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Let's get another take on National Counterterrorism Director Joe Kent's resignation.
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And for that, we hand it back over to Nick Schifrin.
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To discuss Kent's comments about Iran and what his resignation says about the intelligence
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community, I'm joined by Nick Rasmussen, who under the Obama administration directed the
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National Counterterrorism Center, the same center from which Kent resigned today.
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Nick Rasmussen, thanks very much.
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To the news hour, in the letter, Kent refutes the president and says Iran was not an imminent
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We know about what Kent might have seen in the intelligence that would lead him to
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so publicly go against the president.
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Well, the question of imminence when you're talking about threats, national security threats
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is not a black and white matter, as you can imagine.
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And even in what director Kent put on the record with his letter today, he didn't speak
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specifically to the nuclear threat or the threat to U.S. interest from terrorism or the threat
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from, for example, Iran's ballistic missile program.
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So in a sense, we don't know exactly what he was alluding to with his comments.
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As I was saying a bit ago, the concept of imminence is not black and white.
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It can have a very temporal component to it.
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If the intelligence community, for example, were in possession of information that said or
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suggested that an attack on U.S. interest was going to happen at this place on that day,
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in this manner, that would certainly constitute an imminent threat.
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But you can have imminence without having all of those elements as well.
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If you feel like, and I say feel, if you feel like you don't have the ability to forecast
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and project when an attack might happen, that might create a sense of imminence, even
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if you don't have that specific intelligence giving you time and place.
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Kent also says in the letter, it's a quote, a lie that there's a clear path to victory.
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We don't really know what necessarily that means.
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But U.S. officials have told me that the intelligence assessment is that the Iranian regime
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is unlikely to fall, despite this war.
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Is that the kind of thing that he would be saying that he would be talking about there?
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Again, I don't really, obviously, have no insight into what the intelligence assessments
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say right now about what Iran will look like in the aftermath of this campaign.
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But I will say that most national security professionals, I know, on all political sides,
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very much want to see the Iranian capability to carry out terrorist activity around the
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world, to act aggressively against neighbors, to threaten the West, want to see that capability
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degraded and diminished.
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And so that is something I think on which there is pretty wide unanimity among intelligence
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and national security professionals.
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Bottom line, the NCTC is responsible for analyzing, assessing the threat, and integrating intelligence
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both foreign and domestic.
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So is that mission affected by his resignation today?
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I mean, I'd like to think and I have confidence that the men and women who work at NCTC are still
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doing exactly that work, Nick, in kind of keeping their eye on the ball, they're very mission-focused,
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making sure that they have their eyes on every bit of available intelligence so that they
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can prepare the best possible assessments to support policymakers up to and including
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At the same time, anytime a leader is, you know, departs the scene, it can be a little
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And I suspect the acting director, whoever he or she is, is moving to try to send signals
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of stability and confidence to the workforce to keep them on track.
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How much do we know whether the NCTC has been doing, whether Joe Kent has been doing that
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role that we traditionally believe the NCTC has done, including under you?
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Well, the organization has certainly been preparing, I would believe, the intelligence assessments
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to undergird, or to support good policymaking and good decision-making.
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As ever, it's a question of how those assessments are landing with the customer, Senator.
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The customer, of course.
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The ultimate IC customer is the president of the United States.
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But I don't want to understate how important it is that that work go on even to support
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those beyond the president.
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For example, when you're thinking about the homegrown violent extremist threat here in
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the United States, it's just as important I would argue that NCTC, along with FBI, the
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Department of Homeland Security and CIA and other intel community partners, support the
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state and local apparatus around the country as they try to worry and deal with potential
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So that customer set is wide, deep, and very expansive.
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But since the war has started, we have seen multiple homegrown attacks, some of which
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it does seem to be to be inspired by the war, whether in Iran or in Lebanon with Hezbollah,
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how much would the NCTC have been focused on that and how much will it be going forward?
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They would certainly be focused on those kinds of attacks.
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When an attack like that happens, along with FBI partners and other intelligence community
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and law enforcement partners, they would be digging in to try to determine what motivated
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this individual to carry out the attacks that were undertaken.
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And I would surmise, we don't know the full answer to that.
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We've seen some early press reporting as you suggested linking these attacks to what
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happened in Iran or what's happening in Lebanon.
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But that work probably continues with FBI and the lead as an investigative matter.
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And just quickly in the last few seconds, we have overall zoom out for us.
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Where is the overall counterterrorism effort for the United States today?
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I mean, I worry a bit, but again, I'm used to worrying in the sense.
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You always worry when you come from the background where you focus on terrorism and counterterrorism.
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But I worry a little bit about the hollowing out of a workforce that has gotten younger
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and less experienced over time with departures from government service, either voluntary
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or involuntary, downsizing budget cuts, budget reductions, the shift in emphasis away from
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counterterrorism and terrorism towards state competition, state conflict, and other administration
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priorities to include immigration.
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Nick Rasmussen, thank you very much.