One of the really wonderful things about the center for the study of the presidency and congress and csis is there both founded by the late david asher. For those of you who knew him, he was a remarkable remarkable man who we all loved. He lived to see this building, which was really terrific. He started csis over 50 years ago with admiral burke. Four years we were at 18th and gay and less opulent surroundings to say the least that is putting it mildly spirit we wouldve been doing this book taught in the basement with no windows. We would never have gotten here though without david. Its an honor to be working with the center for the study of the presidency and congress. And, of course, at my friend James Kitfield here it was written another remarkable book. I dont have to redo his bio. You all know it. Hes one of the best, best military reporters to ever work in this town. He is one of the best authors. He has the respect of the people that he interviews and writes about and the respect of his readers and the respect of tele journalist. Thanks for saying that. Certainly of the policy community who consider him to be someone of, just impeccable talent and character. Weve all learned quite a lot from James Kitfield over the years. The book is terrific. I know that all of you, the holidays are coming up so dont buy one, by two. For those of you at home who are watching on the webcast or on cspan, they are available on amazon. They are available wherever they sell books. Its a marvelous book and i strongly recommend it. Everyone at csis will get through it by the end of the year, i have no doubt of that. Thank you for coming out on another call meeting in washington. Nothing much going on here. Its all quiet but the sun was shining today and the sun is always shining on it over here at csis. We are a bipartisan institution that aims to be constructive on policy, and thats what we hope to talk about tonight, to learn from james is book and we hope to take your questions. So get your questions in mind. We are going to get to that in just a few minutes. Why dont you tell us, why the name of the book and what was the origin of the book . I picked twilight warriors when i was looking for something to convey the fact that this conflict were in, this conflict, global terrorist movement, its not a night or day, its neither a victory nor defeat. It is neither war or criminality its a hybrid of it and its this idea of a perpetual conflict. Thats how i picked the name. The genesis of it was causing a lot of reporting about 2011 which i thought was a watershed year for the post9 11 war on terror, if you will. Obama came into office. In the first two years he launched more drone strikes against terrorists, targeting terrorists in pakistan and the Bush Administration had that in eight years. The joint special Operations Command had launched triple the number of strikes that it is launched each month. In a space of year, 20102011 we killed more than half of the top 20 alqaeda lieutenants, seniorlevel leaders. In that you were also killed the two most wanted terrorist in the world, Osama Bin Laden and Anwar Alawlaki who was the head of alqaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. We reached level of effectiveness ive never seen, i covered everything that happened after 9 11 including the wars in iraq and afghanistan. Something was going on, and same year, not by coincidence president obama decides to pull all our troops out of iraq. He ran the next year, the president who killed Osama Bin Laden, the commanderinchief who killed Osama Bin Laden and ended the post9 11 wars, so clearly we were, and then he gave a speech in the second term in 2013 where he basically tried to define the war on terror as had been over and with a desperate alqaeda that we could now put it into a more normal threat level and get on with wide temperature of American Foreign policy, all very laudable goals. It seemed to be there something going on that were going to trust this new kind of targeted terrorist killings as being a main strategy against the war on terror, that we could do that. That struck me as interesting or two fronts, one of which we did know much about this targeted program. It was cloaked in almost total secrecy. A few years ago denial, not denied that failed to knowledge they were behind these drone strikes people were seeing. And there were no leaks. Very few leaks. We were relying on this new style of operations that we knew almost nothing about. So as a journalist that really intrigued me. Because of my reporting i also knew that this idea that alqaeda was done and that we could sort of downgrade it to sort of a normal sort of threat, was not shared by a lot of the top intelligence guys, a top guys who did the targeted killing program. They killed a lot of leaders, the group persisted for those two recent it seemed to me it was worth a deep dive to understand this method of operation but also to understand the enemy and understand whether these wars were really over. How did we get so successful . It turns out, you mention prodigal soldiers. We look at the force that fought in the persian gulf war that was with active. We were still in sort of a post vietnam malaise about the motor being not very effective. If you remember that you do that was goldwaternichols where they basically forced the service to stop this competition between each other and to be joint. That was a key part of the military being more effective. It turns out with joint special operations comman command task , malta 82 task forces in iraq and afghanistan almost perfect crucibles for forging a synergistic model of operations to combine the skill set of intelligence agencies, joint special operations, direct action units, Law Enforcement agencies like the fbi, the dea and others. They all operate under one roof any wartime and vibrant and sometimes they were desperate