‘You Have to Rethink War’

This is in Waziristan?
Yeah, and all the way down to Baluchistan, in all the tribal areas. The way they mine it is by using explosives to blow it up. By some estimates they lose as much as 80 or 90 percent. And they pick up what's usable and truck it out. You could go in there with some big wind turbines or solar panels, you name it, and generate some energy. Then we could bring in some first-class mining equipment. Their wages and productivity [would jump] overnight, creating more jobs, more wealth. That's the way you have to wage war. You go in there and clean the enemy out of that district, then come in the next day with wind turbines and say this is what we're going to do. They want it; they own it.

Are you involved in anything particular like this?
No. I've been talking about it for years, and people say, "That's a great idea." [But nothing happens.] The reason I focus on energy is because once you have that, people can set up their satphones and have good communications to the world. Then you're talking about education, microfinance, and a connection to the global community of nations, which is the last thing Osama bin Laden wants.

Unfortunately, I think the majority of the militants trying to blow us up are very educated people who have lots of access to education, the Internet and so on. They're not the poverty-stricken folks.
The educated ones are the leaders who are taking advantage of the poverty-stricken folks.

Did you see this report recently that the French had an informant who had been in Waziristan and who helped break up a Spanish terror plot?
Yeah, I read that in the press.

What do you make of that: having an informant among the jihadists in Waziristan?
That's always been happening, with varying degrees of access and reliability.

That's the first time I've heard of a tip from someone close to Al Qaeda central that led to [breaking up a plot in the West].
Yeah, well, I obviously can't go into any kind of detail. But it happens often. It's not a rare occurrence for global intelligence services working together to stop plots and save lives.

No, but having someone in Waziristan, presumably in close geographic proximity to bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri …
It's not a rare event.

On the Abu Laith al-Libbi hit: [the senior Al Qaeda operative] apparently was killed by a predator missile … There was clearly good intelligence there. We're led to believe that a lot of that [valuable intelligence] is electronic.
I can't comment on recent history. What really works is all-source intelligence, the combination of human intelligence with technical intelligence. And grinding through that hour after hour, working that continuously. That's how you have tactical success.

Do you get the sense that the tide is turning either way in the war against Al Qaeda?
If you see how U.S. intelligence, Special Operations, and law enforcement are working together on the battlefield, it's breathtaking. It's better than you see in movies. That part of the story is the good news. Where it really falls short is the strategic policy piece. You have one tactical success after another, but at the same time strategic weakness or a sense of strategic failure. What's frustrating for a lot of the intelligence operators is that there's an expectation of perfection on their part. You have to stop every attack, every infiltrator from coming to the U.S. And when you don't have an effective overarching policy [including economic development and building civil society] to match …