Speaker 1: I'm very pleased this afternoon to be joined on the
Speaker 1: Warning podcast by somebody that I regard as an American hero,
Speaker 1: the former FBI agent Ali Soufon, the chair and CEO
Speaker 1: of the Soufon Group, and he is generous enough to
Speaker 1: join us from Doha Cutter where he has just landed
Speaker 1: and is a little.
Speaker 2: Bit jet lagged.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, good afternoon, or good morning or good evening, Ali,
Speaker 1: whatever time it is in Doha.
Speaker 3: Good evening, Steve. It's a great honor to be with you.
Speaker 3: To thank you very much.
Speaker 1: There may be many people who don't know about your career,
Speaker 1: and I want to let you unfold it in your words.
Speaker 1: I imagine when the calendar turns to September, it brings
Speaker 1: you back to twenty two years ago, this month, the
Speaker 1: clock was ticking. Why don't you tell us where you
Speaker 1: were twenty two years ago, what you were doing, and
Speaker 1: what you had spent your previous years obsessed about, focused
Speaker 1: on and trying to stop.
Speaker 3: Twenty two years ago, September eleven, two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: I was in Yemen, and the reason I was in
Speaker 3: Yemen I was leading the FBI team investigating the USS call.
Speaker 3: Somebody like me I never thought in a million years
Speaker 3: I would be an FBI agent. I guess only in America.
Speaker 3: I came from van On, which was really suffering, you know,
Speaker 3: during the Civil War, and I went to school in
Speaker 3: the US. I graduated undergrad from a school in Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: and Mansfield University. It's in rural Pennsylvania, and then I
Speaker 3: went to graduate school in Villanova and by the time
Speaker 3: I finished my graduate work, the FBI offered me a
Speaker 3: position as a special agent. At the time, you know,
Speaker 3: the only reason I applied it was a bet with
Speaker 3: some friends to see how long I will last. In
Speaker 3: the process, I was interested in national security. I was
Speaker 3: interested in the act of non state actors and the
Speaker 3: impact on geopolitics. However, I was not thinking that I
Speaker 3: will be working in national security. I wanted to be
Speaker 3: an academic and when the FBI offered me the job.
Speaker 3: At the time, my favorite show was The X Files.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know if you know your listeners
Speaker 3: remember the X Files. So I was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: why not, I'll go and join the FBI and stay
Speaker 3: a couple of years and then I go back to
Speaker 3: academia and the rest was history, you know. I became
Speaker 3: a VI agent that was assigned to New York, and
Speaker 3: because of my interest in the Middle East and the
Speaker 3: activities of NUN state actors in the region, I wrote
Speaker 3: a paper a memo about this person that we should
Speaker 3: be paying attention to his names Sosamma b Laden, and
Speaker 3: I believe you will create a lot of damage uh
Speaker 3: to our interests in the Middle East. That memo made
Speaker 3: it to the head of the National Security Division at
Speaker 3: the time, John O'Neill, who became my mentor and who
Speaker 3: I lost that day on nine eleven. He was in
Speaker 3: the World Trade Center when the attack happened. And you
Speaker 3: know I started to work al Qaeda and Bin Laden.
Speaker 3: I was involved in the nine not only in the
Speaker 3: nine eleven investigations when it was called, also in the
Speaker 3: East African embassy bombings and a lot of the plots
Speaker 3: that al Qaeda tried to conduct. In the time period
Speaker 3: between the East African Embassy bombing in between nine eleven,
Speaker 3: we disrupted many plots around the world and were able
Speaker 3: to be successful in arresting members of all kinda recruiting
Speaker 3: individuals on the organization. We were able to have a
Speaker 3: lot of successes during that time period. We stopped plots
Speaker 3: around the world in Europe and North Africa, in Pakistan
Speaker 3: and the Arabian Peninsula. We were able to disrupt a
Speaker 3: plot in Jordan. It's called the Millennium plot. Al Kaida
Speaker 3: at the time and its allies were planning to blow
Speaker 3: up hotels and attack borders crossings with Israel and even
Speaker 3: a plan to assassinate the Pope when he was doing
Speaker 3: baptism with the Jordan River. And I was proud to
Speaker 3: be the case agent in charge of that investigation for
Speaker 3: the FBI. So we had a lot of successes and
Speaker 3: that's what led me to Yemen. When the attack on
Speaker 3: the USS Call happened October twelve of two thousand, I
Speaker 3: was put in charge of that investigation. So as a
Speaker 3: case agent, we were with the team, you know, with
Speaker 3: my team as the team, and we were supported by
Speaker 3: the military and the State Department, the intelligence community and
Speaker 3: the Naval Criminal Investigative Services and CIS to invest to
Speaker 3: gate that attack. And at the time, we developed so
Speaker 3: many leads after we identified who was behind the call attack,
Speaker 3: we identified so many leads that led us to Southeast Asia.
