Browse content similar to Michael Chertoff, former US Director of Homeland Security. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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the highest in three years. Now it is time for HARDtalk. | :00:05. | :00:09. | |
Michael Chertoff was the man whose task it was to keep the USA safe. | :00:09. | :00:13. | |
For four years he was the director of homeland security under George W | :00:13. | :00:16. | |
Bush and a leading figure in America's war on terror. Michael | :00:16. | :00:19. | |
Chertoff says that ten years after the September 11 attacks the world | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
remains threatened by terrorist groups. So what have we learned | :00:22. | :00:32. | |
:00:32. | :00:40. | ||
over the last decade about how best to combat this ongoing threat? | :00:40. | :00:48. | |
Michael Chertoff, welcome to HARDtalk. | :00:48. | :00:58. | |
:00:58. | :01:06. | ||
Thank you. Do you still think that it is a war | :01:06. | :01:13. | |
on terror? I think it is, but it is an unusual war. It needs both | :01:13. | :01:18. | |
traditional military action and also law enforcement. It runs the | :01:18. | :01:21. | |
spectrum. I think that is the way national security will be from now | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
on. It will be a spectrum. Do you understand why some of your Peers | :01:26. | :01:33. | |
have said that the use of the word war is actually counter-productive? | :01:33. | :01:41. | |
-- some of your peers. It was Osama Bin Laden who began by declaring a | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
war. He began by declaring it. If you look at the destruction that | :01:45. | :01:52. | |
was visited on the United States on 9/11, certainly the scale in terms | :01:52. | :01:58. | |
of loss of life eclipses any other in American history. He used the | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
tools of war. We saw Osama Bin Laden killed earlier this year. | :02:02. | :02:08. | |
That is the kind of thing you do in a war, not in a criminal case. | :02:08. | :02:13. | |
danger, I guess, is you are being sucked into the territory on which | :02:13. | :02:22. | |
your enemy, Osama Bin Laden, wants to take you. The boss of MI5, | :02:22. | :02:25. | |
Britain's secret intelligence service, said that she felt the | :02:25. | :02:34. | |
9/11 attacks were a crime, not an act of war.... She says the attacks | :02:34. | :02:40. | |
were monstrous, but they were just a crime, not qualitatively | :02:40. | :02:45. | |
different to what had gone on before. I have to disagree with | :02:45. | :02:49. | |
that. If that were correct, it would be the case that we should | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
not have killed Osama Bin Laden, we should have served a subpoena on | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
him or indicted him and tried to have him extradited from Pakistan. | :02:57. | :03:04. | |
What were the chances that would have happened.... our success is | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
the ability to combine military tools and traditional investigative | :03:09. | :03:13. | |
tools as one total effort. I think that still remains, practically, | :03:13. | :03:18. | |
the most effective approach to striking back. Is it a war that can | :03:18. | :03:23. | |
be resolved militarily? Identikit can be resolved militarily. I think | :03:23. | :03:31. | |
in the short-term, these tools keep a safer -- I don't think it can. It | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
is reminiscent of the Cold War, when you are fighting with a set of | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
ideas. How we win that in the long run involves not just government | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
action but engaging the communities that are of the recruiting grounds | :03:42. | :03:49. | |
for terrorists and getting them to turn against Al-Qaeda. If you are | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
making comparisons - others have been made. For example, what | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
happened in Northern Ireland. There it was a terrorist campaign as far | :03:57. | :04:01. | |
as many people were concerned. Essentially it was something that | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
was resolved politically in the end. It was done by finding extremists | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
with whom one could talk. Do you think that is the approach you | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
could be taking with Al-Qaeda? Eventually those who you can talk | :04:15. | :04:21. | |
to should be negotiated with? Recalled a resolution in Northern | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
Ireland - it resulted from the fact that I R eight had demands that | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
were, whether you agree with them or not, at least within the realm | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
of reason. They wanted to have a certain political status for | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
Ireland. It is possible to come up with a compromise, whether it was | :04:36. | :04:42. | |
up double or not I can't tell you. As I understand, Al-Qaeda has no | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
compromise. They want not only to drive America and the West out of | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
