Meet The Press, Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden, and Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani on the post Osama bin Laden world.
>>> we turn live now to three men who have worked on the front lines in the war on terror, former secretary of homeland security, michael chertoff, former director of the cia, michael hayden, who now both work as principals of the chertoff group, a strategic advisory risk management security firm. and from new york, the mayor of new york city, of course, during the 9/11 attacks, rudy giuliani, now head of giuliani partners. welcome to all of you. general hayden, i want to start with you. the news that mr. donilon talked about -- this is the largest trove of data from any single terrorist that the government has found. what are you learning now that we didn't know before?
>> well, i think they're going after -- several things, david. the first thing you want to find out is imminent threat information. the second layer of detail you want to find out is locational information and al qaeda leadership. and then the third, and this is the long-term effort, you're essentially creating an encyclopedia of how al qaeda operates, what their system is, their tactics, their techniques, their procedures. this is wonderful not just in its size, but we have not gotten what we call sse, sensitive site exploitation, going in and getting materials on al qaeda leadership for several years. so, it's big and it's new.
>> it was the understanding of the intelligence community, secretary chertoff, that after 9/11, he no longer became operationally involved. now, we're seeing these videos -- difficult to know, bit you heard donilon say, no, we think he was more directly in control. what do you think that means?
>> well, i think it's going to cause us to evaluate a little bit more about what the leadership structure is and what his role was, and particularly, look at the material that's being exploiting to see whether there are, in fact, leads that can take us to protect against future attacks. that being said, we always knew, and i think it's still clear that there was a cadre of very experienced leaders below bin laden, people like al libi or al lackey in yemen, and those are still in place. so, part of what we need to do is understand where their tactics and strategy are based upon the material that we find in this treasure trove.
>> mayor giuliani, the question of what this represents against al qaeda, a death blow or something else. this is certainly a significant development.
>> very significant development. removing a leader of the significance of this man is extraordinary. i mean, this is like removing a hitler or a stalin in the middle of those conflicts. he's going to be very hard to replace. and it's a symbolic blow for an organization that feeds a lot on emotion. this is a decentralized organization that's tied together by their feelings and emotions. so, removing this man will help a lot, but it's not a death blow by any means. i mean, this is a pretty decentralized organization. over the last couple of years they've been operating in yemen, other places, so they're not operating in just one place. and i think they're particularly angry at us right now. so, long term, this is a fabulous, terrific development, making us safer. short term, it presents some very substantial risks which i think the administration is aware of.
>> secretary chertoff, i want to play a piece of an interview i did this week as part of our "press pass" conversation, something we do weekly on our website, with steve cole, author of " ghost wars," who knows al qaeda so well. asked about what al qaeda's still capable of, and this is what he said about it.
>> al qaeda is a resilient organization, but it is not spreading or growing. so, it has the capability to carry out attacks such as the one we saw christmas before last, where an al qaeda affiliate tried to blow up and almost did blow up an american airliner with several hundred people aboard. now, that is, i think, a fair approximation of its capacity. once in a while, it could kill hundreds of people. that ought to get our attention, but it need not be the basis for organizing every aspect of our national life or our national defense.
>> do you agree with that or no?
>> i don't know if i would agree that it's not spreading. i think if you look over the last few years, you've seen a greater presence of al qaeda or an affiliation with al qaeda in north africa, obviously in yemen and somalia, and even in parts of central africa. i think what's interesting is this, we don't know to what extent the strategy of going for the big attack, which we've always presumed was a core element of the strategy, was driven by bin laden personally. now that he's gone, there may be an opportunity for some others who have different views about his style of tacks to begin to shape the strategy. for example, does that mean more mumbai attacks, where instead of blowing up an airliner, you're bringing simultaneous armed attacks on a number of different facilities? so, while this is on one hand a great advantage of eliminating bin laden, on the other hand, we have to be more careful than ever to look at what may be tactical changes in how they move forward.
>> general hayden, are you concerned that they didn't capture him alive?
>> no. i mean, it might have provided some intelligence advantages, but i doubt very much more than we're going to get from the documents and the hard drives and the discs and so on. no, i understand quite well. and then you would have had somebody in our custody, and that would have been in the news every day and motivating people. perhaps people now will be less interested in coming to kill us because of some of the videos that we've been able to show.
>> let me follow up with all of you on this other ongoing debate i asked mr. donilon about, interrogations, the counterterror policies after 9/11, specifically waterboarding. general hayden, isn't it something of an open question as to whether you can tie that moment to this moment? in other words, harsh interrogation, waterboarding of suspected terrorists ultimately led us to bin laden? can we make that declaring statement?
>> i wouldn't describe it that way. i describe it the way director panetta has done in some public commentaries, that one of the key threads we began this from about four years ago came from information from cia detainees. and all of those particular detainees did indeed have enhanced interrogation techniques used against them. so you can't deny that we got valuable information from these folks. now, director panetta went on to say it's just an open question whether we may have gotten them from other means, but the fact of the matter is, we did it this way and this way worked.
>> mayor giuliani, but you heard a declaretive statement from secretary rumsfeld who said that anybody who questions whether waterboarding worked is simply denying facts. how can you make that assertion with such certainty?
