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http://tbo.com/list/military-news/altman/former-cia-director-offers-chilling-world-view-20150125/
Former CIA acting director offers chilling world view
By Howard Altman | Tribune Staff Howard Altman on Google+
Published: January 25, 2015 | Updated: January 25, 2015 at 09:10 PM
It doesn’t take a CIA officer to figure out that the world is a rather dangerous and complex place.
But it’s pretty fascinating to listen to the agency’s former acting director talk about just how dangerous and complex it is.
Bottom line up front after listening to Mike Morell talk for more than an hour?
Pakistan, with a plethora of people, poverty, militants and nukes, is the world’s most dangerous nation. Syria is a “mess” with a five-sided war and the most complex policy situation he has faced in his 30 years as a spook. Al-Qaida has a good chance of reconstituting its abilities to launch another attack on the U.S. from Afghanistan within three years after we finally pull out. And the Supreme Leader of Iran — which uses “terrorism as a tool of statecraft” and funds the insurgency in Yemen and other places — has his heart set on developing nuclear weapons no matter what happens with the current negotiations.
Morell, who served as acting director of the CIA after his old boss, David Petraeus, resigned over an affair with his biographer, was the keynote speaker at a recent dinner organized by Mohsen Milani, executive director of the Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies at USF World.
Speaking for more than an hour, Morell, who among many other things was President George W. Bush’s CIA briefer on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, offered a chilling view of the world as seen by one of the intelligence community’s most senior members.
The ongoing war against jihadis, best manifested in the battle against al-Qaida, has resulted in victories for both sides, said Morell.
“Our great victory was the degradation, decimation and near defeat of al-Qaida in Pakistan...the al-Qaida people who brought you 9/11, who brought that tragedy to our shores.’ But their “great victory,” said Morell, was the spread of al-Qaida’s ideology “across a huge geographical area” running from Africa to the Middle East to south Asia.
It’s a battle with lasting implications, he said.
The present is plenty unstable, he said, and the future could be worse.
The first topic of conversation was the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, which Morell believes were effective and warranted, and, moreover, deemed as legal by the Department of Justice at the time. Given that his positions on the topic are well-known, I figure there is more value for the purposes of this column in a deeper dive into the things he said about the present and future.
The rest of the discussion, led by Milani, who likes to have conversations with news makers and key leaders by sitting in comfy chairs in front of an audience, began with Afghanistan.
“So I am really worried,” Morell said from his comfy chair, offering a take that was anything but comforting. “The best case is that the Afghan National Security Forces will be capable of holding Kabul, most of the major cities, not all, and the Ring Road, but not strong enough to prevent the Taliban from having sanctuary in parts of the south and parts of the east.”
That’s the best case, he repeated, in a country where the U.S. will have about 11,000 troops stationed at least through the end of this year.
“The worst case is the Taliban knocking on the door of Kabul in 12 to 18 months after U.S. forces leave,” he said.
And it goes downhill from there.
“No matter what (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar says, al-Qaida will come back across the border, into Afghanistan, and have safe haven with the Taliban.”
But it gets even worse.
“Unless the United States is both willing and able, both of those things, willing and able, of reaching out and taking care of al-Qaida, in two to three years, it will regenerate the capability to conduct a 9/11-style attack against the U.S.”
The conversation then moved westward, to Afghanistan’s neighbor Iran.
“If you only watched the news about Iran, only watched the popular media, you would think the nuclear program is the only issue we have to deal with,” said Morell. “We have a long list of issues with Iran.”
No. 1, he said, was “Iran wants to be the hegemonic power in the Middle East. I don’t believe that’s in the best interest of the U.S.”
No. 2, he said, “Iran practices terrorism as a tool of statecraft. Iran itself does acts of terrorism around the world. Largely against Israel, but they use terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
No. 3, he said, is “Iran supports terrorist organizations, Hamas...and most importantly, Hizballah.”
And No. 4, “Iran funds insurgencies in Bahrain. It funds the insurgency in Yemen, the Houthi [who, having siezed much of the Yemeni capital a week after the dinner, are involved in a proxy war with that U.S.-backed government as well as al-Qaida]. It funds the insurgency in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, and then you put the nuclear program on top of it.”
Oh yeah, the nuclear weapons program.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, “in his mind has made the judgment that it is in Iran’s best interest to acquire the weapon,” for two reasons, said Morell. One is that Iran sees it “as a major advantage in that pursuit of being a hegemonic power and No. 2 and probably more important is that they see it as the ultimate deterrent to the United States, which they believe is trying to overthrow the regime.”
The good news is that while some friendly governments in the region love us while their people hate us, the Iranian government hates us while their people love us, said Morell, giving a sliver of hope that we can find a way to coexist.
