:00:15. > :00:22.Now one BBC News, it is time for Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen
:00:22. > :00:25.Sackur. The hacking to death of a British soldier on a London street
:00:25. > :00:29.last week has raised new questions about the best way to counter
:00:29. > :00:31.extremist, Islamist violence. My guest today is Colonel Richard Kemp,
:00:31. > :00:39.a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, who has
:00:39. > :00:42.extensive intelligence experience. A dozen years since 9/11, has the
:00:42. > :00:52.concept of an open-ended 'War on Terror' helped or hindered the
:00:52. > :01:14.
:01:14. > :01:19.West's response to the terrorist Colonel Richard Kemp, welcome to
:01:19. > :01:22.HARDtalk. In a moment, I want to talk you were in detail about what
:01:22. > :01:27.happened in London last week but I think that I wanted to begin with
:01:27. > :01:33.some words from Iraq Obama, making a big speech about redirecting the
:01:33. > :01:37.war of terror, a phrase he does not use himself. He said that no
:01:37. > :01:40.president can promise the total defeat of terror. We can never
:01:40. > :01:44.erase the evil that lies in the heart of some human beings. Do you
:01:44. > :01:49.accept that? It must be accepted that there will always be people
:01:49. > :01:54.who wish to do us harm. Who oppose us politically or a pose our
:01:55. > :01:58.society and which to attack it. There will always be those people.
:01:58. > :02:05.We have to contain the threat as best we can and tackle it wherever
:02:05. > :02:06.it raises its head. The idea of promising a defeat of terror is
:02:06. > :02:10.counter-productive? Weekend defeated terrorist groups and
:02:10. > :02:15.organisations but we cannot defeat of their ideas and we cannot
:02:15. > :02:20.prevent them from spreading and moving to different places. I think
:02:20. > :02:24.that the threat will face us for generations. When you say that and
:02:24. > :02:28.talk about a thread which we must face down for generations, I am
:02:28. > :02:33.mindful of another quote. This comes from James Madison by way of
:02:33. > :02:39.Barack Obama. He reminded us their manners and said that no nation can
:02:39. > :02:44.preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. You seem to
:02:44. > :02:48.be saying that we must engage in continual warfare? While we are
:02:48. > :02:53.being attacked and we had been attacked continuously, almost
:02:53. > :02:57.continuously, certainly since 2001 and indeed even before that when
:02:57. > :03:02.Al-Qaeda effectively began its current war against the West in
:03:02. > :03:07.1998 in the East African embassy bombings. We had been under
:03:07. > :03:13.continuous assault since then. (CROSSTALK). Continuous assault? If
:03:13. > :03:18.you're talking about the planned Islamist violent acts on mainland
:03:18. > :03:23.Europe or the US, to describe it seems 9/11 as a continued assault
:03:23. > :03:27.is surely massively exaggerating what we have faced? We have faced
:03:27. > :03:31.continuous assault. We had been a very fortunate or not so much
:03:31. > :03:35.fortunate, but we have invested huge resources in the West and in
:03:35. > :03:39.the UK and in Europe and in other Western countries in stopping them
:03:39. > :03:45.from succeeding. There had been dozens and dozens of serious
:03:45. > :03:48.terrorist attacks planned against the UK since 2001. The vast
:03:48. > :03:50.majority a stop to but that does not mean that we had been under
:03:50. > :03:55.successful attack because we had been successful at preventing the
:03:55. > :04:00.attacks. We have the intelligence which means that most of these
:04:00. > :04:04.attacks have been thwarted. If we their income to last week and the
:04:04. > :04:09.horrifying images that we saw of the young soldier, off-duty, hacked
:04:09. > :04:17.to death on the London street. Are you place in that very firmly in
:04:17. > :04:20.the context of your continuous assault by Islamist extremist
:04:20. > :04:27.groups? Not necessarily in terms of scale. That was probably the worst
:04:27. > :04:32.terrorist attack we have had in the UK and we have had quite a lot,
:04:32. > :04:37.most recently from Irish terrorists. It was an horrific event. You're
:04:37. > :04:41.saying it was the worst? It was the worst, most horrifying attack - not
:04:41. > :04:46.in terms of scale because we have had horrific are IRA attacks and
:04:46. > :04:49.there was July, 2005. When it dozens of people died in a four
:04:49. > :04:54.different bomb attacks on the London transport system so I am
:04:54. > :04:59.very surprised if you you say that this attack, truly barbaric vote
:04:59. > :05:04.was, is worse. I think in terms of the horror that it has created in
:05:04. > :05:07.many ways it has caused people, including in the Muslim community
:05:07. > :05:11.here in the UK and around the world, it has caused people to be
:05:11. > :05:16.completely out rage that an attack like that could be done in broad
:05:16. > :05:18.daylight in the public view with cameras around with the attack has
:05:18. > :05:24.proudly parading themselves. I think that that has caused huge
:05:24. > :05:28.horror. A really cowardly assault against a soldier who was heading
:05:28. > :05:31.to his barracks. I'm not saying that it is on a scale compared it
:05:31. > :05:35.to the July, 2005 attacks because those were truly the horrifying
:05:35. > :05:39.attacks. You have sat on the Joint Intelligence Committee and have
:05:39. > :05:43.long experience of sitting right within and close to the top of the
:05:43. > :05:49.machinery with which the government response to these sorts of security
:05:49. > :05:54.emergencies. There is something important about last week which is
:05:54. > :05:58.connected to the immediacy of BBDO which came out and did the sort of
:05:58. > :06:03.images which we saw. We had never seen them before meat cleavers
:06:03. > :06:08.dripping with blood -- immediacy of the attack. Telling a television
:06:08. > :06:13.camera within moments of what -- within moments of having done it.
:06:13. > :06:17.We have never had that before our eyes before. That should not change
:06:17. > :06:21.the way we respond to the crime itself, should it? I do not think
:06:21. > :06:24.that he does change the way we respond. The government and
:06:24. > :06:27.security services will be looking at these in the same way that they
:06:27. > :06:31.looked at are that he had us attacks or his hands that attacks
:06:31. > :06:35.here in the UK and we have already seen that it does not appear to
:06:35. > :06:39.have been one man or two men grabbing a meat cleaver and hacking
:06:39. > :06:42.away at some innocent soul to walking down the road. There had
:06:42. > :06:46.been 10 arrests and probably more to follow. It appears that there
:06:46. > :06:50.was more to it than just one person. We should not forget that this is
:06:50. > :06:55.the kind of attack which our security services and police had
:06:55. > :06:59.expected and known about for years. It is the kind of attack that is
:06:59. > :07:04.leading Islamist extremists both here in the UK and particularly
:07:04. > :07:08.overseas, encouraging Muslims to carry out. That is one of the
:07:08. > :07:13.reasons that the security apparatus expected violent attacks in the UK,
:07:13. > :07:16.one of the reasons is that the UK forces are fighting, what? Would
:07:16. > :07:24.extremists regard as an illegitimate war in Afghanistan
:07:24. > :07:31.just as they did before in Iraq? That is a context in which to pour
:07:31. > :07:35.it the fury, the savagery of what has happened in a London street.
:07:35. > :07:38.There is a much wider motivation behind the attack. But you're
:07:38. > :07:44.absolutely correct that it is British foreign policy and Britain
:07:44. > :07:49.fighting wars in essentially Muslim countries for more than a decade
:07:49. > :07:53.Bowral that is used as an excuse for these type of attacks. -- that
:07:53. > :07:57.is used. There are people who are enraged by what we're doing and I
:07:57. > :08:02.have no objection to that. If they wish to be in rage, they can do
:08:02. > :08:05.that. There are ways to respond to that and ways of opposing British
:08:05. > :08:10.foreign policies and ways of opposing other government policies
:08:10. > :08:14.that do not include hacking someone to death on the street. To be Clear.
