Welcome you today to our conversation, understanding al qaeda through the massive trove of Osama Bin Ladens files. I think you all know the background in may of 2011 a navy s. E. A. L. Team went to pakistan and killed Osama Bin Laden. They had a second information to take as much as they could from his compound. They did so. We should have learned a huge amount of information but we couldnt because it was under lock and key. Fdd tom and bill were among the advocate and lobbyists and pressures to release that information but most recently 470,000 documents have been released and we were given an advanced look by mike pompeo who said this should be available to scholars and journalists and others. So with that im pleased to hand the conversation over today to our moderator, Kimberley Dozier who has had a distinguished career reporting on intelligence and National Security issues. She covered the war in iraq from 2003 until she was wounded in the car bombing in 2006. Last thing by way of housekeeping, i should note that todays event should be live streamed. I encourage guests here to join in todays conversation on twitter and also ask you to please silence your phones. Kim, thank you very much. Hand it over to you. Cliff, thank you very much. So today we have with us three of the practitioners of the dark art of delving into everything al qaeda. Also isis but were going to dwell on al qaeda today. In case you havent met them before, we have bill rogio we have founder of the long ward journal. The New York Times specialist on al qaeda, Foreign Correspondent and an ap veteran. And tom who i asked to bring out this notebook. Believe me were going to start broad, but these guys know this stuff inside and out. So with that, ill start with the broad question. Why did it take so long, tom, to release these documents . Anybody who deals with the intelligence bureaucracy knows theyre definitely allergic to releasing anything. We called for general transparency on a lot of matters. We think thats basically the medias job to push for transparency. And all these different issues. Transparency re think helps inform the public because here we are sitting in 2017 and the u. S. May not have large scale deployments but were still deployed in several areas and fighting through the air and understanding this whole threat spectrum and the enemy and how this all evolved, we think is crucial for understanding and debating the efficacy of these policies and understanding our enemy and what better way to see it than through the eyes of Osama Bin Laden. Bill and i started fighting for release in these files in may 2012. At the time the Obama White House put out 17 files from this massive trove and bill and i are proudly nerds and thinking were going to get all these goodies today and all that comes out is 17 files. There was a narrative that said basically al qaeda was on the decline, everything was going poorly. There was no cohesion to the international network. You have groups everywhere from west africa, the heart of middle east fighting, but theyre not really al qaeda. Bin laden had little control over all of this. That narrative in 2012 we knew immediately was totally wrong and basically a cherry picked version of what was going on. We said we can prove its wrong based on the file. Even the 17 files that came out we can prove it is wrong and based on a lot of other information we can prove its wrong. The only way to put this to rest is to get everything released as soon as possible. Thats where this fight began it began with a very simple question. What role did Osama Bin Laden play in al qaeda on the day he was killed. What was he doing. Can you describe what were in the first 17 and what was recently released to you guys first . The first 17 files, there was a mix, a little of information. We had information on the communications with the Pakistani Taliban. We had information one of the first files, the somali file was in the first batch, right . There was a letter written to that was an attachment to another letter that wasnt released. Were going to get nerdy. So i actually reported on it in 2010 that there was that it was ordered to obscure its ties with al qaeda and they did it and the reason i reported from very good sources was that they were concerned about getting having aid cut off because there was lot of famine in somalia at this time and they wanted to keep the International Coalition from co as ressing and coming in and attacking shabob. In one of the files conformation of that report. We saw a letter. So that was in the first set . That was in one of the first seats. Soo weve seen more information on that and then the initial response. It was a smattering. We have to understand about these files is were looking at we may see one or two communications that would be a long string of communications. When you said it was cherry picked, that has that feeling of they put out this piece for this, this piece for that. There was some information on iran al qaeda ties, for instance. And that was its funny, when you look at that, the other was made that there were no ties. We read that one document and say we see some indications that there are. So it was a mix of information in that first batch. 