Speaker 3: Meetings in Southeast Asia that members of al Qaida who
Speaker 3: were involved in the call attack directly and indirectly. We're
Speaker 3: involved in people who were involved in the call itself. We're,
Speaker 3: you know, at these meetings as well. So we were
Speaker 3: asking our intelligence community, our own government, our own agencies
Speaker 3: about information, if they know anything about these meetings. We're
Speaker 3: always told no, no, we have no idea what you
Speaker 3: guys talking about. We developed our own leads. We were
Speaker 3: able to get more phone numbers, more addresses. We asked
Speaker 3: our own government, do you know anything about any of
Speaker 3: these numbers, any of these individuals.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: On nine eleven, I was giving a folder, and that
Speaker 3: folder included everything that we've been asking for since, I
Speaker 3: have to say, November of two thousand. On September, a
Speaker 3: lot of people that I was looking for, yeah, September eleven,
Speaker 3: and the people that I was looking for in Yemen
Speaker 3: and around the world. Some entities in my own government
Speaker 3: knew that they were in the United States, and they
Speaker 3: were told me some of them were on the planes
Speaker 3: that hit the World Trade Center in the Pentagon. So
Speaker 3: for me, nine eleven it's a day of sorrow anger.
Speaker 3: I don't believe nine eleven happened twenty twenty two years ago.
Speaker 3: I still believe you know, it just happened yesterday. The
Speaker 3: emotions are very rose raw still. I remember these feelings,
Speaker 3: and I remember, you know how we needed to put
Speaker 3: emotions aside, put anger aside, because we needed to prove
Speaker 3: to the world that al Qaeda and Bladden did it.
Speaker 3: Find the evidence that our government needed in order to
Speaker 3: convince leaders in the Muslim world, who many of them
Speaker 3: did not believe that al Qaida was behind it, and
Speaker 3: to have the international community also agree with the US
Speaker 3: that Beladen and al Qaida based in Afghanistan, we're behind that.
Speaker 3: And that was my first job. Immediately after I was
Speaker 3: told those people that I'm looking for you know where
Speaker 3: in the US, and uh, we're able to do that.
Speaker 3: We're able to go back.
Speaker 4: To uh the the people you know too.
Speaker 3: Many asked for individuals that we were integrating before, and
Speaker 3: all these leads led us to Biladin's personal bodyguard, a
Speaker 3: guy by the name of Abujenda, and we uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I had a conversation with him, you know where he basically,
Speaker 3: not knowing identified the photos of seven of the hijackers
Speaker 3: as Kuida members. At the time, I did not even
Speaker 3: know that these people were hijackers. We showed him photo
Speaker 3: books the very first time. He looked at the photo
Speaker 3: books and the photo book includes so many pictures. See,
Speaker 3: I don't even remember the amount of pictures we had.
Speaker 3: We had people from the East African Embassy bombing from
Speaker 3: the USS call. But then we had people that the government,
Speaker 3: you know, the FBI headquarters in d C and the
Speaker 3: White House were sending us individuals that were arrested. Many.
Speaker 3: I recall many of the photos of Steak, you know,
Speaker 3: because they have turbans and they have beards. They arrested
Speaker 3: them and figuring out that they are Taliban or Al
Speaker 3: Kaido or they are part of the second wave of attacks,
Speaker 3: and were showing him all these photos. You know, at
Speaker 3: the beginning, he didn't identify anyone except bin Laden and
Speaker 3: a couple of main leaders. That there's no way he
Speaker 3: won't know who they were. But later on the second
Speaker 3: time he did the same thing. And then I asked
Speaker 3: him to do it for the third time, and he
Speaker 3: was confused, like, you know, I'm cooperating with you. I
Speaker 3: identified the people that I know. Why are you asking me?
Speaker 3: And I said, well, oh yeah, just for for friendship's sake,
Speaker 3: since he's claiming he was a friend.
Speaker 4: At the time, and and I think he I st
Speaker 4: recall he get to page number six or number seven
Speaker 4: from the photo book and he was turning it, and
Speaker 4: that's the only page that I knew, the only one
Speaker 4: that I knew he knows.
Speaker 3: That person from my investigation. So I went back and
Speaker 3: you know, I said, so you're telling me you don't
Speaker 3: know this guy. And I told a body of mine
Speaker 3: who was the NCIS agent assigned to the case. He
Speaker 3: was my partner at the time, Robert McFadden. See, I
Speaker 3: told you, so this guy is full of it. And
Speaker 3: Abujendal was upset, like, how dare I question his integrity?
Speaker 3: So I told him what he knows about that person,
Speaker 3: gave him details that nobody knows except a person who
Speaker 3: is really over there. And then he said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know this guy. Yeah, So I identified that person.
Speaker 3: And then I told him, I said, look, you don't
Speaker 3: know who I know in this book. Said when you
Speaker 3: first saw me, you were shocked, you were surprised. You
Speaker 3: never thought that I was an FBI agent, You never
Speaker 3: thought I was an American intelligence officer. I said, so,
Speaker 3: you don't know how many people I have in this
Speaker 3: book who are exactly like me, but we're undercover in
Speaker 3: al Qaeda, and they can tell you a lot of
Speaker 3: things about the organization and about your relationship to them.
Speaker 3: You won't know who I have no idea who they
Speaker 3: are in this book. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people I don't know, but I'm not going to tell
Speaker 3: you who they. You know the people that I don't know.
Speaker 3: But in the same time, you don't know who we
Speaker 3: have in our custody and talking about you. So you
Speaker 3: better look at the book again and identify the people
Speaker 3: that you know. My god, he identified so many people,
Speaker 3: including seven of the hijackers and with their leader Muhammadatta.
Speaker 3: And at the time I did not even know these people.