Then there is Syria, “the hardest policy problem I have ever seen,” said Morell, echoing what Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command, told me a few years back. The reason is that the country, where the U.S. and its allies are bombing Islamic State targets on a regular basis as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, is embroiled in a five-sided war.
There’s the “Arab Spring kind of war between (Bashar al-) Assad and his people,” said Morell. There’s the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. There is the Sunni-Shia war, there is the battle between Assad and al-Qaida and there is the battle between so-called moderate Syrians and two al-Qaida groups.
“This is a mess,” said Morell, garnering hearty laughs, before shooting down Milani’s suggestion that the Saudi government has been supporting the al-Qaida group al-Nusra in Syria.
President Barack Obama’s decision not to attack Assad’s forces after saying his use of chemical weapons would be a redline was a watershed moment, in a negative way, for the moderates, he said.
“I can’t tell you how many leaders of foreign intelligence services I worked with throughout the world reached out to me in the aftermath of the decision not to attack and said, ‘do you understand the damage’” that decision caused?
On a slightly more positive note, Morell said that he is “fairly certain the strategy in Iraq will ultimately work” against Islamic State. “I believe once Iraq forces get trained and get back decent leadership, which is now devastated, I think you will see a roll back of ISIS in Iraq.”
And back to the bad news.
“I have the same lack of confidence in Syria,” he said. “There is no strategy to deal with ISIS in Syria. The problem is that success in Iraq is not enough, because they will just go back across the border. You get the hammer in Iraq, but no anvil in Syria. They will just control part of eastern Syria.”
Which brings us to Pakistan.
“I think Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world,” said Morell.
Why?
“Their economy is broken,” he said. “It is unable to generate growth. Their education system is broken. Literally broken. When you watch where children go to school, they go to broken down schools and sit on rubble. Why do you think they send their kids to madrassas?”
Then there is explosive population growth and the fact that the militancy, which recently played itself out in a school massacre, is growing.
“That includes inside the military,” said Morell. “So it is not inconceivable to think that in 10, 15, 20 years, that the government of Pakistan is overthrown by militants and you have a militant government with nuclear weapons. That’s why I think Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world.”
Of course, why worry about such matters when there are more important things to fret over, like deflated footballs?
❖ ❖ ❖
The Pentagon announced no new deaths in the ongoing operations in the U.S. Central Command region.
There have been three U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and none in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.
haltman@tampatrib.com
(813) 259-7629
@haltman
Posted for fair use.....
http://tbo.com/list/military-news/altman/former-cia-director-offers-chilling-world-view-20150125/
Former CIA acting director offers chilling world view
By Howard Altman | Tribune Staff Howard Altman on Google+
Published: January 25, 2015 | Updated: January 25, 2015 at 09:10 PM
It doesn’t take a CIA officer to figure out that the world is a rather dangerous and complex place.
But it’s pretty fascinating to listen to the agency’s former acting director talk about just how dangerous and complex it is.
Bottom line up front after listening to Mike Morell talk for more than an hour?
Pakistan, with a plethora of people, poverty, militants and nukes, is the world’s most dangerous nation. Syria is a “mess” with a five-sided war and the most complex policy situation he has faced in his 30 years as a spook. Al-Qaida has a good chance of reconstituting its abilities to launch another attack on the U.S. from Afghanistan within three years after we finally pull out. And the Supreme Leader of Iran — which uses “terrorism as a tool of statecraft” and funds the insurgency in Yemen and other places — has his heart set on developing nuclear weapons no matter what happens with the current negotiations.
Morell, who served as acting director of the CIA after his old boss, David Petraeus, resigned over an affair with his biographer, was the keynote speaker at a recent dinner organized by Mohsen Milani, executive director of the Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies at USF World.
Speaking for more than an hour, Morell, who among many other things was President George W. Bush’s CIA briefer on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, offered a chilling view of the world as seen by one of the intelligence community’s most senior members.
The ongoing war against jihadis, best manifested in the battle against al-Qaida, has resulted in victories for both sides, said Morell.
“Our great victory was the degradation, decimation and near defeat of al-Qaida in Pakistan...the al-Qaida people who brought you 9/11, who brought that tragedy to our shores.’ But their “great victory,” said Morell, was the spread of al-Qaida’s ideology “across a huge geographical area” running from Africa to the Middle East to south Asia.
It’s a battle with lasting implications, he said.
The present is plenty unstable, he said, and the future could be worse.
The first topic of conversation was the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, which Morell believes were effective and warranted, and, moreover, deemed as legal by the Department of Justice at the time. Given that his positions on the topic are well-known, I figure there is more value for the purposes of this column in a deeper dive into the things he said about the present and future.
The rest of the discussion, led by Milani, who likes to have conversations with news makers and key leaders by sitting in comfy chairs in front of an audience, began with Afghanistan.
