we continue to face al qaeda obviously elsewhere. not only in pakistan, but yemen and somalia and elsewhere. but we have had remarkable success going after special operations against al qaeda here and we're continuing to do that. i think that, you know, the main challenge here is obviously to make sure there's no safe haven for al qaeda in which to conduct attacks but the key it that is an afghanistan that can secure and govern itself. those two are inner locked in terms of mission thatted with in afghanistan. >> what if they choose a taliban. you know, i'm very confident that the afghan people want to be sovereign. they want to be independent. they want to be free from the taliban. but they want to be able to determine their future. and that's okay. that's what needs to be done here. just to have an afghanistan that can determine. >> when you talk about defeating al qaeda, just thinking about some of the statistic here, there is still insurgency, 93 policemen in one day joined the taliban. do you think al qaeda will be defeated, eve

everybody night was al qaeda from the very beginning. >> the question is who didn't know? >> a good question. where did she get her marching orders, and why her? i think it's because hillary rodham hillary clinton looked at that and she said issue don't want to go out there like colin powell did at the united states nations saying there was weapons weapons weapon and there went his career. so ambassador rice says what she is told to say. good soldierses salute and say whatever they're told to say. >> if someone made a mistake to the american public, five times, would you expect them to come out and say -- >> immediately. >> look, i made a mistake. maybe i ought to take that one back a little? >> she also came out without a lot of qualifications, came out saying -- she should have said, what we know now, at this point. she didn't, she said definitively it wasn't terrorists. that was a red flag. >> clearly the president of libya, colonel, came out right and said it was preplanned terrorist act and we know it was al qaeda. everybody knew it. where did she get this spontaneous

>> al qaeda has been decimated, and a lot of the al qaeda leaders, including bin laden, are dead. but are we safer as a nation? look at the money being spent. and money being spent is real threat. if you accumulate debt, debt is what brings down empires. >> well, it's a difference between safety and strength. >> well put. >> if you can be provoked into reacting in a way that prevents something like that from happening again, but that also causes you to spend yourself into weakness, or to make yourself weak in other ways or to remove the things about you that made you a desirable and proud place in the first place. >> if you swing wildly at something and you have exhausted yourself, did they get you to compromise on your national -- your strategic strength in order to react to them? maybe you have. and then look at what the impact has had on the real people fighting this war -- the military, for example. this has been a generation, a generation has come that has been defined by the wars in iraq, the wars in afghanistan. the men, the women, their families, these two wars have been a

do you think al qaeda will ever be defeated, even here? >> i think you can reach a point where you so significantly weaken al qaeda that although there may still be a few people around, they won't be able to conduct the operations that they've conducted in the past, and they certainly won't be able to plan the kind of attacks that american had happen to it on 9/11. and that's our goal, is to make sure that doesn't happen again. >> and when you talk about al qaeda and where it is, mali is widely now seen as a safe haven for al qaeda, and is linked to, inspired by, whatever the words might be, does the united states have to intervene in mali? >> we've got to go after al qaeda, wherever the hell they're at, and make sure they find no place to hide. because let's not forget, the main goal of al qaeda is to attack the united states and we're not going to allow that to happen again. and if we're not going to allow it to happen, we've got to go after them. in yemen, in somalia and yes, in mali if necessary. >> and final question on al qaeda, how

use is mother al qaeda. there remained the epicenter of the global g. hottest movement -- jihadist movement. its objective is the most dangerous in the world, which is prompt a war between two nuclear weapon states. and that the -- efforts to keep that from happening have to remain the gold standard of all counterterrorism efforts. president obama has every right and so this stc and secretary clinton, every right to be proud of the damage we have inflicted on al qaeda's core. not just the elimination of high-value targets but the successful prosecution of the drone war. the ambassador did not use the d word. i am in a position where i can use it. tghe drones have proven to be remarkably successful. of course they come with the perfect -- with a price. what is most striking about this is the prosecution of this conflict has come with as keeping the government of pakistan as much as possible in the dark and over the objections of the government of pakistan during president obama made an extraordinary decision

you al qaeda help me. you al qaeda will become part of my drug empire. >> operation. >> so what happens is the guy was not an actual drug dealer. he was a sting, a dia operator. the main contact point the guy thought to have some communication with al qaeda in northern africa. he communicates up the criminal food chain. recruits two of his buddies, they make arrangements to transport nine tons of cocaine from south america to africa to europe. >> >> bill: al qaeda would get a cut. >> theoretically al qaeda would get a cut. >> bill: who arrests them? >> they are arrested. the informant is actually working for the d.e.a. and they, at the critical point as the d.e.a. and as the federal agencies the fbi and the others do, they take the -- they walk the snucky criminal through the purported crime like the guy was going to blow up the new york stock exchange with a thousand pound bomb. he goes and pushes the trigger and of course the bomb is fake. the whole thing was a sting and that's how they catch the bad guy

