There are two aspects to it. One is the intelligence piece of it which was helping him. It literally took us nine years to find him. The particular thread that led us to that compound to nine years and there are various aspects to and we talk about all of them in the book there is the finding him which is an intelligent story and then there is a operation itself which is obviously an intelligence and military story. I was heavily involved in the first and significantly involved in the second. There was a next was a published saying the Pakistani Military and intelligence knew about the raid beforehand. Any comments on that . He alleges a lot of things in this london review of books. The pakistanis were keeping them prisoner at the compound, he alleges. He alleges we learned about in london about bin ladens presents from a senior pakistani walking into the embassy in islamabad and telling us that in return for 25 million. He alleges the pakistanis were aware were going to do the raid and allowed us to do the raid. It is all rubbish. Almost every sentence in the article is wrong. I was in the room for every discussion about this at the cia and a was in the room for every discussion about this at the white house. I was there when our guys stayed on and followed someone we believe to be bin ladens c ourier to his home. I was there when our guys watched the compound from once and when they said we have come to the conclusion he is there and there is no information provided as by the pakistanis or others by the way. In the media this morning some confidential german sources are claiming the germans provided this information. Not true. I was there when the president of the u. S. Decided we were not going to tell the pakistanis in advance. Not because we didnt want to. There would have been Nothing Better for the relationship between the u. S. And pakistan that you have worked together on this. We simply could not trust the pakistani system. Not the pakistani government, but their system to not have leaked the information and get back to bin laden and have him lead the compound before the raid happened. I was there when the pakistanis learned about this and were deeply angry with us. I was sent by the president to pakistan to put the relationship back together. Everything Seymour Hersh says is wrong. He said he got this information from a former Senior Intelligence official who was very close to the operation. Lever that source was was not in the room, not in any room i was in. Not only was he a signal source, he was an unnamed source. Speaking about the pakistani isi. On a scale of one to 10, how would you rate the cias relationship with the Pakistani Intelligence Agency . The pans on the day of the week it depends on the day of the week. Available places i traveled one hours deputy director, i traveled to pakistan more than anywhere else. It was extremely important relationship for the u. S. Two, the pakistanis have taken more al qaeda guys off the streets than any other country in the world combined. In some ways, they are our closest counterterrorism partner. And played a very significant role. We talk about this in the great war of our time. They played a significant role in dismantling al qaeda after 9 11. When al qaeda was forced out of afghanistan, they went to prearranged houses in pakistan. Wants the pakistani president made a decision to work with us they were in large part responsible for taking the Senior Leadership of al qaeda off the streets by capturing them after 9 11. The third point is the pakistani government does support other International Terrorist groups, providing safe havens to the taliban and antiindian extremist groups. At the same time they are a great counterterrorism partner they are a counterterrorism problem. It is a schizophrenic relationship. Would it have been helpful to have publicized their help in combating al qaeda . Or would that have led to a shakeup in the government at some point . This is a conversation that i used to have with them. I had it with the Pakistani Military but the broader pakistani government. I think it would have been opportunistic for them to take more credit than they took for the work that we did against al qaeda. Because at the end of the day al qaeda is as much a threat to them if not a greater threat to us. Why do you think they did not want their role publicized. It is hard to say. One of the things you learn is there is a lot of insight into what it is like to be an Intelligence Analysts and officer. One of the things you learn very quickly as an Intelligence Analyst is it is very dangerous to speculate about peoples motivations. Very difficult to say here is what this person was thinking when they did x, y, or z. You learn to not speculate because youre almost always wrong. I will not into the question because i would just be guessing. I would guess that the u. S. Does not play a lone wolf hand in intelligence operations or analysis worldwide. What relationship do we have or what are some of the best relationships with other intelligence agencies around the world . I will not get specific for obvious reasons, but i will say this. What you said is absolutely true. We cannot do our jobs without the cooperation and partnership with other Intelligence Services and we are not talking about a handful. We are talking about many relationships. A big part of my job