Category Archives: Reviews

Here I am on WUSA9 discussing the recent attacks in Boston:

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) — Was it domestic terrorism, international terrorism, or could a lone bomber be responsible? Those are key questions now for the FBI after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Aki Peritz, a counter terrorism expert and author of “Find, Fix, Finish: inside the Counterterrorism campaigns that killed Bin Laden and devastated Al Qaeda,” talked to us on Tuesday afternoon.

Peritz told us, “We have to allow the professionals in the law enforcement community to make their decisions and not do it hastily. What we saw in previous instances was that people jumped the gun. People came to conclusions too fast. That’s not something we want to do in such a high profile case like this.”

Read More »

Find, Fix, Finish, along with Seth Jones’ book “Hunting in the Shadows.”

These two books tell the story of the United States’ struggle against terrorism from 9/11 to the death of Osama bin Laden, concentrating on the intelligence and police operations that led to the capture or killing of a collection of true believers and naive fantasists who sought to kill as many Westerners as possible. The jihadists profiled in these books seem motivated more by a lust for vengeance than by a desire to create a new political order founded on Islam. Authorities thwarted most of their plots, and some would-be terrorists failed on account of their own incompetence, such as the hapless “shoe bomber” and “underwear bomber.” Both books argue for the importance of intelligence and police work and warn against the folly of casting counterterrorism as a military activity. Read More »

The Spectator (UK) gave Find, Fix, Finish a great review–nice to know we’re “no bleeding heart liberals”:

Eric Rosenbach is a former academic who is now deputy assistant secretary of defence in Washington. Aki Peritz used to work for the CIA and now advises the Third Way think tank. Their book, therefore, is not a breathless account of terrorist-hunting nor the sensational inside story of how, in Obama’s words, ‘We got him’ (bin Laden). Rather, it is an exposition of legal, bureaucratic, political and military developments within the US following 9/11, illustrated by summaries of how various terrorists were killed or captured. If you want thrills and spills, go elsewhere, but if you are a student of counter-terrorism or are interested in the legal limbo of rendition, detention and targeted killings, you should probably read it. Read More »

Peritz, senior national security adviser to the Third Way think tank, and Rosenbach, deputy assistant secretary of defense, draw on their work with the CIA and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence respectively, for this behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of counterterrorism tactics since 9/11. Read More »

“Filled with insights from two insiders who have had direct experience with countering terrorists, Find, Fix, Finish combines the drama of vital operations unfolding in real time with legal and moral perspectives necessary to understand how our world has changed forever. The book captures the evolution of counterterrorism operations since 9/11 like no other.”

–RICHARD A. CLARKE, former national coordinator for counterterrorism and author of Against All Enemies and Defeating the Jihadists

Read More »

International terrorists rarely make headlines today, write the authors, but senior national security advisor Peritz and Defense Department counterterrorism expert Rosenbach emphasize that this success required much pain, and the end is not in sight.

Post–World War II Islamic terrorism worried U.S. leaders but produced no coherent policy. Read More »