Speaker 3: I did not know they were on the plane. And
Speaker 3: that's when the president at the time spoke to the
Speaker 3: American people when he said that al Qaeda and Beladin,
Speaker 3: we're behind the attack. And our information was taken around
Speaker 3: the world from you know, the president of Egypt at
Speaker 3: the time, Mubarak, to Musharraf in Pakistan, to the king
Speaker 3: of Saudi Arabia, and they were given the proof that
Speaker 3: it was Bladen. It was al Qaeda network who were
Speaker 3: behind the attacks on nine eleven.
Speaker 1: Before I asked you a question about the legacy of
Speaker 1: those attacks and the wars that followed. Talk, if you
Speaker 1: will for a moment about your friend and your mentor,
Speaker 1: John O'Neill, who was a colorful character so far as
Speaker 1: the FBI agent's go.
Speaker 3: John was a character bigger than life, you know, and
Speaker 3: people in the bureau either they loved John or they
Speaker 3: hated John. I mean, they're you know, you don't You
Speaker 3: don't have people who who are in the middle of this.
Speaker 3: There's no gray zone. But John had only one thing
Speaker 3: important in his life, and it was the mission, and
Speaker 3: it was the FBI. Everything else was just a side show.
Speaker 3: He was amazing in the way he can see the threat,
Speaker 3: can understand it, and can know everything we need to
Speaker 3: do in order to be ahead of it. He saw
Speaker 3: a lot of these things coming. That's why he took
Speaker 3: a new agent under his wing. And here I am
Speaker 3: a new person in the FBI office in New York
Speaker 3: hanging out and having dinner or you know, having meetings
Speaker 3: and you know, briefing the person in charge of national security.
Speaker 3: That's usually did not happen in the FBI during that time.
Speaker 3: John supported us, supported us in all our missions gave
Speaker 3: us everything that we need. If you're dedicated to the mission.
Speaker 3: If you're dedicated to the job, John was your biggest fan.
Speaker 3: If you thought of the job in the Mission of
Speaker 3: counter Terrorism as a job, then he's going to give
Speaker 3: you a hard time. He used to tell me all
Speaker 3: the time. You know, terrorists don't work nine to five.
Speaker 3: Terrorists don't work seven days a week. Sorry, five days
Speaker 3: a week, you know, And every time like I was,
Speaker 3: you know, once going to an engagement party and he
Speaker 3: wanted me to go with him for some meeting. And
Speaker 3: I said, Boss, I have this engagement party and I
Speaker 3: need to be there. And he thought I was getting engaged.
Speaker 3: He said, are you getting engaged? I said, no, Boss,
Speaker 3: I'm not far from it. He said, ah, because if
Speaker 3: you are, you have to come and talk to me
Speaker 3: about it. I said why. He said, do you know
Speaker 3: why divorce is so do you do? You know? If
Speaker 3: what's sorry with my chat? Like he said, do you
Speaker 3: know why divorce is so expensive? I said why? He's
Speaker 3: because it's worth it. And that was John. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just like you have to be only married to
Speaker 3: the FBI, only married to the mission, only married everything aside,
Speaker 3: but you know, last time I saw him, it was
Speaker 3: his last day in the FBI. He was retiring from
Speaker 3: the bureau and I was heading back to Yemen and
Speaker 3: just a few days before nine to eleven, and we
Speaker 3: went to get a sandwich from you know, a restaurant
Speaker 3: across the street from twenty six Federal Plaza FBI offices
Speaker 3: in New York, and he was asking me about my
Speaker 3: girlfriend at the time, now my wife, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about getting engaged. And he said, you know what,
Speaker 3: that's great, that's a great She's a really good woman.
Speaker 3: She's been, you know, handling your shit all this time,
Speaker 3: all these years. Gave me a big hug and uh.
Speaker 3: And I was like, what what happened here?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: I thought, I thought he's gonna, you know, give me
Speaker 3: hard time, and uh, that's it. That was the last
Speaker 3: time I saw him. He went to be the head
Speaker 3: of security or the Word Trade Center and a few
Speaker 3: days later he uh died in the attack by al Kada,
Speaker 3: in the attack by the people that he was trying
Speaker 3: to stop. And he was an amazing supporter for US
Speaker 3: during the USOS call, and he pushed so much to
Speaker 3: get information that we were told him and I and
Speaker 3: all the people who are working on the case that
Speaker 3: this information did not exist, and this information I led
Speaker 3: to his death because it existed, but somebody refused to
Speaker 3: share it.
Speaker 1: Now the person who ran the CIA has been lying.
Speaker 1: Didn't unit alex station with somebody named Michael Sure.
Speaker 2: Talk about him?
Speaker 3: Mhm. My interaction with him was very limited, frankly, but
Speaker 3: you know, I'm really disappointed with some of the stuff
Speaker 3: that I heard him saying in public. You know, I
Speaker 3: saw at a congressional hearing where he uh supposedly not
Speaker 3: supposedly he said it's there for people to google and
Speaker 3: see it. The best thing that ever happened on nine eleven,
Speaker 3: that the word trade center fell on John O'Neill. That is,
Speaker 3: that's for me, shocking, and that speaks volume about about
Speaker 3: the character of that individual. I didn't know much about
Speaker 3: him before I knew people. Some people liked him, some
Speaker 3: people hated him. But I think that specific sentiment that
Speaker 3: he expressed in Congress shocked all the people in the
Speaker 3: committee when he said that speaks volume.