:08:14. > :08:18.You said in your initial reaction and I may have misread you get your
:08:18. > :08:22.absolute be rejected any placing of this event in the context of
:08:22. > :08:26.British intervention in Afghanistan or Iraq. You are now prepared to
:08:26. > :08:32.say that, just in terms of understand the context, but there
:08:32. > :08:35.is a linkage? A course berries. There was a link in the attacks in
:08:36. > :08:41.2005. Mohammed Sadiq Khan who led us attacks said he was doing it
:08:41. > :08:45.because of what was going on in Iraq. It is a reason that it is a
:08:45. > :08:51.motivator for them. The same with this attack. It is not the only
:08:51. > :08:55.reason. What is behind the attack is a much wider intent, not
:08:55. > :08:58.necessarily by the individual behind it, who have never been to
:08:58. > :09:01.Afghanistan and know nothing about Afghanistan and had nothing in
:09:01. > :09:04.common with a people and it Afghanistan. It is not about
:09:04. > :09:07.Afghanistan. If they knew about that country, they would know that
:09:08. > :09:11.Islamic extremists in Afghanistan have killed far more people than
:09:11. > :09:16.any British soldiers had killed. British soldiers have protected the
:09:16. > :09:20.very people that they claim to have concern over in Afghanistan. I want
:09:20. > :09:25.to come back to the strategic analysis in a short while. Just
:09:25. > :09:30.sticking with the fall-out from us week's horror. I want to now talk
:09:30. > :09:33.about the way in which you see the British government responding. It
:09:33. > :09:37.was striking to me that as soon as it happened, David Cameron got word
:09:37. > :09:43.of it and chose to cut short a very important bilateral visit to
:09:43. > :09:47.Francois Hollande in Paris. He came home as soon as he could. The COBRA
:09:47. > :09:51.emergency response mechanism was immediately put in place. You know
:09:51. > :09:57.COBRA very well because you used to be a staff member of the COBRA
:09:57. > :10:02.operation. It is a very important statement of this being a strategic,
:10:02. > :10:07.national emergency. Did this not actually, doing all of that, D
:10:07. > :10:14.these people who committed than at a significance, a strategic
:10:14. > :10:19.not deserve? There is that argument. COBRA is simply a meeting of
:10:19. > :10:23.government ministers and officials in order to court made at the very
:10:23. > :10:28.top... Are this is not just a policing issue, this is beyond the
:10:28. > :10:31.police. We have to have everybody from the top politicians to the top
:10:31. > :10:34.security service people all involved? I think it was evident
:10:34. > :10:38.from the very beginning of my reading of it that the people who
:10:38. > :10:43.carried out the attack were not simply crazed killers on the
:10:43. > :10:49.streets of London. They had G had its wings. We know that the
:10:49. > :10:54.Security Service had at least one of them on the horizon. They had
:10:54. > :10:58.conducted a decent investigations triggered concerns that we were not
:10:58. > :11:01.dealing with just a policing issue. Much wider than that requires the
:11:01. > :11:06.pulling together many intelligence services and government departments
:11:06. > :11:11.to get to grips with it. Do not forget that back could easily have
:11:11. > :11:14.been the first in a series of planned attacks. That would have
:11:14. > :11:21.been one of COBRA's primary missions - to find out what it
:11:21. > :11:24.could to do and cord made action and prevent further attacks. --
:11:24. > :11:28.Court and eight. The fact that it is primitive weapons, knives and
:11:28. > :11:33.meat cleavers, does not preclude the notion that it was highly
:11:33. > :11:38.planned? I would not say they eat, in itself, was highly planned but I
:11:38. > :11:43.do believe that it was possible, we don't know, but it was part of a
:11:43. > :11:47.series of attacks as we saw in Paris. There was at least a copycat
:11:47. > :11:51.attack that took place in Paris a few days later. It is quite
:11:51. > :11:54.possible that we could see further copycat attacks have it here. I'm
:11:54. > :11:59.not saying that it was part of a big network but it is possible but
:11:59. > :12:02.there were other attacks plan. have already made reference to
:12:02. > :12:07.something rather in cordoned off and that is that one of the key
:12:07. > :12:10.suspects who was detained at the scene of the crime and we know he
:12:10. > :12:18.was detained by the Kenyan authorities in late 2010 when he
:12:19. > :12:24.fighters who appeared intent on leaving KAP and going to Somalia
:12:24. > :12:26.and joining the al-Shabaab movement. He spent three days in 10 in
:12:26. > :12:34.detention at the British were contacted and no charges were laid
:12:34. > :12:39.end he was sent back to Britain. They were aware of his ideological
:12:39. > :12:43.and political motivations -- MI5 were aware. The more we now know,
:12:43. > :12:47.it was then not a terrible failing within British intelligence?