the Middle East, they don't like the cartoons that a published in | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
newspapers in Denmark. They don't like certain television programmes. | :04:54. | :05:00. | |
They don't like the way we run our plights in our own countries. It is | :05:00. | :05:05. | |
hard to seek common ground. What needs to happen is to demonstrate | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
to the audience out there, the potential recruits, that in the end | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
Al-Qaeda is not a path that leads to anything productive. Hopefully | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
there will be other alternatives, including the Arab Spring, which | :05:17. | :05:21. | |
may be a very hopeful alternative narrative for the Arab world and | :05:21. | :05:28. | |
the Middle East. While you are negating the ideology you say Al- | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
Qaeda holds, isn't there a danger that while in prosecuting this war | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
you could compromise the values which you claim to espouse so | :05:37. | :05:45. | |
dearly? A former senior official from the sea I ate and F B I said | :05:45. | :05:54. | |
recently that security does not Trump freedom -- CIA. The risks we | :05:54. | :05:58. | |
face is if we have another event of that magnitude that we will over- | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
react and give Al-Qaeda an excuse to say "we are still there, we can | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
still galvanise the attention of the Americans". That seems | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
precisely what you are suggesting we do. I am not suggesting we ever | :06:10. | :06:15. | |
over-react. I am suggesting that if the measures we put in place now, | :06:15. | :06:21. | |
first of all, reduce the risk, and second - hopefully they build some | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
resilience. If there was a successful attack our response | :06:24. | :06:29. | |
would be appropriate. Not excessive. Part of what we have tried to do in | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
the last ten years is to build an architecture for our security that | :06:33. | :06:38. | |
can be sustained over a long period. I agree - we do not want to over- | :06:38. | :06:43. | |
react. We also don't want to under- react. Binding apposition of | :06:43. | :06:50. | |
balance has been a task of the last ten years. -- building a position | :06:50. | :07:00. | |
:07:00. | :07:01. | ||
of balance.... Rendition was not actually in the domain of my | :07:01. | :07:11. | |
:07:11. | :07:14. | ||
department. I am an observer. Rendition began under the Clinton | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
administration. The key issue is - how do you gather intelligence and | :07:19. | :07:25. | |
how do you help people who are dangerous to the United States? | :07:25. | :07:32. | |
Sometimes that involves a more compelling way of gathering that | :07:32. | :07:38. | |
intelligence - moving people to a country where than they may have | :07:38. | :07:42. | |
more success... Because they might be torturing... Not because they | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
are torturing - because their knowledge of the culture, the | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
individual - because they will not be necessarily getting Miranda | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
rights and Court room oils when they first appear means there is a | :07:53. | :07:59. | |
bit more ability to extract information from people. -- | :07:59. | :08:08. | |
corporate lawyers. You're putting a very softly. We are talking about a | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
co-operation between the sea I ate and Libyan police. Files had just | :08:12. | :08:19. | |
come out from Tripoli -- CIA. They showed that there CIA was co- | :08:19. | :08:24. | |
operating with the Libyan police on the rendition of certain suspects. | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
I haven't seen the documents. I am not quite sure what extremely | :08:27. | :08:36. | |
closely means. They were very chummy. First-name terms, people | :08:36. | :08:41. | |
who were seen as high-value subjects. There is no question... | :08:41. | :08:46. | |
It you have a high value subject, someone with a great deal of | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
information - core operating with another intelligence agency to get | :08:48. | :08:58. | |
what they have -- co-operating. This is something you want to do. | :08:58. | :09:05. | |
This was the Libyan secret police. The CIA must have known... People | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
were going to be tortured. I am not sure I'm going to agree with you | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
that they knew people would be tortured. My understanding of the | :09:13. | :09:23. | |
law is that generally what the CIA would do is a... I can't tell you | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
if people were mistreated. All the anecdotal evidence and more than | :09:28. | :09:33. | |
anecdotal evidence, generally, shows that torture in these | :09:33. | :09:37. | |
countries is widespread. Again, you are referring to evidence I haven't | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
seen. Let me put it in perspective this way. In the US government and | :09:41. | :09:45. | |
