Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate

‘Extremist Islamic Movement’ in Latin America

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US military eyes ‘extremist Islamic movement’ in Latin America

TheHill: The top U.S. military commander in Latin America said he and his regional counterparts are growing more concerned about radical Islamic extremists using the region as a pathway into the U.S.

“Radicalization is occurring,” said Adm. Kurt Tidd, commander of U.S. Southern Command, at a roundtable with reporters on Wednesday.

“We just have to recognize that this theater is a very attractive target and is an attractive pathway that we have to pay attention to,” he said.

Tidd, who became Southcom commander in January, said the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has attracted between 100 and 150 recruits from Latin America, and a “small number” have attempted to return to the region.

“Or — and the one that I find much more worrisome — if they can’t get there, they’ve been told to engage in lone-wolf attacks where they’re located,” he said. “Those are the ones that have most of our regional security partners concerned because they’re so difficult to detect.

“It’s the extremist Islamist movement, and that very corrosive engagement that you’re seeing on the internet that they’ve demonstrated an effectiveness in,” he added.

He also said there is some movement of migrants from the Middle East to Latin America.

“I think we are beginning to see people coming into this hemisphere who have very, very questionable backgrounds, and our law enforcement agencies are paying close attention to that,” he added.

Tidd said leaders acknowledged at a regional security conference in January that Islamic radicalization is a problem.

“All of the countries recognize that this is something that — in the past they would say, ‘This is not a problem in my country,’ ” he said.

He said terrorists are attracted to illicit smuggling networks in Latin America.

But, he said, the U.S. and its partners should focus on the networks rather than exactly what they are smuggling, such as animals, drugs, weapons and people.

“It’s the ability that these networks have to pretty much be able to move anything that I think should give us all concern,” he said.

“If we focus on the networks we may have a better chance of catching things moving through,” he said.

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Radical Islam in Latin America and the Caribbean: Implications for U.S. National Security

by: Dr. R. Evan Ellis, PhD1

An estimated 1.5 million Muslims live among Latin America and the Caribbean’s approximately 600 million inhabitants, with approximately 2/3 of them concentrated in Argentina and Brazil.16 Although sometimes mistakenly called “turcos” (turks) the region’s Muslims are a diverse subset of persons who immigrated from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries from the beginning of the 20th Century and before.

This ethnic group, both muslim and non-muslim, is well-established, including some of the most politically and economically successful persons in the region. Indeed eight Latin American and Caribbean heads of state have been of Arabic origin: Antonio Saca (President of El Salvador from 2004 to 2009), Jamil Mahuad (President of Ecuador from August 1998 to January 2000), Carlos Flores (President of Honduras from 1998 to 2002), Carlos Menem (President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999), Abdalá Bucaram (President of Ecuador from August 1996 to February 1997), Jacobo Majluta (President of the Dominican Republic from July to August 1982), Julio Turbay (President of Colombia 1978 to 1982), and Julio Salem (leader of Ecuador May 1944).17

Other prominent citizens of Middle Eastern ancestry in the region include Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the actress Salma Hayek, and the pop music star Shakira.

To date, Iran has been the principal, but not the only Middle Eastern state pursuing interests in the region. Other state actors from the region have also played a modest role in the region in the past; Libya, prior to the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, was a significant partner for Bolivia.18 There is no reason why other Middle Eastern states could not also expand their profile in the region, including Syria, whose current regime has a long working relationship with Hezbollah, 19 currently the most powerful Islamic radical group in Latin America.

Iran’s agenda in the region in recent years has generally focused on using sympathetic regimes such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Suriname to escape international isolation and circumvent international sanctions, develop missiles and perhaps weapons of mass destruction, and to gain influence within Muslim groups and communities so as to potentially use them for actions against the United States, Jewish, or other Western interests if Iran’s regime perceives itself as gravely threatened in the future.20

While Iran seeks to mobilize and influence non-state Islamic actors in the region such as Hezbollah for its own purposes, the interests of such groups and the potential challenges they pose to hemispheric security are not limited solely to Iran’s agenda.

The combined challenges of both state and other radical Islamic actors in Latin America and the Caribbean may be grouped into three categories:

• Generation of resources for islamic radicals fighting in other parts of the world;

• Formation of logistics networks for and launching attacks on targets in the Western Hemisphere;

and

• Collaboration between radical Islamic actors and Latin American allies in evading international controls and developing weapons. The full report here.