circumstances and they broke down all the barriers and billy came up with an operational style whose son was better, whose whole was much better than the sum of all its parts. But the Record Number of targets that they hit, did that surprise you . It did, and it turns out, one of the facets of this joint special Operations Command, these task forces, was that they had this really incredible temple of operations and that was because they had turned the usual intelligence gathering equation on its head. Usually intelligence gathering in fords operations. They gather intelligence, use it to do operations. They had gotten to the cycle of operations, find, fix, finish, exploit intelligence that you gather at these houses and analyze. That got, the tempo of that was so industrial level that they start, every target that they fill in on gave the more targets, and just reached a virtual cycle. They were getting inside the decisionmaking loop of alqaeda in the way that made their leaders are very vulnerable. Lets talk about, theres some news in the book and is not without controversy. Good. And its fascinating. In the book you talk about officials, namely general flynn who conclude in 2012 at the Obama Administration was seeking to suppress intelligence on islamic extremist threats in order to justify walking away from iraq, syria, afghanistan and other countries that have fallen apart while he was president. Tell us about that spirit thats what of the central tensions i talked about earlier. There was this feeling amongst, and flynn was the chief Intelligence Officer in iraq and afghanistan so he was very close to the fight. Flynnflynn, whose name is upr several jobs in he isnt allcaps\all caps Senior National security advisor, alter ego, if you will. So he was a Defense Intelligene Agency he was seen intelligence about the growth of the threat from isis and other groups. A lot from syria but other places as well. Between, he showed me a chart, 20042014. The number of islamic extremist groups have double at the time with the narrative was threats going away, we can go back to a new normal. And he saw as set intelligence without the chain of command they got delivered and diluted until, because he read the president ial daily brief, a lot of the threat warnings were being sort of diluted out of the intelligence assessment. Subs currently we have now learned there was a pentagon Inspector General investigation where 50 analysts in Central Command made the same complaint, that the rather alarmist intelligence analysis on the growth of isis somehow disappeared. In that case it was at the top level of the u. S. Central command where they pointed the finger. Its one of these things when a narrative is coming out of the white house, im not saying, flynn is very upset about that. He thinks its one of the reasons he didnt get to Service Third year at the Defense Intelligence agency. Just did a profile on him if anyone wants an indepth story on that. He felt frustrated that what he thought was a growing threat was being basically perceived by the public as a dying threat and explain why the white house sort of we one district that caused a lot of tension. Flynn represents, thats not everyone in intelligence but flynn represented a core group who felt that the enemy was not dead, that the enemy is really, all these groups fly this black granite whether alqaeda, isis or taliban rauscher bob or alqaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The threat was a garlic and he felt the white house was not really explain that threat to the public and user frustrated. Why did he think that . The intelligence that he saw wasnt getting into the pressures of daily brief. The president speeches were talking about basically this seminal counterterrorism speech in may 2013 was basically describing alqaeda is decimated, our troops are coming home, we can basically rely on this Drone Program and keep america safe and thats the new normal. He fought back against that. He didnt believe that. Easy still fighting the fight to some extent . He Still Believes that. Hes going to be a very senior person so yeah, i suspect one of things will see from a Top Administration is, talk about this threat as being bigger than just isis or alqaeda. Its an ideology and were ever it raises its head and forms a group that puts its black man in territory that will probably be fighting the group soon or later because its thei very antiwes. Its a virulently intolerant. Not all of other religions but also of different strains of islam like shia. I felt likes to massacre shia. I think youll see very much a different narrative coming out of the trump white house. What will that narrative be in terms of fighting counterterror . You know, i dont want to speak for general mike flynn. The narrative is going to be this war is not over. Quite ill see if you see what president obama has done in the last year, a year and half ago he was talking on isis as the jv team of terrorism. Hes talking about two years ago about hes talking a generational struggle. If anyone was reluctant to put to spec and a rock it is present obama but he did it because you realize what a threat this was. He has frozen the troop withdrawal in a consistent because the taliban is coming back. Theres a general consensus to this conflict is generational. Its a different kind of conflict. Its not one you can say we can walk away from because we one. The enemy gets this enemy has decided to keep fighting. Can you walk us through the transformation of u. S. Counterterrorism network and its operational style . Book talks about the partnerships. Those joint task forces, joint special Operations Command under very patient leadership with Stanley Mcchrystal and now scott miller who is former delta force commander, that the cells the military, finding synergistic style of operations that merges all the talents into a synergistic skill