and my travel overseas and when i was here with visitors was to maintain and enhance those relationships. Very important for us to do our job to protect our country and help them protect their country. There are three levels to an intelligence relationship or partnership. One is the sharing of analysis. Here is what we think, what do you think . What is most valuable is not where you agree, but what is more valuable is where you disagree. Then you dive into why do we disagree and that conversation leads to and i talk in a book about high was cias representative to the british and 11 community to the british analytics community. You lead to broader and better understanding. The first thing is sharing of analysis. The second is sharing of raw intelligence. We collect intelligence, they collect intelligence. The second level is the exchanging of the raw information. That requires a little more trust in the first level. The third level of partnership is working together to collect information. Cooperation on operations takes the most trust. These relationships are built on trust. These relationships are not only a tool for intelligence and a tool for security, but they are a strategic foreignpolicy tool for the president of the United States. Until some really interesting stories in the book about my interactions with the former head of the Egyptian Intelligence Service and the former head of the libyan Intelligence Service with the president pacific retask where the president specifically tasked me. He uses the relationships a lot to further the foreign interest of u. S. Speaking of libya, a twopart question. Is our intelligence good, fair, bad in libya . If it is bad, is that because of the lack of intelligence assets in libya . Mr. Morell i dont know what it is today. I have been gone for a year and a half so i dont know. After the fall of the Libyan Government, the Libyan Military follow part fell apart. Libya no longer had the capability to deal with extremists inside the border. Extremism started to flourish. As bad as qaddafi was with human rights, the one thing he did effectively was keep al qaeda out of libya. He worked closely with us on that. I had been to libya prior to the fall of the government. One of the big jobs the cia had was to monitor inside libya with regard to extremism. One of the stories i talk about in the book is we were monitoring very effectively the rise of extremists in Eastern Libya in general and benghazi and in particular reporting that to the administration and congress. I think this is a Success Story in terms of us watching very closely what these extremists, some of them with connections to al qaeda, were doing in Eastern Libya. You mentioned benghazi. Whitedwhy did the attack on the embassy happen . Did we know about it beforehand . Was there a way we could have prevented that attack . Mr. Morell know we did not know about it beforehand. There was absolutely no intelligence to suggest that folks are going to attack that night. And attack the way they did. The only way it could have been prevented i think would have been to have battlefield kind of intelligence. What i mean is to saturate the region with intelligence collection in a force protection kind of way. Whenever there are u. S. Troops in the world, there is a huge intelligence footprint around them in order to protect them. You are picking up everything from a signals perspective and human perspective. I think the only way to have avoided benghazi would to have that kind of footprint on top of them. We have to think about Going Forward because the real lesson about benghazi is how do we protect american diplomats . Had we protect american servicemen and women overseas moving forward in what is a very very dangerous world . Abu saif who was supposedly isiss foreign minister was killed recently. Based on what you know if anything, do you think he was a very significant target for us to take out . Mr. Morell a couple of thoughts. The guy who played a significant role in advancing the interests of isis. A guy who was very close to all baghdadi, one of his senior advisers. A very important person to remove from the battlefield. There are some real positives here. One is taking him away from the fight. Two is all of the intelligence that was gained here. Turns out not only he was working for isis, but his wife was also working for isis. It would have been better to capture him that to kill him so that we could have debriefed him and got an additional intelligence. He died in the firefight, but she did not. She is being debriefed in iraq. The significant take of computers and documents are all going to give the u. S. Intelligence committee and our allies insight into the organization. Insight into how it is structured. Insight into how it is run. Insight into how it is managed. It will better enable us to attack it. The third, and perhaps the most important, is the u. S. Flying into syria, putting troops on the ground, and killing one senior isis person in government and other and grabbing a bunch of intelligence sends a message. There are a handful of what i consider to be important messages in the great war of our time. One of the most important messages is that you have to put pressure on the Senior Leadership of the groups. When you put pressure, you get them worrying more about their own security than about doing their job