The Silent Heroes in Iraq, Saving the Girls

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(CNN)The bidding opens at $9,000. For sale? A Yazidi girl.

She is said to be beautiful, hardworking, and a virgin. She’s also just 11 years old.
 
This advertisement — a screengrab from an online marketplace used by ISIS fighters to barter for sex slaves — is one of many Abdullah Shrem keeps in his phone.
Each offers vital clues — photographs, locations — that he hopes will help him save Yazidi girls and young women like this girl from the militants holding them captive.

Shrem was a successful businessman with trade connections to Aleppo in Syria when ISIS came and kidnapped more than 50 members of his family from Iraq’s Sinjar province, a handful of the thousands of Yazidis seized there in 2014.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes and clambered up Mount Sinjar in an attempt to escape the fighters; hundreds were massacred, while thousands of women and girls were abducted and sold into slavery.

Sold into sex slavery

Desperate — and angered at what he saw as a lack of support from the international community — he began plotting to save them himself, recruiting cigarette smugglers used to sneaking illicit produce in and out of ISIS territory to help his efforts.

“No government or experts trained us,” he explains when we meet in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. “We learned by just doing it, over the last year and a half, we gained the experience.”
 The Shariya camp opened six months ago and now 4,000 tents line the dusty ground, providing shelter to thousands of refugees.

 Shariya camp with 4000 tents
 
So far, he says, his network has freed 240 Yazidis; it hasn’t been easy, or cheap — he’s almost broke, having spent his savings paying smuggling fees.
For those who venture into ISIS territory, the stakes are even higher — a number of the smugglers have been captured and executed by ISIS while trying to track down Yazidi slaves.
But Shrem insists the risks are worth it: “Whenever I save someone, it gives me strength and it gives me faith to keep going until I have been able to save them all.”
In some cases, the smugglers follow clues in the adverts or other tidbits of information they’re able to gather to find the Yazidis. In others, the hostages themselves reach out and plead for help, offering key details as to their location; a province or town they’ve overheard mentioned, or a local landmark they’ve been able to spot.
Once they manage to make contact, the prisoners are told when and where to go to meet the smugglers who wait for them in a nearby car. Depending on the circumstances of the rescue, it can take days or even weeks to get safely out of ISIS territory, switching from vehicle to vehicle, and waiting in safe houses.

Children as bomb-makers

Dileen (not her real name) is one of those rescued by Shrem and his team of smugglers.
She was separated from her husband when ISIS militants overran Sinjar province. The last time she saw him he was being marched away, hands up, with the other men from their village.
She and her children were taken to Mosul with the women and girls. “They separated the ones who were really pretty, and made us remove our headscarves to see the prettiest ones,” she says.

 
 
They were moved from place to place within ISIS territory: Mosul, Tal Afar, Raqqa, and finally to Tishrin where, she says, she was sold to an ISIS fighter, who raped her repeatedly.
“They forced me, and they threatened my children,” she says, recalling the five months she spent trapped in his home.
ISIS claims the Quran justifies taking non-Muslim women and girls captive, and permits their rape — a claim vociferously denied by Islamic scholars.
While Dileen was used as a sex slave, her daughter Aisha (not her real name), who is just seven years old, was forced to work late into the night, in the basement of their apartment building, assembling IEDs for ISIS.
“I used to make bombs,” says Aisha, quietly, playing with her hair. “There was a girl my age and her mother. They threatened to kill [the girl] if I wouldn’t go and work with them,” she told CNN.
“They would dress us in all black and there was a yellow material and sugar and a powder, and we would weigh them on a scale and then we would heat them and pack the artillery.”
An ISIS militant, she says, would then add the detonation wires.

Escapees ‘can’t forget’

The Yazidis have long suffered persecution, with many Muslims referring to them as devil worshipers. The ISIS storming of Sinjar created a humanitarian crisis as some fled into the mountains and were trapped without food or water.
Dileen was terrified Aisha would be blown up, or that — if the family was still being held captive by her next birthday — she too would be sold as a sex slave. So when the ISIS fighter she now belonged to left to go on a military operation, she spotted a chance to escape. She called Shrem and asked him to help them flee.
“We got to a phone with the help of another woman; we got in touch with Abdullah.”