the British Government deal with unpalatable regimes? I have no | :09:45. | :09:52. | |
doubt about it. In World War 2 we made inroads with Stalin, possibly | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
one of the was monsters in the world. Churchill said that if the | :09:56. | :09:59. | |
devil himself agreed to fight Hitler I would make favourable | :09:59. | :10:03. | |
reference to him in the House of Commons. It would be lovely if | :10:03. | :10:08. | |
people you dealt with were all up spending priests and ministers, but | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
those people don't get intelligence. Sometimes you're working with | :10:12. | :10:18. | |
people who are on the difficult side of the spectrum. You need to | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
balance. There are some things you will not countenance, but there are | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
some things you will. Would you countenance water boarding? We can | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
have debates about water boarding... It is a specific question. I am not | :10:31. | :10:35. | |
in a position to judge whether it is effective or not. I cannot tell | :10:35. | :10:39. | |
you if it is the only way to get information... It is not the | :10:39. | :10:41. | |
question whether it is effective, it is the question whether it is | :10:41. | :10:46. | |
morally justifiable. Let me break it into two pieces. There are | :10:46. | :10:48. | |
people and have been through the process as part of its stake | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
training in the military who will tell you that while it is harsh and | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
difficult it leaves no lasting effects and does not rise to the | :10:55. | :10:59. | |
level of torture. The United Nations says it is torture. | :10:59. | :11:04. | |
have people on both sides. On the moral issue I would say this - if | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
you have a genuine belief that a person is in possession of | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
information that can save lives and if you don't use anything up to the | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
limit of the law that you can to get that information an as a result | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
people died - are you prepared to look into the eyes of the surviving | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
family members and say "I could have saved your son or daughter, | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
but I didn't want to do something unpleasant, therefore, I am sorry | :11:28. | :11:34. | |
for your loss". So the moral judgement kasbah is in a consent is | :11:34. | :11:40. | |
- yes. Up to the limit of the law. Even if some people think it is | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
torture. There are some people who think plea-bargaining is torture | :11:45. | :11:48. | |
and we plea-bargain in the United States. There is a legal limit. You | :11:48. | :11:53. | |
don't want to go beyond that. Within that, if you have to use | :11:53. | :11:56. | |
some tough methods it may be morally justified to save innocent | :11:56. | :12:04. | |
lives. What about Guantanamo Bay, is that justified? And there is an | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
elaborate legal regime that allows detainees to challenge their | :12:08. | :12:11. | |
confinement in federal court. The physical facility - I have never | :12:11. | :12:16. | |
seen it. As it has been described to me it is probably nicer than | :12:16. | :12:19. | |
most federal prisons. From that standpoint I don't think there is a | :12:19. | :12:25. | |
complete any longer.... There isn't a complete any longer? I don't | :12:25. | :12:29. | |
think there is a sound basis for complaint. An awful lot of people, | :12:29. | :12:36. | |
including the former British Attorney General, one of your close | :12:36. | :12:46. | |
:12:46. | :12:46. | ||
allies, does not agree with you at all.... Guantanamo Bay has been a | :12:46. | :12:50. | |
recruiting ground for terrorism. is not clear to me that one ton and | :12:50. | :12:55. | |
obey has recruited terrorists or that it has been described as that | :12:55. | :13:00. | |
-- Guantanamo Bay. Look at what causes people to carry out | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
terrorist attacks. There have been multiple attacks in Denmark. What | :13:04. | :13:09. | |
did they do to deserve this? They had cartoons posted in a newspaper. | :13:09. | :13:14. | |
The idea that when we used tough measures it is recruiting - that is | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
not supported by facts. Let's move on to your involvement in the war | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
on terror, as you have described it. You have left government and you a | :13:23. | :13:30. | |
part of the private sector. You have been involved in representing, | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
working for a company which has represented the body scanner | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
manufacturers that are being used at airports. As a part of airline | :13:40. | :13:50. | |
:13:50. | :13:56. | ||
Just after the failed underwear bombing. In the United States, the | :13:56. | :14:00. | |
Accounting Office said it remained unclear whether it be advanced | :14:00. | :14:06. | |
imaging technology would have detected the weapon used in the | :14:06. | :14:09. | |
