot of work to do. Over here. Thank you very much. I come from egypt. Im a politician. Im here as a guest. I would like to have your comment on two issues. One, how do you see this terrorist attack happening in sinai . Do you think this is a terrorist attack or its kiennd of reveng as a result of, lets say, security strategy, which is not working there. Although, the whole area is 50 kilometers. The army have been mobile idesi mobilizing a lot of troops, the police. So how do you see this . Is it kind of revenge of those young bad ones who are somehow feeling marginalized, not belonging anymore . This is number one. Number two, do you believe on running or having a kind of dialogue with those who are in prison, especially the youngsters. Do you believe there is a real chance for convincing them or changing their beliefs so they could refrain from violence and they could be released and integrated again into society . Do you think this is a possibility or its hopeless case . Since the environment outside is the same, poverty, same socialeconomic problem, human right abuse. So what chances do you think . Thank you. So on the first question, theres both an isis and al qaeda presence in sinai. I think to the text of your question, its a little bit of both. Theres certainly an underlying causes issue, but we have seen the isis element in sinai has worn allegiance to the new head of isis. So i think weve got an existing terrorist cells that are conducting attacks mostly in the northern part of sinai. On the second question, unfortunately, i think, globally were seeing prisons be incubators for radicalization and terrorism. I dont think anyone has broken the code on how you deal with it. Weve had individuals in United States prisons who have gotten out who are every bit as radical as they were when they went in. Our European Partners have this problem in spades. Were looking at and because of the length of prison sentences, were on the cusp of seeing hundreds to thousands of people come out that were very radicalized when they went in or got radicalized when they went in. So i certainly take your point that we got a lot of work to do. But there have been sort of debates about whether you put all these prisoners together, whether you try to break them up. The European Partners have gone back and forth on some of this. And all of them have demonstrated challenges. There are not a lot of Success Stories in terms of people coming out of prisons that have been if not deradicalized, at least disengaged. Right here in the middle, please. Louise shelly, george mason university. One of the points that you made was the increasing intersection of transnational crime and terrorism. But in your strategies, you didnt talk about ways you can utilize these analyses or these interactions and do Network Analysis from one side that may be more vulnerable to infiltration than the other. So i mentioned i did a couple years at the nsc working transnational organized crime. I actually went there with the avowed goal of creating an nctclike entity to do transnational organized crime. It seems to me that good things happen when you bring the government together and you give a young analyst very broad access to information to do the kind of identity Network Analysis were moving a little in that direction right now, fortunately, i think. And there is a belief under something called nspm7 that we want to do similar work in the transnational criminal databasing that we do in the case of terrorist identities. That seems to me to be a very good idea. If we start cataloging these people to start looking at intersections with terrorism as well as knowing if potential bad guys want to come to the country and who theyre connected with, but there are still lots of issues because as disparate as terrorism was back before 9 11, i think transnational crime has spread further across the government. So we have a long way to go in terms of a consensus about how you should consolidate those efforts. Thats the direction in which i think we need to go. Right here. Hi. Thank you. American enterprise institute. You opened by starting the discussion about risk and the risk were facing now as were drawing resources toward the Great Power Competition as we are refocusing across the government away from the terrorism threat and americans are feeling quite safe here at home, not having witnessed another 9 11 attack. The challenges that you lay out to the counterterrorism efforts that we have include a declean in interagency coordination and focus. The question of how we have actually a whole of government approach to counterterrorism, but what i wanted to ask is outside of the counterterrorism realm, can you discuss the risk about relying on only a counterterrorism vat ji against isis or al qaeda, and a regionwise strategy to counter the local groups themselves. In my opinion, the counterterrorism strategy that came out last year was really a very good exemplar of how the government is still working this problem together. A number of people in this room worked on it back then. And it is not just about capturing and killing. Theres a lot of focus in there on the prevention issue. Working with locals and having to do this thing kind of multinational, all of which is exactly the right thing, i think, to do. Question is sort of now follow through. The notion of terrorism prevention has, i think, played a significant role in three out of the four counterterrorism strategies weve done since 9 11. Reality is we havent made a lot of progress in terrorism prevention. For a long time, we didnt know what worked. I think its fair to say that theres going to be a tremendous challenge, as you suggest, in some of these groups in africa and how does that relate to the Africa Strategy and