  
Shrem’s phone number — memorized by his relatives before their phones were confiscated by ISIS — has been passed around among captured Yazidis, who know he will help them if he can.
“I begged him to hurry up and get us before my daughter turned eight, because they would take her.”
Shrem told her to meet someone from his network at a nearby mosque the following day, then spirited her and her children out of ISIS territory.

A year on from their rescue, Dileen — now living in a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan — says she is still haunted by what they went through: “I can’t forget what happened.”
Her husband is still missing, feared dead, but Dileen insists that “for my children, I have to survive.”

DHS Approves/Admits 4700 Syrians + 7900?

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4,700 Syrian refugees approved resettlement to U.S.: Homeland Security chief

Reuters: The United States has approved 4,700 Syrian refugees who are awaiting resettlement to the country, while an additional 7,900 are awaiting security review, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Thursday.

Syrian refugee children play as they wait with their families to register their information at the U.S. processing centre for Syrian refugees, during a media tour held by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, in Amman, Jordan, April 6, 2016. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

Johnson, speaking to a homeland security advisory panel at the Department of Homeland Security, was defending against critics who say the Obama administration is falling behind meeting its goal of bringing in 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country by the end of fiscal year 2016.

Meanwhile:

Sanctioned Syrian Official Invited To D.C. Event Delivers Outrageous Defense Of Assad

There is no moderate opposition and nobody is starving in Syria, according to Bouthaina Shaaban.

HuffPo: WASHINGTON — A panel discussion that had been billed as an effort to create a global alliance to defeat the so-called Islamic State spiraled downward Thursday into a tense two-and-a-half hour event dominated by a top Syrian official who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government. She insisted that her country’s brutal crackdown on its own people is just part of the war on terrorism.

Khaled al-Hariri/Reuters
Bashar Assad spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban was invited to speak via Skype despite facing U.S. sanctions.

“There is no such thing as moderate opposition,” Bouthaina Shaaban, spokeswoman for Syrian President Bashar Assad, said during the event hosted by an obscure group called the Global Alliance for Terminating ISIS/al-Qaeda (GAFTA).

In a lengthy pre-recorded speech, which was aired at the National Press Club event, Shaaban blasted Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Western countries for backing Syrian opposition fighters in her country’s civil war. She accused them of directly aiding both the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot.

During a subsequent question-and-answer session, Shaaban sparred with reporters via Skype, dismissing accusations that the Assad regime had blocked humanitarian groups from delivering food to besieged areas of Syria and had aided ISIS by releasing its members from prison and purchasing oil from the terrorist group.

“It is a very fertile land. Nobody is starving in Daraya,” Shaaban said, despite well-documented reports of the Assad regime’s “surrender or starve” tactics in areas like Daraya and Madaya.

In 2011, the U.S. sanctioned Shaaban, along with Assad and a handful of other regime officials, in response to the Syrian government’s violent repression of its people. The sanctions froze any assets the officials had in the U.S. and prohibited Americans from providing “financial, material, or technological support” to them.

It is unclear whether GAFTA, a Florida-based nonprofit, violated the sanctions by hosting Shaaban electronically. Ghassan Mansour, GAFTA’s treasurer, claimed that the group did not know about the sanctions until the day before the event.

A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the specific case, only vaguely suggesting that the arrangement could be problematic. “Transactions with designated persons are generally prohibited,” she told The Huffington Post.

GAFTA founder Ahmad Maki Kubba, speaking at the event, defended the invitation to Shaaban as part of an effort to hear from all parties involved in the fight against ISIS and claimed that the group has no allegiance to either side. But the Thursday discussion was decidedly one-sided, and there are indications that GAFTA itself is sympathetic to Assad and his allies.

The organization’s Facebook page contains numerous news stories that frame the Assad regime and its ally Russia in a flattering light. Mansour himself was previously accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of participating in a money-laundering operation to aid the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah, which has fought on behalf of Assad in Syria. Mansour denies the 2011 allegation.

“We are not associated with [Shaaban] or anybody,” he told HuffPost in a phone interview. “We’re trying to fight an evil. Is there sanctions against that?”

 

In the lead-up to the panel discussion, critics of the Assad regime accused GAFTA of providing a propaganda platform for a top-level Syrian official in violation of the spirit of the sanctions, if not the law itself.