>> obviously, you can't make it with certainty unless the administration reveals all the data, which they're not. but i thought mr. donilon's failure to answer your question spoke very loudly about the fact that waterboarding, enhanced interrogation techniques, played a significant role in this. maybe not a critical role, but certainly a significant role. and it just makes sense. these kinds of materials are not obtained easily, and many of the material -- [ everyone talking at once ]
>> isn't the point, secretary chertoff, that look, khalid shaikh mohammed was water-boarded 183 times, and according to news this week on nbc news, he never gave up the truth about the courier that led to bin laden. so, there is still this debate that doesn't get settled through killing bin laden, would you agree with that?
>> for people who will never be persuaded one way or the other about this, and i don't think i can add anything to it --
>> but is it objectively knowable?
>> i'll tell you what's knowable. go back ten years. i was head of the commission on 9/11, and at that point in time, we had a national security apparatus that was stove-piped, that didn't have the ability to integrate information and to act on it in a timely way. both presidents deserve a lot of credit for maturing the apparatus over ten years to the point that, as tom donilon said, the president could have confidence that this apparatus would work, taking the intelligence, operationalizing it, moving it in realtime. all the pieces of that are part of the puzzle. some of them some people will like, some of them people won't like, but it's the totality that gave this president the tools that he was able to use to kill bin laden.
>> general, let me ask you about pakistan.
>> sure.
>> was pakistan specifically helpful to the united states with information that ultimately i.d.'d the couriers that led to bin laden?
>> there is nothing in my personal experience that would prompt me to say yes. pakistan has helped in some other areas. we've captured terrorists in sedentary areas of pakistan, by and large years ago, not more recently by and large, but i'm not aware of any pakistani help that led to the events of last weekend.
>> did pakistan harbor a terrorist?
>> well there was a terrorist in pakistan that seemed to feel that he was very safe. and as mr. donilon said, they've got a lot of questions to answer and the burden of proof is on them.
>> mayor giuliani, you heard donilon say that it's pakistan that's going to investigate this and this is a big deal in pakistan. what are the ramifications for this as more becomes clear about what they knew and when?
>> ramifications are huge because pakistan is a critical country, it's a country with nuclear weapons. if bin laden could have this kind of access to the government and get this kind of protection -- if that's the case -- we don't know that it is -- what does that say about the security of nuclear weapons and what's it say about the military force there and how secure it really is? so, this has huge implications. and before we all comment on it, we'd better be right about it.
>> i want to ask quickly about afghanistan as well, general hayden. there are going to be people who say, hey, wait a minute, let's focus narrowly on counterterror, as this president did, let's accelerate that withdrawal from afghanistan.
>> i think we need to see how this plays out, david. this is not a singular event that then has us making a sharp break left or right. we'll see what the impact of this is. there are lots of reasons for what it is we're doing in pakistan, going after bin laden--
>> in afghanistan.
>> i'm sorry in afghanistan. going after bin laden is but one of them. let's see what happens to this network now. let's see what they do. as secretary chertoff said, we could get a lot more biodiversity, so to speak, in the kinds of threats coming after us, if bin laden did have such a controlling hand. now you'll have more independent actor and perhaps more agile actors.
>> what happens now? are these guys on the run? from an operational point of view, does our tempo increase as these guys are on the move?
>> it should increase. this could be the pursuit phase and we should press the fight.
>> mayor giuliani, i want to take you back to the end of this week. this president, nearly a decade after president bush visited ground zero after 9/11, returns. and of course, you were there with him as he met with firefighters and family members of the victims. and there was another image that was so poignant this week from sunday night of firefighters looking at the ticker tape in -- i don't know if that was lower manhattan or times square-- " osama bin laden is dead." describe what that's like and is there an emotional symmetry ten years later to have him visit?
>> there sure was. i had lunch with the president and the firefighters who we met with, and it was a very emotional and a very satisfying experience. i think they felt a burden lifted from them. hard for them to describe. i mean, it doesn't bring back our loved ones. it doesn't bring back those tremendous heroes that saved this country on september 11th. but there is no mistaking the fact that there's a burden that's been lifted from them. they can look at this somewhat differently now. and i think all of them, whatever their political persuasions, had great admirations for the president's courage to make this decision. this was a risky decision to make. the president made it, he made it correctly, including the decision, i think, to dispose of bin laden's body so that wouldn't become a cause celeb. i think these men, these firefighters and police officers he met with who exercise bravery every day in their lives, i think they admire that in the president.
>> does it impact at all, mayor giuliani, your thinking about running for president next year?
>> not in the slightest. i separate the two things. this was an american achievement. two presidents get great credit for it. i also thank president bush this week because no matter what about the debate, no matter what you come out on the debate about waterboarding, no doubt, all of the work he did and the changes he made in intelligence brought this about. and president obama's improving that and his decision-making brought it about. it's a great achievement for both presidents, both political parties, all americans.
>> and you're still considering a run for the presidency?
>> not right this minute, but yes, i am.
>> all right. we'll leave it there. thanks to all of you very much.
TEXT and VIDEO CREDIT: Meet The Press
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