“So I am really worried,” Morell said from his comfy chair, offering a take that was anything but comforting. “The best case is that the Afghan National Security Forces will be capable of holding Kabul, most of the major cities, not all, and the Ring Road, but not strong enough to prevent the Taliban from having sanctuary in parts of the south and parts of the east.”
That’s the best case, he repeated, in a country where the U.S. will have about 11,000 troops stationed at least through the end of this year.
“The worst case is the Taliban knocking on the door of Kabul in 12 to 18 months after U.S. forces leave,” he said.
And it goes downhill from there.
“No matter what (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar says, al-Qaida will come back across the border, into Afghanistan, and have safe haven with the Taliban.”
But it gets even worse.
“Unless the United States is both willing and able, both of those things, willing and able, of reaching out and taking care of al-Qaida, in two to three years, it will regenerate the capability to conduct a 9/11-style attack against the U.S.”
The conversation then moved westward, to Afghanistan’s neighbor Iran.
“If you only watched the news about Iran, only watched the popular media, you would think the nuclear program is the only issue we have to deal with,” said Morell. “We have a long list of issues with Iran.”
No. 1, he said, was “Iran wants to be the hegemonic power in the Middle East. I don’t believe that’s in the best interest of the U.S.”
No. 2, he said, “Iran practices terrorism as a tool of statecraft. Iran itself does acts of terrorism around the world. Largely against Israel, but they use terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
No. 3, he said, is “Iran supports terrorist organizations, Hamas...and most importantly, Hizballah.”
And No. 4, “Iran funds insurgencies in Bahrain. It funds the insurgency in Yemen, the Houthi [who, having siezed much of the Yemeni capital a week after the dinner, are involved in a proxy war with that U.S.-backed government as well as al-Qaida]. It funds the insurgency in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, and then you put the nuclear program on top of it.”
Oh yeah, the nuclear weapons program.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, “in his mind has made the judgment that it is in Iran’s best interest to acquire the weapon,” for two reasons, said Morell. One is that Iran sees it “as a major advantage in that pursuit of being a hegemonic power and No. 2 and probably more important is that they see it as the ultimate deterrent to the United States, which they believe is trying to overthrow the regime.”
The good news is that while some friendly governments in the region love us while their people hate us, the Iranian government hates us while their people love us, said Morell, giving a sliver of hope that we can find a way to coexist.
Then there is Syria, “the hardest policy problem I have ever seen,” said Morell, echoing what Army Gen. Lloyd Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command, told me a few years back. The reason is that the country, where the U.S. and its allies are bombing Islamic State targets on a regular basis as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, is embroiled in a five-sided war.
There’s the “Arab Spring kind of war between (Bashar al-) Assad and his people,” said Morell. There’s the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. There is the Sunni-Shia war, there is the battle between Assad and al-Qaida and there is the battle between so-called moderate Syrians and two al-Qaida groups.
“This is a mess,” said Morell, garnering hearty laughs, before shooting down Milani’s suggestion that the Saudi government has been supporting the al-Qaida group al-Nusra in Syria.
President Barack Obama’s decision not to attack Assad’s forces after saying his use of chemical weapons would be a redline was a watershed moment, in a negative way, for the moderates, he said.
“I can’t tell you how many leaders of foreign intelligence services I worked with throughout the world reached out to me in the aftermath of the decision not to attack and said, ‘do you understand the damage’” that decision caused?
On a slightly more positive note, Morell said that he is “fairly certain the strategy in Iraq will ultimately work” against Islamic State. “I believe once Iraq forces get trained and get back decent leadership, which is now devastated, I think you will see a roll back of ISIS in Iraq.”
And back to the bad news.
“I have the same lack of confidence in Syria,” he said. “There is no strategy to deal with ISIS in Syria. The problem is that success in Iraq is not enough, because they will just go back across the border. You get the hammer in Iraq, but no anvil in Syria. They will just control part of eastern Syria.”
Which brings us to Pakistan.
“I think Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world,” said Morell.
Why?
“Their economy is broken,” he said. “It is unable to generate growth. Their education system is broken. Literally broken. When you watch where children go to school, they go to broken down schools and sit on rubble. Why do you think they send their kids to madrassas?”
Then there is explosive population growth and the fact that the militancy, which recently played itself out in a school massacre, is growing.
“That includes inside the military,” said Morell. “So it is not inconceivable to think that in 10, 15, 20 years, that the government of Pakistan is overthrown by militants and you have a militant government with nuclear weapons. That’s why I think Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world.”
Of course, why worry about such matters when there are more important things to fret over, like deflated footballs?
❖ ❖ ❖
The Pentagon announced no new deaths in the ongoing operations in the U.S. Central Command region.
There have been three U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and none in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.
haltman@tampatrib.com
(813) 259-7629
@haltman