:12:47. > :12:50.will find out whether there was or not in the fullness of time. They
:12:50. > :12:54.are doing an investigation and there is undoubtedly already has
:12:54. > :12:57.been an investigation. Surely, you can look at all we know and said
:12:57. > :13:00.that something went wrong? No, I look at what we know and they did
:13:00. > :13:06.not necessarily draw that conclusion. I think we have to
:13:06. > :13:10.remember that many people do not this as the believe it but MI5 must
:13:10. > :13:14.operate within the law. The law does not allow MI5 to maintain
:13:14. > :13:18.continual surveillance over suspect he does not do anything to make it
:13:18. > :13:22.worth maintaining surveillance. They have to first put up a legal
:13:22. > :13:25.case that there is a necessity and a proportionality about the
:13:25. > :13:31.surveillance operation they Mout. Bacon and what an individual and
:13:31. > :13:36.look at him and see whether he is behaving and then they have to
:13:36. > :13:39.justify continuation. If not, they must leave him alone. It is a
:13:39. > :13:43.question of legality and also a question of resources. It takes a
:13:43. > :13:47.huge amount of resources to monitor one individual and there are so
:13:47. > :13:52.many people out there who were of concern that they have to
:13:52. > :13:57.prioritise. You distinguish the two different factors. One about a ball
:13:57. > :14:01.and the use of and one about resources. Sticking with the war.
:14:01. > :14:07.Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is making a strong case now for
:14:07. > :14:11.looking again at the number of organisations that are banned by
:14:11. > :14:14.broadening the notion of incitement - not just incitement of violence
:14:14. > :14:20.but it to include other forms of extremism which may allow the
:14:20. > :14:25.government to ban Mall and different extreme groups. She is
:14:25. > :14:29.looking at controlling the internet in different ways. She is talking
:14:29. > :14:33.about the broadcasters and whether they should be given a platform to
:14:33. > :14:37.some of the extreme elements within the Islamist movement within the
:14:37. > :14:47.UK? Do you think that there are grounds for pushing these
:14:47. > :14:52.
:14:52. > :14:56.initiatives? I think that we have It is right that the Home Secretary
:14:56. > :15:01.should look at those and what should be done. We should be
:15:01. > :15:05.cautious about taking it too far. But there is an argument to say
:15:05. > :15:08.that this is an intelligence failure. If they had reacted in the
:15:08. > :15:12.right way to information they already had under the current laws
:15:12. > :15:19.they could have so veiled these key individuals, they could have
:15:19. > :15:24.monitored, but they did not. It is a feeling of personnel. I do not
:15:24. > :15:32.know if they are legally could have done. That is something that will
:15:32. > :15:39.come out. The most important thing that we should be focusing on here
:15:39. > :15:43.used to try and persuade the Muslim community to do more to monitor
:15:43. > :15:48.their own community and to turn people in if they suspect them of
:15:48. > :15:53.extremist activity. That happens a lot already and there has been a
:15:53. > :16:03.significant decrease in the way in which the Muslim can to reacts. But
:16:03. > :16:03.
:16:03. > :16:09.they should go even further. We should not be encouraging Muslims
:16:09. > :16:14.to spire and Muslims. We are asking them to report on people can are
:16:14. > :16:21.prone to becoming a suspicious and puts. You would call it spying,
:16:21. > :16:28.could you? This has been discussed a lot. Particularly in the
:16:28. > :16:38.aftermath of the attacks in 2005. They said that Muslim communities
:16:38. > :16:40.
:16:40. > :16:46.have to start informing problematic buying activity. There are people
:16:46. > :16:51.recruited specifically to spy on and terrorists. What I mean is
:16:51. > :17:00.monitoring and looking at what is going on. When people who are
:17:00. > :17:04.suspicious come to their attention, they should be reported. There is a
:17:04. > :17:09.communications data Bill that the government wants to push forward.
:17:09. > :17:18.Part of the coalition, the Liberal Democrats, are trying to block it.
:17:18. > :17:24.It would allow the government greater palace. -- Palace. I would
:17:24. > :17:31.like to look at your experience. Especially with the Pitt Street Act.
:17:31. > :17:39.Do you think that there is a strong case for greater governmental
:17:39. > :17:48.Electronics surveillance? A really do dislike the idea that every
:17:48. > :17:52.communication in this country is going to be monitored. It is an
:17:52. > :18:00.unpleasant thing to have to do. But I have always been in favour of the
:18:00. > :18:10.start of will. Compelling internet companies to store data from human
:18:10. > :18:17.