what are we going to do with Foreign Development and so forth. So thats going to continue to be a significant challenge, i think, for a. I. D. And so forth. Voice of america. Wondering, do you know anymore today than you did last week about the new isis leader, and are you surprised at all by the Propaganda Campaign that Islamic State has been running to show how different groups are supporting him . And secondly, where does the counterterrorism strategy fit into the great power strategy, and are you seeing any signs that great powers or even regional powers are starting to manipulate or try to use terrorist groups as proxies, if not to accomplish something for themselves, just to make things more difficult for the u. S. . On the first, i think this is actually playing out largely as we expected. We saw the new guy get named. We saw the call for retaliatory attacks, and we saw some eulogies, and we saw the branches and Networks Start to swear allegiance to the new caliph. This is very similar to what happened back in 2010. There was actually a substantial period of time between the name that came out with Abu Bakr Albaghdadi and our recognition of figuring out who he was. I mentioned on the hill our sort of view was that abdullah would be a logical candidate for taking over, but were not at a point of having a confirmation, sort of who it is. On the great power thing, this is an added dimension to the remv problem that i mentioned that were going to have to work our way through. There are certainly examples of the russian state sort of exploiting issues to play to rightwing grievances and how do we deal with that. Its an interesting question for nctc in that my remit is counterterrorism. I get access to counterterrorism information, issues associated with the russian state would not be something that would fall within that. So were going to have to work that with the bureau in terms of how they handle it within the counterintelligence channels. But you would have the opportunity to work with the russians when it comes to counterterrorism. I wonder if you could comment on especially given events in syria and iraq, not everybody in that region in particular sees the Islamic State as the number one threat that we do. In particular, at a time when majority of forces on the ground are maybe from countries like turkey or syria or russia, that maybe have a different prioritization than we do, how does that affect our ability to work with them or maybe even more importantly work with other partners to deal with what is a primary problem for us, the Islamic State . I think the turks are a clear example. They will profess interest in counterterrorism, but its almost it is primarily pkk. Their concern about isis is far less. There havent been isis attacks in turkey in a while. So this is why i harken back to the issue of prisons and whos going to take them over and how concerned the turks are going to be. I think that they would not be interested in holding a ton of european foreign fighters. They would want to get them back to european countries, how exactly is that going to work, if its going to work . So the sort of focus and emphasis weve had on our sdf partners for a very long time is going to thats going to be challenged with the turkish incursion. More in the back. Hi, thank you. You kind of touched on turkey a little bit. I wanted to push on that. They announced yesterday that theyll begin to send home foreign fighters in the next 24 hours possibly. What does that mean . You touched a bit on the European Partners and their lack of willingness to take people back. Will the u. S. Step in . Is there a plan . What are we doing . I dont know the answer to the question. What we have seen is from our European Partners some concern here. Theyve started stripping citizenship so they dont have to take them back. How this is going to shake out, i dont know. Yes, sir, in the back. Thank you very much. For obvious reasons, weve been concentrating in the middle east. Weve had massive riots, particularly in the south, and theres a well hestablished connection between iranian afairs and whats going on in argentina. Are we doing anything about that . Do you see any connection, or is that of any interest . Are we just going to wait and see what happens . Its being dealt with much more by the regional bureaus. I dont really have anything to say. Here in the back. Hi, Nick Herrington from csis. Are you seeing any evidence of outright Russian Support to some of these groups you mentioned, some of these racially motivated violent extremists, either in the u. S. , otherwise through financial support, sponsorship, other types of activities . Not that ive seen. As ive mentioned, the work schisms cause a Greater Movement in that direction. Its sort of influence issues more than anything else. Your mention of finance makes me think especially since one of my georgetown students from my class that i coteach with, kate bower, on combatting the financing of transNational Threats. Shes here. Im going to ask a question for her. Can you comment on the continued efficacy of our counterterror finance tools. Theres been a lot out recently, including members from congress, but generally about whether sanctions continue to be effective. Im not asking you about sanctions in general. But how effective, how important do you see the cft tool kit in particular . Well, it has demonstrated success in the past, to be sure. The history of a lot of terrorist attacks has been that it really doesnt cost a lot of money. When new zealand looked at wha. Theyd been doing, what they found is small amounts of money being donated, thats a challenge. Again, its back to the noise problem when you have trillions of dollars sloshing around, identifying the particular money going