On Thursday Iowa State alum Tom Twetten, who graduated in 1957 from Iowa State with a degree in Psychology, spoke in the Sun Room at the Memorial Union about his 34 years in the CIA and ethics.

Twetten started his lecture with a recount of the terrorist acts initiated by Imad Mughniyeh, who was responsible for bombing the US embassy and killing more Americans than anyone else until 9/11. He then went on to explain how after the CIA’s assassination of Mughniyeh was one of the last ones that the CIA took part in.

“[The CIA] shouldn’t be in the business of assassinating foreign leaders,” Twetten said.

During his lecture Twetten discussed briefly the ethics and morality of assassination and drone strikes. Twetten said the CIA no longer partakes in assassinations, and morally he doesn’t have a problem with drone strikes.

Twetten went on to discuss the 9/11 attacks and how the CIA has a duty to protect the American people.

“The attack on 9/11 in New York, the pentagon and in Pennsylvania, which killed 3,00 people, was a government failure,” Twetten said.

He said that the FBI failed to report that an arab, who was doing airplane trading, didn’t want to sit in the pilot seat of a plane, he just wanted to know how it worked.

Jacob Heatwole, sophomore in environmental science, said that he has mixed feelings regarding the government’s failure in relation to the 9/11 attacks.

“[Twetten] said that they did mention that there was a possibility of an attack,” Heatwole said. “Alerting that there is a possibility of an attack with no specifics is not really doing a whole lot. I think they probably should have done more and it’s kind of disappointing that they didn’t. I don’t know that it’s necessarily their fault.”

Twetten said that the CIA was then placed under investigation due to the fact that the people involved weren’t able to connect the dots that an attack was coming. However, 15 days after the 9/11 attacks the CIA had men on horseback in northern Afghanistan working with the tribes, providing arms.

“The same office that is now being investigated for not doing enough is also running a war against the Taliban,” said Twetten.

After discussing the 9/11 attacks Twetten briefly discussed ISIS and their recent statement regarding an attack on Mall of America. He said that the Mall of America is a symbol which makes it a place to kill innocent people. Twetten said that if ISIS can figure out a way to do it that they will.

“ISIS is a serious organization that is bent on doing harm to us as a society,” Heatwole said. “It’s obviously something we should pay attention to, but in regards to that I do have confidence in our intelligence community that they won’t let something like 9/11 happen again.”

Twetten said that some people disagree with the logic of attacking an enemy and believe that it is potentially creating more terrorists than killing them. He said that killing leadership doesn’t mean that it will end a movement.

“If you really don’t want New York City attacked, and you really don’t want the Mall of America attacked then in my view you have to take the attack to the enemy,” said Twetten.

An anonymous lecture attendee, from Canada who is on a student visa partaking in a research project, disagreed with Twetten’s statement about bringing the attacks to the enemy.

“I’m of the belief that going an attacking other countries is a great way of making them hate you and a great way of making them want to [commit terrorist acts],” the anonymous attendee said. “I think the western world, and I’m including my country, we have a tendency to go to other countries and think we know best. It’s not really a surprise when people are not happy about that.”