December 2009 incident. Do you now think what you had to say about it | :14:09. | :14:19. | |
was overstated? No. Sometimes they get it wrong. We looked at the | :14:19. | :14:24. | |
issue in 2006, 2007 when we first confronted the possibility of | :14:24. | :14:29. | |
people trying to conceal elements of a bomb in personal parts of | :14:29. | :14:34. | |
people's body. The only way to find that was to look and see if there | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
was a concealed area in an anatomically sensitive part of the | :14:39. | :14:45. | |
body and that is scanning. It is still have used in the United | :14:45. | :14:51. | |
States and the algorithms have improved. The only way to discover | :14:51. | :14:56. | |
them would be too literally Pat everybody down, which I think | :14:56. | :15:04. | |
people would find more unpalatable. A bipartisan think tank came up | :15:04. | :15:14. | |
:15:14. | :15:14. | ||
with a post-9/11 approach - they said that the scanners are not | :15:14. | :15:22. | |
effective and raised privacy and health concerns that Homeland | :15:22. | :15:28. | |
Security have not addressed. Something that is concealed on a | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
person, not inserted in the body - there is a separate concern raised | :15:32. | :15:37. | |
by people about the possibility of someone actually surgically | :15:37. | :15:42. | |
inserting a bomb inside a body. I agree that body scanning would not | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
catch that but that is a very small risk given it would be very | :15:47. | :15:53. | |
difficult to find people happy to engage in that. It would be | :15:53. | :15:56. | |
mystifying as to why the German government in the last week has | :15:56. | :16:01. | |
decided the technology does not work, it has abandoned the pilot. | :16:01. | :16:07. | |
It studied the results from 800,000 passengers getting through, I think | :16:07. | :16:17. | |
:16:17. | :16:19. | ||
it was ham buried in airport. -- Hamburg airport. I am relying on | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
what the government has told me and what has been said publicly and my | :16:23. | :16:33. | |
:16:33. | :16:33. | ||
understanding is that it adds real value and they say works. Has -- I | :16:34. | :16:38. | |
have no financial interest. That is disputed by a Republican | :16:38. | :16:45. | |
congressman who said there is no evidence there is more security but | :16:45. | :16:50. | |
the former homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, made money by | :16:50. | :16:58. | |
hawking this. That is a false statement. We represented a company | :16:58. | :17:08. | |
:17:08. | :17:09. | ||
that made the scammers but -- that made the scanners. I have been | :17:09. | :17:16. | |
completely consistent. Do not think more broadly, since leaving | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
government you sit on the board of a company that lobbiesat lobbiest | :17:19. | :17:25. | |
on behalf of Defence and Security firms. It is a law firm. It lobbies | :17:25. | :17:35. | |
:17:35. | :17:37. | ||
the government. I practise on behalf of a lawyer. You work for a | :17:37. | :17:41. | |
company that advises government on defence issues. I am on the board | :17:41. | :17:46. | |
of the company. Do you think it is right for you to have moved so | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
quickly from government into private industry in this way? | :17:50. | :17:59. | |
could have let myself be unemployed. You could have been a lawyer. | :17:59. | :18:03. | |
Apparently you found my work as a lawyer and appealing. If you are | :18:04. | :18:12. | |
working on specific issues related to your past job... Let us be clear. | :18:12. | :18:17. | |
I do not lobbied the US government. I do not work on matters, specific | :18:17. | :18:22. | |
matters that I worked on in the government. I do use my expertise | :18:22. | :18:26. | |
in the law and security to work with companies in that field, as | :18:27. | :18:34. | |
most people do. Frankly, it makes sense. To have people without | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
expertise would be for it. It is about public service and a profit. | :18:39. | :18:45. | |
I am not insinuating anything but an asking, is it not slightly | :18:45. | :18:51. | |
unseemly to go quickly, within days from being a very senior member of | :18:51. | :18:57. | |
the government to working in the private sector on those issues? | :18:57. | :19:02. | |
took some time off and went about the process of opening a therm and | :19:02. | :19:12. | |
:19:12. | :19:15. | ||
did that about four, five months after I left. -- a firm. President | :19:15. | :19:20. | |
Obama made sure that every executive would sign a document | :19:20. | :19:29. | |
saying they would not work in a specific area related to regulation | :19:29. | :19:35. | |
and contract. That is the principle I am here to. But you are working | :19:35. | :19:43. | |
on issues pertaining to what you did before. I do not welcome | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
particular matters with relation to specific parties that I worked for | :19:47. | :19:53. | |
in the government. Let me take you on to Libya. You wrote in the | :19:53. | :19:57. | |
Washington Post earlier this year that you seem to very doubtful as | :19:57. | :20:07. | |
to the wisdom of getting involved in Libya. Is that an opinion he is | :20:07. | :20:12. | |