set, that now has been expanded to our global counters and network. If you go to the national counters and center which is right out here near tyson said, its like this mother lode, this network they have formed and tushman they designed their flat organizations. If you go to the major notes Like National counters and center, they have multi agency inside a National Counterterrorism center, they called in pursuit groups that look like a j sock task force. If you go all over the country, joint tears and task forces but combined intelligence Law Enforcement and inside america, not military but combined of the committees. That is become the norm. Wherever globals and network of characters and we have j sock back in iraq but the once anorak and use the global sort of a technological revolution which is this Global Communication system that ties this network together and were the frontline Delta Force Team in iraq right now in irbil has hundreds analyst scattered all over the world analyzing the drone surveillance better drones flown from arizona, analyzed at norfolk what they call the defense, grant system and they call it remote split operation but is greater and network that in turn, turns its focus on anyplace on the earth, within a matter of seconds. That is something as recent as desert storm it took three days to do bomb damage assessment. It includes all the satellites and all the drones but it is tied into a network that looks like what Stan Mcchrystal and those guys graded, just expanded out and talk to the people in that network, all the people, from these agencies who rotated through joint task forces, j sock, have risen to the whole system and their working at national counters and center, working in all these different notes so theres this experience level. These guys only no working together at it pumps through the entire global u. S. Characters and network. Tell us more about that. Its a generally understood before 9 11 the cia and the fbi had considerable barriers between them, to say the least, and it hampered in their cooperation. The you describe has really changed. How has it changed and how is the removal of barriers been a positive development . You raised an interesting point because i done those stories. The fbi and the cia, joint task forces counter drug, whatever comes used to joke check your guns a at the door otherwise thy will shoot each other. The cultures were so antagonistic to each other. The fbi, they beat cop kind of image. They were like, when they started these joint task forces they literally had their workstations sort of isolated by crime scene tape so the other guys wouldnt come over and look over the shoulder what they were doing. A national counters and, they brought all these agencies together, they had like 15 different Computer Systems on their workstation, not sharing with each other. At these task forces finally say look, guys, you have to put all your sources on this blackboard so everyone knows each other sources. When they did that and you had to make a promise you cant poach each other sources, they realize some of the same sources were being used by two or three or four agencies and telling them different things, contradictory things, depending on what they wanted to hear, but they were getting paid. So it went from there to a very desperate fight whether all finally said to win this fight we have to work together. That was a huge change and it is now, like i said, percolated up throughout the entire system. So working together. The post9 11 Commission Report and all the reforms broke down, allowed a lot of that sharing that was previously from the Church Committee back in the 19 \70{l1}s{l0}\70{l1}s{l0} that wasnt even allowed. Our intelligence sharing is eons above what was at 9 11. One of the race of what to write the book is i think thats what good looks like candidat an adus to lose that. So now we have yale and allow state playing on the same team. What did you discover as you peel back some of these veils behind the terrorist targeting programs . Well, one of the things i discovered was a much more granular understanding of the enemy. One of the fascinating parts of the book is where, you know, the fbi realized that its job is to protect americans and americans are being killed ids ied cells in kabul. So Brian Macauley for profile in the book is head of the, he was the lead at the time speeded tell us who Brian Macauley is. He is one of the unsung, people come hes not a name, not a household name. Hes an astounding special agent who got very early on one of copies one of the patient leaders who said we cant afford to be fighting each other. We have an enemy we have to fight so we need to work together. There was only a handful of fbi guys in afghanistan. He brings in more than 100 and goes out to these ied cells that are killing american soldiers. Trying to understand these ied cells, improvised explosive devices, he brings an a behavioral science guys, the serial killer profiles from quantico. He has been interview failed suicide bombers. Their best didnt go off for the lost their nerve or whatever. These expert profilers interview these guys for weeks and they understood how these guys, most of them fairly low level hasnt guys in pakistan in the afghan refugee camps who were radicalized by one of these radical mosques in the tribal areas of pakistan, and basically just brought along all the way, told, theyre going to go to heaven if they do this operation. Their families are paid a certain amount of money. When they were brought to these logistic lines all the way to cobble with the handler when we meet up with the guy who makes the best or the vehicle, ied. They understood, they got to understand the enemy at a real granule level and understood the element to that enemy but also understood one of the profilers told me they could feel this hand manipulating these guys an