Speaker 1: And he, of course was the head of the unit
Speaker 1: that denied you so much of the information that you
Speaker 1: needed to crack the case. And to stop the attacks.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, when you look back, how
Speaker 1: close do you think you were to stopping or being
Speaker 1: able to stop the attacks if you had the information
Speaker 1: that you had been told repeatedly didn't exist, that CIA
Speaker 1: didn't have.
Speaker 3: And that's something that I honestly, I don't think there
Speaker 3: is a day that passes by that I don't think
Speaker 3: about this. It doesn't crosses my mind for a second.
Speaker 3: So you want to tell me, I'm looking for people
Speaker 3: who I believe they were involved in the murder of
Speaker 3: seventeen American sailors in Aiden and people who are connected
Speaker 3: to them. People that I'm looking for and the FBI
Speaker 3: is looking for in Southeast Asia, in Yemen, in the
Speaker 3: Middle East, are here in the United States San Diego
Speaker 3: or New Jersey or Virginia or whatever they were at
Speaker 3: the time. You want to tell me we want to
Speaker 3: be on those people like White on Rice. You want
Speaker 3: to tell me that we won't be monitoring them and
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what they are doing, or even
Speaker 3: arrested them and trying to, you know, debrief them on
Speaker 3: or interrogate them regarding the meeting in Southeast Asia that
Speaker 3: they were involved in. Regarding some of the leaders of
Speaker 3: al Qaeda that they were meeting and what they were planning.
Speaker 3: I mean, there is no way that that we won't
Speaker 3: be on them. We won't try. And you know, we know,
Speaker 3: we know how we do work in the FVII, you know,
Speaker 3: mapping the whole threat and arresting these individuals and at
Speaker 3: least they could have stopped and run away. At least
Speaker 3: nine eleven probably could have been delayed or could have
Speaker 3: been stopped. And this is not only Mew saying that.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you look at the nine eleven Commission report,
Speaker 3: they talk about, you know, opportunities that the plot could
Speaker 3: have been stopped or delayed, and one of them is
Speaker 3: sharing the information with the USS called team, you know,
Speaker 3: the FBI team investigating the USS called That's one of
Speaker 3: the findings. You know, at the beginning, there was so
Speaker 3: many you know, deception about if informations were shared or
Speaker 3: not shared. I think the nine eleven Commission put that
Speaker 3: to rest. And also on the same time, now we
Speaker 3: have many of the reports government reports had been declassified
Speaker 3: to include the CIA's own report that said that this
Speaker 3: information was not passed to the FBI on a timely basis.
Speaker 3: To the FBI team investigating the USS called on a
Speaker 3: timely basis, and it held for entities in the agencies
Speaker 3: and individuals in the agencies, to include the director, accountable
Speaker 3: for not passing that information. However, like everything else since then,
Speaker 3: I did not see any real accountability for you know,
Speaker 3: holding people responsible for not doing their job. And I
Speaker 3: think this lack of accountability goes hand in hand with
Speaker 3: lack of experiency, and that's what creates a lot of
Speaker 3: distrust eventually, uh in the American public.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, remember when we all believe that there is
Speaker 3: a mushroom cloud and there is you know, w MD
Speaker 3: in Iraq, and we all believe that, you know, your
Speaker 3: torture worked, and we all believed, you know, whatever the
Speaker 3: government told us to believe, and then later we realize
Speaker 3: that it's all wrong. And then we the American public
Speaker 3: realizes that there is no transparency and they have been
Speaker 3: led to and and unfortunately that contribute to the lack
Speaker 3: of trust that we have today between large portions of
Speaker 3: our population towards the institutions and towards the government.
Speaker 1: When when you think about that collapse of trust and
Speaker 1: institutions and the FBI, good news bad news situation in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Good news on the Republican debate stage,
Speaker 1: there's a Southeast Asian American VVK Ramaswami. The bad news
Speaker 1: is he's talking about, well, we really don't know how
Speaker 1: many federal agents FBI agents, CIA agents were on the
Speaker 1: planes that hit the towers on nine to eleven. And
Speaker 1: so you see wackadoodle conspiracy theories mainstreamed around this event.
Speaker 1: In this country, you have presidential candidates that are considered
Speaker 1: serious from the Republican Party talking about abolishing the Federal
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation. The institution has become profoundly politicized over
Speaker 1: the Trump era. How does that make you? How does
Speaker 1: that make you feel? Do you understand it the basis it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Do you no?
Speaker 1: I actually think about collapse of trust in the institution?
Speaker 2: Does it?
Speaker 1: Does it drive you? Does it drive you crazy? Does it?
Speaker 1: Does it? Does it make you want to cry? How
Speaker 1: does it? How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3: It frustrates me. Look, I'm a person who left the
Speaker 3: FBI after I felt I you know, I stayed after
Speaker 3: nine eleven. I found out who was involved in nine eleven.
Speaker 3: I led the team for about you know a few
Speaker 3: years after nine eleven until two thousand and five, and
Speaker 3: then I realized that you can either, you know, lead
Speaker 3: or be led, or get the hell out.
Speaker 2: Of the way.
Speaker 3: And at the time, I decided to get the hell
Speaker 3: out of the way. You know, I mean, I was here.