everybody knew it was al-qaeda from the very beginning. >>y the question by colonel hunt is who didn't know. >> where did she get her marching orders and why her? now, i think it's because hillary clinton looked at that, i'm sure she was asked first, and she said i don't want to go out there like colin powell did at the united nations saying there are weapons of mass destruction of iraq and be proven wrong and there's the end of his career. she didn't want to be out there saying that. then it's un ambassador rice. what does she say? she says what they told her to o say. good soldier. i'll say whatever they tell me to say. >> you've beenhe in this spees situations. if someone makes this mistake five times, dug their heels in, would you expect them to come out and say look, i made a mistake. maybe i ought to take that back? >> she also came out without a lot of qualifications. she came out and instead of -- she should have said what we know now. at this point. she a didn't. she saidin very definitively it wasn't terrorists. now, to me, that

that was al qaeda itself. this attack underscored how danger use the situation had become in south asia four years ago. and i think dan is right an emphasizing it's where the administration can rightly claim to have made the greatest progress in dealing with the al qaeda core. the core is an american phrase we're talking about that the more proper term jihad idist use they see it as the mothership. the mothership and the associated allies impact a host of other groups remain the epicenter of the global jihadist movement. despite the blows we have inflighted on it remains in my mind the most serious and dangerous group. the objective, the core plan the most dangerous in the world to prompt a war between two nuclear weapons state pen and efforts to keep it from happening has to remain the goal. president obama has every right and so does sct and secretary hillary clinton and dan benjamin every right to be proud of the damage we have inflicted on the core of al qaeda. not just thely elimination of high corral tar

qaeda in iraq and the potential movement of these al qaeda forces -- we thought al qaeda in iraq was dead. now they seem to be gaining strength and representing some terror threats to jordan. >> well, again, maybe what the report failed to mention is that this operation was called 911-2. >> that's what the al qaeda called it? >> yeah, in reference to our 911, 9th of november, 2005, that resulted in lots and lots of civilian life. now, the thing is that they were affiliated with groups affiliated with al qaeda, like they were getting the technology and the weapons and a new type of explosive that wreaks havoc. and results in the maximum damage in terms of loss of life and in terms of destruction. by the way, i just want to say, it was a very active description. attack the shopping malls, distract the police forces and then try to target hotels and cafes where jordanians and others are enjoying their daily lives. but also to attack the entire neighborhood of the u.s. embassy, not just the u.s. embassy, lots of jordanians live in the vicinity of the embassy, with mortar shells and sophi

now we have members of al qaeda training. members of al qaeda conducting, you know, attacks in syria. having exposure for their brand in syria. it is not as much about ideology as it is about exposure. jenna: if we wipe out chaos though, if chaos does not exist in syria or iraq, to, then is that one of the ways to combat al qaeda? >> well it is easier said than done. now with the situation which we have in syria, syria became an ethnic and religious war, sectarian war. we have the same conflict now happening in iraq a little bit with maliki and the maliki government which is mostly shia government with the kurds up in the north and sunnies in the area we used to call the sunni triangle. as long as we'll have these conflicts we'll have al qaeda and have jihadis. i think it is important not to pay attention to the brand, not pay attention to the name. for example, al qaeda operates in the islamic ma greg and they're different names but it is not about the brand. it is about those remnants who probably left the jails now, for ex

to be the group's most dangerous. >> al qaeda in yemen is offering a reward for killing a u.s. ambassador. >> reporter: it's a country racked with lawlessness. now a new threat. the associated press first reported this video, claiming to be from al qaeda's yemen branch, announcing a new bounty. roughly $160,000, three kilograms of gold, for the killing of an american in yemen. abc has not verified authenticity of a video. if true, the threat comes at a critical time, just four months after al qaeda-linked militants stormed u.s. embassy compound in libya, killing ambassador chris stevens and three other american personnel. after the attack, security levels were raised at american embassies around the world. >> i think the security detail for the ambassador himself is not doing anything differently. they already knew he had to be froe protected very, very carically. >> reporter: anti-american sentiment is very, very high. >> this ambassador is one of the many brave americaning in the region who is in danger all the time. >> reporter: muhammad lila, abc news, washington. >>> the p