attacking us and taking territory and setting up the caliphate. The more pressure you put on them the more you put them on the back heels, the more you make it difficult for them to plan and do their business. The psychological effect on them particularly if we follow this up by taking additional senior guys off the battlefield is very positive. You mentioned isis. There are other terrorist groups in the middle east. Alshabaab in somalia. Other groups in yemen. There are groups out there that we should be aware of and we should combat or we could have another 9 11 type of situation. Could you mention some of the ones, and i would like to focus on two particular Geographic Areas. One is the middle east and two is east and southern asia. Mr. Morell great question. Let me start with a big picture here. And the war that i write about we have had a couple of significant victories but so have they. Our significant victories have been the protection of the home and for them. Despite significant effort on the part of al qaeda, no successful attack we had some loan will attacks, but no directed attack by an outside group since 9 11. Remarkable success despite effort after effort on their part. The other part is the degradation, near decimation, near defeat, of the al qaeda Senior Leadership in the border areas of afghanistan and pakistan. The Senior Leadership that brought that tragedy to the u. S. On 9 11. Those are our two great successes. The spread of ideology across a huge Geographic Area from Northern Nigeria in west africa to other parts of africa into yemen, syria iraq, south asia, afghanistan, accident, india bangladesh. A huge geographic spread. That is one of the reasons we call this the great war of our time. Specifically, this is a very important question because they focus on isis there is a couple of significant threats from isis. Probably the most important right now is the stability of the entire middle east. Isis threatens the territorial integrity of syria iraq, and the potential for spillover to the rest of the region. That is the most important threat from isis right now. The second threat is the radicalization of young men and women in western europe, canada, australia, fossil for the attacks responsible for the attacks recently. If they are allowed to have safe havens in iraq and syria and they will eventually reach out and attack us, they have told us that. They have told us they will do that just like bin laden said prior to 9 11. Coming back to your question despite the significance or from isis, it is not the most significant threat to the homeland today. The most significant threat still comes from al qaeda at three Al Qaeda Groups in particular. Top of the list is al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in yemen. The last three attempted attacks against the u. S. Were by al qaeda in yemen. Christmas day bomber in 2009. The printer cartridge was designed to bring down multiple cargo planes which had a device into a pretty cartridge and a printer was foiled literally at the last minute and then the attempt to bring down an airliner with a nonmetallic suicide vest they have that capability. Al qaeda in yemen. The group which is part of a group in syria, it is an Al Qaeda Group and it is associated with the al qaeda Senior Leaders from pakistan. It is a group of operatives that the man who runs the Al Qaeda Organization set in syria at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War to help one organize itself against assad. They have become the external operations arm. They are attending to attack western europe in the u. S. They are a greater direct threat than isis. The al qaeda Senior Leadership although significantly degraded in afghanistan and pakistan still presents a threat to western europe and the u. S. Two more questions before i open it up to the floor. You mentioned al qaeda, are they still a threat . Mr. Morell they are very much a local threat. They are not yet a threat outside the region. They could easily become a threat outside the region. The french became so concerned that they were becoming a threat to france that the French Military went in and took back a significant amount of territory that al qaeda had taken. Thereby weakening them considerably. For they become a threat someday . Absolutely. Are they right now . No. Final question. Why has isis been so successful in getting foreigners to come and fight for them . Did we ever hear this with al qaeda that al qaeda had Something Like 40,000 foreigners coming to fight for them . Why has isis been so successful . Could we have a future group that could be even more successful the nicest more successful than isis . Mr. Morell good question. There is a history of foreigners fighting for al qaeda also. Best example is iraq after the 2003 invasion. Al qaeda stands up to fight the u. S. Occupation. A lot of foreigners flow into iraq to fight for aqi. There is history here. We have never seen in the kind of numbers we are seeing it now. The flow remains significant. We might have sloan a little bit, but the flow of foreigners into iraq and syria to five for isis is still significant. They have the most sophisticated narrative, social media propaganda i have ever seen. I have talked about it being madison avenue style quality. Their narrative is powerful. Their narrative is that the west , the u. S. , the modern world, is