The Threat Today: An Assessment

Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist; a Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C; a research fellow at New York University’s Center on Law and Security and CNN’s national security analyst.

Bergen has written about al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and counterterrorism for a range of American newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, TIME, The Nation, The National Interest, Mother Jones, Washington Times and Vanity Fair. He has also written for newspapers and magazines around the world such as The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, International Herald Tribune, Prospect, El Mundo, and Die Welt. And he has worked as a correspondent for National Geographic Television, Discovery Television and CNN reporting from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, Singapore, Yemen, Mexico and Indonesia. From 2003-2007 he taught at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2008.

His most recent book is The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader (Free Press, 2006). It was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2006 by The Washington Post. “The Osama bin Laden I Know” was translated into French, Spanish and Polish, and CNN produced a two hour documentary, “In the Footsteps of bin Laden”, based on the book. Bergen was one of the producers of the CNN documentary, which was named the best documentary of 2006 by the Society of Professional Journalists and was nominated for an Emmy.

Bergen is also the author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Bin Laden. (Free Press, 2001). Holy War, Inc. was a New York Times bestseller, has been translated into eighteen languages and was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2001 by The Washington Post. A documentary based on Holy War, Inc., which aired on National Geographic Television, was nominated for an Emmy in 2002. Bergen was the recipient of the 2000 Leonard Silk Journalism Fellowship and was the Pew Journalist in Residence at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in2001 while writing Holy War, Inc.Bergen has a M.A. in Modern History from New College, Oxford University.

Mitchell Silber serves as the Director of both the NYPD Intelligence Division’s Analytic and Cyber Units.  As part of his responsibilities, he supervises the analysis of the entire portfolio of ongoing investigations within the Intelligence Division. Previously, he served on the strategic staff for the Deputy and Assistant Commissioners of Intelligence. There, he was responsible for strategic threat assessments for the Intelligence Division as well as for developing and maintaining relationships with foreign police and intelligence agencies.

Mitch is the co-author of the NYPD report – Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat.  He has presented on behalf of the NYPD at the White House, National Security Council, CIA, FBI, National Counterterrorism Center and testified before the U.S. Senate.  Mitch teaches a course on Modern Urban Counterterrorism at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Prior to joining the NYPD in 2005, Mitch completed Columbia University’s Masters Program in International Affairs where he specialized in Middle East studies, with a concentration on Saudi Arabia.  Before earning his Masters Degree at Columbia, Mitch spent nine years in corporate finance as a partner at The Carson Group and as a principal at Evolution Capital, LLC.
Juan C. Zarate, Esq. is a Senior Adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the senior national security consultant and analyst for CBS News.  He advises companies and organizations on national, homeland, and financial-related security, technologies, and investments.  Mr. Zarate sits on the Board of Advisors to the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the Board of Advisors for Regulatory DataCorp, the McClarty and Associates Film Advisory Board, and the Board of Directors for American Charities for Palestine (ACP).

Mr. Zarate served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism from 2005 to 2009.  In this role, Mr. Zarate was responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism strategy.  He was also responsible for overseeing all policies related to transnational security threats, including counternarcotics, maritime security, hostages, international organized crime, money laundering, and critical energy infrastructure protection.

Prior to joining the NSC, Mr. Zarate served as the first Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes where he led Treasury’s domestic and international efforts to attack terrorist financing, build comprehensive anti-money laundering systems, and expand the use of Treasury powers to advance national security interests.

Mr. Zarate also led the U.S. government’s global efforts to hunt Saddam Hussein’s assets, resulting in the return of over $3 billion of Iraqi assets.  Mr. Zarate served at the Treasury Department from 2001 to 2005, where he received the Treasury Medal.

Prior to working at the Department of the Treasury, Mr. Zarate served as a prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s Terrorism and Violent Crime Section, where he worked on terrorism cases, including the USS Cole investigation.  Mr. Zarate previously worked as a federal law clerk for Chief Judge Judith Keep in the Southern District of California. Mr. Zarate is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School.  He studied as a Rotary International Fellow at the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.

Mr. Zarate is a noted commentator on national security issues with a weekly CBS News show, “Flash Points”.  He is a recognized author with numerous publications, including “Harnessing the Financial Furies: Smart Financial Power and National Security,” Washington Quarterly (October 2009); “The Emergence of a New Dog of War: Private International Security Companies, International Law, and the New World Disorder,” Stanford Journal of Int’l Law (1998); and Forging Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Effects of U.S. Foreign Policy on Central American Democratization (University Press of America, 1994).

Moderator

Karen J. Greenberg is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law.  She is the author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days (Oxford University Press, 2009), which was selected as one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post and Slate.com. She is co-editor with Joshua L. Dratel of The Enemy Combatant Papers: American Justice, the Courts, and the War on Terror (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge University Press, 2005), editor of the books The Torture Debate in America (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Al Qaeda Now (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and editor of the NYU Review of Law and Security.  Her work is featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The National Interest, Mother Jones, TomDispatch.com, and on major news channels.  She is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations.