Five times as many attacks in 2001. Weve been very effective in disrupting terrorist groups, but theyve been seemingly as good at recruiting fighters as we are at taking them off the table. The u. S. Government estimates that the current fighting force of roughly 15,000 fighters is only slightly less than isis maintained in 2014. Its the persistence of this threat that has motivated us to undertake this new initiative. The task force on terrorism and ideology. And weve brought together experts to assess the role of ideology in terrorism. And the report were releasing today, contains the task forces initial findings and their assessment of counterterrorism efforts. And theyre moving to try to transform the findings into a Long Term Strategy for policymakers. Were eager to get your views on this work, and moving forward. Leading off, its a great honor to be joined by chairman michael mccaul, hes a longstanding leader in efforts to Reform Congress oversight of the department of Homeland Security, and has passed the first reauthorization bill for the department of Homeland Security. Congressman mccaul, if you could kple please join us. [ applause ] its an honor to be here. I want to thank jason for that introduction, and governor king for being here today. Lee hamilton for your great work on the 9 11 commission, which still stands as the best product that has ever been produced to congress. And theres still two recommendations we havent followed, but we look forward to doing so. And we look forward to reading this report. I was asked to speak just ten minutes, thats hard for any elected official to talk about all the threats we face in ten minutes. But i will tell you, its changed. Im going to new york on sunday. Ill be at the ceremony, as i always am. Its a very moving experience. What the hijackers pulled off that fateful day would be a very difficult thing to pull off today. I think our intelligence and National Security, Homeland Security apparatus has stopped, to your point, while terrorism is still on the rise, i think weve been able to stop and prevent a lot of plots from happening in the United States. And thats the good news. Its evolving. Its different. Al qaeda, bin laden, were looking at largescale plots, very complex operations. Didnt use cell phones. Now, we have a new generation of terrorists. Under the banner of isis. A new generation that knows how to exploit the internet, to recruit, train, and radicalize. And weve seen this profoundly. Its one of the greatest challenges we have. In 2014, 15, and 16, when i wrote my book, when i would walk out of my classified Briefing Room in the capital, it was terrifying about the tempo, the numbers of arrests, the numbers of plots. As the caliphate was agrgrowing iraq and syria, we had people like the master on the internet, with 150 different twitter handles, and it went from the kinetic threat, looking at foreign fighters training in iraq and syria, and going into europe, which is still a major threat to europe. And i would say europe is still in a pre9 11 posture, and theyre still learning to stand up and protect themselves. And our focus was to prevent travel of fighters into the United States. But if you can recruit over the internet, you dont have to travel. So, sending messages all over the world and into the United States to radicalize. As weve crushed the caliphate, and i watched it grow for four years, we have a current threat to the aviation sector to bring down airlines. And its, this threat to aviation has not ended. That was the goal of 9 11, its still their goal today, to turn anything larger than this iphone i have into a bomb. To take on an airplane and blow it up. We just had a recent arrest in australia, isis central, command and control, to bring a large ied device on to an airline originating in australia, to blow it up. Theyve tested these devices. Were trying to get a handle on our detection capability to stop these devices from getting to airplanes. We had to increase stability to make it safer. We dont want a plane flying into the United States and blowing up over the skies of the United States. But to this day, so many years later, that is still one of their number one priorities. It used to be aqap, now isis has a good handle on this. We saw the airplane that was brought down, i think the internet is their power. People ask me often, whats the difference between bin laden, al qaeda, and al baghdadi and isis . I think the answer is simple but profound, its the reach and bandwidth they have over the internet to recruit, train, and radicalize. And what were seeing, we have had military access in mosul, and raqqa, we know whats coming out of there. As we squeeze that, the messages were hearing from sheik adnani, who influenced and inspired the new york bomber, the message no longer is come to syria, its stay where you are, and kill by me means necessary. By vehicle, by knife, by any means necessary. And were seeing this playing out in the streets of europe. Almost on a weekly basis, i get these reports. Barcelona just had one of these major events as well. Ive been so proud, and yet surprised, at how weve been able to stop this from happening in the United States, given the fact of how difficult it is to detect and deter these plots when youre seeing these messages every day on the internet. How do we stop this and better protect americans . Ive sat down with google, facebook, twitter, its something thats not being talked about a lot. Its something that were trying to work with the Technology Companies over. But its a little secret. And the fact is, whether its child pornography is illegal on the internet. Jihadist material, it gets into First Amendment concerns. Can the governor shut down this material . Ive been trying to advocate, under their service term agreement, eradicate jihadist material, to have the twitter, when he has 150 twitter handles, and radicalizing people to kill across the world, how can we stop that . He was killed in a drone strike, but many have followed in his footsteps. And these companies, they are patriotic, but they are also a business. And who makes the decision as to what is jihadist material and what is not . So weve been working in a partnership to try to remove this material from the internet. 