a significant threat to their religion. They have an answer to that threat to their religion which is the establishment of this caliphate. They are being attacked as they try to establish this caliphate by the u. S. And other western nations and by these apostate regimes in the region. Because they are being attacked as they try to sell up this set up this caliphate, they need support. They need support in two ways, people coming to fight for them and people coming to stand up and attack Coalition Nations in their home. Pretty powerfulits a pretty powerful narrative. We dont really have a great counter narrative. Not because we are not doing our job, but because its really hard to have a counter narrative in a conversation about a religion where we have absolutely no credibility. We really need the leaders of muslim countries, we need leading muslim clerics, we need muslim teachers to have this dialogue in those countries themselves. That is where it has to take place. One of the things i think the president has done well is to raise this issue in his society. And start to have a conversation with his own people about this. Thats where it has to take place. Host his book is the great war of our time, the cias fight against terrorism from al qaeda phthisis. I would like to open the floor to questions. There is a growing skepticism about whether the United States is serious about fighting terrorism isis, or iisil or al qaeda. From time to time, there are selective attacks like in syria. But how is al qaeda able to move freely in the large areas with all the surveillance and not detected and attack while it is moving . When other aspects of this skepticism is you mentioned al qaeda in yemen and in the potential of. The United States is assisting saudi arabia in attacking the people who are fighting al qaeda in yemen. This group and the yemeni army are fighting al qaeda. That would allow al qaeda to expand and take more. How can you say this is an effective way or a series way of attacking . One last thing about the cia. This is a military campaign borussia a campaign . Or a cia campaign . Which is more effective to conduct operations against terrorists . Mr. Morell thank you for the question. Heres what i would say. Number one, theres a chapter in the book on the arab spring. That the title of the chapter is al qaeda spring. The arab spring was a boon to al qaeda. A boon to al qaeda. Why . Two reasons. One is a left some countries unable to deal with extremism inside their own borders. This is what i was talking about earlier with regard to libya. Gadhafi was able to deal with al qaeda inside his borders. The new Libyan Government was not capable. They wanted to. I had many conversations with them. They didnt have the capability. When you dont have second. It left the arab spring it also left some countries unwilling to deal with al qaeda inside their borders. The best example is egypt under president morsi. The guys i worked with in egypt still have the capability to deal with al qaeda, but they no longer believed they had the political cover to do their job. As a result, the pressure was taken off of al qaeda. In egypt and guess what . Al qaeda came back to egypt for the first time in 25 years. And they are still there. In both of these your inability to deal with extremism inside her borders, or your unwillingness to deal with extremism inside your borders gives terrorist groups safe haven. And they thrive on safe haven. And when you have safe haven its really tough to get out them. One of the things you absolutely need to be able to deal with these groups and keep pressure on them is intelligence. This is an intelligence war. I dont mean from the aspect of fighting it, i mean from the intelligence perspective. You cant understand these guys capabilities, you cant understand their plans and intentions, you cant understand their vulnerabilities, you cant understand where they are without firstrate intelligence. And we are good at this, but it takes time. You cant just have isis all of a sudden do a blitzkrieg across iraq and then tomorrow say where is the intelligence on where these guys are . It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to put together the intelligence you need. The other thing i will say is that the middle east is a cop located place. Its incredibly complicated. Anyone who tells you they know what the middle east is going to look like a year from now or five years from now is lying or dont know what they talk about. Theres a bunch of different dynamics going on in the middle east. One of the dynamics is this cold war, i think about it as a cold war, this cold war proxy war going on between iran on one hand and the gulf arab states, on the other. And that war gets in the way sometimes of fighting the war against these terrorists. Syria is an incredibly good example of that. Because of you look at syria from one perspective, if you look at syria from one perspective, its a war between a secular leader solid, and al qaeda and isis. So who should we be supporting in that war . Assad. From another perspective, its a proxy war between iran and saudi arabia. Who should we be supporting and i wore . In that war . I think saudi arabia. You have two different perspectives pointing you in Different Directions on what we think they should do. Yemen is a bit like that. Theres a proxy war going on in