:18:17. > :18:27.vocation. Being able to see who is talking to who. People in extremist
:18:27. > :18:33.activity now know the full mobility. -- vulnerability. It is so
:18:33. > :18:43.important that capability exists. In general terms, because of the
:18:43. > :18:51.threat we face. The EU keep saying that. Frankly, that generates fear.
:18:51. > :19:00.I am asking you to think about this as a citizen of this country.
:19:00. > :19:06.want this country to become more of a surveillance state? Had to not
:19:06. > :19:11.want that at all. I have been in command of surveillance assets. I
:19:12. > :19:17.see what it can do and how much intrusion that is into people's
:19:17. > :19:23.privacy. But it is something we need to have. I would rather see
:19:23. > :19:29.that than people killed on the Underground. Not long on this
:19:29. > :19:36.programme we had a gentleman in the United States who blew the whistle
:19:36. > :19:43.on what he saw as an unacceptable use of the post 9/11 climate of
:19:43. > :19:51.fear to push the envelope and in his view get the balance wrong
:19:51. > :19:57.between individual privacy rights and the rights to freedom on the
:19:57. > :20:05.internet and the right to security. He thought the balance was wrong in
:20:05. > :20:09.the United States. Do you not think it could go very wrong here as well.
:20:09. > :20:16.You yourself have been suggesting throughout this interview that
:20:16. > :20:21.there was a failure of intelligence. We cannot have it all ways. We want
:20:21. > :20:26.absolute perfection insecurity and we never want something like the
:20:26. > :20:33.horrendous attack in south London to happen again. But on the other
:20:33. > :20:40.hand, we cannot have our privacy invaded. There has to be a balance.
:20:40. > :20:46.Before we end, I want to ask you some big picture fines. We have
:20:46. > :20:52.talked about Afghanistan. That was pick of by one of the people at the
:20:52. > :20:58.scene of the terrorist attack. British troops, American troops,
:20:58. > :21:05.are due to leave in 2014. Will that make any difference to this threat
:21:05. > :21:10.that to have characterised as been continuous? I do not think it will.
:21:10. > :21:14.You can look around the world and see where there is going to be
:21:14. > :21:24.continuous occasions when Britain gets engaged in conflict in Muslim
:21:24. > :21:34.lands. We will not see an end of engagement with was Longmans. --
:21:34. > :21:37.
:21:37. > :21:45.Muslim Alliance. -- lens. There will be other people who want to go
:21:45. > :21:50.for it in Afghanistan, want to go fight you have somewhere. What
:21:50. > :21:54.about another issue that President Obama reflected on and perhaps
:21:54. > :22:02.signalled something of a change intact. The drone war in the United
:22:02. > :22:12.States. You served in Afghanistan when the drones were not used this
:22:12. > :22:18.
:22:18. > :22:23.much. But they have been used recently. If we are to take a look
:22:23. > :22:28.at some of the root causes of the anger, should we look at and
:22:28. > :22:38.possibly abandon current strikes? It would be wise to offend and run
:22:38. > :22:48.
:22:48. > :22:54.strikes. -- abandon current strikes. Corporation has been taken apart by
:22:54. > :22:59.current strikes. Continuous wave after wave of drone of tax. For
:22:59. > :23:06.every civilian you kill and those from strikes you might create more
:23:06. > :23:11.enemies in the future. When we carry out a ground forces attack
:23:11. > :23:19.with fixed wing aircraft, sometimes innocent civilians died. Every step
:23:19. > :23:23.is taken to prevent it. That is also recruiting. But you cannot
:23:23. > :23:27.just accept the fact that there are groups of people in the border
:23:27. > :23:32.areas of Pakistan who are planning to carry out attacks and went to
:23:32. > :23:37.train people to carry out attacks. The Pakistan government is either
:23:37. > :23:45.incapable or not prepared to do anything about it. The only means
:23:45. > :23:54.we have of stopping this is using drones. There is something like a
:23:54. > :23:59.30% casualty rate. 30% of the people are killed in these attacks
:23:59. > :24:06.are civilians. In a few words it sounds to me like whether President
:24:06. > :24:12.Obama cares to use the phrase or not, war on terror, you think it
:24:12. > :24:15.will be used for many years to come. Indeed it will be. We are fighting
:24:15. > :24:22.a war fought using terrorist techniques by international