Speaker 3: I am fighting for the truth of what happened on
Speaker 3: nine eleven because I was inside the enterprise, if you
Speaker 3: want to call it, and I know exactly what happened,
Speaker 3: and I know how information were not passed. And at
Speaker 3: the time, when you're standing up and doing this, do
Speaker 3: you know how difficult it is, how many people will
Speaker 3: have the sharp lives for you. I used to say
Speaker 3: to people in headquarters and the FBI, some buns when
Speaker 3: they tell me, like I've been traveling to Afghanistan or
Speaker 3: to Yemen or to whatever mission, say be careful. I said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm fine. You know I'm not going to
Speaker 3: be in DC. I need to be careful in this,
Speaker 3: but not on the front lines. So I was, you know,
Speaker 3: it was difficult for me to do that. And so
Speaker 3: having said that, I look.
Speaker 5: At the successes that we have in the US government,
Speaker 5: and I look at the men and women not only
Speaker 5: in the FBI, but also on the CIA, the people
Speaker 5: in the field, the people on the front lines, not
Speaker 5: the people you know sometimes during that time period, the
Speaker 5: people around the George Tennant.
Speaker 3: But I'm talking about the CIA men and women in
Speaker 3: the field now and back then. I look at the
Speaker 3: military operatives, the Seals, the Delta that they do amazing
Speaker 3: work in keeping Americans secure, the American public secure, and
Speaker 3: fight for the United States, and I see how much
Speaker 3: sacrifices these people do. I see how many sacrifices I mean,
Speaker 3: a woment of the FBI do on databases domestically and internationally.
Speaker 3: And it's very difficult for me to see individuals like
Speaker 3: you know, the people that you mentioned, who have no
Speaker 3: idea about anything. They never read a report about nine eleventh.
Speaker 3: They don't know. You know, the truth is really more
Speaker 3: complicated than just brushing it with conspiracy theories on lie
Speaker 3: because it it gives audience. I think it makes it
Speaker 3: very difficult because if you want to avowlce, let's say,
Speaker 3: the Federal Gurrea of Investigation, you know, the bureau who
Speaker 3: fights counter terrorism, who fights spies, who protect the nation
Speaker 3: against industrial espionage, who protect the nation against the foreign agents,
Speaker 3: and UH and and and Uh you know, uh, individuals
Speaker 3: who are trying to do us harmed, who fight to
Speaker 3: protect our communities regarding uh you know, pedophiles and crimes
Speaker 3: against children, organized the crime, white collar investigations. Uh so
Speaker 3: you just want to get rid of all this just
Speaker 3: because you had a crooked guy who did not want
Speaker 3: to believe he lost an election. I mean, come on.
Speaker 3: And it's sad to see it coming from a party
Speaker 3: that always claimed to be the national security party, the
Speaker 3: party who fights for national security. You know, I'm disappointed
Speaker 3: to see all the things and to hear about all
Speaker 3: the stuff, and it makes me. It makes me sad,
Speaker 3: And because I know a lot of these people, and
Speaker 3: I know how much they sacrifice for the sake of
Speaker 3: the nation. But unfortunately, we live in a time period
Speaker 3: where we have a lot of crooks and they talk
Speaker 3: about the world. They give an opinion about the world
Speaker 3: and about the United States that actually, frankly reflects reflects
Speaker 3: their own character. It's a confession of their own character.
Speaker 3: That's why they say these things. Uh. These people, I
Speaker 3: don't believe they believe in the fidelity or they believe
Speaker 3: in the bravery or the integrity that the men movement
Speaker 3: of the CIA or the FBI or the malodority live
Speaker 3: by and unfortunately, you know, it's we have something called
Speaker 3: the First you know, fortunately we have something to have,
Speaker 3: the First Amendment. Unfortunately we have people like them taking
Speaker 3: advantage of it in order to create more division and
Speaker 3: in order to create hatred against against the institution that
Speaker 3: keeps us safe. Look, you know, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: I stood up when we had problem, when the institutions
Speaker 3: were lying to the American public, some of the institutions.
Speaker 3: I stood up and I fought, and towards the end,
Speaker 3: the truth came out. That's exactly what's great about America.
Speaker 3: You know, if I was in China fighting the Chinese
Speaker 3: Intellivisions Agency because they were lying to their people, or
Speaker 3: in Russia, or in North Korea or Iran or in
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia, I will be subjected to a bone saw
Speaker 3: or to a bullet, or suddenly I'll fly through a window.
Speaker 3: That's what happens. But in America, you stand up, you
Speaker 3: do it right, you fight smart, you fight hard, and
Speaker 3: the truth will come out. Look, we're not perfect. The
Speaker 3: Founding fathers never claimed that they created a perfect system.
Speaker 3: But we always strive towards a more perfect system. And
Speaker 3: that's with our politics, that's with our institutions, that's with
Speaker 3: our everything, and that's where we are. And I'm sure
Speaker 3: now we are on a lower a little bit. You know,
Speaker 3: the city in the Hill lost a lot of its shine.