“The point of sanctioning someone is to change their behavior, isolate them and force them to reconsider the actions they were taking. This is not in line with that,” one House Republican aide said of inviting Shaaban.

Mansour said his group has reached out to members of Congress but has had little luck securing meetings in Washington.

 

Others accused GAFTA of undermining the United Nations-led peace process by giving Assad’s spokeswoman a direct line to a U.S. audience. “She is regularly the one who speaks for the regime,” said Joseph Bahout, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “She’s been propagandizing, denying the use of chemical weapons, denying massacres.”

Bahout rejected GAFTA’s argument that hearing from the Syrian regime at Thursday’s event was part of an effort to resolve the civil war.

“I’m sorry to be blunt, but this is the classical, usual bullshit used every time someone is trying to open a channel with the regime. If you want to negotiate with the regime, there are proper channels in Geneva,” Bahout said, referring to the U.N.-led talks.

 

The Syrian American Council, a U.S.-based group that has lobbied for more support for the Syrian opposition, said that it had pushed the National Press Club to remove Shaaban from the event, but as of Wednesday evening, had not heard back from Bill McCarren, executive director of the club. McCarren also did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.

“This is supposed to be about combating ISIS, and the Assad regime is directly responsible for not only fueling the rise of ISIS, but for supporting it financially through lucrative oil deals,” said Mohammed Ghanem, director of government relations for the Syrian American Council. “It’s unacceptable for a prestigious venue such as the National Press Club to be turned into a platform to spew propaganda.”

Pigs Fly, the UN Finally Admitted Global Sex Violence/Trafficking

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Related reading: Child Sex Tourism
Alaska Man Receives Prison Term for Crimes Committed in Cambodia

Remarks at a UN Security Council Open Debate on Women Peace and Security: Sexual Violence in Conflict

Ambassador Michele J. Sison
U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
New York City
June 2, 2016

AS DELIVERED

Thank you very much, Monsieur le Président, for chairing and organizing this open debate and for including the perspectives of civil society in our discussion. And thank you, also, Mr. Secretary-General, for your briefing and your leadership on this critical issue.

Special Representative Bangura, Special Rapporteur Giammarinaro, and Ms. Davis, thank you, as well, for your statements.

This Council has long recognized that sexual and gender-based violence not only abuses and violates the human rights of its victims, but also undermines the security, livelihood, and health of nations by suppressing survivors’ participation in civic, social, political, and economic life.

We have put in place many tools for countering conflict-related sexual violence inflicted by state and non-state armed groups, for improving accountability and bringing perpetrators to justice, and for documenting violations against marginalized groups of victims – including women and girls, men and boys, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTI individuals. But we must do a better job making use of these tools.

We commend Special Representative Bangura for her energetic efforts to translate the Council’s resolutions into real, on-the-ground action. Her work with the national militaries of the Democratic Republic of Congo and with armed groups on both sides of the conflict in South Sudan to help develop structures to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions has been particularly noteworthy. We also applaud her efforts to support the investigation of the 2009 Stadium Massacre in Guinea.

In addition to the Special Representative’s efforts, we value the work done by the Team of Experts on Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict, which has assisted countries in the areas of investigations and prosecution, in strengthening legal frameworks, and in ensuring protection of victims and witnesses.

However, significant challenges remain in countering sexual violence in conflict – especially when it comes to holding non-state armed groups and their partners and associates accountable for their crimes.

In resolution 2242, the Council recognized the nexus between sexual violence, terrorism, violent extremism – which can be conducive to terrorism. We have seen steady growth in the use of sexual violence against women and men, girls and boys, by terrorists not only in Iraq and Syria, but also in Somalia, Nigeria, and Mali. Non-state armed groups like ISIL use sexual violence in a pre-meditated and systemic way to recruit fighters, raise money, and intimidate and demoralize communities in order to consolidate their hold over territory.

Resolutions 2199 and 2253 not only strongly condemn such acts by ISIL, al-Qaida, and their associates, but also work to strengthen accountability by encouraging all state and non-state actors with evidence to bring it to the attention of the Council.

The 1267 Committee represents a vital tool for us to punish perpetrators, since any individual who makes funds or other financial and economic resources available to ISIL and other terrorist groups in connection with sexual violence is eligible for designation in the 1267 sanctions regime.

We must make full use of these tools, as noted by Special Rapporteur Giammarinaro, we also need to do more to protect displaced women and girls whose heightened vulnerability puts them at increased risk of sexual violence and trafficking.

Over the past year, we’ve seen the continuation of mass migration from Syria, Iraq, and the Horn of Africa. Reports of smugglers demanding sex as “payment of passage” are rampant, and part of a global surge in human trafficking. And with reference to Ms. Davis’ intervention, that’s why last month at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, the United States announced an additional $10 million dollar contribution to the “Safe from Start” Initiative to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in emergency situations.

The United States urges all Member States to condemn these crimes and those who commit them; to properly document the horrors, so that one day those responsible can be held accountable; to commit to ending the conflicts that provide an ideal climate for human traffickers; and to commit to eradicating the groups that use human trafficking and conflict-related sexual violence as a weapon of war. Member States must also work to ensure that labor practices – such as charging workers recruitment fees that can lead to debt bondage – do not contribute to human trafficking. We must teach people how to actually see the victims of trafficking. We must also make our resources for victims more victim- and survivor-centered, incorporating victims and survivors into the policy-making process to yield better solutions.

A further challenge, of course, is the lack of global documentation of the phenomenon of sexual and gender-based violence against all vulnerable communities, including those which are too often forgotten in this discourse: LGBTI individuals, as well as men and boys. These individuals are not only at a heightened risk of facing harassment, abuse, sexual violence by armed groups due to discriminatory social norms and attitudes, but they also face a strong stigma against reporting abuses.

We commend the Secretary-General for highlighting the victimization of men and boys; the UN and Member States must more fully embrace a gender-inclusive approach in sexual violence and gender-based violence programming. There is scant documentation with little understanding of the patterns, prevalence, and severity of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence against males as compared to sexual and gender-based violence against girls and women.

In addition, the absence of targeted services for male victims not only fails to address the needs of boys and men, but could also contribute to the problem of underreporting. Now bilateral efforts to counter conflict-related sexual violence and to improve accountability and documentation, of course, are also crucial.

In 2014, the United States launched the “Accountability Initiative” to support the development of specialized justice sector mechanisms to improve access to justice for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. We remain committed to strengthening efforts to protect all people from harm, exploitation, discrimination, abuse, gender-based violence, and trafficking, and we must hold perpetrators accountable – especially in conflict-affected environments as all of the speakers have noted to us.

The United States has also committed nearly $40 million for support to victims of sexual violence in conflict, including in Nigeria, where the United States supports UN agencies, community groups, and local non-governmental organizations that provide health care services, including appropriate psychosocial counseling for women and children who have survived Boko Haram’s horrific campaign.

However, we recognize that support programs are not enough. To combat sexual violence in conflict, women must have a seat at the table in resolving conflicts. Empowered women provide powerful antidotes to violent extremism and have critical contributions to make at every level of our struggle against sexual violence in conflict. We also need women in uniform to rebuild trust between law enforcement and communities; female corrections officers and female counselors to reach out to female inmates who are on the path to radicalization; and women legislators to support more inclusive public policies that address the unique grievances that drive individuals to terrorism.

As Secretary of State Kerry has said, fighting the scourge of sexual violence requires all of these tools, including UN Security Council resolutions, better reporting, and support to survivors. It especially requires holding criminals accountable, and ending impunity. Instead of shaming the survivors, we must punish the perpetrators, and we must be ready to support and empower the survivors as they work to rebuild their lives.

Thank you, Mr. President.

When and How do Preezy Candidates Get Briefings?

