The hall. Judges would be happy to sign your copy. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] you are watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on cspan2s booktv. Christopher harmon is next on booktv. The offer looks at the continued threat of terrorism today and talks about the Obama Administrations efforts to combat terrorism since the killing of Osama Bin Laden. This is about an hour. [applause] thank you for coming on such a chilly day and i am delighted to present perhaps 25 or 30 minutes of comments and will forward to interaction with you on the questions you have. All so very glad to see jim phillips, worked on terrorism issues, must be a quarter century and there are very few people in the world who write with the intelligence and prudence that jim phillips does. A couple reasons i wanted to write the book, i will start this way with the way terrorism encounters the citizen. I remember in 1980, reading clippings in newspapers, it was in law chicago ariane and a woman was looking out her window near her home and saw a van pull up, this proved out between 9 different people and looked rather like an athletic team, jogging uniforms in the bags but as you looked out the window, this lady, Walter Jacobson decided she should be nervous about this. There have been some robberies in the area by Puerto Ricans separatists and she noticed a few things that were odd to her. These athletic bag sure seemed much heavier than she was used to seeing with athletes and secondly some of the guys were smoking so she decided this wasnt going to work out at all and she thought for a minute and called the police and in effect interrupted and armed robberies that was plotted by nine members of the faa l n with two others nearby and there was a cache of weapons and a sawedoff shotgun and all these people went to jail although oddly enough president clinton pardon the bunch of them. One of the policeman who was there at the time said, just trying to beat she read that they all felt lucky that day and a newspaper reporter shows this happened during a routine traffic stop in those accounts were incorrect. Walter jacobson, i have been unable to find her first name. She broke an attempted robbery for the greatest importance by hardened terrorists. That started in new york, a nationwide push by the nation of Homeland Security that if you see something, say something, captures well vincennes that we as citizens, have a duty and opportunity for cases that touch upon civics security. Our slogan more than i do, some which have more emphasis, you will often see signs around military bases that say if you see anything that looks at all suspicious immediately report, i would think it is better for the public to think a little bit to contemplate a little bit and ask what they are seeing and not to jump to conclusions too quickly. I like the notion of responsiveness among citizens. I do think by and large citizens have some understanding that they are involved in some ways. I wrote in part to tell the stories of some citizens who have been involved in good ways. In the spirit of mrs. Jacobson for example there was another person who was part of the Lackawanna Community in new york and no one has reported to this person is although there is a good book on the case. The person suspected in watching the many men who come back in mid 2001, a portentous time from overseas, she felt they were up to some bad things. She wrote in somewhat troubled english to authorities and said they ought to look into this halfdozen young men who had come back because this person who wrote seemed to feel those men were a threat to the community and he or she was absolutely right and authorities did look into it and those people had not only been a broad to southwest asia but most of them had been in a camp run by afghanis and Osama Bin Laden and they were there for training. I found another category besides these person who act privately and quietly and others we have among us, those who have tremendous physical courage, not looking for trouble but seemed to show the right attitude and response when the alarm bell sounds. If we think back to 9 11 it is astonishing the way those men charge down the United Airlines flightpennsylvania, in new blight over that is pretty unusual this my favorite man on the spot is a woman, this does go back always but you may remember her little bit. She was central european, an american citizen, 40 years old. It was her fate to be the lead stewardess on twa 47 on that flight so thugs had attacked the plane, taken people hostage. They were working a perverse psychological approach to breakdown the passengers. She was framed naturally, who wouldnt be. Her composure returned and figure out how to moderate this impossible situation. She spoke german and some of the hijackers did as well. And all the parties had. She intervened, sometimes psychologically, sometimes physically. They once asked her to sing german songs to them believe it or not in along a drama, so many the pilot both showed amazing courage in the twa 847 hijacking, remarkable. I suppose we all admire this kind of thing, wonder if we would be up to it ourselves. These people proved themselves up to the level of events and extraordinary persons. The third category i found to look at it, the tried and true professional, the person trained to the kind of intervention that sometimes happens and it is not very often but they are involved. We saw someone shot at los angeles airport, not everybody in the business of security, public or private might be top of the wind. Some might seem as Airline Passengers of little disengaged, some might be very good but only five years will they really know their grade, but otherwise we would meet in public life, many people involved in the security business to prove themselves very capable. They rise to the moment. Maybe it takes you back too far but in 1988 remarkable location in new jersey is one of the things that a trooper named robert took notice of a driver as they are trained to do and pulled him over for moving violation, which he distrusted and quickly simple traffic stop turned into an arrest. The man he caught that day was a member of the Japanese Red Army which train with libyans and international terrorists, and a two Year Anniversary of the bombing in libya in 1986. It was only his interventions that saved that recruiting station from being bombed. 