Speaker 3: But I am confident with the system that we have,
Speaker 3: with the people that we have, that the truth eventually
Speaker 3: will come out. Look at you know what we're talking
Speaker 3: about nine eleven and torture, on all these things on
Speaker 3: the water in Iraq, all the stuff that I stood
Speaker 3: up against. I had a lot of supporters in the FBI,
Speaker 3: in the CIA, in the military, in Congress. Some of
Speaker 3: them were supporting me behind most of them, actually you
Speaker 3: were supporting me behind the closed doors. Not a lot
Speaker 3: of people. And you know, you know one of my
Speaker 3: biggest supporters who helped me, you know, go through all
Speaker 3: these things and just made me know that somebody is
Speaker 3: watching my back as Senator McCain. And guess so what
Speaker 3: you know, Eventually the truth came out. Eventually these documents
Speaker 3: were classified. When I wrote a book about what happened
Speaker 3: on nine to eleven and what happened with torture, and
Speaker 3: how the American public would lied to. The book was
Speaker 3: heavily declassified, heavily redacted. The FBI told me there is
Speaker 3: no secrets in this boot, go ahead and published. Another
Speaker 3: agency said absolutely not, and they redacted the hell of
Speaker 3: that book. But you know what's too great about America.
Speaker 3: As frustrating as it was for me to have big
Speaker 3: sections of my book redacted, the sections that make my
Speaker 3: point about you know what I want to say to
Speaker 3: the American public, all of it to a reacted. The
Speaker 3: awesome thing that nine years later those same people said, okay,
Speaker 3: you can publish. We were wrong. We went through the
Speaker 3: legal process. Fell judge looked at the case. They said,
Speaker 3: you know what, No, you have no right to tell
Speaker 3: him not to write these things because these things are
Speaker 3: not national security. You're redacting them for different reasons. That's
Speaker 3: what America is all about. So as much as the
Speaker 3: system frustrates the hell out of it, as much as
Speaker 3: the system made me through lived through hell, but also
Speaker 3: the system worked because we use the same system to
Speaker 3: fight back for truth and for doing the right thing,
Speaker 3: and we were successful. I didn't have packs behind me,
Speaker 3: I didn't have you know, uh money, I didn't have lobbyists,
Speaker 3: I didn't have any of these things. I just had
Speaker 3: the truth. And guess what we won. And that's what's
Speaker 3: great about America. And that's why I believe that with
Speaker 3: all the things that we see, with all the pessimism,
Speaker 3: with all the partisanship, I believe towards the end, truth
Speaker 3: will come out. And and and for those people who
Speaker 3: say all these bad things about the Bureau, and I'm not,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to defend the Bureau, the Bureau will
Speaker 3: defend itself. And they defend themselves, even though they are
Speaker 3: very bad at it because they don't talk publicly most
Speaker 3: of the time. But let's go one by one, nine
Speaker 3: to eleven, Okay, every single investigation, and to include the CIA,
Speaker 3: they said that if the information was passed to the FBI,
Speaker 3: nine eleven could have been stopped. Number one, Number two
Speaker 3: the Iraq War. The only agency, the only agency in
Speaker 3: the US government that refused to say Iraq has the
Speaker 3: WMD and connected to all these things that administration was
Speaker 3: trying to sell to the American public was the FBI.
Speaker 3: The only people who investigated a lot of the stuff
Speaker 3: that has to do with the banking crisis or toward
Speaker 3: all these things. The only people who did not, you know,
Speaker 3: allow their people to be involved in torture. Were the FBI.
Speaker 3: Trump himself was so happy when the FBI reopened the
Speaker 3: case on Hillary Clinton before the election and now stopped
Speaker 3: at them because they were investigating the investigating them for Look,
Speaker 3: you know what, we don't decide or the Bureau does
Speaker 3: not decide who the crook is. We just follow the
Speaker 3: croc And unfortunately, when you start seeing partisanship go to
Speaker 3: this level that we put party above country, We put
Speaker 3: party about our system, We put the party above our constitution.
Speaker 3: We put the party and the loyalty to the party
Speaker 3: against the men and women who are protecting this nation
Speaker 3: and putting their life on the line day after day
Speaker 3: against all enemies, domestic and foreign. I think I think
Speaker 3: it's sad and it's frustrating for somebody, you know, who
Speaker 3: experienced all the things that I experienced in my life.
Speaker 1: A few weeks back, I was really honored to have
Speaker 1: Ken Burns on the podcast and we were talking about
Speaker 1: a forthcoming documentary about the American Bison, talking about the
Speaker 1: Civil War, this moment in history, and Ken Bird said
Speaker 1: something interesting that that's accurate. He said, the American Revolution
Speaker 1: was a civil war, the Civil War in this country
Speaker 1: was in fact a sectional war. But you grew up
Speaker 1: in a country and where eyewitnessed to a civil war
Speaker 1: before you became an American. At this moment of cold
Speaker 1: civil war in this country, the division, the political incitements
Speaker 1: to violence, I wanted to ask your perspective about it,
Speaker 1: but I also wanted to ask.
Speaker 2: You in connection with it.
Speaker 1: You, on at least two occasions, have taken a constitutional oath.
Speaker 1: You took the naturalization oath to become an American citizen,
Speaker 1: and then, of course you swore an oath of allegiance
Speaker 1: to the Constitution when you became.
Speaker 2: An FBI agent. Can you talk about.