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MICHAEL MORELL
FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CIA
Once the Democratic and Republican parties officially nominate their Presidential candidates at their political conventions this summer, the nominees will be offered intelligence briefings before the general election.  We asked Michael Morell, the former Deputy Director and twice Acting Director of the CIA, to explain how these briefings work.
The Cipher Brief:  Can you tell us why the sitting President offers those briefings to the nominee from each party?
Michael Morell: There is a great deal of confusion about these briefings in the media.  After a candidate has been formally nominated by her/his national convention, she/he is offered a one-time intelligence briefing (sometimes over multiple days if there are time constraints or if a candidate wants to go deeper on a particular topic).  They do not receive a daily briefing.  They do not receive regular update briefings during the campaign.  They do not receive the President’s Daily Briefing.  Those only come for the president-elect, after the election in November.
There is also confusion in the media as to why every post-war president has offered these one-time, post-convention briefings to the candidates.  The objective is not to start preparing the candidate to deal with the myriad national security issues that they will face six months down the road, if they win the election.  The objective is to protect national security during the campaign by giving the candidates a deep sense of the national security landscape.  Let me explain:  both our adversaries and our allies and partners will be listening closely, extremely closely, to what the candidates say about the issues during the campaign, and saying the wrong thing could damage our national security.  The briefings are meant to help prevent that.
Let me be clear, though:  during the initial, one-time briefing, the candidates are not advised on what to say or what not to say about national security issues on the campaign trail.  The hope is that by simply giving them an objective, unbiased understanding of the issues, the dialogue on those issues during the campaign will be carried out in a way that does not undermine U.S. interests.
TCB:  Who is actually involved in the briefings?
MM:  On the government side, the briefing teams are usually composed of senior leaders from the analytic arms of the Intelligence Community agencies, along with senior analysts who, on a day-to-day basis, cover the issues to be discussed.  I played the former role in a number of briefings for candidates over the years.
On the candidate’s side, they are permitted to bring their closest national security aides.  In my experience, that has ranged from just one person to two-to-three people.  But there is no just showing up.  The IC (Intelligence Community) must approve in advance all of the attendees.
TCB:  Are there any limits to what the nominees can be told?  For instance, will they be provided with classified information or details of ongoing operations?  Are the candidates in essence given security clearances?
MM:  Absolutely, there are limits on what candidates are told.  The briefings are classified Top Secret, but the candidates are only provided the analytic judgments of the IC and the information used to support those judgments.  They are not provided with the details of how that information was collected-what the IC calls sources and methods.  They are not provided with any information on any ongoing covert actions programs related to the issue being discussed.  They are not provided with any operational information.  Those only come after a candidate wins the election.
TCB:  How does the IC prepare for the briefings?  Will the briefings be the same for each candidate?  What issues would you emphasize in the briefings?
MM:  The leadership of the IC, most likely the DNI (Director of National Intelligence), will decide on the topics, perhaps to be approved by the White House.  If I were putting the list together, I would include the threat to the U.S. Homeland and to U.S. interests abroad posed by ISIS and al Qaeda; the threat posed by a variety of actors in cyber space; the political and military situation in Iraq and Syria; the situation in Afghanistan; as well as national security issues related to Iran, Russia, North Korea, and China.
The briefing team will go into the room with the goal of providing the same analytic judgments to both candidates, but I would expect the two briefings to be very different.  I would expect the briefing for Secretary Hillary Clinton (the presumptive Democratic nominee) to delve into issues more deeply and to be more of a dialogue than the briefing for Donald Trump (the presumptive Republican nominee), which I would expect to be more of a tutorial, more of a first cut at the issues, with the need to provide the history and background on issues.  This is simply because the Secretary is starting at much greater level of understanding based on her experience working these issues, her experience working with the IC, and her knowledge of the IC judgments (she was a daily and engaged consumer of both IC collection and analysis).  Trump, most likely, will be starting at square one.  No value judgments here; just the reality of the situation.
TCB:  Any personal observations about a nominee’s response to a briefing you provided?  Without getting into names, has a nominee seemed surprised by the information?  Has it altered a position on an issue or impacted how the nominee publically presented a view?
MM:  In general, candidates who have not been involved in national security are surprised by the number of threats facing the U.S., by the seriousness of those threats, by the complexity of the threats, and by just how difficult they are to mitigate.  They quickly realize that there are not simple solutions.  They quickly realize that their sound bites on the campaign simply don’t fit realty.  And, they quickly realize just how important intelligence is going to be keeping the country safe.
Not surprisingly, the briefing team will get a sense of a candidate.  Does the candidate know what they don’t know, are they trying to understand the issue, do they want to learn, are they open-minded, are they able to grasp complexity, do they ask good questions?  Or do they try to convince the analysts of their point of view, are they just trying to find facts to fit their world view or their policy views, do they look at the issues through the lens of national security or through the lens of politics?
The IC knows the Secretary well, and its expectation will be that she will fall into the first category because that is what she demonstrated as Secretary of State.  I’m sure the analysts will be very interested to see where Donald Trump falls – largely because they will want to know what he would be like if he were to become their “First Customer,” as some analysts at CIA like to call the president.  And they will be interested simply because of the nature of the campaign so far, the nature of the candidate so far.