17 files is not enough to draw any kind of concrete conclusions made at that time. Between then and now, for the audience, can you describe again what was just released in terms of size and scope . I believe 107,499 and its like 450,000 pages. Audio either reports in audio. So for instance reports on al qaeda and iraq at that time which eventually became the Islamic State. Communications back and forth. Bin ladens personal journal. We see theres family videos in there. A lot has been made of the tom and jerry videos. And all of that stuff. We have to remember that they didnt just seize bin ladens laptop and his book case but they seized everything that was used. So i imagine if someone looked at your family computer, they would see a whole lot of different information. Weve seen communications about the Pakistani Taliban. We really only scratched the surface. Its his digital life. Not just his but his familys as well. The difference between the First Release and the second release. Why do you think the Obama Administration was holding those documents back . I can only speak to my own reporting and my interaction with the administration. In 2011 when Osama Bin Laden was killed, i was based in senegal but i covered the region. About six months later a branch of al qaeda called al qaeda and the islamic migrip or aqim took over the northern half of mali. So this enormous, enormous territory. When i was calling officials in washington and diplomats at the embassy and analysts, many of them except for tom and a few others, the narrative i would get is this group in mali was actually not really connected to al qaeda. It had opportunistically taken the al qaeda name to scare people and that in fact those people were just criminals, drug dealers, cigarette smugglers and kidnapping people for ransom in a criminal way. So these are not the al qaeda droids youre looking for. In 2013 the french went in and flushed out this group. I was among the reporters able to get to timbuctu. It really exists. Its a real place. And i went building by building in the buildings that had been occupied by this terror group and started collecting the thousands of documents they had left behind. I work with the translator for the next year and suddenly my world view which had had been informed by officials, i think most reporters work this way because its very hard to get access to the terror group, that world view started to fall apart. Because among the documents i was finding in mali a disciplinary letter from al qaeda reprimanding a mallian commander who had negotiated a ransom of a canadian hostage on his own without consulting al qaeda central. That was going back to 2008 2009. Suddenly this group i was told really had no tie a bunch of criminals with no connection. Exactly. Was in fact being micromanaged. So when the first set of documents came out, if you read them carefully with this knowledge in mind, you find evidence of this micromanaging. Where you see them giving each other instructions, guidance, etc. But the overall narrative i think was being pushed to the press and if you look back at the editorials was an image of bin laden isolated. He had lost control of this group. I remember one of the headlines describing him was a lion in winter and in fact the new trove that has now come out confirms very much what i was seeing in mali which is not just real connective tissue but connective tissue to the point of them being micromanaged from afghanistan and pakistan. Very minor personal decisions are being decided by the Group Thousands of miles away. Do you think that was something kept from the publics view because it revealed there were there had to be reams of communication back and forth which means western intelligence was missing this . You know i think back to when bin laden was killed. It was 2011. It was right before a Major Campaign season. I dont want to underplay the role that killing of Osama Bin Laden had. That was obviously a very, very important thing that happened. But i think that was theorized into something much bigger. The head of the organization has been killed and now these are literally quotes i would get. The organization has been decimated. The organization is in disarray. The organization is on the run. And at the same time we were preparing to pull out troops from iraq and afghanistan, i think it was important to portray this as a problem that no longer existed. So tom, you all badgered two administrations, you got cia director mike pompeo to release the information. Why did it come from the cia and not dni like the last set of documents . And what does that mean in terms of there have been accusations out there that pompeo released this with a political in mind to hammer home a link, a supposed link between al qaeda and iran. This is why you asked me to bring the binder. Because i asked that question back there and he started blinding me with science and documents. Notice now hes going to do it to you. So were going to get nerdy. The bottom line is this was our role in this started with exactly the reasons you just outlined. It came down to a simple question. What is al qaeda . What does the Organization Look like . It has all sorts of problems in answering these questions. And so the big reason why we wanted these files out was to answer these types of questions based on primary source evidence so we dont have somebody chattering at each other. Their own opinion about it. Mike pompeo, i dont know who he was when we started advocating for the release of this stuff. I think he was a new member of congress. But he certainly heard us saying this has to be released, has to be released. And by the way congressman nunez fought to have this released as well. He was a key architect of having this stuff in the National Authorization act that led to the release of more files. And i just have to say hipsy is the House Intelligence Committee for those on cspan who dont live and breathe this every day like we do. Good clarification. I laughed when i saw this allegation that this was all about a tie between iran and al qaeda. The reason i laughed is because its so uncontroversial that Obama Administration, their state and Treasury Departments over the course of five years issued numerous terrorist des designations citing the link that allows al qaeda to maintain a core facilitation pipeline if inside iran. I said look, i dont need the bin laden files. Thats the argument i wanted to make. Its probably one of 50 things were interested in, in the files. If that was what i wanted to make, all i have to do is point to what the Obama Administration said. This is a treasury document. This is a