Speaker 1: The experience of seeing a society unravel and then the
Speaker 1: meaning of those oaths, the swearing of an allegiance not
Speaker 1: to a land mass, not to a political party, but
Speaker 1: really to a concept or a bundle of ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's that's a great question, Steve. You know,
Speaker 3: I recall the Civil War in Lebanon vividly. I lived
Speaker 3: through part of it, and I recall my parents telling
Speaker 3: me that Lebanon used to be the Paris of the
Speaker 3: East or the Switzerland of the East, modern wealthy and
Speaker 3: then suddenly we had such a sectarian division, not political divisions,
Speaker 3: such a sectarian division that people start looking at nationalism
Speaker 3: only through the lens of their own sect and that
Speaker 3: led to a civil war, and unfortunately, I started to
Speaker 3: see some folks in the US mimicking that. Now in Lebanon,
Speaker 3: we did not have a good political system. We did
Speaker 3: not have the ideas that you're talking about. You know,
Speaker 3: we did not have a country that went through a
Speaker 3: lot and evolved and have you know an amazing constitution
Speaker 3: that's a living document. And I have a Bill of
Speaker 3: Fright and it has all these institutions to support them
Speaker 3: protect that concept. And that is a difference I would
Speaker 3: like to believe that we have in the United States.
Speaker 3: When I took the oath first for citizenship and then
Speaker 3: for the FBI and lay for many different things that
Speaker 3: I was, you know, doing, and you know you have
Speaker 3: to take the oath for it. It's it meant a
Speaker 3: lot to me. And it's not just words that you
Speaker 3: say because you have to get a pay check for me.
Speaker 3: It's a way of life. And that's why I left
Speaker 3: the government in two thousand and five. I continued to fight.
Speaker 3: I continued to fight to get the truth about ninety
Speaker 3: eleven to the American public. I continued to fight against torture.
Speaker 3: I testified in two thousand and nine to Congress way
Speaker 3: after I left the FBI about torture, and I continue
Speaker 3: to do what I do today in my company to
Speaker 3: protect the national security of the United States and to
Speaker 3: fight terrorism. As you know, we were the first people
Speaker 3: who talked about forum fighters in Syria when nobody wanted
Speaker 3: to talk about it. We were the first people who
Speaker 3: talked about the rise of domestic terrorism and the United States.
Speaker 3: We're focusing internationally, and we're not looking at the monaster
Speaker 3: that is growing inside our midst with the white supremacists
Speaker 3: and the neo Nazi groups and those people you know
Speaker 3: that's fighting a war. Hitler lost seventy five years, seventy
Speaker 3: eight years ago, whatever. And it's amazing for me that,
Speaker 3: you know, to look into this amazing nation that we
Speaker 3: have and the constitution that we have and the institutions
Speaker 3: that we have on the loyalty of people from all
Speaker 3: walks of life. They come from, you know, Europe. You know,
Speaker 3: everybody came from somewhere here, except like if your name
Speaker 3: is running Bear or something. Everybody came from somewhere, and
Speaker 3: you see them all having this loyalty not to a bloodline,
Speaker 3: but to a concept. And few countries in the world
Speaker 3: that nationalism is based on a concept. Patriotism is based
Speaker 3: on a concept, not on a bloodline. And we have
Speaker 3: that in the US, and I don't think any country
Speaker 3: in the world has it better than us.
Speaker 1: You said that so perfectly, and it's such a part
Speaker 1: of the strength of the country. And you talked about
Speaker 1: a Native American name Running Bear. You know, in the
Speaker 1: Second World War in the Pacific theater, if Running Bear
Speaker 1: was a Navajo, he may well have found himself in
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps where he was a code talker. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened in the Second World
Speaker 1: War is that the Allies very early on broke the
Speaker 1: codes of both the Germans and the Japanese, who were
Speaker 1: not able to break the Ally codes. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons the Japanese never were able to is they
Speaker 1: had no grasp of context around connection to the language
Speaker 1: that was being spoken, and it was a native American language.
Speaker 1: No one in Japan spoke Navajo. And you think about
Speaker 1: that and you apply that to Ali Sufon. Here you
Speaker 1: have a young man who comes to America from a
Speaker 1: war tour in the country, receives an education, goes to college,
Speaker 1: winds up in the FBI, and you walk into a
Speaker 1: room somewhere around the world facing a terrorist, and you
Speaker 1: open your mouth and you speak fluent Arabic. You can
Speaker 1: quote the Quran back and forth. And the power that
Speaker 1: flows from that diversity, that combination of national strength that
Speaker 1: comes from being the only country in the history of
Speaker 1: the world to be made up of all of the
Speaker 1: peoples of the world where every language just spoken every
Speaker 1: day has been a profound benefit to the United States.
Speaker 2: And you represent that perfectly.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And I had so many people who are
Speaker 3: native Arabic speakers, and we used to do missions together,
Speaker 3: and we used to arrest these people and go and
Speaker 3: talk to them. And literally many of these terrorists they
Speaker 3: look at us, they thought were Israeli Musae, the Jordanian intelligence,
Speaker 3: every single country in the Middle East. You can imagine
Speaker 3: they never thought for a second with Americans because in
Speaker 3: their mind there's a look for the American FBI or CIA,
Speaker 3: and we're not it. So it was great, and we
Speaker 3: saw the same thing in Afghanistan. We had people in
Speaker 3: Afghanistan that speak Pashtus or you know, or Uzbeks, and
Speaker 3: they were amazing. And that's what's great about America, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, with all the problems that we have, we're
Speaker 3: still great. I mean seriously, I mean economically, we dominate
Speaker 3: the international economic system in the world. We created the
Speaker 3: system that benefited so many countries and probably the most
Speaker 3: wealth the world it ever had in its history, even
Speaker 3: countries like China that we're competing with today. If it
Speaker 3: wasn't for the system, the economic system created by the
Speaker 3: United States, no way they will have they have now.
