Billingham, director of Civil Aviation issues for the Government Accountability office. That plus your calls live on washington journal, at 7 a. M. Eastern here on cspan. We continue the discussion on foreignpolicy in the middle east with with a look at al qaeda and its operations in this is from the foundation for defense of democracy. It is one hour and a half. I think we will get started. We have a full house. I am the president of the foundation for defense of democracies and i am pleased to welcome you to this discussion on al qaeda. We look forward to hearing from you i lay, the Senior National security correspondent for news newsweek and the daily beast. And of course my calling, ms. Sedin, senior fellow at journal. , most of your probably familiar with the organization. We would like to say that we start with as a polls and focus on research and policy and we try to achieve real progress. And those who are affiliated with sed in various capacities dont agree on everything. We like to have good solid debates. We do all the time around here. Though we agree on some basic fundamental points. Among them would be that nobody should be denied basic human rights, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of Assembly Nobody should be discriminated on the basis of race or religion or. Ender or creed Free Democratic nations have a right to defend themselves in an obligation to defend one another. And we think that terrorism, which should simply be defined as violence against civilians for clinical purposes, is always wrong and under north under no circumstances should it be condoned. Over the past year or so, influential respected voices within the Foreign Policy and National Security community have asserted that al qaeda is oneated, is on the path, is its heels, has been decimated. Those assertions have been called into question a number of times. Recently are assertions of al qaedas defeat and demise were called into question by the u. S. Governments decision to close 22 diplomatic facilities in 17 Different Countries across north africa and the middle east and parts of asia. The land they can his colleague josh rogan shed a bit more light on the situation when they reported that the reason for the closure was intercepted communications among more than 20 al qaeda operatives in in farflung locations. The report noted that this conversation, this communication was invariably lead by al included innd also the conversation the head of al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was recently named al qaedas general manager. Our guests have followed these issues closely and independently confirmed in leisure poor. What does this tell us about the state of al qaeda today, both its periphery and its course. I will start by asking you lie to grapple with the question for just a few minutes and then i will moderate this prerogative and let u. S. Questions as well. So thank you again, eli, for being here. Think is a mature having me. Speak, thereas we will be new stories on the communication i can say that i can give more details about what exactly happened here. Summer, yemeni authorities, along with u. S. Authorities, were able to apprehend a carrier from al qaeda as he was uploading minutes to what appeared to be a. Ery important business meeting when he was identified from the communication, the u. S. A sickly discovered a treasure trove which a recording of a sevenour remote internet conference. This included video, voice as well as chat. That wed with a message reported that he basically said that the assessment strategically is that the United States is in a similar position as the soviet union in 1989 and it is important for jihadist to take advantage of this. Then he announced a big promotion for the head of al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the yemen affiliate of al qaeda. From that sevenart he then pretty much disappears and comes back at various points. There is some debate in the Intelligence Community whether he was participating directly or giving us video in real time as he was monitoring it remotely. Certainly, most of what we understand about the internet and Communication Security is that they would not be online in this kind of direct communication. However, this is a debate within the u. S. Within the Intelligence Community. At the end, it was suggested that he was indeed in the conversation. That ourlso point out sources have made it clear that theg when they knew that medications were reported, it was enough information for al qaeda to do what they call walk back the cat did we left out some details from our initial report and we reported more than. We believe the sources were giving us this information and it was an important story to help explain the context of the threat. Point, i think it is a tough one. You cant argue with the fact that u. S. Special Operations Forces in 2011 found Osama Bin Laden and killed him. That was a huge blow to the organization. But i would point out, in the years leading up to that, there were a lot of analysts who believed that modern was out of touch and was a figurehead and did not play a daytoday role. In an organization that had evolved more into affiliates. One of the stories are remember writing after that raid was that bin laden played a very Important Role in managing this organization that had all of these various affiliate and aspiring affiliates. And i think we are in the same situation now where theres no doubt about it that al qaeda has lost a lot of Senior Leaders in pakistan because of a very lethal thrown more. Andver, they have adapted he has shown the ability to manage and delegate. In that respect, at least we shutdown all of these embassies and with sun alerts being significant, i think that shows that, while there have been victories, at least the threat about qaeda is far from over at this point. Am eager to you, tom. Hawaii to elaborate a bit on the concept of the score. To aska that i want you to elaborate a bit on the concept of this core. This notion that there is just little periphery satellite organizations, that has been called into question, too. Able to remainen fairly robust, fairly in control and fairly powerful. That is in addition to the periphery. And perhaps address a little bit as well how it is that so many very smart people have been so wrong on these issues. If you unleash your sick today, i am to blame. I am under the weather so i want thepologize in advance to perils of having a threeyear old and a oneyearold who attract all the viruses in new york. The core and affiliates distinction, the whole idea is something we have been knocking down for months before the embassy closures. I testified before congress that this is not something that has been well defined and the idea of al qaedas core is 90 been well defined. Referring to the overall al qaeda leader and the Advisory Councils and advisory lieutenants who are immediately around pakistan and afghanistan. You know that al qaeda is not so stupid as to keep them all around. They will disperse their assets and they have been doing this for a long time. Lo and behold, he is referring to the manager position in al qaeda, which is clearly a core function. He is not in afghanistan and pakistan. He is in yemen, and he is the general manager of the organization. When you look at that position and what that does, that is a very important position in al qaeda. Somebody who has, according to the few documents we have seen declassified, has a very Important Role in managing international operations. He is doing that from yemen. As to why so many people got it wrong i think that when you look back at the post 9 11 world, going back to the bush administration, assessments consistently get it wrong in terms of understanding al qaeda. A big reason for that is, we define it pretty narrowly as a terrorist threat against us, the west. That is principally what we are concerned about, although that is not their strategic goal. Attacking the west is sort of a tactic in their broader game. When you look at their literature, their leadership throughout time, they define themselves as political revolutionaries. They want political power for themselves in the greater middle east. At times, it looks absurd. You look at the chessboard of what is going on. Other times, they have more success than we credit them for. That is principally what they are doing. We would argue that at this point in history they have made remarkable gains that way. On september 11, 2001, al qaeda did not have a small army in syria. They do today. They did not have to have france intervene in mali. Al qaeda in iraq did not have a thriving islamic state. They do today. It is challenging again the iraqi government, and spreading. You can go on and on like this. In yemen, they challenged for territory and control parts of southern yemen. In somalia, they have an established affiliate which they did not have on 9 11. When you look at the broader picture and the political game al qaeda is playing, it is a cohesive international challenge. It is not something we can just connect the dots with, and save this group is not al qaeda, and this group is not al qaeda, when they are clearly loyal and advancing and writing for al qaeda strategic goals. Basically, when you ask why it is that i think so many analysts have gotten it wrong over time, it is because the focus is narrowly on this idea of a group of super terrorists in pakistan, playing these plots against us. And if they are not part of that, they are not furthering al qaeda objectives. Everything we have seen says that is wrong. You can see that most of al qaedas assets through the years have been devoted to other things. A few questions. I will start with this. Recently on wolf blitzers show with peter bergen he has continued to maintain that al qaeda is defeated or severely diminished. In support of that argument, he would say on 9 11, 3000 americans were killed. They have not done anything like that again. They cannot do anything like that again. Therefore, they are not the organization they once were and my thesis remains correct. Do you want to address that . To his credit, you are seeing his views evolve. He basically defined al qaeda the way i just did, which is that the principal strategic goal was playing to established islamic states elsewhere. If that is the principal strategic goal, and it is indisputable they have made further gains than at any time in their history. It is true. If you think about the massive amount of effort that has been spent to try to disrupt their plots against us, the massive amount of controversial efforts across the board, not just in the United States, but with our european allies a massive amount of pressure. If you think about it, their inability to carry out Something Like that again that is because we have raised our defenses, often clumsily, but hundred or 2000. It is confusing about the current relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. Organizations and the various al qaeda groups. When al nasser that was the end of the more radical version of the Muslim Brotherhood in a lot of ways. The Muslim Brotherhood that emerged after word was very accommodating with the state. They were allowed to organize openly in universities. The Muslim Brotherhood became a big part of the fabric of civil society. When i lived in egypt in 2005, 2006, a big story was that a Muslim Brotherhood member was, for the first time, president of the American University in cairo. They were in charge of the medical association. The association of newspaper journalists. This is an important distinction. Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood believes that over time they can accomplish the goal of having an Islamic Republic are participating directly in politics, and issuing terroristic violence. For this, they were scorned by the egyptian islamic jihad, groups responsible for the attacks, and later by al zawahiri. There is a Famous Exchange of someone in egyptian jail, who eventually recanted a lot of support for terror. There is a famous line of al zawahiri responding that the fax machine you used has the same parent as the machine used to electrocute you when you were tortured. There is a longstanding disagreement between the al qaeda side and the Muslim Brotherhood side. Looking at the events as they transpire, and i do not have any special insight into what happens next, one could argue, from the perspective you won on election. You eschewed violence. You were disciplined all these years. The military still removed you from power and is still making martyrs of your followers. Perhaps i could be a very instructive lesson. We are the more revolutionary path. The events in egypt, the military coup, runs the risk of driving the Muslim Brotherhood back to where they were in the middle of the 20th century, an underground organization capable of terrorism. In potentially bolstering the more ideological ranks of the al qaeda side of that debate. This is like a whole other panel. The answer varies country to country. You could find the Muslim Brotherhood are accommodating of thejihadis. In others, they are against them. It is a complex topic. I think the bottomline is you mentioned mohammed al zawahiri, the brother. He criticized this version of sharia law. He was harsh and critical of the brotherhood. At other times, he did not want to side against the brotherhood with the military. The al qaeda style of participating in elections. Unfortunately, i saw it as, they were smart enough to play the tactical game. It is dangerous to draw very broad conclusions. The simple conclusion you have made this in your writing for a long time. The alliances and the rivalries are much more fluid than we would think. There is a lot less sentimentality engaged in it. There is bad blood. I have talked to them. There is a sense from the illegal islamist parties the Muslim Brotherhood not only were sellouts. They were collaborationist. They talk about cooperation between egyptian authorities and the Muslim Brotherhoods. The more radical groups, when there were terror threats i will ask one or two questions, and then go to you. Signal me if you want to ask a question. Someone will come by with a microphone. It is interesting. There is a whole history. There was a book with very negative things said about the brotherhood. It is interesting to track his rhetoric over time. Last year, he released a video, basically saying al qaeda can coexist with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to my sources, he was reading excerpts from Osama Bin Ladens diaries. The was disagreement over how to conduct a hot in afghanistan between the brotherhood, which was sponsoring its own troops in the region, and al qaeda. He is critical of their participation in elections and those sort of things. The point is, Osama Bin Laden one document is interesting, written the week before he was killed. Bin laden talks about he was reiterating, saying the world is going our way. He saw a lot of hope of people attacking their way across the arab spring world. That has been discounted wrongly numerous times by american analysts. Is it wrong to say there was a discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood issuing violence. That suggests they find violence repugnant. As opposed to strategically, they do not see it as useful. Has there been that confusion in the Intelligence Community . Because you are not participating in violence today, it means you have renounced it as principal . They renounced violence inside egypt after getting their heads kicked in. They did not renounce violence through hamas, which is a movement the brotherhood spawned tom a with a suicide Bombing Campaign in the 1990s. We see violence against american soldiers. You can go through a whole list. There are brotherhood figures in yemen, for example. There are big supporters of al qaeda. A leader in sudan was a big supporter of al qaeda, and a muslim brother. The movement does not renounce violence against infidels. The sheik on al jazeera arabic does not renounce violence. It is significant that you have to take into account the Muslim Brotherhood in egypt in the later part of the 20th century. It is an important distinction. Most of the 20th century, they were a major violent threat. Let me drill down on this a little bit. We talk about the egyptian Muslim Brotherhood renouncing violence. What we have just seen, it seems to me the New York Times ran an oped talking about the peaceful protesters. There were others who were carrying machine guns, automatic weapons, burning churches, humiliating nuns. That does not fit the definition of peaceful. I am trying to unwind all those reports. The problem is, there is so much i mean, there is so much incentive to blame various groups at this point. It is tough to tell what really is at this point. It is just a bloody mess. On the conference call, for want of a better word two things. Was it hightech . Is this something where you say there was an i. T. Guy that came in . Was it sophisticated . The i. T. Guy is a soninlaw. He is in charge of the Technical Committee in al qaeda. They have engineers. They have their own encryption software. They have proprietary