qaeda, when the fact is, the station chief reported back that this was al qaeda. and we knew within not very long period of time of all the security lapses which, obviously, as you say, had to have happened, otherwise, four people wouldn't have died. >> greta: is there anything new you learned? i am critical because the two who were in charge of it didn't go to benghazi, any time you have a fundament investigation, you go and you look to see what it is so you understand it. did you learn anything new from this report? >> greta: i did not. but i would like to emphasize, there are so many unanswered questions in this report. for example, why was the initial reporting correct and then somehow changed afterwards? for example, why were there not any american department of defense military assets anywhere nearby on september 11, even though there have been serious warnings? according to the information we have, there was no aircraft or any ability to intervene over a seven-hour period. by the way, two of those who were killed, murdered -- it was in the last hour -- what

that's not true of al-qaeda either. it is different in the sense that what you're doing is, if this is correct, infiltrating individuals, into positions, and "homeland," your favorite show; correct? >> i don't like the word "homeland" in the u.s. government. it's not an american word, but go ahead. >> i'm not sure about the analogy, how much of a problem this is, but i really don't know. >> i'm with eelout. i'm step kl there's a huge al-qaeda infiltration of the united states government. i think it's a problem, primarily in the muslim world where they are able to -- it's not just al-qaeda, but groups like hezbollah and, you know, the type, and pakistani tell ban and others, al-qaeda in the peninsula and many other groups that take advantage of chaos and lack of strong institutions to promote their brands of extremism and, there's, obviously, a lot of chaos and a lot of collapse of institutions throughout the greater middle east right now because of the arab spring, and so i think this is really where this battle is goin

>> it's important to understand we don't know if this is al qaeda-inspired, al qaeda-directed, or al qaeda-inspected. my guess is it's al qaeda inspired. perhaps there's qatari money, but these guys are really fanatical islamists but they're not getting their orders from zawahiri. it makes it very difficult for the united states to give any kind of blanket support to the syrian rebels because we're always going to be worried, well, what if the weapons get to these guys? what if some measures we take empower these guys? we don't want these weapons to be used against an american aircraft carrier, you know, or a por port or subway five years from now. >> it seems like it's reaching a critical mass in the united states, the move to arm and help the rebels in some way. i could be wrong, but it feels we're hearing more and more about it. i still don't understand because we go in and we intervene in libya. and we weren't able to procure weapons there. now the weapons are being used in gaza and now apparently being used in syria. so if we intervene, does it do more good than harm? >> i think

and obama had been saying that he has done away with al-qaeda. this is al-qaeda. i specifically asked the question and they wouldn't answer them. i asked them to be specific. and you know, i have made a study of different coverups, the pentagon papers, watergate and iran contra. i have never seen anything -- this is probably the greatest coverup in my memory anyway. >> judge jeanine: senator inhofe, hopefully we will get more specific answers and we thank you so much for being with us this evening. >> thank you, judge. go get them. >> judge jeanine: they call it the accountability review board. exactly who is accountable? with me is former federal judge and united states attorney general for whom i always had a great deal of respect, michael mukasey. according to the report, no one breached their duty. no one is responsible. no identification of any one responsible for a failure. the only person identified as making any decision is the ambassador. what does that tell you? >> tells me that somebody deeply doesn't want to discuss who is responsible. what the report

he said very clearly there were al qaeda elements involved. apparently the initial talking point had al qaeda mentioned in it, and they were removed. as mike morrell said, they were removed by the c.i.a., not the f.b.i. so the whole issue of talking points by committee where the initial analyst of the c.i.a. does talking points, puts something out, and then it goes from agency to agency, who pore over them and say, well, you better not use this because it might jeopardize a contact or something else. and so al qaeda was pulled out of it. . >> schieffer: we're just about out of time. but let me ask you this, this whole idea-- i take it you agree with me-- it is not right to have the public talking points say one thing if they're in conflict with what the classified intelligence shows. >> well, that's exactly right. and that's why if you have to do it this way you shouldn't do it. >> schieffer: all right, we'll let it go at that. the so much. okay, here's the plan. you have a plan? first we're gonna check our bags for free, thanks to our explore

nor can we capture or kill every last terrorist who claims an affiliation with al qaeda. i can offer no prediction about when this conflict will end. or whether we are as winston churchill once described it near the "beginning of the end." on the present course, i do believe, there will come a tipping point. a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al qaeda and its affiliates have been killed or captured and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the united states. such that al qaeda, as we know it, the organization that our congress authorized the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed. >> approaching a tipping point. i just want to jump in for a second to say this is the unprecedented part that we have been waiting for. watch. >> at that point, we must be able to say to ourselves that our efforts should no longer be considered a "armed conflict against al qaeda and its associated forces." rather a counterterrorism effort against individuals who are the scattered remnants of al qaeda, or ar