Speaker 3: And we are still, you know, dominating on so many
Speaker 3: different levels. Unfortunately, nobody can defeat us outside the United States.
Speaker 3: We can only defeat ourselves with our division. And I
Speaker 3: think that's why you see many adversaries of the United
Speaker 3: States using social media, using AI, using a lot of
Speaker 3: these crooked politicians in order to promote conspiracy theories, promote division,
Speaker 3: you know, taking unfortunate incidents or transgit incidents like you
Speaker 3: know nine eleven or the Iraq War, and put all
Speaker 3: these things in a different context in order to create
Speaker 3: and instead of having accountability and having learned from our
Speaker 3: mistakes and not repeating it create division and distrust, because
Speaker 3: only when you create distrust in a system, in the
Speaker 3: republic and democracy like the United States, only when you
Speaker 3: create distrust between the people and the institution is when
Speaker 3: you win, when you weaken the United States. And unfortunately,
Speaker 3: that's exactly what's happened.
Speaker 1: That is perfectly stated. Abraham Lincoln talked about this. He said,
Speaker 1: the greatest armies of Europe, if they evaded the United States, would.
Speaker 2: Never take a drink of water from the Ohio River.
Speaker 1: He was right then, he's right now, and he said
Speaker 1: that we are to be undone, it will be by
Speaker 1: our own hand. It will be a form of national suicide.
Speaker 1: And that's always been the case in its states.
Speaker 3: That's unfortunate, and you know, and the world is getting
Speaker 3: more dangerous. For example, nine eleven happened twenty two years ago.
Speaker 3: Al Qaeda on that on the evening of ninet eleven,
Speaker 3: they had four hundred members, nineteen of them were on
Speaker 3: the planes. Today al Qaeda itself have more than forty
Speaker 3: thousand members. And they are not only in Afghanistan, they
Speaker 3: are not only in Kandahar or Inkabo, they are also
Speaker 3: in Yemen with al Kaieda and the Arabian Peninsula. They
Speaker 3: are in Asahel, they are in West Africa, they are
Speaker 3: in back in Afghanistan. They are in so many different places.
Speaker 3: They are spread around the world. You know, we used
Speaker 3: to have embassies, even in Kabo. We had an embassy
Speaker 3: in Libya. We have an embassy in Syria. We had
Speaker 3: an embassy in them. We had an embassy in Summer Area.
Speaker 3: We have many different Somalia. Now we don't have embassies
Speaker 3: in any of these places. We don't have embassies in
Speaker 3: all these places. You know, we're we're running blind. And
Speaker 3: so the world is very dangerous today. We have more
Speaker 3: areas in the world, important geopolitical areas in the world,
Speaker 3: that are controlled by non state actors, not by by states.
Speaker 3: And I'm not talking about the coups in Africa. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about Yemen, for example, with the healthies on Lebanon,
Speaker 3: with his Blah or sha in Iraq or al Qaeda,
Speaker 3: or the branches of control larger swamps and lands of lands.
Speaker 3: Still not only in Syria and in Iraq this is
Speaker 3: a smaller but in Africa and northern Nigeria like Bokoharam.
Speaker 3: So we have an arc of instability that goes all
Speaker 3: the way from all western shores of Africa all the
Speaker 3: way to Southeast Asia. Taliban is back in control of Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: This is the world that we live in. Then we
Speaker 3: have this war in Ukraine with Russia that is in
Speaker 3: the you know, you know, they from a geopolitical perspective,
Speaker 3: is a second order global second order, because the first
Speaker 3: order is still China in the competition against China. So
Speaker 3: if we need unity, it is now we have so
Speaker 3: many the world is literally on a crossroad. And then
Speaker 3: you have these people on the stage, on the Republican stage,
Speaker 3: saying the stuff that you were talking about, and they
Speaker 3: want to demolish the institutions that making us strong and
Speaker 3: making us you know, able to protect the American public
Speaker 3: of all the enemies domestic and foreign. It's you know,
Speaker 3: I'm still optimistic. I still believe that the glass is
Speaker 3: how and I think we need to do a better
Speaker 3: job in you know, standing up for our values and
Speaker 3: America will stand up for itself. We want through a
Speaker 3: lot before and America always prevailed and I believe we
Speaker 3: will prevail. Our system will prevail, and these crooks will
Speaker 3: find themselves in the thrash of history.
Speaker 1: I think that is a perfect place to leave it.
Speaker 1: On a note of optimism, Alisufon, it has been an
Speaker 1: honor to be with you, everybody. I encourage you to
Speaker 1: read the accounts of what Alisufon has done with his life,
Speaker 1: the chronicles of it along with the FBI Agent Supervisory
Speaker 1: FBI Agent John O'Neill in the Looming Tower. An extraordinary service,
Speaker 1: an extraordinary story of service and dedication to the country.
Speaker 1: It's been a real pleasure to spend this hour with you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Alli, the pleasure is mine. Thank you. Steve
Speaker 3: the fat change for a tangent s