HTA-0601: American Intelligence Heroes

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Summary

Henry discusses heroes in the American intelligence community and military.

Full Transcript

00:00
There are a lot of heroes in the American intelligence community and in the military.

00:04
People have kept this country safe, but of course, you don't celebrate the people who have kept something from happening.

00:09
Well, we're going to celebrate them right now.

00:11
This is Eric Schmidt along with Tom Shanker.

00:13
He has written Counter-Strike, the untold story of America's secret campaign against Al-Qaeda.

00:19
Thank you very much for joining us.

00:20
Can you explain who these people are, what they did that we don't know?

00:24
Yeah, what we talk about in our book Counter-Strike are a whole group of people you haven't heard of, as you mentioned.

00:29
These are people three and four ranks down below the Dick Cheneys and the Don Rumsfelds,

00:34
who, whether military officers or intelligence analysts,

00:37
even people at the Treasury Department are trying to choke off terrorist financing,

00:40
who are coming up with new and innovative ways of combating terrorism.

00:43
For example?

00:44
Well, for instance, the terrorist networks.

00:46
What they're trying to do now is disable some of these ancient money-changing systems called hualas.

00:51
These are a system that are very hard to track money,

00:53
so they've gone in and they basically shut down some of these hualas

00:56
to deter others from carrying out the same kind of businesses.

00:59
They're going into cyberspace, because right now, terrorists operate, this is their safe haven.

01:05
They like to recruit, they like to raise money in these safe havens of cyberspace.

01:10
So Islamic-speaking intelligence analysts are going in and infiltrating some of these militant chat rooms

01:15
and posing troubling questions about why some of these bombs, for instance, that al-Qaeda is carrying out

01:20
are blowing up Muslim civilians, not soldiers or police officers, but civilians.

01:24
Right.

01:25
And so they're trying to psychologically get into their heads.

01:28
By the way, why is that?

01:30
Well, why are they blowing up civilian Muslims?

01:35
Well, I mean, they're trying to blow things up.

01:37
They get attention that way.

01:38
They stir fear in their community.

01:40
But also it's been counterproductive in some ways.

01:42
And the United States is trying to figure out ways to exploit that.

01:45
It's hard for the U.S. to do and put their fingerprints on this

01:48
because the U.S. doesn't have much credibility on the Muslim street.

01:51
But they're trying to get others, sympathetic clerics and others in the Muslim world, to speak out against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

01:59
So it has clearly been relatively successful to the extent that, and I was knock on wood or something when I say this, but that we haven't had any significant attacks.

02:09
But do you believe that enough is being done at this point?

02:12
I think a lot has been done, certainly since 9-11, to improve defenses.

02:15
Obviously, the expansion of the intelligence network and understanding that's how they got the information going to kill some of Inland.

02:22
But the government still has severe weaknesses.

02:24
They still have not developed a good counter message to Al-Qaeda.

02:29
And Al-Qaeda says the West is against, is a war with Islam.

02:32
Right.

02:33
It's a false message.

02:33
The United States is having trouble coming up with a counter message to that right now.

02:38
It's also kind of a whack-a-mole, isn't it?

02:39
I mean, you hit them in one place and they pop up, you know, on the Arabian Peninsula or they pop up in some other continent.

02:44
That's right.

02:45
What's happened is even as the main al-Qaeda where bin Laden was in Pakistan has been severely hurt by these drone strikes there,

02:52
affiliates are popping up in places like North Africa and Yemen.

02:56
Yemen was where the guys who orchestrated the underpants bomber, that Nigerian man who tried to blow himself up.

03:02
And the printer bombers.

03:03
I mean, that's going on constantly.

03:04
Exactly.

03:05
Okay.

03:05
Thank you very much.

03:07
The book, really fascinating story.

03:08
It's called Counter-Strike, the Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al-Qaeda.

03:12
Eric Schmidt and Tom Shanker.

03:14
Thank you very much.

03:15
for joining us.

03:15
Appreciate it, Henry.

03:16
Marty and Isabel, back to you.

03:17
Okay, Henry.