Page 17 - Gathering Intelligence News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Stark, yet there was a real reluctance by the u.s. government to call it that. what are you hearing on the ground there in baghdad? >> reporter: you know, in baghdad, a lot of people giving lip service to the idea that this is not a civil war. people, you know, i was at a military base today where v volunteers were signing up. and two men said we are one nation, sunni, shia, kurd. but we all know there are real sectarian divisions in this country. we're seeing it play out right now. i don't think one can say it's a full-on civil war at this point. i don't think we know enough about what sunni ...

Talk to people, they want to keep their country unified. nobody blithely talks about partitioning it. well the iraqi people didn't want that, and most of them still don't, but what you do have is a real problem and that is the authoritarian, sectarian nature of the maliki government. and yes, he's pushed out all significant sunnis in various key, key areas like the intelligence, for instance. certainly in parliament. i spoke to the top-ranking sunni politician yesterday who is the deputy prime minister. and even at this moment of maximum need, he says he can't see maliki really reaching out an...

Legitimately in the air immediately after september 11, in every american city throughout the united states. but as the years have passed and the threat seems to have receded while it really probably has not receded that much. don't you think, though, one of the best forms of gathering intelligence is the cop on the beat? is the local knowledge that a police officer gets from the constituency that he's serving and protecting far more so than anything the fbi is going to do with computers and eavesdropping and stuff like that? >> yeah, absolutely. police on the beat. and that's why, i think, fo...

Technology, but more importantly, it relies on good professional police and investigation work. >> that's really what it is because we always get prepped, we set up we talk about what could happen and is it really just the human intelligence what people do putting one and one together to make two? that's really what prevents things from happening? >> in my opinion, that's where it starts. you've got to have a good system in place where you're selecting intelligence. the best way to stop a threat is not just putting up an arrangement of security and metal detectors. yes, you need all those phys...

Having the difficult task of gathering intelligence. it just is a basic principle. >> there's a lot at stake. the terrorists can be right once. we have to be right all the time. >> exactly right. the collection the united states is conducting is not what we're seeing china and north korea doing. we're not engaging in cyber espionage to damage infrastructure. we're trying to protect national security and inform policymakers. but i will add one thing here, i'm a little uncomfortable with the cell phone collection against angela merkel and i think that shouldn't have been done and that's going to...