9 times out of 10, when we have a lone wolf attack, in the United States or elsewhere. Ft. Hood, orlando, the sermons always pop up. The prophet for al qaeda and isis, he is the inspiration. And sheik adnani is the inspiration. And its not only removing jihadist material, so they dont have the power, thats their engine, but its also winning the war of ideology at the end of the day, and the counternarrative, isis, they had the brand name. Al qaeda had some sophisticated, highlevel people. Doctors, scientists. Isis, not the case. Its more of a populist movement. So, at the end of the day, we do prevail because their ideology prevails over this destructive, hateful ideology, but we have to stay on top of this. I have the quote, terrorists dont check our political affiliation. I dont look at terrorism as a partisan issue, i dont manipulate it for political means. Its protecting the american people, both republicans and democrats believe in it. So, i applaud what this organization has done to touch on a matter that governor cain advocated so strongly for it. Weve implemented almost all of the 9 11 recommendations, entry exit, to know who is coming and who is leaving the United States. We still dont have the capability to know, we kind of know who is coming in, but we dont. And we dont know who is leaving. We have to get a better handle on that. With respect to jurisdiction, i had to go through a tortured process to reauthorize this department for the First Time Since its creation. That was very important to do. Imagine a department that doesnt exist in law. The Homeland Security act was passed, but many of the entities do not exist in law. So, many of my senate partners, i urge them to pass it, it would be a great testament to do it around this time. I know we have a question and answer. There is so much more i could talk about. Im an eternal optimist. I do think we prevail. I dont think it happens in my lifetime. I hope it happens in my childrens lifetime. I will never forget being in iraq and seeing a structure and a soldier pointed to it, and said, thats the house of abraham. I thought, out of that house came the three major world religions. Judaism, christianity, and islam. I look forward to when the three religions can live peacefully under the same house. But this extremism, this islamist radical ideology, while we have significant gains and victories, but its spreading like wildfire across the globe, and will countinue to be a thret that we need to be ever vigilant to prevent. And a lot of my wifelifes work to stop that ideology from coming into the United States and killing americans. I want to thank the center, ath governor for his report. At the end of the day, hopefully well live under that house in peace. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, mr. Chairman. Were pleased that you have some legislation to pass, so we wont keep you for too long. But one of the real challenges in talking about this, how do you think about the avoidance of harm. We havent had a largescale terrorist attack in 16 years, which is a remarkable achievement. But what do you attribute that to . Is it the integration of Intelligence Services . Do you have an inside pocket . I think the integration of our National Security apparatus, and the creation of the department of Homeland Security, its all about, i was a federal prosecutor, counterterrorism prosecutor, its the ability to detect, deter, and disrupt in advance. Were reaching about 150 isis followers arrested in the United States. We do a terrorism threat snapchat shot every month, and you can see the friend lines in this. We have 1,000 investigations in all 50 states. I just got briefed on the latest cases weve brought down a potential terrorist before they can carry out an act of violence. So, i applaud the ability of Counterterrorism Forces to stop this. And i use to walk out of that classified room, wondering if the next plot would happen or not. The good news, were seeing the trend line start to go down. I do think our military success in the caliphate had something to do with this. But europe, if you look at europe, their trend line is starting to go up. Its because foreign fighters are leaving the region, going back to where they came from. Theyre not integrated as well as we are, in the United States, were better at integrating our muslim population. Theyre not very good at this in belgi belgium, france, and germany. And out of that came the paris attacks, brussels, you could see it coming months before. Europe is starting to now get into a pre9 11 posture, finally realizing they have to deal with integration of their population, and information sharing. They werent even using our watch lists, our intelligence. Flights were coming in from istanbul to europe, and they werent even checking. I think turkey has realized its a threat, so were seeing better cooperation on a global scale. And integration, we talked a lot about that last night, reallyessential. And weve always done a better job as a country of integrating and embracing communities. It seems like were losing a little ground, and do you think that congress can do anything to make sure we dont lose that advantage . Classic al qaeda, very, from a compartmentalized standpoint, a larger scale, more people involved, bigger, theyre looking for spectacular unfortunately, you say spectacular events like 9 11. Youre seeing a change in this with isis, just kill whatever, however you can. That takes you from a big cell that were able to detect more easily today, i would argue that the 9 11 cell, it was detected, as you know, they were not