Treasury Department terrorist designation. This goes through a very rigorous interagency process. It has to hold up in a court of law. It is citing Firm Intelligence to make this designation and a whole series that started july 28th, 2011. This is an unclassified document any of you all can look up. Using iran as a critical transit point. And they talked about uncovering the formerly secret deal between iran and al qaeda. Their words. Not mine. Then in december 2011 i want to give you an example this is all after the may 2011 raid. Right. This stuff is flowing out. Parts of the u. S. Government are using the bin lad inn files to justify terrorist designations and that sort of thing while other parts are putting their heads in the sand and dont want to hear it. In december of 2011, heres the state department now. They offer a 10 million reward for a major al qaeda facilitator and they say hes operating under an agreement between al qaeda and the iranian government. It gives you all sorts of details on it. We can go on. Listen, we can go on with this through the next eight hours if you want. But the bottom line is when it comes to the thorny issue between iran and al qaeda, the truth is they do have an agreement. A also have hostilities against each other. They fight each other in syria, yemen and elsewhere. This is not a love affair. You have to tell the whole story. We alone were saying tell the whole story. Tell all the bits and pieces of it. That whole story includes a file written by Osama Bin Laden himself. This is from the documents that judge just been released. It was released prior to that because the House Intelligence Committee told him you have to release more files. This file came out because of that. And this was written by Osama Bin Laden on october 18th, 2007. The head of Islamic State of iraq had just threatened iran publicly. What happens is bin laden says to him, he dress es him down. He says you shouldnt have done that. You have to consult with us if your going to threaten the iranians. He explains that iran is our main artery funds, personnel and communication and he also mentions the hostages. So while iran was allowing some al qaeda guys to operate, they were keeping others as hostages. And our point in all of this is you want to understand this stuff. You want to understand the whole picture. You you need to see the primary source of evidence, not just parts of what people want to show you. You mention this whole accusation that mike pompeos trying to jin up a connection. Its a very simple answer to that. All anybody has to do is point to what the Obama Administration said were in the files. The functioning parts of it. They repeatedly sited this agreement between the two. You did reporting on the hostages being held . Yes, i was the New York Times was it first to break the story that a very senior al qaeda figure and was imprisoned in iran had been released as part of a prisoner swap. And that he had been released from iran and was on the move. I was never able to confirm where he went. We got a lot of push back from the white house saying the story wasnt true. I had sourced it to an al qaeda commander i was speaking to. And my colleague in the Washington Bureau had sourced it to officials he was speaking to. So this iran thing has always been a really touchy subject. And i agree with tom that most important thing is the primary source material. Let us see the evidence and let us try to report based on the evidence rather than based on opinion. One quick point. The reason why its important to report on that evidence is not to justify a set of policies. Or anything along those lines. Sunshine causes problems for these guys. So when the state department in 2011 came out with a 10 million reward for the chief facilitator in iran, the iranians were embarrassed. They had to sideline him temporarily because of this embarrassment. Sunshine is the ultimate disinfectant. Its the ultimate sort of problem for these guys. And because having a relationship with iran is controversial for jihadists, this is something al qaeda finds itself having to explain both internally and externally. So thats the whole point. Show the whole relationship. You have two sides of it. Yes, theyre at odds in many ways. But they also have this agreement. Show the whole story. Youve done a lot of study over the years on how al qaeda operates, communicates. What did you learn from the latest traunch that surprised you . Yeah. Theres a one document were working on right now, its a personnel file of midlevel leaders at that time. Were able to date it to a certain time period. One of these leaders was escaped in late 2005 and later he was recaptured in late 2006. So we know it was written some time frame, 2006. These 19 leaders, i believe we were able to identify somewhere around eight or nine of them. I would call him the if you were in the military, theyd be majors, colonels, lieutenants, majors. These are the up and coming al qaeda. We killed several in drone strikes. Al qaedas leader in pakistan, afghanistan. Suri, who tom mentioned yeah, hes the first guy profiled and they do discuss how he trav traveled, how he facilitated networks into iran. Its fascinating. Al qaeda is evaluating its future leadership. Some of these guys what fascinates me is not the ones we identified. Its the ones we cant. Who are they. Are they dead . Are they alive . Several say this guy has a future. We can rely on him. Its a brief but detailed evaluation and not only do you see what al qaeda what is important to them . Are they married . Are they single. They like their leaders to be married. It makes them stable. Are they their physical fitness, thats something theyre very interested in. They dont like heavy guys . They dont. What their expertise is, what theyre interested in doing. How are they perceived by their and so all of these commanders and this is clear to me based on looking at this particular document and