drone took down another al-qaeda leader. pakistani tribal sources says a senior al-qaeda commander had just arrived in pakistan a couple days ago. and a u.s. drone strike took him out. he had risen in the al-qaeda ranks to become one of the most powerful figures. heather? >> holly live from washington this evening. thank you very much, molly. as molly just reported secretary of state hillary clinton is getting ready to report about the benghazi attack. we will look at the possible legal controversy shaping up later in the show with judge janeen shapiro. >>> night fall in egypt and tensions are high after tens of thousands of demonstrators stormed the palace in cairo yesterday denouncing president mohamed morsi's controversial power grab. you can see egypt's military reinforced a wall protecting the compound from the huge crowd there. yesterday angry protesters broke through barbed wire barricades, many spraying graw fooy tee on the walls telling morsi to go and leave power. president morsi held talks today to discuss ways to

drone took another al qaeda leader pakistan tribal leaders say a senior al qaeda commander that just areiched in pakistan a couple of days and a north delone strike took him out. he rose in the al qaeda ranks to be the terrorist network most powerful figure. >> thank you . joining us with the news of the arrest and that secretary clinton will testify before the house. welcome, congresswoman, great to have you here. what do you know about the latest arrest of the suspect tied to the attack on the benghazi consulate. >> it is welcome news they are getting results. this will be a test of the mursi muslim brotherhood led government which as of late was a deep disappointment and caused great concern in the international community about the move for authoritis and suppression of the minority and power grab of the mursi regime. now if they cooperate with the u.s. and turn this individual and others over to the united states for prosecution doesn't mine we'll let the mursi government off of the hook. we are giving good money after bad. the administration is asking for the government to have

and this is a story of how somebody connected to al-qaeda gained access to c.i.a. agents that were on ground and walked in and trusted him and they would lead him to osama bin laden. he was wearing a suicide vest. how many lives lost? seven lives lost and some extraordinary c.i.a. >> civil servants. >> rose: you said about this movie you wanted to show a human face of the world of counterterrorism which is part of what we alluded to earlier about humanism the humanity of these people or humanizing them. but tell me about what it is, how that fits into what you did here. >> well i think it's, you know it's certainly a world that i can speak for myself. i knew very little about. i mean i just sort of imagined it's sort of, you know takes place in the shadows, as it should, as it needs to. but then you know to be able to, to be able to peel back the curtain and have a glimpse at a process and a character and what kind of, what is the psychology behind somebody that dead indicates ten years of their life exclusively to finding one person. >> you have to see the movie.

or against us where we're prescribing al qaeda we're coming out against assad we're recognizing a new government that's that strong it's hopefully pro western so this obama is trying to complicate this and not just turn it into a sectarian you know slugfest and i think i think washington is very conscious that they do not want to be siding on one side of a religious war they have it all if i go to you it looks like it will in the end as things are going to go ahead in washington well. in a lot of ways what we see today in the middle east is a sectarian war a conflict between the sunni shia specifically a major rivalry between iran and saudi arabia and it's not a neo colonialist project there is no such thing and the us has a specific set of interests in the middle east we work with our partners to achieve them sometimes there are tensions a lot in lot of countries the united states doesn't have that much influence we can't shape the outcome of the syria conflict exactly to our liking we have to deal with the situation we have in the middle east so looking at had this son the divisions

by al qaeda in iraq. they were just black listed as a terrorist organization. this comes at a time when the united states is recognizing another one of the rebel groups as the legitimate force behind the syrian rebels. however, there is a big problem for the united states that they can't send weapons to these groups as evidenced by there is video. it shows the number of muslim extremists heading into syria from europe. they are fighting against president assad but what they want to turn syria inis to nothing short of an islamic state for militant operations. it's difficult to give weapons to the sp significance because the united states fears the weapons will end up in the arms of the islamists being used against u.s. soldiers. this comes as everyone is trying to figure out who to get behind. the increasing civilian cost. it seems we hear of something worse happening. just today the possibility of a massacre in a village would be seen as a village that was loyal to president bashar al-asaad's re gleem syr