connected. Cia had this information, didnt share it with the fbi, and it happened. I dont think it would happen today. I think we would detect that. Its a lot more difficult to detect a 1, 2, 3man operation, or one lone wolf on the internet, radicalizing on the internet, becoming a jihadist, and then pulling out, listening to the messages and deciding, they call it commissioner jon miller, nypd, im going to have dinner with him sunday night, losers to lions. They want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and it hits a vulnerable population of militaryage males who want to be something bigger than they are. It does target a certain population in the United States. And the question is, how do you stop that from happening . Thats why i go back to the content on the internet. Let me ask you about another aspect of the integration of our intelligence community, when the terrible attack happened, there was a lot of discussion about the failure of imagination, and also about the tyranny of bureaucracy. A dozen could be overcome. How well have we done with that and do you think theres more work to do or do we not have an integrative functioning capability . I think its far better now than it was. Weve always said progress to be made. The department of Homeland Security is 22 different agencies under one department. Fema. Were dealing with the hurricanes right now. Thats part of department of Homeland Security. Its a counterterrorism. We have a typer element to Homeland Security and secret service and coast guard. But integrating that i think over time t has become better integrated Work Together but also its got to be coordinated as they do with the National Security counsel, with the ic to get this Real Time Intelligence to stop these threats. And its more of the entity that cooperates with nine times otof ten its not going to be i love the fbi, worked with them as a prosecutor. But probably thought going to be the fbi agenten the street. Its probably go being the local trooper or state police officer, nypd guy thats going to see something on the streets that doesnt look right and thats how weve been able to stop lot of bad things from happening. I think the unanswered question in my mind is how is the tempo of this . Is it going to continue to trend down or is there going to be some event where this scales out . I can tell you the ideology is very strong globally and were seeing it pop up in asia and not just pakistan or affsgan stan. Libya, tenessau. Theyre going to look at afghanistan as a safe haven. But now youre seeing places like the philippines where you wouldnt think or even in the caribbean were seeing alkied a aand isis elements in places you wouldnt imagine before and in latin america. One or two more questions and well have time for a couple from the room. Want to talk about resources. Its hard to get ones arms arond the magnitude of the investment but its been tremendous and weve had had very expert folks saying its too much. It cant be sustained and others saying its inadequate. How do you think of the resource commitment and where its directed. To what extent you think theres going to be a shift away from kinetics and towards the role of soft power . How do you feel thats going to play out . Congress is really good. Were really not so great at the prevention on the front end. We respond in crisis. And thats how the Homeland Security department was put together was in response to a crisis. I dont want to be in the reactive mode in the congress. I want to be proactive in terms of prevention to protect american lives. And so a little bit of the question of where resources go and how we divide between the deter, disrupt, kinetic side of the equation. Soft power is incredibly important. I think secretary mattis put it very well. You can cut my soft power but im going to make more bullets. There is an element to killing the jihadi so they cant kill us. Prime minister netanyahu in israel last week. But theres also an element of drone strikes alone cant win a war of ideology and drone strikes have a negative impact on the locum community. So the soft power is a critical element with hard power. The soft power gives the negotiation power. Its also a soft power to drive this ideology off the face of the earth. The soft power is the counternarrative thet extremism is not the way to go. They dont have a whole lot of choices. Military aged males. Its like joining a glorified gang, if you will, under the banner of isis. Its cool. And they join these groups. Im a Firm Believer we need to maintain our soft power to i think its a combination always of soft and hard power. I think our leading generals would agree with that. You taking the soft power out and youre dealing with the bullets and the drone strikes. We have time for a couple of questions. Im sure we have way more than we can address. We have one person with their hand up. So you win the prize fleet footed mike runner on their way. Please let us know who you are before asking your question. Im tamara daniels, ramsey decisions. In one or two sentences, could your state what you think is the cause of terrorism or is it mono causal or multicausal and if its multicausal, how would you state it . Great question. I mean we can go backing to the sixth century a. D. And study the mindset. But if i had had to look historically what was a pivotal year, i would say 1979. At that point you had the ayatollah. If you go to israel, theyre more concerned about the Crescent Moon effect of iran. So 1979 transformed the world. So you have the ayatollah coming into power under the theocracy of radical sheau and it perm mates throughout the region in saudi where you have the attack at the mosque in saudi arabia. Tilting more prowestern, liberating the role of women, going back in time to the full burke burka, women cant drive and it took things backwards. Interesting that same year soviets invades afghanistan. And bin laden