yemen between saudi arabia and iran. Iranians are supporting the disease one side. The saudis are supporting the president , who was a very effective partner of the United States against al qaeda. Al qaeda is benefiting from the chaos in yemen. Its not benefiting from the fact that the president was in charge of the place. He was very effective against al qaeda. They are benefiting from the chaos that is there. And that goes back to the original point, these groups always benefit from political instabilities and chaos. Its very difficult to get your arms around. I dont know if that answers your question, but its a start. I can followup about the issue of syria, you didnt address that, whether that criticism of the United States being selective and being serious, and also about the issue of the cia versus the military. This is an operation you mentioned. Mr. Morell im going to purposely not answer the second question, but i will answer the syria question. Im pretty confident, despite the loss of ramadi, im pretty confident that in enough time, iraq and the coalition will push back isis in iraq. There will be ups and downs in this fight. And ramadi is a great example of a down. But the fact is the coalition has taken directly 5 of the territory that isis first took. So the coalition is actually not doing bad. Im pretty confident that given time, given a mixture of airstrikes and kurds, shia militia, and retraining of Iraqi Security forces, im pretty confident that the strategy, the president strategy in iraq is going to work. I will be honest with you, i am less confidence about our strategy in syria. The strategy in syria is to train and equip moderate opposition guys in syria to take on isis in syria. To be the ground force to go with the airpower and be the ground force that takes back that territory from isis in syria. There is not too many moderate opposition guys left because many of them have joined al nusra because they were taking the fight to assad more effectively than a moderate opposition was. A lot of them have abandoned shipping on to fights for either al nusra or isis. I dont think our plans our plans are not robust enough. You would have to train i think tens of thousands of moderate opposition guys a year in order to effectively take on isis in syria. Im not sure weve got syria right yet. And im not sitting here like i have the answer to this question. It is really hard. I have some confidence in iraq and i lack the confidence in syria. Sam with ita. Give us a baseline here. Mr. Morell i was president bushs first intelligence briefer. You are not Technology None of the Bush Administration falsified information on mr. Morell im not a knology a because its not true. Its a great miss that the Bush White House or hardliners in the bush of administration pushed the central Intelligence Agency the u. S. Intelligence community and every other communions intelligence source of this issue to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. All they have to do is tell you this. The cia believed that saddam had weapons of mass destruction programmed long before george bush ever came to office. We were telling bill clinton that. One would not be following a rock to say the Clinton Administration never falsified information on iraq as well. Iraq to say the Clinton Administration never falsified information on iraq as well. In september 2002, when he was at a News Conference this is just one example. There was a report saying that iraq was six month away from developing a weapon, i dont know how much more evidence we need. And then they said there is no such report, that was just an honest mistake. Mr. Morell you would have to ask him. The only thing i can tell you is what we were telling them at the time. Thats the only thing i can tell you. You, among other things, at your time of the cia had a role in zero dark 30, which glorifies the use of torture to gain quote unquote intelligence. I want to ask you about this case, who politics indicate was tortured by the egyptian authorities in our behest trade. Mr. Morell your premise is wrong. And you can say that if you like. Who was tortured in order to say that iraq and al qaeda were related. This is the latest in a report on torture. Among other places. Contrary to the mythology that torture breeds good intelligence or that its immoral, and actually breeds intentionally useful but false information. Mr. Morell im going to go back to your first comment about cias enhanced interrogation techniques. You call it torture. I want to challenge that premise right off the bat. When the central Intelligence Agency used enhanced interrogation techniques to get information from al qaeda detainees, the Justice Department of United States of america on multiple occasions said it was legal, that it wasnt torture. So for you to call it torture is you calling my officers torturers. And the Justice Department of United States of america said they were not. So im going to defend my officers to my last breath, and people calling them torturers. Im going to challenge her premise that the egyptians tortured libya our behest. Not true. We never asked the egyptians to torture. What is your evidence for that . Host let him to do that evidence offline. We have other people who want to ask questions. Andrew craig, editor of the justice integrity project and also an author. My question goes