to the particular individual. This implicates an additional issue i talked about, which is there are a lot of regulations that go a along with being able to comingle data sets with money. That makes it difficult for analysts, be they at treasury or the bureau or the Intelligence Community writ large, to be able to track money. So corollary to that, whether talking about remv attacks or other hve attacks in the Al Qaeda Isis world, is the fact that you know, when i think back to the way things were when i started in counterterrorism at the fbi in the 1990s, the trip wires we looked at then when it comes to these lone offenders are largely irrelevant. Which is to say travel, communications, and financial transfers. So what are the greatest challenges just kind of operationally in dealing with the hve threat given that reality, and how do we accommodate . So i think pretty much every western Country Services are grappling with that precise problem. I think the uk is one of the i think given the attacks they had in 16, 17, and at the time they did a review after London Bridge and so forth and concluded that there were Something Like 30,000 subjects of interest that had been on the radar screen at one point. The conclusion was that at any given time, they could do 24 7 surveillance of a few, maybe dozens. There would be open investigations of thousands, and there were going to be a lot more that were going to have to sit fallow unless something came in that caused them to be higher on the priority. So the question is, how do you identify a dot thats down in the noise level and be able to bring it up so that you know that you have to allocate and investigate resources. This gets back to the issue of technology, i think. In the case of nctc, the approach were taking right now is the ability to do recurrent search against any particular individual who might be on the screen. In part, this is to deal with the hve problem now, but its also to deal with it for the analyst after next. So many of these people will resurface several years later, and the reality is we have a work force that comes and goes. So this issue of Knowledge Management and effectively downloading a brain, i think technology can help with that. It better because there are never going to be enough investigative resources to be able to look at every individual who is radicalized out there. Rob . Thank you very much. I found this remarkably chilling and scary, your presentation. Not because rob is our executive director. Not because there isnt enormous progress of the amazing achievements you and your colleagues are doing, but because of what i take away as at least the implied net conclusion, which is the situation is really bad out there. So i just want to ask you, if there are 20 times more potential bad guys, are we 20 times better than we were before 9 11 . Or are we in a net way even worse off than we were on september 10th, 2001 . Yeah, its a please say yes. Its a perfectly fair question. The strategic concern i have is that there are far more radicalized people out there now than there were 18 years ago. I dont think anybody questions that. Now, are those individuals of primary concern in a local region area, which should bother us, but theyre not going to be perceived as threats to the homeland. You certainly dont have currently, today, the kind of capability that we saw to reach out and touch the homeland that we saw in the heyday of al qaeda or isis. But to my point we need to ensure we dont freeze our thinking in 2019, what is this going to look like in some number of years Going Forward if we start to pull back against the counterterrorism target . Were going to have to focus on sort of dealing with these organizations and have enough intelligence that we know sort of what the nature of the threat to u. S. Interests, either in theater or to the homeland. That, i think, is going to get to be a harder problem for us. Maybe the threat will sort of stay local, but given history the last 18 years, i dont think we can count on that. The technology issue, as im sure youve heard director of the fbi talk a lot about this encryption problem and what does it mean to go dark. We are really good at technology, but its going to make it a much harder problem for us, which probably means theyre going to have to be far more human, which probably means we need to be there. So how does all that net out . There is a tremendous amount of good news, and we need to embrace that, but we just need to recognize that this effort has to continue because there are some worrisome trends out there. Right here in the middle. Bring the mic over here, please. Thank you. Jeff smith at the center for public integrity. One of the ways in which you said things were looking darker was the prospect of chemical or biological use by terrorists. Could you help us dig a little deeper on that and say what youve seen so far in terms of any groups embracing or moving towards embracing that kind of technology and whats your prediction more concretely about the possibility of use . You said it changed from considered unlikely to considered more probable. But maybe you could give us a more granular estimate than that. Sure. To a degree, it was normalized in iraq and syria with what isis was able to do. We have i dont know how many. We have seen numerous ricin plots interrupted around the globe over the last several years. There is a tremendous amount of concern about the ease with which poison gases could be developed. And i think for many of my colleagues, theres a bit of surprise that we havent already seen that. Just given past history. So al qaeda flirted with the stuff 15 years ago. We never saw it operationalized. It looks to us like isis has gone a somewhat easier route in terms of developing those capabilities. And there are instructions that float around. So we cant be at all sanguine about the nature of that threat. Yes, right here, please. Hi, carissa wilkinson. You mentioned briefly in your opening remarks about the shifting tactic of continuing to focus on targeting children and bringing that out. I was wondering if you could speak more about how terrorist organizations are going about doing that and how we should respond to that as well as deradicalization efforts for children who have grown up surrounded by extremist ideology in countries such as iraq and syria. Yeah, this is getting a tremendous amount of attention from or European Partners who have this problem much worse than we do. An awful lot of children were born in the caliphate, and their fathers may well have been killed and the europeans are struggling with what do they do. Theres been some willingness to bring orphans back. Some countries are now increasingly, after the turkish incursion, talking about trying to bring women and children back. But the social Services Issue associated with how do you deal with these kids and just what kind of mental shape are they going to be in is an area for of concern across europe. So weve learned a lot about the Islamic State over the years. Some of that is still in the classified domain, material that was maybe seized in the baghdadi raid. Some of that, through friends like at the program of extremism, through the isis files project, is becoming public and being used by researchers outside of government as well. What do you think from the material that we know about isis can help us kind of be predictive towards where its going to what its going to become next. I ask you that because last time we had one of your colleagues from nctc for one of these lectures, about a year and a half ago, he talked about the strategic surprise that caught us with the sudden rise of isis, right. That jv league team suddenly became something so much more. Here at the washington institute, weve been giving thought to the way we think about these movements in between their big mobilizations, when it tends to get our attention. When weve kind of dealt with one mobilization, its coming down, people want to move resources elsewhere. What do you think we can learn from what weve collected and understood from the past of isis as to what we might expect from them in the near future . I mean, i do think the next couple of years are probably likely to be very interesting. We discuss this amongst ourselves all the time. When the caliphate was declared and they started taking over large swaths of territory, they put a huge bulls eye on their back. Isis is a learning organization. It is very bureaucratic. In my own mind, i wonder if they would be content with conducting sort of a prolonged insurgency and staying underground to avoid the kind of pressure that they absorb from the coalition over the last couple years. But nobody knows. But the more we draw down, the more we sort of siphon resources off to other very highpriority threats. The greater the likelihood is that were not going to understand that dynamic moving forward. Thats probably the biggest concern ive got. Okay. One last question. What is the impact of the kind of politicization of terrorism we see in Different Countries . What is the impact of this on your work . How do you i mean, how does it affect the information you process and the kind of working relationship you can have with International Partners when they use the concept according to other National Interests . It gets into a real wo inky answer, but things like the houthis is that a terrorist organization . Is it an insurgent organization . Its the beneficiary of state support. What were finding within our community is that the counterterrorism effort was pretty well stitched together for many years. Over time, some of these efforts associated in africa, the houthis, others, have moved from counterterrorism to regional bureaus. That complicates the sort of coordination and effort across our departments and agencies. Theres a mass i have numbive n people in our Intelligence Community making sure you know all the right people so you can talk to them on a daily basis as the effort is more disparate across the departments and agencies. It does make that harder. It also makes things like information sharing harder. Chris and his colleagues, when they beat us up after the 9 11 commission, were focused on ensuring that information got to relevant analysts so we could do that kind of analysis. Well, information sharing comes with legal, policy, privacy, security, and operational impediments. When its husbanded in the counterterrorism community, then we can work that. As you see it move out to these other disciplines, then it does make it harder. Some of these entities are, in fact, operating very much like terrorist organizations. So that can complicate the analytic discipline within our community. Im very pleased we were able to end with a question that truly is able to bring out your inner thoughtful nerd. I think thats a thing to be embraced, as a fellow traveler. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking russell for taking the time to be with us today. [ applause ] thank you for all you do to keep us safe. Have a Great Holiday weekend, everybody. The house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. , and around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Now dan brouillette, president trumps nominee to serve as energy secretary, testifies before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee. Hell answer members questions about his background and Energy Development philosophy. Good morning, everyone. The committee will come to order. Were here today to consider the