Nicholas Rasmussen
In late summer of 2001, Rasmussen accepted a job as director for Regional Affairs in the Office of Combating Terrorism in President George W. Bush’s National Security Council (NSC). Six days before he was due to start, terrorists linked to the Al Qaeda network carried out the deadliest attacks on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, killing nearly 3,000 people. To many U.S. security officials, the 9/11 attacks provided a powerful dose of humility: They had let down a country that had counted on its government to detect and thwart such threats.
(Re:"raid" on bin laden compound)
You probably didn’t notice Nick Rasmussen’s right shoulder peeking out from behind John Brennan, President Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, in the famous photo from that tense evening. But in another photo, now framed on Rasmussen’s wall in the director’s office at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va., he is shown briefing President Barack Obama while the nation’s top political and national security figures—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA director Leon Panetta, among others—listen intently.
His assessments of the intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts contributed to one of President Obama’s biggest foreign policy successes.
He and his wife, Maria, travel when they can, including to the Philippines, her home country. But he admits that in his job, “you never totally check out.”
“Often I end up being the spokesperson for a very large intelligence community, presenting our integrated view of the terrorism threat environment.”
To supplement human analysis, they are experimenting with advanced computational techniques known as machine learning to comb vast quantities of data for meaningful patterns. They work with social media companies to identify how terrorists are using their platforms and what new methods they are using for dissemination.
Senior Director for Counterterrorism Programs at the McCain Institute for International Leadership
Nicholas “Nick” Rasmussen currently serves as Senior Director for Counterterrorism Programs at the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Washington, D.C. and as Distinguished Professor of Practice at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at Arizona State University (ASU). Rasmussen joined the McCain Institute and ASU on May 21, 2018 after having stepped down as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on December 23, 2017. He is also currently serving as an intelligence and national security analyst/contributor with NBC news and MSNBC.
Rasmussen joined the counterterrorism community six days after the 9/11 attacks, serving as the Director of Regional Affairs in the Office of Combating Terrorism on President George W. Bush’s NSC staff from 2001 to 2004. Rasmussen rejoined the Bush Administration NSC in 2007 and continued his NSC service into President Obama’s administration to serve as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism. In this role, Rasmussen was charged with leading the development of U.S. counterterrorism policy and strategy, including supporting policy deliberations leading up to the U.S. military raid against Usama bin Laden.
Rasmussen has regularly provided expert analysis on terrorism and national security issues for major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, CNN, Fox News, PBS and National Public Radio. He previously served as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he taught a course on U.S. counterterrorism policy. He and his wife Maria reside in Alexandria, Virginia.
https://magazine.wesleyan.edu/2017/08/01/threat-assessments/
https://sapns2.com/company/leadership/