into the past because we cant really know what happened last week, but we can look at the past. There are pictures, widely circulated of senator mccain meeting some people about two years ago, some alleged that one of them is elder gotti. Senator mccain has denied that, saying essentially that he didnt meet with isis. Who did he meet with . Mr. Morell i have no idea. Two more. Two of the greatest crimes in the last 55 years are widely considered 9 11 and the jfk assassination. The cia has supported release of documents on both of those including the 28 pages of who funded 9 11 as well as the remaining documents that were supposed to be released under the jfk act. Why is the cia fighting release of these radical documents . Mr. Morell i dont know the specifics, but i will tell you a personal view. My personal view is that there is more room for the central Intelligence Agency and it Senior Leadership to talk to the public about what the cia does trade there is more room for us to release documents, is resource intensive. Its not zero cost. We have other things to do. So you have to balance these things. I think there is more room for us to put more out there because i do think its very important, very important in a democracy, particularly for secret intelligence organizations to have as much conversations with the public as a can possibly have. Just we dont get these misperceptions were talking about here. Gentleman in the back and then the woman the front. Could you come to the middle . I am from the italian media. My question is about the syrian al nusra. Is this affecting your action against al nusra . They signed with the sunni against the shia. Mr. Morell im not aware of anything that the israelis are doing that has made our life more difficult visavis al nusra and isis. Im just not aware of anything. Im with bloomberg news, ive read your book really closely. How significant a setback is it for ramadi . Mr. Morell good question. Going back to what i said earlier, there are going to be ups and downs in this war. Theyre going to be battles one and battles lost. This is a battle lost come a significant battle lost. Going back to what i said earlier, i do think that when you look at the bigger context taken back to 5 of the territory that they took in their blitzkrieg, it looks pretty good. I do have confidence that the strategy that we have in place is eventually going to win back iraq. One of the things you criticize were the decision taken by the cpa we dont know. But the whole sunni shia tensions that have an going on there for decades, is ramadi somewhat of a product of this issue . Ill be at 13 years later. And the inability to transcend shia and sunni divides. Mr. Morell absolutely. Heres the story of the rise of isis. Very quickly. When we left the country at the end of 2011, al qaeda and iraq was really at its nadir. When we left, two things happened. The first thing that happened was the military pressure was reduced significantly on a thank you aqi. The military was assisting the iraqis and keeping pressure on them. They benefited from that. The other thing they benefited from or the policies of the former prime minister. The moves against sunnis, the significant disenfranchisement of sunnis, driving moderate sunnis into the arms of aqi. And also benefited aqi. Then they go across the border into syria and change their name. Isis is aqi by different name. They go across the border they benefit from recruiting weapons assads stockpiles. They benefit from the money. They become a significant organization. Part of the story is the politics of iraq. No doubt about it. So you are saying the invasion of iraq where you said there was no imminent threat was in retrospect setting the stage for the rise of al qaeda and issil . Mr. Morell theres no doubt that the u. S. Occupation of iraq created al qaeda in iraq. And had al qaeda the organization kind of throw all of its resources into iraq to take on another u. S. Occupation in the region. No doubt about that. But we also beat them back. And one of the things i try to do in this book is not judge previous decisions as right or wrong. So i dont say president bushs decision to invade iraq was the right thing with the wrong thing. I dont. I dont say that enhanced interrogation was the right thing with the wrong thing. What i try to do in both those cases is, and a lot of detail in the great war of our time is to paint the context of the times. To paint the context in which president bush made the decision on iraq, to paint the context in which george tenant, condi rice and the president made the decision on it has to interrogation techniques. To really important for people to understand the context. Its very easy to look back with 2020 hindsight is of a good thing or bad thing. This is the Information Base that we have, some of its right for some of its wrong in retrospect. You have to make a call. Thats why try to do in the book, try to put people into the shoes of these guys as they make these extreme a tough decisions. A few reports have come out a big one from poland on the polish governments having to pay detainees about a quarter Million Dollars in reparations for being held at cia transferring interrogation sites. There also been reparations demanded of the macedonian governments, the former president of romania came out and said that he regretted allowing the cia