qaeda, we know al qaeda was trying their darnedest to get nuclear weapons and chemical weapons and so on. so far, they appear to have paid in that. >> rose: where did they come the closest? >> we had a bad scare i am trying to remember, maybe in 2009, 2010 when we thought one of those groups along the pakastani border may have gotten some nuclear material, but it turned out it was a false report it was not true but it is the kind of thing that is the kind of thing of your nightmares is that what you worried about even more so than the fact they would use them against, say israel? >> if their goal is to acquire nuclear weapons there would be three very negative consequences one is you would have a nuclear armed iran with missiles that could reach israel and that can reach israel today and that will be able to reach europe in the not-too-distant future and ultimately the united states. second, you would have, i think, a nuclear tarmd iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the most volatile part of the world, and third, you -- i think a nuclear armed iran would be significantly more ag

is it going after al-qaeda? so, all those factors are complicated but they have to be carefully thought through and i'm not sure we've done that very well in the last ten years, but i do think we will do it smarter. we always learn. they're tough lessons to learn. vietnam was a tough lesson for us to learn. (instrumental music) >> but even as the war on terrorism winds down, the nuclear threat is surfacing once again. >> iran is working on a longer-range missile capability, an intermediate range missile, that could reach europe. and these guys are good. eventually they will develop an icbm that could reach the united states. >> the iranians are being continuing to amass technologies, learning how to enrich uranium, stockpiling low enriched uranium and it's getting to a level in which particularly one of iran's major rivals in the region, israel, is sounding the alarm bells and saying that the iranians are getting too close. >> graeme lawson, a great historian of the cuban missile crisis said that the iran nuclea

relations with pakistan's status of al qaeda. from the brookings institution, and this is a little less than an hour and a half. >> good morning, everyone in thank you for your patience. my name is daniel byman cover research director here at hurricanes. i think the issue of terrorism has been on the agenda and the united states is silly since 9/11 and of course people like our speakers today. at the end of the first term of the obama administration, is a mistaken appropriate point to look at the track record so far and also to look ahead and the challenges remaining. i'm delighted with two speakers who can do that extremely well today. our first speaker today is the coordinator for counterterrorism at state department. he has held numerous government positions. also for several years as a senior fellow here at the booking institution. he is also the author of two noted books, the next attack. i would say to the last of the public he's leaving government service, but he is going to teach and how the research institute at dartmout

al-qaeda is on a path to be deep but there is an awful lot of extremism -- -- al-qaeda is on a path to be defeated but there is an awful lot of extremism. we have a number of other groups that are quite potent and dangerous. they should not escape attention and we will need to raise the level of discourse on them and see what we can do to help pakistan deal with them. bruce made some remarks about pakistan before. i would only add that it is still the case that more extremists have been taken off the street by pakistan than anywhere else. while is a difficult relationship, with lots of ups and downs, there has also been successes in the counter- terrorism relationship. it is a challenging relationship but an essential one. >> thank you. with apologies, we are out of time. i would like to offer my thanks to ambassador benjamin for some of his closing remarks and his service in government and for the excellent job he has done while he has been with the state department. those who follow counter- terrorism closely know he can with significant challenges and our country is better off to hi

qaeda or al qaeda influenced. and that's what we identified yesterday. so the effort now is to assure that the opposition group that we support and that can bring a legitimate opposition together to transform government there is the one that we fully support. >> it seems ironic and it has to be difficult for you since obviously you're supporting some groups but there was an al qaeda-linked group wanting to get rid of bashar al assad. we helped kuwaiti in that goal. is it strange, in a sense, that we're fighting for the same thing al qaeda is? >> it's the nature of what's happening in the middle east now, that as you have the arab spring occur, there are going to be very legitimate groups that want to be able to pursue a political transition to real democracy, to freedom, to all of the liberties and rights that we enjoy. so there are those groups. there are those that will try to take advantage of it. extremist groups that will say, wait a minute, we don't want to ned that direction. we want to use this as an oppor

if al qaeda were to strike the united states for example in the last remaining weeks of this year and kill as many americans as there are you know i love it it's the carnage still wouldn't compare to what guns do to americans every single year so far in two thousand and twelve more than nine thousand americans have died by way of the gun almost one hundred thousand were shot just this last saturday alone one hundred ninety people in america were shot at in newtown connecticut twenty first graders are dead gunned down by an assault rifle borrowed from a gun mom. it's interesting and instructive to compare our national response to muslim religious extremist killers versus our response to largely white christian extremist killers at the end of two thousand and one a british islamic fundamentalist named richard reid tried to take down an american airlines flight headed to miami by igniting a bomb hidden in his shoe he failed no one died but extreme measures were immediately put into place at the airports around the nation forcing us to take off our shoes before we could board an airplane