The Islamic State (ISIS) is poised to mount a Sept. 11-style attack on the United States if the group is not brought under control, said CIA veteran Michael Morell.
"If we don't get ISIS under control, we're going to see that kind of attack," Morell told
USA Today. He added that U.S. efforts have not been effective in countering the group, given that it is recruiting hundreds of Americans to its cause.
"It was a mistake to think that al-Qaida died along with bin Laden in Abbottabad," said Morell, a former CIA deputy director. "They today have the ability to bring down an airliner in the United States … If that happened tomorrow, I would not be surprised."
Morell has published a new book,
"The Great War of Our Time: the CIA's Fight Against Terrorism from al-Qaida to ISIS," in which he
discusses his position on a range of national security issues.
He has supported the use of the controversial enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorist suspects and criticized the torture report produced by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Morell also argues in favor of the NSA's surveillance program, calling it "an important tool" in the fight against terrorism.
"If it had been there prior to 9/11, there is a good chance we would have seen those 19 hijackers communicating with each other," he told USA Today.
"The public's reaction to it in 2013 was, 'Geez, can we trust the government?' That would have been a completely different reaction in 2001, (when) the 9/11 attacks had just happened."
Morell was also highly critical of former NSA contractor and secrets leaker Edward Snowden.
"If he really believes what he says, that the American people need to debate these issues and the American people need to decide whether these programs are right, then he should be willing to come home and have those same American people judge his actions," he said, according to USA Today. "Where is he? He's in Moscow."
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