1995 you may remember Timothy Mcveigh came very close to escape over a state line after bombing the Oklahoma City building. He was caught by an oklahoma patrolman named charles hanger noticed the simplest of things, he didnt have proper plates on his vehicle and notice when they were passing on the highway at a very high speed so he swung around and stopped mcveigh. He was a trained patrolman so rather quickly css that a slight bulge within the jacket of mcveigh suggested a pistol and so they had a botox about that and the terrorist said my side arm is loaded and patrolman said so is mine. After a brief standoff the terrorist got into his car and dutifully wrote back to the station and it didnt stop there. The man was inside, a painter returned to his vehicle, long training had taught in many signs the suspect tried to divest themselves of material which you can learn a lot from. Sure enough he found a business card, paulsons military supply company. At 5 a stick they need more. No one knew what mcveigh had just done in Oklahoma City. They were only in the running about it and never thought to convict connect him to it. One other case, 99, the famous millennium period when the country had trimmers about what would come with the year 2000, diana dean, a customs inspector in Washington State coming over the border, he got nervous after too many questions bolted from the car and diana dean probably save Los Angeles International airport from a bomb abdul raa a raassam was intending to deliver. Theres a story about john oneill. We all look back to wondering about those who before 9 11 actually connect and all the dots. John oneill was one man who did so. Remarkable, welltrained, for years, he had believed al qaeda was coming back to his city. He knew about 1993, he would do anything he could to move the fbi along, and other agencies in the white house and overseas, john oneill was the kind of cassandra. He knew it was coming and would keep warning them. Eventually got discouraged and retired from the fbi and took a job as head of security in the World Trade Center in new york city and so he turned up for work in august of 2001. He took the job only for a few days. He was on scene when it all happened and died in the rubble. That kind of citizen is one reason wanted to write the book. Another is a different reason. I wanted to write this short book to talk about the way we have a grand strategy in our fight against terrorism. I dont think a lot of americans know that or see all the pieces and help the citizens develop a fuller perspective on what the business has done by all parts in this drama. In that respect it couple of assumptions, the book starts with the idea that terrorism is a very real thing, a definable thing and a bad thing and in the academy those are all accepted propositions. I use the definition from a think tank but it always guided my scholarship and terrorism is the deliberate systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends. The character of the terrorist threat we face is explored in a boat starts with al qaeda but there is also a broad enough to bring in many of the other hostile political and religious groups that we see. It is the premise of the book that we are at war with al qaeda. We can find quotations from the white house saying they agree with that but i would argue that in the last year there has been some doubt on the question of whether we are at war with al qaeda. I argue that we are and we ought to be and i think it is of bad things that it has a become an open question of how long this fight will occur for reasons i will get into. The central part of the book tries to look at our strategy. What are the components of it . How does it work . The white house and National Security council have the central coordinating role, of making all the agencies Work Together if they can and all the bureaucracies respond if they can and is not easy, and the account of how hard it is to do this no matter what party is in office or who is in charge so you might have for example Commerce Department in the business of promoting exports very reasonably. We would want them to do that yet there could be tension with the Treasury Department which might be eager to put sanctions on a particular business, a particular powerful individual may be a state sponsor of terrorism like iran at a time when it is not convenient with respect to diplomatic initiatives. Our intelligence agencies certainly different legitimately, they can quarrel about assessments and priorities. There is a fine new book called treasurys war by ones arrive they juan zarate the talks about an intelligence in one place but they have a meeting with justice because justice is eager to make arrests. One of them has to stand down. There are famous for citizens we dont see how many overseas personnel we have that are not military or cia, the Drug Enforcement agency has of remarkable International Network which is active, smart people, they go through many of the same schools in the state that other experts in security do. The fbi you would know has some obligations overseas and deploys on a spot basis, add hoc basis to a lot of crime scenes and they are extremely important so there are some stationed overseas, many go overseas innocent contingency. There is a remarkable intelligence organization, that probably was contested initially by folks like fbi and cia but they felt if the government was not going to defend her very well after 9 11 they