to use territory this country to interrogate detainees. What is your response to this . Will there be any recourse by the cia, by the United States government . As these other countries under pressure to pay reparations come under pressure from europeans and human rights courts. Mr. Morell im not one to talk with any specific cases for obvious reasons. Countries where we may have or may have not held detainees. But it will say this the countries that supported this program the leadership of those countries was aware. It wasnt some rogue operation inside the borders of these countries. They did so, they did so because they thought the mission of protecting United States and the west and their own countries was an important one. And because they thought that well be able to keep all of the secret, they wanted our discretion, they wanted our thanks. And we were not able to deliver. On the discretion part. Two questions. The first one host give us your name . Stephen nelson. I wonder if you could clarify how many emails and records should be collected in the mission of antiterrorism. And could you speak in general terms what surveillance you think is currently being done Julian Assange and edward snowden. Mr. Morell second question, i have no idea. The first question, i obviously believe that security is very important, i wouldnt have spent 33 years of the central Intelligence Agency i didnt. I also believe that privacy and Civil Liberties of americans is extremely important. I am a supporter of the telephone Metadata Program. It fills important gaps that were there before 9 11. I believe i cant prove this. I cant a lot of evidence on the table to show this. But i believe that if the program been in place prior to 9 11, we might have seen some of the communication between the 9 11 hijackers. And maybe that would have allowed us to disrupt it, maybe not. We just dont know. But it was put in place specifically to fill a gap. I do get to remain. I think it should remain. Lets start with a telephone Metadata Program first. I think it should remain, and in some ways i think it should be strengthened because it doesnt include all phone calls made in the united eights. It doesnt include metadata from emails. If there is an al qaeda cell in the United States, communicating with each other via email we wouldnt see it. We would not see it. If there was another 9 11, and they were communicating via email, the American People would say why were you not monitoring . I think it should be strengthened. I also think that i was on the review group on snowden. The whole chapter in the great war of our time on this. We recommended that the program be kept would be reformed. The reforms that we recommended that the government not hold the data. And we recommended that the government be required to get a court or every time they wanted to query the data. Not just be able to query the data anytime they wanted under one broad portal. So those of the reforms we recommended. Those reforms were accepted by president obama. That is what the Obama Administration is pushing on the hill. Its essentially the bill that was passed through the house. Im a supporter of the bill. And i think that the reform im talking about still allow us to query the data and we need to for the purposes we need to, to see whether terrorists are talking to each other. Begins is that capability, and also protects privacy and Civil Liberties at the same time. Because i agree that kind of data in the hands of the government creates the potential for abuse. There was no abuse, we found no abusive nsa in this program. But it does create the potential for abuse and thats why we recommended what we did. I stand behind my recommendation the report. Host im going to take the moderators prerogative and asked the last questions. First, are there any terrorist groups in East South Asia that the cia should be looking at closely . Mr. Morell i define south asia broadly. Al qaeda in the tribal areas of pakistan, al qaeda in afghanistan, al qaeda increasingly getting foothold in bangladesh and india. Thats a not well understood phenomenon. The Intelligence Committee is watching it closely. But its not well understood outside the government. Host the Defense Department originally reese down to Silicon Valley to help it reached out to Silicon Valley to help them with their military systems. Is there lessons the cia could take from that . Mr. Morell we actually way ahead of the Defense Department. When george tenant was the director of cia, he created a notforprofit private entity whose job is this is all public information. The job is to invest seed money in startups in which he could tell believes there is a technology that will be of use to the Intelligence Community and will be commercially viable so that the company will survive and continue to enhance the technology and service it. They have been incredibly successful over the years, 70 of its investments have resulted in products coming back to the Intelligence Community. Its one of the largest hedge funds now in Silicon Valley. It has been incredibly successful in bringing technology into cia and the Intelligence Committee. Host with akamai would like to thank mr. Morel with that, i would like to thank mr. Morell for his insightful discussion. With that, this proceeding is closed. 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