-- in you is still hold? That is not entirely correct. I said that | :20:12. | :20:18. | |
we need to think hard about the plan that the rebels wanted. | :20:18. | :20:25. | |
Looking back at Iraq, winning the war and toppling Saddam Hussein was | :20:25. | :20:34. | |
the easy part. We all want to get rid of Gaddafi but do not know how | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
it happens after that. We will put in a plan to move on to a better | :20:39. | :20:44. | |
outcome for the people. You would now concede that the post-war | :20:44. | :20:53. | |
planning in Iraq was a disaster? believe it was very flawed. | :20:53. | :21:01. | |
were part of a government... I came in 2005. They must have been | :21:01. | :21:07. | |
discussions. I do not know if assigning blame... You must have | :21:07. | :21:14. | |
views on where it went wrong. an over-estimation of the intrinsic | :21:14. | :21:19. | |
capability of some of the people in Iraq who were in contact with the | :21:19. | :21:25. | |
United States to be able to take control and run the government as | :21:25. | :21:35. | |
an effective democratic state. There was an underestimate in | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
requirements of society. Making sure you have institutions capable | :21:39. | :21:44. | |
of promoting democracy. It turns out that that is a lot harder than | :21:44. | :21:52. | |
the people went into the war anticipate. What should the US be | :21:52. | :22:00. | |
doing to try to buttress a fledgling democracy? There has been | :22:00. | :22:05. | |
a lot of thought about how to resist the new government. I do not | :22:05. | :22:09. | |
think we should force ourselves on them but we should have a plan for | :22:09. | :22:14. | |
what we might be able to offer them in terms of making the transition | :22:14. | :22:18. | |
from a dysfunctional state into what we hope will be a free and | :22:18. | :22:27. | |
democratic state. What if you sense that people who you think I am not | :22:27. | :22:36. | |
for American power bec power bec powerful. What is clear is that the | :22:36. | :22:44. | |
outcome is not certain. The war on terror is yet to finish, we have no | :22:44. | :22:49. | |
idea where it will end and yet here is a major oil-producing state | :22:49. | :22:57. | |
which, I suppose, could fall into the hands of Islamists. We simply | :22:57. | :23:06. | |
do not know. Equally, you began this interview by talking about how | :23:06. | :23:10. | |
serious the prosecution of the war on terror continues to be and how | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
you need to wage the war on all fronts. While asserting the need | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
for the beer to be a d to be a dnd to toand offer help to seek | :23:20. | :23:26. | |
that help, at the same time you are saying that the war on terror means | :23:26. | :23:34. | |
we need to tanned down the flames were of a date erupt -- wherever | :23:34. | :23:44. | |
:23:44. | :23:50. | ||
they your -- erupt, tamp the flames. We have to see what the new | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
government will be like. What happens to the weapons? The other | :23:54. | :24:01. | |
kinds of weapons which have been role... We have to see what the | :24:02. | :24:11. | |
:24:12. | :24:18. | ||
outcome is. You have to -- you could have Turkey in or Afghanistan. | :24:18. | :24:28. | |
:24:28. | :24:35. | ||
Michael Chertoff, thank you for The week has got off to a pretty | :24:35. | :24:38. | |
torrid start in many parts of the British Isles. Wednesday, for many | :24:38. | :24:46. | |
of us, will start to calm down. Plenty of dry weather around. The | :24:46. | :24:49. | |
wind has not gone away but is wind has not gone away but is | :24:49. | :24:53. | |
becoming confined to the north- eastern corner of Scotland. At the | :24:53. | :25:02. | |
opposite end of the country, it starts off fine and dry. There will | :25:02. | :25:06. | |
be a change for Northern Ireland and it will be welcome because it | :25:06. | :25:16. | |
:25:16. | :25:20. | ||
starts off miserably. So too the south-west of Scotland. An area of | :25:20. | :25:23. | |
cloud, wind and rain across Scotland. The eastern side of the | :25:23. | :25:25. | |
Pennines is faring pretty nicely. Further west, pretty cloudy. Across | :25:25. | :25:29. | |
much of the south-eastern quarter, along the south coast, a lot of | :25:29. | :25:35. | |
sunshine around. It will eventually do something for the temperatures. | :25:36. | :25:39. | |
A little bit of cloud in the south- west may generate one or two | :25:39. | :25:49. | |
:25:49. | :25:50. | ||
showers. The changes - the wind will freshen up, 50-60mph. The | :25:50. | :25:53. | |
temperatures in the south of Scotland, north of England, north | :25:53. | :25:59. | |
of Northern Ireland will respond to the sunshine. The southern counties | :25:59. | :26:07. | |
are in for a pretty decent day. The across the north-east of Scotland, | :26:07. | :26:17. | |
:26:17. | :26:18. | ||
as an area of high pressure drifts in inwest. On Thursday, the | :26:18. | :26:24. | |
wind will calm down and it might even generate mist and fog. There | :26:24. | :26:34. | |
:26:34. | :26:37. | ||
will be fine weather around and the temperatures responding. Fine | :26:37. | :26:40. | |
weather. 17, 18 degrees quite widely through southern Scotland | :26:40. | :26:45. | |
and Northern Ireland. There is the high pressurgh pressuror Thursday. | :26:45. | :26:49. | |
It is drifting off to the near Continent just as we're getting to | :26:49. | :26:54. |