needed to set up their own defense so it will put out tentacles and listening devices, trying to keep the pulse on parts of the world which they think are dangerous and they do this through the appropriate channels. Before the world comes again to new york in a way they dont like. So the nsc if they are doing well, moderating these turf problems. The book has been several page groups in each of the major elements of our strategy so diplomacy, Public Diplomacy, economic tools, why enforcement, the military, diplomacy is a good place to start. Weiner terrorism is very politically and usually international, diplomacy therefore has some prospects. Diplomacy has done well in some cases, so most folks regard the irish settlement, 1997 onward until 2007, that was an impressive product from multilateral diplomacy involving a lot of the irish and british players but a lot of outsiders as well as some americans, mr. Clinton, george mitchell, a lot of others from around the world. Bilateral has some successes, bilateral diplomacy by respect to the libya problem, we work with United Kingdom on that. I also in the book draws some cautionary notes because in going to conferences, watching the way, quote, talking to terrorists has become one of the hottest fields in my own district i have a lot of reservations about the way in which diplomacy can succeed, just how far it can go so i am more reserved in that respect but i look at the falls negotiators stories of which there are some. One is the famous law case where is he said the gunman to do the dirty work and positioned himself, president government as a kind of intermediary who could step in and be helpful. There was a classic case of colonel gaddafi, one of the last cases of deliberate export of international terrorism, 99 2000, there was a crisis, gaining multiple hostages. Out of the philippines, gaddafi then steps in in a grandiose way as a mediator and offers a fantastic amount of money, 20 million is what is referenced by a filipino diplomat who did a book on this and this is still waters, solve the crisis and Everything Else and it was marvelous because he had helped aby sayyef before, he also emerges as the classic diplomat which was good for the image you is seeking. It was highly skillful stuff. There is a lot to be wary about in diplomacy and not always an easy pay off. A lot of groups went for decades with many attempts it intervention which were all failed and simply had to be crushed. Economics is an important tool. You know, we know, every College Graduate knows if you are going to do economic sanctions, it is important to have as many people in the mix to hold them with some patients for some time, sanctions take a long time to work but sometimes they do work. I bet you if you think about it most of you will think sanctions had some role in the resolution of south africa with its apartheid regime. Certainly my studies made me believe libyan behavior was changed by sanctions. Was changed some in the 1990s and was dramatically changed in 20034, some of the people are right here in town who did this. Intelligence man, ambassador robert joseph, as they work with the United Kingdom to press the libyan authorities to get them to divest themselves of wm ds, not only the supplies but the actable machinery. This is prelude to what you are seeing with syria. The machine was put on a ship and brought to the United States. Was a wonderful resolution of a longstanding problem with the gadhafi regime. That is facilitated by intelligence and diplomats from two Different Countries and it is an extremely good story. I goes then into the questions of the strategy so i need to mention a few of these. Mr. Bush then writes the First NationalCounter Terrorist tragedy we have and he did two of them and his principles were defeated terrorists and their organizations, designed them sponsorship and sanctuary, diminish the underlying conditions terrorists exploit and defend the u. S. At home. The government to the superb job at that. He got himself a very broad congressional authorization which i am sorry to say is being prematurely questioned. He argues in his strategy that terrorists are truly evil. He is not afraid to say so. He said they are enemies of humanity which is an old term in International Law that compares them to pirates are people who do genocide. He had a strategy of attacking the core of al qaeda but also his adviser called this articulation whereby the links between the groups are broken up if need be and i suppose assessing that would require clearances that i certainly dont have the. The Obama Administration enters the fight and surprises many of us, probably you too with remarkable continuity in some of the actual practices because rhetorically he had suggested was going to be pretty different but in fact more similarities than differencess appeared. His strategy published in 2011 has less marshaling. Certainly less conviction that this is a war. He does call for help from allies which is prudent, he says he will get at the roots of terrorism, something that is exceedingly hard to do. I wonder how jim phillips would assess getting at the roots of terrorism in the middle east. I wonder how anybody with whatever level of expertise could imagine really solving those problems rather than just managing or dealing with them, tries to get at their roots, mr. Bush thought we could do this best if we could advance democracy because democracy is a great prophylactic against terrorism and that is a proposition which is by and large true but also has some difficulties because we have seen many open societies which have wonderfully open political orders but which are ravaged by terrorism so it is not the full answer but it may be part of a good answer. Theres a bit of a paradox there so i am not sure mr. Bush or mr. Obama can tell us exactly how to deal with the roots of terrorism but i suppose we all want to try. Mr. Obama said the need to do a lot more